“And leave your wife here?”

“That’s it.  Do you think I ought to go?”

“I think it doesn’t matter in the very least.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that whether you go or stay you’ll kill her.  But go, for God’s sake!  It’s the kindest way.”

CHAPTER XX

A MAN AND A SPHINX

The idea of leaving England had occurred to Tyson more than once before.  In Stanistreet’s rooms it took its first vague shape.  But Louis’s parting words had a sting in them; they were at once a shock to his feelings and a challenge to his will.

Stanistreet had read him thoroughly.  In plain language he had entertained serious thoughts of deserting Mrs. Nevill Tyson.  Desertion?  It was an ugly word.  He dismissed his idea.  He would dree his weird.  He wasn’t going to funk the thing—­not he!  The New Life had been found impossible.  No matter. Certum quia impossibile.  Nothing like a big thumping paradox when you were about it.  Impossibility had the smile and lure of haunting deity, the glamor of the arcana.  That night he dedicated himself with more promises and vows.

He was in that state of mind when men look out for miracles to save them.  There was no reason why miracles should not happen, here and now.  Those fellows must have been in a bad way who had to go out into deserts and places to find God and their unconquerable souls.  No doubt queer things have happened in Africa, in Asia, things which the Western mind—­Pending the miracle, his Western mind would seek peace in an office.  He would try anything, from a Government appointment to a clerkship in the Bank.  After all they do not manage things so very differently in the East.  If you come to think of it, there is not much to choose between bending yourself double over a desk and sitting with your head in the pit of your stomach, meditating on Brahma.  The effect on the liver must be pretty much the same.

He went to bed thinking of Upanishads, with the result that he dreamed of tiger-shooting in the jungle.

Ah, yes, in the cold light of intellect, between doing and not doing a thing there is but the difference of a word.  That colorless negative does nothing to alter the salient image of the thing.  The fervency of his resolve not to leave England called up as in a calenture the lands that he was not to travel, the freedom that was not to be his.

The idea he had dismissed came back to him.  He flew and it followed; he veered and it waylaid him at every turn.  An intolerable restlessness took possession of him.  He spent his days and a great part of his nights in furious walking about the streets.  The idea hounded him on; it stared at him now from newspaper placards, it was whispered and murmured and shrieked into his ears.

There was war in the Soudan.

He saw his idea illuminated, transfigured.  It was Glory, a stern wingless Victory, beckoning him across a continent.  It no longer pursued him.  It had changed its tactics.  It was coming to meet him; there was no escaping.