^kTiW'Scl^ 
 
 Unseen Thing 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 6007.Y49U5 
 
 The unseen thing; a novel 
 
 3 1924 013 609 486 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013609486 
 
THE 
 
 UNSEEN 
 THING . 
 
THE 
 
 UNSEEN THING 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 By 
 
 ANTHONY DYLLINGTON 
 
 Author of "The Green Domino" 
 
 ' ... Me unseen things that always dvell hesond " 
 {"The Garden of Allah") 
 
 JOHN W. LUCE and COMPANY 
 BOSTON MCMX 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Its Shadow falls before it ... • i 
 
 II 
 It comes 51 
 
 III 
 It goes 171 
 
 IV 
 
 It comes again 267 
 
I. ITS SHADOW FALLS BEFORE IT 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 I. ITS SHADOW FALLS ^BEFORE IT 
 
 ** So kind of you to say so ! Yes, we are all 
 delighted — Guy has always been quite one of us 
 — like a boy of our own. . . . Yes, Sir Charles is 
 so pleased — he's so fond of dear Guy, you know. 
 . . . Oh, quite so — that's what we all feel — 
 how charming of you to put it into words! 
 Made for each other — yes, it really does seem 
 so, doesn't it ? But it isn't at all up-to-date to 
 think of marriages as made in heaven in these 
 days, is it ? More likely the other place — ah, 
 quite so — of course — we all must feel that — 
 how sweet of you to think so ! . . . Yes, it's to 
 be quite soon — neither Sir Charles nor I would 
 approve of a long engagement. . . . Yes, 
 they're both young, but they quite know their 
 own minds — that's so nice and modern, isn't it ? 
 The young people of these days are so wonder- 
 ful, / think — I am sure I never even knew I had 
 
4 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 a mind at all when I was dear Grace's age. 
 Probably I hadn't, you know — it wasn't the 
 fashion for girls to have such things, then, was 
 it ? . . . Must you go ? So sorry ! — oh, I quite 
 understand — such a drive just now, isn't it? 
 Good-bye! Thanks so much — Grace will be 
 charmed to come. . . . Yes, good-bye! So 
 kind — just what we all feel ! . . . Good-hye ! " 
 Lady Strange spoke a little more languidly 
 than usual, and looked a little more bored than 
 it had been her habit to look for the last twenty 
 and odd years. Perhaps languor and boredom 
 were to be excused on this particular occasion, 
 for she had been repeating the same phrases, 
 with a few variations, for nearly two hours, and 
 the freshness of both had begun to wear pain- 
 fully thin, together with any original and 
 maternal feelings of triumph which may have 
 supported her through the first portion of the 
 ordeal now drawing to its close. The fact that 
 everybody expressed such unqualified approval 
 of her daughter's engagement did not in the 
 least blind her to the much more unqualified 
 disapprobation which everybody felt, but did 
 not express. The pretty speeches made, and 
 answered in kind, did not deceive her ear, 
 trained by long experience to detect the insin- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING $ 
 
 cerity of too fervent congratulations. She knew 
 quite well that the women murmuring good 
 wishes for Grace Strange and her cousin Guy 
 Hilmour were inwardly grudging Grace her 
 good fortune in securing Guy, or wondering 
 what on earth Guy could have been thinking of 
 to get engaged to Grace. Lady Strange was 
 an admirably tolerant person. She had tolerated 
 a large social acquaintance for years with such 
 perfect resignation and broad-mindedness that 
 she was known from one end of England to the 
 other as "that sweet Georgiana Strange." 
 Nobody had ever succeeded in quarrelling with 
 her — it would have been like quarrelling with 
 a feather-bed; and if anyone had ever ruffled 
 the even sweetness of her temper, she had dis- 
 guised the fact with such art that the offender 
 had never had the satisfaction of looking upon 
 the inward havoc he may have wrought. At 
 the same time, tolerance is not to be confused 
 with stupidity, and Lady Strange knew the 
 world, as it had presented itself to her, remark- 
 ably well. She understood its little ways per- 
 fectly, with the understanding which is so 
 thorough that it contains no grain of bitterness. 
 She accepted insincerity with the same philo- 
 sophic calm with which she accepted her dinner. 
 
6 THE UNSEEN TfflNG 
 
 Humbugs and cooks had a right to their re- 
 spective places in the universe; she could not 
 have imagined an existence devoid of either. 
 
 But, while she smiled and murmured com- 
 monplaces in answer to the general chorus of 
 congratulation, she was conscious of being more 
 bored than usual, and her eyes strayed wearily 
 from the bland faces of her friends to the tall 
 young figure of Grace at the other end of the 
 great room. Grace had borne the ordeal of 
 the afternoon with a courage equal to her own ; 
 she had received congratulations as perfectly as 
 she did everything else — with a kind of digni- 
 fied simplicity rare and delightful in this hurry- 
 ing age. If she had not felt happy, she had 
 looked it, and if she did not believe all that 
 people said to her, no one would have suspected 
 it. Her mother had found a kind of solace in 
 her weariness in swift, occasional glimpses of 
 Grace's radiantly untired face. 
 
 Now, when the last units of the chorus of 
 congratulation were melting rapidly away, mur- 
 muring the customary phrases as they went, 
 the group of young people had melted too, 
 and Grace was almost alone. Guy, who hated 
 functions, had slipped away early ; the few 
 girls who had lingered behind the others were 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 7 
 
 saying good-bye and escaping in laughing haste, 
 for it was late. At last Grace was left with 
 her cousin, Julian Strange, who had always been 
 a third in her friendship with Guy, and seemed 
 to-day to have played a part in the act of 
 congratulation only inferior to that of the two 
 principal performers. A sudden silence fell 
 upon them as the last two girls disappeared, and 
 they liecame conscious of the emptiness of the 
 room, and of the fact that Lady Strange was 
 coming towards them with an air of relief which 
 made her always graceful progress appear almost 
 brisk. 
 
 "I'm tired out, Grace, darling," she called 
 as she approached them. "How kind every- 
 body has been — I'm so glad they're all 
 gone. Dear Grace, I hope you will never 
 get engaged again — I could not stand another 
 afternoon like this. . . . No, of course you 
 won't — you are always so certain of yourself, 
 I know. It is such a relief to me that you 
 are — I couldn't have endured a daughter who 
 wanted me to help her choose either her husband 
 or her clothes — it has been quite enough trouble 
 to me to look after my own. . . . Now, Julian, 
 you naughty boy, don't laugh at your poor wreck 
 of an aunt — I'm sure I don't know what I'm 
 
8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 saying in the very least, and anyway it doesnH 
 matter, because you know what I mean. . . • 
 Make him stay to dinner, Grace — I must really 
 go and rest." 
 
 She drifted away as she talked, and was out 
 of the room almost before the last sentence was 
 finished. Grace and Julian looked at each other 
 and smiled. 
 
 *'Poor dear Aunt Georgie, she's done up," 
 Julian said. "I can't stop to dinner, Grace — 
 I must be off." 
 
 The smile died in Grace's face. Perhaps she 
 too was tired at last. Her radiant serenity and 
 self-possession of the afternoon were gone, and 
 it seemed to Julian that there was an anxious 
 look in her eyes. 
 
 " Must you really go ? I haven't had a 
 minute with you alone, and I — I wanted to 
 speak to you." 
 
 Julian shrank back a little. He misunder- 
 stood her meaning, and was conscious of a 
 momentary disgust at his task, a sudden hatred 
 for what he knew was the proper thing to do. 
 
 "You know, I wish you every sort of good 
 luck, dear," he said. " I — Pm bad at saying 
 things, but I don't mean them any the less for 
 that. I hope you'll be very happy, and I think 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 9 
 
 Guy is ^ He broke off, and was silent for 
 
 a second. When he resumed his little speech 
 he did not return to the subject of Guy. "You 
 have every good wish I could possibly invent 
 for you, and more." 
 
 He ended hurriedly, with a glance at the 
 little silver clock ticking placidly on the table 
 beside them; but Grace caught the look, and 
 read its meaning before he could make any 
 attempt to escape. 
 
 " But I must speak to you— I must ! " she 
 said quickly, with agitated emphasis very unlike 
 her usual cheerful calm. *' Julian, you must 
 give me five minutes- — come to my den, and let 
 us have it out in peace." 
 
 "Oh, well, if it's anything important " 
 
 He looked at her curiously. 
 
 *'It is, but — I don't know how to explain. 
 You will probably think It all very absurd, but 
 I have no one else to go to. One can't con- 
 fide this sort of thing to mamma — you're a man 
 and perhaps you will understand." 
 
 " Why don't you confide in Uncle Charles ? " 
 Julian asked, a little uneasily. " Or in — well, 
 there's Guy now, you know. I suppose he's 
 the proper person for you to confide in, isn't 
 he?" 
 
lo THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 There was a stifled bitterness in his tone, but 
 Grace was in no mood to hear it. She made a 
 little impatient movement. 
 
 «I can't confide in Guy. Julian, you were 
 always so quick to understand — don't you see 
 it's something I can't tell Guy ? " 
 
 "Or you wouldn't tell me?" He laughed, 
 rather shortly. " Yes — it is a bit obvious, I 
 
 admit. You have always told Guy things ** 
 
 She interrupted him. 
 
 "No — I never have. Not — not the things 
 that mattered most to m^" 
 
 There was a moment of silence — a silence 
 which told much. Julian, as she said, was 
 quick to understand. It seemed to him tbat in 
 that moment he understood a number of things 
 which had puzzled him before. 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," he said at 
 last. " I don't think I want to hear anything, 
 if — if you don't mind. Everything's between 
 you and Guy now — you must see that." 
 
 "But I can't tell Guy, because — oh, Julian, 
 do understand ! — do help me ! It's about Guy." 
 
 He did not answer at once. It was all quite 
 horribly embarrassing. He did not want to hear 
 anything about Guy — he did not want even to 
 hear Guy's name. He certainly did not want 
 
THE UNSEEN THING ii 
 
 to be told something which Guy had or had not 
 done, or to be asked to pronounce judgment 
 upon it. That evening he felt that he could 
 not have been quite just to Guy, with the 
 best and most honourable intentions in the 
 world. 
 
 *' Do help me ! " Grace said again, almost 
 imploringly. 
 
 It was the tone he knew so well, and could 
 never resist. Grace, in short skirts and with 
 flying hair, had appealed to him with just the 
 same accent in the days when she was always 
 getting into scrapes from which he as constantly 
 disentangled her. It was no good — he had to 
 hear what she wanted to say. 
 
 "Very well — I can give you half-an-hour. 
 Let's go to the den." 
 
 In the den they had had their juvenile 
 quarrels and reconciliations, he remembered, 
 their games, their lessons, and those delightful 
 high teas at which Grace, in an unnaturally 
 clean pinafore, had played hostess with the same 
 radiant serenity with which she had this after- 
 noon received the congratulations of her friends 
 upon her engagement to Guy. In the den, he 
 believed, Guy had proposed to her at the ripe 
 age of seven — a prophetic shadow of another 
 
12 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 proposal, made a few days ago. In the den he 
 himself had been refused by her recently enough 
 to leave a very sore recollection of memorable 
 and unpleasant details. It was only in keeping 
 with their joint ways of life that this last little 
 drop of bitterness should be poured out to him 
 in the shrine of so many memories. 
 
 So he followed Grace resignedly. The den, 
 in spite of more recent transformation, retained 
 an atmosphere all its own. One could almost 
 imagine the old doll's house standing in its place 
 against the delicate rose-colour of the wall, and 
 the table spread for tea, and Grace's high chair 
 at the head of it. The old flavour of young 
 romance — which is the oldest thing in the world 
 — hung about it still, reminding one of delicious 
 fights with pirates, and of Red Indian games, 
 in which Grace had played a stirring part, 
 draped in a table-cloth, and crowned with 
 nodding pheasants' feathers, begged from a 
 sympathising cook. Julian sighed a little as he 
 looked round him. A second glance revealed 
 so many changes; and on the mantelpiece, 
 emblem of the greatest change of all, stood a 
 big photograph of Guy, looking out upon the 
 room with a smiling air of possession. He was 
 conscious that the photograph hurt him; his 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 13 
 
 own, a few inches away, seemed to have fallen 
 suddenly into the background. 
 
 *'Oh, Julian, I'm not happy about it — I'm 
 frightfully worried ! " 
 
 It was Grace's voice, but so altered, so full 
 of distress and doubt that he hardly recognised 
 it. She came and stood beside him, looking at 
 the photograph with troubled eyes. It seemed 
 to him that she was searching Guy's face for 
 something which she wished to find in it, but 
 which persistently escaped her. 
 
 "Not happy? Then why in the world did 
 you accept him ? " 
 
 She did not turn towards him. She spoke 
 with her eyes fixed upon the photograph, as 
 though upon a living thing. 
 
 "I accepted him because I couldn't help it, 
 Julian. I love him so much — he has always 
 been everything to me. But now that it's 
 done, I don*t know whether I have been right 
 — I don't know whether it's for the best. I 
 don't know — ^" she brought it out with an 
 effort, as though against her will — "I don't 
 know whether I can make him happy." 
 
 "Well, who on earth can, if you can't?" 
 Julian said, almost roughly. *'He thinks you 
 can — that's the only thing that matters, isn't it?" 
 
14 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " Yes, but — if he should be wrong ? I 
 believe he is wrong — he ought to marry some- 
 one quite different — someone more like himself. 
 You know, the Hilmours are not a cheerful 
 family, Julian — and I am far more like a 
 Hilmour than Guy is — mamma has always said 
 so. He ought to marry someone who would 
 never have any doubts about anything, who 
 would never be afraid " 
 
 She broke off, with a quivering voice. Julian, 
 standing beside her, felt that she was quite 
 extraordinarily moved from her usual way of 
 looking at existence. It was not like Grace to 
 be afraid of anything, or to entertain doubts of 
 any kind. 
 
 " But of what are you afraid ? " 
 
 She was silent for a moment, looking still at 
 Guy's face, with its brilliant, almost wistful 
 smile, its eager eyes, its expression of vivid 
 unrest and expectation. It was as though those 
 eyes which were at once smiling and half sad 
 were fixed upon something very far away — 
 something for which their owner waited and 
 longed with an ever-growing passion of im- 
 patience which was almost painful to anyone 
 who could read it. 
 
 "If he were different — not like that — it 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 15 
 
 wouldn't be so difficult," Grace said at last. 
 "Julian, I don't know how to explain, but — 
 but he isn't like other people. He is extra- 
 ordinarily sensitive — he has a really terrible 
 way of feeling things. Do you know why he 
 went oiF this afternoon ? " 
 
 "No. Why did he?" 
 
 "Because Kitty Fellowes was talking to me 
 — she is lame, you know. He always goes 
 when she is here — he says he can't stay in the 
 room with her. I have told him fifty times that 
 it's unreasonable and unkind, but nothing alters 
 him — I don't believe he can stay when she is 
 here. If I thought it merely fancy, merely 
 morbid fastidiousness, I shouldn't mind so much ; 
 but it is really something in him — something he 
 can't help. Anything like that makes him quite 
 ill — I have seen him go white at the sight of 
 anyone who was very ugly, or deformed." 
 
 " He ought to get over such silly nonsense." 
 
 " Yes — but what if he can't ? — if he's made 
 like that, and can't get over it ? " 
 
 " But I don't see what that has to do with 
 you. You are not — not exactly ugly, or de- 
 formed," Julian said, forcing an uncomfortable 
 smile. 
 
 "Don't you see, that's just it? It is so 
 
i6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 difficult to explain, but that's exactly what I'm 
 afraid of." She turned away, and he heard 
 again the swift quiver in her voice which hurt 
 him with a sharp, physical pain. "Julian — 
 how am I to put it ? The one thing he cares 
 for is beauty — he hates ugliness, he always has 
 hated it. He loves me because he thinks me — 
 pretty. . . ." Her voice broke. After a long 
 pause, in a voice muffled and strangled, she 
 said, almost in Julian's ear, "If I were not 
 pretty — if anything happened to hurt me — 
 disfigure me — he — he would hate me too." 
 
 " Good God, Grace, you mustn't think that ! 
 He's odd about ugliness or deformity, but — you 
 mustn't think that." 
 
 "I don't think it — I know it," she said 
 quietly. "He would hate me — and he couldn't 
 help it, he could never conquer his hatred. 
 And . . . and, Julian, it might happen so easily. 
 An accident — an illness — a fall — and then every- 
 thing would be over for me, and I should want 
 to kill myself — I think I should kill myself, if 
 only to set him free." 
 
 Julian stood silent and appalled. This was 
 infinitely worse than anything he had expected. 
 And the worst part of all was that in his own 
 mind he knew Grace to be right. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 17 
 
 *' But — it's nonsense, you know," he said at 
 last. "Fantastic nonsense. You're not going 
 to have an accident — and Guy isn't so bad as 
 that. Of course, he's always been rather queer 
 in that particular way, but you ought not to 
 make it worse by being morbid about it. And 
 — if you feel like this — you ought not to 
 marry him. Suppose you are going to feel like 
 it all your life — to be expecting something to 
 happen, as you call it — how are you going to 
 stand it, Grace ? To feel like that would drive 
 a woman mad in a week, I should think." 
 
 " But it's done now. I can't undo it. Only, 
 it worries me so frightfully,! had to tell someone." 
 
 " And now you have told me, what can I do ? 
 It has not done any good, so far as I can see. 
 There are things it's best not to think of — not 
 to see, or hear, or understand. Guy has this 
 curious characteristic. It is no good to woiry 
 about it. Perhaps he will get over it in time, 
 but, if he doesn't, I don't see how it is going to 
 affect you, unless you set to work to make your- 
 self miserable about it." 
 
 He paused, feeling uneasy, and unsympathetic, 
 and perhaps a little unkind as weU. It was 
 rough treatment, but common sense told him 
 that it was the only sort of treatment which 
 
1 8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 could have any good effect. As he waited for 
 Grace to speak, a light step came down the 
 corridor, and a light tap sounded on the door. 
 It opened and Guy put in a laughing face. 
 
 " Is the Hen Convention over, darling ? I 
 say, I've come back for some dinner if you'll 
 give it to me. Why, what's old Julian closeted 
 with you about? I'll be jealoUS in a minute. 
 Do get out, Julian — you look as though you had 
 lost a fortune." 
 
 " I was just about to take your polite and 
 most elegantly expressed advice," Julian said, at 
 once annoyed and relieved by the interruption. 
 " As for losing a fortune, I've nothing to lose. 
 Good-bye, Grace — we shall all meet at the 
 Kents' dance, I suppose." 
 
 Guy threw himself into a chair. 
 
 " Oh yes, you'll see me there anyway. I'm 
 going round doing the good boy, and being 
 patted on the back. Grace is doing the same 
 trick. It's a beastly bore — or would be, if I 
 wasn't so infernally happy that twenty Hen 
 Conventions wouldn't ruffle a feather of my 
 wings. Ta-ta, Ju — till to-night. Grace, give 
 me five minutes, there's an angel." 
 
 The door closed on Julian's exit. Grace 
 looked irresolutely into Guy's radiant face. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 19 
 
 *' I must go and dress, Guy. I'm late as it is." 
 
 He put out an impetuous hand, and drew her 
 down on the arm of the chair. 
 
 " You were talking to Julian about me," he 
 said. "Now, look here, I don't like that. 
 Why should you talk about me to him? I'm 
 not interesting, really. I'm frightfully frivolous, 
 and empty-headed, and all I want in the world 
 is to have a good time-— the very best of times — 
 and for you to have it with me. And you were 
 dissecting me, you and old Julian — ^you were 
 putting my poor little butterfly soul on the end 
 of a horrid pin, and trying to find out what it 
 was made of. It isn't made of anything, and 
 you have been wasting your time and trouble. 
 Don't do it again, Grace. It's not worth it, and 
 I don't like it." 
 
 He was half serious, half in earnest — perhaps 
 rather more than half in earnest, she thought. 
 It was even possible that he was a little jealous, 
 that he had really disliked finding her in conver- 
 sation with Julian. She did not quite know 
 about that. All she did know was that at 
 moments like this it was impossible to resist Guy, 
 impossible to shake oiF the speil of an odd charm 
 which was almost boyish, almost childish; the 
 fascination of some extraordinarily young, im- 
 
20 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 mature, rather elfish spirit masquerading as a 
 human being belonging to a singularly ordinary 
 and commonplace age. 
 
 •* How did you know we were talking about 
 you?" 
 
 " Oh, I know everything, without bothering 
 to listen at keyholes. I know you were talking 
 about me. I even know what you said." 
 
 She released herself with a sudden movement 
 which suggested fear. 
 
 " What nonsense you talk, Guy ! How could 
 you know ? " 
 
 She had risen, in spite of his effort to detain 
 her, and stood facing him, uneasily, with eyes 
 which would hardly meet his. He rose too, and 
 looked at her for a moment in silence, smiling 
 whimsically, yet a little sadly too. It struck her 
 then, as it had done once or twice before, that 
 beneath the surface of his gaiety there was 
 often something hidden which was not gay at 
 all, which was even tragic, and might some day 
 become terrible. 
 
 " I know what you said. You were telling 
 him why I went away this afternoon. You were 
 saying it was absurd and unkind to feel as I do 
 about — that. You told him that you were not 
 certain whether it would be possible to go 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 21 
 
 through life successfully with a person so given 
 over to impulse, so irrational, so abominably and 
 airily unable to conceal either his feelings or his 
 want of them." 
 
 He paused, and let his eyes drift from her 
 grave face to the mantelpiece. 
 
 " May I have a cigarette ? " he said, in quite 
 a different tone. 
 
 She nodded mutely. He came close to her, 
 and took a match from the little silver box lying 
 against the foot of his own photograph. She 
 watched him light his cigarette without speaking. 
 The small, trivial action seemed to absorb him 
 entirely. He did not even look at her. Pre- 
 sently he threw the match away, and lifted his 
 head. There was an odd, keen look in his eyes, 
 as though they looked through her — as though 
 he did really know everything, as he said. 
 
 *' That is what you told him. Now deny it ! " 
 
 She did not attempt denial. 
 
 " I am afraid of you sometimes, Guy." 
 
 "I'm afraid of myself, too," he said, quite 
 gravely. "It's rather awful to feel things so 
 intensely — to know what people are saying 
 about you, and thinking about you. 1 don't 
 like it. I wish I were stupid and ordinary and 
 comfortable — and I'm not. I'd give anything 
 
2a THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 to be ordinary, t'm a freak, Grace — did you 
 know you were engaged to a freak ? I've got 
 a hump on my mind, or two heads to my soul, 
 or something quite horrid and abnormal. I feel 
 it when I'm among nice, comfortable, normal 
 people — I feel it all the time. I know they 
 think me odd — I know I am odd. Don't laugh 
 — it's quite solemn, really. It's a sort of — ** 
 he hesitated — "a sort of deformity. There 
 are people who haven't got the proper number 
 of skins, so that a touch makes them bleed. 
 Well — ^I'm like that. My soul is a skin short." 
 
 He stopped, with a questioning glance, as 
 though fearing that she would laugh at a singu- 
 larly fantastic piece of description. But she did 
 not laugh — she did not even wish to laugh. She 
 saw, in one swift flash of insight, the truth which 
 lay beneath the fantasy ; she knew that in those 
 few brief sentences Guy had described himself 
 as no one else would ever be able to describe him. 
 
 " I'm a freak," he said again, in a low voice, 
 as though speaking to himself. "And I hate 
 freaks. It's horrible ! " 
 
 Sudden pity and compunction struck her to 
 the heart. Horrible — yes, he was right, it was 
 horrible. Who was she, who was Julian, mere, 
 ordinary, coarse-grained, normal people, that 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 23 
 
 they should judge Guy, the abnormal, that they 
 should call him foolish, or — ^as she had done a 
 few moments ago — unkind? Was it mere 
 fantastic fastidiousness that made him go away 
 when Kitty Fellowes was present? Was it 
 mere unkindness ? Or was it not rather some- 
 thing much finer and deeper than their own 
 callous acceptance of the ugliness, the deformity 
 of things — the cry of a spirit full pf beauty 
 itself, which would accept nothing but beauty 
 from those around it? When she had told 
 Julian that Guy cared for beauty so jnuch that 
 he would hate even her if she were to become 
 ugly, should she not really have spoken not in 
 blame but in praise? She had judged Guy 
 harshly, for the defects of his qualities, because, 
 in her blindness and stupidity, she had not been 
 able to appreciate those qualities at their true 
 worth. 
 
 <' No — you're not a freak," she said quickly. 
 " It is we who are all freaks. Forgive me, Guy 
 — I ought not to have spoken to Julian as I did. 
 I'm sorry." 
 
 He looked at her in surprise. 
 
 " A freak ? You ? " Suddenly he came close 
 to her, and his half-whimsical gravity became 
 real, his half-careless tone changed and shook. 
 
24 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "You must never say that," he said, almost 
 angrily. "You're what stands to me for per- 
 fection in this ugly thing we call life. You're 
 the only person I ever met who seemed to me 
 at once absolutely normal and absolutely perfect. 
 If anything happened to alter me, or to alter 
 you, I couldn't bear it. I can't make com- 
 promises with existence, I must be either per- 
 fectly happy, or perfectly miserable. I don't 
 know how to do things by halves. I don't just 
 want to go through the world eating good 
 dinners, and being comfortable, like the nice, 
 ordinary creature I'm not, and never shall be. 
 I want to be absolutely happy — to have a life 
 of my own, a life that belongs only to you and 
 me, Grace, to make what we choose of — a life 
 that shall have nothing in it but what is beauti- 
 ful, and in which ugliness of any kind shall be 
 an unseen thing." 
 
 He spoke with a strange fire, a conviction 
 before which she suddenly felt very helpless. 
 It was as though he asked her for the moon, 
 and she knew that she could not give it to him. 
 Also she knew that if he wanted the moon, he 
 would never be satisfied with anything else. 
 
 " Oh, Guy, it's impossible," she said, looking 
 at him with a kind of fear. "You're asking 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 25 
 
 too much. That wouldn't be life at all — it 
 would be a fairy tale ! " 
 
 For a moment it seemed to her that he was 
 about to answer her angrily. Then the smile 
 came back into his eyes, the old, irresponsible 
 lightness to his voice. Only, behind the smile, 
 behind the lightness, she felt that he was still 
 in earnest, and that beneath the fantasy of his 
 words lay a fundamental and almost fanatical 
 determination which she was powerless to alter. 
 
 "Well — why not? Why shouldn't it be a 
 fairy tale?" he asked, laughing. "Are you 
 too old to believe in fairies, Grace? I'm not 
 — I hope I never shall be. There — run and 
 dress. You'll be late for dinner, and Aunt 
 Georgia will swear it's ray fault." 
 
 After she had gone, he stood where she had 
 left him, looking after her. 
 
 *' It ought not to be impossible — it isn't im- 
 possible," he said to himself. *' It can't be — 
 with her." And, half unconsciously, he re- 
 peated the words which had struck such a chill 
 to the heart of this girl who loved him, and 
 whom he loved, in his own way, better than 
 anything in the world. *' A life that shall have 
 nothing in it but what is beautiful, and in which 
 ugliness of any kind shall be an unseen thing." 
 
II 
 
 It was perhaps in accordance with the usual 
 irony of things that the Kents, who were very 
 new and very rich, and had never in their lives 
 done anything memorable, should have sprung 
 into sudden notoriety which became almost fame 
 through that one dance to which Grace Strange 
 and Guy Hilmour went that evening. People 
 remembered afterwards that what happened 
 took place "the day after the Kents' second 
 dance." They repeated the phrase until the 
 Kents' second dance took on, in retrospect, the 
 air of an event of the season. It became even 
 rather smart to have been at this fateful enter- 
 tainment — or, at any rate, not to say that you 
 had been elsewhere on that particular night. 
 A week after the Kents' second dance very 
 select ladies who considered Mrs Kent rather 
 an impossible person did not, at the mere 
 mention of her name, look sweetly into space 
 and remark that she was not in their set. This 
 attitude was significant. It almost seemed to 
 prove the truthfulness of the saying that de- 
 
 z6 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 27 
 
 Clares that it is indeed an ill wind which blows 
 nobody good. The ill wind which blew on the 
 morning after the Kents' second dance blew 
 poor, unconscious Mrs Kent straight into that 
 hitherto impregnable fortress which had resisted 
 all her assaults and all her blandishments. Not 
 a dozen hours after the last guest departed in 
 the chill grey of a London dawn, Mrs Kent had 
 made good her entrance into the Upper Circle. 
 Society, with a big S., recognised her existence, 
 for the sake of her *' second dance.'* 
 
 It did not appear very memorable at the time. 
 Julian Strange went with a heavy heart, and 
 was frankly bored; Grace went, with the 
 radiant air which still hid considerable anxiety 
 of spirit ; Guy Hilmour went, in a wild mood of 
 exultation which he was at no pains to hide; 
 Lady Strange went, full of languid astonishment 
 at the spectacle of her hostess in white satin and 
 diamonds, looking extraordinarily like a white 
 satin cushion in a jeweller's window, stuck all 
 over with winking ornaments. Poor Mrs Kent 
 had told everyone, with ostentatious naivete, 
 that her second dance was " quite a little thing, 
 you know," but in the end it proved rather 
 gorgeous, with quite a few second-rate tiaras, 
 who all seemed a Httle shy of each other, as 
 
28 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 though conscious that they should not have 
 been there. Lady Strange tolerated Mrs Kent 
 for the sake of Guy, who had taken one of his 
 illogical fits of championship for the lady of 
 white satin and diamonds, simply because his 
 own set would not open its arms to receive her. 
 Grace, who was quite incapable of the usual 
 feminine smallnesses, was nice to Mrs Kent, as 
 she was to everyone. Julian went anywhere, 
 when he happened to be in the humour, and 
 nowhere at all, when he wanted to be solitary. 
 To-night he felt that solitude would have driven 
 him mad. Better the sight of Guy's face than 
 that — better to look on at Guy's triumph. 
 
 For afterwards even Mrs Kent, who was not 
 imaginative, declared that there had been some- 
 thing about these two young people and their 
 happiness which had impressed her with a sense 
 of foreboding. She did not put it exactly like 
 that. She said she was sure that sort of thing 
 couldn't last — the world wasn't good enough for 
 it. She said it, too, with tears in her eyes — 
 there was a heart hidden away in the jeweller's 
 cushion, after all. She did not think about the 
 ill wind which had blown good to her and her 
 second dance. She was only dimly aware that 
 she had looked in the flesh on a happiness so 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 29 
 
 great that it had about it something not of 
 earth, something perhaps that was almost of 
 heaven. It was as though an angel had walked 
 that night through the hot, crowded rooms, 
 bringing even to the second-rate tiaras a celestial 
 breath from the heights from which he had 
 come, a vision of something better and more 
 beautiful than social success. And it was as 
 though they had heard next day that this angel, 
 in his radiant immortality, had come ingloriously 
 to a mortal end — as though they had seen a 
 deathless thing, a thing sent down from heaven, 
 lying before them, dead and cold. 
 
 Even Guy seemed conscious of something 
 approaching, something which threatened him, 
 but was not able to depress him. Late that 
 night he went up to Julian with the smile which 
 seemed always like a flame of irresistible gaiety 
 which nothing could put out. 
 
 "I'm *fey,' Julian," he said. *'My world's 
 coming to an end to-night. It can't last. 
 There's going to be a big smash-up somewhejre. 
 And I'm so happy that I don't even care — I 
 can't even feel afraid." 
 
 "It's all nonsense," Julian returned uncom- 
 fortably. *'You have as many moods as a 
 woman, Guy." 
 
30 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " I've a great many more than any woman I 
 ever knew, or you either. No — I'm fey." 
 
 He repeated the phrase with an odd sort of 
 emphasis, as though it held for him some unac- 
 countable fascination. He was quite serious, in 
 spite of his smile. Julian knew him well 
 enough to know that he was often most serious 
 when he said the most unreasonable things. 
 
 "It's rubbish," he said curtly. "Go and 
 dance — go and do anything. Don't stand 
 there looking at me like that. What on earth 
 are you thinking about now, Guy ? " 
 
 *' I was thinking what form the smash- 
 up would be likely to take. Oh, I say, Julian, 
 it's a beastly feeling ! " he broke out boyishly. 
 "It's — it's like seeing your own funeral going 
 past you, and not being able to scream. 
 What shall I do ? I can't bear it ! " 
 
 "If you will conjure up fantastic horrors, 
 you must put up with the result," Julian said, 
 thoroughly out of temper. *' Gkiod-night — I'm 
 going home to bed, and I advise you to go 
 too." 
 
 Long afterwards he remembered Guy's look. 
 
 "Good-night, old man. You'll find the 
 world's gone to pieces when you wake up to- 
 morrow morning," he said, quite calmly. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 31 
 
 Julian went home, and went to bed ; but he 
 did not wake up in the morning, for he never 
 went to sleep. Something in Guy's tone, in 
 Guy's face, haunted him unpleasantly. He 
 could not have told exactly what it was, and he 
 called himself absurd and hysterical for thinking 
 about it. It was just like Guy to be in the 
 wildest high spirits one moment and in the depths 
 of despair the next ; there was nothing unusual 
 about such a state of things, nothing which 
 should have deprived him of an hour's rest. 
 All his life Guy had been at the extremes of 
 joy or grief. Julian remembered him as a small 
 boy in a plum-coloured velvet suit, in floods of 
 tears over the death of a pet rabbit — tears 
 which Julian, in his superior, properly brought- 
 up British schoolboy fashion, would have died 
 rather than shed, but of which Guy, who was 
 distressingly un-British in many ways, did not 
 seem the least ashamed. He remembered many 
 other occasions upon which Guy had shocked 
 and puzzled and distressed him, as the abnormal 
 will shock and puzzle and distress the normal, 
 so long as the world continues to exist. Guy 
 was so extraordinarily open about his feelings ; 
 and his feelings were so many and so very 
 peculiar, that Julian, for the larger part of their 
 
32 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 earlier youth, cherished a secret, insurmountable 
 contempt for his cousin which even a more 
 mature appreciation of Guy's gifts and graces 
 had not been quite able to destroy. He was 
 a little contemptuous now, as he tossed and 
 turned through the interminable hours — con- 
 temptuous of the man who, with a splendid 
 substance within reach, would still vex himself 
 for what seemed nothing but a shadow. If 
 Grace had cared for him, he told himself with 
 a sigh, shadows and presentiments would have 
 had very little terrors for his imagination. It 
 was late when he got up. He was half through 
 dressing when his man came in, looking dis- 
 creetly disturbed and sympathetic, 
 
 " I beg pardon, sir, but I thought you*d like 
 to know there's been an accident," he said 
 glibly. 
 
 Julian turned sharply, with a face suddenly 
 stern and altered. 
 
 " Guy ? " he said in a dry voice — a voice that 
 sounded unlike his own, and as though it came 
 from a great distance. 
 
 "No, sir — not Mr Hilmour. Miss Strange, 
 sir. They were riding, and her horse took 
 fright and bolted. I hear she's badly hurt, sir," 
 the man ended, with the morbid satisfaction 
 
THE UNSEEN THING ^3 
 
 which those of his class always seem to find in 
 sudden misfortune. 
 
 Julian stood quite still for a moment. He 
 seemed to be once more at Mrs Kent's " little 
 dance," to hear Guy saying, with a fantastic 
 gravity which had suddenly become horrible, 
 "You'll find the world's gone to pieces to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 Yes, it was quite true, after all. Only, 
 unfortunately, it was not Guy's world which 
 had gone to pieces, but his own. 
 
 He finished dressing, and went out quickly, 
 through the ugly, grey beginning of the ordinary 
 London day. It did not seem ordinary to him. 
 There was something terrible and sinister about 
 its greyness, its damp, smutty atmosphere, its 
 look of deceitful calm. When he reached his 
 aunt's door, the doctor's carriage was standing 
 there. He went in. Lady Strange, very white 
 and quiet, was in the hall with the doctor. She 
 gave Julian a little, half-unconscious smile. 
 
 *' So kind of you to come, dear Julian," she 
 said. "Of course you've heard — we're in 
 dreadful distress. But it might be worse— .Dr 
 Haye says so. There's some consolation in 
 that, isn't there ? " 
 
 Julian looked at the doctor in silence. From 
 
34 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 the expression of his face, any consolation that 
 might be found in his statement did not seem 
 to amount to much. 
 
 "It might be worse, certainly," Haye said, 
 rather nervously. 
 
 He went out rapidly, without looking at 
 Julian. Lady Strange led the way to the big, 
 cheerful breakfast-room, where breakfast stood 
 untouched, and Grace's clean and empty cup 
 stood in the tray. Julian sat down suddenly, 
 feeling sick and cold. Lady Strange went to 
 her chair, and stood behind it, looking at him 
 with clouded eyes. "I sent to tell Guy the 
 doctor was here," she said. "I thought Dr 
 Haye might comfort him. I can't do anything 
 with him — poor, dear Guy, he's so sensitive, 
 you know. He saw her thrown. He can't 
 explain how it happened — he is fit for nothing. 
 Guy is so highly strung, isn't he ? " 
 
 Julian did not answer. It all seemed to him so 
 horrible — the cheerful room, the silver and china 
 giving back points of light. Lady Strange's neat 
 little unflurried phrases, his own stupid silence, 
 and the doctor's lame attempt at consolation. 
 The arrested atmosphere of the house, shaken 
 out of its usual ways by what had happened, 
 seemed to him full of foreboding and despair. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 35 
 
 And as he sat there Guy came silently into 
 the room. His face was quite colourless and 
 grey, and there was no light in his eyes. He 
 looked at Lady Strange as though he did not 
 know her, and then at Julian. 
 
 "I wanted to tell you," he said, in a low, 
 perfectly even voice. " It was my fault. There 
 was a beggar — a cripple — close to us, and I 
 pulled up suddenly, and startled Grace's horse. 
 It was my fault. The beggar was so — so 
 horrible." 
 
 He dropped into a chair at the foot of the 
 table, and hid his face in his hands ; and Lady 
 Strange and Julian sat looking at him, unable 
 to speak, unable almost to understand. 
 
Ill 
 
 Mrs Kent went about with tears in her eyes, 
 bewailing the catastrophe which had rendered 
 her second dance famous. Everybody was very 
 sympathetic, and made inquiries, and sent 
 flowers, and — at last — grew very tired of Grace 
 Slrange's illness, as people will grow tired of 
 the happiness or misfortunes of others. Only 
 their own is for ever fresh to them, and for 
 ever full of interest. Grace Strange was a 
 sweet girl, and of course it was dreadfully sad, 
 coming just after her engagement to that charm- 
 ing young Hilmour. Everybody felt that ; and 
 everybody, having expressed the feeling a few 
 times, grew bored and changed the subject. 
 Grace Strange as a subject of conversation was 
 played out. London had liked her very well 
 while she could offer it the charm of her bright- 
 ness and her youth, and the pleasant spectacle 
 of her beauty; now that she could offer it 
 nothing, London went off to seek charm, and 
 brightness, and beauty elsewhere — and, no 
 doubt, to find them. 
 
 36 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 37 
 
 Grace was left to Lady Strange's puzzled 
 tenderness, to the mechanical kindness of her 
 nurses, to Sir Charles' morning and evening 
 visits, which became, in time, monotonous both 
 to visitor and visited. Sir Charles had never 
 been interesting — it was too late in life for him 
 to acquire that difficult art now. She was left 
 to read passionate, almost despairing letters from 
 Guy, at which she smiled a little, thinking their 
 despair somewhat out of place, since she was 
 recovering surely, if slowly. She had never 
 discussed the cause of the accident with anyone, 
 had never, by a look, by the faintest suggestion 
 of meaning in voice or -accent, betrayed the 
 slightest knowledge of the fact that it had been 
 Guy's fault. Lady Strange and Julian kept 
 Guy's confession to themselves, and told each 
 other that Grace had not seen the beggar whose 
 ugly aspect had brought the mishap about. 
 Guy, in the letters he wrote to her, said nothing 
 in the way of explanation. While she was 
 really in danger, he would not leave the house ; 
 when she was better, he haunted it at all hours. 
 As soon as she could be brought into the den. 
 Lady Strange suggested, as a matter of course, 
 that Guy should come up to see her. 
 
 For the first time in her life, Grace, who had 
 
38 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 never done anything surprising, surprised her 
 mother. For she refused, point-blank, to see 
 Guy. 
 
 "He hates illness," she said. "I look a 
 horrid fright, I'm sure — I don't want him to 
 see me like this." 
 
 Lady Strange stared at her. 
 
 "My dear, how extraordinary! Grace, 
 darling, I hope you aren't growing vain." 
 
 Grace was silent for a moment. In her eyes, 
 fixed upon a book on her knees, was an expres- 
 sion which would have astonished Lady Strange. 
 
 "I don't think I'm — vain," she said, very 
 slowly. "If Julian comes, will you please let 
 him come up?" 
 
 Lady Strange stared harder than ever. 
 
 *' Julian ? But you won't see Guy ! Dearest 
 Grace, I know you are always so sensible, but 
 — why Julian ? " 
 
 " I want him," Grace said briefly. 
 
 "And you don't mind him thinking you a 
 horrid fright?" Lady Strange murmured, with 
 a maddening attempt at playfulness. Grace 
 laughed suddenly — she could not have told why. 
 
 " Julian won't see what I look like," she said. 
 "He hasn't the artistic temperament. And I 
 want to see him." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 39 
 
 So Julian came up. He came many times 
 after that. He brought Guy's flowers, and 
 Guy's messages. He told her what Guy was 
 doing, and thinking of doing. He brought 
 Guy's frantic entreaties to be allowed to come 
 and see her, if only for a moment. Grace 
 listened in silence. 
 
 "He hates illness," she repeated, when 
 Julian ended. "He will not care for me — like 
 this. I can't walk across the room yet. When 
 I can do that, he shall come." 
 
 On the day when she first tried to walk across 
 the room, Julian was there. He was alone with 
 her. She had been unusually silent that after- 
 noon, and suddenly, without warning, she held 
 out her hand to be helped up from her long 
 chair. 
 
 "I want to try and walk," she said. "I 
 don't want to — to do it before anyone else. 
 Give me your arm, Julian." 
 
 So, very slowly, with infinite painfulness, she 
 limped round the room, clinging to Julian's arm. 
 She was very lame. When he brought her 
 back to her chair, she dropped into it as though 
 exhausted, and sat for a moment or two without 
 speaking. 
 
 " Don't — don't tell Guy," she said at last. 
 
40 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " No." 
 
 They both remembered that she had said she 
 would see Guy when she could walk round the 
 room, but neither referred to the fact. 
 
 The days wore on into weeks, and still Guy 
 was shut out. Grace had never tried to walk 
 since the first occasion. She sat in the long chair 
 by the fire and talked to Julian, gaily, quickly, 
 a little feverishly, perhaps. She laughed a good 
 deal at incidents which in themselves were not 
 very laughable ; she was always very animated, 
 and very much interested in everything that was 
 going on in the London which was doing so 
 well without her. Gradually an uncomfortable 
 conviction began to take shape in Julian's mind. 
 He felt that some vague barrier was rising up 
 between Grace and him — that she was acting a 
 part meant to deceive him all the time she talked 
 so gaily, and listened with such apparent interest 
 to all he had to say. He felt that behind her 
 gaiety, behind her interest, she was absorbed in 
 something very far removed from any subject 
 under discussion. He wondered sometimes 
 whether she knew that her present condition was 
 Guy's fault; he wondered whether she was, by her 
 refusal to see him, exacting some sort of penalty 
 from Guy. But he did not dare to ask. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 41 
 
 She never referred now to her obstinate 
 lameness. It was he who, one day, made an 
 eiFort and spoke of it. 
 
 ** You should see a specialist," he said. " I'll 
 tell Aunt Georgie — it ought not to go on." 
 
 She made a quick, almost startled movement 
 of refusal. 
 
 " How stupid you are, Julian," she said, more 
 sharply than she had ever spoken to him since 
 the days of their childish quarrels over games or 
 lessons. "I won't be bothered with specialists — 
 I have told mamma so. I won't see anybody — 
 I hate being mauled about, and worried. Can't 
 you give me a little time to get well in ? " 
 
 ** But you have been like this so long " 
 
 ** Oh, don't worry me — don't worry me ! " 
 she cried desperately. " I won't be bothered, 
 and mauled about." 
 
 He was silent from sheer amazement. She 
 recovered herself in a moment, and laid an 
 appealing hand on his arm. 
 
 "Julian, dear, I'm sorry I spoke like that. 
 You're quite right, but give me a week more — 
 only a week. I'll be better then, you'll see — 
 ever so much better." 
 
 But at the end of the week, Julian spoke to 
 Lady Strange about a specialist. In a sort of 
 
42 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 sullen gloom, very unlike anything he had ever 
 connected with her, Grace consented to see one. 
 
 Julian came to the house next day just after 
 the great man had come and gone. He was 
 shown, not into the den, but into Lady Strange's 
 own room. His aunt was sitting in an odd, 
 collapsed attitude when he entered, as though 
 the life had been struck out of her suddenly, 
 by some violent shock. 
 
 " Oh, Julian," she burst out helplessly, "what 
 are we to do — what are we to do ? He says 
 she will always be lame — always — always ! And 
 I can't tell her — I don't dare to tell her. It will 
 kill her to know, and she must be told." 
 
 Julian stood quite still, looking at her tear- 
 stained face, but without seeing it. In that 
 moment he knew that this was what he had 
 expected from the first — he knew, too, of what 
 Grace had thought while she had laughed, and 
 talked, and played her pitiful part so heroically 
 to the last. He understood her pathetic out- 
 burst of pettishness when he had suggested the 
 specialist. She had known all the time — and 
 she had shrunk from the moment when her 
 knowledge must become public, she had clung 
 desperately to the uncertainty which was yet 
 no uncertainty to her. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 43 
 
 " She will want to know what Sir Henry said," 
 Lady Strange sobbed. 
 
 Julian had never thought himself a coward, 
 but now he felt suddenly cowardly, he felt that 
 he would like to leave the house at once, and 
 never come back. A sort of panic seized him. 
 He turned almost roughly on Lady Strange. 
 
 " I can't tell her — don't ask me to tell her ! " 
 
 Lady Strange wiped her eyes slowly, and 
 looked up. Just at that moment, while they 
 faced each other in a sort of silent struggle, 
 someone tapped at the door. It opened, and 
 Kitty Fellowes stood on the threshold, looking 
 in, timidly, but with a great pity written on her 
 small, pale face. 
 
 " I ought not to come in," she said. ** I've 
 just come down from Grace — Peters told me. 
 I'm so sorry. I felt I must come and tell you 
 just that, before I went. . . . You see, I — I 
 know what it is." 
 
 She came limping across the room, and took 
 Lady Strange's hand, and kissed her. There 
 were tears in her eyes, and also a compre- 
 hension deeper and more bitter than anything 
 which tears could express. 
 
 " I — know what it is," she said again. 
 
 And suddenly Lady Strange, who was not a 
 
44 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 demonstrative woman, broke into tears again, 
 and clung to the girl standing beside her. 
 
 « Oh, Kitty, we can't tell her — we can't tell 
 her ! " she said. 
 
 Kitty Fellowes did not speak for a moment. 
 Then she turned and went to the door. 
 When she reached it, she looked back over 
 her shoulder. 
 
 " I think she knows," she said, in a low voice. 
 « But I will tell her." 
 
 They waited, hearing the lame girl's uneven 
 tread as she went down the corridor to the den. 
 It seemed to Julian afterwards that they both 
 held their breath while they listened. 
 
 In the den, where Grace lay in her long chair 
 by the fire, Kitty Fellowes did her errand. 
 She did it very simply. She knelt down by the 
 long chair, and took Grace's hand in both her 
 own ; and Grace looked up and met her eyes. 
 
 " Yes — I know why you've come back," she 
 said, very quietly. " Don't say any more, Kitty 
 — I know." 
 
 For a long time neither spoke. Grace lay 
 quite still, twisting a ring round and round her 
 finger. It was her engagement ring — a great 
 half-hoop of diamonds and turquoises. And, as 
 they waited, they heard a bell ring, and Guy's 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 45 
 
 voice in the hall beyond, and Guy's step,^ quick 
 and light, passing the door. 
 
 Grace sat up and pushed Kitty Fellowes from 
 her. There was a hard look in her face — a 
 look that was almost desperate. 
 
 "Go and tell him," she saiS. "Tell him 
 what has happened, and — tell him to come to me. 
 I wouldn't let him come before — while there 
 was any hope of my getting better. Now 
 there's none, and I want him to help me to 
 bear it. Kitty, tell him that, will you? Tell 
 him that I can't bear it without him." 
 
 The lame girl hesitated for a second. She 
 knew well enough that Guy avoided her; she 
 knew the reason why. 
 
 *' Wouldn't it be better if your mother told 
 him, Grace ? " she asked, rather timidly. 
 
 Grace understood. 
 
 *'No — I want you to tell him. He won't 
 mind you now," she said, unconscious, in her 
 own intolerable pain, of the pain she was 
 inflicting on her friend. " He won't mind now 
 — he can't. If I am to be like that — always — he 
 won't mind — it can't make any difference." 
 
 Kitty Fellowes looked at her. Then she 
 went away. Guy was in Lady Strange's room. 
 He turned as she came in, and in his eyes, as 
 
46 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 they fell upon her, she read the old, unconquer- 
 able repulsion from which she had shrunk so 
 many times before. In spite of the news he 
 had just heard, she read that look in his eyes, 
 and understood it. Lady Strange read it too, 
 and gave a little cry that was half a sob, and 
 put her handkerchief to her face. Julian read 
 it, and rose suddenly from his chair, and faced 
 his cousin with a movement of determination. 
 
 " She has sent for you," he said. 
 
 It was as though he ordered Guy to do 
 something, and Guy heard the unspoken com- 
 mand, and moved back suddenly, away from 
 Kitty. She came up to him, and spoke. 
 
 "Grace wants you, Mr Hilmour. I was to 
 tell you so — to tell you that she can't bear it 
 without you." 
 
 Her voice shook a little, but the look of 
 repulsion did not change in Guy's eyes. He 
 did not move. He was staring at Kitty. Julian, 
 who watched him, knew that he was saying to 
 himself, " This is what Grace will be like now." 
 A quick anger seized Julian. He went up to 
 Guy, and touched his arm. 
 
 "Go to her!" he said. "If you have the 
 least scrap of feeling for anything besides your- 
 self and your own whims and fancies, go to her. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 47 
 
 Tell her that she's an angel, and too good for 
 you, or any man — tell her you would rather 
 have her as — as she is than any other woman 
 in the world whole and well. Are you going? 
 Or shall I make you go?" 
 
 There was a moment of silence. Lady 
 Strange dropped her handkerchief in her lap, 
 and looked up, half comprehending, half afraid. 
 Kitty waited, her lips set tight, her eyes shining. 
 Julian waited, watching for the moment when 
 Guy should move towards the door. 
 
 But Guy did not move. His face was grey 
 and colourless, as it had been on the morning of 
 Grace's accident, when he had confessed that he 
 had frightened her horse. His eyes looked as 
 though the light in them had gone out; and 
 still he stared at Kitty Fellowes, as though 
 fascinated, and in the fascination there was also 
 comparison, and comprehension — comparison 
 with what Grace had been, and comprehension 
 of what Grace now must be. 
 
 " Are you going ? " Julian said again. The 
 anger had gone out of his voice, and it was 
 very still and cold. 
 
 With a sudden, violent movement of fear and 
 horror, Guy turned from Kitty Fellowes. His 
 face was pale, and almost distorted with a look 
 
48 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 of dislike and repulsion so intense that it was 
 almost cruel. And those who saw it knew 
 that the repulsion was not for the girl who 
 stood there before them, white and shrinking, 
 but for that other girl whom he could not see, 
 who had said that she could not bear the fate 
 which had fallen upon her without him. 
 " I'm not going," Guy said. *' I — can't." 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 In the den, Grace heard his quick, light 
 steps coming along the corridor, and, for one 
 moment hope — the hope she had denied to 
 herself so often — woke in her heart. He was 
 coming — why had she ever doubted him? Of 
 course he would come, of course. . . . 
 
 He was just outside the door now. In a 
 moment he would be with her. In a moment 
 this pain which she was enduring would be 
 over for ever. It was not lameness that she 
 minded, if she could keep Guy, and Guy's love. 
 Surely, surely, she would not have to give up that? 
 
 The steps reached the door. There was one 
 sickening second of hesitation. Then — they 
 passed. 
 
 She heard them dying away down the 
 corridor. She heard them cross the hall. She 
 heard the front door open — and shut. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 49 
 
 Then she lay back in her long chair. She 
 was not conscious of any pain, of any dis- 
 appointment, of any sort of feeling whatever. 
 It was all over. A fantastic thought came to 
 her that if she were dead she could not feel 
 more absolutely unmoved, more incapable of 
 feeling, more unnaturally cold and still. 
 
 It was all over. It seemed to her that some- 
 thing greater than Guy had gone by with those 
 light, hurrying steps which told of the haste 
 to escape, to be free from a tie no longer 
 desired. 
 
 Life itself had passed her by with Guy's 
 footsteps; and it seemed to her that she lay 
 there as one dead, and unable to understand 
 the desolation which had fallen upon her — 
 unable even to regret the brief happiness she 
 had lost. 
 
II. IT COMES 
 
II. IT COMES 
 
 IV 
 
 The toy train slipped slowly along its single 
 line from Frdjus to Saint-Maure, across the 
 desolate, mosquito-haunted flats along the sands, 
 and on into the wild country, the Cote des 
 Maures, which faces the cheerful little town of 
 Saint-Raphael across the blue waters of the 
 Gulf of Frejus as some beautiful Saracen girl 
 of past centuries might face a pretty Parisian 
 basking upon the sunlit plage. Civilisation 
 seemed to retreat farther and farther as the 
 train proceeded upon its leisurely way. A 
 desolation which was yet not desolate, but 
 rather luxuriant and smiling, opened before the 
 dusty carriage windows of the train — a desola- 
 tion of pines and cork-trees, of mountain slopes 
 covered with tall heath and arbutus, of hedges 
 of wild myrtle. On one side a peacock-blue 
 sea lapped softly against rocks of a deep red 
 colour which the sunset would presently turn to 
 crimson; on the other, the steep, green Mon- 
 53 
 
54 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 tagnes des Maures swept up to a sky of palest 
 turquoise, already tinged with a hint of pink. 
 High above, fantastic clouds shifted before a 
 wind which did not reach the lower levels of 
 the hills, or the railway track along the shore. 
 With every moment the clouds became more 
 fantastic in shape, as the wind bent and twisted 
 them to its will; with every moment the pre- 
 vailing pink light deepened a little, casting upon 
 the pine-covered hills an odd effect of darkness 
 before the night had fallen, and upon the drift- 
 ing and distorted clouds a light which changed 
 rapidly from purple to gold. 
 
 In a carriage of the creeping train Guy 
 Hilmour sat alone, watching the changing 
 clouds over the sea with a sort of impatient 
 weariness. He was not in any way particularly 
 anxious to arrive at Saint-Maure, but it was 
 torture to him, in his condition of restless 
 misery, to sit motionless in the jolting carriage, 
 and watch one blue and red bay after another 
 glide past in endless procession. The slow 
 progress of the train irritated him. He longed 
 for violence of any sort — violence of movement, 
 of action, perhaps even of speech. The intense 
 colour of the sea — that hard, wonderful, and 
 yet monotonous blue of the Mediterranean — 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 55 
 
 soothed his eyes a little as he looked at it ; the 
 fantastic splendours of the clouds pleased him 
 as he watched them. They looked like a flock 
 of prehistoric monsters fleeing from some un- 
 seen terror across the clear plains of heaven. 
 Their shapes, their movements, were almost 
 startlingly lifelike. The strong current of air 
 had detached from their sharp outlines little 
 flying locks of cloud which gave them an 
 appearance of extraordinary haste. The gold 
 and purple light of sunset painted them with 
 gorgeous shades and gradations of colour. 
 Every pressure of the wind which drove them 
 forward twisted them into more wonderful con- 
 tortions, made them at once more monstrous 
 and more real. At one moment they writhed 
 and siiorted flame like a procession of Chinese 
 dragons; at another they became indistinct, 
 mere blurred masses of colour in which a mys- 
 terious life seemed yet to move and breathe, 
 and their dragon's tails stretched out like wings, 
 upon which the sunset set here and there 
 splashes of vivid scarlet against feathers of rose 
 and gold. Then again they seemed like a flight 
 of gigantic birds, struggling against a great 
 storm which ruflied their shining plumage, and 
 tore their feathers from their wings in enormous 
 
S6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 handfuls which changed, as one looked, to fan- 
 tastic animals in pursuit. And always, as shape 
 succeeded shape, colour succeeded colour — 
 purple became scarlet, or pink became gold, 
 until the whole sky seemed on fire with radiance 
 reflected from this strange spectacle which 
 moved across it, spilling flame and blood upon 
 the pure, exquisite turquoise of the evening 
 heavens. 
 
 Guy, in his corner of the carriage, watched 
 this increasing glory and wonder of the sunset 
 with something of that old, intense enthusiasm 
 which he had always felt for all beautiful things. 
 The gold of the sky found an echo in his eyes, 
 and the grey look which had never left his face 
 since that terrible moment when he had turned 
 from Kitty Fellowes in horror, and sealed Grace's 
 fate and his own, faded away for a moment and 
 was lost. Then some contortion of the shifting 
 clouds reminded him cruelly of that deformity 
 from which he had shrunk all his life with a 
 loathing which seemed almost inhuman. He 
 felt himself shivering, and turned quickly from 
 the sky to the sea. Its hard, metallic blue was 
 splashed with light. Out beyond the curving 
 bays and pine-covered headlands a flotilla of 
 torpedo-boats was moving westward towards 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 57 
 
 Toulon. There was something at once steahhy 
 and hurried in the aspect of the ugly little 
 vessels, something cowardly, yet important. 
 They looked like assassins despatched upon a 
 deadly errand, proud of their power, yet secretly 
 ashamed of their treachery. A white flicker of 
 foam tore the blue water at their bows, and 
 their wet sides glistened with a faint pink radi- 
 ance as they seemed to race the train which 
 hastened in the same direction as themselves. 
 
 Guy ceased to notice the torpedo-boats. The 
 suffering which had held him in a remorseless 
 grip for the last week claimed its victim once 
 more. For he had suffered — the agony of 
 desertion had not all fallen to Grace. Possibly, 
 indeed, he had suffered more than she had done, 
 as an extraordinarily sensitive nature must suffer 
 more than another not so sensitive. Grace, the 
 deserted, had not known moments so terrible as 
 he, the deserter, had gone through since he had 
 left her, uncomforted, to her fate. Grace, at 
 least, did not at the worst endure the agony of 
 self-contempt into which he had fallen when, 
 his first panic of physical repulsion over, he had 
 fully realised the irrevocable consequences of his 
 own action. Even Julian, who had expressed 
 his opinion of his cousin in a few trenchant 
 
58 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 and unforgetable sentences, could not, if he had 
 tried, have expressed Guy's contempt for himself. 
 
 For, if Julian had called him a coward and a 
 cad, how much more bitterly had he not realised 
 his cowardice himself! After the first moment 
 of flight he had tried to undo what he had 
 done — he had gone back, he had entreated 
 Grace to see him. She refused, as, in his own 
 mind, he had known that she would refuse. 
 Lady Strange, tearful, uncomprehending — in 
 spite of all that had happened — made inter- 
 cession for him in vain. Sir Charles, pained 
 and puzzled, asked him if he considered his 
 engagement at an end, and he had denied any 
 breach with a passion which came near to 
 despair. He held Grace to her engagement — 
 he refused to give her up — he would always 
 refuse. Sir Charles, still more puzzled, went 
 to reason with his daughter. He retreated 
 beaten. Grace would not see Guy. And the 
 engagement was absolutely at an end — there 
 was nothing more to be said. 
 
 Guy went back to his rooms and spent a 
 hideous night — i night the very remembrance 
 of which made him shudder. He had heard 
 men say they had been in hell — that night he 
 understood what they meant. It seemed to him 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 59 
 
 that everything which had held his life together 
 had been swept away in one moment, not only 
 his happiness, but his self-respect, not only the 
 woman he loved, but, in a way, that part of 
 himself which he loved, as well. Before, he 
 had seen himself, as he had told Grace, as a 
 sort of freak — too sensitive, too easily swayed 
 this way or that by every impulse, and with a 
 fantastic hatred of ugliness which was, or 
 seemed to be, more than half atoned for by a 
 real and sincere passion for beauty ; but now he 
 saw himself as a leper, as a thing afflicted with 
 a terrible disease, not of the body but of the 
 mind — or rather, perhaps, a disease which left 
 no apparent trace upon either, though it affected 
 both. This unnatural physical shrinking from 
 anything hurt or deformed had, in the moment 
 when he refused to go to Grace, assumed pro- 
 portions not merely physical, but spiritual as 
 well. He told himself that it is not possible to 
 hate with the body alone — that such hatred as 
 he felt for deformity must be of the soul as 
 well; and he knew that he did not only shrink 
 from the thought of Grace as she was now — 
 he hated that thought, with a personal and 
 definite hatred. If he saw Grace, it was 
 possible that he might hate her too, and the 
 
6o THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 idea filled him with a sort of horror before 
 which all else was as nothing. 
 
 He thought afterwards that, if he had had 
 any tendency to madness, he should have gone 
 mad that night. Perhaps the worst part of his 
 suiFering was the fact that he did not suffer 
 blindly, that in the midst of his despair he 
 developed an almost terrifying capacity for self- 
 analysis, for self-comprehension. It was not 
 enough that he should feel intensely; he must 
 know also exactly what he felt, he must under- 
 stand every separate pang of shame or fear. 
 Nothing was spared him. He had always had 
 an uncomfortable faculty for seeing into the 
 minds of other people; now, with a kind of 
 inverted clairvoyance, he saw into his own. 
 
 How he lived through the hours immediately 
 after his refusal to go to Grace he never after- 
 wards knew. Next morning came a piteous 
 note from Lady Strange, reiterating Grace's 
 refusal to see him, Grace's declaration that the 
 engagement was at an end. He had a moment 
 of desperate relief, followed by another agony 
 of self-contempt. Then the unequal conflict 
 began again. He went to Lady Strange, he 
 begged to be allowed to see Grace, even against 
 her will. Here the doctor had to be consulted. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 6i 
 
 however, and he forbade anything of the kind. 
 It was all over. Grace's heart seemed shut as 
 closely as her door. She would not see Guy — 
 she would not mention his name. It was an 
 extraordinary ending to the happiness which 
 had blazed up like a flame from heaven on the 
 night of Mrs Kent's second dance. 
 
 And, while Guy still struggled against his 
 sentence of banishment, a way of escape was 
 opened to him. His father sent for him from 
 Saint-Maure. The summons itself was some- 
 thing of a surprise. Guy had been born at 
 Saint-Maure, but he had left it as a baby a 
 few months old, and had never returned. His 
 mother lived there nearly all the year round, 
 on the plea of delicate health, in which no one 
 seemed very much to believe. Once or twice 
 she came to London in the height of the season, 
 and opened Hilmour House, and gave one or 
 two very splendid and rather glacial entertain- 
 ments. Then the house was shut up again, 
 and she returned to Mon Paradis, the lovely 
 villa at Saint-Maur.e from which she could not 
 be parted for more than a short time. She was 
 a fragile-looking woman whom most people 
 found unsympathetic and who, in spite of her 
 fragility, had somehow an odd air of decision. 
 
62 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 of resolution so silent, yet so inflexible as to 
 invest her with an atmosphere almost heroic. 
 She had been a great beauty in her youth, 
 and Guy had inherited some of her beauty 
 and much of her charm, but he felt always 
 that She did not love him, and he always 
 understood what people meant when they 
 said that she was unsympathetic. His mother 
 had always been a stranger to him, not so 
 much because he seldom saw her, but rather 
 because when he did see her she always 
 seemed a great distance away from him. 
 When he spoke to her, it was with the 
 sensation of speaking to a person on the 
 farther side of an unfathomable abyss. With 
 his father he had very little in common. 
 Lord Francheville had always enjoyed the re- 
 putation of being devoted to his wife, and to 
 nothing else ; he was certainly not devoted to 
 Guy. He followed his wife about so closely 
 and so constantly that a reflection of her pale 
 inflexibility seemed to have fallen upon him. 
 On the rare occasions when they both appeared 
 at Hilmour House, he had an air even more 
 detached than hers. They looked like a pair 
 of spectres who had found their way back to 
 earth, and could not get over the shock of 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 63 
 
 finding themselves once more among the living, 
 instead of among the dead. 
 
 Considering the unsympathetic nature of his 
 immediate relations, it is hardly to be wondered 
 at that Guy gave all his affection to the Stranges. 
 Lady Strange was his father's first cousin, though 
 he always called her his aunt. She belonged 
 to the more lively and less remote sort of 
 Hilmour, of which Guy's grandfather, the old 
 Earl of Newtown, still remained a striking 
 specimen, in spite of his eighty-four winters, 
 his gout, and a perfectly frank and uncon- 
 trollable cynicism which spared nothing within 
 his reach. The old man was as fond of Guy 
 as he permitted himself to become of anything 
 calling itself human. But he too lived mostly 
 abroad, notwithstanding his age, and made no 
 secret of the open detestation in which he held 
 his native land and all its habits and customs. 
 When he came to England, it was an under- 
 stood thing that Guy should go to him at once, 
 and mitigate the hardships of his sojourn in 
 the country he disliked so heartily ; but when he 
 wanted Guy to come to him abroad, his grand- 
 son was usually engaged in more congenial 
 gaieties with some of the Stranges. It was 
 remarkable that Lord Newtown, though fond 
 
64 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 of the Continent, never seemed to extend his 
 wanderings to Saint-Maure and Mon Paradis. 
 
 " When people give a name like that to the 
 place they live in," he said once to Guy, " you 
 may depend upon it, they are only trying to hide 
 a particularly large and obnoxious sort of family 
 skeleton. Mon Paradis, indeed ! I have spent 
 forty years, my dear boy, in wondering whether 
 the villa bears that ridiculous name because your 
 excellent father beats his wife, or your equally 
 admirable mother henpecks her husband." 
 
 Guy had laughed at the old man's speech. 
 It made very little impression on his mind, 
 because he knew that Lord Newtown, like 
 many other people, did not much respect the 
 truth when he saw an opportunity of being 
 amusing. Also, he was sure that his father 
 and mother were devoted to each other, and 
 said so; at which Lord Newtown chuckled un- 
 believingly, and there the matter ended. 
 
 But to-day, as the train carried him towards 
 Saint-Maure, he remembered the old man's 
 remark, in the midst of his own tortaring re- 
 flections. It sprang up in his mind suddenly, 
 without warning, and with something of a 
 shock. It occurred to him that, if one had a 
 family skeleton to hide, it would be difficult to 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 65 
 
 find a more successful retreat for it than in this 
 wild, pine-covered country, this C6te des Maures, 
 with its savage beauty, its desolate tracts of 
 heath and arbutus and cork-trees. 
 
 The idea passed through his mind, and 
 startled him for a moment, and then was lost 
 in the whirlpool of his own miserable reflec- 
 tions. 
 
 The train pressed on, puffing after the 
 torpedo-boats, now far away upon the intense 
 blue of the sea, upon which night was begin- 
 ning to descend visibly, like a thing falling, 
 as it does in southern lands. Guy looked up. 
 The wind which had pursued and contorted the 
 clouds over the sea had ceased to drive them 
 forward, to torture them into the shapes of 
 flying monsters. They stood still over the 
 clear water, against a sky from which the 
 violent glories of sunset had faded into a pale, 
 sharp green, like the green of chrysoprase. 
 The distorting currents had abandoned them, 
 and, as though in triumph, they had spread 
 themselves out across the whole extent of the 
 sky in a form more strange and beautiful than 
 any which the wind had made of them. The 
 snorting dragons and struggling birds had 
 vanished. In their place a great pair of wings 
 
66 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 stretched from the sea to the highest heaven 
 —wings large enough to support legions of 
 angels, or lift the earth nearer to the sky. 
 
 The effect of these enormous pinions which 
 supported nothing was strange and beautiful 
 in the extreme. The purples and pinkr and 
 scarlets of the sunset were dead. Only, as 
 Guy looked, a slow, infinite glory of gold 
 caught the wings, and grew upon them, until 
 they blazed like two flames against the colour- 
 less sky. 
 
 He forgot his oWn sorrows as he looked. 
 What Were they bearing upward, as they rose 
 slowly higher and higher through the sky? 
 Were they merely the wings of an angel who 
 remained invisible, or did they bear the soul of 
 one of the cloud monsters, its terrors and con- 
 tortions over, its hideousness blotted out, a little 
 nearer to the glory of sunset and sunrise, the 
 infinite beauty which is enthroned in the blue 
 depths of heaven ? 
 
A SMART English dogcart with a French groom 
 was waiting at the wild little station of Saint- 
 Maure. The two households of Mon Paradis 
 and Hilmour House had always been quite 
 distmct. The Franchevilles never took any of 
 their English servants abroad with them, nor 
 brought any of their French servants to England. 
 When Mon Paradis had been built, before Lord 
 Francheville's marriage, more than forty years 
 ago, he had exported to Saint-Maure his own 
 valet, who had remained with him ever since, 
 though he never seemed to leave the beautiful 
 villa. When Lord Francheville's intimate friends 
 or relations inquired after Spence, who had 
 been with him for some years before his 
 marriage, they were always told that Spence's 
 health, like that of Lady Francheville, did not 
 permit of a long visit to England. Lord 
 Newtown, on receiving this reply, had once 
 been heard to describe it as nonsense, and ask 
 what his son and heir was thinking about. 
 But the old man was occasionally testy, and if 
 67 
 
68 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 his son chose to pamper his servants, it was 
 nobody's business but his own. 
 
 Guy, on this occasion, had been particularly 
 requested to bring no one with him, as the 
 accommodation was limited, and Spence's ser- 
 vices would be at his disposal. The request 
 had struck him as a little singular at the 
 moment, but he had been too much absorbed 
 in his own troubles to give it a second thought. 
 Now, as he sat beside the French groom in the 
 dogcart, whirling along the picturesque quay 
 with its clustering fishing-boats and its outlook 
 upon the Gulf of Hyeres, he suddenly remem- 
 bered it; and again it struck him as odd. He 
 glanced at the groom, and inquired generally after 
 the health of the establishment at Mon Paradis. 
 
 *' Milord is not so well, monsieur," the groom 
 replied, rather indifferently, " and milady — she 
 suffers always." 
 
 Guy wondered vaguely in what way his 
 mother suffered always; he had heard of her 
 delicate health ever since he could remember, 
 but he had not noticed any particular signs of 
 it when in her society. 
 
 ■*'This is a beautiful part of the world," 
 he said, pursuing the subject, not because it 
 interested him, but because he was tired of his 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 69 
 
 own thoughts, and wished to talk. "One 
 ought to be well here — and happy." 
 
 He spoke regretfully, looking at the blue 
 gulf, at the hills beyond, at the lights of Saint- 
 Tropez, which were beginning to sparkle on 
 the opposite shore. He had planned a winter 
 honeymoon along this coast, a surprise visit to 
 Mon Paradis, which he had always wished to see, 
 and the memory of his plans, which had ended so 
 tragically, brought a sudden sadness into his voice. 
 
 The groom turned his head a little, and looked 
 at him curiously, he thought, with a sort of 
 pitying scrutiny which he did not understand. 
 
 '* But it is not the place which makes happi- 
 ness, monsieur," he said gravely. " One calls 
 it Mon Paradis, if one chooses — that is another 
 thing. One cannot make it Paradise — no ? " 
 
 *' Perhaps not. But it is so beautiful — surely 
 it would be difficult to be unhappy here," 
 
 *'Yes — ^if beauty made happiness, it would 
 be difficult to be unhappy in Saint-Maure." 
 
 The man's tone was at once meditative and 
 suggestive, as he turned his attention once 
 more to his horse. Guy did not answer at 
 once. He was turning the remark, and its 
 implied meaning, over and over in his mind. 
 If beauty made happiness? — to him, it had 
 
70 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 always made the only sort of happiness he 
 knew. Beauty had been the thing he wor- 
 shipped, ugliness, of any kind, he had abhorred. 
 And he had told himself all his life that this 
 worship of beauty, this detestation of its 
 reverse, was in itself beautiful, like a vague, 
 mystical sort of religion which consists mainly 
 of lofty, if indefinite, aspirations and artistic 
 vestments and ceremonies which are remarkable 
 for the fact that they do not belong to any 
 known form of faith. 
 
 Yet the man sitting beside him, who probably 
 had very little knowledge of anything but horses, 
 had seemed to imply a very strong doubt as to 
 the power of beautiful things to cause happiness. 
 
 Somehow, the remark, and what it implied, 
 lingered in Guy's mind, and would not be 
 banished. He said no more, but sat watching 
 night deepen swiftly over the gulf. The lights 
 of Saint-Tropez seemed to flutter like a cloud 
 of fireflies against the darkness beyond. A 
 cool wind came in from the water, and made 
 the fishing-boats rock softly against the quay, 
 and fluttered the leaves of the trees which grew 
 upon it, under which children were playing in 
 the clear dusk. From the bare, ugly, tower- 
 less little chapel, yellow in the gloom, inex- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 71 
 
 pressibly shabby and sunburnt, as most of these 
 South of France churches are, a bell began to 
 ring for service. In the open air, the dying 
 light, the exquisite ending of a perfect day, 
 there was something sweet and perhaps melan- 
 choly in the small, silver voice of the bell, 
 calling its faint summons to the whispering sea, 
 and to the sunset which lay dead behind the hills. 
 For no one responded to its call, no one seemed 
 even to hear it. The loungers still leaned talking 
 over the stone wall of the quay, the children still 
 played under the trees. It was as though the 
 little bell cried to a world which had forgotten 
 it with a tongue which no one cared to hear. 
 
 They left the church behind them, and 
 turned along the road which runs beside the 
 shore. White villas flashed past them, gay 
 with windows in which lights were beginning 
 to glow with a warm and homelike radiance. 
 Guy began to feel like a man in a strange land, 
 who sees everywhere the homes of others and 
 knows that his own is far away. This drive 
 through the dusk, beside the dark sea, became 
 mysterious, and put on almost the air of some 
 romantic adventure. The night had fallen over 
 the land, though far out at sea the water still 
 glowed faintly, as though the sunset still 
 
72 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 lingered there. A bat flickered to and fro 
 over the dogcart, coming and going with rest- 
 less, velvet flight, and a frog was croaking 
 hoarsely somewhere in the distance. The 
 church bell had ceased to ring, and an intense 
 silence descended upon the white road, the 
 wild, curving shore, the sea which slept below. 
 The villas had been left far behind. They 
 were out in the open country, among twisted 
 shadows which were pines and bent shadows 
 which were olive-trees. Guy told himself that 
 he would never have mistaken the olives for any 
 tree less venerable, so bowed and withered was 
 their appearance, so hopelessly, helplessly old. 
 As they fled by, they seemed like a procession 
 of patriarchs disappearing into the night of ages. 
 
 And presently the groom broke the silence, 
 and pointed ahead with his whip. 
 
 *' We are near Mon Paradis now, monsieur. 
 The low white wall shows where the grounds 
 begin." 
 
 The low white wall was on their right, be- 
 tween them and the sea, for the road had curved 
 inland a little, so that pines and cork-trees were 
 on each side of it. Now the pines and cork- 
 trees became palms, lifting feathery heads 
 dimly through the gloom, beyond the white- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 73 
 
 ness of the wall which marked the boundaries 
 of Mon Paradis. They looked like kings of 
 the East who had strayed into exile beside the 
 sleeping Mediterranean, and kept, even in exile, 
 their splendid and impassive dignity. Their 
 shadows painted the road with sudden black- 
 ness, through which the dogcart moved almost 
 silently, and more slowly than it had done 
 before. On the other side of the road another 
 white ribbon of rail appeared, above which rose 
 another long row of palms. By this avenue 
 of palms, in darkness, in silence, Guy approached 
 the place in which he had been born. 
 
 The dogcart turned under an elaborate 
 white gateway into gardens in which the air 
 was heavy with the scent of flowers. Hedges 
 of purple heliotrope ran along the drive, so 
 close to the wheels that Guy could see the 
 colour of the flowers in the dusk. Sharp, 
 aromatic odours came from pines and shrubs, 
 and the fragrance of roses and myrtles floated 
 everywhere. Great trumpet-flowers of scarlet 
 climbed over the heliotrope hedges, and hung 
 down upon the drive, almost before the horse's 
 feet. And somewhere in the distance a pea- 
 cock, disturbed perhaps by the sound of wheels, 
 sent up a harsh, unearthly cry of anger or fear. 
 
74 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 Suddenly the hedges ended. The drive 
 continued across a great sweep of turf, beyond 
 which rose the fantastic outlines of a house, or 
 rather, from its appearance, a Moorish palace 
 of carved and tinted ivory. Guy drew a sharp 
 breath of admiration as this exquisite, unex- 
 pected marvel grew in a moment out of the 
 night, with a swiftness which almost suggested 
 enchantment. Memories of the Arabian Nights 
 woke in his brain. Over him, against the pure 
 darkness of the Southern sky, rounded domes 
 and delicate minarets rose in a seeming con- 
 fusion which was in reality a very harmony of 
 order and arrangement. It was all dark, pale 
 and ghostlike in the warm gloom of the night j 
 but in one tower which hung above the others 
 like a pearl a faint light seemed to burn in a 
 window from which the curtain had been drawn 
 back. Guy, whose eyes had grown accustomed 
 to the dark, looked at the tower and its lighted 
 window with a sudden eagerness. They seemed 
 to him strange and dramatic in the silence and 
 gloom of this fairy palace. 
 
 " It is beautiful ! " he said aloud. " Perfectly 
 and absolutely beautiful! No wonder they 
 called it Mon Paradis." 
 
 Again the groom shot at him that odd, scru- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 75 
 
 tinising, pitying look ; but this time he did not 
 notice it. He was looking at the lighted window 
 in the tower. 
 
 "It is very odd," he said. "Is that window 
 barred? I think I can see bars across it, but 
 perhaps the light dazzles my eyes." 
 
 The horse plunged forward with violence, 
 as though before a blow. The groom made a 
 movement as though disconcerted, but whether 
 by the question or the caprice of the horse Guy 
 could not tell. As they drew up before the 
 deep porch he said, in a tone which sounded 
 suddenly alarmed, and almost distressed : 
 
 " Yes-^it is beautiful, monsieur — very beauti- 
 ful. It is a place made to be a heaven on earth 
 — ^it is well named Mon Paradis, as monsieur 
 says." 
 
 Guy, as he sprang stiffly from the step of the 
 dogcart to the ground, remembered, in an odd 
 flash of recollection, how the man had said to 
 him, by the quay of Saint-Maure, that it was 
 one thing to call a place a paradise, and another 
 to make it one ; and he felt sure that the groom 
 disliked Mon Paradis and everything in it — that 
 he did more than dislike it, that he hated it. 
 And he wondered why. 
 
VI 
 
 Guy slept well and naturally that night, for the 
 first time since Grace had broken off the engage- 
 ment. The beauty of Mon Paradis had in some 
 indirect way soothed his excited nerves, and 
 quieted his wearied brain. The blue peace of 
 the sea, asleep in the moonlight, the loveliness 
 of the gardens, the scent of flowers and murmur 
 of waters, made up a spell which mastered him, 
 in spite of himself. The agony of self-contempt 
 which had tortured him grew more bearable, the 
 thought of Grace retreated into the background, 
 and he was content to gaze and wonder and 
 admire. He dined alone with his father in a 
 little pavilion on the terrace which looked straight 
 out to sea. It was a silent meal, but Guy was 
 too much absorbed in his surroundings to notice 
 the silence. Lady Francheville did not appear, 
 and he was told that she was unwell, and could 
 not see him until the morning. He offered, not 
 very eagerly, to go up and see her, and saw that 
 Lord Francheville, for some reason, did not find 
 the offer acceptable. Guy was not surprised. 
 
 76 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 77 
 
 His mother had never shown much desire for 
 his society, and she had always seemed to him 
 a being so wholly apart, so remote from ordinary 
 human ties and affections, that he did not resent 
 this apparent want of natural feeling. Lord 
 Francheville was not a lively companion, at the 
 best of times. That night he seemed to Guy 
 more silent, more abstracted than usual, though 
 he paid no particular attention to the fact. Once 
 or twice, when the servants had left the pavilion, 
 and they were alone, he looked up at his son 
 quickly, with an odd, arrested expression, as 
 though he wished to make some remark which 
 it was difficult to put into words. His thin 
 features wore the half-dreamy, half-haggard look 
 which they had worn ever since Guy remembered 
 him, and his hair, as the lamplight shone upon it, 
 was white as snow. In the midst of his admira- 
 tion for the beauty around him, Guy found time 
 to wonder why his father, who was not an old 
 man, should wear that look — the look of one 
 crushed under a burden too heavy for his 
 strength, which he is not able to lay down. 
 Lord Newtown, at eighty-four, looked younger 
 than his son, in spite of his gout and his 
 cynicism, and a bewildering assortment of violent 
 dislikes, which kept him always occupied with a 
 
78 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 perfectly incomprehensible series of quarrels. 
 Perhaps the quarrels kept him young, as he 
 occasionally declared they did. It occurred to 
 Guy that his father was in need of some tonic 
 to rouse him from the harassed torpor into which 
 he seemed to have fallen. 
 
 Nothing was said about Grace, or the broken 
 engagement, though Guy felt that his father 
 knew that something was wrong. He was 
 grateful to him for saying nothing, and cut short 
 their smoke on the terrace on the plea that he 
 was tired and must turn in early. But when he 
 reached his own room, he did not go to bed, blit 
 sat for a long time looking out at the sea. 
 
 He was too tired to think, too tired even to 
 feel. The peace, the beauty of what he saw 
 was so perfect that it seemed to rest him. He 
 was worn out by the violent emotions of the 
 last week, and in that state of mental and 
 physical exhaustion in which it seems as im- 
 possible to feel as to move. And he remem- 
 bered his impression that the groom who had 
 driven him from Saint-Maure hated Mon 
 Paradis, and was conscious of something like 
 amusement. No doubt he had been wrong — 
 he had been tired, and had made a mistake. 
 Who could dislike a spot so absolutely lovely ? 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 79 
 
 For a long time he couM not tear himself 
 from the window. The night was extraordin- 
 arily still, extraordinarily cloudless. There was 
 not a sound to be heard anywhere. 
 
 When at last he went to bed, he did not fall 
 asleep at once. He had left the window open, 
 regardless of mosquitoes, and die moonlight 
 flooded the room. He lay looking at it, finding 
 a sort of idle pleasure in the occupation. 
 
 The household had long been silent. Sud- 
 denly, in the stillness, he was conscious of a sound 
 •—the soft unmistakable sound of a woman's heels 
 tapping upon an uacarpeted flight of stairs, of a 
 woman's dress brushing lightly from step to step. 
 
 Guy's ear was quick. He irecogaised the 
 step at once. It was Lady Fraaicheville's. 
 
 It struck him that perhaps she wanted to see 
 him, that she had come to listen at his door. He 
 got up softly, and went to the door, and opened it. 
 
 Lady Francheville stood just outside the door, 
 with a small hand-lamp which she was holding 
 up above her head, in order to throw a light 
 before her down the dark well of the staircase. 
 She had evidently just come down from the 
 storey above that in which Guy's room was 
 situated — and she had certainly had no intention 
 of making a midnight visit to Guy. The face 
 
8o THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 she raised to his was astonished, and, he felt 
 also, a little disconcerted. It was as though he 
 had surprised her upon some errand which she 
 wished to keep secret. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said involuntarily. 
 *'I — I thought you were coming to my room." 
 
 Lady Francheville's pale, inflexible features 
 expressed a mild surprise, and Guy regretted 
 his remark. He remembered that his mother 
 was not in the habit of doing impulsive or 
 aflectionate things, and it struck him that she 
 secretly resented the suggestion that she was 
 about to do anything of the sort now, much as 
 she would have resented it had anyone taken a 
 liberty with her. 
 
 " I was not coming to you," she said a little 
 coldly. Then her manner changed slightly. 
 *'I am sorry I could not come down to-night. 
 I hope you have everything you want ? " 
 
 "Everything, thanks — more than I could 
 possibly want. This place is perfectly beautiful 
 — I am in love with it. Why have I never come 
 here before ? " 
 
 Lady Francheville had lowered the lamp, but 
 its light was still on her face. Guy, looking at 
 her, saw it change, saw a look of pain come into 
 her eyes. He was reminded suddenly of the 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 8i 
 
 groom, and of his remark that it was not the place 
 in which one lived that made happiness ; for Lady 
 Francheville, though she lived in Mon Paradis, 
 did not look happy — did not, indeed, look as 
 though she had ever known what happiness was. 
 
 " I must go down," she said, without answer- 
 ing his question. "We shall have plenty of 
 time to talk in the morning. You look tired. 
 Good-night, Guy." 
 
 «* Good-night." 
 
 He stood at the open door, and watched her 
 tall figure moving down the staircase into the 
 darkness below with a sort of rigid grace, a 
 dignity which was not merely calm but frozen. 
 It occurred to him as he stood there that he had 
 never known a woman who created round her 
 an atmosphere so absolutely cold, so peculiarly 
 devoid of all human warmth of feeling. And 
 suddenly he wondered whether his father's look 
 of unutterable weariness was caused by the fact 
 that for forty years he had lived with this 
 beautiful iceberg. It might be so, he thought. 
 He had often been told that his father and 
 mother were devoted to each other, but at that 
 moment he felt inclined to doubt Lady Franche- 
 ville's capacity for devotion of any sort, to any 
 created being in heaven or earth. 
 
82 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 He went back to his room, and fell asleep 
 almost in a moment. He was awakened by 
 sunshine and sweet, blowing air — glorious light, 
 and a wind sweet with the breath of pines and 
 roses. His breakfast stood beside the bed, and 
 someone was moving about the room in a velvety, 
 silent way which he felt rather than heard. 
 
 Guy sat up yawning among his pillows. A 
 small, mouselike man came to the foot of the 
 bed, and smiled a small, discreet, respectful 
 smile. 
 
 " Good-morning, sir. You were sleeping so 
 sweetly, it seemed a sin to wake you. It's a 
 warm day — shall I put out the white suit ? " 
 
 *' Oh — you're Spence ? " Guy said. 
 
 "Yes, sir. I remember you as a baby. 
 Master Guy — I beg pardon, sir, it seems natural 
 to call you that, somehow. You were a pretty 
 
 baby, sir, as ever I see ^" and Spence sighed 
 
 suddenly, and began unfolding the white linen 
 suit. 
 
 Guy laughed. It was the first time he had 
 laughed spontaneously since the day he had 
 abandoned Grace, but Spence's sentimental tone 
 when referring to his own youthful charms was 
 too much for him. 
 
 " I expect I was a little beast ! " he said 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 83 
 
 gaily. *' I say, Spence, I'm glad to see you — 
 I've heard a lot about you, you know. I always 
 wondered why you stayed out here all the time, 
 and never came home, but now I've seen this 
 place, I begin to understand. You'll never get 
 rid of me again — I shall stay here until I go to 
 pieces." 
 
 Spence's grey, mouselike head was bent over 
 the linen suit. He did not raise it when he 
 spoke. His voice sounded suddenly grave. 
 
 "I hope not, sir. We should be glad to 
 have you, I'm sure— but I hope not." 
 
 Guy felt startled. Spence's tone, like that of 
 the French groom, was unmistakable. 
 
 " What, don't you like Mon Paradis, either ? " 
 
 *' It's a beautiful spot, sir — the most beautiful 
 spot you'll find in the world, I think. And I've 
 travelled a deal with his lordship when he was 
 younger." 
 
 "But you don't like it? That's odd. The 
 man who drove me from Saint-Maure didn't like 
 it either, I do believe." 
 
 Spence looked up sharply. 
 
 " Those Frenchmen are a silly lot, sir. 
 Don't pay ■ any attention to what they say — 
 they're full of silliness." 
 
 *'But your silliness takes the same form. 
 
84 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 Spence. Why on earth don't you like Mon 
 Paradis?" 
 
 Spence hesitated. 
 
 *' Well — I suppose I'm fonder of old England 
 than of these lovely foreign places, sir. That's 
 about it. It's natural, after all." 
 
 He busied himself with Guy's things, and 
 Guy drank his coffee, and watched him. He 
 was thinking deeply, and perhaps the burden 
 of his thoughts was not altogether comfortable. 
 For it was natural that Spence should like 
 England better than France; but he felt quite 
 certain that he had another and a better reason 
 than that for disliking Mon Paradis. What 
 was it ? Had this modern Paradise also a ser- 
 pent of evil and mystery hidden in the shadow 
 of its palms and roses ? 
 
 Presently Guy put down his cup and spoke 
 again. 
 
 " Who sleeps over me, Spence ? " 
 
 This time it was evident that Spence was 
 surprised and disconcerted. 
 
 *'No one, sir. The rooms over you are 
 empty," he said briefly, and his tone did not 
 invite further questioning. 
 
 It occurred to Guy that it was a little odd that 
 Lady Francheville should have visited an empty 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 85 
 
 suite of rooms in the middle of the night at a time 
 when she was supposed to be too much indisposed 
 to see her son. But he could not very well 
 discuss his mother's apparently eccentric be- 
 haviour with Spence. He was silent, watching 
 the little man move about the room. There 
 was -something restful,' and even attractive, in his 
 noiseless movements, and the gentle expression 
 of his rather insignificant features; but it was 
 not for that reason that Guy watched him. A 
 fantastic idea was taking shape in his mind. It 
 seemed to him that between Lord and Lady 
 Francheville and this little, mouselike man, their 
 old servant, there was an odd resemblance — a 
 resemblance which had nothing to do with 
 appearance, or with manner, or with speech, but 
 which existed nevertheless, and was not only 
 recognisable but striking. The look which he 
 had seen on his father's face as he walked with 
 him up and down the terrace, and on his mother's 
 face as she stood talking to him on the dark 
 staircase, with the lamp in her hand — the look 
 bom of a great and heavy load carried perhaps 
 bravely but certainly hopelessly, with a breaking 
 heart — this look was on the face of this little 
 man also. It was a look difficult to describe, 
 but, once seen, it could not be forgotten, or 
 
86 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 mistaken. And it was so strong, and so unlike 
 any other expression that Guy had ever seen, 
 that it constituted a likeness which was almost 
 ridiculous between these three people who, in 
 all other respects, did not resemble each other 
 in the least. 
 
 Guy tried to put this likeness into words, to 
 analyse it, to discover its cause, and could not. 
 Only it seemed to him that it was the likeness 
 which might grow in time between three people 
 who have looked for long on the same thing, 
 and that a thing which has filled them all with 
 the same emotions, the same sorrow, and pity, 
 and perhaps fear. And the more he thought 
 of it, the more firmly did he become convinced 
 that this explanation, however fantastic it might 
 appear at first sight, was in reality the true one. 
 The resemblance between his father and mother 
 and Spence was the resemblance, not of those 
 who see, but of the thing seen. 
 
 But upon what had they looked, these three, 
 that the sight of it had set them apart from 
 all others, and sealed them with a sorrow to 
 which one could not put a name — a sorrow at 
 once terrible and pitiful — a pity which was akin 
 to a great fear ? 
 
VII 
 
 Life at Mon Paradis was quiet, and solitary. 
 Lord and Lady Francheville did not encourage 
 visitors. No one came over from Nice, or 
 Cannes, or Saint-Raphael, though people whom 
 they knew well were staying at all these places, 
 as Guy knew, and it would have seemed per- 
 fectly natural had they chosen to appear at 
 Saint-Maure. Lord Newtown wrote to his 
 grandson from Monte Carlo — a characteristic 
 letter. The place was full of his bitterest 
 enemies, but Guy might come over and see him 
 if he liked ; no doubt Paradise was boring him 
 to distraction. Guy went over, and found the old 
 man in a bad temper. He abused his enemies and 
 his friends with charming impartiality. Everyone 
 was detestable. He did not know why he had 
 not stayed in Paris. And what the devil had Guy 
 been up to about his engagement? He didn't 
 believe that Grace had given him up — no girl 
 in her senses would give up the prospect of 
 becoming Countess of Newtown, so it was no 
 use to talk about it. What had Guy done ? 
 87 
 
88 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 Guy was aware that by no effort of his could 
 Lord Newtown ever be made to understand 
 what had really happened. He murmured some- 
 thing vague and unsatisfactory, and his grand- 
 father retorted frankly that he did not believe 
 a word he said. 
 
 " It's your fault, of course," he said. *' The 
 girl's a good girl — as good a girl as I know. 
 And, by Jove, as handsome as she is good! 
 What do you want more, you ungrateful young 
 ruffian, you — eh ? " 
 
 Guy murmured humbly that he did not want 
 anything — that Grace was far too good for him, 
 and he knew it, and that he only hoped the 
 misunderstanding would be cleared up. Upon 
 which Lord Newtown took a letter from his 
 pocket, which he threw at, rather than gave to, 
 his grandson. 
 
 " You had better read that," he said savagely. 
 *' I saw her myself — did what I could for you, 
 though you don't deserve it. Said you were a 
 damned young fool — all the Hilmours are, until 
 they become damned old ones, like me. Told 
 her you didn't mean it — thought you really cared 
 for her, though that sort of thing is all moonshine 
 and imagination, of course. Still, women like 
 to be told it isn't — or did, when I was young," 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 89 
 
 " It was very good of you," Guy said, touched 
 by this unusual show of interest in his tangled 
 affairs. He took the letter and opened it with 
 a sinking heart; and Lord Newtown rang for 
 his man, and his afternoon dose of medicine, and 
 swore loudly at both. 
 
 The letter was very brief — a dozen lines 
 dashed upon a sheet of paper, without com- 
 mencement, without signature. She would not 
 write his name and hers on the same sheet of 
 paper, he thought bitterly, and perhaps he was 
 right. It was all over — she hoped he would 
 not try to see her, or write to her, for it was 
 useless. She understood perfectly what had 
 happened — there was no need for him to 
 apologise or explain. Their engagement was an 
 utter mistake, and they would only have made 
 each other unhappy ; it was a good thing they 
 had found out their real sentiments in time. 
 And, since it would be impossible for them to 
 avoid meeting in other people's houses, if not in 
 their own, she hoped he would never refer to 
 the subject again. 
 
 Guy laid the letter down with a feeling of 
 bewilderment so intense that it was absolutely 
 painful. For the letter was hard — almost 
 flippant; and when had Grace been hard or 
 
90 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 flippant before ? For a moment he thought of 
 his grandfather's assertion that no girl in her 
 senses would renounce the chance of being 
 Countess of Newtown, and wondered. Had 
 not Grace really cared for him, after all ? Had 
 she merely accepted him because he was what 
 is called a good match? The thought was 
 really rather dreadful, and passed as quickly as 
 it came. No— Grace was not mercenary, and 
 if she had been so, he knew that he would have 
 detected it at once. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Lord Newtown had swallowed his medicine, 
 and consigned his man to a locality much warmer 
 even than Monte Carlo. He looked at Guy 
 expectantly, and Guy avoided his eye. 
 
 •• It is no use," he said. " She wishes it to 
 end — what can I do ? " 
 
 He was conscious that in the midst of his 
 very real distress there was also a relief which 
 was very real too. He had done what he could 
 to redeem that fatal first moment of panic. 
 Was it his fault if his repentance was not 
 accepted? He was beginning to think that 
 he had not behaved so badly after all. If he 
 had refused to go to Grace once he had begged 
 for days to be allowed to go to her — and begged 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 91 
 
 in vain. Was he to be judged and condemned 
 on the impulse of one unfortunate moment, 
 rather ttian the continued eiFort of days? He 
 had done what he could — he could do no more. 
 Honour was satisfied. If Grace wished the 
 engagement to end, it must end, for it was clear 
 that he could not force her to remain engaged 
 to him against her will. 
 
 " You're glad," Lord Newtown said abruptly. 
 
 "No!" For the first time in his life Guy 
 lost his temper with his grandfather. "You 
 have no right to say that. I am not glad." 
 
 Lord Newtown laughed in his cynical, cack- 
 ling way. 
 
 "My dear boy, why try to blind me with 
 conventional lies ? Do you think I have tiever 
 seen relief written on a man's face before? 
 You are relieved because Grace has given you 
 up— yes, and you're glad too ; and if I wasn't 
 too philosophical to be annoyed by anything, 
 I should be ashamed of you." 
 
 As Lord Newtown's philosophy had never 
 yet stood in the way of his losing a very bad 
 temper on every possible occasion, Guy rose 
 and made his escape. He did not want to 
 quarrel with the old man, who had always been 
 kind to him. 
 
92 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 He went back to Mon Paradis with a lighter 
 heart, and once again the peace and beauty of 
 the white villa beside the sea came upon him 
 like a benediction. The monotony of the life 
 could not weary him, and its solitude seemed 
 only an added charm. Of his father and 
 mother he saw little, except at meals. And 
 then they wore always the air of sorrowful 
 abstraction which, in London and among their 
 fellow kind, gave them so much the appearance 
 of ghosts returned to a world with which they 
 have no sympathy. Yet here, at Mon Paradis, 
 this abstraction seemed inexplicable, as it did 
 not seem in London, for the Franchevilles were 
 obviously not made for the little things of life, 
 the ordinary intercourse of ordinary human 
 beings. Guy had instinctively felt that long 
 ago ; he felt it now more keenly than ever. It 
 would have been impossible for the most 
 hardened mondaine to talk the usual common- 
 place gossip of the world to Lady Francheville — 
 as impossible almost as it would have been to 
 gossip with the Sphinx. She was a woman so 
 obviously set apart for something so different 
 — probably higher, it might be, and certainly 
 sadder — that it would have seemed a sort of 
 impertinence. Guy had always felt that, even 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 93 
 
 in moments when he might have wished his 
 mother to be a Uttle more " human and less 
 remote. And Lord Francheville was also a 
 person for whom frivolities had no charm, 
 whom one could not imagine taking an active 
 interest in the things about him. He too 
 walked the earth as a stranger, enveloped in 
 an atmosphere of abstraction. His eyes seemed 
 turned perpetually upon some inward vision 
 which absorbed all his attention. 
 
 Yet the abstraction of these two people did 
 not at first affecr Guy at all unpleasantly, partly 
 because he was used to it, and partly because 
 he was recovering from a severe shock, and 
 asked nothing better than to be let alone. He 
 was grateful that they respected his own re- 
 serve, and demanded no explanation as to his 
 broken engagement ; he was grateful to them 
 for leaving him to amuse himself, or not amuse 
 himself, exactly as he chose. He went for 
 long walks into the wild country of pines and 
 olives and cork-trees ; he lounged on the quay 
 at Saint-Maure, and talked to the fishers as they 
 mended their torn nets and the brown sails of 
 their boats on the low stone wall which ran 
 past the church, and the cafe, and such other 
 public buildings as Saint-Maure possessed. 
 
94 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 They were shy and silent with him at first, 
 until they found he could sail their boats as 
 well as they could sail them, and then they 
 took him to their hearts at once. He sailed 
 with them up and down all that lovely coast, 
 from Saint-Maure right up to Ventimiglia. He 
 was absurdly contented, and almost callously 
 light-hearted, for a man who had just passed 
 through such a painful experience. For the 
 beauty that he loved as he loved nothing else 
 was all about him. The blue sea claimed him, 
 the blue skies smiled at him. The fascination 
 which he felt was irresistible to a temperament 
 like his, for the magic of that coast, of the red 
 rocks and pines and the intensely blue water, 
 is like no other magic in the world. And its 
 curious power Springs partly from the fact that, 
 in spite of sunshine and soft airs and dazzling 
 skies, it is a magic of sadness, and not of gaiety 
 — a. sadness deep and measureless and mysteri- 
 ous as the sea itself. For the Mediterranean 
 has a soul, and it is not the soul of northern 
 seas — of grey, tumbling waters which break 
 angrily upon an iron shore, frankly terrible, the 
 open enemy of man and all his works. The 
 Mediterranean is more subtle than that, but her 
 terror is not less because she veils it with a 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 95 
 
 smile. Under the blue waters lurks a spirit no 
 less stern and implacable than that which shows 
 frankly in the grey ; under the smile is a terror 
 which may be felt. It hangs strangely about 
 the pine-covered coast-line, desolate in its loveli- 
 ness, luxuriant in its desolation. People speak 
 of the gaiety of the South, but they are those 
 who do not know the South as it really is, who 
 are content to walk on the Promenade des 
 Anglais, and criticise the dresses and morals of 
 their friends. They do not know the South — 
 it has never revealed itself to them in all its 
 infinite sadness and loneliness — a sadness born 
 of the sea, a loneliness born of the sun, and a 
 sense of mystery, of something lurking behind 
 the mask of all this beauty, something cold, and 
 inhuman, and cruel. No — the people who 
 chatter of southern gaiety are those who have 
 never seen the South. Those who know it as it 
 is never call it gay. 
 
 And this beauty, this mystery of the Medi- 
 terranean, mastered Guy completely. He no 
 longer wondered that his father and mother 
 spent their lives in voluntary exile. The only 
 thing that puzzled him was, that in the midst of 
 all this beauty, they remained sad and abstracted, 
 that it seemed to have no attraction for them, 
 
96 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 in spite of the fact that they were apparently 
 unable to tear themselves away from it. He 
 put his astonishment into words one day, and 
 Lord Francheville looked up at him with the 
 same quick, arrested expression which he had 
 noticed on the night of his arrival. He seemed 
 about to say something, and then checked him- 
 self, and was silent. When he spoke, Guy was 
 sure that he said what he had not in the first 
 place intended to say. 
 
 *' Beauty is not everything. We had a 
 reason for living here." 
 
 Guy supposed that the reason was his 
 mother's health, of which he had always heard 
 so miich. He said nothing; and then Lord 
 Francheville made a remark which startled him. 
 
 "You admire this," he said, looking round 
 him with a long, intent gaze, as of a person 
 waking from sleep. *'You admire it. But 
 sometimes I look round me, and I hate the 
 beauty I see — yes, I hate it ! " 
 
 For a moment Guy did not speak. He was 
 astonished, and almost annoyed. He thought 
 of the French groom, of Spence, of the look in 
 his mother's eyes when he had spoken to her of 
 the beauty of Mon Paradis. Something stronger 
 and more unpleasant than astonishment or 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 97 
 
 annoyance touched him as he stood there on the 
 sunlit terrace, with the palms and roses all about 
 him, and the blue sea smiling below. He felt a 
 chill in the warm air — he did not know why. 
 
 " You hate it ? " he said at last. " But why 
 should you hate it ? Why should you hate all 
 this beauty ? " 
 
 Lord Francheville's eyes were still fixed 
 obviously upon what was before him, and not 
 upon that inner vision upon which he generally 
 seemed so intent. And Guy knew that he did 
 indeed hate what he saw — that his speech had 
 been no mere morbid exaggeration of a 
 momentary fancy, but the absolute truth. 
 
 *'Yes, I hate it," he said again. "It is a 
 mockery, all of it. This place is a horrible 
 mockery, for every stone in its walls is a lie. 
 Its name is a lie — I tell you, it is a palace of 
 irony ! " He seemed to speak more to himself 
 than to Guy, and there was a strange force and 
 sincerity in his tone. *' It is a place built to be 
 the home of a great happiness, and it is the 
 home of misery — of despair ! " 
 
 Again the chill struck coldly upon Guy. He 
 remembered that Lord Francheville had built the 
 villa before his marriage, and presented it to 
 his wife as a wedding gift. And now he said 
 
98 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 that it had been the home of misery and despair, 
 instead of happiness. What did he mean ? 
 
 " I suppose we are none of us ever as happy as 
 we hope to be," he said presently. "Perhaps 
 you mean that. We build houses of hope, and 
 are left with them on our hands when the hope 
 that built them is dead. And we go on living 
 in them because we have no heart to build 
 others." 
 
 He was thinking of Grace, and he spoke 
 sadly and rather bitterly. For he too had built 
 a house of hope, and had seen his hope fail him. 
 
 Lord Francheville turned and looked at him, 
 with a new sort of attention, as though he saw 
 him for the first time. 
 
 "Ah, you have found that out too?" he 
 said. 
 
 It struck Guy that there was no sympathy 
 in his tone, no regret in his look, but rather 
 a kind of melancholy pleasure — the pleasure a 
 man might feel who finds a companion wander- 
 ing in the desert in which he himself is lost. 
 It was as though he realised for the first time 
 that Guy was of the same flesh and blood as he 
 was, that he was subject to the same sadness 
 which he himself experienced, in a lesser degree. 
 
 " Yes — ^I have found it out. I suppose every- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 99 
 
 one who lives long enough finds it out. But I 
 should have thought you had had everything to 
 make you happy." 
 
 Lord Francheville started. Something like 
 horror came into his eyes as he stood looking 
 at his son. 
 
 " Happy ! " he said, with an indescribable 
 accent of amazement in his thin, worn voice. 
 « Happy— I ! " 
 
 It was as though the very thought of 
 happiness in connection with himself struck him 
 as so extraordinary that the idea was an outrage 
 upon probability and common sense. 
 
 Guy began to be conscious of a feeling of 
 irritation, of revolt. This air of tragedy op- 
 pressed him. He could not understand it. He 
 could not imagine what reason his father could 
 have for this extraordinary attitude towards life. 
 
 "I don't want to ask questions that you 
 might not care to answer," he said, "but I 
 confess I don't know what you mean. From 
 my point of view you have had everything 
 which usually makes for happiness. It is pos- 
 sible that the things which usually make for 
 happiness don't always make one happy, of 
 course — I can quite see that. But I think you 
 are inclined to be a little morbid. You live too 
 
loo THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 much to yourselves here, you and my mother. 
 Why don't you ask people here, and try to 
 unbend a little, to be ordinary, and common- 
 place, and like the rest of the world? The 
 Torrisdales are at Nice, and the Wentworths — 
 I have heard they were great friends of yours 
 before you shut yourselves up here. Why 
 don't you ask them over here ? And my grand-' 
 father is at Monte Carlo — he is lively enough 
 to amuse anyone. Why don't you get him 
 here for a few days ? It would cheer you up." 
 
 He had hardly finished speaking before he 
 felt that he had just cast a bomb at his father's 
 feet. Lord Francheville remained gazing at 
 him for a few seconds with a vaguely pained 
 and astonished air. 
 
 "Amused! You think I could be amused?" 
 he said at last. *'You think your grandfather's 
 society could cheer me up ? " 
 
 Guy did not answer. On second thoughts 
 he did not think so. It began to be painfully 
 obvious to him that his father was not likely to 
 care for any ordinary methods of amusement. 
 
 Lord Francheville continued to survey him 
 with an expression of almost pitying surprise 
 for a moment longer. Then he turned away, 
 and went slowly towards the house. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING loi 
 
 "Poor boy, how little you know!" Guy 
 heard him say. 
 
 His son did not follow him. He stood on 
 the terrace, and looked at the blue sea and the 
 pine-fringed shore. The sun did not seem to 
 be quite so warm, or the sea so blue ; a shadow 
 had fallen upon the roses and the palms. He 
 looked up at the fantastic domes and spires 
 of Mon Paradis, and shivered involuntarily. 
 For the first time, its beauty left him cold. He 
 remembered what his father had called it — a 
 place built to be the home of a great happiness. 
 
 He wondered what had destroyed this happi- 
 ness which had been so great that it had built 
 a Paradise for itself, and then changed in a 
 moment to despair. 
 
vm 
 
 For the first time since he had left England 
 Guy felt that he was in a strange land, and 
 among people removed from him by their know- 
 ledge of a secret, a mystery, of the nature of 
 which he was ignorant. For the first time he 
 wished for someone to whom he could have 
 confided these vague hints, these suggestions 
 which met him on every side, and which began 
 to oppress him. He divined a secret hidden 
 by the white minarets of Mon Paradis, but he 
 did not wish to know what it was, since it had 
 already plunged two lives in despair. His one 
 desire was to escape any further knowledge of 
 this mystery which lay like a shadow upon the 
 loveliness of the villa. That evening after 
 dinner he told his father that he must return to 
 England in a day or two. It was plain that the 
 declaration disconcerted Lord Francheville. 
 
 "But you have only been here a few days," 
 he said uneasily. " I have not told you why 
 I sent for you." 
 
 He seemed distressed and disturbed — far 
 
 102 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 103 
 
 more so, Guy thought, than the occasion at all 
 warranted. 
 
 *'You can tell me why you sent for me to- 
 night, then," he answered, "and to-morrow I 
 can go." 
 
 Lord Francheville drew back with an alarmed 
 gesture. 
 
 "No — not to-night. I cannot tell you to- 
 night." 
 
 Guy looked at him. His pale face wore a 
 deeper pallor than usual. 
 
 *'I am not well to-day," he added, meeting 
 his son's eyes. 
 
 Nothing more was said that night, for Guy 
 was in no hurry to bring an explanation about. 
 He felt instinctively that it had to do with the 
 secret of his father's and mother's unhappiness, 
 and he shrank from hearing it as much as Lord 
 Francheville appeared to shrink from telling it. 
 They walked upon the terrace for half-an-hour 
 in the growing dusk, in a silence which neither 
 cared to break. Presently, in the intense still- 
 ness, they heard a bell ring in the villa. 
 
 Lord Francheville shot a curious glance at 
 Guy. 
 
 "It is the curd — Father Blanc," he said, in 
 the tone of one who invites a question. 
 
I04 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 But Guy had grown chary of questions. 
 
 " You will have to go and receive him.'* 
 
 *' No. He does not come to see me." 
 
 Guy did not ask which member of the house- 
 hold of Mon Paradis habitually received evening 
 visits from Father Blanc. He felt suddenly 
 that he did not want to know, and that his 
 father intended to tell him. 
 
 " He comes to see your mother." 
 
 « Oh." 
 
 Guy's tone did not invite further information. 
 Lord Francheville hesitated for a moment. 
 
 "You knew that your mother had become a 
 Catholic ? " 
 
 " No — I did not know." 
 
 Again his tone repelled rather than invited 
 further information. Yet he was not really so 
 indifferent to Lord Francheville's statement as 
 he appeared to be, for he felt that his mother's 
 change of faith had some connection that he 
 could not understand with this mystery from 
 the very thought of which he shrank. He re- 
 membered the small, solitary tinkle of the 
 church bell which had seemed to cry unheard 
 to the dead sunset as he drove from Saint- 
 Maure to Mon Paradis. It had not been un- 
 heard, after all. It had drawn one human 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 105 
 
 heart to the yellow, towerless, ugly little 
 building, in search, perhaps, of the happiness 
 it had lost, or of the peace which it could not find. 
 
 "You do not say anything," Lord Franche- 
 ville remarked at last. 
 
 *' Why should I say anything ? My mother's 
 religion is no affair of mine," Guy said, rather 
 coldly. " One must settle matters of that kind 
 for oneself." 
 
 They walked to the end of the terrace once 
 more, and then Guy stood still, facing the dark 
 sea. 
 
 "And you," he said, ''have you also become 
 a Catholic, like my mother ? " 
 
 Lord Francheville laughed. Guy, who had 
 never heard him laugh before, started in the 
 darkness. The irony of that laugh was so 
 terrible that it hurt. 
 
 **No. I do not believe in miracles," Lord 
 Francheville said. 
 
 Was it because his mother hoped for a 
 miracle that she had become a Catholic? Guy 
 wondered. And what was the miracle she 
 desired? He did not ask. After a moment 
 his father spoke again. 
 
 *'I do not believe in anything," he said, as 
 though to himself. " How can I ? " 
 
io6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 Guy was startled, in spite of his desire to 
 preserve a neutral attitude in the conversation, 
 and to invite no confidences. 
 
 "T suppose you don't quite mean that," he 
 said. "I have heard that everyone believes 
 in something, really. You may not agree with 
 any definite form of religion — that is all." 
 
 " I believe in nothing." 
 
 Guy took the cigarette he was smoking from 
 his lips and threw it into the sea. The silence 
 was so intense that he could hear the little 
 hiss it made as it touched the water and went 
 out. 
 
 "That must be rather dreadful," he said in 
 a low voice. He was beginning to think that 
 quite a number of things in this earthly 
 Paradise must be rather dreadful, too. 
 
 "Why? It is less dreadful to believe in 
 nothing at all than to believe in a God who 
 could look on the happiness of the human 
 beings he had created, and then snatch it away, 
 and torture them," Lord Francheville said 
 slowly. "To believe in a Power which tor- 
 tures the beings it has created — to pray to it — 
 to worship it." There was a strange sound in 
 his voice — a sound which suggested hatred of 
 this Power in which he expressed his disbelief, 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 107 
 
 "That would be dreadful, I admit — the most 
 dreadful thing one could possibly imagine." 
 
 "I am going in. Good-night!" Guy said 
 abruptly. 
 
 He felt that he could not stand there a 
 moment longer. The sense of mystery hung 
 over him, enveloped him, like a cloud. It 
 seemed to choke him. He knew that if he 
 listened to much more he should ask the 
 question he did not mean to ask. 
 
 He went into the drawing-room on his way 
 to bed. His mother sat by the open window, 
 through which the moonlight was beginning to 
 fall. Father Blanc sat opposite her. They had 
 been talking, but they were silent before Guy's 
 foot touched the threshold. 
 
 "This is my son." 
 
 Guy noticed that the priest looked at him 
 intently. He was a man with a grave face and 
 a pleasant manner. Guy felt that a child or an 
 animal would have gone to him instinctively, 
 and that anyone in trouble would be likely to 
 go to him too, if for nothing higher than a 
 blind faith in his powers of protection and 
 consolation. 
 
 They spoke for a few moments on general 
 subjects, and then Guy left them. He knew 
 
io8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 that he was not wanted. As he went upstairs 
 he heard the low murmur of voices in the 
 drawing-room. He guessed that the inter- 
 rupted conversation had been renewed, and that 
 they were discussing the subject which they had 
 abandoned when he appeared. 
 
 Next morning he went out early, before his 
 father and mother were visible. He found his 
 way into Saint-Maure, by the palm-fringed road 
 which had seemed to him so strangely beautiful 
 on the night of his arrival. Under the brilliant 
 sunshine the palms looked more than ever like 
 Eastern kings in exile. Their broad leaves 
 drooped sadly. It was a relief to be past them, 
 to meet the native pines and olives. 
 
 The quay of Saint-Maure was deserted for 
 once. The fishing -boats were all out, the 
 menders of nets were gone. Even the children 
 who seemed to play eternally in the shade of the 
 trees were nowha-e to be seen. Guy stood for 
 a while looking at the blue water, at the roofs 
 of Saint-Tropez across the gulf. Then he 
 turned and went slowly towards the church. 
 
 He had not meant to visit it that morning, but 
 he could not resist a sudden impulse to enter it. 
 He thought of his father's remark of the night 
 before as he looked at the ugly, sun-baked little 
 
THE UNSEEN THING io0 
 
 place. Who could connect a miracle with its 
 yellow walls, from which the plaster had peeled 
 in great flakes, its squat roof, and the naive 
 construction on top which resembled a rusty 
 bird-cage, and contained the melancholy httle 
 bell? 
 
 The door swung to behind him with a dull 
 sound which echoed through the empty build- 
 ing. At first he could hardly see anything, 
 after the brilliant sunshine of the quay. It was 
 all dark, and close; an odour of stale incense 
 and damp stones hung stiflingly in the still air. 
 The candles on the altar burned with a small, 
 steady light in the gloom. By their light, Guy 
 began to see. 
 
 The church was very old. Age was written 
 on the uneven stones of the pavement, on the 
 darkness of the walls. The incense which 
 hung in the air was the incense of centuries, 
 which no rude breath from the outer world had 
 been able wholly to expel. The pillars were 
 bent and crumpled, as though with the effort 
 of supportmg their burden for so long. The 
 entire building seemed to have warped and 
 become uneven with age, like an old man who 
 has grown crooked and lame. And it was a 
 decrepitude without dignity, a decay which no 
 
no THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 one had endeavoured to arrest or disguise. It 
 was so frank, so simple that its humility was 
 impressive and touching. 
 
 Guy stood still, looking round him. Some- 
 thing in the solitude and silence of this little 
 old church affected him strangely. He had 
 stood unmoved in a cathedral, but this darkness, 
 this humble old age, touched him, and almost 
 awed him. Above his head in the gloom 
 swung the model of a full-rigged ship, a thank- 
 offering for the return of some vessel for which 
 anxious prayers had been offered before the 
 altar twinkling with yellow lights; and above 
 a side altar not far away he saw more than one 
 waxen heart suspended, mute, half-ludicrous, 
 half-pathetic memorials of the sorrows of other 
 hearts, not waxen, but of flesh and blood, which; 
 had hoped or despaired in this quiet little churdi 
 of Saint-Maure, and had left these simple 
 souvenirs of their prayers, which had been 
 answered or rejected so long ago that the 
 very names of those who had offered them were 
 perhaps forgotten. 
 
 The hanging ship, the waxen hearts, reminded 
 Guy of that moment on the terrace when Lord 
 Francheville had said, with that terrifying 
 laughter which had shocked him so much, that 
 
THE UNSEEN THING iii 
 
 he did not believe in miracles. The remark 
 had hinted that Lady Francheville not only 
 believed in them, but that she herself sought 
 nothing less than a miracle, here, in the little 
 church of Saint-Maure. Guy wondered what 
 it was. The idea no longer seemed to him 
 extraordinary, as it would have seemed before 
 he left the sunlit quay, ten minutes before. 
 He thought that if he had occasion to pray 
 that a miracle should be performed for him, he 
 would have done so nowhere more willingly than 
 here, for nowhere would the atmosphere of any 
 place have inspired him with so much faith in 
 the realisation of his prayer. He understood 
 suddenly why the voice of the lonely little bell, 
 which had seemed to him so weak, so pathetic, 
 so unheeded, had yet been strong enough to 
 draw Lady Francheville away from the faith in 
 which she had been brought up, to call her 
 with an irresistible appeal to the yellow, ugly 
 little building on the quay. For here were 
 visible memorials of the miracle which she 
 desired — the miracle of an answered prayer. 
 To one desperately in need of a miracle, of 
 something superhuman, of help which man 
 could not give, the very simplicity and poverty 
 of the place would be an attraction, since they 
 
112 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 showed so plainly the supreme contrast between 
 the greatness of the thing desired, and the 
 humility of the spot in which it might be 
 granted. He felt that he had known very 
 little when he had thought that there could 
 be no connection between a miracle and this 
 little church. To Lady Francheville, in her 
 mysterious despair, the very walls must be 
 eloquent with the promise of the aid she 
 sought. The hanging ship would speak of it, 
 since it was the memorial of another ship, 
 brought back unscathed from the terrors of 
 the seas; the waxen hearts would be, to her, 
 symbols of other hearts which the world had 
 broken, healed by a power greater than that of 
 the world. She would not see the decrepitude, 
 the marks of age and decay which were every- 
 where around her, for to her the worn stones 
 would speak of consolation, the crumbling 
 pillars of hope. 
 
 Guy did not know how long he stood there. 
 When at last he roused himself from the dream 
 into which he had fallen and went out, he 
 felt nearer to Lady Francheville than he had 
 ever felt before. He no longer thought of 
 her icy manner, of the glacial atmosphere which 
 always surrounded her, for he understood that 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 113 
 
 beneath the ice was hidden a nature pathetically 
 human, a heart which some terrible disaster had 
 crushed and broken, but which even in its worst 
 despair was brave enough, or foolish enough, to 
 refuse to abandon hope. And he felt as though, 
 in this unreal yet threatening cloud of mystery 
 which hung over Mon Paradis, Lady Franche- 
 ville's hope was the one thing which was real — 
 more real, more potent in its apparent futility, 
 than her husband's scepticism and despair. 
 
 He wondered which would conquer in the 
 end — the hope of the woman who beUeved in 
 miracles, or the despair of the man who believed 
 in nothing at all. 
 
IX 
 
 Guy emerged from the gloom of the church 
 into the gaiety of the sunlight, and saw that 
 the quay was no longer deserted. An old man 
 had crept out into the warmth and sunshine, 
 and sat crouching on the low stone wall ; and 
 beside him stood Father Blanc. 
 
 Guy hesitated for a moment. He did not 
 feel pleased at the thought of being seen com- 
 ing out of the church — he could not have told 
 why, but perhaps because he was conscious 
 that he had been unusually impressed; above 
 all, he did not want Father Blanc to be the 
 person to see him. The priest's back was 
 towards him, and he indulged in a passing hope 
 that he might escape unnoticed. Then the 
 old man looked up, and saw him over Father 
 Blanc's shoulder, and broke off in the middle of 
 a rambling and apparently excited speech with 
 a nod which plainly directed the priest's atten- 
 tion to the new-comer. 
 
 **It is he, my father," Guy heard him say. 
 "It is he — the youug one." 
 
 114 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 115 
 
 Father Blanc turned quickly. There was 
 nothing for it but to wish him good-morning 
 with as good a grace as possible, and this Guy 
 did. He came up to the low wall, and looked 
 at the sea, and remarked upon the fineness of 
 the day, and it struck him that Father Blanc 
 was disconcerted by his appearance, and that 
 he had wished to see him at that moment as 
 little as he himself had wished to be seen. 
 
 '*You have been looking at our church, 
 monsieur," Father Blanc said. ** I am sorry I 
 did not know you intended to come. I would 
 have given myself the pleasure of showing you 
 over it." 
 
 *' But I don't care about being shown over 
 places," Guy answered, smiling. " I enjoyed 
 my solitary visit very much. Your little church 
 is beautiful." 
 
 Father Blanc looked at him gravely. 
 
 " Beautiful ? But visitors do not usually call 
 it that," he said, rather sadly. 
 
 " Oh, it is not beautiful in one way — I sup- 
 pose it is really rather ugly. But in another 
 way it is very beautiful indeed." 
 
 Father Blanc smiled. Guy wondered whether 
 the lack of admiration of other visitors had hurt 
 him. 
 
ii6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " I see what you mean. The body of the 
 church is ugly, but its soul is beautiful— is it 
 not so?" 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " Just as the body of a human being may be 
 ugly, or even deformed, and his soul beautiful," 
 Father Blanc said slowly. "Yes — I under- 
 stand. You are right. Our little church has 
 that beauty. I am glad you saw it. Very few 
 see it, especially amongst your countrymen and 
 countrywomen, monsieur. They use one word 
 when they go in— I do not know what it means, 
 but I do not think it means that they like it, or 
 see that its soul is beautiful, though its body is 
 old and worn-out. They call it ' stufF-y ' ! " 
 
 Guy laughed. 
 
 "That is because of the damp, and the incense." 
 
 Father Blanc shrugged his shoulders drama- 
 tically. 
 
 " Tiens ! In England, then, one calls incense 
 * stuff-y ' ? But I begin to understand, monsieur, 
 what your venerable grandparent. Lord New- 
 town, meant when he said to me on on&occa- 
 sion, ' My good sir, in England we cultivate our 
 bodies until we have no souls left. ' " 
 
 *'That was exactly what my grandfather 
 would say. You know him ? " 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 117 
 
 " He is a friend of some friends of mine who 
 come every year to Nice. I met him at their 
 house. He was most charming, and spirituel. 
 He did not seem to me the least EngUsh." 
 
 "You should have told him so- — it would 
 have pleased him immensely. He doesn't like 
 being thought English at all." 
 
 *' He is not English, in the very least. But 
 I am ulicivil, monsieur — I make a wrong impres- 
 sion on you. You must not think that I dis- 
 like the English. They have solid qualities- 
 very solid— which I admire. Only their con- 
 versation — it is not admirable, I confess. The 
 men do not say anything at all, and the women 
 ask questions — but yes ! what an infinity of 
 questions! And they do not by any chance 
 wait for an answer to their questions— no, they 
 ask all the time, and do not seem to wish for a 
 reply." 
 
 "You must not think we are all as bad as 
 that!" 
 
 " On the contrary, I do not. There are the 
 English who are English, and those who are 
 like Lord Newtown, or yourself, or — ^" 
 
 He broke oif. Guy suspected that he had 
 been about to say "your mother," but the 
 sentence remained unfinished. 
 
ii8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "The people who ask so many questions 
 don't see much. They would only understand 
 that your little church was stuiFy. They would 
 not understand that it was beautiful, or why it 
 was so. That sort of thing is beyond them. 
 In England I have met lots of people who have 
 been here, in Saint-Maure, but they could 
 never tell me anything about it. They did not 
 even seem to know that it was beautiful. All 
 they knew was, whether the chicken was 
 properly cooked at dinner, or if a respectable 
 English duchess had or had not been staying 
 recently at their particular hotel." 
 
 Father Blanc stared for a moment, and then 
 began to laugh. 
 
 *^You resemble Lord Newtown, monsieur. It 
 is as though I heard him speak." 
 
 ** Oh, he is much more amusing than I could 
 be. He is the only member of our family who 
 is amusing, who doesn't seem weighed down by 
 a mysterious burden." He stopped, realising 
 that he had said too much. 
 
 Father Blanc was no longer laughing. The 
 amusement had died out of his kind, sensible 
 face. It was troubled, and he looked at 
 Guy with an expression of pity and em- 
 barrassment. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 119 
 
 *' There is always trouble in the world, 
 monsieur," he said. 
 
 Guy felt suddenly that he knew, that he 
 understood the mystery which hung over Mon 
 Paradis. He had thought so when he left him 
 Tvith Lady Francheville the night before; now 
 he was sure of it. 
 
 ** Yes, I know there is always trouble," he said, 
 almost impatiently. "I have just been in great 
 trouble myself. But not this sort of trouble." 
 
 Father Blanc was silent. He offered no 
 denial of what Guy said. It was, perhaps, 
 because he could offer none. Also, he probably 
 felt that it was not his business to explain what 
 Lord and Lady Francheville had apparently 
 thought fit to leave unexplained. 
 
 They had walked side by side a little way 
 along the quay, away from the old man huddled 
 against the low wall. Guy stood still, and 
 looked at the priest with a sort of hesitation. 
 
 " I don't know why I said this to you. It is 
 not yoiu- business to hear it, I know. But last 
 night my father told me that my mother had 
 joined your Church, and that — that she wished 
 for a miracle. And that was why I came here 
 this morning. It sounds rather odd, and 
 perhaps you will think it impertinent, but I 
 
I20 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 wanted to know how anybody could possibly 
 expect a miracle in that little, yellow, tumble- 
 down place." 
 
 He spoke rapidly, acting on the impulse of 
 at moment. He was aware that what he said 
 must, as he had just admitted, sound odd and 
 perhaps impertinent to Father Blanc. But if so 
 he showed no sign of resentment. There was 
 a very gentle look in his eyes. 
 
 "And now— do you understand better, now 
 you have seen it?" 
 
 "Yes, I think I do. That was why I said 
 your little church was beautiful-^it helped me 
 to understand. I have never coffle across jUst 
 that sort of beauty before." 
 
 Father Blanc did not speak for a moment. 
 Guy could see that what he said had both 
 pleased and touched him. He looked less 
 embarrassed, less pitying. 
 
 " I am very glad, monsieur^" he said at last. 
 "Glad that our little church helped you to 
 understand what you wished to understand, and 
 glad, also, of the wish that brought yoU to it. 
 For it was built to help those who could not 
 help themselves — or, as Lord Francheville put 
 it to you, to perform miracles. If it has helped 
 you to understand, may it not also help madame 
 
THE UNSEEN THING t4i 
 
 your mother to obtain that miracle for which 
 she hopes ? " 
 
 Guy looked up at him swiftly. In his voice 
 he detected a tone which he had not expected 
 to detect there, at aiiy rate; and he spoke 
 almost before he had realised what he meant 
 to say. 
 
 " You do not believe that she Will obtain it," 
 he said. *' You do not believe it any more than 
 my father does*" 
 
 It was, oddly enough, a shock to him. He 
 had expected Father Blanc to believe that a 
 miracle might happen in his little church, what- 
 ever anyone else might do. And now he was 
 quite sure that he did not believe it, and that 
 he was too honest to pretend that he did. The 
 thought came to him that this trouble which 
 was hidden from him must be very terrible, 
 if there was no help for it, either in earth or 
 heaven. 
 
 He read a reflection of the thought in Father 
 Blanc's face. 
 
 " No," he said, very sadly, " I am afraid I do 
 not believe it, monsieur. It is want of faith on 
 my part, no doubt, but I am afraid I cannot 
 believe it. To me, it seems that only in one 
 way could the miracle come to pass, and that 
 
122 THE UNSEEN TfflNG 
 
 way would not be miraculous at all. And — ^I 
 cannot say more to you — it is not, I am sure, 
 for that way that madame your mother hopes." 
 
 The strange little interview came to an end, 
 and Guy walked back slowly to Mon Paradis. 
 He hardly saw the blue sea below him, or 
 noticed the fragrance of the pines. He was 
 thinking of Father Blanc's last words. By a 
 miracle by natural means he had meant, he felt 
 sure, the death of someone. Guy could not 
 have told by what process of mental reasoning 
 he had come to this conclusion, but he was 
 quite certain that it was correct. 
 
 Only in one way could the miracle for which 
 Lady Francheville prayed come to pass. So 
 Father Blanc had said, and he trusted Father 
 Blanc implicitly. 
 
 But who was to die, in order that a miracle 
 should be performed? 
 
X 
 
 That day, for the first time since Guy had 
 come to Mon Paradis, Lady Francheville men- 
 tioned Grace, and the engagement which had 
 come to such a strange termination. She was 
 alone with Guy on the terrace when the sub- 
 ject came up, and he was glad of it, for he 
 shrank from the idea of an explanation with 
 his father. 
 
 " You gave Grace up because of the accident,'* 
 Lady Francheville said, quite calmly and rather 
 suddenly in a pause in a conversation which had 
 had nothing whatever to do with Grace. 
 
 Guy was silent for a moment. 
 
 " It sounds dreadful, put like that," he said 
 at last. ** I don't know what you must think of 
 me." 
 
 ** It does not matter what I think of you," 
 Lady Francheville answered slowly. "The 
 point is, what Grace must think of you. If I 
 were Grace, I think I should hate you." 
 
 She spoke with a deliberation which contrasted 
 curiously with her words. Guy f^lt that she 
 123 
 
124 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 was in earnest, that she meant exactly what she 
 said. 
 
 "You don't understand. It was not because 
 of the accident. It was; " 
 
 "It was because Grace had become lame 
 through your fault, and you did not care for 
 her lame — so you gave her up. I think I quite 
 understand," Lady Francheville returned, with 
 cutting distinctness. 
 
 " You — you have heard from England ? " Guy 
 said. 
 
 " I have heard from Georgiana, and also from 
 Julian. Grace has been very ill. They thought 
 once that she would die. Perhaps it would 
 have been better for her if she had died." 
 
 Guy sat for some time without speaking. 
 The agony which he had endured on the night 
 after the specialist's visit came back again, and 
 kept him dumb. Lady Francheville sat motion- 
 less and unmoved in her long chair, looking at 
 the sea with a cold and melancholy gaze. 
 
 " I know I behaved vilely," Guy said presently. 
 " But afterwards I went back-— I entreated her 
 to see me, and -she refused. I did not give her 
 up — it was she who gave me up." 
 
 "Did you expect her to see you when you 
 went back ? " 
 
« 
 
 THE UNSEEN THING 125 
 
 • Yes. There are women who forgive — who 
 would forgive worse things than that," Guy said 
 bitterly. 
 
 " Are there ? I never met a woman who 
 would forgive your behaviour to Grace. I hope 
 you do not expect her to forgive you." 
 
 " You are very hard," Guy said, looking up 
 at her. "I have always wondered what made 
 you so hard. You have never cared for me, 
 and now you can't make allowances for me. I 
 thought women always made allowances for their 
 children. But you don't." 
 
 Lady Francheville moved a little uneasily in 
 her long chair. Her eyes, fixed upon the sea, 
 looked less melancholy, less cold. 
 _ "I beg your pardon," she said presently, 
 with a curious humility. "Perhaps I am hard — 
 I don't know. Perhaps I should not have said 
 what I did. There may be women who would 
 forgive you, though Grace cannot— though I 
 cannot." 
 
 She rose from her chair and stood an instant, 
 hesitating. 
 
 *' I hope there may be, Guy," she said, more 
 gently than he had ever heard her speak to him. 
 
 Then she went away towards the villa. It 
 seemed to Guy that the rigid grace of her carri- 
 
126 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 age was altered, that she had softened in some 
 unaccountable way when he had accused her of 
 being hard, and of not making allowances for 
 him. He wondered why so simple a remark had 
 apparently made such an impression on her. It 
 was strange, for she had never seemed to him 
 at all impressionable. He had called her hard, 
 in a moment of exasperation, just as for years 
 he had thought her hard — just as other people, 
 he knew, called her unsympathetic. Now he 
 thought of the little church at Saint-Maure, and 
 reproached himself. Her hardness was a mask, 
 her coldness a pretence. He felt that his accusa- 
 tion had hurt her, and he had not meant to hurt 
 her, but merely to defend himself. 
 
 But nothing more was said of the engagement 
 or Grace. He noticed at dinner that his mother 
 and father were unusually silent. Lord Franche- 
 ville, indeed, seemed plunged in abstraction so 
 profound that he knew nothing of what was 
 passing around him. After dinner he walked 
 on the terrace in silence. He did not hear the 
 few remarks which Guy made. The bell rang, 
 and Guy knew that Father Blanc had come to 
 see his mother, but Lord Francheville made no 
 sign that he had heard a sound. He walked up 
 and down in the darkness in a silence which 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 127 
 
 began to affect Guy's nerves unpleasantly. It 
 seemed to him that it was a silence which was 
 ominous with meaning. 
 
 He heard the sound of someone departing, 
 and knew that it was Father Blanc. A clock 
 in the villa struck ten, and he breathed a sigh 
 of relief. 
 
 " I have some letters to write," he said, trying 
 to speak carelessly, to seem at his ease. "If 
 you don't mind, I think I'll turn in." 
 
 Lord Francheville started at the sound of his 
 voice. Then he put his hand suddenly on Guy's 
 arm. 
 
 " Don't go. I have something to say to you." 
 
 His voice was the voice of a man in whom 
 some terrible struggle is raging ; the pressure 
 of his thin fingers on his son's arm was almost 
 painful. 
 
 " You — you want to tell me something ? " 
 
 He felt that Lord Francheville was shivering 
 as though with cold. 
 
 « Yes — but not yet. You must wait. I can't 
 speak while people are about. You must wait. 
 Don't go." 
 
 " I am not going. But had you better tell 
 me, if it affects you like this ? Will you not 
 tell me some other time ? " 
 
128 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 Lord Francheville took his hand from Guy's 
 arm. When he spoke again, it was with a 
 calm which was desperate, and tragic. 
 
 <* No — .there will be no other time. If I do 
 not tell you now, I shall never tell you." 
 
 Then he resumed his walk up and down the 
 terrace. Guy walked by his side. This slow 
 promenade of waiting seemed to him unspeak- 
 ably uncanny. The darkness of the southern 
 night hung over them like a threat, the vague 
 murmur of the sea against the wall of Mon 
 Paradis sounded like voices whispering, the 
 voices of people telling each other a story he 
 could not hear. And he knew that it was the 
 story his father meant to tell him, and that 
 he wished to avoid hearing it as he wished for 
 nothing else in the world. 
 
 He did not know how long they walked up 
 and down, waiting. At Mon Paradis, everyone 
 went to bed early. They heard the sound of 
 windows being closed, or shuttered. Presently 
 a small figure stole out of the shadows and 
 approached them. 
 
 It was Spence. Lord Francheville saw him, 
 and paused in his tireless promenade. 
 
 " You may shut up, Spence. We shall come 
 in presently. Don't wait up^-we may be late." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 129 
 
 It seemed to Guy that Spence's small, mouse- 
 coloured head was bent lower to-night, that 
 there was an anxious tone in his voice as he 
 thanked Lord Francheville, and bade them 
 good-night. Why was he anxious? Was he 
 in the secret — did he know the story that was 
 to be told ? 
 
 Once more they were alone. The villa grew 
 dark and silent. Guy thought of the night of 
 his arrival, when the solitude, the mystery of 
 Mon Paradis had seemed to him so beautiful. 
 It did not seem beautiful now. The enchant- 
 ment was gone. The palms no longer reminded 
 him of the Eastern kings. The pearl-like domes 
 and cupolas hanging above them in the dusk no 
 longer resembled a palace from the Arabian 
 Nights. Or if they did, it was a palace in 
 which some strange and dreadful secret was 
 shut up — some strange and dreadful secret 
 which at any moment might burst forth from 
 its prison, and spring upon them, like a thing 
 malignant. and alive. 
 
 They had reached the end of the terrace 
 farthest from the villa. Some chairs always 
 stood there, for it was a favourite spot with 
 Lady Francheville, and she often sat there for 
 hours together, doing nothing, staring idly at the 
 
130 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 sea. And here Lord Francheville stopped, and 
 sank heavily into a chair. 
 
 « Sit down." 
 
 Guy obeyed. It was coming, then, this 
 undesired and dreaded revelation. As he sat 
 down, he faced the villa. Every window was 
 dark. Except one — for in the window which 
 he had noticed on the night he arrived a faint 
 light burned still. 
 
 It was the window in the tower — the window 
 which was barred. 
 
XI 
 
 Lord Francheville did not speak at once. It 
 was dark at this end of the terrace, and there 
 was no moon. In this darkness, his figure was 
 only an indistinct blur of shadow upon a deeper 
 gloom. Guy would have given a good deal for 
 a light ; but the only light visible was that 
 which shone faintly in that barred window of 
 Mon Paradis. 
 
 Though he could not see him, Guy realised 
 that his father was looking at that window, and 
 at the light which burned behind the bars. 
 Presently Lord Francheville spoke. 
 
 " I don't know how to begin — I don't know 
 how to tell you." 
 
 His voice was helpless, distressed, querulous. 
 Once more it seemed to Guy that he was 
 struggling with a burden too heavy for him to 
 bear. 
 
 He said nothing. Presently, out of the dark- 
 ness, the worn, helpless voice came again : 
 
 " I must tell you— but I don't know how to 
 begin." 
 131 
 
132 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 There was something indescribably pathetic 
 in this reiteration. It seemed to Guy that the 
 burden which he had borne so long had crushed 
 Lord Francheville at last. But he was wrong. 
 There was a moment of silence, of hesitation; 
 and then the voice came again, less helpless, 
 stronger — the voice of a man who means to do 
 what he has set himself to do. 
 
 "Guy, I have kept something from you all 
 your life, and to-night I think I have been 
 wrong, I think it would have been better if you 
 had always known what I am going to tell you 
 now. I wanted you to be happy, I wanted you 
 to be kept as long as possible from the thing 
 that has spoilt my own happiness. And now I 
 know that it was a mistake, for I have heard 
 how you ran away from Grace the other day, 
 when she was most in need of you, and I knew 
 that, if you had known this, you would not have 
 done it. For you cannot run away from this, 
 you cannot escape from it. I would have given 
 everything in the world to have been able to 
 run away from it, but I could not — I could not ! 
 I have been tied to it always, for nearly forty 
 years — for half my life. I have kept half your 
 life free from it — I have given you all the happi- 
 ness I couM. Your mother says that happiness 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 133 
 
 isn't everything, but I can't believe that, for it 
 was everything to me, while it lasted. Only — 
 it did not last; it came to an end. And this 
 came with the end — this ^" 
 
 He paused for a moment. There was the 
 sound of a thing tortured in his voice as it came 
 out of the darkness. 
 
 "It came to an end. The happiness died, 
 and this was left. I built Mon Paradis for 
 happiness — I called it Paradise — and for a little 
 while it was Paradise. And then this thing 
 came." 
 
 There was revolt in his voice now, as well as 
 pain. He seemed to appeal against this name- 
 less tragedy which had spoiled his life — to 
 appeal without hope, but with a savage sense 
 of the injustice of his fate. 
 
 *' Why should it have come ? What had I 
 done that a curse should fall upon me ? I have 
 always asked that, but there is only one answer. 
 If it is a crime to be too happy, that was the 
 only crime I had committed. I had built a 
 house of hope, as you said the other day, and 
 it was changed to despair. I had built a 
 Paradise, and it was changed to Hell." 
 
 Guy, in the darkness, heard and understood. 
 He remembered the night of Mrs Kent's second 
 
134 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 dance; and suddenly he felt an immense pity 
 for this man who had suffered for forty years 
 as he had suffered for a few days. 
 
 " I understand," he said. " Perhaps that 
 was it. One should not be too happy — it 
 brings ill-fortune. One should not call one's 
 house Paradise. It is like a defiance to Fate — 
 and Fate does not like being defied." 
 
 " No," Lord Francheville repeated, with 
 hitense bitterness, "you are right — Fate does 
 not like being defied. Just when my happiness 
 had reached its height. Fate hurled my defiance 
 back upon me." 
 
 Guy was silent. Below, against the wall, 
 the whisper of the sea rose and died away. 
 And then Lord Francheville spoke, in a hard, 
 harsh voice — a voice that tried to be brave, but 
 only succeeded in being desperate. 
 
 " Guy, you are not my only son." 
 
 For a moment, Guy was too much amazed to 
 say anything. 
 
 "Not But what do you mean?" 
 
 " You are not my only son. You have been 
 brought up to think that you are, but you are 
 not. Your mother and I had another child, 
 bom years and years before you, in the year 
 after our marriage^^born here, in this place 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 135 
 
 which we had dared to name Paradise — which 
 had been a Paradise to us until then." 
 
 "But I know that. It died, that child— or 
 it was born dead, I don't remember which, 
 now. I have heard about it, and what a trouble 
 it was to you, and how for years you thought 
 you would have no children and how wild my 
 grandfather was — I remember all that quite 
 well." 
 
 He spoke lightly, almost cheerfully. In his 
 heart he was saying: It is not all. There is 
 something much worse to come. 
 
 « It died, didn't it ? " 
 
 " No. It didn't die." There was a measure- 
 less sadness in Lord Francheville's tone. " That 
 — that was the worst of all. It lived — Fate 
 had no mercy upon us. It lived." 
 
 After a moment he spoke again : 
 
 *' It is alive now." 
 
 Guy was silent. Why was he told this? 
 Why had it been kept secret? Why did the 
 idea of this unknown, unacknowledged being fill 
 him with repugnance ? And what was the mean- 
 ing of this terrible sadness in his father's voice ? 
 
 " You need not distress yourself," he said at 
 last. " Of course, you ought to have told me. 
 Perhaps it isn't — well, quite fair, to spring it on 
 
136 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 me like this. If you have another son, older 
 than I am, I am nobody in particular, and he is 
 everything — I see that. But it does not matter, 
 as it happens. Even if I had married Grace, it 
 wouldn't have mattered — she is not the sort of 
 girl to care about things of that sort — I mean, 
 the title, or the money." 
 
 He stopped, with a touch of embarrassment. 
 
 "The title? The money?" Lord Franche- 
 ville repeated. 
 
 "Yes," Guy said, a little sharply. This 
 extraordinary unworldliness was beginning to 
 irritate him. 
 
 " But it has nothing to do with the title, or 
 the money," Lord Francheville said slowly. 
 
 " Pardon me, it has everything on earth to 
 do with it. This — this other son is your heir. 
 He will be Lord Francheville, after you. He 
 will be Earl of Newtown, after my grandfather 
 — and you too, I hope." 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 " I shall never be Earl of Newtown," Lord 
 Francheville said presently. " You will succeed 
 your grandfather; and when I die, you will 
 take my title." 
 
 Guy turned, and stared hard at the dim figure 
 in the darkness beside him. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 137 
 
 *' What do you mean ? I shall not take what 
 does not belong to me." 
 
 With a movement of uncontrollable agitation. 
 Lord Francheville rose from his chair. 
 
 *'You don't understand. This — this thing 
 — ^I can't call it a child — I can't call it a man — 
 it was dreadful from the moment it drew breath 
 — unspeakably dreadful. It was horrible, always 
 — it will never be anything but horrible. . . . 
 Guy, it is a deformity — the most awful deformity 
 that ever came into the world — it is not human 
 
 — it is a monster in body, and in mind '* 
 
 He broke off, as though unable to continue. 
 *' The God who made it — the God who made 
 it to torture two people who were happy until 
 it came," he said, in a tone of indescribable 
 bitterness and hatred, " perhaps knows what it 
 is in mind — ^I do not." 
 
 In the darkness his white face shone with an 
 expression so dreadful that Guy made a swift 
 gesture of horror. 
 
 *' You don't know what you are saying ! " 
 
 *' I know very well. For forty years I have 
 kept silence, and to-night the silence is broken. 
 To-night I shall speak. Is it nothing that my 
 whole life has been ruined by this thing ? Do 
 you know what I have suffered ? I was a young 
 
138 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 man when it came — younger than you are now 
 — and it killed my youth in me, it killed my 
 happiness, it killed everything that makes life 
 worth living. Have you never asked yourself 
 why I cared so little for you, why I took no 
 interest in you, why I let you grow up far away 
 from me, almost among strangers ? You are a 
 son any man might be proud of, but I have 
 never been proud of you, I have never cared 
 for you- — I could not. When I looked at you I 
 remembered that other thing, and the misery it 
 had brought me." 
 
 « Don't talk about it," Guy said, « I under- 
 stand." 
 
 And indeed he understood many things which 
 before had been incomprehensible to him. 
 Stunned, bewildered as he was by this extra- 
 ordinary revelation, he understood. The horror 
 which had come upon him that day in Lady 
 Strange's room, when he had refused to go to 
 Grace, came upon him now; and he realised 
 that it was a thing outside himself, as it were, 
 and beyond his powers of control. It was the 
 heritage which had come to him from the man 
 whose youth and happiness had been struck 
 down in a single day-^the heritage which had 
 sprung from Lord Francheville's long and 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 139 
 
 agonised abhorrence of the awful thing which 
 was his elder son. 
 
 " Where is it ? " Guy said suddenly. 
 
 Lord Francheville pointed to the faintly 
 lighted window in the tower. 
 
 "There. There is a secret suite of rooms in 
 the roof, hidden among those fantastic domes 
 and cupolas which you think so beautiful. No 
 one knows the door which leads to it except 
 your mother, Spence, and myself. But now 
 you must know, for we are all old, and if any- 
 thing were to happen to us, you must know 
 how to reach — it." 
 
 Guy turned cold. He did not know how 
 long he sat motionless, looking towards the 
 lighted tower. He remembered what his father 
 had just said — "the most awful deformity 
 which ever came into the world." He could 
 not speak. Fear and loathing kept him dumb. 
 
 "That is why I waited up to-night," Lord 
 Francheville said. "I want to take you up 
 there now, when no one is about. Servants 
 are always so suspicious, and we have to be 
 very careful — it is only safe to go up at night." 
 
 He made a step forward along the terrace, 
 towards the house. Guy did not move. He 
 stared still, as though fascinated, at the barred 
 
140 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 window in the tower. Lord Francheville came 
 back, and touched him on the shoulder. 
 
 "Come, Guy." 
 
 He did not obey. The hand tightened on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "Come. Are you going to refuse? It is 
 no use — you had better come. You ran away 
 from Grace, but you can't run away from this." 
 
 Guy rose, and followed Lord Francheville's 
 tall figure towards Mon Paradis. 
 
XII 
 
 Lord Francheville's speech stung Guy to an 
 effort which, for him, was little less than heroic. 
 He had run away from Grace, and he had 
 suffered bitterly for it ; now he was not going to 
 run away. He thought of what he had meant 
 to make of his life — of the existence which he 
 had planned with Grace, the ideal, beautiful 
 existence of which he had been so sure, in 
 which ugliness of any kind was to be the unseen 
 thing. He thought of it, and in the midst of 
 the sickening loathing which mastered him he 
 was almost amused at the ghastly irony of the 
 fate which had fallen upon him, and from which 
 he could not escape. For the life in which 
 ugliness was to be an unseen thing, he saw one 
 chained, as his father's had been, to a secret 
 terror — to that other, and more dreadful Unseen 
 Thing, which dwelt in the pearl-like towers 
 which crowned the loveliness of Mon Paradis — 
 the Unseen Thing which was of his own blood, 
 which should have stood where he stood in the 
 estimation of his world, which in reality bore 
 141 
 
142 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 his name, and was heir to the titles and estates 
 which he was to inherit as a usurper. 
 
 He hated Mon Paradis. He was dimly 
 conscious of his hatred as he followed Lord 
 Francheville along the terrace. He hated every 
 palm in the grounds, every rose which bloomed 
 in the neatly kept beds. He hated the lying 
 beauty of the white villa, with its suggestion 
 of a palace in the Arabian Nights. He hated 
 the blue sea which lapped against the wall, 
 and whispered mysteriously in the night. For 
 the beauty which surrounded him on every side 
 was a lie, as his father had called it — a mask 
 for the Unseen Thing which lurked behind the 
 lighted window and its bars. 
 
 He followed Lord Francheville with a de- 
 termination entirely foreign to his nature, a 
 resolution which was grim and perhaps savage. 
 Fate had played upon him two of the ugliest 
 tricks which even Fate can devise. He was 
 furious with Fate, with Lord Francheville, with 
 himself. Perhaps he was furious, too, with the 
 Unseen Thing, whose existence had made his 
 own a sort of lie. He was in the mood when 
 a man will do things absolutely repugnant to 
 him at other times. 
 
 If the door of the secret room had stood 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 143 
 
 there, upon the terrace, he would have opened 
 it, without hesitation, and gone boldly in. 
 But the door of the secret room did not open 
 upon the terrace. Lord Francheville provided 
 himself with a little lamp which stood lighted 
 in the hall. Then he began slowly to ascend 
 the shallow steps of the great staircase of Mon 
 Paradis. 
 
 The villa was dark and silent. There was 
 something breathless in its silence, there was 
 something ghostly in the appearance of the tall 
 figure of Lord Francheville, lamp in hand, 
 ascending the interminable stairs. His shadow, 
 gaunt and gigantic, stalked beside him on the 
 wall. Guy followed him mechanically. They 
 walked silently in the midst of silence. The 
 light of the lamp moved before them like a 
 supernatural illumination up the dark well of 
 the staircase. 
 
 They passed the door of Guy's room, at 
 which he had had his midnight interview with 
 Lady Francheville. Guy understood now what 
 she had been doing in the empty suite of rooms 
 over his in the middle of the night — he under- 
 stood her embarrassment at being surprised 
 there. He understood the mysterious words 
 of the French groom, and Spence's unspoken 
 
144 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 dislike to Mon Paradis. And once more he felt 
 a furious anger against himself, against his own 
 blindness and stupidity. Why had he not 
 guessed that something was wrong? Why had 
 he not left Mon Paradis next day, and escaped 
 what lay before him? 
 
 Lord Francheville turned into the uninhabited 
 suite of rooms on the next floor. It had the 
 cold, uncomfortable look which empty rooms 
 always wear at night. Guy noticed that all the 
 rooms were panelled with elaborately carved 
 white panelling, and hung with a pale shade of 
 yellow the sight of which ever afterwards cost 
 him a shudder. 
 
 The third room of the suite seemed to be a 
 little library, or study — quite small, and very 
 dainty, with its harmonies of white and yellow, 
 its crowded bookshelves, reaching, on one wall, 
 from floor to ceiling. Guy noticed that the 
 books had all more or less gay and elaborate 
 bindings — pretty, butterfly volumes of poetry 
 or fiction, mostly French, from the titles which 
 caught his eyes. It seemed to him incongruous 
 and rather dreadful that the way to the secret 
 room should lie through this pretty, frivolous 
 place. 
 
 Yet here Lord Francheville stopped, before 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 145 
 
 the gay bookshelves, and put out his hand as 
 though to take a delicate gold and lilac bound 
 volume from its place. Guy watched him, 
 astonished, wondering what he could want with 
 the book. 
 
 He took it out, nevertheless, and thrust his 
 hand into the empty space it had left. And 
 the whole side of the wall swung towards them 
 slowly, like an opening door. 
 
 Lord Francheville replaced the book, and 
 signed to Guy to precede him through this 
 curiously contrived doorway. He drew the 
 false wall to behind them, and Guy saw that 
 they stood in a small stone hall, from which 
 a staircase wound upwards into the darkness. 
 And once again Lord Francheville took the lead, 
 and climbed the stone steps with Guy at his 
 heels. 
 
 It seemed to Guy that there was a sound in 
 the stillness — a sound like the wind rising and 
 falling, with a strange, half-human cry. 
 
 They went on and up. At the end of the 
 staircase, a bare wall confronted them. Lord 
 Francheville touched it, and a door opened in it, 
 as though by magic. Again, Guy remembered 
 the Arabian Nights. What must it be, this 
 Unseen Thing which was guarded by such 
 
146 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 precaution, which was hidden with such extra- 
 ordinary care? 
 
 They were in another small stone hall, similar 
 to the first, except that in this there was no 
 staircase. The place of the staircase was taken 
 by a door — a door of enormous strength, 
 secured by heavy iron bolts. 
 
 Lord Francheville stood still before this door. 
 The light of the lamp in his hand fell full upon 
 it, upon its bars, and clampings, and iron bolts. 
 Its very strength was significant; every nail, 
 every bolt, told of another strength behind it, 
 a strength which wished to break out, to escape 
 from the prison in which it was so closely con- 
 fined. This door might have guarded the cage 
 of some dangerous wild animal. 
 
 And somehow, with the sight of this door, 
 every semblance of humanity was stripped from 
 the idea of that which it hid. It was not a man 
 who dwelt behind those bolts and bars ; it was 
 not even a wild beast. Looking at that door, 
 Guy understood Lord Francheville's description 
 as he had not understood it before. The occu- 
 pant of the secret place of Mon Paradis was 
 a monster in body and in mind, for only a 
 monster — a thing neither beast nor man, and 
 therefore more terrible than either — would have 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 147 
 
 needed defences such as this to keep him from 
 what should have been his fellow kind. 
 
 Lord Francheville stood there, motionless, 
 with the lamp in his hand. His thin face wore 
 an expression of loathing. He seemed to wait, 
 to listen, to expect something. 
 
 Suddenly, from beyond the door came a sound 
 — the voice of a creature crying, crying blindly, 
 without sense or soul, but with a caged beast's 
 immense, unappeasable misery, a caged beast's 
 mad fury against the bars which stand between 
 it and its freedom. It was a sound awful beyond 
 words, horrible beyond description, this voice 
 which cried and cried behind the bolted door. 
 For it was a sound outside nature, an outrage 
 alike on the humanity to which it ought to 
 have belonged, and the beast to which it seemed 
 to belong. It was a sound cast out beyond the 
 bounds of classification, a sound which was a 
 monstrosity in itself, this voice of the Unseen 
 Thing. 
 
 Guy, hearing it, knew for what Lord Franche- 
 ville had waited. He did not look at his father 
 — he could not. He knew now why he had 
 always worn that strange air of a man crushed 
 down beneath a biirden too great for him to 
 bear ; he did not wonder at it any more. This 
 
148 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 was the burden which had crushed him — this 
 thing crying in its dreadful, senseless wretched- 
 ness, behind the bars of its prison. What 
 human being, knowing himself responsible for 
 the existence of the thing which could utter 
 such a sound, would ever hold up his head 
 again, or feel anything but an outcast upon 
 whom had fallen the most awful curse which 
 the mind of man could imagine ? 
 
 The sound went on, monotonously dreadful. 
 Its only note of humanity was the never-chang- 
 ing sadness and despair which spoke through all 
 its fury. Was it possible that, in some strange 
 depth of the deformed and tortured soul which 
 dwelt somewhere in its deformed and tortured 
 body, the Unseen Thing was conscious of what 
 manner of creature it was, and that lamentation 
 for its own fate, horror of its own deformity of 
 body and soul, mingled with its frenzied desire 
 to escape from captivity ? Guy did not know, 
 but the idea occurred to him as he stood there, 
 in the narrow stone place the walls of which 
 echoed that terrible voice. It almost seemed to 
 him that it might be so, and he could not have 
 told which seemed to him more awful — the 
 thought, or the sound which inspired it. 
 
 For a long time Lord Francheville stood 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 149 
 
 silent before the barred door, listening. Guy 
 wondered whether there was not a sort of 
 triumph in his attitude, a savage, unnatural 
 pleasure in having reached the worst moment 
 which life had now in store for him. He had 
 endured so much, suffered so much; perhaps 
 now he was glad that another should endure 
 and suffer too. Perhaps he was glad that the 
 revelation he had so dreaded had been made, 
 and that the burden he had borne so long was 
 to fall upon younger, stronger shoulders than 
 his own. 
 
 At last he moved. Very slowly he began to 
 draw one of the heavy bolts. The sound which 
 he made seemed to rouse the Unseen Thing 
 to greater fury. Guy heard heavy, shuffling 
 movements beyond the door, as of something 
 unwieldy and awkward dragging itself about, 
 hurling itself against the walls in its desire to 
 be free. And a new note crept into the cry 
 which went on unceasingly — a note of eager- 
 ness, of expectation, almost of hope. 
 
 He did not know why, but that note of ex- 
 pectation and hope made him shudder from head 
 to foot, and turned the blood in his veins to ice. 
 He looked at Lord Francheville. He was un- 
 doing the many bolts with an air of determination. 
 
ISO THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 He watched Lord Francheville's fingers with 
 mechanical attention. He could not have moved, 
 he could not have spoken, had it been to save 
 himself from instant destruction. Only one 
 idea dominated his mind. He had run away 
 once — he would not run away again. 
 
 It was not fear which he felt. He would 
 have faced the greatest danger coolly enough. 
 The torture which he endured as he stood there 
 waiting for his father to undo the door was so 
 great that he wondered afterwards that his brain 
 stood the strain, but it had nothing to do with 
 fear. He was not afraid of the Unseen Thing, 
 any more than he had been afraid of Kitty 
 Fellowes — what he felt was infinitely worse, 
 and infinitely stronger than fear. 
 
 Lord Francheville, with the last bolt half 
 drawn, turned suddenly. For a moment, Guy's 
 white face stared at him unseeingly ; then, still 
 silent, he swayed, and fell forward in a dead 
 faint. 
 
xin 
 
 When Guy came to himself, he was lying on 
 the bed in his own room. Spence was standing 
 beside him, looking down at him with an ex- 
 pression of sorrow and distress. 
 
 "Are you feeling better, sir? Oh, Master 
 Guy, was he very bad to-night? I told his 
 lordship — I begged him not to go up, but he 
 was that determined, I couldn't do anything 
 with him." The old man's voice shook. 
 " You'll excuse the liberty I take. Master Guy, 
 but my heart bleeds for you — it does indeed." 
 
 Guy put out his hand. 
 
 " Don't talk about taking liberties, Spence — 
 we're all in the same boat, and you're a good 
 sort. I feel an awful coward beside you, when 
 I think that you go in there every day, and 
 
 I " He broke off, with a shudder. *' Is it 
 
 always as bad as that, Spence?" 
 
 **No, sir, not always — sometimes he's just 
 stupid, as you might say — doesn't take any 
 notice of me, or anything, but just sits and 
 sulks. And sometimes, with her ladyship, he's 
 
152 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 quite quiet and gentle. She's wonderful with 
 him — wonderful. He'll do anything for her." 
 
 " What ! She goes there often ? " 
 
 "Every day, sir, and often at night too. 
 There's nothing she wouldn't do for him. 
 There's plenty call her ladyship cold and hard. 
 Master Guy — I've heard them myself — but 
 they wouldn't if they saw her once with him." 
 
 Guy lay silent for a moment. He seemed to 
 see Lady Francheville, lamp in hand, ascending 
 those interminable little staircases of stone, 
 entering the secret room, alone and unafraid, 
 in the darkness and silence of the night. He 
 seemed to see her shut in with the Unseen 
 Thing — alone with its dreadfulness, and with 
 her own more dreadful sorrow. 
 
 "How can she?" he said, half to himself. 
 "How can she?" 
 
 " I ask myself that too sometimes, sir. But 
 — she doesn't see him as we do, and it's the 
 mercy of God that she doesn't. He's always 
 her child to her. Master Guy — I don't think 
 she has ever forgotten that, for one moment, 
 all the time. His lordship hates him ; I — well, 
 there's days when I'm afraid of him, and that's 
 the truth : but her ladyship is always the same 
 — he belongs to her, she doesn't know how to 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 153 
 
 be afraid of him. He's the child she meant 
 to love, and — it seems odd to say so, it seems 
 almost as if it couldn't be, I know — ^but I think 
 she does love him, even as he is." 
 
 *' Love him ! " Guy said, in a tone of horror. 
 " Spence, I didn't see him — the sound of him 
 was enough. It would be impossible for any 
 human being to tolerate the creature that could 
 utter sounds like that." 
 
 *' You think so, sir, and so do I — and so does 
 his lordship. But women aren't made as we 
 
 are." 
 
 «) 
 
 = She has never cared for me," Guy said, 
 involuntarily. He was conscious of a sense of 
 loss, of an additional feeling of hatred towards 
 the Unseen Thing, to whom, in its misfortune, 
 something had yet been given which had been 
 denied to him. 
 
 Spence hesitated. 
 
 "You don't know her ladyship, sir. You'll 
 excuse me saying so, but I've been in the family 
 a long while now, and things have been so that 
 I've been taken out of ray place, so to speak — 
 I know her ladyship as you don't know her — 
 as his lordship, I believe, doesn't know her. 
 It's not that she doesn't care for you — it's that 
 she's got no more to give to anyone, as it were. 
 
154 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 You've been out in the world, with friends, and 
 cousins, and people to care for you. And 
 you're one anyone would take to. But him — 
 he's never had anyone but her that could do 
 more than bear to be in the room with him — 
 and even his lordship can't bear that. Don't 
 you see that — that there was nothing for any- 
 one else, sir? She felt that if she had let 
 herself care for you, there would have been 
 nothing left for him. And he wanted it — you 
 didn't. He had nothing else, and you had so 
 much." 
 
 "You are right," Guy said, in a low voice. 
 « I didn't think of that." 
 
 "No, sir — I knew you didn't. But I've 
 thought of it many a time, when — when it has 
 been said to me that it was odd her ladyship 
 never seemed to want you here. And for his 
 lordship, I think he's never held up his head since 
 the day he was born, and he saw him — the son 
 he meant to be so proud of, the heir to the 
 name he loved. Oh, Master Guy, it's been 
 an awful tragedy — the lives of those two who 
 began with such happiness, who were so gay, 
 and so handsome, and young, with everything 
 in the world that they could want — an awful 
 tragedy! There are times when one doesn't 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 155 
 
 wonder that his lordship is mad and savage 
 against heaven and earth — when one wonders 
 how such things are let to be, how such misery 
 can be allowed. But when I think like that, I 
 think of her ladyship's goodness and patience; 
 and I think, if she can bear it, it is very little 
 for others to bear it too." 
 
 Guy did not speak. Spence's mouselike 
 head was turned wistfully on one side, his eyes 
 were pathetic with the wish to comfort, to 
 console, even to condone this irremediable 
 misfortune which had cursed the family he 
 had served so long and so well. 
 
 Guy looked up at last. The dawn was 
 beginning to throw a red light through the 
 shutters. 
 
 " I've kept you here for ages," he said with 
 a start. " I'm all right now— go and get some 
 rest, Spence." 
 
 "Yes, sir. It don't matter about me — ^I'm 
 often up at night. You'll try and sleep. Master 
 Guy?" 
 
 "I don't feel much like sleep," Guy said 
 bitterly. 
 
 It seemed to him as though he would never 
 sleep again without hearing that terrible crying 
 behind the bolted door. Wherever he went. 
 
156 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 whatever he did, he thought that sound would 
 pursue him. He heard it as he lay there in the 
 silence, after Spence had gone ; he would hear 
 it until the hour he died. He did not wonder 
 any longer at Lord Francheville's despair. He 
 did not wonder at the atmosphere of melancholy 
 abstraction which enveloped these two people 
 whom a dreadful fate had set apart from their 
 kind — at the remote and ghostly air which they 
 wore even in London, when far away from the 
 scene of their lifelong martyrdom. He guessed 
 that that sound was with them there, that the 
 memory of the secret room of Mon Paradis 
 never left them, even for a moment. Other 
 sorrows might be forgotten; from other mis- 
 fortunes, however heavy, there might be means 
 of escape; but there was no escape from the 
 memory of the Unseen Thing. 
 
 Of one way of escape he did not think. 
 
 For an hour he lay there, watching the red 
 light broaden behind the shutters. It was full 
 day when Spence tapped at the door, and came 
 in quickly, with a scared and anxious face. 
 
 «I hate to trouble you, sir, after all that's 
 happened to-night, but the library door's locked, 
 and — and the lights are burning, just as they 
 were after we brought you down, and his lord- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 157 
 
 ship went there to read. I could call Fran9ois, 
 but I don't like to make a fuss." 
 
 Guy sat up on the bed. 
 
 "You mean my father is still in the 
 library ? " 
 
 " He often sits up with his books all night, 
 sir — it's nothing to be alarmed about. Only — 
 I've knocked, and he doesn't answer, and I 
 don't know what to do." . 
 
 " I'll come at once." 
 
 But they knocked and called at the library 
 door in vain. There was no answer, no sound 
 of anything moving. Spence was plainly 
 alarmed. 
 
 "What shall we do, sir? I never knew his 
 lordship not answer before. I hope he hasn't 
 had one of his attacks, alone in there." 
 
 "He has attacks?" Guy said quickly. 
 
 " Yes. What are you going to do, sir ? " 
 
 Guy flung his whole weight against the door. 
 There was a splintering crash as it gave way, 
 and a cry from Spence — a cry of fear. For the 
 lights were burning in the library: and Lord 
 Francheville sat at his desk, but not as he was 
 wont to sit. He had fallen forward upon the 
 papers he had been reading, like a man tired 
 out, who lays his head upon his arms, and drops 
 
158 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 asleep in a moment, unable to resist the weari- 
 ness which has seized him. 
 
 Spence ran to his master's side, but Guy did 
 not move. He stood looking almost with envy 
 at the quiet figure at the desk. 
 
 The heavy burden had slipped at last from 
 Lord Francheville's shoulders — he had laid 
 down the load of tragedy which had oppressed 
 him, and escaped for ever from the memory of 
 the Unseen Thing. 
 
XIV 
 
 Guy could not have told what followed that 
 discovery in the library. He was dimly aware 
 of haste and confusion; aiid in the midst of this 
 confusion, of Lady Francheville's presence. She 
 alone was calm and composed. Probably the 
 blow had not fallen upon her unexpectedly, for 
 Lord Francheville had long been in bad health. 
 She directed the terror-stricken servants, she 
 stood by, silent and unmoved, and saw her 
 husband's body carried from the library. If 
 she felt grief, she showed none. Guy almost 
 fancied he detected in her manner a sort of 
 relief, as though the tension of her life had 
 relaxed for a moment- 
 It was she who interviewed the doctor, 
 summoned hastily from Saint-Maure; it was 
 she who wrote and despatched the necessary 
 telegrams. She brushed aside Guy's proffered 
 help. When all was done she sent for him to 
 the library. 
 
 He found her sitting at Lord Francheville's 
 desk. In the gloom of the darkened room her 
 159 
 
i6o THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 figure, in its white morning dress, had a ghostly, 
 unreal look. As Guy entered she raised her 
 head, and seemed to become conscious, for 
 the first time, of the darkness which had fallen 
 upon Mon Paradis. 
 
 "Please pull up the blinds," she said, in 
 a voice that sounded a little impatient. 
 
 Guy hesitated. He wondered what she 
 meant. He even wondered whether the shock 
 of that morning had affected her brain. 
 
 "Why do you look at me like that?" she 
 said quietly. "Do you think that what has 
 happened is a cause for grief? He has escaped 
 — it is we who are left in prison, it is we who 
 should be mourned. His life was a tragedy so 
 terrible that his death can add nothing to it. 
 He has escaped — he is free. Do you, knowing 
 what you know, wish him back, to suifer as 
 I must suffer ? " 
 
 Guy looked at her for a moment in the gloom. 
 
 " You are glad that he is dead ! " he said at 
 last. 
 
 "Yes — I am glad. I loved him better than 
 anything in the world — and I brought into his 
 life the thing that ruined it. He never said 
 that — and I would never say it, even to myself, 
 until he was dead. If I had said it, I think 
 
THE UNSEEN THING i6i 
 
 I should have gone mad. . . . But now it is all 
 over — for him." 
 
 She drew a long breath of relief. There 
 was a strange brightness on her face which the 
 gloom of the library could not obscure. Guy 
 felt that she was right. He went to the 
 windows, and threw them open, one by one. 
 The sun and air streamed in, dazzUng, intoxi- 
 cating; andj in the midst of the exquisite blue 
 and gold of the young morning. Lady Franche- 
 ville sat at the desk, leaning her chin on her 
 hand, softened, changed, with a look almost of 
 happiness on her still face. 
 
 For a moment she sat lost in her dream. 
 Then she turned to Guy. 
 
 " I sent for you to speak to you." 
 *' I am ready to hear what you have to say." 
 She looked at him with a detached, impartial 
 air. It seemed to him that she was about to 
 pass a judgment of some kind upon him. 
 *' I suppose you know what it is ? " 
 *'He took me up last night — yes." 
 " He took you to the door," she said coldly. 
 "You did not go in. . . . Have you realised, 
 Guy, that some day you will have to go in ? " 
 « No ! " 
 
 The word broke from him like a cry of actual 
 
1 62 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 pain. He looked at her with horror writteh in 
 his eyes. But she surveyed him still with an 
 impartial air. 
 
 "Some day you will have to go in," she 
 repeated, with a sort of icy persistence. " I am 
 not immortal; Spence will not live for ever. 
 The secret is not one that can be trusted to 
 anyone. Either you will have to find someone 
 you can trust thoroughly, or you will have to go 
 in yourself." 
 
 Guy was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Something else might happen. It — he — 
 might die." 
 
 The icy patience of Lady Francheville's face 
 was disturbed for an instant, and her eyes 
 softened. 
 
 "Yes — ^he may die." 
 
 There was a strange sound in her voice — ^a 
 sound almost of hope. Guy met her eyes and 
 understood. 
 
 "You pray that he may die," he said in a 
 low voice. " That is the miracle for which you 
 pray in the church of Saint-Maure." 
 
 Her eyes drooped suddenly, and her voice 
 trembled. The sound of hope had left it. 
 
 "No — that was not the miracle. Not at 
 first, at least. At first I had faith — I prayed 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 163 
 
 that he might recover. Now I know that he 
 can only die." 
 
 " Perhaps your prayer may be heard." 
 
 " I hope so. But, if not, what will you do ? " 
 
 *' I can't go in." 
 
 " You must." 
 
 Her tone was final. There was no appeal 
 from it. Guy was silent. 
 
 '* You must. Why should you escape what 
 we have borne for so long? You will go in. 
 There is nothing else to be done." 
 
 *' Why should I keep your secret ? " he asked, 
 almost angrily. 
 
 For the first time he saw that he had really 
 moved her. 
 
 " You would tell everyone what your father 
 and I have sacrificed our lives to keep secret! 
 You would betray us to the vulgar curiosity of 
 the whole world ! " 
 
 He felt that she was shocked and startled — it 
 was a solution of the difficulty which had never 
 occurred to her. And suddenly he knew that 
 he could not betray her secret. 
 
 ««No — I didn't mean that. It would be a 
 horrible thing to make public." 
 
 But she did not seem to be reassured. He 
 read suspicion in the look she gave him. He 
 
i64 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 could understand how much she shrank from 
 the very idea that the secret which she had 
 kept so well might be revealed to a world with 
 which she had had so little to do. All her 
 pride was in arms at the thought of her long 
 martyrdom becoming a mere vulgar nine days' 
 wonder. For all her coldness, her self-posses- 
 sion, her almost superhuman courage, on this 
 one point she was morbidly sensitive. It was 
 as though once, in a blameless life, she had 
 committed some peculiarly outrageous and dis- 
 graceful act, and Guy held the secret, and 
 threatened to betray her. 
 
 *'Yes — it would be a horrible thing to tell," 
 she said, in a tone which trembled slightly. 
 " You would not do such a thing, for your own 
 sake. You must not — you shall not." 
 " I have said that I don't mean to." 
 "But I do not trust you, Guy. How am I 
 to trust you ? To get out of doing something 
 distasteful to you, you would tell anything — I 
 am sure of that." 
 
 Guy coloured angrily. 
 *' You don't hold a high opinion of me." 
 "Do you deserve that I should? You ran 
 away once. The man who runs away once is 
 likely to do so again. You are the sort of 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 165 
 
 person who always avoids his responsibilities. 
 You have the artistic temperament — ^you only 
 care for the pretty things of life." 
 
 Her tone was too sad to be contemptuous, 
 and he could not resent the truth of her words. 
 
 "The artistic temperament is not wholly 
 despicable." 
 
 She did not seem to notice his protest. 
 
 **We have given our whole lives to keeping 
 the secret — your father and I. We too might 
 have run away, but we did not. We were 
 responsible for the existence of this being, and 
 we could not desert it. It is of our flesh and 
 blood — you must always remember that, Guy. 
 You bear its name, you are what it, but for its 
 misfortune, would be — you owe it everything. 
 At this moment, you have no right to call your- 
 self Francheville, in your father's place, no right 
 to spend a penny of the money you inherit. 
 You are merely Guy Hilmour, the younger son 
 — you are nothing. The least you can do is to 
 keep the secret, and not abandon your brother 
 to the care of strangers." 
 
 Your brother! The word struck a strange 
 chill to Guy's heart. 
 
 "I give you my word of honour that I will 
 keep your secret," he said quickly. 
 
XV 
 
 Guy escaped from the library into the open air. 
 He felt that he would have liked to leave Mon 
 Paradis at once, for ever, and never hear or 
 think of it again. He walked through the 
 gardens, full of flowers and sunshine, and he 
 hated the roses and heliotrope, the scarlet 
 trumpet-flower clambering over hedges of starry 
 myrtle, the swallow- tailed butterflies darting 
 to and fro across the beds. The beauty which 
 surrounded him on every side seemed to him a 
 mask covering a bidden horror which for one 
 moment had been laid bare to him. The 
 beauty of the mask would never deceive him 
 again, for he had seen what lay beneath it. 
 
 He was not conscious of any settled idea of 
 his destination; all he asked was to escape, for 
 an hour at least, from this place which in a 
 night had become horrible to him. He passed 
 the long lines of melancholy palms, grave and 
 graceful, with their air of perpetual exile and 
 sadness, the grey, twisted olives, which seemed, 
 like trembling old beggars, to hold out im- 
 
 i66 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 167 
 
 ploring hands for an alms always denied them. 
 He did not know what magnet had drawn him 
 on until he stood on the empty quay at Saint- 
 Maure, before the porch of the empty, weather- 
 beaten little church. Then he stood still. 
 With a sort of bitter amusement he wondered 
 whether he too had come there to ask for a 
 miracle. 
 
 He could not have told what impulse made 
 him enter the church. In spite of the sunshine 
 without, it seemed darker than ever, colder, 
 and perhaps sadder. He looked at the votive 
 hearts and told himself that they had been 
 offered in vain ; he looked at the hanging ship 
 and the cry of drowning sailors rang in his ears. 
 He remembered the look in Lady Francheville's 
 face when she said, "At first I had faith — I 
 prayed that he might recover. Now I know 
 that he can only die," and a vast and bitter 
 sadness seized him. It seemed to him that the 
 little church was filled with the ghosts of 
 unanswered prayers, with the voices, more 
 ghostly still, of those who had sought for the 
 performance of a miracle there, and had been 
 disappointed. They cried together in the 
 silence, in the heavy gloom which dwelt under 
 the dark old pillars. They mocked at the 
 
1 68 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 feeble tapers which glimmered eternally on the 
 altar, they mocked at the waxen hearts and the 
 hanging ship, and at the credulity of those who 
 had placed them there. They mocked at the 
 heart of man, more senseless than the hearts of 
 wax, which hopes always for the miracle of a 
 granted prayer, a happiness always sought and 
 never found, always desired and never attained. 
 
 It seemed to him, as he stood there, that 
 something within him was dead. He felt a 
 cold weight at his heart. All the hopelessness 
 of the centuries seemed to have found a home 
 in this place in which he had once almost 
 believed that a miracle might be performed. 
 All the sadness of the grey old years in which 
 men had hoped and prayed and been denied 
 that for which their prayers had been offered 
 clung to the crumbling pillars like a palpable 
 vesture of melancholy and decay. Why had he 
 once said that the soul of this place was beauti- 
 ful ? Its soul was like its body — old, and hope- 
 less, and worn out. 
 
 To Guy, at that moment, the waxen hearts 
 seemed horrible phantoms, the votive ship 
 dreadful as that spectral vessel, dark-sailed, 
 mysterious, a shadow of fear in the blue 
 Mediterranean night — that vessel of air which, 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 169 
 
 as a fisher of the gulf had once told him, 
 hovers batlike along that coast, waiting to bear 
 away the souls of men. 
 
 He could bear the gloom no longer. Turning 
 swiftly, he went out, and let the door crash 
 heavily behind him. 
 
 Outside, the blue sea and sky dazzled him. 
 Their brightness struck him like an actual 
 blow. Away across the gulf the fishing-boats 
 were going out from Saint-Tropez like a flight 
 of birds with widespread wings of amber and 
 orange and pearl. And the beauty of that 
 blue sea seized him, answering his tortured 
 questions with its laughter, blotting out alike 
 hope, and horror, and despair, mocking at the 
 empty, sun-baked little church and its shrines 
 of dead beliefs, and miracles which had never 
 been performed. 
 
 Never until that moment had he seen that 
 beauty at its utmost; and the thing that had 
 seemed dead within him sprang suddenly into 
 life. And he trembled, standing there in the 
 sunshine, because he knew that the thing was 
 sheer, pagan hatred — hatred of the deformity 
 which had made this beauty of sea and sky — 
 no, of life itself — hateful to him ; hatred of the 
 horror which Lady Francheville had dared to call 
 
I70 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 his brother. For that moment, the riddle of 
 existence ceased to trouble him. He forgot 
 the horror which had sickened him, the despair 
 which had stifled him. He was almost happy 
 in the realisation of a feeling so intense that it 
 seemed to lift him suddenly into a world blazing 
 with lurid light and colour. As, on the night 
 of Mrs Kent's memorable second dance, he had 
 felt himself raised above the ordinary plane of 
 humanity by another passion, so now he was 
 conscious of an almost terrible exultation, 
 which seemed to master him, to sweep him 
 away upon stormy and unfathomable seas, 
 without fear, without remorse, without even 
 one respectable rag of doubt to veil the naked- 
 ness of his soul from the strange inner vision 
 which, for that one instant, looked upon it, 
 exulting, and unafraid. He stood there, at the 
 door of the yellow little church, looking with 
 intent, yet unseeing eyes at the blue Medi- 
 terranean — the most beautiful, mysterious, and 
 heartless of all the seas; and he knew that 
 with every fibre of his body, every impulse of 
 his soul, he hated the Unseen Thing. 
 
III. IT GOES 
 
III. IT GOES 
 
 XVI 
 
 It was nearly a year later that Guy, hurrying 
 along the Rue de Rivoli in the misty dusk of a 
 November evening, fell violently into the arms 
 of a tall man who was glancing, for the moment, 
 over his shoulder. The tall man stopped to 
 apologise, full in the light of a shop window 
 glittering with particularly brilliant paste; and 
 Guy found himself, with no very striking sensa- 
 tion of pleasure, looking straight into the face 
 of Julian Strange. 
 
 Julian showed no marked signs of pleasure at 
 the encounter, either. 
 
 ** I beg your pardon," he said, rather stiffly. 
 " Didn't see who it was." His tone suggested 
 regret for the apologies he had offered. *' It's 
 a long time since we met — I hope you're pretty 
 fit." 
 
 He looked curiously at Guy as he spoke. 
 But Guy, who had never borne malice on 
 account of Julian's very frank opinion of his 
 173 
 
174 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 behaviour at the time of Grace's accident, 
 seemed disposed to be friendly. 
 
 " You're stopping in Paris ? " 
 
 " I crossed to-day. I'm at the Richembourg." 
 
 Insensibly they had begun to walk on, side 
 by side. Guy laughed. 
 
 "I'm at the Richembourg, too. Look here, 
 Julian, I'm glad we met. Suppose we let by- 
 gones be bygones ? Will you dine with me ? " 
 
 Julian hesitated perceptibly. On the occasion 
 of their last meeting he had called Guy a cad 
 and a coward. He had not the slightest idea 
 of apologising for having done so, and he had 
 never seen the least reason for regretting a 
 perfectly honest expression of opinion. But 
 he did not, considering the circumstances, wish 
 to reject Guy's advances. 
 
 Guy guessed the reason of his hesitation. 
 
 " You needn't think about our last interview," 
 he said frankly. "You only said to me then 
 what I've said thousands of times to myself since. 
 I was everything you called me, and a great 
 deal more. But I don't think there's any reason 
 why we should keep it up now." 
 
 An expression of pain flickered for a moment 
 over Julian's usually rather inexpressive face. 
 
 "No — I suppose there isn't," he said, with 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 175 
 
 a touch of bitterness. "The tomahawk is 
 buried, as we should have said when we were 
 children — we may as well smoke the pipe of 
 peace over the tomb. I shall be pleased to 
 accept your rather generous invitation." 
 
 "I am not in the least generous," Guy said 
 gravely. 
 
 They talked of the weather as they walked 
 back to the hotel. At dinner they discussed 
 the affairs of mutual acquaintances with the 
 air of languid indifference characteristic of the 
 properly brought up Briton. At last Guy 
 broached the subject which had occupied their 
 thoughts all the time. 
 
 " I suppose you went to the wedding ? " 
 
 Julian lighted himself a cigarette before he 
 answered. He lighted it slowly, and with 
 rather an unusual amount of care. Then he 
 leaned back in his chair and met Guy's eyes 
 across the table. 
 
 "Yes, I went. Do you want to hear about 
 it ? It was quite a smart function. There were 
 at least two first-class royalties, and half-a- 
 dozen quite presentable duchesses. The bride 
 
 looked charming, in a gown of I suppose I 
 
 needn't describe the gown. The bridegroom 
 was oily amiability in human form. The pre- 
 
176 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 sents were magnificent. And Sir Joseph and 
 Lady Meyringer left afterwards for Paris, en 
 route for Monte Carlo, where the honeymoon 
 will be spent. Good God ! To think of Grace 
 on a honeymoon with Joseph Meyringer ! " 
 
 His cigarette, in spite of its careful lighting, 
 had gone out. Guy looked at him sympathetic- 
 ally. 
 
 " Poor old Ju ! " he said, in the tone he would 
 have used ten years ago. " It's hit you pretty 
 hard." 
 
 "Hit me hard — !" Julian paused for a 
 moment. " I think that's why I came to dinner 
 with you," he said. *'I've kept quiet as long 
 as I could. I've looked pleasant, and said the 
 proper thing until I feel I want to murder 
 someone. I must speak of her to someone, and 
 you cared for her too — you'll understand." 
 
 Guy sat very still. 
 
 " Poor old Julian ! " he said presently. " Yes 
 — I understand. Go on." 
 
 Julian flung away his cigarette, and leaned 
 forward across the table. 
 
 " How's one to go on ? " he said, with a sort 
 of fierce misery. "How's one to glue the 
 pieces together again, and go on with the 
 wretched, patched-up muddle that one calls life ? 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 177 
 
 If you had married her, I could have borne it — 
 she'd have married you because she loved you 
 better than she could love me, and you would 
 have made her happy. But to see her sell her- 
 self to a man like that — Grace] One thinks 
 what one thinks of the women who do that sort 
 of thing — but to have to think it of her is simply 
 sheer, intolerable agony." 
 
 "I'm frightfully sorry for you," Guy said 
 gently. 
 
 "Don't be sorry for me. I'm not thinking 
 of myself, but of her. We thought her — what 
 did we think her, Guy ? What didn't we think 
 her ? And the end is — Joseph Meyringer and 
 his millions, and a honeymoon at Monte Carlo ! " 
 
 " I never thought Grace cared a straw about 
 money," Guy said, in a puzzled tone. 
 
 *' No more did I. But she refused me because 
 I hadn't enough, for all that — told me so, out- 
 right. No one can say she hasn't been quite 
 honest. Meyringer, even, can't have any illu- 
 sions. She told everyone quite frankly that 
 she was marrying for money. Poor Aunt 
 Georgie is positively ashamed of her." 
 
 "It's an extraordinary state of things. Is 
 Meyringer really such a brute ? " 
 
 ** I should never have supposed Grace could 
 
178 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 have endured him under the same roof with her. 
 Well — you never know women. I give them 
 up. I shall never believe in one again." 
 
 He mastered his passion of anger and despair, 
 and sat looking at Guy dumbly. He had almost 
 forgotten his opinion of Guy. A common sense 
 of loss, a mutual disillusionment, had driven them 
 back to their old intimacy as nothing else could 
 have done. 
 
 "You know your grandfather is rustling the 
 social dovecotes ? " he said presently, in a calmer 
 tone. "What — you don't? There are dire 
 and dreadful tales being told of him in London. 
 He has been trailing round Europe with a most 
 compromising companion. You had better look 
 the old gentleman up, Guy — he must be falling 
 into his second dotage." 
 
 "Who on earth is the compromising com- 
 panion ? " 
 
 Julian laughed rather savagely. 
 
 "A girl just out of a convent, my dear boy 
 — a certain Miss Nina Standish. You re- 
 member Standish, don't you? — Haughton 
 Standish, the man there was such a fuss about 
 in the Guards? They chucked him out — or 
 he resigned his commission. They swore he 
 cheated at cards You can see him any day at 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 179 
 
 Monte Carlo. I think he sleeps under one 
 of the tables — at any rate, he's always there. 
 And he doesn't always know his own losses 
 from other people's winnings." 
 
 " I remember him. He spoke to the old man 
 on the Terrace one day — he looked the sort of 
 person you wouldn't trust to give you change 
 for half-a-sovereign. I think the old man was 
 sorry for him — he always was rather fond of 
 scoundrels. He labours under the touching 
 delusion that they are more amusing than 
 honest men." 
 
 " They are only amusing as long as you can 
 keep their hands out of your pockets." 
 
 *'The old man ought to be equal to that," 
 Guy said, smiling. *' But what about Standish's 
 daughter ? " 
 
 "She isn't his daughter. Her mother was 
 Eugenie Cabardds — the great and famous and 
 infamous Eugenie. You remember the meteoric 
 career she had. She began as a flower-girl at 
 Aries, and ended as an unofficial empress — or 
 rather, she didn't end there, for after the 
 Emperor died she was left with an enormous 
 fortune, and Standish picked up with her and 
 married her for the sake of the money. Of 
 course he got through every sou of the money. 
 
i8o THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 and Eugenie drank herself to death, which was 
 the wisest thing she could do, all things con- 
 sidered. And now all that is left to Standish 
 is the girl, whom he calls his daughter. One 
 feels rather inclined to pity her for being 
 insulted by such a relationship — at any rate, 
 she can hardly deserve a worse fate. And now 
 Standish, or the girl, has fastened on to Lord 
 Newtown. They went to Paris with him last 
 winter — they were in Switzerland with him in 
 the summer; and now they are all comfortably 
 established in a villa at Nice." 
 
 "I never heard all this. But I suppose the 
 old man would hardly be likely to mention it in 
 his letters." 
 
 " Hardly. If I were you, I would run down 
 to Nice and see him." 
 
 " I offered to go the other day, but he put 
 me off. After all, he's old enough to take 
 care of himself, Julian. I can't very well in- 
 terfere." 
 
 " It's your own affair, of course," Julian said, 
 as he rose to say good-night, "but if you don't 
 interfere, all I can say is — don't blame me if 
 you wake up some fine morning to find that you 
 have a new grandmother, and that her name is 
 Nina Standish, alias Cabardes." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING i8i 
 
 Guy started a little, and then laughed. 
 
 " Oh, come, Julian — surely it's not as bad as 
 that ? You don't think the old man would be 
 mad enough to marry her?" 
 
 " There's no fool like an old fool, they say," 
 Julian answered, with rather a bitter laugh, 
 " unless, of course, it's a young one." 
 
XVII 
 
 GtJY sat for a long time after Julian left him, 
 lost in unpleasant reflection. Julian's anger and 
 disgust at Grace's marriage had had a con- 
 siderable effect upon him. It was so absolutely 
 unlike Grace, as they both knew her, to marry 
 a man like Meyringer for the sake of his money. 
 He wondered what could have induced her 
 to behave in such an extraordinary way — he 
 wondered, even, why she had not accepted 
 Julian, to whom he would have given her up 
 with the certainty that she would at any rate 
 be sure of a fair chance of quite unusual happi- 
 ness. He wondered whether she had married 
 Meyringer out of pique, rather than for any 
 mercenary motive. He devoutly hoped that 
 she had not. In some way he felt guilty, as he 
 thought of the marriage — he felt that Grace 
 would be miserable, and that he would be 
 responsible for her misery. 
 
 He had never seen her since the morning of 
 the accident. After his father's death he had 
 remained abroad. He had left Mon Paradis, 
 
 182 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 183 
 
 which had become intolerable to him, and 
 wintered in Rome. In the spring Lady Fran- 
 cheville had suddenly joined him there. It was 
 an unusually cold spring. She had gone out 
 driving one treacherous afternoon. Perhaps 
 her long residence at Mon Paradis had unfitted 
 her for any other climate. She had an attack 
 of pneumonia, and within the week she was 
 dead. 
 
 Guy was shocked and startled and bewildered 
 by this fresh catastrophe — he could hardly, 
 with the best of intentions, call it a source of 
 acute personal grief to him. His mother had 
 always held aloof from him; latterly she had 
 treated him almost as one treats an enemy, or at 
 any rate, as one might treat a person with whom 
 one is forced to keep up a certain outward 
 show of intimacy, but of whose intentions one 
 entertains the most damaging suspicions. He 
 felt that she suspected his hatred of the Unseen 
 Thing — the horror which, as Spence had said, 
 she loved in some strange way as she had never 
 loved Guy. The Unseen Thing had stood 
 between them always, in the years that had 
 passed before he learned the secret of the 
 barred window of Mon Paradis; in those last 
 few months it stood between them more openly 
 
1 84 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 still. He felt that Lady Francheville hardly 
 believed in his promise to keep the secret. 
 Just before she died she made him repeat it — 
 and he felt, with indescribable sensations of 
 humiliation and remorse, that she died with a 
 doubt of him in her mind, and with all her pity 
 and sympathy fastened, not upon him, but upon 
 the human monstrosity far away in its secret 
 room. He felt, too, that, in spite of her heroic 
 courage and patience through years which must 
 have brought her nothing but the keenest and 
 most exquisite torture, he could not force him- 
 self to regard her with any sentiment warmer 
 than an almost incredulous admiration. She 
 had performed the impossible, borne the un- 
 bearable; but she had also denied him that 
 share of her affection to which he had a right 
 — she had lavished all she had to give upon the 
 Unseen Thing. It was a beautiful injustice, 
 perhaps, but it was injustice, and he could not 
 but resent it. He pitied her profoundly ; he 
 pitied himself only a little less. And, because 
 she had given it all, and had given him nothing, 
 he had no pity left for the Unseen Thing. 
 
 He left Rome, and drifted about Italy, in an 
 aimless way. Wherever he went, the shadow 
 of the towers of Mon Paradis seemed to stretch 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 185 
 
 out towards him, to envelop his soul in an 
 atmosphere of gloom. He could put hundreds 
 of miles between him and the secret room, but 
 he could not escape from the memory of what 
 it held, he heard always the awful voice which 
 cried beyond that bolted door. Sooner or later 
 he knew that the moment would come when he 
 must stand again in the little antechamber of 
 stone, and hear the dreadful despair of that 
 monstrous voice change to a hope more dreadful 
 still. And the thought of that moment would 
 rise before him as the memory of his crime 
 must rise before a murderer who has escaped 
 justice. It filled him with indescribable panic 
 — he almost wondered that the people with 
 whom his wanderings brought him in contact 
 did not recoil from him, did not read his secret 
 in his face, and turn away from a man upon 
 whom had fallen such a curse. 
 
 He wandered aimlessly about Europe, trying 
 to escape from the darkness which so ruthlessly 
 pursued him. He hated the South, he hated 
 everything that reminded him of Mon Paradis. 
 He fled to Switzerland, and proceeded to climb 
 unclimbable peaks as though they had been ant- 
 heaps, with a recklessness which horrified his 
 guides. The proverbial insanity of the entire 
 
1 86 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 English nation established itself firmly in their 
 stolid Swiss minds. They regarded Guy with 
 an almost superstitious reverence, as a being 
 bearing a charmed life. 
 
 But, in the white silence of the unclimbable 
 peaks, Guy began to hear once more the voice 
 from which he fled. He left Switzerland and 
 a reputation for daring mountaineering in which 
 he was totally uninterested, and fled to Paris. 
 He was beginning to feel desperate, to under- 
 stand the sensations of a hunted fugitive upon 
 whose heels Fate presses hard. He was begin- 
 ning to feel that he had heard, if he had not 
 seen, the " thing too much." .When he fell up 
 against Julian Strange in the Rue de Rivoli he 
 was actually wondering how much longer his brain 
 would stand the strain, and whether a revolver 
 would not solve the riddle of his tortured existence 
 more simply and successfully than anything else. 
 
 The evening spent in Julian's society had 
 done him good. The revolver retreated into 
 the background of his thoughts. He wondered 
 why Grace had married Meyringer; he wondered 
 what on earth Lord Newtown, that astute old 
 worldling, was doing at Nice with that very 
 shady ex-Guardsman, Haughton Standish, and 
 the daughter of Eugenie Cabardes. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 187 
 
 He was not seriously anxious about Lord 
 Newtown, who had always seemed to him pre- 
 eminently fitted to take care of himself. If he 
 chose to lose money to Standish, presumably he 
 had reasons of his own for doing so. 
 
 But next morning, curiously enough, there 
 arrived a discreet and politely worded note from 
 the long-suiFeriag and angelically forbearing 
 creature who enjoyed the- uncomfortable distinc- 
 tion of waiting upon Lord Newtown's pleasure 
 — or displeasure. He hoped he had not taken 
 a great liberty in writing, but his lordship had 
 been very bad. The doctor thought the gout 
 was going to the heart. And though it wasn't 
 his place to say anything — well, no doubt my 
 lord (Guy) knew that Captain Standish's repu- 
 tation. And Miss Nina, though he hadn't a 
 word against her (which struck Guy as curious), 
 knew as much about illness as a kitten. And — 
 to conclude — he humbly took it upon him to 
 suggest that a surprise visit to Nice would not 
 come amiss, and remained most respectfully 
 Guy's very obedient servant, S. Perkins. 
 
 Guy took the letter to Julian, who read it with 
 a not very genial expression of countenance. 
 
 " S. Perkins seems a most valuable servant," 
 he said. " You had better go, Guy." 
 
1 88 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "You see what he says about the girl, 
 though." 
 
 " Ah, I've heard that said of the girl before. 
 From what I can make out she's a young 
 person who isn't easily classified. I've heard 
 her described by two people sitting at the same 
 table as a model of all the proprieties, and a 
 kind of spirit of the Brocken. I should say she 
 fully carries out the Scriptural phrase of being 
 all things to all men. 8. Perkins may behold 
 her in the light of a model of all the proprieties ; 
 but your respected grandfather, if I know any- 
 thing of his little ways, is much more likely to 
 be interested in the spirit of the Brocken." 
 
 "That's very true," Guy admitted, much 
 amused. 
 
 Twenty-four hours later he found himself 
 at Nice, waiting before the open door of ex- 
 Captain Standish's villa. Standish clung, with 
 the impudence of utter shamelessness, to his 
 military title. He was quite particular about it 
 — quite huffy if strangers ignored it. He 
 was decidedly a scoundrel with an air, Guy 
 remembered, as he stood waiting for someone 
 to inquire his business. He had a good view 
 of a rather shabby interior, with palms in tubs, 
 and a sickly-looking orange-tree, and faded rugs, 
 
THE UNSEEN THING tSg 
 
 and a rather dirty tesselated pavement. He was 
 not very favourably impressed. The white of 
 the exterior was dingy, the green shutters had a 
 decayed look; and he thought, considering all 
 things, that Haughton Standish need not have 
 outraged common decency by christening his 
 abode " Villa Imp^riale." 
 
 A slight sound in the otherwise deserted 
 interior arrested his attention. A large raven 
 hopped out from some comer, rather pointedly 
 finishing his lunch. The lunch appeared to 
 have consisted of mouse — au nature!. The 
 remains of the victim's tail dangled forlornly 
 from the deadly-looking black beak, and there 
 was a twinkle of unctuous satisfaction in the 
 raven's one eye. He paused full before Guy, 
 gulped down the tail, shook himself, and began 
 to arrange his rusty and disreputable coat. 
 Julian's allusion to the spirit of the Brocken 
 seemed to fit the apparition so neatly that Guy 
 almost laughed in the raven's face. 
 
 At that moment a door opened and a girl 
 appeared. 
 
 Guy was conscious of an inward shock. She 
 wore a white muslin frock as redolent of youth 
 and innocence as anything Paris could supply, 
 and a white frilled sun hat, which had slipped 
 
igo THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 back upon her shoulders. She did not look 
 a day over fifteen. He did not know whether 
 she was pretty, but he could not take his eyes 
 off her. 
 
 The raven gave her an affectionate glance 
 out of its one eye, and promptly flew up on 
 her shoulder and sat there, with the grace of a 
 petted canary. She looked at Guy and spoke, 
 quite casually, as though she had known him 
 from her cradle, and had only parted from him 
 five minutes ago. 
 
 "^He's caught a mouse," she remarked, in 
 a high, clear, silvery voice, "and he's eaten it, 
 every bit, and he'll be dreadfully sick to-morrow 
 — you see, mouse never agrees with him. Do 
 you want to see Lord Newtown, or papa ? " 
 
 "Is Lord Newtown at home?" Guy asked, 
 rather stiffly. 
 
 "He's very much at home. They thought 
 the gout was going to his heart, but it's only 
 gone to his temper. I sat in the corridor all 
 the morning, listening to him swearing at 
 Perkins. It was quite as amusing as a play. I 
 had to put my handkerchief half down my 
 throat, or I should have laughed. You're his 
 grandson, aren't you ? " 
 
 This was delivered with the most artless 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 191 
 
 access of interest. Guy looked at her. He 
 did not know which was the more amazing, her 
 absolute, almost impudent frankness, or the fact 
 that nothing she said could detract from the 
 charm of her clear voice, and the magic of a 
 manner perfectly natural and spontaneous. 
 
 "Yes, I am his grandson," he admitted, 
 relenting. 
 
 She gave him her hand with a condescending 
 sweetness which reduced him to such depths of 
 astonishment that he actually took it. It was 
 a very pretty, aristocratic-looking hand. Its 
 fellow, long-fingered, delicate, artistic in every 
 line, was occupied in removing the debris of the 
 mouse from the edge of the raven's beak as it 
 sat, like an incarnate omen of ill, on her shoulder. 
 
 *'I'm glad to see you," she said heartily. 
 *'I've seen your photo. You're very good- 
 looking — you take after the old man. He's 
 a dear, when the gout hasn't gone to his 
 temper. Do you see this dress? He sent 
 to Paris for it, and the hat too. He gives 
 me heaps of things. He gave me a pearl 
 necklace the other day, but papa got hold of 
 
 it, and then of course " she gave a fine, 
 
 expressive shrug of her shoulders. "Do you 
 know papa?" 
 
^g^ THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " 1 have not that pleasure," Guy said. In a 
 social sense, no respectable individual could be 
 said to " know " the amazing Standish. 
 
 "It's very little pleasure," the girl said, with 
 another shrug. She looked Guy full in the face 
 with eyes that sparkled suddenly. "I'm not 
 really his daughter," she said, with a sort of dis- 
 gusted contempt. "My — ^my own father's people 
 are bad enough, I suppose, and unlucky enough, 
 but they're not his sort. I only know one of 
 them, and that's my cousin. Prince Constantine 
 of Sclavonia. He came to see maman once, 
 and gave me chocolates and kissed me, and said 
 I was like my father. I'm like him — I cut his 
 picture out of the paper afterwards, because he 
 was kind to me, and when my nurse took me to 
 Mass I used to pray that I might grow up like 
 him." 
 
 Somehow Guy was touched. He looked 
 more kindly at the girl who had prayed that 
 she might grow up like the only relation she 
 had who had been kind to her. He almost 
 forgave her for being Eugenie Cabardes' 
 daughter. 
 
 " I have played tennis with your cousin," he 
 said. " Now, won't you ask my grandfather if 
 he will see me ? " 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 193 
 
 She took him up at once. The raven on her 
 shoulder looked back at him and winked its 
 one expressive, devilish, human eye. Guy had 
 never seen anything so eloquent as that wink. 
 Mephistopheles never approached such a master- 
 piece of uncanny, fiendish humour. 
 
 Lord Newtown was sitting up by the window 
 of his room. Nina introduced his grandson in 
 her casual, graceful way. 
 
 *'Lord Francheville's turned up," she said. 
 " You said he would. I like him. I hope he'll 
 take me over to Monte Carlo while he's here." 
 
 Lord Newtown grinned amiably enough. 
 He was fond of Guy, and he was far too 
 complete an autocrat to care what Guy might 
 think of his extraordinary mdnage. 
 
 " He won't do anything of the sort," he said. 
 " He's a very well brought up young man, my 
 dear Nina, and you're — well, hang me if I 
 know what you are. I'm eighty-four, and I 
 know a good deal, but I don't know much 
 about you, and I don't mind owning it. Take 
 that pet devil of yours out of my sight — it's my 
 belief he's a very near relation of yours. He's 
 Father Satan, and you're Miss Satan. It's only 
 another way of saying you're a woman. There 
 — he's winking at me, the brute ! Nina, if you 
 
194 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 don't remove him I shall throw something at 
 him." 
 
 Nina went off, laughing, clutching the raven 
 in her arms. She was kissing him as she shut 
 the door. Guy felt suddenly rather sick. He 
 found a chair, and sat down, and looked at his 
 grandfather with a sensation of complete and 
 absolute helplessness. 
 
XVIII 
 
 Guy remained at Nice. He told himself that 
 his grandfather had had a sharp attack, and that 
 he ought not to be left alone in the Standish villa. 
 Lord Newtown seemed to enjoy his society. He 
 used to sit in his big chair by the window which 
 looked out into the garden behind — a handful of 
 earth, and several palms in tubs — and Guy read 
 the English papers to him. Everything that 
 happened in the most mismanaged country in 
 the world was always wrong, and the old man 
 picked up wonderfully over the mistakes of 
 everyone in office — or out of it. He abused 
 the army, and threw out dark hints as to the 
 probable collapse of the navy at the exact 
 moment when it would be wanted ; he da- 
 scribed his native land, with much fervour, as 
 a country peopled by humbugs and fools. And 
 Nina would wander in and out of the room, 
 with the raven on her shoulder, and laugh at 
 him as no other human being had ever dared to 
 do, in the whole course of his eighty-four years 
 of existence. 
 195 
 
196 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 *' You don't mean that," she would say, inter- 
 rupting him ruthlessly. *' If I said it, you would 
 jump on me at once. You like England, in your 
 heart. So do I. I like you, I like Guy. May I 
 call you Guy ? It fatigues me to say your whole 
 name — it's too long. Nurse Dr Blanco for 
 me, Guy. He hasn't felt well to-day — I think 
 he must have eaten another mouse." 
 
 Dr Blanco was deposited on Guy's knee, 
 where he sat, winking in a mechanical way at 
 space. And Nina, in one of her favourite white 
 muslin dresses, would perch herself on the arm 
 of Lord Newtown's chair, and discourse airily 
 of the amiable Standish's last " system " at the 
 tables, or the fact that he had not allowed her 
 enough to pay the bills which were always 
 coming due. 
 
 It generally ended in Lord Newtown, with 
 many growls, writing her a cheque, and sending 
 her out to pay Standish's bills. She always 
 came back with a large and expensive bouquet 
 of flowers, which she presented to the old man 
 with the air of one presenting an offering at a 
 particularly venerable shrine. 
 
 " What do you think of her ? " Lord Newtown 
 demanded of his grandson one day. 
 
 "I don't know," Guy owned. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 197 
 
 ** And what do you think of me ? " 
 Guy hastened to explain that he had never 
 thought of his grandfather at all, in connection 
 with Miss Standish. At which Lord Newtown 
 laughed. 
 
 "Well, don't you wonder why I'm here, 
 living in the same house with Standish ? He's 
 not a particularly amusing companion, and, by 
 Jove, I don't find him an economical one. I'm 
 an old fool, Guy. I stay here because of the 
 girl. She amuses me. I don't like women — 
 they have bored me all my life. Your grand- 
 mother was an angel, but she never had but two 
 ideas in her head. The first was to get into the 
 peerage, and the second was to get to heaven. 
 I don't mind saying that she bored me to ex- 
 tinction — it can't hurt her now, poor thing. I've 
 never met a woman yet who wasn't either a 
 hypocrite or a fool. If they're angels, they 
 bore you, and if they're the other thing they 
 pick your pockets." 
 
 ** And doesn't Miss Nina pick your pockets ? " 
 *'My dear boy, she does that at Standish' s 
 instigation. She wouldn't ask for a pin for her- 
 self. She hates Standish, and she's as proud as 
 the devil." 
 
 It was true that she hated Standish. Guy 
 
1 98 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 thought that her hatred was very excusable. He 
 hated Standish himself. He tried to snub him 
 but found it impossible. Standish fastened 
 on to him with leechlike tenacity. He "dear 
 boy-ed " him until Guy was positively rude to 
 him. He borrowed money of him. He talked 
 to his shady acquaintances at Monte Carlo of his 
 dear young friend Francheville. He even went 
 so far as to introduce them to Guy at the villa. 
 Some of them were English, most of them were 
 French ; but they were all equally impossible. 
 They made love to Nina, who said things to 
 them that Guy would have given several hundred 
 pounds willingly to be able to say. Then 
 «he sat down and played cards with them, and 
 cheated them frankly and openly, with a superb 
 unscrupulousness which Guy could not but 
 admire. 
 
 "They are beasts," she would say to him 
 afterwards. "Of course I cheat them. I 
 wouldn't cheat you, or the old man." 
 
 But, no matter what they thought of her 
 expressed opinion, they usually came again, A 
 good deal of high play went on at the Villa 
 Imperiale. Standish sat up until morning playing 
 with his shady friends. Guy was invited to 
 join these delightful parties, but he declined 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 199 
 
 with marked decision. He sat in Lord Newtown's 
 room, and heard the murmur of voices, the clink 
 of glasses below. Nina took refuge there too. 
 She played bezique with Lord Newtown. Guy 
 used to watch her leaning eagerly across the 
 little card-table, with the raven perched on the 
 back of her chair, and her eyes shining in the 
 lamplight. He used to wonder whether she 
 was pretty, whether she would ever escape out 
 of the shady places in which her feet seemed so 
 firmly set, and what sort of a woman she might 
 become if she did. He wondered also whether 
 he liked or disliked her. She had extraordinary 
 charm. She was absolutely natural, she cared 
 nothing for anyone's opinion, she said and did 
 what she liked. And whatever she said or did, 
 the mere fact of her doing it invested it with the 
 most vivid interest. 
 
 But there were times when he pitied her. 
 There were times when she raged at the life of 
 the Villa Imperiale. One day, walking with 
 her on the Terrace at Monte Carlo, he surprised 
 a tragic look in her eyes. 
 
 « What is the matter, Nina ? '* 
 
 " I was thinking," she said, in an odd, wistful 
 tone, " that you're about the only person in the 
 world that I know, besides the old man, who 
 
200 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 isn't shady — who's really nice. And you're 
 a man. I don't know any women. Doesn't 
 it seem odd when one thinks of all the women 
 there are about, that I don't know a single one ? 
 When we were in Switzerland with the old 
 man, I used to try to make friends with them 
 at the hotels. I used to be very quiet, and 
 yery good, and very young — oh, but quite a 
 baby ! — and I used to get them to talk to me 
 a little. But always directly afterwards they 
 found out who I was, or who papa was, and 
 then when they met me they didn't see me any 
 more. It hurt." She screwed up her expressive 
 face. " Do you think it was quite kind of them ? 
 Of course I know it was because of poor maman 
 — but she was dead, and I had done them no 
 harm." 
 
 *' Poor Ninon ! " Guy used his grandfather's 
 pet name for her unconsciously. " You mustn't 
 mind. Women are made like that." 
 
 "Then I suppose it's just as well that I don't 
 know any, for I should hate them. Guy, I like 
 you — I like you awfully. Is it wrong to say 
 that? I wouldn't say it to anyone else, but 
 you're not shady, you're diiferent, somehow." 
 
 *'It is good of you to like me," Guy said 
 gently* 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 201 
 
 *' But you don*t exactly like me — you're not 
 sure about me. You think I'm interesting, 
 but you don't think I'm properly brought up. 
 And of course, I'm not," she ended, with a 
 sigh. 
 
 On occasions like these Guy felt that she 
 was wrong in saying he did not like her. He 
 liked her less when she was entertaining some 
 of Standish's friends. She told them her 
 opinion of them quite frankly, but she was 
 complex enough to like their attentions. There 
 were moments when she spoke wistfully of her 
 odd life, as she had done on the Terrace to Guy ; 
 there were other moments when she flung 
 herself into it recklessly, with a desperate 
 determination to have all the fun she could get 
 out of it. 
 
 ** Not have anything to do with Toto ? " she 
 said to Guy on one of these occasions. " Oh, 
 he's most amusing ! He proposed to elope with 
 me last night. Shall I elope, Guy ? It would 
 be one way of getting away, and Toto's rich. 
 Of course I hate him, but I suppose one hates 
 them all sooner or later." 
 
 Guy was so genuinely shocked that she was 
 enormously amused. She sat on the arm of a 
 chair and nursed Dr Blanco while he lectured 
 
202 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 her. At the conclusion of his lecture she 
 shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Very well, I will not go this time, as you 
 seem to mind it so much. But you know, Guy, 
 it will end like that some day. I hate papa — 
 and no one will marry me. I know that — it 
 is no use to contradict me. It is because of 
 poor maman — no one would like to marry 
 her daughter. I am only to amuse them, that's 
 aJl." 
 
 Guy was still more shocked. She listened to 
 his warnings and entreaties with entire amia- 
 bility, if with no very convincing expression of 
 belief. 
 
 " But you wouldn't marry me yourself, in 
 spite of everything you say," she remarked, 
 with an air of triumph. "You know that 
 perfectly well. And how am I to go on living 
 with papa ? Toto's respectable compared with 
 him." 
 
 " I hope you will oblige me by not mention- 
 ing that objectionable young cad's name to me 
 again," Guy said, really annoyed. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders again, and kissed 
 Dr Blanco tenderly on the top of his disreput- 
 able old black head. 
 
 " Oh, very well. Blanco, darling, he's cross. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 203 
 
 How much more pleasant ravens are than 
 men ! " she murmured in an aggrieved tone. 
 
 Five minutes later she was on her hands and 
 knees, watching a mouse-hole with Dr Blanco. 
 It would have been hard to say which was the 
 more interested — the bird, or the girl. Guy 
 wondered whether she had realised the gravity 
 of half she said — and decided finally that she 
 had not. 
 
 He repeated part of the conversation to Lord 
 Newtown, who was very much amused. He did 
 not seem to see the situation in its serious light. 
 
 " If I were a philanthropist, which I'm not," 
 he said, " I would marry her and set her up in 
 the world. She'd astonish London. It would 
 keep me alive quite ten years longer to watch 
 the succession of shocks that child would give 
 Society." 
 
 ** When she begins seriously to consider the 
 advisability of eloping with de Mauxville," Guy 
 said, "I think it is about time to leave off 
 laughing, and do something definite. I don't 
 know how you, who profess to have some sort 
 of regard for her, can sit there and laugh 
 at an incident like this. She was quite in 
 earnest." 
 
 "Of course — of course. It's a beautiful 
 
204 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 instance of the strength of heredity. Naturally 
 she was in earnest." 
 
 Guy lost his temper. 
 
 *' Excuse me, but I don't think it's at all 
 funny," he said. 
 
 Lord Newtown stopped laughing, and looked 
 at him keenly. 
 
 "You seem to be rather unduly anxious 
 about Nina's future. Look here, Guy — don't 
 make the mistake of taking her too seriously. 
 And don't make a fool of yourself. Poor child, 
 she was quite right. She's very amusing, but 
 it wouldn't do to take her in any other way." 
 
 " I am not proposing," Guy retorted angrily, 
 " to take her in any way at all." 
 
 He flung out of the Villa Imp^riale in a rage. 
 He was so genuinely angry that he had for- 
 gotten all his own affairs — for five minutes at 
 least he even forgot the existence of the Unseen 
 Thing. And he was almost startled when he 
 found that he had done so. 
 
XIX 
 
 It was strange, but in the atmosphere of the 
 Villa Imp^riale — an atmosphere of shadiness and 
 shabbiness, of queer people and queerer ideas 
 — Guy found that he was beginning to escape 
 from the dreadful memory of Mon Paradis and 
 its secret. He forgot, for hours together, the 
 bolted door in the tower, and the horror which 
 it hid. It was impossible to be morbid in the 
 society of Nina Standish. And Nina was, to 
 him, the prominent character at the villa. She 
 stood out from the motley crowd of Standish's 
 friends, an odd, whimsical, half-pathetic figure, 
 at once childish and terribly precocious — a 
 crude combination of the most glaring contra- 
 dictions, the most opposite faults and virtues. 
 He knew that she was absolutely truthful and 
 honest with him ; yet he often heard her invent 
 the most shameless and ingenious lies to shield 
 herself from Standish's anger, and she cheated 
 the ardent Toto de Mauxville and his associates 
 whenever she could be induced to play with 
 them. She shocked all Guy's well-conducted 
 205 
 
2o6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 British prejudices half-a-dozen times a day; yet 
 he found that if he kept away from the yilla for 
 twenty-four hours, he was glad enough to get 
 back to it again. She found a hundred occupa- 
 tions for him. He was even reduced to cutting 
 up Dr Blanco's dinner for him, or administering 
 physic when that dark and mysterious bird had 
 vulgarly overeaten himself. He took Nina to 
 Monte Carlo, and strolled round the tables, and 
 had visions of Standish at his usual favourite 
 occupation of winning someone else's cash. 
 Once there was a row — Standish had mistaken 
 someone else's winnings for his own. It was 
 an animated scene, and Nina, rather to Guy's 
 disgust, enjoyed it immensely. She hoped, as 
 she explained afterwards, that papa would get 
 a thrashing. Standish, however, managed to 
 slip out of the affair without personal damage to 
 himself — he had had some experience of slipping 
 out of the tight corners of existence. He 
 drank more brandy and water that night than 
 usual, and took Guy out among the palms in 
 their tubs in the garden and smoked with him, 
 much against his will, and bewailed the ill- 
 fortune which had so persistently and unjustly 
 pursued him all his life. 
 
 " From my earliest years, dear boy," he said 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 207 
 
 pathetically, "I've had the most devilish bad 
 luck. Ah, your heart would bleed for me if I 
 told you the truth ! I've never done a man a 
 kindness yet, but he kicked me downstairs five 
 minutes later — human nature's an ungrateful 
 thing, dear boy ! Now I feel you're so different 
 — the minute I set eyes on you, I said to myself 
 that you'd a good heart. Now you couldn't 
 oblige me with a loan till the end of the 
 quarter, could you ? " 
 
 Guy escaped from an unpleasant impasse by 
 assenting; and Standish all but wept upon his 
 breast. 
 
 *'Ah, I knew the minute I saw you that 
 you'd a feeling disposition. You take a weight 
 off my mind. It's not for myself I care, but for 
 my sweet child, my darling Nina." Standish 
 was always particularly fond of Nina when he 
 was drunk. "We were talking of Nina, were 
 we not, my dear young friend ? " 
 
 "I don't think so," Guy said drily. *'We 
 were talking of your financial position." 
 
 "Ah, but it's all the same thing. Now I 
 wanted to speak to you about my sweet Nina. 
 I'm so glad to see your kindness to her. You 
 took her over to Monty this afternoon. I 
 wouldn't say it to anyone but you, but I can 
 
2o8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 trust the dear child with you, Francheviile — I 
 feel she's so safe with you." 
 
 Guy began to feel slightly uncomfortable. 
 
 " I should hope," he said, rather coldly, " that 
 any lady who honoured me with her society 
 would have every reason for feeling safe. I 
 take as much care as I can of Miss Nina." 
 
 " I know it, I know it. It's a sad life for 
 that sweet child. De Mauxville and that lot 
 are bad company for her. See as much of her 
 as you can, my dear boy — it will do her good. 
 . . . Couldn't make it fifty, could you ? I know 
 you've such a feeling disposition ! " 
 
 As a result of these artless confidences on the 
 part of Standish, Guy took a few days over the 
 Italian border. He did not confess it to himself 
 at the time, but he was dreadfully bored. He 
 missed Nina's impertinences more than he sus- 
 pected. When he came back he brought her a 
 little diamond butterfly she had once admired in 
 her favourite shop at Monte Carlo. She was 
 delighted. She told him frankly how much she 
 had missed him. 
 
 " If you go again," she said decidedly, pinning 
 on the butterfly, "I'll elope with Toto. Papa's 
 been a perfect beast. I say, Guy, did you lend 
 him any money the other day ? " 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 209 
 
 • My dear Nina- 
 
 "Oh, then, you did. Don't do it again. 
 He's made a mess of things at Monty, and he's 
 been more or less screwed the whole time. It's 
 no use lending him anything — and you'll never 
 see it again. Ask the old man if you don't 
 believe me." 
 
 Unfortunately Guy found it only too easy to 
 believe her. And the problem of her future 
 existence with Standish rather began to worry 
 him. It could only end, as she herself had said, 
 in disaster. At the same time he had a vague, 
 uncomfortable feeling that Standish threw her 
 in his way a good deal more than was necessary. 
 Of course he wanted to get rid of her — and he 
 wanted money. The situation was so painfully 
 obvious, so openly sordid, that Guy could hardly 
 conceal his disgust, and treat Standish with 
 ordinary civility. 
 
 The crash came, of course, as it was bound 
 to come. Standish was giving one of his card 
 parties. Nina had taken refuge with Lord 
 Newtown. When Guy rose to go she went 
 downstairs with him. She had opened the 
 door, and stood there, laughing at something 
 he had said, when the door of the salon was 
 flung violently open, and Standish appeared. 
 
aio THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " I want my dear child to sing," he announced, 
 in a high, maudlin voice. " Toto wants my dear 
 child to sing. Toto has a very feeling disposition. 
 He loves music. Nina, come and sing to Toto." 
 
 Guy was half way out of the door ; he would 
 have given worlds to have been out of the gate. 
 But at that moment Toto, of the feeling disposi- 
 tion, appeared grinning behind Standish. Half- 
 a-dozen other choice spirits dropped their cards, 
 and joined the amiable pair. A glance showed 
 G<uy that they had not taken their cards undi- 
 luted. He shut the front door suddenly, and 
 faced Standish. 
 
 *' Miss Nina is tired, and wants to go to bed," 
 he said, as civilly as he could. " She can't sing 
 for you now, Standish." 
 
 *' Can't sing for me? And for whom should 
 she sing, if not for me? For you, perhaps?" 
 Standish cried, passing suddenly froni a musical 
 and sentimental melancholy to open wrath. 
 ** For you — eh ? What the devil do you mean 
 by telling me what she can and can't do ? Does 
 she belong to you ? Why do you take her to 
 Monty so often — ^eh? Why are you alway« 
 hanging about her? I'll wring your neck, if 
 you don't take care ! " 
 
 The situation was about as unpleasant as it 
 
THE UNSEEN THING an 
 
 could be. Toto de Mauxville, to his credit be 
 it recorded, tried to get Standish back to the 
 salon before he could say any more. But 
 Standish was fairly started on his career as an 
 eloquent and aggrieved parent. 
 
 *« My dear child turns against me because of 
 you," he cried shrilly. "You poison her mind 
 against me — you take her to Monty! She 
 won't sing for me. She prefers you. What 
 are you going to dp^— eh? I won't have this 
 going on. Are yoaj going to marry her, you 
 young scoundrel— tell me that! Or do you 
 wish to force me to take your life?" 
 
 This was final. Guy planted himself in front 
 of Nina, who was very white. For once she 
 seemed really frightened. 
 
 " You are talking nonsense, Standish," he said. 
 *' You'll think differently to-morrow morning. 
 You don't want to take my life. Be a good 
 fellow now, and let Miss Nina pas5-^this is no 
 place for her." 
 
 But Standish, who was barring the staircase, 
 now sat dovvn on the bottom step and declared 
 loudly that he would have Guy's blood before 
 he slept. And Nina gripped Guy's arm with 
 shaking hands, and seemed on the point of 
 breaking down, 
 
212 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " Don't go ! " she said in his ear. " I'm 
 afraid of them — don't go ! " 
 
 No one seemed to know what to do. Standish 
 was making the most unpleasant accusations 
 against his late dear young friend in a voice 
 that could be heard half way down the street. 
 Guy wondered exactly how drunk he was — or 
 was not. There seemed a ghastly flavour of 
 the premeditated scena about his outburst, and 
 the particular turn his intoxication had taken. 
 
 " Why can't you persuade him to go back to 
 his game ? " Guy said, in despair, appealing to 
 Toto de Mauxville, who looked almost as un- 
 comfortable as he himself felt. 
 
 *'Me, I can do nothing," Toto murmured, 
 with a faint shrug, " He talk like this all the 
 evening. He say you flirt with Miss Nina, you 
 turn her against him — but me, I know nothing 
 of what he say," he added hastily, with a glance 
 at Guy's face. 
 
 At that moment Nina broke into angry 
 tears. 
 
 " He's a beast," she cried, " and so are you. 
 I hate you — I hate you all. It's a trap — you 
 heard us come down and trapped us. Papa, let 
 me go upstairs. I hate you — you're not half as 
 drunk as you seem. You've made this scene on 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 213 
 
 purpose — and Guy will never come near me 
 again, and it will be your fault." 
 
 There was such a startling air of truth about 
 her explanation, and such genuine indignation 
 in the tone in which it was offered, that Standish 
 rose, and recoiled from the bottom of the stair- 
 case, with incoherent remarks about vipers 
 which he had nursed in his bosom, and which 
 had now turned and rent him. Nina did not 
 stop to listen, but made good her escape. Guy, 
 infinitely relieved, turned to the door once more. 
 He left, pursued down the path by highly spiced 
 remarks from Standish, whose thirst for his 
 blood seemed still to be troubling him consider- 
 ably. 
 
 But next morning the absurd scene had put 
 on a complexion which was something more than 
 ridiculous. Guy could not go again to the 
 Villa Imp^riale. He went to Monte Carlo 
 instead, and walked on the Terrace. He knew 
 that Grace and Meyringer were at Monte Carlo, 
 but he never even thought about them. He 
 was wondering how he could manage to see 
 Nina Standish again. 
 
 Two days went by, and then three, and four, 
 and five. He could not bring himself to leave 
 Nice. Everywhere else, he knew, the horror of 
 
214 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 the memory of Mon Paradis was waiting for 
 him. Only in the little circle round Nina 
 Standish he was safe from it — he forgot the 
 secret room in the tower, and the bolted door. 
 And he clung to the thought of Nina as a 
 drowning man will cling to a plank. 
 
 He could not have told why he felt so safe 
 with Nina. She was the only person who had 
 the power to make him forget. He thought 
 of her with sudden, passionate gratitude, as he 
 realised this. 
 
 A week passed. He began to feel as he had 
 felt in Switzerland, in Paris. He heard the cry 
 of the Unseen Thing in the silence of the night. 
 He remembered the moment which would surely 
 come when he must stand face to face with the 
 hidden horror. 
 
 He stood it for three days more; and then, 
 deliberately, with a kind of cold determination, 
 he went back to the Villa Imp^riale. 
 
XX 
 
 Lord Newtown took it very quietly. He was 
 fond of Nina, and he had no stupid, bourgeois 
 prejudices, as he was fond of remarking on 
 every possible occasion. Standish apologised 
 handsomely, and repeated a great many times 
 that he had always known his dear young friend 
 had a good disposition and a feeling heart — yes, 
 from the moment he first saw him. Nina, when 
 the subject was broached to her, stood very still, 
 and held her breath for a moment, and looked 
 at Guy with wide, astonished eyes. 
 
 "You're joking, aren't you?" she said. 
 "You don't mean it. No one will ever marry 
 me— really — because of maman." 
 
 He made her understand at last that he was 
 in earnest. To his utter astonishment, she 
 burst into a violent fit of crying. She sobbed 
 until he was quite alarmed — until Dr Blanco 
 hopped out from under the sofa and showed 
 signs of alarm too. 
 
 "I'm so glad — so horribly glad!" she said, 
 when she could speak. " I shall get away from 
 »i5 
 
2i6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 it all, and not be shady any more. . . . Guy, 
 if I marry you, people won't think me shady, 
 will they? And those women who cut me in 
 Switzerland won't do it again ? Oh, I've hated 
 it so, you don't know ! " 
 
 Guy petted and consoled her. Somehow, 
 in moments like these, her odd and precocious 
 worldliness seemed to drop from her, and she 
 became strangely childish and pathetic. She 
 clung to him and cried with the abandon of 
 infancy; and then she seized Dr Blanco in her 
 arms and waltzed round the room. 
 
 "You dear old darling, we're going to be 
 respectable at last ! " she sang, fitting her 
 words to a cafd chantant refrain popular that 
 season. " We're going to marry Guy, and no 
 one shall cut us any more. Guy, will you give 
 Dr Blanco an engagement ring ? He can wear 
 it on his left leg, and he's much less likely to 
 lose it than I am." 
 
 **You absurd child, I'm not engaged to that 
 old devil, am I ? " 
 
 She stopped in the middle of her dance and 
 regarded him gravely. 
 
 "Oh, but he's a part of me, you know," 
 she said. "I was fond of him when I had 
 nothing else. You don't really mind him, do 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 217 
 
 you, Guy? You know, I can't give him up, 
 poor dear." 
 
 " You may keep a flock of ravens, if you 
 like," Guy said, recklessly. 
 
 He felt quite foolishly light-hearted. He had 
 not realised how much in love he was with this 
 queer young person. He told himself that now 
 he was safe — he should never be afraid of the 
 Unseen Thing with Nina at his side. 
 
 They were to be married as soon as possible. 
 Standish was perfectly ready to part with his 
 darling child at the shortest notice. Nina was 
 anxious to get away from him. The sleepy 
 Villa Impdriale woke up suddenly. It blossomed 
 into gaiety — a gaiety not in the least like any- 
 thing it had known hitherto. Nina danced 
 singing about the house. She seemed possessed 
 by a spirit of laughter which no one could 
 resist. Her radiant, childlike happiness infected 
 even Lord Newtown, even Standish. She was 
 delighted with herself, delighted with Guy. 
 Dr Blanco wore her engagement ring on his 
 left leg, and lost it once or twice a day, and 
 was once found, with a dark and Satanic twinkle 
 in his solitary eye, trying to bury it in the garden. 
 It amused her tremendously — everything amused 
 her. She shrieked with laughter at the melan- 
 
21 8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 choly note of congratulation which Toto de 
 Mauxville wrote her. 
 
 " He wouldn't have married me himself," she 
 said. " He needn't be so heartbroken. I was 
 only four rire." 
 
 "But you wouldn't have married him, if he 
 had asked you ? " Guy put in, with a twinge of 
 jealousy. 
 
 " To get away from papa ? Oh yes, I would." 
 
 " Nina," Guy said sternly, " I hope you're 
 not marrying me to get away from Standish. 
 You are the most extraordinary girl I ever met. 
 Do you care for me at all ? Sometimes I think 
 you are fonder of Dr Blanco." 
 
 He made the remark several times, and it 
 always seemed to amuse her immensely. 
 
 "But I don't know you half as well as Dr 
 Blanco," she would say, very gravely. "And 
 besides, I'm not sure whether you're really half 
 as nice. And — Guy — you know, however 
 much I liked a human being, I should never like 
 him in the same way that I like things that are 
 not human. You can't trust them." 
 
 « Not trust them ? " 
 
 "Good gracious, no! You can trust a bird 
 or a beast, but you can't trust human beings. 
 They wouldn't be human if you could." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 219 
 
 Five minutes later she was sitting on the arm 
 of Lord Newtown's chair, eating chocolates with 
 the enjoyment of a child of seven. Guy looked 
 at her, and remembered her flash of cynicism. 
 He wondered whether he should ever understand 
 her. He almost hoped not. And he wondered 
 whether it was because he could not understand 
 her that he was going to marry her. 
 
 One day she met him at the door of the 
 villa with an eager face. 
 
 ** Guy, I want you to do something. I want 
 to see Mon Paradis. The old man says ifi 
 beautiful, and I want to see it — and, Guy, 
 please, I can't wait. Take us all over there for 
 a few days, and let me see it." 
 
 The blow was so sudden that Guy was silent 
 for a moment. She came close to him and put a 
 coaxing hand through his arm, and rubbed against 
 him like a kitten asking for a saucerful of cream. 
 
 " Guy, do, please ! Be a dear, and say yes." 
 
 He looked down at her entreating face. A 
 sudden impulse seized him. He would do as she 
 asked — he would go back to Mon Paradis with 
 her, and defy the horror of the Unseen Thing. 
 He had been miserable there — now he would be 
 happy, defiantly happy, under the shadow of 
 the towers which had once seemed to reach 
 
220 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 across the world after him, and blot out, with 
 their darkness, the light of life. 
 
 *' Very well," he heard himself saying. " We 
 will go to Mon Paradis." 
 
 It did not seem quite like his own voice that 
 spoke. Afterwards he remembered that, and 
 wondered whether it had been the voice of 
 Fate — of the wayward, inscrutable destiny 
 which meddles so mischievously with the affairs 
 of men. 
 
 But Nina noticed nothing. She was frankly 
 pleased. 
 
 "How nice of you! And, Guy, do tell me 
 about it. Why is it called Paradise ? '* 
 
 He hesitated for a moment. 
 
 "My father called it Paradise," he said at 
 last. 
 
 *' Because he was happy there ? " 
 
 " No. Because he meant to be happy there." 
 
 Nina laughed suddenly — an odd little, grating, 
 elfish laugh. 
 
 " And of course he was wretched ever after ! " 
 she said. "That's just what anyone might 
 expect who was silly enough to call his house a 
 Paradise. He'd find he had got hold of the 
 other place, don't you know." 
 
 The shadow of the towers of Mon Paradis 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 221 
 
 seemed to fall upon Guy, in the shabby, familiar 
 hall of the Villa Imperiale. He caught Nina's 
 arm in a grasp that hurt her. She looked up at 
 him with a startled face. 
 
 *' Never say that again!" he said. "You 
 don't know — you don't know ! It was Paradise 
 once — why shouldn't it be Paradise again? 
 Why shouldn't we be happy there? Why 
 should we be afraid?" 
 
 Nina stared at him for an mstant. Then, 
 with another laugh, she twisted herself free. 
 
 *' I don't know what there is to be afraid of. 
 And as for being happy — I'm not expecting to 
 find heaven on earth, anyway." 
 
 He did not answer. She stood still, looking 
 at him. There was a gleam of mockery in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "I strikes me," she remarked, *'that you've 
 got a pet devil hidden away somewhere in your 
 Paradise. I'll ferret it out when I get there. 
 It's only fair you should have a pet devil, as 
 I've got a pet raven. Come along now — I want 
 to tell the old man you've invited us all to 
 Paradise." 
 
 She went upstairs three steps at a time. 
 And Guy, calling himself a fool, followed her. 
 
XXI 
 
 Next day Guy went to Mon Paradis — alone. 
 His guests were to follow him twenty-four 
 hours later. Once more he sat in the toy train 
 and was borne slowly and tediously along that 
 lonely, lovely shore ; once more the smart dog- 
 cart carried him swiftly under the languid 
 shadow of the palms. It was a journey of 
 memories. Curiously enough, the memories 
 did not seem painful — the horror had passed 
 away. Even the sight of the lighted window 
 in the tower hardly aflFected him for more than 
 a moment. He looked at it, and took comfort. 
 The Unseen Thing was so safe up there — 
 the secret chamber was so strong. What 
 had they to do with his life ? Why had he 
 allowed an absurd terror to gain such power 
 over him ? 
 
 He felt oddly light-hearted as he gave his 
 orders for the reception of his guests. Then 
 he went to the library to write some necessary 
 letters. He had not been there ten minutes 
 when someone tapped at the door; and Spence, 
 
 222 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 223 
 
 small and grey and mouselike, came almost 
 timidly into the room. 
 
 He seemed to have grown very old and frail. 
 Guy started as his eyes fell on him. The 
 likeness to Lord Francheville — to Lady Fran- 
 chevilk— the likeness of those who have gazed 
 upon a like terror, and are filled with a like 
 pity and fear — ^^showed more strongly than 
 ever. 
 
 " I'm glad to see you, Spence. Did you 
 want to speak to me ? " 
 
 The old man came up to the desk and stood 
 there, looking at Guy. In his eyes there was 
 a pitiful look, as of a thing driven to the very 
 edge of endurance. His presence filled Guy 
 with extraordinary discomfort. It seemed to 
 bring with it into the great, still library of 
 Mon Paradis another presence — it seemed to 
 Guy, as he sat there, that the Unseen Thing 
 itself stood there before him. 
 
 " Master Guy-— you'll go up ? Thank God, 
 you've come back ! You'll go up, sir, at last — ? " 
 
 Spence spoke in a breaking whisper, but the 
 words seemed to fill the room. He put out a 
 thin, trembling hand, and laid it on Guy's arm 
 as he sat there leaning back in his chair. 
 
 "It's been awful — awful! Ever since her 
 
2 24 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 ladyship went. I think he's dying — I think 
 he's fretting for her. Oh, Master Guy — if he 
 should die — if he should be set free! Her 
 ladyship prayed for that — maybe she's praying 
 for that now. And I think her prayer will be 
 granted at last — I think so. I hope so. It 
 can't go on much longer, sir — it's like sitting 
 by and seeing a living soul in hell ! " 
 
 He spoke almost in gasps — the words seemed 
 wrung out of him, seemed, indeed, to torture 
 him as he spoke them. And Guy could not 
 speak, could not answer him. 
 
 *' You'll go up, sir — you'll go up ? " 
 
 Guy leaned forward suddenly, and began 
 drawing little patterns with his pen on the 
 blotting pad before him. 
 
 *' You think he's dying ? " he said, in a harsh, 
 dry voice. 
 
 His hand, holding the pen, was quite steady. 
 There was a strange expression in the eyes with 
 which he watched it. Hope was in his heart — 
 an awful hope. He dared not look at Spence. 
 The hope was in Spence's heart too, but he felt 
 that it was not the same. Spence hoped for the 
 deliverance of the Unseen Thing — his hope was 
 merciful. Guy knew that his own was full of 
 hatred. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 225 
 
 "Yes," Spence said, slowly, "I think he's 
 dying." 
 
 *'Then why should I go up? What good 
 would it do ? A little while longer, and there 
 will be no need for me to go up at all." He 
 was silent for a moment. "He will be dead 
 — and I need never go up," he added at last, 
 almost to himself. 
 
 Spence drew back a little. His wistful old face 
 looked startled, incredulous. He remembered 
 Lady Francheville — her patience, her silent 
 heroism. He told himself, with an effort, that 
 this was her son. 
 
 " Master Guy — you wouldn't leave him to die 
 there alone ? " 
 
 Guy kept his eyes fixed on the point of his pen. 
 
 " You go up to him — he is not alone." 
 
 "I am not of his own blood. You are his 
 brother." 
 
 With a sudden, almost violent movement Guy 
 flung the pen from him and looked up. 
 
 " I ? I his brother ? I hate him ? " 
 
 He stood up, towering over the bent, fragile 
 figure of the old servant — the timid, silent, in- 
 significant old man whose splendid loyalty and 
 devotion had stood the test of horror and pity 
 unutterable. 
 
226 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "Spence, I can't go," he said, more gently. 
 "I dare not go. Does it matter so much? A 
 Httle while longer, and you will be free^ — we 
 shall both be free. Do what you can for him, 
 but don't ask me to go near him. I know how 
 faithful you have been — I thank you from the 
 bottom of my heart. But put up with it a little 
 longer, and then you shall have your reward. 
 It can't be for long." 
 
 Spence was silent. The habit of years was 
 strong upon him. He had always obeyed 
 orders, he had always served the Hilmours; it 
 was not possible that now, at the end of his 
 long service, he should dare to disobey, or 
 venture to criticise disrespectfully the conduct of 
 any member of the family he had served so well. 
 But he thought of Lady Francheville, and a 
 great sadness seized him — a sadness thkt held a 
 sort of shame. He did not tell himself, even in 
 his heart, that Guy was a coward. That, too, 
 would have been disrespectful and impossible; 
 but his grey, mouselike head drooped lower 
 still, and a hopeless, bewildered look came into 
 his eyes. 
 
 "It can't be for long?" he said, almost 
 questioningly. "No, sir, I feel it can't be for 
 long. One isn't called to bear more than one's 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 227 
 
 strength is equal to — and mine's nearly done 
 ■—mine's nearly done." 
 
 The last words died away almost in a whisper, 
 and he turned and went out, slowly, noiselessly 
 — perhaps hopelessly. And yet in what he had 
 said there had been hope — the hope of release. 
 Guy had heard it — its echo hung still in his 
 ears. Yes — release was in sight. The shadow 
 of the Unseen Thing was about to pass from 
 his life for ever. For him there was to be 
 release from the horror which he feared; and 
 for the horror itself — for that strange and 
 dreadful existence, that life in death which 
 dwelt in the secret chamber of Mon Paradis — 
 there was to be — what? Deliverance, perhaps 
 — yes, surely, deliverance; the escape of the 
 tortured and distorted soul from the tortured 
 and distorted body ; escape from madness, from 
 terror, from the wild longing for freedom which 
 he had heard in the awful voice behind the 
 barred and bolted door. 
 
 As he sat there, thinking, he almost forgot to 
 hate the Unseen Thing. He only remembered 
 that it, too, had suffered, as those around it 
 had suffered. He only thought of the peace 
 which was to end its suffering, the joy of its 
 escape — whither? He could not tell. Perhaps 
 
21 8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 choly note of congratulation which Toto de 
 Mauxville wrote her. 
 
 " He wouldn't have married me himself," she 
 said. " He needn't be so heartbroken. 1 was 
 only pour rire." 
 
 "But you wouldn't hare married him, if he 
 had asked you ? " Guy put in, with a twinge of 
 jealousy. 
 
 " To get away from paja,? Oh yes, I would." 
 
 " Nina," Guy said sternly, " I hope you're 
 not marrying me to get away from Standish. 
 You are the most extraordinary girl I ever met. 
 Do you care for me at all ? Sometimes I think 
 you are fonder of Dr Blanco." 
 
 He made the remark several times, and it 
 always seemed to amuse her immensely. 
 
 "But I don't know you half as well as Dr 
 Blanco," she would say, very gravely. "And 
 besides, I'm not sure whether you're really half 
 as nice. And — Guy — you know, however 
 much I liked a human being, I should never like 
 him in the same way that I like things that are 
 not human. You can't trust them." 
 
 « Not trust them ? " 
 
 " Good gracious, no ! You can trust a bird 
 or a beast, but you can't trust human beings. 
 They wouldn't be human if you could." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 219 
 
 Five minutes later she was sitting on the arm 
 of Lord Newtown's chair, eating chocolates with 
 the enjoyment of a child of seven. Guy looked 
 at her, and remembered her flash of cynicism. 
 He wondered whether he should ever understand 
 her. He almost hoped not. And he wondered 
 whether it was because he could not understand 
 her that he was going to marry her. 
 
 One day she met him at the door of the 
 villa with an eager face. 
 
 *' Guy, I want you to do something. I want 
 to see Mon Paradis. The old man says it*J 
 beautiful, and I want to see it— and, Guy, 
 please, I can't wait. Take us all over there for 
 a few days, and let me see it." 
 
 The blow was so sudden that Guy was silent 
 for a moment. She came close to him and put a 
 coaxing hand through his arm, and rubbed against 
 him like a kitten asking for a saueerful of cream. 
 
 " Guy, do, please ! Be a dear, and say yes." 
 
 He looked down at her entreating face. A 
 sudden impulse seized him. He would do as she 
 asked — ^he would go back to Mon Paradis with 
 her, and defy the horror of the Unseen Thing. 
 He had been miserable there — now he would be 
 happy, defiantly happy, under the shadow of 
 the towers which had once seemed to reach 
 
220 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 across the world after him, and blot out, with 
 their darkness, the light of life. 
 
 " Very well," he heard himself saying. « "We 
 will go to Mon Paradis." 
 
 It did not seem quite like his own voice that 
 spoke. Afterwards he remembered that, and 
 wondered whether it had been the voice of 
 Fate — of the wayward, inscrutable destiny 
 which meddles so mischievously with the affairs 
 of men. 
 
 But Nina noticed nothing. She was frankly 
 pleased. 
 
 " How nice of you ! And, Guy, do tell me 
 about it. Why is it called Paradise ? " 
 
 He hesitated for a moment. 
 
 "My father called it Paradise," he said at 
 last. 
 
 " Because he was happy there ? " 
 
 " No. Because he meant to be haj^y there." 
 
 Nina laughed suddenly — an odd little, grating, 
 elfish laugh. 
 
 " And of course he was wretched ever after ! " 
 she said. "That's just what anyone might 
 expect who was silly enough to call his house a 
 Paradise. He'd find he had got hold of the 
 other place, don't you know." 
 
 The shadow of the towers of Mon Paradis 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 221 
 
 seemed to fall upon Guy, in the shabby, familiar 
 hall of the Villa Imperiale. He caught Nina's 
 arm in a grasp that hurt her. She looked up at 
 him with a startled face. 
 
 " Never say that again ! " he said. " You 
 don't know — you don't know ! It was Paradise 
 once — why shouldn't it be Paradise again? 
 Why shouldn't we be happy there? Why 
 should we be afraid?" 
 
 Nina stared at him for an mstant. Then, 
 with another laugh, she twisted herself free. 
 
 *' I don't know what there is to be afraid of. 
 And as for being happy — I'm not expecting to 
 find heaven on earth, anyway." 
 
 He did not answer. She stood still, looking 
 at him. There was a gleam of mockery in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "I strikes me," she remarked, "that you've 
 got a pet devil hidden away somewhere in your 
 Paradise. I'll ferret it out when I get there. 
 It's only fair you should have a pet devil, as 
 I've got a pet raven. Come along now — I want 
 to tell the old man you've invited us all to 
 Paradise." 
 
 She went upstairs three steps at a time. 
 And Guy, calling himself a fool, followed her. 
 
XXI 
 
 Next day Guy went to Mon Paradis — alone. 
 His guests were to follow him twenty-four 
 hours later. Once more he sat in the toy train 
 and was borne slowly and tediously along that 
 lonely, lovely shore ; once more the smart dog- 
 cart carried him swiftly under the languid 
 shadow of the palms. It was a journey of 
 memories. Curiously enough, the memories 
 did not seem painful — the horror had passed 
 away. Even the sight of the lighted window 
 in the tower hardly affected him for more than 
 a moment. He looked at it, and took comfort. 
 The Unseen Thing was so safe up there — 
 the secret chamber was so strong. What 
 had they to do with his life ? Why had he 
 allowed an absurd terror to gain such power 
 over him? 
 
 He felt oddly light-hearted as he gave his 
 orders for the reception of his guests. Then 
 he went to the library to write some necessary 
 letters. He had not been there ten minutes 
 when someone tapped at the door; and Spence, 
 
 22Z 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 223 
 
 small and grey and mouselike, came almost 
 timidly into the room. 
 
 He seemed to have grown very old and frail. 
 Guy started as his eyes fell on him. The 
 likeness to Lord Francheville — to Lady Fran- 
 cheville— the likeness of those who have gazed 
 upon a like terror, and are filled with a like 
 pity and fear — showed more strongly than 
 ever. 
 
 " I'm glad to see you, Spence. Did you 
 want to speak to me ? " 
 
 The old man came up to the desk and stood 
 there, looking at Guy. In his eyes there was 
 a pitiful look, as of a thing driven to the very 
 edge of endurance. His presence filled Guy 
 with extraordinary discomfort. It seemed to 
 bring with it into the great, still library of 
 Mon Paradis another presence — it seemed to 
 Guy, as he sat there, that the Unseen Thing 
 itself stood there before him. 
 
 " Master Guy — you'll go up ? Thank God, 
 you've come back ! You'll go up, sir, at last— =- ? " 
 
 Spence spoke in a breaking whisper, but the 
 words seemed to fill the room. He put out a 
 thin, trembling hand, and laid it on Guy's arm 
 as he sat there leaning back in his chair. 
 
 "It's been awful — awful! Ever since her 
 
224 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 ladyship went. I think he's dying — I think 
 he's fretting for her. Oh, Master Guy — if he 
 should die — if he should be set free! Her 
 ladyship prayed for that — maybe she's praying 
 for that now. And I think her prayer will be 
 granted at last — I think so. I hope so. It 
 can't go on much longer, sir — it's like sitting 
 by and seeing a living soul in hell ! " 
 
 He spoke almost in gasps — the words seemed 
 wrung out of him, seemed, indeed, to torture 
 him as he spoke them. And Guy could not 
 speak, could not answer him. 
 
 " You'll go up, sir — you'll go up ? " 
 
 Guy leaned forward suddenly, and began 
 drawing little patterns with his pen on the 
 blotting pad before him. 
 
 *' You think he's dying ? " he said, in a harsh, 
 dry voice. 
 
 His hand, holding the pen, was quite steady. 
 There was a strange expression in the eyes with 
 which he watched it. Hope was in his heart — 
 an awful hope. He dared not look at Spence. 
 The hope was in Spence's heart too, but he felt 
 that it was not the same. Spence hoped for the 
 deliverance of the Unseen Thing — his hope was 
 merciful. Guy knew that his own was full of 
 hatred. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 225 
 
 "Yes," Spence said, slowly, "I think he's 
 dying." 
 
 *'Then why should I go up? What good 
 would it do ? A little while longer, and there 
 will be no need for me to go up at all." He 
 was silent for a moment. "He will be dead 
 — and I need never go up," he added at last, 
 almost to himself. 
 
 Spence drew back a little. His wistful old face 
 looked startled, incredulous. He remembered 
 Lady Francheville — her patience, her silent 
 heroism. He told himself, with an effort, that 
 this was her son. 
 
 " Master Guy — you wouldn't leave him to die 
 there alone ? " 
 
 Guy kept his eyes fixed on the point of his pen. 
 
 "You go up to him — he is not alone." 
 
 "I am not of his own blood. You are his 
 brother." 
 
 With a sudden, almost violent movement Guy 
 flung the pen from him and looked up. 
 
 " I ? I his brother ? I hate him ? " 
 
 He stood up, towering over the bent, fragile 
 figure of the old servant — the timid, silent, in- 
 significant old man whose splendid loyalty and 
 devotion had stood the test of horror and pity 
 unutterable. 
 
226 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "Spence, I can't go," he said, more gently. 
 "I dare not go. Does it matter so much? A 
 little while longer, and you will be free — we 
 shall both be free. Do what you can for him, 
 but don't ask me to go near him. I know how 
 faithful you have been — I thank you from the 
 bottom of my heart. But put up with it a little 
 longer, and then you shall have your reward. 
 It can't be for long." 
 
 Spence was silent. The habit of years was 
 strong upon him. He had always obeyed 
 orders, he had always served the Hilmours; it 
 was not possible that now, at the end of his 
 long service, he should dare to disobey, or 
 venture to criticise disrespectfully the conduct of 
 any member of the family he had served so well. 
 But he thought of Lady Francheville, and a 
 great sadness seized him — a sadness thkt held a 
 sort of shame. He did not tell himself, even in 
 his heart, that Guy was a coward. That, too, 
 would have been disrespectful and impossible; 
 but his grey, mouselike head drooped lower 
 still, and a hopeless, bewildered look came into 
 his eyes. 
 
 "It can't be for long?" he said, almost 
 questioningly. *'No, sir, I feel it can't be for 
 long. One isn't called to bear more than one's 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 227 
 
 strength is equal to — and mine's nearly done 
 — ^mine's nearly done." 
 
 The last words died away almost in a whisper, 
 and he turned and went out, slowly, noiselessly 
 — perhaps hopelessly. And yet in what he had 
 said there had been hope — the hope of release. 
 Guy had heard it — its echo hung still in his 
 ears. Yes — release was in sight. The shadow 
 of the Unseen Thing was about to pass from 
 his life for ever. For him there was to be 
 release from the horror which he feared; and 
 for the horror itself — for that strange and 
 dreadful existence, that life in death which 
 dwelt in the secret chamber of Mon Paradis — 
 there was to be — what ? Deliverance, perhaps 
 — yes, surely, deliverance; the escape of the 
 tortured and distorted soul from the tortured 
 and distorted body ; escape from madness, from 
 terror, from the wild longing for freedom which 
 he had heard in the awful voice behind the 
 barred and bolted door. 
 
 As he sat there, thinking, he almost forgot to 
 hate the Unseen Thing. He only remembered 
 that it, too, had suffered, as those around it 
 had suffered. He only thought of the peace 
 which was to end its suffering, the joy of its 
 escape — whither? He could not tell. Perhaps 
 
228 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 in some grey region between earth and heaven 
 — some place of blessed silence, of wide, pale 
 spaces, of infinite calm, the soul of the Unseen 
 Thing might find itself at last, no longer 
 tortured and imprisoned by the torture and 
 imprisonment of the flesh — a soul no longer 
 accursed, a thing delivered from the passing 
 dominion of pain and fear into an exquisite 
 eternity of forgetfulness and peace. 
 
 For a long time Guy sat there. He forgot 
 his letters — he forgot that to-morrow would 
 bring Nina, and Lord Newtown, and Standish, 
 the shady and impossible. 
 
 He forgot also the look which had been on 
 Spence's face as he passed with bent head out 
 of the library of Mon Paradis. 
 
xxn 
 
 Nina's arrival changed Mon Paradis, The 
 ghosts which lingered in it — ghosts of the life- 
 long suffering of two people — seemed suddenly 
 to disappear. For twenty-four hours Guy, 
 living in Mon Paradis, forgot the very existence 
 of the Unseen Thing. 
 
 Nina was charmed with everything. She ran 
 up and down the broad staircase down which 
 Guy had seen his mother moving with the lamp 
 in her hand on the night of his first arrival — up 
 which he had followed his father on the night 
 when the secret had been revealed to him; and 
 her footsteps seemed to brush away the memory 
 of those other footsteps, heavy with a burden 
 too hard to bear, which had passed up and 
 down before her. She walked on the terrace, 
 and in the shadow of the palms; and the 
 memories which sheltered there faded away. 
 
 *'It's absolutely beautiful," she told Guy, 
 
 again and again. " Why didn't you tell me how 
 
 beautiful it was ? Why don't you care more for 
 
 it? When we're married, I want to live here." 
 
 229 
 
230 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It's a good way away from everything," 
 Guy said, rather lamely. 
 
 " And is that why you don't like it ? Come, 
 Guy, tell me the secret." 
 
 They were in the library at the moment. 
 Through the open windows came the hum of a 
 conversation which Lord Newtown and Standish 
 were carrying on just outside. Nina perched 
 herself on the arm of the chair in which Guy 
 was sitting, and rubbed her cheek caressingly 
 against his shoulder. 
 
 "There is a secret, you know," she said. 
 " I felt it the minute I got inside the front door. 
 It comes over me now and then, and gives me a 
 cold feeling down the back. That's why I love 
 the place so. I like mysteries, and there's a 
 mystery here. I can feel it. And this morning 
 I got hold of that nice groom who drove us over 
 and pumped him — oh, absolutely dry, my dear ! 
 There's a light that never goes out in one of 
 the towers, and no one can find that particular 
 tower, however hard they try. He never tried 
 himself, because he has known other servants 
 who did — rand Spence always found out, he says, 
 and had them dismissed. Not very nice of 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 231 
 
 Spence, I think. Now, Guy, you are not to 
 get rid of that nice young man because he 
 talked to me — do you hear? And tell me 
 what's in the tower." 
 
 Guy sat up suddenly. 
 
 "There is nothing in the tower," he said curtly. 
 
 " Oh, Guy, how can you ? And you always 
 scold me so if I tell the very least little fib ! Is 
 it alive ? " 
 
 **I cannot answer any questions about the 
 tower, Nina." 
 
 "I knew it!" she cried triumphantly. "I 
 knew there was something. I shall worry it 
 out, if I have to pull Mon Paradis about my 
 ears to do it, so I give you fair warning. I've 
 heard of family secrets so often — ^I never thought 
 I should have the luck to marry one, though. 
 It's positively delightful ! " 
 
 " Delightful ! " Guy said. He looked at her 
 radiant, laughing face. If she knew — would she 
 be brave, as he could not be? If she knew, 
 what difference would it make ? Would she 
 marry him still, or would she flee from Mon 
 Paradis and all connected with it in horror, as 
 he felt he would do, in her place ? And, if she 
 did — if he lost her — what was left to him, 
 abandoned to the terror of the ynseen Thing ? 
 
232 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "Nina," he said gravely, "if you wish me 
 to believe that you care for me at all you must 
 promise that never, as long as you live, will you 
 question me again about the lighted window in 
 the tower. I was wrong to lie to you just now 
 — I beg your pardon for doing so. If you knew 
 all, you would understand the impulse which 
 made me lie to you. But you must not try to 
 discover the secret, as you call it — it isn't the 
 sort of mystery you can discover — it isn't a joke, 
 but something very sad and terrible. It has 
 been an awful grief to my father and mother — 
 it has almost driven me out of my mind, since I 
 knew it. I tell you this to keep you from doing 
 anything foolish. We will never speak of it 
 again, but I had to say this, and I ask you not 
 to joke about it, and never to speak of it any 
 more." 
 
 She looked at him curiously. The laughter 
 had faded from her face. She hung her head, 
 like a frightened child. 
 
 " Guy ! There is really something — some- 
 thing terrible. I am sorry I asked you — I didn't 
 mean to be unkind, or to hurt you." 
 
 Her penitence was charming. For five minutes 
 Guy found it enchanting. Then he remembered 
 that she had not promised. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 233 
 
 " And you won't try to find out ? " he said, 
 very gently. 
 
 Suddenly he felt her shiver ; and he felt for 
 a moment as though she was slipping from him 
 — escaping into the great world, or into space, 
 and leaving him alone with the terror of the 
 lighted tower. He had a moment of panic. 
 
 "Nina — it doesn't make any difference — ^it 
 can't make any difference ! What's the matter ? " 
 
 She slipped off the arm of the chair, and 
 eluded his grasp. For a moment she stood 
 before him, looking at him. He could not read 
 her face ; but he thought she shrank from him 
 a little, as though something frightened her: 
 he thought there was a shadow of fear — or was 
 it repulsion ? — ^in her eyes. 
 
 "I told you a lie too just now," she said, 
 slowly. "I said I loved mysteries, and family 
 secrets. I don't — ^I hate them. There is one 
 in my father's family — ^I haven't been able to 
 
 sleep sometimes for thinking I heard ** She 
 
 broke off, trembling violently. " I said that to 
 make you tell me, and it was mean of me. And 
 I'll never ask you about it again, and I will never 
 try to find out what it is." 
 
 Guy felt that he ought to have been satisfied, 
 but, curiously enough, he was not. He felt that 
 
234 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 she, who was so seldom serious, was serious now. 
 And it did not please him. He knew that she 
 too feared the unseen terror — that not from her 
 would he learn to defy it. 
 
 " Don't let me know what it is ! " she said. 
 "I don't want to hear — I hate mysteries. I 
 only want to have a good time, Guy — and there 
 are such horrid things in the world, aren't 
 there ? I hate them, just as I hate a wet day — 
 I was only made for the sun. There — why do 
 you look so solemn ? You might be Dr Blanco 
 himself." 
 
 Guy turned away from her, suddenly sick at 
 heart. Only made for the sun — ah, he knew 
 too well that she was right ! Poor child, what 
 had she to do with the dark things of the world 
 — the unseen things of life that, to such natures 
 as his, mean so terribly much ? And he had 
 trusted in her power to make him forget the 
 secret chamber — he had believed that she could 
 keep the horror at bay by her gaiety — or perhaps 
 by her courage. It did not seem to him unna- 
 tural to look for such courage, even from her. 
 His mother had taught him that women can 
 sometimes be heroic with a heroism which is 
 other than the heroism of men. 
 
 And now— ^t the first hint ot mystery — she 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 235 
 
 recoiled, she put up her tragic, childlike plea. 
 She was only made for the sun ! Well — since 
 his own sanity lay that way — he must keep her 
 there, at all costs. He must keep her outside 
 the shadow which had fallen on his life. He 
 had not known, until then, that he had harboured 
 a faint hope that some day she might come to 
 know — some day she might help to share the 
 burden of his own knowledge. Now that hope, 
 small as it was, died. He knew that she must 
 neyer learn the secret. She must stand always 
 outside the shadow — in the sun. 
 
 Well, in a few days perhaps 
 
 Someone knocked hastily at the door, and 
 entered. It was Frangois — pale and terrified. 
 
 *' Spence — Spence — " he stammered, and 
 then, seeing Nina, stopped. 
 
 «' What about Spence ? " 
 
 "He is ill — ^he is asking for my lord — or for 
 you. We do not know — we think he does not 
 know what he says. He — he is very ill," the 
 man said warningly. 
 
 Guy had become very white. Yes — he might 
 have known Fate would play him this trick. 
 
 " I will come," he said. 
 
 He would not have known that the voice 
 speaking was his own. It had a strange sound, 
 
236 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 He was saying to himself, with an impulse of 
 sudden mad anger against the Fate that pursued 
 him so steadily, " Spence is going to die — Spence 
 is going to die ! " 
 
 The last barrier — Spence ! The last barrier 
 between him and the Unseen Thing ! 
 
xxin 
 
 All through the long, bright, southern day 
 Guy sat watching the final breaking down of 
 that fragile barrier of an old man's life. The 
 others were touched and astonished by his de- 
 votion. Standish murmured incoherent praises 
 of his dear young friend's good heart — Nina 
 was frankly bored by solitude. Guy refused 
 to leave Spence. He was possessed by a vague 
 fear that Spence, at the last, might betray the 
 secret. But he need not have feared. For the 
 greater part of the day the old man lay insensible. 
 The doctor who had been sent for from Cannes 
 gave no hope; and before sunset the barrier 
 had gone down, and Guy was left to realise the 
 fact as best he could. 
 
 He went to his own room. He had not seen 
 the others all day, and now it wanted half-an- 
 hour to dinner-time. He would have to go 
 down, he would have to keep up a show of 
 interest in what was going on — to talk, and eat, 
 and drink — while all the time in his heart he 
 stood face to face with the horror — while his 
 237 
 
238 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 feet, in imagination, bore him up the secret 
 staircase — while in his ears rang the cry of the 
 dreadful Thing, crying, alone now in the world, 
 behind the bolted door. To-night the hour 
 would come — the inexorable hour which he had 
 eluded for so long, which he could elude no 
 more. He felt its grip upon him, like the grip 
 of a tangible hand. 
 
 He was late for dinner. It did not matter, 
 for Lord Newtown, who never postponed a meal 
 for anyone or anything, was not likely to wait 
 for him, as he knew. When he entered the 
 dining-room, however, he found an atmosphere 
 of unusual animation. A tall man, with a face 
 he remembered, was very comfortably installed 
 in the fourth place at the table. 
 
 He looked up as Guy entered, and rose, holding 
 out a cordial hand. " I've taken you unawares, 
 Francheville," he said pleasantly. *«I went to 
 Nice, and thought I would drop in and congratu- 
 late Nina — ^my cousin — ^and found you had all 
 flown here. So I brought the yacht on. I'm 
 off to Africa in a day or two." 
 
 Guy found voice for the usual commonplaces, 
 and sat down. Constantine of Sclavonia was 
 evidently very much at home in Mon Paradis. 
 He explained to his silent host that there had 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 239 
 
 been a revolution in Pavlograd. Revolutions 
 occurred there so frequently that it was hardly 
 necessary to mention the fact, but this was a 
 shade more serious than usual. 
 
 *' The Mikhailovitches are in," he said, with a 
 gay shrug. *' A nice time they will have, too — 
 I wish them joy. I shall have six months' liberty 
 before they're turned out and the unanimous 
 voice of my devoted subjects recalls me to the 
 throne of my fathers. It's an excellent oppor- 
 tunity for enjoying myself — the chance of a 
 lifetime. I shall have the holiday of my whole 
 existence. I almost hope the Mikhailovitches 
 may stay in for a year — ^but I suppose that is 
 too much luck to expect." 
 
 "But don't you want to go back and fight 
 them ? " Nina asked him, over the table. 
 
 He glanced at her with a smile across the 
 roses which bloomed so peacefully between 
 them. 
 
 "No, my dear little cousin — I have not the 
 least desire in the world to do anything of the 
 kind. Besides, as a matter of fact, we managed 
 the fighting before we came away. Pavlograd 
 is mostly in ruins — when I go back, I shall make 
 a little Paris of it, and invite you and Franche- 
 ville to come and see it. Bah ! Why do we 
 
240 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 talk of such stupid things as revolutions? I 
 have been in three of them already, and they 
 are not the least amusing." 
 
 "But was nobody killed?" Nina asked, 
 wonderingly. 
 
 Constantine put down the glass he was in the 
 act of raising to his lips. His eyes glittered 
 unpleasantly across the roses. 
 
 "Yes," he said quietly. *' Several people 
 were killed — friends of mine. When I go back, 
 a good many more will be killed — in memory of 
 them." 
 
 He emptied his glass, and a chill seemed to 
 descend on the table. Nina tried to laugh. 
 
 "Perhaps when you go back you will not 
 care — you will forgive those people because you 
 have forgotten your friends." 
 
 Constantine laughed too. 
 
 "In Sclavonia we are still in the Middle 
 Ages," he said lightly. "We have none of 
 the vices of your Western civilisation. We 
 haven't yet learned to forgive — or to forget. 
 We are not modern at all. We love our 
 friends and hate our enemies. Life is a more 
 simple thing in Sclavonia, Nina, than it is in 
 Nice." 
 
 "Life in Nice is hateful ! " Nina cried suddenly. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 241 
 
 Constantine looked at her a little curiously. 
 
 " Is it ? " he said. " That is because you are 
 half Sclavonian ; the vices — I mean the virtues 
 — of civilisation are too young and crude for 
 you. You belong to the old ages of blood and 
 fire — just as I do. The West is too cold for 
 us." 
 
 *'You are talking great nonsense, my dear 
 Prince," Lord Newtown put in. He was at 
 home in all the capitals of Europe, and had 
 known Constantine as a little boy — the 
 naughtiest little boy of his whole acquaint- 
 ance, as he had not scrupled to inform him. 
 *«The old ages were most uncomfortable, and 
 blood and fire are out of date." 
 
 Constantine was looking across at Nina. He 
 had looked at her all the evening, Guy remem- 
 bered afterwards. He remembered too that he 
 had not understood the look. 
 
 "Ah, that is the cynicism of the West — the 
 voice that sighs for nothing but its comforts, 
 the soul that only asks to be at ease," Con- 
 stantine retorted pleasantly. "Blood and fire 
 are no more out of date than human nature, 
 my dear old friend — ^but I don't expect you to 
 admit the fact." 
 
 " I'm glad of it," Lord Newtown said drily. 
 
24a THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " For I certainly should not do it, and then we 
 should quarrel. I'm eighty-four, and you'll 
 perhaps pardon me for saying that I have as 
 little affection for human nature as I have for 
 what you are pleased to term blood and fire," 
 
 Constantine shrugged his shoulders with im- 
 perturbable good humour. 
 
 " I bow to your experience," he said grace- 
 fully. "But for me blood and fire remain 
 the two things that make the world attractive. 
 A vista of cold civilisation — of good dinners and 
 good manners — does not charm me at all. I am 
 merely a barbarian of the Middle Ages — and, 
 frankly, I don't find this century congenial to 
 me. For me, not even a revolution in Pavlograd 
 wholly redeems the grey respectability of life." 
 
 "Is that why you are going to Africa?" 
 Nina asked seriously. 
 
 They all laughed — perhaps none of them 
 quite knew why. And, across the roses of the 
 dinner table, Constantine's eyes rested on the 
 girl's face with an expression half mocking, and 
 half melancholy. 
 
 *• Ah, yes," he said, with a shrug and a sigh, 
 *• perhaps that is why I am going to Africa." 
 
 Guy wondered afterwards how he managed 
 to sit out that dinner. He was thankful for 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 243 
 
 the presence of a stranger, which diverted the 
 general attention from him — thankful that he 
 had merely to hsten to Constantine and Lord 
 Newtown quarrelling peaceably oyer their dinner 
 — thankful, above all, that Nina was more in- 
 terested in Constantine's conversation than in 
 his own silence. 
 
 He was thankful, too, that Constantine took 
 the after-dinner conversation also into his own 
 hands. And, when they rejoined Nina in the 
 great drawing-room which looked upon the sea, 
 he was glad that Constantine went naturally to 
 Nina's side, and relieved him of the necessity 
 of talking to her. 
 
 He remembered afterwards that she was 
 looking wonderfully pretty that night — almost 
 for the first time since he had known her he 
 admitted that she was really pretty. And in 
 her prettiness there was an odd likeness to the 
 man who sat beside her — the man who had 
 kissed her and given her chocolates when she 
 was a child. She had wished to be like him ; 
 perhaps she was more like him than she herself 
 knew. 
 
 "Tell me about Sclavonia," Guy heard her 
 say eagerly. 
 
 Constantine laughed, and looked round. There 
 
244 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 was a piano standing at his elbow. He sat down 
 on the music stool, and was silent for a moment, 
 looking at Nina over his shoulder. 
 
 " Come and sit where I can see you," he said, 
 in a low voice, "and I will tell you stories of 
 Sclavonia — stories of blood and fire ! " 
 
 Nina obeyed him. She drew a chair to the 
 side of the piano, and sat there, with a fascinated 
 look on her face; and Constantine began to 
 sing little Sclavonian folk-songs — wild fragments 
 of barbaric music set to words wilder still. His 
 audience could not understand the words — -it 
 was probably as well they could not ; the music, 
 with its clash of steel, its hurry of flying hoof- 
 beats passing through stormy nights under the 
 black pine forests, was comprehensible enough. 
 It was blood and fire, as Constantine had said ; 
 and he sang it as no one there had ever heard a 
 man sing. His voice carried them away to the 
 dark hills, to storms raging over them, and a 
 stormy people dwelling upon them. 
 
 They never knew how long they sat there 
 listening. Constantine stopped at last, and rose. 
 Through the open windows, in the silence, the 
 splash of oars was clearly audible. It was the 
 boat coming to take him back from Mon Paradis. 
 
 And then a curious thing happened. Nina 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 245 
 
 sprang up from her chair, with a white face and 
 startled eyes. She seemed to be listening to a 
 sound which the others could not hear ; and 
 suddenly she caught Constan tine's arm. 
 
 *' Don't you hear it ? " she said, in a hoarse 
 whisper very unlike her usual tone. *' What is 
 it ? — oh, what is it ? " 
 
 They all stood silent, listening intently. 
 They heard the splash of the oars, the voices 
 of the men who rowed as they came nearer and 
 nearer. Nothing else. 
 
 But Guy, looking at Constantine's face, had 
 a curious impression that he too heard some- 
 thing — something which Nina heard, which the 
 others could not hear. 
 
 He disengaged himself very gently, and took 
 the hand she had laid on his arm and kissed it. 
 
 " I hear nothing," he said, quite quietly. 
 " Good-night, my cousin." 
 
 He nodded to the others without speaking, 
 and went out of the room and Guy followed 
 him. He walked straight down the broad stair- 
 case without speaking. At the bottom he 
 turned and looked at Guy. 
 
 ** What did you hear up there ? " Guy asked 
 bluntly. 
 
 Constantine hesitated for a second. 
 
246 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "It's an old story," he said, almost indif- 
 ferently, "And it's not a pretty one. Nina 
 knows it, evidently. When one of our family 
 hears — that — it means that a member of the 
 household in which we hear it is about to die 
 — or so the tradition goes." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and looked towards 
 the open door, listening. 
 
 " You don't hear a drum beating ? " 
 
 « No." 
 
 Constantine shook hands rather quickly. 
 
 "We call it 'the Drummer of Sclavonsk.* 
 Good-night, Francheville." 
 
XXIV 
 
 It had come at last — the moment from which 
 there was to be no escape. 
 
 Lord Newtown had hobbled off to bed, declaring 
 he had not spent such an agreeable evening for 
 years. Standish had followed the old man's 
 example. Nina had disappeared when Guy 
 returned from bidding good-night to her cousin. 
 And Guy went to the library, and sat down 
 face to face with his fear. 
 
 On the pretence that he had had a headache 
 and had not been able to eat his dinner — which 
 was true enough — he had ordered some food to 
 be left for him on a tray in the library. He sat 
 looking at it now. He told himself that when 
 the house was still, when the servants were 
 safe for the night, he was to carry the contents 
 of that tray up the secret staircase. 
 
 He told himself this again and again. But 
 he did not believe it. 
 
 Once before he had escaped. Fate had 
 intervened at the last moment. Would not 
 Fate be merciful now? 
 847 
 
248 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 He sat and listened for silence to descend 
 upon Men Paradis. He did not know whether 
 he was more impatient for the coming of that 
 silence, or more afraid. He heard the sound of 
 doors being barred and bolted — ^and remembered 
 the barred door in the tower. He heard the 
 sound of departing footsteps on the stairs, and 
 it seemed to him that he heard the sound of his 
 own steps ascending the secret staircase, ringing, 
 with a sharp, unnatural sound, in the little 
 antechamber of stone. 
 
 At last all sounds died away. Mon Paradis 
 was asleep. Only Guy, in the library, kept 
 watch; perhaps, in the lighted tower, the 
 Unseen Thing kept watch too. 
 
 And then, as once before, he made his way 
 up the interminable stairs — through the secret 
 door in the bookshelf filled with pretty trivial 
 volumes which seemed to mock at the thing 
 they helped to hide. As once before, he 
 climbed the little hidden stairway, and stood 
 at last in the antechamber. Once again he saw 
 the great door with its eloquent bolts and bars, 
 and felt himself on the threshold of the 
 Unseen Thing. 
 
 He stood still, waiting. A moment more, 
 and he would hear the awful voice, crying for 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 249 
 
 the familiar figure of its dead jailer— crying for 
 freedom, as he had heard it cry on the night 
 when his father had all but opened the bolted 
 door. 
 
 He waited. There was no sound. 
 
 Between the narrow walls of stone the 
 silence seemed intense. It began to be more 
 terrible than the sound he waited for had been. 
 What was the meaning of this stillness ? 
 
 Surely the Unseen Thing had heard his 
 approach? Why did it not cry as it had cried 
 before ? 
 
 He waited. He even moved noisily, hoping 
 —or fearing— that the Thing might hear. Per- 
 haps it slept— perhaps. . . . 
 
 He thought of the three other guardians of 
 the secret which now was known only to him. 
 Did they perhaps watch him — were they near 
 him in the thick silence of the little antechamber 
 of stone? Somehow it would have comforted 
 him to think so, but he could not do it. He 
 was alone — alone in the night, alone on the 
 threshold of the thing he feared and hated most 
 on earth. A few inches of wood — a few bars 
 and bolts of iron— -these were now the only 
 barriers left between him and the Unseen 
 Thing. 
 
250 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 And he looked at the bolts — he put out his 
 hand and touched them, even — with a strange 
 sort of wonder, a strange sort of curiosity. He 
 had only to draw them back, and pull open the 
 heavy door. It was quite easy — ridiculously 
 easy. 
 
 It was quite easy — yes. But in his heart he 
 knew that he would not do it. 
 
 The consciousness of that was growing upon 
 him every moment. He stood there, fingering 
 the bolts, but he knew that he did not mean 
 to draw them. He touched the strong wood 
 of the door, and he knew that he did not mean 
 to open it — ever. The consciousness of that lay 
 deep down in his mind, far below the upper 
 surface of thought. With the upper, superficial 
 part of himself he could afford to lie, even at 
 that moment, because he did not dare to be 
 frank. He could say to it, "Another second 
 or two and I will go in." But far down in his 
 heart a voice stronger than that answered and 
 denied what it said. 
 
 Very gradually, as the silence continued un- 
 broken, he began to deceive himself, to play 
 with a hope which he had entertained since his 
 last arrival at Mon Paradis. He had hoped that 
 the Unseen Thing might die before Fate called 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 251 
 
 upon him to open the door. He knew now 
 that he had done more than hope — that he had 
 counted upon that as the solution of his dreadful 
 difficulty. Spence's death, just at the moment 
 when release seemed in sight, had filled him 
 with despair — and fury. It was the last, worst 
 thrust of Fate — it had had the effect of making 
 him desperate where before he had been only 
 fearful — ^it had changed the horrible shrinking 
 from the thing he hated to an obstinate de- 
 termination. Now, looking at the bolted door, 
 hearing no answer to his movements behind it, 
 he began to ask himself whether the release 
 had not come — whether the Unseen Thing had 
 not escaped from its prison for ever ? 
 
 And — ^if it had — ^what need to open the 
 door at all? 
 
 What need, indeed, for he had promised to 
 keep the secret. It would be kept best by 
 leaving the door unopened. No one would ever 
 know what the secret chamber hid — no one 
 would ever suspect what slept in the tower. 
 
 He Ustened for a sound — the faintest sound ; 
 there was none. For a movement, for the 
 smallest stirring of life; there was none. He 
 told himself, with almost terrible relief, that the 
 life which had dwelt there had gone out. The 
 
252 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 mysterious, awful Same of that existence which 
 had been a curse to all around it had flickered 
 out into merciful darkness. 
 
 He remembered the spectral drum which 
 Constantine of Sclavonia had heard, which had 
 meant the death of someone in the household 
 where it was heard. Nina had heard it, as well 
 as Constantine. It had meant — this. This 
 silence, this relief, this ending of a long horror, 
 this blotting out of a life which had been worse 
 than any death. The Unseen Thing was dead. 
 
 He told himself so. If, deep down, the 
 sceptical voice asked whether he was sure, he 
 would not hear it. He was free. He could 
 only think of his freedom. He could only 
 remember that the door of the secret room 
 was shut for ever. And one thought rose in 
 his mind — a thought which filled him with in- 
 finite relief. Nina would never know. He 
 realised now that to keep Nina in ignorance, to 
 keep her gaiety untouched, her careless spirit 
 unbroken by the secret of the tower, he would 
 have done very much — as much, perhaps, as it 
 would have been possible for anyone to do. 
 He could not have borne to lose her. And he 
 felt that, if she had suspected, she would have 
 left him, as he had left Grace — that she hated 
 
THE UNSEEN THING zs3 
 
 mystery and melancholy as he himself hated 
 physical deformity. She would have left him, 
 if she had known — and probably, sooner or later, 
 in spite of all his precautions she would have 
 come to know. He had felt that while she spoke 
 to him in the library. He had felt then that at 
 all costs she must be kept in ignorance. He 
 shuddered now, in the midst of his great relief, as 
 he realised how terrible the cost might have been. 
 
 But now all was safe, for she would never 
 know. 
 
 He told himself so again — the thought of 
 this safety was inexpressibly sweet to him. He 
 told himself that the Unseen Thing was dead — 
 he could not repeat that often enough. 
 
 He waited still. He would not go away in 
 haste. He listened while the moments went by. 
 They might have been hours — he did not know 
 how long he stood there. 
 
 Then, slowly, with a deliberate leisureliness, 
 he retreated, as an army retreats in good order 
 before an enemy. He listened still as he went 
 down the little staircase. It was for the last 
 time — ^he told himself that he would never listen 
 for anything again on those steps which Lady 
 Francheville had trodden so often, up which 
 Spence, the faithful, the heroic, had passed 
 
254 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 with a heavy heart to his dreadful task. 
 Even as he passed through the door in the 
 bookshelf, he listened; but he could hear 
 nothing. 
 
 He reached the library, and set down the 
 untouched tray with a hand which suddenly 
 began to shake so violently that the glass and 
 china rattled as though moved by an earthquake. 
 His teeth were chattering as though with deadly 
 cold. He poured himself out half a tumblerful 
 of brandy, and drank it, neat, at a gulp. It 
 pulled him together for the moment, but he 
 realised that he was on the verge of a nervous 
 breakdown of the worst description. He felt 
 that he could hardly command his reason. He 
 had collapsed, as one often does, when the long 
 strain of expectation had been removed — he had 
 fallen almost in the moment of victory. 
 
 And, as he stood there, unstrung, trembling, 
 hardly, perhaps, in the possession of entire 
 sanity, an awful thought shot, like lightning, 
 across his brain. What if, after all, he were 
 wrong ? What if the Unseen Thing were not 
 dead ? What if he should hear a sound which 
 would oblige him to go up again — to open the 
 door? . . . 
 
 He had kept, before, some measure of control 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 255 
 
 over himself, over the horror which had been 
 with him for so long; but now, in an instant, 
 the control broke down utterly. As once 
 before, hatred rose in his heart — hatred and 
 fear triumphant, and not to be withstood. And 
 he knew that he would not go up, if he knew 
 the Unseen Thing alive — that he would leave 
 it, in cold blood, to die rather than look upon 
 its face. 
 
 There was a bell connecting the library with 
 the servants' sleeping quarters. He went to it 
 and rang. He passed a hanging mirror on his 
 way, and stopped and looked at his own face 
 there as though it had been that of a stranger. 
 It looked old, and haggard — it might indeed 
 have been a face he did not know. He re- 
 membered suddenly, as one will remember little, 
 unimportant details at such a time, stories of 
 men whose hair had turned white in a single 
 night — in a single hour; and he wondered 
 stupidly whether the morning would see him 
 too white-headed. 
 
 Presently Francois came, startled at being 
 called at such an hour. 
 
 He looked curiously at his master, but Guy 
 hardly noticed the look. 
 
 "I am going to Nice — now — at once," he 
 
256 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 said. *'Get the dogcart ready as soon as you 
 can, and do not disturb anyone." 
 
 Fran9ois made a gesture of bewilderment. 
 
 " The dogcart ? — to drive to Nice ? " he 
 murmured. 
 
 " No — to drive to Saint-Maure. They must 
 send an engine and a carriage or two down to 
 Fr^jus with me, and I will catch the first train." 
 
 Fran9ois looked as though madness had de- 
 scended upon them both, but it was done. 
 They drove away through the darkness between 
 the long lines of palms. Only once did Guy 
 look back — ^at the lighted tower, the window 
 in which the light never went out ; and he saw, 
 with an extraordinary sensation, that it was 
 lighted no longer. The tower turned a blank, 
 unseeing eye to the radiance of the moonlit 
 sky. 
 
 Frangois saw it too. He started violently, 
 and almost drew up. 
 
 " The light has gone out ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 Guy did not speak for a moment. 
 
 " Yes," he said at last, very quietly. " It has 
 gone out. If you do not make haste, we might 
 as well not have come." 
 
 They drove on, between the black palms. 
 But in a few moments Francois spoke again. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING %$■] 
 
 "I hear something — something crying," he 
 said, in a voice that was low and almost 
 frightened. 
 
 " I hear nothing," Guy said steadily. 
 
 He did not hear anything, it was true; but 
 he felt as though at any moment he might hear 
 the sound he dreaded to hear, and he took the 
 reins suddenly from Francois, and lashed the 
 horse savagely with the whip. 
 
 They passed flying through the black shadows 
 — flying, as though from something which 
 pursued them; and the ooise of their flight 
 drowned that other noise of which Frangois had 
 spokea — ^the sound of crying which he had 
 thought he heard, but which Guy could not 
 hear. 
 
XXV 
 
 For three days Guy remained at Nice, unable 
 to return, unable to face the possibility which 
 had driven him from Mon Paradis like a thief 
 in the night. He wrote a thousand apologies 
 to Nina. Business over which he had no 
 control had called him from her — he invented 
 lies with the glibness of desperation. She took 
 no notice of his excuses; and Lord Newtown 
 condescended to write two lines, stating that 
 the party was getting on remarkably well with- 
 out its host. 
 
 But on the fourth day, to Guy at his hotel, 
 enter Standish — Standish no longer jubilant and 
 shameless, but nervous, wild-eyed — a wreck, a 
 ghost, Guy, preparing to greet him with the 
 usual commonplaces, was struck with his singu- 
 lar appearance, and looked at him inquiringly; 
 and Standish, throwing away the remnants of 
 his self-control, cast himself into a chair with 
 something very like a wail. 
 
 " Oh, my dear young friend — oh, devil take 
 the pair of them!" he cried. "After your 
 
 258 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 259 
 
 princely generosity — ah, I always felt a disposi- 
 tion like yours was bound to be bitterly disillu- 
 sioned — it's so like my own. The same thing 
 has happened to me always — as I have so often 
 told you, my poor boy, I never did a man 
 a good turn yet but he offered to kick me 
 down ^" 
 
 " What has happened ? " Guy cut in. 
 
 Standish looked feebly about him. 
 
 *' A B. and S., dear boy, before I say another 
 word. Ah, but I haven't the heart to tell 
 you " 
 
 It was only too obvious that, whatever Standish 
 might need at that moment, it was not — or at 
 least ought not to have been — a brandy and 
 soda. Guy took no notice of his appeal. 
 
 " Will you kindly tell me what is the matter ? 
 Is Nina ill?" 
 
 " 111 ? Lord, no — she'll live to be a hundred, 
 like her mother before her ! " Standish cried, 
 with magnificent disregard for facts. "She'll 
 live to disgrace the name I gave her because 
 she hadn't a decent one of her own, like that 
 
 beast Eugenie ^" and he burst into hideous 
 
 accusations against the late Madame Cabard^s, 
 which, at any other time, would have turned his 
 hearer sick. But Guy hardly heard what he said. 
 
26o THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "What has happened?" He took Standish 
 by the shoulder and all but shook him. " Tell 
 me — tell me at once." 
 
 Standish pulled himself together, and pro- 
 duced a couple of notes, which he handed to 
 Guy with a hang-dog air. 
 
 "It's not my fault, Francheville — 'pon my 
 word of honour, it's not my fault. I always 
 liked you. Devil take it, I don't know what I 
 owe you, and now I shall have to pay up ! " he 
 murmured in conclusion. 
 
 Guy did not hear. He had opened the first 
 note, and was reading it, with a sensation of 
 entire stupefaction. 
 
 " Dear Guy," Nina wrote, in a round, rather 
 childish hand, "I didn't answer your letters 
 because I was rather glad you were away, as I 
 had found out something. Guy, I don't know 
 how to put what I want to say, and perhaps 
 it doesn't matter if I put it badly, because, 
 however nicely I put it, you couldn't be expected 
 to like it. Only I don't want you to think 
 me an absolutely ungrateful wretch, because 
 I'm not that. You have been very good and 
 kind to me, and I thank you for it — you're the 
 only man I ever met, except your grandfathei^ 
 
THE UNSEEN THING a6i 
 
 who wasn't shady, and well — perhaps, you're 
 the only man who isn't shady that I ever shall 
 meet now — I don't know. And you were good 
 to me — ^you treated me as though I had been 
 that girl you were engaged to before — your 
 cousin. Lady Meyringer. You never behaved 
 as though you remembered poor maman — I shall 
 always, always like you for that. 
 
 " Oh, I wish I hadn't got to hurt you — do, do 
 believe it hurts me to hurt you, Guy, for it dbes 
 — most awfully. 
 
 "You remember I told you, the first time 
 I ever saw you, that I wanted to be like 
 Constantine — that I had seen him when I was a 
 child, and that I liked him. I think now I must 
 always have liked him, from the very first. I 
 had thought of him often, and when I saw him 
 the other day — I suppose you know now what 
 I am going to tell you. I was very fond of you 
 — ^and I am now — and I would like to have 
 married you and not been shady any more, so 
 that people couldn't cut me, or make love to me 
 in the sort of way papa's friends did, because 
 of my mother; and now I suppose people will 
 always cut me, and I shall always be shady, just 
 like poor maman. Perhaps it's because of her 
 that I can't help doing what I am going to do. 
 
262 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " I am going to Africa with Constantine, and 
 you must forget me as soon as you can; but 
 I shall not forget you, I shall always be grateful 
 to you, and sorry I had to hurt you. I am very, 
 very sorry, but I love Constantine, and I never 
 did love you — I don't think I ever pretended to. 
 And it's much better to find it out now than 
 when I should have had to run away and give 
 you the bother of a divorce. 
 
 *' I don't think I have put it very nicely, but 
 you see what I mean, and I hope some day you 
 will forgive me, and I am — though I don't 
 suppose you will believe it — Yours affectionately, 
 
 « Nina. 
 
 *' P.S. — Constantine is writing to offer to fight 
 a duel with you, if you like, though I tell him 
 Englishmen don't do such things. He only 
 laughs, and asks if the men in England are 
 sheep? But I say they are not really inter- 
 ested in anything but Golf and the Fiscal 
 Question, and only object to their wives being 
 run away with when they can claim nice big 
 damages — and I'm not your wife, and you won't 
 care. 
 
 « P.S.S.—l have left Dr Blanco at Mon Para- 
 dis because he is always so seasick, poor dear. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 263 
 
 Will you please keep him until we come back, 
 and I can send for him ? He likes a bath every 
 day, and please see that he has chicken on 
 Sunday, and no mice.^* 
 
 Guy read this amazing epistle to the end in 
 silence. Then he opened the second note. It 
 was brief and to the point — Constantine would 
 be pleased to give him any satisfaction he might 
 think proper, with any weapons, and at any 
 place he might name. The Prince (in exile) of 
 Sclavonia was a gentleman, a:fter the fashion of 
 the Middle Ages — he took what he wanted, it 
 is true, but he had no objection to paying for 
 it, if necessary with his life. 
 
 Guy laid the letters down. Standish was 
 rubbing his eyes with a large and extremely 
 white pocket handkerchief, and cursing softly 
 to himself. He looked up at the rustle of 
 paper. 
 
 *'The heartless minx ! My heart bleeds for 
 you, my poor boy. Ah, I've a feeling disposi- 
 tion — ^very feeling — my worst enemies couldn't 
 deny it. . . . Now, you won't be wanting 
 the cash you so kindly obliged me with yet, 
 my dear young friend, will you ? The marriage 
 not taking place will be a great saving to you — - 
 
264 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 you won't be wanting the few pounds you lent 
 me, I'm sure ? " 
 
 And at that Guy's nerves gave way. He 
 saw himself flying by night from Mon Paradis 
 rather than face the secret chamber, rather than 
 lose Nina— he heard the cry which had pursued 
 the dogcart in its flight — he thought of the 
 Unseen Thing in its tower-— alive, or dead ? he 
 did not know which. And here, amid the 
 ruins of the safety he had thought so secure, 
 the happiness he had sinned so terribly to win, 
 he saw Standish sitting wheedling him not to 
 press him for his loan, on the plea that he 
 would be saved a de^ of expense by the 
 breaking-oiF of the marriage. 
 
 He sat down opposite Standish, and began 
 to laugh ; and when he had begun to laugh he 
 found that he could not leave off. He laughed 
 until he shook in his chair — wild peals of 
 hysterical laughter which frightened Standish. 
 He laughed until the tears ran down his face, 
 and he felt helpless and sick — ^and still he 
 could not leave off. It was the hand of Fate 
 again-— but Fate, that tragic figure, had chosen 
 to appear for once in Carnival garb, scatter- 
 ing flowers, and blinding her enemies with 
 confetti. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 265 
 
 For Guy, at that mcMnent, the confetti shut 
 out everything. He had failed everywhere — 
 he knew it even as he laughed. 
 
 But Fate herself could not have stopped his 
 laughter. 
 
IV. IT COMES AGAIN 
 
IV. IT COMES AGAIN 
 
 XXVI 
 
 " So he has come back at last," Grace said. 
 
 She spoke to Julian Strange. They were 
 sitting in the gorgeous and expensively decorated 
 apartment which she called her boudoir, in 
 Meyringer's gorgeous and expensive house in 
 "Windsor Gate. Everything about Meyringer 
 was gorgeous and expensive. Money was his 
 one claim to the attention of a class to which he 
 did not and could never belong, and he knew 
 it. Money had purchased for him his present 
 not unenviable position in the world; money 
 had purchased for him the consideration of men 
 and women who, but for his millions, would not 
 have received him in their servants' hall ; money 
 had purchased for him the woman who now sat 
 pouring out tea for Julian Strange. He was a 
 shrewd man and he knew that too. Perhaps he 
 was proud of the knowledge, as he was proud 
 of the house in Windsor Gate and all his other 
 possessions. He had bought Grace, and he 
 269 
 
270 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 knew it, and she was perfectly well aware that 
 he did. Perhaps it sometimes occurred to him 
 that there are bargains in the market of life 
 which are dirt cheap, but for which one occasion- 
 ally pays too dear. 
 
 " Yes, he has come back." 
 
 "And Hilmour House is open again, and he 
 is going to entertain us all royally," Grace said, 
 in a tone of careful lightness. " I am wondering 
 whether he means to call upon — ^us. I have not 
 
 seen him for ages, not since " She broke oiF, 
 
 holding out her hand for Julian's cup, which was 
 full. *' Some more tea ? " 
 
 *' No, thanks. May I take another lump of 
 sugar? Thank you." He stirred his tea 
 absently, and looked at Grace's unmoved face. 
 He was thinking that she had never seen Guy 
 since the morning of her accident. "He will 
 certainly come and see you, I should think." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders slightly and 
 laughed. There was a hard note in her laughter. 
 There was a hard look on her face. She had 
 made the best thing of the life which was left to 
 her; in spite of her lameness she had married 
 the greatest catch of the season ; in spite of the 
 unfortunate incident with Guy she had, as an 
 admiring American acquaintance said of her, 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 271 
 
 cc 
 
 got right there." Her world owned, with 
 grudging admiration, that she had pluck — de- 
 cidedly she had pluck — the stolid, stupid British 
 pluck which declines to know when it is beaten. 
 For she had been beaten badly — as badly as 
 anyone could be beaten and yet survive — and 
 yet she had gone on, she had not given in — she 
 had " got right there." 
 
 But to Julian, as he sat sipping his tea, the 
 condition of having got there did not seem 
 enviable. 
 
 She laughed without meeting his eyes. 
 
 *' How can one tell what Guy will do ? He 
 has mastered the art of being unexpected. One 
 can't count on him. Who would have supposed 
 that he would take up with that Miss Standish ? 
 He has always done these things. The Hilmours 
 have always been queer." 
 
 She spoke lightly, callously. She was playing 
 a part, and playing it well. Day after day she 
 had sat and listened, with a sick terror, for Guy's 
 step on the stair, for the announcement of his 
 name. She had talked and laughed and amused 
 herself after the fashion of her kind and all the 
 time she was listening, and dreading the very 
 sound she listened for. Guy would come, and 
 she would receive him. He would take his 
 
272 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 plax;e once more in her life — a place very 
 different to that which he had occupied before. 
 She would see him and talk to him and say the 
 usual polite nothings— in JosepL Meyringer's 
 house, perhaps with Joseph Meyriager looking 
 on. And Joseph Meyringer's keen eyes would 
 see nothing, though he knew the story of her 
 engagement to Guy and its sudden termination. 
 She was determined that he should see nothing. 
 
 A card was brought to her. She took it and 
 looked at it with almost unnatural calm. 
 
 " Yes — up here," she said to the servant who 
 had brought it. As the door closed she turned 
 to Julian. 
 
 " It is Guy," she said. 
 
 Fate was kind to her — Joseph Meyringer 
 would not look on. 
 
 Guy came in quickly. There was an alert- 
 ness about his movements, a feverish activity, 
 which drew Julian's eye to him curiously. He 
 spoke quickly and nervously, and as he spoke 
 he glanced back over his shoulder in a fashion 
 that did not escape Julian ; and there was a grey 
 look on his face — ^the grey look of a man who 
 is fighting something which he knows will get 
 him under before long. 
 
 He drank tea, and talked commonplaces. Yes, 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 273 
 
 he meant to make some stay in England. Hil- 
 mour House was open again. It had been shut 
 up too much in his father's time — ^he meant to 
 alter all that, he meant to entertain. 
 
 *' And where have you been ? " Julian asked. 
 
 He had been in many places, it seemed, but 
 nowhere had he stayed long. A week here, 
 a few days there. Paris — Vienna — St Peters- 
 burg ; and then, after the known, the unknown. 
 He had explored the solitary places, and they 
 had held him no longer than the cities. 
 
 "You seem to have been understudying the 
 Wandering Jew," Julian told him. 
 
 Guy went on talking. Yes, he tired of places 
 very soon. 
 
 *' And when you tire of London — ? " Grace 
 said suddenly. 
 
 Once more he looked hurriedly over his 
 shoulder; and then his eyes met hers fairly. 
 There was an expression in them which startled 
 her — ^which made her, for the moment, hold 
 her breath. 
 
 "When I tire of London,'* he said slowly, 
 " there will only be one place more to — to go 
 to." 
 
 For a moment no one answered. It was a 
 simple speech enough — it might mean anything 
 
274 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 or nothing; but for some reason it chilled his 
 hearers — they could not have told why. 
 
 "Ah, there's always Mon Paradis," Julian 
 remarked. 
 
 Guy was sitting facing the door. His eyes 
 fixed themselves upon it as Julian spoke, with 
 a long, frightened gaze ; his grey face grew a 
 shade greyer. And it seemed to them that he 
 was listening to some sound which they could 
 not hear — some sound which filled him with 
 shuddering horror. 
 
 So strong was the impression produced upon 
 them that Grace turned in her chair and looked 
 at the door too. 
 
 "What is the matter?" she said. "What 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 Her voice roused Guy. He turned towards 
 her, very slowly. The hunted look went out of 
 his eyes — but not before she had seen it there. 
 
 " I thought I heard something at the door," 
 he said. " A dog, perhaps — a dog trying to get 
 in. I thought I heard it — whine." 
 
 Grace bent suddenly over the tea-table. 
 
 "It was probably Sir Joseph's fox-terrier," 
 she said. 
 
 Never in his life had that well-trained animal 
 dreamed of scratching at the boudoir door ; he 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 275 
 
 would as soon have thought of scratching at the 
 gates of Buckingham Palace : but Guy did not 
 know that, and was obviously relieved. And 
 Grace wondered why he had wished to think 
 that he heard a dog whining at the door. 
 
 *' Ah, most likely it was," he said more comfort- 
 ably. " My — my nerves are not very good. I 
 often think I hear things." 
 
 They talked of other things. Presently Julian 
 went away, leaving them alone. Grace had in vain 
 tried to detain him, on every pretext she could 
 imagine ; and, when he had gone, Guy showed 
 no signs of intending to follow him. He sat on 
 in the room which was beginning to get dark. 
 He made curt answers to Grace's nervous conver- 
 sation. 
 
 At last he rose to go. Grace, infinitely 
 relieved, moved to the bell, and touched it. As 
 she turned to come back to him, she remembered 
 her lameness, remembered his horror of it. She 
 was not very lame now — the specialist had exag- 
 gerated a little, as specialists occasionally do. 
 But she felt suddenly a burning consciousness 
 of her defect, and of Guy's hatred of any form 
 of deformity, and stopped half way towards him, 
 awkward and trembling. 
 
 It was getting very dark — too dark to see 
 
276 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 ■Guy's face clearly. Too dark, she reflected with 
 relief, for him to see hers. And, out of the 
 gloom "which had fallen upon the gorgeous 
 boudoir which Sir Joseph's millions, and Sir 
 Joseph's bad taste, had prepared for the occupation 
 of his wife, she heard Guy's voice, speaking with 
 a sort of intensity which she had never heard in 
 it before. 
 
 " Grace — may I come here again ? " 
 
 'She was so much amazed that she could not 
 answer. She stood trying to see his face in the 
 glooiQ, trying to understand. He misunderstood 
 her silence and went on. 
 
 " I know I haven't the right to ask — I know it 
 would be no more than just if you refused to see 
 me, to speak to me. I treated you vilely. But 
 I have been punished." He stopped, shudder- 
 ing. "Ah, you don't know how I have been 
 punished ! . . . Grace, I have been in hell — 
 don't thrust me down again — give me a hand 
 to get out ! " 
 
 His voice quivered with an agony which 
 seemed to bite Uke flame into her soul. If she 
 had ever deceived herself about her feeling for 
 him, she knew the truth at that moment. She 
 had hated him — she had owned it to herself 
 quite frankly; but all the time she had loved 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 277 
 
 him too; and when he spoke she knew that 
 the love was stronger than the hatred had 
 been. 
 
 ** Oh, Guy, don't speak like that — you hurt 
 me so. Of course you can come here if you 
 like. Only — ^I didn't know you would care to 
 — ^you see I am lame still — I shall always be 
 lame. And you " 
 
 In the gloom she saw him make a quick 
 gesture of protest, of denial. 
 
 "I was afraid of you once, wasn't I?" he 
 said. "I ran away. Grace, I tell you I have 
 been punished — -justly and fearfully punished. 
 And now I don't see your lameness — ^I don't 
 see the deformity of others. I see only my 
 own. The deformity of the body is nothing — 
 it doesn't matter, it doesn't even seem to exist 
 to me any more. It's the deformity of the soul 
 that is terrible — the unseen thing one carries 
 with one, from which one can't escape. One 
 can run away from the deformity of the body — 
 one can shut one's eyes, and refuse to see. 
 That's what I did — and I have been punished. 
 It's not the thing one sees that is terrible — it's 
 the tiring one doesn't see — the unseen thing 
 that lies beyond the door." 
 
 He was silent for a moment; and again she 
 
278 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 had that strange impression that he was listening 
 for a sound she could not hear. 
 
 Then he came close to her and looked in her 
 face. 
 
 "I don't see your lameness," he said in a 
 low voice. " I see only my own soul." 
 
 Without another word he went out and left 
 her there, breathless, in the darkened room. 
 
xxvn 
 
 HiLMouR House was open indeed. For the 
 next few weeks its great doors seemed never 
 closed — there was no limit to Guy's hospitality. 
 People who had known his father and mother 
 declared, with emphasis, that you never could 
 tell what a Hilmour would do next; they 
 always went from one extreme to the other. 
 Lord and Lady Francheville had been hermits; 
 Guy was — but they did not, in their most 
 imaginative and expansive moments, say pre- 
 cisely what Guy was. They contented them- 
 selves with hinting vaguely that he was " going 
 the pace." 
 
 " What's the Hilmour House skeleton ? " one 
 inquiring soul asked Julian one day. "Drink, 
 or morphia — eh. Strange ? Or both, perhaps ? " 
 
 ** Or neither," Julian answered coldly. 
 
 *'Oh, come. Strange — don't ask a fellar to 
 believe that. Constitution ain't strong enough 
 for it, these days. Too much of a strain, don't 
 you know. Why, man, you know there's a 
 screw loose." 
 279 
 
28o THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " I know nothing about it," Julian retorted, 
 with disgust. 
 
 But after a few weeks he found, to his 
 dismay, that this was the general verdict. It 
 was not always put in the same crude way. 
 Fond mothers of lorely daughters sought him 
 out in comers and endeavoured to pump him on 
 the subject of dear Lord Francheville. Such a 
 delightful young man ! Such a beautiful house 
 to go to — did things so well, didn't he ? And 
 now, dear Mr Strange, do tell me why everyone 
 says such funny things about your charming 
 cousin — in the very strictest confidence, of 
 course. Oh yes — wouldn't breathe a word of 
 anything — certainly not. Nothing so terrible 
 as gossip — ^no, indeed not! But was it true 
 that last Thursday, at dinner, he jumped up 
 from the table and said that something was just 
 outside the door, and begged the footman not 
 to let it get at him — and then tried to turn it 
 off as a joke ? Of course it wasn't a joke — buit 
 what was it ? 
 
 What was it? Julian heard that question 
 very often with regard to Guy. There was 
 nothing definite to go upon — a rumour here, 
 a hint there. But the burden was always the 
 same — what was it? There was something — 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 281 
 
 of that everyone seemed certain; but no one 
 knew what it was. One or two began to shake 
 their heads and talk of eccentricity in the tone 
 which always means a good deal more. Lord 
 Newtown's mother had lived for years after she 
 was reputed dead — ^lived in an apparently unused 
 wing of Hihnour House, occupying herself in 
 the innocent pursuit of nursing a rag doll. At 
 least, so it was said. The story, forgotten for 
 years, was revived, and had quite a success in 
 certain circles much frequented by Guy. And 
 L(»-d Francheville had spent so much time at 
 Mon Paradis for some reason — you might 
 depend on that, said those clever people who 
 always know their neighbour's business better 
 than their own. And when he came to London 
 he looked like a perambulating spectre — oh, 
 there was something queer there, without 
 doubt. And now Guy — ^well, there was some- 
 thing about Guy. There had been something 
 odd about the termination of his engagement 
 to the present Lady Meyringer; there was 
 something odd now. The story of his joke at 
 the dinner-table was quite true ; So-and-so had 
 been there and vouched for it. And it had not 
 been a joke — far from it. 
 
 Society, with a capital S, decided that the 
 
38a THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 present Lady Meyringer had had a lucky 
 escape. 
 
 Julian found that the incident of the dinner 
 did not stand alone. A good many stories about 
 Guy were going the rounds. People who did 
 not know him had him pointed out to them by 
 people who did. " Oh — the Lord Francheville ? " 
 those who did not know him always said, with 
 an inquiring accent. Guy had acquired a sort 
 of celebrity — he was the Lord Francheville 
 already. But nobody explained the reason of 
 his fame in so many words. They were too 
 charitable, perhaps — or too cautions. They 
 spoke gaily of family skeletons, of drink, or 
 morphia — all things well known in the highest 
 circles ; but neither drink nor morphia was the 
 family skeleton of Hilmour House, and even 
 while they spoke they were very well aware 
 of it. 
 
 One dear old lady took Julian aside one day 
 and made the only sensible remark he had heard 
 on the subject. 
 
 "Your cousin has something on his mind," 
 she said. " I think, as you seem to be fond of 
 him, you had better find out what it is." 
 
 Julian thought so too ; but he did not know 
 how to go about it. Guy, in these latter days, 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 283 
 
 struck him as rather unapproachable. He was 
 always surrounded with crowds of people, he 
 was always rather ostentatiously gay. Julian 
 did not know that, on days when, calling at 
 Windsor Gate, he was told that her ladyship 
 was out, Guy sat for hours in silence in the 
 gorgeous boudoir, staring at a cup of tea which 
 he did not attempt to drink. In this, his place 
 of refuge, the mask of gaiety which he wore 
 elsewhere fell from him. He gave no explana- 
 tion of his silence, and Grace asked for none. 
 He had asked her to give him a helping hand, 
 and she gave it, and asked no questions. He 
 took refuge with her — the gorgeous boudoir 
 was his place of sanctuary. She divined the 
 fact. She did not know what was the matter 
 with him, but she realised that it was something 
 outside the order of things which submits to 
 ordinary remedies. His friends told him to go 
 to a doctor — a nerve specialist; they came to 
 her and told her he ought to go, but she never 
 answered. She felt that his malady had nothing 
 to do with nerve specialists; she remembered 
 his remark about it being only the deformity of 
 the soul which mattered. Was it his soul which 
 was deformed — maimed by some terrible catas- 
 trophe which left his body unscarred, some 
 
284 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 awful struggle which had cost him more than 
 life? She did not know; all she knew was 
 that she had no inclination to recommend a 
 nerve specialist. 
 
 But she too asked herself the general question 
 — ^what was it? 
 
 She went to Hilmour House, as she went 
 everywhere. She joined in all the gaieties. If 
 she had a sensation of dancing over tombstMies, 
 if the wines and meats of festival had a taste of 
 ashes in her mouth, she never said so. And, 
 behind the gaiety, she seemed to see Guy's soul, 
 laid bare before her for that one little, unfor- 
 getable moment. Guy's soul, twisted, terror- 
 stricken, writhing in the deformity of which be 
 had spoken — the deformity of the unseen, before 
 which that of the seen is as nothing. 
 
 What had he meant ? She who would have 
 given her life to help him did not dare to ask. 
 They were always together — as much together 
 as they had been in the days of their engage- 
 ment. People began to talk of that too. Joseph 
 Meyringer, who had paid for his bargain, and 
 meant to have his money's worth, told her so 
 frankly. 
 
 " You see too much of Francheville," he said 
 to her, with no compunction, if with no anger. 
 
fHE UNSEEN THING 285 
 
 "People are talking. I don't choose to haye 
 my wife talked about; it must stop." 
 
 Grace looked into the fire. 
 
 "Do you mean that I am to refuse to see 
 my own cousin?" she said at last, in a steady 
 voice. 
 
 " He was more than your cousin to you once. 
 He may be more again. You were in love with 
 him not so long ago, and you never cared a 
 straw for me — I know that. You must give 
 him up." 
 
 *' I can't send him away." 
 
 "Then we wiU go to Nice for the winter. 
 He won't come to Nice," Sir Joseph remarked, 
 with an unpleasant smile. 
 
 " And if I refuse to go to Nice ? " 
 
 He swung round on his heel and looked her 
 full in the face. His own was dark and 
 threatening. 
 
 " If you refuse — ? Look here, Grace, I think 
 we had better understand each other. I know 
 it's the fashion, but I'll have no other man 
 playing the fool with my wife — understand that. 
 I married you for my own amusement — ^not for 
 Francheville's. And I've no sentiment, and no 
 mercy. I warn you frankly, don't go too far." 
 
 « What do you mean ? " Grace asked hotly. 
 
286 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " I mean that there is such a thing as divorce," 
 Meyringer answered drily. 
 
 She was very angry. She had always known 
 that Meyringer was not a gentleman, but she 
 had not known before that he was a brute. 
 And the absurdity of suggesting divorce as a 
 consequence of a modern flirtation put him 
 more outside her world than ever, though she 
 was too much annoyed to be amused at the 
 absurdity at the moment. 
 
 " It is you who go too far. When I married 
 you I never gave you the right to insult me. 
 If you were not what you are you would know 
 that a man doesn't threaten his wife with divorce 
 because she flirts — and I am not even flirting 
 with Guy. I can't help what people say, and 
 I shall not go to Nice." 
 
 Somewhat to her surprise he said no more; 
 but she found out that he meant to take her 
 away, in spite of her refusal. People came to 
 her and congratulated her upon the good time 
 she was going to have, and the delightful villa 
 Sir Joseph had rented at Nice. She had to say 
 the usual thing, to smile, to appear to know 
 all about it; she had too much pride to say 
 frankly that her husband had told her nothing 
 of his plans, and that she did not mean to leave 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 287 
 
 London. She knew that she could not refuse 
 to go — that Sir Joseph was not the sort of man 
 to be defied, except in extremity. 
 
 She never spoke to Guy or Julian of her im- 
 pending departure. She did not know whether 
 either knew of it — neither alluded to it in con- 
 versation with her. 
 
 A week before the date fixed for her 
 departure Guy was to give a ball at Hilmour 
 House. She was to go. Sir Joseph was out 
 of town, but he had made no objection to her 
 going. She was to have dined with some 
 friends before going on, but at the last moment 
 her friend had been taken ill, and the dinner 
 had been abandoned. Grace dined at home by 
 herself. Julian was out of town too, or she 
 would have sent for him to enliven her solitude. 
 
 When at last her carriage turned into the 
 gates of Hilmour House she received a shock. 
 The house wore no air of festival. There was 
 surely something wrong — what had happened ? 
 
 A perturbed-looking footman was found to 
 answer her hurried inquiries. He stood at the 
 step of her carriage, obviously uncomfortable, 
 moved by some great shock from his usual 
 dignified calm. The invitations had all been 
 cancelled an hour or two agO: — her ladyship's 
 
288 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 among them. He couldn't say how it was she 
 had never received the intimation that the bail 
 was put off. Mr 'Awkins — the butler, an old 
 retainer of the late Lord FranchevHle — ^had 
 taken upon himself to cancel the invitations ; he 
 had also wired for Mr Strange, but he wasn't 
 sure of the address 
 
 "Can't you say what has happened — ^why 
 the invitations are cancelled?" Grace cried 
 sharply. 
 
 The man fidgeted. Would her ladyship see 
 Mr 'Awkins ? He thought it might be best, as 
 she had not heard 
 
 Grace sprang out of the carriage, and brushed 
 past the pallid footman into the hall. 
 
 ■Send Hawkins to me in the library at 
 
 « 
 
 Hawkins came. He, too, was pallid and per- 
 turbed. He had noticed for some time that his 
 lordship was strange in his manner — that he 
 fancied things which were not as he thought at 
 all. To-night at dinner his manner had been 
 odd. He did not speak, and he kept looking 
 at the door. Her ladyship had perhaps noticed 
 that he had a habit of looking at the door? 
 And after dinner he left his guests and went 
 to the white ballroom to see everything was to 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 289 
 
 his taste before people began to arrive. James, 
 the second footman, was there, and described 
 what happened. He said his lordship was 
 standing near one of the doors, and suddenly he 
 seemed to hear something, to listen intently to 
 some sound which he, James, could not hear. 
 He went grey in the face with fear— it was 
 awful to see him. And he cried out that " it " 
 was coming — that " it " (whatever it was) was 
 outside the door and crying to come in. He 
 was very strange in his manner, and very wild, 
 and James ran out of the ballroom and fetched 
 the butler. 
 
 When they returned they found Lord Fran- 
 cheville in a very excited state, still staring at 
 the door. They tried to reassure him, but in 
 vain. They reminded him of the ball — he did 
 not understand them, or pay any attention ; and 
 at last, to their horror, he whipped out a loaded 
 revolver. 
 
 They tried to get it away from him, but could 
 not. Then it was that Hawkins sent away the 
 guests of the dinner-party — who had fortunately 
 not gone to the ballroom with their host — on a 
 pretext of illness, cancelled the ball invitations, 
 and wired for Julian. He had not liked to send 
 for the doctor until someone came; but Lord 
 
290 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 Francheville was in the ballroom, and James 
 and Samuel were watching him. 
 
 " Have you got the pistol away from him ? " 
 Grace asked. 
 
 No, they had not. He became violent when 
 they tried to get hold of it. 
 
 Grace rose from the chair into which she 
 had thrown herself. 
 
 " Take me to the ballroom — and send James 
 and Samuel away." 
 
 Hawkins, the well-trained and obedient, pro- 
 tested respectfully. Her ladyship did not 
 understand. His lordship was not responsible 
 — had not, in Hawkins' humble opinion, been 
 responsible for some time. It was not the first 
 occasion upon which he had spoken of some- 
 thing crying behind the door. And — this had 
 been kept a profound secret — for some time he 
 had refused to sleep alone. His man had slept 
 in his room, and latterly he had watched nearly 
 all night, by his lordship's express orders. 
 
 " Take me to the ballroom, and get the 
 servants away," was all that Grace said. 
 
 She went. James and Samuel were at one 
 end of the great room, with its decoration of 
 exquisite flowers, its illumination of electric 
 lights. At the other stood Guy, huddled to- 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 291 
 
 gether before the farther door in an attitude 
 of terror-stricken anticipation. Grace saw the 
 pistol in his hand. Then she saw his face and 
 forgot the pistol — and everything else. 
 
 " Go away at once," she said to the two men 
 as she passed them. 
 
 She walked slowly down the great white-and- 
 gold room towards Guy. She was not conscious 
 of any fear, or of any sensation at all except a 
 pity so vast and passionate that it left no room 
 for any lesser feeling. She went up to Guy, 
 and laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 " Won't you go and lie down, Guy, dear ? " 
 she said. *'You are not at all well. There is 
 nothing behind the door — see, I will go and 
 open it and show you " 
 
 She made a movement to go, but he caught 
 her wrist. 
 
 "No, no — don't open the door — don't open 
 the door ! '•' 
 
 The horror in his tone was so intense that 
 she obeyed. And she looked at his face again 
 and was conscious of an extraordinary conviction. 
 Hawkins and the servants thought him mad — 
 she herself, until he spofce to her, and looked at 
 her, had thought him mad. The thought had 
 been inexpressibly dreadful to her, but now it 
 
292 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 was succeeded by one more dreadful still ; for she 
 knew, she was sure, that he was perfectly sane. 
 
 " Don't open the door," he said again. 
 
 His tone was quieter, more collected. He 
 seemed to pull himself together, to make an 
 almost superhuman effort at self-control. 
 
 " I am all right," he said, almost calmly. " I 
 was mad for a moment, but that's over. That's 
 the worst of it — I'm not mad, though they 
 think I am. Grace, I never told you a lie in my 
 life, and I am telling you the truth now. I am 
 perfectly sane — I really heard it just now. 
 That's the worst of it — it's no delusion ; it's the 
 truth." 
 
 " Give me the pistol, dear." 
 
 "If you will promise to give it back to me 
 when I ask for it. You must see I am quite fit 
 to be trusted with it. I sha'n't shoot myself — 
 what is the good of shooting myself? That 
 would only let him in — it would only be going 
 out through the door on the other side of which 
 he is. If death would release me it would be 
 different — I should have some hope left. But 
 there's none — that's the awful part of it. I'm 
 chained — I can't escape, either in this life or the 
 next. I must sit and wait for the door to open 
 and do nothing to stop it." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 293 
 
 He spoke quietly — too quietly. There was 
 something more dreadful in his quietness than 
 in any frenzy. He had probably been mad for 
 a moment, as he said — ^his nerve had given way. 
 Now he was sane again — terribly, piteously 
 sane. 
 
 Grace took the pistol from him. 
 
 *' Give it to me now — and you shall have it 
 again. Guy, we are quite alone — won't you 
 trust me ? What is it you hear — what are you 
 afraid of?" 
 
 He gave her a long look. It was not the 
 look of a madman. She knew that he was 
 considering whether he would tell her; and 
 suddenly she left him, and went back to the 
 door by which she had entered, and locked it. 
 Then she locked the door near where he stood, 
 and came back to him. 
 
 "Tell me, Guy. What are you afraid of?" 
 
 He shuddered from head to foot. She saw 
 that he hesitated. There was a little white- 
 and-gold sofa near. She drew him to it, and 
 sat down, trying to make him sit beside her. 
 But he stood looking at her still. 
 
 "You would not believe me. You think 
 there is nothing; there beyond the door. You 
 think — don't you? — that I am mad." 
 
294 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 She did not know what to say. 
 
 " I think you believe what you tell me," she 
 answered at last, in a low voice. "Oh, Guy, 
 what is it — what is it?" 
 
 "If I told you, you would turn away in 
 horror — you would leave me, and never see me 
 again " 
 
 She stopped him. 
 
 "No, Guy — ^never. No matter what you 
 had done — ^no matter what you were. Do you 
 know me so little as to think I could do that ? " 
 
 "I did it to you," he said, in a strangled 
 voice. "I deserted you when you needed me 
 — now that I need you I have no right to 
 expect you to help me ^" 
 
 She looked up. The hardness which critics 
 deplored as a flaw in Lady Meyringer's beauty 
 died out of her face ; that other, inner hardness 
 which caused it died out of her heart. Only 
 pity was left there — a pity great enough to 
 forgive, great enough to love still, in spite of 
 all that had happened. And she held out her 
 hands to Guy with a gesture which seemed to 
 blot out the past. 
 
 "Guy — don't say that — don't even think it. 
 You know that I love you still — that I have 
 always loved you. And I shall love you — 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 295 
 
 always — I can't help it. Perhaps — ^" her voice 
 shook suddenly — "perhaps I wouldn't help it, 
 if I could " 
 
 For a moment he stared at her with that 
 piteous, incredulous look which had stirred 
 her so before. 
 
 "You don't mean that," he said. "You 
 don't — you can't mean it. If you could say 
 that to me now truthfully — you would be more 
 than human. If I thought you could do that 
 
 — with any sort of truth — I — I ^" His words 
 
 trailed away hesitatingly into silence. Grace 
 looked up, facing him as though in anger. 
 There was flame in her eyes — the flame of 
 truth, convincing, irresistible. 
 
 "I have never lied to you," she said, "and 
 I am not lying now. Guy, I don't know what 
 is hanging over you — I don't know what has 
 made you what you are — but I know that it 
 is something terrible — ^no one could look at 
 you and not know it. But, whatever it is, it 
 makes no difference to me." 
 
 He looked at her still with an air of hesitation. 
 
 " If I could believe that — " he said, as though 
 to himself. " If I could believe it " 
 
 " You must believe it, for it is true." 
 
 There was a moment of silence. 
 
296 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 "You say that nothing could make any 
 difference to you, but that is not true — it can't 
 be true. There are things a woman couldn't 
 forgive." 
 
 *'Tell me what you have done, then, and 
 prove me." 
 
 Her voice, her eyes, challenged him ; but it 
 was a challenge which filled him with terror. 
 
 "No — I can't tell you. Don't you under- 
 stand that while you don't quite hate me, don't 
 quite turn from me, don't see me as I am, I can 
 
 just manage to live — to -" He covered his 
 
 face with his hands. *' You're the one thing in 
 heaven and earth that doesn't seem to condemn 
 me," he said, so low that she could hardly hean 
 "When you condemn me too, I shall know that 
 that is the end. "When you said just now that 
 you loved me still I could almost have believed for 
 a moment that there was hope for me somewhere 
 — hereafter, perhaps, if not here — that some day 
 — somewhere — I might be forgiven " 
 
 " Guy — Guy — believe it^try to believe it ! " 
 
 With a sudden, desperate movement he 
 faced her again. 
 
 *' Listen to me," he said, in a hard tone. " I 
 have committed a crime which even you can't 
 pardon. I am a murderer and a coward. I 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 297 
 
 left a human being to die because I wouldn't 
 look at its deformity, just as I left you because 
 I wouldn't look at your lameness. I am a 
 murderer. . . . There — that is the truth — I 
 can't tell you more. Now leave me — or tell 
 me again, if you can, that it makes no diiFer- 
 ence." 
 
 She heard him in silence. She seemed to see 
 the second act of her life played in the 
 brilliantly-lighted ballroom with its white-and- 
 gold panelling which gleamed softly under the 
 lamps, its smiling, mocking decoration of flowers. 
 The cowardice which had wrecked her happiness 
 had gone one step farther — it had deprived a 
 human being of life as it had deprived her 
 of all that madt life worth living. Without 
 knowing the story of the Unseen Thing — 
 without knowing even that it existed — she 
 understood something of what had happened. 
 As Guy had fled from her in the hour of her 
 trial, so he had fled from another human being 
 who needed him — and that other, through his 
 act, was dead. She no longer recognised the 
 possibility of his being mad, she saw only an 
 awful justice in this horror which pursued him — 
 this voice which cried for vengeance and would 
 not be silenced. She had forgiven him, though 
 
298 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 he refused to believe it ; but the Unseen Thing 
 could not, or perhaps was not permitted to 
 forgive him. He carried it with him — this 
 thing from which in his cowardice he had fled 
 — in his own heart, proclaiming his crime, pro- 
 claiming also how insignificant was the bodily 
 deformity from which he had shrunk beside the 
 deformity of soul, the cowardice, the cruelty of 
 the man who had left it to die. 
 
 For a moment she felt horror — even she felt 
 horror. Then she remembered how awful was 
 the punishment which had fallen upon Guy. 
 And she forgot the horror she had felt. She 
 had hated him once, as the Unseen Thing hated 
 him now. She forgot her hatred. He had 
 told her that if he could believe that his crime 
 made no difference to her he could almost 
 believe also in some hope of ultimate forgiveness 
 for that crime. It seemed to her at that 
 moment that she would have died to make him 
 believe that, to give him hope, even for an hour. 
 And she was helpless to make him believe it, 
 and knew it. 
 
 She sat there, silent, speechless. She did 
 not dare to answer his challenge, to repeat that 
 what he had done made no difference to her 
 love, for she dared not risk again the chance of 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 199 
 
 being disbelieved. And as she sat there, in the 
 sickly London dawn which began to peer through 
 the unshuttered windows, she heard a carriage 
 drive into the court below. A few minutes 
 later someone tried to open the locked door 
 nearest to them. She heard voices, protesting, 
 deprecating; and one voice neither protesting 
 nor deprecating, but furious. 
 
 It was Sir Joseph Meyringer's voice. 
 
 She went to the door and threw it open. 
 Outside were Hawkins and several perturbed 
 footmen. Outside, also, were Julian Strange 
 and Meyringer. 
 
 She stood there on the threshold, looking 
 at them. She was very pale and very calm, and 
 she looked Meyringer in the face without a 
 word. 
 
 His fury descended on her like a flood. She 
 never moved, she never attempted to answer. 
 Once, when Julian tried to interpose, she stopped 
 him with a look. 
 
 Meyringer paused at last, for want of breath. 
 
 "Do you expect me to take you back?" he 
 said. "Thought I was safe out of the way — 
 eh? Thought you might amuse yourself with 
 your low blackguard of a cousin as you liked — 
 eh? Why don't you answer, my lady — why 
 
300 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 don't you tell me some lies — it's the usual thing 
 to do, isn't it ? " 
 
 "I shall not tell you any lies," she said 
 calmly. 
 
 His fury burst out again. 
 
 "No, you've not decent feeling enough for 
 that, I know. But I warned you, and I shall 
 stick to my word. If you'll come back now, 
 and swear never to see that cur again, I'll over- 
 look it — and that's more than any other man 
 would do, and a damned sight more than you 
 deserve." 
 
 She looked at him with a sort of wonder 
 that went near to maddening him. 
 
 " You want me to leave Guy — to leave him 
 as he is to-night — ^never to see him again ? " 
 
 Julian made a swift step forward. 
 
 "Grace — for your own sake — for all our 
 sakes — think what you are doing. Guy isn't 
 worth sacrificing yourself for," he said, half to 
 himself. 
 
 " I know very well what I am doing." She 
 turned to Meyringer. "Guy is very ill," she 
 said quietly, " and I shall not leave him. I love 
 him. I have always loved him, and I don't care 
 if you know it You have threatened me with 
 divorce — now do your worst. I am going 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 301 
 
 abroad with Guy at once, and you may bring 
 your action against me as soon as you like. I 
 will see that Guy does not defend it." 
 
 She stepped back into the ballroom with an 
 unmoved dignity which deprived her hearers 
 of speech, and shut the door noiselessly in 
 Meyringer's face. Guy was standing where 
 she had left him. She went past him, and sat 
 down again, as quietly as she had risen. But 
 for all her quietness, she was trembling. 
 
 ** Guy — did you hear what I said ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It was not an easy thing to say, though I 
 have always hated him. . . . Will you believe 
 now that what you have done makes no differ- 
 ence to me ? " 
 
 It seemed to her that the look of incredulity, 
 of despair, changed on his face. He came to her, 
 and took her hands, and let her draw him 
 nearer, as though to protect him from the 
 invisible horror which haunted him. He knelt 
 down beside her as she sat there on the little 
 white-and-gold sofa, and hid his face against the 
 glittering folds of her ball dress. 
 
 " Grace — I never told you-^-that morning of 
 the accident — it was my fault," he said. 
 *' There was a beggar — a cripple. ... I 
 
302 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 pulled up and startled your .horse. . . . And 
 to-night you do this thing for me ! 
 
 "Don't think about the accident. I have 
 always known what — what happened. . . . Guy, 
 do you believe me ? " 
 
 He looked up. There was a look of awed 
 wonder in his face. 
 
 "You have always known — and you have 
 still loved me ! " he said. 
 
 "It doesn't matter," she said almost im- 
 patiently. "Guy — tell me — tell me that you 
 believe me at last." 
 
 For a moment he ceased to hear the crying of 
 the Unseen Thing behind the door. It seemed 
 to him that instead he heard the melancholy 
 little bell of the sun-baked chapel of Saint- 
 Maure ringing, ringing, with a sound that was 
 almost of hope. 
 
 " I do believe you," he said. 
 
XXVIII 
 
 People said, as Julian Strange had done, that 
 Guy Francheville was not worth it. But they 
 did not mean what Julian had meant. They 
 meant that Guy was not worth the loss of 
 Joseph Meyringer's millions and all that those 
 millions could buy for Joseph Meyringer's wife. 
 
 They said, quite frankly at last, that Guy 
 was mad — that Grace was worse than a fool. 
 They remembered how he had thrown her 
 over, after causing the accident which had lamed 
 her for life. And yet now — ! 
 
 Joseph Meyringer, for the first time in his 
 life, found himself really popular. 
 
 But the man whom the world called mad, the 
 woman whom it thought worse than a fool, 
 were far away, beyond the little voices of 
 scandal, beyond the ignorant censure of those 
 who are always ready to j udge, but who do not 
 trouble to understand what they judge. 
 
 During those first weeks which followed 
 that night at Hilmour House Grace had time 
 to realise fully the task she had imposed upon 
 303 
 
304 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 herself. The unequal combat had told at last 
 upon Guy, and the world might have been 
 excused for calling him mad. To Grace, the 
 most terrible certainty of all was the certainty 
 that he was sane. Though she never heard, 
 with her actual bodily hearing, the voice which 
 haunted Guy, it seemed to her that in her 
 heart she heard it always. And in those first 
 weeks of wandering, such self-control as Guy 
 had been able to exercise before broke down 
 utterly. There were moments when even Grace 
 found herself face to face with despair. There 
 were moments when even she felt the full force 
 of the horror which pursued Guy — the horror 
 of his crime-^the horror of the cowardice which 
 had caused it. There were moments when she 
 had to fight for herself as well as for him. For, 
 in his blackest despair, in his worst hours of 
 remorse, he clung still, as on that night at 
 Hilmour House, to her forgiveness and her love. 
 The fact that his crime, as she had shown him, 
 made no difference to her, seemed to be the 
 one chance of hope left to him. He had done 
 to Grace what, in another form, he had done to 
 the Unseen Thing. If Grace had forgiiiren him, 
 might not the Unseen Thing forgive him too, 
 when his punishment was complete ? 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 305 
 
 But there were times when even this shadowy 
 hope almost deserted him. And always — 
 everywhere — the crying of the Unseen Thing 
 pursued him, drove him onwards, as though 
 towards some definite goal. Nowhere was he 
 permitted to escape from it. 
 
 At last he came to Grace one night in Paris. 
 The hunted look which she knew so well had 
 given place to a new look of purpose, of decision. 
 
 " Grace, I am going back." 
 
 "Back?" 
 
 "ToMon Paradis." 
 
 She had guessed, by the horror he always 
 seemed to show at any mention of Mon Paradis, 
 that it was the place in which his crime — 
 whatever its exact nature — had been committed. 
 Since that night in the ballroom of Hilmour 
 House she had never questioned him, even by a 
 look. She did not question him now. 
 
 *' Very well. I am ready to go." 
 
 He waited for a moment. 
 
 " It was at Mon Paradis that ^" 
 
 He seemed unable to continue. 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " I feel that I must go there — that I am being 
 driven there. But — Grace — I don't ask you to 
 go there too." 
 u 
 
3o6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " If you go, I go," she said quietly. 
 
 He gave her a momentary look of passionate 
 gratitude. 
 
 " But — you don't quite understand. It may 
 be worse — there. I feel as though — as though 
 Mon Paradis meant the end — in some way " 
 
 "The end?" she said, startled. 
 
 " I feel that I can't bear much more. Always 
 — ever since we left England — ^I have felt this 
 coming — I have felt that there would be an end 
 — ^that the time would come when I could not 
 go on — could not " 
 
 For a moment she too felt that she could 
 bear no more. 
 
 "Don't say that, Guy. You must go on. 
 If not for yourself, for me. If you can't go on, 
 think of — of me." 
 
 "I think of you always — if I didn't I could 
 not go on for one hour, for one moment. But 
 I don't want to take you to Mon Paradis." 
 
 " I must go with you," she said. 
 
 He offered no more opposition to her decision ; 
 and next day they went to Nice, and on to 
 Saint-Maure. It was night when they arrived 
 there, as it had been when Guy saw it for the 
 first time. The myrtle hedges were white with 
 myriads of tiny stars, the scent of roses came 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 307 
 
 to them out of the clear darkness; and over 
 them the tower of the Unseen Thing hung 
 black against the moonlit sky. 
 
 Grace felt Guy move suddenly in the seat 
 beside her. 
 
 "What is it, Guy?" 
 
 "I don't hear it," he said, in a frightened 
 voice. " I don't feel it — ^it is not here — it has 
 gone. What has happened ? " 
 
 The dogcart stopped before the deep porch 
 of Mon Paradis. 
 
XXIX 
 
 The fishing-boats of Saint-Tropez were spread- 
 ing their sails to the morning sun as Guy made 
 his way along the deserted quay of Saint-Maure 
 towards the little, sun-baked chapel. As he had 
 come along the winding road by the shore he had 
 heard the small, silver voice of the bell, calling 
 from its bird-cage tower across the great, sun- 
 flooded spaces of air and sea, as he had heard 
 it that night in Hilmour House. The sound 
 had seemed to summon him to Saint-Maure, to 
 lead him, by a power stronger than his own 
 will, towards the little church on the quay. 
 And, as he had felt himself before to be a thing 
 driven — driven by a pursuing horror — so now 
 he felt himself a man drawn towards a certain 
 spot, without reference to his own will, if not 
 against it. But the power which drew him was 
 not horror, as the power which drove him had 
 been. He felt vaguely that the voice of the 
 Unseen Thing and the voice of the little bell in 
 its rusty tower were one voice — that the voice 
 of horror mingled and was lost for a moment 
 
 308 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 309 
 
 in the sound of this other voice which had 
 nothing to do with horror, and which, in the 
 worst hour of his punishment, had seemed to 
 hint to him of hope.. The Unseen Thing 
 had driven him to Mon Paradis; the small, 
 clear voice of the bell drew him towards Saint- 
 Maure. 
 
 The bell was silent as he walked along the 
 quay. For the first time for months he was 
 conscious, not of the inner horror which tortured 
 him, but of the outer things which lay around 
 him. The blue gulf deepened to purple under 
 a cloudless sky, the yellow sails of the fishing- 
 boats turned to gold in the hot sun. A light 
 breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees on the 
 quay. He stood for a moment by the church 
 door, looking at the picture which he remem- 
 bered so well. Then he went in. 
 
 The old darkness met him as he entered — 
 the old odour of incense and the ages — the 
 waxen hearts — the hanging ship. He remem- 
 bered how he had stood there last, on the 
 morning after his father's death. He remem- 
 bered how the place had seemed to him filled 
 with the ghosts of unanswered prayers, with 
 bitter mockery and unending sadness. He 
 remembered how he had gone out from it filled 
 
3IO THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 with mad, cowardly, unreasoning hatred of the 
 Unseen Thing. 
 
 A step fell on the uneven pavement. He 
 looked up, and saw Father Blanc. 
 
 For a moment the two men stood silently 
 facing each other in the gloom of the little chapel. 
 It seemed to Guy that he had expected to see 
 Father Blanc, that he had come there for the 
 express purpose of seeing him. He had once 
 again the sensation of a man who acts at the 
 dictation of a power outside himself — higher 
 than himself. He looked steadily at the priest. 
 The face which he remembered grave was gravel 
 than when he last saw it. 
 
 " I have come to you," he said. 
 
 Father Blanc bent his head suddenly. 
 
 " I am glad that you are here at last," he said 
 simply. " I have prayed that you might come." 
 
 "I have come to tell you something — to ask 
 you what I am to do. I cannot tell anyone 
 else." 
 
 Father Blanc showed no sign of surprise. 
 
 *' Come to my house, then, and tell me." 
 
 But Guy put his hand suddenly on his arm, 
 and held him back. 
 
 *'No — I want to tell you here. Do you 
 remember, when I saw you here first, I told you 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 311 
 
 that I thought I could understand how anyone 
 who was in great trouble — in despair — could 
 hope for a miracle — could believe that a miracle 
 could happen to help that trouble, to bring hope 
 to that despair — here, in your little, old church, 
 which English tourists only call stuffy ? " 
 
 Father Blanc's grave eyes were very gentle. 
 
 " Yes, I remember. . . . Have you come to 
 ask for a miracle ? " 
 
 " I have not come to ask for anything- — or to 
 hope for anything. But if I am to tell you what 
 I have to tell you I must do so here." 
 
 There was a moment of silence; and in it 
 Guy seemed to hear the little bell ringing, ring- 
 ing unceasingly, patiently, as it had rung through 
 the years — through the centuries; and above 
 him he saw in the gloom the dim outlines of the 
 votive ship. 
 
 Father Blanc spoke at last. 
 
 "Tell me then, if you wish it," he said. 
 « Tell me — here." 
 
XXX 
 
 Outside, the day of blue and gold deepened 
 towards noon, the bright sails of the fishing- 
 boats drifted out towards the great sea, the 
 children came, laughing, to play under the trees 
 on the quay. In the darkness of the little 
 church the two men stood, face to face, the one 
 listening, the other speaking. Above them the 
 Totive ship hung like a shadow — was it perhaps 
 the shadow of a hope ? 
 
 Guy told his story. And Father Blanc heard 
 him without a word. "When at last he came to 
 the end, there was a silence again; and in the 
 silence they heard the laughter of the children 
 who played upon the quay. 
 
 "I have told you everything," Guy said. 
 "Now tell me what to do." 
 
 " You will do what I tell you ? " 
 
 " Yes. If you think I ought to give myself 
 up to justice, I will do it." 
 
 Father Blanc said nothing for a moment. 
 
 "The justice of man has nothing to do with 
 you," he said. " I think — I don't know how to 
 
 312 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 313 
 
 put it, I don't know even whether it is permitted 
 to me to say it — ^but I think that you have 
 passed through the fire of a greater justice than 
 man's — I think you have seen the justice of 
 God." 
 
 " I have been in hell," Guy said. " While I 
 felt that I could not confess what I had done. 
 But last night — ^when the voice was still — when 
 the torment ceased " 
 
 **I understand. When the torture ceased 
 you felt that even that was not enough — ^when 
 the punishment was over, you felt that you 
 wished to punish yourself — that nothing could 
 be enough ** 
 
 Guy looked up. 
 
 « No one can punish me. That's the worst 
 of it. If anything that could be done to me 
 here could punish me, I should have hope, I 
 should think that some day ** 
 
 *'And since last night you have not been 
 tortured — ^you have not heard the voice ? " 
 
 «No." 
 
 There was a strange look on Father Blanc's 
 face. 
 
 *'It is wonderful," he said slowly. **It is 
 very wonderful. . . . To-day, before I came 
 here and met you, I meant to write to you. 
 
314 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 I have waited all these months because I had a 
 feeling that you would come here of your own 
 free-will — no, not that, perhaps — that you would 
 be sent. Now I know that my feeling was 
 right. You have been sent." 
 
 " I have been driven," Guy said. 
 
 Father Blanc held up his hand. 
 
 " No — not driven. When you know all 
 you will not think that. You came here — you 
 were sent here — to confess how terribly you 
 had sinned, to confess your cowardice, your 
 cruelty ^" 
 
 " To confess," Guy interrupted in a hard 
 voice, " that I am a murderer and a criminal." 
 
 " You are not a murderer." 
 
 There was a long silence. Guy tried to 
 speak — and failed. 
 
 « I left him to die," he said at last. « Don't 
 tell me that I did not murder him — I left him to 
 die." 
 
 "But he did not die. You murdered him 
 in intention, but not in fact. You are guilty 
 of the intention — ^you are guilty of the cruelty 
 which could condemn a fellow-creature to such 
 a death — of the cowardice that could shrink 
 from a fellow-creature in its hour of need — that 
 I admit. But of the crime itself you are innocent," 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 315 
 
 " I left him to die. ... I don't understand." 
 "There was one other person besides Lord 
 and Lady Francheville — besides Spence — ^besides 
 yourself — who knew the secret of Mon Paradis, 
 and of the Unseen Thing, your brother. As 
 Lady Francheville's confessor, I knew the 
 tragedy of her life — I could not help knowing 
 it, since it was that which brought her into the 
 Church I serve. On the night when you fled 
 to Nice, leaving your brother to die, as you 
 have said, you sent back your groom with the 
 dogcart from the station at Saint-Maure. He 
 suspected something — he had always had an 
 idea that something living was shut up in the 
 lighted tower. Your flight that night, following 
 so closely on the death of Spence, who had 
 always been in such confidential relations with 
 your father and mother, roused his suspicions, and 
 inspired him with the fortunate thought that 
 he would tell me what had happened. When 
 he left you, he came direct to me, and told me. 
 The secret was not mine to make public, as you 
 know, but I went back with him at once, I 
 went to the room in the tower — ^I found your 
 brother there." 
 
 "You went there — alone — in the middle of 
 the night ? " 
 
3i6 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 cc< 
 
 •The secret was not mine," Father Blanc 
 said simply. "The existence of the Unseen 
 Thing, as you call him, had been revealed to me 
 only under the seal of confession. I could not 
 take anyone into my confidence. I went to the 
 tower, and found your brother, and took him 
 away with me to the presbyt'breP 
 
 Guy remembered the cry which had sounded 
 behind the barred and bolted door — the sounds 
 of a mad strength hurling itself to and fro. He 
 looked almost incredulously at the thin figure of 
 the priest. 
 
 " You took him away with you ? He let you 
 take him away with you ? " 
 
 *'He was quite gentle — quite quiet. He did 
 what I told him — he seemed stunned — he re- 
 sisted nothing." 
 
 Guy said no more. He thought of the 
 terrible strength of the tower door, with its bars, 
 its studded nails, its thickness. . . . And then 
 he remembered the Angel who stood with 
 Daniel in the lions' den, and shut the mouths of 
 the beasts who would have devoured the servant 
 of God. 
 
 " I took him to the presbythre, and gave out 
 that he was an afflicted relative of my own. Of 
 course I kept him inside the house, but he gave 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 317 
 
 no trouble, he was as gentle as a child. The 
 part of him which you feared — his madness — his 
 strength — the horror of him — I neyer saw — 
 never." 
 
 "No," Guy said. "You would not see it. 
 The part of him that I feared — that I hated — the 
 horror of him — pursued me, who had abandoned 
 him through an impulse of selfish cowardice." 
 
 *' I see now that it was so — but until to-day I 
 have never understood his gentleness, his silence. 
 All that I felt was, that you would come back, 
 that you would repent your cruelty and wish to 
 make amends. I knew that, just as I had been 
 sent that night to the tower at Mon Paradis to 
 save you from the consequences of the crime 
 you had intended to commit, so you would be 
 sent here to tell me what you have told me 
 to-day, and to find consolation." 
 
 There was a sound of triumph in his voice as 
 he ended, and Guy looked up. The hunted 
 look had passed from his face. 
 
 "You are right — I was sent here. . . . 
 Father — take me to him." 
 
 For a moment the priest hesitated. 
 
 *' You are not — forgive me for saying so — but 
 you are not afraid ? You wish to see him — you 
 have conquered the horror you felt ? " 
 
3i8 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 " The horror I feel is for myself," Guy said 
 passionately. "What am I that I should fear 
 anything ? It is I who am the monster — it is I 
 from whom he should turn in horror — ^I am the 
 deformity, not he. . . . Father — take me to 
 him — let me make what amends I can." 
 
 But still Father Blanc seemed to hesitate; 
 and as he stood there looking at Guy, the bell 
 above them began to ring with long, soft strokes 
 in the gloom. Guy caught his breath as he 
 heard — the long, soft strokes seemed to beat 
 against his heart. 
 
 " The question of amends is not in your hands. 
 I cannot take you to him." 
 
 "I am too late?" 
 
 " Your brother died last night. Lord Franche- 
 ville," said Father Blanc. 
 
XXXI 
 
 Months had passed since Guy stood with Father 
 Blanc in the little church on the quay. 
 
 There was no longer a shadow upon the 
 beauty of Mon Paradis, no hidden horror 
 lurked among the roses and the palms, no secret 
 darkened the clear southern sky, the musical 
 southern sea. The towers and cupolas of Mon 
 Paradis basked in the pink light of sunset ; and 
 at the end of the terrace, where Guy had 
 heard the dreadful story of the Unseen Thing, 
 Grace sat in one of the long cane chairs, with 
 her eyes upon the sea. 
 
 Only a few hours ago she and Guy had been 
 married very quietly in Nice. She was thinking 
 of that as she sat there in the soft sunset light. 
 Of all the troops of friends and relatives who 
 had assisted at her first marriage, only one had 
 been present at the second. 
 
 Julian Strange had come over from England 
 for the occasion, in the teeth of much oppo- 
 sition. Grace's family had never forgiven her 
 desertion of Sir Joseph Meyringer and his 
 
 319 
 
320 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 millions. They said still, with much pathos, 
 that she had disgraced them. Only Julian 
 would hear no word against her. Perhaps he 
 alone, of Grace's world, knew, or guessed, 
 something of what had happened that night at 
 Hilmour House. For he had loved Grace, in 
 his own way, as she had loved Guy Francheville. 
 So he had come, for the second time, to her 
 marriage with another man. He told himself, 
 with a flash of sudden irony, that it was his 
 role in life to see Grace married — to other 
 people. But perhaps he was not unhappy. 
 Grace had what she wanted — he was unselfish 
 enough to be almost contented with her 
 happiness. 
 
 One other guest appeared at Guy's wedding. 
 While Guy and Grace and Julian were break- 
 fasting on the terrace of their hotel, before 
 departing on their several ways — ^Julian to 
 London, and the Franchevilles to Mon Paradis 
 — there flashed forth upon the terrace, preceded 
 by a meek and gesticulating waiter, a little lady 
 in a white muslin dress, with a muslin hat 
 which seemed trying to stray down her back. 
 When she saw Guy she swept the gesticulating 
 waiter aside with a regal wave of one little 
 gloved hand, and ran up to Guy. 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 321 
 
 "I heard you had just been married, and I 
 had to come and speak to you, because I know 
 now that you have forgiven me," she said. " I 
 also- — I am married." She shrugged her 
 shoulders, with the prettiest air of resignation. 
 *' I am only morganatic, of course — ^but at least 
 it is not as poor maman's unfortunate affair. 
 .... Guy, present me to your wife, and give 
 me something to drink your health in." 
 
 It was Nina Standish, after all, who made 
 the success of Guy's wedding-breakfast. Her 
 butterfly gaiety was invaluable. Even Grace, 
 who had spoken of her once as "that Miss 
 Standish," was charmed and conquered. She 
 drank to their health in guttural Sclavonian, 
 which sounded almost comic in her pretty mouth. 
 She infected even Julian with a momentary light- 
 heartedness, and saw Grace and Guy off to 
 Saint-Maure with very real kindness and good 
 feeling; and when the train had glided out 
 of the station, she turned to Julian with some- 
 thing very like tears in her eyes. 
 
 " That woman is an angel," she said. " Oh 
 yes — I have heard all the stories — and I repeat, 
 she is an angel. What do stories matter? It 
 is not the story that the world tells of us that 
 is the true one, is it ? Ah, I see you think as 
 z 
 
322 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 I do^^you are sympathetic, though I thought 
 you did not approve of me when I first arrived 
 on the scene. It was my hat, perhaps — 
 Constantine always says I wear hats that take 
 away my character! But then the hats that 
 don't take away one's character are as stupid as 
 the frocks that don't take away one's age. . . . 
 Mr Strange, I shall expect you for some shooting 
 in the autumn." She stopped full in the track 
 of an approaching truck laden with luggage, and 
 kissed the tips of her fingers to the vanishing 
 train. " A bientdt, mes amis ! " she said, with a 
 laugh and a sigh. "May there be no serpent 
 in your Paradise ! " 
 
 So Guy and Grace started for Mon Paradis 
 with Nina's parting benediction and Julian's 
 good wishes warm in their hearts. The world 
 disapproved of them, and judged them; but 
 these two, so unlike in all but their common 
 comprehension, their uncommon charity, judged 
 them — and wished them well. 
 
 And now the sunset was pink on the sea, and 
 across the gorgeous sky the procession of even- 
 ing clouds drifted softly, changing, shifting 
 every moment, and every moment becoming 
 more beautiful. Over the palms and roses of 
 Mon Paradis, over the wild green hills covered 
 
THE UNSEEN THING s^3 
 
 with cork-trees and myrtle, the clouds passed 
 slowly, like a great procession carrying banners 
 of gold and purple. And as Grace looked, the 
 banners seemed to change to fantastic monsters 
 which writhed and snorted flame. She watched 
 them, and thought of that other monster whose 
 strange and dreadful existence had passed among 
 all this unearthly beauty of sky and sea; she 
 thought of the Unseen Thing, of the story 
 which Guy had told her after his interview with 
 Father Blanc in the chapel of Saint-Maure. 
 And as she thought of it she heard a step 
 behind her. 
 
 Guy stood on the terrace, looking at the sky \ 
 and she saw that he too remembered the 
 Unseen Thing. She rose, and went to him. 
 
 "You see it too?" she said. 
 
 She put her arm through his as he stood 
 beside her, and he felt the light pressure of her 
 fingers tighten suddenly. 
 
 "Guy — after to-night we will never speak 
 of it again, unless you wish it^we will blot 
 out the memory of your suffering. But to-night 
 I want to know — I want you to tell me — Guy, 
 do you ever hear the voice of the Unseen 
 Thing now?" 
 
 " Yes," he said gently. 
 
324 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 « Oh, Guy— when ? " 
 
 He looked at the sunset for a moment — at 
 the cloud monsters drifting across the gorgeous 
 sky. Then he looked down and met her eyes, 
 filled with a sudden sadness, a sudden pity. 
 And he put his arm round her, and held her to 
 him for a moment in silence. 
 
 "I will tell you when I hear it," he said. 
 "When I see the deformity I used to loathe — 
 the ugliness that, in my blind cruelty, I despised 
 and hated — then I hear, in my heart, the voice 
 of the Unseen Thing. I hope I shall always 
 hear it then — always — as long as I Uve." 
 
 « You hope that ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She understood. The voice of the thing he 
 had loathed had become to him the voice of 
 pity, of humanity — the pity he had not felt in the 
 days of his own careless happiness — the humanity 
 he had not wished to feel. But, in spite of all, 
 she regretted, for that one instant, with a 
 foolish, human, illogical regret, the boyish 
 gaiety which had shed such sweetness and light 
 over her own youth and his. 
 
 "Oh, Guy," she said, almost passionately, 
 "some day the voice will be silent — some day 
 you will forget." 
 
THE UNSEEN THING 325 
 
 " I would not forget, if I could. There are 
 some things that are worth all one pays for 
 them — all one could pay, no matter what it 
 might be. If I could forget the Unseen Thing 
 — if I could forget all those awful months of 
 horror and fear — if I could go back to those old 
 days in London when we were so happy together, 
 when life and love and hope were like new toys 
 in our hands — I wouldn't go back — I wouldn't 
 be spared one instant of all the torture I passed 
 through, for the sake of that one moment in the 
 ballroom of Hilmour House, Grace, when, in 
 the midst of my agony, my despair, I said to 
 myself — as I said for months afterwards — as I 
 say now, ' The woman whom I deserted in her 
 hour of need loves me still, forgives me every- 
 thing, has sacrificed herself to help me; some 
 day that other soul whom I deserted will forgive 
 me too.'" 
 • • ■ • • • • 
 
 The sunset faded over Mon Paradis, the 
 terrace was deserted. But over the sea, where 
 the cloud monsters had passed in fantastic pro- 
 cession, two enormous wings of cloud stood up, 
 the wings of a huge angel, against the pale, 
 clear green of the sky. 
 
 The last rays of the sun caught them and 
 
326 THE UNSEEN THING 
 
 poured upon them an unearthly splendour. The 
 great golden wings seemed to overshadow the 
 white towers to Mon Paradis with a shadow of 
 forgiveness and peace. 
 
 The cloud monsters had faded, the horror had 
 passed away. Only this was left — the shadow 
 of an angel's wings falling upon the sleeping 
 gardens of Mon Paradis, and the empty tower 
 which had once been the prison of the Unseen 
 Thing. 
 
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDIHBXniGH.