{"id":196,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=196"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:32","slug":"57-the-phantom-hour-vol-07-collected-plays-part-ii-volume-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/07-collected-plays-part-ii-volume-07\/57-the-phantom-hour-vol-07-collected-plays-part-ii-volume-07","title":{"rendered":"-57_The Phantom Hour.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nIDYLLS OF THE OCCULT<\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

\nShort Stories<\/font><\/i> 
\n\t\t <\/p>\n

\nThe Phantom Hour <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n            S<\/font><\/b>TURGE
\n<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

Maynard rose from the fireside
\nand looked out on the blackish yellow blinding fog that swathed
\nLondon in the dense folds of its amplitude. In his hand he
\ncarried the old book he was reading, his finger was still in the
\npage, his mind directed, not with entire satisfaction, to the tenor
\nof the writer’s imaginations, for if these pleased his sense of the
\ncurious they disgusted his reason. A mystic, mediaeval in epoch
\nand temperament, the old Latinist dealt with psychological
\nfancies the modern world has long discarded in order to bustle
\nto the polling booth and the counting-house. Numerous subtle-
\nties occurred repulsive to the rigid and definite solutions of an
\nage which, masterful with knowledge in the positive and external,
\ntries to extend its autocracy in the shape of a confident ignorance
\nover the bounds of the occult world within, occult \u2014 declared
\nthe author \u2014 only because we reject a key that is in everyone’s
\nhand, himself.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Prosaist of mysteries," thought Sturge,
\n"trafficker in devious imaginations, if one could find only the thinnest fact to
\nsupport the cumbrous web that is here woven! But the fog is
\nless thick than the uncertainty in which these thoughts were
\ncontent to move."<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn a passage of unusual but bizarre interest the German
\nmystic maintained that the principle of brilliancy attended with
\na ceaseless activity the motions of thought, which in their physical aspect are flashes of a pure, a lurid or a murky light. It was,
\nhe said, a common experience with seers in intense moments of rapid cerebration
\nto see their heads, often their whole surroundings besieged by a brilliant atmosphere coruscating with violet
\nlightnings. Even while he wondered at these extravagances, it
\nflashed across Sturge’s memory that he himself in his childhood
\nhad been in the habit of seeing precisely such violet coruscations
\nabout his head and had indulged his childish fancy with them<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131013<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nuntil maturer years brought wonder, distrust and the rapid
\nwaning of the phenomenon.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWas there then some justification of experience for the
\nfancies of the German ? With an impulse he tried vainly to resist, he fixed his eye piercingly on the fog outside the window,
\nand waited. At the moment he was aware of a curious motion
\nin his head, a crowding of himself and all his faculties to the eye;<\/font>
\n<\/font>then came the sight of violet flashes in the fog and a growing
\nexcitement in his nerves watched by a brain that was curiously, abnormally calm.
\nA whole world of miraculous vision, of marvellous sound, of ancient and future experience was surely pres-
\nsing upon him, surging against some barrier that opposed intercourse. Astonished and interested, but not otherwise disturbed
\nhis reason attempted to give itself some account of what was
\nhappening. The better to help the effort, he fixed his eye again
\non the fog for repetition or disproof of what he had seen. There
\nwere no further violet flashes, but something surely was hinting,
\nforming, manifesting in the grey swathe outside. It became
\nbright, it became round, it became distinct. Was it a face or a
\nglobe ? With a disappointed revulsion of feeling he saw himself
\nface to face with nothing more romantic than a clock. He
\nsmiled and turned to compare with that strong visualised clock
\nhis own substantial, unmystic, workaday companion on the
\nmantelpiece. His body grew tense with a shock of surprise.
\nThere indeed was the clock, his ebony-faced, gold-lettered
\nrecorder of hours, balanced lightly on a conventional Father
\nTime in the centre and two winged goddesses at the edge; the
\nhands, he noted, were closing upon the twelve and the five, and
\nthere would soon ring out the sound of the hour. But, by its
\nside, what was this phantasmal and unwonted companion,
\nfixed, distinct, aping reality, ebony-faced also, but silver-lettered,
\nsolidly pedestalled, not lightly balanced, pointing to the hour
\neight with the same closeness as the real clock pointed to the
\nhour five ? He had time to notice that the four of this timepiece
\nwas not lettered in the ordinary Roman numerals, but with the
\nfour vertical and parallel strokes; then the apparition disappeared.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131014<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nAn optical hallucination! Probably, the mental image in-
\ntensely visualised of some familiar timepiece in a friendly sitting
\nroom. Indeed, was it not more than familiar ? Surely, he knew
\nit, \u2014 had seen it, clearly, insistently, \u2014 that ebony face, that
\nsilver-lettering, that strong ornamented pedestal, even that figure
\nfour! But where was it, when was it9 Some curious bar in his
\nmemory baffled his mind wandering vainly for the lost details.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSuddenly the clock, his own clock, struck five. He counted
\nmechanically the familiar sounds, sharp, clear, attended with a
\nmetallic reverberation. And then, before the ear could withdraw
\nitself from its object, another clock began, not sharp, not clear,
\nnot metallic but with a soft, harmonious chime and a musical
\njangling at the end. And the number of the strokes was
\neight!<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSturge sat down at the table and opened his book at random.
\nIf this were a hallucination, it was a carefully arranged and
\nwell-executed hallucination. Was someone playing hypnotic
\ntricks with his brain ? Was he hypnotising himself? His eye fell on
\nthe page and met not mediaeval Latin, but ancient Greek, though
\nun-Homeric hexameters. Very clear was the lettering, very plain
\nthe significance.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n"For the gods immortal wander always over the earth and
\ncome unguessed to the dwellings of mortals; but rare is the eye
\nthat can look on them and rarer the mind that can distinguish the
\ndisguise from the deity." <\/font>\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHypnotism again! for he knew that the original lucubrations
\nof the old mystic, subtle in substance, but in expression rough,
\ndeviated, tedious, amorphous, persecuted from the beginning to
\nthe end in crabbed Latin, and flowered nowhere into Greek,
\nnowhere into poetry. There was yet more of the hexameter, he
\nnoticed, and he read on.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Aiei gar theoi ahanatoi peri gaian alontai <\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nThneton di anthropon epi domata prosbainousi <\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nKruptoi tousde tis au prosderketai ommasi kruptous?
\n<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nEita ti daimonion ti kenon kai okhema tis aide ?<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

 Page \u20131015<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n"And men too live disguised in the sunlight and never from
\ntheir birth to their death shalt thou see the mask uplifted. Nay,
\nthou thyself, O Pelops, hast thou seen even once the daemon
\nwithin thee?"<\/font>\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere the hexameters ceased and the next moment the physical page reappeared with its native lettering. But sweet, harmonious, clear in his hearing jangled once more the chimes of the
\nphantom hour. And again the number of strokes was eight.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSturge Maynard rose and waited for some more
\ndefinite sign. For he divined now that some extraordinary mental state, some
\nunforgettable experience was upon him. His expectation was not deceived. Once
\nmore the chimes rang out, but this time it seemed to him as if a woman’s voice
\nwere crying to him passionately under cover of that perfectly familiar melody. But were
\nthe two phantasmal sounds memories of this English land and
\nbirth or was it out of some past existence they challenged him,
\ninsisting and appealing, inviting him to remember some poignant hour of a form he had worn and discarded, a name he had
\nanswered to and forgotten. Whatever it was, it was near to him,
\nit touched potently his heart-strings. And then immediately
\nfollowing the eighth stroke, there came as if far off, an unmistakable explosion of sound, the report of a modern revolver.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSturge Maynard left the fireplace and the room, descended
\nthe stairs, put on his hat and overcoat, and moved towards the
\ndoor of his house. He had no clear idea where he would go or
\nwhat he must do, but whatever it might be it had to be done.
\nThen it occurred to him that he had forgotten his revolver which
\nwas lying in the drawer of his wardrobe. He went up, possessed
\nhimself of the weapon, loaded it, put it in his right-hand side-pocket, assured himself that the pocket carried his two latchkeys,
\nonce more descended the stairs and walked out into one of the
\ndensest of London fogs, damp, choking and impenetrable.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe moved through a world that seemed to have no existence<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Kruptoi kai brotoi andres en augais heliou eisin <\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nOu pote tegmat ‘apothasa kruptoi de thanountai <\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nKai su Pelops pote ton son et’endon daimon epeides<\/i> <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131016<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nexcept in memory. There was no speed of traffic. Only an occasional cartman hoarsely announced from time to time the cautious progress of his vehicle. Sturge could not see anything before
\nor around him,\u2014except when he neared the curb and a lamp
\npost strove to beam out on him shadowily or on the other side a
\nspectral fragment of wall brushed his coat-sleeve. But he was
\ncertain of the pavement under his feet, and he felt he could make
\nno false turn. A surer guide than his senses and memory led him.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe crossed the road, entered the gates of Hyde Park, traversed in a sure and straight line of advance the fogbound in-
\nvisible open, passed through the Marble Arch, and in Oxford
\nStreet for the first time, hesitated. There were two women who
\nwere dear to him, either of whom by her death could desolate half
\nhis existence. To whom should he go ? Then his mind, or something within it, decided for him. These speculations were otiose.
\nHe need not go to his sister Imogen. What possible evil could happen to her in
\nher uncle’s well-appointed, well-guarded, comfortable home, in the happy round of her life full of things
\ninnocently careless and harmlessly beautiful. But Renee! Renee
\nwas different.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe pursued his walk in a familiar direction. As he went, it
\nflashed across his memory that she had forbidden him to visit her
\ntoday. There was some living reminiscence of her past life coming
\nto her, someone she did not care for Sturge to meet, she had said
\nwith her usual frank carelessness; he must not come. He had not
\nquestioned. Since he first knew her, he had never questioned,
\nand the past of Renee Beauregard was a void even for the man to
\nwhom she had surrendered everything. There was room in that
\nvoid for unusual incidents, supreme perils. He remembered now
\nthat her parting clasp had been almost convulsive in its strength
\nand intensity, her speech vibrant with some unexplained emotion.
\nHe had been aware of it, without observing it, being preoccupied
\nwith his passion. Whatever part of his mind had noted it, had
\nconfined its possible cause within the limits of the usual, as men
\nare in the habit of doing, ignoring the unusual until it seizes and
\nsurprises them.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe reached the square and the house in which she lived,<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u20131017<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nopened the door with one of the latchkeys in his pocket, divested
\nhimself of his coat and hat, and directed his steps to the drawing-room. A girl of nineteen or twenty rose, calm and pale, fronting
\nthe open doorway. The clutch of her hand on the chair, the rigid
\nforward impulse in her frame were the index of a great emotion
\nand an intense expectation. But her face flushed, the hand and
\nfigure relaxed, when she saw her visitor. Renee Beauregard was
\na Frenchwoman of the South, rich in physical endowment, in
\nnervous vitality, in the elan of her tongue and her spirit. Her
\nexquisitely full limbs, her buoyant gait, the mobility of her crimson lips, her smiling dark eyes made great demands on life, on
\nsuccess, on pleasure, on love. But in the invincibly happy flame
\nof the eyes there was at the moment the shadow of a tragic disappointment haunting and disfiguring their natural expression.
\nThis was plainly a woman with a past, \u2014 and a present. And her
\nnature, if not her fate, demanded a future.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Sturge!" she took a step towards the door. Sturge walked
\nover to the fireplace and took her hand.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I forgot your prohibition till I was too near to turn back.
\nAnd there was the fog; and return was cheerless and you were
\nhere!"<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"You should not have forgotten!" she said, but she smiled,
\nwell-pleased at his coming. Then the dark look reusurped those
\nsmiling eyes. "And you must go back. No, not now. In a quarter
\nof an hour. You may stop for quarter of an hour."<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nShe had glanced at the clock, and his eyes followed hers. He
\nsaw an ebony-faced time-piece, silver-lettered, solidly-pedestalled, rendering
\nthe figure four in parallel strokes, and smiled at the curious tricks that his
\nmemory had played him. It was five minutes past six.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I will go to Imogen’s," he said, very
\ndeliberately. She looked at him, looked at the clock, then cried impulsively,
\nleaning towards him, "And you will come at eight and dine with me! Rachel shall
\nlay the covers for two," then drew back, as if repenting her invitation.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nEight! Yes, he would dine with her \u2014 after he had done his
\nwork. That seemed to be the arrangement, \u2014 not hers, but<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131018<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhose? The daemon’s perhaps, the god’s within or without.
\nThey sat talking for a while, and it seemed to him that never had
\ntheir talk been so commonplace in form or so vibrant with emotion. At twenty past six he rose, took his farewell and moved
\nout to the fog; but she followed him to the door, helped him on
\nwith his overcoat, trembling visibly as she did so. And before he
\nwent, she embraced and kissed him once, not vehemently, but
\nwith a strong quietude and as if with some fateful resolution
\nwhich had at that moment been formed in her heart, and ex-
\npressed itself in her caress.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I shall be back by eight," he said quietly. He had accepted,
\nbut not returned her embrace.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBy eight! Yes, and before. But he did not tell her that. He
\nswung through the fog to his uncle’s residence, with a light, clear
\nand careless mind, but an intense quiet in his heart. He reached
\nthe place, in a very aristocratic neighbourhood, and was invited
\nin by a portly footman. Sir John was out, at the House, but Miss
\nImogen Maynard was at home. The next hour Sturge passed
\ncalmly and lightly enough; for in his sister’s everyday attractive
\npersonal talk coursing lightly over the surface of life, amusements
\nand theatres, books, music, paintings varied with politics and a
\nshade of politely hinted scandal, even his heart insensibly lost its
\ntension and slipped back into the usual, forgetting the within in
\nthe without.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe next hour and more. It was Imogen Maynard who rose
\nand said:<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Ten minutes to eight, Sturge. I must go and dress. You are
\nsure you won’t dine?"<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSturge Maynard looked at the clock and his heart stood still.
\nHe bid his sister a hasty adieu, ran down the stairs, clutched his
\nhat and coat and was out in the fog, donning his overcoat as he
\nwalked. He made sure of the revolver and the latchkeys, then
\nbroke into a run. His great dread was that he might lose the
\nturning in his haste and arrive after the stroke of the hour.
\nBut it was difficult to miss it, the only open space for half a mile!
\nAnd the daemon ? was he a spirit of prophecy only ? Did he not
\nvisit to save?<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131019<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nHe turned into Renee’s square and, as he strode to the house
\nand ascended the steps, the agitation passed from him and it was
\nwith an even pulse and a steady nerve that he turned to the
\ndrawing-room door. He had flung aside his hat but not waited
\nto divest himself of the coat. His hand was in the pocket and the
\nbutt of the revolver was in his hand.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe door was open and, unusual circumstance, veiled by the
\nJapanese screen. He stood at its edge and looked into the room
\nwhich was intensely still, but not untenanted \u2014 for on the rug
\nbefore the fireplace, at either end of it, stood Renee Beauregard
\nand a man unknown to Sturge \u2014 he looking at her as if waiting
\nfor her speech; she calm, pale, resolute in silence, with the heavy
\nburden of her past in her eyes. The stranger’s back was half
\nturned to Sturge and only part of his profile was visible, but the
\nEnglishman quivered with his hatred even as he looked at him.
\nWas this what he had to do ? He took out the revolver and put his
\nfinger on the trigger. Then he glanced at the clock, \u2014 it wanted
\nfour minutes to the hour; and at the stranger again, \u2014in his
\nhand, too, was a revolver and his finger also rested on the trigger.
\nSturge Maynard smiled.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThen the man’s voice was heard. "It has to be then, Idalie,"
\nhe said, in a thin, terrible, mournful plaint. "You have decided
\nit. Don’t bear any grudge. You know it can’t be helped. You
\nhave to die."<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSturge remembered that Idalie was Renee’s
\nsecond name, but she had always forbidden him to use it. The thin voice continued,
\nthis time with a note of curious excitement in its plaintiveness.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"And you throw it all on me! What does it matter how I
\ngot you, what I did afterwards ? Everything’s allowed to a lover.
\nAnd I loved you. It’s dangerous to play with love, Idalie. You
\nfind it now!"<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSturge looked at the man. Danger for her there was none,
\nbut great danger for this rigid, thin-voiced assassin, this man
\nwhom Sturge Maynard hated with every muscle in his body, with
\nevery cell of his brain. It seemed to him that each limb of him
\ngreatened and vibrated with the energy of the homicide, with<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131020<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe victorious impulse to slay. There was a fog outside, what a
\nfog! and he could easily dispose of the body. Really that was a
\ngood arrangement. God did things very cleverly sometimes.
\nAnd he laughed in himself at the grimness of his conceit. Yet
\nsomehow he believed it. God’s work, not his. And yet his, too,
\npre-ordained \u2014 since when ? But the doomed voice was going on:<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I give you still a chance, Idalie \u2014 always, always a chance.
\nWill you go with me ? You’ve been false to me, false with your
\nbody, false with your heart. But I’ll forgive. I forgive your
\ndesertion, I’ll forgive this too. Come with me, Idalie. And if
\nnot, \u2014 Renee Idalie Marviranne, it is going to strike eight, and
\nwhen the hour has done striking, I strike. It’s God shoots you
\nwith this hand of mine, \u2014 the God of Justice, the God of Love.
\nIt’s both you have offended. Will you come?"<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nShe shook her head. A deadly pallor swept over the man.
\n"It’s done then," he cried, "you’ve done it. You have got to die."
\nHe trained the pistol on her and his finger closed on the trigger.
\nSturge remained motionless. Nothing could happen before the
\nhour struck. That was the moment destined, and no one could
\noutrun Fate by a second. The man went on:<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Don’t say it till the clock strikes! There’s time till then.
\nWhen I shoot you, Rachel will run up and I will shoot her, I left
\nthe door open so that she might hear the sound. Who else in
\nEngland knows that I exist ? I shall go out \u2014 oh, when you are
\nboth dead, not before. There’s a fog, there’s not a soul about,
\nand I shall walk away very quietly. No one will see, no one will
\nhear. God with his fog has blinded and deafened the world.
\nYou see it’s He or it would not have been so perfectly arranged
\nfor me."<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nVery grimly Sturge Maynard smiled. Men who
\nhated each other might, it seemed, have very similar minds. Perhaps that was why
\nthey clashed. Well, if it was God, He was a tragic artist too and knew the
\npoetical effectiveness of dramatic irony! Every- thing this man reckoned on or
\nhad arranged for his deed and his safety had been or would be helpful to his own
\nexecutioner! And the consciousness then came upon him that this had all happened before. But not here, not in these English surroundings!<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131021<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nA great blur of green came before his eyes, obscuring the clock.
\nThen it leaped on him \u2014 green grass, green trees, green-covered
\nrocks, a green sea, and on the sward a man face downward,
\nstabbed in the back, over him his murderer, the stiletto fresh-stained with blood. A boat rocked on the waters; it had been
\narranged for the assassin’s escape, and in it there lay a woman,
\nbound. Sturge knew those strange faces very well and remembered how he had lain dead on that sward. It was strange to
\nsee it all again in this drawing-room with the fateful modern
\nebony-faced timepiece seen through the green of Mediterranean
\ntrees! But it was going to end very differently this time.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThen the voice of the woman rang out, cold, strong, like the
\nclang of iron. "I will not go," she said, simply. And the hour
\nstruck. It struck once, it struck twice, thrice, four times. And
\nthen she lifted her eyes and saw Sturge Maynard walking
\nforward from the side of the screen. He was a good shot and
\nthere was no chance of his bungling it and killing her. But he
\nwould make sure!<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe woman in her intensity had summoned up a
\nmarvellous self-control, and it did not break now, she neither moved, nor
\nuttered a sound. But a look came into her eyes poignant in its appeal, terrible
\nin its suggestion. For it was a cry for life, a command to murder.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe doomed man was looking at the clock, not at her, still
\nless at any possible danger behind. He looked up as the eighth
\nmusical jangle died away and Sturge saw his light, steady, cruel
\neyes gleaming like those of a beast. He pressed his finger on the
\ntrigger.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"It is finished!" cried the man. And as he spoke, Sturge May-
\nnard fired. The room rang with the shot, filled with the smoke.
\nWhen the smoke cleared, the stranger was seen prostrate on the
\nrug: his head lay at the feet of the woman he had doomed.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere was a running of steps in the passage and the maid
\nRachel entered, \u2014 as the man who lay there had foreseen. She
\nwas trembling when she came, but she saw the man on the
\nrug, paused, steadied herself, and smiled. "We must carry it out
\nat once into the fog," she said simply, in French. With a simultaneous <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

 Page \u20131022<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nimpulse both she and Sturge approached the corpse.
\nThen Renee, breaking into excited motion, ran to Sturge and
\nputting her hand on his shoulder made as if to push him out of
\nthe room.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I will see to that!" she panted, "Go!"<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe turned to her with a smile.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"You must go at once," she reiterated, "For my sake, do
\nnot be found in this house. Others besides Rachel may have
\nheard the shot."<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut he took her by the wrists, drew her away from the
\nfireplace and set her in a chair.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"We lose time. Monsieur," said Rachel, again.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"It is better to lose time, Rachel," he said, "we will give
\nten minutes to Fate." And the serving woman nodded and
\nproceeding to the corpse began to tie up the wound methodically
\nin her apron. The others waited in absolute stillness, Sturge
\narranging in his mind the explanation he would give, if any had
\nheard the report and broke in on them. But silence and fog
\npersisted around the house.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThey took up the body. "If anyone notices, we are carrying
\na drunken man home," said Sturge. "Carry it carefully; there must be no
\ntrail of blood." And so into the English fog they carried out the man who had come living from foreign lands, and
\nlaid him down in the public road, far from the house and the
\nsquare where he had perished. When they returned to the room,
\nRachel took up the blood-stained rug and apron, sole witnesses
\nof the thing that had been done.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I will destroy these," she said, "and bring the rug from
\nMadame’s room. And then," she said, as simply as before,
\n"Monsieur and Madame will dine."<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nRenee shuddered and looked at Sturge.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"I remain here," he said, "till the body is found. We are
\nlinked henceforth indissolubly and for ever, Idalie." And as he
\nstressed lightly the unwonted name, there was a look in his eyes
\nshe dared not oppose.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat night, when Renee had gone to her room, Sturge,
\nsitting over the fire, remembered that he had not told her the<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u20131023<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nstrange incident which had brought about one tragedy today and
\nprevented another. When he went into her chamber, she came to
\nhim, deeply agitated, and clasped him with violence.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n"Oh, Sturge, Sturge!" she cried, "to think that if you had
\nnot chanced to come, I should be dead now, taken from you,
\ntaken from God’s beautiful world!"<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nChanced! There is no such thing in this creation as chance,
\nthought Sturge. But then who had given him that mystic warning? Who had put the revolver in his hand? or sent him on a
\nmission of slaughter ? Who had made Imogen rise just in time ?
\nWho had fired that shot in the drawing-room ? The God within ?
\nThe God without? The Easterns spoke of God in a man. This might well be He. And
\nthen there returned to his memory those fierce emotions, the hatred that had
\nsurged in him, the impulse and delight of slaughter, the song of exultation that
\nhis blood yet sang in his veins, because a man that had lived was dead and could
\nnot return to life again. He remembered, too, the command in Renee’s eyes. God in a man? Was God in a man a
\nmurderer then? In him? and in her?<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n"It is to enquire too curiously to think so," he concluded,
\n"but very strangely indeed has He made His world."<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThen he told her about the German mystic and the chime
\nof the phantom hour that had brought him to her in the tragic
\nmoment of their destinies. And when he spoke of the daemon
\nwithin, the woman understood better than the man.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u20131024<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IDYLLS OF THE OCCULT  Short Stories    The Phantom Hour                 STURGE Maynard rose from the fireside and looked out on the blackish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-07-collected-plays-part-ii-volume-07","wpcat-6-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}