“It’s success at last, Elsa. We’re through. Everything’s safe now.”
I heard her voice in reply; and then he closed the door and reseated himself at the desk.
“It’s your turn now, Jack. I’ve done my part. I’m leaving the future in your hands; and I believe you’ll make good. I wish I could help you; but I’m done, now. I would only hamper you if I tried to do anything.”
I tried to say something reassuring, but the words faltered on my lips. The sight of that drawn face was proof enough. Nordenholt had driven his physical machine as ruthlessly as he had driven his factory workers; and it was clear that he had overstrained his bodily powers. His tremendous will had kept him on his feet until the moment of success; but I could see now what it had cost him. He had drawn on his vital capital; and with the accomplishment of his task a revulsion had set in and the overtired body was exacting its toll.
As I sat looking at him there, a great feeling of loneliness swept over me. Here, before me, was the man upon whose strength I had leaned for the past months, the mind which had seen so clearly, the will which had held its line so tenaciously; and now, I felt, Nordenholt was leaning on me in his turn. It seemed almost an inversion of the course of Nature; and with the realisation of it, I felt a sense of an enormous loss. In the next stages of the Area’s history, there would be no Nordenholt to lean upon: I would have to stand on my own feet, and I doubted my capacity. Almost without my recognising it, I had been working always with Nordenholt in my mind, even in my own department. I had carried out things boldly because I knew that ever in reserve behind me were that brain and that will of his which could see further and drive harder than I could dare; and I had relied unconsciously upon him to steer me through my difficulties if they proved too great for my own powers. And now, by the look on his face and the weariness of his voice, I knew that I stood alone. I had no right to throw my burdens on his shoulders any more.
And with a gulp in the throat, I remembered that he trusted me to go forward. I suppose I ought to have felt some joy in the knowledge that he had left the reconstruction in my hands; but any pride I had in this was swallowed up in that devastating feeling of loss. With the collapse of Nordenholt, something had gone out of my world, never to return. It left me in some way maimed; and I felt as though the main source of my strength had been cut away just when I most needed all my powers.
“You’ll do your best, Jack? The Area trusted us. Don’t let them down.”
I tried to tell him I would do my utmost; but I had difficulty in finding words. I could see that he understood me, however.
“There’s one thing I’m sorry about—Elsa. She hasn’t come round yet. But she will, in time. She hates me still, I know; and it’s a pity, for I need her now, more than I ever did before. I’m a very sick man, Jack. Luckily, this breach between us has let her stand on her own feet. She doesn’t need me so much as she did.”
He fell silent; and for a time we sat without speaking. When he spoke again, I could see the lines on which his thoughts had been running.
“If anything happens to me, Jack, you’ll look after Elsa, won’t you? I’d like to know that she was all right. I know it’s hard as things are; but you’ll do that for me, even though it tantalises you?”
I promised; and then I suggested telephoning for a doctor to look after him.
“Not just now, Jack—I’m tired. I don’t want to be bothered answering questions. I’m very tired. … And I’ve finished my work at last. We’ve pulled through. I can take a rest. … Wake me in a quarter of an hour, will you? I want a sleep badly.”
He leaned forward in his chair and rested his face on his arms. In a moment he seemed to fall into slumber. I thought it was probably the best thing for him at the time; and I turned to the fire and to my thoughts.
I fell to thinking of all that had happened since first I met him; and then I cast further back yet to the evening I had spent at Wotherspoon’s house. How the disaster had developed step by step, spreading its effects gradually and with slowly-increasing intensity over wider and ever-wider areas. If only Wotherspoon had stuck to chemistry and left bacteriology alone; if only he had chosen some other organisms than the denitrifying bacteria; if only the fireball had not come that night; if … if … if. … All the Might-have-beens rose before me as I gazed at the flickerings in the fire. If only Elsa had followed reason and not emotion … if only. … And so the maddening train of thought went on, minute by minute, while in the next room I could hear the click of her typewriter. Emotion! After all I could not pretend to scorn it, for what were my own feelings but emotion too?
The clock in the tower above me struck a quarter. Nordenholt did not stir and I let him sleep on. It appeared to me that rest was what he needed most.
It seemed curious how divorced I had become from the Past. The old life had been swept away utterly and I found difficulty in recalling much of it to mind. The meeting with Nordenholt, the founding of the Area, my
