The House of Souls

good deal lowered, on the pretext that his eyes were tired with work; he thought many things might happen if the room were dimly lit, and the window opened, so that they could sit and

has happened! I never liked him much, but I di

talking about? What has happe

see that woman opposite watching

s they sat down to tea. 'Tell me,

ing queer for weeks. And then she found-oh, well, the long and short of it is that Uncle Rob

old rascal! Why, he must be

ive; and the money

ise over, Darnell turned

m not going to have my meals spoilt by that old

a bit of ham in it? I thought there was something extra. Alice all rig

rted, and had scarcely touched food since the intelligence had arrived by the second post. She had started out to keep the appointment her aunt

had been cleared, 'tell us all about

She says there has been a horrid kind of mystery about uncle's behaviour for a long time, and her nerves

th made her

some nice country walks at Barnet, and one in particular, in the fields near Totteridge, that uncle and aunt rather made a point of going to on fine Sunday evenings. O

n't quite understand. Why should

able, because she didn't know where it was coming from or who was doing it, or why. Then, just as they got out of the fields into the lane, uncle said he felt quite faint, and he thought he would try a little brandy at the "Turpin's Head," a small public-house there is there. And she looked at him and saw his face was quite purple-more like apoplexy, as she says, than fainting fits, which make people look a sort of greenish-white. But she said nothing, and thought perhaps uncle had a peculiar way of fainting of his own, as he always was a

e actually showed her a piece in the "Hertfordshire Naturalist" which they took in to oblige a friend of theirs, all about rare birds found in the neighbourhood, all the most outlandish names, aunt says, that she had never heard or thought of, and uncle had the impudence to say that it must have been a Purple Sandpiper, which, the paper said, had "a low shrill note, constantly repeated." And then he took down a book of Siberian Travels from the bookcase and showed her a page which told how a man was followed by a bird all day long through a forest. And that's what Aunt Marian says vexes her more than anything almost; to think that he should be so artful and ready with those books, twisting them to his own wicked ends. But, at the time, when she was out walking, she simply couldn't make out what he meant by talking

of the dandelion was too much for him, and he burst into a long, wild shriek of laughter, aggravated by suppression into the semblance of a Red Indian's war-whoop. Alice, who was washi

feebleness of exhaustion. 'If you had seen the tears rolling down poor Aunt Marian's cheeks a

am awfully sorry. I know it's very sad, really, and I'm not unfeeling; but it is

gravely at him for a moment, and then she put her hands to her

done that for the world. Poor old thing; she cried as if her heart would break. I met her at Victoria, as she asked me, and we had some soup at a confectioner's.

'what happened next? I

read about people who heard noises when there was really nothing at all. But that wouldn't do either, because though it might account for the whistling, it wouldn't account for the dandelion or the Sandpiper, or for fainting fits that turned purple, or any of uncle's queerness. So aunt said she could think of nothing but to read the Bible every day from the beginning, and by the time she got into Chronicles she felt rather better, especially as nothing had happened for three or four Sundays. She noticed uncle seemed absent-minded, and not as nice to her as he might be, but she put that down to too much work, as he never came home before the last train, and had a hansom twice all the way, getting there between three and four in the mo

What an extraordinary story this is. I've neve

e,' said Mrs. Darnell. 'It

rnell ruminat

f it. I believe your aunt is going mad, or has gone mad, and that she has

rue, and if you will let me go on, yo

ood, go

next field. So aunt said she was very sorry, but her cold made her so deaf, she couldn't hear much. She noticed uncle looked quite pleased, and relieved too, and she knew he thought she hadn't heard the whistling. Suddenly uncle pretended to see a beautiful spray of honeysuckle high up in the hedge, and he said he must get it for aunt, only she must go on ahead, as it made him nervous to be watched. She said she would, but she just stepped aside behind a bush where there was a sort of cover in the hedge, and found she could see him quite well, though she scratched her face terribly with poking it into a rose bush. And in a minute or two out came the boy from behind the hedge, and she saw uncle and him talking, and she knew it was the same boy, as it wasn't dark enough to hide his flaming red head. And uncle put

man with house propert

cret, and she didn't know what else to think. And t

he post! What do

rcels that unrolled and unrolled worse than Chinese boxes, and then had "cat" in large letters

t! Stuff and nonsen

e dead cockroaches inside. And when she found a box of exactly the same kind, half-

feeling that the tale of Aunt Marian's domestic tr

g else?'

e her she saw a figure gliding by the rhododendrons. It looked like a short, slim man dressed as they used to be hundreds of years ago; she saw the sword by his side, and the feather in his cap. She thought she should have died, she said, and though it was gone in a minute, and she tried to make out it was all he

ome to the point. What on

Why, of course it was

ou said it was a b

ing in the week, but she must be after him on Sundays too. Aunt found a letter the horrid thing had written, and so it has all come out. E

in. I'll have a pipe, an

asleep when Mar

ing me such beautiful things, and to-night I have been t

walls of that great church upon the hill I saw all k

develop on the somewhat fantastic lines of these first adventures which Mrs. Darnell had related; indeed, when 'Aunt Marian' came over t

f tremendous speed-'and indeed,' as Nixon would add, 'it was always up to time, which is more than can be said of the Dunham Branch Line nowadays!' It was in this ancient Dunham that the Nixons had waged successful trade for perhaps a hundred years, in a shop with bulging bay windows looking on the market-place. There was no competition, and the townsfolk, and well-to-do farmers, the clergy and the country families, looked upon the house of Nixon as an institution fixed as the town hall (which stood on Roman pillars) and the parish church. But the change came: the railway crept nearer and nearer, the farmers and the country gentry became less well-to-do; the tanning, which was the local industry, suffered from a great business which had been established in a larger town, some twenty miles away, and the profits of the Nixons grew less and less. Hence the hegira of Robert, and he would dilate on the poorness of his beginnings, how he saved, by little and little, from his sorry wage of City clerk, and how he and a fellow clerk, 'who had come into a hundred pounds,' saw an opening in the coal trade-and filled it. It was at this stage of Robert's fortunes, still far from magnificent, that Miss Marian Reynolds had encountered him, she being on a visit to friends in Gunnersbury. Afterwards, victory followed victory; Nixon's wharf became a landmark to bargemen; his power

n seat with a cushion at her back, she looked away at the back of the houses in the next street. She was dressed in black, it was true, but even Darnell could see that her gown was old and shabby, that the fur trimming of her cape and the fur boa which was twisted about her neck were dingy and disconsolate, and had all the melancholy air which fur wears when it is seen in a second-hand clothes-shop in a back street

wife on the green garden-seat, Darnell, who occupied a wicker-chair brought out from the drawing-room, could not help feeling that this shadowy and evasive figure, muttering replies to Mary's polite questions, was almost impossibly remote from his conceptions of the rich and powerful aunt, who could give away a hundred pounds as a mer

e to an odd querulous pipe. 'I'd no notion it was such an out-of-t

that the bag seemed full, almost to bursting, and he speculated idly as to the nature of its contents: correspondence, perhaps, he thought, further proofs of Uncle Robert's treacherous and wicked dealings. He grew quite uncomfortable, as he sat and saw her glanci

he saw Mrs. Nixon's head inclining to hi

rmured. 'Aunt says she can't bring herself to discuss such a

walk would do me good. You mustn't be frightened if I am a little late,' he

ll pitiful respect, but at the same time, to his shame, he had felt a certain physical aversion from her as she sat in his garden in her dingy black, dabbing her red-rimmed eyes with a damp pocket-handkerchief. He had been to the Zoo when he was a lad, and he still remembered how he had shrunk wi

found a way into a little sheltered field, and sat down in peace beneath a tree, whence he could look out on a pleasant valley. The sun sank down beneath the hills, the clouds changed into the likeness of blossoming rose-gardens; and he still sat there in the gathering darkness till a cool breeze blew upon him,

Mary told him. Darnell sighed with relief, and he and his

d at last Mary spoke, not withou

at aunt has made a proposal which you oug

bout the whole affair?

omewhere in town for that woman, and furnished it in the most costly manner. He simply laughs

r any money? Wasn't she very badly d

nt of money, I assure you, as uncle settled a very large sum on her two years ago, when he was everything that could be desired as a

n to the grass. He was stupefied by the thought of Aunt Marian as a boarder, and sat

do think, dearest, that we ought not to refuse without very serious

ook his he

ar. Do you think we have the right to refuse her offer? I told you she has money of her own, and I am sure she would be dreadfully o

ll gr

Mary dear, by ourselves. Of course I am extremely sorry for your aunt. I thin

ht to think of the future, and besides we shall be able to live so very much better. I shall be able to give you all

he would pay u

bear the cost of a fire in the drawing-room, and give something towards the gas bill, with a few shillings for the girl for any additional trouble. We should certainly be more than twice as we

othing, and his wife we

o up to her room in the evening directly after dinner. I thought that very nice and considerate. She quite understands that we shouldn

ood offer, financially, and I am afraid it would be very i

lly be doing poor aunt a very great kindness. Poor old dear, she cried bitterly after you were gone; she said she had made up her mind not to stay a

ow. It may be as you say; we shan't find it

nd lit a wax match which showed him the pipe, and close beside it, under the seat, somethi

some notepaper, wished to write at once to Mrs. Nixon, cordially acceptin

startled by the tone of his vo

ng her a small leaflet; 'I found

lderment at her husban

CHOSEN SEE

E FULFILLED IN

e hundred and Forty and Four Ve

e Dog, including all the instrume

ng with it the gold of Arabia, destined to

and the bestowing of the Se

become luminous, but with a grea

stoned with stones in the

Two Great Rulers will deny Father, and will immedi

with the Little Horn,

pt, which has been revealed to Father as n

and Seven, and on the One Hundred and Forty an

building of the City called No,

d the present Earth removed to the

mless if incoherent. From her husband's voice she had been led to fear

said, 'wha

at your aunt dropped it, and tha

ll her a lunatic. I don't believe, myself, that there are any real prophets now; but there are many good people who think quite differently. I knew an old lady once who, I am sure, was very good, and she to

you like. But I believe

fter her 'evening out,' and they sat on, till Mrs.

dearest. I want to think things over. No, no; I am not going to change my mind: your aunt sh

h had been so quiet, there seemed to be gathering on all sides grotesque and fantastic shapes, omens of confusion and disorder, threats of madness; a strange company from another world. It was as if into the quiet, sleeping streets of some little ancient town among the hills there had come from afar the sound of drum an

e streets that were wont to be so still, so hushed with the cool and tranquil veils of darkness, asleep beneath the patronage of the evening star, now danced with glimmering lanterns, resounded with the cries of those who hurried forth, drawn as by a magistral spell; and the songs swelled and triumphed, the reverberant beating of the drum grew louder, and in the midst of the awakened town the players, fantastically arrayed, performed their interlude under the red blaze of torches. He knew not whether they were players, men that would vanish suddenl

ps might be in the ways of the ancient town that was beset by the Enchanters, and resounded with their songs and their processions, yet he dwelt also in that serene and secure world of brightness, and from a great and u

eace as he lay down beside his wife and fell asleep