Part 31 (2/2)
”I suppose you disbelieve in them?”
”I have no reason to believe in them. I have not collected enough evidence to convince me that there are such manifestations.”
”You know a double at this moment.”
”Do I, indeed? And may I ask the manifestation's name?”
”Marcus Harding.”
”Marcus Harding is a double, you say. Whose?”
”Mine,” said Chichester in a low voice.
He clasped and unclasped his hands.
”I don't understand you,” said Stepton, rather disdainfully.
”I will try to make you.” And Chichester began to speak, at first in a low, level voice. ”That sermon of mine,” he said, ”was a sort of shadow of a truth that I wanted to reveal,--that I dared not fully reveal.
Already I had tried to tell Evelyn Malling something of it. I had failed.
When the moment came, when Malling was actually before me, I could not speak out. His mind was trying to track the truth that was in me. He got, as it were, upon the trail. Once he even struck into the truth. Then he went away to Marcus Harding. I remained in London. When I knew that those two were together I felt a sort of jealous fear of Malling. For there was pity in him. Despite his intense curiosity he had a capacity for pity. I realized that it might possibly interfere with--with something that I was doing. And I recalled Marcus Harding to London.
From that moment I have avoided Malling. I could never tell him. But you, hard searcher after truth as you are--you could never find it in you to drag away another from the contemplation of truth. Could you? Could you?”
”Probably not,” said Stepton. ”I usually let folks alone even when they're glaring at falsehood. Ha!”
He settled himself in his chair, looking sidewise toward Chichester.
”You, like every one else, have noticed the tremendous change in Marcus Harding,” Chichester went on. ”That change, the whole of that change, is solely owing to me.”
”Very glad to have your explanation of that.”
”I am going to give it you. The beginning of that change came about through the action of Marcus Harding. He wished for facts that are, perhaps,--indeed, probably,--withheld deliberately from the cognizance of man. You have sneered at those who live by faith, you have sneered at priests. Well, you can let that Marcus Harding go free of your sarcasm.
Although a clergyman he was not a faithful man. And he wanted facts to convince him that there was a life beyond the grave. Henry Chichester--”
”You! You!” interjected Stepton, harshly.
”I, then, came into his life. He thought he would use me to further his purpose. He constrained me to sittings such as you have often taken part in, with a view to sending me into a trance and employing me, when in that condition, as a means of communication with the other world--if there was one. We sat secretly in this room, at this table.”
”You need not give me ordinary details of your sittings,” said the professor. ”I am familiar with them, of course.”
”Henry Chichester--”
”You! You! Don't complicate matters!”
”I never was entranced; but presently I felt myself changing subtly.”
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