Part 47 (1/2)

”Go to Paris to-morrow then, you say you have never had any consciousness that this--this thing pursued you beyond your own front door!”

”Never--hitherto.”

”Go to-morrow morning. Stay away till after your lecture. And then let us see if the affair is at an end. Hope, my dear friend, hope.”

He had stood up. Now he clasped the Professor's hand.

”See all your friends in Paris. Seek distractions. I would ask you also to seek--other help.”

He said the last words with a gentle, earnest gravity and simplicity that touched Guildea, who returned his handclasp almost warmly.

”I'll go,” he said. ”I'll catch the ten o'clock train, and to-night I'll sleep at an hotel, at the Grosvenor--that's close to the station. It will be more convenient for the train.”

As Father Murchison went home that night he kept thinking of that sentence: ”It will be more convenient for the train.” The weakness in Guildea that had prompted its utterance appalled him.

VI.

No letter came to Father Murchison from the Professor during the next few days, and this silence rea.s.sured him, for it seemed to betoken that all was well. The day of the lecture dawned, and pa.s.sed. On the following morning, the Father eagerly opened the Times, and scanned its pages to see if there were any report of the great meeting of scientific men which Guildea had addressed. He glanced up and down the columns with anxious eyes, then suddenly his hands stiffened as they held the sheets.

He had come upon the following paragraph:

”We regret to announce that Professor Frederic Guildea was suddenly seized with severe illness yesterday evening while addressing a scientific meeting in Paris. It was observed that he looked very pale and nervous when he rose to his feet. Nevertheless, he spoke in French fluently for about a quarter of an hour. Then he appeared to become uneasy. He faltered and glanced about like a man apprehensive, or in severe distress. He even stopped once or twice, and seemed unable to go on, to remember what he wished to say. But, pulling himself together with an obvious effort, he continued to address the audience. Suddenly, however, he paused again, edged furtively along the platform, as if pursued by something which he feared, struck out with his hands, uttered a loud, harsh cry and fainted. The sensation in the hall was indescribable. People rose from their seats. Women screamed, and, for a moment, there was a veritable panic. It is feared that the Professor's mind must have temporarily given way owing to overwork. We understand that he will return to England as soon as possible, and we sincerely hope that necessary rest and quiet will soon have the desired effect, and that he will be completely restored to health and enabled to prosecute further the investigations which have already so benefited the world.”

The Father dropped the paper, hurried out into Bird Street, sent a wire of enquiry to Paris, and received the same day the following reply: ”Returning to-morrow. Please call evening. Guildea.” On that evening the Father called in Hyde Park Place, was at once admitted, and found Guildea sitting by the fire in the library, ghastly pale, with a heavy rug over his knees. He looked like a man emaciated by a long and severe illness, and in his wide open eyes there was an expression of fixed horror. The Father started at the sight of him, and could scarcely refrain from crying out. He was beginning to express his sympathy when Guildea stopped him with a trembling gesture.

”I know all that,” Guildea said, ”I know. This Paris affair----” He faltered and stopped.

”You ought never to have gone,” said the Father. ”I was wrong. I ought not to have advised your going. You were not fit.”

”I was perfectly fit,” he answered, with the irritability of sickness.

”But I was--I was accompanied by that abominable thing.”

He glanced hastily round him, s.h.i.+fted his chair and pulled the rug higher over his knees. The Father wondered why he was thus wrapped up.

For the fire was bright and red and the night was not very cold.

”I was accompanied to Paris,” he continued, pressing his upper teeth upon his lower lip.

He paused again, obviously striving to control himself. But the effort was vain. There was no resistance in the man. He writhed in his chair and suddenly burst forth in a tone of hopeless lamentation.

”Murchison, this being, thing--whatever it is--no longer leaves me even for a moment. It will not stay here unless I am here, for it loves me, persistently, idiotically. It accompanied me to Paris, stayed with me there, pursued me to the lecture hall, pressed against me, caressed me while I was speaking. It has returned with me here. It is here now,”--he uttered a sharp cry,--”now, as I sit here with you. It is nestling up to me, fawning upon me, touching my hands. Man, man, can't you feel that it is here?”

”No,” the Father answered truly.

”I try to protect myself from its loathsome contact,” Guildea continued, with fierce excitement, clutching the thick rug with both hands. ”But nothing is of any avail against it. Nothing. What is it? What can it be?

Why should it have come to me that night?”

”Perhaps as a punishment,” said the Father, with a quick softness.

”For what?”