The Call of the Blood

"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.