The Shadow of the East

She glanced back furtively over her shoulder. Craven was leaning forward in the cane chair with his head in his hands and she looked away hastily, blinded with tears. She had troubled him—distressed him. She had “made a scene”—the phrase, read in some English book, flashed through her mind. Englishmen hated scenes. She gripped herself resolutely and when he left his chair and joined her she smiled at him bravely.

“See, all the djinns are gone, Bar-ree,” she said with a little nervous laugh.

He guessed the struggle she was making and chimed in with her mood.

“Sensible fellows,” he said lightly, tapping a cigarette on the verandah rail. “Gone home to bed I expect. Time you went to bed too. I’ll just smoke this cigarette.” But as she turned away obediently, he caught her back, with a sudden exclamation:

“By Jove! I nearly forgot.”

He took a tiny package from his pocket and gave it to her. Girlishly eager her fingers shook with excitement as she ripped the covering from a small gold case attached to a slender chain. She pressed the spring and uttered a little cry of delight. The miniature of Craven had been painted by a French artist visiting Yokohama and was a faithful portrait.

“Oh, Bar-ree,” she gasped with shining eyes, lifting her face like a child for his kiss. She leaned against him studying the painting earnestly, appreciating the mastery of a fellow craftsman, ecstatically happy—then she slipped the chain over her head and closing the case tucked it away inside her kimono.

“Now I have two,” she murmured softly.

“Two?” said Craven pausing as he lighted his cigarette. “What do you mean?”

“Wait, I show,” she replied and vanished into the house. She was back in a moment holding in her hand another locket. He took it from her and moved closer under the lantern to look at it. It hung from a thick twisted cable of gold, and set round with pearls it was bigger and heavier than the dainty case O Hara San had hidden against her heart. For a moment he hesitated, overcoming an inexplicable reluctance to open it—then he snapped the spring sharply.

“Good God!” he whispered slowly through dry lips. And yet he had known, known intuitively before the lid flew back, for it was the second time that he had handled such a locket—the first he had seen and left lying on his dead mother’s breast.

He stood as if turned to stone, staring with horror at the replica of his own face lying in the hollow of his hand. The thick dark hair, the golden brown moustache, the deep grey eyes—all were the same. Only the chin in the picture was different for it was hidden by a short pointed beard; so was it in the miniature that was buried with his mother, so was it in the big portrait that hung in the dining-room at Craven Towers.

“Who gave you this?” he asked thickly, and O Hara San stared at him in bewilderment, frightened at the strangeness of his voice.

“My mother,” she said wonderingly. “He was Bar-ree, too. See,” she added pointing with a slender forefinger to the name engraved inside the case.

A nightbird shrieked weirdly close to the house and a sudden gust of wind moaned through the pine trees. The sweat stood out on Craven’s forehead in great drops and the cigarette, fallen from his hand, lay smouldering on the matting at his feet.

He pulled the girl to him and turning her face up stared down into the great grey eyes, piteous now with unknown fear, and cursed his blindness. Often the unrecognised likeness had puzzled him. He dropped the miniature and ground it savagely to powder with his heel, heedless of O Hara San’s sharp cry of distress, and turned to the railing gripping it with shaking hands.

“Damn him, damn him!”

Why had instinct never warned him? Why had he, knowing the girl’s mixed parentage and knowing his own family history, made no inquiries? A wave of sick loathing swept over him. His head reeled. He turned to O Hara San crouched sobbing on the matting over the little heap of crushed gold and pearls. Was there still a loop-hole?

“What was he to you?” he said hoarsely, and he did not recognise his own voice.

She looked up fearfully, then shrank back with a cry—hiding her eyes to shut out the distorted face that bent over her.

“He was my father,” she whispered almost inaudibly. But it sounded to Craven as if she had shouted it from the housetop. Without a word he turned from her and stumbled toward the verandah steps. He must get away, he must be alone—alone with the night to wrestle with this ghastly tangle.