The symbol of the Cross she saw when she turned her back on those leaping flames needed no interpretation. For it was that symbol which, with its promise of divine help, had encouraged her to continue.
He elaborated this in detail. He told her that, had she not sought so violently to bury it, the memory of that unhappy life of hers long ago would have faded. It was her own refusal to think of it which forced it to seek this back-door entrance to her consciousness, and to emerge in disguise as a dream.
What she had to do now was clear enough. She must dig up from the recesses of her memory every detail, no matter how painful, of those dreadful years; and she must force herself to recall them, not with a stony and impersonal rigidity, but with the natural emotions of a sentient human being. Then only would those memories be at rest, and no longer haunt the confines of her dreams.
She agreed to take his advice. Day after day, at his instructions, she came and laid bare before him the whole of that period of her life. And gradually, as she did so, she recovered, and her increased confidence helped her to persevere.
She still dreamed, it is true, of the same appalling sequence of events; but the occurrence became rarer, and distressed her, in addition, progressively less and less. Finally, after some months of treatment, Channing told her to desist. “What you want now is a holiday,” he said. “You’ve worked hard enough, too, to deserve one.”
It was autumn when they had finished, and a dense fog hung over the West End of London; but to Mrs. Arkwright the day seemed bright and cheerful enough. She looked at him, with her deep eyes free from a trace of strain or sleeplessness; and in her heavy furs, with her splendid figure, she looked, Channing thought, magnificent.
“Yes,” she said, in that rich voice of hers, “I’m free. I know that now. But do you know what I’m going to do to prove it?”
Channing watched her, smiling. These were the rare moments which made his work worth while. He had set a bond-slave free again.
“What are you going to do?” he said.
“I’m going down into Lancashire to open the old house. It will be my first visit since my husband died. I shall spend Christmas there; and my baby will be born there, too. That’s just to prove to you, and myself, that I’m afraid of the past no longer.”
She put out her hand, and her eyes were warm and friendly. “I can’t thank you,” she said, “for what you’ve done for me.”
He took her hand, and a moment later she had gone.
For two months Channing heard no news of her; but he was too busy usually to give much thought to patients, once they had passed out of his hands. He was aware, too, that the gratitude of patients such as his, rare enough in itself, still more rarely led them to a desire to see more of him. He knew too much about them to make social intercourse easy for them.
But early in December he was surprised to receive from Mrs. Arkwright a cordial letter of invitation to spend Christmas in Lancashire.
He accepted with a readiness which surprised him, for he was a lonely man in spite of a thousand acquaintances, and at five o’clock on the twenty-fourth of December he arrived at his destination. He was amazed at the beauty of the property they owned.
The house stood high on a ridge looking down a valley, just where the fields gave place to open moors; and for miles in all directions the land was just as it had been before the great industrial wave had engulfed the country as a whole. Only over the end of the valley hung the heavy pall of smoke which marked the town of coal and iron-works whose pits and furnaces, day and night, belched out money for these distant owners. He was the only guest, since Mrs. Arkwright expected her baby early in the new year.
It amused him to see the change which had come over the relative attitudes of his host and hostess. She was quietly and deeply contented. She had had no recurrence of her dream and the peace of prospective motherhood lay upon her like a mantle.
But Arkwright, also, had developed. As she had become gentle, his dominance had increased. He was a magistrate now, and his talk was full of the duties of his position.
“We had a lot to live down when we came here,” he said, as he showed Channing to his room. “But I think we are known now for what we are, and this house and its owners are respected in the county.”
“Well, the house has a very different master, in the first place,” said Channing.
The little man glowed with the flattery implied. “I hope so,” he said, with a mock of humility which delighted Channing. “There is nothing to hide from the world in my life, at any rate.”
The comparison to the man he had supplanted clearly gave him pleasure.
“By the way, this is the room he died in,” he said suddenly. “I hope you don’t mind?”
Channing chuckled. “Not the least,” he answered. “It’s a charming room, and I’ll sleep none the worse in it for its previous occupant.”
After dinner Mrs. Arkwright left them. She was tired, she said. And for some reason, as she admitted to Channing, she felt a little nervous in addition.
“It’s foolish of me,” she said laughingly, “hut for the first time since we came here I feel I rather regret it.” She looked around her almost with apprehension. “The past seems so close around me,” she said slowly. “I expect that’s the approach of Christmas making me sentimental.”
She finished bravely enough; but Channing knew that her nerves were ruffled, nevertheless.
“Or having me here,” he said. “And getting my room ready,” he added significantly.
She flushed a little, for she was always quick to see his meaning.
“Well, it’s nonsense at any rate, whatever it is.” She was ashamed to confess to backsliding. “I’m in my old room, too; and I mean to stay there. Good night. I won’t fail you.”
She smiled bravely as she left him, but Channing could see that the smile had not been achieved without an effort. He hoped from the bottom of his heart that his visit would not provoke disaster.
Arkwright, however, had no such qualms.
“She’ll laugh at herself for that to-morrow,” he asserted confidently. “I always told her that was the best thing to do, long before she saw you at all.”
“A woman will always obey a stranger in preference to a husband,” remarked Channing. “I sometimes think it’s my main function to tell unpleasant truths to ladies.”
Arkwright puffed contentedly at his cigar. The world was plainly in excellent order as far as he was concerned.
“She made quite a mystery of that wretched dream at one time. Talked of warnings, you know, and all sorts of nonsense.”
Channing was momentarily nettled. It annoyed him that this woman’s gallantry should have seemed nonsense. And especially that it should have seemed nonsense to Arkwright. Definitely Arkwright must not be permitted to disparage her. When he spoke next, therefore, he said perhaps just a little more than was wise of him.
“I don’t think she made a mystery of it, really,” he said. “It was a mystery, you know. In fact, to tell you the truth, it is to some extent a mystery to me still.”
Arkwright looked at him in surprise. “But you explained it all to her,” he said, almost resentfully. “She told me so. I thought that was how you did it. Cured people, I mean.”
“I gave your wife an explanation which happily satisfied her,” Channing admitted. “But I should hate to have it criticized by another psychologist, all the same.”
“Oh, well,” said Arkwright, “it worked anyway. That is the only thing that matters, after all.” He had no patience with these experts, quibbling over details.
“That’s true,” replied Channing, and hoped that would he the end of it. He was angry with himself for having been led to say so much.