Part 13 (1/2)

I felt suddenly that the air was very chill.

”That house is unoccupied,” I repeated shortly.

We all walked on in silence. But, through our silence, it certainly seemed to me that there came a sound of some one lamenting in the garden.

A day or two later Fraser said to me:--

”Why is that old house shut up?”

”Who would occupy it?” I said. ”Of course, if I could get a tenant--”

”I'll take it,” he rejoined quickly. ”You can let me some shooting with it, can't you?”

”But,” I began; and then I stopped. I had an instinct to keep the old Manse empty, but I fought it, merely because it struck me as unreasonable. How seldom are our instincts unreasonable! G.o.d--how seldom!

”I've been looking out for a shooting-box,” Hugh said. ”That house would suit me admirably.”

”All right,” I answered. ”I shall be very glad to have you for a tenant.”

So it was arranged. When Kate heard of the arrangement, I observed her to go very pale; but she made no objection. Hugh Fraser rented the house, furnished it, engaged servants, a gardener, enlarged the stables, and took up his abode there. Doctor Wedderburn's old study was now his den. When I looked in at the window through which I had seen the doctor die, I saw Fraser smoking, or playing with his setters. I don't know why, but the sight turned me sick.

My relations with Kate, of which I have said nothing, were rather cold and distant. My pa.s.sion, such as it was, had died before marriage. Hers seemed to languish afterwards. I believe that she had really loved me, but that the shame of being with me, after I had wedded her actually against my will, struck this sentiment to the dust. When one feeling that has been very strong dies, its place is generally filled by another. Sometimes I fancied that this was so with Kate, that the bitterness of shattered self-respect gradually transformed her nature, that a cruel frost bound the tendernesses, the warm vagaries of what had been a sweet woman's heart. But, to tell the truth, I did not trouble much about the matter. My affairs were prospering so greatly, my health was so abounding, I had so much beside the mere egotism of brilliant physical strength to occupy me, that I was heedless, reckless--at first.

Yet, I had moments of a dull alarm connected with the dweller at the Manse.

If Hugh Fraser changed as he read that fateful letter in London, he changed far more after he came to live at the Manse. And it seemed to me that there were times when--how shall I put it?--when he bore a curious, and, to me, almost intolerable likeness to--some one who was dead. A certain old man's manner came upon him at moments. His body, in sitting or standing, a.s.sumed, to my eyes, elderly and d.a.m.nable att.i.tudes. Once, when I glanced in at the study window before entering the Manse, I perceived him lounging over a table facing me, a pen in his hand and paper before him, and the spectacle threw all my senses into a violent and most distressing disorder. Instead of going into the house, as I had intended, I struck sharply upon the gla.s.s at the window. Fraser looked up quickly.

”What--what are you writing?” I cried out.

He got up, came to the window, and opened it.

”Eh? What's the row, man?” he said. ”Why don't you come in?”

I repeated my question, with an anxiety I strove to mask.

”Writing? Only a letter to town,” he said, looking at me in wonder.

”Not a sermon?” I blurted forth.

”A sermon? Good heavens, no. Why should I write a sermon?”

”Oh,” I replied, forcing an uneasy laugh. ”You--you live in a Manse.

Doctor Wedderburn used to write his sermons in that room.”

That evening I remember that I said to Kate:

”Don't you think Fraser is getting to look very old at times?”

”I haven't observed it,” she replied coldly.

Another curious thing. Very soon after he took up his abode in the Manse, Fraser, who had been a G.o.dly youth, became markedly averse to religion. He informed us, with some excitement, that he had changed his views, and seemed much inclined to carry on an atheistical propaganda among the devout people of the neighbourhood. He declared that much evil had been wrought by faith in Carlounie, and appeared to deem it as his special duty to preach some sort of a crusade against the accepted Christianity of the parish. I began to combat his views, and once sought the reason of his ardour and self-election to the post of teacher. His answer struck me exceedingly. He said:--