door or window, but if necessary by forcing Pattie, and to introduce himself into his brother’s presence. As the need to see Carel grew greater and greater in his mind the obstacles grew smaller and smaller. He would certainly enter the Rectory. He thought he knew his brother well enough to hope that once he was actually there Carel would subject him to nothing worse than calm irony, would perhaps enact surprise. Why so much fuss over so little? He was just on the point of replying to his letter. Why this extraordinary agitation, my dear Marcus? Why indeed? Then he would see Elizabeth. And then all would be well. A great peace would descend and a great light would shine like the light of a lost childhood. Or would something unimaginably different happen?
Marcus was glad of the fog that evening. It was after eight o’clock and there was no one about as he walked along the pavement through the building site. Moving as softly as he could, he heard his steps resound a little as if the sound were curling back about his feet, not able to get away through the thick air. In the heart of the extreme cold he apprehended the warmth of his body with an exhilaration which made him feel dazed and drunken. He had decided to pause as soon as he saw the lights of the Rectory and stand quite still to collect his wits and to make his breathing more normal, for he was beginning already to gasp a little with emotion. It was not unpleasant. He must be getting near now. But as he strained his eyes to discern the lighted windows his left hand came sharply into contact with something. It was the Rectory wall. Marcus had come right up to it without noticing it. The house was in total darkness.
Marcus touched the wall, and his fingers slid over the sharp corner of it, feeling the brick on one side and the flat cement on the other, and he shuddered. He felt like someone who has walked into an ambush. He held on to the house and felt a menacing heart beat inside it. It rose above him, seemed to lean over him, and vanished into the fog. He held on to the house, but helplessly, as one might for a moment hold on to a much stronger opponent. Why were there no lights? They couldn’t all have gone out. If there was one thing that was certain about that household it was that they kept indoors. It was almost as if they had been expecting him. He imagined some appalling colloquy within as they waited, listening. Marcus began to move along the sheer cement face of the house, slithering now upon frozen earth. The iron-hard bumpy ground hurt his feet. The face of the house sweated with cold. He moved along it like an insect, touching it with his hands and his knees and the toes of his shoes. There must be some simple explanation. Doubtless the lights were on on the other side of the house. They were all together perhaps in the dining-room or the kitchen. Then quite suddenly the wall gave way in front of him.
Marcus stood perfectly still. There was a greater blackness. There was a door which the pressure of his hand had already opened. There came to him again the sense of a trap. He could not recall having seen this door, and for a moment he wondered whether he had not in the darkness come to some quite different house. He pushed the door a little further and a strong familiar smell which he could not for the moment identify mingled with the foggy air. Marcus hesitated. Then he thrust his head forward and took a step. The next instant he had fallen headlong in through the doorway.
The difference of level was in fact little more than a foot, but it seemed to Marcus like a sudden descent into a deep pit. The door swung to behind him leaving him in total blackness, lying full length upon an uneven surface. It was like a sudden attack, and for a moment Marcus lay quite still in sheer shock and fright, not even quite sure that he had not been pushed or struck from behind. Then he began to be dreadfully afraid of suffocating. He tried to sit up,
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