The rector's attention seemed to be suddenly fixed and powerfully concentrated. The feverish excitement he had been displaying gave place to a calmer, more natural mood.
"Tell me," he said, "do you think your knowledge can help me? I am aware that you have made many strange investigations. Is there anything to be done for me, anything that will restore me to my former powers? Will you credit me when I declare to you that it was only by making a terrible effort that I was able to get away from Chichester's companionship and to come down here? If I had not said that I meant to do so while you were in the room, I doubt if I should ever have had the courage. There is something inexplicable that seems to bind me to Chichester. Sometimes there have been moments when I have thought that he longed to be far away from me. And it has seemed to me that he, too, would find escape difficult, if not impossible."
"You wish very much that Chichester should resign his curacy and go entirely out of your life?" asked Malling.
"Wish!" cried Mr. Harding, almost fiercely. "Oh, the unutterable relief to me if he were to go! Even down here, away from him for a day or two, I sometimes feel released. And yet—" he paused in his walk—"I shall have to go back—I know it—sooner than I meant to, very soon."
He spoke with profound conviction.
"Chichester will mean me to go back, and I shall not be able to stay."
"And yet you say it has occurred to you that possibly Chichester may be as anxious as yourself to break away from the strange condition of things you have described to me."
"Have you," exclaimed Mr. Harding—"have you some reason to believe
Chichester has ever contemplated departure?"
Malling moved slowly on, and the rector was forced to accompany him.
"It has occurred to me," he said, evading the point, "that possibly Henry
Chichester might be induced to go out of your life."