In the Days of the Comet Read online

  Section 7

  There comes a memory, an odd intermixture of two entirely divergentthings, that stands out with the intensest vividness.

  As I went across the last open meadow, following the short cut toCheckshill station, I perceived I had two shadows.

  The thing jumped into my mind and stopped its tumid flow for amoment. I remember the intelligent detachment of my sudden interest.I turned sharply, and stood looking at the moon and the great whitecomet, that the drift of the clouds had now rather suddenly unveiled.

  The comet was perhaps twenty degrees from the moon. What a wonderfulthing it looked floating there, a greenish-white apparition inthe dark blue deeps! It looked brighter than the moon because itwas smaller, but the shadow it cast, though clearer cut, was muchfainter than the moon's shadow. . . I went on noting these facts,watching my two shadows precede me.

  I am totally unable to account for the sequence of my thoughtson this occasion. But suddenly, as if I had come on this new factround a corner, the comet was out of my mind again, and I was faceto face with an absolutely new idea. I wonder sometimes if the twoshadows I cast, one with a sort of feminine faintness with regardto the other and not quite so tall, may not have suggested theword or the thought of an assignation to my mind. All that I haveclear is that with the certitude of intuition I knew what it wasthat had brought the youth in evening dress outside the shrubbery.Of course! He had come to meet Nettie!

  Once the mental process was started it took no time at all. Theday which had been full of perplexities for me, the mysteriousinvisible thing that had held Nettie and myself apart, the unaccountablestrange something in her manner, was revealed and explained.

  I knew now why she had looked guilty at my appearance, what hadbrought her out that afternoon, why she had hurried me in, thenature of the "book" she had run back to fetch, the reason why shehad wanted me to go back by the high-road, and why she had pitiedme. It was all in the instant clear to me.

  You must imagine me a black little creature, suddenly strickenstill--for a moment standing rigid--and then again suddenlybecoming active with an impotent gesture, becoming audible with aninarticulate cry, with two little shadows mocking my dismay, andabout this figure you must conceive a great wide space of moonlitgrass, rimmed by the looming suggestion of distant trees--treesvery low and faint and dim, and over it all the domed serenity ofthat wonderful luminous night.

  For a little while this realization stunned my mind. My thoughtscame to a pause, staring at my discovery. Meanwhile my feet and myprevious direction carried me through the warm darkness to Checkshillstation with its little lights, to the ticket-office window, andso to the train.

  I remember myself as it were waking up to the thing--I was alonein one of the dingy "third-class" compartments of that time--andthe sudden nearly frantic insurgence of my rage. I stood up with thecry of an angry animal, and smote my fist with all my strengthagainst the panel of wood before me. . . .

  Curiously enough I have completely forgotten my mood after thatfor a little while, but I know that later, for a minute perhaps, Ihung for a time out of the carriage with the door open, contemplatinga leap from the train. It was to be a dramatic leap, and then Iwould go storming back to her, denounce her, overwhelm her; and Ihung, urging myself to do it. I don't remember how it was I decidednot to do this, at last, but in the end I didn't.

  When the train stopped at the next station I had given up allthoughts of going back. I was sitting in the corner of the carriagewith my bruised and wounded hand pressed under my arm, and stillinsensible to its pain, trying to think out clearly a scheme ofaction--action that should express the monstrous indignation thatpossessed me.

  CHAPTER THE THIRD

  THE REVOLVER