The Lighted Way

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

"Delighted!" he agreed. "We'll have to finish up the letters and go through this mail first."

"Just so," Mr. Jarvis replied. "After that, we'll shut up shop. This is quite a red-letter day, Chetwode. I knew that we'd held our own, but I must confess that I found those figures most exhilarating. Our little bonus, too, will be worth having."

Later on, they found their way to a restaurant in the Strand, where Mr. Jarvis ate and drank perhaps better than he had ever done in his life. The evening to him was one of unalloyed pleasure, and he was genuinely disappointed when Arnold pleaded an engagement as an excuse for not finishing up at a music-hall. About nine o'clock the two men parted, Mr. Jarvis to spend the rest of the evening alone, with a big cigar in his mouth and an unaccustomed feeling of levity in his head. Arnold, after a moment's hesitation, walked slowly back to his empty rooms.

So this was success! Without a friend in the world, without training or any practical knowledge of life, his feet were firmly planted upon the ladder. He had stifled all sorts of nameless ambitions. He had set his teeth and done what appeared to be his duty. Now it seemed to him that he had come to a pause. He drew up his sofa to the window of his sitting-room and looked downward. Somehow or other, the depression against which he had struggled all the evening seemed only intensified by what he saw below. An early autumn had stripped bare the leaves from the scanty trees; the sky was gray and starless. Even the lights along the river front seemed to burn with a dull and uninspiring fire. He looked around him and his depression became an almost overmastering sensation. He hated the sight of his empty room, the phantom thoughts that would light upon his shoulder, the sofa upon which he was sitting alone, the memory of the things which he might have said to Ruth in the days when the opportunity was his. For a moment he even thought of Mr. Jarvis at the music-hall alone, the welcoming lights, the pleasant warmth, the music, the cheerful throngs of people. Better anything, he told himself, than this brooding! A sudden almost reckless impulse called him back again into the streets, only to pass away the same moment with the vision of Ruth's pale face by his side, her eyes alternately gazing down the lighted way and seeking his, her fingers grasping his hand. His head sank forward into his hands. He was alone!

He sat up suddenly with a start. The inner door of the room had opened and was softly closed again. A familiar voice addressed him.

"I find your habits, my young friend, somewhat erratic," Sabatini remarked. "Your supply of common necessaries, too, seems limited. I have been driven to explore, quite fruitlessly, the whole of your little domain, in the vain search for a match."

He pointed to the unlit cigarette between his fingers. Arnold, who was a little dazed, rose and produced a box of matches.

"But I don't understand how it is that you are here!" he exclaimed. "I thought that you were at Brighton. And how did you get in?"

Sabatini seated himself comfortably at the end of the sofa and placed a cushion behind his head.

"We came up from Brighton this afternoon," he explained, puffing contentedly at his cigarette. "I am now pronounced convalescent. Ruth, too, could throw away her stick any moment she wanted to, only I fancy that she thinks its use becoming."