"During the day which preceded it I had been haunted by the thought of myself doing what Marcus Harding could not do. Why should not I of my own will leave St. Joseph's, get away from this dreadful contemplation which obsessed me, from this continual anxiety—almost amounting to terror at moments—which gnawed me? Why should not I break this mysterious link, impalpable yet strong? If I did, should I not again find peace? But my sittings with Marcus Harding would be at an end. Could I give them up? I asked myself that, and I felt as if I could not. Through them, by means of them, I felt as if I might attain to something wonderful—terrible perhaps, but wonderful. I felt as if I were approaching the threshold of absolute truth. A voice within me whispered, 'Go no further.' Was it the voice of conscience? I did not heed it. Something irresistible urged me forward. I thrust away from me with a sort of crude mental violence the haunting thought. And when the darkness came I greeted it.
"For he came with the darkness."
On the wall opposite to the professor the thin Madonna faded away.
"As I heard his heavy step on the stairs that night I said to myself, 'At all hazards I will see, I will know, more. I will see, I will know—all.' When he entered at that door"—a thin darkness moved in the darkness as Chichester pointed—"he was dreadfully white and looked sad, almost terrified. He suggested that we should break through our plan and not sit. I refused. He then said he wished to sit in light. I refused. He was become my creature. He dared not disobey my desires! We placed our hands on this table, not touching. I could no longer endure the touch of his hand. We remained motionless. A long time passed. There were no rappings. A strange deadness seemed to prevail in the room. Presently it faded away, and I had the sensation that I was sitting quite alone.
"At first it seemed to me that my companion must have crept out of the room silently, leaving me by myself in the darkness. I shuddered at the thought that I was alone. But then I said to myself that Marcus Harding must be there in the blackness opposite to me, and I moved my hands furtively on the table, thinking to prove his presence to myself by touch. I did not prove it. Suddenly I had no need to touch him in order to know that he was there."
"Why not?" said the professor, and started at the sound of his own voice in the little room.
"Something made me realize that he was still within the room. Nevertheless, I felt that I was alone. How could that be? I asked myself that question. This answer came as it were sluggishly into my mind, 'You are alone not because Marcus Harding is away, but because Henry Chichester is away.' For a long while I sat there stagnantly dwelling on this knowledge which had come to me in the blackness. It was as if I knew without understanding, as a man may know he is involved in a catastrophe without realizing how it has affected his own fate. And then slowly there came to me, or grew in me, an understanding of how I was alone. I was alone with Marcus Harding at that moment because I was Marcus Harding. A shutter seemed to slide back softly, and for the first time I, Marcus Harding, stared upon myself out of the body of another man, of Henry Chichester. I was alone with my soul double. Motionless, silent, I gazed upon it. Now I understood why I had been tortured with anxiety lest the world should learn to comprehend Marcus Harding as I comprehended him. Now I understood why neither he nor I had been able to break that mysterious link which our sittings had forged between us. I had been trying ignorantly to protect myself, to conceal my own shortcomings, to cover my own nakedness. I had sweated with fear lest my own truth should be discovered by all those to whom for so many years I had been presenting a lie. Yes, I had sweated with fear; but even then how little I had known! A voice cried out suddenly, 'Turn on the light!' It was the voice of my double. It seemed to awake, or to recall perhaps,—how can I say?—Henry Chichester. I was aware of a shock; it seemed strongly physical. I got up at once and turned the light on. Marcus Harding was before me, trembling, ashen. 'What is it? What has happened?' he said in a broken voice. I made no reply. He left me. I heard his step in the street—out there!"
Chichester was silent. The professor said nothing for a moment, but passed his tongue twice over his lips and swallowed, sighing immediately afterward.
"Transferred personality!" he muttered—"transferred personality. Is that what you'd have me believe?"
"I'll tell you the rest. When Marcus Harding's steps died away down the street I remained here. Since that shock I have spoken of, I felt that I was again Henry Chichester, changed, as I had long been changed—charged with new force, new knowledge, new discrimination, new power over others, gifted with a penetrating vision into the very soul of the man I had worshiped, yet Henry Chichester. And as Henry Chichester I suffered; I condemned myself. This I said to myself that night, 'I was determined to see. I disregarded the voice within me which warned me that I was treading a forbidden path. God has punished me. He has allowed me to see. But this shall be the end. I will never sit again. I will give up my curacy. I will leave St. Joseph's at once. Never more will I set eyes on Marcus Harding.' I was in a condition of fierce excitement—"