The Third Window

ondered what Tony was thinking of there in the darkness above him, if she were alone and in the dark. The thought that she was not, the thought that Miss Lati

y dressed for going out and had started her breakfast. "My poor friend in the village is dying," she said, "and has asked for me. I ha

ed this morning. He imagined, though he had looked at his face in the mirror with unregarding eyes, that he, too, wa

went out into the

ors; cheerful, with its gable-ends; but as he had felt it at the first he felt it now more decisively as empty of tradition and tenderness. It had remained, too, so singularly new; perhaps because, in its exposed situation, none of the trees carefully d

strength of the reluctance he felt for visiting the flagged garden where, if anywhere, the element he thankfully missed might lurk. But when, putting an ironic compulsion upon himself, he had entered the little enclosure, his main impression, as before, was one of mere beauty. It was the only corner of Wyndwards that had achieved individuality; the placing of the fountain, the stone bench, the beds among the flags, was a pleasure to

tonia there, and him after her. It had seemed at the time the most natural of things that his young widowed friend should ask him to pay her a spring visit in her new home. His courtship of her, laconic, implicit, patient, had prolonged itself through the dreary London winter following the Armistice, and springtime on the moors had seemed full of promise to his hopes. Alas! why had they not stayed in safe, dear, dingy London, London of tubes and shops and theatres

ind her, not looking at him as she went to the fire and leaned there, her hand upon the mantelpiece. She was dressed in black, a flowing gown with wide sleeves that invested her with an unfamiliar, invalided air; bu

said gently, "yo

ment and, instinctively, he ke

. "I haven't been able to sle

at

at

moment. "Miss Latimer tells me tha

d, with a faint, deprecator

t, or at all events the irrelevant, that he helplessly fell back on verbal intimac

thought it over: "Not to-night; Cicely won't get back in time. Her poor woman is d

faint, defensive smile, she said: "Oh-you must come with us; we will all go together; as fa

ngs, imagined this. She had never before spoken as though they were, definitely, to go different ways. And she stood looking down into the fire as if she c

ecause of th

about it," he went on. "I c

to him, with the immensity of some blank vastness of distance that divided t

ould," he said. "You must listen

," she repeated. "It was tr

he asked, and he heard

and what the stillness was that wrapped her round. "He comes. Cicel

t. Then he said: "You mean that she tells you she sees him; that she thinks she

too far from him. But when we left her alone, Cicely went to the window and saw him standing in the moonlight. He was not looking up at her, but down at the fritillaries. She and he planted them there together, before we

once and told you

r. But he was gone. And when she came back and looked from the window, he was go

me my tea, as if all this had never happened." But he knew as he spoke that it had not been so with Miss

ise in it for her, Bevis. She has always felt him there. When we went to the window she thought that we should surely see him, and when we did not, s

uttered. "That she was shamming. I d

n then, she would have seen him last night, I am sure; because I am sure he intended her to

ter all, the worst had happened, less fear, or more, than he had felt? Did he believe that Miss Latimer had lied? Did he believe Malco

f ordinary argument, "you say it was only for you

ile. "Wasn't it natural?" she said at

t way f

xisting," said Antonia, with her cold, downcast face. "Not as s

eally believed,

lone, would not have parted us.

he had not remembered Tony's fear, it had doubtless been its doubled image that had printed itself from their minds upon Miss Latimer's clairvoyant brain. But now, seeing his dead friend, as he always thought of him, the whole and happy creature, a painful memory suddenly assailed him, challenging this peaceful pi

olm dressed when sh

g his question, but he heard from her voice that she sus

n he was killed. Tony ha

d, or with

at now she was looking at him. "Bareheaded. Yes," she assent

ook pale?

alm," s

ad his reasons; but,

as he, abandoning hope, measured what she had, till then, kept from him. "They told me that Malcolm was shot through the heart, Bevis. It was not only that. I don't know why they felt it kinder to say that

?" he repeat

lled. That's w

of guilt, dyed his face and, despite his words, horror settled round his heart. "She

is own hope of escape. He had brought further evidence; but it was not

nd. That was what Cicely saw. He must have died at o

ue too. The shot in the breast would have been enough to kill him. It was

res were not touched; not on the side he turned to her," she

ed round his heart. As if pushing against a weight he forced his will through the horror and went back to his place at the other end of the mantelpiece; and, with a conscious volition, he put his hand on hers and drew it from the shelf. "Tony dear," he said, "come sit d

hand upon her and heard his voice, empty of all but an immense gentleness, tears, for the first t

ed done something to him; or that Malcolm had. The wraith of that inscrutability hovered between him and Tony, and in clasping her would he not always clasp its chill? The springs of ardour i

question, but she

Bevis. We are parte

le his heart mocked the protestation. "I don't know it. Life

ether. He would be the

re; happy; loving you;

e were happy. He would not have appeared to Cicely. He is not angry. I understand it all. He is trying to get through, but it is not becaus

e piteous, engulfed hand. But it was a pity not only for her, but for himself, and, unendurably, for Malcolm, in that vision she evoked, that brought the slow tears to

ms around him. "Oh, my darling Bevis. I've broke

to her. He had a beautiful feeling of comfort and contentment, e

after a moment, "My heart's not br

erly, she held him as a mother holds her child. "I'd give

so that he should feel her more near, "that wouldn't d

ld!" she

ach other's arms at the bottom of the sea, dead and peaceful, and Malcolm who lived and roved so restlessly, in the world fr

not to him. Their cold, fixed grief gazed above his head. And the faint, deprecatory smile flickered about her mouth

away together? You

she did not look at him, but around at the

meant. That's what I am going t

"Of course. You and I

on? You'll take a day or t

ing himself the bereft and terrified child who seeks pretexts so that its mother shall not leave it. And he thought, as they went so together, that t

can rest with me here: not saying a

d slowly, and her face was turned away

ween them. Yet, summoning his will, summoning the claim of life against that detested apparition, expressing, als

ent and looked at him and he remembered how she had looked the other day-oh! how long ago it seemed-when he had frightened her by saying h

o smile at her. "Wait till I get you safel

ld who looked at him, answering his sally with a smile a

love that had cherished him so tenderly, faltering