Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (best free ereader TXT) 📕

hand. At last he succeeded, and the light fell upon the bundle which he was seeking.

It had rolled off the road into the wood a little way, and had fallen across a great rut. So tiny it was that had it fallen lengthways it would have disappeared, and he might never have found it.

“I stole it! I and the idiot⁠—no one was there.” She burst out laughing.

He sat down and laid it on his knee. Then he tried to cleanse the face from the mud and the rain and the tears. His arm, he supposed, was broken, but he could still move it a little, and for the moment he forgot all pain. He was listening⁠—not for a cry, but for the tick of a heart or the slightest tremor of breath.

“Where are you?” called a voice. It was Miss Abbott, against whose carriage they had collided. She had relit one of the lamps, and was picking her way towards him.

“Silence!” he called again, and again they obeyed. He shook the bundle; he breathed into it; he opened his coat and pressed it against him. Then he listened, and heard nothing but the rain and the panting horses, and Harriet, who was somewhere chuckling to herself in the dark.

Miss Abbott approached, and took it gently from him. The face was already chilly, but thanks to Philip it was no longer wet. Nor would it again be wetted by any tear.

IX

The details of Harriet’s crime were never known. In her illness she spoke more of the inlaid box that she lent to Lilia⁠—lent, not given⁠—than of recent troubles. It was clear that she had gone prepared for an interview with Gino, and finding him out, she had yielded to a grotesque temptation. But how far this was the result of ill-temper, to what extent she had been fortified by her religion, when and how she had met the poor idiot⁠—these questions were never answered, nor did they interest Philip greatly. Detection was certain: they would have been arrested by the police of Florence or Milan, or at the frontier. As it was, they had been stopped in a simpler manner a few miles out of the town.

As yet he could scarcely survey the thing. It was too great. Round the Italian baby who had died in the mud there centred deep passions and high hopes. People had been wicked or wrong in the matter; no one save himself had been trivial. Now the baby had gone, but there remained this vast apparatus of pride and pity and love. For the dead, who seemed to take away so much, really take with them nothing that is ours. The passion they have aroused lives after them, easy to transmute or to transfer, but well-nigh impossible to destroy. And Philip knew that he was still voyaging on the same magnificent, perilous sea, with the sun or the clouds above him, and the tides below.

The course of the moment⁠—that, at all events, was certain. He and no one else must take the news to Gino. It was easy to talk of Harriet’s crime⁠—easy also to blame the negligent Perfetta or Mrs. Herriton at home. Everyone had contributed⁠—even Miss Abbott and Irma. If one chose, one might consider the catastrophe composite or the work of fate. But Philip did not so choose. It was his own fault, due to acknowledged weakness in his own character. Therefore he, and no one else, must take the news of it to Gino.

Nothing prevented him. Miss Abbott was engaged with Harriet, and people had sprung out of the darkness and were conducting them towards some cottage. Philip had only to get into the uninjured carriage and order the driver to return. He was back at Monteriano after a two hours’ absence. Perfetta was in the house now, and greeted him cheerfully. Pain, physical and mental, had made him stupid. It was some time before he realized that she had never missed the child.

Gino was still out. The woman took him to the reception room, just as she had taken Miss Abbott in the morning, and dusted a circle for him on one of the horsehair chairs. But it was dark now, so she left the guest a little lamp.

“I will be as quick as I can,” she told him. “But there are many streets in Monteriano; he is sometimes difficult to find. I could not find him this morning.”

“Go first to the Caffè Garibaldi,” said Philip, remembering that this was the hour appointed by his friends of yesterday.

He occupied the time he was left alone not in thinking⁠—there was nothing to think about; he simply had to tell a few facts⁠—but in trying to make a sling for his broken arm. The trouble was in the elbow joint, and as long as he kept this motionless he could go on as usual. But inflammation was beginning, and the slightest jar gave him agony. The sling was not fitted before Gino leapt up the stairs, crying⁠—

“So you are back! How glad I am! We are all waiting⁠—”

Philip had seen too much to be nervous. In low, even tones he told what had happened; and the other, also perfectly calm, heard him to the end. In the silence Perfetta called up that she had forgotten the baby’s evening milk; she must fetch it. When she had gone Gino took up the lamp without a word, and they went into the other room.

“My sister is ill,” said Philip, “and Miss Abbott is guiltless. I should be glad if you did not have to trouble them.”

Gino had stooped down by the way, and was feeling the place where his son had lain. Now and then he frowned a little and glanced at Philip.

“It is through me,” he continued. “It happened because I was cowardly and idle. I have come to know what you will do.”

Gino had left the rug, and began to pat the table from the end, as