HE next morning we were married. Marks came with us to the registrar's office, lunched with us at the Savoy, and accompanied us to the station. We reached Woodfell House at five o'clock, and entered our paradise. During the next week we lived in an intoxication, an ecstasy; we came as near supreme happiness as human beings can; and we had earned it by the tension and the terror we had endured. We were in a natural, delightful reaction from them, together, alone, and in the country.
At the end of the week we would not return to the Walden Road. A bicycle carried me to the station early enough to get to the office in good time for a day's work. Mrs. Ringrose had moved into No. 19 and was looking after Woodfell in a quite satisfactory fashion; he needed so little care. There was no change in him; it was indeed early to look for it. One afternoon I brought an alienist of the first rank to see him.
As always when I came to see him; he said at the sight of us, in the thick slurring voice, laughing the vacant laugh, "Pan is not dead."
The alienist spent nearly an hour with him, watching him, studying him, trying to get him to speak. He only said, twice, "Pan is not dead."
Then we went into the study. The alienist looked at the statue of Pan which still lay along the floor; for it would have needed four or five men to set it up; and I had been too busy to see to it. He asked if he might see its face. I uncovered it; and when he had come to the end of expressing his admiration of it, he talked to me about Woodfell. He told me that I must entertain no hope whatever of his recovery; that it was only possible that his mind would return just before he died; that it was improbable that he would live very long.
At the end he was silent for a minute or two; then he said, "It's curious that his only words are, 'Pan is not dead;' for there is a peasant in the Naples asylum who says those very words. He was brought in from the hills, where he had been wandering about for eighteen months; and the authorities have never been able to find out to what village he be longs, or what shock wrecked his mind. He's far less worn out than Mr. Woodfell and will live longer. I've seen him." He paused, thoughtful again; then he added looking at me with keen, searching eyes, "You think that the sight of the statue falling on that unfortunate girl was the shock which robbed him of his reason."
"What else should it have been?" I said. "But now I come to think of it—it never occurred to me before—I heard him, when he opened his door to let Miss Ranger in, say 'Pan is not dead,' in the same tone and with the same laugh, two hours at least before I heard the fall of the statue."
"The devil you did?" he said sharply. "It's odd—very odd. It's perfectly devilish—the face of that statue."
And when he went away, his brow was still knitted in a frowning thoughtfulness. That night I told Pamela of the alienist's judgment; and we decided to try the effect of the country on her uncle. I hired a motor car; and Hind and I brought him down to Woodfell House. We had great difficulty in inducing him to leave No. 19, and when he reached Woodfell house, he was very restless. We thought that he might presently settle down; but he did not. He remained restless; he could not sleep; he would not eat. At the end of forty-eight hours we took him back to No. 19. At once he grew peaceful; he slept at night; and his appetite returned. He seemed linked to the scene of his researches by some subtile, inexplicable bond.
At the beginning of September the rest of my holiday began; and the fancy took me to bring down with me the four volumes in which Woodfell has recorded his quest of the ultimate revelation. In the happy peace of the country our fear of the Abyss had died; and we had grown curious to read it.
We read it in the evenings, together, in a big easy chair. Pamela sat on my knee with an arm round my neck. I held the book; and she turned the pages.
The record began:—
"I left my regiment, the Xth Lancers, on June 1st, 1878."
