"I was then on the Home Office staff, and it was my duty to be in attendance while this critical conference was in progress. Time passed without a sound or sign coming from the room where the argument of life or death was proceeding. In the quiet of the late Sunday afternoon the chimes of Big Ben sounded the quarters from the Clock Tower. Six o'clock struck. I was tired of sitting alone, and opening the door of the Secretary's room quietly I entered and took a seat in the shadow.
"It was a strange scene that I had broken in on. Absolute silence prevailed; but both men were so engrossed in thought that my entrance passed quite unnoticed. Matthews was seated in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his head buried in his hands. Stephen, his eyes fixed on the carpet before him, strode to and fro across the room.
"I sat and waited. Outside, the church bells had begun ringing for the evening service, and their music alone broke the heavy silence of the room. Then Matthews spoke briefly, raising a point that had been hammered to weariness before. There was a brief answer from Stephen, and the silence was resumed, Matthews with his head still resting in his hands, Stephen still pacing the floor. Time passed. The bells ceased ringing, seven o'clock struck, and we passed into a soundless quiet. Now and then a question was put and an answer given, but there was no discussion. It seemed that the strange scene might continue until the hangman slipped his bolt next morning. I counted the quarters—one—two—three—eight o'clock. Three hours had gone by and no light had broken on the silent struggle.
"I had ceased to expect any change in this drama of indecision, and resigned myself to an all-night vigil. I sat and speculated as to the course of events. What seemed most probable to me was that the silent drama would go on far into the night and that then in sheer exhaustion there would be surrender. They would not be able to hold out to daylight, and in despair of coming to a decision would choose the way of safety. Presently my ears caught the sound of a step in the corridor without. It paused at the door. A sudden thought flashed in my mind as I waited for what should follow. There came a low tap at the door, and I hastily opened it. As I did so a messenger handed me a letter. I took it eagerly, raised the flap sufficiently to catch the words, 'I, Lipski, hereby confess...' and passed it to Matthews. As he read it he leapt to his feet with a cry as of one who had himself escaped a sentence of death, and for a moment the load lifted from the two men made them almost beside themselves with joy. Then Matthews remembered the circumstances and turned grave....
"The next morning Lipski was hanged, and all the world read the confession. It was Matthews' moment of supreme triumph. He was the minister who had defied the ragings of the Press and the mob and been justified in his firm resistance to ignorant clamour. But none knew the torture behind that firmness, or the misery of those silent hours the night before. How would it have ended without that knock at the door? Ah, who can say? But I think Lipski hanged himself."
ON AN ELDERLY PERSON
After a long walk through Richmond Park and by the Thames one afternoon recently, I went with a companion into a refreshment-place for tea. As we waited for service there entered a tall, stout, elderly gentleman in a tall hat. He took a seat at a table not far off. The face seemed familiar to me, notably the heavy under-jaw that projected with a formidable air of determination. I ransacked my memory a moment, and the identity of the stout, elderly gentleman came back to me vividly. I drew my companion's attention to him, and then raised the second finger of my right hand on which the bone between the first and second joints was palpably enlarged. "That," I said, "is a little memorial which that gentleman in the tall hat gave me forty years ago. He was a good bowler in those days, straight and fast, and a good length, but he had a trick of getting up badly, and when he hit you he hit you hard. One day he hit me in practice when I was playing without a glove, and this is his signature."
But it was not this memory that made the elderly gentleman chiefly interesting to me. It was the fact that he was elderly—so flagrantly elderly. The last time I had seen him he was a stalwart young fellow, quick in his movements, with his head and body thrust a little forward as though his legs could not quite keep pace with his purpose, and with that formidable chin sticking out as it were in challenge to the future. Now he would have passed for an alderman, "in fair round belly." He moved heavily and slowly like one who had reached whatever goal he had set out after and had no more use for that determined under-jaw. In looking at him I seemed to see myself in a mirror. I must be elderly like that, too. If he were to recognise me as I had recognised him he, no doubt, would be as surprised as I had been to find what an elderly person I had grown into since the days when I was a fresh-coloured youth and we played cricket together.
It is by these reflected lights that the havoc which the years play with us is visible to us. The approach of age is so stealthy that we do not perceive it in ourselves. Others grow old, but we live on under the illusion of unchanging youth. There may be a bald patch on the head; but that is nothing. Quite young fellows have bald patches on the head. That eminent lawyer, Mr. Billson Stork, was bald at twenty-five, and at thirty-five had not a hair above his ears. No, baldness is no evidence. Nor are grey hairs evidence. We all know people who were grey-headed in their early manhood. It is true that we do not run now as we used; but that is simply because we do not want to run. What is there to run for? All these things are discounted by the dissimulating spirit that dwells in us and refuses to let us know that we are visibly taking our place among the old fellows.