The Pointing Man

randa. It was the leisure hour of the day, the slow hour when the light wanes and it is too ea

fic on the road came up in the evening air, broken occasionally by the shrill persistence of an exhaust whistle or the clamour of a motor-horn, and above all other sounds the long-drawn, occasional hoot from a ship anchored in the river highway.

sed. It faded out of the garden like a memory that cannot be held back by human striving. The distances turned into shadowy blue, and from blue to purple, until only a few flecks of golden light across the pearl-silver told that it was gone eternally; that its hour was spent, for good or ill, and that Mangadone had come one evening nearer to the end o

sy, while th

mell my remna

within t

ckon to the flo

cunningly di

er'd in

at hung on it like a sack, and his whole attitude spoke of sorrow. He might have been the presentment of an unwilling ghost, who stood with the Ferryman's farthing under his palm, waiting to be taken across the cheerless, d

ind wandered in terrible places, places he had forced his way into, places he could never forget. He suffered from all a reformer's agony, an agony that is the small reflection

e enemy single-handed, he believed that the battle was against the Hosts of the Lord. He knew no leisure from the war of his own thoughts, and as he clasped his hands, his fa

eckon to the fl

cunningly di

s; they hardly spoke of careless beauty to him, they were emblems of lightness and

footsteps; he stood up, gathering his loose limbs together and watching the door. Steps came up the staircase, steps that stumbled a little, and i

the passage, and Heath's tension

hief over his face and walked to the door, just as his n

ly, and then he saw a tall, dark woman

rise, and she made a little im

I came up, because I wanted to

ly, I am

I com

s, and she walked in, looking around th

near the writing-table, and, feeling that she would speak

ays speaking in the same low, intent voice. "

s face, and he paused for

reca

as riding along the road when I firs

pass you then, and also

e, and his fingers touched a gold c

alom, the Christian boy, and you h

aid heavily. "

r took a q

that evening, but, as you were there, and as Mr. Hartley has got it into his head that you know something more than you have told him,

re is a question for your own conscience. It is

her lips tog

an old friend who w

have to kee

. "Will you pledge me your solemn word to keep this knowledge from any

," he said slowly. "But is it l

made a gestu

ad on my mind and will not let me rest. Oh, Mr. Heath, if y

sorry for you than you can tell. You

nted to make sure that I was safe with you. It was no little thing that drove me to com

e every reason to help you if I can. Does Hartley suspect you? D

metallic, like the voice of a man whose tho

me questions that made me frightened

"I saw Joicey, but he did not stop to spe

er of the smallest importance; it is I who suffer, it is on me that all this weight lies. If the police begin investigations they come close upon the fact that I went there to meet a ma

atter is a dark road where I, too, walk blind, not knowing the path I follow, but, at least, I can give you my word that under no circumstances shall I be led to mention your name. Yo

too quickly. "I assure you that I will, but even when I do,

ed the floor with lo

ing; the knowledge that the whole world ju

s what

looked upon the Rev. Francis as a hermit, an ascetic, whose comprehensi

his sad, heavy voice, "so low that the lowest have cause to deride and to

is t

t did not appear necessary; neither did she tell him

e man above all others whom you could appeal to, could trust most entirely, that man is my

et. "I cannot thank you sufficiently, and I fear that I have upset you, made you feel my own cares too profoundly,"-her voice grew almost tender. "I have never known

hought he was going to speak, and she waited with an odd feeling of excitemen

d when the boy came to the door of the Padré Sahib's room, he saw his master

I hardly know how to t

out, she met Atkins coming in on his bicycle. He

ith ever-ready tactlessness upon her presence in the Compound. "One of my servants is ill;

He overworks. I have a gr

tively gave me the shivers. I can hardly envy you boxed up there with him. I believe h

beside her and saw her get in. Mrs. Wilder was very c

e Padré," she calle

Heath. He said so to the Rector of St. Jude's as they dined together, remarking on the fact that very few women bot

s what s

reated like machines. I've never known Mrs. Wilder very well,

"I never form definite opinions about

nly laughed good-naturedly, a

Wilder, who might have been supposed to be used to her beauty and her wit, watched her with his slow, following look. Hartley was not at the dinne

plain the cause of these visits. There was a connection somewhere and somehow between Heath and the missing Absalom, and Hartley wondered if he c

re he thought of it the less he liked it, and yet his duty and his sense of responsibility would not let him rest. Mrs. Wilder had said that she had seen Heat

Hartley had grown to loathe the grinning figure, and to loathe the whole tedious, difficult tragedy of the lost boy. If it had lain in the native quarter he could have found inter