Chapter VI

I

The situation at this point of his amazing adventure seems to have been that the fear Spinrobin felt about the nature of the final Experiment was met and equalized by his passionate curiosity regarding it.  Had these been the only two forces at work, the lightest pressure in either direction would have brought him to a decision.  He would have accepted the challenge and stayed; or he would have hesitated, shirked, and left.

There was, however, another force at work upon which he had hardly calculated at the beginning, and that force now came into full operation and controlled his decision with margin and to spare.  He loved Miriam; and even had he not loved her, it is probable that her own calm courage would have put him to shame and made him “face the music.”  He could no more have deserted her than he could have deserted himself.  The die was cast.

Moreover, if the certainty that Mr. Skale was trafficking in dangerous and unlawful knowledge was formidable enough to terrify him, for Miriam, at least, it held nothing alarming.  She had no qualms, knew no uneasiness.  She looked forward to the end with calmness, even with joy, just as ordinary good folk look forward to a heaven beyond death.  For she had never known any other ideal.  Mr. Skale to her was father, mother and God.  He had brought her up during all the twenty years of her life in this solitude among the mountains, choosing her reading, providing her companionship, training her with the one end in view of carrying out his immense and fire-stealing purpose.

She had never dreamed of any other end, and had been so drilled with the idea that this life was but a tedious training-place for a worthier state to come, that she looked forward, naturally enough, with confidence and relief to the great Experiment that should bring her release.  She knew vaguely that there was a certain awful danger involved, but it never for one instant occurred to her that Mr. Skale could fail.  And, so far, Spinrobin had let no breath of his own terror reach her, or attempted ever to put into her calm mind the least suggestion that the experiment might fail and call down upon them the implacable and destructive forces that could ruin them body and soul forever.  For this, plainly expressed, was the form in which his terror attacked him when he thought about it.  Skale was tempting the Olympian powers to crush him.

It was about this time, however, as has been seen from a slight incident in the last chapter, that a change began to steal, at first imperceptibly, then obviously, over their relations together.  Spinrobin had been in the house three weeks—­far longer, no doubt, than any of the other candidates.  There only remained now the final big tests.  The preliminary ones were successfully passed.  Miriam knew that very soon the moment would come for him to stay—­or go.  And it was in all probability this reflection that helped her to make certain discoveries in herself that at first she did not in the least understand.