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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Return of Peter Grimm
+       Novelised From the Play
+
+Author: David Belasco
+
+Illustrator: John Rae
+
+Release Date: January 18, 2008 [EBook #24359]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Annie McGuire and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  The Return of Peter Grimm
+
+  NOVELISED FROM THE PLAY
+  BY
+  DAVID BELASCO
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+  JOHN RAE
+
+  NEW YORK
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  PUBLISHERS
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+      I A MAN AND A MAID                                               3
+
+     II THE HEIR                                                      19
+
+    III PETER GRIMM HAS A PLAN                                        37
+
+     IV A WARNING AND A THEORY                                        56
+
+      V A QUEER COMPACT                                               77
+
+     VI BREAKING THE NEWS                                             99
+
+    VII THE HAND RELAXES                                             108
+
+   VIII AFTERWARD                                                    118
+
+     IX THE EVE OF A WEDDING                                         125
+
+      X A WASTED PLEA                                                134
+
+     XI THE LEGACIES                                                 149
+
+    XII MOSTLY CONCERNING GRATITUDE                                  157
+
+   XIII THE RETURN                                                   164
+
+    XIV "I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"                                      184
+
+     XV A HALF-HEARD MESSAGE                                         209
+
+    XVI THE "SENSITIVE"                                              231
+
+   XVII MR. BATHOLOMMEY TESTIFIES                                    254
+
+  XVIII DR. MCPHERSON'S STATEMENT                                    265
+
+    XIX BACK TO THE STORY                                            278
+
+     XX THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT                                     290
+
+    XXI "ONLY ONE THING REALLY COUNTS"                               302
+
+   XXII "ALL THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS AGAIN"                            313
+
+  XXIII THE DAWNING                                                  324
+
+   XXIV THE GOOD-BYE                                                 337
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  "I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St.
+  Paul was a single man, was he not, Pastor?"                         86
+
+  "Who's in the room!" he demanded                                   202
+
+  "Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you
+  the very pleasantest of dreams a boy could
+  have in _this_ world"                                              321
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A MAN AND A MAID
+
+
+The train drew to a halt at the Junction. There was a fine jolt that ran
+the length of the cars, followed by a clank of couplings and a
+half-intelligible call from the conductor.
+
+The passengers,--dusty, jaded, crossly annoyed at the need of changing
+cars,--gathered up their luggage and filed out onto the bare, roofless
+station platform. There, after a look down the long converging rails in
+vain hope of sighting the train they were to take, they fell to glancing
+about the cheerless station environs.
+
+Far away were rolling hills, upland fields of wind-swept wheat, cool,
+dark stretches of woodland. But around the station were areas of
+ill-kept lots, with here and there a jerry-built cottage, sadly in need
+of shoring, and bereft of paint. Across the road on one side stood the
+general store with its clump of porch-step loafers and its windows full
+of gaudy advertisements. To the side, and parallel with the tracks,
+sprawled a huge, weather-buffeted signboard that read:
+
+  "_Grimm's Botanical Gardens and Nurseries._
+  _1 Mile._"
+
+The passengers eyed the half-defaced lettering, pessimistically. But
+almost at once they received a far pleasanter reminder of the botanical
+gardens. A boy, flushed with running, and evidently distressed at being
+late, pattered up the road and onto the platform. From one of his
+fragile arms hung a great basket. The lid had fallen aside and showed
+the basket piled to the brim with fresh flowers.
+
+Hurrying to the nearest passenger--an obese travelling man who mopped a
+very red face,--the boy timidly held a Gloire de Dijon rose up to him
+and recited with parrot-like glibness:
+
+"With the compliments of Peter Grimm."
+
+The fat man half unconsciously took the rose from the little hand and
+stood looking as though in dire doubt what to do with it. The boy did
+not help him out. Already he had moved on to the next passenger,--this
+time a man of clerical bearing and suspiciously vivid nose,--and handed
+him a gleaming Madonna lily.
+
+"With the compliments of Peter Grimm," he announced, passing on to the
+next.
+
+And so on down the bunched line of waiting men and women the lad made
+his way. In front of each, he paused, presented a flower taken at random
+from the basket, recited his droning formula, and passed on.
+
+The fat travelling man stared stupidly at his rose. Then he looked about
+him, half shamefacedly and in wonder.
+
+"What in blazes----?" he began.
+
+"You must be a stranger in this part of the state," volunteered a big
+young fellow, who had just come out of the waiting-room. "Did you never
+hear of the flower-giving at the Junction?"
+
+"No. What's the idea? Is it done on a bet? Or is it an 'ad' for the man
+on the sign over there?"
+
+"Neither. It has been Peter Grimm's custom for twenty years or more.
+Ever since I first knew him."
+
+"And it isn't an ad?"
+
+"No," was the enigmatic answer as the big young man moved off in the
+wake of the lad. "It's Peter Grimm."
+
+The boy meanwhile had reached the last of the passengers. She was
+middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peered down at him with more than
+common interest as he went through his pat little presentation formula.
+A psychologist would have gathered much from the lad's tense, flushed
+face and in the oddly strained look of the big blue eyes. To this woman,
+he was only a thin, lonely looking youngster, whose face held an
+unconscious appeal that she answered without reading it.
+
+"I am very much obliged to Mr. Peter Grimm for sending me this lovely
+flower," she said, a little patronisingly, as she sniffed at the
+half-opened Killarney rose she held.
+
+"You need not be," answered the boy. "He didn't really send it to you.
+In fact, I'm quite sure he never even heard of you. He just sent it
+because he is good and because----"
+
+"Because he loves flowers," suggested the woman as the boy hesitated.
+
+"No," corrected the boy, in his gentle, old-fashioned diction, wherein
+lurked the faintest trace of foreign accent, "I never heard him say
+anything about loving flowers. But I know the flowers love him."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You see, they grow for him as they don't grow for any one else. _Much_
+better I am sure," he added a little bitterly, "than they will ever grow
+for Frederik. I don't think flowers love Frederik."
+
+"What queer ideas you have!" she laughed, embarrassed at his quiet
+statement of facts that seemed to her absurd. "Are you Mr. Grimm's son?"
+
+"No, ma'am. He is not married. I don't think he has any sons at all. I'm
+Anne Marie's son."
+
+"Anne Marie? Anne Marie--what?"
+
+"Just Anne Marie. I'm Willem, you know."
+
+"William?"
+
+"No, ma'am. Willem."
+
+"Willem Grimm?"
+
+"No, ma'am. Anne Marie's Willem. I--Oh, Mr. Hartmann!" he broke off,
+catching sight of the big young man who drew near, "Mynheer Peter said
+you'd be on this train. Now I can have some one to walk back with."
+
+Slipping his hand into Hartmann's, Willem turned his back on the
+platformful of perspiring beneficiaries and, together, the two struck
+off down the yellow, dusty road toward the double row of giant elms
+that marked the beginning of the village street.
+
+Willem shuffled in high contentment alongside his big companion. And as
+he walked, he stole upward and sidelong glances of furtive hero worship
+at the tall, plainly clad figure. Jim Hartmann was of a build and aspect
+to rouse such worship in the frail little fellow. He had the shoulders,
+the chest girth, the stride of an athlete, tempered by the slight
+roundness of those same shoulders, the non-expansiveness of chest, and
+the heavy tread of the large man whose strength and physique have been
+acquired at manual labour instead of in athletics. A figure more common
+east of the Atlantic than in America.
+
+His dark suit was neat and fitted honestly well. But it was palpably not
+the suit of a man whose father had worn custom-made clothes or whose own
+earlier youth had been blessed with such garments. Yet there was a
+breezy, staunch outdoorness about the whole man that reminded one of a
+breath of mountain air in a close room and left half unnoticed the
+details of costume and bearing.
+
+"Weren't you glad to get away from New York City?" queried the boy as
+they came into the elm shade of Grimm Manor's one real street. "A week
+is an awful long time to be away from here."
+
+"You bet it is. You're a lucky chap to be able to stay at Grimm Manor
+all the time instead of being sent here, there, and everywhere on
+business."
+
+"I shouldn't like that," assented the boy; "I think people would be very
+liable of losing their way. I wonder if Mynheer Peter will send me
+'here, there, and everywhere on business' when I'm older."
+
+"Perhaps," agreed Hartmann, catching the slight note of wistfulness in
+Willem's voice. "You're beginning the way I began. It wasn't more than a
+week after my father got his gardening job with Mr. Grimm that I used to
+be sent up to meet the trains with a basket of flowers and 'the
+compliments of Peter Grimm.' It seems more like yesterday than eighteen
+years ago."
+
+"I'm glad you're back from New York City," said the boy, circling back
+to the conversation's starting-point. "It's been rather lonely. Mynheer
+Peter has been so busy. And Frederik----"
+
+"Well," queried Jim as the boy checked himself and looked nervously
+behind him, "what about Frederik? And why do you always look like that
+when you speak of him?"
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"As if you were afraid some one would slap you. Is Frederik ever unkind
+to you?"
+
+"No," denied the boy, in scared haste. "No, he never is. He--he doesn't
+notice me at all. That's what I was going to say. He doesn't seem to
+care to. But he likes to be with Kathrien, I think. Yes, I'm sure he
+does. I think Kathrien missed you, too, Mr. Hartmann."
+
+The big man grew of a sudden vaguely embarrassed. He cast back along the
+trail of the talk for some divergent path, and found one.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's good to be back from New York. The city always
+seems to cramp me and make it hard for me to breathe. The pavements hurt
+my feet and I have a silly feeling as though the skyscrapers were going
+to topple inward."
+
+He was talking to himself rather than to the boy. But Willem rejoined
+sympathetically:
+
+"I don't like New York City either."
+
+"You, why you surely can't remember when you used to live there?"
+
+The boy's fair brow creased in an effort of memory.
+
+"Sometimes," he hesitated, "I can. And sometimes I don't seem able to.
+But I remember Anne Marie. She cried."
+
+"How is Mynheer Peter?" demanded Hartmann with galvanic suddenness. "And
+how are that last lot of Madonna lilies coming on? They ought to be----"
+
+"Sometimes," went on the boy, still following his own line of thought
+and oblivious of the interruption, "sometimes I wonder why she cried.
+Sometimes for a minute or two--mostly at night, when I'm nearly
+asleep--I seem to remember why. But I always forget. Mr. Hartmann, did
+you see Anne Marie when you were in New York City?"
+
+"No, of course not. How are Lad and Rex and Paddy? And do they still dig
+for moles in the flower-beds? Or did the dose of red pepper my father
+scattered over the beds cure them of digging?"
+
+"I wonder," observed Willem, "why everybody always talks about
+everything else when I want to talk about Anne Marie. And if other
+fellows' mothers come to see them and live with them, why doesn't Anne
+Marie come and live with me? I asked Oom Peter once and he said----"
+
+"I've got to leave you now and hurry over to Mynheer Grimm's office with
+my report," broke in Hartmann. "My train was a little late anyhow and
+you know how he hates to be kept waiting."
+
+They had entered a wide gateway and had come from suburban America, at a
+step, into rural Holland. The prim gravelled drive led between acres of
+prosaically regular flower-beds, flanked on one side by a domed green
+house and on the other by a creaking Dutch windmill with weather-browned
+sails.
+
+Straight ahead and absurdly near the road for a country house that
+boasted so much land about it, was the stone and yellow stucco cottage
+that for centuries had sheltered successive generations of Grimms.
+Painfully neat, unpicturesquely ugly, the house stood among its great
+oaks. It did not nestle among them. It stood. As well expect a breadth
+of starched brown holland to nestle. To deprive the abode of any
+lingering taint of picturesqueness, a blue and white signboard, thirty
+feet long, stretching between it and the main street, flashed to all the
+passing world the news that this was the headquarters of the celebrated
+"Grimm's Botanical Gardens and Nurseries."
+
+The interior of the house was as delightful as its outside was hideous.
+Here, neatness raised to the nth power chanced to strike the keynote of
+a certain beauty. The big living-room, with its stairway leading to the
+bedroom gallery above, was a repository of curios that would have set an
+antiquary mad. From the ancient clock to the priceless old blue china,
+three-fourths of the room's appointments might have served to deck a
+Holland museum. The remaining fourth contained such articles as a
+glaringly modern telephone on a nondescript desk, and a compromise
+between old and new in the shape of a square piano in the bay window, an
+ancient table. And several patently twentieth century articles helped
+still further to rob the place of any harmony or unison in effect.
+
+An altogether charming Dutch maiden was dusting, and occasionally
+stopping to restore some slightly disarranged article to its
+mathematically neat position. In her blue Dutch cap, her blue delft
+gown, and white kerchief, she seemed to have danced down out of the past
+to strike the one note of vivid life in all that sombre-furnished
+place.
+
+She paused in the sweep of sunshine that poured through the
+muslin-curtained bay window. A step had sounded in the passage leading
+from the rear of the house;--a step she evidently knew. For the full
+young lips broke into an involuntary smile of expectancy, while the big
+eyes grew all at once eager and happy. Jim Hartmann, a pen behind his
+ear, a bundle of mail in his hand, came into the room. He had reached
+the desk and deposited his packet there before he caught sight of her.
+Then, wide-eyed, silent, tense, he halted, gazing at the sunshine-bathed
+figure in the window embrasure. For an instant neither of them spoke. It
+was the girl who broke the silence, her voice charged with a strange
+shyness.
+
+"Good-morning, James," she said primly.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Katie," he answered mechanically, his eyes still
+wide with the loveliness of the sun-kissed face that so suddenly broke
+in upon his workaday routine.
+
+"I wondered if you'd gotten back yet," she continued, seeming to hunt
+industriously for a phrase of sufficiently meaningless decorum.
+
+"I got back ten minutes ago. I reported to Mr. Grimm and brought the
+morning mail in here to look over for him. It seems strange to find the
+day so far advanced at this hour," he went on, talking at random. "After
+a week in New York, where no one thinks of doing business before nine in
+the morning, it's like coming into another world to be back here where
+the day's work begins at five."
+
+He sat down, pleasantly regardless of the fact that she was still
+standing, and began to open and sort the letters before him. The girl
+noticed that his big hands fumbled at the unfamiliar task. But she
+noticed far more keenly the strength and massive shapeliness of the
+hands themselves.
+
+"Do you like being secretary?" she queried.
+
+"Yes, in a way. I've walked 'outside' in the gardens and nurseries so
+many years, it seems queer to be penned up indoors and have to scribble
+letters and open mail. But I'd sooner shovel dirt than not be here at
+all. I couldn't last a month at a job where there wasn't gardening going
+on all around me and where I couldn't sneak off once in a while and do a
+bit of it myself."
+
+"That's the way I feel," she said simply, "though I never thought to put
+it in words before. I must live where things are growing. Where, every
+time I look out of the window, I can see orchards and shrubs and
+hothouses. Oh, it's all so beautiful! And, James, our orchids this
+season--but I forgot. You don't care for orchids."
+
+"They're pretty enough, I suppose," vouchsafed Hartmann. "But the big
+men in the business are doing wonderful things with potatoes these days.
+And look at what Father Burbank's done in creating an edible cactus!
+Sometimes it makes me feel bitter when I think what I might have done
+with vegetables if I hadn't squandered so much God-given time studying
+Greek."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Oh, yes. It made a hit with father to have me study a lot of things
+that would only help a college professor. He's worked in the dirt, in
+overalls, all his life. And like most people who never had one, he sets
+a crazy value on so-called 'education.' But all this can't interest
+you," he finished ruefully.
+
+"It _does_ interest me. You know it does. But there's something I'd like
+to say to you if you won't be angry."
+
+"At _you_? Why----"
+
+"It's this: I want you so much to get on. Why won't you try harder
+to--to please Uncle Peter?"
+
+"I do try. I'm square with him. That's the trouble. That's why I don't
+make more of a hit. He asks me my 'honest opinion' about something or
+other. I give it. Then he blows up."
+
+"But if you'd try to be more tactful----"
+
+"You said that once before to me, Miss Katie. I asked you what 'tactful'
+meant. And when you told me----"
+
+"When I told you, you said it was 'just a fancy name for being
+hypocritical.' But it isn't, a bit. Can't you try not to be quite
+so--so----?"
+
+"Cranky?"
+
+"No, blunt. It will smooth things over so much with Uncle Peter. He's
+really the gentlest, dearest----"
+
+"I've noticed it," said Hartmann drily. "But I'll try if you want me to.
+I promise."
+
+"Thank you," she answered.
+
+And, perhaps to seal the pledge, their hands met. The sealing of a
+pledge is not a matter to slur over with careless haste, but requires
+due time. And it was but natural that the handclasp should be symbolic
+of that deliberation. Indeed, it is hard to say just how long his big
+hand and her little one might have remained clasped together had
+inclination been allowed to prevail. But, as usual in Hartmann's life,
+inclination was not consulted. The door behind them opened sharply, and
+the clasped hands parted as if at a signal. Hartmann slipped back into
+his chair at the desk, while the girl busied herself with a new and
+commendable activity in her task of setting the immaculate room to
+rights.
+
+Both seemed to realise without turning around that one more of their too
+brief interviews had been unceremoniously cut short.
+
+The man whose advent caused the curtailment of the promise's sealing was
+as foreign looking as the room itself. Dapper, dressed in a sort of
+elaborate carelessness, his figure alone carried with it an air of
+assurance that Hartmann always found almost as irritating as the man's
+gracefully exaggerated manner and speech. His blonde hair was brushed
+back from a high, narrow forehead. A turned-up moustache and a
+close-trimmed and pointed Van Dyke beard added to the foreign aspect.
+
+The newcomer took in the scene with a glance that apparently grasped
+none of its details. He nodded curtly to Hartmann, then crossed to where
+the girl was dusting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE HEIR
+
+
+"Hello, Kitty," he said. "Good-morning."
+
+"Good-morning, Frederik," responded the girl, and started toward the
+stairs.
+
+But the man intercepted her. Catching her playfully by the arm he tried
+to draw her toward him.
+
+"You're pretty as a June rose to-day," he laughed.
+
+Hartmann, instinctively, had half-risen from his chair. The girl, noting
+his movement and the frown gathering on his face, checked her impulse to
+retort, quietly disengaged herself from the newcomer's familiar grasp,
+and ran up the short stair flight that led into the gallery.
+
+In no way offended, the man glanced after her with another short laugh,
+then turned to Hartmann.
+
+"Where's my uncle?" he asked.
+
+Hartmann looked up with elaborate slowness from the notes he was making
+of the newly opened mail. His eyes at last rested on the dapper figure
+before him, with the impersonal, faintly irritated gaze one might bestow
+on a yelping puppy.
+
+"Mr. Grimm is outside," he answered. "He's watching my father spray the
+plum trees. The black knot's getting ahead of us this year."
+
+"I wonder," grumbled Frederik, lounging across to the window, "if it's
+possible once a year to ask a simple question of any inmate of this
+cursedly dreary old place without getting a botanical answer."
+
+"That's what we are here for--those of us that work," said Hartmann,
+returning to his note making.
+
+"Work, work, work!" mocked Frederik. "When I inherit my beloved uncle's
+fortune, I shall buy up all the dictionaries and have that wretched word
+crossed out of them."
+
+Hartmann made no reply. He did not seem to have heard. But Frederik,
+absently ripping to atoms a Richmond rose from the window table vase,
+continued his muttered tirade. An inattentive audience was better than
+none.
+
+"Work!" he growled. "When people here aren't talking about it, they're
+doing it. Grubby, earthy work. And it was to prepare for this sort of
+thing that I loafed through Leyden and Heidelberg! Yes, and loafed
+through, creditably, too; even if Oom Peter did bully me into making a
+specialty of botany. Botany! Dry as dust. After the University and after
+my _wanderjahr_, I thought it would be another easy task to come here,
+and 'learn the business.' Easy! As easy as the treadmill. And as
+congenial."
+
+"I wonder you don't tell Mr. Grimm all that. I'm sure it would interest
+him."
+
+"My dear, worthy uncle, who builds such wonderful hopes on me? Not I. It
+would break his noble heart. I hope you quite understand, Hartmann, that
+I keep quiet only through fear of wounding him and not with any fear
+that he might bequeath the business elsewhere."
+
+"Quite," returned Hartmann drily. "That's why I keep my mouth shut when
+he holds you up to me as a paragon of zeal and industry and asks me why
+I don't pattern myself after you. But, for all that, you're taking
+chances when you talk to me about him as you do."
+
+"I'm not," contradicted Frederik. "I may not know botany. But I know
+men. You love me about as much as you love smallpox. But you belong to
+the breed that doesn't tell tales. Besides, I've got to speak the truth
+to some one, once in a while, if I don't want to explode. You're a
+splendid safety valve, Hartmann."
+
+The secretary bent over his notes. His forehead veins swelled, and his
+face darkened. But he gave no overt sign of offence. Frederik, watching
+keenly, seemed disappointed.
+
+"In New York," he pursued with a sigh, "they're just about thinking of
+waking up. And look at the time _I'm_ routed out of bed! Say, Hartmann,
+I wish you would give Oom Peter a hint to oil his shoes. Every morning
+he wakes me up at five o'clock, creaking down the stairs. It's a sort of
+pedal alarm clock. Creak! Creak! Creak!--_Ach, Gott!_ Even yet I can
+hardly keep one eye open. If ever it pleases Providence to give me my
+heritage, the first thing I'll do will be to sleep till noon. And then
+to go to sleep again."
+
+He stared moodily out of the window into the glowing, flower-starred
+June world.
+
+"How I loathe this pokey, dead old village!" he complained. "And what
+wouldn't I give to be back with the old Leyden crowd for one little
+night!"
+
+He lurched over to the piano, sat carelessly, sidewise, on its stool,
+and, thrumming at the keyboard, fell to humming in a slurring,
+reminiscent fashion, the old Leyden University chorus:
+
+  "_Ach, daar koonet ye amuseeren! Io vivat--Io vivat
+  Nostorum sanitas, hoc estamoris porculum,
+  Dolores est anti gotum--Io vivat--Io vivat
+  Nostorum sanitas--!_
+
+"Say, Hartmann," he broke off from his jumble of Dutch and Hollandised
+Latin, "the old man is aging. He's aging fast."
+
+"Who?" asked Hartmann absently, glancing up from his work. "Oh, your
+uncle? Yes, he is mellowing. He is changing foliage with the years."
+
+"Changing foliage? Not he. He changes nothing. What was good enough
+forty years ago seems to him quite good enough to-day. He's as
+old-fashioned as his hats. And they're the oldest things since Noah's
+time. He's just as old-fashioned in his financial ways. In my opinion,
+for instance, this would be a capital time to sell out the business. But
+he----"
+
+"Sell out?" echoed Hartmann in genuine horror. "Sell out a business
+that's been in his family for--why, man, he'd as soon sell his soul.
+This business is his religion."
+
+"Yes, and that's why it is so flourishing in spite of his back-date
+customs. It's at the very acme of its prosperity now. Why, the plant
+must be worth an easy half million. Yes, and more. Lord, but it _would_
+sell now! One, two, three,--_Augenblick!_ By the way, speaking of
+selling,--what was the last offer the dear old gentleman turned down
+from Hicks of Rochester?"
+
+But Hartmann did not hear the question. He was staring at Frederik in
+open-mouthed astonishment.
+
+"Sell out?" he repeated dully. "This is a new one--even from you. There
+isn't a day your uncle doesn't tell me how triumphantly you are going to
+carry on the business after he is gone. He----"
+
+"Oh, I am!" sneered Frederik. "I am. Of course I am. How can you doubt
+it. Wait and see. It's a big name--'Peter Grimm.' And the old gentleman
+knows his business. He assuredly knows his business."
+
+"I don't mind being the repository of your confidences about hating
+work," burst out Hartmann, "any more than I mind listening to the mewing
+of a sick cat. But when you strike this new vein, you'll have to choose
+another audience. I'm afraid I'd be likely to take sudden charge of the
+meeting and break the talented orator's neck."
+
+He gathered up some of his papers and stamped out. Frederik looked after
+him uncertainly, took a step toward the door through which the secretary
+had just vanished, then thought better of the idea, laughed shortly, and
+drew out a cigarette. But a creaking of heavy shoes on the walk outside
+led him to slip the cigarette back into its case, and to bend
+interestedly over the pile of office mail Hartmann had opened.
+
+If Kathrien had typified all that was dainty and alluring in the room's
+Dutch art, the man who now stamped in from the front vestibule,
+assuredly was typical of all old Holland's solidity. Stocky, of medium
+height, he was clad more as though he had copied the fashions depicted
+in a daguerrotype than those of the twentieth century. His black
+broadcloth was of no recent cut. His low, upright collar and broad
+cravat were of stock-like aspect, while a high hat such as he wore has
+certainly appeared in no show window since 1870.
+
+Withal, there was nothing ludicrous or even incongruous about the
+costume. It belonged with the wearer. And while on another man it would
+have been absurd, on him it seemed the only logical apparel.
+
+Peter Grimm halted in the vestibule, laboriously removed his rubbers,
+and dropped his heavy ash stick into its place on the rack. Then he
+carefully lifted the antique hat from his head, deposited it on a peg,
+and came forward into the room. The face, revealed as he left the
+vestibule's gloom for the bright sunlight, was at first glance hard,
+deeply lined, and stubborn; the effect accented by a set mouth, the
+little truculently alert eyes under bushy brows, and the slightly
+uptilted nose.
+
+A second look, however, would have revealed, to any one who could read
+faces, a lovable and almost tender light behind the eye's sharp twinkle
+and a kindly, humorous twist to the stubborn mouth. Hot temper, the
+physiognomist would have read, and obstinacy. But there the catalogue of
+faults would have ended abruptly. The rest was warm heart, trustfulness,
+eager sympathy,--an almost child-like friendliness toward the world at
+large that forever battled for mastery with native Dutch shrewdness.
+
+There was far more kindness than shrewdness in the square old face just
+now, as Grimm noted his nephew's presence and his deep absorption in the
+contents of the mail. Frederik looked up as Grimm came forward.
+
+"Good-morning, Oom Peter," said he.
+
+"Good-morning, Fritzy," returned Grimm. "Hard at work, I see."
+
+"Not so hard but that you were ahead of me. I felt unpardonably lazy
+when I heard you come downstairs at five."
+
+"I'm sorry I woke you. Youngsters need their sleep. We old fellows have
+done about all the dozing we need to do; and we are coming so close to
+our Long Sleep that God gives us extra wakefulness for the little time
+left; so we may see as much as possible of this glorious old world of
+His."
+
+"I ran over from the office----"
+
+"Oh, I know why you ran over, Fritzy. A word with Kathrien--yes?"
+
+"No, sir, I try to forget everything but work during business hours. I
+came to look for you. I've a suggestion----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Grimm's face lighted with the rare smile that played over its harsh
+outlines like sunshine. Each proof of his nephew's interest in the work
+was as tonic to him.
+
+"I came over," went on Frederik, by hard mental calisthenics creating an
+impromptu suggestion, "to propose that we insert a full-page cut of
+your new tulip in our midsummer floral almanac."
+
+"H'--m!" muttered Grimm doubtfully. "I don't see why we----"
+
+"Oh, sir, the public's expecting it."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Why," now quite at home with his newly evolved notion, "you've no idea
+the stir the tulip has made. We get letters from everywhere----"
+
+"It didn't seem to me anything so extraordinary," said Grimm modestly,
+albeit hugely gratified. "I'll think over the plan. What have you been
+doing all day?"
+
+Frederik glanced at the clock. It registered three minutes before nine.
+
+"Oh, I've had a busy morning," he answered. "In the packing house. Lots
+of orders to attend to. It's never safe to trust the more important ones
+to subordinates."
+
+"That's right," approved Grimm. "Fritzy, it does me good, all through,
+to see you taking hold of the business the way you're doing."
+
+Further praise was cut short by old Marta, the housekeeper, who bustled
+in to attend to her regular nine o'clock duty of winding the
+chain-weighted Dutch clock.
+
+As she drew up the weights with a grate and a whirr that made audible
+conversation quite out of the question, she formed a study, in clothes
+and visage, that might have stepped direct from a Franz Hals canvas.
+
+There was nothing American or modern about the old woman. Nothing about
+her save her face had changed since the day, sixty years back, when an
+earlier Grimm, returning from a visit from the Fatherland, had brought
+her to Grimm Manor as maid for his young American wife. Her task
+accomplished, Marta turned dutifully to courtesy to her master.
+
+"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm_," she saluted him. "_Komt ujuist eut di
+teum?_"
+
+"_Ja_," replied Peter, dropping into the tongue of his fathers, yet with
+an odd twinkle in his little eyes. "_En ik bin hongerig._--Taking her
+morning exercise," he added, noting the performance with the clock
+weights.
+
+"You are always making fun of me!" sniffed Marta, trying not to grin as
+she swept indignantly out of the room.
+
+In her departure she nearly collided with Hartmann who was entering
+from the offices. Seating himself at the desk, dictation pad in hand,
+Hartmann asked:
+
+"Are you ready for me, sir?"
+
+"Yes," answered Grimm.--"No, I'm not. But I will be in a minute. There's
+something I'd forgotten. Wait----"
+
+Cupping his hands about his mouth, Grimm wheeled to face the gallery and
+shouted a curiously high-pitched dissyllable:
+
+"_Ou--hoo!_"
+
+And, as though a sweeter, more silvery echo of the rough old voice, came
+from one of the gallery rooms an answering hail. Kathrien herself
+followed close upon her reply to the familiar signal call.
+
+"Oh, Oom Peter!" she exclaimed, running lightly down the stairs and
+throwing her arms about his neck. "Good-morning. How careless I was not
+to come sooner and make your coffee. I didn't know you were in yet. You
+must be half starved."
+
+She started for the dining-room. But Grimm's arm was about her waist,
+detaining her.
+
+"This is the very busiest little woman you ever saw, Frederik," he
+announced. "She is forever thinking of things to do for me. And I'm
+never remembering to do anything for her."
+
+"Shame!" cried Kathrien, "you do everything in this big world for me,
+Oom Peter, and you know it. I've got everything any girl's heart could
+ask."
+
+"Oh, no, you haven't though," sagely contradicted Grimm. "Before you say
+that, wait till I give you some fine young chap for a husband. Hey,
+Frederik?"
+
+She drew away from his embrace with gentle impatience.
+
+"Don't, Oom Peter," she begged. "You're always talking about weddings
+lately. I don't know what's come over you."
+
+"It's nesting time," Grimm defended himself. "Weddings are in the air.
+And then, I keep thinking of all the linen packed in my grandmother's
+chest upstairs. We must use it again some day. There, there, little
+girl! You shan't be teased any more. Only, I'll leave it to you, Fritzy,
+if she doesn't deserve a grand husband,--this little girl of mine. If
+for no other reason, to pay for all she's done for me."
+
+"Done for you?" laughed Kathrien. "Truly, I was forgetting that. I do
+you the great favour of letting you do everything for me."
+
+"Nonsense! Who lays out my linen and brushes my clothes and fixes
+wonderful little dishes for me, and puts my slippers and dressing gown
+in front of the fire on cold nights, and puts flowers on my desk every
+day? And, best of all, _Kindchen_, who floods this old house of mine
+with the glory of Youth?"
+
+"Youth?" she mocked with the true scorn of the young for their supreme
+gift. "Youth can't do very much. What does it amount to?"
+
+"Nothing much," gravely answered her uncle. "Youth, as you say, is not
+anything worth mentioning. It is only the most priceless and most
+perishable treasure in God's storehouse. It is only the thing that means
+Beauty and Strength and Hope. It is the thing we all despise as long as
+we have it and would give our souls to get back as soon as we have lost
+it. No, as you say, Youth doesn't amount to much. It is only the nearest
+approach to Immortality that mortals have ever known. Why, where should
+I be now,--a grouchy old bachelor like me--without Youth in my house?
+Why, Frederik, this girl has made me feel kindlier toward all other
+women."
+
+"Oh, I have, have I?" demanded Kathrien, "that's more than I bargained
+for."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself," he joked. "It's only the way one feels about a
+pet. One likes all the rest of the breed."
+
+"That's true," broke in Hartmann, throwing himself into the conversation
+on impulse. "It's so. A man studies one girl and then presently he
+begins to notice the same little traits in them all. It makes one feel
+differently toward the rest of them."
+
+He glanced shamefacedly back at his dictation pad as the others turned
+and stared at him in astonishment. But not before he had noted the shy
+smile that crept over Kathrien's face or the unpleasant glint in
+Frederik's pale eyes.
+
+Hartmann so seldom took part in general conversation and was so reticent
+concerning every phase of sentiment, that Grimm was for the moment
+almost as astounded as though one of his own bulbs had burst into
+speech.
+
+"An expert opinion," commented Frederik sneeringly. "And from a
+confirmed bachelor like James!"
+
+"A confirmed bachelor?" Grimm innocently caught up the slur. "What a
+life! I know. I have been one ever since I can remember. When a bachelor
+wants to order a three-rib standing roast, who is to eat it? Why, I
+never had the right sort of a roast on my table until Katje came into
+the family. And now that you're here too, Fritzy, the roasts get bigger.
+But not big enough, even yet. Oh, we must find the husband for----"
+
+"Oom Peter!" protested Kathrien. "You promised you wouldn't tease----"
+
+"Tease?" repeated Grimm, as though he heard the word for the first time.
+"Why, how could you have imagined such a thing, child? I was only
+telling Frederik about the sort of roasts I like on my table. And
+speaking of tables, Fritzy, I like a nice long table with plenty of
+young people at it. And myself at the head, carving and carving, and
+seeing the plates passed round and round and round;--getting them back
+and back and back--There, there, Katje! They shan't tease you. We'll
+keep the table just as it is. For you and Fritz and me. A nice little
+circle. All in the family."
+
+The telephone bell set up a purring. Hartmann picked up the receiver.
+
+"Hello," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Grimm's house.--Yes.--Wait one
+moment, please."
+
+He put his palm over the transmitter and turned to Grimm.
+
+"It's Hicks again, sir," he reported. "He wants to talk more with you
+about buying the business."
+
+"Buying the business, hey?" snorted Grimm in sudden rage. "No! No! I've
+told him ten million times it's not on the market and never will be.
+Tell him so again."
+
+"Mr. Grimm says," called Hartmann into the transmitter, "that the
+business is not for sale. He says--what?--Wait a minute. Mr. Grimm, he
+insists on speaking to you personally."
+
+"He does, hey?" growled Peter, advancing upon the telephone as though
+upon an enemy that must be crushed at a blow.
+
+"Hello!" he roared wrathfully into the instrument. "Hello?--What?--Why,
+my old friend, how are you?--And how are your plum trees doing? Mine,
+too. Well, we can only pray and use Bordeaux Mixture.--What?"
+
+He paused to listen. Then he went on as if to humour a cross child.
+
+"No, no,--it's nonsense. Why, this business has been in the Grimm family
+for over a hundred years. Why should I sell? I'm going to arrange for
+it to stay in the family a hundred years longer.--Hey? What's that?--No,
+no. Of course not. Of course I don't propose to live a hundred years
+longer. But I propose that my plans shall. How can I make certain? Never
+mind how. I'm going to arrange all that. Yes, I know I'm a bachelor. You
+don't need to spend good money on long distance phoning, to remind me of
+that. Oh--good-bye!"
+
+Grimm turned away from the table with a growl, to confront Kathrien.
+
+"Why, girl!" he exclaimed, in quick concern. "You look as if you are
+going to cry. What is it? Tell Oom Peter!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PETER GRIMM HAS A PLAN
+
+
+"That man!" panted Kathrien. "He actually wants to buy our home--our
+gardens! Oh!" slipping for a moment back into the Dutch that was ever
+nearer to her heart than English, "_Stel je zoon brutali tat!_"
+
+"Don't you worry!" consoled Peter. "He won't get a stick or a stone of
+ours. Wouldn't you think that girl had been born a Grimm, Fritzy? She's
+got the true spirit. No, no, dear. Of course we won't sell. Never.
+Never. _Never._ Hey, Fritz?"
+
+"Certainly not!" declared Frederik. "The idea is preposterous."
+
+"Fritzy!" exclaimed Grimm. "Speaking of ideas, I've got one, too. We'll
+print the Grimm history in our new Midsummer Almanac. That's better than
+a full-page cut of any tulip that ever sprouted. Katie, go get the
+Staaten Bible and read it aloud to us. We can tell, then, how it will
+strike the public."
+
+The girl went to the side table where lay the great Bible, drew a chair
+up to it, seated herself, turned over the leaves until she found what
+she sought, then began to read in a manner that argued many previous
+renditions of the quaint old phraseology.
+
+"In the spring of 1709 there settled on Quassic Creek, New York Colony,
+Johann Grimm, aged twenty-two--husbandman and vinedresser. Also,
+Johanna, his wife. To him Queen Anne furnished one square, one rule, one
+compass, two whipping saws, and several small pieces----"
+
+"You left out 'two augers,'" prompted Grimm.
+
+"Yes, 'and two augers.' To him was born a son and----"
+
+"See?" cried Grimm. "That was the foundation of our family and our
+business here. And here we are, still. After seven generations. We'll
+print it. Hey, Fritzy?"
+
+"Certainly, sir," approved Frederik, stifling a yawn with an access of
+filial enthusiasm. "By all means, we'll print it."
+
+"And, Fritzy," continued Grimm, with heavy significance, "we're relying
+on you for the next line in the book."
+
+Frederik glanced around him. Hartmann, during the reading, had gone
+from the room to get some papers he had left at the office. But Kathrien
+still lingered, restoring the Bible to its wonted place.
+
+"Oh, by the way, Oom Peter," said Frederik, lowering his voice so as not
+to reach the girl's ears, "I want to speak to you about a private matter
+when you can spare me a moment. When I come back from the packing house
+will be time enough. I just want to give a glance to those last
+shipments."
+
+"All right, lad," agreed Grimm. "Any time."
+
+He looked fondly after the dapper figure.
+
+"Isn't he a splendid, handsome, hustling young chap, Katje?" he
+demanded. "If only his mother had lived to see him now, wouldn't she
+have been proud of him? And what a complete little family we three
+make!"
+
+"We three?" hesitated the girl.
+
+"Surely. That's all there are of us--at present,--isn't it? I don't
+think I have made a miscount."
+
+"You don't count in James!"
+
+"James?" he queried sharply. "Why should I?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?" she retorted eagerly. "Oom Peter, if you don't
+mind my saying so, I think you're just a little unfair to James. He used
+to have dinner with us nearly every day. Can't you make him a little
+more at home--more like one of the family?"
+
+"Why, you good, unselfish little girl!" applauded Grimm. "You think of
+everybody. James is----"
+
+Hartmann came in with several newly typed letters to be signed, and
+Grimm turned to meet him with something akin to cordiality.
+
+"James," said he, "will you have dinner with us to-day?"
+
+"Why, yes," answered Hartmann, in pleased surprise. "Certainly. Thank
+you very much. Will you glance over these and sign them?" he added,
+wondering at the grateful smile Kathrien flashed at Peter as she passed
+into the dining-room and left the two men alone together.
+
+Grimm, too, wondered a little at the warmth of the girl's smile.
+
+"She has bloomed out lately like a rose," he mused as he looked over the
+letters the secretary proffered him.
+
+"Yes, sir!" involuntarily agreed Hartmann.
+
+"So you've noticed it, too?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann stiffly as he recovered his self-control.
+
+"_Ach!_" murmured Grimm, as he signed letter after letter and passed
+them over to Hartmann for sealing. "What a grip she has taken on my
+heart! A good girl, James. A good little girl. And I've sheltered her,
+ever since she came to me, as I shelter my violets from the cold. That's
+as it should be, hey?"
+
+"Y-e-s,--in a way."
+
+"What's that?" bristled Grimm, looking up at the unexpected answer to
+the question that had seemed to him to require none. "What do you mean?
+Oh, speak out, man!" as the secretary hesitated. "Never be afraid to
+express an honest opinion."
+
+"I mean just this. No one can shape any one else's life. All people
+should be made to understand that they are--free."
+
+"Free? Nonsense! Katje's free. Free as air. Do you mean to tell me a
+girl should be more free than she is? We must think for young people who
+can't think for themselves. And no girl can."
+
+"But I believe----"
+
+"Bah! Who cares what _you_ believe. James, I'm sometimes afraid you're
+just a little bit set in your ways;--almost obstinate."
+
+"But in this," stoutly maintained Hartmann, "I know I'm right. We can't
+think for other people any more than we can eat or sleep for them. Every
+happy creature is bound, by nature, to lead its own life. And, first of
+all, it must be _free_!"
+
+"James," asked Grimm in amused contempt, "where on earth do you get
+these wild ideas?"
+
+"By reading what modern thinkers write, sir."
+
+"H'--m! I thought so. Change your mental diet. There's a set of Jost
+Vanden Vandell over on the shelves. Read it. Cultivate sentiment."
+
+Hartmann shrugged his big shoulders and went on sealing and stamping
+letters. But Grimm would not let this topic drop so easily.
+
+"Free!" he scoffed. "Maybe you've thought you noticed Katje was not
+happy?"
+
+"No, sir. I can't honestly say I have."
+
+"I should think not!" chimed in Peter. "These are the happiest hours of
+her whole life. Don't I know? Can't I tell? Don't I know her and love
+her better than any one else does? She's happy. Beautifully happy. And
+why shouldn't she be? She's young. She's in love. She's soon to be
+married. What girl wouldn't be happy?"
+
+There was a long pause. Peter was reading over the last letter of the
+budget. Hartmann was staring at him aghast.
+
+"Soon to be married?" breathed the secretary when he could steady his
+voice. "Then--then it's all settled, sir?"
+
+"No," replied Peter. "But it soon will be. _I'm_ going to settle it. Any
+one can see how she feels toward Frederik."
+
+"But," faltered Hartmann lamely, "isn't she very--very _young_ to be
+married?"
+
+"Not when she marries into the family. Not when _I'm_ here to watch over
+her. You see--Sit down again, James. I like to talk about it to some one
+who is interested. And you _are_ interested, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the secretary managed to say.
+
+"Very good. Now, in following out my plans----"
+
+"Oom Peter," called Kathrien from the dining-room, "I have your coffee
+all ready. Shall I bring it in?"
+
+"By and by, dear. By and by. I am busy now. I'll let you know. Shut the
+door, won't you?"
+
+She obeyed. And to the hungrily watching secretary it seemed as if the
+door were closing, in his very face, upon the gates of Paradise.
+
+"In following my plans," Grimm was repeating, "I've had to be pretty
+shrewd and secretive. For it wouldn't do to let either of them suspect
+too soon. And I flatter myself they didn't. Here's my notion. I made up
+in my mind to keep Katje in the family. I'm a rich man. And so I've had
+to guard against young fellows who would dangle around after a girl for
+her money. I've guarded that point rather well. The whole town, for
+instance, understands that Katje hasn't a penny. Doesn't it?"
+
+"I believe so."
+
+"I've made a number of wills. But I've destroyed them all, one after
+another. And any time any of her boy friends called, I've--well, I've
+had business that kept me here in the room. When she goes to a dance,
+how does she go? With _me_. When she goes to the theatre, how does she
+go? With _me_. When she has had candy or any other present, who gave it
+to her? _I_ did. And so it has been from the first. Every
+pleasure--she's had 'em all. And she had 'em all from _me_. What's the
+result? She's perfectly happy and----"
+
+"But," argued Hartmann, "did you want her to be happy simply because
+_you_ were happy? Didn't you want her to be happy because _she_----?"
+
+"So long as she is happy," retorted Grimm, "why should I care what does
+it?"
+
+"If she's happy," repeated the secretary.
+
+"If she's happy?" mocked Grimm, his Dutch temper beginning to smoulder
+behind his gentle, obstinate little eyes. "If? What do you mean? That's
+the second time you've--Why do you harp on that _if_?"
+
+His voice rose threateningly. The silver grey mane on his head bristled
+like a boar's. Hartmann rose and started quietly for the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" shouted Grimm.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said the secretary, continuing his doorward progress.
+
+"Come back here!" ordered Grimm fiercely. "Come back here, I say! Sit
+down! So! Now, tell me what you mean! What do you know--or _think_ you
+know?"
+
+"Mr. Grimm," answered Hartmann, cornered and desperate, "you are the
+greatest living authority on tulips. You can perform miracles with them.
+But you can't mate people as you graft tulips. You can't do it. More
+than once I have caught Miss Katie crying. And I've----"
+
+"Pooh!" snorted Grimm. "Caught her crying, have you? Of course. So have
+I. What does that amount to? Was there ever a girl that didn't cry? All
+women cry until they have something to cry about. Then they're too busy
+_living_ to waste time in such luxuries as tears. Why, time and time
+again, I've asked her why she was crying. And always she'd answer: 'For
+no reason at all. For nothing.' And that is the answer. They love to
+cry. But that's what they all cry over;--'Nothing!'"
+
+Hartmann did not answer. Grimm's gust of anger had been blown away by
+the wind of his own words. He went on in a half-amused reminiscent tone:
+
+"James, did I ever tell you how I happened to get Katje? She was
+prescribed for me by Dr. McPherson."
+
+"Prescribed?"
+
+"Yes, just that. As an antidote for getting to be a fussy old bachelor
+with queer notions in my head. And the cure worked to perfection. When
+my old friend Staats died----"
+
+"Oh, yes, I've often heard----"
+
+But Peter Grimm was no more to be balked in the repetition of his
+favourite narrative merely because his hearer chanced to be familiar
+with its every detail, than he would have been balked in hearing the
+Grimm genealogy re-read for the thousandth time.
+
+"When my old friend Staats died," he said, "McPherson brought Staats's
+motherless baby over here; and he said: 'Peter, this is what you need in
+the house.' Those were his very words: 'Peter, this is what you need in
+the house.' And, sure enough, the very first time I carried her up those
+stairs over there, all my fine, cranky, crotchety bachelor notions flew
+out of my head. I knew then, in a flash, that all my knowledge and all
+my queer ideas of life were just humbug! I had missed the Child in the
+House. Yes,"--his voice dropped with a strain of soft regret,--"I had
+missed _many_ children in the house. James, I was born in that little
+room up there. The room I sleep in. And one day, please God, Katje's
+children shall play in the room where I was born."
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Hartmann as Grimm ceased,--and the secretary's voice
+and words grated like a file on the old man's tender mood,--"it's a very
+pretty picture--if it turns out at all the way you are trying to paint
+it."
+
+"How can it turn out wrong?" demanded Peter, in fresh irritation.
+"What's the matter with the way I'm 'painting the picture'?"
+
+"From your standpoint, as I say, it's very pretty. But it's more than a
+mere question of sentiment. Her children can play anywhere."
+
+"What? You're talking rubbish! I pick out a husband _here_--and her
+children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw,"
+turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear
+secrets to a dolt like you."
+
+"Perhaps," assented Hartmann, quite unruffled, as he set to work
+enveloping some seed catalogues that lay on the table. Grimm evidently
+was about to pursue the flying foe with fresh invective. But Marta came
+in from the kitchen, and, with her, Willem. At sight of the boy, Grimm's
+frown softened into a smile of welcome.
+
+"_Come seg huge moroche tegen, Mynheer Grimm_," said Marta, while
+Willem, walking over to Peter, held out a thin little hand in greeting,
+with the salutation:
+
+"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm._"
+
+"_Huge moroche, Willem_," replied Grimm kindly, pressing the boy's hand.
+
+"I'm all ready to take the flowers over to the rectory," announced
+Willem, drifting into English.
+
+"If you're tired after going to the station, Otto can take them," said
+Grimm.
+
+"Oh, I'm not a bit tired."
+
+"And you're getting real well again?"
+
+"_Ja, Mynheer._ The doctor says I'm all right now."
+
+"That's good. Tell Otto to give you a _big_ armful of flowers for the
+rectory. A _big_ armful, remember."
+
+Marta's grandmotherly gaze fancied it detected a twist in the boy's
+neatly tied cravat. So she swooped down upon him and bore him away to
+the window seat, where her blurring eyes would have light enough to
+readjust the tie to her satisfaction. Grimm, with a quick glance to make
+sure they were not in earshot, tapped Hartmann on the shoulder and
+whispered:
+
+"There's a nice result of the 'freedom' you said young girls ought to
+have. Marta's Anne Marie had nothing but freedom. She was the worst
+spoiled child in town. Marta let her come and go as she pleased. Come
+and go--Heaven knows where. And Heaven knows where the poor shamed girl
+is now. Every time I look at Willem," raising his voice to normal pitch
+as Marta and her grandson passed into the kitchen, "I realise how right
+I've been in the way I've brought up Katje. H'--m! Want me to give Katje
+a chance for more freedom, do you? Why----"
+
+"Mr. Grimm," interrupted Hartmann, suddenly getting to his feet and
+facing his employer, "I'd like to be transferred to your Florida
+headquarters. At once, if it is convenient to you. I want to work out in
+the open for a while."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Grimm dumfounded. "Florida? At this time of the year?
+And you were so glad to get back here to--Pshaw! You've just got a
+cranky fit on you, lad. Get rid of it. Put on your overalls and go out
+and potter around among those beloved vegetables of yours. Change your
+ideas, I say. Change the whole lot of them. They're all wrong. You don't
+know _what_ you want."
+
+Hartmann's lips were parted for a retort. But he closed them, turned on
+his heel, and left the room. Grimm shook his head as over a problem he
+could not solve and did not greatly care to. Then he fell to sorting a
+box full of bulbs.
+
+But in a minute or two he was interrupted by Frederik.
+
+"I saw Hartmann crossing the yard," said the younger man, "so I stepped
+over for a little chat with you, if you've time to listen to me."
+
+"I've always got time to listen to you, Fritzy," replied Grimm, still
+busy with his bulbs. "It'll be a relief after that pig-headed James.
+Lord, how I do hate an obstinate man! You said a while ago you wanted to
+see me on a private matter. What was it? If it's that full-page coloured
+cut of the new tulip, I may as well tell you----"
+
+"It isn't. It's about your pig-headed friend, James."
+
+"James? What about him?"
+
+"Just this, Oom Peter: I think he is interested in Kathrien."
+
+"Who? James? Bah! You're dreaming. That's just like a lover. Thinks
+every one is trying to steal his sweetheart. Why, James is too much
+wrapped up in his work to care about anything else. His work and his
+crazy theories that he gets out of books. Interested in Kathrien? Just
+to show you how foolish you are to think that, he asked me not five
+minutes ago to transfer him to the Florida headquarters. And, even if he
+weren't so absorbed in the business, he'd never even presume to think of
+Kathrien. It's preposterous!"
+
+"Is it?" said Frederik, quite unconvinced. "Yet I've reason to believe
+he has been making love to her."
+
+There was a quiet certainty in his nephew's voice that caught Grimm's
+reluctant credence.
+
+"We'll find out mighty soon," he declared. "Katje!"
+
+"No, no!" expostulated Frederik. "It would be better not to bring her
+into it or give her the idea that----"
+
+"Katje!"
+
+"Yes, Oom Peter," answered the girl, hurrying in from the dining-room in
+response to the bellowed summons. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Katje," began the old man in visible embarrassment, "has--has
+James----?"
+
+"What?" queried Kathrien, as Grimm paused and broke into a shamefaced
+laugh.
+
+"Has--has James ever shown any special interest in you? Ever made love
+to you, or----?"
+
+"Oh, Oom Peter!" expostulated Kathrien, reddening to the roots of her
+hair. "Whatever gave you such an idea as that?"
+
+"Nothing at all," he answered her. "It was just a bit of silly nonsense.
+A joke. I can't help teasing you. Because you blush so prettily.
+But--but _has_ he?"
+
+"Why, of course not. I've always known James. Ever since I can remember.
+He's never shown any interest in me that he ought not to,--if that's
+what you mean. He's always been _very_ respectful; in a perfectly--a
+perfectly friendly way."
+
+She was scarlet and stammering. But Grimm apparently did not notice her
+confusion.
+
+"Respectful," he repeated musingly. "In a perfectly friendly way. Surely
+we couldn't ask for anything more than that. Thank you, little girl.
+That's all I wanted to know. Run along."
+
+Casting a puzzled look at Grimm and then at Frederik--who, since she
+first entered the room had been seated near the window, deeply absorbed
+in a book,--Kathrien returned to her work in the other part of the
+house.
+
+Grimm's kind eyes had never for an instant left her troubled face, nor
+had they failed to note her evident relief at escaping from the room. As
+the door closed behind her, the kindly look faded from the old eyes,
+leaving them hard and cold. The firm jaw set more tightly. Yet, as he
+turned toward Frederik, there was no trace in his tone of anything but
+pleasant banter.
+
+"There, Fritzy!" said he. "You see James was only 'respectful to her in
+a perfectly friendly way.' I hope you are quite satisfied?"
+
+"I am," answered Frederik. "Quite. In fact I'm every bit as satisfied as
+you are, uncle."
+
+Grimm sat very still for a moment or so, staring blindly into space, his
+head on his breast. Then, with a sigh, he roused himself. Reaching for
+the telephone he called up his office.
+
+"Send Mr. Hartmann over here," he commanded.
+
+He set down the instrument and resumed his blank stare into nothingness.
+Frederik was once more wholly engrossed in the book he was not reading.
+Hartmann broke in upon the strained silence.
+
+"You sent for me, sir?" he asked, his breezy bigness waking the still
+room to life.
+
+"Yes," replied Peter Grimm. "James, it has occurred to me--to ask--it
+has occurred to me that--James, please tell me your reason for asking a
+few minutes ago to be transferred to Florida?"
+
+James made no immediate reply. He seemed ransacking his mind for the
+right words. Grimm eyed him closely, asking with sudden directness:
+
+"Was it on account of my little girl?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann.
+
+The secretary's confusion had fled. Calm, self-contained, flinching not
+at all from the shrewd, searching eyes that were fixed on his own, he
+stood awaiting the breaking of the storm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A WARNING AND A THEORY
+
+
+But, to Hartmann's surprise, the storm did not break. Instead, Peter
+Grimm sat gazing at him with impassive face,--gazing long and without a
+word. And when at last Grimm spoke, the old man's voice was as
+emotionless as his face.
+
+"You love her?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Hartmann, as calmly as though stating some fact in
+botany.
+
+"H'--m!" rumbled Grimm, half to himself. "_Ja vis! Ja vis!_"
+
+Hartmann still waited for the storm. And still it did not come.
+
+"You love her?" repeated Grimm. "Does she know?"
+
+"No. She doesn't know. She need never know. I had not meant to say a
+word to any one."
+
+Grimm rose and came toward him. The hard face was gentle again. The
+inquisitorial voice was once more kindly.
+
+"James," said the old man, "go to the office and get your money. Then
+start for Florida headquarters. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, sir," replied James, grasping the outstretched hand. "I'm
+very sorry."
+
+"I'm sorry, too, James. Good-bye!"
+
+As Hartmann left the room, Grimm turned to Frederik, and his eyes were
+full of pain.
+
+"_That_ is settled, thank Heaven!" he announced; but there was no
+jubilance in his voice. "I wish--Hello, there's old McPherson!"
+
+Glad to divert his mind he hurried to the front door to welcome the
+visitor and drew him into the room with friendly roughness.
+
+Dr. McPherson would have borne the stamp, "Family physician of the Old
+School," even had he been found in the ranks of the Matabele army. Big,
+shaggy, bearded, he was of the ancient and puissant type that, under the
+tidal wave of "specialism" is fast being swept towards the shores where
+live the last survivors of the Great Auk, the Dinosaur, and the Spread
+Eagle Orator tribes.
+
+"Good-morning, Peter," hailed the doctor, a Scotch burr faintly rasping
+his bluff voice. "Morning, Fred. I passed young Hartmann at the gate. He
+looks as if he was taking a pleasure trip to his own funeral. What ails
+him?"
+
+No one answered.
+
+"He's about the finest lad that ever I brought into the world. What's
+happened to make him so----? Good-morning, Kathrien," he broke off, as
+the girl, followed by Marta, came in with Grimm's long delayed
+breakfast.
+
+"Good-morning, Doctor," she answered. "Oom Peter, you forgot to send for
+this. So I----"
+
+"What's that?" roared McPherson, sniffing the air like a bull that
+scents an enemy. "Coffee? Why, damn it, Peter, I forbade you to touch
+coffee. It's rank poison to you. And you know it is. I told you----"
+
+"Wouldn't you like a cup, Doctor?" asked Kathrien innocently.
+
+"I----"
+
+"Of course he'll take a cup," interrupted Grimm. "He'll damn it. But
+he'll drink it."
+
+"And look here!" proceeded McPherson, pointing an accusing finger at the
+breakfast tray. "Waffles! Actually _waffles_! And after I told you----"
+
+"Yes, Katje," explained Grimm, "he'll damn the waffles, too. But, if you
+watch closely, you'll notice he'll eat some. Sit down, Andrew."
+
+"I tell you," fumed the doctor, "I didn't come here to encourage you, by
+my example, in wrecking your system. I came for a serious talk with you,
+Peter."
+
+Kathrien, at the hint, discreetly effaced herself. Frederik followed her
+example.
+
+"Well? well?" queried Peter in mock despair, seating himself opposite
+his old crony and tyrant. "What new horrors of diet have you thought up
+for my misery? Out with it. Let me know the worst."
+
+"It isn't your body this time, Peter," was the troubled answer. "It's
+something that means more. The matter's been keeping me awake all night.
+Tell me:--how is every one provided for in this house?"
+
+"Provided for?" echoed Peter in bewilderment. "How do you mean?
+Everybody gets enough to eat and we are----"
+
+"Why, you don't understand me. You're a wonderful man for making plans,
+Peter. But what have you done?"
+
+"Done?"
+
+"If you--if you were to die--say to-morrow, or--or any other time," went
+on the doctor with an effort at carelessness that sat on his rough
+honesty as ill as his Sunday broadcloth adorned his rugged shoulders,
+"if you--die--unexpectedly,--how would it be with the rest of them
+here?"
+
+Grimm set down his coffee cup with slow precision. And slowly he raised
+his eyes to McPherson's worried gaze.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked with something very like awe in his tone.
+"If I were to die to-morrow----"
+
+"You won't!" declared McPherson emphatically. "You won't. So don't
+worry. You're good for a long time yet. A score of years, perhaps.
+You're all right, if you take decent care of yourself. Which you never
+do. But we've all got to come to it, sooner or later. And it's well to
+make provision. For instance, what would Kathrien's position be in this
+house, in case you were taken out of it? Kathrien is a little
+'prescription' of mine, you'll remember. And--I suppose your heart is
+still set on her marrying Frederik, so that what is one's will be the
+other's. Personally I've always thought it was rather a pity that
+Frederik wasn't James and James wasn't Frederik."
+
+"Eh?" cried Peter. "What's that?"
+
+"It's none of my business," answered McPherson. "And it's all very well
+as it stands--if she wants Frederik. But if you want to do anything for
+_her_ future welfare, take my advice, and do it _now_."
+
+"You mean," Peter said evenly, between stiffening lips, "you mean that I
+could--die?"
+
+"Every one can," replied McPherson with elephantine lightness. "And at
+one time or another, every one does. It's a thing to be prepared for."
+
+"One moment," urged Grimm, the keen little eyes piercing the other's
+badly woven cloak of indifference. "You think that I----!"
+
+"I mean nothing more nor less, Peter, than that the machinery is wearing
+out. There's absolutely no cause for apprehension. Still, I thought I
+had better tell you."
+
+"But," asked Grimm with a pathetic insistence, "if there's no cause for
+apprehension----?"
+
+"Listen, Peter: when I cured you of that cold the other day--the cold
+you got by tramping around like an idiot among the wet flower-beds
+without rubbers--I made a discovery of--of something I can't cure."
+
+Grimm studied his friend's unreadable face for an instant with an almost
+painful intensity. Then a smile swept away the worry from his own
+visage.
+
+"Oh, Andrew, you old croaking Scotch raven," he cried. "Your
+professional ways will be the death of some one yet. But the 'some one'
+won't be Peter Grimm. That sick bed manner is splendid for bullying old
+maids into taking their tonic. But it's wasted on a grown man. No, no,
+Andrew. You can't make _me_ out an invalid. You doctors are a sorry lot.
+You pour medicines of which you know little into systems of which you
+know nothing. You condemn people to death as the old Inquisition would
+have blushed to. Why, every day we read in the papers about some frisky
+boy a hundred years old whom the doctors gave up for lost when he was
+twenty-five. And," the forced gaiety in his voice merging into
+aggressive resolve, "I'm going to live to see children in this old house
+of mine. Katje's babies creeping about this very floor; sliding down
+those bannisters over there, pulling the ears of Lad, my collie."
+
+"Good Lord, Peter! That dog is fifteen years old _now_! Argue yourself
+into miraculous longevity if you want to. But don't argue old Lad into
+it. Do you expect _nothing_ will ever change in your home?"
+
+"Perhaps," agreed Peter, with unshaken defiance. "But not before I live
+to see a new line of rosy-faced, fluffy-haired little Grimms."
+
+McPherson leaned back with a sigh of discouragement. Then, with
+professional insight, he noted for the first time the gallant fight the
+old man opposite him was making to keep up that obstinate gay courage
+whose outward expression had so irritated the doctor. And, all at once,
+McPherson ceased to become the gruff friend and assumed the rôle that
+Ananias's physician probably acquired from his famous patient and which,
+most assuredly, he has handed down to all his medical successors.
+
+"I see no reason, Peter," said he with judicial ponderousness, "why you
+shouldn't reach a ripe old age. You're quite likely to outlive me and a
+host of younger men. Only, take better care of yourself. And,--no matter
+how many probable years of life a man has before him, it does him no
+harm to set his house in order. Think over that part of my advice and
+forget the rest of it."
+
+"Forget the rest of it," echoed Grimm absently. "The rest----"
+
+McPherson hesitated; then as though overcome by a temptation too strong
+for him to battle against, he blurted out half-shamefacedly:
+
+"Peter--don't laugh at me. I want to make a strange compact with you. As
+I've told you, you're quite likely to outlive me. But--will you agree
+that whichever of us happens to--to go first,--shall come back and--and
+let the other fellow know? Let the other fellow know; so as to settle
+the Great Question once and for all?"
+
+Grimm stared at him for a moment. Then he set the room ringing with a
+laugh of whose mocking heartiness there could be no doubt.
+
+"Oh, Andrew! Andrew!" he cried, when he could get his breath. "Still
+riding your one crazy hobby! And you so sane in other ways!"
+
+"But you'll make the compact?" begged McPherson. "You're a man of your
+word,----"
+
+"Make a compact to----? Oh, no, no, man. _No!_ I'd be ashamed to have
+people know I was such a fool."
+
+"But," urged the doctor, "no one else need know anything about it. It'll
+be just between ourselves."
+
+"No, no, dear old Andrew," laughed Grimm indulgently. "Positively _no_!
+I refuse, point-blank. I'll do you any favour in reason. But I draw the
+line at being dragged into any of your absurd spook tests."
+
+"You sneer at 'spooks,' as you call them," retorted the doctor. "Most
+people do. Just as people scoffed when Columbus told them there was an
+America. But how many times do you think _you_ have seen a spook,
+yourself?"
+
+"A spook? I can't remember that I ever----"
+
+"Yes, a ghost."
+
+"A ghost," repeated Grimm with the utmost solemnity and wrinkling his
+forehead as in an effort of memory. "I can't just now recall----"
+
+"That's right! Make fun of me! But you can't tell that man is
+complete--that he doesn't live more than one life;--that the soul
+doesn't pass on and on. Smile if you like. Wiser men than yourself have
+believed it. Why, man alive, every human being is surcharged with a
+persistent personal energy. And that energy must continue forever."
+
+"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!" exclaimed Kathrien, coming in with a fresh supply
+of hot waffles. "Have you started on spooks again?"
+
+"Yes, Katje," sighed Peter dolorously. "There can be no possible
+redeeming doubt about that. He's started."
+
+"And," laughed the girl, "I wasn't on hand to hear him. Have I missed
+very much of it?"
+
+"No," answered her uncle. "We're still in the painful early stages of
+the squabble. I'll tell you what I'll do, Andrew: I'll compromise with
+you. Instead of making the bargain you proposed, I'll stand aside and
+let _you_ go ahead of me into the next world. Then you can come back at
+your leisure and keep the spook compact. It'll be quite interesting.
+Every time a knock sounds or a chair creaks or a door bangs or Lad
+growls in his sleep, I'll strike an attitude and say: 'Ssh! There's
+Doc!'"
+
+"Don't guy me, old friend," urged McPherson. "I'm entirely serious. I'll
+make the promise and I want _you_ to make it, too. Understand, I'm no
+so-called Spiritist. I'm just a groping seeker after the Truth."
+
+"That's what they all say," scoffed Grimm. "Seekers after the truth! And
+madly eager to believe everything they hear or read _except_ the
+commonsense truth. And you, a level-headed Scotchman, old enough to be
+your own father, actually gulp down such tomfoolery! Next we'll have you
+chasing around the streets at night, looking with a dark lantern for the
+bogey man."
+
+"Laugh at me if you like. I know I'm right. I know the dead _are_ alive.
+They're here. Right here. They're all about us, watching us, suffering
+with us, rejoicing with us, trying no doubt to speak the warnings and
+encouragements that our world-deafened mortal ears cannot hear. I'm not
+alone in the theory. Some of the greatest scientists--the wisest men of
+the century--are of the same opinion."
+
+"Dreamers," smiled Grimm indulgently. "Dreamers like yourself."
+
+"Dreamers, eh?" The doctor caught him up vehemently. "_Dreamers?_ You
+can't call Sir William Crookes, the inventor of the Crookes' Tubes, a
+dreamer! No, nor Sir Oliver Lodge, the great biologist; or Curie, who
+discovered radium; or Dr. Lombroso, the founder of the science of
+criminology. Are Maxwell, Dr. Vesine, Richet, and our own American, Dr.
+Hyslop, _dreamers_? Why, even Professor James, the mighty Harvard
+psychologist, took a peep at ghosts. And, instead of laughing at
+'spooks,' the big scientific men are trying to lay hold of them. I tell
+you, Peter, Science is just beginning to peer through the half-open door
+that a few years ago was shut tight."
+
+"Trying to lay hold of ghosts, are they?" said Grimm. "I'd like to lay
+hold of one. I'd lug it to the nearest police station. That's the place
+for 'em. Just as the asylum's the place for folks who believe in 'em.
+When you 'pass over,' Andrew, you'd better not come back. You won't
+enjoy prowling around a world where sane people don't believe you
+exist."
+
+"Peter," reproved McPherson, "I'm sorry--very, _very_ sorry--that you
+and others like you think it's smart to make a joke of something you
+can't understand. Hyslop was right when he said Man will spend millions
+of dollars to discover the North Pole, but not one cent to throw a ray
+of light upon his immortal destiny."
+
+"And, after the millions of times they've been exposed, you blame me for
+not joining in your belief in spook mediums!"
+
+"A lot of mediums are humbugs, I grant you. Just as there are fakers in
+every profession. If there were no such thing as real money, there would
+be no object in making counterfeits. And some of the mediums have proven
+clearly that they are capable of real demonstrations."
+
+"They are, hey? What's the use of mediums at all if the dead can really
+come back? If my friends who have died return to earth, why don't they
+walk straight up to me and say, 'Well, Peter Grimm. Here we are!' When
+they do that, I shall gladly be the first man to take off my hat to them
+and hold out my hand. But as long as they have to employ greasy mediums
+to make their presence known, and try to prove they are with me by
+knocking on tables and tipping chairs and scratching on slates, there is
+only one of two things to believe: Either mediums are fakes, or else
+folks all become imbecile practical jokers as soon as they die."
+
+"Imbecile practical jokers!" repeated Kathrien, shocked.
+
+"Yes," reiterated Peter Grimm. "That's what I said. And it's a mild way
+of putting it. Would any sane man play such tricks as the spiritualists
+attribute to our dead? It shatters every thought of the majesty of
+death. Would a sane _live_ man walk into my house and announce his
+presence to me by rapping on a wall or tipping a table or scrawling
+idiotic messages on a slate or talking to me through some half-educated
+'medium'? Would he----?"
+
+"Yes, he would!" asserted the doctor. "He'd do all those things and
+more, if he couldn't make you see him or hear him in any other way. As
+to mediums,--why doesn't a telegram travel through the air as well as on
+a wire? Your friends could come back to you in the old way if you could
+but put yourself in a receptive condition. But you can't. So you must
+depend on a non-professional medium,--a 'sensitive'----"
+
+"See, Katje," interpolated Grimm, "he has names for them all. All neatly
+classified like so many germs in a bottle. Well, Andrew, how many ghosts
+did you see last night? He has only to shut his eyes, Katje, and along
+comes the parade. Spooks! Spooks! Spooks! Nice, grisly, shivering,
+spooky spooks! And now he wants me to put my house in order and settle
+up my affairs and join the parade."
+
+"Settle your affairs?" asked Kathrien puzzled.
+
+"Oh, it's just his nonsense," Grimm hastened to assure her.
+"Andrew,"--he hurried on to turn the subject from dangerous
+personalities,--"you've seen a whole lot of people pass over to the
+Other Side. In fact, your patients seem to have quite a habit of doing
+that. Tell me: did you ever see one out of all that number come back
+again? Just _one_?"
+
+"No," answered McPherson reluctantly. "I never did, but----"
+
+"No," cried Grimm in triumph, "and what's more, you never will. Yet
+you----"
+
+"There was not perhaps the intimate bond between doctor and patients to
+bring them back to me. But in my own family, I've known of a 'return'
+such as you speak of. A distant cousin of mine died in London. And at
+almost that very instant, she was seen in New York."
+
+"Rubbish!"
+
+"Rubbish? Why? A century ago, if any one had tried to describe the
+telephone, people of your sort would have grunted 'Rubbish!' But if my
+voice can carry thousands of miles over the telephone, why cannot a
+soul, with God-given force behind it, dart over the entire universe? Is
+Thomas Edison greater than God?"
+
+"Oh, Doctor," gasped the horrified Kathrien.
+
+"And what's more," rushed on McPherson, unheeding, "they can't lay it
+all to telepathy. In the case of a spirit message giving the contents of
+a sealed letter known only to the person who has died--telepathy, eh?
+Not a bit of it. Here's a case you must have heard of, Peter. An officer
+on the Polar vessel _Jeannette_ sent out by a New York newspaper,
+appeared one night at his wife's bedside. She was in Brooklyn. She knew
+perfectly well that he was on the Polar Sea. He said to her: 'Count!'
+Then she distinctly heard a ship's bell and her husband's voice saying
+again, 'Count!' She had counted 'six' when his voice said: 'Six bells!
+And the _Jeannette_ is lost!' The ship, it turned out later, was really
+lost at the very time the woman had the vision. There! Account for
+_that_ by telepathy or trickery if you can!"
+
+"A bad dream!" was Grimm's unshaken verdict. "I have them every now and
+then. 'Six bells and'--suet pudding brings me messages from the North
+Pole. And I can get messages from Kingdom Come when I've had half a hot
+mince pie with melted cheese on it for supper. That disposes of your
+_Jeannette_ case."
+
+"Scoff if you like. There have been more than seventeen thousand other
+cases which the London Society of Psychical Research has found worth
+investigating."
+
+"Well, Andrew," asked Grimm, with a covert wink at Kathrien, "supposing,
+for the sake of argument, that I _did_ want to 'come back,' how could I
+manage it?"
+
+At the question the doctor's rising irritation at the other's friendly
+mockery was swept away by the zeal of prospective proselyting.
+
+"In this way, Peter," he declared. "Let me make it clear as simply as I
+can. In hypnotism our thoughts take possession of the person we
+hypnotise. When our personalities enter their bodies, something goes out
+of them:--a sort of Shadow Self. This 'Self' can be sent out of the
+room--out of the house--even to a long distance. This 'Self' is the
+force that, I firmly believe, departs from us entirely on the first or
+second or third day after death. This is the force you could send back.
+The astral envelope. Do I make it plain?"
+
+"Plain? Plain as a flower in the mud on a dark night. But how do you
+know _I've_ got an--'envelope'?"
+
+"Every one has. Why, De Roche has actually photographed one, by means of
+radio-photography."
+
+Grimm lay back in his chair and shouted aloud with laughter.
+
+"Mind you," went on McPherson, laboriously anxious to make clear his
+point, "they could not see it when they were photographing it."
+
+"No, I should imagine not. Nor the picture after it was taken. But in
+other respects, I don't doubt it was a splendid likeness."
+
+"Wait, before you try to be funny. Wait till I tell you about it. This
+'envelope' or Shadow Self stood a few feet away from the sleeper. It was
+invisible, of course, to the eye. It was only located by striking the
+air and watching for the corresponding portion of the sleeper's body to
+recoil. By pricking a certain part of the Shadow Self with a pin, the
+cheek of the patient could be made to bleed. It was at that spot that
+the camera was focussed for fifteen minutes! The result was----"
+
+"A spoiled film."
+
+"No, the profile of a head!" contradicted Dr. McPherson.
+
+Grimm stared at him wonderingly.
+
+"And you actually _believe_ such idiocy?" he demanded.
+
+"It isn't a mere question of belief," declared McPherson, "but of
+absolute _knowledge_. De Roche, who took the picture, is not a fraud,
+but a lawyer of high standing. A room full of famous scientists saw the
+picture taken."
+
+"If they were honest, they were hypnotised."
+
+"Perhaps you think the camera was hypnotised, too," retorted the doctor.
+"Lombroso says that once under similar circumstances an unnatural
+current of cold air went through the room and lowered the thermometer
+several degrees. These are _facts_. Can you hypnotise a thermometer?"
+
+"Oh, isn't that wonderful?" breathed Kathrien.
+
+Grimm patted her shoulder gently, smiling as one might smile who sees a
+dearly loved child taken in by a wonder-story. Then he turned to
+McPherson, the banter in face and voice changed to mild reproof.
+
+"No, Andrew," said he, reaching for his long meerschaum pipe and holding
+its coffee-brown bowl lovingly between his thick fingers, as he
+proceeded to fill it from a pouch on the mantel, "No, Andrew. I refuse
+your compact. I'll have no part or parcel in it. Because it's an
+impossible thing you ask of me. We don't come back. One cannot pick the
+lock of Heaven's gate. It is no part of our terms with the Almighty. God
+did enough for _us_ when He gave us life and gave us the strength to
+work, and then gave us work to do. He owes us no explanation. I'll take
+my chances on the old-fashioned Paradise--with a locked gate. No bogies
+for me."
+
+With another reassuring smile at Kathrien as she went out with the tray
+of breakfast things, he lighted his pipe and repeated musingly:
+
+"No bogies for me, I say. Who are _you_ that you should take the Kingdom
+of Heaven by violence? Why," he broke out, "what ails you, man?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A QUEER COMPACT
+
+
+"Have you done?" rasped McPherson. "Have you quite done?"
+
+"Why, what----?"
+
+"Then listen to me. Abuse is not argument. Neither is silly mockery. I
+console myself with the thought that men have laughed at the theory of
+the earth going round, and at vaccination, and lightning rods, and
+magnetism, and daguerreotypes, and steamboats, and cars, and telephones,
+and at the theory of the circulation of the blood, and at wireless
+telegraphy, and at flying in the air. So your gibing is forgivable.
+_But_--I'm very, _very_ much disappointed, Peter, that so old a friend
+should refuse such a simple request. I'll be wishing you a very good
+day."
+
+"Hold on, Andrew! Hold on!" cried Grimm, hastily setting down his pipe
+and hurrying forward to intercept his angrily departing guest. "Man,
+man, can't you keep your temper? I didn't mean to rile you. Come back.
+If you take the thing so seriously, I'll--I'll make the compact with
+you. Here's my hand on it. I know you're an old fool. And I'm another.
+So we're both in bad company. Shake hands. Now then! Whichever of us
+_does_ go first is to come back and try to make himself known to the
+other. And----"
+
+A fit of uncontrollable laughter cut across his words. The doctor
+frowned pettishly and made as though to turn away. But Peter still held
+his hand and would not let it go.
+
+"There, Andrew!" he said remorsefully, as he wiped the laughter tears
+from his eyes. "I've riled you again. I'm sorry. We'll leave the matter
+this way: if I go first--and if I can come back, I _will_ come back--and
+I'll apologise to you for being in the wrong. There! Does that satisfy
+you, Andrew? I say I'll come back and apologise."
+
+"You mean it, Peter?" asked McPherson eagerly. "You're not joking?"
+
+"No, I mean it. If I can, I'll come back. And if I come back I'll
+apologise to you. It's a deal. Now let's have a nip of my plum brandy to
+seal the compact."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"I'll step down to the cellar and get a fresh bottle of it. That one on
+the sideboard hasn't got two man's size drinks left in it. I'll be back
+in a minute and then we'll drink to spooks. Especially to spooks that
+come back and apologise."
+
+With a chuckle at his own odd conceit, he vanished cellarward. As the
+door closed behind him, Kathrien came in from the dining-room, where
+evidently she had been awaiting a chance for a word alone with
+McPherson.
+
+"Doctor," she asked almost breathlessly, "do you really believe the dead
+can come back?"
+
+"Why not?" demanded McPherson, beginning to bristle for a new argument.
+"Why shouldn't they?"
+
+"But--you mean to say you could come back to this room if you were dead,
+and I could see you?"
+
+"You might not see me. I don't say you could. But I could come back."
+
+"And--and could you _talk_ to me?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But, could I hear you?"
+
+"That I don't know. You see, that's what we gropers after the light are
+trying to make possible. Hello!" he interrupted himself, in a none too
+pleased whisper. "_Here_ are some people that can talk and that one
+can't help hearing!"
+
+Ushered in by Willem, the Rev. Mr. Batholommey, the local Episcopal
+clergyman of Grimm Manor, and his placid, portly wife, swept in from the
+vestibule on clerical visitation bent.
+
+"Good-morning, Doctor," sighed Mrs. Batholommey, comprising the whole
+sunlit room in one all-compassionate glance.
+
+"Good-morning, Kathrien."
+
+"Good-morning, Mrs. Batholommey," answered Kathrien, loudly enough to
+drown McPherson's growl of unwelcoming welcome. "Good-morning, Pastor.
+Oom Peter will be back directly. I'll tell him you're here."
+
+She hurried out of the room. McPherson showed strong inclination to
+follow her. But Mrs. Batholommey had already singled him out for her
+prey and bore down upon him with a becomingly woe-begone face.
+
+"Oh, Doctor," she panted, wiping her eyes. "Does he know it yet? _Does_
+he?"
+
+"Does _who_ know _what_?" snapped the doctor, his glance straying
+wrathfully toward the rotund clergyman, who all at once assumed an
+abjectly apologetic air and interested himself in a picture on the
+farther wall.
+
+"Poor dear Mr. Grimm," pursued Mrs. Batholommey. "Does he know he's
+going to die?"
+
+Willem, who was halfway out of the room by this time, halted, turned
+back and, unobserved, stood listening with wide eyes and open mouth.
+
+"What in blue blazes are you talking about?" thundered McPherson,
+glowering down on his rector's wife in a most unadmiring manner.
+
+"About Mr. Grimm. Does he know yet that he must die?"
+
+"Does the whole damned town know it?" roared the doctor.
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey in prim horror at the explosive adjective.
+
+"You see, Doctor," put in the rector with urbane haste, before his
+spouse could recover breath to rebuke the blasphemer or return to the
+attack. "You see, it's this way: You consulted Mr. Grimm's lawyer. And
+his wife told _my_ wife."
+
+"Gabbed, did he?" snorted McPherson. "To perdition with the professional
+man who gabs to his wife!"
+
+"Oh, Doctor!" expostulated Mrs. Batholommey. "How can----?"
+
+"I am inexpressibly grieved," said her husband, "to learn that Mr.
+Grimm has an incurable malady. And is it true that the nature of it
+is----?"
+
+"The nature of the whole affair is _this_," returned McPherson. "He
+isn't to be told. Understand that, please. He must _not_ know. I didn't
+say he had to die at once. He may outlive us all. He probably will. And,
+in any event, no one must speak to him about it."
+
+"I should think," said Mrs. Batholommey in lofty rebuke, "that a man's
+rector might be allowed to talk to him on such a theme. It seems to me,
+Dr. McPherson, if _you_ can't do any more, it's _his_ turn. From the way
+you doctors assume control of everything, it's a wonder to me you don't
+want to baptise the babies, too."
+
+"Rose!" murmured the doctor in mild reproof.
+
+"At the last moment," Mrs. Batholommey insisted, ignoring her husband,
+"Mr. Grimm will want to make a will. And you know he _hasn't_. He'll
+want to remember the Episcopal Church of Grimm Manor, and his
+charities--and his--friends. If he doesn't, the rector will be blamed as
+usual. You're not doing right, Doctor, in keeping----"
+
+"Rose! My dear!" interjected her husband. "These private matters----"
+
+"But----"
+
+"I'll trouble you, Mrs. Batholommey," shouted McPherson, "to attend to
+your own affairs, and----"
+
+"Doctor!" bleated the rector.
+
+"Oh, let him talk, Henry!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey in semi-tearful
+exaltation. "I can bear it. Besides," coming to earth level, "no one in
+town pays any attention to what he says since he has taken up with
+spiritualism."
+
+"Oh, Rose! My dear!"
+
+"Shut up!" whispered McPherson wrathfully. "Here he comes. Remember what
+I----"
+
+Peter Grimm put an end to the warning by reappearing from the cellar
+with a small demijohn in his hand. His face brightened into a smile of
+pleasant greeting as he saw his two new guests.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "this is the jolliest sort of a surprise. I hope I
+haven't kept you waiting long?"
+
+The rector and his wife glanced at each other in embarrassment. Mrs.
+Batholommey turned toward Peter with a lachrymose grimace, intended
+doubtless for a consoling smile, and seemed about to break into a
+torrent of speech. But the rector, after a timid look at McPherson,
+nervously forestalled her by coming hurriedly to the front.
+
+"Good-morning, dear friend," said he. "This is just a little impromptu
+visit of gratitude. We wish to thank you for the lovely flowers that
+Willem brought us a few minutes ago, and for the noble check you sent
+yesterday."
+
+"Why," laughed Peter uncomfortably, "please don't even think of thanking
+me. I----"
+
+"And," nervously pursued the rector, sparring for time, "I want to let
+you know how much we are still enjoying the delicious vegetables you so
+generously provided. I _did_ relish that squash. If I were obliged to
+say offhand what my favourite vegetable is, I----"
+
+"Pardon me," interposed Peter, his glance straying past the rector and
+resting with swift concern upon Mrs. Batholommey's quivering expanse of
+face, "but is anything distressing you, Mrs. Ba----?"
+
+"No, no!" interjected the rector with break-neck haste.
+
+"No, no!" responded Mrs. Batholommey in the same breath.
+
+A half inaudible growl from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of
+negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the
+simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the
+trio to another.
+
+Willem, strolling from his retreat, crossed to the table, picked up a
+picture book, and in leisurely fashion mounted with it to the gallery
+landing that overlooked the room. There he threw himself on a settee
+between the bedroom doors and opened the book at random.
+
+His lower lip quivered ever so little and his blue eyes were big with a
+troubled wonder. From time to time his glance would stray from the gaudy
+pages of the picture book down to Grimm in the room below. And each time
+the wonder in his eyes became tinged with a new sorrow.
+
+Meantime, Peter Grimm's look of questioning, perplexed sympathy toward
+her tumult ridden self was becoming far too much for Mrs. Batholommey's
+jellylike self-control. The jelly began to quake--quite visibly.
+
+"I was afraid," Peter went on kindly, "that something unpleasant might
+have happened. And I hoped perhaps I might be able----"
+
+"Oh, no! No, no, _no_!" denied the utterly flustered woman. "I--I hope
+you are feeling well, Mr. Grimm. No--no--I don't mean that. I--I don't
+mean that I hope you are _well_. Of course not. I--that is----"
+
+"Of course she hopes it," boomed her husband, coming to the rescue with
+heavy and uncertain cheeriness that rang as false as the ring of a
+leaden dollar. "And of course _all_ of us hope it, dear Mr. Grimm. With
+all our hearts. And we wish you many, _many_ years of life and----"
+
+"Oh, indeed we do," chimed in Mrs. Batholommey. "And, as Dr. McPherson
+just said, there may perhaps be no reason,--with proper care--why you
+shouldn't----"
+
+"A blundering rector must be put up with because of his cloth. But when
+it comes to a blundering rectorette, there ought to be a line drawn!"
+
+It was McPherson who said it. He addressed no one, but seemed to be
+confining his heretical sentiments to the window seat. Also he spoke in
+a gruff undertone--that filled the room like far off thunder.
+
+Peter Grimm flung himself into the breach, even before the wave of
+outraged red could gush to Mrs. Batholommey's shaking visage.
+
+"Will you--will you have a glass of plum brandy?" he asked her, and then
+caught himself with the scared grin of a very guilty schoolboy.
+
+"I thank you," she retorted, safe for the moment in the full majesty of
+Temperance. "I do not take such things. Perhaps you forget I am the
+President of our local W. C. T. U. and the----"
+
+"The Little Brothers of the Artesian Well," added Grimm, "or whatever
+they call it. I remember. And I'm sorry. I wouldn't tempt you from your
+principles for the world. Forgive me. How about _you_, Pastor? A little
+drop of plum brandy, for--for--let's see, what is it St. Paul says
+about----?"
+
+"Thank you, no," declined the rector, with an apprehensive gesture
+towards his wife.
+
+"Oh, come, come!" urged Peter hospitably. "Why, the other evening when
+you dropped over here after the vespers, sir, you----"
+
+"I only use it when absolutely needful for medicinal purposes," insisted
+the rector hurriedly. "Not to-day, I thank you."
+
+"I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was a single man,
+was he not, Pastor?"
+
+[Illustration: "I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was
+a single man, was he not, Pastor?"]
+
+"I--I believe so. It is not definitely known. But why?"
+
+"I was only wondering," mused Peter, "how he would have accounted to St.
+Pauline, or whatever his wife's name would have been, for what he wrote
+in favour of 'a little wine for--'"
+
+"Oh," explained Mrs. Batholommey, still safe, and ever feeling safer,
+now that temperance was again the theme, "St. Paul referred to
+unfermented wine, you know. Every one ought to understand that. It is so
+hard to make people see the difference."
+
+"One bottle would convince them," said Peter very gravely.
+
+"No," Mrs. Batholommey corrected him with serene loftiness. "You do not
+quite get my point, dear Mr. Grimm. For instance, when the poets,--even
+good men like the late Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier--speak of 'wine,'
+they use the word of course in its poetical sense. They use it merely to
+typify----"
+
+"Booze," growled McPherson.
+
+"Good cheer," amended Mrs. Batholommey, withering him with a single
+frown. "And yet it is terribly misleading. I remember when we had the
+Walter Scott Tableaux and Recitations at the church last fall, and old
+Mr. Bertholf from Pompton was going to recite 'Lochinvar,' I had to
+suggest a change in the poem, lest the ignorant people in the village
+might get a wrong impression of dear Sir Walter Scott's principles. You
+remember the couplet occurs:
+
+  "'And now I have come with this lost love of mine
+  To tread one last measure, drink one cup of wine.'
+
+"So I asked Mr. Bertholf to alter the words into something like this:
+
+  "'And now I have come with this beautiful maid
+  To tread one last measure,--drink one lemonade.'
+
+"It left the poetry just as beautiful and it took away the dangerous
+reference to wine. Mr. Bertholf didn't like it very much, I'm afraid.
+But I insisted, and at last----"
+
+"And at last," snarled McPherson, to whom the thought of any mutilation
+of his fellow Scotchman's verse was as sacrilege, "and at last, poor
+Bertholf got so mixed up that he clean forgot the silly rot you'd taught
+him. And when he came to that part of the poem, he stammered for a
+second and then blurted out:
+
+  "'And now I have come with my lovely lost mate
+  To tread one last measure, drink one whiskey straight.'"
+
+"Yes," blazed Mrs. Batholommey, "and I have always believed _you_ put
+him up to it."
+
+"Well," shrugged the noncommittal McPherson, "if I had, it would at
+least be more in keeping with what Sir Walter intended than your
+straining an immortal poem through a lemon-squeezer."
+
+"Andrew and I," announced Peter, hastening to pour oil on the troubled
+waters of conversation, by filling two glasses and handing one of them
+to McPherson, "are going to drink a toast to spooks."
+
+"_What?_" squealed Mrs. Batholommey, in the accents of a rabbit that has
+been stepped on.
+
+"To spooks--we----"
+
+"Oh, how _can_ you?" she gasped. "How _can_ you? To spooks! _You_ of all
+men! The very idea!"
+
+"Mrs. Batholommey!" exclaimed Peter in real alarm, setting down his
+glass and moving toward her. "Something _has_ happened! You are
+quite----"
+
+"No, no!" she wailed helplessly.
+
+"It is nothing, Mr. Grimm," soothed the rector. "Nothing at all, I
+assure you. My wife is a trifle overwrought this morning. Nothing of any
+consequence. I mean--that is, of course--we must all keep our spirits
+up, Mr. Grimm."
+
+"Good Lord, deliver us!" intoned McPherson in mingled fervour and
+disgust.
+
+"I know what it is," declared Peter with sudden enlightenment. "You've
+just come from a wedding! That's it! I know. Women love weddings better
+than anything on earth. They'll talk about it for months beforehand.
+They'll walk miles to attend one.--And they'll weep all the rest of the
+day. I don't know why. But they do it. I should be grateful, I suppose,
+that no women were ever called upon to shed tears at _my_ wedding. But I
+hope, before so very long----"
+
+Mrs. Batholommey had not in the very least caught the drift of the
+laughing speech whereby he had sought to put the poor woman at her ease.
+And now all at once, the last sagging vestige of self-control went from
+her.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Grimm!" she moaned, breaking in upon his words. "You were
+always so kind to us. There never was a better, kinder, gentler man in
+all this world than you were."
+
+"Than I _was_?" asked Peter bewildered. "Is my character changing
+or----?"
+
+"No, no!" she corrected herself flounderingly. "I don't mean that. I
+mean--I meant----"
+
+Her gaze fluttered helplessly about the big room and chanced at last to
+fall upon the reading boy, asprawl on the gallery bench above them.
+
+"I meant," she plunged along, "what would become of poor little Willem
+if you----?"
+
+This time her glance was caught and transfixed by McPherson's furious
+glare, much as a great flopping beetle might be pierced by the sting of
+a wasp. Mrs. Batholommey prided herself upon her tact. That glare nerved
+her to another effort.
+
+"You see," she shrilled, wildly and awkwardly clambering out of the
+slough, "it's fearful he had such a 'M.'"
+
+"Such a 'M'?" queried Peter. "What does that mean?"
+
+With a warning glance toward the absorbed boy she shaped her lips
+noiselessly into the word "Mother."
+
+"Oh!" said Peter. "I understand. But----"
+
+"She ought to have told Mr. Batholommey or me," went on Mrs.
+Batholommey, climbing still higher on to solid ground, "who the 'F'
+was."
+
+"'F'? What does that mean?"
+
+And again the rabbit-like lips shaped themselves into a soundless word,
+this time 'Father.'
+
+"Oh," grunted Peter, "the word you want isn't 'Father,' but 'Scoundrel!'
+Whoever he is----"
+
+Willem flung aside his book and leaped to his feet as though his little
+body were galvanised. The others looked at him in guilty dread, fearing
+he had heard and had somehow understood their awkwardly veiled allusions
+to his parentage. But they were mistaken. A sound, far more potent to
+every normal child's ear than the fiercest thunders of morality, had
+reached his keen senses as he lounged up there. And a moment later they
+all heard it.
+
+It was the braying of a distant but steadily approaching brass band.
+With it came a confused but ever louder medley of shouts, handclapping,
+raucous voices, and the higher tones of delighted children. As Kathrien
+came running in at one door, followed by Marta, and Frederik sauntered
+in from the office, Willem rushed down the stairway and into the window
+seat, where he sprang upon a chair and craned his neck to see the
+stretch of village street beyond. Nearer and louder came the music and
+the attendant vocal Babel.
+
+"It's the circus parade!" shouted Willem. "The one they tell about in
+the advertisements and pictures on the fences. I didn't know the parade
+would start so early. There come some of them now. Oh, look! Oom Peter!
+Look! It's a clown! See! He's coming right toward us!"
+
+The band in full brazen force was discoursing a "Dutch Ditties" waltz as
+it turned the corner above. And now, the voices of the barkers were
+heard in the land.
+
+"Ladies and Gentlemen," came the leathern tones of one unseen announcer,
+"one hour before the big show begins in the main tent we will give a
+grand free balloon ascension!"
+
+"Remember," adjured a second Unseen, "one price admits you to all parts
+of the big show!"
+
+"Lemo--lemo--ice cold lemonade--five cents a glass!" shouted a youthful
+vender.
+
+"You ought to quaff one beaker of it to Sir Walter Scott's memory, Mrs.
+Batholommey," observed McPherson.
+
+But the din of the oncoming parade drowned his voice. The whole roomful,
+from Marta down to Willem, were thronging into the bay window. They were
+all children again. A touch of circus had renewed their youth as by the
+wave of a magic wand. Willem broke into a cry of utter joy and pointed
+ecstatically at the open window.
+
+The next moment a clown, white and vermilion of face, clad in the
+traditional white, black, and scarlet motley of his tribe, had leaped
+cat-like upon the window sill and swept the room with his painted grin.
+In his hands he held a great bunch of variegated circus bills. Tossing a
+half-dozen of these at the feet of the all-absorbed spectators, he cried
+in high cracked falsetto:
+
+"Well, _well_, _WELL_! Here we are again, good people! Billy Miller's
+Big Show! Larger--greater--grander than ever. Everything new! Come and
+see the wild animals! Hear the lions roar!"
+
+Wheeling suddenly towards Mrs. Batholommey he pointed a whitened
+forefinger at her and broke into a truly frightful roar. The good lady
+jumped at least six inches from the ground.
+
+"Steady, ma'am!" exhorted the clown. "I won't let him bite you! Come
+one, come all! Come see the diving deer! The human fly, Mademoiselle
+Zarella!" he added, addressing the rector. "She walks suspended from the
+ceiling! One ring and no confusion!" he confided to the delightedly
+smiling Peter. "And all for the price of admission! Remember the grand
+free exhibition one hour before the big show!"
+
+He paused, catching sight of Willem for the first time. Now, it is a
+well-grounded tradition in one-ring circus life that no clown stays long
+in the business or scores a hit in it unless he is genuinely fond of
+children. Noting the all-absorbing bliss and adoration in Willem's wide
+eyes, the clown grinned at the boy in right brotherly fashion.
+
+"Howdy!" said he cordially. "Shake!"
+
+Marvelling, overcome with rapture, feeling as though the proffered
+honour was one far too wonderful to be real, Willem shyly extended his
+hand and met the friendly grasp of the flour-dusted fingers. The clown,
+striking an attitude, began in shrill, exaggerated diction, to chant the
+antiquated "Frog Opera" song:
+
+  "Uncle Rat has gone to town,--Ha-_H'M_!
+  Uncle Rat has gone to town,"
+
+he sang on, addressing Willem,
+
+  "To buy his niece a wedding gown."
+
+"Ha-_H'M_!" intoned Willem, delightedly; laughing aloud as he realised
+he was actually singing with a real live clown.
+
+  "What shall the wedding breakfast be?"
+
+continued the clown, interrogating the equally youthful and delighted
+Peter Grimm. And this time more voices than Peter's and Willem's caught
+up the refrain:
+
+  "Ha-_H'M_!
+  Hard-boiled eggs and a cup of tea,"
+
+sang the clown. And again from Willem and the rest came the answering:
+
+  "Ha-_H'M_!"
+
+"Billy Miller's Big Show!" yelled the clown. "Come one, come all! So
+long, Sonny!"
+
+He was gone. The others came back to earth. But Willem was still in the
+wonder clouds. It had been to him an experience to rehearse a thousand
+times, to dream over, to remember forever. Peter Grimm, reading the
+boy's thoughts as could only a heart that must ever be boyish, beckoned
+Willem to him, as Kathrien and Marta departed to their interrupted work
+in the dining-room and the rest looked half ashamed at their momentary
+excitement over so garish and trivial a thing.
+
+"Willem!" called Grimm.
+
+"_Ja_, Mynheer," answered the boy, coming slowly, his face still alight
+with his tremendous adventure of a moment ago.
+
+"Willem," repeated Grimm, "you wouldn't care to go to that circus, would
+you? Wouldn't it be pretty stupid?"
+
+"_Stupid!_" gasped the boy. "Oh!"
+
+"Well," said Peter, "suppose you go, then?"
+
+"Go? Really, Mynheer Grimm?"
+
+"Go get the seats," ordered Grimm. "Here's the money. Get two _front_
+seats. _Two._ We'll both go. We'll make a night of it, you and I. We'll
+stay out till--till ten o'clock!"
+
+The vision of this bliss was too much for Willem's English.
+
+"_Ekar, ekar na hat circus!_" he babbled dazedly.
+
+Then he rushed up impulsively to Peter and seized the big, kindly hand
+in both his own.
+
+"Oh, Mynheer _Grimm_!" he squealed in ecstasy. "There ain't any one else
+like you in the world. And--and--when the other fellows laugh at your
+funny hat, _I_ don't."
+
+"What?" asked Grimm, perplexed. "Is my hat funny?"
+
+The boy was vibrant with laughter, drunk with anticipation. But,
+momentarily straightening his glowing face with a cast of semi-gravity,
+he said:
+
+"And--and--Mynheer Grimm--it's too bad you've got to die!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BREAKING THE NEWS
+
+
+There was an instant of stark, palsied silence. The rector, his wife,
+and McPherson looked at the all-unconscious boy with dumb horror. A
+horror that for the time crowded out indignation. Frederik, ignorant as
+he was of any cause for emotion, was struck by the tense bearing of the
+trio and looked from one to the other with the air of the only man in
+the room who does not catch a joke's point.
+
+Peter Grimm alone was not affected by Willem's words. He was used to the
+child's oddities, his alternating high spirits, and dashes of sadness;
+his old-fashioned phrases and his queer lapses. Grimm broke the ominous
+silence with an amused chuckle.
+
+"Most people die, sooner or later, Willem," he answered, stroking the
+boy's shock of soft yellow hair. "I'll live to see you in the business
+though. And we'll go to dozens of circuses together, too. Don't worry
+your little head over your Oom Peter's dying. I----"
+
+He paused. The electrified atmosphere generated by the three
+conspirators began to reach his non-sensitive brain. A quick glance at
+Mr. Batholommey and a second at the rector's wife confirmed his vague
+feeling that something was wrong. He turned back to Willem, in time to
+intercept a blighting scowl of warning the doctor was trying to flash to
+the boy.
+
+"Willem," asked Grimm gently, "how did you happen to say such a queer
+thing just now? What made you think I'm going to die?"
+
+A concerted and unintelligible interruption from the trio was voiced too
+late to prevent Willem's reply.
+
+"_He_ said so," replied the boy, pointing at McPherson.
+
+Then he caught the doctor's annihilating frown. And, simultaneously the
+rector cried in stern admonition:
+
+"Willem!"
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, too, was making quite awful and wholly
+incomprehensible faces at him. Under the triple menace the boy wilted.
+Like every child, since Cain, he had a thousand times been reproved for
+things he had said or done in perfect innocence. In fact, the more
+unconscious the offence, the more dire was the reproof. Children do not
+reason in such matters. It is enough for them to know they have said or
+done the wrong thing; without stopping to discover why or how that thing
+chanced to be wrong.
+
+The non-linguist traveller in a foreign land cannot read the "Keep off
+the Grass" or "No Thoroughfare" signs. But the policeman's threatening
+club has a universal language that he understands and intuitively obeys.
+So Willem (ignorant of death save as an empty name that vaguely carried
+a note of sorrow, and wholly unaware why he should not have imparted the
+news of Grimm's coming demise), saw he had said something very terrible.
+And a look of abject panic came into his face.
+
+But Grimm's hand was still on his head,--gentle, caressing, infinitely
+tender in its touch.
+
+"No, don't stop the boy," commanded Peter, meeting the variously
+anguished glances of the others with a half smile that began and ended
+in the suddenly widened eyes. "Don't stop him. Only children speak the
+truth nowadays. It used to be 'children and fools.' But fools have
+learned to tell fool-lies, and they have left children the monopoly of
+truth telling. Go on, Willem. You heard the doctor say that I am going
+to----?"
+
+Willem's fragile little body was trembling from head to foot. Under Mrs.
+Batholommey's distorted glare and threatening noiseless mouthings his
+puny courage had gone to pieces. Big tears began to roll down his
+cheeks. And noting the child's terror, Grimm fell to soothing him.
+
+"There, there, _jounker_," comforted Peter. "Don't let them frighten
+you. Oom Peter will stand by you. You haven't done anything wrong and
+nobody's going to scold you. Don't be scared."
+
+Under the strangely gentle voice and the consoling touch of the rough,
+kindly hand, Willem's fears subsided. With Oom Peter on his side, he
+could brave the frowns of all Grimm Manor if need be. For who was so
+strong, so wise as Oom Peter?
+
+Did not every one bend to his orders and come running to him for advice
+and aid, as troubled children seek out a loving father? The boy ceased
+to tremble. He looked up into Grimm's face for something that should
+confirm the words and the touch.
+
+And he found it. The rugged old visage had never before been so kindly,
+so unruffled. And in the little eyes that could flash so obstinately
+and irritably, there was nothing but friendliness.
+
+Yes--something more that the boy had never before seen. Something he
+could not read, but that seemed to draw him strangely close to the old
+man, and freed him of his last vestige of fear.
+
+"Don't be scared, dear lad," repeated Grimm. "So you heard Dr. McPherson
+say I am going to die?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grimm turned slowly to the doctor, who still stood glowering, red,
+speechless, furiously miserable.
+
+"Andrew," asked Grimm quietly, "what did you mean?"
+
+Before McPherson could speak, Grimm checked him with a move of the head
+and glanced down at the boy.
+
+"Never mind just now," said he. "Willem didn't mean any harm in telling
+me. It just popped out, didn't it, Willem? The only person who never
+says the wrong thing at the wrong time is a deaf mute whose fingers are
+paralysed. We'll forget all about it. Now run along, lad, and get those
+circus tickets before all the best ones are gone. Front row seats,
+remember. We're going to have the finest sort of a spree, you and I.
+Hurry now."
+
+"_Ja_, Oom Peter!" cried the boy, all laughter once more.
+
+He snatched his cap from the rack, in his haste almost upsetting Grimm's
+antiquated tile that hung beside it; and, with a farewell shout, was
+gone. His feet padded joyously on the gravel outside; then silence fell
+again in the big room. It was Mr. Batholommey who broke the spell.
+Walking solemnly up to Peter, who stood looking with a sort of stunned
+wistfulness straight in front of him, the rector held out his hand.
+
+"Good-bye, dear brave friend," he said, with an air gruesomely if
+unconsciously reminiscent of his burial service manner. "Any time you
+telephone for me, day or night, I'll run over _immediately_. God bless
+you, sir!" his rounded voice shaking uncontrollably. "I have never come
+to you in behalf of any worthy charity and been refused. You have set an
+example in upright living, in generosity, in true manliness, and in
+constant church attendance that should be an example to all my vestrymen
+and to the town at large. I have never seen a nobler man. Never.
+Good--good-morning."
+
+He moved toward the door, winking very fast and clearing his throat. At
+the threshold he beckoned to his wife. But she had already borne down
+upon Peter.
+
+"Mr. Grimm!" she sobbed. "The best--the kindest--the--the--Oh, I _don't_
+see how we are going to bear it."
+
+"Dear Mrs. Batholommey," answered Grimm. "Please don't be so overcome. I
+may outlive you all. Nevertheless, I am grateful to your husband for
+letting me hear my funeral eulogy in advance, and to you for----"
+
+"Oh, how _can_ you make light of it?" she sobbed. "Yes, dear, I'm
+coming. Good-bye, Mr. Grimm."
+
+Like a confused and somewhat elderly hen she scuttled off in her
+husband's wake, while Peter Grimm stared after the two with a
+half-amused, half-perplexed smile.
+
+"Of all the wall-eyed, semi-anthropoid congenital idiots," roared
+McPherson as the door closed behind them, "those two are----"
+
+"You're mistaken, Andrew," contradicted Grimm. "They're kind-hearted,
+good people, who spend their lives and their substance in helping
+others. If you and they can't get on together it's no one's fault. Any
+more than because fuchsias and sunflowers won't thrive in the same bed.
+Now calm down a bit, old friend, and tell me----"
+
+"Nothing! It was nothing. Just nonsense. Don't give it another thought,
+Peter. You said, yourself, a while ago, that many a man who was given up
+by the doctors at twenty-five lives to be a hundred. And there is no
+reason on earth why you----"
+
+"Don't!" urged Grimm. "I don't need that. I----"
+
+"Don't fret yourself, Peter," insisted McPherson. "You mustn't get the
+idea that you are worse off than you really are. Don't get cold feet or
+let this thing worry you to death. You must live for----"
+
+"Andrew!" chided Grimm, with tolerant reproof. "Are you so tangled up
+that you think you're talking to Willem instead of to a full-grown man?
+If it's got to be, it's got to be. And you were wrong not to tell me at
+once. That is the way with you doctors. You are so in the habit of
+dealing with hysterical women and hypochondriacs that you forget that a
+_man_ is shaped by nature to bear the naked truth without having it
+rigged up beforehand in a lot of fluff to disguise its shape. I think I
+understand. I may live a while longer. And I may not. The same thing
+could be said of every one."
+
+McPherson tried to speak, then turned and made blindly for the door.
+
+"Wait a minute!" called Grimm.
+
+McPherson halted. Peter crossed to where his friend stood. With an
+effort at his old-time whimsical banter he held out his hand.
+
+"I just want to promise again, Andrew," he said, "that if there's
+anything in this spook business of yours, I'll come back. And I'll
+apologise. Good-bye and good luck."
+
+McPherson wrung his hand, without speaking, and strode noisily out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HAND RELAXES
+
+
+Peter Grimm walked slowly back into the room. He paused at his desk and
+laid his hand on a sheaf of papers piled there. He looked about the big
+sunlit apartment almost as if he were trying to stamp the image of each
+of its familiar, pleasant features upon his memory.
+
+Frederik, in the window seat, had been a silent onlooker to the strange
+scene. His pallid, thin face was set in an aspect of grieved wonder. And
+Peter Grimm, meeting his glance, sought to soften the young man's
+sorrow.
+
+"Brace up, Fritzy," he said gaily. "It's nothing to look so
+down-in-the-mouth about. Doctors are apt to be wrong. They guess too
+much. When the guess is right they win a reputation for wisdom. When
+it's wrong--as it is nine times out of eight,--they say they knew it all
+along but thought it wasn't wise to tell the patient and his friends.
+Doctoring is a grand game,--for the man who has no sense of humour and
+can play it with a straight face. Now let's forget old Andrew's
+croakings. Go and get me some change for the circus, Fritzy. Enough for
+Willem and me to buy all the red-ink lemonade and popcorn and peanuts
+and candy we can eat. Get me a whole dollar, anyhow. And then, if
+there's any left over after the show, I can----"
+
+"Oh, sir!" cried Frederik protestingly. "Are you going after all, Uncle?
+And with that child? Do you think it's wise to----?"
+
+"Wise?" echoed Peter gleefully. "Of course it isn't wise. That's the
+glory of a circus. It's almost the one place where people can go and
+forget they were ever meant to be wise. And that's why I am going. That
+and because I wouldn't disappoint Willem. Miss a circus? Miss Billy
+Miller's Big Show? Not I. _You_ may be too old for such follies, Fritz.
+But I'll never be."
+
+"But, sir," said Frederik, "in case you should be taken ill----"
+
+"I won't be."
+
+"With no companion but that half-witted----"
+
+"Willem is not half-witted. He has as much sense as any boy of his age.
+And more, in many ways. Why do you dislike him so, Fritz?"
+
+"Dislike him?" echoed Frederik uneasily. "I don't. Why should I?"
+
+"When you came back from Europe and found him living with us," pursued
+Grimm, "you seemed annoyed. He tried to make friends with you at first.
+But you seemed always to rebuff him. Why? He's a lovable, interesting
+little chap. One would think you had some strong prejudice against
+him--or some reason----"
+
+"Why, of course not. How could I have? The boy is nothing to me, one way
+or another, Uncle. As you're so fond of him, I'd be glad to do anything
+I could for him. As there's nothing I _can_ do, and as he seems actually
+afraid of me, for some silly childish reason or other, I let him alone."
+
+Grimm's attention had already wandered and that same new look which
+Willem had first detected crept back into his lined face. But the sight
+of Kathrien coming in from her preparations for the one o'clock dinner
+brought him back to himself.
+
+"Katje!" he hailed her. "Do you want to go to the circus with Willem and
+me?"
+
+"_Ja!_" she laughed joyously. "_Natürlich._"
+
+"Good! One more member of the family who is no more grown up than I am!
+I want to see Mademoiselle Zarella, the human fly, and----"
+
+He stopped to light the big meerschaum he had just filled. Then, going
+over to his favourite big armchair--a Dutch importation of a hundred
+years earlier, with pulpit back and high solid arms--he settled himself
+comfortably in it.
+
+Peter Grimm was tired. And he wanted to think over the news he had so
+recently heard;--to dissect and analyse it and, if need be, to adjust
+himself to its awesome import. He sat back with half-closed eyes,
+puffing now and then mechanically at his pipe, his veiled glance resting
+here, there, and everywhere among the surroundings he loved.
+
+The stable clock chimed the noon hour. The big, slow-swinging arms of
+the windmill slackened motion and stood still. A hush was in the air.
+The warm, lazy, wonderful hush of summer noon.
+
+The midday sunlight gushed in unchecked through the wide windows,
+flooding the room with a glory of hazy golden light; bathing the dark
+old furniture with tints of rich warmth; glowing upon the roses that
+were arranged on desk and piano.
+
+The Dutch clock on the wall struck twelve. A moment later, the little
+clock on the mantel jinglingly endorsed the sentiment. Then, save for
+the drowsy droning of the bees among the blossoms outside the open
+windows, there was no sound in all Grimm's world.
+
+Even Kathrien and Frederik seemed silenced by the spell of summer noon
+magic. The girl was looking out across the sun-kissed gardens. Frederik
+was eyeing her in complacent satisfaction, his nimble brain busy with
+the tidings that might mean so much for him.
+
+Kathrien turned from the window at last and seated herself idly at the
+piano. Her slender fingers drifted half-aimlessly over the keys.
+Frederik lounged over to the piano and stood looking down at her.
+
+Presently she began to sing. Frederik joined in the song and their young
+voices blended sweetly in the old Dutch and English words:
+
+  "_Van een twee, een twee, nu
+  Ste-ken wij van wal:_
+  The bird so free in the heavens
+  Is but the slave of the nest.
+  For all must toil as God wills it,
+  Must laugh and toil and rest.
+
+  "The rose must blow in the gardens,
+  The bee must gather its store.
+  The cat must watch the mousehole,
+  And the dog must guard the door!"
+
+As the voices died away, Peter Grimm came out of his tortuous reverie.
+He had reached a decision. And, having once made up his mind, he was not
+a man to delay the execution of any plan.
+
+"Katje!" he called, with sharp eagerness.
+
+Startled at his unwonted tone, the girl hurried across to him.
+
+"Yes, Oom Peter?" she asked.
+
+"Get me--the Staaten Bible, please. Quickly."
+
+Wondering at the peremptory tone of the familiar request, Kathrien
+obeyed, bringing the heavy old book to the table at his side; and
+opening it, from long habit, at the closely written pages of the Grimm
+family genealogy.
+
+"There!" said Peter, running his finger down the last record page until
+it stopped at the blank space just below his own name.
+
+"Frederik!" he called. "Come here."
+
+The young people stood, one at each side of his chair, awaiting the next
+move, more than a little astonished at the unwonted haste and eagerness
+in his tone.
+
+"Katje," went on Grimm, almost feverishly, as he pointed again at the
+blank line beneath his birth announcement, "I want to see you married
+and happy."
+
+"I _am_ happy, Uncle," she protested, "and----"
+
+"And I want to see you happily _married_," he said.
+
+"I--I don't know," she faltered. "I----"
+
+"But _I_ know for you, little girl," he insisted, tapping the open page.
+"And under my name here, I want to see written: '_Married:--Kathrien and
+Frederik._' You will do as I wish, dear? It would make me so happy!"
+
+"Why, Oom Peter," she faltered in distress, "of course there isn't
+anything I wouldn't do--gladly--to make you happy. But----"
+
+"Kitty," urged Frederik, "you know I love you! You know----"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes. Certainly she does," snapped Grimm, fretted at the
+interruption. "Everybody knows that."
+
+Grimm caught the girl's look of dumb entreaty, misread it, manlike, and
+hurried on:
+
+"Come, girl, we've no time to be coy. Promise me you'll consent, Katje.
+We'll make it a June wedding. We have ten days yet. And----"
+
+"Oh, I _couldn't_!" protested the poor girl. "_Really_, I couldn't."
+
+"Nonsense, little girl. It's the easiest thing in the world to get
+ready to be happy. Ten days is plenty. And you----"
+
+"We can get your trousseau later," put in Frederik eagerly.
+
+"Fritz!" cried the old man, exasperated. "_Will_ you keep out of this?
+Who is managing it? You or I? In ten days, then, Katje? _Please!_"
+
+"Why," she stammered, wretchedly at a loss, "if it will make you so
+happy, Oom Peter--if it means so much to you----"
+
+"It does. It _does_!"
+
+"I owe everything to you----"
+
+"Then give me the privilege of seeing you a happy, contented wife, and
+we will write 'Paid' across the bill."
+
+"But why need I marry so terribly soon?"
+
+"To gratify a cranky old man's whim, Katje. It means more to me than I
+can tell you. Frederik understands."
+
+She looked from one to the other. On each face she read a fatuous
+eagerness. She knew the futility of pleading with Frederik. She knew
+still more surely the uselessness of trying to make Peter Grimm change
+his stubborn wishes. With a little catch in her breath, she gave up the
+hopeless, unequal fight.
+
+"Very well," she assented.
+
+"You will do it?" cried Peter Grimm joyfully.
+
+"Yes, I--promise," she answered; and her voice was dead.
+
+"Good!" sighed Grimm, as he picked up his pipe and leaned back again in
+the big chair's recesses, a smile of utter peace and contentment
+irradiating his square old face. "You've made me very, _very_ happy,
+Katje," he murmured, his eyes half-shut, his words trailing away almost
+into incoherence. "Very, very happy. I'm happier than ever I was in all
+my life--happier than ever I dreamed a man could be. I----"
+
+He ceased to speak. The light on his face grew brighter, then slowly
+faded as a peaceful summer day fades. He settled a little lower in his
+chair and lay back there, very still. The gnarled hand that held the
+meerschaum relaxed.
+
+The pipe fell clattering to the floor. Frederik stooped to pick it up.
+Kathrien, her eyes chancing to fall on Grimm's face, cried aloud in
+horror.
+
+Frederik followed the direction of her gaze. He sprang toward his uncle,
+laid a hand over the old man's heart, and bent down toward the still,
+grey face that was upturned to his.
+
+"Good God, Kitty!" he gasped. "He's _dead_!"
+
+The girl had already flown toward the front door. Jerking it open she
+ran out on the steps. As she did so, she caught sight of McPherson
+coming away from a professional call at a house across the street.
+
+"Doctor!" screamed Kathrien frantically. "_Doctor!_"
+
+McPherson, next moment, had pushed past her into the living-room.
+Kneeling beside Grimm's body he made a swift examination.
+
+As he rose to face the others, Willem burst into the house.
+
+"Oom Peter! Oom Peter!" shrilled the child happily. "I got them!"
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed McPherson.
+
+The boy halted in the doorway, looking in puzzled dismay at the huddled
+form in the chair.
+
+"What--what is----?" he began.
+
+"He is dead," replied Frederik shortly.
+
+Willem stood aghast for a second, while the curt announcement sank into
+his senses. Then in a burst of angry, rebellious wonder, the child
+cried:
+
+"Dead? He can't be. He _can't_! Why, I've got our circus tickets!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AFTERWARD
+
+
+Grimm Manor was in mourning. And, far more to the dead man's honour,
+Grimm Manor _was_ mourning.
+
+The last of the ancient line was dead. The Grimms had been the ruling
+spirits in the drowsy little up-State town for more than two centuries.
+From father to son, the hierarchy had been handed down.
+
+In days when the district was a wilderness and when the Grimms fought
+wild animal and Indian, and in the days when it was a prosperous suburb
+and the Grimms fought "scale" and locust, it had been the same:--ever a
+Grimm had swayed the little community.
+
+Quiet in spite of his eccentric ways and dress, Peter Grimm had been
+known chiefly as a kindly neighbour and a shrewd business man. But now,
+after his death, all sorts and conditions of people came forward with
+queer stories of his private dealings.
+
+There was a crotchety old Civil War veteran, for instance, who lived
+"on the Mountain" and who was a reputed miser. He now told how Peter
+Grimm had eked out his $8 a month pension for the past forty years and
+had made it possible for him to live in comfort. A crippled woman who,
+with her four children, had at one time seemed likely to become a public
+charge and who had been relieved in the nick of time by a legacy, now
+told the real source of that providential "legacy."
+
+A farm boy who had yearned to study engineering and who had been helped
+unexpectedly by a secret fund, revealed the name of the fund's donor.
+
+A market gardener whose house, barns, and horses had been destroyed by
+fire, proclaimed that insurance had not enabled him to make good his
+loss. For he had not been insured. Peter Grimm had set him on his feet
+again. And as in every other case, Grimm had imposed but one condition
+upon the gift:--absolute secrecy.
+
+These were but a few cases out of dozens that were made known within the
+week after Grimm's death.
+
+The little stone church of Grimm Manor was packed to the doors on the
+day that six big awkward men with tear blotched faces bore a silent
+burden up its aisle. A burden so covered with masses of fragrant
+blossoms as to blot out its gruesome oblong shape. The flowers were from
+Peter Grimm's own gardens, then in the riot of their June-tide glory.
+
+And so, covered and drifted over with the glowing blooms he loved so
+well, the dead man went to his burial.
+
+In the Grimm pew, with its silver plate and high, box-like sides, sat
+Frederik, Kathrien, and old Marta. The heir was as woe begone of face
+and as crassly sombre of raiment as even the most captious could have
+desired. The unostentatious pressure of his black bordered handkerchief
+to his eyes once or twice during the service attested to a sorrow that
+could not be kept wholly within stoic bounds.
+
+Yet, oddly enough, it was Kathrien,--rather than Frederik or the frankly
+blubbering old housekeeper,--on whom people's eyes most often
+rested--rested and then dimmed with a haze of sympathy. The girl did not
+weep. Her face was very pale. But it was set and expressionless. Save
+for its big eyes it seemed a lifeless mask. The eyes alone were alive.
+And never for one instant did they move from the flower banked casket
+in front of the altar rail. They were tearless. But in their soft depths
+lurked the awed, unbelieving horror of a little child's that is for the
+first time brought face to face with the Black Half of life.
+
+Kathrien was not in mourning. Her simple white dress caused no comment.
+For, by this time, it was known she was acting on what she believed to
+be Grimm's wishes. The dead man had ever had a loathing of all the
+hideous visible trappings of grief. He had been wont to hold forth on
+his aversion after every funeral he had been forced to attend.
+
+"When it comes my time to fall asleep," he had said, during one of these
+Philippics, "I don't want anybody that cares for me to make death
+horrible by going around dressed like an undertaker. I'd as soon expect
+a mother to put on black after she had kissed her child good-night.
+There'd be just as much sense in it. If it's done because we're grieved
+to think where our friends have gone,--well and good. But if we're
+willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, why dress as if we were
+sorry for them?"
+
+Wherefore, Kathrien was wearing one of the white summer dresses he had
+loved. She had timidly suggested that Frederik also honour the dead
+man's prejudices. But the sad, reproachful look he had bent upon her at
+her first hint of the subject had silenced the girl and had left her
+half-convicted of heartlessness because of her own avoidance of black.
+
+Willem was not at the funeral. After that first strange outburst on
+learning that Grimm was dead, the child had said no word all day. At
+night when Kathrien came to take him to bed, she found him in a high
+fever.
+
+Dr. McPherson had been sent for, and had examined the child closely, but
+could find no palpable cause for the malady.
+
+"He's an odd little fellow," he told Kathrien. "Like no other boy I've
+ever known. The Scotch call such children 'fey' and prophesy short lives
+for them. And the prophecy usually comes true. There's always been
+something psychic about Willem. A hypnotist or a medium would look on
+him as a treasure.
+
+"All the diagnosis I can make is that Peter's death caused a shock to
+the boy's never strong nerves and that the shock has caused the fever.
+Keep him in bed for a few days. He'll probably come around all right.
+There doesn't seem to be anything really serious--except that in a
+constitution like his everything is apt to be more or less serious."
+
+After the funeral, life went on outwardly much as before at the Grimm
+home. The only change was the impalpable one which occurs in a room when
+a clock stops.
+
+And, in fulfilment of Peter Grimm's last request, preparations for the
+"June wedding" were begun. It was Frederik who tactfully broached the
+theme. Kathrien, after a look of helpless fear, nodded acquiescence.
+
+"I promised him," she said faintly. "And he died while the promise was
+still scarcely spoken. The smile of happiness it brought to his dear old
+face was on it when they laid him to sleep. I _couldn't_ break that
+promise."
+
+"And you wouldn't, if you could. I know that," said Frederik tenderly.
+"Dear one, I would not urge the wedding at a time like this if it had
+not been his last wish that we should be married this very month."
+
+"Yes," she agreed lifelessly. "It was his wish. And we must do it."
+
+And with this unenthusiastic assent Frederik was forced to be satisfied.
+So the preparations were pushed on with a furtive, almost apologetic,
+haste.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey entered into the spirit of the affair with a lugubrious
+zest that would have sickened Kathrien had it not taken so much of the
+burden of arrangement-making off her own tired young shoulders.
+
+It was to Frederik and Mrs. Batholommey that every one at length turned
+for directions in details for the wedding, not to the still-faced girl
+who seemed to know or to care nothing about the way matters were to be
+conducted.
+
+And this gave Kathrien surcease,--a breathing space wherein to try to
+think with a brain from which sorrow had driven the power of clear
+thought; a time to plan, to _realise_, to remember,--with faculties too
+numb to carry out the will power's intent. The days crept past her like
+shadows. And the wedding day drew near. But still she could not wholly
+rouse herself from the dumb inertia that gripped her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE EVE OF A WEDDING
+
+
+Ten days later the household, which had been Peter Grimm's and was his
+no longer, had sufficiently adjusted itself to new conditions to
+endeavour to carry out his dearest wish--the marriage of Kathrien to
+Frederik.
+
+It was near the close of a rainy afternoon, and Mrs. Batholommey
+(installed in the house as temporary chaperone and adviser to Kathrien)
+was busily engaged in drilling four little girls from her own
+Sunday-school class to sing the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin.
+
+Standing at the piano, and playing with a sure, determined touch, she
+gazed over her shoulder at the children and sang vigorously, nodding her
+head to emphasise the tempo:
+
+  "Faithful and true we lead ye forth
+  Where love triumphant shall lead the way.
+  Bright star of love, flower of the earth,
+  Shine on ye both on your love's perfect day."
+
+As the last line was reached, Mrs. Batholommey raised her hand in a
+signal to stop.
+
+"That's better. Now, children--not too loud. Remember, this is a very
+_quiet_ wedding. You're to be here at noon to-morrow. You mustn't speak
+as you enter the room, and take your places near the piano. Now we'll
+sing as though the bride were here. I'll represent the bride."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey pointed at Kathrien's door as she spoke, and started
+toward it with subdued but undeniable enthusiasm.
+
+"Miss Kathrien will come down the stairs from her room, I suppose--and
+will stand--I don't know where--but you've got to stop when I look at
+you. Watch me now----"
+
+Bending her knees, she stood bobbing up and down in time to the
+children's singing, until she caught the step, then started down the
+stairs, unconsciously raising and lowering her dress skirt to emphasise
+the rhythm of the song.
+
+Across the room she marched, head bent and eyes cast down, while the
+children repeated the familiar verse over and over.
+
+Having marched herself into a corner she halted and faced the little
+singers. At that moment, however, Frederik entered, and the rehearsal
+was over for the day. Mrs. Batholommey quickly left her rôle of bride
+and dismissed the chorus with many warnings and instructions.
+
+"That will do, children. Hurry home between showers and don't forget
+what I've told you about to-morrow!"
+
+While she busied herself helping them into their rubbers and
+waterproofs, Frederik puffed at a cigarette in silence and was seemingly
+without the slightest interest in what was going on around him. A great
+change had taken place in his demeanour since his uncle's death. He had
+come into his own. The place, and everything, including Kathrien
+herself, would be his. He did not even try to veil his feeling of
+mastership. Walking over to his uncle's desk-chair, he sat down and
+began to pull off his gloves, looking at the children a trifle
+superciliously.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey felt it necessary to explain, and murmured with
+deprecatory haste:
+
+"My Sunday-school children. I thought your dear uncle wouldn't like it
+if he knew there wasn't going to be _any_ singing during the marriage
+ceremony to-morrow. I know how bright and cheery _he_ liked everything,"
+she purred. "If he were alive it would be a church wedding! Dear, happy,
+charitable soul!"
+
+As she spoke she handed the children their umbrellas and, exchanging
+good-byes, the little choir hurried out into the rain.
+
+"Where's Kathrien?" said Frederik.
+
+"Still upstairs with Willem," answered Mrs. Batholommey, glancing up
+toward the little boy's room apprehensively as she spoke, and lowering
+her voice a bit.
+
+Frederik made an inarticulate sound of annoyance, and putting his hand
+into his pocket, took out two steamer tickets and examined them. His one
+idea was to get away from the simple, quaint surroundings that his uncle
+had kept and beautified for him in the fond, proud hope that his nephew
+would love and care for the place as he had done.
+
+To Frederik it meant nothing but a humdrum existence, full of annoying
+detail. The money for which it stood had been his goal--that, and
+Kathrien, his uncle's very brightest flower--a flower which he was about
+to tear up by the roots and transplant to foreign soil.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey sat down in the big chair by the fire, and took up her
+crochet work with a sigh. Occasionally she looked at Frederik, and
+finally she spoke.
+
+"Of course I'm glad to stay here and chaperone Kathrien; but poor Mr.
+Batholommey has been alone at the parsonage for ten days--ever since
+your dear uncle--it will be ten days to-morrow since he di--oh, by the
+way, some mail came for your uncle. I put it in the drawer."
+
+Frederik did not trouble to answer. He merely nodded.
+
+"Curious how long before people know a man's gone," soliloquised Mrs.
+Batholommey.
+
+Opening the drawer carelessly Frederik took out his uncle's mail--two
+business letters and one in a plain blue envelope. He looked at them a
+moment, put them down, and proceeded to light another cigarette. Then he
+rose, and picking up his gloves looked toward the office.
+
+"Did Hartmann come?" he said.
+
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Batholommey, holding up a corner of the shawl she
+was crocheting, and surveying it critically. With a coquettish glance
+toward the bridegroom, she hummed a little bit of the wedding march.
+
+Frederik paid no attention to her, but, turning, gazed out of the
+window. Mrs. Batholommey, however, as the wife of a clergyman, was not
+used to being ignored; moreover, she was naturally of a persevering
+disposition--and, added to that, she had something on her mind and could
+keep still about it no longer.
+
+"Er----" (Mrs. Batholommey coughed expressively.) "By the way, Mr.
+Batholommey was very much excited when he heard that your uncle had left
+a personal memorandum concerning _us_. We're anxious to have it read."
+
+She might as well have addressed herself to a stone. Frederik made no
+sort of a response. Instead, he lounged over to the piano and examined
+some of the wedding presents piled up there.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey rose with decision and approached the piano.
+
+"_We are anxious to have it read!_"
+
+No answer.
+
+With a scorching glance at Frederik, Mrs. Batholommey, her work gathered
+in a fluffy white bunch in her arms, marched quickly out of the room and
+slammed the door.
+
+A moment later James, newly returned from the South, entered the room
+from the office. Frederik had found it impossible to get on without him
+in the matter of winding up his uncle's business and had sent an urgent
+and somewhat peremptory call for his immediate return.
+
+As, just then, he needed James, he was rather more civil to him than
+usual; but, from the first, he did not fail to sound the
+employer-employee note.
+
+He came forward and shook hands cordially.
+
+"Good-afternoon. Good-afternoon. How do you do, Hartmann? I'm very glad
+you consented to come back and straighten out a few matters. Naturally,
+there's some business correspondence I don't understand."
+
+"I've already gone over some of it," answered Hartmann.
+
+"I appreciate the fact that you came over on my _uncle's_ account."
+
+So saying, Frederik turned away with a ceremonious bow.
+
+Hartmann went over to the desk and took a letter from the file. Then he
+said coldly:
+
+"Oh, I see that Hicks of Rochester has written you. I hope you don't
+intend to sell out your uncle before his monument is set up."
+
+Frederik turned toward Hartmann and put down his cigarette.
+
+"I? Sell out? My intention is to carry out every wish of my dear
+uncle's."
+
+James, at this moment catching sight of Frederik's black-bordered
+handkerchief, said sceptically:
+
+"I hope so," and vanished into the office with a handful of papers.
+
+He wished as few words as possible with Frederik. He could not bear to
+look at him--for the thought that to-morrow Kathrien was to marry the
+man and go out of his own life for all time was almost more than he
+could stand. He had watched her grow from a lovely little girl to a
+lovelier woman--he understood her as did no one else, not even Oom
+Peter, who, too, had loved her so devotedly.
+
+And he felt that she loved him, though no word had ever been said. And
+now--he must let her go--he must let this worthless fellow take her--to
+a life of unhappiness; for knowing the sweet soul of Kathrien, who could
+doubt that such a marriage would bring her unhappiness?
+
+Frederik's eyes rested thoughtfully on Hartmann's retreating figure.
+Then a slight sound attracted his attention, and he looked up in time to
+see Kathrien coming downstairs. Her simple white dress held no touch of
+mourning, yet she was a wistful, pathetic little figure, full of
+sadness.
+
+"Ah, Kitty! See----" (taking out the tickets as he spoke). "Here's the
+steamship tickets for Europe. I've arranged everything."
+
+He took a step forward to meet her.
+
+"Well, to-morrow's our wedding day, _lievling_, yes?"
+
+"Yes," answered Kathrien in a breathless way.
+
+"It'll be a June wedding," Frederik went on, "just as Oom Peter wished."
+
+Kathrien forced herself to speak brightly.
+
+"Yes--just as he wished. Everything is just as he----" she broke off
+suddenly with a change of manner, and gazed at Frederik with beseeching
+earnestness.
+
+"Frederik, I don't want to go away. I don't want to take this journey to
+Europe. If only I could stay quietly in--in my own dear home!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A WASTED PLEA
+
+
+Frederik concealed his annoyance as best he could, and smiled
+affectionately at the little bride-to-be, trying to coax her out of her
+mood. He looked around the familiar room a bit scornfully.
+
+"Huh! This old cottage with its candles and lamps and shadows! What does
+it amount to? Wait until I've shown you the home I _want_ you to
+have--the house Mrs. Frederik Grimm _should_ live in."
+
+He patted her arm once or twice as he spoke, to give further weight to
+his words; but they seemed lost on Kathrien. Her eyes grew more and more
+troubled and her sweet face increasingly wistful.
+
+"I don't want to leave this house," she said. "I don't want any home but
+this. I should be wretched if you took me away."
+
+As she spoke, she glanced helplessly at the fresh flowers on Oom Peter's
+desk, placed there daily by her faithful, loving little fingers.
+
+"I'm sure Oom Peter would like to think of me as here, among our dear,
+dear flowers!"
+
+Frederik tried to reassure her as one does a child, and answered
+soothingly:
+
+"Of course--but what you need is a change, yes?"
+
+Kathrien turned away and traced a pattern on the newel post with her
+slender fingers. She found it very hard to talk. After a moment, she
+went on:
+
+"I--I've always wanted to please Oom Peter.--I always felt that I owed
+everything to him--if he had lived and I could have seen his happiness
+over our marriage, that would have made _me_ happy, almost. But he's
+gone--and every day--the longer he's away from me, the more I see for
+myself that I don't feel toward you as I ought. You know it. But I want
+to tell you again. I'm perfectly willing to marry you. Only--I'm afraid
+I can't make you happy."
+
+Looking at him with sorrowful, perplexed eyes, she went on:
+
+"It's so disloyal to speak like this after I promised _him_; but,
+Frederik, it's _true_."
+
+Frederik found it hard to keep his patience; yet he continued to reason
+with Kathrien in a voice even gentler than before, though with an
+accent of finality in it that she could not disregard as he said:
+
+"But you _did_ promise Uncle Peter you'd marry me, yes?"
+
+Her answering "Yes" was barely audible.
+
+Frederik continued insistently:
+
+"And he died believing you, yes?"
+
+Kathrien merely nodded; she could not look at him, could not speak.
+After a moment she went on, her eyes still averted:
+
+"That's what makes me try to live up to it. Still, I cannot help feeling
+that if Oom Peter knew how hard everything seems--how alone I feel----"
+
+"You are not alone while I am here, _lievling_----"
+
+Kathrien smiled pathetically.
+
+"You don't understand, Frederik. You mean to be kind--and you _are_
+kind. And I thank you for it; but if only my mother had lived! As long
+as dear Oom Peter was here he was father, mother, everything to me. I
+felt no lack; but now--oh, I want my mother to turn to----"
+
+The girl's eyes were suddenly suffused with tears.
+
+"Don't you _see_? Try to know how I feel.--Try to understand----"
+
+Suddenly Frederik stopped her torrent of words. He took her in his arms
+before she realised it, and, kissing her, he said:
+
+"_Natürlich_--I understand. I love you--and in time--Wait! You shall
+see! You must not worry, sweetheart. These things will come right, all
+in good time."
+
+But Kathrien had released herself with nervous if quiet haste.
+
+"Willem is feeling so much better," she said, with a change of tone to
+the ordinary.
+
+"_Tc!_"
+
+With his usual display of annoyance at the mention of Willem, Frederik
+left Kathrien and walked over to Oom Peter's desk, where he began to
+pick up and lay down the various articles strewn about its surface;
+without in the least realising what he was doing.
+
+"I do hope that child will be kept out of the way--to-morrow," he said
+roughly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh--oh, I----"
+
+Frederik found it hard to tell why.
+
+"You have always disliked poor little Willem, haven't you?" demanded
+Kathrien.
+
+"N--no----" answered Frederik. "But----"
+
+His nervousness was very evident as he still moved fussily about the
+desk.
+
+"_Yes, you have_," continued Kathrien calmly. "I remember how angry you
+were when you came back from Leyden University and found him living
+here. How could you help being drawn to a little blue-eyed,
+golden-haired baby such as he was then?--Only five years old, and such a
+darling! He won us all at once, except you. And in all the three years
+he has been here, we've only grown more and more fond of him each day.
+You love children--you go out of your way to pick up a child and pet it.
+Why do you dislike Anne Marie's little boy?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Frederik impatiently, "he has a way of staring at people as
+though he had a perpetual question on his lips----"
+
+He was interrupted by a vivid flash of lightning and a long roll of
+thunder.
+
+"Oh, a little child!" said Kathrien reproachfully. "He has only kindness
+from everybody. Why shouldn't he look at one?"
+
+"And then his mother!" went on Frederik, gazing into the fire, while
+the rain, steadily increasing with the nearer approach of thunder and
+lightning, blotted away the pleasant landscape outside the windows.
+
+"Uncle and I loved Anne Marie, and we had forgiven her. Why should _you_
+blame her so bitterly? Surely she has suffered enough to expiate----"
+
+"I don't want to be hard upon any woman. I've never seen her since she
+left the house, but--Hear that rain! It's pouring again! The third day.
+You're wise to have a fire in here. This old house would be damp
+otherwise in a long storm like this. By the way, Hartmann is back for a
+few hours to straighten things out--I'm going to see what he's doing."
+
+Frederik went up to Kathrien, and putting his arms about her, led her up
+to the piano, saying:
+
+"Kitty, have you seen all the wedding presents? Wait for me a while here
+and look at them till I come back. I'll be with you again in a few
+minutes."
+
+Smiling, and giving her cheek a tender pat, he left her alone.
+
+As she stood there, surrounded by all her gay presents, she looked
+anything but the picture of a happy bride. Giving no thoughts to the
+gifts, she stood, motionless, her eyes slowly filling with tears.
+
+Suddenly the outer door slammed, and a moment afterward Dr. McPherson
+entered. His tweed shawl and cap proclaimed the recent violence of the
+storm as he hurriedly took them off and hung them up, and placed his
+soaked umbrella in the rack. With a book under his arm, he came quickly
+toward the girl, saying:
+
+"Good-evening, Kathrien. How's Willem?"
+
+Kathrien tried to hide her tears; but it was impossible to elude the
+keen eyes of Dr. McPherson. In one quick glance he caught the situation.
+
+"What's the matter?" he said curtly.
+
+"Nothing," said Kathrien in a voice whose tremble she could not control;
+yet bravely wiping away her tears as she spoke. "I was only thinking--I
+was hoping that those we love--and lose--can't see us here. I'm
+beginning to believe there's not much happiness in _this_ world."
+
+The doctor looked at her with affectionate reproof, much as if she had
+been a naughty child.
+
+"Why, you little snip!" he said whimsically, as he pulled her toward him
+determinedly. "I've a notion to chastise you! Talking like that with the
+whole of life before you! Such cluttered nonsense!"
+
+Still talking he started toward the stairs and Willem's room, and
+Kathrien sank into a chair; but the doctor changed his mind, turned, and
+came back to her again.
+
+"Kathrien, I understand you've not a penny to your name," he said
+gruffly, "unless you marry Frederik. He has inherited you--along with
+the orchids and the tulips."
+
+He put his arm around her with a gentle, protective movement as he went
+on:
+
+"Don't let that influence you. If Peter's plans bind you--and you look
+as if they did--my door's open. Don't let the neighbours' opinions and a
+few silver spoons," glancing towards the wedding gifts, "stand in the
+way of your whole future."
+
+Having thus opened his warm Scotch heart and his home to the motherless
+girl, it was indicative of his character that he should give her no
+chance to thank him. Before she could speak, he had run up the stairs,
+placed his cigar on the little table in the upper hall, and hurried into
+Willem's room.
+
+Outside the sky grew blacker and blacker, darkening the room where
+Kathrien sat. Suddenly she rose from her chair, and stretching out her
+arms, gave a cry that was dragged from her very soul.
+
+"Oh! Oom Peter, Oom Peter, why did you do it? _Why_ did you do it?"
+
+She looked all at once a woman. No longer the carefree, happy girl she
+had been but a few short weeks before. Standing thus, her beautiful face
+full of agony, she did not hear Marta as she came in from the
+dining-room to carry upstairs the dainty wedding clothes for the
+morrow--a mass of filmy, fluffy white, laid carefully over both arms.
+
+At first Marta did not see her in the dim yellow gloom of the large
+room; but a moment later, in alarm, she dropped the clothes in a careful
+heap on a chair, and ran to Kathrien as fast as her stocky figure and
+many Dutch petticoats would allow.
+
+"_Och_," she cried sympathetically. At her pitying touch, Kathrien
+suddenly buried her face on Marta's broad breast, and broke into
+convulsive sobs. Marta hushed her as she would a baby, with many sweet,
+caressing Dutch words.
+
+"Sh! Sh! _Lievling_, Sh! Sh! Old Marta is here! Cry all you want
+to----'Twill do you good! A bride to cry on her wedding eve! Who ever
+heard such things! You should be happy--the good Mynheer Grimm would
+wish his child happy on her wedding eve! Sh! You will have a fine day
+to-morrow, for it storms to-night--a good sign! You must have a bright
+face to show your husband, and a face of happiness! Not a swollen little
+face--like this! What a face to take to a bridegroom! Marta has fixed
+the dress--'tis wonderful! See there over the chair, so filmy--like a
+cloud--you will be like a lily in a cloud of dew to-morrow. Think how
+beautiful! Do not spoil it all, _lievling_! Be happy, Kathrien, Kathrien
+_wees, bedard, kindje lievling_. Be happy among those who love you so!"
+
+Comforted by Marta's soothing words, and relieved by a good cry,
+Kathrien wiped her eyes.
+
+"There, there, Marta," she said, drawing a long, quivering breath,
+"others have troubles too, haven't they?"
+
+Marta nodded her head vigorously.
+
+"_Ach!_" she sighed. "_Gut--Ja!_ Others have their troubles!"
+
+Kathrien kissed Marta gently, then said:
+
+"I had hoped, Marta, that Anne Marie would have heard of uncle, and come
+back to us at this time--you are so brave--you never complain--Poor
+Marta!"
+
+Once more Marta sighed.
+
+"If it could have brought us all together once more--but no
+message--nothing--I cannot understand--my only child."
+
+Nearer and nearer came the storm. The rain pounded on the shingles and
+pattered loudly against the windows. The wind howled around the eves,
+and the old house rattled and shook in spite of its solid foundation.
+
+Marta, still brooding over Kathrien like a motherly hen over her
+chicken, shuddered at the rattling of the window blinds.
+
+From the midst of the general tumult a new sound detached itself--a
+sharp double rap from the old-fashioned knocker.
+
+"_Och!_" cried Marta. "It must be Pastor and the others! You don't feel
+much like seeing visitors, my lamb. Run away now before I let 'em
+in--and bathe your eyes in lavender water."
+
+She hurried to the front door, and Kathrien, at once brought to herself,
+hastened upstairs to her room.
+
+As Marta opened wide the door, Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton (Peter
+Grimm's former lawyer) seemed fairly blown into the hall.
+
+"Good-evening, Marta," boomed the clergyman's unctuous tones. "The
+elements are indeed at war to-night! I trust the household is well?"
+
+Marta curtseyed bobbingly to both men as she said:
+
+"Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Batholommey, only poor little Willem, sir.
+He's strange and not like himself, sir. The doctor was in and out
+through the day, and now he's here again--upstairs with Willem."
+
+As Marta talked, Mr. Batholommey divested himself of his long black
+rainproof coat, and Colonel Lawton (who had not felt it necessary to
+reply to Marta's civil greeting) hastily took off his rubber poncho,
+giving it a vigorous shake that sent the raindrops flying. He was a
+tall, middle-aged man, loosely put together, who wore his clothes very
+badly. One somehow got the idea that they were never pressed.
+
+"Brr!" he cried, taking off his overshoes. "What a storm for June! It's
+more like fall! Look at my rubbers--and yours are just as
+bad--mud-soaked! Get 'em off, quick. They're enough to give any one a
+chill!"
+
+Marta had slipped out unnoticed, and now Frederik came in just in time
+to see the dripping coats hung up on the hat rack.
+
+"Good-evening," he said in what he intended for a cordial tone.
+
+"Ah, just in time," answered Colonel Lawton. "Gee Whillikins! What a
+day!"
+
+Then turning again to Mr. Batholommey he went on jocularly:
+
+"Great weather for baptisms--Parson."
+
+Having successfully disentangled himself at last from all his
+water-soaked outer coverings, Mr. Batholommey turned and offered a damp
+and rainy hand to Frederik.
+
+"Good-evening, good-evening, Frederik," he said impressively. "I'm glad
+to see you. We are pleased to be here, _in spite_ of the weather."
+
+"Well, here we are, Frederik, my boy,----" put in Colonel Lawton. "At
+the time you set."
+
+After shaking hands with both men, Frederik, perhaps unconsciously,
+wiped his own on his handkerchief. Then going to the desk, he took a
+paper from under the paperweight. After studying it a moment, he said
+(smiling a bit to himself and turning that the others might not see the
+smile):
+
+"I sent for you to hear a memorandum left by my uncle. I came across it
+only this morning."
+
+Both Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton tried to conceal their
+excitement.
+
+"I must have drawn up ten wills for the old gentleman," announced
+Colonel Lawton, "but he always tore 'em up."
+
+Then, throwing back his head and peering at Frederik through his
+spectacles:
+
+"May I have a drink of his plum brandy, Frederik?"
+
+"Certainly," answered Frederik carelessly. "Help yourself. Pastor, will
+you have some?"
+
+Colonel Lawton poured out a glass of brandy and offered it to Mr.
+Batholommey, then helped himself with alacrity. In the roll of thunder
+which came at that moment, no one heard the footsteps of Mrs.
+Batholommey, as she entered from the "front parlour."
+
+The tableau that met her vision caused her to give a little shriek as
+she stopped short, and gazed with horror-struck eyes at her husband and
+his brandy glass.
+
+"Why, _Henry_! _What_ are you doing? Are your feet wet?"
+
+Mr. Batholommey did not get a drink every day, and this one was much too
+nearly his to be relinquished now. It was not a case for self-denial.
+It was not a case where it was necessary to be a good example for any
+one. Therefore the pastor gave place to the husband for a moment, and
+when Mrs. Batholommey repeated:
+
+"Are your feet wet, Henry?"
+
+He answered with decision:
+
+"No, Rose, they're _not_. I want a drink and I'm going to _take_ it.
+It's a bad night."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey said no more, but closing her mouth tightly, turned
+away with lifted eyebrows and downcast eyes, reproachful indignation
+bristling at every point.
+
+Her husband, well pleased at his little victory, smacked his lips with
+enjoyment; returned the now empty glass to the Colonel and, rubbing his
+hands together, went toward the fireplace. Mrs. Batholommey, her
+indignation quickly forgotten, joined him there and sat down beside him.
+Colonel Lawton, hastily replacing decanter and glasses on the table,
+also drew up a chair in front of the fire--and waited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE LEGACIES
+
+
+Frederik, glancing at the backs of the three eager, huddled figures
+crouching almost literally in the fireplace, smiled again to
+himself--and allowed them to wait.
+
+Finally, Colonel Lawton could stand it no longer. Still with his back to
+the heir, and his eyes toward the fire, he cried:
+
+"Well, go ahead, Frederik."
+
+No response. Mr. Batholommey tried next.
+
+"I knew your uncle would remember his friends and his charities," he
+said smugly. "He gave it in such a free-handed, princely way."
+
+Frederik could not resist a sarcastic chuckle, as he glanced toward the
+three backs once more, and then began to read the memorandum aloud.
+
+"_For Mrs. Batholommey:_"
+
+He got no further for, at the first word, the three chairs were turned
+around to face Frederik, quickly and simultaneously; so that the
+beneficiaries might not have even their own backs between them and their
+coming fortune.
+
+At hearing her name, Mrs. Batholommey burst out:
+
+"The dear man! To think he remembered _me_! I knew he'd remember the
+church and Mr. Batholommey--of course--but to think he'd remember _me_!"
+
+Here she cast her eyes up to heaven in grateful recognition.
+
+"He knew that our income was very limited," she went on comfortably. "He
+was _so thoughtful_. His purse," she sighed with feeling, "was always
+open."
+
+Having delivered this eulogism of the dead, the lady folded her hands
+placidly, and with eyes cast down, but attentive, settled herself to
+await developments.
+
+Frederik looked at her a moment, grinned to himself, then continued:
+
+"_For Mr. Batholommey:_"
+
+The clergyman nodded solemnly, but a pleased expression crept about the
+corners of his mouth and his face took on an extra look of smugness.
+
+"Our reward is laid up for us," he murmured sententiously, "where we
+least expect it."
+
+"Quite so----" said Frederik shortly. "And as the doctor isn't
+here--well, the next is you, Colonel. The others mentioned are people
+in his employ."
+
+Colonel Lawton settled lower in his chair, until he might almost be said
+to be lying on his back. He crossed his legs luxuriously and took a
+cigar from his pocket, saying as he lighted it:
+
+"He knew I did the best I could for him--the _grand old man_!" Then
+dropping the eulogistic tone for one of strict business:
+
+"What'd he leave me?"
+
+Frederik kept them waiting a moment longer. He was having the time of
+his life. He had purposely strung out the situation to its last thread,
+for the joy of witnessing the self-satisfied eagerness of the three
+legatees. Silent now, but acutely attentive, they sat with watchful eyes
+trained on Frederik and the all-important paper which he was holding so
+carelessly in his hand--the paper that was presently to tell them so
+much of moment. Then it came.
+
+"Mrs. Batholommey, he wishes you to have his miniature--with his
+affectionate regard."
+
+Frederik took a miniature from the desk drawer and offered it to Mrs.
+Batholommey with much ceremony. She did not take it, but sat waiting as
+before, merely folding her hands as she purred:
+
+"Dear old gentleman--and--er--yes?"
+
+Frederik seemed not to hear her, and laying the miniature on the desk,
+went on reading:
+
+"To Mr. Batholommey----"
+
+The clergyman's wife broke in quickly.
+
+"But--er--you didn't finish _mine_!"
+
+Frederik turned around in his chair and looked directly at her.
+
+"You're finished," he said.
+
+"I'm _finished_?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, in a voice trembling with
+indignation.
+
+"Rose!" her husband remonstrated in severe rebuke.
+
+"Oh, it's all very well for you to say 'Rose!' How would _you_ like it
+to get nothing but an old picture? Tell me that!"
+
+Here she had recourse to her handkerchief, and her lips trembled as she
+wiped her eyes, sniffling sorrowfully and all unheeded by the others.
+
+Frederik took a watch fob from the drawer before he continued his
+reading.
+
+"To Mr. Batholommey: my antique watch fob--with profound respect."
+
+The executor rolled the words under his tongue.
+
+Mr. Batholommey rose, bowed graciously, and accepted the watch fob
+without looking at it. Then he sat down.
+
+The voice of Fate went on:
+
+"To Colonel Lawton----"
+
+Before Frederik could get any farther, Mrs. Batholommey was again at the
+front:
+
+"His _watch fob_? Is that what he left _Henry_? Is that all? His----Why!
+_Well!_ I can't believe it! If he had no wish to make our life easier,
+at least he should have left something for the church. Oh, Henry!" she
+cried in consternation. "Won't the congregation have a crow to pick with
+you!"
+
+Frederik no longer made any effort to conceal his pleasure at the part
+he had to play. He smiled broadly and maliciously and he was quite
+willing that they should all see him smile.
+
+It must be said of Mr. Batholommey that he took his disappointment
+rather well. He said nothing at all, and he tried not to show how he
+felt. In fact he tried not to _feel_ any resentment toward his late
+parishioner. It was one of the hardest moments of his life; but he knew
+that as a clergyman he should be able to forgive--and he tried very
+hard.
+
+It would have been so comfortable to have a tidy sum to put by for his
+old age! He had expected it so confidently! He had flattered and praised
+and praised and flattered! And now, after all, he was left high and
+dry--with a watch fob to look to for comfort in his declining years! He
+would keep his feelings to himself if possible, however. He did not care
+to make Frederik's triumph any greater, or his smile any broader on his
+account; so he compelled himself to listen to the third part of the
+memorandum with an expression of polite interest.
+
+"To my lifelong friend, Colonel Lawton, I leave my most cherished
+possession."
+
+The Colonel preened himself. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of
+his vest and wagged his crossed foot complacently. This was to be the
+real kernel of the memorandum.
+
+His appearance of security was too much for Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"Oh! When the church hears----"
+
+She was interrupted by Colonel Lawton:
+
+"I don't know why he was called upon to leave anything to the church,"
+he said truculently, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. "He gave
+it thousands, and only last month he put in chimes. As I look at it, he
+wished to give you something he had used--something personal. Perhaps
+the miniature and the fob _ain't_ worth three whoops in hell--it's the
+_sentiment_!"
+
+He lay back in his chair again as he fairly chewed on the word
+'sentiment.' Once more he crossed his legs, and peered at Frederik
+through his glasses.
+
+"Drive on, Fred," he ordered.
+
+"To Colonel Lawton, my father's prayer book."
+
+As he read, Frederik put one hand into the drawer, and took out a worn
+prayer book.
+
+Mr. Batholommey smiled, and chuckled behind his hand, but Colonel Lawton
+seemed dazed. His jaw dropped, and he looked helplessly at Frederik and
+the others.
+
+"What?" he said in a choking voice. "His prayer book--_me_?"
+
+As in a dream he slowly leaned forward and took it gingerly between two
+fingers as one might a June bug--gazing at it in amazed horror and
+incredulity the while.
+
+"Is that all?" demanded Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"That's all," answered Frederik, bowing to Mrs. Batholommey and smiling
+radiantly.
+
+Colonel Lawton, still dazed, could only reiterate:
+
+"A prayer book. Me? What for?"
+
+Then he got up slowly.
+
+"Well, I'll be----Here, Parson." As an idea struck him, he turned
+quickly toward Mr. Batholommey. "Let's shift--you take the prayer book
+and I'll take the old fob!"
+
+Mr. Batholommey smiled and waved away the offered book.
+
+"Thank you," he said smoothly, "I already have a prayer book."
+
+At this retort, the Colonel wilted completely. Drawing his chair close
+to the fire he sat down limply and gave himself up to bitter reflection.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey seemed the least able of the three to bear the
+shattering of her high hopes. She moved around the room restlessly.
+
+"Well, all I can say is"--(her voice shook and her eyes reproached
+Frederik)--"I'm disappointed in your uncle."
+
+No one paid any attention to her remark, each person being engrossed in
+his own thoughts. For some moments the air was pregnant with unspoken
+invective.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MOSTLY CONCERNING GRATITUDE
+
+
+Finally Colonel Lawton turned toward Frederik. He was now sitting
+astride his chair and puffing violently at his cigar.
+
+"Is _this_ what you hauled us out in the rain for?" he snarled.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, all unheeding, went on with her own train of thought.
+
+"I see it all now," she whimpered. "He only gave to the church to show
+off!"
+
+"Rose!" her husband cried, aghast. "I myself am disappointed, but----"
+
+"_He did!_" interrupted Mrs. Batholommey in tears of wrath. "Oh, why
+didn't he continue his work? He was not generous. He was a hard,
+uncharitable, selfish old man."
+
+"Rose, my dear!" remonstrated Mr. Batholommey. "Think what you are
+saying!"
+
+"He was! If he were here, I'd say it to his face. The congregation
+sicked _you_ after him. And now he's gone and you'll get nothing more.
+And they'll call you slow--slow and pokey! You'll see! To-morrow you'll
+wake up!"
+
+"My dear!" expostulated her husband once more.
+
+But Mrs. Batholommey paid no attention to his words or to the beseeching
+look that accompanied them. She waved an arm dramatically.
+
+"Here's a man the rector spent half his time with--and for what? A watch
+fob!"
+
+The ineffable scorn with which she pronounced these last words caused
+Mr. Batholommey to hang his head.
+
+"You'll see!" she went on. "This will be the end of you! It's not what
+you preach that counts nowadays. It's what you coax out of the rich
+parishioners' pockets."
+
+"Mrs. Batholommey!" thundered the clergyman, taking a step forward; but
+he might as well have tried to stem the ocean.
+
+"The church needs funds to-day. Religion doesn't stand where it did,
+when a college professor is saying that--that--"--(here her voice
+broke)--"the Star of Bethlehem was only a comet."
+
+The end of the sentence resolved itself into a veritable wail and she
+sat down quickly and subsided into her handkerchief.
+
+"My dear!" reiterated the helpless husband.
+
+"Oh!" she wailed through her tears, "if I said all the things I feel
+like saying about Peter Grimm"--(here it almost sounded as if she ground
+her teeth)--"well--I shouldn't be a fit clergyman's wife. Not to leave
+his dear friends a----"
+
+Again her voice was muffled in the folds of the handkerchief, and
+Colonel Lawton took advantage of the temporary lull to put in a word.
+
+"He wasn't _liberal_," he said, rising, "but for God's sake, Madam,
+think what he ought to have done for _me_ after my patiently listening
+to his plans for twenty years! Mind, I'm not complaining, but what have
+I got out of it? A Bible!"
+
+"Oh, you've feathered _your_ nest, Colonel!" cried Mrs. Batholommey,
+recovering somewhat.
+
+"I never came here," retorted Colonel Lawton spitefully, "that _you_
+weren't begging!"
+
+"See here, Lawton," the clergyman interrupted truculently, "don't forget
+who you are speaking to!"
+
+Colonel Lawton waved his hand patronisingly at the clergyman.
+
+"That's all right, Parson. I know who I'm speaking to. We're all in the
+same boat--one's as good as another--when we're all up against a thing
+like this. If anything, you two are worse than I am, for you stand for
+better things. What would your congregation think of either of you if
+they could look into your hearts this moment and see 'em as they
+_really_ are?"
+
+"Really are--really are!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "I'm not ashamed to
+have any one see my heart as it really is!"
+
+(And Mrs. Batholommey was telling the truth, for she was a good woman at
+heart, and it was not her fault that she had a human desire for this
+world's goods for those she loved, for the church, and for herself.)
+
+Here Frederik, who had watched the scene with much amusement at first,
+came forward through the increasing gloom. He was getting tired of the
+childish bickering.
+
+"Well, well, well, I'm disgusted," he said, "when I see such
+heartlessness! He was putty in all your hands."
+
+"Oh, you can defend his memory. _You_ got the money!" cried Mrs.
+Batholommey, with asperity. "He liked flattery and you gave him what he
+wanted and you gave him plenty of it."
+
+"Why not?" retorted Frederik calmly, getting a cigarette out of his
+case. "The rest of you were at the same thing--yes?"
+
+He struck a match and lighted his cigarette as he continued in a
+disagreeable tone:
+
+"And I had the pleasure of watching him hand out the money that belonged
+to me--to _me_," he repeated. "My money! What business had he to be
+generous with my money?"
+
+Still talking, Frederik sat down at the desk.
+
+"If he'd lived much longer, I'd have been a pauper. It's a lucky thing
+for me he di----"
+
+Frederik had the grace to leave the word unfinished.
+
+Mr. Batholommey broke the slight pause.
+
+"Young man," he said solemnly, "it might have been better if Mr. Grimm
+had given _all_ he had to charity--for he left his money to an ingrate."
+
+The "ingrate" laughed derisively.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha!" he cried. "You amuse one! You don't know how amusing you
+are."
+
+No one cared to add further to Frederik's amusement, so they all sat
+still. The room was now perfectly dark, except for an occasional flash
+of heat-lightning from the vanished storm.
+
+Night had crept upon them unheeded, so intent had they been on their
+petty wrangling.
+
+Finally Mrs. Batholommey got up and went towards the desk.
+
+"Where is the miniature?" she demanded. "I don't want it--but I'll take
+it."
+
+Frederik lighted a match, and by its flickering blaze found the
+discarded miniature lying face downward on the desk. Mrs. Batholommey
+snatched it from his fingers, and made her way back to the fireplace.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Frederik again.
+
+"Rose, my dear," began Mr. Batholommey, "the min----"
+
+"Sh!" interrupted Frederik.
+
+There was a pause. Then he rose.
+
+"Who came into the room?" he asked in a strange voice.
+
+He lit a match and waved it slowly in the direction of the hall door. It
+was extinguished instantly as if the wind had blown it out. He lighted
+another, saying:
+
+"We're sitting in the darkness like owls. Who came in?" he demanded
+again.
+
+There was no answer as he peered around the room, holding the match
+toward first one corner and then another.
+
+"I didn't hear any one," said the Colonel.
+
+"Nor I," added Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"No," said Mr. Batholommey.
+
+"I was _sure_ some one came in," Frederik said in a strange voice.
+
+"You must have imagined it," suggested Mr. Batholommey. "Our nerves are
+all upset."
+
+"I'll get a light," Frederik said, starting toward the dining-room.
+
+At that moment, Marta entered with the welcome lamps. She carried two of
+them, one already lighted, which she put upon the table. The other
+Frederik took quickly from her and carried to the chain-bracket over the
+desk. This he adjusted with Marta's help, and then lighted.
+
+After which he glanced apprehensively about the room once more. Even
+under the reassuring flood of light his impression that some one had
+stolen in upon the dim-lit conference would not wholly vanish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+The Dead Man came home.
+
+The old collie, lying stretched in the deep porch, safe from the storm,
+knew him. As the Dead Man came up the walk between the trim beds of
+rain-soaked flowers, the old dog crawled rheumatically to its feet, the
+bleared eyes brightening, the feathered tail awag in joyous greeting to
+the loved master who had been so long and so unaccountably absent.
+
+Peter Grimm laid a hand caressingly on his old pet's head; then passed
+into his former home.
+
+And so, at Frederik's frightened demand, "Who came into the room?" the
+Dead Man stood among his own again. Before him was the nephew he had
+loved. Nearby were the husband and wife whose follies and harmless
+affectations he had forgiven with a laugh of amusement, for the sake of
+their goodness and for the devotion they bore himself. Lounging in the
+chair that had been his own was the lawyer who had been his dear friend
+and adviser. The friends he had cared for, the nephew on whom his every
+hope had been set.
+
+With a wistful half-smile, Peter Grimm surveyed the group.
+
+And, as Marta brought in one lighted lamp and then bustled about
+lighting another, he stood in clear view of them all. Clad in the same
+old-fashioned garb with which they were so familiar, he was unchanged,
+save that all age and all care lines were wiped from his face.
+
+He was not a wraith, no grisly spectre, no half-nebulous Shape. He was
+Peter Grimm, rugged, homespun, the man whose iron individuality had
+undergone and could undergo no change.
+
+He stood there in the lamplight, plainly visible--to such as had eyes to
+see him.
+
+The dog, with that sense which God gives to all animals and withholds
+from all humans, had had no more difficulty in recognising him than when
+Peter Grimm had walked the earth in the flesh.
+
+The faculty which makes a sleeping dog awake, raise its head, wag its
+tail and follow with its eyes the movements of some invisible form that
+moves from place to place in a room,--which makes a flock of chickens
+scatter squawking and fluttering when no human being can discern cause
+for their flight--which makes a horse shy violently when travelling a
+patch of road, apparently barren of anything to alarm him,--which makes
+a cat suddenly arch its back and spit and strike at the Unseen, or else
+rub purringly against an invisible hand--this faculty made Peter Grimm
+very real to his blear-eyed, asthmatic old collie.
+
+But the inmates of the room, being but human, had seen and heard
+nothing. Frederik, it is true, being in a constant state of nervous
+tension that rendered his senses less dense and earthy than usual, had
+fancied he heard--or felt--some one enter the room. But at the
+disclaimers of the rest, the notion vanished as such notions do. And the
+warm flood of lamplight dispelled whatever of the psychic may have
+brooded over the little group, bringing back their comfortable
+materialism with a rush.
+
+Wherefore, in his old home and among his own, Peter Grimm stood unseen;
+that deprecatory half-smile on his square, ageless face.
+
+The lighting of the lamps and Marta's noisy return to her own culinary
+domain served as signals to break up the group about the desk. Mr.
+Batholommey crossed the room and took his hat and coat from the rack,
+passing within a hand's-breadth of the smiling, expectant Peter Grimm as
+he did so.
+
+"Well, Frederik," said the rector doubtfully by way of farewell, "I hope
+that you'll follow your uncle's example at least as far as our parish
+poor are concerned,--and keep on with _some_ of his charities."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, dutifully following her husband to the rack and
+helping him on with his coat, turned to hear Frederik answer the
+question she and the rector had so often and so anxiously discussed
+during the past ten days. The heir did his best to settle their every
+doubt in the fewest possible words.
+
+"I may as well tell you now, as any time," said he, "that you needn't
+look to me for any charitable graft at all. Your parish poor will have
+to begin hustling for a living now. I don't intend to waste good money
+in feeding what you Americans call 'a bunch of panhandlers.'"
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, inexpressibly disappointed.
+
+The smile died on Peter Grimm's face and the light of happy expectancy
+was gone from his eyes.
+
+"I am very sorry, Frederik," said the rector stiffly, "not only that
+you can speak so of God's poor, but that you are not willing to continue
+your uncle's splendid philanthropies. It--it doesn't seem possible that
+he never told you how dear his charities were to him. Well," he broke
+off with a shrug, and glancing at his watch, "I've got thirty minutes to
+make a call before tea time."
+
+"I must be toddling, too," said Colonel Lawton. "Are you going my way,
+Mr. Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host
+good-bye, "it's queer--deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one
+thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too
+late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to
+do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought
+of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it.
+But from the way you've talked this afternoon, I wonder----"
+
+"Heirlooms? Relics?" queried Frederik, puzzled. "Oh--you mean all this
+junk?" with a comprehensive hand wave that included Dutch clock, Dutch
+warming pans, Dutch bric-a-brac, and Dutch furniture. "This junk all
+over the house? Oh, I'll have it carted to the nearest ash heap. It
+isn't worth a red cent of any one's money."
+
+Peter Grimm strode forward, his lips parted in quick protest. But
+Colonel Lawton was already answering, with an appraising look about the
+room:
+
+"I don't know about that, Frederik. It may not be as worthless as you
+seem to think. Better let me send for a dealer to sort it over after
+you've gone on your honeymoon. I've heard that some people are fools
+enough to pay a lot of good money for this sort of antique trash."
+
+"Not a bad idea," approved Frederik. "See what you can do about it,
+won't you? I want it cleared out. And if I can get rid of it and do it
+at a profit, too, why, all the better."
+
+"If I could get that old clock," put in Mrs. Batholommey, the light of
+the bargain hunt shining in her large face, "I might consent to take it
+off your hands. Of course it isn't really worth anything. But----"
+
+"I've an idea," replied Frederik, with charming dearth of civility,
+"that it's worth a lot more than you'd pay me for it."
+
+"I hope," she snapped angrily as she glared at Frederik, "that your poor
+dear uncle is where he can see his mistake now!"
+
+"I am where I can see several," said the Dead Man to ears that could not
+hear.
+
+"Do you know," pursued Mrs. Batholommey, whose depths of professional
+sweetness had been turned faintly sub-acid by the events of the day--"do
+you know, Frederik, what I would like to say to your uncle if I could
+just once stand face to face with him, this very minute?"
+
+"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm sadly, as he looked deep into her eyes, "I
+know."
+
+"I should say to him----" began Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+Then she checked herself as at some impulse she herself did not
+understand, and finished somewhat lamely:
+
+"No, I wouldn't say it, either. He's dead. And we're told we must speak
+no ill of the dead. Though, for my part, I never could see what right we
+gain to immunity just by dying. And--oh, by the way, Henry," she broke
+off as her husband and the lawyer passed out of the vestibule, "Kathrien
+expects you back for supper. Don't forget, will you, dear? Good-night,
+Colonel Lawton."
+
+She followed them, closed the front door behind them, and bustled off to
+look after the arrangements for supper.
+
+Frederik yawned, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out into the office,
+Peter Grimm watching him with infinitely sad reproach in his luminous
+eyes.
+
+Then, left alone in the room he had loved, the Dead Man looked about him
+at the dear old bits of furniture and ornaments that had meant so much
+to him and whose fate he had just heard weighed between auctioneer's
+hammer and rubbish heap.
+
+He moved across to the rack, as if by lifelong instinct, and hung his
+antique hat on its accustomed peg. The simple, everyday action brought
+him so vividly close to older days that, as Marta pottered in with
+another newly filled lamp, he accosted her.
+
+"Marta!" he called, as she gave no sign of recognition to his kindly nod
+and smile.
+
+She set down the lamp in its place on the piano, crossed to the
+pulley-weight clock, and noisily wound it. As the old woman started back
+toward her kitchen, the Dead Man put himself once more in her way.
+
+"Marta!" said he, then more loudly and peremptorily, "_Marta!_"
+
+She passed within an inch of his outstretched hand and entered the
+kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Peter Grimm stared blankly after
+his housekeeper.
+
+"I seem to be a stranger in my own house," he murmured. "My friends pass
+me by. Their gross eyes cannot see me. Their gross ears will not hear
+me. But--Lad knew me. He came to meet me, wagging his tail just as he
+used to. I--I remember I've more than once noticed his going to meet
+other people like that. People _I_ couldn't see in those days."
+
+Frederik lounged back from the office, cigarette in mouth. He took out
+his watch, compared it with the clock on the wall, slipped it back into
+his pocket, and was crossing to the outer door when the telephone bell
+on the desk jangled.
+
+Frederik laid down his cigarette, seated himself at the desk, and picked
+up the receiver.
+
+"Hello!" he called.
+
+At the reply, he glanced around hastily, to make sure he was not likely
+to be overheard. Then, sinking his voice almost to a whisper and
+speaking with a nervous, almost guilty eagerness, he answered:
+
+"Yes. Yes. This is Mr. Grimm. Mr. Frederik Grimm. I've been waiting all
+day to hear from you, Mr. Hicks. How are you? Wait one moment, please."
+
+He rose, crossed the room, closed the door into the dining-room,--the
+only door that had been open,--glanced up into the bedroom gallery to
+make certain it was empty, then hurried back to the telephone.
+
+"Yes," said he. "Go ahead."
+
+There was a brief pause while he listened. Then he replied, in a tone of
+laboured indifference:
+
+"Oh, no. You're quite mistaken. I am not 'eager to sell.' Not at all. As
+a matter of fact," he continued unctuously, "I much prefer to carry out
+my dear uncle's wishes and keep the business in the family. You must
+surely remember how determined he was that it should be kept
+on.--What?--'If I could get my price,' eh? That's different, of course.
+It puts a new aspect on the whole affair.--What? Oh, well, an offer such
+as that deserves careful thought. I could not decline it offhand.--No, I
+admit it is very tempting.--'Talk it over?' Certainly."
+
+He paused, then went on in answer to a query from the other end of the
+wire:
+
+"To-morrow? No, I'm afraid not. You see, I'm going to be married
+to-morrow. A man does not want to be bothered with business deals on his
+wedding day.--No, the next day won't do, either, I'm afraid. You see, we
+are sailing directly for Europe. Thank you. Yes, I deserve all the
+congratulations you can offer me.--What?--Very well. This evening, then.
+That will suit me perfectly. You're in New York, I suppose? What time
+will it be convenient to you to get to Grimm Manor?--What?--Yes, that's
+all right. No. Not here at the house. I'll meet you at the hotel. The
+tavern.--Yes, I'll be there promptly.--What?"
+
+He listened a moment, then laughed in evident, if subdued, amusement.
+
+"So the dear old gentleman used to tell you his plans never failed, did
+he?" he questioned. "Yes, I've heard the same boast from him hundreds of
+times. That's one reason why I want the deal kept quiet till it's
+settled. So I asked you to meet me at the tavern instead of here at the
+house. I don't want it thought by other people that I'd run counter to
+his plans in any way. God rest his soul! Hey? 'What would he say if he
+knew?' I hate to think. He could express himself very forcibly when his
+dear, stubborn old will was crossed. You may remember that. Oh, well,
+it's _life_. Everything must change."
+
+There was a roll of thunder. At the same instant the windows flared
+pink-white with lightning. A flash of electricity ran purring and
+crackling along the telephone itself.
+
+Frederik, with a sharp cry of surprise, dropped the instrument, and
+squeezed his electrically shocked arm. Then gingerly he picked up the
+telephone, replaced the receiver, and turned away toward the window
+seat.
+
+Peter Grimm stood eyeing the telephone as if the man who had so lately
+been at the other end of the wire were directly in front of him.
+
+"You don't know it, Hicks," said the Dead Man quietly, "but you will
+never carry this plan of yours through. We are going to meet very soon,
+you and I."
+
+As if in response to his strange prophecy, the telephone jangled once
+more. Frederik returned to the desk and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello!" he called. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Hicks? No, they didn't cut us
+off. I thought you were through.--What?--A little louder, please. I
+can't hear you very well.--What?--You're feeling ill? Oh, I'm
+sorry.--What?--Oh, yes, it will do just as well to send your lawyer
+instead, if you find you're too sick to make the journey. Your lawyer
+will be empowered to attend to everything in your name, I
+suppose?--Good.--Then we can close the deal to-night. At the hotel and
+at the same time. All right. What did you say his name was?--Shelp?--All
+right. Good-bye. I hope you'll feel much better in the morning, Mr.
+Hicks."
+
+He relighted his cigarette, humming a little tune under his breath as he
+walked from the desk. His narrow face was very content.
+
+"And that's the boy I loved and trusted!" said Peter Grimm, half aloud,
+watching Frederik take his hat and umbrella from the rack and leave the
+house. "I wonder if I am to unearth many more of my mistakes. I come
+upon a new one at every turn."
+
+His wandering gaze rested on the door of Kathrien's room, in the gallery
+above. His lips parted in the old whimsical smile. Lifting his voice, he
+gave the odd call that had for years been a signal to Kathrien of his
+presence in the house and his desire to see her.
+
+"_Ou-oo!_" rang out the familiar cry.
+
+And, before its echoes could die away, Kathrien was out of her room and
+at the stairhead. She stood there an instant, dazed, wondering, like
+some one half-awakened from heavy sleep.
+
+Looking down into the room below, she slowly descended the stairs.
+
+"I thought some one called me," she said.
+
+And though she spoke the words in her own brain and not from the lips,
+Peter Grimm heard and answered her.
+
+"You did," said he. "I called you."
+
+Filled with a sense that she was not alone, yet seeing and hearing no
+one, she came down into the seemingly vacant room. And, still without
+words, she said:
+
+"I thought I heard a voice like--like----"
+
+"Yes," answered the Dead Man again, "you wanted me, little girl. That's
+why I have come. There, there!" he soothed, as she stood with troubled
+face trying to formulate and understand the strange sensation that had
+suddenly taken possession of her. "Don't worry, Katje. It'll come out
+all right. We'll arrange things very differently. I've come back to----"
+
+She moved away, unhearing. She passed unseeing from the loving
+outstretched arms.
+
+"Katje!" he called tenderly.
+
+But she did not turn at the loving appeal in his soundless voice.
+
+"Oh, Katje! Katje!" he pleaded, following her. "Can't I make my presence
+known to you? Oh, _don't_ cry!"
+
+For the tears had welled up, unbidden, in her eyes.
+
+And this time his words, in a vague, roundabout way, seemed to reach her
+understanding.
+
+"Oh, well," she sighed, drying her eyes. "Crying doesn't help."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Peter Grimm eagerly. "Good! _Good!_ She hears me! Smile,
+little girl! _Smile_, I say."
+
+A trembling ghost of a smile played about her sad lips.
+
+"That's right!" he encouraged. "Smile! _Smile!_ You haven't smiled
+before since I--since I found there was a place a million times happier
+and lovelier and more wonderful than this world that I left. Listen,
+little girl! Listen, Katje, and try to understand me. _There are no
+dead._ We never _really_ die. We couldn't if we tried to. See the
+gardens out there. Look!"
+
+As if in response to his words, Kathrien's half-smiling face was turned
+toward the flowering garden beds that stretched away on every hand,
+just outside the window.
+
+"See the gardens," he went on, glad at his own seeming success in
+catching and holding her attention. "They die. But they come back all
+the better for it. All the fresher and younger and more beautiful. What
+people call death is nothing more than a nap. We wake from it
+freshened--rested--made over again. It's a wonderful sleep that people
+fall into, old and slow and tired out. And they spring up from it like
+happy children tumbling out of bed,--ready to frolic through another
+world. It is as foolish and wrong to mourn for people who fall into that
+dear sleep as to mourn for the children when they close their eyes at
+the end of the day. _There is no death._ There are no dead. It is all
+rest and wonder and beauty and perfect bliss. So stop being sad for me,
+my own little girl!
+
+"There!" he cried in triumph, as the smile deepened on her pale face.
+"You're happier already! And you begin to understand me. You can hear
+what I am saying. Because no sin, no grossness has ever shut your ears
+to all but earthly sounds. Now listen to me carefully: Katje, I want you
+to break that silly, wicked promise I wheedled you into making. I want
+you to break it. You mustn't ruin your life--and James's--by marrying
+Frederik. It would mean misery for every one. Most of all for _you_,
+little girl. That's why I came here. To undo the harm that my blindness
+and obstinacy brought about. When that is settled I can take my journey
+back in peace. I can't go until you break that promise. And--and oh, I
+_long_ to go, Katje! _Katje!_" his voice rising in yearning entreaty, as
+the smile faded from her face and her big eyes once more filled. "Isn't
+my message _any_ clearer to you?"
+
+"Oh," sighed Kathrien, half aloud. "I'm so alone--so _alone_!"
+
+"Alone?" he echoed. "You are not alone, Katje. I'm here. Can't you feel
+my presence? And then there's your mother. The mother you were too
+little to remember. I have met her, Katje. I have met your mother. She
+knew me at once. After all those years. 'You are Peter Grimm!' she said.
+I told her you had a happy home here. And she said she knew that. Then I
+told her about the future I had arranged, and the plans I'd made for you
+and Frederik. And she said: 'Peter Grimm, you have overlooked the most
+important thing in the world:--_Love!_ Give her the right to the choice
+of her lover. It is her right.' Then it came over me all at once that I
+had made a terrible mistake. That I had been presumptuous and had tried
+to play Providence and shape the future of another. At that moment,
+Katje, you called to me. And I came back to show you the way."
+
+He moved nearer to her.
+
+"Your mother," he whispered, bending over the girl as she sank into a
+chair by the fire, her eyes dreaming and full of a new joy, "your mother
+told me to lay my hand on your dear head and give you her blessing. And
+she said I must tell you she will be with you,--close--_close_ to
+you--in heart and thought, until the day shall come when she can hold
+you in her arms. You and your loved husband."
+
+Kathrien's dreamy gaze strayed from the fire-flicker on the hearth to
+the office door, on whose farther side she knew Hartmann was at work.
+
+"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm, noting her glance. "You and James. And the
+message ended in this kiss."
+
+He touched his lips to her forehead. And, at the unfelt contact, the
+light again sprang into her eyes.
+
+"Can't you see I'm trying to help you, Katje?" he begged. "Can't you
+even hope? Come, come! _Hope!_ Why, anybody can hope. It is the very
+easiest and most natural thing on earth. Especially when one is
+young--as you and I are. What _is_ Youth but perpetual Hope?"
+
+The light in her eyes deepened. Her look strayed again to the closed
+office door. She rose and took a step toward it, then turned, passed her
+hand caressingly over the flowers on the desk, and moved over to the
+piano.
+
+She seated herself on the music stool and, for the first time in ten
+endless days, let her fingers stray over the keys. In a hushed little
+voice she began to sing:
+
+  "The bird so free in the heavens
+  Is but the slave of the nest.
+  For all things must toil as God wills it,
+  Must laugh and toil and rest.
+  The rose must bloom in the garden,
+  The bee must gather its store.
+  The cat must watch the mousehole,
+  And the dog must guard the door."
+
+"Oh!" she broke off in sudden self-reproach. "How _can_ I sit here
+singing,--at a time like this!"
+
+"Sing!" urged the Dead Man. "Why not? Why not at a time like this as
+well as at any other time? Is it because you are afraid you are not
+being sad enough at losing me? You _haven't_ lost me. Nothing is ever
+lost. The old uncle you loved doesn't sleep out in the churchyard dust.
+That is only a dream. He is _here_--alive! More alive than ever he was.
+A thousandfold more alive. All his age and weaknesses and faults are
+gone. Youth is glowing in his heart. He is bathed in it. It radiates
+from him. Eternal Youth that no one still on earth can know. Oh, little
+girl of mine, if only I could tell you what is ahead of you! It's the
+wonderful secret of the Universe. And you _won't_ hear me? You won't
+understand?"
+
+Still smiling, but without turning toward the loving, eager Spirit close
+beside her, Kathrien was looking out into the fragrant June dusk. Peter
+Grimm shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I must try some other way of making you hear," said he.
+
+He looked up at the closed door of Willem's sick room for a moment, then
+nodded.
+
+"Here comes some one," he announced, with the old whimsical twist of his
+lips, "who will know all about it. The secrets of the other world are as
+plain as day to him. He has told me so himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"
+
+
+The door of Willem's room opened, and Dr. McPherson came out on the
+landing. He moved slowly, hesitatingly, as though impelled by some force
+outside his logical comprehension.
+
+Still walking as if drawn forward half against his will, the doctor
+descended the stairs to the big living-room. At the stair-foot stood
+Peter Grimm, with outstretched hands to receive him.
+
+"Well, Andrew," said the Dead Man, in the tone of banter that had never
+in life failed to "get a rise" out of his medical crony, "I apologise.
+You were right. I was mistaken. I didn't know what I was talking about.
+So I've come back, as I promised, to keep our compact and to apologise.
+You see, I----"
+
+"Well, Doctor," asked Kathrien, looking back into the room at sound of
+McPherson's steps, "how is Willem?"
+
+"Better," answered McPherson. "He's dropped off to sleep again. I'm
+still a bit puzzled about his case. It's----"
+
+"Andrew! _Andrew!_" interrupted the Dead Man, almost fiercely. "I've got
+a message to deliver, but I can't get it across. This sort of thing is
+your own beloved specialty. Now's your chance. The chance you've always
+been longing for. Tell her I don't want her to marry Frederik! Tell her
+I----"
+
+"A puzzling condition," continued McPherson, unhearing. "I can't quite
+grasp the meaning----"
+
+"What meaning?" demanded Peter Grimm. "Mine? Try again. Tell her I don't
+want her to----"
+
+"But," went on McPherson, drawing out pad and fountain pen, "I'll leave
+this prescription for one of the gardeners to take over to the
+druggist's. I'll leave it as I go out. I'll be back in--Why, what's up,
+Kathrien? What has happened? Oh, you've thought it over, eh? That's
+good. That's the way it should be. I left you all tears and now I find
+you all smiles. It----"
+
+"Yes," answered Kathrien, half ashamed at her own oddly changed spirits.
+"I am happier for some reason. Much, _much_ happier than I've been for
+days and days. I've--I've had such a strange feeling this past few
+minutes!"
+
+"Have, eh?" asked McPherson curiously. "H'm! So have I. It's in the air,
+I suppose. I've been as restless as a hungry mouse. Something, for
+instance, seemed to draw me downstairs here. I can't explain it."
+
+"I can," exulted Peter Grimm. "I'm beginning to be felt!"
+
+"Doctor," hesitated Kathrien, looking nervously about her into the
+dimmer corners of the lamplit room, "just a little while ago, I--I
+thought I heard Oom Peter call me.--I was upstairs in my room. And it
+seemed to me I could hear that dear old call he used to give. It was so
+vivid, so distinct, so real! It was my imagination, of course. I'm so
+used to hearing Oom Peter's voice in this room that sometimes I forget
+for a moment that he isn't here. But--but some one _must_ have called
+me. I couldn't have imagined it _all_. Isn't it strange to hear a call
+like that and then look around and find no one is there?"
+
+"It is a phenomenon well recognised in modern science," affirmed
+McPherson. "I could cite you a hundred instances of it. Not all from
+imaginative persons either, Kathrien!" he added solemnly. "I have the
+firm conviction that in a very short time I shall hear from Peter!"
+
+"I hope so," sighed the Dead Man in whimsical despair.
+
+"He made the compact I told you about," continued McPherson, "and Peter
+Grimm never broke his word. He will come back. Be sure of that. But what
+I want is some positive proof,--some absolute test to prove his presence
+when he comes. Poor old Peter! Bless his kind, obstinate heart! If he
+keeps that compact with me and comes back, do you know what I shall ask
+him first?"
+
+"You poor, blind, deaf, old Scotchman!" laughed Peter Grimm. "Open your
+eyes and your ears! You are like the man who lay down at the edge of the
+river and died of thirst."
+
+"What would you ask him first, Doctor?" queried the girl as McPherson
+paused with dramatic effect, awaiting the question.
+
+"First of all," said the doctor, "I shall ask him: 'Peter, in the next
+world does our work go on just where we left it off here?'"
+
+"Well," returned Peter Grimm thoughtfully, "that question is rather a
+poser, isn't it?"
+
+"It is a difficult question to answer, I admit," mused McPherson,
+following what he deemed to be the trend of his own thoughts. "I
+realise that."
+
+"You heard me?" cried the Dead Man, with sudden excitement. "You
+_heard_? Come! We're getting results at last, you and I!"
+
+"Results," murmured the doctor abstractedly, "are----What was I saying?
+Oh, yes. In the life-to-come, for instance, am I to be a bone-setter and
+is he to keep on being a tulip man?"
+
+"It stands to reason, Andrew, doesn't it?" suggested Peter Grimm. "What
+chance would a beginner have with a fellow who knew his business before
+he was born? Hey?"
+
+With the merrily victorious air that he had ever assumed when he had
+scored a telling point in their old-time discussions, Peter surveyed the
+doctor.
+
+"I believe, Katje," mused McPherson after a moment's consideration,
+"that it is possible to have more than one chance at our life work. It
+never occurred to me before, but----"
+
+"There!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You caught _that_! Now, why can't you
+get that message about Kathrien's marriage? Try, man! Try!"
+
+"Kathrien," said McPherson, suddenly shifting from conjecture to
+everyday conditions, "have you thought over what I said to you about
+this marriage with Frederik?"
+
+"He _did_ get it!" muttered Peter Grimm.
+
+"Yes," rejoined Kathrien, "I have thought it over, Doctor. And I thank
+you with all my heart. But----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I shall go on with it. I shall be married, just as Oom Peter wished me
+to. I shan't go back on my promise."
+
+McPherson growled in futile disgust.
+
+"Don't give up, Andrew!" exhorted Peter Grimm. "Don't give up! _Make_
+her see it your way. A girl can always change her mind. Try again.
+_Andrew!_"
+
+The last word was almost a cry. For McPherson, with a shrug of his
+shoulders, accepted defeat in surly silence and was tramping across to
+the hat rack, where he began to gather up his outdoor raiment.
+
+"Oh, Andrew! _Andrew!_" he pleaded, following him up. "Don't throw away
+the fight so easily! Tell her to----"
+
+"Good-bye, Kathrien," said the doctor at the threshold. "If you choose
+to make toad-pie of your life, it's no business of mine. I'll drop in
+later for a good-night look at Willem."
+
+"Good-night, Doctor," answered Kathrien, "and--thank you again."
+
+With a wordless grunt, McPherson went out, leaving Peter Grimm staring
+hopelessly after him.
+
+"I see I can't depend on _you_, Andrew," murmured the Dead Man, "in
+spite of your psychic lore and your belief in my return. Why is it they
+can all understand--or _half_ understand--the unimportant things I say,
+and yet be deaf to my message? It is like picking out the simple words
+in a foreign book and then not know what the story is about.
+Marta--Kathrien--McPherson--they all fail me. I must find some other
+way."
+
+He turned slowly toward the door of the office. The door almost
+immediately opened and James Hartmann came into the room. The young man
+had a pen behind his ear and a half-written memorandum of sales in his
+hand. He had evidently risen from his work and entered the living-room
+on an unplanned impulse.
+
+Kathrien had seated herself in a chair by the fire and was gazing
+drearily into the red embers.
+
+"Look at her, lad!" breathed Peter Grimm. "She is so pretty--so
+young--so lonely! Look! There are kisses tangled in that gold hair of
+hers where it curls about her forehead and neck. Hundreds of them. And
+her lips are made for kisses. See how dainty and sweet and heart-broken
+she is. She is dreaming of _you_, James. Are you going to let her go?
+Why, who could resist such a girl? _You're not going to let her go!_ You
+feel what I am saying to you. You won't give her up. She loves you, boy.
+And you realise now that you can't live without her. Speak! Speak to
+her!"
+
+"Miss Kathrien!" said Hartmann earnestly; then halted, frightened at his
+own temerity.
+
+The girl looked up quickly. At sight of him she flushed and rose
+impulsively to face him.
+
+"Oh, James!" she cried. "I'm so glad--so _glad_ to see you!"
+
+As their hands met the man's hesitancy fled.
+
+"I _felt_ that you were in here," said he. "All at once I seemed to know
+you were here and alone. And before I realised what I was doing, I came
+in. I didn't mean to."
+
+"Didn't mean to come and see me while you were here?" she echoed in
+reproach. "Why not?"
+
+"For the same reason I didn't stay when I was here before. I----"
+
+"Why did you go away that time?" she demanded. "Why did you go without a
+word of good-bye to--to any of us?"
+
+"Tell her, boy," adjured Peter Grimm. "Don't mind _my_ feelings."
+
+"Your uncle sent me away," blurted Hartmann, "but it was partly at my
+own request."
+
+"Oom Peter sent you away? Why?"
+
+"I told him the truth again."
+
+"Oh! One of your usual hot arguments that used to worry me so? I
+remember how excited you both used to get. Was it about the superiority
+of potatoes to orchids this time?"
+
+"No. The superiority of one person to the whole world."
+
+But she did not catch his meaning. She was looking up at the big
+athletic body and the clean, strong face, with an absurd longing to
+creep into the man's arms for shelter as might a tired child.
+
+"It's so _good_ to see you back," she said.
+
+"I'm only here for a few hours," he answered. "Just long enough to put
+one or two details of the business to rights. Then I'm going away
+again--this time for good."
+
+"No! Where are you going?"
+
+"Father and I are going to try our luck on our own account. I've a few
+thousands from a legacy that came to me last month from my grandmother.
+And father has saved a tidy little sum, too. We're going to start in
+with small fruits and market gardening. We haven't decided just where."
+
+"It will be so strange--so different--so lonely and _empty_ when I come
+back," she mourned, "with Uncle and you both gone. It seems as if the
+blessed old home was all broken up. It can never be the same again. I
+don't know how I can muster courage to come into this house after----"
+
+"It will be easier after the first wrench. Everything is easier than we
+think it's going to be. And, Kathrien," he went on, steadying his voice
+by a supreme effort, "I hope you'll be happy--beautifully happy."
+
+Neither of them realised that her hand had somehow slipped into his and
+was resting very contentedly in the big, firm grasp.
+
+"Whether I'm happy or not," replied Kathrien miserably, "it's the only
+thing to do. Please try to believe that. Oh, James, he died smiling at
+me--thinking of me--loving me. And just before he went he had begged me
+to marry Frederik. I shall never forget the wonderful look of happiness
+in his eyes when I promised. It was all he wanted in life. He said he'd
+never been so happy before. He smiled up at me for the very last time,
+with his dear face all alight. And there he sat, smiling, after he was
+gone. The smile of a man leaving this life absolutely satisfied--at
+peace!"
+
+"I know. Marta told me. I----"
+
+"It's like a hand on my heart, hurting it almost unbearably when I
+question doing anything he wanted. It has always been so with me ever
+since I was a baby. I never could bear to go against his wishes. And now
+that he's gone--why, I _must_ keep my word. I couldn't meet him in the
+Hereafter if I didn't keep that last sacred promise to him. I couldn't
+say my prayers at night. I couldn't speak his name in them. Oom Peter
+trusted me. He depended on me. He did everything for me. I must do this
+for him."
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You are wrong. Tell her so, James!"
+
+"I wanted you to know this, James," finished Kathrien,
+"because--because----"
+
+A gush of tears blotted out Hartmann's tense, wretched face and choked
+her hesitating utterance.
+
+"Have you told Frederik that you don't love him?" asked Hartmann,
+forcing himself to resist the yearning to gather her into his arms and
+kiss away her tears. "Does he know?"
+
+She nodded, her face buried in her hands.
+
+"And Frederik is willing to take you like that? On those terms?"
+
+Another dumb nod of the pretty, fluffy little head, with its face still
+convulsed and hidden.
+
+"The yellow dog!" burst forth Hartmann.
+
+"You flatter him," sadly assented Peter Grimm.
+
+"Look here, Kathrien," hurried on Hartmann, "I didn't mean to say a word
+of this to-day,--or ever. Not a word. But the instant I came in here
+from the office just now, something made me change my mind. I knew all
+at once I _must_ talk to you. You looked so little, so young, so
+helpless, all huddled up there by the fire. Kathrien, you've never had
+to think for yourself. You don't know what you are doing in going on
+with this blasphemous, loveless marriage. Why, dear, you are making the
+most terrible mistake possible to a woman. Marriage _with_ love is often
+a tragedy. Without love it is a hell. A horror that will deepen and grow
+more dreadful with every year."
+
+"Do you suppose I don't understand that?" she whispered. "Don't make it
+harder for me."
+
+"Your uncle was wrong to ask such a sacrifice. Why should you wreck your
+life to carry out his pig-headed plans?"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Not strong enough yet," advised Peter Grimm. "Go on, lad."
+
+"You are going to be wretched for the rest of your days, just to please
+a dead man who can't even know about it," insisted Hartmann. "Or if he
+_does_ know, you may be certain he sees the affair more sanely by this
+time and is bitterly sorry he made you promise."
+
+"He assuredly is," acquiesced Peter Grimm. "I wish I'd known in other
+days that you had so much sense. Go ahead!"
+
+"You mustn't speak so, James," reproved Kathrien, deeply shocked.
+"I----"
+
+"Yes, he must," contradicted the Dead Man. "Go on, James. Stronger!"
+
+"But I _must_ speak so!" declared Hartmann, swept on by a power he could
+not understand. "I'll speak my mind. I don't care how fond you were of
+your uncle or how much he did for you. It was not right for him to ask
+this sacrifice of you. The whole thing was the blunder of an obstinate
+old man!"
+
+"No! You mustn't!"
+
+"I loved him, too," said Hartmann. "As much in my own way, perhaps, as
+you did. Though he and I never agreed on any subject under the sun. But,
+in spite of all my affection for him, I know and always knew he _was_ an
+obstinate old man. Obstinate as a mule. It was the Dutch in him, I
+suppose."
+
+Peter Grimm nodded emphatic approval.
+
+"Do you know why I was sent away?" rushed on Hartmann, still upheld and
+goaded along by that incomprehensible impulse. "Do you know why I
+quarrelled with your uncle?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Because I told him I loved you. He asked me. I didn't tell him because
+I had any hopes. I hadn't. I haven't now. Oh, girl, I don't know why I'm
+talking to you like this. I love you. And my arms are aching for you."
+
+He stepped toward her, arms out as he spoke. She retreated, frightened,
+to where Peter Grimm stood surveying the lover with keen approbation.
+
+"No, no!" she warned. "You mustn't, James. It isn't right--don't."
+
+Her next backward step brought her close to Peter Grimm. And the Dead
+Man, with a swift motion of his hand, waved her forward into her lover's
+outstretched arms.
+
+Through no conscious volition of her own, Kathrien sped straight onward,
+unswerving, unfaltering into the strong circle of those arms for whose
+warm refuge she had so guiltily felt herself longing.
+
+"No!" she panted, in dutiful resistance.
+
+But the negation was lost against Hartmann's broad breast as he pressed
+her closely to him.
+
+"I love you!" he repeated over and over in a daze of rapture.
+
+Then in awed wonder:
+
+"And you love _me_, Kathrien!"
+
+"No, no--don't make me say it, dear heart!"
+
+"I _shall_ make you say it. It is true. You do love me!"
+
+"What matter if I do?" wailed the girl. "It wouldn't change matters."
+
+"Kathrien!"
+
+"Please don't say anything more. I can't bear it."
+
+Gently, reluctantly, she sought to release herself from that wonderful
+embrace. But Hartmann now needed no Spirit Guest to urge him to hold his
+own.
+
+"I'm not going to let you go," he cried, kissing her white, upturned
+face till the red glowed back into it. "I won't give you up, Kathrien. I
+_won't_ give you up!"
+
+"You must," she insisted, struggling more fiercely against herself than
+against him. "You must, dear. I can't break my promise to Oom Peter.
+I----"
+
+The front door opened. The lovers sprang apart. Frederik entered,
+glancing quickly from one to the other of them.
+
+"Oh!" he observed. "You in here, Hartmann? I thought I'd find you in the
+office. I've some unopened mail of my uncle's to glance over. Then I'll
+join you there."
+
+Hartmann took the broad hint, nodded, and left the room. Frederik's eyes
+followed him steadily until the door closed behind the young intruder.
+Then he turned to where Kathrien crouched, panting, bewildered,
+trembling. Frederik abruptly went over to her, and, before she could
+guess his purpose, kissed her full on the lips.
+
+Involuntarily the girl recoiled as from some loathly thing.
+
+"Don't!" she exclaimed, fighting for her shaken self-control. "Please
+don't!"
+
+"Why not?" he snapped.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"Has Hartmann been talking to you?"
+
+She moved toward the stair-foot.
+
+"Just a moment, please," Frederik interposed, hurrying forward to catch
+up with her before she could gain the safety of the stairway.
+
+"Hartmann _has_ been talking to you. What has he been saying?"
+
+He had seized her hand as she made to mount the stairway. As she did not
+reply to his question, he repeated it, adding:
+
+"Do you really imagine, Kathrien, that you care for that--fellow?"
+
+"I'd rather not talk about it, please, Frederik," she pleaded.
+
+"No? But it is necessary. Do you----"
+
+She broke away from his suddenly rough grip and fled up the stairway to
+her own room. As the door shut behind her, Frederik, with clouded face
+and working lips, strode over to the desk. He passed close by Peter
+Grimm. But the Dead Man was still staring blankly after Kathrien.
+
+"Oh, Katje," he muttered, "even Love could not get my message to you!
+Less influence would be needed to change the fate of a nation than the
+mind of one good woman. I think a good woman--a _good_ woman,--is more
+stubborn than anything else in the Universe. Not excepting myself. When
+she has made up her mind to do _right_,--which invariably means to
+sacrifice herself and thereby make as many other people wretched as
+possible--not even a Spirit from the Other World can influence her."
+
+With a despairing shrug of the shoulders he turned toward his nephew,
+and his face hardened. Frederik had seated himself at the desk. He had
+drawn out the little handful of personal letters that had arrived that
+afternoon for Peter Grimm and those that Mrs. Batholommey had put into
+the drawer for safe keeping.
+
+One letter after another Frederik cut open, glanced over, and either put
+back into the drawer or laid under a paperweight on the desk. Peter
+Grimm crossed to the opposite side of the desk and stood looking down at
+him with set face and sad, reproving gaze.
+
+"Frederik Grimm," said the Dead Man at last, his voice low but
+infinitely impressive, "my beloved nephew! You sit there opening my mail
+with the heart of a stone. You are saying to yourself: 'He is gone;
+there will be fine times ahead.' But there is one thing you have
+forgotten, Frederik: The Law of Reward and Punishment. Your hour has
+come--_to think_!"
+
+Frederik, unheeding, continued to open, read, and sort the letters
+before him.
+
+At the Dead Man's last words, his nephew picked from the heap a blue
+envelope, ripped it open, and pulled out the enclosures:--a single sheet
+of blue paper and a cheap photograph.
+
+"Oh, my God! Oh, my _God_!" he babbled over and over, foolishly, staring
+from letter to photograph. "Here's luck! What luck it is! Anne Marie to
+my uncle! Lord! If he'd lived to read it! If he had read it! Out I'd
+have been kicked! One--two--three--_Augenblick_! Out into the street!
+Oh, what unbelievable luck! If she'd written to him ten days earlier!
+Ten little days!"
+
+His hand shaking, he picked up the letter again, spread it wide, and
+began to read it, Peter Grimm standing behind him, looking over the
+reader's shoulder.
+
+"Dear Mr. Grimm," the letter ran, "I have not written because I can't
+help Willem. And I am ashamed. Don't be too hard upon me, sir, in your
+thoughts. At first I often went hungry. And then the few pennies I had
+saved for him were spent. Now I see that I can never hope to get him
+back. Willem is far better off with you. I know he is. But, oh, how I
+wish I could just see him again! _Once._ Perhaps I could come there in
+the night time and no one would know----"
+
+"Oh!" breathed Peter Grimm, between tight clenched teeth. "The pity of
+it! The _pity_ of it!"
+
+"Who's that?" cried Frederik, looking up with a start of terror from his
+perusal of the letter.
+
+The young man peered about the shadows beyond the radius of the lamp, a
+nervous dread at his heart.
+
+"Who's in the room!" he demanded, glancing behind him.
+
+[Illustration: "Who's in the room!" he demanded]
+
+Then with a self-contemptuous shake of his head he muttered angrily:
+
+"That's queer. I could have sworn somebody was looking over my shoulder.
+Bah! My nerves are going bad!"
+
+He returned to the reading of the letter.
+
+"I met some one from home to-day," went on Anne Marie's epistle. "If
+there's any truth in the rumour that Kathrien is going to marry
+Frederik, _it mustn't be_, Mr. Grimm. It must _not_. She must not marry
+him. For Frederik is my little boy's fa----"
+
+"There _is_ some one here!" muttered Frederik, laying down the letter.
+
+Calming his disordered nerves once more, he glanced furtively up toward
+Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up
+the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and
+apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly
+dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness
+was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid of a
+certain dignity.
+
+Frederik turned the photograph over. On the back he read:
+
+"_For my little boy, from Anne Marie._"
+
+His mouth twitched. Throngs of memories were crowding in upon him. And
+the eyes of the Dead Man were boring to his very soul. Something very
+like Conscience was stirring within him. He laid the photograph face
+downward on the table and he bent his head forward upon his hands.
+
+The young man was not a melodrama villain. He was not even a scoundrel,
+in the broad sense of the term. Weak, lazy, pleasure loving, he was what
+Peter Grimm had all unconsciously made him. As a dilettante, a man of
+leisure, or even comfortably engaged in some easy, congenial life work
+and with pleasant home surroundings, he would probably have developed
+few undesirable traits.
+
+From boyhood he had been under the influence and orders of Peter Grimm.
+To be under Peter Grimm's supervision entailed one of three courses,
+according to the character of the person concerned: either to yield
+gracefully and gratefully to the old man's kindly but iron domination
+and find therein love and protection,--as had Kathrien; or to use the
+right of personal thought and individuality, and therefore to clash
+forever with Peter,--as had James Hartmann; or to seem for policy's sake
+to bend, while really living one's own life;--as had Frederik.
+
+Peter Grimm was the slave and apostle of Order, Work, and Method.
+Frederik loved ease, luxury, artistic surroundings. Yet he was too wise
+to antagonise his uncle, who had the power to leave him one day the
+master of all these pleasant things he craved. So he had adapted himself
+outwardly to a path he loathed. And, by the wayside, he had secretly
+sought such pleasures as his nature craved.
+
+Anne Marie had chanced to be by the wayside.
+
+What had followed was rendered tragic chiefly by Anne Marie's innate
+goodness and by Peter Grimm's fierce morality.
+
+Frederik dared not risk the loss of a future fortune by admitting his
+fault or by marrying the woman for whom, at the time, he had really
+cared. In a shiftless way and with straitly limited income, he had done
+what he could do for her. The sacrifices these helps had entailed and
+the constant fear of exposure and of consequent disinheritance had in
+time made the thought of Anne Marie a horror to him.
+
+When he had gone, at Peter Grimm's command, to Leyden and Heidelberg to
+study botany, Frederik had hoped to close the unsavoury incident for all
+time.
+
+On his return he had found Willem installed at the Grimm home, a living,
+ever-present menace and reminder to him. And, despite a soft heart and
+a normally decent nature, Frederik had, little by little, been forced by
+his own past and his own hopes into a course that at times was hateful
+to him. Ten thousand men, far worse than he, walk the streets of every
+big city and sleep snug o' nights with no grinning Conscience-Skull to
+break their rest. A thousand well-meaning, harmless sons of dominating
+and domineering parents are forced, as was he, into by-roads as hateful
+to them. To be cast by Fate to enact the Villain, when one has not the
+temperament, the aptitude, nor the desire for the unsavoury rôle, falls
+to more men's lot than the world realises.
+
+It had fallen to Frederik Grimm's. Wherefore, sick at heart, he sat with
+his head in his hands. And Peter Grimm read his thoughts as from a
+printed page.
+
+"Once more a spark of manhood is alight in your soul," whispered the
+Dead Man. "It is not too late. Nothing is ever too late. Turn back!"
+
+Frederik looked up, half-listening. His hand crept out to the letter.
+
+"Follow the impulse that is in your heart," begged the Dead Man. "Follow
+it! Take the little boy in your arms. Declare him to all the world as
+your own. Go down on your knees and ask his mother's forgiveness. Ah, do
+it, lad, so that I can go back still trusting you,--still believing in
+you,--blessing you! _Frederik!_"
+
+"Yes," answered Frederik, starting up. "What is it?"
+
+He glanced about the room unseeingly, then looked toward the outer door
+and called:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+"That's curious!" he mused, settling back in his chair. "I thought I
+heard some one at--_Who's at the door?_" he called again.
+
+"_I_ am at the door," replied the Dead Man in solemn vehemence. "_I_,
+Peter Grimm. The uncle who loved you and whom you tricked. Anne Marie is
+at the door,--the little girl who is ashamed to come home. Willem is at
+the door--your own flesh and blood--_nameless_! Katje, sobbing her heart
+out,--James--all of us. _All!_ We are all at the door, Frederik! At the
+door of your conscience. Ah, don't keep us waiting!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A HALF-HEARD MESSAGE
+
+
+Frederik rose slowly from his chair. His face was working. Instinctively
+his glance lifted to Kathrien's door. His eyes grew bright and his weak
+mouth strong with a wondrous resolve. He crossed the room to the
+stair-foot; that light of pure sacrifice deepening in his whole upraised
+face.
+
+"Yes!" urged the Dead Man, keeping eager pace with him in body and in
+thought. "Yes! Call her. Give her back her promise."
+
+The flabby muscles of a self-indulgent man may sometimes perform a
+single prodigious feat of strength. Wherein they have an infinite
+advantage over the far flabbier resolutions of a self-indulgent man. And
+Frederik Grimm's weak, atrophied better self was not equal to the strain
+thrown upon it.
+
+At the stair-foot, his step faltered. He halted irresolutely, while the
+Dead Man watched him in an anguish of hope and fear.
+
+Then came surrender to long habit; and with it a gush of weak rage. Not
+at himself. He had not the strength left for that. But at the cause of
+his distress. He brought down his fist upon the desk with a resounding
+thwack. His eye fell on the open page with its pathetic scrawl of
+appeal.
+
+"Damn her!" he growled, snatching up the letter and tearing it across
+and across. "I wish to God I'd never seen her!"
+
+Peter Grimm gazed down upon him with eyes wherein lurked a slowly rising
+fire.
+
+"Frederik Grimm!" commanded the Dead Man. "Get up! Stand up before me!
+Stand up, I say!"
+
+Frederik made as though to rise, then swore under his breath and sat
+down again.
+
+"Stand up!" flashed the Dead Man.
+
+Frederik got shamblingly to his feet, and looked around with a frown, as
+though wondering why he had risen. His gaze swept the desk for some
+cause for his action, then rested moodily on the dying embers in the
+hearth.
+
+The Dead Man at the far side of the desk confronted him like some
+unearthly Judge from whose heart pity, humanity, and all else but
+righteous wrath were banished.
+
+"You shall not have my little girl!" thundered Peter Grimm. "I have come
+back to take her away from you. And you cannot put me to rest. I have
+come back. You cannot drive me from your thoughts."
+
+He touched Frederik's damp forehead with his forefinger.
+
+"I am _there_," he said. "I am looking over your shoulder as you read or
+write or think. I am looking in at the window when you deem you are
+alone and unseen. _I have come back._ You are breathing me in the air. I
+am hammering at your heart in each of your pulse beats. Wherever you
+are, I am there."
+
+His forced calmness gave way to a gust of helpless rage as he felt his
+words falling upon world-deafened ears.
+
+"Hear me!" he commanded furiously. "_Hear_ me! You _shall_ hear me!"
+
+At each frenzied repetition of the command, the Dead Man hurled his arms
+aloft and brought down his clenched fist with all his power upon the
+desk in mighty blows of utterly soundless violence.
+
+Impotently he cried aloud:
+
+"Oh, will _no_ one hear me? Has my journey been all in vain? Has it
+been useless?--worse than useless?"
+
+The Dead Man looked upward, in an anguish of desperation. He seemed to
+be entreating the Unseen in his clamour of wild, hopeless appeal.
+
+"Has it all been for nothing?" he wailed. "Must we forever stand or fall
+by the mistakes we make in this world? Is there _no_ second chance?"
+
+Frederik shook his head angrily as though to banish clinging unwelcome
+thoughts from his brain, got up and crossed to the sideboard, where he
+poured himself a double drink of liquor and swigged it down with
+feverish eagerness.
+
+As he left the desk, Marta entered from the kitchen with the light
+supper he had ordered:--coffee, with sugar and cream, and a plate of
+little cakes. She went to the desk and began clearing a space among the
+scattered papers for the supper tray. As her free hand moved among the
+papers, the Dead Man was at her elbow.
+
+"Marta!" he whispered, as though fearing his words might reach Frederik.
+"Look! _Look!_"
+
+He pointed excitedly to the torn letter and the photograph that lay face
+downward under her hand. And she picked up both letter and picture, to
+make room for the tray.
+
+"Marta!" urged the Dead Man, almost incoherent in his wild haste. "See
+what you have there! Look down at that picture in your hand! Turn it
+over and _look_ at it! Look at the hand-writing on that torn letter!
+Look quickly! Then run with them to Miss Kathrien. Make her piece the
+letter together and read it! Quick! It's the only way she can learn the
+truth. Frederik will never tell her. Marta!--_Ah!_"
+
+His wild plea broke off in a cry of chagrin. For Frederik, turning from
+the sideboard, had seen the old woman.
+
+"Your coffee, Mynheer Frederik," said she, laying down the photograph
+and letter without a glance at them.
+
+"Yes, yes. Of course," answered Frederik. "I forgot. Thanks."
+
+She turned to leave the room. Frederik, coming over to the desk, caught
+sight of the torn blue envelope and the picture, where she had laid
+them.
+
+Hurriedly covering them with his hand, he glanced at her in quick,
+terrified suspicion. But the face she turned to him as she hesitated for
+a moment at the kitchen door showed him at once that he was safe.
+Nevertheless, Marta lingered on the threshold.
+
+"Well?" queried Frederik, seating himself beside the tray.
+
+"Is there," she stammered, "is there no--no word--no letter----?"
+
+"Word? Letter?" he echoed nervously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"From----" began the old woman in timid hesitation, then in a rush of
+courage: "From my little girl. From Anne Marie."
+
+"No!" he snapped. "Of course not. I----"
+
+"But--at a time like this--if she knows--oh, I felt it,--I hoped--that
+there would be _some_ message from her! Every day I have hoped----"
+
+"No," he broke in. "Nothing's come. No letter. No word of any sort from
+her. I'd have let you know if there had. By the way, I have an
+appointment at the hotel in a few minutes. Tell Miss Kathrien, if she
+asks for me."
+
+He busied himself with the tray. Marta looked at him a moment longer,
+held by some power that she could not explain. Then years of habit
+overcame impulse. She courtesied and withdrew to her kitchen.
+
+As the door shut behind her, Frederik caught up the torn blue letter.
+Tossing it in a metal ash tray he struck a match. Peter Grimm, divining
+his intent, sprang forward with a wordless cry to stop him. The Dead
+Man's hands tore at the wrists of the Living; sought by main strength to
+snatch the paper out of his reach; with pitiful helplessness tried to
+thrust back the hand that held the lighted match.
+
+Unknowingly, Frederik touched the flame to the paper, shook out the
+match, and watched the torn letter blaze and curl. Then he tossed the
+charred bits into a jardinière on the floor, and picked up the picture.
+
+"There's an end to _that_!" he murmured, turning to throw the photograph
+into the smoking embers of the fireplace.
+
+Peter Grimm stood erect. A new hope drove the sick despair from his
+face. Looking toward Willem's room he raised his arm and beckoned.
+
+At once the door stealthily opened. A white little figure slipped out
+onto the gallery and toward the stairs. Down the flight of steps, clad
+in his white flannel pajama suit, his eyes wide, his yellow hair
+tumbled, Willem ran.
+
+Frederik, in the act of consigning the photograph to the fire, was
+arrested by the sound of pattering feet. Laying the picture on the desk,
+he turned guiltily, in time to see Willem speeding across the room
+toward the bay window.
+
+"What are you doing down here?" demanded Frederik. "If you're so sick,
+you ought not to get out of bed. That's the place for sick boys."
+
+"The circus!" mumbled Willem in the queer, strained voice of a sleep
+walker. "The circus music waked me up. So I had to come and hear it."
+
+"Circus music?" repeated Frederik amazedly, as he watched the boy
+tugging at the rain-tightened window sash to force it upward.
+
+"Yes, it woke me. I can see the parade if I can get this window open.
+It----"
+
+"Why, you're half asleep!" exclaimed Frederik. "The circus left town ten
+days ago!"
+
+"No, no!" insisted Willem, raising the window with one final wrench of
+his frail arms. "The band's playing _now_. Hear it?"
+
+A gust of chilly, wet air dashed in through the open window, sending a
+sharp draught across the room and waking the boy wide as it beat into
+his hot face.
+
+"Why," babbled Willem, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him, "why,
+it's _night_ time! I wonder what made me think the circus was here. I--I
+guess it was a dream."
+
+Frederik strode to the window impatiently and slammed it shut. As he
+passed Willem on the way back to the desk the boy intuitively cowered
+away from him.
+
+"You've had a fever," said Frederik crossly, "and you're liable to catch
+cold, wandering around this draughty old barn in your night clothes. Go
+back to bed."
+
+"Yes, sir," whimpered the boy, cringing under the sharp tone and
+starting back for the stairs. But, before he reached the lowest step, he
+halted. Peter Grimm stood barring his way. For a moment the Dead Man and
+the child stood face to face. Then, still frightened but unable to
+resist, Willem turned back toward Frederik, who had just picked up the
+photograph once more; to put it in the smouldering ashes.
+
+"Mynheer Frederik," asked the boy in a voice not his own, "where is Anne
+Marie?"
+
+"What?" barked Frederik with an uncontrollable start and whipping the
+photograph around behind his back like a guilty child caught in theft.
+"What's that? Anne Marie? Why do you ask _me_ about her? How should _I_
+know?"
+
+He turned his back on the boy and began to tear the photograph into tiny
+bits. Willem hesitated, then went back to the stairway. Again at the
+foot of the steps he confronted the Dead Man. Again they stood for an
+instant, looking wordlessly into each other's eyes. And again Willem
+turned back into the room.
+
+"Mynheer Frederik," he asked in a sort of dazed bewilderment, "_where_
+is Mynheer Grimm?"
+
+"Eh? Mynheer Grimm? Dead, of course. Dead."
+
+"Are--are you _sure_? Because just now----"
+
+"Oh, go to bed! At once, do you hear! Go, or I'll have you punished!"
+
+Under this dire threat and the scowl that went with it, not even the
+Dead Man's power could stem Willem's defeat. Up the stairs he scuttled.
+At the door of his room, the fever thirst in his hot, parched throat for
+the moment overcame fear.
+
+"Could--could I have a drink of water?" he whimpered, gazing longingly
+down at the full ice-water pitcher on the sideboard.
+
+An angry glance from Frederik sent him into his own room like a rabbit
+into its warren.
+
+Frederik, the fragments of the picture clenched in his sweat-damp hand,
+glowered after the retreating lad and took a step toward the fire. The
+movement brought him close to the desk. The lamp had suddenly burned
+very low. But for the faint gleam of firelight the room was in almost
+total darkness.
+
+And out of that gloom leaped a Face. A Face close to Frederik's own;--a
+Face indescribably awful in its aspect of unearthly menace. The face of
+Peter Grimm. Not kindly and rugged as in life, or even as since the Dead
+Man's return. But terrible, accusing, bathed in a lurid glow.
+
+Frederik, with a scream of crass horror, reeled back. The bits of
+cardboard tumbled from his fear-loosened grip and strewed the surface of
+the desk.
+
+"My God!" croaked Frederik, his throat sanded with terror. "My God! Oh,
+my _God_!"
+
+The Face was gone. The room was in shadow again and very silent. The
+dropping of a charred ember from andiron to hearth made the
+panic-stricken man jump convulsively.
+
+Scarce breathing, crouched in a position of grotesque fright, the
+fear-sweat streaming down his face, Frederik Grimm peered about him
+through the flickering gloom. The place seemed peopled with elusive
+Shapes. His teeth clicked together as his loosened jaw was nerve-racked.
+He shivered from head to foot.
+
+"I--I thought----" he began, half aloud.
+
+Then he fell silent, afraid of his own voice in that dreadful silence.
+For a moment he cowered, numb, inert. Then he remembered the fragments
+of the photograph that still strewed the table.
+
+"I must get rid of them," he thought.
+
+He took an apprehensive step toward the desk. But the memory of what he
+had seen there was too potent. He knew he could no more approach that
+spot than he could walk into a den of rattlesnakes. He halted, sweating,
+aghast. Again he crept forward,--a step--two steps--in the direction of
+the torn picture. But his fears clogged his feet and brought him to a
+shivering stand-still. Had the wealth of the world lain strewed on that
+desk instead of a mere handful of scattered pasteboard bits he could not
+have summoned courage to step forth and seize it.
+
+The Dead Man, in the shadows, read his mind and smiled.
+
+"No one's likely to come in here till I get back," Frederik told
+himself, in self-excuse for his cowardice. "And if any one does, the
+picture is too badly torn to be recognised. I----"
+
+He found that his terror-ridden subconsciousness was backing his
+trembling body toward the outer door. The door that led from that
+haunted room--from the desk he dared not go near,--out into the safe,
+peace-giving night of summer.
+
+And, snatching up his hat and stick, the shuddering, white-faced young
+master of the Grimm fortune half-stumbled, half-ran, from his home.
+
+"Hicks's lawyer will be waiting," he said to his battered self-respect.
+"I'm late as it is. I must hurry."
+
+And hurry he did, nor checked his rapid pace until he had reached his
+destination.
+
+Scarce had the door banged shut after Frederik when Peter Grimm raised
+his eyes once more toward Willem's room. And again the little white-clad
+figure appeared, and tiptoed toward the stair head.
+
+Willem paused a moment, looked over the banisters to make certain that
+Frederik had gone, then stole down to the big living-room. His cheeks
+were flushed with fever. He was tired all over. His head throbbed. And
+his throat was unbearably dry. The perpetual thirst of childhood,
+augmented by the gnawing, unbearable thirst of fever, sent him speeding
+to the sideboard. He picked up the big ice-water pitcher,--chilled and
+frosted by inner cold and outer dampness--and poured out a glassful of
+the stingingly cold water. The boy gulped down the contents of the glass
+in almost a single draught. Then he filled a second glass and, with
+epicurean delight, let the water trickle slowly and coolingly down his
+hot throat. Peter Grimm stood beside him, a gentle hand on the thin
+little shoulder. His thirst slaked, Willem glanced fearfully toward the
+front door.
+
+"Oh, he won't come back for a long time," Peter Grimm soothed him.
+"Don't be afraid. He went out in a hurry and he hasn't yet stopped
+hurrying. He--thought he saw _me_."
+
+Willem, reassured, laid his burning cheek against the frosted, icy side
+of the pitcher. A smile of utter bliss overspread his face.
+
+"My, but it feels good!" sighed the boy.
+
+The Dead Man continued to look down at him with an infinite pity.
+
+"Willem," said he, stroking the tousled head and smoothing away its
+stabbing pain, "there are some little soldiers in this world who are
+handicapped when they come into Life's battlefield. Their parents
+haven't fitted them for the fight. Poor little moon-moths! They look in
+at the lighted windows. They beat at the panes. They see the glow of
+happy firesides,--the lamps of bright homes. But they can never get in.
+You are one of those little wanderers, Willem. And children like you are
+a million times happier when they are spared the truth. So it's the most
+beautiful thing that can happen for you, that before your playing time
+is over--before you begin a man's bitterly hard, grinding toil,--all the
+care--all the tears, all the worries, all the sorrows are going to pass
+you by forever. God is going to lay His dear hand on your head. There is
+always a place for such little children as you at His side. There is
+none in this small, harsh, unpitying old world. If people knew--if they
+understood--I don't think they could be so cruel as to bring such
+children into the world, to carry terrible burdens. They _don't_ know.
+But God does. And that is why He is going to take you to Him. It will be
+the most wonderful--the most beautiful thing that could happen to you."
+
+Willem smiled dreamily. Then he took a long, ecstatic drink out of the
+pitcher itself, set it down, and rose to his feet. He felt suddenly
+better. For the time the water had cooled him. The racking headache was
+smoothed away. And, child-like, he had no desire whatever to cut short
+his surreptitious good time by going to bed. He looked about him for new
+objects of interest.
+
+"Willem," went on the Dead Man, "of all this whole household, you are
+the only one who really feels I am here. The only one who can almost see
+me. The only one who can help me. I have a little message for you to
+give Katje, and I've something to show you."
+
+He pointed toward the desk, where lay the fragments of the picture. The
+firelight was strong enough now to make them plainly visible. Willem's
+eyes followed the direction of the pointing hand. But his glance, as it
+reached the desk, fell upon something infinitely more attractive than
+any mere photograph. He saw the tray placed there by Marta and left
+untouched by Frederik.
+
+"I'm awful hungry!" observed the boy.
+
+"H'm!" commented Peter Grimm, as Willem started across the room to
+investigate the mysteriously alluring tray. "I see I can't get any help
+from a youngster as long as his stomach is calling."
+
+"Good!" ejaculated Willem as he spied the plate of cakes.
+
+"Help yourself!" invited Peter Grimm.
+
+The boy obeyed the suggestion before it was made. Already his mouth was
+full of cake and his jaws were working rapturously.
+
+"_Das is lecker!_" he murmured, biting into another of the cakes.
+
+He picked a large and obese raisin from a third, swallowed it, then
+reached for the sugar bowl. Two lumps of sugar went the way of the
+raisin. After which a handful of sugar lumps were stuffed into his
+night-clothes' pocket for future delectation in bed. The cream pitcher
+next met the forager's eye. Willem looked at it longingly.
+
+"Take it," said Peter Grimm. "It's good, thick, sweet cream. Drink it
+down. That's right. It won't hurt you. Nothing can hurt you now."
+
+"I haven't had such a good time," Willem confided to his inner
+consciousness, "since Mynheer Grimm died. Why"--he broke off, his roving
+gaze concentrating on the hat-rack--"there's his hat! It's--he's
+_here_! Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he wailed aloud in utter longing. "Take me
+back with you!"
+
+"You know I'm here?" asked the Dead Man joyously. "Can you see me?"
+
+"No, sir," came the answer without a breath of hesitation or any hint of
+misunderstanding.
+
+"Here," ordered Peter Grimm, his face alight, "take my hand. Have you
+got it?"
+
+He placed his right hand around the boy's groping palm.
+
+"No, sir," replied Willem.
+
+"Now," urged Peter Grimm, enclosing the boy's hand in both his own, "do
+you feel it?"
+
+"I--I feel _something_," returned Willem, in doubt. "Yes, sir. But where
+is your hand? There's--there's nothing there!"
+
+"But you _hear_ me?" asked the Dead Man anxiously.
+
+"I--I can't _really_ hear you. It's some kind of a dream, I suppose.
+Isn't it? Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he pleaded brokenly. "Take me back with
+you!"
+
+"You're not quite ready to go with me, yet," said the Dead Man in gentle
+denial. "Not till you can _see_ me."
+
+The boy reached out for another cake. Still looking straight ahead where
+he imagined his unseen protector might be, he asked:
+
+"What did you come back for, Mynheer Grimm? Wasn't it nice where you
+went?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Beyond all belief, dear lad. But I had to come back. Willem,
+do you think you could take a message for me? Listen very carefully now.
+Because I want you to remember every word of it. I want you to try to
+understand. You are to tell Miss Kathrien----"
+
+"It's too bad you died before you could go to the circus, Mynheer
+Grimm," broke in Willem, munching the cake.
+
+"Willem," persisted the Dead Man, patiently starting his plan of
+campaign all over again from another angle, "there must be a great many
+things you remember,--things that happened when you lived with your
+mother. Aren't there?"
+
+"I was very little," hesitated Willem, echoing a phrase he had once
+heard Marta use in speaking of his earlier days.
+
+"Still," pursued the Dead Man, "you remember?"
+
+"I--I was afraid," replied the boy, groping back in the blurred past
+for a fact and seizing on a gruesomely prominent one.
+
+"Try to think back to that time," urged Peter Grimm. "You loved--_her_?"
+
+"Oh, I _did_ love Anne Marie!" exclaimed the child.
+
+"Now," pointed out the Dead Man, "through that one little miracle of
+love you can remember many things that are tucked away in the back of
+your baby brain. Hey? Things that a single spark could kindle and light
+up and make clear to you. It comes back? Think! There were you--and Anne
+Marie----"
+
+"And the Other One," suggested Willem on impulse.
+
+"So! And who was the 'Other One'?"
+
+"I'm afraid----" babbled the child.
+
+And again the Dead Man shifted the form of his questions to quiet the
+nervous dread that had sprung into the big eyes.
+
+"Willem," said he, "what would you rather see than anything else in all
+this world? Think. Something that every little boy loves?"
+
+"I--I like the circus," hazarded Willem, setting his tired wits to work
+at this possible conundrum, "and the clowns, and----"
+
+He hesitated. Peter Grimm motioned toward the photograph's fragments on
+the desk.
+
+"----and my mother," finished the boy.
+
+Then, his gaze following the Dead Man's gesture, he caught sight of part
+of a pictured face, torn diagonally across. With a cry he picked it up.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "there she is! There's her face,--part of it. And,"
+fumbling among the torn bits of cardboard, "there's the other part. It's
+a picture of Anne Marie. All torn up."
+
+"It would be fun to put it together," suggested Peter Grimm, "the way
+you did with those picture puzzles I got you once. Suppose we try?"
+
+The idea caught the child's fancy. With knitted brows and puckered lips
+he bent over the desk and began the task of piecing the scraps into a
+whole.
+
+"That's right," approved the Dead Man. "Put it all together until the
+picture is all perfect.--See, there's the bit you are looking for to
+finish off the shoulder,--and then we must show it to everybody in the
+house, and set them all to thinking."
+
+With an apprehensive glance over his shoulder toward the front door
+Willem proceeded more hurriedly with his work of joining the strewn
+pieces.
+
+"I must get it put together before _he_ comes back," he muttered.
+
+"Ah!" mutely rejoiced the Dean Man, "I'm making you think about _him_ at
+last! I'll succeed in getting your mind to connect him with Anne Marie
+by the time the others----"
+
+  "'Uncle Rat has gone to town! Ha.-_H'M!_'"
+
+chanted Willem under his breath as his fingers moved from part to part
+of the nearly completed picture. "'_To buy his niece a wedding
+gown._'--There's her hand!" he interrupted himself as an elusive scrap
+of the photograph was at last discovered and put into place.
+
+Peter Grimm's eyes were fixed on the door of Kathrien's room in a
+compelling stare.
+
+"Her other hand!" mused Willem. "'_What shall the wedding breakfast be?
+Ha-H'M! What shall the----?_' Where's--here's the last two parts. There!
+It's _done_! Oh, Anne Marie! Mamma! I----"
+
+The door of Kathrien's room opened. The girl, under a spell of the Dead
+Man's will, came out to the banisters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE "SENSITIVE"
+
+
+Kathrien, looking down into the firelit room, saw the white-clad boy
+starting up in triumph with his work.
+
+"Why, Willem!" she cried, dumfounded at sight of the invalid out of bed
+at such an hour. "What are you doing down there? You ought to----"
+
+"Oh, Miss Kathrien!" exclaimed the child, pointing toward the picture.
+"Come down, quick!"
+
+"You mustn't get out of bed like this when you're ill," gently reproved
+Kathrien. "I had a feeling that you weren't in your room. That is why I
+came out to look. Come----"
+
+"But, look!" insisted Willem, pointing again at the picture puzzle he
+had so painstakingly pieced together. "Look, Miss Kathrien!"
+
+"Come, dear!" admonished Kathrien. "You must not play down there. Wait a
+minute, and I'll make your bed again. It will be more comfortable for
+you if it's made over. Then you must come right upstairs."
+
+She went to the sick room and set to work with deft speed rearranging
+the tumbled sheets and smoothing the rumpled pillows. Willem looked down
+at his disregarded picture and his lip trembled. He gazed about the room
+in the hope of seeing Peter Grimm. He strained his keen ears for sound
+of the Dead Man's gentle, comforting voice.
+
+But Peter Grimm was looking fixedly toward the dining-room door. And in
+a moment it opened and Mrs. Batholommey bustled in.
+
+"I thought I heard some one call," observed the rector's wife for the
+benefit of any one who might be in the half-lighted room.
+
+Then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she espied Willem.
+
+"_Why!_" she cackled. "Of all things! You naughty, _naughty_ child! You
+ought to be in bed and asleep!"
+
+Willem shrank under the rebuke, but a touch of Peter Grimm's hand and a
+whispered word of encouragement braced him to reply:
+
+"Old Mynheer Grimm's come back."
+
+In the midst of her tirade Mrs. Batholommey stopped, open-mouthed. She
+stared at the boy in dismay. His face, as well as his voice, was
+unperturbed. He had stated merely what seemed to him a perfectly natural
+but very welcome truth. He had supposed she would be pleased, not
+petrified. He had told her the news in the hope of averting a scolding.
+But she did not seem to take it in the sense of his simple declaration.
+So he repeated it.
+
+"Old Mynheer Grimm's come back, Mrs. Batholommey."
+
+She gurgled wordlessly, then sputtered:
+
+"What are you talking about, child? 'Old Mynheer Grimm,' as you call
+him, is dead. You know that."
+
+"No, he isn't," stoutly contradicted Willem. "He's come back. He's in
+this room right now. At least," he added as he glanced about and could
+not feel the Dead Man's presence, "at least he was a minute ago. I know,
+because I've been talking to him."
+
+"Absurd!"
+
+"I've been talking to him. He was standing just where you are now."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey instinctively started. In fact, despite her age and
+bulk and the fact that she was built for endurance rather than for
+speed, she jumped high into the air, with an incredible lightness and
+agility, and came to earth several feet away from the spot Willem had
+designated.
+
+"At least," explained the boy, "he _seemed_ to be about there. But he
+seemed to be _everywhere_."
+
+Recovering her smashed self-poise, Mrs. Batholommey frowned with lofty
+majesty, tempered by womanly concern.
+
+"You are feverish again," she said. "I hoped you were all over it.
+You're light-headed, you poor little fellow."
+
+Kathrien, the bed being re-made, hurried downstairs to get Willem.
+
+"His mind is wandering," said Mrs. Batholommey. "He imagines all sorts
+of ridiculous, impossible things."
+
+Kathrien dropped into a chair by the fire and gathered the fragile
+little body into her lap.
+
+"Yes," went on Mrs. Batholommey, "he is out of his head. I think I'll
+run over and get the doctor."
+
+"You need not trouble to," said Peter Grimm. "_I_ have sent for him.
+Though he doesn't know it. He is coming up the walk."
+
+The Dead Man turned toward the front door, the old quizzical smile on
+his lips.
+
+"Come in, Andrew," he said. "I'm going to give you one more chance at
+the theory you were wise enough to form and are not wise enough to
+practise."
+
+Dr. McPherson entered.
+
+"I thought I'd just drop in for a minute before bedtime," said he, "to
+see how Willem----"
+
+"Oh, Doctor!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "This is providential. I was just
+coming to get you. Here's Willem. We found he'd gotten out of bed and
+wandered down here. He is worse. Much worse. He's quite delirious."
+
+"H'm!" commented Dr. McPherson, touching the child's face and then
+laying a finger on the fast, light pulse. "He doesn't look it. He has a
+slight fever again, but----"
+
+"Oh, he said old Mr. Grimm was here!" bleated Mrs. Batholommey. "Here in
+this room with him."
+
+"What?" gasped Kathrien.
+
+But the doctor seemed to regard the statement as the most natural thing
+imaginable.
+
+"In this room?" he repeated in a matter of fact tone. "Well, very
+possibly he is. There's nothing so remarkable about that, is there?"
+
+"Nothing _remarkable_?" squealed Mrs. Batholommey; then, bridling, she
+scoffed: "Oh, of course. I forgot. You believe in----"
+
+"In fact," pursued McPherson, getting under weigh with his pet idea,
+"you'll remember, both of you, that I told you he and I made a compact
+to----"
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey with a shudder. "That absurd, horrible
+'compact' you told us about! It was positively blasphemous!"
+
+But McPherson was looking speculatively down at Willem, and did not
+accept nor even hear the challenge to combat.
+
+"I've sometimes had the idea," said he, "that the boy was a 'sensitive.'
+And this evening, I've been wondering----"
+
+"No, you haven't, Andrew," denied Peter Grimm. "It's _I_ who have been
+doing the 'wondering'; through that Scotch brain of yours. _I'm_ making
+use of that Spiritualistic hobby of yours because you're too dense to
+hear me except through some rarer mortal's voice."
+
+"----Wondering," continued the doctor, "whether--perhaps----"
+
+"Yes," declared Peter Grimm, as McPherson hesitated, "the boy is a
+'sensitive,' as you call it."
+
+"I really believe," declared McPherson, his last doubts vanishing, "that
+Willem _is_ a 'sensitive.' I'm certain of it. And----"
+
+"A 'sensitive'?" queried Kathrien. "What's that?"
+
+"Well," reflected the doctor, "it is rather hard to define in simple
+language. A 'sensitive' is what is sometimes known as a 'medium.' A
+human organism so constructed that it can be 'informed,' or 'controlled'
+(as the phrases go) by those who are--who have--er--who have--passed
+over."
+
+He looked apologetically about as if to assure the possibly-present
+Peter Grimm that he had absolutely no intent of using so non-technical a
+word as "dead."
+
+Peter Grimm acknowledged the compliment with a laugh.
+
+"Oh, say it, Andrew! Say it!" he adjured. "There _is_ no 'death' and
+there are no 'dead,' as this world understands the words. So one term is
+as good as another. 'Dead' or 'passed over.' It's all one. Neither
+phrase means anything. Don't be afraid of offending me."
+
+"And Willem is like that?" asked Kathrien.
+
+"I am sure of it," answered McPherson. "Now, Willem----"
+
+"I think I'd better put the boy to bed!" hastily interposed Mrs.
+Batholommey, coming between the doctor and his proposed "subject."
+
+"Please!" rapped McPherson. "I propose to find out what ails Willem.
+That is what I'm here for. And I'll thank you not to interfere, Mrs.
+Batholommey. I never break in on your good husband's pulpit platitudes,
+and I'll ask you to show the same courtesy toward _me_. Now then,
+Willem----"
+
+"Kathrien," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "you surely aren't going to
+permit----?"
+
+A peremptory gesture from McPherson momentarily checked the pendulum of
+her tongue. Kathrien, too, was very evidently on the doctor's side.
+
+"Willem," said McPherson quietly, "you said just now that Mr. Grimm was
+in this room. What made you think so?"
+
+"The things he said to me," returned Willem, readily enough.
+
+His simple reply had a galvanic effect on his three hearers.
+
+"_Said_ to you?" bleated Mrs. Batholommey. "_Said_? Did you say 'said'?"
+
+"Why, Willem!" gasped Kathrien.
+
+"_Old_ Mr. Grimm?" insisted Dr. McPherson. "Willem, you're certain you
+mean _old_ Mr. Grimm? Not Frederik?"
+
+"Why, yes," assented Willem with calm assurance. "Old Mynheer Grimm."
+
+And now, even Mrs. Batholommey's awed curiosity dulled her chronic
+conscience-pains into momentary rest. And, with Kathrien, she sat
+silent, eager, awaiting the doctor's next move.
+
+"And," continued McPherson, "what did Mr. Grimm say to you? Think
+carefully before you answer."
+
+"Oh," replied Willem, in the glorious vagueness of childhood, "lots and
+lots of things."
+
+"Oh, really?" mocked Mrs. Batholommey, the disappointing answer freeing
+her from the grip of awe.
+
+Again McPherson raised a warning hand that balked further comment from
+her. And he returned to the examination.
+
+"Willem," said he, "how did Mr. Grimm look?"
+
+"I didn't see him," answered the child.
+
+"H'm!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"But, Willem," urged McPherson, "you must have seen _something_."
+
+"I--I thought I saw his hat on the peg," hesitated the boy.
+
+All eyes turned involuntarily and in some fear toward the hat-rack.
+
+"No," went on Willem, looking at the vacant peg, "it's gone now."
+
+"Doctor," remonstrated Mrs. Batholommey, impatiently, "this is so silly!
+It----"
+
+"I wonder," whispered Kathrien to McPherson over the boy's head, "I
+wonder if he really _did_--do you think----?"
+
+She did not finish the sentence. A growing look of disappointment and
+troubled doubt on McPherson's grim face made her reluctant to voice the
+question that her mind had formed.
+
+"Willem!" said the Dead Man earnestly, pointing towards the
+pieced-together picture as he spoke. "Look! Show it to her!"
+
+"Look!" echoed Willem, pointing in turn to the photograph. "Look, Miss
+Kathrien! That's what I wanted to show you when you called to me to go
+to bed."
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Kathrien, following the direction of the eager little
+finger. "It's his mother! It's Anne Marie!"
+
+"His mother!" echoed Mrs. Batholommey, focussing her near-sighted eyes
+on the likeness. "Why, so it is! Well, of all things! I didn't know
+you'd heard from Anne Marie."
+
+"We haven't," said Kathrien.
+
+"Then how did the photograph get into the house?"
+
+"I don't know," answered the girl. "I never saw the picture before. It
+is none we've had. How strange! We've all been waiting for news of Anne
+Marie. Even her own mother doesn't know where she is, and hasn't heard
+from her in years. Or--or maybe Marta has received the picture since
+I----"
+
+"I'll ask her," said Mrs. Batholommey, all eagerness now that something
+tangible was before her.
+
+She bustled off into the kitchen in search of the old housekeeper.
+
+"If Marta didn't get it," mused Kathrien, her face strained with
+puzzling thoughts, "who _did_ have this picture? And why weren't the
+rest of us told? Every one knew how eager we were for news of Anne
+Marie. And who tore up the picture? Did you, Willem?"
+
+"No!" declared the boy. "It _was_ lying here, torn. I mended it."
+
+"But," persisted Kathrien, "there's been no one at this desk,--except
+Frederik.--Except Frederik," she repeated, half under her breath.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey came back from her kitchen interview, bubbling with
+importance.
+
+"No," she announced, "Marta hasn't heard a word from Anne Marie. And
+only a few minutes ago she asked Frederik if any message had come. And
+he said, no, there hadn't."
+
+"I wonder," suggested Kathrien, "if there _was_ any message with the
+photograph."
+
+"I remember," volunteered Mrs. Batholommey, "one of the letters that
+came for poor old Mr. Grimm was in a blue envelope and felt as if it had
+a photograph in it. I put it with some others in the desk and I told
+Frederik about it this evening."
+
+Kathrien glanced over the desk and at the floor around it in search of
+further clues. She saw, in the jardinière, the charred remnants of a
+letter and pointed it out to the others. She drew from the débris the
+unburned corner of a blue envelope.
+
+"That's the one!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "That's it! The same colour."
+
+"You say the envelope was addressed to my uncle?"
+
+"Yes. It gave me such a turn to see those letters all addressed to a man
+who wasn't alive to----"
+
+"Oh, what does it all mean?" cried the girl.
+
+"We are going to find out," said McPherson with sudden determination.
+"Kathrien, draw those window shades close. I want the room darkened as
+much as possible."
+
+"Oh, Doctor," protested Mrs. Batholommey as Kathrien hastened to obey,
+"you're surely not going to----?"
+
+"Be quiet. You needn't stay unless you want to."
+
+"Oh, I'll stay. It's my duty. But I don't approve. Please understand
+that."
+
+Kathrien had returned to her place by the fire and had lifted Willem
+back on her lap. The doctor, gazing into space, said in a low,
+reverential tone:
+
+"Peter Grimm! If you have come back to us, if you are in this room--if
+this boy has spoken truly,--give us some sign, some indication----"
+
+"Why, Andrew, I can't," answered the Dead Man. "Not to _you_. I have, to
+the boy. I can't make you hear me, Andrew. The obstacles are too strong
+for me."
+
+"Peter Grimm," went on the doctor after a moment of dead silence, "if
+you cannot make your presence known to me--and I realise there must be
+great difficulties--will you try to send your message by Willem? I
+presume you _have_ a message?"
+
+Another space of tense silence.
+
+"Well, Peter," resumed McPherson patiently, "I am waiting. We are all
+waiting."
+
+"Then stop talking and listen to Willem," ordered Peter Grimm.
+
+The doctor involuntarily glanced at the boy. Willem's wide-open eyes
+were glazed like a sleep-walker's. The hands that had been folded in his
+lap now hung limply at his sides. His lips parted, and droning,
+mechanical, lifeless words came from between them.
+
+"There was Anne Marie--and me--and the Other One," said he.
+
+"What Other One?" asked McPherson, speaking in a low, emotionless voice
+so as not to break in on the thought current.
+
+"The man that came there," droned the boy.
+
+"What man?"
+
+"The man that made Anne Marie cry."
+
+"What man made Anne Marie cry?"
+
+"I--I can't remember," returned the boy, a hesitant note of trouble
+creeping into his dead voice.
+
+"Yes, you can," prompted Peter Grimm. "You _can_ remember, Willem.
+You're afraid!"
+
+"So you _do_ remember the time when you were with Anne Marie?" whispered
+Kathrien as the lad hesitated. "You always told me you didn't. Doctor, I
+have the strangest feeling. A feeling that all this somehow concerns
+_me_, and that I must sift it to the bottom. Think, Willem. Who was it
+that came and went at the house where you lived with Anne Marie?"
+
+"That is what _I_ asked you, Willem," said Peter Grimm.
+
+"That is what _he_ asked me," replied Willem mechanically.
+
+"Who?" demanded McPherson. "Who asked you that question, Willem?"
+
+"Mynheer Grimm."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Just now."
+
+"Just now!" cried Kathrien and Mrs. Batholommey in a breath.
+
+"S-sh!" admonished the doctor. "So you both asked the same question, eh?
+The man that came to see----?"
+
+"It can't be possible," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "that the boy has
+any idea what he is talking about."
+
+A glare from McPherson silenced her. Then the doctor asked:
+
+"What did you tell Mr. Grimm, Willem?"
+
+The boy hesitated.
+
+"Better make haste," adjured the Dead Man, "Frederik is coming back."
+
+Willem, with a shudder, glanced fearfully toward the outer door.
+
+"Why does he do that?" wondered Kathrien. "He looked that way at the
+door when he spoke of 'the Other One.' Why should he?"
+
+"He's afraid," answered Peter Grimm.
+
+"I'm afraid," echoed Willem.
+
+Kathrien gathered him more closely in her warm young arms and whispered
+soothingly to him. The fear died out of his eyes.
+
+"You're not afraid, any more?" she reassured him.
+
+"N-no," he faltered, "but--oh, _please_ don't let Mynheer Frederik come
+back, Miss Kathrien! _Please_, don't! Because--because then I'll be
+afraid again. I know I will."
+
+McPherson whistled low and long. A light was beginning to break upon his
+shrewd Scotch brain.
+
+"Willem!" pleaded the Dead Man. "_Willem!_"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the boy.
+
+"You must say I am very unhappy."
+
+"He is very unhappy," repeated Willem, parrot-like.
+
+"Why is he unhappy?" demanded McPherson. "Ask him?"
+
+"Why are you unhappy, Mynheer Grimm?" droned the boy.
+
+"On account of Kathrien's future," replied Peter Grimm.
+
+"What?" questioned Willem, who did not quite understand the meaning of
+the words "account" and "future."
+
+"To-morrow----" began the Dead Man.
+
+"To-morrow----" droned Willem.
+
+"Kathrien's----" continued Peter Grimm.
+
+"Your----" said the boy, glancing at Kathrien.
+
+"Kathrien's?" asked the doctor. "Is he speaking about Kathrien?"
+
+"What is it, Willem?" begged the girl. "What about me, to-morrow?"
+
+"Kathrien must not marry Frederik," said Peter Grimm, as if teaching a
+simple lesson to a very stupid pupil.
+
+"Kathrien----" began the boy, then flinching, and once more glancing
+fearfully over his shoulder toward the door, he whimpered:
+
+"Oh, I must not say that!"
+
+"Say _what_, Willem?" urged McPherson.
+
+"What--what he wanted me to say!"
+
+"Kathrien must not marry Frederik Grimm," repeated the Dead Man. "Say
+it, Willem?"
+
+"Speak up, Willem," exhorted McPherson. "Don't be scared. No one will
+hurt you."
+
+"Oh, yes," denied Willem, in terror, "_he_ will. I don't _want_ to say
+his name! Because--because----"
+
+"Why won't you tell his name?" insisted McPherson.
+
+"Hurry, Willem! Hurry!" begged the Dead Man.
+
+"Oh," wailed Willem, with another terrified glance at the door, "I'm
+afraid! I'm _afraid_! He'll make Anne Marie cry again. And me! And
+_me_!"
+
+"Why are you afraid of him?" asked Kathrien. "Was Frederik the man that
+came to see Anne Marie----?"
+
+"Kathrien!" primly reproved Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+Kathrien caught hold of the boy's hand as he rose, shaking, to his feet.
+She knelt before him.
+
+"Willem!" she implored. "Was Frederik the man who came to see Anne
+Marie? _Tell_ me!"
+
+"Surely," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey in pious horror, "surely,
+Kathrien, you don't believe----?"
+
+"I have thought of a great many things this evening," replied Kathrien,
+vibrant with excitement, yet instinctively lowering her voice so as not
+to break in on Willem's semi-trance. "Little things that I've never
+noticed before. I'm putting them together. Just as Willem put that
+picture together. And I must know who the Other One was."
+
+"Hurry, Willem!" exhorted the Dead Man. "Hurry! Frederik is listening at
+the door."
+
+The announcement brought Willem around with a gasp toward the door. He
+stared at its panels, quaking, aghast.
+
+"I won't say any more!" he whimpered, pointing at the door. "_He's_
+there!"
+
+"Who was the man, Willem?" entreated McPherson. "Come, lad! Out with
+it!"
+
+"Quick, Willem!" supplemented Peter Grimm.
+
+Kathrien, acting on an unexplained impulse as Willem stared
+terror-stricken at the door, hastened toward the vestibule.
+
+"No! No!" shrieked the boy in anguished falsetto as he divined what she
+was about to do. "Please, _please_ don't! _Don't!_ _Don't_ let him in.
+I'm afraid of him. He made Anne Marie cry."
+
+But Kathrien's hand was already at the latch. She threw the outer door
+wide open. Frederik Grimm stood on the threshold, his head still a
+little forward. His ear had evidently been pressed close to the panel.
+
+"You're sure Frederik's the man?" almost shouted McPherson.
+
+"I won't tell! I won't tell! _I won't tell!_" screamed the boy, taking
+one look at Frederik, then tearing loose from McPherson's restraining
+hand and dashing up the stairs.
+
+"I must go to bed now," sobbed Willem from the gallery above. "_He_ told
+me to."
+
+He ran into his own room and shut the door quickly behind him.
+
+"You're a good boy, Willem!" Peter Grimm called approvingly after him.
+
+The cloud of grief was gone from the Dead Man's face, leaving it
+wondrously bright and young. With no trace of anxiety, he turned to
+witness the consummation of his labours.
+
+Frederik Grimm was standing, nerveless, dazed, where Kathrien's
+impulsive opening of the door had disclosed him. Dully, he stared from
+one to another of the three who confronted him. It was Kathrien who
+first spoke. Pointing toward the photograph that still lay on the desk,
+she said:
+
+"Frederik, you have heard from Anne Marie."
+
+His lips parted in denial. Then he saw the picture, started slightly,
+and lapsed into a sullen silence.
+
+"You have had a letter from her," pursued Kathrien. "You burned it. And
+you tore that picture so that we would not recognise it. Why did you
+tell Marta that you had had no message--no news? You told her so,
+_since_ that letter and photograph came. You went to Anne Marie's home,
+too. Why did you tell me you had never seen her since she left here? Why
+did you lie to me? _Why do you hate her child?_"
+
+Frederik made one dogged effort to regain what he had so bewilderingly
+lost.
+
+"Are--are you going to believe what that brat says?" he muttered.
+
+"No," retorted Kathrien. "But I'm going to find out for myself. I am
+going to find out where Anne Marie is before I marry you. And I am going
+to learn the truth from her. Willem may be right or wrong in what he
+thinks he remembers. But _I_ am going to find out, past all doubt, what
+Anne Marie was to you. And, if what I think is true----"
+
+"It is true," interposed McPherson. "It is true, Kathrien. I believe we
+got that message direct."
+
+"Andrew is right, Katje," prompted the Dead Man. "Believe him."
+
+"Yes!" cried Kathrien, as if in reply. "It is true. I believe Oom Peter
+was in this room to-night!"
+
+"What?" blurted Frederik. "_You_ saw him, too?"
+
+His unguarded query was lost in Mrs. Batholommey's gasp of:
+
+"Oh, Kathrien, that's quite impossible. It was only a coincidence
+that----"
+
+"I don't care what any one else may think," rushed on Kathrien, swept
+along upon the wave of a strange exultation that bore her far out of her
+wonted timid self. "People have the right to think for themselves. I
+believe Oom Peter has been here, to-night!"
+
+"I _am_ here, Katje," breathed the Dead Man.
+
+"I believe he is here, _now_!" declared Kathrien, her eyes aglow, and
+her face flushed. "He is here. Oh, Oom Peter!" she cried, her arms
+stretched wide in appeal, her face alight, her voice rising like that of
+a prophetess of old. "Oom Peter, if you can hear me now, give me back my
+promise! Give it back to me--_or I'll take it back_!"
+
+"I did give it back to you, dear," answered Peter Grimm happily. "But,
+oh, what a time I've had putting it across!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MR. BATHOLOMMEY TESTIFIES
+
+
+  _To Whom It May Concern:_
+
+I am Henry Batholommey, rector of the Protestant Episcopal church at
+Grimm Manor, New York State. My neighbour, Andrew McPherson, M.D., has
+asked me to substantiate, so far as lies in my power, certain statements
+in a paper he is preparing for the Society of Psychical Research,
+concerning certain recent happenings in the house of my former
+parishioner, the late Peter Grimm of this place.
+
+I refuse.
+
+I understand, also, that in telling the story broadcast, as he has done,
+he has made free use of my name and that of my wife, as witnesses to
+these happenings. Wherefore, I am daily in receipt of fully a dozen
+letters of enquiry. Reporters, so-called scientists, mystics with long
+hair and unclean nails, and cranks and practical jokers of every sort
+and description have taken to calling at the rectory, at inconvenient
+hours, to cross-question me.
+
+For example: one disreputable man, reeking of cheap liquor, came to me
+yesterday with the information that the story of Peter Grimm's return
+had converted him and that (with some slight temporary financial
+assistance from me) he was prepared to renounce liquor and mend his
+ways. He looked like a penitent. He talked like a penitent. But he most
+assuredly did not _smell_ like a penitent. And I sent him about his
+business.
+
+This was but one of many irritating interruptions upon my parish work to
+which Dr. McPherson's use of my name has subjected me.
+
+In view of all this, I deem it advisable to save myself from further
+annoyance and to stop the rumour that a minister of the Gospel has
+turned Spiritualist, by issuing the following brief statement:
+
+Dr. McPherson is desirous that my wife and myself endorse his belief
+that the occurrences at the home of the late Peter Grimm were of a
+supernatural nature.
+
+We shall do no such thing.
+
+For the single reason that neither Mrs. Batholommey nor myself, after
+mature reflection and dispassionate discussion, can find one atom of the
+Supernatural in any of the events that transpired there. Perhaps I can
+best make clear my point of view by rehearsing the case and my own very
+small connection therewith.
+
+The fact that Dr. McPherson is of a different denomination from myself
+in no way biases my feelings in this case. I am an Episcopalian. And I
+am of liberal views toward those who are not;--with the possible
+exception of Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists,
+and members of a few other denominations outside the direct Apostolic
+Succession. Yet I confess I was shocked at the conversion (or
+perversion) of my old neighbour, McPherson, to a cult which, for want of
+a better word, I must designate as "Spiritualism."
+
+He told me of a compact he had made with my dear friend and parishioner,
+Peter Grimm, to the effect that whichever of them should first leave
+this mortal life was to return and make known his presence to the other.
+I told McPherson to his face that I regarded such a compact as being
+even more sacrilegious than senseless. My good wife echoed my
+sentiments. McPherson, who has not the admirable control over his temper
+so needful to a medical man, chose to become angry at my outspoken
+opinion and said several cruelly unjust things concerning my own
+behaviour toward the late Peter Grimm.
+
+I shall not stoop to denying or even repeating what he said; far less to
+justify myself. Yet I should like to mention, in passing, that his
+coarse gibe concerning my fawning on a rich man is the most unjust of
+all his abominable assertions.
+
+I was in the habit of bringing cases of need before Peter Grimm's
+notice, it is true. And he responded right generously to every such
+appeal. I enlisted his financial aid for the local poor, for the Church
+Building Fund, for missions (home and foreign), and for the other worthy
+and needy cases.
+
+But for myself or for my family I have never asked for one penny, either
+from Peter Grimm or from any other man. And as the gifts I have begged
+were in my Master's name and solely for my Master's service, I do not
+consider I have demeaned myself. Be that my sole defence. I am content
+with it.
+
+The public, of late years, has looked askance at the attitude of
+clergymen toward the wealthier members of their congregation. And, in
+ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, with absolutely no cause. The
+Church is in need. The poor are in dire distress. Missions languish for
+the few paltry thousands that would carry the Word triumphant throughout
+the earth.
+
+Who is to supply these needs? Who but the clergyman? Out of his own
+scanty salary? That hardly supports him and his. Yet, in proportion, he
+gives from it as never did a multimillionaire. To whom can he turn for
+financial help in carrying out his Master's work? To the Rich Man. And,
+in many cases, the day is past when he can do so without first winning
+the personal liking of that same rich man. Yes, and often by flattering
+him and smiling approvingly at his vulgar humour or soothing his equally
+vulgar rages.
+
+Shame that the deathless Church of God should have been brought to such
+a pass!
+
+Yes, and tenfold shame to those that sneer at the clergyman who
+sacrifices and tortures all that is sensitive and sacred in himself, in
+the effort to wheedle from the wealthy boor the money to save God's poor
+and God's souls! Is it pleasant for him to fawn and to be patronised?
+Others do it, I know. But for _themselves_. The clergyman must do it in
+his Master's name and for no personal gain.
+
+Let the rector refuse to lower himself thus--What happens? The rich man
+goes to a church where flattery and subservience are more plentiful. The
+stiff-necked rector seeks in vain for funds. For lack of money his
+church runs down. It cannot keep up its charities and its other work.
+
+Who is to blame? The rector, of course. Let us get an up-to-date man in
+his place. And the clergyman who refused to cringe finds himself not
+only without a church but with a record that bars him from getting
+another one. I do not say this state of affairs is universal. But I _do_
+say, from bitter experience, that it is far too prevalent. Forgive my
+digression. I will get back to my statement with all speed.
+
+I have told of the "compact" between Peter Grimm and Andrew McPherson.
+Mr. Grimm died. Kathrien had promised him to marry his nephew, Frederik.
+She did not love him. She did love James Hartmann. She has admitted both
+those facts to me.
+
+As the time for the wedding drew near, she was more and more loath to
+carry out her promise. McPherson attributes that distaste to the
+spiritual promptings of Peter Grimm. Can any normal woman (who has been
+forced to marry one man while loving another) see the remotest hint of
+the Supernatural in it? No!
+
+Willem, a boy of epileptic tendencies--as McPherson himself admits--had
+taken his benefactor's death terribly to heart, and had brooded over it
+day and night. Is there any reason to doubt that in such an unbalanced
+nature, this brooding, coupled by fever, should have produced a delirium
+in which he believed he heard Peter Grimm speaking to him?
+
+He also believed, Kathrien tells me, that he heard the circus parade
+pass the house ten days after it had left town. Is one belief entitled
+to greater credence than the other? Or did the ghost of a circus parade
+meander through our Main street at night, accompanied by a Spook brass
+band? Each idea is quite as probable as the other.
+
+And, from the boy's own statement, Peter Grimm said to him nothing
+original or even betokening a mind more developed than a child's. Willem
+knew Kathrien was going to marry Frederik. He knew she did not want to
+and that he himself disliked and feared Frederik. What more likely than
+that he should imagine he heard Peter forbid the match?
+
+What more likely, in his own fevered unhappiness, than that he should
+think Peter Grimm said "I am very unhappy"? Would a man of Peter Grimm's
+strength and shrewdness come back to earth and tell the child nothing of
+greater importance than Willem says he told? And, if he could make
+Willem understand such phrases as "I am very unhappy" and "Kathrien must
+not marry Frederik," could he not have made the boy understand anything
+else?
+
+As to Frederik Grimm:--Frederik, we know, was nervous and overwrought.
+His uncle's death had been a shock--if not a grief. He had the added
+worry of knowing Kathrien did not really love him. He was in constant
+fear lest Anne Marie, on hearing of Peter's death, might communicate
+with her mother and lest the secret of his own relations with the poor
+girl be exposed. This suspense added to his nervousness.
+
+The sight of her picture and the reading of her pathetic letter stirred
+his conscience. He forced himself to destroy both bits of evidence. And
+the action strongly brought before his nerve-racked senses the thought
+of what honourable old Peter Grimm would have said of such conduct. So
+strongly, in fact, that in the dark he fancied he saw Grimm's eyes
+glaring at him. The phenomenon is by no means uncommon and has been
+explained by scientists upon perfectly natural grounds.
+
+As to Willem's sudden remembrance of half-forgotten facts concerning his
+own childhood, there is no parent living who cannot cite instances of
+newly awakened memory, in his or her own child, that are quite as
+remarkable. The seeing of his mother's photograph brought before Willem
+the recollection of scenes in which she had played a part; scenes that
+had been crowded from his mind by later events.
+
+Frederik had just spoken harshly to him. And that recalled harsh words
+Frederik had spoken to the woman in the picture. And thus, quite simply,
+his memory supplied the one needful link. What is remarkable in all the
+foregoing? In fact, Shakespeare's Horatio says:
+
+     "There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, to tell us
+     this!"
+
+So much for Dr. McPherson's efforts to surround a series of normal
+occurrences with a halo of the Supernatural! Now, let me add a word on
+my own account, and I am done.
+
+The Dead do not return to the scene of their toil and pain and tears.
+Would a freed convict sneak back to his prison house or the ex-galley
+slave to his oar? The convalescent does not crawl into the contagion
+ward again of his free choice. Nor, I believe, would the Lord permit the
+return of the Dead; even to bear a warning to those left behind.
+
+Glance at the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke for confirmation of my
+belief;--at the parable of the "certain rich man who was clothed in
+purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day"; and who, in
+torment, after death, called to Abraham to send Lazarus from Heaven to
+visit the Tortured One's five brethren:
+
+"_That he may testify unto men, lest they also come into this place of
+torment._
+
+"_Abraham said to him: 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear
+them.'_
+
+"_And he said: 'Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the
+dead they would repent.'_
+
+"_And he said unto him: 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
+neither will they be persuaded through one rise from the dead.'_"
+
+No, the whole idea is preposterous. It is far outside of God's justice
+and infinitely farther beyond His boundless mercy.
+
+"He giveth His Beloved _sleep_";--not weary, hopeless wanderings upon
+the face of the earth.
+
+Peter Grimm did not return. And this is the only comment I care to make
+upon Andrew McPherson's amazing theory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DR. McPHERSON'S STATEMENT
+
+
+DR. JAMES HYSLOP.
+
+_My Dear Sir:_--After reading the account which I am mailing to you
+under separate cover, will you kindly forward it to the American Branch
+of the Society of Psychical Research? As you will observe, it is a
+verbatim report of a "séance."
+
+For your personal information, I beg to make the following supplementary
+statement.
+
+At the residence of Peter Grimm,--I should say the _late_ Peter
+Grimm--(the well-known horticulturist of Grimm Manor, N. Y.) certain
+phenomena occurred this evening which would clearly indicate the Return
+of Peter Grimm, ten days after his decease. At my first free moment
+after the manifestation, I jotted down in shorthand the exact dialogue,
+etc., which I have since transcribed into the enclosed report.
+
+While Peter Grimm was invisible to all, three people were present
+besides myself; including the "recipient," a child of eight, who had
+been ill, but was almost normal at the time.
+
+No spelling out of signals nor automatic writing was employed, but word
+of mouth.
+
+I made a compact with Peter Grimm while he was in the flesh that
+whichever one of us should go first was to return and give the other
+some sign. And I propose, by the enclosed report, to show positive proof
+that Peter Grimm kept his compact and that I assisted in the carrying
+out of his instructions.
+
+Let me introduce myself and briefly recount the circumstances which led
+up to the séance, as well as my own state of mind concerning
+manifestations:
+
+I am a practising physician in the town of Grimm Manor, a suburb of New
+York City, settled at the time of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan, and
+named after the family, the Grimms, which first owned the farm that is
+now the town site.
+
+I have always been greatly interested in Spiritualism. I have read
+nearly all that has been written on this subject and have known,
+personally, most all the so-called mediums. I have attended séances in
+this country and abroad and have by turns been convinced that they were
+genuine or frauds.
+
+Up to the time when the events which I am about to narrate began to
+occur, I had been unable to come to a definite decision, as far as my
+own belief was concerned, as to whether or not the spirits of the dead
+could communicate with the living. At one time I would be led to believe
+they could, but then the exposure of some well-known medium as a
+trickster would change my opinion and I would again find myself puzzling
+vainly over the answer to this problem.
+
+You doubtless remember the furore which was created in Spiritualistic
+circles by the announcement of an English physician that, in accordance
+with a compact, a friend had communicated with him after death.
+
+This idea fascinated me. There is an old Japanese myth to the effect
+that if a dying man resolves to do a certain act the body will, after
+death, perform that act. It seemed to me that if a man could die and
+return to earth in spirit it must be as the result of a resolution to
+return made just before death and constituting the ruling passion at the
+time of death itself. I determined that I would put this theory to the
+test.
+
+We of this materialistic world of barter and sale give little time to
+the consideration of the Hereafter. There are occasions with most of us
+when the unanswerable Why and Whence obtrudes itself on our vision, but
+it is a fleeting impression which vanishes with the rising of the sun on
+the day's work. The wonder and mystery of life may come home to us at
+the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, but we soon cease to
+marvel at the miracle of the former and a new joy banishes grief.
+
+For, we say, what avails it, this search after the Land of the
+Hereafter, if there be such a place? No one has ever come back to tell
+us that there is; or what it is and where. It is all a matter of
+conjecture in which we are following round the circle trod by man since
+the world began.
+
+One man believes that there is a Hereafter, a spirit land in which the
+Soul, stripped of all evil, reaches a state of perfection and divine
+happiness which justifies the stupendous feat of the Creation and the
+travail of those who are bound to the treadmill of life.
+
+Another believes, pointing for proof to the dead branches from which new
+leaves spring, that life is endless, and that the soul, leaving the
+worn-out shell, takes up its dwelling in another form. Another with
+scorn tells us that all life is a joke and we are the butts of the
+cruel will of an Omnipotent power. And still another says:
+
+"Any and all beliefs in this matter are good, for none can be proved.
+Let each believe that which gives him the most happiness, so long as it
+be noble and sweet and true."
+
+And with this last I hold. So that if it bring peace and love and
+contentment into the heart of man, woman, or child to believe that the
+spirit of a loved one, who has solved the Problem mortal cannot solve,
+can return to earth and communicate by some sign or token with those who
+were its companions when it inhabited a human house, I say it is wrong
+to scoff and rail at this belief.
+
+There has now come to me the proof that such a belief does bring peace
+and love and contentment, that it does cast out evil. With regard to the
+Psychological aspects of the circumstances which are related in the
+enclosed transcript, I express no opinion. I have never before had the
+feeling that a person dead so far as mortal existence was concerned was
+endeavouring to communicate with me. The debates and wrangles which go
+on continually between those who affirm and deny the possibility of
+spirit messages have always impressed me, but beyond a theory, I had no
+knowledge as to the right or wrong of it. However, I was strongly
+inclined to believe.
+
+The fact that on many occasions so-called rappings, table liftings,
+writings, and other supposed spirit manifestations have been shown to be
+the result of mere human trickery does not necessarily prove that such
+demonstrations may not be the efforts of an immortal soul to make its
+presence known.
+
+I say this because I want it understood that I have not allowed any
+prejudice, favourable or otherwise, to creep into the report that I send
+herewith. I go no further than to say that if my report helps to prove
+that the spirit of one we have loved and revered can come back and bring
+peace and love and happiness to mortals who are in dire need, if it can
+banish blighting evil from their lives; then life, for all its burdens,
+is not lived in vain.
+
+Among my dearest friends was Peter Grimm, direct descendant of the
+founders of the village, who still occupied the old Manor House and was
+engaged in horticulture. Grimm's tulips were known throughout the
+country and his business was a large one.
+
+There lived with him Kathrien, whom he had adopted at my suggestion
+(made at a time when he seemed to be getting morose and verging on
+becoming a recluse) that he needed a child in the house; Frederik, his
+nephew and heir; James Hartmann, his secretary, and Willem, the son of
+Anne Marie, the daughter of Marta, the housekeeper.
+
+Anne Marie had left home in disgrace and had sent Willem to her mother
+after his father had deserted her. Who this man was had never been
+revealed, and the whereabouts of Anne Marie herself were unknown at the
+time I am writing of.
+
+At those times when I leaned toward the conviction that communication
+between earth and spirit land was possible, I was prone to think that if
+it could be, it must be between a spirit and a mortal who in life
+typified in their affection for each other the highest type of pure
+love. If any mortal, I thought, could receive a spirit message, it must
+be one whose heart and soul are spotless, whose love is as that of a
+little child before it has grown to manhood and plucked at the leaves of
+the Tree of Knowledge.
+
+In the day Kathrien entered his home there was born in Peter Grimm a
+great love for mankind, but especially for children. Not but that he
+had always been kindly and charitable to those who deserved his aid, but
+where before his life had been given up to his business, to making the
+brown earth do his will, he now devoted his chief thought to making
+Kathrien happy. This love for children was increased when Willem came to
+him, and I think the most perfect affection that ever existed among
+three persons was that which these three bore to each other.
+
+Peter came to me recently to be treated for a cold which, while severe,
+was not in itself dangerous. But in examining him I found that his heart
+was in such a condition that a strong emotion, such as intense joy,
+anger, or fear might cause instant death.
+
+I determined, on discovering this, to ask him to enter into a compact
+with me that whichever of us should die first should, after death,
+communicate with the survivor. While I was not sure (although a strong
+bond of affection existed between us) that I was a person fitted to
+receive such a communication, I was convinced that either Kathrien or
+Willem would understand a message sent to me from the spirit land by
+Peter, and, if the thing were possible, that he, if he could not reach
+me directly, would do so through one or the other of them.
+
+I made the mistake of telling Colonel Lawton of Peter's condition. I
+might have known that he would tell his wife. She told Mrs. Batholommey,
+the wife of the rector.
+
+When I suggested the compact to Peter Grimm, he pooh-poohed the whole
+idea, laughed at me, told me to get such nonsense out of my head.
+
+But I stuck to it. I told him of the incident of the English doctor and
+his friend, of the great service that would be done to humanity and
+science if he or I could prove that signals could be exchanged between a
+land inhabited by the souls of the dead and this mortal earth. At last
+he consented.
+
+The rector and his wife called after we had finished our argument, and
+Mrs. Batholommey as much as told Peter during the course of the
+conversation that he was doomed. Then poor little Willem blabbed the
+truth. He had overheard us discussing the matter. Peter reiterated that
+he would make the compact with me.
+
+We shook hands on it, we sealed it with a touch of our glasses filled
+with Peter Grimm's famous plum brandy.
+
+There was a circus in town, one of those travelling country affairs, and
+the parade had passed by the house. Peter gave Willem money to buy
+tickets.
+
+That was the last I saw or heard in this life of mortal Peter Grimm,
+standing there with a smile on his face.
+
+I had been absent but a few minutes when I heard Kathrien crying my
+name. I ran back to the house. Peter Grimm was dead.
+
+Ten days later came the séance described in my enclosure. Later in the
+evening I went to Willem's room and had a quiet little talk with him. He
+was calm again and spoke freely of what seemed to him an utterly natural
+experience. And from that conversation I believe I confirmed still
+further what was already established as a fact, so far as I was
+concerned. Peter Grimm had kept his compact with me. He had returned!
+
+I wanted to talk with Willem at a time when he was in a normal condition
+and not in the thrall of fear. I found him without fever, though weaker
+than he had been for several days. I assured him that he had nothing to
+fear from Frederik, that all of us were his friends, and that no harm
+could come to him.
+
+"Now tell me, Willem," I said, "all about your seeing Uncle Peter this
+evening."
+
+"I awoke very thirsty and went downstairs for a drink," the boy told me
+in effect. "The ice pitcher felt so cool that I rested my cheek against
+it and then I drank some more water. Then I heard some one calling me.
+
+"'Willem, Willem,' a voice said, 'can you hear me? Is there no one in
+this house that can hear me?'
+
+"I couldn't make out at first who it was. Then I heard it again:
+
+"'Willem, Willem,' it said, 'you _must_ hear me.'
+
+"Then I looked around and saw Mynheer Peter's hat on the rack, and I
+knew he must have come back. But I couldn't see him.
+
+"'Where are you, Mynheer Peter?' I asked him.
+
+"'You cannot see me, Willem, but I am here. I want you to tell them all
+I am here.'
+
+"That's as near as I can remember it. We talked a while longer. Then he
+said something like:
+
+"'Go over and look on the table, Willem.'
+
+"I went to the table and saw some torn pieces of paper.
+
+"'Put them together, Willem,' said Mynheer Grimm.
+
+"When I had got it all pasted together I saw it was my mother, Anne
+Marie; and then you and Miss Kathrien came down.
+
+"Uncle Peter was standing over there about in the middle of the room. I
+could tell from his voice, but I couldn't see him.
+
+"'Tell them about the man who made Anne Marie cry,' Mynheer Peter told
+me. And he kept saying, 'Hurry, Willem, before it is too late; he is
+coming. Hurry, Willem, hurry,' and just before Mr. Frederik came in
+Mynheer Peter said, 'Tell them now, Willem; _he_ is listening at the
+door.'
+
+"Before you came down I asked Mynheer Peter to take me back with him
+when he went and he said he would."
+
+Now, mind you, Willem knew nothing of the compact Peter and I had made.
+
+Peter Grimm had said he would return, if he could. I believe he did so.
+
+My studies of the so-called "Occult" have done my reputation in this
+narrow provincial town much harm. I have been sneered at as a
+"spiritualist," a "spook hunter," an "agnostic." I am none of the three.
+I am a seeker after Truth; even while fully aware of the impossibility
+of absolutely finding that elusive quality. Nor do my researches in any
+way conflict with revealed religion, nor in the simple Bible faith that
+has ever been mine and that shall forever sustain me.
+
+Having thus set forth my personal position in the matter--perhaps
+tediously and to an undue length,--I beg to call your attention to my
+report.
+
+  Very truly yours,
+  ANDREW MCPHERSON, M.D.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BACK TO THE STORY
+
+
+Dr. McPherson occasionally gave a vigorous shake to his fountain pen,
+and made corrections here and there.
+
+It was nearly midnight, and he had been writing almost uninterruptedly
+since he had followed Willem upstairs after the boy's flight.
+
+Willem had been restless and feverish, and had asked repeatedly to be
+brought down to the living-room. He seemed irresistibly drawn toward the
+place where he had talked with Peter Grimm and had "almost seen him."
+
+So the sofa had been drawn up to the fire and a bed made for him there.
+Now, however, he was at last sleeping peacefully in his little upstairs
+room, and the whole house was quiet, though no one else had gone to bed,
+and there was everywhere a subdued feeling of excitement.
+
+The doctor had drawn a little table close to the vacant side of the
+fireplace (for the coals still smouldered, and the night was damp and
+chill). He had placed Willem's medicines there; and a lamp, the only
+bright spot in the big room.
+
+Outside, the world was bathed in moonlight, and through the window the
+arms of the windmill could be seen, waving solemnly round and round like
+some strange, black mysterious creature beckoning silently from another
+world.
+
+McPherson was preparing a formal statement of the "séance" while it was
+still fresh in his mind. And as Willem might need him, he was filling in
+a waiting hour by writing.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey's anxious face, encased in a scarf, broke in upon his
+concentration.
+
+"Oh--I'm _so_ nervous!" exclaimed the rector's wife, shudderingly, as
+she came into the room and going to the piano, turned up the second
+lamp.
+
+"How can you sit here in such a dim light, after all that has happened
+in this room--just a few hours ago, too?"
+
+Dr. McPherson, intent upon his work, was determined not to be
+interrupted. His only reply to Mrs. Batholommey was the scratching of
+his pen and the rattle of paper as he turned over a page.
+
+"I thought perhaps Frederik had come back," she went on.
+
+"So Willem's feeling better again?" she asked, advancing on the doctor.
+
+"Yes," he answered abstractedly. "I took him upstairs a few minutes
+ago."
+
+"Strange how the boy wants to remain in this room!" said Mrs.
+Batholommey.
+
+"M'm----" grunted Dr. McPherson shortly, without looking up at all.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey came nearer and sat down.
+
+"Oh, Doctor! Doctor!" she cried. "The scene that took place here
+to-night has completely upset me."
+
+The doctor's only reply was to turn his back on Mrs. Batholommey and
+begin reading his manuscript aloud in an undertone, scratching out a
+word here, adding something there.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, quite unconscious that she was a nuisance, leaned back
+in her chair and let her words flow on.
+
+"Well, Doctor, the breaking off of the engagement is--er--sudden, isn't
+it? We've been talking it over in the front parlour, Mr. Batholommey and
+I."
+
+The doctor darted a withering look at her over his spectacles.
+
+"I suggest sending out a card----" she purred, "just a neat card" (here
+she measured off an imaginary card with her fingers), "saying that owing
+to the bereavement in the family the wedding has been indefinitely
+postponed. Of course," she sighed, "it isn't exactly true."
+
+"Won't take place at all," exploded the doctor, going on at once with
+his reading.
+
+"Evidently not," said Mrs. Batholommey, "but if the whole matter
+looks very strange to _me_--How is it going to look to other
+people--especially when we haven't any--any _rational_ explanation--as
+yet? We must get out of it in _some_ fashion. I'm sure I don't know how
+else we can explain--I don't like telling anything that isn't
+true--but--there _was_ to be a wedding." Mrs. Batholommey waved her
+right hand. "There _isn't_ to be any wedding," she waved her left hand.
+"At least, Frederik isn't to be in it--and one must account for it
+_somehow_?"
+
+"Whose business is it?" fired the doctor, in a voice that made Mrs.
+Batholommey start like a frightened rabbit.
+
+For one moment his eyes peered fiercely at her under their shaggy brows,
+and then he returned to his narrative.
+
+"Nobody's at all," she made great haste to say. "Nobody's at
+all--nobody's at all, of course. But Kathrien's position is certainly
+unusual; and the strangest part of it is--she doesn't appear to feel her
+situation. She's sitting alone in the library seemingly placid and
+happy. She acts as if a weight were off her mind. But the main point
+I've been arguing is this: Should the card we're going to send out have
+a narrow black border, or not?"
+
+She turned toward the doctor and indicated with her fingers the width of
+black border that seemed to her to fit the occasion. But her trouble was
+entirely wasted.
+
+Dr. McPherson was once more engrossed in his writing, and had forgotten
+her existence.
+
+"Well, Doctor," she said in an injured tone, "you don't appear to be
+interested. You don't even answer!"
+
+"I couldn't," snapped Dr. McPherson. "I didn't know whether you were
+talking _again_ or _still_."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey was hurt, and she showed it in the reproachful look she
+cast at the doctor's unassailable, uninterested back.
+
+"Oh, of course," she said, "all these little matters sound trivial to
+you. But men like you couldn't look after the workings of the _next_
+world, if other people didn't attend to _this one_. _Somebody_ has to do
+it," she ended triumphantly.
+
+"I fully appreciate the fact, Mistress Batholommey, that other people
+are making it possible for me to be _myself_----"
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by a couple of raps on the window
+pane.
+
+"What's that?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, jumping up in alarm.
+
+"Telegram for Frederik Grimm," came a voice from the darkness, and a
+form was silhouetted against the moonlight.
+
+"Mr. Grimm's down at the hotel," said Mrs. Batholommey, hastily throwing
+up the window, "but I'll sign for it. Where do I sign?" she fluttered.
+"Oh, yes, I see, _here_!"
+
+She wrote Frederik's name, then handed back the book to the telegraph
+boy, and closed the window. Just as she laid the telegram on the desk,
+Mr. Batholommey came into the room.
+
+"Well, Doctor," he said with veiled sarcasm, "I would by all means
+suggest that we don't judge Frederik until the information Willem has
+_volunteered_ can be verified."
+
+"Umph!" grunted the doctor.
+
+Then he got up and went to the telephone.
+
+"Four--red," he called to "Central."
+
+Mr. Batholommey betook himself to the vestibule and began to put on his
+rubbers with methodical care.
+
+"However, I regret," (he went on as easily as if the doctor had not
+grunted) "that Frederik has left the house without offering some sort of
+explanation."
+
+"Four--red?" pursued the doctor. "That you, Marget? I'm at Peter's. I
+mean--I'm at the Grimms'. No, don't wait up for me. Send me my bag here.
+I'll stay the night with Willem. Bye."
+
+He put up the receiver and began to collect his scattered papers.
+
+"Good-night, Doctor," said the clergyman. "Good-night, Rose."
+
+He started toward the door, but the doctor called him back.
+
+"Hold on, Mr. Batholommey!" he interposed. "I'm writing an account of
+all that's happened here to-night--from the very beginning. I've an idea
+it's going to make a stir. It's just the sort of thing the Society has
+been after----"
+
+"Indeed!" said Mr. Batholommey in a doubtful tone.
+
+"When I have verified every word of the evidence by Willem's mother----"
+
+Here the Rev. Mr. Batholommey smiled behind his hand in a decidedly
+secular way.
+
+"----I shall send in my report," continued the doctor. "Would you have
+any objection to the name of Mrs. Batholommey being used as a witness?"
+
+Mr. Batholommey hesitated. His usually placid eyes were full of
+perplexity.
+
+"Well--Doctor--I--I----"
+
+But Mrs. Batholommey, unlike her temporising husband, did not hesitate.
+She rushed into the conversation all unasked.
+
+"Oh, no, you don't!" she cried. "You may flout _our_ beliefs,--but
+wouldn't you like to bolster up your report with an endorsement by the
+wife of a clergyman! It sounds so respectable and sane, doesn't it? No,
+sir! You can't prop up your wild-eyed theories against the good black of
+_one_ minister's coat. Not by any means! I think myself that you have
+probably stumbled on the truth about Willem's mother; but that doesn't
+prove there's anything in all your notions, for that child knew the
+truth all along. He's eight years old and he was with her until he was
+five;--and five's the age of memory. He's a precocious boy, besides.
+Every incident of his mother's life lingered in his little mind. Suppose
+you prove by her that it's all true?--Still, _Willem remembered_! And
+that's all there is to it."
+
+Confident that she had made a good point, Mrs. Batholommey gave her head
+a toss and left the field, or to be more exact, went out to get her
+husband's umbrella.
+
+Mr. Batholommey felt that after this display of colours on the part of
+his consort, he must needs testify also.
+
+"Don't you think, Doctor,--(mind, I'm not opposing your ideas. I'm just
+echoing just what everybody else thinks)--don't you believe these ideas
+are leading away from the heaven we were taught to believe in; that they
+tend toward irresponsibility--toward eccentricity? Is it healthy--that's
+the idea. Is it--_healthy_?"
+
+Dr. McPherson shook himself like a shaggy dog.
+
+"Well, Batholommey," he said, "religion has frequently led to the stake,
+and I never heard the Spanish Inquisition called _healthy_ for anybody
+taking part in it. Still, religion flourishes. But your old-fashioned,
+unscientific, gilt, gingerbread idea of heaven blew up ten years
+ago--went out. _My_ heaven's just coming in. It's new. Dr. Funk and a
+lot of clergymen are in already. You'd better get used to it,
+Batholommey, and join in the procession."
+
+Having delivered this ultimatum the doctor became oblivious to the
+existence of the Batholommey family and gave his whole attention once
+more to his writing.
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Batholommey tolerantly. "When you can convince _me_!"
+(He lapsed into Dutch.) "Well, _tou roustin_, Doctor."
+
+The clergyman started for the door, but his dutiful wife was there
+before him, his umbrella in her hand.
+
+"Good-night, Henry," she said, beaming affectionately on him. "I'll be
+home to-morrow."
+
+Then with a most coquettish glance, she purred coyly:
+
+"You'll be glad to see me, dear, _won't_ you?"
+
+Mr. Batholommey beamed in his turn, and patted her on the cheek.
+
+"Yes, my church mouse!" he said as he kissed her good-bye and went out
+into the night.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey closed the doors after him, but immediately opened them
+a trifle and peered through the crack.
+
+"Look out, Henry, for the trolley cars," she cried. "It's dark out
+there--And be careful you don't step into a mud puddle! They must be as
+deep as mill ponds after this rain, and there aren't half enough street
+lamps in this neighbourhood--you'll be in over your ankles before you
+know it!"
+
+"All right!" came in a diminuendo from the clergyman's receding form.
+"I'll be careful. Don't stand there taking cold. Good-night!"
+
+"Woman," thundered Dr. McPherson in a terrible voice, "_close that
+door_! Do you want my lamp to blow clean out? How can a body write with
+such goings-on in his ears? St. Paul was a wise man. 'Let the woman
+learn in silence,' he said, 'with all subjection.' Will you be good
+enough to heed that, and let me write in peace?"
+
+Mrs. Batholommey fastened the door with elaborate and most deliberate
+care; then, as she passed the doctor's table on her way to the front
+parlour, she fired a parting shot.
+
+"Write as much as you like, Doctor," she said loftily. "Words are but
+air. _You_ know and _I_ know and _everybody_ knows that seeing is
+believing."
+
+"Damn everybody!" growled the doctor, frowning at the lady's retreating
+figure. "It's 'everybody's' ignorance that's set the world back five
+hundred years. Where was I, before?" he said to himself. "Oh! Yes."
+
+And he went back to his Statement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
+
+
+Frederik came impatiently up the home walk. The old house was bathed in
+moonlight; the walk itself leading up to it was sweet with the scent of
+wet flowers. The whole place carried a peaceful air, as if a blessing
+rested upon it. But Frederik heeded nothing--saw none of the beauty and
+mystery. His mind was filled with quite different things.
+
+He had waited for hours at the hotel, expecting Hicks or his lawyer.
+When no one arrived at the hour agreed upon, Frederik felt a bit uneasy,
+but he tried to persuade himself that Hicks had merely missed the train
+and would come on the next one. With growing apprehension he waited,
+smoking innumerable cigarettes while the evening wore on, till finally
+the last train had come and gone. There was nothing to do but go back to
+the house, and face the _other_ matter. And he dreaded it! Oh, how he
+dreaded it!
+
+He could not bear the thought of Kathrien's eyes that had first doubted,
+then accused, then condemned him. All the while he had waited at the
+hotel, he had remembered those eyes. If he had not loved her sincerely
+the situation would have been comparatively easy for him; he could
+simply have cleared out--spent the rest of his days in Europe, if
+necessary, so that he might never see or hear of any one connected with
+Grimm Manor again in all his life.
+
+But Kathrien! Who could have been near her and _ever_ forget her? The
+turn of her head, the absolute sweetness of her--the sunshine she
+radiated, made it utterly impossible for one to think of forgetting--of
+living all one's long life without her. Frederik threw away his
+cigarette and lighted another as he stood outside the windows of the
+house and looked in.
+
+Oom Peter was there--how could he go in then? Common sense told him that
+he had been smoking too much and his nerves had gone bad--that he had
+become an old woman with his fears and tremblings; yet--he knew Oom
+Peter was there--Well (he shrugged his shoulders), about all the harm
+that could be done _had_ been done, and he had the money now, anyway, so
+he might as well go in and find out the present state of affairs. There
+might be, there ought to be, some word from Hicks by this time. With
+tight-shut lips, he walked quickly up the "stoop" steps and into the
+house.
+
+As he came into the living-room he glanced at the doctor, who, with
+bulky form crouched over the little table, was still busily writing and
+heard nothing.
+
+Frederik half-unconsciously looked toward Kathrien's room, then removed
+his silk hat with its mourning band, and his black gloves, and laid them
+with his cane on the hall table.
+
+Then he turned toward Dr. McPherson.
+
+"Good-evening, Doctor," he said shortly. "Any of them come to their
+senses yet?"
+
+There was a defiant ring in the last sentence, though he knew in his
+heart that his cause was lost.
+
+The doctor looked up long enough to say:
+
+"Oh, Frederik, you're back again, are you?" then went on with his
+writing.
+
+Frederik glanced furtively around the shadowy room, and then lighted
+some candles in an effort to make the place more cheerful. Suddenly his
+eye was riveted on the telegram resting conspicuously on his uncle's
+desk. On the very spot, so it happened, where he had burned Anne
+Marie's letter. He put down his cigarette quickly.
+
+"Is that telegram for me?" he asked in an eager tone.
+
+"Yes," snorted Dr. McPherson.
+
+"Oh----" Frederik said. "It will explain perhaps why I--I've been kept
+waiting at the hotel--I had an appointment to meet a man who wanted to
+buy this business."
+
+"Ha!" The doctor grunted indignantly.
+
+Frederik cleared his throat.
+
+"I may as well tell you--I'm thinking of selling out root and branch."
+
+At this amazing news the doctor got up slowly, and turning his bushy
+head toward Frederik, fixed his keen eyes upon him. He was all attention
+now.
+
+"Yes----?"
+
+Then with a sheepish laugh Frederik abruptly changed the subject.
+
+"You'll think it strange," he said, "but I simply cannot make up my mind
+to go near the old desk of my uncle's--peculiar, yes--isn't it?"
+
+He smiled rather a sickly smile at the doctor, and hesitated.
+
+"I've got a perfect--Ha! Ha!--terror of the thing!"
+
+His laughter was quite mirthless and his fear made him a pitiable
+object.
+
+The doctor, not trying to hide his contempt for him, went to the desk,
+took the telegram, and threw it in Frederik's direction, not even
+troubling to aim accurately.
+
+It hit the floor about two feet away from the younger man's trimly shod
+feet, and he quickly reached over sideways and seized it. He tore it
+open. Then, as his eyes took in the message it contained, he drew a long
+breath.
+
+He sat down mechanically, looking straight ahead of him.
+
+"Billy Hicks," he said slowly in a dazed voice, "Billy Hicks, the man I
+was to sell out to, is de--I knew it--This afternoon when he
+phoned--something told me--but I wouldn't believe it."
+
+Slowly he put the telegram in its envelope, and then put the envelope
+into his pocket; but the dazed look never left his eyes, and his face
+was grey white.
+
+"Doctor," he said, turning his eyes at last, "as sure as you live,
+somebody else is doing my thinking for me in this house."
+
+Dr. McPherson's heavy eyebrows met in an earnest frown as he studied
+Frederik.
+
+"What?" he queried.
+
+"To-night--here in this room," Frederik went on in a voice full of awe,
+"I thought I saw my uncle _there_----"
+
+He pointed toward the desk with a little shudder.
+
+"Eh?" said the doctor, with popping eyes, coming a step nearer. "You
+really mean that you thought you saw _Peter Grimm_?"
+
+"And just before I--I saw him--I--I--had the strangest impulse to go to
+the foot of the stairs and call Kitty--give her the house--and
+run--run--get out."
+
+"Oh!" cried the doctor sarcastically. "A good impulse. I see! Some one
+else _must_ have been thinking for you--certainly."
+
+"When I wouldn't do it," the scared voice went on, "I thought he gave me
+a terrible look." He covered his eyes with his hand. "A _terrible_
+look."
+
+"Your uncle?" demanded Dr. McPherson.
+
+"Yes," breathed Frederik. "_Och!_ God! I won't forget _that_ look!" he
+cried excitedly, uncovering his eyes again. "And as I started from the
+room--he blotted out--I mean I saw him blot out--Then I left the
+photograph on the desk, and----"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor triumphantly. "That's how Willem came by it.
+Had you never had this impulse before--to give up Kathrien--to let her
+have the cottage?"
+
+"_Not much_--I hadn't!" said Frederik decidedly, walking back and forth
+a moment.
+
+Then, looking toward the desk, he reached out his hand until it touched
+the back of a chair beside it, and, giving the chair a quick pull out of
+what was evidently to him a danger zone, he sat down.
+
+"I told you some one else was _thinking_ for me," he said. "I don't want
+to give her up. I love her." (His eyes went dark.) "But if she's going
+to turn against me for--well, I'm not going to sit _here_ and cry about
+it. But I'll tell you one thing: from this time I propose to think for
+myself. I've done with this house," he cried, getting up. "I'd like to
+sell it along with the rest and let a stranger"--he flung the chair
+recklessly against the desk--"raze it to the ground.
+
+"When I walk out of here to-night she can have it."
+
+He looked thoughtfully at the desk a moment.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't sleep here--I give her the house because--well, I----"
+
+"You want to be on the safe side in case he _was_ there!" scoffed Dr.
+McPherson.
+
+Frederik dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and there was perplexity
+in it as well as awe.
+
+"How do you account for it anyway, Doctor?" he asked.
+
+Instead of answering, the doctor asked another question.
+
+"Frederik," he said, "when did you see Anne Marie last?"
+
+"Now," said Frederik disagreeably, "I'm not answering questions."
+
+"I think it only fair to tell you," said Dr. McPherson, "that it won't
+matter a damn whether you answer me or not. Don't fret yourself that I'm
+not going to find her. This has come home to me. I'm off to the city
+to-morrow. I'll have the truth from her; if I have to call in the police
+to trace her."
+
+Frederik looked drearily at the doctor, then took up his gloves and
+began to put them on. After a pause he said dully, mechanically:
+
+"Oh, I saw her about three years ago."
+
+"Never since?" probed the doctor.
+
+"No."
+
+"What occurred the last time you saw her?"
+
+"Oh," said Frederik lifelessly. "What _always_ occurs when a young man
+realises that he has his life before him--and that he must be respected,
+must think of his future?"
+
+"A scene took place, eh?"
+
+"Yes," Frederik agreed laconically.
+
+"Was Willem present?" went on the interrogation.
+
+"Yes, she held him in her arms."
+
+"And then--what happened?" the doctor insisted.
+
+Frederik dropped his eyes.
+
+"Oh," he said, "then I left the house."
+
+He found his hat and cane as he spoke, and walked slowly toward the
+door.
+
+"Then it's all true," cried Dr. McPherson in wonderment, staring
+abstractedly at the floor. He raised his head suddenly and looked with
+stern eyes at Frederik.
+
+"What are you going to do for Willem?" he demanded.
+
+"Well," temporised that noble soul, "I'm a rich man now--and if I
+recognise him--there might be trouble. His mother's gone to the dogs
+anyway----"
+
+He left the speech unfinished and turned his head away uncomfortably. He
+could not say such things and meet the doctor's scorching look.
+
+"You damned young scoundrel!" bellowed McPherson in wrath. "Oh, what an
+act of charity if the good Lord took Willem!--And I say it with all my
+heart. Out of all you have--not a crumb for----"
+
+"I want you to know that I've sweated for that money," Frederik turned
+on the doctor long enough to say. "I've sweated for it, and I'm going to
+keep it!"
+
+"You _what_?" howled Dr. McPherson jeeringly.
+
+"Yes," Frederik cried in the greatest excitement, all his calmness
+forsaking him utterly. "I've sweated for it! I went to jail for it.
+Every day I have been in this house has been spent in prison. I've been
+doing time. Do you think it didn't get on my nerves? What haven't I had
+to do! I've gone to bed at nine o'clock and lain there thinking how New
+York was just waking up at that time, and how miserably I was out of it
+all. Lord! I've got up at cock-crow to be in time for grace at the
+breakfast table. Why, didn't I take a Sunday-school class to please him?
+
+"Lord! Didn't I hand out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly
+old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus?
+What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that
+sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the
+pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe
+I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent for my own personal
+pleasure."
+
+Once more Frederik started to go.
+
+"Will rich men never learn wisdom?" soliloquised Dr. McPherson as he
+began to prepare some medicine for Willem.
+
+"No, they won't," Frederik flung back over his shoulder. "But in every
+fourth generation there comes along a _wise_ fellow--a spender. Well,
+I'm the spender here."
+
+He pulled out another cigarette, lighted it, and put on his hat.
+
+"Shame on you!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Your breed ought to be
+exterminated!"
+
+"Oh, no," Frederik declared. "We're as necessary as you are. We're the
+real wealth distributors. I wish you good-night, Doctor."
+
+And he was gone.
+
+Disgust was still written all over the doctor's face as he measured the
+medicine carefully and emptied it into a glass of water. He picked up
+the candelabrum in his other hand, and was just starting toward the
+stairs and Willem's room when Kathrien came in.
+
+"Kathrien!" he cried in a ringing voice. "Burn up your wedding dress!
+We've made no mistake. I can tell you that!"
+
+A moment more and he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into
+Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy
+serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and,
+standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost
+protectingly--quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could
+feel her gentle caress.
+
+"Oom Peter," she whispered tenderly, and her dreamy eyes grew dreamier,
+"Oom Peter--I know I am doing what you would have me do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"ONLY ONE THING REALLY COUNTS"
+
+
+And Peter Grimm, standing in the shadows, nodded happy assent to her
+cry. The Dead Man's ageless face was wondrous bright. It shone with a
+joy that made the rugged features beautiful.
+
+His work was done. His long journey from the Unknown had not failed. The
+one deed of his mortal life that could have wrought ill was undone. He
+had atoned for a single fault and had seen the ill effects of that fault
+brought to nothing. He could go back with a calm mind. All was well in
+his earthly home.
+
+But he was not yet wholly content. One task remained. A light task, and,
+to guess from his radiant face, a welcome one. And even now he was
+bringing to pass its completion. For his eyes turned from their loving
+scrutiny of Kathrien and rested on the outer door. And, as in response
+to an unspoken summons, footfalls were heard in the entry.
+
+At the sound, Kathrien's drooping figure straightened. And a glow came
+into her tired eyes. The outer door opened and James Hartmann came in.
+He took an impulsive step toward the girl. Then he remembered himself.
+Turning aside to the rack, he hung his coat and hat on it, and asked, as
+to a casual acquaintance:
+
+"Have you seen Frederik anywhere? He told me hours ago that he'd join me
+in the office in a few minutes. I waited, but he didn't come. Then Marta
+told me he had gone down to the hotel. I went over to see father, and I
+stopped at the hotel on my way back. They said Frederik had been there,
+but that he had just gone. I'm rather tired of playing hide-and-seek
+with him. Has he come in yet?"
+
+"He has come in. But I think he has gone again. And--and, James, I think
+he will not come here again."
+
+"What? Then the wedding won't be at the house?"
+
+"The wedding won't be--anywhere."
+
+"_Kathrien!_"
+
+He stared at her, seeking to read grief, humiliation, or, at the very
+least, the anger engendered of a lovers' quarrel. But her face was
+serene, even happy. The worry was gone that had lurked behind her
+gentle eyes. The furrow had been smoothed from the low, white brow, and
+even the pathetic aura of sorrow that had clung to her as a garment
+since Peter Grimm's death had departed.
+
+"Kathrien!" he repeated doubtfully, his heart thumping in an unruly
+fashion that well-nigh choked him.
+
+The serene calm of the girl's face fled beneath his eager, troubled
+gaze.
+
+"Frederik has gone," she said briefly. "I am not going to marry him. I
+broke our engagement this evening."
+
+"And you are free--free to----?"
+
+He checked himself, fearful to believe in the marvellous fortune that
+seemed to have come all at once from the Unattainable into his very
+grasp. And, girl-like, Kathrien was, of a sudden, panic stricken.
+
+"It is late," she said hastily, "very late. Good-night!"
+
+She made as though to go to her room. And James Hartmann, still full of
+that new fear of his own good fortune, dared not stay her.
+
+But Peter Grimm did not hesitate.
+
+"Katje!" pleaded the Dead Man. "Is Happiness so common that we can toy
+with it? Is life's greatest joy so cheap that we can thrust it aside
+when by a miracle it is laid at our feet? Can we afford to risk
+everything by putting off love when it is in our very grasp?"
+
+The girl hesitated, paused, and seemed to busy herself with
+straightening some disarranged articles on the desk. The Dead Man came
+and stood beside her.
+
+"He loves you, Katje," he murmured. "And only one thing really
+counts--Love! It is the only thing that tells, in the long run. Nothing
+else endures to the end. Perhaps, if you are shy now and do not let him
+speak, he may find courage to speak to-morrow. But perhaps he may not.
+And are you willing to take that chance?"
+
+"No!" cried the girl in quick fear. "No!"
+
+"What?" asked Hartmann, startled by the frightened denial, so
+meaningless to him.
+
+"I--I didn't know I spoke," she faltered, embarrassed. "It was foolish
+of me. I had some strange thought. And----"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You understand less and less every minute, James," laughed Peter Grimm.
+"She loves you. Are you going to let her slip through your fingers just
+because you haven't the courage to speak? You were brave enough early
+this evening when you didn't have a chance. Now that she's yours for the
+asking, why be tongue-tied? It was the fear of losing you that made her
+cry out 'No!' just now."
+
+"Katje," demanded Hartmann, abashed at his own audacity, yet unable to
+keep back the words, "were you afraid I wouldn't be here in the morning
+to tell you I loved you? Was that why you said----?"
+
+"How did you know?" she gasped appalled. "You read my mind."
+
+Before she could realise the meaning of what she had said, she found
+herself whirled bodily from the floor and caught close in the grip of
+two strong arms that crushed her to a heaving breast. And Hartmann was
+raining kisses on her hair, her eyes, her upturned face.
+
+"James!" she panted. "Don't! Put me down."
+
+"Not till you say you love me," came the answer in a voice from whence
+all timidity had forever fled.
+
+The tone of glad, adoring rulership thrilled her. She ceased her
+half-hearted struggles to free herself. Her arms, through no conscious
+effort of her own, crept upward until they encircled his neck.
+
+"Say you love me!" he demanded again, in that glorious Mastery of the
+Loved.
+
+"I love you," she answered obediently. "I have always loved you, I
+think. It's--it's very wonderful to be held like this and--and to be
+_glad_ not to be let go. I--I--I don't really think I wanted you to let
+me go, even when I told you to."
+
+"There is something else you must say before I let you go," he demanded,
+drunk with his new-born power and happiness.
+
+"Yes? I'll say it."
+
+"Say you will marry me to-morrow."
+
+This time, from sheer amazement, she sprang back, out of the loosened
+clasp of his arms.
+
+"To-morrow?" she gasped. "Are you crazy? Why," with a little shudder,
+"to-morrow was to be the day I was to----"
+
+"To marry a man you didn't love. That would have made it forever a day
+of shame. You owe 'to-morrow' something to atone for that. Pay its debt
+by marrying _me_ then."
+
+"I--I can't," she protested. "What--what would people say?"
+
+"Katje!" broke in the Dead Man. "When you shall have learned that 'what
+people say' is the most senseless bugbear in all this wide world of
+senseless bugbears, you will be far on the road to true greatness. You
+will have broken the heaviest, most galling, most idiotically _useless_
+fetter that weights down humanity. Being a woman you will never be able
+wholly to free yourself from that same fetter. But lift its weight from
+your soul just this once! You were going to curse your life with a
+blasphemously wicked, loveless marriage to-morrow. And the world would
+have approved. You have a chance to atone for an attempted wrong and to
+win happiness for yourself and the man you love, to-morrow, by marrying
+James then. A few representatives of the world will hold up their hands
+and squawk: 'How scandalously sudden! I suppose she did it to show she
+didn't mind Frederik's jilting her.' And for the sake of the people who
+would have approved a crime and who will sneer at a good and wise deed,
+you are going to throw away many days of bliss, and senselessly postpone
+the one perfect Event of your life. Is this my wise little girl or is it
+some one just as stubborn and foolish as her old uncle used to be? Tell
+me."
+
+"Why should we care what 'people say'?" urged Hartmann as Kathrien
+hesitated. "The opinions of other people wreck lots of lives. Let's be
+great enough and wise enough to choose our own happiness! Don't let's be
+stubborn like poor old Mr. Grimm, and----"
+
+"James!" she cried in wonder. "Those are just the very things I was
+thinking. That's the second time in a few minutes that you have read my
+mind."
+
+"Perhaps it was _you_ who were reading mine," said Hartmann. "That's
+what people call 'Telepathy,' isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," smiled the Dead Man. "That is what 'people' call it--who know no
+better. Oh, what a jumble people do make of the simple things of the
+Universe!"
+
+"Anyway," went on Hartmann, without waiting for Kathrien to reply to his
+question, "it doesn't matter which of us thought of it first. It's
+enough to know it's true. And you _will_ marry me to-morrow?"
+
+"_Yes!_" vociferated Peter Grimm.
+
+"Y-yes," faltered the girl.
+
+"Listen, dear," continued Hartmann, "we won't be very well off, I'm
+afraid. I've a little money--but not much. I know scientific gardening
+as not many men know it. So we won't starve. But it won't be as if you
+were going to marry a rich man like Frederik Grimm."
+
+"Thank Heaven, it won't!" she breathed fervently. "And do you suppose it
+will matter one bit to me that we won't be rich? I wish, of course, that
+we didn't have to leave this dear old house, but----"
+
+"If we had both the house and the little capital that belongs to me,"
+answered Hartmann, "we could stay on here and make a splendid living.
+But what's the use of building air castles?"
+
+"Why not?" urged the Dead Man. "They're as cheap to build as air
+dungeons; and a million times pleasanter to live in. But, don't fret
+about the house. Frederik is going to turn it over to you--I've seen to
+that. And you will prosper, you two, here in the home I loved."
+
+"I believe it will come out all right!" declared the girl. "I have a
+feeling that it will. Intuition if you like."
+
+"'Intuition,'" repeated the Dead Man whimsically. "Yes. Call it that, if
+you choose. 'Intuition' and 'telepathy' are both pretty synonyms for the
+words spoken to you that mortal ears are too gross to understand and
+whose sense sometimes finds vague resting-place in mortal brains."
+
+"It will come out all right," she reiterated, smiling up at her lover.
+
+"It's good to see you smile again," said Hartmann, once more drawing her
+close to him. "I'm glad your cloud of grief is beginning to lift."
+
+"It _has_ lifted," she returned. "When Oom Peter went away, and seemed
+utterly lost to me forever, I thought my heart would break. But now--now
+I know he _hasn't_ gone. I know he has been here with me this very
+evening."
+
+"I--I don't understand."
+
+"It is true," she insisted. "You must believe it, dear. For it is very
+real to me. I believe he came back to set me free from my promise to
+Frederik. Some time--some time, I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"In the meanwhile," adjured the Dead Man, "believe her, James. If men
+would put less faith in their own four-square logic and more faith in
+their wives' illogical beliefs, there'd be fewer mistakes made."
+
+"Don't ask me any more about it to-night," begged the girl in response
+to the amazed questioning in her lover's eyes. "I can't speak of it
+just yet. It's all too near--too wonderful."
+
+"Just as you like," he agreed. "Now I must go, for I want to catch Mr.
+Batholommey before he goes to sleep, and make the arrangements with him
+for the wedding."
+
+His arm around her, they crossed to where his hat and coat were hanging.
+
+"I wonder if Oom Peter can see us now?" she mused, as Hartmann stooped
+to kiss her good-night.
+
+"That's the great mystery of the ages," answered Hartmann. "Who can
+tell? But I wish he might know. I think, seen as he must see things now,
+he would be glad. Good-night, sweetheart."
+
+She watched him stride down the walk. Then she came back into the room,
+her eyes alight.
+
+"Oh, Oom Peter," she murmured, half aloud.
+
+"I see," returned Peter Grimm. "I know all about it. I know, little
+girl. I know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"ALL THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS AGAIN"
+
+
+Late as was the hour, Kathrien yet lingered a few minutes longer in the
+room where that night her freedom and her life's crown had come to her.
+
+She paused by the desk and lovingly caressed the rich, red mass of roses
+which, in memory of her uncle, she daily placed there. The cool, velvety
+touch of the blossoms was like a living response to her caress. And from
+the crimson petals arose a faint, drowsy fragrance.
+
+Kathrien sank into the worn desk chair and gazed dreamily into the dying
+fire. She seemed to read there a wonderful story. Or else the grey-red
+embers shaped themselves into beautiful pictures. For her face was
+joyous beyond all belief.
+
+"To-morrow!" she murmured to herself.
+
+And Peter Grimm, looking down at her, smiled as he caught the whispered
+word.
+
+"Yes, _lievling_," he answered. "To-morrow. Isn't it a marvellous word?
+It holds all the hopes and fears of the whole world."
+
+"I'm so happy! I'm so _happy_!" she breathed.
+
+The Dead Man laid his hand gently on the soft lustre of her hair.
+
+"Then, good-night to you, my darling," he said in the old tender voice
+that had comforted her childish griefs and shared her childish delights
+in the bygone days. "Good-night, my darling. Love can never say
+'good-bye.' I am going, little girl. I am leaving you here in your dear
+home that shall always be yours. Here, in the years that are to come,
+the way will lie clear before you. May pleasure and peace go with you,
+little girl of mine."
+
+Her eyes were luminous. There was a half-smile on her lips. Peter
+Grimm's own eyes reflected her smile as he stroked her hair and
+continued to look down into her rapt face as though to impress its every
+detail upon his memory.
+
+"Here on sunny, blossoming days," he went on, "when you look out on my
+old gardens, as a happy wife, all the flowers and trees and shrubs shall
+bloom enchanted to your eyes. For, love gives a heaven-light to
+everything. And when the home we love is our own, it becomes doubly
+fair."
+
+The light in her eyes grew brighter and he stooped to brush his lips to
+her forehead.
+
+"All that happens, happens again," he went on in that same caressing
+voice as though loath to leave her, and seeking to prolong his stay at
+her side. "And when, as a mother, you explain each leaf and bud, and the
+miracle of the growing flowers to your own little people, you will
+sometimes think of the days when you and I walked through the gardens
+and the leafy lanes together, and how I taught you all those
+things--even as you shall be teaching your own children. Yes,--all that
+happens, happens again and has happened before. You will teach them,
+just as I taught you. And so I shall always linger in your heart. Here,
+in our home, everything will keep on reminding you of me. Not in sadness
+nor in gloom. But as a wonderful, golden memory. You will forget only
+the part of me that was stubborn and unreasonable and ill-tempered--and
+you will remember me only as I _wished_ to be. That is one of the gifts
+of God to those who have left this world. Their dear ones remember them
+only as kind, as loving, as good. Their faults fade from the memory and
+the _good_ ever glows more and more brightly."
+
+He paused. And still he could not leave the happy girl as she sat there
+in her blissful, fireside reverie.
+
+"I shall be waiting for you, Katje," he said. "And I shall be knowing
+all of your life, its joys, its happy toil and its sweet rest, its
+lights and its passing shadows. I shall love your children with all my
+whole heart. And I shall be their grandfather just as though I were
+here. I shall be everywhere about you and yours, Katje. Always. In the
+stockings at Christmas, in the big, busy, teeming world of shadows, just
+outside your threshold; or whispering to you in the stillness of the
+night. And, as the years drift on, you can never know what pride I shall
+take in your middle life--the very best age of all! After the luxuries
+and the eager gaieties and the vanities and the possessions and the hot
+strife for gain cease to be important, we return to very simple things.
+For then, sunset is at hand, and the peace of Home calls to us far more
+clearly than the roar of the outer world. The evening of life comes
+bearing its own lamp."
+
+Her face had grown graver, but still was radiant. The Dead Man smiled as
+he said:
+
+"Then, as a little old grandmother--a little old child whose bedtime is
+drawing near, I shall still see you; happy to sit out in the sunlight
+of another day; asking no more of life than a few hours still to be
+spent with those you love;--telling your grandchildren how much more
+brightly the flowers used to blossom when _you_ were young.--All that
+happens, happens again.
+
+"And then, one glad day, glorified, radiant, young once more--divinely
+young,--you will come to us. And your mother and I shall take you in our
+arms again. Oh, what a meeting it will be! To _you_, many happy years
+away. To _us_, only a brief hour of waiting. We shall meet so perfectly
+then--the flight of Love to Love. And now," bending down once more and
+kissing her, "good-night, my own little girl."
+
+She rose, half-dazzled by the brightness that filled her soul. Pausing
+to bury her face for a moment in the bowl of roses, she murmured:
+
+"Dear, _dear_ Oom Peter!"
+
+Then, slowly, smilingly, she made her way up the stairs to her own room.
+The Dead Man's eyes followed her every light step. The Dead Man's hand
+was raised in unspoken benediction. Marta bustled in from the kitchen on
+her nightly round of window-locking and door-barring. As she passed the
+big wall clock, she stopped, sighed right lugubriously, and proceeded to
+wind the ancient timepiece by the simple old-time process of drawing
+down its pulley chain.
+
+"Poor old Marta!" said Peter Grimm quizzically, as she departed. "Every
+time she thinks of me, she winds my clock. We're not quite forgotten
+after all, it seems. Good-night, old friend! There are a few tears ahead
+of you. But there is plenty of sunshine beyond them."
+
+He glanced about the room, his eyes resting at last on Willem's door in
+the gallery above. The door swung open, and Dr. McPherson appeared on
+the threshold. In one hand he held a candle-stick. In the hollow of his
+right arm lay Willem, a Dutch patchwork bedquilt wrapped around him.
+
+"All right, laddie," McPherson was saying in a voice whose softness
+would have amazed the Batholommeys. "Since you want so badly to sleep
+downstairs, you shall. The sofa by the fire is just as snug as your own
+bed. What Mistress Batholommey will say to my giving in to a sick little
+boy's whim, I don't know. But we don't care. Do we, Willem? And," he
+added, reaching the living-room and carrying the child across to the
+sofa, "if you want to be down here, and if you won't be happy anywhere
+else, here you shall be."
+
+He laid Willem gently on the couch and covered him with the quilt.
+
+"How do you feel, now?" he asked.
+
+"I'm sleepy," answered Willem. "It's good to be in this room. I'll sleep
+finely here. Could--could I have a drink of water, please?"
+
+The doctor crossed to the sideboard. The ice-water pitcher was empty.
+McPherson took up a glass.
+
+"I'll find you some," said he. "I suppose I'll never learn my way around
+the labyrinths of this old house. But if I can't get to the nearest
+faucet, I'll wake Marta and ask her to help me. Lie still. I'll be back
+in a minute."
+
+He picked up the lighted candle again, and started off on his quest. As
+he left the room he passed close by Peter Grimm.
+
+"Good-night, Andrew," said the Dead Man. "I'm afraid the world will have
+to wait a little longer for the Big Guesser. The secret you've delved
+for so long and so loudly was in your own hands this evening. And you
+didn't know what to do with it."
+
+The doctor left the room without hearing him. But Willem heard.
+Starting up on the couch, the boy cried:
+
+"Oh, Mynheer Grimm! _Where_ are you? I knew you were down here--That's
+why I wanted to come."
+
+"Here I am," answered the Dead Man, moving forward into the range of the
+anxiously wandering blue eyes.
+
+"Oh!" gleefully exclaimed the child. "I _see_ you now! I _see_ you now!"
+
+"Yes? At last?"
+
+"Oh, you've got your hat!" went on the boy excitedly. "It's off the peg.
+You're going!"
+
+"Yes, Willem," replied the Dead Man. "I'm going."
+
+"Need you go right away, Mynheer Grimm?" coaxed the child. "Can't you
+wait just a _little_ while?"
+
+"I'll wait for _you_, dear lad," returned Peter Grimm.
+
+"Oh, can I go with you?" asked the boy in glad surprise. "Thank you,
+Mynheer Grimm! I couldn't find the way without you."
+
+"Oh, yes, you could, Willem. God's signal light is the surest thing in
+all the universe. But I'll wait for you, just the same."
+
+The boy's drowsiness, overcome for the moment by his sight of the Dead
+Man's loved face, had crept in upon him once more. He lay back on the
+couch with a happy little sigh.
+
+And at once he was off in the wonder-aisles of dreamland--a dreamland
+full of circuses, of impossibly funny and friendly clowns, of street
+parade glories, of marvellous animals and thrilling equestrian feats.
+
+"Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very pleasantest of
+dreams a boy could have in _this_ world."
+
+[Illustration: "Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very
+pleasantest of dreams a boy could have in _this_ world"]
+
+The doctor's step sounded presently in the adjoining kitchen. As though
+awakened by it, Willem opened his eyes and sat up. The fever flush was
+gone from his cheeks, the fever glaze from his look. The lassitude that
+had weighted every joint in his sick little body had fled, to be
+replaced by a strange, glorious buoyancy.
+
+With a glad shout, Willem sprang up and raced across the floor into
+Peter Grimm's outstretched arms.
+
+"_Huge moroche_, Mynheer Grimm!" he cried. "Oh, I am _well_! I never was
+so well before. It's wonderful to be like this."
+
+"You are happy, too?"
+
+"Oh! _Happy?_ It's like school being over!"
+
+"Good!" laughed Peter Grimm. "It will always be like that now. Come!
+Let's be off."
+
+He lifted the exalted, eager boy lightly from the floor, and swung him
+to a perch on his shoulder.
+
+"_Uncle Rat has come to town!_" sang Willem, too rapturously happy to
+keep still.
+
+"Ha-_H'M_!" he and Peter Grimm chorused as they moved toward the door.
+
+  "'Uncle Rat has come to town,
+  To buy----'"
+
+McPherson came in.
+
+"Here's the water, Willem," he announced, going over to the couch. "I
+got it at last, after barking my shins over----"
+
+He glanced at the sofa and its occupant. Then the glass fell from his
+nerveless hand. He knelt in horror beside the still, white little body
+that lay there.
+
+"Dead!" gasped McPherson.
+
+"No!" exulted Peter Grimm from the doorway. "Not _dead_, Andrew, old
+friend. There never was so fair a prospect for _life_!"
+
+"Oh," sighed Willem blissfully, his arm about Peter Grimm's neck, "I'm
+_so_ happy! I didn't know any one could be so happy as this--or so
+_well_."
+
+"If only the rest of them knew what they are missing! Hey, Willem?"
+assented Peter Grimm.
+
+"What is Dr. McPherson looking at there on the sofa?" demanded Willem.
+"He seems scared--and--and--unhappy. _What_ is he looking at, Mynheer
+Grimm?"
+
+"He is looking at--_nothing_. And he doesn't know it. Come!"
+
+"It's--it's so wonderful to be _alive_!" cried Willem.
+
+They passed out, and the door of the house closed noiselessly behind
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE DAWNING
+
+
+Night had given place to red dawn, and red dawn to white day.
+
+Dr. McPherson came out of the Grimm house and sat down on the edge of
+the vine-bordered stoop. He was very tired. He had had a hard and trying
+night. In his ears were still ringing the sobs of old Marta, hastily
+awakened to learn of her only grandson's death;--Kathrien's quiet
+grief;--Mrs. Batholommey's excited, high-pitched questionings that
+jangled on the death hush as horribly as breaks the Venus music through
+the Pilgrims' Chorus.
+
+It had been a night of stark wakefulness, of a myriad details. And
+McPherson had borne the brunt of it all. Now, under an opiate, Marta was
+asleep. Mrs. Batholommey had trotted ponderously home to bear the black
+tidings of a prisoned child's Release to her husband. And Kathrien had
+gone to her own room under the doctor's gruff command to snatch an
+hour's rest. McPherson himself had come out into the cool and freshness
+of the new-born world for a breathing space, and to think.
+
+The June day was young. Very young. Under the early sun the grass was
+afire with dew diamonds. The flowers, dripping and fragrant, held up
+their cups to the light. The town still lay asleep. Over the suburb
+brooded the Hush of the primal Wilderness, creeping back furtively and
+momentarily to its long-lost domain.
+
+And presently the quiet was broken by the swift recurring click of heels
+on the sidewalk. Some one was coming along the slumbrous Main street;
+and coming with nervous haste. The steps turned in at the Grimm gate.
+McPherson raised his blood-shot, sleep-robbed eyes and stared crossly
+toward the newcomer.
+
+It was Frederik Grimm. And, recognising him, McPherson's frown deepened
+into a scowl.
+
+"Is it true?" asked Frederik as he stopped in front of the doctor. "I
+met Mrs. Batholommey. She was just passing the hotel on her way home. I
+hadn't been able to sleep, so I was starting out for a walk. She told
+me----"
+
+"That Willem's dead?" finished McPherson, with brutal frankness. "Yes,
+it's true. Did you suppose that it was a new vaudeville joke?"
+
+Frederik stood blinking, blank-faced, apparently failing to grasp the
+sense of the doctor's words. The younger man's aspect dully irritated
+McPherson.
+
+"Yes," he reiterated, "the boy's dead. The problem of supporting him
+needn't bother you now. Not that it ever did. He's dead. And it's the
+luckiest thing that ever happened to him."
+
+Frederik raised one hand in instinctive protest. But he might as well
+have sought to stem Niagara with a straw.
+
+The doctor's strained nerves, his genuine grief, his dislike for the
+dapper young man before him, combined to open wide the floodgates of
+honest Scottish wrath. And he saw no cause to exercise self-control.
+
+"You're in luck!" he growled. "The law could have compelled you to pay
+some such munificent sum as four dollars a week for his maintenance.
+You're safe from that now. And I congratulate you. It'll mean an extra
+weekly quart of champagne or a brace of musical comedy seats for you.
+The law is stringent and I was going to invoke it in your case. You
+smashed a decent girl's life. You helped bring a nameless boy into a
+world that would have made his life a hell as long as he lived. Just
+because his father happened to be a yellow cur. And, in penalty for that
+sin, the power and majesty of an outraged law would have assessed you
+about one per cent of your yearly income. You're lucky."
+
+Frederik winced as though he had been lashed across the face.
+
+"I sometimes wonder," continued McPherson, urged to fresh vehemence by
+sight of the effect he was scoring, "if hell holds a worse criminal or a
+more mercilessly punished one than the man or woman who lets a little
+child suffer needlessly--who _makes_ it suffer. And of all the suffering
+that can be heaped upon a child, everything else is like a feather's
+weight compared to sending it out in life with a name such as Willem
+would have borne. Oh, but God's merciful when He finds little children
+crying in the dark and leads them Home! Batholommey and the rest of them
+sneer at me for sticking to the old hell-fire Calvin doctrines in these
+days of pew-cushion religion. But I tell you, in all reverence, if
+there's no hell for the people who torture children, then it's time the
+Almighty turned awhile from pardoning sinners and built one."
+
+"Don't worry," said Frederik shortly. "There is one. I know. I am in
+it."
+
+"'Mourner's bench talk,' eh? It's cheap. Penitence is always on the free
+list. And in your case, as in most, it comes too late to do any good,
+except to salve the penitent's feelings. Willem lived in the same house
+with you for three years. All around him was Love. Except from the one
+person whose sacred duty it was to give that Love. We pitied him. We
+knew what he'd be facing if he lived. We made his childhood as happy as
+we could, so that he'd have at least one bright thing to look back on
+afterward. He was nothing to any of us. Except that he was a child
+crippled and maimed and fore-damned for life in the worst way any
+Unfortunate could be. We pitied him and we loved him. Did he ever hear a
+harsh word or see a forbidding face? Yes; he did. From one person alone.
+From _you_, his father. Even last night when he crept downstairs parched
+with thirst, and begged you for a drink of water----"
+
+"Don't!" cried Frederik, in sharp agony. "Do you suppose you can tell
+_me_ anything about that? Do you suppose I haven't gone over it
+all--yes, and over all the three years--a hundred times since I heard
+he was dead? Do you think you can make me feel it any more damnably than
+I do? If so, go ahead and try. You spoke of the need for a hell. You can
+spare your advice to the Almighty. He has made one. And I can't even
+wait until I'm dead before I walk through it."
+
+"Through it," assented McPherson sardonically. "_Through_ it with many a
+lamentable groan and a beating of the breast, and with squeaky little
+wails of remorse--and on _through_ it, out onto the pleasant slopes of
+forgetfulness and new mischief. Take my condolences on your fearful
+passage through your purgatory. I fear me it will take you the best part
+of a week to pass entirely out of it. It's only a man-built hell, that
+of yours. And, according to the modern theologians, God has no worse one
+for you later on."
+
+With twitching, pallid face, and anguished eyes, Frederik Grimm looked
+dumbly at his tormentor. Even in his agony, he felt, subconsciously, far
+down in his atrophied soul, that the doctor's forecast as to the
+duration of his remorse's torture was little exaggerated.
+
+Yet, for the moment, his "man-built hell" was grilling and racking the
+stricken penitent to a point that the Spanish Inquisition's ingenuity
+could never have devised.
+
+McPherson, with a sombre satisfaction, noted the younger man's misery.
+Then a wistful look flitted across his gnarled, bearded face.
+
+"I wonder," he mused, his angry voice sinking to a rumble, "I wonder if
+you can guess--and of course you can't--what a prize you spent eight
+years in throwing away. You had a son. And you disowned him and turned
+your back on him. I've had no son. I shall never have a son. And when I
+go out into the dark, there'll be no man-child to carry on my name. No
+lad to inherit this brute body of mine with all its strength and giant
+endurance; this brain of mine, that has tried so hard to perfect itself
+and to give its possible successor the faculty for thought and work and
+self-mastery. My father was a strong man, a great man. And much of the
+little power and goodness and worthiness that exist in me, I owe to him.
+No man in future years can say that of _me_. It must be something that
+no childless man can understand or dream of, to feel the fingers of
+one's little son tugging at one. To,--Lord! What would Mother
+Batholommey say if she could hear me maundering and havering away like
+this! It means nothing to _you_, either. Except that you've had, and
+hated, and thrown away what many a better man would give half his life
+for."
+
+There was a short silence. McPherson, ashamed of blurting his sacred
+heart secrets to a fellow he detested, sat gnawing angrily at his ragged
+grey moustache. Frederik, to whom the last part of the doctor's tirade
+had passed unheard, stood gazing sightlessly at the ground before him.
+And for a space, neither of them spoke.
+
+At length Frederik looked up, almost timidly.
+
+"Could--might I see him?" he asked.
+
+"H'm?" grunted McPherson, starting from the maze of his own unhappy
+thoughts.
+
+"I say, may I go in and see----?"
+
+"Had three years to see him in, didn't you?" demanded McPherson. "I
+can't recall now that I ever saw you glance at him when you could help
+it. Why should you go in and see him now? You can't frighten him any
+more."
+
+He checked himself.
+
+"That last was a rotten thing for me to say," he muttered grudgingly.
+"I'm sorry."
+
+But Frederik showed no signs of resentment. He was looking moodily at
+the ground once more, apparently engrossed in the fruitless efforts of a
+red ant on the walk's edge to lug away a dead caterpillar forty times
+its size. The doctor peered at him almost apologetically from under his
+grey thatch of eyebrow. The younger man's face still wore that same
+blank, dazed mask, as though horror had wiped it clean of expression.
+Again it was Frederik who broke the silence.
+
+"I remember once," said he, in a dreary monotone, "when he was four
+years old. He saw a woolly lamb in a shop window and wanted it. I'd lost
+ninety dollars that day at the races and I was sore. He begged me to buy
+him the lamb. It cost only a quarter. I wouldn't. I told him he ought to
+be content to sponge on me for food and clothes without wanting
+presents, too. I remember he cried when I pulled him away from the shop
+window. And I hit him. I wish--I wish I'd----"
+
+"If there's anything worse than a hardened criminal," snorted McPherson,
+"it's a silly, sentimental one. You say you want to go in and see him?
+Go ahead then. You don't have to ask _my_ leave. It's your own house,
+isn't it?"
+
+"No," answered Frederik, "it isn't."
+
+"Huh? Oh, I remember now. You said last night you were going to give it
+to Kathrien. Don't worry. A promise like that isn't binding in law. And
+you'll repent of it almost as soon as you'll stop repenting for Willem."
+
+"Perhaps so," agreed Frederik. "But it will be too late then. Here," he
+went on, pulling a long envelope from his pocket, "take charge of this,
+will you, and give it to Kathrien for her signature in case I don't see
+her?"
+
+"What is it?" asked McPherson, mechanically taking the envelope as
+Frederik thrust it into his hand.
+
+"Before I went to the hotel for a room last night," answered the other,
+"I called on Colonel Lawton and got him to draw it up. All it lacks is
+her signature."
+
+"What----?"
+
+"It is a deed for the house and the twelve-acre 'home plot' it stands
+on. That includes the two cottages over on McIntyre Street. They're both
+rented and in good condition. They'll bring her in nearly eight hundred
+a year. It's less than my uncle would have left her if he'd known----"
+
+"He knew," interrupted McPherson decisively. "And that's why you did it.
+As you said last night, 'somebody has been doing your thinking for
+you.'"
+
+"I'm glad for your own peace of mind that you aren't forced to give _me_
+credit for it," said Frederik in lifeless irony. "I'll go in now, if I
+may. I shall not stay long. And then for New York. It's the best place I
+know of for hastening one's journey through and out of the 'man-built
+hell' you spoke about. Oh, and I gave Lawton directions about Anne
+Marie, too. She can come home now if she wants to without being
+dependent upon any one for her support. You're quite right, Doctor.
+Somebody _has_ been doing my thinking. I'm glad it stopped before I went
+broke."
+
+With something of his old jaunty air he mounted the steps and went into
+the house. McPherson stared after him with a glower that somehow would
+not remain ferocious. Then he got up, stretched his great shaggy bulk,
+yawned, and started homeward for breakfast.
+
+On the way he met Mr. Batholommey, hastily awakened and hurrying to the
+house of mourning.
+
+"Doctor!" exclaimed the clergyman in agitation. "This is very
+distressing. _Very._"
+
+"As usual," drawled McPherson, "I find I can't agree with you. To me it
+seems a blessed release."
+
+"And on Kathrien's wedding day, too!" went on Mr. Batholommey, to whom
+McPherson's eternal disagreement had become so chronic he scarce noticed
+it. "At least, on the day that _was_ to have been her wedding day! Young
+Hartmann waked me out of a sound sleep last night to tell me she had
+promised to marry him to-day. And he asked me to be at the house
+promptly at eleven. But, of course, now----"
+
+"Of course, now," put in the doctor, "the wedding is going to take place
+just the same."
+
+"But----!"
+
+"I argued with Kathrien a whole half-hour this morning before she would
+agree to it," went on the doctor. "But at last I persuaded her it was
+the only thing to do. If ever she needs a husband's help and advice, now
+is the time. And at last I made her understand that. So, she and James
+will be married to-day. Just as they planned to. The only difference
+will be that they'll come to the rectory for the ceremony."
+
+"It seems almost--shall I say indecorous?" protested Mr. Batholommey.
+
+"The _real_ things of life generally do," replied the doctor.
+"Good-morning. I'm going to be so indecorous as to hurry home for a bath
+and a breakfast instead of catching cold standing out here on a wet
+street discussing other people's business."
+
+He strode on. Mr. Batholommey, murmuring dazedly to himself, took up his
+own journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GOOD-BYE
+
+
+Frederik Grimm turned away from looking down at the pathetically small
+figure in the darkened room. His face was expressionless. He had stood
+there but a few minutes. And his eyes, riveted on the still, white
+little form, had not softened nor blurred with tears.
+
+Wearily he descended the gallery stairs into the living-room, where the
+morning sunlight was already turning the desk bowl of roses into a riot
+of burning colour.
+
+He was halfway across the room, toward the door, when he was aware that
+Kathrien had risen from the desk chair and was looking at him. Her look
+was cold and devoid of pity as she surveyed him. But as he halted,
+hesitant, the sunlight fell full on his face. And in the visage that had
+seemed so vapidly blank to McPherson, she read much.
+
+The cold glint died from her eyes and she stepped forward with hand
+outstretched.
+
+"Frederik," she said gently.
+
+He came haltingly toward her. He held out his hand to meet hers. But he
+could not touch the fingers that were waiting to press his own. His hand
+fell limply to his side.
+
+She understood. And the warm pity in her face deepened.
+
+"I am sorry," she said simply.
+
+"He is happier," muttered the man.
+
+"I don't mean for Willem. For _you_. You understand what it all means at
+last."
+
+"And, too late," he assented. "It is always too late--when one
+understands."
+
+"It is never too late," she denied eagerly. "Frederik, you have
+everything ahead of you. You can----"
+
+"I have nothing ahead of me," he contradicted dully.
+
+"You have wealth, youth, the power to undo what wrong you did,--to start
+afresh----"
+
+"As the broken-winged bird has the power to start a new flight. Don't
+waste your divine sympathy on me, Kitty. It would be thrown away. In a
+very little time, as Dr. McPherson has kindly pointed out to me, I shall
+be convalescent from my attack of remorse. And then all life will lie
+before me, as you say. All life except the one thing that makes life
+worth living."
+
+He stopped. For he saw she understood.
+
+"You always understood," he went on, voicing his thought. "That was one
+of the wonderful things about you, Kitty. Even now, you saw the pain I
+am in. And it made you forget what you believe I am. It was sweet of
+you. It will be good to remember."
+
+"I wish I could help you," she said.
+
+"You _have_ helped me," he answered. "For you've given me a Memory to
+carry till I can shake off the load--till I can get clear of McPherson's
+'man-built hell.' It won't be long. So don't worry. Even now, my common
+sense tells me I've made a fool of myself. And I'm human enough to be
+more ashamed of being a fool than of being a knave. I had everything in
+my own hands. And I threw away the game because an attack of fright kept
+me from playing my winning cards. Last night I was afraid of a ghost.
+This morning I'm sane enough to know that ghosts were invented by the
+first nervous man who was alone at night. This morning I am heart-broken
+because my little boy lies dead. To-morrow I shall be sane enough to
+know that it is as lucky for me as it is for him, that he died. And in
+a week I'll be congratulating myself over it all and revelling in a
+freedom and a fortune I've always craved. So you see I'm quite
+incurable."
+
+"Why do you say such things?" she cried. "You know they aren't true."
+
+"When I said you 'always understand,' Kitty, I was wrong. You don't
+understand. No woman understands--that a man doesn't reform. A good man
+may have taken a wrong twist. And when he finds his way back to the
+straight road, they say he has 'reformed.' He hasn't. He's only struck
+his own natural gait again. As he was bound to. And _my_ kind of man
+sometimes takes a momentary twist in the _right_ direction. Then people
+say _he_ has reformed. And they are just as much mistaken as they were
+in the other case. For, water won't run uphill after the first pressure
+is withdrawn."
+
+"But in the fires of affliction----"
+
+"The fires of affliction," he retorted sadly, "have burned away the
+dross from the pure gold of many a soul, I suppose. But no fires were
+ever heated that could burn dross fiercely enough to turn it into gold.
+Yet----"
+
+He hesitated, then said, without daring to look at her:
+
+"There's one thing I do want you to know, Kitty. Whatever I was and am,
+and whatever shams went to make up my daily life here--you know my love
+for _you_ was true and absolute and that I loved and _love_ you more
+than the whole world besides?"
+
+"Yes," she returned, unembarrassed. "I believe that, Frederik. In part.
+You loved me as much as you could love any one. But----"
+
+"Why must there be a 'but'?" he entreated.
+
+"But," she went on with the relentlessness of the Young, "not as much as
+you loved yourself."
+
+"More! Ten thousand times more!" he declared vehemently.
+
+"No," she contradicted. "For you didn't love me enough to give me up
+when you knew I cared for another man. The Perfect Love would have----"
+
+"The 'perfect love'!" he scoffed. "I have read of it. But I have yet to
+see it."
+
+"You cannot see it," she replied, "for the same reason I could not see
+Oom Peter when he was fighting my battle here last night. My eyes were
+blinded by the world I live in. Perfect love is everywhere. It is within
+and about us. But----"
+
+"But I would be too ignoble to recognise it if I chanced upon it?
+Perhaps. But why strip me of my last illusion? In the torment of my
+self-abasement this morning, I have clung to that one comfort: That I
+love you with a love which a truly worthless man _could_ not feel. And
+now----"
+
+"_Don't_ misunderstand me," she begged, half-tearfully. "I----"
+
+"You have shown me the truth. And I ought to thank you for it. Perhaps
+some day I can. If I still remember it then. Good-bye, dear. I shan't be
+here again. I've--I've left you a little present. Dr. McPherson will
+give it to you."
+
+"But I _can't_ take----"
+
+"Oh, yes, you can. It isn't really from me. That's just another of my
+lies to make a good impression. I've gotten so in the habit of telling
+them that it is going to take me a long time to realise that one of the
+chief advantages of being a rich man is the immunity from the need to
+lie. The present isn't really from me. It's from Oom. Peter. You can't
+refuse it from _him_. If you doubt it's Oom Peter's own direct gift, ask
+Dr. McPherson. It was bad enough," he sighed, in mock despair, "for Oom
+Peter to squander so much of my money while he was alive, without
+keeping on doing it after he died. I hope he has stopped it at last. Or
+I'll soon be reduced to standing at the subway steps with a tin cup in
+my hand."
+
+Through the forced lightness, whose effort wrung sweat from the man's
+forehead, Kathrien was woman enough to see the mortal agony that lay
+beneath. And again she held out her hand.
+
+"Good-bye, Frederik," she said gently. "And may you be happy!"
+
+He looked doubtfully at the shapely little hand. Then, with an
+awkwardness strangely foreign to his normal grace, he took the hand in
+both his own and stood a moment, looking down at it as though not
+knowing what to do with it.
+
+Then, very simply, he fell on his knees, touched the warm, roseleaf palm
+to his lips, got up and, without looking back, hurried out of the house.
+
+Kathrien watched his slender, carefully groomed figure until it was lost
+at a turn in the rose bushes. Then she came back into the room and
+stood beside Peter Grimm's old chair.
+
+"Oom Peter!" she whispered. "This is my wedding day. You know it, don't
+you? And--oh, please let me think you are close--_close_--beside me all
+the time!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Return of Peter Grimm
+       Novelised From the Play
+
+Author: David Belasco
+
+Illustrator: John Rae
+
+Release Date: January 18, 2008 [EBook #24359]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Annie McGuire and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/restored-image-0357.jpg" width="410" height="600" alt="Cover Illustration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>The Return of Peter Grimm</h1>
+
+<h3>NOVELISED FROM THE PLAY</h3>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>DAVID BELASCO</h3>
+
+<h4>ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN RAE</h4>
+
+<h5>NEW YORK</h5>
+<h5>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</h5>
+<h5><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1912</span></h5>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I  <span class="smcap">A Man and a Maid</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II  <span class="smcap">The Heir</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III  <span class="smcap">Peter Grimm Has a Plan</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV  <span class="smcap">A Warning and a Theory</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V  <span class="smcap">A Queer Compact</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI  <span class="smcap">Breaking the News</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII  <span class="smcap">The Hand Relaxes</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII  <span class="smcap">Afterward</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX  <span class="smcap">The Eve of a Wedding</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X  <span class="smcap">A Wasted Plea</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI  <span class="smcap">The Legacies</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII  <span class="smcap">Mostly Concerning Gratitude</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII  <span class="smcap">The Return</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV  "<span class="smcap">I Can't Get It Across</span>"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV  <span class="smcap">A Half-Heard Message</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI  <span class="smcap">The "Sensitive"</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII  <span class="smcap">Mr. Batholommey Testifies</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII  <span class="smcap">Dr. McPherson's Statement</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX  <span class="smcap">Back to the Story</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX  <span class="smcap">The Benefit of the Doubt</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI  "<span class="smcap">Only One Thing Really Counts</span>"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII  "<span class="smcap">All That Happens, Happens Again</span>"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII  <span class="smcap">The Dawning</span></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV  <span class="smcap">The Good-bye</span></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#ILLO1">"I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was a single man, was he not, Pastor?"</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#ILLO2">"Who's in the room!" he demanded</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#ILLO3">"Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very pleasantest of dreams a boy could have in <i>this</i> world"</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>A MAN AND A MAID</h3>
+
+<p>The train drew to a halt at the Junction. There was a fine jolt that ran
+the length of the cars, followed by a clank of couplings and a
+half-intelligible call from the conductor.</p>
+
+<p>The passengers,&mdash;dusty, jaded, crossly annoyed at the need of changing
+cars,&mdash;gathered up their luggage and filed out onto the bare, roofless
+station platform. There, after a look down the long converging rails in
+vain hope of sighting the train they were to take, they fell to glancing
+about the cheerless station environs.</p>
+
+<p>Far away were rolling hills, upland fields of wind-swept wheat, cool,
+dark stretches of woodland. But around the station were areas of
+ill-kept lots, with here and there a jerry-built cottage, sadly in need
+of shoring, and bereft of paint. Across the road on one side stood the
+general store with its clump of porch-step loafers and its windows full
+of gaudy advertisements. To the side, and parallel with the tracks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+sprawled a huge, weather-buffeted signboard that read:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"<i>Grimm's Botanical Gardens and Nurseries.</i><br />
+<i>1 Mile.</i>"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The passengers eyed the half-defaced lettering, pessimistically. But
+almost at once they received a far pleasanter reminder of the botanical
+gardens. A boy, flushed with running, and evidently distressed at being
+late, pattered up the road and onto the platform. From one of his
+fragile arms hung a great basket. The lid had fallen aside and showed
+the basket piled to the brim with fresh flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying to the nearest passenger&mdash;an obese travelling man who mopped a
+very red face,&mdash;the boy timidly held a Gloire de Dijon rose up to him
+and recited with parrot-like glibness:</p>
+
+<p>"With the compliments of Peter Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>The fat man half unconsciously took the rose from the little hand and
+stood looking as though in dire doubt what to do with it. The boy did
+not help him out. Already he had moved on to the next passenger,&mdash;this
+time a man of clerical bearing and suspiciously vivid nose,&mdash;and handed
+him a gleaming Madonna lily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"With the compliments of Peter Grimm," he announced, passing on to the
+next.</p>
+
+<p>And so on down the bunched line of waiting men and women the lad made
+his way. In front of each, he paused, presented a flower taken at random
+from the basket, recited his droning formula, and passed on.</p>
+
+<p>The fat travelling man stared stupidly at his rose. Then he looked about
+him, half shamefacedly and in wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"What in blazes&mdash;&mdash;?" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be a stranger in this part of the state," volunteered a big
+young fellow, who had just come out of the waiting-room. "Did you never
+hear of the flower-giving at the Junction?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What's the idea? Is it done on a bet? Or is it an 'ad' for the man
+on the sign over there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither. It has been Peter Grimm's custom for twenty years or more.
+Ever since I first knew him."</p>
+
+<p>"And it isn't an ad?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," was the enigmatic answer as the big young man moved off in the
+wake of the lad. "It's Peter Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>The boy meanwhile had reached the last of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> passengers. She was
+middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peered down at him with more than
+common interest as he went through his pat little presentation formula.
+A psychologist would have gathered much from the lad's tense, flushed
+face and in the oddly strained look of the big blue eyes. To this woman,
+he was only a thin, lonely looking youngster, whose face held an
+unconscious appeal that she answered without reading it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very much obliged to Mr. Peter Grimm for sending me this lovely
+flower," she said, a little patronisingly, as she sniffed at the
+half-opened Killarney rose she held.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not be," answered the boy. "He didn't really send it to you.
+In fact, I'm quite sure he never even heard of you. He just sent it
+because he is good and because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he loves flowers," suggested the woman as the boy hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"No," corrected the boy, in his gentle, old-fashioned diction, wherein
+lurked the faintest trace of foreign accent, "I never heard him say
+anything about loving flowers. But I know the flowers love him."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You see, they grow for him as they don't grow for any one else. <i>Much</i>
+better I am sure," he added a little bitterly, "than they will ever grow
+for Frederik. I don't think flowers love Frederik."</p>
+
+<p>"What queer ideas you have!" she laughed, embarrassed at his quiet
+statement of facts that seemed to her absurd. "Are you Mr. Grimm's son?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am. He is not married. I don't think he has any sons at all. I'm
+Anne Marie's son."</p>
+
+<p>"Anne Marie? Anne Marie&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just Anne Marie. I'm Willem, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"William?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am. Willem."</p>
+
+<p>"Willem Grimm?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am. Anne Marie's Willem. I&mdash;Oh, Mr. Hartmann!" he broke off,
+catching sight of the big young man who drew near, "Mynheer Peter said
+you'd be on this train. Now I can have some one to walk back with."</p>
+
+<p>Slipping his hand into Hartmann's, Willem turned his back on the
+platformful of perspiring beneficiaries and, together, the two struck
+off down the yellow, dusty road toward the double row of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> giant elms
+that marked the beginning of the village street.</p>
+
+<p>Willem shuffled in high contentment alongside his big companion. And as
+he walked, he stole upward and sidelong glances of furtive hero worship
+at the tall, plainly clad figure. Jim Hartmann was of a build and aspect
+to rouse such worship in the frail little fellow. He had the shoulders,
+the chest girth, the stride of an athlete, tempered by the slight
+roundness of those same shoulders, the non-expansiveness of chest, and
+the heavy tread of the large man whose strength and physique have been
+acquired at manual labour instead of in athletics. A figure more common
+east of the Atlantic than in America.</p>
+
+<p>His dark suit was neat and fitted honestly well. But it was palpably not
+the suit of a man whose father had worn custom-made clothes or whose own
+earlier youth had been blessed with such garments. Yet there was a
+breezy, staunch outdoorness about the whole man that reminded one of a
+breath of mountain air in a close room and left half unnoticed the
+details of costume and bearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Weren't you glad to get away from New York City?" queried the boy as
+they came into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> the elm shade of Grimm Manor's one real street. "A week
+is an awful long time to be away from here."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet it is. You're a lucky chap to be able to stay at Grimm Manor
+all the time instead of being sent here, there, and everywhere on
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't like that," assented the boy; "I think people would be very
+liable of losing their way. I wonder if Mynheer Peter will send me
+'here, there, and everywhere on business' when I'm older."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," agreed Hartmann, catching the slight note of wistfulness in
+Willem's voice. "You're beginning the way I began. It wasn't more than a
+week after my father got his gardening job with Mr. Grimm that I used to
+be sent up to meet the trains with a basket of flowers and 'the
+compliments of Peter Grimm.' It seems more like yesterday than eighteen
+years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you're back from New York City," said the boy, circling back
+to the conversation's starting-point. "It's been rather lonely. Mynheer
+Peter has been so busy. And Frederik&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," queried Jim as the boy checked himself and looked nervously
+behind him, "what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> about Frederik? And why do you always look like that
+when you speak of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like what?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if you were afraid some one would slap you. Is Frederik ever unkind
+to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," denied the boy, in scared haste. "No, he never is. He&mdash;he doesn't
+notice me at all. That's what I was going to say. He doesn't seem to
+care to. But he likes to be with Kathrien, I think. Yes, I'm sure he
+does. I think Kathrien missed you, too, Mr. Hartmann."</p>
+
+<p>The big man grew of a sudden vaguely embarrassed. He cast back along the
+trail of the talk for some divergent path, and found one.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "it's good to be back from New York. The city always
+seems to cramp me and make it hard for me to breathe. The pavements hurt
+my feet and I have a silly feeling as though the skyscrapers were going
+to topple inward."</p>
+
+<p>He was talking to himself rather than to the boy. But Willem rejoined
+sympathetically:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like New York City either."</p>
+
+<p>"You, why you surely can't remember when you used to live there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boy's fair brow creased in an effort of memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," he hesitated, "I can. And sometimes I don't seem able to.
+But I remember Anne Marie. She cried."</p>
+
+<p>"How is Mynheer Peter?" demanded Hartmann with galvanic suddenness. "And
+how are that last lot of Madonna lilies coming on? They ought to be&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," went on the boy, still following his own line of thought
+and oblivious of the interruption, "sometimes I wonder why she cried.
+Sometimes for a minute or two&mdash;mostly at night, when I'm nearly
+asleep&mdash;I seem to remember why. But I always forget. Mr. Hartmann, did
+you see Anne Marie when you were in New York City?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not. How are Lad and Rex and Paddy? And do they still dig
+for moles in the flower-beds? Or did the dose of red pepper my father
+scattered over the beds cure them of digging?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," observed Willem, "why everybody always talks about
+everything else when I want to talk about Anne Marie. And if other
+fellows' mothers come to see them and live with them, why doesn't Anne
+Marie come and live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> with me? I asked Oom Peter once and he said&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to leave you now and hurry over to Mynheer Grimm's office with
+my report," broke in Hartmann. "My train was a little late anyhow and
+you know how he hates to be kept waiting."</p>
+
+<p>They had entered a wide gateway and had come from suburban America, at a
+step, into rural Holland. The prim gravelled drive led between acres of
+prosaically regular flower-beds, flanked on one side by a domed green
+house and on the other by a creaking Dutch windmill with weather-browned
+sails.</p>
+
+<p>Straight ahead and absurdly near the road for a country house that
+boasted so much land about it, was the stone and yellow stucco cottage
+that for centuries had sheltered successive generations of Grimms.
+Painfully neat, unpicturesquely ugly, the house stood among its great
+oaks. It did not nestle among them. It stood. As well expect a breadth
+of starched brown holland to nestle. To deprive the abode of any
+lingering taint of picturesqueness, a blue and white signboard, thirty
+feet long, stretching between it and the main street, flashed to all the
+passing world the news that this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> was the headquarters of the celebrated
+"Grimm's Botanical Gardens and Nurseries."</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the house was as delightful as its outside was hideous.
+Here, neatness raised to the nth power chanced to strike the keynote of
+a certain beauty. The big living-room, with its stairway leading to the
+bedroom gallery above, was a repository of curios that would have set an
+antiquary mad. From the ancient clock to the priceless old blue china,
+three-fourths of the room's appointments might have served to deck a
+Holland museum. The remaining fourth contained such articles as a
+glaringly modern telephone on a nondescript desk, and a compromise
+between old and new in the shape of a square piano in the bay window, an
+ancient table. And several patently twentieth century articles helped
+still further to rob the place of any harmony or unison in effect.</p>
+
+<p>An altogether charming Dutch maiden was dusting, and occasionally
+stopping to restore some slightly disarranged article to its
+mathematically neat position. In her blue Dutch cap, her blue delft
+gown, and white kerchief, she seemed to have danced down out of the past
+to strike the one note of vivid life in all that sombre-furnished
+place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She paused in the sweep of sunshine that poured through the
+muslin-curtained bay window. A step had sounded in the passage leading
+from the rear of the house;&mdash;a step she evidently knew. For the full
+young lips broke into an involuntary smile of expectancy, while the big
+eyes grew all at once eager and happy. Jim Hartmann, a pen behind his
+ear, a bundle of mail in his hand, came into the room. He had reached
+the desk and deposited his packet there before he caught sight of her.
+Then, wide-eyed, silent, tense, he halted, gazing at the sunshine-bathed
+figure in the window embrasure. For an instant neither of them spoke. It
+was the girl who broke the silence, her voice charged with a strange
+shyness.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, James," she said primly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Miss Katie," he answered mechanically, his eyes still
+wide with the loveliness of the sun-kissed face that so suddenly broke
+in upon his workaday routine.</p>
+
+<p>"I wondered if you'd gotten back yet," she continued, seeming to hunt
+industriously for a phrase of sufficiently meaningless decorum.</p>
+
+<p>"I got back ten minutes ago. I reported to Mr. Grimm and brought the
+morning mail in here to look over for him. It seems strange to find the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+day so far advanced at this hour," he went on, talking at random. "After
+a week in New York, where no one thinks of doing business before nine in
+the morning, it's like coming into another world to be back here where
+the day's work begins at five."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down, pleasantly regardless of the fact that she was still
+standing, and began to open and sort the letters before him. The girl
+noticed that his big hands fumbled at the unfamiliar task. But she
+noticed far more keenly the strength and massive shapeliness of the
+hands themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like being secretary?" she queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in a way. I've walked 'outside' in the gardens and nurseries so
+many years, it seems queer to be penned up indoors and have to scribble
+letters and open mail. But I'd sooner shovel dirt than not be here at
+all. I couldn't last a month at a job where there wasn't gardening going
+on all around me and where I couldn't sneak off once in a while and do a
+bit of it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way I feel," she said simply, "though I never thought to put
+it in words before. I must live where things are growing. Where, every
+time I look out of the window, I can see orchards and shrubs and
+hothouses. Oh, it's all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> so beautiful! And, James, our orchids this
+season&mdash;but I forgot. You don't care for orchids."</p>
+
+<p>"They're pretty enough, I suppose," vouchsafed Hartmann. "But the big
+men in the business are doing wonderful things with potatoes these days.
+And look at what Father Burbank's done in creating an edible cactus!
+Sometimes it makes me feel bitter when I think what I might have done
+with vegetables if I hadn't squandered so much God-given time studying
+Greek."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. It made a hit with father to have me study a lot of things
+that would only help a college professor. He's worked in the dirt, in
+overalls, all his life. And like most people who never had one, he sets
+a crazy value on so-called 'education.' But all this can't interest
+you," he finished ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>does</i> interest me. You know it does. But there's something I'd like
+to say to you if you won't be angry."</p>
+
+<p>"At <i>you</i>? Why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's this: I want you so much to get on. Why won't you try harder
+to&mdash;to please Uncle Peter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do try. I'm square with him. That's the trouble. That's why I don't
+make more of a hit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> He asks me my 'honest opinion' about something or
+other. I give it. Then he blows up."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you'd try to be more tactful&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You said that once before to me, Miss Katie. I asked you what 'tactful'
+meant. And when you told me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"When I told you, you said it was 'just a fancy name for being
+hypocritical.' But it isn't, a bit. Can't you try not to be quite
+so&mdash;so&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cranky?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, blunt. It will smooth things over so much with Uncle Peter. He's
+really the gentlest, dearest&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I've noticed it," said Hartmann drily. "But I'll try if you want me to.
+I promise."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>And, perhaps to seal the pledge, their hands met. The sealing of a
+pledge is not a matter to slur over with careless haste, but requires
+due time. And it was but natural that the handclasp should be symbolic
+of that deliberation. Indeed, it is hard to say just how long his big
+hand and her little one might have remained clasped together had
+inclination been allowed to prevail. But, as usual in Hartmann's life,
+inclination was not consulted. The door behind them opened sharply,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> and
+the clasped hands parted as if at a signal. Hartmann slipped back into
+his chair at the desk, while the girl busied herself with a new and
+commendable activity in her task of setting the immaculate room to
+rights.</p>
+
+<p>Both seemed to realise without turning around that one more of their too
+brief interviews had been unceremoniously cut short.</p>
+
+<p>The man whose advent caused the curtailment of the promise's sealing was
+as foreign looking as the room itself. Dapper, dressed in a sort of
+elaborate carelessness, his figure alone carried with it an air of
+assurance that Hartmann always found almost as irritating as the man's
+gracefully exaggerated manner and speech. His blonde hair was brushed
+back from a high, narrow forehead. A turned-up moustache and a
+close-trimmed and pointed Van Dyke beard added to the foreign aspect.</p>
+
+<p>The newcomer took in the scene with a glance that apparently grasped
+none of its details. He nodded curtly to Hartmann, then crossed to where
+the girl was dusting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HEIR</h3>
+
+<p>"Hello, Kitty," he said. "Good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Frederik," responded the girl, and started toward the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>But the man intercepted her. Catching her playfully by the arm he tried
+to draw her toward him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're pretty as a June rose to-day," he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann, instinctively, had half-risen from his chair. The girl, noting
+his movement and the frown gathering on his face, checked her impulse to
+retort, quietly disengaged herself from the newcomer's familiar grasp,
+and ran up the short stair flight that led into the gallery.</p>
+
+<p>In no way offended, the man glanced after her with another short laugh,
+then turned to Hartmann.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's my uncle?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann looked up with elaborate slowness from the notes he was making
+of the newly opened mail. His eyes at last rested on the dapper figure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+before him, with the impersonal, faintly irritated gaze one might bestow
+on a yelping puppy.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grimm is outside," he answered. "He's watching my father spray the
+plum trees. The black knot's getting ahead of us this year."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," grumbled Frederik, lounging across to the window, "if it's
+possible once a year to ask a simple question of any inmate of this
+cursedly dreary old place without getting a botanical answer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we are here for&mdash;those of us that work," said Hartmann,
+returning to his note making.</p>
+
+<p>"Work, work, work!" mocked Frederik. "When I inherit my beloved uncle's
+fortune, I shall buy up all the dictionaries and have that wretched word
+crossed out of them."</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann made no reply. He did not seem to have heard. But Frederik,
+absently ripping to atoms a Richmond rose from the window table vase,
+continued his muttered tirade. An inattentive audience was better than
+none.</p>
+
+<p>"Work!" he growled. "When people here aren't talking about it, they're
+doing it. Grubby, earthy work. And it was to prepare for this sort of
+thing that I loafed through Leyden and Heidel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>berg! Yes, and loafed
+through, creditably, too; even if Oom Peter did bully me into making a
+specialty of botany. Botany! Dry as dust. After the University and after
+my <i>wanderjahr</i>, I thought it would be another easy task to come here,
+and 'learn the business.' Easy! As easy as the treadmill. And as
+congenial."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you don't tell Mr. Grimm all that. I'm sure it would interest
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, worthy uncle, who builds such wonderful hopes on me? Not I. It
+would break his noble heart. I hope you quite understand, Hartmann, that
+I keep quiet only through fear of wounding him and not with any fear
+that he might bequeath the business elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," returned Hartmann drily. "That's why I keep my mouth shut when
+he holds you up to me as a paragon of zeal and industry and asks me why
+I don't pattern myself after you. But, for all that, you're taking
+chances when you talk to me about him as you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," contradicted Frederik. "I may not know botany. But I know
+men. You love me about as much as you love smallpox. But you belong to
+the breed that doesn't tell tales. Besides, I've got to speak the truth
+to some one,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> once in a while, if I don't want to explode. You're a
+splendid safety valve, Hartmann."</p>
+
+<p>The secretary bent over his notes. His forehead veins swelled, and his
+face darkened. But he gave no overt sign of offence. Frederik, watching
+keenly, seemed disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"In New York," he pursued with a sigh, "they're just about thinking of
+waking up. And look at the time <i>I'm</i> routed out of bed! Say, Hartmann,
+I wish you would give Oom Peter a hint to oil his shoes. Every morning
+he wakes me up at five o'clock, creaking down the stairs. It's a sort of
+pedal alarm clock. Creak! Creak! Creak!&mdash;<i>Ach, Gott!</i> Even yet I can
+hardly keep one eye open. If ever it pleases Providence to give me my
+heritage, the first thing I'll do will be to sleep till noon. And then
+to go to sleep again."</p>
+
+<p>He stared moodily out of the window into the glowing, flower-starred
+June world.</p>
+
+<p>"How I loathe this pokey, dead old village!" he complained. "And what
+wouldn't I give to be back with the old Leyden crowd for one little
+night!"</p>
+
+<p>He lurched over to the piano, sat carelessly, sidewise, on its stool,
+and, thrumming at the key<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>board, fell to humming in a slurring,
+reminiscent fashion, the old Leyden University chorus:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"<i>Ach, daar koonet ye amuseeren! Io vivat&mdash;Io vivat</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Nostorum sanitas, hoc estamoris porculum,</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Dolores est anti gotum&mdash;Io vivat&mdash;Io vivat</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Nostorum sanitas&mdash;!</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Hartmann," he broke off from his jumble of Dutch and Hollandised
+Latin, "the old man is aging. He's aging fast."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" asked Hartmann absently, glancing up from his work. "Oh, your
+uncle? Yes, he is mellowing. He is changing foliage with the years."</p>
+
+<p>"Changing foliage? Not he. He changes nothing. What was good enough
+forty years ago seems to him quite good enough to-day. He's as
+old-fashioned as his hats. And they're the oldest things since Noah's
+time. He's just as old-fashioned in his financial ways. In my opinion,
+for instance, this would be a capital time to sell out the business. But
+he&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sell out?" echoed Hartmann in genuine horror. "Sell out a business
+that's been in his family for&mdash;why, man, he'd as soon sell his soul.
+This business is his religion."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and that's why it is so flourishing in spite of his back-date
+customs. It's at the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> acme of its prosperity now. Why, the plant
+must be worth an easy half million. Yes, and more. Lord, but it <i>would</i>
+sell now! One, two, three,&mdash;<i>Augenblick</i>! By the way, speaking of
+selling,&mdash;what was the last offer the dear old gentleman turned down
+from Hicks of Rochester?"</p>
+
+<p>But Hartmann did not hear the question. He was staring at Frederik in
+open-mouthed astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Sell out?" he repeated dully. "This is a new one&mdash;even from you. There
+isn't a day your uncle doesn't tell me how triumphantly you are going to
+carry on the business after he is gone. He&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am!" sneered Frederik. "I am. Of course I am. How can you doubt
+it. Wait and see. It's a big name&mdash;'Peter Grimm.' And the old gentleman
+knows his business. He assuredly knows his business."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind being the repository of your confidences about hating
+work," burst out Hartmann, "any more than I mind listening to the mewing
+of a sick cat. But when you strike this new vein, you'll have to choose
+another audience. I'm afraid I'd be likely to take sudden charge of the
+meeting and break the talented orator's neck."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He gathered up some of his papers and stamped out. Frederik looked after
+him uncertainly, took a step toward the door through which the secretary
+had just vanished, then thought better of the idea, laughed shortly, and
+drew out a cigarette. But a creaking of heavy shoes on the walk outside
+led him to slip the cigarette back into its case, and to bend
+interestedly over the pile of office mail Hartmann had opened.</p>
+
+<p>If Kathrien had typified all that was dainty and alluring in the room's
+Dutch art, the man who now stamped in from the front vestibule,
+assuredly was typical of all old Holland's solidity. Stocky, of medium
+height, he was clad more as though he had copied the fashions depicted
+in a daguerrotype than those of the twentieth century. His black
+broadcloth was of no recent cut. His low, upright collar and broad
+cravat were of stock-like aspect, while a high hat such as he wore has
+certainly appeared in no show window since 1870.</p>
+
+<p>Withal, there was nothing ludicrous or even incongruous about the
+costume. It belonged with the wearer. And while on another man it would
+have been absurd, on him it seemed the only logical apparel.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm halted in the vestibule, laboriously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> removed his rubbers,
+and dropped his heavy ash stick into its place on the rack. Then he
+carefully lifted the antique hat from his head, deposited it on a peg,
+and came forward into the room. The face, revealed as he left the
+vestibule's gloom for the bright sunlight, was at first glance hard,
+deeply lined, and stubborn; the effect accented by a set mouth, the
+little truculently alert eyes under bushy brows, and the slightly
+uptilted nose.</p>
+
+<p>A second look, however, would have revealed, to any one who could read
+faces, a lovable and almost tender light behind the eye's sharp twinkle
+and a kindly, humorous twist to the stubborn mouth. Hot temper, the
+physiognomist would have read, and obstinacy. But there the catalogue of
+faults would have ended abruptly. The rest was warm heart, trustfulness,
+eager sympathy,&mdash;an almost child-like friendliness toward the world at
+large that forever battled for mastery with native Dutch shrewdness.</p>
+
+<p>There was far more kindness than shrewdness in the square old face just
+now, as Grimm noted his nephew's presence and his deep absorption in the
+contents of the mail. Frederik looked up as Grimm came forward.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Oom Peter," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Fritzy," returned Grimm. "Hard at work, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so hard but that you were ahead of me. I felt unpardonably lazy
+when I heard you come downstairs at five."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I woke you. Youngsters need their sleep. We old fellows have
+done about all the dozing we need to do; and we are coming so close to
+our Long Sleep that God gives us extra wakefulness for the little time
+left; so we may see as much as possible of this glorious old world of
+His."</p>
+
+<p>"I ran over from the office&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know why you ran over, Fritzy. A word with Kathrien&mdash;yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I try to forget everything but work during business hours. I
+came to look for you. I've a suggestion&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Grimm's face lighted with the rare smile that played over its harsh
+outlines like sunshine. Each proof of his nephew's interest in the work
+was as tonic to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I came over," went on Frederik, by hard mental calisthenics creating an
+impromptu sugges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>tion, "to propose that we insert a full-page cut of
+your new tulip in our midsummer floral almanac."</p>
+
+<p>"H'&mdash;m!" muttered Grimm doubtfully. "I don't see why we&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir, the public's expecting it."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," now quite at home with his newly evolved notion, "you've no idea
+the stir the tulip has made. We get letters from everywhere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't seem to me anything so extraordinary," said Grimm modestly,
+albeit hugely gratified. "I'll think over the plan. What have you been
+doing all day?"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik glanced at the clock. It registered three minutes before nine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've had a busy morning," he answered. "In the packing house. Lots
+of orders to attend to. It's never safe to trust the more important ones
+to subordinates."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," approved Grimm. "Fritzy, it does me good, all through,
+to see you taking hold of the business the way you're doing."</p>
+
+<p>Further praise was cut short by old Marta, the housekeeper, who bustled
+in to attend to her reg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>ular nine o'clock duty of winding the
+chain-weighted Dutch clock.</p>
+
+<p>As she drew up the weights with a grate and a whirr that made audible
+conversation quite out of the question, she formed a study, in clothes
+and visage, that might have stepped direct from a Franz Hals canvas.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing American or modern about the old woman. Nothing about
+her save her face had changed since the day, sixty years back, when an
+earlier Grimm, returning from a visit from the Fatherland, had brought
+her to Grimm Manor as maid for his young American wife. Her task
+accomplished, Marta turned dutifully to courtesy to her master.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm</i>," she saluted him. "<i>Komt ujuist eut di
+teum?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ja</i>," replied Peter, dropping into the tongue of his fathers, yet with
+an odd twinkle in his little eyes. "<i>En ik bin hongerig.</i>&mdash;Taking her
+morning exercise," he added, noting the performance with the clock
+weights.</p>
+
+<p>"You are always making fun of me!" sniffed Marta, trying not to grin as
+she swept indignantly out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>In her departure she nearly collided with Hart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>mann who was entering
+from the offices. Seating himself at the desk, dictation pad in hand,
+Hartmann asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready for me, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Grimm.&mdash;"No, I'm not. But I will be in a minute. There's
+something I'd forgotten. Wait&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Cupping his hands about his mouth, Grimm wheeled to face the gallery and
+shouted a curiously high-pitched dissyllable:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ou&mdash;hoo!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>And, as though a sweeter, more silvery echo of the rough old voice, came
+from one of the gallery rooms an answering hail. Kathrien herself
+followed close upon her reply to the familiar signal call.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Oom Peter!" she exclaimed, running lightly down the stairs and
+throwing her arms about his neck. "Good-morning. How careless I was not
+to come sooner and make your coffee. I didn't know you were in yet. You
+must be half starved."</p>
+
+<p>She started for the dining-room. But Grimm's arm was about her waist,
+detaining her.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the very busiest little woman you ever saw, Frederik," he
+announced. "She is forever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> thinking of things to do for me. And I'm
+never remembering to do anything for her."</p>
+
+<p>"Shame!" cried Kathrien, "you do everything in this big world for me,
+Oom Peter, and you know it. I've got everything any girl's heart could
+ask."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, you haven't though," sagely contradicted Grimm. "Before you say
+that, wait till I give you some fine young chap for a husband. Hey,
+Frederik?"</p>
+
+<p>She drew away from his embrace with gentle impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Oom Peter," she begged. "You're always talking about weddings
+lately. I don't know what's come over you."</p>
+
+<p>"It's nesting time," Grimm defended himself. "Weddings are in the air.
+And then, I keep thinking of all the linen packed in my grandmother's
+chest upstairs. We must use it again some day. There, there, little
+girl! You shan't be teased any more. Only, I'll leave it to you, Fritzy,
+if she doesn't deserve a grand husband,&mdash;this little girl of mine. If
+for no other reason, to pay for all she's done for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Done for you?" laughed Kathrien. "Truly, I was forgetting that. I do
+you the great favour of letting you do everything for me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Who lays out my linen and brushes my clothes and fixes
+wonderful little dishes for me, and puts my slippers and dressing gown
+in front of the fire on cold nights, and puts flowers on my desk every
+day? And, best of all, <i>Kindchen</i>, who floods this old house of mine
+with the glory of Youth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Youth?" she mocked with the true scorn of the young for their supreme
+gift. "Youth can't do very much. What does it amount to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing much," gravely answered her uncle. "Youth, as you say, is not
+anything worth mentioning. It is only the most priceless and most
+perishable treasure in God's storehouse. It is only the thing that means
+Beauty and Strength and Hope. It is the thing we all despise as long as
+we have it and would give our souls to get back as soon as we have lost
+it. No, as you say, Youth doesn't amount to much. It is only the nearest
+approach to Immortality that mortals have ever known. Why, where should
+I be now,&mdash;a grouchy old bachelor like me&mdash;without Youth in my house?
+Why, Frederik, this girl has made me feel kindlier toward all other
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have, have I?" demanded Kathrien, "that's more than I bargained
+for."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't flatter yourself," he joked. "It's only the way one feels about a
+pet. One likes all the rest of the breed."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," broke in Hartmann, throwing himself into the conversation
+on impulse. "It's so. A man studies one girl and then presently he
+begins to notice the same little traits in them all. It makes one feel
+differently toward the rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced shamefacedly back at his dictation pad as the others turned
+and stared at him in astonishment. But not before he had noted the shy
+smile that crept over Kathrien's face or the unpleasant glint in
+Frederik's pale eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann so seldom took part in general conversation and was so reticent
+concerning every phase of sentiment, that Grimm was for the moment
+almost as astounded as though one of his own bulbs had burst into
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>"An expert opinion," commented Frederik sneeringly. "And from a
+confirmed bachelor like James!"</p>
+
+<p>"A confirmed bachelor?" Grimm innocently caught up the slur. "What a
+life! I know. I have been one ever since I can remember. When a bachelor
+wants to order a three-rib stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>ing roast, who is to eat it? Why, I
+never had the right sort of a roast on my table until Katje came into
+the family. And now that you're here too, Fritzy, the roasts get bigger.
+But not big enough, even yet. Oh, we must find the husband for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oom Peter!" protested Kathrien. "You promised you wouldn't tease&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Tease?" repeated Grimm, as though he heard the word for the first time.
+"Why, how could you have imagined such a thing, child? I was only
+telling Frederik about the sort of roasts I like on my table. And
+speaking of tables, Fritzy, I like a nice long table with plenty of
+young people at it. And myself at the head, carving and carving, and
+seeing the plates passed round and round and round;&mdash;getting them back
+and back and back&mdash;There, there, Katje! They shan't tease you. We'll
+keep the table just as it is. For you and Fritz and me. A nice little
+circle. All in the family."</p>
+
+<p>The telephone bell set up a purring. Hartmann picked up the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Grimm's house.&mdash;Yes.&mdash;Wait one
+moment, please."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He put his palm over the transmitter and turned to Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Hicks again, sir," he reported. "He wants to talk more with you
+about buying the business."</p>
+
+<p>"Buying the business, hey?" snorted Grimm in sudden rage. "No! No! I've
+told him ten million times it's not on the market and never will be.
+Tell him so again."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grimm says," called Hartmann into the transmitter, "that the
+business is not for sale. He says&mdash;what?&mdash;Wait a minute. Mr. Grimm, he
+insists on speaking to you personally."</p>
+
+<p>"He does, hey?" growled Peter, advancing upon the telephone as though
+upon an enemy that must be crushed at a blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" he roared wrathfully into the instrument. "Hello?&mdash;What?&mdash;Why,
+my old friend, how are you?&mdash;And how are your plum trees doing? Mine,
+too. Well, we can only pray and use Bordeaux Mixture.&mdash;What?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused to listen. Then he went on as if to humour a cross child.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no,&mdash;it's nonsense. Why, this business has been in the Grimm family
+for over a hundred years. Why should I sell? I'm going to arrange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> for
+it to stay in the family a hundred years longer.&mdash;Hey? What's that?&mdash;No,
+no. Of course not. Of course I don't propose to live a hundred years
+longer. But I propose that my plans shall. How can I make certain? Never
+mind how. I'm going to arrange all that. Yes, I know I'm a bachelor. You
+don't need to spend good money on long distance phoning, to remind me of
+that. Oh&mdash;good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>Grimm turned away from the table with a growl, to confront Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, girl!" he exclaimed, in quick concern. "You look as if you are
+going to cry. What is it? Tell Oom Peter!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>PETER GRIMM HAS A PLAN</h3>
+
+<p>"That man!" panted Kathrien. "He actually wants to buy our home&mdash;our
+gardens! Oh!" slipping for a moment back into the Dutch that was ever
+nearer to her heart than English, "<i>Stel je zoon brutali tat!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry!" consoled Peter. "He won't get a stick or a stone of
+ours. Wouldn't you think that girl had been born a Grimm, Fritzy? She's
+got the true spirit. No, no, dear. Of course we won't sell. Never.
+Never. <i>Never.</i> Hey, Fritz?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not!" declared Frederik. "The idea is preposterous."</p>
+
+<p>"Fritzy!" exclaimed Grimm. "Speaking of ideas, I've got one, too. We'll
+print the Grimm history in our new Midsummer Almanac. That's better than
+a full-page cut of any tulip that ever sprouted. Katie, go get the
+Staaten Bible and read it aloud to us. We can tell, then, how it will
+strike the public."</p>
+
+<p>The girl went to the side table where lay the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> great Bible, drew a chair
+up to it, seated herself, turned over the leaves until she found what
+she sought, then began to read in a manner that argued many previous
+renditions of the quaint old phraseology.</p>
+
+<p>"In the spring of 1709 there settled on Quassic Creek, New York Colony,
+Johann Grimm, aged twenty-two&mdash;husbandman and vinedresser. Also,
+Johanna, his wife. To him Queen Anne furnished one square, one rule, one
+compass, two whipping saws, and several small pieces&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You left out 'two augers,'" prompted Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'and two augers.' To him was born a son and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"See?" cried Grimm. "That was the foundation of our family and our
+business here. And here we are, still. After seven generations. We'll
+print it. Hey, Fritzy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir," approved Frederik, stifling a yawn with an access of
+filial enthusiasm. "By all means, we'll print it."</p>
+
+<p>"And, Fritzy," continued Grimm, with heavy significance, "we're relying
+on you for the next line in the book."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik glanced around him. Hartmann,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> during the reading, had gone
+from the room to get some papers he had left at the office. But Kathrien
+still lingered, restoring the Bible to its wonted place.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by the way, Oom Peter," said Frederik, lowering his voice so as not
+to reach the girl's ears, "I want to speak to you about a private matter
+when you can spare me a moment. When I come back from the packing house
+will be time enough. I just want to give a glance to those last
+shipments."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, lad," agreed Grimm. "Any time."</p>
+
+<p>He looked fondly after the dapper figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he a splendid, handsome, hustling young chap, Katje?" he
+demanded. "If only his mother had lived to see him now, wouldn't she
+have been proud of him? And what a complete little family we three
+make!"</p>
+
+<p>"We three?" hesitated the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely. That's all there are of us&mdash;at present,&mdash;isn't it? I don't
+think I have made a miscount."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't count in James!"</p>
+
+<p>"James?" he queried sharply. "Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't you?" she retorted eagerly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> "Oom Peter, if you don't
+mind my saying so, I think you're just a little unfair to James. He used
+to have dinner with us nearly every day. Can't you make him a little
+more at home&mdash;more like one of the family?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you good, unselfish little girl!" applauded Grimm. "You think of
+everybody. James is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann came in with several newly typed letters to be signed, and
+Grimm turned to meet him with something akin to cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>"James," said he, "will you have dinner with us to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," answered Hartmann, in pleased surprise. "Certainly. Thank
+you very much. Will you glance over these and sign them?" he added,
+wondering at the grateful smile Kathrien flashed at Peter as she passed
+into the dining-room and left the two men alone together.</p>
+
+<p>Grimm, too, wondered a little at the warmth of the girl's smile.</p>
+
+<p>"She has bloomed out lately like a rose," he mused as he looked over the
+letters the secretary proffered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir!" involuntarily agreed Hartmann.</p>
+
+<p>"So you've noticed it, too?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann stiffly as he recovered his self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ach!</i>" murmured Grimm, as he signed letter after letter and passed
+them over to Hartmann for sealing. "What a grip she has taken on my
+heart! A good girl, James. A good little girl. And I've sheltered her,
+ever since she came to me, as I shelter my violets from the cold. That's
+as it should be, hey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-e-s,&mdash;in a way."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" bristled Grimm, looking up at the unexpected answer to
+the question that had seemed to him to require none. "What do you mean?
+Oh, speak out, man!" as the secretary hesitated. "Never be afraid to
+express an honest opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean just this. No one can shape any one else's life. All people
+should be made to understand that they are&mdash;free."</p>
+
+<p>"Free? Nonsense! Katje's free. Free as air. Do you mean to tell me a
+girl should be more free than she is? We must think for young people who
+can't think for themselves. And no girl can."</p>
+
+<p>"But I believe&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! Who cares what <i>you</i> believe. James,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> I'm sometimes afraid you're
+just a little bit set in your ways;&mdash;almost obstinate."</p>
+
+<p>"But in this," stoutly maintained Hartmann, "I know I'm right. We can't
+think for other people any more than we can eat or sleep for them. Every
+happy creature is bound, by nature, to lead its own life. And, first of
+all, it must be <i>free</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"James," asked Grimm in amused contempt, "where on earth do you get
+these wild ideas?"</p>
+
+<p>"By reading what modern thinkers write, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"H'&mdash;m! I thought so. Change your mental diet. There's a set of Jost
+Vanden Vandell over on the shelves. Read it. Cultivate sentiment."</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann shrugged his big shoulders and went on sealing and stamping
+letters. But Grimm would not let this topic drop so easily.</p>
+
+<p>"Free!" he scoffed. "Maybe you've thought you noticed Katje was not
+happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I can't honestly say I have."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not!" chimed in Peter. "These are the happiest hours of
+her whole life. Don't I know? Can't I tell? Don't I know her and love
+her better than any one else does? She's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> happy. Beautifully happy. And
+why shouldn't she be? She's young. She's in love. She's soon to be
+married. What girl wouldn't be happy?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause. Peter was reading over the last letter of the
+budget. Hartmann was staring at him aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon to be married?" breathed the secretary when he could steady his
+voice. "Then&mdash;then it's all settled, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Peter. "But it soon will be. <i>I'm</i> going to settle it. Any
+one can see how she feels toward Frederik."</p>
+
+<p>"But," faltered Hartmann lamely, "isn't she very&mdash;very <i>young</i> to be
+married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not when she marries into the family. Not when <i>I'm</i> here to watch over
+her. You see&mdash;Sit down again, James. I like to talk about it to some one
+who is interested. And you <i>are</i> interested, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," the secretary managed to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Now, in following out my plans&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oom Peter," called Kathrien from the dining-room, "I have your coffee
+all ready. Shall I bring it in?"</p>
+
+<p>"By and by, dear. By and by. I am busy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> now. I'll let you know. Shut the
+door, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed. And to the hungrily watching secretary it seemed as if the
+door were closing, in his very face, upon the gates of Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>"In following my plans," Grimm was repeating, "I've had to be pretty
+shrewd and secretive. For it wouldn't do to let either of them suspect
+too soon. And I flatter myself they didn't. Here's my notion. I made up
+in my mind to keep Katje in the family. I'm a rich man. And so I've had
+to guard against young fellows who would dangle around after a girl for
+her money. I've guarded that point rather well. The whole town, for
+instance, understands that Katje hasn't a penny. Doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe so."</p>
+
+<p>"I've made a number of wills. But I've destroyed them all, one after
+another. And any time any of her boy friends called, I've&mdash;well, I've
+had business that kept me here in the room. When she goes to a dance,
+how does she go? With <i>me</i>. When she goes to the theatre, how does she
+go? With <i>me</i>. When she has had candy or any other present, who gave it
+to her? <i>I</i> did. And so it has been from the first. Every
+pleasure&mdash;she's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> had 'em all. And she had 'em all from <i>me</i>. What's the
+result? She's perfectly happy and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But," argued Hartmann, "did you want her to be happy simply because
+<i>you</i> were happy? Didn't you want her to be happy because <i>she</i>&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"So long as she is happy," retorted Grimm, "why should I care what does
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"If she's happy," repeated the secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"If she's happy?" mocked Grimm, his Dutch temper beginning to smoulder
+behind his gentle, obstinate little eyes. "If? What do you mean? That's
+the second time you've&mdash;Why do you harp on that <i>if</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>His voice rose threateningly. The silver grey mane on his head bristled
+like a boar's. Hartmann rose and started quietly for the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" shouted Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sir," said the secretary, continuing his doorward progress.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back here!" ordered Grimm fiercely. "Come back here, I say! Sit
+down! So! Now, tell me what you mean! What do you know&mdash;or <i>think</i> you
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grimm," answered Hartmann, cornered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> and desperate, "you are the
+greatest living authority on tulips. You can perform miracles with them.
+But you can't mate people as you graft tulips. You can't do it. More
+than once I have caught Miss Katie crying. And I've&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" snorted Grimm. "Caught her crying, have you? Of course. So have
+I. What does that amount to? Was there ever a girl that didn't cry? All
+women cry until they have something to cry about. Then they're too busy
+<i>living</i> to waste time in such luxuries as tears. Why, time and time
+again, I've asked her why she was crying. And always she'd answer: 'For
+no reason at all. For nothing.' And that is the answer. They love to
+cry. But that's what they all cry over;&mdash;'Nothing!'"</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann did not answer. Grimm's gust of anger had been blown away by
+the wind of his own words. He went on in a half-amused reminiscent tone:</p>
+
+<p>"James, did I ever tell you how I happened to get Katje? She was
+prescribed for me by Dr. McPherson."</p>
+
+<p>"Prescribed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, just that. As an antidote for getting to be a fussy old bachelor
+with queer notions in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> head. And the cure worked to perfection. When
+my old friend Staats died&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I've often heard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Peter Grimm was no more to be balked in the repetition of his
+favourite narrative merely because his hearer chanced to be familiar
+with its every detail, than he would have been balked in hearing the
+Grimm genealogy re-read for the thousandth time.</p>
+
+<p>"When my old friend Staats died," he said, "McPherson brought Staats's
+motherless baby over here; and he said: 'Peter, this is what you need in
+the house.' Those were his very words: 'Peter, this is what you need in
+the house.' And, sure enough, the very first time I carried her up those
+stairs over there, all my fine, cranky, crotchety bachelor notions flew
+out of my head. I knew then, in a flash, that all my knowledge and all
+my queer ideas of life were just humbug! I had missed the Child in the
+House. Yes,"&mdash;his voice dropped with a strain of soft regret,&mdash;"I had
+missed <i>many</i> children in the house. James, I was born in that little
+room up there. The room I sleep in. And one day, please God, Katje's
+children shall play in the room where I was born."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," acquiesced Hartmann as Grimm ceased,&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> the secretary's voice
+and words grated like a file on the old man's tender mood,&mdash;"it's a very
+pretty picture&mdash;if it turns out at all the way you are trying to paint
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"How can it turn out wrong?" demanded Peter, in fresh irritation.
+"What's the matter with the way I'm 'painting the picture'?"</p>
+
+<p>"From your standpoint, as I say, it's very pretty. But it's more than a
+mere question of sentiment. Her children can play anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"What? You're talking rubbish! I pick out a husband <i>here</i>&mdash;and her
+children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw,"
+turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear
+secrets to a dolt like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," assented Hartmann, quite unruffled, as he set to work
+enveloping some seed catalogues that lay on the table. Grimm evidently
+was about to pursue the flying foe with fresh invective. But Marta came
+in from the kitchen, and, with her, Willem. At sight of the boy, Grimm's
+frown softened into a smile of welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Come seg huge moroche tegen, Mynheer Grimm</i>," said Marta, while
+Willem, walking over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> to Peter, held out a thin little hand in greeting,
+with the salutation:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Huge moroche, Willem</i>," replied Grimm kindly, pressing the boy's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all ready to take the flowers over to the rectory," announced
+Willem, drifting into English.</p>
+
+<p>"If you're tired after going to the station, Otto can take them," said
+Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not a bit tired."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're getting real well again?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ja, Mynheer.</i> The doctor says I'm all right now."</p>
+
+<p>"That's good. Tell Otto to give you a <i>big</i> armful of flowers for the
+rectory. A <i>big</i> armful, remember."</p>
+
+<p>Marta's grandmotherly gaze fancied it detected a twist in the boy's
+neatly tied cravat. So she swooped down upon him and bore him away to
+the window seat, where her blurring eyes would have light enough to
+readjust the tie to her satisfaction. Grimm, with a quick glance to make
+sure they were not in earshot, tapped Hartmann on the shoulder and
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a nice result of the 'freedom' you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> said young girls ought to
+have. Marta's Anne Marie had nothing but freedom. She was the worst
+spoiled child in town. Marta let her come and go as she pleased. Come
+and go&mdash;Heaven knows where. And Heaven knows where the poor shamed girl
+is now. Every time I look at Willem," raising his voice to normal pitch
+as Marta and her grandson passed into the kitchen, "I realise how right
+I've been in the way I've brought up Katje. H'&mdash;m! Want me to give Katje
+a chance for more freedom, do you? Why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grimm," interrupted Hartmann, suddenly getting to his feet and
+facing his employer, "I'd like to be transferred to your Florida
+headquarters. At once, if it is convenient to you. I want to work out in
+the open for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" exclaimed Grimm dumfounded. "Florida? At this time of the year?
+And you were so glad to get back here to&mdash;Pshaw! You've just got a
+cranky fit on you, lad. Get rid of it. Put on your overalls and go out
+and potter around among those beloved vegetables of yours. Change your
+ideas, I say. Change the whole lot of them. They're all wrong. You don't
+know <i>what</i> you want."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hartmann's lips were parted for a retort. But he closed them, turned on
+his heel, and left the room. Grimm shook his head as over a problem he
+could not solve and did not greatly care to. Then he fell to sorting a
+box full of bulbs.</p>
+
+<p>But in a minute or two he was interrupted by Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw Hartmann crossing the yard," said the younger man, "so I stepped
+over for a little chat with you, if you've time to listen to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I've always got time to listen to you, Fritzy," replied Grimm, still
+busy with his bulbs. "It'll be a relief after that pig-headed James.
+Lord, how I do hate an obstinate man! You said a while ago you wanted to
+see me on a private matter. What was it? If it's that full-page coloured
+cut of the new tulip, I may as well tell you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't. It's about your pig-headed friend, James."</p>
+
+<p>"James? What about him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just this, Oom Peter: I think he is interested in Kathrien."</p>
+
+<p>"Who? James? Bah! You're dreaming. That's just like a lover. Thinks
+every one is try<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>ing to steal his sweetheart. Why, James is too much
+wrapped up in his work to care about anything else. His work and his
+crazy theories that he gets out of books. Interested in Kathrien? Just
+to show you how foolish you are to think that, he asked me not five
+minutes ago to transfer him to the Florida headquarters. And, even if he
+weren't so absorbed in the business, he'd never even presume to think of
+Kathrien. It's preposterous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" said Frederik, quite unconvinced. "Yet I've reason to believe
+he has been making love to her."</p>
+
+<p>There was a quiet certainty in his nephew's voice that caught Grimm's
+reluctant credence.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll find out mighty soon," he declared. "Katje!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" expostulated Frederik. "It would be better not to bring her
+into it or give her the idea that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Katje!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Oom Peter," answered the girl, hurrying in from the dining-room in
+response to the bellowed summons. "What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Katje," began the old man in visible embarrassment, "has&mdash;has
+James&mdash;&mdash;?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What?" queried Kathrien, as Grimm paused and broke into a shamefaced
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Has&mdash;has James ever shown any special interest in you? Ever made love
+to you, or&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Oom Peter!" expostulated Kathrien, reddening to the roots of her
+hair. "Whatever gave you such an idea as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all," he answered her. "It was just a bit of silly nonsense.
+A joke. I can't help teasing you. Because you blush so prettily.
+But&mdash;but <i>has</i> he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course not. I've always known James. Ever since I can remember.
+He's never shown any interest in me that he ought not to,&mdash;if that's
+what you mean. He's always been <i>very</i> respectful; in a perfectly&mdash;a
+perfectly friendly way."</p>
+
+<p>She was scarlet and stammering. But Grimm apparently did not notice her
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Respectful," he repeated musingly. "In a perfectly friendly way. Surely
+we couldn't ask for anything more than that. Thank you, little girl.
+That's all I wanted to know. Run along."</p>
+
+<p>Casting a puzzled look at Grimm and then at Frederik&mdash;who, since she
+first entered the room had been seated near the window, deeply absorbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+in a book,&mdash;Kathrien returned to her work in the other part of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Grimm's kind eyes had never for an instant left her troubled face, nor
+had they failed to note her evident relief at escaping from the room. As
+the door closed behind her, the kindly look faded from the old eyes,
+leaving them hard and cold. The firm jaw set more tightly. Yet, as he
+turned toward Frederik, there was no trace in his tone of anything but
+pleasant banter.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Fritzy!" said he. "You see James was only 'respectful to her in
+a perfectly friendly way.' I hope you are quite satisfied?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am," answered Frederik. "Quite. In fact I'm every bit as satisfied as
+you are, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm sat very still for a moment or so, staring blindly into space, his
+head on his breast. Then, with a sigh, he roused himself. Reaching for
+the telephone he called up his office.</p>
+
+<p>"Send Mr. Hartmann over here," he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>He set down the instrument and resumed his blank stare into nothingness.
+Frederik was once more wholly engrossed in the book he was not reading.
+Hartmann broke in upon the strained silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You sent for me, sir?" he asked, his breezy bigness waking the still
+room to life.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Peter Grimm. "James, it has occurred to me&mdash;to ask&mdash;it
+has occurred to me that&mdash;James, please tell me your reason for asking a
+few minutes ago to be transferred to Florida?"</p>
+
+<p>James made no immediate reply. He seemed ransacking his mind for the
+right words. Grimm eyed him closely, asking with sudden directness:</p>
+
+<p>"Was it on account of my little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary's confusion had fled. Calm, self-contained, flinching not
+at all from the shrewd, searching eyes that were fixed on his own, he
+stood awaiting the breaking of the storm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>A WARNING AND A THEORY</h3>
+
+<p>But, to Hartmann's surprise, the storm did not break. Instead, Peter
+Grimm sat gazing at him with impassive face,&mdash;gazing long and without a
+word. And when at last Grimm spoke, the old man's voice was as
+emotionless as his face.</p>
+
+<p>"You love her?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," answered Hartmann, as calmly as though stating some fact in
+botany.</p>
+
+<p>"H'&mdash;m!" rumbled Grimm, half to himself. "<i>Ja vis! Ja vis!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann still waited for the storm. And still it did not come.</p>
+
+<p>"You love her?" repeated Grimm. "Does she know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. She doesn't know. She need never know. I had not meant to say a
+word to any one."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm rose and came toward him. The hard face was gentle again. The
+inquisitorial voice was once more kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"James," said the old man, "go to the office<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> and get your money. Then
+start for Florida headquarters. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, sir," replied James, grasping the outstretched hand. "I'm
+very sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, too, James. Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>As Hartmann left the room, Grimm turned to Frederik, and his eyes were
+full of pain.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That</i> is settled, thank Heaven!" he announced; but there was no
+jubilance in his voice. "I wish&mdash;Hello, there's old McPherson!"</p>
+
+<p>Glad to divert his mind he hurried to the front door to welcome the
+visitor and drew him into the room with friendly roughness.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson would have borne the stamp, "Family physician of the Old
+School," even had he been found in the ranks of the Matabele army. Big,
+shaggy, bearded, he was of the ancient and puissant type that, under the
+tidal wave of "specialism" is fast being swept towards the shores where
+live the last survivors of the Great Auk, the Dinosaur, and the Spread
+Eagle Orator tribes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Peter," hailed the doctor, a Scotch burr faintly rasping
+his bluff voice. "Morning, Fred. I passed young Hartmann at the gate. He
+looks as if he was taking a pleasure trip to his own funeral. What ails
+him?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No one answered.</p>
+
+<p>"He's about the finest lad that ever I brought into the world. What's
+happened to make him so&mdash;&mdash;? Good-morning, Kathrien," he broke off, as
+the girl, followed by Marta, came in with Grimm's long delayed
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Doctor," she answered. "Oom Peter, you forgot to send for
+this. So I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" roared McPherson, sniffing the air like a bull that
+scents an enemy. "Coffee? Why, damn it, Peter, I forbade you to touch
+coffee. It's rank poison to you. And you know it is. I told you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you like a cup, Doctor?" asked Kathrien innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he'll take a cup," interrupted Grimm. "He'll damn it. But
+he'll drink it."</p>
+
+<p>"And look here!" proceeded McPherson, pointing an accusing finger at the
+breakfast tray. "Waffles! Actually <i>waffles</i>! And after I told you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Katje," explained Grimm, "he'll damn the waffles, too. But, if you
+watch closely, you'll notice he'll eat some. Sit down, Andrew."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," fumed the doctor, "I didn't come here to encourage you, by
+my example, in wrecking your system. I came for a serious talk with you,
+Peter."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien, at the hint, discreetly effaced herself. Frederik followed her
+example.</p>
+
+<p>"Well? well?" queried Peter in mock despair, seating himself opposite
+his old crony and tyrant. "What new horrors of diet have you thought up
+for my misery? Out with it. Let me know the worst."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't your body this time, Peter," was the troubled answer. "It's
+something that means more. The matter's been keeping me awake all night.
+Tell me:&mdash;how is every one provided for in this house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Provided for?" echoed Peter in bewilderment. "How do you mean?
+Everybody gets enough to eat and we are&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you don't understand me. You're a wonderful man for making plans,
+Peter. But what have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Done?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you&mdash;if you were to die&mdash;say to-morrow, or&mdash;or any other time," went
+on the doctor with an effort at carelessness that sat on his rough
+hon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>esty as ill as his Sunday broadcloth adorned his rugged shoulders,
+"if you&mdash;die&mdash;unexpectedly,&mdash;how would it be with the rest of them
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>Grimm set down his coffee cup with slow precision. And slowly he raised
+his eyes to McPherson's worried gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" he asked with something very like awe in his tone.
+"If I were to die to-morrow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't!" declared McPherson emphatically. "You won't. So don't
+worry. You're good for a long time yet. A score of years, perhaps.
+You're all right, if you take decent care of yourself. Which you never
+do. But we've all got to come to it, sooner or later. And it's well to
+make provision. For instance, what would Kathrien's position be in this
+house, in case you were taken out of it? Kathrien is a little
+'prescription' of mine, you'll remember. And&mdash;I suppose your heart is
+still set on her marrying Frederik, so that what is one's will be the
+other's. Personally I've always thought it was rather a pity that
+Frederik wasn't James and James wasn't Frederik."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" cried Peter. "What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's none of my business," answered McPher<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>son. "And it's all very well
+as it stands&mdash;if she wants Frederik. But if you want to do anything for
+<i>her</i> future welfare, take my advice, and do it <i>now</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," Peter said evenly, between stiffening lips, "you mean that I
+could&mdash;die?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every one can," replied McPherson with elephantine lightness. "And at
+one time or another, every one does. It's a thing to be prepared for."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," urged Grimm, the keen little eyes piercing the other's
+badly woven cloak of indifference. "You think that I&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean nothing more nor less, Peter, than that the machinery is wearing
+out. There's absolutely no cause for apprehension. Still, I thought I
+had better tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked Grimm with a pathetic insistence, "if there's no cause for
+apprehension&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Peter: when I cured you of that cold the other day&mdash;the cold
+you got by tramping around like an idiot among the wet flower-beds
+without rubbers&mdash;I made a discovery of&mdash;of something I can't cure."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm studied his friend's unreadable face for an instant with an almost
+painful intensity. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> a smile swept away the worry from his own
+visage.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Andrew, you old croaking Scotch raven," he cried. "Your
+professional ways will be the death of some one yet. But the 'some one'
+won't be Peter Grimm. That sick bed manner is splendid for bullying old
+maids into taking their tonic. But it's wasted on a grown man. No, no,
+Andrew. You can't make <i>me</i> out an invalid. You doctors are a sorry lot.
+You pour medicines of which you know little into systems of which you
+know nothing. You condemn people to death as the old Inquisition would
+have blushed to. Why, every day we read in the papers about some frisky
+boy a hundred years old whom the doctors gave up for lost when he was
+twenty-five. And," the forced gaiety in his voice merging into
+aggressive resolve, "I'm going to live to see children in this old house
+of mine. Katje's babies creeping about this very floor; sliding down
+those bannisters over there, pulling the ears of Lad, my collie."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, Peter! That dog is fifteen years old <i>now</i>! Argue yourself
+into miraculous longevity if you want to. But don't argue old Lad into
+it. Do you expect <i>nothing</i> will ever change in your home?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," agreed Peter, with unshaken defiance. "But not before I live
+to see a new line of rosy-faced, fluffy-haired little Grimms."</p>
+
+<p>McPherson leaned back with a sigh of discouragement. Then, with
+professional insight, he noted for the first time the gallant fight the
+old man opposite him was making to keep up that obstinate gay courage
+whose outward expression had so irritated the doctor. And, all at once,
+McPherson ceased to become the gruff friend and assumed the r&ocirc;le that
+Ananias's physician probably acquired from his famous patient and which,
+most assuredly, he has handed down to all his medical successors.</p>
+
+<p>"I see no reason, Peter," said he with judicial ponderousness, "why you
+shouldn't reach a ripe old age. You're quite likely to outlive me and a
+host of younger men. Only, take better care of yourself. And,&mdash;no matter
+how many probable years of life a man has before him, it does him no
+harm to set his house in order. Think over that part of my advice and
+forget the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Forget the rest of it," echoed Grimm absently. "The rest&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>McPherson hesitated; then as though overcome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> by a temptation too strong
+for him to battle against, he blurted out half-shamefacedly:</p>
+
+<p>"Peter&mdash;don't laugh at me. I want to make a strange compact with you. As
+I've told you, you're quite likely to outlive me. But&mdash;will you agree
+that whichever of us happens to&mdash;to go first,&mdash;shall come back and&mdash;and
+let the other fellow know? Let the other fellow know; so as to settle
+the Great Question once and for all?"</p>
+
+<p>Grimm stared at him for a moment. Then he set the room ringing with a
+laugh of whose mocking heartiness there could be no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Andrew! Andrew!" he cried, when he could get his breath. "Still
+riding your one crazy hobby! And you so sane in other ways!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll make the compact?" begged McPherson. "You're a man of your
+word,&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Make a compact to&mdash;&mdash;? Oh, no, no, man. <i>No!</i> I'd be ashamed to have
+people know I was such a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"But," urged the doctor, "no one else need know anything about it. It'll
+be just between ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, dear old Andrew," laughed Grimm indulgently. "Positively <i>no</i>!
+I refuse, point-blank. I'll do you any favour in reason. But I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> draw the
+line at being dragged into any of your absurd spook tests."</p>
+
+<p>"You sneer at 'spooks,' as you call them," retorted the doctor. "Most
+people do. Just as people scoffed when Columbus told them there was an
+America. But how many times do you think <i>you</i> have seen a spook,
+yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"A spook? I can't remember that I ever&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"A ghost," repeated Grimm with the utmost solemnity and wrinkling his
+forehead as in an effort of memory. "I can't just now recall&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right! Make fun of me! But you can't tell that man is
+complete&mdash;that he doesn't live more than one life;&mdash;that the soul
+doesn't pass on and on. Smile if you like. Wiser men than yourself have
+believed it. Why, man alive, every human being is surcharged with a
+persistent personal energy. And that energy must continue forever."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!" exclaimed Kathrien, coming in with a fresh supply
+of hot waffles. "Have you started on spooks again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Katje," sighed Peter dolorously. "There can be no possible
+redeeming doubt about that. He's started."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And," laughed the girl, "I wasn't on hand to hear him. Have I missed
+very much of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered her uncle. "We're still in the painful early stages of
+the squabble. I'll tell you what I'll do, Andrew: I'll compromise with
+you. Instead of making the bargain you proposed, I'll stand aside and
+let <i>you</i> go ahead of me into the next world. Then you can come back at
+your leisure and keep the spook compact. It'll be quite interesting.
+Every time a knock sounds or a chair creaks or a door bangs or Lad
+growls in his sleep, I'll strike an attitude and say: 'Ssh! There's
+Doc!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't guy me, old friend," urged McPherson. "I'm entirely serious. I'll
+make the promise and I want <i>you</i> to make it, too. Understand, I'm no
+so-called Spiritist. I'm just a groping seeker after the Truth."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what they all say," scoffed Grimm. "Seekers after the truth! And
+madly eager to believe everything they hear or read <i>except</i> the
+commonsense truth. And you, a level-headed Scotchman, old enough to be
+your own father, actually gulp down such tomfoolery! Next we'll have you
+chasing around the streets at night, looking with a dark lantern for the
+bogey man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Laugh at me if you like. I know I'm right. I know the dead <i>are</i> alive.
+They're here. Right here. They're all about us, watching us, suffering
+with us, rejoicing with us, trying no doubt to speak the warnings and
+encouragements that our world-deafened mortal ears cannot hear. I'm not
+alone in the theory. Some of the greatest scientists&mdash;the wisest men of
+the century&mdash;are of the same opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Dreamers," smiled Grimm indulgently. "Dreamers like yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Dreamers, eh?" The doctor caught him up vehemently. "<i>Dreamers?</i> You
+can't call Sir William Crookes, the inventor of the Crookes' Tubes, a
+dreamer! No, nor Sir Oliver Lodge, the great biologist; or Curie, who
+discovered radium; or Dr. Lombroso, the founder of the science of
+criminology. Are Maxwell, Dr. Vesine, Richet, and our own American, Dr.
+Hyslop, <i>dreamers</i>? Why, even Professor James, the mighty Harvard
+psychologist, took a peep at ghosts. And, instead of laughing at
+'spooks,' the big scientific men are trying to lay hold of them. I tell
+you, Peter, Science is just beginning to peer through the half-open door
+that a few years ago was shut tight."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Trying to lay hold of ghosts, are they?" said Grimm. "I'd like to lay
+hold of one. I'd lug it to the nearest police station. That's the place
+for 'em. Just as the asylum's the place for folks who believe in 'em.
+When you 'pass over,' Andrew, you'd better not come back. You won't
+enjoy prowling around a world where sane people don't believe you
+exist."</p>
+
+<p>"Peter," reproved McPherson, "I'm sorry&mdash;very, <i>very</i> sorry&mdash;that you
+and others like you think it's smart to make a joke of something you
+can't understand. Hyslop was right when he said Man will spend millions
+of dollars to discover the North Pole, but not one cent to throw a ray
+of light upon his immortal destiny."</p>
+
+<p>"And, after the millions of times they've been exposed, you blame me for
+not joining in your belief in spook mediums!"</p>
+
+<p>"A lot of mediums are humbugs, I grant you. Just as there are fakers in
+every profession. If there were no such thing as real money, there would
+be no object in making counterfeits. And some of the mediums have proven
+clearly that they are capable of real demonstrations."</p>
+
+<p>"They are, hey? What's the use of mediums at all if the dead can really
+come back? If my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> friends who have died return to earth, why don't they
+walk straight up to me and say, 'Well, Peter Grimm. Here we are!' When
+they do that, I shall gladly be the first man to take off my hat to them
+and hold out my hand. But as long as they have to employ greasy mediums
+to make their presence known, and try to prove they are with me by
+knocking on tables and tipping chairs and scratching on slates, there is
+only one of two things to believe: Either mediums are fakes, or else
+folks all become imbecile practical jokers as soon as they die."</p>
+
+<p>"Imbecile practical jokers!" repeated Kathrien, shocked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," reiterated Peter Grimm. "That's what I said. And it's a mild way
+of putting it. Would any sane man play such tricks as the spiritualists
+attribute to our dead? It shatters every thought of the majesty of
+death. Would a sane <i>live</i> man walk into my house and announce his
+presence to me by rapping on a wall or tipping a table or scrawling
+idiotic messages on a slate or talking to me through some half-educated
+'medium'? Would he&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he would!" asserted the doctor. "He'd do all those things and
+more, if he couldn't make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> you see him or hear him in any other way. As
+to mediums,&mdash;why doesn't a telegram travel through the air as well as on
+a wire? Your friends could come back to you in the old way if you could
+but put yourself in a receptive condition. But you can't. So you must
+depend on a non-professional medium,&mdash;a 'sensitive'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"See, Katje," interpolated Grimm, "he has names for them all. All neatly
+classified like so many germs in a bottle. Well, Andrew, how many ghosts
+did you see last night? He has only to shut his eyes, Katje, and along
+comes the parade. Spooks! Spooks! Spooks! Nice, grisly, shivering,
+spooky spooks! And now he wants me to put my house in order and settle
+up my affairs and join the parade."</p>
+
+<p>"Settle your affairs?" asked Kathrien puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's just his nonsense," Grimm hastened to assure her.
+"Andrew,"&mdash;he hurried on to turn the subject from dangerous
+personalities,&mdash;"you've seen a whole lot of people pass over to the
+Other Side. In fact, your patients seem to have quite a habit of doing
+that. Tell me: did you ever see one out of all that number come back
+again? Just <i>one</i>?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," answered McPherson reluctantly. "I never did, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Grimm in triumph, "and what's more, you never will. Yet
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There was not perhaps the intimate bond between doctor and patients to
+bring them back to me. But in my own family, I've known of a 'return'
+such as you speak of. A distant cousin of mine died in London. And at
+almost that very instant, she was seen in New York."</p>
+
+<p>"Rubbish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rubbish? Why? A century ago, if any one had tried to describe the
+telephone, people of your sort would have grunted 'Rubbish!' But if my
+voice can carry thousands of miles over the telephone, why cannot a
+soul, with God-given force behind it, dart over the entire universe? Is
+Thomas Edison greater than God?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor," gasped the horrified Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"And what's more," rushed on McPherson, unheeding, "they can't lay it
+all to telepathy. In the case of a spirit message giving the contents of
+a sealed letter known only to the person who has died&mdash;telepathy, eh?
+Not a bit of it. Here's a case you must have heard of, Peter. An officer
+on the Polar vessel <i>Jeannette</i> sent out by a New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> York newspaper,
+appeared one night at his wife's bedside. She was in Brooklyn. She knew
+perfectly well that he was on the Polar Sea. He said to her: 'Count!'
+Then she distinctly heard a ship's bell and her husband's voice saying
+again, 'Count!' She had counted 'six' when his voice said: 'Six bells!
+And the <i>Jeannette</i> is lost!' The ship, it turned out later, was really
+lost at the very time the woman had the vision. There! Account for
+<i>that</i> by telepathy or trickery if you can!"</p>
+
+<p>"A bad dream!" was Grimm's unshaken verdict. "I have them every now and
+then. 'Six bells and'&mdash;suet pudding brings me messages from the North
+Pole. And I can get messages from Kingdom Come when I've had half a hot
+mince pie with melted cheese on it for supper. That disposes of your
+<i>Jeannette</i> case."</p>
+
+<p>"Scoff if you like. There have been more than seventeen thousand other
+cases which the London Society of Psychical Research has found worth
+investigating."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Andrew," asked Grimm, with a covert wink at Kathrien, "supposing,
+for the sake of argument, that I <i>did</i> want to 'come back,' how could I
+manage it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the question the doctor's rising irritation at the other's friendly
+mockery was swept away by the zeal of prospective proselyting.</p>
+
+<p>"In this way, Peter," he declared. "Let me make it clear as simply as I
+can. In hypnotism our thoughts take possession of the person we
+hypnotise. When our personalities enter their bodies, something goes out
+of them:&mdash;a sort of Shadow Self. This 'Self' can be sent out of the
+room&mdash;out of the house&mdash;even to a long distance. This 'Self' is the
+force that, I firmly believe, departs from us entirely on the first or
+second or third day after death. This is the force you could send back.
+The astral envelope. Do I make it plain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Plain? Plain as a flower in the mud on a dark night. But how do you
+know <i>I've</i> got an&mdash;'envelope'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every one has. Why, De Roche has actually photographed one, by means of
+radio-photography."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm lay back in his chair and shouted aloud with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you," went on McPherson, laboriously anxious to make clear his
+point, "they could not see it when they were photographing it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, I should imagine not. Nor the picture after it was taken. But in
+other respects, I don't doubt it was a splendid likeness."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, before you try to be funny. Wait till I tell you about it. This
+'envelope' or Shadow Self stood a few feet away from the sleeper. It was
+invisible, of course, to the eye. It was only located by striking the
+air and watching for the corresponding portion of the sleeper's body to
+recoil. By pricking a certain part of the Shadow Self with a pin, the
+cheek of the patient could be made to bleed. It was at that spot that
+the camera was focussed for fifteen minutes! The result was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A spoiled film."</p>
+
+<p>"No, the profile of a head!" contradicted Dr. McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>Grimm stared at him wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you actually <i>believe</i> such idiocy?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a mere question of belief," declared McPherson, "but of
+absolute <i>knowledge</i>. De Roche, who took the picture, is not a fraud,
+but a lawyer of high standing. A room full of famous scientists saw the
+picture taken."</p>
+
+<p>"If they were honest, they were hypnotised."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you think the camera was hypnotised, too," retorted the doctor.
+"Lombroso says that once under similar circumstances an unnatural
+current of cold air went through the room and lowered the thermometer
+several degrees. These are <i>facts</i>. Can you hypnotise a thermometer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't that wonderful?" breathed Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>Grimm patted her shoulder gently, smiling as one might smile who sees a
+dearly loved child taken in by a wonder-story. Then he turned to
+McPherson, the banter in face and voice changed to mild reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Andrew," said he, reaching for his long meerschaum pipe and holding
+its coffee-brown bowl lovingly between his thick fingers, as he
+proceeded to fill it from a pouch on the mantel, "No, Andrew. I refuse
+your compact. I'll have no part or parcel in it. Because it's an
+impossible thing you ask of me. We don't come back. One cannot pick the
+lock of Heaven's gate. It is no part of our terms with the Almighty. God
+did enough for <i>us</i> when He gave us life and gave us the strength to
+work, and then gave us work to do. He owes us no explanation. I'll take
+my chances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> on the old-fashioned Paradise&mdash;with a locked gate. No bogies
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>With another reassuring smile at Kathrien as she went out with the tray
+of breakfast things, he lighted his pipe and repeated musingly:</p>
+
+<p>"No bogies for me, I say. Who are <i>you</i> that you should take the Kingdom
+of Heaven by violence? Why," he broke out, "what ails you, man?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>A QUEER COMPACT</h3>
+
+<p>"Have you done?" rasped McPherson. "Have you quite done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then listen to me. Abuse is not argument. Neither is silly mockery. I
+console myself with the thought that men have laughed at the theory of
+the earth going round, and at vaccination, and lightning rods, and
+magnetism, and daguerreotypes, and steamboats, and cars, and telephones,
+and at the theory of the circulation of the blood, and at wireless
+telegraphy, and at flying in the air. So your gibing is forgivable.
+<i>But</i>&mdash;I'm very, <i>very</i> much disappointed, Peter, that so old a friend
+should refuse such a simple request. I'll be wishing you a very good
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Andrew! Hold on!" cried Grimm, hastily setting down his pipe
+and hurrying forward to intercept his angrily departing guest. "Man,
+man, can't you keep your temper? I didn't mean to rile you. Come back.
+If you take the thing so seriously, I'll&mdash;I'll make the compact with
+you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Here's my hand on it. I know you're an old fool. And I'm another.
+So we're both in bad company. Shake hands. Now then! Whichever of us
+<i>does</i> go first is to come back and try to make himself known to the
+other. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A fit of uncontrollable laughter cut across his words. The doctor
+frowned pettishly and made as though to turn away. But Peter still held
+his hand and would not let it go.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Andrew!" he said remorsefully, as he wiped the laughter tears
+from his eyes. "I've riled you again. I'm sorry. We'll leave the matter
+this way: if I go first&mdash;and if I can come back, I <i>will</i> come back&mdash;and
+I'll apologise to you for being in the wrong. There! Does that satisfy
+you, Andrew? I say I'll come back and apologise."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean it, Peter?" asked McPherson eagerly. "You're not joking?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I mean it. If I can, I'll come back. And if I come back I'll
+apologise to you. It's a deal. Now let's have a nip of my plum brandy to
+seal the compact."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll step down to the cellar and get a fresh bottle of it. That one on
+the sideboard hasn't got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> two man's size drinks left in it. I'll be back
+in a minute and then we'll drink to spooks. Especially to spooks that
+come back and apologise."</p>
+
+<p>With a chuckle at his own odd conceit, he vanished cellarward. As the
+door closed behind him, Kathrien came in from the dining-room, where
+evidently she had been awaiting a chance for a word alone with
+McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," she asked almost breathlessly, "do you really believe the dead
+can come back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" demanded McPherson, beginning to bristle for a new argument.
+"Why shouldn't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;you mean to say you could come back to this room if you were dead,
+and I could see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You might not see me. I don't say you could. But I could come back."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;and could you <i>talk</i> to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"But, could I hear you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I don't know. You see, that's what we gropers after the light are
+trying to make possible. Hello!" he interrupted himself, in a none too
+pleased whisper. "<i>Here</i> are some people that can talk and that one
+can't help hearing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ushered in by Willem, the Rev. Mr. Batholommey, the local Episcopal
+clergyman of Grimm Manor, and his placid, portly wife, swept in from the
+vestibule on clerical visitation bent.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Doctor," sighed Mrs. Batholommey, comprising the whole
+sunlit room in one all-compassionate glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Kathrien."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Mrs. Batholommey," answered Kathrien, loudly enough to
+drown McPherson's growl of unwelcoming welcome. "Good-morning, Pastor.
+Oom Peter will be back directly. I'll tell him you're here."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried out of the room. McPherson showed strong inclination to
+follow her. But Mrs. Batholommey had already singled him out for her
+prey and bore down upon him with a becomingly woe-begone face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor," she panted, wiping her eyes. "Does he know it yet? <i>Does</i>
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does <i>who</i> know <i>what</i>?" snapped the doctor, his glance straying
+wrathfully toward the rotund clergyman, who all at once assumed an
+abjectly apologetic air and interested himself in a picture on the
+farther wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor dear Mr. Grimm," pursued Mrs. Bath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>olommey. "Does he know he's
+going to die?"</p>
+
+<p>Willem, who was halfway out of the room by this time, halted, turned
+back and, unobserved, stood listening with wide eyes and open mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"What in blue blazes are you talking about?" thundered McPherson,
+glowering down on his rector's wife in a most unadmiring manner.</p>
+
+<p>"About Mr. Grimm. Does he know yet that he must die?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does the whole damned town know it?" roared the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey in prim horror at the explosive adjective.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Doctor," put in the rector with urbane haste, before his
+spouse could recover breath to rebuke the blasphemer or return to the
+attack. "You see, it's this way: You consulted Mr. Grimm's lawyer. And
+his wife told <i>my</i> wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Gabbed, did he?" snorted McPherson. "To perdition with the professional
+man who gabs to his wife!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor!" expostulated Mrs. Batholommey. "How can&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am inexpressibly grieved," said her husband,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> "to learn that Mr.
+Grimm has an incurable malady. And is it true that the nature of it
+is&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"The nature of the whole affair is <i>this</i>," returned McPherson. "He
+isn't to be told. Understand that, please. He must <i>not</i> know. I didn't
+say he had to die at once. He may outlive us all. He probably will. And,
+in any event, no one must speak to him about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think," said Mrs. Batholommey in lofty rebuke, "that a man's
+rector might be allowed to talk to him on such a theme. It seems to me,
+Dr. McPherson, if <i>you</i> can't do any more, it's <i>his</i> turn. From the way
+you doctors assume control of everything, it's a wonder to me you don't
+want to baptise the babies, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose!" murmured the doctor in mild reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"At the last moment," Mrs. Batholommey insisted, ignoring her husband,
+"Mr. Grimm will want to make a will. And you know he <i>hasn't</i>. He'll
+want to remember the Episcopal Church of Grimm Manor, and his
+charities&mdash;and his&mdash;friends. If he doesn't, the rector will be blamed as
+usual. You're not doing right, Doctor, in keeping&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose! My dear!" interjected her husband. "These private matters&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll trouble you, Mrs. Batholommey," shouted McPherson, "to attend to
+your own affairs, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!" bleated the rector.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let him talk, Henry!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey in semi-tearful
+exaltation. "I can bear it. Besides," coming to earth level, "no one in
+town pays any attention to what he says since he has taken up with
+spiritualism."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rose! My dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up!" whispered McPherson wrathfully. "Here he comes. Remember what
+I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm put an end to the warning by reappearing from the cellar
+with a small demijohn in his hand. His face brightened into a smile of
+pleasant greeting as he saw his two new guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he exclaimed, "this is the jolliest sort of a surprise. I hope I
+haven't kept you waiting long?"</p>
+
+<p>The rector and his wife glanced at each other in embarrassment. Mrs.
+Batholommey turned toward Peter with a lachrymose grimace, intended
+doubtless for a consoling smile, and seemed about to break into a
+torrent of speech. But the rector,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> after a timid look at McPherson,
+nervously forestalled her by coming hurriedly to the front.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, dear friend," said he. "This is just a little impromptu
+visit of gratitude. We wish to thank you for the lovely flowers that
+Willem brought us a few minutes ago, and for the noble check you sent
+yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," laughed Peter uncomfortably, "please don't even think of thanking
+me. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And," nervously pursued the rector, sparring for time, "I want to let
+you know how much we are still enjoying the delicious vegetables you so
+generously provided. I <i>did</i> relish that squash. If I were obliged to
+say offhand what my favourite vegetable is, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," interposed Peter, his glance straying past the rector and
+resting with swift concern upon Mrs. Batholommey's quivering expanse of
+face, "but is anything distressing you, Mrs. Ba&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" interjected the rector with break-neck haste.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" responded Mrs. Batholommey in the same breath.</p>
+
+<p>A half inaudible growl from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of
+negation. A chord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the
+simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the
+trio to another.</p>
+
+<p>Willem, strolling from his retreat, crossed to the table, picked up a
+picture book, and in leisurely fashion mounted with it to the gallery
+landing that overlooked the room. There he threw himself on a settee
+between the bedroom doors and opened the book at random.</p>
+
+<p>His lower lip quivered ever so little and his blue eyes were big with a
+troubled wonder. From time to time his glance would stray from the gaudy
+pages of the picture book down to Grimm in the room below. And each time
+the wonder in his eyes became tinged with a new sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Peter Grimm's look of questioning, perplexed sympathy toward
+her tumult ridden self was becoming far too much for Mrs. Batholommey's
+jellylike self-control. The jelly began to quake&mdash;quite visibly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid," Peter went on kindly, "that something unpleasant might
+have happened. And I hoped perhaps I might be able&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! No, no, <i>no</i>!" denied the utterly flustered woman. "I&mdash;I hope
+you are feeling well, Mr. Grimm. No&mdash;no&mdash;I don't mean that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> I&mdash;I don't
+mean that I hope you are <i>well</i>. Of course not. I&mdash;that is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she hopes it," boomed her husband, coming to the rescue with
+heavy and uncertain cheeriness that rang as false as the ring of a
+leaden dollar. "And of course <i>all</i> of us hope it, dear Mr. Grimm. With
+all our hearts. And we wish you many, <i>many</i> years of life and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed we do," chimed in Mrs. Batholommey. "And, as Dr. McPherson
+just said, there may perhaps be no reason,&mdash;with proper care&mdash;why you
+shouldn't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A blundering rector must be put up with because of his cloth. But when
+it comes to a blundering rectorette, there ought to be a line drawn!"</p>
+
+<p>It was McPherson who said it. He addressed no one, but seemed to be
+confining his heretical sentiments to the window seat. Also he spoke in
+a gruff undertone&mdash;that filled the room like far off thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm flung himself into the breach, even before the wave of
+outraged red could gush to Mrs. Batholommey's shaking visage.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you&mdash;will you have a glass of plum brandy?" he asked her, and then
+caught himself with the scared grin of a very guilty schoolboy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I thank you," she retorted, safe for the moment in the full majesty of
+Temperance. "I do not take such things. Perhaps you forget I am the
+President of our local W. C. T. U. and the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Little Brothers of the Artesian Well," added Grimm, "or whatever
+they call it. I remember. And I'm sorry. I wouldn't tempt you from your
+principles for the world. Forgive me. How about <i>you</i>, Pastor? A little
+drop of plum brandy, for&mdash;for&mdash;let's see, what is it St. Paul says
+about&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no," declined the rector, with an apprehensive gesture
+towards his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come!" urged Peter hospitably. "Why, the other evening when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+you dropped over here after the vespers, sir, you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I only use it when absolutely needful for medicinal purposes," insisted
+the rector hurriedly. "Not to-day, I thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was a single man,
+was he not, Pastor?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 315px;"><a name="ILLO1" id="ILLO1"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+<img src="images/image_0095.jpg" width="315" height="500" alt="&quot;I believe,&quot; said Peter irrelevantly, &quot;that St. Paul was
+a single man, was he not, Pastor?&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;I believe,&quot; said Peter irrelevantly, &quot;that St. Paul was
+a single man, was he not, Pastor?&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I believe so. It is not definitely known. But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was only wondering," mused Peter, "how he would have accounted to St.
+Pauline, or what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>ever his wife's name would have been, for what he wrote
+in favour of 'a little wine for&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," explained Mrs. Batholommey, still safe, and ever feeling safer,
+now that temperance was again the theme, "St. Paul referred to
+unfermented wine, you know. Every one ought to understand that. It is so
+hard to make people see the difference."</p>
+
+<p>"One bottle would convince them," said Peter very gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"No," Mrs. Batholommey corrected him with serene loftiness. "You do not
+quite get my point, dear Mr. Grimm. For instance, when the poets,&mdash;even
+good men like the late Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier&mdash;speak of 'wine,'
+they use the word of course in its poetical sense. They use it merely to
+typify&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Booze," growled McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Good cheer," amended Mrs. Batholommey, withering him with a single
+frown. "And yet it is terribly misleading. I remember when we had the
+Walter Scott Tableaux and Recitations at the church last fall, and old
+Mr. Bertholf from Pompton was going to recite 'Lochinvar,' I had to
+suggest a change in the poem, lest the ignorant people in the village
+might get a wrong impression of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> dear Sir Walter Scott's principles. You
+remember the couplet occurs:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"'And now I have come with this lost love of mine</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">To tread one last measure, drink one cup of wine.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"So I asked Mr. Bertholf to alter the words into something like this:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"'And now I have come with this beautiful maid</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">To tread one last measure,&mdash;drink one lemonade.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"It left the poetry just as beautiful and it took away the dangerous
+reference to wine. Mr. Bertholf didn't like it very much, I'm afraid.
+But I insisted, and at last&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And at last," snarled McPherson, to whom the thought of any mutilation
+of his fellow Scotchman's verse was as sacrilege, "and at last, poor
+Bertholf got so mixed up that he clean forgot the silly rot you'd taught
+him. And when he came to that part of the poem, he stammered for a
+second and then blurted out:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"'And now I have come with my lovely lost mate</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">To tread one last measure, drink one whiskey straight.'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," blazed Mrs. Batholommey, "and I have always believed <i>you</i> put
+him up to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," shrugged the noncommittal McPherson, "if I had, it would at
+least be more in keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>ing with what Sir Walter intended than your
+straining an immortal poem through a lemon-squeezer."</p>
+
+<p>"Andrew and I," announced Peter, hastening to pour oil on the troubled
+waters of conversation, by filling two glasses and handing one of them
+to McPherson, "are going to drink a toast to spooks."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>" squealed Mrs. Batholommey, in the accents of a rabbit that has
+been stepped on.</p>
+
+<p>"To spooks&mdash;we&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how <i>can</i> you?" she gasped. "How <i>can</i> you? To spooks! <i>You</i> of all
+men! The very idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Batholommey!" exclaimed Peter in real alarm, setting down his
+glass and moving toward her. "Something <i>has</i> happened! You are
+quite&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she wailed helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing, Mr. Grimm," soothed the rector. "Nothing at all, I
+assure you. My wife is a trifle overwrought this morning. Nothing of any
+consequence. I mean&mdash;that is, of course&mdash;we must all keep our spirits
+up, Mr. Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, deliver us!" intoned McPherson in mingled fervour and
+disgust.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know what it is," declared Peter with sudden enlightenment. "You've
+just come from a wedding! That's it! I know. Women love weddings better
+than anything on earth. They'll talk about it for months beforehand.
+They'll walk miles to attend one.&mdash;And they'll weep all the rest of the
+day. I don't know why. But they do it. I should be grateful, I suppose,
+that no women were ever called upon to shed tears at <i>my</i> wedding. But I
+hope, before so very long&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey had not in the very least caught the drift of the
+laughing speech whereby he had sought to put the poor woman at her ease.
+And now all at once, the last sagging vestige of self-control went from
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Grimm!" she moaned, breaking in upon his words. "You were
+always so kind to us. There never was a better, kinder, gentler man in
+all this world than you were."</p>
+
+<p>"Than I <i>was</i>?" asked Peter bewildered. "Is my character changing
+or&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she corrected herself flounderingly. "I don't mean that. I
+mean&mdash;I meant&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her gaze fluttered helplessly about the big room and chanced at last to
+fall upon the reading boy, asprawl on the gallery bench above them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I meant," she plunged along, "what would become of poor little Willem
+if you&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>This time her glance was caught and transfixed by McPherson's furious
+glare, much as a great flopping beetle might be pierced by the sting of
+a wasp. Mrs. Batholommey prided herself upon her tact. That glare nerved
+her to another effort.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she shrilled, wildly and awkwardly clambering out of the
+slough, "it's fearful he had such a 'M.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Such a 'M'?" queried Peter. "What does that mean?"</p>
+
+<p>With a warning glance toward the absorbed boy she shaped her lips
+noiselessly into the word "Mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Peter. "I understand. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to have told Mr. Batholommey or me," went on Mrs.
+Batholommey, climbing still higher on to solid ground, "who the 'F'
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"'F'? What does that mean?"</p>
+
+<p>And again the rabbit-like lips shaped themselves into a soundless word,
+this time 'Father.'</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," grunted Peter, "the word you want isn't 'Father,' but 'Scoundrel!'
+Whoever he is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Willem flung aside his book and leaped to his feet as though his little
+body were galvanised.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> The others looked at him in guilty dread, fearing
+he had heard and had somehow understood their awkwardly veiled allusions
+to his parentage. But they were mistaken. A sound, far more potent to
+every normal child's ear than the fiercest thunders of morality, had
+reached his keen senses as he lounged up there. And a moment later they
+all heard it.</p>
+
+<p>It was the braying of a distant but steadily approaching brass band.
+With it came a confused but ever louder medley of shouts, handclapping,
+raucous voices, and the higher tones of delighted children. As Kathrien
+came running in at one door, followed by Marta, and Frederik sauntered
+in from the office, Willem rushed down the stairway and into the window
+seat, where he sprang upon a chair and craned his neck to see the
+stretch of village street beyond. Nearer and louder came the music and
+the attendant vocal Babel.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the circus parade!" shouted Willem. "The one they tell about in
+the advertisements and pictures on the fences. I didn't know the parade
+would start so early. There come some of them now. Oh, look! Oom Peter!
+Look! It's a clown! See! He's coming right toward us!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The band in full brazen force was discoursing a "Dutch Ditties" waltz as
+it turned the corner above. And now, the voices of the barkers were
+heard in the land.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and Gentlemen," came the leathern tones of one unseen announcer,
+"one hour before the big show begins in the main tent we will give a
+grand free balloon ascension!"</p>
+
+<p>"Remember," adjured a second Unseen, "one price admits you to all parts
+of the big show!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lemo&mdash;lemo&mdash;ice cold lemonade&mdash;five cents a glass!" shouted a youthful
+vender.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to quaff one beaker of it to Sir Walter Scott's memory, Mrs.
+Batholommey," observed McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>But the din of the oncoming parade drowned his voice. The whole roomful,
+from Marta down to Willem, were thronging into the bay window. They were
+all children again. A touch of circus had renewed their youth as by the
+wave of a magic wand. Willem broke into a cry of utter joy and pointed
+ecstatically at the open window.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment a clown, white and vermilion of face, clad in the
+traditional white, black, and scarlet motley of his tribe, had leaped
+cat-like upon the window sill and swept the room with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> painted grin.
+In his hands he held a great bunch of variegated circus bills. Tossing a
+half-dozen of these at the feet of the all-absorbed spectators, he cried
+in high cracked falsetto:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>well</i>, <i>WELL</i>! Here we are again, good people! Billy Miller's
+Big Show! Larger&mdash;greater&mdash;grander than ever. Everything new! Come and
+see the wild animals! Hear the lions roar!"</p>
+
+<p>Wheeling suddenly towards Mrs. Batholommey he pointed a whitened
+forefinger at her and broke into a truly frightful roar. The good lady
+jumped at least six inches from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Steady, ma'am!" exhorted the clown. "I won't let him bite you! Come
+one, come all! Come see the diving deer! The human fly, Mademoiselle
+Zarella!" he added, addressing the rector. "She walks suspended from the
+ceiling! One ring and no confusion!" he confided to the delightedly
+smiling Peter. "And all for the price of admission! Remember the grand
+free exhibition one hour before the big show!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, catching sight of Willem for the first time. Now, it is a
+well-grounded tradition in one-ring circus life that no clown stays long
+in the business or scores a hit in it unless he is genu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>inely fond of
+children. Noting the all-absorbing bliss and adoration in Willem's wide
+eyes, the clown grinned at the boy in right brotherly fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy!" said he cordially. "Shake!"</p>
+
+<p>Marvelling, overcome with rapture, feeling as though the proffered
+honour was one far too wonderful to be real, Willem shyly extended his
+hand and met the friendly grasp of the flour-dusted fingers. The clown,
+striking an attitude, began in shrill, exaggerated diction, to chant the
+antiquated "Frog Opera" song:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Uncle Rat has gone to town,&mdash;Ha-<i><span class="smcap">H'm</span></i>!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Uncle Rat has gone to town,"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>he sang on, addressing Willem,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"To buy his niece a wedding gown."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Ha-<i><span class="smcap">H'm</span></i>!" intoned Willem, delightedly; laughing aloud as he realised
+he was actually singing with a real live clown.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"What shall the wedding breakfast be?"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>continued the clown, interrogating the equally youthful and delighted
+Peter Grimm. And this time more voices than Peter's and Willem's caught
+up the refrain:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Ha-<i><span class="smcap">H'm</span></i>!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Hard-boiled eggs and a cup of tea,"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>sang the clown. And again from Willem and the rest came the answering:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Ha-<i><span class="smcap">H'm</span></i>!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Billy Miller's Big Show!" yelled the clown. "Come one, come all! So
+long, Sonny!"</p>
+
+<p>He was gone. The others came back to earth. But Willem was still in the
+wonder clouds. It had been to him an experience to rehearse a thousand
+times, to dream over, to remember forever. Peter Grimm, reading the
+boy's thoughts as could only a heart that must ever be boyish, beckoned
+Willem to him, as Kathrien and Marta departed to their interrupted work
+in the dining-room and the rest looked half ashamed at their momentary
+excitement over so garish and trivial a thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem!" called Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ja</i>, Mynheer," answered the boy, coming slowly, his face still alight
+with his tremendous adventure of a moment ago.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," repeated Grimm, "you wouldn't care to go to that circus, would
+you? Wouldn't it be pretty stupid?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stupid!</i>" gasped the boy. "Oh!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Peter, "suppose you go, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go? Really, Mynheer Grimm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go get the seats," ordered Grimm. "Here's the money. Get two <i>front</i>
+seats. <i>Two.</i> We'll both go. We'll make a night of it, you and I. We'll
+stay out till&mdash;till ten o'clock!"</p>
+
+<p>The vision of this bliss was too much for Willem's English.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ekar, ekar na hat circus!</i>" he babbled dazedly.</p>
+
+<p>Then he rushed up impulsively to Peter and seized the big, kindly hand
+in both his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mynheer <i>Grimm</i>!" he squealed in ecstasy. "There ain't any one else
+like you in the world. And&mdash;and&mdash;when the other fellows laugh at your
+funny hat, <i>I</i> don't."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked Grimm, perplexed. "Is my hat funny?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy was vibrant with laughter, drunk with anticipation. But,
+momentarily straightening his glowing face with a cast of semi-gravity,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;and&mdash;Mynheer Grimm&mdash;it's too bad you've got to die!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>BREAKING THE NEWS</h3>
+
+<p>There was an instant of stark, palsied silence. The rector, his wife,
+and McPherson looked at the all-unconscious boy with dumb horror. A
+horror that for the time crowded out indignation. Frederik, ignorant as
+he was of any cause for emotion, was struck by the tense bearing of the
+trio and looked from one to the other with the air of the only man in
+the room who does not catch a joke's point.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm alone was not affected by Willem's words. He was used to the
+child's oddities, his alternating high spirits, and dashes of sadness;
+his old-fashioned phrases and his queer lapses. Grimm broke the ominous
+silence with an amused chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"Most people die, sooner or later, Willem," he answered, stroking the
+boy's shock of soft yellow hair. "I'll live to see you in the business
+though. And we'll go to dozens of circuses together, too. Don't worry
+your little head over your Oom Peter's dying. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused. The electrified atmosphere gen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>erated by the three
+conspirators began to reach his non-sensitive brain. A quick glance at
+Mr. Batholommey and a second at the rector's wife confirmed his vague
+feeling that something was wrong. He turned back to Willem, in time to
+intercept a blighting scowl of warning the doctor was trying to flash to
+the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," asked Grimm gently, "how did you happen to say such a queer
+thing just now? What made you think I'm going to die?"</p>
+
+<p>A concerted and unintelligible interruption from the trio was voiced too
+late to prevent Willem's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> said so," replied the boy, pointing at McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>Then he caught the doctor's annihilating frown. And, simultaneously the
+rector cried in stern admonition:</p>
+
+<p>"Willem!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey, too, was making quite awful and wholly
+incomprehensible faces at him. Under the triple menace the boy wilted.
+Like every child, since Cain, he had a thousand times been reproved for
+things he had said or done in perfect innocence. In fact, the more
+unconscious the offence, the more dire was the reproof. Chil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>dren do not
+reason in such matters. It is enough for them to know they have said or
+done the wrong thing; without stopping to discover why or how that thing
+chanced to be wrong.</p>
+
+<p>The non-linguist traveller in a foreign land cannot read the "Keep off
+the Grass" or "No Thoroughfare" signs. But the policeman's threatening
+club has a universal language that he understands and intuitively obeys.
+So Willem (ignorant of death save as an empty name that vaguely carried
+a note of sorrow, and wholly unaware why he should not have imparted the
+news of Grimm's coming demise), saw he had said something very terrible.
+And a look of abject panic came into his face.</p>
+
+<p>But Grimm's hand was still on his head,&mdash;gentle, caressing, infinitely
+tender in its touch.</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't stop the boy," commanded Peter, meeting the variously
+anguished glances of the others with a half smile that began and ended
+in the suddenly widened eyes. "Don't stop him. Only children speak the
+truth nowadays. It used to be 'children and fools.' But fools have
+learned to tell fool-lies, and they have left children the monopoly of
+truth telling. Go on, Willem. You heard the doctor say that I am going
+to&mdash;&mdash;?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Willem's fragile little body was trembling from head to foot. Under Mrs.
+Batholommey's distorted glare and threatening noiseless mouthings his
+puny courage had gone to pieces. Big tears began to roll down his
+cheeks. And noting the child's terror, Grimm fell to soothing him.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, <i>jounker</i>," comforted Peter. "Don't let them frighten
+you. Oom Peter will stand by you. You haven't done anything wrong and
+nobody's going to scold you. Don't be scared."</p>
+
+<p>Under the strangely gentle voice and the consoling touch of the rough,
+kindly hand, Willem's fears subsided. With Oom Peter on his side, he
+could brave the frowns of all Grimm Manor if need be. For who was so
+strong, so wise as Oom Peter?</p>
+
+<p>Did not every one bend to his orders and come running to him for advice
+and aid, as troubled children seek out a loving father? The boy ceased
+to tremble. He looked up into Grimm's face for something that should
+confirm the words and the touch.</p>
+
+<p>And he found it. The rugged old visage had never before been so kindly,
+so unruffled. And in the little eyes that could flash so obstinately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+and irritably, there was nothing but friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>Yes&mdash;something more that the boy had never before seen. Something he
+could not read, but that seemed to draw him strangely close to the old
+man, and freed him of his last vestige of fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be scared, dear lad," repeated Grimm. "So you heard Dr. McPherson
+say I am going to die?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm turned slowly to the doctor, who still stood glowering, red,
+speechless, furiously miserable.</p>
+
+<p>"Andrew," asked Grimm quietly, "what did you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Before McPherson could speak, Grimm checked him with a move of the head
+and glanced down at the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind just now," said he. "Willem didn't mean any harm in telling
+me. It just popped out, didn't it, Willem? The only person who never
+says the wrong thing at the wrong time is a deaf mute whose fingers are
+paralysed. We'll forget all about it. Now run along, lad, and get those
+circus tickets before all the best ones are gone. Front row seats,
+remember. We're go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>ing to have the finest sort of a spree, you and I.
+Hurry now."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ja</i>, Oom Peter!" cried the boy, all laughter once more.</p>
+
+<p>He snatched his cap from the rack, in his haste almost upsetting Grimm's
+antiquated tile that hung beside it; and, with a farewell shout, was
+gone. His feet padded joyously on the gravel outside; then silence fell
+again in the big room. It was Mr. Batholommey who broke the spell.
+Walking solemnly up to Peter, who stood looking with a sort of stunned
+wistfulness straight in front of him, the rector held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, dear brave friend," he said, with an air gruesomely if
+unconsciously reminiscent of his burial service manner. "Any time you
+telephone for me, day or night, I'll run over <i>immediately</i>. God bless
+you, sir!" his rounded voice shaking uncontrollably. "I have never come
+to you in behalf of any worthy charity and been refused. You have set an
+example in upright living, in generosity, in true manliness, and in
+constant church attendance that should be an example to all my vestrymen
+and to the town at large. I have never seen a nobler man. Never.
+Good&mdash;good-morning."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He moved toward the door, winking very fast and clearing his throat. At
+the threshold he beckoned to his wife. But she had already borne down
+upon Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grimm!" she sobbed. "The best&mdash;the kindest&mdash;the&mdash;the&mdash;Oh, I <i>don't</i>
+see how we are going to bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mrs. Batholommey," answered Grimm. "Please don't be so overcome. I
+may outlive you all. Nevertheless, I am grateful to your husband for
+letting me hear my funeral eulogy in advance, and to you for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how <i>can</i> you make light of it?" she sobbed. "Yes, dear, I'm
+coming. Good-bye, Mr. Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>Like a confused and somewhat elderly hen she scuttled off in her
+husband's wake, while Peter Grimm stared after the two with a
+half-amused, half-perplexed smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the wall-eyed, semi-anthropoid congenital idiots," roared
+McPherson as the door closed behind them, "those two are&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're mistaken, Andrew," contradicted Grimm. "They're kind-hearted,
+good people, who spend their lives and their substance in helping
+others. If you and they can't get on together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> it's no one's fault. Any
+more than because fuchsias and sunflowers won't thrive in the same bed.
+Now calm down a bit, old friend, and tell me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing! It was nothing. Just nonsense. Don't give it another thought,
+Peter. You said, yourself, a while ago, that many a man who was given up
+by the doctors at twenty-five lives to be a hundred. And there is no
+reason on earth why you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" urged Grimm. "I don't need that. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fret yourself, Peter," insisted McPherson. "You mustn't get the
+idea that you are worse off than you really are. Don't get cold feet or
+let this thing worry you to death. You must live for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Andrew!" chided Grimm, with tolerant reproof. "Are you so tangled up
+that you think you're talking to Willem instead of to a full-grown man?
+If it's got to be, it's got to be. And you were wrong not to tell me at
+once. That is the way with you doctors. You are so in the habit of
+dealing with hysterical women and hypochondriacs that you forget that a
+<i>man</i> is shaped by nature to bear the naked truth without having it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+rigged up beforehand in a lot of fluff to disguise its shape. I think I
+understand. I may live a while longer. And I may not. The same thing
+could be said of every one."</p>
+
+<p>McPherson tried to speak, then turned and made blindly for the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute!" called Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>McPherson halted. Peter crossed to where his friend stood. With an
+effort at his old-time whimsical banter he held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I just want to promise again, Andrew," he said, "that if there's
+anything in this spook business of yours, I'll come back. And I'll
+apologise. Good-bye and good luck."</p>
+
+<p>McPherson wrung his hand, without speaking, and strode noisily out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HAND RELAXES</h3>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm walked slowly back into the room. He paused at his desk and
+laid his hand on a sheaf of papers piled there. He looked about the big
+sunlit apartment almost as if he were trying to stamp the image of each
+of its familiar, pleasant features upon his memory.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik, in the window seat, had been a silent onlooker to the strange
+scene. His pallid, thin face was set in an aspect of grieved wonder. And
+Peter Grimm, meeting his glance, sought to soften the young man's
+sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Brace up, Fritzy," he said gaily. "It's nothing to look so
+down-in-the-mouth about. Doctors are apt to be wrong. They guess too
+much. When the guess is right they win a reputation for wisdom. When
+it's wrong&mdash;as it is nine times out of eight,&mdash;they say they knew it all
+along but thought it wasn't wise to tell the patient and his friends.
+Doctoring is a grand game,&mdash;for the man who has no sense of humour and
+can play it with a straight face. Now let's forget old An<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>drew's
+croakings. Go and get me some change for the circus, Fritzy. Enough for
+Willem and me to buy all the red-ink lemonade and popcorn and peanuts
+and candy we can eat. Get me a whole dollar, anyhow. And then, if
+there's any left over after the show, I can&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir!" cried Frederik protestingly. "Are you going after all, Uncle?
+And with that child? Do you think it's wise to&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wise?" echoed Peter gleefully. "Of course it isn't wise. That's the
+glory of a circus. It's almost the one place where people can go and
+forget they were ever meant to be wise. And that's why I am going. That
+and because I wouldn't disappoint Willem. Miss a circus? Miss Billy
+Miller's Big Show? Not I. <i>You</i> may be too old for such follies, Fritz.
+But I'll never be."</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir," said Frederik, "in case you should be taken ill&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't be."</p>
+
+<p>"With no companion but that half-witted&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Willem is not half-witted. He has as much sense as any boy of his age.
+And more, in many ways. Why do you dislike him so, Fritz?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dislike him?" echoed Frederik uneasily. "I don't. Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"When you came back from Europe and found him living with us," pursued
+Grimm, "you seemed annoyed. He tried to make friends with you at first.
+But you seemed always to rebuff him. Why? He's a lovable, interesting
+little chap. One would think you had some strong prejudice against
+him&mdash;or some reason&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course not. How could I have? The boy is nothing to me, one way
+or another, Uncle. As you're so fond of him, I'd be glad to do anything
+I could for him. As there's nothing I <i>can</i> do, and as he seems actually
+afraid of me, for some silly childish reason or other, I let him alone."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm's attention had already wandered and that same new look which
+Willem had first detected crept back into his lined face. But the sight
+of Kathrien coming in from her preparations for the one o'clock dinner
+brought him back to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Katje!" he hailed her. "Do you want to go to the circus with Willem and
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ja!</i>" she laughed joyously. "<i>Nat&uuml;rlich.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! One more member of the family who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> is no more grown up than I am!
+I want to see Mademoiselle Zarella, the human fly, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped to light the big meerschaum he had just filled. Then, going
+over to his favourite big armchair&mdash;a Dutch importation of a hundred
+years earlier, with pulpit back and high solid arms&mdash;he settled himself
+comfortably in it.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm was tired. And he wanted to think over the news he had so
+recently heard;&mdash;to dissect and analyse it and, if need be, to adjust
+himself to its awesome import. He sat back with half-closed eyes,
+puffing now and then mechanically at his pipe, his veiled glance resting
+here, there, and everywhere among the surroundings he loved.</p>
+
+<p>The stable clock chimed the noon hour. The big, slow-swinging arms of
+the windmill slackened motion and stood still. A hush was in the air.
+The warm, lazy, wonderful hush of summer noon.</p>
+
+<p>The midday sunlight gushed in unchecked through the wide windows,
+flooding the room with a glory of hazy golden light; bathing the dark
+old furniture with tints of rich warmth; glowing upon the roses that
+were arranged on desk and piano.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch clock on the wall struck twelve. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> moment later, the little
+clock on the mantel jinglingly endorsed the sentiment. Then, save for
+the drowsy droning of the bees among the blossoms outside the open
+windows, there was no sound in all Grimm's world.</p>
+
+<p>Even Kathrien and Frederik seemed silenced by the spell of summer noon
+magic. The girl was looking out across the sun-kissed gardens. Frederik
+was eyeing her in complacent satisfaction, his nimble brain busy with
+the tidings that might mean so much for him.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien turned from the window at last and seated herself idly at the
+piano. Her slender fingers drifted half-aimlessly over the keys.
+Frederik lounged over to the piano and stood looking down at her.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she began to sing. Frederik joined in the song and their young
+voices blended sweetly in the old Dutch and English words:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"<i>Van een twee, een twee, nu</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Ste-ken wij van wal:</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>The bird so free in the heavens</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Is but the slave of the nest.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>For all must toil as God wills it,</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Must laugh and toil and rest.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>"The rose must blow in the gardens,</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>The bee must gather its store.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>The cat must watch the mousehole,</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>And the dog must guard the door!"</i></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the voices died away, Peter Grimm came out of his tortuous reverie.
+He had reached a decision. And, having once made up his mind, he was not
+a man to delay the execution of any plan.</p>
+
+<p>"Katje!" he called, with sharp eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>Startled at his unwonted tone, the girl hurried across to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Oom Peter?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Get me&mdash;the Staaten Bible, please. Quickly."</p>
+
+<p>Wondering at the peremptory tone of the familiar request, Kathrien
+obeyed, bringing the heavy old book to the table at his side; and
+opening it, from long habit, at the closely written pages of the Grimm
+family genealogy.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" said Peter, running his finger down the last record page until
+it stopped at the blank space just below his own name.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik!" he called. "Come here."</p>
+
+<p>The young people stood, one at each side of his chair, awaiting the next
+move, more than a little astonished at the unwonted haste and eagerness
+in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Katje," went on Grimm, almost feverishly, as he pointed again at the
+blank line beneath his birth announcement, "I want to see you married
+and happy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> happy, Uncle," she protested, "and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I want to see you happily <i>married</i>," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," she faltered. "I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>I</i> know for you, little girl," he insisted, tapping the open page.
+"And under my name here, I want to see written: '<i>Married:&mdash;Kathrien and
+Frederik.</i>' You will do as I wish, dear? It would make me so happy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Oom Peter," she faltered in distress, "of course there isn't
+anything I wouldn't do&mdash;gladly&mdash;to make you happy. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Kitty," urged Frederik, "you know I love you! You know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, yes. Certainly she does," snapped Grimm, fretted at the
+interruption. "Everybody knows that."</p>
+
+<p>Grimm caught the girl's look of dumb entreaty, misread it, manlike, and
+hurried on:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, girl, we've no time to be coy. Promise me you'll consent, Katje.
+We'll make it a June wedding. We have ten days yet. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I <i>couldn't</i>!" protested the poor girl. "<i>Really</i>, I couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, little girl. It's the easiest thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> in the world to get
+ready to be happy. Ten days is plenty. And you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We can get your trousseau later," put in Frederik eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Fritz!" cried the old man, exasperated. "<i>Will</i> you keep out of this?
+Who is managing it? You or I? In ten days, then, Katje? <i>Please!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she stammered, wretchedly at a loss, "if it will make you so
+happy, Oom Peter&mdash;if it means so much to you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It does. It <i>does</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I owe everything to you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then give me the privilege of seeing you a happy, contented wife, and
+we will write 'Paid' across the bill."</p>
+
+<p>"But why need I marry so terribly soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"To gratify a cranky old man's whim, Katje. It means more to me than I
+can tell you. Frederik understands."</p>
+
+<p>She looked from one to the other. On each face she read a fatuous
+eagerness. She knew the futility of pleading with Frederik. She knew
+still more surely the uselessness of trying to make Peter Grimm change
+his stubborn wishes. With a little catch in her breath, she gave up the
+hopeless, unequal fight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she assented.</p>
+
+<p>"You will do it?" cried Peter Grimm joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I&mdash;promise," she answered; and her voice was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" sighed Grimm, as he picked up his pipe and leaned back again in
+the big chair's recesses, a smile of utter peace and contentment
+irradiating his square old face. "You've made me very, <i>very</i> happy,
+Katje," he murmured, his eyes half-shut, his words trailing away almost
+into incoherence. "Very, very happy. I'm happier than ever I was in all
+my life&mdash;happier than ever I dreamed a man could be. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He ceased to speak. The light on his face grew brighter, then slowly
+faded as a peaceful summer day fades. He settled a little lower in his
+chair and lay back there, very still. The gnarled hand that held the
+meerschaum relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>The pipe fell clattering to the floor. Frederik stooped to pick it up.
+Kathrien, her eyes chancing to fall on Grimm's face, cried aloud in
+horror.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik followed the direction of her gaze. He sprang toward his uncle,
+laid a hand over the old man's heart, and bent down toward the still,
+grey face that was upturned to his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good God, Kitty!" he gasped. "He's <i>dead</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl had already flown toward the front door. Jerking it open she
+ran out on the steps. As she did so, she caught sight of McPherson
+coming away from a professional call at a house across the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!" screamed Kathrien frantically. "<i>Doctor!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>McPherson, next moment, had pushed past her into the living-room.
+Kneeling beside Grimm's body he made a swift examination.</p>
+
+<p>As he rose to face the others, Willem burst into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Oom Peter! Oom Peter!" shrilled the child happily. "I got them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" exclaimed McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>The boy halted in the doorway, looking in puzzled dismay at the huddled
+form in the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what is&mdash;&mdash;?" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead," replied Frederik shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Willem stood aghast for a second, while the curt announcement sank into
+his senses. Then in a burst of angry, rebellious wonder, the child
+cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Dead? He can't be. He <i>can't</i>! Why, I've got our circus tickets!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AFTERWARD</h3>
+
+<p>Grimm Manor was in mourning. And, far more to the dead man's honour,
+Grimm Manor <i>was</i> mourning.</p>
+
+<p>The last of the ancient line was dead. The Grimms had been the ruling
+spirits in the drowsy little up-State town for more than two centuries.
+From father to son, the hierarchy had been handed down.</p>
+
+<p>In days when the district was a wilderness and when the Grimms fought
+wild animal and Indian, and in the days when it was a prosperous suburb
+and the Grimms fought "scale" and locust, it had been the same:&mdash;ever a
+Grimm had swayed the little community.</p>
+
+<p>Quiet in spite of his eccentric ways and dress, Peter Grimm had been
+known chiefly as a kindly neighbour and a shrewd business man. But now,
+after his death, all sorts and conditions of people came forward with
+queer stories of his private dealings.</p>
+
+<p>There was a crotchety old Civil War veteran,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> for instance, who lived
+"on the Mountain" and who was a reputed miser. He now told how Peter
+Grimm had eked out his $8 a month pension for the past forty years and
+had made it possible for him to live in comfort. A crippled woman who,
+with her four children, had at one time seemed likely to become a public
+charge and who had been relieved in the nick of time by a legacy, now
+told the real source of that providential "legacy."</p>
+
+<p>A farm boy who had yearned to study engineering and who had been helped
+unexpectedly by a secret fund, revealed the name of the fund's donor.</p>
+
+<p>A market gardener whose house, barns, and horses had been destroyed by
+fire, proclaimed that insurance had not enabled him to make good his
+loss. For he had not been insured. Peter Grimm had set him on his feet
+again. And as in every other case, Grimm had imposed but one condition
+upon the gift:&mdash;absolute secrecy.</p>
+
+<p>These were but a few cases out of dozens that were made known within the
+week after Grimm's death.</p>
+
+<p>The little stone church of Grimm Manor was packed to the doors on the
+day that six big awkward men with tear blotched faces bore a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> silent
+burden up its aisle. A burden so covered with masses of fragrant
+blossoms as to blot out its gruesome oblong shape. The flowers were from
+Peter Grimm's own gardens, then in the riot of their June-tide glory.</p>
+
+<p>And so, covered and drifted over with the glowing blooms he loved so
+well, the dead man went to his burial.</p>
+
+<p>In the Grimm pew, with its silver plate and high, box-like sides, sat
+Frederik, Kathrien, and old Marta. The heir was as woe begone of face
+and as crassly sombre of raiment as even the most captious could have
+desired. The unostentatious pressure of his black bordered handkerchief
+to his eyes once or twice during the service attested to a sorrow that
+could not be kept wholly within stoic bounds.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, oddly enough, it was Kathrien,&mdash;rather than Frederik or the frankly
+blubbering old housekeeper,&mdash;on whom people's eyes most often
+rested&mdash;rested and then dimmed with a haze of sympathy. The girl did not
+weep. Her face was very pale. But it was set and expressionless. Save
+for its big eyes it seemed a lifeless mask. The eyes alone were alive.
+And never for one instant did they move from the flower banked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> casket
+in front of the altar rail. They were tearless. But in their soft depths
+lurked the awed, unbelieving horror of a little child's that is for the
+first time brought face to face with the Black Half of life.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien was not in mourning. Her simple white dress caused no comment.
+For, by this time, it was known she was acting on what she believed to
+be Grimm's wishes. The dead man had ever had a loathing of all the
+hideous visible trappings of grief. He had been wont to hold forth on
+his aversion after every funeral he had been forced to attend.</p>
+
+<p>"When it comes my time to fall asleep," he had said, during one of these
+Philippics, "I don't want anybody that cares for me to make death
+horrible by going around dressed like an undertaker. I'd as soon expect
+a mother to put on black after she had kissed her child good-night.
+There'd be just as much sense in it. If it's done because we're grieved
+to think where our friends have gone,&mdash;well and good. But if we're
+willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, why dress as if we were
+sorry for them?"</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore, Kathrien was wearing one of the white summer dresses he had
+loved. She had tim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>idly suggested that Frederik also honour the dead
+man's prejudices. But the sad, reproachful look he had bent upon her at
+her first hint of the subject had silenced the girl and had left her
+half-convicted of heartlessness because of her own avoidance of black.</p>
+
+<p>Willem was not at the funeral. After that first strange outburst on
+learning that Grimm was dead, the child had said no word all day. At
+night when Kathrien came to take him to bed, she found him in a high
+fever.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson had been sent for, and had examined the child closely, but
+could find no palpable cause for the malady.</p>
+
+<p>"He's an odd little fellow," he told Kathrien. "Like no other boy I've
+ever known. The Scotch call such children 'fey' and prophesy short lives
+for them. And the prophecy usually comes true. There's always been
+something psychic about Willem. A hypnotist or a medium would look on
+him as a treasure.</p>
+
+<p>"All the diagnosis I can make is that Peter's death caused a shock to
+the boy's never strong nerves and that the shock has caused the fever.
+Keep him in bed for a few days. He'll probably come around all right.
+There doesn't seem to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> be anything really serious&mdash;except that in a
+constitution like his everything is apt to be more or less serious."</p>
+
+<p>After the funeral, life went on outwardly much as before at the Grimm
+home. The only change was the impalpable one which occurs in a room when
+a clock stops.</p>
+
+<p>And, in fulfilment of Peter Grimm's last request, preparations for the
+"June wedding" were begun. It was Frederik who tactfully broached the
+theme. Kathrien, after a look of helpless fear, nodded acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>"I promised him," she said faintly. "And he died while the promise was
+still scarcely spoken. The smile of happiness it brought to his dear old
+face was on it when they laid him to sleep. I <i>couldn't</i> break that
+promise."</p>
+
+<p>"And you wouldn't, if you could. I know that," said Frederik tenderly.
+"Dear one, I would not urge the wedding at a time like this if it had
+not been his last wish that we should be married this very month."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she agreed lifelessly. "It was his wish. And we must do it."</p>
+
+<p>And with this unenthusiastic assent Frederik was forced to be satisfied.
+So the preparations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> were pushed on with a furtive, almost apologetic,
+haste.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey entered into the spirit of the affair with a lugubrious
+zest that would have sickened Kathrien had it not taken so much of the
+burden of arrangement-making off her own tired young shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>It was to Frederik and Mrs. Batholommey that every one at length turned
+for directions in details for the wedding, not to the still-faced girl
+who seemed to know or to care nothing about the way matters were to be
+conducted.</p>
+
+<p>And this gave Kathrien surcease,&mdash;a breathing space wherein to try to
+think with a brain from which sorrow had driven the power of clear
+thought; a time to plan, to <i>realise</i>, to remember,&mdash;with faculties too
+numb to carry out the will power's intent. The days crept past her like
+shadows. And the wedding day drew near. But still she could not wholly
+rouse herself from the dumb inertia that gripped her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EVE OF A WEDDING</h3>
+
+<p>Ten days later the household, which had been Peter Grimm's and was his
+no longer, had sufficiently adjusted itself to new conditions to
+endeavour to carry out his dearest wish&mdash;the marriage of Kathrien to
+Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>It was near the close of a rainy afternoon, and Mrs. Batholommey
+(installed in the house as temporary chaperone and adviser to Kathrien)
+was busily engaged in drilling four little girls from her own
+Sunday-school class to sing the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin.</p>
+
+<p>Standing at the piano, and playing with a sure, determined touch, she
+gazed over her shoulder at the children and sang vigorously, nodding her
+head to emphasise the tempo:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Faithful and true we lead ye forth</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Where love triumphant shall lead the way.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Bright star of love, flower of the earth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Shine on ye both on your love's perfect day."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>As the last line was reached, Mrs. Batholommey raised her hand in a
+signal to stop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's better. Now, children&mdash;not too loud. Remember, this is a very
+<i>quiet</i> wedding. You're to be here at noon to-morrow. You mustn't speak
+as you enter the room, and take your places near the piano. Now we'll
+sing as though the bride were here. I'll represent the bride."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey pointed at Kathrien's door as she spoke, and started
+toward it with subdued but undeniable enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Kathrien will come down the stairs from her room, I suppose&mdash;and
+will stand&mdash;I don't know where&mdash;but you've got to stop when I look at
+you. Watch me now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bending her knees, she stood bobbing up and down in time to the
+children's singing, until she caught the step, then started down the
+stairs, unconsciously raising and lowering her dress skirt to emphasise
+the rhythm of the song.</p>
+
+<p>Across the room she marched, head bent and eyes cast down, while the
+children repeated the familiar verse over and over.</p>
+
+<p>Having marched herself into a corner she halted and faced the little
+singers. At that moment, however, Frederik entered, and the rehearsal
+was over for the day. Mrs. Batholommey quickly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> left her r&ocirc;le of bride
+and dismissed the chorus with many warnings and instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, children. Hurry home between showers and don't forget
+what I've told you about to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>While she busied herself helping them into their rubbers and
+waterproofs, Frederik puffed at a cigarette in silence and was seemingly
+without the slightest interest in what was going on around him. A great
+change had taken place in his demeanour since his uncle's death. He had
+come into his own. The place, and everything, including Kathrien
+herself, would be his. He did not even try to veil his feeling of
+mastership. Walking over to his uncle's desk-chair, he sat down and
+began to pull off his gloves, looking at the children a trifle
+superciliously.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey felt it necessary to explain, and murmured with
+deprecatory haste:</p>
+
+<p>"My Sunday-school children. I thought your dear uncle wouldn't like it
+if he knew there wasn't going to be <i>any</i> singing during the marriage
+ceremony to-morrow. I know how bright and cheery <i>he</i> liked everything,"
+she purred. "If he were alive it would be a church wedding! Dear, happy,
+charitable soul!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As she spoke she handed the children their umbrellas and, exchanging
+good-byes, the little choir hurried out into the rain.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Kathrien?" said Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>"Still upstairs with Willem," answered Mrs. Batholommey, glancing up
+toward the little boy's room apprehensively as she spoke, and lowering
+her voice a bit.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik made an inarticulate sound of annoyance, and putting his hand
+into his pocket, took out two steamer tickets and examined them. His one
+idea was to get away from the simple, quaint surroundings that his uncle
+had kept and beautified for him in the fond, proud hope that his nephew
+would love and care for the place as he had done.</p>
+
+<p>To Frederik it meant nothing but a humdrum existence, full of annoying
+detail. The money for which it stood had been his goal&mdash;that, and
+Kathrien, his uncle's very brightest flower&mdash;a flower which he was about
+to tear up by the roots and transplant to foreign soil.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey sat down in the big chair by the fire, and took up her
+crochet work with a sigh. Occasionally she looked at Frederik, and
+finally she spoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'm glad to stay here and chaperone Kathrien; but poor Mr.
+Batholommey has been alone at the parsonage for ten days&mdash;ever since
+your dear uncle&mdash;it will be ten days to-morrow since he di&mdash;oh, by the
+way, some mail came for your uncle. I put it in the drawer."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik did not trouble to answer. He merely nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Curious how long before people know a man's gone," soliloquised Mrs.
+Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>Opening the drawer carelessly Frederik took out his uncle's mail&mdash;two
+business letters and one in a plain blue envelope. He looked at them a
+moment, put them down, and proceeded to light another cigarette. Then he
+rose, and picking up his gloves looked toward the office.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Hartmann come?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Mrs. Batholommey, holding up a corner of the shawl she
+was crocheting, and surveying it critically. With a coquettish glance
+toward the bridegroom, she hummed a little bit of the wedding march.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik paid no attention to her, but, turning, gazed out of the
+window. Mrs. Batholommey, however, as the wife of a clergyman, was not
+used to being ignored; moreover, she was naturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> of a persevering
+disposition&mdash;and, added to that, she had something on her mind and could
+keep still about it no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;&mdash;" (Mrs. Batholommey coughed expressively.) "By the way, Mr.
+Batholommey was very much excited when he heard that your uncle had left
+a personal memorandum concerning <i>us</i>. We're anxious to have it read."</p>
+
+<p>She might as well have addressed herself to a stone. Frederik made no
+sort of a response. Instead, he lounged over to the piano and examined
+some of the wedding presents piled up there.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey rose with decision and approached the piano.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>We are anxious to have it read!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>With a scorching glance at Frederik, Mrs. Batholommey, her work gathered
+in a fluffy white bunch in her arms, marched quickly out of the room and
+slammed the door.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later James, newly returned from the South, entered the room
+from the office. Frederik had found it impossible to get on without him
+in the matter of winding up his uncle's business and had sent an urgent
+and somewhat peremptory call for his immediate return.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As, just then, he needed James, he was rather more civil to him than
+usual; but, from the first, he did not fail to sound the
+employer-employee note.</p>
+
+<p>He came forward and shook hands cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-afternoon. Good-afternoon. How do you do, Hartmann? I'm very glad
+you consented to come back and straighten out a few matters. Naturally,
+there's some business correspondence I don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I've already gone over some of it," answered Hartmann.</p>
+
+<p>"I appreciate the fact that you came over on my <i>uncle's</i> account."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Frederik turned away with a ceremonious bow.</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann went over to the desk and took a letter from the file. Then he
+said coldly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see that Hicks of Rochester has written you. I hope you don't
+intend to sell out your uncle before his monument is set up."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik turned toward Hartmann and put down his cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"I? Sell out? My intention is to carry out every wish of my dear
+uncle's."</p>
+
+<p>James, at this moment catching sight of Fred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>erik's black-bordered
+handkerchief, said sceptically:</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," and vanished into the office with a handful of papers.</p>
+
+<p>He wished as few words as possible with Frederik. He could not bear to
+look at him&mdash;for the thought that to-morrow Kathrien was to marry the
+man and go out of his own life for all time was almost more than he
+could stand. He had watched her grow from a lovely little girl to a
+lovelier woman&mdash;he understood her as did no one else, not even Oom
+Peter, who, too, had loved her so devotedly.</p>
+
+<p>And he felt that she loved him, though no word had ever been said. And
+now&mdash;he must let her go&mdash;he must let this worthless fellow take her&mdash;to
+a life of unhappiness; for knowing the sweet soul of Kathrien, who could
+doubt that such a marriage would bring her unhappiness?</p>
+
+<p>Frederik's eyes rested thoughtfully on Hartmann's retreating figure.
+Then a slight sound attracted his attention, and he looked up in time to
+see Kathrien coming downstairs. Her simple white dress held no touch of
+mourning, yet she was a wistful, pathetic little figure, full of
+sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Kitty! See&mdash;&mdash;" (taking out the tickets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> as he spoke). "Here's the
+steamship tickets for Europe. I've arranged everything."</p>
+
+<p>He took a step forward to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to-morrow's our wedding day, <i>lievling</i>, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Kathrien in a breathless way.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be a June wedding," Frederik went on, "just as Oom Peter wished."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien forced herself to speak brightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;just as he wished. Everything is just as he&mdash;&mdash;" she broke off
+suddenly with a change of manner, and gazed at Frederik with beseeching
+earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik, I don't want to go away. I don't want to take this journey to
+Europe. If only I could stay quietly in&mdash;in my own dear home!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>A WASTED PLEA</h3>
+
+<p>Frederik concealed his annoyance as best he could, and smiled
+affectionately at the little bride-to-be, trying to coax her out of her
+mood. He looked around the familiar room a bit scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! This old cottage with its candles and lamps and shadows! What does
+it amount to? Wait until I've shown you the home I <i>want</i> you to
+have&mdash;the house Mrs. Frederik Grimm <i>should</i> live in."</p>
+
+<p>He patted her arm once or twice as he spoke, to give further weight to
+his words; but they seemed lost on Kathrien. Her eyes grew more and more
+troubled and her sweet face increasingly wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to leave this house," she said. "I don't want any home but
+this. I should be wretched if you took me away."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she glanced helplessly at the fresh flowers on Oom Peter's
+desk, placed there daily by her faithful, loving little fingers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure Oom Peter would like to think of me as here, among our dear,
+dear flowers!"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik tried to reassure her as one does a child, and answered
+soothingly:</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;but what you need is a change, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien turned away and traced a pattern on the newel post with her
+slender fingers. She found it very hard to talk. After a moment, she
+went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I've always wanted to please Oom Peter.&mdash;I always felt that I owed
+everything to him&mdash;if he had lived and I could have seen his happiness
+over our marriage, that would have made <i>me</i> happy, almost. But he's
+gone&mdash;and every day&mdash;the longer he's away from me, the more I see for
+myself that I don't feel toward you as I ought. You know it. But I want
+to tell you again. I'm perfectly willing to marry you. Only&mdash;I'm afraid
+I can't make you happy."</p>
+
+<p>Looking at him with sorrowful, perplexed eyes, she went on:</p>
+
+<p>"It's so disloyal to speak like this after I promised <i>him</i>; but,
+Frederik, it's <i>true</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik found it hard to keep his patience; yet he continued to reason
+with Kathrien in a voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> even gentler than before, though with an
+accent of finality in it that she could not disregard as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>did</i> promise Uncle Peter you'd marry me, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Her answering "Yes" was barely audible.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik continued insistently:</p>
+
+<p>"And he died believing you, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien merely nodded; she could not look at him, could not speak.
+After a moment she went on, her eyes still averted:</p>
+
+<p>"That's what makes me try to live up to it. Still, I cannot help feeling
+that if Oom Peter knew how hard everything seems&mdash;how alone I feel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not alone while I am here, <i>lievling</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien smiled pathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand, Frederik. You mean to be kind&mdash;and you <i>are</i>
+kind. And I thank you for it; but if only my mother had lived! As long
+as dear Oom Peter was here he was father, mother, everything to me. I
+felt no lack; but now&mdash;oh, I want my mother to turn to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's eyes were suddenly suffused with tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't you <i>see</i>? Try to know how I feel.&mdash;Try to understand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Frederik stopped her torrent of words. He took her in his arms
+before she realised it, and, kissing her, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nat&uuml;rlich</i>&mdash;I understand. I love you&mdash;and in time&mdash;Wait! You shall
+see! You must not worry, sweetheart. These things will come right, all
+in good time."</p>
+
+<p>But Kathrien had released herself with nervous if quiet haste.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem is feeling so much better," she said, with a change of tone to
+the ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tc!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>With his usual display of annoyance at the mention of Willem, Frederik
+left Kathrien and walked over to Oom Peter's desk, where he began to
+pick up and lay down the various articles strewn about its surface;
+without in the least realising what he was doing.</p>
+
+<p>"I do hope that child will be kept out of the way&mdash;to-morrow," he said
+roughly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;oh, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik found it hard to tell why.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You have always disliked poor little Willem, haven't you?" demanded
+Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no&mdash;&mdash;" answered Frederik. "But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His nervousness was very evident as he still moved fussily about the
+desk.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yes, you have</i>," continued Kathrien calmly. "I remember how angry you
+were when you came back from Leyden University and found him living
+here. How could you help being drawn to a little blue-eyed,
+golden-haired baby such as he was then?&mdash;Only five years old, and such a
+darling! He won us all at once, except you. And in all the three years
+he has been here, we've only grown more and more fond of him each day.
+You love children&mdash;you go out of your way to pick up a child and pet it.
+Why do you dislike Anne Marie's little boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Frederik impatiently, "he has a way of staring at people as
+though he had a perpetual question on his lips&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by a vivid flash of lightning and a long roll of
+thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a little child!" said Kathrien reproachfully. "He has only kindness
+from everybody. Why shouldn't he look at one?"</p>
+
+<p>"And then his mother!" went on Frederik,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> gazing into the fire, while
+the rain, steadily increasing with the nearer approach of thunder and
+lightning, blotted away the pleasant landscape outside the windows.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle and I loved Anne Marie, and we had forgiven her. Why should <i>you</i>
+blame her so bitterly? Surely she has suffered enough to expiate&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to be hard upon any woman. I've never seen her since she
+left the house, but&mdash;Hear that rain! It's pouring again! The third day.
+You're wise to have a fire in here. This old house would be damp
+otherwise in a long storm like this. By the way, Hartmann is back for a
+few hours to straighten things out&mdash;I'm going to see what he's doing."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik went up to Kathrien, and putting his arms about her, led her up
+to the piano, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Kitty, have you seen all the wedding presents? Wait for me a while here
+and look at them till I come back. I'll be with you again in a few
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Smiling, and giving her cheek a tender pat, he left her alone.</p>
+
+<p>As she stood there, surrounded by all her gay presents, she looked
+anything but the picture of a happy bride. Giving no thoughts to the
+gifts, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> stood, motionless, her eyes slowly filling with tears.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the outer door slammed, and a moment afterward Dr. McPherson
+entered. His tweed shawl and cap proclaimed the recent violence of the
+storm as he hurriedly took them off and hung them up, and placed his
+soaked umbrella in the rack. With a book under his arm, he came quickly
+toward the girl, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Kathrien. How's Willem?"</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien tried to hide her tears; but it was impossible to elude the
+keen eyes of Dr. McPherson. In one quick glance he caught the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" he said curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," said Kathrien in a voice whose tremble she could not control;
+yet bravely wiping away her tears as she spoke. "I was only thinking&mdash;I
+was hoping that those we love&mdash;and lose&mdash;can't see us here. I'm
+beginning to believe there's not much happiness in <i>this</i> world."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked at her with affectionate reproof, much as if she had
+been a naughty child.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you little snip!" he said whimsically, as he pulled her toward him
+determinedly. "I've a notion to chastise you! Talking like that with the
+whole of life before you! Such cluttered nonsense!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Still talking he started toward the stairs and Willem's room, and
+Kathrien sank into a chair; but the doctor changed his mind, turned, and
+came back to her again.</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien, I understand you've not a penny to your name," he said
+gruffly, "unless you marry Frederik. He has inherited you&mdash;along with
+the orchids and the tulips."</p>
+
+<p>He put his arm around her with a gentle, protective movement as he went
+on:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let that influence you. If Peter's plans bind you&mdash;and you look
+as if they did&mdash;my door's open. Don't let the neighbours' opinions and a
+few silver spoons," glancing towards the wedding gifts, "stand in the
+way of your whole future."</p>
+
+<p>Having thus opened his warm Scotch heart and his home to the motherless
+girl, it was indicative of his character that he should give her no
+chance to thank him. Before she could speak, he had run up the stairs,
+placed his cigar on the little table in the upper hall, and hurried into
+Willem's room.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the sky grew blacker and blacker, darkening the room where
+Kathrien sat. Suddenly she rose from her chair, and stretching out her
+arms, gave a cry that was dragged from her very soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oom Peter, Oom Peter, why did you do it? <i>Why</i> did you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked all at once a woman. No longer the carefree, happy girl she
+had been but a few short weeks before. Standing thus, her beautiful face
+full of agony, she did not hear Marta as she came in from the
+dining-room to carry upstairs the dainty wedding clothes for the
+morrow&mdash;a mass of filmy, fluffy white, laid carefully over both arms.</p>
+
+<p>At first Marta did not see her in the dim yellow gloom of the large
+room; but a moment later, in alarm, she dropped the clothes in a careful
+heap on a chair, and ran to Kathrien as fast as her stocky figure and
+many Dutch petticoats would allow.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Och</i>," she cried sympathetically. At her pitying touch, Kathrien
+suddenly buried her face on Marta's broad breast, and broke into
+convulsive sobs. Marta hushed her as she would a baby, with many sweet,
+caressing Dutch words.</p>
+
+<p>"Sh! Sh! <i>Lievling</i>, Sh! Sh! Old Marta is here! Cry all you want
+to&mdash;&mdash;'Twill do you good! A bride to cry on her wedding eve! Who ever
+heard such things! You should be happy&mdash;the good Mynheer Grimm would
+wish his child happy on her wedding eve! Sh! You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> will have a fine day
+to-morrow, for it storms to-night&mdash;a good sign! You must have a bright
+face to show your husband, and a face of happiness! Not a swollen little
+face&mdash;like this! What a face to take to a bridegroom! Marta has fixed
+the dress&mdash;'tis wonderful! See there over the chair, so filmy&mdash;like a
+cloud&mdash;you will be like a lily in a cloud of dew to-morrow. Think how
+beautiful! Do not spoil it all, <i>lievling</i>! Be happy, Kathrien, Kathrien
+<i>wees, bedard, kindje lievling</i>. Be happy among those who love you so!"</p>
+
+<p>Comforted by Marta's soothing words, and relieved by a good cry,
+Kathrien wiped her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, Marta," she said, drawing a long, quivering breath,
+"others have troubles too, haven't they?"</p>
+
+<p>Marta nodded her head vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ach!</i>" she sighed. "<i>Gut&mdash;Ja!</i> Others have their troubles!"</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien kissed Marta gently, then said:</p>
+
+<p>"I had hoped, Marta, that Anne Marie would have heard of uncle, and come
+back to us at this time&mdash;you are so brave&mdash;you never complain&mdash;Poor
+Marta!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more Marta sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"If it could have brought us all together once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> more&mdash;but no
+message&mdash;nothing&mdash;I cannot understand&mdash;my only child."</p>
+
+<p>Nearer and nearer came the storm. The rain pounded on the shingles and
+pattered loudly against the windows. The wind howled around the eves,
+and the old house rattled and shook in spite of its solid foundation.</p>
+
+<p>Marta, still brooding over Kathrien like a motherly hen over her
+chicken, shuddered at the rattling of the window blinds.</p>
+
+<p>From the midst of the general tumult a new sound detached itself&mdash;a
+sharp double rap from the old-fashioned knocker.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Och!</i>" cried Marta. "It must be Pastor and the others! You don't feel
+much like seeing visitors, my lamb. Run away now before I let 'em
+in&mdash;and bathe your eyes in lavender water."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried to the front door, and Kathrien, at once brought to herself,
+hastened upstairs to her room.</p>
+
+<p>As Marta opened wide the door, Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton (Peter
+Grimm's former lawyer) seemed fairly blown into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Marta," boomed the clergy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>man's unctuous tones. "The
+elements are indeed at war to-night! I trust the household is well?"</p>
+
+<p>Marta curtseyed bobbingly to both men as she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Batholommey, only poor little Willem, sir.
+He's strange and not like himself, sir. The doctor was in and out
+through the day, and now he's here again&mdash;upstairs with Willem."</p>
+
+<p>As Marta talked, Mr. Batholommey divested himself of his long black
+rainproof coat, and Colonel Lawton (who had not felt it necessary to
+reply to Marta's civil greeting) hastily took off his rubber poncho,
+giving it a vigorous shake that sent the raindrops flying. He was a
+tall, middle-aged man, loosely put together, who wore his clothes very
+badly. One somehow got the idea that they were never pressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Brr!" he cried, taking off his overshoes. "What a storm for June! It's
+more like fall! Look at my rubbers&mdash;and yours are just as
+bad&mdash;mud-soaked! Get 'em off, quick. They're enough to give any one a
+chill!"</p>
+
+<p>Marta had slipped out unnoticed, and now Frederik came in just in time
+to see the dripping coats hung up on the hat rack.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening," he said in what he intended for a cordial tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, just in time," answered Colonel Lawton. "Gee Whillikins! What a
+day!"</p>
+
+<p>Then turning again to Mr. Batholommey he went on jocularly:</p>
+
+<p>"Great weather for baptisms&mdash;Parson."</p>
+
+<p>Having successfully disentangled himself at last from all his
+water-soaked outer coverings, Mr. Batholommey turned and offered a damp
+and rainy hand to Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, good-evening, Frederik," he said impressively. "I'm glad
+to see you. We are pleased to be here, <i>in spite</i> of the weather."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here we are, Frederik, my boy,&mdash;&mdash;" put in Colonel Lawton. "At
+the time you set."</p>
+
+<p>After shaking hands with both men, Frederik, perhaps unconsciously,
+wiped his own on his handkerchief. Then going to the desk, he took a
+paper from under the paperweight. After studying it a moment, he said
+(smiling a bit to himself and turning that the others might not see the
+smile):</p>
+
+<p>"I sent for you to hear a memorandum left by my uncle. I came across it
+only this morning."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Both Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton tried to conceal their
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have drawn up ten wills for the old gentleman," announced
+Colonel Lawton, "but he always tore 'em up."</p>
+
+<p>Then, throwing back his head and peering at Frederik through his
+spectacles:</p>
+
+<p>"May I have a drink of his plum brandy, Frederik?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered Frederik carelessly. "Help yourself. Pastor, will
+you have some?"</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Lawton poured out a glass of brandy and offered it to Mr.
+Batholommey, then helped himself with alacrity. In the roll of thunder
+which came at that moment, no one heard the footsteps of Mrs.
+Batholommey, as she entered from the "front parlour."</p>
+
+<p>The tableau that met her vision caused her to give a little shriek as
+she stopped short, and gazed with horror-struck eyes at her husband and
+his brandy glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, <i>Henry</i>! <i>What</i> are you doing? Are your feet wet?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey did not get a drink every day, and this one was much too
+nearly his to be relinquished now. It was not a case for self-denial.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+It was not a case where it was necessary to be a good example for any
+one. Therefore the pastor gave place to the husband for a moment, and
+when Mrs. Batholommey repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"Are your feet wet, Henry?"</p>
+
+<p>He answered with decision:</p>
+
+<p>"No, Rose, they're <i>not</i>. I want a drink and I'm going to <i>take</i> it.
+It's a bad night."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey said no more, but closing her mouth tightly, turned
+away with lifted eyebrows and downcast eyes, reproachful indignation
+bristling at every point.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband, well pleased at his little victory, smacked his lips with
+enjoyment; returned the now empty glass to the Colonel and, rubbing his
+hands together, went toward the fireplace. Mrs. Batholommey, her
+indignation quickly forgotten, joined him there and sat down beside him.
+Colonel Lawton, hastily replacing decanter and glasses on the table,
+also drew up a chair in front of the fire&mdash;and waited.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LEGACIES</h3>
+
+<p>Frederik, glancing at the backs of the three eager, huddled figures
+crouching almost literally in the fireplace, smiled again to
+himself&mdash;and allowed them to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Colonel Lawton could stand it no longer. Still with his back to
+the heir, and his eyes toward the fire, he cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go ahead, Frederik."</p>
+
+<p>No response. Mr. Batholommey tried next.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew your uncle would remember his friends and his charities," he
+said smugly. "He gave it in such a free-handed, princely way."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik could not resist a sarcastic chuckle, as he glanced toward the
+three backs once more, and then began to read the memorandum aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>For Mrs. Batholommey:</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He got no further for, at the first word, the three chairs were turned
+around to face Frederik, quickly and simultaneously; so that the
+beneficiaries might not have even their own backs between them and their
+coming fortune.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At hearing her name, Mrs. Batholommey burst out:</p>
+
+<p>"The dear man! To think he remembered <i>me</i>! I knew he'd remember the
+church and Mr. Batholommey&mdash;of course&mdash;but to think he'd remember <i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Here she cast her eyes up to heaven in grateful recognition.</p>
+
+<p>"He knew that our income was very limited," she went on comfortably. "He
+was <i>so thoughtful</i>. His purse," she sighed with feeling, "was always
+open."</p>
+
+<p>Having delivered this eulogism of the dead, the lady folded her hands
+placidly, and with eyes cast down, but attentive, settled herself to
+await developments.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik looked at her a moment, grinned to himself, then continued:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>For Mr. Batholommey:</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman nodded solemnly, but a pleased expression crept about the
+corners of his mouth and his face took on an extra look of smugness.</p>
+
+<p>"Our reward is laid up for us," he murmured sententiously, "where we
+least expect it."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so&mdash;&mdash;" said Frederik shortly. "And as the doctor isn't
+here&mdash;well, the next is you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> Colonel. The others mentioned are people
+in his employ."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Lawton settled lower in his chair, until he might almost be said
+to be lying on his back. He crossed his legs luxuriously and took a
+cigar from his pocket, saying as he lighted it:</p>
+
+<p>"He knew I did the best I could for him&mdash;the <i>grand old man</i>!" Then
+dropping the eulogistic tone for one of strict business:</p>
+
+<p>"What'd he leave me?"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik kept them waiting a moment longer. He was having the time of
+his life. He had purposely strung out the situation to its last thread,
+for the joy of witnessing the self-satisfied eagerness of the three
+legatees. Silent now, but acutely attentive, they sat with watchful eyes
+trained on Frederik and the all-important paper which he was holding so
+carelessly in his hand&mdash;the paper that was presently to tell them so
+much of moment. Then it came.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Batholommey, he wishes you to have his miniature&mdash;with his
+affectionate regard."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik took a miniature from the desk drawer and offered it to Mrs.
+Batholommey with much ceremony. She did not take it, but sat waiting as
+before, merely folding her hands as she purred:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dear old gentleman&mdash;and&mdash;er&mdash;yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik seemed not to hear her, and laying the miniature on the desk,
+went on reading:</p>
+
+<p>"To Mr. Batholommey&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman's wife broke in quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;er&mdash;you didn't finish <i>mine</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik turned around in his chair and looked directly at her.</p>
+
+<p>"You're finished," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm <i>finished</i>?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, in a voice trembling with
+indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose!" her husband remonstrated in severe rebuke.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's all very well for you to say 'Rose!' How would <i>you</i> like it
+to get nothing but an old picture? Tell me that!"</p>
+
+<p>Here she had recourse to her handkerchief, and her lips trembled as she
+wiped her eyes, sniffling sorrowfully and all unheeded by the others.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik took a watch fob from the drawer before he continued his
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>"To Mr. Batholommey: my antique watch fob&mdash;with profound respect."</p>
+
+<p>The executor rolled the words under his tongue.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey rose, bowed graciously, and accepted the watch fob
+without looking at it. Then he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>The voice of Fate went on:</p>
+
+<p>"To Colonel Lawton&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Before Frederik could get any farther, Mrs. Batholommey was again at the
+front:</p>
+
+<p>"His <i>watch fob</i>? Is that what he left <i>Henry</i>? Is that all? His&mdash;&mdash;Why!
+<i>Well!</i> I can't believe it! If he had no wish to make our life easier,
+at least he should have left something for the church. Oh, Henry!" she
+cried in consternation. "Won't the congregation have a crow to pick with
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik no longer made any effort to conceal his pleasure at the part
+he had to play. He smiled broadly and maliciously and he was quite
+willing that they should all see him smile.</p>
+
+<p>It must be said of Mr. Batholommey that he took his disappointment
+rather well. He said nothing at all, and he tried not to show how he
+felt. In fact he tried not to <i>feel</i> any resentment toward his late
+parishioner. It was one of the hardest moments of his life; but he knew
+that as a clergyman he should be able to forgive&mdash;and he tried very
+hard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It would have been so comfortable to have a tidy sum to put by for his
+old age! He had expected it so confidently! He had flattered and praised
+and praised and flattered! And now, after all, he was left high and
+dry&mdash;with a watch fob to look to for comfort in his declining years! He
+would keep his feelings to himself if possible, however. He did not care
+to make Frederik's triumph any greater, or his smile any broader on his
+account; so he compelled himself to listen to the third part of the
+memorandum with an expression of polite interest.</p>
+
+<p>"To my lifelong friend, Colonel Lawton, I leave my most cherished
+possession."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel preened himself. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of
+his vest and wagged his crossed foot complacently. This was to be the
+real kernel of the memorandum.</p>
+
+<p>His appearance of security was too much for Mrs. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! When the church hears&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She was interrupted by Colonel Lawton:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why he was called upon to leave anything to the church,"
+he said truculently, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. "He gave
+it thousands, and only last month he put in chimes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> As I look at it, he
+wished to give you something he had used&mdash;something personal. Perhaps
+the miniature and the fob <i>ain't</i> worth three whoops in hell&mdash;it's the
+<i>sentiment</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>He lay back in his chair again as he fairly chewed on the word
+'sentiment.' Once more he crossed his legs, and peered at Frederik
+through his glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"Drive on, Fred," he ordered.</p>
+
+<p>"To Colonel Lawton, my father's prayer book."</p>
+
+<p>As he read, Frederik put one hand into the drawer, and took out a worn
+prayer book.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey smiled, and chuckled behind his hand, but Colonel Lawton
+seemed dazed. His jaw dropped, and he looked helplessly at Frederik and
+the others.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he said in a choking voice. "His prayer book&mdash;<i>me</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>As in a dream he slowly leaned forward and took it gingerly between two
+fingers as one might a June bug&mdash;gazing at it in amazed horror and
+incredulity the while.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" demanded Mrs. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," answered Frederik, bowing to Mrs. Batholommey and smiling
+radiantly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Colonel Lawton, still dazed, could only reiterate:</p>
+
+<p>"A prayer book. Me? What for?"</p>
+
+<p>Then he got up slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be&mdash;&mdash;Here, Parson." As an idea struck him, he turned
+quickly toward Mr. Batholommey. "Let's shift&mdash;you take the prayer book
+and I'll take the old fob!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey smiled and waved away the offered book.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he said smoothly, "I already have a prayer book."</p>
+
+<p>At this retort, the Colonel wilted completely. Drawing his chair close
+to the fire he sat down limply and gave himself up to bitter reflection.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey seemed the least able of the three to bear the
+shattering of her high hopes. She moved around the room restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I can say is"&mdash;(her voice shook and her eyes reproached
+Frederik)&mdash;"I'm disappointed in your uncle."</p>
+
+<p>No one paid any attention to her remark, each person being engrossed in
+his own thoughts. For some moments the air was pregnant with unspoken
+invective.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>MOSTLY CONCERNING GRATITUDE</h3>
+
+<p>Finally Colonel Lawton turned toward Frederik. He was now sitting
+astride his chair and puffing violently at his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>this</i> what you hauled us out in the rain for?" he snarled.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey, all unheeding, went on with her own train of thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it all now," she whimpered. "He only gave to the church to show
+off!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose!" her husband cried, aghast. "I myself am disappointed, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He did!</i>" interrupted Mrs. Batholommey in tears of wrath. "Oh, why
+didn't he continue his work? He was not generous. He was a hard,
+uncharitable, selfish old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose, my dear!" remonstrated Mr. Batholommey. "Think what you are
+saying!"</p>
+
+<p>"He was! If he were here, I'd say it to his face. The congregation
+sicked <i>you</i> after him. And now he's gone and you'll get nothing more.
+And they'll call you slow&mdash;slow and pokey!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> You'll see! To-morrow you'll
+wake up!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" expostulated her husband once more.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Batholommey paid no attention to his words or to the beseeching
+look that accompanied them. She waved an arm dramatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a man the rector spent half his time with&mdash;and for what? A watch
+fob!"</p>
+
+<p>The ineffable scorn with which she pronounced these last words caused
+Mr. Batholommey to hang his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see!" she went on. "This will be the end of you! It's not what
+you preach that counts nowadays. It's what you coax out of the rich
+parishioners' pockets."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Batholommey!" thundered the clergyman, taking a step forward; but
+he might as well have tried to stem the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"The church needs funds to-day. Religion doesn't stand where it did,
+when a college professor is saying that&mdash;that&mdash;"&mdash;(here her voice
+broke)&mdash;"the Star of Bethlehem was only a comet."</p>
+
+<p>The end of the sentence resolved itself into a veritable wail and she
+sat down quickly and subsided into her handkerchief.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" reiterated the helpless husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she wailed through her tears, "if I said all the things I feel
+like saying about Peter Grimm"&mdash;(here it almost sounded as if she ground
+her teeth)&mdash;"well&mdash;I shouldn't be a fit clergyman's wife. Not to leave
+his dear friends a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Again her voice was muffled in the folds of the handkerchief, and
+Colonel Lawton took advantage of the temporary lull to put in a word.</p>
+
+<p>"He wasn't <i>liberal</i>," he said, rising, "but for God's sake, Madam,
+think what he ought to have done for <i>me</i> after my patiently listening
+to his plans for twenty years! Mind, I'm not complaining, but what have
+I got out of it? A Bible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've feathered <i>your</i> nest, Colonel!" cried Mrs. Batholommey,
+recovering somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>"I never came here," retorted Colonel Lawton spitefully, "that <i>you</i>
+weren't begging!"</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Lawton," the clergyman interrupted truculently, "don't forget
+who you are speaking to!"</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Lawton waved his hand patronisingly at the clergyman.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, Parson. I know who I'm speaking to. We're all in the
+same boat&mdash;one's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> as good as another&mdash;when we're all up against a thing
+like this. If anything, you two are worse than I am, for you stand for
+better things. What would your congregation think of either of you if
+they could look into your hearts this moment and see 'em as they
+<i>really</i> are?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really are&mdash;really are!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "I'm not ashamed to
+have any one see my heart as it really is!"</p>
+
+<p>(And Mrs. Batholommey was telling the truth, for she was a good woman at
+heart, and it was not her fault that she had a human desire for this
+world's goods for those she loved, for the church, and for herself.)</p>
+
+<p>Here Frederik, who had watched the scene with much amusement at first,
+came forward through the increasing gloom. He was getting tired of the
+childish bickering.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, well, I'm disgusted," he said, "when I see such
+heartlessness! He was putty in all your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you can defend his memory. <i>You</i> got the money!" cried Mrs.
+Batholommey, with asperity. "He liked flattery and you gave him what he
+wanted and you gave him plenty of it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" retorted Frederik calmly, getting a cigarette out of his
+case. "The rest of you were at the same thing&mdash;yes?"</p>
+
+<p>He struck a match and lighted his cigarette as he continued in a
+disagreeable tone:</p>
+
+<p>"And I had the pleasure of watching him hand out the money that belonged
+to me&mdash;to <i>me</i>," he repeated. "My money! What business had he to be
+generous with my money?"</p>
+
+<p>Still talking, Frederik sat down at the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"If he'd lived much longer, I'd have been a pauper. It's a lucky thing
+for me he di&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik had the grace to leave the word unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey broke the slight pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," he said solemnly, "it might have been better if Mr. Grimm
+had given <i>all</i> he had to charity&mdash;for he left his money to an ingrate."</p>
+
+<p>The "ingrate" laughed derisively.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Ha! Ha!" he cried. "You amuse one! You don't know how amusing you
+are."</p>
+
+<p>No one cared to add further to Frederik's amusement, so they all sat
+still. The room was now perfectly dark, except for an occasional flash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+of heat-lightning from the vanished storm.</p>
+
+<p>Night had crept upon them unheeded, so intent had they been on their
+petty wrangling.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Mrs. Batholommey got up and went towards the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the miniature?" she demanded. "I don't want it&mdash;but I'll take
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik lighted a match, and by its flickering blaze found the
+discarded miniature lying face downward on the desk. Mrs. Batholommey
+snatched it from his fingers, and made her way back to the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Frederik again.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose, my dear," began Mr. Batholommey, "the min&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sh!" interrupted Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Then he rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Who came into the room?" he asked in a strange voice.</p>
+
+<p>He lit a match and waved it slowly in the direction of the hall door. It
+was extinguished instantly as if the wind had blown it out. He lighted
+another, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"We're sitting in the darkness like owls. Who came in?" he demanded
+again.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer as he peered around the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> room, holding the match
+toward first one corner and then another.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't hear any one," said the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," added Mrs. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mr. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"I was <i>sure</i> some one came in," Frederik said in a strange voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have imagined it," suggested Mr. Batholommey. "Our nerves are
+all upset."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get a light," Frederik said, starting toward the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, Marta entered with the welcome lamps. She carried two of
+them, one already lighted, which she put upon the table. The other
+Frederik took quickly from her and carried to the chain-bracket over the
+desk. This he adjusted with Marta's help, and then lighted.</p>
+
+<p>After which he glanced apprehensively about the room once more. Even
+under the reassuring flood of light his impression that some one had
+stolen in upon the dim-lit conference would not wholly vanish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RETURN</h3>
+
+<p>The Dead Man came home.</p>
+
+<p>The old collie, lying stretched in the deep porch, safe from the storm,
+knew him. As the Dead Man came up the walk between the trim beds of
+rain-soaked flowers, the old dog crawled rheumatically to its feet, the
+bleared eyes brightening, the feathered tail awag in joyous greeting to
+the loved master who had been so long and so unaccountably absent.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm laid a hand caressingly on his old pet's head; then passed
+into his former home.</p>
+
+<p>And so, at Frederik's frightened demand, "Who came into the room?" the
+Dead Man stood among his own again. Before him was the nephew he had
+loved. Nearby were the husband and wife whose follies and harmless
+affectations he had forgiven with a laugh of amusement, for the sake of
+their goodness and for the devotion they bore himself. Lounging in the
+chair that had been his own was the lawyer who had been his dear friend
+and adviser. The friends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> he had cared for, the nephew on whom his every
+hope had been set.</p>
+
+<p>With a wistful half-smile, Peter Grimm surveyed the group.</p>
+
+<p>And, as Marta brought in one lighted lamp and then bustled about
+lighting another, he stood in clear view of them all. Clad in the same
+old-fashioned garb with which they were so familiar, he was unchanged,
+save that all age and all care lines were wiped from his face.</p>
+
+<p>He was not a wraith, no grisly spectre, no half-nebulous Shape. He was
+Peter Grimm, rugged, homespun, the man whose iron individuality had
+undergone and could undergo no change.</p>
+
+<p>He stood there in the lamplight, plainly visible&mdash;to such as had eyes to
+see him.</p>
+
+<p>The dog, with that sense which God gives to all animals and withholds
+from all humans, had had no more difficulty in recognising him than when
+Peter Grimm had walked the earth in the flesh.</p>
+
+<p>The faculty which makes a sleeping dog awake, raise its head, wag its
+tail and follow with its eyes the movements of some invisible form that
+moves from place to place in a room,&mdash;which makes a flock of chickens
+scatter squawking and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> fluttering when no human being can discern cause
+for their flight&mdash;which makes a horse shy violently when travelling a
+patch of road, apparently barren of anything to alarm him,&mdash;which makes
+a cat suddenly arch its back and spit and strike at the Unseen, or else
+rub purringly against an invisible hand&mdash;this faculty made Peter Grimm
+very real to his blear-eyed, asthmatic old collie.</p>
+
+<p>But the inmates of the room, being but human, had seen and heard
+nothing. Frederik, it is true, being in a constant state of nervous
+tension that rendered his senses less dense and earthy than usual, had
+fancied he heard&mdash;or felt&mdash;some one enter the room. But at the
+disclaimers of the rest, the notion vanished as such notions do. And the
+warm flood of lamplight dispelled whatever of the psychic may have
+brooded over the little group, bringing back their comfortable
+materialism with a rush.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore, in his old home and among his own, Peter Grimm stood unseen;
+that deprecatory half-smile on his square, ageless face.</p>
+
+<p>The lighting of the lamps and Marta's noisy return to her own culinary
+domain served as signals to break up the group about the desk. Mr.
+Batholommey crossed the room and took his hat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> and coat from the rack,
+passing within a hand's-breadth of the smiling, expectant Peter Grimm as
+he did so.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Frederik," said the rector doubtfully by way of farewell, "I hope
+that you'll follow your uncle's example at least as far as our parish
+poor are concerned,&mdash;and keep on with <i>some</i> of his charities."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey, dutifully following her husband to the rack and
+helping him on with his coat, turned to hear Frederik answer the
+question she and the rector had so often and so anxiously discussed
+during the past ten days. The heir did his best to settle their every
+doubt in the fewest possible words.</p>
+
+<p>"I may as well tell you now, as any time," said he, "that you needn't
+look to me for any charitable graft at all. Your parish poor will have
+to begin hustling for a living now. I don't intend to waste good money
+in feeding what you Americans call 'a bunch of panhandlers.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, inexpressibly disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>The smile died on Peter Grimm's face and the light of happy expectancy
+was gone from his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry, Frederik," said the rector<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> stiffly, "not only that
+you can speak so of God's poor, but that you are not willing to continue
+your uncle's splendid philanthropies. It&mdash;it doesn't seem possible that
+he never told you how dear his charities were to him. Well," he broke
+off with a shrug, and glancing at his watch, "I've got thirty minutes to
+make a call before tea time."</p>
+
+<p>"I must be toddling, too," said Colonel Lawton. "Are you going my way,
+Mr. Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host
+good-bye, "it's queer&mdash;deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one
+thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too
+late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to
+do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought
+of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it.
+But from the way you've talked this afternoon, I wonder&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Heirlooms? Relics?" queried Frederik, puzzled. "Oh&mdash;you mean all this
+junk?" with a comprehensive hand wave that included Dutch clock, Dutch
+warming pans, Dutch bric-a-brac, and Dutch furniture. "This junk all
+over the house? Oh, I'll have it carted to the nearest ash heap.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> It
+isn't worth a red cent of any one's money."</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm strode forward, his lips parted in quick protest. But
+Colonel Lawton was already answering, with an appraising look about the
+room:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that, Frederik. It may not be as worthless as you
+seem to think. Better let me send for a dealer to sort it over after
+you've gone on your honeymoon. I've heard that some people are fools
+enough to pay a lot of good money for this sort of antique trash."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bad idea," approved Frederik. "See what you can do about it,
+won't you? I want it cleared out. And if I can get rid of it and do it
+at a profit, too, why, all the better."</p>
+
+<p>"If I could get that old clock," put in Mrs. Batholommey, the light of
+the bargain hunt shining in her large face, "I might consent to take it
+off your hands. Of course it isn't really worth anything. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I've an idea," replied Frederik, with charming dearth of civility,
+"that it's worth a lot more than you'd pay me for it."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," she snapped angrily as she glared at Frederik, "that your poor
+dear uncle is where he can see his mistake now!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am where I can see several," said the Dead Man to ears that could not
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," pursued Mrs. Batholommey, whose depths of professional
+sweetness had been turned faintly sub-acid by the events of the day&mdash;"do
+you know, Frederik, what I would like to say to your uncle if I could
+just once stand face to face with him, this very minute?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm sadly, as he looked deep into her eyes, "I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say to him&mdash;&mdash;" began Mrs. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>Then she checked herself as at some impulse she herself did not
+understand, and finished somewhat lamely:</p>
+
+<p>"No, I wouldn't say it, either. He's dead. And we're told we must speak
+no ill of the dead. Though, for my part, I never could see what right we
+gain to immunity just by dying. And&mdash;oh, by the way, Henry," she broke
+off as her husband and the lawyer passed out of the vestibule, "Kathrien
+expects you back for supper. Don't forget, will you, dear? Good-night,
+Colonel Lawton."</p>
+
+<p>She followed them, closed the front door behind them, and bustled off to
+look after the arrangements for supper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Frederik yawned, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out into the office,
+Peter Grimm watching him with infinitely sad reproach in his luminous
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Then, left alone in the room he had loved, the Dead Man looked about him
+at the dear old bits of furniture and ornaments that had meant so much
+to him and whose fate he had just heard weighed between auctioneer's
+hammer and rubbish heap.</p>
+
+<p>He moved across to the rack, as if by lifelong instinct, and hung his
+antique hat on its accustomed peg. The simple, everyday action brought
+him so vividly close to older days that, as Marta pottered in with
+another newly filled lamp, he accosted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Marta!" he called, as she gave no sign of recognition to his kindly nod
+and smile.</p>
+
+<p>She set down the lamp in its place on the piano, crossed to the
+pulley-weight clock, and noisily wound it. As the old woman started back
+toward her kitchen, the Dead Man put himself once more in her way.</p>
+
+<p>"Marta!" said he, then more loudly and peremptorily, "<i>Marta!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She passed within an inch of his outstretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> hand and entered the
+kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Peter Grimm stared blankly after
+his housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>"I seem to be a stranger in my own house," he murmured. "My friends pass
+me by. Their gross eyes cannot see me. Their gross ears will not hear
+me. But&mdash;Lad knew me. He came to meet me, wagging his tail just as he
+used to. I&mdash;I remember I've more than once noticed his going to meet
+other people like that. People <i>I</i> couldn't see in those days."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik lounged back from the office, cigarette in mouth. He took out
+his watch, compared it with the clock on the wall, slipped it back into
+his pocket, and was crossing to the outer door when the telephone bell
+on the desk jangled.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik laid down his cigarette, seated himself at the desk, and picked
+up the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" he called.</p>
+
+<p>At the reply, he glanced around hastily, to make sure he was not likely
+to be overheard. Then, sinking his voice almost to a whisper and
+speaking with a nervous, almost guilty eagerness, he answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Yes. This is Mr. Grimm. Mr. Frederik Grimm. I've been waiting all
+day to hear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> from you, Mr. Hicks. How are you? Wait one moment, please."</p>
+
+<p>He rose, crossed the room, closed the door into the dining-room,&mdash;the
+only door that had been open,&mdash;glanced up into the bedroom gallery to
+make certain it was empty, then hurried back to the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said he. "Go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief pause while he listened. Then he replied, in a tone of
+laboured indifference:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. You're quite mistaken. I am not 'eager to sell.' Not at all. As
+a matter of fact," he continued unctuously, "I much prefer to carry out
+my dear uncle's wishes and keep the business in the family. You must
+surely remember how determined he was that it should be kept
+on.&mdash;What?&mdash;'If I could get my price,' eh? That's different, of course.
+It puts a new aspect on the whole affair.&mdash;What? Oh, well, an offer such
+as that deserves careful thought. I could not decline it offhand.&mdash;No, I
+admit it is very tempting.&mdash;'Talk it over?' Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, then went on in answer to a query from the other end of the
+wire:</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow? No, I'm afraid not. You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> see, I'm going to be married
+to-morrow. A man does not want to be bothered with business deals on his
+wedding day.&mdash;No, the next day won't do, either, I'm afraid. You see, we
+are sailing directly for Europe. Thank you. Yes, I deserve all the
+congratulations you can offer me.&mdash;What?&mdash;Very well. This evening, then.
+That will suit me perfectly. You're in New York, I suppose? What time
+will it be convenient to you to get to Grimm Manor?&mdash;What?&mdash;Yes, that's
+all right. No. Not here at the house. I'll meet you at the hotel. The
+tavern.&mdash;Yes, I'll be there promptly.&mdash;What?"</p>
+
+<p>He listened a moment, then laughed in evident, if subdued, amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"So the dear old gentleman used to tell you his plans never failed, did
+he?" he questioned. "Yes, I've heard the same boast from him hundreds of
+times. That's one reason why I want the deal kept quiet till it's
+settled. So I asked you to meet me at the tavern instead of here at the
+house. I don't want it thought by other people that I'd run counter to
+his plans in any way. God rest his soul! Hey? 'What would he say if he
+knew?' I hate to think. He could express himself very forcibly when his
+dear, stubborn old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> will was crossed. You may remember that. Oh, well,
+it's <i>life</i>. Everything must change."</p>
+
+<p>There was a roll of thunder. At the same instant the windows flared
+pink-white with lightning. A flash of electricity ran purring and
+crackling along the telephone itself.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik, with a sharp cry of surprise, dropped the instrument, and
+squeezed his electrically shocked arm. Then gingerly he picked up the
+telephone, replaced the receiver, and turned away toward the window
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm stood eyeing the telephone as if the man who had so lately
+been at the other end of the wire were directly in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know it, Hicks," said the Dead Man quietly, "but you will
+never carry this plan of yours through. We are going to meet very soon,
+you and I."</p>
+
+<p>As if in response to his strange prophecy, the telephone jangled once
+more. Frederik returned to the desk and put the receiver to his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" he called. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Hicks? No, they didn't cut us
+off. I thought you were through.&mdash;What?&mdash;A little louder, please. I
+can't hear you very well.&mdash;What?&mdash;You're feeling ill? Oh, I'm
+sorry.&mdash;What?&mdash;Oh,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> yes, it will do just as well to send your lawyer
+instead, if you find you're too sick to make the journey. Your lawyer
+will be empowered to attend to everything in your name, I
+suppose?&mdash;Good.&mdash;Then we can close the deal to-night. At the hotel and
+at the same time. All right. What did you say his name was?&mdash;Shelp?&mdash;All
+right. Good-bye. I hope you'll feel much better in the morning, Mr.
+Hicks."</p>
+
+<p>He relighted his cigarette, humming a little tune under his breath as he
+walked from the desk. His narrow face was very content.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's the boy I loved and trusted!" said Peter Grimm, half aloud,
+watching Frederik take his hat and umbrella from the rack and leave the
+house. "I wonder if I am to unearth many more of my mistakes. I come
+upon a new one at every turn."</p>
+
+<p>His wandering gaze rested on the door of Kathrien's room, in the gallery
+above. His lips parted in the old whimsical smile. Lifting his voice, he
+gave the odd call that had for years been a signal to Kathrien of his
+presence in the house and his desire to see her.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ou-oo!</i>" rang out the familiar cry.</p>
+
+<p>And, before its echoes could die away, Kathrien<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> was out of her room and
+at the stairhead. She stood there an instant, dazed, wondering, like
+some one half-awakened from heavy sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Looking down into the room below, she slowly descended the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought some one called me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>And though she spoke the words in her own brain and not from the lips,
+Peter Grimm heard and answered her.</p>
+
+<p>"You did," said he. "I called you."</p>
+
+<p>Filled with a sense that she was not alone, yet seeing and hearing no
+one, she came down into the seemingly vacant room. And, still without
+words, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard a voice like&mdash;like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the Dead Man again, "you wanted me, little girl. That's
+why I have come. There, there!" he soothed, as she stood with troubled
+face trying to formulate and understand the strange sensation that had
+suddenly taken possession of her. "Don't worry, Katje. It'll come out
+all right. We'll arrange things very differently. I've come back to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She moved away, unhearing. She passed unseeing from the loving
+outstretched arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Katje!" he called tenderly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But she did not turn at the loving appeal in his soundless voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Katje! Katje!" he pleaded, following her. "Can't I make my presence
+known to you? Oh, <i>don't</i> cry!"</p>
+
+<p>For the tears had welled up, unbidden, in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And this time his words, in a vague, roundabout way, seemed to reach her
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," she sighed, drying her eyes. "Crying doesn't help."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Peter Grimm eagerly. "Good! <i>Good!</i> She hears me! Smile,
+little girl! <i>Smile</i>, I say."</p>
+
+<p>A trembling ghost of a smile played about her sad lips.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right!" he encouraged. "Smile! <i>Smile!</i> You haven't smiled
+before since I&mdash;since I found there was a place a million times happier
+and lovelier and more wonderful than this world that I left. Listen,
+little girl! Listen, Katje, and try to understand me. <i>There are no
+dead.</i> We never <i>really</i> die. We couldn't if we tried to. See the
+gardens out there. Look!"</p>
+
+<p>As if in response to his words, Kathrien's half-smiling face was turned
+toward the flowering gar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>den beds that stretched away on every hand,
+just outside the window.</p>
+
+<p>"See the gardens," he went on, glad at his own seeming success in
+catching and holding her attention. "They die. But they come back all
+the better for it. All the fresher and younger and more beautiful. What
+people call death is nothing more than a nap. We wake from it
+freshened&mdash;rested&mdash;made over again. It's a wonderful sleep that people
+fall into, old and slow and tired out. And they spring up from it like
+happy children tumbling out of bed,&mdash;ready to frolic through another
+world. It is as foolish and wrong to mourn for people who fall into that
+dear sleep as to mourn for the children when they close their eyes at
+the end of the day. <i>There is no death.</i> There are no dead. It is all
+rest and wonder and beauty and perfect bliss. So stop being sad for me,
+my own little girl!</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he cried in triumph, as the smile deepened on her pale face.
+"You're happier already! And you begin to understand me. You can hear
+what I am saying. Because no sin, no grossness has ever shut your ears
+to all but earthly sounds. Now listen to me carefully: Katje, I want you
+to break that silly, wicked promise I wheedled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> you into making. I want
+you to break it. You mustn't ruin your life&mdash;and James's&mdash;by marrying
+Frederik. It would mean misery for every one. Most of all for <i>you</i>,
+little girl. That's why I came here. To undo the harm that my blindness
+and obstinacy brought about. When that is settled I can take my journey
+back in peace. I can't go until you break that promise. And&mdash;and oh, I
+<i>long</i> to go, Katje! <i>Katje!</i>" his voice rising in yearning entreaty, as
+the smile faded from her face and her big eyes once more filled. "Isn't
+my message <i>any</i> clearer to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," sighed Kathrien, half aloud. "I'm so alone&mdash;so <i>alone</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Alone?" he echoed. "You are not alone, Katje. I'm here. Can't you feel
+my presence? And then there's your mother. The mother you were too
+little to remember. I have met her, Katje. I have met your mother. She
+knew me at once. After all those years. 'You are Peter Grimm!' she said.
+I told her you had a happy home here. And she said she knew that. Then I
+told her about the future I had arranged, and the plans I'd made for you
+and Frederik. And she said: 'Peter Grimm, you have overlooked the most
+important thing in the world:&mdash;<i>Love!</i> Give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> her the right to the choice
+of her lover. It is her right.' Then it came over me all at once that I
+had made a terrible mistake. That I had been presumptuous and had tried
+to play Providence and shape the future of another. At that moment,
+Katje, you called to me. And I came back to show you the way."</p>
+
+<p>He moved nearer to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother," he whispered, bending over the girl as she sank into a
+chair by the fire, her eyes dreaming and full of a new joy, "your mother
+told me to lay my hand on your dear head and give you her blessing. And
+she said I must tell you she will be with you,&mdash;close&mdash;<i>close</i> to
+you&mdash;in heart and thought, until the day shall come when she can hold
+you in her arms. You and your loved husband."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien's dreamy gaze strayed from the fire-flicker on the hearth to
+the office door, on whose farther side she knew Hartmann was at work.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm, noting her glance. "You and James. And the
+message ended in this kiss."</p>
+
+<p>He touched his lips to her forehead. And, at the unfelt contact, the
+light again sprang into her eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can't you see I'm trying to help you, Katje?" he begged. "Can't you
+even hope? Come, come! <i>Hope!</i> Why, anybody can hope. It is the very
+easiest and most natural thing on earth. Especially when one is
+young&mdash;as you and I are. What <i>is</i> Youth but perpetual Hope?"</p>
+
+<p>The light in her eyes deepened. Her look strayed again to the closed
+office door. She rose and took a step toward it, then turned, passed her
+hand caressingly over the flowers on the desk, and moved over to the
+piano.</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself on the music stool and, for the first time in ten
+endless days, let her fingers stray over the keys. In a hushed little
+voice she began to sing:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"The bird so free in the heavens</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Is but the slave of the nest.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">For all things must toil as God wills it,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Must laugh and toil and rest.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">The rose must bloom in the garden,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">The bee must gather its store.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">The cat must watch the mousehole,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">And the dog must guard the door."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she broke off in sudden self-reproach. "How <i>can</i> I sit here
+singing,&mdash;at a time like this!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sing!" urged the Dead Man. "Why not? Why not at a time like this as
+well as at any other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> time? Is it because you are afraid you are not
+being sad enough at losing me? You <i>haven't</i> lost me. Nothing is ever
+lost. The old uncle you loved doesn't sleep out in the churchyard dust.
+That is only a dream. He is <i>here</i>&mdash;alive! More alive than ever he was.
+A thousandfold more alive. All his age and weaknesses and faults are
+gone. Youth is glowing in his heart. He is bathed in it. It radiates
+from him. Eternal Youth that no one still on earth can know. Oh, little
+girl of mine, if only I could tell you what is ahead of you! It's the
+wonderful secret of the Universe. And you <i>won't</i> hear me? You won't
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Still smiling, but without turning toward the loving, eager Spirit close
+beside her, Kathrien was looking out into the fragrant June dusk. Peter
+Grimm shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I must try some other way of making you hear," said he.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the closed door of Willem's sick room for a moment, then
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes some one," he announced, with the old whimsical twist of his
+lips, "who will know all about it. The secrets of the other world are as
+plain as day to him. He has told me so himself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>"I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"</h3>
+
+<p>The door of Willem's room opened, and Dr. McPherson came out on the
+landing. He moved slowly, hesitatingly, as though impelled by some force
+outside his logical comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>Still walking as if drawn forward half against his will, the doctor
+descended the stairs to the big living-room. At the stair-foot stood
+Peter Grimm, with outstretched hands to receive him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Andrew," said the Dead Man, in the tone of banter that had never
+in life failed to "get a rise" out of his medical crony, "I apologise.
+You were right. I was mistaken. I didn't know what I was talking about.
+So I've come back, as I promised, to keep our compact and to apologise.
+You see, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor," asked Kathrien, looking back into the room at sound of
+McPherson's steps, "how is Willem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better," answered McPherson. "He's dropped off to sleep again. I'm
+still a bit puzzled about his case. It's&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Andrew! <i>Andrew!</i>" interrupted the Dead Man, almost fiercely. "I've got
+a message to deliver, but I can't get it across. This sort of thing is
+your own beloved specialty. Now's your chance. The chance you've always
+been longing for. Tell her I don't want her to marry Frederik! Tell her
+I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A puzzling condition," continued McPherson, unhearing. "I can't quite
+grasp the meaning&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What meaning?" demanded Peter Grimm. "Mine? Try again. Tell her I don't
+want her to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But," went on McPherson, drawing out pad and fountain pen, "I'll leave
+this prescription for one of the gardeners to take over to the
+druggist's. I'll leave it as I go out. I'll be back in&mdash;Why, what's up,
+Kathrien? What has happened? Oh, you've thought it over, eh? That's
+good. That's the way it should be. I left you all tears and now I find
+you all smiles. It&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Kathrien, half ashamed at her own oddly changed spirits.
+"I am happier for some reason. Much, <i>much</i> happier than I've been for
+days and days. I've&mdash;I've had such a strange feeling this past few
+minutes!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Have, eh?" asked McPherson curiously. "H'm! So have I. It's in the air,
+I suppose. I've been as restless as a hungry mouse. Something, for
+instance, seemed to draw me downstairs here. I can't explain it."</p>
+
+<p>"I can," exulted Peter Grimm. "I'm beginning to be felt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," hesitated Kathrien, looking nervously about her into the
+dimmer corners of the lamplit room, "just a little while ago, I&mdash;I
+thought I heard Oom Peter call me.&mdash;I was upstairs in my room. And it
+seemed to me I could hear that dear old call he used to give. It was so
+vivid, so distinct, so real! It was my imagination, of course. I'm so
+used to hearing Oom Peter's voice in this room that sometimes I forget
+for a moment that he isn't here. But&mdash;but some one <i>must</i> have called
+me. I couldn't have imagined it <i>all</i>. Isn't it strange to hear a call
+like that and then look around and find no one is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a phenomenon well recognised in modern science," affirmed
+McPherson. "I could cite you a hundred instances of it. Not all from
+imaginative persons either, Kathrien!" he added solemnly. "I have the
+firm conviction that in a very short time I shall hear from Peter!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," sighed the Dead Man in whimsical despair.</p>
+
+<p>"He made the compact I told you about," continued McPherson, "and Peter
+Grimm never broke his word. He will come back. Be sure of that. But what
+I want is some positive proof,&mdash;some absolute test to prove his presence
+when he comes. Poor old Peter! Bless his kind, obstinate heart! If he
+keeps that compact with me and comes back, do you know what I shall ask
+him first?"</p>
+
+<p>"You poor, blind, deaf, old Scotchman!" laughed Peter Grimm. "Open your
+eyes and your ears! You are like the man who lay down at the edge of the
+river and died of thirst."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you ask him first, Doctor?" queried the girl as McPherson
+paused with dramatic effect, awaiting the question.</p>
+
+<p>"First of all," said the doctor, "I shall ask him: 'Peter, in the next
+world does our work go on just where we left it off here?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," returned Peter Grimm thoughtfully, "that question is rather a
+poser, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a difficult question to answer, I admit," mused McPherson,
+following what he deemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> be the trend of his own thoughts. "I
+realise that."</p>
+
+<p>"You heard me?" cried the Dead Man, with sudden excitement. "You
+<i>heard</i>? Come! We're getting results at last, you and I!"</p>
+
+<p>"Results," murmured the doctor abstractedly, "are&mdash;&mdash;What was I saying?
+Oh, yes. In the life-to-come, for instance, am I to be a bone-setter and
+is he to keep on being a tulip man?"</p>
+
+<p>"It stands to reason, Andrew, doesn't it?" suggested Peter Grimm. "What
+chance would a beginner have with a fellow who knew his business before
+he was born? Hey?"</p>
+
+<p>With the merrily victorious air that he had ever assumed when he had
+scored a telling point in their old-time discussions, Peter surveyed the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, Katje," mused McPherson after a moment's consideration,
+"that it is possible to have more than one chance at our life work. It
+never occurred to me before, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You caught <i>that</i>! Now, why can't you
+get that message about Kathrien's marriage? Try, man! Try!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien," said McPherson, suddenly shifting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> from conjecture to
+everyday conditions, "have you thought over what I said to you about
+this marriage with Frederik?"</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>did</i> get it!" muttered Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," rejoined Kathrien, "I have thought it over, Doctor. And I thank
+you with all my heart. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go on with it. I shall be married, just as Oom Peter wished me
+to. I shan't go back on my promise."</p>
+
+<p>McPherson growled in futile disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't give up, Andrew!" exhorted Peter Grimm. "Don't give up! <i>Make</i>
+her see it your way. A girl can always change her mind. Try again.
+<i>Andrew!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The last word was almost a cry. For McPherson, with a shrug of his
+shoulders, accepted defeat in surly silence and was tramping across to
+the hat rack, where he began to gather up his outdoor raiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Andrew! <i>Andrew!</i>" he pleaded, following him up. "Don't throw away
+the fight so easily! Tell her to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Kathrien," said the doctor at the threshold. "If you choose
+to make toad-pie of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> your life, it's no business of mine. I'll drop in
+later for a good-night look at Willem."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Doctor," answered Kathrien, "and&mdash;thank you again."</p>
+
+<p>With a wordless grunt, McPherson went out, leaving Peter Grimm staring
+hopelessly after him.</p>
+
+<p>"I see I can't depend on <i>you</i>, Andrew," murmured the Dead Man, "in
+spite of your psychic lore and your belief in my return. Why is it they
+can all understand&mdash;or <i>half</i> understand&mdash;the unimportant things I say,
+and yet be deaf to my message? It is like picking out the simple words
+in a foreign book and then not know what the story is about.
+Marta&mdash;Kathrien&mdash;McPherson&mdash;they all fail me. I must find some other
+way."</p>
+
+<p>He turned slowly toward the door of the office. The door almost
+immediately opened and James Hartmann came into the room. The young man
+had a pen behind his ear and a half-written memorandum of sales in his
+hand. He had evidently risen from his work and entered the living-room
+on an unplanned impulse.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien had seated herself in a chair by the fire and was gazing
+drearily into the red embers.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at her, lad!" breathed Peter Grimm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> "She is so pretty&mdash;so
+young&mdash;so lonely! Look! There are kisses tangled in that gold hair of
+hers where it curls about her forehead and neck. Hundreds of them. And
+her lips are made for kisses. See how dainty and sweet and heart-broken
+she is. She is dreaming of <i>you</i>, James. Are you going to let her go?
+Why, who could resist such a girl? <i>You're not going to let her go!</i> You
+feel what I am saying to you. You won't give her up. She loves you, boy.
+And you realise now that you can't live without her. Speak! Speak to
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Kathrien!" said Hartmann earnestly; then halted, frightened at his
+own temerity.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up quickly. At sight of him she flushed and rose
+impulsively to face him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, James!" she cried. "I'm so glad&mdash;so <i>glad</i> to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>As their hands met the man's hesitancy fled.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>felt</i> that you were in here," said he. "All at once I seemed to know
+you were here and alone. And before I realised what I was doing, I came
+in. I didn't mean to."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't mean to come and see me while you were here?" she echoed in
+reproach. "Why not?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For the same reason I didn't stay when I was here before. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you go away that time?" she demanded. "Why did you go without a
+word of good-bye to&mdash;to any of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her, boy," adjured Peter Grimm. "Don't mind <i>my</i> feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle sent me away," blurted Hartmann, "but it was partly at my
+own request."</p>
+
+<p>"Oom Peter sent you away? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told him the truth again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! One of your usual hot arguments that used to worry me so? I
+remember how excited you both used to get. Was it about the superiority
+of potatoes to orchids this time?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. The superiority of one person to the whole world."</p>
+
+<p>But she did not catch his meaning. She was looking up at the big
+athletic body and the clean, strong face, with an absurd longing to
+creep into the man's arms for shelter as might a tired child.</p>
+
+<p>"It's so <i>good</i> to see you back," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only here for a few hours," he answered. "Just long enough to put
+one or two details of the business to rights. Then I'm going away
+again&mdash;this time for good."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No! Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father and I are going to try our luck on our own account. I've a few
+thousands from a legacy that came to me last month from my grandmother.
+And father has saved a tidy little sum, too. We're going to start in
+with small fruits and market gardening. We haven't decided just where."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be so strange&mdash;so different&mdash;so lonely and <i>empty</i> when I come
+back," she mourned, "with Uncle and you both gone. It seems as if the
+blessed old home was all broken up. It can never be the same again. I
+don't know how I can muster courage to come into this house after&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It will be easier after the first wrench. Everything is easier than we
+think it's going to be. And, Kathrien," he went on, steadying his voice
+by a supreme effort, "I hope you'll be happy&mdash;beautifully happy."</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them realised that her hand had somehow slipped into his and
+was resting very contentedly in the big, firm grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether I'm happy or not," replied Kathrien miserably, "it's the only
+thing to do. Please try to believe that. Oh, James, he died smiling at
+me&mdash;thinking of me&mdash;loving me. And just be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>fore he went he had begged me
+to marry Frederik. I shall never forget the wonderful look of happiness
+in his eyes when I promised. It was all he wanted in life. He said he'd
+never been so happy before. He smiled up at me for the very last time,
+with his dear face all alight. And there he sat, smiling, after he was
+gone. The smile of a man leaving this life absolutely satisfied&mdash;at
+peace!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know. Marta told me. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's like a hand on my heart, hurting it almost unbearably when I
+question doing anything he wanted. It has always been so with me ever
+since I was a baby. I never could bear to go against his wishes. And now
+that he's gone&mdash;why, I <i>must</i> keep my word. I couldn't meet him in the
+Hereafter if I didn't keep that last sacred promise to him. I couldn't
+say my prayers at night. I couldn't speak his name in them. Oom Peter
+trusted me. He depended on me. He did everything for me. I must do this
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You are wrong. Tell her so, James!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted you to know this, James," finished Kathrien,
+"because&mdash;because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A gush of tears blotted out Hartmann's tense,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> wretched face and choked
+her hesitating utterance.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you told Frederik that you don't love him?" asked Hartmann,
+forcing himself to resist the yearning to gather her into his arms and
+kiss away her tears. "Does he know?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, her face buried in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"And Frederik is willing to take you like that? On those terms?"</p>
+
+<p>Another dumb nod of the pretty, fluffy little head, with its face still
+convulsed and hidden.</p>
+
+<p>"The yellow dog!" burst forth Hartmann.</p>
+
+<p>"You flatter him," sadly assented Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Kathrien," hurried on Hartmann, "I didn't mean to say a word
+of this to-day,&mdash;or ever. Not a word. But the instant I came in here
+from the office just now, something made me change my mind. I knew all
+at once I <i>must</i> talk to you. You looked so little, so young, so
+helpless, all huddled up there by the fire. Kathrien, you've never had
+to think for yourself. You don't know what you are doing in going on
+with this blasphemous, loveless marriage. Why, dear, you are making the
+most terrible mistake possible to a woman. Marriage <i>with</i> love is often
+a tragedy. Without love it is a hell. A horror that will deepen and grow
+more dreadful with every year."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose I don't understand that?" she whispered. "Don't make it
+harder for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle was wrong to ask such a sacrifice. Why should you wreck your
+life to carry out his pig-headed plans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not strong enough yet," advised Peter Grimm. "Go on, lad."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to be wretched for the rest of your days, just to please
+a dead man who can't even know about it," insisted Hartmann. "Or if he
+<i>does</i> know, you may be certain he sees the affair more sanely by this
+time and is bitterly sorry he made you promise."</p>
+
+<p>"He assuredly is," acquiesced Peter Grimm. "I wish I'd known in other
+days that you had so much sense. Go ahead!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't speak so, James," reproved Kathrien, deeply shocked.
+"I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he must," contradicted the Dead Man. "Go on, James. Stronger!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>must</i> speak so!" declared Hartmann, swept on by a power he could
+not understand. "I'll speak my mind. I don't care how fond you were of
+your uncle or how much he did for you. It was not right for him to ask
+this sacrifice of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> you. The whole thing was the blunder of an obstinate
+old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! You mustn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"I loved him, too," said Hartmann. "As much in my own way, perhaps, as
+you did. Though he and I never agreed on any subject under the sun. But,
+in spite of all my affection for him, I know and always knew he <i>was</i> an
+obstinate old man. Obstinate as a mule. It was the Dutch in him, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm nodded emphatic approval.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know why I was sent away?" rushed on Hartmann, still upheld and
+goaded along by that incomprehensible impulse. "Do you know why I
+quarrelled with your uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I told him I loved you. He asked me. I didn't tell him because
+I had any hopes. I hadn't. I haven't now. Oh, girl, I don't know why I'm
+talking to you like this. I love you. And my arms are aching for you."</p>
+
+<p>He stepped toward her, arms out as he spoke. She retreated, frightened,
+to where Peter Grimm stood surveying the lover with keen approbation.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she warned. "You mustn't, James. It isn't right&mdash;don't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her next backward step brought her close to Peter Grimm. And the Dead
+Man, with a swift motion of his hand, waved her forward into her lover's
+outstretched arms.</p>
+
+<p>Through no conscious volition of her own, Kathrien sped straight onward,
+unswerving, unfaltering into the strong circle of those arms for whose
+warm refuge she had so guiltily felt herself longing.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she panted, in dutiful resistance.</p>
+
+<p>But the negation was lost against Hartmann's broad breast as he pressed
+her closely to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you!" he repeated over and over in a daze of rapture.</p>
+
+<p>Then in awed wonder:</p>
+
+<p>"And you love <i>me</i>, Kathrien!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no&mdash;don't make me say it, dear heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>shall</i> make you say it. It is true. You do love me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What matter if I do?" wailed the girl. "It wouldn't change matters."</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't say anything more. I can't bear it."</p>
+
+<p>Gently, reluctantly, she sought to release herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> from that wonderful
+embrace. But Hartmann now needed no Spirit Guest to urge him to hold his
+own.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to let you go," he cried, kissing her white, upturned
+face till the red glowed back into it. "I won't give you up, Kathrien. I
+<i>won't</i> give you up!"</p>
+
+<p>"You must," she insisted, struggling more fiercely against herself than
+against him. "You must, dear. I can't break my promise to Oom Peter.
+I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The front door opened. The lovers sprang apart. Frederik entered,
+glancing quickly from one to the other of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" he observed. "You in here, Hartmann? I thought I'd find you in the
+office. I've some unopened mail of my uncle's to glance over. Then I'll
+join you there."</p>
+
+<p>Hartmann took the broad hint, nodded, and left the room. Frederik's eyes
+followed him steadily until the door closed behind the young intruder.
+Then he turned to where Kathrien crouched, panting, bewildered,
+trembling. Frederik abruptly went over to her, and, before she could
+guess his purpose, kissed her full on the lips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily the girl recoiled as from some loathly thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" she exclaimed, fighting for her shaken self-control. "Please
+don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he snapped.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Hartmann been talking to you?"</p>
+
+<p>She moved toward the stair-foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a moment, please," Frederik interposed, hurrying forward to catch
+up with her before she could gain the safety of the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"Hartmann <i>has</i> been talking to you. What has he been saying?"</p>
+
+<p>He had seized her hand as she made to mount the stairway. As she did not
+reply to his question, he repeated it, adding:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really imagine, Kathrien, that you care for that&mdash;fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather not talk about it, please, Frederik," she pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"No? But it is necessary. Do you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She broke away from his suddenly rough grip and fled up the stairway to
+her own room. As the door shut behind her, Frederik, with clouded face
+and working lips, strode over to the desk. He passed close by Peter
+Grimm. But the Dead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> Man was still staring blankly after Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Katje," he muttered, "even Love could not get my message to you!
+Less influence would be needed to change the fate of a nation than the
+mind of one good woman. I think a good woman&mdash;a <i>good</i> woman,&mdash;is more
+stubborn than anything else in the Universe. Not excepting myself. When
+she has made up her mind to do <i>right</i>,&mdash;which invariably means to
+sacrifice herself and thereby make as many other people wretched as
+possible&mdash;not even a Spirit from the Other World can influence her."</p>
+
+<p>With a despairing shrug of the shoulders he turned toward his nephew,
+and his face hardened. Frederik had seated himself at the desk. He had
+drawn out the little handful of personal letters that had arrived that
+afternoon for Peter Grimm and those that Mrs. Batholommey had put into
+the drawer for safe keeping.</p>
+
+<p>One letter after another Frederik cut open, glanced over, and either put
+back into the drawer or laid under a paperweight on the desk. Peter
+Grimm crossed to the opposite side of the desk and stood looking down at
+him with set face and sad, reproving gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik Grimm," said the Dead Man at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> last, his voice low but
+infinitely impressive, "my beloved nephew! You sit there opening my mail
+with the heart of a stone. You are saying to yourself: 'He is gone;
+there will be fine times ahead.' But there is one thing you have
+forgotten, Frederik: The Law of Reward and Punishment. Your hour has
+come&mdash;<i>to think!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik, unheeding, continued to open, read, and sort the letters
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>At the Dead Man's last words, his nephew picked from the heap a blue
+envelope, ripped it open, and pulled out the enclosures:&mdash;a single sheet
+of blue paper and a cheap photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my God! Oh, my <i>God</i>!" he babbled over and over, foolishly, staring
+from letter to photograph. "Here's luck! What luck it is! Anne Marie to
+my uncle! Lord! If he'd lived to read it! If he had read it! Out I'd
+have been kicked! One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;<i>Augenblick!</i> Out into the street!
+Oh, what unbelievable luck! If she'd written to him ten days earlier!
+Ten little days!"</p>
+
+<p>His hand shaking, he picked up the letter again, spread it wide, and
+began to read it, Peter Grimm standing behind him, looking over the
+reader's shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mr. Grimm," the letter ran, "I have not written because I can't
+help Willem. And I am ashamed. Don't be too hard upon me, sir, in your
+thoughts. At first I often went hungry. And then the few pennies I had
+saved for him were spent. Now I see that I can never hope to get him
+back. Willem is far better off with you. I know he is. But, oh, how I
+wish I could just see him again! <i>Once.</i> Perhaps I could come there in
+the night time and no one would know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" breathed Peter Grimm, between tight clenched teeth. "The pity of
+it! The <i>pity</i> of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's that?" cried Frederik, looking up with a start of terror from his
+perusal of the letter.</p>
+
+<p>The young man peered about the shadows beyond the radius of the lamp, a
+nervous dread at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's in the room!" he demanded, glancing behind him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 371px;"><a name="ILLO2" id="ILLO2"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+<img src="images/image_0213.jpg" width="371" height="500" alt="&quot;Who&#39;s in the room!&quot; he demanded." title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Who&#39;s in the room!&quot; he demanded.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then with a self-contemptuous shake of his head he muttered angrily:</p>
+
+<p>"That's queer. I could have sworn somebody was looking over my shoulder.
+Bah! My nerves are going bad!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He returned to the reading of the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I met some one from home to-day," went on Anne Marie's epistle. "If
+there's any truth in the rumour that Kathrien is going to marry
+Frederik, <i>it mustn't be</i>, Mr. Grimm. It must <i>not</i>. She must not marry
+him. For Frederik is my little boy's fa&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>is</i> some one here!" muttered Frederik, laying down the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Calming his disordered nerves once more, he glanced furtively up toward
+Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up
+the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and
+apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly
+dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness
+was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid of a
+certain dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik turned the photograph over. On the back he read:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>For my little boy, from Anne Marie.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>His mouth twitched. Throngs of memories were crowding in upon him. And
+the eyes of the Dead Man were boring to his very soul. Something very
+like Conscience was stirring within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> him. He laid the photograph face
+downward on the table and he bent his head forward upon his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The young man was not a melodrama villain. He was not even a scoundrel,
+in the broad sense of the term. Weak, lazy, pleasure loving, he was what
+Peter Grimm had all unconsciously made him. As a dilettante, a man of
+leisure, or even comfortably engaged in some easy, congenial life work
+and with pleasant home surroundings, he would probably have developed
+few undesirable traits.</p>
+
+<p>From boyhood he had been under the influence and orders of Peter Grimm.
+To be under Peter Grimm's supervision entailed one of three courses,
+according to the character of the person concerned: either to yield
+gracefully and gratefully to the old man's kindly but iron domination
+and find therein love and protection,&mdash;as had Kathrien; or to use the
+right of personal thought and individuality, and therefore to clash
+forever with Peter,&mdash;as had James Hartmann; or to seem for policy's sake
+to bend, while really living one's own life;&mdash;as had Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm was the slave and apostle of Order, Work, and Method.
+Frederik loved ease,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> luxury, artistic surroundings. Yet he was too wise
+to antagonise his uncle, who had the power to leave him one day the
+master of all these pleasant things he craved. So he had adapted himself
+outwardly to a path he loathed. And, by the wayside, he had secretly
+sought such pleasures as his nature craved.</p>
+
+<p>Anne Marie had chanced to be by the wayside.</p>
+
+<p>What had followed was rendered tragic chiefly by Anne Marie's innate
+goodness and by Peter Grimm's fierce morality.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik dared not risk the loss of a future fortune by admitting his
+fault or by marrying the woman for whom, at the time, he had really
+cared. In a shiftless way and with straitly limited income, he had done
+what he could do for her. The sacrifices these helps had entailed and
+the constant fear of exposure and of consequent disinheritance had in
+time made the thought of Anne Marie a horror to him.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone, at Peter Grimm's command, to Leyden and Heidelberg to
+study botany, Frederik had hoped to close the unsavoury incident for all
+time.</p>
+
+<p>On his return he had found Willem installed at the Grimm home, a living,
+ever-present menace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> and reminder to him. And, despite a soft heart and
+a normally decent nature, Frederik had, little by little, been forced by
+his own past and his own hopes into a course that at times was hateful
+to him. Ten thousand men, far worse than he, walk the streets of every
+big city and sleep snug o' nights with no grinning Conscience-Skull to
+break their rest. A thousand well-meaning, harmless sons of dominating
+and domineering parents are forced, as was he, into by-roads as hateful
+to them. To be cast by Fate to enact the Villain, when one has not the
+temperament, the aptitude, nor the desire for the unsavoury r&ocirc;le, falls
+to more men's lot than the world realises.</p>
+
+<p>It had fallen to Frederik Grimm's. Wherefore, sick at heart, he sat with
+his head in his hands. And Peter Grimm read his thoughts as from a
+printed page.</p>
+
+<p>"Once more a spark of manhood is alight in your soul," whispered the
+Dead Man. "It is not too late. Nothing is ever too late. Turn back!"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik looked up, half-listening. His hand crept out to the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Follow the impulse that is in your heart," begged the Dead Man. "Follow
+it! Take the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> little boy in your arms. Declare him to all the world as
+your own. Go down on your knees and ask his mother's forgiveness. Ah, do
+it, lad, so that I can go back still trusting you,&mdash;still believing in
+you,&mdash;blessing you! <i>Frederik!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Frederik, starting up. "What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced about the room unseeingly, then looked toward the outer door
+and called:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's curious!" he mused, settling back in his chair. "I thought I
+heard some one at&mdash;<i>Who's at the door?</i>" he called again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> am at the door," replied the Dead Man in solemn vehemence. "<i>I</i>,
+Peter Grimm. The uncle who loved you and whom you tricked. Anne Marie is
+at the door,&mdash;the little girl who is ashamed to come home. Willem is at
+the door&mdash;your own flesh and blood&mdash;<i>nameless</i>! Katje, sobbing her heart
+out,&mdash;James&mdash;all of us. <i>All!</i> We are all at the door, Frederik! At the
+door of your conscience. Ah, don't keep us waiting!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A HALF-HEARD MESSAGE</h3>
+
+<p>Frederik rose slowly from his chair. His face was working. Instinctively
+his glance lifted to Kathrien's door. His eyes grew bright and his weak
+mouth strong with a wondrous resolve. He crossed the room to the
+stair-foot; that light of pure sacrifice deepening in his whole upraised
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" urged the Dead Man, keeping eager pace with him in body and in
+thought. "Yes! Call her. Give her back her promise."</p>
+
+<p>The flabby muscles of a self-indulgent man may sometimes perform a
+single prodigious feat of strength. Wherein they have an infinite
+advantage over the far flabbier resolutions of a self-indulgent man. And
+Frederik Grimm's weak, atrophied better self was not equal to the strain
+thrown upon it.</p>
+
+<p>At the stair-foot, his step faltered. He halted irresolutely, while the
+Dead Man watched him in an anguish of hope and fear.</p>
+
+<p>Then came surrender to long habit; and with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> it a gush of weak rage. Not
+at himself. He had not the strength left for that. But at the cause of
+his distress. He brought down his fist upon the desk with a resounding
+thwack. His eye fell on the open page with its pathetic scrawl of
+appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn her!" he growled, snatching up the letter and tearing it across
+and across. "I wish to God I'd never seen her!"</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm gazed down upon him with eyes wherein lurked a slowly rising
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik Grimm!" commanded the Dead Man. "Get up! Stand up before me!
+Stand up, I say!"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik made as though to rise, then swore under his breath and sat
+down again.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand up!" flashed the Dead Man.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik got shamblingly to his feet, and looked around with a frown, as
+though wondering why he had risen. His gaze swept the desk for some
+cause for his action, then rested moodily on the dying embers in the
+hearth.</p>
+
+<p>The Dead Man at the far side of the desk confronted him like some
+unearthly Judge from whose heart pity, humanity, and all else but
+righteous wrath were banished.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You shall not have my little girl!" thundered Peter Grimm. "I have come
+back to take her away from you. And you cannot put me to rest. I have
+come back. You cannot drive me from your thoughts."</p>
+
+<p>He touched Frederik's damp forehead with his forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>there</i>," he said. "I am looking over your shoulder as you read or
+write or think. I am looking in at the window when you deem you are
+alone and unseen. <i>I have come back.</i> You are breathing me in the air. I
+am hammering at your heart in each of your pulse beats. Wherever you
+are, I am there."</p>
+
+<p>His forced calmness gave way to a gust of helpless rage as he felt his
+words falling upon world-deafened ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear me!" he commanded furiously. "<i>Hear</i> me! You <i>shall</i> hear me!"</p>
+
+<p>At each frenzied repetition of the command, the Dead Man hurled his arms
+aloft and brought down his clenched fist with all his power upon the
+desk in mighty blows of utterly soundless violence.</p>
+
+<p>Impotently he cried aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, will <i>no</i> one hear me? Has my journey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> been all in vain? Has it
+been useless?&mdash;worse than useless?"</p>
+
+<p>The Dead Man looked upward, in an anguish of desperation. He seemed to
+be entreating the Unseen in his clamour of wild, hopeless appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"Has it all been for nothing?" he wailed. "Must we forever stand or fall
+by the mistakes we make in this world? Is there <i>no</i> second chance?"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik shook his head angrily as though to banish clinging unwelcome
+thoughts from his brain, got up and crossed to the sideboard, where he
+poured himself a double drink of liquor and swigged it down with
+feverish eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>As he left the desk, Marta entered from the kitchen with the light
+supper he had ordered:&mdash;coffee, with sugar and cream, and a plate of
+little cakes. She went to the desk and began clearing a space among the
+scattered papers for the supper tray. As her free hand moved among the
+papers, the Dead Man was at her elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Marta!" he whispered, as though fearing his words might reach Frederik.
+"Look! <i>Look!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed excitedly to the torn letter and the photograph that lay face
+downward under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> her hand. And she picked up both letter and picture, to
+make room for the tray.</p>
+
+<p>"Marta!" urged the Dead Man, almost incoherent in his wild haste. "See
+what you have there! Look down at that picture in your hand! Turn it
+over and <i>look</i> at it! Look at the hand-writing on that torn letter!
+Look quickly! Then run with them to Miss Kathrien. Make her piece the
+letter together and read it! Quick! It's the only way she can learn the
+truth. Frederik will never tell her. Marta!&mdash;<i>Ah!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>His wild plea broke off in a cry of chagrin. For Frederik, turning from
+the sideboard, had seen the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Your coffee, Mynheer Frederik," said she, laying down the photograph
+and letter without a glance at them.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes. Of course," answered Frederik. "I forgot. Thanks."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to leave the room. Frederik, coming over to the desk, caught
+sight of the torn blue envelope and the picture, where she had laid
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly covering them with his hand, he glanced at her in quick,
+terrified suspicion. But the face she turned to him as she hesitated for
+a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> moment at the kitchen door showed him at once that he was safe.
+Nevertheless, Marta lingered on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" queried Frederik, seating himself beside the tray.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there," she stammered, "is there no&mdash;no word&mdash;no letter&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Word? Letter?" he echoed nervously. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"From&mdash;&mdash;" began the old woman in timid hesitation, then in a rush of
+courage: "From my little girl. From Anne Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he snapped. "Of course not. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;at a time like this&mdash;if she knows&mdash;oh, I felt it,&mdash;I hoped&mdash;that
+there would be <i>some</i> message from her! Every day I have hoped&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he broke in. "Nothing's come. No letter. No word of any sort from
+her. I'd have let you know if there had. By the way, I have an
+appointment at the hotel in a few minutes. Tell Miss Kathrien, if she
+asks for me."</p>
+
+<p>He busied himself with the tray. Marta looked at him a moment longer,
+held by some power that she could not explain. Then years of habit
+overcame impulse. She courtesied and withdrew to her kitchen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the door shut behind her, Frederik caught up the torn blue letter.
+Tossing it in a metal ash tray he struck a match. Peter Grimm, divining
+his intent, sprang forward with a wordless cry to stop him. The Dead
+Man's hands tore at the wrists of the Living; sought by main strength to
+snatch the paper out of his reach; with pitiful helplessness tried to
+thrust back the hand that held the lighted match.</p>
+
+<p>Unknowingly, Frederik touched the flame to the paper, shook out the
+match, and watched the torn letter blaze and curl. Then he tossed the
+charred bits into a jardini&egrave;re on the floor, and picked up the picture.</p>
+
+<p>"There's an end to <i>that</i>!" he murmured, turning to throw the photograph
+into the smoking embers of the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm stood erect. A new hope drove the sick despair from his
+face. Looking toward Willem's room he raised his arm and beckoned.</p>
+
+<p>At once the door stealthily opened. A white little figure slipped out
+onto the gallery and toward the stairs. Down the flight of steps, clad
+in his white flannel pajama suit, his eyes wide, his yellow hair
+tumbled, Willem ran.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik, in the act of consigning the photo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>graph to the fire, was
+arrested by the sound of pattering feet. Laying the picture on the desk,
+he turned guiltily, in time to see Willem speeding across the room
+toward the bay window.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing down here?" demanded Frederik. "If you're so sick,
+you ought not to get out of bed. That's the place for sick boys."</p>
+
+<p>"The circus!" mumbled Willem in the queer, strained voice of a sleep
+walker. "The circus music waked me up. So I had to come and hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Circus music?" repeated Frederik amazedly, as he watched the boy
+tugging at the rain-tightened window sash to force it upward.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it woke me. I can see the parade if I can get this window open.
+It&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're half asleep!" exclaimed Frederik. "The circus left town ten
+days ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" insisted Willem, raising the window with one final wrench of
+his frail arms. "The band's playing <i>now</i>. Hear it?"</p>
+
+<p>A gust of chilly, wet air dashed in through the open window, sending a
+sharp draught across the room and waking the boy wide as it beat into
+his hot face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why," babbled Willem, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him, "why,
+it's <i>night</i> time! I wonder what made me think the circus was here. I&mdash;I
+guess it was a dream."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik strode to the window impatiently and slammed it shut. As he
+passed Willem on the way back to the desk the boy intuitively cowered
+away from him.</p>
+
+<p>"You've had a fever," said Frederik crossly, "and you're liable to catch
+cold, wandering around this draughty old barn in your night clothes. Go
+back to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," whimpered the boy, cringing under the sharp tone and
+starting back for the stairs. But, before he reached the lowest step, he
+halted. Peter Grimm stood barring his way. For a moment the Dead Man and
+the child stood face to face. Then, still frightened but unable to
+resist, Willem turned back toward Frederik, who had just picked up the
+photograph once more; to put it in the smouldering ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mynheer Frederik," asked the boy in a voice not his own, "where is Anne
+Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" barked Frederik with an uncontrollable start and whipping the
+photograph around behind his back like a guilty child caught in theft.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+"What's that? Anne Marie? Why do you ask <i>me</i> about her? How should <i>I</i>
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned his back on the boy and began to tear the photograph into tiny
+bits. Willem hesitated, then went back to the stairway. Again at the
+foot of the steps he confronted the Dead Man. Again they stood for an
+instant, looking wordlessly into each other's eyes. And again Willem
+turned back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Mynheer Frederik," he asked in a sort of dazed bewilderment, "<i>where</i>
+is Mynheer Grimm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Mynheer Grimm? Dead, of course. Dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Are&mdash;are you <i>sure</i>? Because just now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, go to bed! At once, do you hear! Go, or I'll have you punished!"</p>
+
+<p>Under this dire threat and the scowl that went with it, not even the
+Dead Man's power could stem Willem's defeat. Up the stairs he scuttled.
+At the door of his room, the fever thirst in his hot, parched throat for
+the moment overcame fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Could&mdash;could I have a drink of water?" he whimpered, gazing longingly
+down at the full ice-water pitcher on the sideboard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An angry glance from Frederik sent him into his own room like a rabbit
+into its warren.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik, the fragments of the picture clenched in his sweat-damp hand,
+glowered after the retreating lad and took a step toward the fire. The
+movement brought him close to the desk. The lamp had suddenly burned
+very low. But for the faint gleam of firelight the room was in almost
+total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>And out of that gloom leaped a Face. A Face close to Frederik's own;&mdash;a
+Face indescribably awful in its aspect of unearthly menace. The face of
+Peter Grimm. Not kindly and rugged as in life, or even as since the Dead
+Man's return. But terrible, accusing, bathed in a lurid glow.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik, with a scream of crass horror, reeled back. The bits of
+cardboard tumbled from his fear-loosened grip and strewed the surface of
+the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" croaked Frederik, his throat sanded with terror. "My God! Oh,
+my <i>God</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The Face was gone. The room was in shadow again and very silent. The
+dropping of a charred ember from andiron to hearth made the
+panic-stricken man jump convulsively.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Scarce breathing, crouched in a position of grotesque fright, the
+fear-sweat streaming down his face, Frederik Grimm peered about him
+through the flickering gloom. The place seemed peopled with elusive
+Shapes. His teeth clicked together as his loosened jaw was nerve-racked.
+He shivered from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I thought&mdash;&mdash;" he began, half aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Then he fell silent, afraid of his own voice in that dreadful silence.
+For a moment he cowered, numb, inert. Then he remembered the fragments
+of the photograph that still strewed the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I must get rid of them," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>He took an apprehensive step toward the desk. But the memory of what he
+had seen there was too potent. He knew he could no more approach that
+spot than he could walk into a den of rattlesnakes. He halted, sweating,
+aghast. Again he crept forward,&mdash;a step&mdash;two steps&mdash;in the direction of
+the torn picture. But his fears clogged his feet and brought him to a
+shivering stand-still. Had the wealth of the world lain strewed on that
+desk instead of a mere handful of scattered pasteboard bits he could not
+have summoned courage to step forth and seize it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Dead Man, in the shadows, read his mind and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"No one's likely to come in here till I get back," Frederik told
+himself, in self-excuse for his cowardice. "And if any one does, the
+picture is too badly torn to be recognised. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He found that his terror-ridden subconsciousness was backing his
+trembling body toward the outer door. The door that led from that
+haunted room&mdash;from the desk he dared not go near,&mdash;out into the safe,
+peace-giving night of summer.</p>
+
+<p>And, snatching up his hat and stick, the shuddering, white-faced young
+master of the Grimm fortune half-stumbled, half-ran, from his home.</p>
+
+<p>"Hicks's lawyer will be waiting," he said to his battered self-respect.
+"I'm late as it is. I must hurry."</p>
+
+<p>And hurry he did, nor checked his rapid pace until he had reached his
+destination.</p>
+
+<p>Scarce had the door banged shut after Frederik when Peter Grimm raised
+his eyes once more toward Willem's room. And again the little white-clad
+figure appeared, and tiptoed toward the stair head.</p>
+
+<p>Willem paused a moment, looked over the banisters to make certain that
+Frederik had gone, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> stole down to the big living-room. His cheeks
+were flushed with fever. He was tired all over. His head throbbed. And
+his throat was unbearably dry. The perpetual thirst of childhood,
+augmented by the gnawing, unbearable thirst of fever, sent him speeding
+to the sideboard. He picked up the big ice-water pitcher,&mdash;chilled and
+frosted by inner cold and outer dampness&mdash;and poured out a glassful of
+the stingingly cold water. The boy gulped down the contents of the glass
+in almost a single draught. Then he filled a second glass and, with
+epicurean delight, let the water trickle slowly and coolingly down his
+hot throat. Peter Grimm stood beside him, a gentle hand on the thin
+little shoulder. His thirst slaked, Willem glanced fearfully toward the
+front door.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he won't come back for a long time," Peter Grimm soothed him.
+"Don't be afraid. He went out in a hurry and he hasn't yet stopped
+hurrying. He&mdash;thought he saw <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Willem, reassured, laid his burning cheek against the frosted, icy side
+of the pitcher. A smile of utter bliss overspread his face.</p>
+
+<p>"My, but it feels good!" sighed the boy.</p>
+
+<p>The Dead Man continued to look down at him with an infinite pity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Willem," said he, stroking the tousled head and smoothing away its
+stabbing pain, "there are some little soldiers in this world who are
+handicapped when they come into Life's battlefield. Their parents
+haven't fitted them for the fight. Poor little moon-moths! They look in
+at the lighted windows. They beat at the panes. They see the glow of
+happy firesides,&mdash;the lamps of bright homes. But they can never get in.
+You are one of those little wanderers, Willem. And children like you are
+a million times happier when they are spared the truth. So it's the most
+beautiful thing that can happen for you, that before your playing time
+is over&mdash;before you begin a man's bitterly hard, grinding toil,&mdash;all the
+care&mdash;all the tears, all the worries, all the sorrows are going to pass
+you by forever. God is going to lay His dear hand on your head. There is
+always a place for such little children as you at His side. There is
+none in this small, harsh, unpitying old world. If people knew&mdash;if they
+understood&mdash;I don't think they could be so cruel as to bring such
+children into the world, to carry terrible burdens. They <i>don't</i> know.
+But God does. And that is why He is going to take you to Him. It will be
+the most wonderful&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> most beautiful thing that could happen to you."</p>
+
+<p>Willem smiled dreamily. Then he took a long, ecstatic drink out of the
+pitcher itself, set it down, and rose to his feet. He felt suddenly
+better. For the time the water had cooled him. The racking headache was
+smoothed away. And, child-like, he had no desire whatever to cut short
+his surreptitious good time by going to bed. He looked about him for new
+objects of interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," went on the Dead Man, "of all this whole household, you are
+the only one who really feels I am here. The only one who can almost see
+me. The only one who can help me. I have a little message for you to
+give Katje, and I've something to show you."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed toward the desk, where lay the fragments of the picture. The
+firelight was strong enough now to make them plainly visible. Willem's
+eyes followed the direction of the pointing hand. But his glance, as it
+reached the desk, fell upon something infinitely more attractive than
+any mere photograph. He saw the tray placed there by Marta and left
+untouched by Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awful hungry!" observed the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" commented Peter Grimm, as Willem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> started across the room to
+investigate the mysteriously alluring tray. "I see I can't get any help
+from a youngster as long as his stomach is calling."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" ejaculated Willem as he spied the plate of cakes.</p>
+
+<p>"Help yourself!" invited Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>The boy obeyed the suggestion before it was made. Already his mouth was
+full of cake and his jaws were working rapturously.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Das is lecker!</i>" he murmured, biting into another of the cakes.</p>
+
+<p>He picked a large and obese raisin from a third, swallowed it, then
+reached for the sugar bowl. Two lumps of sugar went the way of the
+raisin. After which a handful of sugar lumps were stuffed into his
+night-clothes' pocket for future delectation in bed. The cream pitcher
+next met the forager's eye. Willem looked at it longingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it," said Peter Grimm. "It's good, thick, sweet cream. Drink it
+down. That's right. It won't hurt you. Nothing can hurt you now."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't had such a good time," Willem confided to his inner
+consciousness, "since Mynheer Grimm died. Why"&mdash;he broke off, his roving
+gaze concentrating on the hat-rack&mdash;"there's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> his hat! It's&mdash;he's
+<i>here</i>! Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he wailed aloud in utter longing. "Take me
+back with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know I'm here?" asked the Dead Man joyously. "Can you see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," came the answer without a breath of hesitation or any hint of
+misunderstanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," ordered Peter Grimm, his face alight, "take my hand. Have you
+got it?"</p>
+
+<p>He placed his right hand around the boy's groping palm.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," replied Willem.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," urged Peter Grimm, enclosing the boy's hand in both his own, "do
+you feel it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I feel <i>something</i>," returned Willem, in doubt. "Yes, sir. But where
+is your hand? There's&mdash;there's nothing there!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>hear</i> me?" asked the Dead Man anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't <i>really</i> hear you. It's some kind of a dream, I suppose.
+Isn't it? Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he pleaded brokenly. "Take me back with
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not quite ready to go with me, yet," said the Dead Man in gentle
+denial. "Not till you can <i>see</i> me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boy reached out for another cake. Still looking straight ahead where
+he imagined his unseen protector might be, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What did you come back for, Mynheer Grimm? Wasn't it nice where you
+went?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! Beyond all belief, dear lad. But I had to come back. Willem,
+do you think you could take a message for me? Listen very carefully now.
+Because I want you to remember every word of it. I want you to try to
+understand. You are to tell Miss Kathrien&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad you died before you could go to the circus, Mynheer
+Grimm," broke in Willem, munching the cake.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," persisted the Dead Man, patiently starting his plan of
+campaign all over again from another angle, "there must be a great many
+things you remember,&mdash;things that happened when you lived with your
+mother. Aren't there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was very little," hesitated Willem, echoing a phrase he had once
+heard Marta use in speaking of his earlier days.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," pursued the Dead Man, "you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I was afraid," replied the boy, groping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> back in the blurred past
+for a fact and seizing on a gruesomely prominent one.</p>
+
+<p>"Try to think back to that time," urged Peter Grimm. "You loved&mdash;<i>her</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I <i>did</i> love Anne Marie!" exclaimed the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," pointed out the Dead Man, "through that one little miracle of
+love you can remember many things that are tucked away in the back of
+your baby brain. Hey? Things that a single spark could kindle and light
+up and make clear to you. It comes back? Think! There were you&mdash;and Anne
+Marie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And the Other One," suggested Willem on impulse.</p>
+
+<p>"So! And who was the 'Other One'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid&mdash;&mdash;" babbled the child.</p>
+
+<p>And again the Dead Man shifted the form of his questions to quiet the
+nervous dread that had sprung into the big eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," said he, "what would you rather see than anything else in all
+this world? Think. Something that every little boy loves?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I like the circus," hazarded Willem, setting his tired wits to work
+at this possible conundrum, "and the clowns, and&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He hesitated. Peter Grimm motioned toward the photograph's fragments on
+the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;and my mother," finished the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Then, his gaze following the Dead Man's gesture, he caught sight of part
+of a pictured face, torn diagonally across. With a cry he picked it up.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he exclaimed, "there she is! There's her face,&mdash;part of it. And,"
+fumbling among the torn bits of cardboard, "there's the other part. It's
+a picture of Anne Marie. All torn up."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be fun to put it together," suggested Peter Grimm, "the way
+you did with those picture puzzles I got you once. Suppose we try?"</p>
+
+<p>The idea caught the child's fancy. With knitted brows and puckered lips
+he bent over the desk and began the task of piecing the scraps into a
+whole.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," approved the Dead Man. "Put it all together until the
+picture is all perfect.&mdash;See, there's the bit you are looking for to
+finish off the shoulder,&mdash;and then we must show it to everybody in the
+house, and set them all to thinking."</p>
+
+<p>With an apprehensive glance over his shoulder toward the front door
+Willem proceeded more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> hurriedly with his work of joining the strewn
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"I must get it put together before <i>he</i> comes back," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" mutely rejoiced the Dean Man, "I'm making you think about <i>him</i> at
+last! I'll succeed in getting your mind to connect him with Anne Marie
+by the time the others&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"'Uncle Rat has gone to town! Ha.-<i><span class="smcap">H'm</span>!</i>'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>chanted Willem under his breath as his fingers moved from part to part
+of the nearly completed picture. "'<i>To buy his niece a wedding
+gown.</i>'&mdash;There's her hand!" he interrupted himself as an elusive scrap
+of the photograph was at last discovered and put into place.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm's eyes were fixed on the door of Kathrien's room in a
+compelling stare.</p>
+
+<p>"Her other hand!" mused Willem. "'<i>What shall the wedding breakfast be?
+Ha-<span class="smcap">H'm</span>! What shall the&mdash;&mdash;?</i>' Where's&mdash;here's the last two parts. There!
+It's <i>done</i>! Oh, Anne Marie! Mamma! I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The door of Kathrien's room opened. The girl, under a spell of the Dead
+Man's will, came out to the banisters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE "SENSITIVE"</h3>
+
+<p>Kathrien, looking down into the firelit room, saw the white-clad boy
+starting up in triumph with his work.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Willem!" she cried, dumfounded at sight of the invalid out of bed
+at such an hour. "What are you doing down there? You ought to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Kathrien!" exclaimed the child, pointing toward the picture.
+"Come down, quick!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't get out of bed like this when you're ill," gently reproved
+Kathrien. "I had a feeling that you weren't in your room. That is why I
+came out to look. Come&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, look!" insisted Willem, pointing again at the picture puzzle he
+had so painstakingly pieced together. "Look, Miss Kathrien!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, dear!" admonished Kathrien. "You must not play down there. Wait a
+minute, and I'll make your bed again. It will be more com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>fortable for
+you if it's made over. Then you must come right upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>She went to the sick room and set to work with deft speed rearranging
+the tumbled sheets and smoothing the rumpled pillows. Willem looked down
+at his disregarded picture and his lip trembled. He gazed about the room
+in the hope of seeing Peter Grimm. He strained his keen ears for sound
+of the Dead Man's gentle, comforting voice.</p>
+
+<p>But Peter Grimm was looking fixedly toward the dining-room door. And in
+a moment it opened and Mrs. Batholommey bustled in.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard some one call," observed the rector's wife for the
+benefit of any one who might be in the half-lighted room.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she espied Willem.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Why!</i>" she cackled. "Of all things! You naughty, <i>naughty</i> child! You
+ought to be in bed and asleep!"</p>
+
+<p>Willem shrank under the rebuke, but a touch of Peter Grimm's hand and a
+whispered word of encouragement braced him to reply:</p>
+
+<p>"Old Mynheer Grimm's come back."</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her tirade Mrs. Batholommey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> stopped, open-mouthed. She
+stared at the boy in dismay. His face, as well as his voice, was
+unperturbed. He had stated merely what seemed to him a perfectly natural
+but very welcome truth. He had supposed she would be pleased, not
+petrified. He had told her the news in the hope of averting a scolding.
+But she did not seem to take it in the sense of his simple declaration.
+So he repeated it.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Mynheer Grimm's come back, Mrs. Batholommey."</p>
+
+<p>She gurgled wordlessly, then sputtered:</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about, child? 'Old Mynheer Grimm,' as you call
+him, is dead. You know that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he isn't," stoutly contradicted Willem. "He's come back. He's in
+this room right now. At least," he added as he glanced about and could
+not feel the Dead Man's presence, "at least he was a minute ago. I know,
+because I've been talking to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been talking to him. He was standing just where you are now."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey instinctively started. In fact, despite her age and
+bulk and the fact that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> she was built for endurance rather than for
+speed, she jumped high into the air, with an incredible lightness and
+agility, and came to earth several feet away from the spot Willem had
+designated.</p>
+
+<p>"At least," explained the boy, "he <i>seemed</i> to be about there. But he
+seemed to be <i>everywhere</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Recovering her smashed self-poise, Mrs. Batholommey frowned with lofty
+majesty, tempered by womanly concern.</p>
+
+<p>"You are feverish again," she said. "I hoped you were all over it.
+You're light-headed, you poor little fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien, the bed being re-made, hurried downstairs to get Willem.</p>
+
+<p>"His mind is wandering," said Mrs. Batholommey. "He imagines all sorts
+of ridiculous, impossible things."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien dropped into a chair by the fire and gathered the fragile
+little body into her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," went on Mrs. Batholommey, "he is out of his head. I think I'll
+run over and get the doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not trouble to," said Peter Grimm. "<i>I</i> have sent for him.
+Though he doesn't know it. He is coming up the walk."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Dead Man turned toward the front door, the old quizzical smile on
+his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Andrew," he said. "I'm going to give you one more chance at
+the theory you were wise enough to form and are not wise enough to
+practise."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson entered.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I'd just drop in for a minute before bedtime," said he, "to
+see how Willem&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "This is providential. I was just
+coming to get you. Here's Willem. We found he'd gotten out of bed and
+wandered down here. He is worse. Much worse. He's quite delirious."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" commented Dr. McPherson, touching the child's face and then
+laying a finger on the fast, light pulse. "He doesn't look it. He has a
+slight fever again, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he said old Mr. Grimm was here!" bleated Mrs. Batholommey. "Here in
+this room with him."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" gasped Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>But the doctor seemed to regard the statement as the most natural thing
+imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>"In this room?" he repeated in a matter of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> fact tone. "Well, very
+possibly he is. There's nothing so remarkable about that, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing <i>remarkable</i>?" squealed Mrs. Batholommey; then, bridling, she
+scoffed: "Oh, of course. I forgot. You believe in&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," pursued McPherson, getting under weigh with his pet idea,
+"you'll remember, both of you, that I told you he and I made a compact
+to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey with a shudder. "That absurd, horrible
+'compact' you told us about! It was positively blasphemous!"</p>
+
+<p>But McPherson was looking speculatively down at Willem, and did not
+accept nor even hear the challenge to combat.</p>
+
+<p>"I've sometimes had the idea," said he, "that the boy was a 'sensitive.'
+And this evening, I've been wondering&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you haven't, Andrew," denied Peter Grimm. "It's <i>I</i> who have been
+doing the 'wondering'; through that Scotch brain of yours. <i>I'm</i> making
+use of that Spiritualistic hobby of yours because you're too dense to
+hear me except through some rarer mortal's voice."</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;Wondering," continued the doctor, "whether&mdash;perhaps&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," declared Peter Grimm, as McPherson hesitated, "the boy is a
+'sensitive,' as you call it."</p>
+
+<p>"I really believe," declared McPherson, his last doubts vanishing, "that
+Willem <i>is</i> a 'sensitive.' I'm certain of it. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A 'sensitive'?" queried Kathrien. "What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," reflected the doctor, "it is rather hard to define in simple
+language. A 'sensitive' is what is sometimes known as a 'medium.' A
+human organism so constructed that it can be 'informed,' or 'controlled'
+(as the phrases go) by those who are&mdash;who have&mdash;er&mdash;who have&mdash;passed
+over."</p>
+
+<p>He looked apologetically about as if to assure the possibly-present
+Peter Grimm that he had absolutely no intent of using so non-technical a
+word as "dead."</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm acknowledged the compliment with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, say it, Andrew! Say it!" he adjured. "There <i>is</i> no 'death' and
+there are no 'dead,' as this world understands the words. So one term is
+as good as another. 'Dead' or 'passed over.' It's all one. Neither
+phrase means anything. Don't be afraid of offending me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And Willem is like that?" asked Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of it," answered McPherson. "Now, Willem&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better put the boy to bed!" hastily interposed Mrs.
+Batholommey, coming between the doctor and his proposed "subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Please!" rapped McPherson. "I propose to find out what ails Willem.
+That is what I'm here for. And I'll thank you not to interfere, Mrs.
+Batholommey. I never break in on your good husband's pulpit platitudes,
+and I'll ask you to show the same courtesy toward <i>me</i>. Now then,
+Willem&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "you surely aren't going to
+permit&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>A peremptory gesture from McPherson momentarily checked the pendulum of
+her tongue. Kathrien, too, was very evidently on the doctor's side.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," said McPherson quietly, "you said just now that Mr. Grimm was
+in this room. What made you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"The things he said to me," returned Willem, readily enough.</p>
+
+<p>His simple reply had a galvanic effect on his three hearers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Said</i> to you?" bleated Mrs. Batholommey. "<i>Said</i>? Did you say 'said'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Willem!" gasped Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Old</i> Mr. Grimm?" insisted Dr. McPherson. "Willem, you're certain you
+mean <i>old</i> Mr. Grimm? Not Frederik?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," assented Willem with calm assurance. "Old Mynheer Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>And now, even Mrs. Batholommey's awed curiosity dulled her chronic
+conscience-pains into momentary rest. And, with Kathrien, she sat
+silent, eager, awaiting the doctor's next move.</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued McPherson, "what did Mr. Grimm say to you? Think
+carefully before you answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," replied Willem, in the glorious vagueness of childhood, "lots and
+lots of things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, really?" mocked Mrs. Batholommey, the disappointing answer freeing
+her from the grip of awe.</p>
+
+<p>Again McPherson raised a warning hand that balked further comment from
+her. And he returned to the examination.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem," said he, "how did Mr. Grimm look?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see him," answered the child.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Willem," urged McPherson, "you must have seen <i>something</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I thought I saw his hat on the peg," hesitated the boy.</p>
+
+<p>All eyes turned involuntarily and in some fear toward the hat-rack.</p>
+
+<p>"No," went on Willem, looking at the vacant peg, "it's gone now."</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," remonstrated Mrs. Batholommey, impatiently, "this is so silly!
+It&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," whispered Kathrien to McPherson over the boy's head, "I
+wonder if he really <i>did</i>&mdash;do you think&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not finish the sentence. A growing look of disappointment and
+troubled doubt on McPherson's grim face made her reluctant to voice the
+question that her mind had formed.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem!" said the Dead Man earnestly, pointing towards the
+pieced-together picture as he spoke. "Look! Show it to her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" echoed Willem, pointing in turn to the photograph. "Look, Miss
+Kathrien! That's what I wanted to show you when you called to me to go
+to bed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why!" exclaimed Kathrien, following the direction of the eager little
+finger. "It's his mother! It's Anne Marie!"</p>
+
+<p>"His mother!" echoed Mrs. Batholommey, focussing her near-sighted eyes
+on the likeness. "Why, so it is! Well, of all things! I didn't know
+you'd heard from Anne Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"We haven't," said Kathrien.</p>
+
+<p>"Then how did the photograph get into the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," answered the girl. "I never saw the picture before. It
+is none we've had. How strange! We've all been waiting for news of Anne
+Marie. Even her own mother doesn't know where she is, and hasn't heard
+from her in years. Or&mdash;or maybe Marta has received the picture since
+I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll ask her," said Mrs. Batholommey, all eagerness now that something
+tangible was before her.</p>
+
+<p>She bustled off into the kitchen in search of the old housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>"If Marta didn't get it," mused Kathrien, her face strained with
+puzzling thoughts, "who <i>did</i> have this picture? And why weren't the
+rest of us told? Every one knew how eager we were for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> news of Anne
+Marie. And who tore up the picture? Did you, Willem?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" declared the boy. "It <i>was</i> lying here, torn. I mended it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," persisted Kathrien, "there's been no one at this desk,&mdash;except
+Frederik.&mdash;Except Frederik," she repeated, half under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey came back from her kitchen interview, bubbling with
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she announced, "Marta hasn't heard a word from Anne Marie. And
+only a few minutes ago she asked Frederik if any message had come. And
+he said, no, there hadn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," suggested Kathrien, "if there <i>was</i> any message with the
+photograph."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," volunteered Mrs. Batholommey, "one of the letters that
+came for poor old Mr. Grimm was in a blue envelope and felt as if it had
+a photograph in it. I put it with some others in the desk and I told
+Frederik about it this evening."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien glanced over the desk and at the floor around it in search of
+further clues. She saw, in the jardini&egrave;re, the charred remnants of a
+letter and pointed it out to the others. She drew from the d&eacute;bris the
+unburned corner of a blue envelope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's the one!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "That's it! The same colour."</p>
+
+<p>"You say the envelope was addressed to my uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It gave me such a turn to see those letters all addressed to a man
+who wasn't alive to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what does it all mean?" cried the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to find out," said McPherson with sudden determination.
+"Kathrien, draw those window shades close. I want the room darkened as
+much as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor," protested Mrs. Batholommey as Kathrien hastened to obey,
+"you're surely not going to&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet. You needn't stay unless you want to."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll stay. It's my duty. But I don't approve. Please understand
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien had returned to her place by the fire and had lifted Willem
+back on her lap. The doctor, gazing into space, said in a low,
+reverential tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Peter Grimm! If you have come back to us, if you are in this room&mdash;if
+this boy has spoken truly,&mdash;give us some sign, some indication&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, Andrew, I can't," answered the Dead Man. "Not to <i>you</i>. I have, to
+the boy. I can't make you hear me, Andrew. The obstacles are too strong
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Peter Grimm," went on the doctor after a moment of dead silence, "if
+you cannot make your presence known to me&mdash;and I realise there must be
+great difficulties&mdash;will you try to send your message by Willem? I
+presume you <i>have</i> a message?"</p>
+
+<p>Another space of tense silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Peter," resumed McPherson patiently, "I am waiting. We are all
+waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"Then stop talking and listen to Willem," ordered Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor involuntarily glanced at the boy. Willem's wide-open eyes
+were glazed like a sleep-walker's. The hands that had been folded in his
+lap now hung limply at his sides. His lips parted, and droning,
+mechanical, lifeless words came from between them.</p>
+
+<p>"There was Anne Marie&mdash;and me&mdash;and the Other One," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"What Other One?" asked McPherson, speaking in a low, emotionless voice
+so as not to break in on the thought current.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The man that came there," droned the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"What man?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man that made Anne Marie cry."</p>
+
+<p>"What man made Anne Marie cry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't remember," returned the boy, a hesitant note of trouble
+creeping into his dead voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you can," prompted Peter Grimm. "You <i>can</i> remember, Willem.
+You're afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>"So you <i>do</i> remember the time when you were with Anne Marie?" whispered
+Kathrien as the lad hesitated. "You always told me you didn't. Doctor, I
+have the strangest feeling. A feeling that all this somehow concerns
+<i>me</i>, and that I must sift it to the bottom. Think, Willem. Who was it
+that came and went at the house where you lived with Anne Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what <i>I</i> asked you, Willem," said Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"That is what <i>he</i> asked me," replied Willem mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" demanded McPherson. "Who asked you that question, Willem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mynheer Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Just now!" cried Kathrien and Mrs. Batholommey in a breath.</p>
+
+<p>"S-sh!" admonished the doctor. "So you both asked the same question, eh?
+The man that came to see&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be possible," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "that the boy has
+any idea what he is talking about."</p>
+
+<p>A glare from McPherson silenced her. Then the doctor asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What did you tell Mr. Grimm, Willem?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Better make haste," adjured the Dead Man, "Frederik is coming back."</p>
+
+<p>Willem, with a shudder, glanced fearfully toward the outer door.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he do that?" wondered Kathrien. "He looked that way at the
+door when he spoke of 'the Other One.' Why should he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's afraid," answered Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid," echoed Willem.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien gathered him more closely in her warm young arms and whispered
+soothingly to him. The fear died out of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not afraid, any more?" she reassured him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"N-no," he faltered, "but&mdash;oh, <i>please</i> don't let Mynheer Frederik come
+back, Miss Kathrien! <i>Please</i>, don't! Because&mdash;because then I'll be
+afraid again. I know I will."</p>
+
+<p>McPherson whistled low and long. A light was beginning to break upon his
+shrewd Scotch brain.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem!" pleaded the Dead Man. "<i>Willem!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," answered the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"You must say I am very unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"He is very unhappy," repeated Willem, parrot-like.</p>
+
+<p>"Why is he unhappy?" demanded McPherson. "Ask him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you unhappy, Mynheer Grimm?" droned the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"On account of Kathrien's future," replied Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" questioned Willem, who did not quite understand the meaning of
+the words "account" and "future."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow&mdash;&mdash;" began the Dead Man.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow&mdash;&mdash;" droned Willem.</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien's&mdash;&mdash;" continued Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Your&mdash;&mdash;" said the boy, glancing at Kathrien.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien's?" asked the doctor. "Is he speaking about Kathrien?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Willem?" begged the girl. "What about me, to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien must not marry Frederik," said Peter Grimm, as if teaching a
+simple lesson to a very stupid pupil.</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien&mdash;&mdash;" began the boy, then flinching, and once more glancing
+fearfully over his shoulder toward the door, he whimpered:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I must not say that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Say <i>what</i>, Willem?" urged McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what he wanted me to say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien must not marry Frederik Grimm," repeated the Dead Man. "Say
+it, Willem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Speak up, Willem," exhorted McPherson. "Don't be scared. No one will
+hurt you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," denied Willem, in terror, "<i>he</i> will. I don't <i>want</i> to say
+his name! Because&mdash;because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why won't you tell his name?" insisted McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, Willem! Hurry!" begged the Dead Man.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," wailed Willem, with another terrified glance at the door, "I'm
+afraid! I'm <i>afraid</i>!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> He'll make Anne Marie cry again. And me! And
+<i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you afraid of him?" asked Kathrien. "Was Frederik the man that
+came to see Anne Marie&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien!" primly reproved Mrs. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien caught hold of the boy's hand as he rose, shaking, to his feet.
+She knelt before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Willem!" she implored. "Was Frederik the man who came to see Anne
+Marie? <i>Tell</i> me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey in pious horror, "surely,
+Kathrien, you don't believe&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of a great many things this evening," replied Kathrien,
+vibrant with excitement, yet instinctively lowering her voice so as not
+to break in on Willem's semi-trance. "Little things that I've never
+noticed before. I'm putting them together. Just as Willem put that
+picture together. And I must know who the Other One was."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, Willem!" exhorted the Dead Man. "Hurry! Frederik is listening at
+the door."</p>
+
+<p>The announcement brought Willem around with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> a gasp toward the door. He
+stared at its panels, quaking, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't say any more!" he whimpered, pointing at the door. "<i>He's</i>
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who was the man, Willem?" entreated McPherson. "Come, lad! Out with
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, Willem!" supplemented Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien, acting on an unexplained impulse as Willem stared
+terror-stricken at the door, hastened toward the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No!" shrieked the boy in anguished falsetto as he divined what she
+was about to do. "Please, <i>please</i> don't! <i>Don't!</i> <i>Don't</i> let him in.
+I'm afraid of him. He made Anne Marie cry."</p>
+
+<p>But Kathrien's hand was already at the latch. She threw the outer door
+wide open. Frederik Grimm stood on the threshold, his head still a
+little forward. His ear had evidently been pressed close to the panel.</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure Frederik's the man?" almost shouted McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't tell! I won't tell! <i>I won't tell!</i>" screamed the boy, taking
+one look at Frederik, then tearing loose from McPherson's restraining
+hand and dashing up the stairs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I must go to bed now," sobbed Willem from the gallery above. "<i>He</i> told
+me to."</p>
+
+<p>He ran into his own room and shut the door quickly behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good boy, Willem!" Peter Grimm called approvingly after him.</p>
+
+<p>The cloud of grief was gone from the Dead Man's face, leaving it
+wondrously bright and young. With no trace of anxiety, he turned to
+witness the consummation of his labours.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik Grimm was standing, nerveless, dazed, where Kathrien's
+impulsive opening of the door had disclosed him. Dully, he stared from
+one to another of the three who confronted him. It was Kathrien who
+first spoke. Pointing toward the photograph that still lay on the desk,
+she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik, you have heard from Anne Marie."</p>
+
+<p>His lips parted in denial. Then he saw the picture, started slightly,
+and lapsed into a sullen silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You have had a letter from her," pursued Kathrien. "You burned it. And
+you tore that picture so that we would not recognise it. Why did you
+tell Marta that you had had no message&mdash;no news? You told her so,
+<i>since</i> that letter and photograph came. You went to Anne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> Marie's home,
+too. Why did you tell me you had never seen her since she left here? Why
+did you lie to me? <i>Why do you hate her child?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Frederik made one dogged effort to regain what he had so bewilderingly
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>"Are&mdash;are you going to believe what that brat says?" he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"No," retorted Kathrien. "But I'm going to find out for myself. I am
+going to find out where Anne Marie is before I marry you. And I am going
+to learn the truth from her. Willem may be right or wrong in what he
+thinks he remembers. But <i>I</i> am going to find out, past all doubt, what
+Anne Marie was to you. And, if what I think is true&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," interposed McPherson. "It is true, Kathrien. I believe we
+got that message direct."</p>
+
+<p>"Andrew is right, Katje," prompted the Dead Man. "Believe him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" cried Kathrien, as if in reply. "It is true. I believe Oom Peter
+was in this room to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" blurted Frederik. "<i>You</i> saw him, too?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His unguarded query was lost in Mrs. Batholommey's gasp of:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kathrien, that's quite impossible. It was only a coincidence
+that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what any one else may think," rushed on Kathrien, swept
+along upon the wave of a strange exultation that bore her far out of her
+wonted timid self. "People have the right to think for themselves. I
+believe Oom Peter has been here, to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> here, Katje," breathed the Dead Man.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he is here, <i>now</i>!" declared Kathrien, her eyes aglow, and
+her face flushed. "He is here. Oh, Oom Peter!" she cried, her arms
+stretched wide in appeal, her face alight, her voice rising like that of
+a prophetess of old. "Oom Peter, if you can hear me now, give me back my
+promise! Give it back to me&mdash;<i>or I'll take it back</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did give it back to you, dear," answered Peter Grimm happily. "But,
+oh, what a time I've had putting it across!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. BATHOLOMMEY TESTIFIES</h3>
+
+<p><i>To Whom It May Concern</i>:</p>
+
+<p>I am Henry Batholommey, rector of the Protestant Episcopal church at
+Grimm Manor, New York State. My neighbour, Andrew McPherson, M.D., has
+asked me to substantiate, so far as lies in my power, certain statements
+in a paper he is preparing for the Society of Psychical Research,
+concerning certain recent happenings in the house of my former
+parishioner, the late Peter Grimm of this place.</p>
+
+<p>I refuse.</p>
+
+<p>I understand, also, that in telling the story broadcast, as he has done,
+he has made free use of my name and that of my wife, as witnesses to
+these happenings. Wherefore, I am daily in receipt of fully a dozen
+letters of enquiry. Reporters, so-called scientists, mystics with long
+hair and unclean nails, and cranks and practical jokers of every sort
+and description have taken to calling at the rectory, at inconvenient
+hours, to cross-question me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For example: one disreputable man, reeking of cheap liquor, came to me
+yesterday with the information that the story of Peter Grimm's return
+had converted him and that (with some slight temporary financial
+assistance from me) he was prepared to renounce liquor and mend his
+ways. He looked like a penitent. He talked like a penitent. But he most
+assuredly did not <i>smell</i> like a penitent. And I sent him about his
+business.</p>
+
+<p>This was but one of many irritating interruptions upon my parish work to
+which Dr. McPherson's use of my name has subjected me.</p>
+
+<p>In view of all this, I deem it advisable to save myself from further
+annoyance and to stop the rumour that a minister of the Gospel has
+turned Spiritualist, by issuing the following brief statement:</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson is desirous that my wife and myself endorse his belief
+that the occurrences at the home of the late Peter Grimm were of a
+supernatural nature.</p>
+
+<p>We shall do no such thing.</p>
+
+<p>For the single reason that neither Mrs. Batholommey nor myself, after
+mature reflection and dispassionate discussion, can find one atom of the
+Supernatural in any of the events that transpired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> there. Perhaps I can
+best make clear my point of view by rehearsing the case and my own very
+small connection therewith.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that Dr. McPherson is of a different denomination from myself
+in no way biases my feelings in this case. I am an Episcopalian. And I
+am of liberal views toward those who are not;&mdash;with the possible
+exception of Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists,
+and members of a few other denominations outside the direct Apostolic
+Succession. Yet I confess I was shocked at the conversion (or
+perversion) of my old neighbour, McPherson, to a cult which, for want of
+a better word, I must designate as "Spiritualism."</p>
+
+<p>He told me of a compact he had made with my dear friend and parishioner,
+Peter Grimm, to the effect that whichever of them should first leave
+this mortal life was to return and make known his presence to the other.
+I told McPherson to his face that I regarded such a compact as being
+even more sacrilegious than senseless. My good wife echoed my
+sentiments. McPherson, who has not the admirable control over his temper
+so needful to a medical man, chose to become angry at my outspoken
+opinion and said several cruelly unjust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> things concerning my own
+behaviour toward the late Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not stoop to denying or even repeating what he said; far less to
+justify myself. Yet I should like to mention, in passing, that his
+coarse gibe concerning my fawning on a rich man is the most unjust of
+all his abominable assertions.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the habit of bringing cases of need before Peter Grimm's
+notice, it is true. And he responded right generously to every such
+appeal. I enlisted his financial aid for the local poor, for the Church
+Building Fund, for missions (home and foreign), and for the other worthy
+and needy cases.</p>
+
+<p>But for myself or for my family I have never asked for one penny, either
+from Peter Grimm or from any other man. And as the gifts I have begged
+were in my Master's name and solely for my Master's service, I do not
+consider I have demeaned myself. Be that my sole defence. I am content
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>The public, of late years, has looked askance at the attitude of
+clergymen toward the wealthier members of their congregation. And, in
+ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, with absolutely no cause. The
+Church is in need. The poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> are in dire distress. Missions languish for
+the few paltry thousands that would carry the Word triumphant throughout
+the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Who is to supply these needs? Who but the clergyman? Out of his own
+scanty salary? That hardly supports him and his. Yet, in proportion, he
+gives from it as never did a multimillionaire. To whom can he turn for
+financial help in carrying out his Master's work? To the Rich Man. And,
+in many cases, the day is past when he can do so without first winning
+the personal liking of that same rich man. Yes, and often by flattering
+him and smiling approvingly at his vulgar humour or soothing his equally
+vulgar rages.</p>
+
+<p>Shame that the deathless Church of God should have been brought to such
+a pass!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, and tenfold shame to those that sneer at the clergyman who
+sacrifices and tortures all that is sensitive and sacred in himself, in
+the effort to wheedle from the wealthy boor the money to save God's poor
+and God's souls! Is it pleasant for him to fawn and to be patronised?
+Others do it, I know. But for <i>themselves</i>. The clergyman must do it in
+his Master's name and for no personal gain.</p>
+
+<p>Let the rector refuse to lower himself thus&mdash;What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> happens? The rich man
+goes to a church where flattery and subservience are more plentiful. The
+stiff-necked rector seeks in vain for funds. For lack of money his
+church runs down. It cannot keep up its charities and its other work.</p>
+
+<p>Who is to blame? The rector, of course. Let us get an up-to-date man in
+his place. And the clergyman who refused to cringe finds himself not
+only without a church but with a record that bars him from getting
+another one. I do not say this state of affairs is universal. But I <i>do</i>
+say, from bitter experience, that it is far too prevalent. Forgive my
+digression. I will get back to my statement with all speed.</p>
+
+<p>I have told of the "compact" between Peter Grimm and Andrew McPherson.
+Mr. Grimm died. Kathrien had promised him to marry his nephew, Frederik.
+She did not love him. She did love James Hartmann. She has admitted both
+those facts to me.</p>
+
+<p>As the time for the wedding drew near, she was more and more loath to
+carry out her promise. McPherson attributes that distaste to the
+spiritual promptings of Peter Grimm. Can any normal woman (who has been
+forced to marry one man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> while loving another) see the remotest hint of
+the Supernatural in it? No!</p>
+
+<p>Willem, a boy of epileptic tendencies&mdash;as McPherson himself admits&mdash;had
+taken his benefactor's death terribly to heart, and had brooded over it
+day and night. Is there any reason to doubt that in such an unbalanced
+nature, this brooding, coupled by fever, should have produced a delirium
+in which he believed he heard Peter Grimm speaking to him?</p>
+
+<p>He also believed, Kathrien tells me, that he heard the circus parade
+pass the house ten days after it had left town. Is one belief entitled
+to greater credence than the other? Or did the ghost of a circus parade
+meander through our Main street at night, accompanied by a Spook brass
+band? Each idea is quite as probable as the other.</p>
+
+<p>And, from the boy's own statement, Peter Grimm said to him nothing
+original or even betokening a mind more developed than a child's. Willem
+knew Kathrien was going to marry Frederik. He knew she did not want to
+and that he himself disliked and feared Frederik. What more likely than
+that he should imagine he heard Peter forbid the match?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What more likely, in his own fevered unhappiness, than that he should
+think Peter Grimm said "I am very unhappy"? Would a man of Peter Grimm's
+strength and shrewdness come back to earth and tell the child nothing of
+greater importance than Willem says he told? And, if he could make
+Willem understand such phrases as "I am very unhappy" and "Kathrien must
+not marry Frederik," could he not have made the boy understand anything
+else?</p>
+
+<p>As to Frederik Grimm:&mdash;Frederik, we know, was nervous and overwrought.
+His uncle's death had been a shock&mdash;if not a grief. He had the added
+worry of knowing Kathrien did not really love him. He was in constant
+fear lest Anne Marie, on hearing of Peter's death, might communicate
+with her mother and lest the secret of his own relations with the poor
+girl be exposed. This suspense added to his nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of her picture and the reading of her pathetic letter stirred
+his conscience. He forced himself to destroy both bits of evidence. And
+the action strongly brought before his nerve-racked senses the thought
+of what honourable old Peter Grimm would have said of such conduct. So
+strongly, in fact, that in the dark he fancied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> he saw Grimm's eyes
+glaring at him. The phenomenon is by no means uncommon and has been
+explained by scientists upon perfectly natural grounds.</p>
+
+<p>As to Willem's sudden remembrance of half-forgotten facts concerning his
+own childhood, there is no parent living who cannot cite instances of
+newly awakened memory, in his or her own child, that are quite as
+remarkable. The seeing of his mother's photograph brought before Willem
+the recollection of scenes in which she had played a part; scenes that
+had been crowded from his mind by later events.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik had just spoken harshly to him. And that recalled harsh words
+Frederik had spoken to the woman in the picture. And thus, quite simply,
+his memory supplied the one needful link. What is remarkable in all the
+foregoing? In fact, Shakespeare's Horatio says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, to tell us
+this!"</p></div>
+
+<p>So much for Dr. McPherson's efforts to surround a series of normal
+occurrences with a halo of the Supernatural! Now, let me add a word on
+my own account, and I am done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Dead do not return to the scene of their toil and pain and tears.
+Would a freed convict sneak back to his prison house or the ex-galley
+slave to his oar? The convalescent does not crawl into the contagion
+ward again of his free choice. Nor, I believe, would the Lord permit the
+return of the Dead; even to bear a warning to those left behind.</p>
+
+<p>Glance at the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke for confirmation of my
+belief;&mdash;at the parable of the "certain rich man who was clothed in
+purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day"; and who, in
+torment, after death, called to Abraham to send Lazarus from Heaven to
+visit the Tortured One's five brethren:</p>
+
+<p><i>"That he may testify unto men, lest they also come into this place of
+torment.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"Abraham said to him: 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear
+them.'</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"And he said: 'Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the
+dead they would repent.'</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"And he said unto him: 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
+neither will they be persuaded through one rise from the dead.'"</i></p>
+
+<p>No, the whole idea is preposterous. It is far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> outside of God's justice
+and infinitely farther beyond His boundless mercy.</p>
+
+<p>"He giveth His Beloved <i>sleep</i>";&mdash;not weary, hopeless wanderings upon
+the face of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm did not return. And this is the only comment I care to make
+upon Andrew McPherson's amazing theory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DR. McPHERSON'S STATEMENT</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. James Hyslop.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>My Dear Sir</i>:&mdash;After reading the account which I am mailing to you
+under separate cover, will you kindly forward it to the American Branch
+of the Society of Psychical Research? As you will observe, it is a
+verbatim report of a "s&eacute;ance."</p>
+
+<p>For your personal information, I beg to make the following supplementary
+statement.</p>
+
+<p>At the residence of Peter Grimm,&mdash;I should say the <i>late</i> Peter
+Grimm&mdash;(the well-known horticulturist of Grimm Manor, N. Y.) certain
+phenomena occurred this evening which would clearly indicate the Return
+of Peter Grimm, ten days after his decease. At my first free moment
+after the manifestation, I jotted down in shorthand the exact dialogue,
+etc., which I have since transcribed into the enclosed report.</p>
+
+<p>While Peter Grimm was invisible to all, three people were present
+besides myself; including the "recipient," a child of eight, who had
+been ill, but was almost normal at the time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No spelling out of signals nor automatic writing was employed, but word
+of mouth.</p>
+
+<p>I made a compact with Peter Grimm while he was in the flesh that
+whichever one of us should go first was to return and give the other
+some sign. And I propose, by the enclosed report, to show positive proof
+that Peter Grimm kept his compact and that I assisted in the carrying
+out of his instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Let me introduce myself and briefly recount the circumstances which led
+up to the s&eacute;ance, as well as my own state of mind concerning
+manifestations:</p>
+
+<p>I am a practising physician in the town of Grimm Manor, a suburb of New
+York City, settled at the time of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan, and
+named after the family, the Grimms, which first owned the farm that is
+now the town site.</p>
+
+<p>I have always been greatly interested in Spiritualism. I have read
+nearly all that has been written on this subject and have known,
+personally, most all the so-called mediums. I have attended s&eacute;ances in
+this country and abroad and have by turns been convinced that they were
+genuine or frauds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Up to the time when the events which I am about to narrate began to
+occur, I had been unable to come to a definite decision, as far as my
+own belief was concerned, as to whether or not the spirits of the dead
+could communicate with the living. At one time I would be led to believe
+they could, but then the exposure of some well-known medium as a
+trickster would change my opinion and I would again find myself puzzling
+vainly over the answer to this problem.</p>
+
+<p>You doubtless remember the furore which was created in Spiritualistic
+circles by the announcement of an English physician that, in accordance
+with a compact, a friend had communicated with him after death.</p>
+
+<p>This idea fascinated me. There is an old Japanese myth to the effect
+that if a dying man resolves to do a certain act the body will, after
+death, perform that act. It seemed to me that if a man could die and
+return to earth in spirit it must be as the result of a resolution to
+return made just before death and constituting the ruling passion at the
+time of death itself. I determined that I would put this theory to the
+test.</p>
+
+<p>We of this materialistic world of barter and sale give little time to
+the consideration of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> Hereafter. There are occasions with most of us
+when the unanswerable Why and Whence obtrudes itself on our vision, but
+it is a fleeting impression which vanishes with the rising of the sun on
+the day's work. The wonder and mystery of life may come home to us at
+the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, but we soon cease to
+marvel at the miracle of the former and a new joy banishes grief.</p>
+
+<p>For, we say, what avails it, this search after the Land of the
+Hereafter, if there be such a place? No one has ever come back to tell
+us that there is; or what it is and where. It is all a matter of
+conjecture in which we are following round the circle trod by man since
+the world began.</p>
+
+<p>One man believes that there is a Hereafter, a spirit land in which the
+Soul, stripped of all evil, reaches a state of perfection and divine
+happiness which justifies the stupendous feat of the Creation and the
+travail of those who are bound to the treadmill of life.</p>
+
+<p>Another believes, pointing for proof to the dead branches from which new
+leaves spring, that life is endless, and that the soul, leaving the
+worn-out shell, takes up its dwelling in another form. Another with
+scorn tells us that all life is a joke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> and we are the butts of the
+cruel will of an Omnipotent power. And still another says:</p>
+
+<p>"Any and all beliefs in this matter are good, for none can be proved.
+Let each believe that which gives him the most happiness, so long as it
+be noble and sweet and true."</p>
+
+<p>And with this last I hold. So that if it bring peace and love and
+contentment into the heart of man, woman, or child to believe that the
+spirit of a loved one, who has solved the Problem mortal cannot solve,
+can return to earth and communicate by some sign or token with those who
+were its companions when it inhabited a human house, I say it is wrong
+to scoff and rail at this belief.</p>
+
+<p>There has now come to me the proof that such a belief does bring peace
+and love and contentment, that it does cast out evil. With regard to the
+Psychological aspects of the circumstances which are related in the
+enclosed transcript, I express no opinion. I have never before had the
+feeling that a person dead so far as mortal existence was concerned was
+endeavouring to communicate with me. The debates and wrangles which go
+on continually between those who affirm and deny the possibility of
+spirit messages have always impressed me, but beyond a theory, I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> no
+knowledge as to the right or wrong of it. However, I was strongly
+inclined to believe.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that on many occasions so-called rappings, table liftings,
+writings, and other supposed spirit manifestations have been shown to be
+the result of mere human trickery does not necessarily prove that such
+demonstrations may not be the efforts of an immortal soul to make its
+presence known.</p>
+
+<p>I say this because I want it understood that I have not allowed any
+prejudice, favourable or otherwise, to creep into the report that I send
+herewith. I go no further than to say that if my report helps to prove
+that the spirit of one we have loved and revered can come back and bring
+peace and love and happiness to mortals who are in dire need, if it can
+banish blighting evil from their lives; then life, for all its burdens,
+is not lived in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Among my dearest friends was Peter Grimm, direct descendant of the
+founders of the village, who still occupied the old Manor House and was
+engaged in horticulture. Grimm's tulips were known throughout the
+country and his business was a large one.</p>
+
+<p>There lived with him Kathrien, whom he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> adopted at my suggestion
+(made at a time when he seemed to be getting morose and verging on
+becoming a recluse) that he needed a child in the house; Frederik, his
+nephew and heir; James Hartmann, his secretary, and Willem, the son of
+Anne Marie, the daughter of Marta, the housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>Anne Marie had left home in disgrace and had sent Willem to her mother
+after his father had deserted her. Who this man was had never been
+revealed, and the whereabouts of Anne Marie herself were unknown at the
+time I am writing of.</p>
+
+<p>At those times when I leaned toward the conviction that communication
+between earth and spirit land was possible, I was prone to think that if
+it could be, it must be between a spirit and a mortal who in life
+typified in their affection for each other the highest type of pure
+love. If any mortal, I thought, could receive a spirit message, it must
+be one whose heart and soul are spotless, whose love is as that of a
+little child before it has grown to manhood and plucked at the leaves of
+the Tree of Knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>In the day Kathrien entered his home there was born in Peter Grimm a
+great love for mankind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> but especially for children. Not but that he
+had always been kindly and charitable to those who deserved his aid, but
+where before his life had been given up to his business, to making the
+brown earth do his will, he now devoted his chief thought to making
+Kathrien happy. This love for children was increased when Willem came to
+him, and I think the most perfect affection that ever existed among
+three persons was that which these three bore to each other.</p>
+
+<p>Peter came to me recently to be treated for a cold which, while severe,
+was not in itself dangerous. But in examining him I found that his heart
+was in such a condition that a strong emotion, such as intense joy,
+anger, or fear might cause instant death.</p>
+
+<p>I determined, on discovering this, to ask him to enter into a compact
+with me that whichever of us should die first should, after death,
+communicate with the survivor. While I was not sure (although a strong
+bond of affection existed between us) that I was a person fitted to
+receive such a communication, I was convinced that either Kathrien or
+Willem would understand a message sent to me from the spirit land by
+Peter, and, if the thing were possible, that he, if he could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> reach
+me directly, would do so through one or the other of them.</p>
+
+<p>I made the mistake of telling Colonel Lawton of Peter's condition. I
+might have known that he would tell his wife. She told Mrs. Batholommey,
+the wife of the rector.</p>
+
+<p>When I suggested the compact to Peter Grimm, he pooh-poohed the whole
+idea, laughed at me, told me to get such nonsense out of my head.</p>
+
+<p>But I stuck to it. I told him of the incident of the English doctor and
+his friend, of the great service that would be done to humanity and
+science if he or I could prove that signals could be exchanged between a
+land inhabited by the souls of the dead and this mortal earth. At last
+he consented.</p>
+
+<p>The rector and his wife called after we had finished our argument, and
+Mrs. Batholommey as much as told Peter during the course of the
+conversation that he was doomed. Then poor little Willem blabbed the
+truth. He had overheard us discussing the matter. Peter reiterated that
+he would make the compact with me.</p>
+
+<p>We shook hands on it, we sealed it with a touch of our glasses filled
+with Peter Grimm's famous plum brandy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a circus in town, one of those travelling country affairs, and
+the parade had passed by the house. Peter gave Willem money to buy
+tickets.</p>
+
+<p>That was the last I saw or heard in this life of mortal Peter Grimm,
+standing there with a smile on his face.</p>
+
+<p>I had been absent but a few minutes when I heard Kathrien crying my
+name. I ran back to the house. Peter Grimm was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Ten days later came the s&eacute;ance described in my enclosure. Later in the
+evening I went to Willem's room and had a quiet little talk with him. He
+was calm again and spoke freely of what seemed to him an utterly natural
+experience. And from that conversation I believe I confirmed still
+further what was already established as a fact, so far as I was
+concerned. Peter Grimm had kept his compact with me. He had returned!</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to talk with Willem at a time when he was in a normal condition
+and not in the thrall of fear. I found him without fever, though weaker
+than he had been for several days. I assured him that he had nothing to
+fear from Frederik, that all of us were his friends, and that no harm
+could come to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now tell me, Willem," I said, "all about your seeing Uncle Peter this
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I awoke very thirsty and went downstairs for a drink," the boy told me
+in effect. "The ice pitcher felt so cool that I rested my cheek against
+it and then I drank some more water. Then I heard some one calling me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Willem, Willem,' a voice said, 'can you hear me? Is there no one in
+this house that can hear me?'</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't make out at first who it was. Then I heard it again:</p>
+
+<p>"'Willem, Willem,' it said, 'you <i>must</i> hear me.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then I looked around and saw Mynheer Peter's hat on the rack, and I
+knew he must have come back. But I couldn't see him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where are you, Mynheer Peter?' I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>"'You cannot see me, Willem, but I am here. I want you to tell them all
+I am here.'</p>
+
+<p>"That's as near as I can remember it. We talked a while longer. Then he
+said something like:</p>
+
+<p>"'Go over and look on the table, Willem.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I went to the table and saw some torn pieces of paper.</p>
+
+<p>"'Put them together, Willem,' said Mynheer Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"When I had got it all pasted together I saw it was my mother, Anne
+Marie; and then you and Miss Kathrien came down.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Peter was standing over there about in the middle of the room. I
+could tell from his voice, but I couldn't see him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell them about the man who made Anne Marie cry,' Mynheer Peter told
+me. And he kept saying, 'Hurry, Willem, before it is too late; he is
+coming. Hurry, Willem, hurry,' and just before Mr. Frederik came in
+Mynheer Peter said, 'Tell them now, Willem; <i>he</i> is listening at the
+door.'</p>
+
+<p>"Before you came down I asked Mynheer Peter to take me back with him
+when he went and he said he would."</p>
+
+<p>Now, mind you, Willem knew nothing of the compact Peter and I had made.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Grimm had said he would return, if he could. I believe he did so.</p>
+
+<p>My studies of the so-called "Occult" have done my reputation in this
+narrow provincial town much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> harm. I have been sneered at as a
+"spiritualist," a "spook hunter," an "agnostic." I am none of the three.
+I am a seeker after Truth; even while fully aware of the impossibility
+of absolutely finding that elusive quality. Nor do my researches in any
+way conflict with revealed religion, nor in the simple Bible faith that
+has ever been mine and that shall forever sustain me.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus set forth my personal position in the matter&mdash;perhaps
+tediously and to an undue length,&mdash;I beg to call your attention to my
+report.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 25em;">Very truly yours,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 30em;"><span class="smcap">Andrew McPherson, M.D.</span></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>BACK TO THE STORY</h3>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson occasionally gave a vigorous shake to his fountain pen,
+and made corrections here and there.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly midnight, and he had been writing almost uninterruptedly
+since he had followed Willem upstairs after the boy's flight.</p>
+
+<p>Willem had been restless and feverish, and had asked repeatedly to be
+brought down to the living-room. He seemed irresistibly drawn toward the
+place where he had talked with Peter Grimm and had "almost seen him."</p>
+
+<p>So the sofa had been drawn up to the fire and a bed made for him there.
+Now, however, he was at last sleeping peacefully in his little upstairs
+room, and the whole house was quiet, though no one else had gone to bed,
+and there was everywhere a subdued feeling of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had drawn a little table close to the vacant side of the
+fireplace (for the coals still smouldered, and the night was damp and
+chill).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> He had placed Willem's medicines there; and a lamp, the only
+bright spot in the big room.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the world was bathed in moonlight, and through the window the
+arms of the windmill could be seen, waving solemnly round and round like
+some strange, black mysterious creature beckoning silently from another
+world.</p>
+
+<p>McPherson was preparing a formal statement of the "s&eacute;ance" while it was
+still fresh in his mind. And as Willem might need him, he was filling in
+a waiting hour by writing.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey's anxious face, encased in a scarf, broke in upon his
+concentration.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I'm <i>so</i> nervous!" exclaimed the rector's wife, shudderingly, as
+she came into the room and going to the piano, turned up the second
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you sit here in such a dim light, after all that has happened
+in this room&mdash;just a few hours ago, too?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson, intent upon his work, was determined not to be
+interrupted. His only reply to Mrs. Batholommey was the scratching of
+his pen and the rattle of paper as he turned over a page.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought perhaps Frederik had come back," she went on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So Willem's feeling better again?" she asked, advancing on the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered abstractedly. "I took him upstairs a few minutes
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Strange how the boy wants to remain in this room!" said Mrs.
+Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"M'm&mdash;&mdash;" grunted Dr. McPherson shortly, without looking up at all.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey came nearer and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Doctor! Doctor!" she cried. "The scene that took place here
+to-night has completely upset me."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's only reply was to turn his back on Mrs. Batholommey and
+begin reading his manuscript aloud in an undertone, scratching out a
+word here, adding something there.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey, quite unconscious that she was a nuisance, leaned back
+in her chair and let her words flow on.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor, the breaking off of the engagement is&mdash;er&mdash;sudden, isn't
+it? We've been talking it over in the front parlour, Mr. Batholommey and
+I."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor darted a withering look at her over his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>"I suggest sending out a card&mdash;&mdash;" she purred,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> "just a neat card" (here
+she measured off an imaginary card with her fingers), "saying that owing
+to the bereavement in the family the wedding has been indefinitely
+postponed. Of course," she sighed, "it isn't exactly true."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't take place at all," exploded the doctor, going on at once with
+his reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently not," said Mrs. Batholommey, "but if the whole matter
+looks very strange to <i>me</i>&mdash;How is it going to look to other
+people&mdash;especially when we haven't any&mdash;any <i>rational</i> explanation&mdash;as
+yet? We must get out of it in <i>some</i> fashion. I'm sure I don't know how
+else we can explain&mdash;I don't like telling anything that isn't
+true&mdash;but&mdash;there <i>was</i> to be a wedding." Mrs. Batholommey waved her
+right hand. "There <i>isn't</i> to be any wedding," she waved her left hand.
+"At least, Frederik isn't to be in it&mdash;and one must account for it
+<i>somehow</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whose business is it?" fired the doctor, in a voice that made Mrs.
+Batholommey start like a frightened rabbit.</p>
+
+<p>For one moment his eyes peered fiercely at her under their shaggy brows,
+and then he returned to his narrative.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody's at all," she made great haste to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> say. "Nobody's at
+all&mdash;nobody's at all, of course. But Kathrien's position is certainly
+unusual; and the strangest part of it is&mdash;she doesn't appear to feel her
+situation. She's sitting alone in the library seemingly placid and
+happy. She acts as if a weight were off her mind. But the main point
+I've been arguing is this: Should the card we're going to send out have
+a narrow black border, or not?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned toward the doctor and indicated with her fingers the width of
+black border that seemed to her to fit the occasion. But her trouble was
+entirely wasted.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson was once more engrossed in his writing, and had forgotten
+her existence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor," she said in an injured tone, "you don't appear to be
+interested. You don't even answer!"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't," snapped Dr. McPherson. "I didn't know whether you were
+talking <i>again</i> or <i>still</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey was hurt, and she showed it in the reproachful look she
+cast at the doctor's unassailable, uninterested back.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course," she said, "all these little matters sound trivial to
+you. But men like you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> couldn't look after the workings of the <i>next</i>
+world, if other people didn't attend to <i>this one</i>. <i>Somebody</i> has to do
+it," she ended triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I fully appreciate the fact, Mistress Batholommey, that other people
+are making it possible for me to be <i>myself</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here the conversation was interrupted by a couple of raps on the window
+pane.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, jumping up in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Telegram for Frederik Grimm," came a voice from the darkness, and a
+form was silhouetted against the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grimm's down at the hotel," said Mrs. Batholommey, hastily throwing
+up the window, "but I'll sign for it. Where do I sign?" she fluttered.
+"Oh, yes, I see, <i>here</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>She wrote Frederik's name, then handed back the book to the telegraph
+boy, and closed the window. Just as she laid the telegram on the desk,
+Mr. Batholommey came into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor," he said with veiled sarcasm, "I would by all means
+suggest that we don't judge Frederik until the information Willem has
+<i>volunteered</i> can be verified."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Umph!" grunted the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Then he got up and went to the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"Four&mdash;red," he called to "Central."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey betook himself to the vestibule and began to put on his
+rubbers with methodical care.</p>
+
+<p>"However, I regret," (he went on as easily as if the doctor had not
+grunted) "that Frederik has left the house without offering some sort of
+explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"Four&mdash;red?" pursued the doctor. "That you, Marget? I'm at Peter's. I
+mean&mdash;I'm at the Grimms'. No, don't wait up for me. Send me my bag here.
+I'll stay the night with Willem. Bye."</p>
+
+<p>He put up the receiver and began to collect his scattered papers.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Doctor," said the clergyman. "Good-night, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>He started toward the door, but the doctor called him back.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Mr. Batholommey!" he interposed. "I'm writing an account of
+all that's happened here to-night&mdash;from the very beginning. I've an idea
+it's going to make a stir. It's just the sort of thing the Society has
+been after&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" said Mr. Batholommey in a doubtful tone.</p>
+
+<p>"When I have verified every word of the evidence by Willem's mother&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here the Rev. Mr. Batholommey smiled behind his hand in a decidedly
+secular way.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;I shall send in my report," continued the doctor. "Would you have
+any objection to the name of Mrs. Batholommey being used as a witness?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey hesitated. His usually placid eyes were full of
+perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;Doctor&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Batholommey, unlike her temporising husband, did not hesitate.
+She rushed into the conversation all unasked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, you don't!" she cried. "You may flout <i>our</i> beliefs,&mdash;but
+wouldn't you like to bolster up your report with an endorsement by the
+wife of a clergyman! It sounds so respectable and sane, doesn't it? No,
+sir! You can't prop up your wild-eyed theories against the good black of
+<i>one</i> minister's coat. Not by any means! I think myself that you have
+probably stumbled on the truth about Willem's mother; but that doesn't
+prove there's anything in all your notions, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> that child knew the
+truth all along. He's eight years old and he was with her until he was
+five;&mdash;and five's the age of memory. He's a precocious boy, besides.
+Every incident of his mother's life lingered in his little mind. Suppose
+you prove by her that it's all true?&mdash;Still, <i>Willem remembered!</i> And
+that's all there is to it."</p>
+
+<p>Confident that she had made a good point, Mrs. Batholommey gave her head
+a toss and left the field, or to be more exact, went out to get her
+husband's umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey felt that after this display of colours on the part of
+his consort, he must needs testify also.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, Doctor,&mdash;(mind, I'm not opposing your ideas. I'm just
+echoing just what everybody else thinks)&mdash;don't you believe these ideas
+are leading away from the heaven we were taught to believe in; that they
+tend toward irresponsibility&mdash;toward eccentricity? Is it healthy&mdash;that's
+the idea. Is it&mdash;<i>healthy</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson shook himself like a shaggy dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Batholommey," he said, "religion has frequently led to the stake,
+and I never heard the Spanish Inquisition called <i>healthy</i> for anybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+taking part in it. Still, religion flourishes. But your old-fashioned,
+unscientific, gilt, gingerbread idea of heaven blew up ten years
+ago&mdash;went out. <i>My</i> heaven's just coming in. It's new. Dr. Funk and a
+lot of clergymen are in already. You'd better get used to it,
+Batholommey, and join in the procession."</p>
+
+<p>Having delivered this ultimatum the doctor became oblivious to the
+existence of the Batholommey family and gave his whole attention once
+more to his writing.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" said Mr. Batholommey tolerantly. "When you can convince <i>me</i>!"
+(He lapsed into Dutch.) "Well, <i>tou roustin</i>, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman started for the door, but his dutiful wife was there
+before him, his umbrella in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Henry," she said, beaming affectionately on him. "I'll be
+home to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Then with a most coquettish glance, she purred coyly:</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be glad to see me, dear, <i>won't</i> you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Batholommey beamed in his turn, and patted her on the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my church mouse!" he said as he kissed her good-bye and went out
+into the night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey closed the doors after him, but immediately opened them
+a trifle and peered through the crack.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out, Henry, for the trolley cars," she cried. "It's dark out
+there&mdash;And be careful you don't step into a mud puddle! They must be as
+deep as mill ponds after this rain, and there aren't half enough street
+lamps in this neighbourhood&mdash;you'll be in over your ankles before you
+know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" came in a diminuendo from the clergyman's receding form.
+"I'll be careful. Don't stand there taking cold. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Woman," thundered Dr. McPherson in a terrible voice, "<i>close that
+door</i>! Do you want my lamp to blow clean out? How can a body write with
+such goings-on in his ears? St. Paul was a wise man. 'Let the woman
+learn in silence,' he said, 'with all subjection.' Will you be good
+enough to heed that, and let me write in peace?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Batholommey fastened the door with elaborate and most deliberate
+care; then, as she passed the doctor's table on her way to the front
+parlour, she fired a parting shot.</p>
+
+<p>"Write as much as you like, Doctor," she said loftily. "Words are but
+air. <i>You</i> know and <i>I</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> know and <i>everybody</i> knows that seeing is
+believing."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn everybody!" growled the doctor, frowning at the lady's retreating
+figure. "It's 'everybody's' ignorance that's set the world back five
+hundred years. Where was I, before?" he said to himself. "Oh! Yes."</p>
+
+<p>And he went back to his Statement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT</h3>
+
+<p>Frederik came impatiently up the home walk. The old house was bathed in
+moonlight; the walk itself leading up to it was sweet with the scent of
+wet flowers. The whole place carried a peaceful air, as if a blessing
+rested upon it. But Frederik heeded nothing&mdash;saw none of the beauty and
+mystery. His mind was filled with quite different things.</p>
+
+<p>He had waited for hours at the hotel, expecting Hicks or his lawyer.
+When no one arrived at the hour agreed upon, Frederik felt a bit uneasy,
+but he tried to persuade himself that Hicks had merely missed the train
+and would come on the next one. With growing apprehension he waited,
+smoking innumerable cigarettes while the evening wore on, till finally
+the last train had come and gone. There was nothing to do but go back to
+the house, and face the <i>other</i> matter. And he dreaded it! Oh, how he
+dreaded it!</p>
+
+<p>He could not bear the thought of Kathrien's eyes that had first doubted,
+then accused, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> condemned him. All the while he had waited at the
+hotel, he had remembered those eyes. If he had not loved her sincerely
+the situation would have been comparatively easy for him; he could
+simply have cleared out&mdash;spent the rest of his days in Europe, if
+necessary, so that he might never see or hear of any one connected with
+Grimm Manor again in all his life.</p>
+
+<p>But Kathrien! Who could have been near her and <i>ever</i> forget her? The
+turn of her head, the absolute sweetness of her&mdash;the sunshine she
+radiated, made it utterly impossible for one to think of forgetting&mdash;of
+living all one's long life without her. Frederik threw away his
+cigarette and lighted another as he stood outside the windows of the
+house and looked in.</p>
+
+<p>Oom Peter was there&mdash;how could he go in then? Common sense told him that
+he had been smoking too much and his nerves had gone bad&mdash;that he had
+become an old woman with his fears and tremblings; yet&mdash;he knew Oom
+Peter was there&mdash;Well (he shrugged his shoulders), about all the harm
+that could be done <i>had</i> been done, and he had the money now, anyway, so
+he might as well go in and find out the present state of affairs. There
+might be, there ought to be, some word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> from Hicks by this time. With
+tight-shut lips, he walked quickly up the "stoop" steps and into the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>As he came into the living-room he glanced at the doctor, who, with
+bulky form crouched over the little table, was still busily writing and
+heard nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik half-unconsciously looked toward Kathrien's room, then removed
+his silk hat with its mourning band, and his black gloves, and laid them
+with his cane on the hall table.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned toward Dr. McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Doctor," he said shortly. "Any of them come to their
+senses yet?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a defiant ring in the last sentence, though he knew in his
+heart that his cause was lost.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked up long enough to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Frederik, you're back again, are you?" then went on with his
+writing.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik glanced furtively around the shadowy room, and then lighted
+some candles in an effort to make the place more cheerful. Suddenly his
+eye was riveted on the telegram resting conspicuously on his uncle's
+desk. On the very spot, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> it happened, where he had burned Anne
+Marie's letter. He put down his cigarette quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that telegram for me?" he asked in an eager tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," snorted Dr. McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;&mdash;" Frederik said. "It will explain perhaps why I&mdash;I've been kept
+waiting at the hotel&mdash;I had an appointment to meet a man who wanted to
+buy this business."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" The doctor grunted indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"I may as well tell you&mdash;I'm thinking of selling out root and branch."</p>
+
+<p>At this amazing news the doctor got up slowly, and turning his bushy
+head toward Frederik, fixed his keen eyes upon him. He was all attention
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>Then with a sheepish laugh Frederik abruptly changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll think it strange," he said, "but I simply cannot make up my mind
+to go near the old desk of my uncle's&mdash;peculiar, yes&mdash;isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled rather a sickly smile at the doctor, and hesitated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've got a perfect&mdash;Ha! Ha!&mdash;terror of the thing!"</p>
+
+<p>His laughter was quite mirthless and his fear made him a pitiable
+object.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, not trying to hide his contempt for him, went to the desk,
+took the telegram, and threw it in Frederik's direction, not even
+troubling to aim accurately.</p>
+
+<p>It hit the floor about two feet away from the younger man's trimly shod
+feet, and he quickly reached over sideways and seized it. He tore it
+open. Then, as his eyes took in the message it contained, he drew a long
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down mechanically, looking straight ahead of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy Hicks," he said slowly in a dazed voice, "Billy Hicks, the man I
+was to sell out to, is de&mdash;I knew it&mdash;This afternoon when he
+phoned&mdash;something told me&mdash;but I wouldn't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he put the telegram in its envelope, and then put the envelope
+into his pocket; but the dazed look never left his eyes, and his face
+was grey white.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," he said, turning his eyes at last, "as sure as you live,
+somebody else is doing my thinking for me in this house."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson's heavy eyebrows met in an earnest frown as he studied
+Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he queried.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night&mdash;here in this room," Frederik went on in a voice full of awe,
+"I thought I saw my uncle <i>there</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed toward the desk with a little shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" said the doctor, with popping eyes, coming a step nearer. "You
+really mean that you thought you saw <i>Peter Grimm</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"And just before I&mdash;I saw him&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;had the strangest impulse to go to
+the foot of the stairs and call Kitty&mdash;give her the house&mdash;and
+run&mdash;run&mdash;get out."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried the doctor sarcastically. "A good impulse. I see! Some one
+else <i>must</i> have been thinking for you&mdash;certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"When I wouldn't do it," the scared voice went on, "I thought he gave me
+a terrible look." He covered his eyes with his hand. "A <i>terrible</i>
+look."</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle?" demanded Dr. McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," breathed Frederik. "<i>Och!</i> God! I won't forget <i>that</i> look!" he
+cried excitedly, uncovering his eyes again. "And as I started from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> the
+room&mdash;he blotted out&mdash;I mean I saw him blot out&mdash;Then I left the
+photograph on the desk, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor triumphantly. "That's how Willem came by it.
+Had you never had this impulse before&mdash;to give up Kathrien&mdash;to let her
+have the cottage?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Not much</i>&mdash;I hadn't!" said Frederik decidedly, walking back and forth
+a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Then, looking toward the desk, he reached out his hand until it touched
+the back of a chair beside it, and, giving the chair a quick pull out of
+what was evidently to him a danger zone, he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you some one else was <i>thinking</i> for me," he said. "I don't want
+to give her up. I love her." (His eyes went dark.) "But if she's going
+to turn against me for&mdash;well, I'm not going to sit <i>here</i> and cry about
+it. But I'll tell you one thing: from this time I propose to think for
+myself. I've done with this house," he cried, getting up. "I'd like to
+sell it along with the rest and let a stranger"&mdash;he flung the chair
+recklessly against the desk&mdash;"raze it to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"When I walk out of here to-night she can have it."</p>
+
+<p>He looked thoughtfully at the desk a moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wouldn't sleep here&mdash;I give her the house because&mdash;well, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You want to be on the safe side in case he <i>was</i> there!" scoffed Dr.
+McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and there was perplexity
+in it as well as awe.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you account for it anyway, Doctor?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of answering, the doctor asked another question.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik," he said, "when did you see Anne Marie last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Frederik disagreeably, "I'm not answering questions."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it only fair to tell you," said Dr. McPherson, "that it won't
+matter a damn whether you answer me or not. Don't fret yourself that I'm
+not going to find her. This has come home to me. I'm off to the city
+to-morrow. I'll have the truth from her; if I have to call in the police
+to trace her."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik looked drearily at the doctor, then took up his gloves and
+began to put them on. After a pause he said dully, mechanically:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I saw her about three years ago."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Never since?" probed the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"What occurred the last time you saw her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Frederik lifelessly. "What <i>always</i> occurs when a young man
+realises that he has his life before him&mdash;and that he must be respected,
+must think of his future?"</p>
+
+<p>"A scene took place, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Frederik agreed laconically.</p>
+
+<p>"Was Willem present?" went on the interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she held him in her arms."</p>
+
+<p>"And then&mdash;what happened?" the doctor insisted.</p>
+
+<p>Frederik dropped his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "then I left the house."</p>
+
+<p>He found his hat and cane as he spoke, and walked slowly toward the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's all true," cried Dr. McPherson in wonderment, staring
+abstractedly at the floor. He raised his head suddenly and looked with
+stern eyes at Frederik.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do for Willem?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," temporised that noble soul, "I'm a rich man now&mdash;and if I
+recognise him&mdash;there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> might be trouble. His mother's gone to the dogs
+anyway&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He left the speech unfinished and turned his head away uncomfortably. He
+could not say such things and meet the doctor's scorching look.</p>
+
+<p>"You damned young scoundrel!" bellowed McPherson in wrath. "Oh, what an
+act of charity if the good Lord took Willem!&mdash;And I say it with all my
+heart. Out of all you have&mdash;not a crumb for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to know that I've sweated for that money," Frederik turned
+on the doctor long enough to say. "I've sweated for it, and I'm going to
+keep it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>what</i>?" howled Dr. McPherson jeeringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Frederik cried in the greatest excitement, all his calmness
+forsaking him utterly. "I've sweated for it! I went to jail for it.
+Every day I have been in this house has been spent in prison. I've been
+doing time. Do you think it didn't get on my nerves? What haven't I had
+to do! I've gone to bed at nine o'clock and lain there thinking how New
+York was just waking up at that time, and how miserably I was out of it
+all. Lord! I've got up at cock-crow to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> in time for grace at the
+breakfast table. Why, didn't I take a Sunday-school class to please him?</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! Didn't I hand out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly
+old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus?
+What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that
+sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the
+pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe
+I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent for my own personal
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>Once more Frederik started to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Will rich men never learn wisdom?" soliloquised Dr. McPherson as he
+began to prepare some medicine for Willem.</p>
+
+<p>"No, they won't," Frederik flung back over his shoulder. "But in every
+fourth generation there comes along a <i>wise</i> fellow&mdash;a spender. Well,
+I'm the spender here."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled out another cigarette, lighted it, and put on his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Shame on you!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Your breed ought to be
+exterminated!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," Frederik declared. "We're as nec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>essary as you are. We're the
+real wealth distributors. I wish you good-night, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>And he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Disgust was still written all over the doctor's face as he measured the
+medicine carefully and emptied it into a glass of water. He picked up
+the candelabrum in his other hand, and was just starting toward the
+stairs and Willem's room when Kathrien came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien!" he cried in a ringing voice. "Burn up your wedding dress!
+We've made no mistake. I can tell you that!"</p>
+
+<p>A moment more and he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into
+Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy
+serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and,
+standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost
+protectingly&mdash;quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could
+feel her gentle caress.</p>
+
+<p>"Oom Peter," she whispered tenderly, and her dreamy eyes grew dreamier,
+"Oom Peter&mdash;I know I am doing what you would have me do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>"ONLY ONE THING REALLY COUNTS"</h3>
+
+<p>And Peter Grimm, standing in the shadows, nodded happy assent to her
+cry. The Dead Man's ageless face was wondrous bright. It shone with a
+joy that made the rugged features beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>His work was done. His long journey from the Unknown had not failed. The
+one deed of his mortal life that could have wrought ill was undone. He
+had atoned for a single fault and had seen the ill effects of that fault
+brought to nothing. He could go back with a calm mind. All was well in
+his earthly home.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not yet wholly content. One task remained. A light task, and,
+to guess from his radiant face, a welcome one. And even now he was
+bringing to pass its completion. For his eyes turned from their loving
+scrutiny of Kathrien and rested on the outer door. And, as in response
+to an unspoken summons, footfalls were heard in the entry.</p>
+
+<p>At the sound, Kathrien's drooping figure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> straightened. And a glow came
+into her tired eyes. The outer door opened and James Hartmann came in.
+He took an impulsive step toward the girl. Then he remembered himself.
+Turning aside to the rack, he hung his coat and hat on it, and asked, as
+to a casual acquaintance:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Frederik anywhere? He told me hours ago that he'd join me
+in the office in a few minutes. I waited, but he didn't come. Then Marta
+told me he had gone down to the hotel. I went over to see father, and I
+stopped at the hotel on my way back. They said Frederik had been there,
+but that he had just gone. I'm rather tired of playing hide-and-seek
+with him. Has he come in yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has come in. But I think he has gone again. And&mdash;and, James, I think
+he will not come here again."</p>
+
+<p>"What? Then the wedding won't be at the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"The wedding won't be&mdash;anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Kathrien!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her, seeking to read grief, humiliation, or, at the very
+least, the anger engendered of a lovers' quarrel. But her face was
+serene, even happy. The worry was gone that had lurked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> behind her
+gentle eyes. The furrow had been smoothed from the low, white brow, and
+even the pathetic aura of sorrow that had clung to her as a garment
+since Peter Grimm's death had departed.</p>
+
+<p>"Kathrien!" he repeated doubtfully, his heart thumping in an unruly
+fashion that well-nigh choked him.</p>
+
+<p>The serene calm of the girl's face fled beneath his eager, troubled
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik has gone," she said briefly. "I am not going to marry him. I
+broke our engagement this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are free&mdash;free to&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>He checked himself, fearful to believe in the marvellous fortune that
+seemed to have come all at once from the Unattainable into his very
+grasp. And, girl-like, Kathrien was, of a sudden, panic stricken.</p>
+
+<p>"It is late," she said hastily, "very late. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>She made as though to go to her room. And James Hartmann, still full of
+that new fear of his own good fortune, dared not stay her.</p>
+
+<p>But Peter Grimm did not hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>"Katje!" pleaded the Dead Man. "Is Hap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>piness so common that we can toy
+with it? Is life's greatest joy so cheap that we can thrust it aside
+when by a miracle it is laid at our feet? Can we afford to risk
+everything by putting off love when it is in our very grasp?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl hesitated, paused, and seemed to busy herself with
+straightening some disarranged articles on the desk. The Dead Man came
+and stood beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"He loves you, Katje," he murmured. "And only one thing really
+counts&mdash;Love! It is the only thing that tells, in the long run. Nothing
+else endures to the end. Perhaps, if you are shy now and do not let him
+speak, he may find courage to speak to-morrow. But perhaps he may not.
+And are you willing to take that chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" cried the girl in quick fear. "No!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked Hartmann, startled by the frightened denial, so
+meaningless to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I didn't know I spoke," she faltered, embarrassed. "It was foolish
+of me. I had some strange thought. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"You understand less and less every minute, James," laughed Peter Grimm.
+"She loves you. Are you going to let her slip through your fingers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> just
+because you haven't the courage to speak? You were brave enough early
+this evening when you didn't have a chance. Now that she's yours for the
+asking, why be tongue-tied? It was the fear of losing you that made her
+cry out 'No!' just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Katje," demanded Hartmann, abashed at his own audacity, yet unable to
+keep back the words, "were you afraid I wouldn't be here in the morning
+to tell you I loved you? Was that why you said&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know?" she gasped appalled. "You read my mind."</p>
+
+<p>Before she could realise the meaning of what she had said, she found
+herself whirled bodily from the floor and caught close in the grip of
+two strong arms that crushed her to a heaving breast. And Hartmann was
+raining kisses on her hair, her eyes, her upturned face.</p>
+
+<p>"James!" she panted. "Don't! Put me down."</p>
+
+<p>"Not till you say you love me," came the answer in a voice from whence
+all timidity had forever fled.</p>
+
+<p>The tone of glad, adoring rulership thrilled her. She ceased her
+half-hearted struggles to free her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>self. Her arms, through no conscious
+effort of her own, crept upward until they encircled his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Say you love me!" he demanded again, in that glorious Mastery of the
+Loved.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you," she answered obediently. "I have always loved you, I
+think. It's&mdash;it's very wonderful to be held like this and&mdash;and to be
+<i>glad</i> not to be let go. I&mdash;I&mdash;I don't really think I wanted you to let
+me go, even when I told you to."</p>
+
+<p>"There is something else you must say before I let you go," he demanded,
+drunk with his new-born power and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? I'll say it."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you will marry me to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>This time, from sheer amazement, she sprang back, out of the loosened
+clasp of his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow?" she gasped. "Are you crazy? Why," with a little shudder,
+"to-morrow was to be the day I was to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To marry a man you didn't love. That would have made it forever a day
+of shame. You owe 'to-morrow' something to atone for that. Pay its debt
+by marrying <i>me</i> then."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't," she protested. "What&mdash;what would people say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Katje!" broke in the Dead Man. "When you shall have learned that 'what
+people say' is the most senseless bugbear in all this wide world of
+senseless bugbears, you will be far on the road to true greatness. You
+will have broken the heaviest, most galling, most idiotically <i>useless</i>
+fetter that weights down humanity. Being a woman you will never be able
+wholly to free yourself from that same fetter. But lift its weight from
+your soul just this once! You were going to curse your life with a
+blasphemously wicked, loveless marriage to-morrow. And the world would
+have approved. You have a chance to atone for an attempted wrong and to
+win happiness for yourself and the man you love, to-morrow, by marrying
+James then. A few representatives of the world will hold up their hands
+and squawk: 'How scandalously sudden! I suppose she did it to show she
+didn't mind Frederik's jilting her.' And for the sake of the people who
+would have approved a crime and who will sneer at a good and wise deed,
+you are going to throw away many days of bliss, and senselessly postpone
+the one perfect Event of your life. Is this my wise little girl or is it
+some one just as stubborn and foolish as her old uncle used to be? Tell
+me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why should we care what 'people say'?" urged Hartmann as Kathrien
+hesitated. "The opinions of other people wreck lots of lives. Let's be
+great enough and wise enough to choose our own happiness! Don't let's be
+stubborn like poor old Mr. Grimm, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"James!" she cried in wonder. "Those are just the very things I was
+thinking. That's the second time in a few minutes that you have read my
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it was <i>you</i> who were reading mine," said Hartmann. "That's
+what people call 'Telepathy,' isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," smiled the Dead Man. "That is what 'people' call it&mdash;who know no
+better. Oh, what a jumble people do make of the simple things of the
+Universe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway," went on Hartmann, without waiting for Kathrien to reply to his
+question, "it doesn't matter which of us thought of it first. It's
+enough to know it's true. And you <i>will</i> marry me to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yes!</i>" vociferated Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes," faltered the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, dear," continued Hartmann, "we won't be very well off, I'm
+afraid. I've a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> money&mdash;but not much. I know scientific gardening
+as not many men know it. So we won't starve. But it won't be as if you
+were going to marry a rich man like Frederik Grimm."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven, it won't!" she breathed fervently. "And do you suppose it
+will matter one bit to me that we won't be rich? I wish, of course, that
+we didn't have to leave this dear old house, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If we had both the house and the little capital that belongs to me,"
+answered Hartmann, "we could stay on here and make a splendid living.
+But what's the use of building air castles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" urged the Dead Man. "They're as cheap to build as air
+dungeons; and a million times pleasanter to live in. But, don't fret
+about the house. Frederik is going to turn it over to you&mdash;I've seen to
+that. And you will prosper, you two, here in the home I loved."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it will come out all right!" declared the girl. "I have a
+feeling that it will. Intuition if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"'Intuition,'" repeated the Dead Man whimsically. "Yes. Call it that, if
+you choose. 'Intuition' and 'telepathy' are both pretty synonyms for the
+words spoken to you that mortal ears are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> too gross to understand and
+whose sense sometimes finds vague resting-place in mortal brains."</p>
+
+<p>"It will come out all right," she reiterated, smiling up at her lover.</p>
+
+<p>"It's good to see you smile again," said Hartmann, once more drawing her
+close to him. "I'm glad your cloud of grief is beginning to lift."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>has</i> lifted," she returned. "When Oom Peter went away, and seemed
+utterly lost to me forever, I thought my heart would break. But now&mdash;now
+I know he <i>hasn't</i> gone. I know he has been here with me this very
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," she insisted. "You must believe it, dear. For it is very
+real to me. I believe he came back to set me free from my promise to
+Frederik. Some time&mdash;some time, I'll tell you all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"In the meanwhile," adjured the Dead Man, "believe her, James. If men
+would put less faith in their own four-square logic and more faith in
+their wives' illogical beliefs, there'd be fewer mistakes made."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me any more about it to-night," begged the girl in response
+to the amazed questioning in her lover's eyes. "I can't speak of it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+just yet. It's all too near&mdash;too wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you like," he agreed. "Now I must go, for I want to catch Mr.
+Batholommey before he goes to sleep, and make the arrangements with him
+for the wedding."</p>
+
+<p>His arm around her, they crossed to where his hat and coat were hanging.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if Oom Peter can see us now?" she mused, as Hartmann stooped
+to kiss her good-night.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the great mystery of the ages," answered Hartmann. "Who can
+tell? But I wish he might know. I think, seen as he must see things now,
+he would be glad. Good-night, sweetheart."</p>
+
+<p>She watched him stride down the walk. Then she came back into the room,
+her eyes alight.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Oom Peter," she murmured, half aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," returned Peter Grimm. "I know all about it. I know, little
+girl. I know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>"ALL THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS AGAIN"</h3>
+
+<p>Late as was the hour, Kathrien yet lingered a few minutes longer in the
+room where that night her freedom and her life's crown had come to her.</p>
+
+<p>She paused by the desk and lovingly caressed the rich, red mass of roses
+which, in memory of her uncle, she daily placed there. The cool, velvety
+touch of the blossoms was like a living response to her caress. And from
+the crimson petals arose a faint, drowsy fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien sank into the worn desk chair and gazed dreamily into the dying
+fire. She seemed to read there a wonderful story. Or else the grey-red
+embers shaped themselves into beautiful pictures. For her face was
+joyous beyond all belief.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow!" she murmured to herself.</p>
+
+<p>And Peter Grimm, looking down at her, smiled as he caught the whispered
+word.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>lievling</i>," he answered. "To-morrow. Isn't it a marvellous word?
+It holds all the hopes and fears of the whole world."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so happy! I'm so <i>happy</i>!" she breathed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Dead Man laid his hand gently on the soft lustre of her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, good-night to you, my darling," he said in the old tender voice
+that had comforted her childish griefs and shared her childish delights
+in the bygone days. "Good-night, my darling. Love can never say
+'good-bye.' I am going, little girl. I am leaving you here in your dear
+home that shall always be yours. Here, in the years that are to come,
+the way will lie clear before you. May pleasure and peace go with you,
+little girl of mine."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were luminous. There was a half-smile on her lips. Peter
+Grimm's own eyes reflected her smile as he stroked her hair and
+continued to look down into her rapt face as though to impress its every
+detail upon his memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Here on sunny, blossoming days," he went on, "when you look out on my
+old gardens, as a happy wife, all the flowers and trees and shrubs shall
+bloom enchanted to your eyes. For, love gives a heaven-light to
+everything. And when the home we love is our own, it becomes doubly
+fair."</p>
+
+<p>The light in her eyes grew brighter and he stooped to brush his lips to
+her forehead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"All that happens, happens again," he went on in that same caressing
+voice as though loath to leave her, and seeking to prolong his stay at
+her side. "And when, as a mother, you explain each leaf and bud, and the
+miracle of the growing flowers to your own little people, you will
+sometimes think of the days when you and I walked through the gardens
+and the leafy lanes together, and how I taught you all those
+things&mdash;even as you shall be teaching your own children. Yes,&mdash;all that
+happens, happens again and has happened before. You will teach them,
+just as I taught you. And so I shall always linger in your heart. Here,
+in our home, everything will keep on reminding you of me. Not in sadness
+nor in gloom. But as a wonderful, golden memory. You will forget only
+the part of me that was stubborn and unreasonable and ill-tempered&mdash;and
+you will remember me only as I <i>wished</i> to be. That is one of the gifts
+of God to those who have left this world. Their dear ones remember them
+only as kind, as loving, as good. Their faults fade from the memory and
+the <i>good</i> ever glows more and more brightly."</p>
+
+<p>He paused. And still he could not leave the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> happy girl as she sat there
+in her blissful, fireside reverie.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be waiting for you, Katje," he said. "And I shall be knowing
+all of your life, its joys, its happy toil and its sweet rest, its
+lights and its passing shadows. I shall love your children with all my
+whole heart. And I shall be their grandfather just as though I were
+here. I shall be everywhere about you and yours, Katje. Always. In the
+stockings at Christmas, in the big, busy, teeming world of shadows, just
+outside your threshold; or whispering to you in the stillness of the
+night. And, as the years drift on, you can never know what pride I shall
+take in your middle life&mdash;the very best age of all! After the luxuries
+and the eager gaieties and the vanities and the possessions and the hot
+strife for gain cease to be important, we return to very simple things.
+For then, sunset is at hand, and the peace of Home calls to us far more
+clearly than the roar of the outer world. The evening of life comes
+bearing its own lamp."</p>
+
+<p>Her face had grown graver, but still was radiant. The Dead Man smiled as
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Then, as a little old grandmother&mdash;a little old child whose bedtime is
+drawing near, I shall still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> see you; happy to sit out in the sunlight
+of another day; asking no more of life than a few hours still to be
+spent with those you love;&mdash;telling your grandchildren how much more
+brightly the flowers used to blossom when <i>you</i> were young.&mdash;All that
+happens, happens again.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, one glad day, glorified, radiant, young once more&mdash;divinely
+young,&mdash;you will come to us. And your mother and I shall take you in our
+arms again. Oh, what a meeting it will be! To <i>you</i>, many happy years
+away. To <i>us</i>, only a brief hour of waiting. We shall meet so perfectly
+then&mdash;the flight of Love to Love. And now," bending down once more and
+kissing her, "good-night, my own little girl."</p>
+
+<p>She rose, half-dazzled by the brightness that filled her soul. Pausing
+to bury her face for a moment in the bowl of roses, she murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, <i>dear</i> Oom Peter!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, slowly, smilingly, she made her way up the stairs to her own room.
+The Dead Man's eyes followed her every light step. The Dead Man's hand
+was raised in unspoken benediction. Marta bustled in from the kitchen on
+her nightly round of window-locking and door-barring. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> she passed the
+big wall clock, she stopped, sighed right lugubriously, and proceeded to
+wind the ancient timepiece by the simple old-time process of drawing
+down its pulley chain.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Marta!" said Peter Grimm quizzically, as she departed. "Every
+time she thinks of me, she winds my clock. We're not quite forgotten
+after all, it seems. Good-night, old friend! There are a few tears ahead
+of you. But there is plenty of sunshine beyond them."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced about the room, his eyes resting at last on Willem's door in
+the gallery above. The door swung open, and Dr. McPherson appeared on
+the threshold. In one hand he held a candle-stick. In the hollow of his
+right arm lay Willem, a Dutch patchwork bedquilt wrapped around him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, laddie," McPherson was saying in a voice whose softness
+would have amazed the Batholommeys. "Since you want so badly to sleep
+downstairs, you shall. The sofa by the fire is just as snug as your own
+bed. What Mistress Batholommey will say to my giving in to a sick little
+boy's whim, I don't know. But we don't care. Do we, Willem? And," he
+added, reaching the living-room and carrying the child across to the
+sofa, "if you want to be down here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> and if you won't be happy anywhere
+else, here you shall be."</p>
+
+<p>He laid Willem gently on the couch and covered him with the quilt.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you feel, now?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sleepy," answered Willem. "It's good to be in this room. I'll sleep
+finely here. Could&mdash;could I have a drink of water, please?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor crossed to the sideboard. The ice-water pitcher was empty.
+McPherson took up a glass.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find you some," said he. "I suppose I'll never learn my way around
+the labyrinths of this old house. But if I can't get to the nearest
+faucet, I'll wake Marta and ask her to help me. Lie still. I'll be back
+in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up the lighted candle again, and started off on his quest. As
+he left the room he passed close by Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Andrew," said the Dead Man. "I'm afraid the world will have
+to wait a little longer for the Big Guesser. The secret you've delved
+for so long and so loudly was in your own hands this evening. And you
+didn't know what to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor left the room without hearing him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> But Willem heard.
+Starting up on the couch, the boy cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mynheer Grimm! <i>Where</i> are you? I knew you were down here&mdash;That's
+why I wanted to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am," answered the Dead Man, moving forward into the range of the
+anxiously wandering blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gleefully exclaimed the child. "I <i>see</i> you now! I <i>see</i> you now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? At last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've got your hat!" went on the boy excitedly. "It's off the peg.
+You're going!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Willem," replied the Dead Man. "I'm going."</p>
+
+<p>"Need you go right away, Mynheer Grimm?" coaxed the child. "Can't you
+wait just a <i>little</i> while?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait for <i>you</i>, dear lad," returned Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, can I go with you?" asked the boy in glad surprise. "Thank you,
+Mynheer Grimm! I couldn't find the way without you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you could, Willem. God's signal light is the surest thing in
+all the universe. But I'll wait for you, just the same."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boy's drowsiness, overcome for the moment by his sight of the Dead
+Man's loved face, had crept in upon him once more. He lay back on the
+couch with a happy little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>And at once he was off in the wonder-aisles of dreamland&mdash;a dreamland
+full of circuses, of impossibly funny and friendly clowns, of street
+parade glories, of marvellous animals and thrilling equestrian feats.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very pleasantest of
+dreams a boy could have in <i>this</i> world."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 361px;"><a name="ILLO3" id="ILLO3"></a>
+<img src="images/image_0002.jpg" width="361" height="500" alt="&quot;Sleep well,&quot; said Peter Grimm. &quot;I wish you the very
+pleasantest of dreams a boy could have in this world&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Sleep well,&quot; said Peter Grimm. &quot;I wish you the very
+pleasantest of dreams a boy could have in this world&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The doctor's step sounded presently in the adjoining kitchen. As though
+awakened by it, Willem opened his eyes and sat up. The fever flush was
+gone from his cheeks, the fever glaze from his look. The lassitude that
+had weighted every joint in his sick little body had fled, to be
+replaced by a strange, glorious buoyancy.</p>
+
+<p>With a glad shout, Willem sprang up and raced across the floor into
+Peter Grimm's outstretched arms.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Huge moroche</i>, Mynheer Grimm!" he cried. "Oh, I am <i>well</i>! I never was
+so well before. It's wonderful to be like this."</p>
+
+<p>"You are happy, too?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! <i>Happy?</i> It's like school being over!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" laughed Peter Grimm. "It will always be like that now. Come!
+Let's be off."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted the exalted, eager boy lightly from the floor, and swung him
+to a perch on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Uncle Rat has come to town!</i>" sang Willem, too rapturously happy to
+keep still.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha-<i>H'M</i>!" he and Peter Grimm chorused as they moved toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"'Uncle Rat has come to town,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">To buy&mdash;&mdash;'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>McPherson came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the water, Willem," he announced, going over to the couch. "I
+got it at last, after barking my shins over&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the sofa and its occupant. Then the glass fell from his
+nerveless hand. He knelt in horror beside the still, white little body
+that lay there.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" gasped McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" exulted Peter Grimm from the doorway. "Not <i>dead</i>, Andrew, old
+friend. There never was so fair a prospect for <i>life</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," sighed Willem blissfully, his arm about Peter Grimm's neck, "I'm
+<i>so</i> happy! I didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> know any one could be so happy as this&mdash;or so
+<i>well</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"If only the rest of them knew what they are missing! Hey, Willem?"
+assented Peter Grimm.</p>
+
+<p>"What is Dr. McPherson looking at there on the sofa?" demanded Willem.
+"He seems scared&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;unhappy. <i>What</i> is he looking at, Mynheer
+Grimm?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is looking at&mdash;<i>nothing</i>. And he doesn't know it. Come!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;it's so wonderful to be <i>alive</i>!" cried Willem.</p>
+
+<p>They passed out, and the door of the house closed noiselessly behind
+them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DAWNING</h3>
+
+<p>Night had given place to red dawn, and red dawn to white day.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McPherson came out of the Grimm house and sat down on the edge of
+the vine-bordered stoop. He was very tired. He had had a hard and trying
+night. In his ears were still ringing the sobs of old Marta, hastily
+awakened to learn of her only grandson's death;&mdash;Kathrien's quiet
+grief;&mdash;Mrs. Batholommey's excited, high-pitched questionings that
+jangled on the death hush as horribly as breaks the Venus music through
+the Pilgrims' Chorus.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a night of stark wakefulness, of a myriad details. And
+McPherson had borne the brunt of it all. Now, under an opiate, Marta was
+asleep. Mrs. Batholommey had trotted ponderously home to bear the black
+tidings of a prisoned child's Release to her husband. And Kathrien had
+gone to her own room under the doctor's gruff command to snatch an
+hour's rest. McPherson himself had come out into the cool and fresh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>ness
+of the new-born world for a breathing space, and to think.</p>
+
+<p>The June day was young. Very young. Under the early sun the grass was
+afire with dew diamonds. The flowers, dripping and fragrant, held up
+their cups to the light. The town still lay asleep. Over the suburb
+brooded the Hush of the primal Wilderness, creeping back furtively and
+momentarily to its long-lost domain.</p>
+
+<p>And presently the quiet was broken by the swift recurring click of heels
+on the sidewalk. Some one was coming along the slumbrous Main street;
+and coming with nervous haste. The steps turned in at the Grimm gate.
+McPherson raised his blood-shot, sleep-robbed eyes and stared crossly
+toward the newcomer.</p>
+
+<p>It was Frederik Grimm. And, recognising him, McPherson's frown deepened
+into a scowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true?" asked Frederik as he stopped in front of the doctor. "I
+met Mrs. Batholommey. She was just passing the hotel on her way home. I
+hadn't been able to sleep, so I was starting out for a walk. She told
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That Willem's dead?" finished McPherson, with brutal frankness. "Yes,
+it's true. Did you suppose that it was a new vaudeville joke?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Frederik stood blinking, blank-faced, apparently failing to grasp the
+sense of the doctor's words. The younger man's aspect dully irritated
+McPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he reiterated, "the boy's dead. The problem of supporting him
+needn't bother you now. Not that it ever did. He's dead. And it's the
+luckiest thing that ever happened to him."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik raised one hand in instinctive protest. But he might as well
+have sought to stem Niagara with a straw.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's strained nerves, his genuine grief, his dislike for the
+dapper young man before him, combined to open wide the floodgates of
+honest Scottish wrath. And he saw no cause to exercise self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in luck!" he growled. "The law could have compelled you to pay
+some such munificent sum as four dollars a week for his maintenance.
+You're safe from that now. And I congratulate you. It'll mean an extra
+weekly quart of champagne or a brace of musical comedy seats for you.
+The law is stringent and I was going to invoke it in your case. You
+smashed a decent girl's life. You helped bring a nameless boy into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> a
+world that would have made his life a hell as long as he lived. Just
+because his father happened to be a yellow cur. And, in penalty for that
+sin, the power and majesty of an outraged law would have assessed you
+about one per cent of your yearly income. You're lucky."</p>
+
+<p>Frederik winced as though he had been lashed across the face.</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes wonder," continued McPherson, urged to fresh vehemence by
+sight of the effect he was scoring, "if hell holds a worse criminal or a
+more mercilessly punished one than the man or woman who lets a little
+child suffer needlessly&mdash;who <i>makes</i> it suffer. And of all the suffering
+that can be heaped upon a child, everything else is like a feather's
+weight compared to sending it out in life with a name such as Willem
+would have borne. Oh, but God's merciful when He finds little children
+crying in the dark and leads them Home! Batholommey and the rest of them
+sneer at me for sticking to the old hell-fire Calvin doctrines in these
+days of pew-cushion religion. But I tell you, in all reverence, if
+there's no hell for the people who torture children, then it's time the
+Almighty turned awhile from pardoning sinners and built one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry," said Frederik shortly. "There is one. I know. I am in
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"'Mourner's bench talk,' eh? It's cheap. Penitence is always on the free
+list. And in your case, as in most, it comes too late to do any good,
+except to salve the penitent's feelings. Willem lived in the same house
+with you for three years. All around him was Love. Except from the one
+person whose sacred duty it was to give that Love. We pitied him. We
+knew what he'd be facing if he lived. We made his childhood as happy as
+we could, so that he'd have at least one bright thing to look back on
+afterward. He was nothing to any of us. Except that he was a child
+crippled and maimed and fore-damned for life in the worst way any
+Unfortunate could be. We pitied him and we loved him. Did he ever hear a
+harsh word or see a forbidding face? Yes; he did. From one person alone.
+From <i>you</i>, his father. Even last night when he crept downstairs parched
+with thirst, and begged you for a drink of water&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" cried Frederik, in sharp agony. "Do you suppose you can tell
+<i>me</i> anything about that? Do you suppose I haven't gone over it
+all&mdash;yes, and over all the three years&mdash;a hundred times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> since I heard
+he was dead? Do you think you can make me feel it any more damnably than
+I do? If so, go ahead and try. You spoke of the need for a hell. You can
+spare your advice to the Almighty. He has made one. And I can't even
+wait until I'm dead before I walk through it."</p>
+
+<p>"Through it," assented McPherson sardonically. "<i>Through</i> it with many a
+lamentable groan and a beating of the breast, and with squeaky little
+wails of remorse&mdash;and on <i>through</i> it, out onto the pleasant slopes of
+forgetfulness and new mischief. Take my condolences on your fearful
+passage through your purgatory. I fear me it will take you the best part
+of a week to pass entirely out of it. It's only a man-built hell, that
+of yours. And, according to the modern theologians, God has no worse one
+for you later on."</p>
+
+<p>With twitching, pallid face, and anguished eyes, Frederik Grimm looked
+dumbly at his tormentor. Even in his agony, he felt, subconsciously, far
+down in his atrophied soul, that the doctor's forecast as to the
+duration of his remorse's torture was little exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, for the moment, his "man-built hell" was grilling and racking the
+stricken penitent to a point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> that the Spanish Inquisition's ingenuity
+could never have devised.</p>
+
+<p>McPherson, with a sombre satisfaction, noted the younger man's misery.
+Then a wistful look flitted across his gnarled, bearded face.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," he mused, his angry voice sinking to a rumble, "I wonder if
+you can guess&mdash;and of course you can't&mdash;what a prize you spent eight
+years in throwing away. You had a son. And you disowned him and turned
+your back on him. I've had no son. I shall never have a son. And when I
+go out into the dark, there'll be no man-child to carry on my name. No
+lad to inherit this brute body of mine with all its strength and giant
+endurance; this brain of mine, that has tried so hard to perfect itself
+and to give its possible successor the faculty for thought and work and
+self-mastery. My father was a strong man, a great man. And much of the
+little power and goodness and worthiness that exist in me, I owe to him.
+No man in future years can say that of <i>me</i>. It must be something that
+no childless man can understand or dream of, to feel the fingers of
+one's little son tugging at one. To,&mdash;Lord! What would Mother
+Batholommey say if she could hear me maundering and havering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> away like
+this! It means nothing to <i>you</i>, either. Except that you've had, and
+hated, and thrown away what many a better man would give half his life
+for."</p>
+
+<p>There was a short silence. McPherson, ashamed of blurting his sacred
+heart secrets to a fellow he detested, sat gnawing angrily at his ragged
+grey moustache. Frederik, to whom the last part of the doctor's tirade
+had passed unheard, stood gazing sightlessly at the ground before him.
+And for a space, neither of them spoke.</p>
+
+<p>At length Frederik looked up, almost timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Could&mdash;might I see him?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm?" grunted McPherson, starting from the maze of his own unhappy
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, may I go in and see&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had three years to see him in, didn't you?" demanded McPherson. "I
+can't recall now that I ever saw you glance at him when you could help
+it. Why should you go in and see him now? You can't frighten him any
+more."</p>
+
+<p>He checked himself.</p>
+
+<p>"That last was a rotten thing for me to say," he muttered grudgingly.
+"I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>But Frederik showed no signs of resentment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> He was looking moodily at
+the ground once more, apparently engrossed in the fruitless efforts of a
+red ant on the walk's edge to lug away a dead caterpillar forty times
+its size. The doctor peered at him almost apologetically from under his
+grey thatch of eyebrow. The younger man's face still wore that same
+blank, dazed mask, as though horror had wiped it clean of expression.
+Again it was Frederik who broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember once," said he, in a dreary monotone, "when he was four
+years old. He saw a woolly lamb in a shop window and wanted it. I'd lost
+ninety dollars that day at the races and I was sore. He begged me to buy
+him the lamb. It cost only a quarter. I wouldn't. I told him he ought to
+be content to sponge on me for food and clothes without wanting
+presents, too. I remember he cried when I pulled him away from the shop
+window. And I hit him. I wish&mdash;I wish I'd&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If there's anything worse than a hardened criminal," snorted McPherson,
+"it's a silly, sentimental one. You say you want to go in and see him?
+Go ahead then. You don't have to ask <i>my</i> leave. It's your own house,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Frederik, "it isn't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Huh? Oh, I remember now. You said last night you were going to give it
+to Kathrien. Don't worry. A promise like that isn't binding in law. And
+you'll repent of it almost as soon as you'll stop repenting for Willem."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so," agreed Frederik. "But it will be too late then. Here," he
+went on, pulling a long envelope from his pocket, "take charge of this,
+will you, and give it to Kathrien for her signature in case I don't see
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked McPherson, mechanically taking the envelope as
+Frederik thrust it into his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Before I went to the hotel for a room last night," answered the other,
+"I called on Colonel Lawton and got him to draw it up. All it lacks is
+her signature."</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a deed for the house and the twelve-acre 'home plot' it stands
+on. That includes the two cottages over on McIntyre Street. They're both
+rented and in good condition. They'll bring her in nearly eight hundred
+a year. It's less than my uncle would have left her if he'd known&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He knew," interrupted McPherson decisively. "And that's why you did it.
+As you said last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> night, 'somebody has been doing your thinking for
+you.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad for your own peace of mind that you aren't forced to give <i>me</i>
+credit for it," said Frederik in lifeless irony. "I'll go in now, if I
+may. I shall not stay long. And then for New York. It's the best place I
+know of for hastening one's journey through and out of the 'man-built
+hell' you spoke about. Oh, and I gave Lawton directions about Anne
+Marie, too. She can come home now if she wants to without being
+dependent upon any one for her support. You're quite right, Doctor.
+Somebody <i>has</i> been doing my thinking. I'm glad it stopped before I went
+broke."</p>
+
+<p>With something of his old jaunty air he mounted the steps and went into
+the house. McPherson stared after him with a glower that somehow would
+not remain ferocious. Then he got up, stretched his great shaggy bulk,
+yawned, and started homeward for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>On the way he met Mr. Batholommey, hastily awakened and hurrying to the
+house of mourning.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!" exclaimed the clergyman in agitation. "This is very
+distressing. <i>Very.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"As usual," drawled McPherson, "I find I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> can't agree with you. To me it
+seems a blessed release."</p>
+
+<p>"And on Kathrien's wedding day, too!" went on Mr. Batholommey, to whom
+McPherson's eternal disagreement had become so chronic he scarce noticed
+it. "At least, on the day that <i>was</i> to have been her wedding day! Young
+Hartmann waked me out of a sound sleep last night to tell me she had
+promised to marry him to-day. And he asked me to be at the house
+promptly at eleven. But, of course, now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, now," put in the doctor, "the wedding is going to take place
+just the same."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>"I argued with Kathrien a whole half-hour this morning before she would
+agree to it," went on the doctor. "But at last I persuaded her it was
+the only thing to do. If ever she needs a husband's help and advice, now
+is the time. And at last I made her understand that. So, she and James
+will be married to-day. Just as they planned to. The only difference
+will be that they'll come to the rectory for the ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems almost&mdash;shall I say indecorous?" protested Mr. Batholommey.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>real</i> things of life generally do," replied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> the doctor.
+"Good-morning. I'm going to be so indecorous as to hurry home for a bath
+and a breakfast instead of catching cold standing out here on a wet
+street discussing other people's business."</p>
+
+<p>He strode on. Mr. Batholommey, murmuring dazedly to himself, took up his
+own journey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GOOD-BYE</h3>
+
+<p>Frederik Grimm turned away from looking down at the pathetically small
+figure in the darkened room. His face was expressionless. He had stood
+there but a few minutes. And his eyes, riveted on the still, white
+little form, had not softened nor blurred with tears.</p>
+
+<p>Wearily he descended the gallery stairs into the living-room, where the
+morning sunlight was already turning the desk bowl of roses into a riot
+of burning colour.</p>
+
+<p>He was halfway across the room, toward the door, when he was aware that
+Kathrien had risen from the desk chair and was looking at him. Her look
+was cold and devoid of pity as she surveyed him. But as he halted,
+hesitant, the sunlight fell full on his face. And in the visage that had
+seemed so vapidly blank to McPherson, she read much.</p>
+
+<p>The cold glint died from her eyes and she stepped forward with hand
+outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederik," she said gently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He came haltingly toward her. He held out his hand to meet hers. But he
+could not touch the fingers that were waiting to press his own. His hand
+fell limply to his side.</p>
+
+<p>She understood. And the warm pity in her face deepened.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>"He is happier," muttered the man.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean for Willem. For <i>you</i>. You understand what it all means at
+last."</p>
+
+<p>"And, too late," he assented. "It is always too late&mdash;when one
+understands."</p>
+
+<p>"It is never too late," she denied eagerly. "Frederik, you have
+everything ahead of you. You can&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing ahead of me," he contradicted dully.</p>
+
+<p>"You have wealth, youth, the power to undo what wrong you did,&mdash;to start
+afresh&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"As the broken-winged bird has the power to start a new flight. Don't
+waste your divine sympathy on me, Kitty. It would be thrown away. In a
+very little time, as Dr. McPherson has kindly pointed out to me, I shall
+be convalescent from my attack of remorse. And then all life will lie
+before me, as you say. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> life except the one thing that makes life
+worth living."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped. For he saw she understood.</p>
+
+<p>"You always understood," he went on, voicing his thought. "That was one
+of the wonderful things about you, Kitty. Even now, you saw the pain I
+am in. And it made you forget what you believe I am. It was sweet of
+you. It will be good to remember."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could help you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>have</i> helped me," he answered. "For you've given me a Memory to
+carry till I can shake off the load&mdash;till I can get clear of McPherson's
+'man-built hell.' It won't be long. So don't worry. Even now, my common
+sense tells me I've made a fool of myself. And I'm human enough to be
+more ashamed of being a fool than of being a knave. I had everything in
+my own hands. And I threw away the game because an attack of fright kept
+me from playing my winning cards. Last night I was afraid of a ghost.
+This morning I'm sane enough to know that ghosts were invented by the
+first nervous man who was alone at night. This morning I am heart-broken
+because my little boy lies dead. To-morrow I shall be sane enough to
+know that it is as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> lucky for me as it is for him, that he died. And in
+a week I'll be congratulating myself over it all and revelling in a
+freedom and a fortune I've always craved. So you see I'm quite
+incurable."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say such things?" she cried. "You know they aren't true."</p>
+
+<p>"When I said you 'always understand,' Kitty, I was wrong. You don't
+understand. No woman understands&mdash;that a man doesn't reform. A good man
+may have taken a wrong twist. And when he finds his way back to the
+straight road, they say he has 'reformed.' He hasn't. He's only struck
+his own natural gait again. As he was bound to. And <i>my</i> kind of man
+sometimes takes a momentary twist in the <i>right</i> direction. Then people
+say <i>he</i> has reformed. And they are just as much mistaken as they were
+in the other case. For, water won't run uphill after the first pressure
+is withdrawn."</p>
+
+<p>"But in the fires of affliction&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The fires of affliction," he retorted sadly, "have burned away the
+dross from the pure gold of many a soul, I suppose. But no fires were
+ever heated that could burn dross fiercely enough to turn it into gold.
+Yet&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, then said, without daring to look at her:</p>
+
+<p>"There's one thing I do want you to know, Kitty. Whatever I was and am,
+and whatever shams went to make up my daily life here&mdash;you know my love
+for <i>you</i> was true and absolute and that I loved and <i>love</i> you more
+than the whole world besides?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she returned, unembarrassed. "I believe that, Frederik. In part.
+You loved me as much as you could love any one. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why must there be a 'but'?" he entreated.</p>
+
+<p>"But," she went on with the relentlessness of the Young, "not as much as
+you loved yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"More! Ten thousand times more!" he declared vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she contradicted. "For you didn't love me enough to give me up
+when you knew I cared for another man. The Perfect Love would have&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The 'perfect love'!" he scoffed. "I have read of it. But I have yet to
+see it."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot see it," she replied, "for the same reason I could not see
+Oom Peter when he was fighting my battle here last night. My<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> eyes were
+blinded by the world I live in. Perfect love is everywhere. It is within
+and about us. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But I would be too ignoble to recognise it if I chanced upon it?
+Perhaps. But why strip me of my last illusion? In the torment of my
+self-abasement this morning, I have clung to that one comfort: That I
+love you with a love which a truly worthless man <i>could</i> not feel. And
+now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Don't</i> misunderstand me," she begged, half-tearfully. "I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You have shown me the truth. And I ought to thank you for it. Perhaps
+some day I can. If I still remember it then. Good-bye, dear. I shan't be
+here again. I've&mdash;I've left you a little present. Dr. McPherson will
+give it to you."</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>can't</i> take&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you can. It isn't really from me. That's just another of my
+lies to make a good impression. I've gotten so in the habit of telling
+them that it is going to take me a long time to realise that one of the
+chief advantages of being a rich man is the immunity from the need to
+lie. The present isn't really from me. It's from Oom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> Peter. You can't
+refuse it from <i>him</i>. If you doubt it's Oom Peter's own direct gift, ask
+Dr. McPherson. It was bad enough," he sighed, in mock despair, "for Oom
+Peter to squander so much of my money while he was alive, without
+keeping on doing it after he died. I hope he has stopped it at last. Or
+I'll soon be reduced to standing at the subway steps with a tin cup in
+my hand."</p>
+
+<p>Through the forced lightness, whose effort wrung sweat from the man's
+forehead, Kathrien was woman enough to see the mortal agony that lay
+beneath. And again she held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Frederik," she said gently. "And may you be happy!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked doubtfully at the shapely little hand. Then, with an
+awkwardness strangely foreign to his normal grace, he took the hand in
+both his own and stood a moment, looking down at it as though not
+knowing what to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>Then, very simply, he fell on his knees, touched the warm, roseleaf palm
+to his lips, got up and, without looking back, hurried out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Kathrien watched his slender, carefully groomed figure until it was lost
+at a turn in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> rose bushes. Then she came back into the room and
+stood beside Peter Grimm's old chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Oom Peter!" she whispered. "This is my wedding day. You know it, don't
+you? And&mdash;oh, please let me think you are close&mdash;<i>close</i>&mdash;beside me all
+the time!"</p>
+
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Return of Peter Grimm
+       Novelised From the Play
+
+Author: David Belasco
+
+Illustrator: John Rae
+
+Release Date: January 18, 2008 [EBook #24359]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Annie McGuire and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  The Return of Peter Grimm
+
+  NOVELISED FROM THE PLAY
+  BY
+  DAVID BELASCO
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+  JOHN RAE
+
+  NEW YORK
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  PUBLISHERS
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
+  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+      I A MAN AND A MAID                                               3
+
+     II THE HEIR                                                      19
+
+    III PETER GRIMM HAS A PLAN                                        37
+
+     IV A WARNING AND A THEORY                                        56
+
+      V A QUEER COMPACT                                               77
+
+     VI BREAKING THE NEWS                                             99
+
+    VII THE HAND RELAXES                                             108
+
+   VIII AFTERWARD                                                    118
+
+     IX THE EVE OF A WEDDING                                         125
+
+      X A WASTED PLEA                                                134
+
+     XI THE LEGACIES                                                 149
+
+    XII MOSTLY CONCERNING GRATITUDE                                  157
+
+   XIII THE RETURN                                                   164
+
+    XIV "I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"                                      184
+
+     XV A HALF-HEARD MESSAGE                                         209
+
+    XVI THE "SENSITIVE"                                              231
+
+   XVII MR. BATHOLOMMEY TESTIFIES                                    254
+
+  XVIII DR. MCPHERSON'S STATEMENT                                    265
+
+    XIX BACK TO THE STORY                                            278
+
+     XX THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT                                     290
+
+    XXI "ONLY ONE THING REALLY COUNTS"                               302
+
+   XXII "ALL THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS AGAIN"                            313
+
+  XXIII THE DAWNING                                                  324
+
+   XXIV THE GOOD-BYE                                                 337
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  "I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St.
+  Paul was a single man, was he not, Pastor?"                         86
+
+  "Who's in the room!" he demanded                                   202
+
+  "Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you
+  the very pleasantest of dreams a boy could
+  have in _this_ world"                                              321
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A MAN AND A MAID
+
+
+The train drew to a halt at the Junction. There was a fine jolt that ran
+the length of the cars, followed by a clank of couplings and a
+half-intelligible call from the conductor.
+
+The passengers,--dusty, jaded, crossly annoyed at the need of changing
+cars,--gathered up their luggage and filed out onto the bare, roofless
+station platform. There, after a look down the long converging rails in
+vain hope of sighting the train they were to take, they fell to glancing
+about the cheerless station environs.
+
+Far away were rolling hills, upland fields of wind-swept wheat, cool,
+dark stretches of woodland. But around the station were areas of
+ill-kept lots, with here and there a jerry-built cottage, sadly in need
+of shoring, and bereft of paint. Across the road on one side stood the
+general store with its clump of porch-step loafers and its windows full
+of gaudy advertisements. To the side, and parallel with the tracks,
+sprawled a huge, weather-buffeted signboard that read:
+
+  "_Grimm's Botanical Gardens and Nurseries._
+  _1 Mile._"
+
+The passengers eyed the half-defaced lettering, pessimistically. But
+almost at once they received a far pleasanter reminder of the botanical
+gardens. A boy, flushed with running, and evidently distressed at being
+late, pattered up the road and onto the platform. From one of his
+fragile arms hung a great basket. The lid had fallen aside and showed
+the basket piled to the brim with fresh flowers.
+
+Hurrying to the nearest passenger--an obese travelling man who mopped a
+very red face,--the boy timidly held a Gloire de Dijon rose up to him
+and recited with parrot-like glibness:
+
+"With the compliments of Peter Grimm."
+
+The fat man half unconsciously took the rose from the little hand and
+stood looking as though in dire doubt what to do with it. The boy did
+not help him out. Already he had moved on to the next passenger,--this
+time a man of clerical bearing and suspiciously vivid nose,--and handed
+him a gleaming Madonna lily.
+
+"With the compliments of Peter Grimm," he announced, passing on to the
+next.
+
+And so on down the bunched line of waiting men and women the lad made
+his way. In front of each, he paused, presented a flower taken at random
+from the basket, recited his droning formula, and passed on.
+
+The fat travelling man stared stupidly at his rose. Then he looked about
+him, half shamefacedly and in wonder.
+
+"What in blazes----?" he began.
+
+"You must be a stranger in this part of the state," volunteered a big
+young fellow, who had just come out of the waiting-room. "Did you never
+hear of the flower-giving at the Junction?"
+
+"No. What's the idea? Is it done on a bet? Or is it an 'ad' for the man
+on the sign over there?"
+
+"Neither. It has been Peter Grimm's custom for twenty years or more.
+Ever since I first knew him."
+
+"And it isn't an ad?"
+
+"No," was the enigmatic answer as the big young man moved off in the
+wake of the lad. "It's Peter Grimm."
+
+The boy meanwhile had reached the last of the passengers. She was
+middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peered down at him with more than
+common interest as he went through his pat little presentation formula.
+A psychologist would have gathered much from the lad's tense, flushed
+face and in the oddly strained look of the big blue eyes. To this woman,
+he was only a thin, lonely looking youngster, whose face held an
+unconscious appeal that she answered without reading it.
+
+"I am very much obliged to Mr. Peter Grimm for sending me this lovely
+flower," she said, a little patronisingly, as she sniffed at the
+half-opened Killarney rose she held.
+
+"You need not be," answered the boy. "He didn't really send it to you.
+In fact, I'm quite sure he never even heard of you. He just sent it
+because he is good and because----"
+
+"Because he loves flowers," suggested the woman as the boy hesitated.
+
+"No," corrected the boy, in his gentle, old-fashioned diction, wherein
+lurked the faintest trace of foreign accent, "I never heard him say
+anything about loving flowers. But I know the flowers love him."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You see, they grow for him as they don't grow for any one else. _Much_
+better I am sure," he added a little bitterly, "than they will ever grow
+for Frederik. I don't think flowers love Frederik."
+
+"What queer ideas you have!" she laughed, embarrassed at his quiet
+statement of facts that seemed to her absurd. "Are you Mr. Grimm's son?"
+
+"No, ma'am. He is not married. I don't think he has any sons at all. I'm
+Anne Marie's son."
+
+"Anne Marie? Anne Marie--what?"
+
+"Just Anne Marie. I'm Willem, you know."
+
+"William?"
+
+"No, ma'am. Willem."
+
+"Willem Grimm?"
+
+"No, ma'am. Anne Marie's Willem. I--Oh, Mr. Hartmann!" he broke off,
+catching sight of the big young man who drew near, "Mynheer Peter said
+you'd be on this train. Now I can have some one to walk back with."
+
+Slipping his hand into Hartmann's, Willem turned his back on the
+platformful of perspiring beneficiaries and, together, the two struck
+off down the yellow, dusty road toward the double row of giant elms
+that marked the beginning of the village street.
+
+Willem shuffled in high contentment alongside his big companion. And as
+he walked, he stole upward and sidelong glances of furtive hero worship
+at the tall, plainly clad figure. Jim Hartmann was of a build and aspect
+to rouse such worship in the frail little fellow. He had the shoulders,
+the chest girth, the stride of an athlete, tempered by the slight
+roundness of those same shoulders, the non-expansiveness of chest, and
+the heavy tread of the large man whose strength and physique have been
+acquired at manual labour instead of in athletics. A figure more common
+east of the Atlantic than in America.
+
+His dark suit was neat and fitted honestly well. But it was palpably not
+the suit of a man whose father had worn custom-made clothes or whose own
+earlier youth had been blessed with such garments. Yet there was a
+breezy, staunch outdoorness about the whole man that reminded one of a
+breath of mountain air in a close room and left half unnoticed the
+details of costume and bearing.
+
+"Weren't you glad to get away from New York City?" queried the boy as
+they came into the elm shade of Grimm Manor's one real street. "A week
+is an awful long time to be away from here."
+
+"You bet it is. You're a lucky chap to be able to stay at Grimm Manor
+all the time instead of being sent here, there, and everywhere on
+business."
+
+"I shouldn't like that," assented the boy; "I think people would be very
+liable of losing their way. I wonder if Mynheer Peter will send me
+'here, there, and everywhere on business' when I'm older."
+
+"Perhaps," agreed Hartmann, catching the slight note of wistfulness in
+Willem's voice. "You're beginning the way I began. It wasn't more than a
+week after my father got his gardening job with Mr. Grimm that I used to
+be sent up to meet the trains with a basket of flowers and 'the
+compliments of Peter Grimm.' It seems more like yesterday than eighteen
+years ago."
+
+"I'm glad you're back from New York City," said the boy, circling back
+to the conversation's starting-point. "It's been rather lonely. Mynheer
+Peter has been so busy. And Frederik----"
+
+"Well," queried Jim as the boy checked himself and looked nervously
+behind him, "what about Frederik? And why do you always look like that
+when you speak of him?"
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"As if you were afraid some one would slap you. Is Frederik ever unkind
+to you?"
+
+"No," denied the boy, in scared haste. "No, he never is. He--he doesn't
+notice me at all. That's what I was going to say. He doesn't seem to
+care to. But he likes to be with Kathrien, I think. Yes, I'm sure he
+does. I think Kathrien missed you, too, Mr. Hartmann."
+
+The big man grew of a sudden vaguely embarrassed. He cast back along the
+trail of the talk for some divergent path, and found one.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's good to be back from New York. The city always
+seems to cramp me and make it hard for me to breathe. The pavements hurt
+my feet and I have a silly feeling as though the skyscrapers were going
+to topple inward."
+
+He was talking to himself rather than to the boy. But Willem rejoined
+sympathetically:
+
+"I don't like New York City either."
+
+"You, why you surely can't remember when you used to live there?"
+
+The boy's fair brow creased in an effort of memory.
+
+"Sometimes," he hesitated, "I can. And sometimes I don't seem able to.
+But I remember Anne Marie. She cried."
+
+"How is Mynheer Peter?" demanded Hartmann with galvanic suddenness. "And
+how are that last lot of Madonna lilies coming on? They ought to be----"
+
+"Sometimes," went on the boy, still following his own line of thought
+and oblivious of the interruption, "sometimes I wonder why she cried.
+Sometimes for a minute or two--mostly at night, when I'm nearly
+asleep--I seem to remember why. But I always forget. Mr. Hartmann, did
+you see Anne Marie when you were in New York City?"
+
+"No, of course not. How are Lad and Rex and Paddy? And do they still dig
+for moles in the flower-beds? Or did the dose of red pepper my father
+scattered over the beds cure them of digging?"
+
+"I wonder," observed Willem, "why everybody always talks about
+everything else when I want to talk about Anne Marie. And if other
+fellows' mothers come to see them and live with them, why doesn't Anne
+Marie come and live with me? I asked Oom Peter once and he said----"
+
+"I've got to leave you now and hurry over to Mynheer Grimm's office with
+my report," broke in Hartmann. "My train was a little late anyhow and
+you know how he hates to be kept waiting."
+
+They had entered a wide gateway and had come from suburban America, at a
+step, into rural Holland. The prim gravelled drive led between acres of
+prosaically regular flower-beds, flanked on one side by a domed green
+house and on the other by a creaking Dutch windmill with weather-browned
+sails.
+
+Straight ahead and absurdly near the road for a country house that
+boasted so much land about it, was the stone and yellow stucco cottage
+that for centuries had sheltered successive generations of Grimms.
+Painfully neat, unpicturesquely ugly, the house stood among its great
+oaks. It did not nestle among them. It stood. As well expect a breadth
+of starched brown holland to nestle. To deprive the abode of any
+lingering taint of picturesqueness, a blue and white signboard, thirty
+feet long, stretching between it and the main street, flashed to all the
+passing world the news that this was the headquarters of the celebrated
+"Grimm's Botanical Gardens and Nurseries."
+
+The interior of the house was as delightful as its outside was hideous.
+Here, neatness raised to the nth power chanced to strike the keynote of
+a certain beauty. The big living-room, with its stairway leading to the
+bedroom gallery above, was a repository of curios that would have set an
+antiquary mad. From the ancient clock to the priceless old blue china,
+three-fourths of the room's appointments might have served to deck a
+Holland museum. The remaining fourth contained such articles as a
+glaringly modern telephone on a nondescript desk, and a compromise
+between old and new in the shape of a square piano in the bay window, an
+ancient table. And several patently twentieth century articles helped
+still further to rob the place of any harmony or unison in effect.
+
+An altogether charming Dutch maiden was dusting, and occasionally
+stopping to restore some slightly disarranged article to its
+mathematically neat position. In her blue Dutch cap, her blue delft
+gown, and white kerchief, she seemed to have danced down out of the past
+to strike the one note of vivid life in all that sombre-furnished
+place.
+
+She paused in the sweep of sunshine that poured through the
+muslin-curtained bay window. A step had sounded in the passage leading
+from the rear of the house;--a step she evidently knew. For the full
+young lips broke into an involuntary smile of expectancy, while the big
+eyes grew all at once eager and happy. Jim Hartmann, a pen behind his
+ear, a bundle of mail in his hand, came into the room. He had reached
+the desk and deposited his packet there before he caught sight of her.
+Then, wide-eyed, silent, tense, he halted, gazing at the sunshine-bathed
+figure in the window embrasure. For an instant neither of them spoke. It
+was the girl who broke the silence, her voice charged with a strange
+shyness.
+
+"Good-morning, James," she said primly.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Katie," he answered mechanically, his eyes still
+wide with the loveliness of the sun-kissed face that so suddenly broke
+in upon his workaday routine.
+
+"I wondered if you'd gotten back yet," she continued, seeming to hunt
+industriously for a phrase of sufficiently meaningless decorum.
+
+"I got back ten minutes ago. I reported to Mr. Grimm and brought the
+morning mail in here to look over for him. It seems strange to find the
+day so far advanced at this hour," he went on, talking at random. "After
+a week in New York, where no one thinks of doing business before nine in
+the morning, it's like coming into another world to be back here where
+the day's work begins at five."
+
+He sat down, pleasantly regardless of the fact that she was still
+standing, and began to open and sort the letters before him. The girl
+noticed that his big hands fumbled at the unfamiliar task. But she
+noticed far more keenly the strength and massive shapeliness of the
+hands themselves.
+
+"Do you like being secretary?" she queried.
+
+"Yes, in a way. I've walked 'outside' in the gardens and nurseries so
+many years, it seems queer to be penned up indoors and have to scribble
+letters and open mail. But I'd sooner shovel dirt than not be here at
+all. I couldn't last a month at a job where there wasn't gardening going
+on all around me and where I couldn't sneak off once in a while and do a
+bit of it myself."
+
+"That's the way I feel," she said simply, "though I never thought to put
+it in words before. I must live where things are growing. Where, every
+time I look out of the window, I can see orchards and shrubs and
+hothouses. Oh, it's all so beautiful! And, James, our orchids this
+season--but I forgot. You don't care for orchids."
+
+"They're pretty enough, I suppose," vouchsafed Hartmann. "But the big
+men in the business are doing wonderful things with potatoes these days.
+And look at what Father Burbank's done in creating an edible cactus!
+Sometimes it makes me feel bitter when I think what I might have done
+with vegetables if I hadn't squandered so much God-given time studying
+Greek."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Oh, yes. It made a hit with father to have me study a lot of things
+that would only help a college professor. He's worked in the dirt, in
+overalls, all his life. And like most people who never had one, he sets
+a crazy value on so-called 'education.' But all this can't interest
+you," he finished ruefully.
+
+"It _does_ interest me. You know it does. But there's something I'd like
+to say to you if you won't be angry."
+
+"At _you_? Why----"
+
+"It's this: I want you so much to get on. Why won't you try harder
+to--to please Uncle Peter?"
+
+"I do try. I'm square with him. That's the trouble. That's why I don't
+make more of a hit. He asks me my 'honest opinion' about something or
+other. I give it. Then he blows up."
+
+"But if you'd try to be more tactful----"
+
+"You said that once before to me, Miss Katie. I asked you what 'tactful'
+meant. And when you told me----"
+
+"When I told you, you said it was 'just a fancy name for being
+hypocritical.' But it isn't, a bit. Can't you try not to be quite
+so--so----?"
+
+"Cranky?"
+
+"No, blunt. It will smooth things over so much with Uncle Peter. He's
+really the gentlest, dearest----"
+
+"I've noticed it," said Hartmann drily. "But I'll try if you want me to.
+I promise."
+
+"Thank you," she answered.
+
+And, perhaps to seal the pledge, their hands met. The sealing of a
+pledge is not a matter to slur over with careless haste, but requires
+due time. And it was but natural that the handclasp should be symbolic
+of that deliberation. Indeed, it is hard to say just how long his big
+hand and her little one might have remained clasped together had
+inclination been allowed to prevail. But, as usual in Hartmann's life,
+inclination was not consulted. The door behind them opened sharply, and
+the clasped hands parted as if at a signal. Hartmann slipped back into
+his chair at the desk, while the girl busied herself with a new and
+commendable activity in her task of setting the immaculate room to
+rights.
+
+Both seemed to realise without turning around that one more of their too
+brief interviews had been unceremoniously cut short.
+
+The man whose advent caused the curtailment of the promise's sealing was
+as foreign looking as the room itself. Dapper, dressed in a sort of
+elaborate carelessness, his figure alone carried with it an air of
+assurance that Hartmann always found almost as irritating as the man's
+gracefully exaggerated manner and speech. His blonde hair was brushed
+back from a high, narrow forehead. A turned-up moustache and a
+close-trimmed and pointed Van Dyke beard added to the foreign aspect.
+
+The newcomer took in the scene with a glance that apparently grasped
+none of its details. He nodded curtly to Hartmann, then crossed to where
+the girl was dusting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE HEIR
+
+
+"Hello, Kitty," he said. "Good-morning."
+
+"Good-morning, Frederik," responded the girl, and started toward the
+stairs.
+
+But the man intercepted her. Catching her playfully by the arm he tried
+to draw her toward him.
+
+"You're pretty as a June rose to-day," he laughed.
+
+Hartmann, instinctively, had half-risen from his chair. The girl, noting
+his movement and the frown gathering on his face, checked her impulse to
+retort, quietly disengaged herself from the newcomer's familiar grasp,
+and ran up the short stair flight that led into the gallery.
+
+In no way offended, the man glanced after her with another short laugh,
+then turned to Hartmann.
+
+"Where's my uncle?" he asked.
+
+Hartmann looked up with elaborate slowness from the notes he was making
+of the newly opened mail. His eyes at last rested on the dapper figure
+before him, with the impersonal, faintly irritated gaze one might bestow
+on a yelping puppy.
+
+"Mr. Grimm is outside," he answered. "He's watching my father spray the
+plum trees. The black knot's getting ahead of us this year."
+
+"I wonder," grumbled Frederik, lounging across to the window, "if it's
+possible once a year to ask a simple question of any inmate of this
+cursedly dreary old place without getting a botanical answer."
+
+"That's what we are here for--those of us that work," said Hartmann,
+returning to his note making.
+
+"Work, work, work!" mocked Frederik. "When I inherit my beloved uncle's
+fortune, I shall buy up all the dictionaries and have that wretched word
+crossed out of them."
+
+Hartmann made no reply. He did not seem to have heard. But Frederik,
+absently ripping to atoms a Richmond rose from the window table vase,
+continued his muttered tirade. An inattentive audience was better than
+none.
+
+"Work!" he growled. "When people here aren't talking about it, they're
+doing it. Grubby, earthy work. And it was to prepare for this sort of
+thing that I loafed through Leyden and Heidelberg! Yes, and loafed
+through, creditably, too; even if Oom Peter did bully me into making a
+specialty of botany. Botany! Dry as dust. After the University and after
+my _wanderjahr_, I thought it would be another easy task to come here,
+and 'learn the business.' Easy! As easy as the treadmill. And as
+congenial."
+
+"I wonder you don't tell Mr. Grimm all that. I'm sure it would interest
+him."
+
+"My dear, worthy uncle, who builds such wonderful hopes on me? Not I. It
+would break his noble heart. I hope you quite understand, Hartmann, that
+I keep quiet only through fear of wounding him and not with any fear
+that he might bequeath the business elsewhere."
+
+"Quite," returned Hartmann drily. "That's why I keep my mouth shut when
+he holds you up to me as a paragon of zeal and industry and asks me why
+I don't pattern myself after you. But, for all that, you're taking
+chances when you talk to me about him as you do."
+
+"I'm not," contradicted Frederik. "I may not know botany. But I know
+men. You love me about as much as you love smallpox. But you belong to
+the breed that doesn't tell tales. Besides, I've got to speak the truth
+to some one, once in a while, if I don't want to explode. You're a
+splendid safety valve, Hartmann."
+
+The secretary bent over his notes. His forehead veins swelled, and his
+face darkened. But he gave no overt sign of offence. Frederik, watching
+keenly, seemed disappointed.
+
+"In New York," he pursued with a sigh, "they're just about thinking of
+waking up. And look at the time _I'm_ routed out of bed! Say, Hartmann,
+I wish you would give Oom Peter a hint to oil his shoes. Every morning
+he wakes me up at five o'clock, creaking down the stairs. It's a sort of
+pedal alarm clock. Creak! Creak! Creak!--_Ach, Gott!_ Even yet I can
+hardly keep one eye open. If ever it pleases Providence to give me my
+heritage, the first thing I'll do will be to sleep till noon. And then
+to go to sleep again."
+
+He stared moodily out of the window into the glowing, flower-starred
+June world.
+
+"How I loathe this pokey, dead old village!" he complained. "And what
+wouldn't I give to be back with the old Leyden crowd for one little
+night!"
+
+He lurched over to the piano, sat carelessly, sidewise, on its stool,
+and, thrumming at the keyboard, fell to humming in a slurring,
+reminiscent fashion, the old Leyden University chorus:
+
+  "_Ach, daar koonet ye amuseeren! Io vivat--Io vivat
+  Nostorum sanitas, hoc estamoris porculum,
+  Dolores est anti gotum--Io vivat--Io vivat
+  Nostorum sanitas--!_
+
+"Say, Hartmann," he broke off from his jumble of Dutch and Hollandised
+Latin, "the old man is aging. He's aging fast."
+
+"Who?" asked Hartmann absently, glancing up from his work. "Oh, your
+uncle? Yes, he is mellowing. He is changing foliage with the years."
+
+"Changing foliage? Not he. He changes nothing. What was good enough
+forty years ago seems to him quite good enough to-day. He's as
+old-fashioned as his hats. And they're the oldest things since Noah's
+time. He's just as old-fashioned in his financial ways. In my opinion,
+for instance, this would be a capital time to sell out the business. But
+he----"
+
+"Sell out?" echoed Hartmann in genuine horror. "Sell out a business
+that's been in his family for--why, man, he'd as soon sell his soul.
+This business is his religion."
+
+"Yes, and that's why it is so flourishing in spite of his back-date
+customs. It's at the very acme of its prosperity now. Why, the plant
+must be worth an easy half million. Yes, and more. Lord, but it _would_
+sell now! One, two, three,--_Augenblick!_ By the way, speaking of
+selling,--what was the last offer the dear old gentleman turned down
+from Hicks of Rochester?"
+
+But Hartmann did not hear the question. He was staring at Frederik in
+open-mouthed astonishment.
+
+"Sell out?" he repeated dully. "This is a new one--even from you. There
+isn't a day your uncle doesn't tell me how triumphantly you are going to
+carry on the business after he is gone. He----"
+
+"Oh, I am!" sneered Frederik. "I am. Of course I am. How can you doubt
+it. Wait and see. It's a big name--'Peter Grimm.' And the old gentleman
+knows his business. He assuredly knows his business."
+
+"I don't mind being the repository of your confidences about hating
+work," burst out Hartmann, "any more than I mind listening to the mewing
+of a sick cat. But when you strike this new vein, you'll have to choose
+another audience. I'm afraid I'd be likely to take sudden charge of the
+meeting and break the talented orator's neck."
+
+He gathered up some of his papers and stamped out. Frederik looked after
+him uncertainly, took a step toward the door through which the secretary
+had just vanished, then thought better of the idea, laughed shortly, and
+drew out a cigarette. But a creaking of heavy shoes on the walk outside
+led him to slip the cigarette back into its case, and to bend
+interestedly over the pile of office mail Hartmann had opened.
+
+If Kathrien had typified all that was dainty and alluring in the room's
+Dutch art, the man who now stamped in from the front vestibule,
+assuredly was typical of all old Holland's solidity. Stocky, of medium
+height, he was clad more as though he had copied the fashions depicted
+in a daguerrotype than those of the twentieth century. His black
+broadcloth was of no recent cut. His low, upright collar and broad
+cravat were of stock-like aspect, while a high hat such as he wore has
+certainly appeared in no show window since 1870.
+
+Withal, there was nothing ludicrous or even incongruous about the
+costume. It belonged with the wearer. And while on another man it would
+have been absurd, on him it seemed the only logical apparel.
+
+Peter Grimm halted in the vestibule, laboriously removed his rubbers,
+and dropped his heavy ash stick into its place on the rack. Then he
+carefully lifted the antique hat from his head, deposited it on a peg,
+and came forward into the room. The face, revealed as he left the
+vestibule's gloom for the bright sunlight, was at first glance hard,
+deeply lined, and stubborn; the effect accented by a set mouth, the
+little truculently alert eyes under bushy brows, and the slightly
+uptilted nose.
+
+A second look, however, would have revealed, to any one who could read
+faces, a lovable and almost tender light behind the eye's sharp twinkle
+and a kindly, humorous twist to the stubborn mouth. Hot temper, the
+physiognomist would have read, and obstinacy. But there the catalogue of
+faults would have ended abruptly. The rest was warm heart, trustfulness,
+eager sympathy,--an almost child-like friendliness toward the world at
+large that forever battled for mastery with native Dutch shrewdness.
+
+There was far more kindness than shrewdness in the square old face just
+now, as Grimm noted his nephew's presence and his deep absorption in the
+contents of the mail. Frederik looked up as Grimm came forward.
+
+"Good-morning, Oom Peter," said he.
+
+"Good-morning, Fritzy," returned Grimm. "Hard at work, I see."
+
+"Not so hard but that you were ahead of me. I felt unpardonably lazy
+when I heard you come downstairs at five."
+
+"I'm sorry I woke you. Youngsters need their sleep. We old fellows have
+done about all the dozing we need to do; and we are coming so close to
+our Long Sleep that God gives us extra wakefulness for the little time
+left; so we may see as much as possible of this glorious old world of
+His."
+
+"I ran over from the office----"
+
+"Oh, I know why you ran over, Fritzy. A word with Kathrien--yes?"
+
+"No, sir, I try to forget everything but work during business hours. I
+came to look for you. I've a suggestion----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Grimm's face lighted with the rare smile that played over its harsh
+outlines like sunshine. Each proof of his nephew's interest in the work
+was as tonic to him.
+
+"I came over," went on Frederik, by hard mental calisthenics creating an
+impromptu suggestion, "to propose that we insert a full-page cut of
+your new tulip in our midsummer floral almanac."
+
+"H'--m!" muttered Grimm doubtfully. "I don't see why we----"
+
+"Oh, sir, the public's expecting it."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Why," now quite at home with his newly evolved notion, "you've no idea
+the stir the tulip has made. We get letters from everywhere----"
+
+"It didn't seem to me anything so extraordinary," said Grimm modestly,
+albeit hugely gratified. "I'll think over the plan. What have you been
+doing all day?"
+
+Frederik glanced at the clock. It registered three minutes before nine.
+
+"Oh, I've had a busy morning," he answered. "In the packing house. Lots
+of orders to attend to. It's never safe to trust the more important ones
+to subordinates."
+
+"That's right," approved Grimm. "Fritzy, it does me good, all through,
+to see you taking hold of the business the way you're doing."
+
+Further praise was cut short by old Marta, the housekeeper, who bustled
+in to attend to her regular nine o'clock duty of winding the
+chain-weighted Dutch clock.
+
+As she drew up the weights with a grate and a whirr that made audible
+conversation quite out of the question, she formed a study, in clothes
+and visage, that might have stepped direct from a Franz Hals canvas.
+
+There was nothing American or modern about the old woman. Nothing about
+her save her face had changed since the day, sixty years back, when an
+earlier Grimm, returning from a visit from the Fatherland, had brought
+her to Grimm Manor as maid for his young American wife. Her task
+accomplished, Marta turned dutifully to courtesy to her master.
+
+"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm_," she saluted him. "_Komt ujuist eut di
+teum?_"
+
+"_Ja_," replied Peter, dropping into the tongue of his fathers, yet with
+an odd twinkle in his little eyes. "_En ik bin hongerig._--Taking her
+morning exercise," he added, noting the performance with the clock
+weights.
+
+"You are always making fun of me!" sniffed Marta, trying not to grin as
+she swept indignantly out of the room.
+
+In her departure she nearly collided with Hartmann who was entering
+from the offices. Seating himself at the desk, dictation pad in hand,
+Hartmann asked:
+
+"Are you ready for me, sir?"
+
+"Yes," answered Grimm.--"No, I'm not. But I will be in a minute. There's
+something I'd forgotten. Wait----"
+
+Cupping his hands about his mouth, Grimm wheeled to face the gallery and
+shouted a curiously high-pitched dissyllable:
+
+"_Ou--hoo!_"
+
+And, as though a sweeter, more silvery echo of the rough old voice, came
+from one of the gallery rooms an answering hail. Kathrien herself
+followed close upon her reply to the familiar signal call.
+
+"Oh, Oom Peter!" she exclaimed, running lightly down the stairs and
+throwing her arms about his neck. "Good-morning. How careless I was not
+to come sooner and make your coffee. I didn't know you were in yet. You
+must be half starved."
+
+She started for the dining-room. But Grimm's arm was about her waist,
+detaining her.
+
+"This is the very busiest little woman you ever saw, Frederik," he
+announced. "She is forever thinking of things to do for me. And I'm
+never remembering to do anything for her."
+
+"Shame!" cried Kathrien, "you do everything in this big world for me,
+Oom Peter, and you know it. I've got everything any girl's heart could
+ask."
+
+"Oh, no, you haven't though," sagely contradicted Grimm. "Before you say
+that, wait till I give you some fine young chap for a husband. Hey,
+Frederik?"
+
+She drew away from his embrace with gentle impatience.
+
+"Don't, Oom Peter," she begged. "You're always talking about weddings
+lately. I don't know what's come over you."
+
+"It's nesting time," Grimm defended himself. "Weddings are in the air.
+And then, I keep thinking of all the linen packed in my grandmother's
+chest upstairs. We must use it again some day. There, there, little
+girl! You shan't be teased any more. Only, I'll leave it to you, Fritzy,
+if she doesn't deserve a grand husband,--this little girl of mine. If
+for no other reason, to pay for all she's done for me."
+
+"Done for you?" laughed Kathrien. "Truly, I was forgetting that. I do
+you the great favour of letting you do everything for me."
+
+"Nonsense! Who lays out my linen and brushes my clothes and fixes
+wonderful little dishes for me, and puts my slippers and dressing gown
+in front of the fire on cold nights, and puts flowers on my desk every
+day? And, best of all, _Kindchen_, who floods this old house of mine
+with the glory of Youth?"
+
+"Youth?" she mocked with the true scorn of the young for their supreme
+gift. "Youth can't do very much. What does it amount to?"
+
+"Nothing much," gravely answered her uncle. "Youth, as you say, is not
+anything worth mentioning. It is only the most priceless and most
+perishable treasure in God's storehouse. It is only the thing that means
+Beauty and Strength and Hope. It is the thing we all despise as long as
+we have it and would give our souls to get back as soon as we have lost
+it. No, as you say, Youth doesn't amount to much. It is only the nearest
+approach to Immortality that mortals have ever known. Why, where should
+I be now,--a grouchy old bachelor like me--without Youth in my house?
+Why, Frederik, this girl has made me feel kindlier toward all other
+women."
+
+"Oh, I have, have I?" demanded Kathrien, "that's more than I bargained
+for."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself," he joked. "It's only the way one feels about a
+pet. One likes all the rest of the breed."
+
+"That's true," broke in Hartmann, throwing himself into the conversation
+on impulse. "It's so. A man studies one girl and then presently he
+begins to notice the same little traits in them all. It makes one feel
+differently toward the rest of them."
+
+He glanced shamefacedly back at his dictation pad as the others turned
+and stared at him in astonishment. But not before he had noted the shy
+smile that crept over Kathrien's face or the unpleasant glint in
+Frederik's pale eyes.
+
+Hartmann so seldom took part in general conversation and was so reticent
+concerning every phase of sentiment, that Grimm was for the moment
+almost as astounded as though one of his own bulbs had burst into
+speech.
+
+"An expert opinion," commented Frederik sneeringly. "And from a
+confirmed bachelor like James!"
+
+"A confirmed bachelor?" Grimm innocently caught up the slur. "What a
+life! I know. I have been one ever since I can remember. When a bachelor
+wants to order a three-rib standing roast, who is to eat it? Why, I
+never had the right sort of a roast on my table until Katje came into
+the family. And now that you're here too, Fritzy, the roasts get bigger.
+But not big enough, even yet. Oh, we must find the husband for----"
+
+"Oom Peter!" protested Kathrien. "You promised you wouldn't tease----"
+
+"Tease?" repeated Grimm, as though he heard the word for the first time.
+"Why, how could you have imagined such a thing, child? I was only
+telling Frederik about the sort of roasts I like on my table. And
+speaking of tables, Fritzy, I like a nice long table with plenty of
+young people at it. And myself at the head, carving and carving, and
+seeing the plates passed round and round and round;--getting them back
+and back and back--There, there, Katje! They shan't tease you. We'll
+keep the table just as it is. For you and Fritz and me. A nice little
+circle. All in the family."
+
+The telephone bell set up a purring. Hartmann picked up the receiver.
+
+"Hello," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Grimm's house.--Yes.--Wait one
+moment, please."
+
+He put his palm over the transmitter and turned to Grimm.
+
+"It's Hicks again, sir," he reported. "He wants to talk more with you
+about buying the business."
+
+"Buying the business, hey?" snorted Grimm in sudden rage. "No! No! I've
+told him ten million times it's not on the market and never will be.
+Tell him so again."
+
+"Mr. Grimm says," called Hartmann into the transmitter, "that the
+business is not for sale. He says--what?--Wait a minute. Mr. Grimm, he
+insists on speaking to you personally."
+
+"He does, hey?" growled Peter, advancing upon the telephone as though
+upon an enemy that must be crushed at a blow.
+
+"Hello!" he roared wrathfully into the instrument. "Hello?--What?--Why,
+my old friend, how are you?--And how are your plum trees doing? Mine,
+too. Well, we can only pray and use Bordeaux Mixture.--What?"
+
+He paused to listen. Then he went on as if to humour a cross child.
+
+"No, no,--it's nonsense. Why, this business has been in the Grimm family
+for over a hundred years. Why should I sell? I'm going to arrange for
+it to stay in the family a hundred years longer.--Hey? What's that?--No,
+no. Of course not. Of course I don't propose to live a hundred years
+longer. But I propose that my plans shall. How can I make certain? Never
+mind how. I'm going to arrange all that. Yes, I know I'm a bachelor. You
+don't need to spend good money on long distance phoning, to remind me of
+that. Oh--good-bye!"
+
+Grimm turned away from the table with a growl, to confront Kathrien.
+
+"Why, girl!" he exclaimed, in quick concern. "You look as if you are
+going to cry. What is it? Tell Oom Peter!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PETER GRIMM HAS A PLAN
+
+
+"That man!" panted Kathrien. "He actually wants to buy our home--our
+gardens! Oh!" slipping for a moment back into the Dutch that was ever
+nearer to her heart than English, "_Stel je zoon brutali tat!_"
+
+"Don't you worry!" consoled Peter. "He won't get a stick or a stone of
+ours. Wouldn't you think that girl had been born a Grimm, Fritzy? She's
+got the true spirit. No, no, dear. Of course we won't sell. Never.
+Never. _Never._ Hey, Fritz?"
+
+"Certainly not!" declared Frederik. "The idea is preposterous."
+
+"Fritzy!" exclaimed Grimm. "Speaking of ideas, I've got one, too. We'll
+print the Grimm history in our new Midsummer Almanac. That's better than
+a full-page cut of any tulip that ever sprouted. Katie, go get the
+Staaten Bible and read it aloud to us. We can tell, then, how it will
+strike the public."
+
+The girl went to the side table where lay the great Bible, drew a chair
+up to it, seated herself, turned over the leaves until she found what
+she sought, then began to read in a manner that argued many previous
+renditions of the quaint old phraseology.
+
+"In the spring of 1709 there settled on Quassic Creek, New York Colony,
+Johann Grimm, aged twenty-two--husbandman and vinedresser. Also,
+Johanna, his wife. To him Queen Anne furnished one square, one rule, one
+compass, two whipping saws, and several small pieces----"
+
+"You left out 'two augers,'" prompted Grimm.
+
+"Yes, 'and two augers.' To him was born a son and----"
+
+"See?" cried Grimm. "That was the foundation of our family and our
+business here. And here we are, still. After seven generations. We'll
+print it. Hey, Fritzy?"
+
+"Certainly, sir," approved Frederik, stifling a yawn with an access of
+filial enthusiasm. "By all means, we'll print it."
+
+"And, Fritzy," continued Grimm, with heavy significance, "we're relying
+on you for the next line in the book."
+
+Frederik glanced around him. Hartmann, during the reading, had gone
+from the room to get some papers he had left at the office. But Kathrien
+still lingered, restoring the Bible to its wonted place.
+
+"Oh, by the way, Oom Peter," said Frederik, lowering his voice so as not
+to reach the girl's ears, "I want to speak to you about a private matter
+when you can spare me a moment. When I come back from the packing house
+will be time enough. I just want to give a glance to those last
+shipments."
+
+"All right, lad," agreed Grimm. "Any time."
+
+He looked fondly after the dapper figure.
+
+"Isn't he a splendid, handsome, hustling young chap, Katje?" he
+demanded. "If only his mother had lived to see him now, wouldn't she
+have been proud of him? And what a complete little family we three
+make!"
+
+"We three?" hesitated the girl.
+
+"Surely. That's all there are of us--at present,--isn't it? I don't
+think I have made a miscount."
+
+"You don't count in James!"
+
+"James?" he queried sharply. "Why should I?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?" she retorted eagerly. "Oom Peter, if you don't
+mind my saying so, I think you're just a little unfair to James. He used
+to have dinner with us nearly every day. Can't you make him a little
+more at home--more like one of the family?"
+
+"Why, you good, unselfish little girl!" applauded Grimm. "You think of
+everybody. James is----"
+
+Hartmann came in with several newly typed letters to be signed, and
+Grimm turned to meet him with something akin to cordiality.
+
+"James," said he, "will you have dinner with us to-day?"
+
+"Why, yes," answered Hartmann, in pleased surprise. "Certainly. Thank
+you very much. Will you glance over these and sign them?" he added,
+wondering at the grateful smile Kathrien flashed at Peter as she passed
+into the dining-room and left the two men alone together.
+
+Grimm, too, wondered a little at the warmth of the girl's smile.
+
+"She has bloomed out lately like a rose," he mused as he looked over the
+letters the secretary proffered him.
+
+"Yes, sir!" involuntarily agreed Hartmann.
+
+"So you've noticed it, too?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann stiffly as he recovered his self-control.
+
+"_Ach!_" murmured Grimm, as he signed letter after letter and passed
+them over to Hartmann for sealing. "What a grip she has taken on my
+heart! A good girl, James. A good little girl. And I've sheltered her,
+ever since she came to me, as I shelter my violets from the cold. That's
+as it should be, hey?"
+
+"Y-e-s,--in a way."
+
+"What's that?" bristled Grimm, looking up at the unexpected answer to
+the question that had seemed to him to require none. "What do you mean?
+Oh, speak out, man!" as the secretary hesitated. "Never be afraid to
+express an honest opinion."
+
+"I mean just this. No one can shape any one else's life. All people
+should be made to understand that they are--free."
+
+"Free? Nonsense! Katje's free. Free as air. Do you mean to tell me a
+girl should be more free than she is? We must think for young people who
+can't think for themselves. And no girl can."
+
+"But I believe----"
+
+"Bah! Who cares what _you_ believe. James, I'm sometimes afraid you're
+just a little bit set in your ways;--almost obstinate."
+
+"But in this," stoutly maintained Hartmann, "I know I'm right. We can't
+think for other people any more than we can eat or sleep for them. Every
+happy creature is bound, by nature, to lead its own life. And, first of
+all, it must be _free_!"
+
+"James," asked Grimm in amused contempt, "where on earth do you get
+these wild ideas?"
+
+"By reading what modern thinkers write, sir."
+
+"H'--m! I thought so. Change your mental diet. There's a set of Jost
+Vanden Vandell over on the shelves. Read it. Cultivate sentiment."
+
+Hartmann shrugged his big shoulders and went on sealing and stamping
+letters. But Grimm would not let this topic drop so easily.
+
+"Free!" he scoffed. "Maybe you've thought you noticed Katje was not
+happy?"
+
+"No, sir. I can't honestly say I have."
+
+"I should think not!" chimed in Peter. "These are the happiest hours of
+her whole life. Don't I know? Can't I tell? Don't I know her and love
+her better than any one else does? She's happy. Beautifully happy. And
+why shouldn't she be? She's young. She's in love. She's soon to be
+married. What girl wouldn't be happy?"
+
+There was a long pause. Peter was reading over the last letter of the
+budget. Hartmann was staring at him aghast.
+
+"Soon to be married?" breathed the secretary when he could steady his
+voice. "Then--then it's all settled, sir?"
+
+"No," replied Peter. "But it soon will be. _I'm_ going to settle it. Any
+one can see how she feels toward Frederik."
+
+"But," faltered Hartmann lamely, "isn't she very--very _young_ to be
+married?"
+
+"Not when she marries into the family. Not when _I'm_ here to watch over
+her. You see--Sit down again, James. I like to talk about it to some one
+who is interested. And you _are_ interested, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the secretary managed to say.
+
+"Very good. Now, in following out my plans----"
+
+"Oom Peter," called Kathrien from the dining-room, "I have your coffee
+all ready. Shall I bring it in?"
+
+"By and by, dear. By and by. I am busy now. I'll let you know. Shut the
+door, won't you?"
+
+She obeyed. And to the hungrily watching secretary it seemed as if the
+door were closing, in his very face, upon the gates of Paradise.
+
+"In following my plans," Grimm was repeating, "I've had to be pretty
+shrewd and secretive. For it wouldn't do to let either of them suspect
+too soon. And I flatter myself they didn't. Here's my notion. I made up
+in my mind to keep Katje in the family. I'm a rich man. And so I've had
+to guard against young fellows who would dangle around after a girl for
+her money. I've guarded that point rather well. The whole town, for
+instance, understands that Katje hasn't a penny. Doesn't it?"
+
+"I believe so."
+
+"I've made a number of wills. But I've destroyed them all, one after
+another. And any time any of her boy friends called, I've--well, I've
+had business that kept me here in the room. When she goes to a dance,
+how does she go? With _me_. When she goes to the theatre, how does she
+go? With _me_. When she has had candy or any other present, who gave it
+to her? _I_ did. And so it has been from the first. Every
+pleasure--she's had 'em all. And she had 'em all from _me_. What's the
+result? She's perfectly happy and----"
+
+"But," argued Hartmann, "did you want her to be happy simply because
+_you_ were happy? Didn't you want her to be happy because _she_----?"
+
+"So long as she is happy," retorted Grimm, "why should I care what does
+it?"
+
+"If she's happy," repeated the secretary.
+
+"If she's happy?" mocked Grimm, his Dutch temper beginning to smoulder
+behind his gentle, obstinate little eyes. "If? What do you mean? That's
+the second time you've--Why do you harp on that _if_?"
+
+His voice rose threateningly. The silver grey mane on his head bristled
+like a boar's. Hartmann rose and started quietly for the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" shouted Grimm.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said the secretary, continuing his doorward progress.
+
+"Come back here!" ordered Grimm fiercely. "Come back here, I say! Sit
+down! So! Now, tell me what you mean! What do you know--or _think_ you
+know?"
+
+"Mr. Grimm," answered Hartmann, cornered and desperate, "you are the
+greatest living authority on tulips. You can perform miracles with them.
+But you can't mate people as you graft tulips. You can't do it. More
+than once I have caught Miss Katie crying. And I've----"
+
+"Pooh!" snorted Grimm. "Caught her crying, have you? Of course. So have
+I. What does that amount to? Was there ever a girl that didn't cry? All
+women cry until they have something to cry about. Then they're too busy
+_living_ to waste time in such luxuries as tears. Why, time and time
+again, I've asked her why she was crying. And always she'd answer: 'For
+no reason at all. For nothing.' And that is the answer. They love to
+cry. But that's what they all cry over;--'Nothing!'"
+
+Hartmann did not answer. Grimm's gust of anger had been blown away by
+the wind of his own words. He went on in a half-amused reminiscent tone:
+
+"James, did I ever tell you how I happened to get Katje? She was
+prescribed for me by Dr. McPherson."
+
+"Prescribed?"
+
+"Yes, just that. As an antidote for getting to be a fussy old bachelor
+with queer notions in my head. And the cure worked to perfection. When
+my old friend Staats died----"
+
+"Oh, yes, I've often heard----"
+
+But Peter Grimm was no more to be balked in the repetition of his
+favourite narrative merely because his hearer chanced to be familiar
+with its every detail, than he would have been balked in hearing the
+Grimm genealogy re-read for the thousandth time.
+
+"When my old friend Staats died," he said, "McPherson brought Staats's
+motherless baby over here; and he said: 'Peter, this is what you need in
+the house.' Those were his very words: 'Peter, this is what you need in
+the house.' And, sure enough, the very first time I carried her up those
+stairs over there, all my fine, cranky, crotchety bachelor notions flew
+out of my head. I knew then, in a flash, that all my knowledge and all
+my queer ideas of life were just humbug! I had missed the Child in the
+House. Yes,"--his voice dropped with a strain of soft regret,--"I had
+missed _many_ children in the house. James, I was born in that little
+room up there. The room I sleep in. And one day, please God, Katje's
+children shall play in the room where I was born."
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Hartmann as Grimm ceased,--and the secretary's voice
+and words grated like a file on the old man's tender mood,--"it's a very
+pretty picture--if it turns out at all the way you are trying to paint
+it."
+
+"How can it turn out wrong?" demanded Peter, in fresh irritation.
+"What's the matter with the way I'm 'painting the picture'?"
+
+"From your standpoint, as I say, it's very pretty. But it's more than a
+mere question of sentiment. Her children can play anywhere."
+
+"What? You're talking rubbish! I pick out a husband _here_--and her
+children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw,"
+turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear
+secrets to a dolt like you."
+
+"Perhaps," assented Hartmann, quite unruffled, as he set to work
+enveloping some seed catalogues that lay on the table. Grimm evidently
+was about to pursue the flying foe with fresh invective. But Marta came
+in from the kitchen, and, with her, Willem. At sight of the boy, Grimm's
+frown softened into a smile of welcome.
+
+"_Come seg huge moroche tegen, Mynheer Grimm_," said Marta, while
+Willem, walking over to Peter, held out a thin little hand in greeting,
+with the salutation:
+
+"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm._"
+
+"_Huge moroche, Willem_," replied Grimm kindly, pressing the boy's hand.
+
+"I'm all ready to take the flowers over to the rectory," announced
+Willem, drifting into English.
+
+"If you're tired after going to the station, Otto can take them," said
+Grimm.
+
+"Oh, I'm not a bit tired."
+
+"And you're getting real well again?"
+
+"_Ja, Mynheer._ The doctor says I'm all right now."
+
+"That's good. Tell Otto to give you a _big_ armful of flowers for the
+rectory. A _big_ armful, remember."
+
+Marta's grandmotherly gaze fancied it detected a twist in the boy's
+neatly tied cravat. So she swooped down upon him and bore him away to
+the window seat, where her blurring eyes would have light enough to
+readjust the tie to her satisfaction. Grimm, with a quick glance to make
+sure they were not in earshot, tapped Hartmann on the shoulder and
+whispered:
+
+"There's a nice result of the 'freedom' you said young girls ought to
+have. Marta's Anne Marie had nothing but freedom. She was the worst
+spoiled child in town. Marta let her come and go as she pleased. Come
+and go--Heaven knows where. And Heaven knows where the poor shamed girl
+is now. Every time I look at Willem," raising his voice to normal pitch
+as Marta and her grandson passed into the kitchen, "I realise how right
+I've been in the way I've brought up Katje. H'--m! Want me to give Katje
+a chance for more freedom, do you? Why----"
+
+"Mr. Grimm," interrupted Hartmann, suddenly getting to his feet and
+facing his employer, "I'd like to be transferred to your Florida
+headquarters. At once, if it is convenient to you. I want to work out in
+the open for a while."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Grimm dumfounded. "Florida? At this time of the year?
+And you were so glad to get back here to--Pshaw! You've just got a
+cranky fit on you, lad. Get rid of it. Put on your overalls and go out
+and potter around among those beloved vegetables of yours. Change your
+ideas, I say. Change the whole lot of them. They're all wrong. You don't
+know _what_ you want."
+
+Hartmann's lips were parted for a retort. But he closed them, turned on
+his heel, and left the room. Grimm shook his head as over a problem he
+could not solve and did not greatly care to. Then he fell to sorting a
+box full of bulbs.
+
+But in a minute or two he was interrupted by Frederik.
+
+"I saw Hartmann crossing the yard," said the younger man, "so I stepped
+over for a little chat with you, if you've time to listen to me."
+
+"I've always got time to listen to you, Fritzy," replied Grimm, still
+busy with his bulbs. "It'll be a relief after that pig-headed James.
+Lord, how I do hate an obstinate man! You said a while ago you wanted to
+see me on a private matter. What was it? If it's that full-page coloured
+cut of the new tulip, I may as well tell you----"
+
+"It isn't. It's about your pig-headed friend, James."
+
+"James? What about him?"
+
+"Just this, Oom Peter: I think he is interested in Kathrien."
+
+"Who? James? Bah! You're dreaming. That's just like a lover. Thinks
+every one is trying to steal his sweetheart. Why, James is too much
+wrapped up in his work to care about anything else. His work and his
+crazy theories that he gets out of books. Interested in Kathrien? Just
+to show you how foolish you are to think that, he asked me not five
+minutes ago to transfer him to the Florida headquarters. And, even if he
+weren't so absorbed in the business, he'd never even presume to think of
+Kathrien. It's preposterous!"
+
+"Is it?" said Frederik, quite unconvinced. "Yet I've reason to believe
+he has been making love to her."
+
+There was a quiet certainty in his nephew's voice that caught Grimm's
+reluctant credence.
+
+"We'll find out mighty soon," he declared. "Katje!"
+
+"No, no!" expostulated Frederik. "It would be better not to bring her
+into it or give her the idea that----"
+
+"Katje!"
+
+"Yes, Oom Peter," answered the girl, hurrying in from the dining-room in
+response to the bellowed summons. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Katje," began the old man in visible embarrassment, "has--has
+James----?"
+
+"What?" queried Kathrien, as Grimm paused and broke into a shamefaced
+laugh.
+
+"Has--has James ever shown any special interest in you? Ever made love
+to you, or----?"
+
+"Oh, Oom Peter!" expostulated Kathrien, reddening to the roots of her
+hair. "Whatever gave you such an idea as that?"
+
+"Nothing at all," he answered her. "It was just a bit of silly nonsense.
+A joke. I can't help teasing you. Because you blush so prettily.
+But--but _has_ he?"
+
+"Why, of course not. I've always known James. Ever since I can remember.
+He's never shown any interest in me that he ought not to,--if that's
+what you mean. He's always been _very_ respectful; in a perfectly--a
+perfectly friendly way."
+
+She was scarlet and stammering. But Grimm apparently did not notice her
+confusion.
+
+"Respectful," he repeated musingly. "In a perfectly friendly way. Surely
+we couldn't ask for anything more than that. Thank you, little girl.
+That's all I wanted to know. Run along."
+
+Casting a puzzled look at Grimm and then at Frederik--who, since she
+first entered the room had been seated near the window, deeply absorbed
+in a book,--Kathrien returned to her work in the other part of the
+house.
+
+Grimm's kind eyes had never for an instant left her troubled face, nor
+had they failed to note her evident relief at escaping from the room. As
+the door closed behind her, the kindly look faded from the old eyes,
+leaving them hard and cold. The firm jaw set more tightly. Yet, as he
+turned toward Frederik, there was no trace in his tone of anything but
+pleasant banter.
+
+"There, Fritzy!" said he. "You see James was only 'respectful to her in
+a perfectly friendly way.' I hope you are quite satisfied?"
+
+"I am," answered Frederik. "Quite. In fact I'm every bit as satisfied as
+you are, uncle."
+
+Grimm sat very still for a moment or so, staring blindly into space, his
+head on his breast. Then, with a sigh, he roused himself. Reaching for
+the telephone he called up his office.
+
+"Send Mr. Hartmann over here," he commanded.
+
+He set down the instrument and resumed his blank stare into nothingness.
+Frederik was once more wholly engrossed in the book he was not reading.
+Hartmann broke in upon the strained silence.
+
+"You sent for me, sir?" he asked, his breezy bigness waking the still
+room to life.
+
+"Yes," replied Peter Grimm. "James, it has occurred to me--to ask--it
+has occurred to me that--James, please tell me your reason for asking a
+few minutes ago to be transferred to Florida?"
+
+James made no immediate reply. He seemed ransacking his mind for the
+right words. Grimm eyed him closely, asking with sudden directness:
+
+"Was it on account of my little girl?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Hartmann.
+
+The secretary's confusion had fled. Calm, self-contained, flinching not
+at all from the shrewd, searching eyes that were fixed on his own, he
+stood awaiting the breaking of the storm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A WARNING AND A THEORY
+
+
+But, to Hartmann's surprise, the storm did not break. Instead, Peter
+Grimm sat gazing at him with impassive face,--gazing long and without a
+word. And when at last Grimm spoke, the old man's voice was as
+emotionless as his face.
+
+"You love her?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Hartmann, as calmly as though stating some fact in
+botany.
+
+"H'--m!" rumbled Grimm, half to himself. "_Ja vis! Ja vis!_"
+
+Hartmann still waited for the storm. And still it did not come.
+
+"You love her?" repeated Grimm. "Does she know?"
+
+"No. She doesn't know. She need never know. I had not meant to say a
+word to any one."
+
+Grimm rose and came toward him. The hard face was gentle again. The
+inquisitorial voice was once more kindly.
+
+"James," said the old man, "go to the office and get your money. Then
+start for Florida headquarters. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, sir," replied James, grasping the outstretched hand. "I'm
+very sorry."
+
+"I'm sorry, too, James. Good-bye!"
+
+As Hartmann left the room, Grimm turned to Frederik, and his eyes were
+full of pain.
+
+"_That_ is settled, thank Heaven!" he announced; but there was no
+jubilance in his voice. "I wish--Hello, there's old McPherson!"
+
+Glad to divert his mind he hurried to the front door to welcome the
+visitor and drew him into the room with friendly roughness.
+
+Dr. McPherson would have borne the stamp, "Family physician of the Old
+School," even had he been found in the ranks of the Matabele army. Big,
+shaggy, bearded, he was of the ancient and puissant type that, under the
+tidal wave of "specialism" is fast being swept towards the shores where
+live the last survivors of the Great Auk, the Dinosaur, and the Spread
+Eagle Orator tribes.
+
+"Good-morning, Peter," hailed the doctor, a Scotch burr faintly rasping
+his bluff voice. "Morning, Fred. I passed young Hartmann at the gate. He
+looks as if he was taking a pleasure trip to his own funeral. What ails
+him?"
+
+No one answered.
+
+"He's about the finest lad that ever I brought into the world. What's
+happened to make him so----? Good-morning, Kathrien," he broke off, as
+the girl, followed by Marta, came in with Grimm's long delayed
+breakfast.
+
+"Good-morning, Doctor," she answered. "Oom Peter, you forgot to send for
+this. So I----"
+
+"What's that?" roared McPherson, sniffing the air like a bull that
+scents an enemy. "Coffee? Why, damn it, Peter, I forbade you to touch
+coffee. It's rank poison to you. And you know it is. I told you----"
+
+"Wouldn't you like a cup, Doctor?" asked Kathrien innocently.
+
+"I----"
+
+"Of course he'll take a cup," interrupted Grimm. "He'll damn it. But
+he'll drink it."
+
+"And look here!" proceeded McPherson, pointing an accusing finger at the
+breakfast tray. "Waffles! Actually _waffles_! And after I told you----"
+
+"Yes, Katje," explained Grimm, "he'll damn the waffles, too. But, if you
+watch closely, you'll notice he'll eat some. Sit down, Andrew."
+
+"I tell you," fumed the doctor, "I didn't come here to encourage you, by
+my example, in wrecking your system. I came for a serious talk with you,
+Peter."
+
+Kathrien, at the hint, discreetly effaced herself. Frederik followed her
+example.
+
+"Well? well?" queried Peter in mock despair, seating himself opposite
+his old crony and tyrant. "What new horrors of diet have you thought up
+for my misery? Out with it. Let me know the worst."
+
+"It isn't your body this time, Peter," was the troubled answer. "It's
+something that means more. The matter's been keeping me awake all night.
+Tell me:--how is every one provided for in this house?"
+
+"Provided for?" echoed Peter in bewilderment. "How do you mean?
+Everybody gets enough to eat and we are----"
+
+"Why, you don't understand me. You're a wonderful man for making plans,
+Peter. But what have you done?"
+
+"Done?"
+
+"If you--if you were to die--say to-morrow, or--or any other time," went
+on the doctor with an effort at carelessness that sat on his rough
+honesty as ill as his Sunday broadcloth adorned his rugged shoulders,
+"if you--die--unexpectedly,--how would it be with the rest of them
+here?"
+
+Grimm set down his coffee cup with slow precision. And slowly he raised
+his eyes to McPherson's worried gaze.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked with something very like awe in his tone.
+"If I were to die to-morrow----"
+
+"You won't!" declared McPherson emphatically. "You won't. So don't
+worry. You're good for a long time yet. A score of years, perhaps.
+You're all right, if you take decent care of yourself. Which you never
+do. But we've all got to come to it, sooner or later. And it's well to
+make provision. For instance, what would Kathrien's position be in this
+house, in case you were taken out of it? Kathrien is a little
+'prescription' of mine, you'll remember. And--I suppose your heart is
+still set on her marrying Frederik, so that what is one's will be the
+other's. Personally I've always thought it was rather a pity that
+Frederik wasn't James and James wasn't Frederik."
+
+"Eh?" cried Peter. "What's that?"
+
+"It's none of my business," answered McPherson. "And it's all very well
+as it stands--if she wants Frederik. But if you want to do anything for
+_her_ future welfare, take my advice, and do it _now_."
+
+"You mean," Peter said evenly, between stiffening lips, "you mean that I
+could--die?"
+
+"Every one can," replied McPherson with elephantine lightness. "And at
+one time or another, every one does. It's a thing to be prepared for."
+
+"One moment," urged Grimm, the keen little eyes piercing the other's
+badly woven cloak of indifference. "You think that I----!"
+
+"I mean nothing more nor less, Peter, than that the machinery is wearing
+out. There's absolutely no cause for apprehension. Still, I thought I
+had better tell you."
+
+"But," asked Grimm with a pathetic insistence, "if there's no cause for
+apprehension----?"
+
+"Listen, Peter: when I cured you of that cold the other day--the cold
+you got by tramping around like an idiot among the wet flower-beds
+without rubbers--I made a discovery of--of something I can't cure."
+
+Grimm studied his friend's unreadable face for an instant with an almost
+painful intensity. Then a smile swept away the worry from his own
+visage.
+
+"Oh, Andrew, you old croaking Scotch raven," he cried. "Your
+professional ways will be the death of some one yet. But the 'some one'
+won't be Peter Grimm. That sick bed manner is splendid for bullying old
+maids into taking their tonic. But it's wasted on a grown man. No, no,
+Andrew. You can't make _me_ out an invalid. You doctors are a sorry lot.
+You pour medicines of which you know little into systems of which you
+know nothing. You condemn people to death as the old Inquisition would
+have blushed to. Why, every day we read in the papers about some frisky
+boy a hundred years old whom the doctors gave up for lost when he was
+twenty-five. And," the forced gaiety in his voice merging into
+aggressive resolve, "I'm going to live to see children in this old house
+of mine. Katje's babies creeping about this very floor; sliding down
+those bannisters over there, pulling the ears of Lad, my collie."
+
+"Good Lord, Peter! That dog is fifteen years old _now_! Argue yourself
+into miraculous longevity if you want to. But don't argue old Lad into
+it. Do you expect _nothing_ will ever change in your home?"
+
+"Perhaps," agreed Peter, with unshaken defiance. "But not before I live
+to see a new line of rosy-faced, fluffy-haired little Grimms."
+
+McPherson leaned back with a sigh of discouragement. Then, with
+professional insight, he noted for the first time the gallant fight the
+old man opposite him was making to keep up that obstinate gay courage
+whose outward expression had so irritated the doctor. And, all at once,
+McPherson ceased to become the gruff friend and assumed the role that
+Ananias's physician probably acquired from his famous patient and which,
+most assuredly, he has handed down to all his medical successors.
+
+"I see no reason, Peter," said he with judicial ponderousness, "why you
+shouldn't reach a ripe old age. You're quite likely to outlive me and a
+host of younger men. Only, take better care of yourself. And,--no matter
+how many probable years of life a man has before him, it does him no
+harm to set his house in order. Think over that part of my advice and
+forget the rest of it."
+
+"Forget the rest of it," echoed Grimm absently. "The rest----"
+
+McPherson hesitated; then as though overcome by a temptation too strong
+for him to battle against, he blurted out half-shamefacedly:
+
+"Peter--don't laugh at me. I want to make a strange compact with you. As
+I've told you, you're quite likely to outlive me. But--will you agree
+that whichever of us happens to--to go first,--shall come back and--and
+let the other fellow know? Let the other fellow know; so as to settle
+the Great Question once and for all?"
+
+Grimm stared at him for a moment. Then he set the room ringing with a
+laugh of whose mocking heartiness there could be no doubt.
+
+"Oh, Andrew! Andrew!" he cried, when he could get his breath. "Still
+riding your one crazy hobby! And you so sane in other ways!"
+
+"But you'll make the compact?" begged McPherson. "You're a man of your
+word,----"
+
+"Make a compact to----? Oh, no, no, man. _No!_ I'd be ashamed to have
+people know I was such a fool."
+
+"But," urged the doctor, "no one else need know anything about it. It'll
+be just between ourselves."
+
+"No, no, dear old Andrew," laughed Grimm indulgently. "Positively _no_!
+I refuse, point-blank. I'll do you any favour in reason. But I draw the
+line at being dragged into any of your absurd spook tests."
+
+"You sneer at 'spooks,' as you call them," retorted the doctor. "Most
+people do. Just as people scoffed when Columbus told them there was an
+America. But how many times do you think _you_ have seen a spook,
+yourself?"
+
+"A spook? I can't remember that I ever----"
+
+"Yes, a ghost."
+
+"A ghost," repeated Grimm with the utmost solemnity and wrinkling his
+forehead as in an effort of memory. "I can't just now recall----"
+
+"That's right! Make fun of me! But you can't tell that man is
+complete--that he doesn't live more than one life;--that the soul
+doesn't pass on and on. Smile if you like. Wiser men than yourself have
+believed it. Why, man alive, every human being is surcharged with a
+persistent personal energy. And that energy must continue forever."
+
+"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!" exclaimed Kathrien, coming in with a fresh supply
+of hot waffles. "Have you started on spooks again?"
+
+"Yes, Katje," sighed Peter dolorously. "There can be no possible
+redeeming doubt about that. He's started."
+
+"And," laughed the girl, "I wasn't on hand to hear him. Have I missed
+very much of it?"
+
+"No," answered her uncle. "We're still in the painful early stages of
+the squabble. I'll tell you what I'll do, Andrew: I'll compromise with
+you. Instead of making the bargain you proposed, I'll stand aside and
+let _you_ go ahead of me into the next world. Then you can come back at
+your leisure and keep the spook compact. It'll be quite interesting.
+Every time a knock sounds or a chair creaks or a door bangs or Lad
+growls in his sleep, I'll strike an attitude and say: 'Ssh! There's
+Doc!'"
+
+"Don't guy me, old friend," urged McPherson. "I'm entirely serious. I'll
+make the promise and I want _you_ to make it, too. Understand, I'm no
+so-called Spiritist. I'm just a groping seeker after the Truth."
+
+"That's what they all say," scoffed Grimm. "Seekers after the truth! And
+madly eager to believe everything they hear or read _except_ the
+commonsense truth. And you, a level-headed Scotchman, old enough to be
+your own father, actually gulp down such tomfoolery! Next we'll have you
+chasing around the streets at night, looking with a dark lantern for the
+bogey man."
+
+"Laugh at me if you like. I know I'm right. I know the dead _are_ alive.
+They're here. Right here. They're all about us, watching us, suffering
+with us, rejoicing with us, trying no doubt to speak the warnings and
+encouragements that our world-deafened mortal ears cannot hear. I'm not
+alone in the theory. Some of the greatest scientists--the wisest men of
+the century--are of the same opinion."
+
+"Dreamers," smiled Grimm indulgently. "Dreamers like yourself."
+
+"Dreamers, eh?" The doctor caught him up vehemently. "_Dreamers?_ You
+can't call Sir William Crookes, the inventor of the Crookes' Tubes, a
+dreamer! No, nor Sir Oliver Lodge, the great biologist; or Curie, who
+discovered radium; or Dr. Lombroso, the founder of the science of
+criminology. Are Maxwell, Dr. Vesine, Richet, and our own American, Dr.
+Hyslop, _dreamers_? Why, even Professor James, the mighty Harvard
+psychologist, took a peep at ghosts. And, instead of laughing at
+'spooks,' the big scientific men are trying to lay hold of them. I tell
+you, Peter, Science is just beginning to peer through the half-open door
+that a few years ago was shut tight."
+
+"Trying to lay hold of ghosts, are they?" said Grimm. "I'd like to lay
+hold of one. I'd lug it to the nearest police station. That's the place
+for 'em. Just as the asylum's the place for folks who believe in 'em.
+When you 'pass over,' Andrew, you'd better not come back. You won't
+enjoy prowling around a world where sane people don't believe you
+exist."
+
+"Peter," reproved McPherson, "I'm sorry--very, _very_ sorry--that you
+and others like you think it's smart to make a joke of something you
+can't understand. Hyslop was right when he said Man will spend millions
+of dollars to discover the North Pole, but not one cent to throw a ray
+of light upon his immortal destiny."
+
+"And, after the millions of times they've been exposed, you blame me for
+not joining in your belief in spook mediums!"
+
+"A lot of mediums are humbugs, I grant you. Just as there are fakers in
+every profession. If there were no such thing as real money, there would
+be no object in making counterfeits. And some of the mediums have proven
+clearly that they are capable of real demonstrations."
+
+"They are, hey? What's the use of mediums at all if the dead can really
+come back? If my friends who have died return to earth, why don't they
+walk straight up to me and say, 'Well, Peter Grimm. Here we are!' When
+they do that, I shall gladly be the first man to take off my hat to them
+and hold out my hand. But as long as they have to employ greasy mediums
+to make their presence known, and try to prove they are with me by
+knocking on tables and tipping chairs and scratching on slates, there is
+only one of two things to believe: Either mediums are fakes, or else
+folks all become imbecile practical jokers as soon as they die."
+
+"Imbecile practical jokers!" repeated Kathrien, shocked.
+
+"Yes," reiterated Peter Grimm. "That's what I said. And it's a mild way
+of putting it. Would any sane man play such tricks as the spiritualists
+attribute to our dead? It shatters every thought of the majesty of
+death. Would a sane _live_ man walk into my house and announce his
+presence to me by rapping on a wall or tipping a table or scrawling
+idiotic messages on a slate or talking to me through some half-educated
+'medium'? Would he----?"
+
+"Yes, he would!" asserted the doctor. "He'd do all those things and
+more, if he couldn't make you see him or hear him in any other way. As
+to mediums,--why doesn't a telegram travel through the air as well as on
+a wire? Your friends could come back to you in the old way if you could
+but put yourself in a receptive condition. But you can't. So you must
+depend on a non-professional medium,--a 'sensitive'----"
+
+"See, Katje," interpolated Grimm, "he has names for them all. All neatly
+classified like so many germs in a bottle. Well, Andrew, how many ghosts
+did you see last night? He has only to shut his eyes, Katje, and along
+comes the parade. Spooks! Spooks! Spooks! Nice, grisly, shivering,
+spooky spooks! And now he wants me to put my house in order and settle
+up my affairs and join the parade."
+
+"Settle your affairs?" asked Kathrien puzzled.
+
+"Oh, it's just his nonsense," Grimm hastened to assure her.
+"Andrew,"--he hurried on to turn the subject from dangerous
+personalities,--"you've seen a whole lot of people pass over to the
+Other Side. In fact, your patients seem to have quite a habit of doing
+that. Tell me: did you ever see one out of all that number come back
+again? Just _one_?"
+
+"No," answered McPherson reluctantly. "I never did, but----"
+
+"No," cried Grimm in triumph, "and what's more, you never will. Yet
+you----"
+
+"There was not perhaps the intimate bond between doctor and patients to
+bring them back to me. But in my own family, I've known of a 'return'
+such as you speak of. A distant cousin of mine died in London. And at
+almost that very instant, she was seen in New York."
+
+"Rubbish!"
+
+"Rubbish? Why? A century ago, if any one had tried to describe the
+telephone, people of your sort would have grunted 'Rubbish!' But if my
+voice can carry thousands of miles over the telephone, why cannot a
+soul, with God-given force behind it, dart over the entire universe? Is
+Thomas Edison greater than God?"
+
+"Oh, Doctor," gasped the horrified Kathrien.
+
+"And what's more," rushed on McPherson, unheeding, "they can't lay it
+all to telepathy. In the case of a spirit message giving the contents of
+a sealed letter known only to the person who has died--telepathy, eh?
+Not a bit of it. Here's a case you must have heard of, Peter. An officer
+on the Polar vessel _Jeannette_ sent out by a New York newspaper,
+appeared one night at his wife's bedside. She was in Brooklyn. She knew
+perfectly well that he was on the Polar Sea. He said to her: 'Count!'
+Then she distinctly heard a ship's bell and her husband's voice saying
+again, 'Count!' She had counted 'six' when his voice said: 'Six bells!
+And the _Jeannette_ is lost!' The ship, it turned out later, was really
+lost at the very time the woman had the vision. There! Account for
+_that_ by telepathy or trickery if you can!"
+
+"A bad dream!" was Grimm's unshaken verdict. "I have them every now and
+then. 'Six bells and'--suet pudding brings me messages from the North
+Pole. And I can get messages from Kingdom Come when I've had half a hot
+mince pie with melted cheese on it for supper. That disposes of your
+_Jeannette_ case."
+
+"Scoff if you like. There have been more than seventeen thousand other
+cases which the London Society of Psychical Research has found worth
+investigating."
+
+"Well, Andrew," asked Grimm, with a covert wink at Kathrien, "supposing,
+for the sake of argument, that I _did_ want to 'come back,' how could I
+manage it?"
+
+At the question the doctor's rising irritation at the other's friendly
+mockery was swept away by the zeal of prospective proselyting.
+
+"In this way, Peter," he declared. "Let me make it clear as simply as I
+can. In hypnotism our thoughts take possession of the person we
+hypnotise. When our personalities enter their bodies, something goes out
+of them:--a sort of Shadow Self. This 'Self' can be sent out of the
+room--out of the house--even to a long distance. This 'Self' is the
+force that, I firmly believe, departs from us entirely on the first or
+second or third day after death. This is the force you could send back.
+The astral envelope. Do I make it plain?"
+
+"Plain? Plain as a flower in the mud on a dark night. But how do you
+know _I've_ got an--'envelope'?"
+
+"Every one has. Why, De Roche has actually photographed one, by means of
+radio-photography."
+
+Grimm lay back in his chair and shouted aloud with laughter.
+
+"Mind you," went on McPherson, laboriously anxious to make clear his
+point, "they could not see it when they were photographing it."
+
+"No, I should imagine not. Nor the picture after it was taken. But in
+other respects, I don't doubt it was a splendid likeness."
+
+"Wait, before you try to be funny. Wait till I tell you about it. This
+'envelope' or Shadow Self stood a few feet away from the sleeper. It was
+invisible, of course, to the eye. It was only located by striking the
+air and watching for the corresponding portion of the sleeper's body to
+recoil. By pricking a certain part of the Shadow Self with a pin, the
+cheek of the patient could be made to bleed. It was at that spot that
+the camera was focussed for fifteen minutes! The result was----"
+
+"A spoiled film."
+
+"No, the profile of a head!" contradicted Dr. McPherson.
+
+Grimm stared at him wonderingly.
+
+"And you actually _believe_ such idiocy?" he demanded.
+
+"It isn't a mere question of belief," declared McPherson, "but of
+absolute _knowledge_. De Roche, who took the picture, is not a fraud,
+but a lawyer of high standing. A room full of famous scientists saw the
+picture taken."
+
+"If they were honest, they were hypnotised."
+
+"Perhaps you think the camera was hypnotised, too," retorted the doctor.
+"Lombroso says that once under similar circumstances an unnatural
+current of cold air went through the room and lowered the thermometer
+several degrees. These are _facts_. Can you hypnotise a thermometer?"
+
+"Oh, isn't that wonderful?" breathed Kathrien.
+
+Grimm patted her shoulder gently, smiling as one might smile who sees a
+dearly loved child taken in by a wonder-story. Then he turned to
+McPherson, the banter in face and voice changed to mild reproof.
+
+"No, Andrew," said he, reaching for his long meerschaum pipe and holding
+its coffee-brown bowl lovingly between his thick fingers, as he
+proceeded to fill it from a pouch on the mantel, "No, Andrew. I refuse
+your compact. I'll have no part or parcel in it. Because it's an
+impossible thing you ask of me. We don't come back. One cannot pick the
+lock of Heaven's gate. It is no part of our terms with the Almighty. God
+did enough for _us_ when He gave us life and gave us the strength to
+work, and then gave us work to do. He owes us no explanation. I'll take
+my chances on the old-fashioned Paradise--with a locked gate. No bogies
+for me."
+
+With another reassuring smile at Kathrien as she went out with the tray
+of breakfast things, he lighted his pipe and repeated musingly:
+
+"No bogies for me, I say. Who are _you_ that you should take the Kingdom
+of Heaven by violence? Why," he broke out, "what ails you, man?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A QUEER COMPACT
+
+
+"Have you done?" rasped McPherson. "Have you quite done?"
+
+"Why, what----?"
+
+"Then listen to me. Abuse is not argument. Neither is silly mockery. I
+console myself with the thought that men have laughed at the theory of
+the earth going round, and at vaccination, and lightning rods, and
+magnetism, and daguerreotypes, and steamboats, and cars, and telephones,
+and at the theory of the circulation of the blood, and at wireless
+telegraphy, and at flying in the air. So your gibing is forgivable.
+_But_--I'm very, _very_ much disappointed, Peter, that so old a friend
+should refuse such a simple request. I'll be wishing you a very good
+day."
+
+"Hold on, Andrew! Hold on!" cried Grimm, hastily setting down his pipe
+and hurrying forward to intercept his angrily departing guest. "Man,
+man, can't you keep your temper? I didn't mean to rile you. Come back.
+If you take the thing so seriously, I'll--I'll make the compact with
+you. Here's my hand on it. I know you're an old fool. And I'm another.
+So we're both in bad company. Shake hands. Now then! Whichever of us
+_does_ go first is to come back and try to make himself known to the
+other. And----"
+
+A fit of uncontrollable laughter cut across his words. The doctor
+frowned pettishly and made as though to turn away. But Peter still held
+his hand and would not let it go.
+
+"There, Andrew!" he said remorsefully, as he wiped the laughter tears
+from his eyes. "I've riled you again. I'm sorry. We'll leave the matter
+this way: if I go first--and if I can come back, I _will_ come back--and
+I'll apologise to you for being in the wrong. There! Does that satisfy
+you, Andrew? I say I'll come back and apologise."
+
+"You mean it, Peter?" asked McPherson eagerly. "You're not joking?"
+
+"No, I mean it. If I can, I'll come back. And if I come back I'll
+apologise to you. It's a deal. Now let's have a nip of my plum brandy to
+seal the compact."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"I'll step down to the cellar and get a fresh bottle of it. That one on
+the sideboard hasn't got two man's size drinks left in it. I'll be back
+in a minute and then we'll drink to spooks. Especially to spooks that
+come back and apologise."
+
+With a chuckle at his own odd conceit, he vanished cellarward. As the
+door closed behind him, Kathrien came in from the dining-room, where
+evidently she had been awaiting a chance for a word alone with
+McPherson.
+
+"Doctor," she asked almost breathlessly, "do you really believe the dead
+can come back?"
+
+"Why not?" demanded McPherson, beginning to bristle for a new argument.
+"Why shouldn't they?"
+
+"But--you mean to say you could come back to this room if you were dead,
+and I could see you?"
+
+"You might not see me. I don't say you could. But I could come back."
+
+"And--and could you _talk_ to me?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But, could I hear you?"
+
+"That I don't know. You see, that's what we gropers after the light are
+trying to make possible. Hello!" he interrupted himself, in a none too
+pleased whisper. "_Here_ are some people that can talk and that one
+can't help hearing!"
+
+Ushered in by Willem, the Rev. Mr. Batholommey, the local Episcopal
+clergyman of Grimm Manor, and his placid, portly wife, swept in from the
+vestibule on clerical visitation bent.
+
+"Good-morning, Doctor," sighed Mrs. Batholommey, comprising the whole
+sunlit room in one all-compassionate glance.
+
+"Good-morning, Kathrien."
+
+"Good-morning, Mrs. Batholommey," answered Kathrien, loudly enough to
+drown McPherson's growl of unwelcoming welcome. "Good-morning, Pastor.
+Oom Peter will be back directly. I'll tell him you're here."
+
+She hurried out of the room. McPherson showed strong inclination to
+follow her. But Mrs. Batholommey had already singled him out for her
+prey and bore down upon him with a becomingly woe-begone face.
+
+"Oh, Doctor," she panted, wiping her eyes. "Does he know it yet? _Does_
+he?"
+
+"Does _who_ know _what_?" snapped the doctor, his glance straying
+wrathfully toward the rotund clergyman, who all at once assumed an
+abjectly apologetic air and interested himself in a picture on the
+farther wall.
+
+"Poor dear Mr. Grimm," pursued Mrs. Batholommey. "Does he know he's
+going to die?"
+
+Willem, who was halfway out of the room by this time, halted, turned
+back and, unobserved, stood listening with wide eyes and open mouth.
+
+"What in blue blazes are you talking about?" thundered McPherson,
+glowering down on his rector's wife in a most unadmiring manner.
+
+"About Mr. Grimm. Does he know yet that he must die?"
+
+"Does the whole damned town know it?" roared the doctor.
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey in prim horror at the explosive adjective.
+
+"You see, Doctor," put in the rector with urbane haste, before his
+spouse could recover breath to rebuke the blasphemer or return to the
+attack. "You see, it's this way: You consulted Mr. Grimm's lawyer. And
+his wife told _my_ wife."
+
+"Gabbed, did he?" snorted McPherson. "To perdition with the professional
+man who gabs to his wife!"
+
+"Oh, Doctor!" expostulated Mrs. Batholommey. "How can----?"
+
+"I am inexpressibly grieved," said her husband, "to learn that Mr.
+Grimm has an incurable malady. And is it true that the nature of it
+is----?"
+
+"The nature of the whole affair is _this_," returned McPherson. "He
+isn't to be told. Understand that, please. He must _not_ know. I didn't
+say he had to die at once. He may outlive us all. He probably will. And,
+in any event, no one must speak to him about it."
+
+"I should think," said Mrs. Batholommey in lofty rebuke, "that a man's
+rector might be allowed to talk to him on such a theme. It seems to me,
+Dr. McPherson, if _you_ can't do any more, it's _his_ turn. From the way
+you doctors assume control of everything, it's a wonder to me you don't
+want to baptise the babies, too."
+
+"Rose!" murmured the doctor in mild reproof.
+
+"At the last moment," Mrs. Batholommey insisted, ignoring her husband,
+"Mr. Grimm will want to make a will. And you know he _hasn't_. He'll
+want to remember the Episcopal Church of Grimm Manor, and his
+charities--and his--friends. If he doesn't, the rector will be blamed as
+usual. You're not doing right, Doctor, in keeping----"
+
+"Rose! My dear!" interjected her husband. "These private matters----"
+
+"But----"
+
+"I'll trouble you, Mrs. Batholommey," shouted McPherson, "to attend to
+your own affairs, and----"
+
+"Doctor!" bleated the rector.
+
+"Oh, let him talk, Henry!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey in semi-tearful
+exaltation. "I can bear it. Besides," coming to earth level, "no one in
+town pays any attention to what he says since he has taken up with
+spiritualism."
+
+"Oh, Rose! My dear!"
+
+"Shut up!" whispered McPherson wrathfully. "Here he comes. Remember what
+I----"
+
+Peter Grimm put an end to the warning by reappearing from the cellar
+with a small demijohn in his hand. His face brightened into a smile of
+pleasant greeting as he saw his two new guests.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "this is the jolliest sort of a surprise. I hope I
+haven't kept you waiting long?"
+
+The rector and his wife glanced at each other in embarrassment. Mrs.
+Batholommey turned toward Peter with a lachrymose grimace, intended
+doubtless for a consoling smile, and seemed about to break into a
+torrent of speech. But the rector, after a timid look at McPherson,
+nervously forestalled her by coming hurriedly to the front.
+
+"Good-morning, dear friend," said he. "This is just a little impromptu
+visit of gratitude. We wish to thank you for the lovely flowers that
+Willem brought us a few minutes ago, and for the noble check you sent
+yesterday."
+
+"Why," laughed Peter uncomfortably, "please don't even think of thanking
+me. I----"
+
+"And," nervously pursued the rector, sparring for time, "I want to let
+you know how much we are still enjoying the delicious vegetables you so
+generously provided. I _did_ relish that squash. If I were obliged to
+say offhand what my favourite vegetable is, I----"
+
+"Pardon me," interposed Peter, his glance straying past the rector and
+resting with swift concern upon Mrs. Batholommey's quivering expanse of
+face, "but is anything distressing you, Mrs. Ba----?"
+
+"No, no!" interjected the rector with break-neck haste.
+
+"No, no!" responded Mrs. Batholommey in the same breath.
+
+A half inaudible growl from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of
+negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the
+simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the
+trio to another.
+
+Willem, strolling from his retreat, crossed to the table, picked up a
+picture book, and in leisurely fashion mounted with it to the gallery
+landing that overlooked the room. There he threw himself on a settee
+between the bedroom doors and opened the book at random.
+
+His lower lip quivered ever so little and his blue eyes were big with a
+troubled wonder. From time to time his glance would stray from the gaudy
+pages of the picture book down to Grimm in the room below. And each time
+the wonder in his eyes became tinged with a new sorrow.
+
+Meantime, Peter Grimm's look of questioning, perplexed sympathy toward
+her tumult ridden self was becoming far too much for Mrs. Batholommey's
+jellylike self-control. The jelly began to quake--quite visibly.
+
+"I was afraid," Peter went on kindly, "that something unpleasant might
+have happened. And I hoped perhaps I might be able----"
+
+"Oh, no! No, no, _no_!" denied the utterly flustered woman. "I--I hope
+you are feeling well, Mr. Grimm. No--no--I don't mean that. I--I don't
+mean that I hope you are _well_. Of course not. I--that is----"
+
+"Of course she hopes it," boomed her husband, coming to the rescue with
+heavy and uncertain cheeriness that rang as false as the ring of a
+leaden dollar. "And of course _all_ of us hope it, dear Mr. Grimm. With
+all our hearts. And we wish you many, _many_ years of life and----"
+
+"Oh, indeed we do," chimed in Mrs. Batholommey. "And, as Dr. McPherson
+just said, there may perhaps be no reason,--with proper care--why you
+shouldn't----"
+
+"A blundering rector must be put up with because of his cloth. But when
+it comes to a blundering rectorette, there ought to be a line drawn!"
+
+It was McPherson who said it. He addressed no one, but seemed to be
+confining his heretical sentiments to the window seat. Also he spoke in
+a gruff undertone--that filled the room like far off thunder.
+
+Peter Grimm flung himself into the breach, even before the wave of
+outraged red could gush to Mrs. Batholommey's shaking visage.
+
+"Will you--will you have a glass of plum brandy?" he asked her, and then
+caught himself with the scared grin of a very guilty schoolboy.
+
+"I thank you," she retorted, safe for the moment in the full majesty of
+Temperance. "I do not take such things. Perhaps you forget I am the
+President of our local W. C. T. U. and the----"
+
+"The Little Brothers of the Artesian Well," added Grimm, "or whatever
+they call it. I remember. And I'm sorry. I wouldn't tempt you from your
+principles for the world. Forgive me. How about _you_, Pastor? A little
+drop of plum brandy, for--for--let's see, what is it St. Paul says
+about----?"
+
+"Thank you, no," declined the rector, with an apprehensive gesture
+towards his wife.
+
+"Oh, come, come!" urged Peter hospitably. "Why, the other evening when
+you dropped over here after the vespers, sir, you----"
+
+"I only use it when absolutely needful for medicinal purposes," insisted
+the rector hurriedly. "Not to-day, I thank you."
+
+"I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was a single man,
+was he not, Pastor?"
+
+[Illustration: "I believe," said Peter irrelevantly, "that St. Paul was
+a single man, was he not, Pastor?"]
+
+"I--I believe so. It is not definitely known. But why?"
+
+"I was only wondering," mused Peter, "how he would have accounted to St.
+Pauline, or whatever his wife's name would have been, for what he wrote
+in favour of 'a little wine for--'"
+
+"Oh," explained Mrs. Batholommey, still safe, and ever feeling safer,
+now that temperance was again the theme, "St. Paul referred to
+unfermented wine, you know. Every one ought to understand that. It is so
+hard to make people see the difference."
+
+"One bottle would convince them," said Peter very gravely.
+
+"No," Mrs. Batholommey corrected him with serene loftiness. "You do not
+quite get my point, dear Mr. Grimm. For instance, when the poets,--even
+good men like the late Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier--speak of 'wine,'
+they use the word of course in its poetical sense. They use it merely to
+typify----"
+
+"Booze," growled McPherson.
+
+"Good cheer," amended Mrs. Batholommey, withering him with a single
+frown. "And yet it is terribly misleading. I remember when we had the
+Walter Scott Tableaux and Recitations at the church last fall, and old
+Mr. Bertholf from Pompton was going to recite 'Lochinvar,' I had to
+suggest a change in the poem, lest the ignorant people in the village
+might get a wrong impression of dear Sir Walter Scott's principles. You
+remember the couplet occurs:
+
+  "'And now I have come with this lost love of mine
+  To tread one last measure, drink one cup of wine.'
+
+"So I asked Mr. Bertholf to alter the words into something like this:
+
+  "'And now I have come with this beautiful maid
+  To tread one last measure,--drink one lemonade.'
+
+"It left the poetry just as beautiful and it took away the dangerous
+reference to wine. Mr. Bertholf didn't like it very much, I'm afraid.
+But I insisted, and at last----"
+
+"And at last," snarled McPherson, to whom the thought of any mutilation
+of his fellow Scotchman's verse was as sacrilege, "and at last, poor
+Bertholf got so mixed up that he clean forgot the silly rot you'd taught
+him. And when he came to that part of the poem, he stammered for a
+second and then blurted out:
+
+  "'And now I have come with my lovely lost mate
+  To tread one last measure, drink one whiskey straight.'"
+
+"Yes," blazed Mrs. Batholommey, "and I have always believed _you_ put
+him up to it."
+
+"Well," shrugged the noncommittal McPherson, "if I had, it would at
+least be more in keeping with what Sir Walter intended than your
+straining an immortal poem through a lemon-squeezer."
+
+"Andrew and I," announced Peter, hastening to pour oil on the troubled
+waters of conversation, by filling two glasses and handing one of them
+to McPherson, "are going to drink a toast to spooks."
+
+"_What?_" squealed Mrs. Batholommey, in the accents of a rabbit that has
+been stepped on.
+
+"To spooks--we----"
+
+"Oh, how _can_ you?" she gasped. "How _can_ you? To spooks! _You_ of all
+men! The very idea!"
+
+"Mrs. Batholommey!" exclaimed Peter in real alarm, setting down his
+glass and moving toward her. "Something _has_ happened! You are
+quite----"
+
+"No, no!" she wailed helplessly.
+
+"It is nothing, Mr. Grimm," soothed the rector. "Nothing at all, I
+assure you. My wife is a trifle overwrought this morning. Nothing of any
+consequence. I mean--that is, of course--we must all keep our spirits
+up, Mr. Grimm."
+
+"Good Lord, deliver us!" intoned McPherson in mingled fervour and
+disgust.
+
+"I know what it is," declared Peter with sudden enlightenment. "You've
+just come from a wedding! That's it! I know. Women love weddings better
+than anything on earth. They'll talk about it for months beforehand.
+They'll walk miles to attend one.--And they'll weep all the rest of the
+day. I don't know why. But they do it. I should be grateful, I suppose,
+that no women were ever called upon to shed tears at _my_ wedding. But I
+hope, before so very long----"
+
+Mrs. Batholommey had not in the very least caught the drift of the
+laughing speech whereby he had sought to put the poor woman at her ease.
+And now all at once, the last sagging vestige of self-control went from
+her.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Grimm!" she moaned, breaking in upon his words. "You were
+always so kind to us. There never was a better, kinder, gentler man in
+all this world than you were."
+
+"Than I _was_?" asked Peter bewildered. "Is my character changing
+or----?"
+
+"No, no!" she corrected herself flounderingly. "I don't mean that. I
+mean--I meant----"
+
+Her gaze fluttered helplessly about the big room and chanced at last to
+fall upon the reading boy, asprawl on the gallery bench above them.
+
+"I meant," she plunged along, "what would become of poor little Willem
+if you----?"
+
+This time her glance was caught and transfixed by McPherson's furious
+glare, much as a great flopping beetle might be pierced by the sting of
+a wasp. Mrs. Batholommey prided herself upon her tact. That glare nerved
+her to another effort.
+
+"You see," she shrilled, wildly and awkwardly clambering out of the
+slough, "it's fearful he had such a 'M.'"
+
+"Such a 'M'?" queried Peter. "What does that mean?"
+
+With a warning glance toward the absorbed boy she shaped her lips
+noiselessly into the word "Mother."
+
+"Oh!" said Peter. "I understand. But----"
+
+"She ought to have told Mr. Batholommey or me," went on Mrs.
+Batholommey, climbing still higher on to solid ground, "who the 'F'
+was."
+
+"'F'? What does that mean?"
+
+And again the rabbit-like lips shaped themselves into a soundless word,
+this time 'Father.'
+
+"Oh," grunted Peter, "the word you want isn't 'Father,' but 'Scoundrel!'
+Whoever he is----"
+
+Willem flung aside his book and leaped to his feet as though his little
+body were galvanised. The others looked at him in guilty dread, fearing
+he had heard and had somehow understood their awkwardly veiled allusions
+to his parentage. But they were mistaken. A sound, far more potent to
+every normal child's ear than the fiercest thunders of morality, had
+reached his keen senses as he lounged up there. And a moment later they
+all heard it.
+
+It was the braying of a distant but steadily approaching brass band.
+With it came a confused but ever louder medley of shouts, handclapping,
+raucous voices, and the higher tones of delighted children. As Kathrien
+came running in at one door, followed by Marta, and Frederik sauntered
+in from the office, Willem rushed down the stairway and into the window
+seat, where he sprang upon a chair and craned his neck to see the
+stretch of village street beyond. Nearer and louder came the music and
+the attendant vocal Babel.
+
+"It's the circus parade!" shouted Willem. "The one they tell about in
+the advertisements and pictures on the fences. I didn't know the parade
+would start so early. There come some of them now. Oh, look! Oom Peter!
+Look! It's a clown! See! He's coming right toward us!"
+
+The band in full brazen force was discoursing a "Dutch Ditties" waltz as
+it turned the corner above. And now, the voices of the barkers were
+heard in the land.
+
+"Ladies and Gentlemen," came the leathern tones of one unseen announcer,
+"one hour before the big show begins in the main tent we will give a
+grand free balloon ascension!"
+
+"Remember," adjured a second Unseen, "one price admits you to all parts
+of the big show!"
+
+"Lemo--lemo--ice cold lemonade--five cents a glass!" shouted a youthful
+vender.
+
+"You ought to quaff one beaker of it to Sir Walter Scott's memory, Mrs.
+Batholommey," observed McPherson.
+
+But the din of the oncoming parade drowned his voice. The whole roomful,
+from Marta down to Willem, were thronging into the bay window. They were
+all children again. A touch of circus had renewed their youth as by the
+wave of a magic wand. Willem broke into a cry of utter joy and pointed
+ecstatically at the open window.
+
+The next moment a clown, white and vermilion of face, clad in the
+traditional white, black, and scarlet motley of his tribe, had leaped
+cat-like upon the window sill and swept the room with his painted grin.
+In his hands he held a great bunch of variegated circus bills. Tossing a
+half-dozen of these at the feet of the all-absorbed spectators, he cried
+in high cracked falsetto:
+
+"Well, _well_, _WELL_! Here we are again, good people! Billy Miller's
+Big Show! Larger--greater--grander than ever. Everything new! Come and
+see the wild animals! Hear the lions roar!"
+
+Wheeling suddenly towards Mrs. Batholommey he pointed a whitened
+forefinger at her and broke into a truly frightful roar. The good lady
+jumped at least six inches from the ground.
+
+"Steady, ma'am!" exhorted the clown. "I won't let him bite you! Come
+one, come all! Come see the diving deer! The human fly, Mademoiselle
+Zarella!" he added, addressing the rector. "She walks suspended from the
+ceiling! One ring and no confusion!" he confided to the delightedly
+smiling Peter. "And all for the price of admission! Remember the grand
+free exhibition one hour before the big show!"
+
+He paused, catching sight of Willem for the first time. Now, it is a
+well-grounded tradition in one-ring circus life that no clown stays long
+in the business or scores a hit in it unless he is genuinely fond of
+children. Noting the all-absorbing bliss and adoration in Willem's wide
+eyes, the clown grinned at the boy in right brotherly fashion.
+
+"Howdy!" said he cordially. "Shake!"
+
+Marvelling, overcome with rapture, feeling as though the proffered
+honour was one far too wonderful to be real, Willem shyly extended his
+hand and met the friendly grasp of the flour-dusted fingers. The clown,
+striking an attitude, began in shrill, exaggerated diction, to chant the
+antiquated "Frog Opera" song:
+
+  "Uncle Rat has gone to town,--Ha-_H'M_!
+  Uncle Rat has gone to town,"
+
+he sang on, addressing Willem,
+
+  "To buy his niece a wedding gown."
+
+"Ha-_H'M_!" intoned Willem, delightedly; laughing aloud as he realised
+he was actually singing with a real live clown.
+
+  "What shall the wedding breakfast be?"
+
+continued the clown, interrogating the equally youthful and delighted
+Peter Grimm. And this time more voices than Peter's and Willem's caught
+up the refrain:
+
+  "Ha-_H'M_!
+  Hard-boiled eggs and a cup of tea,"
+
+sang the clown. And again from Willem and the rest came the answering:
+
+  "Ha-_H'M_!"
+
+"Billy Miller's Big Show!" yelled the clown. "Come one, come all! So
+long, Sonny!"
+
+He was gone. The others came back to earth. But Willem was still in the
+wonder clouds. It had been to him an experience to rehearse a thousand
+times, to dream over, to remember forever. Peter Grimm, reading the
+boy's thoughts as could only a heart that must ever be boyish, beckoned
+Willem to him, as Kathrien and Marta departed to their interrupted work
+in the dining-room and the rest looked half ashamed at their momentary
+excitement over so garish and trivial a thing.
+
+"Willem!" called Grimm.
+
+"_Ja_, Mynheer," answered the boy, coming slowly, his face still alight
+with his tremendous adventure of a moment ago.
+
+"Willem," repeated Grimm, "you wouldn't care to go to that circus, would
+you? Wouldn't it be pretty stupid?"
+
+"_Stupid!_" gasped the boy. "Oh!"
+
+"Well," said Peter, "suppose you go, then?"
+
+"Go? Really, Mynheer Grimm?"
+
+"Go get the seats," ordered Grimm. "Here's the money. Get two _front_
+seats. _Two._ We'll both go. We'll make a night of it, you and I. We'll
+stay out till--till ten o'clock!"
+
+The vision of this bliss was too much for Willem's English.
+
+"_Ekar, ekar na hat circus!_" he babbled dazedly.
+
+Then he rushed up impulsively to Peter and seized the big, kindly hand
+in both his own.
+
+"Oh, Mynheer _Grimm_!" he squealed in ecstasy. "There ain't any one else
+like you in the world. And--and--when the other fellows laugh at your
+funny hat, _I_ don't."
+
+"What?" asked Grimm, perplexed. "Is my hat funny?"
+
+The boy was vibrant with laughter, drunk with anticipation. But,
+momentarily straightening his glowing face with a cast of semi-gravity,
+he said:
+
+"And--and--Mynheer Grimm--it's too bad you've got to die!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BREAKING THE NEWS
+
+
+There was an instant of stark, palsied silence. The rector, his wife,
+and McPherson looked at the all-unconscious boy with dumb horror. A
+horror that for the time crowded out indignation. Frederik, ignorant as
+he was of any cause for emotion, was struck by the tense bearing of the
+trio and looked from one to the other with the air of the only man in
+the room who does not catch a joke's point.
+
+Peter Grimm alone was not affected by Willem's words. He was used to the
+child's oddities, his alternating high spirits, and dashes of sadness;
+his old-fashioned phrases and his queer lapses. Grimm broke the ominous
+silence with an amused chuckle.
+
+"Most people die, sooner or later, Willem," he answered, stroking the
+boy's shock of soft yellow hair. "I'll live to see you in the business
+though. And we'll go to dozens of circuses together, too. Don't worry
+your little head over your Oom Peter's dying. I----"
+
+He paused. The electrified atmosphere generated by the three
+conspirators began to reach his non-sensitive brain. A quick glance at
+Mr. Batholommey and a second at the rector's wife confirmed his vague
+feeling that something was wrong. He turned back to Willem, in time to
+intercept a blighting scowl of warning the doctor was trying to flash to
+the boy.
+
+"Willem," asked Grimm gently, "how did you happen to say such a queer
+thing just now? What made you think I'm going to die?"
+
+A concerted and unintelligible interruption from the trio was voiced too
+late to prevent Willem's reply.
+
+"_He_ said so," replied the boy, pointing at McPherson.
+
+Then he caught the doctor's annihilating frown. And, simultaneously the
+rector cried in stern admonition:
+
+"Willem!"
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, too, was making quite awful and wholly
+incomprehensible faces at him. Under the triple menace the boy wilted.
+Like every child, since Cain, he had a thousand times been reproved for
+things he had said or done in perfect innocence. In fact, the more
+unconscious the offence, the more dire was the reproof. Children do not
+reason in such matters. It is enough for them to know they have said or
+done the wrong thing; without stopping to discover why or how that thing
+chanced to be wrong.
+
+The non-linguist traveller in a foreign land cannot read the "Keep off
+the Grass" or "No Thoroughfare" signs. But the policeman's threatening
+club has a universal language that he understands and intuitively obeys.
+So Willem (ignorant of death save as an empty name that vaguely carried
+a note of sorrow, and wholly unaware why he should not have imparted the
+news of Grimm's coming demise), saw he had said something very terrible.
+And a look of abject panic came into his face.
+
+But Grimm's hand was still on his head,--gentle, caressing, infinitely
+tender in its touch.
+
+"No, don't stop the boy," commanded Peter, meeting the variously
+anguished glances of the others with a half smile that began and ended
+in the suddenly widened eyes. "Don't stop him. Only children speak the
+truth nowadays. It used to be 'children and fools.' But fools have
+learned to tell fool-lies, and they have left children the monopoly of
+truth telling. Go on, Willem. You heard the doctor say that I am going
+to----?"
+
+Willem's fragile little body was trembling from head to foot. Under Mrs.
+Batholommey's distorted glare and threatening noiseless mouthings his
+puny courage had gone to pieces. Big tears began to roll down his
+cheeks. And noting the child's terror, Grimm fell to soothing him.
+
+"There, there, _jounker_," comforted Peter. "Don't let them frighten
+you. Oom Peter will stand by you. You haven't done anything wrong and
+nobody's going to scold you. Don't be scared."
+
+Under the strangely gentle voice and the consoling touch of the rough,
+kindly hand, Willem's fears subsided. With Oom Peter on his side, he
+could brave the frowns of all Grimm Manor if need be. For who was so
+strong, so wise as Oom Peter?
+
+Did not every one bend to his orders and come running to him for advice
+and aid, as troubled children seek out a loving father? The boy ceased
+to tremble. He looked up into Grimm's face for something that should
+confirm the words and the touch.
+
+And he found it. The rugged old visage had never before been so kindly,
+so unruffled. And in the little eyes that could flash so obstinately
+and irritably, there was nothing but friendliness.
+
+Yes--something more that the boy had never before seen. Something he
+could not read, but that seemed to draw him strangely close to the old
+man, and freed him of his last vestige of fear.
+
+"Don't be scared, dear lad," repeated Grimm. "So you heard Dr. McPherson
+say I am going to die?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grimm turned slowly to the doctor, who still stood glowering, red,
+speechless, furiously miserable.
+
+"Andrew," asked Grimm quietly, "what did you mean?"
+
+Before McPherson could speak, Grimm checked him with a move of the head
+and glanced down at the boy.
+
+"Never mind just now," said he. "Willem didn't mean any harm in telling
+me. It just popped out, didn't it, Willem? The only person who never
+says the wrong thing at the wrong time is a deaf mute whose fingers are
+paralysed. We'll forget all about it. Now run along, lad, and get those
+circus tickets before all the best ones are gone. Front row seats,
+remember. We're going to have the finest sort of a spree, you and I.
+Hurry now."
+
+"_Ja_, Oom Peter!" cried the boy, all laughter once more.
+
+He snatched his cap from the rack, in his haste almost upsetting Grimm's
+antiquated tile that hung beside it; and, with a farewell shout, was
+gone. His feet padded joyously on the gravel outside; then silence fell
+again in the big room. It was Mr. Batholommey who broke the spell.
+Walking solemnly up to Peter, who stood looking with a sort of stunned
+wistfulness straight in front of him, the rector held out his hand.
+
+"Good-bye, dear brave friend," he said, with an air gruesomely if
+unconsciously reminiscent of his burial service manner. "Any time you
+telephone for me, day or night, I'll run over _immediately_. God bless
+you, sir!" his rounded voice shaking uncontrollably. "I have never come
+to you in behalf of any worthy charity and been refused. You have set an
+example in upright living, in generosity, in true manliness, and in
+constant church attendance that should be an example to all my vestrymen
+and to the town at large. I have never seen a nobler man. Never.
+Good--good-morning."
+
+He moved toward the door, winking very fast and clearing his throat. At
+the threshold he beckoned to his wife. But she had already borne down
+upon Peter.
+
+"Mr. Grimm!" she sobbed. "The best--the kindest--the--the--Oh, I _don't_
+see how we are going to bear it."
+
+"Dear Mrs. Batholommey," answered Grimm. "Please don't be so overcome. I
+may outlive you all. Nevertheless, I am grateful to your husband for
+letting me hear my funeral eulogy in advance, and to you for----"
+
+"Oh, how _can_ you make light of it?" she sobbed. "Yes, dear, I'm
+coming. Good-bye, Mr. Grimm."
+
+Like a confused and somewhat elderly hen she scuttled off in her
+husband's wake, while Peter Grimm stared after the two with a
+half-amused, half-perplexed smile.
+
+"Of all the wall-eyed, semi-anthropoid congenital idiots," roared
+McPherson as the door closed behind them, "those two are----"
+
+"You're mistaken, Andrew," contradicted Grimm. "They're kind-hearted,
+good people, who spend their lives and their substance in helping
+others. If you and they can't get on together it's no one's fault. Any
+more than because fuchsias and sunflowers won't thrive in the same bed.
+Now calm down a bit, old friend, and tell me----"
+
+"Nothing! It was nothing. Just nonsense. Don't give it another thought,
+Peter. You said, yourself, a while ago, that many a man who was given up
+by the doctors at twenty-five lives to be a hundred. And there is no
+reason on earth why you----"
+
+"Don't!" urged Grimm. "I don't need that. I----"
+
+"Don't fret yourself, Peter," insisted McPherson. "You mustn't get the
+idea that you are worse off than you really are. Don't get cold feet or
+let this thing worry you to death. You must live for----"
+
+"Andrew!" chided Grimm, with tolerant reproof. "Are you so tangled up
+that you think you're talking to Willem instead of to a full-grown man?
+If it's got to be, it's got to be. And you were wrong not to tell me at
+once. That is the way with you doctors. You are so in the habit of
+dealing with hysterical women and hypochondriacs that you forget that a
+_man_ is shaped by nature to bear the naked truth without having it
+rigged up beforehand in a lot of fluff to disguise its shape. I think I
+understand. I may live a while longer. And I may not. The same thing
+could be said of every one."
+
+McPherson tried to speak, then turned and made blindly for the door.
+
+"Wait a minute!" called Grimm.
+
+McPherson halted. Peter crossed to where his friend stood. With an
+effort at his old-time whimsical banter he held out his hand.
+
+"I just want to promise again, Andrew," he said, "that if there's
+anything in this spook business of yours, I'll come back. And I'll
+apologise. Good-bye and good luck."
+
+McPherson wrung his hand, without speaking, and strode noisily out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HAND RELAXES
+
+
+Peter Grimm walked slowly back into the room. He paused at his desk and
+laid his hand on a sheaf of papers piled there. He looked about the big
+sunlit apartment almost as if he were trying to stamp the image of each
+of its familiar, pleasant features upon his memory.
+
+Frederik, in the window seat, had been a silent onlooker to the strange
+scene. His pallid, thin face was set in an aspect of grieved wonder. And
+Peter Grimm, meeting his glance, sought to soften the young man's
+sorrow.
+
+"Brace up, Fritzy," he said gaily. "It's nothing to look so
+down-in-the-mouth about. Doctors are apt to be wrong. They guess too
+much. When the guess is right they win a reputation for wisdom. When
+it's wrong--as it is nine times out of eight,--they say they knew it all
+along but thought it wasn't wise to tell the patient and his friends.
+Doctoring is a grand game,--for the man who has no sense of humour and
+can play it with a straight face. Now let's forget old Andrew's
+croakings. Go and get me some change for the circus, Fritzy. Enough for
+Willem and me to buy all the red-ink lemonade and popcorn and peanuts
+and candy we can eat. Get me a whole dollar, anyhow. And then, if
+there's any left over after the show, I can----"
+
+"Oh, sir!" cried Frederik protestingly. "Are you going after all, Uncle?
+And with that child? Do you think it's wise to----?"
+
+"Wise?" echoed Peter gleefully. "Of course it isn't wise. That's the
+glory of a circus. It's almost the one place where people can go and
+forget they were ever meant to be wise. And that's why I am going. That
+and because I wouldn't disappoint Willem. Miss a circus? Miss Billy
+Miller's Big Show? Not I. _You_ may be too old for such follies, Fritz.
+But I'll never be."
+
+"But, sir," said Frederik, "in case you should be taken ill----"
+
+"I won't be."
+
+"With no companion but that half-witted----"
+
+"Willem is not half-witted. He has as much sense as any boy of his age.
+And more, in many ways. Why do you dislike him so, Fritz?"
+
+"Dislike him?" echoed Frederik uneasily. "I don't. Why should I?"
+
+"When you came back from Europe and found him living with us," pursued
+Grimm, "you seemed annoyed. He tried to make friends with you at first.
+But you seemed always to rebuff him. Why? He's a lovable, interesting
+little chap. One would think you had some strong prejudice against
+him--or some reason----"
+
+"Why, of course not. How could I have? The boy is nothing to me, one way
+or another, Uncle. As you're so fond of him, I'd be glad to do anything
+I could for him. As there's nothing I _can_ do, and as he seems actually
+afraid of me, for some silly childish reason or other, I let him alone."
+
+Grimm's attention had already wandered and that same new look which
+Willem had first detected crept back into his lined face. But the sight
+of Kathrien coming in from her preparations for the one o'clock dinner
+brought him back to himself.
+
+"Katje!" he hailed her. "Do you want to go to the circus with Willem and
+me?"
+
+"_Ja!_" she laughed joyously. "_Natuerlich._"
+
+"Good! One more member of the family who is no more grown up than I am!
+I want to see Mademoiselle Zarella, the human fly, and----"
+
+He stopped to light the big meerschaum he had just filled. Then, going
+over to his favourite big armchair--a Dutch importation of a hundred
+years earlier, with pulpit back and high solid arms--he settled himself
+comfortably in it.
+
+Peter Grimm was tired. And he wanted to think over the news he had so
+recently heard;--to dissect and analyse it and, if need be, to adjust
+himself to its awesome import. He sat back with half-closed eyes,
+puffing now and then mechanically at his pipe, his veiled glance resting
+here, there, and everywhere among the surroundings he loved.
+
+The stable clock chimed the noon hour. The big, slow-swinging arms of
+the windmill slackened motion and stood still. A hush was in the air.
+The warm, lazy, wonderful hush of summer noon.
+
+The midday sunlight gushed in unchecked through the wide windows,
+flooding the room with a glory of hazy golden light; bathing the dark
+old furniture with tints of rich warmth; glowing upon the roses that
+were arranged on desk and piano.
+
+The Dutch clock on the wall struck twelve. A moment later, the little
+clock on the mantel jinglingly endorsed the sentiment. Then, save for
+the drowsy droning of the bees among the blossoms outside the open
+windows, there was no sound in all Grimm's world.
+
+Even Kathrien and Frederik seemed silenced by the spell of summer noon
+magic. The girl was looking out across the sun-kissed gardens. Frederik
+was eyeing her in complacent satisfaction, his nimble brain busy with
+the tidings that might mean so much for him.
+
+Kathrien turned from the window at last and seated herself idly at the
+piano. Her slender fingers drifted half-aimlessly over the keys.
+Frederik lounged over to the piano and stood looking down at her.
+
+Presently she began to sing. Frederik joined in the song and their young
+voices blended sweetly in the old Dutch and English words:
+
+  "_Van een twee, een twee, nu
+  Ste-ken wij van wal:_
+  The bird so free in the heavens
+  Is but the slave of the nest.
+  For all must toil as God wills it,
+  Must laugh and toil and rest.
+
+  "The rose must blow in the gardens,
+  The bee must gather its store.
+  The cat must watch the mousehole,
+  And the dog must guard the door!"
+
+As the voices died away, Peter Grimm came out of his tortuous reverie.
+He had reached a decision. And, having once made up his mind, he was not
+a man to delay the execution of any plan.
+
+"Katje!" he called, with sharp eagerness.
+
+Startled at his unwonted tone, the girl hurried across to him.
+
+"Yes, Oom Peter?" she asked.
+
+"Get me--the Staaten Bible, please. Quickly."
+
+Wondering at the peremptory tone of the familiar request, Kathrien
+obeyed, bringing the heavy old book to the table at his side; and
+opening it, from long habit, at the closely written pages of the Grimm
+family genealogy.
+
+"There!" said Peter, running his finger down the last record page until
+it stopped at the blank space just below his own name.
+
+"Frederik!" he called. "Come here."
+
+The young people stood, one at each side of his chair, awaiting the next
+move, more than a little astonished at the unwonted haste and eagerness
+in his tone.
+
+"Katje," went on Grimm, almost feverishly, as he pointed again at the
+blank line beneath his birth announcement, "I want to see you married
+and happy."
+
+"I _am_ happy, Uncle," she protested, "and----"
+
+"And I want to see you happily _married_," he said.
+
+"I--I don't know," she faltered. "I----"
+
+"But _I_ know for you, little girl," he insisted, tapping the open page.
+"And under my name here, I want to see written: '_Married:--Kathrien and
+Frederik._' You will do as I wish, dear? It would make me so happy!"
+
+"Why, Oom Peter," she faltered in distress, "of course there isn't
+anything I wouldn't do--gladly--to make you happy. But----"
+
+"Kitty," urged Frederik, "you know I love you! You know----"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes. Certainly she does," snapped Grimm, fretted at the
+interruption. "Everybody knows that."
+
+Grimm caught the girl's look of dumb entreaty, misread it, manlike, and
+hurried on:
+
+"Come, girl, we've no time to be coy. Promise me you'll consent, Katje.
+We'll make it a June wedding. We have ten days yet. And----"
+
+"Oh, I _couldn't_!" protested the poor girl. "_Really_, I couldn't."
+
+"Nonsense, little girl. It's the easiest thing in the world to get
+ready to be happy. Ten days is plenty. And you----"
+
+"We can get your trousseau later," put in Frederik eagerly.
+
+"Fritz!" cried the old man, exasperated. "_Will_ you keep out of this?
+Who is managing it? You or I? In ten days, then, Katje? _Please!_"
+
+"Why," she stammered, wretchedly at a loss, "if it will make you so
+happy, Oom Peter--if it means so much to you----"
+
+"It does. It _does_!"
+
+"I owe everything to you----"
+
+"Then give me the privilege of seeing you a happy, contented wife, and
+we will write 'Paid' across the bill."
+
+"But why need I marry so terribly soon?"
+
+"To gratify a cranky old man's whim, Katje. It means more to me than I
+can tell you. Frederik understands."
+
+She looked from one to the other. On each face she read a fatuous
+eagerness. She knew the futility of pleading with Frederik. She knew
+still more surely the uselessness of trying to make Peter Grimm change
+his stubborn wishes. With a little catch in her breath, she gave up the
+hopeless, unequal fight.
+
+"Very well," she assented.
+
+"You will do it?" cried Peter Grimm joyfully.
+
+"Yes, I--promise," she answered; and her voice was dead.
+
+"Good!" sighed Grimm, as he picked up his pipe and leaned back again in
+the big chair's recesses, a smile of utter peace and contentment
+irradiating his square old face. "You've made me very, _very_ happy,
+Katje," he murmured, his eyes half-shut, his words trailing away almost
+into incoherence. "Very, very happy. I'm happier than ever I was in all
+my life--happier than ever I dreamed a man could be. I----"
+
+He ceased to speak. The light on his face grew brighter, then slowly
+faded as a peaceful summer day fades. He settled a little lower in his
+chair and lay back there, very still. The gnarled hand that held the
+meerschaum relaxed.
+
+The pipe fell clattering to the floor. Frederik stooped to pick it up.
+Kathrien, her eyes chancing to fall on Grimm's face, cried aloud in
+horror.
+
+Frederik followed the direction of her gaze. He sprang toward his uncle,
+laid a hand over the old man's heart, and bent down toward the still,
+grey face that was upturned to his.
+
+"Good God, Kitty!" he gasped. "He's _dead_!"
+
+The girl had already flown toward the front door. Jerking it open she
+ran out on the steps. As she did so, she caught sight of McPherson
+coming away from a professional call at a house across the street.
+
+"Doctor!" screamed Kathrien frantically. "_Doctor!_"
+
+McPherson, next moment, had pushed past her into the living-room.
+Kneeling beside Grimm's body he made a swift examination.
+
+As he rose to face the others, Willem burst into the house.
+
+"Oom Peter! Oom Peter!" shrilled the child happily. "I got them!"
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed McPherson.
+
+The boy halted in the doorway, looking in puzzled dismay at the huddled
+form in the chair.
+
+"What--what is----?" he began.
+
+"He is dead," replied Frederik shortly.
+
+Willem stood aghast for a second, while the curt announcement sank into
+his senses. Then in a burst of angry, rebellious wonder, the child
+cried:
+
+"Dead? He can't be. He _can't_! Why, I've got our circus tickets!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AFTERWARD
+
+
+Grimm Manor was in mourning. And, far more to the dead man's honour,
+Grimm Manor _was_ mourning.
+
+The last of the ancient line was dead. The Grimms had been the ruling
+spirits in the drowsy little up-State town for more than two centuries.
+From father to son, the hierarchy had been handed down.
+
+In days when the district was a wilderness and when the Grimms fought
+wild animal and Indian, and in the days when it was a prosperous suburb
+and the Grimms fought "scale" and locust, it had been the same:--ever a
+Grimm had swayed the little community.
+
+Quiet in spite of his eccentric ways and dress, Peter Grimm had been
+known chiefly as a kindly neighbour and a shrewd business man. But now,
+after his death, all sorts and conditions of people came forward with
+queer stories of his private dealings.
+
+There was a crotchety old Civil War veteran, for instance, who lived
+"on the Mountain" and who was a reputed miser. He now told how Peter
+Grimm had eked out his $8 a month pension for the past forty years and
+had made it possible for him to live in comfort. A crippled woman who,
+with her four children, had at one time seemed likely to become a public
+charge and who had been relieved in the nick of time by a legacy, now
+told the real source of that providential "legacy."
+
+A farm boy who had yearned to study engineering and who had been helped
+unexpectedly by a secret fund, revealed the name of the fund's donor.
+
+A market gardener whose house, barns, and horses had been destroyed by
+fire, proclaimed that insurance had not enabled him to make good his
+loss. For he had not been insured. Peter Grimm had set him on his feet
+again. And as in every other case, Grimm had imposed but one condition
+upon the gift:--absolute secrecy.
+
+These were but a few cases out of dozens that were made known within the
+week after Grimm's death.
+
+The little stone church of Grimm Manor was packed to the doors on the
+day that six big awkward men with tear blotched faces bore a silent
+burden up its aisle. A burden so covered with masses of fragrant
+blossoms as to blot out its gruesome oblong shape. The flowers were from
+Peter Grimm's own gardens, then in the riot of their June-tide glory.
+
+And so, covered and drifted over with the glowing blooms he loved so
+well, the dead man went to his burial.
+
+In the Grimm pew, with its silver plate and high, box-like sides, sat
+Frederik, Kathrien, and old Marta. The heir was as woe begone of face
+and as crassly sombre of raiment as even the most captious could have
+desired. The unostentatious pressure of his black bordered handkerchief
+to his eyes once or twice during the service attested to a sorrow that
+could not be kept wholly within stoic bounds.
+
+Yet, oddly enough, it was Kathrien,--rather than Frederik or the frankly
+blubbering old housekeeper,--on whom people's eyes most often
+rested--rested and then dimmed with a haze of sympathy. The girl did not
+weep. Her face was very pale. But it was set and expressionless. Save
+for its big eyes it seemed a lifeless mask. The eyes alone were alive.
+And never for one instant did they move from the flower banked casket
+in front of the altar rail. They were tearless. But in their soft depths
+lurked the awed, unbelieving horror of a little child's that is for the
+first time brought face to face with the Black Half of life.
+
+Kathrien was not in mourning. Her simple white dress caused no comment.
+For, by this time, it was known she was acting on what she believed to
+be Grimm's wishes. The dead man had ever had a loathing of all the
+hideous visible trappings of grief. He had been wont to hold forth on
+his aversion after every funeral he had been forced to attend.
+
+"When it comes my time to fall asleep," he had said, during one of these
+Philippics, "I don't want anybody that cares for me to make death
+horrible by going around dressed like an undertaker. I'd as soon expect
+a mother to put on black after she had kissed her child good-night.
+There'd be just as much sense in it. If it's done because we're grieved
+to think where our friends have gone,--well and good. But if we're
+willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, why dress as if we were
+sorry for them?"
+
+Wherefore, Kathrien was wearing one of the white summer dresses he had
+loved. She had timidly suggested that Frederik also honour the dead
+man's prejudices. But the sad, reproachful look he had bent upon her at
+her first hint of the subject had silenced the girl and had left her
+half-convicted of heartlessness because of her own avoidance of black.
+
+Willem was not at the funeral. After that first strange outburst on
+learning that Grimm was dead, the child had said no word all day. At
+night when Kathrien came to take him to bed, she found him in a high
+fever.
+
+Dr. McPherson had been sent for, and had examined the child closely, but
+could find no palpable cause for the malady.
+
+"He's an odd little fellow," he told Kathrien. "Like no other boy I've
+ever known. The Scotch call such children 'fey' and prophesy short lives
+for them. And the prophecy usually comes true. There's always been
+something psychic about Willem. A hypnotist or a medium would look on
+him as a treasure.
+
+"All the diagnosis I can make is that Peter's death caused a shock to
+the boy's never strong nerves and that the shock has caused the fever.
+Keep him in bed for a few days. He'll probably come around all right.
+There doesn't seem to be anything really serious--except that in a
+constitution like his everything is apt to be more or less serious."
+
+After the funeral, life went on outwardly much as before at the Grimm
+home. The only change was the impalpable one which occurs in a room when
+a clock stops.
+
+And, in fulfilment of Peter Grimm's last request, preparations for the
+"June wedding" were begun. It was Frederik who tactfully broached the
+theme. Kathrien, after a look of helpless fear, nodded acquiescence.
+
+"I promised him," she said faintly. "And he died while the promise was
+still scarcely spoken. The smile of happiness it brought to his dear old
+face was on it when they laid him to sleep. I _couldn't_ break that
+promise."
+
+"And you wouldn't, if you could. I know that," said Frederik tenderly.
+"Dear one, I would not urge the wedding at a time like this if it had
+not been his last wish that we should be married this very month."
+
+"Yes," she agreed lifelessly. "It was his wish. And we must do it."
+
+And with this unenthusiastic assent Frederik was forced to be satisfied.
+So the preparations were pushed on with a furtive, almost apologetic,
+haste.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey entered into the spirit of the affair with a lugubrious
+zest that would have sickened Kathrien had it not taken so much of the
+burden of arrangement-making off her own tired young shoulders.
+
+It was to Frederik and Mrs. Batholommey that every one at length turned
+for directions in details for the wedding, not to the still-faced girl
+who seemed to know or to care nothing about the way matters were to be
+conducted.
+
+And this gave Kathrien surcease,--a breathing space wherein to try to
+think with a brain from which sorrow had driven the power of clear
+thought; a time to plan, to _realise_, to remember,--with faculties too
+numb to carry out the will power's intent. The days crept past her like
+shadows. And the wedding day drew near. But still she could not wholly
+rouse herself from the dumb inertia that gripped her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE EVE OF A WEDDING
+
+
+Ten days later the household, which had been Peter Grimm's and was his
+no longer, had sufficiently adjusted itself to new conditions to
+endeavour to carry out his dearest wish--the marriage of Kathrien to
+Frederik.
+
+It was near the close of a rainy afternoon, and Mrs. Batholommey
+(installed in the house as temporary chaperone and adviser to Kathrien)
+was busily engaged in drilling four little girls from her own
+Sunday-school class to sing the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin.
+
+Standing at the piano, and playing with a sure, determined touch, she
+gazed over her shoulder at the children and sang vigorously, nodding her
+head to emphasise the tempo:
+
+  "Faithful and true we lead ye forth
+  Where love triumphant shall lead the way.
+  Bright star of love, flower of the earth,
+  Shine on ye both on your love's perfect day."
+
+As the last line was reached, Mrs. Batholommey raised her hand in a
+signal to stop.
+
+"That's better. Now, children--not too loud. Remember, this is a very
+_quiet_ wedding. You're to be here at noon to-morrow. You mustn't speak
+as you enter the room, and take your places near the piano. Now we'll
+sing as though the bride were here. I'll represent the bride."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey pointed at Kathrien's door as she spoke, and started
+toward it with subdued but undeniable enthusiasm.
+
+"Miss Kathrien will come down the stairs from her room, I suppose--and
+will stand--I don't know where--but you've got to stop when I look at
+you. Watch me now----"
+
+Bending her knees, she stood bobbing up and down in time to the
+children's singing, until she caught the step, then started down the
+stairs, unconsciously raising and lowering her dress skirt to emphasise
+the rhythm of the song.
+
+Across the room she marched, head bent and eyes cast down, while the
+children repeated the familiar verse over and over.
+
+Having marched herself into a corner she halted and faced the little
+singers. At that moment, however, Frederik entered, and the rehearsal
+was over for the day. Mrs. Batholommey quickly left her role of bride
+and dismissed the chorus with many warnings and instructions.
+
+"That will do, children. Hurry home between showers and don't forget
+what I've told you about to-morrow!"
+
+While she busied herself helping them into their rubbers and
+waterproofs, Frederik puffed at a cigarette in silence and was seemingly
+without the slightest interest in what was going on around him. A great
+change had taken place in his demeanour since his uncle's death. He had
+come into his own. The place, and everything, including Kathrien
+herself, would be his. He did not even try to veil his feeling of
+mastership. Walking over to his uncle's desk-chair, he sat down and
+began to pull off his gloves, looking at the children a trifle
+superciliously.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey felt it necessary to explain, and murmured with
+deprecatory haste:
+
+"My Sunday-school children. I thought your dear uncle wouldn't like it
+if he knew there wasn't going to be _any_ singing during the marriage
+ceremony to-morrow. I know how bright and cheery _he_ liked everything,"
+she purred. "If he were alive it would be a church wedding! Dear, happy,
+charitable soul!"
+
+As she spoke she handed the children their umbrellas and, exchanging
+good-byes, the little choir hurried out into the rain.
+
+"Where's Kathrien?" said Frederik.
+
+"Still upstairs with Willem," answered Mrs. Batholommey, glancing up
+toward the little boy's room apprehensively as she spoke, and lowering
+her voice a bit.
+
+Frederik made an inarticulate sound of annoyance, and putting his hand
+into his pocket, took out two steamer tickets and examined them. His one
+idea was to get away from the simple, quaint surroundings that his uncle
+had kept and beautified for him in the fond, proud hope that his nephew
+would love and care for the place as he had done.
+
+To Frederik it meant nothing but a humdrum existence, full of annoying
+detail. The money for which it stood had been his goal--that, and
+Kathrien, his uncle's very brightest flower--a flower which he was about
+to tear up by the roots and transplant to foreign soil.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey sat down in the big chair by the fire, and took up her
+crochet work with a sigh. Occasionally she looked at Frederik, and
+finally she spoke.
+
+"Of course I'm glad to stay here and chaperone Kathrien; but poor Mr.
+Batholommey has been alone at the parsonage for ten days--ever since
+your dear uncle--it will be ten days to-morrow since he di--oh, by the
+way, some mail came for your uncle. I put it in the drawer."
+
+Frederik did not trouble to answer. He merely nodded.
+
+"Curious how long before people know a man's gone," soliloquised Mrs.
+Batholommey.
+
+Opening the drawer carelessly Frederik took out his uncle's mail--two
+business letters and one in a plain blue envelope. He looked at them a
+moment, put them down, and proceeded to light another cigarette. Then he
+rose, and picking up his gloves looked toward the office.
+
+"Did Hartmann come?" he said.
+
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Batholommey, holding up a corner of the shawl she
+was crocheting, and surveying it critically. With a coquettish glance
+toward the bridegroom, she hummed a little bit of the wedding march.
+
+Frederik paid no attention to her, but, turning, gazed out of the
+window. Mrs. Batholommey, however, as the wife of a clergyman, was not
+used to being ignored; moreover, she was naturally of a persevering
+disposition--and, added to that, she had something on her mind and could
+keep still about it no longer.
+
+"Er----" (Mrs. Batholommey coughed expressively.) "By the way, Mr.
+Batholommey was very much excited when he heard that your uncle had left
+a personal memorandum concerning _us_. We're anxious to have it read."
+
+She might as well have addressed herself to a stone. Frederik made no
+sort of a response. Instead, he lounged over to the piano and examined
+some of the wedding presents piled up there.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey rose with decision and approached the piano.
+
+"_We are anxious to have it read!_"
+
+No answer.
+
+With a scorching glance at Frederik, Mrs. Batholommey, her work gathered
+in a fluffy white bunch in her arms, marched quickly out of the room and
+slammed the door.
+
+A moment later James, newly returned from the South, entered the room
+from the office. Frederik had found it impossible to get on without him
+in the matter of winding up his uncle's business and had sent an urgent
+and somewhat peremptory call for his immediate return.
+
+As, just then, he needed James, he was rather more civil to him than
+usual; but, from the first, he did not fail to sound the
+employer-employee note.
+
+He came forward and shook hands cordially.
+
+"Good-afternoon. Good-afternoon. How do you do, Hartmann? I'm very glad
+you consented to come back and straighten out a few matters. Naturally,
+there's some business correspondence I don't understand."
+
+"I've already gone over some of it," answered Hartmann.
+
+"I appreciate the fact that you came over on my _uncle's_ account."
+
+So saying, Frederik turned away with a ceremonious bow.
+
+Hartmann went over to the desk and took a letter from the file. Then he
+said coldly:
+
+"Oh, I see that Hicks of Rochester has written you. I hope you don't
+intend to sell out your uncle before his monument is set up."
+
+Frederik turned toward Hartmann and put down his cigarette.
+
+"I? Sell out? My intention is to carry out every wish of my dear
+uncle's."
+
+James, at this moment catching sight of Frederik's black-bordered
+handkerchief, said sceptically:
+
+"I hope so," and vanished into the office with a handful of papers.
+
+He wished as few words as possible with Frederik. He could not bear to
+look at him--for the thought that to-morrow Kathrien was to marry the
+man and go out of his own life for all time was almost more than he
+could stand. He had watched her grow from a lovely little girl to a
+lovelier woman--he understood her as did no one else, not even Oom
+Peter, who, too, had loved her so devotedly.
+
+And he felt that she loved him, though no word had ever been said. And
+now--he must let her go--he must let this worthless fellow take her--to
+a life of unhappiness; for knowing the sweet soul of Kathrien, who could
+doubt that such a marriage would bring her unhappiness?
+
+Frederik's eyes rested thoughtfully on Hartmann's retreating figure.
+Then a slight sound attracted his attention, and he looked up in time to
+see Kathrien coming downstairs. Her simple white dress held no touch of
+mourning, yet she was a wistful, pathetic little figure, full of
+sadness.
+
+"Ah, Kitty! See----" (taking out the tickets as he spoke). "Here's the
+steamship tickets for Europe. I've arranged everything."
+
+He took a step forward to meet her.
+
+"Well, to-morrow's our wedding day, _lievling_, yes?"
+
+"Yes," answered Kathrien in a breathless way.
+
+"It'll be a June wedding," Frederik went on, "just as Oom Peter wished."
+
+Kathrien forced herself to speak brightly.
+
+"Yes--just as he wished. Everything is just as he----" she broke off
+suddenly with a change of manner, and gazed at Frederik with beseeching
+earnestness.
+
+"Frederik, I don't want to go away. I don't want to take this journey to
+Europe. If only I could stay quietly in--in my own dear home!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A WASTED PLEA
+
+
+Frederik concealed his annoyance as best he could, and smiled
+affectionately at the little bride-to-be, trying to coax her out of her
+mood. He looked around the familiar room a bit scornfully.
+
+"Huh! This old cottage with its candles and lamps and shadows! What does
+it amount to? Wait until I've shown you the home I _want_ you to
+have--the house Mrs. Frederik Grimm _should_ live in."
+
+He patted her arm once or twice as he spoke, to give further weight to
+his words; but they seemed lost on Kathrien. Her eyes grew more and more
+troubled and her sweet face increasingly wistful.
+
+"I don't want to leave this house," she said. "I don't want any home but
+this. I should be wretched if you took me away."
+
+As she spoke, she glanced helplessly at the fresh flowers on Oom Peter's
+desk, placed there daily by her faithful, loving little fingers.
+
+"I'm sure Oom Peter would like to think of me as here, among our dear,
+dear flowers!"
+
+Frederik tried to reassure her as one does a child, and answered
+soothingly:
+
+"Of course--but what you need is a change, yes?"
+
+Kathrien turned away and traced a pattern on the newel post with her
+slender fingers. She found it very hard to talk. After a moment, she
+went on:
+
+"I--I've always wanted to please Oom Peter.--I always felt that I owed
+everything to him--if he had lived and I could have seen his happiness
+over our marriage, that would have made _me_ happy, almost. But he's
+gone--and every day--the longer he's away from me, the more I see for
+myself that I don't feel toward you as I ought. You know it. But I want
+to tell you again. I'm perfectly willing to marry you. Only--I'm afraid
+I can't make you happy."
+
+Looking at him with sorrowful, perplexed eyes, she went on:
+
+"It's so disloyal to speak like this after I promised _him_; but,
+Frederik, it's _true_."
+
+Frederik found it hard to keep his patience; yet he continued to reason
+with Kathrien in a voice even gentler than before, though with an
+accent of finality in it that she could not disregard as he said:
+
+"But you _did_ promise Uncle Peter you'd marry me, yes?"
+
+Her answering "Yes" was barely audible.
+
+Frederik continued insistently:
+
+"And he died believing you, yes?"
+
+Kathrien merely nodded; she could not look at him, could not speak.
+After a moment she went on, her eyes still averted:
+
+"That's what makes me try to live up to it. Still, I cannot help feeling
+that if Oom Peter knew how hard everything seems--how alone I feel----"
+
+"You are not alone while I am here, _lievling_----"
+
+Kathrien smiled pathetically.
+
+"You don't understand, Frederik. You mean to be kind--and you _are_
+kind. And I thank you for it; but if only my mother had lived! As long
+as dear Oom Peter was here he was father, mother, everything to me. I
+felt no lack; but now--oh, I want my mother to turn to----"
+
+The girl's eyes were suddenly suffused with tears.
+
+"Don't you _see_? Try to know how I feel.--Try to understand----"
+
+Suddenly Frederik stopped her torrent of words. He took her in his arms
+before she realised it, and, kissing her, he said:
+
+"_Natuerlich_--I understand. I love you--and in time--Wait! You shall
+see! You must not worry, sweetheart. These things will come right, all
+in good time."
+
+But Kathrien had released herself with nervous if quiet haste.
+
+"Willem is feeling so much better," she said, with a change of tone to
+the ordinary.
+
+"_Tc!_"
+
+With his usual display of annoyance at the mention of Willem, Frederik
+left Kathrien and walked over to Oom Peter's desk, where he began to
+pick up and lay down the various articles strewn about its surface;
+without in the least realising what he was doing.
+
+"I do hope that child will be kept out of the way--to-morrow," he said
+roughly.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh--oh, I----"
+
+Frederik found it hard to tell why.
+
+"You have always disliked poor little Willem, haven't you?" demanded
+Kathrien.
+
+"N--no----" answered Frederik. "But----"
+
+His nervousness was very evident as he still moved fussily about the
+desk.
+
+"_Yes, you have_," continued Kathrien calmly. "I remember how angry you
+were when you came back from Leyden University and found him living
+here. How could you help being drawn to a little blue-eyed,
+golden-haired baby such as he was then?--Only five years old, and such a
+darling! He won us all at once, except you. And in all the three years
+he has been here, we've only grown more and more fond of him each day.
+You love children--you go out of your way to pick up a child and pet it.
+Why do you dislike Anne Marie's little boy?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Frederik impatiently, "he has a way of staring at people as
+though he had a perpetual question on his lips----"
+
+He was interrupted by a vivid flash of lightning and a long roll of
+thunder.
+
+"Oh, a little child!" said Kathrien reproachfully. "He has only kindness
+from everybody. Why shouldn't he look at one?"
+
+"And then his mother!" went on Frederik, gazing into the fire, while
+the rain, steadily increasing with the nearer approach of thunder and
+lightning, blotted away the pleasant landscape outside the windows.
+
+"Uncle and I loved Anne Marie, and we had forgiven her. Why should _you_
+blame her so bitterly? Surely she has suffered enough to expiate----"
+
+"I don't want to be hard upon any woman. I've never seen her since she
+left the house, but--Hear that rain! It's pouring again! The third day.
+You're wise to have a fire in here. This old house would be damp
+otherwise in a long storm like this. By the way, Hartmann is back for a
+few hours to straighten things out--I'm going to see what he's doing."
+
+Frederik went up to Kathrien, and putting his arms about her, led her up
+to the piano, saying:
+
+"Kitty, have you seen all the wedding presents? Wait for me a while here
+and look at them till I come back. I'll be with you again in a few
+minutes."
+
+Smiling, and giving her cheek a tender pat, he left her alone.
+
+As she stood there, surrounded by all her gay presents, she looked
+anything but the picture of a happy bride. Giving no thoughts to the
+gifts, she stood, motionless, her eyes slowly filling with tears.
+
+Suddenly the outer door slammed, and a moment afterward Dr. McPherson
+entered. His tweed shawl and cap proclaimed the recent violence of the
+storm as he hurriedly took them off and hung them up, and placed his
+soaked umbrella in the rack. With a book under his arm, he came quickly
+toward the girl, saying:
+
+"Good-evening, Kathrien. How's Willem?"
+
+Kathrien tried to hide her tears; but it was impossible to elude the
+keen eyes of Dr. McPherson. In one quick glance he caught the situation.
+
+"What's the matter?" he said curtly.
+
+"Nothing," said Kathrien in a voice whose tremble she could not control;
+yet bravely wiping away her tears as she spoke. "I was only thinking--I
+was hoping that those we love--and lose--can't see us here. I'm
+beginning to believe there's not much happiness in _this_ world."
+
+The doctor looked at her with affectionate reproof, much as if she had
+been a naughty child.
+
+"Why, you little snip!" he said whimsically, as he pulled her toward him
+determinedly. "I've a notion to chastise you! Talking like that with the
+whole of life before you! Such cluttered nonsense!"
+
+Still talking he started toward the stairs and Willem's room, and
+Kathrien sank into a chair; but the doctor changed his mind, turned, and
+came back to her again.
+
+"Kathrien, I understand you've not a penny to your name," he said
+gruffly, "unless you marry Frederik. He has inherited you--along with
+the orchids and the tulips."
+
+He put his arm around her with a gentle, protective movement as he went
+on:
+
+"Don't let that influence you. If Peter's plans bind you--and you look
+as if they did--my door's open. Don't let the neighbours' opinions and a
+few silver spoons," glancing towards the wedding gifts, "stand in the
+way of your whole future."
+
+Having thus opened his warm Scotch heart and his home to the motherless
+girl, it was indicative of his character that he should give her no
+chance to thank him. Before she could speak, he had run up the stairs,
+placed his cigar on the little table in the upper hall, and hurried into
+Willem's room.
+
+Outside the sky grew blacker and blacker, darkening the room where
+Kathrien sat. Suddenly she rose from her chair, and stretching out her
+arms, gave a cry that was dragged from her very soul.
+
+"Oh! Oom Peter, Oom Peter, why did you do it? _Why_ did you do it?"
+
+She looked all at once a woman. No longer the carefree, happy girl she
+had been but a few short weeks before. Standing thus, her beautiful face
+full of agony, she did not hear Marta as she came in from the
+dining-room to carry upstairs the dainty wedding clothes for the
+morrow--a mass of filmy, fluffy white, laid carefully over both arms.
+
+At first Marta did not see her in the dim yellow gloom of the large
+room; but a moment later, in alarm, she dropped the clothes in a careful
+heap on a chair, and ran to Kathrien as fast as her stocky figure and
+many Dutch petticoats would allow.
+
+"_Och_," she cried sympathetically. At her pitying touch, Kathrien
+suddenly buried her face on Marta's broad breast, and broke into
+convulsive sobs. Marta hushed her as she would a baby, with many sweet,
+caressing Dutch words.
+
+"Sh! Sh! _Lievling_, Sh! Sh! Old Marta is here! Cry all you want
+to----'Twill do you good! A bride to cry on her wedding eve! Who ever
+heard such things! You should be happy--the good Mynheer Grimm would
+wish his child happy on her wedding eve! Sh! You will have a fine day
+to-morrow, for it storms to-night--a good sign! You must have a bright
+face to show your husband, and a face of happiness! Not a swollen little
+face--like this! What a face to take to a bridegroom! Marta has fixed
+the dress--'tis wonderful! See there over the chair, so filmy--like a
+cloud--you will be like a lily in a cloud of dew to-morrow. Think how
+beautiful! Do not spoil it all, _lievling_! Be happy, Kathrien, Kathrien
+_wees, bedard, kindje lievling_. Be happy among those who love you so!"
+
+Comforted by Marta's soothing words, and relieved by a good cry,
+Kathrien wiped her eyes.
+
+"There, there, Marta," she said, drawing a long, quivering breath,
+"others have troubles too, haven't they?"
+
+Marta nodded her head vigorously.
+
+"_Ach!_" she sighed. "_Gut--Ja!_ Others have their troubles!"
+
+Kathrien kissed Marta gently, then said:
+
+"I had hoped, Marta, that Anne Marie would have heard of uncle, and come
+back to us at this time--you are so brave--you never complain--Poor
+Marta!"
+
+Once more Marta sighed.
+
+"If it could have brought us all together once more--but no
+message--nothing--I cannot understand--my only child."
+
+Nearer and nearer came the storm. The rain pounded on the shingles and
+pattered loudly against the windows. The wind howled around the eves,
+and the old house rattled and shook in spite of its solid foundation.
+
+Marta, still brooding over Kathrien like a motherly hen over her
+chicken, shuddered at the rattling of the window blinds.
+
+From the midst of the general tumult a new sound detached itself--a
+sharp double rap from the old-fashioned knocker.
+
+"_Och!_" cried Marta. "It must be Pastor and the others! You don't feel
+much like seeing visitors, my lamb. Run away now before I let 'em
+in--and bathe your eyes in lavender water."
+
+She hurried to the front door, and Kathrien, at once brought to herself,
+hastened upstairs to her room.
+
+As Marta opened wide the door, Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton (Peter
+Grimm's former lawyer) seemed fairly blown into the hall.
+
+"Good-evening, Marta," boomed the clergyman's unctuous tones. "The
+elements are indeed at war to-night! I trust the household is well?"
+
+Marta curtseyed bobbingly to both men as she said:
+
+"Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Batholommey, only poor little Willem, sir.
+He's strange and not like himself, sir. The doctor was in and out
+through the day, and now he's here again--upstairs with Willem."
+
+As Marta talked, Mr. Batholommey divested himself of his long black
+rainproof coat, and Colonel Lawton (who had not felt it necessary to
+reply to Marta's civil greeting) hastily took off his rubber poncho,
+giving it a vigorous shake that sent the raindrops flying. He was a
+tall, middle-aged man, loosely put together, who wore his clothes very
+badly. One somehow got the idea that they were never pressed.
+
+"Brr!" he cried, taking off his overshoes. "What a storm for June! It's
+more like fall! Look at my rubbers--and yours are just as
+bad--mud-soaked! Get 'em off, quick. They're enough to give any one a
+chill!"
+
+Marta had slipped out unnoticed, and now Frederik came in just in time
+to see the dripping coats hung up on the hat rack.
+
+"Good-evening," he said in what he intended for a cordial tone.
+
+"Ah, just in time," answered Colonel Lawton. "Gee Whillikins! What a
+day!"
+
+Then turning again to Mr. Batholommey he went on jocularly:
+
+"Great weather for baptisms--Parson."
+
+Having successfully disentangled himself at last from all his
+water-soaked outer coverings, Mr. Batholommey turned and offered a damp
+and rainy hand to Frederik.
+
+"Good-evening, good-evening, Frederik," he said impressively. "I'm glad
+to see you. We are pleased to be here, _in spite_ of the weather."
+
+"Well, here we are, Frederik, my boy,----" put in Colonel Lawton. "At
+the time you set."
+
+After shaking hands with both men, Frederik, perhaps unconsciously,
+wiped his own on his handkerchief. Then going to the desk, he took a
+paper from under the paperweight. After studying it a moment, he said
+(smiling a bit to himself and turning that the others might not see the
+smile):
+
+"I sent for you to hear a memorandum left by my uncle. I came across it
+only this morning."
+
+Both Mr. Batholommey and Colonel Lawton tried to conceal their
+excitement.
+
+"I must have drawn up ten wills for the old gentleman," announced
+Colonel Lawton, "but he always tore 'em up."
+
+Then, throwing back his head and peering at Frederik through his
+spectacles:
+
+"May I have a drink of his plum brandy, Frederik?"
+
+"Certainly," answered Frederik carelessly. "Help yourself. Pastor, will
+you have some?"
+
+Colonel Lawton poured out a glass of brandy and offered it to Mr.
+Batholommey, then helped himself with alacrity. In the roll of thunder
+which came at that moment, no one heard the footsteps of Mrs.
+Batholommey, as she entered from the "front parlour."
+
+The tableau that met her vision caused her to give a little shriek as
+she stopped short, and gazed with horror-struck eyes at her husband and
+his brandy glass.
+
+"Why, _Henry_! _What_ are you doing? Are your feet wet?"
+
+Mr. Batholommey did not get a drink every day, and this one was much too
+nearly his to be relinquished now. It was not a case for self-denial.
+It was not a case where it was necessary to be a good example for any
+one. Therefore the pastor gave place to the husband for a moment, and
+when Mrs. Batholommey repeated:
+
+"Are your feet wet, Henry?"
+
+He answered with decision:
+
+"No, Rose, they're _not_. I want a drink and I'm going to _take_ it.
+It's a bad night."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey said no more, but closing her mouth tightly, turned
+away with lifted eyebrows and downcast eyes, reproachful indignation
+bristling at every point.
+
+Her husband, well pleased at his little victory, smacked his lips with
+enjoyment; returned the now empty glass to the Colonel and, rubbing his
+hands together, went toward the fireplace. Mrs. Batholommey, her
+indignation quickly forgotten, joined him there and sat down beside him.
+Colonel Lawton, hastily replacing decanter and glasses on the table,
+also drew up a chair in front of the fire--and waited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE LEGACIES
+
+
+Frederik, glancing at the backs of the three eager, huddled figures
+crouching almost literally in the fireplace, smiled again to
+himself--and allowed them to wait.
+
+Finally, Colonel Lawton could stand it no longer. Still with his back to
+the heir, and his eyes toward the fire, he cried:
+
+"Well, go ahead, Frederik."
+
+No response. Mr. Batholommey tried next.
+
+"I knew your uncle would remember his friends and his charities," he
+said smugly. "He gave it in such a free-handed, princely way."
+
+Frederik could not resist a sarcastic chuckle, as he glanced toward the
+three backs once more, and then began to read the memorandum aloud.
+
+"_For Mrs. Batholommey:_"
+
+He got no further for, at the first word, the three chairs were turned
+around to face Frederik, quickly and simultaneously; so that the
+beneficiaries might not have even their own backs between them and their
+coming fortune.
+
+At hearing her name, Mrs. Batholommey burst out:
+
+"The dear man! To think he remembered _me_! I knew he'd remember the
+church and Mr. Batholommey--of course--but to think he'd remember _me_!"
+
+Here she cast her eyes up to heaven in grateful recognition.
+
+"He knew that our income was very limited," she went on comfortably. "He
+was _so thoughtful_. His purse," she sighed with feeling, "was always
+open."
+
+Having delivered this eulogism of the dead, the lady folded her hands
+placidly, and with eyes cast down, but attentive, settled herself to
+await developments.
+
+Frederik looked at her a moment, grinned to himself, then continued:
+
+"_For Mr. Batholommey:_"
+
+The clergyman nodded solemnly, but a pleased expression crept about the
+corners of his mouth and his face took on an extra look of smugness.
+
+"Our reward is laid up for us," he murmured sententiously, "where we
+least expect it."
+
+"Quite so----" said Frederik shortly. "And as the doctor isn't
+here--well, the next is you, Colonel. The others mentioned are people
+in his employ."
+
+Colonel Lawton settled lower in his chair, until he might almost be said
+to be lying on his back. He crossed his legs luxuriously and took a
+cigar from his pocket, saying as he lighted it:
+
+"He knew I did the best I could for him--the _grand old man_!" Then
+dropping the eulogistic tone for one of strict business:
+
+"What'd he leave me?"
+
+Frederik kept them waiting a moment longer. He was having the time of
+his life. He had purposely strung out the situation to its last thread,
+for the joy of witnessing the self-satisfied eagerness of the three
+legatees. Silent now, but acutely attentive, they sat with watchful eyes
+trained on Frederik and the all-important paper which he was holding so
+carelessly in his hand--the paper that was presently to tell them so
+much of moment. Then it came.
+
+"Mrs. Batholommey, he wishes you to have his miniature--with his
+affectionate regard."
+
+Frederik took a miniature from the desk drawer and offered it to Mrs.
+Batholommey with much ceremony. She did not take it, but sat waiting as
+before, merely folding her hands as she purred:
+
+"Dear old gentleman--and--er--yes?"
+
+Frederik seemed not to hear her, and laying the miniature on the desk,
+went on reading:
+
+"To Mr. Batholommey----"
+
+The clergyman's wife broke in quickly.
+
+"But--er--you didn't finish _mine_!"
+
+Frederik turned around in his chair and looked directly at her.
+
+"You're finished," he said.
+
+"I'm _finished_?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, in a voice trembling with
+indignation.
+
+"Rose!" her husband remonstrated in severe rebuke.
+
+"Oh, it's all very well for you to say 'Rose!' How would _you_ like it
+to get nothing but an old picture? Tell me that!"
+
+Here she had recourse to her handkerchief, and her lips trembled as she
+wiped her eyes, sniffling sorrowfully and all unheeded by the others.
+
+Frederik took a watch fob from the drawer before he continued his
+reading.
+
+"To Mr. Batholommey: my antique watch fob--with profound respect."
+
+The executor rolled the words under his tongue.
+
+Mr. Batholommey rose, bowed graciously, and accepted the watch fob
+without looking at it. Then he sat down.
+
+The voice of Fate went on:
+
+"To Colonel Lawton----"
+
+Before Frederik could get any farther, Mrs. Batholommey was again at the
+front:
+
+"His _watch fob_? Is that what he left _Henry_? Is that all? His----Why!
+_Well!_ I can't believe it! If he had no wish to make our life easier,
+at least he should have left something for the church. Oh, Henry!" she
+cried in consternation. "Won't the congregation have a crow to pick with
+you!"
+
+Frederik no longer made any effort to conceal his pleasure at the part
+he had to play. He smiled broadly and maliciously and he was quite
+willing that they should all see him smile.
+
+It must be said of Mr. Batholommey that he took his disappointment
+rather well. He said nothing at all, and he tried not to show how he
+felt. In fact he tried not to _feel_ any resentment toward his late
+parishioner. It was one of the hardest moments of his life; but he knew
+that as a clergyman he should be able to forgive--and he tried very
+hard.
+
+It would have been so comfortable to have a tidy sum to put by for his
+old age! He had expected it so confidently! He had flattered and praised
+and praised and flattered! And now, after all, he was left high and
+dry--with a watch fob to look to for comfort in his declining years! He
+would keep his feelings to himself if possible, however. He did not care
+to make Frederik's triumph any greater, or his smile any broader on his
+account; so he compelled himself to listen to the third part of the
+memorandum with an expression of polite interest.
+
+"To my lifelong friend, Colonel Lawton, I leave my most cherished
+possession."
+
+The Colonel preened himself. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of
+his vest and wagged his crossed foot complacently. This was to be the
+real kernel of the memorandum.
+
+His appearance of security was too much for Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"Oh! When the church hears----"
+
+She was interrupted by Colonel Lawton:
+
+"I don't know why he was called upon to leave anything to the church,"
+he said truculently, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. "He gave
+it thousands, and only last month he put in chimes. As I look at it, he
+wished to give you something he had used--something personal. Perhaps
+the miniature and the fob _ain't_ worth three whoops in hell--it's the
+_sentiment_!"
+
+He lay back in his chair again as he fairly chewed on the word
+'sentiment.' Once more he crossed his legs, and peered at Frederik
+through his glasses.
+
+"Drive on, Fred," he ordered.
+
+"To Colonel Lawton, my father's prayer book."
+
+As he read, Frederik put one hand into the drawer, and took out a worn
+prayer book.
+
+Mr. Batholommey smiled, and chuckled behind his hand, but Colonel Lawton
+seemed dazed. His jaw dropped, and he looked helplessly at Frederik and
+the others.
+
+"What?" he said in a choking voice. "His prayer book--_me_?"
+
+As in a dream he slowly leaned forward and took it gingerly between two
+fingers as one might a June bug--gazing at it in amazed horror and
+incredulity the while.
+
+"Is that all?" demanded Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"That's all," answered Frederik, bowing to Mrs. Batholommey and smiling
+radiantly.
+
+Colonel Lawton, still dazed, could only reiterate:
+
+"A prayer book. Me? What for?"
+
+Then he got up slowly.
+
+"Well, I'll be----Here, Parson." As an idea struck him, he turned
+quickly toward Mr. Batholommey. "Let's shift--you take the prayer book
+and I'll take the old fob!"
+
+Mr. Batholommey smiled and waved away the offered book.
+
+"Thank you," he said smoothly, "I already have a prayer book."
+
+At this retort, the Colonel wilted completely. Drawing his chair close
+to the fire he sat down limply and gave himself up to bitter reflection.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey seemed the least able of the three to bear the
+shattering of her high hopes. She moved around the room restlessly.
+
+"Well, all I can say is"--(her voice shook and her eyes reproached
+Frederik)--"I'm disappointed in your uncle."
+
+No one paid any attention to her remark, each person being engrossed in
+his own thoughts. For some moments the air was pregnant with unspoken
+invective.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MOSTLY CONCERNING GRATITUDE
+
+
+Finally Colonel Lawton turned toward Frederik. He was now sitting
+astride his chair and puffing violently at his cigar.
+
+"Is _this_ what you hauled us out in the rain for?" he snarled.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, all unheeding, went on with her own train of thought.
+
+"I see it all now," she whimpered. "He only gave to the church to show
+off!"
+
+"Rose!" her husband cried, aghast. "I myself am disappointed, but----"
+
+"_He did!_" interrupted Mrs. Batholommey in tears of wrath. "Oh, why
+didn't he continue his work? He was not generous. He was a hard,
+uncharitable, selfish old man."
+
+"Rose, my dear!" remonstrated Mr. Batholommey. "Think what you are
+saying!"
+
+"He was! If he were here, I'd say it to his face. The congregation
+sicked _you_ after him. And now he's gone and you'll get nothing more.
+And they'll call you slow--slow and pokey! You'll see! To-morrow you'll
+wake up!"
+
+"My dear!" expostulated her husband once more.
+
+But Mrs. Batholommey paid no attention to his words or to the beseeching
+look that accompanied them. She waved an arm dramatically.
+
+"Here's a man the rector spent half his time with--and for what? A watch
+fob!"
+
+The ineffable scorn with which she pronounced these last words caused
+Mr. Batholommey to hang his head.
+
+"You'll see!" she went on. "This will be the end of you! It's not what
+you preach that counts nowadays. It's what you coax out of the rich
+parishioners' pockets."
+
+"Mrs. Batholommey!" thundered the clergyman, taking a step forward; but
+he might as well have tried to stem the ocean.
+
+"The church needs funds to-day. Religion doesn't stand where it did,
+when a college professor is saying that--that--"--(here her voice
+broke)--"the Star of Bethlehem was only a comet."
+
+The end of the sentence resolved itself into a veritable wail and she
+sat down quickly and subsided into her handkerchief.
+
+"My dear!" reiterated the helpless husband.
+
+"Oh!" she wailed through her tears, "if I said all the things I feel
+like saying about Peter Grimm"--(here it almost sounded as if she ground
+her teeth)--"well--I shouldn't be a fit clergyman's wife. Not to leave
+his dear friends a----"
+
+Again her voice was muffled in the folds of the handkerchief, and
+Colonel Lawton took advantage of the temporary lull to put in a word.
+
+"He wasn't _liberal_," he said, rising, "but for God's sake, Madam,
+think what he ought to have done for _me_ after my patiently listening
+to his plans for twenty years! Mind, I'm not complaining, but what have
+I got out of it? A Bible!"
+
+"Oh, you've feathered _your_ nest, Colonel!" cried Mrs. Batholommey,
+recovering somewhat.
+
+"I never came here," retorted Colonel Lawton spitefully, "that _you_
+weren't begging!"
+
+"See here, Lawton," the clergyman interrupted truculently, "don't forget
+who you are speaking to!"
+
+Colonel Lawton waved his hand patronisingly at the clergyman.
+
+"That's all right, Parson. I know who I'm speaking to. We're all in the
+same boat--one's as good as another--when we're all up against a thing
+like this. If anything, you two are worse than I am, for you stand for
+better things. What would your congregation think of either of you if
+they could look into your hearts this moment and see 'em as they
+_really_ are?"
+
+"Really are--really are!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "I'm not ashamed to
+have any one see my heart as it really is!"
+
+(And Mrs. Batholommey was telling the truth, for she was a good woman at
+heart, and it was not her fault that she had a human desire for this
+world's goods for those she loved, for the church, and for herself.)
+
+Here Frederik, who had watched the scene with much amusement at first,
+came forward through the increasing gloom. He was getting tired of the
+childish bickering.
+
+"Well, well, well, I'm disgusted," he said, "when I see such
+heartlessness! He was putty in all your hands."
+
+"Oh, you can defend his memory. _You_ got the money!" cried Mrs.
+Batholommey, with asperity. "He liked flattery and you gave him what he
+wanted and you gave him plenty of it."
+
+"Why not?" retorted Frederik calmly, getting a cigarette out of his
+case. "The rest of you were at the same thing--yes?"
+
+He struck a match and lighted his cigarette as he continued in a
+disagreeable tone:
+
+"And I had the pleasure of watching him hand out the money that belonged
+to me--to _me_," he repeated. "My money! What business had he to be
+generous with my money?"
+
+Still talking, Frederik sat down at the desk.
+
+"If he'd lived much longer, I'd have been a pauper. It's a lucky thing
+for me he di----"
+
+Frederik had the grace to leave the word unfinished.
+
+Mr. Batholommey broke the slight pause.
+
+"Young man," he said solemnly, "it might have been better if Mr. Grimm
+had given _all_ he had to charity--for he left his money to an ingrate."
+
+The "ingrate" laughed derisively.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha!" he cried. "You amuse one! You don't know how amusing you
+are."
+
+No one cared to add further to Frederik's amusement, so they all sat
+still. The room was now perfectly dark, except for an occasional flash
+of heat-lightning from the vanished storm.
+
+Night had crept upon them unheeded, so intent had they been on their
+petty wrangling.
+
+Finally Mrs. Batholommey got up and went towards the desk.
+
+"Where is the miniature?" she demanded. "I don't want it--but I'll take
+it."
+
+Frederik lighted a match, and by its flickering blaze found the
+discarded miniature lying face downward on the desk. Mrs. Batholommey
+snatched it from his fingers, and made her way back to the fireplace.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Frederik again.
+
+"Rose, my dear," began Mr. Batholommey, "the min----"
+
+"Sh!" interrupted Frederik.
+
+There was a pause. Then he rose.
+
+"Who came into the room?" he asked in a strange voice.
+
+He lit a match and waved it slowly in the direction of the hall door. It
+was extinguished instantly as if the wind had blown it out. He lighted
+another, saying:
+
+"We're sitting in the darkness like owls. Who came in?" he demanded
+again.
+
+There was no answer as he peered around the room, holding the match
+toward first one corner and then another.
+
+"I didn't hear any one," said the Colonel.
+
+"Nor I," added Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"No," said Mr. Batholommey.
+
+"I was _sure_ some one came in," Frederik said in a strange voice.
+
+"You must have imagined it," suggested Mr. Batholommey. "Our nerves are
+all upset."
+
+"I'll get a light," Frederik said, starting toward the dining-room.
+
+At that moment, Marta entered with the welcome lamps. She carried two of
+them, one already lighted, which she put upon the table. The other
+Frederik took quickly from her and carried to the chain-bracket over the
+desk. This he adjusted with Marta's help, and then lighted.
+
+After which he glanced apprehensively about the room once more. Even
+under the reassuring flood of light his impression that some one had
+stolen in upon the dim-lit conference would not wholly vanish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RETURN
+
+
+The Dead Man came home.
+
+The old collie, lying stretched in the deep porch, safe from the storm,
+knew him. As the Dead Man came up the walk between the trim beds of
+rain-soaked flowers, the old dog crawled rheumatically to its feet, the
+bleared eyes brightening, the feathered tail awag in joyous greeting to
+the loved master who had been so long and so unaccountably absent.
+
+Peter Grimm laid a hand caressingly on his old pet's head; then passed
+into his former home.
+
+And so, at Frederik's frightened demand, "Who came into the room?" the
+Dead Man stood among his own again. Before him was the nephew he had
+loved. Nearby were the husband and wife whose follies and harmless
+affectations he had forgiven with a laugh of amusement, for the sake of
+their goodness and for the devotion they bore himself. Lounging in the
+chair that had been his own was the lawyer who had been his dear friend
+and adviser. The friends he had cared for, the nephew on whom his every
+hope had been set.
+
+With a wistful half-smile, Peter Grimm surveyed the group.
+
+And, as Marta brought in one lighted lamp and then bustled about
+lighting another, he stood in clear view of them all. Clad in the same
+old-fashioned garb with which they were so familiar, he was unchanged,
+save that all age and all care lines were wiped from his face.
+
+He was not a wraith, no grisly spectre, no half-nebulous Shape. He was
+Peter Grimm, rugged, homespun, the man whose iron individuality had
+undergone and could undergo no change.
+
+He stood there in the lamplight, plainly visible--to such as had eyes to
+see him.
+
+The dog, with that sense which God gives to all animals and withholds
+from all humans, had had no more difficulty in recognising him than when
+Peter Grimm had walked the earth in the flesh.
+
+The faculty which makes a sleeping dog awake, raise its head, wag its
+tail and follow with its eyes the movements of some invisible form that
+moves from place to place in a room,--which makes a flock of chickens
+scatter squawking and fluttering when no human being can discern cause
+for their flight--which makes a horse shy violently when travelling a
+patch of road, apparently barren of anything to alarm him,--which makes
+a cat suddenly arch its back and spit and strike at the Unseen, or else
+rub purringly against an invisible hand--this faculty made Peter Grimm
+very real to his blear-eyed, asthmatic old collie.
+
+But the inmates of the room, being but human, had seen and heard
+nothing. Frederik, it is true, being in a constant state of nervous
+tension that rendered his senses less dense and earthy than usual, had
+fancied he heard--or felt--some one enter the room. But at the
+disclaimers of the rest, the notion vanished as such notions do. And the
+warm flood of lamplight dispelled whatever of the psychic may have
+brooded over the little group, bringing back their comfortable
+materialism with a rush.
+
+Wherefore, in his old home and among his own, Peter Grimm stood unseen;
+that deprecatory half-smile on his square, ageless face.
+
+The lighting of the lamps and Marta's noisy return to her own culinary
+domain served as signals to break up the group about the desk. Mr.
+Batholommey crossed the room and took his hat and coat from the rack,
+passing within a hand's-breadth of the smiling, expectant Peter Grimm as
+he did so.
+
+"Well, Frederik," said the rector doubtfully by way of farewell, "I hope
+that you'll follow your uncle's example at least as far as our parish
+poor are concerned,--and keep on with _some_ of his charities."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, dutifully following her husband to the rack and
+helping him on with his coat, turned to hear Frederik answer the
+question she and the rector had so often and so anxiously discussed
+during the past ten days. The heir did his best to settle their every
+doubt in the fewest possible words.
+
+"I may as well tell you now, as any time," said he, "that you needn't
+look to me for any charitable graft at all. Your parish poor will have
+to begin hustling for a living now. I don't intend to waste good money
+in feeding what you Americans call 'a bunch of panhandlers.'"
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, inexpressibly disappointed.
+
+The smile died on Peter Grimm's face and the light of happy expectancy
+was gone from his eyes.
+
+"I am very sorry, Frederik," said the rector stiffly, "not only that
+you can speak so of God's poor, but that you are not willing to continue
+your uncle's splendid philanthropies. It--it doesn't seem possible that
+he never told you how dear his charities were to him. Well," he broke
+off with a shrug, and glancing at his watch, "I've got thirty minutes to
+make a call before tea time."
+
+"I must be toddling, too," said Colonel Lawton. "Are you going my way,
+Mr. Batholommey? It's queer, Frederik," he added, bidding his host
+good-bye, "it's queer--deucedly queer how things turn out. There's one
+thing certain: the old gentleman should have made a will. But it's too
+late now for us to grumble about that. By the way, what are you going to
+do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought
+of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it.
+But from the way you've talked this afternoon, I wonder----"
+
+"Heirlooms? Relics?" queried Frederik, puzzled. "Oh--you mean all this
+junk?" with a comprehensive hand wave that included Dutch clock, Dutch
+warming pans, Dutch bric-a-brac, and Dutch furniture. "This junk all
+over the house? Oh, I'll have it carted to the nearest ash heap. It
+isn't worth a red cent of any one's money."
+
+Peter Grimm strode forward, his lips parted in quick protest. But
+Colonel Lawton was already answering, with an appraising look about the
+room:
+
+"I don't know about that, Frederik. It may not be as worthless as you
+seem to think. Better let me send for a dealer to sort it over after
+you've gone on your honeymoon. I've heard that some people are fools
+enough to pay a lot of good money for this sort of antique trash."
+
+"Not a bad idea," approved Frederik. "See what you can do about it,
+won't you? I want it cleared out. And if I can get rid of it and do it
+at a profit, too, why, all the better."
+
+"If I could get that old clock," put in Mrs. Batholommey, the light of
+the bargain hunt shining in her large face, "I might consent to take it
+off your hands. Of course it isn't really worth anything. But----"
+
+"I've an idea," replied Frederik, with charming dearth of civility,
+"that it's worth a lot more than you'd pay me for it."
+
+"I hope," she snapped angrily as she glared at Frederik, "that your poor
+dear uncle is where he can see his mistake now!"
+
+"I am where I can see several," said the Dead Man to ears that could not
+hear.
+
+"Do you know," pursued Mrs. Batholommey, whose depths of professional
+sweetness had been turned faintly sub-acid by the events of the day--"do
+you know, Frederik, what I would like to say to your uncle if I could
+just once stand face to face with him, this very minute?"
+
+"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm sadly, as he looked deep into her eyes, "I
+know."
+
+"I should say to him----" began Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+Then she checked herself as at some impulse she herself did not
+understand, and finished somewhat lamely:
+
+"No, I wouldn't say it, either. He's dead. And we're told we must speak
+no ill of the dead. Though, for my part, I never could see what right we
+gain to immunity just by dying. And--oh, by the way, Henry," she broke
+off as her husband and the lawyer passed out of the vestibule, "Kathrien
+expects you back for supper. Don't forget, will you, dear? Good-night,
+Colonel Lawton."
+
+She followed them, closed the front door behind them, and bustled off to
+look after the arrangements for supper.
+
+Frederik yawned, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out into the office,
+Peter Grimm watching him with infinitely sad reproach in his luminous
+eyes.
+
+Then, left alone in the room he had loved, the Dead Man looked about him
+at the dear old bits of furniture and ornaments that had meant so much
+to him and whose fate he had just heard weighed between auctioneer's
+hammer and rubbish heap.
+
+He moved across to the rack, as if by lifelong instinct, and hung his
+antique hat on its accustomed peg. The simple, everyday action brought
+him so vividly close to older days that, as Marta pottered in with
+another newly filled lamp, he accosted her.
+
+"Marta!" he called, as she gave no sign of recognition to his kindly nod
+and smile.
+
+She set down the lamp in its place on the piano, crossed to the
+pulley-weight clock, and noisily wound it. As the old woman started back
+toward her kitchen, the Dead Man put himself once more in her way.
+
+"Marta!" said he, then more loudly and peremptorily, "_Marta!_"
+
+She passed within an inch of his outstretched hand and entered the
+kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Peter Grimm stared blankly after
+his housekeeper.
+
+"I seem to be a stranger in my own house," he murmured. "My friends pass
+me by. Their gross eyes cannot see me. Their gross ears will not hear
+me. But--Lad knew me. He came to meet me, wagging his tail just as he
+used to. I--I remember I've more than once noticed his going to meet
+other people like that. People _I_ couldn't see in those days."
+
+Frederik lounged back from the office, cigarette in mouth. He took out
+his watch, compared it with the clock on the wall, slipped it back into
+his pocket, and was crossing to the outer door when the telephone bell
+on the desk jangled.
+
+Frederik laid down his cigarette, seated himself at the desk, and picked
+up the receiver.
+
+"Hello!" he called.
+
+At the reply, he glanced around hastily, to make sure he was not likely
+to be overheard. Then, sinking his voice almost to a whisper and
+speaking with a nervous, almost guilty eagerness, he answered:
+
+"Yes. Yes. This is Mr. Grimm. Mr. Frederik Grimm. I've been waiting all
+day to hear from you, Mr. Hicks. How are you? Wait one moment, please."
+
+He rose, crossed the room, closed the door into the dining-room,--the
+only door that had been open,--glanced up into the bedroom gallery to
+make certain it was empty, then hurried back to the telephone.
+
+"Yes," said he. "Go ahead."
+
+There was a brief pause while he listened. Then he replied, in a tone of
+laboured indifference:
+
+"Oh, no. You're quite mistaken. I am not 'eager to sell.' Not at all. As
+a matter of fact," he continued unctuously, "I much prefer to carry out
+my dear uncle's wishes and keep the business in the family. You must
+surely remember how determined he was that it should be kept
+on.--What?--'If I could get my price,' eh? That's different, of course.
+It puts a new aspect on the whole affair.--What? Oh, well, an offer such
+as that deserves careful thought. I could not decline it offhand.--No, I
+admit it is very tempting.--'Talk it over?' Certainly."
+
+He paused, then went on in answer to a query from the other end of the
+wire:
+
+"To-morrow? No, I'm afraid not. You see, I'm going to be married
+to-morrow. A man does not want to be bothered with business deals on his
+wedding day.--No, the next day won't do, either, I'm afraid. You see, we
+are sailing directly for Europe. Thank you. Yes, I deserve all the
+congratulations you can offer me.--What?--Very well. This evening, then.
+That will suit me perfectly. You're in New York, I suppose? What time
+will it be convenient to you to get to Grimm Manor?--What?--Yes, that's
+all right. No. Not here at the house. I'll meet you at the hotel. The
+tavern.--Yes, I'll be there promptly.--What?"
+
+He listened a moment, then laughed in evident, if subdued, amusement.
+
+"So the dear old gentleman used to tell you his plans never failed, did
+he?" he questioned. "Yes, I've heard the same boast from him hundreds of
+times. That's one reason why I want the deal kept quiet till it's
+settled. So I asked you to meet me at the tavern instead of here at the
+house. I don't want it thought by other people that I'd run counter to
+his plans in any way. God rest his soul! Hey? 'What would he say if he
+knew?' I hate to think. He could express himself very forcibly when his
+dear, stubborn old will was crossed. You may remember that. Oh, well,
+it's _life_. Everything must change."
+
+There was a roll of thunder. At the same instant the windows flared
+pink-white with lightning. A flash of electricity ran purring and
+crackling along the telephone itself.
+
+Frederik, with a sharp cry of surprise, dropped the instrument, and
+squeezed his electrically shocked arm. Then gingerly he picked up the
+telephone, replaced the receiver, and turned away toward the window
+seat.
+
+Peter Grimm stood eyeing the telephone as if the man who had so lately
+been at the other end of the wire were directly in front of him.
+
+"You don't know it, Hicks," said the Dead Man quietly, "but you will
+never carry this plan of yours through. We are going to meet very soon,
+you and I."
+
+As if in response to his strange prophecy, the telephone jangled once
+more. Frederik returned to the desk and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello!" he called. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Hicks? No, they didn't cut us
+off. I thought you were through.--What?--A little louder, please. I
+can't hear you very well.--What?--You're feeling ill? Oh, I'm
+sorry.--What?--Oh, yes, it will do just as well to send your lawyer
+instead, if you find you're too sick to make the journey. Your lawyer
+will be empowered to attend to everything in your name, I
+suppose?--Good.--Then we can close the deal to-night. At the hotel and
+at the same time. All right. What did you say his name was?--Shelp?--All
+right. Good-bye. I hope you'll feel much better in the morning, Mr.
+Hicks."
+
+He relighted his cigarette, humming a little tune under his breath as he
+walked from the desk. His narrow face was very content.
+
+"And that's the boy I loved and trusted!" said Peter Grimm, half aloud,
+watching Frederik take his hat and umbrella from the rack and leave the
+house. "I wonder if I am to unearth many more of my mistakes. I come
+upon a new one at every turn."
+
+His wandering gaze rested on the door of Kathrien's room, in the gallery
+above. His lips parted in the old whimsical smile. Lifting his voice, he
+gave the odd call that had for years been a signal to Kathrien of his
+presence in the house and his desire to see her.
+
+"_Ou-oo!_" rang out the familiar cry.
+
+And, before its echoes could die away, Kathrien was out of her room and
+at the stairhead. She stood there an instant, dazed, wondering, like
+some one half-awakened from heavy sleep.
+
+Looking down into the room below, she slowly descended the stairs.
+
+"I thought some one called me," she said.
+
+And though she spoke the words in her own brain and not from the lips,
+Peter Grimm heard and answered her.
+
+"You did," said he. "I called you."
+
+Filled with a sense that she was not alone, yet seeing and hearing no
+one, she came down into the seemingly vacant room. And, still without
+words, she said:
+
+"I thought I heard a voice like--like----"
+
+"Yes," answered the Dead Man again, "you wanted me, little girl. That's
+why I have come. There, there!" he soothed, as she stood with troubled
+face trying to formulate and understand the strange sensation that had
+suddenly taken possession of her. "Don't worry, Katje. It'll come out
+all right. We'll arrange things very differently. I've come back to----"
+
+She moved away, unhearing. She passed unseeing from the loving
+outstretched arms.
+
+"Katje!" he called tenderly.
+
+But she did not turn at the loving appeal in his soundless voice.
+
+"Oh, Katje! Katje!" he pleaded, following her. "Can't I make my presence
+known to you? Oh, _don't_ cry!"
+
+For the tears had welled up, unbidden, in her eyes.
+
+And this time his words, in a vague, roundabout way, seemed to reach her
+understanding.
+
+"Oh, well," she sighed, drying her eyes. "Crying doesn't help."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Peter Grimm eagerly. "Good! _Good!_ She hears me! Smile,
+little girl! _Smile_, I say."
+
+A trembling ghost of a smile played about her sad lips.
+
+"That's right!" he encouraged. "Smile! _Smile!_ You haven't smiled
+before since I--since I found there was a place a million times happier
+and lovelier and more wonderful than this world that I left. Listen,
+little girl! Listen, Katje, and try to understand me. _There are no
+dead._ We never _really_ die. We couldn't if we tried to. See the
+gardens out there. Look!"
+
+As if in response to his words, Kathrien's half-smiling face was turned
+toward the flowering garden beds that stretched away on every hand,
+just outside the window.
+
+"See the gardens," he went on, glad at his own seeming success in
+catching and holding her attention. "They die. But they come back all
+the better for it. All the fresher and younger and more beautiful. What
+people call death is nothing more than a nap. We wake from it
+freshened--rested--made over again. It's a wonderful sleep that people
+fall into, old and slow and tired out. And they spring up from it like
+happy children tumbling out of bed,--ready to frolic through another
+world. It is as foolish and wrong to mourn for people who fall into that
+dear sleep as to mourn for the children when they close their eyes at
+the end of the day. _There is no death._ There are no dead. It is all
+rest and wonder and beauty and perfect bliss. So stop being sad for me,
+my own little girl!
+
+"There!" he cried in triumph, as the smile deepened on her pale face.
+"You're happier already! And you begin to understand me. You can hear
+what I am saying. Because no sin, no grossness has ever shut your ears
+to all but earthly sounds. Now listen to me carefully: Katje, I want you
+to break that silly, wicked promise I wheedled you into making. I want
+you to break it. You mustn't ruin your life--and James's--by marrying
+Frederik. It would mean misery for every one. Most of all for _you_,
+little girl. That's why I came here. To undo the harm that my blindness
+and obstinacy brought about. When that is settled I can take my journey
+back in peace. I can't go until you break that promise. And--and oh, I
+_long_ to go, Katje! _Katje!_" his voice rising in yearning entreaty, as
+the smile faded from her face and her big eyes once more filled. "Isn't
+my message _any_ clearer to you?"
+
+"Oh," sighed Kathrien, half aloud. "I'm so alone--so _alone_!"
+
+"Alone?" he echoed. "You are not alone, Katje. I'm here. Can't you feel
+my presence? And then there's your mother. The mother you were too
+little to remember. I have met her, Katje. I have met your mother. She
+knew me at once. After all those years. 'You are Peter Grimm!' she said.
+I told her you had a happy home here. And she said she knew that. Then I
+told her about the future I had arranged, and the plans I'd made for you
+and Frederik. And she said: 'Peter Grimm, you have overlooked the most
+important thing in the world:--_Love!_ Give her the right to the choice
+of her lover. It is her right.' Then it came over me all at once that I
+had made a terrible mistake. That I had been presumptuous and had tried
+to play Providence and shape the future of another. At that moment,
+Katje, you called to me. And I came back to show you the way."
+
+He moved nearer to her.
+
+"Your mother," he whispered, bending over the girl as she sank into a
+chair by the fire, her eyes dreaming and full of a new joy, "your mother
+told me to lay my hand on your dear head and give you her blessing. And
+she said I must tell you she will be with you,--close--_close_ to
+you--in heart and thought, until the day shall come when she can hold
+you in her arms. You and your loved husband."
+
+Kathrien's dreamy gaze strayed from the fire-flicker on the hearth to
+the office door, on whose farther side she knew Hartmann was at work.
+
+"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm, noting her glance. "You and James. And the
+message ended in this kiss."
+
+He touched his lips to her forehead. And, at the unfelt contact, the
+light again sprang into her eyes.
+
+"Can't you see I'm trying to help you, Katje?" he begged. "Can't you
+even hope? Come, come! _Hope!_ Why, anybody can hope. It is the very
+easiest and most natural thing on earth. Especially when one is
+young--as you and I are. What _is_ Youth but perpetual Hope?"
+
+The light in her eyes deepened. Her look strayed again to the closed
+office door. She rose and took a step toward it, then turned, passed her
+hand caressingly over the flowers on the desk, and moved over to the
+piano.
+
+She seated herself on the music stool and, for the first time in ten
+endless days, let her fingers stray over the keys. In a hushed little
+voice she began to sing:
+
+  "The bird so free in the heavens
+  Is but the slave of the nest.
+  For all things must toil as God wills it,
+  Must laugh and toil and rest.
+  The rose must bloom in the garden,
+  The bee must gather its store.
+  The cat must watch the mousehole,
+  And the dog must guard the door."
+
+"Oh!" she broke off in sudden self-reproach. "How _can_ I sit here
+singing,--at a time like this!"
+
+"Sing!" urged the Dead Man. "Why not? Why not at a time like this as
+well as at any other time? Is it because you are afraid you are not
+being sad enough at losing me? You _haven't_ lost me. Nothing is ever
+lost. The old uncle you loved doesn't sleep out in the churchyard dust.
+That is only a dream. He is _here_--alive! More alive than ever he was.
+A thousandfold more alive. All his age and weaknesses and faults are
+gone. Youth is glowing in his heart. He is bathed in it. It radiates
+from him. Eternal Youth that no one still on earth can know. Oh, little
+girl of mine, if only I could tell you what is ahead of you! It's the
+wonderful secret of the Universe. And you _won't_ hear me? You won't
+understand?"
+
+Still smiling, but without turning toward the loving, eager Spirit close
+beside her, Kathrien was looking out into the fragrant June dusk. Peter
+Grimm shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I must try some other way of making you hear," said he.
+
+He looked up at the closed door of Willem's sick room for a moment, then
+nodded.
+
+"Here comes some one," he announced, with the old whimsical twist of his
+lips, "who will know all about it. The secrets of the other world are as
+plain as day to him. He has told me so himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"
+
+
+The door of Willem's room opened, and Dr. McPherson came out on the
+landing. He moved slowly, hesitatingly, as though impelled by some force
+outside his logical comprehension.
+
+Still walking as if drawn forward half against his will, the doctor
+descended the stairs to the big living-room. At the stair-foot stood
+Peter Grimm, with outstretched hands to receive him.
+
+"Well, Andrew," said the Dead Man, in the tone of banter that had never
+in life failed to "get a rise" out of his medical crony, "I apologise.
+You were right. I was mistaken. I didn't know what I was talking about.
+So I've come back, as I promised, to keep our compact and to apologise.
+You see, I----"
+
+"Well, Doctor," asked Kathrien, looking back into the room at sound of
+McPherson's steps, "how is Willem?"
+
+"Better," answered McPherson. "He's dropped off to sleep again. I'm
+still a bit puzzled about his case. It's----"
+
+"Andrew! _Andrew!_" interrupted the Dead Man, almost fiercely. "I've got
+a message to deliver, but I can't get it across. This sort of thing is
+your own beloved specialty. Now's your chance. The chance you've always
+been longing for. Tell her I don't want her to marry Frederik! Tell her
+I----"
+
+"A puzzling condition," continued McPherson, unhearing. "I can't quite
+grasp the meaning----"
+
+"What meaning?" demanded Peter Grimm. "Mine? Try again. Tell her I don't
+want her to----"
+
+"But," went on McPherson, drawing out pad and fountain pen, "I'll leave
+this prescription for one of the gardeners to take over to the
+druggist's. I'll leave it as I go out. I'll be back in--Why, what's up,
+Kathrien? What has happened? Oh, you've thought it over, eh? That's
+good. That's the way it should be. I left you all tears and now I find
+you all smiles. It----"
+
+"Yes," answered Kathrien, half ashamed at her own oddly changed spirits.
+"I am happier for some reason. Much, _much_ happier than I've been for
+days and days. I've--I've had such a strange feeling this past few
+minutes!"
+
+"Have, eh?" asked McPherson curiously. "H'm! So have I. It's in the air,
+I suppose. I've been as restless as a hungry mouse. Something, for
+instance, seemed to draw me downstairs here. I can't explain it."
+
+"I can," exulted Peter Grimm. "I'm beginning to be felt!"
+
+"Doctor," hesitated Kathrien, looking nervously about her into the
+dimmer corners of the lamplit room, "just a little while ago, I--I
+thought I heard Oom Peter call me.--I was upstairs in my room. And it
+seemed to me I could hear that dear old call he used to give. It was so
+vivid, so distinct, so real! It was my imagination, of course. I'm so
+used to hearing Oom Peter's voice in this room that sometimes I forget
+for a moment that he isn't here. But--but some one _must_ have called
+me. I couldn't have imagined it _all_. Isn't it strange to hear a call
+like that and then look around and find no one is there?"
+
+"It is a phenomenon well recognised in modern science," affirmed
+McPherson. "I could cite you a hundred instances of it. Not all from
+imaginative persons either, Kathrien!" he added solemnly. "I have the
+firm conviction that in a very short time I shall hear from Peter!"
+
+"I hope so," sighed the Dead Man in whimsical despair.
+
+"He made the compact I told you about," continued McPherson, "and Peter
+Grimm never broke his word. He will come back. Be sure of that. But what
+I want is some positive proof,--some absolute test to prove his presence
+when he comes. Poor old Peter! Bless his kind, obstinate heart! If he
+keeps that compact with me and comes back, do you know what I shall ask
+him first?"
+
+"You poor, blind, deaf, old Scotchman!" laughed Peter Grimm. "Open your
+eyes and your ears! You are like the man who lay down at the edge of the
+river and died of thirst."
+
+"What would you ask him first, Doctor?" queried the girl as McPherson
+paused with dramatic effect, awaiting the question.
+
+"First of all," said the doctor, "I shall ask him: 'Peter, in the next
+world does our work go on just where we left it off here?'"
+
+"Well," returned Peter Grimm thoughtfully, "that question is rather a
+poser, isn't it?"
+
+"It is a difficult question to answer, I admit," mused McPherson,
+following what he deemed to be the trend of his own thoughts. "I
+realise that."
+
+"You heard me?" cried the Dead Man, with sudden excitement. "You
+_heard_? Come! We're getting results at last, you and I!"
+
+"Results," murmured the doctor abstractedly, "are----What was I saying?
+Oh, yes. In the life-to-come, for instance, am I to be a bone-setter and
+is he to keep on being a tulip man?"
+
+"It stands to reason, Andrew, doesn't it?" suggested Peter Grimm. "What
+chance would a beginner have with a fellow who knew his business before
+he was born? Hey?"
+
+With the merrily victorious air that he had ever assumed when he had
+scored a telling point in their old-time discussions, Peter surveyed the
+doctor.
+
+"I believe, Katje," mused McPherson after a moment's consideration,
+"that it is possible to have more than one chance at our life work. It
+never occurred to me before, but----"
+
+"There!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You caught _that_! Now, why can't you
+get that message about Kathrien's marriage? Try, man! Try!"
+
+"Kathrien," said McPherson, suddenly shifting from conjecture to
+everyday conditions, "have you thought over what I said to you about
+this marriage with Frederik?"
+
+"He _did_ get it!" muttered Peter Grimm.
+
+"Yes," rejoined Kathrien, "I have thought it over, Doctor. And I thank
+you with all my heart. But----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I shall go on with it. I shall be married, just as Oom Peter wished me
+to. I shan't go back on my promise."
+
+McPherson growled in futile disgust.
+
+"Don't give up, Andrew!" exhorted Peter Grimm. "Don't give up! _Make_
+her see it your way. A girl can always change her mind. Try again.
+_Andrew!_"
+
+The last word was almost a cry. For McPherson, with a shrug of his
+shoulders, accepted defeat in surly silence and was tramping across to
+the hat rack, where he began to gather up his outdoor raiment.
+
+"Oh, Andrew! _Andrew!_" he pleaded, following him up. "Don't throw away
+the fight so easily! Tell her to----"
+
+"Good-bye, Kathrien," said the doctor at the threshold. "If you choose
+to make toad-pie of your life, it's no business of mine. I'll drop in
+later for a good-night look at Willem."
+
+"Good-night, Doctor," answered Kathrien, "and--thank you again."
+
+With a wordless grunt, McPherson went out, leaving Peter Grimm staring
+hopelessly after him.
+
+"I see I can't depend on _you_, Andrew," murmured the Dead Man, "in
+spite of your psychic lore and your belief in my return. Why is it they
+can all understand--or _half_ understand--the unimportant things I say,
+and yet be deaf to my message? It is like picking out the simple words
+in a foreign book and then not know what the story is about.
+Marta--Kathrien--McPherson--they all fail me. I must find some other
+way."
+
+He turned slowly toward the door of the office. The door almost
+immediately opened and James Hartmann came into the room. The young man
+had a pen behind his ear and a half-written memorandum of sales in his
+hand. He had evidently risen from his work and entered the living-room
+on an unplanned impulse.
+
+Kathrien had seated herself in a chair by the fire and was gazing
+drearily into the red embers.
+
+"Look at her, lad!" breathed Peter Grimm. "She is so pretty--so
+young--so lonely! Look! There are kisses tangled in that gold hair of
+hers where it curls about her forehead and neck. Hundreds of them. And
+her lips are made for kisses. See how dainty and sweet and heart-broken
+she is. She is dreaming of _you_, James. Are you going to let her go?
+Why, who could resist such a girl? _You're not going to let her go!_ You
+feel what I am saying to you. You won't give her up. She loves you, boy.
+And you realise now that you can't live without her. Speak! Speak to
+her!"
+
+"Miss Kathrien!" said Hartmann earnestly; then halted, frightened at his
+own temerity.
+
+The girl looked up quickly. At sight of him she flushed and rose
+impulsively to face him.
+
+"Oh, James!" she cried. "I'm so glad--so _glad_ to see you!"
+
+As their hands met the man's hesitancy fled.
+
+"I _felt_ that you were in here," said he. "All at once I seemed to know
+you were here and alone. And before I realised what I was doing, I came
+in. I didn't mean to."
+
+"Didn't mean to come and see me while you were here?" she echoed in
+reproach. "Why not?"
+
+"For the same reason I didn't stay when I was here before. I----"
+
+"Why did you go away that time?" she demanded. "Why did you go without a
+word of good-bye to--to any of us?"
+
+"Tell her, boy," adjured Peter Grimm. "Don't mind _my_ feelings."
+
+"Your uncle sent me away," blurted Hartmann, "but it was partly at my
+own request."
+
+"Oom Peter sent you away? Why?"
+
+"I told him the truth again."
+
+"Oh! One of your usual hot arguments that used to worry me so? I
+remember how excited you both used to get. Was it about the superiority
+of potatoes to orchids this time?"
+
+"No. The superiority of one person to the whole world."
+
+But she did not catch his meaning. She was looking up at the big
+athletic body and the clean, strong face, with an absurd longing to
+creep into the man's arms for shelter as might a tired child.
+
+"It's so _good_ to see you back," she said.
+
+"I'm only here for a few hours," he answered. "Just long enough to put
+one or two details of the business to rights. Then I'm going away
+again--this time for good."
+
+"No! Where are you going?"
+
+"Father and I are going to try our luck on our own account. I've a few
+thousands from a legacy that came to me last month from my grandmother.
+And father has saved a tidy little sum, too. We're going to start in
+with small fruits and market gardening. We haven't decided just where."
+
+"It will be so strange--so different--so lonely and _empty_ when I come
+back," she mourned, "with Uncle and you both gone. It seems as if the
+blessed old home was all broken up. It can never be the same again. I
+don't know how I can muster courage to come into this house after----"
+
+"It will be easier after the first wrench. Everything is easier than we
+think it's going to be. And, Kathrien," he went on, steadying his voice
+by a supreme effort, "I hope you'll be happy--beautifully happy."
+
+Neither of them realised that her hand had somehow slipped into his and
+was resting very contentedly in the big, firm grasp.
+
+"Whether I'm happy or not," replied Kathrien miserably, "it's the only
+thing to do. Please try to believe that. Oh, James, he died smiling at
+me--thinking of me--loving me. And just before he went he had begged me
+to marry Frederik. I shall never forget the wonderful look of happiness
+in his eyes when I promised. It was all he wanted in life. He said he'd
+never been so happy before. He smiled up at me for the very last time,
+with his dear face all alight. And there he sat, smiling, after he was
+gone. The smile of a man leaving this life absolutely satisfied--at
+peace!"
+
+"I know. Marta told me. I----"
+
+"It's like a hand on my heart, hurting it almost unbearably when I
+question doing anything he wanted. It has always been so with me ever
+since I was a baby. I never could bear to go against his wishes. And now
+that he's gone--why, I _must_ keep my word. I couldn't meet him in the
+Hereafter if I didn't keep that last sacred promise to him. I couldn't
+say my prayers at night. I couldn't speak his name in them. Oom Peter
+trusted me. He depended on me. He did everything for me. I must do this
+for him."
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed the Dead Man. "You are wrong. Tell her so, James!"
+
+"I wanted you to know this, James," finished Kathrien,
+"because--because----"
+
+A gush of tears blotted out Hartmann's tense, wretched face and choked
+her hesitating utterance.
+
+"Have you told Frederik that you don't love him?" asked Hartmann,
+forcing himself to resist the yearning to gather her into his arms and
+kiss away her tears. "Does he know?"
+
+She nodded, her face buried in her hands.
+
+"And Frederik is willing to take you like that? On those terms?"
+
+Another dumb nod of the pretty, fluffy little head, with its face still
+convulsed and hidden.
+
+"The yellow dog!" burst forth Hartmann.
+
+"You flatter him," sadly assented Peter Grimm.
+
+"Look here, Kathrien," hurried on Hartmann, "I didn't mean to say a word
+of this to-day,--or ever. Not a word. But the instant I came in here
+from the office just now, something made me change my mind. I knew all
+at once I _must_ talk to you. You looked so little, so young, so
+helpless, all huddled up there by the fire. Kathrien, you've never had
+to think for yourself. You don't know what you are doing in going on
+with this blasphemous, loveless marriage. Why, dear, you are making the
+most terrible mistake possible to a woman. Marriage _with_ love is often
+a tragedy. Without love it is a hell. A horror that will deepen and grow
+more dreadful with every year."
+
+"Do you suppose I don't understand that?" she whispered. "Don't make it
+harder for me."
+
+"Your uncle was wrong to ask such a sacrifice. Why should you wreck your
+life to carry out his pig-headed plans?"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Not strong enough yet," advised Peter Grimm. "Go on, lad."
+
+"You are going to be wretched for the rest of your days, just to please
+a dead man who can't even know about it," insisted Hartmann. "Or if he
+_does_ know, you may be certain he sees the affair more sanely by this
+time and is bitterly sorry he made you promise."
+
+"He assuredly is," acquiesced Peter Grimm. "I wish I'd known in other
+days that you had so much sense. Go ahead!"
+
+"You mustn't speak so, James," reproved Kathrien, deeply shocked.
+"I----"
+
+"Yes, he must," contradicted the Dead Man. "Go on, James. Stronger!"
+
+"But I _must_ speak so!" declared Hartmann, swept on by a power he could
+not understand. "I'll speak my mind. I don't care how fond you were of
+your uncle or how much he did for you. It was not right for him to ask
+this sacrifice of you. The whole thing was the blunder of an obstinate
+old man!"
+
+"No! You mustn't!"
+
+"I loved him, too," said Hartmann. "As much in my own way, perhaps, as
+you did. Though he and I never agreed on any subject under the sun. But,
+in spite of all my affection for him, I know and always knew he _was_ an
+obstinate old man. Obstinate as a mule. It was the Dutch in him, I
+suppose."
+
+Peter Grimm nodded emphatic approval.
+
+"Do you know why I was sent away?" rushed on Hartmann, still upheld and
+goaded along by that incomprehensible impulse. "Do you know why I
+quarrelled with your uncle?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Because I told him I loved you. He asked me. I didn't tell him because
+I had any hopes. I hadn't. I haven't now. Oh, girl, I don't know why I'm
+talking to you like this. I love you. And my arms are aching for you."
+
+He stepped toward her, arms out as he spoke. She retreated, frightened,
+to where Peter Grimm stood surveying the lover with keen approbation.
+
+"No, no!" she warned. "You mustn't, James. It isn't right--don't."
+
+Her next backward step brought her close to Peter Grimm. And the Dead
+Man, with a swift motion of his hand, waved her forward into her lover's
+outstretched arms.
+
+Through no conscious volition of her own, Kathrien sped straight onward,
+unswerving, unfaltering into the strong circle of those arms for whose
+warm refuge she had so guiltily felt herself longing.
+
+"No!" she panted, in dutiful resistance.
+
+But the negation was lost against Hartmann's broad breast as he pressed
+her closely to him.
+
+"I love you!" he repeated over and over in a daze of rapture.
+
+Then in awed wonder:
+
+"And you love _me_, Kathrien!"
+
+"No, no--don't make me say it, dear heart!"
+
+"I _shall_ make you say it. It is true. You do love me!"
+
+"What matter if I do?" wailed the girl. "It wouldn't change matters."
+
+"Kathrien!"
+
+"Please don't say anything more. I can't bear it."
+
+Gently, reluctantly, she sought to release herself from that wonderful
+embrace. But Hartmann now needed no Spirit Guest to urge him to hold his
+own.
+
+"I'm not going to let you go," he cried, kissing her white, upturned
+face till the red glowed back into it. "I won't give you up, Kathrien. I
+_won't_ give you up!"
+
+"You must," she insisted, struggling more fiercely against herself than
+against him. "You must, dear. I can't break my promise to Oom Peter.
+I----"
+
+The front door opened. The lovers sprang apart. Frederik entered,
+glancing quickly from one to the other of them.
+
+"Oh!" he observed. "You in here, Hartmann? I thought I'd find you in the
+office. I've some unopened mail of my uncle's to glance over. Then I'll
+join you there."
+
+Hartmann took the broad hint, nodded, and left the room. Frederik's eyes
+followed him steadily until the door closed behind the young intruder.
+Then he turned to where Kathrien crouched, panting, bewildered,
+trembling. Frederik abruptly went over to her, and, before she could
+guess his purpose, kissed her full on the lips.
+
+Involuntarily the girl recoiled as from some loathly thing.
+
+"Don't!" she exclaimed, fighting for her shaken self-control. "Please
+don't!"
+
+"Why not?" he snapped.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"Has Hartmann been talking to you?"
+
+She moved toward the stair-foot.
+
+"Just a moment, please," Frederik interposed, hurrying forward to catch
+up with her before she could gain the safety of the stairway.
+
+"Hartmann _has_ been talking to you. What has he been saying?"
+
+He had seized her hand as she made to mount the stairway. As she did not
+reply to his question, he repeated it, adding:
+
+"Do you really imagine, Kathrien, that you care for that--fellow?"
+
+"I'd rather not talk about it, please, Frederik," she pleaded.
+
+"No? But it is necessary. Do you----"
+
+She broke away from his suddenly rough grip and fled up the stairway to
+her own room. As the door shut behind her, Frederik, with clouded face
+and working lips, strode over to the desk. He passed close by Peter
+Grimm. But the Dead Man was still staring blankly after Kathrien.
+
+"Oh, Katje," he muttered, "even Love could not get my message to you!
+Less influence would be needed to change the fate of a nation than the
+mind of one good woman. I think a good woman--a _good_ woman,--is more
+stubborn than anything else in the Universe. Not excepting myself. When
+she has made up her mind to do _right_,--which invariably means to
+sacrifice herself and thereby make as many other people wretched as
+possible--not even a Spirit from the Other World can influence her."
+
+With a despairing shrug of the shoulders he turned toward his nephew,
+and his face hardened. Frederik had seated himself at the desk. He had
+drawn out the little handful of personal letters that had arrived that
+afternoon for Peter Grimm and those that Mrs. Batholommey had put into
+the drawer for safe keeping.
+
+One letter after another Frederik cut open, glanced over, and either put
+back into the drawer or laid under a paperweight on the desk. Peter
+Grimm crossed to the opposite side of the desk and stood looking down at
+him with set face and sad, reproving gaze.
+
+"Frederik Grimm," said the Dead Man at last, his voice low but
+infinitely impressive, "my beloved nephew! You sit there opening my mail
+with the heart of a stone. You are saying to yourself: 'He is gone;
+there will be fine times ahead.' But there is one thing you have
+forgotten, Frederik: The Law of Reward and Punishment. Your hour has
+come--_to think_!"
+
+Frederik, unheeding, continued to open, read, and sort the letters
+before him.
+
+At the Dead Man's last words, his nephew picked from the heap a blue
+envelope, ripped it open, and pulled out the enclosures:--a single sheet
+of blue paper and a cheap photograph.
+
+"Oh, my God! Oh, my _God_!" he babbled over and over, foolishly, staring
+from letter to photograph. "Here's luck! What luck it is! Anne Marie to
+my uncle! Lord! If he'd lived to read it! If he had read it! Out I'd
+have been kicked! One--two--three--_Augenblick_! Out into the street!
+Oh, what unbelievable luck! If she'd written to him ten days earlier!
+Ten little days!"
+
+His hand shaking, he picked up the letter again, spread it wide, and
+began to read it, Peter Grimm standing behind him, looking over the
+reader's shoulder.
+
+"Dear Mr. Grimm," the letter ran, "I have not written because I can't
+help Willem. And I am ashamed. Don't be too hard upon me, sir, in your
+thoughts. At first I often went hungry. And then the few pennies I had
+saved for him were spent. Now I see that I can never hope to get him
+back. Willem is far better off with you. I know he is. But, oh, how I
+wish I could just see him again! _Once._ Perhaps I could come there in
+the night time and no one would know----"
+
+"Oh!" breathed Peter Grimm, between tight clenched teeth. "The pity of
+it! The _pity_ of it!"
+
+"Who's that?" cried Frederik, looking up with a start of terror from his
+perusal of the letter.
+
+The young man peered about the shadows beyond the radius of the lamp, a
+nervous dread at his heart.
+
+"Who's in the room!" he demanded, glancing behind him.
+
+[Illustration: "Who's in the room!" he demanded]
+
+Then with a self-contemptuous shake of his head he muttered angrily:
+
+"That's queer. I could have sworn somebody was looking over my shoulder.
+Bah! My nerves are going bad!"
+
+He returned to the reading of the letter.
+
+"I met some one from home to-day," went on Anne Marie's epistle. "If
+there's any truth in the rumour that Kathrien is going to marry
+Frederik, _it mustn't be_, Mr. Grimm. It must _not_. She must not marry
+him. For Frederik is my little boy's fa----"
+
+"There _is_ some one here!" muttered Frederik, laying down the letter.
+
+Calming his disordered nerves once more, he glanced furtively up toward
+Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up
+the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and
+apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly
+dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness
+was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid of a
+certain dignity.
+
+Frederik turned the photograph over. On the back he read:
+
+"_For my little boy, from Anne Marie._"
+
+His mouth twitched. Throngs of memories were crowding in upon him. And
+the eyes of the Dead Man were boring to his very soul. Something very
+like Conscience was stirring within him. He laid the photograph face
+downward on the table and he bent his head forward upon his hands.
+
+The young man was not a melodrama villain. He was not even a scoundrel,
+in the broad sense of the term. Weak, lazy, pleasure loving, he was what
+Peter Grimm had all unconsciously made him. As a dilettante, a man of
+leisure, or even comfortably engaged in some easy, congenial life work
+and with pleasant home surroundings, he would probably have developed
+few undesirable traits.
+
+From boyhood he had been under the influence and orders of Peter Grimm.
+To be under Peter Grimm's supervision entailed one of three courses,
+according to the character of the person concerned: either to yield
+gracefully and gratefully to the old man's kindly but iron domination
+and find therein love and protection,--as had Kathrien; or to use the
+right of personal thought and individuality, and therefore to clash
+forever with Peter,--as had James Hartmann; or to seem for policy's sake
+to bend, while really living one's own life;--as had Frederik.
+
+Peter Grimm was the slave and apostle of Order, Work, and Method.
+Frederik loved ease, luxury, artistic surroundings. Yet he was too wise
+to antagonise his uncle, who had the power to leave him one day the
+master of all these pleasant things he craved. So he had adapted himself
+outwardly to a path he loathed. And, by the wayside, he had secretly
+sought such pleasures as his nature craved.
+
+Anne Marie had chanced to be by the wayside.
+
+What had followed was rendered tragic chiefly by Anne Marie's innate
+goodness and by Peter Grimm's fierce morality.
+
+Frederik dared not risk the loss of a future fortune by admitting his
+fault or by marrying the woman for whom, at the time, he had really
+cared. In a shiftless way and with straitly limited income, he had done
+what he could do for her. The sacrifices these helps had entailed and
+the constant fear of exposure and of consequent disinheritance had in
+time made the thought of Anne Marie a horror to him.
+
+When he had gone, at Peter Grimm's command, to Leyden and Heidelberg to
+study botany, Frederik had hoped to close the unsavoury incident for all
+time.
+
+On his return he had found Willem installed at the Grimm home, a living,
+ever-present menace and reminder to him. And, despite a soft heart and
+a normally decent nature, Frederik had, little by little, been forced by
+his own past and his own hopes into a course that at times was hateful
+to him. Ten thousand men, far worse than he, walk the streets of every
+big city and sleep snug o' nights with no grinning Conscience-Skull to
+break their rest. A thousand well-meaning, harmless sons of dominating
+and domineering parents are forced, as was he, into by-roads as hateful
+to them. To be cast by Fate to enact the Villain, when one has not the
+temperament, the aptitude, nor the desire for the unsavoury role, falls
+to more men's lot than the world realises.
+
+It had fallen to Frederik Grimm's. Wherefore, sick at heart, he sat with
+his head in his hands. And Peter Grimm read his thoughts as from a
+printed page.
+
+"Once more a spark of manhood is alight in your soul," whispered the
+Dead Man. "It is not too late. Nothing is ever too late. Turn back!"
+
+Frederik looked up, half-listening. His hand crept out to the letter.
+
+"Follow the impulse that is in your heart," begged the Dead Man. "Follow
+it! Take the little boy in your arms. Declare him to all the world as
+your own. Go down on your knees and ask his mother's forgiveness. Ah, do
+it, lad, so that I can go back still trusting you,--still believing in
+you,--blessing you! _Frederik!_"
+
+"Yes," answered Frederik, starting up. "What is it?"
+
+He glanced about the room unseeingly, then looked toward the outer door
+and called:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+"That's curious!" he mused, settling back in his chair. "I thought I
+heard some one at--_Who's at the door?_" he called again.
+
+"_I_ am at the door," replied the Dead Man in solemn vehemence. "_I_,
+Peter Grimm. The uncle who loved you and whom you tricked. Anne Marie is
+at the door,--the little girl who is ashamed to come home. Willem is at
+the door--your own flesh and blood--_nameless_! Katje, sobbing her heart
+out,--James--all of us. _All!_ We are all at the door, Frederik! At the
+door of your conscience. Ah, don't keep us waiting!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A HALF-HEARD MESSAGE
+
+
+Frederik rose slowly from his chair. His face was working. Instinctively
+his glance lifted to Kathrien's door. His eyes grew bright and his weak
+mouth strong with a wondrous resolve. He crossed the room to the
+stair-foot; that light of pure sacrifice deepening in his whole upraised
+face.
+
+"Yes!" urged the Dead Man, keeping eager pace with him in body and in
+thought. "Yes! Call her. Give her back her promise."
+
+The flabby muscles of a self-indulgent man may sometimes perform a
+single prodigious feat of strength. Wherein they have an infinite
+advantage over the far flabbier resolutions of a self-indulgent man. And
+Frederik Grimm's weak, atrophied better self was not equal to the strain
+thrown upon it.
+
+At the stair-foot, his step faltered. He halted irresolutely, while the
+Dead Man watched him in an anguish of hope and fear.
+
+Then came surrender to long habit; and with it a gush of weak rage. Not
+at himself. He had not the strength left for that. But at the cause of
+his distress. He brought down his fist upon the desk with a resounding
+thwack. His eye fell on the open page with its pathetic scrawl of
+appeal.
+
+"Damn her!" he growled, snatching up the letter and tearing it across
+and across. "I wish to God I'd never seen her!"
+
+Peter Grimm gazed down upon him with eyes wherein lurked a slowly rising
+fire.
+
+"Frederik Grimm!" commanded the Dead Man. "Get up! Stand up before me!
+Stand up, I say!"
+
+Frederik made as though to rise, then swore under his breath and sat
+down again.
+
+"Stand up!" flashed the Dead Man.
+
+Frederik got shamblingly to his feet, and looked around with a frown, as
+though wondering why he had risen. His gaze swept the desk for some
+cause for his action, then rested moodily on the dying embers in the
+hearth.
+
+The Dead Man at the far side of the desk confronted him like some
+unearthly Judge from whose heart pity, humanity, and all else but
+righteous wrath were banished.
+
+"You shall not have my little girl!" thundered Peter Grimm. "I have come
+back to take her away from you. And you cannot put me to rest. I have
+come back. You cannot drive me from your thoughts."
+
+He touched Frederik's damp forehead with his forefinger.
+
+"I am _there_," he said. "I am looking over your shoulder as you read or
+write or think. I am looking in at the window when you deem you are
+alone and unseen. _I have come back._ You are breathing me in the air. I
+am hammering at your heart in each of your pulse beats. Wherever you
+are, I am there."
+
+His forced calmness gave way to a gust of helpless rage as he felt his
+words falling upon world-deafened ears.
+
+"Hear me!" he commanded furiously. "_Hear_ me! You _shall_ hear me!"
+
+At each frenzied repetition of the command, the Dead Man hurled his arms
+aloft and brought down his clenched fist with all his power upon the
+desk in mighty blows of utterly soundless violence.
+
+Impotently he cried aloud:
+
+"Oh, will _no_ one hear me? Has my journey been all in vain? Has it
+been useless?--worse than useless?"
+
+The Dead Man looked upward, in an anguish of desperation. He seemed to
+be entreating the Unseen in his clamour of wild, hopeless appeal.
+
+"Has it all been for nothing?" he wailed. "Must we forever stand or fall
+by the mistakes we make in this world? Is there _no_ second chance?"
+
+Frederik shook his head angrily as though to banish clinging unwelcome
+thoughts from his brain, got up and crossed to the sideboard, where he
+poured himself a double drink of liquor and swigged it down with
+feverish eagerness.
+
+As he left the desk, Marta entered from the kitchen with the light
+supper he had ordered:--coffee, with sugar and cream, and a plate of
+little cakes. She went to the desk and began clearing a space among the
+scattered papers for the supper tray. As her free hand moved among the
+papers, the Dead Man was at her elbow.
+
+"Marta!" he whispered, as though fearing his words might reach Frederik.
+"Look! _Look!_"
+
+He pointed excitedly to the torn letter and the photograph that lay face
+downward under her hand. And she picked up both letter and picture, to
+make room for the tray.
+
+"Marta!" urged the Dead Man, almost incoherent in his wild haste. "See
+what you have there! Look down at that picture in your hand! Turn it
+over and _look_ at it! Look at the hand-writing on that torn letter!
+Look quickly! Then run with them to Miss Kathrien. Make her piece the
+letter together and read it! Quick! It's the only way she can learn the
+truth. Frederik will never tell her. Marta!--_Ah!_"
+
+His wild plea broke off in a cry of chagrin. For Frederik, turning from
+the sideboard, had seen the old woman.
+
+"Your coffee, Mynheer Frederik," said she, laying down the photograph
+and letter without a glance at them.
+
+"Yes, yes. Of course," answered Frederik. "I forgot. Thanks."
+
+She turned to leave the room. Frederik, coming over to the desk, caught
+sight of the torn blue envelope and the picture, where she had laid
+them.
+
+Hurriedly covering them with his hand, he glanced at her in quick,
+terrified suspicion. But the face she turned to him as she hesitated for
+a moment at the kitchen door showed him at once that he was safe.
+Nevertheless, Marta lingered on the threshold.
+
+"Well?" queried Frederik, seating himself beside the tray.
+
+"Is there," she stammered, "is there no--no word--no letter----?"
+
+"Word? Letter?" he echoed nervously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"From----" began the old woman in timid hesitation, then in a rush of
+courage: "From my little girl. From Anne Marie."
+
+"No!" he snapped. "Of course not. I----"
+
+"But--at a time like this--if she knows--oh, I felt it,--I hoped--that
+there would be _some_ message from her! Every day I have hoped----"
+
+"No," he broke in. "Nothing's come. No letter. No word of any sort from
+her. I'd have let you know if there had. By the way, I have an
+appointment at the hotel in a few minutes. Tell Miss Kathrien, if she
+asks for me."
+
+He busied himself with the tray. Marta looked at him a moment longer,
+held by some power that she could not explain. Then years of habit
+overcame impulse. She courtesied and withdrew to her kitchen.
+
+As the door shut behind her, Frederik caught up the torn blue letter.
+Tossing it in a metal ash tray he struck a match. Peter Grimm, divining
+his intent, sprang forward with a wordless cry to stop him. The Dead
+Man's hands tore at the wrists of the Living; sought by main strength to
+snatch the paper out of his reach; with pitiful helplessness tried to
+thrust back the hand that held the lighted match.
+
+Unknowingly, Frederik touched the flame to the paper, shook out the
+match, and watched the torn letter blaze and curl. Then he tossed the
+charred bits into a jardiniere on the floor, and picked up the picture.
+
+"There's an end to _that_!" he murmured, turning to throw the photograph
+into the smoking embers of the fireplace.
+
+Peter Grimm stood erect. A new hope drove the sick despair from his
+face. Looking toward Willem's room he raised his arm and beckoned.
+
+At once the door stealthily opened. A white little figure slipped out
+onto the gallery and toward the stairs. Down the flight of steps, clad
+in his white flannel pajama suit, his eyes wide, his yellow hair
+tumbled, Willem ran.
+
+Frederik, in the act of consigning the photograph to the fire, was
+arrested by the sound of pattering feet. Laying the picture on the desk,
+he turned guiltily, in time to see Willem speeding across the room
+toward the bay window.
+
+"What are you doing down here?" demanded Frederik. "If you're so sick,
+you ought not to get out of bed. That's the place for sick boys."
+
+"The circus!" mumbled Willem in the queer, strained voice of a sleep
+walker. "The circus music waked me up. So I had to come and hear it."
+
+"Circus music?" repeated Frederik amazedly, as he watched the boy
+tugging at the rain-tightened window sash to force it upward.
+
+"Yes, it woke me. I can see the parade if I can get this window open.
+It----"
+
+"Why, you're half asleep!" exclaimed Frederik. "The circus left town ten
+days ago!"
+
+"No, no!" insisted Willem, raising the window with one final wrench of
+his frail arms. "The band's playing _now_. Hear it?"
+
+A gust of chilly, wet air dashed in through the open window, sending a
+sharp draught across the room and waking the boy wide as it beat into
+his hot face.
+
+"Why," babbled Willem, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him, "why,
+it's _night_ time! I wonder what made me think the circus was here. I--I
+guess it was a dream."
+
+Frederik strode to the window impatiently and slammed it shut. As he
+passed Willem on the way back to the desk the boy intuitively cowered
+away from him.
+
+"You've had a fever," said Frederik crossly, "and you're liable to catch
+cold, wandering around this draughty old barn in your night clothes. Go
+back to bed."
+
+"Yes, sir," whimpered the boy, cringing under the sharp tone and
+starting back for the stairs. But, before he reached the lowest step, he
+halted. Peter Grimm stood barring his way. For a moment the Dead Man and
+the child stood face to face. Then, still frightened but unable to
+resist, Willem turned back toward Frederik, who had just picked up the
+photograph once more; to put it in the smouldering ashes.
+
+"Mynheer Frederik," asked the boy in a voice not his own, "where is Anne
+Marie?"
+
+"What?" barked Frederik with an uncontrollable start and whipping the
+photograph around behind his back like a guilty child caught in theft.
+"What's that? Anne Marie? Why do you ask _me_ about her? How should _I_
+know?"
+
+He turned his back on the boy and began to tear the photograph into tiny
+bits. Willem hesitated, then went back to the stairway. Again at the
+foot of the steps he confronted the Dead Man. Again they stood for an
+instant, looking wordlessly into each other's eyes. And again Willem
+turned back into the room.
+
+"Mynheer Frederik," he asked in a sort of dazed bewilderment, "_where_
+is Mynheer Grimm?"
+
+"Eh? Mynheer Grimm? Dead, of course. Dead."
+
+"Are--are you _sure_? Because just now----"
+
+"Oh, go to bed! At once, do you hear! Go, or I'll have you punished!"
+
+Under this dire threat and the scowl that went with it, not even the
+Dead Man's power could stem Willem's defeat. Up the stairs he scuttled.
+At the door of his room, the fever thirst in his hot, parched throat for
+the moment overcame fear.
+
+"Could--could I have a drink of water?" he whimpered, gazing longingly
+down at the full ice-water pitcher on the sideboard.
+
+An angry glance from Frederik sent him into his own room like a rabbit
+into its warren.
+
+Frederik, the fragments of the picture clenched in his sweat-damp hand,
+glowered after the retreating lad and took a step toward the fire. The
+movement brought him close to the desk. The lamp had suddenly burned
+very low. But for the faint gleam of firelight the room was in almost
+total darkness.
+
+And out of that gloom leaped a Face. A Face close to Frederik's own;--a
+Face indescribably awful in its aspect of unearthly menace. The face of
+Peter Grimm. Not kindly and rugged as in life, or even as since the Dead
+Man's return. But terrible, accusing, bathed in a lurid glow.
+
+Frederik, with a scream of crass horror, reeled back. The bits of
+cardboard tumbled from his fear-loosened grip and strewed the surface of
+the desk.
+
+"My God!" croaked Frederik, his throat sanded with terror. "My God! Oh,
+my _God_!"
+
+The Face was gone. The room was in shadow again and very silent. The
+dropping of a charred ember from andiron to hearth made the
+panic-stricken man jump convulsively.
+
+Scarce breathing, crouched in a position of grotesque fright, the
+fear-sweat streaming down his face, Frederik Grimm peered about him
+through the flickering gloom. The place seemed peopled with elusive
+Shapes. His teeth clicked together as his loosened jaw was nerve-racked.
+He shivered from head to foot.
+
+"I--I thought----" he began, half aloud.
+
+Then he fell silent, afraid of his own voice in that dreadful silence.
+For a moment he cowered, numb, inert. Then he remembered the fragments
+of the photograph that still strewed the table.
+
+"I must get rid of them," he thought.
+
+He took an apprehensive step toward the desk. But the memory of what he
+had seen there was too potent. He knew he could no more approach that
+spot than he could walk into a den of rattlesnakes. He halted, sweating,
+aghast. Again he crept forward,--a step--two steps--in the direction of
+the torn picture. But his fears clogged his feet and brought him to a
+shivering stand-still. Had the wealth of the world lain strewed on that
+desk instead of a mere handful of scattered pasteboard bits he could not
+have summoned courage to step forth and seize it.
+
+The Dead Man, in the shadows, read his mind and smiled.
+
+"No one's likely to come in here till I get back," Frederik told
+himself, in self-excuse for his cowardice. "And if any one does, the
+picture is too badly torn to be recognised. I----"
+
+He found that his terror-ridden subconsciousness was backing his
+trembling body toward the outer door. The door that led from that
+haunted room--from the desk he dared not go near,--out into the safe,
+peace-giving night of summer.
+
+And, snatching up his hat and stick, the shuddering, white-faced young
+master of the Grimm fortune half-stumbled, half-ran, from his home.
+
+"Hicks's lawyer will be waiting," he said to his battered self-respect.
+"I'm late as it is. I must hurry."
+
+And hurry he did, nor checked his rapid pace until he had reached his
+destination.
+
+Scarce had the door banged shut after Frederik when Peter Grimm raised
+his eyes once more toward Willem's room. And again the little white-clad
+figure appeared, and tiptoed toward the stair head.
+
+Willem paused a moment, looked over the banisters to make certain that
+Frederik had gone, then stole down to the big living-room. His cheeks
+were flushed with fever. He was tired all over. His head throbbed. And
+his throat was unbearably dry. The perpetual thirst of childhood,
+augmented by the gnawing, unbearable thirst of fever, sent him speeding
+to the sideboard. He picked up the big ice-water pitcher,--chilled and
+frosted by inner cold and outer dampness--and poured out a glassful of
+the stingingly cold water. The boy gulped down the contents of the glass
+in almost a single draught. Then he filled a second glass and, with
+epicurean delight, let the water trickle slowly and coolingly down his
+hot throat. Peter Grimm stood beside him, a gentle hand on the thin
+little shoulder. His thirst slaked, Willem glanced fearfully toward the
+front door.
+
+"Oh, he won't come back for a long time," Peter Grimm soothed him.
+"Don't be afraid. He went out in a hurry and he hasn't yet stopped
+hurrying. He--thought he saw _me_."
+
+Willem, reassured, laid his burning cheek against the frosted, icy side
+of the pitcher. A smile of utter bliss overspread his face.
+
+"My, but it feels good!" sighed the boy.
+
+The Dead Man continued to look down at him with an infinite pity.
+
+"Willem," said he, stroking the tousled head and smoothing away its
+stabbing pain, "there are some little soldiers in this world who are
+handicapped when they come into Life's battlefield. Their parents
+haven't fitted them for the fight. Poor little moon-moths! They look in
+at the lighted windows. They beat at the panes. They see the glow of
+happy firesides,--the lamps of bright homes. But they can never get in.
+You are one of those little wanderers, Willem. And children like you are
+a million times happier when they are spared the truth. So it's the most
+beautiful thing that can happen for you, that before your playing time
+is over--before you begin a man's bitterly hard, grinding toil,--all the
+care--all the tears, all the worries, all the sorrows are going to pass
+you by forever. God is going to lay His dear hand on your head. There is
+always a place for such little children as you at His side. There is
+none in this small, harsh, unpitying old world. If people knew--if they
+understood--I don't think they could be so cruel as to bring such
+children into the world, to carry terrible burdens. They _don't_ know.
+But God does. And that is why He is going to take you to Him. It will be
+the most wonderful--the most beautiful thing that could happen to you."
+
+Willem smiled dreamily. Then he took a long, ecstatic drink out of the
+pitcher itself, set it down, and rose to his feet. He felt suddenly
+better. For the time the water had cooled him. The racking headache was
+smoothed away. And, child-like, he had no desire whatever to cut short
+his surreptitious good time by going to bed. He looked about him for new
+objects of interest.
+
+"Willem," went on the Dead Man, "of all this whole household, you are
+the only one who really feels I am here. The only one who can almost see
+me. The only one who can help me. I have a little message for you to
+give Katje, and I've something to show you."
+
+He pointed toward the desk, where lay the fragments of the picture. The
+firelight was strong enough now to make them plainly visible. Willem's
+eyes followed the direction of the pointing hand. But his glance, as it
+reached the desk, fell upon something infinitely more attractive than
+any mere photograph. He saw the tray placed there by Marta and left
+untouched by Frederik.
+
+"I'm awful hungry!" observed the boy.
+
+"H'm!" commented Peter Grimm, as Willem started across the room to
+investigate the mysteriously alluring tray. "I see I can't get any help
+from a youngster as long as his stomach is calling."
+
+"Good!" ejaculated Willem as he spied the plate of cakes.
+
+"Help yourself!" invited Peter Grimm.
+
+The boy obeyed the suggestion before it was made. Already his mouth was
+full of cake and his jaws were working rapturously.
+
+"_Das is lecker!_" he murmured, biting into another of the cakes.
+
+He picked a large and obese raisin from a third, swallowed it, then
+reached for the sugar bowl. Two lumps of sugar went the way of the
+raisin. After which a handful of sugar lumps were stuffed into his
+night-clothes' pocket for future delectation in bed. The cream pitcher
+next met the forager's eye. Willem looked at it longingly.
+
+"Take it," said Peter Grimm. "It's good, thick, sweet cream. Drink it
+down. That's right. It won't hurt you. Nothing can hurt you now."
+
+"I haven't had such a good time," Willem confided to his inner
+consciousness, "since Mynheer Grimm died. Why"--he broke off, his roving
+gaze concentrating on the hat-rack--"there's his hat! It's--he's
+_here_! Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he wailed aloud in utter longing. "Take me
+back with you!"
+
+"You know I'm here?" asked the Dead Man joyously. "Can you see me?"
+
+"No, sir," came the answer without a breath of hesitation or any hint of
+misunderstanding.
+
+"Here," ordered Peter Grimm, his face alight, "take my hand. Have you
+got it?"
+
+He placed his right hand around the boy's groping palm.
+
+"No, sir," replied Willem.
+
+"Now," urged Peter Grimm, enclosing the boy's hand in both his own, "do
+you feel it?"
+
+"I--I feel _something_," returned Willem, in doubt. "Yes, sir. But where
+is your hand? There's--there's nothing there!"
+
+"But you _hear_ me?" asked the Dead Man anxiously.
+
+"I--I can't _really_ hear you. It's some kind of a dream, I suppose.
+Isn't it? Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he pleaded brokenly. "Take me back with
+you!"
+
+"You're not quite ready to go with me, yet," said the Dead Man in gentle
+denial. "Not till you can _see_ me."
+
+The boy reached out for another cake. Still looking straight ahead where
+he imagined his unseen protector might be, he asked:
+
+"What did you come back for, Mynheer Grimm? Wasn't it nice where you
+went?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Beyond all belief, dear lad. But I had to come back. Willem,
+do you think you could take a message for me? Listen very carefully now.
+Because I want you to remember every word of it. I want you to try to
+understand. You are to tell Miss Kathrien----"
+
+"It's too bad you died before you could go to the circus, Mynheer
+Grimm," broke in Willem, munching the cake.
+
+"Willem," persisted the Dead Man, patiently starting his plan of
+campaign all over again from another angle, "there must be a great many
+things you remember,--things that happened when you lived with your
+mother. Aren't there?"
+
+"I was very little," hesitated Willem, echoing a phrase he had once
+heard Marta use in speaking of his earlier days.
+
+"Still," pursued the Dead Man, "you remember?"
+
+"I--I was afraid," replied the boy, groping back in the blurred past
+for a fact and seizing on a gruesomely prominent one.
+
+"Try to think back to that time," urged Peter Grimm. "You loved--_her_?"
+
+"Oh, I _did_ love Anne Marie!" exclaimed the child.
+
+"Now," pointed out the Dead Man, "through that one little miracle of
+love you can remember many things that are tucked away in the back of
+your baby brain. Hey? Things that a single spark could kindle and light
+up and make clear to you. It comes back? Think! There were you--and Anne
+Marie----"
+
+"And the Other One," suggested Willem on impulse.
+
+"So! And who was the 'Other One'?"
+
+"I'm afraid----" babbled the child.
+
+And again the Dead Man shifted the form of his questions to quiet the
+nervous dread that had sprung into the big eyes.
+
+"Willem," said he, "what would you rather see than anything else in all
+this world? Think. Something that every little boy loves?"
+
+"I--I like the circus," hazarded Willem, setting his tired wits to work
+at this possible conundrum, "and the clowns, and----"
+
+He hesitated. Peter Grimm motioned toward the photograph's fragments on
+the desk.
+
+"----and my mother," finished the boy.
+
+Then, his gaze following the Dead Man's gesture, he caught sight of part
+of a pictured face, torn diagonally across. With a cry he picked it up.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "there she is! There's her face,--part of it. And,"
+fumbling among the torn bits of cardboard, "there's the other part. It's
+a picture of Anne Marie. All torn up."
+
+"It would be fun to put it together," suggested Peter Grimm, "the way
+you did with those picture puzzles I got you once. Suppose we try?"
+
+The idea caught the child's fancy. With knitted brows and puckered lips
+he bent over the desk and began the task of piecing the scraps into a
+whole.
+
+"That's right," approved the Dead Man. "Put it all together until the
+picture is all perfect.--See, there's the bit you are looking for to
+finish off the shoulder,--and then we must show it to everybody in the
+house, and set them all to thinking."
+
+With an apprehensive glance over his shoulder toward the front door
+Willem proceeded more hurriedly with his work of joining the strewn
+pieces.
+
+"I must get it put together before _he_ comes back," he muttered.
+
+"Ah!" mutely rejoiced the Dean Man, "I'm making you think about _him_ at
+last! I'll succeed in getting your mind to connect him with Anne Marie
+by the time the others----"
+
+  "'Uncle Rat has gone to town! Ha.-_H'M!_'"
+
+chanted Willem under his breath as his fingers moved from part to part
+of the nearly completed picture. "'_To buy his niece a wedding
+gown._'--There's her hand!" he interrupted himself as an elusive scrap
+of the photograph was at last discovered and put into place.
+
+Peter Grimm's eyes were fixed on the door of Kathrien's room in a
+compelling stare.
+
+"Her other hand!" mused Willem. "'_What shall the wedding breakfast be?
+Ha-H'M! What shall the----?_' Where's--here's the last two parts. There!
+It's _done_! Oh, Anne Marie! Mamma! I----"
+
+The door of Kathrien's room opened. The girl, under a spell of the Dead
+Man's will, came out to the banisters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE "SENSITIVE"
+
+
+Kathrien, looking down into the firelit room, saw the white-clad boy
+starting up in triumph with his work.
+
+"Why, Willem!" she cried, dumfounded at sight of the invalid out of bed
+at such an hour. "What are you doing down there? You ought to----"
+
+"Oh, Miss Kathrien!" exclaimed the child, pointing toward the picture.
+"Come down, quick!"
+
+"You mustn't get out of bed like this when you're ill," gently reproved
+Kathrien. "I had a feeling that you weren't in your room. That is why I
+came out to look. Come----"
+
+"But, look!" insisted Willem, pointing again at the picture puzzle he
+had so painstakingly pieced together. "Look, Miss Kathrien!"
+
+"Come, dear!" admonished Kathrien. "You must not play down there. Wait a
+minute, and I'll make your bed again. It will be more comfortable for
+you if it's made over. Then you must come right upstairs."
+
+She went to the sick room and set to work with deft speed rearranging
+the tumbled sheets and smoothing the rumpled pillows. Willem looked down
+at his disregarded picture and his lip trembled. He gazed about the room
+in the hope of seeing Peter Grimm. He strained his keen ears for sound
+of the Dead Man's gentle, comforting voice.
+
+But Peter Grimm was looking fixedly toward the dining-room door. And in
+a moment it opened and Mrs. Batholommey bustled in.
+
+"I thought I heard some one call," observed the rector's wife for the
+benefit of any one who might be in the half-lighted room.
+
+Then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she espied Willem.
+
+"_Why!_" she cackled. "Of all things! You naughty, _naughty_ child! You
+ought to be in bed and asleep!"
+
+Willem shrank under the rebuke, but a touch of Peter Grimm's hand and a
+whispered word of encouragement braced him to reply:
+
+"Old Mynheer Grimm's come back."
+
+In the midst of her tirade Mrs. Batholommey stopped, open-mouthed. She
+stared at the boy in dismay. His face, as well as his voice, was
+unperturbed. He had stated merely what seemed to him a perfectly natural
+but very welcome truth. He had supposed she would be pleased, not
+petrified. He had told her the news in the hope of averting a scolding.
+But she did not seem to take it in the sense of his simple declaration.
+So he repeated it.
+
+"Old Mynheer Grimm's come back, Mrs. Batholommey."
+
+She gurgled wordlessly, then sputtered:
+
+"What are you talking about, child? 'Old Mynheer Grimm,' as you call
+him, is dead. You know that."
+
+"No, he isn't," stoutly contradicted Willem. "He's come back. He's in
+this room right now. At least," he added as he glanced about and could
+not feel the Dead Man's presence, "at least he was a minute ago. I know,
+because I've been talking to him."
+
+"Absurd!"
+
+"I've been talking to him. He was standing just where you are now."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey instinctively started. In fact, despite her age and
+bulk and the fact that she was built for endurance rather than for
+speed, she jumped high into the air, with an incredible lightness and
+agility, and came to earth several feet away from the spot Willem had
+designated.
+
+"At least," explained the boy, "he _seemed_ to be about there. But he
+seemed to be _everywhere_."
+
+Recovering her smashed self-poise, Mrs. Batholommey frowned with lofty
+majesty, tempered by womanly concern.
+
+"You are feverish again," she said. "I hoped you were all over it.
+You're light-headed, you poor little fellow."
+
+Kathrien, the bed being re-made, hurried downstairs to get Willem.
+
+"His mind is wandering," said Mrs. Batholommey. "He imagines all sorts
+of ridiculous, impossible things."
+
+Kathrien dropped into a chair by the fire and gathered the fragile
+little body into her lap.
+
+"Yes," went on Mrs. Batholommey, "he is out of his head. I think I'll
+run over and get the doctor."
+
+"You need not trouble to," said Peter Grimm. "_I_ have sent for him.
+Though he doesn't know it. He is coming up the walk."
+
+The Dead Man turned toward the front door, the old quizzical smile on
+his lips.
+
+"Come in, Andrew," he said. "I'm going to give you one more chance at
+the theory you were wise enough to form and are not wise enough to
+practise."
+
+Dr. McPherson entered.
+
+"I thought I'd just drop in for a minute before bedtime," said he, "to
+see how Willem----"
+
+"Oh, Doctor!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "This is providential. I was just
+coming to get you. Here's Willem. We found he'd gotten out of bed and
+wandered down here. He is worse. Much worse. He's quite delirious."
+
+"H'm!" commented Dr. McPherson, touching the child's face and then
+laying a finger on the fast, light pulse. "He doesn't look it. He has a
+slight fever again, but----"
+
+"Oh, he said old Mr. Grimm was here!" bleated Mrs. Batholommey. "Here in
+this room with him."
+
+"What?" gasped Kathrien.
+
+But the doctor seemed to regard the statement as the most natural thing
+imaginable.
+
+"In this room?" he repeated in a matter of fact tone. "Well, very
+possibly he is. There's nothing so remarkable about that, is there?"
+
+"Nothing _remarkable_?" squealed Mrs. Batholommey; then, bridling, she
+scoffed: "Oh, of course. I forgot. You believe in----"
+
+"In fact," pursued McPherson, getting under weigh with his pet idea,
+"you'll remember, both of you, that I told you he and I made a compact
+to----"
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey with a shudder. "That absurd, horrible
+'compact' you told us about! It was positively blasphemous!"
+
+But McPherson was looking speculatively down at Willem, and did not
+accept nor even hear the challenge to combat.
+
+"I've sometimes had the idea," said he, "that the boy was a 'sensitive.'
+And this evening, I've been wondering----"
+
+"No, you haven't, Andrew," denied Peter Grimm. "It's _I_ who have been
+doing the 'wondering'; through that Scotch brain of yours. _I'm_ making
+use of that Spiritualistic hobby of yours because you're too dense to
+hear me except through some rarer mortal's voice."
+
+"----Wondering," continued the doctor, "whether--perhaps----"
+
+"Yes," declared Peter Grimm, as McPherson hesitated, "the boy is a
+'sensitive,' as you call it."
+
+"I really believe," declared McPherson, his last doubts vanishing, "that
+Willem _is_ a 'sensitive.' I'm certain of it. And----"
+
+"A 'sensitive'?" queried Kathrien. "What's that?"
+
+"Well," reflected the doctor, "it is rather hard to define in simple
+language. A 'sensitive' is what is sometimes known as a 'medium.' A
+human organism so constructed that it can be 'informed,' or 'controlled'
+(as the phrases go) by those who are--who have--er--who have--passed
+over."
+
+He looked apologetically about as if to assure the possibly-present
+Peter Grimm that he had absolutely no intent of using so non-technical a
+word as "dead."
+
+Peter Grimm acknowledged the compliment with a laugh.
+
+"Oh, say it, Andrew! Say it!" he adjured. "There _is_ no 'death' and
+there are no 'dead,' as this world understands the words. So one term is
+as good as another. 'Dead' or 'passed over.' It's all one. Neither
+phrase means anything. Don't be afraid of offending me."
+
+"And Willem is like that?" asked Kathrien.
+
+"I am sure of it," answered McPherson. "Now, Willem----"
+
+"I think I'd better put the boy to bed!" hastily interposed Mrs.
+Batholommey, coming between the doctor and his proposed "subject."
+
+"Please!" rapped McPherson. "I propose to find out what ails Willem.
+That is what I'm here for. And I'll thank you not to interfere, Mrs.
+Batholommey. I never break in on your good husband's pulpit platitudes,
+and I'll ask you to show the same courtesy toward _me_. Now then,
+Willem----"
+
+"Kathrien," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "you surely aren't going to
+permit----?"
+
+A peremptory gesture from McPherson momentarily checked the pendulum of
+her tongue. Kathrien, too, was very evidently on the doctor's side.
+
+"Willem," said McPherson quietly, "you said just now that Mr. Grimm was
+in this room. What made you think so?"
+
+"The things he said to me," returned Willem, readily enough.
+
+His simple reply had a galvanic effect on his three hearers.
+
+"_Said_ to you?" bleated Mrs. Batholommey. "_Said_? Did you say 'said'?"
+
+"Why, Willem!" gasped Kathrien.
+
+"_Old_ Mr. Grimm?" insisted Dr. McPherson. "Willem, you're certain you
+mean _old_ Mr. Grimm? Not Frederik?"
+
+"Why, yes," assented Willem with calm assurance. "Old Mynheer Grimm."
+
+And now, even Mrs. Batholommey's awed curiosity dulled her chronic
+conscience-pains into momentary rest. And, with Kathrien, she sat
+silent, eager, awaiting the doctor's next move.
+
+"And," continued McPherson, "what did Mr. Grimm say to you? Think
+carefully before you answer."
+
+"Oh," replied Willem, in the glorious vagueness of childhood, "lots and
+lots of things."
+
+"Oh, really?" mocked Mrs. Batholommey, the disappointing answer freeing
+her from the grip of awe.
+
+Again McPherson raised a warning hand that balked further comment from
+her. And he returned to the examination.
+
+"Willem," said he, "how did Mr. Grimm look?"
+
+"I didn't see him," answered the child.
+
+"H'm!" sniffed Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+"But, Willem," urged McPherson, "you must have seen _something_."
+
+"I--I thought I saw his hat on the peg," hesitated the boy.
+
+All eyes turned involuntarily and in some fear toward the hat-rack.
+
+"No," went on Willem, looking at the vacant peg, "it's gone now."
+
+"Doctor," remonstrated Mrs. Batholommey, impatiently, "this is so silly!
+It----"
+
+"I wonder," whispered Kathrien to McPherson over the boy's head, "I
+wonder if he really _did_--do you think----?"
+
+She did not finish the sentence. A growing look of disappointment and
+troubled doubt on McPherson's grim face made her reluctant to voice the
+question that her mind had formed.
+
+"Willem!" said the Dead Man earnestly, pointing towards the
+pieced-together picture as he spoke. "Look! Show it to her!"
+
+"Look!" echoed Willem, pointing in turn to the photograph. "Look, Miss
+Kathrien! That's what I wanted to show you when you called to me to go
+to bed."
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Kathrien, following the direction of the eager little
+finger. "It's his mother! It's Anne Marie!"
+
+"His mother!" echoed Mrs. Batholommey, focussing her near-sighted eyes
+on the likeness. "Why, so it is! Well, of all things! I didn't know
+you'd heard from Anne Marie."
+
+"We haven't," said Kathrien.
+
+"Then how did the photograph get into the house?"
+
+"I don't know," answered the girl. "I never saw the picture before. It
+is none we've had. How strange! We've all been waiting for news of Anne
+Marie. Even her own mother doesn't know where she is, and hasn't heard
+from her in years. Or--or maybe Marta has received the picture since
+I----"
+
+"I'll ask her," said Mrs. Batholommey, all eagerness now that something
+tangible was before her.
+
+She bustled off into the kitchen in search of the old housekeeper.
+
+"If Marta didn't get it," mused Kathrien, her face strained with
+puzzling thoughts, "who _did_ have this picture? And why weren't the
+rest of us told? Every one knew how eager we were for news of Anne
+Marie. And who tore up the picture? Did you, Willem?"
+
+"No!" declared the boy. "It _was_ lying here, torn. I mended it."
+
+"But," persisted Kathrien, "there's been no one at this desk,--except
+Frederik.--Except Frederik," she repeated, half under her breath.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey came back from her kitchen interview, bubbling with
+importance.
+
+"No," she announced, "Marta hasn't heard a word from Anne Marie. And
+only a few minutes ago she asked Frederik if any message had come. And
+he said, no, there hadn't."
+
+"I wonder," suggested Kathrien, "if there _was_ any message with the
+photograph."
+
+"I remember," volunteered Mrs. Batholommey, "one of the letters that
+came for poor old Mr. Grimm was in a blue envelope and felt as if it had
+a photograph in it. I put it with some others in the desk and I told
+Frederik about it this evening."
+
+Kathrien glanced over the desk and at the floor around it in search of
+further clues. She saw, in the jardiniere, the charred remnants of a
+letter and pointed it out to the others. She drew from the debris the
+unburned corner of a blue envelope.
+
+"That's the one!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "That's it! The same colour."
+
+"You say the envelope was addressed to my uncle?"
+
+"Yes. It gave me such a turn to see those letters all addressed to a man
+who wasn't alive to----"
+
+"Oh, what does it all mean?" cried the girl.
+
+"We are going to find out," said McPherson with sudden determination.
+"Kathrien, draw those window shades close. I want the room darkened as
+much as possible."
+
+"Oh, Doctor," protested Mrs. Batholommey as Kathrien hastened to obey,
+"you're surely not going to----?"
+
+"Be quiet. You needn't stay unless you want to."
+
+"Oh, I'll stay. It's my duty. But I don't approve. Please understand
+that."
+
+Kathrien had returned to her place by the fire and had lifted Willem
+back on her lap. The doctor, gazing into space, said in a low,
+reverential tone:
+
+"Peter Grimm! If you have come back to us, if you are in this room--if
+this boy has spoken truly,--give us some sign, some indication----"
+
+"Why, Andrew, I can't," answered the Dead Man. "Not to _you_. I have, to
+the boy. I can't make you hear me, Andrew. The obstacles are too strong
+for me."
+
+"Peter Grimm," went on the doctor after a moment of dead silence, "if
+you cannot make your presence known to me--and I realise there must be
+great difficulties--will you try to send your message by Willem? I
+presume you _have_ a message?"
+
+Another space of tense silence.
+
+"Well, Peter," resumed McPherson patiently, "I am waiting. We are all
+waiting."
+
+"Then stop talking and listen to Willem," ordered Peter Grimm.
+
+The doctor involuntarily glanced at the boy. Willem's wide-open eyes
+were glazed like a sleep-walker's. The hands that had been folded in his
+lap now hung limply at his sides. His lips parted, and droning,
+mechanical, lifeless words came from between them.
+
+"There was Anne Marie--and me--and the Other One," said he.
+
+"What Other One?" asked McPherson, speaking in a low, emotionless voice
+so as not to break in on the thought current.
+
+"The man that came there," droned the boy.
+
+"What man?"
+
+"The man that made Anne Marie cry."
+
+"What man made Anne Marie cry?"
+
+"I--I can't remember," returned the boy, a hesitant note of trouble
+creeping into his dead voice.
+
+"Yes, you can," prompted Peter Grimm. "You _can_ remember, Willem.
+You're afraid!"
+
+"So you _do_ remember the time when you were with Anne Marie?" whispered
+Kathrien as the lad hesitated. "You always told me you didn't. Doctor, I
+have the strangest feeling. A feeling that all this somehow concerns
+_me_, and that I must sift it to the bottom. Think, Willem. Who was it
+that came and went at the house where you lived with Anne Marie?"
+
+"That is what _I_ asked you, Willem," said Peter Grimm.
+
+"That is what _he_ asked me," replied Willem mechanically.
+
+"Who?" demanded McPherson. "Who asked you that question, Willem?"
+
+"Mynheer Grimm."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Just now."
+
+"Just now!" cried Kathrien and Mrs. Batholommey in a breath.
+
+"S-sh!" admonished the doctor. "So you both asked the same question, eh?
+The man that came to see----?"
+
+"It can't be possible," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "that the boy has
+any idea what he is talking about."
+
+A glare from McPherson silenced her. Then the doctor asked:
+
+"What did you tell Mr. Grimm, Willem?"
+
+The boy hesitated.
+
+"Better make haste," adjured the Dead Man, "Frederik is coming back."
+
+Willem, with a shudder, glanced fearfully toward the outer door.
+
+"Why does he do that?" wondered Kathrien. "He looked that way at the
+door when he spoke of 'the Other One.' Why should he?"
+
+"He's afraid," answered Peter Grimm.
+
+"I'm afraid," echoed Willem.
+
+Kathrien gathered him more closely in her warm young arms and whispered
+soothingly to him. The fear died out of his eyes.
+
+"You're not afraid, any more?" she reassured him.
+
+"N-no," he faltered, "but--oh, _please_ don't let Mynheer Frederik come
+back, Miss Kathrien! _Please_, don't! Because--because then I'll be
+afraid again. I know I will."
+
+McPherson whistled low and long. A light was beginning to break upon his
+shrewd Scotch brain.
+
+"Willem!" pleaded the Dead Man. "_Willem!_"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the boy.
+
+"You must say I am very unhappy."
+
+"He is very unhappy," repeated Willem, parrot-like.
+
+"Why is he unhappy?" demanded McPherson. "Ask him?"
+
+"Why are you unhappy, Mynheer Grimm?" droned the boy.
+
+"On account of Kathrien's future," replied Peter Grimm.
+
+"What?" questioned Willem, who did not quite understand the meaning of
+the words "account" and "future."
+
+"To-morrow----" began the Dead Man.
+
+"To-morrow----" droned Willem.
+
+"Kathrien's----" continued Peter Grimm.
+
+"Your----" said the boy, glancing at Kathrien.
+
+"Kathrien's?" asked the doctor. "Is he speaking about Kathrien?"
+
+"What is it, Willem?" begged the girl. "What about me, to-morrow?"
+
+"Kathrien must not marry Frederik," said Peter Grimm, as if teaching a
+simple lesson to a very stupid pupil.
+
+"Kathrien----" began the boy, then flinching, and once more glancing
+fearfully over his shoulder toward the door, he whimpered:
+
+"Oh, I must not say that!"
+
+"Say _what_, Willem?" urged McPherson.
+
+"What--what he wanted me to say!"
+
+"Kathrien must not marry Frederik Grimm," repeated the Dead Man. "Say
+it, Willem?"
+
+"Speak up, Willem," exhorted McPherson. "Don't be scared. No one will
+hurt you."
+
+"Oh, yes," denied Willem, in terror, "_he_ will. I don't _want_ to say
+his name! Because--because----"
+
+"Why won't you tell his name?" insisted McPherson.
+
+"Hurry, Willem! Hurry!" begged the Dead Man.
+
+"Oh," wailed Willem, with another terrified glance at the door, "I'm
+afraid! I'm _afraid_! He'll make Anne Marie cry again. And me! And
+_me_!"
+
+"Why are you afraid of him?" asked Kathrien. "Was Frederik the man that
+came to see Anne Marie----?"
+
+"Kathrien!" primly reproved Mrs. Batholommey.
+
+Kathrien caught hold of the boy's hand as he rose, shaking, to his feet.
+She knelt before him.
+
+"Willem!" she implored. "Was Frederik the man who came to see Anne
+Marie? _Tell_ me!"
+
+"Surely," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey in pious horror, "surely,
+Kathrien, you don't believe----?"
+
+"I have thought of a great many things this evening," replied Kathrien,
+vibrant with excitement, yet instinctively lowering her voice so as not
+to break in on Willem's semi-trance. "Little things that I've never
+noticed before. I'm putting them together. Just as Willem put that
+picture together. And I must know who the Other One was."
+
+"Hurry, Willem!" exhorted the Dead Man. "Hurry! Frederik is listening at
+the door."
+
+The announcement brought Willem around with a gasp toward the door. He
+stared at its panels, quaking, aghast.
+
+"I won't say any more!" he whimpered, pointing at the door. "_He's_
+there!"
+
+"Who was the man, Willem?" entreated McPherson. "Come, lad! Out with
+it!"
+
+"Quick, Willem!" supplemented Peter Grimm.
+
+Kathrien, acting on an unexplained impulse as Willem stared
+terror-stricken at the door, hastened toward the vestibule.
+
+"No! No!" shrieked the boy in anguished falsetto as he divined what she
+was about to do. "Please, _please_ don't! _Don't!_ _Don't_ let him in.
+I'm afraid of him. He made Anne Marie cry."
+
+But Kathrien's hand was already at the latch. She threw the outer door
+wide open. Frederik Grimm stood on the threshold, his head still a
+little forward. His ear had evidently been pressed close to the panel.
+
+"You're sure Frederik's the man?" almost shouted McPherson.
+
+"I won't tell! I won't tell! _I won't tell!_" screamed the boy, taking
+one look at Frederik, then tearing loose from McPherson's restraining
+hand and dashing up the stairs.
+
+"I must go to bed now," sobbed Willem from the gallery above. "_He_ told
+me to."
+
+He ran into his own room and shut the door quickly behind him.
+
+"You're a good boy, Willem!" Peter Grimm called approvingly after him.
+
+The cloud of grief was gone from the Dead Man's face, leaving it
+wondrously bright and young. With no trace of anxiety, he turned to
+witness the consummation of his labours.
+
+Frederik Grimm was standing, nerveless, dazed, where Kathrien's
+impulsive opening of the door had disclosed him. Dully, he stared from
+one to another of the three who confronted him. It was Kathrien who
+first spoke. Pointing toward the photograph that still lay on the desk,
+she said:
+
+"Frederik, you have heard from Anne Marie."
+
+His lips parted in denial. Then he saw the picture, started slightly,
+and lapsed into a sullen silence.
+
+"You have had a letter from her," pursued Kathrien. "You burned it. And
+you tore that picture so that we would not recognise it. Why did you
+tell Marta that you had had no message--no news? You told her so,
+_since_ that letter and photograph came. You went to Anne Marie's home,
+too. Why did you tell me you had never seen her since she left here? Why
+did you lie to me? _Why do you hate her child?_"
+
+Frederik made one dogged effort to regain what he had so bewilderingly
+lost.
+
+"Are--are you going to believe what that brat says?" he muttered.
+
+"No," retorted Kathrien. "But I'm going to find out for myself. I am
+going to find out where Anne Marie is before I marry you. And I am going
+to learn the truth from her. Willem may be right or wrong in what he
+thinks he remembers. But _I_ am going to find out, past all doubt, what
+Anne Marie was to you. And, if what I think is true----"
+
+"It is true," interposed McPherson. "It is true, Kathrien. I believe we
+got that message direct."
+
+"Andrew is right, Katje," prompted the Dead Man. "Believe him."
+
+"Yes!" cried Kathrien, as if in reply. "It is true. I believe Oom Peter
+was in this room to-night!"
+
+"What?" blurted Frederik. "_You_ saw him, too?"
+
+His unguarded query was lost in Mrs. Batholommey's gasp of:
+
+"Oh, Kathrien, that's quite impossible. It was only a coincidence
+that----"
+
+"I don't care what any one else may think," rushed on Kathrien, swept
+along upon the wave of a strange exultation that bore her far out of her
+wonted timid self. "People have the right to think for themselves. I
+believe Oom Peter has been here, to-night!"
+
+"I _am_ here, Katje," breathed the Dead Man.
+
+"I believe he is here, _now_!" declared Kathrien, her eyes aglow, and
+her face flushed. "He is here. Oh, Oom Peter!" she cried, her arms
+stretched wide in appeal, her face alight, her voice rising like that of
+a prophetess of old. "Oom Peter, if you can hear me now, give me back my
+promise! Give it back to me--_or I'll take it back_!"
+
+"I did give it back to you, dear," answered Peter Grimm happily. "But,
+oh, what a time I've had putting it across!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MR. BATHOLOMMEY TESTIFIES
+
+
+  _To Whom It May Concern:_
+
+I am Henry Batholommey, rector of the Protestant Episcopal church at
+Grimm Manor, New York State. My neighbour, Andrew McPherson, M.D., has
+asked me to substantiate, so far as lies in my power, certain statements
+in a paper he is preparing for the Society of Psychical Research,
+concerning certain recent happenings in the house of my former
+parishioner, the late Peter Grimm of this place.
+
+I refuse.
+
+I understand, also, that in telling the story broadcast, as he has done,
+he has made free use of my name and that of my wife, as witnesses to
+these happenings. Wherefore, I am daily in receipt of fully a dozen
+letters of enquiry. Reporters, so-called scientists, mystics with long
+hair and unclean nails, and cranks and practical jokers of every sort
+and description have taken to calling at the rectory, at inconvenient
+hours, to cross-question me.
+
+For example: one disreputable man, reeking of cheap liquor, came to me
+yesterday with the information that the story of Peter Grimm's return
+had converted him and that (with some slight temporary financial
+assistance from me) he was prepared to renounce liquor and mend his
+ways. He looked like a penitent. He talked like a penitent. But he most
+assuredly did not _smell_ like a penitent. And I sent him about his
+business.
+
+This was but one of many irritating interruptions upon my parish work to
+which Dr. McPherson's use of my name has subjected me.
+
+In view of all this, I deem it advisable to save myself from further
+annoyance and to stop the rumour that a minister of the Gospel has
+turned Spiritualist, by issuing the following brief statement:
+
+Dr. McPherson is desirous that my wife and myself endorse his belief
+that the occurrences at the home of the late Peter Grimm were of a
+supernatural nature.
+
+We shall do no such thing.
+
+For the single reason that neither Mrs. Batholommey nor myself, after
+mature reflection and dispassionate discussion, can find one atom of the
+Supernatural in any of the events that transpired there. Perhaps I can
+best make clear my point of view by rehearsing the case and my own very
+small connection therewith.
+
+The fact that Dr. McPherson is of a different denomination from myself
+in no way biases my feelings in this case. I am an Episcopalian. And I
+am of liberal views toward those who are not;--with the possible
+exception of Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists,
+and members of a few other denominations outside the direct Apostolic
+Succession. Yet I confess I was shocked at the conversion (or
+perversion) of my old neighbour, McPherson, to a cult which, for want of
+a better word, I must designate as "Spiritualism."
+
+He told me of a compact he had made with my dear friend and parishioner,
+Peter Grimm, to the effect that whichever of them should first leave
+this mortal life was to return and make known his presence to the other.
+I told McPherson to his face that I regarded such a compact as being
+even more sacrilegious than senseless. My good wife echoed my
+sentiments. McPherson, who has not the admirable control over his temper
+so needful to a medical man, chose to become angry at my outspoken
+opinion and said several cruelly unjust things concerning my own
+behaviour toward the late Peter Grimm.
+
+I shall not stoop to denying or even repeating what he said; far less to
+justify myself. Yet I should like to mention, in passing, that his
+coarse gibe concerning my fawning on a rich man is the most unjust of
+all his abominable assertions.
+
+I was in the habit of bringing cases of need before Peter Grimm's
+notice, it is true. And he responded right generously to every such
+appeal. I enlisted his financial aid for the local poor, for the Church
+Building Fund, for missions (home and foreign), and for the other worthy
+and needy cases.
+
+But for myself or for my family I have never asked for one penny, either
+from Peter Grimm or from any other man. And as the gifts I have begged
+were in my Master's name and solely for my Master's service, I do not
+consider I have demeaned myself. Be that my sole defence. I am content
+with it.
+
+The public, of late years, has looked askance at the attitude of
+clergymen toward the wealthier members of their congregation. And, in
+ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, with absolutely no cause. The
+Church is in need. The poor are in dire distress. Missions languish for
+the few paltry thousands that would carry the Word triumphant throughout
+the earth.
+
+Who is to supply these needs? Who but the clergyman? Out of his own
+scanty salary? That hardly supports him and his. Yet, in proportion, he
+gives from it as never did a multimillionaire. To whom can he turn for
+financial help in carrying out his Master's work? To the Rich Man. And,
+in many cases, the day is past when he can do so without first winning
+the personal liking of that same rich man. Yes, and often by flattering
+him and smiling approvingly at his vulgar humour or soothing his equally
+vulgar rages.
+
+Shame that the deathless Church of God should have been brought to such
+a pass!
+
+Yes, and tenfold shame to those that sneer at the clergyman who
+sacrifices and tortures all that is sensitive and sacred in himself, in
+the effort to wheedle from the wealthy boor the money to save God's poor
+and God's souls! Is it pleasant for him to fawn and to be patronised?
+Others do it, I know. But for _themselves_. The clergyman must do it in
+his Master's name and for no personal gain.
+
+Let the rector refuse to lower himself thus--What happens? The rich man
+goes to a church where flattery and subservience are more plentiful. The
+stiff-necked rector seeks in vain for funds. For lack of money his
+church runs down. It cannot keep up its charities and its other work.
+
+Who is to blame? The rector, of course. Let us get an up-to-date man in
+his place. And the clergyman who refused to cringe finds himself not
+only without a church but with a record that bars him from getting
+another one. I do not say this state of affairs is universal. But I _do_
+say, from bitter experience, that it is far too prevalent. Forgive my
+digression. I will get back to my statement with all speed.
+
+I have told of the "compact" between Peter Grimm and Andrew McPherson.
+Mr. Grimm died. Kathrien had promised him to marry his nephew, Frederik.
+She did not love him. She did love James Hartmann. She has admitted both
+those facts to me.
+
+As the time for the wedding drew near, she was more and more loath to
+carry out her promise. McPherson attributes that distaste to the
+spiritual promptings of Peter Grimm. Can any normal woman (who has been
+forced to marry one man while loving another) see the remotest hint of
+the Supernatural in it? No!
+
+Willem, a boy of epileptic tendencies--as McPherson himself admits--had
+taken his benefactor's death terribly to heart, and had brooded over it
+day and night. Is there any reason to doubt that in such an unbalanced
+nature, this brooding, coupled by fever, should have produced a delirium
+in which he believed he heard Peter Grimm speaking to him?
+
+He also believed, Kathrien tells me, that he heard the circus parade
+pass the house ten days after it had left town. Is one belief entitled
+to greater credence than the other? Or did the ghost of a circus parade
+meander through our Main street at night, accompanied by a Spook brass
+band? Each idea is quite as probable as the other.
+
+And, from the boy's own statement, Peter Grimm said to him nothing
+original or even betokening a mind more developed than a child's. Willem
+knew Kathrien was going to marry Frederik. He knew she did not want to
+and that he himself disliked and feared Frederik. What more likely than
+that he should imagine he heard Peter forbid the match?
+
+What more likely, in his own fevered unhappiness, than that he should
+think Peter Grimm said "I am very unhappy"? Would a man of Peter Grimm's
+strength and shrewdness come back to earth and tell the child nothing of
+greater importance than Willem says he told? And, if he could make
+Willem understand such phrases as "I am very unhappy" and "Kathrien must
+not marry Frederik," could he not have made the boy understand anything
+else?
+
+As to Frederik Grimm:--Frederik, we know, was nervous and overwrought.
+His uncle's death had been a shock--if not a grief. He had the added
+worry of knowing Kathrien did not really love him. He was in constant
+fear lest Anne Marie, on hearing of Peter's death, might communicate
+with her mother and lest the secret of his own relations with the poor
+girl be exposed. This suspense added to his nervousness.
+
+The sight of her picture and the reading of her pathetic letter stirred
+his conscience. He forced himself to destroy both bits of evidence. And
+the action strongly brought before his nerve-racked senses the thought
+of what honourable old Peter Grimm would have said of such conduct. So
+strongly, in fact, that in the dark he fancied he saw Grimm's eyes
+glaring at him. The phenomenon is by no means uncommon and has been
+explained by scientists upon perfectly natural grounds.
+
+As to Willem's sudden remembrance of half-forgotten facts concerning his
+own childhood, there is no parent living who cannot cite instances of
+newly awakened memory, in his or her own child, that are quite as
+remarkable. The seeing of his mother's photograph brought before Willem
+the recollection of scenes in which she had played a part; scenes that
+had been crowded from his mind by later events.
+
+Frederik had just spoken harshly to him. And that recalled harsh words
+Frederik had spoken to the woman in the picture. And thus, quite simply,
+his memory supplied the one needful link. What is remarkable in all the
+foregoing? In fact, Shakespeare's Horatio says:
+
+     "There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, to tell us
+     this!"
+
+So much for Dr. McPherson's efforts to surround a series of normal
+occurrences with a halo of the Supernatural! Now, let me add a word on
+my own account, and I am done.
+
+The Dead do not return to the scene of their toil and pain and tears.
+Would a freed convict sneak back to his prison house or the ex-galley
+slave to his oar? The convalescent does not crawl into the contagion
+ward again of his free choice. Nor, I believe, would the Lord permit the
+return of the Dead; even to bear a warning to those left behind.
+
+Glance at the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke for confirmation of my
+belief;--at the parable of the "certain rich man who was clothed in
+purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day"; and who, in
+torment, after death, called to Abraham to send Lazarus from Heaven to
+visit the Tortured One's five brethren:
+
+"_That he may testify unto men, lest they also come into this place of
+torment._
+
+"_Abraham said to him: 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear
+them.'_
+
+"_And he said: 'Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the
+dead they would repent.'_
+
+"_And he said unto him: 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
+neither will they be persuaded through one rise from the dead.'_"
+
+No, the whole idea is preposterous. It is far outside of God's justice
+and infinitely farther beyond His boundless mercy.
+
+"He giveth His Beloved _sleep_";--not weary, hopeless wanderings upon
+the face of the earth.
+
+Peter Grimm did not return. And this is the only comment I care to make
+upon Andrew McPherson's amazing theory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DR. McPHERSON'S STATEMENT
+
+
+DR. JAMES HYSLOP.
+
+_My Dear Sir:_--After reading the account which I am mailing to you
+under separate cover, will you kindly forward it to the American Branch
+of the Society of Psychical Research? As you will observe, it is a
+verbatim report of a "seance."
+
+For your personal information, I beg to make the following supplementary
+statement.
+
+At the residence of Peter Grimm,--I should say the _late_ Peter
+Grimm--(the well-known horticulturist of Grimm Manor, N. Y.) certain
+phenomena occurred this evening which would clearly indicate the Return
+of Peter Grimm, ten days after his decease. At my first free moment
+after the manifestation, I jotted down in shorthand the exact dialogue,
+etc., which I have since transcribed into the enclosed report.
+
+While Peter Grimm was invisible to all, three people were present
+besides myself; including the "recipient," a child of eight, who had
+been ill, but was almost normal at the time.
+
+No spelling out of signals nor automatic writing was employed, but word
+of mouth.
+
+I made a compact with Peter Grimm while he was in the flesh that
+whichever one of us should go first was to return and give the other
+some sign. And I propose, by the enclosed report, to show positive proof
+that Peter Grimm kept his compact and that I assisted in the carrying
+out of his instructions.
+
+Let me introduce myself and briefly recount the circumstances which led
+up to the seance, as well as my own state of mind concerning
+manifestations:
+
+I am a practising physician in the town of Grimm Manor, a suburb of New
+York City, settled at the time of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan, and
+named after the family, the Grimms, which first owned the farm that is
+now the town site.
+
+I have always been greatly interested in Spiritualism. I have read
+nearly all that has been written on this subject and have known,
+personally, most all the so-called mediums. I have attended seances in
+this country and abroad and have by turns been convinced that they were
+genuine or frauds.
+
+Up to the time when the events which I am about to narrate began to
+occur, I had been unable to come to a definite decision, as far as my
+own belief was concerned, as to whether or not the spirits of the dead
+could communicate with the living. At one time I would be led to believe
+they could, but then the exposure of some well-known medium as a
+trickster would change my opinion and I would again find myself puzzling
+vainly over the answer to this problem.
+
+You doubtless remember the furore which was created in Spiritualistic
+circles by the announcement of an English physician that, in accordance
+with a compact, a friend had communicated with him after death.
+
+This idea fascinated me. There is an old Japanese myth to the effect
+that if a dying man resolves to do a certain act the body will, after
+death, perform that act. It seemed to me that if a man could die and
+return to earth in spirit it must be as the result of a resolution to
+return made just before death and constituting the ruling passion at the
+time of death itself. I determined that I would put this theory to the
+test.
+
+We of this materialistic world of barter and sale give little time to
+the consideration of the Hereafter. There are occasions with most of us
+when the unanswerable Why and Whence obtrudes itself on our vision, but
+it is a fleeting impression which vanishes with the rising of the sun on
+the day's work. The wonder and mystery of life may come home to us at
+the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, but we soon cease to
+marvel at the miracle of the former and a new joy banishes grief.
+
+For, we say, what avails it, this search after the Land of the
+Hereafter, if there be such a place? No one has ever come back to tell
+us that there is; or what it is and where. It is all a matter of
+conjecture in which we are following round the circle trod by man since
+the world began.
+
+One man believes that there is a Hereafter, a spirit land in which the
+Soul, stripped of all evil, reaches a state of perfection and divine
+happiness which justifies the stupendous feat of the Creation and the
+travail of those who are bound to the treadmill of life.
+
+Another believes, pointing for proof to the dead branches from which new
+leaves spring, that life is endless, and that the soul, leaving the
+worn-out shell, takes up its dwelling in another form. Another with
+scorn tells us that all life is a joke and we are the butts of the
+cruel will of an Omnipotent power. And still another says:
+
+"Any and all beliefs in this matter are good, for none can be proved.
+Let each believe that which gives him the most happiness, so long as it
+be noble and sweet and true."
+
+And with this last I hold. So that if it bring peace and love and
+contentment into the heart of man, woman, or child to believe that the
+spirit of a loved one, who has solved the Problem mortal cannot solve,
+can return to earth and communicate by some sign or token with those who
+were its companions when it inhabited a human house, I say it is wrong
+to scoff and rail at this belief.
+
+There has now come to me the proof that such a belief does bring peace
+and love and contentment, that it does cast out evil. With regard to the
+Psychological aspects of the circumstances which are related in the
+enclosed transcript, I express no opinion. I have never before had the
+feeling that a person dead so far as mortal existence was concerned was
+endeavouring to communicate with me. The debates and wrangles which go
+on continually between those who affirm and deny the possibility of
+spirit messages have always impressed me, but beyond a theory, I had no
+knowledge as to the right or wrong of it. However, I was strongly
+inclined to believe.
+
+The fact that on many occasions so-called rappings, table liftings,
+writings, and other supposed spirit manifestations have been shown to be
+the result of mere human trickery does not necessarily prove that such
+demonstrations may not be the efforts of an immortal soul to make its
+presence known.
+
+I say this because I want it understood that I have not allowed any
+prejudice, favourable or otherwise, to creep into the report that I send
+herewith. I go no further than to say that if my report helps to prove
+that the spirit of one we have loved and revered can come back and bring
+peace and love and happiness to mortals who are in dire need, if it can
+banish blighting evil from their lives; then life, for all its burdens,
+is not lived in vain.
+
+Among my dearest friends was Peter Grimm, direct descendant of the
+founders of the village, who still occupied the old Manor House and was
+engaged in horticulture. Grimm's tulips were known throughout the
+country and his business was a large one.
+
+There lived with him Kathrien, whom he had adopted at my suggestion
+(made at a time when he seemed to be getting morose and verging on
+becoming a recluse) that he needed a child in the house; Frederik, his
+nephew and heir; James Hartmann, his secretary, and Willem, the son of
+Anne Marie, the daughter of Marta, the housekeeper.
+
+Anne Marie had left home in disgrace and had sent Willem to her mother
+after his father had deserted her. Who this man was had never been
+revealed, and the whereabouts of Anne Marie herself were unknown at the
+time I am writing of.
+
+At those times when I leaned toward the conviction that communication
+between earth and spirit land was possible, I was prone to think that if
+it could be, it must be between a spirit and a mortal who in life
+typified in their affection for each other the highest type of pure
+love. If any mortal, I thought, could receive a spirit message, it must
+be one whose heart and soul are spotless, whose love is as that of a
+little child before it has grown to manhood and plucked at the leaves of
+the Tree of Knowledge.
+
+In the day Kathrien entered his home there was born in Peter Grimm a
+great love for mankind, but especially for children. Not but that he
+had always been kindly and charitable to those who deserved his aid, but
+where before his life had been given up to his business, to making the
+brown earth do his will, he now devoted his chief thought to making
+Kathrien happy. This love for children was increased when Willem came to
+him, and I think the most perfect affection that ever existed among
+three persons was that which these three bore to each other.
+
+Peter came to me recently to be treated for a cold which, while severe,
+was not in itself dangerous. But in examining him I found that his heart
+was in such a condition that a strong emotion, such as intense joy,
+anger, or fear might cause instant death.
+
+I determined, on discovering this, to ask him to enter into a compact
+with me that whichever of us should die first should, after death,
+communicate with the survivor. While I was not sure (although a strong
+bond of affection existed between us) that I was a person fitted to
+receive such a communication, I was convinced that either Kathrien or
+Willem would understand a message sent to me from the spirit land by
+Peter, and, if the thing were possible, that he, if he could not reach
+me directly, would do so through one or the other of them.
+
+I made the mistake of telling Colonel Lawton of Peter's condition. I
+might have known that he would tell his wife. She told Mrs. Batholommey,
+the wife of the rector.
+
+When I suggested the compact to Peter Grimm, he pooh-poohed the whole
+idea, laughed at me, told me to get such nonsense out of my head.
+
+But I stuck to it. I told him of the incident of the English doctor and
+his friend, of the great service that would be done to humanity and
+science if he or I could prove that signals could be exchanged between a
+land inhabited by the souls of the dead and this mortal earth. At last
+he consented.
+
+The rector and his wife called after we had finished our argument, and
+Mrs. Batholommey as much as told Peter during the course of the
+conversation that he was doomed. Then poor little Willem blabbed the
+truth. He had overheard us discussing the matter. Peter reiterated that
+he would make the compact with me.
+
+We shook hands on it, we sealed it with a touch of our glasses filled
+with Peter Grimm's famous plum brandy.
+
+There was a circus in town, one of those travelling country affairs, and
+the parade had passed by the house. Peter gave Willem money to buy
+tickets.
+
+That was the last I saw or heard in this life of mortal Peter Grimm,
+standing there with a smile on his face.
+
+I had been absent but a few minutes when I heard Kathrien crying my
+name. I ran back to the house. Peter Grimm was dead.
+
+Ten days later came the seance described in my enclosure. Later in the
+evening I went to Willem's room and had a quiet little talk with him. He
+was calm again and spoke freely of what seemed to him an utterly natural
+experience. And from that conversation I believe I confirmed still
+further what was already established as a fact, so far as I was
+concerned. Peter Grimm had kept his compact with me. He had returned!
+
+I wanted to talk with Willem at a time when he was in a normal condition
+and not in the thrall of fear. I found him without fever, though weaker
+than he had been for several days. I assured him that he had nothing to
+fear from Frederik, that all of us were his friends, and that no harm
+could come to him.
+
+"Now tell me, Willem," I said, "all about your seeing Uncle Peter this
+evening."
+
+"I awoke very thirsty and went downstairs for a drink," the boy told me
+in effect. "The ice pitcher felt so cool that I rested my cheek against
+it and then I drank some more water. Then I heard some one calling me.
+
+"'Willem, Willem,' a voice said, 'can you hear me? Is there no one in
+this house that can hear me?'
+
+"I couldn't make out at first who it was. Then I heard it again:
+
+"'Willem, Willem,' it said, 'you _must_ hear me.'
+
+"Then I looked around and saw Mynheer Peter's hat on the rack, and I
+knew he must have come back. But I couldn't see him.
+
+"'Where are you, Mynheer Peter?' I asked him.
+
+"'You cannot see me, Willem, but I am here. I want you to tell them all
+I am here.'
+
+"That's as near as I can remember it. We talked a while longer. Then he
+said something like:
+
+"'Go over and look on the table, Willem.'
+
+"I went to the table and saw some torn pieces of paper.
+
+"'Put them together, Willem,' said Mynheer Grimm.
+
+"When I had got it all pasted together I saw it was my mother, Anne
+Marie; and then you and Miss Kathrien came down.
+
+"Uncle Peter was standing over there about in the middle of the room. I
+could tell from his voice, but I couldn't see him.
+
+"'Tell them about the man who made Anne Marie cry,' Mynheer Peter told
+me. And he kept saying, 'Hurry, Willem, before it is too late; he is
+coming. Hurry, Willem, hurry,' and just before Mr. Frederik came in
+Mynheer Peter said, 'Tell them now, Willem; _he_ is listening at the
+door.'
+
+"Before you came down I asked Mynheer Peter to take me back with him
+when he went and he said he would."
+
+Now, mind you, Willem knew nothing of the compact Peter and I had made.
+
+Peter Grimm had said he would return, if he could. I believe he did so.
+
+My studies of the so-called "Occult" have done my reputation in this
+narrow provincial town much harm. I have been sneered at as a
+"spiritualist," a "spook hunter," an "agnostic." I am none of the three.
+I am a seeker after Truth; even while fully aware of the impossibility
+of absolutely finding that elusive quality. Nor do my researches in any
+way conflict with revealed religion, nor in the simple Bible faith that
+has ever been mine and that shall forever sustain me.
+
+Having thus set forth my personal position in the matter--perhaps
+tediously and to an undue length,--I beg to call your attention to my
+report.
+
+  Very truly yours,
+  ANDREW MCPHERSON, M.D.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BACK TO THE STORY
+
+
+Dr. McPherson occasionally gave a vigorous shake to his fountain pen,
+and made corrections here and there.
+
+It was nearly midnight, and he had been writing almost uninterruptedly
+since he had followed Willem upstairs after the boy's flight.
+
+Willem had been restless and feverish, and had asked repeatedly to be
+brought down to the living-room. He seemed irresistibly drawn toward the
+place where he had talked with Peter Grimm and had "almost seen him."
+
+So the sofa had been drawn up to the fire and a bed made for him there.
+Now, however, he was at last sleeping peacefully in his little upstairs
+room, and the whole house was quiet, though no one else had gone to bed,
+and there was everywhere a subdued feeling of excitement.
+
+The doctor had drawn a little table close to the vacant side of the
+fireplace (for the coals still smouldered, and the night was damp and
+chill). He had placed Willem's medicines there; and a lamp, the only
+bright spot in the big room.
+
+Outside, the world was bathed in moonlight, and through the window the
+arms of the windmill could be seen, waving solemnly round and round like
+some strange, black mysterious creature beckoning silently from another
+world.
+
+McPherson was preparing a formal statement of the "seance" while it was
+still fresh in his mind. And as Willem might need him, he was filling in
+a waiting hour by writing.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey's anxious face, encased in a scarf, broke in upon his
+concentration.
+
+"Oh--I'm _so_ nervous!" exclaimed the rector's wife, shudderingly, as
+she came into the room and going to the piano, turned up the second
+lamp.
+
+"How can you sit here in such a dim light, after all that has happened
+in this room--just a few hours ago, too?"
+
+Dr. McPherson, intent upon his work, was determined not to be
+interrupted. His only reply to Mrs. Batholommey was the scratching of
+his pen and the rattle of paper as he turned over a page.
+
+"I thought perhaps Frederik had come back," she went on.
+
+"So Willem's feeling better again?" she asked, advancing on the doctor.
+
+"Yes," he answered abstractedly. "I took him upstairs a few minutes
+ago."
+
+"Strange how the boy wants to remain in this room!" said Mrs.
+Batholommey.
+
+"M'm----" grunted Dr. McPherson shortly, without looking up at all.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey came nearer and sat down.
+
+"Oh, Doctor! Doctor!" she cried. "The scene that took place here
+to-night has completely upset me."
+
+The doctor's only reply was to turn his back on Mrs. Batholommey and
+begin reading his manuscript aloud in an undertone, scratching out a
+word here, adding something there.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey, quite unconscious that she was a nuisance, leaned back
+in her chair and let her words flow on.
+
+"Well, Doctor, the breaking off of the engagement is--er--sudden, isn't
+it? We've been talking it over in the front parlour, Mr. Batholommey and
+I."
+
+The doctor darted a withering look at her over his spectacles.
+
+"I suggest sending out a card----" she purred, "just a neat card" (here
+she measured off an imaginary card with her fingers), "saying that owing
+to the bereavement in the family the wedding has been indefinitely
+postponed. Of course," she sighed, "it isn't exactly true."
+
+"Won't take place at all," exploded the doctor, going on at once with
+his reading.
+
+"Evidently not," said Mrs. Batholommey, "but if the whole matter
+looks very strange to _me_--How is it going to look to other
+people--especially when we haven't any--any _rational_ explanation--as
+yet? We must get out of it in _some_ fashion. I'm sure I don't know how
+else we can explain--I don't like telling anything that isn't
+true--but--there _was_ to be a wedding." Mrs. Batholommey waved her
+right hand. "There _isn't_ to be any wedding," she waved her left hand.
+"At least, Frederik isn't to be in it--and one must account for it
+_somehow_?"
+
+"Whose business is it?" fired the doctor, in a voice that made Mrs.
+Batholommey start like a frightened rabbit.
+
+For one moment his eyes peered fiercely at her under their shaggy brows,
+and then he returned to his narrative.
+
+"Nobody's at all," she made great haste to say. "Nobody's at
+all--nobody's at all, of course. But Kathrien's position is certainly
+unusual; and the strangest part of it is--she doesn't appear to feel her
+situation. She's sitting alone in the library seemingly placid and
+happy. She acts as if a weight were off her mind. But the main point
+I've been arguing is this: Should the card we're going to send out have
+a narrow black border, or not?"
+
+She turned toward the doctor and indicated with her fingers the width of
+black border that seemed to her to fit the occasion. But her trouble was
+entirely wasted.
+
+Dr. McPherson was once more engrossed in his writing, and had forgotten
+her existence.
+
+"Well, Doctor," she said in an injured tone, "you don't appear to be
+interested. You don't even answer!"
+
+"I couldn't," snapped Dr. McPherson. "I didn't know whether you were
+talking _again_ or _still_."
+
+Mrs. Batholommey was hurt, and she showed it in the reproachful look she
+cast at the doctor's unassailable, uninterested back.
+
+"Oh, of course," she said, "all these little matters sound trivial to
+you. But men like you couldn't look after the workings of the _next_
+world, if other people didn't attend to _this one_. _Somebody_ has to do
+it," she ended triumphantly.
+
+"I fully appreciate the fact, Mistress Batholommey, that other people
+are making it possible for me to be _myself_----"
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by a couple of raps on the window
+pane.
+
+"What's that?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, jumping up in alarm.
+
+"Telegram for Frederik Grimm," came a voice from the darkness, and a
+form was silhouetted against the moonlight.
+
+"Mr. Grimm's down at the hotel," said Mrs. Batholommey, hastily throwing
+up the window, "but I'll sign for it. Where do I sign?" she fluttered.
+"Oh, yes, I see, _here_!"
+
+She wrote Frederik's name, then handed back the book to the telegraph
+boy, and closed the window. Just as she laid the telegram on the desk,
+Mr. Batholommey came into the room.
+
+"Well, Doctor," he said with veiled sarcasm, "I would by all means
+suggest that we don't judge Frederik until the information Willem has
+_volunteered_ can be verified."
+
+"Umph!" grunted the doctor.
+
+Then he got up and went to the telephone.
+
+"Four--red," he called to "Central."
+
+Mr. Batholommey betook himself to the vestibule and began to put on his
+rubbers with methodical care.
+
+"However, I regret," (he went on as easily as if the doctor had not
+grunted) "that Frederik has left the house without offering some sort of
+explanation."
+
+"Four--red?" pursued the doctor. "That you, Marget? I'm at Peter's. I
+mean--I'm at the Grimms'. No, don't wait up for me. Send me my bag here.
+I'll stay the night with Willem. Bye."
+
+He put up the receiver and began to collect his scattered papers.
+
+"Good-night, Doctor," said the clergyman. "Good-night, Rose."
+
+He started toward the door, but the doctor called him back.
+
+"Hold on, Mr. Batholommey!" he interposed. "I'm writing an account of
+all that's happened here to-night--from the very beginning. I've an idea
+it's going to make a stir. It's just the sort of thing the Society has
+been after----"
+
+"Indeed!" said Mr. Batholommey in a doubtful tone.
+
+"When I have verified every word of the evidence by Willem's mother----"
+
+Here the Rev. Mr. Batholommey smiled behind his hand in a decidedly
+secular way.
+
+"----I shall send in my report," continued the doctor. "Would you have
+any objection to the name of Mrs. Batholommey being used as a witness?"
+
+Mr. Batholommey hesitated. His usually placid eyes were full of
+perplexity.
+
+"Well--Doctor--I--I----"
+
+But Mrs. Batholommey, unlike her temporising husband, did not hesitate.
+She rushed into the conversation all unasked.
+
+"Oh, no, you don't!" she cried. "You may flout _our_ beliefs,--but
+wouldn't you like to bolster up your report with an endorsement by the
+wife of a clergyman! It sounds so respectable and sane, doesn't it? No,
+sir! You can't prop up your wild-eyed theories against the good black of
+_one_ minister's coat. Not by any means! I think myself that you have
+probably stumbled on the truth about Willem's mother; but that doesn't
+prove there's anything in all your notions, for that child knew the
+truth all along. He's eight years old and he was with her until he was
+five;--and five's the age of memory. He's a precocious boy, besides.
+Every incident of his mother's life lingered in his little mind. Suppose
+you prove by her that it's all true?--Still, _Willem remembered_! And
+that's all there is to it."
+
+Confident that she had made a good point, Mrs. Batholommey gave her head
+a toss and left the field, or to be more exact, went out to get her
+husband's umbrella.
+
+Mr. Batholommey felt that after this display of colours on the part of
+his consort, he must needs testify also.
+
+"Don't you think, Doctor,--(mind, I'm not opposing your ideas. I'm just
+echoing just what everybody else thinks)--don't you believe these ideas
+are leading away from the heaven we were taught to believe in; that they
+tend toward irresponsibility--toward eccentricity? Is it healthy--that's
+the idea. Is it--_healthy_?"
+
+Dr. McPherson shook himself like a shaggy dog.
+
+"Well, Batholommey," he said, "religion has frequently led to the stake,
+and I never heard the Spanish Inquisition called _healthy_ for anybody
+taking part in it. Still, religion flourishes. But your old-fashioned,
+unscientific, gilt, gingerbread idea of heaven blew up ten years
+ago--went out. _My_ heaven's just coming in. It's new. Dr. Funk and a
+lot of clergymen are in already. You'd better get used to it,
+Batholommey, and join in the procession."
+
+Having delivered this ultimatum the doctor became oblivious to the
+existence of the Batholommey family and gave his whole attention once
+more to his writing.
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Batholommey tolerantly. "When you can convince _me_!"
+(He lapsed into Dutch.) "Well, _tou roustin_, Doctor."
+
+The clergyman started for the door, but his dutiful wife was there
+before him, his umbrella in her hand.
+
+"Good-night, Henry," she said, beaming affectionately on him. "I'll be
+home to-morrow."
+
+Then with a most coquettish glance, she purred coyly:
+
+"You'll be glad to see me, dear, _won't_ you?"
+
+Mr. Batholommey beamed in his turn, and patted her on the cheek.
+
+"Yes, my church mouse!" he said as he kissed her good-bye and went out
+into the night.
+
+Mrs. Batholommey closed the doors after him, but immediately opened them
+a trifle and peered through the crack.
+
+"Look out, Henry, for the trolley cars," she cried. "It's dark out
+there--And be careful you don't step into a mud puddle! They must be as
+deep as mill ponds after this rain, and there aren't half enough street
+lamps in this neighbourhood--you'll be in over your ankles before you
+know it!"
+
+"All right!" came in a diminuendo from the clergyman's receding form.
+"I'll be careful. Don't stand there taking cold. Good-night!"
+
+"Woman," thundered Dr. McPherson in a terrible voice, "_close that
+door_! Do you want my lamp to blow clean out? How can a body write with
+such goings-on in his ears? St. Paul was a wise man. 'Let the woman
+learn in silence,' he said, 'with all subjection.' Will you be good
+enough to heed that, and let me write in peace?"
+
+Mrs. Batholommey fastened the door with elaborate and most deliberate
+care; then, as she passed the doctor's table on her way to the front
+parlour, she fired a parting shot.
+
+"Write as much as you like, Doctor," she said loftily. "Words are but
+air. _You_ know and _I_ know and _everybody_ knows that seeing is
+believing."
+
+"Damn everybody!" growled the doctor, frowning at the lady's retreating
+figure. "It's 'everybody's' ignorance that's set the world back five
+hundred years. Where was I, before?" he said to himself. "Oh! Yes."
+
+And he went back to his Statement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
+
+
+Frederik came impatiently up the home walk. The old house was bathed in
+moonlight; the walk itself leading up to it was sweet with the scent of
+wet flowers. The whole place carried a peaceful air, as if a blessing
+rested upon it. But Frederik heeded nothing--saw none of the beauty and
+mystery. His mind was filled with quite different things.
+
+He had waited for hours at the hotel, expecting Hicks or his lawyer.
+When no one arrived at the hour agreed upon, Frederik felt a bit uneasy,
+but he tried to persuade himself that Hicks had merely missed the train
+and would come on the next one. With growing apprehension he waited,
+smoking innumerable cigarettes while the evening wore on, till finally
+the last train had come and gone. There was nothing to do but go back to
+the house, and face the _other_ matter. And he dreaded it! Oh, how he
+dreaded it!
+
+He could not bear the thought of Kathrien's eyes that had first doubted,
+then accused, then condemned him. All the while he had waited at the
+hotel, he had remembered those eyes. If he had not loved her sincerely
+the situation would have been comparatively easy for him; he could
+simply have cleared out--spent the rest of his days in Europe, if
+necessary, so that he might never see or hear of any one connected with
+Grimm Manor again in all his life.
+
+But Kathrien! Who could have been near her and _ever_ forget her? The
+turn of her head, the absolute sweetness of her--the sunshine she
+radiated, made it utterly impossible for one to think of forgetting--of
+living all one's long life without her. Frederik threw away his
+cigarette and lighted another as he stood outside the windows of the
+house and looked in.
+
+Oom Peter was there--how could he go in then? Common sense told him that
+he had been smoking too much and his nerves had gone bad--that he had
+become an old woman with his fears and tremblings; yet--he knew Oom
+Peter was there--Well (he shrugged his shoulders), about all the harm
+that could be done _had_ been done, and he had the money now, anyway, so
+he might as well go in and find out the present state of affairs. There
+might be, there ought to be, some word from Hicks by this time. With
+tight-shut lips, he walked quickly up the "stoop" steps and into the
+house.
+
+As he came into the living-room he glanced at the doctor, who, with
+bulky form crouched over the little table, was still busily writing and
+heard nothing.
+
+Frederik half-unconsciously looked toward Kathrien's room, then removed
+his silk hat with its mourning band, and his black gloves, and laid them
+with his cane on the hall table.
+
+Then he turned toward Dr. McPherson.
+
+"Good-evening, Doctor," he said shortly. "Any of them come to their
+senses yet?"
+
+There was a defiant ring in the last sentence, though he knew in his
+heart that his cause was lost.
+
+The doctor looked up long enough to say:
+
+"Oh, Frederik, you're back again, are you?" then went on with his
+writing.
+
+Frederik glanced furtively around the shadowy room, and then lighted
+some candles in an effort to make the place more cheerful. Suddenly his
+eye was riveted on the telegram resting conspicuously on his uncle's
+desk. On the very spot, so it happened, where he had burned Anne
+Marie's letter. He put down his cigarette quickly.
+
+"Is that telegram for me?" he asked in an eager tone.
+
+"Yes," snorted Dr. McPherson.
+
+"Oh----" Frederik said. "It will explain perhaps why I--I've been kept
+waiting at the hotel--I had an appointment to meet a man who wanted to
+buy this business."
+
+"Ha!" The doctor grunted indignantly.
+
+Frederik cleared his throat.
+
+"I may as well tell you--I'm thinking of selling out root and branch."
+
+At this amazing news the doctor got up slowly, and turning his bushy
+head toward Frederik, fixed his keen eyes upon him. He was all attention
+now.
+
+"Yes----?"
+
+Then with a sheepish laugh Frederik abruptly changed the subject.
+
+"You'll think it strange," he said, "but I simply cannot make up my mind
+to go near the old desk of my uncle's--peculiar, yes--isn't it?"
+
+He smiled rather a sickly smile at the doctor, and hesitated.
+
+"I've got a perfect--Ha! Ha!--terror of the thing!"
+
+His laughter was quite mirthless and his fear made him a pitiable
+object.
+
+The doctor, not trying to hide his contempt for him, went to the desk,
+took the telegram, and threw it in Frederik's direction, not even
+troubling to aim accurately.
+
+It hit the floor about two feet away from the younger man's trimly shod
+feet, and he quickly reached over sideways and seized it. He tore it
+open. Then, as his eyes took in the message it contained, he drew a long
+breath.
+
+He sat down mechanically, looking straight ahead of him.
+
+"Billy Hicks," he said slowly in a dazed voice, "Billy Hicks, the man I
+was to sell out to, is de--I knew it--This afternoon when he
+phoned--something told me--but I wouldn't believe it."
+
+Slowly he put the telegram in its envelope, and then put the envelope
+into his pocket; but the dazed look never left his eyes, and his face
+was grey white.
+
+"Doctor," he said, turning his eyes at last, "as sure as you live,
+somebody else is doing my thinking for me in this house."
+
+Dr. McPherson's heavy eyebrows met in an earnest frown as he studied
+Frederik.
+
+"What?" he queried.
+
+"To-night--here in this room," Frederik went on in a voice full of awe,
+"I thought I saw my uncle _there_----"
+
+He pointed toward the desk with a little shudder.
+
+"Eh?" said the doctor, with popping eyes, coming a step nearer. "You
+really mean that you thought you saw _Peter Grimm_?"
+
+"And just before I--I saw him--I--I--had the strangest impulse to go to
+the foot of the stairs and call Kitty--give her the house--and
+run--run--get out."
+
+"Oh!" cried the doctor sarcastically. "A good impulse. I see! Some one
+else _must_ have been thinking for you--certainly."
+
+"When I wouldn't do it," the scared voice went on, "I thought he gave me
+a terrible look." He covered his eyes with his hand. "A _terrible_
+look."
+
+"Your uncle?" demanded Dr. McPherson.
+
+"Yes," breathed Frederik. "_Och!_ God! I won't forget _that_ look!" he
+cried excitedly, uncovering his eyes again. "And as I started from the
+room--he blotted out--I mean I saw him blot out--Then I left the
+photograph on the desk, and----"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor triumphantly. "That's how Willem came by it.
+Had you never had this impulse before--to give up Kathrien--to let her
+have the cottage?"
+
+"_Not much_--I hadn't!" said Frederik decidedly, walking back and forth
+a moment.
+
+Then, looking toward the desk, he reached out his hand until it touched
+the back of a chair beside it, and, giving the chair a quick pull out of
+what was evidently to him a danger zone, he sat down.
+
+"I told you some one else was _thinking_ for me," he said. "I don't want
+to give her up. I love her." (His eyes went dark.) "But if she's going
+to turn against me for--well, I'm not going to sit _here_ and cry about
+it. But I'll tell you one thing: from this time I propose to think for
+myself. I've done with this house," he cried, getting up. "I'd like to
+sell it along with the rest and let a stranger"--he flung the chair
+recklessly against the desk--"raze it to the ground.
+
+"When I walk out of here to-night she can have it."
+
+He looked thoughtfully at the desk a moment.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't sleep here--I give her the house because--well, I----"
+
+"You want to be on the safe side in case he _was_ there!" scoffed Dr.
+McPherson.
+
+Frederik dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and there was perplexity
+in it as well as awe.
+
+"How do you account for it anyway, Doctor?" he asked.
+
+Instead of answering, the doctor asked another question.
+
+"Frederik," he said, "when did you see Anne Marie last?"
+
+"Now," said Frederik disagreeably, "I'm not answering questions."
+
+"I think it only fair to tell you," said Dr. McPherson, "that it won't
+matter a damn whether you answer me or not. Don't fret yourself that I'm
+not going to find her. This has come home to me. I'm off to the city
+to-morrow. I'll have the truth from her; if I have to call in the police
+to trace her."
+
+Frederik looked drearily at the doctor, then took up his gloves and
+began to put them on. After a pause he said dully, mechanically:
+
+"Oh, I saw her about three years ago."
+
+"Never since?" probed the doctor.
+
+"No."
+
+"What occurred the last time you saw her?"
+
+"Oh," said Frederik lifelessly. "What _always_ occurs when a young man
+realises that he has his life before him--and that he must be respected,
+must think of his future?"
+
+"A scene took place, eh?"
+
+"Yes," Frederik agreed laconically.
+
+"Was Willem present?" went on the interrogation.
+
+"Yes, she held him in her arms."
+
+"And then--what happened?" the doctor insisted.
+
+Frederik dropped his eyes.
+
+"Oh," he said, "then I left the house."
+
+He found his hat and cane as he spoke, and walked slowly toward the
+door.
+
+"Then it's all true," cried Dr. McPherson in wonderment, staring
+abstractedly at the floor. He raised his head suddenly and looked with
+stern eyes at Frederik.
+
+"What are you going to do for Willem?" he demanded.
+
+"Well," temporised that noble soul, "I'm a rich man now--and if I
+recognise him--there might be trouble. His mother's gone to the dogs
+anyway----"
+
+He left the speech unfinished and turned his head away uncomfortably. He
+could not say such things and meet the doctor's scorching look.
+
+"You damned young scoundrel!" bellowed McPherson in wrath. "Oh, what an
+act of charity if the good Lord took Willem!--And I say it with all my
+heart. Out of all you have--not a crumb for----"
+
+"I want you to know that I've sweated for that money," Frederik turned
+on the doctor long enough to say. "I've sweated for it, and I'm going to
+keep it!"
+
+"You _what_?" howled Dr. McPherson jeeringly.
+
+"Yes," Frederik cried in the greatest excitement, all his calmness
+forsaking him utterly. "I've sweated for it! I went to jail for it.
+Every day I have been in this house has been spent in prison. I've been
+doing time. Do you think it didn't get on my nerves? What haven't I had
+to do! I've gone to bed at nine o'clock and lain there thinking how New
+York was just waking up at that time, and how miserably I was out of it
+all. Lord! I've got up at cock-crow to be in time for grace at the
+breakfast table. Why, didn't I take a Sunday-school class to please him?
+
+"Lord! Didn't I hand out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly
+old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus?
+What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that
+sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the
+pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe
+I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent for my own personal
+pleasure."
+
+Once more Frederik started to go.
+
+"Will rich men never learn wisdom?" soliloquised Dr. McPherson as he
+began to prepare some medicine for Willem.
+
+"No, they won't," Frederik flung back over his shoulder. "But in every
+fourth generation there comes along a _wise_ fellow--a spender. Well,
+I'm the spender here."
+
+He pulled out another cigarette, lighted it, and put on his hat.
+
+"Shame on you!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Your breed ought to be
+exterminated!"
+
+"Oh, no," Frederik declared. "We're as necessary as you are. We're the
+real wealth distributors. I wish you good-night, Doctor."
+
+And he was gone.
+
+Disgust was still written all over the doctor's face as he measured the
+medicine carefully and emptied it into a glass of water. He picked up
+the candelabrum in his other hand, and was just starting toward the
+stairs and Willem's room when Kathrien came in.
+
+"Kathrien!" he cried in a ringing voice. "Burn up your wedding dress!
+We've made no mistake. I can tell you that!"
+
+A moment more and he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into
+Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy
+serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and,
+standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost
+protectingly--quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could
+feel her gentle caress.
+
+"Oom Peter," she whispered tenderly, and her dreamy eyes grew dreamier,
+"Oom Peter--I know I am doing what you would have me do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"ONLY ONE THING REALLY COUNTS"
+
+
+And Peter Grimm, standing in the shadows, nodded happy assent to her
+cry. The Dead Man's ageless face was wondrous bright. It shone with a
+joy that made the rugged features beautiful.
+
+His work was done. His long journey from the Unknown had not failed. The
+one deed of his mortal life that could have wrought ill was undone. He
+had atoned for a single fault and had seen the ill effects of that fault
+brought to nothing. He could go back with a calm mind. All was well in
+his earthly home.
+
+But he was not yet wholly content. One task remained. A light task, and,
+to guess from his radiant face, a welcome one. And even now he was
+bringing to pass its completion. For his eyes turned from their loving
+scrutiny of Kathrien and rested on the outer door. And, as in response
+to an unspoken summons, footfalls were heard in the entry.
+
+At the sound, Kathrien's drooping figure straightened. And a glow came
+into her tired eyes. The outer door opened and James Hartmann came in.
+He took an impulsive step toward the girl. Then he remembered himself.
+Turning aside to the rack, he hung his coat and hat on it, and asked, as
+to a casual acquaintance:
+
+"Have you seen Frederik anywhere? He told me hours ago that he'd join me
+in the office in a few minutes. I waited, but he didn't come. Then Marta
+told me he had gone down to the hotel. I went over to see father, and I
+stopped at the hotel on my way back. They said Frederik had been there,
+but that he had just gone. I'm rather tired of playing hide-and-seek
+with him. Has he come in yet?"
+
+"He has come in. But I think he has gone again. And--and, James, I think
+he will not come here again."
+
+"What? Then the wedding won't be at the house?"
+
+"The wedding won't be--anywhere."
+
+"_Kathrien!_"
+
+He stared at her, seeking to read grief, humiliation, or, at the very
+least, the anger engendered of a lovers' quarrel. But her face was
+serene, even happy. The worry was gone that had lurked behind her
+gentle eyes. The furrow had been smoothed from the low, white brow, and
+even the pathetic aura of sorrow that had clung to her as a garment
+since Peter Grimm's death had departed.
+
+"Kathrien!" he repeated doubtfully, his heart thumping in an unruly
+fashion that well-nigh choked him.
+
+The serene calm of the girl's face fled beneath his eager, troubled
+gaze.
+
+"Frederik has gone," she said briefly. "I am not going to marry him. I
+broke our engagement this evening."
+
+"And you are free--free to----?"
+
+He checked himself, fearful to believe in the marvellous fortune that
+seemed to have come all at once from the Unattainable into his very
+grasp. And, girl-like, Kathrien was, of a sudden, panic stricken.
+
+"It is late," she said hastily, "very late. Good-night!"
+
+She made as though to go to her room. And James Hartmann, still full of
+that new fear of his own good fortune, dared not stay her.
+
+But Peter Grimm did not hesitate.
+
+"Katje!" pleaded the Dead Man. "Is Happiness so common that we can toy
+with it? Is life's greatest joy so cheap that we can thrust it aside
+when by a miracle it is laid at our feet? Can we afford to risk
+everything by putting off love when it is in our very grasp?"
+
+The girl hesitated, paused, and seemed to busy herself with
+straightening some disarranged articles on the desk. The Dead Man came
+and stood beside her.
+
+"He loves you, Katje," he murmured. "And only one thing really
+counts--Love! It is the only thing that tells, in the long run. Nothing
+else endures to the end. Perhaps, if you are shy now and do not let him
+speak, he may find courage to speak to-morrow. But perhaps he may not.
+And are you willing to take that chance?"
+
+"No!" cried the girl in quick fear. "No!"
+
+"What?" asked Hartmann, startled by the frightened denial, so
+meaningless to him.
+
+"I--I didn't know I spoke," she faltered, embarrassed. "It was foolish
+of me. I had some strange thought. And----"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You understand less and less every minute, James," laughed Peter Grimm.
+"She loves you. Are you going to let her slip through your fingers just
+because you haven't the courage to speak? You were brave enough early
+this evening when you didn't have a chance. Now that she's yours for the
+asking, why be tongue-tied? It was the fear of losing you that made her
+cry out 'No!' just now."
+
+"Katje," demanded Hartmann, abashed at his own audacity, yet unable to
+keep back the words, "were you afraid I wouldn't be here in the morning
+to tell you I loved you? Was that why you said----?"
+
+"How did you know?" she gasped appalled. "You read my mind."
+
+Before she could realise the meaning of what she had said, she found
+herself whirled bodily from the floor and caught close in the grip of
+two strong arms that crushed her to a heaving breast. And Hartmann was
+raining kisses on her hair, her eyes, her upturned face.
+
+"James!" she panted. "Don't! Put me down."
+
+"Not till you say you love me," came the answer in a voice from whence
+all timidity had forever fled.
+
+The tone of glad, adoring rulership thrilled her. She ceased her
+half-hearted struggles to free herself. Her arms, through no conscious
+effort of her own, crept upward until they encircled his neck.
+
+"Say you love me!" he demanded again, in that glorious Mastery of the
+Loved.
+
+"I love you," she answered obediently. "I have always loved you, I
+think. It's--it's very wonderful to be held like this and--and to be
+_glad_ not to be let go. I--I--I don't really think I wanted you to let
+me go, even when I told you to."
+
+"There is something else you must say before I let you go," he demanded,
+drunk with his new-born power and happiness.
+
+"Yes? I'll say it."
+
+"Say you will marry me to-morrow."
+
+This time, from sheer amazement, she sprang back, out of the loosened
+clasp of his arms.
+
+"To-morrow?" she gasped. "Are you crazy? Why," with a little shudder,
+"to-morrow was to be the day I was to----"
+
+"To marry a man you didn't love. That would have made it forever a day
+of shame. You owe 'to-morrow' something to atone for that. Pay its debt
+by marrying _me_ then."
+
+"I--I can't," she protested. "What--what would people say?"
+
+"Katje!" broke in the Dead Man. "When you shall have learned that 'what
+people say' is the most senseless bugbear in all this wide world of
+senseless bugbears, you will be far on the road to true greatness. You
+will have broken the heaviest, most galling, most idiotically _useless_
+fetter that weights down humanity. Being a woman you will never be able
+wholly to free yourself from that same fetter. But lift its weight from
+your soul just this once! You were going to curse your life with a
+blasphemously wicked, loveless marriage to-morrow. And the world would
+have approved. You have a chance to atone for an attempted wrong and to
+win happiness for yourself and the man you love, to-morrow, by marrying
+James then. A few representatives of the world will hold up their hands
+and squawk: 'How scandalously sudden! I suppose she did it to show she
+didn't mind Frederik's jilting her.' And for the sake of the people who
+would have approved a crime and who will sneer at a good and wise deed,
+you are going to throw away many days of bliss, and senselessly postpone
+the one perfect Event of your life. Is this my wise little girl or is it
+some one just as stubborn and foolish as her old uncle used to be? Tell
+me."
+
+"Why should we care what 'people say'?" urged Hartmann as Kathrien
+hesitated. "The opinions of other people wreck lots of lives. Let's be
+great enough and wise enough to choose our own happiness! Don't let's be
+stubborn like poor old Mr. Grimm, and----"
+
+"James!" she cried in wonder. "Those are just the very things I was
+thinking. That's the second time in a few minutes that you have read my
+mind."
+
+"Perhaps it was _you_ who were reading mine," said Hartmann. "That's
+what people call 'Telepathy,' isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," smiled the Dead Man. "That is what 'people' call it--who know no
+better. Oh, what a jumble people do make of the simple things of the
+Universe!"
+
+"Anyway," went on Hartmann, without waiting for Kathrien to reply to his
+question, "it doesn't matter which of us thought of it first. It's
+enough to know it's true. And you _will_ marry me to-morrow?"
+
+"_Yes!_" vociferated Peter Grimm.
+
+"Y-yes," faltered the girl.
+
+"Listen, dear," continued Hartmann, "we won't be very well off, I'm
+afraid. I've a little money--but not much. I know scientific gardening
+as not many men know it. So we won't starve. But it won't be as if you
+were going to marry a rich man like Frederik Grimm."
+
+"Thank Heaven, it won't!" she breathed fervently. "And do you suppose it
+will matter one bit to me that we won't be rich? I wish, of course, that
+we didn't have to leave this dear old house, but----"
+
+"If we had both the house and the little capital that belongs to me,"
+answered Hartmann, "we could stay on here and make a splendid living.
+But what's the use of building air castles?"
+
+"Why not?" urged the Dead Man. "They're as cheap to build as air
+dungeons; and a million times pleasanter to live in. But, don't fret
+about the house. Frederik is going to turn it over to you--I've seen to
+that. And you will prosper, you two, here in the home I loved."
+
+"I believe it will come out all right!" declared the girl. "I have a
+feeling that it will. Intuition if you like."
+
+"'Intuition,'" repeated the Dead Man whimsically. "Yes. Call it that, if
+you choose. 'Intuition' and 'telepathy' are both pretty synonyms for the
+words spoken to you that mortal ears are too gross to understand and
+whose sense sometimes finds vague resting-place in mortal brains."
+
+"It will come out all right," she reiterated, smiling up at her lover.
+
+"It's good to see you smile again," said Hartmann, once more drawing her
+close to him. "I'm glad your cloud of grief is beginning to lift."
+
+"It _has_ lifted," she returned. "When Oom Peter went away, and seemed
+utterly lost to me forever, I thought my heart would break. But now--now
+I know he _hasn't_ gone. I know he has been here with me this very
+evening."
+
+"I--I don't understand."
+
+"It is true," she insisted. "You must believe it, dear. For it is very
+real to me. I believe he came back to set me free from my promise to
+Frederik. Some time--some time, I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"In the meanwhile," adjured the Dead Man, "believe her, James. If men
+would put less faith in their own four-square logic and more faith in
+their wives' illogical beliefs, there'd be fewer mistakes made."
+
+"Don't ask me any more about it to-night," begged the girl in response
+to the amazed questioning in her lover's eyes. "I can't speak of it
+just yet. It's all too near--too wonderful."
+
+"Just as you like," he agreed. "Now I must go, for I want to catch Mr.
+Batholommey before he goes to sleep, and make the arrangements with him
+for the wedding."
+
+His arm around her, they crossed to where his hat and coat were hanging.
+
+"I wonder if Oom Peter can see us now?" she mused, as Hartmann stooped
+to kiss her good-night.
+
+"That's the great mystery of the ages," answered Hartmann. "Who can
+tell? But I wish he might know. I think, seen as he must see things now,
+he would be glad. Good-night, sweetheart."
+
+She watched him stride down the walk. Then she came back into the room,
+her eyes alight.
+
+"Oh, Oom Peter," she murmured, half aloud.
+
+"I see," returned Peter Grimm. "I know all about it. I know, little
+girl. I know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"ALL THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS AGAIN"
+
+
+Late as was the hour, Kathrien yet lingered a few minutes longer in the
+room where that night her freedom and her life's crown had come to her.
+
+She paused by the desk and lovingly caressed the rich, red mass of roses
+which, in memory of her uncle, she daily placed there. The cool, velvety
+touch of the blossoms was like a living response to her caress. And from
+the crimson petals arose a faint, drowsy fragrance.
+
+Kathrien sank into the worn desk chair and gazed dreamily into the dying
+fire. She seemed to read there a wonderful story. Or else the grey-red
+embers shaped themselves into beautiful pictures. For her face was
+joyous beyond all belief.
+
+"To-morrow!" she murmured to herself.
+
+And Peter Grimm, looking down at her, smiled as he caught the whispered
+word.
+
+"Yes, _lievling_," he answered. "To-morrow. Isn't it a marvellous word?
+It holds all the hopes and fears of the whole world."
+
+"I'm so happy! I'm so _happy_!" she breathed.
+
+The Dead Man laid his hand gently on the soft lustre of her hair.
+
+"Then, good-night to you, my darling," he said in the old tender voice
+that had comforted her childish griefs and shared her childish delights
+in the bygone days. "Good-night, my darling. Love can never say
+'good-bye.' I am going, little girl. I am leaving you here in your dear
+home that shall always be yours. Here, in the years that are to come,
+the way will lie clear before you. May pleasure and peace go with you,
+little girl of mine."
+
+Her eyes were luminous. There was a half-smile on her lips. Peter
+Grimm's own eyes reflected her smile as he stroked her hair and
+continued to look down into her rapt face as though to impress its every
+detail upon his memory.
+
+"Here on sunny, blossoming days," he went on, "when you look out on my
+old gardens, as a happy wife, all the flowers and trees and shrubs shall
+bloom enchanted to your eyes. For, love gives a heaven-light to
+everything. And when the home we love is our own, it becomes doubly
+fair."
+
+The light in her eyes grew brighter and he stooped to brush his lips to
+her forehead.
+
+"All that happens, happens again," he went on in that same caressing
+voice as though loath to leave her, and seeking to prolong his stay at
+her side. "And when, as a mother, you explain each leaf and bud, and the
+miracle of the growing flowers to your own little people, you will
+sometimes think of the days when you and I walked through the gardens
+and the leafy lanes together, and how I taught you all those
+things--even as you shall be teaching your own children. Yes,--all that
+happens, happens again and has happened before. You will teach them,
+just as I taught you. And so I shall always linger in your heart. Here,
+in our home, everything will keep on reminding you of me. Not in sadness
+nor in gloom. But as a wonderful, golden memory. You will forget only
+the part of me that was stubborn and unreasonable and ill-tempered--and
+you will remember me only as I _wished_ to be. That is one of the gifts
+of God to those who have left this world. Their dear ones remember them
+only as kind, as loving, as good. Their faults fade from the memory and
+the _good_ ever glows more and more brightly."
+
+He paused. And still he could not leave the happy girl as she sat there
+in her blissful, fireside reverie.
+
+"I shall be waiting for you, Katje," he said. "And I shall be knowing
+all of your life, its joys, its happy toil and its sweet rest, its
+lights and its passing shadows. I shall love your children with all my
+whole heart. And I shall be their grandfather just as though I were
+here. I shall be everywhere about you and yours, Katje. Always. In the
+stockings at Christmas, in the big, busy, teeming world of shadows, just
+outside your threshold; or whispering to you in the stillness of the
+night. And, as the years drift on, you can never know what pride I shall
+take in your middle life--the very best age of all! After the luxuries
+and the eager gaieties and the vanities and the possessions and the hot
+strife for gain cease to be important, we return to very simple things.
+For then, sunset is at hand, and the peace of Home calls to us far more
+clearly than the roar of the outer world. The evening of life comes
+bearing its own lamp."
+
+Her face had grown graver, but still was radiant. The Dead Man smiled as
+he said:
+
+"Then, as a little old grandmother--a little old child whose bedtime is
+drawing near, I shall still see you; happy to sit out in the sunlight
+of another day; asking no more of life than a few hours still to be
+spent with those you love;--telling your grandchildren how much more
+brightly the flowers used to blossom when _you_ were young.--All that
+happens, happens again.
+
+"And then, one glad day, glorified, radiant, young once more--divinely
+young,--you will come to us. And your mother and I shall take you in our
+arms again. Oh, what a meeting it will be! To _you_, many happy years
+away. To _us_, only a brief hour of waiting. We shall meet so perfectly
+then--the flight of Love to Love. And now," bending down once more and
+kissing her, "good-night, my own little girl."
+
+She rose, half-dazzled by the brightness that filled her soul. Pausing
+to bury her face for a moment in the bowl of roses, she murmured:
+
+"Dear, _dear_ Oom Peter!"
+
+Then, slowly, smilingly, she made her way up the stairs to her own room.
+The Dead Man's eyes followed her every light step. The Dead Man's hand
+was raised in unspoken benediction. Marta bustled in from the kitchen on
+her nightly round of window-locking and door-barring. As she passed the
+big wall clock, she stopped, sighed right lugubriously, and proceeded to
+wind the ancient timepiece by the simple old-time process of drawing
+down its pulley chain.
+
+"Poor old Marta!" said Peter Grimm quizzically, as she departed. "Every
+time she thinks of me, she winds my clock. We're not quite forgotten
+after all, it seems. Good-night, old friend! There are a few tears ahead
+of you. But there is plenty of sunshine beyond them."
+
+He glanced about the room, his eyes resting at last on Willem's door in
+the gallery above. The door swung open, and Dr. McPherson appeared on
+the threshold. In one hand he held a candle-stick. In the hollow of his
+right arm lay Willem, a Dutch patchwork bedquilt wrapped around him.
+
+"All right, laddie," McPherson was saying in a voice whose softness
+would have amazed the Batholommeys. "Since you want so badly to sleep
+downstairs, you shall. The sofa by the fire is just as snug as your own
+bed. What Mistress Batholommey will say to my giving in to a sick little
+boy's whim, I don't know. But we don't care. Do we, Willem? And," he
+added, reaching the living-room and carrying the child across to the
+sofa, "if you want to be down here, and if you won't be happy anywhere
+else, here you shall be."
+
+He laid Willem gently on the couch and covered him with the quilt.
+
+"How do you feel, now?" he asked.
+
+"I'm sleepy," answered Willem. "It's good to be in this room. I'll sleep
+finely here. Could--could I have a drink of water, please?"
+
+The doctor crossed to the sideboard. The ice-water pitcher was empty.
+McPherson took up a glass.
+
+"I'll find you some," said he. "I suppose I'll never learn my way around
+the labyrinths of this old house. But if I can't get to the nearest
+faucet, I'll wake Marta and ask her to help me. Lie still. I'll be back
+in a minute."
+
+He picked up the lighted candle again, and started off on his quest. As
+he left the room he passed close by Peter Grimm.
+
+"Good-night, Andrew," said the Dead Man. "I'm afraid the world will have
+to wait a little longer for the Big Guesser. The secret you've delved
+for so long and so loudly was in your own hands this evening. And you
+didn't know what to do with it."
+
+The doctor left the room without hearing him. But Willem heard.
+Starting up on the couch, the boy cried:
+
+"Oh, Mynheer Grimm! _Where_ are you? I knew you were down here--That's
+why I wanted to come."
+
+"Here I am," answered the Dead Man, moving forward into the range of the
+anxiously wandering blue eyes.
+
+"Oh!" gleefully exclaimed the child. "I _see_ you now! I _see_ you now!"
+
+"Yes? At last?"
+
+"Oh, you've got your hat!" went on the boy excitedly. "It's off the peg.
+You're going!"
+
+"Yes, Willem," replied the Dead Man. "I'm going."
+
+"Need you go right away, Mynheer Grimm?" coaxed the child. "Can't you
+wait just a _little_ while?"
+
+"I'll wait for _you_, dear lad," returned Peter Grimm.
+
+"Oh, can I go with you?" asked the boy in glad surprise. "Thank you,
+Mynheer Grimm! I couldn't find the way without you."
+
+"Oh, yes, you could, Willem. God's signal light is the surest thing in
+all the universe. But I'll wait for you, just the same."
+
+The boy's drowsiness, overcome for the moment by his sight of the Dead
+Man's loved face, had crept in upon him once more. He lay back on the
+couch with a happy little sigh.
+
+And at once he was off in the wonder-aisles of dreamland--a dreamland
+full of circuses, of impossibly funny and friendly clowns, of street
+parade glories, of marvellous animals and thrilling equestrian feats.
+
+"Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very pleasantest of
+dreams a boy could have in _this_ world."
+
+[Illustration: "Sleep well," said Peter Grimm. "I wish you the very
+pleasantest of dreams a boy could have in _this_ world"]
+
+The doctor's step sounded presently in the adjoining kitchen. As though
+awakened by it, Willem opened his eyes and sat up. The fever flush was
+gone from his cheeks, the fever glaze from his look. The lassitude that
+had weighted every joint in his sick little body had fled, to be
+replaced by a strange, glorious buoyancy.
+
+With a glad shout, Willem sprang up and raced across the floor into
+Peter Grimm's outstretched arms.
+
+"_Huge moroche_, Mynheer Grimm!" he cried. "Oh, I am _well_! I never was
+so well before. It's wonderful to be like this."
+
+"You are happy, too?"
+
+"Oh! _Happy?_ It's like school being over!"
+
+"Good!" laughed Peter Grimm. "It will always be like that now. Come!
+Let's be off."
+
+He lifted the exalted, eager boy lightly from the floor, and swung him
+to a perch on his shoulder.
+
+"_Uncle Rat has come to town!_" sang Willem, too rapturously happy to
+keep still.
+
+"Ha-_H'M_!" he and Peter Grimm chorused as they moved toward the door.
+
+  "'Uncle Rat has come to town,
+  To buy----'"
+
+McPherson came in.
+
+"Here's the water, Willem," he announced, going over to the couch. "I
+got it at last, after barking my shins over----"
+
+He glanced at the sofa and its occupant. Then the glass fell from his
+nerveless hand. He knelt in horror beside the still, white little body
+that lay there.
+
+"Dead!" gasped McPherson.
+
+"No!" exulted Peter Grimm from the doorway. "Not _dead_, Andrew, old
+friend. There never was so fair a prospect for _life_!"
+
+"Oh," sighed Willem blissfully, his arm about Peter Grimm's neck, "I'm
+_so_ happy! I didn't know any one could be so happy as this--or so
+_well_."
+
+"If only the rest of them knew what they are missing! Hey, Willem?"
+assented Peter Grimm.
+
+"What is Dr. McPherson looking at there on the sofa?" demanded Willem.
+"He seems scared--and--and--unhappy. _What_ is he looking at, Mynheer
+Grimm?"
+
+"He is looking at--_nothing_. And he doesn't know it. Come!"
+
+"It's--it's so wonderful to be _alive_!" cried Willem.
+
+They passed out, and the door of the house closed noiselessly behind
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE DAWNING
+
+
+Night had given place to red dawn, and red dawn to white day.
+
+Dr. McPherson came out of the Grimm house and sat down on the edge of
+the vine-bordered stoop. He was very tired. He had had a hard and trying
+night. In his ears were still ringing the sobs of old Marta, hastily
+awakened to learn of her only grandson's death;--Kathrien's quiet
+grief;--Mrs. Batholommey's excited, high-pitched questionings that
+jangled on the death hush as horribly as breaks the Venus music through
+the Pilgrims' Chorus.
+
+It had been a night of stark wakefulness, of a myriad details. And
+McPherson had borne the brunt of it all. Now, under an opiate, Marta was
+asleep. Mrs. Batholommey had trotted ponderously home to bear the black
+tidings of a prisoned child's Release to her husband. And Kathrien had
+gone to her own room under the doctor's gruff command to snatch an
+hour's rest. McPherson himself had come out into the cool and freshness
+of the new-born world for a breathing space, and to think.
+
+The June day was young. Very young. Under the early sun the grass was
+afire with dew diamonds. The flowers, dripping and fragrant, held up
+their cups to the light. The town still lay asleep. Over the suburb
+brooded the Hush of the primal Wilderness, creeping back furtively and
+momentarily to its long-lost domain.
+
+And presently the quiet was broken by the swift recurring click of heels
+on the sidewalk. Some one was coming along the slumbrous Main street;
+and coming with nervous haste. The steps turned in at the Grimm gate.
+McPherson raised his blood-shot, sleep-robbed eyes and stared crossly
+toward the newcomer.
+
+It was Frederik Grimm. And, recognising him, McPherson's frown deepened
+into a scowl.
+
+"Is it true?" asked Frederik as he stopped in front of the doctor. "I
+met Mrs. Batholommey. She was just passing the hotel on her way home. I
+hadn't been able to sleep, so I was starting out for a walk. She told
+me----"
+
+"That Willem's dead?" finished McPherson, with brutal frankness. "Yes,
+it's true. Did you suppose that it was a new vaudeville joke?"
+
+Frederik stood blinking, blank-faced, apparently failing to grasp the
+sense of the doctor's words. The younger man's aspect dully irritated
+McPherson.
+
+"Yes," he reiterated, "the boy's dead. The problem of supporting him
+needn't bother you now. Not that it ever did. He's dead. And it's the
+luckiest thing that ever happened to him."
+
+Frederik raised one hand in instinctive protest. But he might as well
+have sought to stem Niagara with a straw.
+
+The doctor's strained nerves, his genuine grief, his dislike for the
+dapper young man before him, combined to open wide the floodgates of
+honest Scottish wrath. And he saw no cause to exercise self-control.
+
+"You're in luck!" he growled. "The law could have compelled you to pay
+some such munificent sum as four dollars a week for his maintenance.
+You're safe from that now. And I congratulate you. It'll mean an extra
+weekly quart of champagne or a brace of musical comedy seats for you.
+The law is stringent and I was going to invoke it in your case. You
+smashed a decent girl's life. You helped bring a nameless boy into a
+world that would have made his life a hell as long as he lived. Just
+because his father happened to be a yellow cur. And, in penalty for that
+sin, the power and majesty of an outraged law would have assessed you
+about one per cent of your yearly income. You're lucky."
+
+Frederik winced as though he had been lashed across the face.
+
+"I sometimes wonder," continued McPherson, urged to fresh vehemence by
+sight of the effect he was scoring, "if hell holds a worse criminal or a
+more mercilessly punished one than the man or woman who lets a little
+child suffer needlessly--who _makes_ it suffer. And of all the suffering
+that can be heaped upon a child, everything else is like a feather's
+weight compared to sending it out in life with a name such as Willem
+would have borne. Oh, but God's merciful when He finds little children
+crying in the dark and leads them Home! Batholommey and the rest of them
+sneer at me for sticking to the old hell-fire Calvin doctrines in these
+days of pew-cushion religion. But I tell you, in all reverence, if
+there's no hell for the people who torture children, then it's time the
+Almighty turned awhile from pardoning sinners and built one."
+
+"Don't worry," said Frederik shortly. "There is one. I know. I am in
+it."
+
+"'Mourner's bench talk,' eh? It's cheap. Penitence is always on the free
+list. And in your case, as in most, it comes too late to do any good,
+except to salve the penitent's feelings. Willem lived in the same house
+with you for three years. All around him was Love. Except from the one
+person whose sacred duty it was to give that Love. We pitied him. We
+knew what he'd be facing if he lived. We made his childhood as happy as
+we could, so that he'd have at least one bright thing to look back on
+afterward. He was nothing to any of us. Except that he was a child
+crippled and maimed and fore-damned for life in the worst way any
+Unfortunate could be. We pitied him and we loved him. Did he ever hear a
+harsh word or see a forbidding face? Yes; he did. From one person alone.
+From _you_, his father. Even last night when he crept downstairs parched
+with thirst, and begged you for a drink of water----"
+
+"Don't!" cried Frederik, in sharp agony. "Do you suppose you can tell
+_me_ anything about that? Do you suppose I haven't gone over it
+all--yes, and over all the three years--a hundred times since I heard
+he was dead? Do you think you can make me feel it any more damnably than
+I do? If so, go ahead and try. You spoke of the need for a hell. You can
+spare your advice to the Almighty. He has made one. And I can't even
+wait until I'm dead before I walk through it."
+
+"Through it," assented McPherson sardonically. "_Through_ it with many a
+lamentable groan and a beating of the breast, and with squeaky little
+wails of remorse--and on _through_ it, out onto the pleasant slopes of
+forgetfulness and new mischief. Take my condolences on your fearful
+passage through your purgatory. I fear me it will take you the best part
+of a week to pass entirely out of it. It's only a man-built hell, that
+of yours. And, according to the modern theologians, God has no worse one
+for you later on."
+
+With twitching, pallid face, and anguished eyes, Frederik Grimm looked
+dumbly at his tormentor. Even in his agony, he felt, subconsciously, far
+down in his atrophied soul, that the doctor's forecast as to the
+duration of his remorse's torture was little exaggerated.
+
+Yet, for the moment, his "man-built hell" was grilling and racking the
+stricken penitent to a point that the Spanish Inquisition's ingenuity
+could never have devised.
+
+McPherson, with a sombre satisfaction, noted the younger man's misery.
+Then a wistful look flitted across his gnarled, bearded face.
+
+"I wonder," he mused, his angry voice sinking to a rumble, "I wonder if
+you can guess--and of course you can't--what a prize you spent eight
+years in throwing away. You had a son. And you disowned him and turned
+your back on him. I've had no son. I shall never have a son. And when I
+go out into the dark, there'll be no man-child to carry on my name. No
+lad to inherit this brute body of mine with all its strength and giant
+endurance; this brain of mine, that has tried so hard to perfect itself
+and to give its possible successor the faculty for thought and work and
+self-mastery. My father was a strong man, a great man. And much of the
+little power and goodness and worthiness that exist in me, I owe to him.
+No man in future years can say that of _me_. It must be something that
+no childless man can understand or dream of, to feel the fingers of
+one's little son tugging at one. To,--Lord! What would Mother
+Batholommey say if she could hear me maundering and havering away like
+this! It means nothing to _you_, either. Except that you've had, and
+hated, and thrown away what many a better man would give half his life
+for."
+
+There was a short silence. McPherson, ashamed of blurting his sacred
+heart secrets to a fellow he detested, sat gnawing angrily at his ragged
+grey moustache. Frederik, to whom the last part of the doctor's tirade
+had passed unheard, stood gazing sightlessly at the ground before him.
+And for a space, neither of them spoke.
+
+At length Frederik looked up, almost timidly.
+
+"Could--might I see him?" he asked.
+
+"H'm?" grunted McPherson, starting from the maze of his own unhappy
+thoughts.
+
+"I say, may I go in and see----?"
+
+"Had three years to see him in, didn't you?" demanded McPherson. "I
+can't recall now that I ever saw you glance at him when you could help
+it. Why should you go in and see him now? You can't frighten him any
+more."
+
+He checked himself.
+
+"That last was a rotten thing for me to say," he muttered grudgingly.
+"I'm sorry."
+
+But Frederik showed no signs of resentment. He was looking moodily at
+the ground once more, apparently engrossed in the fruitless efforts of a
+red ant on the walk's edge to lug away a dead caterpillar forty times
+its size. The doctor peered at him almost apologetically from under his
+grey thatch of eyebrow. The younger man's face still wore that same
+blank, dazed mask, as though horror had wiped it clean of expression.
+Again it was Frederik who broke the silence.
+
+"I remember once," said he, in a dreary monotone, "when he was four
+years old. He saw a woolly lamb in a shop window and wanted it. I'd lost
+ninety dollars that day at the races and I was sore. He begged me to buy
+him the lamb. It cost only a quarter. I wouldn't. I told him he ought to
+be content to sponge on me for food and clothes without wanting
+presents, too. I remember he cried when I pulled him away from the shop
+window. And I hit him. I wish--I wish I'd----"
+
+"If there's anything worse than a hardened criminal," snorted McPherson,
+"it's a silly, sentimental one. You say you want to go in and see him?
+Go ahead then. You don't have to ask _my_ leave. It's your own house,
+isn't it?"
+
+"No," answered Frederik, "it isn't."
+
+"Huh? Oh, I remember now. You said last night you were going to give it
+to Kathrien. Don't worry. A promise like that isn't binding in law. And
+you'll repent of it almost as soon as you'll stop repenting for Willem."
+
+"Perhaps so," agreed Frederik. "But it will be too late then. Here," he
+went on, pulling a long envelope from his pocket, "take charge of this,
+will you, and give it to Kathrien for her signature in case I don't see
+her?"
+
+"What is it?" asked McPherson, mechanically taking the envelope as
+Frederik thrust it into his hand.
+
+"Before I went to the hotel for a room last night," answered the other,
+"I called on Colonel Lawton and got him to draw it up. All it lacks is
+her signature."
+
+"What----?"
+
+"It is a deed for the house and the twelve-acre 'home plot' it stands
+on. That includes the two cottages over on McIntyre Street. They're both
+rented and in good condition. They'll bring her in nearly eight hundred
+a year. It's less than my uncle would have left her if he'd known----"
+
+"He knew," interrupted McPherson decisively. "And that's why you did it.
+As you said last night, 'somebody has been doing your thinking for
+you.'"
+
+"I'm glad for your own peace of mind that you aren't forced to give _me_
+credit for it," said Frederik in lifeless irony. "I'll go in now, if I
+may. I shall not stay long. And then for New York. It's the best place I
+know of for hastening one's journey through and out of the 'man-built
+hell' you spoke about. Oh, and I gave Lawton directions about Anne
+Marie, too. She can come home now if she wants to without being
+dependent upon any one for her support. You're quite right, Doctor.
+Somebody _has_ been doing my thinking. I'm glad it stopped before I went
+broke."
+
+With something of his old jaunty air he mounted the steps and went into
+the house. McPherson stared after him with a glower that somehow would
+not remain ferocious. Then he got up, stretched his great shaggy bulk,
+yawned, and started homeward for breakfast.
+
+On the way he met Mr. Batholommey, hastily awakened and hurrying to the
+house of mourning.
+
+"Doctor!" exclaimed the clergyman in agitation. "This is very
+distressing. _Very._"
+
+"As usual," drawled McPherson, "I find I can't agree with you. To me it
+seems a blessed release."
+
+"And on Kathrien's wedding day, too!" went on Mr. Batholommey, to whom
+McPherson's eternal disagreement had become so chronic he scarce noticed
+it. "At least, on the day that _was_ to have been her wedding day! Young
+Hartmann waked me out of a sound sleep last night to tell me she had
+promised to marry him to-day. And he asked me to be at the house
+promptly at eleven. But, of course, now----"
+
+"Of course, now," put in the doctor, "the wedding is going to take place
+just the same."
+
+"But----!"
+
+"I argued with Kathrien a whole half-hour this morning before she would
+agree to it," went on the doctor. "But at last I persuaded her it was
+the only thing to do. If ever she needs a husband's help and advice, now
+is the time. And at last I made her understand that. So, she and James
+will be married to-day. Just as they planned to. The only difference
+will be that they'll come to the rectory for the ceremony."
+
+"It seems almost--shall I say indecorous?" protested Mr. Batholommey.
+
+"The _real_ things of life generally do," replied the doctor.
+"Good-morning. I'm going to be so indecorous as to hurry home for a bath
+and a breakfast instead of catching cold standing out here on a wet
+street discussing other people's business."
+
+He strode on. Mr. Batholommey, murmuring dazedly to himself, took up his
+own journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GOOD-BYE
+
+
+Frederik Grimm turned away from looking down at the pathetically small
+figure in the darkened room. His face was expressionless. He had stood
+there but a few minutes. And his eyes, riveted on the still, white
+little form, had not softened nor blurred with tears.
+
+Wearily he descended the gallery stairs into the living-room, where the
+morning sunlight was already turning the desk bowl of roses into a riot
+of burning colour.
+
+He was halfway across the room, toward the door, when he was aware that
+Kathrien had risen from the desk chair and was looking at him. Her look
+was cold and devoid of pity as she surveyed him. But as he halted,
+hesitant, the sunlight fell full on his face. And in the visage that had
+seemed so vapidly blank to McPherson, she read much.
+
+The cold glint died from her eyes and she stepped forward with hand
+outstretched.
+
+"Frederik," she said gently.
+
+He came haltingly toward her. He held out his hand to meet hers. But he
+could not touch the fingers that were waiting to press his own. His hand
+fell limply to his side.
+
+She understood. And the warm pity in her face deepened.
+
+"I am sorry," she said simply.
+
+"He is happier," muttered the man.
+
+"I don't mean for Willem. For _you_. You understand what it all means at
+last."
+
+"And, too late," he assented. "It is always too late--when one
+understands."
+
+"It is never too late," she denied eagerly. "Frederik, you have
+everything ahead of you. You can----"
+
+"I have nothing ahead of me," he contradicted dully.
+
+"You have wealth, youth, the power to undo what wrong you did,--to start
+afresh----"
+
+"As the broken-winged bird has the power to start a new flight. Don't
+waste your divine sympathy on me, Kitty. It would be thrown away. In a
+very little time, as Dr. McPherson has kindly pointed out to me, I shall
+be convalescent from my attack of remorse. And then all life will lie
+before me, as you say. All life except the one thing that makes life
+worth living."
+
+He stopped. For he saw she understood.
+
+"You always understood," he went on, voicing his thought. "That was one
+of the wonderful things about you, Kitty. Even now, you saw the pain I
+am in. And it made you forget what you believe I am. It was sweet of
+you. It will be good to remember."
+
+"I wish I could help you," she said.
+
+"You _have_ helped me," he answered. "For you've given me a Memory to
+carry till I can shake off the load--till I can get clear of McPherson's
+'man-built hell.' It won't be long. So don't worry. Even now, my common
+sense tells me I've made a fool of myself. And I'm human enough to be
+more ashamed of being a fool than of being a knave. I had everything in
+my own hands. And I threw away the game because an attack of fright kept
+me from playing my winning cards. Last night I was afraid of a ghost.
+This morning I'm sane enough to know that ghosts were invented by the
+first nervous man who was alone at night. This morning I am heart-broken
+because my little boy lies dead. To-morrow I shall be sane enough to
+know that it is as lucky for me as it is for him, that he died. And in
+a week I'll be congratulating myself over it all and revelling in a
+freedom and a fortune I've always craved. So you see I'm quite
+incurable."
+
+"Why do you say such things?" she cried. "You know they aren't true."
+
+"When I said you 'always understand,' Kitty, I was wrong. You don't
+understand. No woman understands--that a man doesn't reform. A good man
+may have taken a wrong twist. And when he finds his way back to the
+straight road, they say he has 'reformed.' He hasn't. He's only struck
+his own natural gait again. As he was bound to. And _my_ kind of man
+sometimes takes a momentary twist in the _right_ direction. Then people
+say _he_ has reformed. And they are just as much mistaken as they were
+in the other case. For, water won't run uphill after the first pressure
+is withdrawn."
+
+"But in the fires of affliction----"
+
+"The fires of affliction," he retorted sadly, "have burned away the
+dross from the pure gold of many a soul, I suppose. But no fires were
+ever heated that could burn dross fiercely enough to turn it into gold.
+Yet----"
+
+He hesitated, then said, without daring to look at her:
+
+"There's one thing I do want you to know, Kitty. Whatever I was and am,
+and whatever shams went to make up my daily life here--you know my love
+for _you_ was true and absolute and that I loved and _love_ you more
+than the whole world besides?"
+
+"Yes," she returned, unembarrassed. "I believe that, Frederik. In part.
+You loved me as much as you could love any one. But----"
+
+"Why must there be a 'but'?" he entreated.
+
+"But," she went on with the relentlessness of the Young, "not as much as
+you loved yourself."
+
+"More! Ten thousand times more!" he declared vehemently.
+
+"No," she contradicted. "For you didn't love me enough to give me up
+when you knew I cared for another man. The Perfect Love would have----"
+
+"The 'perfect love'!" he scoffed. "I have read of it. But I have yet to
+see it."
+
+"You cannot see it," she replied, "for the same reason I could not see
+Oom Peter when he was fighting my battle here last night. My eyes were
+blinded by the world I live in. Perfect love is everywhere. It is within
+and about us. But----"
+
+"But I would be too ignoble to recognise it if I chanced upon it?
+Perhaps. But why strip me of my last illusion? In the torment of my
+self-abasement this morning, I have clung to that one comfort: That I
+love you with a love which a truly worthless man _could_ not feel. And
+now----"
+
+"_Don't_ misunderstand me," she begged, half-tearfully. "I----"
+
+"You have shown me the truth. And I ought to thank you for it. Perhaps
+some day I can. If I still remember it then. Good-bye, dear. I shan't be
+here again. I've--I've left you a little present. Dr. McPherson will
+give it to you."
+
+"But I _can't_ take----"
+
+"Oh, yes, you can. It isn't really from me. That's just another of my
+lies to make a good impression. I've gotten so in the habit of telling
+them that it is going to take me a long time to realise that one of the
+chief advantages of being a rich man is the immunity from the need to
+lie. The present isn't really from me. It's from Oom. Peter. You can't
+refuse it from _him_. If you doubt it's Oom Peter's own direct gift, ask
+Dr. McPherson. It was bad enough," he sighed, in mock despair, "for Oom
+Peter to squander so much of my money while he was alive, without
+keeping on doing it after he died. I hope he has stopped it at last. Or
+I'll soon be reduced to standing at the subway steps with a tin cup in
+my hand."
+
+Through the forced lightness, whose effort wrung sweat from the man's
+forehead, Kathrien was woman enough to see the mortal agony that lay
+beneath. And again she held out her hand.
+
+"Good-bye, Frederik," she said gently. "And may you be happy!"
+
+He looked doubtfully at the shapely little hand. Then, with an
+awkwardness strangely foreign to his normal grace, he took the hand in
+both his own and stood a moment, looking down at it as though not
+knowing what to do with it.
+
+Then, very simply, he fell on his knees, touched the warm, roseleaf palm
+to his lips, got up and, without looking back, hurried out of the house.
+
+Kathrien watched his slender, carefully groomed figure until it was lost
+at a turn in the rose bushes. Then she came back into the room and
+stood beside Peter Grimm's old chair.
+
+"Oom Peter!" she whispered. "This is my wedding day. You know it, don't
+you? And--oh, please let me think you are close--_close_--beside me all
+the time!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
+
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