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diff --git a/40312-0.txt b/40312-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e5e6e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/40312-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5612 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40312 *** + + THE INTOXICATED GHOST + + + + + THE INTOXICATED GHOST + AND OTHER STORIES + + BY + ARLO BATES + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1908 + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1908 BY ARLO BATES + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published April 1908_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + The Intoxicated Ghost 1 + A Problem in Portraiture 43 + The Knitters in the Sun 85 + A Comedy in Crape 117 + A Meeting of the Psychical Club 145 + Tim Calligan's Grave-Money 177 + Miss Gaylord and Jenny 207 + Dr. Polnitzski 249 + In the Virginia Room 277 + + + + + THE INTOXICATED GHOST + AND OTHER STORIES + + + + +THE INTOXICATED GHOST + + +I + +It was not her beauty which made Irene Gaspic unusual, although she was +bewitchingly pretty; nor yet her wit, her cleverness, or her wealth, +albeit she was well endowed with all these good gifts: other girls were +pretty, and wise, and witty, and rich. It was something far more piquant +and rare which marked Irene as different from her mates, the fact being +that from her great-aunt on the mother's side, an old lady who for +nearly ninety years displayed to her fellow-mortals one of the most +singular characters possible, Irene had inherited the power of seeing +ghosts. + +It is so generally regarded as a weakness even to believe in disembodied +spirits that in justice to Irene it is but fair to remark that she +believed in them only because she could not help seeing them, and that +the power with which she was endowed had come to her by inheritance +quite without any wish on her part. Any fair-minded person must perceive +the difference between seeing ghosts because one is so foolish as to +believe in them, and believing in their existence because one cannot +help seeing them. It might be added, moreover, that the firmness which +Miss Gaspic had displayed when visited by some of the most unpleasant +wraiths in the whole category should be allowed to tell in her favor. +When she was approached during a visit to Castle Doddyfoethghw--where, +as every traveler in Wales is aware, is to be found the most ghostly +phantom in the three kingdoms--by a gory figure literally streaming with +blood, and carrying its mangled head in its hands, she merely remarked +coldly: "Go away at once, please. You do not alarm me in the least; +but to come into the presence of a lady in such a state of unpleasant +dismemberment is in shockingly bad taste." Whereat the poor wraith fell +all along the ground in astonishment and alarm, leaving a stain of +blood upon the stone floor, which may be seen to this day by any one +who doubts the tale enough to go to Castle Doddyfoethghw to see. + +Although Irene seldom referred to her inheritance, and professed, when +she did speak of it, to feel a lively indignation that her aunt Eunice +Mariamne should have thrust upon her such a bequest, she was too +thoroughly human and feminine to lack wholly a secret pride that she +should be distinguished by a gift so unusual. She had too good taste +openly to talk of it, yet she had not the firmness entirely to conceal +it; and her friends were pretty generally aware of the legacy and +of many circumstances resulting from its possession. Some few of +her intimates, indeed, had ventured to employ her good offices in +communicating with family wraiths; and although Irene was averse to +anything which savored so strongly of mediumship and other vulgar +trades, she could not but be pleased at the excellent results which +had followed her mediations in several instances. + +When, therefore, she one day received a note from her old school friend +Fanny McHugh, inviting her to come down to visit her at Oldtower, with +the mysterious remark, "I not only long to see you, dear, but there is +something most important that you can do for me, and nobody but you," +Irene at once remembered that the McHughs had a family ghost, and was +convinced that she was invited, so to say, in her professional capacity. + +She was, however, by no means averse to going, and that for several +reasons. The McHugh estate was a beautiful old place in one of the +loveliest of New England villages, where the family had been in the +ascendancy since pre-Revolutionary days; Irene was sufficiently fond of +Fanny; and she was well aware, in virtue of that intuition which enables +women to know so many things, that her friend's brother, Arthur McHugh, +would be at home at the time named for the visit. Irene and Lieutenant +Arthur McHugh had been so much to each other at one time that they had +been to the very verge of a formal engagement, when at the last moment +he drew back. There was no doubt of his affection, but he was restrained +from asking Irene to share his fortunes by the unpleasant though timely +remembrance that he had none. The family wealth, once princely for the +country and time, had dwindled until little remained save the ancestral +mansion and the beautiful but unremunerative lawns surrounding it. + +Of course this conduct upon the part of Lieutenant McHugh was precisely +that which most surely fixed him in the heart of Irene. The lover who +continues to love, but unselfishly renounces, is hardly likely to be +forgotten; and it is to be presumed that it was with more thought of the +young and handsome lieutenant in flesh and blood than of the Continental +major in ghostly attenuation who lurked in the haunted chamber that Miss +Gaspic accepted the invitation to Oldtower. + + +II + +Oldtower stands in a wild and beautiful village, left on one side by +modern travel, which has turned away from the turnpike of the fathers to +follow the more direct route of the rail. The estate extends for some +distance along the bank of the river, which so twists in its windings +as almost to make the village an island, and on a knoll overlooking +the stream moulders the crumbling pile of stone which once was a +watch-tower, and from which the place takes its name. + +The house is one of the finest of old colonial mansions, and is +beautifully placed upon a terrace half a dozen feet above the level of +the ample lawn which surrounds it. Back of the house a trim garden with +box hedges as high as the gardener's knee extends down to the river, +while in front a lofty hedge shuts off the grounds from the village +street. Miss Fanny, upon whom had largely devolved the care of the +estate since the death of her widowed mother, had had the good sense +to confine her efforts to keeping things in good order in the simplest +possible way; and the result was that such defects of management as were +rendered inevitable by the smallness in income presented themselves to +the eye rather as evidences of mellowness than of decay, and the general +effect remained most charming. + +Irene had always been fond of the McHugh place, and everything was in +the perfection of its June fairness when she arrived. Her meeting with +Fanny was properly effusive, while Arthur gratified her feminine sense +by greeting her with outward calmness while he allowed his old passion +to appear in his eyes. There were, of course, innumerable questions to +be asked, as is usual upon such occasions, and some of them were even of +sufficient importance to require answers; so that the afternoon passed +rapidly away, and Irene had no opportunity to refer to the favor to +which her friend's letter had made allusion. Her suspicion that she had +been summoned in her capacity of ghost-seer was confirmed by the fact +that she had been put in the haunted room, a fine square chamber in the +southeast wing, wainscoted to the ceiling, and one of the handsomest +apartments in the house. This room had been especially decorated and +fitted up for one Major Arthur McHugh, a great-great-uncle of the +present McHughs, who had served with honor under Lafayette in the +Revolution. The major had left behind him the reputation of great +personal bravery, a portrait which showed him as extremely handsome, +and the fame of having been a great lady-killer and something of a rake +withal; while he had taken out of the world with him, or at least had +not left behind, the secret of what he had done with the famous McHugh +diamonds. Major McHugh was his father's eldest son, and in the family +the law of primogeniture was in his day pretty strictly observed, so +that to him descended the estate. A disappointment in love resulted in +his refusing to marry, although urged thereto by his family and much +reasoned with by disinterested mothers with marriageable daughters. He +bequeathed the estate to the eldest son of his younger brother, who had +been named for him, and this Arthur McHugh was the grandfather of the +present lieutenant. + +With the estate went the famous McHugh diamonds, at that time the finest +in America. The "McHugh star," a huge stone of rose cut, had once been +the eye of an idol in the temple of Majarah, whence it had been stolen +by the sacrilegious Rajah of Zinyt, from whose possession it passed into +the hands of a Colonel McHugh at the siege of Zinyt in 1707. There was +an effort made, about the middle of the eighteenth century, to add this +beautiful gem to the crown jewels of France, but the McHugh then at the +head of the family, the father of Major McHugh, declared that he would +sooner part with wife and children than with the "McHugh star," an +unchristian sentiment, which speaks better for his appreciation of +jewels than for his family affection. + +When Major McHugh departed from this life, in 1787, the McHugh diamonds +were naturally sought for by his heir, but were nowhere to be found. +None of the family knew where they were usually kept--a circumstance +which was really less singular than it might at first appear, since the +major was never communicative, and in those days concealment was more +relied upon for the safety of small valuables than the strength which +the modern safe, with its misleading name, is supposed to supply. The +last that was known of the gems was their being worn at a ball in 1785 +by the sister-in-law of the owner, to whom they had been loaned for the +occasion. Here they had attracted the greatest attention and admiration, +but on their return to Major McHugh they seemed to vanish forever. +Search had of course been made, and one generation after another, +hearing the traditions, and believing in its own cleverness, had +renewed the endeavor, but thus far the mystery had remained unsolved. + + +III + +It was when the girls were brushing out their hair together in that hour +before retiring which is traditionally sacred to feminine confidences, +that Irene asked rather abruptly:-- + +"Well, Fanny, what is it that you want of me?" + +"Want?" replied her friend, who could not possibly help being femininely +evasive. "I want to see you, of course." + +"Yes," the guest returned, smiling; "and that is the reason you gave me +this room, which I never had before." + +The hostess blushed. "It is the handsomest room in the house," she said +defensively. + +"And one shares it," Irene added, "with the ghost of the gallant major." + +"But you know," protested Fanny, "that you do not mind ghosts in the +least." + +"Not so very much now that I am used to them. They are poor creatures; +and it seems to me that they get feebler the more people refuse to +believe in them." + +"Oh, you don't suppose," cried Fanny, in the greatest anxiety, "that the +major's ghost has faded away, do you? Nobody has slept here for years, +so that nobody has seen it for ever so long." + +"And you want me to assure it that you think it eminently respectable to +have a wraith in the family, so you hope it will persevere in haunting +Oldtower?" + +"Oh, it is n't that at all," Fanny said, lowering her voice. "I suppose +Arthur would be furious if he knew it, or that I even mentioned it, but +I am sure it is more for his sake than for my own. Don't you think that +it is?" + +"You are simply too provoking for anything," Irene responded. "I am sure +I never saw a ghost that talked so unintelligibly as you do. What in the +world do you mean?" + +"Why, only the other day Arthur said in joke that if somebody could only +make the major's--" she looked around to indicate the word which she +evidently did not care to pronounce in that chamber, and Irene nodded +to signify that she understood--"if only somebody could make it tell +where the McHugh diamonds are--" + +"Oh, that's it, is it?" interrupted Irene. "Well, my dear, I am willing +to speak to the major, if he will give me an opportunity; but it is not +likely that I can do much. He will not care for what I say." + +"But appeal to his family pride," Fanny said, with an earnestness that +betrayed the importance of this matter to her. "Tell him how we are +going to ruin for want of just the help those diamonds would give us. +He ought to have some family pride left." + +Miss Gaspic naturally did not wish to draw her friend into a +conversation upon the financial straits of the family, and she therefore +managed to turn the conversation, only repeating her promise that if +the wraith of the major put in an appearance, she would do whatever +lay in her power to get from him the secret which he had kept for a +century. It was not long before Fanny withdrew, and, taking a book, +Irene sat down to read, and await her visitor. + +It was just at midnight that the major's spirit made its appearance. It +was a ghost of a conventional period, and it carefully observed all the +old-time conditions. Irene, who had been waiting for it, raised her eyes +from the book which she had been reading, and examined it carefully. The +ghost had the likeness of a handsome man of rather more than middle age +and of majestic presence. The figure was dressed in Continental uniform, +and in its hand carried a glass apparently full of red wine. As Irene +raised her eyes, the ghost bowed gravely and courteously, and then +drained the cup to its depth. + +"Good-evening," Miss Gaspic said politely. "Will you be seated?" + +The apparition was evidently startled by this cool address, and, instead +of replying, again bowed and again drained its glass, which had in some +mysterious manner become refilled. + +"Thank you," Irene said, in answer to his repeated salute; "please sit +down. I was expecting you, and I have something to say." + +The ghost of the dead-and-gone major stared more than before. + +"I beg your pardon?" he responded, in a thinly interrogative tone. + +"Pray be seated," Irene invited him for the third time. + +The ghost wavered into an old-fashioned high-backed chair, which +remained distinctly visible through his form, and for a moment or two +the pair eyed each other in silence. The situation seemed somehow to be +a strained one even to the ghost. + +"It seems to me," Irene said, breaking the silence, "that it would be +hard for you to refuse the request of a lady." + +"Oh, impossible," the ghost quavered, with old-time gallantry; +"especially of a lovely creature like some we could mention. Anything," +he added in a slightly altered tone, as if his experiences in ghostland +had taught him the need of caution--"anything in reason, of course." + +Irene smiled her most persuasive smile. "Do I look like one who would +ask unreasonable things?" she asked. + +"I am sure that nothing which you should ask could be unreasonable," +the ghost replied, with so much gallantry that Irene had for a moment +a confused sense of having lost her identity, since to have a ghost +complimenting her naturally gave her much the feeling of being a ghost +herself. + +"And certainly the McHugh diamonds can do you no good now," Miss Gaspic +continued, introducing her subject with truly feminine indirectness. + +"The McHugh diamonds?" echoed the ghost stammeringly, as if the shock +of the surprise, under which he grew perceptibly thinner, was almost +more than his incorporeal frame could endure. + +"Yes," responded Irene. "Of course I have no claim on them, but the +family is in severe need, and--" + +"They wish to sell my diamonds!" exclaimed the wraith, starting up in +wrath. "The degenerate, unworthy--" + +Words seemed to fail him, and in an agitated manner he swallowed two or +three glasses of wine in quick succession. + +"Why, sir," Irene asked irrelevantly, "do you seem to be always drinking +wine?" + +"Because," he answered sadly, "I dropped dead while I was drinking the +health of Lady Betty Rafferty, and since then I have to do it whenever I +am in the presence of mortals." + +"But can you not stop?" + +"Only when your ladyship is pleased to command me," he replied, with all +his old-fashioned elaborateness of courtesy. + +"And as to the diamonds," Irene said, coming back to that subject with +an abruptness which seemed to be most annoying to the ghost, "of what +possible use can they be to you in your present condition?" + +"What use?" echoed the shade of the major, with much fierceness. "They +are my occupation. I am their guardian spirit." + +"But," she urged, bringing to bear those powers of logic upon which she +always had prided herself, "you drink the ghost of wine, don't you?" + +"Certainly, madam," the spirit answered, evidently confused. + +"Then why can you not be content with guarding the ghost of the McHugh +diamonds, while you let the real, live Arthur McHugh have the real +stones?" + +"Why, that," the apparition returned, with true masculine perversity, +"is different--quite different." + +"How is it different?" + +"Now I am the guardian of a genuine treasure. I am the most considerable +personage in our whole circle." + +"Your circle?" interrupted Irene. + +"You would not understand," the shape said, "so I will, with your +permission, omit the explanation. If I gave up the diamonds, I should be +only a common drinking ghost--a thing to be gossiped about and smiled +at." + +"You would be held in reverence as the posthumous benefactor of your +family," she urged. + +"I am better pleased with things as they are. I have no great faith in +the rewards of benefactors; and the people benefited would not belong to +our circle, either." + +"You are both selfish and cynical," Irene declared. She fell to +meditating what she had better say to him, and meanwhile she noted with +satisfaction that the candle was burning blue, a fact which, to her +accustomed eye, indicated that the ghost was a spirit of standing most +excellent in ghostly ranks. + +"To suffer the disapproval of one so lovely," the remnant of the +old-time gentleman rejoined, "is a misfortune so severe that I cannot +forbear reminding you that you are not fully familiar with the +conditions under which I exist." + +In this unsatisfactory strain the conversation continued for some time +longer; and when at length the ghost took its departure, and Irene +retired to rest, she could not flatter herself that she had made any +especial progress toward inducing the spirit to yield the secret which +it had so long and so carefully guarded. The major's affections seemed +to be set with deathless constancy upon the gems, and that most powerful +of masculine passions, vanity, to be enlisted in their defense. + +"I am afraid that it is of no use," Irene sighed to herself; "and yet, +after all, he was only a man when he was alive, and he cannot be much +more than that now when he is a ghost." + +And greatly comforted by the reflection that whatever is masculine is to +be overcome by feminine guile, she fell asleep. + + +IV + +On the following afternoon Irene found herself rowing on the river +with the lieutenant. She had declined his invitation to come, and had +immediately felt so exultant in the strength of mind which had enabled +her to withstand temptation that she had followed the refusal with an +acceptance. + +The day was deliciously soft and balmy. A thin haze shut off the heat of +the sun, while a southerly breeze found somewhere a spicy and refreshing +odor, which with great generosity it diffused over the water. The river +moved tranquilly, and any one capable of being sentimental might well +find it hard to resist the influences of the afternoon. + +The lieutenant was as ardently in love as it is possible for a man to be +who is at once a soldier and handsome, and indeed more than would have +been expected from a man who combined such causes of self-satisfaction. +The fact that Irene had a great deal of money, while he had none, gave +to his passion a hopelessness from his point of view which much +increased its fervor. He gazed at his companion with his great dark eyes +as she sat in the stern, his heavy eyebrows and well-developed mustache +preventing him from looking as silly as might otherwise have been the +case. Miss Gaspic was by no means insensible to the spell of the time +and of the companionship in which she found herself, but she was +determined above all things to be discreet. + +"Arthur," she said, by way of keeping the talk in safe channels and also +of finding out what she wanted to know, "was search ever made for the +McHugh diamonds?" + +"Search!" he repeated. "Everything short of pulling the house down has +been tried. Everybody in the family from the time they were lost has had +a hand at it." + +"I do not see--" began Irene, when he interrupted brusquely. + +"No," he said; "nobody sees. The solution of the riddle is probably so +simple that nobody will think of it. It will be hit upon by accident +some day. But, for the sake of goodness, let us talk of something else. +I always lose my temper when the McHugh diamonds are mentioned." + +He relieved his impatience by a fierce spurt at the oars, which sent the +boat spinning through the water; then he shook himself as if to shake +off unpleasant thoughts, and once more allowed the current to take them +along. Irene looked at him with wistful eyes. She would have been so +glad to give him all her money if he would have it. + +"You told me," she said at length, with a faint air of +self-consciousness, "that you wanted to say something to me." + +The young lieutenant flushed, and looked between the trunks of the old +trees on the river-bank into the far distance. "I have," he responded. +"It is a piece of impertinence, because I have no right to say it to +you." + +"You may say anything you wish to say," Irene answered, while a vague +apprehension took possession of her mind at something in his tone. +"Surely we have known each other long enough for that." + +"Well," the other blurted out with an abruptness that showed the effort +that it cost him, "you should be married, Irene." + +Irene felt like bursting into tears, but with truly feminine fortitude +she managed to smile instead. + +"Am I getting so woefully old and faded, then, Arthur?" she asked. + +His look of reproachful denial was sufficiently eloquent to need no +added word. "Of course not," he said; "but you should not be going on +toward the time when--" + +"When I shall be," she concluded his sentence as he hesitated. "Then, +Arthur, why don't you ask me to marry you?" + +The blood rushed into his face and ebbed away, leaving him as pale as +so sun-browned a fellow could well be. He set his teeth together over +a word which was strangled in its utterance, and Irene saw with secret +admiration the mighty grasp of his hands upon the oars. She could be +proud of his self-control so long as she was satisfied of the intensity +of his feelings, and she was almost as keenly thrilled by the adoring, +appealing look in his brown eyes as she would have been by a caress. + +"Because," he said, "the McHughs have never yet been set down as +fortune-hunters, and I do not care to be the one to bring that reproach +upon the family." + +"What a vilely selfish way of looking at it!" she cried. + +"Very likely it seems so to a woman." + +Irene flushed in her turn, and for fully two minutes there was no sound +save that of the water lapping softly against the boat. Then Miss Gaspic +spoke again. + +"It is possible," she said, in a tone so cold that the poor lieutenant +dared not answer her, "that the fact that you are a man prevents you +from understanding how a woman feels who has thrown herself at a man's +head, as I have done, and been rejected. Take me back to the shore." + +And he had not a word to answer. + + +V + +To have proposed to a man, and been refused, is not a soothing +experience for any woman; and although the ground upon which Arthur had +based his rejection was one which Irene had before known to be the +obstacle between them, the refusal remained a stubborn fact to rankle in +her mind. All the evening she nursed her wounded feelings, and by the +time midnight brought her once more face to face with the ghost of the +major, her temper was in a state which nothing save the desire to shield +a lady could induce one to call by even so mild a word as uncertain. + +The spirit appeared as usual, saluting, and tossing off bumpers from its +shadowy wine-glass, and it had swallowed at least a dozen cups before +Miss Gaspic condescended to indicate that she was aware of its presence. + +"Why do you stand there drinking in that idiotic fashion?" she demanded, +with more asperity than politeness. "Once is quite enough for that sort +of thing." + +"But I cannot speak until I have been spoken to," the ghost responded +apologetically, "and I have to continue drinking until I have been +requested to do something else." + +"Drink, then, by all means," Irene replied coldly, turning to pick up a +book. "I only hope that so much wine will not go to your head." + +"But it is sure to," the ghost said, in piteous tones; "and in all my +existence, even when I was only a man, I have never been overcome with +wine in the presence of a lady." + +It continued to swallow the wraith of red wine while it spoke, and Irene +regarded it curiously. + +"An inebriated ghost," she observed dispassionately, "is something which +it is so seldom given to mortal to see that it would be the greatest of +folly to neglect this opportunity of getting sight of that phenomenon." + +"Please tell me to go away, or to sit down, or to do something," the +quondam major pleaded. + +"Then tell me where the McHugh diamonds are," she said. + +A look of desperate obstinacy came into the ghost's face, through which +could unpleasantly be seen the brass knobs of a tall secretary on the +opposite side of the room. For some moments the pair confronted each +other in silence, although the apparition continued its drinking. Irene +watched the figure with unrelenting countenance, and at length made the +curious discovery that it was standing upon tiptoe. In a moment more she +saw that it was really rising, and that its feet from time to time left +the carpet entirely. Her first thought was a fear that it was about +to float away and escape, but upon looking closer she came to the +conclusion that it was endeavoring to resist the tendency to rise into +the air. Watching more sharply, she perceived that while with its right +hand it raised its inexhaustible wine-cup, with its left it clung to +the back of a chair in an evident endeavor to keep itself down. + +"You seem to be standing on tiptoe," she observed. "Were you looking for +anything?" + +"No," the wraith responded, in evident confusion; "that is merely the +levitation consequent upon this constant imbibing." + +Irene laughed contemptuously. "Do you mean," she demanded unfeelingly, +"that the sign of intoxication in a ghost is a tendency to rise into the +air?" + +"It is considered more polite in our circle to use the term employed by +the occultists," the apparition answered somewhat sulkily. "We speak of +it as 'levitation.'" + +"But I do not belong to your circle," Irene returned cheerfully, "and I +am not in sympathy with the occultists. Does it not occur to you," she +went on, "that it is worth while to take into consideration the fact +that in these progressive times you do not occupy the same place in +popular or even in scientific estimation which was yours formerly? You +are now merely an hallucination, you know, and there is no reason that +I should regard you with anything but contempt, as a mere symptom of +indigestion or of mental fatigue." + +"But you can see that I am not an hallucination, can you not?" quavered +the poor ghost of the major, evidently becoming dreadfully discouraged. + +"Oh, that is simply a delusion of the senses," Irene made answer in a +matter-of-fact way, which, even while she spoke, she felt to be basely +cruel. "Any physician would tell me so, and would write out a +prescription for me to prevent my seeing you again." + +"But he could n't," the ghost said, with pathetic feebleness. + +"You do not know the physicians of to-day," she replied, with a smile. +"But to drop that, what I wished to say was this: does it not seem to +you that this is a good opportunity to prove your reality by showing me +the hiding-place of the diamonds? I give you my word that I will report +the case to the Psychical Research Society, and you will then go on +record and have a permanent reputation which the incredulity of the age +cannot destroy." + +The ghost was by this time in a state of intoxication which evidently +made it able only with the utmost difficulty to keep from sailing to the +ceiling. It clung to the back of a chair with a desperate clutch, while +its feet paddled hopelessly and helplessly in the air, in vain attempts +once more to get into touch with the floor. + +"But the Psychical Research Society is not recognized in my circle," it +still objected. + +"Very well," Irene exclaimed in exasperation; "do as you like! But what +will be the effect upon your reputation if you go floating helplessly +back to your circle in your present condition? Is levitation in the +presence of ladies considered respectable in this society of whose +opinion you think so much?" + +"Oh, to think of it!" the spirit of the bygone major wailed with a +sudden shrillness of woe which made even Miss Gaspic's blood run cold. +"Oh, the disgrace of it! I will do anything you ask." + +Irene sprang to her feet in sudden excitement. + +"Will you show me--" she began; but the wavering voice of the ghost +interrupted her. + +"You must lead me," it said. "Give me your hand. I shall float up to the +ceiling if I let go my hold upon this chair." + +"Your hand--that is, I--I don't like the feeling of ghosts," Irene +replied. "Here, take hold of this." + +She picked up a pearl paper-knife and extended it toward the spirit. The +ghost grasped it, and in this manner was led down the chamber, floating +and struggling upward like a bird. Irene was surprised at the amount of +force with which it pulled at the paper-knife, but she reflected that it +had really swallowed an enormous quantity of its ghostly stimulant. She +followed the directions of the waving hand that held the wine-glass, +and in this way they came to a corner of the room where the spirit made +signs that it wished to get nearer the floor. Irene pulled the figure +downward, until it crouched in the corner. It laid one transparent hand +upon a certain panel in the wainscoting. + +"Search here," it said. + +In the excitement of the moment Irene relaxed her hold upon the +paper-knife. Instantly the ghost floated upward like a balloon released +from its moorings, while the paper-knife dropped through its incorporeal +form to the floor. + +"Good-by," Irene cried after it. "Thank you so much!" + +And like a blurred and dissolving cloud above her head the intoxicated +ghost faded into nothingness. + + +VI + +It was hardly to be expected that Irene, flushed with the proud delight +of having triumphed over the obstinate ghost of the major, could keep +her discovery to herself for so long a time as until daylight. It was +already near one in the morning, but on going to her window, and looking +across to the wing of the house where the lieutenant's rooms were, she +saw that his light was still burning. With a secret feeling that he was +probably reflecting upon the events of the afternoon, Irene sped along +the passage to the door of Fanny's chamber, whom she awakened, and +dispatched to bring Arthur. + +Fanny's characteristically feminine manner of calling her brother was to +dash into his room, crying:-- + +"Oh, Arthur, Irene has found the McHugh diamonds!" + +She was too incoherent to reply to his questions, so that there was +manifestly nothing for him to do but to follow to the place where Irene +was awaiting them. There the young couple were deserted by Fanny, who +impulsively ran on before to the haunted chamber, leaving them to +follow. As they walked along the corridor, the lieutenant, who perhaps +felt that it was well not to provoke a discussion which might call up +too vividly in Irene's mind the humiliation of the afternoon, clasped +her quite without warning, and drew her to his side. + +"Now I can ask you to marry me," he said; "and I love you, Irene, with +my whole heart." + +Her first movement was an instinctive struggle to free herself; but the +persuasion of his embrace was too sweet to be resisted, and she only +protested by saying, "Your love seems to depend very much upon those +detestable old diamonds." + +"Of course," he answered. "Without them I am too poor to have any right +to think of you." + +"Oh," she cried out in sudden terror, "suppose that they are not there!" + +The young man loosened his embrace in astonishment. + +"Not there!" he repeated. "Fanny said that you had found them." + +"Not yet; only the ghost--" + +"The ghost!" he echoed, in tones of mingled disappointment and chagrin. +"Is that all there is to it?" + +Irene felt that her golden love-dream was rudely shattered. She was +aware that the lieutenant did not even believe in the existence of the +wraith of the major, and although she had been conversing with the +spirit for so long a time that very night, so great was the influence +of her lover over her mind that she began at this moment to doubt the +reality of the apparition herself. + +With pale face and sinking heart she led the way into her chamber, and +to the corner where the paper-knife yet lay upon the floor in testimony +of the actuality of her interview with the wraith. Under her directions +the panel was removed from the wainscot, a labor which was not effected +without a good deal of difficulty. Arthur sneered at the whole thing, +but he yet was good-natured enough to do what the girls asked of him. + +Only the dust of centuries rewarded their search. When it was fully +established that there were no jewel-cases there, poor Irene broke down +entirely, and burst into convulsive weeping. + +"There, there," Arthur said soothingly. "Don't feel like that. We've got +on without the diamonds thus far, and we can still." + +"It is n't the diamonds that I'm crying for," sobbed Irene, with all the +naïveté of a child that has lost its pet toy. "It's you!" + +There was no withstanding this appeal. Arthur took her into his arms and +comforted her, while Fanny discreetly looked the other way; and so the +engagement was allowed to stand, although the McHugh diamonds had not +been found. + + +VII + +But the next night Irene faced the ghost with an expression of contempt +that might have withered the spirit of Hamlet's sire. + +"So you think it proper to deceive a lady?" she inquired scornfully. "Is +that the way in which the gentlemen of the 'old school,' of which we +hear so much, behaved?" + +"Why, you should reflect," the wraith responded waveringly, "that you +had made me intoxicated." And, indeed, the poor spirit still showed the +effects of its debauch. + +"You cannot have been very thoroughly intoxicated," Irene returned, "or +you would not have been able to deceive me." + +"But you see," it answered, "that I drank only the ghost of wine, so +that I really had only the ghost of inebriation." + +"But being a ghost yourself," was her reply, "that should have been +enough to intoxicate you completely." + +"I never argue with a lady," said the ghost loftily, the subject +evidently being too complicated for it to follow further. "At least I +managed to put you as far as possible on the wrong scent." + +As it spoke, it gave the least possible turn of its eye toward the +corner of the room diagonally opposite to that where it had disappeared +on the previous night. + +"Ah!" cried Irene, with sudden illumination. + +She sprang up, and began to move from its place in the corner an old +secretary which stood there. The thing was very heavy, but she did not +call for help. She strained and tugged, the ghost showing evident signs +of perturbation, until she had thrust the secretary aside, and then with +her lamp beside her she sat down upon the floor and began to examine the +wainscoting. + +"Come away, please," the ghost said piteously. "I hate to see you there +on the floor. Come and sit by the fire." + +"Thank you," she returned. "I am very comfortable where I am." + +She felt of the panels, she poked and pried, and for more than an hour +she worked, while the ghost stood over her, begging that she go away. It +was just as she was on the point of giving up that her fingers, rubbing +up and down, started a morsel of dust from a tiny hole in the edge of a +panel. She seized a hairpin from amid her locks, and thrust the point +into the little opening. The panel started, moved slowly on a concealed +hinge, and opened enough for her to insert her fingers and to push it +back. A sort of closet lay revealed, and in it was a pile of cases, +dusty, moth-eaten, and time-stained. She seized the first that came to +hand, and opened it. There upon its bed of faded velvet blazed the +"McHugh star," superb in its beauty and a fortune in itself. + +"Oh, my diamonds!" shrilled the ghost of Major McHugh. "Oh, what will +our circle say!" + +"They will have the right to say that you were rude to a lady," Irene +answered, with gratuitous severity. "You have wasted your opportunity of +being put on record." + +"Now I am only a drinking ghost!" the wraith wailed, and faded away upon +the air. + +Thus it came about that on her wedding-day Irene wore the "McHugh star;" +and yet, such is human perversity that she has not only been convinced +by her husband that ghosts do not exist, but she has lost completely the +power of seeing them, although that singular and valuable gift had come +to her, as has been said, by inheritance from a great-aunt on her +mother's side of the family. + + + + +A PROBLEM IN PORTRAITURE + + +I + +"It does not look like him," Celia Sathman said, moving aside a +little that the afternoon light might fall more fully upon a portrait +standing unfinished upon the easel; "and yet it is unquestionably the +best picture you ever painted. It interests me, it fascinates me; and +I never had at all that feeling about Ralph himself. And yet," she +added, smiling at her own inconsistency, "it _is_ like him. It is n't +what I call a good likeness, and yet--" + +The artist, Tom Claymore, leaned back in his chair and smiled. + +"You are right and wrong," he said. "I am a little disappointed that you +don't catch the secret of the picture. I knew Ralph would n't +understand, but I had hopes of you." + +A puzzled look came into Celia's face as she continued to study the +canvas. Her companion smoked a cigarette, and watched her with a regard +which was at once fond and a little amused. + +The studio was a great room which had originally been devoted to no less +prosaic an occupation than the painting of oil-cloth carpeting, great +splashes of color, which time and dust had softened into a pleasing +dimness, remaining to testify to its former character. It stood down +among the wharves of old Salem, a town where even the new is scarcely to +be distinguished from the old, and Tom had been delighted with its roomy +quiet, the play of light and shadow among the bare beams overhead, and +the ease with which he had been able to make it serve his purpose. +He had done comparatively little toward furnishing it for his summer +occupancy. He had hung a few worn-out seines over the high beams, and +placed here and there his latest acquisitions in the way of bric-à-brac, +while numerous sketches were pinned to the walls with no attempt at +order. On the door he had fastened a zither, of which the strings were +struck by nicely balanced hammers when the door was moved, and in the +still rather barn-like room, he had established himself to teach and to +paint through the summer months. + +"I cannot make it out at all," Celia said at last, turning away from +the easel and walking toward Claymore. "It looks older and stronger +than Ralph, as if-- Ah!" she interrupted herself suddenly, a new light +breaking in her face. "Now I see! You have been painting his +possibilities. You are making a portrait of him as he will be." + +"As he may be," Claymore corrected her, his words showing that her +conjecture was in truth the key to the riddle. "When I began to paint +Ralph, I was at once struck by the undeveloped state of his face. It +seemed to me like a bud that had n't opened; and I began at once to try +and guess what it would grow into. I did n't at first mean to paint it +so, but the notion mastered me, and now I deliberately give myself up to +the impulse. I don't know whether it's professional, but it is great +fun." + +Celia went back and looked at the picture once more, but she soon +returned to stand leaning upon the tall back of the chair in which her +betrothed was sitting. + +"It is getting too dark to see it," she remarked; "but your experiment +interests me wonderfully. You say you are painting what his face may be; +why not what his face must be?" + +"Because," the artist replied, "I am trying to get in the best of his +possibilities; to paint the noblest there is in him. How can I tell if +he will in life realize it? He may develop his worst side, you know, +instead of his best." + +Celia was silent a moment. The darkness seemed to have gathered quickly, +rising clouds cutting off the light of the after-glow which had followed +the sunset with delusive promise. She leaned forward and laid her +finger-tips lightly upon Tom's forehead with a caressing motion. + +"You are a clever man," she said. "It is fortunate you are a good one." + +"Oh," he returned, almost brusquely, though he took her hand and kissed +it, "I don't know that I can lay claim to any especial virtue. Are you +remembering Hawthorne's story of 'The Prophetic Pictures,' that you +think my goodness particularly fortunate in this connection?" + +Instead of replying, she moved across the studio with her graceful, firm +walk, which had won Tom's deep admiration before he knew even her name. +She took up a light old-fashioned silk shawl, yellow with time, and +threw it across her arm. + +"I must go home," she remarked, as if no subject were under discussion. +"I am sure I don't know what I was thinking of to stay here so late." + +"Oh, there is no time in sleepy old Salem," was his response, "so it +can't be late; but if you will go, I shall be proud to walk up with +you." + +He flung away the end of his cigarette, locked the studio, and together +they took their way out of the region of wharves, along the quaint old +dinginess of Essex Street. It is a thoroughfare full of suggestions of +the past, and they both were susceptible to its influences. Here of old +the busy life of Salem flowed in vigorous current, laden with interests +which embraced half the globe; here sailors from strange lands used to +gather, swarthy and bold, pouring into each other's ringed ear talk of +adventure wild and daring; here merchants walked counting their gains on +cargoes brought from the far Orient and islands of which even the names +had hardly grown familiar to the Western World. + +Hawthorne has somewhere spoken of the old life of New England as all too +sombre, and declared that our forefathers "wove their web of life with +hardly a single thread of rose-color or gold;" but surely the master was +misled by the dimness gathered from time. Into every old web of tapestry +went many a bright line of scarlet and green and azure, many a woof of +gold that time has tarnished and the dust of years dulled until all is +gray and faded. Along the memory-haunted streets of Salem, from the +first, went, side by side or hand in hand, the happy maiden and her +lover; stepped the bridal train; passed the young wife bearing under her +heart with fearful bliss the sweet secret of a life other than her own; +or the newly made mother bore her first-born son through a glory half +sunlight and half dreams of his golden future. In later days all the +romance of the seas, the teeming life which inspired the tongue of the +prophet's denouncing lyre to break into rhapsodies of poetry, the stir +of adventurous blood, and the boldness of daring adventurers have filled +these old streets with vivid and undying memories. + +The artist and his companion were rather silent as they walked, he +studying the lights and shadows with appreciative eye, and she +apparently absorbed in thought. At length she seemed to come in her +reverie to some doubt which she needed his aid to resolve. + +"Tom," she asked, rather hesitatingly, "have you noticed any change in +Ralph lately?" + +"Change?" repeated Claymore interrogatively, with a quick flash of +interest in his eyes despite the studied calmness of his manner. + +"Yes. He has n't been the same since--since--" + +"Since when?" the artist inquired, as she hesitated. + +"Why, it must be almost ever since we came home and you began to paint +him," Celia returned thoughtfully; "though I confess I have noticed it +only lately. Has n't it struck you?" + +Her companion, instead of replying directly, began carefully to examine +the carving on the head of his walking-stick. + +"You forget how slightly I knew him before," he said. "What sort of a +change do you mean?" + +"He has developed. He seems all at once to be becoming a man." + +"He is twenty-eight. It is n't strange that there should be signs of +the man about him, I suppose." + +"But he has always seemed so boyish," Celia insisted, with the air of +one who finds it difficult to make herself understood. + +"Very likely something has happened to sober him," Tom answered, with an +effort to speak carelessly, which prevented him from noticing that Celia +flushed slightly at his words. + +They had reached Miss Sathman's gate, and he held it open for her. + +"It was very good of you to come this afternoon," he told her. "When +will you take your next lesson?" + +"I can't tell," she replied. "I'll let you know. Won't you come in?" + +The invitation was given with a certain faint wistfulness, but he +declined, and lifting his hat, bade her good-night. She turned on the +doorstep and looked after him as his strong, resolute figure passed down +the street, and a sigh escaped her. + +"I wonder if Tom will seem to me so reserved and cold after we are +married," was her thought. + + +II + +People in general thought Tom Claymore's nature cold and reserved +because his manner was so. He was reticent perhaps to a fault, but +the reticent man who is cold is a monster, and Tom was far from being +anything so disagreeable as that. His was the shy artistic temperament, +and the circumstances of his rather lonely life had fostered a habit +of saying little while he yet felt deeply, and since he took life +seriously, he seldom found himself disposed to open his heart in +ordinary conversation. + +Even with his betrothed he had not yet outworn the reserve which every +year of his life had strengthened, and Celia, despite her betrothal, was +not wholly free from the common error of supposing that, because he did +not easily express his sentiment, he lacked warmth of feeling. She had +been his pupil in Boston, and it was for the sake of being near her +that he had established himself at Salem for the summer, making a +pretext of the fact that he had promised to paint the portrait of her +cousin, Ralph Thatcher. + +Tom Claymore could not have told at what stage of his work upon this +portrait he became possessed of the idea that he had been unconsciously +painting rather the possibilities than the realities of his sitter's +face. At first he smiled at the thought as a mere fanciful notion; then +he strove against it; but he ended by giving his inspiration, or his +whim, free rein, and deliberately endeavoring to portray the noblest +manhood of which Ralph Thatcher's face seemed to him to contain the +germs. He felt a secret impatience with the young man, who, with wealth, +health, and all the opportunities of life, seemed still too much a boy +properly to appreciate or to use them; and as the portrait advanced, the +belief grew in Claymore's mind that, when it was completed, some effect +might be produced upon Thatcher by its showing him thus vividly the +possibilities of character he was wasting. The artist did not, it is +true, attach much importance to this notion, but when once he had given +himself up to it, he at least found much interest in following out his +endeavor. The idea of a sitter's being influenced by a portrait is by +no means a novel one among painters, and Claymore took pains to have +Thatcher see the picture as soon as it got beyond its early stages. He +wanted it to have to the full whatever influence was possible, and he +was eager to discover how soon its departure from an exact likeness +would become apparent to the original. + +A curious complication followed. It was not long before it began to seem +to Tom that Ralph was growing up to the ideal the portrait showed. At +first he rejected the idea as utterly fanciful. Then he recalled an +experience a brother artist had related to him in Paris, where a girl +who had been painted in the dress of a nun worn at a fancy ball, came, +by brooding over the picture, to be so possessed with a belief in her +vocation that she ended by actually taking the veil. The cases were not +exactly parallel, but Claymore saw in them a certain similarity, in that +both seemed to show how a possibility might be so strongly expressed +on canvas as to become an important influence in making itself an +actuality. He became intensely interested in the problem which presented +itself. He had before this time remarked to Celia that Ralph only needed +arousing to develop into a noble man, and he began to speculate whether +it could be within his power to furnish the impulse needed--the filament +about which crystallization would take place all at once. He worked +slowly and with the utmost care, taking pains to have Thatcher at the +studio as much as possible even on days when he was not posing, so that +the picture might be constantly before his eyes; and of one thing at +least he was sure beyond the possibility of a doubt-- Ralph was +certainly developing. + +"_Post hoc sed non ergo propter hoc_," he said to himself, in the Latin +of his school debating-society days; but secretly he believed that in +this case the effect was no less "because" than "after." + +On the morning after Celia had talked with her betrothed about the +picture, Ralph gave the artist a sitting. The young man seemed so +preoccupied that Tom rallied him a little on his absence of mind, +inquiring if Thatcher wished his portrait to have an air of deep +abstraction. + +"I was not thinking of that confounded old picture at all," the young +man responded, smiling. "I was merely--well, I do not know exactly how +to tell you what I was doing. Do you ever feel as if the reflective part +of you, whatever that may be, had gone into its office for private +meditation and shut your consciousness outside?" + +"Yes," Tom answered; "and I always comfort myself for being excluded +by supposing that at least something of real importance must be under +consideration or it would n't be worth the trouble to shut the doors +so carefully." + +"Do you?" returned the sitter. "I had a jolly old clerical uncle who +used to lock the door of his study and pretend to be writing the most +awe-inspiring sermons, when he really was only having a well-fed nap. +I am afraid," he went on, with a sigh and a change of manner, "that +there is little of real importance has ever gone on in my mind. Do you +know, I am half inclined to hate you." + +The artist looked up in surprise. + +"Hate me?" he echoed. "Why should you hate me?" + +"Because you are everything that I am not; because you succeed in +everything and I never did anything in my life; because at this +poker-table of life you win and I lose." + +A strange tinge of bitterness showed itself in Ralph's voice, and +puzzled Claymore. It was not like Thatcher to be introspective, or to +lament lost possibilities. The artist rubbed his brush on his palette +with a thoughtful air. + +"Even if that were so," he said, "I don't see exactly why you should +vent your disappointment on me. I'm hardly to blame, am I? But of +course what you say is nonsense anyway." + +"Nonsense? It is n't nonsense. I've done nothing. I know nothing. I'm +good for nothing; and the worst of it is that the girl I've wanted all +my life realizes it just as well as I do. She is n't a fool; and of +course she does n't care a rap about me." + +The confession was so frankly boyish that Claymore had a half-impulse to +smile, but the feeling in it was too evidently genuine to be ignored. +One thing at least was clear: Ralph was at last beginning to be +dissatisfied with his idle, purposeless life. He had come to the +enlightenment of seeing himself as he might look to the eyes of the +woman he cared for. The reflection crossed Claymore's mind that some +disappointment in love might have brought about whatever change he had +observed in his sitter, and that any influence which he had ascribed +to the portrait had in reality come from this. The thought struck him +with a ludicrous sense of having befooled himself. It was as if some +gorgeous palace of fancy, carefully built up and elaborated, had come +tumbling in ruins about his head. He made a gesture, half comic, half +deprecatory, and laid down his palette. + +"The light has changed," he said. "I can't paint any more to-day." + + +III + +Claymore was intensely imaginative, and he possessed all the sanguine +disposition of the artistic temperament, the power of giving himself up +to a dream so that it for the time being became real. Matters which the +reason will without hesitation allow to be the lightest bubbles of fancy +are to such a disposition almost as veracious fact; and often the life +of an imaginative man is shaped by what to cold judgment is an untenable +hypothesis. The artist had not in the least been conscious how strong a +hold the idea of awakening Ralph Thatcher had taken upon his mind, until +the doubt presented itself whether the portrait had in reality possessed +any influence whatever. He was not without a sense of humor, and he +smiled inwardly at the seriousness with which he regarded the matter. He +reasoned with himself, half petulantly, half humorously; sometimes +taking the ground that his theory had been merely a fantastic absurdity, +and again holding doggedly to the belief that it was founded upon some +fragment at least of vital truth. He recalled vaguely a good many scraps +of modern beliefs in the power of suggestion; then he came back to the +reflection that if Ralph was in love, no suggestion was needed to cause +a mental revolution. + +Wholly to disbelieve in its own inspirations is, however, hardly +within the power of the genuinely imaginative nature. Whatever his +understanding might argue, Tom, in the end, would have been false to his +temperament had he not remained convinced that he was right in believing +that to some degree, at least, the picture he was painting had +influenced his sitter. Without any consciously defined plan, he got out +a fresh canvas, and occupied himself, when alone in the studio, by +copying Ralph's head, but with a difference. As in the other picture he +had endeavored to express all the noblest possibilities of the young +man's face, in this he labored to portray whatever potentiality of evil +might be found there. Every introspective person has experienced the +sensation of feeling that a course of action is being followed as if by +some inner direction, yet without any clear consciousness of the reason; +and much as might have come a hint of the intentions or motives of +another person, came to Tom the thought that he was painting this second +portrait that its difference from the first might show him upon what +foundations rested his fanciful theory. He wished, he told himself, at +least to see how far he had expressed a personality unlike another +equally possible. + +As a faint shade on the artist's inner consciousness rested, however, a +feeling that this explanation was not completely satisfactory. He would +have been shocked had he even dreamed of the possibility that artistic +vanity, aroused by the doubt that it possessed the power of moulding +the life and destiny of Ralph, had defiantly turned to throw its +influence into the other scale, to prove by its power of dragging the +sitter down that its dominance was real. Had any realization of such a +motive come to Claymore, he would have been horrified at a thought so +evil; yet he failed to push self-investigation far enough to bring him +to an understanding of his real motives. + +The painter worked steadily and with almost feverish rapidity, and +before the end of the week he was able to substitute the second portrait +for the first when Ralph, who had been out of town for a few days, came +for his next sitting. Tom was not without a good deal of uneasy secret +curiosity in regard to the effect upon Thatcher of the changed picture. +He appreciated how great the alteration really was, a difference so +marked that he had lacked the courage to carry out his first intention +of exhibiting the new canvas to Celia. He excused himself for hesitating +to show her the portrait by the whimsical pretext that it would not be +the part of a gentleman to betray the discreditable traits of character +he believed himself to have discovered as among the possibilities of her +cousin's nature. What Ralph would himself say, the painter awaited with +uneasy eagerness, and as the latter, after the customary greetings, +walked up to the easel and stood regarding his counterfeit presentment, +Tom found himself more nervous than he would have supposed possible. + +Ralph studied the picture a moment in silence. + +"What in the devil," he burst out, "have you been doing to my picture?" + +"What is the matter with it?" the artist asked, stepping beside him, and +in turn fixing his gaze on the portrait. + +"I'm sure I don't know," Ralph replied, with a puzzled air; "but somehow +or other it seems to me to have changed from a rather decent-looking +phiz into a most accursedly low-lived one. Do I look like that?" + +"I suppose a mirror would give a more disinterested answer to that +question than I could." + +Claymore glanced up as he spoke, and hardly repressed an exclamation of +surprise. Ralph's whole expression was changing to correspond with that +of the portrait before him. Who has not, in looking at some portrait +which strongly impressed him, found in a little time that his own +countenance was unconsciously altering its expression to correspond with +that portrayed before him; and the chances that such a thing will occur +must be doubly great when the picture is one's own image. + +A portrait appeals so intimately to the personality of the person +represented, human vanity and individuality insist so strongly upon +regarding it as a part of self, that it stands in a closer relation to +the inner being than can almost any other outward thing. It is, in a +sense, part of the original, and perhaps the oriental prejudice against +being portrayed, lest in the process the artist may obtain some sinister +advantage, is founded upon some subtle truth. It can hardly be possible +that, with the keen feeling every man must have in regard to his +portrait, any one should fail to be more or less influenced by the +painter's conception of him, the visible embodiment of the impression he +has made upon another human mind; and since every picture must contain +something of the personality of the artist, it follows that a +portrait-painter is sure to affect in some degree the character of his +sitters. It would rarely happen that this influence would be either +intentional or tangible, but must it not always exist? + +Claymore stood for a little time watching Ralph's face; then he walked +away, and returned with a small mirror which he put in the latter's +hand. Thatcher looked at the reflection it offered him, and broke into +a hard laugh. + +"By George!" he said; "it does look like me. I never realized before +that I was such a whelp." + +"Fiddlesticks!" Claymore rejoined briskly, taking the glass from him. +"Don't talk nonsense. Take your place and let's get to work." + + +IV + +On the afternoon of the same day Celia came into the studio with her +face clouded. She received her lover's greetings in an absent-minded +fashion, and almost before the musical tinkle of the zither on the door +which admitted her had died away, she asked abruptly:-- + +"What in the world have you been doing to Ralph?" + +"I? Nothing but painting him. Why?" + +"Because he came down here this morning in a perfectly heavenly +frame of mind. He has been in Boston to see about some repairs on his +tenement-houses at the North End that I've been teasing him to make +ever since the first of my being there last winter; and he came in +this morning to say he thought I was right, and he was going to take +hold and do what I wanted." + +"Well?" questioned Tom, as she broke off with a gesture of impatience. + +"And after he 'd been down here for his sitting, he came back so cross +and strange; and said he'd reconsidered, and he did n't see why he +should bother his head about the worthless wretches in the slums. I +can't see what came over him." + +"But why should you hold me responsible for your cousin's vagaries?" + +"Oh, of course you are not," Celia replied, with a trace of petulance in +her tone; "but I am so dreadfully disappointed. Ralph has always put the +whole thing off before, and now I thought he had really waked up." + +"Probably," Claymore suggested, "it is some new phase of his ill-starred +love affair." + +Miss Sathman flushed to her temples. + +"I do not know why you choose to say that," she answered stiffly. "He +never speaks to me of that now. He is too thoroughly a gentleman." + +"What!" Tom burst out, in genuine amazement. "Good heavens! It was n't +you?" + +Celia looked at him in evident bewilderment. + +"Did n't you know?" she asked. "Ralph has been in love with me ever +since we were in pinafores. I did n't speak of it because it did n't +seem fair to him; but I supposed, of course, that was what you meant +when you spoke. I even thought you might be jealous the least bit." + +Claymore turned away and walked down the studio on pretense of arranging +a screen. He felt as if he had stabbed a rival in the back. Whether by +his brush he had really an influence over Thatcher, or the changes in +his sitter were merely coincidences, he had at least been trying to +affect the young man, and since he now knew Ralph as the lover of Celia, +his actions all at once took on a different character, and the second +portrait seemed like a covert attack. + +"Ralph is so amazingly outspoken," Celia continued, advancing toward the +easel and laying her hand on the cloth which hung before her cousin's +portrait, "that I wonder he has not told you. He is very fond of you, +though, he naively says, he ought not to be." + +As she spoke, she lifted the curtain which hid the later portrait of +Ralph. She uttered an exclamation which made Claymore, whose back had +been turned, spring hastily toward her, too late to prevent her seeing +the picture. + +"Tom," she cried, "what have you done to Ralph?" + +The tone pierced Claymore to the quick. The words were almost those +which Celia had used before, but now reproach, grief, and a depth of +feeling which it seemed to Tom must come from a regard keener than +either gave them a new intensity of meaning. The tears sprang to Miss +Sathman's eyes as she looked from the canvas to her lover. + +"Oh, Tom," she said, "how could you change it so? Ralph does not look +like that." + +"No," Claymore answered, his embarrassment giving to his voice a certain +severity. "This is the reverse of the other picture. This is the evil +possibility of his face." + +He recovered his composure. Despite his coldness of demeanor, there was +a vein of intense jealousy in the painter's nature, which tingled at +the tone in which his betrothed spoke of her cousin. He had more than +once said to himself that, despite the fact that Celia might be more +demonstrative than he, his love for her was far stronger than hers for +him. Now there came to him the conviction, quick and unreasonable, that +although she might not be aware of it, her deepest affection was really +given to Ralph Thatcher. + +"Why did you paint it, Tom?" Celia pursued. "It is wicked. It really +does not in the least resemble Ralph. I suppose you could take any face +and distort it into wickedness. Where is the other picture?" + +Without a word Tom brought the first portrait and set it beside the +second. Celia regarded the two canvases in silence a moment. Her color +deepened, and her throat swelled. Then she turned upon Claymore with +eyes that flashed, despite the tears which sprang into them. + +"You are wicked and cruel!" she said bitterly. "I hate you for doing +it." + +Tom turned pale, and then laughed unmirthfully. + +"You take it very much to heart," he remarked. + +The tears welled more hotly in her eyes. She tried in vain to check +them, and then with a sob she turned and walked quickly from the studio, +the zither tinkling, as the door closed after her, with a gay frivolity +that jarred sharply on Tom Claymore's nerves. + + +V + +It was nearly a fortnight before Tom saw Celia again. For a day or two +he kept away from her, waiting for some sign that her mood had softened +and that she regretted her words. Then he could endure suspense no +longer and called at the house, to discover that she had gone to the +mountains for a brief visit. He remembered that he had been told of this +journey, and he reflected that Celia might have expected him to come and +bid her good-by. His mental attitude toward her had been much the same +as if there had been some actual quarrel, and now he said to himself +that, after all, there had been nothing in their last interview to +justify this feeling. He alternately reproached himself and blamed her, +and continually the condition of things became more intolerable to him. + +His temper was not improved when Ralph, at one of the sittings, which +continued steadily, mentioned in a tone which seemed to the artist's +jealous fancy rather boasting, that he had received a letter from his +cousin. Tom frowned fiercely, and painted on without comment. + +Claymore was working steadily on the second portrait, which was rapidly +approaching completion. He said to himself that if his theory was +right, and the reflection of his worst traits before a man's eye could +influence the original to evil, he would be avenged upon Ralph for +robbing him of Celia, since this portrait of Thatcher was to have a +place in the young man's home. He also reflected that in no way else +could he so surely wean Celia from an affection for her cousin, as by +bringing out Ralph's worst side. He despised himself for what he was +doing, but as men sullenly yield to a temptation against which all their +best instincts fight, he still went on with his work. + +He naturally watched closely to see what effect the portrait was already +having on his sitter. Whether from its influence or from other causes, +Ralph had grown morose and ungracious after Celia's departure, and Tom +was certainly not mistaken in feeling that he was in the worst possible +frame of mind. Even the fact that his cousin had written to him did +little to change his mood, a fact that Tom, sore and hurt at being left +without letters, noted with inward anger. + +The two men were daily approaching that point where it was probable that +they would come into open conflict. Ralph began to devise excuses for +avoiding the sittings, a fact that especially irritated the artist, who +was anxious to complete the work. The whole nature of their relations +toward each other had undergone a change, and all frankness and +friendliness seemed to have gone out of it. Sometimes Claymore felt +responsible for this, and at others he laughed at the idea that he had +in any way helped to alter Ralph. He was uneasy and unhappy, and when a +couple of weeks had gone by without a word from Celia, he resolved that +he would follow her to the mountains, and at least put an end to the +suspense which was becoming intolerable. + +He sent word to Thatcher that he was going out of town for a few days, +packed his valise, and went down to his studio to put things to rights +for his absence. He arranged the two or three matters that needed +attention, looked at his watch, and found that he had something over +an hour before train time. He started toward the door of the studio, +hesitated, and then turned back to stand in front of the easel and +regard the nearly completed portrait of Ralph Thatcher. + +It was a handsome face that looked out at him, and one full of +character; but in the full lips was an expression of sensuality almost +painful, and the eyes were selfish and cruel. The artist's first feeling +was one of gratified vanity at the cleverness with which his work had +been done. He had preserved the likeness, and scarcely increased the +apparent age of his sitter, while he had carried forward into repulsive +fullness the worst possibilities of which he could find trace in the +countenance of the original. As he looked, a cruel sense of triumph grew +in Claymore's mind. He felt that this portrait was the sure instrument +of his revenge against the man who had robbed him of the love of his +betrothed. He considered his coming interview with Celia, and so +completely was he possessed of the belief that he had lost her, that +he looked forward to the meeting as to a farewell. + +At the thought a sudden pulse of emotion thrilled him. He saw Celia's +beautiful, high-bred face before him, and there came into his mind a +sense of shame, as if he were already before her and could not meet her +eyes. The sting of the deepest humiliation a high-minded man can know, +that of standing condemned and degraded in his own sight, pierced his +very soul. + +"It is myself and not Ralph that I have been harming," ran his thought. +"It has never occurred to me that, even if I was dragging him down, I +had flung myself into the slime to do it. Good heavens! Is this the sort +of man I am? Am I such a sneak as to lurk in the dark and take advantage +of the confidence he shows by putting himself into my hands! Celia is +right; she could not be herself and not prefer him to the blackguard I +have proved myself." + +However fanciful his theory in regard to the effect of the portrait upon +Thatcher might be, Tom was too honest to disguise from himself that +his will and intention had been to do the other harm, and to do it, +moreover, in an underhanded fashion. Instead of open, manly attack upon +his rival, he had insidiously endeavored to work him injury against +which Ralph could not defend himself. + +"The only thing I have really accomplished," groaned poor Tom to +himself, "is to prove what a contemptible cur I am." + +He took from his pocket his knife, opened it, and approached the +canvas. Then that strong personal connection between the artist and +his work which makes its defense almost identical with the instinct +of self-preservation, made him pause. For an instant he wavered, moved +to preserve the canvas, although he hid it away; then with desperate +resolution, and a fierceness not unlike a sacred fury, he cut the canvas +into strips. So great was the excitement of his mood and act that he +panted as he finished by wrenching the shreds of canvas from the +stretcher. + +Then he smiled at the extravagance of his feelings, set the empty +stretcher against the wall, and once more brought to light the original +portrait. + +"There," he said to himself, as he set the picture on the easel, "I can +at least go to her with a decently clean conscience, if I am a fool." + + +VI + +It was well on toward sunset when Claymore reached the mountain village +where Celia was staying with a party of friends. All the hours of his +ride in the cars he had been reviewing his relations toward her. With +his imaginative temperament he was sure to exaggerate the gravity of the +situation, and he was firmly convinced that by the destruction of the +portrait he had virtually renounced his betrothed. He recalled jealously +the many signs Celia had given of her interest in her cousin, and he +settled himself in the theory that only Ralph's boyishness and apparent +want of character had prevented her cousin from winning her love. +Looking back over the summer and recalling how Thatcher had advanced +in manliness, how his character had developed, and Celia's constant +appreciation of his progress, Claymore could not but conclude, with an +inward groan, that although she was pledged to him, her affection was +really given to his rival. + +Whether Celia was aware of the true state of her feelings, Tom could not +determine. Her silence of the last fortnight had perplexed and tormented +him; and he felt sure that in this time she could not have failed to +reflect deeply upon the situation. He believed, however whimsical such a +theory might seem, that his only chance of holding her was by bringing +home to her the dark side of Ralph's character, as he was convinced he +had been the means of showing her the best traits of her cousin. The +effect of the portraits had become to him a very real and a very +important factor in the case, and although he was at heart too good to +regret that he had destroyed the second picture, he was not without a +feeling of self-pity that fate had forced upon him the destruction of +his own hopes. The logical reflection that, if his ideas were true, he +had himself chosen to take up the weapon by which he was in the end +wounded, did not occur to him, and would probably have afforded him +small consolation if it had. + +A servant directed him down a wood-path which led to a small cascade, +where he was told he should find Miss Sathman. As he came within sound +of the falling water, he heard voices, and pressing on, he was suddenly +brought to an abrupt halt by recognizing the tones of Ralph Thatcher. +What the young man was saying Tom did not catch, but the reply of Celia +came to his ears with cutting distinctness. + +"And does it seem to you honorable, Ralph," she said, "to follow me here +and talk to me in this way, when you know I am engaged to another man, +and he your friend?" + +"No man is my friend that takes you away from me!" Thatcher returned +hotly. "And besides, I happen to know you have quarrelled with him. You +have n't written to him since you came here." + +"I have not quarrelled with him," Celia answered. "Oh, Ralph, I have +always believed you were so honorable." + +"Honorable! honorable!" repeated the other angrily. "Shall I let you go +for a whimsical fancy that it is not honorable to speak to you? I have +loved you ever since we were children, and you--" + +"And I," Miss Sathman interrupted, "have never loved anybody in that way +but Tom." + +The woodland swam before Claymore's eyes. Instinctively, and hardly +conscious what he was doing, he drew himself aside out of the path into +the thicket. What more was said, he did not know. He was only aware that +a moment or two later Ralph went alone by the place where he lay hidden, +and then he rose and went slowly toward the cascade and Celia. + +She was sitting with her back toward him, but as she turned at the sound +of his footsteps, the look of pain in her eyes changed suddenly into a +great joy. + + +VII + +It was nearly a year before Tom told Celia the whole story of the two +portraits. The temptation and the effects of his paltering with it were +so real in his mind that he could not bring himself to confess until he +had made such effort as lay in his power at reparation. He finished the +original picture without more sittings, for Ralph, much to the artist's +relief, kept away from the studio. Then he left Salem, saying to himself +that his presence there might drive Ralph from home, where Tom wished +him to remain, that the influence of the face, if it really existed, +might help him. + +"I do not know," Celia said thoughtfully, "whether the changes in Ralph +came from the pictures or from his disappointment; but in either case I +can see how real the whole was to you, and I am glad you stood the test; +although," she added, smiling fondly upon her husband, "I should have +known from the first that you would n't fail." + +"But you must acknowledge," Tom responded, replying to the latter +portion of her remark by a caress, "that Ralph has come out splendidly +in the last year--since he has had that portrait to look at." + +"Yes," she replied musingly, "and he is fast growing up to the +picture." + + + + +THE KNITTERS IN THE SUN + + _The spinsters and the knitters in the sun._ + _Twelfth Night_, ii, 4. + + +The mellow light of the October sun fell full upon the porch of the +stately old Grayman house, and the long shadows of the Lombardy poplars +pointed to the two silvery haired women who sat there placidly knitting. + +The mansion dated back to colonial times. That it had been erected +before public sentiment was fully settled in regard to the proper site +of the village might be inferred from its lonely position on the banks +of the river which flowed through the little town a mile away. The +funereal poplars, winter-killed and time-beaten now in their tops, +had been in their prime half a century ago, yet they were young when +compared to the house before which they stood sentinel. From the +small-paned windows of this dwelling Graymans whose tombstones where +long sunken and rusted with patient moss had seen British vessels +sailing up the river with warlike intent, and on the porch where the +women sat knitting peacefully, Captain Maynard Grayman had stood to +review his little company of volunteers before leading them against the +redcoats, and had spoken to them in fiery words of the patriots whose +blood had but a week before been shed at Lexington. The place had still +the air of pre-Revolutionary dignity and self-respect. + +As the poplars had steadily cast their sombre shadows upon the Graymans, +father and son and son's son, as generation after generation they lived +and died in the old mansion, so had the Southers no less constantly +remained the faithful servants of the family. They had seen the +greatness of the masters wane sadly from its original splendors, the +family pride alone of all the pristine glories remaining unimpaired; +they had striven loyally against the fate which trenched upon the wealth +and power of the house; and they had seen money waste, reputation fade, +until now even the name was on the verge of extinction, and the family +reduced to a bed-ridden old man querulously dwelling in futile dreams of +vanished importance and the lovely and lonely daughter who wore out her +life beside him. + +As the Graymans diminished, the Southers, perhaps from the very energy +with which they strove to aid the fallen fortunes of their masters, had +waxed continually. The change which keeps from stagnation republican +society, abasing the lofty and exalting the lowly, could not have had +better illustration than in the two families. It was from no necessity +that old Sarah was still the servant of the house; a servant, in truth, +with small wage, and one who secretly helped out the broken revenues of +her master. Dollar for dollar, she could have out-counted the entire +property of her employers; and might have lived where and as she +pleased, had she been minded to have servants of her own. In old Sarah's +veins, however, flowed the faithful Souther blood, transmitted by +generations of traditionary adherents of the Grayman family; and +neither the persuasions of her children, who felt the quickening +influence of the new order of things, nor the amount of her snug account +in the village savings bank, could tempt the steadfast creature from her +allegiance. When long ago she had married her cousin, an inoffensive, +meek man, dead now a quarter of a century, she had made it a condition +that she should not abandon her service; and her position in the Grayman +mansion, like her name, had remained practically unchanged by matrimony. + +She was a not uncomely figure as she sat in the October sunlight +knitting steadily, her hair abundant although silvery, and her figure +still alert and erect. From her dark print gown to the tips of her snowy +cap-strings she was spotlessly neat, while an air of mingled energy and +placidity imparted a certain piquancy to her bearing. Her active fingers +plied the bright needles with the deftness of long familiarity, and from +time to time her quick glance swept in unconscious inspection over the +row of shining tin pans ranged along the porch wall, over the beehives +in their shed not far away, robbed now of their honey, over the +smooth-flowing river beyond, and over her sister who knitted beside her. +She had the air of one accustomed to responsibility and used to watching +sharply whatever went on about her. She bestowed now and then a brief +look upon the yellow cat asleep at her feet with his paws doubled under +him, and one instinctively felt that were he guilty of any derelictions +in relation to the dairy, her sharp eye would have detected it in some +tell-tale curl of his whiskers. She scanned with a passing regard of +combined suspicion and investigation the ruddy line of tomatoes gaining +their last touch of red ripeness on the outside of the window-ledge, her +expression embodying some vague disapproval of any fruit of which the +cultivation was so manifestly an innovation on good old customs. In +every movement she displayed a repressed energy contrasting markedly +with the manner of the quiet knitter beside her in that strange fashion +so often to be found in children of the same parents. + +The second woman was little more than a vain shadow from which whatever +substance it had ever possessed had long since departed. Hannah West was +one of those ciphers to which somebody else is always the significant +figure. In her youth she had been the shadow of her sister, and when +her husband departed this life, she had merely returned to her first +allegiance in becoming the shadow of Sarah Souther once more. She was a +tiny, faded creature, who came from her home in the village to visit her +sister upon every possible occasion, much as a pious devotee might make +a pilgrimage to a shrine. She believed so strongly and so absolutely in +Sarah that the belief absorbed all the energy of her nature and left her +without even the power of having an especial interest in anything else. +What Sarah Souther did, what she thought, what she said, what were the +fortunes and what the opinions of her children, with such variations +as could be rung on these themes, formed the subject of Mrs. West's +conversation, as well as of such transient and vague mental processes +as served her in place of thought. The afternoons which she passed in +aimless, placid gossip with her sister were the only bits of light and +color in her monotonous existence, to be dwelt upon in memory with joy +as they were looked forward to with delight. + +"I d' know," Hannah remarked, after an unusually long interval of +silence this afternoon, "what's set me thinkin' so much 'bout George +and Miss Edith as I hev' lately. Seems ef things took hold o' me more +the older I get." + +A new look of intelligence and alertness came into Sarah's face. She +knit out the last stitches upon her needle, and looked down over the +river, where a little sail-boat was trying to beat up to the village +with a breeze so light as to seem the mere ghost of a wind. The story of +the hapless loves of her son and Edith Grayman was sure to be touched +upon some time in the course of every afternoon when she and Hannah sat +together, and she was conscious of having to-day a fresh item to add to +the history. + +"I had a letter from George yesterday," she said, approaching her news +indirectly that the pleasure of telling it might last the longer. + +"Did you?" asked Hannah, almost with animation. "I want to know." + +"Yes," Sarah answered, a softer look coming into her bright gray eyes. +"Yes, and a good letter it was." + +"George was always a master hand at writin'," Hannah responded. "He is a +regular mother's son. He would n't tell a lie to save his right hand." + +"No," Sarah responded, understanding perfectly that this apparently +irrelevant allusion to the veracity of her son had a direct bearing upon +the difficulties which had beset his wooing; "when Mr. Grayman asked him +if he had been makin' love to Miss Edith, he never flinched a mite. He +spoke up like a man. There never was a Souther yet that I ever heard of +that 'u'd lie to save himself." + +She laid her knitting down upon her lap and fixed upon the little boat a +regard which seemed one of the closest attention, yet which saw not the +white sloop or the dingy sail with its irregular patch of brown. Some +tender memory touched the eternally young motherhood in her aged bosom, +and some vision of her absent son shut out from her sense the view of +the realities before her. + +"He would n't 'a' been his mother's son if he had 'a' lied," Hannah +remarked, with a sincerity so evident that it took from the words all +suspicion of flattery. + +"Or his father's either," Sarah said. "I never set out that Phineas had +much go to him, but he was a good man, and he was as true as steel." + +"Yes," her sister assented, as she would have assented to any +proposition laid down by Mrs. Souther, "yes, he was that." + +They sat for a moment in silence. Sarah resumed her knitting, and once +more became conscious of the lagging sloop. + +"That's likely Ben Hatherway's boat," she remarked. "If he don't get on +faster, he'll get caught in the turn of the tide and carried out again." + +Hannah glanced toward the boat in a perfunctory way, but she was too +deeply interested in the theme upon which the talk had touched to let it +drop, and her mind was hardly facile enough to change so quickly from +one subject to another. + +"What did George say?" she asked. "You said it was a good letter." + +"Yes," the mother answered, "it was a regular good letter, if I do say +it that had n't ought. He's comin' home." + +"Comin' home?" echoed Hannah, in a twitter of excitement. "I want to +know! Comin' home himself?" + +"I dunno what you mean by comin' home himself," Sarah replied, with a +mild facetiousness born of her joy at the news the letter had brought; +"but 't ain't at all likely he'll come home nobody else. He's comin', 't +any rate. It'll be curious to see how him and Miss Edith 'll act. It'll +be ten years since they said good-by to one another, and ten years is +considerable of a spell." + +"Happen he'll be changed," Hannah observed. "Ten years does most usually +change folks more or less." + +"Happen," Sarah responded, in a graver and lower tone, "he'll find her +changed." + +As if to give opportunity for the testing of the truth of this remark, +the slight figure of Edith Grayman at that moment appeared at the head +of the steep and crooked stairway which led from the chambers of the old +house into the kitchen close by the porch door. She was a woman whose +face had lost the first freshness of youth, although her summers counted +but twenty-seven. Perhaps it was that the winters of her life had been +so much the longer seasons. There was in her countenance that expression +of mild melancholy which is the heritage from generations of ancestors +who have sadly watched the wasting of race and fortune, and the even +more bitter decay of the old order of things to which they belong. +She was slender and graceful in shape, with a stately and gracious +carriage, and the air of the patrician possibly a faint shade too marked +in her every motion. + +As she came slowly down the time-stained stairway, her fair hair twisted +high upon her shapely head, her lips slightly pressed together, and her +violet eyes pensive and introspective, Edith might have passed for the +ghost of the ancestress whose rejuvenated gown of pale blue camlet she +wore. + +The long shadows of the lugubrious Lombardy poplars had already begun +to stretch out in far-reaching lines, as if laying dusky fingers on the +aged mansion, and the sun shone across the river with a light reddened +by the autumn hazes. The knitters, as they turned at the sound of +Edith's footfall, shone in a sort of softened glory, and into this they +saw her descend as she came down the winding stair. + +"Father is asleep," Miss Grayman said, stepping into the porch with a +light tread. "I am going down to the shore for a breath of air before +the night mist rises. You will hear father's bell if he wakes." + +She moved slowly down the path which led toward the river, and the +regards of the two old women followed her as she went. + +"She is a born lady," Sarah said, not without a certain pride as of +proprietorship. + +"She is that," Hannah acquiesced. "Does she know he's comin'?" + +"I just ain't had the sconce to tell her," was the response. "Sometimes +'t seems just as though I'd ought to tell her, and then agen 't seems if +'t would n't do no kind or sort of good. Two or three times she's sort +of looked at me 's if she had an idea something was up, but even then I +could n't bring it out." + +"When 's he comin'?" + +"Any day now. He was in Boston when he wrote, and he's likely to be on +the boat 'most any day." + +Hannah laid down her knitting for a moment in the breathless excitement +of this announcement. The romance of young George Souther and Edith +Grayman had thrilled her as nothing in her own experience could have +done, so much more real and so much more important were these young +people to her mind than was her own personality. For ten years the tale, +brief and simple though it was, had for her been the most exciting of +romances, and the possibility of the renewal of the broken relations +between the lovers appealed to her every sense. + +The story of the ill-starred loves of the young couple was really not +much, although the two gossips knitting in the sun had spun its length +over many a summer's afternoon. Young, lovely, and lonely, Edith Grayman +had responded to the love of the manly, handsome son of her nurse as +unconsciously and as fervently as if the democratic theories upon which +this nation is founded had been for her eternal verities. She had been +as little aware of what was happening as is the flower which opens its +chalice to the sun, and the shock of discovery when he dared to speak +his passion was as great as if she had not felt the love she scorned. +Indeed, it is probable that the sudden perception of her own feelings +aroused her to a sense of the need she had to be determined, if she +hoped to hold her own against her lover's pleading. She was beset within +and without, and had need of all her strength not to yield. + +"She gave in herself ten years ago," Sarah commented, following the +train of thought which was in the mind of each of the sisters as they +watched Edith's graceful figure disappear behind a thicket of hazel +bushes, turning russet with the advance of autumn. "She stood out till +that night George was upset in that sail-boat of his and we thought he +was never comin' to. It makes me kind o' creepy down my back now to +recollect the screech she give when she see him brought in; an' mercy +knows I felt enough like screechin' myself, if it had n't 'a' been for +knowin' that if I did n't get the hot blankets, there wa'n't nobody to +do it. She could n't deny that she was in love with him after that." + +"But she sent him off," interposed Hannah, in the tone of one repeating +an objection which persistently refused to be explained to her +satisfaction. + +"Yes," Sarah returned; "that's what you always say, when you know as +well 's I do that that was to please her father; and there he lies +bed-rid to-day just as he did then, and just as sot in his way as ever +he was." + +The pair sighed in concert and shook their gray heads. Of the real +significance of the romance which lay so near them they were almost as +completely ignorant as was the great yellow cat, who opened his eyes +leisurely as Hannah let fall her ball of yarn, and then, considering +that upon the whole the temptation to chase it was not worth yielding +to, closed the lids over the topaz globes again with luxurious slowness. +Themselves part of the battle between the old order and the new, the +good creatures were hardly aware that such a struggle was being waged. + +"She said," Sarah murmured, bringing forward another scrap of the story, +"that she never 'd marry him 's long 's her father objected, and if I +don't know that when once Leonard Grayman 's sot his mind on a thing to +that thing he 'll stick till the crack o' doom, then I don't know +nothin' about him; that's all. She won't go back on her word, and he +won't let her off, and that's just the whole of it." + +"No," Hannah agreed, sniffing sympathetically, "they won't neither of +'em change their minds; that you may depend upon." + +"He'd object if he was in his coffin, I do believe," Sarah continued, +with a curious mixture of pride in the family and of personal +resentment. "The Graymans are always awful set." + +"George must be considerable rich," Hannah observed, in a tone not +without a note of reverence; "he's sent you a power o' money, first and +last, ain't he?" + +"Considerable," the other replied, with conscious elation. "I never used +none of it. He kept sendin' till I told him it wa'n't no manner o' +mortal use; the family would n't let me use it for them, and I had more +'n I knew what to do with anyway. I've got more 'n 'nough to bury me +decenter 'n most folks." + +"Yes, I s'pose y' have," Hannah assented. + +The knitters sat silent a little time, perhaps reflecting upon the +thoughts which the mention of the last rites for the dead called up in +their minds. The shadows were growing longer very fast now, and already +the afternoon had grown cooler. + +Suddenly a step sounded on the graveled walk, and a firmly built, +handsome man of thirty-two or three came around the house and neared the +porch where the old women sat. + +"George!" cried old Sarah, so suddenly that the cat sprang up, startled +from his dreams of ancestral mice. "Where on earth did you come from?" + +"I want to know!" Hannah exclaimed, rather irrelevantly, in her +excitement dropping a stitch in her knitting. + +She was instantly aware of the misfortune, however, and while the mother +and son exchanged greetings after their ten years' separation, Hannah +occupied herself in endeavors to pick up the loop of blue yarn which her +purblind eyes could scarcely see in the dimming light. When the stitch +had been secured, she proffered her own welcome in sober fashion, being, +in truth, somewhat overcome by this stalwart and bearded man whom she +remembered as a stripling. The two women twittered about the robust +newcomer, who took his seat upon the porch steps, pouring out each in +her way a flood of questions or exclamations to which he could hardly be +expected to pay very close attention. + +After a separation of ten years the greetings were naturally warm, but +the Southers were not a folk given to demonstrativeness, and it was not +to the surprise of Mrs. Souther that before many minutes had passed her +son said abruptly:-- + +"Where is she?" + +"There, there," his mother said, in a tone in which were oddly mingled +pride, remonstrance, and fondness, "ain't you got over that yet?" + +"No," he responded briefly, but laying his hand fondly on that of his +mother. "Where is she?" + +"Like as not she won't see you," his mother ventured. + +"She sent for me." + +The two women stared at him in amazement. + +"Sent for you?" they echoed in unison, their voices raised in pitch. + +"Yes," he said, rising and throwing back his strong shoulders in a +gesture his mother remembered well. "I don't know why I should n't tell +you, mother. She said she had been proud as long as she could bear it." + +The situation was too overwhelmingly surprising for the women to grasp +it at once. Their knitting lay neglected in their laps while they tried +to take in the full meaning of this wonderful thing. + +"It is n't her pride," old Sarah said softly. "'T 's his; but she would +n't say nothin' against her father if she was to be killed for it." + +"Is she in the house?" he asked. + +"No; she 's down to the shore," his mother answered, with a gasp. + +At that moment sounded from the house the tinkle of a bell. The two +women started like guilty things surprised. + +"Oh, my good gracious!" ejaculated Hannah under her breath. + +"What is that?" demanded George. + +"That's his bell," Mrs. Souther answered. "He wants me. You need n't +mind." + +"But he must have heard--" began Hannah breathlessly. Then she stopped +abruptly. + +"Do you think he heard me?" George asked. + +"Oh, he 'd wake up about this time anyway," his mother said. "Besides," +she added, with a novel note of rebellion in her voice, "what if he did? +You have a right to come to see me, I should hope." + +Again the bell tinkled. Old Sarah turned to go into the house. + +"You'll find her down to the shore," she repeated. + +He turned away at her word, and with long, rapid strides took the path +which Miss Edith had taken earlier. The mother paused to look at him +from the threshold. Hannah knitted on with a feverish haste and a +frightened countenance. For a third time the bell called, now more +imperatively, and Sarah mounted the crooked stairway followed by the +frightened gaze of her sister. + +In the cool and shaded chamber into which Sarah went, a chamber fitted +with high-shouldered old mahogany furniture, the youngest piece of which +had known the grandfathers of the withered old man who lay in the carved +bed, the air seemed to her electric with dreadful possibilities. Mr. +Grayman was sitting up in bed, his scant white locks elfishly disheveled +about the pale parchment of his face, his eyes unnaturally bright. + +"Where have you been?" he demanded, with fierce querulousness. "Why did +n't you come when I rang?" + +She did not at first reply, but busied herself with the medicine which +it was time for him to take. + +"Whose voice did I hear?" the old man demanded, as soon as he had +swallowed the teaspoonful of liquid she brought him. + +"Hannah is here," she answered briefly. + +"But I heard a man's voice," he continued, his excitement steadily +mounting. "I know who it was! I know who it was!" + +"Lie down," his nurse said sternly. "You know the doctor said your heart +would n't stand excitement." + +"It was George!" he exclaimed shrilly. "He's an impudent--" A fit of +gasping choked him, but he struggled fiercely to go on. "If she speaks +to him, if she looks at him even, I'll curse her! I'll curse her! I'll +come back from my grave to--" + +A convulsive gasping ended the sentence. He tore at his throat, at his +breast, he struggled dreadfully. Old Sarah supported him in her arms, +and tried to aid him, but nothing could save him from the effect of that +paroxysm. With one tremendous final effort, the old man threw back his +head, drew in his breath with a frightful gasp, then forced it out +again in the attempt to utter a last malediction. + +"Curse--" The shrill word rang through the chamber, but it was followed +by no other. A strong, wrinkled hand, a hand that for a lifetime had +worked faithfully for him and his, was pressed over his mouth. He +choked, gasped, and then the male line of the Grayman family was +extinct. + +In the meantime Hannah had been sitting on the porch, knitting like an +automaton, and staring at the yellow cat with eyes full of dazed terror. +She heard the disturbance in the chamber above, but it came to her very +faintly until that last shrill word rang down the ancient stairway. Then +she dropped her knitting in complete consternation. + +"Oh, goodness!" she said aloud. "Oh, goodness gracious me!" + +She was swept away completely by the sudden turmoil which had come to +trouble the peaceful afternoon. With the leveling tendencies of modern +days Hannah had become in a way familiar, as she had for a time lived +at a distance in a town of some size, and of late years in the village, +where the unruffled existence of the old Grayman place might almost seem +as remote as the life of another century. But Hannah never made any +application of modern principles to "the family." The Graymans were an +exception to any rules of social equality or democratic tendency. The +presumption of her nephew in raising his eyes to Miss Edith had always +been all but incredible to the simple old soul; and to understand that a +lady of the Grayman stock could for a moment have entertained feelings +warmer than those of patronage for a Souther was utterly beyond Hannah's +power. She had heard George say that Miss Edith had sent for him; but +she had understood it no more than she would have understood a vision +of the Apocalypse. The slow steps by which the girl had come to be +in revolt against the family traditions, to be ready to abandon her +heart-breaking resolutions, and to summon her lover, could have been +made credible to old Hannah only on the theory of madness. She sat +there in the silence which had followed that shrill cry from the +chamber of death, dazed and half cowering, unable to think or to move. + +At last she saw George Souther returning alone by the river-path. The +brightness was gone from his face, and his lips were contracted sternly. + +"She 's sent him away again," Hannah West said within herself. "She had +to." + +The universe seemed to her to be righting itself again. Some monstrous +aberration might for a moment have come upon Miss Grayman, but the stars +in their courses were not more steadfast than the principles of the +blood. Hannah breathed more freely at the sight of her nephew's drawn +face. She wished him no ill, but she could not regard this desire of his +as not unlike that of a madman who would pluck the moon from the sky. +She instinctively accepted his evident failure as a proof that sanity +still existed in the world, and that the moral foundations of society +were still undestroyed. + +"Where is mother?" George asked abruptly, as he came upon the porch. + +"She ain't come down yet," Hannah answered, her thin hands going on with +the knitting like a machine. + +"I don't think I'll wait," he said simply. "She'll understand." + +But at that instant the figure of his mother appeared on the stairway. +She came out upon the porch, bent, gray, cowering. As her eye caught the +face of her son, however, she straightened herself and a new look came +into her eyes. + +"Where is Miss Edith?" she asked abruptly. + +George came to her and took her hand gently. + +"Mother," he said, "you must n't blame her. She can't break her father's +heart. She has sent me away again." + +His mother looked at him quietly, but with eyes that shone wildly. + +"You need n't go," she announced calmly. "He is dead." + +"Dead!" echoed her son. + +"Dead!" cried Hannah shrilly. + +"Yes," Sarah responded, with increasing calmness. "He had one of his +paroxysms. The doctor said he'd go off in one of them. You'd better go +to Miss Edith and tell her." + +Hannah rose from her chair as if the feebleness of age had come upon her +suddenly. + +"The doctor said he must n't be excited," she quavered. "Did he know +George was here?" + +The son, who had half turned away, wheeled back again. + +"Was that what killed him?" he demanded. + +Old Sarah straightened herself with a supreme effort. The very strain +of uttering a falsehood and of the dreadful secret which must darken +her soul for the rest of her life gave to her words an added air of +sincerity. + +"He did n't know," she said. "He went off as peaceful as a child." + +Her son waited for nothing more, but once more hastened down the +river-path. Hannah stood as if transfixed. + +"But, Sarah," she said, "I heard--" + +Sarah looked at her with a wild regard. For a moment was silence. + +"No," she said, "you heard nothing. He did not say it!" + +She leaned against the doorpost and looked at her right hand strangely, +as if she expected to see blood on it. Then she stood erect again, +squaring her shoulders as if to a burden accepted. + +"Be still," she said. "They're coming." + +Mechanically old Hannah, bowed and bewildered, began to do up her +knitting in the fading autumnal afternoon. + +"It is growing chilly," she muttered shiveringly. + + + + +A COMEDY IN CRAPE + + +"For my part," observed Mrs. Sterns stoutly, turning the seam of the +flannel shirt she was making for some unknown soldier, "I don't believe +any one of the three was ever really engaged to Archie Lovell. He went +round with all of them some, of course; but that was n't anything--with +him." + +A murmur from the group about her told at least of sympathy with her +point of view, and assent showed itself in the remark with which Mrs. +Small continued the conversation. + +"It's awful easy for a girl to put on mourning when a man's dead, and +say she's been engaged to him; but if any one of 'em had been engaged to +Archie Lovell while he was alive, she'd have bragged enough of it at the +time." + +The murmur of assent was more pronounced now, and one or two of the +members of the Soldiers' Aid Society expressed in word their entire +agreement of this opinion. The ladies who made up the society usually +improved the opportunities afforded by their meetings to discuss all the +gossip of Tuskamuck, and the matter which they were now talking over in +the corner of Dr. Wentworth's parlor was one which had caused much +excitement in the little community. It was in the days of the Civil +War, and anything connected with the soldiers aroused interest, but a +combination of romance and gossip with a tragedy in the field contained +all the elements of the deepest sensation. News had come after the +battle of Chickamauga of the death of Archie Lovell, and although this +was followed by a vague rumor that he might perhaps be among the missing +rather than the killed, it had never been really disproved. As time had +gone on without tidings of the missing man, his death had been accepted, +and even his aunt, Old Lady Andrews, whose idol he had been, and who +clung to hope as long as hope seemed possible, had given him up at +last. She had ordered a memorial stone to be placed in the village +graveyard, and the appearance of the marble tablet seemed in a way to +give official sanction to the belief that Archie Lovell would never +again carry his bright face and winning smile about the village streets, +and that nevermore would he drive the gossips of Tuskamuck to the +verge of desperation by flirting so markedly with a dozen girls that +they could by no means keep track of him or decide what his real +preference--if he had one--might be. + +Whatever loss the gossips sustained by his death, however, was soon made +up, for no sooner was the news of his loss known than three girls, one +after the other, announced their engagement to the dead hero, and one +after the other donned widow's weeds in his memory. So many girls had +been the recipients of Archie's multifarious attentions that it would +have been easy for almost any one of Tuskamuck's maidens to bring +forward such a claim with some show of probability; but unfortunately, +by the end of 1863 too many damsels had done this sort of thing for the +posthumous announcement of an engagement to be received with entire +solemnity or assured credence. A sort of fashion of going into mourning +for dead soldiers had set in, and undoubtedly many a forlorn damsel by a +tender fiction thus gratified a blighted passion which had never before +been allowed to come to light. Cynic wits declared that it added a new +terror to a soldier's death that he could never tell who would, when he +was unable to deny it, claim to have been betrothed to him; and when, as +in the present case, three disconsolate maidens wore crape for the same +man, the affair became too absurd even for the responsive sympathies of +war-time. + +"The way things are going on," observed Mrs. Drew, a stern woman with a +hard eye, "the men are getting so killed off that the only satisfaction +a girl can get anyway is to go into mourning for some of 'em; and I +don't blame 'em if they do it." + +The quality of the remark evidently did not please her hearers, who +could hardly bear any slightest approach to light speaking concerning +the tragedy in which the nation was involved. + +"If it was any one of the three," Mrs. Cummings declared, after a brief +silence, "it was Delia Burrage. He used to go round with her all the +time." + +"No more 'n he did with Mattie Seaton," another lady observed. "He used +to see Mattie home from singing-school most of the time that winter +before he enlisted." + +"Well, anyway, when Delia presented the flag to the company the night +before they went off, he was with her all the evening. Don't you +remember how we had a supper in the Academy yard, and----" + +"Of course I remember. I guess I was on the committee; but he used to go +with Mattie lots." + +"He sent Mary Foster that wooden chair he carved in camp," spoke up +another lady, coming into the field as a champion of the third of the +mourners who were so conspicuously advertising their grief to an +unbelieving world. + +"Well, that was a philopena; so that don't count. She told me so +herself." + +The case was argued with all the zeal and minuteness inseparable from a +discussion at the Tuskamuck Soldiers' Aid Society, and at last, when +everybody else began to show signs of flagging, a word was put in by +Aunt Naomi Dexter. She had throughout sat listening to the dispute, now +and then throwing in a dry comment, wagging her foot and chewing her +green barège veil after her fashion, and looking as if she could tell +much, if she were but so disposed. Aunt Naomi scorned sewing, and was +the one woman who was privileged to sit idle while all the others were +busy. She never removed her bonnet on these occasions, the fiction being +that she had only dropped in, and did not really belong to the society; +but gossip was to Aunt Naomi as the breath of her nostrils, and she +would have died rather than to absent herself from a company where it +might be current. + +"I don't know how many girls Archie Lovell was engaged to," she now +remarked dryly. "I dare say he did n't himself; and for all I know, he +was engaged to all three of those geese that are flying the black flag +for him. But I can tell you the girl he really wanted to marry, and she +is n't in black, either." + +The ladies all regarded her with looks of lively curiosity and +interrogation; but she rolled the sweet morsel of gossip under her +tongue, and evidently had no intention of being hurried. + +"Who is it?" Mrs. Cummings demanded at length, in a tone which indicated +that no more trifling would be endurable. + +Aunt Naomi moistened her lips with an air like that of a cat in +contemplation of a plump young sparrow. + +"I don't see who there is that's any more likely to have been engaged to +him than Mattie," the champion of that young lady asserted combatively. + +"He'd no more have married her than he would me," Aunt Naomi asserted +contemptuously. + +"Who was it, then?" Mrs. Smith demanded impatiently. + +Aunt Naomi looked about on the eager faces, and seemed to feel that +interest had been brought up to its culmination point so that it was +time to speak. + +"Nancy Turner," she pronounced briefly. + +The name was received with varying expressions of face, but few of the +ladies had any especial comment to offer in word. Some scorned the idea, +and the champions of the three mourners still stood by their guns; but +the new theory plainly had in it some force, for the women were all +evidently impressed that in this suggestion might lie the real solution +to the vagaries of Archie Lovell's multitudinous wooing. As Mrs. +Cummings said, however, Nancy Turner was a girl who kept her own +counsel, and if she had indeed been engaged to the missing soldier, +nobody would ever be the wiser for it. It was discouraging to the +gossips to be confronted with a mystery which they could have so little +hope of ever solving, and the talk gradually turned to other topics, +this one remaining as available as ever to be taken up whenever +conversation might languish. + +The Sunday following this meeting of the Soldiers' Aid Society was a +warm and beautiful spring day, which invited to the open air. Public +morality in Tuskamuck was narrow in its interpretations, and among +other restrictions it imposed was the impropriety of walking on Sunday +except by strolling in the village graveyard. The theory, if carefully +investigated, would have been found, in all probability, to have its +roots in some Puritan notion that youth in its thoughtlessness would be +sobered and religiously inclined by the sight of the grassy mounds, the +solemnly clumsy mortuary inscriptions, and the general reminders of +death. In practice the fact did not entirely justify such a theory, for +the graceless young people instinctively sought for amusement rather +than for spiritual enlightenment, chatted and laughed as loudly as they +dared, examined the epitaphs for those that might by any distortion of +their original intent be made ludicrous, and exchanged jokes in most +unsabbatical fashion. They even indulged thoughtlessly, in the very +midst of these grim reminders of a life wherein is neither marriage nor +giving in marriage, in little rustic flirtations, and eagerly picked +up morsels of gossip by sharp observation of young couples strolling +oblivious of watching eyes among the graves. + +To-day the desire to see the newly set stone which had been placed +over the empty mound which was to preserve the memory of Archie Lovell +attracted an unusually large number of village folk to turn into the +graveyard after afternoon service, and an exciting whisper had gone +about that the three disconsolate betrothed damsels had all come to +church with flowers. The little groups drifted slowly through the +weatherbeaten gate behind the church, but the very first of them were +deterred by seeing a black-robed figure laying already her bunch of +geraniums on the grave. Delia Burrage, who sang in the choir, had, as +was afterward told from one end of the town to the other, slipped down +the gallery stair without waiting for the benediction, and so had +managed to be first in the field. + +The gathering groups of villagers had hardly time to note with what +tender care the bereft Delia arranged her bunch of scarlet blossoms at +the foot of the still snowy marble slab than they were set aquiver with +delicious excitement by the sight of a second crape-enshrouded figure +that came to the spot, also bearing flowers. Mary Foster carried in her +black-gloved hands a cluster of white pyrethrums, a favorite house-plant +in Tuskamuck. Miss Foster came up on the side of the mound opposite to +the first comer, and humbly laid her offering below the red geraniums; +but although she was thus forced to place her flowers farther from the +stone than the other, she was evidently determined not to be outdone in +devotion. She fell on her knees, and bowed her face in her handkerchief +in a grief so dramatic that Miss Burrage was left far behind, and had +no resource but to come to her knees in turn, in a weak imitation of her +rival. + +The spectators were by this time in a sort of twitter of gratified +excitement, and exchanged many significant looks and subdued comments. +Those boldest pressed nearer to the scene of action, keenly curious to +hear if word passed between the bereaved ladies. Excitement rose to +its highest when slowly down the long path came Martha Seaton, more +voluminously draped in sable weeds than either of the others. She +carried a wreath of English ivy, and a sort of admiring shudder ran +through the neighbors as they saw that to this funeral wreath Miss +Seaton had sacrificed the growth of years of careful window gardening. + +"My! She 's cut her ivy!" one of them gasped. + +"Why, so she has! Well, for the land's sake!" responded another, too +much overwhelmed to speak coherently. + +"Trust Mattie Seaton for not letting anybody get ahead of her!" a third +commented, in accents of admiration. + +Human curiosity could not keep aloof at a moment such as this, and as +Mattie advanced toward the Lovell lot, the neighbors followed as if +irresistibly impelled. They closed in a ring around the spot when she +reached it, and they looked and listened with an eagerness so frank as +almost to be excusable. They could see that the earlier comers were +watching from behind the handkerchiefs pressed to their eyes, and with +the approbation which belongs to a successful dramatic performance the +audience noted also the entire coolness with which Miss Seaton ignored +them until she stood close to the drooping pair. Then she flung back her +long veil of crape with a sweeping gesture, and with a regal glance of +her gypsyish black eyes looked first at them and then at the flowers. + +"Oh, thank you so much for bringing flowers," she said, in a voice +evidently so raised that her words should be distinctly heard by the +ring of spectators. "Archie was so fond of them!" + +The words gave no chance of reply, and an audible chuckle arose from the +listening throng, so obviously had her tone and manner made the other +mourners outsiders. When Mattie slowly and deliberately moved around the +headstone until she stood behind it, hung her wreath on its rounded top, +and bowed her head upon it with her handkerchief covering her eyes, she +had completely taken possession of the whole situation. As one of the +young men of the town inelegantly observed, she was "boss of that grave +and the others did n't count." As if in a carefully planned _tableau +vivant_, she stood, a drooping figure of anguish, while the other two +had become merely kneeling ministrants upon her woe. + +"Well, if that ain't the beatin'est!" chuckled old Ichabod Munson, +puckering his leathery face into an ecstasy of wrinkles. "Gosh, I wish +Archie Lovell could see that. He'd be 'most willin' to get kilt for a +sight o' his three widders, an' that Seaton girl comin' it so over t' +others." + +"He'd think he was a Mormon or a Turk," observed Miss Charlotte Kendall, +with her deep, throaty chuckle that not even the solemnity of the +graveyard could subdue. "He'd see the fun of it. Poor Archie! He did +love a joke." + +The situation over the tombstone was one from which retreat to be +effective must be speedy. Mattie Seaton was apparently the only one to +appreciate this. But for a few moments did she remain with her forehead +bent to the slab; then she kissed the cold marble feverishly; and in +a voice broken, but still in tones easily audible to the listening +neighbors, she said to the kneeling girls:-- + +"Thank you so much for your sympathy;" and before they could reply she +had dropped again the cloud of crape over her face, and was moving +swiftly away up the path to the gate. + +Never was exit more dramatically effective. The pair left behind +exchanged angry glances, then with a simultaneous impulse started to +their feet, and as quickly as possible got away from the sight of their +fellow townsfolk. They might be silly, but they were not so foolish as +not to know how ridiculous they had been made to look that afternoon. + +It was only a few days after this that the village was stirred by the +news that Old Lady Andrews, who so mourned for Archie, who had adored +the handsome, good-natured, selfish, flirtatious dog all his life, had +gone South in the hope of recovering his remains, and of bringing them +home to rest beneath the stone she had erected. The village pretty +generally sympathized with the desire, but thought the chance of success +in such a quest made the undertaking a piece of hopeless sentiment. The +time since the news of Archie's death was already considerable, his fate +from the first had been uncertain, and the chances of the identification +of his grave seemed exceedingly small. + +"I figure Ol' Lady Andrews would 'a' done better to stay to hum," +'Siah Appleby expressed the sentiment of the town in saying. "Like's +not 'f she finds out anythin' certain,--which 't ain't all likely she +will,--she'll find Archie was just hove into a trench 'long with a lot +more poor fellers, an' no way o' sortin' out their bones short o' the +Day o' Judgment. She'd sot up a stone to him, 'n' she'd a nawful sight +better let it go at that." + +The sentiment of the matter touched some, but the years of war had +brought so much of grief and suffering that most had settled into a sort +of dull acquiescence unless the woe were personal and immediate. The +neighbors sympathized with the feeling of grief-stricken Old Lady +Andrews, but so many husbands and fathers, brothers and sons and lovers, +had vanished in unidentified graves that the nerves of feeling were +benumbed. It would in the early years of the war have been unbearable to +think of a friend as lying in an unnamed grave in the South; now it +seemed simply a part of the inevitable misery of war. + +The "three widows," as the village folk unkindly dubbed them, were less +in evidence after the episode in the graveyard. They avoided each other +as far as possible, and were evidently not unaware that they were not +taken very seriously by their neighbors. They perhaps knew that jests at +their expense were in circulation, like the grim remark of Deacon Daniel +Richards, that he did not see how any one of them could claim more than +a "widow's third" of Archie's memory. They kept rather quiet, at least; +and the weeks went by uneventfully until the departure of Old Lady +Andrews again drew attention to the story. + +The old lady went alone, and once gone she sent no word back to tell +how she fared on her quest. Now that her nephew was missing, she had +no immediate family; and she wrote to none of her townsfolk. The spring +opened into summer as a bud into a flower, and life at Tuskamuck went +on with its various interests, but no one was able to do more than to +speculate upon her movements or her success. + +One afternoon in June the Soldiers' Aid Society came together for its +weekly gathering in the vestry. The meeting had been appointed at the +house of the Widow Turner, but Nancy Turner had been suddenly called out +of town, and her mother, somewhat of an invalid, had not felt equal to +the task of entertaining without her. The bare room, with its red pulpit +and yellow settees, had a forlorn look, despite the groups of busy women +and girls scattered over it; but its chilling influence could not check +the flow of conversation. + +"Did you hear where Nancy Turner's gone?" one woman asked of the group +in which she sat. "She must have gone very suddenly." + +"I understood there was sickness somewhere," another responded vaguely. + +"Maybe it's her aunt over at Whitneyville," a third suggested. "Mis' +Turner told me in the spring she was real feeble." + +"Mis' Turner herself 's real frail. She did n't feel well enough to come +this afternoon." + +"Where 's Aunt Naomi?" inquired Mrs. Cummings. "It's 'most five +o'clock, and she almost always comes about three." + +"Oh," responded Mrs. Wright, with a laugh and her quick, bright glance, +"you may depend upon it she's getting news somewhere. She'll come in +before we go home, with something wonderful to tell." + +As if in intentional confirmation of the words, Aunt Naomi at that +moment appeared in the doorway. Her shrewd old face showed satisfaction +in every wrinkle, and from beneath the unfailing veil of green barège +draped from her bonnet over the upper left-hand corner of her face her +eyes positively twinkled. She took a deliberate survey of the room, and +then with her peculiar rocking gait moved to the group which had been +discussing her absence. + +"Good afternoon, Aunt Naomi," Mrs. Cummings greeted her. "We were just +wondering what had become of you." + +"And I said," put in Mrs. Wright audaciously, "that you must be getting +some wonderful piece of news." + +Aunt Naomi hitched up her shawl behind with a grasshopper-like motion of +her elbows, and sat down with a wide grin. + +"Well, this time you were right," she said. "I was hearing Old Lady +Andrews tell about her trip." + +"Old Lady Andrews?" echoed the ladies. "Has she got home?" + +"Yes; she got here this noon." + +"And nobody but you knew it!" ejaculated Mrs. Cummings. + +They all regarded Aunt Naomi with undisguised admiration, in every look +acknowledging her cleverness in discovering what had been hid from the +rest of the village. She smiled broadly, and seemed to drink in the +sweet odor of this surprise and their homage as an idol might snuff up +grateful fumes of incense. + +"Did she bring home the body?" Mrs. Cummings asked after a moment, in a +voice becomingly lowered. + +"Yes, she did," Aunt Naomi answered, with a chuckle of levity which +seemed almost indecent. "She had a dreadful time finding out anything; +but she had friends at Washington--her husband had cousins there, you +know--and at last she got on the track." + +"Where was he buried?" + +Aunt Naomi paused to wag her foot and to nibble at the corner of her +green veil in a way common to her in moments of excitement. She looked +around in evident enjoyment of the situation. + +"He was n't buried anywhere," she said, with a grin. + +"Why not?" demanded Mrs. Wright excitedly. + +"Because he was n't dead." + +"Was n't dead?" + +"No; only taken prisoner. He was wounded, and he's been in Libby." + +"How is he now?" + +"Oh, he's all right now. He's coming over here to show himself, and see +his friends." + +The words were hardly spoken when in the doorway appeared the well-known +figure of Archie Lovell. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant, he was +pale and worn, but handsomer than ever. On his arm was a blushing damsel +in a hat with a white feather, her face all smiles and dimples. An +exclamation went up from all over the room. + +"Why, it's Archie Lovell!" + +It was followed almost immediately by another:-- + +"And Nancy Turner's with him!" + +"No; it's Nancy Lovell," announced Aunt Naomi, in a voice audible all +over the vestry. "They were married in Boston." + +The bridal couple advanced. All about the room the ladies rose, but +instead of greeting the newcomers, they looked at the "three widows," +and waited as if to give them first an opportunity of accosting their +mate, thus returned as if from the very grave, and so inopportunely +bringing another mate with him. Miss Burrage and Miss Foster shrank from +sight behind the backs of those nearest to them; but Mattie Seaton swept +impulsively forward with her hand extended cordially. Her crisp black +hair curled about her temples, her eyes shone, and her teeth flashed +between her red lips. + +"Why, Archie, dear," she said, in her clear, resonant voice, "we thought +we had lost you forever. We all supposed you were dead, and here you are +only married. Let me congratulate you, though after being engaged to +so many girls, it must seem queer to be married to only one!--and you, +Nancy," she went on, before Archie could make other reply than to shake +hands; "to think you got him after all, just because you went ahead and +caught him! I congratulate you with all my heart; only look out for him. +He'll make love to every woman he sees." + +She bent forward and kissed the bride before Mrs. Lovell could have +known her intention, and turned quickly. + +"Come, Delia," she called across the vestry; "come, Mary! There's +nothing for us to do but to go home and take off our black. We may have +better luck next time!" + +With this ambiguous observation, which might have been construed to +cast rather a sinister reflection upon the return to life of the young +lieutenant, she swept out of the vestry, complete mistress of the +situation; and although Archie Lovell always strenuously denied that he +had ever been engaged to any woman besides the one he married, a general +feeling prevailed in Tuskamuck that no girl could have carried it off +with a high hand as Mattie did, if she had not had some sort of an +understanding to serve her as a support. + +But never again while the Civil War lasted did a girl in Tuskamuck put +on black for a lover unless the engagement had been publicly recognized +before his death. + + + + +A MEETING OF THE PSYCHICAL CLUB + + +I + +The meeting of the Psychical Club had been rather dull, and it was just +as the members were languidly expecting an adjournment that the only +interesting moment of the evening came. The papers had been more than +usually vapid, and, as one man whispered to another, not even a ghost +could be convicted upon evidence so slight as that brought forward to +prove the existence of disembodied visitants to certain forsaken and +rat-haunted houses. At the last moment, however, the President, Dr. +Taunton, made an announcement which did arouse some attention. + +"Before we go," he said, smiling with the air of one who desires it to +be understood that in what he says he distinctly disclaims all personal +responsibility, "it is my duty to submit to the Club a singular +proposition which has been made to me. A gentleman whom I am not at +liberty to name, but who is personally known to many--perhaps to +most--of you, offers to give to the Club an exhibition of occult +phenomena." + +The members roused somewhat, but too many propositions of a nature not +dissimilar had ended in entire failure and flatness for any immediate +enthusiasm. + +"What are his qualifications?" a member asked. + +"I did not dream that he possessed any," Dr. Taunton responded, smiling +more broadly. "Indeed, to me that is the interesting thing. I had never +suspected that he had even the slightest knowledge or curiosity in such +matters, and still less that he made any pretensions to occult powers. +The fact that he is a man of a position so good and of brains so well +proved as to make it unlikely that he would gratuitously make a fool of +himself is the only ground on which his proposition seems to me worth +attention." + +"What does he propose to do?" + +"He does not say." + +"He must have given some sort of idea." + +"He said only that he was able to perform some tricks--experiments, I +think, was his word; or no--he said demonstrations. He thought they +would interest the members." + +"Did he say why he offered to do them?" + +"No further than to observe not over politely that he was weary of some +of the nonsense the Club circulated, and that he would therefore take +the trouble to teach them better." + +The members smiled, but some colored a little as if the touch had +reached a spot somewhat sensitive. + +"It is exceedingly kind of him," one elderly gentleman remarked stiffly. + +"He is explicit in his conditions," the President added. + +The members were beginning to seem really awake, and Judge Hobart asked +with some quickness what the conditions were. + +"First," the President answered, "that his identity shall not be +revealed. I am not to tell his name, and he trusts to the honor of any +member who may recognize him. A meeting is to be appointed when and +where we please. He is to know nothing more than the time. I am to send +a carriage for him, to provide certain things of which he has given me a +list, to arrange a room according to his directions, and to give him my +word that no record of the meeting shall appear in the newspapers." + +"Are the things he wishes difficult to procure?" + +"This is the list," said Dr. Taunton, taking a paper from his pocket. +"You will see that they are all sufficiently simple. + +"'Two rings of iron, four or five inches in diameter, interlocked and +welded firmly. + +"'A ten-inch cube of hard wood. + +"'A six-inch cube of iron. + +"'A sealed letter, written by some member. + +"'A carpenter's saw. + +"'A gold-fish globe ten inches or so across. + +"'Three smaller globes, one filled with red, one with blue, and one +with a colorless liquid. + +"'A scale on which a man may be weighed. + +"'A stick of sealing-wax. + +"'A flower-pot filled with earth. + +"'An orange seed.'" + +"The articles are simple enough," Judge Hobart commented. "Are the +arrangements required difficult?" + +"No. He asks for a committee to examine him in the dressing-room; a +platform insulated with glass and some substance he will furnish, and a +little matter of the arrangement of lights that is easy enough." + +The members of the Club meditated in silence for a moment, and then +Professor Gray spoke. + +"It must depend, it seems to me," he said, "on the sort of a man your +mysterious magician is. If he is a person to be trusted, I should say +go ahead." + +"He is a gentleman," the President answered; "a man of social standing, +money, education, and with a reputation in his special branch of +knowledge both here and in Europe. If I named him, you would, I feel +sure, give him a hearing without question." + +"What is his specialty?" one member inquired. + +"I hardly think it would be fair for me to tell. It would possibly be +too good a clue to his identity." + +"Is it fair to ask if it is connected with any psychical branch?" + +"Not in the least. I think I said at the start that I never suspected +him of any interest in such subjects. He was asked to join this Club, +and declined." + +"Did he give any particular reason?" + +The President smiled satirically. + +"He said it would never accomplish anything." + +"Perhaps that shows his common sense," Judge Hobart observed dryly. "I +am bound to say that it has not accomplished much thus far. What I do +not understand is why at this late day he takes an interest in our +work." + +"He did n't go into that. He did not seem especially anxious. He merely +told me that he was willing to show the Club certain things, and named +his conditions. That is about the whole of it." + +"Well," observed Judge Hobart, with his air of burly frankness, "I vote +we have him. The only reason for shying off is that so many fellows, +otherwise sensible, lose their heads the moment they try to investigate +anything psychical." + +"Is that a reflection on our Club?" Professor Gray asked good-naturedly. + +In the end the decision was that the President should be instructed to +make arrangements with the unknown, and an evening was chosen for the +meeting. The place was left to the President, to be imparted to the +members confidentially on the day appointed. Then the gentlemen went +their several ways, each, except the President who knew, speculating +upon the possible identity of the mysterious wonder-worker. + + +II + +When the clock struck eight on the evening appointed, the members of the +Club were all present. The room to which they had been summoned by Dr. +Taunton was simply furnished with a table, before which the seats were +arranged in a semicircle, and behind which was a small platform on which +stood a single chair. This platform was raised on blocks of glass, above +which were thin slabs of a substance which to the eye seemed like a sort +of brown resin, in which were to be discerned sparkles of yellow, as of +minute crystals. The chair was in turn insulated in the same manner, +while before it for the feet of the performer was placed a slab of glass +covered with the same resinous substance. On the chair lay a thick robe +of knitted silk. Beneath the table was a trunk containing the articles +of which the President had read a list at the previous meeting. + +The members examined everything and handled everything except the +platform and the chair upon it. These they were especially requested +not to touch. At five minutes past eight a carriage was heard to stop +outside, and almost immediately the President came in. + +"The gentleman is in the dressing-room," he said, "and is ready for the +examining committee. If the members will be seated, we shall be prepared +to receive him." + +The members took their seats, and there was a brief interval of silence. +Then Judge Hobart and Professor Gray, who had gone to the dressing-room, +reëntered. Between them was a tall man, well formed, rather slender, +but showing in his figure some signs of approaching middle age. He wore +simply a single garment of knit silk. It was laced in the back, and +fitted him so tightly that the play of his muscles was as evident as it +would have been in a nude figure. His face was covered down to the lips +by a black mask of silk. + +The unknown stepped out of the loose slippers he wore, mounted the +platform, put on the silk robe, and sat down in the chair. Judge Hobart +made a formal statement that the perfor-- that their guest had neither +properties nor apparatus concealed about his person. Then he sat down, +and silence filled the room. + +"We are ready," President Taunton said. + +The stranger smoothed from his lips the smile which had curled them when +Judge Hobart so nearly spoke of him as the "performer." He rose, and +stood on the slab before his chair. + +"I must say a word or two by way of preface," he began, in a voice +cultivated and pleasant. "In the first place, I have no concealed motive +in coming here to-night. I am not even--as I shall convince you before +we are done--gratifying my vanity by advertising my powers. It has +seemed to me that the Club is not on the right track, and although in +one sense it is none of my business, I am interested in the subject +which it is, as I understand, the object of this body to investigate. +The paper by Judge Hobart in a recent number of the 'Agassiz Quarterly' +decided me to show to him that certain forces which he conclusively +proves to be non-existent do, nevertheless, exist. As I am personally +known to perhaps half the gentlemen in the room, and am likely to meet +some of them not infrequently, I take the liberty of asking that if any +one shall chance to recognize me, he will remember that I come on the +condition that my identity remain concealed. The President," he +continued, "will bear me out when I say that I have not seen the things +provided for use this evening, and that I had no knowledge of the place +appointed for the meeting. The dressing-gown I sent him because the +scantiness of my dress makes it rather a necessity. I presume that he +has examined it carefully enough to be sure that it is innocent of +witchery and of trickery." + +He paused for a moment, and then in a tone somewhat more determined went +on. + +"One thing I must add. I decline to answer any questions whatever in +regard to the means which produce the effects to which I shall call +your attention. Those from whom I have learned would be sufficiently +unwilling that I exhibit my power at all, and were there no other +reason, their wishes would be sufficient to prevent me from offering +information or explanation. I may not succeed in doing all that I shall +attempt. I have laid out a pretty serious evening's work, especially for +one who lives as I do amid unfavorable conditions; and of course I can +receive no assistance from my audience." + +He took off the dressing-gown and dropped it into the chair. Then he +removed from his finger a large seal ring, and laid it between his feet +on the resinous slab. + +"I wish to show you first," the stranger said, "that if I chose, I could +manage to deceive you into thinking that I accomplished much that I did +not really do. For instance, I perhaps at this moment look to you like +an elephant." + +The members of the Psychical Club gasped in astonishment. Surely upon +the platform stood a large white elephant, twisting his pink trunk. + +"Or a palm tree," they heard the voice of the stranger say. + +No; not an elephant stood on the platform, but a tall and graceful +date-palm, crowned with a splendid cluster of spreading fronds. + +"Or Dr. Taunton." + +The members looked in amazement from the figure of the President sitting +in his chair, twirling his gold eye-glasses with his familiar gesture, +and his double on the platform, as faithful as a reflection in a mirror, +doing the same thing. + +"But all this is mere illusion," the voice went on; "I am none of these +things." + +Once more they saw only the silken-clad figure, tall and supple, smiling +under the black mask. + +"What I profess to do," the speaker continued, "I shall really do, and +not depend upon cheating your senses. I shall hope to leave you proofs +and evidences to establish this completely. The difficulty of the +different expositions of force is not to be judged by appearances. +First, for instance, I shall show you an exceedingly simple and easy +thing. It has come to be customary, for some foolish reason, to speak of +these phenomena as illustrations of the 'fourth dimension.' The term, I +suppose, is as good as another, since it certainly conveys no definite +idea whatever to people in general. I will ask a couple of gentlemen +to take a pair of interlocked iron rings that I suppose are among the +articles prepared, and to bring them to me. I do not wish to leave my +insulation, as in later trials I shall need all my force." + +The rings were taken from the trunk and brought forward. They were of +iron as thick as a man's thumb, were linked together, and firmly welded. +To pull them apart would have been impossible for teams of strong +horses. By the direction of the stranger they were held before him by +the two gentlemen. + +"I have asked Dr. Taunton," he said, "to have the rings privately +marked, so as to insure against any possible suspicion of substitution. +I have never seen them." + +He leaned forward, and laid his hand lightly on the junction of the +rings. They fell apart instantly. Both were unbroken; and neither gave +the slightest appearance of strain or rupture. A murmur of surprise +circled the room, and then the members of the Club broke into hearty +applause. + +The stranger laughed frankly. + +"I thank you, gentlemen," he said good-humoredly; "but I am not a +juggler." + +He asked next for the cube of wood and for the sealed letter. + +"I have never seen either of these," he said, the phrase being repeated +almost with a mechanical indifference. "I suppose that the President or +the person who wrote the letter can identify the note wherever he finds +it." + +At his direction President Taunton held up before him the cube with the +letter lying upon it. The stranger laid his hand over the letter, and +then showed an empty palm toward the audience. + +"You see I have not taken the letter," he said. "If the saw is there, +please cut the block in two in the middle. Cut it across the grain." + +While the sawing was going on, the magician put on his wrap and sat +down. He resumed his signet ring, and sat with his head bowed in his +hands. When the block had been divided, the ends of the letter, cut in +halves, appeared in the midst of the wood. + +"I think," the stranger said, "that the two halves of the note will slip +out of the envelope without difficulty, and Dr. Taunton will then be +able to say whether it is the original letter or not." + +The president with a little trouble pulled out the pieces of paper and +fitted them together. He examined them critically, even using a +pocket-glass. + +"If I had not been deceived earlier in the evening, and if I did not +know that it is wildly impossible," he said, "I should say that this is +my letter." + +"'I believe because it is impossible,'" quoted the stranger. "You may +keep the pieces and decide at your leisure." + +He rose as he spoke, and once more threw off his robe. The Club waited +breathless. He again placed the ring between his feet. + +"I wish now," he said, "the three globes filled with colored fluid." + +These were brought to him on a tray, and at his bidding placed close +together in a triangle. + +"This is only another of the innumerable possible variations upon the +penetrability of matter, and would come under the head in common +nomenclature of that stupidly used term 'fourth dimension.' I said that +I am not a juggler, but of course I chose some of the tests because they +are picturesque, and so might amuse an audience. See." + +He laid his hand upon the top of the three globes. Instantly they became +one by intersection, the three bases being moved nearer together. Each +globe preserved perfectly its shape, and in the divisions now made by +the coalescing of the section of one sphere with that of another the +liquid was of the hue resulting from a mingling of the colors of the +differently tinted fluids. + +A murmur went around. Several of the members rose to examine the globes. + +"Put them on the table," the wonder-worker said, "and then everybody may +see." + +"We are not to ask questions of methods," Judge Hobart observed. "Is it +proper to inquire whether the experiment involves a contradiction of the +old law that two bodies cannot occupy the same space?" + +"Not at all," was the answer. "Modern science has shown clearly enough +that to seem to occupy space is only to fill it as the stars fill the +sky. I have only taken advantage of that fact to crowd more matter into +a defined area." + +The members were asked to seat themselves, and when this had been done, +the stranger said: "Any number of examples of this power could be given, +but these should be enough, unless some one would prefer to improvise a +test on the spot." + +"I am glad that you say this," Professor Gray remarked. "I am subject to +the prejudice, foolish enough but common, of being more impressed by +experiments of my own contriving. Do you mind, sir, if Dr. Taunton and I +loop handkerchiefs together, and let you separate them while we hold the +ends?" + +"Certainly not," was the reply. + +The experiment was instantly successful, and was repeated for double +assurance. + +"If we had nothing else to do," the stranger observed, "we might go on +in this line indefinitely; but this is enough of the 'fourth dimension,' +so called. Now we will try development." + + +III + +The flower-pot filled with earth was placed upon the slab at the feet of +the magician. The orange seed was laid upon the earth. + +"So ingenious an explanation has recently been given--or, more exactly, +recently revived--of the development of a plant from a seed, that you +may suppose me to have all the different pieces of an orange grove +concealed about me, despite the fact that my dress is not adapted to +the concealment of a needle. However, you may judge for yourselves." + +He leaned forward, and with the point of his finger pushed the seed into +the earth. + +"Will some one cover the pot with a handkerchief?" he said. "Please be +careful not to touch me or it. Hold the handkerchief out, and drop it." + +One of the members followed the directions, and for a moment the +stranger sat quiet, his eyes fixed on the covered flower-pot. The centre +of the handkerchief was seen gradually to rise, and when the cloth was +lifted, the astonished eyes of the Club beheld a glossy shoot, three or +four inches in height. Without again covering it, the magician continued +to gaze fixedly upon the plant. Before the eyes of the spectators the +shoot became a shrub, the shrub a tree; the fragrance of orange blossoms +filled the air, and among the shining leaves began to swell the golden +fruit. The time had been numbered only in minutes, yet there stood a +tree higher than a man's head, and laden with golden globes. + +"Take it away," the wonder-worker said, "and let me rest a little before +I try anything more. You will find the tree to-morrow, and I think you +will concede that it is too bulky to have been concealed under these +fleshings. If you think it only an optical delusion or the result of +hypnotism, try to-morrow by the senses of persons who do not know how it +was produced." + +He sat for some moments with his head bowed in his hands. Then at his +direction a globe about a foot in diameter was filled with clear water +and placed on the table. The lights were then turned down so as to leave +all the room in shadow except the platform. + +"I must ask you to be as quiet as possible," the magician requested. +"The experiment is a difficult one, and from living in the atmosphere +which surrounds my daily life I am out of the proper condition." + +Putting his hands behind him, he sank downward on the slab to his knees, +and so reached forward as to press his thumbs upon his great toes. +The position was a singular one, and earlier in the evening might have +raised a smile. Now all was breathless silence for a couple of moments. +Then the stranger sprang suddenly to his full height, and directed his +forefinger with a violent movement toward the globe. A spark of violet +light not unlike that from an electric battery flashed from the +outstretched finger to the globe, and was seen to remain like a star +in the midst of the water. + +From this violet centre, with slow, sinuous movement, numerous filaments +of light grew out in the liquid, until the globe was filled with tangled +and intertwined threads like the roots of a hyacinth in its glass. +Slowly, slowly, the nucleus rose to the surface, dragging the threads +behind it. Then above the water began to form a faint haze. With gradual +motion it mounted, absorbing by degrees the fire from the phosphorescent +fibres which served for its roots, until a faintly luminous pillar of +dully glowing mist four or five feet high showed above the mouth of the +globe. + +The magician made strange gestures, and a slow rotary motion was +discerned in the cloud. Without abrupt or definitely marked alteration +the pillar was modified in shape until more and more plainly was evident +a resemblance to the human form. He rose to his full height, and +extended both his hands toward the figure. Slowly it detached itself +from the water and from the globe, and floated in the air, the perfect +shape of a woman, transparent, faintly luminous, but with a lustre +less cold than at first. One of the men drew in his breath with a deep +and audible inspiration. The shape wavered, and another spectator +impulsively cried "Hush!" The word seemed to break the spell. The +wonderful visionary form trembled, shivered, and its exquisite beauty +melted in the air. + +The magician resumed his seat with visible disappointment. + +"I am sorry," he said. "I am already tired, and you distracted my +attention. The experiment has failed. May the lights be turned up, +please." + +A murmur of disappointment ran around the room. + +"I am sorry," he repeated. "I should have impressed on you more strongly +the need of absolute quiet. I am not quite up to beginning this over +again. Let me show you the opposite--disintegration. It is easier to +tear down than to build up." + +The block of iron he had asked for was by his direction laid on the +floor in front of the platform. The magician sat for a moment with +closed eyes, his hands laid palm to palm upon his knees. Then with an +abrupt movement he pointed his two forefingers, pressed together, toward +the cube. A report like that of a pistol startled the members, and the +solid iron shivered into almost impalpable dust. The members of the Club +crowded together to the spot. + +"Please do not touch my platform," he requested, as he had earlier in +the evening. "I must still show you something more." + + +IV + +"Levitation is a phenomenon which is common enough," he said by way of +preface, "but our examination would by no means be complete without it. +Of course I am only touching upon a few of the less subtle principles +that underlie what is commonly misnamed occultism; but this is one of +the obvious ones. Please let some heavy man step upon the scales." + +Judge Hobart was with some laughter persuaded to take his place upon the +platform of the scales, and the indicator marked a weight of two hundred +and six pounds. + +"Will you look again?" the stranger asked of the gentleman who had read +the number. + +"Why, he weighs nothing!" the weigher exclaimed, in astonishment. + +"His weight has broken the scales," another member declared. + +"You may think," the magician went on, "that I have bewitched the +spring. Will somebody lift the Judge?" + +Professor Gray, who happened to stand nearest, put out one hand and +picked the venerable Judge up as easily as he would have lifted a +pocket-handkerchief. As he took his victim by the collar, the effect +did not tend toward solemnity. + +"What do you mean, sir?" demanded the Judge. "Put me down, sir, at +once." + +The stranger made a little sign with his hand. The Professor saw and +understood, so instead of putting Judge Hobart down, he lightly tossed +the rotund figure upward. The Judge, probably more to his amazement than +to his satisfaction, found himself floating in the air with his head +against the ceiling, and with his legs paddling hopelessly as if he +were learning to swim. The other members shouted with laughter. + +"That will do," the magician said. "I did not mean to turn things into +a farce." + +The ponderous form of Judge Hobart floated softly to the floor; his face +showed a wonderful mixture of bewilderment, wounded vanity, and relief. + +"It's very warm at the top of the room," he said, wiping his red +forehead; "very warm. Heat rises so." + +"Other things rise also at times," somebody said. + +Everybody laughed, and then the members settled into quiet again, and +listened to the magician. + +"Examples of this sort are infinite in number, but one is as good as +many. The principle is everywhere the same. Levitation is really too +simple a matter to occupy more of our time. The transporting of matter +through space and through other matter is more interesting and more +important. It is also more difficult, and consequently less common. +Some time ago it was proposed in London, as a test of the reality of +occultism, that a copy of an Indian paper of any given date be produced +in London on the day of its publication in Calcutta. The test was +shirked by those who are advertising themselves by pretending to powers +which they did not have, and those who were able to do the feat had no +interest in helping to bolster up a sham. That the thing was easily +possible is the last fact with which I shall trouble you to-night. Allow +me to offer you a copy of the 'London Times' of this morning." + +As he spoke, a newspaper fluttered from the air above, and fell upon the +table. The stranger checked a movement which Judge Hobart made to +examine it. + +"Let me seal it first," he said. "It will make future identification +surer. Please lay it with that stick of sealing-wax on the platform." + +When this had been done, he took the wax and held it above the paper. +The wax melted without visible cause, and dropped on the margin of the +journal. Leaning forward, the magician pressed his seal into the red +mass, and then flung the paper again on the table. + +"It will be easy," he remarked, "to compare this with a copy received +through the ordinary channels. You do not need to be instructed in the +means proper for securing and identifying this. The experiment may seem +to you a simple one, but I assure you that it is so difficult that you +cannot hope to repeat it without preparation you would find pretty +severe." + +He rose as he spoke, and drew his robe about him. + +"I have to thank you," he continued, "for your patience and attention. +As I meet so many of you not infrequently, it is better to trust to your +courtesy not to name me than to your ignorance." + +He pulled off, as he spoke, the black mask, and with cries of surprise +more than half the members of the Club called out the name of one of the +best-known club men of the town, a man who had traveled extensively in +the East, a man who had proved his powers by distinguished services +in literature, a man of wealth and of leisure, and one of dominating +character. Smiling calmly, he replaced the mask, and stood a moment in +silence. + +"That is all," he said. + +Then, with a peculiar gesture he waved his arms over the company, and +repeated a few words in some unknown tongue. He stepped down from the +platform and walked quietly from the room. But by that gesture or spell +he had strangely wrought upon their minds; from that moment no man of +them all, not even the President, has ever been able to remember who was +their acquaintance who that evening did such wonders in the sight of the +astonished Psychical Club. + + + + +TIM CALLIGAN'S GRAVE-MONEY + + +I + +"'T was a fool's notion to get tipped out of a boat anywhere," said Tim +Calligan to his circle of fellow pensioners at the Dartbank poor-farm, +"me that's been on the water like a bubble from the day me mother weaned +me, saints rest her soul, and she as decent a woman as ever was born in +County Cork." + +Tim was relating the oft-told tale of his escape from drowning, a story +of which they were fond, and which he delighted to tell. The old man had +a fertile Celtic fancy, and his narrations were luxuriant with exuberant +growth. + +"So there was meself drownin' like a blind kitten in a pond,--and many +'s the litter of 'em I'd sent to the cat's Purgatory by the way of that +very river, saving that the Purgatory of cats there ain't any, having +no souls, by the token that having nine lives they'd belike have nine +souls, and being so many they'd crowd good Christian souls in +Paradise,--blessings on the holy saints for previnting it. + +"No more could I make me head stay out of water," Tim went on, "than if +it was a stone. 'Good-by, Tim, me boy,' sez I to meself. 'Ye're gone +this time,' sez I, 'and I'll miss nothing in not being at yer wake, by +the token that there won't be no wake; and ef there was,' sez I, still +to meself, 'there could be nothing to drink but water here in this +cursed stream.' And down I went again, like a dasher in a churn. 'Holy +St. Bridget,' thinks I, 'how far 'll it be to the bottom of this +ondecent river. Likely it goes clean through to Chiny,' thinks I, 'and +one of them bloody, onbelaving heathen 'll be grabbing me presently with +his mice-eating hands. But it's better being pulled out by a heretic +heathen than staying in and soaking.' With that up again I goes, like a +shellaly at a fair; and it was like fire flashing in me eyes. Sez I to +meself: 'That 'll be Widdy Malony's bit of a house,' sez I, spaking +always in me mind because of the floods of water in me mouth. 'It'll be +burning to the very ground,' sez I, 'and me missing all the fun of it. +The blessed saints help the poor woman, turned out of house and home to +get bite and sup for her children like a chipmunk, and every one of them +taking after Dennis, and I might have married her meself long ago if +they was fewer, for I'd want a ready-made family small,' sez I to +meself, plunking up and down in the water like a dumpling in the broth. +''T is pitiful to think of her house burning down over her head,' sez I, +'and she never to know the man might have made her Mis' Calligan's down +here drowning in plain sight of the very flames of it, and she nor +nobody doing one thing to save him, praise be to the handiworks of God. +Faith, and 't would be better for the both of us if she had more water +and meself more fire,' sez I in me mind. And all the time 't was no +fire, but just the blessed sun I'd never see again, barring I had n't +got saved, and it shining and flashing in the eyes of me from the +widdy's windows." + +The tale was long, for it included an enumeration of all the sensations +and emotions which Tim had really experienced, and all those which, in +the course of long years, he had been able to imagine he might have +felt. As at the poor-farm time was not an object, however, except of +slaughter, the length of the narrative was its greatest recommendation. + +"And with that," Tim at last ended his recital, "I felt the whole top of +me head pulled off as I lay soft and easy on the bottom of the flood, +and thinking nothing at all, but reflecting how soft the mud of it were +and pitying Pat Donovan that he'd never get the quarter I owed him. +'That 'll be a Chany-man or the Divil, Tim, me boy,' sez I to meself; +and then I made no more observes to meself at all, owing to the soul +having gone out of me body. And all the time it was Bill Trafton +catching me by the hair, him having dove for me just shortly after me +being dead, and dragging me to the top when I could n't be moved from +the bottom, and was likely to die any minute, saving that it was dead +already I was. And he saved me life, by the token that the soul had gone +out of me peaceful; but, Holy Mother, how'll I be telling ye the pain of +its coming back! 'T was like the unwilling dragging back of a pig out of +a praitie patch to get the soul of me back from the place it had gone +to, and they rubbing me to show it the care they'd take of me, and +coaxing it for two mortal hours." + +As the tale ended, the bleared eyes of one of the auditors were +attracted to a light wagon which had turned into the lane at the foot of +the long slope upon which the poor-house stood. + +"Somebody 's comin'," old Simeon observed deliberately. "Likely it's the +new Over_seer_." + +"Yes, that's him," Tim assented. "That's Dan Springer." + +"I 'spected he was a-comin'," Grandsire Welsh commented, with a senile +chuckle. "Huldy and Sam's been a-slickin' up things." + +"Huldy and Sam," in more official language Mr. and Mrs. Dooling, were +the not unworthy couple who had the poor-farm in charge. + +"Wa'n't you sayin' t'other day," asked old Simeon, "thet you particular +wantid to see the Over_seer_?" + +"It's pining for him I am the time," Tim answered. + +The old men sat silent, watching the approach of the visitor, who drove +up to the hitching-post near them, and who leaped from his wagon with a +briskness almost startling to the aged chorus. + +"Spry," old Simeon commented. "I've seen the time, though, when I was +spry too." + +Springer fastened his horse, and came toward them. + +"How d' do, boys?" he said cheerily. "How goes it?" + +The contrast between his great hearty voice and the thin quavers in +which they answered him was pathetic. He lingered a moment, and +then turned to make his way into the house. Tim rose and hobbled +rheumatically after him. + +"Whist, Mister Springer," he called; "would ye be after waiting a wee +bit till I have a word of speech with yer." + +"Well, what can I do for you?" Springer asked good-naturedly. "Don't +they treat you well?" + +The old man took him by the arm and drew him around the corner of the +house, away from the curious eyes of his companions. + +"Whist!" he said, with a strange and sudden air of excitement. "Wait +till I'm after telling yer. Your honor'll mind I'm after _trusting_ yer; +_trusting_ yer, and ye'll no be betraying an old man. It's meself," he +added, with a touch of pride at once whimsical and pathetic, "is +ninety-three the day." + +"Are you as old as that? Well, I'd keep your secret if you were twice as +old," Springer returned, with clumsy but kindly jocoseness. + +Tim raised himself until he stood almost upright. + +"It's the money," he whispered, "the money I've saved for me burying." + +He turned to stretch his thin, bloodless finger toward the bleak cluster +of mounds on the hillside where mouldered the dead of the poor-farm. + +"I'll no lie there," he said, with husky intensity. "I've scraped and +scraped, and saved and saved, and it's the wee bit money I've got to pay +for a spot of consecrated ground over to Tiverton. Ye'll no put me here +when I'm gone! I'll no rest here! Me folks was respectable in the Old +Isle, an' not unbeknowing the gentry; and there's never a one put +outside consecrated ground. Ye'll promise me I'll be put in the +graveyard over to Tiverton, and me got the money to pay." + +Springer was as unemotional and unimaginative as a hearty, practical, +well-fed man could be, but seeing the tears in the old pauper's bleared +eyes, and hearing the passion of his tone, he could not but be moved. +He had heard something of this before. His predecessor in office had +mentioned Tim, and his twenty years' saving, but so few were the chances +a pauper in Dartbank had of picking up even a penny that the hoard even +of so long a time could not be large. Now and then some charitable +soul had given the old man a trifle. A vague sympathy was felt for the +pathetic longing to be assured of a grave in consecrated ground, even +among the villagers who regarded the idea itself as rank superstition. + +"It's all right, Tim," the Overseer said. "If you go off while I have +the say, I'll see to it myself. If you'd be any more comfortable over in +Tiverton, we'll plant you there." + +"Thank yer honor kindly," Tim answered. "The Calligans has always been +decent, God-fearing folks, and it's meself'd be loth to disgrace the +name a-crawling up out of this unholy graveyard forby on Judgment Day, +and all the world there to see, and I never could do it so sly but the +O'Tools and the O'Hooligans 'd spy on me, and they always so mad with +envy of the Calligans they'd be after tattling the news all over +Heaven, and bringing shame to me whole kith and kin." + +The Overseer laughed, and responded that if Tim had laid by the money to +pay for the job, he would certainly see that the grave was made in the +consecrated earth of Tiverton churchyard. Then with a brisk step he +passed on to attend to the sordid affairs of his office within. The most +troublesome matter was left until the last. + +"As to the Trafton child," he said to Huldy and Sam, "I don't see that +anything can be done. I've spoken to the Selectmen about it, and they +don't think the town should be called on to pay out twenty-five dollars +when here's a place for the child for nothing." + +"That's just what I told Louizy," Huldy responded. "I said that's what +they'd say; but Louizy 's dretful cut up." + +Springer moved uneasily or impatiently in his seat, so that the old +wooden chair creaked under the weight of his substantial person. + +"I know she is," he said; "if I could afford it, I'd send the child to +her folks myself; but I can't, and I don't see but the girl's got to go +to 'Lizy Ann Betts. Perhaps she won't be so hard on her." + +"Hard on her," sniffed Huldy; "she'll just kill her; that's all." + +At the word a wretched-looking woman pushed into the kitchen as if she +had been listening at the door. She held out before her a right hand +withered and shriveled by fire. + +"Oh, Mr. Springer," she broke out, tears running down her cheeks, "don't +send my Nellie to be bound to that woman! She's all I've got in the +world; and she never wanted till I was burned. Send her to my folks in +Connecticut and they'll treat her as their own." + +She sank down suddenly as if her strength failed, and sat stiff and +despairing, with eyes of wild entreaty. + +"It's hard, I know," Springer answered awkwardly, "but Nellie'll be +near you, and she would n't be in Connecticut. 'Lizy Ann Betts ain't +a bad-hearted woman. She'll do well by the child, I hope." + +"She'll do well?" the mother cried shrilly, raising herself with sudden +vehemence. "Did she do well by the last girl was bound to her from this +farm? Did n't she kill her?" + +"There, there, Louizy," interposed Huldy, "it ain't no sort of use to +make a fuss. What the S'lectmen say they say, and--" + +She was interrupted by a cry without, and in an instant the door was +flung open by old Simeon, who with wildly waving arms and weirdly +working face cried out:-- + +"F' th' Lord's sake! Come quicker 'n scat! Old Tim's in a fit!" + + +II + +The account old Simeon and Grandsire Welsh gave of Tim's seizure was +that he had been sitting outside the kitchen window, where they all were +listening with interest to the conversation within, when suddenly he had +thrown up his arms, crying out that he could not do it, and had fallen +in a fit. No one at the poor-farm could know that Tim had reached the +crisis of a severe mental struggle which had been going on for days. He +had for days listened to the bitter words of Mrs. Trafton, and had +sympathized with her grief over her child; and all the time he listened +he had been secretly conscious that the little hoard he had gathered for +his burying would save Nellie from the Betts woman, a shrew notorious +all over the county for her cruelty. He remembered that Bill Trafton had +saved him from drowning; that Mrs. Betts had the credit of having caused +the death of her last bound child; and against this he set the terror of +rising at the Resurrection from the unblessed precincts of the Dartbank +Potter's Field. The mental conflict had been too much for him, and the +appeal of Mrs. Trafton to the Overseer had broken old Tim down. + +Tim was got to bed, and in time recovered his senses, although he was +very weak. Mrs. Trafton volunteered to watch with him that night, and so +it came about that at midnight she sat in the bare chamber where old Tim +lay. As the hours wore on Tim seemed much brighter, and asked her to +talk to him to while away the time. The only subject in her mind was her +child. + +"If Nellie was with my folks," she said, "I'd try to stand being away +from her; but it's just killing me to have that Betts woman starve her +and beat her the way she's done with the others. She'd kill Nellie." + +Tim moved uneasily in bed. + +"But ye'd be after seein' the child here," he muttered feebly. + +"I'd see her no more'n if she was with my folks," returned Louizy +bitterly; "but I'd know how she was suffering." + +The sick man did not answer. He turned his face to the wall and lay +silent. After a time his regular breathing showed that he slept, while +the watcher brooded in hopeless grief. At length Tim grew restless and +began to mutter in his sleep. + +"The poor creature's having a bad dream," Louizy said to herself, as his +words grew more vehement and wild. "I wonder if I'd better wake him." + +She was still debating the matter in her mind when Tim gave a sudden cry +and sat up in bed, trembling in every limb. His face was ghastly. + +"Oh, I will, I will!" he cried out. "I will, so help me Holy Mary!" + +"Tim, Tim, what's the matter?" asked the nurse. + +The old man clutched her hands desperately for a moment, and then seemed +to recover a little his reason. He sank down again and closed his eyes. +For a time he lay there silent. Then he said with strange solemnity:-- + +"'T is a vision meself has had this night, Louizy." + +She thought his mind still wandering, but in a moment he went on with +more calmness: "I'll tell it to ye all, Louizy. Give me a sup till I get +strength. I'm no more strong than a blind kitten that's just born." + +She gave him nourishment and stimulant, and Tim feebly and with many +pauses told his dream. The force of a natural dramatic narrator still +shaped his speech, and as he became excited, he spoke with more and more +strength, until he was sitting up in bed, and speaking with a voice more +clear than he had used for many a day. + +"But it was a fearsome dream's had holt on me the night. 'T is meself's +been palarvering with the blessed St. Peter face to face and tongue to +tongue; and if I'd ought to be some used to it through having been dead +once already by drowning, this time I was broke up by being dead in good +earnest, by the same token that when St. Peter set his two piercing +black eyes on me, I could tell by the look of 'em that it was straight +through me whole body he was seeing. + +"And the first thing I knew in my dream I was going all sole alone on +a frightsome road all sprinkled over with ashes and bones, and I that +crawly in my back I could feel the backbone of me wiggling up and down +like a caterpillar, so my heart was choking in my throat with the fear +of it. And I went on and I went on; and all the time it was in the head +of me there was that coming behind was more fearsome than all the bones +and skelingtons forninst. And I went on and I went on, seeming to +be pushed along like, and not able to help meself; and all the time +something was creeping, and creeping, and creeping behind, till all the +blood in my body was that chilled the teeth of me chattered. And I went +on and I went on till I could n't stand it one mortal minute more; but I +had to turn if the life went out of me for it. And there behind was a +mite of a girl, a wee bit thing, thin and starved looking, and seeming +that weak it was pitiful to see. 'Poor thing,' sez I to my own ghost, +'it's pitying her the day is Tim Calligan, if I be him,' sez I, 'and not +some other body, for having no body perhaps I ain't anybody at all, but +just a spook in this place that ain't nowhere.' And all the time I was +that scared of the wee bit child, being as it were where it could n't +be, and me dead before it and it dead behind me, and always following +and following; so without thinking deeply what was to be done, I starts +up and runs as hard as my legs that was turned into ghost shanks would +let me. And I run through them ashes, stumbling on bones and seeing +shadows that would get in the way and I had to run through 'em, and the +weight of the horror of it words would n't tell. + +"And when I run, the wee bit child run; and it scared me worse than +ever when the further I run away from it the closer it was to me, till +at last it had a grab on the tail of my coat; and it clung on, and I +that mad with fear I had no more sense than a hen with its head cut +off and goes throwing itself round about for anger at the thought of +being killed, and not knowing it is dead already. And oh, Louizy, the +scaresomeness of the places I run through a-trying to get rid of that +wee bit thing! It's downright awful to think of the things that can +happen to a dead man while he's alive all the time and forgetful of it +through dreaming! + +"So when I'd been going on till mortal man could n't stand it no longer, +let alone a ghost, there I was just forninst the gate of Heaven, not in +the least knowing how I come there or would I get in; and blessed St. +Peter himself on a white stone outside the gate sitting and smiling and +looking friendly so the terror went out of me like a shadow in the sun. +And I scraped my foot, and I went up close to him, standing that way +would I hide the child ahind of me; for sez I to meself: 'What'll I say +to his Reverence and he axes me about the girl?' And St. Peter he sez to +me, mighty polite and condescending: 'Good-morning,' sez he. 'The top of +the morning to your Reverence, and thank ye kindly,' sez I. 'And what'll +be your name?' sez he. 'Tim Calligan, your honor,' sez I, answering as +pert as ever I could; for there was that in his manner of speaking +that made me feel shivery, as if me heart'd been out all night in a +snowstorm. 'It's a decent, respectable body I am, your Reverence,' sez +I, 'though I say it as should n't, having nobody else at hand that would +put in a word for me.' 'And was ye buried in holy ground?' sez he. 'I +was that,' sez I; 'and many's the weary year I've been scraping to do +that,' sez I. 'And what'll that be behind ye?' sez he. And I looked +this way and that way, trying to make as if I did n't know; and at last +I pretended to spy the child, and to be that surprised he could n't +suspect I ever clapped eyes on the wee bit thing before. 'That, your +Reverence,' sez I, 'has the look of a scrap of a girl. Is it one your +Reverence is bringing up?' sez I, being that desperate I was as bold +as a brass kettle. 'And what'll she be doing here?' sez his Reverence, +paying no heed to the impertinence of the question. 'Sure, how'll I know +that?' sez I. 'Will she be coming with you?' sez he. 'Don't she belong +hereabouts?' sez I, trying hard to brazen it out, and feeling my heart +go plump down out of my mouth into my boots, more by token that I was +barefoot the time. 'Will she be coming with you?' sez he again. 'Sorra +a bit,' sez I; 'I just could n't get away from her,' sez I. 'And what +for'll you be trying to get away from her, and her no bigger than a +bee's knee?' sez he, looking at me so hard that I could n't hold up my +face forninst him. 'Well, your Reverence,' sez I, looking down at the +stones, and seeing the weeds trying to grow between them in the very +face of Heaven itself, 'it's inconvenient traveling with a child +anywhere, let alone the ondecent places I've been through this night; +and the girl was n't mine, and I might get blamed for keeping her out +late, with her folks getting scared about her, not knowing where she +was, and not understanding she was where your Holiness would be after +caring for her.' And with that St. Peter put out his hand, looking that +sharp his eyes went through me like needles; and he pulled the wee bit +child from behind me, and he sez to her: 'What is the name of yer?' +'Nellie,' sez she, her voice so thin you could n't hear it, only knowing +what she said from the moving of her lips like shadows on the wall. +'And how came you here?' sez he. 'I was beat and starved to death,' +sez she, shivering till 't was a mercy she did n't go to pieces like +a puff of smoke. And with that St. Peter looked at me once more, and +the cold sweat run down my backbone like rain down a conductor in a +thunder-storm. 'Your Reverence,' sez I, trembling, 'I did n't beat and +starve the girl.' 'That may be,' sez he, 'but there'll be some reason +why she's hanging on to your coat-tail like a burr on a dog,' sez he. +'What for are you following Tim Calligan,' sez he to the girl, 'and he +dead and resting in holy ground?' And with that she put you her little +front finger, that was as thin as a sparrow's claw that's starved to +death in winter, and she pointed to me, and sez she: 'He would n't give +the money to send me to my folks,' sez she; 'and my own father saved the +life of him when he was dead and drownded before I was born,' sez she. +'What for would n't you give the money, Tim?' sez St. Peter, sitting +there on that white stone like a judge trying the life of a man. 'Your +Reverence,' sez I, falling down on the stones at the feet of him, +'twenty years was I struggling, and saving, and scraping to get the bit +money for a grave in holy ground! If I'd give it to the child, I'd be +down this blessed minute I'm having the honor of conversing with your +Holiness--and it's proud I am of your condescending so far!--lying in +unconsecrated ground all cheek by jowl with heretics, and like as not +getting my bones mixed with theirs at the blessed resurrection. Sorra a +bit did I know the suffering of this poor wee bit thing.' 'And did her +father save your life?' sez he. 'He did that,' sez I, 'and a good, +decent, God-fearing man he were,' sez I, 'barring he were a heretic, +your Reverence, owing to his not being asked, it's likely, would he be +born a good Catholic,--and I hope your Reverence ain't been too hard on +Bill Trafton if he's come this way,' sez I. 'Tim,' sez St. Peter, +looking at me with a look like one of the long isuckles on the north +side of the barn in January,--'Tim, 't is no use trying the palarver on +me,' sez he. 'Ye know ye let this child get bound to that Betts woman, +and now she'll be bate to death, and who's to bear the blame if not ye +that might have stopped it? Do ye think, Tim Calligan,' sez he, raising +his voice so the blessed angels come a-looking over the holy walls of +Heaven to see what would be the matter,--by the same token that the +little gold hoops floating round their heads kept clashing together and +sounding like sleigh-bells, their heads was that close together on top +of the wall, and all their eyes looking at me that sorrowful like it +nigh broke my heart,--'do ye think,' sez he, 'you're sleeping in holy +ground when the price of the grave your worthless old carcass is in was +the life of this wee bit child?' And all the angels shook their heads, +and looked at me that reproachful the heart in me got so big it would +have killed me with its swelling only saving that I was dead already, +not to say being dead twice; and I fell to sobbing and praying to St. +Peter for mercy,--and the first thing I knew I woke up in bed, praise be +to the handiworks of God! made alive again, this being the third time, +counting the time I was first born." + +Tim's tale was long, and it was interrupted by frequent intervals of +rest made necessary by his weakness. When he ended, the pale forecast +of dawn shone into the squalid room. Louizy was crying softly, in the +suppressed fashion of folk unaccustomed to give full vent even to grief. +Tim lay quiet for a long time. At last he aroused himself to feel +beneath the mattress, and to bring to light a dirty bag of denim. This +he pressed into the hand of his nurse. + +"It'll take you both," he murmured feebly. "Blessings go with ye, and +the saints be good to the soul of Tim Calligan, coming up at the Day of +Judgment like a scared woodchuck out of unblessed ground!" + + +III + +Tim failed rapidly. The excitement of his dream and the moral struggle +through which he had passed had worn upon his enfeebled powers. On the +second day after his seizure the priest came from Tiverton to administer +the last rites. When this was over, Tim lay quiet, hardly seeming +alive. Thus he was when Springer, who drove over late in the afternoon, +came in to see him. + +"Tim," Springer said, "Mrs. Dooling has told me what you have done. The +ground you lie in will make little difference to a man that would do a +thing so white as that." + +"Thank you kindly," Tim answered, in the shadow of a voice. "Father +O'Connor's promised to bless my grave. It's not the same as being at +Tiverton where the ground would be soaked with the blessing all round, +but leastways St. Peter 'll not be after flinging it in my face that the +blood of the child's on me." + +The Overseer regarded him with such tenderness as did not often shine +within the doors of the poor-farm. + +"Tim," he said, leaning forward as if he were half ashamed of his good +impulse, "don't worry any more. I'll pay for your grave at Tiverton, and +see that you are put in it." + +The old pauper turned upon him a glance of positive rapture. He clasped +his thin, withered hands, trembling like rushes in the winds of autumn. + +"Holy and Blessed Virgin," he prayed, almost with a sob, "be good to him +for giving a poor old dying creature the wish of his heart! Blessed St. +Peter--" + +But the rush of joy was too great. With a face of ecstasy the old man +died. + + + + +MISS GAYLORD AND JENNY + + +When Alice Gaylord was, by the death of her grandmother, set free from +the long servitude of attending upon the invalid, it might have seemed +that nothing need hinder the fulfilling of her protracted engagement +to Dr. Carroll. The friends of both the young people expressed, in +decorous fashion, their satisfaction that old Mrs. Gaylord, ninety and +bed-ridden, should at last have been released, and it was entirely well +understood that what they meant was to signify their pleasure at the +ending of Alice's tedious waiting. Some doubt in regard to the girl's +health, however, still clouded the prospect. Long care and confinement +had told on her; and when a decent interval had passed after the death, +and the wedding did not take place, people began to say that it was such +a pity that Alice was not well enough to be married. + +Dr. Carroll was thinking of her health as, one gloomy November +afternoon, he walked down West Cedar Street to the house where Gaylords +had dwelt from the time when West Cedar Street began its decorous +existence, and where Alice declared she had herself lived for +generations. He glanced up at the narrow strip of sky like dull flannel +overhead, around at the dwellings like a row of proper spinsters ranged +on either side of the way, and at the Gaylord house itself, a brick and +glass epitome of old Boston respectability. He reflected impatiently +that of course Alice could be no better until he got her out of an +atmosphere so depressing. Then he remembered that he had always liked +West Cedar Street, and he began to wonder whether he were not getting so +morbid over Alice that some other physician should be called in. + +He had long been baffled by being unable to discover anything wrong, +beyond the fact that the girl was worn out with the strain of +ministering to an imperious and exacting invalid. She was nervously +exhausted; and he said to himself for the hundredth time that rest was +the only thing needed. A few months would set everything right. The +difficulty was that time had thus far not come up to what was expected +of it. Carroll was forced to acknowledge that, in spite of tonics and +rest, Alice was really not much better, and he had come almost to feel +that the real cause of her languor and weakness was involved in teasing +mystery. + +The prim white door, with its fan-light overhead and the discreetly +veiled side-windows fantastically leaded, was opened by Abby, a sort of +housekeeper, who had the air of being coeval with the house, if not with +Boston itself. George always smiled inwardly at the look with which he +was received by this primeval damsel, a look of virginal primness at the +idea of allowing in the house a man who was professedly a suitor, and he +declared to Alice that he was still, after long experience, a little +afraid of Abby's regard. To-day her customary look vanished quickly, to +give place to one more vivid and spontaneous. Abby put up a lean +finger, mysteriously enjoining silence, and spoke instantly in a +sibilant whisper. + +"Will you please come in here, sir, before you go upstairs?" she said. + +She waved her thin hand toward the little reception-room, and the +doctor, in mild wonderment, obeyed the gesture and entered. Abby closed +the door softly, and came toward him with an air of concern. + +"I must tell you, sir," the old servant said in a half voice, "a queer +thing's come." + +"A queer thing's come," he repeated, leaning against the mantel. "Come +from where?" + +"It's come, sir," repeated Abby, a certain relish of her mystery seeming +to his ear to impart an unctuous flavor to her tone. "It's just come. +Nobody knows where things come from, I guess." + +"Oh, you mean something's happened?" + +"Yes, sir; that's what I said." + +"But what is it?" + +"I don't know, sir; but it's queer." + +He looked at her wrinkled old face, where now the mouth was drawn in as +if she had pulled up her lips with puckering-strings lest some secret +escape. He smiled at her important manner, and, leaning his elbow on +the mantel, prepared for the slow process of getting at what the woman +really meant. It proved in the event less laborious than usual, and he +reflected that the directness with which Abby gave her information was +sufficient indication of the seriousness with which she regarded it. + +"Miss Alice ain't right, sir. She does what she don't know." + +"What do you mean?" he demanded, really startled. + +"She wrote a letter to you last night, and then instead of mailing it +she cut it all up into teenty tonty pieces, postage stamp and all; and +then said she did n't know who did it." + +Carroll stared at the woman. Whimsies and mysteries were alike so +foreign to Alice that his first and natural thought was that Abby had +lost her mind. + +"It's true, sir, every word," Abby insisted, answering his unspoken +incredulity. "She did just 's I say." + +"If she said she did n't know who did it," the young man said sharply, +"she did n't know." + +"Of course she did n't know. That 's what's queer." + +"But she could n't have done it herself." + +"Oh, but I saw her doing it, sir, and I wondered what was the matter +with the letter; only I did n't notice the postage stamp, or I'd have +spoken." + +Carroll knew that Abby was as well aware as was he of Alice's invincible +truthfulness, and that he had not to reckon with any unfounded suspicion +of deceit. If Alice had said she did not know who destroyed the letter, +then it was evident that she had done it unconsciously and in some +condition which needed to be inquired into. He leaned back against the +mantel, and playing absently with the dangling prisms which hung above a +brazen pair of pastoral lovers on the old-fashioned candelabra, he heard +Abby's story in full. Miss Gaylord had said to the servant that she was +about to write the letter, and that it must be posted that evening. +Going to the parlor after the note, Abby had seen her mistress cut it +to pieces. The maid withdrew, supposing that for some reason the note +needed rewriting; but on returning some time later, she had been met +by the declaration that it was on the table. As it was not there, her +mistress had joined in searching for it, but nothing could be found save +the fragments in the waste-basket. Miss Gaylord had insisted that she +had not cut it, and that she was entirely ignorant of how the damage had +occurred. + +Dr. Carroll was puzzled and troubled, nor was he less so when Alice had +given him her account. She did this unsolicited, and with evident +frankness. + +"I suppose, George," she said, "it's absent-mindedness; but if I have +got so far that I don't know what I'm doing, I'd better be shut up for +a lunatic at once." + +"Has anything of the sort ever happened before?" he asked. + +"I am not sure," was her answer; "but sometimes I've found things done +that I could not remember doing: my clothes put in queer places, and +that sort of thing, you know. I never really thought much about it +before. You don't think--" + +He could see that she was seriously troubled, and he set himself to +dissipate her concern. + +"I think you are tired, and so you may be a little absent-minded; but I +certainly do not think it's worth making any fuss about. You and Abby +will have a theory of demoniacal possession soon, to account for a mere +slip of memory." + +He did not leave her until it seemed to him that she no longer regarded +the incident seriously; but in his own mind he was by no means at +ease. At the earliest moment possible he went to consult with a fellow +physician who was a specialist in disorders of the nerves, and to him +he told the whole case as accurately as he was able. The specialist +put some questions and in the end asked:-- + +"Has she ever been hypnotized?" + +"I'm sure she never has," Carroll answered. "She might easily be a +subject, I should think. She's naturally nervous, and just now she is +run down and unstrung." + +"It seems like a case of self-hypnotism," the other said. "Sometimes, +you know, patients unconsciously hypnotize themselves, or get +hypnotized, without having any idea of it." + +"But would n't she know it afterward?" + +"Oh, no; the second personality generally knows all about the first--" + +"You mean," interrupted Carroll, "that the normal person is the first +and the hypnotized is the second?" + +"Yes. The personality that comes to the surface in hypnotism, the +subliminal self, knows all about the normal person, but the normal +person has no idea of the existence of the secondary, the subliminal +personality." + +"It's so cheerful to think of yourself as a sort of nest of boxes," +Carroll commented grimly, "one personality inside of the other, and you +only knowing about the outside box." + +"Or you _being_ only the outside box, perhaps," the specialist +responded, with a smile. "Well, what we don't know would fill rather a +good-sized book." + +The suggestion of hypnotism remained in Carroll's mind, and it was not +many days before he had a sufficiently plain but altogether disagreeable +confirmation of the specialist's theory. He was with Alice in the old +drawing-room, a place of quaint primness, with fine, staid Copley +portraits, and an air of self-respecting propriety utterly at variance +with psychical mysteries. He stood gazing out of the window, while Alice +moved about the room looking for a book of which they had been speaking, +and his eye was caught by a sparkling point of light on the sunlit wall +of the house opposite. He made some casual remark in regard to it, and +Alice came to look over his shoulder. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"It must be a grain of sand in the mortar, I suppose," he answered. "It +is making a tremendous effect for such a little thing." + +She did not answer for an instant. Then she burst into a laugh which to +him sounded strange and unpleasant, and clapped her hands. + +"Well, I've come," she said joyously. + +He wheeled quickly toward her. Her face seemed to have undergone a +change, slight yet extraordinary. She was laughing with a glee that was +not without a suspicion of malice, and she met his look with a boldness +so different from the usual regard of Alice as to seem almost brazen. +He could see that his evident bewilderment amused her greatly. A +mischievous twinkle lighted her glance. + +"Oh, of course you think I'm she; but I'm not. I'm a good deal nicer. +She's a tiresome old thing, anyway. You'd like me a great deal better." + +Carroll was entirely too confused to speak, but he was a physician, and +could not help reflecting instantly upon the cause of this strange +metamorphosis. He naturally thought of hypnotism, and he came in a +second thought to realize that Alice had with amazing rapidity been +sent into a hypnotic condition by looking for an instant at the +glittering point on the wall of the house across the street. What the +result might be, or what the words she spoke meant, he could not even +conjecture. + +"Don't stare at me so," the girl went on. "I'm Jenny." + +"Oh," he repeated confusedly, "you're Jenny?" + +"Yes; I'm Jenny, and I'm worth six of that silly Alice you're engaged +to." + +He took her lightly by the shoulders and looked at her, quite as much +for the sake of steadying his own nerves as from any expectation of +learning anything by examination. Her eyes shone with an unwonted +brightness, and seemed to him to gleam with an archness of which Alice +would not have been capable. The cheeks were flushed, not feverishly, +but healthily, and the girl had lost completely the appearance of +exhaustion which had troubled him so long. The head was carried with a +new erectness, and as he regarded her she tossed it saucily. + +"You may look at me as much as you like," she said gayly. "I can stand +it. Don't you think I am better looking than she is?" + +He was convinced that Alice could not know what she was saying, yet he +involuntarily cried out:-- + +"Don't, Alice! I don't like it!" + +She pouted her lips, lips which to his excited fancy seemed to have +grown redder and fuller than he had ever seen them, and she made a droll +little grimace. + +"I'm not Alice, I tell you. Kiss me." + +In all their long engagement Alice had never asked him for a caress, and +the request hurt him now as something unwomanly. Instead of complying, +he dropped his hands and turned away. She laughed shrilly. + +"Oh, you won't kiss me? I thought it was polite to do what a lady asked! +Well, if you won't now, you will some time. You'll want to when you know +me better." + +She moved away, but he caught her by the arm. + +"Stop!" he ordered her, with all the determination he could put into +the word. "Wake up, Alice! Be done with this fooling!" + +The bright face grew anxious and the pouting lips beseeching. + +"Don't send me away! I'll be good! Don't make her come back!" + +"Alice," he repeated, clasping her arm firmly, "wake up!" + +"You hurt me!" she cried half whiningly. "You hurt me! I'll go." + +The wild brightness faded from the eyes, a change too subtle to be +defined seemed to come over the whole figure, the old tired expression +spread like mist over the face, and the familiar Alice stood there, +passing her hand over her eyes. + +"What is the matter?" she asked, in a startled way. "Did I faint?" + +He was conscious that his look must have alarmed her, and he made a +desperate effort to speak easily and naturally. + +"I guess you came mighty near it," he answered, as naturally as he +could. "It's all right now." + +For some days nothing unusual happened, so far as Carroll knew. He +watched Alice closely, and he plunged into all the literature on the +subject of hypnotism upon which he could lay hands. He was not sure that +at the end of a week's hard reading he was much clearer than at the +beginning, although he had at least accumulated a fine assortment of +terms in the nomenclature of animal magnetism. He cautiously questioned +Abby, and learned that for some time Alice had been subject to what the +old servant called "notional spells when she were n't herself." His +friend the specialist was greatly interested in all that Dr. Carroll +could tell him about the case. + +"It is evidently a subliminal self coming to the surface," he +pronounced. "I've seen cases somewhat similar, but only one where the +patient was not hypnotized by somebody else." + +"But what can I do about it?" George demanded. "I don't want any +subliminal selves floating about. I want the girl I know." + +"Build up her general health," the other advised. "You say she's run +down and used up with taking care of her grandmother. Get her rested. +That's the only thing I can say. She is n't really ill, is she?" + +"God knows what you call it," was Carroll's response. "She can't be +called well when she goes off the way she did the other day. I tell you +it was frightful, simply frightful!" + +The days went on, and once more George had the uncanny experience of a +chat with Jenny. Alice had been looking over some of her grandmother's +belongings, and when he called, came down to him with a necklace of +rhinestones dangling and sliding through her fingers. + +"See," she accosted him, in the buoyant manner he remembered only too +vividly, "is n't this gay? I should wear it, only I'm in her clothes, +and she won't wear anything but poky black." + +Carroll tried to steady his nerves against the sudden shock. + +"Of course you wear black, Alice," he said; "it is only six months since +your grandmother died." + +She made him a merry, mocking grimace. + +"Now don't pretend you don't know I'm Jenny," she retorted. "I saw you +knew me the minute you heard me speak. Alice! Pooh! She'd have come into +the room this way." + +She darted to the door and turned back, to advance with her face pulled +down and her eyelids dropped. + +"How do you do, dear?" she greeted him, with a burlesque of Alice's +manner so droll that he laughed in spite of himself. + +Jenny herself burst into a shout of merriment and whirled about in a +pirouette, swinging the sparkling chain around her head. + +"Is n't it fun?" she exclaimed, pausing before him with her head on one +side; "she can't even look at a bright thing half a minute but off she +goes, and here I am. Before I go this time, I'm going to stick up every +shiny thing I can find where she'll see it." + +Carroll had a sickening sensation, as if the girl he loved had gone mad +before his very eyes; yet so completely did she appear like a stranger +that the feeling faded as soon as it arose. This was certainly no Alice +that he knew. He could not speak to her as his friend and betrothed, +although it was equally impossible to address her as a stranger. He was +too completely baffled and confused to be able to determine on any line +of action, and she stood smiling at him as if she were entirely +conscious of what was passing in his troubled brain. + +"Did you know I cut up her letter?" Jenny demanded, with a smile +apparently called up by the remembrance. + +"Yes," he answered, exactly as if the question had been put by a third +person. + +"It was an awfully foolish letter," the girl went on. "I won't have her +writing like that to you. You've got to belong to me." + +He had neither the time nor the coolness to realize his emotions, but he +accepted for the moment the assumption of the individuality of Jenny. + +"You are nothing to me," he said. "I am engaged to Alice." + +"Oh, that's all right. I know that. I know all about her; lots more than +you do. But I tell you, you'd a great deal better take me. I'm just as +much the girl you're engaged to as she is." + +He looked at her darkly and with trouble in his eyes. + +"Where is Alice?" he asked. + +"Oh, she's all right. She's somewhere. Asleep, I think likely. I don't +want to talk about her. I never liked her." + +"Talk about yourself, then. Where are you when Alice is here?" + +"Oh, that's stupid. I'd rather talk about what we'll do when we are +married. Shall we go abroad right off?" + +"It will be time enough to talk about that when there's any prospect of +our being married." + +"You would n't kiss me the other day," Jenny said, looping the necklace +about his throat and bending forward so that her face was close to his. + +A feeling of anger so strong that it was almost brutal came over him. He +tore the necklace out of her hands and threw it across the room. Then, +as on the previous occasion, he caught the girl by the wrists. + +"Go away!" he commanded. "Let Alice come back!" + +"Oh, you hurt me!" she cried. "I can't bear to be hurt! Let me go!" + +He tightened his grasp. + +"If you don't go, I'll really hurt. I won't have you fooling with Alice +like this." + +Her glance wavered on his; then the eyelids drooped; and he loosened his +hold with the consciousness that Alice had come back. + +"Why, George," she said, in her natural voice; "I did n't know you were +here." + +He took her in his arms with a feeling as near to the hysterical as he +was capable of, and then instantly devoted himself to dissipating the +anxiety which his obvious agitation aroused in her. + +As time went on, the appearances of Jenny became more frequent. The fact +that this secondary personality had once been in control of the body +which it shared with Alice seemed to make its reappearance more easy. +Alice evidently became more susceptible to whatever conditions produced +this strange possession. It was clear to Carroll that each time the +elfish Jenny succeeded in gaining possession of consciousness,--for so +he put it to himself, entirely realizing what a confusing paradox the +phrase implied,--she became stronger and better able to assert herself. +He grew more and more disturbed, but he was also more and more +completely baffled. Sometimes the matter presented itself to his +professional mind as a medical case of absorbing interest; sometimes it +appealed to him as a freak of gigantic irony on the part of fate; and +yet again he was swept away by love or by passionate pity and sorrow for +Alice. He felt that, all unconscious of her peril,--for she knew nothing +of her mysterious double,--she was being robbed of her very personality. + +Most curious of all was his feeling toward Jenny, who had come in +his mind to represent an individual as tangible, as human, and as +self-existent as Alice herself. He never allowed himself to encourage +her presence, despite the fact that natural curiosity and professional +interest might well make him eager to study her peculiarities. He +insisted always upon her speedy departure from the body into which she +had intruded herself--or so he doggedly insisted with himself--like an +evil spirit. He had soon learned that her fear of physical pain was +excessive; that, like the child that she often seemed, she could be +managed best by dread of punishment; and he for a considerable time had +been able to frighten her away by threats of hurting her. As the days +went on, however, she began to laugh at his menaces, and he was obliged +to resort to trifling physical force. The strong grasp on the wrists +had sufficed at first, but it had to be increased as Jenny apparently +decided that he would not dare to carry out his threats, and one day he +found himself twisting the girl's arm backward in a determined effort +to drive off this persistent ghoul-like presence. The idea of injuring +Alice came over him so sickeningly that, had not his betrothed at that +instant recovered her normal state, he felt that he must have abandoned +the field. As it was, he was so unmanned that he could only plead a +suddenly remembered professional engagement and get out of the house +with the utmost possible speed. + +There were other moods which were perhaps even worse. Now and again he +was conscious of a strong attraction toward this laughing girl who +defied him, looking at him with the eyes of Alice, but brimming them +with merriment; who tempted him with Alice's lips, yet ripened them with +warm blood and pouted them so bewitchingly; who walked toward him with +the form of his betrothed, but swayed that body with a grace and an +allurement of which Alice knew nothing. He felt in his nostrils a +quiver of desire, and shame and self-scorn came in its wake. Not only +did he feel that he had been false to Alice, but by a painful and +disconcerting paradox he felt that he was offering to her a degrading +insult in being moved by what at least was her body, as he might have +been moved by the sensual attractiveness of a light woman. Jenny was at +once so distinct, so far removed from Alice, and yet so identified with +her, that his emotions confounded themselves in baffling confusion. It +was not only that he could not think logically about the matter, but he +seemed also to have lost the directing influence of instinctive feeling. +Jenny represented nothing ethical, nothing spiritual, not even anything +moral. He was filled with disgust at himself for being moved by her, yet +humanly his masculine nature could not but respond to her spell; and +the impossibility of either separating this from his love for Alice or +reconciling it with the respect he had for her left him in a state of +mental confusion as painful as it seemed hopeless. + +He became so troubled that it was inevitable Alice should notice his +uneasiness, and he was not in the least surprised when one evening she +said to him:-- + +"George, what is the matter? Are you worrying about me?" + +He had prepared himself over and over to answer such a question, but +now he only hesitated and stumbled. + +"Why--what makes you think anything is the matter?" + +"I know there is; and I'm sure it's my fainting-spells." + +She had come to speak of her seizures by this term, and George had +accepted it, secretly glad that she had no idea worse than that of loss +of consciousness. + +"Why, of course I am troubled, so long as you are not well, but--" + +"You don't like to tell me what is the matter," she went on calmly, but +with an earnestness which showed she had thought long on the matter. "I +dare say I should n't be any better for knowing, and I can trust you; +but I know you are worrying, and it troubles me." + +His resolution was taken at once. + +"See here, Alice," he said, "the truth is that you need to get away from +Boston and have an entire change of scene and climate. You used to be a +good sailor, and a sea voyage will set you up. I'm going to marry you +next week and take you to Italy." + +"Why, George, you can't!" + +"I shall." + +"Even if I were well, I could n't be ready." + +"Who cares? As to being well, you are going so you may get well. When I +order patients to go away for their health, I expect them to go." + +She became serious, and looked at him with eyes of infinite sadness. + +"Dear George," she said, "I can't marry you just to be a patient. You +must n't go through life encumbered by an invalid wife." + +"I've no notion of doing anything of the kind," he responded brightly. +"It would be too poor an advertisement, and that's the reason I insist +on taking you abroad. What day do you choose, Wednesday, Thursday, or +Friday? We sail Saturday." + +He would listen to no objections, but got Thursday fixed for the +wedding, and pushed forward rapidly his preparations for going abroad. +He enlisted the coöperation of a cousin of Alice, an efficient lady +accustomed to carry everything before her, and, as Abby warmly approved +of his decision, he felt that Alice would be ready. He saw Alice but +briefly until Sunday evening, when he found her in a state of much +agitation. + +"I am really out of my mind," she said. "What do you think I have done?" + +"I don't care, if you have n't changed your mind about Thursday." + +"I ought to change my mind. Oh, George, I've no right--" + +"That is settled," he interrupted decisively. "What have you done that +is so dreadful?" + +She produced a waist of dove-colored silk. + +"Of course I could n't be married in black, you know, and this was to be +my dress. See here." + +The front of the waist was cut and slashed from top to bottom. + +"I must have done it some time to-day. Oh, George, it's dreadful!" + +For the first time in all the long, hard trial of their protracted +engagement, she broke down and cried bitterly. He took her in his arms +and soothed her. He told her he knew all about it, and that she was +going to be entirely well; that he asked only that she would not worry, +but would trust to him that she would come safely and happily out of all +this trouble and mystery. She yielded to his persuasions, and, indeed, +it was evident that she had hardly strength to resist him even had she +not believed. She rested quietly on his shoulder and let him drift into +a description of the route he had laid out, and in her interest she +seemed to forget her trouble. + +Before he left, she asked him what she could tell the dressmaker, who +would suspect if she was given no reason for being called upon to make a +new waist. He took the injured garment, went to the writing-table, and +splashed ink on the cut portions. + +"You showed it to me," he said gayly, "and I was so incredibly clumsy +as to spill ink on it. Men are so stupid." + +She laughed, and he went away feeling that he could gladly have +throttled Jenny, could he but succeed in getting her in some other +body than that belonging to his betrothed. If he was irritated by this +experience, however, he had one to meet later which tried him still +more. Abby, on letting him into the house on Tuesday, once more led him +mysteriously into the reception-room. + +"Miss Alice's been writing to herself, sir." + +She held toward him a sealed and stamped envelope addressed to Alice. He +took it half mechanically, and as he wondered how he was to circumvent +this new trick of the maliciously ingenious Jenny, he noted that the +handwriting was strangely different from Alice's usual style. + +"Did she give you this to post?" he asked. + +"It was with the other letters, and I noticed it and did n't mail it." + +"I'll take it," he said. "You did perfectly right." + +He wondered whether the prescience of Jenny would enable her to discover +that he had destroyed her note to Alice; then he smiled to realize how +he was coming to think of her as almost a supernatural demon, and +reflected that nothing could be easier than for her to leave a paper +where Alice must find it. A couple of days later he found his thought +verified when Alice said to him:-- + +"George, who is Jenny?" + +As she spoke, she put into his hand an unsigned note which said only, +"George loves Jenny." The instant which was necessarily taken for its +examination gave him a chance to steady himself. + +"You wrote it yourself," he said quietly. "Don't you recognize your +paper and your writing? It's a little strange, but sleep-writing always +is." + +"Then I am a somnambulist!" she exclaimed, with flushing cheek. + +"There is nothing dreadful in that," he replied. "You have promised to +trust me about your health. I know all about it, and if you write +yourself forty notes, you are not to bother." + +She sighed, and then bravely smiled. + +"I'll try not to worry," she told him; "but I am a coward not to send +you away. I wonder why I should have chosen Jenny as the name of your +beloved." + +"I'm sure I don't know; it's an ugly name enough," he responded, with a +quick thought that he hoped Jenny could hear. "At any rate, I tell you +with my whole heart that you are the only woman in the world for me." + +He did not see Jenny again until the evening before his marriage. He +fancied she was avoiding him, especially as once Alice sent down word +that she was too busy to see him. He received, however, a note on +Wednesday. The hand, so like that of Alice and yet so unmistakably +different, affected him most unpleasantly, nor was he made more at ease +by the contents. + +"You think you got ahead of me by telling Alice she was a sleep-walker, +did n't you! Well, I don't care, for I'm going to get rid of her for +always when we are married. I did n't mean to be married in that nasty +old gray dress, and I won't be, either. You see if I am. You are very +unkind to me. You might remember that I'm a great deal fonder of you +than she is, because I've got real feeling and she's a kind of graven +image. You'll love your little wifie Jenny very dearly." + +Dr. Carroll began to feel as if his own brain were whirling. He could +not reply to the note, since he could hardly address a letter to Jenny +somewhere inside the personality of Alice. He realized that a strain +such as this would soon so tell on him that he would be unfit to care +for Alice, and he made up his mind that the time had come for the +strongest measures. To tell what the strongest measures were, however, +was a problem which occupied him for the rest of the day, and about +which he consulted the specialist. Even when, that evening, he walked +down West Cedar Street, he could hardly be sure that he would carry out +his plan. He was told at the door by Abby that Miss Alice had given +strict orders against his being admitted. + +"When did she do that?" he inquired. + +"This forenoon, sir, when she gave me that note to send to you. She was +queer, sir. She had a cab and went down town shopping, and came back +with a big box. Then she had a nap, and to-night she's all right." + +"I'll go up, Abby. It is necessary for me to see her." + +As he came into the drawing-room Alice sprang up to meet him. + +"I began to be afraid you would n't come," she said. "I've been queer +to-day, I know; and there's a dressmaker's box in my room I never saw, +and it's marked not to be opened till to-morrow. Oh, George, I am so +frightened and miserable! I know I ought to send you away, and not let +you marry me." + +"Send me away, by all means, if it will make you feel any better. I +shan't go. Sit down in this chair; I want to show you something." + +She took the seat he indicated. He trimmed the fire and left the poker +in the coals. Then from his pocket he took a ball of silvered glass as +large as an orange, and began to toss it in his hands. She stared at it +in silence for half a minute. Then the unmistakable laugh of Jenny rang +out. + +"So you really wanted to see me, did you?" she cried. "I knew you would +some time." + +"Yes," was his reply. "You may be sure I wanted to see you pretty badly +before I'd take the risk of doing something that may be bad for Alice." + +"Oh, it's still Alice, is it?" Jenny responded, pouting. "I hoped you'd +got more sense by this time. Honest, now," she continued, leaning +forward persuasively, "don't you think you'd like me best? The trouble +is, you think you're tied to her, and you don't dare do what you want +to. I'd hate to be such a coward!" + +He looked at the beautiful creature bending toward him, and he could not +but acknowledge in his heart that she was physically more attractive +than Alice, that she stirred in him a fever of the blood which he had +never known when with the other. All the attraction which had drawn him +to Alice was there, save for certain spiritual qualities, and added +was a new charm which he felt keenly. He could not define to himself +clearly, moreover, what right or ground he had for objecting to this +form of the personality of his betrothed, to this potential Alice, who +in certain ways moved him more than the Alice he had known so long. He +had only a dogged instinct to guide him, an unescapable inner conviction +that the normal consciousness of the girl had inalienable rights which +manhood and honor called upon him to defend. In part this was the +feeling natural to a physician, but more it was the Puritan loyalty to +an idea of justice. The more he felt himself stirred by the fascination +of Jenny, the more strongly his sense of right urged him to end, if +possible, this frightful possession forever. Both for himself and for +Alice, he was resolute now to go to any extreme. + +"You are at liberty to put it any way you please," he responded to her +taunt, with grave courtesy. "I called you to tell you that I am going to +marry Alice to-morrow, and that I will not have her personality +interfered with any more." + +"Oh, you won't? How are you going to help it?" + +He looked at her eyes sparkling with mischievous defiance, at her red +lips pouted in saucy insolence, and he wavered. Then in the instant +revulsion from this weakness he turned to the fire and took from the +coals the glowing poker. + +"That is how I mean to help it," he said. + +She shrank and turned pale; but she did not yield. + +"You can't fool me like that," she said. "You would n't really hurt the +body of that precious Alice of yours. You can't burn me without her +being burned too." + +"She had better be burned than to be under the control of a little devil +like you." + +For the moment they faced each other, and then her glance dropped. She +fell on her knees with a bitter cry, and held up to him her clasped +hands. + +"Oh, why can't you let me stay!" she half sobbed. "Why won't you give me +a chance? You don't know how good I'll be! I'll do every single thing +you want me to. I know all your ways as well as she does, and I'll make +you happy. Why should n't I have as much right to live as she?" + +The wail of her pleading almost unmanned him. He felt instinctively that +his only chance of carrying through his plan was to refuse to listen. +The thought surged into his mind that perhaps she had as much claim to +consciousness as Alice; he seemed to be murdering this strange creature +kneeling to him with streaming eyes and quivering mouth. He had to turn +away so as not to see her. + +"I will not listen to you," he said doggedly. "I will not have you +trouble Alice. As sure as there's a God in heaven, if you come back +again when I am with her, I'll burn you with a hot iron; and I mean to +watch her all the time after we are married." + +"If you married me, you'd have to help me against her," Jenny said, +apparently as much to herself as to him. + +He made no other answer than to bring the heated iron so near to her +cheek that she must have felt its glow. She threw back her head with a +cry of fear. Then a look of defiance came over the face, and the red +lips took a mocking curve; but in the twinkle of an eye it was Alice who +knelt on the rug before him. + +The strain of this interview, with the after-necessity of reassuring +Alice, left Carroll in a condition little conducive to sleep. All +night he revolved in his head the circumstances of this strange case, +comforting himself as well as he was able with the hope that at last he +had frightened Jenny away for good. He reflected on the Scriptural +stories of demoniacal possession, and wondered whether hypnotism might +not have played some part in them; he speculated on the future, and now +and then found himself wondering what would have come of his choosing +Jenny instead of Alice. A haggard bridegroom he looked when Abby opened +the door to him the next forenoon, and he grew yet paler when the old +servant said to him, with brief pathos,-- + +"She 's queer again." + +Carroll set his teeth savagely. He hardly returned the greetings of the +few friends assembled in the drawing-room, but went at once to the +fireplace, applied a match to the fire laid there, and thrust the poker +between the bars of the grate. The clergyman came in, and in another +moment the rustle of the bride's gown was heard from the stairs outside. +Then, on the arm of a cousin of the Gaylords, appeared in the doorway a +figure in white. The sweat started on Carroll's forehead. He realized +that Jenny was making one more desperate effort to marry him. He +remembered her last words of the evening before, and saw that then she +must have had this in mind. He looked her straight in the eyes, and +then turned to the grate. As he stooped to grasp the poker the bride +stopped, trembled, put her hand to the door-jamb as if for support. +Then George, watching, put the iron down and advanced to Alice. What the +assembled company might think of his stirring the fire at that moment he +did not care. He felt that he had triumphed; and at least it was Alice +and not Jenny whom he married. + +So far as Carroll can determine, Jenny never again intruded upon Alice's +personality. Renewed health, varied interests, and the ever watchful +affection of her husband gave Mrs. Carroll self-poise and fixed her in +a normal state. But there is a little daughter, and now and then the +father catches his breath, so startlingly into her face and into her +manner comes a likeness to Jenny. + + + + +DR. POLNITZSKI + + +"So you think," Dr. Polnitzski said, smiling rather satirically, "that +you are really tasting the bitterness of life?" + +"I did n't say anything of the sort," I retorted impatiently. "I was n't +making anything so serious of it; but you'll own that to be thrown over +your horse's head on a stake that rips a gash six inches long in your +thigh is n't precisely amusing." + +"Oh, quite the contrary," he answered. "I'm prepared to admit so much." + +"In the very middle of the hunting season, too," I went on, "and at the +house of a friend. More than that, a man never gets over the feeling +that everybody secretly thinks an accident must be his own fault and he +a duffer. Even Lord Eldon, who's good nature itself and no end of a +jolly host, must think--" + +"Nonsense," my physician interrupted brusquely, "Lord Eldon is not a +fool, and he realizes that this was n't your fault as well as you do +yourself. You take the whole thing so hard because you've evidently +never come in contact with the realities of life." + +He was so magnificent a man as he stood there that the brusqueness of +his words was easily forgiven; he had been so unremitting in his care +ever since, in the illness of Lord Eldon's family physician, he had been +called in on the occasion of my accident, that I had become genuinely +attached to him. Our acquaintance had ripened into something almost like +intimacy, since my host and his family had been unexpectedly called from +home by the illness of a married daughter, and it had come to be the +usual thing for Dr. Polnitzski to pass with me the evenings of my slow +convalescence, which would otherwise have been so intolerably tedious. + +"I dare say I've been too much babied most of my life," I returned; "but +a month of this sort of thing is pretty serious for anybody." + +He smiled, then his face grew grave. + +"I dare say you may think me tediously moral," he said, "but I can't +help thinking of what I see every day. For some years I've been trying +to do something for the poor people about here, and especially for the +operatives over at Friezeton. If you had any idea of the things I've +seen-- But, after all, you would n't understand if I were to tell you." + +"I know," I returned, "that you have devoted yourself to the most +generous work among those poor wretches." + +"I beg your pardon," responded he, stiffening at once, "but we will, if +you please, waive compliments." + +"But," I persisted, "Lord Eldon and others have more than once expressed +their wonder that you, with talents and acquirements so unusual, should +bury yourself--" + +"I was not speaking of myself," he interrupted, somewhat impatiently, +"but of my poor patients. If you knew what they suffer uncomplainingly, +it might make you a little more content." + +We were both silent for a little time. I looked across the chamber at +the strong figure of the Russian, as he stood by the fire, and wondered +what his past had been. I knew that he was a mystery to all the +neighborhood where he had lived for the better part of a dozen years. +He was evidently a gentleman, and he seemed to be wealthy. I had +myself found him to be of unusual culture and refinement, and he had +unobtrusively won recognition as a physician of marked skill and +attainments. The wonder was why he should be living in England as an +exile, and why he so persistently resisted all efforts to draw him from +his retirement. He devoted himself to philanthropic work in a perfectly +quiet fashion, declining to be enrolled as part of any organized +charity. He was more and more, however, coming to be appreciated as a +skillful physician, and to be called in for consultation. He impressed +me on the whole as a man who had a past, and I could not but wonder +what that past had been. + +"I dare say you are right," I answered, somewhat absently, "but has it +never occurred to you that it is easy to make the mistake of judging +the suffering of others by our own standards instead of by their real +feelings? It seems to be assumed nowadays that all men are born with +the same sensibilities, yet nothing could be farther from the truth." + +Dr. Polnitzski did not reply for a moment. He seemed this evening to be +unusually restless. He walked about the room, getting up as soon as he +sat down, and made impulsive movements which apparently betrayed some +inward disturbance. + +"Of course you are right," he said at length, in an absent manner. "The +classes not bred to sensitiveness cannot have the real sensibility--" + +He broke off abruptly and came across to my couch. + +"We were talking," he began, with a sudden, bitter vehemence which +startled me, "of real suffering. See! I have lived here silent in an +alien land for long years; but to-day--to-day is an anniversary, and I +have somehow lost the power to be silent any longer. If you care to +listen, I will tell you what I mean by suffering; I will tell you what +life has been to me." + +"If you will," I responded, "I will try to understand." + +He seemed hardly to hear or to heed my words, but, walking up and down +the chamber, he began at once, speaking with the outbursting eagerness +of a man who has restrained himself long. + +"My father," he said, "was one of the small nobles in the neighborhood +of Moscow. I was his only son, and when he died, in my seventeenth year, +I had been his companion so much that I was as mature as most lads half +a dozen years older. My mother was a gentle, good woman. I loved my +mother, but she made little difference in my life. She was kind to me +and she prayed for me a good deal. She thought her prayers answered when +I grew up without debauchery. She may have been right; but I have lived +to think that there are worse things than debauchery." + +He paused a moment, and then went on, looking downward. + +"Once the little mother was frightened," he went on again, with a +strange mingling of bitterness and tenderness in his tone. "There was +a girl, the daughter of the steward; her name was Alexandrina." + +His voice as he pronounced the stately name was full of feeling. He +seemed to have forgotten me, and to be telling his story to an unseen +hearer. + +"Shurochka!" he said, dwelling on the diminutive with a fond, lingering +cadence most pathetic to hear. "Shurochka! I loved her; I was mad for +her; my blood was full of longing by day and of fire by night. It was +the complete, mad passion of a boy grown into a man, and pure in spite +of an ardent temperament. I used to stand under her window at night, and +if it were stinging with cold or storm I was glad. I seemed to be doing +something for her; you know the madness, perhaps, in spite of the cold +temperament of your race. I did not for a moment really hope for her. +Her family had betrothed her to her cousin, and it would have broken my +mother's heart for me to marry the descendant of serfs. I could n't even +show her that I loved her. My father out of his grave said to me what he +had said again and again while he was alive: 'Do not hurt those under +you; and especially do not soil the purity of a maiden.' I did not try +to conceal from the little mother that I loved Shurochka, and maybe the +servants gossiped, as they always do; but Shurochka herself I avoided. I +was not sure that I could trust myself to see her. It was a happiness to +the little mother when the girl was married and taken away to the home +of her cousin in Moscow. She felt safe for me then, and she was very +tender. Time, she said, would take this madness out of my heart." + +He looked into the glowing fire with a strange expression and mused a +little. + +"My good mother!" he said again. "She was too near a saint to +understand. That has been a madness time could n't take out of my heart! +I've gone out here on the moors and flung myself down on the ground and +bitten the turf in agony because it seemed to me that I had borne this +as long as human endurance was possible! No; if the spirit of the little +mother sees me, she knows that time has not taken the madness out of +me!" + +His face had grown white with feeling, and he seemed to struggle to +control himself. + +"I can't tell you whether it was wholly from the loss of her and the +death of my mother which came soon after, or whether it was the current +of the time, the unrest in the air, that drew me toward the men who were +striving to free Russia from political slavery. I went to St. Petersburg +to continue my studies, and there I was thrown with men aflame with the +ardor of patriotism. Constantly the cause of Holy Russia secretly took +more and more absolute possession of me. I confided it to nobody. I did +not even suspect that anybody had the smallest hint of my state of +mind, and yet, when the time came, when I had made my decision to throw +in my lot with the patriots, I found them not only ready, but expecting +me. They had felt my secret comradeship by that sixth sense which we +develop in Russia in our zeal for country, and the imperative need of +such an intelligence in the work we have to do. + +"I did n't take the step from simple patriotism, perhaps. Motives are +generally mixed in this world. There was a last touch, a final reason in +my case, as in others, that had a good deal of the personal. I was ripe +for the cause, but there was a gust to shake the fruit down. There came +bitter news from Moscow." + +Again he paused, but only for a second; then threw back his head and +went on with a new hardness in his tone more moving than open +fierceness. + +"Shurochka was gone. It was whispered that a noble high in the army had +carried her off, but no one dared to speak openly. We must be careful +how we complain in Holy Russia! When her husband tried to find her, when +he tormented the police to right him, he was arrested as a political +offender--the charge always serves. The man, as I afterward learned +authoritatively, was no more a conspirator than you are. He was sent +to the mines of Siberia simply because he complained that his wife had +been stolen, and so made himself obnoxious to a man in power. It was +fortunate for me that I did not learn the officer's name, or I should +have gone to Siberia too." + +Dr. Polnitzski threw himself into a chair by the fire and remained +staring into the coals as if he had forgotten me, and as if he again +were back in the dreadful days of which he had spoken. I waited some +time before I spoke, and then, without daring to offer sympathy, I asked +if he were willing to go on with his story. He looked at me as if he saw +me through a dream; then he came to sit down beside my couch. + +"Pardon me," he said. "I was a fool to allow myself to speak, but now +you may have the whole of it. It is n't worth while for me to tell you +my experiences as a patriot--a Nihilist, you would say. I was full of +zeal; I was young and hot-headed; I thought that all the strength of my +feeling was turned to my country. I know now that a good deal of it was +consumed in the desire for revenge upon that unknown officer. Russia, +our Holy Russia, I said to myself, must be to me both wife and child. +Stepniak said to me once that Russia was the only country in the world +where it was a man's duty not to obey the laws. You cannot understand +it here in England, where it never occurs to you to fear, as you lie +down at night, that for no fault whatever you may in the morning find +yourself on the way to lifelong exile and some horrible, living death. +I could tell you things that I can hardly think of without going mad; +they are the events of every day in our unhappy land. The heroism, the +devotion, of those striving to free Russia can be believed only by the +few that know they are true. They are beyond human; they are divine. +Why, the things I have known done by women so pure and delicate that +they were almost angels already--" + +He broke off and wiped his forehead. + +"I beg your pardon," said he, in a tone he evidently tried to make more +natural. "I will not talk of this. I have not spoken so for years and I +cannot command myself. It is enough for you to know that I saw it all, +and that, to the best of my ability, I did my part. As time went on, +I established myself as a physician at St. Petersburg. My family +connection, although I had no near relatives, was of use to me, and in +the end I had an excellent position. I was fortunate in the curing of +wounds, and I had the luck to attract attention by saving the life of a +near relative of the Czar. All this I looked at as so much work done for +the cause. Every advance I made in influence, in wealth, in power, put +me in a position to be so much the more serviceable to the great purpose +of my life. Personal ambition was so swallowed up in the tremendousness +of that issue that self was lost sight of. The patriot cannot remember +himself in a land like Russia. + +"When the execution"-- He paused and turned to me with a singular smile. +"You would say the assassination--when the death of General Kakonzoff +was determined in our Section, no part was assigned to me, but I was +high enough in the counsels of the patriots to know all that was done. +He had possession of information which it was necessary to suppress. +He came to St. Petersburg to present it in person. He told me frankly +enough afterward that he could not trust any one because he counted upon +a reward for giving the evidence himself. We were minutely informed of +his plans and his movements. We had taken the precaution to replace his +body-servant by one of our own men as soon as he began to make inquiries +about two patriots who were suspected by the government. He had proofs +which would have been fatal to them, and it was necessary to intercept +these. If he had been put out of the way, our agent would easily have +got possession of the papers, and without the testimony of the general +our two friends were safe. The plot failed through one of those chances +that make men believe in the supernatural. He was shot as he stepped out +of the train at the St. Petersburg station, but the very instant our man +fired, Kakonzoff stumbled. The bullet, which should have gone through +his heart, passed through his lungs without killing him." + +The perfectly cool manner in which Dr. Polnitzski spoke of this incident +affected me like a vertigo. To have a man who is one's daily companion, +and of whom one has become fond, speak of an assassination as if it were +an ordinary occurrence, is almost like seeing him concerned himself in +a murder. I lay there listening to the doctor with a fascination not +unmixed with horror, despite the fact that my sympathies, as he knew +beforehand, were strongly with the Nihilists. To be in sympathy with +their cause and to come so near as to smell the reek of blood, so to +speak, were, however, very different things. + +"By a strange chance," the doctor went on, "I was summoned to attend the +wounded man, and although it was a desperate fight, I was after some +days satisfied that I could save his life." + +"But," I interrupted, "I don't see why you should try to save his life +if you were of those who doomed him to death in the first place." + +He looked at me piercingly. + +"You forget," he answered, "that I was called to him as a physician. +It is the duty of a physician to save life, as it may be the duty of a +patriot to take it. I was trying to do my best in both capacities. I had +given the best counsel I could in the Section and, when he was on his +feet, I would have shot him myself if it had seemed to my superiors that +I was the best person to do it. Does it seem to you that I could have +taken advantage of his helplessness, of his confidence, of my skill as +a physician, to deprive him of the life which it is the aim of a +physician's existence to preserve?" + +He waited for me to reply, but I had no answer to give him. The +situation was one so far outside of my experience, so fantastically +unreal as measured by my own life, that I could not even judge of it. + +"See," he went on, leaning forward with shining eyes and with increasing +excitement of manner, "the patient puts himself into the hands of his +physician, body and soul. To betray that trust is to strike at the very +heart of the whole sacred art of healing. If I, as a physician, took +advantage of this sick man, I not only betrayed the personal trust he +put in me, but I was false to the whole principle on which the relation +of doctor and patient rests. Don't you see what a tremendous question is +involved? That to harm Kakonzoff was to go beyond the limits of human +possibility?" + +"Yes," was my answer; "I can understand how a doctor might feel that; +but I don't know how far the feeling of a patriot might overbalance +this; how far the idea of serving his country would overcome every +other feeling." + +Polnitzski gave me a glance which made me quiver. + +"It is a question which I found I did not readily answer," he said, +"when I received from the chief of our Section an order not to let +Kakonzoff recover." + +He sprang up from his chair and began to pace the floor. + +"What could I do?" he said, pouring out his words with a rapidity which +increased his slight foreign accent so that when his face was turned +away I could hardly follow them. "There was my country bleeding her very +heart's blood. Every day the most infamous cruelties were done before my +eyes. And if this man Kakonzoff lived to tell his story, it meant the +torture, the death, of men whose only crime was that they had given +up everything that makes life tolerable to save their fellows from +political slavery. It lay in my power to let Kakonzoff die. A very +slight neglect would accomplish that. To the cause of my country I had +sworn the most solemn oaths, and sworn them with my whole heart. I had +never before even questioned any order from the Section. I had obeyed +with the blind fidelity of a man that loved the cause too well to think +of his own will at all. But now--now, I simply found what I was asked to +do was impossible! I could not do it. I fought it out with myself day +and night, and all the time the patient was slowly getting better. The +gain was slow, but it was steady, and I could not fail to see that his +giving his wicked testimony against the patriots was simply a matter of +time. + +"But one day, through no fault of mine--indeed, because my express +orders had been disobeyed--he became worse. I can't tell you the relief +I felt in thinking the man might die and I be spared the awful necessity +of deciding. If he would only die without fault of mine--but I still did +my best. I gave minute directions, and when I left him I promised to +return in a few hours. As I went through the antechamber on my way out +of the hotel, some one came behind me quickly and laid a hand on my arm. +I thought it was the nurse, following to ask some question. I turned +round to be face to face with Shurochka! My God! It was like a crazy +farce or a bad dream!" + +It is impossible that Dr. Polnitzski should not have known what an +effect his story was producing on me, and it is hardly doubtful that +his responsive Slav nature was more or less moved by my excitement. He +seemed, however, scarcely to be conscious of me at all. His face was +white with suffering, and he spoke with the vehemence of one who tries +to be rid of intolerable pain by pouring it out in words. + +"In a flash," he went on, "it came over me what her presence meant, and +I said to myself, 'I will kill him!' I had always hoped that in striking +against the creatures of the Czar's tyranny I might unknowingly reach +the man that had harmed her; but I had wished not to know, for I could +not bear that personal feeling should come into the work I did for my +country. That work was the one sacred thing. Now what I had feared had +been thrust on me. Shurochka was changed; there were marks of suffering +in her face, and she showed, too, the effects of training which could +never have come honestly into the life of a woman of her station. She +was dressed like a lady. At first she did not know me. She spoke to me +as a stranger, and implored me to save Kakonzoff. She caught me by the +arm in her excitement; and then she recognized me. Then--oh, my God, +what creatures women are!--then she cried out that I had loved her once, +and that in memory of that time I must help her. Think of it! She flung +my broken heart in my face to induce me to save the scoundrel she loved! + +"It was Alexandrina, my old-time Shurochka, clinging to me as if she had +risen from the grave where her shame should have been hidden, and I +loved her then and always. I could hardly control myself to speak to +her. All I could do was stupidly to ask if he was kind to her, and she +shrank as if I had lashed her with the knout. She cried out that it was +no matter, so long as she loved him, and that I must save him: that +she could not live without him. I--could n't endure it! I shook off her +hands and rushed away more wild than sane, with her voice in my ears all +agony and despair." + +His face was dreadful in its pain, and I felt that I had no right to +see it. I closed my eyes, and tried to turn away a little, but in my +clumsiness I knocked from the couch a book. The crash of its fall +aroused him. He mechanically picked up the volume, and the act seemed +somewhat to restore him to himself. + +"You may judge," he began again, "the hell that I was in. I could have +torn the man to bits, and yet--and yet now I said to myself that to obey +the Section and let Kakonzoff die would be doing a murder to gratify +personal hate. Yet all the sides of the question tortured me. I asked +the valet in the afternoon about the woman that had spoken to me. He +shrugged his shoulders, and said she was only a peasant that the general +was tired of, but that she would not leave him, although he beat her. He +beat her!" + +There were tears in my eyes at the intensity with which he spoke, but +Dr. Polnitzski's were dry. He clenched his strong hands as if he were +crushing something. Then he shook himself as if he were awaking, and +threw back his head with a bitter attempt at a laugh. + +"Bah!" he exclaimed, with a shrug. "I have never talked like this in my +life, but it is so many years since I talked at all that I have lost +control of myself. I beg your pardon." + +He crossed the room, sat down by the fire, and began to fill his pipe. + +"But, Dr. Polnitzski," I protested eagerly, "I do not want to force your +confidence, but you cannot stop such a story there." + +He looked at me a moment as if he would not go on. Then his face +darkened. + +"What could the end of such a story be?" he demanded. "Any end must be +ruin and agony. Should I be moved by personal feelings to be false to +everything I held sacred? Should I take my revenge at the price of +professional honor? I said to myself that in time she might come to care +for me, if this man were out of her life. Kindness could do so much with +some women. But could I make such a choice?" + +"No," I said slowly, "you could not do that." + +"Could I restore him to life, then, and have him go on beating that poor +girl and flinging her into the ditch at last?" + +I had no answer. + +"Could I let him live to destroy the patriots whose sworn fellow I was? +Do you think I could ever sleep again without dreaming of their fate? +Could I kill him there in his bed--I, the physician he trusted? Could I +do that?" + +"In God's name," I cried, "what did you do?" + +He regarded me with a look that challenged my very deepest thought. + +"The patriots were spared," he answered. "That was my fee for saving the +life of General Kakonzoff. A year later I paid for having asked that +favor by being exiled myself." + +"And--and--the other?" I asked. + +"She, thank God, is dead." + +For a moment or two we remained motionless and unspeaking. Then I +silently held out my hand to him. I had no words. + + + + +IN THE VIRGINIA ROOM + + +"Childless," was the word which she murmured in her heart, as she +entered the building which had once been the Presidential Mansion of +Jefferson Davis and now is the Confederate Museum. Why the thought of +her estranged daughter flashed upon her as she came to do honor to the +memory of her long dead husband, Mrs. Desborough could not have told, +but so overwhelming was the sadness of her mood that she could hardly +wonder if this bitter memory took advantage of her moment of weakness to +obtrude itself. She set her lips tightly and put it determinedly into +the background. She would not think of the daughter who was lost to her; +to-day and here no thought but should go back in loving homage and +passionate grief to the hero whose name she bore. + +She went at once to the Virginia Room, bowing quickly but kindly to the +custodian of the Museum, and as she pushed open the door of the sad +place, she thought herself alone. The heavy April rain which was +drenching Richmond outside kept visitors away, and the building was +almost deserted. In her yearly visits to this spot, those pilgrimages +which she had made as to a shrine, she had once before had the Virginia +Room to herself, untroubled by the presence of strangers; and now with +a quick sigh of relief she realized how great had been the comfort of +that solitude. To her sensitive nature it was hard to stand before +the memorials of her dead and yet to be aware that strange eyes, eyes +curious if sympathetic, might be reading in her face all the emotions +of her very soul. To preserve the calm necessary before the public had +always seemed to her almost like being untrue to the memory she came to +consecrate; and to-day it was with a swelling sigh of relief that she +threw back her heavy widow's veil with the free, proud motion which +belonged to the women of her race and time--the women bred in the South +before the war. She was an old woman, though not much over sixty, for +pain can age more swiftly than time. The high-bred mien would be hers +as long as life remained, and wonderful was her self-control. Again and +again she had felt unshed tears burn in her eyes like living fire, yet +had been sure that no stranger had had reason to look upon her as more +than a casual visitor to the museum; but to be able to let her grief +have way seemed almost a joy. She felt the quick drops start at the bare +thought. Life had left her no greater blessing than this liberty to weep +undiscovered over the memorials of her dead. + +At the instant a man came from behind one of the cases, so near that she +might have touched him. Instinctively she tried to take her handkerchief +from her chatelaine, and in her confusion detached the bag. It fell at +the feet of the gentleman, who stooped at once to pick it up. As he held +it out, she forced a smile to her fine old face. + +"Thank you," she said; "I--I was very awkward." + +"Not at all," he responded. "Those bags are so easily unhooked." + +The tone struck her almost like a blow. To the disappointment of finding +that she was not alone in this solemn place was added the bitter fact +that the intruder who had come upon her was not of her people. An +impulse of bitterness from the old times of blood and of fire swept over +her like a wave. The room had carried her back as it always did to the +past, and after almost two-score years she for the first time broke +through the stern resolve that had kept her from hostile speech. + +"You are a Northerner!" she exclaimed. + +The words were nothing, but the tone, she knew, was hot with all the +long pent-up bitterness. She felt her cheek flush as, almost before +the words were spoken, she realized what she had said. The stranger, +however, showed no sign of resentment. He smiled, then grew grave again. + +"Yes. Do not Northerners visit the Museum? I supposed nobody came to +Richmond without coming here." + +She was painfully annoyed, and felt her thin cheeks glow as hotly as +if she were still a girl. To be lacking in politeness was sufficiently +humiliating, but to seem rude to one from the North, to fail in living +up to her traditions, was intolerable. + +"I beg your pardon," she forced herself to say. "To come through that +door is to step into the past, and I spoke as I might have when--" + +"When a Yankee in the house of President Davis would have required +explicit explanation," the stranger finished the sentence she knew not +how to complete. + +Even in her discomposure she appreciated both the courtesy which spared +her the embarrassment of being left in the confusion of an unfinished +remark and the adroitness which gave to his reply just the right tone of +lightness. He was evidently a man of the world. Her instinct, not to be +outdone in politeness, least of all by one of her race, made her speak +again. + +"I was rude," she said stiffly. "To-day is an anniversary on which I +always come here, and I forgot myself." + +"Then I must have seemed doubly obtrusive," he returned gravely. + +He was certainly a gentleman. He was well groomed, moreover, with the +appearance of quiet wealth. One of his hands was ungloved, and she noted +appreciatively how finely shaped it was, how white and well kept. The +North had all the wealth now, she reflected involuntarily, while so many +of the descendants of old Southern families were forced to earn their +very bread by occupations unworthy of them. They could not keep their +fine hands, hands that told of blood and breeding for generations, +as could this stranger before her. His attractiveness, his air of +prosperity, were offensive to her because they emphasized the pitiful +poverty of so many of her kin whose forefathers had never known what +want could be. + +"The Museum is open to the public," she replied, with increasing +coldness. + +She expected him to bow and leave her. Not only did he linger, but she +seemed to see in his face a look of pity. Before she could resent this +pity, however, she met his eyes with her own, and the look seemed to her +to be one of sympathy. + +"Will you pardon my saying that I too came here to-day because it is an +anniversary?" + +"An anniversary?" she echoed. "How can an anniversary bring a Northerner +here?" + +"It is n't mine exactly. It is my son's. His mother is a Virginian." + +So highly strung was her mood that she noticed almost with approval that +he had said "is" and not "was." He had at least not deprived his wife of +her birthright as a daughter of the sacred soil. She began to be aware +of a growing excitement. She could hardly have heard unmoved any +allusion to a marriage which had taken from the South a woman born to +its traditions and to its sorrows. She felt a fresh impulse of anger +against this prosperous son of the North who had carried away from a +Virginia mother a daughter as she had been robbed of hers. The cruel +pang of crushed motherhood which ached within her at the remembrance +of her own child, the child she had herself cast off because of her +marriage, was so fierce that for a moment she could not command her +voice. She could not shape the question which was in her heart, but she +felt that with her eyes she all but commanded the stranger to tell her +more. + +"We live in the North," he explained, "but she has long promised the +boy that when he was eight he should see the relics of his Virginian +grandfather which are in the museum here. Unfortunately, when the time +came, she was not well enough to come with him; and as she wished him to +be here on this especial day, I have brought him." + +The Southern woman felt her heart beating tumultuously, and it was +almost as if another spoke when she said in a manner entirely +conventional:-- + +"I trust that her illness is not serious." + +"If it were, I should not be here myself," he answered. + +She collected her strength, which seemed to be leaving her, and forced +herself to look around the room. She could not have told what she +expected, or whether she most hoped or feared what she might see. + +"But your son?" she asked. + +The man's face changed subtly. + +"My father," he replied, "was an officer in the Union army. I wished to +see this place first, to be prepared for Desborough's questions. It is +n't easy to answer the questions of a clever lad whose two grandfathers +have been killed in the same battle, fighting on opposite sides." + +The name struck her like a blow. She leaned for support against the +corner of the nearest case, and fixed her gaze on the pathetic coat of +General Lee behind the glass which showed her as a faint wraith the +reflection of her own face. Desborough had been her husband's name, and +this the anniversary of his death; she felt as if the dead had arisen to +confront her, and that some imperative call in the blood insistently +responded. Yet she could not believe that her son-in-law was before +her, regarding her with that straightforward, appealingly honest gaze; +she said to herself that the name was merely a coincidence, that every +day in the year was the anniversary of the death of some Virginian hero, +and that this could not be her daughter's husband. + +"Have you decided what to tell your son?" she heard her voice, strange +and far off, asking amid the thrilling quiet of the room. + +The stranger regarded her as if struck by the note of challenge in her +tone. His serious eyes seemed to her to be endeavoring to probe her own +in search of the cause of her sharpness. + +"I can do no more," was his answer, "than to tell him what I have always +told him--the truth, as far as I can see it." + +"And the truth which you can tell him here--here, before the sacred +relics of our dead, the sacred memorials of our Lost Cause--" + +She could not go on, but stopped suddenly that he might not hear her +voice break. + +"He has never been taught anything but that the men of the South fought +for what they believed, and that no man can do a nobler thing than to +give his life for his faith." + +She became suddenly and illogically sure that she was talking to her +son-in-law, although the ground of her conviction was no other than the +one she had just before rejected. The whole thing flashed upon her mind +as perfectly simple. Her daughter knew that on this day she was always +to be found here, and had meant to meet her, with the little son bearing +his grandfather's name. The question now was whether the husband knew. +Something in his air, something half-propitiatory, something certainly +beyond the ordinary deference offered to a lady who is a stranger, +gave her a vague distrust. She was not untouched by the desire for +reconciliation, but she had again and again resisted that before, +and least of all could she tolerate the idea of being tricked. The +possibility that her son-in-law might be feigning ignorance to work the +more surely upon her sympathy angered her. + +"Do you know who I am?" she demanded abruptly. + +"I beg your pardon," he answered, evidently surprised, "but I have never +been in Richmond before. If you are well known here, or are the wife of +some man famous in the South, I am too completely a stranger to +recognize you." + +"Yet you seemed to wish to explain yourself to me. Why?" + +"I don't know," he began hesitatingly, searching her face with his +straightforward gray eyes. Then he flushed slightly, and broke out +with new feeling: "Yes; I do know. You came just as I was going away +because I could not endure the sadness of it; when every one of these +cases seemed to me to drip with blood and tears. That sounds to you +extravagant, but the whole thing came over me so tremendously that I +could n't bear it." + +"I do not understand," she returned tremulously. "You have such +collections at the North, I suppose." + +"But here it came over me that to all the sorrow of loss was added the +bitterness of defeat. I felt that no Southerner could come here without +feeling that all the agony this commemorates had been in vain; and the +pity of it took me by the throat so that when I spoke to you, you were a +sort of impersonation of the South--of the Southern women; and I wanted +to ask for pardon." + +She drew a deep breath and raised her head proudly. + +"Not for the war," he said quickly, with a gesture which seemed to wave +aside her pride and showed her how well he had understood her triumph at +the admission seemingly implied in his words. "I am a Northern man, and +I believe with my whole soul that the North was right. I believe in the +cause for which my father died. Only I see now that if he had lived in +the South, the same spirit would have carried him into the Confederate +army." + +"But for what should you ask pardon, if the North was in the right?" + +"For myself; for not understanding--for being so dull all these years +that I have lived with a wife faithful in her heart to the South and too +loyal to me to speak. We in the North have forgiven, and we think that +the South should forget. It has come over me to-day how easy it is for +the conquerors to forgive and how hard that must be for the conquered." + +"You do not understand even now," she said, her voice low with feeling. +"Because we are conquered we can forgive; but we should be less than +human to forget." + +The room was very still for a little, and then, following out her +thought, she said as if in wonder: "And you, a Northerner, have felt +all this!" + +He shook his head, with a little smile. + +"It is perhaps too much to ask," returned he, "that you Southern women +should realize that even a Northerner is still human." + +"Yes, yes; but to feel our suffering, to see--" + +"It has always been facing me, I understand now, in my wife's eyes--the +immeasurable pathos of a people beaten in a struggle they felt to be +right; but she had been so happy otherwise, and she never spoke of it." + +"In the heart of every Southern woman," she said solemnly, though now +without bitterness, "is always the anguish of our Lost Cause. We cover +the surface, we accept, and God knows we have been patient; but each of +us has deep down a sense of the blood that was poured out in vain, of +the agony of the men we loved, of how they were humiliated--humiliated, +and of the great cause of liberty lost--lost!" + +For long, bitter years she had not spoken even to her nearest friends as +she was talking to this stranger, this Northerner. The consciousness of +this brought her back to the remembrance that he was the husband of her +daughter. + +"Has your wife no relatives in the South who might have made you +understand how we Southern women must feel?" she asked. + +He grew instantly colder. + +"I have never seen her Southern relatives." + +"Pardon the curiosity of an old woman," she went on, watching him +keenly; "may I ask why?" + +"My wife's mother did not choose to know the Yankee her daughter +married." + +"And you?" + +"I did not choose to force an acquaintance or to be known on +sufferance," he answered crisply. "I was aware of no wrong, and I did +not choose to ask to be forgiven for being a Northerner." + +She knew that in her heart she was already accepting this strong, fine +man, alien as he was to all the traditions of her life, and she was not +ill pleased at his pride. + +"But have you ever considered what it must have cost the mother to give +up her daughter?" + +"Why need she have given her up? Marriages between the North and the +South have been common enough without any family breach." + +She was utterly sure that he knew neither to whom he was talking nor +what had been the real cause of her separation from her daughter. She +experienced a sort of wild inner exultation that at last had come the +moment when she might justify herself; when she might tell the whole +dreadful story which had been as eating poison in her veins. She raised +her head proudly, and looked at him with her whole soul in her eyes. + +"If you have patience to listen," she said, feeling her cheeks warm, +"and will pardon my being personal, I should like to tell you what has +happened to me. My husband was a colonel in the Confederate army. We +were married when I was seventeen, in a brief furlough he won by being +wounded at the battle of the Wilderness. I saw him, in the four years of +the war before he fell at Five Forks, less than a dozen times, and +always for the briefest visits--poor scraps of fearful happiness torn +out of long stretches of agony. My daughter, my only child, was born +after her father's death. Our fortune had gone to the Cause. My father +and my husband both refused to invest money abroad. They considered it +disloyal, and they put everything into Confederate securities even after +they felt sure they should get nothing back. They were too loyal to +withhold anything when the country was in deadly peril." + +She paused, but he did not speak, and with swelling breast and parching +throat she went on:-- + +"At Five Forks my husband was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with a +Northern officer. He struck his enemy down after he had received his own +death-wound. I pray God he did not know the day was lost. He had gone +through so much, I hope that was spared him. On the other side of death +he must have found some comfort to help him bear it. God must have had +some comfort for our poor boys when he permitted the cause of liberty to +be lost." + +She pressed her clenched hand against her bosom, and as she did so her +eyes met those of her companion. She felt the sympathy of his look, but +something recalled her to the sense that she was speaking to one from +the North. + +"It is not the cause of liberty to you," she said. "I have forgotten +again. I have not spoken of all this for so long. I have not dared; but +to-day--to-day I must speak, and you must forgive me if I use the old +language." + +He dropped his glance as if he felt it an intrusion to see her bitter +emotion, and said softly: "I think I understand. You need not +apologize." + +"After the war," she went on hurriedly and abruptly, "I lived for my +daughter. I worked for her. She--she was like her father." + +She choked, but regained the appearance of composure by a mighty effort. + +"When she was a woman--she was still a child to me; over twenty, but I +was not twice her age--she went North, and there she fell in love. She +wrote me that she was to marry a Northerner, and when she added his +name--it was the son of the man who killed her father." + +"It is not possible!" the other exclaimed. "You imagined it. Such +things happen in melodramas--" + +She put up her hand and arrested his words. + +"This happened not in a melodrama, but in a tragedy--in my life," she +said. "I need not go into details. She married him, and I have never +seen her since." + +"Did he know?" + +"No. It was my wedding gift to my daughter--that I kept her secret. That +was all I had strength to do. You think I was an unnatural mother, of +course; but--" + +She saw that his eyes were moist as he raised them in answering. + +"I should have said so yesterday without any hesitation; to-day--" + +"To-day?" she echoed eagerly, as he paused. + +"To-day," he answered, letting his glance sweep over the pathetic +memorials so thick about them--"to-day at least I understand, and I do +not wonder." + +She looked at him with all her heart in her eyes, trying to read his +most hidden feeling. Then she touched his arm lightly with the tips of +her slender black-gloved fingers. + +"Come," she said. + +She led him across the room, and pointed to a colonel's sash and pistols +which lay in one of the cases under a faded card. + +"Those were my husband's." + +"Those!" he cried. "You Louise's mother? It is impossible!" + +"It may be impossible; but, as I said of the other thing, it is true." + +"The other thing?" he repeated. "What--do you mean the thing you +said--that my father and he-- That cannot be true. I should surely have +known!" + +"It is true," she insisted. "At the moment it happened they were +surrounded by our soldiers, and his own men probably did not realize +just what happened. But I--I know every minute of that fight! One of my +husband's staff had been at West Point with them both, and he told me. +He saw it, and tried to come between them. Your wife married you, +knowing you to be the son of the man who killed her father." + +The Northerner passed his hand across his forehead as if to wipe away +the confusion of his mind. His eyes were cast down, but she saw that +their lids were wet. + +"Poor Louise!" he murmured, seemingly rather to himself than to her; +"how she must have suffered over that secret. Poor Louise!" + +"You come here," Mrs. Desborough went on, feeling herself choke at his +words, but determined not to give way to the warmer impulse of her +heart, "and even you are moved by these sacred relics. What do you think +they are to us?" + +She was half conscious that she was appealing to the memorials around +her to strengthen her in her purpose not to yield, not to make peace +with the son of the man who had slain her husband, her hero, her love; +she felt that in harboring for an instant such an impulse she was untrue +to the Cause which, though lost, was for her forever living with the +deathless devotion of love and anguish. + +"These relics do move me," her son-in-law said gently. "They move me so +deeply that they seem to me wrong. I confess that I was thinking, before +you came in, that if I were a Southerner, with the traditions of the +South behind me, and the bitter sense of failure to embitter me, they +would stir me to madness; that I should feel it impossible ever to be +loyal to anything but the South. The war is over. The South at last is +understood. She is honored for the incredible bravery with which, under +crushing odds, she fought for her conviction. Why prolong the inevitable +pain? Why gather these relics to nourish a feeling absolutely +untrue--the feeling that the Union is less your country than it is +ours?" + +"Because it is just to the dead," she answered swiftly. "Because it +is only justice that we keep in remembrance how true they were, how +gallant, how brave, how noble, and--O God!--that we make some poor +record of what we of the South have suffered!" + +He shook his head and sighed. She saw the tears in his eyes and did not +attempt to hide her own. + +"Would you have it forgotten," she demanded passionately, "that the +grandfather of your son--the father of your wife--was one of God's +noblemen? Would you have him remembered only as a beaten rebel? I tell +you that if we had not gathered these memorials, every clod that was wet +with their blood would cry out against us! In the North you call these +men rebels; there is no battlefield in the South where the very rustle +of the grass does not whisper over their graves that they were patriots +and heroes! And this, poor though it be"--and she waved her hand to the +cases around them--"is the best memorial we can give them." + +He made a step forward, and held out both his hands impulsively. She did +not take them, and they dropped again. He hesitated, and then drew back. + +"It must be as it is," he said sadly. "Even if I blamed you women of +the South, I could not say so here. Only," he added, his voice falling, +"can you forget that the women of the North suffered too? I grew up +in the shadow of a grief so great that it sapped the very life of my +mother, and in the end killed her. Do you think I could visit that +upon the innocent head of Louise?--I did not mean, though, to speak of +myself, now that I know who you are. I will not intrude on you; but my +little son, with your husband's name and his mother's eyes, is certainly +guiltless. I will not come with him, but may I not send him with my man +to see you this afternoon, so that I may say to Louise that you have +kissed him and given him your blessing? Sorrow has taken away his other +grandmother." + +It seemed to her that she could not endure the speaking of one syllable +more. Her whole body trembled, and she raised her hands in an impulsive +gesture which implored him to be silent. All the old mother-love for +Louise, the passionate crying of her lonely heart for this unseen +grandson with the blood of her dead husband warm in his veins, the +grief of black years and fidelity to old ideals, warred within her, and +tore her like wolves. She cast a glance around as if to find some way by +which she could flee from this position which it was too terrible to +face. Then she saw her companion look at her with infinite pity and +sadness. + +"Then," he said, "I can only say good-by." + +But she sprang forward as if she burst from chains, and threw herself +upon his breast, the agony of the long, bitter past gushing in a torrent +of hot tears. + +"Oh, my son! my son!" she sobbed. + + + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + U . S . A + + + + +THE OLD PEABODY PEW + + By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + + +"A characteristically bright tale of a New England life full of +sentiment and humor."--_Outlook, N. Y._ + +"The cheeriest of the stories by this gifted author."--_Philadelphia +Telegraph._ + +"Mrs. Wiggin has never penned a more truthful or delightful idyl of New +England life."--_Boston Herald._ + +"A delightful mingling of humor and sentiment and pathos."--_N. Y. +Herald._ + +"A story that compels laughter as well as tears and makes us think +better of the workaday world in which we live."--_Budget and Beacon._ + + +With border designs and full-page illustrations in color, $1.50. + + HOUGHTON + MIFFLIN + & COMPANY + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + AND + NEW YORK + + + + +THE PRINCESS POURQUOI + + By MARGARET SHERWOOD + + +Five charming fairy tales. "They all point a moral that is never too +apparently on the surface and they all hold our undiverted attention +through their fluent writing, their delicate fantasy, and their +exquisite simplicity."--_Boston Transcript._ + +"A whimsical view of the progress of woman ... wise and witty."--_Kansas +City Star._ + +"Told with much humor and they satirize many foibles of +mankind."--_Boston Budget and Beacon._ + +"Although the full significance of these delicate fancies will be +grasped only by older people, they have enough of the fairy spirit to +prove enjoyable to children also."--_Baltimore News._ + + + With illustrations, $1.50. + + HOUGHTON + MIFFLIN + & COMPANY + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + AND + NEW YORK + + + + +MONTLIVET + + By ALICE PRESCOTT SMITH + + +"The best American historical novel by a woman since 'To Have and To +Hold.'" + _New York World._ + +"In dramatic force and in power and reality of dialogue this story is +one of the best of the year." + _San Francisco Chronicle._ + +"The reader thrills under the spell of a well-sustained and adventurous +tale." + _Detroit Free Press._ + +"The story of 'Montlivet' is as simple as it is absorbingly +interesting--it is of a quality to rise above fads and fashions by +virtue of its own power." + _Chicago Journal._ + + + With frontispiece in colors, $1.50. + + HOUGHTON + MIFFLIN + & COMPANY + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + AND + NEW YORK + + + + +THE WORLD'S WARRANT + + By NORAH DAVIS + + +"Miss Davis has evolved a plot of unusual ingenuity and dotted it with +situations that are striking and unexpected." + _The Times, New York._ + +"The novel is written with a clear understanding of the people where the +scenes are laid, and the descriptive passages show equal knowledge of +the country and its outward aspects. It is realistic, but never dull, +for it has a keenness and brightness of text that is constantly +enticing." + _Boston Budget._ + +"Miss Davis deserves to be watched. She has power, style, convincing +earnestness, and, more than all, the trick of creating atmosphere." + _New Orleans Picayune._ + +"'The World's Warrant' is certainly the most unique, interesting, and +original love story of the season. The story is bold in execution, and +really exceptional in strength and power. It would be impossible not to +read it with keen interest." + _St. Paul Pioneer Press._ + + + With frontispiece in color by F. C. YOHN + Crown 8vo, $1.50 + + HOUGHTON + MIFFLIN + & COMPANY + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + AND + NEW YORK + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +Double chapter headers and blank pages between chapters were removed. +One missing opening quote mark was added. Otherwise the original was +preserved, including inconsistent spelling of the dialect. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Intoxicated Ghost, by Arlo Bates + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40312 *** |