where warm hands have prest and closed

One can claim greater latitude in an old hotel, and one nearly empty. Only a day or two before, we had gone walking together, and the queer sense of isolation with the firs to one side of us and the gleaming night-water on the other had permitted a certain boldness. Long’s hand found mine, and I felt the reassuring pressure of his fingers twisting around mine as we talked of golf strokes and train tables. It would have been a queer sight on any London boulevard — two fellows with fine mustaches walking hand in hand along the shingle beach, old bachelors well beyond the freaks and fads of youth. I suppose there were others like us in those years, taking advantage of reasonable rates and the impression of privacy to enjoy an especial friendship without distraction.

In busier seasons, the greater number of visitors in Seaburgh served for cover; here and there among the rest one would see grave-faced gentlemen with sandals and ferocious beards watching young fishermen bringing in their boats (there were more young men about in those days) or stately women in stout shoes walking the dividing path of sand at low tide, engrossed in one another’s company. It was enough to make one wonder, but in our time there we largely kept to ourselves and did not acknowledge these phantom strangers except with the most restrained nods. That they were there and we were there for the same reason and to the same purpose did not need to be spoken aloud.

After parting from our young friend, Long and I retired upstairs. Even out of season, our liberty did not extend so far as adjoining bedrooms, but mine was only separated from Henry’s by a slim stretch of carpet. We could confer together as freely as we pleased once the boots had gone to bed, content with his fee and our explanations.

“Let that be an end to it, then. We’ve returned the thing to its proper place and done our part for the defense of England. He’s done all he can do, and now he’ll have some relief at last.”

“Paxton seems like a good fellow,” I said, undoing my cuffs. No man who played golf could be an entirely fanciful mind, and I very much looked forward to a few pleasant hours on the links. Perhaps the man could be induced to join us. “I’m sorry to see him wrapped up in such a strange business, and I’m glad to see it over with.”

“The poor man struck me as a trifle nervous to begin with. But he is young, and he’s had an extraordinary experience. I’d envy him his discovery if the matter itself weren’t so dreadful. As a boy, I always dreamed of finding treasure — Byzantine coins or medieval relics or something like that.”

A new shade of sympathy had entered into his voice. Long could not have been much older than our Mr. Paxton when he came to our college — for that was where I had met him. He had not seemed so young to me then, though certainly some years younger than myself, nor had his attractive delicacy ever struck me as in the least fragile. In all our years together, I had never seen him weep. Paxton had not known us for more than a handful of hours, and we had already seen him at his most acutely vulnerable.

“Ah, well. It’s done now, and there’s nothing more to do. We’ll meet up with our young friend in the afternoon and see if he isn’t in better spirits already.”

It was the wrong time of night to be speaking of spirits. Long sat on his bed, cross-legged; he had already undressed for bed, and his pipe and tobacco were laid out on the nightstand beside a book and his customary glass of water. I knew this array of little things well after several decades’ acquaintance and couldn’t help looking on them with some affection. He must have glanced at me as my head was turned, because he gestured to me, indicating I should sit beside him.

“Here, you have a spot of something beneath your collar. Let me see to it before you get changed.”

I settled in stoically beside him, and he swept at the offending particle with a handkerchief.

“Did you get it?”

“There, it was only a bit of ash or leaf or something like that.”

At that moment I laid my head against his shoulder. His hand bearing the handkerchief rested against my lap. It wasn’t fatigue that settled on me after our moonlit excursion over hill and woodland, but an empty restless feeling that was not familiar to me. Whether Henry felt the same way I could only guess. He smoked his pipe and read a few pages of his book, but discarded both soon enough and fell to fidgeting with pen and ink.

If Paxton had only taken down an image of the crown, a photographic plate or a pencil drawing, then perhaps it would not have been such a complete loss for him — or perhaps it were better forgotten. The impression that brittle object made on memory was difficult to efface, even after only brief exposure. Perhaps Paxton really ought to go to the church about it all, if not to put the unsettling elements aside then at least to make a clean breast of himself to a figure of greater authority than two old men.

As we lay there together in our shirts and socks, there was the faint sound of footsteps going up and down in the hall outside — as of some muffled coming and going. It did not concern me then, except to think of our young friend lying awake only a few rooms away, exhausted by his frantic exertions and yet flinching at every respectable creak and rattle of an old hotel. The thought of Paxton’s bleeding hands filled me with an instinctive pity. What had the young man meant, not forgiven?

I did not return to my own bed that night. It would all mean more trouble in the morning, more skulking and no doubt a generous tip to smooth things over, but I did not relish the thought of sleeping alone in my own room with its windows overlooking the smooth dark sea.

It was not an altogether sleepless night, nor devoid of earthly comfort. Afterward, I lay awake, watching Henry’s resting face — here was a strange quality to the light that did not square with the brilliance of the full moon, as though it were shining through a cloth. I thought, I will not see him like this again. If I were only a painter, I thought, I would capture the effect of the moonlight exactly. But I am a very poor draughtsman at the best of times, and I have only a photograph of Henry now to know him by.