Right in the middle of the road stood Holdsworth, casting his eyes first to the right, then to the left, then letting them rest fixedly on the house at the extremity.

Here was the scene, the place at last, that was to roll back the curtains which hid the past from him, and to proclaim the resurrection of the life within him that for years had slept a sleep as deep as death.

There he stood, brought by God’s hand from a far-off world into the little Kentish village, where his memories lay heaped, where association made a beacon of every humble house to lead him with unerring step backward and backward to the sweetest, the dearest of all his memories.

How remembered, how deeply remembered, the scene! The old tavern on the right, with its swinging signboard, its burnished latticed windows, the great elm tree spreading its branches, like soft fingers, over the red-tiled roof; the farmhouse facing it, with the clamour of hidden poultry all about it, softened by the cooing of doves; and the cherry and apple trees stretching forth their fruit over the wooden railing, and the strings of white linen drying in the open spaces among the trees; the vista of gable-peaked houses, the old shops, the grassy land between the houses, the blacksmith’s shed, the hens in the roadway, the children on the doorsteps, the women working at the open windows, and the little house at the extremity, backed by soft masses of green trees and the delicate blue of the afternoon sky.

He knew his life’s history as he surveyed this scene, as though a voice in his ear were whispering it all to him. The chain was too complete not to suggest the unseen links; the throng of associations was too manifold and pregnant not to reveal to his mind the things which his eyes beheld not. Swiftly and fiercely—a very whirlwind of logic—thought flew over each stepping-stone to the hidden past; and then he knew what he had left, what he was now to seek, and what had been the WANT which his instincts—that deeper life of his of which the movements were independent of the senses—had never lost sight of.

When his faintness had passed, a great joy took possession of him—an impulse so keenly exhilarating, that he could have cried aloud in his rapture. But then came a revulsion—a deadly fear—of what he knew not, save that its presence turned him into ice, and damped his forehead with sweat.

He was all unconscious of the eyes that were upon him; but some one approaching made him turn his head, and he saw several persons watching him curiously from the door of the inn, while others, plain country people in smocks and highlows, muttered to one another as they stared from the pavement.

“Won’t you please to step in, sir?” said the man who came forward, a short, square-faced individual, in a black calico apron and a white hat.

“Who lives in that house?” returned Holdsworth, pointing down the road.

“That one yonder, with the chimbley looking this way? Why, I don’t think anybody’s living in it just now, although I did hear that it was taken by a party from Ashford.—Emily!” he called.

A stout, well-looking woman elbowed her way out of the tavern, and stood on the lower step.

“The gentleman wants to know who lives in that house at the bottom.”

“It’s to let. Mr. Markham has the letting of it,” answered the woman.

“His is the shop yonder,” said the man. “You’ll see ‘Undertaker and Joiner’ wrote over the door.”

“I’ll send a boy to fetch him, if you like,” said the woman.

“I’ll goa, missus,” remarked an old man in a long blouse, turning about on his stick in his eagerness to earn a glass of yale.

“No, I don’t want him,” said Holdsworth.

“Won’t you step in and rest yourself, sir?” exclaimed the woman, exerting the seductive smile with which she was wont to greet every passenger who stopped at her door.

Holdsworth hesitated a moment, as though there were a magic in the little distant house that constrained him to keep his eyes upon it, and then entered the tavern, heralded by the landlady, and followed by the landlord.

The parlour into which he was conducted was as quiet and private as he could wish, screened by a red curtain across the glass of the door from the bar, with a window opening on to a square of ground well stocked with shrubs and vegetables. The sunshine streamed into the room, and lighted up the queer ornaments on the mantelpiece, the fine old china hanging upon rows of hooks in a mahogany cabinet, the well-worn carpet, the velvet sofa, the black bottles and glittering tankards on the shelves of the sideboard.

The landlord went behind the bar to look after some besmocked gentry who were drinking in front of it, leaving his wife to attend to Holdsworth.

“What might you like to order, sir?” she inquired, presenting herself at a side door.

He asked her to bring him some wine and biscuits, saying that he had no appetite now, but would dine or sup later on. He looked at her very attentively as he spoke, with an idea in his mind that he had seen her before.

She went away, and he left his seat and paced the room with a wild look of distress on his face, and bitter anxiety and fear in his heart. Once he snatched up his hat and advanced to the door, but hesitated and resumed his agitated walk. His feelings were those of a man just awakened to consciousness from the effects of a blow that had stunned him. His body trembled, his lips worked, and he held his hands squeezed tightly together. His sufferings were indeed terrible. He looked back upon the blank of five years and recoiled before the conjectures his heart prompted as to the things which had happened in that time. Sometimes his impulse was to rush forth and cry aloud for Dolly, and then a deadly chill came over him, and he shut his eyes and beat aside his thoughts, as though they were something tangible and apart from him, with his hand.

When the door opened, he bit his lip to control himself, and kept his back turned upon the woman in feigned inspection of a print upon the wall. As she was about to withdraw, he looked at her and said:

“Have you lived long in Southbourne?”

“Yes, sir, many years.”

He seated himself and drank a glass of wine.

“How many years?”

“Oh, twelve, thirteen. Ah, more like fifteen years, sir!”

“So long! Then you know all the people here?”

“Yes, sir, I daresay I do,” answered the woman, putting her hands under her apron, and examining Holdsworth’s face and clothes with great curiosity.

“Who last lived in that house at the bottom of the street?”

“You mean the one you was askin’ my husband about?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Fairchild, the butcher, after he sold his business about two years ago.”

“Who before Mr. Fairchild?”

“It stood empty awhile after Mrs. Holdsworth left it.”

“Where is she now?”

“Livin’ at Hanwitch, along with her husband, Mr. Conway, the dentist.”

The woman’s eyes, when she made this answer, were on the garden; when she looked again at Holdsworth, his face was turned from her.

“Did you know any of the parties, sir, as you’re asking about?” she inquired.

He did not answer her, and she, thinking that he had not heard her, continued:

“I was servant along with poor Mr. Newcome before the old gentleman died, and saw a good deal of Mrs. Holdsworth, as I always call her; for, somehow, I can never bear to think of her as Mrs. Conway, for her heart never went with her hand when she married that gentleman, as I can bear witness to, for I was at the wedding, and never saw a poor body cry as she did. She and her grandmother, old Mrs. Flemming, was often at the rectory ... but I beg pardon, sir; you was speaking of the house. I can’t remember who had it before Mrs. Holdsworth. It’s a long time ago.”

Holdsworth raised his head.

Up to the moment of her speaking of Dolly he had not known his own name; all other memories had returned to him, save that. His face was very white, but there was a strong expression in it. If the woman were to talk for another twelve hours, she could add nothing more to what she had already said. Dolly’s death he had expected as he had expected a hundred other nameless possibilities, when memory swooped upon him and set him peering over the edge of the chasm that separated the Then from the Now; but not her marriage. Not that. In all the hours he had passed in the open boat at sea, beholding death striking down his companions about him, suffering the exquisite torture of thirst, the yet more exquisite pang of hopelessness, there was no moment of agony in all that time comparable to the agony that now wrenched him. It might be one of those terrible experiences which break the heart or transform the nature, but it gave to or found in Holdsworth a quality of endurance that enabled him to front the extremity with a face of marble.

When next he spoke his voice was low, but without a tremor in it.

“I am interested in Mrs. Conway and her old grandmother. Tell me what you know about them.”

“Surely, sir, you don’t bring news of Mr. Holdsworth—of the fine young man that went to sea and was shipwrecked?” inquired the woman with a face of excitement, and staring hard, as if she were about to receive some astounding news.

“No, no!” he answered, almost under his breath; and then he added, “Tell me what you know of the widow.”

“I remember Mr. Holdsworth well,” said the woman, her speech answering to her mood. “A handsomer young fellow I never saw. He used often to be at the rectory with his wife, and the love between them was something beautiful. How she ever had the heart to let him leave her I never could guess. But he went and was drowned, and left the young thing without a friend or a shilling in the wide world, God help her; and though I said it was almost stupid her marrying Mr. Conway, remembering what love there was between her and Mr. Holdsworth, yet I have always believed it was for her child’s sake that she married the dentist, for they were in desperate want when he courted her, and must have starved for want of help.”

“You are speaking of Holdsworth’s child?”

“Yes, sir. A bright little thing, and fair as a lily. I saw her the other day when I was over at Hanwitch. She was with her mamma, and I never see such a likeness as there is between her and her poor drowned papa. But you’re askin’ about old Mrs. Flemming. Why, she died four years ago. She was very old, and went off quite peaceful, they said. What with Mrs. Flemming’s death, and her never getting any news of her husband, and having a tiny little baby to find food for, I do think the poor young lady’s heart nearly broke. I never heard exactly how the money matter was with her, but I believe that when Mrs. Flemming died she would have nothing to live on but her husband’s pay, which was stopped when he was given up for lost. Mr. Newcome was very kind, and paid her rent, and helped her along while he lived; and then Mr. Conway saw her; but it was a long time before she would marry him, long after the poor old rector was dead and gone, and she found that taking in needlework was worse than going on the parish. I often think of her—I do, indeed, sir—waiting day after day for her husband, who was never to come home. I’d rather, myself, have married anybody than a sailor. There’s no telling, when once they go, whether they’ll ever come back again. They’re worse nor soldiers for that.”

Here the woman, suddenly conceiving that she had talked quite enough, and perhaps a little too much, dropped a courtesy and left the room; but came back again to ask two questions—At what hour would the gentleman please to dine? and would he like to have a bed-room in her house? She could recommend her bed-rooms. Her linen was clean as snow.

“I will tell you presently,” answered Holdsworth. “I have not yet decided upon my movements.”

“There’s a nice plump fowl——”

“Yes, cook me that by seven o’clock,” said Holdsworth, who was feverishly impatient to be left alone.

She closed the door, and Holdsworth leaned his temples on his hands and fixed his heavy eyes on the bare table, taking the attitude of a student striving to master some difficult problem.

For many minutes he held this posture, presently lifted his head, and looked about him; then took his hat and went out.

The landlord behind the bar made him a low bow, and offered his services to show him over the village. Holdsworth declined his offer with a “Thank you,” and walked into the road. He glanced over his shoulder suspiciously as he advanced, disliking the inquisitive stare with which he had been followed through the bar of the inn by the people drinking there, but no one watched him. He held a stick, on which he leaned as he moved, like an infirm man; and often he paused and gazed around him. The people in the roadway, or in the houses, eyed him as he passed with the curiosity a stranger seldom fails to excite in small unfrequented places; but he took no notice of them; his mind was intent on vivifying the impressions it was receiving with old memories, and adjusting the ideas which had been restored to him out of the dark and secret hiding-places of the past.

Few changes had been made in the aspect of the little village to embarrass the picture which his recovered memory had submitted to him. Some alterations in the external form of one or two shops, and two freshly-built houses on the left-hand side facing the blacksmith’s shed, were the only new features in the familiar scene of this quaint broad thoroughfare.

His steps grew more reluctant, his face took a sharper expression of pain, though never losing its characteristic of hardness and severity, as he drew near to his old home. He forced himself forwards, and, when abreast, halted and looked at it.

The windows were blindless, the garden showed signs of long neglect, and a board nailed to a post leaned towards the road, bearing the announcement, in painted letters, that the house was to let. A row of cobwebs garnished the woodwork of the gate, and glistened in the sunshine; the bare rooms, visible through the windows, looked cheerless and inhospitable; the window-glass was dirty, and some of the panes in the kitchen window were broken. The grass about the house was tall and vividly green. That window, looking towards the trees between the lanes, belonged to Dolly’s room. There were white soft curtains to it in those days, and the glass was pure and transparent as spring-water. That room on the left was the sitting-room. There they had taken their meals; there they had played forfeits, had hunted the slipper, had made the walls ring with innocent laughter. He remembered the old grandmother’s placid smile, the rector’s kindly jokes, his Dolly’s sweet face, throwing a light of purity and beauty about her. And under the sill were the dead branches of the clematis, still held to the wall by the pieces of black leather Dolly’s own hand had nailed. Such humble signs make grief sharper than large memorials.

He stood leaning upon his stick, losing all sense of the present in this vision of the past. His thoughts, taking their departure from the time when he first fitted out that house as a home for Dolly, flowed regularly downwards. He was a bridegroom again, and his wife was at his side, and her eyes upon his, and their hands clasped. Now the shadow of separation that was to darken them presently was felt; and then came the eve of his departure, thronged with the memory of kisses sweet and bitter, of tears and broken prayers, and brave hopes battling with sullen misgivings. He was now on board the “Meteor,” and now in the open boat, surrounded by the dying, and himself suffering tortures it broke him down to recall; and now he was in Australia, striving with memory, which would yield no answer to his passionate prayers. But the finger of God pointed the way to his old home; and now he was returning to England, with his past still hidden in gloom, but with his heart not unhopeful of the morning that was to break after the long darkness of the night. And finally, with the old village of Southbourne before him, came the rush of memory—the brief exultation—the spasm of fear—the terror that held him mute—the disclosure that showed him his wife less his than had he traversed all the desolate miles of water only to kneel by her grave....

Tears would have relieved him, but he could not weep. He turned and moved slowly away, stopping again and again to look back at the little empty house, while sobs convulsed him, and a sense of supreme desolation and friendlessness weighed him down.