Lawford sat quite still. ‘You say—I hope I am not detaining you—you say you have come here, sat here often, on this very seat; have you ever had—have you ever fallen asleep here?’
‘Why do you ask?’ inquired the other curiously.
‘I was only wondering,’ said Lawford. He was cold and shivering. He felt instinctively it was madness to sit on here in the thin gliding mist that had gathered in swathes above the grass, milk-pale in the rising moon. The stranger turned away from him.
‘“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come must give us pause,”’ he said slowly, with a little satirical catch on the last word. ‘What did you dream?’
Lawford glanced helplessly about him. The moon cast lean grey beams of light between the cypresses. But to his wide and wandering eyes it seemed that a radiance other than hers haunted these mounds and leaning stones. ‘Have you ever noticed it?’ he said, putting out his hand towards his unknown companion; ‘this stone is cracked from head to foot?... But there’—he rose stiff and chilled—‘I am afraid I have bored you with my company. You came here for solitude, and I have been trying to convince you that we are surrounded with witnesses. You will forgive my intrusion?’ There was a kind of old-fashioned courtesy in his manner that he himself was dimly aware of. He held out his hand.
‘I hope you will think nothing of the kind,’ said the other earnestly; ‘how could it be in any sense an intrusion? It’s the old story of Bluebeard. And I confess I too should very much like a peep into his cupboard. Who wouldn’t? But there, it’s merely a matter of time, I suppose.’ He paused, and together they slowly ascended the path already glimmering with a heavy dew. At the porch they paused once more. And now it was the stranger that held out his hand.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you will give me the pleasure of some day continuing our talk. As for our friend below, it so happens that I have managed to pick up a little more of his history than the sexton seems to have heard of—if you would care some time or other to share it. I live only at the foot of the hill, not half a mile distant. Perhaps you could spare the time now?’
Lawford took out his watch, ‘You are really very kind,’ he said. ‘But, perhaps—well, whatever that history may be, I think you would agree that mine is even—but, there, I’ve talked too much about myself already. Perhaps to-morrow?’
‘Why, to-morrow, then,’ said his companion. ‘It’s a flat wooden house, on the left-hand side. Come at any time of the evening’; he paused again and smiled—‘the third house after the Rectory, which is marked up on the gate. My name is Herbert—Herbert Herbert to be precise.’
Lawford took out his pocket-book and a card. ‘Mine,’ he said, handing it gravely to his companion. ‘is Lawford—at least...’ It was really the first time that either had seen the other’s face at close quarters and clear-lit; and on Lawford’s a moon almost at the full shone dazzlingly. He saw an expression—dismay, incredulity, overwhelming astonishment—start suddenly into the dark, rather indifferent eyes.