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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6423f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65837 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65837) diff --git a/old/65837-0.txt b/old/65837-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7be65b8..0000000 --- a/old/65837-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11453 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, On the Borderland, by F. Britten (Frederick -Britten) Austin - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: On the Borderland - - -Author: F. Britten (Frederick Britten) Austin - - - -Release Date: July 14, 2021 [eBook #65837] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE BORDERLAND*** - - -E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from page images digitized by -the Google Books Library Project (https://books.google.com) and generously -made available by HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433074943519 - - - - - -ON THE BORDERLAND - - - * * * * * * - -BOOKS BY - -F. BRITTEN AUSTIN - -ACCORDING TO ORDERS -IN ACTION -ON THE BORDERLAND -THE SHAPING OF LAVINIA -THE THING THAT MATTERS - - * * * * * * - - -ON THE BORDERLAND - -by - -F. BRITTEN AUSTIN - - -[Illustration: Logo] - - - - - - -Garden City New York -Doubleday, Page & Company -1923 - -Copyright, 1923 by -Doubleday, Page & Company -All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation -into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian - -Copyright, 1919, by the Curtis Publishing Company in -the United States and Great Britain - -Copyright, 1919, 1920, by International Magazine Co. - -Copyright, 1920, by Consolidated Magazines Corporation -(The Red Book Magazine) -All Rights Reserved - -Printed in the United States -at -The Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y. - -First Edition - - - - -TO - -EDWARD CECIL - -IN - -OLD FRIENDSHIP - - - - -CONTENTS - - PAGE -BURIED TREASURE 1 - -A PROBLEM IN REPRISALS 28 - -SECRET SERVICE 51 - -THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. TODMORDEN 83 - -THROUGH THE GATE OF HORN 98 - -THE WHITE DOG 122 - -A POINT OF ETHICS 143 - -THE LOVERS 165 - -HELD IN BONDAGE 187 - -SHE WHO CAME BACK 211 - -FROM THE DEPTHS 231 - -YELLOW MAGIC 253 - - - - -ON THE BORDERLAND - - - - -BURIED TREASURE - - -For the last twenty minutes the after-dinner talk of the little group -of men in the liner’s smoking-room had revelled in the uncanny. One -man had started it, rather diffidently, with a strange yarn. Another -had capped it. Then, no longer restrained by the fear of a humiliating -scepticism in their audience, they gave themselves up to that -mysteriously satisfying enjoyment of the inexplicably marvellous, vying -with each other in stories which, as they were narrated, were no doubt -more or less unconsciously modified to suit the argument, but which one -and all dealt with experience that in the ultimate analysis could not -be explained by the normal how and why of life. - -“What do you think of all this, doctor?” said one of the story-tellers, -turning suddenly to a keen-eyed elderly man who had been listening in -silence. “As a specialist in mental disorders you must have had a vast -experience of delusions of every kind. Is there any truth in all this -business of spiritualism, automatic writing, reincarnation and the rest -of it? What’s the scientific reason for it all?--for some reason there -must be! People don’t tell all these stories just for fun.” - -The doctor shifted his pipe in his mouth and smiled, his eyes twinkling. - -“You seem to find a certain amount of amusement in it,” he -remarked, drily. “The scientific reasons you ask for so easily are -highly controversial. But many of the phenomena are undoubtedly -genuine--automatic writing, for instance. It is a fact that persons -of a certain type find their hand can write, entirely independent -of their conscious attention, coherent sentences whose meaning is -utterly strange to them. They need not even deliberately make their -mind a blank. They may be surprised by their hand suddenly writing on -its own initiative when their consciousness is fixed upon some other -occupation, such as entering up an account-book. Always they have -a vivid feeling that not their own but another distinctly separate -intelligence guides the pen. This feeling is not evidence, of course. -It may be an illusion; probably is. - -“The best-analyzed reincarnation story is probably that dealt with by -Professor Flournoy in his study of the famous medium Hélène Smith of -Geneva. This lady sincerely believed herself to be a reincarnation -of Marie Antoinette--and in her trance-state she acted the part with -astonishing fidelity and dramatic power. In her normal condition she -certainly possessed neither so much detailed knowledge of the life of -the ill-fated queen nor so much histrionic ability. She also wrote -automatically, and some of her productions were amazing, to say the -least of them. Well, Professor Flournoy’s psychological investigations -proved clearly to my thinking that it was a case of her subconscious -mind dramatizing, with that wonderful faculty of impersonation which -characterizes it, a few hints accidentally dropped into it and -combining with her subconscious memory, which forgets nothing it has -ever heard or read or even casually glanced at, to produce an almost -perfect representation of Marie Antoinette. Also he proved that her -automatic writing emanated from her own subconscious mind and nowhere -else. - -“Now, I am not going to say that discarnate spirits do not communicate -through this subconscious activity of which one form is automatic -writing. I am not going to say that we do not become reincarnated -through an endless cycle of lives. I do not know enough about it to -assert such a negative--no one does. All I know about the human mind -is that we know very little about it. It is like the moon, of which -you never see more than the small end. Infinite possibilities lie in -the shadow. You are only conscious of a small fraction of your own -personality. The subconscious--the unillumined portion of your soul--is -incomputably vast. It learns everything, forgets nothing; possibly -it even goes on from life to life. When it is tapped by any of those -traditional means which nowadays we call spiritualistic one may--or may -not--come across buried treasure.” - -“But you yourself do not believe in the truth of spiritualism as an -actual fact, doctor?” queried one of the group, a trace of aggression -in his tone. - -The doctor shrugged his shoulders. - -“I accord _belief_ to a very limited number of attested facts, my -friend,” he said. “That I am sitting here with you, for example. I am -ready to adopt provisionally all sorts of hypotheses to explain those -varied phenomena of life, the ultimate explanation of which must in any -case elude me. They are hypotheses for myself--I do not announce them -as dogmas for others. But--if you do not think it is too late--I will -tell you a story, a rather queer experience of my own, and you can form -your own hypotheses in explanation of it.” - -There was a chorus of approval. The doctor waited while the steward -refilled the glasses at the instance of one of the group, relit his -pipe, and settled himself to begin. - - -It was in 1883. I was a young man. I had recently finished walking the -hospitals, got my degree, and before settling down into practice at -home had decided to see a little of the world. So I signed on for a few -voyages as a ship’s doctor. At the termination of one of them I found -myself at a loose end in New York. There I became friendly with the son -of a man who in his young days had been a Californian “Fortyniner,” -had made a pile, settled East, become a railroad speculator and made -millions--William Vandermeulen. - -Old Vandermeulen had a delicate daughter, Pauline, then about nineteen -years of age and in the incipient stages of consumption. Under medical -advice, he was accustomed to take her each winter for a cruise -around the West Indies in his steam yacht. That year, young Geoffrey -Vandermeulen persuaded his father to ship me as medical officer. There -was nothing alarming in the young girl’s condition, of course, or a -much older and more experienced man would have accompanied them. She -was merely delicate. - -We were a small party on board: the old man, his wife--a faded old lady -with no personality whatever--Pauline, Geoffrey, and myself. Geoffrey -was an ordinary, high-spirited young man, intelligent and a pleasant -companion, but not particularly remarkable. His sister was mildly -pretty but utterly devoid of attractiveness, extremely shy, and given -to sitting in blank reverie over a book. Although she always had one in -her hand, she read, as a matter of fact, very little. It was just an -excuse for day-dreaming. Of this girl the old man, otherwise as keen as -a razor and as hard as nails--commercially, I believe, he was little -better than a pirate--was inordinately fond. Outside business, she -was the absorbing passion of his life. There was no whim of hers that -he would not gratify. It was rather pathetic to see the old scoundrel -hanging over her frail innocence, all that he had of idealism centred -in her threatened life. - -The cruise was pleasant but uneventful enough for some weeks. We -pottered down through the Bahamas to Jamaica and then turned eastward -with intent to visit the various ports of the Antilles as far south as -Barbados. - -It was one evening while we were chugging peacefully across the -Caribbean Sea that occurred the first of the remarkable incidents which -made this voyage so memorable to me. I remember the setting of it -perfectly. We were all in the saloon; I suppose because the night was -for some reason unpleasant. The weather was calm, at any rate. Geoffrey -and I were reading. Old Vandermeulen and his wife were playing -cribbage. Pauline was sitting at a writing-table fixed in a corner of -the saloon, entering up the day’s trivial happenings in the diary which -she religiously kept. I remember glancing at her and noticing that she -was chewing the nail of her left thumb--a habit of which I was vainly -trying to break her--as she stared vacantly at the bulkhead, no doubt -ransacking her memory for some incident to record. - -Suddenly she turned round upon us with a startled cry. - -“Look, Mamma!--I have scrawled all over my diary without knowing that I -did it!--Isn’t that strange!” - -We all of us looked up languidly. The mother made some banal remark, -but did not withdraw her attention from her cards. The father glanced -affectionately toward her without ceasing to count up the score he was -about to peg on the board. Geoffrey and I continued our reading. - -But the girl had been puzzling over the scrawl and all at once she -jumped up from her seat and came across to us. - -“Look!” she said. “Isn’t it funny? These words--they’re all like the -words on blotting-paper--they go backwards and inside out! And there -are figures, too!--Whatever could have made me do it?--And I don’t -remember doing it either, though of course I must have done so. There -was nothing on that page a minute before, I am sure of that!” - -There was something curiously uneasy in the girl’s manner, a note in -her voice that impressed me. I got up, took the open diary from her -hand and there sure enough was a large uneven scrawl, two lines of it, -diagonally across the page, and, as she said, reversed, as though it -had been blotted down upon it. - -Almost without thinking, I held the open page against one of the -mirrors panelled in the saloon wall--and I could not repress a cry -of astonishment. The scrawl was a decipherable sentence, mysterious -enough, but coherent!--I’ll write it down for you as nearly as I -remember it, so as to show you how it looked. He produced pencil and -paper from his pocket, wrote: “_lucia 1324 N 8127 W katalina sculle -point SWbS 3 trees digge jno dawson youre turne_:” There you are--the -last two words were added like a postscript and were followed by -a rough sketch, an irregular oval over a St. Andrew’s cross, like -this--O/X - -I read out what was written, and Pauline stared at me wide-eyed. - -“Whatever could have made me write that?” she exclaimed. - -Geoffrey looked up, fraternally scornful. - -“It’s a thin joke, Pauline! You can’t monkey us in that fashion! I -suppose you want to pretend that the ghost of some old pirate wrote it -down in your book so as to start us off on a Treasure Island hunt.” -Stevenson’s romance was then in its first success and Geoffrey had just -been reading it. “Of course, you wrote it deliberately--what nonsense!” - -She turned round upon him, her eyes filling with tears in the vehemence -of her protest. - -“Geoffrey, I couldn’t!--I couldn’t write reversed like that if I tried!” - -“Oh, yes, you could,” asserted Geoffrey, confidently. “It’s easy -enough.” - -“Supposing we all try,” said I, curious to test its feasibility. I felt -considerably puzzled. Pauline was not at all the sort of girl one would -expect to persist in such a pointless sort of practical joke as this, -and persistent she was--tearful like a child unjustly accused of a -crime of which it protests innocence. - -Her mother and father renounced their game of cribbage and bent their -heads together over the enigmatic screed, without proffering an -opinion. It was evident that they did not wish to hurt their daughter’s -feelings by open scepticism. They would have humoured her in anything, -no matter how absurd. - -I reiterated my suggestion and it was accepted in the spirit of a -parlour-game. A line from a book was selected, we all tried--and we all -failed hopelessly. None of us got more than two or three consecutive -letters right. It is not so easy as it sounds. Try it for yourselves! - -At that time, although spiritualism was a great craze in America, -and D. D. Home, Eglinton, and other famous mediums, were arousing -enormous interest and controversy in England, automatic script was -an uncommon phenomenon. Table-rapping, levitation, slate-writing and -materialization were the wonders in vogue--and I had then never heard -of the “mirror-writing” which has since become a frequent form of -automatic expression. Neither, of course, _à fortiori_, had the young -girl who had just produced this mysterious specimen. - -We all felt puzzled and impressed at our failure to imitate -deliberately the reversed script. Old Vandermeulen picked up the diary -and read the reflection of the scrawled page in the wall-mirror. - -“Well, it’s sure strange!” he said in his twangy drawl. “Geoff! You -write this down in a straightaway hand and we’ll see if we can get any -sense out of it. I guess there’s some meaning in it. Pauline ain’t -joking.” - -Geoffrey obeyed and read out the script again. - -“‘_lucia 1324 N 8127 W katalina sculle point SWbS 3_ _trees digge jno -dawson youre turne_’--It’s exactly like the directions to a pirate’s -buried treasure, Father!” he added, excitedly. “Skull and crossbones -and all! But of course that’s ridiculous! Though I can’t understand how -Pauline could have written it like she did!” - -“And I did not know even that I was writing!” asseverated Pauline, “let -alone know what I wrote! It was just as if my hand did not belong to -me--it was a sort of numbness that made me look down.” - -“Tear it up, dear!” implored her mother anxiously. “I am sure it comes -from the Devil!” Mrs. Vandermeulen belonged to a particularly strict -little sect and was always ready to discern the immediate agency of -the Evil One. - -“Devil or not!” said old Vandermeulen. “I guess if there’s any buried -treasure lying around here, I’m going to peg out my claim on it.” -He turned to me. “Young man, was there ever any pirates about these -parts?” The old ruffian was quite illiterate; had never, I believe, -read a book in his life. - -“Why, yes,” I replied, “from the end of the sixteenth century these -seas were the chief haunt of the buccaneers and, after them, of the -pirates who were not entirely suppressed until well in the eighteenth -century. There must be any amount of their hidden treasure buried in -these islands.” - -“You don’t say!” he exclaimed, his avaricious old eyes lighting up. -“And here have I been running this yacht up and down these parts for -five years at a dead loss!” His disgust would have been comic, were -it not for the ugly, ruthless lust of gold which looked suddenly out -of his face. “Guess I’m going to quit this fooling around right away! -I don’t know and don’t care if it was the Devil himself wrote this -specification in Pauline’s book--I’m darned sure she didn’t write it -herself--the handwriting’s different, d’you see?”--It was, as a matter -of fact, compared with the previous pages, quite another hand--hers -was an upright, rounded schoolgirl calligraphy, this was a cursive -old-fashioned script inclined well forward. “So as we’ve got nothing -else to start upon, we may as well see if there’s anything to it.” He -tossed Geoffrey’s transcription across to me. “What do you make of it, -young man?” he asked, with the sneering condescension he accorded to my -superior literary attainments. - -I took it, rather amused at the old scoundrel’s simplicity. That there -was any authentic meaning in Pauline’s scrawl seemed to me wildly -improbable. I was a frank materialist in those days and had Carpenter’s -formula of “unconscious cerebration” glibly ready to cover up anything -psychologically abnormal. However, I considered the sheet of paper with -attention. - -“Assuming this to be a genuine message,” I said, “it would appear to -give the precise latitude and longitude of some point where it is -desirable to dig. I take it that the figures stand for 13 degrees -24 minutes North, 81 degrees 27 minutes West. The world ‘_lucia_’ -puzzles me--unless the island of St. Lucia is meant. What ‘_katalina_’ -stands for, I do not know--it is evidently a proper name of some kind, -‘_sculle point SWbS 3 trees digge_’ presumably means that one should -dig under three trees south-west-by-south of Skull Point--wherever -that is. ‘_jno dawson_’ is, of course, John Dawson. Assuming this -to be a spirit-message from the other world,” I could not help -smiling ironically, “it is possibly the name of the ghost who is -communicating--and who desires to indicate to some person that it is -his or her turn. He does not specify for what. I may remark that the -ghost is either ill-educated or he has an archaic taste in spelling.” - -“I don’t like it,” said Mrs. Vandermeulen, querulously timid. “Do -tear it up, William! I am sure harm will come of it!--It is the Devil -tempting you!” - -“So long as he’s serious, he can tempt me sure easy!” said the old -ruffian in a tone of cool blasphemy which sent the colour out of his -wife’s face. He rang the bell and the negro steward appeared. “Sam! Ask -Captain Higgins to step in here for a moment!” - -Captain Higgins, the skipper of the yacht, was a level-headed mariner -of middle age whom nothing ever ruffled. He was competence itself. - -“Good evening, Captain Higgins,” said old Vandermeulen, fixing him -with the keen eyes under shaggy gray brows, eyes which defied you to -divine his purpose whilst they probed yours. “What’s the latitude and -longitude of the island of St. Lucia?” - -“Fourteen North, sixty-one West,” replied Captain Higgins promptly. - -Old Vandermeulen turned to me. - -“Then it’s not St. Lucia, young man,” he said. He picked up Geoffrey’s -transcription. “Well, now, Captain Higgins, is there any place -thirteen-twenty-four North, eighty-one twenty-seven West?” - -The skipper reflected a moment. - -“No place of importance, certainly. I’ll get the chart.” - -He returned with it, spread it out on the saloon table, ran his -forefinger across it. - -“Here you are!” he said. “A small island called Old Providence. It -belongs to Colombia.” - -Geoffrey, who was peering over his shoulder, uttered a startled -exclamation. - -“And look!” he cried. “There’s your Katalina!” He pointed to a small -islet just north of Old Providence, a mere dot on the chart. “Santa -Katalina!--My hat! that is weird!” - -It certainly was. From whatever stratum of Pauline’s consciousness her -writing had emanated, it was an amazing thing that she should have -written down the exact latitude and longitude of a tiny island off the -Nicaraguan coast and named it correctly. Even I could not help feeling -that it was more than a fortuitous coincidence, that it was uncanny. -The others surrendered themselves straight away. - -I turned to look at Pauline. She was deathly white; evidently -frightened at being made the vehicle of this message from the beyond. -Her mother clutched at her, as though protecting her from unseen -dangers. Geoffrey’s imagination had caught fire, his eyes were bright -with excitement. - -“My sakes! Pauline!” he cried. “I believe you now! You couldn’t have -written that out of your head. I’ve read of things like this before--I -guess you’re a medium and didn’t know it!--Father! We’ll track this -message down, wherever it comes from, say now?” - -“It comes from the Devil! Tear it up--oh, tear it up!” implored Mrs. -Vandermeulen. “William! Tear it up--don’t follow it!” - -Old Vandermeulen turned to the skipper. His jaw had set hard, his lips -were compressed, only the glitter in his eyes, peering in a momentary -fixation of thought from under his bent brows, showed that he shared -the excitement of his son. So he must have looked in his office when he -took the decisions which had made his millions. - -“Captain Higgins,” he said, curtly ignoring the supplications of his -wife, “how long will it take us to reach that island?” - -The skipper put his finger on the chart at a point south of Haiti. - -“We’re here,” he said. He measured off the distance. “At our best rate -of twelve knots--about sixty hours steaming.” - -The old man nodded. - -“Put her about,” he said. His harsh tone had an odd ring about it, as -though he was secretly conscious of affronting mysterious dangers, was -all the more emphatic. “Right now!” - -Captain Higgins never queried owners’ orders. - -“Very good, sir,” he replied, stolidly, and walked out of the cabin. - -A minute or two later we felt the yacht swing round. There is always -something impressive when a ship on the open sea goes about upon her -course, but I never felt it more powerfully than then. It seemed that -there was a fateful significance in our deliberate action. - -Geoffrey meanwhile was poring over the sheet of paper on which he had -transcribed his sister’s reversed scrawl. - -“It’s all perfectly clear,” he said, triumphantly. “We’ve got to make -this island of Santa Katalina, thirteen-twenty-four North, eighty-one -twenty-seven West, try and find a place called Skull Point, look for -three trees south-west-by-south of it, and dig! We understand every -word of it now!” - -“All except the word ‘_lucia_’” I corrected, “and whose turn it is.” - -“Yes--there’s that,” he said, dubiously. “I suppose every word has some -meaning.” - -“You can bet it has!” I replied, half sarcastically humouring his -credulity, half surrendering myself to an uncritical acception of these -mysteriously given directions. “I wonder who this John Dawson was--if -he existed?” - -“He’s a sure-enough ghost of some old pirate!” said Vandermeulen, with -complete conviction. “And I guess he’s putting us fair and good on to -his pile!” - -I laughed, involuntarily, at this childishness. The old man frowned. - -“There’s some things that perhaps even you all-fired clever young -fellows don’t know,” he said, crushingly. “’Tain’t the first time I’ve -heard of this sort of thing. A mate of mine in the old days at ’Frisco -was waked up one morning by the ghost of a prospector who’d died up in -the ranges. He told him just where he’d made his strike before his grub -gave out. My mate had never heard of the place but he lit straight away -on the trail--and sure enough the ghost was telling the truth. Old Jim -Hamilton it was--and he drank himself to death on what he got out of -it.” The old man looked me straight in the eyes as though challenging -me to doubt him. Of course, I could say nothing. He grunted scornfully, -and turned again to the chart still spread out upon the table. “It’s -a nice quiet out-of-the-way place,” reflected the old ruffian, -putting his thumb-nail on the lonely island. “Just the location for -a cache--guess they’d feel pretty sure of not being interfered with -there!” There was a grim undertone in his voice which was decidedly -ugly. He might, himself, have been the reincarnation of just such a -pirate as the one whose existence he was postulating. - -Well, nothing more happened that night. Mrs. Vandermeulen, thoroughly -alarmed and uneasy, hustled her daughter off to bed. Old Vandermeulen -and his son sat up in an endless discussion of the mysterious script, -referring again and again to the chart which so startlingly confirmed -its indications, and speculating optimistically as to the nature and -amount of the treasure they were convinced was buried in the designated -place. They talked themselves into a complete faith in the supernatural -origin of the message, and, father and son alike--it was curious to -note the traits of resemblance which cropped out in them--were equally -indifferent as to whether its source was diabolic or benevolent. -Enormously wealthy although they already were, the prospect of this -phantom gold waiting to be unearthed had completely fascinated them. -At last I turned in, wearied with the thousand and one questions they -asked me and to which I could give no answer, disgusted with their -avarice, and scornfully contemptuous of their simplicity. - -I found sleep no easy matter. Sceptical though I was, I could not get -Pauline’s curious production out of my head, and the more I thought of -it the more inexplicable seemed its coincidence with the chart. The -subconscious mind, with its amazing memory, its dramatic faculty, its -unexpected invasion of the surface consciousness in certain types, was -not then the commonplace of psychology that it is now--or I should -probably have referred the whole thing to the combination of a casual, -apparently unheeding, glance at the chart with a memory of some of -her brother’s remarks about “Treasure Island,” automatically and -dramatically reproduced. As it was, I could formulate no explanation -that satisfied me--though I utterly disbelieved in the ghost of a -piratical John Dawson, of which the two Vandermeulens were now fully -persuaded. - -The next day found us steaming steadily westward. Father and son could -talk of nothing else but their fancied buried treasure and their plans -for digging it up without taking the crew of the yacht into their -confidence. Mrs. Vandermeulen hovered round her daughter, horribly -anxious of she knew not what, but--after having been once silenced by -a peremptory oath from her husband--afraid to make further protest. -Pauline herself sat all day in a deck-chair, more silent even than -usual, staring dreamily across the empty sea in a reverie which ignored -us all. Naturally, I watched her closely. But, except that her eyes had -a kind of haunting fear in them, she seemed perfectly normal. Evidently -the occurrence of the previous night had shocked her profoundly, for -once, when I casually mentioned it, she shuddered and implored me not -to speak of it again. The fear of the uncanny in herself stared out of -her eyes as she entreated me. - -This dreamy absorption in herself continued until supper time that -evening. Throughout the meal, I do not think she uttered a single -word. She seemed not even to hear the conversation around her, but -toyed listlessly with her food and finally ceased to eat long before -the others had finished. Watching her with a professionally interested -observation, I was uneasy. She had leaned back in her chair, was gazing -straight before her with wide-open eyes. Suddenly I noticed that they -had glazed over. All expression faded out of her face. The arm that -rested on the salmon-table stiffened into a cataleptic sort of rigidity. - -Her mother was also anxiously watching her. - -“Pauline!” she cried. “Are you ill?” - -There was no answer. The girl sat like a statue. Mrs. Vandermeulen -glanced at me in wild alarm, silently imploring my intervention. -Old Vandermeulen and his son were hotly arguing the desirability or -otherwise of informing Captain Higgins of their plans, and took no -notice of us. - -I got up from my seat and went round the table to the girl. I lifted up -her lifelessly heavy arm with my fingers on her pulse. It was normal. - -“Miss Vandermeulen!” I said, rather sharply. “Are you not well?” - -She turned her head slowly round to me, like a sleep-walker faintly -aware of some sound that does not, however, wake her, and stared me -full in the face with eyes in which there was not the slightest glimmer -of recognition. - -“Pauline!” almost screamed her mother, “don’t you know your own name?” - -An expression of curious intelligence dawned in her face--her aspect -changed in some subtle manner, as though another, quite different, -personality was emerging in her--she laughed in low, confident tones -utterly unlike her ordinary laugh. - -“My name is Lucia!” she said, as though stating a well-known fact. - -Lucia! To say that we were startled is to understate our -astonishment--we were dumbfounded. The first word of the cryptic -message! We gazed at her for a moment as at a complete stranger -from the clouds--and indeed she looked it, as she smiled at us with -bright malicious eyes. The diffident Pauline we knew had completely -disappeared. - -“She is possessed!” screamed her mother. “Oh, God--restore her! restore -her!” - -The girl stood up suddenly from her chair, passed her hand over her -eyes, shook herself as though shaking off sleep. She turned away from -us deliberately. - -“Oh, John!” she said, and there was an odd little foreign accent in -her tone, “I have dreamed--such a strange dream! I dreamed--I know -not!--that I was not Lucia!” She laughed softly in her new low tones, -“--That strange people were asking me my name. Then I woke--oh, John!” -she sidled up in a wheedling manner to what, so far as we could see, -was vacant space. “I am Lucia, am I not?--And you love me? You love -me?” Her shoulders moved sinuously as though she were putting herself -under the caresses of a person invisible to us. “You love me--and I -love you, although you have only that one terrible eye!” She still -spoke with that curious foreign accent which lent a certain piquancy -to her speech. “You love me, you John Dawson, you Englishman, you love -me for ever, say?” She reminded me of Carmen sidling up to Don José. -“You not deceive me--or----!” She looked up as into a tall man’s face -with a sudden expression of feline vindictiveness, her white teeth -showing in an ugly little rictus of the mouth, and slid her hand down -stealthily toward her stocking. “But no!” She smiled; her hand came up -again as though to rest upon a man’s shoulder. “You love me--and I love -you--and,” her voice dropped, “when we have killed the others we go -away with the treasure--you promise me, John Dawson?” - -She appeared utterly unaware of our presence. There was a dramatic -intensity in her voice and gestures which thrilled even me, although I -had attended some hypnotic experiments in London and was aware of the -complete realism with which a somnambulist will play a part suggested -to him. I had no doubt whatever that she was in a state of hypnosis, -accidentally self-induced, and that she was merely acting on the -suggestions of the talk she had overheard. - -Her mother, however, had no such consoling certitude. She hid her face -in her hands, groaning: “She is possessed! She is possessed! Oh, God, -cast out the evil spirit! cast out the evil spirit!” - -Geoffrey was white to the lips, appalled, unable to utter a sound. The -old man stared at her, fascinated, a strange gleam in his eyes. - -The mother turned to me in despair. - -“Oh, doctor! Do something--do something!--Oh, if only we had a minister -here! She is possessed by an evil spirit! My Pauline! My Pauline!” -She sank on her knees by one of the swivel-chairs, gave herself up to -agonized prayers. “Oh, God, cast out the evil one! Oh, God, cast out -the evil one!” - -Thinking that this strange incident had already lasted more than long -enough, I took a step toward the girl with a vague idea (though I -didn’t quite know how) of breaking the hypnosis. She stood looking -upward still, with a wheedling, diabolical smile, into apparent -nothingness. - -“We will go together--we two--with the treasure, say, John Dawson?” she -murmured seductively, the very incarnation of a Delilah. “Mansvelt is -dead--we will run away from Simon and go with my people before they -kill us all--they are very many and you can only hold out two-three -days--but we might take the treasure, John Dawson, the treasure you -and Simon hid with Mansvelt--Simon, we will kill him--and we will go -away and be rich--rich, John Dawson--say?” Her voice was perfidiously -honeyed, her eyes glistened, as she caressed that uncanny empty air. - -“What is she talking about?” muttered Geoffrey in a low, excited voice. -“Who are these people--Mansvelt and Simon? Have you heard of them, -doctor?” - -I shook my head. They were utterly unknown to me. For a moment I -hesitated, fascinated by the little drama, curious to hear more. - -The mother moaned. - -“Oh, do something, doctor! do something!--Save her! Save her! Oh, God, -deliver her from the evil one!” - -Her agony recalled me to my professional duty. I started forward but -before I could reach her I was snatched back by a violent hand on my -shoulder. - -“Stand aside!” commanded old Vandermeulen in a terrible voice. “Evil -spirit or no evil spirit, I guess it knows all about that treasure--and -I’m going to hear what it’s got to say!” Of his normal love for his -daughter there was not a trace. The man was completely dominated, to -the exclusion of any other sentiment, by the lust for gold, more gold. -He looked scarcely human as his eyes glowered upon me, murder in them -if I thwarted him. “If it’s the Devil himself that’s got her--let her -talk!” - -But the mother sprang up with a wild shriek, rushed toward her daughter. - -“Do you wish her eternal damnation?” she cried, flinging her arms -about the girl. “Pauline! Pauline! For the love of God, don’t you know -me?--Oh, say a prayer--say a prayer after me!” She commenced the Lord’s -Prayer in a voice that trembled with anguish. - -The girl stood rigid in her embrace, drawn up away from her, looking -down upon her with fixed and hostile eyes. She made one instinctive -movement to escape--and then suddenly crumpled in a swoon upon the -floor. - -She came round easily enough under simple restoratives, looked up at -us with childish, bewildered eyes--the old Pauline again! Her mother -completely broke down over her, sobbing in almost crazy joy at her -restoration. Emotionally infected, perhaps, the girl also gave way to -a hysterical passion of weeping, which would not be checked, and for -which she could give no reason. She seemed not to have the slightest -recollection of the part she had just played. Old Vandermeulen, still -obsessed by his lust for the treasure, tried to question her. She only -stared at him dumbly--a vague fear coming into her eyes, but giving -no response. I silenced him with all the authority of my professional -position, and got the girl into her stateroom, where we left her with -her mother. - -Throughout the next day neither of the two women appeared. Pauline -was utterly prostrated, and she remained in bed. Her mother stayed -with her, under strict injunctions to mention nothing of last night’s -terrible scene. - -Meanwhile, of course, we were steadily drawing nearer to the Nicaraguan -coast and the island of Old Providence with its tiny and, to us, -fascinating satellite, Santa Katalina. Even I could not help wondering -what we should find there. The two Vandermeulens were in a fever of -excitement, cursing at every moment the slowness of the yacht. We were, -as a matter of fact, due to reach the island early next morning. - -Some time in the afternoon, the old man approached me confidentially. - -“Say, young know-all,” he said, “what d’you figure out was the meaning -of last night’s gaff? I guess Pauline ain’t got no natural talent for -play-acting like that.” - -Rather foolishly, I amused myself with his credulity. - -“Of course,” I said, concealing a smile, “it may be that in a previous -existence your daughter’s name was Lucia--the Spanish lady friend of -some of the buccaneers and particularly of a certain John Dawson, who -is now directing her to the treasure they buried together a few hundred -years ago.” I regretted my words the moment they were uttered. The -man’s infatuation needed no fanning from me. - -“By God, you’ve hit it!” he exclaimed. “And she’s just remembering!--I -guess she can lead us straight to it!” - -“Don’t be absurd!” I said, pettishly. “I was only joking!” - -He glared at me in savage disappointment. - -“You’re joking with the wrong man!” he said harshly. “Besides, it sure -ain’t impossible!--You don’t know what happens to us when we’re dead, -though you do think you know everything!” - -“No--it’s not impossible,” I conceded. “But it’s improbable.” - -“That’s your opinion,” he sneered. “You know nothing about it!--I’ve -had them feelings myself--feelings that I’ve been to a place before -when I sure know I haven’t. By God, that’s it!--Pauline’s just -remembering--coming back to these old places--and she’ll take us a -bee-line to the cache!” - -He strode off to impart this illuminating theory to his son, and I saw -no more of them until supper time. They were, I was sure, concerting -some plan for cutting me out of a share in the treasure. - -They had the furtive look of a couple of conspirators as we three, -Pauline and her mother still absent, sat that night at table. Both -forced themselves to exhibit a strained politeness to me, which -obviously concealed some treacherous design. I didn’t like the -atmosphere at all and was impelled to clear it. - -“By the way,” I remarked, casually, “I don’t want a share in that -treasure--I prefer to work for my living.” As I had not the slightest -faith in its existence, this renunciation was not difficult. “Supposing -your theory to be true, it belongs to Miss Vandermeulen if it belongs -to any one.” - -“Sure, that’s so!” agreed the old man. “It’s Pauline’s treasure, right -enough. Ain’t it, Geoffrey?” - -“I guess it’s no one else’s,” said Geoffrey, picking up the idea. “I’ll -see to that.” - -I could not help smiling at the gratuitous menace in his tone; he might -have been sitting on the treasure-chests already. - -At that moment we were startled by an appalling scream, a choking cry, -from Pauline’s stateroom. - -We rushed in and stood for a moment transfixed with horror. Pauline, -leaning out of her bunk, was throttling with both hands the life out -of her mother, who had been sitting by the bedside. In a flash of my -first perception of the scene, I saw that the girl had reverted to -her trance-personality. It was Lucia who had that deadly grip upon -the other woman’s throat, Lucia who glared at her with fiendishly -triumphant eyes, Lucia who gloated mockingly in her foreign accent: -“Ah, Teresa!--You think you would take the Englishman from me--you -think you would go away with John Dawson and the treasure?” She -laughed, cruelly exultant. “I think no, Teresa--I think no--not with -the treasure! You can go with that John Dawson, yes! But not with the -treasure! You go and wait for him--for your John Dawson--I will send -him to you--soon--soon!” Her low laugh was diabolical. - -We flung ourselves upon her, but her strength was superhuman. She -seemed utterly oblivious of us, as heedless of our struggles as -though we were not there. Her eyes flashing, her teeth showing, she -continued to jeer at her victim in her foreign voice: “He will come -to you to-night--your John Dawson--as he promised, yes! I will send -him to you----!” Only as we finally tore the almost strangled Mrs. -Vandermeulen from her hands did she suddenly cease to speak. She sank -back upon the bed, swooning into complete unconsciousness. - -I drove out the father and son and applied myself to reviving the -mother. I shall not forget the terrible night I had with her, after she -had resuscitated. At length, I had to give her a few drops of laudanum -to get her off to sleep. Pauline slept like a child. - -I woke up the next morning to that strange feeling of hushed stillness -which pervades a ship when her engines are at rest after a long period -of unbroken activity. We were pitching heavily, evidently at anchor, -for our upward rise was every now and then suddenly and jarringly -arrested. We had arrived! - -I went to look at my patients and found them both suffering from -sea-sickness. This vicious plunging of the yacht was more than their -weak stomachs could stand. I gave them each a steadying draught and -then went on deck. - -The two Vandermeulens were on the bridge with the skipper. I ignored -them, instinctively avoiding their certain excitement. Upon our port -bow was a fairly large island, its rocky shore crowned with a dense -tropical foliage. On the other side of us was a small islet, barren -save for a few sparse trees scattered over it, surf breaking white upon -its beaches. Old Providence and its satellite, Santa Katalina! Between -the two islands a strong current was running, with a heavy ground-swell -in which we plunged and kicked, straining at our cables. No wonder the -two ladies were ill, I thought, as the deck sank sickeningly sideways -under my feet. - -I went into the saloon and found that the Vandermeulens had already -breakfasted. As I ate my solitary meal, I could hear the heavy -trampling of feet on the deck overhead, and guessed that they were -hoisting outboard the little steam-launch we used when in harbour. - -When I had finished, I went to have another look at Pauline. Her mother -was with her. Mentally, she was completely her normal self, with -apparently no memory even of that trance-personality which had for -the second time surged up in her. But she was feeling very ill in this -violent and disturbing motion of the anchored yacht. - -Old Vandermeulen came in. - -“Get up and dress, Pauline!” he commanded, brutally, as though bearing -down opposition in advance. “We’re going ashore!” - -His wife sprang forward. - -“Oh, no, no, William! Don’t take her! Don’t take her!--Don’t tempt -Providence. Don’t go! William! William!” she clung to him in -supplication. “She’s too ill to go! She’s too ill to go, isn’t she, -doctor?” - -The old man shook her off. - -“Nonsense!” he said roughly. Nevertheless, he turned enquiringly to me. - -I considered the pros and cons dispassionately for a moment. Of course, -the old lady’s fears were mere superstition and did not influence me in -the least. - -“Well,” I said, “I think that if Miss Vandermeulen feels equal to the -effort of dressing, it would do her good to get away from the yacht and -walk about on firm land for an hour or two.” - -“I should like to,” said Pauline, all docility. “Besides,” she smiled, -“I should like to see for myself if there is any truth in that strange -writing.” - -Half an hour later we had, with some difficulty, stowed the ladies--for -the mother insisted on coming also--in the stern-sheets of the little -launch which rose and fell dizzily under the lee of the yacht. The -two Vandermeulens were amidships, ready to give instructions to the -helmsman. I noticed that they had a pick and shovel on board. I sat -close to Pauline. She was looking pale, but the sea-sickness was in -abeyance for the moment and a touch of digitalis I had given her had -stiffened her up. - -We sheered off, set a course over the rolling dark blue well toward the -islet we could see as we lifted on the waves. We had anchored rather -on the Old Providence side of the channel dividing the islands, and -the launch was about midway between the two when Pauline, who had been -looking around her with some curiosity, uttered a sudden ejaculation. - -“That’s not the island!” she cried, with a gesture toward Santa -Katalina. “It’s the other one--the big one!” She pointed to Old -Providence. Then she checked herself, a peculiar look of puzzlement in -her face. “I wonder whatever made me say that!” she exclaimed. “One -would think I have been here before--but I can’t have!” - -“But that’s Santa Katalina!” objected Geoffrey, pointing to the islet. -It undoubtedly was. - -“Wait!” said old Vandermeulen, who had been sharply watching his -daughter for any sign of recognition. “I guess Pauline knows what she -is talking about!” - -He stopped the engine and for a few moments we rose and fell idly upon -the waves, while the two men stared across to Old Providence. - -“By Jove, yes!” cried Geoffrey suddenly. “Pauline’s right! Look! -There’s Skull Point!” - -He indicated, with outstretched hand, a jutting headland whose face had -been weather-sculptured into the unmistakable semblance of a skull. - -“Skull Point it is!” said old Vandermeulen, with such an oath as he did -not usually let come to his daughter’s ears. - -In another moment we had gone about and were throbbing quickly toward -the headland. All eyes were fixed on it as we approached. Geoffrey had -produced a compass. - -“Look!” he cried. “The three trees! South-west-by-south from Skull -Point!” - -Sure enough, in the direction designated, three enormous trees, -evidently hundreds of years old, raised their heads high above the mass -of more recent vegetation. - -A quarter of an hour later we were running into a little cove on the -west side of the headland. A ledge of rock, sheltered from the swell, -offered itself as a landing-stage, and we ran alongside and made fast. - -Old Vandermeulen ordered the two members of the yacht’s crew, who had -accompanied us, to remain in the launch. The rest of us started off -into the island, Geoffrey carrying the tools. The three trees were at -no great distance, at the summit of a slope of broken-down volcanic -rock. Geoffrey arrived first. - -“No need to worry where to dig, Father!” he shouted. “Here it is--plain -enough!” - -Under the centre tree was a cairn of loose stones, more than half -buried under the detritus of many years, it is true, but evidently the -work of men’s hands. - -“That’s it, sure!” cried the old man. “First time you’ve seen this -place, Pauline?” he queried, with a touch of grim cynicism. - -“Of course!” she replied. “What do you mean, Father?--and yet--” she -hesitated, looking around her--“yet I do have a strange sort of feeling -as though I had been here before. But I can’t have! It’s absurd!” - -Mother and daughter sat down under the shade of the trees whilst we -three set to work to open the cairn. I was as excited as they by this -time, and I helped with a will. The old man, wielding his pick with the -skill of an ex-miner, loosened the stones on the surface. I rolled away -the big ones, and Geoffrey shovelled away the smaller stuff. At the end -of an hour we had made a pretty deep excavation. We then took it in -turns to work with pick and shovel in the hole, from which we threw up -the stones. - -Suddenly Geoffrey uttered an exclamation. - -“We’re on something!--What’s that, doctor?” He passed me up a long bone. - -“That’s the tibia of a man,” I replied. “I expect you’ll find the rest -of him there.” - -“Sure thing!” he said. “Here he is!” He cleared away one or two large -lumps of rock and revealed the grinning skeleton of a man. “Hallo!” he -added, as he bent down to it, “what’s this?” - -A long thin stiletto was lying loosely between the fleshless ribs of -the skeleton. - -The old man snatched it from him as he plucked it out. - -“And by all that’s holy!” he cried, “it’s got her name on it! Look!” - -I took it from him. The dagger was of antique pattern, its steel rusted -and corroded but still resilient enough to make it a dangerous weapon, -and on the hilt, still legible, roughly inlaid in silver like the -amateur work of a sailorman, was the name--_Lucia!_ - -“I guess she murdered him with that!” said the old man, grimly, -glancing from the stiletto to the skeleton grinning up at us from the -hole where it had so long lain undisturbed. He turned toward where his -daughter sat in the shade of the trees. “Here, Pauline!” he called to -her. “Come and see--your friend the pirate and the knife that killed -him!” - -The girl jumped up and ran across to us, all excitement. - -“How wonderful!” she said. “It’s like a dream come true!” - -At the time, excited as we all were, I did not notice the strangeness -of that spontaneous phrase. She stood upon the edge of the excavation -and took the stiletto with eager curiosity from her father. She held it -in both hands, breast-high, the point toward her, to read the name upon -the hilt. - -“Lucia!” she cried, with a strange look toward us, as though dimly and -uncertainly recalling some terrible experience. “Lucia!” She repeated -the name with a peculiar, slow intonation--an intonation of puzzled -half-remembrance. - -We stared at her, fascinated. Was our fantastic theory true? - -Her gaze lost us, fixed itself into vacancy. Her features changed. An -expression of vague fear--the fear of the hypnotic shrinking at some -invisible danger--came into them. She opened her mouth as though to -speak. - -She uttered only an inarticulate cry--a cry of fright as the loose -stones of the excavation slipped from under her. She fell headlong into -the hole, where she lay oddly--ominously--still. I jumped down after -her, lifted her up. The rusty old stiletto, caught under her in her -fall, had driven straight into her heart--broken off at the hilt! - - -The doctor stopped, looked round upon his audience. - -“And the treasure?” queried one of them. - -“There was no treasure. There was no more digging that day. We took -the poor girl’s corpse back to the yacht and I thought her mother -would have died as well--or gone out of her mind. She was screaming -to get away from the place. But the old man was not put off his game -so easily. The next day, whilst I stayed on board with the distracted -mother, he and his son went and dug again in that tragic cairn. - -“They brought back all they found--the broken lid of a chest, branded -with the date 1665. That, curiously enough, was _underneath_ the -skeleton, suggesting that the hoard had been rifled before the man, -whoever he was, was killed.” - -“A strange story!” commented another of the audience. “And what’s your -hypothesis in explanation, doctor?” - -The doctor smiled. - -“Well--you can have your choice,” he said. “There is the possibility -that, in a prior existence, Miss Vandermeulen was in fact Lucia, that -she seduced John Dawson into revealing the secret of the treasure, -that she murdered him on the spot and went off with it--and that -the vengeful spirit of the old buccaneer, hovering around these -latitudes, came into touch with her new reincarnation, and, playing -with a fine irony upon that same lust of gold which was responsible -for his murder but of which she was this time entirely innocent, led -her to a death by that same poniard with which she had killed _him_. -Alternatively, there is the hypothesis that her spontaneous writing and -the impersonation of Lucia were but an automatic dramatization by her -subconsciousness of hints dropped into it by her brother’s reading of -‘Treasure Island’ and subsequent conversations between her father and -his son, and that her death was a mere coincidence.” - -“An incredibly complete coincidence!” said one of the men. - -The doctor shrugged his shoulders. - -“There was one other curious thing,” he said. “Some years later, in -a history of the buccaneers, I came across a paragraph to the effect -that the island called Old Providence since the eighteenth century was -known to the buccaneers as Santa Katalina, and that only subsequently -was that name transferred to the islet north of it. So Pauline’s -subconscious memory was right! Furthermore, it stated that the large -island, then called Santa Katalina, was seized and garrisoned by the -buccaneers in 1664 under the leadership of a man named Mansvelt. He -sailed off to get recruits, leaving the island in command of a certain -Simon, and died upon the voyage. Simon surrendered the island to the -Spaniards who had besieged it. The date was 1665. - -“Of course, Miss Vandermeulen may have read that paragraph and -subconsciously retained the names--but, for her, it was an improbable -kind of reading. At any rate, she had a curious knowledge of an -out-of-the-way piece of history. As I said, when you tap the -subconsciousness you never know what buried treasure you may find. -Well, I leave you to your hypotheses, gentlemen.” He stood up, knocked -out his pipe. “Good-night!” - - - - -A PROBLEM IN REPRISALS - - -In the dusk of a winter afternoon a battalion of the French Contingent -of the Army of Occupation dispersed to its billets in the little -German village. The _Chef-de-bataillon_ and the _médecin-major_, -having installed their staffs in their respective bureaux, walked up -the street in search of the quarters which had been chosen for them -in the meanwhile. The scared faces of slatternly women, obsequiously -gesturing the mud-stained French soldiers into occupation of their -cottages, turned to look anxiously at them as they passed, in evident -apprehension of the order which should let loose a vengeful destruction -only too probable to their uneasy consciences. Here and there a -haggard-looking man, an ex-soldier probably, slunk into his house, out -of sight, but the native population of the village was preponderatingly -feminine. The two officers--the _commandant_, good-humoured and -inclined to rotundity, his eyes twinkling under brows a shade less gray -than his moustache; the doctor, a middle-aged man, quiet, restrained -to curtness in speech and expression, with eyes that swept sombrely -without interest over his environment--ignored alike the false smiles -and the genuinely alarmed glances of these wives and mothers of their -once arrogant enemies. - -A captain came down the street toward them and saluted on near -approach. It was the adjutant of the battalion. He was young and his -natural cheerfulness was enhanced to perpetual high spirits in the -enjoyment of the experiences following upon overwhelming victory. - -“We are well housed, _mon commandant_,” he said joyously, with a -flash of white teeth under his little brown moustache. “_Comfort -moderne--presque!_ Not a château, it is true--but large enough. The -best in the village, in any case. Bedrooms for the three of us, and a -room for our _popote_. Our baggage is already in, and dinner will be -ready in half an hour. _Tout ce qu’il y a de mieux, n’est-ce pas?_” He -finished with his young laugh. - -The gray eyes of the battalion-commander twinkled at him. - -“And the _patronne_, Jordan?--Old and ugly?” - -The young man’s face lit up. He put one finger to his lips and blew an -airy kiss. - -“Ah, _mon commandant_!” he replied in a tone of assumed ecstasy. “You -shall see her! A pearl, a jewel, _une femme exquise_!--That is to say,” -he added, with a change of note, “she would be if she were not a _femme -boche_. One almost forgets it, to look at her. But _boche_ or not, she -is young, she is beautiful, and, _mon commandant_, rarest of all--she -is intelligent!” - -The battalion commander laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and -drew him along with them as they resumed their momentarily interrupted -progress. - -“I see I have to congratulate you upon another conquest,” he said, with -amused tolerance. “He is incredible, _notre cher Jordan_, Delassus!” he -added with a smile to the doctor. - -“_Je ne dis pas_,” protested the young captain with an affectation -of modesty. “But we understand each other and that is already -much--although, unfortunately, she speaks no French and my German lacks -vocabulary. But she made me understand that her husband was an officer -killed in the war. ‘_Mann_--_Offizier_--_tot_--_Krieg_.’ That’s right, -doctor, _n’est-ce pas_?--You are the linguist.” - -The doctor nodded assent. - -“Quite correct. You should make rapid progress under an instructor so -willing to impart interesting information,” he said drily. - -The young man protested warmly against the implication. - -“Your cynicism is out of place, doctor. I assure you. She is -_timide_--_timide_ like a frightened bird.--I extorted it from -her.--But you shall see for yourselves. Here we are!” - -They were at the end of the village. The young captain led them through -a carriage gateway, sadly in need of a coat of paint, up a weed-grown -drive to a fairly large house, that had once been white but was now -stained with the overflow of gutters long left out of repair. A belt of -trees hid it from the road. The main door, in the centre of the house -with windows on both sides of it, was open, as if in expectation of -them. Wisps of smoke from several of the chimneys hinted at hospitality -in preparation. - -As the three of them entered the hall, a young woman appeared on the -threshold of one of the rooms communicating with it. Her natural -slimness was emphasized by a gown of black, and this sombre garb threw -into relief the fair hair which was massed heavily above her delicate -features. It needed, perhaps, the youthful enthusiasm of the captain to -call her beautiful; but her appearance had something of fragile charm -which conferred a distinction rare among German women. She stood there, -a little drawn back from her first emergence, contemplating them with -eyes that evidently sought to measure the potentiality for mischief in -these forced guests. Her attitude appealed dumbly for protection, so -forlorn and frail and timid was it as she shrunk back in the doorway. - -“Introduce us, Jordan!” whispered the battalion-commander to his -subordinate. “_On est civilisé, quoi donc!_” - -The young captain had lost a considerable amount of his assurance. -Rather flustered, he saluted and pointed to his superior. - -“_Commandant!_” then, turning to the other, “Doctor!” he blurted, -clumsily. - -Their hostess bowed slightly with a pathetic little smile as the two -officers saluted. The doctor advanced a step. - -“Have no fear, _gnädige Frau_,” he said politely in German. “The war is -over and France does not avenge itself upon women. No harm will come to -you.” - -Her face lit up. - -“_Ach_, you speak German!” - -“I studied in Germany in my youth, _gnädige Frau_, and I have not quite -forgotten the language.” - -She smiled at him. - -“_Gewiss nicht!_” Then, with a swift change of expression, she clutched -imploringly at his arm. “You will protect me? I am so alone and -frightened!” She hesitated as though seeking a cognate circumstance in -him that should compel his sympathy. “You are married?” - -The polite smile went out of his face. His expression hardened. - -“I was, _gnädige Frau_,” he replied, curtly. - -She stared at him, divining that she had blundered upon some painful -mystery. With feminine tact she steered quickly away from it into the -region of safe commonplace. She threw open one of the doors leading -into the hall. - -“Here, _meine Herren_, is the _Speisezimmer_,” she said in a tone of -colourless courtesy that contrasted with her emotion-charged voice of -a moment before. “It is at your service for your meals. There,” she -pointed to a door at the other side of the hall, “is the _Salon_--also -at your service. I have had a fire lit in it. Your orderlies are now -in the kitchen. I will send them to you to show you your rooms.” She -inclined her head slightly in sign of farewell and passed out through a -door at the end of the hall. - -The young captain looked at his commanding officer. - -“_Eh bien, mon commandant?_ What did I tell you? Is she not----?” - -His superior interrupted him, a twinkle in his eye. - -“She is, _mon cher Jordan_--but you have not a chance against the -doctor here!” He laughed, clapping the doctor on the back. - -The _médecin-major_ frowned. His ascetic features hardened again. - -“_Mon cher commandant_, you do me too much honour,” he said coldly. “I -assure you that there is no living woman who can interest me.” - -“Bah!” said the battalion-commander a trifle fatuously, “_moi, je suis -connaisseur dans ces affaires-lá!_ I am sure that something is going to -happen between you and that woman. I can always feel that sort of thing -in the air like--” he hesitated for an illustration, “like some people -can see ghosts.” - -The doctor looked him in the eyes. - -“_Mon Commandant_,” he said, curtly, “if you could see ghosts you would -not feel so sure.” - -There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The captain broke it by -shouting for the orderlies. - -The three officers were introduced to their rooms and parted to perform -their toilet before dinner. - -The meal which followed in the rather overfurnished Speisezimmer was -overshadowed by the gloomy taciturnity of the doctor who appeared still -to resent the battalion-commander’s suggestions of gallantry. Not all -the sprightly sallies of the adjutant, not the persistent _bonhomie_ -of the battalion-commander, resolutely ignoring any hostility between -himself and the doctor, could bring a smile into that hard-set face -with the sombre eyes. Their hostess did not appear again and was not -mentioned between them. When they had finished, the captain suggested -that they should smoke their cigars in the Salon. - -“I feel I want to put my feet on the piano,” he said, with a vague -remembrance of a popular picture, “like the _boches_ at Versailles in -’seventy! To infect our hostess’s curtains with cigar-smoke is a poor -compromise, but it is something! _Allons, messieurs!_--let us indulge -in hideous reprisals! The _boche_ has devastated our homes--let us -avenge ourselves by spoiling his curtains!” - -The battalion-commander looked smilingly across to the doctor. - -“_Mon cher Delassus_, are you for this policy of reprisals?” - -The doctor looked up as though startled out of a train of thought. - -“_Mon commandant_, it is a subject on which I dare not let myself -think.” - -There was something so harsh in his tone that neither of his companions -could continue their banter. Both looked at the doctor. They knew -little or nothing of his private life, for he had joined the battalion -only just prior to the armistice, but evidently it contained a tragedy -the memory of which they had unwittingly revived. Both maintained a -respectful silence for a few moments. Then the adjutant rose and went -out of the room. He called out to them from the Salon that a splendid -fire awaited them, and the others rose from the table also. - -The battalion-commander laid his hand affectionately upon the doctor’s -shoulder. - -“_Mon cher_,” he said, “forgive me if I have unconsciously wounded -sacred sentiments.” - -The doctor pressed the hand that was extended to him. They went -together across the hall into the Salon. - -A blazing wood fire fitfully lit up a large room still without other -means of illumination. Jordan explained that he had sent an orderly -for some candles, as Madame had no petroleum for the lamps. The -battalion-commander and the doctor threw themselves luxuriously into -deep armchairs on either side of the fireplace and lit their cigars. In -a few minutes the orderly arrived with the candles. Jordan fitted them -into two large candelabra on the mantelpiece and lit them. - -The eyes of all three officers roved around the apartment. It was, like -the dining-room, rather overfurnished and was particularly rich in -bric-à-brac of all kinds. It was, in fact, overcrowded with porcelain -figures, small mirrors, pictures of moderate size, all sorts of -valuable objects that in almost every case were of _easily portable -dimensions_. This last attribute leaped simultaneously to the minds of -two of them. - -“_Mon commandant_,” began Jordan, in a humorously affected judicial -tone, “I am penetrated by an unworthy suspicion----!” - -“French! _Nom d’un nom!_” cried the battalion-commander. “Everything -here!--The collection of the burglar _boche_ officer!--Doctor! You -speak German!--Ask that woman----!” - -Both were suddenly arrested by the attitude of the doctor. He was -staring in a fixed fascination at a small Buhl clock upon the -mantelpiece. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, snatched down the clock, -and gazed eagerly at the back of it. - -“_Mon Dieu!_” he cried. “_This is mine!_--it comes from my -house!--Look!” - -He showed them an inscription on the back: - -[1]“_A Jules, pour marquer les heures d’un amour qui ne cessera pas -quand le temps même cessera, de sa Marcelle._” - -He stared at them like a lunatic. - -“My wife!” he cried. “My wife!--Oh, Marcelle, Marcelle, where are you? -Where are you?” - -The others also had risen to their feet. A tense silence followed upon -the wild cry. - -The battalion-commander touched the doctor’s arm. - -“_Mon ami_,” he said gently, “--can we help you----?” - -The erstwhile sombre eyes of the doctor blazed down upon him, as -though searching for a mortal enemy even in this friend. Then, with a -distinctly apparent effort of will, the anguished man mastered himself. - -“Listen!” he said. “This clock was a present to me from my wife. It was -a love-marriage, ours--we loved, she and I----” he broke off, his eyes -blazing again. Then, with a gesture of the hand as though he put that -from him, he continued: “Before the war I was in practice at Cambrai. -We lived out of the town--in a country house such as this. In August, -1914, I was mobilized. They sent me to Lorraine. I left my wife at -home, believing her to be safe. You know what happened. The enemy swept -over that part of the country. Trench-warfare began and my home, all -I cared for in the world--my wife--was in the German lines. I never -saw her again. I could never get any news. I waited four desperate -years--and then, when we advanced, I went to find my home. It simply -did not exist--it was a heap of bricks with a trench through it. My -wife--no hint!” He pressed a hand over his eyes, then stared once more -at the clock. “And now--I find this--here!” - -Again there was a tense silence. The battalion-commander broke it at -last. - -“Interrogate the woman,” he said, briefly. “She must know something.” - -“It is a pity her husband is dead,” said the captain, with grim humour. -“We could have the pleasure of condemning him by court-martial, after -he had confessed--whatever there is to confess.” - -The doctor’s face set hard. He replaced the clock on the mantelpiece -and wrote a few words on a page of his notebook. - -“I am going to have the truth,” he said, tearing out the page and -folding it up. “Ring the bell, my dear Jordan.” - -An orderly appeared. - -“Take this to Madame,” said the doctor, “at once.” - -The orderly departed. The three men waited, two of them tingling with -the excitement of this unexpected drama, the third standing with -compressed lips and eyes that seemed to be frowning into a world which -transcended this. He was certainly oblivious of his companions in the -fixity of his thought. At last his lips moved. - -“Marcelle! Marcelle!” he murmured. “My love! I am going to know--and, -if need be, to avenge!” - -At that moment the door opened and the frail little figure of the -German woman appeared upon the threshold. - -“_Meine Herren?_” she said, in timid enquiry. - -The doctor looked up. His companions marvelled to see the expression of -his face change to a smiling courtesy. But there was a glitter in the -usually sombre eyes which spurred their hardly repressed excitement. - -“Will you have the kindness to enter, _gnädige Frau_?” said the doctor. -His voice was suave, but there was a note in it which his companions, -although they did not understand the words, recognized as compelling. - -The German woman glanced at him apprehensively, and obeyed. The doctor -drew up an armchair for her, close to the fire. - -“Will you not seat yourself, _gnädige Frau_?” he asked still in the -suave voice with the undertone of command. - -She inclined her head speechlessly and sat down. They noticed that her -hands were trembling. The doctor motioned his companions to resume -their seats. He himself remained standing, his back to the fireplace, -his form hiding the clock on the mantelpiece from the eyes of the woman -had she looked up. He smiled at her in a reassuring manner, as she -waited dumbly for him to state the reason for his summons. - -“We are very much interested in your collection of porcelain, _gnädige -Frau_,” he said, smoothly. “It is French, is it not?” - -A sudden expression of alarm flitted into her eyes, was banished. She -nodded her head. - -“_Ja--ja, mein Herr_,” she answered hesitatingly. She moistened her -lips. Her hands gripped each other tightly upon her lap. - -The battalion-commander and the captain observed her with a quickened -interest. Despite their ignorance of German, the word “_Porzelän_” gave -them the clue to their comrade’s opening question. - -“It is the result of many years’ gradual acquisition, I presume?” he -pursued, in a casual tone. - -She shot an upward glance at him from under her eyebrows ere she -replied. - -“_Ja--mein Herr._” - -“It is well chosen,” said the doctor. “I congratulate you on your -knowledge and good taste. Perhaps you would explain some of the pieces -to us--pieces I do not recognize?” - -She looked up at him with wide and innocent eyes. - -“I cannot, _mein Herr_. I know nothing about porcelain. It was my -husband’s collection. I keep it in memory of him.” - -There was an accent of sincerity in the last phrase which drew a sharp -glance from the doctor. - -“Ah,” he said quietly. “He was killed, was he not?” - -Her eyes filled with tears, her mouth twitched. - -“Killed in one of the very last battles, _mein Herr_.” She drew -a long sobbing breath and looked wildly at him. “_Ach Gott!_ do -not remind me! do not remind me!” she cried. “He was all I had in -the world--everything--everything! You do not know how good and -kind and loving he was! And now he is gone--he will never come -back--never--never! And I loved him so!” She broke down into sobs, -hiding her face in her hands. - -The doctor waited until the crisis had subsided. A diagnosis of -hysteria formed itself in his professional mind. - -“So you have no real interest in this collection?” he enquired. “Would -you sell it?” - -“_Ach, nein--nein_!” she answered. “I keep it in memory of him, my -Heinrich, who loved it so.--I feel him here when I dust it and care for -it.” She looked wildly round the room. “I feel him here now!” - -The doctor nodded his head in courteous assent to a possibility. - -“Did he inherit it?” he asked casually, as though merely pursuing a -conversation which could not, in politeness, be allowed to cease on a -note of distress. - -She shook her head. - -“Ah, he bought it?” - -She moistened her lips nervously ere she replied. - -“Yes.” - -“Before the war?” - -Her face hardened as she answered again. - -“Yes.” - -There was a moment of silence and then the doctor changed his position -slightly before the mantelpiece. - -“And this pretty clock?” he asked, pointing to it. “Did he buy that -also?” - -She stared at it and then nodded her head. - -“_Ja, mein Herr._” - -“_So!_--that is curious. I am particularly interested in that clock, -_gnädige Frau_. Can you remember where it was bought?” - -She hesitated, ventured a scared glance at him, and obviously forced -herself to speech. The two officers involuntarily bent forward in their -interest. - -“No, _mein Herr_.” - -She glanced round as though seeking an opportunity for escape. - -The doctor repeated his question in a level tone of authority, his eyes -fixed on her. - -“You are sure you cannot remember where that clock was bought, _gnädige -Frau_?” - -“Quite sure.” Her breast was heaving. She half rose from her seat. “Why -do you ask me all these questions? Let me go!--Let me go! You have no -right to question me like this! I--I tell you it was bought--it was all -bought!” - -The doctor stepped forward with a quick movement, seized her wrist, and -forced her back into her seat. - -“I beg of you!” he said in a voice that compelled obedience. - -She subsided, trembling in every limb. Her eyes followed his every -movement with the fascinated attention of a frightened animal. - -The doctor came close to her, and from her point of view glanced up to -the mantelpiece. Then, stepping back, he arranged the candles so that -the face of the clock, seen from her position, was a disc of bright -reflection. - -Without a word but with a deliberation which awed even the watching -officers by its inflexible though mysterious purpose, he turned to her -once more, and, with the gently firm touch of a medical man, posed -her head so that she looked straight before her. Paralyzed under his -masterful dominance, she submitted plastically. She was too frightened -to utter a sound. Only her eyes widened as she saw him produce a heavy -revolver. - -“Now, _gnädige Frau_!” he said, and his voice, though passionless, -was intense in its expression of level will-power, “do not move your -head! Look up--under your eyebrows. You see that clock? Look at -it--continue to look at it!--If you take your eyes off it for one -fraction of a second I shall shoot you dead! You are looking at it? It -marks a quarter to eight. When it strikes eight you will tell me quite -truthfully how you came by it!” - -He ceased. The young woman, her face white with terror, her mouth -twitching, her nostrils distended, sat motionless, staring up under her -eyebrows at the face of the clock. - -There was a dead silence in the room. The minutes passed. The young -woman did not move a muscle. Her wide-open eyes fixed on the clock, she -seemed to stiffen into a cataleptic rigidity. - -The doctor put aside his revolver. He approached her, took one of her -wrists and lifted her hand from her lap. It lay limply in his. - -“You are feeling sleepy,” he said in his level, positive voice. “You -are going to sleep. My voice is sounding muffled and far away--but you -will still hear it. You are losing the sense of your surroundings--but -you still see that clock face. You cannot help but see it. And when it -strikes eight you are going to tell the truth.” He dropped the hand -which fell lifelessly again upon her lap. - -The young woman sat motionless as a statue. Her breathing changed to -the deep respirations of sleep, although her eyes remained wide open. - -The clock struck eight. At the last of its thin, silvery notes the -young woman shuddered. Her lips moved. - -“My husband sent it to me,” she said in a toneless, dreamy voice. - -“When?” asked the doctor. - -“In 1915.” - -“From whence?” - -“From the front.” - -“Do you know the place?” - -“No.” - -“You are quite sure?” - -“Quite sure.” - -“And all these other things?” - -“My husband sent them to me.” - -“From France?” - -“Yes.” - -“How did he become possessed of them?” - -“He took them out of houses.” - -There was a pause in which the young woman did not move in the -slightest. She appeared like some oracular statue waiting for the next -question. - -“Why did you lie to me?” asked the doctor in his level voice. - -“Because you would have thought my husband a thief, and I am so proud -of him.” - -“Can you be proud of him, knowing that he was a thief?” - -“Yes,” came the dreamy answer. “It was not his crime. He sent these -things to me because I asked him for them and he loved me.” - -“You asked him to send you these things? Why?” - -“Because all the other officers’ wives were having things sent to them.” - -“_So!_ Your husband would not have taken them if you had not asked for -them?” - -“No. He only took them to give me pleasure. He never thought of -anybody but me. That is why I love him so--why I shall always love him.” - -The doctor bit his lip, and hesitated for a moment. - -“You do not think your husband would have offered violence to a woman -in the house where he got this clock?” - -“No. He loved me too much. He never thought of any woman but me. I am -sure of it. He was an ideal man, my Heinrich--always gentle, always -loving, always faithful.” She paused a moment before continuing. “It is -cruel of you to make me realize how much I love him!” - -The doctor stood over her, contemplating her, his brows wrinkled in -a puzzled frown. His comrades looked at him enquiringly. He ignored -them. The young woman, having ceased to speak, remained motionless and -upright on her chair. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the -clock. - -Suddenly the doctor’s brows cleared in an evident decision. He lifted -the young woman’s hand again as he spoke in his level, positive voice. -His face was very grave. - -“You are asleep. But you are going into a very much deeper sleep--a -sleep so profound that it takes you far out of this time and place. -Nevertheless you will remain in touch with me and you will hear my -voice. But everything else is going from you. You are now released from -the limitations of this body. You are on a plane from which you can -enter into any time and place that I shall command.” - -He dropped her hand and, with his finger-tips, closed the lids over her -eyes. Her body still remained upright in its trancelike rigidity. - -“What do you see?” he asked. - -“Nothing,” came the dreamy answer. - -“Where are you?” - -“I do not know--I--I am nowhere, I think,” she said with hesitation. -“I--I--oh, do not keep me like this!” There was a new note of anxiety -in her voice. - -“Wait a moment,” said the doctor. He turned to the mantelpiece, took -down the clock, placed it on her lap, and clasped her hands about it. - -“Now,” he said in his quiet, tense tones, “you are in touch with that -clock. I want you to go into the time and place when that clock had -another owner--before your husband had it. Focus yourself upon it. Go -into the room where it stands.” - -The young woman’s eyelids twitched flickeringly but otherwise her rigid -attitude was unmodified. - -“Yes,” she said, in a slow and doubtful tone, “yes----” - -“What do you see?” asked the doctor. His lips compressed themselves -firmly after the words, the muscles of his lean jaw stood out, in the -intense effort of his will to keep emotion under control, to avoid an -unconscious suggestion of ideas. - -“I see a _salon_,” said the young woman dreamily, “a _salon_ with -French windows opening on to a lawn. There is a grand piano in it--and -a young woman seated at the piano. She is dark--young--oh, she is -very beautiful! She keeps on looking at the clock--the clock is on -the mantelpiece between two bronze statuettes. She is expecting -somebody----” - -“Yes?” said the doctor, crouching over her, his fists clenched in a -spasm of supremely willed self-control, his breath coming in the quick -gasps enforced by that tumultuous beating of the heart he could not -command. - -“Yes?--Go on!” - -“She hears a footstep--she jumps up from the piano. A man comes into -the room--a civilian. She throws her arms about him and kisses him. -She leads him across to the mantelpiece and takes up the clock. She -puts it into his hands--she is showing him something on the back of it, -something written! They kiss again. They are in love these two--how -she loves him! I can feel that--I can feel her love vibrating in me!” -She paused dreamily. “I know what real love is--and she loves him like -that----” - -“The man?” asked the doctor, his eyes wild. “The man?--describe him!” - -“His back is turned to me--I cannot see his face. Ah, he turns round. -The man is--_you!_” - -The doctor looked as though he were going to collapse. His companions -watched him, fascinated, completely mystified, trying to guess at -the drama their ignorance of the language hid from them. He mastered -himself with a mighty effort. - -“Yes,” he said. “You have the place right--but not the time. Go on a -year--more than a year! Go on to the time when this clock passed out of -that woman’s possession!” - -“More than a year!” she repeated dreamily. “I--I must sleep--I -cannot----” She was silent for a few moments. “Yes--yes--I see the -room again. The young woman is in it. She is seated at a little -table--writing. She looks up--Oh, how sad and pale she is!--but she is -still very beautiful. I am so sorry for her--she is so unhappy--and she -is still in love, I can still feel it vibrating in me. She is picking -up a photograph--she kisses it--it is yours!--she kisses it again and -again. Why are you not with her? I feel that you are a great distance -off--she does not know where you are. That worries her, because she -loves you so.” She stopped. - -“Go on,” said the doctor sternly. “What do you see next?” - -“She puts away her writing hurriedly. She is frightened of -something--someone is coming, I think--yes! The door opens--a -soldier--no, a German officer! Oh, she is frightened of him, but she -is brave! She stands up as he comes toward her. She draws back from -him--he is between her and the door. He puts out his hands, tries to -hold her--_Ach!_” her voice rose to a scream, “_it is Heinrich!_” - -“Go on!” commanded the doctor. “_Go on!_ What do you see?” His voice -was terrible in its inexorability. - -“Oh no, no!” she whispered. “No! Don’t make me see! don’t make me see! -I don’t want to--I don’t want to--_Ach, Heinrich, Heinrich!_” Her voice -came on a note of anguish. “I cannot bear it!” - -The doctor frowned at the rigid figure with closed eyes that began to -sway slightly to and fro upon its chair. Her face was drawn with a -suffering beyond expression. - -“See!” he commanded. “And tell me what you see!” - -“Oh!” she moaned, “you are cruel--cruel! I do not want to see! I do not -want to look!” - -“You must!” - -“Oh!” Evidently she surrendered helplessly. She commenced in a -fatigued, dreary voice: “They are there together--the two of them! -That beautiful woman--oh, I hate her now, I hate her!--_Ach, Heinrich, -have you forgotten me?_” It was as if she called to him. “He does not -hear me. His eyes are fixed on the woman.” She continued in short -panting sentences uttered with increasing horror. “She is retreating -from him--further and further back. He is following her. Oh, something -terrible is going to happen--it is in the air--I feel it--something -horrible!--What?--Ah, _he is trying to kiss her!_ My Heinrich! Oh, how -dreadful, how dreadful!--Oh, don’t make me see any more--don’t make me -see any more!--He has got her in his arms--she is struggling. Oh, I -can’t look--I will not look!--Oh, Heinrich, and I loved you so!” Her -voice fell from the scream of a nightmare to a plaintive moaning. “Oh, -no more--no more! I can bear no more!” - -“Look!--Look to the very end!” - -The doctor’s comrades shuddered at his aspect as he crouched over her, -seeming as though he were trying to peer with her eyes into some scene -of horror they could not even imagine. - -The young woman’s face was a mask of agony. - -“Oh, you torture me,” she moaned, “you torture me--I see, and I do not -want to see--oh, I do not want to see----” - -“What do you see?” - -“They are struggling together!--She fights desperately--what a wild -cat she is! He is pinning her arms to her sides with his embrace--she -throws her head back, back, to escape him. Ah! She has broken away! -She runs to the table. _What is she going to do?_” The seer’s voice -rose in acute alarm. “_Ach_, a revolver! Oh, no, no!” The ejaculation -was a vehement and agonized protest. “_Heinrich!_ Oh, leave her--leave -her!--No, he laughs at her as he follows--and she is so desperate. Ah, -he has got her up in a corner--he has seized her again--she is crying -out--it is a name--she cries it again and again----” - -“What name?” - -“I hear it! _Jules!_--_Jules!_--that is it--_Jules!_ Oh, what a tone of -despair!” - -The doctor closed his eyes and swayed. Then, mastering himself with a -superhuman effort, he said hoarsely: - -“Go on!--To the end!” - -“I cannot see plainly--they are struggling still. _Ach!_ the revolver! -_She has fired!_ I see the thin smoke in the air.--What has happened? -He has her in his arms--he stumbles with her.--_Ach, she is dead!_ She -has shot herself. He stretches her out on the floor--he is bending over -her--Ach, _Heinrich_, _Heinrich_, you have broken my heart!” She wailed -as if from the depths of a wretchedness beyond all solace. “You have -killed my love for ever! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you as long -as I live--I hate myself for having loved you! _Faithless, despicable -brute!_” - -She finished in a tone of fierce vindictiveness, a resentment, at once -horrified and implacable, of unforgivable wrong. - -But the doctor no longer heeded her. Hands to his brow, eyes closed, he -reeled away from her. - -“_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_” he groaned. “Marcelle, Marcelle! How shall I -avenge you?” - -He glanced at the now silent and still rigid figure of the young woman. -Tears were trickling down her cheeks from the closed eyes. Her trance -was unbroken. She sat still nursing the clock. - -Then, with a deep breath, he drew himself erect. The jaw that expressed -his powerful will set hard again. His two companions looked with horror -upon the dreadful pallor of that face from which two fierce eyes -blazed. A little laugh from him. It was a sickening mockery of mirth. - -“_Mes amis!_” he said. “You asked me a little time ago what I thought -of the policy of reprisals. I ask you that question now. That young -woman, in a hypnotic trance, has just described to me, as though she -had seen it acted before her eyes, the suicide of my wife. She killed -herself rather than be outraged by that woman’s husband. In her waking -life the young woman is, of course, totally ignorant of the event. -In her waking life she adores the memory of her dead husband as of a -perfect and faithful lover. Now, in her hypnotic state, she loathes -him--her love has turned to bitter jealous hatred. She despises him. -In fact, she feels toward him just as she would have felt had she -witnessed the scene that destroyed my life’s happiness. It rests with -me to call her back to waking life, totally ignorant of her husband’s -crime, adoring him as before--or to leave her in an agony of shattered -love. Virtually, her husband murdered my wife. Her memory of him is -the only thing that I can touch. Shall I leave it sacred? Or shall I, -justly, kill it?--What do you say?--It is a pretty little problem in -reprisals for you!” - -His comrades stared at him in horrified astonishment. - -“But,” cried the battalion-commander, “are you sure----” - -“Look at her!” replied the doctor. - -The young woman still sat rigidly upright. Her face was drawn with -anguish. Heavy tears rolled ceaselessly from under the closed eyelids. -She sobbed quietly in a far-off kind of way that was nevertheless -eloquent of an immense despair. - -“She sees what happened----?” queried the captain in an incredulous and -puzzled tone. - -“Three years ago. She is looking at it now,” asserted the doctor. “She -sees her husband bending over my dead wife.--Come, _messieurs_, let -me have your verdict!” He seemed to be experiencing a grim, unhuman -enjoyment at their evident recoil from the terrible problem he offered -them. “I must wake her soon!” - -“And if she wakes--knowing----?” faltered the captain. - -“She will probably kill herself. She has been living in an intense -love for the idealized memory of her husband. The revulsion will be -overwhelming.” - -The battalion-commander interposed. - -“But, _mon cher_--a suicide--that goes beyond----” - -The doctor shrugged his shoulders. - -“Her husband drove _my_ wife to suicide----” - -“It is terribly logical,” murmured the young captain, “but,” he glanced -at the unconscious figure in its mysterious and awful grief, “one needs -to be God to indulge in logic to that point.” - -“And yet we are but men,” said the doctor, “and the problem is there -before us--must be solved at once! In my place, what would you do?” - -The battalion-commander rose. He went up to his comrade and looked him -in the eyes. - -“_Mon cher_,” he said solemnly, “God forbid that I should ever be in -your place! I do not know.” - -The doctor turned to the young man. There was a terrible smile on his -lips. - -“And you, _mon cher Jordan_?” - -The captain rose also. He also read the hell in the doctor’s eyes. He -shook his head and shuddered. - -“_Mon ami_,” he replied, “I should go mad.” - -The doctor nodded grimly. - -“The terrible thing is that I cannot go mad,” he said. “I am still -sane.--So you both decline the problem?” - -The two officers shook their heads, not trusting themselves to speech. - -The doctor turned away from them and covered his face with both hands. -He reeled to the mantelpiece, leaned against it. They saw his body -shake in the intensity of the nervous crisis which swept over him. - -“Marcelle!” he cried. “Marcelle!--if you are a living spirit, counsel -me! Shall I avenge?” - -The watchers turned to the entranced woman as though involuntarily -expecting a reply through her from that mysterious region where her -soul was in touch with the long-past tragedy she had revealed. She -still wept silently in that awful sleep which was no sleep. But no -word passed her lips. Only the clock she held upon her lap struck one -silvery note, marking the half-hour. - -At the sound the doctor turned from the fireplace and took up the -clock. He gazed, with a passionate intensity, upon the inscription on -the back. - -“Marcelle!” he murmured. “Our love ceases not when time itself -shall cease! Though you are dead, that still lives--_that_ was not -murdered!--I understand, _ma bien-aimée_, I understand!” - -He put the clock gently upon the mantelpiece and turned once more to -the rigid, waiting figure. His comrades watched him, spell-bound, -keying themselves to deduce his decision from the tone of his voice -when he should speak. His stern face was set in an unfaltering resolve -they could not penetrate. He lifted her hand. - -“_Gnädige Frau_,” he said, and the level, passionless voice gave no -hint to those ignorant of the language of the purport of the German -words which followed, “when you wake from this sleep you will entirely -forget the hideous dream through which you have passed. You will never -remember it, waking or asleep. You will think of your husband as you -have always thought of him--faithful and loving. You will completely -resume your normal life. You will not even be aware that you have -slept. It will seem to you as if you had only just sat down in this -chair. But when you wake you will present me with the clock upon the -mantelpiece. You will feel an overmastering impulse to do this, and you -will obey it.--Now,” he wiped the tears from her face and blew sharply -upon her closed eyelids, “_wake!_” - -The two officers watched her, fascinated. Would she shriek? What -terrible paroxysm would be the expression of a heart-broken despair? Or -had he----? They held their breath. - -Her eyelids flickered for a moment, and then, with one deep sigh, her -eyes opened. She smiled round on them. - -“_Meine Herren?_” she said in her voice of timid enquiry. Then, fixing -her eyes on the doctor, “You sent for me?” - -The doctor looked at her gravely. - -“The Commandant desired me to assure you, _gnädige Frau_, that you need -be under no apprehensions during our stay here. We consider ourselves -the guests of a charming lady and we hope to leave only a pleasant -memory behind us.” - -His companions marvelled at the strength of will which could enforce so -complete a normality of voice and feature. - -The German woman smiled up at him, a pathetic little smile. - -“You are very kind, Herr Doctor--please convey my thanks to the -Commandant.” She made a little movement which drew attention to her -black dress. “My--my husband in heaven, if he can see you, will--will -bless you.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Please excuse me!” she said -with a pretty little gesture of apology, “his memory is all I have--I -cannot help bringing him into every act of my life.” - -“Love need not cease with death, _gnädige Frau_,” replied the doctor. -“One hopes that those we loved still watch over us--though we cannot -see them.” - -She smiled again. - -“He had no thought but of me, Herr Doctor, and I have none but of -him.--I see you understand,” she finished in a tone of involuntary -sympathy. “You also have loved?” - -“_Ja, gnädige Frau_,” he replied with a grave and enigmatic smile. “I -also.” - -Her eyes went past him to the mantelpiece, rested with a curiously -fixed expression on the clock. Suddenly, as though moved by an -uncontrollable impulse, she jumped up, took the clock from the -mantelpiece and thrust it into the doctor’s hands. - -“Please accept this!” she said appealingly. - -The doctor fixed his grave eyes upon her. - -“Why?” he asked. - -She stammered, evidently at a loss for her reason. - -“Because--because I want you to have it--because I feel, I do not -know why, that you have protected me from something----” She stopped, -puzzled by her own words. “That is absurd, I know!” she exclaimed. “But -it belonged to two lovers, Herr Doctor--you, who understand love, will -value it, I know. I--I feel you _ought_ to have it!” - -She left him standing with it. Then she turned to the other officers -with her appealing little smile and bowed slightly in farewell. - -“_Gute Nacht, meine Herren!_” she said, and went out of the room. - -The doctor stared after her, his face deathly white. Suddenly his body -broke and crumpled. He sank down to his knees by one of the chairs, -still clasping the clock in his hands. - -“Marcelle!” he cried, his head bowed over his recovered love-token, his -body shaking, “Marcelle! have I done right?--have I done right?” - -The battalion-commander touched his subordinate on the shoulder. Both -tip-toed silently out of the room. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] “To Jules, to mark the hours of a love which will not cease when -Time itself shall cease, from his Marcelle.” - - - - -SECRET SERVICE - - -“But, _Excellenz_----!” The entreaty, from such a man, was oddly -and strikingly sincere. About forty years of age, sprucely dressed -in a well-cut lounge suit, spats over patent boots, he was the type -to be seen any day gazing rather aimlessly into the shop-windows of -Piccadilly or the Rue de la Paix, the type that haunts the hotels -frequented by the best society and yet is not of that society, the -type that drifts behind the chairs of every gambling casino in the -world. A dark moustache, carefully trimmed, curled over lips whose -fine curves were unpleasantly thin and clear-cut. His complexion was -sallow; his dark eyes, fixed on his companion in an accentuation of his -entreaty, implored now with an expression of genuine truthfulness which -was certainly not habitual to them. He gesticulated with a white and -exquisitely manicured hand. - -“But rubbish!” The speaker was an oldish, thick-set man in evening -dress. His round red face, barred with a clipped white moustache, with -a pair of small gray eyes vivacious behind pince-nez, was set upon a -short apoplectic neck which rucked into folds above his collar. The -scalp showed pink through close-cropped white hair. He stood warming -himself with his back to the fire--a very large fire for Berlin in the -winter of early 1918--and glared angrily at the young man. He spoke -with the irascibility of a brutal superior whose impunity is of long -date and unquestioned. - -“Are you mad, Kranz? Do you take me for an imbecile old woman? Am -I feeble-minded--do I _look_ feeble-minded--that you should dare -to--to play such a trick upon me?” He was obviously working himself -up into one of his official rages. “You--you tell me that you have -an infallible means for obtaining secret information, no matter how -hidden. You persuade me to come and test it--_me!_ I give you credit -for your impudence!--and this is what it is!” He almost choked with -offended dignity. “Be careful, Kranz! You have traded this once upon -your record with us--you will never do it again! To bring me--_me!_--to -this absurdity!--to expect me to listen to the hypnotic ravings of that -idiot girl! I wonder you didn’t offer me crystal-gazing!” - -“But, _Excellenz_----!” - -The old man waved a hand at him. - -“My dear Kranz,” he said, dropping suddenly into a tone of tolerant -contempt. “I forgive you this once. I daresay you have been the victim -of a genuine hallucination. You would not have dared else.--You don’t -drug, do you?” The question was asked with a disconcertingly sudden -sharpness. The younger man made a gesture of emphatic denial, defying -the piercing gray eyes that probed him. The old man grunted. “Keep your -sanity, Kranz--or the Bureau will lose a valued servant. Drop this -nonsense. I know what I am talking about--I studied psychology under -Wundt of Jena. The whole thing is a hallucination--the raving of the -dream-self released from control--_dummes Zeug!_--Give me my coat!” - -“_Excellenz_, I implore you!” - -The old man looked at him with a snarl of savage mockery. - -“Don’t waste any more of my time, Kranz! Look at her--is it even -probable that an imbecile creature like that can be of use in our -business? Look at her, I say!” - -He flung out a hand toward a young girl who stood with obvious -reluctance in the centre of the luxuriously furnished apartment. She -was perhaps eighteen but her youth had neither beauty nor charm. Her -features were soft and heavy; the nose thick; the chin receding; the -eyes weak and protuberant. Unmistakably, her personality was of the -feeblest. Her face flooded scarlet with shame and her eyes swam with -tears at this brutal insult. Yet evidently she did not dare to rush -away. Only she looked beseechingly toward Kranz, like a dog who awaits -a sign from its master. - -His sallow face blanched. The thin lips under the dark moustache lost -their curves, became a straight line. - -“Agathe!” he said, and his voice of command was strangely in contrast -with the tone in which he had entreated the old man. “Go into the next -room and wait!” - -The girl vanished without a word. Kranz waited until she had closed the -door, and then he turned once more to his superior. - -“I implore Your Excellency to listen!” he said with a desperate -gesture. “I stake my reputation upon it----” - -The old man grunted scornfully. - -“Your reputation!” - -The dark eyes flashed. - -“My reputation with you, _Excellenz_,” he corrected in a gentle voice -of complete cynicism. - -The old man stared at him. - -“Well, go on!” he said brutally, after a short pause which was eloquent -of his appraisement. He cleaned his pince-nez to mark his contemptuous -indifference to anything that might be said. - -“You remember Karl Wertheimer, _Excellenz_?” - -The old man swung round on him, replaced the pince-nez. - -“Shot by the English.--You’ll never equal him, Kranz.” - -Kranz shrugged his shoulders. - -“_Excellenz_, I believe neither in God nor Devil--until the other day I -believed that death finished us completely--but I assure you solemnly -upon my--upon anything which you think will bind me--that the soul, -or whatever you choose to call it, of Karl Wertheimer speaks through -that girl!” There was a pause of silence in which the old man’s eyes -probed him to the depths. He proffered no comment and Kranz continued, -his voice intensely earnest. “The English shot Karl Wertheimer in -London--but they did not kill him. His--his soul is here, in Berlin, in -this room, alive as ever, as eager as ever to work for the Fatherland!” - -“He always had patriotic notions,” murmured the old man, with a sly -smile at the obviously cosmopolitan Kranz, “--that is why he was such -an invaluable agent. Go on with your little romance.” - -“It is no romance, _Excellenz_, I assure you--it is living fact. Karl -Wertheimer was a useful agent while he lived upon this earth--but he is -immeasurably more useful now that he is a--a spirit. There are no walls -that can keep him out--there is nothing he cannot see if he chooses -to--there is no conversation he cannot overhear----” - -“H’m!” grunted the old man, “admitted that if he is a spirit he can do -all this--how can he communicate it to us?” - -“Through this girl!” - -“Who is she, this girl?” - -“The daughter of some shopkeeper or other. I followed her ankles one -evening in the Park--it was night, and I could not see her face.” He -smiled cynically. “I won’t trouble Your Excellency with the details. -I brought her in here and no sooner had she sat down in that chair -when she swooned off. I was just cursing my luck--I saw her face for -the first time then!--and wondering how I was going to get rid of her, -_when Karl spoke to me_. I confess, _Excellenz_, it gave me a pretty -bad turn. It was so utterly unexpected--his voice coming from her -lips. However, I pulled myself together--and we had a most interesting -conversation----” - -“He could answer your questions?” interjected the old man, sharply. - -“Just as if he were himself sitting in the chair. So, naturally, I kept -a tight hold on the girl. She has not been allowed out since.” - -“H’m!” The old man grunted again and looked at his watch. “Well, I have -missed my appointment,” he said with the factitious bad temper he owed -to his dignity. “I may as well see her performance. Fetch her in!” - -Kranz went to the door and called. - -“Agathe!” - -The girl entered, stood with her eyes fixed timorously on him. He -pointed to a large armchair by the fireplace. - -“Sit down!” he commanded. The girl obeyed dully, one little -apprehensive glance at him the only sign of any mental life in her. She -sat upright, her hands on her lap, staring stupidly into the fire. Two -heavy tears collected themselves in her protuberant eyes rolled down -her cheeks. They seemed but to emphasize her degradation. Her tyrant -stood over her, his dark eyes hard. - -“Lean back and go to sleep!” - -She sank back among the cushions. Obviously, she had no will at all of -her own. Her eyes closed. Her expressionless face twitched for a moment -and then was as still as a mask. Her bosom heaved in the commencement -of deep and heavy breathing which continued in the normality of -slumber. The old man watched her, keenly and contemptuously alert for -any sign of simulation. - -Kranz pulled a little table across to the fireplace. A telephone -instrument, incongruously utilitarian in this luxurious room, and -writing materials were on it. - -“You should note down what is said, _Excellenz_,” he said earnestly, in -a low voice. - -The old man ignored him, his eyes on the girl. Suddenly he shuddered in -a rush of cold air. The paper on the table fluttered as in a draught. -He turned to Kranz in savage irritation. - -“Shut that window!” - -Kranz shook his head. - -“They are all shut, _Excellenz_!” His whisper was one of genuine awe. -“Hush! It’s beginning! _He’s come!_” - -The old man favoured him with a glance of inexpressible contempt. The -scorn was still in his eyes when he jerked round to the girl again in -an involuntary start of surprise at a sudden greeting. - -“Good evening, _Excellenz_!” The words issued from that expressionless -mask of the deeply breathing girl, but they were uttered in a tone of -easy jocularity, followed by a little good-humoured laugh, which was -uncanny in its contrast with her degraded personality. Despite the -feminine vocal chords which had articulated the phrase, the _timbre_ -and intonation were vividly those of a man of the world. - -The old man stared speechlessly. His faculties seemed inhibited under -the shock. The red faded out of his round face, left it ashen gray -under the close-cropped white hair. Kranz, watching him narrowly, -feared for his heart. He made a brusque little gesture as though -seizing control of himself. - -“_Herr Gott!_ It’s--it’s _his_ voice!” he gasped. - -His eyes turned to Kranz and there was fear in them, a primitive fear -of the supernatural. Trembling, he reeled rather than walked to the -chair by the table with the telephone, dropped heavily into it. Kranz -broke the oppressive silence, posed himself as master of the situation. - -“Good evening, _Karl_!” he said as though welcoming an everyday -acquaintance into the room. - -“Hallo, Kranz!” came the easy, jocular voice through the lips of the -entranced girl. “_Wie gehts?_ I am glad you persuaded His Excellency to -come. Now we can start!” - -The old man pulled himself together, moistened his lips for speech. - -“Is--is that really you, Karl?” he asked, unevenly. - -The merry little laugh, so uncanny from the only origin visible, -preceded the answer. - -“Really I, _Excellenz_--Karl Wertheimer, shot six months ago by -the English in the Tower of London, and as alive in this room as -ever I was.” The tone changed to that of a humorously bantering -introduction. “Karl Wertheimer, _Excellenz_, the terror of the English -counterespionage department, at your service--still!” - -The old man fumblingly produced a handkerchief and mopped at the -perspiration on his brow. He hesitated for an appropriate remark. - -“Why----?” he asked falteringly, and stopped. - -The merry little laugh rang out again in the silent room. - -“Why, _Excellenz_? Because in my earth-life I had only one passion--and -it is as strong as ever it was. _Stronger_, for I owe our enemies a -grudge for that little early-morning shooting party in the Tower. -You’ve no idea how I long for a really good cigar, _Excellenz_,” he -finished in a tone of jesting complaint. - -The old man stared into the empty air beyond the girl. - -“And you can really obtain information and convey it?” He was -recovering his poise. The question was asked in the brusque tone -familiar to his subordinates. - -“Test me, _Excellenz_!” - -“I assure you, _Excellenz_----!” interjected Kranz, eagerly. - -His superior waved him aside. The brow under the short white hair had -recovered its normal ruddiness, was wrinkled in cogitation. He felt in -his pocket and produced a letter in a sealed envelope. - -“Tell me from whom this comes,” he said. - -He proffered the letter as though expecting it to be taken out of his -fingers. Then, as it was not, he dropped his hand with a gesture of -hopeless bafflement. There was so real a feeling of the actual presence -of Karl Wertheimer in the room that the quite normal fact of the letter -remaining untouched emphasized suddenly the uncanny nature of this -conversation. - -“Permit me, _Excellenz_,” said Kranz, politely. He took the letter and -laid it on the girl’s brow. Her lips moved at once. - -“This purports to be from the firm of Wilson and Staunton, Boston, -to the firm of Jensen and Auerstedt, Christiania, with reference to -an overdue account.” The voice was still the chuckling voice of Karl -Wertheimer. “Actually, it is a communication in code to you from -Heinrich Biedermann at New York. Do you wish me to read the message? I -still remember the old code, _Excellenz_!” - -“No--no!” interposed the old man. “Never mind!” - -“Perhaps you would like me to tell you what Heinrich Biedermann is -doing at this moment, _Excellenz_?” - -“But he is in New York! You can’t be here and there, too!” - -Again came the merry little laugh. - -“Time and Space are an illusion of matter, _Excellenz_. I half forget -that you are still subject to it.--Well, Heinrich Biedermann is sitting -with a young woman in a restaurant, having tea. They are both very -cheerful, for he has just received a remittance from you, and he has -bought her a new hat. The sun is setting and he is lost in admiration -of the glow of her red hair against the background of the illuminated -sky which he can perceive through the window. He is hopelessly in love -with her, which is unfortunate, as the lady happens to be a spy, by -name Desirée Rochefort, in the pay of the French Secret Service.” - -“The devil----!” ejaculated the old man. - -“But,” said Kranz in a puzzled tone. “Sunset?--It is nearly midnight!” - -The old man turned on him. - -“Fool! There is a difference of six hours in time between here and -America. That proves it--if anything can be proof of such wild -improbability!” - -“Test me again!” said the amused and confident voice of Karl -Wertheimer. “Something really difficult this time!” - -The old man leaned back in his chair and pondered. Then the gleam of an -idea came into his malicious gray eyes. - -“Right!” he said, emphatically. “You know the library in my house?” - -“Certainly, _Excellenz_!” - -“Go into my library. Read me the fifteenth line of the ninety-first -page of the sixth volume on the third shelf of the right-hand side, -without opening the book. Can you do that?” - -“You shall see, _Excellenz_,” replied the voice, cheerfully. “The sixth -volume counting from the left, I presume?” - -“Yes.” - -“I will note that,” said Kranz, coming to the table. He wrote the -particulars and looked up to his superior. “Do you know what the line -is, _Excellenz_?” he asked. - -“I don’t even know what the book is!” replied the old man, harshly. He -wrinkled his brows in impatience at the silence, which prolonged itself -through several seconds. The girl seemed quite normally asleep. - -“Here you are, _Excellenz_!” It was again the mocking voice of Karl -Wertheimer which issued from her lips. “The book is Shakespeare. -The line is ‘_England, bound in with the triumphant sea._’ Can you -interpret the omen, _Excellenz_?” - -“The U-boat war----” murmured Kranz, as if to himself. - -“Write it down!” commanded the old man. Kranz wrote the line. - -His Excellency took up the telephone receiver. - -“Hallo! Hallo!” He gave a number and waited. “Hallo! Is Wolff -there?--Tell him I want him at once! Yes--a thousand devils!--Wolff! -my secretary! Are you all deaf?” he vociferated irascibly. “Hallo! Is -that you, Wolff? Yes, of course it is I speaking! You ought to know my -voice by this time!--Go into the library and get--” He hesitated. Kranz -passed him the sheet of paper “--get the sixth volume from the left -on the third shelf of the right-hand side. Bring it to the telephone. -Hurry now!” - -Again he waited. There was a tense silence in the room, a silence -which was emphasized by the heavy and regular breathing of the sleeping -girl. - -“Hallo! Are you there?--Is that you, Wolff? Be quiet! Answer my -questions!--Have you got the book?--Right--What is it?--An English -book?--Shakespeare--right!--Now turn up page--page ninety-one. Got -it?--Count to the fifteenth line----” He turned from the telephone -to Kranz. “Write down what I repeat!” Then again speaking into the -telephone: “Yes? Read out the line!--what?--‘_England, bound in -with the triumphant sea_’--a thousand devils!--Wolff! Wolff! wait -a minute!--where did you find the book? On the shelf? Had it been -touched? You are sure that it had not been touched--not opened? Oh, you -have been in the library all the evening, working----” - -“Tell him that the love-poem he has been writing to Fräulein Mimi -in your library to-night is not only banal but it does not scan,” -interjected the mocking voice of Karl Wertheimer. “The line ‘_Unsere -Herzen schlagen rhythmisch_’ is particularly bad.” - -The old man glanced toward the vacant air over the girl and grinned. He -repeated the message into the telephone. He waited a moment--and then -burst into chuckling laughter. - -“_Famos!_--He’s smashed the receiver. Scared out of his life!--I heard -him yell.” He put down the instrument and turned again to the chair. -“Karl Wertheimer, I believe in your reality--I believe in your powers.” -His voice was solemn. “The Fatherland has work for you to do.” - -“That is why I am here, _Excellenz_.” The voice came jauntily through -the expressionless lips of the unconscious girl. - -The old man pursed his mouth under the clipped white moustache and -pondered. Kranz watched him with acute interest. - -“Listen!” said the old man, looking up in a sudden decision. “At -the present time the Allied Military Missions in Washington are -negotiating with the United States Government with regard to the -despatch of the American Army to Europe, for the coming campaign. We -know this--we know that any day now they may come to an agreement. It -is of the utmost importance to us that we should know, _immediately_, -the numbers promised and the schedule of sailings. The fate of -the world depends upon it. The secret will be most jealously -guarded--triply locked out of reach of any ordinary agent. Can you read -it, as you read the line in that closed book?” - -“I can, _Excellenz_--if you can give me some indication where to look,” -replied the voice. “We must, so to speak, _focus_ ourselves--I can’t -now explain the conditions with us, but you will understand what I -mean--spirit pervades----” For the first time in the colloquy the -voice spoke with hesitation, as though despairing of explaining the -inexplicable. “Direction--definite direction--is essential----” - -“H’m,” the old man grunted. “Well, I suggest Forsdyke--you know, the -permanent Chief of Department--as the man most likely to prepare the -schedule. You know where he lives?” - -“The very house in Washington!” replied the voice triumphantly. “Good -enough! I will do my best, _Excellenz_.” - -“To-day is the 21st of February,” said the old man. “We _must_ know by -the end of the month. Vast issues depend on it. Can you do it?” - -“I will try.” The voice came feebly and as from far away. “I -must go now, _Excellenz_--the power--the power is failing--fast. -Good-bye--good-bye, Kranz--take--take care of the girl--she--she is -the--only means--of--communication----” The last words came in a -whisper, ceased. The girl appeared to be in normal slumber. - -The old man turned to Kranz, spoke out of preoccupation which otherwise -ignored him. - -“Give me my hat and coat!” - -A sudden anxiety paled the sallow face. - -“Your Excellency remembers what Karl said,” he murmured as he assisted -his chief into the heavy fur-lined garment.--“The girl is the only -means of communication. I need not remind Your Excellency that the girl -is my----” - -“You need not remind me of anything, Kranz,” interrupted the old man, -harshly. “You will not be forgotten. Good-night!” - -Kranz accompanied him obsequiously to the door. - - * * * * * - -On that evening of the 21st of February a cheerful little party was -assembled around the dinner-table of Henry Forsdyke, Chief of a certain -department in the United States Administration. The large room, which -had been built by a Southern magnate who led Washington society in -pre-Civil War days, was illumined only by the shaded lights of the -table, and beyond the dazzling shirt-fronts of the men it lapsed -into a gloom that was intensified by the dark curtains over the -long windows and was scarcely relieved by the glinting gilt frames -of the pictures spaced on the walls hung in a dull tint. In that -half-light the servants moved, scarcely real. Only the party within -the illuminated oval of white napery, sparkling glass, and gleaming -silver was vividly actual, plucked out of shadow. It was a fad of the -host’s, this concentration of the light upon the table. He alleged that -it emphasized the personalities of his guests. His daughter, who was -irreverent, accused him of an atavistic tendency that craved for the -candle-light of his ancestors. - -Within the magic oval the party exchanged light-hearted talk that -effervesced every now and then into merry laughter where a young girl’s -voice predominated. All were in evident good spirits. The host himself, -a man of between fifty and sixty years, with shrewd gray eyes looking -out of a face characterized by a pointed and neatly clipped iron-gray -beard, set the tone. He smiled down the table with a contentment that -seemed to spring from a secret satisfaction, the contentment of a man -who has completed an anxious and difficult task and can now relax. He -was in his best vein of sententious humour. - -The same undertone of relief could have been discerned by the acute in -the gaiety of young Jimmy Lomax, Forsdyke’s private secretary, although -one alone of the little glances between him and his host’s daughter, if -intercepted, might have seemed sufficient reason. - -Captain Sergeantson, Jimmy Lomax’s chum, had obvious cause for -cheerfulness. Attached to a Special Service Department, he had just -returned from Europe, where he had fulfilled an extremely difficult -mission with conspicuous success. His home-coming had provided the -excuse for this little dinner-party. - -As for Professor Lomax, Jimmy’s father, no one had ever seen him -other than in high spirits. The author--after a lifetime of profound -and exact scientific research that had earned him a world-wide -reputation--of an enquiry into the possible survival of human -personality, which was the controversial topic of that winter and -which threatened to deprive him of that reputation, he was in striking -contrast with the idea of him propagated by the sensational Press. -There was nothing of the visionary about those clear-cut features. A -stranger would have diagnosed him as a lawyer--a lawyer whose judicial -perception of evidence was clarified by a sense of humour. The mobile -mouth, even in silence, hinted at this latter quality. The eyes -twinkled, eminently sane, under a well-balanced brow. He joked like a -schoolboy with his host’s daughter, exciting--for the secretly selfish -pleasure of hearing it--her gay young laugh. Occasionally he glanced -across to his son, approbation in his eyes. - -Hetty Forsdyke, the only woman of the party, was a typical specimen -of self-reliant, college-bred American girl. Good to look upon, her -beauty hinted at a race which had been proud of its exclusiveness long -after Napoleon had sold Louisiana to the States. Her vivacity and -charm had roots, perhaps, in the same stock, but the cool, level-headed -understanding of life, which she expressed in a slang that provoked her -father to vain rebuke, and the genuineness of which was vouched for by -her clear gray eyes, was an attribute of the Forsdykes and the North. - -The dinner was nearly at an end. Forsdyke, launched on a story of a -Presidential campaign in the Middle West a generation ago, had arrived -at the stage where the chuckles of his hearers were on the point of -culminating in the final burst of laughter. Hetty, her glass between -her fingers, half-way to her mouth, was looking at him with a smile -that pretended the story was quite new to her. Suddenly her expression -changed. She stared, as if spell-bound, at the dark curtains from which -her father’s oval face detached itself in the illumination of the -table. The glass slipped from her fingers, smashed. - -Forsdyke’s story ceased abruptly. Four pairs of alarmed eyes focussed -themselves upon his daughter. Jimmy, involuntarily, had half risen from -his chair. The movement seemed to recall the girl to her surroundings. -She shuddered and then, with an evident effort of will, brought back -her gaze to the table. Her smile routed the momentary anxiety of her -companions. - -“How careless of me!” she said easily, quelling, with quiet -self-control, her confusion ere it could well be remarked. “I don’t -know what I was thinking of!--Do go on, Poppa! It was just getting -interesting.” - -She signed composedly to a servant to pick up the broken glass, and -settled herself, all attention, to the familiar story. - -“What a hostess she is!” thought her father. “Just like----” He did not -finish the complementary clause and stifled another which began: “I -wonder what I shall do when----” He picked up his story again and was -rewarded by his meed of laughter. But his eyes rested uneasily on his -daughter and he promised himself a later enquiry into this abnormality. - - -The party withdrew into the drawing-room, where, since Forsdyke was a -widower of many years’ masculine supremacy, the men lit their cigars. -Hetty, at a request from her father, seated herself at the grand piano -in the far corner, and commenced the soft chords of a Chopin prelude. -Jimmy Lomax stood over her. There was already something proprietary in -his air. But the girl, after one glance up at him, seemed to forget his -presence in the spell of the music. Her position commanded a full view -of the room and she looked dreamily across to where the three men were -gathered by the white marble fireplace. - -Suddenly the music stopped on a crashing discord. The girl had jumped -to her feet, was trembling violently. Young Lomax clutched at her. - -“Hetty! What----?” - -She broke away from him, came swiftly across the room to his father. - -“Professor!” she said. “You were once in practice as a doctor, weren’t -you?” - -The twinkling eyes went grave as they met hers. There was unmistakable -seriousness in her question. - -“Yes, my dear----” - -“Then I want you to examine me right here, Professor!” she said. “Tell -me if I’ve got fever!” - -She met the amazed eyes of the other men with a look which announced -that she knew her own business. - -Without a word the Professor lifted up her wrist and felt her pulse. -“Now show me your tongue!” She obeyed. He nodded his head, and placed -his hand upon her brow. His eyes plunged into hers for one second of -searching scrutiny and then he nodded his head again, satisfied. “My -dear,” he said, “I haven’t a thermometer here, but I should say you are -absolutely normal in every way. Your pulse is a shade rapid, perhaps.” - -The girl took a long breath. - -“Thank you, Professor,” she said, simply. She turned to the others. -“You heard what the Professor said? There’s no fever about _me_. -Now--listen! I want to tell you something. I’ve been waiting to tell -you ever since we sat down to dinner--and now I _must_ tell you! And -you mustn’t laugh!--Poppa, this is serious!” - -The four men, puzzled at her demeanour, grouped themselves round her. -She assured herself of their gravity. - -“This evening,” she began, “between five and six o’clock I suddenly -developed a dreadful headache. It was so bad that I just had to go to -my room and lie down. I went to sleep straight off. And then--then I -had a--a dream--only,” she interposed quickly, to hold their interest, -“it wasn’t like an ordinary dream. It was so vivid that I felt all the -time it _meant_ something. I dreamed that someone or something that I -could feel was sort of loving and kind and earnest--_very_ earnest, I -could feel that strongly--took me into a room. And, somehow, I knew -that the room was in Berlin. It seemed quite a nice room but I don’t -remember much about the details of it. I only remember that I saw -myself there with two men, one young and dark, the other old and white, -who were staring at a girl sleeping in a big armchair. They took not -the faintest notice of me, and I didn’t worry much about them. The girl -was the interesting thing to all of us--and yet, though I was staring -at her with a sort of fascination I couldn’t shake off, I didn’t know -why. Then a strange thing happened. The girl kind of faded away--I -don’t know how to describe it, because I felt all the time she was -still there--and as she faded, there came up the figure of a man. He -seemed to grow out of her--to take her place. It was real uncanny. This -man that grew out of the girl like a--like a ghost--was somehow more -_living_ than any of us. It was as if he were in the limelight and we -were in the shadow. I shall never forget his face. It was handsome but -_wicked_--mocking--malicious--like a devil. And he had an ugly scar -over the right eyebrow which made him look even more devilish----” - -“What colour was his hair?” interposed Captain Sergeantson. “Any -moustache?” - -The girl looked at him in surprise at the question. - -“Fair--sticking up straight. No moustache--why?” - -Captain Sergeantson nodded. - -“I only wondered. Go on, Miss Forsdyke.” - -The girl resumed. - -“Well--it seemed that we were all looking at this man and not the girl -at all. She had disappeared behind him, or into him, I don’t know -which. The other two men were talking to him--talking earnestly. And it -seemed to me that it was extremely--oh, _immensely_--important that I -should understand what they were saying. I listened with all my soul. -It almost hurt me to listen as hard as I did--And yet I couldn’t get -a word of it. What they said was, somehow, just out of reach--like -people you see talking on the bioscope. And then, all of a sudden, I -heard--one sentence--as clearly as possible, ‘_Forsdyke is the man who -prepares the schedule!_’” - -Jimmy Lomax uttered a sharp cry of amazement. - -“What!” He turned to Forsdyke. “Chief, that’s strange!” - -Forsdyke imposed silence with a gesture. - -“Go on, Hetty,” he said, calmly. “What then?” - -“Then I woke up. The words were ringing in my ears. They haunted me -all the time I was dressing for dinner. I wondered if I ought to tell -you. Something was whispering to me that I should. But I was afraid you -would laugh at me. But that’s not all. You remember at dinner I dropped -a glass.--Poppa!” Her voice suddenly became very earnest. “I saw that -man--the man who had grown out of the girl--_standing behind you_. His -eyes were fixed on you as though trying to read into you--so evilly -that I went cold all over.” - -The Professor gave her a sharp glance. - -“No vision of the room in Berlin--or wherever it was?” he queried. - -She shook her head. - -“No. Just the man. But even that’s not all. Just now--when I was -playing and looking across to you--_I distinctly saw him again_, close -behind Poppa! He moved this time--moved with a funny little limp--just -like a real man with a bad leg. I jumped up--and--and he was gone!” She -looked around apprehensively as though expecting to see him still. - -“Your liver’s out of order, my dear,” said her father. “Take a pill -when you go to bed to-night.” - -“No,” said the girl, “it’s not that. I know you would say I was -ill--that is why I asked the Professor to examine me. I am sure it -_means_ something!” - -Captain Sergeantson threw the end of his cigar into the fireplace and -took a wallet out of his pocket. The wallet contained photographs. He -handed them to the girl. - -“Miss Forsdyke,” he said, gravely, “would you mind telling me if you -have ever seen any of these people?” - -The girl examined them. Suddenly she uttered a cry and held up one of -the prints. - -“_This!_” she said. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. “This is the -man I saw!--There’s the scar, too--exactly!--Who is he? Do you know -him?” - -“That man,” replied Captain Sergeantson, sententiously, “is Karl -Wertheimer. About the cutest spy the German Secret Service ever had.--I -was going to tell Jimmy a story about him and brought his picture along -with me,” he added in explanation. “I sort of recognized him from your -description.” - -The girl stared at the photograph. - -“Of course,” continued Sergeantson, “he made up over that scar. He -was an extraordinarily clever actor, by the way. They cleaned off the -make-up when they took the photograph.” - -“And he is a German spy!” mused the girl, still staring at the picture. - -“He was!” replied Sergeantson, grimly. “The British shot him in the -Tower when I was in London six months ago.” - -The girl looked up sharply. - -“I’m sure I’ve never seen his photograph before!” she said, as though -answering an allegation she felt in the silence of the others. “How -could I?” - -“I can’t imagine, Miss Forsdyke. The extraordinary thing is that you -should have got his limp. That’s what gave him away to the British. He -broke his leg dropping over a wall in an exceedingly daring escape at -the beginning of the war. But how you should know about it beats me all -to pieces.” - -“I didn’t _know_--I saw----” - -“You saw his ghost, I guess, Miss Forsdyke--and that’s all there is to -it.” Captain Sergeantson lit himself another cigar by way of showing -how cold-blooded he could be in the possible presence of a spectre. - -Jimmy shuddered. “It’s uncanny,” he said. “I don’t like it.” - -“But _why_?” puzzled Hetty, wrinkling her brows. She turned to her -father. “Poppa----!” - -Forsdyke shook his head smilingly. - -“I’m out of this deal. Ask the Professor. He’s the authority on spooks. -What does it all mean, Lomax? Can you give an explanation that doesn’t -outrage commonsense?” - -The Professor smiled. The eyes in that clean-cut face twinkled. - -“Commonsense?” He shrugged his shoulders. “We want to start by -defining that--by defining all our senses--and we should never -finish.” He looked with his challenging smile round the group. “I see -you are inviting me to throw away my last little shred of reputation -as a sane,” he said, humorously. “Well, I will not venture on any -explanation of my own. The evidence, with all respect to Hetty here, -is insufficient. We only know that she had a dream and a hallucination -twice repeated. We know that the hallucination corresponds to a -photograph in Captain Sergeantson’s pocket. We do not know what basis -there is--if any--for her dream. But I will give you two alternative -explanations that might be suggested by other people.--Will that -satisfy you?” - -“Go ahead, Professor,” said Forsdyke. “Don’t ask me to believe in -ghosts, that’s all!” - -“I don’t ask you to believe in anything,” replied the Professor. “I -don’t ask you to believe in the reality of your presence and ours in -this room. If you have ever read old Bishop Berkeley you will know that -you would find it exceedingly difficult to evade the thesis that it may -all be an illusion. Your consciousness--whatever that is--builds up a -picture from impressions on your senses. You can’t test the reality of -the origin of those impressions--you can only collate the subjective -results. Everything--Time and Space--may be an illusion for all you or -I know!” - -“I heard that in my dream!” Hetty broke in. “Someone said it: ‘Time -and Space are an illusion!’ I remember it so clearly now!” Her eyes -glistened with excitement. - -“All right, Hetty,” said her father. “Let the Professor have his say. -It’s his turn. And don’t take us out of our depth, Lomax. You know as -well as I do what I mean by commonsense.” - -The Professor laughed. - -“Well, I’m not going to guarantee either of the explanations, Forsdyke. -I merely put them before you. The first is the out-and-out spiritualist -explanation. Let us see what we can make of that. You must assume, -with the spiritualists, that man has a soul which survives with its -attributes of memory, volition, and a certain potentiality for action -upon what we know as matter. Captain Sergeantson here vouches for the -fact that a certain German spy, Karl Wertheimer, was shot in London six -months ago. The spiritualist would allege that it is possible--under -certain conditions which are very imperfectly under human command--for -the soul (we’ll call it that) of Karl Wertheimer to put itself into -communication with his old associates who still remain in the world of -the living. There is an enormous mass of human testimony--which you may -reject as worthless if you like--to the possibility of such a thing. -Assume it _is_ possible. Karl Wertheimer was a spy so successful, -according to Captain Sergeantson, that it is reasonable to suppose -that spying was his natural vocation, his life-passion, as much as -painting pictures is the life-passion of an artist. It may be assumed -that, if anything survives, one’s life-passion survives. Now suppose -that Karl Wertheimer’s late employers believe in the possibility of -communication with their late agent--that they find a medium--in this -case, the young girl that Hetty saw in her dream--who can be controlled -by the defunct Karl Wertheimer--through whom they can speak to him and -receive communications from him--what is more natural than that they -should do so? Admitting the premises, difficult as they are, it appears -to me that the discarnate soul of Karl Wertheimer would be an extremely -valuable secret agent----” - -“Yes, suppose--suppose----” said Forsdyke. “It is all supposition. And -it doesn’t explain Hetty’s dream.” - -“I am coming to that,” pursued the Professor. “Grant me, for the sake -of argument, all my suppositions. Karl Wertheimer’s employers are -communicating with him and setting him tasks. One of those tasks, we -will assume, concerns you. Now it may be, Forsdyke, that in the unseen -world of discarnate spirits there is one who watches over you, guards -you from danger. Someone, perhaps, who loved you in this life----” - -Forsdyke glanced up to the portrait of his wife upon the wall. - -“I leave the suggestion to you,” said the Professor, delicately. “We -will merely pursue it as a hypothesis. Such a spirit would seek to warn -you. It is obviously futile to discuss the means it might or might not -employ. We know nothing of the conditions of discarnate life--nothing, -at any rate, with scientific certainty. But we will assume that such a -spirit, desirous of communicating, finds that Hetty here is temporarily -in a mediumistic condition--and by ‘mediumistic’ I mean merely that -she is in the abnormal state which, in all ages and in all countries, -induces persons to declare that they see and hear things imperceptible -to others. She certainly had an abnormal headache. She goes to sleep -and dreams. We won’t analyze dream-consciousness now. I will only point -out that, in a clearly remembered dream, the events of that dream are -as real to consciousness as the events of waking life, and that the -perception of Time is enormously modified--you dream through hours of -experience while the hand marks minutes on the clock. You are subject -to a different illusion of Time--and, as Time and Space are but two -faces of the same phenomenon, it may be said that you are subject to -a different illusion of Space as well. The spiritualist uses this -undoubted fact to support his assertion that in dream-sleep the spirit -of the living person is freed from the conditions of matter and is in a -condition at least approximating to that of a person who is dead--that -it can and does accompany the spirits of those who in this life were -linked to it. - -“The spiritualist, then, endeavouring to explain our present problem, -would allege that a spiritual agency concerned with your welfare led -Hetty’s spirit into a room in Berlin where Karl Wertheimer’s employers -were indicating him to you for some special purpose--that Hetty, being -then pure spirit, could actually perceive Karl Wertheimer as a living -being when perhaps those in the room (if there was such a room) could -only perceive the girl through whom he was speaking--that she could -actually hear the significant phrase of their conversation. Further, -the spiritualist would assert as a possibility that Karl Wertheimer, -ordered to obtain information in your possession, is actually -here--_shadowing_ you more effectively than any mortal spy could -do--and that Hetty, still retaining her mediumistic power, has actually -seen him. That is a spiritualistic explanation--I apologize for its -length, Forsdyke. Give me another of your very excellent and material -cigars!” - -“It is a fantastic explanation. I don’t believe a word of it,” said -Forsdyke, passing him the box. “Let us have the other one.” - -“The other one,” replied the Professor, cutting the tip of his cigar -and lighting it carefully, with a critical glance at its even burning, -“is shorter. It is the explanation of those who are determined to -explain a great mass of well-attested and apparently abnormal facts -by normal agency. Their explanation in one word is--telepathy. You -know the idea--the common phenomenon of two people who utter a remark, -unconnected with previous conversation, at the same moment. Living -minds unconsciously act upon each other--that is experimentally -proved. Why, therefore, drag in dead ones? That is their argument. -Let us apply their theory. Hetty is in an abnormal condition. Captain -Sergeantson is coming to dinner. In his pocket he has a photograph of -the notorious German spy, Karl Wertheimer. In his mind he has a story -about him which he intends to relate. Now there are well-documented -cases of hallucinations of persons actually on their way to a house -where they were not expected appearing to their destined hostesses. -I could quote you dozens of examples. The telepathist says this is -because the guest forms in his mind a vivid picture of himself in that -house, which is projected forward to the hostess’s mind and causes her -to think she sees him. Now, Captain Sergeantson’s mind is not full -of himself--it is full of the story about Karl Wertheimer that he -is going to tell. Hetty’s mind--somehow--picks this up. She goes to -sleep and as in sleep, notoriously, the human mind has a faculty for -building up pictures and a story. Hetty dreams this story about Karl -Wertheimer. It is true that she has never seen Karl Wertheimer. But -Captain Sergeantson presumably has a visualization of him, including -the limp, in his mind. The subsequent hallucinations are explained by -the tendency to automatic repetition of any vivid impression upon the -nervous centres which excite a picture in consciousness. It is a more -or less tenable theory, but it would be gravely shaken if it happened -that, unknown to Hetty or Captain Sergeantson--_you actually had -something to do with a secret schedule which would interest our friends -the enemy_.” - -There was a silence. Forsdyke’s brow wrinkled as he stared into the -fire. Suddenly he switched round to the Professor. - -“That’s the devil of it, Lomax!” he exclaimed. “I have! A most secret -schedule. Thank God, it will be out of my possession to-morrow morning, -when I----” - -“_Don’t_, Poppa!” cried Hetty, clapping her hand over his mouth. She -stared wildly around her. “I feel sure that someone is listening!” - -Forsdyke freed himself with a gesture which expressed his impatience of -this absurdity. - -“What do you make of that, Lomax?” he asked. - -“Of course,” murmured the Professor, “Hetty’s mind may be influenced -by a dominant anxiety in yours.--I should not like to say, Forsdyke!” -His tone was emphatic. “Personally, I have never heard of a spectral -spy--but--well, you are, on your showing worth spying on. And there -are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio--you know! If it _is_ -possible--then there are things more improbable than that this means of -acquiring information should be used. Your schedule would, I take it, -be priceless?” - -“The fate of the world may be involved in it,” replied Forsdyke. “But I -can’t believe----” - -“I am certain!” exclaimed Hetty. “I feel there’s something uncanny -around us now!” She shuddered. “Oh, _do_ take care, Poppa!” - -“But what can he do?” asked Jimmy, who had been listening anxiously to -the Professor’s explanation. “What do you suggest, Sergeantson? You’re -the authentic spycatcher. How can you defeat the ghost of one?” - -“I pass!” replied Sergeantson, laconically. “Professor, the word’s to -you!” - -Forsdyke looked genuinely worried. - -“Of course, I don’t believe it, Lomax,” he said. “But -supposing--supposing there was something like you suggest--what could I -do?” - -The Professor’s eyes twinkled. - -“Assuming the objective reality of our supposition, my dear Forsdyke,” -he replied, “I can think of only one effective counterstroke.” - -He held their interest for a moment in suspense. - -“And that is----?” - -“To drop a bomb on the girl!” - -“A bomb--on the girl----” puzzled Jimmy slowly. “Why?” - -“Because when you break the telephone receiver it doesn’t matter what -the fellow at the other end says--you can’t hear!” - -“But we can’t get at her,” said Sergeantson. “We don’t even know who -she is, or where. We should never find out--in time.” - -“That’s just it,” agreed the Professor. “You would have no time. -Assuming that a ghostly spy is haunting our friend Forsdyke--the moment -he reads that schedule, or even indicates where it is, the spy reads it -too----” - -“Reads it?” echoed Jimmy, incredulously. “But surely ghosts can’t read!” - -“It is alleged they can,” replied the Professor. “There is, for -example, a very curious case reported of the Rev. Stainton Moses, a -teacher at the University College in London during the ’seventies. -A spirit, purporting to be writing through his hand, quoted to him -a paragraph from a closed book in a friend’s library. Moses merely -indicated a book and a page at random, without knowing even to what -book he referred. The quotation was correct. One of the foremost -scientists of the present day has lent the weight of his authority to -this story by incorporating it in his book as evidence of supernormal -powers----”[2] - -“That is sure incredible, Professor!” cried Sergeantson. - -“We are dealing with what normally are incredibilities,” said the -Professor, with a smile. “We agreed to assume an objective reality -to our supposition--and, assuming it, the spy would read that -schedule at the same moment as Forsdyke, and possibly communicate -it instantaneously. As Forsdyke is going to do something with that -schedule to-morrow morning, well,” he shrugged his shoulders, “my money -would be on the ghost!” - -“My God!” said Forsdyke, thoroughly alarmed, “if it’s true--it’s -maddening! One can do nothing!” - -“Nothing,” agreed the Professor. “There would be no time.” - -The men stared at each other, exasperated at the hopelessness of the -problem. If--they scarcely dared admit it to their sanity--it really -were the case? - -Hetty startled them by a sudden cry. - -“Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you hear?” she exclaimed. “Someone laughing at -us--close behind!--Oh, look! Look!” She pointed to empty space. “There -he is again! Don’t you see?” - -She fainted in Jimmy’s ready arms. - - * * * * * - -The next morning Hetty found her father already at breakfast. - -“Well,” he asked, his dry smile mildly sarcastic, “any more dreams?” - -“Horrid!” she replied with a little shudder as she poured herself out -some coffee. “But I don’t remember them.” - -“You will see the doctor to-day, young woman,” observed her father in -a tone which indicated his verdict on the happenings of the previous -night. - -Hetty was docility itself, a phenomenon not altogether lost on her -experienced parent. - -“Very well, Poppa,” she agreed, demurely. “What are you going to do -this morning?” - -“I am going to the office to get some papers----” - -“_The_ papers----?” She checked herself with a little frightened glance -round the room. - -Her father laughed--a good, healthy, commonsense laugh. - -“_The_ papers!” he said. “No more nonsense about ghosts, Hetty. I’m -going to get _the_ papers from my office and take them round to the -Conference. So now you know. And there’s a Colt automatic in the pocket -of the automobile if any one tries tricks on the way.” - -Hetty nodded her head sagely. - -“Guess you’ve a place for me in that automobile, Poppa,” she said. -“I’ll come with you to the office, wait while you get the papers, and -go on with you to the Conference building--and while you’re there I’ll -go on to see that doctor. I shall be back in time to pick you up before -you are finished with your old Conference.” - -Her father saw no objection to this, was in fact secretly glad to have -her under his eye as long as possible. - -“Mind, no tricks about the doctor!” he said, with an assumption of -severity. - -“Sure, Poppa!” was her equable reply. - -A few minutes later saw them speeding through the keen air of a frosty -morning toward Forsdyke’s office. But the interior of the limousine was -warm, and Hetty, snug in her furs, looked a picture of young, healthy -beauty, looked---- A memory came to Henry Forsdyke in a pang that -brought a sigh. He thought of the Professor’s suggestion of last night. -Of course, the whole thing was absurd!--but he wondered---- - -The car swung into the sidewalk in front of the Government building, -stopped before the big doorway with the marble steps. Forsdyke got out. - -“I shall be back in a few minutes,” he said. - -Hetty watched him go across the pavement, ascend the marble steps. He -looked neither to right nor left. _Then who was that with him?_ Hetty -felt her heart stop. Who was that who passed into the doorway with him? -No one had been on the steps--she was suddenly sure of it. Yet--her -heart began to pump again--certainly two figures had passed through the -swing-doors! She sat chilled and paralyzed for the moment in which she -visualized the memory of those two figures passing into the shadow of -the interior--tried to think when she had first perceived the second. A -certitude shot through her, a wild alarm. - -She jumped to her feet, and with a blind, instinctive desire for a -weapon, pulled the Colt out of the pocket of the limousine and thrust -it into her muff. A moment later she was running across the pavement -and up the marble steps. The janitor pulled open the swing-door for -her. She fixed him with excited eyes. - -“Who was that who came in with Mr. Forsdyke just now?” she asked -breathlessly. - -The janitor stared. - -“No one, miss. Mr. Forsdyke was alone.” - -Alone! She repressed an impulse to scream out, dashed to the elevator -which had just come to rest after its descent. The attendant opened the -gate at her approach. - -“Did you take Mr. Forsdyke up just now?” she asked. - -“Yes, miss.” - -“Was he alone?” - -“Sure!--He came in alone.” - -“Take me up!” She trembled so that she could scarcely stand. Her eyes -closed in a sickening anxiety as she swayed back against the wall of -the elevator. - -She shot upward. Another moment and she found herself racing along the -corridor to her father’s rooms, twisting at the handle of the door. - -She almost fell into the ante-room occupied by Jimmy Lomax. He jumped -to his feet. - -“Hetty!” - -“Father!” She had scarcely breath enough for utterance. “Father!--I -must see Father----!” - -“Hetty, you can’t! He’s busy in his private room--no one dare----” - -“I must!” she gasped. “Quick!--the ghost----!” - -He stared in astonishment. She dodged past him, flung open the door -into the next room. - -Henry Forsdyke was standing, checking over a sheaf of papers in his -hand, in front of the swung-open wall of the room, now revealed as a -safe divided into many compartments. Hetty perceived him at the first -glance; _perceived, standing at his side, a man with a sardonic mocking -face and a scar over the right eye who peered over his shoulder_. - -In a blind whirl of impulse she whipped out the automatic, rushed up -close, and fired--into thin air! - -Her father swung round on her in a burst of anger. - -“Good God, Hetty!--Are you mad?” - -She looked wildly at him. - -“The ghost!--the ghost!” - -He laughed despite his genuine wrath. - -“Great heavens, what nonsense it all is!--What are you thinking -of?--You can’t shoot a ghost!” - -But Hetty had sunk on to a chair and was sobbing hysterically. - - * * * * * - -In the luxuriously furnished room in Berlin Kranz was speaking -excitedly into the telephone. - -“_Excellenz!_” he called. “_Excellenz!_--Are you there?--Quickly!--Karl -says he will be with us in ten minutes!” He glanced toward the girl -sleeping in the big chair. “Quickly!” - -He listened for a moment and then put down the receiver with a -satisfied air. He rose from his seat and began to pace nervously up and -down the room. From time to time he threw a glance at the still figure -stretched back among the cushions. She slept with a regular deep -breathing. He listened, anxiously alert for any change. - -The minutes passed, slowly enough to his impatience. He looked at -his watch. It marked ten minutes to four. A thought occurred to -him--he amplified it deliberately, to occupy his mind. Ten minutes to -four!--What time would it be in Washington? Six hours--ten minutes to -ten in the morning. What would be happening at ten minutes to ten? What -was Karl looking at----? - -The raucous hoot of a Klaxon horn startled him out of these -meditations. He ran to the window, looked out. A familiar motor-car was -drawing up by the pavement. His Excellency had lost no time! - -A few moments later and the dreaded Chief stood in the room, formidable -still despite his dwarfed appearance in the great fur coat turned up -to his ears. The clipped white moustache bristled more than ever, it -seemed, as he glared at Kranz through the pince-nez with a ferocity -which was but the expression of his excitement. - -“Yes?” he cried, ere the door had closed after him. “What has happened? -Speak, man!” - -“Nothing yet, _Excellenz_!” Kranz hastened to assure him. “The girl -swooned off suddenly at about a quarter to four--I have not let her -out of my sight since last night--and then Karl spoke. He said--and it -sounded as though he meant it--that he would give us the information in -ten minutes. I telephoned you at once.” - -“Right! Quite right!” snapped His Excellency. “Ten minutes! The time -must be up----” - -“Good afternoon, _Excellenz_!” The old man jumped. The familiar -mocking voice came from the lifeless mask of the sleeping girl. “Your -suggestion was correct--Forsdyke! He is taking me to it now!” The -derisive laugh rang out, uncanny in the silent room. “Patience for a -few minutes!” - -The old man made an effort of his will. - -“Where are you now, Karl?” he asked. - -“In a motor-car--funny story--tell you later--patience.” The voice -sounded far away and faint. “Look to the girl, Kranz--not breathing -properly--can’t speak--if--power--fails.” - -Kranz went to the sleeping girl. Her head had fallen forward and she -was breathing stertorously. He rearranged the cushions, posed her head -so that she once more breathed deeply and evenly. - -They waited in a tense silence. Then her lips moved again. - -“Listen--now! Take it down as I read it!” Karl’s voice rang with an -unholy triumph. - -“Quick, Kranz!--Write!” commanded the old man. - -His subordinate leaped to the table, settled himself pen in hand. - -The girl’s lips trembled in the commencement of speech, opened. - -“Schedule of Sailings of American Army to Europe!” began the triumphant -voice. - -There was a pause. - -“Yes--yes!” cried the old man impatiently. “Go on!” - -“Numbers for March”--Karl Wertheimer’s voice came with a curious -deliberation as though he were memorizing figures. “--_Ahh!_” The voice -broke in a wild, unearthly cry that froze the blood. - -They waited. There was no sound. They heard their hearts beat in a -growing terror. - -Suddenly the old man spoke. - -“The girl!--Look, Kranz!--She does not breathe!” - -Kranz sprang to her, lifted her hand, bent suddenly down to her face. -He looked up with the eyes of a baulked demon. - -“She is dead!” he said hoarsely. - -He turned to her again and, with a frenzied rage, tore away the clothes -from her throat and chest. Just over her heart was a small round dark -spot staining the unbroken skin. - -“Look!” he cried. - -The old man peered down at the mark, and then stared round the room. - -“What has happened?” The wild cry quavered with the terror of the -Unseen. - -No answer came from the silence. - - -NOTE - - The belief that an injury done to the “astral” body of a spirit is - reproduced in the physical body of the medium _en rapport_ with - that spirit is found in all countries and in all times, from the - most ancient to the present. The old-time witch or wizard is, of - course, the same psychologically abnormal type as the “medium” of - to-day. The genuineness or otherwise of their powers is beside - the point. Phenomena of the same nature as that described above - are reported again and again in the witchcraft trials of the - seventeenth century and in a comparatively recent legal case in - France in 1853. Andrew Lang, analyzing this last case, says: “In - the events at Cideville, and the depositions of witnesses, we have - all the characteristics.... The phantom is wounded, a parallel - wound is found on the suspected warlock.” Reporting the evidence - in the trial, Lang continues: “Nails were driven into points on - the floor where Lemonier saw the spectral figure standing. One - nail became red-hot and the wood around it smoked: Lemonier said - that this nail had hit ‘the man in the blouse’ on the cheek. Now, - when Thorel was made to ask the boy’s pardon and was recognized - by him as the phantom, Thorel bore on his cheek the mark of the - wound!” The alleged wizard lost his case. (“A Modern Trial for - Witchcraft,” in _Cock Lane and Common-sense_, 1894, p. 278.) - - In this case it was the medium’s own spectre which appeared. - But the modern spiritualist holds that there exists the same - connection between the living body of the medium and the - materialized spirit of the dead. “... The clutching of a - [materialized] form hits the medium with a force like that of an - electric shock, and many sensitives have been grievously injured - by foolish triflers in this way.” (_Spirit Intercourse_, J. - Hewat Mackenzie, 1916, p. 53.) Sir Wm. Crookes sounds the same - warning note in his description of the famous “Katie King” case - (_Researches in Spiritualism_, 1874, p. 108 _et seq._). - - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] The reference is to _The Survival of Man_, Sir Oliver Lodge, pp. -104-5. - - - - -THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. TODMORDEN - - -Mr. Todmorden rose from his seat in the railway carriage; he spoke in -the tones of a man who ends a discussion: - -“Well, gentlemen, this is my station, and you haven’t convinced me that -a man ever commits a crime unless of his own free-will. I’d show no -mercy to the rascal! Good-night!” - -Mr. Todmorden was far from being so stern, either in appearance or -character, as this emphatically uttered sentiment would suggest. As -his short, stout figure moved along the platform, the head thrown -back and a pair of bright little eyes, set in a chubby round face, -glancing sharply through his spectacles for an acquaintance to smile -at, he looked--what, in fact, he was--a successful city man whose -original kindness of heart had mellowed into habitual benevolence--the -type of man who moves through life beaming on people who touch their -caps; salutation and recognition alike instinctive, meeting each other -half-way. - -Affable though Mr. Todmorden was, he had his prejudices and his pride; -pride centred in the practice he had built up as a family solicitor of -standing and renown: prejudices directed against those unfortunates -who, from choice or necessity, transgressed the social code. His -ideal in life was probity. He was intolerant of any infraction of it, -and conducted his own affairs with punctilious scrupulousness. If -he contemplated himself with some approbation it was justified. His -fellow-men concurred in it. - -In the warm light of a late summer sunset he strolled along the -suburban streets to his home. His countenance expressed that -contentment with himself and his surroundings usual with him. His mind, -satisfied, played lightly over the headings of sundry affairs, neatly -docketed and done with, he had settled that day. Other affairs, not -so completed, were thrust into the background until the morrow. His -good-humoured round face was in readiness for a smile. - -Suddenly he stopped and contemplated through his spectacles a large -house a little way back from the road. A long ladder resting against -the wall was the uncommon object that had attracted his attention. - -“Dear me!” he said to himself, “Old Miss Hartley having the house -painted again!” - -Miss Hartley was one of his oldest and most valued clients. In fact, -both repudiated the business term and called each other “friends.” -Their sentiments toward each other warranted it. She was an elderly -spinster, eccentric and wealthy; he a bachelor who could and did -afford himself a whim. They smiled at one another’s oddities without -any lessening of the mutual respect many years of intercourse had -induced. His attitude toward the old lady was almost fraternal. The -long practice of watching her interests had developed a habit of -affectionate protection in him. He advised her on countless petty -manners and forgot to put them in the bill. He was personally, not -merely professionally, anxious on her behalf when the occasion required -it. - -The sight of the ladder against the wall recalled one of his most -common anxieties. It was a pet grievance of his that she would persist -in living alone, save for one maid, in that large house. To his mind, -she offered herself as a prey to the malefactor who should chance to -correlate the two facts of her wealth and her solitude. He expressed -that opinion frequently, and was obstinately smiled at. Now, as he -walked on, the thought of the danger she invited recurred to him. It -irritated him. - -“Tut! tut!” he said. “That ladder, now, is just placed right for a -burglar! I’m sure it is! Dear me! how careless! how very careless!” He -tried to measure the ladder from his remembrance of it, and, to end his -doubts, returned and examined it again. The ladder rested close to a -freshly painted window-sill on the first floor. - -“Dear me! dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden, genuinely perturbed. “That’s -the window of Miss Hartley’s room!” He stood irresolute, debating -whether he should ring the bell, and point out the dangerous position -of the ladder. A nervous fear of the old lady’s smile restrained him. -He knew she regarded him as an old “fusser.” - -He walked on again, carrying his fears. - -“She is really too foolish, too foolish!” he repeated. “Living alone -there--with only that stupid girl in the house! Any one might break -in. They’ve only to walk up that ladder! And she will persist in -advertising that she has valuables!” The occasion of the final clause -in Mr. Todmorden’s mental arraignment was a particularly fine diamond -brooch the old lady wore at all times, despite his protests. If there -was a sentimental reason for its continual use, she concealed it under -her quiet smile. The memory of that smile irritated Mr. Todmorden. -“Confound her! she’s so obstinate!” His thoughts focussed themselves on -that brooch, with a criminal lurking in the background. Gradually, they -drifted to the criminal. As his irritation faded under the soft warm -light of the sunset, he amused himself by picturing types of possible -burglars. Finally, forgetting his original preoccupation, he thought -of an ancestor of his own--his maternal grandfather--who had been -transported for a doubtful case of murder. In contrast to that squalid -page of family history self-esteem read over his own achievements. -Successful, respected, an alderman, a possible knighthood in front, he -had surely wiped out that black patch on his pedigree. He savoured a -very pleasant sense of personal probity as he walked up the drive to -his house. - -He ate his solitary dinner, and revived the feeling of well-being with -a bottle of his favourite port. Then Miss Hartley’s brooch recurred -to his mind, and was followed by a thought of the ladder which led to -it, and of a criminal who might climb the ladder. As he sat in his big -chair in the lonely dining-room, gazing at passing thoughts rather than -thinking them, the case of his maternal grandfather cropped up in his -reverie. Moved by a sudden whim, he rose from his chair and took down -a battered volume of law reports. Fortified by another glass, he read -through the case of his ancestor. He finished it, and sat thoughtful -for a moment before replacing the book. “H’m, h’m,” he said to himself. -“Very doubtful! Very doubtful! Ah, well, we’ve travelled a long road -since then!” He smiled at his own success, and went off to bed in a -contented mood. That doubtful grandfather was a long way back. - -In the morning, as he walked down to the station to catch his usual -train, he noticed a group of people standing on the pavement and gazing -up at a house. An unreasoning anxiety gripped him. He hastened his -pace. Yes--surely!--it was Miss Hartley’s house which excited this -unwonted interest. He arrived among the crowd, rather out of breath. - -“What is it? What is it, my man?” he demanded of a gazing spectator. - -Half a dozen voices replied. - -“It’s a murder! Old Miss Hartley----!” - -Mr. Todmorden did not wait to hear more. - -“Good gracious!” he said, as he hurried along the garden path, and -“Good gracious!” he repeated, as he rang the bell. He could not -formulate a thought. He gazed, mentally, at the awful thing, stunned. - -The door was opened by a policeman. Behind him stood the maid-servant, -white, frightened, and sobbing. She ran toward him with a cry of “Oh, -sir!” but broke down, unable to utter a word. - -“All right, all right, Ellen,” said Mr. Todmorden rather brusquely, -pushing her aside. He addressed himself to the policeman. “What has -happened, constable? Surely not murder?” - -“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” He looked doubtfully at his questioner. “Are -you one of the old lady’s relatives, sir?” - -“No. I’m her solicitor, and one of her oldest friends. Dear me! dear -me! how terrible! Is there any one in authority here, constable?” - -“Two inspectors upstairs, sir.” - -“Can I see them?” - -He was shown into the bedroom, and introduced himself to the -police-officers. They welcomed him with gravity. On the bed lay a -covered figure. Mr. Todmorden drew aside the sheet and gazed upon the -features of his old friend. They were marred by a bullet-hole through -the forehead. He turned away, trembling, his face working with emotion. -He could scarcely speak, but made the effort due to his dignity, as the -deceased’s legal adviser. “Any--any clue?” he asked. - -“None, sir, at present,” was the reply. - -“Dear me! how terrible! how very terrible! She was my oldest -friend----” he could not find the strength to repress his grief--“my -oldest friend! Oh, it’s awful, inspector, awful! The--the wickedness -of it! She hadn’t an enemy.” He struggled for the control of himself. -“What was it--robbery?” - -“No, sir--nothing seems to be tampered with. Perhaps the murderer was -startled.” - -“When was it discovered?” - -“This morning, when the maid brought in the tea. She says she heard -nothing. She admits being a heavy sleeper.” - -“And there is nothing missing?” - -“Apparently not, sir. The drawers were locked, and the keys have not -been interfered with. Nothing was disturbed, in fact.” - -“Ah!” Mr. Todmorden was gradually getting back into his legal -clearness of mind. “Has the girl looked carefully round to see if -anything has disappeared?” - -“I don’t know, sir.” - -“Call her up, if you please, officer.” - -Ellen appeared, still weeping, and was bidden to look round for -anything out of place. Dabbing her eyes, she examined the room -carefully. Suddenly she gave a cry. - -“The mistress’s diamond brooch! I put it here last night!” She pointed -to a tray on the dressing-table. “It’s gone!” - -“Good God!” said Mr. Todmorden. “How very curious!” - -The inspectors looked at him sharply. - -“Does that give you any clue, sir?” asked one of them. - -“No--no,” he replied, rather confused. “I--the fact is, I was thinking -of that brooch only last night, and of how unprotected Miss Hartley -was. I have often told her so--poor woman!” - -“Ah!” said the inspectors in chorus. Mr. Todmorden felt there was -something suspicious in their sharply uttered exclamation. Even to -himself his explanation had sounded lame. The police-officers might -imagine he was shielding somebody. The consciousness of his inability -to explain how very startling the fulfilment of his fears had been to -him made him feel awkward. - -“Of course,” he said, “the murderer must have come in by the ladder.” - -“The ladder?” asked one of the inspectors. “I saw no ladder.” - -“There was certainly a ladder resting against the sill of this window -at six o’clock last night,” asserted Mr. Todmorden. “The house, you -will observe, is being redecorated. I noticed the ladder, and it -occurred to me that a first-class opportunity was being offered to a -burglar. In fact, I was on the point of calling on Miss Hartley and -warning her of it. I wish I had done so!” - -“H’m!” The inspector scarcely deigned to trifle with the suggestion. -It could be understood that it was his professional prerogative to -evolve theories. “Yes--perhaps. But I think we can explain the entrance -in a more likely way,” he said, mysteriously. “It is scarcely probable -that the decorator’s men would leave the ladder there all night, sir.” - -“I’m sure the rascal came up the ladder!” Mr. Todmorden’s affirmation -was so vehement, came so involuntarily, that it surprised himself. -Why was he so positive? He felt uncomfortable. He put on a bustling, -important air. “Well, well, I must get up to town, as I have a very -important appointment. I will look in at the station on my way home -this evening. If you hear of anything during the day you might -communicate with me. Here is my card.” - -The old gentleman took his way to the city, oppressed by grief. -Bitterly he reproached himself for not having ceded to his impulse to -point out the dangerous position of that fatal ladder. - -As good as his word, he called at the police-station on his way home. -The chief inspector received him: - -“A very mysterious affair, Mr. Todmorden. Very mysterious!” - -“It is very terrible to me,” replied the old gentleman. “Miss Hartley -was a very old friend. I feel myself in some way responsible. The -possibility of such a tragedy actually occurred to me on my way home -last night, and I might have warned her of it. I shall never forgive -myself. Miss Hartley relied upon me. It is terrible to think that I -failed her in this supreme instance.” - -“You refer to the ladder,” said the inspector. “We have made enquiries -about that. It appears it was overlooked last night and was carried -away by one of the decorator’s men at six o’clock this morning. -Undoubtedly, the murderer used it. In fact, he left the window open -after him.” - -“I was certain of it,” said Mr. Todmorden. “And there is no clue to the -rascal?” - -“Hardly any. The constable on the beat reports that, at two o’clock -this morning, he saw the figure of a man running along the road away -from the house. That man was wearing a very light suit--possibly a -flannel one. A curious dress for a burglar, I think you will admit. The -constable particularly noticed that there was no sound of footsteps as -the man ran. He must have been wearing rubber soles. Unfortunately, the -constable lost sight of him when he turned the corner.” - -“Dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden. Only half his mind had listened to the -inspector’s words; the other half was occupied by that curious and -fairly common hallucination of a previous and identical incident. The -description was oddly familiar. He seemed to know it in advance. At -an intense moment of the hallucination, he had a glimpsed memory of -himself running, running along a road at the dead of night, running -silently. He shook off the uncomfortable and absurd feeling. “Dear me! -How very strange!” - -The inspector was observing him narrowly. - -“I suppose you cannot give us any hint that might help us, Mr. -Todmorden? You know no one who bore the old lady a grudge?” - -“Certainly not. She was the best and kindest of women.” - -“May I ask who benefits by her death?” - -“She has only one relative, a nephew, who inherits everything. He is in -America. I have cabled to him, and received a reply.” - -“Ah! So he’s out of it.” - -“Of course, of course.” - -“This business of the brooch, Mr. Todmorden--it seems strange that the -murderer should have taken that, and that only. He has made no attempt -on anything else. You know no one who had an interest in the article?” - -“No one. Miss Hartley wore it always. I have often expostulated with -her for wearing so valuable a piece of jewellery in the street. -Someone might have noticed it and resolved to obtain it.” - -“Yes, yes, of course. A very strange affair, Mr. Todmorden, very -strange! I confess I cannot see light in it. Er--her affairs are quite -in order, of course?” - -“Quite. I keep the accounts; they are open to investigation. The name -of Todmorden and Baines is a sufficient guarantee, I think,” he added, -with a smile. “But, of course, it is natural you should wish to make -sure. You can examine the books to-morrow.” - -“Unnecessary, my dear sir, I’m quite certain. Of course, I am bound to -ask these unpleasant questions.” - -“Don’t apologize. I am as anxious as you are to catch the criminal. I -have, in fact, a personal interest in it. Miss Hartley was so good a -friend to me that I shall never rest until I have brought the scoundrel -to justice. A reward may help. I will personally give a hundred pounds -for his apprehension. You might have bills printed to that effect.” - -“Thank you, Mr. Todmorden. I hope we shall be able to claim it, though, -at present, I see little chance of it. However, something may turn up.” - -As Mr. Todmorden went home, he looked years older than the man who had -traversed the same ground twenty-four hours earlier. Grief-stricken -though he was, at the loss of his dear friend, his predominant emotion -was a fierce lust for vengeance on the murderer. His fingers worked, -gripped the air, as he brooded on him--the hated unknown--and his -step oscillated from fast to slow and slow to fast, as thoughts, -hopeful or despondent, got the upper hand. If he could only lay hands -on the scoundrel. A black and bitter wrath seethed in him. It was, -unjustifiably, the more bitter at the remembrance that Fate had placed -for a moment in his hand the power to avert the tragedy, had given -him a glimpse into the future--and yet had turned aside his will. The -wickedness of it! That dear, kind, charitable old soul! Shot like a -dog! He stamped his foot on the pavement at the thought of it; tears -welled up in his eyes. - -“I’ll double that reward if he isn’t caught within a week!” he decided. -The decision comforted him. - -All through his solitary dinner he brooded on the crime, and sat -afterward, for long hours, trying to think of someone who might have an -urgent reason for possessing himself of that diamond brooch. He went to -bed at last, baffled, weary, heartsick. Had he met the murderer on the -stairs he would gladly have throttled him with his own hands. - -Putting on his pyjamas, he noticed something unusual--something -hard--in the pocket. Mechanically, he drew out the object and looked at -it. He stood as if petrified, his eyes staring, sweat breaking out on -his brow. - -In his hand he held Miss Hartley’s diamond brooch! - -He gazed at it, overwhelmed with amazement and horror. What was -happening? Was he crazed? Was his mind unhinged by the event of the -morning, was this an hallucination? All that was his familiar self -prayed, prayed hard, that this might be madness. Or--his instinct of -self-preservation caused him to clutch at the thought--was he the -victim of some atrocious trick? Impossible. Was it real? He felt the -jewel--turned it, so that it sparkled under the electric light. - -“My God!” said Mr. Todmorden, sinking into a chair. The familiar -concrete surroundings crumbled about him, were dissipated. He gazed -into unfathomable mysteries. - -How could the brooch have got into his pocket? Someone must have put -it there! Someone! Who? Who could have come into his bedroom and put -that damnatory brooch into the pocket of his pyjamas? The servants? He -reviewed them swiftly. Impossible! Then who? Not--surely not--he must -be going mad--not himself! It was absurd, unthinkable. He had gone -to bed and slept without a dream. Or, was there a dream--a dream of -running in the darkness, fast, barefoot? Nonsense! Nonsense! He did -not get up in the middle of the night, walk down the street, murder -his dearest friend, and come back as though nothing had happened! His -mind flashed on the portrait of Miss Hartley, and he felt the cruel -irony of the supposition, though he himself made it. Then who--who? A -wave of superstition swept over him. Devils? It was inexplicable. He -revolted at something obscure within him, something which pointed a -finger to the accusing brooch, which whispered the inexorable corollary -in his ear. No! No! It could not be! He was innocent, he was conscious, -instinctively conscious of his innocence. - -But was he? - -The something whispered persistently. An idea came to him--the proof. -He went quickly across to a drawer in his dressing-table and took out -his revolver. With trembling hands he examined the charges. One had -been exploded! Had devils fired his revolver also? Oh, God! He thought -he was going to faint. - -How? Why? How? Why? These two questions besieged him incessantly, -battering at his crumbling mind. He clasped his head in his hands, -rocked to and fro on his chair. - -Madness? Madness came in these sudden attacks, so an imp of thought -assured him. He was mad! Mad! - -For hours he strode up and down the room, wrestling with demons in the -night. He had killed his dearest friend. He had no doubt of it; the -realization filled him with an agony of horror and grief. He would -gladly have died rather than have done this awful thing. And how had -he done it? How had he committed this crime without the faintest -remembrance of it? It was impossible! He had not--then he looked at the -brooch, and knew he had. It was monstrous, unthinkable--but true. - -At length, physically exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and -continued the struggle--striving, striving to see light in this -appalling mystery. At last he fell asleep. - -He woke and looked around him. He was in a dark room. That was strange. -He knew he had left the light on. He was standing up. He held something -in his hand--a book. Puzzled, he put out his hand to where the switch -of the electric light should be. It was not there. In a new terror -that surged up, obliterating the older horrors of the night, he groped -along the wall for the switch, and found it. The place sprang into -light. He was in the dining-room! In his hand he held the report of his -grandfather’s trial. The truth flashed on him. - -He was a somnambulist. - -With a wild cry he sank down in a swoon. - -When he returned to consciousness, the electric lamps were yellow -patches in the sunlight which filled the room. He struggled to his feet -and switched them off. He stood for some moments unsteadily, trying -to adjust his mind to these unfamiliar surroundings, to remember--to -remember something. Then his ghastly situation rushed on his mind, -vivid with a new light. He was a criminal! He risked discovery, ruin! -He heard people moving about--servants. They must not suspect him -of any abnormality. Haggard, trembling, giddy, an old, old man, he -tottered up the stairs to his own bedroom. - -Escape--escape from the consequences of his involuntary crime was -his master impulse. He was no longer the benevolent Mr. Todmorden, -successful, respected, the eminent solicitor; he was a hunted criminal, -happed by Furies. He must not be found out. He sobbed in self-pity and -strove for the control of his faculties. He must think--must think. The -brooch must be got rid of. He would drop it over London Bridge. Yes, -that was the way. The brooch gone beyond all possibility of recovery, -who would suspect him? He had not suspected himself. He breathed more -freely, feeling himself already safe. He would triple that reward. -That would avert suspicion. Yes. Yes. He repeated the monosyllable to -himself as he walked up and down the room. - -But suppose there was some trace of the crime on him? He must make -sure. The inspector’s story of the light-suited fugitive came into -his mind--his pyjamas! That fugitive must have been himself in his -pyjamas. He had again that flashed memory of running, running silently. -He doubted no longer, but examined the pyjamas on his body, searching -for a spot of blood, for any sign that might betray him. Yes! There -on the trouser-leg was a smear of stone-coloured paint--the paint on -Miss Hartley’s window-sill. He must get those pyjamas away, destroy -them--somehow. He thought of half a dozen plans and rejected all. -Everything he thought of seemed to proclaim his guilt. The problem -was still unsolved when another danger occurred to him. His revolver -contained a discharged cartridge. He must reload it. Feverishly he did -so. As he clicked the chambers into place there was a knock at the -door. He put down the revolver and listened in sudden panic. The knock -was repeated. He tried to speak and could not. At last words came: - -“What is it?” - -“Please, sir, a man from the police-station wants to speak to you at -once.” - -He tried hard to reply in his normal tones. - -“All right. Tell him I’ll be down presently.” - -“Please, sir, he says he can’t wait. It’s very urgent.” Discovery? No! -Impossible--as yet! He kept a tremor out of his voice by an effort. - -“Show him into my dressing-room.” - -Mr. Todmorden thought swiftly for a vivid second. That smear of paint -must be concealed. He slipped on a dressing-gown. Then he caught sight -of his revolver on the table, and, on a blind impulse, dropped it into -his pocket. He took a long breath. Now--was there anything about him -suspicious? He opened his dressing-gown and surveyed himself in the -mirror. Yes!--there was a button gone from his pyjama-jacket! Where had -he lost that button? He would have given anything for certainty. But he -must not keep the police waiting. That would look strange. He girdled -his gown about him and went into the dressing-room. - -The chief inspector awaited him. A sharp expression of surprise came -into the officer’s face. - -“I have had a bad night, inspector,” said the old gentleman, noticing -the look and feeling his haggard appearance needed explanation. - -The inspector condoled with him. - -“I am pleased to say we have found a slight clue to the criminal, Mr. -Todmorden,” he said, looking again sharply at the old gentleman. Mr. -Todmorden felt he quailed under the glance. “It’s a button. And, the -curious thing is, it is a pyjama button.” - -“Yes?” Mr. Todmorden’s mouth went dry. - -“Funny wear for a burglar--pyjamas,” commented the inspector. “Don’t -you think so, sir?” - -“Very curious.” Mr. Todmorden recognized the urgent necessity for a -normal voice. “Yes; very curious.” He must talk--say something! “By the -way, inspector, I’ve been thinking about that reward. I’ve decided to -triple it. I--I am determined to catch the scoundrel.” - -“Very kind of you, sir. I hope we shall ask you for the cheque. We’re -on the road, anyway. We’ve only got to find out where those pyjamas -came from, and, quite likely, we shall get on his track.” - -“Yes, yes, quite so.” Would the interview never end? Mr. Todmorden -agonized. - -“If we can only find some buttons like this we can make a start. There -are differences even in pyjama buttons, you know, sir. I have compared -it with mine, but it doesn’t tally. Would you mind comparing it with -yours?” - -Mr. Todmorden stared at him, speechless. - -“Would you mind comparing it with yours, sir? We must not neglect any -chance of getting a clue. Allow me!” - -He stepped quickly to the old gentleman and flung aside his -dressing-gown. The buttons, with the hanging thread of their missing -fellow, were revealed. Triumph flashed in the inspector’s face. - -“James Henry Todmorden, I----” - -Mr. Todmorden jumped back from his grasp. With a sharp cry he drew his -hand swiftly from his pocket. There was a report, and he dropped to the -floor. - -The inspector looked at his lifeless body. - -“I thought the old rascal did it,” he said. “A well-planned bit of -work, though.” - - - - -THROUGH THE GATE OF HORN - - -The young man’s face was pale. His jaw, hard-set in a grip of -self-control, lent his clever, handsome features a suggestion of force -remarkable for his twenty-two years. At maturity, his intellect, backed -by so much character, would be formidable. He turned to the window, -stared out of it for a long moment. Then he switched round upon the -girl. - -“So that’s your last word, Betty?--Finish?” - -Her eyes dropped under his, were raised again in a volition which dared -to match itself, though she was tremulous with the effort, against the -challenge of his voice. Their blue depths were charmingly sincere. - -“I cannot help myself, Jack.” She shook her head pathetically. “You -ought to understand.” - -His voice came grimly, with intent to wound. - -“You are selling yourself to James Arrowsmith. Yes, I understand.” - -She shuddered, turned away her head in despair of sympathetic -comprehension. There was a silence during which both gazed down vistas -of gloomy thought. Then she looked up again, diffidently venturing -another appeal to his magnanimity. - -“You know Father’s position----” - -He nodded, sardonically. - -“I know. He thinks his business is safe if James Arrowsmith is his -son-in-law instead of merely his go-ahead competitor. He’s wrong. -Arrowsmith would cut his own brother’s throat if he met him on a dark -road and thought he had a dollar in his pocket. He’s just a modern -brigand!” - -The girl sighed. - -“What can I do, Jack?--Father----” - -He blazed out in a sudden fury. - -“Oh, yes, I know! Father! I can’t help your father being a fool! It’s -not my fault that he can’t recognize potentiality in a man--that he -is only capable of appreciating a success that is already made, which -he can measure by a balance in a bank! Give me ten years--I’ll eat up -James Arrowsmith!” - -The girl shook her head sadly. - -“Ten years, Jack--it’s a long time ahead. We have got to deal with -things as they are to-day. And to-day----” - -“I’m nothing!” he said, bitterly. - -She looked up at him. - -“You are just a promising young man fresh from college, Jack! With a -big future before you, I am sure of that--but it’s only a future!” - -“I’ve started, anyway!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got that job on the -_Rostrum_--begin next week. And I’m going to make good!” - -“Of course you are--but--we can’t marry on your pay as a very junior -sub-editor.” She shook her head again. “We must be reasonable, Jack. If -I saw any chance----” - -“Yes,” he interrupted, brutally, “if you saw any chance of my -driving you about in six months’ time in a big motor-car like James -Arrowsmith’s--then you would condescend to love me!” - -She stood up, her eyes filled with tears. - -“Oh, _don’t_, Jack!” She turned away her head, pressed her hand to -her eyes, dropped it in a hopeless gesture. She faced him again, her -sensitive mouth quivering at the corners, her expression appealing -from misery to compassion. Evidently, she hardly dared trust herself -to speak. “You know I love you!” Her voice caught, almost broke. “You -know I love you now--shall never love any one else. All my life I shall -remember you--if I live fifty years----” - -His short laugh was intended to express that terrible cynicism of Youth -losing its first illusions. - -“Cut it out, Betty! In fifty years you will be seventy. No doubt -you will be a charming old lady. You may even be sentimental--you -can indulge safely in the luxury, then! But you won’t even remember -my name. You’ll only be interested in the love-affairs of your -grandchildren!” - -She smiled at him involuntarily--and then consciously maintained the -gleam in her eyes, quick to emphasize and elaborate the note of comedy -he had accidentally struck. It was escape from threatening acrimony. - -“And you, Jack? In nineteen-seventy-two? Will you remember _my_ -name?--Will you be even sentimental, I wonder?--Oh, I should like to -see you--a cynical old grandfather, telling your grandchildren not to -marry for money, but to marry where money is!--Oh, Jack!” Her voice was -genuinely mirthful. “You _will_ come and see me and talk their affairs -over with me, won’t you? We shall be two such dear old cronies!” - -He had to concentrate on his frown, endangered by her infectious sense -of humour. - -“I shall never marry!” he announced, gloomily. “So there’s not much use -in promising to discuss my grandchildren’s affairs with you fifty years -hence. I shall never love another woman.” - -She ignored the sombre vaticination, determined to keep on a safer -plane of futurity. - -“Oh, wouldn’t you like to see, Jack? Fifty years ahead--and all that -will happen in the meantime?” There was just a hint of seriousness -in the light tone, in the bright eyes which smiled into his. “If -one could only know!” Her face went wistful. “I often wonder--these -crystal-gazers and people--whether they can really see----” She looked -up at, him. “Jack! You are so clever and know everything--don’t you -know any place where one can go and really see what is going to -happen?” - -He smiled, half in pleasure at her flattery, half in the consciousness -of being about to say a clever thing. The smile was wholly youthful, -despite his assumption of withered cynicism. - -“Yes. The place to which you are sending me.” - -“What place?” Her tone was puzzled. - -“Hell!” he said shortly. - -She wrinkled her brows. - -“I don’t understand.” - -“Of course, you haven’t read Virgil,” he said, with the crushing -superiority of the newly fledged graduate. “It’s in the sixth -book--where he takes Ænas into Hades. He describes two gates there--a -gate of horn and a gate of ivory. They are the gates through which -all dreams come. Those that pass through the ivory gate are false -dreams--the true ones come out of the gate of horn. I will sit down -beside it, and report if any of them concern you. You haven’t left me -much other interest,” he concluded, bitterly, “and this life will be -just Hell.” - -She looked at him in a short silence. - -“You are being very cruel, Jack. Do you think there will be much -happiness for me?” She turned away her head. - -He laid both his hands on her shoulders, compelled her gaze to meet his. - -“Then let me give you happiness! Betty, I love you! I love you! I care -for nothing in the world but you! Risk it! Forget everything except -that you love me and I love you! You will never regret it. I will -make you the happiest woman on earth as I shall be the happiest man. -You cannot live without love! I love you, Betty!--and I shall always, -always love you! Trust yourself to it, whatever happens!” - -She withdrew herself from him, shook her head hopelessly. - -“I can’t,” she said, wearily. “I have promised----” - -“Arrowsmith?” - -“Father.” Her tone answered all the implications of his question -with a dreary finality that left no issue. Her sigh was a seal upon -resignation. - -“Then it’s good-bye?” - -She nodded in a forced economy of speech. - -“Good-bye.” - -He picked up hat, stick, and gloves and moved toward the door. - -“You’ve nothing more to say to me?” - -She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. - -“No, Jack. Except that I shall remember this birthday as the most -miserable day of my life. You have not made it easy for me.” - -“Why should I?” he asked, the uncompromising egotism of youth suddenly -harshly apparent. “You refuse the best gift I can offer you--myself!” - -“I can’t help myself. But,” she hesitated on the pathetically forlorn -appeal, “you might be kind.” Her eyes implored him. - -He struck himself upon the forehead with a dramatic little ejaculation -which matched the gesture. - -“Bah!--It all seems like an evil dream to me!” - -She smiled at him, sadly. - -“I wish it came out of the gate of ivory, Jack--and not out of the gate -of horn!” - -He flushed, his raw sensitiveness resentful of this boomerang return of -his own witticism. - -“You can keep your sense of humour for James Arrowsmith, -Betty!--Good-bye!” - -He snatched open the door, went out. He could not visualize her -standing there listening for his shattering slam of the front door, -running to the window for a last glimpse. He thought of her only as -mocking at the tragedy which was so real to him. - -In a furious rage with the universe as constituted, he marched blindly -out of the house and straight across the pavement with intent to quit -even her side of the road. His brain in a whirl, he looked neither to -right nor left, careless of an environment which was at that moment -scarcely real to him. He only half-heard the raucous scream of a Klaxon -horn, a warning human shout--and then something struck him violently on -the side, followed it with a crashing blow on his head. - -He could not see Betty’s face, tense and white, bending over his -senseless body as it was extricated from under James Arrowsmith’s -plutocratic car and--after her emphatic prohibition of hospital--borne -into her father’s house. - - * * * * * * - -He felt himself shoot upward in the vast, familiar elevator of the -_Daily Rostrum_ building. His head was full of important business, -interviews with Senators, statesmen, financiers which had filled his -busy day. With practised mental control he screened these matters -temporarily from his consciousness, cleared his brain for the immediate -tasks which awaited him. The elevator stopped opposite a door which -bore his name. As he opened it he heard, with the little glow of -observed success, the awed recognitory whisper of one of the two seedy -journalists he left behind him in the lift: “_The Editor!_” - -He entered the big room hung with wall-maps above the low-ranged -bookcases, where a lady clerk was arranging his afternoon tea on a -little table by the side of his massive desk. His secretary, evidently -alert for his entrance, appeared at another door. - -“Mr. Bolingbroke is waiting to see you, sir!” - -“Good! Show him in!” - -He settled himself in his big chair, glanced at the pile of papers on -his desk, looked up to nod a curt greeting to the keen-faced young man -who entered. - -“Five minutes, Mr. Bolingbroke!” he said warningly, with a gesture -toward the papers which awaited him. - -The young man smiled. - -“I can do more business with you, sir, in five minutes, than I can with -another man in fifty,” he said, extracting a wad of typescript from an -attaché case. “Here’s the draft of the last article.” - -He took it, leaned back in his chair, ran his eye over it. It was -headed “_The Cut-throat Combine. The Arrowsmith Apaches Uneasy For -Their Own Scalps. More Points for the Public Prosecutor._” - -He skimmed it through rapidly. It was a scathing denunciation of a -predatory Trust with which the proprietors of the _Daily Rostrum_ had -quarrelled. Chapter and verse were given for a series of malpractices -which, substantiated after this publicity, would infallibly bring the -wrongdoers before a court of justice. He leaned forward, picked up a -pencil, struck out a few sentences, made other points more telling. -Suddenly he frowned, scored out a whole paragraph. - -“You’re too tame over this infantile mortality business! You want to -let yourself scream over it. That’s the note that’ll wake ’em up! -Get all the sentimental parents clamouring for his blood!” He handed -back the typescript. “Rewrite the final paragraph and it’ll pass.” He -glanced at his watch. “Four and a half minutes, Mr. Bolingbroke!” he -said, an almost boyish note of triumph in his voice, “and I guess it’s -finish for Mr. James Arrowsmith!” - -He turned to his tea while the journalist made his exit. Then he bent -himself forward to the business on his desk. - -As he ran through and signed letter after letter, his own phrase -“Finish for Mr. James Arrowsmith!” rang in his head, repeated itself -over and over again with almost the distinctness of an auditory -hallucination. A detached portion of his consciousness listened to it, -was lured into a train of thought that was not unpleasant. - -Of course, he had no real personal grudge against James Arrowsmith. -Without him----! He smiled as he set his signature at the foot of yet -another letter. That was a long time ago! And he had prophesied it--he -remembered, suddenly, his own words--“Give me ten years and I’ll _eat_ -James Arrowsmith!” Ten years! He glanced involuntarily at the calendar -in front of him, read the date--1932. By Jove, it _was_ ten years--ten -years ago--Betty’s birthday! He glanced again at the calendar--and -dropped his pen on the desk with a sharp exclamation of annoyance. Good -Lord, of course it was! It was Betty’s birthday to-day! And he had -forgotten it! - -For a moment or two he stared in front of him, his brows contracted -into a frown which was directed impartially at circumstance and -himself. He had been so terribly busy of late--but, of course, he must -find time. Poor old Betty! He took up the telephone instrument on his -desk, gave a number. - -“Hallo! That you, Betty?--Jack. Jack speaking. Many happy returns of -the day! What?--Of course I remembered!--What?--Well, it’s only five -o’clock,” his tone was one of self-extenuation. “I say, old girl! -We’ll go out to dinner--any restaurant you like! What? You’ve got an -appointment?” He repeated the words incredulously. “Oh, very well!--I -say, Betty! You haven’t got a cold or anything, have you?--Oh, all -right--no, I only thought your voice sounded strange.” He frowned. -“Very well--do as you like! Good-bye!” He put back the receiver with a -vicious thud. - -Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, while he gave directions to -the series of sub-editors who came deferentially into his presence, an -obscure worry persisted at the back of his consciousness. Of course--he -had to confess it--he had neglected her of late. How long was it since -he had been home? Only a month--or five weeks? The foreground of his -brain, working at full pressure on the problems continuously submitted -to it for instant decision, failed to solve the question--relegated it -to be worried over by that independent consciousness at the back of -his mind. It was a long time, anyway! Of course she understood. It was -the paper--the paper to which he was the slave--which, practically, he -never quitted (he had a bedroom in the building)--the paper of which he -personally read every item that was printed and an enormous quantity -of copy which was not--the paper which was his pride, his joy, his -one interest in life! Of course, she understood--but it was rough on -her. Poor old Betty! He thought of her strange voice, and winced with -remorse. She had been brooding over no letter that morning. If only -she would have gone to dinner with him! He felt that he could have -explained things, put everything straight. But she had an appointment! -What appointment? With whom? He put a thought out of his mind, and the -thought peeped persistently over the barrier. Impossible, of course! -Preposterous! Docile little Betty? Besides--who could there be? His -vanity was scornful of the idea. - -Nevertheless, as he worked, an impulse kept rising in him, ever more -powerfully, an impulse to go home--to go home at once. He fidgeted as -he beat back the disturbing desire, had to concentrate himself fiercely -upon his task. Suddenly, as though the obscure subconsciousness, which -was, after all, his real self, had come to a decision in which his -brain had no part, he surrendered. He was surprised at himself as he -sharply pressed the bell-button upon his desk. His secretary appeared. - -“Tell Mr. Thompson to see the paper through to-night. Get me a taxi at -once!” - -The well-disciplined secretary barely succeeded in veiling his -astonishment. - -“Very good, sir.--And if we get that cable from Yokohama----?” - -He bit his lip in an unwonted hesitation. Upon the contents of a cable -expected that evening from Yokohama he would have to decide the policy -of his paper, and upon the policy of his paper, as outlined in the -leader which would be published in the morning, depended to a large -extent the direction of the current of popular opinion--the current -which would set in a few days toward peace or war. To-night, if ever, -he ought to remain at his post, but the dominant impulse which had -swept over him would take no denial. He felt like a traitor to his -professional code as he replied: - -“I may be back. If I am not, ring me up. You will find me at home.” - -His straight stare at the secretary challenged and browbeat the -bewilderment in that young man’s eyes. - -“Very good, sir,” he said, submissively, and departed. - -A few minutes later he found himself speeding homeward in a taxi that, -despite the reckless audacity of the liberally subsidized driver, -could not go fast enough. The momentary halts imposed by cross-traffic -seemed interminably prolonged delays. Of course he was a fool, he -told himself--but his impatience increased with every second, set -his fingers drumming upon the unread evening newspaper on his knee. -At last! The taxi swung into the pavement in front of the tall block -of flats where he had his city home. He jumped out with the feverish -alacrity of a man who hastens to avert disaster, almost ran to the -elevator. - -Another moment and he was fitting his key into the latch. He swung the -door open--was confronted by Betty in hat and furs, apparently just on -the point of departure. She shrank back at his entrance, went white. - -“Jack!” - -The tone of her voice reëchoed in him like an alarm-bell. He looked -sharply at her. - -“Where are you going?” - -She stared at him, white to the lips, evidently unable to answer. He -repeated the question in a level voice from which, by an effort of -will, he banished the wild suspicion which suddenly surged up in him. - -“Where are you going, Betty?” - -She laughed, a trifle hysterically. - -“You are taking a great interest in my doings all at once, Jack! I’m -going out, of course.--I told you I had an appointment.” - -His eyes met hers, held them till they dropped and she went suddenly -red. He opened the door of an adjoining room, gestured her to enter, -followed her. - -They stood and faced each other in a silence that seemed to ring with -the menace of near event. He was the first to break it. - -“Now perhaps you will tell me where you are going, Betty?” He held -his voice on a note of politeness, but it was nevertheless sternly -compelling. - -Her eyes sought the carpet. Her bosom heaved deeply through a long -moment where there was no sound save the suddenly perceived loud -ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece. Then, on the wave of a -resolve, she lifted her head, confronted him proudly. - -“I am going to leave you, Jack!” It was evident that she had to fight -to keep her voice from breaking. “I--I have had enough of it!” - -His ejaculation was characteristic. - -“My dear!--You must be mad!” - -An answering anger came into her eyes. - -“Mad or not--I mean it!” - -“Leave Maisie?” he cried incredulously. - -She smiled at him, more in control of herself now than he. - -“No. I am taking Maisie with me,” she said with deliberate calmness. - -“But you can’t! I will not allow it!” - -“Perhaps you propose to sit here all day and watch her?” she asked, -with biting sarcasm. Then, with a sudden change of tone, indignation -flamed up in her. “What is she to you?--Is she any more to you than -I am?--Do you see her from one month’s end to another?--Do you ask -after her? Do you write to her? Do you take the faintest interest in -her?--No!--Once you leave this flat and go to your hateful paper, you -forget her as utterly as you do me!” Her eyes blazed at him. “Maisie -and I are all the world to each other, Jack! And we will not be -separated! We go together!” - -The violence of this outburst from the woman whose docility he had -so long accepted as naturally as he did that of his staff upon the -_Rostrum_ shocked him profoundly. At the same time, a blinding passion -of jealousy surged up in him. - -“You shall not go!” - -“I shall!” There was no mistaking the determination in her voice. “The -moment your back is turned!” - -The room seemed to reel about him. The hitherto so solid foundations -of his existence had broken up suddenly beneath him. He could not have -suspected so great a capacity for emotion in himself. He pressed his -hand against his brow, closed his eyes tight in the sickening shock. - -“Who is it?” he asked hoarsely. “The man?--His name?” - -Her eyes seemed to be probing the depth of his wound as they looked -into his, but they showed no compassion. - -“I cannot tell you.” Her tone was unshakably firm. - -There was again a silence, in which he fought for mastery over himself. -He looked at her in uncomprehending despair. - -“Betty! Betty, tell me why?--For God’s sake, tell me why!--You used to -love me. Tell me why you’ve changed!” - -She evidently was also fighting to keep his emotion from communicating -itself to her. He thought, as he waited for her answer, that her head -never looked more nobly beautiful. - -“Do you remember, Jack? Ten years ago?--Ten years to-day?--You said to -me: ‘You cannot live without love!’ You were right.” A sob, that almost -escaped its check, came into her voice. “I cannot live without love.” - -He looked for yet another moment upon the sad dignity of her face, -upon the quivering, sensitive mouth, upon the eyes that brimmed with -tears--then, with an impulsive movement, he sprang forward, seized her -two hands in his. The tears were in his eyes also, and in his voice. - -“Oh, Betty, Betty darling! I remember! And I said ‘I love you! I love -you! Trust yourself to it whatever happens!’--Oh, Betty! Is it too -late? Is it too late?” - -Her eyes looked deeply into his, incredulous at first of his sincerity, -then softening in a wonderful certitude, she let herself go into his -enfolding arms, her mouth drawn wistfully close to his, yet still, for -a moment, withheld. All pride went out of her suddenly. She implored, -like a soul that has an unbelievable chance of life. - -“Oh, Jack! You do love me?--You love me still!--Oh, Jack, Jack!” - -She buried her head upon his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs. - -He caressed her, soothingly. - -“My dear! My beloved! My dear, dear Betty! Of course I love you! You -and Maisie are all I have in the world--and it’s mostly you!--Oh, -I know I’ve been a fool! I’ve thought only of my selfish ambition. -But, dear, try me again! I’ll be so much kinder to you, so much more -thoughtful.--And we’ll forget all this. Never remember it. I won’t even -ask you the man’s name.” - -She half-raised her head from his shoulder, swallowed tearfully. - -“There--there wasn’t any man!” she said, and broke down again into a -passion of sobs that would not cease. - - * * * * * * - -As he expected, the young man was waiting for him. Maisie was waiting -also, standing very tall and rigid by the window, in all the dignity -of youth measuring swords with the parental generation. He thought, as -he came into the centre of the room, how like her mother she was--her -mother twenty years ago, when she had faced _her_ father. He nearly -smiled at the remembrance, checked himself with a thought of the matter -in hand. This, of course, was quite different! - -The young man rose to meet him. They shook hands with the amount of -stiffness proper to the occasion. He found himself suddenly wishing -that Betty were here, after all. He had been hasty in telling her to -keep out of the way. She could handle Maisie more tactfully than he -could. Very reasonable woman, Betty--she had seen his point of view at -once. These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind as he invited the -young man to a chair, seated himself. There was an awkward silence. - -He and the young man broke it at the same instant. - -“You wanted to speak to me----?” - -“I think you understand, sir----” - -Both stopped likewise at the same instant to make way for the other, -and both failed to recommence. - -Maisie stepped forward impatiently, stood between them, towering -superbly. - -“I don’t see why you want all this icy ceremony, both of you,” she -said scornfully. She turned to her father. “Jim wants to marry me, -Father--and I want to marry Jim. And that’s all there is to it!” - -“Indeed!” He raised his eyebrows in mild sarcasm. “I wonder you thought -it necessary to inform me of such a trifling matter.” - -“We thought it better to tell you.” Maisie was cheerfully unscathed. - -“Much obliged, I am sure. I’m very interested. I expect you will both -of you want to marry lots more people before you’ve finished. I shall -always be willing to lend a sympathetic ear when you care to tell me of -the latest.” - -“Father!” broke out Maisie indignantly. He felt that he had scored. -“This is serious!” - -“It always is,” he said philosophically. “And you, young man? I suppose -you are burning to add your testimony of the solemnity of this occasion -to Maisie’s?” He felt that if he could only keep it up on this tone he -was safe. Maisie was apt to be so damnably stubborn and unmanageable -once he failed to maintain superiority. As for the young man--well, of -course, he was only a young man. He could soon manage _him_! - -This young man, however, was no whit abashed. - -“I am, sir,” he said, confidently. “Maisie and I are made for each -other!” he added, uttering the banality as though it were now for the -first time new-minted for the lovers’ lexicon. - -“Really?--It is a happy chance, for certainly Maisie’s mother and -myself omitted to take you into account when we----” - -“Father!” - -“--named her at the baptismal font,” he continued, equably. He had -scored again. - -The young man was impervious. - -“Perhaps there are higher Powers than you, sir?” he ventured, with -polite deference. - -“--Even if you are the editor of the _Daily Rostrum_!” added Maisie -viciously. - -He resettled himself in his chair under this lively counter-attack. - -“Well, let us drop these witticisms,” he said with some asperity. “Come -to business. Let’s hear your case, if you have one.” - -“Certainly, sir. I ask your permission to marry Maisie.” - -“I appreciate the courtesy. What is your income?” - -The young man hesitated. - -“Well--at present, sir----” - -“Nothing, I suppose?” He was still keeping his end up, was -well-satisfied with the tartness of that question. He nearly smiled as -he watched the young man wriggle. - -“I must confess, sir--but I have qualifications--and I am ambitious!” - -“All young men are ambitious,” he replied, oracularly. “Let us hear the -qualifications!” - -“I graduated with honours at my university----” - -“Pooh! So did the man who sells my paper at the corner of the street!” - -“--and I have great hopes of getting a good job.” - -“Indeed!--Where?” - -“On your paper, sir!” - -He was staggered by the young man’s impudence. - -“My compliments!--But, as I unfortunately fail to share those hopes, I -must regretfully refuse the permission you ask for!” - -He had only just managed to keep his temper. - -Maisie sailed forward to the attack. - -“But, Father, you have often told me that when you married Mother you -were only a graduate with your first job on the _Rostrum_! We don’t -mind struggling--we should _like_ to struggle--just as you did!” - -“Things were different then. That was a long time ago. In this year of -nineteen forty-two life is much more difficult than when your mother -and I were young.” - -“It only seems so to you because you have got old. It isn’t difficult -to us young people!” said Maisie, smilingly positive. - -He winced under the unconscious cruelty of this remark. - -“Perhaps you will allow my experience to be the best judge,” he -said, snappily. “In any case, I refuse my permission! The idea is -ridiculous!--I do not think there is any more I need say, young man,” -he concluded, making a movement to rise from his chair. - -Maisie pinned him down to it, both arms around him, kneeling at his -side, her face--Betty’s young face!--looking up to him in winsome -appeal. - -“Father!” she said, and her voice was full of soft cajolery, “if any -one took Mother away from you, wouldn’t you feel it dreadfully?” He had -a sudden little flitting vision of a crisis ten years back. “Would life -be worth anything to you?--I mean it seriously.” She paused for a reply -he refused to give. “Well, Father--that’s just what life will be like -to Jim if you take me away from him!” - -“I don’t see the necessity of the parallel,” he countered, feebly. - -“Oh, yes, you do. And Father!--If any one took you away from -Mother?--What would life be like to her?--You know! _Just a dreary -blank!_--And that’s what my life will be like if you send Jim away from -me!” - -“But----” he began. - -She put her hand over his mouth, a deliciously soft young hand, with a -faint fragrance that reminded him---- - -“No!” she continued, inexorably. “Listen to me! I haven’t finished. -If any one took you from Mother, and she knew where to find you--what -would she do? You know! She would go to you, whatever was in the -way!--And, Father, that’s what I should do!--Father!” she said, and -her tone was full of solemn warning, “would you like to think of your -darling little Maisie starving somewhere in a top back room--and -hating you, _hating you_!” her voice suddenly became almost genuinely -vicious, “because you wouldn’t give her husband a chance to earn his -living? Would you like to sit day after day, not knowing where she -was, wondering all sorts of things--with Mother sitting on the chair -opposite and not daring to say a word--day after day, and year after -year, and never hear from her any more?--And all because you were a -stubborn, foolish old man who had forgotten what real love was!” - -“But, Maisie----” he did not himself know what he was going to say. - -She snuggled up close to him, looked up into his face. - -“Dadsie!” she said, and the voice was the voice of the child Maisie who -had so often looked up from his knee with just that irresistible smile -which had brought strange tears to his eyes then as it did now--sudden -tears he could not quite keep back. “Dadsie!” she said once more and -her tone went straight to his heart. “You do love your little Maisie, -don’t you? And you want to make her happy--all her life you have wanted -to make her happy and you’re going to make her happy now. You are -going to give her Jim, her man--like you are Mother’s man--a chance -to make good. You are going to give us both a chance to make good -together--like you and Mother have made good together. You are still -going to be Maisie’s dear, good, kind, generous father whom she will -always love--aren’t you, Dadsie?” - -The young man stood up. - -“Sir,” he said, “I’ve lost my father. And if I could choose another -one--I should like it to be you!” - -The older man warmed suddenly at the unmistakable sincerity of -his tone. He was a good lad, after all--very like himself, he -thought--twenty years ago! - -“Dadsie!” implored Maisie, her arms still about him. “Dadsie!--Say -yes!--Just think it’s Mother and you starting for the first time!” - -Something broke down in him--almost the barrier against unmanliness. He -blew his nose quickly and his smile had a twist in it as he looked into -Maisie’s eyes. - -“That’s not fair!” he said. “But you’ve won. You shall have your -chance.--You can start to-morrow, young man, but, mind--to work!” He -stood up, went to the door. - -“Betty!” he called as he opened it. - -She stood there--smiling at him. He guessed suddenly that she had been -there all the while. - -“Well?” she said, her eyes happy. - -He glanced round to where the two young lovers had stood. But they had -vanished together into the garden. - -“I’ve been an old fool, my dear!” he said, smiling. - -“You’ve been an old dear!” she replied, putting an arm about him and -coming with him into the room. “You couldn’t have made me a better -birthday present!” Her eyes, also, were full of tears. - -“Forty to-day!” he said, “and it only seems like yesterday since you -and I----” - -“And you still love me?” she queried, in a tone that had no doubt, -looking up into his face. - -“I still love you,” he replied, happily positive. “Just as I did then!” - -Arms about each other, he led her in front of the big mirror over the -fireplace and they smiled at the reflected picture of their union. - -“She called me an old man,” he said, a little ruefully, patting his -hair before the mirror. “I’m getting a bit gray, too.” He looked at -her. “But you, dear, you haven’t got a gray hair--and in my eyes you -are just as beautiful as ever!” - -She shook her head slowly at him in delight. - -“And you are just as handsome!” - -He smiled down upon her. - -“Maisie accused me of being too old to remember what true love was,” he -said. “Do you think so, dear?--Have we forgotten?” - -“Darling!” she whispered, as she snuggled close against him. - -They kissed, believing that their kiss was just the kiss of twenty -years ago. It wasn’t. It was a symbol of infinitely more. - - * * * * * * - -He sat tapping his foot impatiently on the carpet of the ante-room to -the council-chamber of the _Daily Rostrum_. Behind the closed door -a meeting of the chief proprietors was in secret deliberation. He -glanced at his watch, his dignity fretting at this unwonted exclusion, -an unacknowledged anxiety unsettling his nerves. He knew himself to -be on the threshold of a new epoch. An enterprising, young-blooded -syndicate was acquiring the _Daily Rostrum_, was even then in conclave -with the old proprietors, agreeing upon the final terms. They had sent -for him--had asked him (oh, most courteously!) to give them yet five -minutes. - -But he was resentful of those five minutes. Young Henry Vancoutter -(not so very young now, though--he must be forty!--Let me see--twenty -years----), the chief proprietor, ought to have treated him with more -consideration. He deserved better than to be left cooling his heels -while the destinies of his paper--_his_ paper, for he if any one had -made it, had lived for it for forty years, had been its unchallenged -autocrat for thirty--were in the balance. The old man would never -have done it, he thought, resentful of this rising generation. Never -once was old Vancoutter lacking in the respect due to him, the prince -of editors who had made his property one of the most valuable in the -journalistic world. - -He wondered what the future would bring. Doubtless the policy of the -paper would be changed--that was only natural, of course. They must -go ahead with the times (he nerved himself for an effort that he felt -would be a tax upon his strength). Yes--perhaps they had fallen a bit -behind of late. The circulation was not what it was--not half what it -had been fifteen years ago. They had made rather a virtue of being a -trifle old-fashioned, appealing to conservative instincts. Not in the -old days, certainly--but for the last twenty years. And undoubtedly -they had suffered from it. He must look up the side-lines a bit--the -radio-service to private subscribers, for example. He drifted on to a -vague calculation of the initial cost for the service of wirelessed -cinema-pictures of current events, mingled with advertisements, with -which their go-ahead rival the _Lightning News_ was making so great -success with hotels and flat communities. His jaw set. He would beat -them on their own ground. He would show the world that the editor of -the _Rostrum_ was still alive, was still a power. - -Yes--he was not done yet. He could not--no one could--conceive the -_Rostrum_ without him. He was the paper itself. There was not the -faintest possibility of his being replaced. It was unthinkable as -practical near politics, as unimaginable as death itself. Such a day -was, thank God, still remote. Old proprietors or new, there was no -question that he was the indispensable editor. But he would have to put -his shoulder to the wheel. - -He wondered what Betty would think of the changes. Poor old Betty! She -was getting very frail, but (he thought, cheerfully) considering that -she was sixty to-day she was a wonderful woman. He glanced at his watch -again, fidgeted with impatience. She would be waiting for him in the -car outside--very nice of the old dear to come down for him every day -as she had done for now, let me see, was it five or six years past? -Ever since he had had his illness. Dear old Betty! He warmed himself -with the thought of the splendid fur coat he was going to buy her as a -birthday present that afternoon. - -The door opened suddenly. Young Vancoutter uttered his name with a -smile, murmured an apology, beckoned him in. - -He entered, glanced round upon the familiar faces and the new ones -gathered on each side of the long table. The new looked up at him with -interest, the old bent over blotting-pads on which they scribbled idly. -He seated himself. - -Vancoutter spoke in his familiar crisp tones. - -“Mr. Trenchard, I have to inform you that the board has come to very -satisfactory terms with the syndicate who are, in fact, now the new -proprietors of the _Daily Rostrum_.” The speaker paused for a moment, -cleared his throat. “You will, of course, readily understand that -these new proprietors wish to have complete control of their property -and that their ideas of editorial management may not coincide with -ours--with those which you have so successfully and so worthily upheld -for so many years.” He felt himself turn sick as he listened, pinched -his lips together lest his emotion should be remarked. A mantle of -ice seemed to compress him. Vancoutter continued, with an indulgent -smile: “We for our part, of course, have safeguarded the interests of -a man who has served us so brilliantly, whose association with our -paper----” ‘_Our paper_’! He almost smiled in bitter irony.“--has so -materially contributed to bring it to that pitch of influence at which -it is still maintained to-day. Therefore, as part of the purchase-price -paid by the new proprietors, ten thousand shares have been set aside -as your property--and, if you prefer it, the syndicate has engaged -itself to buy those shares of you, cash down, at the current market -valuation----” - -He scarcely knew what followed. He had only the most indistinct -recollection of several other long-winded speeches whose flattery was -sincerely intended to soften the blow. He could not remember what he -himself had said--apparently, he had kept his dignity--had duly thanked -the old proprietors. Of all the welter of words, he clearly recalled -only--“The younger generation, Mr. Trenchard! A man of sixty-two owes -it to himself to retire!”--and they haunted him, rang over and over -again in his brain like the knell of his life. - -At last he escaped, went stumbling blindly down the stairs, forgetting, -for the first time for forty years, the elevator. Betty was waiting for -him in the closed car, her head peering out of the window. He groped -for the door, almost fell into it. She helped him to the seat. - -“My dear! What is the matter?” she said, white with alarm. “Are you -ill?” - -He clenched his jaw in the agony of his humiliation. - -“Sacked!” he said briefly, the tears starting to his eyes. “Sacked at a -moment’s notice!” - -She stared at him, unable at first to grasp the full significance of -his words. - -“Oh, no, Jack! No!” she said. “No! You can’t mean it! It’s not true?” - -He nodded, gazing fixedly out of the window, away from her. - -“It’s true!” he replied grimly. “My life’s finished!” - -She felt timidly for his hand, pressed it without a word. He turned -and faced her. They looked for a moment into each other’s eyes, then -suddenly he crumpled into her arms, a dead-beat old man, and sobbed -like a child. - -“Oh, Jack, dear! Jack!” she said, caressing the gray head upon which -her tears fell like rain. “At last we can be together!” - - * * * * * * - -They sat side by side on the porch of the country-house, overlooking -the wide lawns which swept down to a belt of trees and the river. -Along the bank two young couples were walking in a close and intimate -comradeship whose happiness was indicated by the bright young laughter -which floated at intervals, in the stillness of the sunny afternoon, -to the porch of the house. He watched them as they went, then turned -silently to his companion. Betty sat, sweetly placid, a little smile -just accentuating the loose wrinkles on the soft face, her eyes looking -perhaps after the young people, perhaps into happy thoughts. He thought -she was very beautiful as she sat there--and inestimably precious. - -“Betty darling!” he said suddenly, lifting her hand to his lips, “to -think that you are seventy to-day!” - -She turned and smiled at him, her pale-blue eyes darkening with -grateful love. - -“Nineteen seventy-two, Jack!” she said, softly. “Do you remember----?” - -His smile answered hers. - -“Yes, dear. I remember----” - -She checked him with a little gesture. - -“Hush! Don’t speak!” she murmured, as though in awe. - -They sat there, hand in hand, in silence, gazing over the lawns to -where their grandchildren wandered with the lovers of their choice, -in a quiet ecstasy for which they had no words. Love swelled in them, -filled them with the soundless harmonies wherein Life’s discords are -resolved. - - * * * * * * - -“Hush! Don’t speak!” - -He opened his eyes. Betty was bending over him. Betty? He stared -at her, puzzled. Where were the soft wrinkles, the gray hair? This -was Betty--Betty as she used to be all that time ago. Then his -consciousness readjusted itself suddenly to its environment. He gazed -round on an unfamiliar bedroom where Betty moved with an air of -proprietorship. - -“I have had such strange dreams, dear----” he said weakly. - -She bent over him again, smiled. - -“From the gate of horn?” she asked. How charming she looked! - -He collected his thoughts with an effort--remembered, all at once. - -“I hope so, dear--please God, they are!” - -She rearranged his pillow, smoothed the sheet under his chin, smiled -again. - -“Go to sleep, Jack--lots more sleep!” she commanded gently but -authoritatively. - -Without strength or will to protest, he let himself relapse once more -into drowsiness. Suddenly he opened his eyes. - -“What was the name of the man who wanted to marry Maisie?” he asked, as -though he had long been puzzling over the question. - -“Maisie?” She looked at him in blank lack of comprehension. - -“Our daughter!” - -A beautiful smile of tenderness, of something ineffably feminine, came -into her eyes. What was it she gazed at in that instant of silence? - -“Hush, dear. Don’t talk!” she said, softly, kissing him on the brow. -“Go and sit again by the gate of horn.” - - - - -THE WHITE DOG - - -Mr. Gilchrist was nervous and fidgety. He was alone, not merely in the -dining-room where he sat, but in the house; and solitude at night to -a man accustomed to find comfort and distraction in the presence of -others is a black desert where one starts at one’s own footsteps. - -Sitting there in the dining-room of the pretty suburban villa he had -had built some twenty miles from town, the familiar objects which -surrounded him seemed to have grown remote, unfamiliar. Smoking his -pipe, with the half-read newspaper on his knee, his ear was worried by -the insistent ticking of the clock, and this ticking seemed a novel, -almost uncanny, phenomenon. He could not remember having heard a sound -from that timepiece before. There were features about the sideboard, -too, as he gazed at it fixedly, that appeared quite strange to him. -Certain details of inlay-work on the Sheraton-pattern legs he perceived -now for the first time. These little unfamiliarities observed with his -mind on the stretch--the latent primitive man in him scenting danger in -solitude--added to the loneliness. The sheltering walls of the usual -were pushed away from him. He felt himself exposed, out of the call of -friends, in a desolation hinted by invisible malevolences. Of course, -the feeling was absurd. He shook himself and tried to summon up a -little of the bravura with which he had dismissed his wife and daughter -to the dance at the village a mile away, making light of their protests -that it was the one servant’s evening out, saying that at any rate she -in the kitchen would not be much company to him in the dining-room -where he proposed to sit and smoke. His friend Williamson might drop -in, too--anyway, he would be all right. - -His friend Williamson had not dropped in, and with every slow minute -ticked out by that confounded clock he had found himself less at ease. -Once he got up and walked into another room, but the sound of his own -footsteps, heard with astonishing loudness in the house empty of any -other person, afflicted his nerves, and he returned to his former seat -in the dining-room. - -The seven-thirty express from town rushed by on the railway line which -ran, fifty yards distant, parallel with the road; and the sound of it -heartened him for a minute or two. The world of fellow-men was brought -close to him for a flying second, and all his sociable instincts -greeted it, claiming acquaintance, as it sped along. Then, as the noise -of it died away into a silence yet more profound than before, the -primitive in him again peeped out through his civilization, panicky, -ear at stretch for stealthy danger. The stillness which surrounded the -lonely house seemed charged with perils that stole near with noiseless -footfall. A weird, mournful cry outside, breaking suddenly on that -stillness, pulled him erect on his feet, listening, trembling. The -cry was repeated, and he sat down again, telling himself that it was -an owl, as doubtless it was; but his hand shook as he picked up his -newspaper again and tried to read. - -With some effort he forced his brain to grasp the meanings of the -words, which related a murder case, announced in massive letters at -the top of the column. The mental machine seemed to stop every now -and then and he found himself gazing at some unimportant, common word -in the line until it looked as strange and devoid of meaning as one -in a foreign and unknown language. The comprehension of it required a -deliberate effort of will. - -Suddenly, with a soul-shaking unexpectedness, there was a violent, -rapid knocking at the door. - - * * * * * * - -He was on his feet in an instant, shaking in every limb, -panic-stricken as an Indian in a place of spirits. A primitive vague -dread of the supernatural held him motionless, obsessed by a formless -horror. - -The knocking at the door renewed itself, a frantic hammering. The -repetition lightened him, redeemed it from the vague purposelessness of -the ghostly, suggested human anxiety at fever pitch. His imagination, -relieved from the spell, flew to work, building catastrophes after -familiar models. His wife and daughter? The disasters of fire, -vehicular collision or heart-failure presented themselves in confused -and fragmentary pictures. The door now resounded under a ceaseless rain -of blows; and, trembling so violently as to feel almost ill, he ran to -open it. - -On the threshold stood a little, stout bearded man, past middle age. He -struck one or two frenzied blows at the air after the door had swung -away from him. - -“What do you want?” demanded Mr. Gilchrist. - -His visitor looked at him vacantly for a moment, seemingly unable to -adjust his mind to human intercourse. - -“For God’s sake, give me some brandy--if you are a Christian man!” - -“Come inside,” said Mr. Gilchrist, and he led the way into the -dining-room, the stranger following. “Bless my soul! What is it? An -accident?” He spoke nervously, more to himself than to his guest, who -replied nothing but stood swaying on his legs and kept from falling -only by the clutched-at support of the table. “Dear me--dear me! One -moment--I have some brandy here.” He fumbled with the key of the -tantalus. “Here you are. Steady, man, steady! Sit down.” - -The stranger drank off the brandy and took a deep breath, passing his -hand over his brow like one recovering from a swoon. In the moment or -two of silence Mr. Gilchrist had leisure to scrutinize him. He was -without a hat, and his head shone in the lamplight, a polished dome -rising from a narrow forehead and a half-ring of gray wisps over -his ears. His eyes protruded, globularly, but it could be guessed -that they carried impressions to an active brain. His gray beard -converged irresolutely to a point in front of his chin. His clothes -were respectable but not well cut, and they were now soiled with earth. -One trouser-leg, Mr. Gilchrist noticed, was badly torn. Altogether his -appearance suggested a benevolent old gentleman, connected possibly -with some dissenting religious body, who had been badly mauled in -conflict with a gang of ruffians. - -“Feel better?” asked Mr. Gilchrist. “Have some more.” - -“No, I thank you, sir,” replied the stranger, and the tone of his voice -assured his host that he had to deal with an educated man. “I feel much -better. Alcohol, I may say, is an unfamiliar stimulant to me, and the -action of a comparatively small quantity is powerful. If I might beg a -little further indulgence of your kindness, however, I should be glad -to rest myself a minute or two.” - -“Certainly, certainly--by all means. You will find that a more -comfortable chair. Have you met with an accident?” - -The stranger’s protruding eyes flashed with a singular brightness at -the question. Then he sighed and again pressed the palm of his hand -across his brow. - -“Your courtesy, sir, undoubtedly deserves some explanation of the -plight you have so generously relieved.” The man’s tone and phrasing -indicated a person accustomed to put his thoughts into an elaborated -word-structure for the attention of an audience. “I hardly think that -accident is the correct description of my misfortune. I am the victim, -sir, of a traitorous chain of circumstances, a chain of circumstances -so strange as to be scarcely credible.” - -“Indeed?” Mr. Gilchrist had reseated himself and now bent forward, his -face alight with interest kindled by his guest’s last sentence. “If I -can help you in any way, I shall be glad to do so.” - -The stranger acknowledged the offer by a downward inclination of the -head. - -“Your great kindness of heart needs no further exposition, sir--it is -self-evident. I have no words sufficient to thank you. I greatly fear, -however, that I am beyond human help. A matter of a few hours is the -utmost respite from my fate that I can expect. None the less, I am -deeply grateful to you for this breathing-space.” - -The stranger sighed again, and his countenance settled into a resigned -melancholy. - -“You make me curious,” said Mr. Gilchrist. “Of course, I don’t wish to -intrude----” - -The old gentleman raised his eyebrows and made a protesting movement -with his hand. - -“In all probability, sir, you will soon be made acquainted with a -garbled newspaper version of the calamity which has befallen me. Its -dreadful nature is bound to flare into publicity. It is useless, -therefore, for me to attempt to conceal it. If you care to hear -the true version of a tragedy which every newsboy will be shouting -to-morrow morning--a version stranger than the one counsel for defence -and prosecution will adopt as a battle-ground for their wits--I will -do my best to gratify your curiosity. I may say that it will be some -comfort to me to know that one fellow human being--especially so -kind-hearted a one as yourself--is acquainted with the real facts.” - -“My dear sir!” began Mr. Gilchrist. “Surely--you are overwrought--an -accident--I cannot believe----” - -“I do not look like a murderer,” said the old gentleman, interrupting -him, a pathetic little smile on his grave face. “Nevertheless I am -one. It is the terrible truth, I assure you, sir. I am a murderer, a -murderer trapped into crime by that chain of circumstances I spoke of. -And I am a man that until to-day never wittingly took the life of any -creature, however small.” - -“But--my dear sir!” Mr. Gilchrist half rose from his chair. His guest -waved him back into it. - -“I am speaking the sober truth. You think that you are harbouring a -madman. I am as sane as you. If you care to listen, I will relate the -story, and when I have finished, if you desire to call in the local -police, you are at liberty to do so. I give you my word that there will -be no disturbance.” - -Mr. Gilchrist sat back in his chair, half-fascinated, half-frightened. - -“Go on,” he said briefly, not trusting himself to speak. - -“I must first request your patience whilst I relate a few circumstances -which, however remote they may appear from the terrible fact that has, -among other things, made me your guest, are nevertheless intimately -connected with it. - -“I am a man in business for myself, in a small way, as the saying is. -It might have been a larger way had not my intellectual activities been -employed on subjects which I regard as of graver and deeper import than -the purchase and sale of ephemeral commodities. For many years my mind -has been more familiar with that region known briefly as the occult, -than with the intricacies of terrestrial markets. I have striven -earnestly to penetrate to those great secrets which throb behind this -earthly veil--with what success I need not specify. Suffice it that -a small society of fellow-seekers after the Truth chose me as their -president, a position I still hold. - -“However small your acquaintance with this difficult subject, sir, -you are probably aware--from hearsay, at least--that it has two great -aspects, good and evil. The pure in heart may achieve a certain mastery -over forces hidden from the multitude and use them for innocent or -praiseworthy ends, such, for example, as establishing communication -between our loved ones who have crossed the threshold and those who -remain here. This is known vulgarly as white magic. But there is a -black magic. It is known to every adept that it is possible--difficult, -perhaps, but possible--for self-seeking men who have, perchance before -they became perverted, had the key to these vast mysteries put in -their hands, to control the mighty forces of which I have spoken and -turn them, regardless of the suffering they inflict, to their personal -advantage. - -“It is possible, I say, though exceedingly rare. Few men, good or evil, -are so fortunately endowed as to acquire a mastery over those forces -for any purpose, and of those who have acquired it the majority are -good. In any case they are rare. For myself, despite years of study -and anxious striving, I have utterly failed to grasp those forces save -in one or two trifling instances. This, by the way. For some time past -I have been conscious--I cannot now tell you by what agency I became -aware of it--that a group of men, greater adepts than any I have known, -had in fact subjected forces terrible in their power and were using -them to the danger of the world.” - -The stranger turned his bulbous bright eyes to Mr. Gilchrist, who sat -silent, gripped in a spell which was partly fear. In the moment or two -of silence he heard that infernal clock ticking along with insistent -industry. The stranger waited a brief space for some comment, and, -receiving none, proceeded. - -“You know, I have no doubt, that in the past--in the Middle Ages, for -example--certain secret societies existed for purposes partly occult. -I use _occult_ as a synonym for the spiritual, for all that lies -beyond the veil. Such, I may remark, were the Rosicrucians. Others are -known to every student of the subject. One might almost class it as -common historical knowledge. Few, however, suspect that to-day such a -society, immeasurably more powerful than the ordinary man considers -possible, exists. It exists, and by some means it has penetrated to the -very arcana of the spiritual world. It wields a power, by its control -over forces that to call cosmic is to minimize, quite beyond ordinary -resistance. And it wields that power for evil. I could point out -several frightful disasters of recent times directly traceable to that -society. It is a menace to the world!” - -The old gentleman’s eyes flashed excitement at Mr. Gilchrist, who felt -in a dream, scarcely knowing whether he was awake or sleeping. - -“In one way only can it be overthrown--and it must be overthrown if our -civilization is to continue. A group of men--equally adept but pure in -soul--must meet and check each of their schemes and finally turn the -immense forces, too great for ordinary comprehension, with which they -work, against them, wiping them out of existence. Where that group -of men is to be found, sir, I do not know; but if the disease is to -find a remedy it must first be diagnosed. It was my duty, then, having -discovered this monstrous danger, to proclaim it to the world. And, -knowing full well the awful risks I ran, I did so. I contributed a long -article to a periodical which exists for the diffusion of spiritual -truth, and, so far as my knowledge permitted me, exposed the terrible -enemy. - -“I knew I invited disaster. Immediately I was warned--I cannot tell -you by what channel the warning came to me--that the gravest perils -threatened me. You, an ordinary man, whose most terrible engine of -destruction possible to the imagination is a monster-gun battleship, -can have no conception of the powers unchained against me. I cannot -tell you with what fervour I strove to acquire control over forces -that might befriend me, but in vain. Ever I was thwarted and baffled. -I lost what little powers I had. Stripped of every means of defence, -I waited in anguish for the blow to fall. What kind of blow it would -be and whence it would come I could not tell. I knew only that it was -inevitable. An undying enmity was all around me. - -“I expected something cataclysmic, world-shaking. Fool that I was, I -might have known better. ‘They’ are far too cunning thus to advertise -their power needlessly. Day after day I dwelt in a world of terror, and -nothing happened, save the complete interruption of any intercourse -with the spiritual world. Malevolent forces had closed that door. I -waited, each moment expecting disaster, I knew not from what quarter, -as a man waits in a dark wood for the lurking danger to spring at him. -Suddenly--a week ago to-day--they commenced to act.” - -He stopped to allow the import of his words to have full effect on his -host. Mr. Gilchrist opened his mouth as if to speak, but he could not -give utterance to a sound. - -“I was walking, about six o’clock in the afternoon, along Piccadilly. -The thoroughfare was crowded. I felt almost happy in the throng. My -mind was for the moment distracted from its ever-present anxiety, and I -had almost forgotten my danger. Suddenly a man jostled against me and -thrust a piece of paper into my hand. I glanced at it and knew my doom -was upon me. Here it is.” - -He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr. -Gilchrist. It bore only the words, in fat black type: “Prepare to meet -thy Judge.” - -“But,” said his host, grasping at the familiar in this strange story, -“this is merely a leaflet circulated by some religious body.” - -“I know,” said the stranger, smiling. “That is their cunning. It -conveys little or nothing to an outsider. _But they knew I would know._ -I looked around for the man. He had disappeared. The blood surged to -my head; I reeled dizzily against a lamp-post and for a moment or -two knew nothing. The shock, long expected though it was, was awful. -After a brief space my brain cleared. My giddiness seemingly had not -been noticed. The street looked normal. I shook myself and prepared -to continue on my way. At that moment I happened to look round and -saw a large white bulldog sitting on the pavement and regarding me -fixedly. Even then--_I knew_. But I affected to take no notice of it -and commenced to walk onward. The dog got up and followed me. I walked -faster, but the dog was always a couple of feet behind my heels. I -stopped. The dog stopped. I went on again. The dog went on again also. -There was no doubt of its connection with me. - -“I cannot make you realize, sir, the awful fear that surged up in me, -mastering me, throttling me. I almost choked. The lights, the houses, -the people swam in my vision. For some moments I walked along blind, -unseeing. I trust that I am not a coward, that ordinary danger would -find me ready to meet it with some calmness of mind, but in contact -now with the peril I had dreaded, such firmness as I have gave way. -The seeming innocence of the manner in which my death-sentence was -conveyed, the apparently innocuous character of the messenger they -had sent, accentuated my terror. I felt that it was useless to appeal -to my fellow-creatures for help. The certain reply would have been an -imputation of madness. Above all, the purpose of the dog baffled me. It -seemed impossible that my enemies, with all the vast forces at their -command, should use so petty an instrument to strike at me. I could not -even imagine in what manner the dog was to bring about my annihilation. -The disparity of means to the end seemed grotesque. - -“So strongly did I feel this that I half-persuaded myself that I was -under an illusion, that the dog was merely a stray that had followed -me for a few yards in the hope of finding a new home. Walking along, -looking straight in front of me, for I dared not turn my head, I -was almost comforted by a semi-belief that the dog was no longer in -pursuit. Presently, with an effort of will, I looked back--to find, as -reason told me I should, the animal still at my heels, padding along -with its nose to the ground. - -“I stopped, more from a suspension of faculties than from any desire -to do so, and the dog stopped also. It sat calmly down, looking at me, -and I could almost fancy a quiet, diabolic smile on the loose, ugly, -dripping jaws. We exchanged a steadfast gaze--I can see it now; its -eyes were red-rimmed, bleary, cunning. Standing there, I strove to -divine its purpose. Suddenly it flashed upon me. The dog was tracking -me to my home. Over the trail it had gone once it would go again, this -time accompanied by the active agents of my foes. Why this roundabout -method of reaching me was adopted will no doubt seem a puzzle to you, -sir--it is so to me. But I was and am convinced of the fact. - -“No sooner had I realized this,” pursued the old gentleman, “than I -thought over means of ridding myself of it. The obvious way was simple. -I walked along the streets in quest of a policeman. The dog got quietly -on its legs again and followed. Some hundred yards or so farther on -I saw an officer and approached him. It was at the corner where the -street flows into Piccadilly Circus, and the open space was a maelstrom -of traffic, starred overhead by the lamps which were beginning to glow -against the darkening sky. I had to wait an agonized minute or two at -the policeman’s elbow whilst he set two fussy and nervous old ladies -upon their right way. At last he turned to me, and a radiance of hope -commenced to break over the dark tumult of my mind as I explained to -him that I was being followed by a stray dog and wished to give it into -his charge. - -“He looked patiently down at me from his towering bulk of body, -nodded, and asked: ‘Where’s the dog?’ I turned to point it out. To my -astonishment, it had disappeared. No shape of dog was anywhere visible. -The policeman’s eyes rested upon me with so questioning a look that I -felt uncomfortable. I could divine that he was thinking me deranged -or intoxicated. My mind was in a state of bewilderment also at the -sudden disappearance of the creature that a moment before had hung at -my heels with all the quiet persistency of Fate. I stammered, strove to -explain, found myself entangled in nervous foolishness rendered worse -by the slightly contemptuous, steady gaze of the policeman. I leaped -desperately out by the common exit from such embarrassments and tipped -the policeman with the only coin I happened to have in my pocket. It -was a half-crown. He smiled as I made off quickly, my ears burning. - -“Thank God, at any rate I was freed from my enemy. With a bounding -lightness of spirits I plunged into the vortex of traffic and made my -way across the Circus. I was supremely happy. I remember smiling round -at the garish lights, at the thronging people, at the poor, at the -wealthy, at the flower-girls, at the vicious. I was glad, unutterably -glad, like a prisoner just reprieved, to be among my kind, of whatever -sort. I am not musical, but I found myself singing a trivial melody, -picked up somewhere from a barrel-organ. - -“Thus I proceeded on my way, going eastward, making, in fact, for the -station, where I take train to my home some few miles farther down the -line than this. - -“I was somewhere in the Strand when suddenly I heard a girl who passed -me say to her companion: ‘Oh, what an ugly beast!’ I turned sharply, an -ice-cold hand clutching at my heart, and saw to my horror the white dog -again at my heels. He looked up at me, and I fled, with a cry, down a -side street. The dog followed easily. - -“In wild terror I ran as fast as my strength, never great, would -permit. It was useless, of course. The dog found no difficulty in -keeping up with me. I stopped at last from sheer exhaustion, and the -creature seemed to grin at my distress. Had a policeman been visible, I -would have tried again to hand it over to him, convinced though I was -that the attempt would be in vain. - -“One means of escape presented itself to me, but I could not avail -myself of it. I might have called a taxicab, but I had no money. I -ought to have tried that way first. - -“A wild rage seized me. I rushed at the dog, kicking at him furiously. -The animal dodged me with ease. I could not touch him. I ran on again. - -“Thus, now running in mad panic, now walking with the slow deliberation -of settled despair, I continued on my way, and always the dog followed. -Why I did not go in another direction and throw the animal off the -scent, I do not know. My one leading idea was to get home, and perhaps -subconsciously I knew that, whatever stratagems I tried, the dog was -not to be shaken from his trail. - -“I was almost demented with terror when unexpectedly salvation showed -itself. My station was not many hundred yards distant--I was in Broad -Street, I think--when suddenly there was a snarl and a furious barking -behind me. A large dog, belonging to some passer-by, had sprung at my -enemy, and they were locked in desperate fight. In a few seconds a -crowd collected. I saw a policeman hastening up. It was my chance. With -all that remained to me of strength I ran toward the station. - -“I heard voices calling after me, but I heeded them not. The sounds of -angry strife continued, muffled, and lent me hope and speed. Calling up -every energy, I raced along, sped down the approach, saw that it wanted -but the fraction of a minute to seven-thirty, dashed through the gate, -which clanged behind me, and flung myself into the train for home just -as it started. I thought I was safe. As I put my hand out of the window -to shut the door, I heard a commotion at the gate. I looked out and -saw the dog struggling with the officials, vainly striving to leap the -barrier. We moved out of the station, leaving him behind.” - -He stopped, looking at his host. Mr. Gilchrist gasped and nodded. The -stranger continued: - -“For a few exultant minutes I thought that I was saved. But presently, -as I calmed and my reason began to work, I realized that ‘they’ -had gained their point. They had only to watch and wait. On the -morrow a human emissary of my foes would accompany the dog over the -trail, starting at the same time, arriving within a few minutes of -seven-thirty at that station platform. From that the direction, at -least, of my home could easily be deduced. Convinced that sooner or -later I should be journeying on that line, they had only to watch and -wait till I appeared. I knew that there was no hope for me, that my -doom was certain. - -“I reached home, in a turmoil of fears, and fell ill. For a week I did -not leave the house, and all through my indisposition the spectre of -that white dog dominated not only my dreams but every waking thought. I -could see it looking out at me from under the furniture, sitting with -patient eyes on my every movement, in corners of the house, barring my -way to the door, if I wished to enter or leave a room. It haunted me, -kept me at an excruciating point of mental anguish. - -“This morning, however, I felt better, and my business imperatively -claiming my attention after a week of absence, I decided to go to town. - -“I left the house with the feeling of a man who goes out to execution. -Nevertheless, human nature revolted at the prospect of dying without -resistance, and I went armed. In my pocket was a revolver which had -belonged to my father. He had fought in the Indian Mutiny. I was born -in India myself. Some of his fighting instincts arose in me as I walked -down to the station fingering the weapon in my pocket. - -“Dread oppressed me as I entered the train and journeyed cityward. -I felt that I was going to meet my fate. None the less I went about -my business, and all day nothing occurred, save moments of fear, to -alarm me. I made up my mind to return by a midday train--would that -I had done so!--though perhaps it would have made no difference. So -great a press of work awaited me, however, that it was impossible. One -hindrance after another stood in my way, and with rapidly rising fears -I was forced to remain and see the time slip away until the only train -that remained to me was the seven-thirty. - -“My office is a little room at the top of a large building. I keep no -clerk. Most or all the other workers in the building had left while I -was still writing letters, and the solitude which broods over the city -in the evening weighed more and more oppressively on me every minute. -My nerves were already at stretch when I heard something thrust into -the letter-box. I jumped to my feet, trembling with premonitions. I -heard no footfall along the passage. After a moment, when my heart -seemed to stop, I went to the box, and to my horror--drew out a piece -of paper identical with the one pushed into my hand a week before. It -bore the same solemn words: ‘Prepare to meet thy Judge,’ and nothing -more. I believe I reeled and staggered. I know that in a flash of -frenzy I flung the door wide and rushed into the passage. I could have -sworn--I could swear it now--that I saw the white dog slink round the -corner a few yards along the corridor. - -“Trembling in every limb, my head on fire, I hastily locked up the -office and made my way to the station. The building seemed quite -deserted as I left it. I saw no sign of the white dog. Choosing the -most frequented thoroughfares, I soon reached the terminus without any -cause for alarm. I remember that my heart beat so violently as to make -me feel faint as I passed the barrier. I scarcely dared look for the -dog, but with an effort of will I did so and assured myself it was not -there. - -“I chose an unoccupied carriage and settled myself in it--waiting, -with throbbing anxiety, for the few remaining minutes to slip away -before the train was due to start. Those minutes seemed vast spaces of -time in which the movement of the world had stopped, waiting for some -catastrophe. At last I heard the bell ring. For one wild, exultant -moment I thought that I was safe. - -“Then, just as the train commenced to move, I saw a man running along -the platform, holding a dog in leash. The animal strained powerfully at -the lead, his nose to the ground. On the instant, I recognized it--the -white dog! The door of my compartment was thrown open, and man and dog -leaped in. A porter slammed the door after them, and we were moving -fast out of the station. Short of throwing myself on the rails there -was no escape possible. - -“The man was dressed in the garb of a clergyman. He was a large, -powerfully built fellow, strength of mind and body marked all over him. -He nodded and smiled at me as he drew a long breath to recover his wind -and sat down. The dog slunk under the seat, where it lay watching me -with steady eyes. - -“I cowered in my corner in terror. Had I wished to speak, I could not -have done so. The sight of one of my all-powerful foes, visible for -the first time, fascinated me. I could not take my eyes from him. -Occasionally he looked up at me from his newspaper with a slow, quiet -smile which seemed to say: ‘All right, my friend. I’ll deal with you -presently.’ - -“The train clanged and banged over the switches and gathered speed for -its rush into the dark night and the loneliness of the countryside. -Minute after minute I sat there in panic, watching him, agonized every -now and then by that terrible sure smile with which he glanced at me. -The silence in the carriage was the oppressive silence which awaits a -tragedy to break it with a lightning-flash. - -“Mile after mile the train raced on, and nothing happened. The suspense -was maddening me. My lips were dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my -mouth. I could feel a cold sweat beading my forehead. I took out my -handkerchief to wipe it, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground, -close to his feet. I recognized it. It was the second warning. Before -I could move, the man bent to pick it up. He handed it to me with that -meaning smile and said, with awful quietness: ‘Are you prepared?’ - -“I started with terror and felt something hurt the hand which all the -time had been gripping the revolver in my pocket. It was the tense -pressure of my finger on the weapon. - -“The man nodded and smiled at me again. I gasped, feeling certain -that my hour had come. With the fascination of a man trapped and -bound, I saw him bend sideways and put his hand into his hip pocket. -Instantly--I know not how--there was a deafening report in the -carriage, and a film of smoke floated between me and him. He sank to -the floor. He rolled slightly with his last gasp, his arm outflung. -I had killed him! I stood fixed with horror. In his hand was--not a -revolver, but a tobacco-pipe. - -“For a moment my senses left me. I knew nothing. I was brought to -consciousness by a sharp pain in my leg. The white dog held me in a -savage grip, growling in a manner frightful to hear. Frenzy overcame -me; I kicked and fought in vain. Then, suddenly recollecting the -revolver in my hand, I pressed it to his head and fired. I was free. -Free? No, trapped in the swaying carriage splashed with blood, its -floor heaped with the large body of the man I had killed. The train -was racing along at top speed. In five or ten minutes more we should -stop and the crime would be discovered. Mad with horror, I rushed to -the door, opened it, flung myself into the black night. I remember -the roar of the train passing me as I rolled down the embankment, -have an impression of a bright light whisked away, and then I lost -consciousness. - -“When my senses returned, I saw the light in your house. Clambering -over a wall, I made my way to it, fainting, scarce able to walk, but -frantic, it seemed to me, for help. You kindly took me in. For the -moment I have respite, but ‘they’ have triumphed. By their cunning -manipulation of the forces behind Life, I have been tricked into -murdering one who to all outward semblance was an innocent man. In a -day or two I shall be standing in the dock, and finally my life will be -violently cut short by my fellow-men, accompanied by every circumstance -of ignominy. Fully, indeed, are they revenged! - -“Now, sir, you know my story; and if, after hearing it, you care to -call in the local police----” - - * * * * * * - -At that moment there was a sound of carriage-wheels on the road. They -stopped just in front of the house. The stranger sprang to his feet. -His eyes swept round the room in a swift, panic-stricken quest for -concealment. Then, crying: “No! They shall not take me! They shall not -take me!” he rushed from the room. - -Mr. Gilchrist, still spellbound by the story to which he had been -so intently listening, stood for a moment as though paralyzed, -staring at the open door. A familiar whistle from outside, a cheery -call--“Gilchrist! Gilchrist!”--gave him back his faculties. It was -Williamson--thank God! - -Mr. Gilchrist ran out into the hall, found the front door still open -from the stranger’s abrupt departure, peered out into the dark night -intensified by the two staring eyes of Williamson’s gig-lamps. - -“Come in, Williamson!” he called. His voice was joyous with relief. As -he spoke, he heard swift feet upon the gravel! The words had barely -left his mouth when a violent collision knocked him breathless against -the doorpost. It was the stranger, back again! - -“The white dog! The white dog!” he gasped in terror. - -Mr. Gilchrist clutched at him and fought for breath to speak. - -“But, my dear sir----” he began, irritably. This was absurd! Of course -there was a dog--the harmless old white bull which was Williamson’s -invariable companion. He tried to explain, but the stranger, tugging -frantically to get free, would listen to nothing. With the strength of -a madman he wrenched himself from Gilchrist’s detaining grasp and fled -into the house. - -Williamson, preceded by his old dog, came up the gravel path. - -“All alone?” he asked, cheerily. - -Mr. Gilchrist hesitated, and then, obeying an obscure impulse, lied. - -“Er--yes,” he replied. “Come in.” - -The absurdity of the falsehood occurred to him at once. Cursing his -folly, he tried to think of some plausible explanation as he led his -friend to the dining-room, where, of course, the stranger’s presence -would stultify his ridiculous statement. He glanced round the room as -he entered. It was empty! Where, then? His eyes rested on a suspicious -bulging of the window-curtain. - -He waved his friend to a chair. - -“Sit down,” he said, with an assumption of normality. “What’s the -news?” - -“There’s news, right enough,” said Williamson, dropping into the -proffered seat. “Terrible business on the seven-thirty to-night. -Poor old Hepplewhite--shot dead--he and his dog. Ghastly struggle, -evidently--blood over everything!” - -“Good God!” ejaculated Gilchrist, chilled with a sudden horror. He had -given no real credence to his visitor’s fantastic story. This brutal -contact with the reality paralyzed him in an awful terror at his own -false position. What was to be done? He strove to think--played for -time. “And the murderer?” he asked thickly. - -“Escaped--for the moment,” replied Williamson in a tone that suggested -confidence in the police. “Here, Tiger! Come here!” He addressed the -dog, which was sniffing uneasily about the room. - -The dog came up to him obediently, wagging his stump of tail. He -carried in his mouth a piece of folded paper which he had picked up -and now presented to his master. Gilchrist recognized it with a little -shock as his friend opened it. - -“_Prepare to meet thy Judge!_” Williamson read out with mock solemnity, -and smiled in superior tolerance of the evangelist enthusiasm which had -printed the leaflet. - -Gilchrist shuddered and thought suddenly of the terrified man behind -the curtain, dimly realizing the significance to that overwrought brain -of these fatal words. He glanced at the betraying bulge, saw it move -slightly. - -Williamson smiled down into the intelligent eyes of his old dog. - -“Tiger, old fellow,” he said jocularly, “you’ve made a mistake--you’ve -brought this message to the wrong man. It is evidently meant for the -person who shot poor old Hepplewhite. Here”--he held it out to the -dog--“take it to him. _Find him!_” - -The dog took the paper in his jaws, wagged his tail with a -comprehending look up at his master, and ran, following the scent which -was on the paper, across the room. He stopped, pawing at the bulged -curtain. - -Williamson stared after him in amusement. - -“Is he there, Tiger?” he said, humouring the intelligent animal. “Have -you found him?” - -Gilchrist stood speechless. What was coming next? - -The curtain was flung suddenly aside. The old gentleman stood revealed, -stepped forward into the room. His bulbous eyes were unwholesomely -bright. - -“Gentlemen,” he said, “I surrender. You have won. I might, of course, -shoot you”--he took a revolver from his pocket--“as I shot your -confederate in the train to-night. But I recognize that it would be -useless. Your Society would raise up yet other avengers----” - -Both Gilchrist and Williamson had shrunk back in alarm from that -brandished revolver--were unable, in their astonishment, to utter a -word. They could only stare, bewildered. - -The old gentleman looked down at the dog which still offered him the -paper. - -“I understand--perfectly,” he said, with a grim appreciation of some -subtlety which eluded them. “In a better cause, I should admire the -ingenuity with which you have utilized means which are apparently of -the simplest. I do homage to your powers, gentlemen. Or perhaps you -yourselves are only half-conscious tools of that occult force you -think you control--that occult force which has, with such singular -completeness, worked my ruin.” There was a sneer in his voice. He -turned to Gilchrist. “As for you, sir, I congratulate you on your -faculty of dissimulation. You gulled me excellently well. I can only -bow in acknowledgment of the supreme irony with which you beguiled me -into telling you the miserable story which, of course, you already knew -far better than I. I do not grudge you your triumph. It was superbly -well planned. You held me without suspicion whilst you awaited the -arrival--for the last time--of the symbol of my doom--_the white dog_!” -His smile was an illumination of savage sarcasm. - -There was a pause of silence in which Williamson glanced inquiringly at -his friend. - -The old gentleman laughed in a mirthless mockery which was hideous to -hear. - -“But now, face to face at last with you whose monstrous plot I was at -least able to detect, if I could not baffle it--I yet cheat you!” he -cried. “I cheat you of your complete vengeance! You thought to condemn -me to the ignominy of a murderer’s trial!” He laughed again. “I elude -you--thus!” - -With a quick movement he raised the revolver and fired. - -The two friends, after the moment in which they recovered from the -shock, bent over his body. - -“I don’t understand!” said Williamson, horror-stricken and mystified. -“Who and what was he?” - -Gilchrist answered him in one terse word. - -“Mad,” he replied, pushing away the white dog, which sniffed innocently -at the body. - - - - -A POINT OF ETHICS - - -He leaned forward across the flower-decked dinner-table and raised his -glass. - -“To many happy anniversaries, darling!” - -The pretty woman he addressed raised her glass also. Gowned in a simple -evening robe whose discreet _décolletage_ revealed shoulders still -youthfully rounded, she was the incarnation of that delicate refinement -which lifts beauty into charm with one deft touch. The single dark rose -at her breast was its present symbol. It was also, indubitably, the -deliberate symbol of something more. The large, emotional eyes which -smiled upon him were radiant with happiness. - -“_Many_ anniversaries, Jack!” she echoed, shaking her head slowly in -emphasis, her gaze in his. “All as happy as this--all of us together!” - -Both turned, as with a common thought, to the demure little -five-year-old girl who watched them with grave eyes from her place at -the dinner-table. She smiled at their smiles, confidently. - -“I’m as fond of her as you are, Evelyn,” he said, with evident -sincerity. “Never fear! I couldn’t love her more if she were my own -daughter.” - -“You couldn’t be kinder to her, Jack,” said the young woman, in -affectionate agreement. “Oh, my dear, we are very fortunate, both of -us, Dorothy and I! Without you!” she sighed. “A whole year! A whole -year of perfect happiness! I thought I was happy before--but I did not -know what happiness was--until it began a year ago to-day!” - -He smiled. - -“Nor I, Evelyn. Looking back, it seems that I only began to live on -the day I married you.” He glanced around him. “A year ago!--You were -right, dear, to have our little dinner here to-night, and not at River -Lawn. You were right to keep this place going--it reminds us both of -our starting-point.” His tone warmed with affection. “But then, you are -always right!” - -She beamed with gratitude. - -“I wanted to keep it because it was _my_ home--it was what I brought to -you. You gave me our home at River Lawn, Jack--and you know how I love -it. But this--this is where you came to me, and it’s all sacred to me. -I couldn’t bear to change a thing in it. Besides,” she added, smilingly -lifting her argument out of sentimentality, “it is really an economy, -isn’t it? With your work we must have a city home as well. Why change -this flat for another which would perhaps be less convenient, and which -we should have to refurnish?” - -“Quite,” he agreed. “I gave into you about it long ago. But I didn’t -like it at first, I’ll admit.” - -“You are too big a man, Jack, dear, to be jealous of the past. And I -am sure Harry would not mind, if he could know.” Her eyes looked past -him, dreamily reminiscent. “Poor old Harry!” she said, after a little -silence. - -“I should like to have met him,” he said, conversationally, getting on -with his fish. “He must have been a good chap.” - -“Oh, he was! I wish I could have got some news of him--of how he was -killed. No one in the regiment seemed to know anything. It is dreadful -to go out like that--no one knowing how!” She shuddered. Then, with -an instinctive movement to break the spell of unwanted memories, she -pressed the bell for the maid to clear the course from the table. - -The conversation resumed on the everyday matters of his profession. -She thoroughly identified herself with her husband’s interests and -discussed them, as was her wont, with intelligent sympathy. She was one -of those women who stimulate all the latent potentialities of their -men. He--it was obvious from the clear-cut features--was both resolute -and clever; a man who would go far. Already Satterthwaite was a name in -the Courts for which clients would pay big fees. - -They were discussing the important case of the day when suddenly she -looked round, startled. - -“Jack! Someone has come in--or gone out. I heard the hall door slam!” - -“Imagination, my dear,” he replied, smiling sceptically. “The maids are -busy--they would not go out. We should have heard the bell if there -were a visitor. No one has a key except ourselves----” - -The words were scarcely uttered when the door behind them opened. The -child, who sat facing it, stared in amazement for a second, and then -slipped off her chair and ran toward the intruder with a wild shout of -joy. - -“_Daddie!_” - -Mr. and Mrs. Satterthwaite sprang up from their seats, turned to see -a youngish man, clad in an ill-fitting lounge suit, standing in the -doorway. The young woman clutched at the back of her chair, her eyes -wide in terror. - -“Harry!” She breathed the cry almost voicelessly in her stupefaction. -“_Harry’s ghost!_” - -Satterthwaite snatched back the child, who had recoiled from the -flaming anger in the stranger’s face. - -“What does this mean?” asked the intruder, fiercely, ignoring the -little one. “Evelyn!” The summons was uttered with outraged but -confident authority. - -She shrank back, covering her face. - -“No!” She spoke as to herself. “No!--It can’t be! He’s dead--he’s dead!” - -Satterthwaite intervened, his jaw setting hard, the level tone of his -voice evidently sternly controlled. - -“May I ask who you are?” he enquired, coldly. - -The stranger faced him. Anger met anger in their eyes. - -“Certainly. I am Harry Tremaine. And perhaps you will be good enough -to tell me who the devil you are--and what you are doing with my wife -in my flat?” The man’s voice trembled with fury. His face worked with -passion. He took a step toward the young woman. - -She drew quickly away from him, sheltered herself behind her companion, -whence she stared at him with fascinated eyes. - -“My name is Satterthwaite--and I am dining with my wife!” - -“Your--wife----!” He repeated the words slowly as though scarcely -crediting such audacious impudence of assertion. Then he laughed in -harsh mockery. “Don’t talk nonsense!” He looked down at the child at -Satterthwaite’s side. “Dorothy!--come here!” - -Satterthwaite restrained the child’s movement of obedience with a firm -grip. “Excuse me,” he said quietly, “I think the youngster is better -absent from this discussion.” He led the bewildered little girl to -the door, opened it, and called for the nurse. “Put Miss Dorothy to -bed!” he ordered. “And then all of you go out for the evening. Go to -the movies. Here!” He held out a note. “Have a good time--and get out -at once! Mrs. Satterthwaite and I want to be alone in the flat this -evening.” - -He closed the door and returned to the others. The stranger, dominated -for the moment by his quiet, masterful manner, had made no movement to -interfere, stood, as he had left him, by the doorway. But his eyes were -fixed still wrathfully upon the young woman who stared back at him, -fascinated, clutching at the table for support. Her lips were ashen, -parted in a soundless terror. - -Satterthwaite turned to her. - -“Do you know this man, Evelyn?” - -She made an effort, answered. - -“It--it is Harry--or his ghost!” - -The stranger laughed in bitter scorn. - -“What foolery!--Don’t pretend I died since yesterday!” - -Amazement came into both their faces. - -“Since yesterday?” they repeated in one bewildered echo. - -The stranger frowned. - -“What is there strange about that?” he asked, irritably, impressed, -nevertheless, by their evidently genuine astonishment. - -“Where--where were you yesterday, Harry?” asked the young woman -unsteadily, as though scarcely daring to probe some awful mystery. - -He laughed shortly in impatience. - -“Why, of course----” he began in confident tones. He stopped, a baffled -look suddenly in his eyes. “Of course----” he began again, less -confidently. Then he gave it up. “I--I can’t remember--it’s funny!--I -can’t remember where I was yesterday----” He bit his lower lip, looked -around him slowly with bent and puzzled brows, plainly uneasy at this -unexpected forgetfulness. “But of course I must have been here!” He put -an end to his embarrassment by dogmatic assertion. - -Satterthwaite contemplated him for a moment with eyes that searched him -to the depths. - -“H’m!” he said, meditatively. “There’s something extraordinary about -this!--Won’t you sit down, Mr. Tremaine?” He pointed to a chair. “Let -us discuss this matter amicably--it’s not so simple as you think, and -hostility won’t help us.” - -Tremaine hesitated a moment, a flicker of angry revolt in his eyes. But -there was a note in Satterthwaite’s quiet tones which more than invited -compliance, and he seated himself in the chair with a shrug of the -shoulders which justified him in himself. - -“This is my flat--and my wife,” he said, “anyway!” The assertion -sounded curiously weak. - -The young woman watched him speechlessly. - -Satterthwaite caressed his chin with that little gesture which was -habitual to him when commencing the cross-examination of a witness. He -began in the suave, deliberate tones familiar to the Courts. - -“What is the last thing you can remember, Mr. Tremaine?” he asked. - -Tremaine stared at him. - -“I--I think----” he began, hesitatingly, almost automatically -responsive to Satterthwaite’s seductive voice. Then he stopped, the -baffled look again in his eyes. “What the devil has it got to do with -you?” he demanded, in exasperation. - -Satterthwaite was unruffled. - -“It has a great deal to do with me, Mr. Tremaine,” he said, “and with -all of us here. So please try to answer my questions.” - -Tremaine’s eyes blazed at him. - -“What right have you to question me?--What are you doing here at all, -that’s what I want to know?” - -Satterthwaite soothed him with a gesture. - -“We’re coming to that presently. Answer my questions now--and afterward -you can put any questions to me that you like. Now--try and remember!” - -Tremaine relapsed sullenly. It was evident that he was secretly -conscious of the inferiority in which his absence of memory placed him. -His eyes sought the young woman as though to elicit some key-point of -remembrance, came back empty. - -“Well?” he said, with suspicious ill-humour. - -Satterthwaite was courtesy itself. - -“Now, think! Carry your mind back! You were in the Army, weren’t you?” - -“Of course!” - -“You remember that--perfectly?” - -“Yes--of course I do!” His tone was impatient. - -“Good! You remember being in France?” - -“I should think so!” - -“In what part of France were you last?” - -“In the Argonne.” - -“Right! Now--when did you leave France?” - -Tremaine hesitated, bit his lip. The eyes went blank again. - -“I--I can’t remember.” - -“Do you remember leaving France at all?--Do you remember the voyage?” - -There was a silence whilst Tremaine evidently made an effort of memory. - -“No,” he said, at last, “I cannot remember it.” - -“Ah!--Now, what is the last thing you can remember in France? You were -in the trenches, I suppose?” - -“No--we had left the trenches behind us. We were fighting in the -forest--I can remember that--a sort of ravine with splintered trees--we -were attacking----” A new note of interest came into his voice, a -satisfaction at recovering these memories. “By George, yes! Of course, -there was a terrific attack on--we were going for the Kriemhild Line. -What happened----?” He hesitated. “I was running forward--the Boche was -shelling like mad----” He seemed to be visualizing a scene, his face -screwed up, his eyes narrowed, his lower lip between his teeth. “I saw -a whole bunch go down--and then----” He stopped. - -“And then?” - -“A sheet of flame. I--I can’t remember anything more. I--I must have -been hit, I suppose----” - -“I see. Now, can you remember what you were wearing just then?” - -“I was in shirt and breeches. My tunic had been torn off the day -before--breaking through the undergrowth. I remember that perfectly.” - -Satterthwaite nodded. - -“And your identity disc?” - -“I’d lost that the day before also--I remember thinking I should have -to get a new one.” - -Satterthwaite smiled. - -“We’re coming to it,” he said, encouragingly. “Now--just before you -came into this flat, where were you?” - -“In a street-car. I got off at the corner in the usual way, and let -myself in with my key.” - -“You had that key in France, I suppose?” - -“Yes, I had it with a few others on a ring in my breeches-pocket. I -kept it for the day I should come back.” - -“Quite. Now--before you got into that street-car, where were you? Where -had you been?” - -Tremaine hesitated again. - -“I can’t for the life of me remember!--I--I sort of woke up in that -street-car, as if I had been to sleep on my way home. I remember -looking out and thinking to myself--of course, that’s where I -am--nearly home. It seemed quite natural.” - -Obviously, the man himself was puzzled. There was a short silence, and -then Satterthwaite spoke again. - -“And you remember nothing of what you did between the day you attacked -the Kriemhild Line--and finding yourself in the street-car?” - -Tremaine frowned in a desperate effort to collect his thoughts. - -“No,” he said at last. “It’s an extraordinary thing but my mind seems a -complete blank!” - -“Can you remember the date of that attack upon the Kriemhild Line--the -day you saw that sheet of flame go up?” - -“October tenth,” came the reply without hesitation. - -“What year?” - -“1918, of course.” - -Satterthwaite smiled. - -“Do you know what year this is?” - -The other stared at him, a sudden fear in his eyes. - -“Not 1919?” he cried. “Don’t say I’ve lost a year?” - -“1920!” - -“Good God!” He jumped up, gripped in a panic that drove the blood out -of his face, and switched round to his wife. “Evelyn! Where have I -been? Haven’t I been here all this time?” - -She took a deep breath. - -“I see you to-day for the first time since you sailed in April, 1918, -Harry,” she said, steadily. - -He stood swaying on his feet, hand pressed to his brow, through a long -moment of realization. No one spoke. Then he dropped his hand, turned -to his wife again. - -“And you?--When----?” he indicated Satterthwaite with a helpless -gesture, “when did this happen?” - -She met his eyes bravely. - -“I married--Jack--a year ago to-day!” she answered. The effort of her -speech was obvious. - -“But you couldn’t!” he exclaimed. “It’s bigamy!” - -Satterthwaite went without a word to the escritoire standing in a -corner of the room and took out a paper. He came back with it, handed -it silently to Tremaine. It was an official War Department notification. - -Tremaine stared at it. - -“My God!” he muttered, appalled. - -“You are dead, my friend!” said Satterthwaite, grimly. “Killed in -action, October 10th, 1918.” - -Again there was a long silence. Tremaine sank heavily into a chair, -stared straight in front of him. An expression of combativeness came -slowly into his face, his jaw set. At last he uttered an aggressive -grunt. - -“Well, I’m not!” he said. “I’m very much alive. So that’s that! -Whatever has happened, I’ve come back! This is my flat--and my wife and -child. And you can clear out just as soon as you like!” His eyes flamed -hostility as they met Satterthwaite’s. “Quit!” - -His wife sprang forward. - -“Harry!” she cried, imploring she scarcely knew what. - -He turned to her. - -“I’ll talk to you presently,” he said, in a voice of smouldering -resentment. “I’m not blaming you--but I guess you might have waited a -bit. We’ll square this out by ourselves when he’s gone.” - -Satterthwaite smiled, and his smile was by no means acquiescent. - -“I guess you’ll have to wait for that, Mr. Tremaine,” he said, in even -tones that had an edge to them. “I’m not going just yet.” - -Tremaine glared up at him. - -“What?” he cried, incredulously. - -“I’m not going,” repeated Satterthwaite. “You don’t realize the -situation, my friend. This woman has been living with me for a year -as my wife. I do not propose to make her name a public scandal. -Officially, you are dead. Well--remain dead!” - -Tremaine laughed mockingly. - -“And leave you my wife, my child--all this!” He waved his hand round -the flat. “Thank you!” - -Satterthwaite shrugged his shoulders. - -“I’ll buy your property of you at your own valuation. Your will has -been proved. The amount of your estate, plus interest, shall be -refunded to you. I’ll give you, in addition, any reasonable amount as -compensation. You are the victim of circumstances, my friend--but, as a -straight man, there’s only one thing for you to do. You can’t ruin this -woman’s life!” - -Both men, following their thought, turned to glance at her. She stood -tense, deathly pale, looking from one to the other, evidently in an -atrocious dilemma, unable to utter a word. - -Tremaine swung round again to his rival, sneered scornfully. - -“What kind of fool do you take me for? Do you expect me to give up my -wife and child, my home--give up my whole existence and pretend to be -someone else--just to oblige you? You must be mad!--I’ve come back -and here I am--come to stay,” he ended, doggedly, “to pick up my life -again!” - -There was a shade of sympathy in Satterthwaite’s eyes as he -contemplated him. - -“But can’t you see that it’s impossible to pick it up again where you -left off?” he said. “Can’t you see that as Harry Tremaine you can never -be happy again? You can’t get away from what has happened--it will -always be there, haunting you--and you’ll be reminded of it--pointed -at. The other women will make your wife’s life a hell in the thousand -little subtle ways they have. And besides, _what have you been doing -for the past two years_? You’ve been living somewhere--as somebody. -That existence will always be waiting in the background--ready to -spring out on you--and you can’t guard against it, for you don’t even -know what it was!” - -The young woman bent forward. - -“Can’t you remember, Harry?--Can’t you think where you’ve been--what -you’ve been doing?” she asked, anxiously. “Oh!” she added, with a -little despairing gesture, “I only want to do what is right--what is -best for all of us!” - -Tremaine shook his head. - -“I haven’t the remotest idea of where I was at lunchtime to-day!” he -said. “I may have come straight out of hospital, for all I know.” - -Satterthwaite nodded, humouring him. - -“You may--of course,” he said. “But it’s highly improbable. Two years -is a long time to stay in hospital. Almost certainly you have been -living somewhere, in new relationships. Be reasonable, my friend. Can’t -you see that the only thing is to sell out to me--and clear off, go -right away--start a fresh life?” - -Tremaine revolted. - -“I’m damned if I do!” he replied. “Right is right--you can’t get -away from it. I’m Harry Tremaine--and I’ve come back to my wife and -child--to my own existence--and I’ve got a right to them!” He rose from -his chair. “Enough of this talk! I’m master of this flat--and I give -you just time enough to pack up your traps. Get a move on!” His voice -quivered with an anger he instinctively accentuated as a protection -against the other man’s arguments. “I want to be alone with my wife! -Get out!” He moved forward menacingly. - -Satterthwaite did not stir. - -“I think not,” he said, steadily. “Not like that.” - -Tremaine’s anger flamed up in him. - -“Get out!--or I’ll throw you out!” - -Satterthwaite smiled. - -“If you wish to fight for her----?” he said, grimly inviting. - -With a savage snarl, Tremaine tore off his coat. - -His wife sprang forward in terrified appeal. - -“Harry!” - -He flung her off brutally. - -“Stand out of this!” he said. “This is a man’s fight! I’ll deal with -you afterward!” - -An atmosphere of primitive passion filled the room. She cowered -away, watching the rivals with fascinated eyes, like a squaw for -whom two braves unsheath their knives. Both were big, powerful men. -Satterthwaite made no movement while Tremaine flung aside his coat and -rolled up his shirt-sleeves--but his eyes were warily alert and his -fists clenched massively at the end of the arms held loosely ready for -sudden action. - -With a savage bellow of maddened hatred, Tremaine rushed at him -blindly. Satterthwaite’s right arm jerked up to guard--and like -lightning his left fist shot out from the shoulder, crashed full -between his adversary’s eyes. Tremaine went over backward, arms in the -air, his head striking the table with an impact that shattered glass -and crockery, rolled over to the floor. He lay motionless. - -His wife had darted to his side, bent over him. - -“Oh, Jack!” she cried, looking up to the victor. “You haven’t killed -him?” - -Satterthwaite bent over him also. - -“No,” he said. “Get some water!” - -She took the jug from the table and Satterthwaite splashed his face. -Tremaine drew a difficult breath, opened his eyes, looked up and around -him, dazed. - -“Where am I?” he asked, feebly. - -“You’re all right,” said Satterthwaite, bathing away the blood which -trickled down his nose. “Don’t worry.” - -Still half-stunned, the stricken man made an abortive, ill-coördinated -effort to rise. - -“Here, let me help you,” said Satterthwaite. “Get into this chair.” -He lifted him up, supported him to a big armchair by the fireplace, -deposited him in it. - -“Thanks,” said Tremaine, feebly, “--extremely good of you.” He looked -around him with vacant eyes. “Where am I? What happened?--I--I was in a -street-car----” - -Satterthwaite shot a swift glance of intelligence to the young woman -who was, after all, his wife as well. She drew near, her breath held at -a sudden possibility, her eyes searching the face of this man who but a -moment before had so uncompromisingly claimed her. Had he----? - -“Don’t worry about anything now,” said Satterthwaite, kindly. “You’ll -feel better in a moment.” - -His erstwhile adversary smiled up vacantly into his face. - -“I’m better now,” he said, passing his hand gropingly across his brow. -Then, as he removed it, he stared stupidly at the blood upon his -fingers. “What happened?” he asked, weakly. “How did I get here? I was -in a street-car--was there an accident?--I remember the street-car----” - -“You’ll remember all about it presently,” Satterthwaite assured him, -watching him narrowly with critical eyes. - -“I suppose you brought me here,” he continued in his dazed voice. “Very -kind of you--I’m much obliged.” He looked round, perceived the young -woman with the water-jug in her hand, and smiled feebly. “Your wife, I -presume?--I’m very sorry, madam,” he added, politely, “to put you to so -much inconvenience.” - -She stared at him for a moment as though suspecting his sincerity, and -then turned away her head, a wild expression in the eyes that sought -Satterthwaite’s face. He signalled back discretion. - -“Here’s your coat,” he said, holding it out. “Let me help you on with -it.” - -Tremaine gazed at it, obviously puzzled, and then glanced down to his -rolled-back shirt-sleeves. - -“Was there a row, then?” he asked, mystified. “A fight?” - -“There was a little trouble,” conceded Satterthwaite. - -“And you took me out of it, I suppose?” he said, with genuine -gratitude. “I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir--going to this bother -for a complete stranger.” - -“Not at all--not at all,” said Satterthwaite, easily. “Here, let me -help you.” - -The assistance was accepted. Tremaine rose shakily to his feet, stood -docilely while Satterthwaite guided his arms into the sleeves of his -coat. There was a curiously subtle difference in his expression; -quite another, a gentler, more courteous personality looked out of -those features which were Tremaine’s with a placid smile such as Mrs. -Tremaine had never seen. Close though his head was to Satterthwaite’s, -he evinced not the slightest sign of recognition. - -“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll get along now.” - -“Where do you live?” asked Satterthwaite, with a veiled glance at the -young woman. - -She held her breath, on this opening threshold of the mystery of the -past two years. - -“At the Newport Hotel,” he replied. He took a few steps and then -stopped, his hand pressed to his brow. He turned to Satterthwaite. “I -wonder whether you would mind my sitting here a little longer, sir?” he -asked, apologetically. “I still feel somewhat faint and dizzy.” - -“By all means,” replied Satterthwaite. “You are quite welcome to stay -until you are recovered.” - -The young woman marvelled at the quiet self-control of his voice. She -felt as though she must shriek to break a nightmare. - -“You are very kind,” he said. “I am afraid my wife will be anxious -about me----” - -His wife! The young woman choked back a cry. _His wife!_ Then---- - -“Is it too much to ask if you would telephone to her, sir?” he -continued. “She would come and fetch me.” - -“Certainly I will,” replied Satterthwaite, his face an impassive mask. - -“My name is Durham--Room 363 at the hotel.” - -“Right. Come and sit down in here.” He led the way into the adjoining -drawing-room. “Make yourself comfortable whilst I ring through to Mrs. -Durham.” - -He hospitably settled his guest in the most luxurious chair of the -elegantly furnished room, and then went out, closing the door after him. - -His wife was awaiting him outside. Her face was white. Her eyes, -preternaturally large, implored him. She clasped her hands tensely -against her breast. - -“Oh, Jack!” she cried, her voice nevertheless held too low to be -overheard. “We can’t let him go like that! It is Harry--after all!” - -He moved forward, and she followed him to the telephone. - -“It is Harry all right,” he agreed. “It’s clear enough what has -happened. He was shell-shocked. The hospital authorities found nothing -on him by which to identify him. No one happened to recognize him. -When he recovered consciousness he thought he was someone else--was, -in fact, someone else. There are half-a-dozen cases on record, to my -knowledge--cases that have nothing to do with the war. Dissociation -of personality is the technical term of it. He just ceases to be -Tremaine--and becomes Durham, with all its implications.” - -“But, Jack!” she expostulated. “We _know_ he’s not Durham!” - -He shrugged his shoulders as he lifted up the telephone receiver. - -“What good will it do to proclaim our knowledge?” he asked. “It insists -merely on double bigamy--smash-up all round!” - -“Then----?” she clutched at him. “You’re going to----?” - -He turned to answer the challenge of the telephone operator, gave a -number. - -“Hallo!--The Newport Hotel--Will you ask Mrs. Durham to come to the -telephone, please?--She’s staying at Room 363--right!--I’ll hold on!” - -“Jack! Jack!” His wife implored him. “It’s not right--it _can’t_ be -right!--We must tell her!” - -His attention was claimed by the telephone. - -“Hallo!--Is that Mrs. Durham?--My name’s Satterthwaite, no, you won’t -recognize it.--Your husband has met with a slight accident--nothing -serious--he’s here and he wants to know if you’ll come round and -fetch him as he feels rather shaky--yes----” he gave the address, -“--yes--ground-floor flat. Very good. We’ll expect you.” - -He put up the receiver, turned to his wife with a grim smile. - -“Now we shall see what Harry’s other choice is like,” he said. - -She was not to be diverted. - -“But, Jack--you’ll tell her?--You _must_ tell her!” she implored. - -He looked her full in the eyes. His voice was grave. - -“Evelyn! Are you tired of our life together? Do you prefer him to me?” - -She turned away her head with a hopeless gesture. - -“Oh, don’t ask me! Don’t tempt me!--I don’t want to think of myself--I -only want to do what is right! And how can it be right to--to let him -go away like a stranger from all that was his!” - -He laid his hands upon her shoulders, forced her gaze to meet his again. - -“And is it right, Evelyn, to break your life, to break my life, to -break this woman’s life--to put Harry himself into an impossible -position--out of a quixotic regard for pure ethics?” - -“Oh, I don’t know!” she said, shaking her head in mental anguish. “I -only know that he’s Harry--and that we’re disowning him----” - -“But he does not know that he is Harry Tremaine--he’s quite content to -be Durham!” - -“And if he wakes up again and remembers?” - -He shrugged his shoulders. - -“Wait till it happens. We can only deal with the actual situation. At -the present time he’s quite happily Durham!--Now, dear,” he smiled -affection, “trust me! Leave it all to me--just keep quiet!” He kissed -her on the brow. “It will all work out.” - -She turned away, shuddering. - -“He was my husband,” she said, drearily. - -“He _was_!--And your husband was killed in action on October 10th, -1918. The man in the drawing-room is a complete stranger by the name of -Durham.--Now, let us go in to him.” - -She resigned herself, with one last protest. - -“I don’t like it, Jack! I won’t promise! Right is right!” - -“In this case it is wrong! Come!” - -He led her back to the drawing-room. Their visitor rose politely from -his chair. - -“Don’t get up,” said Satterthwaite. “Your wife is coming along.” - -“Thank you,” he replied. “It is very good of you to take so much -trouble. I shall be quite all right when my wife arrives to take charge -of me.” He smiled in half-serious self-depreciation. - -The three of them sat down. The Durham personality was amiably -loquacious. The young woman watched him speechlessly, noting, with an -icy chill at her heart, a hundred little familiarities of gesture as he -sat in that old familiar chair all unconscious of any previous presence -in it. - -“I’m very muddled still,” he confided. “I can’t remember anything since -being in that street-car. The row, whatever it was, is a complete blank -to me--I can’t imagine even how I got into this street. Extraordinary, -isn’t it?” - -“Very,” agreed Satterthwaite, coolly. - -“It’s not the first time I’ve had a lapse of memory like this,” he went -on. “A shock does it. I went through the war--and--would you believe -it?--I woke up one day in hospital utterly unable to remember anything -about myself except that my name was Durham! I couldn’t remember -where I came from--nor whether I had any relatives--couldn’t remember -anything except just my name. And--this is the strange part of it--I -never have remembered. They discharged me from hospital--shell-shock -it was--and I just started life afresh.” He smiled confidently at -the young woman. “I sometimes wonder whether I was married before, -madam--but I hope not. I couldn’t part with the wife I’ve got. I -married her eighteen months ago and she’s everything to me. I don’t -think there’s another woman like her in the world! And she feels the -same about me. That’s the right sort of married life, isn’t it?” - -He waited for her agreement. Her tongue seemed to be sticking to the -roof of her dry mouth. She could only nod, speechlessly, and try to -smile. Something seemed to be crying out in her: “Harry! Harry!” -Another part of her consciousness prayed desperately for guidance. -Should she--could she--ought she to speak--to break this pathetic -little idyll he sketched for her? - -She looked curiously at his clothes. They were cheap and -ill-fitting--frayed at the trouser-ends. So different from the spruce -Harry she had known! - -As though something of her thought had communicated itself to him, he -clapped his hand suddenly to his breast-pocket, fished out a wallet, -glanced into it, put it back. - -“Whew!” he breathed in deep relief. “I had a nasty turn--thought -perhaps I had lost that in the row. It contains all I own in the -world!” He smiled. “It’s all right, though!” He glanced around him -appreciatively. “But it wouldn’t buy the things you’ve got in this -room, all the same. I admire your taste, if you’ll pardon my saying so, -madam. I’m glad my wife is coming round--I’ll show her the sort of -drawing-room we’re going to have some day, when we’ve made good!” - -His cheerful smile was heart-breaking. She felt as though she must jump -up and run across to him, shrieking that it was his--all his! That he -and she had bought it all together, every bit of it. And yet she could -not stir--could only stare at him in a fascination that was dumb. - -Satterthwaite sat apparently unmoved, but his jaw was set hard. - -“Perhaps you’ll come in for a legacy some day,” he said, casually. - -His wife glanced at him, reading his thought. Of course, Jack would not -do anything mean, would compensate him somehow! She was suddenly very -grateful to him. The idea of a future anonymous restitution lightened -her conscience a little. - -“It’s not likely!” said their visitor, indifferently. “We have neither -of us any relatives--my wife and I. And I don’t care so long as I’ve -got her. When we get some youngsters we shall be the happiest family -going!” He smiled--and she thought of Dorothy, peacefully asleep in the -other room. She shut out the picture with an effort. - -The door-bell rang, and, with an enormous relief, she sprang up to -answer it. Anything to put an end to this torture! For one moment, in -the hall, she hesitated. - -“Help me! help me, O God, to do what is right!” she prayed in -dumb agony. And the question came up inexorably before her, vast, -overpowering, not to be solved. Right!--what was right? - -She opened the door. - -An insignificant-looking little woman of the lower middle-class stood -on the threshold, nervously agitated, her eyes wild with alarm. - -“My husband?” she asked, breathlessly. “Mr. Durham?” - -“He’s here,” replied Mrs. Satterthwaite, coldly. “This way.” - -She led her to the drawing-room and Harry Tremaine’s two wives entered -together, the one beautiful, refined, exquisitely dressed--the other -commonplace, dowdy, the cheaply attired product of a cheap city suburb, -good-hearted vulgarity in every line of her. Mrs. Satterthwaite looked -from the man who had been her husband to the woman who was now his -wife--and her heart turned suddenly to stone. - -“Here is Mr. Durham,” she said. With something of a shock, -Satterthwaite admired her consummate ease of manner. - -The little woman had rushed forward to her husband. - -“Oh, Ed, Ed!” she cried, ignoring Satterthwaite, who stood up politely. -“What is the matter?--You’re not hurt?--Not badly?” - -“I’m all right, dear,” he said, embracing her. “I’ll tell you all about -it presently. These kind people took me in and looked after me.” - -She turned to them. - -“Oh, thank you so much!” she said, effusively. “It _is_ good of -you!--And I don’t know what _would_ have happened if anything serious -had gone wrong with Ed to-night!--You see, we’re sailing for Buenos -Ayres to-morrow! And he’s got such a good post--an agency--and if -anything had prevented his going----” - -“Never mind that, my dear,” said Durham, cutting short her loquacity. -“These kind people do not want to go into our private affairs. Come -along. I’ve inconvenienced them enough already.” He held out his hand -to Mrs. Satterthwaite. “Good-bye, madam--and many thanks.” - -She looked him in the eyes as she took his hand. They were the eyes of -a stranger. - -“Good-bye, Mr. Durham,” she said, and turned away. - -Satterthwaite escorted the couple to the door. - -“Your hat is here,” he said, as he took it off the clothes-peg where -Tremaine had hung it. “Good-bye.--Good-bye, Mr. Durham.--What boat do -you sail by to-morrow?” The enquiry was in the most casual tone of -courteous interest. - -“The _Manhattan_.” - -“Pleasant voyage--and good luck to you both!” he said, cheerfully, and -closed the door. He stood for a moment listening to their happy voices -as they went out of the building and then turned to find his wife -standing by his side. - -“Jack!” she cried, and her eyes searched his face as if to read -acknowledged partnership in a crime. “He’s gone?” - -He nodded, smiling at her. - -“Gone, right enough--and he’ll get his legacy. I can trace him quite -easily now we know the name of his boat. That gives us a clear -conscience.” - -“Does it, Jack?--Does it?--Oh, I wish I could be sure!--Durham is not -the man Tremaine was!” - -“He’s a happier man than Tremaine would be, anyway! Think of their -delight when they get that legacy!” He led her back into the -dining-room, where the remains of their anniversary feast were yet upon -the table. “And, dear!” he looked into her eyes, “we are happier people -than we should have been had Durham not replaced Tremaine!” - -She shook her head, still doubtful. - -“But if he remembers?” she queried. - -“He goes a long way off, into a new environment. The chances are -against his remembering at all. If he does,” he shrugged his shoulders, -“he will probably himself put it down as a hallucination from which his -devoted little wife will nurse him back. Don’t worry, my dear. We did -the right thing.” - -“If only I could be sure!” she said, with a sigh. - - * * * * * * - -The next morning Dorothy woke up to see her mother bending over her bed. - -“Where’s Dada, Mummy?” she asked. - -“Dada?” said Mrs. Satterthwaite, as though she did not understand. - -“Yes,” said the child. “Dada--Dada who came back last night!” - -Her mother shook her head, smilingly. - -“You dreamed it, dear,” she said. “Dada was killed in the war.” - - - - -THE LOVERS - - -He opened the door into darkness and fumbled for the switch. The -spacious, beautifully furnished living-room of the flat--long, -dark bookcase filled with mellowed leather bindings; large, soft -bearskins compensating for the insufficiency of the delicate Persian -carpet on the parquet floor; a few precious prints spaced with an -exquisite reticence upon the walls; an Oriental bibelot here and there -emphasizing the quiet charm of English eighteenth-century furniture -with its touch of the cunningly grotesque; two great leather-covered -chairs by the fireside--was suffused with soft light. - -He stood in the doorway--tall, lean, handsome, forceful with a touch of -asceticism--and smiled to the corridor. - -“Here we are!” he said, his voice on a note of happiness. “At last!” - -He stretched out his arms to the girl upon the threshold. She came -into the light--tall almost as he, long fur coat half-open over her -tailor-made costume, finely modelled head poised in a graceful, -winsome upturn of the face, smiling at him in a radiance of eyes and -mouth--and, on the movement of an irresistible impulse, cast herself -into his embrace. - -“At last!” she echoed. “Oh, Jim, dear!--at last--at long last!” - -He held her, and she snuggled into his shoulder, face upturned to his, -drawing his kisses down to her with the magnetism of her lips. - -The quaint enamel clock on the mantelpiece ticked, just heard, the -passing seconds of eternity, the only sound in the silence of their -union. - -Then, with the long breath of recovery from the timeless swoon of a -kiss prolonged to its uttermost limit, she turned her head slowly to -gaze about the room. - -“Oh, Jim!” she said, in affectionate reproach, “and you told me you -were a poor man!” - -He shrugged his shoulders, his lips mobile in a little smile. - -“Well, dear,” he replied in whimsical apology, “compared with the -daughter of a man who owns half a city--compared with what you -might have had!” He looked into her eyes. “Helen! You won’t regret? -They’ll rub it in to you--the title you’ve thrown away--the position -in society--what they’ll be pleased to term your hole and corner -marriage----” - -She laughed happily. - -“Oh, Jim!--I’ve got you and you’ve got me--and nothing else matters--it -seems to me that you and I are the only two people in the world!” She -assured herself of a tightening of his embrace with a touch of her hand -on his as she looked up into his eyes with a slow, smiling shake of the -head that affirmed her love. “As if only you and I ever existed--and -had always loved! As if all through eternity we had waited for this! As -if I was born to be just Jim Dacres’s wife!” - -He looked down upon her, eyes into eyes. - -“Darling!” His voice was low and earnest in a sincerity beyond doubt. -“Jim Dacres’s wife you are--and, please God, I’ll never let you go!” - -With one more kiss she disengaged herself, came into the centre of the -room, threw her fur coat back from the shoulders with a smile that -invited the assistance he was prompt to give. - -“Are we all alone?” she asked, glancing round, struck by the quietude -of the flat. - -“All alone, dear,” he replied, folding her coat over a chair. “I told -Mrs. Wilkinson she could go out. I thought it would be good to have it -all to ourselves for this first evening--you and I alone in Paradise, -darling!” He kissed her, drew her toward the fire. “Warm yourself, my -beauty--and pretend it is my heart!” He squeezed her shoulders with -broad, strong hands. - -She shook her head at him in roguish reproof, as she spread her -fingers--the new gold ring upon one of them--before the blaze he -stirred. - -“Pretty, pretty!” she rebuked him. “Where has Jim Dacres learned to -make love, I should like to know!” - -“In your eyes, dearest!” he replied, smiling into them. “In your eyes -that open right back into a soul that knows immemorial secrets and -knows them all as love!” - -She felt quietly for his hand and held it, without a word, through -moments where speech was profanation. - -Then, with a long breath, feminine curiosity awaking in her, she turned -her head and glanced once more around the room. - -“It’s charming, Jim!” she asserted. “I didn’t know you had so much -taste. Where did you get all these beautiful things?” She left the -fireside, began to roam about the room, peering into cabinets, picking -up one precious object after another, turning over the pages of the -books that lay upon the tables. - -He watched her lithe, graceful movements with admiration. - -“All over the place,” he answered, negligently. “China, Japan--a few in -Italy----” - -“And this?” she asked, holding up a large crystal ball, supported in a -lotus cup upon the back of a carved ivory elephant studded with amber -and turquoise and coral, its feet upon an ivory tortoise. “What is -this?” - -“Oh--that! I got that in India. Some old crystal-gazer’s outfit. It’s -a few hundred years old--symbolizes the universe, you know. The world -rests upon an elephant and the elephant upon a tortoise. I don’t know -what the tortoise stands on----” - -Her face was bright with interest. - -“And have you ever looked into it?” - -“Of course not.” His tone was contemptuous. “I don’t go in for that -sort of thing. I didn’t buy that--an old Hindoo priest gave it to me--a -nice old chap who was good enough to adopt me more or less, years ago -now.” - -“Oh, Jim! Do let us look into it!” Her voice was ecstatic in a sudden -excitement. “Do let’s look!” - -“You won’t see anything,” he emphasized his pessimism in a grudge at -the interest she diverted from him to this inanimate object. “It’s -all rot, you know--only people with brain-sick imaginations ever see -things--or think they see things.” - -“Oh, but do let’s try!” She came across to him, the crystal in her -hand. “Do, there’s a darling!” The appeal of the kiss-pouted lips in -the face turned up to him, eyes bright with ingenuous vivacity, was -irresistible. - -He shrugged his shoulders with large good-humour. - -“All right--but it’s waste of time.” - -“Is anything waste of time when we are together, dear?” She nestled -up to him, drew the kiss that was inevitable. “It’s all part of the -romance. Now, be good and do as I tell you. Switch off the lights--the -firelight is enough.” - -He obeyed, with a gesture of tolerant complaisance that could refuse no -whim. The room relapsed into shadows shifting in the blaze of the fire -that he had stirred. - -“Now come and sit close by me here,” she dictated, delightfully -imperious to this tall strong man, seating herself in one of the -big chairs by the fireside. “There is room for two. That’s right.” -He squeezed his long body into the seat beside her. She held up the -crystal ball. “Now you hold it with one hand and I will hold it with -one hand--like this!” With her free hand she clasped the hand that -remained on her knee. “That’s all I want to see, dear--our joint -fates, linked together.” Her voice was soft and tender, thrillingly -sincere. “Just you and I--for ever--past or future, darling, what does -it matter?--it’s all one long life that is only real when you and I -touch.” She finished with a sigh of happiness. - -He responded in a gentle pressure of her hand. Together they stared -into the crystal sphere they jointly held. Minute after minute passed -in silence, in a pervading sense of intimate communion where their -pulse-beats, in the contact of their hands, regulated themselves to an -identical rhythm. - -“I see nothing,” he murmured, vaguely disappointed, “nothing at all.” - -“Patience!” she breathed, intent on the crystal, but sparing him -a little squeeze of the fingers in recognition of his presence. -“Look!--keep on looking!” - -Again there was silence. The ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece -became almost hypnotic in its monotony. The fire dulled down, its light -no longer reflected in leaping flashes in the crystal. - -“Look!” she whispered. “It’s clouding over--going milky! Do you see?” - -He nodded assent, unwilling to break the spell by speech, mysteriously -awed as he, too, saw a milky cloud suffuse the depths of the crystal. -Holding their breath, they waited, closely linked, for they knew not -what of vision. - -As they stared into it, almost unconscious now of their own bodies, of -the muscular effort that held the crystal globe in unvarying focus from -their eyes, they saw the cloud break and clear in a widening rift that -seemed to open into infinity. - -“Look!” she murmured. “_It’s coming!_--Look--_People!_--crowds of -them--running and jostling each other! Look, it’s a fête of some -sort--a lot of them have cockades! Do you see?” - -In fact, the depths of the crystal were suddenly inhabited. A throng of -tiny figures, men and women, surged, broke up, flocked together again -in high excitement, arms waving in the air. Over their heads other -figures leaned out from the upper windows of a row of more distant -houses--evidently the scene was a public square--and waved also in -diminutive enthusiasm. Their costumes seemed like fancy dress--men -in long, bright-coloured coats with enormous lapels and tight-fitting -trousers with broad stripes of some contrasting colour--women in -high-waisted dresses and poke bonnets or no bonnets at all--men and -women, and these the greater number, the dominant majority of the -crowd, in the nondescript vestments of squalid, ugly poverty. The -better-dressed men and women wore prominently, all of them, a cockade -or rosette of red, white, and blue. - -The crowd packed close together in a common impulse, was agitated -by a common emotion that set a forest of arms waving above their -heads and contorted their faces in cries that were inaudible. -Something was happening in that square--something that evoked fierce -passion--invisible behind the densely serried mob whose backs alone -could be seen. - -“Look!” breathed the girl in the chair. “Look!--that poor girl!” There -was a curious accent of vivid sympathy in the whispered ejaculation. - -A young girl was forcing her way through the throng, her face covered -in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs, weeping convulsively -in a paroxysm of despair. The crowd, intent on the spectacle beyond, -parted and made way for her automatically. - -“Oh,” murmured the girl in the chair, “I feel so funny--I feel I want -to cry, too--as if a terrible calamity had suddenly come upon me--a -frightful danger to someone I loved----” She shuddered, “oh, it’s -awful!--it numbs me--it’s--it’s as if I felt what _she_ was feeling!” - -The girl in the vision took her hands from her face, looked about her -with eyes of wild misery. - -“My God, Helen!” whispered the man in the chair, in a thrill of -excitement. “_It’s you!_” - -“Shh!” she breathed, gazing intently into the magic scene. The air -about them seemed mysteriously charged with tumultuous passion, with -the inaudible vociferations of that surging mob. To both, it seemed as -though they were in contact with a real crowd, beset by the vague, -fierce emotions that gather and roll in the collective, primitive soul -of humanity in congregation. It set their hearts to a quicker beat, -bewildered their brains with unheard clamours. - -The girl in the vision--so strikingly like the girl in the chair that -she seemed a duplication of her personality--drew herself erect on the -edge of the crowd and wiped her eyes. Evidently, with a great effort, -she was mastering herself. The girl in the chair drew a hard breath, -as though of some supreme determination. Then, taking a few steps, the -figure that they watched moved close under the houses of the nearer -side of the square and, looking up at the doorways as though seeking an -inscription, commenced to walk along the pavement. - -The crystal held her still as its centre--like the lens of a -cinematograph following always the chief personage upon the -screen--and, watching her, the man and woman in the chair forgot the -globe that they held with cataleptic rigidity, forgot the diminished -scale of the vision. Their perceptions adjusted themselves like those -of children who day-dream among their toys, and it seemed to both of -them that they gazed into a real scene with full-sized human emotions -at clash in the acute earnestness of present life. - -The girl, her face white and tense, her eyes fixed in the courage -of timidity brought to despair, moved along the houses. Suddenly -she stopped, looking upward to a portal surmounted by a trophy -of tri-coloured flags and a shield on which the three words -“_Liberté--Egalité--Fraternité_” were crudely emblazoned. A couple of -ruffianly men in quasi-military uniform, exaggeratedly large cocked -hats coming down over their ears, short pipes in the mouths hidden by -untrimmed, pendent moustaches, enormously long muskets with bayonets -fixed leaning against the bandoliers across their chests, guarded the -doorway. The girl spoke to them, with vehement gestures, evidently -imploring entrance. They barred her path, callously untouched by her -agonized entreaty. She pointed up to an inscription below the trophy -“_RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE--Réprésentant en Mission_,” smiled at them in -a heart-breaking assumption of coquetry, candid innocence never more -purely virginal. One of them shrugged his shoulders and spat upon the -cobbled pavement without removing his pipe. The other winked broadly, -and, still retaining his musket, reached out with his disengaged hand. -The girl shrank back, horror in her eyes--and then, as if bethinking -herself of an unfailing resource, felt feverishly in the neckerchief -which covered her bosom. She drew out a packet of notes, offered them. -With a broad grin on their faces, the two ruffians parted to allow her -passage. - -She climbed an uncarpeted, dreary staircase and hesitated for a -moment outside a door inscribed “_le citoyen réprésentant du peuple -Desnouettes_.” She knocked timidly, opened, and entered. - -Across a large bare room a young man was seated, writing, at a table. -A broad tri-coloured sash barred his blue, wide-collared coat and -white waistcoat. He had divested himself of the cocked hat with three -absurdly large plumes of blue, white, and red which lay upon the -table and the long hair of his uncovered head reached almost to his -shoulders. He looked up, as if startled, at his visitor, looked up -with a young face whose intellectual keenness, whose vivid, passionate -eyes above the long nose and almost ascetic mouth were strangely, -disconcertingly reminiscent of--of---- - -“_Jim!_” gasped the young woman in the chair, feeling herself in that -curious state of split identity where the unaffected, remote Ego -registers without controlling the adventures of a dream. - -“Shh!” he murmured in his turn, bewildered to find himself as it were -looking at his own personality and, though as at the other side of a -partition in his soul, experiencing the feelings of the man at whom he -gazed. An echo of a surprise, of a mysterious surprise that disturbed -him to the depths--of something that had come, startlingly new and -powerful though not yet fully manifest, into his life--reverberated -in the recesses of his being as he contemplated the girl. And then a -counter-impulse flooded him, the impulse that made him set his mouth, -rejecting with an assertion of his own personality wedded to some vague -ideal, the vulgar influence of a human emotion. He felt as though the -girl approached _him_, as she moved toward that young man who regarded -her with a stern frigidity. - -“_Citoyenne?_” he was surprised to find himself murmuring the coldly -polite query, as though repeating it after that insultingly superior -young man. - -He heard the gasp of the young woman at his side as of someone -infinitely remote from him. His real being was in that large bare room -where the superb young republican scrutinized the young girl with a -cold glance that put her out of countenance. Yet how beautiful she was -as she blushed up to her eyes, youthful modesty in confusion! He felt -something flush warm within his breast, a vague emotion that dissipated -the assurance underneath his sternly maintained aspect. Before she had -spoken, an alarm to the threatened supremacy of his cold reason rang -through the depths of him. He reacted with a severity that he obscurely -felt to be excessive, reiterated almost with menace “_Citoyenne?_” Was -the word really uttered from his lips? He did not know. - -She came close, poured out her trouble in a flood of nervous, anguished -speech that he comprehended perfectly without being able to arrest -a single definite word in his memory--it was as though that part -of him which understood was something deep down, lying beyond the -necessity for spoken language. Of course! he comprehended with a kind -of awakening memory--that old _émigré_ who had stolen back disguised, -in defiance of the laws, whom he had arrested for plotting against -the safety of that Republic One and Indivisible of which he was the -incorruptible servant, whose name he had but just put on the fatal -list of the next batch for the guillotine! He chilled, mercilessly; -wondered for a moment at his own inexorability, and then, as his -identification with the scene completed itself, understood it. - -For a crime against himself, against another individual, he might -have had compassion. The conspirator against that fanaticized ideal -of his soul, the young Republic fighting in rags for its life, for -the ultimate freedom of all humanity, was guilty of the unforgiveable -sin. He steeled himself, in a pride of approximation to that Brutus, -to those other sternly incorruptible Roman republicans with whom his -imagination was filled. No human tears, no human despair however -poignant, should move him from his path of duty. He felt his teeth -set hard over the absurd feebleness in his breast as his eyes rested, -coldly he hoped, upon that beautiful girl who stood, strangely -disturbing in her closeness, and stretched out her arms to him in -agonized appeal. As if telepathically, his soul was filled with her -passionate, eloquent entreaty--he had to fight down the tears which -threatened his eyes in sympathy with those which suffused the beautiful -orbs which looked into his, in despair of softening them. - -And she--the woman in the chair, remote spheres away, trembled -at a trouble in her soul, at an awakening of something else in -her--something that was wrong, unpardonably at variance with every -standard of her life, as she looked into those stern but fascinating -eyes in the ascetic face and pleaded her cause. She despised herself -for the blush she felt creep over her. Her father’s life--her father’s -life!--what else dared she think of? This superb young man was an -enemy, an implacable enemy, the incarnation of all the crimes wreaked -upon her class! Yet her dignity imposed upon her, and she dared not -practice that false coquetry upon him that, in a sublime abnegation of -her own pride, she had promised herself to use as a supreme resource. -She could only plead, plead passionately, in utter sincerity, the best -in her appealing to the best in him--and she scorned herself for -admitting that there was that best to evoke. - -A devil stirred in him, subtly malicious, tempting him with an -intellectual bait that was the disguise of passions of whose -reality he was but vaguely cognizant. These proud _aristos_! The -bitterness of a youth of humiliations surged up in him, avid for -vengeance. He encouraged it as a protection against himself. He -would show them--these oppressors of the people, these enemies of -the republic--who sent their womenfolk to corrupt the virtuous -representatives of the nation! Two could play at that game! He smiled -in the thought of the insult he prepared. - -With a quick movement he rose from his seat and, on an impulse that -was almost blind in its swift fulfilment, put his arm round the girl’s -waist and kissed her full on the mouth. The act was done before her -instinct of self-protection could assert itself--and then she pushed -him away in sudden revolt, stood facing him with panting bosom and a -countenance where emotions chased each other in alternations of white -and red. For a moment she contemplated him, breathing tumultuously, and -then, with a gesture of disgust, she wiped her lips. Her eyes looked -straight into his with angry dignity, withered him with their fierce -disdain. A bitter smile wreathed her lips. - -“_Er, bien, citoyen_--you have had your pay. My father’s life!” - -Did he actually hear the words? The low, scornfully vengeful laugh -which came involuntarily from him was like an echo, far off, of -that mocking laugh, inaudible now, in the bare room where the young -commissary, arrogant with the outrage he had inflicted upon this -representative of a superior race, drew himself up in his conscious -incorruptibility. - -“Your father dies to-morrow, _citoyenne_!” The marble coldness of his -voice was a triumph of which he was not sure until it rang in his ears. -He exulted in its echo, like a saint self-consciously a victor over -temptation. - -Their eyes met, looked into each other with a sudden furious, -unappeasable hatred--a hatred which flooded them with a passion that -was bigger than themselves--that soul-devouring hatred, clutching -instinctively at death for its expression, which is the other face -of violent love. Between these souls, in commotion far beyond their -consciousness, indifference was not possible. They had met, and the -world was in upheaval. - -He heard the hiss of a long breath drawn in through clenched teeth--he -distinguished no longer between the girl like a brooding invisibility -in the chair beside him and the panting girl confronting that suddenly -pale young patriot whom he watched with inexpressible fascination. He -saw the insult, like livid lightning, in her face before she hurled it -at him. - -“_Canaille!_” - -The word rang close in his ear, and yet infinitely far away, on an -accent of vindictive emphasis that struck to his soul. - -A fury surged up in him, a blind fury that annihilates with one -ruthless blow of its insulted strength. - -He stamped a signal on the floor. - -“You also, _citoyenne_, will die to-morrow!” The decree, cold as the -bloodless lips which uttered it, echoed in him to a savage satisfaction. - -The girl remained motionless, head high, in superb indifference to his -threat. The door behind her was flung open. The two ruffianly guards -ran in, sprang to grip her arms in obedience to his imperious gesture. -She smiled at him, splendid in unshakable disdain. - -“_We prefer to die!_” - -He motioned them out, livid with a rage beyond words. She went, -proudly, unresistingly between her brutal captors. At the door she -turned her head and smiled at him again, a smile full of significance. - -“_Canaille!_” - -He sat down to his table and, in a furious scrawl, added a name to his -list. - -... The vision dissolved in blackness, in an obliteration, for timeless -moments, of all thought.... - -They found themselves looking into a long dark hall, its gloom -inadequately relieved by high barred windows. Straw littered the floor -and was collected into little heaps along the walls. Dimly discerned in -the shadows was a throng of people, men and women--some promenading up -and down in solitary dejection, some in groups seated upon the straw -at a game of cards, some leaning propped against the wall in listless -despair. He gazed into that Hades-like abode of misery with a curious -anxiety at his heart, an anxiety whose cause for the moment eluded -him. He watched, waiting in a vague expectation of some event that -approached and was yet unseen. - -A door in the foreground opened and, with a little intimate shock, he -saw enter that mysterious duplication of his personality that was he -and yet was not he--the sternly ascetic young _répreséntant en mission_ -whose plumed hat and sash of office proclaimed his authority in this -dreadful place. A subservient turnkey followed at his heels, called a -name. - -A young girl--_she_--she of the bare room overlooking the square, she -of--of--he failed to identify another appearance he knew ought to be -familiar--started up from a bed of straw where she had been sitting in -company with an old man. She approached, in quiet command of herself, -neither hastily nor reluctantly. Obviously, she was indifferent to -whatever might be required of her. Only when she perceived the identity -of her visitor did she start back in a sudden little hesitation, -vanquished as soon as felt. She came coolly up to him, regarded him -with contemptuously hostile eyes, awaited his business with her. - -He was trembling with emotions that almost overpowered him--the soul -that watched felt itself gripped in an agony of remorse, of fear, -of--something else that he would not acknowledge. He stammered -evidently as he spoke. - -“_Citoyenne_, come with me--you are free!” - -She looked at him in blank surprise. - -“Free?” - -The inaudible words were plain to those two watching souls who had long -ago forgotten the crystal that they held. Both thrilled with a sense of -crisis in which they were intimately involved. - -The young man reiterated his assertion eagerly. - -“And my father?” The girl turned her head toward the melancholy figure -bowed in dejection on its heap of straw. - -He shrugged his shoulders. - -“Your father is guilty of a crime against the Republic. I can do -nothing for him. But you have committed no crime, _citoyenne_” - -Her eyes looked into his, probed him. - -“Nor have many here. Why do you release me?” - -He lost control of himself in his eagerness to withdraw her from the -danger into which he had himself wantonly plunged her. - -“Because--because I love you! Because I cannot let you die!--Because--I -cannot help it--you are all of life to me, _citoyenne_!” - -She looked at him, her face like a carven sphinx, her eyes inscrutable. - -“I go--wherever my father goes!” - -He stood, deathly pale, wrestling with a terrible temptation. She -watched his agony, without malice, without sympathy, cold like a slave -in the market who may be bought--for a price. All of him that was human -yearned for her, yearned for her unutterably in a surge of desire that -all but overcame him--and yet an austere inner self, that self which -had vowed itself to the idealized service of the Republic in youthful -fanaticism, stood firm although it agonized. He felt himself a worthy -spiritual successor of that Scaevola who stood with his hand in the -fire, as he answered, cold sweat upon his brow. - -“_Citoyenne_, it is impossible. I cannot buy even your love with my -dishonour. Your father has committed a crime against the Republic--but -you have committed none.” - -She shrugged her shoulders in calm indifference. An insulting smile -came into her face. - -“Then I will do so!” She turned toward the prisonful of victims with -the exultant gesture of a martyr who demands the stake, and cried, -evidently with full lungs: “_Vive le Roi! À bas la République!_” - -“_Vive le Roi!--À bas la République!_” came like a murmured echo from -somewhere beyond defined space, in defiant mockery of all that he -craved. - -He watched her turn away from him, an immense despair submerging him, -and went slowly, head down, toward the door as though himself condemned. - -She turned for one last look at him as he disappeared, a strange wild -ecstasy in her face--and then flung herself face downward upon the -straw in a paroxysm of hysteric sobs. - -Whence came those murmured words, charged with unutterable passion, -with the intensity of a soul that gathers its essence for its leap into -the infinite dark? - -“Now--now I can love him! Death, death! come quickly!--now I have the -right to love!” - -There was a glimpse of a face suddenly radiant through its tears--and -then again blackness, a suspense of thought. - -He stood with his back to the room, looking out upon the square filled -with a surging mob. In the middle, upon a raised scaffold, stood the -terrible red-painted uprights with the gleaming knife under the linking -beam, poised ready for the swift fall of its diagonal edge. The mob -swirled in a sudden turbulence under the windows. He knew what it meant. - -There, forcing its slow passage through the maddened crowd, came the -fatal cart--a rough vehicle filled with hatless men and women whose -necks were bare and whose hands were bound, men and women who seemed -deaf to the vociferations of the bloodthirsty mob that raved about -them. He shuddered--slipped his right hand into his pocket, held it -there, his gaze fastened in horrible fascination upon that slowly -moving cartload of already almost lifeless human beings. He saw, -clearly, only one figure, a girl in white, and he waited--in an agony -which held him rigid. - -The cart lurched its slow way to the scaffold, stopped. The victims -began to descend. He saw the figure in white mount the steps to -the machine, saw it turn its head at the last moment toward his -window--and, as though it were the signal expected, he whipped the -pistol from his pocket, glimpsed the dark hole of its barrel, and fired. - -The man and woman in the chair stared into a crystal ball whose depths -were suffused with a milky cloud. - -“Oh, Jim!” she murmured. “_The last time----!_” - -“Shh!” he said, with a squeeze of her hand. “Look! It’s coming again!” - -Once more the cloud parted--they peered, breath held for further -revelations, into a crude contrast of bright light and intense shadow, -upon a striped awning at an angle from a wall glaring in the sun, upon -a narrow street where dust rose yellow like an illumined cloud above a -dark throng of Asiatics, their white robes almost blue in the shadow, -who gesticulated and pushed each other as they packed themselves into a -semicircle of eager faces. Their vision adjusting itself to the violent -juxtaposition of high light and deep shadow, they stared into the -comparative sombreness under the awning, to the object which held the -interest of the crowd. - -In a cleared space, in front of a trio of barbaric musicians who -squatted cross-legged upon the ground in serious management of pipe and -tom-toms, a dancing-girl postured in fluidic attitudes of her lithe, -slim body. Arms and legs covered with bracelets, she turned, stretched, -and twisted herself in accompaniment to a rhythm which escaped them. -Indefatigably she danced, heedless of the eager, appreciative eyes upon -her, her face expressionless in a rapt absorption where consciousness -of her environment seemed lost. The crowd shouted inaudible -encouragements in flashes of gleaming teeth, flung flowers and small -coins on to the mat whereon she danced, swayed with contagious waves -of enthusiasm. The girl danced on, indifferent to the applause, -ecstatically absorbed in the perfection of her art. Only one or other -of the serious musicians lifted an occasional bright, sharp glance to -the increasing spread of coins upon the mat. - -Suddenly there was a commotion in the rear of the crowd, a jostling and -elbowing which propagated itself to the front rank. The throng parted, -with alarmed turns of the head to some disturbance behind them. A huge -elephant appeared, gliding forward with slow and stately motion to -the rhythmic wave of its sensitive trunk. Upon the gorgeous cloth of -its back was poised a richly carved and gilt _howdah_ surmounted by a -gigantic umbrella in scarlet and gold. Beneath that umbrella reposed a -languid young man, handsome with aquiline nose and splendid eyes under -the magnificent turban which crowned his dark head. He lifted his hand -in a gesture to the mahout perched on the neck of the elephant, and the -great animal stopped, left in a clear space by the crowd which fell -back reverently from its neighbourhood. - -Still the girl danced on, heedless, unperceiving perhaps, of the -prince who watched her from his lofty seat. The musicians, after one -quick glance upward of apprehension, risked boldly and played on with -undisturbed solemnity. She danced with a sinuous grace that held the -eye in fascination, with an intensity of restrained movement, daringly -provocative though were her postures, which thrilled the watcher with -a sense of suppressed and concentrated passion whose potentialities -might not be measured. She danced, the incarnation of the fierce pulse -of life that beats beneath the fallacious languor of the East, her body -charged with vitality as it bent and straightened with lithe precision -to another curve, her face carven, expressionless, as though her soul -were withdrawn to its mysterious centre. The prince clapped his hands -in irrepressible enthusiasm. She stopped dead, stood rigidly upright -facing him, arms close to her sides, arabesqued breastlets thrust -forward, a slim statue that quivered with magically arrested life, in a -motionless effrontery that challenged his regard, his very power. Their -eyes met, looked into each other while the musicians ceased to play. -What was that of intense communion which sped between them? With a -sudden gesture the prince flung a handful of golden coins into the mat, -made a grave inclination of his head. - -The elephant moved onward. With a smile of triumph, with a breath -long-drawn through her nostrils, and eyes that closed ecstatically for -a moment as in a dream realized, the girl followed in the train of his -gorgeously attired retinue.... - -_They knew_--those watchers who gazed as through the rent veils -of eternity, apprehending with minds that had ceased to be -corporeal--recognizing themselves once more, though in an incarnation -immeasurably remote, an incarnation whose transient language was long -ago forgotten. - -The vision changed abruptly. They gazed into the hall of an Oriental -palace, arabesqued arches in a colonnade on either side, tessellated -marble in cool colours patterning the floor, ebony-black slaves waving -peacock fans above a cushioned divan on which the prince reclined. An -indulgent smile played over his handsome features as he toyed with the -unbraided hair of the beautiful girl who sat at his feet, in confident -lassitude against his knee, and turned her head back to gaze up into -his face with eyes voluptuously fond. She sighed with happiness--her -face no longer expressionless as in the public dance, but charged with -a yearning intensity of love. He, too, yearned over her with his grave -smile, bent his head down for the kiss her lips put up to him.... - -Again the scene changed. It was night in the colonnaded hall, moonbeams -patching the tessellated floor, flickering points of yellow flame -swinging slightly with the hanging lamps in the gloom under the -intricacy of the arches. A shadow moved out of the darkness, stood in -the moonlight, waited for a moment, then dropped a veil from its face. -It was the dancing-girl. She turned questing eyes about her as though, -at risk to herself, she was fulfilling an appointment that was not yet -met. - -Another shadow slid out of the gloom under the arches, approached -her--another woman, young also and also beautiful, but with a -beauty--its character was startlingly vivid to those watchers--that -was insinuatingly treacherous, the beauty that smiles as it betrays. -She stood now with the erstwhile dancing-girl in the moonlight, spoke -to her with an assumption of gravely concerned and pitying friendship, -shook her head dolefully as though in distress at her own message. -The dancing-girl revolted with a vehement gesture of denial, of -impossibility--but her dark eyes flashed and her nostrils quivered. The -other persisted, in emphatic asseveration, her face a study in subtle -malice. She pointed to the heavy curtains which draped the just-seen -extremity of the hall, a fiercely assertive significance in her gesture. - -The girl shrank back, shuddered. Then, with a slow turn of her body -from the tempter, she relapsed into herself, into a fierce meditation -where her eyes swept the shadows about her, where her lips uncovered -her teeth in a quick-caught breath and her clenched fist went slowly, -tensely, up to the side of her head in an agony that was beyond -words. The other woman contemplated her, just restraining a smile, -diabolically malicious--appealed once more to those hanging curtains -for proof of her sincerity. The girl, forlorn, gripped in some immense -unhappiness, nodded sombrely, with set teeth. With one last unobserved -smile of evil triumph, the other woman vanished. - -For a long moment the girl hesitated. Then, with stealthy, feline -step, her shoulders crouched, she commenced to move along the hall. -Her gaze, a gaze of wide-open eyes set in the horror of some torture -of the soul, was fixed as though fascinated upon those heavy curtains -which she approached. She attained them, stopped, stood with one hand -in a final hesitation upon the folds, her bosom heaving with fiercely -primitive emotions. Then, in a violent determination, she flung them -aside. - -Beyond, in a small torch-lit apartment, the prince reclined in company -with another woman. His head turned in sudden anger to the intruder. -Before he could make a movement of defence or escape, the dancing-girl -had sprung upon him, with a bound like a tigress, a long knife flashing -in her hand.... - -Even as they gasped their horror, they found themselves once more -staring at the milky cloud suffusing the depths of the crystal globe. - -“Oh, Jim!” she breathed, in an awe-stricken recognition, “that was _my_ -crime--the crime for which you punished me----” - -“Look!” he murmured. “Look! It is not finished yet.” - -In fact, the cloud was parting once more, parting this time over a -scene in ancient Egypt. Once more they recognized themselves, princess -and priest of a temple, in a drama that passed vaguely, too quickly in -its remoteness to be fully grasped, before their sight. - -Scene after scene unfolded itself in the depths of the crystal, in a -succession of varying settings, in an ever-briefer duration, an ever -more vague drama of relationship, whose blurred outlines were perhaps -the effect of their fatigued attention, no longer able to follow in -their details visions possibly as minutely exhibited as the first. -Always their two personalities, in ever-changing incarnations, met -and reacted in wild passions that claimed them fully. In the eternal -history of their lives, all was possible, all had happened, every -variation of experience--save only indifference to each other. An -unseen link held them always, tightened into contact from the moment -of propinquity. On islands in a blue sea furrowed by long-oared and -primitive galleys; in cities of Cyclopean masonry that glittered, -as if vitrified, in a burning sun; in dark forests where skin-clad -savages went furtively with stone-barbed spears and knelt in worship -of the animal that they had just slain; by the side of reedy lakes -where hairy, scarce-human creatures crouched and gnawed the bones they -plucked from the embers--always they two met and always they were -lovers, fortunate sometimes, tragic sometimes, but always lovers. - -Beyond humanity, far into the mists of time where strange shapes bodied -themselves, unrecognizable, and were dissipated into others yet more -strange, the visions continued in ever-increasing recession--leading -back into a distance where they lost all sense of personal -participation among vague and formless shadows. - -They watched, in a breathless fascination. - -Still farther back, beyond those shadows, something began to glow in -the depths of a night that cleared to transparent blackness, a ball -of fire, of living light that pulsed with intense incandescence in an -uttermost remoteness. And, as they watched, it divided itself, split -into two smaller spheres that circled about each other, throwing -out flames that reached like clutching arms in vain endeavour to -reëstablish unity. For an incomputable period--it seemed æons to those -souls who watched--they circled, held in mutual attraction and yet -still apart despite the reaching streamers. And then slowly, slowly, -they approached--their light heightening to a yet more vivid brightness -as they drew near.... - -The crystal globe slipped from numbed fingers into the fireplace. As -though roused from a dream by the crash of its contact with the brass -curb, the girl started and turned to her companion. He picked up the -crystal, starred and fissured with its fall--henceforth useless. - -“Oh, Jim!” she cried in poignant regret. “We shall not see---- What is -going to happen _this_ time?” - -She held his hand between her two, gazed up into his face in fond -anxiety, yearned out to him. - -He put down the crystal, drew her close, enfolded her. - -“Love!” he answered. “Love--once more and for always! And, to us, dear, -nothing else matters. It is the one reality.” - -In each other’s eyes they saw, with a perception transcending physical -vision, the divine light of those sundered spheres that drew together. - - - - -HELD IN BONDAGE - - -Two French officers, wearing the red velvet bands of the medical -service upon their caps, followed an old woman down the staircase of a -pleasant villa-residence on the outskirts of Mainz. - -“The bedrooms will suit perfectly,” said the elder of the two officers, -a major, in German. “And now a sitting-room?” - -The old woman led them along a passage and, without a word, threw open -the door of a room lined with books. The two officers entered, looked -about them. - -They were startled by a man’s voice behind them. - -“Good day, messieurs!” - -They turned to see a tall civilian, pince-nez gleaming over -exceptionally blue eyes, fair moustache, fair hair cut short and -brushed up straight from a square forehead, smiling at them from the -doorway. - -“I am Doctor Breidenbach--at your service,” he said courteously in -accentless French. - -The major stepped forward. - -“I am Major Chassaigne, monsieur. I--and my assistant, Lieutenant -Vincent here--have been allotted quarters in your house. Here is the -_billet de logement_.” He held out a piece of paper. “It is issued -with the authority of the Army of Occupation and countersigned by your -municipality. I regret to put you to inconvenience----” - -“Not at all! not at all!” interposed the German, affably, taking -the billeting order. As his face went serious in a scrutiny of the -document, the two officers had an impression of extreme intelligence -and ruthless will-power. He looked up again with a nod of assent, -his smile masking everything behind its gleam of blue eyes and white -teeth. “Perfectly correct, monsieur! Please consider my house at your -disposition. I am charmed to be of assistance to any of my confrères.” -He smiled recognition of their red cap-bands. “Although you wear -another uniform than that which I myself have but recently quitted, we -serve in a common cause--the cause of humanity, _n’est-ce pas_? which -knows no national animosities.” - -“We desired a sitting-room,” said Major Chassaigne, ignoring this -somewhat unctuous profession of altruism. - -The German waved his hand about the room. - -“If this will suit you----?” - -“Your library, monsieur?” queried the lieutenant. - -“My work-room,” replied the doctor. “Before this deplorable war -interrupted my studies, I had some little reputation in my special -branch of mental therapeutics. If you are interested in psychology, -normal and abnormal, you will find here a very complete collection of -works upon the subject. Use them freely, by all means. Well, if you are -satisfied, gentlemen, I will leave you, for I am a busy man. I was just -about to visit some patients when you arrived. _Auf wiedersehen!_” He -smiled and left them. - -Vincent turned to his senior, with a puzzled expression. - -“What is it about that man I do not like?” - -The older man shrugged his shoulders. - -“Too friendly by far. They are all the same, these _boches_--they would -do anything to make us forget,” he said, divesting himself of his belt. -“I am going to have a rest and a cigarette before we walk back into the -town.” - -The young man wandered around the room, scanning the titles of the -books on the shelves, picking up the various bibelots scattered about. -Suddenly he uttered a startled cry. - -“_Mon Dieu!_ Look at this!” - -The major turned to him. In his hand he held a small snapshot -photograph. He stared at it, trembling violently. - -“What is the matter?” - -“Look!--_It is she!_” The young man’s face was a study in horrified -astonishment. - -Chassaigne looked over his comrade’s shoulder at the photograph. It -represented their host arm in arm with a good-looking young woman. - -“_She?_” he queried, with a tolerant smile. “Be a little more explicit, -my dear Vincent.” - -The young man turned on him. - -“You remember the deportations from Lille? The women and girls the -_boche_ snatched from their homes?--My fiancée was among them.” His -voice checked at the painful memory. “Other women have been traced, -returned to their relatives. She has never been heard of again.” - -“My poor friend!” murmured the major, sympathetically. - -Vincent stared once more, as if fascinated, at the photograph in his -hand. - -“It is she--in every detail! Yet----” his tone was puzzled. “No! -I cannot believe it! It is some chance resemblance. This woman is -obviously happy--content, at least.” He looked up, passed over the -photograph. “Chassaigne, you are an analyst of the human mind. What -relationship do you diagnose between those two people?” - -The major took the print, scrutinized it critically. - -“Friends, certainly--lovers, possibly,” was his sententious verdict. - -“Then it cannot be!” cried the young man. “My fiancée was--is, I am -sure of it--incapable of a faithless acquiescence in the wrong done to -her.” - -“Can one ever be sure about a woman?” said the major, with a gentle -cynicism. “However, I agree with you that it is improbable that the -person in the photograph is your lost friend. It is, as you say, a -chance resemblance.” - -“If I could only be certain of it!” The young man was obviously -stirred to the depths. “I _must_ make sure, Chassaigne.--I must get to -know this woman--find out who she is!” - -Both men turned at the sound of the door opening behind them. A -young woman, tall, dark, strikingly handsome, stood timidly upon the -threshold. It was the woman of the photograph. - -“Doctor--Doctor Breidenbach?” she faltered, as though disconcerted by -an unexpected meeting with strangers. - -Vincent stared at her, held in a suspense of the faculties where he -seemed not to breathe. At last he found his voice. - -“_Hélène!_” he cried. “Hélène! It _is_ you!” He sprang to her, clutched -her arm. “What are you doing here?” - -With a frightened gesture of repulsion, the young woman disengaged -herself from his grasp. She drew herself up, looked at him without the -faintest recognition in her eyes. - -“_Ich spreche nicht französisch, mein Herr!_” she said in a tone of -cold rebuff. - -“Hélène!” - -She shrank back in obviously offended dignity, and, without another -word, haughtily left the room. - -Vincent reeled away from the closed door, his hands to his head. - -“My God!” he groaned. “Am I going mad?” - -Then, ceding to a sudden impulse, he eluded his friend’s restraining -grasp, dashed to the door. - -“Hélène!” - -He found himself confronted by the smiling figure of Doctor Breidenbach. - -“Pardon the unintended intrusion, messieurs!” he said, good-humouredly -apologetic and taking no notice of Vincent’s excited appearance. “My -ward, Fräulein Rosenhagen, was unaware that I had guests.--I merely -wished to reassure myself that you require nothing before I go into the -town. Is there anything you desire of me?” - -“Nothing, thank you,” interposed Chassaigne, quickly, before Vincent -could speak. - -“_A tantôt_, then!” He nodded amicably and went out. - -“We ought to have questioned him!” cried Vincent, resentful of the -missed opportunity. - -“We ought to do nothing of the kind, my dear Vincent,” replied -Chassaigne. “Calm yourself. Be sensible. What question could we -possibly ask that would not be ridiculous? You may be utterly wrong.” - -“_It is she!_ I swear it!” asserted the young man, vehemently. “Do you -think I cannot recognize a woman I have known all my life?” - -He commenced to pace up and down the room in wild agitation. His friend -contemplated him with a gaze of genuine solicitude. - -“You may be mistaken for all that,” he said, gently. “Doubles, although -rare, exist----” - -Vincent stared at him in exasperation. - -“My fiancée had three little moles just above her right wrist--I looked -for those three moles when I held that woman’s arm just now--_and I -found them_! Are doubles so exactly reproduced as that?” he asked, -furiously. - -“It sounds incredible, certainly,” agreed Chassaigne. “But her -attitude----” - -“I know,” said Vincent, recommencing his pacing up and down the room. -“She looked at me like a complete stranger. But,” he ground his teeth -in jealous rage, “if she has consented to live with that man--she might -have pretended--to hide her shame----” - -“My friend,” said Chassaigne, seriously, “in that young woman was -neither shame nor pretence. I observed her closely. She genuinely did -not recognize any acquaintance in you. She genuinely did not even know -French. She was genuinely resentful of your familiarity. That was no -play-acting performance. She was taken by surprise. She had no time to -prepare herself for it.” - -The young man beat his brow. - -“Oh, I am going mad!” he cried. “It was she, I swear it!--and yet--she -did not know me! It baffles me.” He stopped for a moment, then looked -up with a new idea. “Chassaigne! You are an authority on these things. -It is possible--by hypnotism or anything of the sort--to change a -personality completely--so that they forget everything--start afresh?” - -Chassaigne met his glance, hesitated. - -“It is--perhaps--possible,” he said, slowly. He went up to his friend, -put his hand on his shoulder, drew him to a chair. “Sit down, my -dear fellow. Let us be calm and think this out. If you are right--if -this young woman is indeed your--your friend--your suggestion might -_perhaps_ be the key to the enigma. But we shall achieve nothing by -getting excited.” - -Vincent allowed himself to be gently forced into the chair. He looked -white and ill, thoroughly shaken. His friend, contemplating him, was -impressed by his appearance. Could such a shock be produced by a merely -imagined resemblance? He felt that it could not--and then those three -moles! His mind reverted to the young woman, to her indubitably genuine -non-recognition, and he felt more than ever puzzled. With a quiet -deliberation he drew up a chair and seated himself close to his comrade. - -“Now let us analyze this problem,” he said. He spoke in a calm, -consulting-room voice which eliminated in advance all emotion from the -discussion. - -Vincent looked up, his eyes miserable. - -“Have you ever known of such a case?” - -“Of a personality _permanently_ changed? No.” - -“Is it hypothetically possible?” - -“Hypothetically--yes.” - -“By hypnotism?” - -“By hypnotism and suggestion.” - -“But a woman cannot be hypnotized against her will, can she?” - -“No--technically not--but her will may be stunned, so to speak, into -abeyance by a sudden shock or by terror and then, virtually, she might -be hypnotized against her will. It is possible.” - -The young man took a deep breath. - -“That acquits her moral responsibility. But you say it is -hypothetically possible to change a personality _permanently_? It -sounds fantastic to me. Would you please explain?” - -Chassaigne leaned back in his chair and lightly joined the finger-tips -of his two hands. He spoke in the impersonal tone of a professor -elucidating a thesis. - -“Well, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning we should have to -analyze personality--and human personality is a mystery I confess -myself unable to explore. You are aware, however, that there are -people who have double personalities--even triple and multiple -personalities--which differ utterly. For some reason which eludes us, -one of these submerged personalities in an individual may suddenly come -to the top. He, or she, entirely forgets the personality which was -theirs up to that moment, forgets name, relations, every circumstance -of life--and is completely someone else, quite new. There is a -recent case, exhaustively studied, of a young woman with four such -personalities--over which she has not the slightest control, and which -differ profoundly, mentally and morally. I mention this merely to show -you how unstable personality may be.” - -“These are pathological cases,” interposed Vincent. “My fiancée was a -thoroughly well-balanced woman.” - -Chassaigne nodded. - -“Before the war when you last saw her. She must have gone through -great stress since. But let us continue. Under hypnotism a person is -extraordinarily susceptible to the suggestions of the operator. He -will carry out perfectly any rôle indicated to him. The reason is that -in the hypnotic condition the conscious personality is put to sleep -and the subjective mind--the dream-creating consciousness which is -independent of the will--is paramount. That subjective mind possesses -little if any power of origination, but it has a startling faculty -of dramatizing any suggestion made to it. Tell a hypnotic that he is -President Wilson at the Peace Conference and he will get up and make -a speech perfectly in character, amazingly apposite, expressing ideas -that are normally perhaps quite alien to his temperament. Tell him -that he is Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and he will act the part -with a reality that is impressive. He believes himself actually to be -Napoleon. Under hypnotism, then, the personality which is mirrored in -the Ego--which you believe to be the essential, unchanging you--may be -utterly changed----” - -“Yes,” objected Vincent. “But that is only during the hypnotic trance. -It is not permanent.” - -“Wait a moment,” said Chassaigne. “Suggestions made during the hypnotic -trance may and do persist after the subject has awakened from it. I -may, for example, suggest to the hypnotized person that when he wakes -he will have forgotten his native language--and he will forget it. If -he knows no other, he will remain dumb until I remove the suggestion. I -may suggest to him that a person actually in the room is not there--and -he will not perceive him. I may suggest that in a week, a month, a -year, at such and such an hour, he will perform some absurd action--and -punctually to the moment, without understanding the source of his -impulse, he will perform it. Post-hypnotic persistence of suggestion is -a scientific fact.” - -“Then--in this case?” - -“In this case we have to do with a clever and possibly unscrupulous -man who is a specialist in manipulating the human mind. Of course, he -practises hypnotic suggestion as a part of his profession--it is the -chief agent in modern mental therapeutics. _It is possible_ that by -some means he got this young woman into his power after she was dragged -from her home. It is possible that he was violently attracted to her, -and finding that she did not reciprocate his sentiments, proceeded to -subject her individuality to his. How would he do this? He would drug -or stun her volition by terror--as, for example, a bird is helplessly -fascinated in fear of the snake. Then, using some common mechanical -means such as the revolving mirror--staring into her eyes--anything -that would fatigue the sensory centres of sight--he would induce a -hypnotic trance. In that trance he would suggest to her that her name -was no longer Hélène whatever it was--but Fräulein Rosenhagen, that she -was a German woman ignorant of French, that she was perfectly happy -and contented in his society. In the supernormally receptive state of -the hypnotized mind he could give her lessons in German, which would -be learned with a speed and accuracy far surpassing that of ordinary -education. He would suggest to her that all his lessons persisted after -waking. Finally, he would constantly reiterate these suggestions in -a succession of hypnotic trances--once the first has been induced, -it is easy to bring about the second--until he had reconstructed her -personality, or rather imposed a new one upon her consciousness. - -“There, my dear Vincent, presuming that you are correct in your -recognition of this young lady, is a theoretical explanation of the -phenomenon which confronts us. For that the young woman genuinely did -not recognize you, I am certain.” - -“She is held in the most diabolical slavery ever conceived, then!” -cried Vincent, in despair. “A slavery of the soul! But can nothing be -done?” - -Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders. - -“Something can be attempted, my dear fellow. I promise nothing.” He -rose from his chair. “Now, I want you to promise to keep quiet--not -to interfere. Fortunately, I speak German, and can talk to her in the -language she believes to be her own. Wait a minute.” He roved round -the room, opening the cupboards under the bookcases, the drawers in -the writing-table by the window. “Ah, here we are!” he ejaculated. He -held up a small silver mirror which revolved quickly upon its single -support under the motion of his fingers. “I expected that our friend -the doctor would possess this little instrument.” He smiled. “Very -considerate of him to go out and leave us to ourselves! Now we will try -and profit by the circumstance. I am going to find that young lady and -bring her to you. You will maintain the attitude of a complete stranger -who regrets an impulsive familiarity for which a mistake in identity is -responsible. Master yourself!” He put the little mirror on the table -and went out of the room. - -A few moments later he returned, held the door wide open for the young -woman to enter. He spoke in fluent German. - -“My young friend, Fräulein, will not be consoled until he has had the -opportunity of a personal apology!” - -The young woman inclined her head gravely, and somewhat shyly advanced -to the centre of the room. Vincent rose to his feet, his face deadly -white, trembling in every limb, and bowed. Ignorant of German, he could -not utter a word. Chassaigne turned to him, spoke to him in French. - -“Look closely at Fräulein Rosenhagen, _mon ami_--and satisfy yourself.” - -The muscles of his face tense under the effort to repress his emotion, -to appear normal, the young man looked at her for a long moment. She -returned his gaze without a quiver of the eyelids, smiled with the -kindliness which sets a stranger at his ease. - -“It is she--it is she,” he muttered, hoarsely. “I swear it!” - -Chassaigne turned to the young woman. - -“My young friend is much affected by your extraordinary resemblance -to a lady he knew, Fräulein,” he said, smilingly, in German. “But he -perceives now that he was mistaken. You will, I am sure, pardon an -emotion that a person of your charm will readily understand. My friend -was greatly attached to the lady he thought he recognised in you.” - -The young woman smiled upon Vincent in feminine sympathy for a lover. - -“Is she a German?” she asked in a rich deep voice that made him start. - -Chassaigne replied for him. - -“No, Fräulein--she is a Frenchwoman brought to Germany against her -will.” - -He observed her narrowly as he spoke. Her face remained calm. His -words, evidently, awakened no latent memory in her. - -“How dreadful!” she said. Her rich voice vibrated on a note of -unfeigned sympathy which was, nevertheless, impersonal. “Poor man! And -he does not know where she is!” - -“He has no idea, Fräulein,” replied Chassaigne. “But let us leave this -painful subject. Will you not keep us company for a few minutes? We are -strangers in a strange land.” With a gallant courtesy, which, however, -omitted to wait for her assent, he took her right hand and led her to a -chair. His quick eyes noted the three moles upon her wrist. She seated -herself almost automatically. He registered, in support of his theory, -her easy susceptibility to a quietly insistent suggestion. “Will you -not tell us what is most worth seeing in Mainz?” he asked, smilingly. - -She looked up at him. - -“Alas, mein Herr, I cannot!” she said. “I have never been in the city.” - -“Indeed?” He expressed mild but courteous surprise. “Perhaps you have -only recently come to live here yourself?” - -“Yes--er--no!” She smiled at her own confusion. “I mean we have been -here some time--but we travelled so much before we came here--that I--I -have really lost count----” - -Chassaigne made a reassuring little gesture which relegated the matter -to a limbo of indifference. - -“You travelled with Doctor Breidenbach, I presume?” he asked, casually. - -“Yes. We went to a great many places. He was in the army then.” - -“When you first met him?” - -“Yes.” Her first tone of confident assertion changed almost as she -uttered it to one of puzzled doubt. “Yes--I--I think so--I really -forget.” She smiled in self-apology. “I have a very bad memory, you -see, mein Herr,” she said, as if in explanation. “Doctor Breidenbach is -treating me for it.” - -“Ah?--Doubtless he is doing you a great deal of good?” Chassaigne -seated himself upon the edge of the table and smiled down upon her in -paternal benevolence. - -“Oh, yes,” she began, impulsively. “You see, we are going to be -married. But Doctor Breidenbach thinks it would not be right to be -married until my memory is perfectly restored. So”--she hesitated, then -smiled up with an innocent naïveté--“so you see I am doing all I can to -concentrate and--and get it right.” - -“_Mon Dieu!_” groaned Vincent in a low tone of anguish, turning away -and staring out of the window. - -Chassaigne frowned admonition at him in a quick glance unperceived by -the young woman. Unobtrusively, he put one hand behind him, picked up -the revolving-mirror from the table, held it behind his back. He nodded -assent to her little self-revelation. - -“Of course. No doubt you are making very rapid progress. Doctor -Breidenbach is a very clever man, is he not?” - -“Oh, yes--very clever. And so kind!” - -Chassaigne nodded again, his smile holding her confidence. As if -absent-mindedly, he brought the little mirror in front of him, played -with it. He noticed that her eyes fixed themselves instinctively upon -it. - -“Pretty toy!” he remarked, casually. “It belongs to Doctor Breidenbach -I suppose?” - -She stared at it in a strange fascination, shuddered suddenly. - -“Yes,” she said, with a little gesture before her eyes as though -trying to throw off a spell, “yes--I--I think so----” - -“A scientific instrument, I presume?” continued Chassaigne, -imperturbably, as if merely interested in a curiosity, twirling the -support between his fingers so that the mirror rapidly revolved. -Imperceptibly he leaned forward, brought it nearer to her eyes. “It -suggests sleep, I think,” he continued in a quiet level voice that had -suddenly acquired a peculiar intensity. “Sleep. Sleep, Fräulein!” - -She stared at it, open-eyed, stiffening curiously. A phrase of protest -seemed frozen on her lips. - -He held it very close to her face, revolving the mirror in a -long-continued series of rapid flashes before her eyes. - -“Sleep!” he commanded in his intense level voice. - -Her breast heaved in a long, sleepy sigh. She shuddered again, -stiffened suddenly, sat rigid, entranced. Vincent, watching, crept -forward, tense with anxiety. - -“What are you going to do?” he whispered. - -Chassaigne motioned him to silence with a gesture of his forefinger. He -turned to the young woman. - -“You are asleep, are you not?” - -She did not reply. - -“You hear me?” - -“Yes.” - -Her lips moved, but beyond that she did not stir. - -“In that sleep you remember things which you had otherwise forgotten.” -He turned to Vincent, whispered: “What is her name?” - -“Hélène Courvoisier.” - -Chassaigne bent over her, picked up her wrist with the three moles. - -“Do you remember Hélène Courvoisier?” - -“No.” - -“Not even the name?” - -“Not even the name.” - -There was a short silence, and then Chassaigne spoke again in insistent -level tones. - -“I suggest to you that you are yourself Hélène Courvoisier!” - -Vincent, guessing the purport of the words, held his breath in -suspense. To his despair the young woman responded with a far-away but -genuinely mirthful laugh. - -“No! How absurd!” she said, laughing like a person under a drug. “I -am Ottilie Rosenhagen! I was always Ottilie Rosenhagen!” She laughed -again, hysterically, but more and more freely, more and more loudly, -more and more the laugh of a person normally awake. Still laughing, -she shuddered, passed her hand across her brow, relaxed suddenly -from her stiff attitude--and ceased to laugh with a glance around of -bewilderment. She fixed her eyes upon Chassaigne. - -“I--I think I feel unwell,” she said, rising brusquely from her chair. -“Excuse me!--I--I cannot stay!” - -Without a glance behind her, she went swiftly from the room. - -Vincent watched her go, anguish and despair in his eyes. He turned to -Chassaigne. - -“Well?” he asked, hoarsely. - -Chassaigne made a gesture of annoyance. He shrugged his shoulders. - -“I might have guessed as much!” he said. “He has rendered her immune -to the suggestion. You see, the trance was induced easily enough. As -I thought, she was accustomed to being hypnotized by that mirror and -the mere sight of it was almost sufficient. Without that, I should -certainly have failed to hypnotize her at all, for Breidenbach would -assuredly have impressed upon her the suggestion that she could be -hypnotized by no one but himself. He has furthermore guarded himself by -impressing upon her that the suggestion of being anybody but Ottilie -Rosenhagen will suffice to break the trance. He cannot be sure that -such an impressionable subject may not be hypnotized, possibly by a -chance accident--such things occur--in his absence. But he can be sure -that any counter-suggestion on the vital matter will defeat itself--as -we have just seen.” - -“But can no one remove the suggestion?” cried Vincent. He glared around -the room, clenching his fist. “The infernal scoundrel! By God, I’ll -kill him!” He fingered the revolver, in the holster strapped to his -belt. - -Chassaigne laid a restraining hand upon him. - -“If you do--you will in all probability kill the only man in the world -who can replace the factitious personality of Ottilie Rosenhagen by the -real personality of Hélène Courvoisier!” - -Vincent stared at him. - -“Do you mean that?” - -“He certainly can remove the suggestions he has himself made. It is -doubtful whether any other can.” - -“He must be forced to do it! We must inform the authorities!” - -“Agreed, my dear fellow!” Chassaigne’s voice was soothing. “But we -must first get evidence--real evidence--that this young woman is not -Ottilie Rosenhagen but Hélène Courvoisier. What evidence have we got -now that we could put up before a tribunal? None. Merely your alleged -recognition, as against her own emphatic denial that she is the person -you maintain. And at the present time not even the most cunning -cross-examination could elucidate the fact that she had ever known the -French language. Ottilie Rosenhagen does not know French--and, at this -moment, to all intents and purposes, she _is_ Ottilie Rosenhagen!” - -“Then we must get hold of him ourselves!” - -“He will simply laugh at us as madmen--apply to have us removed from -his house. No, my dear fellow, we cannot force the pace. Wait. Be -patient. Arouse no suspicion in his mind. Our opportunity will come, -be sure of that. The real personality of Hélène Courvoisier is there -all the time, latent. I am confident that we shall--somehow--succeed in -bringing it to the surface again.” - -The young man shuddered. - -“I wish I could see how!” he said, hopelessly. - -“You will see it. I guarantee it,” said Chassaigne, forcing his -cheerfulness. “Now, come away out of this house. We will go into Mainz, -dine, spend the evening at a café, and forget it--or talk it over, as -you will. We can do nothing more now.” He smiled at him. “Come! As your -superior officer, I command you!” - -The hour was late when the two officers returned. Before going out, -Chassaigne had provided himself with a key, and they let themselves -into the house. It was quiet, its occupants apparently in bed. -Throughout the evening there had been but one topic of conversation -and, as it was yet unexhausted, they went into Doctor Breidenbach’s -library, switched on the lights, and sat down for a final smoke before -retiring. - -“What we require,” said Chassaigne, for the twentieth time, as he -lit his cigarette, “is demonstrable evidence, something that makes -it certain that you are not under an illusion. Even in my own mind, -I cannot help confessing, there is a doubt. Look at it from my point -of view. You assure me that you recognize the young woman. Good--but -your recognition may be an error, although sincere. You strengthen -your case by pointing to the three moles. But, if I were questioned, I -should be bound to admit that you did not mention those moles until you -had seen them on this woman. You may be suffering from a not uncommon -delusion of memory which refers to the past a thing now for the first -time perceived. The strongest piece of evidence we possess is that, -under the physical analysis to which we subjected the young woman, I -found that she was a hypnotic subject, that she was impressible, and -that her personality as Ottilie Rosenhagen is practically without any -memories of the past. _But we could not discover any trace of any other -personality._ She rejects as ridiculous the suggestion that she is not -Ottilie Rosenhagen. That proves nothing, in the special circumstances -we are considering. She might or might not still be Hélène Courvoisier. -But the theory on which we have been working presupposes a crime so -unique, that, quite frankly, to be entirely convinced I want to come -upon some trace of a submerged personality which tallies with your -assertion. If she is Hélène Courvoisier that personality is certainly -there. But how are we going to get at it?” - -Vincent shook his head. - -“I cannot imagine,” he said, wearily. - -He looked up to see Chassaigne staring in astonishment at the door -behind his chair. Startled, he twisted himself round to see what was -happening--and gasped. - -Framed in the doorway, a dressing-gown over her night-attire, her dark -hair loose over her shoulders, was the young woman. In her hand was a -bedroom candle, alight. Her face was expressionless and placid. Her -eyes were open, looked fixedly in front of her. She moved into the room -with a gliding step. - -“She is asleep!” whispered Chassaigne. “Speak to her, Vincent!--who -knows?--Perhaps another stratum of personality!” - -The young woman glided straight toward the lieutenant, who gripped at -the arm of the chair in his emotion. She was close upon him ere he -could force himself to speech. - -“Hélène!” he said in a tense, low voice, looking up into her eyes as if -trying to bring her dream down to him. “Do you know me?” - -She bent over him, kissed him softly upon the brow. - -“Maxime!” she murmured, her tone vibrant with tender affection. -“Maxime! You have been away so long!” - -_She spoke in French!_ - -Chassaigne jumped in his chair, but before he could utter a word, a new -voice spoke sharply. - -“Ottilie!” - -The two officers turned to the doorway to see Doctor Breidenbach -standing there, his face clouded with menace, his eyes angry. - -The young woman started, looked wildly about her in the bewilderment -of one suddenly aroused from sleep. Then after one horrified glance at -her attire, an amazed stare at the two officers, she sank down on to -a chair and covered her face with her hands. Trembling violently in -every nerve of her body, she crouched there in a misery of shame, too -overwhelmed to utter a sound. - -The German advanced into the room, stood over her. - -“Ottilie! Come away at once!” - -Vincent, now on his feet, flushed with rage at the brutal tone of the -command, comprehensible enough to him despite his ignorance of the -language. - -Chassaigne went quietly behind the German, locked the door, and slipped -the key in his pocket. - -Breidenbach, his eyes fixed on the girl, reiterated his command. - -“Monsieur!” broke from Vincent in an angry expostulation which ignored -his comrade’s gesture to silence. - -The German looked round upon him, forcing his face to a smile in which -the vivid blue eyes behind the pince-nez failed to participate. - -“You are certainly entitled to some explanation of this unseemly -occurrence, gentlemen,” he said in French. His voice, perfectly -controlled and reinforcing his smile, suggested an appreciation of -piquancy in this equivocal situation, invited the sense of humour of -the Gallic temperament. “I need not tell you that Fräulein Rosenhagen -is entirely innocent of any intent to disturb you. She is, I may say, -under my medical care. She suffers from somnambulism, and you will -understand that it is comprehensible she should wander to this room -where she is accustomed to receive treatment.” - -Vincent, with difficulty, controlled himself to silence in obedience to -his friend’s warning glance. Chassaigne stepped forward. - -“Quite, monsieur,” he said, easily, smiling as though he fully -appreciated the position from all points of view. “A case of abnormal -subconscious activity. I am myself greatly interested, professionally, -in this common neuro-pathological symptom. May I suggest that, since -your patient has come here in response to an obscure instinctive -desire for the accustomed treatment of which she is doubtless in need, -you now satisfy her? I should esteem it a privilege to assist at a -demonstration of your methods.” - -The German’s eyes flashed a suspicion that was instantly veiled. - -“The hour is late, monsieur,” he said, coldly. - -Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly. - -“In our profession, monsieur--the service of humanity,” he said with -sly malice, “one is on duty at all hours.” - -The German’s eyes expressed frank hostility. - -“I do not consider it advisable,” he said. His tone was curt. - -Chassaigne glanced at the young woman still crouched upon the chair. - -“As a professional man of some experience, monsieur,” he said, -imperturbably, “I do not agree with you. I feel sure your patient would -benefit by it. Let me beg of you!” - -The German trembled with sudden anger. - -“This is an unwarrantable interference, monsieur! The patient is in my -charge. I decline absolutely!” He turned to the girl. “Come, Ottilie!” -he added in German. - -She ventured a shrinking glance up at him, stirred as if to rise. - -Chassaigne raised his hand in a gesture which checked her. His eyes met -the German’s in a direct challenge. - -“Unreasonable as it sounds, monsieur, I have set my heart upon -witnessing your methods. It is a whim of the conqueror--the force of -which you, who have served in Belgium, will appreciate.” His right hand -slid into the pocket of his tunic. “I must insist!” - -“I refuse, then!” The German was livid with rage. He turned and plucked -the girl violently from her seat. “Out of my way, monsieur!” - -Dragging the girl after him, he took two steps toward the door--and -stopped suddenly. Two more steps would have brought him into contact -with the muzzle of the revolver which Chassaigne levelled at him. - -“Foreseeing your possible ill-humour, monsieur,” said the Frenchman, -with a mocking suavity, “I took the precaution of locking the door. -This young woman has inspired me with so violent an interest that I -cannot bear to see her suffer unrelieved. And I might remind you that -should you unfortunately lose your life by the accidental explosion of -this revolver--I should find it comparatively easy to restore her to -complete mental health myself.” - -The German glared at him. - -“I do not understand you!” - -“You do--perfectly!” Chassaigne turned to his friend. “Vincent, conduct -that young lady to a chair!” - -The girl, who had been released by the German in the first shock of -his surprise, stood paralyzed with terror, staring speechlessly at the -revolver in Chassaigne’s hand. Unresistingly, she allowed herself to be -led to a chair by the young man who was as speechless as she. - -Chassaigne nodded satisfaction. - -“Good! Now, Vincent, draw your revolver and cover this gentleman -yourself. Be careful to hit him in a vital spot should you be compelled -to fire.” - -Vincent obeyed with alacrity, dangling the heavy weapon with fingers -that evidently itched to pull the trigger. - -“Monsieur,” said Chassaigne with grim courtesy to the German who had -remained motionless under the menace of the revolver, “I invite you to -take a seat. You may keep your hands on your knees, but do not move -them until I give permission.” - -The German sat down heavily, his eyes gleaming evilly at the Frenchman. - -“Now, monsieur,” said Chassaigne, in succinct tones, “since you say you -do not understand, I will be more explicit. I desire that you should -induce in this young woman the hypnotic trance which is your habitual -treatment for her indisposition----” - -A gleam of cunning flitted in the German’s eyes. - -“Very well,” he said, with sulky submission. “If you insist!” - -“But with this difference,” continued Chassaigne, “_that your habitual -suggestion shall be reversed_!” - -The German started--controlled himself quickly. - -“I do not understand,” he said, maintaining his pose of sulkiness. - -“I mean that instead of suggesting to her that she is and always has -been Ottilie Rosenhagen--you suggest to her that she is really Hélène -Courvoisier, a French girl deported from Lille!” - -The muscles stood out suddenly upon the German’s lean jaws, even as, -with a strength of will Chassaigne could not but admire, he smiled -mockingly into his adversary’s face. - -“You rave, monsieur!” he said, and his tone emphasized the insult. - -“Rave or not,” replied Chassaigne, calmly, “I want you to try the -experiment. It is a whim of mine.” He handled the revolver suggestively. - -“And if I refuse?” - -“I shall shoot you!” - -The German laughed outright. - -“Ottilie!” he cried, in German, “these Frenchmen have gone mad. They -pretend that you are not Ottilie Rosenhagen but a French girl--and they -want to take you from me!” - -The girl sprang from her seat with a cry of horror, rushed to him, and -flung her arms about him. - -“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “I am German--I am German--I was never -anything but German! Oh, don’t take me away from him! I love him! I -love him! He is all I have in the world!” - -Vincent watched the action with jealous rage. - -“My God!” he muttered. “I shall kill him in another moment if this goes -on!” - -The German smiled at them triumphantly. - -“You see, gentlemen! Your suggestion is fantastic! This girl is my -fiancée, and she is German to the core!” - -Chassaigne’s face was stern. - -“Vincent! Remove the lady!” - -The young man had to tear her by force from the German, who remained -immobile in his chair in a mocking respect for the revolver. - -“Fantastic or not,” said Chassaigne, “I demand that you try the -experiment. If you refuse--it is because you dare not do it!” - -The German shrugged his shoulders. - -“Very good, monsieur. I refuse. Think what you will!” - -Chassaigne drew his watch from his pocket. - -“I give you three minutes to decide,” he said. “Vincent! Put the lady -in that armchair and be ready to shoot when I give the word. Two -bullets are more sure than one!” - -The girl, dazed with fright, looking as though she were in some awful -dream, collapsed nervelessly into the chair. Vincent posted himself by -the German’s side, his levelled revolver held just out of reach of a -sudden snatch. - -The German tried one more expostulation. - -“This is madness!” he cried. “You surely do not propose to commit a -cold-blooded murder!” - -“One!” said Chassaigne, grimly. “Two more minutes, monsieur!” - -The German laughed diabolically. - -“Very well, then! Commit your murder! Much will it profit you! I am the -only man in the world who can influence that young woman. Whatever you -may think, you cannot transform her personality. Ottilie Rosenhagen she -is and Ottilie Rosenhagen she will remain!” - -“Two!” said Chassaigne. - -“You may as well shoot now! Don’t wait for the third!” jeered the -German. “I deny that she is other than Ottilie Rosenhagen. I utterly -refuse to experiment upon her at your dictation. Shoot! I defy you!” -The man certainly did not lack courage. He smiled mockingly as -Chassaigne’s revolver rose slowly and deliberately to a level with his -eyes. “Shoot! Outrage for outrage, your murder of a German civilian -may well balance the deportations you prate about!” It was significant -that in this fateful crisis it should be that particular crime which -occurred to him for parity. - -The taunt seemed to strike the spark of an idea in Chassaigne’s brain. -Still menacing the German with his revolver, he held out the key to the -door in his left hand. - -“Vincent! In Doctor Briedenbach’s hall there is a telephone. A hundred -yards away there is a post of infantry. Ring up the commandant, tell -him that I have arrested Doctor Breidenbach on the charge of abducting -a French subject, ask him to send along an armed escort at once--not -less than half a dozen!” He glanced at the girl, who was apparently -in a swoon upon her chair. “It is important that the force should be -imposing! Hurry!” - -Vincent snatched at the key, and dashed from the room. - -The German smiled in grim contempt. Chassaigne, still covering him with -the revolver, smiled back, not less grimly. They waited in a complete -silence, through minute after minute. The girl upon the chair did not -stir. - -Suddenly they heard the rhythmic tramp of a body of armed men on the -gravel outside, a sharp voice of command, and then, after a brief -pause, the heavy multiple tramp again, resounding through the house, -louder and louder in its approach. At the sound, the girl sat up -brusquely, stared wild-eyed at the door. - -It was flung open. Vincent entered, pointed out the girl to the -French officer who accompanied him, evidently in confirmation of a -statement made outside. The officer barked an order. A file of helmeted -infantrymen, bayoneted rifles at the slope, marched heavily into the -room. The girl shrieked. - -“Oh, no! no! Don’t take me!” she cried--_and her cry was French_! -“Don’t take me! I will not go! I will not go!” She sprang up from her -chair, looked frenziedly around the room in a terror-stricken search -for an avenue of escape. Her eyes fell upon Vincent remained curiously -fixed upon him. Suddenly, with a cry of recognition, she rushed into -his arms. “Maxime! Maxime! Protect me! Oh, don’t let them take me! -Don’t let them take me!” - -Chassaigne smiled. He had won. As he expected, the shock of this -armed entry so vividly recalled the night of terror in Lille when the -girl-victims were snatched from their violated homes, had sufficed to -reawaken the personality which had then agonized in its last moments of -freedom. - -Vincent enfolded her, murmuring reassuring words as he caressed the -head that hid itself upon his breast. Her body shook with violent sobs. - -The German stood up, placed himself, with a shrug of the shoulders, -between the double file of infantrymen. The officer produced a -notebook, asked a few questions of Chassaigne, jotted down the replies. -He turned to the girl. - -“Your name, mademoiselle?” - -She looked up. - -“Hélène Courvoisier,” she replied, unhesitatingly. - - - - -SHE WHO CAME BACK - - -The clock upon the mantelpiece struck, discreetly, the hour of eleven -in the night-stillness of the study where old Henry Arkwright worked. -He glanced up with busy, preoccupied brows to the dial, confirming his -half-registered impression of the tale of strokes. Eleven o’clock! He -would work for another two or three hours yet. He sucked cheerfully -at his pipe as he signed the just-written counsel’s opinion; folded -the stiff, long documents and tied them neatly with their original -tape; took yet another legal case from the pile in front of him. He -felt himself in form to-night, enjoyed the efficiency of his brain -that worked so swiftly and surely in this solitude. The complete -silence of the house was subtly grateful to him. He was immune from all -disturbance. The servants had long since gone to bed. His concentration -upon his task was unthreatened, the stores of legal knowledge held -ready for his use in that practised brain of his unobscured by any -concrete trivialities. Eleven o’clock--yes, he could put in another -three hours good work before, exhausted to-night like all the other -nights, he went slowly up the empty stairs to his empty bedroom. He -adjusted himself to consideration of the affidavits he unfolded. - -What was that? The faint ringing of the door-bell, far away in the -servants’ quarters but distinctly audible in this sleep-hushed house, -persisted until it came to his full recognition. He looked up, puzzled, -from the papers in the shaded light of his reading-lamp, glanced around -the book-lined study where the fire-glow flickered redly in the absence -of full illumination. Who could it be at this time of night? The -far-away faint ringing continued, eloquent of an unrelaxed pressure -upon the bell-push at the porch. He listened to it with exasperated -annoyance, resentful of this interruption of his labours, trying to -imagine an identity for this inconsiderately late visitor. Whoever it -was, he himself would have to open the door. The servants were long ago -asleep. They would not hear the bell. With a petulant exclamation, he -rose from his desk, went out into the darkened hall. - -Stimulated into haste in instinctive response to the determined urgency -of the summons of that bell, its sound quite loud and definite out -here, he fumbled hurriedly for the electric switch. Then, the lights -full on, he went quickly to the door and opened it. A cold wind blew -in upon him from the darkness into which he peered, seeing, at first, -nothing. The ringing had ceased. A doubt of reality, a suspicion of -hallucination, shot through him, was dispelled upon the instant. From -the shadowed side of the porch a woman’s form moved into the broad beam -of light. A curious, inexplicable, sudden consciousness of his own -heart, vaguely not normal in its action, filled his breast as he stared -out to her in a momentary suspense of recognition. Then she turned her -face full upon him. - -He started back, shocked to his inmost as though he had touched a live -electric wire. - -“Christine!” he gasped, in incredulous amazement. -“Christine!--_You!_--_Come back?_” - -The eyes in the woman’s drawn face opened upon him as from a tight-shut -agony, searched what was to her his dark, featureless silhouette in the -illumination from the hall. Her whole soul seemed to yearn out to him -in doubt and in desperate appeal. He saw her lips move before she spoke. - -“Will you let me in?” she asked, humbly. “Harry!” She breathed his name -as though she dared not pronounce it. - -He felt himself turn dizzy under this unexpected emotional shock. He -stared at her dumbly, the scathing phrases of indignant repudiation, so -often mentally rehearsed for such a moment, eluding him. Christine! He -could not at once adjust himself to her reality, looked at her again to -make unmistakably sure. Christine--come back. - -“Harry!” she breathed again in timid humility. - -He shuddered in a cold gust from the darkness as he stared at her. She -was hatless, coatless, in that bitter wind. He saw her shiver as she -half-ventured to stretch out a hand toward him. - -A sudden impulse, as from a source superior to him--he thought it was -pity--mastered the righteous indignation he had been trying to bring to -utterance. - -“Come in,” he said, thickly, and made way for her. - -She entered. He shut the door behind her, turned to look at her as she -stood in the full illumination of the hall. Once more her eyes had -closed. Her lips were compressed as over an almost unendurable agony -of the spirit. She swayed on her feet, arms limply by her sides, as -though only stayed from falling by a supreme effort of the will. How -old and haggard she looked!--the thought traversed him like a flash, -linked itself to another--twenty-five years! What had happened to her -in that twenty-five years? Little of good fortune, assuredly--with the -professional eye that appraised a new witness in the box, he noted the -poor, threadbare quality of her white dress, unadorned by any of the -jewellery that had once been her delight. - -The chilled blueness of her skin struck him as he scrutinized her. He -touched her hand, automatically and impersonally, for confirmation of -his impression. - -“You’re frozen!” he said. His accent of ill-humour rang oddly familiar -in his own ears. It was the old annoyance at yet another of the -impulsive follies so typical of her. “What are you thinking of, to come -out like this?” he added, sharply. “Here!” He flung open the study -door. “There’s a fire here--sit down and warm yourself!” The tone of -unsympathetic authority was--he remembered it--instinctively just the -old tone he had so often used to her in that life now so remote as -almost to seem a previous existence. - -She opened her eyes again, the large emotional eyes that had not -changed, looked at him, looked _into him_. Incredulity spread over her -face. - -“By your fire? Can you, Harry?--Can you, after everything--after all -these years--can you still have me by your fire?” - -Tears came up in those big eyes which looked so yearningly into his, -and her mouth twisted itself into a pathetic little smile--the ghost -of the smile that he had known in a younger face. He felt oddly -uncomfortable. - -“Come along!” He commanded her almost brutally, defending himself from -any relaxation of hostility. “Come and warm yourself!” He lifted one of -her hands and its chill struck to the centre of him. “Why have you no -coat?--You must be mad!” - -She smiled at him, and did not answer. He drew her into the warm study, -pulled a chair close to the fire for her, pressed her down into it. -Then he turned to switch on the full lights. - -She stopped him with a gesture. - -“Please, Harry!--Just like this--in the firelight.” - -He obeyed and returned to her. Coldness seemed to emanate from her body -as he came close. What sheer insanity! She must be chilled through and -through, he thought. - -He shrugged his shoulders to himself, disclaiming responsibility, and, -for his own self-respect, played the host. - -“Can I get you anything, Christine?” he asked, ungraciously. “Anything -to eat or drink?” - -She lifted her large eyes toward his face and shook her head slowly, -without a word. - -Baffled by her manner, he struck at what he thought to be the heart of -the awkward situation. - -“What do you want? What have you come for?” he demanded, harshly. -“Money?” - -She shook her head again and smiled. - -“No, Harry. I want nothing, except just to be with you once again--for -a little time.” - -A long sigh, from the depths of her bosom, escaped her as she turned -her head down again to the fire and stared dreamily into its red -recesses. - -“Just to be with you,” she repeated, softly, as to herself, “once more.” - -He stood over her, not knowing what to say. Silence filled the room. - -She looked up at him, timidly. - -“You’re not pleased to see me, are you, Harry? You never wanted to see -me again?” - -He did not answer. - -“Of course--how could you be?” she murmured to herself, gazing once -more into the fire. “You never could forgive--never!” - -He forced himself to a politeness he felt to be magnanimous. - -“I don’t want to dwell on past injuries, Christine,” he said, coldly. -“I should be pleased to know that what you did brought happiness.” - -“Happiness!” she repeated, almost inaudibly, in ironic mockery, her -gaze still fixed upon the fire. - -Suddenly she looked round to him. - -“Harry!” she said, impulsively. “Harry!” Her eyes went beyond him for -a moment to the litter of papers on his desk, returned to him. “Harry! -I know I am disturbing you”--the old pathetic smile came into her -face--“but I want to ask you a favour--” she hesitated, as though her -courage failed her--“the favour for which I came.” - -He hardened himself for a refusal. - -“What is it?” he asked. - -“I want you to give up your work for just one hour--I want you to sit -by the fireside and talk to me. Won’t you? Won’t you let me come -first for just once--as--as I used to want to in the old days?” Her -eyes, fine as ever, implored him in almost irresistible appeal. “I -have dreamed of this for so long!” She went on as in a reverie, after -a little pause, staring once more into the fire. “You never would, -Harry--and perhaps--if you had----” She sighed. “You were so ambitious!” - -He stood immobile, typically reluctant to break his habits. Those -cases were important. He was coming to himself now, the effect of the -first shock diminishing. Some of the old anger awoke in his heart as -he looked down upon her. The old sense of disturbance returned. It was -just like her to come and break up his night’s work. And now--after all -that had happened! He resented her presumption, stigmatized it as sheer -callousness. - -She looked up, feeling his thoughts perhaps. - -“Harry! Can’t you--for just this once? I don’t ask you to forgive.” - -Her eyes held him, enfeebled his resistance. - -“I’ve got nothing to tell you, Christine,” he said, gruffly. “Nothing. -I didn’t ask you to come back, but since you have come--well, I will -not shut you out in the cold. You can sit by the fire if you like.” - -She smiled--the little ghost of her twenty-year-old smile upon that -worn and middle-aged face. He clenched his teeth at it, at something in -himself. - -“Have you really nothing to say to me, Harry? Not a question to ask?” - -He armed himself against the pathos of her appeal. - -“No,” he said, curtly. “Nothing.” - -She shut her eyes as though under a blow. Then, with a tacit admission -of its justice, she smiled up at him again. Evidently, her courage was -held at high tension. - -“I know I don’t deserve it,” she said. “I don’t deserve to be sitting -here again, after all these years. But, oh, Harry, you _could_ be -generous--once, at those rare times when I could really touch the real -you as I so often longed to do. Are you still hard, Harry?--still so -hard?” She sighed, wearily, turned her head hopelessly once more to -the fire. - -He watched the play of its glow over her features, was struck by her -bad colour. The coldly observant part of him noted the fact that -she was, or had been, ill. Half-starved, too, added this detached -professional self. Suffering, physical and mental, was stamped upon -her face. He acquiesced in it, grimly. Her frivolous wickedness--he -remembered the callously jaunty tone of the note she had left for -him--had met just retribution. He wondered what had happened to the man. - -She looked up again, answering, with a subtle perception, the question -in his mind. - -“He’s dead, Harry--dead years ago. Very dead. To me, he never really -lived--not as you have lived, always, through every moment of my--” she -paused--“my Hell.” - -A sentiment of pity pricked him sharply. Poor little Christine!--she -had certainly paid, and paid heavily. He repressed his commiseration, -in alarm at himself. He must think--think sensibly. Did she intend -to come back for good? He reacted violently against the idea. It was -impossible. He would be a laughing-stock, the butt for the pointing -fingers, the sly allusions, of his fellows in the Courts. His pride -revolted. No, no--he must get her out again somehow, before the -servants knew. - -Once more she read his thought. - -“No one shall know that I have come, Harry. It’s just for this one -hour and then I’ll go again. But just for this one hour--Harry!” She -stretched out her arms to him. “Be generous!” - -He fenced stubbornly. - -“What, exactly, do you want, Christine?” - -She smiled at him, her face radiant. - -“I want--I want just to pretend that it all never happened. I want, -just once, to sit with you by the fireside as though I had been here -all these years--as though you and I had learned to be the comrades I -had dreamed we should be. I want to sit with you as we should have sat, -both of us now growing old, looking back on all the beautiful things of -our life together. Harry!” She lifted her arms to him again, yearning -out to him. “Just once--just once to pretend--to be as we might have -been--and then I can go away and really and truly die, satisfied. Be -generous, Harry, be generous just this once if you never are again.” - -An obscure feeling stirred in him, a sense of tears that threatened as -he looked down into the eyes that swam with moisture. - -“You nearly broke my life, Christine,” he said, with a hardly achieved -attempt at harshness. - -“I want to forget it,” she answered. “To believe--for just one -hour--that I made your life, as I wanted to help make it. Oh, Harry, -Harry, I love you--I have always loved you, wherever I have been and -whatever I have done--and I want to believe, oh, for just such a little -minute, that my love was not really in vain. I just had to come!” - -He pressed his hand over his eyes, did not answer. - -She pointed to the comrade chair by the fireside. - -“Harry--Harry dear--sit down and talk to me as we ought to have been -able to sit and talk--old married lovers with never a cloud between us.” - -“Oh--don’t!” he said. “Don’t, Christine!” He burst out with a sudden -anger. “Why have you come back? I--I wanted to forget, forget always.” - -She reached for his hand, touched it with fingers that were still cold. - -“And we are going to forget--going to forget it quite, for just a -little hour, Harry, Harry darling!” - -Her voice, on the old remembered note of fondness, touched him with a -strange power. Something crumbled in him. - -He sat down suddenly in the indicated chair, stared, he also, into the -fire. - -“It’s a bitter mockery, Christine!” - -“No,” she answered. “It’s the real thing--for just once--the real -thing.” - -They sat in silence for long moments where the clock ticked loudly. She -stretched her hand out to him. - -“Harry! Hold my hand in yours--like you used to do--in the old days -before you married me. It will help so much. Can you remember it?--the -old touch that used to thrill?” - -He obeyed without a word, took her little palm between his two large -hands, pressed it close. Its death-like coldness struck him and, in -defiance of it, he emphasized his contact. With a sudden tenderness -that was awkwardly unpractised, he endeavoured to instil a little of -his own warmth into it. As he did so, he felt as it were a sluice-gate -open in him. A long-repressed sentimentality asserted itself, invaded -his lonely soul like a flood. He looked at her. If only--his protective -secondary personality, dominant for so many years, reacted jealously, -perverted his regret--if only she could have understood him a little -more! - -It was she who spoke. - -“I’m so proud of you, Harry--so proud of your success!” - -He almost started--remembering how he had hoped that she would read -his name in the newspapers, in a vindictive desire that she should -regret what she had thrown away. He saw, suddenly, that it was only her -opinion that had ever really mattered to him. - -“My dear,” he said, feeling himself a tolerant old man who could afford -to be kind from his altitude, “perhaps if I had never known you, I -should never have worked so hard.” - -She smiled at him as though there were no irony in his words, but only -a beautiful truth. - -“Harry--Harry darling!” she murmured. “I have helped--helped a little, -haven’t I? My love has been what you said it would be--the vital force -on which you could always draw? Do you remember that, the night we -were engaged?” - -This cool assumption of a dream, utterly opposed to the facts, startled -him. He looked at her, and had not the heart to contradict. Suppose it -had been so? Could he surrender himself to this make-believe which she -was playing with an almost childish simplicity? It was suddenly very -tempting to him. - -“I remember, my dear--and I promised,” his voice broke a little while -he hesitated on a self-reproach, “never--never to cut myself off from -it--never to say the harsh word which you warned me would freeze your -sensitive little soul.” - -“And you never have, Harry,” she murmured, softly. “You’ve always -remembered--always been gentle and kind and loving--all these long -years of happiness together.” - -His eyes felt sympathetically uncomfortable as he looked into hers, -moist in the firelight. - -“Twenty-seven years, dear,” he said, caressingly, consciously -defiant of the jealous self that watched. He had taken the plunge. -“Twenty-seven years last week since we married.” - -She nodded her head in acquiescence. - -“We’ve had our life-time, Harry dear--and we have not wasted it, have -we? Every year has been full, full to the brim, with sympathy and -love.” She sighed, gazing into the fire. “And that’s the only thing in -life that matters--the only thing. Success without love would have been -very barren to you, wouldn’t it, Harry?” Her eyes came round to him. - -“Dead Sea fruit, my darling,” the illusion was almost perfect to him, -the irony without bitterness, scarcely perceived, “dust and ashes at -the core.” He smiled at her from a strangely sentimental self that was -almost foreign to him and yet his own. “Christine, without you I should -not really have lived.” - -She answered him with a movement of the fingers now warm between the -hands still holding them. - -“Nor I, Harry, without you. You and I were each other’s Destiny.” - -He, too, nodded his head solemnly. - -“Yes, dear,” he agreed. “I believe that.” - -“And, thank God, we have not thwarted it, Harry. We have enjoyed it to -the full.” - -He pressed her hand tightly for his only answer. Dream or reality, was -it? He had almost lost the power to distinguish. He looked into her -face, softly happy and somehow nobler and purer than he had ever known -it, pressed her hand again in a vague necessity to substantiate the -tangible actuality of her presence. It was really Christine sitting -there, filling that usually empty chair, breathing with slight rise and -fall of her bosom as she gazed into the fire. And if the other were a -dream--the happy past that she called up in imagination--just an old -man’s dream, why he would allow himself, that sentimental self in him -that none but himself had ever seen, the happiness of the illusion to -the full. There was none to ridicule him for a childish make-believe, -unworthy of his dignity. - -“Christine,” he said, gently, “are you happy?” - -She smiled at him upon her sigh. - -“Very happy, dear.” - -Again there was a silence between them. Presently she looked up once -more. - -“It’s splendid the way Phil is getting on, isn’t it, dear?” - -He glanced at her from his own dream, uncomprehending. She went on, as -though discussing a subject thoroughly familiar. - -“Do you remember we said we would call him Philip--our first boy--long -before we had him? When we used to talk about him, in those first happy -months of being together, it didn’t seem possible that it could ever be -really true, did it, dear? And yet there he is--twenty-four years old! -It’s difficult for me to think that I ever could have been his mother. -When I look at him, so tall and big, it seems impossible that he could -once have been my baby.” - -He stared at her. What was she talking of? They had never had a child. -Then it came to him---- - -“Yes, dear. He’s a fine chap.” - -She smiled at him gratefully. - -“I think we were right to let him marry, don’t you, dear? I know -he’s very young--but it’s perhaps better than if he waited until he -became set in his own habits and could no longer share the youthful -high-spirits of his dear little wife--as you very nearly waited too -long, didn’t you, dear? Another year or two of getting wrapped up in -your own ambitions and you might have crushed all the young life out of -me.” Her tone was dreamily sincere. - -“Don’t, Christine!” he said, thickly. “I know a lot of it was my -fault----” - -“Shh!” she soothed him with a gesture of her disengaged hand. “We’re -talking about Phil and his charming little wife. She’s just the sort of -girl I would have chosen for him, Harry. Young, sensible, pretty, with -eyes that look you straight in the face--and she loves him, Harry, like -I loved you, with all her young soul.” - -He made a little choking sound and pressed her hand--so warm and loving -now!--with a convulsive tightness. - -“And soon, Harry,” she went on, “we shall be grandparents, you and -I--looking forward beyond the next generation to the one after--_living -forward_. Life is very wonderful, isn’t it, dear, in its continuity? -Our little lives cease, but something of us goes on and on, in -generations that we can’t even imagine. Oh, it’s very wonderful!” She -sighed. “To think we might have missed it all, if we had not loved!” - -“Christine!” He could scarcely speak. “You’re torturing me!” - -“Shh!” she said. “It’s all real--it’s all real _now_. Everything else -was a bad dream from which we have waked together.” - -“If only we could keep awake!” he said, pressing her hand in his as -though he would never let it go. - -She looked at him archly. - -“You were always pessimistic, Harry, weren’t you? Do you remember -how you used to say we should never have the little girl for whom we -longed, just because we longed for her so much? And now there’s Jeanie! -Jeanie who’ll be having her twenty-first birthday in a month or two! -And you are proud of her, aren’t you, Harry? Of course you are! We are -both proud of such a daughter, just the daughter we imagined.” - -He closed his eyes. - -“I remember--I remember how we used to talk of the daughter we were -going to have. It seems very long ago, Christine, those first months of -our life together.” - -She smiled. - -“And there she is, all our dreams of her coming true, asleep upstairs -and very likely herself dreaming of the woman’s life that is opening -before her. She’s very real to you, isn’t she, Harry?” - -He forced himself to speech with an effort. - -“Yes, dear. Go on.” - -“She’s worth all the anxieties we had with her--the anxieties we -never imagined. Do you remember, when she was a little golden-haired -prattler, that awful time when she was ill? Do you remember how I -nursed her, night and day--and how you would come tip-toeing to her -tiny cot and look down upon it, praying with all your soul that she -would not die? I think that was when you first began really to love -her very much, Harry--when you thought you might lose her.” She nodded -her head in dreamy reminiscence, staring into the fire. “I remember -how proud I was when you gave up your work for a day or two because -you felt you could not leave the house while she was in danger. It was -such a miracle for you to do that--like Joshua stopping the sun--and -all because of our tiny little Jeanie. It made me love you, oh, ever so -much more, Harry!” - -“Go on!” he said, closing his eyes again. “Go on!” - -“And then how proud of her you were while she was at school! She always -had your brains, Harry, didn’t she? Always she was at the top of her -class. I remember”--she smiled--“I used to fear that she might grow too -clever and wear spectacles. But there was just that bit of me--of the -frivolous me--in her, wasn’t there, Harry? And so just like her mother -she grew up to like pretty frocks and look as charming in them as I -used to want to look for you to admire me.” - -“Never so charming as you used to look, Christine, when you were -twenty-one,” he said, his eyes lighting up with a genuine memory. “No -one could look prettier than you did.” - -Her warm fingers curled in his hard hands and her smile came up to him. - -“Thank you, dear. It is nice of you not to forget.” - -He breathed a long sigh. - -“For every day of twenty-five years, Christine, I have seen you as you -used to look then.” There was an emphasis in his subdued and deliberate -enunciation that was eloquent of past agonies. - -“It was the real Christine, Harry, that twenty-one-year-old Christine -who was so proud to be your wife and knew herself to be so unworthy of -you.” - -“No, no!” he said, hoarsely. “Not unworthy--I didn’t understand then. -If only I had understood--if I had not been so absorbed in the things I -wanted to do----” - -“Shh!” she soothed him. “It was all very beautiful, our life together, -Harry dear. Do you remember the holidays we had alone together? Do you -remember Switzerland, and the great mountains that towered up behind -our hotel, the snow upon their summits orange against deep blue in -the first sunshine of the dawn? Do you remember how we used to wake -up to look at them, and said it was just like the pictures, only -more wonderful because we were actually there? Do you remember being -among the great fields of narcissi, with blue gentian higher up, and -reminding me that this was what you had promised to show me--those -fields on fields of wild flowers which you had seen when you were -a young student, years before? Do you remember the mountain stream -with the big boulders where we ate sandwiches on a little patch of -turf between the rocks, and you kissed me just as those other people -came down the path? I remember--I remember how I went hot all over -and yet was very proud and happy, because it was the first time that -any one else had ever seen you loving me. You used to pretend--do you -remember?--to be a little cold and distant toward me when we were in -company, your dignity much too big to admit that you were in love.” - -“Don’t, Christine--don’t!” he murmured, the breath of a soundless sob -escaping him in a broken exhalation. “If only we had had them--those -holidays we meant to have!” - -“We did, dear,” she pursued. “We did have them. They’re all -there--among our dreams. Look at them and you will see that they are -true. The memory of them isn’t spoilt by anything that was not just -right. Can’t you call them up again--the holidays we used to promise -ourselves for the days when you were successful? Can’t you see them? -Can’t you see that lovely time in Italy--the big blue lake, with the -yellow houses and the red roofs close under the mountains and fairy -islands in the middle? Can’t you see Venice and the black gondola in -which we sat, urged forward like a living thing over the still water in -which the palaces were reflected? Can’t you call back that wonderful -night of silent peacefulness when, arms around each other, we leaned -out over our balcony and listened to the gondoliers singing to each -other under the stars? Don’t you remember the bridge in Florence where -you stopped and said: ‘This is where Dante met Beatrice’--and we -looked into each other’s eyes and knew that we, too, were a Dante and -Beatrice, born for each other’s love? Don’t you remember, dear? Can’t -you see them, all those wonderful years together, when you and I were -young?” - -“Christine, Christine!” he murmured. “If only they were true!” - -“They are true, dear--they are true,” she asserted. “They are the -truest things we have--the dreams of our souls which they will dream -again and again long after we have no body. And not only holidays--our -life together had work in it, too, didn’t it, dear?--hard and -successful work. Do you remember the big case which made you famous?” - -He nodded, a smile of genuine reminiscence on his face. - -“The Pembroke case?” - -“Yes, dear,” she continued, “the Pembroke case. Do you remember how -hard you worked then?” - -“By Jove, I do!” he agreed, with an emphatic little laugh. “I never -worked so hard in my life!” - -“Do you remember how I used to sit by the fire here at night, not -daring to make the slightest sound, while you worked at your desk, -going through all those masses and masses of papers in readiness for -the next day of the trial? Do you remember how sometimes you would look -up, not saying a word, but just assuring yourself that I was still -there and going on with your work all the fresher because you saw me? -Do you remember when at last, in the small hours, you finished for the -night, you would come across and kiss me, oh, so quietly, and lay your -head against me for comfort because you were so tired!” - -He did not answer. His eyes stared into the fire, his lips thinned in -a tight pressure against each other, as the mental picture of the fact -came up in conflict with this ideality. They had been terrible, those -nights of solitary work. - -She continued, undeterred. - -“And then, on the last day of the trial, when you had made that great -speech--the first big speech of your career--and got your verdict, -the night when all the newspapers were full of your triumph, do you -remember your home-coming, dear?” - -“By Heaven, I do!” he interrupted, with a sudden outburst of -bitterness. “I came home and looked around me--and wished that I were -dead in the hopeless emptiness of it all!” - -“No, dear, no!” she corrected him. “You came home and found me waiting -for you in my prettiest dress and we had dinner together, just you and -I alone, because the moment was so big that we couldn’t possibly share -it with any one else. Do you remember how solemn we tried to be, you -and I--you looking so dignified in your evening clothes and I just as -dainty as I could be? And then suddenly you jumped up like a schoolboy -and darted round the table to kiss me--and we kissed and laughed at -ourselves, and kissed and laughed again, every time the servants went -out of the room--a couple of happy children. And I loved you so much -because you were so very clever and yet could be such a boy. And then -we got solemn again as the bigness of it all came over us--real, real -success at last! The paths of all the world seemed open to us, didn’t -they, dear? And we drank to it, success and love! And then, quite close -and looking into my eyes, you said the loveliest thing of all the -lovely things you ever said to me--you said that your great success, -the one success that really mattered to you, was that you had won my -love, my real, real love that bound my soul to yours for ever. Oh, -Harry, I would have died for you that night!” - -She ceased and he was silent. The might-have-been came up before him -with intolerable vividness. If one could but begin over again! - -“And now,” she gently moved the hand that all this time had lain in -his as they crouched close together over the fire, “and now here we -are--all the years of hard work, so successful that we need not worry -any more, behind us--nothing really important to do except to sit hand -in hand and dream over the happy past, an old Darby and Joan who have -lived their lives----” - -He jumped to his feet. - -“Christine! Christine!” he cried. “Let us make it true! Let us -forget--forget all the bad dream--go on again together just as if what -you said were true!” - -She looked up at him, a strange and awful fear coming into her eyes, -the face that had gained colour going ashen once more. - -“Oh, Harry!” she said, in a tone of infinite reproach. “You’ve broken -it! You’ve let go my hand!” - -He ignored this infantile remark, went straight to his point in the -brutally over-riding manner characteristic of him. - -“Let us forget it, Christine, forget that you ever went away from me. -I’ll never remind you of it. We won’t argue past responsibilities. -We’ll start afresh. Christine, I’m a lonely old man--I want you. I -want you to sit by the fire with me, to talk over, if you like, the -might-have-beens that we threw away, I as much as you. I want you, -anyway. I can’t bear loneliness any more--not now, after you have come -back to me!” - -She rose to her feet also, shivering, her eyes closing, biting at her -lower lip as though in suppressed pain. She shook her head. - -“No, Harry, not now. I--I must go away now, go back.” - -She turned and moved, with a curious detachment from him that reminded -him somewhat of a sleep-walker, toward the door. - -He jumped in front of her. - -“You shall not go, Christine! You have come back--and you shall not go -again!” - -She opened anguished eyes at him. - -“Harry,” she said in a tone of profound melancholy, “you know you -cannot keep me like that. Remember the last time you tried to hold me -caged behind a closed door!” - -He did remember--the day when, disapproving of some intended excursion, -he had, in a cold passion, turned the key upon her--the day he had come -back to find a broken lock and curt note. He had learned his lesson. He -stood aside from her path, entreated instead of dictating. - -“Stay with me, Christine! Stay with me!” - -She shook her head. - -“I cannot,” she said. “I must go back. It was only for one little hour -I came. We have had it, Harry, and I must go.” - -“But you will return? I shall see you again?” - -She smiled a wan smile at him. - -“Who knows, Harry?” - -“Where are you going? Where do you live?” - -“Please, Harry!--ask no questions. Let me go.” - -There was a dignity about her which silenced him. He opened the door -for her and they went out into the hall. In a dazed preoccupation, he -went up to the outer door and opened it to the night. Then he turned -and perceived her coatless condition. - -“Good Heavens, Christine, you can’t go out like that! Wait a minute. -I’ll lend you my fur coat. It’s better than nothing.” - -He darted into the adjoining clothes-lobby, returned with the garment. -The hall was empty; the door still open. She had gone. - -He ran out and down the drive after her, crying her name: “Christine! -Christine!” There was no response, neither sound nor sign of her. She -had vanished. - -Bitterly disappointed, he returned to the house, closed the door behind -him. As he went into the clothes-lobby to replace the unneeded coat he -was startled by the telephone bell. - -He hastened to the instrument, picked up the receiver. - -“Hallo!--Yes--Yes--what is it? Who are you?--_the police_?” He -repeated the last word in a tone of bewilderment, listened. - -“Yes,” he replied, “Yes--Mrs. Christine Arkwright--yes--that is my -wife--yes----” - -The silence of the empty hall seemed to envelop him as he listened. He -interjected an impatient exclamation. - -“Yes!--you found a letter and traced me--yes!--Go on!--What is it all -about?” - -He frowned, contorted his face as though the distant voice was not -clearly audible. - -“What?--what do you say?--died suddenly?--I don’t understand.--Where -was this?” - -He nodded as though now receiving more intelligible information. - -“No--I don’t recognize the address at all! What sort of place is -it?--oh, a second-rate boarding house. Well, I think there must be some -mistake--what?” - -He listened again. - -“No,” he persisted categorically, “I say I think there must be some -mistake. You say that a Mrs. Christine Arkwright died suddenly in a -second-rate boarding-house--at that address I don’t know--and you’ve -traced me out--I quite understand all that. But I say I have good -reason to think there is a mistake somewhere--it couldn’t be---- What?” - -He smiled with a grim superiority as he listened. - -“What?--You say there’s no doubt of the identity?” - -His brows puckered suddenly in the frown with which he prepared the -annihilation of a stupid and stubbornly insistent witness. - -“Now, pay attention, my friend!--When did this event occur?” He -asked the question in the tone of one confident of establishing an -impossibility by a counter fact. There was a moment of pause--and then -his expression changed. “To-night?--_At eleven o’clock?_” - -The clock in the study struck, discreetly, twelve. - - - - -FROM THE DEPTHS - - -The S. S. _Upsal_, 2,000 tons, the Swedish ensign at her taffrail, -her one black-spouting funnel still daubed with remains of war-time -camouflage, lifted and plunged doggedly into the teeth of the September -south-west gale that lashed her with cold rain from the streaming -gray clouds which curtained close the foam-topped gray-green waves -into which she crashed with recurrent walls of spray high above her -forecastle, and which mingled in an indistinguishable whelm with -the dirty murk of beaten-down smoke low upon the track of her bared -and racing propeller. The men upon her bridge crouched, oilskins to -their ears, behind the soaked canvas of the “dodger” which protected -them, peering into the mist from which at any moment might emerge -the towering bulk of a liner hurrying up-channel to the hungry ports -of Europe. They were silent. Conversation was a futile effort in the -buffeting blasts that stopped the words in their mouths. The only -sounds were the crash and thud of green water that slid off in foaming -cascades from the forecastle to the well, the harp-like moaning of -the wind-tautened stays, and, in brief lulls, the sizzling of rain -and spray upon the heated funnel and the creaking of boat-gear whose -serviceable character in such a humble “tramp” was a phenomenon -reminiscent of unwonted marine perils that had but recently ceased. -No longer did her look-out scrutinize every flitting patch of foam in -apprehension of the dreaded periscope. The violences of sea and sky -were dangers as of yore. From the depths came now no menace. - -The group upon her bridge was more numerous than is customary on a -cheaply run little freighter of her class. In addition to the second -officer whose watch it was, and the look-out man on the opposite corner -of the bridge were three others. Two of them, young men oilskin-clad -like their companions, stood close together in an attitude which -indicated a personal acquaintanceship independent of the working of the -vessel. The third man held himself aloof, his back to them, staring -over the troubled sea to a point on the starboard quarter. Somewhere -in that direction, wrapped in the mists of rain and trailing cloud the -last rocky outposts of England whitened the waves which surged and fell -back about them in ceaseless and ever-baffled attack. - -The buoyant twist and roll which accompanied the lift and plunge of -the _Upsal_, the frequent racing of her propeller, indicated that -she was running in ballast. Almost for the first time in her drab, -maid-of-all-work career, indeed, the _Upsal_ carried no cargo. She was -on a special mission. A Scandinavian salvage syndicate, having come to -an arrangement with the underwriters of a few out of the hundreds of -vessels which strew the bottoms of the entrances to the British seas, -had chartered her to locate and survey a group of promising wrecks, -preparatory to more extended operations. The two young men were their -technical engineers; Jensen, the taller of the pair, and Lyngstrand, -his assistant. - -The third man, who stood aloof from them, was Captain Horst, the master -of the ship. He was, of course, primarily responsible to his owners -and not to the syndicate who had chartered his vessel. Until they -reached the location of the wrecks the submarine engineers were merely -passengers. Reticent and sombre as he had been since the commencement -of the voyage, he ignored them now, stood apparently lost in abstract -contemplation of the gray waste of sea. But one who could have looked -into his face would have been impressed and puzzled by his expression. -The cruel mouth under the little red moustache was curiously twisted. -In the haggard eyes which roved around the restricted horizon was -an oddly apprehensive uncertainty, unexpected in such a determined -countenance. His glance looked down, apparently fascinated, upon the -seas which raced below him as the _Upsal_ lifted on yet another crest, -as though there were something strange in being so high above them--and -then jerked up, automatically, to the horizon as in swift, instinctive -doubt of impunity. A psychologist would have suspected that he allowed -a fear of some kind, so long abiding as to have become a subconscious -mental habit, the relief of free play when he knew himself unwatched. - -The two submarine engineers paid no attention to him. They gazed -across the untenanted sea ahead to where the white spray leaped, -almost lantern-high, in unsuccessful embraces of the tall column of -The Bishop. Then, when the lighthouse, loftily unmoved above the eager -seas, ascetically alone in the wide desolation of foam-streaked gray, -had slipped abeam, had receded into the mist behind them, when there -was no object to claim the eye on all the tumultuous stretch of ocean -ahead, Jensen turned to his companion and pointed downward. Lyngstrand -nodded assent, and they both staggered across the wet, reeling bridge -toward the ladder which led below. - -The skipper, staring aft, his back on them, blocked their passage. -Jensen touched him on the shoulder. He swung round abruptly, with a -startled curse. Then, recognizing them, he moved aside grudgingly. His -face was turned from them as they passed. - -The two young men descended to the deck below. They were berthed -in the saloon under the poop, but they took their meals in the -charthouse immediately beneath the bridge, in company with the skipper -who slept there. In addition to meal-times, the charthouse was a -convenient refuge from the weather common to all of them. It was their -objective now, and, just dodging a flying sea that fell with a heavy -far-scattered splash upon the deck, they flung themselves inside and -shut the door. Then, removing and hanging up their dripping oilskins, -they slid round to a final seat upon the leather-covered lockers which -filled the space between two sides of the walls and the screwed-down -centre table. - -“Filthy weather!” said Jensen, producing pipe and tobacco-pouch. “But -we ought to get there to-night. We’re changing course now to the -north-west. Feel it?” - -In effect, even as he spoke the _Upsal_ swung round to starboard. A -long lurching roll substituted itself for the corkscrew plunges which -had been the predominant motion, and the spray flung itself viciously -at the port side of the ship to the exclusion of the other. - -Jensen, having lit his pipe, produced a type-written sheet of paper -from his pocket. It was a list of ships, followed by indications of -latitude, longitude, and other particulars. - -“No. 1--_Gloucester City_, 7,500 tons, Latitude 50 degrees 55 minutes -North, Longitude 9 degrees 14 minutes West, 60 fathoms, torpedoed 20th -September, 1918,” he read out. “Get the chart, Lyngstrand, and let us -prick down its exact position.” - -His fair-haired junior obediently spread out a chart of the exit to the -English Channel upon the table. - -“20th of September!” he said, reflectively. “That’s curious, Jensen! -Exactly a year ago to-day!” - -“Coincidences must happen sometimes,” replied Jensen with the superior -indifference of three or four years’ seniority. “I see nothing -remarkable in it.” - -“It just struck me,” said Lyngstrand, apologetically. “No--I suppose -there’s nothing remarkable in it--it might just as well have been any -other day.” - -Jensen threw a cursory glance at the chart. - -“You’ve brought the wrong one,” he said, snappily. “This doesn’t go far -enough north. Look in the drawer there--there must be another one.” - -“It is up in the wheelhouse, I think, Jensen,” demurred the young man, -mildly. - -“Yes--I know--but old Horst is certain to have a duplicate. Look in -the drawer and see!” replied Jensen, with an impatience invited by the -docility of his junior. - -Lyngstrand obeyed, rummaging among a number of charts in the drawer of -the locker under Captain Horst’s bunk. - -“Here we are!” he cried at last, unrolling one of them. “This is a -special one, evidently! Someone has marked it all over with red ink.” - -Jensen snatched it from him, spread it out. In fact, as Lyngstrand -said, it was marked in many places with little red-ink crosses, and -under each was a date. Jensen ran his finger across it, stopped just -off the south coast of Ireland. - -“By all that’s wonderful!” he cried in a slow, long-drawn accent -of amazement, raising his head and looking at his companion. “_He -has marked our wreck!_ Look!--Fifty-fifty-five North, Nine-fourteen -West--and there’s the date under it 20/9/18!” - -“Then all those other crosses----?” queried Lyngstrand, in a voice of -puzzled interest. - -“They must be---- Wait a minute!” He compared some of them with the -indications on his list. “Yes! They are wrecks, too--all torpedoed -ships--look! this and this and this are marked on the chart! There are -others not marked--but there are many more marks than there are ships -on our list. They must be all torpedoed ships!” - -“But why?” asked Lyngstrand. “Why has he got them all marked like -this?--Where did he get this chart, I wonder?” - -Jensen glanced to the bottom of the sheet. - -“_This is a German chart!_” he exclaimed. - -Lyngstrand stared at him. - -“German----!” he began, and stopped. They looked into each other’s eyes -in a long moment when suspicion defined itself as almost certitude. For -that moment they forgot the sickly rolling of the ship threshing and -wallowing on her way to one of those tragic little red crosses. They -forgot everything except the slowly dawning possible corollaries of -this discovery. - -Before either could utter another word, the lee door of the charthouse -opened and Captain Horst stood framed in the entrance. He glared across -at them, his face livid with a sudden anger, his eyes blazing. Then, -with a scarcely articulate but vehemently muttered oath, he sprang -across the little room, snatched the chart from the table, thrust it -into the drawer, locked it up and put the key in his pocket. He turned -and scowled at them in a silence which they were too awed to break. His -eyes, fiercely blue, seemed to search into their very souls. Theirs -dropped under the intolerable scrutiny. He uttered an exclamation -of angry contempt and, without further speech, walked out of the -charthouse. - -The two young men looked at each other. - -“That is the second time this morning!” said Jensen, at last, glancing -toward the door now once more closed on them. - -“What is?” asked Lyngstrand, curiously. - -“_That he has cursed in German!_--Lyngstrand! I am beginning to see -into this!” - -“But it’s impossible!” exclaimed Lyngstrand, his mind leaping to -his friend’s deduction and then rejecting it. “He is a Swede, like -ourselves!” - -“He is a German!” said Jensen, positively. - -“But he speaks Swedish without a trace of accent!” - -“And other languages also, I expect--French and English, as -well--better than you or I speak them, I have no doubt. Swedish would -much facilitate service in the Baltic--and your German naval officer -was linguistically well equipped for any possible campaign.” - -“German naval officer!” echoed Lyngstrand, incredulously. - -“I will bet on it!” asserted his friend. - -“But--a German naval officer commanding a rotten little tramp like -the _Upsal?_” said Lyngstrand, emphasizing his incredulity. “I can’t -believe it!” - -“Even German ex-naval officers have to live, my friend,” responded -Jensen, axiomatically. “And--I ask you--what is open to them but to -take service in the mercantile marine of other nations? There is no -more German fleet--there are not enough merchant vessels left under the -German flag to employ all their trained officers. On the other hand, -all the Scandinavian nations have multiplied their trading fleets--they -cannot find officers enough for them. A first-class seaman like Horst, -speaking Swedish like a native, would find plenty of owners only too -willing to employ him.” - -“It sounds plausible,” agreed Lyngstrand, but somewhat doubtfully. - -“Plausible!” repeated Jensen, scornfully. “It is more than -plausible--the more I think of it, the more certain I am. Consider! -Is Horst the typical rough merchant skipper? You know perfectly well -he is not. You said yourself, the first evening we came aboard, that -although he had the soul of a pig he had the manners of a gentleman. -How does he speak Swedish--like a man who has spent half his life -knocking about harbour drinking-shops? No! He expresses himself with -that precise accuracy of the man employing a language well learnt, -indeed, but nevertheless foreign to him--like you and I speak English, -my friend. And his clothes!--Did you ever know the skipper of a tramp -steamer wear a stiff white collar while at sea? Then his curt way of -giving orders--no question about discipline, but you should see some of -our Swedish forecastle-hands stare at him! One of them stared a moment -too long just before you came aboard. He knocked him clean out!--He -is a German naval officer, I will swear to it!--More than that, I am -convinced that he commanded a submarine!” - -“That chart, then----?” - -“Is the chart of his sinkings!” - -“By God!” said Lyngstrand, solemnly, setting his teeth and staring -sternly at the charthouse wall. “If I were sure of it----!” - -“What do you mean?” asked Jensen, struck by this sudden change from his -friend’s ordinarily meek demeanour. “What has it to do with you?” - -Lyngstrand turned to him with a bitter little laugh. He seemed, indeed, -a different man. - -“More than you think, my friend,” he said, briefly. “I am not good -company for U-boat commanders!” - -“But why?--You lost no one----?” - -Lyngstrand’s serious eyes held his. - -“You remember I went to America in 1917, Jensen? I met a girl there--we -were betrothed. She was coming to Europe to me last year. She never -arrived. Her ship--a neutral--a small Norwegian ship, the _Trondhjem_, -on which I had arranged for her passage--was torpedoed in the Atlantic -last September--_spurlos versenkt_!” He finished in a tone of bitter -mimicry, and then suddenly hid his face in his hands through a silence -which Jensen felt incapable of breaking. At last he looked up again. -“If ever I trace the scoundrel who murdered her----!” The ugly menace -in his voice supplied the final clause to his unfinished sentence. - -“A difficult task!” murmured Jensen, sympathetically. - -Lyngstrand glanced at the closed drawer of the locker. - -“When I think that perhaps on that chart--one of those little red -crosses----” He crashed his hand upon the table. “By God, Jensen! I -would give something to have another look at it!” - -Jensen laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. - -“We will do our best, Lyngstrand, to see it again. But don’t torture -yourself about it now. Come out on deck. The barometer is rising, and -if the sea goes down to-morrow we shall want to keep clear heads for -our investigation of the _Gloucester City_.--Come!” - -He rose and held out his friend’s oilskins, helped him on with them. - -They went out and stood in the shelter of the lee-deck, watching the -foam-froth sink down and melt in the depths of the malachite waves that -rolled away from them, until soon after eight bells the white-jacketed -steward clanged out his announcement of dinner. - -They found Captain Horst already at his place at the table in the -charthouse. It was significant of the unexpressed but clearly felt -antipathy which in the past few days had grown up between the skipper -and his passengers that he had commenced his meal without waiting -for them. Jensen, however, was a level-headed young man who had not -the least intention of jeopardizing the enterprise for which he was -responsible by ill-timed open bad-temper. He nodded a greeting with a -smile which totally ignored the strained circumstances of their last -meeting. - -“I think the weather is moderating, Captain Horst,” he said, -pleasantly, as he sat down. - -“_Ja_,” responded Captain Horst, gruffly, throwing a perfunctory glance -through the unshuttered forward windows of the charthouse. - -“We ought to reach the neighbourhood of our wreck some time to-night?” -pursued Jensen in affable enquiry. - -Lyngstrand had addressed himself in silence to the food the steward set -before him, but he glanced up as though some undertone of significance -in his friend’s voice had caught his ear. - -“Thereabouts,” conceded Captain Horst in a tone which sufficiently -indicated that he was disinclined for conversation. - -But Jensen was cheerfully loquacious. - -“I wonder whether we shall hit on some other wreck instead?” he -surmised. “These seas must be strewn with them.” - -Captain Horst shrugged his shoulders. - -Lyngstrand looked up. - -“If I were a German U-boat commander,” he said, with a quiet -deliberation, his eyes straight on Captain Horst’s face, “I should not -dare to sail over these seas again. I should see drowning faces sinking -through every wave.” - -His last sentence seemed to ring through the silence which followed it. -Captain Horst sat impassive, but his brutal jaw looked hard and his -cruel mouth thinned during the moment in which he returned Lyngstrand’s -glance. - -“Bah!” he said. “The dead don’t come back!” There was something of -defiance in his harshly contemptuous tone. “They are finished with--for -ever!” - -The blood went out of Lyngstrand’s face as he bent down again to his -plate. - -There was no further conversation during the meal. - -The afternoon was spent by the two young men, in company with -the half-dozen divers under their orders, in overhauling the -diving-dresses, air-pumps, etc., which might be required on the morrow. - -The gale had obviously blown itself out. The western sky had cleared, -the rain had ceased, the wave-tops were no longer torn in flying spume, -there was less violence in the rolling surges in whose trough they -wallowed. When, a little after four bells, they were summoned to tea, -the sun was setting in a golden splendour that promised a peaceful dawn. - -Excited by the prospect of the next day’s work, the two young men -forgot their suspicions of Captain Horst, could talk of nothing but -their plans for diving despite the after-swell of the gale which would -surely still be running. The captain listened to their impatience with -the ghost of a grim smile, but volunteered no part in the conversation. - -“Do you propose to keep under way all night, Captain Horst?” enquired -Jensen. - -“No,” he replied. “By my dead reckoning we ought to be in the vicinity -of the wreck at about eight bells to-night. I shall anchor then if the -glass is still rising. To-morrow we will take an observation and get -as close as we can to the position of the _Gloucester City_--presuming -that you have it correctly stated.” - -His tone was perfectly indifferent, but Lyngstrand thought suddenly of -that chart with the little red crosses--and particularly that cross on -their indicated spot, 50° 55´´ N., 9° 14´´ W, with the fatal date of -exactly a year ago--20/9/18. Surely it could not be mere coincidence! -He thrilled suddenly with a dramatic perception. If--if it were so--if -the man so calmly smiling at him had really sent the _Gloucester City_ -to the bottom!--and now, on the anniversary of the crime, was coolly -proposing to anchor himself as near as might be over her ocean grave, -preparatory to disturbing it on the morrow!--No! He ridiculed himself. -It was impossible! No man could have the iron will--he glanced straight -into the blue eyes of the impassive Horst, read nothing--no man could -stand the strain without betraying himself. The murderer brought back -to the scene of his crime broke down into confession--and, if he were -the murderer of the _Gloucester City_, Horst was being brought back -with ironic inexorability to the site of his assassination, brought -back by those subtle, apparently normal, everyday circumstances from -which there is no escape. - -He wondered to what extent Horst had been informed of the purport of -their voyage when the _Upsal_ was chartered. He could not, certainly, -have been left in ignorance--but, on the other hand, he could not -well refuse to navigate the ship without losing an employment which, -however humble, was assuredly to be coveted by a man in his position. A -penniless naval officer had poor prospects in Germany. Bah! (he thought -to himself in a sudden revulsion) he was accepting Jensen’s unsupported -surmises as though they were reality. The thing was impossible! Another -glance at the hard but emotionless face opposite him reassured him. He -banished his hyper-dramatic idea in a spurn of self-contempt for his -too excitable imagination. - -Conversation languished. There was no community of thought between -the skipper and his passengers, and his presence was a check upon the -mutual confidences of the two young men. Meals together were an ordeal -escaped from as soon as terminated, and Jensen and Lyngstrand speedily -went out on deck again with the murmured allegation that the overhaul -of their gear was not yet finished. - -They did not come together again until some three hours later, when, -her white anchor-light hoisted between her masts, the _Upsal_ was -pitching at her cable to the heavy swell which rolled down upon her -from the darkness of the night. The two young men had been yarning -with the chief engineer in the pleasant warmth of the engine-room, -when a glance at the clock reminded them that it was the hour when the -steward brought biscuits and cocoa to the charthouse. Light-hearted -as boys, their unpleasant thoughts of the captain dissipated by the -cheerful talk in which they had been indulging, they scrambled up the -iron-runged ladder from the warm, oily depths to the black, damp chill -of the outer night. - -In this sea-smelling gloom where the wave-tops ran past them with -faintly phosphorescent crests, the unwonted stillness of the ship’s -engines was suddenly vivid to their consciousness as she eased and -tugged at her anchorage. - -“Well, here we are!” said Jensen, stopping for a moment to peer around -him. - -“I wonder what lies beneath us?” queried Lyngstrand, developing his -comrade’s thought. As he, too, probed the darkness where the cruel -waves ran, easy familiars of the night, he had an uncomfortable little -mental picture of the _Gloucester City_ foundering, with torn side, -into their chill depths--a year ago. What shrieks and cries had hushed, -for ever, into the silence which encompassed them? - -Both shuddered. - -“Come along,” said Jensen. “Our cocoa will be cold.” - -At the charthouse door they hesitated for a moment on an indefinable -impulse, peeped through the unshuttered window which allowed a broad -ray of light to fall across the deck. - -Captain Horst was seated at the table, his head in his hands, his -back to them. Spread out before him was the chart with the little -red crosses. He sat motionless, staring at it, as though absorbed in -reverie. The three cups of cocoa were steaming on the table. His was -untouched. - -For one wild moment Lyngstrand thought he might be able to surprise a -glance at the chart. He turned the handle of the door as stealthily -as he could. Slight as the sound had been, however, Captain Horst had -heard it. When they entered he was stuffing something into his breast -pocket, and the chart was no longer on the table. - -They drank their cocoa in silence, Horst staring moodily at the floor, -Jensen and Lyngstrand risking a glance of mutual comprehension. -Suddenly two loud, sharp knocks broke the stillness--knocks that seemed -to be on the charthouse wall. - -Captain Horst raised his head. - -“_Herein!_” he cried, automatically, obviously without thinking. - -Jensen shot a swift look at his friend, eyebrows raised at this German -permission of entry. Horst bit his lip, suddenly self-conscious. He -repeated the authorization in Swedish. - -No one entered. - -Expectation was just passing into a vague surprise, when the knocks -were repeated--three heavy blows, obviously deliberate, upon the -after-wall of the charthouse. - -Horst sprang up, with a savage curse of exasperation. He was -self-controlled enough, however, to utter his thought in Swedish. -“I’ll teach them!” he exclaimed, as he flung open the charthouse door. -“Fooling around here!” - -He disappeared into the night and they heard the tramp of his heavy -sea-boots as he ran round the charthouse. But no other sound woke -upon his passage. The circuit completed, they heard his angry yell -to the look-out man on the bridge above, heard the quietly normal -response, the surprised denial. The interior of the charthouse was a -hushed stillness where Jensen and Lyngstrand sat exchanging a smile of -malicious enjoyment. Horst vituperated the stammering look-out man in a -flood of ugly oaths that were plainly a break-down of nervous control. - -The door opened again for his entry. - -“Extraordinary thing!” he scowled across at them. “No one there! You -heard them, didn’t you?” He seated himself with an angry grunt. - -Before they could answer, the knocks recommenced in a sudden -vehemence--not slow and deliberate this time, but in a rapid succession -which quickened to a fast and furious fusillade from origins that -seemed to play, flitting arbitrarily, all over the walls and roof. The -charthouse reverberated with them. Their intensity varied at every -moment from sharp, hammer-like blows to rapid, nervous taps from what -might have been a feverishly agitated pencil. The wild and uncanny -tattoo culminated in three crashing blows that seemed to be on the -underside of the table itself. There was silence. - -“What are you playing at?” cried Horst, glaring at them in fierce -suspicion of a hoax. - -For answer, they both lifted up their hands, obviously unoccupied, into -the air. Even as they did so, the knocks started again, still rapid, -but with a certain deliberate rhythm, and much less violent. Again they -seemed to be on the underside of the table. Horst looked, with a scowl -of distrust, under it to their immobile feet. The two young men glanced -at each other, as puzzled and alarmed as Horst himself. - -“What in the name of Heaven is it?” cried Jensen. - -The knocks swelled suddenly louder as though in answer to his voice. - -“Listen!” said Horst, holding up his hand. The colour had gone suddenly -out of his face, his eyes fixed themselves in a recognition charged -with vague fear. “It’s----!” - -“Yes!” cried Jensen, “by all that’s wonderful----!” - -“The Morse code!” Lyngstrand completed the sentence. - -Once perceived, there was no doubt of it. That succession of irregular -taps and pauses coming from the table as from a sounding-board was -a plain language to all three of them, unmistakable, not more to be -banished from cognition than the reiteration of spoken words. - -“But,” cried Lyngstrand, “where does it come from?--We have no -wireless--and even wireless could not produce that!” - -“Listen!” Jensen reproved him. “It’s a message of some kind!” He -glanced across to Horst who sat speechless, his face gray, his eyes -terrified. “Not Swedish!--Take it down, Lyngstrand, while I spell it -out!” - -The young man feverishly produced pencil and paper from his pocket. -“Listen!” he cried. “Good God! Do you catch it?” - -Three sharp taps--three more widely spaced--three sharp taps again--the -series was reiterated insistently--_S--O--S!--S--O--S!--S--O--S!_ - -“Ready, Lyngstrand?” queried Jensen in the sharp tone of a man -concentrating himself for action. His comrade nodded. - -Jensen rapped sharply upon the table the wireless operator’s signal -of reception. In immediate answer the raps from the invisible source -renewed themselves, continued evidently in a message. Lyngstrand jotted -down the letters as Jensen spelled them out. - -“‘_s-t-e-a-m-s-h-i-p_’--it’s English!” he interjected. “Got it?----” -The raps had continued, noted by his brain and coalesced by it into -definite words. “‘_Gloucester City_’----” - -“_What----?_” ejaculated Lyngstrand, in incredulous amazement, as he -rapidly wrote the words. - -Jensen continued, his attention fixed upon the unceasing raps. - -“--_torpedoed 50-55 north 9-14 west--sinking fast--come quickly--done -in_----” - -He glanced up to see Horst springing at them like a maddened animal. - -“Stop that!” cried the captain. “It’s a trick!--it’s a trick!” In -another second he had snatched paper and pencil from Lyngstrand’s hand. - -A formidable series of violent crashes, emanating from walls, roof, -and table, was the instant response to his action. He shrank back, -appalled, crouching with eyes that searched the surrounding walls in -agonized apprehension. “It’s a trick!--it’s a diabolical trick!” he -muttered. “_It must be!_” - -“Captain Horst!” said Jensen, with sternly level authority. “Be good -enough to sit down and remain quiet. All matters relating to the -_Gloucester City_ come within my province.” - -Horst, his arms up as though to guard himself, went slowly backward to -his seat but did not sit. There was madness in his eyes. “How could -they know?” he said to himself in a sharp-breathed whisper, “--_the -exact words!_----” - -“What do you mean?” queried Lyngstrand, curiously. Horst replied -without thinking, more to himself than to his questioner. - -“The exact words of her call for help--a year ago! My wireless picked -it up after we had left her----” He stopped suddenly, realized that he -had betrayed himself. - -“Then----!” cried Lyngstrand, jumping up from his seat and taking -a step forward. His eyes, full of menace, searched the ex-U-boat -commander’s face. - -“Be quiet--both of you!” commanded Jensen, holding up his hand. The -regular succession of raps had commenced again. Jensen listened to -them, nodded. Then he himself rapped a message in English on the -table--“_who are you?_” - -Horst and Lyngstrand listened in dead silence as the answer spelled -itself out upon the table. - -“_h-e-n-r-y s-m-i-t-h w-i-r-e-l-e-s-s o-p-e-r-a-t-o-r -g-l-o-u-c-e-s-t-e-r c-i-t-y._” - -Jensen turned a glance of wonderment to his comrade. Horst, reading the -message as currently as the others, looked as though about to faint. - -“Stop it!” he said, hoarsely. “Stop it!” - -Jensen ignored him, rapped again upon the table--“_where are you now?_” - -The answer came immediately. - -“_a-t y-o-u-r s-i-d-e_” - -The three of them sprang back simultaneously, as from the presence of a -ghost. Their eyes probed empty air. - -Jensen spoke aloud, still in English. - -“Can you see us--hear us?” - -The raps of the invisible hand upon the table replied at once. - -“_y-e-s_” - -“_Mein Gott!_” muttered Horst. “I shall go mad!” Jensen continued his -colloquy. - -“Where is the _Gloucester City_?” He smiled to himself as though -setting a trap for this unseen intelligence. “Is she still afloat?” - -The raps recommenced without hesitation. - -“_y-o-u-r a-n-c-h-o-r f-i-x-e-d- i-n u-p-p-e-r w-o-r-k-s_” - -Lyngstrand uttered an ejaculation of awed astonishment. He looked to -see the sweat pearling on Captain Horst’s forehead. - -The raps spelled out, spontaneously, an explanatory afterward. - -“_w-e l-e-d y-o-u t-o i-t_” - -“_We?_” queried Jensen. “Who are ‘_we_’?” - -“_t-h-e d-r-o-w-n-e-d_” The raps were decisive. - -“Why?” Lyngstrand admired his comrade’s steely self-control. “Why did -you lead us to it?” - -“_h-e c-a-n g-u-e-s-s_” - -“Who?” - -“_t-h-e m-u-r-d-e-r-e-r_” - -Both glanced swiftly at Horst. He was speechless, his face a study in -blanched terror. - -“_h-e k-n-o-w-s_” added the raps. There was something indefinably -malicious about their sound. - -“Stop it!” Horst’s voice was strangled, scarcely audible. “Stop it!” - -Jensen was unmoved. - -“How many of you?” he asked. - -Lyngstrand, fascinated by this conversation with the unseen, was -grateful for the question. - -“_t-h-r-e-e h-u-n-d-r-e-d a-n-d e-i-g-h-t g-l-o-u-c-e-s-t-e-r c-i-t-y -h-u-n-d-r-e-d a-n-d f-i-v-e r-e-s-c-u-e-d o-t-h-e-r s-h-i-p-s f-o-u-r -h-u-n-d-r-e-d a-n-d t-h-i-r-t-e-e-n i-n a-l-l_” - -“All men?” queried Jensen. - -“_t-w-e-n-t-y-f-i-v-e w-o-m-e-n_” - -“My God!” muttered Lyngstrand, in a sudden vivid remembrance that -stabbed him like a pain. He glanced at Horst. - -Jensen glanced also, and was merciless. - -“Are you all here?” he asked. - -“_y-e-s_” There was a little pause, “_h-u-n-d-r-e-d-s m-o-r-e I d-o-n-t -k-n-o-w d-r-o-w-n-e-d o-t-h-e-r s-u-n-k s-h-i-p-s a-l-l h-e-r-e_” - -Lyngstrand shivered, looked around him uneasily. Jensen’s voice -scarcely betrayed a tremor as he pursued. - -“What have you come for?” - -“_w-e h-a-v-e c-o-m-e f-o-r h-i-m_” - -“No!--no!” screamed Horst, suddenly. “No!--_Ach, Gott, schütze mich!_” - -Both Lyngstrand and Jensen had a sense of inaudible mocking laughter in -the air about them. There was an awful silence. - -The raps recommenced spontaneously. - -“_t-e-l-l h-i-m t-h-e-y a-r-e f-i-l-i-n-g p-a-s-t h-i-m -i-d-e-n-t-i-f-y-i-n-g h-i-m_” - -Jensen turned to Horst. - -“You hear?” he asked, grimly. - -But Horst, with a blood-curdling scream of terror, had flung himself -at the charthouse door, thrown it open. They heard the hiss and sough -of the dark seas. He plunged out, blindly, head-foremost. Then, just -beyond the threshold, he stopped, recoiled, staggered back into the -charthouse. - -“No!” he gasped, hoarsely. “No!--_I can’t face them! I can’t face -them!_--I can’t die!--I dare not!” - -He shook in a palsy of the faculties. His eyes agonizedly sought their -unsympathetic faces. The German submarine commander is a pariah among -seafaring men, whatever their nationality. He realized it, hopelessly, -as he met their hard eyes. With a sob of self-pity, he stumbled across -to a corner of the charthouse, sank down upon the seat, covered his -face with his hands. - -Lyngstrand’s young features were sternly set as he glanced at him. Then -he took a long breath, the preparatory oxygen-renewal of the man who -dares an experiment that will tax him. He rapped the wireless “call-up” -upon the table. - -“Can the others communicate also?” he asked, loudly, in English. He, -also, was trembling. - -The answer came at once. - -“_o-n-l-y t-h-r-o-u-g-h m-e_” There was a slight pause, then the raps -recommenced again, “_l-a-d-y h-e-r-e h-a-s a m-e-s-s-a-g-e f-o-r -p-e-t-e-r_” the raps hesitated “_p-e-t-e-r f-u-n-n-y n-a-m-e c-a-n-t -c-a-t-c-h i-t_----” - -Lyngstrand’s face went deathly white. - -“Yes,” he gasped, just only able to speak, “--Peter--yes--go on!” -He looked at the table as though expecting to see the hand that was -rapping out the message. Tap-tap-tap, it came. - -“_p-e-t-e-r l-i-n-g-s-t-r-a-n-d_” - -“Yes--here!” he gasped. “Go on!--who is it?” - -“_m-a-r-y t-i-l-l-o-t-s-o-n_” - -He reeled against the table, clutched at it. - -“My God!” he murmured to himself, his eyes closing, his teeth grinding -upon one another in an agony of emotion. Then, with a supreme effort of -self-control, he asked, loudly: “The message? Give it me!” - -“_s-h-e s-a-y-s s-h-e s-u-r-e l-o-v-e-s y-o-u s-t-i-l-l a-n-d i-s -w-a-i-t-i-n-g f-o-r y-o-u_” - -“Mary!” The cry burst from him, sobbingly, on a note of poignant -anguish. Jensen felt the tears start to his eyes. Horst cowered still, -face hidden, in his corner. - -There was a long moment in which Lyngstrand failed to bring another -sound to utterance. He swayed as though about to faint. Then once more -he mastered himself. - -“What--what happened?” he asked, unsteadily. “How did she die? Was she -torpedoed?” - -“_s-h-e s-a-y-s s-t-e-a-m-e-r t-r-o-n-d-h-j-e-m s-u-n-k g-u-n-f-i-r-e -r-e-s-c-u-e-d s-m-a-l-l b-o-a-t b-y g-l-o-u-c-e-s-t-e-r c-i-t-y -a-f-t-e-r-w-a-r-d t-o-r-p-e-d-o-e-d_” - -Lyngstrand reeled with closed eyes. He had a vivid vision of the torn -wreck in the depths beneath them, carnivorous fish darting where their -anchor grappled its untenanted bridge. - -“Did--did they have a chance?” he asked. - -“_n-i-g-h-t w-i-t-h-o-u-t w-a-r-n-i-n-g_” came the answer. - -Lyngstrand drew another deep breath, glanced at the motionless Horst. - -“And--and the man--the man who sank her?” - -“_k-a-p-i-t-a-n-l-e-u-t-n-a-n-t h-o-r-s-t_” There was a terrible -precision in those raps. - -They ceased. There was a deathly stillness. Through long moments, not -one of the three men in the charthouse moved. Then Lyngstrand turned -slowly. He took three steps toward Captain Horst, stood over him. The -only sounds were the creaking of gear as the _Upsal_ rose and subsided -on the swell, the swish and suck of the long waves that ran past her -in the darkness beyond the open charthouse door. - -Lyngstrand’s mouth had set in a thin line. His lips, compressed, opened -but slightly as he spoke. - -“Captain Horst,” he said, with grim distinctness, “you are certainly -going to die. I give you the privilege of the warning you did not -extend to your victims.” - -Horst looked up suddenly. His eyes, blue still, but crazed with terror, -fixed themselves upon the gray eyes that met them pitilessly. His mouth -moved under the little red moustache, but no sound came from it. - -Lyngstrand continued, an edge of fierce contempt upon his hard voice. - -“I even give you a choice: You can, if you like, go out there”--he -pointed through the open door to the rayless night--“and throw yourself -overboard----” - -Horst sprang to his feet, recoiled into the extreme corner of the -charthouse. - -“No!” he screamed. “No!” - -“--or I shall kill you myself,” pursued Lyngstrand, evenly. - -Horst’s face contorted suddenly with demoniac passion. Jensen, who -had approached and was watching him closely, saw his hand dart to the -pocket of his jacket, and he flung himself forward just as the revolver -cracked. - -With a red-hot thrust through his shoulder, a sickening faintness in -which the floor seemed to rise up to his knees, Jensen tottered back -to the charthouse wall. Fighting for consciousness, he dimly saw his -comrade hurl himself upon Horst--someone’s arm high in the air holding -a revolver, another arm high with it, clutching at the wrist below the -weapon. - -Then commenced a terrible silent struggle where the only sound was the -short gasps and sobs for breath of the two men swaying with the motion -of the ship. They hugged close, face upon face, in a murderous wrestle -where neither dared shift his grip. Both were big-framed, powerful, -but Lyngstrand had the advantage of youth. They came, inch by inch, -slipping on the floor, past Jensen leaning dizzily against the wall. -He saw them through a red mist where the electric lamp glowed vaguely, -unmoved like a nebulous start above the tensely locked embrace where -life fought for human continuance. - -Inch by inch, they moved onward. Jensen, his vision clearing, though -impotent to move, saw now that Lyngstrand had the inner berth, that -Horst was being gradually, slowly but surely, thrust toward the open -door. He saw one of Horst’s hands free itself, grip at the door-post, -cling to it. He saw the awful terror in the eyes that glared upon his -relentless adversary. - -Minute after minute the tense and silent struggle at the door -continued. Still clutching at the door-post, Horst was gradually borne -backward. His feet still in the charthouse, his body, save for that one -gripping hand, was bent back out of sight into the darkness. - -Suddenly his fingers relaxed their hold. Their feet tripped by the -raised threshold of the door, both disappeared headlong in a heavy thud -upon the deck outside. - -Jensen heard a sharp exclamation, the gasp of bodies that are rolled -upon--then the quick scuffling of feet. Agonized for his comrade, he -dragged himself painfully toward the door. Just as he reached it one -ghastly piercing scream rang through the night. - -He gazed out to see two closely locked bodies disappear over the -bulwark. - -The dark seas lifted a foaming crest as the _Upsal_ rolled. - - - - -YELLOW MAGIC - - -The talk of the half-dozen men on the veranda of the Singapore -club--a couple of merchants, a planter in town on business, an -officer of an Indian regiment, a globe-trotting professor from an -American university, and a sea-captain--had drifted desultorily from -the specific instance of the famous Indian rope-trick, resuscitated -by a British magazine that lay upon the club-tables and contested -sceptically by the Anglo-Indian officer, to the general topic of -the alleged ability of the Asiatic to make people “see what isn’t -there.” The American professor, whose specialty, as he confessed, was -psychology, manifested a pertinacious interest in the subject. But -his direct questions to these habitual dwellers in the Middle and -Far East elicited only contemptuous negatives or vague second- and -third-hand stories without evidential value. Merchants, planter, and -officer alike had quite obviously none of them seen any tricks upon -which the professor could safely base his rather rashly enunciated -theory of special hypnotic powers possessed by the inscrutable races, -whose surface energies are so profitably exploited by the white man. He -turned at last to the sea-captain who had sat puffing at his cheroot in -silence. - -“And you, Captain Williamson? You have voyaged about these seas for the -best part of a generation--have you never been confronted by one of -these inexplicable phenomena of which the travellers tell us?” - -There was just a little of Oliver Wendell Holmes pedantry about the -professor--a touch of that Boston of the ’eighties in which he had been -educated. - -Captain Williamson changed the duck-clad leg which crossed the other -and smiled a little with his keen gray eyes. Caressing the neat pointed -beard which accentuated the oval of his intelligent face, he replied -thoughtfully: - -“Well, Professor--I have. Once. Personally, though I saw the affair -with my own eyes, I don’t even now know what to make of it. Perhaps -your hypnotic theory might explain it.” He shrugged his shoulders. - -“Will you not tell us the story?” entreated the professor. “It is so -rare to receive trustworthy first-hand evidence of anything abnormal.” - -Captain Williamson glanced rather diffidently around upon his -companions. - -“Fire away, cap’en!” exclaimed one of the merchants, slapping him -amicably on the knee. “You’ve always got a good yarn!” - -“This happens to be a true one,” said the captain, with a smile of -tolerance, “but, of course, you are under no compulsion to believe it!” - -“Drinks all round on the one who doesn’t!” decreed the planter. “Go -ahead! Don’t ask us to believe rubber is going to boom again, that’s -all. Short of that, we’ll believe anything.” - -“Well,” began Captain Williamson, his eyes following reflectively the -long, deliberate puff of smoke he blew into the air, “perhaps some -of you may remember Captain Strong--‘lucky Jim Strong’? Twenty-five -years or so ago he was one of the best known skippers in the Pacific, -celebrated almost. Men talked of him with a certain awe as of a man -who had a good fortune that was nothing short of uncanny. He had been -engaged in all sorts of desperate enterprises, frequently illicit, such -as seal-poaching in the Russian preserves, gun-running under the nose -of British cruisers, gold or opium smuggling despite the patrol-boats -of the Chinese Customs Board, and always he emerged unharmed and gorged -with profits. Only all the San Francisco banks put together, for he -dealt with all of them, could tell you what he was worth, but it was -certainly a very large sum. However wealthy he was, he apparently -derived very little enjoyment from his money. He was always at sea in -his ship, the _Mary Gleeson_, of which he was both owner and skipper, -and stayed in port only just long enough to discharge one cargo and -pick up another. His personal habits were almost unknown, but of course -a legend of eccentricity grew up around them as a companion to the -legend of his supernatural luck. - -“It happened, as the finale to sundry personal adventures with which -I will not weary you, that about a quarter of a century ago I found -myself sailing out of the port of San Francisco as first officer to -the _Mary Gleeson_. I was quite a young man and it was my first job -as mate. We were bound to Saigon, in Cochin China, with a cargo of -American arms and ammunition consigned to the French Government. At -that time the French were still fighting to preserve and extend their -conquests in that part of the world. - -“The voyage across the Pacific was uneventful enough. We were a -contented ship. The men were cheerful. The old uncertificated -Scandinavian we had shipped as second mate was a conscientious officer. -I was rather proud of my new dignity and anxious to justify it. - -“As for Captain Strong, I unaffectedly liked him. Decisive but -even-tempered, his quietly firm handling of the ship’s company won my -respect, and there was no doubt of his first-class seamanship. He was -utterly without that petty punctilious pride by which some masters -try to conceal their lack of native dignity, and he would talk to -me for hours during my watch. His conversation revealed a wide and -intimate knowledge of men and affairs, and in particular of those -intrigues by which the Great Powers were in those days--I speak of the -’nineties--pushing their fortunes at the expense of the Chinese races. -Upon his own personal adventures and career, however, he was completely -silent, and no stratagems of mine could lure him into speaking of -them. Reserved as he was upon this point, nevertheless, I felt that -he regarded me with a distinctly friendly sentiment, and I cordially -reciprocated it. - -“At last we made the tall promontory of Cape St. Jacques, with its -lighthouse and cable-station, and took on board the half-caste pilot -who was to navigate us the sixty miles up the river to Saigon. I -remember the trip up-stream with that clearness of the memory for all -that immediately precedes a drama, no matter how long ago. It was -early morning when he crossed the bar and, relieved from the direct -responsibilities of navigation, Captain Strong and I sat in deck-chairs -under the awning of the bridge and all day watched the dense, -mist-hung, fever-infested forests of mangrove and pandanus slip past -us on both banks of the river. The damp, close heat was suffocating -and neither of us had much desire to talk, but I fancied that a more -than usually heavy moodiness lay over the skipper. He was certainly not -quite normal. He frowned to himself, bit his lip, and his eyes roved -in an uneasy sort of recognition from side to side of the stream as we -rounded reach after interminable reach. I felt that some secret anxiety -possessed him, but of course I could not ask him straight out what it -was. Rather diffidently, I did venture on one question. - -“‘Ever been here before, sir?’ I asked. - -“He shot a suspicious look at me, directly into my eyes, before he -answered. - -“‘Once.’ - -“The tone of the reply effectually checked any further exhibition of -the curiosity it heightened. - -“The worst heat of the day was over when we dropped anchor in the broad -stream opposite the European-looking city of Saigon. The usual swarm of -junks and sampans thronged around the quay, but the black Messageries -Maritimes packet moored in the river was the only other steamship. - -“To my pleasure, Captain Strong invited me to go ashore with him, -and in a few minutes the gig was pulling us toward the rows of -fine-looking Government buildings which stretch back from the quays. -I don’t know whether any of you have ever been to Saigon and I don’t -know what it looks like now, but in those days it looked like the -disastrous enterprise of a bankrupt speculative builder when you got to -close quarters. The town of Saigon had been burnt by the French in the -fighting by which they had obtained possession of the place, and they -had rebuilt it on European lines, shops, cafés, Government buildings, -all complete. But a paralysis was on everything, the paralysis of the -excessive administration with which the French ruin their colonies. The -streets were nearly deserted, a majority of the shops empty. The only -Europeans were slovenly, haggard military and the white-faced, dreary -Government employees who sat at the cafés and longed for France. I was -more depressed and disappointed at every step. - -“We went up to the Government House and filled up a few dozens of those -useless papers without which the French functionary dare do nothing, -and received vague assurances that in a few days we should be allowed -to unload the arms of which the French troops were in urgent need. Our -business completed as far as possible, Captain Strong hesitated for a -moment or two, biting his lip in that odd way I had noticed coming up -the river. Irresolution of any kind was a most common phenomenon in -him. Then suddenly, evidently giving way to a powerful impulse, I heard -him murmur to himself: ‘Give ’em a chance anyway!’ - -“Throwing a curt ‘Come along!’ to me, he set off at a tremendous pace -through the streets with the assurance of a man who can find his way -about any town where he has been once previously. I followed him, -puzzled by the words I had overheard, wondering whither he was going, -and noting the native population with curious eyes. The Annamite -men are a stunted, degenerate race, in abject terror of their white -masters, but the women are many of them surprisingly attractive. I had -plenty of opportunity for comparison, for very soon we found ourselves -among a swarm of both sexes at the station of the steam-tram which runs -to Cho-lon, the Chinese town a few miles up the river. - -“During the ride on the tram, Captain Strong did not open his lips. He -stared steadily in front of him in a curious kind of way, like a man -inexorably pursuing some allotted line of action. - -“Arrived at Cho-lon, he struck quickly through the squalid streets of -the Chinese town, looking neither to right nor left, and saying not a -word. We had passed right through the town before he gave me a hint of -our objective. Then he made a gesture upward as if to reassure me that -we were near our journey’s end. - -“Beyond the last houses, on an eminence backed by the primeval jungle, -a Buddhist temple of pagoda fashion rose above us, the terminus of the -rough track up which we were stumbling. As we drew near I saw that it -was dilapidated, its courtyard overgrown, deserted evidently by both -priests and worshippers. - -“Was this what Captain Strong had come to see? Somewhat puzzled, I -glanced at his face under the pith helmet. His lips were compressed, -his eyes stern as though defying some secret danger. At the entrance -gateway, festooned and almost smothered in parasitic vegetation, he -stopped and stared into the desolate courtyard. Then, after a moment -of the curious hesitation which I had already remarked that day, he -entered. - -“A deathlike stillness brooded over the place. The great doorless -portal of the temple, flanked by huge and staring figures, confronted -us, opening on to a black unillumined interior like the entrance to -a tomb. Weeds grew between the flags of the threshold. An atmosphere -of indefinable evil, as though the very stones held the memory of -some awful calamity, pervaded the silence. I shuddered in a sudden -sense of the sinister in this abandonment, and glanced involuntarily -at my companion as if from his face I might divine the cause. It was -impossible to guess his thoughts. His jaw was locked hard, his face -expressionless. - -“Then I perceived that we were not alone. Slinking round the outer wall -came a wretched-looking native. His long robe was torn and dirty. His -yellow face, lit by two slanting beady eyes, was emaciated and sunken. -His shaven crown was wrinkled to the top. The limbs which protruded -from his gown were as thin as sticks. In his hand he held a beggar’s -bowl. Remarking us, he stopped dead, watching us with his horribly -bright, fever-like eyes. Instinctively, I don’t know why, I put him -down as the last of the priests still haunting this once prosperous and -now deserted temple. - -“Captain Strong took no notice of him and advanced toward the -portal. Somewhat apprehensively, I followed him and peered in, but -the darkness, by comparison with the intense light outside, was so -complete that I could see nothing. My curiosity getting the better of -my nervousness, I stepped inside though, I confess, rather gingerly. -After a minute or two, my eyes accustoming themselves to the gloom, -I could see the great bronze figure of the Buddha towering above me, -facing the door. Its placid face, uplifted far above the passions of -men, looked as though it were patiently awaiting the day when this -abandonment should cease and its worshippers return to adoration of -its serenity. No precious stone now reflected the light from the door -and the huge candlesticks on either side of it were empty, the days of -their scintillating illumination long past. - -“Captain Strong, I noticed, remained on the threshold, silhouetted -black against the sunshine, but, emboldened by my impunity, I took -another step forward or two. I recoiled quickly. Something stirred -in the lap of the Buddha and a snake erected its head in a sudden -movement. Its eyes gleamed at me from the shadow like two green -precious stones. - -“I swung round to shout a warning to Captain Strong. If there was one -there were probably others of these deadly guardians of the divine -image. There were. To my horror, I saw another snake uncoil itself from -a crevice in the doorway, on a level with his neck, and draw its head -back in the poise for the fatal dart. I don’t know whether he heard -my inarticulate cry. His perception of the danger was simultaneous -with mine. But he made no blundering movement of confusion. Swift as -lightning his hand shot out and grasped the snake firmly close under -the head, where its fangs could not touch him. Then with a quick jerk -he flung it into the courtyard. The snake writhed away in a flash. - -“Such a display of cool, swift courage I have never seen before or -since. I ran out to him where he stood in the courtyard gazing after -the vanished snake, and excitedly expressed my admiration. He turned -round on me with a grim smile and shrugged his shoulders. The wretched -priest, if priest he was, had approached and he smiled also, a foolish, -exasperating, inscrutable smile, like an idiot enjoying an imbecile -esoteric meaning which is a meaning for him alone. Yet at the same time -I thought there was a suggestion of sly menace in that cringing grin. - -“‘Come back into Saigon,’ said Captain Strong, ignoring him. ‘We’ll -have a drink before we go on board.’ There was nothing in his manner to -remind you that he had just escaped death by a fraction. - -“I was not at all sorry to quit this unpleasant place, and I descended -that rough path with considerably more alacrity than I had mounted it. -Captain Strong was as coolly self-possessed as though walking down the -main street of San Francisco. - -“‘I must congratulate you on your luck, sir,’ I ventured, when we had -gone a little distance. ‘Had that snake struck a second before----’ - -“‘Bah!’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘One can get tired of -luck!’ - -“There was a violence, a sombre bitterness, in his tone which impressed -me. I thought of all the miraculous good-fortune which men attributed -to him--a specimen of which I had just seen--and wondered whether he -were really wearied of it. I could conceive it possible that a man of -his type would find life very dull if assured beforehand of success and -safety. It would be the struggle, the peril, which would appeal to him. - -“He relapsed into a gloomy silence which I did not dare to break. - -“We returned to Saigon on the steam-tram and shortly afterward we -found ourselves seated on the deserted terrace of a café, trickling -water through the sugar into our absinthe, for all the world as though -we were in some bankrupt quarter of Marseilles. Natives thronged -around us pestering us to buy all sorts of worthless trifles in their -horrible pidgin-French--_petit négre_ they call it. Their ‘_Mossieu -acheter--mossieu acheter_’ at every moment thoroughly exasperated me. -But Captain Strong sat lost in a brooding reverie where he did not even -hear them. His eyes looked, unseeing, down the wide street. - -“Suddenly an insinuating voice whined into my ear some native words I -could not understand, and repeated them with a wheedling insistence -which compelled my attention. I looked round into an ugly yellow face -whose malicious narrow-slitted eyes glittered unprepossessingly above -his fawning smile. There was something in the face that seemed familiar -to me and yet I could not place it. Under the conical bamboo hat all -these Annamites looked alike to me. I waved him away, but he was not -to be shaken off, reiterating over and over again his incomprehensible -phrase. - -“I glanced enquiringly at Captain Strong, whom I knew to understand -many Chinese dialects. - -“‘He’s a conjurer and wants to show you a trick,’ he explained, -contemptuously, adding a curt word and nod of assent to the native. - -“The Annamite beamed idiotically and stretched out his skinny hands -over the little table. - -“‘_Vous--regarder_,’ he said, evidently making the most of his French, -and grinned insinuatingly at me. - -“With a slow, snaky motion of his skeleton-like hands he commenced -to make passes in the air about six inches above my glass. I watched -him, at first idly, but gradually more and more fascinated as my -eyes followed the sinuous movements of his hands. Presently, to my -astonishment, I saw the glass, tall and fairly heavy--a typical -absinthe glass, commence to rock slightly on its base. The direction of -the passes altered to a vertical, up and down, as though his hands were -encouraging the glass to rise. And sure enough, it detached itself from -the table and, swaying a little unsteadily, rose into the air under the -hands still some distance above it. It ascended slowly, as though he -were drawing it up by a magnetic attraction, to an appreciable height -from the table, say three or four inches. Then, as he changed the -character of the passes again so that they seemed to press it down, it -sank slowly once more to the table. The native, childishly pleased with -this successful exhibition of his powers, grinned ingratiatingly at us -both. - -“Captain Strong threw a coin upon the marble top of the table. -The fawning smile still upon his ugly face, the conjurer looked -straight into the skipper’s eyes as he gabbled some native words of -thanks. Then, instead of picking up the coin, he suddenly seized -his benefactor’s hand in his skinny grasp and, using the captain’s -forefinger like a pen, traced upon the table-top a large ellipse -which commenced and finished at the coin. The action was performed so -unexpectedly, and with such swift strength, that Captain Strong had no -time to resist. The ellipse completed, he flung aside the captain’s -finger and held both his hands outstretched above the invisible -tracing. If I was astonished before, I was amazed now. Where the finger -had passed over that marble glowed a flexible reddish-gold snake -holding in its mouth, like a pendant on a chain, not the coin--but a -brilliantly flashing jewel of precious stones fashioned into a curious -pattern. I heard a startled exclamation break from my companion, but -before either of us could utter an articulate word, the conjurer’s hand -had descended swiftly upon the table. A second later both jewel--or -coin--and the conjurer had disappeared into the throng of watching -Annamites. - -“I glanced at Captain Strong. He was deathly pale and one hand was -feeling nervously over the breast of his silk shirt. Then, after a long -breath, he turned and smiled at me. - -“‘Clever trick that!’ he said. - -“The assumption of personal unconcern was so marked that I felt any -remark of mine would have been an impertinence. But I could not help -wondering what Captain Strong wore underneath his shirt. - -“He paid the native waiter for our drinks and rose from the table -without another word. We turned our steps toward the quay. The skipper -was absorbed in thoughts I could not penetrate, but I noticed that the -muscles of his jaw stood out upon his face and the heavy brows frowned -over his eyes. Evidently the tone of his meditations was combative. - -“Whatever they were, there was no hint of their purport in his voice as -he turned to me. - -“‘Come and have supper aft with me to-night, Mr. Williamson,’ he said, -carelessly. ‘I meant to have invited you to dinner in town but that -restaurant was really too depressing.’ - -“I thanked him, secretly astonished at the invitation. Captain Strong -never compromised his dignity by sitting at table with his officers. -He ate alone, in the beautifully fitted saloon under the poop. At the -time, I wondered whether he had some reason for preferring my company -to his customary solitude. But his manner expressed merely the courtesy -of a superior wishing to give pleasure to a young officer. - -“We had arrived on the quay and I was looking over the crowd of -vociferating boatmen with a view to selecting a sampan for our return -to the ship, when a sudden cry from the captain startled me. - -“‘Look! Good heavens! look!--Don’t you see?’ With one hand he gripped -me tightly by the shoulder, with the other he pointed to the _Mary -Gleeson_ anchored in mid-stream. ‘Look! _The yellow jack!_’ - -“I gazed with him across to the ship and to my horrified astonishment -saw that dreaded yellow flag which denotes the presence of yellow fever -fluttering in the evening breeze. Shocked and alarmed, I asked myself -who was the victim. There was no sickness among the ship’s company when -we went ashore. But I knew well enough the swiftness of death in these -latitudes. - -“‘Quick! Get a sampan!’ ordered the captain. - -“Privately, I doubted whether any boatman would venture into the -tainted neighbourhood of a ship with yellow fever on board, and I was -agreeably surprised to find that my only difficulty was to choose among -the swarm that offered themselves. I could only conclude that they did -not understand the meaning of the emblem. A moment or two later we were -being propelled swiftly across the stream, our eyes fixed upon that -fatal flag. The second officer stood at the top of the ladder to greet -us as we climbed on board. - -“‘All well, sir,’ I heard him report in a perfectly normal voice. - -“‘What?’ ejaculated the captain in astonishment above me. - -“‘All well, sir,’ he repeated. - -“By that time I had joined the captain on the deck and we exchanged a -puzzled glance. Then we looked around us. To our utter bewilderment, -of the yellow jack there was no sign at all. There was not a rag of -bunting about the ship. - -“The captain bit his lip and wrinkled his brow. I could comprehend his -perplexity. He turned sharply to the second officer. - -“‘Svendson! Has any one been monkeying with the signal-flags?’ - -“‘No, sir!’ The prompt denial was both surprised and emphatic. ‘I have -been on deck myself ever since you went ashore, sir.’ - -“‘H’m! All right!’ The captain shrugged his shoulders and turned to me. -‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ he asked. - -“‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, confidently. - -“‘A most extraordinary hallucination!’ he said. ‘But don’t let it worry -you. Come and have supper with me at six bells.’ - -“I could see plainly that he was much perturbed, and I myself felt -very uneasy as I went below. Following upon the shock of the captain’s -narrow escape from the snake in the deserted temple, the strange trick -of the conjurer at the café and this hallucination, shared by both -of us, of the most dreaded flag a sailor knows, combined to awake a -primitive superstitious fear in me. My nerves were in a state of acute -tension, and I found myself starting at the most ordinary sounds. - -“The captain was normal and cheerful enough, however, when at seven -o’clock I joined him in the beautiful saloon which he had had fitted -regardless of expense with everything that could minister to his -comfort. It was his one luxury. Despite the damp, stifling heat which -makes Saigon one of the most uncomfortable places in the East, the -cabin was pleasantly cool. Electric fans whirred at the open ports and -underneath the large skylight hanging plants provided a refreshing mass -of greenery. The Chinese steward stood by the side of the elegantly -laid table, ready to serve his master. It was, as I said, the first -time I had eaten with Captain Strong and I was rather impressed with -the refinement of his private tastes. - -“The meal, an excellent one, passed without incident. My host was -agreeably conversational, but his talk was confined to those impersonal -subjects which he preferred. Not once did he refer to the happenings -of the day, and I felt that it would be discretion on my part equally -to refrain from mention of them. The silent-footed Chang-Fu cleared the -table, pulled the awnings across the open, mosquito-netted skylight, -switched on the electric lamps, and left us to our coffee and cigars. - -“The centre table folded down so as to leave a clear space which -made the saloon appear larger than it really was, and we sat upon a -comfortable leather-upholstered settee at one end, with our coffee on a -little Chinese table between us. - -“A tap on the door interrupted our talk, and Chang-Fu, the steward, -glided into the saloon and made a respectful obeisance to the captain. - -“‘Master--Chinese conjulor in sampan ’long-side--want speak master. Him -number-one top-hole conjulor makee plenty-heap big tlick--me talkee -with him--him velly gleat conjulor.’ The steward’s wheedling voice -had a note of genuine, awed admiration in it. ‘Master see him?’ he -finished, insinuatingly, rubbing his hands together under his cringing, -wrath-disarming smile. - -“I glanced at the captain. - -“‘I wonder if it is the fellow we saw at the café, sir?’ I ventured, -and then immediately regretted my words. Like the young fellow that I -was, I was eager to see more of the skill of these Oriental magicians, -but doubtless the captain would not wish again to come into contact -with the man whose strange trick of converting the coin into a jewel -had so perturbed him. - -“Possibly he read my thoughts and resented the suspicion of moral -cowardice. His tone was curt as he replied. - -“‘Very likely.--Bring him down, Chang-Fu.’ - -“Once more the muscle stood out along his jaw and his face set -doggedly. It was as though he prepared to confront an adversary. -Fascinated by the mystery which I felt underlay all this, I thrilled -with a sense of high adventure as I saw the captain go to a drawer -in a locker and get out a heavy revolver which he slipped into his -coat-pocket. He returned to his seat by my side. - -“A moment later, Chang-Fu ushered in the conjurer, and discreetly -vanished. It was indeed the man we had seen at the café--more than -that, I recognized him suddenly, being now without his hat, as the man -hanging round that deserted temple. The ingratiating leer which twisted -up his emaciated face did not render it less ugly. With a profound bow -he advanced fawningly toward us, bowed again and then withdrew, after -a word or two in dialect which I did not understand but to which the -captain replied in a monosyllable, to a little distance across the -saloon floor. - -“He performed one or two clever but not particularly remarkable tricks, -all of them harmless enough, and my vague suspicions of mischief were -lulled gradually in the interest with which I watched him. Captain -Strong remained silent, expressionless. I noticed that it was toward -him that the conjurer directed his smiles, and his attention that he -endeavoured more especially to hold. His complete immobility made -it impossible to guess the effect of the conjurer’s manœuvres; -certainly he did not take his eyes from him for a single moment and his -right hand remained in the pocket where I knew the revolver to be. - -“Presently the conjurer produced a large bronze bowl--apparently from -nowhere--and made the usual mystic passes in the air above it. Smoke -began to issue from the bowl, a thick dark smoke which filled the -saloon with a pervasive and subtly pleasant aromatic scent. The smoke -rose from the bowl in ever denser volumes, curling into the air under -the saloon roof in such masses as to obscure our vision of the farther -walls. The electric lamps glowed redly as through a fog. The sweet, -cloying smell of incense permeated the atmosphere, made it oppressive, -dulled the brain as I drew it with every breath into my lungs. An -insidious paralysis stole over me. I felt that I had no power over my -limbs, could not move a muscle. I could only stare fascinated at that -grotesquely ugly Oriental half-seen in the dim light amid the wreathing -fumes, his skeleton-like hands still sweeping in slow and regular -passes over the bowl. I heard the deep breathing of Captain Strong at -my side as of a person whose individuality was remote from mine, hardly -to be identified. My drugged brain registered only that he was as -motionless as I. - -“Suddenly the electric lights were extinguished--I did not see how, -in that fog of smoke, but the magician must have had the switch -explained to him by the steward. The darkness was only momentary. On -the instant almost, a dull red glow kindled itself in the depths of the -bowl, illumined luridly the dense masses of smoke which still welled -up from it. Behind them I caught a glimpse of the conjurer’s face -smiling evilly, inscrutably, his eyes glittering in the red glow, his -finger-tips sweeping round and round in the fumes. Then--I missed the -exact moment--he disappeared. A melancholy, sing-song chant commenced -from somewhere, haunting the brain with its barbaric reiteration of -meaningless words in a minor key. It was like the dreary lament of -savage worshippers before an idol that remains obstinately mute, I -remember thinking vaguely as I listened and watched with fascinated -eyes that curling, red-tinted smoke rising from the hidden flame of the -bowl, expecting I knew not what of marvellous appearance. - -“Suddenly the smoke rolled away on either hand. I found myself looking -down a vista--not at the darkened cabin walls--but into the bright -sunshine of the tropics--at a pagoda-like temple where two huge, -carved, staring figures guarded the entrance to an interior where -lights glimmered. I recognized it with a peculiar thrill--the temple -above Cho-lon! - -“Not now was the courtyard deserted and overgrown with weeds. A throng -of natives, gesticulating and chattering, though I could not hear them, -filled it--pressed back on either side as though to make way for a -procession. In that throng was a European in a white suit. He stood -out conspicuous in the front rank of the Oriental crowd. What was -there so familiar about that figure? My drugged brain puzzled vaguely -for a moment or two--and then he turned his face toward me. _Captain -Strong!_--a younger, slighter Captain Strong--but undoubtedly he. I -saw the flash of his eyes under the heavy brows, the living man! My -consciousness checked for a moment at this phenomenon of duplication, -and then accepted it. It seemed another part of me that was listening -to the deep breathing of the man at my side--I felt myself mingling -with what I saw almost as with actual reality--let myself drift as in a -dream where the fantastic ceases to be strange. - -“The procession filled the open space between the pressed-back ranks -of the throng, a procession of priests with shaven heads, and gorgeous -robes, filing into the great doorway of the temple. After them came -a group of young girls, singing evidently, dancing as they went, and -flinging flowers on either hand--the young Annamite girls who are so -strikingly more attractive than their male relatives. I saw one of -them throw a flower at the foot of the white-clad European--saw her -provocative smile--saw him pick up the flower and fling it playfully -back into her face--saw him follow the throng and press into the -temple with the crowd. What was that peculiar gasp which came from the -darkness at my side? A part of me groped with numbed faculties for its -connection with the bright scene at which I gazed fascinated. - -“The picture changed with the suddenness of a cinematograph film. I -found myself staring at the great image of the Buddha, looming up -above its prostrate worshippers from amid a blaze of torches. On its -breast glowed and sparkled the sacred jewel--_the jewel into which the -conjurer had transmuted Captain Strong’s coin upon the marble-topped -table of the café!_--the jewel suspended on a snake of gold. - -“There, conspicuously erect, stood the white-clad figure among the -worshippers, staring up fixedly at the serene immensity of the image. -The jewel upon its breast glowed with a throbbing light like a living -thing. There was a sudden commotion among the crowd. A group of priests -came up to the white-clad man and pushed him gently but firmly out of -the temple. - -“Again the scene changed. It was night. The moon shone down upon a -garden on a hillside. Far below, obliterated and revealed from instant -to instant by the foliage moving in the breeze, glittered the clustered -points of yellow light of a large town. In the shadow of the trees -lurked a vague white figure. Toward it, across the moonlit open space, -came another--a native girl. I could see her clearly. She was so -daintily beautiful that I could not but suspect foreign blood in her. -The best-looking Annamite girl I had seen was gross compared with her -delicate charm. For all that, she was genuinely Oriental in type. Her -lithe little figure, clad in a simple twisted robe, approached swiftly, -her head turning from side to side in bird-like enquiry, peeping behind -each bush she passed. It was not difficult to guess for whom she was -looking. The white-clad figure stepped from its shadow, and in another -moment she was in his arms. - -“Then, with a sudden movement, she wriggled out of the impulsive -embrace and prostrated herself quaintly in a humble little obeisance. -The white-clad figure stooped to lift her up, folded her again in his -arms. Their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. From the darkness at -my side, but as it were from immeasurable distance, came again the -peculiar little gasp, a sound as of teeth clenching upon each other in -the enormous silence which seemed not to be of this world. - -“My attention was fixed upon the mysterious scene before me, so real -that I forgot the ship’s cabin and the conjurer with his volumes of -smoke. The vision at which I gazed was to me actuality. What was -happening? The man was speaking, gesticulating, pointing away with one -hand--the girl was shrinking from him in horror, gesturing a desperate -negative, and then letting herself be drawn tightly to his breast -again to lavish her caresses upon him--and finally, as he still spoke -with the same gesticulation, withdrawing herself once more, her hands -up in agonized protest. What was being demanded of her? I held my -breath as I watched the little drama. What was the request which was -thus convulsing her to the bottom of her soul? Whatever it was, it was -despairfully refused. In savage exasperation, the man flung her from -him to the ground, turned his back upon her and strode away. - -“She raised herself, stared after him crouchingly, agony in her face. -She stretched out her arms to him, but he did not turn his head. Then, -ceding evidently to an overwhelming impulse, she sprang to her feet, -darted after him with the speed of a young deer, and flung both her -arms passionately about his neck. Once more I saw him ask her the -mysterious question, menace in his face. And now she surrendered, -clinging to him desperately, tears coursing down her cheeks, her eyes -wild, but every fibre of her obviously ready to do his bidding rather -than lose him as she nodded her head in frantic assent. - -“Once more he spoke, pointing mysteriously across the garden. She drew -away from him, her eyes fixed upon his face, her bosom filling as -with the long, deep breath of some tragic resolve. He was inexorable. -Hopelessly, she prepared to obey, in her attitude the touching dignity -of fate accepted since love imposes it, eternal womanhood fulfilling -itself in immolation. I felt the tears start to my eyes, although I -could not imagine what was the evidently tremendous sacrifice demanded -of her. The white-clad man stepped once more into the shadow of the -bushes. With one last passionate, yearning look toward him, she moved -away. She went crouched, huddled in to herself like a woman who creeps -forth to commit a crime. - -“Again the scene changed. I was staring at the exterior of the temple -in the moonlight. The two great figures by the portal gazed now over an -empty courtyard. Only the moon-cast shadows of the trees moved upon its -untenanted space. There was a moment of waiting--for I knew not what, -but the air was filled with expectation. Then, slinking along the wall, -scarcely visible, with halting, furtive step, I saw the girl emerge -from the shadows. Warily she came, close against the wall, stopping -occasionally in the awful terror of the silence which brooded over -everything, moving on again with evidently a fresh effort of highly -strung will. Like a ghost she seemed in the moonlight, as she crept up -to the giant figure by the portal, peered cautiously into the interior -darkness where two yellow flames glimmered. She slipped into the gloom -like a pale shadow that flits across the wall. - -“And then, I know not how, I found myself looking as from the doorway -into the interior. Between two guttering torches the great image lifted -itself up into a smoky obscurity, the glinting jewel still upon its -breast--the jewel that was suspended by a flexible snake of reddish -gold. With an impressive serenity the great calm face looked straight -before it, its hands stretched out from the elbow above the legs -crossed for its squatting, ‘earth-touching’ position. Below it, on the -steps of the altar, a priest squatted also, his shaven head nodding -forward in the sleep of a vigil excessively prolonged. By the portal -stood the shrinking figure of the girl, staring in terror at the jewel -winking in the uncertain light of the expiring torches. - -“For a long, long moment she stood there, unable to move, her face -looking as carven in its fixed immobility as the image itself. With -a sympathetic thrill, I realized the awful superstitious dread which -had her in its grip. Then her human love triumphed. I saw her glide -stealthily toward the giant figure, so stealthily that the nodding head -of the somnolent priest altered not in the regularity of its drowsy -rise and fall, so stealthily that she seemed but a part of the shifting -shadows cast by the candelabra of the torches. Nimbly and cautiously -she clambered from the altar-steps to the knee of the mighty image, -drew herself up to the arm outstretched in benediction. She balanced -herself precariously, rose suddenly upright upon it, and snatched at -the jewel. - -“The clasp of the flexible gold snake broke with the violence of her -pull. I saw it slide like a little stream of ruddy fire into her hands, -saw the last flash of the jewel as she stuffed it into her bosom. And -then, with a start, the priest looked up. - -“Ere he could do more than spring to his feet, she had leaped down with -the sure-footed agility of a mountain girl. In a quick movement she -evaded his clutch, was gone. - -“Once more I found myself looking at the garden where the white-clad -figure lurked in the shadows. A moment of waiting, then down the -moonlit open space came the flitting figure of the girl. Swiftly she -approached, panic in her wild flight, in the beautiful features now -close enough for distinct view. She was sobbing as she ran. The man -stepped out to her. She stopped, stood for a second regarding him with -a look of inexpressible reproach, and then, averting her head, thrust -into his eager grasp the sacred jewel. He slipped it into his pocket -and caught her in his arms. She gazed at him in yearning doubt, her -head drawn back, her soul seeming to question him through her eyes, -and then suddenly she flung herself toward him, her bare arms round -his neck, her mouth on his, kissing him in a passionate paroxysm of -caresses. Desperately she yielded herself to him, frenziedly claiming -the reward for her crime--his love. I saw the tears rolling down her -cheeks as she kissed him eagerly again and again, all else forgotten -but absorption in his presence. In a thrill of apprehension, I -remembered the priest. Surely the alarm was given--a horde of fanatics -searching for her while she lingered so recklessly! Despite the utter -silence in which all this passed, I almost fancied I could hear the -sonorous booming of a gong. - -“My apprehension quickened to a stab of acute alarm. There, slinking -toward them in the shadows, as stealthily as a cat, came a crouching -figure, nearer and nearer from behind. The steel blade he clutched -flashed in the moonlight. His face looked up, illumined in the soft -radiance which suffused the garden. I recognized it--the priest who -had slumbered at his post!--and then, with a curious little internal -shock, but vaguely, as if these later incidents belonged to another -existence, the full recognition dawned upon me--the wretched native who -had loitered about the deserted pagoda of Cho-lon, the conjurer of the -café, the conjurer who--ages since--had filled the saloon of the _Mary -Gleeson_ with smoke and incense from the red fire of a bronze bowl! -His ugly face contorted with vindictive cunning, he crept now upon the -oblivious lovers locked in their passionate embrace. I saw him gather -himself for the spring, the long, murderous knife openly in his hand. -In a spasm of horror all of me tried frantically to shriek a warning, -but I could not utter a sound. I seemed to be only a watching brain, -divorced from all the other organs of the body. He leaped. - -“There was a glimmer of cold light as the knife descended. I waited, -my heart stopping, in doubt as to the victim. The uncertainty lasted -but an instant. The girl, struck in the back, turned her face up to -the sky and crumpled to her knees like a marionette whose string is -cut. For one long moment the grinning evil face of the priest, tugging -to release his knife, and the horrified eyes of the white man looked -into each other in a silence which was appalling in its complete -soundlessness. Then the white man struck savagely downward upon the -shaven head--and sprang away into the darkness. - -“Again I heard a gasp, a choked-back cry, from the obscurity at the -side of me. But now it seemed to be startlingly nearer and, as my -bewildered faculties tried to apprehend it, to identify the source -which I knew vaguely must be familiar to me and yet could not bring to -consciousness, my attention wandered for a moment. When I looked again -the vision had disappeared. There was no longer garden or temple. -There was only redly illumined smoke rolling upward from a dull red -glow and an atmosphere of sweet sickly fumes that held my body in a -drugged paralysis. - -“Still I gazed, fascinated. Those thick, wreathing masses of smoke -were shaping themselves--shaping themselves into something--something -columnar. I watched like one in a dream, and as I watched a part of -me attained to consciousness of Captain Strong sitting in frozen -immobility by the side of me. The wreathing smoke coalesced, formed -itself into something whose outlines were not yet clear. A brighter, -yellower light emanated from below it, lit it up. A body--a vague -female body--collected itself, and then a girl’s head, strangely -beautiful for all its almond eyes and scanty brows, smiled upon us, -suddenly vivid and real. I recognized it with a shock--the girl of the -garden! She and her body were now one complete living organism that -moved sinuously from the hips. I held my breath in awe. Whereas the -visions I had been watching were like pictures at a distance, this was -an actual living woman a few feet from us. The smoke disappeared. I was -staring at a beautiful native woman, as real as you or I, mysteriously -illumined in yellow light against a background of obscurity, who stood -where the fumes had writhed upward from the bowl. - -“Conscious as I now was of Captain Strong’s close neighbourhood, I -craved to turn to him for astonished comment. But still my body was -deprived of function; I could not move a muscle. He made neither move -nor sound. Then I almost forgot him in the fascinated interest which -this apparition compelled. - -“Swaying slightly, with a free, graceful motion of the hips, she -moved from her place. Her mouth parted in a pathetic little smile of -melancholy, her dark eyes gazing not at me but at something at my side, -in soulful yearning appeal, she glided toward us through a hushed -silence where I could hear my own heart beat. Slowly she detached -her arms from the simple robe which swathed her, stretched them out -imploringly, with a wistful smile that seemed to beseech a difficult -confidence, to the companion at my side, to Captain Strong. Once more I -heard the gasp of his laboured breathing. - -“She approached, and it seemed to me that she and I and the panting -figure at my side whom I could not turn my head to see were the -only things existing in a world that was otherwise dark. She was -illumined from head to foot, clearly and definitely detached from her -surroundings. I marked the soft, lithe roundness of her form. Did she -speak? Her lips moved, but I heard nothing, although it seemed to me -that a gently uttered name echoed far away in illimitable space, echoed -endlessly as though ringing through the vast, incommensurable soul of -things past, present, and to be. - -“A name was breathed distinctly, as in awed answer, from the obscurity -at my side. _Héa-Nan!--Héa-Nan!_ The wistful smile on the beautiful -face sweetened as in grateful recognition. The eyes softened in a -tender fondness that had nevertheless a strange, remote dignity. Not -now did she give herself up to the passionate abandonment of that -moonlit garden. Love still yearned from her, but it was the eternal -love of the soul that looks to the unimaginable realities beyond the -body. - -“Slowly, slowly, she approached until it seemed that the hands of -her outstretched arms would brush my sleeve as they reached toward -the man I felt recoil back into the darkness at my side. I looked up -into the face of a living, breathing woman--saw the faint flush upon -her Asiatic complexion--saw the dark eyes glowing, swimming in a bath -of tears. Once more the lips moved silently--once more the answering -name--_Héa-Nan!_--came in an emotionally exhaled whisper from the man -who could draw back no farther. - -“She smiled, a smile of radiant forgiveness, of understanding and--so -it seemed--of pity, and then I saw her arms make a quick movement. From -the shadow at my side she plucked something, held it aloft. The sacred -jewel of the Buddha blazed in the mouth of the reddish-gold snake that -seemed to curl alive about her arm. For one long moment, I looked up at -her, her face glowing strangely in the glory of the recovered jewel, -yet still a living, human woman with lips that parted as I watched--and -then I found myself staring into a smother of smoke from which issued a -ghastly mocking laughter. - -“The red glow near the floor expired in one last flicker. There was a -stab of flame, the simultaneous deafeningly violent detonation of a -revolver fired close to my ear, a savage cry of furious menace, another -gloating chuckle of laughter--and then darkness and silence. - -“Brought suddenly to myself, I struggled to my feet in the choking -fumes, and groped feverishly for the switch of the electric light. I -found it and the lamp sprang into dull illumination of the smoke-filled -cabin. The door was open. The conjurer had disappeared--I heard a -splash in the river under the open ports and was left in no doubt that -he was beyond our reach. Then, in sudden alarm at his silence, I turned -to look for Captain Strong. - -“He was stretched back unconscious upon the settee where we had sat -together, his hand grasping the revolver which he had vainly fired with -his last strength. He looked livid, pale as death, and for a moment I -thought the native had murdered him. But I could find no mark on him, -and presently he opened his eyes, began to murmur delirious phrases. I -saw at a glance that he was very ill, with the illness that frightens -you when you see it in a place like Saigon. With some difficulty, for -he was a heavy man, I lifted him to his bunk and put him to bed. As I -loosened the shirt from about his throat, I noticed, with a thrill of -the uncanny which made me shudder, that round his neck was a circling -line of blanched skin, and on his chest a similar, broader patch. But -the amulet, whose long wearing had evidently caused these marks, had -disappeared completely. - -“Half an hour later I was being rowed in all haste to the black -Messageries Maritimes boat and claiming the services of her doctor. - -“It was hopeless from the first, and we both knew it. Captain Strong -died before morning, raving native words in his delirium, and calling -incessantly a native name--_Héa-Nan! Héa-Nan!_ - -“At dawn I looked up to see the yellow jack fluttering from the -masthead precisely as, not twelve hours before, I had seen the vision -of it from the quay.” - -Captain Williamson stopped, glanced at his burnt-out cheroot, threw it -away, and selected another one carefully from his case. - -“Well, Professor, what do you make of that?” he asked, as he struck a -match. - -The professor assumed an air of wisdom superior to any mystery. - -“Of course,” he said, “there is no doubt what happened. Captain Strong -was probably infected with yellow fever coming up the river. Years -before, he had instigated a native girl to rob that Buddhist temple on -his behalf, and finding himself back at the place he was impelled--it -is a common psychological phenomenon in criminals--to revisit the -scene of his crime. The ex-priest saw him and recognized him, and, -wishing to make quite sure whether he still possessed the sacred jewel, -he hypnotized him by chaining his conscious attention on his little -conjuring trick at the café, and then suggested to him the vision of -the jewel by outlining it with his subject’s finger on the table. -Captain Strong’s exclamation and his gesture would be sufficient that -he still wore it. - -“As for the scene in the saloon, it was hypnotism on a large scale, -induced by the use of the drugs with which the atmosphere was filled. -Captain Strong’s subconscious mind came to the top and lived once again -through the episodes of the robbery and the death of his agent, seeing -them, as is the habit of the subjective mind when released from the -control of the objective surface consciousness, like actual present -facts. The hallucination of the girl as a living presence in the cabin -is, of course, explained by the silent suggestion of the priest acting -on the already highly excited subconsciousness of the guilty man. Just -as I can make a hypnotic patient believe that you are someone else and -see you as someone else, so the conjurer himself, under cover of the -vision he had suggested, approached the wearer of the sacred jewel and -snatched it from his neck. The emotional crisis undergone by Captain -Strong would, of course, hasten the onset of the yellow fever already -in his body.” - -“H’m,” objected Captain Williamson, “but that doesn’t explain why I -should share these visions.” - -The professor was nothing daunted. - -“Of course,” he said, “you were in close propinquity to Captain Strong -and were doubtless what is known as _en rapport_ with him. The vision -of the yellow flag--the not uncommon hallucination of a death-symbol -produced by the subconsciousness of a doomed person--was communicated -to you when the captain gripped your shoulder----” - -“Have a whisky-and-soda, Professor,” interrupted the planter, coarsely, -“and don’t spoil a good story.” - - - - -+-------------------------------------------------+ -|Transcriber’s note: | -| | -|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | -| | -+-------------------------------------------------+ - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE BORDERLAND*** - - -******* This file should be named 65837-0.txt or 65837-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/8/3/65837 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Britten (Frederick -Britten) Austin</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: On the Borderland</p> -<p>Author: F. Britten (Frederick Britten) Austin</p> -<p>Release Date: July 14, 2021 [eBook #65837]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE BORDERLAND***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (http://www.pgdp.net)<br /> - from page images digitized by<br /> - the Google Books Library Project<br /> - (https://books.google.com<br /> - and generously made available by<br /> - HathiTrust Digital Library<br /> - (https://www.hathitrust.org/)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433074943519 - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<hr /> - -<h1>ON THE BORDERLAND</h1> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/books.jpg" alt="books by" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="title page" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="bold2">On the Borderland</p> - -<p class="bold">By</p> - -<p class="bold2">F. Britten Austin</p> - -<div class="center space-above"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" /></div> - -<p class="bold space-above">Garden City New York<br /> -Doubleday, Page & Company<br />1923</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1923 BY<br />DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION<br /> -INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN<br /><br /> -COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES AND<br />GREAT BRITAIN<br /> -COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO.<br /> -COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY CONSOLIDATED MAGAZINES CORPORATION (THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE)<br /> -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br /><br />PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES<br />AT<br /> -THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.<br /><br /><i>First Edition</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center">TO<br />EDWARD CECIL<br /><br />IN<br />OLD FRIENDSHIP</p> - -<hr /> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="CONTENTS"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Buried Treasure</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Problem in Reprisals</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Secret Service</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Strange Case of Mr. Todmorden</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Through the Gate of Horn</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The White Dog</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Point of Ethics</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Lovers</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Held in Bondage</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">She Who Came Back</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">From the Depths</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Yellow Magic</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p class="bold2">ON THE BORDERLAND</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">ON THE BORDERLAND</p> - -<h2>BURIED TREASURE</h2> - -<p>For the last twenty minutes the after-dinner talk of the little group -of men in the liner’s smoking-room had revelled in the uncanny. One -man had started it, rather diffidently, with a strange yarn. Another -had capped it. Then, no longer restrained by the fear of a humiliating -scepticism in their audience, they gave themselves up to that -mysteriously satisfying enjoyment of the inexplicably marvellous, vying -with each other in stories which, as they were narrated, were no doubt -more or less unconsciously modified to suit the argument, but which one -and all dealt with experience that in the ultimate analysis could not -be explained by the normal how and why of life.</p> - -<p>“What do you think of all this, doctor?” said one of the story-tellers, -turning suddenly to a keen-eyed elderly man who had been listening in -silence. “As a specialist in mental disorders you must have had a vast -experience of delusions of every kind. Is there any truth in all this -business of spiritualism, automatic writing, reincarnation and the rest -of it? What’s the scientific reason for it all?—for some reason there -must be! People don’t tell all these stories just for fun.”</p> - -<p>The doctor shifted his pipe in his mouth and smiled, his eyes twinkling.</p> - -<p>“You seem to find a certain amount of amusement in it,” he -remarked, drily. “The scientific reasons you ask for so easily are -highly controversial. But many of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> phenomena are undoubtedly -genuine—automatic writing, for instance. It is a fact that persons -of a certain type find their hand can write, entirely independent -of their conscious attention, coherent sentences whose meaning is -utterly strange to them. They need not even deliberately make their -mind a blank. They may be surprised by their hand suddenly writing on -its own initiative when their consciousness is fixed upon some other -occupation, such as entering up an account-book. Always they have -a vivid feeling that not their own but another distinctly separate -intelligence guides the pen. This feeling is not evidence, of course. -It may be an illusion; probably is.</p> - -<p>“The best-analyzed reincarnation story is probably that dealt with by -Professor Flournoy in his study of the famous medium Hélène Smith of -Geneva. This lady sincerely believed herself to be a reincarnation -of Marie Antoinette—and in her trance-state she acted the part with -astonishing fidelity and dramatic power. In her normal condition she -certainly possessed neither so much detailed knowledge of the life of -the ill-fated queen nor so much histrionic ability. She also wrote -automatically, and some of her productions were amazing, to say the -least of them. Well, Professor Flournoy’s psychological investigations -proved clearly to my thinking that it was a case of her subconscious -mind dramatizing, with that wonderful faculty of impersonation which -characterizes it, a few hints accidentally dropped into it and -combining with her subconscious memory, which forgets nothing it has -ever heard or read or even casually glanced at, to produce an almost -perfect representation of Marie Antoinette. Also he proved that her -automatic writing emanated from her own subconscious mind and nowhere -else.</p> - -<p>“Now, I am not going to say that discarnate spirits do not communicate -through this subconscious activity of which one form is automatic -writing. I am not going to say that we do not become reincarnated -through an endless cycle of lives. I do not know enough about it to -assert such a negative—no one does. All I know about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> the human mind -is that we know very little about it. It is like the moon, of which -you never see more than the small end. Infinite possibilities lie in -the shadow. You are only conscious of a small fraction of your own -personality. The subconscious—the unillumined portion of your soul—is -incomputably vast. It learns everything, forgets nothing; possibly -it even goes on from life to life. When it is tapped by any of those -traditional means which nowadays we call spiritualistic one may—or may -not—come across buried treasure.”</p> - -<p>“But you yourself do not believe in the truth of spiritualism as an -actual fact, doctor?” queried one of the group, a trace of aggression -in his tone.</p> - -<p>The doctor shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“I accord <i>belief</i> to a very limited number of attested facts, my -friend,” he said. “That I am sitting here with you, for example. I am -ready to adopt provisionally all sorts of hypotheses to explain those -varied phenomena of life, the ultimate explanation of which must in any -case elude me. They are hypotheses for myself—I do not announce them -as dogmas for others. But—if you do not think it is too late—I will -tell you a story, a rather queer experience of my own, and you can form -your own hypotheses in explanation of it.”</p> - -<p>There was a chorus of approval. The doctor waited while the steward -refilled the glasses at the instance of one of the group, relit his -pipe, and settled himself to begin.</p> - -<p class="space-above">It was in 1883. I was a young man. I had recently finished walking the -hospitals, got my degree, and before settling down into practice at -home had decided to see a little of the world. So I signed on for a few -voyages as a ship’s doctor. At the termination of one of them I found -myself at a loose end in New York. There I became friendly with the son -of a man who in his young days had been a Californian “Fortyniner,” -had made a pile, settled East, become a railroad speculator and made -millions—William Vandermeulen. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> - -<p>Old Vandermeulen had a delicate daughter, Pauline, then about nineteen -years of age and in the incipient stages of consumption. Under medical -advice, he was accustomed to take her each winter for a cruise -around the West Indies in his steam yacht. That year, young Geoffrey -Vandermeulen persuaded his father to ship me as medical officer. There -was nothing alarming in the young girl’s condition, of course, or a -much older and more experienced man would have accompanied them. She -was merely delicate.</p> - -<p>We were a small party on board: the old man, his wife—a faded old lady -with no personality whatever—Pauline, Geoffrey, and myself. Geoffrey -was an ordinary, high-spirited young man, intelligent and a pleasant -companion, but not particularly remarkable. His sister was mildly -pretty but utterly devoid of attractiveness, extremely shy, and given -to sitting in blank reverie over a book. Although she always had one in -her hand, she read, as a matter of fact, very little. It was just an -excuse for day-dreaming. Of this girl the old man, otherwise as keen as -a razor and as hard as nails—commercially, I believe, he was little -better than a pirate—was inordinately fond. Outside business, she -was the absorbing passion of his life. There was no whim of hers that -he would not gratify. It was rather pathetic to see the old scoundrel -hanging over her frail innocence, all that he had of idealism centred -in her threatened life.</p> - -<p>The cruise was pleasant but uneventful enough for some weeks. We -pottered down through the Bahamas to Jamaica and then turned eastward -with intent to visit the various ports of the Antilles as far south as -Barbados.</p> - -<p>It was one evening while we were chugging peacefully across the -Caribbean Sea that occurred the first of the remarkable incidents which -made this voyage so memorable to me. I remember the setting of it -perfectly. We were all in the saloon; I suppose because the night was -for some reason unpleasant. The weather was calm, at any rate. Geoffrey -and I were reading. Old <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>Vandermeulen and his wife were playing -cribbage. Pauline was sitting at a writing-table fixed in a corner of -the saloon, entering up the day’s trivial happenings in the diary which -she religiously kept. I remember glancing at her and noticing that she -was chewing the nail of her left thumb—a habit of which I was vainly -trying to break her—as she stared vacantly at the bulkhead, no doubt -ransacking her memory for some incident to record.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she turned round upon us with a startled cry.</p> - -<p>“Look, Mamma!—I have scrawled all over my diary without knowing that I -did it!—Isn’t that strange!”</p> - -<p>We all of us looked up languidly. The mother made some banal remark, -but did not withdraw her attention from her cards. The father glanced -affectionately toward her without ceasing to count up the score he was -about to peg on the board. Geoffrey and I continued our reading.</p> - -<p>But the girl had been puzzling over the scrawl and all at once she -jumped up from her seat and came across to us.</p> - -<p>“Look!” she said. “Isn’t it funny? These words—they’re all like the -words on blotting-paper—they go backwards and inside out! And there -are figures, too!—Whatever could have made me do it?—And I don’t -remember doing it either, though of course I must have done so. There -was nothing on that page a minute before, I am sure of that!”</p> - -<p>There was something curiously uneasy in the girl’s manner, a note in -her voice that impressed me. I got up, took the open diary from her -hand and there sure enough was a large uneven scrawl, two lines of it, -diagonally across the page, and, as she said, reversed, as though it -had been blotted down upon it.</p> - -<p>Almost without thinking, I held the open page against one of the -mirrors panelled in the saloon wall—and I could not repress a cry -of astonishment. The scrawl was a decipherable sentence, mysterious -enough, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> coherent!—I’ll write it down for you as nearly as I -remember it, so as to show you how it looked. He produced pencil and -paper from his pocket, wrote: “<i>lucia 1324 N 8127 W katalina sculle -point SWbS 3 trees digge jno dawson youre turne</i>:” There you are—the -last two words were added like a postscript and were followed by -a rough sketch, an irregular oval over a St. Andrew’s cross, like -this—<img src="images/ox.jpg" alt="O/X" /></p> - -<p>I read out what was written, and Pauline stared at me wide-eyed.</p> - -<p>“Whatever could have made me write that?” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>Geoffrey looked up, fraternally scornful.</p> - -<p>“It’s a thin joke, Pauline! You can’t monkey us in that fashion! I -suppose you want to pretend that the ghost of some old pirate wrote it -down in your book so as to start us off on a Treasure Island hunt.” -Stevenson’s romance was then in its first success and Geoffrey had just -been reading it. “Of course, you wrote it deliberately—what nonsense!”</p> - -<p>She turned round upon him, her eyes filling with tears in the vehemence -of her protest.</p> - -<p>“Geoffrey, I couldn’t!—I couldn’t write reversed like that if I tried!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, you could,” asserted Geoffrey, confidently. “It’s easy -enough.”</p> - -<p>“Supposing we all try,” said I, curious to test its feasibility. I felt -considerably puzzled. Pauline was not at all the sort of girl one would -expect to persist in such a pointless sort of practical joke as this, -and persistent she was—tearful like a child unjustly accused of a -crime of which it protests innocence.</p> - -<p>Her mother and father renounced their game of cribbage and bent their -heads together over the enigmatic screed, without proffering an -opinion. It was evident that they did not wish to hurt their daughter’s -feelings by open scepticism. They would have humoured her in anything, -no matter how absurd. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - -<p>I reiterated my suggestion and it was accepted in the spirit of a -parlour-game. A line from a book was selected, we all tried—and we all -failed hopelessly. None of us got more than two or three consecutive -letters right. It is not so easy as it sounds. Try it for yourselves!</p> - -<p>At that time, although spiritualism was a great craze in America, -and D. D. Home, Eglinton, and other famous mediums, were arousing -enormous interest and controversy in England, automatic script was -an uncommon phenomenon. Table-rapping, levitation, slate-writing and -materialization were the wonders in vogue—and I had then never heard -of the “mirror-writing” which has since become a frequent form of -automatic expression. Neither, of course, <i>à fortiori</i>, had the young -girl who had just produced this mysterious specimen.</p> - -<p>We all felt puzzled and impressed at our failure to imitate -deliberately the reversed script. Old Vandermeulen picked up the diary -and read the reflection of the scrawled page in the wall-mirror.</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s sure strange!” he said in his twangy drawl. “Geoff! You -write this down in a straightaway hand and we’ll see if we can get any -sense out of it. I guess there’s some meaning in it. Pauline ain’t -joking.”</p> - -<p>Geoffrey obeyed and read out the script again.</p> - -<p>“‘<i>lucia 1324 N 8127 W katalina sculle point SWbS 3</i> <i>trees digge jno -dawson youre turne</i>’—It’s exactly like the directions to a pirate’s -buried treasure, Father!” he added, excitedly. “Skull and crossbones -and all! But of course that’s ridiculous! Though I can’t understand how -Pauline could have written it like she did!”</p> - -<p>“And I did not know even that I was writing!” asseverated Pauline, “let -alone know what I wrote! It was just as if my hand did not belong to -me—it was a sort of numbness that made me look down.”</p> - -<p>“Tear it up, dear!” implored her mother anxiously. “I am sure it comes -from the Devil!” Mrs. Vandermeulen belonged to a particularly strict -little sect and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> was always ready to discern the immediate agency of -the Evil One.</p> - -<p>“Devil or not!” said old Vandermeulen. “I guess if there’s any buried -treasure lying around here, I’m going to peg out my claim on it.” -He turned to me. “Young man, was there ever any pirates about these -parts?” The old ruffian was quite illiterate; had never, I believe, -read a book in his life.</p> - -<p>“Why, yes,” I replied, “from the end of the sixteenth century these -seas were the chief haunt of the buccaneers and, after them, of the -pirates who were not entirely suppressed until well in the eighteenth -century. There must be any amount of their hidden treasure buried in -these islands.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t say!” he exclaimed, his avaricious old eyes lighting up. -“And here have I been running this yacht up and down these parts for -five years at a dead loss!” His disgust would have been comic, were -it not for the ugly, ruthless lust of gold which looked suddenly out -of his face. “Guess I’m going to quit this fooling around right away! -I don’t know and don’t care if it was the Devil himself wrote this -specification in Pauline’s book—I’m darned sure she didn’t write it -herself—the handwriting’s different, d’you see?”—It was, as a matter -of fact, compared with the previous pages, quite another hand—hers -was an upright, rounded schoolgirl calligraphy, this was a cursive -old-fashioned script inclined well forward. “So as we’ve got nothing -else to start upon, we may as well see if there’s anything to it.” He -tossed Geoffrey’s transcription across to me. “What do you make of it, -young man?” he asked, with the sneering condescension he accorded to my -superior literary attainments.</p> - -<p>I took it, rather amused at the old scoundrel’s simplicity. That there -was any authentic meaning in Pauline’s scrawl seemed to me wildly -improbable. I was a frank materialist in those days and had Carpenter’s -formula of “unconscious cerebration” glibly ready to cover up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> anything -psychologically abnormal. However, I considered the sheet of paper with -attention.</p> - -<p>“Assuming this to be a genuine message,” I said, “it would appear to -give the precise latitude and longitude of some point where it is -desirable to dig. I take it that the figures stand for 13 degrees -24 minutes North, 81 degrees 27 minutes West. The world ‘<i>lucia</i>’ -puzzles me—unless the island of St. Lucia is meant. What ‘<i>katalina</i>’ -stands for, I do not know—it is evidently a proper name of some kind, -‘<i>sculle point SWbS 3 trees digge</i>’ presumably means that one should -dig under three trees south-west-by-south of Skull Point—wherever -that is. ‘<i>jno dawson</i>’ is, of course, John Dawson. Assuming this -to be a spirit-message from the other world,” I could not help -smiling ironically, “it is possibly the name of the ghost who is -communicating—and who desires to indicate to some person that it is -his or her turn. He does not specify for what. I may remark that the -ghost is either ill-educated or he has an archaic taste in spelling.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like it,” said Mrs. Vandermeulen, querulously timid. “Do -tear it up, William! I am sure harm will come of it!—It is the Devil -tempting you!”</p> - -<p>“So long as he’s serious, he can tempt me sure easy!” said the old -ruffian in a tone of cool blasphemy which sent the colour out of his -wife’s face. He rang the bell and the negro steward appeared. “Sam! Ask -Captain Higgins to step in here for a moment!”</p> - -<p>Captain Higgins, the skipper of the yacht, was a level-headed mariner -of middle age whom nothing ever ruffled. He was competence itself.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, Captain Higgins,” said old Vandermeulen, fixing him -with the keen eyes under shaggy gray brows, eyes which defied you to -divine his purpose whilst they probed yours. “What’s the latitude and -longitude of the island of St. Lucia?”</p> - -<p>“Fourteen North, sixty-one West,” replied Captain Higgins promptly.</p> - -<p>Old Vandermeulen turned to me. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Then it’s not St. Lucia, young man,” he said. He picked up Geoffrey’s -transcription. “Well, now, Captain Higgins, is there any place -thirteen-twenty-four North, eighty-one twenty-seven West?”</p> - -<p>The skipper reflected a moment.</p> - -<p>“No place of importance, certainly. I’ll get the chart.”</p> - -<p>He returned with it, spread it out on the saloon table, ran his -forefinger across it.</p> - -<p>“Here you are!” he said. “A small island called Old Providence. It -belongs to Colombia.”</p> - -<p>Geoffrey, who was peering over his shoulder, uttered a startled -exclamation.</p> - -<p>“And look!” he cried. “There’s your Katalina!” He pointed to a small -islet just north of Old Providence, a mere dot on the chart. “Santa -Katalina!—My hat! that is weird!”</p> - -<p>It certainly was. From whatever stratum of Pauline’s consciousness her -writing had emanated, it was an amazing thing that she should have -written down the exact latitude and longitude of a tiny island off the -Nicaraguan coast and named it correctly. Even I could not help feeling -that it was more than a fortuitous coincidence, that it was uncanny. -The others surrendered themselves straight away.</p> - -<p>I turned to look at Pauline. She was deathly white; evidently -frightened at being made the vehicle of this message from the beyond. -Her mother clutched at her, as though protecting her from unseen -dangers. Geoffrey’s imagination had caught fire, his eyes were bright -with excitement.</p> - -<p>“My sakes! Pauline!” he cried. “I believe you now! You couldn’t have -written that out of your head. I’ve read of things like this before—I -guess you’re a medium and didn’t know it!—Father! We’ll track this -message down, wherever it comes from, say now?”</p> - -<p>“It comes from the Devil! Tear it up—oh, tear it up!” implored Mrs. -Vandermeulen. “William! Tear it up—don’t follow it!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> - -<p>Old Vandermeulen turned to the skipper. His jaw had set hard, his lips -were compressed, only the glitter in his eyes, peering in a momentary -fixation of thought from under his bent brows, showed that he shared -the excitement of his son. So he must have looked in his office when he -took the decisions which had made his millions.</p> - -<p>“Captain Higgins,” he said, curtly ignoring the supplications of his -wife, “how long will it take us to reach that island?”</p> - -<p>The skipper put his finger on the chart at a point south of Haiti.</p> - -<p>“We’re here,” he said. He measured off the distance. “At our best rate -of twelve knots—about sixty hours steaming.”</p> - -<p>The old man nodded.</p> - -<p>“Put her about,” he said. His harsh tone had an odd ring about it, as -though he was secretly conscious of affronting mysterious dangers, was -all the more emphatic. “Right now!”</p> - -<p>Captain Higgins never queried owners’ orders.</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir,” he replied, stolidly, and walked out of the cabin.</p> - -<p>A minute or two later we felt the yacht swing round. There is always -something impressive when a ship on the open sea goes about upon her -course, but I never felt it more powerfully than then. It seemed that -there was a fateful significance in our deliberate action.</p> - -<p>Geoffrey meanwhile was poring over the sheet of paper on which he had -transcribed his sister’s reversed scrawl.</p> - -<p>“It’s all perfectly clear,” he said, triumphantly. “We’ve got to make -this island of Santa Katalina, thirteen-twenty-four North, eighty-one -twenty-seven West, try and find a place called Skull Point, look for -three trees south-west-by-south of it, and dig! We understand every -word of it now!”</p> - -<p>“All except the word ‘<i>lucia</i>’” I corrected, “and whose turn it is.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes—there’s that,” he said, dubiously. “I suppose every word has some -meaning.”</p> - -<p>“You can bet it has!” I replied, half sarcastically humouring his -credulity, half surrendering myself to an uncritical acception of these -mysteriously given directions. “I wonder who this John Dawson was—if -he existed?”</p> - -<p>“He’s a sure-enough ghost of some old pirate!” said Vandermeulen, with -complete conviction. “And I guess he’s putting us fair and good on to -his pile!”</p> - -<p>I laughed, involuntarily, at this childishness. The old man frowned.</p> - -<p>“There’s some things that perhaps even you all-fired clever young -fellows don’t know,” he said, crushingly. “’Tain’t the first time I’ve -heard of this sort of thing. A mate of mine in the old days at ’Frisco -was waked up one morning by the ghost of a prospector who’d died up in -the ranges. He told him just where he’d made his strike before his grub -gave out. My mate had never heard of the place but he lit straight away -on the trail—and sure enough the ghost was telling the truth. Old Jim -Hamilton it was—and he drank himself to death on what he got out of -it.” The old man looked me straight in the eyes as though challenging -me to doubt him. Of course, I could say nothing. He grunted scornfully, -and turned again to the chart still spread out upon the table. “It’s -a nice quiet out-of-the-way place,” reflected the old ruffian, -putting his thumb-nail on the lonely island. “Just the location for -a cache—guess they’d feel pretty sure of not being interfered with -there!” There was a grim undertone in his voice which was decidedly -ugly. He might, himself, have been the reincarnation of just such a -pirate as the one whose existence he was postulating.</p> - -<p>Well, nothing more happened that night. Mrs. Vandermeulen, thoroughly -alarmed and uneasy, hustled her daughter off to bed. Old Vandermeulen -and his son sat up in an endless discussion of the mysterious script, -referring again and again to the chart which so startlingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> confirmed -its indications, and speculating optimistically as to the nature and -amount of the treasure they were convinced was buried in the designated -place. They talked themselves into a complete faith in the supernatural -origin of the message, and, father and son alike—it was curious to -note the traits of resemblance which cropped out in them—were equally -indifferent as to whether its source was diabolic or benevolent. -Enormously wealthy although they already were, the prospect of this -phantom gold waiting to be unearthed had completely fascinated them. -At last I turned in, wearied with the thousand and one questions they -asked me and to which I could give no answer, disgusted with their -avarice, and scornfully contemptuous of their simplicity.</p> - -<p>I found sleep no easy matter. Sceptical though I was, I could not get -Pauline’s curious production out of my head, and the more I thought of -it the more inexplicable seemed its coincidence with the chart. The -subconscious mind, with its amazing memory, its dramatic faculty, its -unexpected invasion of the surface consciousness in certain types, was -not then the commonplace of psychology that it is now—or I should -probably have referred the whole thing to the combination of a casual, -apparently unheeding, glance at the chart with a memory of some of -her brother’s remarks about “Treasure Island,” automatically and -dramatically reproduced. As it was, I could formulate no explanation -that satisfied me—though I utterly disbelieved in the ghost of a -piratical John Dawson, of which the two Vandermeulens were now fully -persuaded.</p> - -<p>The next day found us steaming steadily westward. Father and son could -talk of nothing else but their fancied buried treasure and their plans -for digging it up without taking the crew of the yacht into their -confidence. Mrs. Vandermeulen hovered round her daughter, horribly -anxious of she knew not what, but—after having been once silenced by -a peremptory oath from her husband—afraid to make further protest. -Pauline herself sat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> all day in a deck-chair, more silent even than -usual, staring dreamily across the empty sea in a reverie which ignored -us all. Naturally, I watched her closely. But, except that her eyes had -a kind of haunting fear in them, she seemed perfectly normal. Evidently -the occurrence of the previous night had shocked her profoundly, for -once, when I casually mentioned it, she shuddered and implored me not -to speak of it again. The fear of the uncanny in herself stared out of -her eyes as she entreated me.</p> - -<p>This dreamy absorption in herself continued until supper time that -evening. Throughout the meal, I do not think she uttered a single -word. She seemed not even to hear the conversation around her, but -toyed listlessly with her food and finally ceased to eat long before -the others had finished. Watching her with a professionally interested -observation, I was uneasy. She had leaned back in her chair, was gazing -straight before her with wide-open eyes. Suddenly I noticed that they -had glazed over. All expression faded out of her face. The arm that -rested on the salmon-table stiffened into a cataleptic sort of rigidity.</p> - -<p>Her mother was also anxiously watching her.</p> - -<p>“Pauline!” she cried. “Are you ill?”</p> - -<p>There was no answer. The girl sat like a statue. Mrs. Vandermeulen -glanced at me in wild alarm, silently imploring my intervention. -Old Vandermeulen and his son were hotly arguing the desirability or -otherwise of informing Captain Higgins of their plans, and took no -notice of us.</p> - -<p>I got up from my seat and went round the table to the girl. I lifted up -her lifelessly heavy arm with my fingers on her pulse. It was normal.</p> - -<p>“Miss Vandermeulen!” I said, rather sharply. “Are you not well?”</p> - -<p>She turned her head slowly round to me, like a sleep-walker faintly -aware of some sound that does not, however, wake her, and stared me -full in the face with eyes in which there was not the slightest glimmer -of recognition. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Pauline!” almost screamed her mother, “don’t you know your own name?”</p> - -<p>An expression of curious intelligence dawned in her face—her aspect -changed in some subtle manner, as though another, quite different, -personality was emerging in her—she laughed in low, confident tones -utterly unlike her ordinary laugh.</p> - -<p>“My name is Lucia!” she said, as though stating a well-known fact.</p> - -<p>Lucia! To say that we were startled is to understate our -astonishment—we were dumbfounded. The first word of the cryptic -message! We gazed at her for a moment as at a complete stranger -from the clouds—and indeed she looked it, as she smiled at us with -bright malicious eyes. The diffident Pauline we knew had completely -disappeared.</p> - -<p>“She is possessed!” screamed her mother. “Oh, God—restore her! restore -her!”</p> - -<p>The girl stood up suddenly from her chair, passed her hand over her -eyes, shook herself as though shaking off sleep. She turned away from -us deliberately.</p> - -<p>“Oh, John!” she said, and there was an odd little foreign accent in -her tone, “I have dreamed—such a strange dream! I dreamed—I know -not!—that I was not Lucia!” She laughed softly in her new low tones, -“—That strange people were asking me my name. Then I woke—oh, John!” -she sidled up in a wheedling manner to what, so far as we could see, -was vacant space. “I am Lucia, am I not?—And you love me? You love -me?” Her shoulders moved sinuously as though she were putting herself -under the caresses of a person invisible to us. “You love me—and I -love you, although you have only that one terrible eye!” She still -spoke with that curious foreign accent which lent a certain piquancy -to her speech. “You love me, you John Dawson, you Englishman, you love -me for ever, say?” She reminded me of Carmen sidling up to Don José. -“You not deceive me—or——!” She looked up as into a tall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> man’s face -with a sudden expression of feline vindictiveness, her white teeth -showing in an ugly little rictus of the mouth, and slid her hand down -stealthily toward her stocking. “But no!” She smiled; her hand came up -again as though to rest upon a man’s shoulder. “You love me—and I love -you—and,” her voice dropped, “when we have killed the others we go -away with the treasure—you promise me, John Dawson?”</p> - -<p>She appeared utterly unaware of our presence. There was a dramatic -intensity in her voice and gestures which thrilled even me, although I -had attended some hypnotic experiments in London and was aware of the -complete realism with which a somnambulist will play a part suggested -to him. I had no doubt whatever that she was in a state of hypnosis, -accidentally self-induced, and that she was merely acting on the -suggestions of the talk she had overheard.</p> - -<p>Her mother, however, had no such consoling certitude. She hid her face -in her hands, groaning: “She is possessed! She is possessed! Oh, God, -cast out the evil spirit! cast out the evil spirit!”</p> - -<p>Geoffrey was white to the lips, appalled, unable to utter a sound. The -old man stared at her, fascinated, a strange gleam in his eyes.</p> - -<p>The mother turned to me in despair.</p> - -<p>“Oh, doctor! Do something—do something!—Oh, if only we had a minister -here! She is possessed by an evil spirit! My Pauline! My Pauline!” -She sank on her knees by one of the swivel-chairs, gave herself up to -agonized prayers. “Oh, God, cast out the evil one! Oh, God, cast out -the evil one!”</p> - -<p>Thinking that this strange incident had already lasted more than long -enough, I took a step toward the girl with a vague idea (though I -didn’t quite know how) of breaking the hypnosis. She stood looking -upward still, with a wheedling, diabolical smile, into apparent -nothingness.</p> - -<p>“We will go together—we two—with the treasure, say, John Dawson?” she -murmured seductively, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> very incarnation of a Delilah. “Mansvelt is -dead—we will run away from Simon and go with my people before they -kill us all—they are very many and you can only hold out two-three -days—but we might take the treasure, John Dawson, the treasure you -and Simon hid with Mansvelt—Simon, we will kill him—and we will go -away and be rich—rich, John Dawson—say?” Her voice was perfidiously -honeyed, her eyes glistened, as she caressed that uncanny empty air.</p> - -<p>“What is she talking about?” muttered Geoffrey in a low, excited voice. -“Who are these people—Mansvelt and Simon? Have you heard of them, -doctor?”</p> - -<p>I shook my head. They were utterly unknown to me. For a moment I -hesitated, fascinated by the little drama, curious to hear more.</p> - -<p>The mother moaned.</p> - -<p>“Oh, do something, doctor! do something!—Save her! Save her! Oh, God, -deliver her from the evil one!”</p> - -<p>Her agony recalled me to my professional duty. I started forward but -before I could reach her I was snatched back by a violent hand on my -shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Stand aside!” commanded old Vandermeulen in a terrible voice. “Evil -spirit or no evil spirit, I guess it knows all about that treasure—and -I’m going to hear what it’s got to say!” Of his normal love for his -daughter there was not a trace. The man was completely dominated, to -the exclusion of any other sentiment, by the lust for gold, more gold. -He looked scarcely human as his eyes glowered upon me, murder in them -if I thwarted him. “If it’s the Devil himself that’s got her—let her -talk!”</p> - -<p>But the mother sprang up with a wild shriek, rushed toward her daughter.</p> - -<p>“Do you wish her eternal damnation?” she cried, flinging her arms -about the girl. “Pauline! Pauline! For the love of God, don’t you know -me?—Oh, say a prayer—say a prayer after me!” She commenced the Lord’s -Prayer in a voice that trembled with anguish. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> - -<p>The girl stood rigid in her embrace, drawn up away from her, looking -down upon her with fixed and hostile eyes. She made one instinctive -movement to escape—and then suddenly crumpled in a swoon upon the -floor.</p> - -<p>She came round easily enough under simple restoratives, looked up at -us with childish, bewildered eyes—the old Pauline again! Her mother -completely broke down over her, sobbing in almost crazy joy at her -restoration. Emotionally infected, perhaps, the girl also gave way to -a hysterical passion of weeping, which would not be checked, and for -which she could give no reason. She seemed not to have the slightest -recollection of the part she had just played. Old Vandermeulen, still -obsessed by his lust for the treasure, tried to question her. She only -stared at him dumbly—a vague fear coming into her eyes, but giving -no response. I silenced him with all the authority of my professional -position, and got the girl into her stateroom, where we left her with -her mother.</p> - -<p>Throughout the next day neither of the two women appeared. Pauline -was utterly prostrated, and she remained in bed. Her mother stayed -with her, under strict injunctions to mention nothing of last night’s -terrible scene.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, of course, we were steadily drawing nearer to the Nicaraguan -coast and the island of Old Providence with its tiny and, to us, -fascinating satellite, Santa Katalina. Even I could not help wondering -what we should find there. The two Vandermeulens were in a fever of -excitement, cursing at every moment the slowness of the yacht. We were, -as a matter of fact, due to reach the island early next morning.</p> - -<p>Some time in the afternoon, the old man approached me confidentially.</p> - -<p>“Say, young know-all,” he said, “what d’you figure out was the meaning -of last night’s gaff? I guess Pauline ain’t got no natural talent for -play-acting like that.”</p> - -<p>Rather foolishly, I amused myself with his credulity. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Of course,” I said, concealing a smile, “it may be that in a previous -existence your daughter’s name was Lucia—the Spanish lady friend of -some of the buccaneers and particularly of a certain John Dawson, who -is now directing her to the treasure they buried together a few hundred -years ago.” I regretted my words the moment they were uttered. The -man’s infatuation needed no fanning from me.</p> - -<p>“By God, you’ve hit it!” he exclaimed. “And she’s just remembering!—I -guess she can lead us straight to it!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be absurd!” I said, pettishly. “I was only joking!”</p> - -<p>He glared at me in savage disappointment.</p> - -<p>“You’re joking with the wrong man!” he said harshly. “Besides, it sure -ain’t impossible!—You don’t know what happens to us when we’re dead, -though you do think you know everything!”</p> - -<p>“No—it’s not impossible,” I conceded. “But it’s improbable.”</p> - -<p>“That’s your opinion,” he sneered. “You know nothing about it!—I’ve -had them feelings myself—feelings that I’ve been to a place before -when I sure know I haven’t. By God, that’s it!—Pauline’s just -remembering—coming back to these old places—and she’ll take us a -bee-line to the cache!”</p> - -<p>He strode off to impart this illuminating theory to his son, and I saw -no more of them until supper time. They were, I was sure, concerting -some plan for cutting me out of a share in the treasure.</p> - -<p>They had the furtive look of a couple of conspirators as we three, -Pauline and her mother still absent, sat that night at table. Both -forced themselves to exhibit a strained politeness to me, which -obviously concealed some treacherous design. I didn’t like the -atmosphere at all and was impelled to clear it.</p> - -<p>“By the way,” I remarked, casually, “I don’t want a share in that -treasure—I prefer to work for my living.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> As I had not the slightest -faith in its existence, this renunciation was not difficult. “Supposing -your theory to be true, it belongs to Miss Vandermeulen if it belongs -to any one.”</p> - -<p>“Sure, that’s so!” agreed the old man. “It’s Pauline’s treasure, right -enough. Ain’t it, Geoffrey?”</p> - -<p>“I guess it’s no one else’s,” said Geoffrey, picking up the idea. “I’ll -see to that.”</p> - -<p>I could not help smiling at the gratuitous menace in his tone; he might -have been sitting on the treasure-chests already.</p> - -<p>At that moment we were startled by an appalling scream, a choking cry, -from Pauline’s stateroom.</p> - -<p>We rushed in and stood for a moment transfixed with horror. Pauline, -leaning out of her bunk, was throttling with both hands the life out -of her mother, who had been sitting by the bedside. In a flash of my -first perception of the scene, I saw that the girl had reverted to -her trance-personality. It was Lucia who had that deadly grip upon -the other woman’s throat, Lucia who glared at her with fiendishly -triumphant eyes, Lucia who gloated mockingly in her foreign accent: -“Ah, Teresa!—You think you would take the Englishman from me—you -think you would go away with John Dawson and the treasure?” She -laughed, cruelly exultant. “I think no, Teresa—I think no—not with -the treasure! You can go with that John Dawson, yes! But not with the -treasure! You go and wait for him—for your John Dawson—I will send -him to you—soon—soon!” Her low laugh was diabolical.</p> - -<p>We flung ourselves upon her, but her strength was superhuman. She -seemed utterly oblivious of us, as heedless of our struggles as -though we were not there. Her eyes flashing, her teeth showing, she -continued to jeer at her victim in her foreign voice: “He will come -to you to-night—your John Dawson—as he promised, yes! I will send -him to you——!” Only as we finally tore the almost strangled Mrs. -Vandermeulen from her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> hands did she suddenly cease to speak. She sank -back upon the bed, swooning into complete unconsciousness.</p> - -<p>I drove out the father and son and applied myself to reviving the -mother. I shall not forget the terrible night I had with her, after she -had resuscitated. At length, I had to give her a few drops of laudanum -to get her off to sleep. Pauline slept like a child.</p> - -<p>I woke up the next morning to that strange feeling of hushed stillness -which pervades a ship when her engines are at rest after a long period -of unbroken activity. We were pitching heavily, evidently at anchor, -for our upward rise was every now and then suddenly and jarringly -arrested. We had arrived!</p> - -<p>I went to look at my patients and found them both suffering from -sea-sickness. This vicious plunging of the yacht was more than their -weak stomachs could stand. I gave them each a steadying draught and -then went on deck.</p> - -<p>The two Vandermeulens were on the bridge with the skipper. I ignored -them, instinctively avoiding their certain excitement. Upon our port -bow was a fairly large island, its rocky shore crowned with a dense -tropical foliage. On the other side of us was a small islet, barren -save for a few sparse trees scattered over it, surf breaking white upon -its beaches. Old Providence and its satellite, Santa Katalina! Between -the two islands a strong current was running, with a heavy ground-swell -in which we plunged and kicked, straining at our cables. No wonder the -two ladies were ill, I thought, as the deck sank sickeningly sideways -under my feet.</p> - -<p>I went into the saloon and found that the Vandermeulens had already -breakfasted. As I ate my solitary meal, I could hear the heavy -trampling of feet on the deck overhead, and guessed that they were -hoisting outboard the little steam-launch we used when in harbour.</p> - -<p>When I had finished, I went to have another look at Pauline. Her mother -was with her. Mentally, she was completely her normal self, with -apparently no memory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> even of that trance-personality which had for -the second time surged up in her. But she was feeling very ill in this -violent and disturbing motion of the anchored yacht.</p> - -<p>Old Vandermeulen came in.</p> - -<p>“Get up and dress, Pauline!” he commanded, brutally, as though bearing -down opposition in advance. “We’re going ashore!”</p> - -<p>His wife sprang forward.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no, William! Don’t take her! Don’t take her!—Don’t tempt -Providence. Don’t go! William! William!” she clung to him in -supplication. “She’s too ill to go! She’s too ill to go, isn’t she, -doctor?”</p> - -<p>The old man shook her off.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense!” he said roughly. Nevertheless, he turned enquiringly to me.</p> - -<p>I considered the pros and cons dispassionately for a moment. Of course, -the old lady’s fears were mere superstition and did not influence me in -the least.</p> - -<p>“Well,” I said, “I think that if Miss Vandermeulen feels equal to the -effort of dressing, it would do her good to get away from the yacht and -walk about on firm land for an hour or two.”</p> - -<p>“I should like to,” said Pauline, all docility. “Besides,” she smiled, -“I should like to see for myself if there is any truth in that strange -writing.”</p> - -<p>Half an hour later we had, with some difficulty, stowed the ladies—for -the mother insisted on coming also—in the stern-sheets of the little -launch which rose and fell dizzily under the lee of the yacht. The -two Vandermeulens were amidships, ready to give instructions to the -helmsman. I noticed that they had a pick and shovel on board. I sat -close to Pauline. She was looking pale, but the sea-sickness was in -abeyance for the moment and a touch of digitalis I had given her had -stiffened her up.</p> - -<p>We sheered off, set a course over the rolling dark blue well toward the -islet we could see as we lifted on the waves. We had anchored rather -on the Old Providence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> side of the channel dividing the islands, and -the launch was about midway between the two when Pauline, who had been -looking around her with some curiosity, uttered a sudden ejaculation.</p> - -<p>“That’s not the island!” she cried, with a gesture toward Santa -Katalina. “It’s the other one—the big one!” She pointed to Old -Providence. Then she checked herself, a peculiar look of puzzlement in -her face. “I wonder whatever made me say that!” she exclaimed. “One -would think I have been here before—but I can’t have!”</p> - -<p>“But that’s Santa Katalina!” objected Geoffrey, pointing to the islet. -It undoubtedly was.</p> - -<p>“Wait!” said old Vandermeulen, who had been sharply watching his -daughter for any sign of recognition. “I guess Pauline knows what she -is talking about!”</p> - -<p>He stopped the engine and for a few moments we rose and fell idly upon -the waves, while the two men stared across to Old Providence.</p> - -<p>“By Jove, yes!” cried Geoffrey suddenly. “Pauline’s right! Look! -There’s Skull Point!”</p> - -<p>He indicated, with outstretched hand, a jutting headland whose face had -been weather-sculptured into the unmistakable semblance of a skull.</p> - -<p>“Skull Point it is!” said old Vandermeulen, with such an oath as he did -not usually let come to his daughter’s ears.</p> - -<p>In another moment we had gone about and were throbbing quickly toward -the headland. All eyes were fixed on it as we approached. Geoffrey had -produced a compass.</p> - -<p>“Look!” he cried. “The three trees! South-west-by-south from Skull -Point!”</p> - -<p>Sure enough, in the direction designated, three enormous trees, -evidently hundreds of years old, raised their heads high above the mass -of more recent vegetation.</p> - -<p>A quarter of an hour later we were running into a little cove on the -west side of the headland. A ledge of rock,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> sheltered from the swell, -offered itself as a landing-stage, and we ran alongside and made fast.</p> - -<p>Old Vandermeulen ordered the two members of the yacht’s crew, who had -accompanied us, to remain in the launch. The rest of us started off -into the island, Geoffrey carrying the tools. The three trees were at -no great distance, at the summit of a slope of broken-down volcanic -rock. Geoffrey arrived first.</p> - -<p>“No need to worry where to dig, Father!” he shouted. “Here it is—plain -enough!”</p> - -<p>Under the centre tree was a cairn of loose stones, more than half -buried under the detritus of many years, it is true, but evidently the -work of men’s hands.</p> - -<p>“That’s it, sure!” cried the old man. “First time you’ve seen this -place, Pauline?” he queried, with a touch of grim cynicism.</p> - -<p>“Of course!” she replied. “What do you mean, Father?—and yet—” she -hesitated, looking around her—“yet I do have a strange sort of feeling -as though I had been here before. But I can’t have! It’s absurd!”</p> - -<p>Mother and daughter sat down under the shade of the trees whilst we -three set to work to open the cairn. I was as excited as they by this -time, and I helped with a will. The old man, wielding his pick with the -skill of an ex-miner, loosened the stones on the surface. I rolled away -the big ones, and Geoffrey shovelled away the smaller stuff. At the end -of an hour we had made a pretty deep excavation. We then took it in -turns to work with pick and shovel in the hole, from which we threw up -the stones.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Geoffrey uttered an exclamation.</p> - -<p>“We’re on something!—What’s that, doctor?” He passed me up a long bone.</p> - -<p>“That’s the tibia of a man,” I replied. “I expect you’ll find the rest -of him there.”</p> - -<p>“Sure thing!” he said. “Here he is!” He cleared away one or two large -lumps of rock and revealed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> grinning skeleton of a man. “Hallo!” he -added, as he bent down to it, “what’s this?”</p> - -<p>A long thin stiletto was lying loosely between the fleshless ribs of -the skeleton.</p> - -<p>The old man snatched it from him as he plucked it out.</p> - -<p>“And by all that’s holy!” he cried, “it’s got her name on it! Look!”</p> - -<p>I took it from him. The dagger was of antique pattern, its steel rusted -and corroded but still resilient enough to make it a dangerous weapon, -and on the hilt, still legible, roughly inlaid in silver like the -amateur work of a sailorman, was the name—<i>Lucia!</i></p> - -<p>“I guess she murdered him with that!” said the old man, grimly, -glancing from the stiletto to the skeleton grinning up at us from the -hole where it had so long lain undisturbed. He turned toward where his -daughter sat in the shade of the trees. “Here, Pauline!” he called to -her. “Come and see—your friend the pirate and the knife that killed -him!”</p> - -<p>The girl jumped up and ran across to us, all excitement.</p> - -<p>“How wonderful!” she said. “It’s like a dream come true!”</p> - -<p>At the time, excited as we all were, I did not notice the strangeness -of that spontaneous phrase. She stood upon the edge of the excavation -and took the stiletto with eager curiosity from her father. She held it -in both hands, breast-high, the point toward her, to read the name upon -the hilt.</p> - -<p>“Lucia!” she cried, with a strange look toward us, as though dimly and -uncertainly recalling some terrible experience. “Lucia!” She repeated -the name with a peculiar, slow intonation—an intonation of puzzled -half-remembrance.</p> - -<p>We stared at her, fascinated. Was our fantastic theory true?</p> - -<p>Her gaze lost us, fixed itself into vacancy. Her features changed. An -expression of vague fear—the fear of the hypnotic shrinking at some -invisible danger—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>came into them. She opened her mouth as though to -speak.</p> - -<p>She uttered only an inarticulate cry—a cry of fright as the loose -stones of the excavation slipped from under her. She fell headlong into -the hole, where she lay oddly—ominously—still. I jumped down after -her, lifted her up. The rusty old stiletto, caught under her in her -fall, had driven straight into her heart—broken off at the hilt!</p> - -<p class="space-above">The doctor stopped, looked round upon his audience.</p> - -<p>“And the treasure?” queried one of them.</p> - -<p>“There was no treasure. There was no more digging that day. We took -the poor girl’s corpse back to the yacht and I thought her mother -would have died as well—or gone out of her mind. She was screaming -to get away from the place. But the old man was not put off his game -so easily. The next day, whilst I stayed on board with the distracted -mother, he and his son went and dug again in that tragic cairn.</p> - -<p>“They brought back all they found—the broken lid of a chest, branded -with the date 1665. That, curiously enough, was <i>underneath</i> the -skeleton, suggesting that the hoard had been rifled before the man, -whoever he was, was killed.”</p> - -<p>“A strange story!” commented another of the audience. “And what’s your -hypothesis in explanation, doctor?”</p> - -<p>The doctor smiled.</p> - -<p>“Well—you can have your choice,” he said. “There is the possibility -that, in a prior existence, Miss Vandermeulen was in fact Lucia, that -she seduced John Dawson into revealing the secret of the treasure, -that she murdered him on the spot and went off with it—and that -the vengeful spirit of the old buccaneer, hovering around these -latitudes, came into touch with her new reincarnation, and, playing -with a fine irony upon that same lust of gold which was responsible -for his murder but of which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> was this time entirely innocent, led -her to a death by that same poniard with which she had killed <i>him</i>. -Alternatively, there is the hypothesis that her spontaneous writing and -the impersonation of Lucia were but an automatic dramatization by her -subconsciousness of hints dropped into it by her brother’s reading of -‘Treasure Island’ and subsequent conversations between her father and -his son, and that her death was a mere coincidence.”</p> - -<p>“An incredibly complete coincidence!” said one of the men.</p> - -<p>The doctor shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“There was one other curious thing,” he said. “Some years later, in -a history of the buccaneers, I came across a paragraph to the effect -that the island called Old Providence since the eighteenth century was -known to the buccaneers as Santa Katalina, and that only subsequently -was that name transferred to the islet north of it. So Pauline’s -subconscious memory was right! Furthermore, it stated that the large -island, then called Santa Katalina, was seized and garrisoned by the -buccaneers in 1664 under the leadership of a man named Mansvelt. He -sailed off to get recruits, leaving the island in command of a certain -Simon, and died upon the voyage. Simon surrendered the island to the -Spaniards who had besieged it. The date was 1665.</p> - -<p>“Of course, Miss Vandermeulen may have read that paragraph and -subconsciously retained the names—but, for her, it was an improbable -kind of reading. At any rate, she had a curious knowledge of an -out-of-the-way piece of history. As I said, when you tap the -subconsciousness you never know what buried treasure you may find. -Well, I leave you to your hypotheses, gentlemen.” He stood up, knocked -out his pipe. “Good-night!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> - -<h2>A PROBLEM IN REPRISALS</h2> - -<p>In the dusk of a winter afternoon a battalion of the French Contingent -of the Army of Occupation dispersed to its billets in the little -German village. The <i>Chef-de-bataillon</i> and the <i>médecin-major</i>, -having installed their staffs in their respective bureaux, walked up -the street in search of the quarters which had been chosen for them -in the meanwhile. The scared faces of slatternly women, obsequiously -gesturing the mud-stained French soldiers into occupation of their -cottages, turned to look anxiously at them as they passed, in evident -apprehension of the order which should let loose a vengeful destruction -only too probable to their uneasy consciences. Here and there a -haggard-looking man, an ex-soldier probably, slunk into his house, out -of sight, but the native population of the village was preponderatingly -feminine. The two officers—the <i>commandant</i>, good-humoured and -inclined to rotundity, his eyes twinkling under brows a shade less gray -than his moustache; the doctor, a middle-aged man, quiet, restrained -to curtness in speech and expression, with eyes that swept sombrely -without interest over his environment—ignored alike the false smiles -and the genuinely alarmed glances of these wives and mothers of their -once arrogant enemies.</p> - -<p>A captain came down the street toward them and saluted on near -approach. It was the adjutant of the battalion. He was young and his -natural cheerfulness was enhanced to perpetual high spirits in the -enjoyment of the experiences following upon overwhelming victory.</p> - -<p>“We are well housed, <i>mon commandant</i>,” he said joyously, with a -flash of white teeth under his little brown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> moustache. “<i>Comfort -moderne—presque!</i> Not a château, it is true—but large enough. The -best in the village, in any case. Bedrooms for the three of us, and a -room for our <i>popote</i>. Our baggage is already in, and dinner will be -ready in half an hour. <i>Tout ce qu’il y a de mieux, n’est-ce pas?</i>” He -finished with his young laugh.</p> - -<p>The gray eyes of the battalion-commander twinkled at him.</p> - -<p>“And the <i>patronne</i>, Jordan?—Old and ugly?”</p> - -<p>The young man’s face lit up. He put one finger to his lips and blew an -airy kiss.</p> - -<p>“Ah, <i>mon commandant</i>!” he replied in a tone of assumed ecstasy. “You -shall see her! A pearl, a jewel, <i>une femme exquise</i>!—That is to say,” -he added, with a change of note, “she would be if she were not a <i>femme -boche</i>. One almost forgets it, to look at her. But <i>boche</i> or not, she -is young, she is beautiful, and, <i>mon commandant</i>, rarest of all—she -is intelligent!”</p> - -<p>The battalion commander laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and -drew him along with them as they resumed their momentarily interrupted -progress.</p> - -<p>“I see I have to congratulate you upon another conquest,” he said, with -amused tolerance. “He is incredible, <i>notre cher Jordan</i>, Delassus!” he -added with a smile to the doctor.</p> - -<p>“<i>Je ne dis pas</i>,” protested the young captain with an affectation -of modesty. “But we understand each other and that is already -much—although, unfortunately, she speaks no French and my German lacks -vocabulary. But she made me understand that her husband was an officer -killed in the war. ‘<i>Mann</i>—<i>Offizier</i>—<i>tot</i>—<i>Krieg</i>.’ That’s right, -doctor, <i>n’est-ce pas</i>?—You are the linguist.”</p> - -<p>The doctor nodded assent.</p> - -<p>“Quite correct. You should make rapid progress under an instructor so -willing to impart interesting information,” he said drily.</p> - -<p>The young man protested warmly against the implication. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Your cynicism is out of place, doctor. I assure you. She is -<i>timide</i>—<i>timide</i> like a frightened bird.—I extorted it from -her.—But you shall see for yourselves. Here we are!”</p> - -<p>They were at the end of the village. The young captain led them through -a carriage gateway, sadly in need of a coat of paint, up a weed-grown -drive to a fairly large house, that had once been white but was now -stained with the overflow of gutters long left out of repair. A belt of -trees hid it from the road. The main door, in the centre of the house -with windows on both sides of it, was open, as if in expectation of -them. Wisps of smoke from several of the chimneys hinted at hospitality -in preparation.</p> - -<p>As the three of them entered the hall, a young woman appeared on the -threshold of one of the rooms communicating with it. Her natural -slimness was emphasized by a gown of black, and this sombre garb threw -into relief the fair hair which was massed heavily above her delicate -features. It needed, perhaps, the youthful enthusiasm of the captain to -call her beautiful; but her appearance had something of fragile charm -which conferred a distinction rare among German women. She stood there, -a little drawn back from her first emergence, contemplating them with -eyes that evidently sought to measure the potentiality for mischief in -these forced guests. Her attitude appealed dumbly for protection, so -forlorn and frail and timid was it as she shrunk back in the doorway.</p> - -<p>“Introduce us, Jordan!” whispered the battalion-commander to his -subordinate. “<i>On est civilisé, quoi donc!</i>”</p> - -<p>The young captain had lost a considerable amount of his assurance. -Rather flustered, he saluted and pointed to his superior.</p> - -<p>“<i>Commandant!</i>” then, turning to the other, “Doctor!” he blurted, -clumsily.</p> - -<p>Their hostess bowed slightly with a pathetic little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> smile as the two -officers saluted. The doctor advanced a step.</p> - -<p>“Have no fear, <i>gnädige Frau</i>,” he said politely in German. “The war is -over and France does not avenge itself upon women. No harm will come to -you.”</p> - -<p>Her face lit up.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ach</i>, you speak German!”</p> - -<p>“I studied in Germany in my youth, <i>gnädige Frau</i>, and I have not quite -forgotten the language.”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him.</p> - -<p>“<i>Gewiss nicht!</i>” Then, with a swift change of expression, she clutched -imploringly at his arm. “You will protect me? I am so alone and -frightened!” She hesitated as though seeking a cognate circumstance in -him that should compel his sympathy. “You are married?”</p> - -<p>The polite smile went out of his face. His expression hardened.</p> - -<p>“I was, <i>gnädige Frau</i>,” he replied, curtly.</p> - -<p>She stared at him, divining that she had blundered upon some painful -mystery. With feminine tact she steered quickly away from it into the -region of safe commonplace. She threw open one of the doors leading -into the hall.</p> - -<p>“Here, <i>meine Herren</i>, is the <i>Speisezimmer</i>,” she said in a tone of -colourless courtesy that contrasted with her emotion-charged voice of -a moment before. “It is at your service for your meals. There,” she -pointed to a door at the other side of the hall, “is the <i>Salon</i>—also -at your service. I have had a fire lit in it. Your orderlies are now -in the kitchen. I will send them to you to show you your rooms.” She -inclined her head slightly in sign of farewell and passed out through a -door at the end of the hall.</p> - -<p>The young captain looked at his commanding officer.</p> - -<p>“<i>Eh bien, mon commandant?</i> What did I tell you? Is she not——?”</p> - -<p>His superior interrupted him, a twinkle in his eye. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> - -<p>“She is, <i>mon cher Jordan</i>—but you have not a chance against the -doctor here!” He laughed, clapping the doctor on the back.</p> - -<p>The <i>médecin-major</i> frowned. His ascetic features hardened again.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon cher commandant</i>, you do me too much honour,” he said coldly. “I -assure you that there is no living woman who can interest me.”</p> - -<p>“Bah!” said the battalion-commander a trifle fatuously, “<i>moi, je suis -connaisseur dans ces affaires-lá!</i> I am sure that something is going to -happen between you and that woman. I can always feel that sort of thing -in the air like—” he hesitated for an illustration, “like some people -can see ghosts.”</p> - -<p>The doctor looked him in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon Commandant</i>,” he said, curtly, “if you could see ghosts you would -not feel so sure.”</p> - -<p>There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The captain broke it by -shouting for the orderlies.</p> - -<p>The three officers were introduced to their rooms and parted to perform -their toilet before dinner.</p> - -<p>The meal which followed in the rather overfurnished Speisezimmer was -overshadowed by the gloomy taciturnity of the doctor who appeared still -to resent the battalion-commander’s suggestions of gallantry. Not all -the sprightly sallies of the adjutant, not the persistent <i>bonhomie</i> -of the battalion-commander, resolutely ignoring any hostility between -himself and the doctor, could bring a smile into that hard-set face -with the sombre eyes. Their hostess did not appear again and was not -mentioned between them. When they had finished, the captain suggested -that they should smoke their cigars in the Salon.</p> - -<p>“I feel I want to put my feet on the piano,” he said, with a vague -remembrance of a popular picture, “like the <i>boches</i> at Versailles in -’seventy! To infect our hostess’s curtains with cigar-smoke is a poor -compromise, but it is something! <i>Allons, messieurs!</i>—let us indulge -in hideous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> reprisals! The <i>boche</i> has devastated our homes—let us -avenge ourselves by spoiling his curtains!”</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander looked smilingly across to the doctor.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon cher Delassus</i>, are you for this policy of reprisals?”</p> - -<p>The doctor looked up as though startled out of a train of thought.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon commandant</i>, it is a subject on which I dare not let myself -think.”</p> - -<p>There was something so harsh in his tone that neither of his companions -could continue their banter. Both looked at the doctor. They knew -little or nothing of his private life, for he had joined the battalion -only just prior to the armistice, but evidently it contained a tragedy -the memory of which they had unwittingly revived. Both maintained a -respectful silence for a few moments. Then the adjutant rose and went -out of the room. He called out to them from the Salon that a splendid -fire awaited them, and the others rose from the table also.</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander laid his hand affectionately upon the doctor’s -shoulder.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon cher</i>,” he said, “forgive me if I have unconsciously wounded -sacred sentiments.”</p> - -<p>The doctor pressed the hand that was extended to him. They went -together across the hall into the Salon.</p> - -<p>A blazing wood fire fitfully lit up a large room still without other -means of illumination. Jordan explained that he had sent an orderly -for some candles, as Madame had no petroleum for the lamps. The -battalion-commander and the doctor threw themselves luxuriously into -deep armchairs on either side of the fireplace and lit their cigars. In -a few minutes the orderly arrived with the candles. Jordan fitted them -into two large candelabra on the mantelpiece and lit them.</p> - -<p>The eyes of all three officers roved around the apartment. It was, like -the dining-room, rather overfurnished and was particularly rich in -bric-à-brac of all kinds. It was, in fact, overcrowded with porcelain -figures, small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> mirrors, pictures of moderate size, all sorts of -valuable objects that in almost every case were of <i>easily portable -dimensions</i>. This last attribute leaped simultaneously to the minds of -two of them.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon commandant</i>,” began Jordan, in a humorously affected judicial -tone, “I am penetrated by an unworthy suspicion——!”</p> - -<p>“French! <i>Nom d’un nom!</i>” cried the battalion-commander. “Everything -here!—The collection of the burglar <i>boche</i> officer!—Doctor! You -speak German!—Ask that woman——!”</p> - -<p>Both were suddenly arrested by the attitude of the doctor. He was -staring in a fixed fascination at a small Buhl clock upon the -mantelpiece. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, snatched down the clock, -and gazed eagerly at the back of it.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” he cried. “<i>This is mine!</i>—it comes from my -house!—Look!”</p> - -<p>He showed them an inscription on the back:</p> - -<p><a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" >[1]</a>“<i>A Jules, pour marquer les heures d’un amour qui ne cessera pas -quand le temps même cessera, de sa Marcelle.</i>”</p> - -<p>He stared at them like a lunatic.</p> - -<p>“My wife!” he cried. “My wife!—Oh, Marcelle, Marcelle, where are you? -Where are you?”</p> - -<p>The others also had risen to their feet. A tense silence followed upon -the wild cry.</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander touched the doctor’s arm.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon ami</i>,” he said gently, “—can we help you——?”</p> - -<p>The erstwhile sombre eyes of the doctor blazed down upon him, as -though searching for a mortal enemy even in this friend. Then, with a -distinctly apparent effort of will, the anguished man mastered himself.</p> - -<p>“Listen!” he said. “This clock was a present to me from my wife. It was -a love-marriage, ours—we loved, she and I——” he broke off, his eyes -blazing again. Then, with a gesture of the hand as though he put that -from him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> he continued: “Before the war I was in practice at Cambrai. -We lived out of the town—in a country house such as this. In August, -1914, I was mobilized. They sent me to Lorraine. I left my wife at -home, believing her to be safe. You know what happened. The enemy swept -over that part of the country. Trench-warfare began and my home, all -I cared for in the world—my wife—was in the German lines. I never -saw her again. I could never get any news. I waited four desperate -years—and then, when we advanced, I went to find my home. It simply -did not exist—it was a heap of bricks with a trench through it. My -wife—no hint!” He pressed a hand over his eyes, then stared once more -at the clock. “And now—I find this—here!”</p> - -<p>Again there was a tense silence. The battalion-commander broke it at -last.</p> - -<p>“Interrogate the woman,” he said, briefly. “She must know something.”</p> - -<p>“It is a pity her husband is dead,” said the captain, with grim humour. -“We could have the pleasure of condemning him by court-martial, after -he had confessed—whatever there is to confess.”</p> - -<p>The doctor’s face set hard. He replaced the clock on the mantelpiece -and wrote a few words on a page of his notebook.</p> - -<p>“I am going to have the truth,” he said, tearing out the page and -folding it up. “Ring the bell, my dear Jordan.”</p> - -<p>An orderly appeared.</p> - -<p>“Take this to Madame,” said the doctor, “at once.”</p> - -<p>The orderly departed. The three men waited, two of them tingling with -the excitement of this unexpected drama, the third standing with -compressed lips and eyes that seemed to be frowning into a world which -transcended this. He was certainly oblivious of his companions in the -fixity of his thought. At last his lips moved.</p> - -<p>“Marcelle! Marcelle!” he murmured. “My love! I am going to know—and, -if need be, to avenge!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> - -<p>At that moment the door opened and the frail little figure of the -German woman appeared upon the threshold.</p> - -<p>“<i>Meine Herren?</i>” she said, in timid enquiry.</p> - -<p>The doctor looked up. His companions marvelled to see the expression of -his face change to a smiling courtesy. But there was a glitter in the -usually sombre eyes which spurred their hardly repressed excitement.</p> - -<p>“Will you have the kindness to enter, <i>gnädige Frau</i>?” said the doctor. -His voice was suave, but there was a note in it which his companions, -although they did not understand the words, recognized as compelling.</p> - -<p>The German woman glanced at him apprehensively, and obeyed. The doctor -drew up an armchair for her, close to the fire.</p> - -<p>“Will you not seat yourself, <i>gnädige Frau</i>?” he asked still in the -suave voice with the undertone of command.</p> - -<p>She inclined her head speechlessly and sat down. They noticed that her -hands were trembling. The doctor motioned his companions to resume -their seats. He himself remained standing, his back to the fireplace, -his form hiding the clock on the mantelpiece from the eyes of the woman -had she looked up. He smiled at her in a reassuring manner, as she -waited dumbly for him to state the reason for his summons.</p> - -<p>“We are very much interested in your collection of porcelain, <i>gnädige -Frau</i>,” he said, smoothly. “It is French, is it not?”</p> - -<p>A sudden expression of alarm flitted into her eyes, was banished. She -nodded her head.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ja—ja, mein Herr</i>,” she answered hesitatingly. She moistened her -lips. Her hands gripped each other tightly upon her lap.</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander and the captain observed her with a quickened -interest. Despite their ignorance of German, the word “<i>Porzelän</i>” gave -them the clue to their comrade’s opening question.</p> - -<p>“It is the result of many years’ gradual acquisition, I presume?” he -pursued, in a casual tone. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> - -<p>She shot an upward glance at him from under her eyebrows ere she -replied.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ja—mein Herr.</i>”</p> - -<p>“It is well chosen,” said the doctor. “I congratulate you on your -knowledge and good taste. Perhaps you would explain some of the pieces -to us—pieces I do not recognize?”</p> - -<p>She looked up at him with wide and innocent eyes.</p> - -<p>“I cannot, <i>mein Herr</i>. I know nothing about porcelain. It was my -husband’s collection. I keep it in memory of him.”</p> - -<p>There was an accent of sincerity in the last phrase which drew a sharp -glance from the doctor.</p> - -<p>“Ah,” he said quietly. “He was killed, was he not?”</p> - -<p>Her eyes filled with tears, her mouth twitched.</p> - -<p>“Killed in one of the very last battles, <i>mein Herr</i>.” She drew -a long sobbing breath and looked wildly at him. “<i>Ach Gott!</i> do -not remind me! do not remind me!” she cried. “He was all I had in -the world—everything—everything! You do not know how good and -kind and loving he was! And now he is gone—he will never come -back—never—never! And I loved him so!” She broke down into sobs, -hiding her face in her hands.</p> - -<p>The doctor waited until the crisis had subsided. A diagnosis of -hysteria formed itself in his professional mind.</p> - -<p>“So you have no real interest in this collection?” he enquired. “Would -you sell it?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ach, nein—nein</i>!” she answered. “I keep it in memory of him, my -Heinrich, who loved it so.—I feel him here when I dust it and care for -it.” She looked wildly round the room. “I feel him here now!”</p> - -<p>The doctor nodded his head in courteous assent to a possibility.</p> - -<p>“Did he inherit it?” he asked casually, as though merely pursuing a -conversation which could not, in politeness, be allowed to cease on a -note of distress.</p> - -<p>She shook her head. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Ah, he bought it?”</p> - -<p>She moistened her lips nervously ere she replied.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Before the war?”</p> - -<p>Her face hardened as she answered again.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>There was a moment of silence and then the doctor changed his position -slightly before the mantelpiece.</p> - -<p>“And this pretty clock?” he asked, pointing to it. “Did he buy that -also?”</p> - -<p>She stared at it and then nodded her head.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ja, mein Herr.</i>”</p> - -<p>“<i>So!</i>—that is curious. I am particularly interested in that clock, -<i>gnädige Frau</i>. Can you remember where it was bought?”</p> - -<p>She hesitated, ventured a scared glance at him, and obviously forced -herself to speech. The two officers involuntarily bent forward in their -interest.</p> - -<p>“No, <i>mein Herr</i>.”</p> - -<p>She glanced round as though seeking an opportunity for escape.</p> - -<p>The doctor repeated his question in a level tone of authority, his eyes -fixed on her.</p> - -<p>“You are sure you cannot remember where that clock was bought, <i>gnädige -Frau</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Quite sure.” Her breast was heaving. She half rose from her seat. “Why -do you ask me all these questions? Let me go!—Let me go! You have no -right to question me like this! I—I tell you it was bought—it was all -bought!”</p> - -<p>The doctor stepped forward with a quick movement, seized her wrist, and -forced her back into her seat.</p> - -<p>“I beg of you!” he said in a voice that compelled obedience.</p> - -<p>She subsided, trembling in every limb. Her eyes followed his every -movement with the fascinated attention of a frightened animal.</p> - -<p>The doctor came close to her, and from her point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> view glanced up to -the mantelpiece. Then, stepping back, he arranged the candles so that -the face of the clock, seen from her position, was a disc of bright -reflection.</p> - -<p>Without a word but with a deliberation which awed even the watching -officers by its inflexible though mysterious purpose, he turned to her -once more, and, with the gently firm touch of a medical man, posed -her head so that she looked straight before her. Paralyzed under his -masterful dominance, she submitted plastically. She was too frightened -to utter a sound. Only her eyes widened as she saw him produce a heavy -revolver.</p> - -<p>“Now, <i>gnädige Frau</i>!” he said, and his voice, though passionless, -was intense in its expression of level will-power, “do not move your -head! Look up—under your eyebrows. You see that clock? Look at -it—continue to look at it!—If you take your eyes off it for one -fraction of a second I shall shoot you dead! You are looking at it? It -marks a quarter to eight. When it strikes eight you will tell me quite -truthfully how you came by it!”</p> - -<p>He ceased. The young woman, her face white with terror, her mouth -twitching, her nostrils distended, sat motionless, staring up under her -eyebrows at the face of the clock.</p> - -<p>There was a dead silence in the room. The minutes passed. The young -woman did not move a muscle. Her wide-open eyes fixed on the clock, she -seemed to stiffen into a cataleptic rigidity.</p> - -<p>The doctor put aside his revolver. He approached her, took one of her -wrists and lifted her hand from her lap. It lay limply in his.</p> - -<p>“You are feeling sleepy,” he said in his level, positive voice. “You -are going to sleep. My voice is sounding muffled and far away—but you -will still hear it. You are losing the sense of your surroundings—but -you still see that clock face. You cannot help but see it. And when it -strikes eight you are going to tell the truth.” He dropped the hand -which fell lifelessly again upon her lap.</p> - -<p>The young woman sat motionless as a statue. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> breathing changed to -the deep respirations of sleep, although her eyes remained wide open.</p> - -<p>The clock struck eight. At the last of its thin, silvery notes the -young woman shuddered. Her lips moved.</p> - -<p>“My husband sent it to me,” she said in a toneless, dreamy voice.</p> - -<p>“When?” asked the doctor.</p> - -<p>“In 1915.”</p> - -<p>“From whence?”</p> - -<p>“From the front.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know the place?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“You are quite sure?”</p> - -<p>“Quite sure.”</p> - -<p>“And all these other things?”</p> - -<p>“My husband sent them to me.”</p> - -<p>“From France?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“How did he become possessed of them?”</p> - -<p>“He took them out of houses.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause in which the young woman did not move in the -slightest. She appeared like some oracular statue waiting for the next -question.</p> - -<p>“Why did you lie to me?” asked the doctor in his level voice.</p> - -<p>“Because you would have thought my husband a thief, and I am so proud -of him.”</p> - -<p>“Can you be proud of him, knowing that he was a thief?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” came the dreamy answer. “It was not his crime. He sent these -things to me because I asked him for them and he loved me.”</p> - -<p>“You asked him to send you these things? Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because all the other officers’ wives were having things sent to them.”</p> - -<p>“<i>So!</i> Your husband would not have taken them if you had not asked for -them?”</p> - -<p>“No. He only took them to give me pleasure. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> never thought of -anybody but me. That is why I love him so—why I shall always love him.”</p> - -<p>The doctor bit his lip, and hesitated for a moment.</p> - -<p>“You do not think your husband would have offered violence to a woman -in the house where he got this clock?”</p> - -<p>“No. He loved me too much. He never thought of any woman but me. I am -sure of it. He was an ideal man, my Heinrich—always gentle, always -loving, always faithful.” She paused a moment before continuing. “It is -cruel of you to make me realize how much I love him!”</p> - -<p>The doctor stood over her, contemplating her, his brows wrinkled in -a puzzled frown. His comrades looked at him enquiringly. He ignored -them. The young woman, having ceased to speak, remained motionless and -upright on her chair. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the -clock.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the doctor’s brows cleared in an evident decision. He lifted -the young woman’s hand again as he spoke in his level, positive voice. -His face was very grave.</p> - -<p>“You are asleep. But you are going into a very much deeper sleep—a -sleep so profound that it takes you far out of this time and place. -Nevertheless you will remain in touch with me and you will hear my -voice. But everything else is going from you. You are now released from -the limitations of this body. You are on a plane from which you can -enter into any time and place that I shall command.”</p> - -<p>He dropped her hand and, with his finger-tips, closed the lids over her -eyes. Her body still remained upright in its trancelike rigidity.</p> - -<p>“What do you see?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” came the dreamy answer.</p> - -<p>“Where are you?”</p> - -<p>“I do not know—I—I am nowhere, I think,” she said with hesitation. -“I—I—oh, do not keep me like this!” There was a new note of anxiety -in her voice. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Wait a moment,” said the doctor. He turned to the mantelpiece, took -down the clock, placed it on her lap, and clasped her hands about it.</p> - -<p>“Now,” he said in his quiet, tense tones, “you are in touch with that -clock. I want you to go into the time and place when that clock had -another owner—before your husband had it. Focus yourself upon it. Go -into the room where it stands.”</p> - -<p>The young woman’s eyelids twitched flickeringly but otherwise her rigid -attitude was unmodified.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, in a slow and doubtful tone, “yes——”</p> - -<p>“What do you see?” asked the doctor. His lips compressed themselves -firmly after the words, the muscles of his lean jaw stood out, in the -intense effort of his will to keep emotion under control, to avoid an -unconscious suggestion of ideas.</p> - -<p>“I see a <i>salon</i>,” said the young woman dreamily, “a <i>salon</i> with -French windows opening on to a lawn. There is a grand piano in it—and -a young woman seated at the piano. She is dark—young—oh, she is -very beautiful! She keeps on looking at the clock—the clock is on -the mantelpiece between two bronze statuettes. She is expecting -somebody——”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said the doctor, crouching over her, his fists clenched in a -spasm of supremely willed self-control, his breath coming in the quick -gasps enforced by that tumultuous beating of the heart he could not -command.</p> - -<p>“Yes?—Go on!”</p> - -<p>“She hears a footstep—she jumps up from the piano. A man comes into -the room—a civilian. She throws her arms about him and kisses him. -She leads him across to the mantelpiece and takes up the clock. She -puts it into his hands—she is showing him something on the back of it, -something written! They kiss again. They are in love these two—how -she loves him! I can feel that—I can feel her love vibrating in me!” -She paused dreamily. “I know what real love is—and she loves him like -that——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The man?” asked the doctor, his eyes wild. “The man?—describe him!”</p> - -<p>“His back is turned to me—I cannot see his face. Ah, he turns round. -The man is—<i>you!</i>”</p> - -<p>The doctor looked as though he were going to collapse. His companions -watched him, fascinated, completely mystified, trying to guess at -the drama their ignorance of the language hid from them. He mastered -himself with a mighty effort.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said. “You have the place right—but not the time. Go on a -year—more than a year! Go on to the time when this clock passed out of -that woman’s possession!”</p> - -<p>“More than a year!” she repeated dreamily. “I—I must sleep—I -cannot——” She was silent for a few moments. “Yes—yes—I see the -room again. The young woman is in it. She is seated at a little -table—writing. She looks up—Oh, how sad and pale she is!—but she is -still very beautiful. I am so sorry for her—she is so unhappy—and she -is still in love, I can still feel it vibrating in me. She is picking -up a photograph—she kisses it—it is yours!—she kisses it again and -again. Why are you not with her? I feel that you are a great distance -off—she does not know where you are. That worries her, because she -loves you so.” She stopped.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said the doctor sternly. “What do you see next?”</p> - -<p>“She puts away her writing hurriedly. She is frightened of -something—someone is coming, I think—yes! The door opens—a -soldier—no, a German officer! Oh, she is frightened of him, but she -is brave! She stands up as he comes toward her. She draws back from -him—he is between her and the door. He puts out his hands, tries to -hold her—<i>Ach!</i>” her voice rose to a scream, “<i>it is Heinrich!</i>”</p> - -<p>“Go on!” commanded the doctor. “<i>Go on!</i> What do you see?” His voice -was terrible in its inexorability.</p> - -<p>“Oh no, no!” she whispered. “No! Don’t make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> me see! don’t make me see! -I don’t want to—I don’t want to—<i>Ach, Heinrich, Heinrich!</i>” Her voice -came on a note of anguish. “I cannot bear it!”</p> - -<p>The doctor frowned at the rigid figure with closed eyes that began to -sway slightly to and fro upon its chair. Her face was drawn with a -suffering beyond expression.</p> - -<p>“See!” he commanded. “And tell me what you see!”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she moaned, “you are cruel—cruel! I do not want to see! I do not -want to look!”</p> - -<p>“You must!”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” Evidently she surrendered helplessly. She commenced in a -fatigued, dreary voice: “They are there together—the two of them! -That beautiful woman—oh, I hate her now, I hate her!—<i>Ach, Heinrich, -have you forgotten me?</i>” It was as if she called to him. “He does not -hear me. His eyes are fixed on the woman.” She continued in short -panting sentences uttered with increasing horror. “She is retreating -from him—further and further back. He is following her. Oh, something -terrible is going to happen—it is in the air—I feel it—something -horrible!—What?—Ah, <i>he is trying to kiss her!</i> My Heinrich! Oh, how -dreadful, how dreadful!—Oh, don’t make me see any more—don’t make me -see any more!—He has got her in his arms—she is struggling. Oh, I -can’t look—I will not look!—Oh, Heinrich, and I loved you so!” Her -voice fell from the scream of a nightmare to a plaintive moaning. “Oh, -no more—no more! I can bear no more!”</p> - -<p>“Look!—Look to the very end!”</p> - -<p>The doctor’s comrades shuddered at his aspect as he crouched over her, -seeming as though he were trying to peer with her eyes into some scene -of horror they could not even imagine.</p> - -<p>The young woman’s face was a mask of agony.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you torture me,” she moaned, “you torture me—I see, and I do not -want to see—oh, I do not want to see——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What do you see?”</p> - -<p>“They are struggling together!—She fights desperately—what a wild -cat she is! He is pinning her arms to her sides with his embrace—she -throws her head back, back, to escape him. Ah! She has broken away! -She runs to the table. <i>What is she going to do?</i>” The seer’s voice -rose in acute alarm. “<i>Ach</i>, a revolver! Oh, no, no!” The ejaculation -was a vehement and agonized protest. “<i>Heinrich!</i> Oh, leave her—leave -her!—No, he laughs at her as he follows—and she is so desperate. Ah, -he has got her up in a corner—he has seized her again—she is crying -out—it is a name—she cries it again and again——”</p> - -<p>“What name?”</p> - -<p>“I hear it! <i>Jules!</i>—<i>Jules!</i>—that is it—<i>Jules!</i> Oh, what a tone of -despair!”</p> - -<p>The doctor closed his eyes and swayed. Then, mastering himself with a -superhuman effort, he said hoarsely:</p> - -<p>“Go on!—To the end!”</p> - -<p>“I cannot see plainly—they are struggling still. <i>Ach!</i> the revolver! -<i>She has fired!</i> I see the thin smoke in the air.—What has happened? -He has her in his arms—he stumbles with her.—<i>Ach, she is dead!</i> She -has shot herself. He stretches her out on the floor—he is bending over -her—Ach, <i>Heinrich</i>, <i>Heinrich</i>, you have broken my heart!” She wailed -as if from the depths of a wretchedness beyond all solace. “You have -killed my love for ever! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you as long -as I live—I hate myself for having loved you! <i>Faithless, despicable -brute!</i>”</p> - -<p>She finished in a tone of fierce vindictiveness, a resentment, at once -horrified and implacable, of unforgivable wrong.</p> - -<p>But the doctor no longer heeded her. Hands to his brow, eyes closed, he -reeled away from her.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!</i>” he groaned. “Marcelle, Marcelle! How shall I -avenge you?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> - -<p>He glanced at the now silent and still rigid figure of the young woman. -Tears were trickling down her cheeks from the closed eyes. Her trance -was unbroken. She sat still nursing the clock.</p> - -<p>Then, with a deep breath, he drew himself erect. The jaw that expressed -his powerful will set hard again. His two companions looked with horror -upon the dreadful pallor of that face from which two fierce eyes -blazed. A little laugh from him. It was a sickening mockery of mirth.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mes amis!</i>” he said. “You asked me a little time ago what I thought -of the policy of reprisals. I ask you that question now. That young -woman, in a hypnotic trance, has just described to me, as though she -had seen it acted before her eyes, the suicide of my wife. She killed -herself rather than be outraged by that woman’s husband. In her waking -life the young woman is, of course, totally ignorant of the event. -In her waking life she adores the memory of her dead husband as of a -perfect and faithful lover. Now, in her hypnotic state, she loathes -him—her love has turned to bitter jealous hatred. She despises him. -In fact, she feels toward him just as she would have felt had she -witnessed the scene that destroyed my life’s happiness. It rests with -me to call her back to waking life, totally ignorant of her husband’s -crime, adoring him as before—or to leave her in an agony of shattered -love. Virtually, her husband murdered my wife. Her memory of him is -the only thing that I can touch. Shall I leave it sacred? Or shall I, -justly, kill it?—What do you say?—It is a pretty little problem in -reprisals for you!”</p> - -<p>His comrades stared at him in horrified astonishment.</p> - -<p>“But,” cried the battalion-commander, “are you sure——”</p> - -<p>“Look at her!” replied the doctor.</p> - -<p>The young woman still sat rigidly upright. Her face was drawn with -anguish. Heavy tears rolled ceaselessly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> from under the closed eyelids. -She sobbed quietly in a far-off kind of way that was nevertheless -eloquent of an immense despair.</p> - -<p>“She sees what happened——?” queried the captain in an incredulous and -puzzled tone.</p> - -<p>“Three years ago. She is looking at it now,” asserted the doctor. “She -sees her husband bending over my dead wife.—Come, <i>messieurs</i>, let -me have your verdict!” He seemed to be experiencing a grim, unhuman -enjoyment at their evident recoil from the terrible problem he offered -them. “I must wake her soon!”</p> - -<p>“And if she wakes—knowing——?” faltered the captain.</p> - -<p>“She will probably kill herself. She has been living in an intense -love for the idealized memory of her husband. The revulsion will be -overwhelming.”</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander interposed.</p> - -<p>“But, <i>mon cher</i>—a suicide—that goes beyond——”</p> - -<p>The doctor shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Her husband drove <i>my</i> wife to suicide——”</p> - -<p>“It is terribly logical,” murmured the young captain, “but,” he glanced -at the unconscious figure in its mysterious and awful grief, “one needs -to be God to indulge in logic to that point.”</p> - -<p>“And yet we are but men,” said the doctor, “and the problem is there -before us—must be solved at once! In my place, what would you do?”</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander rose. He went up to his comrade and looked him -in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon cher</i>,” he said solemnly, “God forbid that I should ever be in -your place! I do not know.”</p> - -<p>The doctor turned to the young man. There was a terrible smile on his -lips.</p> - -<p>“And you, <i>mon cher Jordan</i>?”</p> - -<p>The captain rose also. He also read the hell in the doctor’s eyes. He -shook his head and shuddered.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon ami</i>,” he replied, “I should go mad.”</p> - -<p>The doctor nodded grimly. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The terrible thing is that I cannot go mad,” he said. “I am still -sane.—So you both decline the problem?”</p> - -<p>The two officers shook their heads, not trusting themselves to speech.</p> - -<p>The doctor turned away from them and covered his face with both hands. -He reeled to the mantelpiece, leaned against it. They saw his body -shake in the intensity of the nervous crisis which swept over him.</p> - -<p>“Marcelle!” he cried. “Marcelle!—if you are a living spirit, counsel -me! Shall I avenge?”</p> - -<p>The watchers turned to the entranced woman as though involuntarily -expecting a reply through her from that mysterious region where her -soul was in touch with the long-past tragedy she had revealed. She -still wept silently in that awful sleep which was no sleep. But no -word passed her lips. Only the clock she held upon her lap struck one -silvery note, marking the half-hour.</p> - -<p>At the sound the doctor turned from the fireplace and took up the -clock. He gazed, with a passionate intensity, upon the inscription on -the back.</p> - -<p>“Marcelle!” he murmured. “Our love ceases not when time itself -shall cease! Though you are dead, that still lives—<i>that</i> was not -murdered!—I understand, <i>ma bien-aimée</i>, I understand!”</p> - -<p>He put the clock gently upon the mantelpiece and turned once more to -the rigid, waiting figure. His comrades watched him, spell-bound, -keying themselves to deduce his decision from the tone of his voice -when he should speak. His stern face was set in an unfaltering resolve -they could not penetrate. He lifted her hand.</p> - -<p>“<i>Gnädige Frau</i>,” he said, and the level, passionless voice gave no -hint to those ignorant of the language of the purport of the German -words which followed, “when you wake from this sleep you will entirely -forget the hideous dream through which you have passed. You will never -remember it, waking or asleep. You will think of your husband as you -have always thought of him—faithful and loving. You will completely -resume your normal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> life. You will not even be aware that you have -slept. It will seem to you as if you had only just sat down in this -chair. But when you wake you will present me with the clock upon the -mantelpiece. You will feel an overmastering impulse to do this, and you -will obey it.—Now,” he wiped the tears from her face and blew sharply -upon her closed eyelids, “<i>wake!</i>”</p> - -<p>The two officers watched her, fascinated. Would she shriek? What -terrible paroxysm would be the expression of a heart-broken despair? Or -had he——? They held their breath.</p> - -<p>Her eyelids flickered for a moment, and then, with one deep sigh, her -eyes opened. She smiled round on them.</p> - -<p>“<i>Meine Herren?</i>” she said in her voice of timid enquiry. Then, fixing -her eyes on the doctor, “You sent for me?”</p> - -<p>The doctor looked at her gravely.</p> - -<p>“The Commandant desired me to assure you, <i>gnädige Frau</i>, that you need -be under no apprehensions during our stay here. We consider ourselves -the guests of a charming lady and we hope to leave only a pleasant -memory behind us.”</p> - -<p>His companions marvelled at the strength of will which could enforce so -complete a normality of voice and feature.</p> - -<p>The German woman smiled up at him, a pathetic little smile.</p> - -<p>“You are very kind, Herr Doctor—please convey my thanks to the -Commandant.” She made a little movement which drew attention to her -black dress. “My—my husband in heaven, if he can see you, will—will -bless you.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Please excuse me!” she said -with a pretty little gesture of apology, “his memory is all I have—I -cannot help bringing him into every act of my life.”</p> - -<p>“Love need not cease with death, <i>gnädige Frau</i>,” replied the doctor. -“One hopes that those we loved still watch over us—though we cannot -see them.”</p> - -<p>She smiled again. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> - -<p>“He had no thought but of me, Herr Doctor, and I have none but of -him.—I see you understand,” she finished in a tone of involuntary -sympathy. “You also have loved?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ja, gnädige Frau</i>,” he replied with a grave and enigmatic smile. “I -also.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes went past him to the mantelpiece, rested with a curiously -fixed expression on the clock. Suddenly, as though moved by an -uncontrollable impulse, she jumped up, took the clock from the -mantelpiece and thrust it into the doctor’s hands.</p> - -<p>“Please accept this!” she said appealingly.</p> - -<p>The doctor fixed his grave eyes upon her.</p> - -<p>“Why?” he asked.</p> - -<p>She stammered, evidently at a loss for her reason.</p> - -<p>“Because—because I want you to have it—because I feel, I do not -know why, that you have protected me from something——” She stopped, -puzzled by her own words. “That is absurd, I know!” she exclaimed. “But -it belonged to two lovers, Herr Doctor—you, who understand love, will -value it, I know. I—I feel you <i>ought</i> to have it!”</p> - -<p>She left him standing with it. Then she turned to the other officers -with her appealing little smile and bowed slightly in farewell.</p> - -<p>“<i>Gute Nacht, meine Herren!</i>” she said, and went out of the room.</p> - -<p>The doctor stared after her, his face deathly white. Suddenly his body -broke and crumpled. He sank down to his knees by one of the chairs, -still clasping the clock in his hands.</p> - -<p>“Marcelle!” he cried, his head bowed over his recovered love-token, his -body shaking, “Marcelle! have I done right?—have I done right?”</p> - -<p>The battalion-commander touched his subordinate on the shoulder. Both -tip-toed silently out of the room.</p> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> “To Jules, to mark the hours of a love which will not -cease when Time itself shall cease, from his Marcelle.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> - -<h2>SECRET SERVICE</h2> - -<p>“But, <i>Excellenz</i>——!” The entreaty, from such a man, was oddly -and strikingly sincere. About forty years of age, sprucely dressed -in a well-cut lounge suit, spats over patent boots, he was the type -to be seen any day gazing rather aimlessly into the shop-windows of -Piccadilly or the Rue de la Paix, the type that haunts the hotels -frequented by the best society and yet is not of that society, the -type that drifts behind the chairs of every gambling casino in the -world. A dark moustache, carefully trimmed, curled over lips whose -fine curves were unpleasantly thin and clear-cut. His complexion was -sallow; his dark eyes, fixed on his companion in an accentuation of his -entreaty, implored now with an expression of genuine truthfulness which -was certainly not habitual to them. He gesticulated with a white and -exquisitely manicured hand.</p> - -<p>“But rubbish!” The speaker was an oldish, thick-set man in evening -dress. His round red face, barred with a clipped white moustache, with -a pair of small gray eyes vivacious behind pince-nez, was set upon a -short apoplectic neck which rucked into folds above his collar. The -scalp showed pink through close-cropped white hair. He stood warming -himself with his back to the fire—a very large fire for Berlin in the -winter of early 1918—and glared angrily at the young man. He spoke -with the irascibility of a brutal superior whose impunity is of long -date and unquestioned.</p> - -<p>“Are you mad, Kranz? Do you take me for an imbecile old woman? Am -I feeble-minded—do I <i>look</i> feeble-minded—that you should dare -to—to play such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> a trick upon me?” He was obviously working himself -up into one of his official rages. “You—you tell me that you have -an infallible means for obtaining secret information, no matter how -hidden. You persuade me to come and test it—<i>me!</i> I give you credit -for your impudence!—and this is what it is!” He almost choked with -offended dignity. “Be careful, Kranz! You have traded this once upon -your record with us—you will never do it again! To bring me—<i>me!</i>—to -this absurdity!—to expect me to listen to the hypnotic ravings of that -idiot girl! I wonder you didn’t offer me crystal-gazing!”</p> - -<p>“But, <i>Excellenz</i>——!”</p> - -<p>The old man waved a hand at him.</p> - -<p>“My dear Kranz,” he said, dropping suddenly into a tone of tolerant -contempt. “I forgive you this once. I daresay you have been the victim -of a genuine hallucination. You would not have dared else.—You don’t -drug, do you?” The question was asked with a disconcertingly sudden -sharpness. The younger man made a gesture of emphatic denial, defying -the piercing gray eyes that probed him. The old man grunted. “Keep your -sanity, Kranz—or the Bureau will lose a valued servant. Drop this -nonsense. I know what I am talking about—I studied psychology under -Wundt of Jena. The whole thing is a hallucination—the raving of the -dream-self released from control—<i>dummes Zeug!</i>—Give me my coat!”</p> - -<p>“<i>Excellenz</i>, I implore you!”</p> - -<p>The old man looked at him with a snarl of savage mockery.</p> - -<p>“Don’t waste any more of my time, Kranz! Look at her—is it even -probable that an imbecile creature like that can be of use in our -business? Look at her, I say!”</p> - -<p>He flung out a hand toward a young girl who stood with obvious -reluctance in the centre of the luxuriously furnished apartment. She -was perhaps eighteen but her youth had neither beauty nor charm. Her -features were soft and heavy; the nose thick; the chin receding;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> the -eyes weak and protuberant. Unmistakably, her personality was of the -feeblest. Her face flooded scarlet with shame and her eyes swam with -tears at this brutal insult. Yet evidently she did not dare to rush -away. Only she looked beseechingly toward Kranz, like a dog who awaits -a sign from its master.</p> - -<p>His sallow face blanched. The thin lips under the dark moustache lost -their curves, became a straight line.</p> - -<p>“Agathe!” he said, and his voice of command was strangely in contrast -with the tone in which he had entreated the old man. “Go into the next -room and wait!”</p> - -<p>The girl vanished without a word. Kranz waited until she had closed the -door, and then he turned once more to his superior.</p> - -<p>“I implore Your Excellency to listen!” he said with a desperate -gesture. “I stake my reputation upon it——”</p> - -<p>The old man grunted scornfully.</p> - -<p>“Your reputation!”</p> - -<p>The dark eyes flashed.</p> - -<p>“My reputation with you, <i>Excellenz</i>,” he corrected in a gentle voice -of complete cynicism.</p> - -<p>The old man stared at him.</p> - -<p>“Well, go on!” he said brutally, after a short pause which was eloquent -of his appraisement. He cleaned his pince-nez to mark his contemptuous -indifference to anything that might be said.</p> - -<p>“You remember Karl Wertheimer, <i>Excellenz</i>?”</p> - -<p>The old man swung round on him, replaced the pince-nez.</p> - -<p>“Shot by the English.—You’ll never equal him, Kranz.”</p> - -<p>Kranz shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“<i>Excellenz</i>, I believe neither in God nor Devil—until the other day I -believed that death finished us completely—but I assure you solemnly -upon my—upon anything which you think will bind me—that the soul, -or whatever you choose to call it, of Karl Wertheimer speaks through -that girl!” There was a pause of silence in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> old man’s eyes -probed him to the depths. He proffered no comment and Kranz continued, -his voice intensely earnest. “The English shot Karl Wertheimer in -London—but they did not kill him. His—his soul is here, in Berlin, in -this room, alive as ever, as eager as ever to work for the Fatherland!”</p> - -<p>“He always had patriotic notions,” murmured the old man, with a sly -smile at the obviously cosmopolitan Kranz, “—that is why he was such -an invaluable agent. Go on with your little romance.”</p> - -<p>“It is no romance, <i>Excellenz</i>, I assure you—it is living fact. Karl -Wertheimer was a useful agent while he lived upon this earth—but he is -immeasurably more useful now that he is a—a spirit. There are no walls -that can keep him out—there is nothing he cannot see if he chooses -to—there is no conversation he cannot overhear——”</p> - -<p>“H’m!” grunted the old man, “admitted that if he is a spirit he can do -all this—how can he communicate it to us?”</p> - -<p>“Through this girl!”</p> - -<p>“Who is she, this girl?”</p> - -<p>“The daughter of some shopkeeper or other. I followed her ankles one -evening in the Park—it was night, and I could not see her face.” He -smiled cynically. “I won’t trouble Your Excellency with the details. -I brought her in here and no sooner had she sat down in that chair -when she swooned off. I was just cursing my luck—I saw her face for -the first time then!—and wondering how I was going to get rid of her, -<i>when Karl spoke to me</i>. I confess, <i>Excellenz</i>, it gave me a pretty -bad turn. It was so utterly unexpected—his voice coming from her -lips. However, I pulled myself together—and we had a most interesting -conversation——”</p> - -<p>“He could answer your questions?” interjected the old man, sharply.</p> - -<p>“Just as if he were himself sitting in the chair. So, naturally, I kept -a tight hold on the girl. She has not been allowed out since.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> - -<p>“H’m!” The old man grunted again and looked at his watch. “Well, I have -missed my appointment,” he said with the factitious bad temper he owed -to his dignity. “I may as well see her performance. Fetch her in!”</p> - -<p>Kranz went to the door and called.</p> - -<p>“Agathe!”</p> - -<p>The girl entered, stood with her eyes fixed timorously on him. He -pointed to a large armchair by the fireplace.</p> - -<p>“Sit down!” he commanded. The girl obeyed dully, one little -apprehensive glance at him the only sign of any mental life in her. She -sat upright, her hands on her lap, staring stupidly into the fire. Two -heavy tears collected themselves in her protuberant eyes rolled down -her cheeks. They seemed but to emphasize her degradation. Her tyrant -stood over her, his dark eyes hard.</p> - -<p>“Lean back and go to sleep!”</p> - -<p>She sank back among the cushions. Obviously, she had no will at all of -her own. Her eyes closed. Her expressionless face twitched for a moment -and then was as still as a mask. Her bosom heaved in the commencement -of deep and heavy breathing which continued in the normality of -slumber. The old man watched her, keenly and contemptuously alert for -any sign of simulation.</p> - -<p>Kranz pulled a little table across to the fireplace. A telephone -instrument, incongruously utilitarian in this luxurious room, and -writing materials were on it.</p> - -<p>“You should note down what is said, <i>Excellenz</i>,” he said earnestly, in -a low voice.</p> - -<p>The old man ignored him, his eyes on the girl. Suddenly he shuddered in -a rush of cold air. The paper on the table fluttered as in a draught. -He turned to Kranz in savage irritation.</p> - -<p>“Shut that window!”</p> - -<p>Kranz shook his head.</p> - -<p>“They are all shut, <i>Excellenz</i>!” His whisper was one of genuine awe. -“Hush! It’s beginning! <i>He’s come!</i>” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> - -<p>The old man favoured him with a glance of inexpressible contempt. The -scorn was still in his eyes when he jerked round to the girl again in -an involuntary start of surprise at a sudden greeting.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, <i>Excellenz</i>!” The words issued from that expressionless -mask of the deeply breathing girl, but they were uttered in a tone of -easy jocularity, followed by a little good-humoured laugh, which was -uncanny in its contrast with her degraded personality. Despite the -feminine vocal chords which had articulated the phrase, the <i>timbre</i> -and intonation were vividly those of a man of the world.</p> - -<p>The old man stared speechlessly. His faculties seemed inhibited under -the shock. The red faded out of his round face, left it ashen gray -under the close-cropped white hair. Kranz, watching him narrowly, -feared for his heart. He made a brusque little gesture as though -seizing control of himself.</p> - -<p>“<i>Herr Gott!</i> It’s—it’s <i>his</i> voice!” he gasped.</p> - -<p>His eyes turned to Kranz and there was fear in them, a primitive fear -of the supernatural. Trembling, he reeled rather than walked to the -chair by the table with the telephone, dropped heavily into it. Kranz -broke the oppressive silence, posed himself as master of the situation.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, <i>Karl</i>!” he said as though welcoming an everyday -acquaintance into the room.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Kranz!” came the easy, jocular voice through the lips of the -entranced girl. “<i>Wie gehts?</i> I am glad you persuaded His Excellency to -come. Now we can start!”</p> - -<p>The old man pulled himself together, moistened his lips for speech.</p> - -<p>“Is—is that really you, Karl?” he asked, unevenly.</p> - -<p>The merry little laugh, so uncanny from the only origin visible, -preceded the answer.</p> - -<p>“Really I, <i>Excellenz</i>—Karl Wertheimer, shot six months ago by -the English in the Tower of London, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> as alive in this room as -ever I was.” The tone changed to that of a humorously bantering -introduction. “Karl Wertheimer, <i>Excellenz</i>, the terror of the English -counterespionage department, at your service—still!”</p> - -<p>The old man fumblingly produced a handkerchief and mopped at the -perspiration on his brow. He hesitated for an appropriate remark.</p> - -<p>“Why——?” he asked falteringly, and stopped.</p> - -<p>The merry little laugh rang out again in the silent room.</p> - -<p>“Why, <i>Excellenz</i>? Because in my earth-life I had only one passion—and -it is as strong as ever it was. <i>Stronger</i>, for I owe our enemies a -grudge for that little early-morning shooting party in the Tower. -You’ve no idea how I long for a really good cigar, <i>Excellenz</i>,” he -finished in a tone of jesting complaint.</p> - -<p>The old man stared into the empty air beyond the girl.</p> - -<p>“And you can really obtain information and convey it?” He was -recovering his poise. The question was asked in the brusque tone -familiar to his subordinates.</p> - -<p>“Test me, <i>Excellenz</i>!”</p> - -<p>“I assure you, <i>Excellenz</i>——!” interjected Kranz, eagerly.</p> - -<p>His superior waved him aside. The brow under the short white hair had -recovered its normal ruddiness, was wrinkled in cogitation. He felt in -his pocket and produced a letter in a sealed envelope.</p> - -<p>“Tell me from whom this comes,” he said.</p> - -<p>He proffered the letter as though expecting it to be taken out of his -fingers. Then, as it was not, he dropped his hand with a gesture of -hopeless bafflement. There was so real a feeling of the actual presence -of Karl Wertheimer in the room that the quite normal fact of the letter -remaining untouched emphasized suddenly the uncanny nature of this -conversation.</p> - -<p>“Permit me, <i>Excellenz</i>,” said Kranz, politely. He took the letter and -laid it on the girl’s brow. Her lips moved at once.</p> - -<p>“This purports to be from the firm of Wilson and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> Staunton, Boston, -to the firm of Jensen and Auerstedt, Christiania, with reference to -an overdue account.” The voice was still the chuckling voice of Karl -Wertheimer. “Actually, it is a communication in code to you from -Heinrich Biedermann at New York. Do you wish me to read the message? I -still remember the old code, <i>Excellenz</i>!”</p> - -<p>“No—no!” interposed the old man. “Never mind!”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you would like me to tell you what Heinrich Biedermann is -doing at this moment, <i>Excellenz</i>?”</p> - -<p>“But he is in New York! You can’t be here and there, too!”</p> - -<p>Again came the merry little laugh.</p> - -<p>“Time and Space are an illusion of matter, <i>Excellenz</i>. I half forget -that you are still subject to it.—Well, Heinrich Biedermann is sitting -with a young woman in a restaurant, having tea. They are both very -cheerful, for he has just received a remittance from you, and he has -bought her a new hat. The sun is setting and he is lost in admiration -of the glow of her red hair against the background of the illuminated -sky which he can perceive through the window. He is hopelessly in love -with her, which is unfortunate, as the lady happens to be a spy, by -name Desirée Rochefort, in the pay of the French Secret Service.”</p> - -<p>“The devil——!” ejaculated the old man.</p> - -<p>“But,” said Kranz in a puzzled tone. “Sunset?—It is nearly midnight!”</p> - -<p>The old man turned on him.</p> - -<p>“Fool! There is a difference of six hours in time between here and -America. That proves it—if anything can be proof of such wild -improbability!”</p> - -<p>“Test me again!” said the amused and confident voice of Karl -Wertheimer. “Something really difficult this time!”</p> - -<p>The old man leaned back in his chair and pondered. Then the gleam of an -idea came into his malicious gray eyes. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Right!” he said, emphatically. “You know the library in my house?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, <i>Excellenz</i>!”</p> - -<p>“Go into my library. Read me the fifteenth line of the ninety-first -page of the sixth volume on the third shelf of the right-hand side, -without opening the book. Can you do that?”</p> - -<p>“You shall see, <i>Excellenz</i>,” replied the voice, cheerfully. “The sixth -volume counting from the left, I presume?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I will note that,” said Kranz, coming to the table. He wrote the -particulars and looked up to his superior. “Do you know what the line -is, <i>Excellenz</i>?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t even know what the book is!” replied the old man, harshly. He -wrinkled his brows in impatience at the silence, which prolonged itself -through several seconds. The girl seemed quite normally asleep.</p> - -<p>“Here you are, <i>Excellenz</i>!” It was again the mocking voice of Karl -Wertheimer which issued from her lips. “The book is Shakespeare. -The line is ‘<i>England, bound in with the triumphant sea.</i>’ Can you -interpret the omen, <i>Excellenz</i>?”</p> - -<p>“The U-boat war——” murmured Kranz, as if to himself.</p> - -<p>“Write it down!” commanded the old man. Kranz wrote the line.</p> - -<p>His Excellency took up the telephone receiver.</p> - -<p>“Hallo! Hallo!” He gave a number and waited. “Hallo! Is Wolff -there?—Tell him I want him at once! Yes—a thousand devils!—Wolff! -my secretary! Are you all deaf?” he vociferated irascibly. “Hallo! Is -that you, Wolff? Yes, of course it is I speaking! You ought to know my -voice by this time!—Go into the library and get—” He hesitated. Kranz -passed him the sheet of paper “—get the sixth volume from the left -on the third shelf of the right-hand side. Bring it to the telephone. -Hurry now!”</p> - -<p>Again he waited. There was a tense silence in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> room, a silence -which was emphasized by the heavy and regular breathing of the sleeping -girl.</p> - -<p>“Hallo! Are you there?—Is that you, Wolff? Be quiet! Answer my -questions!—Have you got the book?—Right—What is it?—An English -book?—Shakespeare—right!—Now turn up page—page ninety-one. Got -it?—Count to the fifteenth line——” He turned from the telephone -to Kranz. “Write down what I repeat!” Then again speaking into the -telephone: “Yes? Read out the line!—what?—‘<i>England, bound in -with the triumphant sea</i>’—a thousand devils!—Wolff! Wolff! wait -a minute!—where did you find the book? On the shelf? Had it been -touched? You are sure that it had not been touched—not opened? Oh, you -have been in the library all the evening, working——”</p> - -<p>“Tell him that the love-poem he has been writing to Fräulein Mimi -in your library to-night is not only banal but it does not scan,” -interjected the mocking voice of Karl Wertheimer. “The line ‘<i>Unsere -Herzen schlagen rhythmisch</i>’ is particularly bad.”</p> - -<p>The old man glanced toward the vacant air over the girl and grinned. He -repeated the message into the telephone. He waited a moment—and then -burst into chuckling laughter.</p> - -<p>“<i>Famos!</i>—He’s smashed the receiver. Scared out of his life!—I heard -him yell.” He put down the instrument and turned again to the chair. -“Karl Wertheimer, I believe in your reality—I believe in your powers.” -His voice was solemn. “The Fatherland has work for you to do.”</p> - -<p>“That is why I am here, <i>Excellenz</i>.” The voice came jauntily through -the expressionless lips of the unconscious girl.</p> - -<p>The old man pursed his mouth under the clipped white moustache and -pondered. Kranz watched him with acute interest.</p> - -<p>“Listen!” said the old man, looking up in a sudden decision. “At -the present time the Allied Military<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Missions in Washington are -negotiating with the United States Government with regard to the -despatch of the American Army to Europe, for the coming campaign. We -know this—we know that any day now they may come to an agreement. It -is of the utmost importance to us that we should know, <i>immediately</i>, -the numbers promised and the schedule of sailings. The fate of -the world depends upon it. The secret will be most jealously -guarded—triply locked out of reach of any ordinary agent. Can you read -it, as you read the line in that closed book?”</p> - -<p>“I can, <i>Excellenz</i>—if you can give me some indication where to look,” -replied the voice. “We must, so to speak, <i>focus</i> ourselves—I can’t -now explain the conditions with us, but you will understand what I -mean—spirit pervades——” For the first time in the colloquy the -voice spoke with hesitation, as though despairing of explaining the -inexplicable. “Direction—definite direction—is essential——”</p> - -<p>“H’m,” the old man grunted. “Well, I suggest Forsdyke—you know, the -permanent Chief of Department—as the man most likely to prepare the -schedule. You know where he lives?”</p> - -<p>“The very house in Washington!” replied the voice triumphantly. “Good -enough! I will do my best, <i>Excellenz</i>.”</p> - -<p>“To-day is the 21st of February,” said the old man. “We <i>must</i> know by -the end of the month. Vast issues depend on it. Can you do it?”</p> - -<p>“I will try.” The voice came feebly and as from far away. “I -must go now, <i>Excellenz</i>—the power—the power is failing—fast. -Good-bye—good-bye, Kranz—take—take care of the girl—she—she is -the—only means—of—communication——” The last words came in a -whisper, ceased. The girl appeared to be in normal slumber.</p> - -<p>The old man turned to Kranz, spoke out of preoccupation which otherwise -ignored him.</p> - -<p>“Give me my hat and coat!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> - -<p>A sudden anxiety paled the sallow face.</p> - -<p>“Your Excellency remembers what Karl said,” he murmured as he assisted -his chief into the heavy fur-lined garment.—“The girl is the only -means of communication. I need not remind Your Excellency that the girl -is my——”</p> - -<p>“You need not remind me of anything, Kranz,” interrupted the old man, -harshly. “You will not be forgotten. Good-night!”</p> - -<p>Kranz accompanied him obsequiously to the door.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>On that evening of the 21st of February a cheerful little party was -assembled around the dinner-table of Henry Forsdyke, Chief of a certain -department in the United States Administration. The large room, which -had been built by a Southern magnate who led Washington society in -pre-Civil War days, was illumined only by the shaded lights of the -table, and beyond the dazzling shirt-fronts of the men it lapsed -into a gloom that was intensified by the dark curtains over the -long windows and was scarcely relieved by the glinting gilt frames -of the pictures spaced on the walls hung in a dull tint. In that -half-light the servants moved, scarcely real. Only the party within -the illuminated oval of white napery, sparkling glass, and gleaming -silver was vividly actual, plucked out of shadow. It was a fad of the -host’s, this concentration of the light upon the table. He alleged that -it emphasized the personalities of his guests. His daughter, who was -irreverent, accused him of an atavistic tendency that craved for the -candle-light of his ancestors.</p> - -<p>Within the magic oval the party exchanged light-hearted talk that -effervesced every now and then into merry laughter where a young girl’s -voice predominated. All were in evident good spirits. The host himself, -a man of between fifty and sixty years, with shrewd gray eyes looking -out of a face characterized by a pointed and neatly clipped iron-gray -beard, set the tone. He smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> down the table with a contentment that -seemed to spring from a secret satisfaction, the contentment of a man -who has completed an anxious and difficult task and can now relax. He -was in his best vein of sententious humour.</p> - -<p>The same undertone of relief could have been discerned by the acute in -the gaiety of young Jimmy Lomax, Forsdyke’s private secretary, although -one alone of the little glances between him and his host’s daughter, if -intercepted, might have seemed sufficient reason.</p> - -<p>Captain Sergeantson, Jimmy Lomax’s chum, had obvious cause for -cheerfulness. Attached to a Special Service Department, he had just -returned from Europe, where he had fulfilled an extremely difficult -mission with conspicuous success. His home-coming had provided the -excuse for this little dinner-party.</p> - -<p>As for Professor Lomax, Jimmy’s father, no one had ever seen him -other than in high spirits. The author—after a lifetime of profound -and exact scientific research that had earned him a world-wide -reputation—of an enquiry into the possible survival of human -personality, which was the controversial topic of that winter and -which threatened to deprive him of that reputation, he was in striking -contrast with the idea of him propagated by the sensational Press. -There was nothing of the visionary about those clear-cut features. A -stranger would have diagnosed him as a lawyer—a lawyer whose judicial -perception of evidence was clarified by a sense of humour. The mobile -mouth, even in silence, hinted at this latter quality. The eyes -twinkled, eminently sane, under a well-balanced brow. He joked like a -schoolboy with his host’s daughter, exciting—for the secretly selfish -pleasure of hearing it—her gay young laugh. Occasionally he glanced -across to his son, approbation in his eyes.</p> - -<p>Hetty Forsdyke, the only woman of the party, was a typical specimen -of self-reliant, college-bred American girl. Good to look upon, her -beauty hinted at a race which had been proud of its exclusiveness long -after Napoleon had sold Louisiana to the States. Her vivacity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> and -charm had roots, perhaps, in the same stock, but the cool, level-headed -understanding of life, which she expressed in a slang that provoked her -father to vain rebuke, and the genuineness of which was vouched for by -her clear gray eyes, was an attribute of the Forsdykes and the North.</p> - -<p>The dinner was nearly at an end. Forsdyke, launched on a story of a -Presidential campaign in the Middle West a generation ago, had arrived -at the stage where the chuckles of his hearers were on the point of -culminating in the final burst of laughter. Hetty, her glass between -her fingers, half-way to her mouth, was looking at him with a smile -that pretended the story was quite new to her. Suddenly her expression -changed. She stared, as if spell-bound, at the dark curtains from which -her father’s oval face detached itself in the illumination of the -table. The glass slipped from her fingers, smashed.</p> - -<p>Forsdyke’s story ceased abruptly. Four pairs of alarmed eyes focussed -themselves upon his daughter. Jimmy, involuntarily, had half risen from -his chair. The movement seemed to recall the girl to her surroundings. -She shuddered and then, with an evident effort of will, brought back -her gaze to the table. Her smile routed the momentary anxiety of her -companions.</p> - -<p>“How careless of me!” she said easily, quelling, with quiet -self-control, her confusion ere it could well be remarked. “I don’t -know what I was thinking of!—Do go on, Poppa! It was just getting -interesting.”</p> - -<p>She signed composedly to a servant to pick up the broken glass, and -settled herself, all attention, to the familiar story.</p> - -<p>“What a hostess she is!” thought her father. “Just like——” He did not -finish the complementary clause and stifled another which began: “I -wonder what I shall do when——” He picked up his story again and was -rewarded by his meed of laughter. But his eyes rested uneasily on his -daughter and he promised himself a later enquiry into this abnormality.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> - -<p>The party withdrew into the drawing-room, where, since Forsdyke was a -widower of many years’ masculine supremacy, the men lit their cigars. -Hetty, at a request from her father, seated herself at the grand piano -in the far corner, and commenced the soft chords of a Chopin prelude. -Jimmy Lomax stood over her. There was already something proprietary in -his air. But the girl, after one glance up at him, seemed to forget his -presence in the spell of the music. Her position commanded a full view -of the room and she looked dreamily across to where the three men were -gathered by the white marble fireplace.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the music stopped on a crashing discord. The girl had jumped -to her feet, was trembling violently. Young Lomax clutched at her.</p> - -<p>“Hetty! What——?”</p> - -<p>She broke away from him, came swiftly across the room to his father.</p> - -<p>“Professor!” she said. “You were once in practice as a doctor, weren’t -you?”</p> - -<p>The twinkling eyes went grave as they met hers. There was unmistakable -seriousness in her question.</p> - -<p>“Yes, my dear——”</p> - -<p>“Then I want you to examine me right here, Professor!” she said. “Tell -me if I’ve got fever!”</p> - -<p>She met the amazed eyes of the other men with a look which announced -that she knew her own business.</p> - -<p>Without a word the Professor lifted up her wrist and felt her pulse. -“Now show me your tongue!” She obeyed. He nodded his head, and placed -his hand upon her brow. His eyes plunged into hers for one second of -searching scrutiny and then he nodded his head again, satisfied. “My -dear,” he said, “I haven’t a thermometer here, but I should say you are -absolutely normal in every way. Your pulse is a shade rapid, perhaps.”</p> - -<p>The girl took a long breath.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Professor,” she said, simply. She turned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> to the others. -“You heard what the Professor said? There’s no fever about <i>me</i>. -Now—listen! I want to tell you something. I’ve been waiting to tell -you ever since we sat down to dinner—and now I <i>must</i> tell you! And -you mustn’t laugh!—Poppa, this is serious!”</p> - -<p>The four men, puzzled at her demeanour, grouped themselves round her. -She assured herself of their gravity.</p> - -<p>“This evening,” she began, “between five and six o’clock I suddenly -developed a dreadful headache. It was so bad that I just had to go to -my room and lie down. I went to sleep straight off. And then—then I -had a—a dream—only,” she interposed quickly, to hold their interest, -“it wasn’t like an ordinary dream. It was so vivid that I felt all the -time it <i>meant</i> something. I dreamed that someone or something that I -could feel was sort of loving and kind and earnest—<i>very</i> earnest, I -could feel that strongly—took me into a room. And, somehow, I knew -that the room was in Berlin. It seemed quite a nice room but I don’t -remember much about the details of it. I only remember that I saw -myself there with two men, one young and dark, the other old and white, -who were staring at a girl sleeping in a big armchair. They took not -the faintest notice of me, and I didn’t worry much about them. The girl -was the interesting thing to all of us—and yet, though I was staring -at her with a sort of fascination I couldn’t shake off, I didn’t know -why. Then a strange thing happened. The girl kind of faded away—I -don’t know how to describe it, because I felt all the time she was -still there—and as she faded, there came up the figure of a man. He -seemed to grow out of her—to take her place. It was real uncanny. This -man that grew out of the girl like a—like a ghost—was somehow more -<i>living</i> than any of us. It was as if he were in the limelight and we -were in the shadow. I shall never forget his face. It was handsome but -<i>wicked</i>—mocking—malicious—like a devil. And he had an ugly scar -over the right eyebrow which made him look even more devilish——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What colour was his hair?” interposed Captain Sergeantson. “Any -moustache?”</p> - -<p>The girl looked at him in surprise at the question.</p> - -<p>“Fair—sticking up straight. No moustache—why?”</p> - -<p>Captain Sergeantson nodded.</p> - -<p>“I only wondered. Go on, Miss Forsdyke.”</p> - -<p>The girl resumed.</p> - -<p>“Well—it seemed that we were all looking at this man and not the girl -at all. She had disappeared behind him, or into him, I don’t know -which. The other two men were talking to him—talking earnestly. And it -seemed to me that it was extremely—oh, <i>immensely</i>—important that I -should understand what they were saying. I listened with all my soul. -It almost hurt me to listen as hard as I did—And yet I couldn’t get -a word of it. What they said was, somehow, just out of reach—like -people you see talking on the bioscope. And then, all of a sudden, I -heard—one sentence—as clearly as possible, ‘<i>Forsdyke is the man who -prepares the schedule!</i>’”</p> - -<p>Jimmy Lomax uttered a sharp cry of amazement.</p> - -<p>“What!” He turned to Forsdyke. “Chief, that’s strange!”</p> - -<p>Forsdyke imposed silence with a gesture.</p> - -<p>“Go on, Hetty,” he said, calmly. “What then?”</p> - -<p>“Then I woke up. The words were ringing in my ears. They haunted me -all the time I was dressing for dinner. I wondered if I ought to tell -you. Something was whispering to me that I should. But I was afraid you -would laugh at me. But that’s not all. You remember at dinner I dropped -a glass.—Poppa!” Her voice suddenly became very earnest. “I saw that -man—the man who had grown out of the girl—<i>standing behind you</i>. His -eyes were fixed on you as though trying to read into you—so evilly -that I went cold all over.”</p> - -<p>The Professor gave her a sharp glance.</p> - -<p>“No vision of the room in Berlin—or wherever it was?” he queried.</p> - -<p>She shook her head. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No. Just the man. But even that’s not all. Just now—when I was -playing and looking across to you—<i>I distinctly saw him again</i>, close -behind Poppa! He moved this time—moved with a funny little limp—just -like a real man with a bad leg. I jumped up—and—and he was gone!” She -looked around apprehensively as though expecting to see him still.</p> - -<p>“Your liver’s out of order, my dear,” said her father. “Take a pill -when you go to bed to-night.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said the girl, “it’s not that. I know you would say I was -ill—that is why I asked the Professor to examine me. I am sure it -<i>means</i> something!”</p> - -<p>Captain Sergeantson threw the end of his cigar into the fireplace and -took a wallet out of his pocket. The wallet contained photographs. He -handed them to the girl.</p> - -<p>“Miss Forsdyke,” he said, gravely, “would you mind telling me if you -have ever seen any of these people?”</p> - -<p>The girl examined them. Suddenly she uttered a cry and held up one of -the prints.</p> - -<p>“<i>This!</i>” she said. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. “This is the -man I saw!—There’s the scar, too—exactly!—Who is he? Do you know -him?”</p> - -<p>“That man,” replied Captain Sergeantson, sententiously, “is Karl -Wertheimer. About the cutest spy the German Secret Service ever had.—I -was going to tell Jimmy a story about him and brought his picture along -with me,” he added in explanation. “I sort of recognized him from your -description.”</p> - -<p>The girl stared at the photograph.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” continued Sergeantson, “he made up over that scar. He -was an extraordinarily clever actor, by the way. They cleaned off the -make-up when they took the photograph.”</p> - -<p>“And he is a German spy!” mused the girl, still staring at the picture.</p> - -<p>“He was!” replied Sergeantson, grimly. “The British shot him in the -Tower when I was in London six months ago.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> - -<p>The girl looked up sharply.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I’ve never seen his photograph before!” she said, as though -answering an allegation she felt in the silence of the others. “How -could I?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t imagine, Miss Forsdyke. The extraordinary thing is that you -should have got his limp. That’s what gave him away to the British. He -broke his leg dropping over a wall in an exceedingly daring escape at -the beginning of the war. But how you should know about it beats me all -to pieces.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t <i>know</i>—I saw——”</p> - -<p>“You saw his ghost, I guess, Miss Forsdyke—and that’s all there is to -it.” Captain Sergeantson lit himself another cigar by way of showing -how cold-blooded he could be in the possible presence of a spectre.</p> - -<p>Jimmy shuddered. “It’s uncanny,” he said. “I don’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“But <i>why</i>?” puzzled Hetty, wrinkling her brows. She turned to her -father. “Poppa——!”</p> - -<p>Forsdyke shook his head smilingly.</p> - -<p>“I’m out of this deal. Ask the Professor. He’s the authority on spooks. -What does it all mean, Lomax? Can you give an explanation that doesn’t -outrage commonsense?”</p> - -<p>The Professor smiled. The eyes in that clean-cut face twinkled.</p> - -<p>“Commonsense?” He shrugged his shoulders. “We want to start by -defining that—by defining all our senses—and we should never -finish.” He looked with his challenging smile round the group. “I see -you are inviting me to throw away my last little shred of reputation -as a sane,” he said, humorously. “Well, I will not venture on any -explanation of my own. The evidence, with all respect to Hetty here, -is insufficient. We only know that she had a dream and a hallucination -twice repeated. We know that the hallucination corresponds to a -photograph in Captain Sergeantson’s pocket. We do not know what basis -there is—if any—for her dream.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> But I will give you two alternative -explanations that might be suggested by other people.—Will that -satisfy you?”</p> - -<p>“Go ahead, Professor,” said Forsdyke. “Don’t ask me to believe in -ghosts, that’s all!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t ask you to believe in anything,” replied the Professor. “I -don’t ask you to believe in the reality of your presence and ours in -this room. If you have ever read old Bishop Berkeley you will know that -you would find it exceedingly difficult to evade the thesis that it may -all be an illusion. Your consciousness—whatever that is—builds up a -picture from impressions on your senses. You can’t test the reality of -the origin of those impressions—you can only collate the subjective -results. Everything—Time and Space—may be an illusion for all you or -I know!”</p> - -<p>“I heard that in my dream!” Hetty broke in. “Someone said it: ‘Time -and Space are an illusion!’ I remember it so clearly now!” Her eyes -glistened with excitement.</p> - -<p>“All right, Hetty,” said her father. “Let the Professor have his say. -It’s his turn. And don’t take us out of our depth, Lomax. You know as -well as I do what I mean by commonsense.”</p> - -<p>The Professor laughed.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m not going to guarantee either of the explanations, Forsdyke. -I merely put them before you. The first is the out-and-out spiritualist -explanation. Let us see what we can make of that. You must assume, -with the spiritualists, that man has a soul which survives with its -attributes of memory, volition, and a certain potentiality for action -upon what we know as matter. Captain Sergeantson here vouches for the -fact that a certain German spy, Karl Wertheimer, was shot in London six -months ago. The spiritualist would allege that it is possible—under -certain conditions which are very imperfectly under human command—for -the soul (we’ll call it that) of Karl Wertheimer to put itself into -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>communication with his old associates who still remain in the world of -the living. There is an enormous mass of human testimony—which you may -reject as worthless if you like—to the possibility of such a thing. -Assume it <i>is</i> possible. Karl Wertheimer was a spy so successful, -according to Captain Sergeantson, that it is reasonable to suppose -that spying was his natural vocation, his life-passion, as much as -painting pictures is the life-passion of an artist. It may be assumed -that, if anything survives, one’s life-passion survives. Now suppose -that Karl Wertheimer’s late employers believe in the possibility of -communication with their late agent—that they find a medium—in this -case, the young girl that Hetty saw in her dream—who can be controlled -by the defunct Karl Wertheimer—through whom they can speak to him and -receive communications from him—what is more natural than that they -should do so? Admitting the premises, difficult as they are, it appears -to me that the discarnate soul of Karl Wertheimer would be an extremely -valuable secret agent——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, suppose—suppose——” said Forsdyke. “It is all supposition. And -it doesn’t explain Hetty’s dream.”</p> - -<p>“I am coming to that,” pursued the Professor. “Grant me, for the sake -of argument, all my suppositions. Karl Wertheimer’s employers are -communicating with him and setting him tasks. One of those tasks, we -will assume, concerns you. Now it may be, Forsdyke, that in the unseen -world of discarnate spirits there is one who watches over you, guards -you from danger. Someone, perhaps, who loved you in this life——”</p> - -<p>Forsdyke glanced up to the portrait of his wife upon the wall.</p> - -<p>“I leave the suggestion to you,” said the Professor, delicately. “We -will merely pursue it as a hypothesis. Such a spirit would seek to warn -you. It is obviously futile to discuss the means it might or might not -employ. We know nothing of the conditions of discarnate life—nothing, -at any rate, with scientific certainty. But we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> will assume that such a -spirit, desirous of communicating, finds that Hetty here is temporarily -in a mediumistic condition—and by ‘mediumistic’ I mean merely that -she is in the abnormal state which, in all ages and in all countries, -induces persons to declare that they see and hear things imperceptible -to others. She certainly had an abnormal headache. She goes to sleep -and dreams. We won’t analyze dream-consciousness now. I will only point -out that, in a clearly remembered dream, the events of that dream are -as real to consciousness as the events of waking life, and that the -perception of Time is enormously modified—you dream through hours of -experience while the hand marks minutes on the clock. You are subject -to a different illusion of Time—and, as Time and Space are but two -faces of the same phenomenon, it may be said that you are subject to -a different illusion of Space as well. The spiritualist uses this -undoubted fact to support his assertion that in dream-sleep the spirit -of the living person is freed from the conditions of matter and is in a -condition at least approximating to that of a person who is dead—that -it can and does accompany the spirits of those who in this life were -linked to it.</p> - -<p>“The spiritualist, then, endeavouring to explain our present problem, -would allege that a spiritual agency concerned with your welfare led -Hetty’s spirit into a room in Berlin where Karl Wertheimer’s employers -were indicating him to you for some special purpose—that Hetty, being -then pure spirit, could actually perceive Karl Wertheimer as a living -being when perhaps those in the room (if there was such a room) could -only perceive the girl through whom he was speaking—that she could -actually hear the significant phrase of their conversation. Further, -the spiritualist would assert as a possibility that Karl Wertheimer, -ordered to obtain information in your possession, is actually -here—<i>shadowing</i> you more effectively than any mortal spy could -do—and that Hetty, still retaining her mediumistic power, has actually -seen him. That is a spiritualistic explanation—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>I apologize for its -length, Forsdyke. Give me another of your very excellent and material -cigars!”</p> - -<p>“It is a fantastic explanation. I don’t believe a word of it,” said -Forsdyke, passing him the box. “Let us have the other one.”</p> - -<p>“The other one,” replied the Professor, cutting the tip of his cigar -and lighting it carefully, with a critical glance at its even burning, -“is shorter. It is the explanation of those who are determined to -explain a great mass of well-attested and apparently abnormal facts -by normal agency. Their explanation in one word is—telepathy. You -know the idea—the common phenomenon of two people who utter a remark, -unconnected with previous conversation, at the same moment. Living -minds unconsciously act upon each other—that is experimentally -proved. Why, therefore, drag in dead ones? That is their argument. -Let us apply their theory. Hetty is in an abnormal condition. Captain -Sergeantson is coming to dinner. In his pocket he has a photograph of -the notorious German spy, Karl Wertheimer. In his mind he has a story -about him which he intends to relate. Now there are well-documented -cases of hallucinations of persons actually on their way to a house -where they were not expected appearing to their destined hostesses. -I could quote you dozens of examples. The telepathist says this is -because the guest forms in his mind a vivid picture of himself in that -house, which is projected forward to the hostess’s mind and causes her -to think she sees him. Now, Captain Sergeantson’s mind is not full -of himself—it is full of the story about Karl Wertheimer that he -is going to tell. Hetty’s mind—somehow—picks this up. She goes to -sleep and as in sleep, notoriously, the human mind has a faculty for -building up pictures and a story. Hetty dreams this story about Karl -Wertheimer. It is true that she has never seen Karl Wertheimer. But -Captain Sergeantson presumably has a visualization of him, including -the limp, in his mind. The subsequent hallucinations are explained by -the tendency to automatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> repetition of any vivid impression upon the -nervous centres which excite a picture in consciousness. It is a more -or less tenable theory, but it would be gravely shaken if it happened -that, unknown to Hetty or Captain Sergeantson—<i>you actually had -something to do with a secret schedule which would interest our friends -the enemy</i>.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence. Forsdyke’s brow wrinkled as he stared into the -fire. Suddenly he switched round to the Professor.</p> - -<p>“That’s the devil of it, Lomax!” he exclaimed. “I have! A most secret -schedule. Thank God, it will be out of my possession to-morrow morning, -when I——”</p> - -<p>“<i>Don’t</i>, Poppa!” cried Hetty, clapping her hand over his mouth. She -stared wildly around her. “I feel sure that someone is listening!”</p> - -<p>Forsdyke freed himself with a gesture which expressed his impatience of -this absurdity.</p> - -<p>“What do you make of that, Lomax?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” murmured the Professor, “Hetty’s mind may be influenced -by a dominant anxiety in yours.—I should not like to say, Forsdyke!” -His tone was emphatic. “Personally, I have never heard of a spectral -spy—but—well, you are, on your showing worth spying on. And there -are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—you know! If it <i>is</i> -possible—then there are things more improbable than that this means of -acquiring information should be used. Your schedule would, I take it, -be priceless?”</p> - -<p>“The fate of the world may be involved in it,” replied Forsdyke. “But I -can’t believe——”</p> - -<p>“I am certain!” exclaimed Hetty. “I feel there’s something uncanny -around us now!” She shuddered. “Oh, <i>do</i> take care, Poppa!”</p> - -<p>“But what can he do?” asked Jimmy, who had been listening anxiously to -the Professor’s explanation. “What do you suggest, Sergeantson? You’re -the authentic spycatcher. How can you defeat the ghost of one?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I pass!” replied Sergeantson, laconically. “Professor, the word’s to -you!”</p> - -<p>Forsdyke looked genuinely worried.</p> - -<p>“Of course, I don’t believe it, Lomax,” he said. “But -supposing—supposing there was something like you suggest—what could I -do?”</p> - -<p>The Professor’s eyes twinkled.</p> - -<p>“Assuming the objective reality of our supposition, my dear Forsdyke,” -he replied, “I can think of only one effective counterstroke.”</p> - -<p>He held their interest for a moment in suspense.</p> - -<p>“And that is——?”</p> - -<p>“To drop a bomb on the girl!”</p> - -<p>“A bomb—on the girl——” puzzled Jimmy slowly. “Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because when you break the telephone receiver it doesn’t matter what -the fellow at the other end says—you can’t hear!”</p> - -<p>“But we can’t get at her,” said Sergeantson. “We don’t even know who -she is, or where. We should never find out—in time.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just it,” agreed the Professor. “You would have no time. -Assuming that a ghostly spy is haunting our friend Forsdyke—the moment -he reads that schedule, or even indicates where it is, the spy reads it -too——”</p> - -<p>“Reads it?” echoed Jimmy, incredulously. “But surely ghosts can’t read!”</p> - -<p>“It is alleged they can,” replied the Professor. “There is, for -example, a very curious case reported of the Rev. Stainton Moses, a -teacher at the University College in London during the ’seventies. -A spirit, purporting to be writing through his hand, quoted to him -a paragraph from a closed book in a friend’s library. Moses merely -indicated a book and a page at random, without knowing even to what -book he referred. The quotation was correct. One of the foremost -scientists of the present day has lent the weight of his authority to -this story by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> incorporating it in his book as evidence of supernormal -powers——”<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" >[2]</a></p> - -<p>“That is sure incredible, Professor!” cried Sergeantson.</p> - -<p>“We are dealing with what normally are incredibilities,” said the -Professor, with a smile. “We agreed to assume an objective reality -to our supposition—and, assuming it, the spy would read that -schedule at the same moment as Forsdyke, and possibly communicate -it instantaneously. As Forsdyke is going to do something with that -schedule to-morrow morning, well,” he shrugged his shoulders, “my money -would be on the ghost!”</p> - -<p>“My God!” said Forsdyke, thoroughly alarmed, “if it’s true—it’s -maddening! One can do nothing!”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” agreed the Professor. “There would be no time.”</p> - -<p>The men stared at each other, exasperated at the hopelessness of the -problem. If—they scarcely dared admit it to their sanity—it really -were the case?</p> - -<p>Hetty startled them by a sudden cry.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you hear?” she exclaimed. “Someone laughing at -us—close behind!—Oh, look! Look!” She pointed to empty space. “There -he is again! Don’t you see?”</p> - -<p>She fainted in Jimmy’s ready arms.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>The next morning Hetty found her father already at breakfast.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he asked, his dry smile mildly sarcastic, “any more dreams?”</p> - -<p>“Horrid!” she replied with a little shudder as she poured herself out -some coffee. “But I don’t remember them.”</p> - -<p>“You will see the doctor to-day, young woman,” observed her father in -a tone which indicated his verdict on the happenings of the previous -night. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> - -<p>Hetty was docility itself, a phenomenon not altogether lost on her -experienced parent.</p> - -<p>“Very well, Poppa,” she agreed, demurely. “What are you going to do -this morning?”</p> - -<p>“I am going to the office to get some papers——”</p> - -<p>“<i>The</i> papers——?” She checked herself with a little frightened glance -round the room.</p> - -<p>Her father laughed—a good, healthy, commonsense laugh.</p> - -<p>“<i>The</i> papers!” he said. “No more nonsense about ghosts, Hetty. I’m -going to get <i>the</i> papers from my office and take them round to the -Conference. So now you know. And there’s a Colt automatic in the pocket -of the automobile if any one tries tricks on the way.”</p> - -<p>Hetty nodded her head sagely.</p> - -<p>“Guess you’ve a place for me in that automobile, Poppa,” she said. -“I’ll come with you to the office, wait while you get the papers, and -go on with you to the Conference building—and while you’re there I’ll -go on to see that doctor. I shall be back in time to pick you up before -you are finished with your old Conference.”</p> - -<p>Her father saw no objection to this, was in fact secretly glad to have -her under his eye as long as possible.</p> - -<p>“Mind, no tricks about the doctor!” he said, with an assumption of -severity.</p> - -<p>“Sure, Poppa!” was her equable reply.</p> - -<p>A few minutes later saw them speeding through the keen air of a frosty -morning toward Forsdyke’s office. But the interior of the limousine was -warm, and Hetty, snug in her furs, looked a picture of young, healthy -beauty, looked—— A memory came to Henry Forsdyke in a pang that -brought a sigh. He thought of the Professor’s suggestion of last night. -Of course, the whole thing was absurd!—but he wondered——</p> - -<p>The car swung into the sidewalk in front of the Government building, -stopped before the big doorway with the marble steps. Forsdyke got out.</p> - -<p>“I shall be back in a few minutes,” he said. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> - -<p>Hetty watched him go across the pavement, ascend the marble steps. He -looked neither to right nor left. <i>Then who was that with him?</i> Hetty -felt her heart stop. Who was that who passed into the doorway with him? -No one had been on the steps—she was suddenly sure of it. Yet—her -heart began to pump again—certainly two figures had passed through the -swing-doors! She sat chilled and paralyzed for the moment in which she -visualized the memory of those two figures passing into the shadow of -the interior—tried to think when she had first perceived the second. A -certitude shot through her, a wild alarm.</p> - -<p>She jumped to her feet, and with a blind, instinctive desire for a -weapon, pulled the Colt out of the pocket of the limousine and thrust -it into her muff. A moment later she was running across the pavement -and up the marble steps. The janitor pulled open the swing-door for -her. She fixed him with excited eyes.</p> - -<p>“Who was that who came in with Mr. Forsdyke just now?” she asked -breathlessly.</p> - -<p>The janitor stared.</p> - -<p>“No one, miss. Mr. Forsdyke was alone.”</p> - -<p>Alone! She repressed an impulse to scream out, dashed to the elevator -which had just come to rest after its descent. The attendant opened the -gate at her approach.</p> - -<p>“Did you take Mr. Forsdyke up just now?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, miss.”</p> - -<p>“Was he alone?”</p> - -<p>“Sure!—He came in alone.”</p> - -<p>“Take me up!” She trembled so that she could scarcely stand. Her eyes -closed in a sickening anxiety as she swayed back against the wall of -the elevator.</p> - -<p>She shot upward. Another moment and she found herself racing along the -corridor to her father’s rooms, twisting at the handle of the door.</p> - -<p>She almost fell into the ante-room occupied by Jimmy Lomax. He jumped -to his feet. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Hetty!”</p> - -<p>“Father!” She had scarcely breath enough for utterance. “Father!—I -must see Father——!”</p> - -<p>“Hetty, you can’t! He’s busy in his private room—no one dare——”</p> - -<p>“I must!” she gasped. “Quick!—the ghost——!”</p> - -<p>He stared in astonishment. She dodged past him, flung open the door -into the next room.</p> - -<p>Henry Forsdyke was standing, checking over a sheaf of papers in his -hand, in front of the swung-open wall of the room, now revealed as a -safe divided into many compartments. Hetty perceived him at the first -glance; <i>perceived, standing at his side, a man with a sardonic mocking -face and a scar over the right eye who peered over his shoulder</i>.</p> - -<p>In a blind whirl of impulse she whipped out the automatic, rushed up -close, and fired—into thin air!</p> - -<p>Her father swung round on her in a burst of anger.</p> - -<p>“Good God, Hetty!—Are you mad?”</p> - -<p>She looked wildly at him.</p> - -<p>“The ghost!—the ghost!”</p> - -<p>He laughed despite his genuine wrath.</p> - -<p>“Great heavens, what nonsense it all is!—What are you thinking -of?—You can’t shoot a ghost!”</p> - -<p>But Hetty had sunk on to a chair and was sobbing hysterically.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>In the luxuriously furnished room in Berlin Kranz was speaking -excitedly into the telephone.</p> - -<p>“<i>Excellenz!</i>” he called. “<i>Excellenz!</i>—Are you there?—Quickly!—Karl -says he will be with us in ten minutes!” He glanced toward the girl -sleeping in the big chair. “Quickly!”</p> - -<p>He listened for a moment and then put down the receiver with a -satisfied air. He rose from his seat and began to pace nervously up and -down the room. From time to time he threw a glance at the still figure -stretched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> back among the cushions. She slept with a regular deep -breathing. He listened, anxiously alert for any change.</p> - -<p>The minutes passed, slowly enough to his impatience. He looked at -his watch. It marked ten minutes to four. A thought occurred to -him—he amplified it deliberately, to occupy his mind. Ten minutes to -four!—What time would it be in Washington? Six hours—ten minutes to -ten in the morning. What would be happening at ten minutes to ten? What -was Karl looking at——?</p> - -<p>The raucous hoot of a Klaxon horn startled him out of these -meditations. He ran to the window, looked out. A familiar motor-car was -drawing up by the pavement. His Excellency had lost no time!</p> - -<p>A few moments later and the dreaded Chief stood in the room, formidable -still despite his dwarfed appearance in the great fur coat turned up -to his ears. The clipped white moustache bristled more than ever, it -seemed, as he glared at Kranz through the pince-nez with a ferocity -which was but the expression of his excitement.</p> - -<p>“Yes?” he cried, ere the door had closed after him. “What has happened? -Speak, man!”</p> - -<p>“Nothing yet, <i>Excellenz</i>!” Kranz hastened to assure him. “The girl -swooned off suddenly at about a quarter to four—I have not let her -out of my sight since last night—and then Karl spoke. He said—and it -sounded as though he meant it—that he would give us the information in -ten minutes. I telephoned you at once.”</p> - -<p>“Right! Quite right!” snapped His Excellency. “Ten minutes! The time -must be up——”</p> - -<p>“Good afternoon, <i>Excellenz</i>!” The old man jumped. The familiar -mocking voice came from the lifeless mask of the sleeping girl. “Your -suggestion was correct—Forsdyke! He is taking me to it now!” The -derisive laugh rang out, uncanny in the silent room. “Patience for a -few minutes!”</p> - -<p>The old man made an effort of his will.</p> - -<p>“Where are you now, Karl?” he asked. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> - -<p>“In a motor-car—funny story—tell you later—patience.” The voice -sounded far away and faint. “Look to the girl, Kranz—not breathing -properly—can’t speak—if—power—fails.”</p> - -<p>Kranz went to the sleeping girl. Her head had fallen forward and she -was breathing stertorously. He rearranged the cushions, posed her head -so that she once more breathed deeply and evenly.</p> - -<p>They waited in a tense silence. Then her lips moved again.</p> - -<p>“Listen—now! Take it down as I read it!” Karl’s voice rang with an -unholy triumph.</p> - -<p>“Quick, Kranz!—Write!” commanded the old man.</p> - -<p>His subordinate leaped to the table, settled himself pen in hand.</p> - -<p>The girl’s lips trembled in the commencement of speech, opened.</p> - -<p>“Schedule of Sailings of American Army to Europe!” began the triumphant -voice.</p> - -<p>There was a pause.</p> - -<p>“Yes—yes!” cried the old man impatiently. “Go on!”</p> - -<p>“Numbers for March”—Karl Wertheimer’s voice came with a curious -deliberation as though he were memorizing figures. “—<i>Ahh!</i>” The voice -broke in a wild, unearthly cry that froze the blood.</p> - -<p>They waited. There was no sound. They heard their hearts beat in a -growing terror.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the old man spoke.</p> - -<p>“The girl!—Look, Kranz!—She does not breathe!”</p> - -<p>Kranz sprang to her, lifted her hand, bent suddenly down to her face. -He looked up with the eyes of a baulked demon.</p> - -<p>“She is dead!” he said hoarsely.</p> - -<p>He turned to her again and, with a frenzied rage, tore away the clothes -from her throat and chest. Just over her heart was a small round dark -spot staining the unbroken skin.</p> - -<p>“Look!” he cried. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> - -<p>The old man peered down at the mark, and then stared round the room.</p> - -<p>“What has happened?” The wild cry quavered with the terror of the -Unseen.</p> - -<p>No answer came from the silence.</p> - - -<p class="center">NOTE</p> - -<blockquote><p>The belief that an injury done to the “astral” body of a spirit is -reproduced in the physical body of the medium <i>en rapport</i> with -that spirit is found in all countries and in all times, from the -most ancient to the present. The old-time witch or wizard is, of -course, the same psychologically abnormal type as the “medium” of -to-day. The genuineness or otherwise of their powers is beside -the point. Phenomena of the same nature as that described above -are reported again and again in the witchcraft trials of the -seventeenth century and in a comparatively recent legal case in -France in 1853. Andrew Lang, analyzing this last case, says: “In -the events at Cideville, and the depositions of witnesses, we have -all the characteristics.... The phantom is wounded, a parallel -wound is found on the suspected warlock.” Reporting the evidence -in the trial, Lang continues: “Nails were driven into points on -the floor where Lemonier saw the spectral figure standing. One -nail became red-hot and the wood around it smoked: Lemonier said -that this nail had hit ‘the man in the blouse’ on the cheek. Now, -when Thorel was made to ask the boy’s pardon and was recognized -by him as the phantom, Thorel bore on his cheek the mark of the -wound!” The alleged wizard lost his case. (“A Modern Trial for -Witchcraft,” in <i>Cock Lane and Common-sense</i>, 1894, p. 278.)</p> - -<p>In this case it was the medium’s own spectre which appeared. -But the modern spiritualist holds that there exists the same -connection between the living body of the medium and the -materialized spirit of the dead. “... The clutching of a -[materialized] form hits the medium with a force like that of an -electric shock, and many sensitives have been grievously injured -by foolish triflers in this way.” (<i>Spirit Intercourse</i>, J. -Hewat Mackenzie, 1916, p. 53.) Sir Wm. Crookes sounds the same -warning note in his description of the famous “Katie King” case -(<i>Researches in Spiritualism</i>, 1874, p. 108 <i>et seq.</i>).</p></blockquote> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a> The reference is to <i>The Survival of Man</i>, Sir Oliver -Lodge, pp. 104-5.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. TODMORDEN</h2> - -<p>Mr. Todmorden rose from his seat in the railway carriage; he spoke in -the tones of a man who ends a discussion:</p> - -<p>“Well, gentlemen, this is my station, and you haven’t convinced me that -a man ever commits a crime unless of his own free-will. I’d show no -mercy to the rascal! Good-night!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Todmorden was far from being so stern, either in appearance or -character, as this emphatically uttered sentiment would suggest. As -his short, stout figure moved along the platform, the head thrown -back and a pair of bright little eyes, set in a chubby round face, -glancing sharply through his spectacles for an acquaintance to smile -at, he looked—what, in fact, he was—a successful city man whose -original kindness of heart had mellowed into habitual benevolence—the -type of man who moves through life beaming on people who touch their -caps; salutation and recognition alike instinctive, meeting each other -half-way.</p> - -<p>Affable though Mr. Todmorden was, he had his prejudices and his pride; -pride centred in the practice he had built up as a family solicitor of -standing and renown: prejudices directed against those unfortunates -who, from choice or necessity, transgressed the social code. His -ideal in life was probity. He was intolerant of any infraction of it, -and conducted his own affairs with punctilious scrupulousness. If -he contemplated himself with some approbation it was justified. His -fellow-men concurred in it. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the warm light of a late summer sunset he strolled along the -suburban streets to his home. His countenance expressed that -contentment with himself and his surroundings usual with him. His mind, -satisfied, played lightly over the headings of sundry affairs, neatly -docketed and done with, he had settled that day. Other affairs, not -so completed, were thrust into the background until the morrow. His -good-humoured round face was in readiness for a smile.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he stopped and contemplated through his spectacles a large -house a little way back from the road. A long ladder resting against -the wall was the uncommon object that had attracted his attention.</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” he said to himself, “Old Miss Hartley having the house -painted again!”</p> - -<p>Miss Hartley was one of his oldest and most valued clients. In fact, -both repudiated the business term and called each other “friends.” -Their sentiments toward each other warranted it. She was an elderly -spinster, eccentric and wealthy; he a bachelor who could and did -afford himself a whim. They smiled at one another’s oddities without -any lessening of the mutual respect many years of intercourse had -induced. His attitude toward the old lady was almost fraternal. The -long practice of watching her interests had developed a habit of -affectionate protection in him. He advised her on countless petty -manners and forgot to put them in the bill. He was personally, not -merely professionally, anxious on her behalf when the occasion required -it.</p> - -<p>The sight of the ladder against the wall recalled one of his most -common anxieties. It was a pet grievance of his that she would persist -in living alone, save for one maid, in that large house. To his mind, -she offered herself as a prey to the malefactor who should chance to -correlate the two facts of her wealth and her solitude. He expressed -that opinion frequently, and was obstinately smiled at. Now, as he -walked on, the thought of the danger she invited recurred to him. It -irritated him. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Tut! tut!” he said. “That ladder, now, is just placed right for a -burglar! I’m sure it is! Dear me! how careless! how very careless!” He -tried to measure the ladder from his remembrance of it, and, to end his -doubts, returned and examined it again. The ladder rested close to a -freshly painted window-sill on the first floor.</p> - -<p>“Dear me! dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden, genuinely perturbed. “That’s -the window of Miss Hartley’s room!” He stood irresolute, debating -whether he should ring the bell, and point out the dangerous position -of the ladder. A nervous fear of the old lady’s smile restrained him. -He knew she regarded him as an old “fusser.”</p> - -<p>He walked on again, carrying his fears.</p> - -<p>“She is really too foolish, too foolish!” he repeated. “Living alone -there—with only that stupid girl in the house! Any one might break -in. They’ve only to walk up that ladder! And she will persist in -advertising that she has valuables!” The occasion of the final clause -in Mr. Todmorden’s mental arraignment was a particularly fine diamond -brooch the old lady wore at all times, despite his protests. If there -was a sentimental reason for its continual use, she concealed it under -her quiet smile. The memory of that smile irritated Mr. Todmorden. -“Confound her! she’s so obstinate!” His thoughts focussed themselves on -that brooch, with a criminal lurking in the background. Gradually, they -drifted to the criminal. As his irritation faded under the soft warm -light of the sunset, he amused himself by picturing types of possible -burglars. Finally, forgetting his original preoccupation, he thought -of an ancestor of his own—his maternal grandfather—who had been -transported for a doubtful case of murder. In contrast to that squalid -page of family history self-esteem read over his own achievements. -Successful, respected, an alderman, a possible knighthood in front, he -had surely wiped out that black patch on his pedigree. He savoured a -very pleasant sense of personal probity as he walked up the drive to -his house. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> - -<p>He ate his solitary dinner, and revived the feeling of well-being with -a bottle of his favourite port. Then Miss Hartley’s brooch recurred -to his mind, and was followed by a thought of the ladder which led to -it, and of a criminal who might climb the ladder. As he sat in his big -chair in the lonely dining-room, gazing at passing thoughts rather than -thinking them, the case of his maternal grandfather cropped up in his -reverie. Moved by a sudden whim, he rose from his chair and took down -a battered volume of law reports. Fortified by another glass, he read -through the case of his ancestor. He finished it, and sat thoughtful -for a moment before replacing the book. “H’m, h’m,” he said to himself. -“Very doubtful! Very doubtful! Ah, well, we’ve travelled a long road -since then!” He smiled at his own success, and went off to bed in a -contented mood. That doubtful grandfather was a long way back.</p> - -<p>In the morning, as he walked down to the station to catch his usual -train, he noticed a group of people standing on the pavement and gazing -up at a house. An unreasoning anxiety gripped him. He hastened his -pace. Yes—surely!—it was Miss Hartley’s house which excited this -unwonted interest. He arrived among the crowd, rather out of breath.</p> - -<p>“What is it? What is it, my man?” he demanded of a gazing spectator.</p> - -<p>Half a dozen voices replied.</p> - -<p>“It’s a murder! Old Miss Hartley——!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Todmorden did not wait to hear more.</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” he said, as he hurried along the garden path, and -“Good gracious!” he repeated, as he rang the bell. He could not -formulate a thought. He gazed, mentally, at the awful thing, stunned.</p> - -<p>The door was opened by a policeman. Behind him stood the maid-servant, -white, frightened, and sobbing. She ran toward him with a cry of “Oh, -sir!” but broke down, unable to utter a word.</p> - -<p>“All right, all right, Ellen,” said Mr. Todmorden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> rather brusquely, -pushing her aside. He addressed himself to the policeman. “What has -happened, constable? Surely not murder?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” He looked doubtfully at his questioner. “Are -you one of the old lady’s relatives, sir?”</p> - -<p>“No. I’m her solicitor, and one of her oldest friends. Dear me! dear -me! how terrible! Is there any one in authority here, constable?”</p> - -<p>“Two inspectors upstairs, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Can I see them?”</p> - -<p>He was shown into the bedroom, and introduced himself to the -police-officers. They welcomed him with gravity. On the bed lay a -covered figure. Mr. Todmorden drew aside the sheet and gazed upon the -features of his old friend. They were marred by a bullet-hole through -the forehead. He turned away, trembling, his face working with emotion. -He could scarcely speak, but made the effort due to his dignity, as the -deceased’s legal adviser. “Any—any clue?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“None, sir, at present,” was the reply.</p> - -<p>“Dear me! how terrible! how very terrible! She was my oldest -friend——” he could not find the strength to repress his grief—“my -oldest friend! Oh, it’s awful, inspector, awful! The—the wickedness -of it! She hadn’t an enemy.” He struggled for the control of himself. -“What was it—robbery?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir—nothing seems to be tampered with. Perhaps the murderer was -startled.”</p> - -<p>“When was it discovered?”</p> - -<p>“This morning, when the maid brought in the tea. She says she heard -nothing. She admits being a heavy sleeper.”</p> - -<p>“And there is nothing missing?”</p> - -<p>“Apparently not, sir. The drawers were locked, and the keys have not -been interfered with. Nothing was disturbed, in fact.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” Mr. Todmorden was gradually getting back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> into his legal -clearness of mind. “Has the girl looked carefully round to see if -anything has disappeared?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Call her up, if you please, officer.”</p> - -<p>Ellen appeared, still weeping, and was bidden to look round for -anything out of place. Dabbing her eyes, she examined the room -carefully. Suddenly she gave a cry.</p> - -<p>“The mistress’s diamond brooch! I put it here last night!” She pointed -to a tray on the dressing-table. “It’s gone!”</p> - -<p>“Good God!” said Mr. Todmorden. “How very curious!”</p> - -<p>The inspectors looked at him sharply.</p> - -<p>“Does that give you any clue, sir?” asked one of them.</p> - -<p>“No—no,” he replied, rather confused. “I—the fact is, I was thinking -of that brooch only last night, and of how unprotected Miss Hartley -was. I have often told her so—poor woman!”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” said the inspectors in chorus. Mr. Todmorden felt there was -something suspicious in their sharply uttered exclamation. Even to -himself his explanation had sounded lame. The police-officers might -imagine he was shielding somebody. The consciousness of his inability -to explain how very startling the fulfilment of his fears had been to -him made him feel awkward.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said, “the murderer must have come in by the ladder.”</p> - -<p>“The ladder?” asked one of the inspectors. “I saw no ladder.”</p> - -<p>“There was certainly a ladder resting against the sill of this window -at six o’clock last night,” asserted Mr. Todmorden. “The house, you -will observe, is being redecorated. I noticed the ladder, and it -occurred to me that a first-class opportunity was being offered to a -burglar. In fact, I was on the point of calling on Miss Hartley and -warning her of it. I wish I had done so!”</p> - -<p>“H’m!” The inspector scarcely deigned to trifle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> with the suggestion. -It could be understood that it was his professional prerogative to -evolve theories. “Yes—perhaps. But I think we can explain the entrance -in a more likely way,” he said, mysteriously. “It is scarcely probable -that the decorator’s men would leave the ladder there all night, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure the rascal came up the ladder!” Mr. Todmorden’s affirmation -was so vehement, came so involuntarily, that it surprised himself. -Why was he so positive? He felt uncomfortable. He put on a bustling, -important air. “Well, well, I must get up to town, as I have a very -important appointment. I will look in at the station on my way home -this evening. If you hear of anything during the day you might -communicate with me. Here is my card.”</p> - -<p>The old gentleman took his way to the city, oppressed by grief. -Bitterly he reproached himself for not having ceded to his impulse to -point out the dangerous position of that fatal ladder.</p> - -<p>As good as his word, he called at the police-station on his way home. -The chief inspector received him:</p> - -<p>“A very mysterious affair, Mr. Todmorden. Very mysterious!”</p> - -<p>“It is very terrible to me,” replied the old gentleman. “Miss Hartley -was a very old friend. I feel myself in some way responsible. The -possibility of such a tragedy actually occurred to me on my way home -last night, and I might have warned her of it. I shall never forgive -myself. Miss Hartley relied upon me. It is terrible to think that I -failed her in this supreme instance.”</p> - -<p>“You refer to the ladder,” said the inspector. “We have made enquiries -about that. It appears it was overlooked last night and was carried -away by one of the decorator’s men at six o’clock this morning. -Undoubtedly, the murderer used it. In fact, he left the window open -after him.”</p> - -<p>“I was certain of it,” said Mr. Todmorden. “And there is no clue to the -rascal?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Hardly any. The constable on the beat reports that, at two o’clock -this morning, he saw the figure of a man running along the road away -from the house. That man was wearing a very light suit—possibly a -flannel one. A curious dress for a burglar, I think you will admit. The -constable particularly noticed that there was no sound of footsteps as -the man ran. He must have been wearing rubber soles. Unfortunately, the -constable lost sight of him when he turned the corner.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden. Only half his mind had listened to the -inspector’s words; the other half was occupied by that curious and -fairly common hallucination of a previous and identical incident. The -description was oddly familiar. He seemed to know it in advance. At -an intense moment of the hallucination, he had a glimpsed memory of -himself running, running along a road at the dead of night, running -silently. He shook off the uncomfortable and absurd feeling. “Dear me! -How very strange!”</p> - -<p>The inspector was observing him narrowly.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you cannot give us any hint that might help us, Mr. -Todmorden? You know no one who bore the old lady a grudge?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not. She was the best and kindest of women.”</p> - -<p>“May I ask who benefits by her death?”</p> - -<p>“She has only one relative, a nephew, who inherits everything. He is in -America. I have cabled to him, and received a reply.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! So he’s out of it.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, of course.”</p> - -<p>“This business of the brooch, Mr. Todmorden—it seems strange that the -murderer should have taken that, and that only. He has made no attempt -on anything else. You know no one who had an interest in the article?”</p> - -<p>“No one. Miss Hartley wore it always. I have often expostulated with -her for wearing so valuable a piece<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> of jewellery in the street. -Someone might have noticed it and resolved to obtain it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, of course. A very strange affair, Mr. Todmorden, very -strange! I confess I cannot see light in it. Er—her affairs are quite -in order, of course?”</p> - -<p>“Quite. I keep the accounts; they are open to investigation. The name -of Todmorden and Baines is a sufficient guarantee, I think,” he added, -with a smile. “But, of course, it is natural you should wish to make -sure. You can examine the books to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Unnecessary, my dear sir, I’m quite certain. Of course, I am bound to -ask these unpleasant questions.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t apologize. I am as anxious as you are to catch the criminal. I -have, in fact, a personal interest in it. Miss Hartley was so good a -friend to me that I shall never rest until I have brought the scoundrel -to justice. A reward may help. I will personally give a hundred pounds -for his apprehension. You might have bills printed to that effect.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Mr. Todmorden. I hope we shall be able to claim it, though, -at present, I see little chance of it. However, something may turn up.”</p> - -<p>As Mr. Todmorden went home, he looked years older than the man who had -traversed the same ground twenty-four hours earlier. Grief-stricken -though he was, at the loss of his dear friend, his predominant emotion -was a fierce lust for vengeance on the murderer. His fingers worked, -gripped the air, as he brooded on him—the hated unknown—and his -step oscillated from fast to slow and slow to fast, as thoughts, -hopeful or despondent, got the upper hand. If he could only lay hands -on the scoundrel. A black and bitter wrath seethed in him. It was, -unjustifiably, the more bitter at the remembrance that Fate had placed -for a moment in his hand the power to avert the tragedy, had given -him a glimpse into the future—and yet had turned aside his will. The -wickedness of it! That dear, kind, charitable old soul! Shot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> like a -dog! He stamped his foot on the pavement at the thought of it; tears -welled up in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I’ll double that reward if he isn’t caught within a week!” he decided. -The decision comforted him.</p> - -<p>All through his solitary dinner he brooded on the crime, and sat -afterward, for long hours, trying to think of someone who might have an -urgent reason for possessing himself of that diamond brooch. He went to -bed at last, baffled, weary, heartsick. Had he met the murderer on the -stairs he would gladly have throttled him with his own hands.</p> - -<p>Putting on his pyjamas, he noticed something unusual—something -hard—in the pocket. Mechanically, he drew out the object and looked at -it. He stood as if petrified, his eyes staring, sweat breaking out on -his brow.</p> - -<p>In his hand he held Miss Hartley’s diamond brooch!</p> - -<p>He gazed at it, overwhelmed with amazement and horror. What was -happening? Was he crazed? Was his mind unhinged by the event of the -morning, was this an hallucination? All that was his familiar self -prayed, prayed hard, that this might be madness. Or—his instinct of -self-preservation caused him to clutch at the thought—was he the -victim of some atrocious trick? Impossible. Was it real? He felt the -jewel—turned it, so that it sparkled under the electric light.</p> - -<p>“My God!” said Mr. Todmorden, sinking into a chair. The familiar -concrete surroundings crumbled about him, were dissipated. He gazed -into unfathomable mysteries.</p> - -<p>How could the brooch have got into his pocket? Someone must have put -it there! Someone! Who? Who could have come into his bedroom and put -that damnatory brooch into the pocket of his pyjamas? The servants? He -reviewed them swiftly. Impossible! Then who? Not—surely not—he must -be going mad—not himself! It was absurd, unthinkable. He had gone -to bed and slept without a dream. Or, was there a dream<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>—a dream of -running in the darkness, fast, barefoot? Nonsense! Nonsense! He did -not get up in the middle of the night, walk down the street, murder -his dearest friend, and come back as though nothing had happened! His -mind flashed on the portrait of Miss Hartley, and he felt the cruel -irony of the supposition, though he himself made it. Then who—who? A -wave of superstition swept over him. Devils? It was inexplicable. He -revolted at something obscure within him, something which pointed a -finger to the accusing brooch, which whispered the inexorable corollary -in his ear. No! No! It could not be! He was innocent, he was conscious, -instinctively conscious of his innocence.</p> - -<p>But was he?</p> - -<p>The something whispered persistently. An idea came to him—the proof. -He went quickly across to a drawer in his dressing-table and took out -his revolver. With trembling hands he examined the charges. One had -been exploded! Had devils fired his revolver also? Oh, God! He thought -he was going to faint.</p> - -<p>How? Why? How? Why? These two questions besieged him incessantly, -battering at his crumbling mind. He clasped his head in his hands, -rocked to and fro on his chair.</p> - -<p>Madness? Madness came in these sudden attacks, so an imp of thought -assured him. He was mad! Mad!</p> - -<p>For hours he strode up and down the room, wrestling with demons in the -night. He had killed his dearest friend. He had no doubt of it; the -realization filled him with an agony of horror and grief. He would -gladly have died rather than have done this awful thing. And how had -he done it? How had he committed this crime without the faintest -remembrance of it? It was impossible! He had not—then he looked at the -brooch, and knew he had. It was monstrous, unthinkable—but true.</p> - -<p>At length, physically exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and -continued the struggle—striving, striving to see light in this -appalling mystery. At last he fell asleep. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> - -<p>He woke and looked around him. He was in a dark room. That was strange. -He knew he had left the light on. He was standing up. He held something -in his hand—a book. Puzzled, he put out his hand to where the switch -of the electric light should be. It was not there. In a new terror -that surged up, obliterating the older horrors of the night, he groped -along the wall for the switch, and found it. The place sprang into -light. He was in the dining-room! In his hand he held the report of his -grandfather’s trial. The truth flashed on him.</p> - -<p>He was a somnambulist.</p> - -<p>With a wild cry he sank down in a swoon.</p> - -<p>When he returned to consciousness, the electric lamps were yellow -patches in the sunlight which filled the room. He struggled to his feet -and switched them off. He stood for some moments unsteadily, trying -to adjust his mind to these unfamiliar surroundings, to remember—to -remember something. Then his ghastly situation rushed on his mind, -vivid with a new light. He was a criminal! He risked discovery, ruin! -He heard people moving about—servants. They must not suspect him -of any abnormality. Haggard, trembling, giddy, an old, old man, he -tottered up the stairs to his own bedroom.</p> - -<p>Escape—escape from the consequences of his involuntary crime was -his master impulse. He was no longer the benevolent Mr. Todmorden, -successful, respected, the eminent solicitor; he was a hunted criminal, -happed by Furies. He must not be found out. He sobbed in self-pity and -strove for the control of his faculties. He must think—must think. The -brooch must be got rid of. He would drop it over London Bridge. Yes, -that was the way. The brooch gone beyond all possibility of recovery, -who would suspect him? He had not suspected himself. He breathed more -freely, feeling himself already safe. He would triple that reward. -That would avert suspicion. Yes. Yes. He repeated the monosyllable to -himself as he walked up and down the room. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> - -<p>But suppose there was some trace of the crime on him? He must make -sure. The inspector’s story of the light-suited fugitive came into -his mind—his pyjamas! That fugitive must have been himself in his -pyjamas. He had again that flashed memory of running, running silently. -He doubted no longer, but examined the pyjamas on his body, searching -for a spot of blood, for any sign that might betray him. Yes! There -on the trouser-leg was a smear of stone-coloured paint—the paint on -Miss Hartley’s window-sill. He must get those pyjamas away, destroy -them—somehow. He thought of half a dozen plans and rejected all. -Everything he thought of seemed to proclaim his guilt. The problem -was still unsolved when another danger occurred to him. His revolver -contained a discharged cartridge. He must reload it. Feverishly he did -so. As he clicked the chambers into place there was a knock at the -door. He put down the revolver and listened in sudden panic. The knock -was repeated. He tried to speak and could not. At last words came:</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“Please, sir, a man from the police-station wants to speak to you at -once.”</p> - -<p>He tried hard to reply in his normal tones.</p> - -<p>“All right. Tell him I’ll be down presently.”</p> - -<p>“Please, sir, he says he can’t wait. It’s very urgent.” Discovery? No! -Impossible—as yet! He kept a tremor out of his voice by an effort.</p> - -<p>“Show him into my dressing-room.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Todmorden thought swiftly for a vivid second. That smear of paint -must be concealed. He slipped on a dressing-gown. Then he caught sight -of his revolver on the table, and, on a blind impulse, dropped it into -his pocket. He took a long breath. Now—was there anything about him -suspicious? He opened his dressing-gown and surveyed himself in the -mirror. Yes!—there was a button gone from his pyjama-jacket! Where had -he lost that button? He would have given anything for certainty. But he -must not keep the police waiting. That<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> would look strange. He girdled -his gown about him and went into the dressing-room.</p> - -<p>The chief inspector awaited him. A sharp expression of surprise came -into the officer’s face.</p> - -<p>“I have had a bad night, inspector,” said the old gentleman, noticing -the look and feeling his haggard appearance needed explanation.</p> - -<p>The inspector condoled with him.</p> - -<p>“I am pleased to say we have found a slight clue to the criminal, Mr. -Todmorden,” he said, looking again sharply at the old gentleman. Mr. -Todmorden felt he quailed under the glance. “It’s a button. And, the -curious thing is, it is a pyjama button.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” Mr. Todmorden’s mouth went dry.</p> - -<p>“Funny wear for a burglar—pyjamas,” commented the inspector. “Don’t -you think so, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Very curious.” Mr. Todmorden recognized the urgent necessity for a -normal voice. “Yes; very curious.” He must talk—say something! “By the -way, inspector, I’ve been thinking about that reward. I’ve decided to -triple it. I—I am determined to catch the scoundrel.”</p> - -<p>“Very kind of you, sir. I hope we shall ask you for the cheque. We’re -on the road, anyway. We’ve only got to find out where those pyjamas -came from, and, quite likely, we shall get on his track.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, quite so.” Would the interview never end? Mr. Todmorden -agonized.</p> - -<p>“If we can only find some buttons like this we can make a start. There -are differences even in pyjama buttons, you know, sir. I have compared -it with mine, but it doesn’t tally. Would you mind comparing it with -yours?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Todmorden stared at him, speechless.</p> - -<p>“Would you mind comparing it with yours, sir? We must not neglect any -chance of getting a clue. Allow me!”</p> - -<p>He stepped quickly to the old gentleman and flung aside<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> his -dressing-gown. The buttons, with the hanging thread of their missing -fellow, were revealed. Triumph flashed in the inspector’s face.</p> - -<p>“James Henry Todmorden, I——”</p> - -<p>Mr. Todmorden jumped back from his grasp. With a sharp cry he drew his -hand swiftly from his pocket. There was a report, and he dropped to the -floor.</p> - -<p>The inspector looked at his lifeless body.</p> - -<p>“I thought the old rascal did it,” he said. “A well-planned bit of -work, though.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THROUGH THE GATE OF HORN</h2> - -<p>The young man’s face was pale. His jaw, hard-set in a grip of -self-control, lent his clever, handsome features a suggestion of force -remarkable for his twenty-two years. At maturity, his intellect, backed -by so much character, would be formidable. He turned to the window, -stared out of it for a long moment. Then he switched round upon the -girl.</p> - -<p>“So that’s your last word, Betty?—Finish?”</p> - -<p>Her eyes dropped under his, were raised again in a volition which dared -to match itself, though she was tremulous with the effort, against the -challenge of his voice. Their blue depths were charmingly sincere.</p> - -<p>“I cannot help myself, Jack.” She shook her head pathetically. “You -ought to understand.”</p> - -<p>His voice came grimly, with intent to wound.</p> - -<p>“You are selling yourself to James Arrowsmith. Yes, I understand.”</p> - -<p>She shuddered, turned away her head in despair of sympathetic -comprehension. There was a silence during which both gazed down vistas -of gloomy thought. Then she looked up again, diffidently venturing -another appeal to his magnanimity.</p> - -<p>“You know Father’s position——”</p> - -<p>He nodded, sardonically.</p> - -<p>“I know. He thinks his business is safe if James Arrowsmith is his -son-in-law instead of merely his go-ahead competitor. He’s wrong. -Arrowsmith would cut his own brother’s throat if he met him on a dark -road and thought he had a dollar in his pocket. He’s just a modern -brigand!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> - -<p>The girl sighed.</p> - -<p>“What can I do, Jack?—Father——”</p> - -<p>He blazed out in a sudden fury.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I know! Father! I can’t help your father being a fool! It’s -not my fault that he can’t recognize potentiality in a man—that he -is only capable of appreciating a success that is already made, which -he can measure by a balance in a bank! Give me ten years—I’ll eat up -James Arrowsmith!”</p> - -<p>The girl shook her head sadly.</p> - -<p>“Ten years, Jack—it’s a long time ahead. We have got to deal with -things as they are to-day. And to-day——”</p> - -<p>“I’m nothing!” he said, bitterly.</p> - -<p>She looked up at him.</p> - -<p>“You are just a promising young man fresh from college, Jack! With a -big future before you, I am sure of that—but it’s only a future!”</p> - -<p>“I’ve started, anyway!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got that job on the -<i>Rostrum</i>—begin next week. And I’m going to make good!”</p> - -<p>“Of course you are—but—we can’t marry on your pay as a very junior -sub-editor.” She shook her head again. “We must be reasonable, Jack. If -I saw any chance——”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he interrupted, brutally, “if you saw any chance of my -driving you about in six months’ time in a big motor-car like James -Arrowsmith’s—then you would condescend to love me!”</p> - -<p>She stood up, her eyes filled with tears.</p> - -<p>“Oh, <i>don’t</i>, Jack!” She turned away her head, pressed her hand to -her eyes, dropped it in a hopeless gesture. She faced him again, her -sensitive mouth quivering at the corners, her expression appealing -from misery to compassion. Evidently, she hardly dared trust herself -to speak. “You know I love you!” Her voice caught, almost broke. “You -know I love you now—shall never love any one else. All my life I shall -remember you—if I live fifty years——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> - -<p>His short laugh was intended to express that terrible cynicism of Youth -losing its first illusions.</p> - -<p>“Cut it out, Betty! In fifty years you will be seventy. No doubt -you will be a charming old lady. You may even be sentimental—you -can indulge safely in the luxury, then! But you won’t even remember -my name. You’ll only be interested in the love-affairs of your -grandchildren!”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him involuntarily—and then consciously maintained the -gleam in her eyes, quick to emphasize and elaborate the note of comedy -he had accidentally struck. It was escape from threatening acrimony.</p> - -<p>“And you, Jack? In nineteen-seventy-two? Will you remember <i>my</i> -name?—Will you be even sentimental, I wonder?—Oh, I should like to -see you—a cynical old grandfather, telling your grandchildren not to -marry for money, but to marry where money is!—Oh, Jack!” Her voice was -genuinely mirthful. “You <i>will</i> come and see me and talk their affairs -over with me, won’t you? We shall be two such dear old cronies!”</p> - -<p>He had to concentrate on his frown, endangered by her infectious sense -of humour.</p> - -<p>“I shall never marry!” he announced, gloomily. “So there’s not much use -in promising to discuss my grandchildren’s affairs with you fifty years -hence. I shall never love another woman.”</p> - -<p>She ignored the sombre vaticination, determined to keep on a safer -plane of futurity.</p> - -<p>“Oh, wouldn’t you like to see, Jack? Fifty years ahead—and all that -will happen in the meantime?” There was just a hint of seriousness -in the light tone, in the bright eyes which smiled into his. “If -one could only know!” Her face went wistful. “I often wonder—these -crystal-gazers and people—whether they can really see——” She looked -up at, him. “Jack! You are so clever and know everything—don’t you -know any place where one can go and really see what is going to -happen?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> - -<p>He smiled, half in pleasure at her flattery, half in the consciousness -of being about to say a clever thing. The smile was wholly youthful, -despite his assumption of withered cynicism.</p> - -<p>“Yes. The place to which you are sending me.”</p> - -<p>“What place?” Her tone was puzzled.</p> - -<p>“Hell!” he said shortly.</p> - -<p>She wrinkled her brows.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, you haven’t read Virgil,” he said, with the crushing -superiority of the newly fledged graduate. “It’s in the sixth -book—where he takes Ænas into Hades. He describes two gates there—a -gate of horn and a gate of ivory. They are the gates through which -all dreams come. Those that pass through the ivory gate are false -dreams—the true ones come out of the gate of horn. I will sit down -beside it, and report if any of them concern you. You haven’t left me -much other interest,” he concluded, bitterly, “and this life will be -just Hell.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him in a short silence.</p> - -<p>“You are being very cruel, Jack. Do you think there will be much -happiness for me?” She turned away her head.</p> - -<p>He laid both his hands on her shoulders, compelled her gaze to meet his.</p> - -<p>“Then let me give you happiness! Betty, I love you! I love you! I care -for nothing in the world but you! Risk it! Forget everything except -that you love me and I love you! You will never regret it. I will -make you the happiest woman on earth as I shall be the happiest man. -You cannot live without love! I love you, Betty!—and I shall always, -always love you! Trust yourself to it, whatever happens!”</p> - -<p>She withdrew herself from him, shook her head hopelessly.</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” she said, wearily. “I have promised——”</p> - -<p>“Arrowsmith?”</p> - -<p>“Father.” Her tone answered all the implications of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> his question -with a dreary finality that left no issue. Her sigh was a seal upon -resignation.</p> - -<p>“Then it’s good-bye?”</p> - -<p>She nodded in a forced economy of speech.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>He picked up hat, stick, and gloves and moved toward the door.</p> - -<p>“You’ve nothing more to say to me?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.</p> - -<p>“No, Jack. Except that I shall remember this birthday as the most -miserable day of my life. You have not made it easy for me.”</p> - -<p>“Why should I?” he asked, the uncompromising egotism of youth suddenly -harshly apparent. “You refuse the best gift I can offer you—myself!”</p> - -<p>“I can’t help myself. But,” she hesitated on the pathetically forlorn -appeal, “you might be kind.” Her eyes implored him.</p> - -<p>He struck himself upon the forehead with a dramatic little ejaculation -which matched the gesture.</p> - -<p>“Bah!—It all seems like an evil dream to me!”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him, sadly.</p> - -<p>“I wish it came out of the gate of ivory, Jack—and not out of the gate -of horn!”</p> - -<p>He flushed, his raw sensitiveness resentful of this boomerang return of -his own witticism.</p> - -<p>“You can keep your sense of humour for James Arrowsmith, -Betty!—Good-bye!”</p> - -<p>He snatched open the door, went out. He could not visualize her -standing there listening for his shattering slam of the front door, -running to the window for a last glimpse. He thought of her only as -mocking at the tragedy which was so real to him.</p> - -<p>In a furious rage with the universe as constituted, he marched blindly -out of the house and straight across the pavement with intent to quit -even her side of the road. His brain in a whirl, he looked neither to -right nor left, careless of an environment which was at that moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> -scarcely real to him. He only half-heard the raucous scream of a Klaxon -horn, a warning human shout—and then something struck him violently on -the side, followed it with a crashing blow on his head.</p> - -<p>He could not see Betty’s face, tense and white, bending over his -senseless body as it was extricated from under James Arrowsmith’s -plutocratic car and—after her emphatic prohibition of hospital—borne -into her father’s house.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>He felt himself shoot upward in the vast, familiar elevator of the -<i>Daily Rostrum</i> building. His head was full of important business, -interviews with Senators, statesmen, financiers which had filled his -busy day. With practised mental control he screened these matters -temporarily from his consciousness, cleared his brain for the immediate -tasks which awaited him. The elevator stopped opposite a door which -bore his name. As he opened it he heard, with the little glow of -observed success, the awed recognitory whisper of one of the two seedy -journalists he left behind him in the lift: “<i>The Editor!</i>”</p> - -<p>He entered the big room hung with wall-maps above the low-ranged -bookcases, where a lady clerk was arranging his afternoon tea on a -little table by the side of his massive desk. His secretary, evidently -alert for his entrance, appeared at another door.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Bolingbroke is waiting to see you, sir!”</p> - -<p>“Good! Show him in!”</p> - -<p>He settled himself in his big chair, glanced at the pile of papers on -his desk, looked up to nod a curt greeting to the keen-faced young man -who entered.</p> - -<p>“Five minutes, Mr. Bolingbroke!” he said warningly, with a gesture -toward the papers which awaited him.</p> - -<p>The young man smiled.</p> - -<p>“I can do more business with you, sir, in five minutes, than I can with -another man in fifty,” he said, extracting a wad of typescript from an -attaché case. “Here’s the draft of the last article.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> - -<p>He took it, leaned back in his chair, ran his eye over it. It was -headed “<i>The Cut-throat Combine. The Arrowsmith Apaches Uneasy For -Their Own Scalps. More Points for the Public Prosecutor.</i>”</p> - -<p>He skimmed it through rapidly. It was a scathing denunciation of a -predatory Trust with which the proprietors of the <i>Daily Rostrum</i> had -quarrelled. Chapter and verse were given for a series of malpractices -which, substantiated after this publicity, would infallibly bring the -wrongdoers before a court of justice. He leaned forward, picked up a -pencil, struck out a few sentences, made other points more telling. -Suddenly he frowned, scored out a whole paragraph.</p> - -<p>“You’re too tame over this infantile mortality business! You want to -let yourself scream over it. That’s the note that’ll wake ’em up! -Get all the sentimental parents clamouring for his blood!” He handed -back the typescript. “Rewrite the final paragraph and it’ll pass.” He -glanced at his watch. “Four and a half minutes, Mr. Bolingbroke!” he -said, an almost boyish note of triumph in his voice, “and I guess it’s -finish for Mr. James Arrowsmith!”</p> - -<p>He turned to his tea while the journalist made his exit. Then he bent -himself forward to the business on his desk.</p> - -<p>As he ran through and signed letter after letter, his own phrase -“Finish for Mr. James Arrowsmith!” rang in his head, repeated itself -over and over again with almost the distinctness of an auditory -hallucination. A detached portion of his consciousness listened to it, -was lured into a train of thought that was not unpleasant.</p> - -<p>Of course, he had no real personal grudge against James Arrowsmith. -Without him——! He smiled as he set his signature at the foot of yet -another letter. That was a long time ago! And he had prophesied it—he -remembered, suddenly, his own words—“Give me ten years and I’ll <i>eat</i> -James Arrowsmith!” Ten years! He glanced involuntarily at the calendar -in front of him, read the date—1932. By Jove, it <i>was</i> ten years—ten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> -years ago—Betty’s birthday! He glanced again at the calendar—and -dropped his pen on the desk with a sharp exclamation of annoyance. Good -Lord, of course it was! It was Betty’s birthday to-day! And he had -forgotten it!</p> - -<p>For a moment or two he stared in front of him, his brows contracted -into a frown which was directed impartially at circumstance and -himself. He had been so terribly busy of late—but, of course, he must -find time. Poor old Betty! He took up the telephone instrument on his -desk, gave a number.</p> - -<p>“Hallo! That you, Betty?—Jack. Jack speaking. Many happy returns of -the day! What?—Of course I remembered!—What?—Well, it’s only five -o’clock,” his tone was one of self-extenuation. “I say, old girl! -We’ll go out to dinner—any restaurant you like! What? You’ve got an -appointment?” He repeated the words incredulously. “Oh, very well!—I -say, Betty! You haven’t got a cold or anything, have you?—Oh, all -right—no, I only thought your voice sounded strange.” He frowned. -“Very well—do as you like! Good-bye!” He put back the receiver with a -vicious thud.</p> - -<p>Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, while he gave directions to -the series of sub-editors who came deferentially into his presence, an -obscure worry persisted at the back of his consciousness. Of course—he -had to confess it—he had neglected her of late. How long was it since -he had been home? Only a month—or five weeks? The foreground of his -brain, working at full pressure on the problems continuously submitted -to it for instant decision, failed to solve the question—relegated it -to be worried over by that independent consciousness at the back of -his mind. It was a long time, anyway! Of course she understood. It was -the paper—the paper to which he was the slave—which, practically, he -never quitted (he had a bedroom in the building)—the paper of which he -personally read every item that was printed and an enormous quantity -of copy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> which was not—the paper which was his pride, his joy, his -one interest in life! Of course, she understood—but it was rough on -her. Poor old Betty! He thought of her strange voice, and winced with -remorse. She had been brooding over no letter that morning. If only -she would have gone to dinner with him! He felt that he could have -explained things, put everything straight. But she had an appointment! -What appointment? With whom? He put a thought out of his mind, and the -thought peeped persistently over the barrier. Impossible, of course! -Preposterous! Docile little Betty? Besides—who could there be? His -vanity was scornful of the idea.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, as he worked, an impulse kept rising in him, ever more -powerfully, an impulse to go home—to go home at once. He fidgeted as -he beat back the disturbing desire, had to concentrate himself fiercely -upon his task. Suddenly, as though the obscure subconsciousness, which -was, after all, his real self, had come to a decision in which his -brain had no part, he surrendered. He was surprised at himself as he -sharply pressed the bell-button upon his desk. His secretary appeared.</p> - -<p>“Tell Mr. Thompson to see the paper through to-night. Get me a taxi at -once!”</p> - -<p>The well-disciplined secretary barely succeeded in veiling his -astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.—And if we get that cable from Yokohama——?”</p> - -<p>He bit his lip in an unwonted hesitation. Upon the contents of a cable -expected that evening from Yokohama he would have to decide the policy -of his paper, and upon the policy of his paper, as outlined in the -leader which would be published in the morning, depended to a large -extent the direction of the current of popular opinion—the current -which would set in a few days toward peace or war. To-night, if ever, -he ought to remain at his post, but the dominant impulse which had -swept over him would take no denial. He felt like a traitor to his -professional code as he replied: </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I may be back. If I am not, ring me up. You will find me at home.”</p> - -<p>His straight stare at the secretary challenged and browbeat the -bewilderment in that young man’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir,” he said, submissively, and departed.</p> - -<p>A few minutes later he found himself speeding homeward in a taxi that, -despite the reckless audacity of the liberally subsidized driver, -could not go fast enough. The momentary halts imposed by cross-traffic -seemed interminably prolonged delays. Of course he was a fool, he -told himself—but his impatience increased with every second, set -his fingers drumming upon the unread evening newspaper on his knee. -At last! The taxi swung into the pavement in front of the tall block -of flats where he had his city home. He jumped out with the feverish -alacrity of a man who hastens to avert disaster, almost ran to the -elevator.</p> - -<p>Another moment and he was fitting his key into the latch. He swung the -door open—was confronted by Betty in hat and furs, apparently just on -the point of departure. She shrank back at his entrance, went white.</p> - -<p>“Jack!”</p> - -<p>The tone of her voice reëchoed in him like an alarm-bell. He looked -sharply at her.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going?”</p> - -<p>She stared at him, white to the lips, evidently unable to answer. He -repeated the question in a level voice from which, by an effort of -will, he banished the wild suspicion which suddenly surged up in him.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going, Betty?”</p> - -<p>She laughed, a trifle hysterically.</p> - -<p>“You are taking a great interest in my doings all at once, Jack! I’m -going out, of course.—I told you I had an appointment.”</p> - -<p>His eyes met hers, held them till they dropped and she went suddenly -red. He opened the door of an adjoining room, gestured her to enter, -followed her. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> - -<p>They stood and faced each other in a silence that seemed to ring with -the menace of near event. He was the first to break it.</p> - -<p>“Now perhaps you will tell me where you are going, Betty?” He held -his voice on a note of politeness, but it was nevertheless sternly -compelling.</p> - -<p>Her eyes sought the carpet. Her bosom heaved deeply through a long -moment where there was no sound save the suddenly perceived loud -ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece. Then, on the wave of a -resolve, she lifted her head, confronted him proudly.</p> - -<p>“I am going to leave you, Jack!” It was evident that she had to fight -to keep her voice from breaking. “I—I have had enough of it!”</p> - -<p>His ejaculation was characteristic.</p> - -<p>“My dear!—You must be mad!”</p> - -<p>An answering anger came into her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Mad or not—I mean it!”</p> - -<p>“Leave Maisie?” he cried incredulously.</p> - -<p>She smiled at him, more in control of herself now than he.</p> - -<p>“No. I am taking Maisie with me,” she said with deliberate calmness.</p> - -<p>“But you can’t! I will not allow it!”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you propose to sit here all day and watch her?” she asked, -with biting sarcasm. Then, with a sudden change of tone, indignation -flamed up in her. “What is she to you?—Is she any more to you than -I am?—Do you see her from one month’s end to another?—Do you ask -after her? Do you write to her? Do you take the faintest interest in -her?—No!—Once you leave this flat and go to your hateful paper, you -forget her as utterly as you do me!” Her eyes blazed at him. “Maisie -and I are all the world to each other, Jack! And we will not be -separated! We go together!”</p> - -<p>The violence of this outburst from the woman whose docility he had -so long accepted as naturally as he did that of his staff upon the -<i>Rostrum</i> shocked him profoundly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> At the same time, a blinding passion -of jealousy surged up in him.</p> - -<p>“You shall not go!”</p> - -<p>“I shall!” There was no mistaking the determination in her voice. “The -moment your back is turned!”</p> - -<p>The room seemed to reel about him. The hitherto so solid foundations -of his existence had broken up suddenly beneath him. He could not have -suspected so great a capacity for emotion in himself. He pressed his -hand against his brow, closed his eyes tight in the sickening shock.</p> - -<p>“Who is it?” he asked hoarsely. “The man?—His name?”</p> - -<p>Her eyes seemed to be probing the depth of his wound as they looked -into his, but they showed no compassion.</p> - -<p>“I cannot tell you.” Her tone was unshakably firm.</p> - -<p>There was again a silence, in which he fought for mastery over himself. -He looked at her in uncomprehending despair.</p> - -<p>“Betty! Betty, tell me why?—For God’s sake, tell me why!—You used to -love me. Tell me why you’ve changed!”</p> - -<p>She evidently was also fighting to keep his emotion from communicating -itself to her. He thought, as he waited for her answer, that her head -never looked more nobly beautiful.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember, Jack? Ten years ago?—Ten years to-day?—You said to -me: ‘You cannot live without love!’ You were right.” A sob, that almost -escaped its check, came into her voice. “I cannot live without love.”</p> - -<p>He looked for yet another moment upon the sad dignity of her face, -upon the quivering, sensitive mouth, upon the eyes that brimmed with -tears—then, with an impulsive movement, he sprang forward, seized her -two hands in his. The tears were in his eyes also, and in his voice.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Betty, Betty darling! I remember! And I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> said ‘I love you! I love -you! Trust yourself to it whatever happens!’—Oh, Betty! Is it too -late? Is it too late?”</p> - -<p>Her eyes looked deeply into his, incredulous at first of his sincerity, -then softening in a wonderful certitude, she let herself go into his -enfolding arms, her mouth drawn wistfully close to his, yet still, for -a moment, withheld. All pride went out of her suddenly. She implored, -like a soul that has an unbelievable chance of life.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jack! You do love me?—You love me still!—Oh, Jack, Jack!”</p> - -<p>She buried her head upon his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.</p> - -<p>He caressed her, soothingly.</p> - -<p>“My dear! My beloved! My dear, dear Betty! Of course I love you! You -and Maisie are all I have in the world—and it’s mostly you!—Oh, -I know I’ve been a fool! I’ve thought only of my selfish ambition. -But, dear, try me again! I’ll be so much kinder to you, so much more -thoughtful.—And we’ll forget all this. Never remember it. I won’t even -ask you the man’s name.”</p> - -<p>She half-raised her head from his shoulder, swallowed tearfully.</p> - -<p>“There—there wasn’t any man!” she said, and broke down again into a -passion of sobs that would not cease.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>As he expected, the young man was waiting for him. Maisie was waiting -also, standing very tall and rigid by the window, in all the dignity -of youth measuring swords with the parental generation. He thought, as -he came into the centre of the room, how like her mother she was—her -mother twenty years ago, when she had faced <i>her</i> father. He nearly -smiled at the remembrance, checked himself with a thought of the matter -in hand. This, of course, was quite different!</p> - -<p>The young man rose to meet him. They shook hands with the amount of -stiffness proper to the occasion. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> found himself suddenly wishing -that Betty were here, after all. He had been hasty in telling her to -keep out of the way. She could handle Maisie more tactfully than he -could. Very reasonable woman, Betty—she had seen his point of view at -once. These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind as he invited the -young man to a chair, seated himself. There was an awkward silence.</p> - -<p>He and the young man broke it at the same instant.</p> - -<p>“You wanted to speak to me——?”</p> - -<p>“I think you understand, sir——”</p> - -<p>Both stopped likewise at the same instant to make way for the other, -and both failed to recommence.</p> - -<p>Maisie stepped forward impatiently, stood between them, towering -superbly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why you want all this icy ceremony, both of you,” she -said scornfully. She turned to her father. “Jim wants to marry me, -Father—and I want to marry Jim. And that’s all there is to it!”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!” He raised his eyebrows in mild sarcasm. “I wonder you thought -it necessary to inform me of such a trifling matter.”</p> - -<p>“We thought it better to tell you.” Maisie was cheerfully unscathed.</p> - -<p>“Much obliged, I am sure. I’m very interested. I expect you will both -of you want to marry lots more people before you’ve finished. I shall -always be willing to lend a sympathetic ear when you care to tell me of -the latest.”</p> - -<p>“Father!” broke out Maisie indignantly. He felt that he had scored. -“This is serious!”</p> - -<p>“It always is,” he said philosophically. “And you, young man? I suppose -you are burning to add your testimony of the solemnity of this occasion -to Maisie’s?” He felt that if he could only keep it up on this tone he -was safe. Maisie was apt to be so damnably stubborn and unmanageable -once he failed to maintain superiority. As for the young man—well, of -course, he was only a young man. He could soon manage <i>him</i>! </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> - -<p>This young man, however, was no whit abashed.</p> - -<p>“I am, sir,” he said, confidently. “Maisie and I are made for each -other!” he added, uttering the banality as though it were now for the -first time new-minted for the lovers’ lexicon.</p> - -<p>“Really?—It is a happy chance, for certainly Maisie’s mother and -myself omitted to take you into account when we——”</p> - -<p>“Father!”</p> - -<p>“—named her at the baptismal font,” he continued, equably. He had -scored again.</p> - -<p>The young man was impervious.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps there are higher Powers than you, sir?” he ventured, with -polite deference.</p> - -<p>“—Even if you are the editor of the <i>Daily Rostrum</i>!” added Maisie -viciously.</p> - -<p>He resettled himself in his chair under this lively counter-attack.</p> - -<p>“Well, let us drop these witticisms,” he said with some asperity. “Come -to business. Let’s hear your case, if you have one.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, sir. I ask your permission to marry Maisie.”</p> - -<p>“I appreciate the courtesy. What is your income?”</p> - -<p>The young man hesitated.</p> - -<p>“Well—at present, sir——”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, I suppose?” He was still keeping his end up, was -well-satisfied with the tartness of that question. He nearly smiled as -he watched the young man wriggle.</p> - -<p>“I must confess, sir—but I have qualifications—and I am ambitious!”</p> - -<p>“All young men are ambitious,” he replied, oracularly. “Let us hear the -qualifications!”</p> - -<p>“I graduated with honours at my university——”</p> - -<p>“Pooh! So did the man who sells my paper at the corner of the street!”</p> - -<p>“—and I have great hopes of getting a good job.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!—Where?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> - -<p>“On your paper, sir!”</p> - -<p>He was staggered by the young man’s impudence.</p> - -<p>“My compliments!—But, as I unfortunately fail to share those hopes, I -must regretfully refuse the permission you ask for!”</p> - -<p>He had only just managed to keep his temper.</p> - -<p>Maisie sailed forward to the attack.</p> - -<p>“But, Father, you have often told me that when you married Mother you -were only a graduate with your first job on the <i>Rostrum</i>! We don’t -mind struggling—we should <i>like</i> to struggle—just as you did!”</p> - -<p>“Things were different then. That was a long time ago. In this year of -nineteen forty-two life is much more difficult than when your mother -and I were young.”</p> - -<p>“It only seems so to you because you have got old. It isn’t difficult -to us young people!” said Maisie, smilingly positive.</p> - -<p>He winced under the unconscious cruelty of this remark.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you will allow my experience to be the best judge,” he -said, snappily. “In any case, I refuse my permission! The idea is -ridiculous!—I do not think there is any more I need say, young man,” -he concluded, making a movement to rise from his chair.</p> - -<p>Maisie pinned him down to it, both arms around him, kneeling at his -side, her face—Betty’s young face!—looking up to him in winsome -appeal.</p> - -<p>“Father!” she said, and her voice was full of soft cajolery, “if any -one took Mother away from you, wouldn’t you feel it dreadfully?” He had -a sudden little flitting vision of a crisis ten years back. “Would life -be worth anything to you?—I mean it seriously.” She paused for a reply -he refused to give. “Well, Father—that’s just what life will be like -to Jim if you take me away from him!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see the necessity of the parallel,” he countered, feebly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, you do. And Father!—If any one took you away from -Mother?—What would life be like to her?—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>You know! <i>Just a dreary -blank!</i>—And that’s what my life will be like if you send Jim away from -me!”</p> - -<p>“But——” he began.</p> - -<p>She put her hand over his mouth, a deliciously soft young hand, with a -faint fragrance that reminded him——</p> - -<p>“No!” she continued, inexorably. “Listen to me! I haven’t finished. -If any one took you from Mother, and she knew where to find you—what -would she do? You know! She would go to you, whatever was in the -way!—And, Father, that’s what I should do!—Father!” she said, and -her tone was full of solemn warning, “would you like to think of your -darling little Maisie starving somewhere in a top back room—and -hating you, <i>hating you</i>!” her voice suddenly became almost genuinely -vicious, “because you wouldn’t give her husband a chance to earn his -living? Would you like to sit day after day, not knowing where she -was, wondering all sorts of things—with Mother sitting on the chair -opposite and not daring to say a word—day after day, and year after -year, and never hear from her any more?—And all because you were a -stubborn, foolish old man who had forgotten what real love was!”</p> - -<p>“But, Maisie——” he did not himself know what he was going to say.</p> - -<p>She snuggled up close to him, looked up into his face.</p> - -<p>“Dadsie!” she said, and the voice was the voice of the child Maisie who -had so often looked up from his knee with just that irresistible smile -which had brought strange tears to his eyes then as it did now—sudden -tears he could not quite keep back. “Dadsie!” she said once more and -her tone went straight to his heart. “You do love your little Maisie, -don’t you? And you want to make her happy—all her life you have wanted -to make her happy and you’re going to make her happy now. You are -going to give her Jim, her man—like you are Mother’s man—a chance -to make good. You are going to give us both a chance to make good -together—like you and Mother have made good together. You are still -going to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> Maisie’s dear, good, kind, generous father whom she will -always love—aren’t you, Dadsie?”</p> - -<p>The young man stood up.</p> - -<p>“Sir,” he said, “I’ve lost my father. And if I could choose another -one—I should like it to be you!”</p> - -<p>The older man warmed suddenly at the unmistakable sincerity of -his tone. He was a good lad, after all—very like himself, he -thought—twenty years ago!</p> - -<p>“Dadsie!” implored Maisie, her arms still about him. “Dadsie!—Say -yes!—Just think it’s Mother and you starting for the first time!”</p> - -<p>Something broke down in him—almost the barrier against unmanliness. He -blew his nose quickly and his smile had a twist in it as he looked into -Maisie’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“That’s not fair!” he said. “But you’ve won. You shall have your -chance.—You can start to-morrow, young man, but, mind—to work!” He -stood up, went to the door.</p> - -<p>“Betty!” he called as he opened it.</p> - -<p>She stood there—smiling at him. He guessed suddenly that she had been -there all the while.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she said, her eyes happy.</p> - -<p>He glanced round to where the two young lovers had stood. But they had -vanished together into the garden.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been an old fool, my dear!” he said, smiling.</p> - -<p>“You’ve been an old dear!” she replied, putting an arm about him and -coming with him into the room. “You couldn’t have made me a better -birthday present!” Her eyes, also, were full of tears.</p> - -<p>“Forty to-day!” he said, “and it only seems like yesterday since you -and I——”</p> - -<p>“And you still love me?” she queried, in a tone that had no doubt, -looking up into his face.</p> - -<p>“I still love you,” he replied, happily positive. “Just as I did then!”</p> - -<p>Arms about each other, he led her in front of the big mirror over the -fireplace and they smiled at the reflected picture of their union. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> - -<p>“She called me an old man,” he said, a little ruefully, patting his -hair before the mirror. “I’m getting a bit gray, too.” He looked at -her. “But you, dear, you haven’t got a gray hair—and in my eyes you -are just as beautiful as ever!”</p> - -<p>She shook her head slowly at him in delight.</p> - -<p>“And you are just as handsome!”</p> - -<p>He smiled down upon her.</p> - -<p>“Maisie accused me of being too old to remember what true love was,” he -said. “Do you think so, dear?—Have we forgotten?”</p> - -<p>“Darling!” she whispered, as she snuggled close against him.</p> - -<p>They kissed, believing that their kiss was just the kiss of twenty -years ago. It wasn’t. It was a symbol of infinitely more.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>He sat tapping his foot impatiently on the carpet of the ante-room to -the council-chamber of the <i>Daily Rostrum</i>. Behind the closed door -a meeting of the chief proprietors was in secret deliberation. He -glanced at his watch, his dignity fretting at this unwonted exclusion, -an unacknowledged anxiety unsettling his nerves. He knew himself to -be on the threshold of a new epoch. An enterprising, young-blooded -syndicate was acquiring the <i>Daily Rostrum</i>, was even then in conclave -with the old proprietors, agreeing upon the final terms. They had sent -for him—had asked him (oh, most courteously!) to give them yet five -minutes.</p> - -<p>But he was resentful of those five minutes. Young Henry Vancoutter -(not so very young now, though—he must be forty!—Let me see—twenty -years——), the chief proprietor, ought to have treated him with more -consideration. He deserved better than to be left cooling his heels -while the destinies of his paper—<i>his</i> paper, for he if any one had -made it, had lived for it for forty years, had been its unchallenged -autocrat for thirty—were in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> the balance. The old man would never -have done it, he thought, resentful of this rising generation. Never -once was old Vancoutter lacking in the respect due to him, the prince -of editors who had made his property one of the most valuable in the -journalistic world.</p> - -<p>He wondered what the future would bring. Doubtless the policy of the -paper would be changed—that was only natural, of course. They must -go ahead with the times (he nerved himself for an effort that he felt -would be a tax upon his strength). Yes—perhaps they had fallen a bit -behind of late. The circulation was not what it was—not half what it -had been fifteen years ago. They had made rather a virtue of being a -trifle old-fashioned, appealing to conservative instincts. Not in the -old days, certainly—but for the last twenty years. And undoubtedly -they had suffered from it. He must look up the side-lines a bit—the -radio-service to private subscribers, for example. He drifted on to a -vague calculation of the initial cost for the service of wirelessed -cinema-pictures of current events, mingled with advertisements, with -which their go-ahead rival the <i>Lightning News</i> was making so great -success with hotels and flat communities. His jaw set. He would beat -them on their own ground. He would show the world that the editor of -the <i>Rostrum</i> was still alive, was still a power.</p> - -<p>Yes—he was not done yet. He could not—no one could—conceive the -<i>Rostrum</i> without him. He was the paper itself. There was not the -faintest possibility of his being replaced. It was unthinkable as -practical near politics, as unimaginable as death itself. Such a day -was, thank God, still remote. Old proprietors or new, there was no -question that he was the indispensable editor. But he would have to put -his shoulder to the wheel.</p> - -<p>He wondered what Betty would think of the changes. Poor old Betty! She -was getting very frail, but (he thought, cheerfully) considering that -she was sixty to-day she was a wonderful woman. He glanced at his watch -again, fidgeted with impatience. She would be waiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> for him in the -car outside—very nice of the old dear to come down for him every day -as she had done for now, let me see, was it five or six years past? -Ever since he had had his illness. Dear old Betty! He warmed himself -with the thought of the splendid fur coat he was going to buy her as a -birthday present that afternoon.</p> - -<p>The door opened suddenly. Young Vancoutter uttered his name with a -smile, murmured an apology, beckoned him in.</p> - -<p>He entered, glanced round upon the familiar faces and the new ones -gathered on each side of the long table. The new looked up at him with -interest, the old bent over blotting-pads on which they scribbled idly. -He seated himself.</p> - -<p>Vancoutter spoke in his familiar crisp tones.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Trenchard, I have to inform you that the board has come to very -satisfactory terms with the syndicate who are, in fact, now the new -proprietors of the <i>Daily Rostrum</i>.” The speaker paused for a moment, -cleared his throat. “You will, of course, readily understand that -these new proprietors wish to have complete control of their property -and that their ideas of editorial management may not coincide with -ours—with those which you have so successfully and so worthily upheld -for so many years.” He felt himself turn sick as he listened, pinched -his lips together lest his emotion should be remarked. A mantle of -ice seemed to compress him. Vancoutter continued, with an indulgent -smile: “We for our part, of course, have safeguarded the interests of -a man who has served us so brilliantly, whose association with our -paper——” ‘<i>Our paper</i>’! He almost smiled in bitter irony.“—has so -materially contributed to bring it to that pitch of influence at which -it is still maintained to-day. Therefore, as part of the purchase-price -paid by the new proprietors, ten thousand shares have been set aside -as your property—and, if you prefer it, the syndicate has engaged -itself to buy those shares of you, cash down, at the current market -valuation——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> - -<p>He scarcely knew what followed. He had only the most indistinct -recollection of several other long-winded speeches whose flattery was -sincerely intended to soften the blow. He could not remember what he -himself had said—apparently, he had kept his dignity—had duly thanked -the old proprietors. Of all the welter of words, he clearly recalled -only—“The younger generation, Mr. Trenchard! A man of sixty-two owes -it to himself to retire!”—and they haunted him, rang over and over -again in his brain like the knell of his life.</p> - -<p>At last he escaped, went stumbling blindly down the stairs, forgetting, -for the first time for forty years, the elevator. Betty was waiting for -him in the closed car, her head peering out of the window. He groped -for the door, almost fell into it. She helped him to the seat.</p> - -<p>“My dear! What is the matter?” she said, white with alarm. “Are you -ill?”</p> - -<p>He clenched his jaw in the agony of his humiliation.</p> - -<p>“Sacked!” he said briefly, the tears starting to his eyes. “Sacked at a -moment’s notice!”</p> - -<p>She stared at him, unable at first to grasp the full significance of -his words.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, Jack! No!” she said. “No! You can’t mean it! It’s not true?”</p> - -<p>He nodded, gazing fixedly out of the window, away from her.</p> - -<p>“It’s true!” he replied grimly. “My life’s finished!”</p> - -<p>She felt timidly for his hand, pressed it without a word. He turned -and faced her. They looked for a moment into each other’s eyes, then -suddenly he crumpled into her arms, a dead-beat old man, and sobbed -like a child.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jack, dear! Jack!” she said, caressing the gray head upon which -her tears fell like rain. “At last we can be together!”</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>They sat side by side on the porch of the country-house, overlooking -the wide lawns which swept down to a belt of trees and the river. -Along the bank two young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> couples were walking in a close and intimate -comradeship whose happiness was indicated by the bright young laughter -which floated at intervals, in the stillness of the sunny afternoon, -to the porch of the house. He watched them as they went, then turned -silently to his companion. Betty sat, sweetly placid, a little smile -just accentuating the loose wrinkles on the soft face, her eyes looking -perhaps after the young people, perhaps into happy thoughts. He thought -she was very beautiful as she sat there—and inestimably precious.</p> - -<p>“Betty darling!” he said suddenly, lifting her hand to his lips, “to -think that you are seventy to-day!”</p> - -<p>She turned and smiled at him, her pale-blue eyes darkening with -grateful love.</p> - -<p>“Nineteen seventy-two, Jack!” she said, softly. “Do you remember——?”</p> - -<p>His smile answered hers.</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear. I remember——”</p> - -<p>She checked him with a little gesture.</p> - -<p>“Hush! Don’t speak!” she murmured, as though in awe.</p> - -<p>They sat there, hand in hand, in silence, gazing over the lawns to -where their grandchildren wandered with the lovers of their choice, -in a quiet ecstasy for which they had no words. Love swelled in them, -filled them with the soundless harmonies wherein Life’s discords are -resolved.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>“Hush! Don’t speak!”</p> - -<p>He opened his eyes. Betty was bending over him. Betty? He stared -at her, puzzled. Where were the soft wrinkles, the gray hair? This -was Betty—Betty as she used to be all that time ago. Then his -consciousness readjusted itself suddenly to its environment. He gazed -round on an unfamiliar bedroom where Betty moved with an air of -proprietorship.</p> - -<p>“I have had such strange dreams, dear——” he said weakly. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - -<p>She bent over him again, smiled.</p> - -<p>“From the gate of horn?” she asked. How charming she looked!</p> - -<p>He collected his thoughts with an effort—remembered, all at once.</p> - -<p>“I hope so, dear—please God, they are!”</p> - -<p>She rearranged his pillow, smoothed the sheet under his chin, smiled -again.</p> - -<p>“Go to sleep, Jack—lots more sleep!” she commanded gently but -authoritatively.</p> - -<p>Without strength or will to protest, he let himself relapse once more -into drowsiness. Suddenly he opened his eyes.</p> - -<p>“What was the name of the man who wanted to marry Maisie?” he asked, as -though he had long been puzzling over the question.</p> - -<p>“Maisie?” She looked at him in blank lack of comprehension.</p> - -<p>“Our daughter!”</p> - -<p>A beautiful smile of tenderness, of something ineffably feminine, came -into her eyes. What was it she gazed at in that instant of silence?</p> - -<p>“Hush, dear. Don’t talk!” she said, softly, kissing him on the brow. -“Go and sit again by the gate of horn.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE WHITE DOG</h2> - -<p>Mr. Gilchrist was nervous and fidgety. He was alone, not merely in the -dining-room where he sat, but in the house; and solitude at night to -a man accustomed to find comfort and distraction in the presence of -others is a black desert where one starts at one’s own footsteps.</p> - -<p>Sitting there in the dining-room of the pretty suburban villa he had -had built some twenty miles from town, the familiar objects which -surrounded him seemed to have grown remote, unfamiliar. Smoking his -pipe, with the half-read newspaper on his knee, his ear was worried by -the insistent ticking of the clock, and this ticking seemed a novel, -almost uncanny, phenomenon. He could not remember having heard a sound -from that timepiece before. There were features about the sideboard, -too, as he gazed at it fixedly, that appeared quite strange to him. -Certain details of inlay-work on the Sheraton-pattern legs he perceived -now for the first time. These little unfamiliarities observed with his -mind on the stretch—the latent primitive man in him scenting danger in -solitude—added to the loneliness. The sheltering walls of the usual -were pushed away from him. He felt himself exposed, out of the call of -friends, in a desolation hinted by invisible malevolences. Of course, -the feeling was absurd. He shook himself and tried to summon up a -little of the bravura with which he had dismissed his wife and daughter -to the dance at the village a mile away, making light of their protests -that it was the one servant’s evening out, saying that at any rate she -in the kitchen would not be much company to him in the dining-room -where he proposed to sit and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> smoke. His friend Williamson might drop -in, too—anyway, he would be all right.</p> - -<p>His friend Williamson had not dropped in, and with every slow minute -ticked out by that confounded clock he had found himself less at ease. -Once he got up and walked into another room, but the sound of his own -footsteps, heard with astonishing loudness in the house empty of any -other person, afflicted his nerves, and he returned to his former seat -in the dining-room.</p> - -<p>The seven-thirty express from town rushed by on the railway line which -ran, fifty yards distant, parallel with the road; and the sound of it -heartened him for a minute or two. The world of fellow-men was brought -close to him for a flying second, and all his sociable instincts -greeted it, claiming acquaintance, as it sped along. Then, as the noise -of it died away into a silence yet more profound than before, the -primitive in him again peeped out through his civilization, panicky, -ear at stretch for stealthy danger. The stillness which surrounded the -lonely house seemed charged with perils that stole near with noiseless -footfall. A weird, mournful cry outside, breaking suddenly on that -stillness, pulled him erect on his feet, listening, trembling. The -cry was repeated, and he sat down again, telling himself that it was -an owl, as doubtless it was; but his hand shook as he picked up his -newspaper again and tried to read.</p> - -<p>With some effort he forced his brain to grasp the meanings of the -words, which related a murder case, announced in massive letters at -the top of the column. The mental machine seemed to stop every now -and then and he found himself gazing at some unimportant, common word -in the line until it looked as strange and devoid of meaning as one -in a foreign and unknown language. The comprehension of it required a -deliberate effort of will.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, with a soul-shaking unexpectedness, there was a violent, -rapid knocking at the door.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>He was on his feet in an instant, shaking in every limb,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> -panic-stricken as an Indian in a place of spirits. A primitive vague -dread of the supernatural held him motionless, obsessed by a formless -horror.</p> - -<p>The knocking at the door renewed itself, a frantic hammering. The -repetition lightened him, redeemed it from the vague purposelessness of -the ghostly, suggested human anxiety at fever pitch. His imagination, -relieved from the spell, flew to work, building catastrophes after -familiar models. His wife and daughter? The disasters of fire, -vehicular collision or heart-failure presented themselves in confused -and fragmentary pictures. The door now resounded under a ceaseless rain -of blows; and, trembling so violently as to feel almost ill, he ran to -open it.</p> - -<p>On the threshold stood a little, stout bearded man, past middle age. He -struck one or two frenzied blows at the air after the door had swung -away from him.</p> - -<p>“What do you want?” demanded Mr. Gilchrist.</p> - -<p>His visitor looked at him vacantly for a moment, seemingly unable to -adjust his mind to human intercourse.</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake, give me some brandy—if you are a Christian man!”</p> - -<p>“Come inside,” said Mr. Gilchrist, and he led the way into the -dining-room, the stranger following. “Bless my soul! What is it? An -accident?” He spoke nervously, more to himself than to his guest, who -replied nothing but stood swaying on his legs and kept from falling -only by the clutched-at support of the table. “Dear me—dear me! One -moment—I have some brandy here.” He fumbled with the key of the -tantalus. “Here you are. Steady, man, steady! Sit down.”</p> - -<p>The stranger drank off the brandy and took a deep breath, passing his -hand over his brow like one recovering from a swoon. In the moment or -two of silence Mr. Gilchrist had leisure to scrutinize him. He was -without a hat, and his head shone in the lamplight, a polished dome -rising from a narrow forehead and a half-ring of gray<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> wisps over -his ears. His eyes protruded, globularly, but it could be guessed -that they carried impressions to an active brain. His gray beard -converged irresolutely to a point in front of his chin. His clothes -were respectable but not well cut, and they were now soiled with earth. -One trouser-leg, Mr. Gilchrist noticed, was badly torn. Altogether his -appearance suggested a benevolent old gentleman, connected possibly -with some dissenting religious body, who had been badly mauled in -conflict with a gang of ruffians.</p> - -<p>“Feel better?” asked Mr. Gilchrist. “Have some more.”</p> - -<p>“No, I thank you, sir,” replied the stranger, and the tone of his voice -assured his host that he had to deal with an educated man. “I feel much -better. Alcohol, I may say, is an unfamiliar stimulant to me, and the -action of a comparatively small quantity is powerful. If I might beg a -little further indulgence of your kindness, however, I should be glad -to rest myself a minute or two.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, certainly—by all means. You will find that a more -comfortable chair. Have you met with an accident?”</p> - -<p>The stranger’s protruding eyes flashed with a singular brightness at -the question. Then he sighed and again pressed the palm of his hand -across his brow.</p> - -<p>“Your courtesy, sir, undoubtedly deserves some explanation of the -plight you have so generously relieved.” The man’s tone and phrasing -indicated a person accustomed to put his thoughts into an elaborated -word-structure for the attention of an audience. “I hardly think that -accident is the correct description of my misfortune. I am the victim, -sir, of a traitorous chain of circumstances, a chain of circumstances -so strange as to be scarcely credible.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed?” Mr. Gilchrist had reseated himself and now bent forward, his -face alight with interest kindled by his guest’s last sentence. “If I -can help you in any way, I shall be glad to do so.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> - -<p>The stranger acknowledged the offer by a downward inclination of the -head.</p> - -<p>“Your great kindness of heart needs no further exposition, sir—it is -self-evident. I have no words sufficient to thank you. I greatly fear, -however, that I am beyond human help. A matter of a few hours is the -utmost respite from my fate that I can expect. None the less, I am -deeply grateful to you for this breathing-space.”</p> - -<p>The stranger sighed again, and his countenance settled into a resigned -melancholy.</p> - -<p>“You make me curious,” said Mr. Gilchrist. “Of course, I don’t wish to -intrude——”</p> - -<p>The old gentleman raised his eyebrows and made a protesting movement -with his hand.</p> - -<p>“In all probability, sir, you will soon be made acquainted with a -garbled newspaper version of the calamity which has befallen me. Its -dreadful nature is bound to flare into publicity. It is useless, -therefore, for me to attempt to conceal it. If you care to hear -the true version of a tragedy which every newsboy will be shouting -to-morrow morning—a version stranger than the one counsel for defence -and prosecution will adopt as a battle-ground for their wits—I will -do my best to gratify your curiosity. I may say that it will be some -comfort to me to know that one fellow human being—especially so -kind-hearted a one as yourself—is acquainted with the real facts.”</p> - -<p>“My dear sir!” began Mr. Gilchrist. “Surely—you are overwrought—an -accident—I cannot believe——”</p> - -<p>“I do not look like a murderer,” said the old gentleman, interrupting -him, a pathetic little smile on his grave face. “Nevertheless I am -one. It is the terrible truth, I assure you, sir. I am a murderer, a -murderer trapped into crime by that chain of circumstances I spoke of. -And I am a man that until to-day never wittingly took the life of any -creature, however small.”</p> - -<p>“But—my dear sir!” Mr. Gilchrist half rose from his chair. His guest -waved him back into it.</p> - -<p>“I am speaking the sober truth. You think that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> are harbouring a -madman. I am as sane as you. If you care to listen, I will relate the -story, and when I have finished, if you desire to call in the local -police, you are at liberty to do so. I give you my word that there will -be no disturbance.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Gilchrist sat back in his chair, half-fascinated, half-frightened.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” he said briefly, not trusting himself to speak.</p> - -<p>“I must first request your patience whilst I relate a few circumstances -which, however remote they may appear from the terrible fact that has, -among other things, made me your guest, are nevertheless intimately -connected with it.</p> - -<p>“I am a man in business for myself, in a small way, as the saying is. -It might have been a larger way had not my intellectual activities been -employed on subjects which I regard as of graver and deeper import than -the purchase and sale of ephemeral commodities. For many years my mind -has been more familiar with that region known briefly as the occult, -than with the intricacies of terrestrial markets. I have striven -earnestly to penetrate to those great secrets which throb behind this -earthly veil—with what success I need not specify. Suffice it that -a small society of fellow-seekers after the Truth chose me as their -president, a position I still hold.</p> - -<p>“However small your acquaintance with this difficult subject, sir, -you are probably aware—from hearsay, at least—that it has two great -aspects, good and evil. The pure in heart may achieve a certain mastery -over forces hidden from the multitude and use them for innocent or -praiseworthy ends, such, for example, as establishing communication -between our loved ones who have crossed the threshold and those who -remain here. This is known vulgarly as white magic. But there is a -black magic. It is known to every adept that it is possible—difficult, -perhaps, but possible—for self-seeking men who have, perchance before -they became perverted, had the key to these vast mysteries put in -their hands, to control the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> mighty forces of which I have spoken and -turn them, regardless of the suffering they inflict, to their personal -advantage.</p> - -<p>“It is possible, I say, though exceedingly rare. Few men, good or evil, -are so fortunately endowed as to acquire a mastery over those forces -for any purpose, and of those who have acquired it the majority are -good. In any case they are rare. For myself, despite years of study -and anxious striving, I have utterly failed to grasp those forces save -in one or two trifling instances. This, by the way. For some time past -I have been conscious—I cannot now tell you by what agency I became -aware of it—that a group of men, greater adepts than any I have known, -had in fact subjected forces terrible in their power and were using -them to the danger of the world.”</p> - -<p>The stranger turned his bulbous bright eyes to Mr. Gilchrist, who sat -silent, gripped in a spell which was partly fear. In the moment or two -of silence he heard that infernal clock ticking along with insistent -industry. The stranger waited a brief space for some comment, and, -receiving none, proceeded.</p> - -<p>“You know, I have no doubt, that in the past—in the Middle Ages, for -example—certain secret societies existed for purposes partly occult. -I use <i>occult</i> as a synonym for the spiritual, for all that lies -beyond the veil. Such, I may remark, were the Rosicrucians. Others are -known to every student of the subject. One might almost class it as -common historical knowledge. Few, however, suspect that to-day such a -society, immeasurably more powerful than the ordinary man considers -possible, exists. It exists, and by some means it has penetrated to the -very arcana of the spiritual world. It wields a power, by its control -over forces that to call cosmic is to minimize, quite beyond ordinary -resistance. And it wields that power for evil. I could point out -several frightful disasters of recent times directly traceable to that -society. It is a menace to the world!”</p> - -<p>The old gentleman’s eyes flashed excitement at Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Gilchrist, who felt -in a dream, scarcely knowing whether he was awake or sleeping.</p> - -<p>“In one way only can it be overthrown—and it must be overthrown if our -civilization is to continue. A group of men—equally adept but pure in -soul—must meet and check each of their schemes and finally turn the -immense forces, too great for ordinary comprehension, with which they -work, against them, wiping them out of existence. Where that group -of men is to be found, sir, I do not know; but if the disease is to -find a remedy it must first be diagnosed. It was my duty, then, having -discovered this monstrous danger, to proclaim it to the world. And, -knowing full well the awful risks I ran, I did so. I contributed a long -article to a periodical which exists for the diffusion of spiritual -truth, and, so far as my knowledge permitted me, exposed the terrible -enemy.</p> - -<p>“I knew I invited disaster. Immediately I was warned—I cannot tell -you by what channel the warning came to me—that the gravest perils -threatened me. You, an ordinary man, whose most terrible engine of -destruction possible to the imagination is a monster-gun battleship, -can have no conception of the powers unchained against me. I cannot -tell you with what fervour I strove to acquire control over forces -that might befriend me, but in vain. Ever I was thwarted and baffled. -I lost what little powers I had. Stripped of every means of defence, -I waited in anguish for the blow to fall. What kind of blow it would -be and whence it would come I could not tell. I knew only that it was -inevitable. An undying enmity was all around me.</p> - -<p>“I expected something cataclysmic, world-shaking. Fool that I was, I -might have known better. ‘They’ are far too cunning thus to advertise -their power needlessly. Day after day I dwelt in a world of terror, and -nothing happened, save the complete interruption of any intercourse -with the spiritual world. Malevolent forces had closed that door. I -waited, each moment expecting disaster, I knew not from what quarter, -as a man waits in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> a dark wood for the lurking danger to spring at him. -Suddenly—a week ago to-day—they commenced to act.”</p> - -<p>He stopped to allow the import of his words to have full effect on his -host. Mr. Gilchrist opened his mouth as if to speak, but he could not -give utterance to a sound.</p> - -<p>“I was walking, about six o’clock in the afternoon, along Piccadilly. -The thoroughfare was crowded. I felt almost happy in the throng. My -mind was for the moment distracted from its ever-present anxiety, and I -had almost forgotten my danger. Suddenly a man jostled against me and -thrust a piece of paper into my hand. I glanced at it and knew my doom -was upon me. Here it is.”</p> - -<p>He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr. -Gilchrist. It bore only the words, in fat black type: “Prepare to meet -thy Judge.”</p> - -<p>“But,” said his host, grasping at the familiar in this strange story, -“this is merely a leaflet circulated by some religious body.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said the stranger, smiling. “That is their cunning. It -conveys little or nothing to an outsider. <i>But they knew I would know.</i> -I looked around for the man. He had disappeared. The blood surged to -my head; I reeled dizzily against a lamp-post and for a moment or -two knew nothing. The shock, long expected though it was, was awful. -After a brief space my brain cleared. My giddiness seemingly had not -been noticed. The street looked normal. I shook myself and prepared -to continue on my way. At that moment I happened to look round and -saw a large white bulldog sitting on the pavement and regarding me -fixedly. Even then—<i>I knew</i>. But I affected to take no notice of it -and commenced to walk onward. The dog got up and followed me. I walked -faster, but the dog was always a couple of feet behind my heels. I -stopped. The dog stopped. I went on again. The dog went on again also. -There was no doubt of its connection with me.</p> - -<p>“I cannot make you realize, sir, the awful fear that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> surged up in me, -mastering me, throttling me. I almost choked. The lights, the houses, -the people swam in my vision. For some moments I walked along blind, -unseeing. I trust that I am not a coward, that ordinary danger would -find me ready to meet it with some calmness of mind, but in contact -now with the peril I had dreaded, such firmness as I have gave way. -The seeming innocence of the manner in which my death-sentence was -conveyed, the apparently innocuous character of the messenger they -had sent, accentuated my terror. I felt that it was useless to appeal -to my fellow-creatures for help. The certain reply would have been an -imputation of madness. Above all, the purpose of the dog baffled me. It -seemed impossible that my enemies, with all the vast forces at their -command, should use so petty an instrument to strike at me. I could not -even imagine in what manner the dog was to bring about my annihilation. -The disparity of means to the end seemed grotesque.</p> - -<p>“So strongly did I feel this that I half-persuaded myself that I was -under an illusion, that the dog was merely a stray that had followed -me for a few yards in the hope of finding a new home. Walking along, -looking straight in front of me, for I dared not turn my head, I -was almost comforted by a semi-belief that the dog was no longer in -pursuit. Presently, with an effort of will, I looked back—to find, as -reason told me I should, the animal still at my heels, padding along -with its nose to the ground.</p> - -<p>“I stopped, more from a suspension of faculties than from any desire -to do so, and the dog stopped also. It sat calmly down, looking at me, -and I could almost fancy a quiet, diabolic smile on the loose, ugly, -dripping jaws. We exchanged a steadfast gaze—I can see it now; its -eyes were red-rimmed, bleary, cunning. Standing there, I strove to -divine its purpose. Suddenly it flashed upon me. The dog was tracking -me to my home. Over the trail it had gone once it would go again, this -time accompanied by the active agents of my foes. Why this roundabout -method of reaching me was adopted will no doubt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> seem a puzzle to you, -sir—it is so to me. But I was and am convinced of the fact.</p> - -<p>“No sooner had I realized this,” pursued the old gentleman, “than I -thought over means of ridding myself of it. The obvious way was simple. -I walked along the streets in quest of a policeman. The dog got quietly -on its legs again and followed. Some hundred yards or so farther on -I saw an officer and approached him. It was at the corner where the -street flows into Piccadilly Circus, and the open space was a maelstrom -of traffic, starred overhead by the lamps which were beginning to glow -against the darkening sky. I had to wait an agonized minute or two at -the policeman’s elbow whilst he set two fussy and nervous old ladies -upon their right way. At last he turned to me, and a radiance of hope -commenced to break over the dark tumult of my mind as I explained to -him that I was being followed by a stray dog and wished to give it into -his charge.</p> - -<p>“He looked patiently down at me from his towering bulk of body, -nodded, and asked: ‘Where’s the dog?’ I turned to point it out. To my -astonishment, it had disappeared. No shape of dog was anywhere visible. -The policeman’s eyes rested upon me with so questioning a look that I -felt uncomfortable. I could divine that he was thinking me deranged -or intoxicated. My mind was in a state of bewilderment also at the -sudden disappearance of the creature that a moment before had hung at -my heels with all the quiet persistency of Fate. I stammered, strove to -explain, found myself entangled in nervous foolishness rendered worse -by the slightly contemptuous, steady gaze of the policeman. I leaped -desperately out by the common exit from such embarrassments and tipped -the policeman with the only coin I happened to have in my pocket. It -was a half-crown. He smiled as I made off quickly, my ears burning.</p> - -<p>“Thank God, at any rate I was freed from my enemy. With a bounding -lightness of spirits I plunged into the vortex of traffic and made my -way across the Circus. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> was supremely happy. I remember smiling round -at the garish lights, at the thronging people, at the poor, at the -wealthy, at the flower-girls, at the vicious. I was glad, unutterably -glad, like a prisoner just reprieved, to be among my kind, of whatever -sort. I am not musical, but I found myself singing a trivial melody, -picked up somewhere from a barrel-organ.</p> - -<p>“Thus I proceeded on my way, going eastward, making, in fact, for the -station, where I take train to my home some few miles farther down the -line than this.</p> - -<p>“I was somewhere in the Strand when suddenly I heard a girl who passed -me say to her companion: ‘Oh, what an ugly beast!’ I turned sharply, an -ice-cold hand clutching at my heart, and saw to my horror the white dog -again at my heels. He looked up at me, and I fled, with a cry, down a -side street. The dog followed easily.</p> - -<p>“In wild terror I ran as fast as my strength, never great, would -permit. It was useless, of course. The dog found no difficulty in -keeping up with me. I stopped at last from sheer exhaustion, and the -creature seemed to grin at my distress. Had a policeman been visible, I -would have tried again to hand it over to him, convinced though I was -that the attempt would be in vain.</p> - -<p>“One means of escape presented itself to me, but I could not avail -myself of it. I might have called a taxicab, but I had no money. I -ought to have tried that way first.</p> - -<p>“A wild rage seized me. I rushed at the dog, kicking at him furiously. -The animal dodged me with ease. I could not touch him. I ran on again.</p> - -<p>“Thus, now running in mad panic, now walking with the slow deliberation -of settled despair, I continued on my way, and always the dog followed. -Why I did not go in another direction and throw the animal off the -scent, I do not know. My one leading idea was to get home, and perhaps -subconsciously I knew that, whatever stratagems I tried, the dog was -not to be shaken from his trail.</p> - -<p>“I was almost demented with terror when unexpectedly salvation showed -itself. My station was not many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> hundred yards distant—I was in Broad -Street, I think—when suddenly there was a snarl and a furious barking -behind me. A large dog, belonging to some passer-by, had sprung at my -enemy, and they were locked in desperate fight. In a few seconds a -crowd collected. I saw a policeman hastening up. It was my chance. With -all that remained to me of strength I ran toward the station.</p> - -<p>“I heard voices calling after me, but I heeded them not. The sounds of -angry strife continued, muffled, and lent me hope and speed. Calling up -every energy, I raced along, sped down the approach, saw that it wanted -but the fraction of a minute to seven-thirty, dashed through the gate, -which clanged behind me, and flung myself into the train for home just -as it started. I thought I was safe. As I put my hand out of the window -to shut the door, I heard a commotion at the gate. I looked out and -saw the dog struggling with the officials, vainly striving to leap the -barrier. We moved out of the station, leaving him behind.”</p> - -<p>He stopped, looking at his host. Mr. Gilchrist gasped and nodded. The -stranger continued:</p> - -<p>“For a few exultant minutes I thought that I was saved. But presently, -as I calmed and my reason began to work, I realized that ‘they’ -had gained their point. They had only to watch and wait. On the -morrow a human emissary of my foes would accompany the dog over the -trail, starting at the same time, arriving within a few minutes of -seven-thirty at that station platform. From that the direction, at -least, of my home could easily be deduced. Convinced that sooner or -later I should be journeying on that line, they had only to watch and -wait till I appeared. I knew that there was no hope for me, that my -doom was certain.</p> - -<p>“I reached home, in a turmoil of fears, and fell ill. For a week I did -not leave the house, and all through my indisposition the spectre of -that white dog dominated not only my dreams but every waking thought. I -could see it looking out at me from under the furniture, sitting with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> -patient eyes on my every movement, in corners of the house, barring my -way to the door, if I wished to enter or leave a room. It haunted me, -kept me at an excruciating point of mental anguish.</p> - -<p>“This morning, however, I felt better, and my business imperatively -claiming my attention after a week of absence, I decided to go to town.</p> - -<p>“I left the house with the feeling of a man who goes out to execution. -Nevertheless, human nature revolted at the prospect of dying without -resistance, and I went armed. In my pocket was a revolver which had -belonged to my father. He had fought in the Indian Mutiny. I was born -in India myself. Some of his fighting instincts arose in me as I walked -down to the station fingering the weapon in my pocket.</p> - -<p>“Dread oppressed me as I entered the train and journeyed cityward. -I felt that I was going to meet my fate. None the less I went about -my business, and all day nothing occurred, save moments of fear, to -alarm me. I made up my mind to return by a midday train—would that -I had done so!—though perhaps it would have made no difference. So -great a press of work awaited me, however, that it was impossible. One -hindrance after another stood in my way, and with rapidly rising fears -I was forced to remain and see the time slip away until the only train -that remained to me was the seven-thirty.</p> - -<p>“My office is a little room at the top of a large building. I keep no -clerk. Most or all the other workers in the building had left while I -was still writing letters, and the solitude which broods over the city -in the evening weighed more and more oppressively on me every minute. -My nerves were already at stretch when I heard something thrust into -the letter-box. I jumped to my feet, trembling with premonitions. I -heard no footfall along the passage. After a moment, when my heart -seemed to stop, I went to the box, and to my horror—drew out a piece -of paper identical with the one pushed into my hand a week before. It -bore the same solemn words: ‘Prepare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> to meet thy Judge,’ and nothing -more. I believe I reeled and staggered. I know that in a flash of -frenzy I flung the door wide and rushed into the passage. I could have -sworn—I could swear it now—that I saw the white dog slink round the -corner a few yards along the corridor.</p> - -<p>“Trembling in every limb, my head on fire, I hastily locked up the -office and made my way to the station. The building seemed quite -deserted as I left it. I saw no sign of the white dog. Choosing the -most frequented thoroughfares, I soon reached the terminus without any -cause for alarm. I remember that my heart beat so violently as to make -me feel faint as I passed the barrier. I scarcely dared look for the -dog, but with an effort of will I did so and assured myself it was not -there.</p> - -<p>“I chose an unoccupied carriage and settled myself in it—waiting, -with throbbing anxiety, for the few remaining minutes to slip away -before the train was due to start. Those minutes seemed vast spaces of -time in which the movement of the world had stopped, waiting for some -catastrophe. At last I heard the bell ring. For one wild, exultant -moment I thought that I was safe.</p> - -<p>“Then, just as the train commenced to move, I saw a man running along -the platform, holding a dog in leash. The animal strained powerfully at -the lead, his nose to the ground. On the instant, I recognized it—the -white dog! The door of my compartment was thrown open, and man and dog -leaped in. A porter slammed the door after them, and we were moving -fast out of the station. Short of throwing myself on the rails there -was no escape possible.</p> - -<p>“The man was dressed in the garb of a clergyman. He was a large, -powerfully built fellow, strength of mind and body marked all over him. -He nodded and smiled at me as he drew a long breath to recover his wind -and sat down. The dog slunk under the seat, where it lay watching me -with steady eyes.</p> - -<p>“I cowered in my corner in terror. Had I wished to speak, I could not -have done so. The sight of one of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> all-powerful foes, visible for -the first time, fascinated me. I could not take my eyes from him. -Occasionally he looked up at me from his newspaper with a slow, quiet -smile which seemed to say: ‘All right, my friend. I’ll deal with you -presently.’</p> - -<p>“The train clanged and banged over the switches and gathered speed for -its rush into the dark night and the loneliness of the countryside. -Minute after minute I sat there in panic, watching him, agonized every -now and then by that terrible sure smile with which he glanced at me. -The silence in the carriage was the oppressive silence which awaits a -tragedy to break it with a lightning-flash.</p> - -<p>“Mile after mile the train raced on, and nothing happened. The suspense -was maddening me. My lips were dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my -mouth. I could feel a cold sweat beading my forehead. I took out my -handkerchief to wipe it, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground, -close to his feet. I recognized it. It was the second warning. Before -I could move, the man bent to pick it up. He handed it to me with that -meaning smile and said, with awful quietness: ‘Are you prepared?’</p> - -<p>“I started with terror and felt something hurt the hand which all the -time had been gripping the revolver in my pocket. It was the tense -pressure of my finger on the weapon.</p> - -<p>“The man nodded and smiled at me again. I gasped, feeling certain -that my hour had come. With the fascination of a man trapped and -bound, I saw him bend sideways and put his hand into his hip pocket. -Instantly—I know not how—there was a deafening report in the -carriage, and a film of smoke floated between me and him. He sank to -the floor. He rolled slightly with his last gasp, his arm outflung. -I had killed him! I stood fixed with horror. In his hand was—not a -revolver, but a tobacco-pipe.</p> - -<p>“For a moment my senses left me. I knew nothing. I was brought to -consciousness by a sharp pain in my leg. The white dog held me in a -savage grip, growling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> in a manner frightful to hear. Frenzy overcame -me; I kicked and fought in vain. Then, suddenly recollecting the -revolver in my hand, I pressed it to his head and fired. I was free. -Free? No, trapped in the swaying carriage splashed with blood, its -floor heaped with the large body of the man I had killed. The train -was racing along at top speed. In five or ten minutes more we should -stop and the crime would be discovered. Mad with horror, I rushed to -the door, opened it, flung myself into the black night. I remember -the roar of the train passing me as I rolled down the embankment, -have an impression of a bright light whisked away, and then I lost -consciousness.</p> - -<p>“When my senses returned, I saw the light in your house. Clambering -over a wall, I made my way to it, fainting, scarce able to walk, but -frantic, it seemed to me, for help. You kindly took me in. For the -moment I have respite, but ‘they’ have triumphed. By their cunning -manipulation of the forces behind Life, I have been tricked into -murdering one who to all outward semblance was an innocent man. In a -day or two I shall be standing in the dock, and finally my life will be -violently cut short by my fellow-men, accompanied by every circumstance -of ignominy. Fully, indeed, are they revenged!</p> - -<p>“Now, sir, you know my story; and if, after hearing it, you care to -call in the local police——”</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>At that moment there was a sound of carriage-wheels on the road. They -stopped just in front of the house. The stranger sprang to his feet. -His eyes swept round the room in a swift, panic-stricken quest for -concealment. Then, crying: “No! They shall not take me! They shall not -take me!” he rushed from the room.</p> - -<p>Mr. Gilchrist, still spellbound by the story to which he had been -so intently listening, stood for a moment as though paralyzed, -staring at the open door. A familiar whistle from outside, a cheery -call—“Gilchrist!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Gilchrist!”—gave him back his faculties. It was -Williamson—thank God!</p> - -<p>Mr. Gilchrist ran out into the hall, found the front door still open -from the stranger’s abrupt departure, peered out into the dark night -intensified by the two staring eyes of Williamson’s gig-lamps.</p> - -<p>“Come in, Williamson!” he called. His voice was joyous with relief. As -he spoke, he heard swift feet upon the gravel! The words had barely -left his mouth when a violent collision knocked him breathless against -the doorpost. It was the stranger, back again!</p> - -<p>“The white dog! The white dog!” he gasped in terror.</p> - -<p>Mr. Gilchrist clutched at him and fought for breath to speak.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear sir——” he began, irritably. This was absurd! Of course -there was a dog—the harmless old white bull which was Williamson’s -invariable companion. He tried to explain, but the stranger, tugging -frantically to get free, would listen to nothing. With the strength of -a madman he wrenched himself from Gilchrist’s detaining grasp and fled -into the house.</p> - -<p>Williamson, preceded by his old dog, came up the gravel path.</p> - -<p>“All alone?” he asked, cheerily.</p> - -<p>Mr. Gilchrist hesitated, and then, obeying an obscure impulse, lied.</p> - -<p>“Er—yes,” he replied. “Come in.”</p> - -<p>The absurdity of the falsehood occurred to him at once. Cursing his -folly, he tried to think of some plausible explanation as he led his -friend to the dining-room, where, of course, the stranger’s presence -would stultify his ridiculous statement. He glanced round the room as -he entered. It was empty! Where, then? His eyes rested on a suspicious -bulging of the window-curtain.</p> - -<p>He waved his friend to a chair.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” he said, with an assumption of normality. “What’s the -news?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> - -<p>“There’s news, right enough,” said Williamson, dropping into the -proffered seat. “Terrible business on the seven-thirty to-night. -Poor old Hepplewhite—shot dead—he and his dog. Ghastly struggle, -evidently—blood over everything!”</p> - -<p>“Good God!” ejaculated Gilchrist, chilled with a sudden horror. He had -given no real credence to his visitor’s fantastic story. This brutal -contact with the reality paralyzed him in an awful terror at his own -false position. What was to be done? He strove to think—played for -time. “And the murderer?” he asked thickly.</p> - -<p>“Escaped—for the moment,” replied Williamson in a tone that suggested -confidence in the police. “Here, Tiger! Come here!” He addressed the -dog, which was sniffing uneasily about the room.</p> - -<p>The dog came up to him obediently, wagging his stump of tail. He -carried in his mouth a piece of folded paper which he had picked up -and now presented to his master. Gilchrist recognized it with a little -shock as his friend opened it.</p> - -<p>“<i>Prepare to meet thy Judge!</i>” Williamson read out with mock solemnity, -and smiled in superior tolerance of the evangelist enthusiasm which had -printed the leaflet.</p> - -<p>Gilchrist shuddered and thought suddenly of the terrified man behind -the curtain, dimly realizing the significance to that overwrought brain -of these fatal words. He glanced at the betraying bulge, saw it move -slightly.</p> - -<p>Williamson smiled down into the intelligent eyes of his old dog.</p> - -<p>“Tiger, old fellow,” he said jocularly, “you’ve made a mistake—you’ve -brought this message to the wrong man. It is evidently meant for the -person who shot poor old Hepplewhite. Here”—he held it out to the -dog—“take it to him. <i>Find him!</i>”</p> - -<p>The dog took the paper in his jaws, wagged his tail with a -comprehending look up at his master, and ran, following the scent which -was on the paper, across the room. He stopped, pawing at the bulged -curtain. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> - -<p>Williamson stared after him in amusement.</p> - -<p>“Is he there, Tiger?” he said, humouring the intelligent animal. “Have -you found him?”</p> - -<p>Gilchrist stood speechless. What was coming next?</p> - -<p>The curtain was flung suddenly aside. The old gentleman stood revealed, -stepped forward into the room. His bulbous eyes were unwholesomely -bright.</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen,” he said, “I surrender. You have won. I might, of course, -shoot you”—he took a revolver from his pocket—“as I shot your -confederate in the train to-night. But I recognize that it would be -useless. Your Society would raise up yet other avengers——”</p> - -<p>Both Gilchrist and Williamson had shrunk back in alarm from that -brandished revolver—were unable, in their astonishment, to utter a -word. They could only stare, bewildered.</p> - -<p>The old gentleman looked down at the dog which still offered him the -paper.</p> - -<p>“I understand—perfectly,” he said, with a grim appreciation of some -subtlety which eluded them. “In a better cause, I should admire the -ingenuity with which you have utilized means which are apparently of -the simplest. I do homage to your powers, gentlemen. Or perhaps you -yourselves are only half-conscious tools of that occult force you -think you control—that occult force which has, with such singular -completeness, worked my ruin.” There was a sneer in his voice. He -turned to Gilchrist. “As for you, sir, I congratulate you on your -faculty of dissimulation. You gulled me excellently well. I can only -bow in acknowledgment of the supreme irony with which you beguiled me -into telling you the miserable story which, of course, you already knew -far better than I. I do not grudge you your triumph. It was superbly -well planned. You held me without suspicion whilst you awaited the -arrival—for the last time—of the symbol of my doom—<i>the white dog</i>!” -His smile was an illumination of savage sarcasm. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> - -<p>There was a pause of silence in which Williamson glanced inquiringly at -his friend.</p> - -<p>The old gentleman laughed in a mirthless mockery which was hideous to -hear.</p> - -<p>“But now, face to face at last with you whose monstrous plot I was at -least able to detect, if I could not baffle it—I yet cheat you!” he -cried. “I cheat you of your complete vengeance! You thought to condemn -me to the ignominy of a murderer’s trial!” He laughed again. “I elude -you—thus!”</p> - -<p>With a quick movement he raised the revolver and fired.</p> - -<p>The two friends, after the moment in which they recovered from the -shock, bent over his body.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand!” said Williamson, horror-stricken and mystified. -“Who and what was he?”</p> - -<p>Gilchrist answered him in one terse word.</p> - -<p>“Mad,” he replied, pushing away the white dog, which sniffed innocently -at the body.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> - -<h2>A POINT OF ETHICS</h2> - -<p>He leaned forward across the flower-decked dinner-table and raised his -glass.</p> - -<p>“To many happy anniversaries, darling!”</p> - -<p>The pretty woman he addressed raised her glass also. Gowned in a simple -evening robe whose discreet <i>décolletage</i> revealed shoulders still -youthfully rounded, she was the incarnation of that delicate refinement -which lifts beauty into charm with one deft touch. The single dark rose -at her breast was its present symbol. It was also, indubitably, the -deliberate symbol of something more. The large, emotional eyes which -smiled upon him were radiant with happiness.</p> - -<p>“<i>Many</i> anniversaries, Jack!” she echoed, shaking her head slowly in -emphasis, her gaze in his. “All as happy as this—all of us together!”</p> - -<p>Both turned, as with a common thought, to the demure little -five-year-old girl who watched them with grave eyes from her place at -the dinner-table. She smiled at their smiles, confidently.</p> - -<p>“I’m as fond of her as you are, Evelyn,” he said, with evident -sincerity. “Never fear! I couldn’t love her more if she were my own -daughter.”</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t be kinder to her, Jack,” said the young woman, in -affectionate agreement. “Oh, my dear, we are very fortunate, both of -us, Dorothy and I! Without you!” she sighed. “A whole year! A whole -year of perfect happiness! I thought I was happy before—but I did not -know what happiness was—until it began a year ago to-day!”</p> - -<p>He smiled. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nor I, Evelyn. Looking back, it seems that I only began to live on -the day I married you.” He glanced around him. “A year ago!—You were -right, dear, to have our little dinner here to-night, and not at River -Lawn. You were right to keep this place going—it reminds us both of -our starting-point.” His tone warmed with affection. “But then, you are -always right!”</p> - -<p>She beamed with gratitude.</p> - -<p>“I wanted to keep it because it was <i>my</i> home—it was what I brought to -you. You gave me our home at River Lawn, Jack—and you know how I love -it. But this—this is where you came to me, and it’s all sacred to me. -I couldn’t bear to change a thing in it. Besides,” she added, smilingly -lifting her argument out of sentimentality, “it is really an economy, -isn’t it? With your work we must have a city home as well. Why change -this flat for another which would perhaps be less convenient, and which -we should have to refurnish?”</p> - -<p>“Quite,” he agreed. “I gave into you about it long ago. But I didn’t -like it at first, I’ll admit.”</p> - -<p>“You are too big a man, Jack, dear, to be jealous of the past. And I -am sure Harry would not mind, if he could know.” Her eyes looked past -him, dreamily reminiscent. “Poor old Harry!” she said, after a little -silence.</p> - -<p>“I should like to have met him,” he said, conversationally, getting on -with his fish. “He must have been a good chap.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he was! I wish I could have got some news of him—of how he was -killed. No one in the regiment seemed to know anything. It is dreadful -to go out like that—no one knowing how!” She shuddered. Then, with -an instinctive movement to break the spell of unwanted memories, she -pressed the bell for the maid to clear the course from the table.</p> - -<p>The conversation resumed on the everyday matters of his profession. -She thoroughly identified herself with her husband’s interests and -discussed them, as was her wont, with intelligent sympathy. She was one -of those women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> who stimulate all the latent potentialities of their -men. He—it was obvious from the clear-cut features—was both resolute -and clever; a man who would go far. Already Satterthwaite was a name in -the Courts for which clients would pay big fees.</p> - -<p>They were discussing the important case of the day when suddenly she -looked round, startled.</p> - -<p>“Jack! Someone has come in—or gone out. I heard the hall door slam!”</p> - -<p>“Imagination, my dear,” he replied, smiling sceptically. “The maids are -busy—they would not go out. We should have heard the bell if there -were a visitor. No one has a key except ourselves——”</p> - -<p>The words were scarcely uttered when the door behind them opened. The -child, who sat facing it, stared in amazement for a second, and then -slipped off her chair and ran toward the intruder with a wild shout of -joy.</p> - -<p>“<i>Daddie!</i>”</p> - -<p>Mr. and Mrs. Satterthwaite sprang up from their seats, turned to see -a youngish man, clad in an ill-fitting lounge suit, standing in the -doorway. The young woman clutched at the back of her chair, her eyes -wide in terror.</p> - -<p>“Harry!” She breathed the cry almost voicelessly in her stupefaction. -“<i>Harry’s ghost!</i>”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite snatched back the child, who had recoiled from the -flaming anger in the stranger’s face.</p> - -<p>“What does this mean?” asked the intruder, fiercely, ignoring the -little one. “Evelyn!” The summons was uttered with outraged but -confident authority.</p> - -<p>She shrank back, covering her face.</p> - -<p>“No!” She spoke as to herself. “No!—It can’t be! He’s dead—he’s dead!”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite intervened, his jaw setting hard, the level tone of his -voice evidently sternly controlled.</p> - -<p>“May I ask who you are?” he enquired, coldly.</p> - -<p>The stranger faced him. Anger met anger in their eyes.</p> - -<p>“Certainly. I am Harry Tremaine. And perhaps you will be good enough -to tell me who the devil you are—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>and what you are doing with my wife -in my flat?” The man’s voice trembled with fury. His face worked with -passion. He took a step toward the young woman.</p> - -<p>She drew quickly away from him, sheltered herself behind her companion, -whence she stared at him with fascinated eyes.</p> - -<p>“My name is Satterthwaite—and I am dining with my wife!”</p> - -<p>“Your—wife——!” He repeated the words slowly as though scarcely -crediting such audacious impudence of assertion. Then he laughed in -harsh mockery. “Don’t talk nonsense!” He looked down at the child at -Satterthwaite’s side. “Dorothy!—come here!”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite restrained the child’s movement of obedience with a firm -grip. “Excuse me,” he said quietly, “I think the youngster is better -absent from this discussion.” He led the bewildered little girl to -the door, opened it, and called for the nurse. “Put Miss Dorothy to -bed!” he ordered. “And then all of you go out for the evening. Go to -the movies. Here!” He held out a note. “Have a good time—and get out -at once! Mrs. Satterthwaite and I want to be alone in the flat this -evening.”</p> - -<p>He closed the door and returned to the others. The stranger, dominated -for the moment by his quiet, masterful manner, had made no movement to -interfere, stood, as he had left him, by the doorway. But his eyes were -fixed still wrathfully upon the young woman who stared back at him, -fascinated, clutching at the table for support. Her lips were ashen, -parted in a soundless terror.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite turned to her.</p> - -<p>“Do you know this man, Evelyn?”</p> - -<p>She made an effort, answered.</p> - -<p>“It—it is Harry—or his ghost!”</p> - -<p>The stranger laughed in bitter scorn.</p> - -<p>“What foolery!—Don’t pretend I died since yesterday!”</p> - -<p>Amazement came into both their faces. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Since yesterday?” they repeated in one bewildered echo.</p> - -<p>The stranger frowned.</p> - -<p>“What is there strange about that?” he asked, irritably, impressed, -nevertheless, by their evidently genuine astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Where—where were you yesterday, Harry?” asked the young woman -unsteadily, as though scarcely daring to probe some awful mystery.</p> - -<p>He laughed shortly in impatience.</p> - -<p>“Why, of course——” he began in confident tones. He stopped, a baffled -look suddenly in his eyes. “Of course——” he began again, less -confidently. Then he gave it up. “I—I can’t remember—it’s funny!—I -can’t remember where I was yesterday——” He bit his lower lip, looked -around him slowly with bent and puzzled brows, plainly uneasy at this -unexpected forgetfulness. “But of course I must have been here!” He put -an end to his embarrassment by dogmatic assertion.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite contemplated him for a moment with eyes that searched him -to the depths.</p> - -<p>“H’m!” he said, meditatively. “There’s something extraordinary about -this!—Won’t you sit down, Mr. Tremaine?” He pointed to a chair. “Let -us discuss this matter amicably—it’s not so simple as you think, and -hostility won’t help us.”</p> - -<p>Tremaine hesitated a moment, a flicker of angry revolt in his eyes. But -there was a note in Satterthwaite’s quiet tones which more than invited -compliance, and he seated himself in the chair with a shrug of the -shoulders which justified him in himself.</p> - -<p>“This is my flat—and my wife,” he said, “anyway!” The assertion -sounded curiously weak.</p> - -<p>The young woman watched him speechlessly.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite caressed his chin with that little gesture which was -habitual to him when commencing the cross-examination of a witness. He -began in the suave, deliberate tones familiar to the Courts. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What is the last thing you can remember, Mr. Tremaine?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Tremaine stared at him.</p> - -<p>“I—I think——” he began, hesitatingly, almost automatically -responsive to Satterthwaite’s seductive voice. Then he stopped, the -baffled look again in his eyes. “What the devil has it got to do with -you?” he demanded, in exasperation.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite was unruffled.</p> - -<p>“It has a great deal to do with me, Mr. Tremaine,” he said, “and with -all of us here. So please try to answer my questions.”</p> - -<p>Tremaine’s eyes blazed at him.</p> - -<p>“What right have you to question me?—What are you doing here at all, -that’s what I want to know?”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite soothed him with a gesture.</p> - -<p>“We’re coming to that presently. Answer my questions now—and afterward -you can put any questions to me that you like. Now—try and remember!”</p> - -<p>Tremaine relapsed sullenly. It was evident that he was secretly -conscious of the inferiority in which his absence of memory placed him. -His eyes sought the young woman as though to elicit some key-point of -remembrance, came back empty.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he said, with suspicious ill-humour.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite was courtesy itself.</p> - -<p>“Now, think! Carry your mind back! You were in the Army, weren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Of course!”</p> - -<p>“You remember that—perfectly?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—of course I do!” His tone was impatient.</p> - -<p>“Good! You remember being in France?”</p> - -<p>“I should think so!”</p> - -<p>“In what part of France were you last?”</p> - -<p>“In the Argonne.”</p> - -<p>“Right! Now—when did you leave France?”</p> - -<p>Tremaine hesitated, bit his lip. The eyes went blank again. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I—I can’t remember.”</p> - -<p>“Do you remember leaving France at all?—Do you remember the voyage?”</p> - -<p>There was a silence whilst Tremaine evidently made an effort of memory.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, at last, “I cannot remember it.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!—Now, what is the last thing you can remember in France? You were -in the trenches, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“No—we had left the trenches behind us. We were fighting in the -forest—I can remember that—a sort of ravine with splintered trees—we -were attacking——” A new note of interest came into his voice, a -satisfaction at recovering these memories. “By George, yes! Of course, -there was a terrific attack on—we were going for the Kriemhild Line. -What happened——?” He hesitated. “I was running forward—the Boche was -shelling like mad——” He seemed to be visualizing a scene, his face -screwed up, his eyes narrowed, his lower lip between his teeth. “I saw -a whole bunch go down—and then——” He stopped.</p> - -<p>“And then?”</p> - -<p>“A sheet of flame. I—I can’t remember anything more. I—I must have -been hit, I suppose——”</p> - -<p>“I see. Now, can you remember what you were wearing just then?”</p> - -<p>“I was in shirt and breeches. My tunic had been torn off the day -before—breaking through the undergrowth. I remember that perfectly.”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite nodded.</p> - -<p>“And your identity disc?”</p> - -<p>“I’d lost that the day before also—I remember thinking I should have -to get a new one.”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite smiled.</p> - -<p>“We’re coming to it,” he said, encouragingly. “Now—just before you -came into this flat, where were you?”</p> - -<p>“In a street-car. I got off at the corner in the usual way, and let -myself in with my key.”</p> - -<p>“You had that key in France, I suppose?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, I had it with a few others on a ring in my breeches-pocket. I -kept it for the day I should come back.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. Now—before you got into that street-car, where were you? Where -had you been?”</p> - -<p>Tremaine hesitated again.</p> - -<p>“I can’t for the life of me remember!—I—I sort of woke up in that -street-car, as if I had been to sleep on my way home. I remember -looking out and thinking to myself—of course, that’s where I -am—nearly home. It seemed quite natural.”</p> - -<p>Obviously, the man himself was puzzled. There was a short silence, and -then Satterthwaite spoke again.</p> - -<p>“And you remember nothing of what you did between the day you attacked -the Kriemhild Line—and finding yourself in the street-car?”</p> - -<p>Tremaine frowned in a desperate effort to collect his thoughts.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said at last. “It’s an extraordinary thing but my mind seems a -complete blank!”</p> - -<p>“Can you remember the date of that attack upon the Kriemhild Line—the -day you saw that sheet of flame go up?”</p> - -<p>“October tenth,” came the reply without hesitation.</p> - -<p>“What year?”</p> - -<p>“1918, of course.”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite smiled.</p> - -<p>“Do you know what year this is?”</p> - -<p>The other stared at him, a sudden fear in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Not 1919?” he cried. “Don’t say I’ve lost a year?”</p> - -<p>“1920!”</p> - -<p>“Good God!” He jumped up, gripped in a panic that drove the blood out -of his face, and switched round to his wife. “Evelyn! Where have I -been? Haven’t I been here all this time?”</p> - -<p>She took a deep breath.</p> - -<p>“I see you to-day for the first time since you sailed in April, 1918, -Harry,” she said, steadily. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> - -<p>He stood swaying on his feet, hand pressed to his brow, through a long -moment of realization. No one spoke. Then he dropped his hand, turned -to his wife again.</p> - -<p>“And you?—When——?” he indicated Satterthwaite with a helpless -gesture, “when did this happen?”</p> - -<p>She met his eyes bravely.</p> - -<p>“I married—Jack—a year ago to-day!” she answered. The effort of her -speech was obvious.</p> - -<p>“But you couldn’t!” he exclaimed. “It’s bigamy!”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite went without a word to the escritoire standing in a -corner of the room and took out a paper. He came back with it, handed -it silently to Tremaine. It was an official War Department notification.</p> - -<p>Tremaine stared at it.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he muttered, appalled.</p> - -<p>“You are dead, my friend!” said Satterthwaite, grimly. “Killed in -action, October 10th, 1918.”</p> - -<p>Again there was a long silence. Tremaine sank heavily into a chair, -stared straight in front of him. An expression of combativeness came -slowly into his face, his jaw set. At last he uttered an aggressive -grunt.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m not!” he said. “I’m very much alive. So that’s that! -Whatever has happened, I’ve come back! This is my flat—and my wife and -child. And you can clear out just as soon as you like!” His eyes flamed -hostility as they met Satterthwaite’s. “Quit!”</p> - -<p>His wife sprang forward.</p> - -<p>“Harry!” she cried, imploring she scarcely knew what.</p> - -<p>He turned to her.</p> - -<p>“I’ll talk to you presently,” he said, in a voice of smouldering -resentment. “I’m not blaming you—but I guess you might have waited a -bit. We’ll square this out by ourselves when he’s gone.”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite smiled, and his smile was by no means acquiescent.</p> - -<p>“I guess you’ll have to wait for that, Mr. Tremaine,” he said, in even -tones that had an edge to them. “I’m not going just yet.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> - -<p>Tremaine glared up at him.</p> - -<p>“What?” he cried, incredulously.</p> - -<p>“I’m not going,” repeated Satterthwaite. “You don’t realize the -situation, my friend. This woman has been living with me for a year -as my wife. I do not propose to make her name a public scandal. -Officially, you are dead. Well—remain dead!”</p> - -<p>Tremaine laughed mockingly.</p> - -<p>“And leave you my wife, my child—all this!” He waved his hand round -the flat. “Thank you!”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“I’ll buy your property of you at your own valuation. Your will has -been proved. The amount of your estate, plus interest, shall be -refunded to you. I’ll give you, in addition, any reasonable amount as -compensation. You are the victim of circumstances, my friend—but, as a -straight man, there’s only one thing for you to do. You can’t ruin this -woman’s life!”</p> - -<p>Both men, following their thought, turned to glance at her. She stood -tense, deathly pale, looking from one to the other, evidently in an -atrocious dilemma, unable to utter a word.</p> - -<p>Tremaine swung round again to his rival, sneered scornfully.</p> - -<p>“What kind of fool do you take me for? Do you expect me to give up my -wife and child, my home—give up my whole existence and pretend to be -someone else—just to oblige you? You must be mad!—I’ve come back -and here I am—come to stay,” he ended, doggedly, “to pick up my life -again!”</p> - -<p>There was a shade of sympathy in Satterthwaite’s eyes as he -contemplated him.</p> - -<p>“But can’t you see that it’s impossible to pick it up again where you -left off?” he said. “Can’t you see that as Harry Tremaine you can never -be happy again? You can’t get away from what has happened—it will -always be there, haunting you—and you’ll be reminded of it—pointed -at. The other women will make your wife’s life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> a hell in the thousand -little subtle ways they have. And besides, <i>what have you been doing -for the past two years</i>? You’ve been living somewhere—as somebody. -That existence will always be waiting in the background—ready to -spring out on you—and you can’t guard against it, for you don’t even -know what it was!”</p> - -<p>The young woman bent forward.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you remember, Harry?—Can’t you think where you’ve been—what -you’ve been doing?” she asked, anxiously. “Oh!” she added, with a -little despairing gesture, “I only want to do what is right—what is -best for all of us!”</p> - -<p>Tremaine shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t the remotest idea of where I was at lunchtime to-day!” he -said. “I may have come straight out of hospital, for all I know.”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite nodded, humouring him.</p> - -<p>“You may—of course,” he said. “But it’s highly improbable. Two years -is a long time to stay in hospital. Almost certainly you have been -living somewhere, in new relationships. Be reasonable, my friend. Can’t -you see that the only thing is to sell out to me—and clear off, go -right away—start a fresh life?”</p> - -<p>Tremaine revolted.</p> - -<p>“I’m damned if I do!” he replied. “Right is right—you can’t get -away from it. I’m Harry Tremaine—and I’ve come back to my wife and -child—to my own existence—and I’ve got a right to them!” He rose from -his chair. “Enough of this talk! I’m master of this flat—and I give -you just time enough to pack up your traps. Get a move on!” His voice -quivered with an anger he instinctively accentuated as a protection -against the other man’s arguments. “I want to be alone with my wife! -Get out!” He moved forward menacingly.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite did not stir.</p> - -<p>“I think not,” he said, steadily. “Not like that.”</p> - -<p>Tremaine’s anger flamed up in him.</p> - -<p>“Get out!—or I’ll throw you out!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> - -<p>Satterthwaite smiled.</p> - -<p>“If you wish to fight for her——?” he said, grimly inviting.</p> - -<p>With a savage snarl, Tremaine tore off his coat.</p> - -<p>His wife sprang forward in terrified appeal.</p> - -<p>“Harry!”</p> - -<p>He flung her off brutally.</p> - -<p>“Stand out of this!” he said. “This is a man’s fight! I’ll deal with -you afterward!”</p> - -<p>An atmosphere of primitive passion filled the room. She cowered -away, watching the rivals with fascinated eyes, like a squaw for -whom two braves unsheath their knives. Both were big, powerful men. -Satterthwaite made no movement while Tremaine flung aside his coat and -rolled up his shirt-sleeves—but his eyes were warily alert and his -fists clenched massively at the end of the arms held loosely ready for -sudden action.</p> - -<p>With a savage bellow of maddened hatred, Tremaine rushed at him -blindly. Satterthwaite’s right arm jerked up to guard—and like -lightning his left fist shot out from the shoulder, crashed full -between his adversary’s eyes. Tremaine went over backward, arms in the -air, his head striking the table with an impact that shattered glass -and crockery, rolled over to the floor. He lay motionless.</p> - -<p>His wife had darted to his side, bent over him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jack!” she cried, looking up to the victor. “You haven’t killed -him?”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite bent over him also.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said. “Get some water!”</p> - -<p>She took the jug from the table and Satterthwaite splashed his face. -Tremaine drew a difficult breath, opened his eyes, looked up and around -him, dazed.</p> - -<p>“Where am I?” he asked, feebly.</p> - -<p>“You’re all right,” said Satterthwaite, bathing away the blood which -trickled down his nose. “Don’t worry.”</p> - -<p>Still half-stunned, the stricken man made an abortive, ill-coördinated -effort to rise.</p> - -<p>“Here, let me help you,” said Satterthwaite. “Get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> into this chair.” -He lifted him up, supported him to a big armchair by the fireplace, -deposited him in it.</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” said Tremaine, feebly, “—extremely good of you.” He looked -around him with vacant eyes. “Where am I? What happened?—I—I was in a -street-car——”</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite shot a swift glance of intelligence to the young woman -who was, after all, his wife as well. She drew near, her breath held at -a sudden possibility, her eyes searching the face of this man who but a -moment before had so uncompromisingly claimed her. Had he——?</p> - -<p>“Don’t worry about anything now,” said Satterthwaite, kindly. “You’ll -feel better in a moment.”</p> - -<p>His erstwhile adversary smiled up vacantly into his face.</p> - -<p>“I’m better now,” he said, passing his hand gropingly across his brow. -Then, as he removed it, he stared stupidly at the blood upon his -fingers. “What happened?” he asked, weakly. “How did I get here? I was -in a street-car—was there an accident?—I remember the street-car——”</p> - -<p>“You’ll remember all about it presently,” Satterthwaite assured him, -watching him narrowly with critical eyes.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you brought me here,” he continued in his dazed voice. “Very -kind of you—I’m much obliged.” He looked round, perceived the young -woman with the water-jug in her hand, and smiled feebly. “Your wife, I -presume?—I’m very sorry, madam,” he added, politely, “to put you to so -much inconvenience.”</p> - -<p>She stared at him for a moment as though suspecting his sincerity, and -then turned away her head, a wild expression in the eyes that sought -Satterthwaite’s face. He signalled back discretion.</p> - -<p>“Here’s your coat,” he said, holding it out. “Let me help you on with -it.”</p> - -<p>Tremaine gazed at it, obviously puzzled, and then glanced down to his -rolled-back shirt-sleeves. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Was there a row, then?” he asked, mystified. “A fight?”</p> - -<p>“There was a little trouble,” conceded Satterthwaite.</p> - -<p>“And you took me out of it, I suppose?” he said, with genuine -gratitude. “I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir—going to this bother -for a complete stranger.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all—not at all,” said Satterthwaite, easily. “Here, let me -help you.”</p> - -<p>The assistance was accepted. Tremaine rose shakily to his feet, stood -docilely while Satterthwaite guided his arms into the sleeves of his -coat. There was a curiously subtle difference in his expression; -quite another, a gentler, more courteous personality looked out of -those features which were Tremaine’s with a placid smile such as Mrs. -Tremaine had never seen. Close though his head was to Satterthwaite’s, -he evinced not the slightest sign of recognition.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll get along now.”</p> - -<p>“Where do you live?” asked Satterthwaite, with a veiled glance at the -young woman.</p> - -<p>She held her breath, on this opening threshold of the mystery of the -past two years.</p> - -<p>“At the Newport Hotel,” he replied. He took a few steps and then -stopped, his hand pressed to his brow. He turned to Satterthwaite. “I -wonder whether you would mind my sitting here a little longer, sir?” he -asked, apologetically. “I still feel somewhat faint and dizzy.”</p> - -<p>“By all means,” replied Satterthwaite. “You are quite welcome to stay -until you are recovered.”</p> - -<p>The young woman marvelled at the quiet self-control of his voice. She -felt as though she must shriek to break a nightmare.</p> - -<p>“You are very kind,” he said. “I am afraid my wife will be anxious -about me——”</p> - -<p>His wife! The young woman choked back a cry. <i>His wife!</i> Then——</p> - -<p>“Is it too much to ask if you would telephone to her, sir?” he -continued. “She would come and fetch me.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Certainly I will,” replied Satterthwaite, his face an impassive mask.</p> - -<p>“My name is Durham—Room 363 at the hotel.”</p> - -<p>“Right. Come and sit down in here.” He led the way into the adjoining -drawing-room. “Make yourself comfortable whilst I ring through to Mrs. -Durham.”</p> - -<p>He hospitably settled his guest in the most luxurious chair of the -elegantly furnished room, and then went out, closing the door after him.</p> - -<p>His wife was awaiting him outside. Her face was white. Her eyes, -preternaturally large, implored him. She clasped her hands tensely -against her breast.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jack!” she cried, her voice nevertheless held too low to be -overheard. “We can’t let him go like that! It is Harry—after all!”</p> - -<p>He moved forward, and she followed him to the telephone.</p> - -<p>“It is Harry all right,” he agreed. “It’s clear enough what has -happened. He was shell-shocked. The hospital authorities found nothing -on him by which to identify him. No one happened to recognize him. -When he recovered consciousness he thought he was someone else—was, -in fact, someone else. There are half-a-dozen cases on record, to my -knowledge—cases that have nothing to do with the war. Dissociation -of personality is the technical term of it. He just ceases to be -Tremaine—and becomes Durham, with all its implications.”</p> - -<p>“But, Jack!” she expostulated. “We <i>know</i> he’s not Durham!”</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders as he lifted up the telephone receiver.</p> - -<p>“What good will it do to proclaim our knowledge?” he asked. “It insists -merely on double bigamy—smash-up all round!”</p> - -<p>“Then——?” she clutched at him. “You’re going to——?”</p> - -<p>He turned to answer the challenge of the telephone operator, gave a -number. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Hallo!—The Newport Hotel—Will you ask Mrs. Durham to come to the -telephone, please?—She’s staying at Room 363—right!—I’ll hold on!”</p> - -<p>“Jack! Jack!” His wife implored him. “It’s not right—it <i>can’t</i> be -right!—We must tell her!”</p> - -<p>His attention was claimed by the telephone.</p> - -<p>“Hallo!—Is that Mrs. Durham?—My name’s Satterthwaite, no, you won’t -recognize it.—Your husband has met with a slight accident—nothing -serious—he’s here and he wants to know if you’ll come round and -fetch him as he feels rather shaky—yes——” he gave the address, -“—yes—ground-floor flat. Very good. We’ll expect you.”</p> - -<p>He put up the receiver, turned to his wife with a grim smile.</p> - -<p>“Now we shall see what Harry’s other choice is like,” he said.</p> - -<p>She was not to be diverted.</p> - -<p>“But, Jack—you’ll tell her?—You <i>must</i> tell her!” she implored.</p> - -<p>He looked her full in the eyes. His voice was grave.</p> - -<p>“Evelyn! Are you tired of our life together? Do you prefer him to me?”</p> - -<p>She turned away her head with a hopeless gesture.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t ask me! Don’t tempt me!—I don’t want to think of myself—I -only want to do what is right! And how can it be right to—to let him -go away like a stranger from all that was his!”</p> - -<p>He laid his hands upon her shoulders, forced her gaze to meet his again.</p> - -<p>“And is it right, Evelyn, to break your life, to break my life, to -break this woman’s life—to put Harry himself into an impossible -position—out of a quixotic regard for pure ethics?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know!” she said, shaking her head in mental anguish. “I -only know that he’s Harry—and that we’re disowning him——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But he does not know that he is Harry Tremaine—he’s quite content to -be Durham!”</p> - -<p>“And if he wakes up again and remembers?”</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Wait till it happens. We can only deal with the actual situation. At -the present time he’s quite happily Durham!—Now, dear,” he smiled -affection, “trust me! Leave it all to me—just keep quiet!” He kissed -her on the brow. “It will all work out.”</p> - -<p>She turned away, shuddering.</p> - -<p>“He was my husband,” she said, drearily.</p> - -<p>“He <i>was</i>!—And your husband was killed in action on October 10th, -1918. The man in the drawing-room is a complete stranger by the name of -Durham.—Now, let us go in to him.”</p> - -<p>She resigned herself, with one last protest.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like it, Jack! I won’t promise! Right is right!”</p> - -<p>“In this case it is wrong! Come!”</p> - -<p>He led her back to the drawing-room. Their visitor rose politely from -his chair.</p> - -<p>“Don’t get up,” said Satterthwaite. “Your wife is coming along.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” he replied. “It is very good of you to take so much -trouble. I shall be quite all right when my wife arrives to take charge -of me.” He smiled in half-serious self-depreciation.</p> - -<p>The three of them sat down. The Durham personality was amiably -loquacious. The young woman watched him speechlessly, noting, with an -icy chill at her heart, a hundred little familiarities of gesture as he -sat in that old familiar chair all unconscious of any previous presence -in it.</p> - -<p>“I’m very muddled still,” he confided. “I can’t remember anything since -being in that street-car. The row, whatever it was, is a complete blank -to me—I can’t imagine even how I got into this street. Extraordinary, -isn’t it?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Very,” agreed Satterthwaite, coolly.</p> - -<p>“It’s not the first time I’ve had a lapse of memory like this,” he went -on. “A shock does it. I went through the war—and—would you believe -it?—I woke up one day in hospital utterly unable to remember anything -about myself except that my name was Durham! I couldn’t remember -where I came from—nor whether I had any relatives—couldn’t remember -anything except just my name. And—this is the strange part of it—I -never have remembered. They discharged me from hospital—shell-shock -it was—and I just started life afresh.” He smiled confidently at -the young woman. “I sometimes wonder whether I was married before, -madam—but I hope not. I couldn’t part with the wife I’ve got. I -married her eighteen months ago and she’s everything to me. I don’t -think there’s another woman like her in the world! And she feels the -same about me. That’s the right sort of married life, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>He waited for her agreement. Her tongue seemed to be sticking to the -roof of her dry mouth. She could only nod, speechlessly, and try to -smile. Something seemed to be crying out in her: “Harry! Harry!” -Another part of her consciousness prayed desperately for guidance. -Should she—could she—ought she to speak—to break this pathetic -little idyll he sketched for her?</p> - -<p>She looked curiously at his clothes. They were cheap and -ill-fitting—frayed at the trouser-ends. So different from the spruce -Harry she had known!</p> - -<p>As though something of her thought had communicated itself to him, he -clapped his hand suddenly to his breast-pocket, fished out a wallet, -glanced into it, put it back.</p> - -<p>“Whew!” he breathed in deep relief. “I had a nasty turn—thought -perhaps I had lost that in the row. It contains all I own in the -world!” He smiled. “It’s all right, though!” He glanced around him -appreciatively. “But it wouldn’t buy the things you’ve got in this -room, all the same. I admire your taste, if you’ll pardon my saying so, -madam. I’m glad my wife is coming round—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>I’ll show her the sort of -drawing-room we’re going to have some day, when we’ve made good!”</p> - -<p>His cheerful smile was heart-breaking. She felt as though she must jump -up and run across to him, shrieking that it was his—all his! That he -and she had bought it all together, every bit of it. And yet she could -not stir—could only stare at him in a fascination that was dumb.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite sat apparently unmoved, but his jaw was set hard.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you’ll come in for a legacy some day,” he said, casually.</p> - -<p>His wife glanced at him, reading his thought. Of course, Jack would not -do anything mean, would compensate him somehow! She was suddenly very -grateful to him. The idea of a future anonymous restitution lightened -her conscience a little.</p> - -<p>“It’s not likely!” said their visitor, indifferently. “We have neither -of us any relatives—my wife and I. And I don’t care so long as I’ve -got her. When we get some youngsters we shall be the happiest family -going!” He smiled—and she thought of Dorothy, peacefully asleep in the -other room. She shut out the picture with an effort.</p> - -<p>The door-bell rang, and, with an enormous relief, she sprang up to -answer it. Anything to put an end to this torture! For one moment, in -the hall, she hesitated.</p> - -<p>“Help me! help me, O God, to do what is right!” she prayed in -dumb agony. And the question came up inexorably before her, vast, -overpowering, not to be solved. Right!—what was right?</p> - -<p>She opened the door.</p> - -<p>An insignificant-looking little woman of the lower middle-class stood -on the threshold, nervously agitated, her eyes wild with alarm.</p> - -<p>“My husband?” she asked, breathlessly. “Mr. Durham?”</p> - -<p>“He’s here,” replied Mrs. Satterthwaite, coldly. “This way.”</p> - -<p>She led her to the drawing-room and Harry Tremaine’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> two wives entered -together, the one beautiful, refined, exquisitely dressed—the other -commonplace, dowdy, the cheaply attired product of a cheap city suburb, -good-hearted vulgarity in every line of her. Mrs. Satterthwaite looked -from the man who had been her husband to the woman who was now his -wife—and her heart turned suddenly to stone.</p> - -<p>“Here is Mr. Durham,” she said. With something of a shock, -Satterthwaite admired her consummate ease of manner.</p> - -<p>The little woman had rushed forward to her husband.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ed, Ed!” she cried, ignoring Satterthwaite, who stood up politely. -“What is the matter?—You’re not hurt?—Not badly?”</p> - -<p>“I’m all right, dear,” he said, embracing her. “I’ll tell you all about -it presently. These kind people took me in and looked after me.”</p> - -<p>She turned to them.</p> - -<p>“Oh, thank you so much!” she said, effusively. “It <i>is</i> good of -you!—And I don’t know what <i>would</i> have happened if anything serious -had gone wrong with Ed to-night!—You see, we’re sailing for Buenos -Ayres to-morrow! And he’s got such a good post—an agency—and if -anything had prevented his going——”</p> - -<p>“Never mind that, my dear,” said Durham, cutting short her loquacity. -“These kind people do not want to go into our private affairs. Come -along. I’ve inconvenienced them enough already.” He held out his hand -to Mrs. Satterthwaite. “Good-bye, madam—and many thanks.”</p> - -<p>She looked him in the eyes as she took his hand. They were the eyes of -a stranger.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Mr. Durham,” she said, and turned away.</p> - -<p>Satterthwaite escorted the couple to the door.</p> - -<p>“Your hat is here,” he said, as he took it off the clothes-peg where -Tremaine had hung it. “Good-bye.—Good-bye, Mr. Durham.—What boat do -you sail by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> to-morrow?” The enquiry was in the most casual tone of -courteous interest.</p> - -<p>“The <i>Manhattan</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Pleasant voyage—and good luck to you both!” he said, cheerfully, and -closed the door. He stood for a moment listening to their happy voices -as they went out of the building and then turned to find his wife -standing by his side.</p> - -<p>“Jack!” she cried, and her eyes searched his face as if to read -acknowledged partnership in a crime. “He’s gone?”</p> - -<p>He nodded, smiling at her.</p> - -<p>“Gone, right enough—and he’ll get his legacy. I can trace him quite -easily now we know the name of his boat. That gives us a clear -conscience.”</p> - -<p>“Does it, Jack?—Does it?—Oh, I wish I could be sure!—Durham is not -the man Tremaine was!”</p> - -<p>“He’s a happier man than Tremaine would be, anyway! Think of their -delight when they get that legacy!” He led her back into the -dining-room, where the remains of their anniversary feast were yet upon -the table. “And, dear!” he looked into her eyes, “we are happier people -than we should have been had Durham not replaced Tremaine!”</p> - -<p>She shook her head, still doubtful.</p> - -<p>“But if he remembers?” she queried.</p> - -<p>“He goes a long way off, into a new environment. The chances are -against his remembering at all. If he does,” he shrugged his shoulders, -“he will probably himself put it down as a hallucination from which his -devoted little wife will nurse him back. Don’t worry, my dear. We did -the right thing.”</p> - -<p>“If only I could be sure!” she said, with a sigh.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * * *</p> - -<p>The next morning Dorothy woke up to see her mother bending over her bed.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Dada, Mummy?” she asked. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Dada?” said Mrs. Satterthwaite, as though she did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the child. “Dada—Dada who came back last night!”</p> - -<p>Her mother shook her head, smilingly.</p> - -<p>“You dreamed it, dear,” she said. “Dada was killed in the war.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE LOVERS</h2> - -<p>He opened the door into darkness and fumbled for the switch. The -spacious, beautifully furnished living-room of the flat—long, -dark bookcase filled with mellowed leather bindings; large, soft -bearskins compensating for the insufficiency of the delicate Persian -carpet on the parquet floor; a few precious prints spaced with an -exquisite reticence upon the walls; an Oriental bibelot here and there -emphasizing the quiet charm of English eighteenth-century furniture -with its touch of the cunningly grotesque; two great leather-covered -chairs by the fireside—was suffused with soft light.</p> - -<p>He stood in the doorway—tall, lean, handsome, forceful with a touch of -asceticism—and smiled to the corridor.</p> - -<p>“Here we are!” he said, his voice on a note of happiness. “At last!”</p> - -<p>He stretched out his arms to the girl upon the threshold. She came -into the light—tall almost as he, long fur coat half-open over her -tailor-made costume, finely modelled head poised in a graceful, -winsome upturn of the face, smiling at him in a radiance of eyes and -mouth—and, on the movement of an irresistible impulse, cast herself -into his embrace.</p> - -<p>“At last!” she echoed. “Oh, Jim, dear!—at last—at long last!”</p> - -<p>He held her, and she snuggled into his shoulder, face upturned to his, -drawing his kisses down to her with the magnetism of her lips.</p> - -<p>The quaint enamel clock on the mantelpiece ticked, just heard, the -passing seconds of eternity, the only sound in the silence of their -union. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then, with the long breath of recovery from the timeless swoon of a -kiss prolonged to its uttermost limit, she turned her head slowly to -gaze about the room.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jim!” she said, in affectionate reproach, “and you told me you -were a poor man!”</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders, his lips mobile in a little smile.</p> - -<p>“Well, dear,” he replied in whimsical apology, “compared with the -daughter of a man who owns half a city—compared with what you -might have had!” He looked into her eyes. “Helen! You won’t regret? -They’ll rub it in to you—the title you’ve thrown away—the position -in society—what they’ll be pleased to term your hole and corner -marriage——”</p> - -<p>She laughed happily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jim!—I’ve got you and you’ve got me—and nothing else matters—it -seems to me that you and I are the only two people in the world!” She -assured herself of a tightening of his embrace with a touch of her hand -on his as she looked up into his eyes with a slow, smiling shake of the -head that affirmed her love. “As if only you and I ever existed—and -had always loved! As if all through eternity we had waited for this! As -if I was born to be just Jim Dacres’s wife!”</p> - -<p>He looked down upon her, eyes into eyes.</p> - -<p>“Darling!” His voice was low and earnest in a sincerity beyond doubt. -“Jim Dacres’s wife you are—and, please God, I’ll never let you go!”</p> - -<p>With one more kiss she disengaged herself, came into the centre of the -room, threw her fur coat back from the shoulders with a smile that -invited the assistance he was prompt to give.</p> - -<p>“Are we all alone?” she asked, glancing round, struck by the quietude -of the flat.</p> - -<p>“All alone, dear,” he replied, folding her coat over a chair. “I told -Mrs. Wilkinson she could go out. I thought it would be good to have it -all to ourselves for this first evening—you and I alone in Paradise, -darling!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> He kissed her, drew her toward the fire. “Warm yourself, my -beauty—and pretend it is my heart!” He squeezed her shoulders with -broad, strong hands.</p> - -<p>She shook her head at him in roguish reproof, as she spread her -fingers—the new gold ring upon one of them—before the blaze he -stirred.</p> - -<p>“Pretty, pretty!” she rebuked him. “Where has Jim Dacres learned to -make love, I should like to know!”</p> - -<p>“In your eyes, dearest!” he replied, smiling into them. “In your eyes -that open right back into a soul that knows immemorial secrets and -knows them all as love!”</p> - -<p>She felt quietly for his hand and held it, without a word, through -moments where speech was profanation.</p> - -<p>Then, with a long breath, feminine curiosity awaking in her, she turned -her head and glanced once more around the room.</p> - -<p>“It’s charming, Jim!” she asserted. “I didn’t know you had so much -taste. Where did you get all these beautiful things?” She left the -fireside, began to roam about the room, peering into cabinets, picking -up one precious object after another, turning over the pages of the -books that lay upon the tables.</p> - -<p>He watched her lithe, graceful movements with admiration.</p> - -<p>“All over the place,” he answered, negligently. “China, Japan—a few in -Italy——”</p> - -<p>“And this?” she asked, holding up a large crystal ball, supported in a -lotus cup upon the back of a carved ivory elephant studded with amber -and turquoise and coral, its feet upon an ivory tortoise. “What is -this?”</p> - -<p>“Oh—that! I got that in India. Some old crystal-gazer’s outfit. It’s -a few hundred years old—symbolizes the universe, you know. The world -rests upon an elephant and the elephant upon a tortoise. I don’t know -what the tortoise stands on——”</p> - -<p>Her face was bright with interest.</p> - -<p>“And have you ever looked into it?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Of course not.” His tone was contemptuous. “I don’t go in for that -sort of thing. I didn’t buy that—an old Hindoo priest gave it to me—a -nice old chap who was good enough to adopt me more or less, years ago -now.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jim! Do let us look into it!” Her voice was ecstatic in a sudden -excitement. “Do let’s look!”</p> - -<p>“You won’t see anything,” he emphasized his pessimism in a grudge at -the interest she diverted from him to this inanimate object. “It’s -all rot, you know—only people with brain-sick imaginations ever see -things—or think they see things.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but do let’s try!” She came across to him, the crystal in her -hand. “Do, there’s a darling!” The appeal of the kiss-pouted lips in -the face turned up to him, eyes bright with ingenuous vivacity, was -irresistible.</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders with large good-humour.</p> - -<p>“All right—but it’s waste of time.”</p> - -<p>“Is anything waste of time when we are together, dear?” She nestled -up to him, drew the kiss that was inevitable. “It’s all part of the -romance. Now, be good and do as I tell you. Switch off the lights—the -firelight is enough.”</p> - -<p>He obeyed, with a gesture of tolerant complaisance that could refuse no -whim. The room relapsed into shadows shifting in the blaze of the fire -that he had stirred.</p> - -<p>“Now come and sit close by me here,” she dictated, delightfully -imperious to this tall strong man, seating herself in one of the -big chairs by the fireside. “There is room for two. That’s right.” -He squeezed his long body into the seat beside her. She held up the -crystal ball. “Now you hold it with one hand and I will hold it with -one hand—like this!” With her free hand she clasped the hand that -remained on her knee. “That’s all I want to see, dear—our joint -fates, linked together.” Her voice was soft and tender, thrillingly -sincere. “Just you and I—for ever—past or future, darling, what does -it matter?—it’s all one long life that is only real when you and I -touch.” She finished with a sigh of happiness. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> - -<p>He responded in a gentle pressure of her hand. Together they stared -into the crystal sphere they jointly held. Minute after minute passed -in silence, in a pervading sense of intimate communion where their -pulse-beats, in the contact of their hands, regulated themselves to an -identical rhythm.</p> - -<p>“I see nothing,” he murmured, vaguely disappointed, “nothing at all.”</p> - -<p>“Patience!” she breathed, intent on the crystal, but sparing him -a little squeeze of the fingers in recognition of his presence. -“Look!—keep on looking!”</p> - -<p>Again there was silence. The ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece -became almost hypnotic in its monotony. The fire dulled down, its light -no longer reflected in leaping flashes in the crystal.</p> - -<p>“Look!” she whispered. “It’s clouding over—going milky! Do you see?”</p> - -<p>He nodded assent, unwilling to break the spell by speech, mysteriously -awed as he, too, saw a milky cloud suffuse the depths of the crystal. -Holding their breath, they waited, closely linked, for they knew not -what of vision.</p> - -<p>As they stared into it, almost unconscious now of their own bodies, of -the muscular effort that held the crystal globe in unvarying focus from -their eyes, they saw the cloud break and clear in a widening rift that -seemed to open into infinity.</p> - -<p>“Look!” she murmured. “<i>It’s coming!</i>—Look—<i>People!</i>—crowds of -them—running and jostling each other! Look, it’s a fête of some -sort—a lot of them have cockades! Do you see?”</p> - -<p>In fact, the depths of the crystal were suddenly inhabited. A throng of -tiny figures, men and women, surged, broke up, flocked together again -in high excitement, arms waving in the air. Over their heads other -figures leaned out from the upper windows of a row of more distant -houses—evidently the scene was a public square—and waved also in -diminutive enthusiasm. Their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> costumes seemed like fancy dress—men -in long, bright-coloured coats with enormous lapels and tight-fitting -trousers with broad stripes of some contrasting colour—women in -high-waisted dresses and poke bonnets or no bonnets at all—men and -women, and these the greater number, the dominant majority of the -crowd, in the nondescript vestments of squalid, ugly poverty. The -better-dressed men and women wore prominently, all of them, a cockade -or rosette of red, white, and blue.</p> - -<p>The crowd packed close together in a common impulse, was agitated -by a common emotion that set a forest of arms waving above their -heads and contorted their faces in cries that were inaudible. -Something was happening in that square—something that evoked fierce -passion—invisible behind the densely serried mob whose backs alone -could be seen.</p> - -<p>“Look!” breathed the girl in the chair. “Look!—that poor girl!” There -was a curious accent of vivid sympathy in the whispered ejaculation.</p> - -<p>A young girl was forcing her way through the throng, her face covered -in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs, weeping convulsively -in a paroxysm of despair. The crowd, intent on the spectacle beyond, -parted and made way for her automatically.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” murmured the girl in the chair, “I feel so funny—I feel I want -to cry, too—as if a terrible calamity had suddenly come upon me—a -frightful danger to someone I loved——” She shuddered, “oh, it’s -awful!—it numbs me—it’s—it’s as if I felt what <i>she</i> was feeling!”</p> - -<p>The girl in the vision took her hands from her face, looked about her -with eyes of wild misery.</p> - -<p>“My God, Helen!” whispered the man in the chair, in a thrill of -excitement. “<i>It’s you!</i>”</p> - -<p>“Shh!” she breathed, gazing intently into the magic scene. The air -about them seemed mysteriously charged with tumultuous passion, with -the inaudible vociferations of that surging mob. To both, it seemed as -though they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> were in contact with a real crowd, beset by the vague, -fierce emotions that gather and roll in the collective, primitive soul -of humanity in congregation. It set their hearts to a quicker beat, -bewildered their brains with unheard clamours.</p> - -<p>The girl in the vision—so strikingly like the girl in the chair that -she seemed a duplication of her personality—drew herself erect on the -edge of the crowd and wiped her eyes. Evidently, with a great effort, -she was mastering herself. The girl in the chair drew a hard breath, -as though of some supreme determination. Then, taking a few steps, the -figure that they watched moved close under the houses of the nearer -side of the square and, looking up at the doorways as though seeking an -inscription, commenced to walk along the pavement.</p> - -<p>The crystal held her still as its centre—like the lens of a -cinematograph following always the chief personage upon the -screen—and, watching her, the man and woman in the chair forgot the -globe that they held with cataleptic rigidity, forgot the diminished -scale of the vision. Their perceptions adjusted themselves like those -of children who day-dream among their toys, and it seemed to both of -them that they gazed into a real scene with full-sized human emotions -at clash in the acute earnestness of present life.</p> - -<p>The girl, her face white and tense, her eyes fixed in the courage -of timidity brought to despair, moved along the houses. Suddenly -she stopped, looking upward to a portal surmounted by a trophy -of tri-coloured flags and a shield on which the three words -“<i>Liberté—Egalité—Fraternité</i>” were crudely emblazoned. A couple of -ruffianly men in quasi-military uniform, exaggeratedly large cocked -hats coming down over their ears, short pipes in the mouths hidden by -untrimmed, pendent moustaches, enormously long muskets with bayonets -fixed leaning against the bandoliers across their chests, guarded the -doorway. The girl spoke to them, with vehement gestures, evidently -imploring entrance. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> barred her path, callously untouched by her -agonized entreaty. She pointed up to an inscription below the trophy -“<i>RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE—Réprésentant en Mission</i>,” smiled at them in -a heart-breaking assumption of coquetry, candid innocence never more -purely virginal. One of them shrugged his shoulders and spat upon the -cobbled pavement without removing his pipe. The other winked broadly, -and, still retaining his musket, reached out with his disengaged hand. -The girl shrank back, horror in her eyes—and then, as if bethinking -herself of an unfailing resource, felt feverishly in the neckerchief -which covered her bosom. She drew out a packet of notes, offered them. -With a broad grin on their faces, the two ruffians parted to allow her -passage.</p> - -<p>She climbed an uncarpeted, dreary staircase and hesitated for a -moment outside a door inscribed “<i>le citoyen réprésentant du peuple -Desnouettes</i>.” She knocked timidly, opened, and entered.</p> - -<p>Across a large bare room a young man was seated, writing, at a table. -A broad tri-coloured sash barred his blue, wide-collared coat and -white waistcoat. He had divested himself of the cocked hat with three -absurdly large plumes of blue, white, and red which lay upon the -table and the long hair of his uncovered head reached almost to his -shoulders. He looked up, as if startled, at his visitor, looked up -with a young face whose intellectual keenness, whose vivid, passionate -eyes above the long nose and almost ascetic mouth were strangely, -disconcertingly reminiscent of—of——</p> - -<p>“<i>Jim!</i>” gasped the young woman in the chair, feeling herself in that -curious state of split identity where the unaffected, remote Ego -registers without controlling the adventures of a dream.</p> - -<p>“Shh!” he murmured in his turn, bewildered to find himself as it were -looking at his own personality and, though as at the other side of a -partition in his soul, experiencing the feelings of the man at whom he -gazed. An echo of a surprise, of a mysterious surprise that disturbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> -him to the depths—of something that had come, startlingly new and -powerful though not yet fully manifest, into his life—reverberated -in the recesses of his being as he contemplated the girl. And then a -counter-impulse flooded him, the impulse that made him set his mouth, -rejecting with an assertion of his own personality wedded to some vague -ideal, the vulgar influence of a human emotion. He felt as though the -girl approached <i>him</i>, as she moved toward that young man who regarded -her with a stern frigidity.</p> - -<p>“<i>Citoyenne?</i>” he was surprised to find himself murmuring the coldly -polite query, as though repeating it after that insultingly superior -young man.</p> - -<p>He heard the gasp of the young woman at his side as of someone -infinitely remote from him. His real being was in that large bare room -where the superb young republican scrutinized the young girl with a -cold glance that put her out of countenance. Yet how beautiful she was -as she blushed up to her eyes, youthful modesty in confusion! He felt -something flush warm within his breast, a vague emotion that dissipated -the assurance underneath his sternly maintained aspect. Before she had -spoken, an alarm to the threatened supremacy of his cold reason rang -through the depths of him. He reacted with a severity that he obscurely -felt to be excessive, reiterated almost with menace “<i>Citoyenne?</i>” Was -the word really uttered from his lips? He did not know.</p> - -<p>She came close, poured out her trouble in a flood of nervous, anguished -speech that he comprehended perfectly without being able to arrest -a single definite word in his memory—it was as though that part -of him which understood was something deep down, lying beyond the -necessity for spoken language. Of course! he comprehended with a kind -of awakening memory—that old <i>émigré</i> who had stolen back disguised, -in defiance of the laws, whom he had arrested for plotting against -the safety of that Republic One and Indivisible of which he was the -incorruptible servant, whose name he had but just put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> on the fatal -list of the next batch for the guillotine! He chilled, mercilessly; -wondered for a moment at his own inexorability, and then, as his -identification with the scene completed itself, understood it.</p> - -<p>For a crime against himself, against another individual, he might -have had compassion. The conspirator against that fanaticized ideal -of his soul, the young Republic fighting in rags for its life, for -the ultimate freedom of all humanity, was guilty of the unforgiveable -sin. He steeled himself, in a pride of approximation to that Brutus, -to those other sternly incorruptible Roman republicans with whom his -imagination was filled. No human tears, no human despair however -poignant, should move him from his path of duty. He felt his teeth -set hard over the absurd feebleness in his breast as his eyes rested, -coldly he hoped, upon that beautiful girl who stood, strangely -disturbing in her closeness, and stretched out her arms to him in -agonized appeal. As if telepathically, his soul was filled with her -passionate, eloquent entreaty—he had to fight down the tears which -threatened his eyes in sympathy with those which suffused the beautiful -orbs which looked into his, in despair of softening them.</p> - -<p>And she—the woman in the chair, remote spheres away, trembled -at a trouble in her soul, at an awakening of something else in -her—something that was wrong, unpardonably at variance with every -standard of her life, as she looked into those stern but fascinating -eyes in the ascetic face and pleaded her cause. She despised herself -for the blush she felt creep over her. Her father’s life—her father’s -life!—what else dared she think of? This superb young man was an -enemy, an implacable enemy, the incarnation of all the crimes wreaked -upon her class! Yet her dignity imposed upon her, and she dared not -practice that false coquetry upon him that, in a sublime abnegation of -her own pride, she had promised herself to use as a supreme resource. -She could only plead, plead passionately, in utter sincerity, the best -in her appealing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> to the best in him—and she scorned herself for -admitting that there was that best to evoke.</p> - -<p>A devil stirred in him, subtly malicious, tempting him with an -intellectual bait that was the disguise of passions of whose -reality he was but vaguely cognizant. These proud <i>aristos</i>! The -bitterness of a youth of humiliations surged up in him, avid for -vengeance. He encouraged it as a protection against himself. He -would show them—these oppressors of the people, these enemies of -the republic—who sent their womenfolk to corrupt the virtuous -representatives of the nation! Two could play at that game! He smiled -in the thought of the insult he prepared.</p> - -<p>With a quick movement he rose from his seat and, on an impulse that -was almost blind in its swift fulfilment, put his arm round the girl’s -waist and kissed her full on the mouth. The act was done before her -instinct of self-protection could assert itself—and then she pushed -him away in sudden revolt, stood facing him with panting bosom and a -countenance where emotions chased each other in alternations of white -and red. For a moment she contemplated him, breathing tumultuously, and -then, with a gesture of disgust, she wiped her lips. Her eyes looked -straight into his with angry dignity, withered him with their fierce -disdain. A bitter smile wreathed her lips.</p> - -<p>“<i>Er, bien, citoyen</i>—you have had your pay. My father’s life!”</p> - -<p>Did he actually hear the words? The low, scornfully vengeful laugh -which came involuntarily from him was like an echo, far off, of -that mocking laugh, inaudible now, in the bare room where the young -commissary, arrogant with the outrage he had inflicted upon this -representative of a superior race, drew himself up in his conscious -incorruptibility.</p> - -<p>“Your father dies to-morrow, <i>citoyenne</i>!” The marble coldness of his -voice was a triumph of which he was not sure until it rang in his ears. -He exulted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> in its echo, like a saint self-consciously a victor over -temptation.</p> - -<p>Their eyes met, looked into each other with a sudden furious, -unappeasable hatred—a hatred which flooded them with a passion that -was bigger than themselves—that soul-devouring hatred, clutching -instinctively at death for its expression, which is the other face -of violent love. Between these souls, in commotion far beyond their -consciousness, indifference was not possible. They had met, and the -world was in upheaval.</p> - -<p>He heard the hiss of a long breath drawn in through clenched teeth—he -distinguished no longer between the girl like a brooding invisibility -in the chair beside him and the panting girl confronting that suddenly -pale young patriot whom he watched with inexpressible fascination. He -saw the insult, like livid lightning, in her face before she hurled it -at him.</p> - -<p>“<i>Canaille!</i>”</p> - -<p>The word rang close in his ear, and yet infinitely far away, on an -accent of vindictive emphasis that struck to his soul.</p> - -<p>A fury surged up in him, a blind fury that annihilates with one -ruthless blow of its insulted strength.</p> - -<p>He stamped a signal on the floor.</p> - -<p>“You also, <i>citoyenne</i>, will die to-morrow!” The decree, cold as the -bloodless lips which uttered it, echoed in him to a savage satisfaction.</p> - -<p>The girl remained motionless, head high, in superb indifference to his -threat. The door behind her was flung open. The two ruffianly guards -ran in, sprang to grip her arms in obedience to his imperious gesture. -She smiled at him, splendid in unshakable disdain.</p> - -<p>“<i>We prefer to die!</i>”</p> - -<p>He motioned them out, livid with a rage beyond words. She went, -proudly, unresistingly between her brutal captors. At the door she -turned her head and smiled at him again, a smile full of significance.</p> - -<p>“<i>Canaille!</i>” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> - -<p>He sat down to his table and, in a furious scrawl, added a name to his -list.</p> - -<p>... The vision dissolved in blackness, in an obliteration, for timeless -moments, of all thought....</p> - -<p>They found themselves looking into a long dark hall, its gloom -inadequately relieved by high barred windows. Straw littered the floor -and was collected into little heaps along the walls. Dimly discerned in -the shadows was a throng of people, men and women—some promenading up -and down in solitary dejection, some in groups seated upon the straw -at a game of cards, some leaning propped against the wall in listless -despair. He gazed into that Hades-like abode of misery with a curious -anxiety at his heart, an anxiety whose cause for the moment eluded -him. He watched, waiting in a vague expectation of some event that -approached and was yet unseen.</p> - -<p>A door in the foreground opened and, with a little intimate shock, he -saw enter that mysterious duplication of his personality that was he -and yet was not he—the sternly ascetic young <i>répreséntant en mission</i> -whose plumed hat and sash of office proclaimed his authority in this -dreadful place. A subservient turnkey followed at his heels, called a -name.</p> - -<p>A young girl—<i>she</i>—she of the bare room overlooking the square, she -of—of—he failed to identify another appearance he knew ought to be -familiar—started up from a bed of straw where she had been sitting in -company with an old man. She approached, in quiet command of herself, -neither hastily nor reluctantly. Obviously, she was indifferent to -whatever might be required of her. Only when she perceived the identity -of her visitor did she start back in a sudden little hesitation, -vanquished as soon as felt. She came coolly up to him, regarded him -with contemptuously hostile eyes, awaited his business with her.</p> - -<p>He was trembling with emotions that almost overpowered him—the soul -that watched felt itself gripped in an agony of remorse, of fear, -of—something else that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> he would not acknowledge. He stammered -evidently as he spoke.</p> - -<p>“<i>Citoyenne</i>, come with me—you are free!”</p> - -<p>She looked at him in blank surprise.</p> - -<p>“Free?”</p> - -<p>The inaudible words were plain to those two watching souls who had long -ago forgotten the crystal that they held. Both thrilled with a sense of -crisis in which they were intimately involved.</p> - -<p>The young man reiterated his assertion eagerly.</p> - -<p>“And my father?” The girl turned her head toward the melancholy figure -bowed in dejection on its heap of straw.</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Your father is guilty of a crime against the Republic. I can do -nothing for him. But you have committed no crime, <i>citoyenne</i>”</p> - -<p>Her eyes looked into his, probed him.</p> - -<p>“Nor have many here. Why do you release me?”</p> - -<p>He lost control of himself in his eagerness to withdraw her from the -danger into which he had himself wantonly plunged her.</p> - -<p>“Because—because I love you! Because I cannot let you die!—Because—I -cannot help it—you are all of life to me, <i>citoyenne</i>!”</p> - -<p>She looked at him, her face like a carven sphinx, her eyes inscrutable.</p> - -<p>“I go—wherever my father goes!”</p> - -<p>He stood, deathly pale, wrestling with a terrible temptation. She -watched his agony, without malice, without sympathy, cold like a slave -in the market who may be bought—for a price. All of him that was human -yearned for her, yearned for her unutterably in a surge of desire that -all but overcame him—and yet an austere inner self, that self which -had vowed itself to the idealized service of the Republic in youthful -fanaticism, stood firm although it agonized. He felt himself a worthy -spiritual successor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> of that Scaevola who stood with his hand in the -fire, as he answered, cold sweat upon his brow.</p> - -<p>“<i>Citoyenne</i>, it is impossible. I cannot buy even your love with my -dishonour. Your father has committed a crime against the Republic—but -you have committed none.”</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders in calm indifference. An insulting smile -came into her face.</p> - -<p>“Then I will do so!” She turned toward the prisonful of victims with -the exultant gesture of a martyr who demands the stake, and cried, -evidently with full lungs: “<i>Vive le Roi! À bas la République!</i>”</p> - -<p>“<i>Vive le Roi!—À bas la République!</i>” came like a murmured echo from -somewhere beyond defined space, in defiant mockery of all that he -craved.</p> - -<p>He watched her turn away from him, an immense despair submerging him, -and went slowly, head down, toward the door as though himself condemned.</p> - -<p>She turned for one last look at him as he disappeared, a strange wild -ecstasy in her face—and then flung herself face downward upon the -straw in a paroxysm of hysteric sobs.</p> - -<p>Whence came those murmured words, charged with unutterable passion, -with the intensity of a soul that gathers its essence for its leap into -the infinite dark?</p> - -<p>“Now—now I can love him! Death, death! come quickly!—now I have the -right to love!”</p> - -<p>There was a glimpse of a face suddenly radiant through its tears—and -then again blackness, a suspense of thought.</p> - -<p>He stood with his back to the room, looking out upon the square filled -with a surging mob. In the middle, upon a raised scaffold, stood the -terrible red-painted uprights with the gleaming knife under the linking -beam, poised ready for the swift fall of its diagonal edge. The mob -swirled in a sudden turbulence under the windows. He knew what it meant.</p> - -<p>There, forcing its slow passage through the maddened crowd, came the -fatal cart—a rough vehicle filled with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> hatless men and women whose -necks were bare and whose hands were bound, men and women who seemed -deaf to the vociferations of the bloodthirsty mob that raved about -them. He shuddered—slipped his right hand into his pocket, held it -there, his gaze fastened in horrible fascination upon that slowly -moving cartload of already almost lifeless human beings. He saw, -clearly, only one figure, a girl in white, and he waited—in an agony -which held him rigid.</p> - -<p>The cart lurched its slow way to the scaffold, stopped. The victims -began to descend. He saw the figure in white mount the steps to -the machine, saw it turn its head at the last moment toward his -window—and, as though it were the signal expected, he whipped the -pistol from his pocket, glimpsed the dark hole of its barrel, and fired.</p> - -<p>The man and woman in the chair stared into a crystal ball whose depths -were suffused with a milky cloud.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jim!” she murmured. “<i>The last time——!</i>”</p> - -<p>“Shh!” he said, with a squeeze of her hand. “Look! It’s coming again!”</p> - -<p>Once more the cloud parted—they peered, breath held for further -revelations, into a crude contrast of bright light and intense shadow, -upon a striped awning at an angle from a wall glaring in the sun, upon -a narrow street where dust rose yellow like an illumined cloud above a -dark throng of Asiatics, their white robes almost blue in the shadow, -who gesticulated and pushed each other as they packed themselves into a -semicircle of eager faces. Their vision adjusting itself to the violent -juxtaposition of high light and deep shadow, they stared into the -comparative sombreness under the awning, to the object which held the -interest of the crowd.</p> - -<p>In a cleared space, in front of a trio of barbaric musicians who -squatted cross-legged upon the ground in serious management of pipe and -tom-toms, a dancing-girl postured in fluidic attitudes of her lithe, -slim body. Arms and legs covered with bracelets, she turned, stretched, -and twisted herself in accompaniment to a rhythm which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> escaped them. -Indefatigably she danced, heedless of the eager, appreciative eyes upon -her, her face expressionless in a rapt absorption where consciousness -of her environment seemed lost. The crowd shouted inaudible -encouragements in flashes of gleaming teeth, flung flowers and small -coins on to the mat whereon she danced, swayed with contagious waves -of enthusiasm. The girl danced on, indifferent to the applause, -ecstatically absorbed in the perfection of her art. Only one or other -of the serious musicians lifted an occasional bright, sharp glance to -the increasing spread of coins upon the mat.</p> - -<p>Suddenly there was a commotion in the rear of the crowd, a jostling and -elbowing which propagated itself to the front rank. The throng parted, -with alarmed turns of the head to some disturbance behind them. A huge -elephant appeared, gliding forward with slow and stately motion to -the rhythmic wave of its sensitive trunk. Upon the gorgeous cloth of -its back was poised a richly carved and gilt <i>howdah</i> surmounted by a -gigantic umbrella in scarlet and gold. Beneath that umbrella reposed a -languid young man, handsome with aquiline nose and splendid eyes under -the magnificent turban which crowned his dark head. He lifted his hand -in a gesture to the mahout perched on the neck of the elephant, and the -great animal stopped, left in a clear space by the crowd which fell -back reverently from its neighbourhood.</p> - -<p>Still the girl danced on, heedless, unperceiving perhaps, of the -prince who watched her from his lofty seat. The musicians, after one -quick glance upward of apprehension, risked boldly and played on with -undisturbed solemnity. She danced with a sinuous grace that held the -eye in fascination, with an intensity of restrained movement, daringly -provocative though were her postures, which thrilled the watcher with -a sense of suppressed and concentrated passion whose potentialities -might not be measured. She danced, the incarnation of the fierce pulse -of life that beats beneath the fallacious languor of the East, her body -charged with vitality as it bent and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> straightened with lithe precision -to another curve, her face carven, expressionless, as though her soul -were withdrawn to its mysterious centre. The prince clapped his hands -in irrepressible enthusiasm. She stopped dead, stood rigidly upright -facing him, arms close to her sides, arabesqued breastlets thrust -forward, a slim statue that quivered with magically arrested life, in a -motionless effrontery that challenged his regard, his very power. Their -eyes met, looked into each other while the musicians ceased to play. -What was that of intense communion which sped between them? With a -sudden gesture the prince flung a handful of golden coins into the mat, -made a grave inclination of his head.</p> - -<p>The elephant moved onward. With a smile of triumph, with a breath -long-drawn through her nostrils, and eyes that closed ecstatically for -a moment as in a dream realized, the girl followed in the train of his -gorgeously attired retinue....</p> - -<p><i>They knew</i>—those watchers who gazed as through the rent veils -of eternity, apprehending with minds that had ceased to be -corporeal—recognizing themselves once more, though in an incarnation -immeasurably remote, an incarnation whose transient language was long -ago forgotten.</p> - -<p>The vision changed abruptly. They gazed into the hall of an Oriental -palace, arabesqued arches in a colonnade on either side, tessellated -marble in cool colours patterning the floor, ebony-black slaves waving -peacock fans above a cushioned divan on which the prince reclined. An -indulgent smile played over his handsome features as he toyed with the -unbraided hair of the beautiful girl who sat at his feet, in confident -lassitude against his knee, and turned her head back to gaze up into -his face with eyes voluptuously fond. She sighed with happiness—her -face no longer expressionless as in the public dance, but charged with -a yearning intensity of love. He, too, yearned over her with his grave -smile, bent his head down for the kiss her lips put up to him.... </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> - -<p>Again the scene changed. It was night in the colonnaded hall, moonbeams -patching the tessellated floor, flickering points of yellow flame -swinging slightly with the hanging lamps in the gloom under the -intricacy of the arches. A shadow moved out of the darkness, stood in -the moonlight, waited for a moment, then dropped a veil from its face. -It was the dancing-girl. She turned questing eyes about her as though, -at risk to herself, she was fulfilling an appointment that was not yet -met.</p> - -<p>Another shadow slid out of the gloom under the arches, approached -her—another woman, young also and also beautiful, but with a -beauty—its character was startlingly vivid to those watchers—that -was insinuatingly treacherous, the beauty that smiles as it betrays. -She stood now with the erstwhile dancing-girl in the moonlight, spoke -to her with an assumption of gravely concerned and pitying friendship, -shook her head dolefully as though in distress at her own message. -The dancing-girl revolted with a vehement gesture of denial, of -impossibility—but her dark eyes flashed and her nostrils quivered. The -other persisted, in emphatic asseveration, her face a study in subtle -malice. She pointed to the heavy curtains which draped the just-seen -extremity of the hall, a fiercely assertive significance in her gesture.</p> - -<p>The girl shrank back, shuddered. Then, with a slow turn of her body -from the tempter, she relapsed into herself, into a fierce meditation -where her eyes swept the shadows about her, where her lips uncovered -her teeth in a quick-caught breath and her clenched fist went slowly, -tensely, up to the side of her head in an agony that was beyond -words. The other woman contemplated her, just restraining a smile, -diabolically malicious—appealed once more to those hanging curtains -for proof of her sincerity. The girl, forlorn, gripped in some immense -unhappiness, nodded sombrely, with set teeth. With one last unobserved -smile of evil triumph, the other woman vanished.</p> - -<p>For a long moment the girl hesitated. Then, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> stealthy, feline -step, her shoulders crouched, she commenced to move along the hall. -Her gaze, a gaze of wide-open eyes set in the horror of some torture -of the soul, was fixed as though fascinated upon those heavy curtains -which she approached. She attained them, stopped, stood with one hand -in a final hesitation upon the folds, her bosom heaving with fiercely -primitive emotions. Then, in a violent determination, she flung them -aside.</p> - -<p>Beyond, in a small torch-lit apartment, the prince reclined in company -with another woman. His head turned in sudden anger to the intruder. -Before he could make a movement of defence or escape, the dancing-girl -had sprung upon him, with a bound like a tigress, a long knife flashing -in her hand....</p> - -<p>Even as they gasped their horror, they found themselves once more -staring at the milky cloud suffusing the depths of the crystal globe.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jim!” she breathed, in an awe-stricken recognition, “that was <i>my</i> -crime—the crime for which you punished me——”</p> - -<p>“Look!” he murmured. “Look! It is not finished yet.”</p> - -<p>In fact, the cloud was parting once more, parting this time over a -scene in ancient Egypt. Once more they recognized themselves, princess -and priest of a temple, in a drama that passed vaguely, too quickly in -its remoteness to be fully grasped, before their sight.</p> - -<p>Scene after scene unfolded itself in the depths of the crystal, in a -succession of varying settings, in an ever-briefer duration, an ever -more vague drama of relationship, whose blurred outlines were perhaps -the effect of their fatigued attention, no longer able to follow in -their details visions possibly as minutely exhibited as the first. -Always their two personalities, in ever-changing incarnations, met -and reacted in wild passions that claimed them fully. In the eternal -history of their lives, all was possible, all had happened, every -variation of experience—save only indifference to each other. An -unseen link held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> them always, tightened into contact from the moment -of propinquity. On islands in a blue sea furrowed by long-oared and -primitive galleys; in cities of Cyclopean masonry that glittered, -as if vitrified, in a burning sun; in dark forests where skin-clad -savages went furtively with stone-barbed spears and knelt in worship -of the animal that they had just slain; by the side of reedy lakes -where hairy, scarce-human creatures crouched and gnawed the bones they -plucked from the embers—always they two met and always they were -lovers, fortunate sometimes, tragic sometimes, but always lovers.</p> - -<p>Beyond humanity, far into the mists of time where strange shapes bodied -themselves, unrecognizable, and were dissipated into others yet more -strange, the visions continued in ever-increasing recession—leading -back into a distance where they lost all sense of personal -participation among vague and formless shadows.</p> - -<p>They watched, in a breathless fascination.</p> - -<p>Still farther back, beyond those shadows, something began to glow in -the depths of a night that cleared to transparent blackness, a ball -of fire, of living light that pulsed with intense incandescence in an -uttermost remoteness. And, as they watched, it divided itself, split -into two smaller spheres that circled about each other, throwing -out flames that reached like clutching arms in vain endeavour to -reëstablish unity. For an incomputable period—it seemed æons to those -souls who watched—they circled, held in mutual attraction and yet -still apart despite the reaching streamers. And then slowly, slowly, -they approached—their light heightening to a yet more vivid brightness -as they drew near....</p> - -<p>The crystal globe slipped from numbed fingers into the fireplace. As -though roused from a dream by the crash of its contact with the brass -curb, the girl started and turned to her companion. He picked up the -crystal, starred and fissured with its fall—henceforth useless.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jim!” she cried in poignant regret. “We shall not see—— What is -going to happen <i>this</i> time?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> - -<p>She held his hand between her two, gazed up into his face in fond -anxiety, yearned out to him.</p> - -<p>He put down the crystal, drew her close, enfolded her.</p> - -<p>“Love!” he answered. “Love—once more and for always! And, to us, dear, -nothing else matters. It is the one reality.”</p> - -<p>In each other’s eyes they saw, with a perception transcending physical -vision, the divine light of those sundered spheres that drew together.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> - -<h2>HELD IN BONDAGE</h2> - -<p>Two French officers, wearing the red velvet bands of the medical -service upon their caps, followed an old woman down the staircase of a -pleasant villa-residence on the outskirts of Mainz.</p> - -<p>“The bedrooms will suit perfectly,” said the elder of the two officers, -a major, in German. “And now a sitting-room?”</p> - -<p>The old woman led them along a passage and, without a word, threw open -the door of a room lined with books. The two officers entered, looked -about them.</p> - -<p>They were startled by a man’s voice behind them.</p> - -<p>“Good day, messieurs!”</p> - -<p>They turned to see a tall civilian, pince-nez gleaming over -exceptionally blue eyes, fair moustache, fair hair cut short and -brushed up straight from a square forehead, smiling at them from the -doorway.</p> - -<p>“I am Doctor Breidenbach—at your service,” he said courteously in -accentless French.</p> - -<p>The major stepped forward.</p> - -<p>“I am Major Chassaigne, monsieur. I—and my assistant, Lieutenant -Vincent here—have been allotted quarters in your house. Here is the -<i>billet de logement</i>.” He held out a piece of paper. “It is issued -with the authority of the Army of Occupation and countersigned by your -municipality. I regret to put you to inconvenience——”</p> - -<p>“Not at all! not at all!” interposed the German, affably, taking -the billeting order. As his face went serious in a scrutiny of the -document, the two officers had an impression of extreme intelligence -and ruthless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> will-power. He looked up again with a nod of assent, -his smile masking everything behind its gleam of blue eyes and white -teeth. “Perfectly correct, monsieur! Please consider my house at your -disposition. I am charmed to be of assistance to any of my confrères.” -He smiled recognition of their red cap-bands. “Although you wear -another uniform than that which I myself have but recently quitted, we -serve in a common cause—the cause of humanity, <i>n’est-ce pas</i>? which -knows no national animosities.”</p> - -<p>“We desired a sitting-room,” said Major Chassaigne, ignoring this -somewhat unctuous profession of altruism.</p> - -<p>The German waved his hand about the room.</p> - -<p>“If this will suit you——?”</p> - -<p>“Your library, monsieur?” queried the lieutenant.</p> - -<p>“My work-room,” replied the doctor. “Before this deplorable war -interrupted my studies, I had some little reputation in my special -branch of mental therapeutics. If you are interested in psychology, -normal and abnormal, you will find here a very complete collection of -works upon the subject. Use them freely, by all means. Well, if you are -satisfied, gentlemen, I will leave you, for I am a busy man. I was just -about to visit some patients when you arrived. <i>Auf wiedersehen!</i>” He -smiled and left them.</p> - -<p>Vincent turned to his senior, with a puzzled expression.</p> - -<p>“What is it about that man I do not like?”</p> - -<p>The older man shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Too friendly by far. They are all the same, these <i>boches</i>—they would -do anything to make us forget,” he said, divesting himself of his belt. -“I am going to have a rest and a cigarette before we walk back into the -town.”</p> - -<p>The young man wandered around the room, scanning the titles of the -books on the shelves, picking up the various bibelots scattered about. -Suddenly he uttered a startled cry.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon Dieu!</i> Look at this!”</p> - -<p>The major turned to him. In his hand he held a small snapshot -photograph. He stared at it, trembling violently. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Look!—<i>It is she!</i>” The young man’s face was a study in horrified -astonishment.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne looked over his comrade’s shoulder at the photograph. It -represented their host arm in arm with a good-looking young woman.</p> - -<p>“<i>She?</i>” he queried, with a tolerant smile. “Be a little more explicit, -my dear Vincent.”</p> - -<p>The young man turned on him.</p> - -<p>“You remember the deportations from Lille? The women and girls the -<i>boche</i> snatched from their homes?—My fiancée was among them.” His -voice checked at the painful memory. “Other women have been traced, -returned to their relatives. She has never been heard of again.”</p> - -<p>“My poor friend!” murmured the major, sympathetically.</p> - -<p>Vincent stared once more, as if fascinated, at the photograph in his -hand.</p> - -<p>“It is she—in every detail! Yet——” his tone was puzzled. “No! -I cannot believe it! It is some chance resemblance. This woman is -obviously happy—content, at least.” He looked up, passed over the -photograph. “Chassaigne, you are an analyst of the human mind. What -relationship do you diagnose between those two people?”</p> - -<p>The major took the print, scrutinized it critically.</p> - -<p>“Friends, certainly—lovers, possibly,” was his sententious verdict.</p> - -<p>“Then it cannot be!” cried the young man. “My fiancée was—is, I am -sure of it—incapable of a faithless acquiescence in the wrong done to -her.”</p> - -<p>“Can one ever be sure about a woman?” said the major, with a gentle -cynicism. “However, I agree with you that it is improbable that the -person in the photograph is your lost friend. It is, as you say, a -chance resemblance.”</p> - -<p>“If I could only be certain of it!” The young man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> was obviously -stirred to the depths. “I <i>must</i> make sure, Chassaigne.—I must get to -know this woman—find out who she is!”</p> - -<p>Both men turned at the sound of the door opening behind them. A -young woman, tall, dark, strikingly handsome, stood timidly upon the -threshold. It was the woman of the photograph.</p> - -<p>“Doctor—Doctor Breidenbach?” she faltered, as though disconcerted by -an unexpected meeting with strangers.</p> - -<p>Vincent stared at her, held in a suspense of the faculties where he -seemed not to breathe. At last he found his voice.</p> - -<p>“<i>Hélène!</i>” he cried. “Hélène! It <i>is</i> you!” He sprang to her, clutched -her arm. “What are you doing here?”</p> - -<p>With a frightened gesture of repulsion, the young woman disengaged -herself from his grasp. She drew herself up, looked at him without the -faintest recognition in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ich spreche nicht französisch, mein Herr!</i>” she said in a tone of -cold rebuff.</p> - -<p>“Hélène!”</p> - -<p>She shrank back in obviously offended dignity, and, without another -word, haughtily left the room.</p> - -<p>Vincent reeled away from the closed door, his hands to his head.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he groaned. “Am I going mad?”</p> - -<p>Then, ceding to a sudden impulse, he eluded his friend’s restraining -grasp, dashed to the door.</p> - -<p>“Hélène!”</p> - -<p>He found himself confronted by the smiling figure of Doctor Breidenbach.</p> - -<p>“Pardon the unintended intrusion, messieurs!” he said, good-humouredly -apologetic and taking no notice of Vincent’s excited appearance. “My -ward, Fräulein Rosenhagen, was unaware that I had guests.—I merely -wished to reassure myself that you require nothing before I go into the -town. Is there anything you desire of me?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Nothing, thank you,” interposed Chassaigne, quickly, before Vincent -could speak.</p> - -<p>“<i>A tantôt</i>, then!” He nodded amicably and went out.</p> - -<p>“We ought to have questioned him!” cried Vincent, resentful of the -missed opportunity.</p> - -<p>“We ought to do nothing of the kind, my dear Vincent,” replied -Chassaigne. “Calm yourself. Be sensible. What question could we -possibly ask that would not be ridiculous? You may be utterly wrong.”</p> - -<p>“<i>It is she!</i> I swear it!” asserted the young man, vehemently. “Do you -think I cannot recognize a woman I have known all my life?”</p> - -<p>He commenced to pace up and down the room in wild agitation. His friend -contemplated him with a gaze of genuine solicitude.</p> - -<p>“You may be mistaken for all that,” he said, gently. “Doubles, although -rare, exist——”</p> - -<p>Vincent stared at him in exasperation.</p> - -<p>“My fiancée had three little moles just above her right wrist—I looked -for those three moles when I held that woman’s arm just now—<i>and I -found them</i>! Are doubles so exactly reproduced as that?” he asked, -furiously.</p> - -<p>“It sounds incredible, certainly,” agreed Chassaigne. “But her -attitude——”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Vincent, recommencing his pacing up and down the room. -“She looked at me like a complete stranger. But,” he ground his teeth -in jealous rage, “if she has consented to live with that man—she might -have pretended—to hide her shame——”</p> - -<p>“My friend,” said Chassaigne, seriously, “in that young woman was -neither shame nor pretence. I observed her closely. She genuinely did -not recognize any acquaintance in you. She genuinely did not even know -French. She was genuinely resentful of your familiarity. That was no -play-acting performance. She was taken by surprise. She had no time to -prepare herself for it.”</p> - -<p>The young man beat his brow. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I am going mad!” he cried. “It was she, I swear it!—and yet—she -did not know me! It baffles me.” He stopped for a moment, then looked -up with a new idea. “Chassaigne! You are an authority on these things. -It is possible—by hypnotism or anything of the sort—to change a -personality completely—so that they forget everything—start afresh?”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne met his glance, hesitated.</p> - -<p>“It is—perhaps—possible,” he said, slowly. He went up to his friend, -put his hand on his shoulder, drew him to a chair. “Sit down, my -dear fellow. Let us be calm and think this out. If you are right—if -this young woman is indeed your—your friend—your suggestion might -<i>perhaps</i> be the key to the enigma. But we shall achieve nothing by -getting excited.”</p> - -<p>Vincent allowed himself to be gently forced into the chair. He looked -white and ill, thoroughly shaken. His friend, contemplating him, was -impressed by his appearance. Could such a shock be produced by a merely -imagined resemblance? He felt that it could not—and then those three -moles! His mind reverted to the young woman, to her indubitably genuine -non-recognition, and he felt more than ever puzzled. With a quiet -deliberation he drew up a chair and seated himself close to his comrade.</p> - -<p>“Now let us analyze this problem,” he said. He spoke in a calm, -consulting-room voice which eliminated in advance all emotion from the -discussion.</p> - -<p>Vincent looked up, his eyes miserable.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever known of such a case?”</p> - -<p>“Of a personality <i>permanently</i> changed? No.”</p> - -<p>“Is it hypothetically possible?”</p> - -<p>“Hypothetically—yes.”</p> - -<p>“By hypnotism?”</p> - -<p>“By hypnotism and suggestion.”</p> - -<p>“But a woman cannot be hypnotized against her will, can she?”</p> - -<p>“No—technically not—but her will may be stunned, so to speak, into -abeyance by a sudden shock or by terror<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> and then, virtually, she might -be hypnotized against her will. It is possible.”</p> - -<p>The young man took a deep breath.</p> - -<p>“That acquits her moral responsibility. But you say it is -hypothetically possible to change a personality <i>permanently</i>? It -sounds fantastic to me. Would you please explain?”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne leaned back in his chair and lightly joined the finger-tips -of his two hands. He spoke in the impersonal tone of a professor -elucidating a thesis.</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning we should have to -analyze personality—and human personality is a mystery I confess -myself unable to explore. You are aware, however, that there are -people who have double personalities—even triple and multiple -personalities—which differ utterly. For some reason which eludes us, -one of these submerged personalities in an individual may suddenly come -to the top. He, or she, entirely forgets the personality which was -theirs up to that moment, forgets name, relations, every circumstance -of life—and is completely someone else, quite new. There is a -recent case, exhaustively studied, of a young woman with four such -personalities—over which she has not the slightest control, and which -differ profoundly, mentally and morally. I mention this merely to show -you how unstable personality may be.”</p> - -<p>“These are pathological cases,” interposed Vincent. “My fiancée was a -thoroughly well-balanced woman.”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne nodded.</p> - -<p>“Before the war when you last saw her. She must have gone through -great stress since. But let us continue. Under hypnotism a person is -extraordinarily susceptible to the suggestions of the operator. He -will carry out perfectly any rôle indicated to him. The reason is that -in the hypnotic condition the conscious personality is put to sleep -and the subjective mind—the dream-creating consciousness which is -independent of the will—is paramount. That subjective mind possesses -little if any power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> of origination, but it has a startling faculty -of dramatizing any suggestion made to it. Tell a hypnotic that he is -President Wilson at the Peace Conference and he will get up and make -a speech perfectly in character, amazingly apposite, expressing ideas -that are normally perhaps quite alien to his temperament. Tell him -that he is Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and he will act the part -with a reality that is impressive. He believes himself actually to be -Napoleon. Under hypnotism, then, the personality which is mirrored in -the Ego—which you believe to be the essential, unchanging you—may be -utterly changed——”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” objected Vincent. “But that is only during the hypnotic trance. -It is not permanent.”</p> - -<p>“Wait a moment,” said Chassaigne. “Suggestions made during the hypnotic -trance may and do persist after the subject has awakened from it. I -may, for example, suggest to the hypnotized person that when he wakes -he will have forgotten his native language—and he will forget it. If -he knows no other, he will remain dumb until I remove the suggestion. I -may suggest to him that a person actually in the room is not there—and -he will not perceive him. I may suggest that in a week, a month, a -year, at such and such an hour, he will perform some absurd action—and -punctually to the moment, without understanding the source of his -impulse, he will perform it. Post-hypnotic persistence of suggestion is -a scientific fact.”</p> - -<p>“Then—in this case?”</p> - -<p>“In this case we have to do with a clever and possibly unscrupulous -man who is a specialist in manipulating the human mind. Of course, he -practises hypnotic suggestion as a part of his profession—it is the -chief agent in modern mental therapeutics. <i>It is possible</i> that by -some means he got this young woman into his power after she was dragged -from her home. It is possible that he was violently attracted to her, -and finding that she did not reciprocate his sentiments, proceeded to -subject her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> individuality to his. How would he do this? He would drug -or stun her volition by terror—as, for example, a bird is helplessly -fascinated in fear of the snake. Then, using some common mechanical -means such as the revolving mirror—staring into her eyes—anything -that would fatigue the sensory centres of sight—he would induce a -hypnotic trance. In that trance he would suggest to her that her name -was no longer Hélène whatever it was—but Fräulein Rosenhagen, that she -was a German woman ignorant of French, that she was perfectly happy -and contented in his society. In the supernormally receptive state of -the hypnotized mind he could give her lessons in German, which would -be learned with a speed and accuracy far surpassing that of ordinary -education. He would suggest to her that all his lessons persisted after -waking. Finally, he would constantly reiterate these suggestions in -a succession of hypnotic trances—once the first has been induced, -it is easy to bring about the second—until he had reconstructed her -personality, or rather imposed a new one upon her consciousness.</p> - -<p>“There, my dear Vincent, presuming that you are correct in your -recognition of this young lady, is a theoretical explanation of the -phenomenon which confronts us. For that the young woman genuinely did -not recognize you, I am certain.”</p> - -<p>“She is held in the most diabolical slavery ever conceived, then!” -cried Vincent, in despair. “A slavery of the soul! But can nothing be -done?”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Something can be attempted, my dear fellow. I promise nothing.” He -rose from his chair. “Now, I want you to promise to keep quiet—not -to interfere. Fortunately, I speak German, and can talk to her in the -language she believes to be her own. Wait a minute.” He roved round -the room, opening the cupboards under the bookcases, the drawers in -the writing-table by the window. “Ah, here we are!” he ejaculated. He -held up a small silver mirror which revolved quickly upon its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> single -support under the motion of his fingers. “I expected that our friend -the doctor would possess this little instrument.” He smiled. “Very -considerate of him to go out and leave us to ourselves! Now we will try -and profit by the circumstance. I am going to find that young lady and -bring her to you. You will maintain the attitude of a complete stranger -who regrets an impulsive familiarity for which a mistake in identity is -responsible. Master yourself!” He put the little mirror on the table -and went out of the room.</p> - -<p>A few moments later he returned, held the door wide open for the young -woman to enter. He spoke in fluent German.</p> - -<p>“My young friend, Fräulein, will not be consoled until he has had the -opportunity of a personal apology!”</p> - -<p>The young woman inclined her head gravely, and somewhat shyly advanced -to the centre of the room. Vincent rose to his feet, his face deadly -white, trembling in every limb, and bowed. Ignorant of German, he could -not utter a word. Chassaigne turned to him, spoke to him in French.</p> - -<p>“Look closely at Fräulein Rosenhagen, <i>mon ami</i>—and satisfy yourself.”</p> - -<p>The muscles of his face tense under the effort to repress his emotion, -to appear normal, the young man looked at her for a long moment. She -returned his gaze without a quiver of the eyelids, smiled with the -kindliness which sets a stranger at his ease.</p> - -<p>“It is she—it is she,” he muttered, hoarsely. “I swear it!”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne turned to the young woman.</p> - -<p>“My young friend is much affected by your extraordinary resemblance -to a lady he knew, Fräulein,” he said, smilingly, in German. “But he -perceives now that he was mistaken. You will, I am sure, pardon an -emotion that a person of your charm will readily understand. My friend -was greatly attached to the lady he thought he recognised in you.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> - -<p>The young woman smiled upon Vincent in feminine sympathy for a lover.</p> - -<p>“Is she a German?” she asked in a rich deep voice that made him start.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne replied for him.</p> - -<p>“No, Fräulein—she is a Frenchwoman brought to Germany against her -will.”</p> - -<p>He observed her narrowly as he spoke. Her face remained calm. His -words, evidently, awakened no latent memory in her.</p> - -<p>“How dreadful!” she said. Her rich voice vibrated on a note of -unfeigned sympathy which was, nevertheless, impersonal. “Poor man! And -he does not know where she is!”</p> - -<p>“He has no idea, Fräulein,” replied Chassaigne. “But let us leave this -painful subject. Will you not keep us company for a few minutes? We are -strangers in a strange land.” With a gallant courtesy, which, however, -omitted to wait for her assent, he took her right hand and led her to a -chair. His quick eyes noted the three moles upon her wrist. She seated -herself almost automatically. He registered, in support of his theory, -her easy susceptibility to a quietly insistent suggestion. “Will you -not tell us what is most worth seeing in Mainz?” he asked, smilingly.</p> - -<p>She looked up at him.</p> - -<p>“Alas, mein Herr, I cannot!” she said. “I have never been in the city.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed?” He expressed mild but courteous surprise. “Perhaps you have -only recently come to live here yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—er—no!” She smiled at her own confusion. “I mean we have been -here some time—but we travelled so much before we came here—that I—I -have really lost count——”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne made a reassuring little gesture which relegated the matter -to a limbo of indifference.</p> - -<p>“You travelled with Doctor Breidenbach, I presume?” he asked, casually.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes. We went to a great many places. He was in the army then.”</p> - -<p>“When you first met him?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.” Her first tone of confident assertion changed almost as she -uttered it to one of puzzled doubt. “Yes—I—I think so—I really -forget.” She smiled in self-apology. “I have a very bad memory, you -see, mein Herr,” she said, as if in explanation. “Doctor Breidenbach is -treating me for it.”</p> - -<p>“Ah?—Doubtless he is doing you a great deal of good?” Chassaigne -seated himself upon the edge of the table and smiled down upon her in -paternal benevolence.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” she began, impulsively. “You see, we are going to be -married. But Doctor Breidenbach thinks it would not be right to be -married until my memory is perfectly restored. So”—she hesitated, then -smiled up with an innocent naïveté—“so you see I am doing all I can to -concentrate and—and get it right.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” groaned Vincent in a low tone of anguish, turning away -and staring out of the window.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne frowned admonition at him in a quick glance unperceived by -the young woman. Unobtrusively, he put one hand behind him, picked up -the revolving-mirror from the table, held it behind his back. He nodded -assent to her little self-revelation.</p> - -<p>“Of course. No doubt you are making very rapid progress. Doctor -Breidenbach is a very clever man, is he not?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes—very clever. And so kind!”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne nodded again, his smile holding her confidence. As if -absent-mindedly, he brought the little mirror in front of him, played -with it. He noticed that her eyes fixed themselves instinctively upon -it.</p> - -<p>“Pretty toy!” he remarked, casually. “It belongs to Doctor Breidenbach -I suppose?”</p> - -<p>She stared at it in a strange fascination, shuddered suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, with a little gesture before her eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> as though -trying to throw off a spell, “yes—I—I think so——”</p> - -<p>“A scientific instrument, I presume?” continued Chassaigne, -imperturbably, as if merely interested in a curiosity, twirling the -support between his fingers so that the mirror rapidly revolved. -Imperceptibly he leaned forward, brought it nearer to her eyes. “It -suggests sleep, I think,” he continued in a quiet level voice that had -suddenly acquired a peculiar intensity. “Sleep. Sleep, Fräulein!”</p> - -<p>She stared at it, open-eyed, stiffening curiously. A phrase of protest -seemed frozen on her lips.</p> - -<p>He held it very close to her face, revolving the mirror in a -long-continued series of rapid flashes before her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Sleep!” he commanded in his intense level voice.</p> - -<p>Her breast heaved in a long, sleepy sigh. She shuddered again, -stiffened suddenly, sat rigid, entranced. Vincent, watching, crept -forward, tense with anxiety.</p> - -<p>“What are you going to do?” he whispered.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne motioned him to silence with a gesture of his forefinger. He -turned to the young woman.</p> - -<p>“You are asleep, are you not?”</p> - -<p>She did not reply.</p> - -<p>“You hear me?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>Her lips moved, but beyond that she did not stir.</p> - -<p>“In that sleep you remember things which you had otherwise forgotten.” -He turned to Vincent, whispered: “What is her name?”</p> - -<p>“Hélène Courvoisier.”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne bent over her, picked up her wrist with the three moles.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember Hélène Courvoisier?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Not even the name?”</p> - -<p>“Not even the name.”</p> - -<p>There was a short silence, and then Chassaigne spoke again in insistent -level tones. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I suggest to you that you are yourself Hélène Courvoisier!”</p> - -<p>Vincent, guessing the purport of the words, held his breath in -suspense. To his despair the young woman responded with a far-away but -genuinely mirthful laugh.</p> - -<p>“No! How absurd!” she said, laughing like a person under a drug. “I -am Ottilie Rosenhagen! I was always Ottilie Rosenhagen!” She laughed -again, hysterically, but more and more freely, more and more loudly, -more and more the laugh of a person normally awake. Still laughing, -she shuddered, passed her hand across her brow, relaxed suddenly -from her stiff attitude—and ceased to laugh with a glance around of -bewilderment. She fixed her eyes upon Chassaigne.</p> - -<p>“I—I think I feel unwell,” she said, rising brusquely from her chair. -“Excuse me!—I—I cannot stay!”</p> - -<p>Without a glance behind her, she went swiftly from the room.</p> - -<p>Vincent watched her go, anguish and despair in his eyes. He turned to -Chassaigne.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he asked, hoarsely.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne made a gesture of annoyance. He shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“I might have guessed as much!” he said. “He has rendered her immune -to the suggestion. You see, the trance was induced easily enough. As -I thought, she was accustomed to being hypnotized by that mirror and -the mere sight of it was almost sufficient. Without that, I should -certainly have failed to hypnotize her at all, for Breidenbach would -assuredly have impressed upon her the suggestion that she could be -hypnotized by no one but himself. He has furthermore guarded himself by -impressing upon her that the suggestion of being anybody but Ottilie -Rosenhagen will suffice to break the trance. He cannot be sure that -such an impressionable subject may not be hypnotized, possibly by a -chance accident—such things occur—in his absence. But he can be sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> -that any counter-suggestion on the vital matter will defeat itself—as -we have just seen.”</p> - -<p>“But can no one remove the suggestion?” cried Vincent. He glared around -the room, clenching his fist. “The infernal scoundrel! By God, I’ll -kill him!” He fingered the revolver, in the holster strapped to his -belt.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne laid a restraining hand upon him.</p> - -<p>“If you do—you will in all probability kill the only man in the world -who can replace the factitious personality of Ottilie Rosenhagen by the -real personality of Hélène Courvoisier!”</p> - -<p>Vincent stared at him.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that?”</p> - -<p>“He certainly can remove the suggestions he has himself made. It is -doubtful whether any other can.”</p> - -<p>“He must be forced to do it! We must inform the authorities!”</p> - -<p>“Agreed, my dear fellow!” Chassaigne’s voice was soothing. “But we -must first get evidence—real evidence—that this young woman is not -Ottilie Rosenhagen but Hélène Courvoisier. What evidence have we got -now that we could put up before a tribunal? None. Merely your alleged -recognition, as against her own emphatic denial that she is the person -you maintain. And at the present time not even the most cunning -cross-examination could elucidate the fact that she had ever known the -French language. Ottilie Rosenhagen does not know French—and, at this -moment, to all intents and purposes, she <i>is</i> Ottilie Rosenhagen!”</p> - -<p>“Then we must get hold of him ourselves!”</p> - -<p>“He will simply laugh at us as madmen—apply to have us removed from -his house. No, my dear fellow, we cannot force the pace. Wait. Be -patient. Arouse no suspicion in his mind. Our opportunity will come, -be sure of that. The real personality of Hélène Courvoisier is there -all the time, latent. I am confident that we shall—somehow—succeed in -bringing it to the surface again.”</p> - -<p>The young man shuddered. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I wish I could see how!” he said, hopelessly.</p> - -<p>“You will see it. I guarantee it,” said Chassaigne, forcing his -cheerfulness. “Now, come away out of this house. We will go into Mainz, -dine, spend the evening at a café, and forget it—or talk it over, as -you will. We can do nothing more now.” He smiled at him. “Come! As your -superior officer, I command you!”</p> - -<p>The hour was late when the two officers returned. Before going out, -Chassaigne had provided himself with a key, and they let themselves -into the house. It was quiet, its occupants apparently in bed. -Throughout the evening there had been but one topic of conversation -and, as it was yet unexhausted, they went into Doctor Breidenbach’s -library, switched on the lights, and sat down for a final smoke before -retiring.</p> - -<p>“What we require,” said Chassaigne, for the twentieth time, as he -lit his cigarette, “is demonstrable evidence, something that makes -it certain that you are not under an illusion. Even in my own mind, -I cannot help confessing, there is a doubt. Look at it from my point -of view. You assure me that you recognize the young woman. Good—but -your recognition may be an error, although sincere. You strengthen -your case by pointing to the three moles. But, if I were questioned, I -should be bound to admit that you did not mention those moles until you -had seen them on this woman. You may be suffering from a not uncommon -delusion of memory which refers to the past a thing now for the first -time perceived. The strongest piece of evidence we possess is that, -under the physical analysis to which we subjected the young woman, I -found that she was a hypnotic subject, that she was impressible, and -that her personality as Ottilie Rosenhagen is practically without any -memories of the past. <i>But we could not discover any trace of any other -personality.</i> She rejects as ridiculous the suggestion that she is not -Ottilie Rosenhagen. That proves nothing, in the special circumstances -we are considering. She might or might not still be Hélène Courvoisier. -But the theory on which we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> been working presupposes a crime so -unique, that, quite frankly, to be entirely convinced I want to come -upon some trace of a submerged personality which tallies with your -assertion. If she is Hélène Courvoisier that personality is certainly -there. But how are we going to get at it?”</p> - -<p>Vincent shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I cannot imagine,” he said, wearily.</p> - -<p>He looked up to see Chassaigne staring in astonishment at the door -behind his chair. Startled, he twisted himself round to see what was -happening—and gasped.</p> - -<p>Framed in the doorway, a dressing-gown over her night-attire, her dark -hair loose over her shoulders, was the young woman. In her hand was a -bedroom candle, alight. Her face was expressionless and placid. Her -eyes were open, looked fixedly in front of her. She moved into the room -with a gliding step.</p> - -<p>“She is asleep!” whispered Chassaigne. “Speak to her, Vincent!—who -knows?—Perhaps another stratum of personality!”</p> - -<p>The young woman glided straight toward the lieutenant, who gripped at -the arm of the chair in his emotion. She was close upon him ere he -could force himself to speech.</p> - -<p>“Hélène!” he said in a tense, low voice, looking up into her eyes as if -trying to bring her dream down to him. “Do you know me?”</p> - -<p>She bent over him, kissed him softly upon the brow.</p> - -<p>“Maxime!” she murmured, her tone vibrant with tender affection. -“Maxime! You have been away so long!”</p> - -<p><i>She spoke in French!</i></p> - -<p>Chassaigne jumped in his chair, but before he could utter a word, a new -voice spoke sharply.</p> - -<p>“Ottilie!”</p> - -<p>The two officers turned to the doorway to see Doctor Breidenbach -standing there, his face clouded with menace, his eyes angry. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> - -<p>The young woman started, looked wildly about her in the bewilderment -of one suddenly aroused from sleep. Then after one horrified glance at -her attire, an amazed stare at the two officers, she sank down on to -a chair and covered her face with her hands. Trembling violently in -every nerve of her body, she crouched there in a misery of shame, too -overwhelmed to utter a sound.</p> - -<p>The German advanced into the room, stood over her.</p> - -<p>“Ottilie! Come away at once!”</p> - -<p>Vincent, now on his feet, flushed with rage at the brutal tone of the -command, comprehensible enough to him despite his ignorance of the -language.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne went quietly behind the German, locked the door, and slipped -the key in his pocket.</p> - -<p>Breidenbach, his eyes fixed on the girl, reiterated his command.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur!” broke from Vincent in an angry expostulation which ignored -his comrade’s gesture to silence.</p> - -<p>The German looked round upon him, forcing his face to a smile in which -the vivid blue eyes behind the pince-nez failed to participate.</p> - -<p>“You are certainly entitled to some explanation of this unseemly -occurrence, gentlemen,” he said in French. His voice, perfectly -controlled and reinforcing his smile, suggested an appreciation of -piquancy in this equivocal situation, invited the sense of humour of -the Gallic temperament. “I need not tell you that Fräulein Rosenhagen -is entirely innocent of any intent to disturb you. She is, I may say, -under my medical care. She suffers from somnambulism, and you will -understand that it is comprehensible she should wander to this room -where she is accustomed to receive treatment.”</p> - -<p>Vincent, with difficulty, controlled himself to silence in obedience to -his friend’s warning glance. Chassaigne stepped forward.</p> - -<p>“Quite, monsieur,” he said, easily, smiling as though he fully -appreciated the position from all points of view. “A case of abnormal -subconscious activity. I am myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> greatly interested, professionally, -in this common neuro-pathological symptom. May I suggest that, since -your patient has come here in response to an obscure instinctive -desire for the accustomed treatment of which she is doubtless in need, -you now satisfy her? I should esteem it a privilege to assist at a -demonstration of your methods.”</p> - -<p>The German’s eyes flashed a suspicion that was instantly veiled.</p> - -<p>“The hour is late, monsieur,” he said, coldly.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly.</p> - -<p>“In our profession, monsieur—the service of humanity,” he said with -sly malice, “one is on duty at all hours.”</p> - -<p>The German’s eyes expressed frank hostility.</p> - -<p>“I do not consider it advisable,” he said. His tone was curt.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne glanced at the young woman still crouched upon the chair.</p> - -<p>“As a professional man of some experience, monsieur,” he said, -imperturbably, “I do not agree with you. I feel sure your patient would -benefit by it. Let me beg of you!”</p> - -<p>The German trembled with sudden anger.</p> - -<p>“This is an unwarrantable interference, monsieur! The patient is in my -charge. I decline absolutely!” He turned to the girl. “Come, Ottilie!” -he added in German.</p> - -<p>She ventured a shrinking glance up at him, stirred as if to rise.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne raised his hand in a gesture which checked her. His eyes met -the German’s in a direct challenge.</p> - -<p>“Unreasonable as it sounds, monsieur, I have set my heart upon -witnessing your methods. It is a whim of the conqueror—the force of -which you, who have served in Belgium, will appreciate.” His right hand -slid into the pocket of his tunic. “I must insist!”</p> - -<p>“I refuse, then!” The German was livid with rage. He turned and plucked -the girl violently from her seat. “Out of my way, monsieur!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> - -<p>Dragging the girl after him, he took two steps toward the door—and -stopped suddenly. Two more steps would have brought him into contact -with the muzzle of the revolver which Chassaigne levelled at him.</p> - -<p>“Foreseeing your possible ill-humour, monsieur,” said the Frenchman, -with a mocking suavity, “I took the precaution of locking the door. -This young woman has inspired me with so violent an interest that I -cannot bear to see her suffer unrelieved. And I might remind you that -should you unfortunately lose your life by the accidental explosion of -this revolver—I should find it comparatively easy to restore her to -complete mental health myself.”</p> - -<p>The German glared at him.</p> - -<p>“I do not understand you!”</p> - -<p>“You do—perfectly!” Chassaigne turned to his friend. “Vincent, conduct -that young lady to a chair!”</p> - -<p>The girl, who had been released by the German in the first shock of -his surprise, stood paralyzed with terror, staring speechlessly at the -revolver in Chassaigne’s hand. Unresistingly, she allowed herself to be -led to a chair by the young man who was as speechless as she.</p> - -<p>Chassaigne nodded satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“Good! Now, Vincent, draw your revolver and cover this gentleman -yourself. Be careful to hit him in a vital spot should you be compelled -to fire.”</p> - -<p>Vincent obeyed with alacrity, dangling the heavy weapon with fingers -that evidently itched to pull the trigger.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur,” said Chassaigne with grim courtesy to the German who had -remained motionless under the menace of the revolver, “I invite you to -take a seat. You may keep your hands on your knees, but do not move -them until I give permission.”</p> - -<p>The German sat down heavily, his eyes gleaming evilly at the Frenchman.</p> - -<p>“Now, monsieur,” said Chassaigne, in succinct tones, “since you say you -do not understand, I will be more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> explicit. I desire that you should -induce in this young woman the hypnotic trance which is your habitual -treatment for her indisposition——”</p> - -<p>A gleam of cunning flitted in the German’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” he said, with sulky submission. “If you insist!”</p> - -<p>“But with this difference,” continued Chassaigne, “<i>that your habitual -suggestion shall be reversed</i>!”</p> - -<p>The German started—controlled himself quickly.</p> - -<p>“I do not understand,” he said, maintaining his pose of sulkiness.</p> - -<p>“I mean that instead of suggesting to her that she is and always has -been Ottilie Rosenhagen—you suggest to her that she is really Hélène -Courvoisier, a French girl deported from Lille!”</p> - -<p>The muscles stood out suddenly upon the German’s lean jaws, even as, -with a strength of will Chassaigne could not but admire, he smiled -mockingly into his adversary’s face.</p> - -<p>“You rave, monsieur!” he said, and his tone emphasized the insult.</p> - -<p>“Rave or not,” replied Chassaigne, calmly, “I want you to try the -experiment. It is a whim of mine.” He handled the revolver suggestively.</p> - -<p>“And if I refuse?”</p> - -<p>“I shall shoot you!”</p> - -<p>The German laughed outright.</p> - -<p>“Ottilie!” he cried, in German, “these Frenchmen have gone mad. They -pretend that you are not Ottilie Rosenhagen but a French girl—and they -want to take you from me!”</p> - -<p>The girl sprang from her seat with a cry of horror, rushed to him, and -flung her arms about him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “I am German—I am German—I was never -anything but German! Oh, don’t take me away from him! I love him! I -love him! He is all I have in the world!”</p> - -<p>Vincent watched the action with jealous rage. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> - -<p>“My God!” he muttered. “I shall kill him in another moment if this goes -on!”</p> - -<p>The German smiled at them triumphantly.</p> - -<p>“You see, gentlemen! Your suggestion is fantastic! This girl is my -fiancée, and she is German to the core!”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne’s face was stern.</p> - -<p>“Vincent! Remove the lady!”</p> - -<p>The young man had to tear her by force from the German, who remained -immobile in his chair in a mocking respect for the revolver.</p> - -<p>“Fantastic or not,” said Chassaigne, “I demand that you try the -experiment. If you refuse—it is because you dare not do it!”</p> - -<p>The German shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Very good, monsieur. I refuse. Think what you will!”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne drew his watch from his pocket.</p> - -<p>“I give you three minutes to decide,” he said. “Vincent! Put the lady -in that armchair and be ready to shoot when I give the word. Two -bullets are more sure than one!”</p> - -<p>The girl, dazed with fright, looking as though she were in some awful -dream, collapsed nervelessly into the chair. Vincent posted himself by -the German’s side, his levelled revolver held just out of reach of a -sudden snatch.</p> - -<p>The German tried one more expostulation.</p> - -<p>“This is madness!” he cried. “You surely do not propose to commit a -cold-blooded murder!”</p> - -<p>“One!” said Chassaigne, grimly. “Two more minutes, monsieur!”</p> - -<p>The German laughed diabolically.</p> - -<p>“Very well, then! Commit your murder! Much will it profit you! I am the -only man in the world who can influence that young woman. Whatever you -may think, you cannot transform her personality. Ottilie Rosenhagen she -is and Ottilie Rosenhagen she will remain!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Two!” said Chassaigne.</p> - -<p>“You may as well shoot now! Don’t wait for the third!” jeered the -German. “I deny that she is other than Ottilie Rosenhagen. I utterly -refuse to experiment upon her at your dictation. Shoot! I defy you!” -The man certainly did not lack courage. He smiled mockingly as -Chassaigne’s revolver rose slowly and deliberately to a level with his -eyes. “Shoot! Outrage for outrage, your murder of a German civilian -may well balance the deportations you prate about!” It was significant -that in this fateful crisis it should be that particular crime which -occurred to him for parity.</p> - -<p>The taunt seemed to strike the spark of an idea in Chassaigne’s brain. -Still menacing the German with his revolver, he held out the key to the -door in his left hand.</p> - -<p>“Vincent! In Doctor Briedenbach’s hall there is a telephone. A hundred -yards away there is a post of infantry. Ring up the commandant, tell -him that I have arrested Doctor Breidenbach on the charge of abducting -a French subject, ask him to send along an armed escort at once—not -less than half a dozen!” He glanced at the girl, who was apparently -in a swoon upon her chair. “It is important that the force should be -imposing! Hurry!”</p> - -<p>Vincent snatched at the key, and dashed from the room.</p> - -<p>The German smiled in grim contempt. Chassaigne, still covering him with -the revolver, smiled back, not less grimly. They waited in a complete -silence, through minute after minute. The girl upon the chair did not -stir.</p> - -<p>Suddenly they heard the rhythmic tramp of a body of armed men on the -gravel outside, a sharp voice of command, and then, after a brief -pause, the heavy multiple tramp again, resounding through the house, -louder and louder in its approach. At the sound, the girl sat up -brusquely, stared wild-eyed at the door.</p> - -<p>It was flung open. Vincent entered, pointed out the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> girl to the -French officer who accompanied him, evidently in confirmation of a -statement made outside. The officer barked an order. A file of helmeted -infantrymen, bayoneted rifles at the slope, marched heavily into the -room. The girl shrieked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no! no! Don’t take me!” she cried—<i>and her cry was French</i>! -“Don’t take me! I will not go! I will not go!” She sprang up from her -chair, looked frenziedly around the room in a terror-stricken search -for an avenue of escape. Her eyes fell upon Vincent remained curiously -fixed upon him. Suddenly, with a cry of recognition, she rushed into -his arms. “Maxime! Maxime! Protect me! Oh, don’t let them take me! -Don’t let them take me!”</p> - -<p>Chassaigne smiled. He had won. As he expected, the shock of this -armed entry so vividly recalled the night of terror in Lille when the -girl-victims were snatched from their violated homes, had sufficed to -reawaken the personality which had then agonized in its last moments of -freedom.</p> - -<p>Vincent enfolded her, murmuring reassuring words as he caressed the -head that hid itself upon his breast. Her body shook with violent sobs.</p> - -<p>The German stood up, placed himself, with a shrug of the shoulders, -between the double file of infantrymen. The officer produced a -notebook, asked a few questions of Chassaigne, jotted down the replies. -He turned to the girl.</p> - -<p>“Your name, mademoiselle?”</p> - -<p>She looked up.</p> - -<p>“Hélène Courvoisier,” she replied, unhesitatingly.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> - -<h2>SHE WHO CAME BACK</h2> - -<p>The clock upon the mantelpiece struck, discreetly, the hour of eleven -in the night-stillness of the study where old Henry Arkwright worked. -He glanced up with busy, preoccupied brows to the dial, confirming his -half-registered impression of the tale of strokes. Eleven o’clock! He -would work for another two or three hours yet. He sucked cheerfully -at his pipe as he signed the just-written counsel’s opinion; folded -the stiff, long documents and tied them neatly with their original -tape; took yet another legal case from the pile in front of him. He -felt himself in form to-night, enjoyed the efficiency of his brain -that worked so swiftly and surely in this solitude. The complete -silence of the house was subtly grateful to him. He was immune from all -disturbance. The servants had long since gone to bed. His concentration -upon his task was unthreatened, the stores of legal knowledge held -ready for his use in that practised brain of his unobscured by any -concrete trivialities. Eleven o’clock—yes, he could put in another -three hours good work before, exhausted to-night like all the other -nights, he went slowly up the empty stairs to his empty bedroom. He -adjusted himself to consideration of the affidavits he unfolded.</p> - -<p>What was that? The faint ringing of the door-bell, far away in the -servants’ quarters but distinctly audible in this sleep-hushed house, -persisted until it came to his full recognition. He looked up, puzzled, -from the papers in the shaded light of his reading-lamp, glanced around -the book-lined study where the fire-glow flickered redly in the absence -of full illumination. Who could it be at this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> time of night? The -far-away faint ringing continued, eloquent of an unrelaxed pressure -upon the bell-push at the porch. He listened to it with exasperated -annoyance, resentful of this interruption of his labours, trying to -imagine an identity for this inconsiderately late visitor. Whoever it -was, he himself would have to open the door. The servants were long ago -asleep. They would not hear the bell. With a petulant exclamation, he -rose from his desk, went out into the darkened hall.</p> - -<p>Stimulated into haste in instinctive response to the determined urgency -of the summons of that bell, its sound quite loud and definite out -here, he fumbled hurriedly for the electric switch. Then, the lights -full on, he went quickly to the door and opened it. A cold wind blew -in upon him from the darkness into which he peered, seeing, at first, -nothing. The ringing had ceased. A doubt of reality, a suspicion of -hallucination, shot through him, was dispelled upon the instant. From -the shadowed side of the porch a woman’s form moved into the broad beam -of light. A curious, inexplicable, sudden consciousness of his own -heart, vaguely not normal in its action, filled his breast as he stared -out to her in a momentary suspense of recognition. Then she turned her -face full upon him.</p> - -<p>He started back, shocked to his inmost as though he had touched a live -electric wire.</p> - -<p>“Christine!” he gasped, in incredulous amazement. -“Christine!—<i>You!</i>—<i>Come back?</i>”</p> - -<p>The eyes in the woman’s drawn face opened upon him as from a tight-shut -agony, searched what was to her his dark, featureless silhouette in the -illumination from the hall. Her whole soul seemed to yearn out to him -in doubt and in desperate appeal. He saw her lips move before she spoke.</p> - -<p>“Will you let me in?” she asked, humbly. “Harry!” She breathed his name -as though she dared not pronounce it.</p> - -<p>He felt himself turn dizzy under this unexpected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> emotional shock. He -stared at her dumbly, the scathing phrases of indignant repudiation, so -often mentally rehearsed for such a moment, eluding him. Christine! He -could not at once adjust himself to her reality, looked at her again to -make unmistakably sure. Christine—come back.</p> - -<p>“Harry!” she breathed again in timid humility.</p> - -<p>He shuddered in a cold gust from the darkness as he stared at her. She -was hatless, coatless, in that bitter wind. He saw her shiver as she -half-ventured to stretch out a hand toward him.</p> - -<p>A sudden impulse, as from a source superior to him—he thought it was -pity—mastered the righteous indignation he had been trying to bring to -utterance.</p> - -<p>“Come in,” he said, thickly, and made way for her.</p> - -<p>She entered. He shut the door behind her, turned to look at her as she -stood in the full illumination of the hall. Once more her eyes had -closed. Her lips were compressed as over an almost unendurable agony -of the spirit. She swayed on her feet, arms limply by her sides, as -though only stayed from falling by a supreme effort of the will. How -old and haggard she looked!—the thought traversed him like a flash, -linked itself to another—twenty-five years! What had happened to her -in that twenty-five years? Little of good fortune, assuredly—with the -professional eye that appraised a new witness in the box, he noted the -poor, threadbare quality of her white dress, unadorned by any of the -jewellery that had once been her delight.</p> - -<p>The chilled blueness of her skin struck him as he scrutinized her. He -touched her hand, automatically and impersonally, for confirmation of -his impression.</p> - -<p>“You’re frozen!” he said. His accent of ill-humour rang oddly familiar -in his own ears. It was the old annoyance at yet another of the -impulsive follies so typical of her. “What are you thinking of, to come -out like this?” he added, sharply. “Here!” He flung open the study -door. “There’s a fire here—sit down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> and warm yourself!” The tone of -unsympathetic authority was—he remembered it—instinctively just the -old tone he had so often used to her in that life now so remote as -almost to seem a previous existence.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes again, the large emotional eyes that had not -changed, looked at him, looked <i>into him</i>. Incredulity spread over her -face.</p> - -<p>“By your fire? Can you, Harry?—Can you, after everything—after all -these years—can you still have me by your fire?”</p> - -<p>Tears came up in those big eyes which looked so yearningly into his, -and her mouth twisted itself into a pathetic little smile—the ghost -of the smile that he had known in a younger face. He felt oddly -uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>“Come along!” He commanded her almost brutally, defending himself from -any relaxation of hostility. “Come and warm yourself!” He lifted one of -her hands and its chill struck to the centre of him. “Why have you no -coat?—You must be mad!”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him, and did not answer. He drew her into the warm study, -pulled a chair close to the fire for her, pressed her down into it. -Then he turned to switch on the full lights.</p> - -<p>She stopped him with a gesture.</p> - -<p>“Please, Harry!—Just like this—in the firelight.”</p> - -<p>He obeyed and returned to her. Coldness seemed to emanate from her body -as he came close. What sheer insanity! She must be chilled through and -through, he thought.</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders to himself, disclaiming responsibility, and, -for his own self-respect, played the host.</p> - -<p>“Can I get you anything, Christine?” he asked, ungraciously. “Anything -to eat or drink?”</p> - -<p>She lifted her large eyes toward his face and shook her head slowly, -without a word.</p> - -<p>Baffled by her manner, he struck at what he thought to be the heart of -the awkward situation. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What do you want? What have you come for?” he demanded, harshly. -“Money?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head again and smiled.</p> - -<p>“No, Harry. I want nothing, except just to be with you once again—for -a little time.”</p> - -<p>A long sigh, from the depths of her bosom, escaped her as she turned -her head down again to the fire and stared dreamily into its red -recesses.</p> - -<p>“Just to be with you,” she repeated, softly, as to herself, “once more.”</p> - -<p>He stood over her, not knowing what to say. Silence filled the room.</p> - -<p>She looked up at him, timidly.</p> - -<p>“You’re not pleased to see me, are you, Harry? You never wanted to see -me again?”</p> - -<p>He did not answer.</p> - -<p>“Of course—how could you be?” she murmured to herself, gazing once -more into the fire. “You never could forgive—never!”</p> - -<p>He forced himself to a politeness he felt to be magnanimous.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to dwell on past injuries, Christine,” he said, coldly. -“I should be pleased to know that what you did brought happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Happiness!” she repeated, almost inaudibly, in ironic mockery, her -gaze still fixed upon the fire.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she looked round to him.</p> - -<p>“Harry!” she said, impulsively. “Harry!” Her eyes went beyond him for -a moment to the litter of papers on his desk, returned to him. “Harry! -I know I am disturbing you”—the old pathetic smile came into her -face—“but I want to ask you a favour—” she hesitated, as though her -courage failed her—“the favour for which I came.”</p> - -<p>He hardened himself for a refusal.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I want you to give up your work for just one hour—I want you to sit -by the fireside and talk to me. Won’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> you? Won’t you let me come -first for just once—as—as I used to want to in the old days?” Her -eyes, fine as ever, implored him in almost irresistible appeal. “I -have dreamed of this for so long!” She went on as in a reverie, after -a little pause, staring once more into the fire. “You never would, -Harry—and perhaps—if you had——” She sighed. “You were so ambitious!”</p> - -<p>He stood immobile, typically reluctant to break his habits. Those -cases were important. He was coming to himself now, the effect of the -first shock diminishing. Some of the old anger awoke in his heart as -he looked down upon her. The old sense of disturbance returned. It was -just like her to come and break up his night’s work. And now—after all -that had happened! He resented her presumption, stigmatized it as sheer -callousness.</p> - -<p>She looked up, feeling his thoughts perhaps.</p> - -<p>“Harry! Can’t you—for just this once? I don’t ask you to forgive.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes held him, enfeebled his resistance.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got nothing to tell you, Christine,” he said, gruffly. “Nothing. -I didn’t ask you to come back, but since you have come—well, I will -not shut you out in the cold. You can sit by the fire if you like.”</p> - -<p>She smiled—the little ghost of her twenty-year-old smile upon that -worn and middle-aged face. He clenched his teeth at it, at something in -himself.</p> - -<p>“Have you really nothing to say to me, Harry? Not a question to ask?”</p> - -<p>He armed himself against the pathos of her appeal.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, curtly. “Nothing.”</p> - -<p>She shut her eyes as though under a blow. Then, with a tacit admission -of its justice, she smiled up at him again. Evidently, her courage was -held at high tension.</p> - -<p>“I know I don’t deserve it,” she said. “I don’t deserve to be sitting -here again, after all these years. But, oh, Harry, you <i>could</i> be -generous—once, at those rare times when I could really touch the real -you as I so often longed to do. Are you still hard, Harry?—still so -hard?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> She sighed, wearily, turned her head hopelessly once more to -the fire.</p> - -<p>He watched the play of its glow over her features, was struck by her -bad colour. The coldly observant part of him noted the fact that -she was, or had been, ill. Half-starved, too, added this detached -professional self. Suffering, physical and mental, was stamped upon -her face. He acquiesced in it, grimly. Her frivolous wickedness—he -remembered the callously jaunty tone of the note she had left for -him—had met just retribution. He wondered what had happened to the man.</p> - -<p>She looked up again, answering, with a subtle perception, the question -in his mind.</p> - -<p>“He’s dead, Harry—dead years ago. Very dead. To me, he never really -lived—not as you have lived, always, through every moment of my—” she -paused—“my Hell.”</p> - -<p>A sentiment of pity pricked him sharply. Poor little Christine!—she -had certainly paid, and paid heavily. He repressed his commiseration, -in alarm at himself. He must think—think sensibly. Did she intend -to come back for good? He reacted violently against the idea. It was -impossible. He would be a laughing-stock, the butt for the pointing -fingers, the sly allusions, of his fellows in the Courts. His pride -revolted. No, no—he must get her out again somehow, before the -servants knew.</p> - -<p>Once more she read his thought.</p> - -<p>“No one shall know that I have come, Harry. It’s just for this one -hour and then I’ll go again. But just for this one hour—Harry!” She -stretched out her arms to him. “Be generous!”</p> - -<p>He fenced stubbornly.</p> - -<p>“What, exactly, do you want, Christine?”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him, her face radiant.</p> - -<p>“I want—I want just to pretend that it all never happened. I want, -just once, to sit with you by the fireside as though I had been here -all these years—as though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> you and I had learned to be the comrades I -had dreamed we should be. I want to sit with you as we should have sat, -both of us now growing old, looking back on all the beautiful things of -our life together. Harry!” She lifted her arms to him again, yearning -out to him. “Just once—just once to pretend—to be as we might have -been—and then I can go away and really and truly die, satisfied. Be -generous, Harry, be generous just this once if you never are again.”</p> - -<p>An obscure feeling stirred in him, a sense of tears that threatened as -he looked down into the eyes that swam with moisture.</p> - -<p>“You nearly broke my life, Christine,” he said, with a hardly achieved -attempt at harshness.</p> - -<p>“I want to forget it,” she answered. “To believe—for just one -hour—that I made your life, as I wanted to help make it. Oh, Harry, -Harry, I love you—I have always loved you, wherever I have been and -whatever I have done—and I want to believe, oh, for just such a little -minute, that my love was not really in vain. I just had to come!”</p> - -<p>He pressed his hand over his eyes, did not answer.</p> - -<p>She pointed to the comrade chair by the fireside.</p> - -<p>“Harry—Harry dear—sit down and talk to me as we ought to have been -able to sit and talk—old married lovers with never a cloud between us.”</p> - -<p>“Oh—don’t!” he said. “Don’t, Christine!” He burst out with a sudden -anger. “Why have you come back? I—I wanted to forget, forget always.”</p> - -<p>She reached for his hand, touched it with fingers that were still cold.</p> - -<p>“And we are going to forget—going to forget it quite, for just a -little hour, Harry, Harry darling!”</p> - -<p>Her voice, on the old remembered note of fondness, touched him with a -strange power. Something crumbled in him.</p> - -<p>He sat down suddenly in the indicated chair, stared, he also, into the -fire. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It’s a bitter mockery, Christine!”</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered. “It’s the real thing—for just once—the real -thing.”</p> - -<p>They sat in silence for long moments where the clock ticked loudly. She -stretched her hand out to him.</p> - -<p>“Harry! Hold my hand in yours—like you used to do—in the old days -before you married me. It will help so much. Can you remember it?—the -old touch that used to thrill?”</p> - -<p>He obeyed without a word, took her little palm between his two large -hands, pressed it close. Its death-like coldness struck him and, in -defiance of it, he emphasized his contact. With a sudden tenderness -that was awkwardly unpractised, he endeavoured to instil a little of -his own warmth into it. As he did so, he felt as it were a sluice-gate -open in him. A long-repressed sentimentality asserted itself, invaded -his lonely soul like a flood. He looked at her. If only—his protective -secondary personality, dominant for so many years, reacted jealously, -perverted his regret—if only she could have understood him a little -more!</p> - -<p>It was she who spoke.</p> - -<p>“I’m so proud of you, Harry—so proud of your success!”</p> - -<p>He almost started—remembering how he had hoped that she would read -his name in the newspapers, in a vindictive desire that she should -regret what she had thrown away. He saw, suddenly, that it was only her -opinion that had ever really mattered to him.</p> - -<p>“My dear,” he said, feeling himself a tolerant old man who could afford -to be kind from his altitude, “perhaps if I had never known you, I -should never have worked so hard.”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him as though there were no irony in his words, but only -a beautiful truth.</p> - -<p>“Harry—Harry darling!” she murmured. “I have helped—helped a little, -haven’t I? My love has been what you said it would be—the vital force -on which you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> could always draw? Do you remember that, the night we -were engaged?”</p> - -<p>This cool assumption of a dream, utterly opposed to the facts, startled -him. He looked at her, and had not the heart to contradict. Suppose it -had been so? Could he surrender himself to this make-believe which she -was playing with an almost childish simplicity? It was suddenly very -tempting to him.</p> - -<p>“I remember, my dear—and I promised,” his voice broke a little while -he hesitated on a self-reproach, “never—never to cut myself off from -it—never to say the harsh word which you warned me would freeze your -sensitive little soul.”</p> - -<p>“And you never have, Harry,” she murmured, softly. “You’ve always -remembered—always been gentle and kind and loving—all these long -years of happiness together.”</p> - -<p>His eyes felt sympathetically uncomfortable as he looked into hers, -moist in the firelight.</p> - -<p>“Twenty-seven years, dear,” he said, caressingly, consciously -defiant of the jealous self that watched. He had taken the plunge. -“Twenty-seven years last week since we married.”</p> - -<p>She nodded her head in acquiescence.</p> - -<p>“We’ve had our life-time, Harry dear—and we have not wasted it, have -we? Every year has been full, full to the brim, with sympathy and -love.” She sighed, gazing into the fire. “And that’s the only thing in -life that matters—the only thing. Success without love would have been -very barren to you, wouldn’t it, Harry?” Her eyes came round to him.</p> - -<p>“Dead Sea fruit, my darling,” the illusion was almost perfect to him, -the irony without bitterness, scarcely perceived, “dust and ashes at -the core.” He smiled at her from a strangely sentimental self that was -almost foreign to him and yet his own. “Christine, without you I should -not really have lived.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> - -<p>She answered him with a movement of the fingers now warm between the -hands still holding them.</p> - -<p>“Nor I, Harry, without you. You and I were each other’s Destiny.”</p> - -<p>He, too, nodded his head solemnly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear,” he agreed. “I believe that.”</p> - -<p>“And, thank God, we have not thwarted it, Harry. We have enjoyed it to -the full.”</p> - -<p>He pressed her hand tightly for his only answer. Dream or reality, was -it? He had almost lost the power to distinguish. He looked into her -face, softly happy and somehow nobler and purer than he had ever known -it, pressed her hand again in a vague necessity to substantiate the -tangible actuality of her presence. It was really Christine sitting -there, filling that usually empty chair, breathing with slight rise and -fall of her bosom as she gazed into the fire. And if the other were a -dream—the happy past that she called up in imagination—just an old -man’s dream, why he would allow himself, that sentimental self in him -that none but himself had ever seen, the happiness of the illusion to -the full. There was none to ridicule him for a childish make-believe, -unworthy of his dignity.</p> - -<p>“Christine,” he said, gently, “are you happy?”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him upon her sigh.</p> - -<p>“Very happy, dear.”</p> - -<p>Again there was a silence between them. Presently she looked up once -more.</p> - -<p>“It’s splendid the way Phil is getting on, isn’t it, dear?”</p> - -<p>He glanced at her from his own dream, uncomprehending. She went on, as -though discussing a subject thoroughly familiar.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember we said we would call him Philip—our first boy—long -before we had him? When we used to talk about him, in those first happy -months of being together, it didn’t seem possible that it could ever be -really true, did it, dear? And yet there he is—twenty-four years old! -It’s difficult for me to think that I ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> could have been his mother. -When I look at him, so tall and big, it seems impossible that he could -once have been my baby.”</p> - -<p>He stared at her. What was she talking of? They had never had a child. -Then it came to him——</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear. He’s a fine chap.”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him gratefully.</p> - -<p>“I think we were right to let him marry, don’t you, dear? I know -he’s very young—but it’s perhaps better than if he waited until he -became set in his own habits and could no longer share the youthful -high-spirits of his dear little wife—as you very nearly waited too -long, didn’t you, dear? Another year or two of getting wrapped up in -your own ambitions and you might have crushed all the young life out of -me.” Her tone was dreamily sincere.</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Christine!” he said, thickly. “I know a lot of it was my -fault——”</p> - -<p>“Shh!” she soothed him with a gesture of her disengaged hand. “We’re -talking about Phil and his charming little wife. She’s just the sort of -girl I would have chosen for him, Harry. Young, sensible, pretty, with -eyes that look you straight in the face—and she loves him, Harry, like -I loved you, with all her young soul.”</p> - -<p>He made a little choking sound and pressed her hand—so warm and loving -now!—with a convulsive tightness.</p> - -<p>“And soon, Harry,” she went on, “we shall be grandparents, you and -I—looking forward beyond the next generation to the one after—<i>living -forward</i>. Life is very wonderful, isn’t it, dear, in its continuity? -Our little lives cease, but something of us goes on and on, in -generations that we can’t even imagine. Oh, it’s very wonderful!” She -sighed. “To think we might have missed it all, if we had not loved!”</p> - -<p>“Christine!” He could scarcely speak. “You’re torturing me!”</p> - -<p>“Shh!” she said. “It’s all real—it’s all real <i>now</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> Everything else -was a bad dream from which we have waked together.”</p> - -<p>“If only we could keep awake!” he said, pressing her hand in his as -though he would never let it go.</p> - -<p>She looked at him archly.</p> - -<p>“You were always pessimistic, Harry, weren’t you? Do you remember -how you used to say we should never have the little girl for whom we -longed, just because we longed for her so much? And now there’s Jeanie! -Jeanie who’ll be having her twenty-first birthday in a month or two! -And you are proud of her, aren’t you, Harry? Of course you are! We are -both proud of such a daughter, just the daughter we imagined.”</p> - -<p>He closed his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I remember—I remember how we used to talk of the daughter we were -going to have. It seems very long ago, Christine, those first months of -our life together.”</p> - -<p>She smiled.</p> - -<p>“And there she is, all our dreams of her coming true, asleep upstairs -and very likely herself dreaming of the woman’s life that is opening -before her. She’s very real to you, isn’t she, Harry?”</p> - -<p>He forced himself to speech with an effort.</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear. Go on.”</p> - -<p>“She’s worth all the anxieties we had with her—the anxieties we -never imagined. Do you remember, when she was a little golden-haired -prattler, that awful time when she was ill? Do you remember how I -nursed her, night and day—and how you would come tip-toeing to her -tiny cot and look down upon it, praying with all your soul that she -would not die? I think that was when you first began really to love -her very much, Harry—when you thought you might lose her.” She nodded -her head in dreamy reminiscence, staring into the fire. “I remember -how proud I was when you gave up your work for a day or two because -you felt you could not leave the house while she was in danger. It was -such a miracle for you to do that—like Joshua stopping the sun—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> -all because of our tiny little Jeanie. It made me love you, oh, ever so -much more, Harry!”</p> - -<p>“Go on!” he said, closing his eyes again. “Go on!”</p> - -<p>“And then how proud of her you were while she was at school! She always -had your brains, Harry, didn’t she? Always she was at the top of her -class. I remember”—she smiled—“I used to fear that she might grow too -clever and wear spectacles. But there was just that bit of me—of the -frivolous me—in her, wasn’t there, Harry? And so just like her mother -she grew up to like pretty frocks and look as charming in them as I -used to want to look for you to admire me.”</p> - -<p>“Never so charming as you used to look, Christine, when you were -twenty-one,” he said, his eyes lighting up with a genuine memory. “No -one could look prettier than you did.”</p> - -<p>Her warm fingers curled in his hard hands and her smile came up to him.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, dear. It is nice of you not to forget.”</p> - -<p>He breathed a long sigh.</p> - -<p>“For every day of twenty-five years, Christine, I have seen you as you -used to look then.” There was an emphasis in his subdued and deliberate -enunciation that was eloquent of past agonies.</p> - -<p>“It was the real Christine, Harry, that twenty-one-year-old Christine -who was so proud to be your wife and knew herself to be so unworthy of -you.”</p> - -<p>“No, no!” he said, hoarsely. “Not unworthy—I didn’t understand then. -If only I had understood—if I had not been so absorbed in the things I -wanted to do——”</p> - -<p>“Shh!” she soothed him. “It was all very beautiful, our life together, -Harry dear. Do you remember the holidays we had alone together? Do you -remember Switzerland, and the great mountains that towered up behind -our hotel, the snow upon their summits orange against deep blue in -the first sunshine of the dawn? Do you remember how we used to wake -up to look at them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> and said it was just like the pictures, only -more wonderful because we were actually there? Do you remember being -among the great fields of narcissi, with blue gentian higher up, and -reminding me that this was what you had promised to show me—those -fields on fields of wild flowers which you had seen when you were -a young student, years before? Do you remember the mountain stream -with the big boulders where we ate sandwiches on a little patch of -turf between the rocks, and you kissed me just as those other people -came down the path? I remember—I remember how I went hot all over -and yet was very proud and happy, because it was the first time that -any one else had ever seen you loving me. You used to pretend—do you -remember?—to be a little cold and distant toward me when we were in -company, your dignity much too big to admit that you were in love.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Christine—don’t!” he murmured, the breath of a soundless sob -escaping him in a broken exhalation. “If only we had had them—those -holidays we meant to have!”</p> - -<p>“We did, dear,” she pursued. “We did have them. They’re all -there—among our dreams. Look at them and you will see that they are -true. The memory of them isn’t spoilt by anything that was not just -right. Can’t you call them up again—the holidays we used to promise -ourselves for the days when you were successful? Can’t you see them? -Can’t you see that lovely time in Italy—the big blue lake, with the -yellow houses and the red roofs close under the mountains and fairy -islands in the middle? Can’t you see Venice and the black gondola in -which we sat, urged forward like a living thing over the still water in -which the palaces were reflected? Can’t you call back that wonderful -night of silent peacefulness when, arms around each other, we leaned -out over our balcony and listened to the gondoliers singing to each -other under the stars? Don’t you remember the bridge in Florence where -you stopped and said: ‘This is where Dante met Beatrice’—and we -looked into each other’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> eyes and knew that we, too, were a Dante and -Beatrice, born for each other’s love? Don’t you remember, dear? Can’t -you see them, all those wonderful years together, when you and I were -young?”</p> - -<p>“Christine, Christine!” he murmured. “If only they were true!”</p> - -<p>“They are true, dear—they are true,” she asserted. “They are the -truest things we have—the dreams of our souls which they will dream -again and again long after we have no body. And not only holidays—our -life together had work in it, too, didn’t it, dear?—hard and -successful work. Do you remember the big case which made you famous?”</p> - -<p>He nodded, a smile of genuine reminiscence on his face.</p> - -<p>“The Pembroke case?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear,” she continued, “the Pembroke case. Do you remember how -hard you worked then?”</p> - -<p>“By Jove, I do!” he agreed, with an emphatic little laugh. “I never -worked so hard in my life!”</p> - -<p>“Do you remember how I used to sit by the fire here at night, not -daring to make the slightest sound, while you worked at your desk, -going through all those masses and masses of papers in readiness for -the next day of the trial? Do you remember how sometimes you would look -up, not saying a word, but just assuring yourself that I was still -there and going on with your work all the fresher because you saw me? -Do you remember when at last, in the small hours, you finished for the -night, you would come across and kiss me, oh, so quietly, and lay your -head against me for comfort because you were so tired!”</p> - -<p>He did not answer. His eyes stared into the fire, his lips thinned in -a tight pressure against each other, as the mental picture of the fact -came up in conflict with this ideality. They had been terrible, those -nights of solitary work.</p> - -<p>She continued, undeterred. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And then, on the last day of the trial, when you had made that great -speech—the first big speech of your career—and got your verdict, -the night when all the newspapers were full of your triumph, do you -remember your home-coming, dear?”</p> - -<p>“By Heaven, I do!” he interrupted, with a sudden outburst of -bitterness. “I came home and looked around me—and wished that I were -dead in the hopeless emptiness of it all!”</p> - -<p>“No, dear, no!” she corrected him. “You came home and found me waiting -for you in my prettiest dress and we had dinner together, just you and -I alone, because the moment was so big that we couldn’t possibly share -it with any one else. Do you remember how solemn we tried to be, you -and I—you looking so dignified in your evening clothes and I just as -dainty as I could be? And then suddenly you jumped up like a schoolboy -and darted round the table to kiss me—and we kissed and laughed at -ourselves, and kissed and laughed again, every time the servants went -out of the room—a couple of happy children. And I loved you so much -because you were so very clever and yet could be such a boy. And then -we got solemn again as the bigness of it all came over us—real, real -success at last! The paths of all the world seemed open to us, didn’t -they, dear? And we drank to it, success and love! And then, quite close -and looking into my eyes, you said the loveliest thing of all the -lovely things you ever said to me—you said that your great success, -the one success that really mattered to you, was that you had won my -love, my real, real love that bound my soul to yours for ever. Oh, -Harry, I would have died for you that night!”</p> - -<p>She ceased and he was silent. The might-have-been came up before him -with intolerable vividness. If one could but begin over again!</p> - -<p>“And now,” she gently moved the hand that all this time had lain in -his as they crouched close together over the fire, “and now here we -are—all the years of hard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> work, so successful that we need not worry -any more, behind us—nothing really important to do except to sit hand -in hand and dream over the happy past, an old Darby and Joan who have -lived their lives——”</p> - -<p>He jumped to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Christine! Christine!” he cried. “Let us make it true! Let us -forget—forget all the bad dream—go on again together just as if what -you said were true!”</p> - -<p>She looked up at him, a strange and awful fear coming into her eyes, -the face that had gained colour going ashen once more.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Harry!” she said, in a tone of infinite reproach. “You’ve broken -it! You’ve let go my hand!”</p> - -<p>He ignored this infantile remark, went straight to his point in the -brutally over-riding manner characteristic of him.</p> - -<p>“Let us forget it, Christine, forget that you ever went away from me. -I’ll never remind you of it. We won’t argue past responsibilities. -We’ll start afresh. Christine, I’m a lonely old man—I want you. I -want you to sit by the fire with me, to talk over, if you like, the -might-have-beens that we threw away, I as much as you. I want you, -anyway. I can’t bear loneliness any more—not now, after you have come -back to me!”</p> - -<p>She rose to her feet also, shivering, her eyes closing, biting at her -lower lip as though in suppressed pain. She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“No, Harry, not now. I—I must go away now, go back.”</p> - -<p>She turned and moved, with a curious detachment from him that reminded -him somewhat of a sleep-walker, toward the door.</p> - -<p>He jumped in front of her.</p> - -<p>“You shall not go, Christine! You have come back—and you shall not go -again!”</p> - -<p>She opened anguished eyes at him.</p> - -<p>“Harry,” she said in a tone of profound melancholy, “you know you -cannot keep me like that. Remember<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> the last time you tried to hold me -caged behind a closed door!”</p> - -<p>He did remember—the day when, disapproving of some intended excursion, -he had, in a cold passion, turned the key upon her—the day he had come -back to find a broken lock and curt note. He had learned his lesson. He -stood aside from her path, entreated instead of dictating.</p> - -<p>“Stay with me, Christine! Stay with me!”</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“I cannot,” she said. “I must go back. It was only for one little hour -I came. We have had it, Harry, and I must go.”</p> - -<p>“But you will return? I shall see you again?”</p> - -<p>She smiled a wan smile at him.</p> - -<p>“Who knows, Harry?”</p> - -<p>“Where are you going? Where do you live?”</p> - -<p>“Please, Harry!—ask no questions. Let me go.”</p> - -<p>There was a dignity about her which silenced him. He opened the door -for her and they went out into the hall. In a dazed preoccupation, he -went up to the outer door and opened it to the night. Then he turned -and perceived her coatless condition.</p> - -<p>“Good Heavens, Christine, you can’t go out like that! Wait a minute. -I’ll lend you my fur coat. It’s better than nothing.”</p> - -<p>He darted into the adjoining clothes-lobby, returned with the garment. -The hall was empty; the door still open. She had gone.</p> - -<p>He ran out and down the drive after her, crying her name: “Christine! -Christine!” There was no response, neither sound nor sign of her. She -had vanished.</p> - -<p>Bitterly disappointed, he returned to the house, closed the door behind -him. As he went into the clothes-lobby to replace the unneeded coat he -was startled by the telephone bell.</p> - -<p>He hastened to the instrument, picked up the receiver.</p> - -<p>“Hallo!—Yes—Yes—what is it? Who are you?—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span><i>the police</i>?” He -repeated the last word in a tone of bewilderment, listened.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied, “Yes—Mrs. Christine Arkwright—yes—that is my -wife—yes——”</p> - -<p>The silence of the empty hall seemed to envelop him as he listened. He -interjected an impatient exclamation.</p> - -<p>“Yes!—you found a letter and traced me—yes!—Go on!—What is it all -about?”</p> - -<p>He frowned, contorted his face as though the distant voice was not -clearly audible.</p> - -<p>“What?—what do you say?—died suddenly?—I don’t understand.—Where -was this?”</p> - -<p>He nodded as though now receiving more intelligible information.</p> - -<p>“No—I don’t recognize the address at all! What sort of place is -it?—oh, a second-rate boarding house. Well, I think there must be some -mistake—what?”</p> - -<p>He listened again.</p> - -<p>“No,” he persisted categorically, “I say I think there must be some -mistake. You say that a Mrs. Christine Arkwright died suddenly in a -second-rate boarding-house—at that address I don’t know—and you’ve -traced me out—I quite understand all that. But I say I have good -reason to think there is a mistake somewhere—it couldn’t be—— What?”</p> - -<p>He smiled with a grim superiority as he listened.</p> - -<p>“What?—You say there’s no doubt of the identity?”</p> - -<p>His brows puckered suddenly in the frown with which he prepared the -annihilation of a stupid and stubbornly insistent witness.</p> - -<p>“Now, pay attention, my friend!—When did this event occur?” He -asked the question in the tone of one confident of establishing an -impossibility by a counter fact. There was a moment of pause—and then -his expression changed. “To-night?—<i>At eleven o’clock?</i>”</p> - -<p>The clock in the study struck, discreetly, twelve.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> - -<h2>FROM THE DEPTHS</h2> - -<p>The S. S. <i>Upsal</i>, 2,000 tons, the Swedish ensign at her taffrail, -her one black-spouting funnel still daubed with remains of war-time -camouflage, lifted and plunged doggedly into the teeth of the September -south-west gale that lashed her with cold rain from the streaming -gray clouds which curtained close the foam-topped gray-green waves -into which she crashed with recurrent walls of spray high above her -forecastle, and which mingled in an indistinguishable whelm with -the dirty murk of beaten-down smoke low upon the track of her bared -and racing propeller. The men upon her bridge crouched, oilskins to -their ears, behind the soaked canvas of the “dodger” which protected -them, peering into the mist from which at any moment might emerge -the towering bulk of a liner hurrying up-channel to the hungry ports -of Europe. They were silent. Conversation was a futile effort in the -buffeting blasts that stopped the words in their mouths. The only -sounds were the crash and thud of green water that slid off in foaming -cascades from the forecastle to the well, the harp-like moaning of -the wind-tautened stays, and, in brief lulls, the sizzling of rain -and spray upon the heated funnel and the creaking of boat-gear whose -serviceable character in such a humble “tramp” was a phenomenon -reminiscent of unwonted marine perils that had but recently ceased. -No longer did her look-out scrutinize every flitting patch of foam in -apprehension of the dreaded periscope. The violences of sea and sky -were dangers as of yore. From the depths came now no menace.</p> - -<p>The group upon her bridge was more numerous than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> is customary on a -cheaply run little freighter of her class. In addition to the second -officer whose watch it was, and the look-out man on the opposite corner -of the bridge were three others. Two of them, young men oilskin-clad -like their companions, stood close together in an attitude which -indicated a personal acquaintanceship independent of the working of the -vessel. The third man held himself aloof, his back to them, staring -over the troubled sea to a point on the starboard quarter. Somewhere -in that direction, wrapped in the mists of rain and trailing cloud the -last rocky outposts of England whitened the waves which surged and fell -back about them in ceaseless and ever-baffled attack.</p> - -<p>The buoyant twist and roll which accompanied the lift and plunge of -the <i>Upsal</i>, the frequent racing of her propeller, indicated that -she was running in ballast. Almost for the first time in her drab, -maid-of-all-work career, indeed, the <i>Upsal</i> carried no cargo. She was -on a special mission. A Scandinavian salvage syndicate, having come to -an arrangement with the underwriters of a few out of the hundreds of -vessels which strew the bottoms of the entrances to the British seas, -had chartered her to locate and survey a group of promising wrecks, -preparatory to more extended operations. The two young men were their -technical engineers; Jensen, the taller of the pair, and Lyngstrand, -his assistant.</p> - -<p>The third man, who stood aloof from them, was Captain Horst, the master -of the ship. He was, of course, primarily responsible to his owners -and not to the syndicate who had chartered his vessel. Until they -reached the location of the wrecks the submarine engineers were merely -passengers. Reticent and sombre as he had been since the commencement -of the voyage, he ignored them now, stood apparently lost in abstract -contemplation of the gray waste of sea. But one who could have looked -into his face would have been impressed and puzzled by his expression. -The cruel mouth under the little red moustache was curiously twisted. -In the haggard eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> which roved around the restricted horizon was -an oddly apprehensive uncertainty, unexpected in such a determined -countenance. His glance looked down, apparently fascinated, upon the -seas which raced below him as the <i>Upsal</i> lifted on yet another crest, -as though there were something strange in being so high above them—and -then jerked up, automatically, to the horizon as in swift, instinctive -doubt of impunity. A psychologist would have suspected that he allowed -a fear of some kind, so long abiding as to have become a subconscious -mental habit, the relief of free play when he knew himself unwatched.</p> - -<p>The two submarine engineers paid no attention to him. They gazed -across the untenanted sea ahead to where the white spray leaped, -almost lantern-high, in unsuccessful embraces of the tall column of -The Bishop. Then, when the lighthouse, loftily unmoved above the eager -seas, ascetically alone in the wide desolation of foam-streaked gray, -had slipped abeam, had receded into the mist behind them, when there -was no object to claim the eye on all the tumultuous stretch of ocean -ahead, Jensen turned to his companion and pointed downward. Lyngstrand -nodded assent, and they both staggered across the wet, reeling bridge -toward the ladder which led below.</p> - -<p>The skipper, staring aft, his back on them, blocked their passage. -Jensen touched him on the shoulder. He swung round abruptly, with a -startled curse. Then, recognizing them, he moved aside grudgingly. His -face was turned from them as they passed.</p> - -<p>The two young men descended to the deck below. They were berthed -in the saloon under the poop, but they took their meals in the -charthouse immediately beneath the bridge, in company with the skipper -who slept there. In addition to meal-times, the charthouse was a -convenient refuge from the weather common to all of them. It was their -objective now, and, just dodging a flying sea that fell with a heavy -far-scattered splash upon the deck, they flung themselves inside and -shut the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> Then, removing and hanging up their dripping oilskins, -they slid round to a final seat upon the leather-covered lockers which -filled the space between two sides of the walls and the screwed-down -centre table.</p> - -<p>“Filthy weather!” said Jensen, producing pipe and tobacco-pouch. “But -we ought to get there to-night. We’re changing course now to the -north-west. Feel it?”</p> - -<p>In effect, even as he spoke the <i>Upsal</i> swung round to starboard. A -long lurching roll substituted itself for the corkscrew plunges which -had been the predominant motion, and the spray flung itself viciously -at the port side of the ship to the exclusion of the other.</p> - -<p>Jensen, having lit his pipe, produced a type-written sheet of paper -from his pocket. It was a list of ships, followed by indications of -latitude, longitude, and other particulars.</p> - -<p>“No. 1—<i>Gloucester City</i>, 7,500 tons, Latitude 50 degrees 55 minutes -North, Longitude 9 degrees 14 minutes West, 60 fathoms, torpedoed 20th -September, 1918,” he read out. “Get the chart, Lyngstrand, and let us -prick down its exact position.”</p> - -<p>His fair-haired junior obediently spread out a chart of the exit to the -English Channel upon the table.</p> - -<p>“20th of September!” he said, reflectively. “That’s curious, Jensen! -Exactly a year ago to-day!”</p> - -<p>“Coincidences must happen sometimes,” replied Jensen with the superior -indifference of three or four years’ seniority. “I see nothing -remarkable in it.”</p> - -<p>“It just struck me,” said Lyngstrand, apologetically. “No—I suppose -there’s nothing remarkable in it—it might just as well have been any -other day.”</p> - -<p>Jensen threw a cursory glance at the chart.</p> - -<p>“You’ve brought the wrong one,” he said, snappily. “This doesn’t go far -enough north. Look in the drawer there—there must be another one.”</p> - -<p>“It is up in the wheelhouse, I think, Jensen,” demurred the young man, -mildly.</p> - -<p>“Yes—I know—but old Horst is certain to have a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> duplicate. Look in -the drawer and see!” replied Jensen, with an impatience invited by the -docility of his junior.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand obeyed, rummaging among a number of charts in the drawer of -the locker under Captain Horst’s bunk.</p> - -<p>“Here we are!” he cried at last, unrolling one of them. “This is a -special one, evidently! Someone has marked it all over with red ink.”</p> - -<p>Jensen snatched it from him, spread it out. In fact, as Lyngstrand -said, it was marked in many places with little red-ink crosses, and -under each was a date. Jensen ran his finger across it, stopped just -off the south coast of Ireland.</p> - -<p>“By all that’s wonderful!” he cried in a slow, long-drawn accent -of amazement, raising his head and looking at his companion. “<i>He -has marked our wreck!</i> Look!—Fifty-fifty-five North, Nine-fourteen -West—and there’s the date under it 20/9/18!”</p> - -<p>“Then all those other crosses——?” queried Lyngstrand, in a voice of -puzzled interest.</p> - -<p>“They must be—— Wait a minute!” He compared some of them with the -indications on his list. “Yes! They are wrecks, too—all torpedoed -ships—look! this and this and this are marked on the chart! There are -others not marked—but there are many more marks than there are ships -on our list. They must be all torpedoed ships!”</p> - -<p>“But why?” asked Lyngstrand. “Why has he got them all marked like -this?—Where did he get this chart, I wonder?”</p> - -<p>Jensen glanced to the bottom of the sheet.</p> - -<p>“<i>This is a German chart!</i>” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand stared at him.</p> - -<p>“German——!” he began, and stopped. They looked into each other’s eyes -in a long moment when suspicion defined itself as almost certitude. For -that moment they forgot the sickly rolling of the ship threshing and -wallowing on her way to one of those tragic little red crosses.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> They -forgot everything except the slowly dawning possible corollaries of -this discovery.</p> - -<p>Before either could utter another word, the lee door of the charthouse -opened and Captain Horst stood framed in the entrance. He glared across -at them, his face livid with a sudden anger, his eyes blazing. Then, -with a scarcely articulate but vehemently muttered oath, he sprang -across the little room, snatched the chart from the table, thrust it -into the drawer, locked it up and put the key in his pocket. He turned -and scowled at them in a silence which they were too awed to break. His -eyes, fiercely blue, seemed to search into their very souls. Theirs -dropped under the intolerable scrutiny. He uttered an exclamation -of angry contempt and, without further speech, walked out of the -charthouse.</p> - -<p>The two young men looked at each other.</p> - -<p>“That is the second time this morning!” said Jensen, at last, glancing -toward the door now once more closed on them.</p> - -<p>“What is?” asked Lyngstrand, curiously.</p> - -<p>“<i>That he has cursed in German!</i>—Lyngstrand! I am beginning to see -into this!”</p> - -<p>“But it’s impossible!” exclaimed Lyngstrand, his mind leaping to -his friend’s deduction and then rejecting it. “He is a Swede, like -ourselves!”</p> - -<p>“He is a German!” said Jensen, positively.</p> - -<p>“But he speaks Swedish without a trace of accent!”</p> - -<p>“And other languages also, I expect—French and English, as -well—better than you or I speak them, I have no doubt. Swedish would -much facilitate service in the Baltic—and your German naval officer -was linguistically well equipped for any possible campaign.”</p> - -<p>“German naval officer!” echoed Lyngstrand, incredulously.</p> - -<p>“I will bet on it!” asserted his friend.</p> - -<p>“But—a German naval officer commanding a rotten little tramp like -the <i>Upsal?</i>” said Lyngstrand, emphasizing his incredulity. “I can’t -believe it!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Even German ex-naval officers have to live, my friend,” responded -Jensen, axiomatically. “And—I ask you—what is open to them but to -take service in the mercantile marine of other nations? There is no -more German fleet—there are not enough merchant vessels left under the -German flag to employ all their trained officers. On the other hand, -all the Scandinavian nations have multiplied their trading fleets—they -cannot find officers enough for them. A first-class seaman like Horst, -speaking Swedish like a native, would find plenty of owners only too -willing to employ him.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds plausible,” agreed Lyngstrand, but somewhat doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Plausible!” repeated Jensen, scornfully. “It is more than -plausible—the more I think of it, the more certain I am. Consider! -Is Horst the typical rough merchant skipper? You know perfectly well -he is not. You said yourself, the first evening we came aboard, that -although he had the soul of a pig he had the manners of a gentleman. -How does he speak Swedish—like a man who has spent half his life -knocking about harbour drinking-shops? No! He expresses himself with -that precise accuracy of the man employing a language well learnt, -indeed, but nevertheless foreign to him—like you and I speak English, -my friend. And his clothes!—Did you ever know the skipper of a tramp -steamer wear a stiff white collar while at sea? Then his curt way of -giving orders—no question about discipline, but you should see some of -our Swedish forecastle-hands stare at him! One of them stared a moment -too long just before you came aboard. He knocked him clean out!—He -is a German naval officer, I will swear to it!—More than that, I am -convinced that he commanded a submarine!”</p> - -<p>“That chart, then——?”</p> - -<p>“Is the chart of his sinkings!”</p> - -<p>“By God!” said Lyngstrand, solemnly, setting his teeth and staring -sternly at the charthouse wall. “If I were sure of it——!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” asked Jensen, struck by this sudden change from his -friend’s ordinarily meek demeanour. “What has it to do with you?”</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand turned to him with a bitter little laugh. He seemed, indeed, -a different man.</p> - -<p>“More than you think, my friend,” he said, briefly. “I am not good -company for U-boat commanders!”</p> - -<p>“But why?—You lost no one——?”</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand’s serious eyes held his.</p> - -<p>“You remember I went to America in 1917, Jensen? I met a girl there—we -were betrothed. She was coming to Europe to me last year. She never -arrived. Her ship—a neutral—a small Norwegian ship, the <i>Trondhjem</i>, -on which I had arranged for her passage—was torpedoed in the Atlantic -last September—<i>spurlos versenkt</i>!” He finished in a tone of bitter -mimicry, and then suddenly hid his face in his hands through a silence -which Jensen felt incapable of breaking. At last he looked up again. -“If ever I trace the scoundrel who murdered her——!” The ugly menace -in his voice supplied the final clause to his unfinished sentence.</p> - -<p>“A difficult task!” murmured Jensen, sympathetically.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand glanced at the closed drawer of the locker.</p> - -<p>“When I think that perhaps on that chart—one of those little red -crosses——” He crashed his hand upon the table. “By God, Jensen! I -would give something to have another look at it!”</p> - -<p>Jensen laid a friendly hand on his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“We will do our best, Lyngstrand, to see it again. But don’t torture -yourself about it now. Come out on deck. The barometer is rising, and -if the sea goes down to-morrow we shall want to keep clear heads for -our investigation of the <i>Gloucester City</i>.—Come!”</p> - -<p>He rose and held out his friend’s oilskins, helped him on with them.</p> - -<p>They went out and stood in the shelter of the lee-deck, watching the -foam-froth sink down and melt in the depths of the malachite waves that -rolled away from them, until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> soon after eight bells the white-jacketed -steward clanged out his announcement of dinner.</p> - -<p>They found Captain Horst already at his place at the table in the -charthouse. It was significant of the unexpressed but clearly felt -antipathy which in the past few days had grown up between the skipper -and his passengers that he had commenced his meal without waiting -for them. Jensen, however, was a level-headed young man who had not -the least intention of jeopardizing the enterprise for which he was -responsible by ill-timed open bad-temper. He nodded a greeting with a -smile which totally ignored the strained circumstances of their last -meeting.</p> - -<p>“I think the weather is moderating, Captain Horst,” he said, -pleasantly, as he sat down.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ja</i>,” responded Captain Horst, gruffly, throwing a perfunctory glance -through the unshuttered forward windows of the charthouse.</p> - -<p>“We ought to reach the neighbourhood of our wreck some time to-night?” -pursued Jensen in affable enquiry.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand had addressed himself in silence to the food the steward set -before him, but he glanced up as though some undertone of significance -in his friend’s voice had caught his ear.</p> - -<p>“Thereabouts,” conceded Captain Horst in a tone which sufficiently -indicated that he was disinclined for conversation.</p> - -<p>But Jensen was cheerfully loquacious.</p> - -<p>“I wonder whether we shall hit on some other wreck instead?” he -surmised. “These seas must be strewn with them.”</p> - -<p>Captain Horst shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand looked up.</p> - -<p>“If I were a German U-boat commander,” he said, with a quiet -deliberation, his eyes straight on Captain Horst’s face, “I should not -dare to sail over these seas again. I should see drowning faces sinking -through every wave.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> - -<p>His last sentence seemed to ring through the silence which followed it. -Captain Horst sat impassive, but his brutal jaw looked hard and his -cruel mouth thinned during the moment in which he returned Lyngstrand’s -glance.</p> - -<p>“Bah!” he said. “The dead don’t come back!” There was something of -defiance in his harshly contemptuous tone. “They are finished with—for -ever!”</p> - -<p>The blood went out of Lyngstrand’s face as he bent down again to his -plate.</p> - -<p>There was no further conversation during the meal.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was spent by the two young men, in company with -the half-dozen divers under their orders, in overhauling the -diving-dresses, air-pumps, etc., which might be required on the morrow.</p> - -<p>The gale had obviously blown itself out. The western sky had cleared, -the rain had ceased, the wave-tops were no longer torn in flying spume, -there was less violence in the rolling surges in whose trough they -wallowed. When, a little after four bells, they were summoned to tea, -the sun was setting in a golden splendour that promised a peaceful dawn.</p> - -<p>Excited by the prospect of the next day’s work, the two young men -forgot their suspicions of Captain Horst, could talk of nothing but -their plans for diving despite the after-swell of the gale which would -surely still be running. The captain listened to their impatience with -the ghost of a grim smile, but volunteered no part in the conversation.</p> - -<p>“Do you propose to keep under way all night, Captain Horst?” enquired -Jensen.</p> - -<p>“No,” he replied. “By my dead reckoning we ought to be in the vicinity -of the wreck at about eight bells to-night. I shall anchor then if the -glass is still rising. To-morrow we will take an observation and get -as close as we can to the position of the <i>Gloucester City</i>—presuming -that you have it correctly stated.”</p> - -<p>His tone was perfectly indifferent, but Lyngstrand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> thought suddenly of -that chart with the little red crosses—and particularly that cross on -their indicated spot, 50° 55´´ N., 9° 14´´ W, with the fatal date of -exactly a year ago—20/9/18. Surely it could not be mere coincidence! -He thrilled suddenly with a dramatic perception. If—if it were so—if -the man so calmly smiling at him had really sent the <i>Gloucester City</i> -to the bottom!—and now, on the anniversary of the crime, was coolly -proposing to anchor himself as near as might be over her ocean grave, -preparatory to disturbing it on the morrow!—No! He ridiculed himself. -It was impossible! No man could have the iron will—he glanced straight -into the blue eyes of the impassive Horst, read nothing—no man could -stand the strain without betraying himself. The murderer brought back -to the scene of his crime broke down into confession—and, if he were -the murderer of the <i>Gloucester City</i>, Horst was being brought back -with ironic inexorability to the site of his assassination, brought -back by those subtle, apparently normal, everyday circumstances from -which there is no escape.</p> - -<p>He wondered to what extent Horst had been informed of the purport of -their voyage when the <i>Upsal</i> was chartered. He could not, certainly, -have been left in ignorance—but, on the other hand, he could not -well refuse to navigate the ship without losing an employment which, -however humble, was assuredly to be coveted by a man in his position. A -penniless naval officer had poor prospects in Germany. Bah! (he thought -to himself in a sudden revulsion) he was accepting Jensen’s unsupported -surmises as though they were reality. The thing was impossible! Another -glance at the hard but emotionless face opposite him reassured him. He -banished his hyper-dramatic idea in a spurn of self-contempt for his -too excitable imagination.</p> - -<p>Conversation languished. There was no community of thought between -the skipper and his passengers, and his presence was a check upon the -mutual confidences of the two young men. Meals together were an ordeal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> -escaped from as soon as terminated, and Jensen and Lyngstrand speedily -went out on deck again with the murmured allegation that the overhaul -of their gear was not yet finished.</p> - -<p>They did not come together again until some three hours later, when, -her white anchor-light hoisted between her masts, the <i>Upsal</i> was -pitching at her cable to the heavy swell which rolled down upon her -from the darkness of the night. The two young men had been yarning -with the chief engineer in the pleasant warmth of the engine-room, -when a glance at the clock reminded them that it was the hour when the -steward brought biscuits and cocoa to the charthouse. Light-hearted -as boys, their unpleasant thoughts of the captain dissipated by the -cheerful talk in which they had been indulging, they scrambled up the -iron-runged ladder from the warm, oily depths to the black, damp chill -of the outer night.</p> - -<p>In this sea-smelling gloom where the wave-tops ran past them with -faintly phosphorescent crests, the unwonted stillness of the ship’s -engines was suddenly vivid to their consciousness as she eased and -tugged at her anchorage.</p> - -<p>“Well, here we are!” said Jensen, stopping for a moment to peer around -him.</p> - -<p>“I wonder what lies beneath us?” queried Lyngstrand, developing his -comrade’s thought. As he, too, probed the darkness where the cruel -waves ran, easy familiars of the night, he had an uncomfortable little -mental picture of the <i>Gloucester City</i> foundering, with torn side, -into their chill depths—a year ago. What shrieks and cries had hushed, -for ever, into the silence which encompassed them?</p> - -<p>Both shuddered.</p> - -<p>“Come along,” said Jensen. “Our cocoa will be cold.”</p> - -<p>At the charthouse door they hesitated for a moment on an indefinable -impulse, peeped through the unshuttered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> window which allowed a broad -ray of light to fall across the deck.</p> - -<p>Captain Horst was seated at the table, his head in his hands, his -back to them. Spread out before him was the chart with the little -red crosses. He sat motionless, staring at it, as though absorbed in -reverie. The three cups of cocoa were steaming on the table. His was -untouched.</p> - -<p>For one wild moment Lyngstrand thought he might be able to surprise a -glance at the chart. He turned the handle of the door as stealthily -as he could. Slight as the sound had been, however, Captain Horst had -heard it. When they entered he was stuffing something into his breast -pocket, and the chart was no longer on the table.</p> - -<p>They drank their cocoa in silence, Horst staring moodily at the floor, -Jensen and Lyngstrand risking a glance of mutual comprehension. -Suddenly two loud, sharp knocks broke the stillness—knocks that seemed -to be on the charthouse wall.</p> - -<p>Captain Horst raised his head.</p> - -<p>“<i>Herein!</i>” he cried, automatically, obviously without thinking.</p> - -<p>Jensen shot a swift look at his friend, eyebrows raised at this German -permission of entry. Horst bit his lip, suddenly self-conscious. He -repeated the authorization in Swedish.</p> - -<p>No one entered.</p> - -<p>Expectation was just passing into a vague surprise, when the knocks -were repeated—three heavy blows, obviously deliberate, upon the -after-wall of the charthouse.</p> - -<p>Horst sprang up, with a savage curse of exasperation. He was -self-controlled enough, however, to utter his thought in Swedish. -“I’ll teach them!” he exclaimed, as he flung open the charthouse door. -“Fooling around here!”</p> - -<p>He disappeared into the night and they heard the tramp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> of his heavy -sea-boots as he ran round the charthouse. But no other sound woke -upon his passage. The circuit completed, they heard his angry yell -to the look-out man on the bridge above, heard the quietly normal -response, the surprised denial. The interior of the charthouse was a -hushed stillness where Jensen and Lyngstrand sat exchanging a smile of -malicious enjoyment. Horst vituperated the stammering look-out man in a -flood of ugly oaths that were plainly a break-down of nervous control.</p> - -<p>The door opened again for his entry.</p> - -<p>“Extraordinary thing!” he scowled across at them. “No one there! You -heard them, didn’t you?” He seated himself with an angry grunt.</p> - -<p>Before they could answer, the knocks recommenced in a sudden -vehemence—not slow and deliberate this time, but in a rapid succession -which quickened to a fast and furious fusillade from origins that -seemed to play, flitting arbitrarily, all over the walls and roof. The -charthouse reverberated with them. Their intensity varied at every -moment from sharp, hammer-like blows to rapid, nervous taps from what -might have been a feverishly agitated pencil. The wild and uncanny -tattoo culminated in three crashing blows that seemed to be on the -underside of the table itself. There was silence.</p> - -<p>“What are you playing at?” cried Horst, glaring at them in fierce -suspicion of a hoax.</p> - -<p>For answer, they both lifted up their hands, obviously unoccupied, into -the air. Even as they did so, the knocks started again, still rapid, -but with a certain deliberate rhythm, and much less violent. Again they -seemed to be on the underside of the table. Horst looked, with a scowl -of distrust, under it to their immobile feet. The two young men glanced -at each other, as puzzled and alarmed as Horst himself.</p> - -<p>“What in the name of Heaven is it?” cried Jensen.</p> - -<p>The knocks swelled suddenly louder as though in answer to his voice. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Listen!” said Horst, holding up his hand. The colour had gone suddenly -out of his face, his eyes fixed themselves in a recognition charged -with vague fear. “It’s——!”</p> - -<p>“Yes!” cried Jensen, “by all that’s wonderful——!”</p> - -<p>“The Morse code!” Lyngstrand completed the sentence.</p> - -<p>Once perceived, there was no doubt of it. That succession of irregular -taps and pauses coming from the table as from a sounding-board was -a plain language to all three of them, unmistakable, not more to be -banished from cognition than the reiteration of spoken words.</p> - -<p>“But,” cried Lyngstrand, “where does it come from?—We have no -wireless—and even wireless could not produce that!”</p> - -<p>“Listen!” Jensen reproved him. “It’s a message of some kind!” He -glanced across to Horst who sat speechless, his face gray, his eyes -terrified. “Not Swedish!—Take it down, Lyngstrand, while I spell it -out!”</p> - -<p>The young man feverishly produced pencil and paper from his pocket. -“Listen!” he cried. “Good God! Do you catch it?”</p> - -<p>Three sharp taps—three more widely spaced—three sharp taps again—the -series was reiterated insistently—<i>S—O—S!—S—O—S!—S—O—S!</i></p> - -<p>“Ready, Lyngstrand?” queried Jensen in the sharp tone of a man -concentrating himself for action. His comrade nodded.</p> - -<p>Jensen rapped sharply upon the table the wireless operator’s signal -of reception. In immediate answer the raps from the invisible source -renewed themselves, continued evidently in a message. Lyngstrand jotted -down the letters as Jensen spelled them out.</p> - -<p>“‘<i>s-t-e-a-m-s-h-i-p</i>’—it’s English!” he interjected. “Got it?——” -The raps had continued, noted by his brain and coalesced by it into -definite words. “‘<i>Gloucester City</i>’——” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>What——?</i>” ejaculated Lyngstrand, in incredulous amazement, as he -rapidly wrote the words.</p> - -<p>Jensen continued, his attention fixed upon the unceasing raps.</p> - -<p>“—<i>torpedoed 50-55 north 9-14 west—sinking fast—come quickly—done -in</i>——”</p> - -<p>He glanced up to see Horst springing at them like a maddened animal.</p> - -<p>“Stop that!” cried the captain. “It’s a trick!—it’s a trick!” In -another second he had snatched paper and pencil from Lyngstrand’s hand.</p> - -<p>A formidable series of violent crashes, emanating from walls, roof, -and table, was the instant response to his action. He shrank back, -appalled, crouching with eyes that searched the surrounding walls in -agonized apprehension. “It’s a trick!—it’s a diabolical trick!” he -muttered. “<i>It must be!</i>”</p> - -<p>“Captain Horst!” said Jensen, with sternly level authority. “Be good -enough to sit down and remain quiet. All matters relating to the -<i>Gloucester City</i> come within my province.”</p> - -<p>Horst, his arms up as though to guard himself, went slowly backward to -his seat but did not sit. There was madness in his eyes. “How could -they know?” he said to himself in a sharp-breathed whisper, “—<i>the -exact words!</i>——”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” queried Lyngstrand, curiously. Horst replied -without thinking, more to himself than to his questioner.</p> - -<p>“The exact words of her call for help—a year ago! My wireless picked -it up after we had left her——” He stopped suddenly, realized that he -had betrayed himself.</p> - -<p>“Then——!” cried Lyngstrand, jumping up from his seat and taking -a step forward. His eyes, full of menace, searched the ex-U-boat -commander’s face.</p> - -<p>“Be quiet—both of you!” commanded Jensen, holding up his hand. The -regular succession of raps had commenced again. Jensen listened to -them, nodded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> Then he himself rapped a message in English on the -table—“<i>who are you?</i>”</p> - -<p>Horst and Lyngstrand listened in dead silence as the answer spelled -itself out upon the table.</p> - -<p>“<i>h-e-n-r-y s-m-i-t-h w-i-r-e-l-e-s-s o-p-e-r-a-t-o-r -g-l-o-u-c-e-s-t-e-r c-i-t-y.</i>”</p> - -<p>Jensen turned a glance of wonderment to his comrade. Horst, reading the -message as currently as the others, looked as though about to faint.</p> - -<p>“Stop it!” he said, hoarsely. “Stop it!”</p> - -<p>Jensen ignored him, rapped again upon the table—“<i>where are you now?</i>”</p> - -<p>The answer came immediately.</p> - -<p>“<i>a-t y-o-u-r s-i-d-e</i>”</p> - -<p>The three of them sprang back simultaneously, as from the presence of a -ghost. Their eyes probed empty air.</p> - -<p>Jensen spoke aloud, still in English.</p> - -<p>“Can you see us—hear us?”</p> - -<p>The raps of the invisible hand upon the table replied at once.</p> - -<p>“<i>y-e-s</i>”</p> - -<p>“<i>Mein Gott!</i>” muttered Horst. “I shall go mad!” Jensen continued his -colloquy.</p> - -<p>“Where is the <i>Gloucester City</i>?” He smiled to himself as though -setting a trap for this unseen intelligence. “Is she still afloat?”</p> - -<p>The raps recommenced without hesitation.</p> - -<p>“<i>y-o-u-r a-n-c-h-o-r f-i-x-e-d- i-n u-p-p-e-r w-o-r-k-s</i>”</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand uttered an ejaculation of awed astonishment. He looked to -see the sweat pearling on Captain Horst’s forehead.</p> - -<p>The raps spelled out, spontaneously, an explanatory afterward.</p> - -<p>“<i>w-e l-e-d y-o-u t-o i-t</i>”</p> - -<p>“<i>We?</i>” queried Jensen. “Who are ‘<i>we</i>’?”</p> - -<p>“<i>t-h-e d-r-o-w-n-e-d</i>” The raps were decisive.</p> - -<p>“Why?” Lyngstrand admired his comrade’s steely self-control. “Why did -you lead us to it?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>h-e c-a-n g-u-e-s-s</i>”</p> - -<p>“Who?”</p> - -<p>“<i>t-h-e m-u-r-d-e-r-e-r</i>”</p> - -<p>Both glanced swiftly at Horst. He was speechless, his face a study in -blanched terror.</p> - -<p>“<i>h-e k-n-o-w-s</i>” added the raps. There was something indefinably -malicious about their sound.</p> - -<p>“Stop it!” Horst’s voice was strangled, scarcely audible. “Stop it!”</p> - -<p>Jensen was unmoved.</p> - -<p>“How many of you?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand, fascinated by this conversation with the unseen, was -grateful for the question.</p> - -<p>“<i>t-h-r-e-e h-u-n-d-r-e-d a-n-d e-i-g-h-t g-l-o-u-c-e-s-t-e-r c-i-t-y -h-u-n-d-r-e-d a-n-d f-i-v-e r-e-s-c-u-e-d o-t-h-e-r s-h-i-p-s f-o-u-r -h-u-n-d-r-e-d a-n-d t-h-i-r-t-e-e-n i-n a-l-l</i>”</p> - -<p>“All men?” queried Jensen.</p> - -<p>“<i>t-w-e-n-t-y-f-i-v-e w-o-m-e-n</i>”</p> - -<p>“My God!” muttered Lyngstrand, in a sudden vivid remembrance that -stabbed him like a pain. He glanced at Horst.</p> - -<p>Jensen glanced also, and was merciless.</p> - -<p>“Are you all here?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“<i>y-e-s</i>” There was a little pause, “<i>h-u-n-d-r-e-d-s m-o-r-e I d-o-n-t -k-n-o-w d-r-o-w-n-e-d o-t-h-e-r s-u-n-k s-h-i-p-s a-l-l h-e-r-e</i>”</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand shivered, looked around him uneasily. Jensen’s voice -scarcely betrayed a tremor as he pursued.</p> - -<p>“What have you come for?”</p> - -<p>“<i>w-e h-a-v-e c-o-m-e f-o-r h-i-m</i>”</p> - -<p>“No!—no!” screamed Horst, suddenly. “No!—<i>Ach, Gott, schütze mich!</i>”</p> - -<p>Both Lyngstrand and Jensen had a sense of inaudible mocking laughter in -the air about them. There was an awful silence.</p> - -<p>The raps recommenced spontaneously. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>t-e-l-l h-i-m t-h-e-y a-r-e f-i-l-i-n-g p-a-s-t h-i-m -i-d-e-n-t-i-f-y-i-n-g h-i-m</i>”</p> - -<p>Jensen turned to Horst.</p> - -<p>“You hear?” he asked, grimly.</p> - -<p>But Horst, with a blood-curdling scream of terror, had flung himself -at the charthouse door, thrown it open. They heard the hiss and sough -of the dark seas. He plunged out, blindly, head-foremost. Then, just -beyond the threshold, he stopped, recoiled, staggered back into the -charthouse.</p> - -<p>“No!” he gasped, hoarsely. “No!—<i>I can’t face them! I can’t face -them!</i>—I can’t die!—I dare not!”</p> - -<p>He shook in a palsy of the faculties. His eyes agonizedly sought their -unsympathetic faces. The German submarine commander is a pariah among -seafaring men, whatever their nationality. He realized it, hopelessly, -as he met their hard eyes. With a sob of self-pity, he stumbled across -to a corner of the charthouse, sank down upon the seat, covered his -face with his hands.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand’s young features were sternly set as he glanced at him. Then -he took a long breath, the preparatory oxygen-renewal of the man who -dares an experiment that will tax him. He rapped the wireless “call-up” -upon the table.</p> - -<p>“Can the others communicate also?” he asked, loudly, in English. He, -also, was trembling.</p> - -<p>The answer came at once.</p> - -<p>“<i>o-n-l-y t-h-r-o-u-g-h m-e</i>” There was a slight pause, then the raps -recommenced again, “<i>l-a-d-y h-e-r-e h-a-s a m-e-s-s-a-g-e f-o-r -p-e-t-e-r</i>” the raps hesitated “<i>p-e-t-e-r f-u-n-n-y n-a-m-e c-a-n-t -c-a-t-c-h i-t</i>——”</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand’s face went deathly white.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he gasped, just only able to speak, “—Peter—yes—go on!” -He looked at the table as though expecting to see the hand that was -rapping out the message. Tap-tap-tap, it came.</p> - -<p>“<i>p-e-t-e-r l-i-n-g-s-t-r-a-n-d</i>”</p> - -<p>“Yes—here!” he gasped. “Go on!—who is it?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>m-a-r-y t-i-l-l-o-t-s-o-n</i>”</p> - -<p>He reeled against the table, clutched at it.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he murmured to himself, his eyes closing, his teeth grinding -upon one another in an agony of emotion. Then, with a supreme effort of -self-control, he asked, loudly: “The message? Give it me!”</p> - -<p>“<i>s-h-e s-a-y-s s-h-e s-u-r-e l-o-v-e-s y-o-u s-t-i-l-l a-n-d i-s -w-a-i-t-i-n-g f-o-r y-o-u</i>”</p> - -<p>“Mary!” The cry burst from him, sobbingly, on a note of poignant -anguish. Jensen felt the tears start to his eyes. Horst cowered still, -face hidden, in his corner.</p> - -<p>There was a long moment in which Lyngstrand failed to bring another -sound to utterance. He swayed as though about to faint. Then once more -he mastered himself.</p> - -<p>“What—what happened?” he asked, unsteadily. “How did she die? Was she -torpedoed?”</p> - -<p>“<i>s-h-e s-a-y-s s-t-e-a-m-e-r t-r-o-n-d-h-j-e-m s-u-n-k g-u-n-f-i-r-e -r-e-s-c-u-e-d s-m-a-l-l b-o-a-t b-y g-l-o-u-c-e-s-t-e-r c-i-t-y -a-f-t-e-r-w-a-r-d t-o-r-p-e-d-o-e-d</i>”</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand reeled with closed eyes. He had a vivid vision of the torn -wreck in the depths beneath them, carnivorous fish darting where their -anchor grappled its untenanted bridge.</p> - -<p>“Did—did they have a chance?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“<i>n-i-g-h-t w-i-t-h-o-u-t w-a-r-n-i-n-g</i>” came the answer.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand drew another deep breath, glanced at the motionless Horst.</p> - -<p>“And—and the man—the man who sank her?”</p> - -<p>“<i>k-a-p-i-t-a-n-l-e-u-t-n-a-n-t h-o-r-s-t</i>” There was a terrible -precision in those raps.</p> - -<p>They ceased. There was a deathly stillness. Through long moments, not -one of the three men in the charthouse moved. Then Lyngstrand turned -slowly. He took three steps toward Captain Horst, stood over him. The -only sounds were the creaking of gear as the <i>Upsal</i> rose and subsided -on the swell, the swish and suck of the long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> waves that ran past her -in the darkness beyond the open charthouse door.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand’s mouth had set in a thin line. His lips, compressed, opened -but slightly as he spoke.</p> - -<p>“Captain Horst,” he said, with grim distinctness, “you are certainly -going to die. I give you the privilege of the warning you did not -extend to your victims.”</p> - -<p>Horst looked up suddenly. His eyes, blue still, but crazed with terror, -fixed themselves upon the gray eyes that met them pitilessly. His mouth -moved under the little red moustache, but no sound came from it.</p> - -<p>Lyngstrand continued, an edge of fierce contempt upon his hard voice.</p> - -<p>“I even give you a choice: You can, if you like, go out there”—he -pointed through the open door to the rayless night—“and throw yourself -overboard——”</p> - -<p>Horst sprang to his feet, recoiled into the extreme corner of the -charthouse.</p> - -<p>“No!” he screamed. “No!”</p> - -<p>“—or I shall kill you myself,” pursued Lyngstrand, evenly.</p> - -<p>Horst’s face contorted suddenly with demoniac passion. Jensen, who -had approached and was watching him closely, saw his hand dart to the -pocket of his jacket, and he flung himself forward just as the revolver -cracked.</p> - -<p>With a red-hot thrust through his shoulder, a sickening faintness in -which the floor seemed to rise up to his knees, Jensen tottered back -to the charthouse wall. Fighting for consciousness, he dimly saw his -comrade hurl himself upon Horst—someone’s arm high in the air holding -a revolver, another arm high with it, clutching at the wrist below the -weapon.</p> - -<p>Then commenced a terrible silent struggle where the only sound was the -short gasps and sobs for breath of the two men swaying with the motion -of the ship. They hugged close, face upon face, in a murderous wrestle -where neither dared shift his grip. Both were big-framed, powerful, -but Lyngstrand had the advantage of youth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> They came, inch by inch, -slipping on the floor, past Jensen leaning dizzily against the wall. -He saw them through a red mist where the electric lamp glowed vaguely, -unmoved like a nebulous start above the tensely locked embrace where -life fought for human continuance.</p> - -<p>Inch by inch, they moved onward. Jensen, his vision clearing, though -impotent to move, saw now that Lyngstrand had the inner berth, that -Horst was being gradually, slowly but surely, thrust toward the open -door. He saw one of Horst’s hands free itself, grip at the door-post, -cling to it. He saw the awful terror in the eyes that glared upon his -relentless adversary.</p> - -<p>Minute after minute the tense and silent struggle at the door -continued. Still clutching at the door-post, Horst was gradually borne -backward. His feet still in the charthouse, his body, save for that one -gripping hand, was bent back out of sight into the darkness.</p> - -<p>Suddenly his fingers relaxed their hold. Their feet tripped by the -raised threshold of the door, both disappeared headlong in a heavy thud -upon the deck outside.</p> - -<p>Jensen heard a sharp exclamation, the gasp of bodies that are rolled -upon—then the quick scuffling of feet. Agonized for his comrade, he -dragged himself painfully toward the door. Just as he reached it one -ghastly piercing scream rang through the night.</p> - -<p>He gazed out to see two closely locked bodies disappear over the -bulwark.</p> - -<p>The dark seas lifted a foaming crest as the <i>Upsal</i> rolled.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> - -<h2>YELLOW MAGIC</h2> - -<p>The talk of the half-dozen men on the veranda of the Singapore -club—a couple of merchants, a planter in town on business, an -officer of an Indian regiment, a globe-trotting professor from an -American university, and a sea-captain—had drifted desultorily from -the specific instance of the famous Indian rope-trick, resuscitated -by a British magazine that lay upon the club-tables and contested -sceptically by the Anglo-Indian officer, to the general topic of -the alleged ability of the Asiatic to make people “see what isn’t -there.” The American professor, whose specialty, as he confessed, was -psychology, manifested a pertinacious interest in the subject. But -his direct questions to these habitual dwellers in the Middle and -Far East elicited only contemptuous negatives or vague second- and -third-hand stories without evidential value. Merchants, planter, and -officer alike had quite obviously none of them seen any tricks upon -which the professor could safely base his rather rashly enunciated -theory of special hypnotic powers possessed by the inscrutable races, -whose surface energies are so profitably exploited by the white man. He -turned at last to the sea-captain who had sat puffing at his cheroot in -silence.</p> - -<p>“And you, Captain Williamson? You have voyaged about these seas for the -best part of a generation—have you never been confronted by one of -these inexplicable phenomena of which the travellers tell us?”</p> - -<p>There was just a little of Oliver Wendell Holmes pedantry about the -professor—a touch of that Boston of the ’eighties in which he had been -educated. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> - -<p>Captain Williamson changed the duck-clad leg which crossed the other -and smiled a little with his keen gray eyes. Caressing the neat pointed -beard which accentuated the oval of his intelligent face, he replied -thoughtfully:</p> - -<p>“Well, Professor—I have. Once. Personally, though I saw the affair -with my own eyes, I don’t even now know what to make of it. Perhaps -your hypnotic theory might explain it.” He shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Will you not tell us the story?” entreated the professor. “It is so -rare to receive trustworthy first-hand evidence of anything abnormal.”</p> - -<p>Captain Williamson glanced rather diffidently around upon his -companions.</p> - -<p>“Fire away, cap’en!” exclaimed one of the merchants, slapping him -amicably on the knee. “You’ve always got a good yarn!”</p> - -<p>“This happens to be a true one,” said the captain, with a smile of -tolerance, “but, of course, you are under no compulsion to believe it!”</p> - -<p>“Drinks all round on the one who doesn’t!” decreed the planter. “Go -ahead! Don’t ask us to believe rubber is going to boom again, that’s -all. Short of that, we’ll believe anything.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” began Captain Williamson, his eyes following reflectively the -long, deliberate puff of smoke he blew into the air, “perhaps some -of you may remember Captain Strong—‘lucky Jim Strong’? Twenty-five -years or so ago he was one of the best known skippers in the Pacific, -celebrated almost. Men talked of him with a certain awe as of a man -who had a good fortune that was nothing short of uncanny. He had been -engaged in all sorts of desperate enterprises, frequently illicit, such -as seal-poaching in the Russian preserves, gun-running under the nose -of British cruisers, gold or opium smuggling despite the patrol-boats -of the Chinese Customs Board, and always he emerged unharmed and gorged -with profits. Only all the San Francisco banks put together, for he -dealt with all of them, could tell you what he was worth, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> it was -certainly a very large sum. However wealthy he was, he apparently -derived very little enjoyment from his money. He was always at sea in -his ship, the <i>Mary Gleeson</i>, of which he was both owner and skipper, -and stayed in port only just long enough to discharge one cargo and -pick up another. His personal habits were almost unknown, but of course -a legend of eccentricity grew up around them as a companion to the -legend of his supernatural luck.</p> - -<p>“It happened, as the finale to sundry personal adventures with which -I will not weary you, that about a quarter of a century ago I found -myself sailing out of the port of San Francisco as first officer to -the <i>Mary Gleeson</i>. I was quite a young man and it was my first job -as mate. We were bound to Saigon, in Cochin China, with a cargo of -American arms and ammunition consigned to the French Government. At -that time the French were still fighting to preserve and extend their -conquests in that part of the world.</p> - -<p>“The voyage across the Pacific was uneventful enough. We were a -contented ship. The men were cheerful. The old uncertificated -Scandinavian we had shipped as second mate was a conscientious officer. -I was rather proud of my new dignity and anxious to justify it.</p> - -<p>“As for Captain Strong, I unaffectedly liked him. Decisive but -even-tempered, his quietly firm handling of the ship’s company won my -respect, and there was no doubt of his first-class seamanship. He was -utterly without that petty punctilious pride by which some masters -try to conceal their lack of native dignity, and he would talk to -me for hours during my watch. His conversation revealed a wide and -intimate knowledge of men and affairs, and in particular of those -intrigues by which the Great Powers were in those days—I speak of the -’nineties—pushing their fortunes at the expense of the Chinese races. -Upon his own personal adventures and career, however, he was completely -silent, and no stratagems of mine could lure him into speaking of -them. Reserved as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> was upon this point, nevertheless, I felt that -he regarded me with a distinctly friendly sentiment, and I cordially -reciprocated it.</p> - -<p>“At last we made the tall promontory of Cape St. Jacques, with its -lighthouse and cable-station, and took on board the half-caste pilot -who was to navigate us the sixty miles up the river to Saigon. I -remember the trip up-stream with that clearness of the memory for all -that immediately precedes a drama, no matter how long ago. It was -early morning when he crossed the bar and, relieved from the direct -responsibilities of navigation, Captain Strong and I sat in deck-chairs -under the awning of the bridge and all day watched the dense, -mist-hung, fever-infested forests of mangrove and pandanus slip past -us on both banks of the river. The damp, close heat was suffocating -and neither of us had much desire to talk, but I fancied that a more -than usually heavy moodiness lay over the skipper. He was certainly not -quite normal. He frowned to himself, bit his lip, and his eyes roved -in an uneasy sort of recognition from side to side of the stream as we -rounded reach after interminable reach. I felt that some secret anxiety -possessed him, but of course I could not ask him straight out what it -was. Rather diffidently, I did venture on one question.</p> - -<p>“‘Ever been here before, sir?’ I asked.</p> - -<p>“He shot a suspicious look at me, directly into my eyes, before he -answered.</p> - -<p>“‘Once.’</p> - -<p>“The tone of the reply effectually checked any further exhibition of -the curiosity it heightened.</p> - -<p>“The worst heat of the day was over when we dropped anchor in the broad -stream opposite the European-looking city of Saigon. The usual swarm of -junks and sampans thronged around the quay, but the black Messageries -Maritimes packet moored in the river was the only other steamship.</p> - -<p>“To my pleasure, Captain Strong invited me to go ashore with him, -and in a few minutes the gig was pulling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> us toward the rows of -fine-looking Government buildings which stretch back from the quays. -I don’t know whether any of you have ever been to Saigon and I don’t -know what it looks like now, but in those days it looked like the -disastrous enterprise of a bankrupt speculative builder when you got to -close quarters. The town of Saigon had been burnt by the French in the -fighting by which they had obtained possession of the place, and they -had rebuilt it on European lines, shops, cafés, Government buildings, -all complete. But a paralysis was on everything, the paralysis of the -excessive administration with which the French ruin their colonies. The -streets were nearly deserted, a majority of the shops empty. The only -Europeans were slovenly, haggard military and the white-faced, dreary -Government employees who sat at the cafés and longed for France. I was -more depressed and disappointed at every step.</p> - -<p>“We went up to the Government House and filled up a few dozens of those -useless papers without which the French functionary dare do nothing, -and received vague assurances that in a few days we should be allowed -to unload the arms of which the French troops were in urgent need. Our -business completed as far as possible, Captain Strong hesitated for a -moment or two, biting his lip in that odd way I had noticed coming up -the river. Irresolution of any kind was a most common phenomenon in -him. Then suddenly, evidently giving way to a powerful impulse, I heard -him murmur to himself: ‘Give ’em a chance anyway!’</p> - -<p>“Throwing a curt ‘Come along!’ to me, he set off at a tremendous pace -through the streets with the assurance of a man who can find his way -about any town where he has been once previously. I followed him, -puzzled by the words I had overheard, wondering whither he was going, -and noting the native population with curious eyes. The Annamite -men are a stunted, degenerate race, in abject terror of their white -masters, but the women are many of them surprisingly attractive. I had -plenty of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> opportunity for comparison, for very soon we found ourselves -among a swarm of both sexes at the station of the steam-tram which runs -to Cho-lon, the Chinese town a few miles up the river.</p> - -<p>“During the ride on the tram, Captain Strong did not open his lips. He -stared steadily in front of him in a curious kind of way, like a man -inexorably pursuing some allotted line of action.</p> - -<p>“Arrived at Cho-lon, he struck quickly through the squalid streets of -the Chinese town, looking neither to right nor left, and saying not a -word. We had passed right through the town before he gave me a hint of -our objective. Then he made a gesture upward as if to reassure me that -we were near our journey’s end.</p> - -<p>“Beyond the last houses, on an eminence backed by the primeval jungle, -a Buddhist temple of pagoda fashion rose above us, the terminus of the -rough track up which we were stumbling. As we drew near I saw that it -was dilapidated, its courtyard overgrown, deserted evidently by both -priests and worshippers.</p> - -<p>“Was this what Captain Strong had come to see? Somewhat puzzled, I -glanced at his face under the pith helmet. His lips were compressed, -his eyes stern as though defying some secret danger. At the entrance -gateway, festooned and almost smothered in parasitic vegetation, he -stopped and stared into the desolate courtyard. Then, after a moment -of the curious hesitation which I had already remarked that day, he -entered.</p> - -<p>“A deathlike stillness brooded over the place. The great doorless -portal of the temple, flanked by huge and staring figures, confronted -us, opening on to a black unillumined interior like the entrance to -a tomb. Weeds grew between the flags of the threshold. An atmosphere -of indefinable evil, as though the very stones held the memory of -some awful calamity, pervaded the silence. I shuddered in a sudden -sense of the sinister in this abandonment, and glanced involuntarily -at my companion as if from his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> face I might divine the cause. It was -impossible to guess his thoughts. His jaw was locked hard, his face -expressionless.</p> - -<p>“Then I perceived that we were not alone. Slinking round the outer wall -came a wretched-looking native. His long robe was torn and dirty. His -yellow face, lit by two slanting beady eyes, was emaciated and sunken. -His shaven crown was wrinkled to the top. The limbs which protruded -from his gown were as thin as sticks. In his hand he held a beggar’s -bowl. Remarking us, he stopped dead, watching us with his horribly -bright, fever-like eyes. Instinctively, I don’t know why, I put him -down as the last of the priests still haunting this once prosperous and -now deserted temple.</p> - -<p>“Captain Strong took no notice of him and advanced toward the -portal. Somewhat apprehensively, I followed him and peered in, but -the darkness, by comparison with the intense light outside, was so -complete that I could see nothing. My curiosity getting the better of -my nervousness, I stepped inside though, I confess, rather gingerly. -After a minute or two, my eyes accustoming themselves to the gloom, -I could see the great bronze figure of the Buddha towering above me, -facing the door. Its placid face, uplifted far above the passions of -men, looked as though it were patiently awaiting the day when this -abandonment should cease and its worshippers return to adoration of -its serenity. No precious stone now reflected the light from the door -and the huge candlesticks on either side of it were empty, the days of -their scintillating illumination long past.</p> - -<p>“Captain Strong, I noticed, remained on the threshold, silhouetted -black against the sunshine, but, emboldened by my impunity, I took -another step forward or two. I recoiled quickly. Something stirred -in the lap of the Buddha and a snake erected its head in a sudden -movement. Its eyes gleamed at me from the shadow like two green -precious stones.</p> - -<p>“I swung round to shout a warning to Captain Strong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> If there was one -there were probably others of these deadly guardians of the divine -image. There were. To my horror, I saw another snake uncoil itself from -a crevice in the doorway, on a level with his neck, and draw its head -back in the poise for the fatal dart. I don’t know whether he heard -my inarticulate cry. His perception of the danger was simultaneous -with mine. But he made no blundering movement of confusion. Swift as -lightning his hand shot out and grasped the snake firmly close under -the head, where its fangs could not touch him. Then with a quick jerk -he flung it into the courtyard. The snake writhed away in a flash.</p> - -<p>“Such a display of cool, swift courage I have never seen before or -since. I ran out to him where he stood in the courtyard gazing after -the vanished snake, and excitedly expressed my admiration. He turned -round on me with a grim smile and shrugged his shoulders. The wretched -priest, if priest he was, had approached and he smiled also, a foolish, -exasperating, inscrutable smile, like an idiot enjoying an imbecile -esoteric meaning which is a meaning for him alone. Yet at the same time -I thought there was a suggestion of sly menace in that cringing grin.</p> - -<p>“‘Come back into Saigon,’ said Captain Strong, ignoring him. ‘We’ll -have a drink before we go on board.’ There was nothing in his manner to -remind you that he had just escaped death by a fraction.</p> - -<p>“I was not at all sorry to quit this unpleasant place, and I descended -that rough path with considerably more alacrity than I had mounted it. -Captain Strong was as coolly self-possessed as though walking down the -main street of San Francisco.</p> - -<p>“‘I must congratulate you on your luck, sir,’ I ventured, when we had -gone a little distance. ‘Had that snake struck a second before——’</p> - -<p>“‘Bah!’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘One can get tired of -luck!’</p> - -<p>“There was a violence, a sombre bitterness, in his tone which impressed -me. I thought of all the miraculous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> good-fortune which men attributed -to him—a specimen of which I had just seen—and wondered whether he -were really wearied of it. I could conceive it possible that a man of -his type would find life very dull if assured beforehand of success and -safety. It would be the struggle, the peril, which would appeal to him.</p> - -<p>“He relapsed into a gloomy silence which I did not dare to break.</p> - -<p>“We returned to Saigon on the steam-tram and shortly afterward we -found ourselves seated on the deserted terrace of a café, trickling -water through the sugar into our absinthe, for all the world as though -we were in some bankrupt quarter of Marseilles. Natives thronged -around us pestering us to buy all sorts of worthless trifles in their -horrible pidgin-French—<i>petit négre</i> they call it. Their ‘<i>Mossieu -acheter—mossieu acheter</i>’ at every moment thoroughly exasperated me. -But Captain Strong sat lost in a brooding reverie where he did not even -hear them. His eyes looked, unseeing, down the wide street.</p> - -<p>“Suddenly an insinuating voice whined into my ear some native words I -could not understand, and repeated them with a wheedling insistence -which compelled my attention. I looked round into an ugly yellow face -whose malicious narrow-slitted eyes glittered unprepossessingly above -his fawning smile. There was something in the face that seemed familiar -to me and yet I could not place it. Under the conical bamboo hat all -these Annamites looked alike to me. I waved him away, but he was not -to be shaken off, reiterating over and over again his incomprehensible -phrase.</p> - -<p>“I glanced enquiringly at Captain Strong, whom I knew to understand -many Chinese dialects.</p> - -<p>“‘He’s a conjurer and wants to show you a trick,’ he explained, -contemptuously, adding a curt word and nod of assent to the native.</p> - -<p>“The Annamite beamed idiotically and stretched out his skinny hands -over the little table. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘<i>Vous—regarder</i>,’ he said, evidently making the most of his French, -and grinned insinuatingly at me.</p> - -<p>“With a slow, snaky motion of his skeleton-like hands he commenced -to make passes in the air about six inches above my glass. I watched -him, at first idly, but gradually more and more fascinated as my -eyes followed the sinuous movements of his hands. Presently, to my -astonishment, I saw the glass, tall and fairly heavy—a typical -absinthe glass, commence to rock slightly on its base. The direction of -the passes altered to a vertical, up and down, as though his hands were -encouraging the glass to rise. And sure enough, it detached itself from -the table and, swaying a little unsteadily, rose into the air under the -hands still some distance above it. It ascended slowly, as though he -were drawing it up by a magnetic attraction, to an appreciable height -from the table, say three or four inches. Then, as he changed the -character of the passes again so that they seemed to press it down, it -sank slowly once more to the table. The native, childishly pleased with -this successful exhibition of his powers, grinned ingratiatingly at us -both.</p> - -<p>“Captain Strong threw a coin upon the marble top of the table. -The fawning smile still upon his ugly face, the conjurer looked -straight into the skipper’s eyes as he gabbled some native words of -thanks. Then, instead of picking up the coin, he suddenly seized -his benefactor’s hand in his skinny grasp and, using the captain’s -forefinger like a pen, traced upon the table-top a large ellipse -which commenced and finished at the coin. The action was performed so -unexpectedly, and with such swift strength, that Captain Strong had no -time to resist. The ellipse completed, he flung aside the captain’s -finger and held both his hands outstretched above the invisible -tracing. If I was astonished before, I was amazed now. Where the finger -had passed over that marble glowed a flexible reddish-gold snake -holding in its mouth, like a pendant on a chain, not the coin—but a -brilliantly flashing jewel of precious stones fashioned into a curious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> -pattern. I heard a startled exclamation break from my companion, but -before either of us could utter an articulate word, the conjurer’s hand -had descended swiftly upon the table. A second later both jewel—or -coin—and the conjurer had disappeared into the throng of watching -Annamites.</p> - -<p>“I glanced at Captain Strong. He was deathly pale and one hand was -feeling nervously over the breast of his silk shirt. Then, after a long -breath, he turned and smiled at me.</p> - -<p>“‘Clever trick that!’ he said.</p> - -<p>“The assumption of personal unconcern was so marked that I felt any -remark of mine would have been an impertinence. But I could not help -wondering what Captain Strong wore underneath his shirt.</p> - -<p>“He paid the native waiter for our drinks and rose from the table -without another word. We turned our steps toward the quay. The skipper -was absorbed in thoughts I could not penetrate, but I noticed that the -muscles of his jaw stood out upon his face and the heavy brows frowned -over his eyes. Evidently the tone of his meditations was combative.</p> - -<p>“Whatever they were, there was no hint of their purport in his voice as -he turned to me.</p> - -<p>“‘Come and have supper aft with me to-night, Mr. Williamson,’ he said, -carelessly. ‘I meant to have invited you to dinner in town but that -restaurant was really too depressing.’</p> - -<p>“I thanked him, secretly astonished at the invitation. Captain Strong -never compromised his dignity by sitting at table with his officers. -He ate alone, in the beautifully fitted saloon under the poop. At the -time, I wondered whether he had some reason for preferring my company -to his customary solitude. But his manner expressed merely the courtesy -of a superior wishing to give pleasure to a young officer.</p> - -<p>“We had arrived on the quay and I was looking over the crowd of -vociferating boatmen with a view to selecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> a sampan for our return -to the ship, when a sudden cry from the captain startled me.</p> - -<p>“‘Look! Good heavens! look!—Don’t you see?’ With one hand he gripped -me tightly by the shoulder, with the other he pointed to the <i>Mary -Gleeson</i> anchored in mid-stream. ‘Look! <i>The yellow jack!</i>’</p> - -<p>“I gazed with him across to the ship and to my horrified astonishment -saw that dreaded yellow flag which denotes the presence of yellow fever -fluttering in the evening breeze. Shocked and alarmed, I asked myself -who was the victim. There was no sickness among the ship’s company when -we went ashore. But I knew well enough the swiftness of death in these -latitudes.</p> - -<p>“‘Quick! Get a sampan!’ ordered the captain.</p> - -<p>“Privately, I doubted whether any boatman would venture into the -tainted neighbourhood of a ship with yellow fever on board, and I was -agreeably surprised to find that my only difficulty was to choose among -the swarm that offered themselves. I could only conclude that they did -not understand the meaning of the emblem. A moment or two later we were -being propelled swiftly across the stream, our eyes fixed upon that -fatal flag. The second officer stood at the top of the ladder to greet -us as we climbed on board.</p> - -<p>“‘All well, sir,’ I heard him report in a perfectly normal voice.</p> - -<p>“‘What?’ ejaculated the captain in astonishment above me.</p> - -<p>“‘All well, sir,’ he repeated.</p> - -<p>“By that time I had joined the captain on the deck and we exchanged a -puzzled glance. Then we looked around us. To our utter bewilderment, -of the yellow jack there was no sign at all. There was not a rag of -bunting about the ship.</p> - -<p>“The captain bit his lip and wrinkled his brow. I could comprehend his -perplexity. He turned sharply to the second officer. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> - -<p>“‘Svendson! Has any one been monkeying with the signal-flags?’</p> - -<p>“‘No, sir!’ The prompt denial was both surprised and emphatic. ‘I have -been on deck myself ever since you went ashore, sir.’</p> - -<p>“‘H’m! All right!’ The captain shrugged his shoulders and turned to me. -‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ he asked.</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, confidently.</p> - -<p>“‘A most extraordinary hallucination!’ he said. ‘But don’t let it worry -you. Come and have supper with me at six bells.’</p> - -<p>“I could see plainly that he was much perturbed, and I myself felt -very uneasy as I went below. Following upon the shock of the captain’s -narrow escape from the snake in the deserted temple, the strange trick -of the conjurer at the café and this hallucination, shared by both -of us, of the most dreaded flag a sailor knows, combined to awake a -primitive superstitious fear in me. My nerves were in a state of acute -tension, and I found myself starting at the most ordinary sounds.</p> - -<p>“The captain was normal and cheerful enough, however, when at seven -o’clock I joined him in the beautiful saloon which he had had fitted -regardless of expense with everything that could minister to his -comfort. It was his one luxury. Despite the damp, stifling heat which -makes Saigon one of the most uncomfortable places in the East, the -cabin was pleasantly cool. Electric fans whirred at the open ports and -underneath the large skylight hanging plants provided a refreshing mass -of greenery. The Chinese steward stood by the side of the elegantly -laid table, ready to serve his master. It was, as I said, the first -time I had eaten with Captain Strong and I was rather impressed with -the refinement of his private tastes.</p> - -<p>“The meal, an excellent one, passed without incident. My host was -agreeably conversational, but his talk was confined to those impersonal -subjects which he preferred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Not once did he refer to the happenings -of the day, and I felt that it would be discretion on my part equally -to refrain from mention of them. The silent-footed Chang-Fu cleared the -table, pulled the awnings across the open, mosquito-netted skylight, -switched on the electric lamps, and left us to our coffee and cigars.</p> - -<p>“The centre table folded down so as to leave a clear space which -made the saloon appear larger than it really was, and we sat upon a -comfortable leather-upholstered settee at one end, with our coffee on a -little Chinese table between us.</p> - -<p>“A tap on the door interrupted our talk, and Chang-Fu, the steward, -glided into the saloon and made a respectful obeisance to the captain.</p> - -<p>“‘Master—Chinese conjulor in sampan ’long-side—want speak master. Him -number-one top-hole conjulor makee plenty-heap big tlick—me talkee -with him—him velly gleat conjulor.’ The steward’s wheedling voice -had a note of genuine, awed admiration in it. ‘Master see him?’ he -finished, insinuatingly, rubbing his hands together under his cringing, -wrath-disarming smile.</p> - -<p>“I glanced at the captain.</p> - -<p>“‘I wonder if it is the fellow we saw at the café, sir?’ I ventured, -and then immediately regretted my words. Like the young fellow that I -was, I was eager to see more of the skill of these Oriental magicians, -but doubtless the captain would not wish again to come into contact -with the man whose strange trick of converting the coin into a jewel -had so perturbed him.</p> - -<p>“Possibly he read my thoughts and resented the suspicion of moral -cowardice. His tone was curt as he replied.</p> - -<p>“‘Very likely.—Bring him down, Chang-Fu.’</p> - -<p>“Once more the muscle stood out along his jaw and his face set -doggedly. It was as though he prepared to confront an adversary. -Fascinated by the mystery which I felt underlay all this, I thrilled -with a sense of high adventure as I saw the captain go to a drawer -in a locker and get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> out a heavy revolver which he slipped into his -coat-pocket. He returned to his seat by my side.</p> - -<p>“A moment later, Chang-Fu ushered in the conjurer, and discreetly -vanished. It was indeed the man we had seen at the café—more than -that, I recognized him suddenly, being now without his hat, as the man -hanging round that deserted temple. The ingratiating leer which twisted -up his emaciated face did not render it less ugly. With a profound bow -he advanced fawningly toward us, bowed again and then withdrew, after -a word or two in dialect which I did not understand but to which the -captain replied in a monosyllable, to a little distance across the -saloon floor.</p> - -<p>“He performed one or two clever but not particularly remarkable tricks, -all of them harmless enough, and my vague suspicions of mischief were -lulled gradually in the interest with which I watched him. Captain -Strong remained silent, expressionless. I noticed that it was toward -him that the conjurer directed his smiles, and his attention that he -endeavoured more especially to hold. His complete immobility made -it impossible to guess the effect of the conjurer’s manœuvres; -certainly he did not take his eyes from him for a single moment and his -right hand remained in the pocket where I knew the revolver to be.</p> - -<p>“Presently the conjurer produced a large bronze bowl—apparently from -nowhere—and made the usual mystic passes in the air above it. Smoke -began to issue from the bowl, a thick dark smoke which filled the -saloon with a pervasive and subtly pleasant aromatic scent. The smoke -rose from the bowl in ever denser volumes, curling into the air under -the saloon roof in such masses as to obscure our vision of the farther -walls. The electric lamps glowed redly as through a fog. The sweet, -cloying smell of incense permeated the atmosphere, made it oppressive, -dulled the brain as I drew it with every breath into my lungs. An -insidious paralysis stole over me. I felt that I had no power over my -limbs, could not move a muscle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> I could only stare fascinated at that -grotesquely ugly Oriental half-seen in the dim light amid the wreathing -fumes, his skeleton-like hands still sweeping in slow and regular -passes over the bowl. I heard the deep breathing of Captain Strong at -my side as of a person whose individuality was remote from mine, hardly -to be identified. My drugged brain registered only that he was as -motionless as I.</p> - -<p>“Suddenly the electric lights were extinguished—I did not see how, -in that fog of smoke, but the magician must have had the switch -explained to him by the steward. The darkness was only momentary. On -the instant almost, a dull red glow kindled itself in the depths of the -bowl, illumined luridly the dense masses of smoke which still welled -up from it. Behind them I caught a glimpse of the conjurer’s face -smiling evilly, inscrutably, his eyes glittering in the red glow, his -finger-tips sweeping round and round in the fumes. Then—I missed the -exact moment—he disappeared. A melancholy, sing-song chant commenced -from somewhere, haunting the brain with its barbaric reiteration of -meaningless words in a minor key. It was like the dreary lament of -savage worshippers before an idol that remains obstinately mute, I -remember thinking vaguely as I listened and watched with fascinated -eyes that curling, red-tinted smoke rising from the hidden flame of the -bowl, expecting I knew not what of marvellous appearance.</p> - -<p>“Suddenly the smoke rolled away on either hand. I found myself looking -down a vista—not at the darkened cabin walls—but into the bright -sunshine of the tropics—at a pagoda-like temple where two huge, -carved, staring figures guarded the entrance to an interior where -lights glimmered. I recognized it with a peculiar thrill—the temple -above Cho-lon!</p> - -<p>“Not now was the courtyard deserted and overgrown with weeds. A throng -of natives, gesticulating and chattering, though I could not hear them, -filled it—pressed back on either side as though to make way for a -procession.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> In that throng was a European in a white suit. He stood -out conspicuous in the front rank of the Oriental crowd. What was -there so familiar about that figure? My drugged brain puzzled vaguely -for a moment or two—and then he turned his face toward me. <i>Captain -Strong!</i>—a younger, slighter Captain Strong—but undoubtedly he. I -saw the flash of his eyes under the heavy brows, the living man! My -consciousness checked for a moment at this phenomenon of duplication, -and then accepted it. It seemed another part of me that was listening -to the deep breathing of the man at my side—I felt myself mingling -with what I saw almost as with actual reality—let myself drift as in a -dream where the fantastic ceases to be strange.</p> - -<p>“The procession filled the open space between the pressed-back ranks -of the throng, a procession of priests with shaven heads, and gorgeous -robes, filing into the great doorway of the temple. After them came -a group of young girls, singing evidently, dancing as they went, and -flinging flowers on either hand—the young Annamite girls who are so -strikingly more attractive than their male relatives. I saw one of -them throw a flower at the foot of the white-clad European—saw her -provocative smile—saw him pick up the flower and fling it playfully -back into her face—saw him follow the throng and press into the -temple with the crowd. What was that peculiar gasp which came from the -darkness at my side? A part of me groped with numbed faculties for its -connection with the bright scene at which I gazed fascinated.</p> - -<p>“The picture changed with the suddenness of a cinematograph film. I -found myself staring at the great image of the Buddha, looming up -above its prostrate worshippers from amid a blaze of torches. On its -breast glowed and sparkled the sacred jewel—<i>the jewel into which the -conjurer had transmuted Captain Strong’s coin upon the marble-topped -table of the café!</i>—the jewel suspended on a snake of gold.</p> - -<p>“There, conspicuously erect, stood the white-clad figure among the -worshippers, staring up fixedly at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> serene immensity of the image. -The jewel upon its breast glowed with a throbbing light like a living -thing. There was a sudden commotion among the crowd. A group of priests -came up to the white-clad man and pushed him gently but firmly out of -the temple.</p> - -<p>“Again the scene changed. It was night. The moon shone down upon a -garden on a hillside. Far below, obliterated and revealed from instant -to instant by the foliage moving in the breeze, glittered the clustered -points of yellow light of a large town. In the shadow of the trees -lurked a vague white figure. Toward it, across the moonlit open space, -came another—a native girl. I could see her clearly. She was so -daintily beautiful that I could not but suspect foreign blood in her. -The best-looking Annamite girl I had seen was gross compared with her -delicate charm. For all that, she was genuinely Oriental in type. Her -lithe little figure, clad in a simple twisted robe, approached swiftly, -her head turning from side to side in bird-like enquiry, peeping behind -each bush she passed. It was not difficult to guess for whom she was -looking. The white-clad figure stepped from its shadow, and in another -moment she was in his arms.</p> - -<p>“Then, with a sudden movement, she wriggled out of the impulsive -embrace and prostrated herself quaintly in a humble little obeisance. -The white-clad figure stooped to lift her up, folded her again in his -arms. Their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. From the darkness at -my side, but as it were from immeasurable distance, came again the -peculiar little gasp, a sound as of teeth clenching upon each other in -the enormous silence which seemed not to be of this world.</p> - -<p>“My attention was fixed upon the mysterious scene before me, so real -that I forgot the ship’s cabin and the conjurer with his volumes of -smoke. The vision at which I gazed was to me actuality. What was -happening? The man was speaking, gesticulating, pointing away with one -hand—the girl was shrinking from him in horror, gesturing a desperate -negative, and then letting herself be drawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> tightly to his breast -again to lavish her caresses upon him—and finally, as he still spoke -with the same gesticulation, withdrawing herself once more, her hands -up in agonized protest. What was being demanded of her? I held my -breath as I watched the little drama. What was the request which was -thus convulsing her to the bottom of her soul? Whatever it was, it was -despairfully refused. In savage exasperation, the man flung her from -him to the ground, turned his back upon her and strode away.</p> - -<p>“She raised herself, stared after him crouchingly, agony in her face. -She stretched out her arms to him, but he did not turn his head. Then, -ceding evidently to an overwhelming impulse, she sprang to her feet, -darted after him with the speed of a young deer, and flung both her -arms passionately about his neck. Once more I saw him ask her the -mysterious question, menace in his face. And now she surrendered, -clinging to him desperately, tears coursing down her cheeks, her eyes -wild, but every fibre of her obviously ready to do his bidding rather -than lose him as she nodded her head in frantic assent.</p> - -<p>“Once more he spoke, pointing mysteriously across the garden. She drew -away from him, her eyes fixed upon his face, her bosom filling as -with the long, deep breath of some tragic resolve. He was inexorable. -Hopelessly, she prepared to obey, in her attitude the touching dignity -of fate accepted since love imposes it, eternal womanhood fulfilling -itself in immolation. I felt the tears start to my eyes, although I -could not imagine what was the evidently tremendous sacrifice demanded -of her. The white-clad man stepped once more into the shadow of the -bushes. With one last passionate, yearning look toward him, she moved -away. She went crouched, huddled in to herself like a woman who creeps -forth to commit a crime.</p> - -<p>“Again the scene changed. I was staring at the exterior of the temple -in the moonlight. The two great figures by the portal gazed now over an -empty courtyard. Only the moon-cast shadows of the trees moved upon its -untenanted space. There was a moment of waiting—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>for I knew not what, -but the air was filled with expectation. Then, slinking along the wall, -scarcely visible, with halting, furtive step, I saw the girl emerge -from the shadows. Warily she came, close against the wall, stopping -occasionally in the awful terror of the silence which brooded over -everything, moving on again with evidently a fresh effort of highly -strung will. Like a ghost she seemed in the moonlight, as she crept up -to the giant figure by the portal, peered cautiously into the interior -darkness where two yellow flames glimmered. She slipped into the gloom -like a pale shadow that flits across the wall.</p> - -<p>“And then, I know not how, I found myself looking as from the doorway -into the interior. Between two guttering torches the great image lifted -itself up into a smoky obscurity, the glinting jewel still upon its -breast—the jewel that was suspended by a flexible snake of reddish -gold. With an impressive serenity the great calm face looked straight -before it, its hands stretched out from the elbow above the legs -crossed for its squatting, ‘earth-touching’ position. Below it, on the -steps of the altar, a priest squatted also, his shaven head nodding -forward in the sleep of a vigil excessively prolonged. By the portal -stood the shrinking figure of the girl, staring in terror at the jewel -winking in the uncertain light of the expiring torches.</p> - -<p>“For a long, long moment she stood there, unable to move, her face -looking as carven in its fixed immobility as the image itself. With -a sympathetic thrill, I realized the awful superstitious dread which -had her in its grip. Then her human love triumphed. I saw her glide -stealthily toward the giant figure, so stealthily that the nodding head -of the somnolent priest altered not in the regularity of its drowsy -rise and fall, so stealthily that she seemed but a part of the shifting -shadows cast by the candelabra of the torches. Nimbly and cautiously -she clambered from the altar-steps to the knee of the mighty image, -drew herself up to the arm outstretched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> in benediction. She balanced -herself precariously, rose suddenly upright upon it, and snatched at -the jewel.</p> - -<p>“The clasp of the flexible gold snake broke with the violence of her -pull. I saw it slide like a little stream of ruddy fire into her hands, -saw the last flash of the jewel as she stuffed it into her bosom. And -then, with a start, the priest looked up.</p> - -<p>“Ere he could do more than spring to his feet, she had leaped down with -the sure-footed agility of a mountain girl. In a quick movement she -evaded his clutch, was gone.</p> - -<p>“Once more I found myself looking at the garden where the white-clad -figure lurked in the shadows. A moment of waiting, then down the -moonlit open space came the flitting figure of the girl. Swiftly she -approached, panic in her wild flight, in the beautiful features now -close enough for distinct view. She was sobbing as she ran. The man -stepped out to her. She stopped, stood for a second regarding him with -a look of inexpressible reproach, and then, averting her head, thrust -into his eager grasp the sacred jewel. He slipped it into his pocket -and caught her in his arms. She gazed at him in yearning doubt, her -head drawn back, her soul seeming to question him through her eyes, -and then suddenly she flung herself toward him, her bare arms round -his neck, her mouth on his, kissing him in a passionate paroxysm of -caresses. Desperately she yielded herself to him, frenziedly claiming -the reward for her crime—his love. I saw the tears rolling down her -cheeks as she kissed him eagerly again and again, all else forgotten -but absorption in his presence. In a thrill of apprehension, I -remembered the priest. Surely the alarm was given—a horde of fanatics -searching for her while she lingered so recklessly! Despite the utter -silence in which all this passed, I almost fancied I could hear the -sonorous booming of a gong.</p> - -<p>“My apprehension quickened to a stab of acute alarm. There, slinking -toward them in the shadows, as stealthily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> as a cat, came a crouching -figure, nearer and nearer from behind. The steel blade he clutched -flashed in the moonlight. His face looked up, illumined in the soft -radiance which suffused the garden. I recognized it—the priest who -had slumbered at his post!—and then, with a curious little internal -shock, but vaguely, as if these later incidents belonged to another -existence, the full recognition dawned upon me—the wretched native who -had loitered about the deserted pagoda of Cho-lon, the conjurer of the -café, the conjurer who—ages since—had filled the saloon of the <i>Mary -Gleeson</i> with smoke and incense from the red fire of a bronze bowl! -His ugly face contorted with vindictive cunning, he crept now upon the -oblivious lovers locked in their passionate embrace. I saw him gather -himself for the spring, the long, murderous knife openly in his hand. -In a spasm of horror all of me tried frantically to shriek a warning, -but I could not utter a sound. I seemed to be only a watching brain, -divorced from all the other organs of the body. He leaped.</p> - -<p>“There was a glimmer of cold light as the knife descended. I waited, -my heart stopping, in doubt as to the victim. The uncertainty lasted -but an instant. The girl, struck in the back, turned her face up to -the sky and crumpled to her knees like a marionette whose string is -cut. For one long moment the grinning evil face of the priest, tugging -to release his knife, and the horrified eyes of the white man looked -into each other in a silence which was appalling in its complete -soundlessness. Then the white man struck savagely downward upon the -shaven head—and sprang away into the darkness.</p> - -<p>“Again I heard a gasp, a choked-back cry, from the obscurity at the -side of me. But now it seemed to be startlingly nearer and, as my -bewildered faculties tried to apprehend it, to identify the source -which I knew vaguely must be familiar to me and yet could not bring to -consciousness, my attention wandered for a moment. When I looked again -the vision had disappeared. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> was no longer garden or temple. -There was only redly illumined smoke rolling upward from a dull red -glow and an atmosphere of sweet sickly fumes that held my body in a -drugged paralysis.</p> - -<p>“Still I gazed, fascinated. Those thick, wreathing masses of smoke -were shaping themselves—shaping themselves into something—something -columnar. I watched like one in a dream, and as I watched a part of -me attained to consciousness of Captain Strong sitting in frozen -immobility by the side of me. The wreathing smoke coalesced, formed -itself into something whose outlines were not yet clear. A brighter, -yellower light emanated from below it, lit it up. A body—a vague -female body—collected itself, and then a girl’s head, strangely -beautiful for all its almond eyes and scanty brows, smiled upon us, -suddenly vivid and real. I recognized it with a shock—the girl of the -garden! She and her body were now one complete living organism that -moved sinuously from the hips. I held my breath in awe. Whereas the -visions I had been watching were like pictures at a distance, this was -an actual living woman a few feet from us. The smoke disappeared. I was -staring at a beautiful native woman, as real as you or I, mysteriously -illumined in yellow light against a background of obscurity, who stood -where the fumes had writhed upward from the bowl.</p> - -<p>“Conscious as I now was of Captain Strong’s close neighbourhood, I -craved to turn to him for astonished comment. But still my body was -deprived of function; I could not move a muscle. He made neither move -nor sound. Then I almost forgot him in the fascinated interest which -this apparition compelled.</p> - -<p>“Swaying slightly, with a free, graceful motion of the hips, she -moved from her place. Her mouth parted in a pathetic little smile of -melancholy, her dark eyes gazing not at me but at something at my side, -in soulful yearning appeal, she glided toward us through a hushed -silence where I could hear my own heart beat. Slowly she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> detached -her arms from the simple robe which swathed her, stretched them out -imploringly, with a wistful smile that seemed to beseech a difficult -confidence, to the companion at my side, to Captain Strong. Once more I -heard the gasp of his laboured breathing.</p> - -<p>“She approached, and it seemed to me that she and I and the panting -figure at my side whom I could not turn my head to see were the -only things existing in a world that was otherwise dark. She was -illumined from head to foot, clearly and definitely detached from her -surroundings. I marked the soft, lithe roundness of her form. Did she -speak? Her lips moved, but I heard nothing, although it seemed to me -that a gently uttered name echoed far away in illimitable space, echoed -endlessly as though ringing through the vast, incommensurable soul of -things past, present, and to be.</p> - -<p>“A name was breathed distinctly, as in awed answer, from the obscurity -at my side. <i>Héa-Nan!—Héa-Nan!</i> The wistful smile on the beautiful -face sweetened as in grateful recognition. The eyes softened in a -tender fondness that had nevertheless a strange, remote dignity. Not -now did she give herself up to the passionate abandonment of that -moonlit garden. Love still yearned from her, but it was the eternal -love of the soul that looks to the unimaginable realities beyond the -body.</p> - -<p>“Slowly, slowly, she approached until it seemed that the hands of -her outstretched arms would brush my sleeve as they reached toward -the man I felt recoil back into the darkness at my side. I looked up -into the face of a living, breathing woman—saw the faint flush upon -her Asiatic complexion—saw the dark eyes glowing, swimming in a bath -of tears. Once more the lips moved silently—once more the answering -name—<i>Héa-Nan!</i>—came in an emotionally exhaled whisper from the man -who could draw back no farther.</p> - -<p>“She smiled, a smile of radiant forgiveness, of understanding and—so -it seemed—of pity, and then I saw her arms make a quick movement. From -the shadow at my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> side she plucked something, held it aloft. The sacred -jewel of the Buddha blazed in the mouth of the reddish-gold snake that -seemed to curl alive about her arm. For one long moment, I looked up at -her, her face glowing strangely in the glory of the recovered jewel, -yet still a living, human woman with lips that parted as I watched—and -then I found myself staring into a smother of smoke from which issued a -ghastly mocking laughter.</p> - -<p>“The red glow near the floor expired in one last flicker. There was a -stab of flame, the simultaneous deafeningly violent detonation of a -revolver fired close to my ear, a savage cry of furious menace, another -gloating chuckle of laughter—and then darkness and silence.</p> - -<p>“Brought suddenly to myself, I struggled to my feet in the choking -fumes, and groped feverishly for the switch of the electric light. I -found it and the lamp sprang into dull illumination of the smoke-filled -cabin. The door was open. The conjurer had disappeared—I heard a -splash in the river under the open ports and was left in no doubt that -he was beyond our reach. Then, in sudden alarm at his silence, I turned -to look for Captain Strong.</p> - -<p>“He was stretched back unconscious upon the settee where we had sat -together, his hand grasping the revolver which he had vainly fired with -his last strength. He looked livid, pale as death, and for a moment I -thought the native had murdered him. But I could find no mark on him, -and presently he opened his eyes, began to murmur delirious phrases. I -saw at a glance that he was very ill, with the illness that frightens -you when you see it in a place like Saigon. With some difficulty, for -he was a heavy man, I lifted him to his bunk and put him to bed. As I -loosened the shirt from about his throat, I noticed, with a thrill of -the uncanny which made me shudder, that round his neck was a circling -line of blanched skin, and on his chest a similar, broader patch. But -the amulet, whose long wearing had evidently caused these marks, had -disappeared completely.</p> - -<p>“Half an hour later I was being rowed in all haste to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> the black -Messageries Maritimes boat and claiming the services of her doctor.</p> - -<p>“It was hopeless from the first, and we both knew it. Captain Strong -died before morning, raving native words in his delirium, and calling -incessantly a native name—<i>Héa-Nan! Héa-Nan!</i></p> - -<p>“At dawn I looked up to see the yellow jack fluttering from the -masthead precisely as, not twelve hours before, I had seen the vision -of it from the quay.”</p> - -<p>Captain Williamson stopped, glanced at his burnt-out cheroot, threw it -away, and selected another one carefully from his case.</p> - -<p>“Well, Professor, what do you make of that?” he asked, as he struck a -match.</p> - -<p>The professor assumed an air of wisdom superior to any mystery.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said, “there is no doubt what happened. Captain Strong -was probably infected with yellow fever coming up the river. Years -before, he had instigated a native girl to rob that Buddhist temple on -his behalf, and finding himself back at the place he was impelled—it -is a common psychological phenomenon in criminals—to revisit the -scene of his crime. The ex-priest saw him and recognized him, and, -wishing to make quite sure whether he still possessed the sacred jewel, -he hypnotized him by chaining his conscious attention on his little -conjuring trick at the café, and then suggested to him the vision of -the jewel by outlining it with his subject’s finger on the table. -Captain Strong’s exclamation and his gesture would be sufficient that -he still wore it.</p> - -<p>“As for the scene in the saloon, it was hypnotism on a large scale, -induced by the use of the drugs with which the atmosphere was filled. -Captain Strong’s subconscious mind came to the top and lived once again -through the episodes of the robbery and the death of his agent, seeing -them, as is the habit of the subjective mind when released from the -control of the objective surface consciousness, like actual present -facts. The hallucination of the girl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> as a living presence in the cabin -is, of course, explained by the silent suggestion of the priest acting -on the already highly excited subconsciousness of the guilty man. Just -as I can make a hypnotic patient believe that you are someone else and -see you as someone else, so the conjurer himself, under cover of the -vision he had suggested, approached the wearer of the sacred jewel and -snatched it from his neck. The emotional crisis undergone by Captain -Strong would, of course, hasten the onset of the yellow fever already -in his body.”</p> - -<p>“H’m,” objected Captain Williamson, “but that doesn’t explain why I -should share these visions.”</p> - -<p>The professor was nothing daunted.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said, “you were in close propinquity to Captain Strong -and were doubtless what is known as <i>en rapport</i> with him. The vision -of the yellow flag—the not uncommon hallucination of a death-symbol -produced by the subconsciousness of a doomed person—was communicated -to you when the captain gripped your shoulder——”</p> - -<p>“Have a whisky-and-soda, Professor,” interrupted the planter, coarsely, -“and don’t spoil a good story.”</p> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber’s Note:<br /><br /> -Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.<br /></p></div> - - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE BORDERLAND***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 65837-h.htm or 65837-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/8/3/65837">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/8/3/65837</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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