The Mystics Part 8

For the first time since he had entered the room, her glance rested fully on his face. The light was uncertain, but as her gaze concentrated itself, a new look--a look of wonder and alarm--sprang across her eyes.

In the seven days since they had spoken together, a change had fallen on him. Some alteration she could not define had grown into his expression; the cold mastery of himself and others was still visible; but a new emotion had insensibly been created--something powerful and even dominant--for which she could find no name. With a sharp, instinctive alarm, her lips parted.

"What is it?" she said, apprehensively. "Why are you here? The time has not come for you to go out into the world?"

A faintly ironic smile flitted across his lips.

"Surely, if one is a Prophet, one can alter even prophecies."

He said the words deliberately, looking down into her face.

The tone, the intentional flippancy of the words, came to her with a shock. It was as if, by considered action, he had set about jeopardizing his own dignity. A chill of undefined apprehension blew across her mind like a cold wind.

"I--I don't understand," she stammered. "How did you get here? How did you get away?"

Again his keen eyes searched hers.

"As for getting away," he said, slowly, "when a Prophet has a Precursor, he should be able to arrange these things. Five o'clock is a dull hour at h.e.l.lier Crescent. The Arch-Mystics are perusing the Scitsym; the Precursor is guarding the sacred threshold of the Prophet; the Prophet is--presumably--communing with his Soul. The routine of this evening differs in no way from the routine of any other evening--except that the Precursor is rather more than usually vigilant in his watch." Again the forced flippancy was apparent; and to Enid, staring at him with wide, perplexed eyes, there was something inexplicable and alarming in this new and unfamiliar att.i.tude. With a tremor of foreboding, her glance travelled over his face.

"Has anything happened?" she asked. "Have the People done wrong? Have you--have you been called elsewhere?" At the last dread possibility her voice faltered.

But the Prophet stood cold and almost rigid. At last, by an immense effort, he seemed to gather himself together for some tremendous end.

"Enid," he said, gravely, "I don't know how much you know of life, but I presume you know very little. I presume that--and shall act on the presumption. I shall not expect--even ask--any leniency of you.

"I came here this evening to tell you something that will alter your opinion of me so effectually that nothing hereafter can reinstate me in your mind." He spoke slowly and deliberately, without tremor or falter.

Whatever of struggle lay behind his words, it lay with the past. It was evident as he stood there in the pretty, luxurious room, that he possessed a purpose, and that he held to it without thought of a retrograde step.

"I have come to make a confession," he said, quietly. "Not because I believe in the habit of unburdening one's conscience, but because there is something you have a right to know--"

"I--? A right to know?" Her lips paled.

"Yes. A right to know." With a sudden access of feeling he dropped her hands and turned towards the window, where the last glimmer of the wintry twilight showed through the soft silk curtains.

"I am putting myself in your hands," he said, steadily. "I am jeopardizing myself utterly by what I am going to say; but it seems to me the only way by which I can make--well, can patch up some poor amends--

"I may be presumptuous, but I believe--I think--that I have stood for something in your eyes." He turned and looked at her. But in the mingled dusk and firelight only the pale outline of her face was visible.

"Enid!" he cried, with sudden resolution, "it must be faced. It must be said. I'm not what you think me. I'm a fraud--a lie--an impostor. No more a Prophet--no more inspired than you--or Bale-Corphew!" He stopped abruptly and drew a slow, deep breath.

The pause that followed was long and strained. In the grip of strong emotions, each stood rigid, striving vainly to read the other's face. At last, goaded by the silence, he spoke again.

"You have done this!" he cried. "You have compelled me to tell you! I came to these people; I duped them--and gloried in duping them. I despised them, understood them, traded on them without a scruple. Then you came. You came--and the scheme was shattered. The whole thing, that had bubbled and sparkled, became suddenly like flat champagne. That is a common simile, but it is descriptive. The acting of an actor depends upon his audience. While my audience was composed of fools, I fooled them; but when you came--you with your scepticism, your curiosity, your feminine dependency--I lost my cue. I became conscious of the footlights and the make-up." Again he paused; and again he endeavored to read her face. His manner was still restrained, but below his calm were the stirrings of a deep agitation. There was tense anxiety in the set of his lips, an inordinate antic.i.p.ation in the keenness of his eyes. For a s.p.a.ce he stood waiting; then, as she made no effort towards response, he stepped to her side.

"Say something!" he exclaimed. "Speak to me! I am waiting for you to speak."

With a low, frightened murmur she drew back, extending her hands, as if to ward him off.

The sound and the movement stung him to action. With a speed that might have been construed into fear, he came still nearer.

"Enid!" he said. "Enid!"

But again she retreated involuntarily.

"Oh, why did you do it?" she exclaimed, suddenly, in a faint, shaken voice. "Oh, why did you do it? Why did you do it?"

For an instant her tone and her manner daunted him; then he straightened his body and raised his head.

"I did it for what is reckoned the most sordid motive in the world," he said, in a level voice. "I did it for money!"

"For money?" With a scared movement she turned upon him, and for the first time since he had made his revelation, he saw her pale, alarmed, incredulous face in the full light of the fire.

"I was wronged!" he said, sharply. "These people had defrauded me. I wanted what was justly mine."

"Wanted?" The word formed itself almost inarticulately.

"Yes; wanted. Wanted with all my might. I have worked, schemed, suffered for this in ways you could never imagine. I thought myself invincible.

I believed that if the devil himself stood in my way it would not deter me. And now you--a frail girl--have wrecked the scheme!" He paused again, leaning towards her in sudden unconscious appeal for comprehension.

"I won't say it hasn't been a struggle to come to you like this--to make my confession. It has. My conscience and I have been struggling night and day. I have held out to the last. It was only to-day--this very day--when I woke to face the crisis of my plans, that I knew I was beaten--knew the fight was over.

"And do you understand why this has happened? Do you know why I am going away as empty-handed as I came? It is because I have seen you--because I love you--"

He put out his hands. But as his fingers touched her, she thrust him away, freeing herself with fierce resentment.

"Don't! don't! don't!" she cried. "You call yourself an impostor--You are worse than that. Much worse. You are a thief!"

He stepped back as though she had struck him, and his hands dropped to his sides.

"Yes, you are a thief!" she said again, hysterically; "a thief!"

The repet.i.tion of the word goaded him.

"Wait! Let me defend myself!"

But with a broken sound of protest she flung her hands over her ears.

"No! no! no!" she cried, vehemently. "There is no defence to make. There is no defence. You may leave the money of the sect, but you have stolen things that can never be replaced. Faith--hopes--ideals--" Her voice failed her.

"Mistaken faith--mistaken ideals--" He caught her wrists, drawing her hands downward.

But again she freed herself and confronted him with blazing eyes and a face marred by tears and emotion.

"Nothing is mistaken that lifts one up--that helps one to live. Oh, you don't knew what you have done! You don't know! I thought you so n.o.ble--so great--and now--"

"Now I am condemned unheard."

"Unheard? Do you think words could change anything? There is only one thing I wish for now--never, never to see you again as long as either of us live!" With each word her voice rose, and on the last it broke with an excited sob.

While she had been speaking the Prophet's face had become very pale. He turned to her now with a manner that was preternaturally quiet.