The Shining Pyramid

"Haunted, you said?"

"Yes, haunted. Don't you remember, when I saw you three years ago, you
told me about your place in the west with the ancient woods hanging all
about it, and the wild, domed hills, and the ragged land? It has always
remained a sort of enchanted picture in my mind as I sit at my desk and
hear the traffic rattling in the Street in the midst of whirling London.
But when did you come up?"

"The fact is, Dyson, I have only just got out of the train. I drove to
the station early this morning and caught the 10.45."

"Well, I am very glad you looked in on me. How have you been getting on
since we last met? There is no Mrs. Vaughan, I suppose?"

"No," said Vaughan, "I am still a hermit, like yourself. I have done
nothing but loaf about."

Vaughn had lit his pipe and sat in the elbow chair, fidgeting and
glancing about him in a somewhat dazed and restless manner. Dyson had
wheeled round his chair when his visitor entered and sat with one arm
fondly reclining on the desk of his bureau, and touching the litter of
manuscript.

"And you are still engaged in the old task?" said Vaughan, pointing to
the pile of papers and the teeming pigeon-holes.

"Yes, the vain pursuit of literature, as idle as alchemy, and as
entrancing. But you have come to town for some time I suppose; what
shall we do to-night?"

"Well, I rather wanted you to try a few days with me down in the west.
It would do you a lot of good. I'm sure."

"You are very kind, Vaughan, but London in September is hard to leave.
Doré could not have designed anything more wonderful and mystic than
Oxford Street as I saw it the other evening; the sunset flaming, the
blue haze transmuting the plain street into a road 'far in the spiritual
city.'"

"I should like you to come down though. You would enjoy roaming over our
hills. Does this racket go on all day and night? It quite bewilders me;
I wonder how you can work through it. I am sure you would revel in the
great peace of my old home among the woods."

Vaughan lit his pipe again, and looked anxiously at Dyson to see if his
inducements had had any effect, but the man of letters shook his head,
smiling, and vowed in his heart a firm allegiance to the streets.

"You cannot tempt me," he said.

'Well, you may be right. Perhaps, after all, I was wrong to speak of the
peace of the country. There, when a tragedy does occur, it is like a
stone thrown into a pond; the circles of disturbance keep on widening,
and it seems as if the water would never be still again."

"Have you ever any tragedies where you are?"

"I can hardly say that. But I was a good deal disturbed about a month
ago by something that happened; it may or may not have been a tragedy in
the usual sense of the word."

"What was the occurrence?"