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Afterward - Edith Wharton · The Art of Worldly Wisdom

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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot o. Work Afterward by Edith Wharton read
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  Speaker 1: by Charles Blakemore Afterward, Part one. Oh there is one,
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  Speaker 1: of course, but you'll never know it. The assertion, laughingly
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  Speaker 1: flung out six months earlier in a bright June garden,
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  Speaker 1: came back to Mary Boyne with a new perception of
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  Speaker 1: its significance as she stood in the December dusk waiting
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  Speaker 1: for the lamps to be brought into the library. The
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  Speaker 1: words had been spoken by their friend Alida's stare as
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  Speaker 1: they sat at tea on her lawn at Pangburn, in
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  Speaker 1: reference to the very house of which the library in
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  Speaker 1: question was the central the pivotal feature Mary Boyne and
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  Speaker 1: her husband, in quest of a country place in one
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  Speaker 1: of the southern or southwestern counties, had, on their arrival
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  Speaker 1: in England, carried their problem straight to alid Astaire, who
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  Speaker 1: had successfully solved it in her own case. But it
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  Speaker 1: was not until they had rejected, almost capriciously several practical
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  Speaker 1: and judicious suggestions that she threw out, well, there's lying
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  Speaker 1: in Dorsetshire. It belongs to Hugo's cousins, and you can
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  Speaker 1: get it for a song. The reason she gave for
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  Speaker 1: its being obtainable on these terms, its remoteness from a station,
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  Speaker 1: its lack of electric light, hot water pipes, and other
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  Speaker 1: vulgar necessities were exactly those pleading in its favor, with
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  Speaker 1: two romantic Americans perversely in search of the economic drawbacks
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  Speaker 1: which were associated in their tradition with unusual architectural felicities.
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  Speaker 1: I should never believe I was living in an old
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  Speaker 1: house unless I was thoroughly uncomfortable. Ned Boyne, the more
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  Speaker 1: extravagant of the two, had jocosely insisted the least hint
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  Speaker 1: of convenience would make me think it had been bought
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  Speaker 1: out of an exhibition, with the pieces numbered and set
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  Speaker 1: up again, And they had proceeded to enumerate with humorous
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  Speaker 1: precision their various doubts and demands, refusing to believe that
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  Speaker 1: the house their friend recommended was really tutor until they
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  Speaker 1: learned it had no heating system, or that the village
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  Speaker 1: church was literally in the grounds, until she assured them
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  Speaker 1: of the deplorable uncertainty of the water supply. It's too
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  Speaker 1: uncomfortable to be true. Edward Boyne had continued to exult
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  Speaker 1: as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively wrung from her.
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  Speaker 1: But he had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with
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  Speaker 1: a relapse to distrust, and the ghost you've been concealing
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  Speaker 1: from us the fact that there is no ghost. Mary
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  Speaker 1: at the moment had laughed with him, yet almost with
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  Speaker 1: her laugh, being possessed of several sets of independent perceptions,
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  Speaker 1: had been struck by a note of flatness in Alida's
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  Speaker 1: answer hilarity, Oh, Dorset, you're full of ghosts, you know, yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: but that won't do. I don't want to have to
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  Speaker 1: drive ten miles to see somebody else's ghost. I want
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  Speaker 1: one of my own. On the premises, is there a
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  Speaker 1: ghost at Lyne, His rejoinder had made a lead a
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  Speaker 1: laugh again, and it was then that she had flung
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  Speaker 1: back tantalizingly. Oh, there is one, of course, but you'll
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  Speaker 1: never know it, never know it, Boyne pulled her up.
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  Speaker 1: But what in the world constitutes a ghost except the
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  Speaker 1: fact of its being known? For one? I can't say.
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  Speaker 1: But that's the story, that there's a ghost, but that
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  Speaker 1: nobody knows it's a ghost, well, not till afterward, at
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  Speaker 1: any rate, till afterward, not till long, long afterward. But
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  Speaker 1: if it's once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why
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  Speaker 1: hasn't its signal mon been handed down in the family?
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  Speaker 1: How is it made managed to preserve its incognito. Alita
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  Speaker 1: could only shake her head, don't ask me, but it has.
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  Speaker 1: And then suddenly Mary spoke up, as if from cavernous
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  Speaker 1: depths of divination. Suddenly, long afterward, one says to one's self,
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  Speaker 1: that was it. She was startled at the sepulchral sound
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  Speaker 1: with which her question fell on the banter of the
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  Speaker 1: other two, and she saw the shadow of the same
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  Speaker 1: surprise flit across Alita's pupils. I suppose, so one just
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  Speaker 1: has to wait, Oh, hang, waiting, Ned broke in. Life's
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  Speaker 1: too short for a ghost who could only be enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: in a retrospect. Can't read it better than that, Mary.
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  Speaker 1: But it turned out that in the event, they were
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  Speaker 1: not destined to for within three months of their conversation
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  Speaker 1: with Missus Stare, they were settled at lying and the
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  Speaker 1: life they had yearned for to the point of planning
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  Speaker 1: it in advance in all its daily to tales had
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  Speaker 1: actually begun for them. It was to sit in the
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  Speaker 1: thick December dusk by just such a wide hooded fireplace,
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  Speaker 1: under just such black oak rafters, with the sense that
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  Speaker 1: beyond the mullioned panes the downs were darkened to a
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  Speaker 1: deeper solitude. It was for the ultimate indulgence of such
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  Speaker 1: sensations that Mary Boyne, abruptly exiled from New York by
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  Speaker 1: her husband's business, had endured for nearly fourteen years the
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  Speaker 1: sole deadening ugliness of a middle Western town, and that
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  Speaker 1: Boyne had ground on doggedly at his engineering till with
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  Speaker 1: a suddenness that still made her blink. The prodigious windfall
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  Speaker 1: of the Blue star Mine had put them at a
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  Speaker 1: stroke in possession of life and the leisure to taste it.
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  Speaker 1: They had never, for a moment meant their new state
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  Speaker 1: to be one of idleness, but they meant to give
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  Speaker 1: themselves only to harmonious activities. She had her vision of
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  Speaker 1: painting and gardening against a background of gray walls. He
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  Speaker 1: dreamed of the production of his long planned book on
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  Speaker 1: the quote economic basis of culture, And with such absorbing
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  Speaker 1: work ahead, no existence could be too sequestered, they could
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  Speaker 1: not get far enough from the world or plunge deep
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  Speaker 1: enough into the past. Dorsetshire had attracted them from the
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  Speaker 1: first by an air of remoteness, out of all proportion
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  Speaker 1: with its geographical position. But to the Boyns it was
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  Speaker 1: one of the ever recurring wonders of the whole incredibly
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  Speaker 1: compressed island, a nest of counties. As they put it,
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  Speaker 1: that for the production of its effects, so little of
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  Speaker 1: a given distance went so far, that so few miles
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  Speaker 1: made a distance, and so short a distance a difference.
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  Speaker 1: It's that Ned had once enthusiastically explained, that gives such
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  Speaker 1: depth to their effects, such relief to their contrasts. They've
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  Speaker 1: been able to lay the butter so thick on every
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  Speaker 1: delicious mouthful. The butter had certainly been laid on thick
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  Speaker 1: at lying The old house, hidden under a shoulder of
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  Speaker 1: the downs, had almost all the finer marks of commerce
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  Speaker 1: with a protracted past. The mere fact that it was
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  Speaker 1: neither large nor exceptional, made it, to the Boynes abound
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  Speaker 1: the more completely in its special charm, the charm of
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  Speaker 1: having been for centuries a deep, dim reservoir of life.
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  Speaker 1: The life had probably not been of the most vivid
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  Speaker 1: order for long periods. No doubt it had fallen as
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  Speaker 1: noiselessly into the past as the quiet drizzle of autumn
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  Speaker 1: fell hour after hour into the fish pond between the ewes.
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  Speaker 1: But these backwaters of existence sometimes breed, in their sluggish
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  Speaker 1: depths strange acuities of emotion, and Mary Boyne had felt
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  Speaker 1: from the first the mysterious stir of intenser memories. The
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  Speaker 1: feeling had ever been stronger than on this particular afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: when waiting in the library for the lamps to come,
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  Speaker 1: she rose from her seat and stood among the shadows
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  Speaker 1: of the hearth. Her husband had gone off after luncheon
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  Speaker 1: for one of his long tramps on the downs. She
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  Speaker 1: had noticed of late that he preferred to go alone,
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  Speaker 1: and in the tried security of their personal relations, had
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  Speaker 1: been driven to conclude that his book was bothering him,
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  Speaker 1: and that he needed the afternoons to turn over in
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  Speaker 1: solitude the problems left from the morning's work. Certainly, the
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  Speaker 1: book was not going as smoothly as she had thought
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  Speaker 1: it would, and there were lines of perplexity between his
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  Speaker 1: eyes such as had never been there in his engineering days.
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  Speaker 1: He had often then looked fagged to the verge of illness,
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  Speaker 1: but the native demon of worry had never branded his brow.
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  Speaker 1: Yet the few pages he had so far read to her,
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  Speaker 1: the introduction and a summary of the opening chapter, showed
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  Speaker 1: a firm hold on his subject and an increasing confidence
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  Speaker 1: in his powers. The fact threw her into deeper perplexity,
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  Speaker 1: since now that he had done with business and its
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  Speaker 1: disturbing contingencies, the one other possible source of anxiety was eliminated,
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  Speaker 1: unless it were his health then, but physically he had
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  Speaker 1: gained since they had come to Dorsetshire, grown robuster, ruddier,
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  Speaker 1: and fresher eyed. Twas only within the last week that
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  Speaker 1: she had felt in him, the indefinable change which made
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  Speaker 1: her restless in his absence, and as tongue tied in
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  Speaker 1: his presence, as though it were she who had a
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  Speaker 1: secret to keep from him. The thought that there was
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  Speaker 1: a secret somewhere between them struck her with a sudden
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  Speaker 1: rap of wonder, and she looked about her down the
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  Speaker 1: long room. Can it be the house, she mused? The
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  Speaker 1: room it self might have been full of secrets. They
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be piling themselves up as evening fell, like
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  Speaker 1: the layers and layers of velvet shadow dropping from the
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  Speaker 1: low ceiling, the rows of books, the smoke blurred sculpture
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  Speaker 1: of the hearth. Why, of course the house is haunted,
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  Speaker 1: she reflected the ghost Alida's imperceptible ghost. After figuring largely
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  Speaker 1: in the banter of their first month or two, it
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  Speaker 1: Lying had been gradually left aside as too ineffectual for
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  Speaker 1: imaginative use. Mary had, indeed, as became the tenant of
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  Speaker 1: a haunted house, made the customary inquiries among her rural neighbors.
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  Speaker 1: But beyond a vague they do say so, ma'am, The
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  Speaker 1: villagers had nothing to impart. The elusive specter had apparently
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  Speaker 1: never had sufficient identity for a legend to crystallize about it,
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  Speaker 1: and after a time the boy and had set the
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  Speaker 1: matter down to their profit and loss account, agreeing that
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  Speaker 1: Lying was one of the few houses good enough in
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  Speaker 1: itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements. And I suppose, poor
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  Speaker 1: ineffectual demon, that's why it beats its beautiful wings in
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  Speaker 1: vain in the void, Mary had laughingly concluded, or rather
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  Speaker 1: ned answered, in the same strain, why amid so much
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  Speaker 1: that's ghostly? It can never affirm its separate existence as
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  Speaker 1: the ghost, and thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped
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  Speaker 1: out of their references, which were numerous enough to make
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  Speaker 1: them soon unaware of the loss. Now, as she stood
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  Speaker 1: on the hearth, the subject of their earlier curiosity revived
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  Speaker 1: in her with a new sense of its meaning, a
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  Speaker 1: sense gradually acquired through daily contact with the scene of
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  Speaker 1: the lurking mystery. It was the house itself, of course,
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  Speaker 1: that possessed the ghost seeing faculty, that communed visually but
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  Speaker 1: secretly with its own past. If one could only get
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  Speaker 1: into close enough communion with the house, one might surprise
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  Speaker 1: its secret and acquire the ghost sight on one's own account,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps in his long hours in this very room, where
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  Speaker 1: she never trespassed till the afternoon, her husband had acquired
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  Speaker 1: it already and was silently carrying about the weight of
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  Speaker 1: whatever it had revealed to him. Mary was too well
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  Speaker 1: versed in the code of the spectral world not to
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  Speaker 1: know that one could not talk about the ghosts one saw.
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  Speaker 1: To do so was almost as great a breach of
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  Speaker 1: taste as to name a lady in a club. But
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  Speaker 1: this explanation did not really satisfy her what after all,
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  Speaker 1: except for the fun of the shutter, she reflected, would
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  Speaker 1: he really care for any of their old ghosts? And
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  Speaker 1: thence she was thrown back once more on the fundamental dilemma,
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  Speaker 1: the fact that one's greater or less susceptibility to spectral
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  Speaker 1: influences had no particular bearing on the case, since when
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  Speaker 1: one did see a ghost, it lying, one did not
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  Speaker 1: know it, not till long afterwards. Alida Staire had said, well,
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  Speaker 1: supposing ned had seen one when they first came, and
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  Speaker 1: had known only within the last week what had happened
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  Speaker 1: to him. More and more under the spell of the hour,
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  Speaker 1: she threw back her thoughts to the early days of
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  Speaker 1: their tenancy, but at first only to recall a lively
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  Speaker 1: confusion of unpacking, settling, arranging of books, and calling to
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  Speaker 1: each other from remote corners of the house, as treasure
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  Speaker 1: after treasure it revealed itself to them. It was in
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  Speaker 1: this particular connection that she presently recalled a certain soft
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  Speaker 1: afternoon of the previous October, when passing from the first
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  Speaker 1: rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of the
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  Speaker 1: old house, she had pressed, like a novel heroine, a
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  Speaker 1: panel that opened on a flight of corkscrew stairs leading
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  Speaker 1: to a flat ledge on the roof, the roof which
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  Speaker 1: from below seemed to slope away on all sides, too
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  Speaker 1: abruptly for any but practiced feet to scale. The view
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  Speaker 1: from this hidden coin was enchanting, and she had flown
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  Speaker 1: down to snatch ned from his papers and give him
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  Speaker 1: the freedom of her discovery. She remembered still, how standing
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  Speaker 1: at her side, he had passed his arm about her
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  Speaker 1: while their gaze flew to the long tossed horizon line
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  Speaker 1: of the Downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace
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  Speaker 1: the arabesque of yew hedges about the fish pond, and
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  Speaker 1: the shadow of the cedar on the lawn. And now
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  Speaker 1: the other way, he had said, turning her about within
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  Speaker 1: his arm and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed,
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  Speaker 1: like some long, satisfying draft, the picture of the gray
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  Speaker 1: walled court, the squat lions on the gates, and the
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  Speaker 1: lime avenue reaching up to the high road under the Downs.
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  Speaker 1: It was just then, while they gazed and held each other,
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  Speaker 1: that she had felt his arm relax and heard a
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  Speaker 1: sharp low. It made her turn to glance at him distinctly. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: she now recalled that she had seen as she glanced
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  Speaker 1: a shadow of anxiety of perplexity rather fall across his face,
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  Speaker 1: and following his eyes had beheld the figure of a man,
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  Speaker 1: a man in loose, grayish clothes, as it appeared to her,
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  Speaker 1: who was sauntering down the lime avenue to the court
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  Speaker 1: with a doubtful gait of a stranger who seeks his way.
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  Speaker 1: Her short sighted eyes had given her but a blurred
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  Speaker 1: impression of slightness and grayishness, with something foreign or at
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  Speaker 1: least unlocal in the cut of the figure or its dress.
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  Speaker 1: But her husband had apparently seen more seen enough to
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  Speaker 1: make him push past her with a hasty weight and
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  Speaker 1: dashed down the stairs without pausing to give her a hand.
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  Speaker 1: A slight tendency to dizziness obliged her, after a provisional
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  Speaker 1: clutch at the chimney against which they had been leaning,
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  Speaker 1: to follow him first, more cautiously, and when she had
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  Speaker 1: reached the landing, she paused again for a less definite reason,
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  Speaker 1: leaning over the banister to strain her eyes through the
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  Speaker 1: silence of the brown sun flecked depths. She lingered there
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  Speaker 1: till somewhere in those depths she heard the closing of
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  Speaker 1: a door, then mechanically impelled She went down the shallow
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  Speaker 1: flights of steps till she reached the lower hall. The
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  Speaker 1: front door stood open on the sunlight of the court,
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  Speaker 1: and hall and court were empty. The library door was
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  Speaker 1: open too, and after listening in vain for any sound
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  Speaker 1: of voices within, she crossed the threshold and found her
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  Speaker 1: husban alone, vaguely fingering the papers on his desk. He
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  Speaker 1: looked up as if surprised at her entrance, but the
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  Speaker 1: shadow of anxiety had passed from his face, leaving it
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  Speaker 1: even as she fancied, a little brighter and clearer than usual.
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  Speaker 1: What was it? Who was it? She asked? Who? He repeated,
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  Speaker 1: with the surprise still all on his side. The man
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  Speaker 1: we saw coming toward the house. He seemed to reflect
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  Speaker 1: the man. Why I thought I saw Peter as I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: dashed after him to say a word about the stable drains,
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  Speaker 1: But he had disappeared before I could get down. Disappeared,
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  Speaker 1: but he seemed to be walking so slowly when we
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  Speaker 1: saw him. Boyne shrugged his shoulders, so I thought, but
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  Speaker 1: he must have got up steam in the interval. What
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: do you say to our trying to scramble up meldon
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  Speaker 1: steep before sunset? That was all at the time the
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  Speaker 1: occurrence had been less than nothing, had indeed been immediately
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  Speaker 1: obliterate by the magic of their first vision from Meldon Steep,
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  Speaker 1: a height which they had dreamed of climbing ever since
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  Speaker 1: they had first seen its bare spine rising above the
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  Speaker 1: roof of line. Doubtless, it was the mere fact of
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  Speaker 1: the other incidents having occurred on the very day of
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  Speaker 1: their ascent to Meldon that had kept it stored away
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  Speaker 1: in the fold of memory from which it now emerged,
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  Speaker 1: For in itself it had no mark of the portentis
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  Speaker 1: At the moment, there could have been nothing more natural
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  Speaker 1: than that Ned should dash himself from the roof in
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  Speaker 1: pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. Twas the period when they were
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  Speaker 1: always on the watch for one or the other of
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the specialists employed about the place, always lying in wait
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: for them, and rushing out at them with questions, reproaches,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: or reminders. And certainly in the distance the gray figure
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: had looked like Peter's. Yet now, as she reviewed the scene,
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  Speaker 1: she felt her husband's explanation of it to have been
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: in vaisalidated by the look of anxiety on his face.
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  Speaker 1: Why had the familiar appearance of Peter's made him anxious, Why,
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  Speaker 1: above all, if it was of such prime necessity to
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  Speaker 1: confer with him on the subject of the stable drains,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: had the failure to find him produced such a look
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  Speaker 1: of relief. Mary could not say that any one of
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  Speaker 1: these questions had occurred to her at the time. Yet
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  Speaker 1: from the promptness with which they now marshaled themselves at
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  Speaker 1: her summons, she had a sense that they must all
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  Speaker 1: along have been there waiting their hour. Two. Weary with
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  Speaker 1: her thoughts, she moved to the window. The library was
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  Speaker 1: now quite dark, and she was surprised to see how
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  Speaker 1: much faint light the outer world still held as she
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  Speaker 1: peered out into it. Across the court, a figure shaped
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  Speaker 1: itself far down the perspect active of bare limes. It
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  Speaker 1: looked a mere blot of deeper gray in the grayness,
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  Speaker 1: and for an instant as it moved toward her, her
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  Speaker 1: heart thumped to the thought it's the ghost. She had time,
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  Speaker 1: in that long instant to feel suddenly that the man
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  Speaker 1: of whom two months earlier she had had a distant
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  Speaker 1: vision from the roof, was now at his predestined hour,
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  Speaker 1: about to reveal himself as not having been Peter's and
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  Speaker 1: her spirit sank under the impending fear of the disclosure.
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  Speaker 1: But almost with the next tick of the clock, the figure,
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  Speaker 1: gaining substance and character, showed itself even to her weak sight,
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  Speaker 1: as her husband's, and she turned to meet him as
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  Speaker 1: he entered, with the confession of her folly. It's really
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  Speaker 1: too absurd, she laughed up. But I never can remember
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  Speaker 1: remember what, Boyne questioned, as they drew together, that when
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: one sees the lion ghost, one never knows it. Her
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  Speaker 1: hand was on his sleeve, and he kept it there,
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  Speaker 1: but with no response in his gesture or in the
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  Speaker 1: lines of his preoccupied face. Did you think you'd seen it?
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: He asked, after an appreciable interval. Why I actually took
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you for it, my dear, in my mad determination to
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: spot it me Just now His arm dropped away, and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: he turned from her with a faint echo of her laugh. Really, dearest,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you'd better give it up if that's the best you
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: can do. Oh, yes, I give it up, have you,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: she asked, turning round on him. Abruptly, the parlor maid
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: had entered with letters and a lamp, and the light
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: struck up into Boyne's face as he bent above the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: tray she presented, Have you, Mary perversely insisted, when the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: servant had disappeared on her errand of illumination, and by
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: what he rejoined absently, the light bringing out the sharp
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: stamp of worry between his brows as he turned over
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the letters, given up trying to see the ghost. Her
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: heart beat a little at the experiment she was making.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: shadow of the hearth. I never tried, he said, tearing
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: open the wrapper of a newspaper. Well, of course, Mary persisted.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: The exasperating thing is that there's no use trying, since
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: one can't be sure till so long afterward, he was
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: But after a pause during which the sheets rustled spasmodically
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: between his hands, he looked up to ask, have you
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: any idea? How long? Mary had sunk into a low
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: chair beside the fireplace. From her seat, she glanced over,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: startled at her husband's profile, which was projected against the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: circle of lamp light. No, none, have you, she retorted,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: repeating her former phrase with an added stress of intention.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Boyne crumpled the paper into a bunch and then inconsequently
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: turned back with it toward the lamp. Lord No I
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: only meant, he exclaimed, with a faint tinge of impatience.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Is there any legend, any tradition as to that? Not
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that I know of, she answered. But the impulse to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: add what makes you ask was checked by the reappearance
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: of the parlor maid with tea and a second lamp.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: daily domestic office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: that sense of something mutely imminent which had darkened her afternoon.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: For a few moments, she gave herself to the details
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: of her task, and when she looked up from it,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: she was struck to the point of bewilderment by the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: change in her husband's face. He had seated himself near
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the farther lamp and was absorbed in the perusal of
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: his letters. But was it something he had found in them,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: or merely the shifting of her own point of view
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that had restored his features to their normal aspect. The
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: longer she looked, the more definitely the change affirmed itself.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: The lines of tension had vanished, and such traces of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: fatigue as lingered were of the kind easily attributable to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: steady mental effort. He glanced up, as if drawn by
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: her gaze, and met her eyes with a smile. I'm
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: dying for my tea, you know. And here's a letter
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: for you, he said. She took the letter he held
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: out in exchange for the cup she proffered him, and,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: returning to her seat, broke the seal with the languid
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: gesture of the rea whose interests are all enclosed in
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the circle of one cherished presence. Her next conscious motion
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was that of starting to her feet, the letter falling
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: to them as she rose, while she held out to
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: her husband a newspaper clipping ned what's this? What does
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it mean? He had risen at the same instant, almost
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: as if hearing her cry before she uttered it, and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: for a perceptible space of time he and she studied
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: each other like adversaries, watching for an advantage, across the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: space between her chair and his desk. What's what You
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: fairly made me jump, Boyne said, at length, moving toward
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: her with a sudden, half exasperated laugh. The shadow of
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: apprehension was on his face again. Not now a look
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of fixed foreboding, but a shifting vigilance of lips and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: eyes that gave her the sense of his feeling himself
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: invisibly surrounded her. Hand shook so that she could hardly
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: give him the clipping this article from the Walkashaw Sentinel,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that a man named Elwell has brought suit against you,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: that there was something wrong about the Blue Star mind.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I can't understand more than half. They continued to face
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: each other as she spoke, and to her astonishment, she
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: saw that her words had the almost immediate effect of
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: dissipating the strange watchfulness of his look. Oh that he
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: glanced down the printed slip and then folded it with
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the gesture of one who handles something harmless and familiar.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: What's the matter with you this afternoon, Mary? I thought
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you'd got bad news. She stood before him, with her
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: undefinable terror, subsiding slowly under the reassurance of his tone.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: You knew about this, then, it's all right. Certainly I
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: knew about it, and it's all right. But what is it?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. What does this man accuse you of?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Pretty nearly every crime in the calendar, Boynett tossed the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: clipping down and thrown himself into an armchair near the fire.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Do you want to hear the story? It's not particularly
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: interesting just to squabble over interests in the Blue Star.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But who is this Elwill? I don't know the name. Oh,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: he's a fellow I put into it, gave my hand up.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I told you all about him at the time. I
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: dare say, I must have forgotten. Vainly she strained back
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: among her memories. But if you helped him, why does
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: he make this return? Probably some shyster lawyer got hold
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of him and talked him over. It's all rather technical
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and complicated. I thought that kind of thing bored you.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the American wife's detachment from her husband's professional interests, but
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in practice she had always found it difficult to fix
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: her attention on Boyne's report of the transactions in which
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: his varied interests involved him. Besides, she had felt during
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: their years of exile that in a community where the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of efforts as arduous as her husband's professional labors, such
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: brief leisure as he and she could command, should be
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: used as an escape from immediate preoccupations, a flight to
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the life they had always dreamed of living once or twice.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Now that this new life had actually drawn its magic
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: circle about them, she had asked herself if she had
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: done right. But hitherto such conjectures had been no more
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: than the retrospective excursions of an active fancy. Now, for
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the first time, it startled her a little to find
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: how little she knew of the material foundation on which
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: her happiness was built. She glace said her husband, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: was again reassured by the composure of his face. Yet
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: she felt the need of more definite grounds for her reassurance.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: But doesn't this suit worry you? Why have you never
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: spoken to me about it? He answered both questions at once.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't speak of it at first because it did
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: worry me, annoyed me rather, But it's all ancient history. Now.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Your correspondent must have got hold of a back number
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of the Sentinel. She felt a quick thrill of relief.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: You mean it's over. He's lost his case. There was
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a just perceptible delay in Boyne's reply. The suit's been withdrawn,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that's all. But she persisted, as if to exonerate herself
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: from the inward charge of being too easily put off.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Withdrawn it because he saw he had no chance. Oh,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: he had no chance, Boyne answered. She was still struggling
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: with a dimly felt perplexity at the back of her thoughts.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: How long ago was it? Withdrawn? He paused, as if
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: with a slight return to his former uncertainty. I've just
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: had the news now, but I've been expecting it just
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: now in one of your letters, Yes, in one of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: my letters. She made no answer, and was aware only
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: after a short interval of waiting that he had risen
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and strolling across the room, had placed himself on the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: sofa at her side. She felt him, as he did so,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: pass an arm about her. She felt his hand seek
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: hers and clasp it, and turning slowly, drawn by the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: warmth of his cheek, she met his smiling eyes. It's
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: all right, it's all right, she questioned, through the flood
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: of her dissolving doubts. And I give you my word.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Was never right, he laughed back at her, holding her close.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: End of Part one. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Afterward by
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Edith Wharton, Part two read by Charles Blackmore Afterward, Chapter three.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: One of the strangest things she was to afterward recall
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: out of all the next day's strangeness was the sudden
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and complete recovery of her sense of security. It was
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: in the air when she woke in her low, the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: old dusky room. It went with her downstairs to the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: breakfast table, flashed out of her from the fire, and
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: reduplicated itself from the flanks of the urn and the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: sturdy flutings of the Georgian teapot. It was as if,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: in some roundabout way, all her diffused fears of the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: previous day with their moment of sharp concentration about the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: newspaper article, as if this dim questioning of the future
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and startled return upon the past had between them liquidated
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the arrears of some haunting moral obligation. If she had
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: indeed been careless of her husband's affairs, it was her
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: new state, seemed to prove, because her faith in him
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: instinctively justified such carelessness, and his right to her faith
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: had now affirmed itself in the very face of menace
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and suspicion. She had never seen him more untroubled, more
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: naturally and unconsciously himself, than after the cross examination to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: which she had subjected him. It was almost as if
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: he had been aware of her doubts and had wanted
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the air cleared as much as she did. It was
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: as clear thank heaven as the bright outer light that
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: surprised her almost with a touch of summer. When she
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: issued from the house for her daily round of the gardens.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: She had left Boyne at his desk, indulging herself as
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: she passed the library door by a last peep at
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: his quiet face where he bent pipe in mouth above
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: his papers. And now she had her own morning's tasked
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: to perform. The task involved on such charmed winter days,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: almost as much happy loitering about the different quarters of
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: her domain as if spring were already at work there.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: There were such endless possibilities still before her, such opportunities
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to bring out the latent graces of the old place
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: without a single irreverent touch of alteration, that the winter
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: was all too short to plan what spring and autumn executed,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and her recovered sense of safety gave on this particular
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: morning a peculiar zest to her progress through the sweet
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: still place. She went first to the kitchen garden, where
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the espalliard pear trees drew complicated patterns on the walls,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and pigeons were fluttering and preening about the silvery slated
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: roof of their cot. There was something wrong about the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: piping of the hot house, and she was expecting an
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: authority from Dorchester who was to drive out between trains
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and make a diagnosis of the boiler. But when she
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: dipped into the damp heat of the greenhouses, among the
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: spiced scents and waxy pinks and reds of old fashioned exotics,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: even the flora of lying was in the note, she
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: learned that the great Man had not arrived, and the day,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: being too rare to waste in an artificial atmosphere, she
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: came out again and paced along the springy turf of
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the Bowling Green to the gardens behind the house. At
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: their farther end rose a grass terrace, looking across the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: fish pond and yew hedges to the long house front,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: with its twisted chimney stacks and blue rough angles, all
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: drenched in the pale gold moisture of the air seen
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: thus across the level tracery of the gardens. It sent her,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: from open windows and hospitably smoking chimneys, the look of
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: some warm human presence of a mind slowly ripened on
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a sunny wall of experience. She had never before had
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: such a sense of her intimacy with it, such a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: conviction that its secrets were all beneficent, kept, as they
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: said to children, for one's good, such a trust in
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: its power to gather up her life and neds into
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the harmonious pattern of the long, long story. It sat there,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: weaving in the sun. She heard steps behind her, and turned,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: expecting to see the gardener accompanied by the engineer from Orchester.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: But only one figure was in sight, that of a youngish,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: slightly built man, who, for reasons she could not on
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the spot have given, did not remotely resemble her notion
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: of an authority on hot house boilers. The newcomer, on
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: seeing her, lifted his hat and paused with the air
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: of a gentleman, perhaps a traveler who wishes to make
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: it known that his intrusion is involuntary. Lying occasionally attracted
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the more cultivated traveler, and Mary half expected to see
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the stranger dissemble a camera or justify his presence by
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: producing it, but he made no gesture of any sort,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and after a moment, she asked, in a tone responding
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: to the courteous hesitation of his attitude, is there anyone
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: you wish to see? I came to see mister Boyne,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: he answered. His intonation, rather than his accent, was faintly American,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and Mary, at the note, looked at him more closely.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: The brim of his soft felt hat cast a shade
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: on his face, which thus obscured wore to her short
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: sighted gaze a look of seriousness, as of a person
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: arriving on business and civilly, but firmly aware of his rights.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Past experience had made her equally sensible to such claims,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: but she was jealous of her husband's mourning hours and
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: doubtful of his having given any one the right to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: intrude on them. Have you an appointment with my husband?
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: She asked. The visitor hesitated, as if unprepared for the question.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I think he expects me, he replied. It was Mary's
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: turn to hesitate. You see, this is his time for work.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: He never sees any one in the morning. He looked
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: at her a moment without answering, then, as if accepting
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: her decision, he began to move away. As he turned,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Mary saw him pause and glance up at the peaceful
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: house front. Something in his air suggested weariness and disappointment,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the dejection of the traveler who has come from far
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: off and whose hours are limited by the time table.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: It occurred to her that if this were they case,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: her refusal might have made his errand vain, and a
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: sense of compunction caused her to hasten after him. May
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I ask if you have come a long way? He
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: gave her the same grave look. Yes, I have come
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a long way. Then if you'll go into the house,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: no doubt my husband will see you. Now you'll find
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: him in the library. She did not know why she
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: had added the last phrase, except from a vague impulse
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to atone for her previous inhospitality. The visitor seemed about
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to express his thanks, but her attention was distracted by
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the approach of the gardener with a companion who bore
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: all the marks of being the expert from Dorchester. This way,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: she said, waving the stranger to the house, and an
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: instant later she had forgotten him in the absorption of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: her meeting with the boiler maker. The encounter led to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: such far reaching results that the engineer ended by finding
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it expedient to ignore his train, and Mary was beguiled
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: into spending the remainder of the morning in absorbed confabulation
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: among the flower pots. When the colloquy ended, she was
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: surprised to find that it was nearly luncheon time, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: she half expected as she hurried back to the house
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: to see her husband coming out to meet her, But
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: she found no one in the court but an under
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: gardener raking the gravel and the hall. When she entered,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: it was so silent that she guessed Boyne to be
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: still at work. Not wishing to disturb him, she turned
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: into the drawing room, and there at her writing table
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: lost herself in renewed calculations of the outlay to which
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the morning's conference had pledged her. The fact that she
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: could permit herself such follies had not yet lost its novelty,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and somehow, in contrast to the vague fears of the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: previous days, it now seemed an element of her recovered security,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of the sense that, as Ned had said things in
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: general had never been writer. She was still luxuriating in
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: a lavish play of figures when the parlor maid from
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the threshold roused her with an inquiry as to the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: expediency of serving muncheon. It was one of their jokes
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: that Trimmell announced luncheon as if she were divulging a
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: state secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers, merely murmured
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: an absent minded assent. She felt tremble, wavering doubtfully on
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: the threshold, as if in rebuke of such unconsidered assent.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Then her retreating steps sounded down the passage, and Mary,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: pushing away her papers, crossed the hall and went to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: in her turn, disliking to disturb her husband, yet anxious
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: that he should not exceed his usual measure of work.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: As she stood there, balancing her impulses, Trimmell returned with
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the announcement of luncheon, and Mary, thus impelled, opened the
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: library door. Boyne was not at his desk, and she
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: peered about her, expecting to discover him before the book
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: shelves somewhere down the length of the room. But her
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: call brought no response, and gradually it became clear to
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: her that he was not there. She turned back to
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the parlor maid, mister Boyne must be upstairs. Please tell
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: him that luncheon is ready. Trimmell appeared to hesitate between
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the obvious duty of obedience and an equally obvious conviction
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: of the foolishness of the injunction laid on her. The
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: struggle resulted in her saying, if you please, ma'am, mister
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Boyne's not upstairs, not in his room, Are you sure?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, ma'am. Mary consulted the clock. Where is he?
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Then he's gone out, Trimmle announced, with the superior air
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of one who has respectfully waited for the question that
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: a well ordered mind would have put first. Mary's conjecture
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: had been right, then Boyne must have gone to the
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: gardens to meet her, and since she had missed him,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: it was clear that he had taken the shorter way
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: by the south door instead of going round to the court.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: She crossed the hall to the French window opening directly
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: on the yew garden, but the parlor maid, after another
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: moment of inner conflict, decided to bring out, please, ma'am,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: mister Boyne didn't go that way. Mary turned back. Where
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: did he go? And when he went out of the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: front door up the drive, Madam? It was a matter
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: of principle with trimmele never to answer more than one
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: question at a time up the drive. At this hour,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Mary went to the door herself and glanced across the
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: court through the tunnel of bare limes, that its perspective
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: was as empty as when she had scanned it on entering.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Did mister Boyne leave no message? Trimmell seemed to surrender
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: herself to a last struggle with the forces of chaos. No, ma'am,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: he just went out with the gentleman. The gentleman. What gentleman?
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Mary wheeled about, as if to front this new factor.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: The gentleman who called, ma'am, said Trimble resignedly. When did
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: a gentleman call? Do explain yourself? Tremble? Only the fact
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: that Mary was very hungry, and that she wanted to
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: consult her husband about the greenhouses would have caused her
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to lay so unusual in an injunction on her attendant.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: And even now she was detached enough to note in
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Trimmell's eye the dawning defiance of the respectful subordinate who
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: had been pressed too hard. I couldn't exactly say the hour, ma'am,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: because I didn't let the gentleman in, she replied, with
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: an air of discreetly ignoring the irregularity of her mistress's course.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: You didn't let him in, no, ma'am. When the bell rang,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: our dressing and Agnes go and ask. Agnes, then said Mary,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Trimmele still wore her look of patient magnanimity. Agnes wouldn't know, ma'am,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: for she had unfortunately burnt her hand in trimming the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: wick of the new lamp from town. Trimmell, as Mary
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: was aware, had always been opposed to the new lamp,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and so missus Dockett sent the kitchen maid instead. Mary
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: looked again at the clock. It's after two. Go and
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: ask the kitchen maid if mister Boyne left any word.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: She went in to luncheon without waiting, and Trimmell presently
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: brought her there the kitchen maid's statement that the gentleman
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: had called about eleven o'clock, and that mister Boyne had
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: gone out with him without leaving any message. The kitchen
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: maid did not even know the caller's name, for he
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: had written it on a slip of paper, which he
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: had folded and handed to her, with the injunction to
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: deliver it at once to mister Boyne. Mary finished her
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: luncheon still wondering, and when it was over and Trimmele
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: had brought the coffee to the drawing room, her wonder
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: had deepened to a first faint tinge of disquietude. It
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: was unlike Boyne to absent himself without explanation at so
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: unwonted an hour, and the difficulty of identifying the visitor
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: whose summons he had apparently obeyed made his disappearance the
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: more unaccountable. Mary Boyne's experience as the wife of a
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: busy engineer, subject to sudden calls and compelled to keep
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: irregular hours, had trained her to the philosophic acceptance of surprises.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: But since Boyne's withdrawal from business, he had adopted a
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Benedictine regularity of life, as if to make up for
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the dispersed and agitated years. With their stand up lunches
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and dinners rattled down to the joltings of the dining cars,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: he cultivated the last refinements of punctuality and monotony, discouraging
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: his wife's fancy for the unexpected, and declaring that to
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a delicate taste there were infinite gradations of pleasure in
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the recurrences of habit. Still, since no life can completely
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: defend itself from the unforeseen, it was evident that all
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Boyne's precautions would sooner or later prove unavailable, and Mary
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: concluded that he had cut short a tiresome visit by
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: walking with his caller to the station, or at least
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: accompanying him for part of the way. This conclusion relieved
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: her from further preoccupation, and she went out herself to
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: take up her conference with the gardener. Thence, she walked
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to the will Village post office a mile or so away,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: and when she turned toward home, the early twilight was
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: setting in. She had taken a footpath across the downs
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: and its. Boyne, meanwhile, had probably returned from the station
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: by the high road. There was little likelihood of their meeting.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: She felt sure, however, of his having reached the house
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: before her, so sure that when she entered it herself,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: without even pausing to inquire of Trimmel, she made directly
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: for the library. But the library was still empty, and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: with an unwonted exactness of visual memory. She observed that
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the papers on her husband's desk lay precisely as they
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: had lain when she had gone in to call him
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: to luncheon. Then of a sudden she was seized by
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: a vague dread of the unknown. She had closed the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: door behind her on entering, and as she stood alone
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: in the long silent room, her dread seemed to take
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: shape and sound, to be there, breathing and lurking among
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the shadows. Her short sighted eyes strained through them, half
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: discerning an actual presence, something aloof that watched and knew,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And in the recoil from that intangible presence, she threw
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: herself on the bell rope and gave it a sharp pull.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: The sharp summons brought tremmel imprecipitately with a lamp, and
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of the usual.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: You may bring tea if mister Boyne is in, she said,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: to justify her ring very well, madam. But mister Boyne
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: is not in, said Trimmell, putting down the lamp. Not in,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Ye mean he's come back and gone out again, No, ma'am,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: he's never been back. The dread stirred again, and Mary
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: knew that now it had her fast, not since he
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: went out with the gentleman, not since he went out
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: with the gentleman. But who was the gentleman? Mary insisted,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: with the shrill note of some one trying to be
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: heard through a confusion of noises, that I couldn't say, ma'am. Trimmell,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: standing there by the lamp seemed suddenly to grow less
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: round and rosy, as though eclipsed by the same creeping
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: shade of apprehension. But the kitchen maid knows. Wasn't it
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the kitchen maid who let him in? She doesn't know either, ma'am,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: for he wrote his name on a folded paper. Mary,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: through her agitation, was aware that they were both designating
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: the unknown visitor by a vague pronoun instead of the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: convention formula, which till then had kept their illusions within
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the bounds of conformity. And at the same moment her
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: mind caught at the suggestions of the folded paper. But
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: he must have a name. Where's the paper? She moved
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to the desk and began to turn over the documents
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: that littered it. The first that caught her eye was
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: an unfinished letter in her husband's hand, with his pen
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: lying across it, as though dropped there at a sudden summons,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: my dear Parvis, who was Parvis? I have just received
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: your letter announcing Elwell's death, and while I suppose there
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: is now no further risk of trouble, it might be safer.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: She tossed the sheet aside and continued her search. But
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: no folded paper was discoverable among the letters and pages
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of manuscript, which had been swept together in a heap,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: as if by a hurried or a startled gesture. But
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: the kitchen maid saw him send her here, she commanded,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: wondering at her dullness in not thinking sooner of so
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: simple a solution. Trimmell vanished in a flash, as if
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: thankful to be out of the room, and when she
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: reappeared conducting the agitated underling, Mary had regained her self
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: possession and had her questions ready. The gentleman was a stranger, yes,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: that she understood, But what had he said? And above
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: all what had he looked like? The first question was
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason that he had
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: said so little, had merely asked for mister Boyne and
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: scribbling something on a piece of paper, had requested that
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: it should at once be carried in to him. Then
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you don't know what he wrote. You're not sure it
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: was his name. The kitchen maid was not sure, but
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: supposing it was, since he had written it in answer
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: to her inquiry as to whom she should announce. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: when you carried the paper into mister Boyne, what did
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: he say? The kitchen maid did not think that mister
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Boyne had said anything, but she could not be sure,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: for just as she had handed him the paper and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: he was opening it, she had become aware that the
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: visitor had followed her into the library, and she had
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: slipped out, leaving the two gentlemen together. But then, if
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you left them in the library, how do you know
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: that they went out of the house. This question plunged
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the witness into a momentary inarticulateness, from which she was
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: rescued by Trimmell, who, by means of ingenious circumlocutions, elicited
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: the statement that before she could cross the hall to
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the back passage, she had heard the two gentlemen behind
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: her and had seen them go out of the front
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: door together. Then if you saw the strange gentleman. Twice,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: you must be able to tell me what he looked like.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: But with this final che challenge to her powers of expression,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: it became clear that the limit of the kitchen Maid's
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: endurance had been reached. The obligation of going to the
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: front door to show in a visitor was in itself
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: so subversive of the fundamental order of things that it
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: had thrown her faculties into hopeless disarray, and she could
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: only stammer out after various panting efforts. His hat, mum
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: was different, like if you might say different? How different?
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Mary flashed out her own mind in the same instant,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: leaping back to an image left on it that morning,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: and then lost under layers of subsequent impressions. His hat
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: had a wide brim, you mean, and his face was pale,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: a youngish face. Mary pressed her with a white lipped
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: intensity of interrogation. But if the kitchen maid found any
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: adequate answer to this challenge, it was swept away for
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: her listener down the rushing current of her own convictions.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: The stranger, the stranger in the garden. Why had Mary
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: not thought of him before? She needed no one now
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: to tell her that it was he who had called
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: for her husband and had gone away with him. But
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: who was he? And why had Boyne obeyed him? Chapter four.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: It leaped out at her suddenly, like a grin out
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: of the dark. That they had often called England so little,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: such a confoundedly hard place to get lost in, A
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: confoundedly hard place to get lost in. That had been
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: her husband's phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: official investigation sweeping its flashlights from shore to shore and
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: across the dividing straits, Now with Boyne's name blazing from
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the walls of every town and village, his portrait, how
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that wrung her hawked up and down the country like
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the image of a haunted criminal. Now, the little compact
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: populous island, so policed, surveyed, and administered, revealed itself as
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: a sphinxlike guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: wife's anguished eyes, as if with the wicked joy of
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: knowing something they would never know. In the fortnight since
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Boyne's disappearance, there had been no word of him, no
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: trace of his movements, even the usual misleading reports that
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Ray's expectancy in tortured bosoms had been few and fleeting.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: No one but the kitchen maid had seen Boyne leave
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the house, and no one else had seen the gentleman
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: who accompanied him. All inquiries in the neighborhood failed to
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: elicit the memory of a stranger's presence that day in
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood of Lyne, and no one had met Edward Boyne,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: either alone or in company, in any of the neighboring villages,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: or on the road across the Downs, or at either
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: of the local railway stations. The sunny English noon had
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: into Sumerian night. Mary, while every official means of investigation
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: was working at its highest pressure, had ransacked her husband's
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: papers for any trace of antecedent complications, of entanglements, or
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: obligations unknown to her that might throw a ray into
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the darkness. But if any such had existed in the
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: background of Boyne's life, they had vanished, like the slip
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: of paper on which the visitor had written his name.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: There remained no possible thread of guidance, except if it
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: were indeed an exception. The letter which Boyne had apparently
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: been in the act of writing when he received his
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: mysterious summons. That letter, read and reread by his wife
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and submitted by her to the police, yielded little enough
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: to feed conjecture I have just heard of Elwell's death,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and while I suppose that there is now no further
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: risk of trouble, it might be safer that was all.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: The risk of trouble was easily explained by the newspaper
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: clipping which had apprized Mary of the suit brought against
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: her husband by one of his associates in the Blue
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Star Enterprise. The only new information conveyed by the letter
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: was the fact of its showing Boy when he wrote
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: it to be still apprehensive of the results of the suit,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: though he had told his wife that it had been withdrawn,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and though the letter itself proved that the plaintiff was dead.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: It took several days of cabling to fix the identity
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: of the parvis to whom the fragment was addressed. But
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: even after these inquiries had shown him to be a
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Walkishaw lawyer, no new facts concerning the Elwell suit were elicited.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: He appeared to have had no direct concern in it,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: but to have been conversant with the facts merely as
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: an acquaintance and possible intermediary, and he declared himself unable
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: to guess with what object Boyne intended to seek his assistance.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: This negative information sole fruit of the first fortnight's search,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: was not increased by a jot. During the slow weeks
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: that followed, Mary knew that the investigations were still being
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: carried on, but she had a vague sense of their
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: gradually slackening as the actual march of time seemed to slacken.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: It was as though the day's flying horror struck from
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: the shrouded image of the one inscrutable day, gained assurance
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: as the distance lengthened, till at last they fell back
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: into their normal gait, And so with the human imaginations
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: at work on the dark event, no doubt occupied them still,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: But week by week and hour by hour, it grew less, absorbing,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: took up less space, was slowly but inevitably crowded out
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: of the foreground of consciousness by the new problems perpetually
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: bubbling up from the cloudy cauldron of human experience. Even
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Mary Boyne's consciousness gradually felt the same lowering of velocity,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: It still swayed with the incessant oscillations of conjecture, but
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: they were slower, more rhythmical in their beat. There were
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: even moments of weariness, when, like the victim of some
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: poison which leaves the brain clear but holds the body motionless,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: she saw herself domesticated with the horror, accepting its perpetual
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: presence as one of the fixed conditions of life. These
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: moments lengthened into hours and days, till she passed into
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: a phase of stolid acquiescence. She watched the routine of
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: daily life with the incurious eye of a savage, on
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: whom the meaningless processes of civilization make but the faintest impression.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: She had come to regard herself as part of the routine,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: as spoke of the wheel revolving in its motion. She
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: felt almost like the furniture of the room in which
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: she sat, an insensate object to be dusted and pushed
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: about with the chairs and tables, and this deepening apathy
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: held her fast at lying in spite of the entreaties
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: of friends and the usual medical recommendations of change. Her
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: friends supposed that her refusal to move was inspired by
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: the belief that her husband would one day return to
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the spot from which she had vanished, and a beautiful
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: legend grew up about this imaginary state of waiting. But
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: in reality she had no such belief. The depths of
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: anguish inclosing her were no longer lighted by flashes of hope.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: She was sure that Boyne would never come back, that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: he had gone out of her sight as completely as
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: if death itself had waited. That day, on the threshold,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: she had even renounced one by one the various theories
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: as to his disappearance, which had been advanced by the press,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: the police, and her own agonized imagination. In sheer lassitude,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: her mind turned from these alternatives of horror and sank
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: back into the blank fact that he was gone. No,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: she would never know what had become of him. No
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: one would ever know. But the house knew, the library
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: in which she spent her long, lonely evenings knew, for
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: it was here that the last scene had been enacted.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Here that the stranger had come and spoken the word
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: which had caused Boyne to rise and follow him. The
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: floor she trod, had felt his tread the books and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the shelves, had seen his face, And there were moments
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: when the intense conciousness of the old dusky walls seemed
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: about to break out into some audible revelation of their secret.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: But the revelation never came, and she knew it would
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: never come. Lying was not one of the garrulous old
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: houses that betrayed the secrets entrusted to them. Its very
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: legend proved that it had always been the mute accomplice,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the incorruptible custodian of the mysteries. It had surprised, and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Mary Boyne, sitting face to face with its silence, felt
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the futility of seeking to break it by any human means.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Chapter five. I don't say it wasn't straight, and yet
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: I don't say it was straight. It was business. Mary
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: at the words, lifted her head with a start and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: looked intently at the speaker. When half an hour before
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: a card with mister Parvis on it had been brought
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: up to her, she had been immediately aware that the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: name had been a part of her consciousness ever since
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: she had read it at the head of Boyne's unfinished letter.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: In the library, she had found awaiting her a small,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: sallow man with a bald head and gold eye glasses,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: and it sent a tremor through her to know that
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: this was the person to whom her husband's last known
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: thought had been directed. Parvis Civilly, but without vain preamble,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: in the manner of a man who has his watch
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: in his hand, had set forth the object of his visit.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: He had run over to England on business, and, finding
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: himself in the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: leave it without paying his respects to missus Boyne, and
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: without asking her if the occasion offered what she meant
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: to do about Bob Elwell's family. The words touched the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: spring of some obscure dread in Mary's bosom. Did her visitor,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: after all, know what Boyne had meant by his unfinished phrase?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: She asked for an elucidation of his question, and noticed
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: at once that he had seemed surprised at her continued
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: ignorance of the subject. Was it possible that she really
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: knew as little? As she said, I know nothing. You
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: must tell me. She faltered out, and her visitor thereupon
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even to her
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: confused perceptions and imperfectly initiated vision, a lurid glare on
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: the whole hazy episode of the Blue Star mine. Her
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: husband had made his money in that brilliant speculation at
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: the cost of getting ahead of some one less alert
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: to seize the chance, and the victim of his ingenuity
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: was young Robert Elwell, who had put him on to
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: the Blue star scheme. Parvis, at Mary's first cry, had
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: thrown her a sobering glance through his impartial glasses. Bob
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Elwell wasn't smart enough, that's all. If he had been,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: he might have turned round and served Boyne the same way.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that happens every day in business.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: I guess it's what the scientists call the survival of
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: the fittest see, said mister Parvis, evidently pleased with the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: aptness of his analogy. Mary felt a physical shrinking from
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the next question. She tried to frame. It was as
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: though the words on her lips had a taste that
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: nauseated her. But then you accuse my husband of doing
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: something dishonorable, mister Parvis surveyed the question dispassionately. Oh no,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't even say it wasn't straight. He
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: glanced up and down the long lines of books, as
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: if one of them might have supplied him with the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: definition he sought. I don't say it wasn't straight, and
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: yet I don't say it was straight. It was business.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: After all, no definition in his category could be more
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: comprehensive than that. Mary sat staring at him with a
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: look of terror. He seemed to her like the indifferent
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: emissary of some evil power. But mister Elwell's lawyers apparently
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: did not take your view. Since I suppose the suit
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: was withdrawn by their advice. Oh yes, they knew he
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: hadn't a leg to stand on technically. It was when
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got desperate.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: You see, he'd borrowed most of the money he lost
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: in the Blue Star, and he was up a tree.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: That's why he shot himself when they told him he
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: had no show. The horror was sweeping over Mary in
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: great deafening waves. He shot himself. He killed himself because
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: of that. Well, he didn't kill himself exactly. He dragged
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: on two months before he died. Parbus admitted the statement
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: as unemotionally as a gramophone grinding out its record. You
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: mean that he tried to kill himself and failed and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: tried again. Oh he didn't have to try again, said
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Parvis grimly. They sat opposite each other in silence, he
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: swinging his eye glasses thoughtfully about his finger, She motionless,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: her arms stretched along her knees in an attitude of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: rigid tension. But if you knew all this, she began
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: at length, hardly able to force her voice above a whisper.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: How is it that when I wrote you at the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: time of my husband's disappearance, you said you didn't understand
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: his letter? Parvis received this without perceptible embarrassment. Why I
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: didn't understand it strictly speaking, and it wasn't the time
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: to talk about it. If I had, the Elwell business
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: was settled when the suit was withdrawn. Nothing I could
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: have told you would have helped you to find your hu.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: Mary continued to scrutinize him. Then why are you telling
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: me now? Still, Parvis did not hesitate well to begin with,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I supposed you knew more than you appear to, I mean,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: about the circumstances of Elwell's death. And then people are
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: talking of it now the whole matter's been raked up again.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: And I thought, if you didn't know you ought to.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: She remained silent, and he continued, you see, it's only
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: come out lately when a bad state. Elwell's affairs were
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: in his wife's a proud woman, and she fought on
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: as long as she could, going out to work and
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: taking sewing at home. When she got too sick, something
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: with the heart, I believe, But she had his mother
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: to look after and the children, and she broke down
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: under it and finally had to ask for help. That
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: called attention to the case, and the papers took it up,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: and a subscription was started. Everybody out there liked Bob Elwell,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: and most of the prominent names in the place down
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: on the list, and people began to wonder why Barbus
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: broke off to fumble in an inner pocket. Here, he continued,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: here's an account of the whole thing from the Sentinel,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: A little sensational, of course, but I guess you'd better
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: look over it. He held out a newspaper to Mary,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: who unfolded it slowly, remembering as she did so the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: evening when in that same room, the perusal of a
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: clipping from the Sentinel had first shaken the depths of
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: her security. As she opened the paper, Her eyes shrinking
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: from the glaring headlines, widow of Boyne's victim, forced to
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: appeal for aid, ran down the column of text to
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: two portraits inserted in it. The first was her husband's,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: taken from a photograph made the year they had come
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: to England. It was the picture of him that she
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: liked best, the one that stood on the writing table
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: upstairs in her bedroom. As the eyes in the photograph
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: met hers, she felt it would be impossible to read
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: what was said of him, and closed her lids with
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: the sharpness of the pain, I thought, if you felt
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: disposed to put your name down. She heard Parvis continue.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: on the other portrait. It was that of a Youngish man,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: slightly built, with features somewhat blurred by the shadow of
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: a projecting hat brim. Where had she seen that outline before?
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: She stared at it confusedly, her heart hammering in her ears.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Then she gave a cry, This is the man, the
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: man who came for my husband. She heard Parvis start
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: he was bending above her in alarm. She straightened herself
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: and reached out for the paper, which she had dropped.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: It's the man, I should know him anywhere, she persisted,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: in a voice that sounded to her own ears like
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: a scream. Parvis's answer seemed to come to her from
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: far off down endless fog muffled windings. Missus Boyne, you're
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: a glass of water? No? No, no. She threw herself
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: toward him, her hand frantically clutching newspaper. I tell you
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: it's the man. I know him. He spoke to me
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: in the garden. Barbs took the journal from her, directing
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: his glasses to the portrait. It can't be Missus Boyne.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: It's Robert Elwell. Robert Elwell. Her white stare seemed to
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: travel into space. Then it was Robert Elwell who came
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: for him, came for Boyne the day he went away
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: from here. Parbus's voice dropped as hers rose. He bent over,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: her gently back into her seat. Why Elwell was dead?
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Don't you remember? Mary sat with her eyes fixed on
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: the picture, unconscious, of what he was saying. Don't you
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: remember Boyne's unfinished letter to me, the one you found
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: on his desk that day. It was written just after
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: he'd heard of Elwell's death. She noticed an odd shake
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: in Parvis's unemotional voice. Surely you remember, he urged her. Yes,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: she remembered. That was the profoundest horror of it. Elwell
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: had died the day before her husband's disappearance. And this
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: was Elwell's portrait, And it was the portrait of the
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: man who had spoken to her in the garden. She
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: lifted her head and looked slowly about the library. The
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: library could have borne witness that it was also the
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: portrait of the man who had come in that day
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. Through the misty
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: surgings of her brain, she heard the faint boom of
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: half forgotten words, words spoken by alid As Stare on
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: the lawn at Pangbourn, before Boyn and his wife had
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: ever seen the house at lying or had imagined that
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: they might one day live here. This was the man
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: who spoke to me, she repeated. She looked again at Parvis.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: He was trying to conceal his disturbance under what he
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: probably imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration. But
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: the edges of his lips were blue. He thinks me mad,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: but I'm not mad, she reflected, and suddenly there flashed
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: upon her a way of justifying her strange affirmation. She
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: till she could trust her voice. Then she said, looking
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: straight at Parvis, will you answer me one question? Please?
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: When was it that Robert Elwell tried to kill himself? When?
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: When Parvis stammered, yes, the date, please try to remember,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: she saw that he was growing still more afraid of her.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: I have a reason, she insisted, Yes, yeah, yes, only
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: I can't remember about two months before I should say.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: I want the date, she repeated. Parbas picked up the newspaper.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: We might see here, he said, still humoring her, he
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: ran his eyes down the page. Here it is last October.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: The She caught the words from him, the twentieth, wasn't it.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: With a sharp look at her, he verified, yes, the twentieth.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Then you did know? I know now. Her gaze continued
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: to travel past him. Sunday the twentieth, That was the
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: day he came first. Parbus's voice was almost inaudible. Came
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: here first, Yes, you saw him twice? Then, yes twice.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: She just breathed it at him. He came first on
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: the twentieth of October. I remember the date because it
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: was the day we went up Meldon Steep for the
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: first time. She felt a faint gasp of inward laughter
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: at the thought that but for that, she might have forgotten.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Parvis continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to intercept
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: her gaze. We saw him from the roof. She went on.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: He came down the Lime Avenue toward the house. He
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: was dressed just as he is in that picture. My
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: husband saw him first. He was frightened and ran down
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: ahead of me, but there was no one there. He
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: had vanished. Ell Well had vanished. Parvis faltered. Yes. Their
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: two whispers seemed to grope for each other. I couldn't
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: think what had happened. I see now. He tried to
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: come then, but he wasn't dead enough. He couldn't reach us.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: He had to wait for two months to die. And
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: then he came back again, and Ned went with him.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: She nodded at Parvis with the look of triumph of
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: a child who has worked out a difficult puzzle. But
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: suddenly she lifted her hands with a desperate gesture, pressing
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: them to her temples. Oh my God, I sent him
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: to ned, I told him where to go. I sent
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: him to this room, she screamed. She felt the walls
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: of books rush towards her like inward falling ruins, And
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: she heard Parvis, a long way off through the ruins,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: crying to her and struggling to get at her. But
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: she was numb to his touch. She did not know
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: what he was saying. Through the tumult, she heard but
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: one clear note, the voice of a lead astare speaking
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: on the lawn at Pangbourne. You won't know till afterward,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: it said, you won't know till long, long afterward. The
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: End of Afterward by Edith Wharton fo