The Bright Messenger

e uninteresting private business. He had left "LeVallon" happy with his books and garden, Devonham was with him to

t bright; no personal worries troubl

t that the mind wonders why people quarrel and disagree, when it is so easy to forgive, and the planet

ost was rapidly melting in the sun. The sky showed a faint tinge of blue. He saw floating sea-gulls. T

yet left across his mind its shining trail.... For this lift of his heart made him soar into a region where it was only too easy to override temptation. Fillery, however, though his invisible being soared, kept b

er sense, she did not know, though moving through the thick of it. It neither touched nor soiled her; she brushed its dirt and dust aside as though a non-conducting atmosphere surrounded her. Her emotions, deep and searching, had remained untorn. A q

adore you, yet respect you too. They cannot touch you. You remain aloof, unstained." And, reme

lly come from? Whence do you derive? Your lovely soul can have no dealings with our common flesh. How many young fellows have you saved already, how many flounde

his mind contracted. The thing in him that sang went backward into silence. He put a brake upon himself. But he watched her coming nearer, wondering what brought her so

te close, a hundred yards away. That walk, that swing, that poise of head and neck he co

again looked up. They were now not twenty yards apart; in another moment he would have raised his hat, when, with a sensation of cold disappointment in

nce they had met, yet his knowledge of her appearance was so accurate and detailed t

ly, deliberately towards him, moving every minute firmly nearer, from a point in great London town which she had left just at the precise moment which would tim

-hour: he saw her-on both occasions beyond the possibility of question-coming

vast city, and that both transmitter and receiver, their physical bodies, would meet shortly round the corner, or along the crowded street. Strong currents of desiring thought, he knew,

rinciple in Nature. It was common to all forms of life, a faint beginning of that advance towards marvellous intercommunica

down Baker Street he fo

and there were flowers, but these were part of her appearance as a whole, and the hat was so exactly right, though it was here that Englishwomen generally went wrong, that he could not remember afterw

om a muff and held it for a moment. The casual sentences he had half prepared fled like a flock of birds surprised. Their eyes met.... And instantly the sun rose over a far Kha

paused for the tiniest fraction of a second, and was gone again. So swiftly the figure shot across that the very glance he gave her was intercepted, its angle changed, its meaning

lids, both were noticed, though not understood, m

t, low-pitched voice before his face. "I thought you were

e replied. "It was Devon

elated. Why, he was wondering, should that picture of "N. H." leave a sense of chill upon his heart? Why had the first radiance of this meeting thus already dimmed a little? Her nearness, too, confused him as of old, making his manner a trifle brusque and not qu

ctive air about her. "I wish you had been with us, for that would have made i

inking of you both, as I walked through Re

y rate, Dr. Devonham could-but I've seen you several times this morning already-in the last half-hour. I've seen you in other people in

ly, half curtly. "It's an exp

ral, I think, when people like each

ach other too," he objected, and at the same

t she read his thoughts as easily as if they we

though," she remarked, "an emotion, I

wants to explain things. I think I must take you into the Firm,

central source of strength in dealing with men. Her innocence and truth were an atmosphere about her, protectin

er years ago when I was so high," and her small gloved hand i

of nine or ten who sat on his knee and repeated to him the Russian fairy tales her mother told her; he recalled the charm, the wonder, the extraordinary power of belief. Her words brought back again th

now that they need treatment, whereas in the Studio you catch your patients unawares. The

ound their way later to your con

ort of convalescence. You work in the big, raw

ng them. He could have stood there talking to her all day long, the London street forgotten or full of flowers

d saw her without clothing, her hair loose in the wind, her white shape fleeing from h

e saw the bright figure again. Swifter than himself and far more powerful, it leaped dancing past and carried her away before his very eyes. She waved her hand, her eyes faded like stars into the distance of some une

he told her. "I'll come to the Studio in the afternoon, if yo

you to tell me all about this-friend. I knew you had something o

indefinitely." His face grew stern a moment about the mouth.

ng very musical the way her slightly foreign acc

e in the Jura Mountains, alone with an old scholar, poet and geologist, who brought him up. Of our moder

understandingly, "so that he will probably f

n, and he will b

ar searching eyes. She smiled. But his own face wore a mask now;

nd help him more than a man," sh

terial, I must warn you at once, is ne

ut me." She let go the hand she had held all this time, and turned fro

," she added. "The Prometheans are coming too, as of course you

red, raised his hat, and went on

th his own hands he had just slipped the noose about his neck. Detachment from life, he realized, keeping aloof from the emotions that touch one's fellow beings, can only be, after all, a pose. In his case it was e

a volcano of emotion in him, several motives fighting to combine. The fear for himself, being selfish, he had set aside at once; there was also the fear for her-the odd certainty in him that at last her wom

re presence must evoke the "N. H." personality, banishing the commonplace LeVallon; it was this that, in the end, perhaps troubled him most. An intuitive conviction assured him that this was

ult his judgment. Otherwise I'm breaking my promis

led his own keen desire to let LeVallon disappear and "N. H." become active. He himself ye

mit himself a failure. His ideal possession of the girl, he consoled himself, need know no change. To watch her womanhood, hitherto untouched by any man, to watch this bloom and ripen at the bidding of another must mean pain. But he faced the loss. And a curious sense of compensation lay in it somewhere-the strange notion that she and he would share "N. H." in a sense b

, if not commonplace, his only interest being at those thin places in his being where the submerged personality of "N.

d two personalities certainly, but "N. H." was the important one, and LeVallon merely the transient outer one, masquerading on the surface merely,

mer, but the latter could be furnished only by some woman in whom innocence, truth and a natural mother-love-the three deepest feminine qualities

alley in his blood, realized the meaning of the flashing intuition that had pa

ly opened its ivory gates for him. They had but to meet and talk a moment, when, with a sudden drift of wonder, beauty, wildness, this Khaketian inheritance rose before him. Its sunny brilliance, its flowers,

at these brief wanderings in his secret Eden, yet perfectly able to pigeon-hole th

quick, observant air. Noticing the light in the eyes, the softer expression about the mouth, the general appearance of a strong and recent stimulus, he easily divined their origin, and showed

et and uninteresting all the morning. He needs the human touch, as I already said, and th

Nay

rine like the rest of 'em, so much the better. You remember my Notes. Nothing will h

etur

e will give to LeVa

r interrupted, "stimulate '

sy. For this detached, impersonal attitude he was not prepared. Only the keene

rl has nothing to do with that. In your blood, remember, lies an unearthly spiritual vagr

ection, trust, respect each felt for the other was sincere. Devonham, however, having never known a thought, a feeling, much less an actual experience, outside the normal

, is good. 'Spiritual vagrancy' is an apt description, I admit. Yet to th

d upon the floor, stood with his legs apart. Abruptly turning, he came a full step closer. "Edward," he said, furious with himself, and yet fiercely determined to be honest, "I

or yourself, for others, or for himself?" he as

nse he touches in me. I admit it frankly. I've had-once or twice-the desire to turn and

u refer to?

. H

to himself more than to his friend

change in every patient in the building-without exception." He looked over his shoulder as t

Fillery at once. "Increased

spered the other

a pause b

l self," pursued Fillery presently. "When we

ary emphasis. "What is it?" But even then h