The Dweller on the Threshold

d of this. He had enough to keep in his mind that day. The matter in which he was interested seemed growing before his eyes, like a thing coming out of the earth, but now beginn

almost exaggeratedly feminine, can live in any fullness only through another, and that other a man. Through Mr. Harding Lady Sophia had hitherto lived, and had doubtless, in her view, triumphed. Obviously a woman not

sleeves, purple, perhaps,-for who is more hopeful than this type of woman in the golden moments of life?-pe

an who might be as critical as she had formerly bee

ad waked up in his wife eager sympathy and eager spite, the one directed toward the man w

very reason adore, had given place to another l

happen, almost as if it must happen: it seemed to him as if Chi

had said. "There will be

roved true. There had b

ad certainly not anticip

listened to the morni

f that question; again a

t Burlington House

led; in the evening Henry Chichester had preached to a church that was full to the do

a very poor way, nervously, indeed, almost timidly, and with the manner of a man who was cowed and hopeless. The powerful optimism for which he had once been distinguished had given way to an almost unhealthy pessimism, alien surely to the minds of all believers, of all who profess to look forward to that life of which, as Tolstoi long ago said, our present life is but a dream. Even when he was uttering truths he spoke them as if he had a

g did not feel that his humility was a pretense. On the contrary, it struck him as abominably real, but so excessive as to be not natural in any thorough m

the evening. Malling, aware though he had become of the great

s while he listened to Chichester. There was something, though, that was almost deadly about it. It pierced like a lancet. It seared like a red-hot iron. It humbled almost too much. Here was no exaggerated humility, no pleading

n. This was not done viciously, but it was done relentlessly. Indeed, that was the note of the whole sermon. It was relentless, as truth is relentless, as death is relentless. And besides being terribly true, it was imaginative. But the preacher almost succeeded in conveying th

. And the man lived as a man lives in the pages of a great writer. One could walk round him, one knew him. An

ed that he was a fine fellow, the clergyman of his parish, who gave him God-speed upon his way as to one who deserved that God should speed him because his way was right. Snow was upon the ground. Such light as there was began to fade. It was evident that the night, which was very still, was going to be very dark. And the man s

unknown traveler, floating forward in surmises, till, by chance, he happened to set his right foot in one of the prints left in the snow. His foot exactly filled it. This fact, he knew not why, startled him. He stopped, bent down, examined the snow closely, measured very carefully his feet with the prints before him, now rather faintly discerned in the gathering darkness. The prints might have been made by his own feet. Having asc

The congregation about him, perhaps struck by the unusual form of the sermon, remained silent and motionless, waiting. In his stall sat the rector with downcast eyes. Malling could not at that moment discern his expression. His large figure and important powerful head and face showed almost like those of a

Malling's spirit. He leaned sligh

llness of night, he heard the faint sound of a footfall before him, brushing through the crisp snow, which lay lightly, and not very deep, on the hard highroad leading to the village on the farther outskirts of which his house was situated. He could not yet see any one, but he felt sure th

thin him a struggle between his curiosity and another sensation, which was of repugnance, almost of fear. And so equal were the combatants that the lights of the village were in sight, and he had not decreased the distance between himself and the other. Seeing the lights, however, his curiosity got the upper hand. He slightly quickened his pace, and almost immediately beheld the shape of a man relieved against the night,

did he become that he had seen it, that he knew it. And yet-did he know it? Had he seen it? It was almost as if one part of him denied while the other aff

ange thing

ard they encountered the other, who had known them for years, and whom they of course knew, showed the greatest perturbation; one, a woman, even signs of terror. They gave him no greeting, shrank

ho now watched and followed, with a growing wonder and curiosity, combined with an ever-growing repugnance, him who made the footprints, who had been saluted by the villagers, whose figure and general aspect seemed in somewise familiar to him, and yet whom he could not recognize. Whe

y quickened his steps, so did the other, who gained the gate of the garden, unlat

w of his own sitting-room streaming over the porch. The stranger stood before it, made a movement as if searching in h

ed the door

at seeing a man, perhaps a stranger, disappearing thus into his home by night, uninvited, unexpected. What horrified him was that this particular man, whose footprints he had followed and measured with his foot, whose footfalls he had heard, whose form he had seen outlined against the night,

an explanation. But he could not do this. Why? He himself did not know why. But he knew that he dared not do this. And

began to marvel. Who could this be whose familiar entry into his-his home thus at night caused no disturbance? There were dogs within: they had not barked. The

h the unshuttered window of his sitting-room, the room in which for years he had spent much of his time, in which he had concocted many schemes to throw dust in the eyes of his neighbors, and even of his own relatives, in which he had learned very perfect

ungers disappeared from the one long street vanishing over the snow. And the man never moved. A numb terror possessed him. Yet, despite his many faults and his life of evil, he had never been physically a coward. Always the light

nation. But again and again something within him, which seemed to be a voice from the innermost chamber of his soul, whispered to him not to go, whispered to him to leave the intruder alone, to let the intr

Then she rose into his range of vision, and stood for a moment so that he could see her clearly, smiling, talking, making little gestures that he knew, carrying her hand to her face, stretching it out,

ch seemed combined of rage and terror, both now full of a driving force which was irresistible, the

e over the table with his head turned away. The shape of his head, his posture, even the manner in which he used his pen as he traced line after line in the book, made an abominable impression upon the man staring in at t

t with a tiny key, and put it carefully into a drawer of the table, which also he locked. He got up, stood for an instant by the table with

him. He had seen his own face! So he smiled sometimes at the end of a day, when

which he had been looking suddenly

astly face toward the pulpit. In the morning Chichester had listened to him, as a man of truth might listen to a man who is trying to lie, but who can

nterest of the new. For years he had been familiar with tales of ghosts, of voices, of appearances at the hour of death, of doubles. Of course in the sermon there had been a special application of the story. It had been very short. C

ouble through the snow, who had looked in upon him by night from the garden, if he had faced, instead of flying from, the truth; if he had stayed,

d, what would have been

ep in the night pon