YOU ask me the meaning of the jingling coin. It was a tale I heard that impressed me, and sometimes comes back with a strange fascination. Did I never tell you? Well, here it is.

I was in India, staying at a hill station, no matter where. I met there a man who for years had spent his holidays in the place, and, walking with him one day up a narrow mountain-path to the top of a hill, whence there was a magnificent view of the Himalayan snows, we passed a small stone slab on which was cut a date. The stone was at a spot where, from the path, was a sheer fall of several hundreds of feet, and as we passed it my companion said—“Look at that. I will tell you what it means when we get to the top.”

As we lay on the grass and feasted our eyes upon the incomparable spectacle, before which earthly lives and troubles seemed so insignificant, my companion told his tale. I now repeat it, as nearly as I can remember, in his own words.

“If I tell you this story,” he said, “you must not ask me how I know the details, or seek for any particulars beyond what I give you.

“During one of my many visits to this place, I met a man whom I had seen before and heard a good deal about, for he was one of those people who concern themselves with no one’s business but their own, and, therefore, their affairs seem to have a special attraction for the Philistine. He knew that rumour was busy with his name, but beyond the fact that he became more reserved than nature had already made him, the gossip, which was always founded on imagination, sometimes on jealousy, and even malice, seemed to make no impression whatever. That may have been the result of a strong character, but partly, no doubt, it was due to the fact that all his public life had been lived under the fierce light of a criticism that was, in a way, the measure of his success. His friends (and he was fortunate in the possession of particularly loyal friends of both sexes) realised that if, even to them, this man showed little of his real self, he sometimes writhed under calumnies of which no one knew the authorship, and the existence of which only reached him rarely, through his most intimate friends. For his own reasons he kept his own counsel, and I doubt whether any one knew as much of the real man as I did. A few months before the time I speak of he had made the acquaintance of a girl, or, perhaps I ought to say, a woman, for she was married, who was, with her mother, visiting India. When first the man met this girl he was amazed, and, to some extent, carried away by her extraordinary beauty. But his work took him elsewhere, and, beyond that first impression, which had so powerfully affected him, there was neither time nor opportunity to ascertain whether the lovely exterior was the casket to a priceless jewel, or only the beautiful form harbouring a mindless, soulless, disappointment. She had heard of the man, and while unwilling to be prejudiced by gossip, she was on her guard, and rather afraid of a cynicism which her quick intelligence had noted at their first meeting. Otherwise she was,—womanlike and generous,—curious to see, and to judge for herself, what manner of man this was, against whom more than one indiscreet acquaintance had already warned her.

“Some time elapsed, and then these two found themselves staying in the same house. The man realised the attractions of the woman’s glorious beauty, and he honestly determined that he would neither think, nor look, nor utter any feeling beyond that of ordinary friendship. This resolve he as honestly kept, and, though accident threw in his way every kind of opportunity, and he was constantly alone with the girl, he made no attempt to read her character, to seek her confidence, or to obtain her friendship;—indeed, he charged himself with having been somewhat neglectful in those attentions which make the courtesy of man to woman,—and, when they parted, he questioned whether any man had ever been so much in this woman’s society without saying a word that might not have been shouted in the market-place. Somehow the man had an intuitive feeling that gossip had supplied the girl with a not too friendly sketch of him, and he, for once, abandoned the cynicism that, had he cared less, might have prompted him to convey any impression of himself, so long as it should not be the true one. To her this visit said nothing beyond the fact that the man, as she found him, was quite unlike his picture, as painted by professed friends, and that the reality interested her.

“The three Fateful Sisters, who weave the destinies of men and women into such strange tangles, threw these two across each other’s paths, until the man, at least, sought to aid Fortune, in providing opportunities for meeting one whose attractive personality appealed so greatly to his artistic sense. Chance helped him, and, again catching together the threads of these lives, Destiny twisted them into a single strand. One brief day, or less, is enough to make a bond that only death can sever, and for this man and woman there were days and days when, in spite of resistance, their lives were gradually drawn so close together that at last the rivets were as strong as they were invisible.

“The triumphant beauty of the woman, rare and disturbing though it was, would not alone have overcome him, but, as the days went by, and they were brought more and more into each other’s society, she gradually let him see the greater beauty of her soul; and small wonder if he found the combined attractions irresistible. She was so young that I have called her a girl, and yet she had seen as much of life as many women twice her age. Her beauty and charm of manner had brought her hosts of admirers, but still she was completely unspoilt, and devoid of either coquetry or self-consciousness. A lovely face, lighted by the winning expression of an intelligent mind and a warm, loving nature; a graceful, willowy figure, whose lissom movements showed a quite uncommon strength and power of endurance; these outward attractions, united to quick discernment, absolute honesty of speech and intention, a bright energy, perfectly unaffected manners, and a courage of the highest order, moral as well as physical, fascinated a man, the business of whose life had been to study his fellow-creatures. He felt certain that he saw here—

“His experience had given him a horror of weakness in every form, and here, he realised, was a woman who was only capable of great thoughts and great deeds, obeying the dictates of her own heart and mind, not the suggestions of the weaker brethren. If she fell, it would be as an angel might fall, through love of one of the sons of men.

“Her shy reserve slowly gave way to confidence, and, in the sympathy of closer friendship, she let him see beauties of soul of which he would have deemed it sacrilege to speak to another. What drew her to him I cannot tell; perhaps his profound reverence for, and admiration of, her sex, his complete understanding of herself, or perhaps some quality of his own. I had not her confidence, so cannot say; but there were men who recognised his fascination, due in part, no doubt, to his compelling will. Perhaps she was simply carried away by the man’s overpowering love, which at last declared itself. They realised the hopelessness of the position, and yet they both took comfort from their mutual love and trust in each other’s unchanging faith. That was all they had to look forward to,—that and Fate.

“With that poor prospect before them he gave her, on a day, a gold coin, ‘for luck,’ he said—an ancient Indian coin of some forgotten dynasty, and she hung it on a bangle and said laughingly, that if ever she were likely to forget him the jingle of the coin would be a ceaseless reminder of the giver. And so the thing lived there day and night, and, when she moved, it made little musical sounds, singing its story to her willing ears, as it struck against the bangle from which it hung.

“Then they came here, he to his work, she to see the snows and some friends, before leaving India for Japan, or California, or some other stage of the voyage which brings no rest to the troubled soul. One day they had ridden up here, and were returning down the hill. It was afternoon, and she was riding in front, he behind, the syces following. The path is narrow, as you saw, and very steep. She dropped something, stopped, and called a syce to pick it up. Her horse was impatient, got his head round, and, as the syce approached, backed over the edge of the road. The thing was done in an instant, the horse was over the side, down on his belly, terror-struck and struggling in the loose earth. The man had only time to shout, ‘Get off! get off!’ but she could not get off, the horse had fallen on his off side, and, as the man threw himself on the road, her horse rolled slowly right over her, with a horrible crunching noise,—then faster, over her again, and then horse and rider disappeared, and, crashing through the undergrowth, banging against great granite boulders, fell with a horrible thud, far down the height.

“He had never seen her face; she had her back towards him, and she never uttered a sound.

“The road makes a long dÉtour, and then comes back, several hundred feet lower down, to a spot almost directly underneath the point where the accident happened. A little way in from there the man saw the horse lying perfectly still, with its neck broken. Higher up the bank he found the woman, moaning a little, but quite unconscious, crushed and torn,—you have seen the place and you can guess. She only lived a few minutes.

“When at last the man awoke out of his stupor, to lift her up and carry her down to the path, he noticed that the bangle and the coin had both gone, wrenched off in that wild plunge through trees and stones into eternity—or oblivion.

“The man waited there, while one of the syces went for help and a litter, and it was only after they had carried her home that I saw him. I could hardly recognise him. There were times when I had thought him the saddest-looking man I had ever seen, but this was different. There was a grey, drawn setness on his face, and something in his eyes I did not care to look at. He and I were living in the same house, and in the evening he told me briefly what had happened, and several times, both while he spoke and afterwards, I saw him throw up his head and listen intently. I asked him what it was, and he said, ‘Nothing, I thought I heard something.’ Later, he started suddenly, and said—

“‘Did you hear that?’

“‘Hear what?’ I asked.

“‘A faint jingling noise,’ he replied. ‘You must have heard it; did you do it?’

“But I had heard nothing, and I said so.

“He got up and looked about to see if any one was moving, and then came back and sat down again. I tried to make him go to bed, but he would not, and I left him there at last.

“They buried her the next evening, and all the English in the station were there. The man and I stood on the outskirts of the people, and we lingered till they had gone, and then watched the grave-diggers finish the filling of the grave, put on the sods, and finally leave the place. As they built up the earth, and shaped it into the form of a roof to cover that narrow dwelling, the man winced under every blow of the spades, as though he were receiving them on his own body. There was nothing to say, and we said nothing, but more than once I noticed the man in that listening attitude, and I began to be alarmed about him. I got him home, and except for that look, which had not left his face, and the intentness with which I sometimes caught him listening, there was nothing strange in his manner; only he hardly spoke at all. On subsequent evenings for the next fortnight he talked more than usual about himself, and as I knew that he often spent a good deal of time in, or looking on to, the cemetery, I was not surprised to hear him say that he thought it a particularly attractive graveyard, and one where it would be pleasant to lie, if one had to be put away somewhere. It is on the hill, you know, by the church, and one can see the eternal snows across that blue valley which divides us from the highlands of Sikkim. He was insistent, and made me remark that, as far as he was concerned, there could be no better place to lie than in this God’s Acre.

“Once or twice, again, he asked me if I did not hear a jingle, and constantly, especially in the quiet of evening, I saw him start and listen, till sometimes I really began to think I heard the noise he described.

“A few evenings later, but less than a month after the accident, I went to bed, leaving him cleaning a revolver which he thought a deal of, and certainly he could shoot very straight with it. I was sitting half-undressed, when I heard a loud report, and you may imagine the feelings with which I ran to the room where I had left him. He was sitting at the table, with his left hand raised, as though to reach his heart, and his right straight down by his side, the revolver on the floor beneath it. He was dead, shot through the heart; but his head was slightly thrown back, his eyes wide open, and in them that look of listening expectancy I had seen so often of late. At the corners of his mouth there seemed to be the shadow of the faintest smile.

“At the inquest I explained that I left him cleaning the pistol, and that, as it had a hair-trigger, no doubt it had gone off by misadventure. When each of the jurors had, in turn, raised the hammer, and found it was hardly necessary to touch the trigger in order to fire the weapon, they unanimously returned a verdict of ‘accidental death.’”

“It is curious,” concluded my companion, “but I sometimes think I hear the jingle of that coin, especially if I am alone on this hill, or sitting by myself at night in the house where that sad accident happened.” He put a slight stress on the word “accident,” that was not lost on me.

As we passed the stone, on our way down the hill, I seemed to see that horse blunder backwards over the edge of the path, to hear the slow, crunching roll, and then the crash and ghastly thud, far down below; and, as an involuntary shudder crept slowly down my back, I thought I heard the faint jingle of that ill-omened piece of gold.