For two months I wandered, avoiding beaten tracks, my only comrades a few books, belonging to no age, no country. My worries fell from me, the personal affairs of Paul Kelver ceasing to appear the be all and the end all of the universe. But for a chance meeting with Wellbourne, Deleglise's amateur caretaker of Gower Street fame, I should have delayed yet longer my return. It was in one of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee. I was sitting under the lindens on the grass-grown quay, awaiting a slow, crawling boat that, four miles off, I watched a moving speck across the level pastures. I heard his footsteps in the empty market-place behind me, and turned my head. I did not rise, felt even no astonishment; anything might come to pass in that still land of dreams. He seated himself beside me with a nod, and for awhile we smoked in silence.
“All well with you?” I asked.
“I am afraid not,” he answered; “the poor fellow is in great trouble.”
“I'm not Wellbourne himself,” he went on, in answer to my look; “I am only his spirit. Have you ever tested that belief the Hindoos hold: that a man may leave his body, wander at will for a certain period, remembering only to return ere the thread connecting him with flesh and blood be stretched to breaking point? It is quite correct. I often lock the door of my lodging, leave myself behind, wander a free Spirit.”
He pulled from his pocket a handful of loose coins and looked at them. “The thread that connects us, I am sorrow to say, is wearing somewhat thin,” he sighed; “I shall have to be getting back to him before long—concern myself again with his troubles, follies. It is somewhat vexing. Life is really beautiful, when one is dead.”
“What was the trouble?” I enquired.
“Haven't you heard?” he replied. “Tom died five weeks ago, quite suddenly, of syncope. We had none of us any idea.”
So Norah was alone in the world. I rose to my feet. The slowly moving speck had grown into a thin, dark streak; minute by minute it took shape and form.
“By the way, I have to congratulate you,” said Wellbourne. “Your opera looked like being a big thing when I left London. You didn't sell outright, I hope?”
“No,” I answered. “Hodgson never expressed any desire to buy.”