"Oh, how delightful! A man, of course! Do tell me all about him!"
"His name is Joseph. It sounds odd, but he doesn't seem to use his surname at all. I did hear it, but I have forgotten. He is simply Joseph. He was hurt, though not nearly as badly as he might have been, by some falling planks from a house they were building. But he was in a dreadfully exhausted and rundown condition – nearly starved indeed. He is a great scholar and scientist, but he was ruined some years ago because he made a speech against God and religion at Cambridge, before all the dignitaries."
"And are you converting him?"
"No. That is no woman's work, with this man. He is in a strange state. We have nursed him back to something like health, but his mind seems quite empty. At first, when we had some talks together, he railed against God – always with the proviso that there wasn't any God! Now he is changed, with returning health. He is like an empty vessel, waiting for something to be poured into it. He neither disbelieves nor believes. Something has washed his mind clear."
"How extraordinary!"
"Extraordinary you say; but listen! Three days ago – it was in the early evening – he called me to his bedside. He drew his hand from the bedclothes and laid it on my arm. How I thrilled at the touch, I cannot explain…"
"But, my dear, think of Tom – This is extraordinary!"
"I've thought of Thomas; but, Marjorie, you cannot know – it was not that kind of love. It was nothing like love. Perhaps I put it badly, but you jumped to quite a wrong conclusion. It was something quite different. His eyes seemed to transfix me. The touch – the eyes – the thrill they sent through me will remain as long as I live! But listen. He spoke to me as he hadn't spoken before. 'Mary,' he said – "
"Did he call you Mary?"
"He had never done so before – he did then. Before I had always been 'Nurse' to him."
"Well, go on, dear – I am quite interested."
"He said, 'Mary, you are going off duty in a few minutes. Go to the upper chamber of 24, Grey Street, Hoxton, and walk straight in. There is one that has need of you.' I was about to expostulate, but he fell back in exhaustion, and I called the house surgeon."
"You surely didn't go?"
"Yes, I went," Mary went on rapidly. "Something made me go. The low door of Number 24 was open. I climbed till I got to the top. There was no light anywhere. It was a miserable foggy evening. I felt for a door and found one at last. It yielded to my hand and I entered an attic which was immediately under the roof.
"Nothing could be seen. I had come unprepared for such darkness. But taking courage I asked aloud if there was any one there.
"There was no answer. Yet I felt – I had a curious certainty – that I was not alone. I waited – and waited. Then I moved slowly about the room. I was afraid to move with any freedom for fear of stumbling over – something or other.
"Suddenly a costermonger's barrow came into the court below. The naphtha lamps lit up the whole place and the room was suddenly illuminated with a flickering red light. I could see quite well now.
"I am accustomed to rather dreadful things, as you know, Marjorie – or at least things which you would think rather dreadful. But I will confess I was frightened out of my life now. I gave a shriek of terror, and then stood trembling, utterly unable to move!"
"What was it?"
"I saw a man hanging by a rope to the rafters. His jaw had fallen down, and his tongue was protruding. I shall never forget how the red light from the court below glistened on his tongue – His eyes were starting out of his head… It was horrible."
"Oh, how frightful! I should have been frightened to death," said Marjorie, and a cold shiver ran through her whole body, which Mary could feel as her cousin nestled closer to her in the brougham.
"Yes, it was awful! I had never seen anything so awful before – except once, perhaps, at an operation for cancer. But do you know, Marjorie, I was quite unlike my usual self. I was acting under some strange influence. The eyes of that poor man, Joseph, seemed to be following me. I acted as I never should have been able to act unless something very curious and inexplicable was urging me. I knew exactly what I had to do.
"I am experienced in these things, as you know, and I saw at once that the man who was hanging from the roof was not dead. He was only just beginning the last agony. There was a big box by the window, and upon a little table I saw an ordinary table-knife. I dragged the box to the man's feet, put them upon it, caught hold of the knife, and cut him down.
"He was a small man, and fell limply back into my arms, nearly knocking me over the box, but I managed to support him, and staggered down on to the floor.
"Then I got the rope from round his neck, and tried to restore breathing by Hall's method – you know, one can use this method by oneself. It is really the basis of all methods, and is used very successfully in cases of drowning."
"What did you do then?" Marjorie asked.
"As soon as he began to breathe again I rushed downstairs. In a room at the bottom of the stairs, which was lit by a little cheap paraffin lamp there was a horrid old woman, an evil-looking young man, and several children. The old woman was frying some dreadful sort of fish for supper, and I was nearly stifled.
"To cut a long story short, I sent the children out for a cab, made the young fellow come upstairs, and together we brought down the man, who was in a semi-conscious state. No questions were asked because, as you know, or at least, as is a fact, a nurse's uniform commands respect everywhere. I took the man straight to the hospital and managed to hush the matter up, and to arrange with the house surgeon. Of course I could not tell the doctors everything, but they trusted me and nothing was said at all. The man was discharged as cured a few days ago. The poor fellow had attempted his life in a fit of temporary madness. He was very nearly starving. There is no doubt at all about it. He proved it to the satisfaction of the hospital authorities."
"And have you found out who he is?"
"He is a friend of Joseph's – a comrade in his poverty, a journalist called Hampson, and the garret was where Joseph and he had lived together."
"Extraordinary is not the word for all this," Marjorie interrupted. "It almost frightens me to hear about it."
"But even that is not all. When I got back to the hospital after seeing the would-be suicide in safe keeping, I went straight to my own ward.
"Joseph was awake. He turned to me as I entered, smiled, and said in a sort of whisper, 'Inasmuch.' I could hear no more.
"From that time his mind seemed to lapse into the same state – a state of complete blank. He is waiting."
"For what?"
"Ah, here comes the most strange part of it all. I have received an extraordinary letter from Lluellyn. My brother has strange psychic powers, Marjorie – powers that have often been manifested in a way which the world knows nothing of, in a way which you would find it impossible to believe. In some way my brother has known of this man's presence in the hospital. Our minds have acted one upon the other over all the vast material distance which separates us. He wrote to me: 'As soon as the man Joseph is recovered, send him to me. He will question, but he will come. The Lord has need of him, for he shall be as a great sword in the hand of the Most High.'"
Marjorie Kirwan shivered.
"You speak of mystical things," she said. "They are too deep for me. They frighten me. Mary, you speak as if something was going to happen! What do you mean?"
"I speak as I feel, dear," Mary answered, with a deep-ringing certainty in her voice. "How or why, I do not know, but a marvellous thing is going to happen! I feel the sense of it. It quickens all my life. I wait for that which is to come. A new force is to be born into the world, a new light is to be kindled in the present darkness. The lonely mystic of the mountain and the strange-eyed man who has come into my life are, even now, in mysterious spiritual communion. This very