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Updated: June 5, 2025
"No, thee said Mercy Claridge, Soolsby," said I, "and she has been asleep these many years." "Ay, she has slept soundly, thanks be to God!" he replied, and crossed himself. "Why should thee call me by her name?" I inquired. "Ay, is not her tomb in the churchyard?" he answered, and added quickly, "Luke Claridge and I are of an age to a day which, think you, will go first?"
"I ought never have comeback here," he added. "It was no place for me. But it drew me. I didn't belong; but it drew me." "Thee belongs to Hamley. Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby." Soolsby's eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in them began to fade away. "Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by the throat. There's no fighting like it.
See, the soldiers are moving. They're going to ride out to meet him." She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid's men were saddling their horses, and to Nahoum's and Kaid's dahabiehs, where there was a great stir. "There's one from Hamley will meet them first," Soolsby said, and pointed to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels coming out of the south.
She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from him. Presently, however, she turned and looked at him. "If he does ill to Davy, there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare him." His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an instant, while he watched her, she added: "Thee has not heard my lord is to marry?"
That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in, and stepped inside. With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him. "What's this what do you want?" he demanded. "I want to try an experiment," answered Soolsby grimly.
He did not know that there had suddenly come upon Luke Claridge the full consciousness of an agonising truth that all he had done where David was concerned had been a mistake. The hard look, the sternness, were the signals of a soul challenging itself. "Ay, you've had your own will," cried Soolsby mercilessly.
With no apparent relevancy, and laying his hand on Faith's shoulder, he said: "We have done according to our conscience by Davy God is our witness, so!" She leaned her cheek against his hand, but did not speak. In Soolsby's hut upon the hill David sat talking to the old chair-maker. Since his return he had visited the place several times, only to find Soolsby absent.
As the look in Eglington's face the night she came upon him and Soolsby in the laboratory haunted her, so the look in her own face had haunted Soolsby. Her voice announcing Luke Claridge's death had suddenly opened up a new situation to him.
A few hours before he had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the same theme was here. Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its spoiled child and favourite. He had not learned yet the arts of defence against adversity. "Luke Claridge is dead," he answered sharply.
When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the old man's look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the bed, leaned down and whispered: "I will speak now." Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth. "I will speak now," Soolsby said again into the old man's ear.
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