Suddenly his explanation of the voices she had heard last night occurred to him.
"When you told me this morning that you had heard talking in my room," he said, "I did not mean to tell you about Martin, and so I invented something—oh yes, that I had been reading aloud what I had written, to account for it. It wasn't true, but I had to tell some fib. And did you really hear conversation going on? That's awfully interesting."
"I thought I did," said she. "And there was knocking or hammering. Did you invent something about that too?"
"Oh yes," said Archie. "But I don't really know what the knocking was.
As I was going off into trance, I heard loud knocking of some sort, but
I didn't let it disturb the oncoming of the trance. It deepened, and
then Martin came, and I talked with him and saw him."
"Oh Archie, how do you know it was he?" she cried, wildly enough, hardly knowing what she meant, but speaking from the dictate of some nightmare that screamed and struggled in her mind.
"Why, of course it was he," said Archie. "I recognized him, superficially, that is to say, from my knowledge of my own face, just as I recognized the photograph in the cache at Grives from its likeness to me. But I know it was he in some far more essential and inward manner. It was Martin."
"Will he come again?" asked the girl.
"I hope so, many times. Indeed, he promised to. I needed him, he got permission to come to me in my need. Is he not ministering to it? Haven't you seen the immense change in me?"
Undeniably she had seen that, and for a moment a little pang of human disappointment came over her.
"I'm afraid, then, the knowledge of my friendship hasn't had much to do with it," she said.
"Jessie, don't think I undervalue that," said Archie, speaking quite frankly and sincerely. "I thank you for it tremendously; I love to know it is there. I may count on it always, mayn't I?"
They still stood a moment under the star-swarming sky, sundered by the night from all other presences.
"I needn't assure you of that," she said. "And, Archie, I may be utterly wrong in what I feel about Martin's communications to you. Who knows what conditions exist for the souls of those we have loved, and whom we neither of us believe have died with the decay of the perishable body? But, my dear, do be careful. If in some miraculous way you have been given access which is denied to almost all mankind, do use it only in truth and love and reverence."
"You're frightened about it," said Archie.
"I know I am. If Martin can come to you, why should not other spirits? Other spirits, intelligences terrible and devilish, might deceive you into thinking that they were he. You remember at Silorno he said he couldn't come again."
"I know; but I wasn't in sore need then," said he.
They had again come opposite Lord Tintagel's study, and, even as they passed, Archie saw him with his finger on the bell. Instantly he guessed that he was ringing to know why the whisky had not been brought. The footman would come and say that he had brought it…
Archie felt an exhilarated acuteness of brain: the situation had only to be put before him for him to see the answer to it. In his presence, remembering the contract of the morning, his father could not ask for the whisky.
"Come in and say good-night to my father, Jess," he said.
They entered together and immediately afterwards the footman came in from the hall-door. Lord Tintagel looked at him, then back at Archie, who was watching.
"It's nothing, James," he said. "I rang for something, but it doesn't matter."
The man left the room and immediately afterwards Jessie said good-night and went also. Archie turned to his father with a broad, kindly smile.
"Father, I believe I'm a great thought-reader," he said. "I believe I can tell you what you rang for."
His father's grim face relaxed.
"You young devil," he said.
Archie laughed.
"I've guessed right, then," he said. "You surely don't want to drink success to our contract again."
"But I don't know why James didn't bring the whisky as usual," said he.
"I—I forgot to tell him not to."
"But I didn't," said Archie.
"I see. Well, a bargain's a bargain. Only now there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for not going to bed."
Archie yawned rather elaborately, and went to the table where, earlier in the evening, he had put down his glass half filled with soda. He drank it, sniffing to see if there was any taint of spirit about it. But he had rinsed it thoroughly.
"I came in during my stroll with Jessie and took some soda," he said. "Not a bad drink, but I think it makes one sleepy. I shall go to bed, too."
* * * * *
Jessie left early next morning, expecting to be gone before anybody else made an appearance. But, just as she got into the motor, Archie, rosy and suffused with sleep, like a child that has lain still and grown all night, came flying downstairs in dressing-gown and pyjamas.
"Had to come down and say good-bye, Jessie," he said. "Do come back; come down for next Sunday, and we'll go up together for Helena's wedding. Promise!"
Jessie looked at that "morning face" which glowed with the exuberance of boyish health and happiness. She herself had slept very badly, dozing for a little and then being awakened by the sound of talking next door, and of peremptory resounding tappings. And here was Archie, radiant and fresh and revitalized, and her love glowed at the thought that he wanted her, even though it was but friendship that he sought and friendship that he had to offer.
