‘I had to change,’ she repeated softly.

‘And since then—now—you see nothing?’ he asked.

Her reply was singular. ‘Because I will not, not because it’s

gone.’ … He followed her in silence to the door, and as they passed

along the passage, again that curious great pain of emptiness, of

loneliness, of yearning rose upon him, as of a sea that never, never

can swim beyond the shore to reach the flowers that it loves

….’Hurry up, child, or a ghost will catch you,’ cried her husband,

leaning over the banisters, as the pair moved slowly up the stairs

towards him. There was a moment’s silence when they met.

The guest took his lighted candle and went down the corridor.

Good-nights were said again.

They moved away, she to her loneliness, he to his unhaunted room.

And at his door he turned. At the far end of the passage, silhouetted

against the candle-light, he watched them—the fine old man with his

silvered hair and heavy shoulders, and the slim young wife with that

amazing air as of some great bountiful mother of the world for whom

the years yet passed hungry and un-harvested.

They turned the corner, and he went in and closed his door.

Sleep took him very quickly, and while the mist rose up and veiled

the countryside, something else, veiled equally for all other sleepers

in that house but two, drew on towards its climax….

Some hours later he awoke; the world was stills and it seemed the

whole house listened; for with that clear vision which some bring out

of sleep, he remembered that there had been no direct denial, and of a

sudden realised that this big, gaunt chamber where he lay was after all

the haunted room. For him, however, the entire world, not merely

separate rooms in it, was ever haunted; and he knew no terror to find

the space about him charged with thronging life quite other than his

own…. He rose and lit the candle, crossed over to the window where

the mist shone grey, knowing that no barriers of walls or door or

ceiling could keep out this host of Presences that poured so thickly

everywhere about him. It was like a wall of being, with peering eyes,

small hands stretched out, a thousand pattering wee feet, and tiny

voices crying in a chorus very faintly and beseeching…. The haunted

room! Was it not, rather, a temple vestibule, prepared and sanctified

by yearning rites few men might ever guess, for all the childless women

of the world? How could she know that he would understand—this woman

he had seen but twice in all his life? And how entrust to him so great

a mystery that was her secret? Had she so easily divined in him a

similar yearning to which, long years ago, death had denied fulfilment?

Was she clairvoyant in the true sense, and did all faces bear on them

so legibly this great map that sorrow traced?…

And then, with awful suddenness, mere feelings dipped away, and

something concrete happened. The handle of the door had faintly

rattled. He turned. The round brass knob was slowly moving. And first,

at the sight, something of common fear did grip him, as though his

heart had missed a beat, but on the instant he heard the voice of his

own mother, now long beyond the stars, calling to him to go softly yet

with speed. He watched a moment the feeble efforts to undo the door,

yet never afterwards could swear that he saw actual movement, for

something in him, tragic as blindness, rose through a mist of tears

and darkened vision utterly….

He went towards the door. He took the handle very gently, and very

softly then he opened it.

Beyond was darkness. He saw the empty passage, the edge of the

banisters where the great hall yawned below, and, dimly, the outline

of the Alpine photograph and the stuffed deer’s head upon the wall.

And then he dropped upon his knees and opened wide his arms to

something that came in upon uncertain, viewless feet. All the young

winds and flowers and dews of dawn passed with it … filling him to

the brim … covering closely his breast and eyes and lips. There clung

to him all the small beginnings of life that cannot stand alone …

the little helpless hands and arms that have no confidence … and

when the wealth of tears and love that flooded his heart seemed to

break upon the frontiers of some mysterious yet impossible fulfilment,

he rose and went with curious small steps towards the window to taste

the cooling, misty air of that other dark Emptiness that waited so

patiently there above the entire world. He drew the sash up.