Mac Cann strode through the darkness for a little time, but when he found himself at sufficient distance from the camp he began to run.

There was not very much time wherein to do all that he had engaged before the morning dawned, and so he took to this mode of activity, which was not one for which he had any reverence. He was a heavy man and did not run with either grace or ease, but he could hasten his movements to a jog-trot, and, as his physical condition was perfect, he could continue such a trot until hunger brought it to a halt, for he was never fatigued, being as strong and tireless as a bear.

He was the most simple-minded of men. When he was engaged in one affair he could not meddle with anything else, and now that he was running he could do nothing but run—he could not think, for instance. When it was necessary to think he would either walk very slowly or stand stock-still, and then he would think with great speed and with great simplicity. His head bade his legs be quiet while it was occupied, and, when they were in motion, his legs tramped hush to his head, which obeyed instantly; and he was so well organised on these lines that there was never any quarrel between the extremities.

It was, therefore, the emptiest of men that now pounded the road. He would deal with an emergency when it was visible, but until then he snapped a finger and forgot it, for he had learned that the first word of an emergency is a warning, the second a direction for escape, its third utterance is in action, and it will only be waited for by a fool.

Exactly what he would do when he arrived at the house he did not know, and as yet he made no effort to deal with that problem: he obeyed the prime logical necessity, which was to get there: once there and the second step would push itself against him, and from that cause the most orderly of results would ensue. If there was no trouble he would succeed in his enterprise; if there was trouble he would fly—that was his simple programme.

And meantime there was nothing in the world but darkness and the rhythmic tramping of his feet. These, with a faintly hushing wind, kept his ears occupied. He had much of the cat's facility for seeing in the dark, and he had the sense of direction which some birds have, so he made good progress.

After half an hour's steady movement he came to the house for which he was seeking, and halted there.

It was a long, low building, standing back from the road. There was a stone wall around this house, and the entrance was by an iron gate.

Mac Cann touched the gate, for experience had taught him that gates are not always locked, but this one was locked securely. By the gate was a caretaker's lodge, so he moved quietly from that place and walked by the wall.

There was glass on the top of the wall which halted him for a few moments while he sucked his incautious hand. To cope with this he gathered several large stones and placed them on top of each other and he stood on these, then he threw his coat and waistcoat over the glass and climbed easily across.

He was in a shrubbery. About him every few paces were short, stiff bushes, some of which were armed with spines, which did their duty on his hands and the legs of his trousers; but he regarded these with an inattention which must have disgusted them. He tip-toed among these guardians and was shortly free of them and on a gravel pathway. Crossing this he came on quiet flower-beds, which he skirted: the house was now visible as a dark mass distant some hundred yards.

Saving for one window the place was entirely dark, and it was towards that window he directed his careful steps.

"It's better to look at something than at nothing," quoth he.

He was again on a gravel path, and the stones tried to crunch and wriggle under his feet, but he did not allow that to happen.

He came to the window and, standing well to the side, peeped in.

He saw a square room furnished as a library. The entire section of the walls which he could spy was covered from floor to ceiling with books. There were volumes of every size, every shape, every colour. There were long, narrow books that held themselves like grenadiers at stiff attention. There were short, fat books that stood solidly like aldermen who were going to make speeches and were ashamed but not frightened. There were mediocre books bearing themselves with the carelessness of folk who are never looked at and have consequently no shyness. There were solemn books that seemed to be feeling for their spectacles; and there were tattered, important books that had got dirty because they took snuff, and were tattered because they had been crossed in love and had never married afterwards. There were prim, ancient tomes that were certainly ashamed of their heroines and utterly unable to obtain a divorce from the hussies; and there were lean, rakish volumes that leaned carelessly, or perhaps it was with studied elegance, against their neighbours, murmuring in affected tones, "All heroines are charming to us."

In the centre of the room was a heavy, black table, and upon the highly polished surface of this a yellow light fell from globes on the ceiling.

At this table a man was seated, and he was staring at his hands. He was a man of about thirty years of age. A tall, slender man with a lean face, and, to Patsy, he was of an appalling cleanliness—a cleanliness really to make one shudder: he was shaved to the last closeness; he was washed to the ultimate rub; on him both soap and water had wrought their utmost, and could have no further ambitions; his wristlets gleamed like snow on a tree, and his collar rose upon a black coat as the plumage of a swan emerges spotlessly from water.

His cleanliness was a sight to terrify any tramp, but it only angered Mac Cann, who was not liable to terror of anything but hunger.

"I would like to give you a thump on the head, you dirty dog!" said Patsy, breathing fiercely against the corner of the window-pane, and his use of the adjective was singular as showing in what strange ways extremes can meet.

This was the man to whom he had sold the gear of his companions: an indelicate business indeed, and one which the cleanliness of the purchaser assisted him to rectify, and it was in this room that the barter had been conducted. By craning his neck a little he could see an oaken settle, and upon this his sacks were lying with their mouths open and the gleaming cloths flooding at the entry.

While he stared, the man removed his fingers from his eyes and put them in his pocket, then he arose very slowly and paced thoughtfully towards the window.

Mac Cann immediately ducked beneath the window-ledge. He heard the window opened and knew the man was leaning his elbows on the sill while he stared into the darkness.

"Begor!" said Patsy to himself, and he flattened his body against the wall.

After a time, which felt longer than it could have been, he heard the man moving away, and he then popped up and again peeped through the window.

The man had opened the door of the room which faced the window and was standing in the entry. Now his hands were clasped behind his back, his head was sunken forward, and he seemed to be looking at his feet, which is the habit of many men when they think, for when the eyes touch the feet a circuit is formed and one's entire body is able to think at ease.

Suddenly the man stepped into a black corridor and he disappeared. Mac Cann heard about ten steps ringing from a solid flooring, then he heard a door open and shut, then he heard nothing but the shifting and rubbing of his own clothes and the sound his own nose made when he breathed outwards: there was a leathern belt about his middle, and from the noise which it made one would have fancied that it was woven of thunders—there was a great silence; the lighted room was both inviting and terrifying, for it was even more silent than the world outside; the steady globes stared at the window like the eyes of a mad fish, and one could imagine that the room had pricked up invisible ears and was listening towards the window, and one could imagine also that the room would squeak and wail if any person were to come through anywhere but a door and stand in it.

Mac Cann did not imagine any of these things. He spat on his hands, and in the twinkling of an eye he was inside the window. In three long and hasty paces he placed a hand on each of the sacks, and just as he gripped them he heard a door opening, and he heard the footsteps ringing again on a solid flooring.

"I'm in," said he, viciously, "and I won't go out."

His eyes blinked around like the flash of lightning but there was no place to hide. He stepped across the oaken chest and crouched down. Behind him, from the floor upwards, were books, in front was the big chest, and on top of it the two bulging sacks. He was well screened and he could peep between the sacks.

He stared towards the door.

The clean man came in and stood aside. Following him came a woman who was, if anything, more rigorously washed than he was. Somehow, although she was a tall woman, she seemed as light as a feather. She was clad in a delicate pink gown of such gossamer quality that it balanced and swam on the air with every movement she made. Across her bare shoulders was a lawn veiling, which also sailed and billowed as she moved. Her hair seemed to be of the finest spun gold, light as thistle-down, and it, too, waved and floated in little strands and ringlets.

These two people sat down at different sides of the table, and for a time they did not speak to each other. Then the man raised his head:

"I got a letter from your mother this morning," said he in a low voice.

The woman answered him in a tone that was equally low:

"I did not know you corresponded with her."

The man made a slight gesture:

"Nor did I know that your correspondence was as peculiar as I have found it," said he.

Said the woman coldly:

"You are opening this subject again."

"I am: I have to: your mother confirms everything that I have charged you with."

"My mother hates me," said the woman, "she would confirm anything that was said of me, if it was bad enough."

"She is your mother."

"Oh no, she is not! When I ceased to be a child she ceased to be a mother. We are only two women who are so well acquainted that we can be enemies without any shame of each other."

"Are you not talking nonsense?"

"I have committed a crime against her. She will never forgive me for being younger than she is, and for being pretty in her own fashion. She left my father because he said I was good-looking."

"All that...!" said the man with a movement of his shoulder.

"As to what she would do against me, you should know it well enough considering the things she told you before we were married."

"You admitted that they were not all lies."

"Some of the facts were true, all of the colouring was false—they are the things a loving mother says about her daughter! but that is an old story now, or I had fancied so."

"One forgets the old story until the new story drags it to memory," said he.

She also moved her shoulders slightly.

"I begin to find these conversations tiresome."

"I can understand that.... With her letter your mother enclosed some other letters from her friends—they insist on the facts, and add others."

"Are they letters, or copies of letters?"

"They are copies."

"Of course my mother has forbidden you to disclose the fact that she forwarded her friends' private correspondence to you."

"Naturally."

"Very naturally; the reason being that she wrote these letters herself to herself. There are no originals of these copies."

"Again you are talking nonsense."

"I know her better than you do, better than she knows herself."

There was silence between them again for a few moments, and again it was broken by the man.

"There are some things I cannot do," said he, and paused:

"I cannot search in unclean places for unclean information," he continued, and again the silence fell between these two people.

She could bear that silence, but he could not:

"You do not say anything!" said he.

"This seems to be so entirely your business," was her quiet reply.

He moved a hand at that:

"You cannot divorce yourself from me with such ease. This is our business, and we must settle it between us."

Her hand was resting on the table, and suddenly he reached to her and laid his own hand on hers. She did not withdraw, but the stiffening of her body was more than withdrawal. He drew his hand away again.

"We are reasonable creatures and must question our difficulties," said he gently, "we must even help each other to resolve them."

"These difficulties are not of my making."

"They are, and you are lying to me shamelessly."

Again between these people a silence fell which was profound but not quiet. That soundlessness was tingling with sound; there were screams latent in it; it was atrocious and terrifying. The man's hand was pressed against his forehead and his eyes were closed, but what he was looking at was known only to himself in the silence of his being. The woman sat upright an arm's-length from him, and although her eyes were wide and calm, she also was regarding that which was free within herself, and very visible to her.

"There are things I cannot do," said the man, emerging as with an effort from subterranean caves and secret prospects. He continued speaking, calmly but tonelessly:

"I have striven to make a rule of life for myself and to follow it, but I have not sought to impose my laws on any one else—not on you, certainly. Still there are elementary duties which we owe to one another and which cannot be renounced by either of us. There is a personal, I might say, a domestic loyalty expected by each of us...."

"I expect nothing," said she.

"I exact nothing," said the man, "but I expect that—I expect it as I expect air for my lungs and stability under my feet. You must not withdraw that from me. You are not the individual you think; you are a member of society, and you live by it; you are a member of my household, and you live by it."

She turned her face to him but not her eyes.

"I do not ask anything from you," said she, "and I have accepted as little as was possible."

He clenched his hand on the table, but when he spoke his voice was without emphasis:

"That is part of my grievance against you. Life is to give and take without any weighing of the gifts. You will do neither, and yet our circumstances are such that we must accommodate each other whether we will or not."

"I am an exact man," he continued, "perhaps you find that trying, but I cannot live in doubt. Whatever happens to hinder or assist my consciousness must be known to me. It is a law of my being: it is my ancestral heritage, and I have no command over it."

"I also," said she coldly, "am an heir of the ages, and must take my bequests whether I like them or not."

"I love you," said the man, "and I have proved it many times. I am not demonstrative, and I am shy of this fashion of speech. Perhaps that shyness of speech is responsible for more than is apparent to either of us in a world eager for speech and gesture, but I say the word now in all sincerity, with a gravity, perhaps, which you find repulsive. Be at least as honest with me, no matter how cruel you are. I cannot live in the half-knowledge which is jealousy. It tears my heart. It makes me unfit for thought, for life, for sleep, even for death. I must know, or I am a madman and no man any longer, a wild beast that will bite itself in despair of hurting its enemy."

The woman's tongue slipped over her pale lips in a quick, red flash.

"Have you anything to say to me?" said he.

There was no reply.

He insisted:

"Are the statements in your mother's letter true?"

"My mother's letter!" said she.

"Have I reason for this jealousy?" he breathed.

Her reply was also but a breathing:

"I will not tell you anything," said she.

Once again the silence drowsed and droned between the two people, and again they repaired to the secret places of their souls where energy was sucked from them until they existed only in a torpor. The woman rose languidly from her chair, and, after an instant, the man stood also.

Said he:

"I will leave here in the morning."

"You will let me see the boy," she murmured.

"If," said he, "I ever learn that you have spoken to the boy I will kill you, and I will kill the boy."

The woman went out then, and her feet tapped lightly along the corridor. The man turned down the lights in the yellow globes and stepped to the door; his footsteps also died away in the darkness, but in a different direction.

Mac Cann stood up:

"Begor!" said he, stretching his cramped knees.

About him was a great darkness and a great silence, and the air of that room was more unpleasant than any atmosphere he had ever breathed. But he had the nerves of a bear and a resolute adherence to his own business, so the excitement of another person could only disturb him for a moment. Still, he did not like the room, and he made all haste to get out of it.

He lifted the sacks, stepped carefully to the window, and dropped them out. Then he climbed through and picked them up.

In five minutes he was on the road again. Along it for some dozen yards he trod like a great cat until he had left the gate-keeper's lodge well behind him; then, with the sacks across his shoulders, he shook to the steady jog-trot which was to last for about three hours.