O'Hagan's hand was resting on a small silver cross in his pocket, and in another moment he solemnly handed the girl the money and notes he had stolen. "Why, whatever is this?" asked the girl, staring at O'Hagan in bewildered amazement.
"That's yours," he said by way of assistance.
"But I don't understand!" she cried, greatly puzzled.
"Well, Miss, I suppose it does require some elucidation," O'Hagan replied somewhat nervously. "You see, it's only a return of stolen goods. You remember visiting a house in the big grey motor car yesterday, Miss?"
"Yes."
"Well, I stole your bag from under the seat. I have given you back again all that I have left. But I will take this little cross as a token." He dangled the little silver charm before her face, and before she had time to take in the situation O'Hagan had disappeared.
The long plains of Northern Europe stretched before the gaze of a regiment of British infantry—great undulations of sodden earth left by the winter rains and thaws. There, in the piercing cold that froze the feet, they waited the signal to advance. Stray bullets whined and pinged as they struck the wire and sand bags on the top of the trenches; occasionally a man fell on his face; and the ghastly change in the faces of the troops bore testimony to the effects. Hilaire O'Hagan lay stretched upon his face, occasionally looking towards his officer. His heart beat like the pulsing of a motor car. His throat felt dry, his cheeks were burning. At times a cold shiver passed right through his frame. He fidgeted and lolled from one side, to the other. It seemed to him that he had waited hours for the signal to get over the trenches. He tried to strike a match for his pipe; his hand was trembling furiously. It occurred to him that after having passed through the gory awfulness of six months' incessant fighting, he was beginning to lose his nerve. He was no longer master of himself. He was afraid. Every man has the instinct that prompts fear, for upon that instinct the whole foundation of life-preservation is founded. But over and above this instinct, common to all of us, O'Hagan had imagination—the graphic, vivid imagination that always lurks in Irish blood. Is not the entire history of the Celt a rejection of the things of this world for the Shadow and the dream? Upon this basis of fear and imagination O'Hagan started to build, building and building until he had created a grand structure of blind terror which yielded a most exquisite torture to his mind.
A whistle sounded and a shudder traversed the men all down the trench. The officer called to his men. He mounted the parapet and jumped over. There was a sound like the rushing of a river as the regiment poured itself over the trench. The men advanced slowly and dazedly. Now any acute observer would note that the men were bewildered and had little heart in the fight. Their faces worked; and they struggled to walk on, but it seemed useless. The bullets were pattering all around and taking heavy toll. Then a few yards in front a shrapnel shell kicked up the mud. The German guns had found the range. Someone shouted out the fatal words "Lie down." The regiment was soon hugging the earth, which was about the best thing they could have done. Great showers of shrapnel burst over them, and the bullets struck down on them in a continuous shower. Some men rose to their feet, and the shrapnel withered them. Suddenly one shell burst over O'Hagan, blotting out all around him in smoke and dust, and brutally jerking his mind to fullest tension. This shell fire was hell! With the crash imagination and fear began to work together in his overworked brain—both at once in the queerest jumbling manner. In a few moments O'Hagan was on his feet running away—racing as if not merely for his life, but his soul.
When O'Hagan's brain cooled and his sight cleared he found himself in the doorway of a little wrecked church. The German shells had gashed and ripped the sides and roof, so that birds flew in and out at will. Hundreds of sparrows chirped in the oak beams above. The shells had pitted, starred and jerked up the blue flagstones in the porch on which O'Hagan stood. Parts of the old church had been shelled nearly level; little twisted fragments of beautiful leaded windows had been swept up in a pile outside with other wreckage. As O'Hagan walked up the aisle a feeling came over him that he knew much of the old place. A quintessence and distillation of peace and comradeship seemed to inhabit the soft gloam of its chancel. He found himself drifting back to past days and seeing dimly in a thin white cloud faces that seemed familiar and yet were unnameable. Then one face stood out distinctly, and O'Hagan watched it with breathless wonder and fascination. He moved closer up to it; he would have given much not to have done so, but he could not help himself—he looked closer, and it was—the face of the monk who had appeared to him once before. When the cloud had cleared a little, the outline of the monk wearing a hood and cowl became visible. Then was there a voice that he identified at once despite the lapse of two years since he had last heard it. "I have been wanting to speak to you, brother, for many hours, but something I cannot explain to mortal man has prevented me." The priest instantly turned round and O'Hagan understood that he meant him to follow. His heart sank at once, and he experienced a sense of dreadful oppression and foreboding, and with a sudden thrill, partly of fear, and partly of curiosity he followed. They passed up the aisle and a perfectly familiar staircase. Then he opened a door, and went in, and at the same moment, sheer unreasoning terror seized him. He was afraid, but did not know why: he was simply afraid. Then like a sudden recollection, when one remembers some trivial adventure of childhood, O'Hagan looked for the old lead coffin. He cast his eyes about with a certain air of proprietorship, and compared the room with the room of his dreams. Nothing had changed. And then, with a sudden start of unexplained dread, he saw that the coffin was in the corner—the same leaden coffin that he knew so well with the same curious greyish light coming from it. There was lettering on the lid.