"Come and tuck me up afterwards!" he said, and vanished.
Hermione made a little movement as if to follow him, but checked it and
unfolded the letter.
"4, RUE D'ABDUL KADER, KAIROUAN.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--This will be one of my dreary notes, but you must
forgive me. Do you ever feel a heavy cloud of apprehension lowering
over you, a sensation of approaching calamity, as if you heard the
footsteps of a deadly enemy stealthily approaching you? Do you know
what it is to lose courage, to fear yourself, life, the future, to
long to hear a word of sympathy from a friendly voice, to long to
lay hold of a friendly hand? Are you ever like a child in the dark,
your intellect no weapon against the dread of formless things? The
African sun is shining here as I sit under a palm-tree writing,
with my servant, Zerzour, squatting beside me. It is so clear that
I can almost count the veins in the leaves of the palms, so warm
that Zerzour has thrown off his burnous and kept on only his linen
shirt. And yet I am cold and seem to be in blackness. I write to
you to gain some courage if I can. But I have gained none yet. I
believe there must be a physical cause for my malaise, and that I
am going to have some dreadful illness, and perhaps lay my bones
here in the shadow of the mosques among the sons of Islam. Write to
me. Is the garden of paradise blooming with flowers? Is the tree of
knowledge of good weighed down with fruit, and do you pluck the
fruit boldly and eat it every day? You told me in London to come
over and see you. I am not coming. Do not fear. But how I wish that
I could now, at this instant, see your strong face, touch your
courageous hand! There is a sensation of doom upon me. Laugh at me
as much as you like, but write to me. I feel cold--cold in the sun.
EMILE."
When she had finished reading this letter, Hermione stood quite still
with it in her hand, gazing at the white paper on which this cry from
Africa was traced. It seemed to her that--a cry from across the sea for
help against some impending fate. She had often had melancholy letters
from Artois in the past, expressing pessimistic views about life and
literature, anxiety about some book which he was writing and which he
thought was going to be a failure, anger against the follies of men, the
turn of French politics, or the degeneration of the arts in modern times.
Diatribes she was accustomed to, and a definite melancholy from one who
had not a gay temperament. But this letter was different from all the
others. She sat down and read it again. For the moment she had forgotten
Maurice, and did not hear his movements in the adjoining room. She was in
Africa under a palm-tree, looking into the face of a friend with keen
anxiety, trying to read the immediate future for him there.