f'^"KS t?5^^>^-'" 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 1934 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR6015.I16D91911 
 
 The dweller on the threshold. 
 
 3 1924 013 625 755 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013625755 
 
THE DWELLER ON THE 
 THRESHOLD 
 
The Dweller on the 
 Threshold 
 
 ROBERT 
 
 
 CHENS 
 
 Author of "The Garden of Allah," "Bella Donna," "Egypt and its 
 Monuments/' " The Holy Land/' etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1911 
 
Copyright 1910, 1911, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Published March, igii 
 
THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
THE DWELLER ON THE 
 THRESHOLD 
 
 WHEN Evelyn Mailing, notorious because 
 of his sustained interest in Psychical Re- 
 search and his work for Professor Stepton, first 
 met the Rev. Marcus Harding, that well-known 
 clergyman was still in the full flow of his many 
 activities. He had been translated from his 
 labors in Liverpool to a West End church in Lon- 
 don. There he had proved hitherto an aston- 
 ishing success. On Hospital Sundays the total 
 sums collected from his flock were by far the larg- 
 est that came from the pockets of any congrega- 
 tion in London. The music in St. Joseph's was 
 allowed by connoisseurs, who knew their Elgar 
 as well as their Goss, their Perosi as well as their 
 Bach, and their Wesley, to be remarkable. Criti- 
 cal persons, mostly men, who sat on the fence be- 
 tween Orthodoxy and Atheism, thought highly 
 
 3 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 of Mr. Harding's sermons, and even sometimes 
 came down on his side. And, of all signs surely 
 the most promising for a West End clergyman's 
 success, smart people flocked to him to be married, 
 and Arum lilies were perpetually being carried 
 in and out of his chancel, which was adorned with 
 Morris windows. He was married to a woman 
 who managed to be admirable without being dull. 
 Lady Sophia, daughter of the late Earl of Mans- 
 f ord, and sister of the present peer. He was com- 
 fortably off. His health as a rule was good, 
 though occasionally he suffered from some obscure 
 form of dyspepsia. And he was still compara- 
 tively young, just forty-eight. 
 
 Nevertheless, as Evelyn Mailing immediately 
 perceived, Mr. Harding was not a happy man. 
 
 In appearance he was remarkable. Of com- 
 manding height, with a big frame, a striking head 
 and countenance, and a pair of keen gray eyes, he 
 looked like a man who was intended by nature 
 to dominate. White threads appeared in his 
 thick brown hair, which he wore parted in the 
 middle. But his face, which was clean-shaven, 
 had not many telltale lines. And he did not look 
 more than his age. 
 
 The sadness noted by Mailing was at first 
 evasive and fleeting, not indellibly fixed in the 
 
 4 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 puckers of a forehead, or in the down-drawn cor- 
 ners of a mouth. It was as a thin, almost Im- 
 palpable mist, that can scarcely be seen, yet that 
 alters all the features In a landscape ever so 
 faintly. Like a shadow it traveled across the 
 eyes, obscured the forehead, lay about the lips. 
 And as a shadow lifts It lifted. But it soon re- 
 turned, like a thing uneasy that Is becoming de- 
 termined to discover an abiding-place. 
 
 Mailing's first meeting with the clergyman took 
 place upon Westminster Bridge on an afternoon 
 in early May, when London seemed, almost like 
 a spirited child, to be flinging itself with abandon 
 into the first gaieties of the season. Mailing was 
 alone, coming on foot from Waterloo. Mr. 
 Harding was also on foot, with his senior curate, 
 the Rev. Henry Chichester, who was an acquaint- 
 ance of Mailing, but whom Mailing had not seen 
 for a considerable period of time, having been out 
 on his estate in Ceylon. At the moment when 
 Mailing arrived upon the bridge the two clergy- 
 men were standing by the parapet on the Parlia- 
 ment side, looking out over the river. As he 
 drew near to them the curate glanced suddenly 
 round, saw him, and uttered an involuntary 
 exclamation which attracted Mr. Harding's at- 
 tention. 
 
 5 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 "Telepathy!" said Chichester, shaking Mai- 
 ling by the hand, " I believe I looked round be- 
 cause I knew I should see you. Yet I supposed 
 you to be still in Ceylon." He glanced at the rec- 
 tor rather doubtfully, seemed to take a resolution, 
 and with an air almost of doggedness added, 
 "May I?" and introduced the two men to one 
 another. 
 
 Mr. Harding observed the new-comer with an 
 interest that was unmistakable. 
 
 " You are the Mr. Mailing of whom Professor 
 Stepton has spoken to me," he said, — " who has 
 done so much experimental work for him? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " The professor comes to my church now and 
 then." 
 
 " I have heard him say so." 
 
 " You saw we were looking at the river? Be- 
 fore I came to London I was at Liverpool, and 
 learned there to love great rivers. There is some- 
 thing in a great river that reminds us — " 
 
 He caught his curate's eye and was silent. 
 
 "Are you walking my way?" asked Mailing. 
 " I am going by the Abbey and Victoria Street to 
 Cadogan Square." 
 
 " Then we will accompany you as far as Vic- 
 toria Station," said the rector. 
 
 6 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " You don't think it would be wiser to take a 
 hansom?" began Chichester. "You remem- 
 ber—" 
 
 " No, no, certainly not. Walking always does 
 me good," rejoined Mr. Harding, almost in a 
 tone of rebuke. 
 
 The curate said nothing more, and the three 
 men set out toward Parliament Square, Mailing 
 walking between the two clergymen. 
 
 He felt embarrassed, and this surprised him, 
 for he was an extremely self-reliant man and en- 
 tirely free from shyness. At first he thought that 
 possibly his odd discomfort arose from the fact 
 that he was in company with two men who, per- 
 haps, had quite recently had a difference which 
 they were endeavoring out of courtesy to conceal 
 from him. Perhaps there had been a slight quar- 
 rel over some parish matter. Certainly when he 
 first spoke with them there had been something un- 
 easy, a suspicion of strain, in the manner of both. 
 But then he remembered how, before Chichester 
 had turned round, they had been leaning amicably 
 above the river. 
 
 No, it could not be that. He sought mentally 
 for some other reason. But while he did so he 
 talked, and endeavored to rid himself promptly 
 of the unwelcome feeling that beset him. 
 
 7 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 In this effort, however, he did not at first suc- 
 ceed. The " conditions " were evidently unsat- 
 isfactory. He wondered whether if he were not 
 walking between the two men he would feel more 
 comfortable, and presently, at a crossing, he man- 
 aged to change his place. He was now next to 
 Mr. Harding, who had the curate on his other 
 side, and at once he felt more at his ease. The 
 rector of St. Joseph's led the conversation, in 
 which Mailing joined, and at first the curate was 
 silent. But presently Mailing noticed a thing 
 that struck him as odd. Chichester began to 
 " chip in " now and then, and whenever he did 
 so it was either to modify what Mr. Harding had 
 just said, or to check him in what he was saying, 
 or abruptly to introduce a new topic of talk. 
 Sometimes Mr. Harding did not appear to notice 
 these interruptions; at other times he obviously 
 resented them; at others again he yielded with 
 an air of anxiety, almost of fear, to his curate's 
 attenuations or hastened to follow his somewhat 
 surprising leads down new conversational paths. 
 Mailing could not understand Chichester. But 
 it became evident to him that for some reason 
 or other the curate was painfully critical of his 
 rector, as sometimes highly sensitive people are 
 
 8 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 critical of members of their own family. And 
 Mr. Harding was certainly aware of this critical 
 attitude, and at moments seemed to be defiant of 
 it, at other moments to be almost terrorized by 
 it. 
 
 All that passed, be it noted, passed as between 
 gentlemen, rather glided in the form of nuance 
 than trampled heavily in more blatant guise. 
 But Evelyn Mailing was a highly trained ob- 
 server and a man in whom investigation had be- 
 come a habit. Now that he was no longer ill 
 at ease he became deeply interested in the relations 
 between the two men with whom he was walking. 
 He was unable to understand them, and this fact 
 of course increased his interest. Moreover he 
 was surprised by the change he observed in Chi- 
 chester. 
 
 Although he had never been intimate with 
 Henry Chichester, he had known him fairly well, 
 and had summed him up as a very good man and 
 a decidedly attractive man, but marred, as Mai- 
 ling thought, by a definite weakness of character. 
 He had been too amiable, too ready to take others 
 on their own valuation of themselves, too kind- 
 hearted, and too easily deceived. The gentle- 
 ness of a saint had been his, but scarcely the firm- 
 
 9 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 ness of a saint. Industrious, dutiful, and consci- 
 entious, he had not struck Mailing as a man of 
 strong intellect, though he was a cultivated and 
 well-educated man. Though not governed by 
 his own passions, — when one looked at him one 
 had been inclined to doubt whether he had any, 
 — he had seemed prone to be governed by those 
 about him, at any rate in little matters of every 
 day. His charm had consisted in his transparent 
 goodness, and in an almost gay kindliness which 
 had seemed to float round him like an atmos- 
 phere. To look into his face had been to look 
 at the happiness which comes only to those who 
 do right things, and are at peace with their own 
 souls. 
 
 What could have happened to change this 
 charming, if too pliant, personality into the criti- 
 cal, watchful, almost — so at moments it seemed 
 to Mailing — aggressive curate who was now, 
 always in a gentlemanly way, making things rather 
 difficult for his rector? 
 
 And the matter became the more mysterious 
 when Mailing considered Mr. Harding. For 
 here was a man obviously of dominant personality. 
 Despite his fleeting subservience to Chichester, in- 
 explicable to Mailing, he was surely by far the 
 stronger of the two, both in intellect and charac- 
 
 lo 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 ter. Not so saintly, perhaps, he was more likely 
 to influence others. Firmness showed in his forci- 
 ble chin, energy in the large lines of his mouth, 
 decision in his clear-cut features. Yet there was 
 something contradictory in his face. And the 
 flitting melancholy, already remarked, surely 
 hinted at some secret instability, perhaps known 
 only to Harding himself, perhaps known to Chi- 
 chester also. 
 
 When the three men came to the turning at 
 the corner of the Grosvenor Hotel, Chichester 
 stopped short. 
 
 " Here is our way," he said, speaking across 
 Mr. Harding to Mailing. 
 
 The rector looked at Mailing. 
 
 " Have you far to go? " he asked, with rather 
 a tentative air. 
 
 " I live in Cadogan Square." 
 
 " Of course. I remember. You told us you 
 were going there." 
 
 " Good-by," said Chichester. " We are taking 
 the underground to South Kensington." 
 
 " I think I shall walk," said the rector. 
 
 " But you know we are due — " 
 
 " There is plenty of time. Tell them I shall 
 be there at four." 
 
 " But really — " 
 
 II 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Punctually at four. I will walk on with 
 Mr. Mailing." 
 
 " I really think you had better not," began Chi- 
 chester. "Over-exertion — " 
 
 "Am I an invalid?" exclaimed Mr. Harding, 
 almost sharply. 
 
 " No, no, of course not. But you remember 
 that yesterday you were not quite well." 
 
 " That is the very reason why I wish to walk. 
 Exercise always does my dyspepsia good." 
 
 " Let us all walk," said the curate, abruptly. 
 
 But this was obviously not Mr. Harding's in- 
 tention. 
 
 " I want you to go through the minutes and the 
 accounts before the meeting," he said, in a quieter 
 but decisive voice. " We will meet at the 
 School at four. You will have plenty of time if 
 you take the train. And meanwhile Mr. Mai- 
 ling and I will go on foot together as far as Cado- 
 gan Square." 
 
 Chichester stood for a moment staring into 
 Mr. Harding's face, then he said, almost sulkily : 
 
 " Very well. Good-by." 
 
 He turned on his heel, and was lost in the 
 throng near the station. 
 
 It seemed to Mailing that an expression of relief 
 overspread his companion's face. 
 
 12 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " You don't mind my company for a little 
 longer, I hope? " said the rector. 
 
 " I shall be glad to have it." 
 
 They set out on their walk to Cadogan Square. 
 After two or three minutes of silence the rector 
 remarked : 
 
 " You know Chichester well? " 
 
 " I can hardly say that. I used to meet him 
 sometimes with some friends of mine, the Cres- 
 pignys. But I have n't seen him for more than 
 two years." 
 
 " He 's a very good fellow." 
 
 " An excellent fellow." 
 
 " Perhaps a little bit limited in his outlook. 
 He has been with me at St. Joseph's exactly two 
 years." 
 
 The rector seemed about to say more, then shut 
 his large mouth almost with a snap. Mailing 
 made no remark. He was quite certain that snap 
 was merely the preliminary to some further re- 
 mark about Chichester. And so it proved. As 
 they came to St. Peter's Eaton Square, the rector 
 resumed : 
 
 " I often think that it is a man's limitations 
 which make him critical of others. The more 
 one knows, the wider one's outlook, the readier 
 one is to shut one's eyes to the foibles, even to the 
 
 13 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 faults, of one's neighbors. I have tried to impress 
 that upon our friend Chichester." 
 
 " Does n't he agree with you? " 
 
 "Well — it's difficult to say, difficult to say. 
 Shall we go by Wilton Place, or — ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Professor Stepton has talked to me about you 
 from time to time, Mr. Mailing." 
 
 " He 's a remarkable man," said Mailing al- 
 most with enthusiasm. 
 
 " Yes. He 's finding his way to the truth 
 rather by the pathway of science than by the path- 
 way of faith. But he 's a man I respect. And I 
 believe he '11 get out into the light. You 've done 
 a great deal of work for him, I understand, in — 
 in occult directions." 
 
 " I have made a good many careful investiga- 
 tions at his suggestion." 
 
 " Exactly. Now " — Mr. Harding paused, 
 seemed to make an effort, and continued — "we 
 know very little even now, with all that has been 
 done, as to — to the possibilities — I scarcely 
 know how to put it — the possibilities of the soul." 
 
 " Very little indeed," rejoined Mailing. 
 
 He was considerably surprised by his compan- 
 ion's manner, but was quite resolved not to help 
 him out. 
 
 14 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 *' The possibilities of one soul, let us say, in 
 connection with another," continued the rector, al- 
 most in a faltering voice. " I often feel as if the 
 soul were a sort of mysterious fluid, and that when 
 we what is called influence another person, we, 
 as it were, submerge his soul fluid in our own, as 
 a drop of water might be submerged in an ocean." 
 
 " Ah! " said Mailing, laconically. 
 
 Mr. Harding shot a rather sharp glance at him. 
 
 " You don't object to my getting on this subject, 
 I hope? " he observed. 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Perhaps you think It rather a strange one for 
 a clergyman to select? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I have known many clergymen deeply 
 interested in Stepton's investigations." 
 
 Mr. Harding's face, which had been cloudy, 
 cleared. 
 
 " It seems to me," he said, " that we clergymen 
 have a special reason for desiring Stepton, and all 
 Stepton's assistants, to make progress. It is true, 
 of course, that we live by faith. And nothing 
 can be more beautiful than a childlike faith in the 
 Great Being who Is above all worlds, in the anima 
 mundi. But it would be unnatural in us if we did 
 not earnestly desire that our faith be proved, scien- 
 tifically proved, to be well-founded, I speak now 
 
 15 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 of the faith we Christians hold In a life beyond 
 the grave. I know many people who think it very 
 wrong in a clergyman to mix himself up in any 
 occult experiments. But I don't agree with 
 them." 
 
 It was now Mailing's turn to look sharply at his 
 companion. 
 
 " Have you made many experiments yourself, 
 may I ask? " he said very bluntly. 
 
 The clergyman started, and was obviously em- 
 barrassed by the question. 
 
 " 1 1 Oh, I was speaking generally. I am a 
 very busy man, you see. What with my church 
 and my parish, and one thing and another, I get 
 very little time for outside things. Still I am 
 greatly Interested, I confess, in all that Stepton 
 is doing." 
 
 "Does Mr. Chichester share your Interest?" 
 said Mailing. 
 
 " In a minor degree, in a minor degree," an- 
 swered the rector, rather evasively. 
 
 They were now in Sloane Street and Mailing 
 said: 
 
 " I must turn off here." 
 
 " I '11 go with you as far as your door if you 've 
 no objection," said the recJor, who seemed very 
 
 i6 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 loath to leave his companion. " It 's odd how 
 men change, isn't it?" 
 
 "As they grow older? But surely develop- 
 ment is natural and to be expected? " 
 
 " Certainly. But when a man changes dras- 
 tically, sheds his character and takes on another? " 
 
 " You are talking perhaps of what is called con- 
 version? " 
 
 " Well, that would be an instance of what I 
 mean, no doubt. But there are changes of an- 
 other type. We clergymen, you know, mix inti- 
 mately with so many men that we are almost bound 
 to become psychologists if we are to do any good. 
 It becomes a habit with many of us to study closely 
 our fellow-men. Now I, for instance; I cannot 
 live at close quarters with a man without, almost 
 unconsciously, subjecting him to a minute scrutiny, 
 and striving to sum him up. My curates, for 
 example — " 
 
 "Yes? "said Mailing. 
 
 " There are four of them, our friend Chiches- 
 ter being the senior one." 
 
 " And you have ' placed ' them all? " 
 
 " I thought I had, I thought so — but — " 
 
 Mr. Harding was silent. Then, with a strange 
 abruptness, and the air of a man forced into an 
 2 17 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 action against which something within him pro- 
 tested, he said: 
 
 " Mr. Mailing, you are the only person I know 
 who, having been acquainted with Henry Chiches- 
 ter, has at last met him again after a prolonged 
 interval of separation. Two years, you said. 
 People who see a man from day to day observe 
 very little or nothing. Changes occur and are not 
 noticed by them. A man and his wife live to- 
 gether and grow old. But does either ever notice 
 when the face of the other begins first to lose its 
 bloom, to take on that peculiar, unmistakable 
 Stamp that the passage of the years sets on us all? 
 Few of us really see what is always before us. But 
 the man who comes back — he sees. Tell me the 
 honest truth, I beg of you. Do you or do you 
 not, see a great change in Henry Chichester? " 
 
 The rector's voice had risen while he spoke, till 
 it almost clamored for reply. His eyes were more 
 clamorous still, insistent in their demand upon 
 Mailing. Nevertheless voice and eyes pushed 
 Mailing toward caution. Something within him 
 said, " Be careful what you do ! " and, acting 
 surprise, he answered : 
 
 " Chichester changed! In what way? " 
 
 The rector's countenance fell. 
 i8 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " You have n't observed it? " 
 
 " Remember I 've only seen him to-day and 
 walking in the midst of crowds." 
 
 " Quite true ! Quite true I " 
 
 Mr. Harding meditated for a minute, and then 
 said: 
 
 " Mr. Mailing, I daresay my conduct to-day 
 may surprise you. You may think it odd of me 
 to be so frank, seeing that you and I have not met 
 before. But Stepton has told me so much about 
 you that I cannot feel we are quite strangers. I 
 should like you to have an opportunity of observ- 
 ing Henry Chichester without prejudice. I will 
 say nothing more. But if I invite you to meet 
 him, in my house or elsewhere, will you promise 
 me to come? " 
 
 " Certainly, If I possibly can," 
 
 " And your address? " 
 
 Mailing stopped, and, smiling, pointed to the 
 number outside a house. 
 
 "You live here?" 
 
 Mr. Harding took a small book and a pencil 
 from his pocket and noted down the address. 
 
 " Good-by," he said. " I live in Onslow Gar- 
 dens — Number 89." 
 
 " Thank you. Good-by." 
 19 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 The two men shook hands. Then Mr. Har- 
 ding went on his way toward South Kensington, 
 while Mailing inserted his latch-key into the door 
 of Number 7b, Cadogan Square. 
 
 20 
 
II 
 
 EVELYN MALLING was well accustomed 
 to meeting with strange people and making 
 investigations into strange occurrences. He was 
 not easily surprised, nor was he easily puzzled. 
 By nature more skeptical than credulous, he had a 
 cool brain, and he was seldom, if ever, the victim 
 of his imagination. But on the evening of the 
 day in question he found himself continually dwell- 
 ing, and with a curiously heated mind, upon the 
 encounter of that afternoon. Mr. Harding's 
 manner in the latter part of their walk together 
 had — he scarcely knew why — profoundly im- 
 pressed him. He longed to see the clergyman 
 again. He longed, almost more ardently, to pay 
 a visit to Henry Chichester. Although the in- 
 stinct of caution, which had perhaps been developed 
 in him by his work among mediums, cranks of vari- 
 ous kinds, and charlatans, had prevented him from 
 letting the rector know that he had been struck 
 by the change in the senior curate, that change 
 had greatly astonished him. Yet was it really so 
 very marked? He had noticed it before his at- 
 
 21 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 tention had been drawn to it. That he knew. 
 But was he not now, perhaps, exaggerating its 
 character, " suggestioned " as it were by the obvi- 
 ous turmoil of Mr. Harding? He wondered, and 
 was disturbed by his wonderment. Two or three 
 times he got up, with the intention of jumping 
 into a cab, and going to Westminster to find out 
 if Professor Stepton was in town. But he only 
 got as far as the hall. Then something seemed 
 to check him. He told himself that he was in no 
 fit condition to meet the sharp eyes of the man 
 of science, who delighted in his somewhat frigid 
 attitude of mind toward all supposed supernormal 
 manifestations, and he returned to his study and 
 tried to occupy himself with a book. 
 
 On the occasion of his last return, just as he was 
 about to sit down, his eyes chanced to fall on an 
 almanac framed in silver which stood on his writ- 
 ing-table. He took it up and staged at it. May 
 8, Friday — May 9, Saturday — May 10, Sun- 
 day. It was May 9. He put the almanac back on 
 the table with a sudden sense of relief. For he 
 had come to a decision. 
 
 To-morrow he would attend morning service 
 at St. Joseph's. 
 
 Mailing was not a regular church-goer. He be- 
 longed to the Stepton breed. But he was an earn- 
 
 22 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 est man and no scoffer, and some of his best friends 
 were priests and clergymen. Nevertheless it was 
 in a rather unusual go-to-meeting frame of mind 
 that he got into a tail-coat and top hat, and set 
 forth in a hansom to St. Joseph's the next morning. 
 
 He had never been there before. As he drew 
 near he found people flowing toward the great 
 church on foot, in cabs and carriages. Evidently 
 Mr. Harding had attractive powers, and Mailing 
 began to wonder whether he would have any diffi- 
 culty in obtaining the seat he wanted, in some cor- 
 ner from which he could get a good view both of 
 the chancel and the pulpit. Were vergers " briba- 
 ble " ? What an ignoramus he was about church 
 matters ! 
 
 He smiled to himself as he paid the cabman 
 and joined the stream of church-goers which was 
 passing in through the open door. 
 
 Just as he was entering the building some one in 
 the crowd by accident jostled him, and he was 
 pushed rather roughly against a tall lady Imme- 
 diately before him. She turned round with a 
 startled face, and Mailing hastily begged her par- 
 don. 
 
 " I was pushed," he said. " Forgive me." 
 
 The lady smiled, her lips moved, doubtless in 
 some words of conventional acceptance, then she 
 
 23 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 disappeared in the throng, taking her way toward 
 the left of the church. She was a slim woman, 
 with a white streak in her dark hair just above 
 the forehead. Her face, which was refined and 
 handsome, had given to Mailing a strong impres- 
 sion of anxiety. Even when it had smiled it had 
 looked almost tragically anxious, he thought. 
 The church was seated with chairs, and a man, 
 evidently an attendant, told him that all the chairs 
 in the right and left aisles were free. He made 
 his way to the right, and was fortunate enough to 
 get one not far from the pulpit. Unluckily, from 
 it he could only see the left-hand side of the choir. 
 But the preacher would be full in his view. The 
 organ sounded; the procession appeared. Over 
 the heads of worshipers — he was a tall man — 
 Mailing perceived both Mr. Harding and Chiches- 
 ter. The latter took his place at the end of the 
 left-hand row of light-colored oaken stalls next 
 to the congregation. Mailing could see him well. 
 But the rector was hidden from him. He fixed 
 his eyes upon Chichester. 
 
 The service went on its way. The music was 
 excellent. A fair young man, who looked as if 
 he might be a first-rate cricketer, one of the curates 
 no doubt, read the lessons. Chichester intoned 
 with an agreeable light tenor voice. During the 
 
 24 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 third hymn, " Fight the Good Fight," Mr. Hard- 
 ing mounted into the pulpit. He let down the 
 brass reading-desk. He had no notes in his hands. 
 Evidently he was going to preach extempore. 
 After the " In the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost " had been pro- 
 nounced. Mailing settled himself to listen. He 
 felt tensely interested. Both Mr. Harding and 
 Chichester were now before him, the one as per- 
 former — he used the word mentally, with no 
 thought of irreverence — the other as audience. 
 He could study both as he wished to study them at 
 that moment. 
 
 Chichester was a small, cherubic man, with blue 
 eyes, fair hair, and neat features, the sort of man 
 who looks as if when a boy he must have been the 
 leading choir-boy in a cathedral. There was noth- 
 ing powerful in his face, but much that was ami- 
 able and winning. His chin and his forehead were 
 rather weak. His eyes and his mouth looked 
 good. Or — did they ? 
 
 Mailing found himself wondering as Mr. Har- 
 ding preached. 
 
 And was Mr. Harding the powerful preacher he 
 was reputed to be? 
 
 At first he held his congregation. That was 
 evident. Rows of rapt faces gazed up at him, as 
 
 25 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 he leaned over the edge of the pulpit, or stood 
 upright with his hands pressed palm downward 
 upon it. But it seemed to Mailing that he held 
 them rather because of his reputation, because of 
 what they confidently expected of him, because of 
 what he had done in the past, than because of what 
 he was actually doing. And presently they slipped 
 out of his grasp. He lost them. 
 
 The first thing that is necessary in an orator, if 
 he is to be successful with an audience, is confi- 
 dence in himself, a conviction that he has some- 
 thing to say which is worth saying, which has to be 
 said. Mailing perceived that on this Sunday 
 morning Mr. Harding possessed neither self-con- 
 fidence nor conviction; though he made a deter- 
 mined, almost a violent, effort to pretend that he 
 had both. He took as the theme of his discourse 
 self-knowledge, and as his motto — so he called 
 it — the words, "Know thyself." This was 
 surely a promising subject. He began to treat it 
 with vigor. But very soon it became evident that 
 he was ill at ease, as an actor becomes who cannot 
 get into touch with his audience. He stumbled 
 now and then in his sentences, harked back, cor- 
 rected a phrase, modified a thought, attenuated a 
 statement. Then, evidently bracing himself up, 
 almost aggressively he delivered a few passages 
 
 26 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 that were eloquent enough. But the indecision re- 
 turned, became more painful. He even contra- 
 dicted himself. A " No, that is not so. I should 
 say — " communicated grave doubts as to his pow- 
 ers of clear thinking to the now confused congre- 
 gation. People began to cough and to shift about 
 in their chairs. A lady just beneath the pulpit 
 unfolded a large fan and waved it slowly to and 
 fro. Mr. Harding paused, gazed at the fan, 
 looked away from it, wiped his forehead with a 
 handkerchief, grasped the pulpit ledge, and went 
 on speaking, but now with almost a faltering voice. 
 
 The congregation were doubtless Ignorant of 
 the cause of their pastor's perturbation, but Mai- 
 ling felt sure that he knew what it was. 
 
 The cause was Henry Chichester. 
 
 On the cherubic face of the senior curate, as he 
 leaned back in his stall while Mr. Harding gave 
 out the opening words of the sermon, there had 
 been an expression that was surely one of anxiety, 
 such as a master's face wears when his pupil is 
 about to give some public exhibition. That simile 
 came at once into Mailing's mind. It was the 
 master listening to the pupil, fearing for, criti- 
 cizing, striving mentally to convey help to the pu- 
 pil. And as the sermon went on it was obvious 
 to Mailing that the curate was not satisfied with 
 
 27 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 it, and that his dissatisfaction was, as it were, 
 breaking the rector down. At certain statements 
 of Mr. Harding looks of contempt flashed over 
 Chichester's face, transforming it. The anxiety 
 of the master, product of vanity but also of sym- 
 pathy, was overlaid by the powerful contempt of 
 a man who longs to traverse misstatements but is 
 forced by circumstances to keep silence. And so 
 certain was Mailing that the cause of Mr. Har- 
 ding's perturbation lay in Chichester's mental atti- 
 tude, that he longed to spring up, to take the 
 curate by the shoulders and to thrust him out of 
 the church. Then all would be well. He knew 
 it. The rector's self-confidence would return and, 
 with it, his natural powers. 
 
 But now the situation was becoming painful, 
 almost unbearable. 
 
 With every sentence the rector became more in- 
 volved, more hesitating, more impotent. The 
 sweat ran down his face. Even his fine voice was 
 affected. It grew husky. It seemed to be failing. 
 Yet he would not cease. To Mailing he gave the 
 impression of a man governed by a secret obstinacy, 
 fighting on though he knew it was no use, that he 
 had lost the combat. Mailing longed to cry out 
 to him, " Give it up I " 
 
 The congregation coughed more persistently, 
 28 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 and the lady with the fan began to ply her instru- 
 ment of torture almost hysterically. 
 
 Suddenly Mailing felt obliged to look toward 
 the left of the crowded church. Sitting up very 
 straight, and almost craning his neck, he stared 
 over the heads of the fidgeting people and met the 
 eyes of a woman, the lady with the streak of 
 white hair against whom he had pushed when 
 coming in. 
 
 There was a look almost of anguish on her face. 
 She turned her eyes toward Mr. Harding. At 
 the same instant the rector saw Mailing in the con- 
 gregation. He stopped short, muttered an un- 
 even sentence, then, forcing his voice, uttered in 
 unnaturally loud tones the " Now to God the 
 Father," et cetera. 
 
 Henry Chichester rose in his stall with an 
 expression of intense thankfulness, which yet 
 seemed somehow combined with a sneer. 
 
 The collection was made. 
 
 Before the celebration some of the choir and 
 two of the clergy, of whom Mr. Harding was one, 
 left the church. Henry Chichester and the fair, 
 athletic-looking curate remained. Mailing took 
 his hat and made his way slowly to the door. As 
 he emerged a young man stopped him and said: 
 
 " If you please, sir, the rector would like to 
 29 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 speak to you if you could wait just a moment. 
 You are Mr. Mailing, I believe." 
 
 " Yes. How could you know? " 
 
 " Mr. Harding told me what you were like, sir, 
 and that you were wearing a tie with a large green 
 stone in it. Begging your pardon, sir." 
 
 " I will wait," said Mailing, marveling at the 
 rector's rapid and accurate powers of observation. 
 
 Those of the congregation who had not re- 
 mained for the celebration were quickly dispers- 
 ing, but Mailing now noticed that the lady with 
 the white lock was, like himself, waiting for some 
 one. She stood not far from him. She was hold- 
 ing a parasol, and looking down; she moved its 
 point to and fro on the ground. Several people 
 greeted her. Almost as if startled she glanced 
 up quickly, smiled, replied. Then, as they went 
 on, she again looked down. There was a pucker 
 in her brow. Her lips twitched now and then. 
 
 Suddenly she lifted her head, turned and forced 
 her quivering mouth to smile. Mr. Harding had 
 come into sight round the corner of the church. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Mailing," he said, "so you have 
 stayed. Very good of you. Sophia, let me in- 
 troduce Mr. Mailing to you — my wife, Lady 
 Sophia." 
 
 The lady with the white lock held out her hand. 
 30 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " You have heard Professor Stepton speak of 
 Mr. Mailing, have n't you? " added the rector to 
 his wife. 
 
 " Indeed I have," she answered. 
 
 She smiled again kindly, and as if resolved to 
 throw off her depression began to talk with some 
 animation as they all walked together toward the 
 street. Directly they reached it the rector said: 
 
 " Are you engaged to lunch to-day, Mr. Mai- 
 ling?" 
 
 " No," answered Mailing. 
 
 Lady Sophia turned to him and said : 
 
 " Then I shall be informal and beg you to lunch 
 with us, if you don't mind our being alone. We 
 lunch early, at one, as my husband is tired after 
 his morning's work and eats virtually nothing at 
 breakfast." 
 
 " I shall be delighted," said Mailing. " It 's 
 very kind of you." 
 
 " We always walk home," said the rector. 
 
 He sighed. It was obvious that he was in low 
 spirits after the failure of the morning, but he 
 tried to conceal the fact, and his wife tactfully 
 helped him. Mailing praised the music warmly, 
 and remarked on the huge congregation. 
 
 " I scarcely thought I should find a seat," he 
 added. 
 
 31 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " It is always full to the doors in the morning," 
 said Lady Sophia, with a cheerfulness that was 
 slightly forced. 
 
 She glanced at her husband, and suddenly 
 added, not without a decided touch of feminine 
 spite : 
 
 " Unless Mr. Chichester, the senior curate, 
 is preaching." 
 
 "My dear Sophy!" exclaimed Mr. Harding. 
 
 " Well, it is sol " she said, with a sort of petu- 
 lance. 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Chichester is not gifted as a 
 preacher," said Mailing. 
 
 " Oh, I would n't say that," said the rector. 
 
 " My husband never criticizes his — swans," 
 said Lady Sophia, with delicate malice, and a 
 glance full of meaning at MaUing. " But I 'm a 
 woman, and my principles are not so high as his." 
 
 " You do yourself an injustice," said the rectorl 
 " Here we are." 
 
 He drew out his latch-key. 
 
 Before lunch Mailing was left alone for a few 
 minutes in the drawing-room with Lady Sophia. 
 The rector had to see a parishioner who had called 
 and was waiting for him in his study. Directly 
 her husband had left the room Lady Sophia turned 
 to Mailing and said: 
 
 32 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Had you ever heard my husband preach till 
 this morning? " 
 
 " No, never," Mailing answered. " I 'm afraid 
 I 'm not a very regular church-goer. I must con- 
 gratulate you again on the music at St. Joseph's. 
 It is exceptional. Even at St. Anne's Soho — " 
 
 Almost brusquely she interrupted him. She 
 ■was obviously in a highly nervous condition; and 
 scarcely able to control herself. 
 
 " Yes, yes, our music is always good, of course. 
 So glad you liked it. But what I want to say is 
 that you have n't heard my husband preach this 
 morning." 
 
 Mailing looked at her with curiosity, but with- 
 out astonishment. He might have acted a part 
 with her as he had the previous day with her hus- 
 band. But, as he looked, he came to a rapid de- 
 cision, to be more frank with the woman than he 
 had been with the man. 
 
 " You mean, of course, that your husband was 
 not in his best vein," he said. " I won't pretend 
 that I didn't realize that." 
 
 " You did n't hear him at all. He was n't him- 
 self — simply." 
 
 She sat down on a sofa and clasped her hands 
 together. 
 
 " I cannot tell you what I was feeling," she 
 
 ^ 33 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 added. " And he used to be so full of self-con- 
 fidence. It was his great gift. His self-confi- 
 dence carried him through everything. Nothing 
 could have kept him back if — " 
 
 Suddenly she checked herself and looked, with 
 a sort of covert inquiry, at Mailing. 
 
 " You must think me quite mad to talk like 
 this," she said, with a return to her manner when 
 he first met her.~ 
 
 "Shall I tell you what I really think?" he 
 asked, leaning forward in the chair he had taken. 
 
 " Yes, do, do ! " 
 
 " I think you are very ambitious for your hus- 
 band and that your ambition for him has received 
 a perhaps mysterious — check." 
 
 Before she could reply the door opened and 
 Mr. Harding reappeared. 
 
 At lunch he carefully avoided any reference to 
 church matters, and they talked on general sub- 
 jects. Lady Sophia showed herself a nervously 
 intelligent and ardent woman. It seemed to Mai- 
 ling obvious that she was devoted to her husband, 
 " wrapped up in " him — to use an expressive 
 phrase. Any failure on his part upset her even 
 more than It did him. Secretly she must still be 
 quivering from the public distresses of the morn- 
 ing. But she now strove to aid the rector's ad- 
 
 34 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 mirable effort to be serene, and proved herself a 
 clever talker, and well informed on the events of 
 the day. Of her Mailing got a fairly clear im- 
 pression. 
 
 But his impression of her husband was confused 
 and almost nebulous. 
 
 " Do you smoke? " asked Mr. Harding, when 
 lunch was over. 
 
 Mailing said that he did. 
 
 " Then come and have a cigar in my study." 
 
 " Yes, do go," said Lady Sophia. " A quiet 
 talk with you will rest my husband." 
 
 And she went away, leaving the two men to- 
 gether. 
 
 Mr. Harding's study looked out at the back of 
 the house upon a tiny strip of garden. It was 
 very comfortably, though not luxuriously, fur- 
 nished, and the walls were lined with bookcases. 
 While his host went to a drawer to get the cigar- 
 box, Mailing idly cast his eyes over the books in 
 the shelves nearest to him. He always liked to 
 see what a man had to read. The first book his 
 eyes rested upon was Myers's " Human Person- 
 ality." Then came a series of works by Hudson, 
 including " Psychic Phenomena," then Oliver 
 Lodge's " Survival of Man," " Man and the Uni- 
 verse," and " Life and Matter." Farther along 
 
 35 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 were -works by Lowes Dickinson and Professor 
 William James, Bowden's " The Imitation of 
 Buddha " and Inge's " Christian Mysticism." At 
 the end of the shelf, bound in white vellum, was 
 Don Lorenzo Scupoli's " The Spiritual Combat." 
 
 A drawer shut, and Mailing turned about to 
 take the cigar which Mr. Harding offered him. 
 
 " The light is rather strong, don't you think? " 
 Mr, Harding said, when the two men had lit up. 
 " I 'U lower the blind." 
 
 He did so, and they sat down in a sort of agree- 
 able twilight, aware of the blaze of an almost un- 
 English sun without. 
 
 Mailing settled down to his cigar with a very 
 definite intention to clear up his impressions of 
 the rector. The essence of the man bafiled him. 
 He had known more about Lady Sophia in five 
 minutes than he knew about Mr. Harding now, 
 although he had talked with him, walked with him, 
 heard him preach, and watched him intently while 
 he was doing so. His confusion and distress of 
 the morning were comprehended by Mailing. 
 They were undoubtedly caused by the preacher's 
 painful consciousness of the presence and criticism 
 of one whom, apparently, he feared, or of whose 
 adverse opinion at any rate he was in peculiar 
 dread. But what was the character of the man 
 
 36 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 himself? Was he saint or sinner, or just ordi- 
 nary, normal man, with a usual allowance of faults 
 and virtues ? Was he a man of real force, or was 
 he painted lath ? The Chichester episodes seemed 
 to point to the latter conclusion. But Mailing was 
 too intelligent to take everything at its surface 
 value. He knew much of the trickery of manj 
 but that knowledge did not blind him to the 
 mystery of man. He had exposed charlatans. 
 Yet he had often said to himself, " Who can ever 
 really expose another? Who can ever really ex- 
 pose himself?" Essentially he was the Seeker. 
 And he was seldom or never dogmatic. A friend 
 of his, who professed to believe in transmigration, 
 had once said of him, " I 'm quite certain Mailing 
 must have been a sleuth-hound once." Now he 
 wished to get on a trail. 
 
 But Mr. Harding, who on the previous day had 
 been almost strangely frank about Henry Chi- 
 chester, to-day had apparently no intention to be 
 frank about himself. Though he had desired 
 MaUing's company, now that they were together 
 alone he showed a reserve through which, Mailing 
 believed, he secretly wanted to break. But some- 
 thing held him back. He talked of politics, gov- 
 ernment and church, the spread of science, the 
 follies of the day. And Mailing got little nearer 
 
 37 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 to him. But presently Mailing happened to men- 
 tion the modern craze for discussing intimately, or, 
 as a Frenchwoman whom he knew expressed it, 
 " avec un luxe de detail," matters of health. 
 
 " Yes, yes," responded Mr. Harding. " It is 
 becoming almost objectionable, almost indecent. 
 At the same time the health of the body is a very 
 interesting subject because of its effect upon the 
 mind, even, so it seems sometimes, upon the very 
 nature of a man. Now I — " he struck the ash 
 off the end of his cigar — " was, I might almost 
 say, the victim of my stomach in the pulpit this 
 morning." 
 
 " You were feeling ill? " 
 
 " Not exactly ill. I have a strong constitution! 
 But I suffer at times from what the doctors call 
 nervous dyspepsia. It is a very tiresome com- 
 plaint, because it takes away for the time a man's 
 confidence in himself, reduces him to the worm- 
 level almost ; and it gives him absurd ideas. Now 
 this morning in the pulpit I had an attack of pain 
 and uneasiness, and my nerve quite gave out. 
 You must have noticed it." 
 
 " I saw that you were troubled by something." 
 
 " Something ! It was that. My poor wife was 
 thoroughly upset by it. You know how sensitive 
 women are. To hold a crowd of people a man 
 
 38 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 must be strong and well, in full possession of his 
 powers. And I had a good subject." 
 
 " Splendid." 
 
 " I '11 treat it again — treat it again." 
 
 The rector shifted in his chair. 
 
 " Do you think," he said after a pause, " that 
 it is possible for another, an outsider, to know a 
 man better than he knows himself? " 
 
 " In some cases, yes," answered Mailing. 
 
 "But — as a rule?" 
 
 " There is the saying that outsiders see most of 
 the game." 
 
 " Then why should we mind when all are sub- 
 ject to criticism ! " exclaimed Mr. Harding, forci- 
 bly. 
 
 Evidently he was startled by his own outburst, 
 for instantly he set about to attenuate it. 
 
 " What I mean is that men ought not to care 
 so much as most of them undoubtedly do what 
 others think about them." 
 
 " It certainly is a sign of great weakness to 
 care too much," said Mailing. "But some people 
 have a quite peculiar power of impressing their 
 critical thoughts on others. These spread uneasi- 
 ness around them like an atmosphere." 
 
 " I know, I know," said the rector, with an al- 
 most hungry eagerness. " Now surely one ought 
 
 39 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 to keep out of such an atmosphere, to get out of 
 it, and to keep out of it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " But — but — how extraordinary it is, the diffi- 
 culty men have in getting away from things! 
 Have n't you noticed that? " 
 
 " Want of moral strength," said Mailing, lacon- 
 ically. 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 "Don't you?" 
 
 At this moment there was a knock at the docn-. 
 Mr. Harding started. 
 
 " How impossible it is to get a quiet moment," 
 he said with acute irritation. " Come in ! " he 
 called out. 
 
 The footman appeared. 
 
 " Mr. Chichester has called to see you, sir." 
 
 The rector's manner changed. He beckoned 
 to the man to come into the room and to shut 
 the door. The footman, looking surprised, 
 obeyed. 
 
 " Where is he, Thomas? " asked Mr. Hardingj 
 in a lowered voice. " In the hall? " 
 
 " No, sir. As you were engaged I showed him 
 up into the drawing-room." 
 
 " Oh, very well. Thank you. You can go." 
 
 The footman went out, still looking surprised. 
 40 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Just as he was about to close the door his master 
 said: 
 
 " Wait a moment ! " 
 
 " Sir? " 
 
 " Was her ladyship in the drawing-room? " 
 
 " No, sir. Her ladyship is lying down in the 
 boudoir." 
 
 " Ah. That will do." 
 
 The footman shut the door. 
 
 Directly he was gone the rector got up with an 
 air of decision. 
 
 " Mr. Mailing," he said, " perhaps I ought to 
 apologize to you for treating you with the abrupt- 
 ness allowable in a friend, but surprising in an ac- 
 quaintance, indeed in one who is almost a stranger. 
 I do apologize. My only excuse is that I know 
 you to be a man of exceptional trend of mind and 
 unusual ability. I know this from Professor Step- 
 ton. But there 's another thing. As I told you 
 yesterday, you are the only person of my acquaint- 
 ance who, having been fairly intimate with Henry 
 Chichester, has not seen anything of him during 
 the two years he has been with me as my coad- 
 jutor. Now what I want you to do is this: 
 will you go upstairs and spend a few minutes alone 
 with Chichester? Tell him I am detained, but am 
 coming in a moment. I '11 see to it that you are 
 
 41 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 not interrupted. I '11 explain to my wife. And, 
 of course, I rely on you to make the matter appear 
 natural to Chichester, not to rouse his — but I am 
 sure you understand. Will you do this for me? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Mailing, with his most pro- 
 saic manner. "Why not?" 
 
 "Why not? Exactly. There's nothing ob- 
 jectionable in the matter. But — " Mr. Har- 
 ding's manner became very earnest, almost tragic. 
 " I '11 ask you one thing — afterward you will tell 
 me the truth, exactly how Chichester impresses you 
 now in comparison with the impression you got of 
 him two years ago. You — you have no objec- 
 tion to promising to tell me? " 
 
 Mailing hesitated. 
 
 " But is it quite fair to Chichester ? " he said. 
 " Suppose I obtained, for instance, a less favora- 
 ble, or even an unfavorable impression of him 
 now? You are his rector. I hardly think — " 
 
 The rector interrupted him. 
 
 " I '11 leave it to you," he said. " Do just as 
 you please. But, believe me, I have a very strong 
 reason for wishing to know your opinion. I need 
 it. I need it." 
 
 There was a lamentable sound in his voice. 
 
 " If I feel it is right I will give it to you," said 
 Mailing. 
 
 42 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 The rector opened the door of the study. 
 " You know your way? " 
 " Yes." 
 
 MaUing went upstairs. Mr. Harding stood 
 watching him from below till he disappeared. 
 
 43 
 
Ill 
 
 WHEN Mailing opened the door of the 
 drawing-room Chichester was standing by 
 one of the windows, looking out into Onslow 
 Gardens. He turned round, saw Mailing, and 
 uttered an exclamation. 
 
 "You are here!" 
 
 His light tenor voice sounded almost denuncia- 
 tory, as if he had a right to demand an explana- 
 tion of Mailing's presence in Mr. Harding's 
 house, and as he came away quickly from the win- 
 dow, he repeated, with still more emphasis : 
 
 "You are here!" 
 
 " Lunching — yes," replied Mailing, imper- 
 turbably. 
 
 He looked at Chichester and smiled. 
 
 "You have no objection, I hope? " 
 
 His words and manner evidently brought the 
 curate to a sense of his own unconventionality. 
 He held out his hand. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Your coming in sur- 
 prised me. I had no idea " — his blue eyes went 
 
 44 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 searchingly over Mailing's calm face — " that you 
 could be here. I thought you and the rector were 
 complete strangers till I introduced you yester- 
 day." 
 
 " So we were." 
 
 Mailing sat down comfortably on a sofa. His 
 action evidently recalled Chichester's mind to the 
 fact that he was to see the rector. 
 
 " Is n't the rector coming to see me? " he asked. 
 
 " Almost directly. He 's busy for a few min- 
 utes. We were smoking together in his study." 
 
 " You seem to — you seem to have made great 
 friends!" said Chichester, with a sort of forced 
 jocularity. 
 
 " Great friends ! They 're hardly made in a 
 moment. I happened to be at church this morn- 
 ing— " 
 
 "At church — where?" exclaimed the curate. 
 
 " At St. Joseph's. And Mr. Harding kindly 
 asked me to lunch." 
 
 " You were at church at St. Joseph's this morn- 
 ing? " said Chichester. 
 
 He sat down by Mailing and stared into his 
 face. 
 
 " Did you — did you stay for the sermon? " 
 
 " Certainly. I came for the sermon. I had 
 never heard Mr. Harding preach." 
 
 45 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " No? No? Well, what did you think of it? 
 What did you think of it? " 
 
 The curate spoke nervously, and seemed to Mai- 
 ling to be regarding him with furtive anxiety. 
 
 " It was obvious that Mr. Harding was n't in 
 good form this morning," Mailing said. " He 
 explained the matter after lunch." 
 
 "He explained the matter!" said Chichester, 
 with a rising voice, in which there was an almost 
 shrill note of suspicion. 
 
 " Yes. He told me he was often the victim 
 of nervous dyspepsia, and that he had an attack 
 of it while in the pulpit this morning." 
 
 " He told you it was nervous dyspepsia 1 " 
 
 " I have just said so." 
 
 The curate looked down. 
 
 " I advised him not to walk all the way home 
 yesterday," he said gloomily. " You heard me." 
 
 " You think it was that? " 
 
 " He never will take advice from any one. 
 That 's his — one of his great faults. Whatever 
 he thinks, whatever he says, must be right. You, 
 as a layman, probably have no idea how a certain 
 type of clergyman loves authority." 
 
 This remark struck Mailing as in such singu- 
 larly bad taste — considering where they were, 
 and that one of them was Mr. Harding's guest, 
 
 46 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 the other his curate — that only his secret desire 
 to make obscure things clear prevented him from 
 resenting it. 
 
 " It is one of the curses of the Church," con- 
 tinued Chichester, " this passion for authority, for 
 ruling, for having all men under one's feet as it 
 were. If men would only listen, take advice, see 
 themselves as they really are, how much finer, how 
 much greater, they might become! " 
 
 "See themselves as others see them! Eh?" 
 said Mailing. " But do you mean that a rector 
 should depend on his curate's advice rather than 
 on his own judgment? " 
 
 "And why not?" said Chichester. "Rector 
 — curate — archbishop — what does it matter ? 
 The point is not what rank in the hierarchy a man 
 has, but what, and how, does he see? A street 
 boy may perceive a truth that a king Is blind to. 
 At that moment the street boy is greater than the 
 king. Do you deny It? " 
 
 " No," said Mailing, amazed at the curate's 
 excitement, but showing no astonishment. 
 
 " But it's a terrible thing to see too clearly! " 
 continued Chichester, almost as If talking to him- 
 self, absorbed. " A terrible thing ! " 
 
 He looked up at Mailing, and almost solemnly 
 he said: 
 
 47 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Are you still going on with all those inves- 
 tigations? " 
 
 " When I have any spare time, I often spend 
 some of it in that sort of work," answered Mai- 
 ling, lightly. 
 
 It was his way to make light of his research 
 work, and indeed he seldom mentioned it unless 
 he was forced to do so. 
 
 "Do you think it is right?" said Chichester, 
 earnestly. 
 
 "Right?" 
 
 " To strive to push one's way into hidden re- 
 gions." 
 
 " If I did n't think it right I should n't do it," 
 retorted Mailing, but without heat. 
 
 "And — for clergymen?" questioned Chiches- 
 ter, leaning forward, and dropping his small, thin 
 hands down between his knees. 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " Do you think it right for clergymen to in- 
 dulge themselves — for it is indulgence — in in- 
 vestigations, in attempts to find out more than God 
 has chosen to reveal to us ? " 
 
 The man of science in Mailing felt impatient 
 with the man of faith in Chichester. 
 
 " Does it never occur to you that the anima 
 mundi may have hidden certain things from the 
 
 48 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 minds of mortals just in order to provide them 
 with a field to till? " he said, with a hint of sar- 
 casm. " Was n't the fact that the earth revolves 
 round the sun, instead of the sun round the earth, 
 hidden from every living creature till Galileo dis- 
 covered it? Do you think Galileo deserved our 
 censure? " 
 
 " Saul was punished for consulting the witch of 
 Endor," returned Chichester. " And the Roman 
 Catholic Church forbids her children to deal in 
 occult things." 
 
 " You can't expect a man like me, a disciple of 
 Stepton, to take the Roman Catholic view of such 
 a matter." 
 
 " You are not a clergyman," said Chichester. 
 
 Mailing could not help smiling. 
 
 " You think the profession carries with it cer- 
 tain obligations," he said. " No doubt it does. 
 But I shall never believe that one of them is to 
 shut your eyes to any fact in the whole scheme of 
 Creation. Harm can never come from truth." 
 
 " If I could believe that I " Chichester cried out. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me you don't believe 
 it?" 
 
 Chichester looked at Mailing for quite a min- 
 ute without replying. Then he got up, and said, 
 with a changed voice and manner : 
 
 49 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " If the rector does n't come to see me I shall 
 have to go. Sunday is not a holiday, you know, 
 for us clergymen." 
 
 He drew out his watch and looked at it. 
 
 " I shall have to go. I 'm taking the Chil- 
 dren's Service." 
 
 Mailing got up too. 
 
 " Is it getting late? " he said. " Perhaps — " 
 
 At this moment the door was gently opened 
 and Mr. Harding appeared. 
 
 " Oh, Chichester," he said. " I 'm sorry to 
 have kept you waiting. What is it? Would 
 you like to come to my study? " 
 
 " I must be off," said Mailing. " May I say 
 good-by to Lady Sophia? Or perhaps she is 
 resting and would rather not be disturbed." 
 
 " I 'm sure she would wish to say good-by to 
 you," said the rector. " I '11 just ask her." 
 
 He shot a quick glance from one man to the 
 other and went out of the room, leaving the door 
 open behind him. 
 
 Directly he was gone the curate said: " It has 
 been such a pleasure to me to renew my acquaint- 
 ance with you, Mr. Mailing. Are you going to 
 be long in London? " 
 
 " All the season, I think." 
 
 50 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Then I hope we may meet again soon, very 
 soon." 
 
 He hesitated, put one hand in his pocket, and 
 brought out a card-case. 
 
 " I should like to give you my address." 
 
 " And let me give you mine." 
 
 They exchanged cards. 
 
 " I expect you '11 be very busy," said the curate, 
 rather doubtfully. 
 
 Then he added, like a man urged on by some 
 strong, almost overpowering desire to do a thing 
 not quite natural to him : 
 
 " But I wish you could spare an evening to come 
 to dine with me. I live very modestly, of course. 
 I 'm in rooms, in Hornton Street — do you know 
 it ? — near Campden Hill ? — Number 4a — 
 as you '11 see on my card. I wonder — " 
 
 " I shall be delighted to come." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " Whenever you are kind enough to ask me." 
 
 " Could you come on Wednesday week? It 's 
 so unfortunate, I have such a quantity of parish 
 engagements — that is my first^evening free." 
 
 " Wednesday week, with pleasure." 
 
 "At half after seven?" 
 
 " That will suit me perfectly." 
 51 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 "And" — he looked toward the door — "I 
 shall be greatly obliged to you if you won't men- 
 tion to the rector the fact that you are coming. 
 He—" 
 
 " My wife 's in the boudoir," said Mr. Har- 
 ding, coming into the room at this moment. 
 
 He stood by the door. 
 
 Mailing shook hands with Chichester, and went 
 to say good-by to his hostess. 
 
 Mr. Harding shut the drawing-room door. 
 
 " This is the way," he said. " Well, Mr. Mai- 
 ling? Well?" 
 
 " You mean you want to know — ? " 
 
 " Your impression of Chichester." 
 
 The rector stopped on the landing. 
 
 " Do you find him much changed? " 
 
 Mailing shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Possibly — a little. He may have become 
 rather firmer in manner, a trifle more decisive." 
 
 " Firmer! More decisive, you say! " 
 
 " But surely that is only natural, working — as 
 he has done, I understand, under a man such as 
 yourself for two years." 
 
 " Such as myself ! Then you think he 's caught 
 something of my manner and way of looking at 
 things? You think — " 
 
 " Really, it 's difficult to say," interrupted Mal- 
 52 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 ling. " He 's developed, no doubt. But very few 
 people don't. I suppose you 've trained him." 
 
 "II" said the rector. " I train a man like Chi- 
 chester! " 
 
 In his voice there was a bitter irony. 
 
 " Is that you, Mr. Mailing? " said the voice of 
 Lady Sophia. " I was lying down with a book. 
 This is my little room." 
 
 She looked pale, almost haggard, as the sun- 
 shine fell upon her through the open window. 
 
 Mailing took his leave at once and she did not 
 attempt to detain him. 
 
 " I hope you '11 come again," she said, as they 
 shook hands. " Perhaps on another Sunday morn- 
 ing, to church and lunch. I '11 let you know." 
 
 She said the last words with a significance which 
 made Mailing understand that she did not wish 
 him to come to church at St. Joseph's again till she 
 gave him the word. 
 
 The rector let him out of the house. Not an- 
 other word was spoken about Henry Chichester. 
 As his guest walked away the rector stood, bare- 
 headed, looking after him, then, as Mailing turned 
 the corner of the gardens, with a heavy sigh, and 
 the unconscious gesture of a man greatly troubled 
 in mind, he stepped back into his hall and shut the 
 door behind him. 
 
 53 
 
IV 
 
 A WEEK later, Mailing paid a visit to Pro- 
 fessor Stepton. He had heard nothing of 
 the Hardings and Chichester since the day of the 
 luncheon in Onslow Gardens, but they had seldom 
 been absent from his thoughts, and more than 
 once he had looked at the words, " Dine with 
 H. C." in his book of engagements, and had 
 found himself wishing that " Hornton Street, 
 Wednesday " was not so far distant. 
 
 The professor lived in Westminster, in a house 
 with Adam ceilings, not far from the Houses of 
 Parliament. He was unmarried, and Mailing 
 found him alone after dinner, writing busily in his 
 crowded library. He had but recently returned 
 from Paris, whither he had traveled to take part 
 in a series of " sittings " with the famous medium, 
 Mrs. Groeber. 
 
 In person the professor was odd, without being 
 specially striking. He was of medium height, 
 thin and sallow, with gray whiskers, thick gray 
 hair, bushy eyebrows, and small, pointed and in- 
 quiring features which gave him rather the as- 
 
 54 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 pect of a prying bird. His eyes were little and 
 sparkling. His mouth, strangely enough, was 
 ecclesiastical. He nearly always wore very light- 
 colored clothes. Even in winter he was often to 
 be seen clad in yellow-gray tweeds, a yellow silk 
 necktie, and a fawn-colored Homburg hat. And 
 no human being had ever encountered him in a 
 pair of boots unprotected by spats. One peculiar- 
 ity of his was that he did not possess a walking- 
 stick, another that he had never — so at least he 
 declared — owned a pocket-handkerchief, having 
 had no occasion to use one at any moment of his 
 long and varied life. When it rained he some- 
 times carried an umbrella, generally shut. At 
 other times he moved briskly along with his arms 
 swinging at his sides. 
 
 As Mailing came in he looked up and nodded. 
 
 " Putting down all about Mrs. Groeber," he 
 observed. 
 
 "Anything new or interesting?" asked Mai- 
 ling. 
 
 " Just the usual manifestations, done in full 
 light, though." 
 
 He laid aside his pen, while Mailing sat down. 
 
 " A letter from Flammarion this morning," he 
 said. " But all about Halley's comet, of course. 
 What is it? " 
 
 55 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Now the professor's "What is it?" was not 
 general, but particular, and was at once under- 
 stood to be so by Mailing. It did not mean 
 " Why have you come? " but " Why are you ob- 
 sessed at this moment, and by what? " 
 
 " Let 's have the mystery," he added, leaning 
 his elbows on his just dried manuscript, and rest- 
 ing his sharp little chin on his doubled fists. 
 
 Yet Mailing had hinted at no mystery, and had 
 come without saying he was coming. 
 
 " You know a clergyman called Marcus Har- 
 ding?" said Mailing. 
 
 '" Of St. Joseph's. To be sure, I do." 
 
 " Do you know also his senior curate, Henry 
 Chichester? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Have you heard of him? " 
 
 " Oh dear, yes. And I fancy I 'vc seen him at 
 a distance." 
 
 " You heard of him from Harding, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " Exactly, and Harding's wife." 
 
 " Oh, from Lady Sophia ! " 
 
 " Who hates him." 
 
 " Since when? " said Mailing, emphatically. 
 
 " I could n't say. But I was only aware of the 
 fact about a month ago." 
 
 56 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Have you any reason tO' suppose that Har- 
 ding has been making any experiments? " 
 
 " In church music, biblical criticism, or what? " 
 
 " Say in psychical research? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Or that Chichester has ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 *' Has n't Harding ever talked to you on the 
 subject? " 
 
 " He has tried to," said the professor, rather 
 grimly. 
 
 " And you did n't encourage him ? " 
 
 " When do I encourage clergymen to talk about 
 psychical research ? " 
 
 Mailing could not help smiling. 
 
 " I have some reason — at least I believe so 
 — to suppose that Harding and his curate Chi- 
 chester have been making some experiments in di- 
 rections not entirely unknown to us," he observed. 
 " And what is more " — he paused — " what is 
 more," he continued, " I am inclined to think that 
 those experiments may have been crowned with 
 a success they little understand." 
 
 Down went the professor's fists, his head was 
 poked forward in Mailing's direction, and his 
 small eyes glittered almost like those of a glutton 
 who sees a feast spread before him. 
 
 57 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " The experiments of two clergymen in psychi- 
 cal research crowned with success I " he barked out. 
 " If so, I shall see what I can do in the pulpit — 
 the Abbey pulpit! " 
 
 He got up, and walking slightly sidewise, with 
 his hands hanging, and his fingers opening and 
 shutting, went over to a chair close to Mailing's. 
 
 " Get on ! " he said. 
 
 " I 'm going to. I want your advice." 
 
 When Mailing had finished what he had to say, 
 the professor, who had interrupted him two or 
 three times to ask pertinent questions, put his 
 hands on his knees and thrust his head forward. 
 
 " You said you wanted advice," he said. 
 "What about?" 
 
 " I wish you to advise me how I had better pro- 
 ceed." 
 
 "You really think the matter important?" 
 asked the professor. 
 
 Mailing looked slightly disconcerted. 
 
 "You don't?" he said. 
 
 " You are deducing a great deal from not very 
 much. That 's certain," observed the professor. 
 
 " You never knew Chichester," retorted Mai- 
 ling. " I did — two years ago." 
 
 " Suppose you are right, suppose these two rev- 
 erend gentlemen have done something such as you 
 
 58 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 suppose — and that there has been a result, a curi- 
 ous result, what have we to do with it? Tell me 
 that." 
 
 " You mean that I have no right to endeavor to 
 make a secret investigation into the matter. But 
 I 'm positive both the men want help from me. 
 I don't say either of them will ask it. But I 'm 
 certain both of them want it." 
 
 " Two clergymen I " said the professor. " Two 
 clergymen ! That 's the best of it — if there is 
 an it, which there may not be." 
 
 " Harding spoke very warmly of you." 
 
 " Good-believing man ! Now, I do wonder 
 what he 's been up to. I do wonder. Perhaps 
 he 'd have told me but for my confounded habit 
 of sarcasm, my way of repelling the amateur — 
 repelling!" His arms flew out. "There's so 
 much silliness beyond all bearing, credulity beyond 
 all the patience of science. Table-turning women, 
 feminine men I ' The spirits guide me. Professor, 
 in every smallest action of my life ! ' — Wuff 1 — 
 the charlatan battens and breeds. And the bile 
 rises in one till Carlyle on his worst day might 
 have hailed one as a brother bilious, and so de- 
 nunciatory — Jeremiah nervously dyspeptic I And 
 when you opened your envelop and drew out a 
 couple of clergymen, really, really! But perhaps 
 
 59 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 I was in a hurry I Clergymen in a serious fix, too, 
 because of unexpected and not understood success ! 
 And I talk of repelling the amateur! " 
 
 Suddenly he paused and, with his bushy eye- 
 brows twitching, looked steadily at Mailing. 
 
 " I leave it to you," he said. " Take your own 
 line. But don't forget that, if there 's anything 
 in it, development will take place in the link. The 
 link will be a center of combat. The link will be 
 an interesting field for study." 
 
 " The link? " said Mailing, interrogatively. 
 
 " Goodness gracious me! Her ladyship! Her 
 ladyship ! " cried out the professor. " What are 
 you about, Mailing? " 
 
 And he refused to say another word on the mat- 
 ter till Mailing, after much more conversation on 
 other topics, got up to go. Then, accompanying 
 him to the front door, the professor said : 
 
 " You know / think it 's probably all great non- 
 sense." 
 
 " What? " 
 
 " Your two black-coated friends. You bustle 
 along at such a pace. Remember, I have made 
 more experiments than you have, and I have never 
 come upon an exactly similar case. I don't know 
 whether such a thing can be. No more do you — 
 you 've guessed. Now, guessing is not at all scien- 
 
 60 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 tific. At the same time you 've proved you can 
 be patient. If there is anything in this it 's pro- 
 foundly interesting, of course." 
 
 " Then you advise me — ? " 
 
 " If in doubt, study Lady Sophia. Good 
 night." 
 
 As Mailing wejnt away into the darkness he 
 heard the professor snapping out to himself, as 
 he stood before his house bareheaded : 
 
 " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ! 
 Tres bien! But — reverend gentlemen of St. 
 Joseph's ! I shall have to look for telergic power 
 in my acquaintance Randall Cantuar, when I want 
 it ! By Jove ! " 
 
 " If in doubt, study Lady Sophia." As Mai- 
 ling thought over these parting words, he realized 
 their wisdom and wondered at his own short-sight- 
 edness. 
 
 He had sent his cards to Onslow Gardens after 
 the luncheon with the Hardlngs. He wished now 
 he had called and asked for Lady Sophia. But 
 doubtless he would have an opportunity of being 
 with her again. If she did not offer him one, he 
 would make one for himself. 
 
 He longed to see her with Henry Chichester. 
 
 During the days that elapsed before " Horn- 
 ton Street, Wednesday " he considered a certain 
 
 6i 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 matter with sedulous care. His interview with 
 Stepton had not been fruitless. Stepton always 
 made an effect on his mind. Casual and jerky 
 though his manner was, obstinate as were his 
 silences at certain moments, fragmentary as was 
 his speech, he had a way of darting at the essential 
 that set him apart from most men. Mailing re- 
 membered a horrible thing he had once seen in the 
 Sahara, a running gazelle killed by a falcon. The 
 falcon, rising high in the blue air, had followed 
 the gazelle, had circled, poised, then shot down 
 and, with miraculous skill, struck into the gazelle's 
 eye. Unerringly from above it had chosen out of 
 the vast desert the home for its cruel beak. Some- 
 what in similar fashion, so Mailing thought, Step- 
 ton rose above things, circled, poised, sank, and 
 struck into the heart of the truth unerringly. 
 
 Perhaps he was able to do this because he was 
 able to mount, f alconwise ! 
 
 Mailing would have given a good deal to have 
 Stepton with him in this affair, despite the profes- 
 sor's repellent attitude toward the amateur. Well, 
 if there really was anything In it, if strangeness 
 rose out of the orthodox bosom of St. Joseph's, if 
 he — Mailing — found himself walking in thick 
 darkness, he meant to bring Stepton into the mat- 
 ter, whether at Stepton's desire or against it. 
 
 62 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Meanwhile he would see if there was enlighten- 
 ment in Hornton Street. 
 
 On the Wednesday the spell of fine weather 
 which had made London look strangely vivacious 
 broke up, and in the evening rain fell with a gentle 
 persistence. Blank grayness took the town. A 
 breath as of deep autumn was in the air. And 
 the strange sadness of cities, which is like no other 
 sadness, held the spirit of Evelyn Mailing as he 
 walked under an umbrella in the direction of Ken- 
 sington High Street. He walked, to shake off 
 depression. But in his effort he did not succeed. 
 All that he saw deepened his melancholy; the sol- 
 diers starting out vaguely from barracks, not 
 knowing what to do, but free for a time, and 
 hoping, a little heavily, for some adventure to break 
 the military monotony of their lives; the shop- 
 girls, also in hope of something to " take them out 
 of themselves " — pathetic desire of escape from 
 the little prison, where the soul sits, picking its 
 oakum sometimes, in its cell of flesh ! — young 
 men making for the parks, workmen for the pub- 
 lic houses, an old woman, in a cap, peering out of 
 an upper window in Prince's Gate; Italians with 
 an organ, and a monkey that looked as if it were 
 dying of nostalgia; women hurrying — whither? 
 — with anxious faces, and bodies whose very 
 
 63 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 shapes, and whose every movement, suggested, 
 rather proclaimed, worry. 
 
 Mailing knew it was the rain, the possessive 
 grayness, which troubled his body to-night, and 
 through his body troubled his spirit. His nostrils 
 inhaled the damp, and it seemed to go straight into 
 his essence, into the mystery that was he. His 
 eyes saw no more blue, and it was as if they drew 
 a black shutter over all the blue in his heart, blot- 
 ting it out. People became doomed phantoms, be- 
 cause the weather had changed and because Lon- 
 don knows how to play Cassandra to the spirit 
 of many a man. To Mailing, as he presently 
 turned to the right, Hornton Street looked like 
 an alley leading straight to the pit of despair, and 
 when he tapped on the blistered green door of the 
 small house where the curate lived, it was as if he 
 tapped seeking admittance to all the sorrowful 
 things that had been brought into being to beset 
 his life with blackness. 
 
 A neat servant-girl opened the door. There 
 was a smell of roast mutton in the passage. So 
 far well. Mailing took off his hat and coat, hung 
 them up on a hook indicated by the plump red 
 hand of the maid, and then followed her upstairs. 
 The curate was in possession of the first floor. 
 
 64 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Mailing knew that it would be a case of fold- 
 ing-doors and perhaps of curtains of imitation 
 lace. It was a case of folding-doors. But there 
 was a dull green hue on the walls that surely be- 
 spoke Henry Chichester's personal taste. There 
 were bookcases, there were mezzotints, there were 
 engravings of well-known pictures, and there were 
 armchairs not covered with horsehair. There 
 was also a cottage piano, severely nude. In the 
 center of the room stood a small square table cov- 
 ered with a cloth and laid for two persons. 
 
 " I '11 tell Mr. Chichester, sir." 
 
 The maid went out. From behind the fold- 
 ing-doors came to Mailing's ears the sound of 
 splashing water, then a voice saying, certainly to 
 the maid, " Thank you, Ellen, I will come." 
 And in three minutes Chichester was in the room, 
 apologizing. 
 
 " I was kept late in the parish. There 's a 
 good deal to do." 
 
 " You 're not overworked? " asked Mailing. 
 
 " Do I look so? " said Chichester, quickly. 
 
 He turned round and gazed at himself in an 
 oval Venetian mirror which was fixed to the wall 
 just behind him. His manner for a moment was 
 oddly absorbed as he examined his face, 
 s 6s 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " London life tells on one, I suppose," he said, 
 again turning. " We change, of course, in ap- 
 pearance as we go on." 
 
 His blue eyes seemed to be seeking something 
 in Mailing's Impenetrable face. 
 
 "Do you think," he said, " I am much altered 
 since we used to meet two years ago? It would 
 of course be natural enough if I were." 
 
 Mailing looked at him for a minute steadily. 
 
 " In appearance, you mean? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " To-night it seems to me that you have altered 
 a good deal." 
 
 "To-night?" said the curate, as if with anx- 
 iety. 
 
 " If there is any change, — and I think there is, 
 -I- it seems to me more apparent to-night than it 
 was when I saw you the other day." 
 
 Ellen, the maid, entered the room bearing a tray 
 on which was a soup-tureen. 
 
 " Oh, dinner ! " said Chichester. " Let us sit 
 down. You won't mind simple fare, I hope. 
 We are having soup, mutton, — I am not sure what 
 else." 
 
 " Stewed fruit, sir," interpolated Ellen. 
 
 "To be sure! Stewed fruit and custard. 
 Open the claret, Ellen, please." 
 
 66 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Have you been in these rooms long? " asked 
 Mailing, as they unfolded their napkins. 
 
 " Two years. All the time I have been at St. 
 Joseph's. The rector told me of them. The 
 curate who preceded me had occupied them." 
 
 " What became of him? " 
 
 " He has a living in Northampton now. But 
 when he left he had nothing in view." 
 
 " He was tired of work at St. Joseph's? " 
 
 " I don't think he got on with the rector." 
 
 The drip of the rain became audible outside, 
 and a faint sound of footsteps on the pavement. 
 
 " Possibly I shall not stay much longer," he 
 added. 
 
 " No doubt you '11 take a living." 
 
 " I don't know. I don't know. But, in any 
 case, I may not stay much longer — perhaps. 
 That will do, Ellen; you may go and fetch the 
 mutton. Put the claret on the table, please." 
 
 When the maid was gone, he added : 
 
 " One does n't want a servant in the room lis- 
 tening to all one says. As she was standing be- 
 hind me I had forgotten she was here. How it 
 rains to-night! I hate the sound of rain." 
 
 " It is dismal," said Mailing, thinking of his 
 depression while he had walked to Hornton 
 Street. 
 
 67 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Do you mind," said the curate, slightly low- 
 ering his voice, " if I speak rather — rather con- 
 fidentially to you ? " 
 
 " Not at all, if you wish to — " 
 
 " Well, now, you are a man of the world, 
 you 've seen many people. I wish you would tell 
 me something." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 Ellen appeared with the mutton. As soon as 
 she had put it on the table and departed, Chiches- 
 ter continued: 
 
 "How does Mr. Harding strike you? What 
 impression does he make upon you? " 
 
 Eagerness, even more, something that was 
 surely anxiety, shone in his eyes as he asked the 
 question. 
 
 " He 's a very agreeable man." 
 
 " Of course, of course ! Would you say he was 
 a man to have much power over others, his fellow- 
 men? " 
 
 "Speaking quite confidentially — " 
 
 " Nothing you say shall ever go beyond us 
 two." 
 
 " Then — I don't know that I should." 
 
 " He does n't strike you as a man of power? " 
 
 "In the pulpit?" 
 
 " And out of it — especially out of it? " 
 68 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " He may have been. But — perhaps he has 
 lost in power. Dispersion, you know, does not 
 make for strength." 
 
 Suddenly the curate became very pale. 
 
 "Dispersion — you say!" he almost stam- 
 mered. 
 
 As if to cover some emotion, he looked at Mai- 
 ling's plate, and added: 
 
 "Have some more? You won't? Then — " 
 
 He got up and rang the bell. Ellen re- 
 appeared, cleared away, and put the stewed fruit 
 and custard on the table. 
 
 " Bring the coffee in ten minutes, Ellen. I 
 won't ring." 
 
 " Very well, sir." 
 
 " Dispersion," said Chichester to Mailing in 
 a firmer voice, as Ellen disappeared. 
 
 " Concentration makes for strength. Mr. 
 Harding seems to me mentally — what shall I 
 say? — rather torn in pieces, as if preyed upon by 
 some anxiety. Now, if you '11 allow me to be 
 personal, I should say that you have greatly gained 
 in strength and power since I knew you two years 
 ago." 
 
 "You — you observe a difference?" asked 
 Chichester, apparently in great perturbation. 
 
 " A striking difference." 
 69 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " And — and would you say I looked a hap- 
 pier, as well as a — a stronger man? " 
 
 " I could n't with truth say that." 
 
 " Very few of us are happy," said Chichester, 
 with trembling lips. " Poor miserable sinners as 
 we are ! And we clergymen, who set up to direct 
 others — " he broke off. 
 
 He seemed greatly, strangely, moved. 
 
 " You must forgive me. I have had a very hard 
 day's work!" he murmured. "The coffee will 
 do me good. Let us sit in the armchairs, and 
 Ellen can clear away. I wish I had two sitting- 
 rooms." 
 
 He rang to make Ellen hurry. Till she came 
 Mailing talked about Italian pictures and looked 
 at the curate's books. When she had cleared 
 away, left the coffee, and finally departed, he sat 
 down with an air of satisfaction. Chichester did 
 not smoke, but begged Mailing to light up, and 
 gave him a cigar. 
 
 " Coffee always does one good," he said. " It 
 acts directly on the heart, and seems to strengthen 
 the whole body. I have had a trying day." 
 
 " You look tired," said Mailing. 
 
 The fact was that Chichester had never recov- 
 ered the color he had so suddenly lost when they 
 were discussing Mr. Harding. 
 
 70 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " It 's no wonder if I do," rejoined Chichester, 
 in a voice that sounded hopeless. 
 
 He drank some coffee, seemed to make a strong 
 effort to recover himself, and, with more energy, 
 said: 
 
 " I asked you here because I wanted to renew 
 a pleasant acquaintanceship, but also — you won't 
 think me discourteous, I know — because — well, 
 I had a purpose in begging you to come." 
 
 " Won't you tell me what it is? " 
 
 The curate shifted in his armchair, clasped and 
 unclasped his hands. A mental struggle was evi- 
 dently going, on within him. Indeed, during the 
 whole evening Mailing had received from him a 
 strong impression of combat, of confusion. 
 
 " I wanted to continue the discussion we began 
 at Mr. Harding's the other day. You remember, 
 I asked you not to tell him you were coming? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I think it 's best to keep certain matters 
 private. People so easily misunderstand one. 
 And the rector has rather a jealous nature." 
 
 Mailing looked at his companion without speak- 
 ing. At this moment he was so strongly inter- 
 ested that he simply forgot to speak. Never, even 
 at a successful sitting when, the possibility of 
 trickery having been eliminated, a hitherto hidden 
 
 71 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 truth seemed about to lift a torch in the darkness 
 and to illumine an unknown world," had he been 
 more absorbed by the matter in hand. Chiches- 
 ter did not seem to be struck by his silence, and 
 continued : 
 
 " And then not every one is fitted to compre- 
 hend properly certain matters, to see things in 
 their true light. Now the other day you said a 
 thing that greatly impressed me, that I have never 
 been able to get out of my mind since. You said, 
 ' Harm can never come from truth.' I have been 
 thinking about those words of yours, night and 
 day, night and day. Tell me — did you mean 
 them?" 
 
 The question came from Chichester's lips with 
 such force that Mailing was almost startled. 
 
 " Certainly I meant them," he answered. 
 
 "And if truth slays?" 
 
 " And is death the worst thing that can happen 
 to a man, or to an idea — some wretched fallacy, 
 perhaps, that has governed the minds of men, 
 some gross superstition, some lie that darkens 
 counsel? " 
 
 *' You think if a man lives by a lie he is better 
 dead?" 
 
 " Don't you think so?" 
 72 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " But don't we all need a crutch to help us along 
 on the path of life? " 
 
 " What ! You, a clergyman, think that it is 
 good to bolster up truth with lies? " said Mailing, 
 with genuine scorn. 
 
 " I did n't say that." 
 
 " You implied it, I think." 
 
 " Perhaps if you had worked among men and 
 women as much as I have you would know how 
 much they need. If you went abroad, say to Italy, 
 and saw how the poor, ignorant people live happily 
 oftentimes by their blind belief in the efficacy of the 
 saints, would you wish to tear it from them? " 
 
 *' I think we should live by the truth, and I 
 would gladly strike away a lie from any human 
 being who was using it as a crutch." 
 
 " / thought that once," said Chichester. 
 
 The words were ordinary enough, but there was 
 something either in the way they were said, or in 
 Chichester's face as he said them, that made Mai- 
 ling turn cold. 
 
 To cover his unusual emotion, which he was 
 ashamed of, and which he greatly desired to hide 
 from his companion, he blew out a puff of cigar 
 smoke, lifted his cup, and drank the rest of his 
 coffee. 
 
 73 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " May I have another cup? " he said. " It's 
 excellent." 
 
 The coffee-pot was on the table. Chichester 
 poured out some more. 
 
 " I will have another cup, too," he said. 
 " How it wakes up the mind." 
 
 He glanced at Mailing and added : 
 
 " Almost terribly sometimes." 
 
 " Yes. But — going back to our subject — 
 don't you still think that men should live by the 
 truth?" 
 
 " I think," began Chichester — " I think — " 
 
 It seemed as If something physical prevented 
 him from continuing. He swallowed, as if forc- 
 ing something down his throat. 
 
 " I think," he got out at last, " that few men 
 know how terrible the face of truth can be." 
 
 His own countenance was contorted as he spoke, 
 as if he were regarding something frightful. 
 
 " I think " — he turned right round in his chair 
 to confront Mailing squarely — " that you do not 
 know." 
 
 For the first time he completely dominated Mai- 
 ling, Chichester the gentle, cherubic clergyman, 
 whom Mailing had thought of as good, but weak, 
 and certainly as a negligible quantity. He domi- 
 nated, because at that moment he made Mailing 
 
 74 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 feel as if he had some great possession of knowl- 
 edge which Mailing lacked. 
 
 "And you?" said Mailing. "Do you 
 know?" 
 
 The curate's ligs worked, but he made no an- 
 swer. 
 
 Mailing was aware of a great struggle in his 
 mind, as of a combat in which two forces were 
 engaged. He got up, walked to the window, and 
 stood as if listening to the rain. 
 
 " If only Stepton were here ! " thought Mailing. 
 
 There was a truth hidden from him, perhaps 
 partly divined, obscurely half seen, but not thor- 
 oughly understood, as a whole invisible. Stepton 
 would be the man to elucidate It, Mailing thought. 
 It lured him on, and baffled him. 
 
 " How it rains ! " said the curate at last, with- 
 out turning. 
 
 He bent down and opened the small window. 
 The uneasy, almost sinister noise of rain in dark- 
 ness entered the room, with the soft smell of 
 moisture. 
 
 "Do you mind if we have a little air?" he 
 added. 
 
 " I should like it," said Mailing. 
 
 Chichester came back and sat down again 
 opposite Mailing. His expression had now quite 
 
 75 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 changed. He looked calmer, gentler, weaker, and 
 much more uninteresting. Crossing his legs, and 
 folding his thin hands on his knees, he began to 
 talk in his light tenor voice. And he kept the 
 conversation going on church music, sacred art in 
 Italy, and other eminently safe and respectable 
 topics till it was time for Mailing to go. 
 
 Only when he was letting his guest out into 
 the night did he seem troubled once more. He 
 clasped Mailing's hand in his, as if almost un- 
 aware that he was doing so, and said with some 
 hesitation : 
 
 " Are you — are you going to see the rector 
 again? " 
 
 " Not that I know of," said Mailing, speaking 
 the strict truth, and virtually telling a lie at the 
 same time. 
 
 For he was determined, if possible, to see Mr. 
 Harding, and that before very long. 
 
 " If I may say so," Chichester said, shifting 
 from one foot to another and looking down at 
 the rain-sodden pavement, " I would n't see 
 him." 
 
 " May I ask you why?" 
 
 " You may get a wrong impression. Two years 
 ago he was another man. Strangers, of course, 
 may not know it, not realize it. But we who 
 
 76 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 have lived with him do know it. Mr. Harding is 
 going down the hill." 
 
 There was a note of deep sadness in his voice. 
 Had he been speaking of himself, of his own de- 
 cadence, his tone could scarcely have been more 
 melancholy. 
 
 And for long Mailing remembered the look in 
 his eyes as he drew back to shut his door. 
 
 In the rain Mailing walked home as he had 
 come. But now it was deep in the night and his 
 depression had deepened. He was a self-reliant 
 man, and not easily felt himself small, though he 
 was not conceited. To-night he felt diminished. 
 The worm-sensation overcame him. That such a 
 man as Chichester should have been able to convey 
 to him such a sensation was strange, yet it was 
 from Chichester that this mental chastisement had 
 come. For a moment Chichester had towered, 
 and at that moment Mailing surely had dwin- 
 dled, shrunk together, like a sheet of paper ex- 
 posed to the heat of a flame. 
 
 But that Chichester should have had such an 
 effect on him — Mailing I 
 
 If Mr. Harding was going down the hill, Chi- 
 chester surely was not. He had changed dras- 
 tically since Mailing had known him two years 
 ago. In power, in force, he had gained. He 
 
 77 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 now conveyed the impression of a man ca- 
 pable, if he chose, of imposing himself on others. 
 Formerly he had been the wax that receives the 
 impress. But whereas formerly he had been a con- 
 tented man, obviously at peace with himself and 
 with the world, now he was haunted by some great 
 anxiety, by some strange grief, or perhaps even by 
 some fear. 
 
 " Few men know how terrible the face of the 
 truth can be." 
 
 Chichester had said that. 
 
 Was he one of the few men? 
 
 And was that why now, as Mailing walked 
 home in the darkness and rain, he felt himself 
 humbled, diminished? 
 
 For Mailing loved knowledge and thought men 
 should live by it. Had truth a Medusa face, still 
 would he have desired to look into it once, would 
 have been ready to endure a subsequent turning to 
 stone. 
 
 That Chichester should perhaps have seen what 
 he had not seen — that troubled him, even hum- 
 bled him. 
 
 Some words of Professor Stepton came back to 
 his mind: "If there's anything in it, develop- 
 ment will take place in the link." And those last 
 words: " If in doubt, study Lady Sophia." 
 
 78 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Mailing was in doubt. Why not follow Step- 
 ton's advice? Why not study Lady Sophia? 
 
 He resolved to do it. And with the resolve 
 came to him a sense of greater well-being. The 
 worm-sensation departed from him. He lifted his 
 head and walked more briskly. 
 
 79 
 
V 
 
 ON the night following the dinner in Hornton 
 Street, Mailing went to the Covent Garden 
 Opera House to hear " La Traviata." The well- 
 worn work did not grasp the attention of a man 
 who was genuinely fond of the music of Richard 
 Strauss, with its almost miraculous intricacies, and 
 who was willingly captive to Debussy. He looked 
 about the house from his stall, and very soon 
 caught sight of Lady Mansford, Lady Sophia's 
 sister-in-law, in a box on the Grand Tier. Mai- 
 ling knew Lady Mansford. He resolved to pay 
 her a visit, and as soon as the curtain was down, 
 and Tetrazzini had tripped before it, smiling not 
 unlike a good-natured child, he made his way up- 
 stairs, and asked the attendant to tap at a door on 
 which was printed, " The Earl of Mansford." 
 The man did so, and opened the door, showing 
 a domestic scene highly creditable to the much 
 maligned British aristocracy — Lord Mansford 
 seated alone with his wife, in evidently amicable 
 conversation. 
 
 After a few polite words he made Mailing sit 
 80 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 down beside her, and, saying he would have a 
 cigarette in the foyer, he left them together. 
 
 Lady Mansford was a pretty, dark woman, of 
 the slightly irresponsible and little-bird type. She 
 willingly turned her charmingly dressed head and 
 chirped when noticed, and she was generally no- 
 ticed because of her beauty. Now she chirped of 
 Ceylon, where Mailing had been, and then, more 
 vivaciously, of Parisian milliners, where she had 
 been. From these allied subjects Mailing led her 
 on to a slightly different topic — religion. 
 
 " I went to St. Joseph's last Sunday week," he 
 presently said. 
 
 " St. who — what? " said Lady Mansford, who 
 was busy with her opera-glasses, and had just no- 
 ticed that Lady Sindon, a bird-like rival of hers, 
 had changed the color of her hair, fortunately to 
 her — Lady Sindon's — disadvantage. 
 
 " To St. Joseph's, to hear your brother-in-law 
 preach." 
 
 " It does n't do at all," murmured Lady Mans- 
 ford. " It makes her look Chinese." 
 
 "You said—?" 
 
 " Mollie Sindon. But what were you talking 
 about? Do tell me." She laid down her glasses. 
 
 " I was saying that I went to church last Sunday 
 week." 
 
 « 8i 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " To hear your brother-in-law preach at St. 
 Joseph's." 
 
 " Marcus 1 " exclaimed Lady Mansford. 
 
 She pursed her lips. 
 
 " I don't go to St. Joseph's. Poor Sophy ! 
 I 'm sorry for her." 
 
 " I lunched with Lady Sophia after the service." 
 
 "Did you? Is n't it sad?" 
 
 " Sad! I don't quite understand? " said Mai- 
 ling, interrogatively. 
 
 " The change in him. Of course people say 
 it 's drink. Such nonsense ! But they must say 
 something, mustn't they? " 
 
 " Is Mr. Harding so very much changed? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say you did n't notice it? " 
 
 " I never met him till within the last fortnight." 
 
 " He 's transformed — simply. He might have 
 risen to anything, with his energy, his ambition, 
 and his connections. And now! But the worst 
 of it is no one can make out why it is. Even 
 Sophia and Isinglass — my husband, you know I 
 — have n't an idea. And it gets worse every day. 
 Last Sunday I hear his sermon was too awful, a 
 mere muddle of adjectives, such as one hears in 
 Hyde Park, I believe. I never liked Marcus par- 
 ticularly. I always thought him too autocratic, 
 
 82 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 too determined to dominate. He had that poor 
 little Mr. Chichester — his curate — completely 
 under his thumb. Mr. Chichester could n't call 
 his soul his own. He worshiped Marcus. But 
 now they say even he is beginning to think that his 
 god is of clay. What can it be? Do you think 
 Marcus is losing his mind? " 
 
 " Oh, I should hope not," returned Mailing, 
 vaguely. " Has it been going on long? " 
 
 " Oh, for quite a time. But it all seemed to 
 come on gradually — as things do, you know ! 
 Poor Sophy has always adored him, and given way 
 to him in everything. In her eyes all that he does 
 is right. She never says a word, I believe, but 
 she must be suffering the tortures of — you know ! 
 There 's Winnie Rufford coming in ! How aston- 
 ishingly young she looks. Were you at the Hunt- 
 ingham's ball? Well—" 
 
 Lady Mansford twittered no more about the 
 Harding' menage. But Mailing felt that his visit 
 had not been fruitless. 
 
 After the opera he went to a party in Gros- 
 venor Street where again he managed to produce 
 talk of the Hardings. It seemed that Lady Mans- 
 ford had not exaggerated very much. Among 
 those who knew the Hardings a change in the rec- 
 tor of St. Joseph's had evidently been generally 
 
 83 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 noticed. Mailing took in to supper a Mrs. 
 Armitage, a great friend of Lady Sophia's, and 
 she made no secret of the fact that Lady Sophia 
 was greatly distressed. 
 
 " I thought she would have been here to-night," 
 Mrs. Armitage said. " But she is n't. I suppose 
 she felt she couldn't face it. So many of his 
 congregation are here, or so many who were in his 
 congregation." 
 
 " The church was crammed to the doors last 
 Sunday week when he preached," observed Mai- 
 ling. 
 
 " Was it? Curiosity, I suppose. It certainly 
 can't have been the intellectual merit of the 
 sermon. I heard it was quite deplorable. But 
 last Sunday's, I was told, was worse still. No 
 continuity at all, and the church not full. People 
 say the curate, Mr. Chichester, who often preaches 
 in the evening, is making a great effect, completely 
 cutting out his rector. And he used to be almost 
 unbearably dull." 
 
 " Will you have a quail? " 
 
 " Please, You might give me two. My doc- 
 tor says if I sit up late — thank you ! " 
 
 " I 've never heard Mr. Chichester preach," 
 said Mailing. 
 
 84 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " He seems to have come on marvelously, to be 
 quite another man." 
 
 " Quite another man, does he? " 
 
 " Yes. It 's very trying for the Hardings nat- 
 urally. If it continues I think there will have to 
 be a change. I don't think things can go on as they 
 are. My friend Sophia won't be able to stand it." 
 
 " You mean — the contrast ? " 
 
 " Between her husband and Mr. Chichester, 
 She 's very highly strung and quite worships her 
 husband; though, between you and me, / think 
 rather in the slave spirit. But some women are 
 like that. They can't admire a man unless he 
 beats them. Not that Mr. Harding ever dreamed 
 of doing such a thing to Sophia, of course. But 
 his will had to be law in everything. You know 
 the type of man ! It 's scarcely my idea of what a 
 clergyman should be. I think a man who pro- 
 fesses to direct the souls of others should be more 
 gentle and unselfish, especially to his wife. An- 
 other quail ? Well, really, I think perhaps I will. 
 They are so absurdly small this season, are n't 
 they? There 's scarcely anything on them." 
 
 So that minute fraction of the world that knew 
 of the existence of the Hardings began to utter 
 itself concerning them, and Mailing was fortified 
 
 85 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 in his original belief which he had expressed to 
 Professor Stepton. 
 
 Among his many experiments made in connec- 
 tion with psychical research those which had 
 interested him the most had been those in which 
 the mystery of the human will had seemed to be 
 deeply involved. Mailing was essentially a psy- 
 chologist. And man was to him the great mys- 
 tery, because man contained surely something 
 that belonged to, that was lent to, man, as it were, 
 by another, the mind beyond, the anima mundi. 
 When Mailing drew mentally, or spiritually, very 
 near to any man, however rude, however humble, 
 he always had the feeling that he was approach- 
 ing holy ground. Hidden beneath his generally 
 imperturbable exterior, sunk beneath the surface 
 incredulity of his mind, there was the deep sense 
 of mighty truths waiting the appointed day of 
 proclamation. Surely, he often thought, if there 
 is God in anything, in the last rays of the sunset, 
 in the silence of night upon the sea, in the 
 waking of spring among the forests and the gar- 
 dens, in the song of the nightingale which knows 
 not lovers are listening, there is God in the will 
 of man. 
 
 And when he made investigations into the ac- 
 tion of will upon will, or of will — as it seemed — 
 
 86 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 upon matter, he was held, as he was not held by 
 the appearance of so-called spirit faces and spirit 
 forms, even when he could not connect these 
 with trickery which he knew how to expose. Per- 
 haps, however, his incredulity in regard to these 
 latter phenomena was incurable, though he did not 
 know it. For he knew nearly all the devices of 
 the charlatans. And when the so-called spirits 
 came, the medium was always entranced, that is, 
 apparently will-less, and so to Mailing not inter- 
 esting. 
 
 Now, from what Harding and Chichester had 
 said to him, and from what he had observed for 
 himself. Mailing believed that the two clergymen 
 must have had sittings together, probably with the 
 usual tremendous object of the ignorant amateur, 
 that merely of communicating with the other 
 world. Considering who the two men were. Mai- 
 ling believed that in all probability they had sat 
 alone and in secret. He also felt little doubt that 
 from Mr. Harding's brain had come the suggestion 
 of these practices, that his will had led Chichester 
 on to them. Although he had not known the 
 rector two years ago, he had gathered sufficient 
 testimony to the fact that he had been a man of 
 powerful, even perhaps of tyrannical, tempera- 
 ment, formed rather to rule than to be ruled. 
 
 87 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 He knew that Chichester, on the contrary, had 
 been gentle, kindly, yielding, and of somewhat 
 weak, though of very amiable, nature. The 
 physique of the two men accorded with these 
 former temperaments. Harding's commanding 
 height, large frame, big, powerful face and head, 
 rather hard gray eyes, even his large white teeth, 
 his bony, determined hands, his firmly treading 
 feet, suggested force, a dominating will, the ca- 
 pacity, and tlie intention, to rule. Henry Chi- 
 chester's fleshly envelop, on the other hand, cheru- 
 bic, fair, and delicate, his blue eyes, small bones, 
 the shape of forehead and chin, the line of the 
 lips, hinted at — surely more than that, surely 
 stated mildly — the existence within it of a nature 
 retiring, meek, and ready to be ruled by others. 
 No wonder if Chichester had been, as Lady Mans- 
 ford had said, completely under the rector's thumb, 
 no wonder if he had been unable to " call his soul 
 his own " and had " worshiped Marcus." 
 
 Yes, if there had been these secret sittings by 
 these two men, it was Harding who had persuaded 
 Chichester to take part in them. And what had 
 these sittings led to, what had been their result? 
 
 The ignorant outsider, the hastily skeptical, of 
 course would say that there could have been no 
 result. Mailing, knowing more, knew better. 
 
 88 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 He had seen strange cases of temporary confusion 
 of a man's will brought about by sittings, of what 
 had seemed temporary change even of a man's 
 nature. When a hitherto sane man goes mad he 
 often becomes the opposite of what he was. 
 Those whom he formerly loved he specially 
 singles out for hatred. That which he delighted 
 to do he shrinks from with horror. Once good- 
 natured, he is now of an evil temper, once gentle, 
 he is fiercely obstinate, once gay, he cowers and 
 weeps. So Mailing had known a man, while re- 
 taining his sanity, to be transformed by the ap- 
 parently trivial fact of sitting at a table with a 
 friend, and placing his hands upon it with the 
 hands of another man. He himself had sat with 
 an Oxford friend, — who in later sittings became 
 entranced, — and at the very first experiment this 
 man had said to him, " It 's so strange, now that 
 I am sitting with you like this I feel filled with 
 hatred toward you." This hatred, which had 
 come upon this man at every successive sitting, had 
 always faded away when the sitting was over. 
 But was it certain that the feelings generated in 
 sittings never persisted after they were broken 
 up ? Was it certain that in every case the waters 
 that had been mysteriously troubled settled into 
 their former stillness? 
 
 89 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Harding and Chichester, for instance! Had 
 the strong man troubled the waters of the weaker 
 man's soul, and were those waters still agitated? 
 That was perhaps possible. But Mailing thought 
 it was possible also, and he had suggested this to 
 Professor Stepton, that the weaker man had in- 
 fused some of his weakness, his self-doubtings, his 
 readiness to be affected by the opinion of others, 
 into his dominating companion. Mailing believed 
 it possible that the wills of the two clergymen, in 
 some mysterious and inexplicable way, had 
 mingled during their sittings, and that they had 
 never become completely disentangled. If this 
 wea"e so, the result was a different Harding from 
 the former Harding, and a different Henry Chi- 
 chester from the former Henry Chichester. 
 
 What puzzled Mailing, however, was the fact, 
 if fact it were, that the difference in each man was 
 not diminishing, but increasing. 
 
 Could they be continuing the sittings, if there had 
 ever been sittings ? All was surmise. As the pro- 
 fessor had said, he, Mailing, was perhaps de- 
 ducing a good deal from very little. And yet was 
 he? His instinct told him he was not. Yet there 
 might no doubt be some ordinary cause for the 
 change in Mr. Harding. Some vice, such as love 
 of drink, or morphia, something that disintegrates 
 
 90 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 a man, might have laid its claw upon him. 
 That was possible. What seemed to Mailing 
 much more unaccountable was the extraordinary 
 change in the direction of strength in Chichester. 
 And the relations between the two men, if Indeed 
 the curate had once worshiped his rector, were 
 mysteriously transformed. For now, was It not 
 almost as if something of Harding in Chichester 
 watched, criticized, Chichester in Harding? 
 
 But now — to study Lady Sophia ! For if there 
 was really anything in Mailing's curious supposi- 
 tion, the woman must certainly be strangely af- 
 fected. He remembered the expression In her 
 eyes when her husband was preaching, her manner 
 when she spoke of the curate as one of her hus- 
 band's swans. 
 
 And he longed to see her again. She had said 
 that she hoped he would come again to St. Joseph's 
 and to her house, but he knew well that any such 
 desire in her had arisen from her wounded pride in 
 her husband. She wished Mailing to know what 
 the rector could really do. When she thought 
 that the rector had recovered his former powers, 
 his hold upon the minds of men, then she would 
 invite Mailing to return to St. Joseph's, but not 
 before. 
 
 And when would that moment come ? 
 
 91 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 It might not come for weeks, for months. It 
 might never come. Mailing did not mean to 
 await it. Nevertheless he did not want to do any- 
 thing likely to surprise Lady Sophia, to lead her 
 to think that he had any special object in view in 
 furthering his acquaintance with her. 
 
 While he was casting about in his mind what 
 course to take, chance favored him. 
 
 Four days later, when he was strolling round 
 the rooms in Burlington House, he saw not far 
 in front of him the tall and restless figure of a 
 woman. She was alone. For some time Mailing 
 did not recognize her. She did not turn suiE- 
 ciently for him to see her face, and her almost 
 feverish movements, though they attracted and 
 fixed his attention, did not strike him as familiar. 
 His thought of her, as he slowly followed in the 
 direction she was taking, was, " What a difficult 
 woman that would be to live with ! " For the 
 hands were never still; the gait was uneasy; 
 nervousness, almost a sort of pitiful irritation, 
 seemed expressed by her every movement. 
 
 In the big room this woman paused before the 
 picture of the year, which happened to be a very 
 bad one, and Mailing, coming up, at last recog- 
 nized her as Lady Sophia Harding. 
 
 He took off his hat. She seemed startled, but 
 92 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 greeted him pleasantly, and entered into a discus- 
 sion of the demerits which fascinate the crowd. 
 
 "You prefer seeing pictures alone, perhaps?" 
 said Mailing, presently. 
 
 " Indeed I don't," she answered. " I was 
 coming to-day with my husband. We drove up 
 together. But at the last moment he thought he 
 remembered something, — some appointment with 
 Mr. Chichester, — and left me." 
 
 There were irony and bitterness in her voice. 
 
 " He said he 'd come back and meet me in the 
 tea-room presently," she added. 
 
 " Shall we go there and wait for him ? " asked 
 Mailing. 
 
 " But I 'm afraid I 'm taking up your time." 
 
 " I have no engagements this afternoon. I 
 shall enjoy a quiet talk with you." 
 
 " It 's very good of you." 
 
 They descended, and sat down in a quiet corner. 
 In the distance a few respectable persons were 
 slowly eating bath-buns with an air of fashion, 
 their duly marked catalogues laid beside them on 
 marble. 
 
 Far-off waiters, standing with their knees bent, 
 conversed in undertones. A sort of subterranean 
 depression, peculiar to this fastness of Burlington 
 House, brooded over the china and the provisions. 
 
 93 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " It reminds me of the British Museum tea- 
 room," said Lady Sophia. " Here Is tea ! What 
 a mercy! Modern pictures sap one's little 
 strength." 
 
 She looked haggard, and was obviously on the 
 edge of her nerves. 
 
 " Marcus might have come In," she added. 
 " But of course he would n't — or could n't." 
 
 " Does n't he care for pictures ? " 
 
 She slightly shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " He used to. But I don't know that he does 
 now." 
 
 " I suppose he has a tremendous amount to do." 
 
 " He used to do much more at Liverpool. If 
 a man wishes to come to the front he must n't sit 
 In an armchair with folded hands." 
 
 There was a sharp sound of criticism In her 
 voice which astonished Mailing. At the luncheon, 
 only about a fortnight ago, she had shown herself 
 plainly as the adoring wife, anxious for her hus- 
 band's success, nervously hostile to any one who 
 Interfered with it, who stood between him and the 
 homage of his world. Now Mailing noted, or 
 thought he noted, a change In her mental attitude. 
 He was Instantly oh the alert. 
 
 " I 'm sure that 's the last thing Mr. Harding 
 would do," he said. 
 
 94 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 She shot a glance at him out of her discontented 
 dark eyes. 
 
 " Are you? " she said. 
 
 And sarcasm crept in the words. She gave to 
 Mailing at this moment the impression of a woman 
 so strung up as to be not her natural self, so 
 tormented by some feeling, perhaps long repressed, 
 that her temperament was almost furiously seeking 
 an outlet, knowing instinctively, perhaps, that only 
 there lay its salvation. 
 
 " His record proves it," said Mailing, with se- 
 renely smiling assurance. 
 
 Lady Sophia twisted her lips. The Academy 
 tea was very strong. Perhaps it had been stand- 
 ing. She drank a little, pulled at her long gloves 
 restlessly, and looked at Mailing. He knew she 
 was longing to confide in somebody. If only he 
 could induce her to confide in him I 
 
 " Oh, my husband 's been a very active man," 
 she said. " Everybody knows that. But In this 
 modern world of ours one must not walk, or even 
 run along, one must keep on rushing along if 
 one intends to reach the goal." 
 
 " And by that you mean — ? " 
 
 " Mean ! The topmost height of your profes- 
 sion, or business, of whatever career you are In." 
 
 " You are ambitious," he said. 
 
 95 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Not for myself," she answered quickly. " I 
 have no ambition for myself." 
 
 " But perhaps the ambition to spur on another 
 successfully? That seems to me the truest, the 
 most legitimate ambition of the woman all men 
 worship in their hearts." 
 
 Suddenly tears started into her eyes. She was 
 sitting opposite Mailing, the tea-table between 
 them. Now she leaned forward across it. By na- 
 ture she was very sensitive, but she was not a self- 
 conscious, woman. She was not self-conscious now. 
 
 " It is much better to be selfish," she said earn- 
 estly. " That is where we women make such a 
 fatal mistake. Instead of trusting to ourselves, 
 of relying on ourselves, and of having a personal 
 ambition, we seek always another in whom we may 
 trust; we are unhappy till we rely on another; it 
 is for another we cherish, we hug, ambition. And 
 then, when all founders, we realize too late what 
 I dare say every man knows." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " That we women are fools — fools ! " 
 
 " For being unselfish? " 
 
 " For thinking we have power when we are im- 
 potent." 
 
 She made a gesture that was surely one of 
 despair. 
 
 96 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " No one — at any rate, no woman — has 
 power for another," she added, with almost terri- 
 ble conviction. " That is all a legend, made up 
 to please us, I suppose. We draw a sword against 
 darkness and think we are fighting. Is n't it too 
 absurd?" 
 
 With the last words she changed her tone, try- 
 ing to make it light, and she smiled. 
 
 " We take everything too seriously. That 's 
 the trouble ! " she said. " And men pretend we 
 take nothing seriously." 
 
 " Very often they don't understand." 
 
 "Oh, please say never!" she exclaimed. 
 " They never understand." 
 
 Suddenly Mailing resolved on a very bold stroke. 
 
 " But I 'm a man," he said, as if that obvious 
 fact shattered her contention. 
 
 " What has that got to do with it? " she said, 
 in obvious surprise. 
 
 " Because I do not understand." 
 
 For a moment she was silent. He thought he 
 read what was passing through her mind, as he 
 knew he had read her character. She was one of 
 those women who must be proud of their men, 
 who love to be ruled, but only by a conqueror, 
 who delight to sink themselves, but in power, not 
 in impotence. And now she was confronted by the 
 7 97 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 shipwreck not merely of her hopes, but also of 
 her belief. She saw a hulk drifting at the mercy 
 of the waves that, perhaps, would soon engulf it. 
 But she was not only despairing, she was raging 
 too. For she was a woman with nervous force 
 in her, and it is force that rages in the moments 
 of despair, seeking, perhaps unconsciously, some 
 means of action and finding none. 
 
 " Why should there not be some hope? " asked 
 Mailing, quietly. 
 
 " To-morrow is Sunday. If you go to morning 
 church at St. Joseph's, and then to evening church, 
 you will see if there is any hope." 
 
 " To evening church? " 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 She got up. 
 
 " You are going? " 
 
 " I must. Forgive me I " 
 
 She held out her hand. 
 
 "But—" 
 
 " No, don't come with me, please." 
 
 " If I go to St. Joseph's to-morrow, afterward 
 may I see you again? " 
 
 " If you think it 's worth while." 
 
 Her face twisted. Hastily she pulled down her 
 veil, turned away and left him. 
 
 98 
 
VI 
 
 MALLING went the next day to morning and 
 evening service at St. Joseph's. He was 
 not Invited to lunch In Onslow Gardens, and he 
 did not see Lady Sophia. On the whole, he was 
 glad of this. He had enough to keep In his 
 mind that day. The matter In which he was In- 
 terested seemed growing before his eyes, like a 
 thing coming out of the earth, but now beginning 
 to thrust Itself up Into regions where perhaps it 
 would eventually be hidden in darkness, with the 
 great company of mysteries whose unraveling is 
 beyond the capacity of man. 
 
 He had now, he felt sure, a clear comprehension 
 of Lady Sophia. Their short interview at Burling- 
 ton House had been Illuminating. She was a typi- 
 cal example of the Adam's-rib woman; that is, of 
 the woman who, intensely, almost exaggeratedly 
 feminine, can live In any fullness only through 
 another, and that other a man. Through Mr. 
 Harding Lady Sophia had hitherto lived, and had 
 doubtless, in her view, triumphed. Obviously a 
 woman not free from a nervous vanity, and a 
 
 99 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 woman of hungry ambition, her vanity and ambi- 
 tion had been fed by his growing notoriety, his 
 increasing success and influence. The rib had 
 thrilled with the body to which it belonged. 
 
 But that time of happy emotion, of admiration, 
 of keen looking forward, was the property of the 
 past. Lawn sleeves, purple, perhaps, — for who 
 is more hopeful than this type of woman in the 
 golden moments of life? — perhaps even an archi- 
 episcopal throne faded from before the eyes they 
 had gladdened — the eyes of faith in a man. 
 
 And a different woman was beginning to appear 
 — a woman who might be as critical as she had 
 formerly been admiring, a woman capable of be- 
 coming embittered. 
 
 On the Sunday of Mailing's visit to Onslow 
 Gardens, Mr. Harding's failure in the pulpit had 
 waked up in his wife eager sympathy and eager 
 spite, the one directed toward the man who had 
 failed, the other toward the man who, as Mailing 
 felt sure, had caused the failure. 
 
 In Burlington House that woman, whom men 
 with every reason adore, had given place to an- 
 other less favorable toward him who had been her 
 hero. 
 
 It seemed to Mailing as if in the future a strange 
 thing might happen, almost as if it must happen : it 
 
 lOO 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 seemed to him as if Chichester might convey his 
 view of his rector to his rector's wife. 
 
 " Study the link," Stepton had said. " There 
 will be development in the link." 
 
 Already the words had proved true. There 
 had been a development in Lady Sophia such as 
 Mailing had certainly not anticipated. Where 
 would it end? Again and again, as he listened 
 to the morning and evening sermons. Mailing had 
 asked himself that question; again and again he 
 had recalled his conversation at Burlington House 
 with Lady Sophia. 
 
 In the morning at St. Joseph's Mr. Harding 
 had preached to a church that was half filled; in 
 the evening Henry Chichester had preached to a 
 church that was full to the doors. And each of 
 the clergymen in turn had listened to the other, but 
 how differently! 
 
 Mr. Harding had ascended to the pulpit with 
 failure staring him In the face, and whereas on 
 the Sunday when Mailing first heard him he had 
 obviously fought against the malign Influence 
 which eventually had prevailed over him, this time 
 he had not had the vigor to make a struggle. Cer- 
 tainly he had not broken down. It might be said 
 of him, as it was once said of a nation, that he had 
 " muddled through." He had preached a very 
 
 lOI 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 poor sermon in a very poor way, nervously, indeed, 
 almost timidly, and with the manner of a man who 
 was cowed and hopeless. The powerful opti- 
 mism for which he had once been distinguished had 
 given way to an almost unhealthy pessimism, alien 
 surely to the minds of all believers, of all who pro- 
 fess to look forward to that life of which, as Tol- 
 stoi long ago said, our present life is but a dream. 
 Even when he was uttering truths he spoke them 
 as if he had an uneasy suspicion that they were 
 lies. At moments he seemed to be almost plead- 
 ing with his hearers to tolerate him, to " bear with 
 him." Indeed, several times during his disjointed 
 remarks he made use of the latter expression, 
 promising that his discourse should be a short one. 
 Very carefully he included himself among those 
 aware of sin, very humbly he declared the un- 
 worthiness of any man to set himself up as a 
 teacher and leader of others. 
 
 Now, humility is all very well, but if carried 
 to excess, it suggests something less than a man. 
 Mr. Harding almost cringed before his congrega- 
 tion. Mailing did not feel that his humility was 
 a pretense. On the contrary, it struck him as 
 abominably real, but so excessive as to be not nat- 
 ural in any thorough man in a normal condition of 
 mind and of body. It was the sort of humility 
 
 I02 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 that creates in the unregenerate a desire to offer 
 a good kicking as a corrective. 
 
 Very different was the effect created by Chi- 
 chester's sermon in the evening. Mailing, aware 
 though he had become of the great strengthening of 
 Chichester, was amazed when he heard him 
 preach. 
 
 Often it is said of a very fine preacher that he 
 preached as one inspired. Chichester preached as 
 one who knew. Never before had Mailing been 
 so impressed with the feeling that he was listening 
 to truth, absolute truth, as he was while he listened 
 to Chichester. There was something, though, 
 that was almost deadly about it. It pierced like a 
 lancet. It seared like a red-hot iron. It hum- 
 bled almost too much. Here was no exaggerated 
 humility, no pleading to be borne with, no cring- 
 ing, and no doubt. A man who knew was stand- 
 ing up, and, with a sort of indifference to outside 
 opinion that was almost frightening, was saying 
 some of the things he knew about men, women — 
 and surely God! 
 
 The subject was somewhat akin to that of the 
 first sermon of Mr. Harding which Mailing had 
 heard. The rector then had preached on self- 
 knowledge. The curate, now, preached on hy- 
 pocrisy. Incidentally he destroyed his rector's 
 
 103 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 sermon, flung it away on the scrap-heap, and 
 passed on. This was not done viciously^ but it 
 was done relentlessly. Indeed, that was the note 
 of the whole sermon. It was relentless, as truth 
 is relentless, as death is relentless. And besides 
 being terribly true, it was imaginative. But the 
 preacher almost succeeded in conveying the im- 
 pression to his congregation that what is generally 
 called imagination is really vision, that the true 
 imagination is seeing what is, but is often hidden, 
 knowing what is, but is often unknown. The 
 latter part of the sermon struck Mailing as very 
 unusual, even as very daring. 
 
 The preacher had spoken of the many varieties 
 of hypocrisy. Finally he drew a picture of a fin- 
 ished hypocrite. And the man lived as a man 
 lives in the pages of a great writer. One could 
 walk round him, one knew him. And then Chi- 
 chester treated him as the writer treats his crea- 
 tion ; he proceeded to show his hypocrite in action. 
 
 The man, happy, almost triumphant, — for he 
 now often looked upon himself with the eyes of 
 others who knew him not, — was walking to his 
 home on a winter's evening along a country road, 
 passing now and then rustics who respectfully 
 saluted him, neighbors who grasped his hand, chil- 
 dren who innocently smiled at him, women who 
 
 104 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 whispered that he was a fine fellow, the clergy- 
 man of his parish, who gave him God-speed upon 
 his way as to one who deserved that God should 
 speed him because his way was right. Snow was 
 upon the ground. Such light as there was began 
 to fade. It was evident that the night, which was 
 very still, was going to be very dark. And the 
 man stepped out briskly. Presently, at a lonely 
 part of the road, happening to look down, he saw 
 footprints in the freshly fallen snow. They were 
 of feet that had recently passed on the way he was 
 following. They had attracted, they continued to 
 attract, his attention, he knew not why. And as 
 he went on, his eyes were often upon them. 
 
 Presently he began to wonder about the feet 
 which had made the prints he saw. Did they be- 
 long to a man or a woman The prints were too 
 large to have been made by the feet of a child. 
 He gazed at them searchingly, and made up his 
 mind that it was a man who had recently trodden 
 this road. And what sort of man was it that thus 
 preceded him not very far away? He became 
 deeply engrossed with this question. His mind 
 revolved about this unknown traveler, floating for- 
 ward in surmises, till, by chance, he happened to 
 set his right foot in one of the, prints left in the 
 snow. His foot exactly filled it. This fact, he 
 
 105 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 knew not why, startled him. He stopped, bent 
 down, examined the snow closely, measured very 
 carefully his feet with the prints before him, now 
 rather faintly discerned in the gathering darkness. 
 The prints might have been made by his own feet. 
 Having ascertained this, and reflected for a mo- 
 ment, he went forward, now assailed by a growing 
 curiosity as to the personality and character of the 
 stranger. But perhaps he was not a stranger. 
 He might surely well be a neighbor, an acquaint- 
 ance, perhaps even a friend. The man meant, 
 if possible, to come up with him, whoever he was, 
 and he now hurried along with the intention of 
 joining the unknown whose footprints were the 
 same as his own. 
 
 At this point in his sermon Chichester paused 
 for a moment. And Mailing, who seldom felt 
 any thrill at a seance, and who had often remained 
 calmly watchful and alert during manifestations 
 which amazed or terrified others, was aware of a 
 feeling of cold, which seemed to pass like a breath 
 through his spirit. The congregation about him, 
 perhaps struck by the unusual form of the sermon, 
 remained silent and motionless, waiting. In his 
 stall sat the rector with downcast eyes. Mailing 
 could not at that moment discern his expression. 
 His large figure and important powerful head and 
 
 io6 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 face showed almost like those of a carven effigy 
 in the lowered light of the chancel. The choir- 
 boys did not stir, and the small, fair man in the 
 pulpit, raising his thin hands, and resting them 
 on the marble ledge, continued quietly, taking up 
 his sermon with a repetition of the last words 
 uttered, " whose footprints were the same as his 
 own." 
 
 Again the cold breath went through Mailing's 
 spirit. He leaned slightly forward and gazed at 
 Chichester. 
 
 For some time the man thus went onward, fol- 
 lowing the footprints in the snow, but not overtak- 
 ing any one, and becoming momentarily more 
 eager to satisfy his curiosity. Then, on a sudden, 
 he started, stopped, and listened. It had now 
 become very dark, and in this darkness, and the 
 great stillness of night, he heard the faint sound 
 of a footfall before him, brushing through the 
 crisp snow, which lay lightly, and not very deep, 
 on the hard highroad leading to the village on the 
 farther outskirts of which his house was situated. 
 He could not yet see any one, but he felt sure 
 that the person who made this faint sound was 
 no other than he in whose steps he had been tread- 
 ing. It would now be a matter of only a minute 
 or two to come up with him. And the man went 
 
 107 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 on, but more slowly, whether because he was now 
 certain of attaining his object or for some other 
 reason. 
 
 The sound of the footfall persisted, and was 
 certainly not far off. The prints in the snow were 
 so fresh that they seemed not quite motionless, 
 as if the snow were only now settling after the 
 pressure it had just suffered. The man slackened 
 his pace. He did not like the sound which he 
 heard. He began to feel as if he by whom it was 
 made would not prove a companion to his taste. 
 Yet his curiosity continued. There began within 
 him a struggle between his curiosity and another 
 sensation, which was of repugnance, almost of 
 fear. And so equal were the combatants that the 
 lights of the village were in sight, and he had not 
 decreased the distance between himself and the 
 other. Seeing the lights, however, his curiosity 
 got the upper hand. He slightly quickened his 
 pace, and almost immediately beheld the shape of 
 a man relieved against the night, and treading 
 onward through the snow. And as the sound of 
 the footsteps had been disagreeable to his nerves, 
 so the contours of the moving blackness repelled 
 him. He did not like the look of this man whose 
 footprints were the same as his own, and he de- 
 cided not to join him. But, moving rather cau- 
 
 io8 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 tiously, he gained a little upon him, in order to 
 make sure, if possible, whether or not he was a 
 neighbor or an acquaintance. 
 
 The figure seemed somehow familiar to our man, 
 indeed, oddly familiar. Nevertheless, he was una- 
 ble to identify it. As he followed it, more and 
 more certain did he become that he had seen it, that 
 he knew it. And yet — did he know it ? Had he 
 seen it? It was almost as if one part of him 
 denied while the other affirmed. He longed, yet 
 feared, to see the face. But the face never looked 
 back. And so, one at a little distance behind the 
 other, they came into the village. 
 
 Here a strange thing occurred. 
 
 There were very few people about, but there 
 were a few, and two or three of them, meeting 
 the person our man was following, greeted him 
 respectfully. But these same people, when imme- 
 diately afterward they encountered the other, who 
 had known them for years, and whom they of 
 course knew, showed the greatest perturbation; 
 one, a woman, even signs of terror. They gave 
 him no greeting, shrank from him as he passed, 
 and stared after him, as If bemused, when he was 
 gone by. Their behavior was almost incredible. 
 But he was so set on what was before him that he 
 stopped to ask no questions. 
 
 109 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 The village was a long one. Always one be- 
 hind the other, walking at an even pace, the two 
 men traversed it, approaching at last the out- 
 skirts, where, separated from the other habita- 
 tions, and surrounded by a garden in which the 
 trees were laden with snow, stood the house of the 
 man who now watched and followed, with a grow- 
 ing wonder and curiosity, combined with an ever- 
 growing repugnance, him who made the foot- 
 prints, who had been saluted by the villagers, 
 whose figure and general aspect seemed in some- 
 wise familiar to him, and yet whom he could not 
 recognize. Where could this person be going? 
 The man asked himself, and came to a resolve not 
 to follow on into the darkness of the open country, 
 not to proceed beyond his own home, of which 
 now he saw the lights, but to make an effort to see 
 the face of the other before the garden gate was 
 reached. 
 
 In this attempt, however, he was destined to be 
 frustrated. For as he determinedly quickened his 
 steps, so did the other, who gained the gate of the 
 garden, unlatched it, turned in, and walked on 
 among the trees going toward the principal door. 
 
 A visitor, then! The man paused by his gar- 
 den gate, whence he could see his house front, 
 with the light from the window of his own sit- 
 
 IIO 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 ting-room streaming over the porch. The 
 stranger stood before It, made a movement as if 
 searching In his pocket, drew out his hand, lifted 
 it. The door opened at once. He disappeared 
 within, and the door closed after him. 
 
 He had opened the door with a key. 
 
 The man at the gate felt overcome by a sen- 
 sation almost of horror, which he could not ex- 
 plain to himself. It was not that he was horrified 
 by the certainly extraordinary fact of some one 
 possessing a key to his house, and using it In this 
 familiar fashion. It was not even that he was 
 horrified at seeing a man, perhaps a stranger, 
 disappearing thus Into his home by night, unin- 
 vited, unexpected. What horrified him was that 
 this particular man, whose footprints he had fol- 
 lowed and measured with his foot, whose footfalls 
 he had heard, whose form he had seen outlined 
 against the night, should be within his house, 
 where his wife and his children were, and where 
 his venerable mother was sitting beside the fire. 
 That this man should be there! He knew now 
 that from the first moment when he had been 
 aware of his existence he had hated him, that his 
 subconscious mind had hated him. 
 
 But who was he? The natural thing would 
 have been to follow quickly Into the house, to see 
 
 III 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 who had entered, to demand an explanation. 
 But he could not do this. Why? He himself 
 did not know why. But he knew that he dared 
 not do this. And he waited, expecting he knew 
 not what; a cry, a summons, perhaps, some mani- 
 festation that would force him to approach. 
 
 None came. Steadily the lights shone from the 
 house. There was no sound but the soft fall of 
 a block of snow from an overladen fir branch In 
 the garden. The man began to marvel. Who 
 could this be whose familiar entry into his — his 
 home thus at night caused no disturbance ? There 
 were dogs within: they had not barked. There 
 were servants: apparently they had not stirred. 
 It was almost as if this stranger's permanence was 
 accepted by the household. A long, long time 
 had slipped by. 
 
 The man at length, making an almost fierce 
 effort, partly dominated the unreasoning sense of 
 horror which possessed him. He opened the 
 gate, stepped into the garden, and made his way 
 slowly and softly toward the house door. But 
 suddenly he stopped. Through the unshuttered 
 window of his sitting-room, the room in which for 
 years he had spent much of his time, in which he 
 had concocted many schemes to throw dust in the 
 eyes of his neighbors, and even of his own rela- 
 
 112 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 tives, In which he had learned very perfectly to 
 seem what he was not, and to hide what he really 
 was, he perceived the figure of a man. It crossed 
 the lighted space slowly, and disappeared with a 
 downward movement. He knew It was the man 
 he had been following and whom he had seen enter 
 his house. 
 
 For a long while he remained where he was on 
 the path of the garden. The night deepened 
 about him. A long way off, at the other end of 
 the village, a clock chimed the hours. In the cot- 
 tages the lights were extinguished. The few 
 loungers disappeared from the one long street van- 
 ishing over the snow. And the man never moved. 
 A numb terror possessed him. Yet, despite his 
 many faults and his life of evil, he had never 
 been physically a coward. Always the light shone 
 steadily from the window of his study, making a 
 patch of yellow upon the snow. Always the occu- 
 pant of the room must be seated tranquilly there, 
 like an owner. For no figure had risen, had re- 
 passed across the unshuttered space. 
 
 The man told himself again and again that he 
 must go forward till he gained the window, that 
 he must at least look Into the room; If he dared 
 not enter the house to confront the Intruder, to 
 demand an explanation. But again and again 
 8 113 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 something within him, which seemed to be a voice 
 from the innermost chamber of his soul, whis- 
 pered to him not to go, whispered to him to 
 leave the intruder alone, to let the intruder do what 
 he would, but not to approach him, above all, not 
 to look upon his face. And the man obeyed the 
 voice till a thing happened which roused in him 
 a powerful beast, called by many the natural 
 man. 
 
 He saw his wife, whom he loved in his way, 
 though he had tricked and deceived her again and 
 again, cross the window space, smiling, and dis- 
 appear with a downward movement, as the other 
 had disappeared. Then she rose into his range of 
 vision, and stood for a moment so that he could 
 see her clearly, smiling, talking, making little ges- 
 tures that he knew, carrying her hand to her face, 
 stretching it out, dropping It. Finally she lifted it 
 to her lips, half-closing her eyes at the same time, 
 took It away quickly, with a sort of butterfly mo- 
 tion, and vanished, going toward the left, where 
 the room door was. 
 
 So had she many and many a time bidden him, 
 her husband, good night. Instantly, with an im- 
 pulse which seemed combined of rage and terror, 
 both now full of a driving force which was irre- 
 sistible, the man sprang forward to the window, 
 
 114 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 seized the stone coping with his hands and stared 
 into his room. 
 
 Seated in a round chair at his writing-table, 
 by a lamp with a green shade, was the man who 
 had entered his house. He was writing busily in 
 a book with a silver clasp that could be locked 
 with a key, and he leaned a little over the table 
 with his head turned away. The shape of his 
 head, his posture, even the manner in which he 
 used his pen as he traced line after line in the 
 book, made an abominable impression upon the 
 man staring in at the window. But the face — 
 the face ! He must see that ! And he leaned for- 
 ward, trembling, but fiercely, and, pressing his own 
 face against the pane, he looked at the occupant 
 of his room as men look sometimes with their 
 souls. 
 
 The man at the table lifted his head. He laid 
 down the pen, blotted the book in which he had 
 been writing, shut it up, clasped it, locked it with 
 a tiny key, and put it carefully into a drawer of 
 the table, which also he locked. He got up, stood 
 for an instant by the table with one hand upon it, 
 then turned slowly toward the window, smiling, 
 as men smile to themselves when they are thinking 
 of their own ingenuities. 
 
 The man outside the window fell back into the 
 
 IIS 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 snow as if God's hand had touched him. He 
 had seen his own face I So he smiled sometimes 
 at the end of a day, when he had finished writing 
 down in his diary some of the hidden things of 
 his life. 
 
 He turned, and as the window through which 
 he had been looking suddenly darkened, he fled 
 away into the night. 
 
 When the lights, which at St. Joseph's were 
 always kept lowered during the sermon, once more 
 strongly illuminated the chancel, Mr. Harding 
 turned a ghastly face toward the pulpit. In the 
 morning Chichester had listened to him, as a man 
 of truth might listen to a man who is trying 
 to lie, but who cannot deceive him. In the even- 
 ing Mr. Harding had listened to Chichester — 
 how? What had been the emotions only shad- 
 owed faintly forth in that ghastly face ? 
 
 When Mailing got home, he asked himself why 
 Chichester had made such an impression upon his 
 mind. His story of the double, strange enough, 
 no doubt, in a sermon, could not surely have come 
 upon Mailing with any of the force and the in- 
 terest of the new. For years he had been familiar 
 with tales of ghosts, of voices, of appearances at 
 the hour of death, of doubles. Of course in the 
 sermon there had been a special application of the 
 
 ii6 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 story. It had been very short. Chichester had 
 suggested that if, as by a miracle, the average self- 
 contented man could look at himself with the eyes 
 of his soul full of subliminal self-knowledge and 
 with the bodily eyes, he would be stricken down by 
 a great horror. 
 
 And he had spoken as a man who knew. In- 
 deed, it seemed to Mailing that he had spoken as 
 might have delivered himself the man who had 
 followed his double through the snow, who had 
 looked in upon him by night from the garden, if he 
 had faced, instead of flying from, the truth; if 
 he had stayed, if he had persistently watched his 
 double leading the life he had led, if he had 
 learned a great lesson that perhaps only his double 
 could teach him. 
 
 But if the man had stayed, what would have 
 been the effect on the double? Mailing sat till 
 deep in the night pondef ing these things. 
 
 117 
 
VII 
 
 LADY SOPHIA had said to Mailing that if he 
 went to the two services at St. Joseph's on 
 the Sunday she would invite him to see her again. 
 She was as good as her word. In the middle of 
 the week he received a note from her, saying 
 she would be at home at four on Thursday, if he 
 was able to come. He went, and found her alone. 
 But as soon as he entered the drawing-room and 
 had taken her hand, she said: 
 
 " I am expecting Mr. Chichester almost imme- 
 diately. He 's coming to tea." 
 
 " I shall be glad to meet him," said Mailing, 
 concealing his surprise, which was great. 
 
 Yet he did not know why it should be. For 
 what more natural than that Chichester should be 
 coming ? 
 
 " I heard of you at St. Joseph's," Lady Sophia 
 continued. " A friend of mine, Lily Armitage, 
 saw you there. I did n't. I was sitting at the 
 back. I have taken to sitting quite at the back of 
 the church. What did you think of it? " 
 
 Ii8 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Do you wish me to be frank, and do you mean 
 the two sermons? " 
 
 She hesitated for an instant. Then she said: 
 
 " I do mean the sermons, and I do wish you to 
 be frank." 
 
 " I thought Mr. Chichester's sermon very re- 
 markable indeed." 
 
 " And my husband's sermon? " 
 
 Her lips twisted almost as if with contempt 
 when she said the words, " my husband's." 
 
 " Why does n't Mr. Harding take a long rest? " 
 said Mailing, speaking conventionally, a thing that 
 he seldom did. 
 
 " You think he needs one ? " 
 
 " He has a tiresome malady, I understand." 
 
 "What malady?" 
 
 " Does n't he suffer very much from nervous 
 dyspepsia ? " 
 
 She looked at him with irony, which changed al- 
 most instantly into serious reflection. But the 
 irony returned. 
 
 " Now and then he has a touch of it," she said, 
 " Very few of us don't have something. But we 
 have to go on, and we do go on, nevertheless." 
 
 " I think a wise doctor would probably order 
 your husband away," said Mailing, though Mr. 
 
 119 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Harding's departure was the last thing he desired 
 just then. 
 
 " Even if he were ordered away, I don't know 
 that he would go." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I don't think he would. I don't feel as if 
 he could get away," she said, with what seemed to 
 Mailing a sort of odd obstinacy. " In fact, I 
 know he 's not going," she abruptly added. " I 
 have an instinct." 
 
 Mailing felt sure that she had considered, per- 
 haps long before he had suggested it, this very 
 project of Mr. Harding's departure for a while 
 for rest, and that she had rejected it. Her words 
 recalled to his mind some other words of her 
 husband, spoken in Mr. Harding's study: " Surely 
 one ought to get out of such an atmosphere, to 
 get out of it, and to keep out of it. But how 
 extraordinary it is the difficulty men have in get- 
 ting away from things ! " 
 
 Perhaps Lady Sophia was right. Perhaps the 
 rector could not get away from the atmosphere 
 which seemed to be destroying him. 
 
 " I dare say he is afraid to trust everything to 
 his curates," observed Mailing, prosaically. 
 
 " He need n't be — now," she replied. 
 
 In that " now," as she said it, there lay surely 
 
 120 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 a whole history. Mailing understood that Lady 
 Sophia, suddenly perhaps, had given her husband 
 up. Since Mailing had first encountered her she 
 had cried, " Le roi est mort! " in her heart. The 
 way she had just uttered the word " now " made 
 Mailing wonder whether she was not about to 
 utter the supplementary cry, " Vive le rot! " 
 
 As he looked at her, with this wonder in his 
 mind, Henry Chichester came into the room. 
 
 There was an expression of profound sadness 
 on his face, which seemed to dignify it, to make it 
 more powerful, more manly, than it had been. 
 The choir-boy look was gone. Mailing of course 
 knew how very much expression can change a 
 human being; nevertheless, he was startled by the 
 alteration in the curate's outward man. It seemed, 
 to use the rector's phrase, that he had "shed his 
 character." And now, perhaps, the new charac- 
 ter, mysteriously using matter as the vehicle of its 
 manifestation, was beginning to appear to the eyes 
 of men. He showed no surprise at the sight of 
 Mailing, but rather a faint, though definite, pleas- 
 ure. The way in which Lady Sophia greeted him 
 was a revelation to Mailing, and a curious exhibi- 
 tion of feminine psychology. 
 
 She looked up at him from the low chair in 
 which she was sitting, gave him her left hand, and 
 
 121 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 said, " Are you very tired? " That was all. Yet 
 it would have been impossible to express more 
 clearly a woman's mental, not affectional, subjuga- 
 tion by a man, her instinctive yielding to power, 
 her respect for authority, her recognition that the 
 master of her master had come into the room. 
 
 Her " Vive le roil " was said. 
 
 Chichester accepted Lady Sophia's subtle 
 homage with an air of unconsciousness. His in- 
 terior melancholy seemed to lift him above the 
 small things that flatter small men. He acknowl- 
 edged that he was tired, and would be glad of tea. 
 He had been down in the East End. The rector 
 had asked him to talk over something with Mr. 
 Carlile of the Church Army. 
 
 " You mean that you suggested to the rector 
 that it would be wise to see Mr. Carlile," said 
 Lady Sophia. 
 
 " Is the rector coming in to tea? " asked Chi- 
 chester. 
 
 " Possibly he may," she replied. " He knew 
 Mr. Mailing was to be here. Did you tell him 
 you were coming? " 
 
 " No. I was not certain I should get away in 
 time." 
 
 " I think he will probably turn up." 
 
 A footman brought in tea at this moment, and 
 
 122 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Mailing told the curate he had heard him preach 
 in the evening of last Sunday. 
 
 " It was a deeply interesting sermon," he said. 
 
 " Thank you," said Chichester, very imper- 
 sonally. 
 
 The footman went away, and Lady Sophia 
 began to make tea. 
 
 " When I went home," Mailing continued, " I 
 sat up till late thinking it over. Part of it sug- 
 gested to my mind one or two rather curious specu- 
 lations." 
 
 " Which part? " asked Lady Sophia, dipping 
 a spoon into a silver tea-caddy. 
 
 " The part about the man and his double." 
 
 She shivered, and some of the tea with which 
 she had just filled the spoon was shaken out of it. 
 
 " That was terrible," she said. 
 
 " What were your speculations? " said Chiches- 
 ter, showing a sudden and definite waking up of 
 keen interest. 
 
 " One of them was this — " 
 
 Before he could continue, the door opened 
 again, and the tall and powerful form of the rector 
 appeared. And as the outer man of Chichester 
 seemed to Mailing to have begun subtly to change, 
 in obedience surely to the change of his inner man, 
 so seemed Mr. Harding a little altered physically, 
 
 123 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 as he now slowly came forward to greet his wife's 
 two visitors. The power of his physique seemed 
 to be struck at by something within, and to be 
 slightly marred. One saw that largeness can be- 
 come but a wide surface for the tragic exhibition 
 of weakness. As the rector perceived the presence 
 of Chichester, an expression of startled pain fled 
 over his face and was gone in an instant. He 
 greeted the two men and sat down. 
 
 " Have you just begun tea? " he asked, looking 
 now at his wife. 
 
 " We are just going to begin it," she replied. 
 " We are talking about the sermon of last Sun- 
 day." 
 
 " Oh," rejoined the rector. 
 
 He turned to Mailing. 
 
 " Did you come to hear me preach again? " 
 
 There was a note as of slight reassurance in his 
 voice. 
 
 " Mr, Chichester's sermon," said Lady Sophia. 
 
 " Oh, I see," said the rector. He glanced 
 hastily from one to the other of the three people 
 in the room, like a man searching for sympathy 
 or help. " What were you saying about our 
 friend Chichester's sermon?" he asked, with a 
 forced air of interest. 
 
 Lady Sophia distributed cups for tea. 
 124 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " I was speaking of that part of it which dealt 
 with the man who followed his double," said Mai- 
 ling. 
 
 " Ah? " said the rector. 
 
 He was holding his tea-cup. His hand trem- 
 bled slightly at this moment, and the china rattled. 
 He set the cup down on the small table before 
 him. 
 
 "You said," observed Chichester — toward 
 whom Lady Sophia immediately turned, with an 
 almost rapt air — " that it suggested some curious 
 speculations to your mind. I should very much 
 like to know what they were." 
 
 " One was this. Suppose the man in the gar- 
 den, who looked in upon his double, had not fled 
 away. Suppose he had had the courage to re- 
 main, and, in hiding — for the sake of argument 
 we may assume the situation to be possible — " 
 
 "Ah, indeed! And why not?" interrupted 
 Chichester. 
 
 His voice, profoundly melancholy, fell like a 
 weight upon those who heard him. And again 
 Mailing thought of him almost as some one set 
 apart from his fellows by some mysterious knowl- 
 edge, some heavy burthen of truth. 
 
 " — and in hiding had watched the life of his 
 double. I sat up speculating what effect such an 
 
 125 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 observation, terrible no doubt and grotesque, 
 would be likely to have on the soul of the watch- 
 ing man. But there was another speculation with 
 which I entertained my mind that night." 
 
 " Let us have it," said Chichester, leaning for- 
 ward, and, with the gesture characteristic of him, 
 dropping his hands down between his knees. 
 " Let us have it." 
 
 " Suppose the man to remain and, in hiding, to 
 watch the life of his double, what effect would 
 such an observation be likely to have upon the 
 double?" 
 
 Mailing paused. The rector, with an almost 
 violent movement of his big hand and arm, took 
 his cup from the table and drank his tea. 
 
 " It did n't occur to you, I suppose, when com- 
 posing your sermon to follow that train of 
 thought?" said Mailing to Chichester. 
 
 " No," replied the curate, slowly, and like one 
 thinking profoundly. " I was too engrossed with 
 the feelings of the man. But, then, you thought 
 of the double as a living man, with all the sensa- 
 tions of a man? " 
 
 " That was your fault," said Mailing. 
 
 " His fault ! " said Lady Sophia, with a sort of 
 latent sharpness, and laying an emphasis on the 
 second word. 
 
 126 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Certainly ; for making the narrative so vital 
 and human." 
 
 He addressed himself again to the curate. 
 
 " Did you not give to the double the attributes 
 of a man? Did you not make his wife come to 
 bid him good night, bend down to kiss him, waft 
 him a characteristic farewell? " 
 
 " It is true. I did," said Chichester, still speak- 
 ing like a man in deep thought. 
 
 " That was the most terrible part of all," said 
 Lady Sophia. In her voice there was an accent 
 almost of horror. " It sickened me to the soul," 
 she continued — " the idea of a woman bidding a 
 tender good night to an apparition." 
 
 " I took it as a man," said Mailing. 
 
 They had all three, strangely, left the rector out 
 of this discussion, and he seemed willing that it 
 should be so. He now sat back in his chair listen- 
 ing to all that was being said, somewhat as he had 
 listened to the sermon of Chichester, in a sort of 
 ghastly silence. 
 
 " How could a man's double be a man ? " said 
 Lady Sophia. 
 
 " We are in the region of assumption and of 
 speculation," returned Mailing, quietly, " a not 
 uninteresting region either, I think. The other 
 night for a whole hour, having assumed the double 
 
 127 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 man, I speculated on his existence, spied upon by 
 his other self. And you never did that? " 
 
 He looked at Chichester. 
 
 " When I was making my sermon I was en- 
 grossed by the thought of the watching man." 
 
 Mailing's idea had evidently laid a grip upon 
 Chichester's mind. 
 
 " Tell me what the double's existence would be, 
 according to you," he said. " Tell me." 
 
 "You imagined the lesson learnt by the man 
 so terrible that he fled away into the night." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Had he been strong enough to stay — " 
 
 "Strong enough!" Interposed Chichester. 
 " Better say, had he been obliged to stay." 
 
 " Very well. Given that compulsion. In my 
 imagination the double must have learnt a lesson, 
 too. If we can learn by contemplation, can we 
 not, must we not, learn by being contemplated? 
 Life is permeated by reciprocity. I can Imagine 
 another sermon growing out of yours of last Sun- 
 day." 
 
 " Yes, you are right — you are right," said Chi- 
 chester. 
 
 " The double, then, in my Imagination, would 
 gradually become uneasy under this secret obser- 
 vation. You described him as, his wife gone, slt- 
 
 128 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 ting down comfortably to write some account of 
 the hidden doings of his life, as, the writing fin- 
 ished, the diary committed to the drawer and safely 
 locked away, rising up to go to rest with a smile 
 of self-satisfaction. It seemed to me that, given 
 my circumstance of the persistent observation, a 
 few nights later matters would have been very dif- 
 ferent within that room. The hypocrite is happy, 
 if he is happy at all, when he is convinced that his 
 hypocrisy is successful. Take away that certainty, 
 and he would be Invaded by anxiety. Set any one 
 to watch him closely,, he would certainly suffer, if 
 he knew It." 
 
 " If he knew It! That is the point," said Chi- 
 chester. " You put the man watching the double 
 in hiding." 
 
 " There are Influences not yet fully understood 
 which can traverse space, which can touch not as 
 a hand touches, but as unmistakably. I imagined 
 the soul of the double touched in this way, the 
 waters troubled." 
 
 "Troubled! Troubled!" 
 
 It was Mr. Harding who had spoken, almost 
 lamentably. His powerfully shaped head now 
 drooped forward on his breast. 
 
 " I imagined," continued Mailing, " a sort of 
 gradual disintegration beginning, and proceeding, 
 9 129 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 in the double — a disintegration of the soul, if 
 such a thing can be conceived of." 
 
 His piercing eyes went from Chichester to 
 Harding. 
 
 " Or, no," he corrected himself. " Perhaps 
 that is an incorrect description of my — very im- 
 aginative — flight through speculation the other 
 night. Possibly I should say a gradual transfer- 
 ence, instead of disintegration of soul. For it 
 seemed to me as if the man who watched might 
 gradually, as it were, absorb into himself the soul of 
 the double, but purified. For the watcher has the 
 tremendous advantage of seeing the hypocrite liv- 
 ing the hypocrite's life, while the hypocrite is only 
 seen. Might not the former, therefore, conceiv- 
 ably draw in strength, while the other faded into 
 weakness? Ignorance is the terrible thing in life, 
 I think. Now the man who watched would re- 
 ceive knowledge, fearful knowledge, but the man 
 who was watched, while perhaps suffering first 
 uneasiness, then possibly even terror, would not, 
 in my conception, ever clearly understand. He 
 would not any longer dare at night to sit down 
 alone to fill up that dreadful diary. He would 
 not any longer perhaps — I only say perhaps — 
 dare to commit the deeds the record of which in 
 the past the diary held. But his lesson would be 
 
 130 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 one of fear, making for weakness, finally almost 
 for nothingness. And the other night I con- 
 ceived of him at last fading away in the gloom of 
 his room with the darkened window." 
 
 " That was your end I " said Mr. Harding, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 " Yes, that was my end." 
 
 " Then," said Chichester, " you think the lesson 
 men learn from being contemplated tends only to 
 destroy them? " 
 
 But Mailing, now with a smiling change to 
 greater lightness and ease, hastened to traverse 
 this statement. 
 
 " No, no," he replied. " For the contempla- 
 tion of a man by his fellow-men must always be 
 an utterly different thing from his own contempla- 
 tion by himself. For our fellow-men always re- 
 main in a very delightful ignorance of us. Don't 
 they, Lady Sophia? And so they can never de- 
 stroy us, luckily for us." 
 
 He had done what he wished to do, and he was 
 now ready for other activities. But he found it 
 was not easy to switch his companions off onto 
 another trail. Lady Sophia, now that he looked 
 at her closely, he saw to be under the Influence of 
 fear, provoked doubtless by the subject they had 
 been discussing. Chichester, also, had a look as 
 
 131 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 of fear in his eyes. As to the rector, he sat gazing 
 at his curate, and there had come upon his counte- 
 nance an expression of almost unnatural resolu- 
 tion, such as a coward's might wear if terror 
 forced him into defiance. 
 
 In reply to Mailing's half-laughing question, 
 Lady Sophia said: 
 
 " You 've studied all these things, have n't 
 you?" 
 
 " Do you mean what are sometimes called 
 occult questions ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "I have." 
 
 " And do you believe in them? " 
 
 " I 'm afraid I must ask you to be a little more 
 definite." 
 
 " Do you believe that there are such things as 
 doubles?" 
 
 " I have no reason to believe that there are, un- 
 less you include wrongly in the term the merely 
 physical replica. It appears to be established that 
 now and then two human beings are born who, 
 throughout their respective lives remain physically 
 so much alike that it is difficult, if not impossible, 
 to distinguish between them." 
 
 " I did n't mean only that," she said quickly. 
 132 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " You meant the double in mind and soul as 
 well as in body," said Chichester. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " How can one see if a soul is the double of an- 
 other soul? " said Mailing. 
 
 " Then you think such a story as Mr. Chiches- 
 ter related in his sermon all nonsense? " said Lady 
 Sophia, almost hotly, and yet, it seemed to Mai- 
 ling, with a slight lifting of the countenance, as if 
 relief perhaps were stealing through her. 
 
 " I thought it a legitimate and powerful inven- 
 tion introduced to point a moral." 
 
 " Nothing more than that? " said Lady Sophia. 
 
 Mailing did not reply; for suddenly a strange 
 question had risen up in him. Did he really think 
 it nothing more than that? He glanced at Chi- 
 chester, and the curate's eyes seemed asking him 
 to say. 
 
 The rector's heavy and powerful frame shifted 
 in his chair, and his voice was heard saying : 
 
 " My dear Sophy, I think you had better leave 
 such things alone. You do not know where they 
 might lead you." 
 
 There was in his voice a sound of forced author- 
 ity, as if he had been obliged to " screw himself 
 up " to speak as he had just spoken. Lady Sophia 
 
 133 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 was about to make a quick rejoinder when, still 
 with a forced air of resolution, Mr. Harding ad- 
 dressed himself to Chichester. 
 
 " Since I saw you this morning," he said, " I 
 find that I shall not be here next Sunday." 
 
 He looked about the circle at his wife and Mai- 
 ling. 
 
 " The doctor has ordered me away for a week, 
 and I 've decided to go." 
 
 His introduction of the subject had been abrupt. 
 As if almost in despite of themselves, Lady 
 Sophia and Mailing exchanged glances. Chiches- 
 ter said nothing. 
 
 " You can get on without me quite well, of 
 course," continued the rector. ^ 
 
 " Are you going to be away long? " said Chi- 
 chester. 
 
 "No; I think only for a week or so. The 
 doctor says I absolutely need a breath of fresh air." 
 
 Mailing got up to go. 
 
 " I hope you '11 enjoy your little holiday," he 
 said. " Are you going far? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. My doctor recommends Tan- 
 kerton on the Kentish coast. It seems the air 
 there Is extraordinary. When the tide Is down it 
 comes ofF the mud flats. A kind parishioner of 
 mine — " he turned slightly toward his wife: 
 
 134 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Mrs. Amherst, Sophy — has a cottage there and 
 has often offered me the use of it. I hope to 
 accept her offer now." 
 
 Lady Sophia expressed no surprise at the project, 
 and did not inquire whether her husband wished 
 her to accompany him. 
 
 But when she shook hands with Mailing, her 
 dark eyes seemed to say to him, " I was wrong." 
 
 And he thought she looked humbled. 
 
 135 
 
VIII 
 
 " ^^OULD you come down stay with me Satur- 
 V^ day till Monday all alone air delicious feel 
 rather solitary glad of your company Marcus 
 Harding Minors Tankerton Kent." 
 
 Such was the telegram which Evelyn Mailing 
 was considering on the following Friday afternoon. 
 The sender had paid an answer. The telegraph- 
 boy was waiting In the hall. Mailing only kept 
 him five minutes. He went away with this reply : 
 
 " Accept with pleasure will take four twenty 
 train at Victoria Saturday Mailing." 
 
 Mailing could not have said with truth that he 
 had expected a summons from Mr. Harding, yet 
 he found that he was not surprised to get It. The 
 man was in a bad way. He needed sympathy, he 
 needed help. That was certain. But whether he 
 could help him was more than doubtful. Mailing 
 thought. Perhaps, really, a doctor and the won- 
 derful air from the mud flats of Tankerton ! But 
 here Mailing found that a strong Incredulity 
 
 136 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 checked him. He did not believe that the rector 
 would be restored by a doctor's advice and a visit 
 to the sea. 
 
 That afternoon he went to Westminster, and 
 asked for Professor Stepton. 
 
 " He is away, sir," said the fair Scotch parlor- 
 maid. 
 
 " For long? " 
 
 " We don't know, sir. He has gone into Kent, 
 on research business, I believe." 
 
 Agnes had been for a long time in the profes- 
 sor's service, and was greatly trusted. The pro- 
 fessor had come upon her originally when making 
 investigations into " second sight," a faculty which 
 she claimed to possess. By the way she was also 
 an efficient parlor-maid. 
 
 " Kent! " said Mailing. " Do you know where 
 he is staying? " 
 
 " The address he left is the Tankerton Hotel, 
 Tankerton, near Whitstable-on-Sea, sir." 
 
 " Thank you, Agnes," said Mailing. 
 
 " It is a haunted house somewhere Birchmgton 
 way the professor is after, I believe, sir." 
 
 " Luck favors me ! " said Mailing to himself, 
 unscientifically, as he walked away from the house. 
 
 On the following day it was in a singularly ex- 
 pectant and almost joyously alert frame of mind 
 
 137 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 that he bought a first-class ticket for Whitstable- 
 on-Sea, which is the station for Tankerton. 
 
 He would involve Stepton in this affair. There 
 was a mystery in it. Mailing was now convinced 
 of that. And his original supposition did not sat- 
 isfy him. But perhaps Mr. Harding meant to 
 help him. Perhaps Mr. Harding intended to be 
 explicit. The difficulty there was that he also was 
 walking in darkness, as Mailing believed. His 
 telegram had come like a cry out of this darkness. 
 
 "Faversham! Faversham!" the fair Kentish 
 porters were calling. Only about twenty minutes 
 now I Would the rector be at the station ? 
 
 He was. As the train ran in alongside the 
 wooden platform, Mailing caught sight of the 
 towering authoritative figure. Was it his fancy 
 which made him think that it looked slightly 
 bowed, even perhaps a little shrunken ? 
 
 " Good of you to come I " said the rector in a 
 would-be hearty voice, but also with a genuine 
 accent of pleasure. " All the afternoon I have 
 been afraid of a, telegram." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Mailing, as they shook hands. 
 
 " Oh, when one is anxious for a thing, one does 
 not always get it. Ha, ha ! " 
 
 He broke into a covering laugh. 
 
 " Here is a porter. You 've only got this bag. 
 138 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Capital! I have a fly waiting. We go down 
 these steps." 
 
 As they descended, Mailing remarked: 
 
 " By the way, we have a friend staying here. 
 Have you come across him? " 
 
 " No, I have seen nobody — that is, no ac- 
 quaintance. Who is it? " 
 
 " Stepton." 
 
 " The professor down here I " exclaimed Mr. 
 Harding, as if startled. 
 
 " At the hotel, I believe. He 's come down to 
 make some investigation." 
 
 " I have n't seen him." 
 
 They stepped into the fly, and drove through 
 the long street of Whitstable toward the outlying 
 houses of Tankerton, scattered over grassy downs 
 above a quiet, brown sea. 
 
 " The air is splendid, certainly," observed Mai- 
 ling, drinking it in almost like a gourmet savoring 
 a wonderful wine. 
 
 " It must do me good. Don't you think so? " 
 
 The question sounded anxious to Mailing's 
 ears. 
 
 " It ought to do every one good, I should think." 
 
 " Here is Minors." 
 
 The fly stopped before a delightfully gay little 
 red doll's house — so Mailing thought of it — 
 
 139 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 standing in a garden surrounded by a wooden 
 fence, with the downs undulating about it. Not 
 far off, but behind it, was the sea. And the rector, 
 pointing to a red building in the distance, on the 
 left and much nearer to the beach, said : 
 
 " That is the hotel where the professor must be 
 staying, if he is here." 
 
 " I '11 go over presently and ask about him." 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. Harding. " Bring in the bag, 
 please, Jennings. The room on the right, at the 
 top of the stairs." 
 
 Mailing had believed in London that Mr. 
 Harding's telegram to him was a cry out of dark- 
 ness. That first evening in the cheerful doll's 
 house he knew his belief was well founded. 
 When they sat at dinner, like two monsters, Mai- 
 ling thought, who had somehow managed to insert 
 themselves into a doll's dining-room, it was obvi- 
 ous that the rector was ill at ease. Again and 
 again he seemed to be on the verge of some re- 
 mark, perhaps of some outburst of speech, and to 
 check himself only when the words were almost 
 visibly trembling on his lips. In his eyes Mailing 
 saw plainly his longing for utterance, his hesita- 
 tion; reserve and a desire to liberate his soul, the 
 one fighting against the other. And at moments 
 the whole man seemed to be wrapped in weakness 
 
 140 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 like a garment, the soul and the body of him. 
 Then, as a light may dwindle till it seems certain 
 to go out, all that was Marcus Harding seemed 
 to Mailing to dwindle. The large body, the pow- 
 erful head and face, meant little, almost nothing, 
 because the spirit was surely fading. But these 
 moments passed. Then it was as if the light 
 flared suddenly up again. 
 
 When dinner was over, Mr. Harding asked 
 Mailing if he would like to take a stroll. 
 
 " The sea air will help us to sleep," he said. 
 
 " I should like nothing better," said Mailing. 
 " Have n't you been sleeping well lately? " 
 
 " Very badly. We had better take our coats." 
 
 They put the coats on, and went out, making 
 their way to the broad, grassy walk raised above 
 the shingle of the beach. The tide was far down, 
 and the oozing flats were uncovered. So still, so 
 waveless was the brown water that at this hour it 
 was impossible to perceive where it met the brown 
 land. In the distance, on the right, shone the 
 lights of Heme Bay, with its pier stretching far 
 out into the shallows. Away to the left was the 
 lonely island of Sheppey, a dull shadow beyond 
 the harbor, where the oyster-boats lay at rest. 
 There were very few people about: some fisher- 
 lads solemnly or jocosely escorting their girls, who 
 
 141 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 giggled faintly as they passed Mr. Harding and 
 Mailing; two or three shopkeepers from Whit- 
 stable taking the air; a boatman or two vaguely 
 hovering, with blue eyes turned from habit to the 
 offing. 
 
 The two men paced slowly up and down. And 
 again Mailing was aware of words trembling upon 
 the rector's lips — words which he could not yet 
 resolve frankly to utter. Whether it was the in- 
 fluence of the faintly sighing sea, of the almost 
 sharply pure air, of the distant lights gleaming 
 patiently, or whether an influence came out from 
 the man beside him and moved him. Mailing did 
 not know ; but he resolved to do a thing quite con- 
 trary to his usual practice. He resolved to try to 
 force a thing on, instead of waiting till it came 
 to him naturally. He became impatient, he who 
 was generally a patient seeker. 
 
 " You remember our former conversations with 
 regard to Henry Chichester?" he said abruptly, 
 changing the subject of their discourse. 
 
 "Chichester? Yes — yes. What of him?" 
 
 " I wish to tell you that I think you are right, 
 that I think there is an extraordinary, even an 
 amazing, change in Chichester." 
 
 " There is, indeed," said Mr. Harding. " And 
 — and it will increase." 
 
 142 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 He spoke with a sort of despairing conviction. 
 
 " What makes you think so? " 
 
 " It must. It cannot be otherwise — unless — " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 "Yes," said Mailing; "unless—" 
 
 " A thing almost impossible were to happen." 
 
 " May I, without indiscretion, ask what that 
 is?" 
 
 " Unless he were to leave St. Joseph's, to go 
 quite away." 
 
 " Surely that would not be impossible ! " 
 
 " I often think it is. Chichester will not wish 
 to go." 
 
 " Are you certain of that? " asked Mailing, re- 
 membering the curate's remark in Horton Street, 
 that perhaps he would not remain at St. Joseph's 
 much longer. 
 
 The rector turned 'his head and fixed his eyes 
 upon Mailing. 
 
 " Has he said anything to you about leaving? " 
 he asked, suddenly raising his voice, as if under 
 the influence of excitement. " But of course he 
 has not." 
 
 " Surely it is probable that such a man may be 
 offered a living." 
 
 " He would not take it." 
 
 They walked on a few steps in silence, turned, 
 143 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 and strolled back. It was now growing dark. 
 Their faces were set toward the distant gleam of 
 the Heme Bay lights. 
 
 " I am not so sure," at length dropped out Mai- 
 ling. 
 
 " Why are you not so sure? " 
 
 " Why do you think Chichester's departure 
 from St. Joseph's impossible? " 
 
 Mailing spoke strongly to determine, if possible, 
 the rector to speak, to say out all that was in his 
 heart. 
 
 " Can I tell you?" Mr. Harding almost mur- 
 mured. " Can I tell you?" 
 
 " I think you asked me here that you might tell 
 me something." 
 
 " It is true. I did." 
 
 " Then — " 
 
 *' Let us sit down in this shelter. There is no 
 one in it. People are going home." 
 
 Mailing followed him into a shelter, with a 
 bench facing the sea. 
 
 " I thought perhaps here I might be able to 
 tell you," said Mr. Harding. " I am in great 
 trouble, Mr. Mailing, in great trouble. But I 
 don't know whether you, or whether any one, can 
 assist me." 
 
 144 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " If I may advise you, I should say — tell me 
 plainly what your trouble is." 
 
 " It began — " Mr. Harding spoke with a fal- 
 tering voice — " it began a good while ago, some 
 months after Mr. Chichester came as a curate to 
 St. Joseph's. I was then a very different man 
 from the man you see now. Often I feel really 
 as if I were not the same man, as if I were radi- 
 cally changed. It may be health. I sometimes 
 try to think so. And then I — " He broke off. 
 
 The strange weakness that Mailing had already 
 noticed seemed again to be stealing over him, like 
 a mist, concealing, attenuating. 
 
 " Possibly it is a question of health," said Mai- 
 ling, rather sharply. " Tell me how it began." 
 
 " When Chichester first joined me, I was a man 
 of power and ambition. I was a man who could 
 dominate others, and I loved to dominate." 
 
 His strength seemed returning while he spoke, 
 as if frankness were to him a restorative of the 
 spirit. 
 
 " It was indeed my passion. I loved authority. 
 I loved to be in command. I was full of ecclesi- 
 astical ambition. Feeling that I had intellectual 
 strength, I intended to rise to the top of the 
 church, to become a bishop eventually, perhaps 
 
 145 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 even something greater. When I was presented 
 to St. Joseph's, — my wife's social influence had 
 something to do with that, — I saw all the gates 
 opening before me. I made a great effect in Lon- 
 don. I may say with truth that no clergyman was 
 more successful than I was — at one time. My 
 wife spurred me on. She was immensely ambi- 
 tious for me. I must tell you that in marrying 
 me she had gone against all her family. They 
 thought mc quite unworthy of her notice. But 
 from the first time I met her I meant to marry her. 
 And as I dominated others, I completely domi- 
 nated her. But she, once married to me, was des- 
 perately anxious that I should rise in the world, 
 in order that her choice of me might be justified 
 in the eyes of her people. You can understand the 
 position, I dare say? " 
 
 " Perfectly," said Mailing. 
 
 " I may say that she Irritated my ambition, that 
 she stung It into almost a furious activity. 
 Women have great Influence with us. I thought 
 she was my slave almost, but I see now that she 
 also Influenced me. She worshiped me for my 
 immediate success at St. Joseph's. You may think 
 it very ridiculous, considering that I am merely 
 the rector of a fashionable London church, but 
 there was a time when I felt almost intoxicated by 
 
 146 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 my wife's worship of me, and by my domination 
 over the crowds who came to hear me preach. 
 Domination! That was my fetish! That was 
 what led me to — oh, sometimes I think it must 
 end in my ruin ! " 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Mailing, quietly. " Let 
 us see." 
 
 His words, perhaps even more his manner, 
 seemed greatly to help Mr. Harding. 
 
 " I will tell you everything," he exclaimed. 
 " From the first I have felt as if you were the 
 man to assist me, if any man could. I had always, 
 since I was an undergraduate at Oxford, — I was 
 a Magdalen man, — been interested in psychical 
 matters, and followed carefully all the proceed- 
 ings of the Society for Psychical Research. I had 
 also at that time, — in Oxford, — made some ex- 
 periments with my college friends, chiefly in con- 
 nection with will power. My influence seemed to 
 be specially strong. But I need not go into all 
 that. After leaving Oxford and taking orders, 
 for a long time I gave such matters up. I feared, 
 if I showed my strong Interest in psychical re- 
 search, especially if I was known to attend seances 
 or anything of that kind, it might be considered 
 unsuitable in a clergyman, and might injure my 
 prospects. It was not until Henry Chichester 
 
 147 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 came to St. Joseph's that I was tempted again into 
 paths which I had chosen to consider forbidden 
 to me. Chichester tempted me! Chichester 
 tempted me ! " 
 
 He spoke the last words with a sort of lamen- 
 table energy. 
 
 " Such a gentle, yielding man as he was ! " 
 
 " It was just that. He came under my influ- 
 ence at once, and showed it in almost all he said 
 and did. He looked up to me, he strove to model 
 himself upon me, he almost worshiped me. One 
 evening, — it was in the pulpit I — the idea shot 
 through my brain, ' I could do what I like with 
 that man, make of him just what I choose, use 
 him just as I please.' And I turned my eyes to- 
 ward the choir where Chichester sat in the last 
 stall, hanging on my words. At that instant I can 
 only suppose that what people sometimes call the 
 maladie de grandeur — the mania for power — 
 took hold upon me, and combined with my furtive 
 longing after research in those mysterious regions 
 where perhaps all we desire is hidden. Anyhow, 
 at that instant I resolved to try to push my influ- 
 ence over Chichester to its utmost limit, and by 
 illegitimate means." 
 
 "Illegitimate?" 
 
 " I call them so. Yes, yes, they are not legiti- 
 148 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 mate. I know that now. And he — but I dare 
 not think what he knows ! " 
 
 The rector was greatly moved. He half rose 
 from the bench on which they were sitting, then, 
 making a strong effort, controlled himself, sank 
 back, and continued: 
 
 " At that time, in the early days of his associa- 
 tion with me, Chichester thought that everything 
 I did, everything I suggested, even everything that 
 came into my mind, must be good and right. He 
 never dreamed of criticizing me. In his view, I 
 was altogether above criticism. And if I ap- 
 proached him with any sort of intimacy he was in 
 the greatest joy. You know, perhaps, Mr. Mai- 
 ling, how the worshiper receives any confidence 
 from the one he worships. He looks upon it as 
 the greatest compliment that can be paid him. I 
 resolved to pay that compliment to Henry Chi- 
 chester. 
 
 " You must know that although I had entirely 
 given up the occult practices — that may not be 
 the exact term, but you will understand what I 
 mean — I had indulged in at Oxford, I had never 
 relaxed my deep, perhaps my almost morbid in- 
 terest in the efforts that were being made by sci- 
 entists and others to break through the barrier 
 dividing us on earth from the spirit world. Al- 
 
 149 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 though I had chosen the career of a clergyman, — 
 alas ! I looked upon the church, I suppose, as little 
 more than a career I — I was not a very faithful 
 man. I had many doubts which, as clergymen 
 must, I concealed. By nature I suppose I had 
 rather an incredulous mind. Not that I was a 
 skeptic, but I was sometimes a doubter. Rather 
 than faith, I should have much preferred to have 
 knowledge, exact knowledge. Often I even felt 
 ironical when confronted with the simple faith we 
 clergymen should surely encourage, sustain, and 
 humbly glory in, whereas with skepticism, even 
 when openly expressed, I always felt some part of 
 myself to be in secret sympathy. I continued to 
 study works, both English and foreign, on psy- 
 chical research. I followed the experiments of 
 Lodge, William James, and others. Myers's 
 great work on human personality was forever at 
 my elbow. And the longer I was debarred — 
 self-debarred because of my keen ambition and 
 my determination to do nothing that could ever 
 make me in any way suspect in the eyes of those 
 to whom I looked confidently for preferment — 
 from continuing the practices which had such a 
 fascination for me, the more intensely I was 
 secretly drawn toward them. The tug at my soul 
 was at last almost unbearable. It was then I 
 
 150 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 looked toward Chichester, and resolved to take 
 him into my confidence — to a certain extent. 
 
 " I approached the matter craftily. I dwelt 
 first upon the great spread of infidelity in our days, 
 and the necessity of combating it by every legiti- 
 mate means. I spoke of the efforts being made 
 by earnest men of science — such men as Profes- 
 sor Stepton, for instance — to get at the truth 
 Christians are expected to take on trust, as it were. 
 I said I respected such men. Chichester agreed, 
 — when did he not agree with me at that 
 time? — but remarked that he could not help 
 pitying them for ignoring revelation and striving 
 to obtain by difficult means what all Christians 
 already possessed by a glorious and final deed 
 of gift. 
 
 " I saw that though Chichester was such a de- 
 voted worshiper of mine, if I wanted to persuade 
 him to my secret purpose, — no other than the ef- 
 fort, to be made with him, to communicate with 
 the spirit world, — I must be deceptive, I must 
 mask my purpose with another. 
 
 " I did so. I turned his attention to the sub- 
 ject of the human will. Now, at that time Chi- 
 chester knew that his will was weak. He consid- 
 ered that fact one of his serious faults. I hinted 
 that I agreed with him. I proposed to join with 
 
 151 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 him in striving to strengthen it. He envied my 
 strength of will. He looked up to me, worshiped 
 me almost, because of it. I drew his mind to the 
 close consideration of influence. I gave him two 
 or three curious works that I possessed on this 
 subject. In one of them, a pamphlet written by 
 a Hindu who had been partly educated at Oxford, 
 and whom I had personally known when I was an 
 undergraduate, there was a course of will-exercises, 
 much as in certain books on body-building there 
 are courses of physical exercises. I related to Chi- 
 chester some of the extraordinary and deeply in- 
 teresting conversations I had had with this Hindu 
 on the subject of the education of the will, and 
 finally I told a lie. I told Chichester that I had 
 gained my powerful will while at Oxford by draw- 
 ing it from my Hindu friend in a series of sittings 
 that wc two had secretly undertaken together. 
 This was false, because I had been born with a 
 strong, even a tyrannical, will, and I had never 
 sat with the Hindu. 
 
 " Chichester, though at first startled, was fasci- 
 nated by this untruth, and, to cut the matter short, 
 I persuaded him to begin with me a series of secret 
 sittings, in which I proposed to try to impart to 
 him, to infuse into him, as it were, some of my 
 undoubted power — the power which he daily 
 
 152 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 saw me exercising in the pulpit and over the minds 
 of men in my intercourse with them. 
 
 " What I really wished to do, what I meant to 
 do, if possible, was to use Chichester as a medium, 
 and to try through him to communicate with the 
 spirit world. I had taken it into my head — no 
 doubt you will say quite unreasonably — that he 
 must be entirely subject to my will in a sitting, and 
 that if I willed him to be entranced, it was certain 
 that he would become so. But my own entirely 
 selfish desires I concealed under the cloak of an 
 unselfish wish to give power to him. I even pre- 
 tended, as you see, to have a highly moral purpose, 
 though it is true I suggested trying to effect it in 
 an unconventional and very unecclesiastical man- 
 ner. 
 
 " Chichester, though, as I have said, at first 
 startled, of course eventually fell in with my view. 
 We sat together in his room at Hornton Street. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Mailing, some of what I have told 
 you may appear to be almost contradictory. I 
 have spoken of my maladie de grandeur as if it 
 were a reason why I wished to sit with Henry 
 Chichester, and then of my desire to communicate, 
 if possible, with the spirit world as my reason." 
 
 " I noticed that," observed Mailing, " and pur- 
 posed later to point it out to you." 
 
 153 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " How can I explain exactly? It Is so difficult 
 to unravel the web of motives in a mind. It was 
 my maladie de grandeur, I think, that made me 
 long to use my worshiper Chichester as a mere 
 tool for the opening of that door which shuts off 
 from us the region the dead have entered. My 
 mind at that time was filled with a mingled con- 
 ceit, amounting at moments almost to an intoxica- 
 tion, and a desire for knowledge. I reveled in 
 my power when preaching, but was haunted by 
 genuine doubts as to truth. My egoism longed 
 to make an utter slave of Chichester (I nearly 
 always lusted to push my influence to its limit). 
 But my desire to know made me conceive the push- 
 ing of it in a direction, In this instance, which 
 would perhaps gratify a less unworthy desire than 
 that merely of subjugating another. The two 
 birds and the one stone! I thought of them. I 
 loved the idea of making a tool. I loved also the 
 idea of using the tool when made. And I pre- 
 tended I had only Chichester's moral interest at 
 heart. I have been punished, terribly punished. 
 
 " We sat, as I say, in Hornton Street, secretly, 
 and of course at night. My wife knew nothing of 
 it. I made excuses to get away — parish matters, 
 meetings, work In the East End. I had no diffi- 
 culty with her. She thought my many activities 
 
 154 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 would bring me ever more and more into the pub- 
 lic eye, and she encouraged them. The people in 
 the house where Chichester lodged were simple 
 folk, and were ready to go early to bed, leaving 
 rector and curate discussing their work for the sal- 
 vation of bodies and souls. 
 
 " At first Chichester was reluctant, I know. I 
 read his thoughts. He was not sure that it was 
 right to approach such mysteries; but, as usual, I 
 dominated him silently. And soon he fell com- 
 pletely under the fascination peculiar to sittings." 
 
 Again Mr. Harding paused. For a moment 
 his head sank, his powerful body drooped, he was 
 immersed in reverie. Mailing did not interrupt 
 him. At last, with a deep sigh, and now speaking 
 more slowly, more unevenly, he continued : 
 
 " What happened exactly at those sittings I do 
 not rightly know. Perhaps I shall never rightly 
 know. What did not happen I can tell you. In 
 the first place, although I secretly used my will 
 upon Chichester, desiring, mentally insisting, that 
 he should become entranced, he never was en- 
 tranced when we sat together. Something within 
 him — was it something holy? I have wondered 
 — resisted my desire, of which, so far as I know, 
 he was never aware. Perhaps ' beneath the 
 threshold ' he was aware. Who can say ? But 
 
 ^55 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 though my great desire was frustrated in our sit- 
 tings, the desire of Chichester, so different, per- 
 haps so much more admirable than mine, and, at 
 any rate, not masked by any deceit, began, so it 
 seemed, to be strangely gratified. He declared 
 almost from the first that, when sitting with me, 
 he felt his will power strengthened. ' You are 
 doing me good,' he said. Now, as my professed 
 object in contriving the sittings had been to lift 
 up Chichester toward my level," — with indescrib- 
 able bitterness Mr. Harding dwelt on these last 
 words, — " I could only express rejoicing. And 
 this I did with successful hypocrisy. Neverthe- 
 less, I was greatly irritated. For it seemed to me 
 that, when we sat, Chichester triumphed over me. 
 He obtained his desire while mine remained un- 
 gratified. This was an outrage directed against 
 my supremacy over him, which I had designed to 
 increase. I gathered together my will power to 
 check it. But in this attempt I failed. 
 
 " Nothing is stranger, I think, Mr. Mailing, 
 than the fascination of a sitting. Even when 
 nothing, or scarcely anything, happens, the mind, 
 the whole nature seems to be mysteriously grasped 
 and held. New senses in you seem to be released. 
 Something is alert which is never alert — or, at 
 all events, never alert in the same way — in other 
 
 156 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 moments of life. One seems to become inexplic- 
 ably different. Chichester was aware of all this. 
 At the first sitting nothing happened, and I feared 
 Chichester would wish to give the matter up. 
 But, no I When we rose from our chairs late in 
 the night he acknowledged that he had never 
 known two hours to pass so quickly before. At 
 following sittings there were slight manifestations 
 such as, I suppose, are seldom absent from such 
 affairs, — perfectly trivial to you, of course, — 
 movements of the table, rappings, gusts of what 
 seemed cold air, and so forth. All that is not 
 worth talking about, and I don't mean to trouble 
 you further with it. My difficulty is, when so 
 little, apparently, took place, to make you under- 
 stand the tremendous thing that did happen, that 
 must have been happening gradually during our 
 sittings. 
 
 " At the very first, as I told you, or nearly so, — 
 I wish to be absolutely accurate, — Chichester be- 
 gan to be aware of a strengthening of his will. 
 At this time I was' almost angrily unaware of any 
 change either in him or in myself. At subsequent 
 sittings — I speak of the earlier ones — Chi- 
 chester reiterated more strongly his assertion of 
 beneficent alteration in himself. I did not believe 
 him, though I did believe he was absolutely sin- 
 
 157 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 cere in his supposition. It seemed to me that he 
 was ' suggestioned,' partly perhaps by his implicit 
 trust in me, partly by his own desire that some- 
 thing curious should happen. However, still 
 playing a part in pursuance of my resolve not to 
 let Chichester know my real object in this matter, 
 I pretended that I, too, perceived an alteration in 
 him, as if his personality were strengthening. 
 And not once, but on several occasions, I spoke of 
 the change in him as almost exactly corresponding 
 with the change that had taken place in me when 
 I sat with my Hindu friend. 
 
 " All this time, with a force encouraged by the 
 secret anger within me, I violently, at last almost 
 furiously, willed that Chichester should become 
 entranced. 
 
 " But at length, though I willed furiously, I felt 
 as if I were not willing with genuine strength, as 
 if I could not will with genuine strength any 
 longer. It is diflScult, almost impossible, to ex- 
 plain to you exactly the sensation that gradually 
 overspread me; but it used always to seem to me, 
 when I self-consciously exerted my will, as if I 
 held within me some weapon almost irresistible, 
 as if I forced it forward, as if its advance, caused 
 by me, could not be withstood. I now felt as if 
 I still possessed this weapon, but could not induce 
 
 158 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 it to move. It was there, like a heavy, useless 
 thing, almost like a burden upon me. 
 
 " And Chichester continued to assert that he 
 felt stronger, more resolute, less plastic. 
 
 " Things went on thus till something within me, 
 what we call instinct, I suppose, became uneasy. 
 I heard a warning voice which said to me, ' Stop 
 while there is time ! ' And I resolved to obey it. 
 
 " One night, when very late Chichester and I 
 took our hands from the table in his little room, 
 I said that I thought we had had enough of the 
 sittings, that very little happened, that perhaps he 
 and I were not really en rapport, and that it 
 seemed to me useless to continue them. I suppose 
 I expected Chichester to acquiesce. I say I sup- 
 pose so, because till that moment he had always 
 acquiesced in any proposition of mine. Yet I re- 
 member that I did not feel genuine surprise at 
 what actually happened." 
 
 Mr. Harding stopped, took a handkerchief 
 from his pocket, lifted the brim of his hat, and 
 passed the handkerchief over his forehead two or 
 three times. 
 
 " What happened was this, that Chichester re- 
 sisted my proposal, and that I found myself 
 obliged to comply with his will instead of, as usual, 
 imposing mine upon him. 
 
 159 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " This was the beginning — " the rector turned 
 a little toward Mailing, and spoke in a voice that 
 was almost terrible in its sadness — " this was the 
 beginning of what you have been witness of, my 
 unspeakable decline. This was the definite begin- 
 ning of my horrible subjection to Henry Chi- 
 chester." 
 
 He stopped abruptly. After waiting for a 
 minute or two, expecting him to continue. Mailing 
 said: 
 
 " You said that you found yourself obliged to 
 comply with Chichester's will. Can you explain 
 the nature of that obligation? " 
 
 " I cannot. I strove to resist. We argued the 
 matter. He took his stand upon the moral ground 
 that I was benefiting him enormously through our 
 sittings. As I had suggested having them ostensi- 
 bly for that very purpose, you will see my diffi- 
 culty." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " My yielding seemed perfectly natural, perhaps 
 almost inevitable. The point is that, without 
 drastic change in me, it was quite unnatural. My 
 will was unaccustomed to brook any resistance, and 
 troubled itself not at all with argument. Till 
 then what I wished to do I did, and there was an 
 end. I now for the first time found myself 
 
 1 60 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 obliged to accept a moral bondage Imposed upon 
 me by my curate. The term may sound exag- 
 gerated; I can only say that was how the matter 
 presented itself to me. From the moment I did 
 so, I took second place to him. 
 
 " We continued to sit from time to time. And 
 the strange, to me inexplicable, situation rapidly 
 developed. 
 
 " To put it before you in few words and plainly : 
 Chichester seemed to suck my will away from me 
 gradually but surely, till my former strength was 
 his. But that was not all. With the growth of 
 his will there was another and more terrible 
 growth: there rose in him a curiously observant 
 faculty." 
 
 Again the rector took out his handkerchief and 
 wiped his brow. 
 
 " A curiously critical faculty. How shall I 
 say? Perhaps you may know, Mr. Mailing, how 
 the persistent attitude of one mind may influence 
 another. For instance, if a man always expects 
 ill of another — treachery, let us say, bad temper, 
 hatred, fear, inducing trickery, perhaps, that other 
 is turned toward just such evil manifestations in 
 connection with that man. If some one with 
 psychic force thinks all you do is wrong, soon you 
 begin to do things wrongly. A fearful uneasiness 
 " i6i 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 is bred. The faculties begin to fail. The for- 
 merly sure-footed stumbles. The formerly self- 
 confident takes on nervousness, presently fear. 
 
 " So It came about between Chichester and me. 
 I felt that his mind was beginning to watch me 
 critically, and I became anxious about this criti- 
 cism. Like some subtle acid it seemed to act de- 
 structively upon the metal, once so hard and 
 resistant, of my self-confidence, of my belief in 
 myself. Often I felt as if an eye were upon me, 
 seeing too much, far too much, coldly, inexorably, 
 persistently. This critical observation became 
 hateful to me. I suffered under it. I suffered ter- 
 ribly. Mr. Mailing, if I am to tell you all, — and 
 I feel that unless I do no help can come to me, — 
 I must tell you that I have not been in my life all 
 that a clergyman should be. There have been oc- 
 casions, and even since my marriage, when I have 
 yielded to impulses that have prompted me to act 
 very wrongly. 
 
 " Now, Chichester was a saint. Hitherto I had 
 neither been troubled by my own grave shortcom- 
 ings nor by Chichester's excellence of character. 
 I had always felt myself set far above him by my 
 superior mental faculties and my greater will 
 power over the crowd, though, alas! not always 
 over my own demon. I began to writhe now 
 
 162 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 under the thought of Chichester's crystal purity 
 and of my own besmirched condition of soul. All 
 self-confidence departed from me; but I endeav- 
 ored, of course, to conceal this from the world, 
 and especially from Chichester. With the world 
 for a time no doubt I succeeded. But with Chi- 
 chester — did I ever succeed ? Could I ever suc- 
 ceed with such an one as he had become? It 
 seemed to me, it seems to me far more terribly 
 now, that nothing I did, or was, escaped him. He 
 attended mentally, spiritually even, to everything 
 that made up me. At first I felt this curiously, 
 then anxiously, then often with bitter contempt and 
 indignation, sometimes with a great melancholy, 
 a sort of wide-spreading sadness in which I was 
 Involved as In an icy sea. I can never make you 
 fully understand what I felt, how this mental and 
 spiritual observation of Chichester affected me. 
 It — It simply ate me away, Mailing ! It simply 
 ate me away ! " 
 
 The last words came from Mr. Harding's lips 
 almost in a cry. 
 
 " And how long did you continue the sit- 
 tings ? " 
 
 Very quietly Mailing spoke, and he just touched 
 the rector's arm. 
 
 " For a long while." 
 
 163 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Had you ceased from them when I first met 
 you? " 
 
 " On Westminster Bridge? No." 
 
 " Have you ceased from them now? " 
 
 The rector shifted as if in physical distress. 
 
 " Chichester constrains me to them even now," 
 he replied, like a man bitterly ashamed. " He 
 constrains me to them. And is that goodness, 
 righteousness? I said he was a saint; but now! 
 Is it saintliness to torture a fellow-creature ? " 
 
 Mailing remembered how he had once, and not 
 long ago, asked himself whether Chichester's 
 mouth and eyes looked good. 
 
 " Have you ever told Chichester what grave 
 distress he is causing you? " said Mailing. 
 
 " No, never, never ! I can't I " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " A great reserve has grown up between us. I 
 could never try to break through it." 
 
 " You say a great reserve. But does he never 
 criticize you in words? Does he never express an 
 adverse opinion upon what you say or do? " 
 
 " Scarcely ever — after it is said or done. But 
 sometimes — " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Sometimes — often I think — he tries to pre- 
 vent me from saying or doing something. Often 
 
 164 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 he checks me with a look when I am In the midst 
 of some speech. It is intolerable. Why do I 
 bear it? But I have to bear it. Sometimes I 
 exert myself against him. Why, that first day I 
 met you — you must have noticed it — he tried to 
 prevent me from walking home with you." 
 
 " I did notice it." 
 
 " Then I resisted him, and he had to yield. 
 But even when he yields in some slight matter it 
 makes no difference in our relations. He is al- 
 ways there, at the window, watching me." 
 
 "What do you say?" 
 
 Mailing's exclamation was sharp. 
 
 " That sermon of his ! " said the rector. 
 " That fearful sermon ! Ever since I heard it I 
 have felt as if I were the double within that house, 
 as if Chichester were the man regarding my life 
 in hiding. Why you — you yourself put my feel- 
 ing into words ! You suggested to Chichester and 
 my wife that if the man had stayed, had spied 
 upon him who was within the room, the hypo- 
 crite — " 
 
 He broke off. He got up from his seat. 
 
 " Let us walk," he said. " I cannot sit here. 
 The air — the lights — let us — " 
 
 Almost as if blindly he went forth from the 
 shelter, followed by Mailing. 
 
 165 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " It 's better here," he said. " Better here I 
 Mr. Mailing, forgive me, but just then a hideous 
 knowledge seemed really to catch me by the throat. 
 Chichester is turning my wife against me. There 
 is a terrible change in her. She is beginning to ob- 
 serve me through Chichester's eyes. Till quite 
 recently she worshiped me. She noticed the alter- 
 ation in me, of course, — every one did, — but she 
 hated Chichester for his attitude toward me. Till 
 quite lately she hated him. Now she no longer 
 hates him ; for she begins to think he is right. At 
 first I think she believed the excuse I put forward 
 for my strange transformation." 
 
 " Do you mean your nervous affection? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Just tell me, have you any trouble of that 
 kind, or did you merely invent it as an excuse for 
 any failure you made from time to time? " . 
 
 " I used it insincerely as an excuse. But I 
 really do suffer from time to time physically. But 
 physical suffering is nothing. Why should we 
 waste a thought on such nonsense? " 
 
 " In such a strange case as this I believe every- 
 thing should be taken carefully into considera- 
 tion," observed Mailing in his most prosaic voice. 
 
 The rector's attention seemed to be suddenly 
 fixed and powerfully concentrated. The feverish 
 
 1 66 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 excitement he had been displaying gave place to a 
 calmer, more natural mood. 
 
 " Tell me," he said, " do you think your knowl- 
 edge can help me? I am aware that you have 
 made many strange investigations. Is there any- 
 thing to be done for me, anything that will restore 
 me to my former powers? Will you credit me 
 when I declare to you that it was only by making 
 a terrible effort that I was able to get away from 
 Chichester's companionship and to come down 
 here? If I had not said that I meant to do so 
 while you were in the room, I doubt if I should 
 ever have had the courage. There is something 
 inexplicable that seems to bind me to Chichester. 
 Sometimes there have been moments when I have 
 thought that he longed to be far away from me. 
 And it has seemed to me that he, too, would find 
 escape difficult, if not impossible." 
 
 " You wish very much that Chichester should 
 resign his curacy and go entirely out of your life? " 
 asked Mailing. 
 
 "Wish! " cried Mr. Harding, almost fiercely. 
 " Oh, the unutterable relief to me if he were to 
 go ! Even down here, away from him for a day 
 or two, I sometimes feel released. And yet — " 
 he paused in his walk — " I shall have to go back 
 — I know it — sooner than I meant to, very soon," 
 
 167 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 He spoke with profound conviction. 
 
 " Chichester will mean me to go back, and I 
 shall not be able to stay." 
 
 " And yet you say it has occurred to you that 
 possibly Chichester may be as anxious as yourself 
 to break away from the strange condition of things 
 you have described to me." 
 
 " Have you," exclaimed Mr. Harding — " have 
 you some reason to believe Chichester has ever 
 contemplated departure?" 
 
 Mailing moved slowly on, and the rector was 
 forced to accompany him. 
 
 " It has occurred to me," he said, evading the 
 point, " that possibly Henry Chichester might be 
 Induced to go out of your life." 
 
 " Never by me I I should never have the 
 strength to attempt compulsion with Chichester." 
 
 " Some one else might tackle him." 
 
 " Who ? " cried out Mr. Harding. 
 
 " Some man with authority." 
 
 " Do you mean ecclesiastical authority? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! I was thinking of a man like, 
 say. Professor Stepton." 
 
 As Mailing spoke, a curious figure seemed al- 
 most to dawn upon them, sidewlse, becoming visi- 
 ble gently in the darkness; a short man, with 
 hanging arms, a head poked forward, as If in 
 
 i68 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 sharp inquiry, and rather shambling legs, round 
 which hung loosely a pair of very baggy, light 
 trousers. 
 
 " And here is the professor I " said Mailing, 
 stopping short. 
 
 169 
 
IX 
 
 THAT night when, very late, Mr. Harding 
 and MaUing returned to the red doll's house 
 and let themselves into it with a latch-key, they 
 found lying upon the table in the little hall a brown 
 envelop. 
 
 " A telegram I " said the rector. 
 
 He took it into his hand and read the name on 
 the envelop. 
 
 " It 's for me. Mailing, do you know whom 
 this telegram is from? " 
 
 " How can I, or you, for that matter? " 
 
 "It is from Henry Chichester, and it is to re- 
 call me to London." 
 
 " It may be so." 
 
 " It is so. Open it for me." 
 
 Mailing took the telegram from him and tore 
 it open, while he sat heavily down by the table. 
 
 " Please return if possible difficulties in the 
 parish Benyon ill need your presence Chichester." 
 
 Mailing looked down at the rector. 
 " You see I " Mr. Harding said slowly. 
 170 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " What do you mean to do ? " 
 
 Mr. Harding got up from his chair with an 
 effort like that of a weary man. 
 
 "I wonder where the railway-guide is?" he 
 said. " Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Mailing." 
 
 He went away into the drawing-room, and re- 
 turned with the railway-guide open in his hand. 
 
 " Mailing," he said, using the greater famil- 
 iarity he had for a moment discarded, " I am about 
 to do a rude thing, but I ask you, I beg of you, to 
 acquit me of any rude intention toward yourself. 
 I have been looking up the Sunday trains. I find 
 I can catch a good one at Faversham to-morrow 
 morning. There is a motor I can hire in the town 
 to get there. It stands just by the post-office, 
 where the road branches." He paused, looking 
 into Mailing's face as if in search of some sign of 
 vexation or irony. " With a large parish on my 
 hands," he went on, " I have a great responsibility. 
 And if Benyon, my second curate, is ill, they will 
 be short-handed." 
 1 see. 
 
 "What distresses me greatly — greatly — is 
 leaving you, my guest, at such short notice. I can- 
 not say how I regret it." 
 
 He stopped. Purposely, to test him, Mailing 
 said nothing, but waited with an expressionless face. 
 
 171 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " I cannot say. But how can I do otherwise? 
 My duty to the parish must come before all 
 things." 
 
 " I see," said Mailing again. 
 
 Looking greatly disturbed, Mr. Harding con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " I will ask you to do me a very great favor. 
 Although I am obliged to go, I hope you will stay, 
 I entreat you to stay till Monday. The professor 
 is here. You will not be companionless. The 
 servants will do everything to make you comfort- 
 able. As to food, wine — everything is provided 
 for. Will you stay? I shall feel more at ease 
 in going if I know my departure has not shortened 
 your visit." 
 
 " It is very good of you," Mailing replied. 
 " I '11 accept your kind offer. To tell the truth, 
 I 'm in no hurry to leave the Tarikerton air." 
 
 " Thank you," said the rector, almost with fer- 
 vor. " Thank you." 
 
 So, the next morning, Mr. Harding went away 
 in the hired motor, and Mailing found himself 
 alone in the red doll's house. 
 
 He was not sorry. The rector's revelation on 
 the previous night had well repaid him for his 
 journey; then the air of Tankerton really rejoiced 
 him; and he would have speech of the professor. 
 
 172 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " I shall lay It before Stepton," he had said to 
 Mr. Harding the previous night, after they had 
 parted from the professor. 
 
 And he had spoken with authority. Mr. Har- 
 ding's confidence, his self-abasement, and his almost 
 despairing appeal, had surely given Mailing certain 
 rights. He intended to use them to the full. 
 The rector's abrupt relapse into reserve, his piti- 
 ful return to subterfuge, after the receipt of that 
 hypnotizing telegram, had not, in Mailing's view, 
 abrogated those rights. 
 
 When the motor disappeared, he strolled across 
 the grass with a towel and had a dip In the brown 
 sea, going In off the long shoal that the Whitstable 
 and Tankerton folk call " the Street." Then he 
 set out to find the professor. 
 
 His Interview with Stepton on the previous 
 night In the presence of Mr. Harding had been 
 rather brief. Stepton had been preoccupied and 
 monosyllabic. Agnes had been right as to his 
 reason for honoring the coast of Kent with his 
 company, but wrong as to the haunted house's loca- 
 tion. It was not in Birchlngton, but lay inland, 
 within easy reach of Tankerton. When he met 
 Mailing and Harding, the professor was going to 
 his hotel, where a motor was waiting to convey him 
 to the house, In which he intended to pass the 
 
 173 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 night. His mind was fixed tenaciously upon the 
 matter in hand. Mailing had realized at once that 
 it was not the moment to disturb him by the intro- 
 duction of any other affair, however interesting. 
 But his suggestion of a meeting the next morning 
 was thus welcomed : 
 
 " Right! I shall be at home at churchtime — 
 as you 're not preaching." 
 
 The second half of the sentence was directed to 
 Mr. Harding, who said nothing. 
 
 " And you might give me a cup of tea in the 
 afternoon," the professor had added, looking at 
 the rector rather narrowly before shambling off to 
 his hotel to get the plaid shawl which he often 
 wore at night. 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure. Minors is the 
 name of the house," had been Mr. Harding's re- 
 ply. 
 
 Whereupon the professor had vanished, mut- 
 tering to himself : 
 
 " Minors ! And why not Majors, if you come 
 to that? Perhaps too suggestive of heart-breaking 
 military men. Minors is safer in a respectable 
 seaside place." 
 
 The professor had been up all night, but looked 
 much as usual, and was eating a hearty breakfast 
 of bacon and eggs in the cheerful coffee-room when 
 
 174 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Mailing arrived. He scarcely ever ate at ortho- 
 dox hours, and had frequently been caught lunch- 
 ing at restaurants in London between four and 
 five in the afternoon. 
 
 "Where's the rector? At church?" was his 
 greeting. 
 
 " The rector has gone back to London," re- 
 plied Mailing, sitting down by the table. 
 
 "What about my cup of tea, then?" snapped 
 Stepton. 
 
 " I will be your host. I 'm here till to-mor- 
 row. Any interesting manifestations?" 
 
 " A rat or two and a hysterical kitchen-maid 
 seem to be the responsible agents in the building 
 up of the reputation of the house I kept awake 
 in last night." 
 
 " I believe I have a more interesting problem 
 for you." 
 
 The professor stretched out a sinewy hand. 
 
 "Cambridge marmalade! Most encoura- 
 ging ! " he muttered. " Have the reverend gentle- 
 men of St. Joseph's been at it again — success- 
 fully?" 
 
 " I want you to judge." 
 
 And thereupon Mailing laid the case faithfully 
 before the professor, describing not only the din- 
 ner in Hornton Street and his interview with Lady 
 
 175 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Sophia, but also the two sermons he had heard at 
 St. Joseph's, and the rector's lamentable outburst 
 of the previous night. This last, having a re- 
 markably retentive memory, he reproduced in the 
 main in Mr. Harding's own words, omitting only 
 the rector's reference to his moral lapses. During 
 the whole time he was speaking Stepton was closely 
 engaged with the Cambridge marmalade, and 
 showed no symptoms of attention to anything 
 else. When he ceased, Stepton remarked: 
 
 " Really, clergymen are far more to be de- 
 pended upon for valuable manifestations than a 
 rat or two and a hysterical kitchen-maid. Come 
 to my room. Mailing." 
 
 The professor had a bedroom facing the sea. 
 He led Mailing to It, shut the door, gave Mailing 
 a cane chair, sat down himself, in a peculiar, crab- 
 like posture, upon the bed, and said: 
 
 " Now give me as minute a psychological study 
 of the former and actual Henry Chichester as 
 you can." 
 
 Mailing complied with this request as lucidly 
 and tersely as he could, wasting no words. 
 
 " Any unusual change in his outward man since 
 you knew him two years ago ? " asked the profes- 
 sor, when he had finished. 
 
 Mailing mentioned the question as to the 
 176 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 curate's eyes and mouth which had risen in his 
 mind, and added: 
 
 " But the character of the man is so changed 
 that it may have suggestioned me into feeling 
 as if there were physical change in him, too." 
 
 " More than would be inevitable in any man in 
 a couple of years. And now as to his digestive 
 organs." 
 
 " Good heavens! " exclaimed Mailing. 
 
 The apparent vagaries of his companion very 
 seldom surprised him, but this time he was com- 
 pletely taken aback. 
 
 " Are they what they were ? Assuming, on 
 your part, a knowledge of what they were." 
 
 " I don't know either in what condition they are 
 now, or in what condition they were once." 
 
 "Ah! Now I must draw up a report about 
 last night. I '11 come for that cup of tea to 
 Minors — might almost as well have been Majors, 
 even granting the military flavor — about five." 
 
 Mailing took his departure; 
 
 At a quarter to five he heard the click of the 
 garden gate, and looking out at the latticed win- 
 dow of the hall, he saw the professor walking side, 
 wise up the path, with a shawl round his shoulders. 
 He went to let him in, and took him into the tiny 
 drawing-room. 
 
 177 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " An odd shell for Harding ! " observed the 
 professor. " More suitable to a bantam than to 
 a Cochin-China ! " 
 
 " It does n't belong to him." 
 
 " Nor he to it. Very wise and right of him to 
 go back to Onslow Gardens." 
 
 A maid brought in the tea, and the professor, 
 spread strangely forth in a small, chintz-covered 
 arm-chair, enjoyed it while he talked about oysters 
 and oyster-beds. He was deeply interested in the 
 oysters of Whitstable, and held forth almost ro- 
 mantically on their birth and upbringing, the fat- 
 tening, the packing, the selling, and the eating of 
 them — " with lemon, not vinegar, mind ! To 
 eat vinegar with a Whitstable native is as vicious 
 as to offer a libation of catchup at the altar of a 
 meadow mushroom just picked up out of the dew." 
 
 Mailing did not attempt to turn his mind from 
 edibles. The professor had to be let alone. 
 When tea was finished and cleared away, he ob- 
 served : 
 
 "And now. Mailing, what is your view? Do 
 you look upon it as a case of transferred person- 
 ality? I rather gathered from your general tone 
 that you were mentally drifting in that direction." 
 
 " But are there such cases? Of double transfer, 
 I mean ? " 
 
 178 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Personally I have never verified one. When 
 you spoke of the reverend gentlemen for the first 
 time, I said, ' Study the link I ' There will be de- 
 velopment in the link if — all the rest of it." 
 
 " There has been development, as I told you. 
 The link is on his side now." 
 
 " That 's remarkable, undoubtedly. Has it 
 ever struck you that Harding was almost too 
 successful a clergyman to be a genuinely holy 
 man? " 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " There 's a modesty in holiness that is hardly 
 adapted to catch smart women." 
 
 " You used to go to hear Harding preach." 
 
 " And d' you know why I liked his sermons? " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because he understood doubt so well. That 
 amused me. But the man who has such a compre- 
 hensive understanding of skepticism, is very seldom 
 a true believer. One thing, though, Harding 
 certainly does believe in, judging by a sermon I 
 once heard him preach." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " Manicheism. Chichester, you say, was a 
 saint? " 
 
 " He was, if a man can be a saint who has a 
 certain amiable weakness of character." 
 
 179 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " And now? You think he would be a difficult 
 customer to tackle now? " 
 
 " Harding finds him so." 
 
 " And Harding was an overwhelming chap, 
 cocksure of himself. Chichester must be difficult. 
 Shall I tackle him?" 
 
 " I wish you would. But how ? Do you wish 
 me to introduce him to you? " 
 
 " Let me see." 
 
 The professor dropped his head and remained 
 silent for a minute or two. 
 
 " Tell me something," he at length remarked, 
 lifting his head and assuming his most terrier-like 
 aspect. " Do you think Harding a whited 
 sepulcher? " 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " And do you think his saintly curate has found 
 it out?" 
 
 " Do you think that would supply a natural 
 explanation of the mystery? " 
 
 " Should you prefer to search for it in that 
 malefic region which is the abiding-place of nerv- 
 ous dyspepsia ? " 
 
 " How could — " 
 
 " Acute nervous dyspepsia, complicated by a 
 series of sittings under the rose, might eat away the 
 most brazen self-confidence. That 's as certain as 
 
 i8o 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 that I wear whiskers and you don't. Shall we do 
 an addition sum? Shall we add Chichester's dis- 
 covery of secret lapses in his worshiped rector's 
 life, to the nervous dyspepsia and the sittings? 
 Shall we do that?" 
 
 "And Lady Sophia?" 
 
 " There 's a sunflower type of woman. The 
 rising sun can't escape her inevitable worship." 
 
 " The change in Harding may be a natural one. 
 But there is something portentous in the change 
 in Chichester," said Mailing. " You know I 'm a 
 rather cool hand, and certainly not inclined to easy 
 credulity. But there 's something about Chi- 
 chester which — well, Professor, I '11 make a con- 
 fession to you that is n't a pleasant one for any man 
 to make. There 's something about Chichester 
 which shakes my nerves." 
 
 " And you have n't got nervous dyspepsia? " 
 
 "Should I be even a meliorist — as I am — if 
 I had?" 
 
 " I must know Chichester. It 's a pity I did n't 
 know him formerly." 
 
 " I don't beheve that matters," said Mailing, 
 with intense conviction. " There is that in him 
 which must strike you and affect you, whether you 
 knew him as he was or not." 
 
 " So long as I don't turn tail and run from him, 
 i8i 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 all 's well. I will tackle Chichester. In the in- 
 terests of science I will face this curate. But how 
 shall I approach him? As in golf, the approach 
 is much, if not everything." 
 
 He sat thinking for some minutes, with his eye- 
 brows twitching. Then he said: 
 
 " The question is, Should the approach be 
 casual or direct? Shall I describe a curve, or 
 come to him as the crow comes when making for 
 a given point — or is said to come, for I 've never 
 investigated that matter ? What do you say ? " 
 
 " It 's very difficult to say. On the day I dined 
 in Hornton Street, Chichester certainly wanted to 
 tell me something. He asked me to dine, I am al- 
 most sure, in order that he might tell it to me." 
 
 " About the sittings with Harding, no doubt." 
 
 " That, perhaps, and something more." 
 
 " But he told you nothing." 
 
 " Directly." 
 
 " Do you think he would be more or less likely 
 to unbosom himself now than he was then?" 
 
 " Less likely." 
 
 " You might give me his address." 
 
 Mailing did so. The professor wrote the ad- 
 dress down on a slip of paper, pinned the slip 
 carefully to the yellow lining of his jacket, and 
 then got up to go. 
 
 182 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 But Mailing detained him. 
 
 " Professor," he said, speaking with an unusual 
 hesitation, " you know why I told you all this." 
 
 " In the interests of science? " 
 
 " No, in the interest of that miserable man, 
 Marcus Harding. I want you to break the link 
 that binds him to Henry Chichester — if there is 
 one. I want you to effect his release." 
 
 " I 'm afraid you Ve come to the wrong man," 
 returned Stepton, dryly. " My object in entering 
 into this matter is merely to increase my knowl- 
 edge, not to destroy my chance of increasing it." 
 
 " But surely — " 
 
 " We shall never get forward if we move in the 
 midst of a fog of pity and sentiment." 
 
 Mailing said no more; but as he watched the 
 professor shambling to the garden gate, he felt as 
 if he had betrayed Marcus Harding, 
 
 183 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOON after Mailing had returned to London, 
 he received the following note from Mr. 
 Harding : 
 
 Onslow Gardens, June — th. 
 Dear Mr. Mailing: 
 
 I seem to have some remembrance of your saying to 
 me at. Tankerton that you wished to speak to Professor 
 Stepton with regard to a certain matter. I may be wrong 
 in my recollection. If, however, I am right, I now beg 
 you not to speak to the professor. I have, of course, 
 the very highest regard for his discretion ; nevertheless, 
 one must not be selfish. One must not think only of one's 
 self. I have obligations to others, and I fear, when we 
 were together at Tankerton, I forgot them. A word of 
 assurance from you that Professor Stepton knows noth- 
 ing of our conversation will set at rest the mind of 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Marcus Harding. 
 
 As soon as he had read this communication, 
 Mailing realized that he had been right in his 
 supposition that a new reserve was growing up in 
 Henry Chichester. He was aware of Chichester's 
 
 184 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 reserve in the letter of the rector. He was aware, 
 too, of the latter's situation as he had never been 
 aware of it before. Often a trifle illuminates a 
 life, as a search-light brings some distant place 
 from the darkness into a fierce radiance that makes 
 it seem near. So it was now. 
 
 " Poor Harding! " thought Mailing, with an 
 unusual softness. " But this letter comes too 
 late." 
 
 What answer should he return to the rector? 
 He hated insincerity, but on this occasion he 
 stooped to it. He had not only the fear of 
 Stepton upon him; he had also the desire not 
 to add to the deep misery of Marcus Harding. 
 This was his answer : 
 
 Cadogan Square, June — . 
 Dear Mr. Harding: 
 
 In reply to your letter, I will not now repeat our 
 conversation of the other evening to Professor Stepton. 
 He is, as you say, a man of the highest discretion, and 
 should you feel inclined yourself to take him into your 
 confidence at any time, I think you will not regret it. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Evelyn Mailing. 
 
 As he put this note into an envelope. Mailing 
 said to himself: 
 
 " Some day I '11 let him know I deceived him; 
 185 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 I '11 let him know I had already told the pro- 
 fessor." 
 
 Two or three days later Mailing heard of the 
 professor having been at a party in Piccadilly at 
 which Lady Sophia was a guest. 
 
 " And do you know, really," — Mailing's in- 
 formant, a lively married woman, concluded, — 
 " those old scientific men are quite as bad as any 
 of the boys who only want to have a good time. 
 The professor sat in Lady Sophia's pocket the 
 whole evening! Literally in her pocket! " 
 
 " I did n't know modern women had pockets," 
 returned Mailing. 
 
 " They don't, of course ; but you know what I 
 mean." 
 
 Mailing understood that the professor was be- 
 ginning his " approach." 
 
 A week went by, and at a man's dinner. Mailing 
 chanced to sit next to Blandford Sikes, one of the 
 most noted physicians of the day. In the course 
 of conversation the doctor remarked: 
 
 " Is your friend Stepton going to set up in Har- 
 ley Street? " 
 
 " Not that I know of," said Mailing. " What 
 makes you ask? " 
 
 " He came to consult me the other day, and 
 when I told him he was as sound as Big Ben he 
 
 i86 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 sat with me for over half an hour pumping me 
 unmercifully on the subject of nervous dyspepsia. 
 The patient who followed, and who happened to 
 be a clergyman, looked fairly sick when he was 
 let in at last." 
 
 Who happened to be a clergyman! Mailing 
 had longed to ask Blandford Sikes a question — 
 who that clergyman was. But he refrained. To 
 do so, would doubtless have seemed oddly inquisi- 
 tive. It was surely enough for him to know that 
 the professor was busily at work in his peculiar 
 way. And Mailing thought again of that " ap- 
 proach." Evidently the professor must be de- 
 scribing the curve he had spoken of. When would 
 he arrive at Henry Chichester? There were mo- 
 ments when Mailing felt irritated by Stepton's 
 silence. That it was emulated by Marcus Hard- 
 ing, Lady Sophia, and Henry Chichester did not 
 make matters easier for him. However, he had 
 deliberately chosen to put this strange ailair into 
 Stepton's hands. Stepton had shown no special 
 alacrity with regard to the matter. Mailing felt 
 that he could do nothing now but wait. 
 
 He waited. 
 
 Now and then rumors reached him of Marcus 
 Harding's fading powers, now and then he heard 
 people discussing one of Henry Chichester's " re- 
 
 187 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 markable sermons," now and then in society some 
 feminine gossip murmuring that " Sophia Hard- 
 ing seems to be perfectly sick of that husband of 
 hers. She probably wishes now that she had taken 
 all her people's advice and refused him. Of 
 course if he had been made a bishop! " 
 
 The season ended. Goodwood was over, and 
 Mailing went off to Munich and Bayreuth for 
 music. Then he made a walking-tour with friends 
 in the Oberammergau district, and returned to 
 England only when the ruddy banners of autumn 
 were streaming over the land. 
 
 Still there was no communication from the pro- 
 fessor. Mailing might of course have written to 
 him or sought him. He preferred to possess his 
 soul in patience. Stepton was an arbitrary per- 
 sonage, and the last man in the world to consent 
 to a process of pumping. 
 
 Meanwhile Stepton had forgotten all about 
 Mailing. He was full of work of various kinds, 
 but the work that most interested him was con- 
 nected with the reverend gentlemen of St. Joseph's. 
 As Mailing surmised, he had lost little time in be- 
 ginning his " approach," and that approach had 
 been rather circuitous. He had taken his own ad- 
 vice and studied the link. This done, the intricate 
 and fascinating subject of nervous dyspepsia had 
 
 i88 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 claimed his undivided attention. When he had 
 finished his prolonged interview with Blandford 
 Sikes, sidling back to the waiting-room to gather 
 up various impedimenta, he had encountered the 
 unfortunate clergyman whom he had kept waiting. 
 Marcus Harding was the man. They exchanged 
 only a couple of words, but the sight of the flaccid 
 bulk, the hanging cheeks and hands, the eyes in 
 which dwelt a sort of faded despair, whipped up 
 into keen alertness every faculty of the professor's 
 mind. As he walked into Cavendish Square he 
 muttered to himself : 
 
 " I never saw a clergyman look more promising 
 for investigation, by Jove 1 Never ! There 's 
 something in it. Mailing was not entirely wrong. 
 There 's certainly something in it." 
 
 But what? Now for Henry Chichester! 
 
 Stepton was by nature unemotional, but he was 
 an implicit believer in the hysteria of others, and he 
 thought clergymen, as a class, more liable to that 
 malady than other classes of men. Curates, be- 
 ing as a rule young clergymen, were, in his view, 
 specially subject to the inroads of the cloudy com- 
 plaint, which causes the mind to see mountains 
 where only mole-hills exist, and to appreciate any- 
 thing more readily and accurately than the naked 
 truth. Henry Chichester was young and he was 
 
 189 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 a curate. He was therefore likely to be emotional 
 and to be attracted by the mysterious, more es- 
 pecially since he had recently been knocking on 
 its door, according to Mailing's statement. 
 
 After a good deal of thought, the professor re- 
 solved to cast aside convention, and to make Chi- 
 chester's acquaintance without any introduction ; in- 
 deed, with the maximum of informality. 
 
 He learned something about Chichester's habits, 
 and managed to meet him several times when he 
 was walking from the daily service at St. Joseph's 
 to his rooms in Hornton Street. In this walk 
 Chichester passed the South Kensington Museum. 
 What more natural than that the professor should 
 chance to be coming out of it? 
 
 The first time they met, Stepton looked at the 
 curate casually, the second time more sharply, the 
 third time with scrutiny. He knew how to make 
 a crescendo. The curate noticed it, as of course 
 the professor intended. He did not know who 
 Stepton was, but he began to wonder about this 
 birdlike, sharp-looking man, who evidently took 
 an interest in him. And presently his wonder 
 changed into suspicion. This again accorded with 
 the professor's intention. 
 
 One day, after the even-song at St. Joseph's, 
 Stepton saw flit across the face of the curate, 
 
 190 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 whom he was meeting, a flicker of something 
 like fear. The two men passed each other, and 
 Immediately, like one irresistibly compelled, the 
 professor looked back. As he did so, Chichester 
 also turned round to spy upon this unknown. En- 
 countering the gaze of the professor, he started, 
 flushed scarlet, and pursued his way, walking with 
 a quickened step. 
 
 The professor went homeward, chuckling. 
 
 " To-day 's Tuesday," he thought. " By Satur- 
 day, at latest, he '11 have spoken to me. He '11 
 have to speak to me to relieve the tension of his 
 nerve-ganglions." 
 
 Chichester did not wait till Saturday. On Fri- 
 day afternoon, coming suddenly upon Stepton at a 
 corner, he stopped abruptly, and said : 
 
 " May I ask If you want anything of me? " 
 
 "Sir!" barked Stepton. "Mr. Chichester!" 
 
 " You know my name? " said the curate. 
 
 " And probably you know mine — Professor 
 Stepton." 
 
 A relief that was evidently intense dawned In 
 the curate's face. 
 
 "You are Professor Stepton! You are Mr. 
 Mailing's friend ! " 
 
 " Exactly. Good day." 
 
 And the professor marched on. 
 191 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Chichester did not follow, but the next day, on 
 the pavement not far from the museum, he stopped 
 once more in front of the professor with a " Good 
 afternoon." 
 
 " Good day," said Stepton. 
 
 " Since you know who I am," began the curate, 
 " and I have heard so much of you, I hope you 
 will forgive me for asking you something." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " What is it in me which has attracted your at- 
 tention?" 
 
 " I wish I knew," returned the professor. 
 
 " You wish you knew! Do you mean that you 
 don't know ? " 
 
 " I don't know at all." 
 
 " But — but — you — I was not wrong in feel- 
 ing sure that you were — that something in me had 
 aroused your attention? " 
 
 " Not wrong at all; but ' something ' is not the 
 word." 
 
 "What is the word?" 
 
 " Everything, Everything in you rouses my 
 attention, Mr. Chichester. But I can't think 
 why." 
 
 " Did you know I was Mr. Harding's curate the 
 first time you met me? " 
 
 " Yes ; I had seen vou at St. Joseph's once or 
 192 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 twice when I came to hear your rector preach. 
 You did n't interest me at all then, I 'm bound to 
 say." 
 
 Chichester stood in silence for a minute. Then 
 he said: 
 
 " I might walk a little way back with you, if 
 you have no objection." 
 
 Stepton jerked his head in assent. And so the 
 acquaintance of these two men was begun. Their 
 first conversation was a delight to the professor. 
 After a short silence the curate said: 
 
 " I could not help seeing each time we have met 
 how your attention was fastened upon me." 
 
 " Just so," rejoined Stepton, making no apology. 
 
 " And I really think," continued Chichester, 
 with a sort of pressure — " I really think I am en- 
 titled to ask for some explanation of the matter." 
 
 " Certainly you are." 
 
 " Well? " He paused, then said again, " Well, 
 Professor Stepton? " 
 
 " I 'm afraid I 've nothing to tell you, I like to 
 stick to facts." 
 
 " I only ask you for facts." 
 
 " The facts amount to very little. Coming 
 from the museum I ran across a man. You were 
 the man. My attention was riveted at once. I 
 said to myself, ' I must see that man again.' 
 
 '3 193 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Next day I took my chance. I had luck. You 
 were there at pretty much the same hour." 
 
 " I always come from St. Joseph's — " 
 
 " Exactly. And so it 's happened on several 
 days. And that 's all I have to tell you." 
 
 " But surely you can indicate why — " 
 
 " No, I can't. All I can say is that for some 
 reason, quite inexplicable by me, if I had come upon 
 you in a crowd of a thousand, I should have had 
 to attend to you." 
 
 " That 's very strange," said Chichester, in a 
 low voice; " very strange indeed." 
 
 " There 's a reason for it, of course. There 's 
 a reason for everything, but very often it is n't 
 found." At this point the professor thrust his 
 head toward Chichester, and added, " you can't 
 tell me the reason, I suppose ? " 
 
 Chichester looked much startled and taken aback. 
 
 "I— oh, no!" 
 
 " Then we must get along in the dark and make 
 the best of it." 
 
 Having said this, the professor abruptly dis- 
 missed the subject and began to talk of other 
 things. When he chose he could be almost charm- 
 ing. He chose on this occasion. And when at 
 last he hailed a bus, declaring that he was due at 
 home, Chichester expressed a hope that some day 
 
 194 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 he would find himself in Hornton Street, and visit 
 number 4a. 
 
 The professor assented, and was carried west- 
 ward. 
 
 Several days passed, but he did not find himself 
 near Horton Street, and he had ceased to visit the 
 South Kensington Museum. Then the curate 
 wrote and invited him to tea. Despite a pretence 
 at indifference in the phraseology of the note, the 
 professor discovered a deep anxiety in the writing. 
 Among other things he had studied, and minutely, 
 graphology. 
 
 He sat down and very politely refused the invita- 
 tion. 
 
 Then Chichester came to call on him, and caught 
 him at home. 
 
 It was six o'clock in the evening, and the heavens 
 were opened. Agnes, the Scotch parlor-maid who 
 claimed to have second sight, opened the door to 
 Chichester, who, speaking from beneath a drip- 
 ping umbrella, inquired for the professor. 
 
 " He 's in, sir, but he 's busy." 
 
 " Could you take him my card? " 
 
 Agnes took it, much to her own surprise, and 
 carried it to the professor's study. 
 
 " A gentleman, sir." 
 
 " I told you, Agnes — " 
 195 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " I could n't say no to him, sir." 
 
 " Why not? Here! " he took the card. 
 
 " Why not ? " he repeated, when he had read 
 the name. 
 
 " It was n't In me to, sir." 
 
 " Well, then I shall have to see him. Show 
 him up. But never again will I call you by the 
 proud name of Cerberus." 
 
 So, putting the onus upon Agnes, the professor 
 yielded, murmuring to himself : 
 
 " It was n't in her to! Very expressive! And 
 Cerberus, by the way, was always ready to let 'em 
 in. It was when they wanted to get out that — 
 Good evening. I hope you don't mind climbing." 
 
 " Thank you, no," said Chichester. 
 
 " Sit down." 
 
 " I am afraid I disturb you." 
 
 " I 'm bound to say you do. But what does it 
 matter ? " 
 
 " As you did n't find your way to Hornton 
 Street, I thought I would venture." 
 
 " Very good of you. This is a soft chair." 
 
 Chichester sat down. It had been evident to 
 Stepton from the moment when his visitor came in 
 that he was in great agony of mind. There was 
 in his face a sort of still and abject misery which 
 Stepton thought exceedingly promising. As he 
 
 196 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 turned round, leaning his sharp elbow on his writ- 
 ing-table, Stepton was considering how to exploit 
 this misery for the furthering of his purpose. 
 
 " I want you to tell me something," Chichester 
 began. " I want to know why your attention was 
 first attracted to me. I feel sure that you must 
 be able to give a reason. What is it? " 
 
 " Well, now, I wish I could," returned Stepton. 
 
 To himself he gave the swift admonition, 
 " Play for hysteria, and see what comes of it." 
 
 " I wish I could; but it 's a mystery to me. But 
 now — let 's see." 
 
 He knitted his heavy brows. 
 
 " A long while ago I picked a man out, met him 
 in a crowd, at the Crystal Palace, followed him 
 about, could n't get away from him. That same 
 evening he was killed on the underground. I read 
 of it in the paper, went to see the body, and there 
 was my man." 
 
 " Do you claim to have some special faculty? " 
 asked Chichester. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. Besides, you have n't been 
 killed on the underground — yet." 
 
 A curious expression that seemed mingled of 
 disappointment and of contempt passed across Chi- 
 chester's face. Stepton saw it and told himself, 
 " No hysteria." 
 
 197 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Possibly the reason may be a more intellectual 
 one," observed the professor. " I hear you have 
 been preaching some very remarkable sermons. I 
 have n't heard them. Still, others who have may 
 have ' suggestioned ' me. Three quarters of any 
 man's fame, you know, are due to mere sugges- 
 tion." 
 
 " You 're not the man to be the prey of that, I 
 fancy — not the easy prey, at any rate." 
 
 " Then we 're left again with no explanation at 
 all, unless, as I believe I hinted once before, you 
 can give us one." 
 
 Chichester looked down; without raising his 
 eyes he presently said in a constrained voice: 
 
 " If I were to give you one you might not ac- 
 cept it." 
 
 " Probably not," said Stepton, briskly. " In 
 my life I 've been offered a great many explana- 
 tions, and I 'm bound to say I 've accepted re^ 
 markably few." 
 
 Chichester looked up quickly, and with the air 
 of a man nettled. 
 
 " You '11 forgive me, I hope, for saying that you 
 I scientific men very often seem to have a great con- 
 tempt for those who are more mystically minded," 
 he observed. 
 
 " I 've hit the line ! " thought Stepton, with a 
 198 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 touch of exultation, as he dropped out a negli- 
 gent, " Forgive you — of course." 
 
 " I dare say it seems to you extraordinary that 
 any man should be able to be a clergyman, 
 genuinely believing what he professes and what he 
 preaches." 
 
 " Very few things seem to me extraordinary." 
 
 " Perhaps because you are skeptical of so much 
 in which others believe." 
 
 " That may be it. Quite likely." 
 
 " And yet is n't there a saying of Newton's, 
 ' A little science sends man far away from God, 
 a great deal of science brings man back to God ? ' 
 You '11 forgive the apparent rudeness. All I mean 
 is—" 
 
 " That the sooner I try to get more science the 
 better for me," snapped out Stepton, brusquely in- 
 terrupting his visitor, but without heat. " Let me 
 tell you that I pass the greater part of my time in 
 that very effort — to acquire more exact knowledge 
 than I possess. Well — now then ! Now then ! " 
 
 Turning round still more toward the curate he 
 looked almost as if he were about to " square up " 
 to him. A dry aggressiveness informed him, and 
 his voice had a rasping timbre as he continued: 
 
 " But I decline to take leaps in the dark like — " 
 Here he mentioned a well-known man of science — 
 
 199 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " and I decline to reject evidence like — " Here 
 he named a professor even more famous. 
 
 The mention of the last name evidently excited 
 Chichester's curiosity. 
 
 "What evidence has he rejected?" he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Last week he held a sitting to examine the 
 pretensions of Mrs. Groeber, the German medium. 
 Westcott was also present, a man on whose word 
 the very devil — if there is such a person, which 
 I don't yet know — would rely. Some apparently 
 remarkable phenomena occurred. — " Here he 
 mentioned the professor — " was convinced that 
 they could only have been brought about by super- 
 normal means. Unfortunately, or fortunately, 
 Westcott had seen the trickery which produced 
 them. When the seance was over he explained 
 
 what it was to . What did this so-called man 
 
 of science do? Refused to accept Westcott's evi- 
 dence, clung to his own ridiculous belief, — savage's 
 fetish belief, nothing more, — and will include the 
 Groeber manifestations as evidence of supernormal 
 powers in his next volume. And I say, I say " — 
 he raised his forefinger — " that clergymen are do- 
 ing much the same thing pretty nearly every day 
 of their lives. Seek for truth quietly, inexorably, 
 and you may get it ; but don't prod men into f alse- 
 
 200 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 hood, or try to, as you 've been trying to, in this 
 very room." 
 
 " I ! " cried out Chichester. 
 
 " You. I told you I had no reason to give you 
 as to why you attracted my attention in the street. 
 Were you satisfied with that? Not at all. You 
 must needs come here, — ^very glad to see you ! — 
 and say, ' I feel sure you must be able to give me 
 a reason. What is it ? ' You clamor for a lie. 
 And that 's what men are perpetually doing — 
 clamoring for lies. And they get 'em, from 
 clergymen, from mediums, from so-called scientific 
 men, and from the dear delightful politicians. 
 There now! " 
 
 And the professor dropped his forefinger and 
 flung himself back in his chair. 
 
 " And " — Chichester in his turn leaned forward, 
 but he spoke with some hesitation — " and suppose 
 I were to tell you a truth, a strange, an amazing 
 truth?" 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " Go on 1 " said the professor. 
 
 "Wouldn't you do just the opposite? You 
 say men accept lies. I say you would probably re- 
 ject truth." 
 
 " Cela depend. What you believed to be truth 
 might not be truth at all. It might be hysteria, 
 
 20I 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 it might be nervous dyspepsia, it might be over- 
 work, it might be a dozen things." 
 
 " Just what I say," exclaimed Chichester. 
 " Men of science delight in nothing so much as in 
 finding excuses for rejecting the greatest truths." 
 
 " Do you mean the greatest truths in the posses- 
 sion of Anglican clergymen? " 
 
 " I dare say you think it impossible that a 
 clergyman should know more than a scientific 
 man? " 
 
 " Oh, no. But he 's out for faith, and I hap- 
 pen to be out for facts. I like hard facts that can 
 be set down with a fountain-pen in my note-book, 
 and that, taken together, are convincing to all men 
 of reasonable, intellect. Very dull, no doubt; but 
 there you have it. Clergymen, as a rule, move in 
 what are called lofty regions — the realms of 
 heart, conscience, and what not. Now, I 'm very 
 fond of the region of gray matter — gray matter." 
 
 " And yet you are one of the chief of the in- 
 vestigators in the field of psychical research." 
 
 " Do you think there 's no room for pencil and 
 note-book there? What about Podmore, — 
 there 's a loss ! — and a dozen others ? Psychic 
 matters have got to be lifted out of the hands of 
 credulous fetish-worshiping fools, and the sooner 
 the better." 
 
 202 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " It 's easy to call people credulous," said Chi- 
 chester, with decided heat. " By being so readily 
 contemptuous, Professor Stepton, you may often 
 keep back evidence that might be of inestimable 
 value to your cause. A man in possession of a 
 great truth may keep it to himself for fear of be- 
 ing laughed at or called a liar." 
 
 " Then all I can say is that he 's a coward — 
 an arrant abject coward." 
 
 Chichester sat in silence. Again he was look- 
 ing down. Now that his eyes were hidden by 
 their drooping lids, and that he was no longer 
 speaking, the sadness of his aspect seemed more 
 profound. It dignified his rather insignificant 
 features. It even seemed, in some mysterious way, 
 to infuse power into his slight and unimportant 
 figure. After sitting thus for perhaps three 
 minutes he raised his head and got up from his 
 chair. 
 
 " I must not take up your time any longer," he 
 said. " It was very good of you to see me at all." 
 He held out his hand, which Stepton took, and ad- 
 ded, " I '11 just say one thing." 
 
 "Do!" 
 
 " It is n't always cowardice which causes a man 
 to keep a secret — a secret which might be of 
 value to the world." 
 
 203 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " I never said it was." 
 
 " No ; but still — you spoke just now of my 
 sermons. I preached one not very long ago which 
 I have typed myself. If I send it to you do you 
 think you could find time to read it ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " I will send it, then. Good night." 
 
 " I '11 come down with you." 
 
 The professor let Chichester out. The rain 
 was still falling in torrents. Shrouded in his 
 mackintosh, protected by his umbrella, the curate 
 walked away. Looking after him, Stepton 
 thought : 
 
 " Very odd! It isn't only in the face. Even 
 the figure, all covered up and umbrella-roofed, 
 seems to have something — he '11 send me the ser- 
 mon of the man and his double to-morrow." 
 
 And on the morrow that sermon came by the 
 first post. Having read it, the professqr promptly 
 returned it to Chichester with the following 
 note: 
 
 The White House, Westminster. 
 Dear Mr. Chichester: 
 
 Very glad to have had the opportunity of reading your 
 interesting discourse. If I had not known it was yours, 
 and a sermon, I should have said " a posthumous work of 
 Robert Louis Stevenson." It does credit to your imag- 
 
 204 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 ination. If you care to publish, I should suggest " The 
 Cornhill." I know nothing about their terms. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 G. R. E. Stepton. 
 
 By return of post, there came an urgent invita- 
 tion to the professor to visit Chichester's rooms in 
 Hornton Street, " to continue a discussion which 
 has a special Interest for me at this moment." 
 
 " Discussion! " thought Stepton, sitting down to 
 accept. " What my man wants is for me to goad 
 him into revelation; and I '11 do it." 
 
 The professor knew enough of psychology to be 
 aware that in the very depths of the human heart 
 there is a desire which may perhaps be called so- 
 cialistic — the desire to share truth with one's fel- 
 low-men. Chichester was scourged by this de- 
 sire. But whether what he wished to share was 
 truth, or only what he believed to be truth, was 
 the question. Anyhow, Stepton was determined to 
 make him speak. And he set off to Hornton 
 Street little doubting that he would find means to 
 carry his determination into effect. 
 
 He arrived about half-past five. He did not 
 turn the corner into Kensington High Street on 
 his homeward way until darkness had fallen, hav- 
 ing passed through some of the most extraordi- 
 nary moments that had ever been his. 
 
 205 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 When he was shown into the curate's sitting- 
 room, his first remark was : 
 
 " Sent that very interesting story to ' The Corn- 
 hiU'yet?" 
 
 " I don't think you quite understand, Professor," 
 replied Chichester. " I did not type it with a 
 view to sending it In anywhere for publication. 
 You '11 have tea with me, I hope ? Here it is, 
 all ready." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 "Oh, Ellen!" 
 
 Chichester went to the door, and Stepton heard 
 the words, " Nobody, you understand," following 
 on a subdued murmuring. 
 
 " And Mr. Harding, sir? " said the maid's voice 
 outside. 
 
 " Mr. Harding won't come to-day. That will 
 do, Ellen." 
 
 The professor heard steps descending. His host 
 shut the door and returned. 
 
 " You typed it for your own use? " said Stepton. 
 
 " That sermon? Yes. I wished to keep It by 
 me as a record." 
 
 He sat down, and poured out the tea. 
 
 " A record of an imagined experience. Exactly. 
 Then why not publish? " 
 
 " It is not fiction." 
 
 206 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " Well, It Is n't fact." 
 
 The professor drank his tea, looking at his host 
 narrowly over the cup. 
 
 " Do you say such an experience as that de- 
 scribed in my sermon Is impossible ? " 
 
 " Do you say it is possible ? " 
 
 " If I were to say so would you believe me? " 
 
 " Certainly not, unless I could make an investi- 
 gation and personally satisfy myself that what you 
 said was true. You would n't expect anything 
 else, I 'm sure." 
 
 " You can believe nothing on the mere word 
 of another? " 
 
 " Very little. I am an Investigator. I look for 
 proof." 
 
 " With your pencil In one hand, your note-book 
 in the other." 
 
 In Chichester's last remark there was a note of 
 sarcasm which thoroughly roused Stepton, for it 
 sounded like the sarcasm of knowledge addressed 
 to ignorance. Stepton had a temper. This 
 touch of superiority, not vulgar, but very definite, 
 fell on it like a lash. 
 
 " Now I '11 go for the reverend gentleman of 
 St. Joseph's ! " he thought. 
 
 And for a moment he forgot his aim in remem- 
 bering himself, Afterward, in thinking matter? 
 
 207 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 over, he offered a pinch of incense at the altar of 
 his egoism. 
 
 '' So, the modern clergyman still believes in slip- 
 slop, does he?" he exclaimed in his most aggres- 
 sive manner. " Even now has n't he learnt the 
 value of the matter-of-fact? The clergyman is 
 the doctor of the soul, is n't he ? And the doctor, 
 is n't he the clergyman of the body ? I wonder, 
 I do wonder, how long the average doctor would 
 keep together his practice if he worked with no 
 more precision than the average clergjmian. The 
 contempt of the pencil and note-book! The con- 
 tempt of proper care in getting together and co- 
 ordinating facts ! The contempt of proof — the 
 appeal to reason ! And so we get to the contempt 
 of reason. And let me tell you — " he struck the 
 tea-table with his lean hand till the curate's cups 
 jumped — " that scarcely ever have I heard a ser- 
 mon in which was not to be found somewhere the 
 preacher's contempt for reason, the bread of the in- 
 tellect of man." 
 
 " The soul Is not the intellect." 
 
 " Don't you think it higher? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " And so you put it on slops ! " 
 
 The professor got up from his chair, and be 
 gan to sidle up and down the small room. 
 
 208 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " You put it on slops, as if it were a thing with 
 a disordered stomach. That 's your way of show- 
 ing it respect. You approach the shrine with an of- 
 fering of water gruel. Now look ye here!" — 
 The professor paused beside the tea-table — 
 " The soul wants its bread, depends upon it, as 
 much as the body, and the church that is free with 
 the loaves is the church to get a real hold on 
 real men. Flummery is no good to anybody. 
 Rhetoric 's no good to anybody. Claptrap and 
 slipslop only make heads swim and stomachs turn. 
 The pencil and note-book, observation and the tak- 
 ing down of it, these bring knowledge to the doors 
 of men. And when you sneer at them, you sneer 
 at bread, on the eating of which — or its equiva- 
 lent, basis-nourishment — life depends." 
 
 " I wonder whether you, and such as you, really 
 know on what the true life of the soul depends," 
 said Chichester, with an almost dreadful quietness. 
 
 The professor sat down again. 
 
 " Such as I ? " he said. " You are good enough 
 to do me the honor of putting me in a class ? " 
 
 " As you have so far honored me," returned Chi- 
 chester. 
 
 " Ha ! " ejaculated Stepton. 
 
 He had quite got the better of his egoism, but 
 he by no means regretted his outburst. 
 H 209 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Do you claim to stand outside the ranks of the 
 clergy? " he asked. 
 
 " Do you claim to stand outside the ranks of 
 the scientists? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. And now — you ? " 
 
 Chichester said nothing for a moment. Then, 
 lifting up his head, and gazing at the professor 
 with a sort of sternness of determination, he said: 
 
 " Remember this ! You yourself told me that 
 In a crowd of a thousand you must have fixed your 
 attention on me." 
 
 For a moment the professor had it In his mind 
 to say that this statement of his had been a lie in- 
 vented to make an Impression on Chldiester. But 
 he resisted the temptation to score — and lose. 
 He preferred not to score, and to win, if possible. 
 
 " I did," he said. 
 
 " Could this be so if I were like other men, 
 other clergymen? " 
 
 " Well, then, what Is the mighty difference be- 
 tween you and your reverend brethren — between 
 you, let us say, and your rector, Mr. Harding? " 
 
 Very casually and jerkily the professor threw out 
 this question. 
 
 Not casually did Chichester receive It. He 
 moved almost like a man who had been unex- 
 
 210 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 pectedly struck, then seemed to recover himself, 
 and to nerve himself for some ordeal. Leaning 
 forward, and holding the edge of the table with one 
 hand, he said: 
 
 " How well do you know Hr. Harding? " 
 
 " Pretty well. Not intimately." 
 
 " You have seen him since he — altered? " 
 
 " I saw him only the other day when I was at a 
 specialist's in Harley Street." 
 
 "A specialist's?" 
 
 " For nervous dyspepsia." 
 
 Again the look of contempt flickered over Chi- 
 chester's face. 
 
 " Do you think the alteration in Mr. Harding 
 may be due to nervous dyspepsia? " 
 
 " Probably. There are few maladies that so 
 sap the self-confidence of a man." 
 
 Chichester laughed. 
 
 For the first time since he had entered the lit- 
 tle room the professor felt a cold sensation of creep- 
 ing uneasiness. 
 
 " Apparently you don't agree with me," he said. 
 
 " I am not a doctor, and I know very little about 
 that matter." 
 
 " Then I 'm bound to say I don't know what you 
 find to laugh at." 
 
 211 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " For a man who has spent so much time in 
 psychical research you seem to have a rather 
 material outlook upon — " 
 
 "Mr. Harding?" 
 
 " And all that he represents." 
 
 " Suppose we stick to Mr. Harding," said the 
 professor, grittily. " He is typical enough, even 
 if you are not." j 
 
 " In what respect do you consider Mr. Hard- 
 ing typical? " 
 
 " I am speaking of the Harding before the fall 
 into the abysses of nervous dyspepsia." 
 
 " Very well. In what respects was Mr. Hard- 
 ing typical ? " 
 
 " In the sublime self-confidence with which he 
 proclaimed as facts, things that have never been 
 proved to be facts." 
 
 " Do men want facts? " said Chichester, almost 
 as one speaking alone to himself. 
 
 " I do. I want nothing else. Possibly Mr. 
 Harding had none to give me. I don't blame 
 him." 
 
 " Perhaps it is a greater thing to give men faith 
 than to give them facts." 
 
 " Give them the first by giving them the second, 
 if you can! And that, by the way, is the last 
 thing the average clergyman is able to do." 
 
 212 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Chichester sat silent for nearly a minute look- 
 ing at the professor with a strange expression, al- 
 most fiery, yet meditative, as if he were trying to 
 appraise him, were weighing him in a balance. 
 
 " Professor," he said at last, " I suppose your 
 passion for facts has led men to put a great deal 
 of faith in you. Has n't it? " 
 
 " I dare say my word carries some weight. I 
 really don't know," responded Stepton, with an 
 odd hint of something like modesty. 
 
 " I had thought of Mailing first," almost mur- 
 mured Chichester. 
 
 " What 's that about Mailing? " 
 
 " I think he would have accepted what I have 
 to give more readily than you would. There 
 seems to me something in him which stretches out 
 arms toward those things in which mystics believe. 
 In you there seems to me something which would 
 almost rather repel such things." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I am quiescent. I 
 neither seek to summon nor to repel." 
 
 " I could n't tell Mailing," said Chichester. 
 " His readiness stopped me. It struck me like a 
 blow." 
 
 " Mailing prides himself on being severely 
 neutral in mind." 
 
 " And you on being skeptical ? " 
 213 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " I await facts." 
 
 " Shall I give you some strange facts, the 
 strangest perhaps you have ever met with? " 
 
 Stepton smiled dryly. 
 
 " You '11 forgive me, but some such remark has 
 been the prelude to so many figments." 
 
 "Figments?" 
 
 " Of the imagination." 
 
 An expression of anger — almost like a noble 
 anger it seemed — transformed Chichester's face. 
 It was as a fine wrath which looked down from a 
 height, and in an instant it melted into pity. ^ 
 
 " How much you must have missed because of^ 
 your skepticism! " he said. " But I shall not let 
 It affect me. You are a man of note-book and 
 pencil. Will you promise me one thing? Will 
 you give me your word not to share what I shall 
 tell you with any one, unless, later on, I am willing 
 that you should? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, yes! " said the professor. 
 
 And again he smiled. For even now he be- 
 lieved the curate to be wavering, swayed by con- 
 flicting emotions, and felt sure that a flick of the 
 whip to his egoism would be likely to hasten the 
 coming of what he, the professor, wanted. 
 
 A loud call rose up from the street. A wander- 
 ing vender of something was crying his ware. In 
 
 214 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 his voice was a sound of fierce melancholy. Chi- 
 chester went to the window and shut it down. 
 
 " I wish it was night," he said as he turned. 
 
 The professor jerked out his watch. 
 
 " It must be getting late," he observed. " Past 
 six! by Jove! " 
 
 He made an abrupt movement. 
 
 " What ? " said Chichester. " You are going ! " 
 
 He came up to the table. 
 
 " Sometimes I think," he said, " that men hate 
 and dread nothing as they hate and dread facts 
 which may upset the theories they cherish." 
 
 " You 're perfectly right. Well, very glad to 
 have seen you in your own room." The professor 
 got up. " By their rooms shall ye know them." 
 He glanced round. 
 
 " Ah, I see you have Rossetti's delightfully 
 anemic Madonna, and Holman Hunt's ' Light of 
 the World.' A day or two ago I was talking to 
 a lady who pronounced that — " he extended his 
 finger toward the Hunt — "the greatest work of 
 art produced in the last hundred years. Her 
 reason? Its comforting quality. I am sure you 
 agree with her. Good-by." 
 
 He made a sidling movement toward the door. 
 Perhaps it was that movement which finally de- 
 cided the curate to speak. 
 
 215 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Professor," he said, " I don't want you to go 
 yet." 
 
 " Why not? " jerked out Stepton, with one hand 
 on the door-knob. 
 
 " You collect ' cases.' I have a case for you. 
 You are a skeptic : you say men should be brought 
 to faith by facts. Sit down. I will give you 
 some facts." 
 
 The professor came slowly back, looking dry 
 and cold, and sat down by the table, facing the 
 Rossetti Madonna. 
 
 " Always ready for facts," he said. 
 
 216 
 
XI 
 
 You have heard of doubles, of course, Pro- 
 fessor ? " said Chichester, leaning his arms on 
 the table and putting his hands one against the 
 other, as if making a physical effort to be very 
 calm. 
 
 " Of course. There was an account of one in 
 that sermon of yours." 
 
 " Have you ever seen a double? " 
 
 " No; not to my knowledge." 
 
 " I suppose you disbelieve in them? " 
 
 " I have no reason to believe in them. I have 
 not collected enough evidence to convince me that 
 there are such manifestations." 
 
 " You know a double at this moment." 
 
 " Do I, indeed ? And may I ask the manifes- 
 tation's name? " 
 
 " Marcus Harding." 
 
 " Marcus Harding is a double, you say. 
 Whose?" 
 
 " Mine," said Chichester in a low voice. 
 
 He clasped and unclasped his hands. 
 217 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " I don't understand you," said Stepton, rather 
 disdainfully. 
 
 " I will try to make you." And Chichester be- 
 gan to speak, at first in a low, level voice. " That 
 sermon of mine," he said, " was a sort of shadow 
 of a truth that I wanted to reveal, — that I dared 
 not fully reveal. Already I had tried to tell 
 Evelyn Mailing something of it. I had failed. 
 When the moment came, when Mailing was actu- 
 ally before me, I could not speak out. His mind 
 was trying to track the truth that was in me. He 
 got, as it were, upon the trail. Once he even 
 struck into the truth. Then he went away to 
 Marcus Harding. I remained in London. 
 When I knew that those two were together I felt 
 a sort of jealous fear of Mailing. For there was 
 pity in him. Despite his intense curiosity he had 
 a capacity for pity. I realized that it might pos- 
 sibly interfere with — with something that I was 
 doing. And I recalled Marcus Harding to Lon- 
 don. From that moment I have avoided Mai- 
 ling. I could never tell him. But you, hard 
 searcher after truth as you are — you could never 
 find it in you to drag away another from the 
 contemplation of truth. Could you? Could 
 you?" 
 
 " Probably not," said Stepton. " I usually let 
 218 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 folks alone even when they 're glaring at false- 
 hood. Ha ! " 
 
 He settled himself in his chair, looking sidewise 
 toward Chichester. 
 
 " You, like every one else, have noticed the tre- 
 mendous change In Marcus Harding," Chichester 
 went on. " That change, the whole of that 
 change, is solely owing to me." 
 
 " Very glad to have your explanation of that." 
 
 " I am going to give It you. The beginning 
 of that change came about through the action of 
 Marcus Harding. He wished for facts that are, 
 perhaps, — indeed, probably, — withheld deliber- 
 ately from the cognizance of man. You have 
 sneered at those who live by faith, you have 
 sneered at priests. Well, you can let that Marcus 
 Harding go free of your sarcasm. Although a 
 clergyman he was not a faithful man. And he 
 wanted facts to convince him that there was a life 
 beyond the grave. Henry Chichester — " 
 
 " You ! You ! " interjected Stepton, harshly. 
 
 " I, then, came Into his life. He thought he 
 would use me to further his purpose. He con- 
 strained me to sittings such as you have often taken 
 part In, with a view to sending me into a trance 
 and employing me, when In that condition, as a 
 means of communication with the other world — 
 
 219 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 if there was one. We sat secretly in this room, 
 at this table." 
 
 " You need not give me ordinary details of your 
 sittings," said the professor. " I am familiar 
 with them, of course." 
 
 " Henry Chichester — " 
 
 " You ! You ! Don't complicate matters 1 " 
 
 " I never was entranced; but presently I felt 
 myself changing subtly." 
 
 " People very often imagine they are developing 
 into something wonderful at seances. Nothing 
 new in that." 
 
 " Please try to realize the facts of my case 
 without assuming that it resembles a thousand 
 others. I believe, I feel sure, that it resembles no 
 other case that has come under your observation. 
 To grasp it you must grasp the characters of two 
 men, Marcus Harding as he was — and myself, 
 as I was." 
 
 " Put them before me, then." 
 
 " That Marcus Harding you knew. He was 
 the type of the man who, sublimely self-confident, 
 imposes his view of himself upon other men and 
 especially upon women. He had strength — 
 strength of body and strength of mind. And he 
 had the strength which a devouring ambition sheds 
 through a man. A fine type of the worldly clergy- 
 
 220 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 man he was, of the ardent climber up the ladder 
 of preferment. To him the church was a career, 
 and he meant to succeed in it. If he had to begin 
 as a curate he meant to end as a bishop, perhaps 
 as an archbishop. And he had will to help him, 
 and vitality to help him, and the sort of talent 
 that brings quick notice on a man. And he had 
 also a woman to help him, his wife. Lady Sophia. 
 He chose well when he chose her for his helpmate, 
 though he may not think so now. He should have 
 been content with what he had. But he wanted 
 more, and he tliought he might perhaps get what 
 he wanted through me. Marcus Harding was a 
 full-blooded type of the clerical autocrat. I once 
 was an equally complete type of the clerical slave 
 — slave to conscience, slave to humble-mindedness, 
 slave to my rector as soon as I knew him. 
 
 " St. Francis of Assisi was the character I wor- 
 shiped. I strove after simple goodness. I de- 
 sired no glories of this world, no praises of men. 
 I did not wish to be clever or to shine, but only to 
 do my duty to my fellow-men, and so toward God. 
 When I was first to make the acquaintance of 
 Marcus Harding, with a view to becoming his 
 senior curate if he thought fit, I felt some alarm. 
 I had heard so much of his great energy and his 
 remarkable talents. The day came. I paid my 
 
 221 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 visit to Onslow Gardens. For the first time I 
 saw — " Chichester paused. His face became dis- 
 torted. He turned toward the window as if 
 anxious to hide his face from the professor's small, 
 keen eyes. "I saw — that man," he continued, 
 in a withdrawn and husky voice, and still looking 
 away. 
 
 Stepton sat motionless and silent, sidewise, with 
 his arms hanging. 
 
 Chichester, after another long pause, again 
 faced him. 
 
 " My very first impression was unfavorable. I 
 attributed this to his great size, which had startled 
 me. I now know I was wrong in thinking I took 
 that impression from the outer man. It was the 
 inner man who in that moment announced himself 
 to me. But almost instantly he had surely with- 
 drawn himself very far away, and I, then, had no 
 means of following him. So he escaped from me, 
 and I fell under the influence that Marcus Hard- 
 ing was able to exert at will. 
 
 " I was dominated. Buoyancy, life, energy, 
 self-confidence, radiated from that man. He 
 steeped me in his vigor. He seemed kind, cor- 
 dial. He won my heart. My intellect, of course, 
 was dazzled. But — he won my heart. And I 
 
 222 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 felt not only, ' Here is a man far greater than my- 
 self to whom I can look up,' but also, ' Here is 
 a man to whom I must look up, because he is far 
 better than myself.' At that interview it was set- 
 tled that I should become senior curate at St. 
 Joseph's. 
 
 " As you know, I became, and still am, senior 
 curate. As I grew to know Marcus Harding 
 better I admired him more. In fact, my feeling 
 for him was something greater than admiration. 
 I almost worshiped him. His will was law to me 
 in everything. His slightest wish I regarded as 
 a behest. His talents amazed me. But I thought 
 him not only the cleverest, but the best of men. 
 It seemed to me right that such a man should be 
 autocratic. A beneficent autocracy became my 
 ideal of government. That my rector's will 
 should be law to his wife, his servants, his curates, 
 his organist, his choir, to those attached to his 
 schools, to those who benefited by the charities he 
 organized, seemed to me more than right and 
 proper. I could have wished to see it law to all 
 the world. If any one ventured to question any 
 decision of his, or to speak a word against him, 
 I felt almost hot with anger. In a word, I was 
 at his feet, as the small and humble-minded man 
 
 223 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 often is at the feet of the man who has talents 
 and who is gifted with ambition and supreme self- 
 confidence. 
 
 " For a long time this condition of things con- 
 tinued, and I was happy in it. Probably it might 
 have continued till now, if — if that accursed idea 
 had not come to Marcus Harding." 
 
 Again Chichester paused. In speaking he had 
 evidently become gradually less aware of his com- 
 panion's presence and personality. His subject 
 had gripped him. Memory had grown warm 
 within him. He lived in the days that were past. 
 
 " That accursed idea," he repeated slowly, " to 
 use me as his tool in an endeavor to break down 
 the barrier which divides men from the other 
 world. 
 
 " As I told you, we began to sit secretly. 
 Marcus Harding wished me to fall into the en- 
 tranced condition. I did not know this at first, 
 so at first I did not consciously resist his desire. 
 He had told me a lie. He had told me that he 
 desired only one thing in our sittings, to give to 
 me something of the will power that made him a 
 force in the world. He had declared that this 
 was possible. I believed him unquestioningly. I 
 thought he was trying to send some of his power 
 into me. Soon I felt that he was succeeding in 
 
 224 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 this supposed endeavor. Soon I felt that a strange 
 new power was filtering into me." 
 
 Chichester fixed his eyes on Stepton as he said 
 the last words, and seemed to emerge from his 
 former condition of self-absorption. 
 
 " You have sat often. Have you ever felt such 
 a sensation? It is like growth," he said. 
 
 " When one first begins to sit at seances, one 
 is apt to imagine all sorts of things in the dark- 
 ness," returned Stepton. " I dare say I did, like 
 other folk." 
 
 " I understand," said Chichester, with a sort 
 of strange condescension. " You think I was 
 merely the victim of absurdity. The sense of this 
 coming of power grew slowly, but steadily, within 
 me. And presently it was complicated by another 
 development, which involved — or began to in- 
 volve, let me say at this point — my companion, 
 Marcus Harding. I think I ought to tell you that 
 in beginning the sittings I had had certain doubts, 
 which were swept away by my admiration of, and 
 faith in, my rector. Hitherto I had always 
 thought that our human knowledge was deliber- 
 ately limited by God, and that it was very wrong 
 to strive to know too much. The man of science 
 no doubt believes that it is impossible to know 
 too much; but I have thought that many great 
 IS 225 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 truths are kept from us because we are not yet in 
 a condition properly to understand them. I had, 
 therefore, begun these practices with a certain 
 tremor, and possibly a certain feeling of resistance, 
 In the depths of my soul. As I felt the power 
 coming to me I had put away my fears. They 
 did not return. Yet surely the new development 
 within me, of which I now became aware, was 
 connected with those fears, however subtly. It 
 was a sensation almost of hostility directed against 
 Marcus Harding." 
 
 "Ah, now I " ejaculated the professor, as if in 
 despite of himself. " And where 's the connection 
 you speak of ? " 
 
 " Marcus Harding had constrained me to do 
 a thing that in my soul I had believed to be wrong 
 and that had roused my fear. As power dawned 
 in me, directing itself upon everything about me, 
 it was instinctively hostile to him who had domi- 
 nated me before I had any power, and who, by 
 dominating me, had for a moment made me 
 afraid." 
 
 "Retrospective enmity! Very well!" mut- 
 tered the professor. " I understand you. Keep 
 on!" 
 
 " This hostility — if I may call a feeling at 
 first not very definite by so definite a name — in- 
 
 226 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 duced in me a critical attitude of mind. I found 
 myself, to my surprise, secretly criticizing the man 
 whom till now I had regarded as altogether be- 
 yond the reach of criticism. I felt that Marcus 
 Harding was giving me power, I was grateful 
 to him for doing so; yet I began to see him in a 
 new, and at moments an unpleasant light. Pres- 
 ently, after trying in vain to combat this novel 
 sensation, which seemed to m'e almost treacherous, 
 almost disloyal, I sought about for a reason, to 
 give myself at least some justification for it. I 
 sought, and one night it seemed to me that I found. 
 " On that night I was more than ever aware 
 that strength of some kind was pouring into me. 
 I had an almost heady sensation, such as one who 
 drinks a generous wine may experience. When 
 we rose from the table I told my rector so. He 
 stared at me very strangely. Then he said: 
 ' Good ! Good ! Did n't I tell you I would give 
 you some of my power ? ' He paused. Then he 
 added : ' It will come ! It must come ! ' As he 
 spoke the last words he frowned, and all his face 
 seemed to harden, as if he were making a violent 
 mental effort to which the body was obliged to 
 respond. And at that instant I was aware that 
 the reason Marcus Harding had given to me to 
 persuade me to these sittings was not the true one, 
 
 227 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 that his purpose was quite other than that which 
 I had hitherto supposed it to be. I was suddenly 
 aware of this, and I thought: 'I must already 
 have been aware of it subconsciously, and that ac- 
 counts for my sensation of hostility toward the 
 rector.' A lie had been told to me. My new 
 self-confidence resented this; and I said to myself, 
 ' If Marcus Harding can tell a lie to me, who 
 almost worshiped him, he must be an arrant hypo- 
 crite.' 
 
 " We sat again, and again I knew that there 
 was something in the mind of my companion which 
 he concealed from me, something to which I 
 should strongly object if I knew what it was, 
 something which troubled the atmosphere, the 
 mental atmosphere, of the sitting. Instead of be- 
 ing in accord, we were engaged in a silent, but 
 violent, struggle. I was determined not to be 
 overcome. A sort of fierce desire for tyranny 
 sprang up in me. I longed to see Marcus Hard- 
 ing at my feet. 
 
 " Again and again we sat. My hostile feeling 
 grew. My critical feeling grew. My longing to 
 tyrannize increased, till I was almost afraid of it, 
 so cruel did I feel it to be. ' Down ! Down un- 
 der my feet ! ' That was what my soul was 
 secretly saying now to the man whose will had 
 
 228 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 been as law to me. And one night, as if he heard 
 that ugly voice of my soul, he abruptly got up 
 from the table and said : ' It seems to me that 
 you and I are not en rapport. It seems to me 
 that no more good can come of these sittings. We 
 had better not sit again." 
 
 " We must sit again," I replied. 
 
 " Marcus Harding turned scarlet with anger. 
 He looked at me. He opened his lips to speak. 
 I let him speak. I even argued the question with 
 him. I pointed out to him that his only design — 
 the only design acknowledged by him, at any rate, 
 in beginning these practices — had been to give 
 me strength such as, he had declared to me, he 
 himself had drawn while at Oxford from a Hindu 
 comrade. In carrying out this design, I now told 
 him, he was being successful. I felt that I was 
 growing in power of will, in self-confidence. 
 How, then, could he refuse to continue when suc- 
 cess was already in sight ? ' Unless,' I concluded, 
 ' you had some other design in persuading me to 
 sit, which I did in the first instance against my 
 secret desire, and you feel that there is now no 
 probability of carrying that design into effect.' 
 
 " He gave in. I had him beaten. Hastily he 
 muttered a good-night and left me. I let him out 
 into the night. As soon as the street door had 
 
 229 ' 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 shut on him I ran upstairs. I went to that win- 
 dow, — " Chichester flung out his hand — " pushed 
 it up, leaned out, and watched him down the street. 
 I saw him pass under a gas-lamp and I said to 
 myself: ' You have submitted to my will, and you 
 shall submit again. I am the master now.' 
 
 " In that moment all the domination which I 
 had so joyously endured, which I had even surely 
 reveled in, — for there are those who can revel in 
 their slavery, — abruptly became in my mind a 
 reason for revenge. Marcus Harding disap- 
 peared in the night; but still I leaned out, staring 
 down the way he had gone, and thinking, ' You 
 shall pay me back for it. You shall pay me 
 back.' 
 
 " From that night I made no effort to check the 
 critical faculty, the exercise of which at first had 
 seemed to me a sort of treachery. And as I let 
 myself criticize, I saw more clearly. The scales 
 fell from my eyes. I realized that I had been 
 nothing less than blind in regard to Marcus Hard- 
 ing. I saw him now as he was, a victim of ego- 
 mania, a worldling, tyrannical, falsely sentimental, 
 and unfaithful steward, a liar — perhaps even an 
 unbeliever. His whole desire — I knew it now — 
 was not to be good, but to be successful. His 
 charity, his pity for the poor, his generosity, his 
 
 230 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 care for his church, for his schools — all was pre- 
 tence. I saw Marcus Harding as he was. And 
 what followed? " 
 
 Chichester leaned forward to the professor. 
 
 " Fear followed," he said in a withdrawn voice. 
 
 " Fear! " said Stepton, clearing his throat with 
 a loud, rasping noise. 
 
 " Whenever I was with Marcus Harding in any 
 public place I was now companioned by fear. I 
 dreaded unspeakably lest others should begin to 
 see what I saw. When he preached, I could 
 hardly sit to listen: I felt as if any shame falling 
 upon him would overwhelm me also. I strove in 
 vain to combat this strange, this, then, inexplicable 
 sensation. With every sitting this terror grew 
 upon me. It tortured me. It obsessed me. It 
 drove me into action. When I was with my rec- 
 tor, I tried perpetually to prevent him from ex- 
 posing his true self to the world, by changing the 
 conversation, by attenuating his remarks, by cover- 
 ing up his actions with my own, sometimes even 
 by a brusque interruption. But in the pulpit he 
 escaped from me. I was forced to sit silent and 
 to listen while he preached doctrine in which he 
 had no b'elief, and put forward theories of salva- 
 tion, redemption by faith, and the like, which 
 meant less than nothing to him. Finding this 
 
 231 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 presently unendurable by me, I strove to govern 
 him mentally when he was in the pulpit, to track 
 him, as it were, with my mind, to head him off 
 with my mind when he was beginning to take the 
 wrong path." 
 
 " Did you succeed in that effort? " interrupted 
 the professor. 
 
 " I made an impression, a terrible impression, 
 upon him. I almost broke him down. I sapped 
 his self-confidence. His power as a preacher de- 
 serted him, as his power outside the pulpit deserted 
 him. With every day I felt that I saw more 
 clearly into every recess, every cranny, of his mind 
 and nature. Just at first this frightfully clear 
 sight was mine only when we were sitting; but 
 presently it was mine whenever I was with him. 
 And he knew it, and went in fear of me. Gradu- 
 ally, very gradually, it came about that our former 
 positions were reversed; for as he sank down in 
 the human scale, I mounted. As he lost in power, 
 I gained. And especially in the pulpit I felt that 
 now I had force, that I could grip my hearers, 
 could make a mighty impression upon those with 
 whom I was brought into contact. 
 
 " But I must tell you that now I gained no satis- 
 faction from my own improvement, if so it may be 
 called. My whole life was vitiated by my secret 
 
 232 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 terror lest Marcus Harding should be found out, 
 should ever be known for what he was. His ac- 
 tions, and even his thoughts, affected me with an 
 intimacy that was inexplicable." 
 
 " You were in telepathic communication with 
 him! " interjected Stepton. 
 
 " Call it so if you like. Often I felt what he 
 was thinking, almost as if each thought of his 
 were a hand laid upon me — a hand from which 
 I shrank with an almost trembling repugnance. 
 Sometimes when he thought something contempti- 
 ble or evil, I shrank as if from a blow. 
 
 " There was a link between us. Presently, 
 soon, I knew it. *We seemed in some dreadful 
 way to belong to each other, so that whatever was 
 thought, said, done by him, whatever happened to 
 him, reacted upon me. 
 
 " At this time Lady Sophia Harding hated me 
 with a deadly hatred. Formerly she had been in- 
 different to me. Concentrated upon her husband, 
 adoring him, vain of him, greedily ambitious for 
 his advancement, she had had no time to bestow 
 on a clerical nonentity. But as I grew to under- 
 stand what her husband really was she grew to 
 hate me. She was almost rude to me. She spoke 
 ill of me behind my back. She even tried to oust 
 me from my position as senior curate of St. Jo- 
 
 233 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 seph's. Why did not she succeed? Arc you 
 thinking that?" 
 
 " Well, what if I was? " snapped the professor, 
 moving in his chair. 
 
 " Marcus Harding could not make a move to 
 get rid of me. There was a link between us which 
 he could not even try to break. 
 
 " One night — one night — I discovered what 
 that link was." 
 
 It was growing dark in the room. The Ros- 
 setti Madonna, thin, anemic, with hanging hair, 
 seemed fading away on the somber, green wall. 
 The window-panes looked spectral and white. 
 The faint murmur of the city sounded a little 
 deeper and much sadder than in the light of day. 
 Stepton was aware of a furtive but strong desire 
 for artificial light in the room, but he did not 
 choose to mention it. And Chichester, , whose 
 voice — so it seemed to his hearer — began to 
 have that peculiar almost alarming timbre which 
 belongs to a voice speaking not for the ears of 
 another, but for the satisfaction only of the soul 
 which it expresses, continued his narrative, or con- 
 fession, as if unaware of the dying of day. 
 
 " During the day which preceded It I had been 
 haunted by the thought of myself doing what 
 Marcus Harding could not do. Why should not 
 
 234 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 I of my own will leave St. Joseph's, get away 
 from this dreadful contemplation which obsessed 
 me, from this continual anxiety — almost amount- 
 ing to terror at moments — which gnawed me ? 
 Why should not I break this mysterious link, im- 
 palpable yet strong? If I did, should I not again 
 find peace? But my sittings with Marcus Hard- 
 ing would be at an end. Could I give them up ? 
 I asked myself that, and I felt as if I could not. 
 Through them, by means of them, I felt as if I 
 might attain to something wonderful — terrible 
 perhaps, but wonderful. I felt as if I were ap- 
 proaching the threshold of absolute truth. A 
 voice within me whispered, ' Go no further.' 
 Was it the voice of conscience ? I did not heed It. 
 Something irresistible urged me forward. I 
 thrust away from me with a sort of crude mental 
 violence the haunting thought. And when the 
 darkness came I greeted it. 
 
 " For he came with the darkness." 
 
 On the wall opposite to the professor the thin 
 Madonna faded away. 
 
 " As I heard his heavy step on the stairs that 
 night I said to myself, ' At all hazards I will see, 
 I will know, more. I will see, I will know — all.' 
 When he entered at that door " — a thin darkness 
 moved in the darkness as Chichester pointed — " he 
 
 235 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 was dreadfully white and looked sad, almost terri- 
 fied. He suggested that we should break through 
 our plan and not sit. I refused. He then said 
 he wished to sit in light. I refused. He was be- 
 come my creature. He dared not disobey my 
 desires. We placed our hands on this table, not 
 touching. I could no longer endure the touch of 
 his hand. We remained motionless. A long time 
 passed. There were no rappings. A strange 
 deadness seemed to prevail in the room. Presently 
 it faded away, and I had the sensation that I was 
 sitting quite alone. 
 
 " At first it seemed to me that my companion 
 must have crept out of the room silently, leaving 
 me by myself in the darkness. I shuddered at the 
 thought that I was alone. But then I said to my- 
 self that Marcus Harding must be there in the 
 blackness opposite to me, and I moved my hands 
 furtively on the table, thinking to prove his pres- 
 ence to myself by touch. I did not prove it. 
 Suddenly I had no need to touch him in order to 
 know that he was there." 
 
 "Why not?" said the professor, and started 
 at the sound of his own voice in the little room. 
 
 " Something made me realize that he was still 
 within the room. Nevertheless, I felt that I was 
 alone. How could that be ? I asked myself that 
 
 236 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 question. This answer came as it were sluggishly 
 into my mind, ' You are alone not because Marcus 
 Harding is away, but because Henry Chichester is 
 away.' For a long while I sat there stagnantly 
 dwelling on this knowledge which had come to me 
 in the blackness. It was as if I knew without 
 understanding, as a man may know he Is involved 
 in a catastrophe without realizing how it has af- 
 fected his own fate. And then slowly there came 
 to me, or grew In me, an understanding of how I 
 was alone. I was alone with Marcus Harding at 
 that moment because I was Marcus Harding. A 
 shutter seemed to slide back softly, and for the 
 first time I, Marcus Harding, stared upon myself 
 out of the body of another man, of Henry Chi- 
 chester. I was alone with my soul double. Mo- 
 tionless, silent, I gazed upon it. Now I under- 
 stood why I had been tortured with anxiety lest 
 the world should learn to comprehend Marcus 
 Harding as I comprehended him. Now I under- 
 stood why neither he nor I had been able to break 
 that mysterious link which our sittings had forged 
 between us. I had been trying Ignorantly to pro- 
 tect myself, to conceal my own shortcomings, to 
 cover my own nakedness. I had sweated with 
 fear lest my own truth should be discovered by 
 all those to whom for so many years I had been 
 
 237 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 presenting a lie. Yes, I had sweated with fear; 
 but even then how little I had known! A voice 
 cried out suddenly, ' Turn on the light I ' It was 
 the voice of my double. It seemed to awake, or 
 to recall perhaps, — how can I say ? — Henry Chi- 
 chester. I was aware of a shock; it seemed 
 strongly physical. I got up at once and turned the 
 light on. Marcus Harding was before me, trem- 
 bling, ashen. ' What is it ? What has hap- 
 pened ? ' he said in a broken voice. I made no 
 reply. He left me. I heard his step in the street 
 — out there I " 
 
 Chichester was silent. The professor said noth- 
 ing for a moment, but passed his tongue twice over 
 his lips and swallowed, sighing immediately after- 
 ward. 
 
 " Transferred personality ! " he muttered — 
 " transferred personality. Is that what you 'd 
 have me believe? " 
 
 " I '11 tell you the rest. When Marcus Hard- 
 ing's steps died away down the street I remained 
 here. Since that shock I have spoken of, I felt 
 that I was again Henry Chichester, changed, as I 
 had long been changed — charged with new force, 
 new knowledge, new discrimination, new power 
 over others, gifted with a penetrating vision into 
 the very soul of the man I had worshiped, yet 
 
 238 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Henry Chichester. And as Henry Chichester I 
 suffered; I condemned myself. This I said to 
 myself that night, ' I was determined to see. I 
 disregarded the voice within me which warned me 
 that I was treading a forbidden path. God has 
 punished me. He has allowed me to see. But 
 this shall be the end. I will never sit again. I 
 will give up my curacy. I will leave St. Joseph's 
 at once. Never more will I set eyes on Marcus 
 Harding.' I was in a condition of fierce excite- 
 ment — " 
 
 " Ah, exactly," muttered the professor, almost 
 as if consoled — " fierce excitement! " 
 
 " I could not think of sleep. For a long time 
 I remained in here, sitting, standing, pacing, open- 
 ing books ; I scarcely know what I did or did not 
 do. At last a sensation of terrible exhaustion 
 crept over me. I undressed. I threw myself on 
 my bed. I tried to sleep. I turned, shifted, got 
 up, let in more air, again lay down, lay resolutely 
 still in the dark, tried not to think. But always 
 my mind dwelt on that matter. In those few 
 frightful moments what had become of myself, of 
 Henry Chichester? Had the powerful personal- 
 ity of that man whom once I had almost worshiped 
 thrust him away, submerged him, stricken him 
 down in a sort of deathlike trance? What I had 
 
 239 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 seen I remembered now as Henry Chichester. 
 What I had known in those moments I still knew 
 now as Henry Chichester. In vain I revolved this 
 matter in my feverish mind. It was too much for 
 me. I was in deep waters. 
 
 " I closed my eyes. The fatigue wrapped me 
 more closely. Sleep at last was surely, drawing 
 near. But suddenly I knew — how I cannot ex- 
 actly say — that once more the shutter was to be 
 drawn back for me. This knowledge resembled 
 a horrible physical sensation. The entry of it 
 into my mind, or indeed into my very soul, was as 
 the dawning of a dreadful and unnatural pain in 
 the body. This pain increased till it became 
 agony. Although I still lay motionless, I felt like 
 one involved in a furious struggle in which the 
 whole sum of me took violent part. And there 
 came to me the simile of a man seized by tre- 
 mendous hands, and held before a window opening 
 into a room in which something frightful was 
 about to take place. And the shutter slipped back 
 from the window. 
 
 " Again I looked upon myself. That was my 
 exact sensation. The shutter drawn back, I as- 
 sisted at the spectacle of Marcus Harding's life. 
 And it was my life. I knew with such frightful 
 intimacy that my knowledge was as vision. 
 
 240 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Therefore, I say, I saw. Not only my spirit 
 seemed to be gazing, but also my bodily eyes. 
 
 " I saw myself in the night slowly approaching 
 my house in Onslow Gardens, ashen pale, shaken, 
 terrified. At a corner I passed a policeman. He 
 knew me and saluted me with respect. I made 
 no gesture in response. He stared at me in sur- 
 prise. Then a smile came into his face — the 
 smile of a man who is suddenly able to think much 
 less of another than he thought before. I left 
 him smiling thus, reached my house, and stood be- 
 fore it. 
 
 " Now I must tell you, and I rely absolutely 
 on your regarding this as said in the strictest, most 
 inviolable confidence — " 
 
 " Certainly. Word of honor, and so forth! " 
 said the professor, quickly and sharply. 
 
 " I must tell you that Marcus Harding is a sin- 
 ner, and not merely in the sense in which all men 
 are sinners. There have been recurring moments 
 in his life when he has committed actions which, if 
 publicly known, would ruin him in the eyes of the 
 world and put an end to his career. As I looked 
 at myself standing before my house, I saw that I 
 was hesitating whether to go in with my misery, 
 or whether to seek for it the hideous alleviation 
 of my beloved sin. 
 
 i6 241 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Professor," — it seemed to Stepton at this mo- 
 ment as If Chichester's voice loomed upon him out 
 of the darkness by which they were now en- 
 shrouded, — " it has been said that nothing shocks 
 a man so terribly as the sight of his body-double; 
 that to see what appears to be himself, even if only 
 standing at a window or sitting before a fire, causes 
 in a man a physical horror which seems to strike 
 to the very roots of his physical being. I looked 
 now upon my soul-double, piercing the fleshly en- 
 velop, and it was my very soul that sweated and 
 turned cold. For I perceived the dreadful action 
 which, if known, would certainly ruin me, being 
 committed by the spirit. The slavish body had 
 not yet bowed down and done its part ; but it was 
 about to obey the impulse of the spirit. Slowly 
 the body turned away from its home. The spirit 
 was driving it. The demon with the whip was at 
 work in the night. I looked till the dawn came. 
 And only when at last my double crept, like a thief, 
 into its house, did sleep take me for a little while 
 — sleep that was alive with nightmare." 
 
 Chichester was silent. The professor heard 
 him breathing quickly, saw him, almost as a 
 shadow just shown by the faint light that entered 
 from the street through the two small windows, 
 clasp and unclasp his hands, touch his forehead, 
 
 242 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 his eyelids, move in his chair, like a man pro- 
 foundly stirred and unable to be at ease. 
 
 " When I woke," he continued, after a long 
 pause, which the professor did not break by a word 
 or a movement, " I woke to combat. As I told 
 you, I had resolved at once to resign my curacy, 
 and never to see that man again. In the light of 
 the morning I sat down to write my letter of resig- 
 nation; but I could not do it. A fearful compul- 
 sion to remain was upon me. I wrote a few words. 
 I stopped, tore the note up, began again. But 
 writing was impossible. Then I resolved to visit 
 Marcus Harding and to tell him that I must go. 
 I went to his house. He was at home. When I 
 saw him I told him that I wished him to sit again 
 that night. He strove to refuse. He did not 
 understand the truth, but he was terrified. I 
 ordered him to come to my rooms that night, and 
 left him. As I was going away I met Lady 
 Sophia. To my amazement, she stopped me, 
 spoke to me kindly, even more than kindly, looked 
 at me with an expression in her eyes that almost 
 frightened me. I said to myself, ' Byt those are 
 a slave's eyes ! ' as I left her. Never before had 
 any woman looked at me like that. In that mo- 
 ment, I think, she began to turn from him toward 
 me, to forsake weakness for strength. Yes, I say 
 
 243 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 strength. I was rent by the tumult within me, 
 but I had strength. I have it now. For, despite 
 his hypocrisy, his unbelief, his active sinning, 
 Marcus Harding had been a strong man. And 
 even Henry Chichester, with all his humbleness, 
 his readiness to yield to others, to think nothing 
 of himself, had had the strength that belongs to 
 purity of soul. And then there is the .strength 
 the soul draws from looking upon truth. There 
 was strength, there is now, for the woman to fol- 
 low. And instinct has surely guided her. She 
 does not, she cannot know. And yet instinct sends 
 her in search of the strength." 
 
 " What do you mean by that? What do you 
 claim?" 
 
 " You read that sermon? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " Dgn't you understaffd? I am that man at 
 the window. He did not flee away. He could 
 not. He was, he is, compelled to remain. He 
 watches that dreadful life. And the other within 
 the room is fading. The strength, the authority, 
 the power, are coming to me. Every sitting 
 broadens that bridge across which the deserters 
 are passing. When I preached that sermon my 
 congregation sat as if numbed by terror. And he 
 in the choir listened, never moving. I saw his 
 
 244 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 spirit, dazed, stretching out to grasp the truth, 
 slipping back powerless to do it. It was like a 
 thing moving through the gloom of deep waters — 
 of deep, deep waters." 
 
 Again Chichester's voice died away. In the 
 silence that followed the professor heard the faint 
 ticking of a clock. He had not noticed it before. 
 He could not tell now whether it came from within 
 the room or from the room behind the folding- 
 doors. It seemed to him as if this ticking de- 
 stroyed his power to think clearly, as if it threw 
 his brain into an unwonted confusion which made 
 him feel strangely powerless. He was aware of a 
 great uneasiness approaching, if not actually 
 amounting to fear. This uneasiness made him 
 long for light. Yet he knew that he dreaded 
 light; for he was aware of an almost unconquer- 
 able reluctance to look upon the face of his com- 
 panion. Beset by conflicting desires, therefore, 
 and the prey of unwonted emotion, he sat like one 
 paralyzed, listening always to the faint ticking of 
 the clock, and striving to reduce what was almost 
 like chaos to order in his brain. 
 
 " Why have you selected me to be the hearer 
 of this — this very extraordinary statement ? " he 
 forced himself at length to say prosaically. The 
 sound of his own dry voice somewhat reassured 
 
 245 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 him, and he added: "Though there is nothing 
 very extraordinary in the facts you have related. 
 Telepathic communication between one mind and 
 another is a commonplace of to-day, an old story. 
 Every one of course accepts it as possible. What 
 novelty do you claim to present to startle science? " 
 
 " I say that telepathy does not explain the link 
 between Marcus Harding and myself." 
 
 The professor struck his hand on the table. It 
 seemed to him that if only he could get into an 
 argument this strange confusion and fear might 
 leave him. He would be on familiar ground. 
 
 " What you call vision might be merely mind- 
 reading, what you call perceiving the action of the 
 spirit, mind-reading. Your terror lest others 
 should find out bad truths about Marcus Harding 
 would spring naturally enough from your linger- 
 ing regard for him. Your acute anxiety wTien he 
 is preaching arises of course from the fact that, 
 owing to bodily causes, no doubt, his mental pow- 
 ers are failing him, and he is no longer able to 
 do himself justice." 
 
 " You don't understand. What I desired in 
 our sittings was to draw into myself strength, 
 power, will from — him. What have I done? I 
 have drawn into myself the very man. That night 
 when the shutter slipped back he looked out from 
 
 246 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 the body of Henry Chichester. His mind worked, 
 his soul was alive, within the cage of another man. 
 And meanwhile Henry Chichester lay as if sub- 
 merged, but presently stirred, and, however feebly, 
 lived again. He lives now. But not from him 
 comes my frightful comprehension of Marcus 
 Harding. Not him does Marcus Harding fear. 
 Not to him does she, the woman, look with the 
 eyes of a slave. It is not he who dominates the 
 crowds in St. Joseph's. It is not he who conceived 
 that sermon of the man and his double. It is not 
 he who has sometimes been terribly afraid." 
 
 "Afraid! Afraid!" 
 
 " There have been moments when I have been 
 moved to snatch my double out of the sight of 
 men. That day when we met Evelyn Mailing I 
 feared as I left them alone together; and when I 
 found Mailing intimately there in that house, I 
 felt like one coming upon an ambush which might 
 be destructive of his safety. My instinct was to 
 detach Mailing from my double, to attach him to 
 myself. My conduct startled him. I saw that 
 plainly. Yet I tried to win him over, as it were, 
 to my side. He came to me. I strove to tell 
 him, but something secret prevented me. And 
 how could he assist me? " 
 
 Chichester got up from the table. The pro- 
 247 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 fessor saw a darkness moving as he went to stand 
 by the empty fireplace. 
 
 " I must look on truth," he continued; " I have 
 to. The fascination of staring upon the truth of 
 oneself is deadly, but it surpasses all other fascina- 
 tion. He sins more often now. I watch him sin. 
 Sometimes under my contemplation I see him 
 writhing like a thing in a trap — the semblance of 
 myself. How the woman despises him now! 
 Sometimes I feel deeply sad at my own ruthless- 
 ness. It is frightful to contemplate the physical 
 wreck of a being whom, in some strange and hide- 
 ous way, one always feels to be oneself. When 
 I look at him it is as if his fallen face, his hang- 
 ing nerveless hands, his down-drooping figure and 
 eyes lit with despair were mine. His poses, his 
 gestures, his physical tricks, they arc all mine. I 
 watch them with a cold, enveloping disgust, frozen 
 in criticism of everything he does, anticipating 
 every movement, every look, hating it when it 
 comes, because it is bred out of the remnant of a 
 spirit I despise as no man surely has ever despised 
 before. Henry Chichester would pity, but he is 
 overborne. He is in me as a drop may be in the 
 ocean. I am most aware of him when my double 
 sins. Only last night we sat " — Chichester came 
 back to the table, and stood there, very faintly 
 
 248 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 relieved against the darkness by the dim light which 
 penetrated through the windows — " we sat in the 
 darkness, and more deeply than ever before I went 
 down into the darkness. I felt as if I were pene- 
 trating into the last recesses of a ruined temple. 
 And there, in the ultimate chamber crouched all 
 that was left of the inmate, terrified, helpless, and 
 ignorant. As I looked upon him I understood 
 why man is never permitted really to know him- 
 self unless, in an access of mad folly and over- 
 weening pride, he succeeds in crossing the boundary 
 which to pass Is sheer wickedness. And I tried 
 to turn away, but I could not — I could not. I 
 made a supreme effort. It was in vain. 
 
 " I saw him go home. At last he was sick of 
 his sin. There rose within him that strange long- 
 ing for goodness, for purity and rest, that terrible, 
 aching desire to be what those who once loved him 
 for long had thought him to be, which perhaps 
 never dies in the soul of a human being. Is it the 
 Instinct of the Creator burning like an undying 
 spark In the created? And, as he drew near to 
 his house, there came to him the resolve to speak, 
 to acknowledge, to say, ' This is what I am. 
 Know me as I am ! Care for me still, in spite of 
 what I am ! ' He went in, and sought her — the 
 woman. She was alone. Sleep had not come to 
 
 249 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 her. Perhaps some instinct had told her she 
 must wake and be ready for something. Then he 
 gathered together the little that was left to him 
 of courage, and he strove to tell her, to make her 
 understand some of the truth, to obtain from her 
 the greatest of human gifts — the love of one from 
 whom a man has no secrets that he can tell. 
 
 " She listened for a moment, then she thrust 
 out her hands as if to push the truth of him out 
 of her life. And last night she left him — going 
 in fear of him." 
 
 The professor shook his narrow shoulders, and 
 sprang abruptly to his feet. The ticking of the 
 clock now sounded almost like a hammer beating 
 in his ears. 
 
 " It 's time we had some light," he said in rather 
 a loud voice. 
 
 The darkness that was Chichester moved. A 
 gleam of light shone in the little room, revealing 
 the thin Madonna, " The Light of the World," the 
 piano, the neatly bound books of the curate of St. 
 Joseph's; revealing Chichester, who now stood 
 facing the professor, white, drawn, lined, but 
 with eyes full of almost hideous resolution and 
 power. 
 
 " I advise," said the professor — " I advise you 
 from this time forward — " 
 
 250 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 He stared into the eyes of the man opposite 
 to him, and his voice died away in his throat. 
 
 When, immediately afterward, he found himself 
 walking hurriedly toward Kensington High Street 
 the sweat was pouring down his face. 
 
 25T 
 
XII 
 
 ONE night of that autumn, driven by an over- 
 mastering impulse, Evelyn Mailing set out 
 toward Kensington. He felt that he must know 
 something more of the matter between Marcus 
 Harding and Henry Chichester. Stepton still 
 kept silence. Mailing had not approached him. 
 But why should he not call upon Chichester, an 
 acquaintance, almost a friend? It was true that 
 he had resolved, having put the affair into Stepton's 
 hands, to wait. It had come to this, then, to-night 
 that he could be patient no longer? As he stood 
 at the corner of Hornton Street, he asked himself 
 that question. He drew out his watch. It was 
 already past eleven, an unholy hour for an unan- 
 nounced visit. But slowly he turned Into Hornton 
 Street, slowly went down that quiet thoroughfare 
 till he was opposite to the windows of the curate's 
 sitting-room. A light shone In one of them. The 
 rest of the house was dark. Even the fanlight 
 above the small front door displayed no yellow 
 gleam. No doubt the household had retired to 
 
 252 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 rest and Henry Chichester was sitting up alone. 
 A rap would probably bring him down to open to 
 his nocturnal visitor. But now Mailing bethought 
 himself seriously of the lateness of the hour, and 
 paced slowly up and down, considering whether to 
 seek speech of the curate or to abandon that idea 
 and return to Cadogan Square. As in his mental 
 debate he paused once more opposite to the soli- 
 tary gleam in the first-floor window, an incident 
 occurred which startled him, and gave a new bent 
 to his thoughts. It was this: The light in the 
 window was obscured for a moment as if by some 
 solid body passing before it. Then the window 
 was violently thrown up, the large figure of a man, 
 only vaguely perceived by Mailing, appeared at it, 
 and a choking sound dropped out into the night. 
 The man seemed to be leaning out as if in an ef- 
 fort to fill his lungs with air, or to obtain the re- 
 lief of the cool night wind for his distracted 
 nerves. His attitude struck Mailing as peculiar 
 and desperate. Suddenly he moved. The light 
 showed, and Mailing saw for an instant a second 
 figure, small, slight, commanding. The big man 
 seemed to be sucked back toward the center of the 
 room. Down came the window; the tranquil 
 gleam of the light shone as before; then abruptly 
 all was dark. 
 
 253 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Mailing realized at once what was happening in 
 the curate's lodgings. As he paused, gazing at the 
 dark house, he knew that the miserable Marcus 
 Harding was within, constrained to endure the 
 observation which, to use his own hideous but 
 poigpant phrase, was " eating him away." It was 
 he who had appeared at the window, like a tor- 
 tured being endeavoring to escape into the free- 
 dom of the night. It was Henry Chichester who 
 had followed him, who had drawn him back, who 
 had plunged him into darkness. 
 
 The street was deserted. No policeman passed, 
 regarding him with suspicion, and Mailing went 
 on sentinel duty. The dark house fascinated him. 
 More than once a desire came to him to make an 
 effort for the release of Marcus Harding, to cross 
 the street and to hammer brutally at the green 
 door. He recalled Henry Chichester's strange 
 sermon, and he felt as if he assisted at the torture 
 of the double, which he himself had imaginatively 
 suggested to the two clergymen in Lady Sophia's 
 drawing-room. Ought he not to interrupt such 
 a torture? 
 
 Midnight struck, and he had not knocked. 
 One o'clock struck; he had paced the street, but 
 had never gone out of sight of the curate's door. 
 It was nearly two, and Mailing was not far from 
 
 254 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 the High Street end of the thoroughfare when he 
 heard a door bang. He turned sharply. A 
 heavy uncertain footstep rang on the pavement. 
 Out of the darkness emerged a tall figure with 
 bowed head. As it moved slowly forward once 
 or twice It swayed, and a wavering arm shot out as 
 if seeking for some support. Mailing stood 
 where he was till he saw the broad ghastliness of 
 Marcus Harding's white face show under the ray 
 of a lamp. He discerned no eyes. The eyes of 
 the unhappy man seemed sunken out of recogni- 
 tion in the dreadful whiteness of his countenance. 
 The gait was that of one who believes himself 
 dogged, and who tries to slink furtively, but who 
 has partly lost control of his bodily powers, and 
 who starts in terror at his own too heavy and 
 sounding footfalls. 
 
 This figure went by Mailing, and was lost in 
 the lighted emptiness of the High Street. Mai- 
 ling did not follow it. Now he had a great desire, 
 born out of his inmost humanity, to speak with 
 Henry Chichester. He made up his mind to re- 
 turn to the curate's door: if he saw a light to 
 knock and ask for admittance; if the window was 
 dark to go on his way. He retraced his steps, 
 looked up, and saw a light. Then it was to be. 
 That man and he were to speak together. But as 
 
 255 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 he looked, the light was extinguished. Never- 
 theless he struck upon the door. 
 
 No one answered. He struck again, then 
 stepped back into the roadway, and looked up at 
 Chichester's window. The curate must surely 
 have heard. Yes, for even as Mailing gazed the 
 window moved. No light appeared. But after 
 a pause a voice above said: 
 
 " Is that you, Mr. Harding ? " 
 
 The dim figure of a man was apparent, stand- 
 ing a little back and half concealed by a dark- 
 ness of drooping curtains. 
 
 " It is I — Evelyn Mailing," said Mailing. 
 
 The form at the window started. 
 
 "Mr. Mailing!" the words came uncertainly. 
 "What is it? Has — has anything happened 
 to — why do you want me at such an hour?" 
 
 " I chanced to be in your street and saw your 
 light. I thought I would give you a hail." 
 
 " Do you mean that you want to come in? " 
 
 After a short pause Mailing answered, " Yes." 
 
 " I cannot let you in ! " the voice above cried 
 out lamentably. 
 
 Then the window was shut very softly. 
 
 Three days later Mailing saw in the papers the 
 news of the complete breakdown of Marcus Har- 
 
 256 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 ding. " Nervous prostration," was the name 
 given by the doctors to his malady, and it was an- 
 nounced that he had been ordered to take a sea 
 voyage, and was preparing to start for Australia 
 with a nurse. 
 
 Soon afterward Mailing was walking in the 
 afternoon down Pall Mall, wondering deeply 
 what would happen, whether the rector would 
 ever start on that voyage, when he came 
 upon Professor Stepton sidUng out of the Athe- 
 naeum. 
 
 " Heard about Harding? " jerked out the pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 " Yes. Has he sailed for Australia ? " 
 
 " Dead. Died at half-past three o'clock this 
 morning." 
 
 Mailing turned cold. 
 
 " Poor fellow I " he said. " Poor fellow I " 
 
 The professor was drawing his plaid shawl 
 round his shoulders. When it was properly ad- 
 justed, he began to walk on. Mailing kept almost 
 mechanically beside him. 
 
 " Did you expect this? " Mailing asked. 
 
 " Well, I knew he was failing." 
 
 " And Chichester ? Have you seen Chichester 
 since his death ? " 
 
 " No. Would you like to see him for me? " 
 
 X7 257 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Mailing was deep in thought and did not an- 
 swer. 
 
 "Do you think?" said the professor, "that 
 Henry Chichester will be greatly affected by this 
 death?" 
 
 " Affected ? Do you mean by grief ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I should suppose that to be highly improb- 
 able." 
 
 The professor shot a very sharp glance at Mai- 
 ling. 
 
 " I 'm not sure that I agree with you," he ob- 
 served dryly. 
 
 " Have you seen him lately? " asked Mailing. 
 
 " Not quite recently. But If I had seen him, 
 say, yesterday, I don't think that would greatly af- 
 fect my present dubiety. I should, however, like 
 to set that dubiety at rest. Are you busy to-day? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I am. Will you make a little Investigation 
 for me? Will you go and pay a visit of condo- 
 lence to Chichester on the death of his rector, and 
 then come round to the White House and re- 
 port?" 
 
 " I will if you wish it." 
 
 " I shall be in after sevenj' 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 258 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 " I dare say you will be surprised," observed 
 Stepton. "I see my bus." 
 
 Mailing left him imperatively waving his arm, 
 and, turning, walked toward Kensington. 
 
 What were his expectations? He did not 
 know. Stepton had upset his mind. As he went 
 on slowly he strove to regain his mental equilib- 
 rium. But he could not decide exactly what Step- 
 ton had meant. He felt inferior to the professor 
 as he turned into Hornton Street. 
 
 He did not hesitate, but went at once to the 
 curate's door and rapped. No one answered. 
 He rapped again, and touched the bell, half hop- 
 ing, even while he did so, that there was no one 
 within to hear. 
 
 But an inquiring head appeared in the area, 
 observed, and was sharply withdrawn. Steps 
 sounded in the passage, and the maid Ellen pre- 
 sented herself, looking somewhat disordered. 
 
 " Yes, sir? " she said. 
 
 " Is Mr. Chichester at home? " 
 
 " He is in, sir, poor gentleman," replied the 
 maid. " Did you want to see him? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I 'm sure I don't know whether he will see you. 
 
 sir." 
 
 "Is he ill?" 
 
 259 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 " Not to say 111, sir. But have n't you heard? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " His poor rector 's gone, sir, what used to come 
 here to visit him so regular. I never see a gentle- 
 man in such a way. Why, he 's so changed I 
 don't hardly know him." 
 
 "Have you been here long?" said Mailing, 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Only six months, sir." 
 
 The maid began to look rather astonished. 
 
 " And so Mr. Chichester is quite altered by his 
 grief?" 
 
 " You never did, sir I He was so firm, was n't 
 he, above every one ! Even his rector used to look 
 to him and be guided by him. And now he 's 
 as gentle and weak almost as a new-born child, 
 as they say." 
 
 Mailing thought of Stepton. Had he looked 
 forward to some such change ? 
 
 " Perhaps I could console Mr. Chichester in 
 his grief," he said. " Will you take him this card 
 and ask if I can see him ? I knew Mr. Harding, 
 too. I might be of use, possibly." 
 
 " I '11 ask him, sir. He 's laying down on the 
 bed, I do believe." 
 
 Ellen hurried up-stairs with the card. It 
 260 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 seemed to Mailing that she was away for a long 
 time. At last she returned. 
 
 " If you please, sir, Mr. Chichester wants to 
 know if it 's anything important. He 's feeling 
 very bad, poor gentleman. But of course if it 's 
 anything important, he would n't for all the world 
 say no." 
 
 " It is important." 
 
 " Then I was to ask you to walk in, sir, please." 
 
 Chichester's sitting-room was empty when Mai- 
 ling came into it, and the folding-doors between 
 it and the bedroom were shut. Ellen went away, 
 and Mailing heard a faint murmur of voices, and 
 then Ellen's footstep retreating down the stairs. 
 Silence followed. He waited, at first standing. 
 Then he sat down near the piano. Not a sound 
 reached him from the bedroom. On the curate's 
 table lay a book. Mailing took it up. The title 
 was " God's Will be Done." The author was 
 a well-known high-church divine, Father Rowton. 
 To him, then, Henry Chichester betook himself for 
 comfort. The piano stood open. On it .was 
 music. Mailing looked and saw, " Oh, for the 
 wings, for the wings of a dove 1 " by Mendelssohn. 
 The little room seemed full of pious orthodoxy. 
 Surely its atmosphere was utterly changed since 
 
 261 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Mailing last was in it. The melody of " Oh, 
 for the wings I " went through his brain. That 
 the Henry Chichester he had recently known, that 
 cruel searcher after and expounder of truth, that 
 he should be helped by those words, by that 
 melody, in an hour of sorrow I 
 
 There was a movement in the bedroom. The 
 folding-doors opened inward, and the curate ap- 
 peared. He was very pale, and looked really ill. 
 His face had fallen in. His fair hair was slightly 
 disordered, and his blue eyes were surrounded by 
 red rims. His expression suggested that he had 
 recently undergone an extremely violent shock, 
 which had shaken badly both body and mind. He 
 looked dazed. Coming forward feebly, he held 
 out his hand. 
 
 " I believe it is something important," he said 
 in a gentle, rather wavering^ voice ; " otherwise — 
 I am hardly fit, I fear, to be with my kind. I " — 
 He sat down — " I have had a terrible shock, 
 Mr. Mailing. You have heard? " 
 
 " You mean Mr. Harding's deaA? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I have just heard of it." 
 
 " It occurred at half-past three o'clock last 
 night, or, rather, this morning. He had been de- 
 clining for a long while. At the last he just faded 
 
 262 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 out, as it were. The strange thing is that I knew 
 the exact moment when he entered into rest." 
 
 " You were n't with him ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I was here, asleep. But at three 
 o'clock I awoke. I felt violently agitated. I can 
 scarcely describe the sensation. It was as if I was 
 torn, as if mind and body, or spirit and body, 
 were torn, lacerated. I suffered the greatest con- 
 ceivable agony. I tried to cry out, but I could not. 
 Nor could I move. Then everything suddenly 
 seemed to fail, all in a moment, and I was at peace. 
 But it was like the peace of death, I think. And 
 I was aware — I don't know how — that Mr. 
 Harding was dead. I moved. I looked at my 
 watch. It was a minute after half-past three. 
 I noted down the time. And this morning — I 
 heard." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Only then I understood my loss — the loss 
 to us all. Ah, Mr. Mailing, you knew him, but 
 not as I did! Few or none knew him as I did. 
 He was the greatest and best of men, full of power, 
 but full of kindness and goodness, too. He 
 guided me in everything. I can never tell you how 
 I looked up to him, how I trusted him. His 
 judgment was extraordinary, his reading of char- 
 acter was unerring. I do believe he knew me bet- 
 
 263 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 ter than I knew myself. What shall I do with- 
 out him? " 
 
 The curate's grief was almost as genuine and 
 unself-conscious as a child's, and Mailing felt as 
 if at that moment, like a child, he felt himself 
 adrift in a difficult world. His gentle, kindly, 
 but not strong face was distorted, but not hardened, 
 by his distress, which seemed begging for sympathy. 
 And Mailing remembered the Henry Chichester 
 he had known some years ago, before the days 
 of St. Joseph's, the saintly but. rather weak man, 
 beloved by every one, but ruling no one. That 
 man was surely before him, and that man knew 
 not how to play a hypocrite's part. Yet Mailing 
 felt he must test him. 
 
 "His death is very sad," he replied; "but 
 surely his powers had been on the decline for a 
 long while." 
 
 " His powers, but not his capacity for good- 
 ness. His patience was angelic. Even when the 
 crudest blow of all fell upon him, even when his 
 wife — whom, God forgive me 1 1 don't think some 
 of us can ever forgive — even when she deserted 
 him in his hour of need, he never complained. 
 He knew it was God's hand upon him, and he sub- 
 mitted. He has taught me what true patience Is. 
 What I owe to him I What I owe to him I " 
 
 264 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 As if distressed beyond measure, the curate got 
 up, almost wringing his thin hands. 
 
 " It was he who sacrificed his time for mel " 
 he continued, moving restlessly about the room. 
 " But I seem to remember I told you. Did n't I 
 tell you — or was it some one else ? — how he 
 gave up the hours which should have been hours 
 of repose in order that my will might be strength- 
 ened, that I might be developed into a man more 
 worthy to be his coadjutor ? When I think, when 
 I remember — " 
 
 His light, tenor voice failed. Tears stood in 
 his gentle, blue eyes. 
 
 " If I am worth anything at all," he sud- 
 denly cried out, " if I have gained any force of 
 character, any power for good at all, I owe it all 
 to my rector's self-sacrificing endeavors on my be- 
 half — of course, through God's blessing." 
 
 "Then," said Mailing, "you think that Mr. 
 Harding changed you by his influence?" 
 
 " He helped me to develop, he brought me on. 
 Jealousy was unknown to him. I was a very poor 
 preacher. He taught me how to hold people's 
 attention. When I knew he was near me I some- 
 times seemed almost inspired. I was inspired by 
 him. I preached almost as if out of his mouth. 
 And now I " 
 
 i8 265 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 He made! a despairing gesture. 
 
 *' Now it willall be different! " he exclaimed. 
 
 And almost involuntarily Mailing found him- 
 self echoing: 
 
 " Yes, now it will all be different." 
 
 He had seen, he had heard, enough to make 1 his 
 report to the prjaf essor, and he resolved to go. 
 He held out his hand. ; j 
 
 " Oh,i but," said Chichester, pressing one ,hand 
 to his forehead, " I 'm so selfish, so forgetful in 
 my great grief 1 Surely you said you had come 
 on some matter of ^importance." :nD} 
 
 " It will wait," said Mallingij " Another dayi. 
 Go and rest now. You need rest. Any one can 
 see that." , , 
 
 " Thank you, thank you,!' said Chichester, with 
 quivering lips. *' You are very thoughtful, very 
 good." 
 
 Mailing took his hand in farewell. As he did 
 so there was a sharp knock at the front door. 
 Chichester started violently. 
 
 "Oh, I do hope it is no one for me! " he cried 
 out. " I cannot — " 
 
 He opened the door of the sitting-room a little 
 way and listened. Voices were audible below, 
 Ellen's voice and another woman's. 
 
 266 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 "You, ma'am! Oh,, of course he will see 
 youl" 
 
 " Of course." , 
 
 " I did n't know who it was, ma'am." 
 
 "Is it this ;way?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. I'll show you. We do feel 
 it, ma'ap. The poor gentlernan used to come 
 here so often of nights." 
 
 "Did he? ,il didn't know that." 
 
 Mailing recognized the second voice as Lady 
 Sophia's. A moment, and she was u^shered into 
 the -room. She was dressed in black, but not in 
 widow's weeds, and wore a veil which sheipyshed 
 hastily up as she came in almost with a rush. 
 When she saw Mjalling, fora moment she Iqciked 
 disconcerted. ; , , i- ; ;; , 
 
 "Oh, I thought — " she began. She stgq^ 
 still. Chichester said nothing, and did not move. 
 Mailing went toward her. 
 
 " I was very much grieved," he said,. " at the 
 news I heard to-day." 
 
 She gave him her hand. He knew his word? 
 were conventional. How could they be anything 
 else ? But Lady Sophia's manner in giving him her 
 hand was not conventional. She stretched it out 
 without even looking at him. She said nothing. 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 Her eyes were fixed upon Chichester, who stood 
 on the other side of the little room in a rigid at- 
 titude, with his eyes cast down, as if he could not 
 bear to see the woman who had just entered. 
 
 " I offer you my sympathy," Mailing added. 
 
 " Sympathy ! " said Lady Sophia, with a sharp 
 note in her voice suggestive of intense, almost 
 febrile excitement. " Then did n't you know ? " 
 
 She stared at him, turning her head swiftly. 
 
 "Know?" 
 
 " That I had left him ? Yes, I left him, and 
 now he Is dead. Do you expect me to be sorry? 
 Well, I am not sorry. Ah, I see you don't under- 
 stand! " 
 
 She made a movement toward Chichester. It 
 was obvious that she was so Intensely excited that 
 she had lost the power of self-control. 
 
 " Nobody undertands me but you ! " she cried 
 out to Chichester. " You knew what he was, you 
 knew what I endured, you know what I must feel 
 now. Oh, It 's no use pretending. I 'm sick of 
 pretence. You have taught me to care for abso- 
 lute truth and only that. My relations, my friends 
 — ah ! to-day I have been almost suffocated with 
 hypocrisy! And now, when I come here — " she 
 flung out her hand toward Mailing — " to get away 
 from It all — ' grieved,' ' my sympathy I ' I can't 
 
 268 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 bear any more of that. Tell him! You tell 
 him ! You 're so strong, so terribly sincere ! 
 One can rest upon your strength when all else 
 fails one ! " 
 
 She tottered. For an instant it seemed to Mai- 
 ling that she was going to fall against Chichester's 
 shoulder ; but she caught at a chair, and saved her- 
 self. 
 
 " Mr. Chichester I " she said, " tell him! Tell 
 him for me 1 " 
 
 " I have nothing to tell him," said Chichester, 
 with a sort of mild, almost weak coldness, and 
 wearily. 
 
 "Nothing I" She went nearer to him. "But 
 — you don't welcome me I " 
 
 Chichester looked up, but immediately cast 
 down his eyes again. 
 
 " I cannot," he said. " At this moment I 
 simply cannot." 
 
 An expression of terrified surprise transformed 
 Lady Sophia's face. She went close up to Chi- 
 chester, staring at him. 
 
 "Why not?" she asked. 
 
 " You must know that." 
 
 She stood still, always staring at him, as if 
 searching for something which she did not find. 
 
 " Why not? " she repeated. , 
 269 
 
the; dwelled ' 
 
 ; "You left — him when; he needed jrou most. 
 You left him to die aloije.'' 
 
 Lady Sophia suddenly turned round to Mailing 
 and scrutinized his face, as if demanding from 
 him sympathy in her horrified amazement. He 
 regarded her caligly, and s^ie turned agjain to the 
 curate., ,;, .,,■■: /. j ■- '-''..:■ ' ■ ' ^v.. 
 
 " What do you mean? " she said, and her voice 
 had changed, i ,n:f ' ' ' i 
 
 " That his friends can never be yours," said 
 Chichester, as if making a great effort; driven to it 
 by some intense feeling. » i ^ ' 
 
 "You call yourself his friend!" said Lady 
 Sophia. Her. voice, vibrated with scorn. 
 
 " At any rate, he Was mine, my best friend* 
 And now he has gone i f orpver ! " 
 
 Lady Sophia drew in her breath. b 
 
 } " You ihyprocritel " she said. "You hypo- 
 crite! " I ■■■ry 
 
 She spojae like one under the influence of an emo- 
 tion so intense that it could not be gainsaid. 
 
 "To pretend you admired him, ; loved him- — 
 you/ " 
 
 " I did admire and love him." .. ; 
 
 She seemed to be struck dumb by his (Jul et 
 manner, by the conviction in his voice. In a mo- 
 ment she turned round again toward MalHhg. 
 
 270 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Her face had quite changed. It was working 
 nervously. . The mouth quivered^ She stood for 
 a moment, then suddenly she made for the. door. 
 As she passed Mailing, she whispered: "The 
 strength — where is it? Oh, I 'tti afjraid of him ! 
 I 'm afraid of him! " * 
 
 She disappeared. Almost immediately Mailing 
 heard the street door shut. 
 
 "I — I cannot pretend to her," Chichester said, 
 " even in my own house." 
 
 He seemed greatly moved, almost on the verge 
 of tears. ' ; 
 
 " I '11 leave you alone," said, Mailing. " You 
 need to be alone." 
 
 " Thank you! Thank you! " said Chichester. 
 
 And without another word he went into the bed- 
 room, shutting the folding^doors behind him^ 
 
 At half-past seven that same evening Mailing 
 was with Professor Stepton, and made what the 
 professor called his " report." i 
 
 "Ah ! " said the professor: when he had finished. 
 
 " Did you expect Chichester to behave like 
 that, to be like that? "asked Mailing. •. > 
 
 " I hoped he would." 
 
 "Hoped! Why?" 
 
 " Because it enables me to accept as facts cer- 
 271 
 
THE DWELLER 
 
 tain things about which I must otherwise have 
 remained in doubt. Of course I must see Chi- 
 chester for myself. But he '11 be just the same, 
 just the same." 
 
 The professor's eyes shone, and he poked his 
 chin forward. 
 
 " The reverend gentlemen of St. Joseph's have 
 provided me with a basis," he exclaimed emphatic- 
 ally. 
 
 " A basis! For what? " asked Mailing. 
 
 " For future experiments and investigations of 
 a highly interesting nature. Ruskin was very 
 often wrong, but he was right when he said, in a 
 lucid moment, that every creature is precious. 
 Well, good-night, Mailing. I must get to work. 
 I '11 explain everything to you later." 
 
 Almost joyously he shut the door on his friend. 
 Almost joyously he sat down once more before 
 his writing-table and seized his pen and his note- 
 book. 
 
 But he did not begin to write. His face sud- 
 denly changed. He put his pen down, pushed his 
 note-book away, sat back in his chair, and let his 
 pointed chin drop toward his breast. And pres- 
 ently he began to mutter to himself. 
 
 " A little science ! " he muttered. " A little 
 272 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD 
 
 science sends man far away from God. A great 
 deal of science brings man back to God. Which 
 is it now — you professor, you ? Which is it 
 now? " 
 
 THE END 
 
 273 
 
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