lready to me as
distinct a personality as anything I knew; or what should I say to
Roland? It was on my heart that my boy would die if I could not find some
way of helping this creature. You may be surprised that I should speak of
it in this way. I did not know if it was man or woman; but I no more
doubted that it was a soul in pain than I doubted my own being; and it
was my business to soothe this pain,--to deliver it, if that was
possible. Was ever such a task given to an anxious father trembling for
his only boy? I felt in my heart, fantastic as it may appear, that I must
fulfill this somehow, or part with my child; and you may conceive that
rather than do that I was ready to die. But even my dying would not have
advanced me, unless by bringing me into the same world with that seeker
at the door.

* * * * *

Next morning Simson was out before breakfast, and came in with evident
signs of the damp grass on his boots, and a look of worry and weariness,
which did not say much for the night he had passed. He improved a little
after breakfast, and visited his two patients,--for Bagley was still an
invalid. I went out with him on his way to the train, to hear what he
had to say about the boy. "He is going on very well," he said; "there are
no complications as yet. But mind you, that's not a boy to be trifled
with, Mortimer. Not a word to him about last night." I had to tell him
then of my last interview with Roland, and of the impossible demand he
had made upon me, by which, though he tried to laugh, he was much
discomposed, as I could see. "We must just perjure ourselves all round,"
he said, "and swear you exorcised it;" but the man was too kind-hearted
to be satisfied with that. "It's frightfully serious for you, Mortimer. I
can't laugh as I should like to. I wish I saw a way out of it, for your
sake. By the way," he added shortly, "didn't you notice that juniper-bush
on the left-hand side?" "There was one on the right hand of the door. I
noticed you made that mistake last night." "Mistake!" he cried, with a
curious low laugh, pulling up the collar of his coat as though he felt
the cold,--"there's no juniper there this morning, left or right. Just go
and see." As he stepped into the train a few minutes after, he looked
back upon me and beckoned me for a parting word. "I'm coming back
to-night," he said.

I don't think I had any feeling about this as I turned away from that
common bustle o