Shapes that Haunt the Dusk

 Harper's Novelettes

 EDITED BY

 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

 AND

 HENRY MILLS ALDEN

 [Illustration: Publisher's Logo]

 Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London

 Copyright, 1891, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1905, 1906, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 

 * * *

 _All rights reserved. _

 GEORG SCHOCK _THE CHRISTMAS CHILD_

 RICHARD RICE _THE WHITE SLEEP OF AUBER HURN_

 HOWARD PYLE _IN TENEBRAS_

 MADELENE YALE WYNNE _THE LITTLE ROOM_

 HARRIET LEWIS BRADLEY _THE BRINGING OF THE ROSE_

 HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE _PERDITA_

 M. E. M. DAVIS _AT LA GLORIEUSE_

 F. D. MILLET _A FADED SCAPULAR_

 E. LEVI BROWN _AT THE HERMITAGE_

 H. W. McVICKAR _THE REPRISAL_

Introduction

The writers of American short stories, the best short stories in theworld, surpass in nothing so much as in their handling of those filmytextures which clothe the vague shapes of the borderland betweenexperience and illusion. This is perhaps because our people, who seem tolive only in the most tangible things of material existence, really livemore in the spirit than any other. Their love of the supernatural istheir common inheritance from no particular ancestry, but is apparentlyan effect from psychological influences in the past, widely separated intime and place. It is as noticeable among our Southerners of French raceas among our New-Englanders deriving from Puritan zealots accustomed towonder-working providences, or among those descendants of the Germanimmigrants who brought with them to our Middle States the superstitionsof the Rhine valleys or the Hartz Mountains. It is something that hastinged the nature of our whole life, whatever its varied sources, andwhen its color seems gone out of us, or, going, it renews itself in allthe mystical lights and shadows so familiar to us that, till we readsome such tales as those grouped together here, we are scarcely awarehow largely they form the complexion of our thinking and feeling. 

The opening story in this volume is from a hand quite new, and is, wethink, of an excellence quite absolute, so fresh is it in scene, character, and incident, so delicately yet so strongly accented by atalent trying itself in a region hardly yet visited by fiction. Itsperfect realism is consistent with the boldest appeal to those primitiveinstincts furthest from every-day events, and its pathos is as poignantas if it had happened within our own knowledge. In its way, it is asfinely imaginative as Mr. Pyle's wonderfully spiritualized and moralizedconception of the other world which he has realized on such terms as healone can command; or as Mrs. Wynne's symphony of thrills and shudders, which will not have died out of the nerves of any one acquainted with itbefore. Mr. Millet's sketch is of a quality akin to that of Mr. McVickar's slighter but not less impressive fantasy: both are "in themidst of men and day, " and command such credence as we cannot withholdfrom any well-confirmed report in the morning paper. Mr. Rice's story isof like temperament, and so, somewhat, is Miss Hawthorne's, and Mr. Brown's, and Miss Bradley's, while Miss Davis's romance is of anotheratmosphere, but not less potent, because it comes from farther, andwears a dreamier light. 

Such as they severally and differently and collectively are, the piecesare each a masterpiece and worthy the study of every reader who feelsthat there are more things than we have dreamt of in our philosophy. Thecollection is like a group of immortelles, gray in that twilight of thereason which Americans are so fond of inviting, or, rather, they arelike a cluster of Indian pipe, those pale blossoms of the woods thatspring from the dark mould in the deepest shade, and are so entirely ofour own soil. 

 W. D. H. 

The Christmas Child

BY GEORG SCHOCK

The moonlight was so bright across the clock that it showed the time, and its tick was solemn, as though the minutes were marching slowly by. There was no other sound in the room except the breathing of Conrad, wholay in shadow, sleeping heavily, his head a black patch among thepillows. Mary's hair looked like gold in the pale light which reflectedin her open eyes. She had been lying so, listening to the tick andwatching the hands, for hours. 

When they marked eleven she began to stir; her feet made no more soundthan shadows; the cold air struck her body like a strange element. Conrad did not move as she went into the kitchen and softly closed thedoor. She groped her way to the chair where she had left her clothes andput them on, wrapped herself in a shawl, and slipped out. 

There was no snow, but a keen cold as befitted the night of the 24th ofDecember, and between two fields the ice on the Northkill glittered. Theair was so clear that far away appeared the great black barrier of themountains. Across the sky, as across deep water, was a radiance oflight, serene and chill, --of clouds like foam, of throbbing stars, ofthe moon glorious in her aura. In the towns at that hour the people wereready to begin the coming day with prayer and the sound of bells: heresky and earth themselves honored the event with light and silence in amajestic expectation. 

As she made her way over the frozen grass she looked as detached fromthe world's affairs as some shrouded lady at her nightly journey along ahaunted path. The great Swiss barn was dead silent; its red front, painted with moons and stars, looked patriarchal; it had its ownpastoral and dignified associations. She hesitated at the middle door, then she lifted the wooden bar and pushed it back cautiously. Thedarkness seemed to come out to meet her, and when she had shut herselfin she was engulfed as though the ready earth had covered her a fewnights too soon. 

The straw rustled when she stepped on it, and she was afraid to risk amovement, so she crouched and made herself small. The air was thick andpungent, freezing draughts played upon her through the cracks of thedoor, and her foot tingled, but she did not move. After a while she sawtwo luminous disks which halted, glared, and approached, and she pattedthe furry body until it curled up on her skirt and lay there purring. She felt it grow tense at a tiny squeak and scuttle, but she kept still. 

More than half an hour had gone when something happened. A horsestamped, a cock set up a sudden chatter, the cat leaped to a manger, anda cow scrambled to her feet. The darkness was full of movement, --wingsfluttered, timbers shook under kicking hoofs and rubbing hides, tossedheads jarred the rings that held them fast. Then from the corner inwhich stood the splendid yoke of black oxen, the pride of the farm, there came a long, deep sound, as of something primeval mourning. 

Two minutes after, Conrad was roused by a noise in the kitchen. Thehouse door stood wide, showing a great rectangle of moonlight, there wasa rush of cold air, and his bare foot struck Mary, doubled up where shehad fallen. He shouted, and an old woman ran in with her gray hairflying. 

"Conrad!" she exclaimed, almost in a scream. 

"I don't know, " he answered. He had his wife in his arms and held herout like a child showing a broken toy. 

The old woman bethought herself first. "Take her in and lay her on thebed, " she ordered. While she worked he began to hurry on his clothes, moving as though he were stupid; then he came up to the bed. 

"Aunt Hannah, what has she?" he begged. She gave him a look, and hesuddenly burst into a great storm of tears. 

"Hurry!" she said. "Take Dolly and a whip and go to Bernville first. Ifthe doctor isn't home, go along to Mount Pleasant; but bring a doctor. Ach!" she seized his hand in her excitement. 

Mary's eyes were opening--blue, wide, and terrified. "Don't take Dolly, "she said, quite loud. "Dolly knows too much. " Then her eyes closedagain. 

Conrad went into the kitchen, still sobbing, and the old woman followed. 

"I must take Dolly, " he whispered. "Aunt Hannah, for God's sake, whathas she?"

"I don't know what she means about Dolly. Maybe I can find out till youget back. She'll soon come to. You better be careful going out of thebarnyard. It might worry her if she hears the hoofs. "

The young man checked his crying. "I take her through the fields, " hesaid, and went out softly. 

In the light of the candle which contended with the moonbeams Hannah'swrinkled face looked witchlike as she bent over the bed. Presently Marystarted and her eyes searched the room with a terrified stare; sheseemed to be all at once in the midst of some dreadful happening. 

"Aunt Hannah, " she exclaimed, "don't let them come for me!"

The old woman bent over her. "How do you feel?" she asked, in her softand friendly Dutch. 

"Don't let them come!"

"Nobody comes, Mary. It is all right, only you are not so good. Afterwhile somebody is coming. Then you are glad!"

"Keep them out! I don't want to go!"

"You don't go off; you stay right here with me and Conrad. "

"They said--"

"Who?"

"The oxen. "

Hannah's hand shook, but she still spoke reassuringly. "Were you in thebarn, Mary?"

"Yes. You know how it is said that on Christmas eve, twelve o'clock, theanimals talk. I thought so much about it, and I made up my mind to goand hear what they had to say. I was in the middle stable that's empty, and I waited, and all of a sudden--" She stopped, trembling. 

"Just don't think about it, " Hannah urged, but she went on:

"All of a sudden--Dolly stamped--and they all woke up--the cows and thesheep, and the cat was scared and the big rooster cackled, --and then theoxen--Ach, Aunt Hannah! One of them said, 'They will carry out themistress in the morning. '"

"You don't go, for all, " the old woman soothed her. "Think of who iscoming, Mary. That's a better thing to think about. It's so lucky tohave it on Christmas day. She will have good fortune then, and see morethan others. "

The pinched face grew bright. The trembling soul was not to go outalone before, becoming a part of the great current of maternity, it hadhad the best of what is here. 

"I take such good care of her. I look after her all the time, " saidMary. 

 * * * * *

The sun was gone, but the west was still as pink as coral and thetwilight gave a wonderful velvety look to the meadows. In the rye-fieldsthe stalks, heavy-headed already, dipped in the wind which blew the lastapple-blossoms about like snow. A row of sturdy trees grew along ConradRhein's front fence, and there was a large orchard in the rear. The loghouse was just the color of a nest among the pale foliage. 

The place was so quiet that the irritable note of a couple ofchimney-swallows, swooping about in pursuit of an invisible purpose, sounded loud. Hannah Rhein looked up from the small stocking she wasknitting to watch them. Her secular occupation was contradicted by herblack silk "Sunday dress, " and there was a holiday appearance about thelittle girl who sat very still, looking as though stillness werehabitual with her. 

"You better run out to the gate. Maybe you can see them, " Hannah said. The child went, and stood looking down the road so long that she rolledup her knitting and followed. "There they are!" she exclaimed. "Fatherand Aunt Calista. Don't forget to give her a kiss when she gets out. "

Conrad Rhein's austere face expressed no pleasure as he stepped from thecarriage and helped his companion, but she was not to be depressed by abrother-in-law's gravity. Calista Yohe, moving lightly in her pinkdelaine dress, resembled the prickly roses coming into bloom beside thegate, which would flourish and fade imperturbably in accordance withtheir own times and seasons. At present she looked as though the fadingwere remote. She shook hands joyfully and seized the carpet-bag whichHannah had taken. 

"I guess I don't let you carry that, " she said. "It's heavy. "

The little girl put up her face, and Calista kissed her without speakingto her, and went on talking:

"You are right, Dolly is hot. We drove good and hard. Conrad didn't wantto do it to give her the whip, but I don't like to ride slow. Let's siton the porch awhile. "

The child placed her bench near the old woman's chair, but she watchedthe young one admiringly. Calista did not notice her. 

"How are the folks?" Hannah asked. 

"They are good. "

"Had they a big wedding?"

"I guess! It was teams on both sides of the road all the way down towhere you turn, and they had three tables. She wore such a nice dress, too; such a silk it was, with little flowers in. "

"How did it go while you were there?"

"Oh, all right; she's a nice girl and he and I could always get along;but it wasn't like my home. If a man gets married once, he doesn't wanthis sister afterwards, " Calista said, cheerfully. 

"Well, you stay here now. We are glad to have you. Conrad he is quietand I am getting along, so it's not such a lively place, but I guess youcan make out. "

"Well, I think!" said Calista, "I like to work. Is Conrad always socrabbed? He hardly talked anything all the way over. "

"He hasn't much to say, but he is easy to get along with. He doesn'tlook much to anything but the farm. "

"Doesn't he go out in company?" Calista asked, eagerly. 

"Once in a while, but not often. He doesn't look for that any more. "Hannah sighed and stroked the child's head, which rested against herknee, and the movement caught Calista's eye. 

"She favors Mary, " she said. "All that light hair and her white skin. That's a pretty dress she has on. " She stooped and examined the bluemerino. "Did you work that sack?"

"No, I had it worked. I think she looks nice. Conrad bought her thoseblue beads for a present. She was so glad. "

"Does she always wear white stockings?"

"When she is dressed. Conrad he wants it all of the best. "

"Does he think so much of her?"

"He doesn't make much with her; he is not one to show if he thinks much;but would be strange if he didn't. And as well off as he is, and no oneto spend it on!"

Calista looked out through the orchard and across the fields of rye andwheat over which the spring night was falling. "He has a fine place forsure, " she said. "He takes long in the barn. "

"I guess he went off, " said Hannah, peacefully. 

"I didn't see him leave. "

"It may be he went to Albrecht's. "

"Who are they? Young people?"

"Yes. John Albrecht he is about Conrad's age, and his wife was such afriend to Mary. They have two little ones come over sometimes to playaround. "

"Is that all in the family?"

"His mother; she lives with her, a woman so crippled up she can't walk. "

Calista looked as satisfied as a strategist who finds himself in controlof a desired situation: its difficulties made her spirits rise. Her eyeswandered about and fixed upon the child again. "She gets sleepy earlyfor such a big girl, " she said. "Wasn't she five on Christmas?"

"Yes. She wanted to see you, so I let her stay up to-night; and anyhow Ididn't want to be sitting up-stairs when you got here. "

"Do you sit with her evenings?"

"Till she goes to sleep. If you leave her in the dark she is so scared Ipity her, and I don't want her to get excited. I have no trouble withher other times. She listens to me, and she is real smart to help; shecan pick strawberries and pull weeds, and she always enjoys to go alongfor eggs. She is like her father, she hasn't much to say. She will runaround in the orchard and play with her doll-baby the whole day, andshe is pretending all the time. "

The little girl opened her eyes, very blue with sleep. With her rosycolor and the white and blue of her little garments she looked like acherub smiling out of the canvas of a German painter, --the softcompanion of an older and more pensive grace. Hannah watched hertenderly. 

"Now come, Mary, we go to bed, " she said. 

"I guess I'd make such a fuss with that child and sit with her nights!"Calista thought, her prominent hazel eyes following in rather a catlikefashion. They followed in the same way more than once during the nextfew weeks. She would brush the little girl's hair when Hannah was busy, or call her to a meal, but at other times she passed her by. At firstMary was inclined to pursue the pretty stranger, and on the secondevening she ran up to her to show the results of the egg-hunting, butshe never did it again. 

She was the only one whom Calista failed to please. The neighbors whocame to visit soon returned, and on Saturday night there were threecarriages at the gate and three young men in the parlor. Conrad did notpay much attention to her, but one day he told her that one of heradmirers was "not such a man that you ought to go riding with, " and shesaid: "All right. It was two asked me to go to-night. I take the otherone. " She went through the work singing, and Hannah sat on the porchmore than usual, and began to wonder how she had gotten on so longalone. 

Calista had been there only a few weeks when Hannah said at supper oneevening: "I guess I go to see your aunt Sarah, Conrad. It's six yearssince I went. I couldn't leave the work before, but now Calista getsalong so good I can go a little. "

"Just do it, " said Calista, heartily. "Mary and I can keep house. "

The child smiled and made a timid movement. 

"All right, " Conrad said. "I take you to the stage any time. "

Mary cried when Hannah went, and the old woman was distressed. "I feelbad to leave her, " she said. "I would take her along if I had time toget her ready. "

"Ach, go on!" Calista said, laughing. "There is Conrad now with theteam. Mary will have good times. She can stem the cherries thismorning. " She picked up the little girl and held her out to kiss heraunt. "Don't you worry, " she called, as the carriage started. 

She came out on the back porch presently with a large basket ofox-hearts. 

"Now let's see how smart you can be, " she said. "Sit down on the stepand I put the basket beside you. Pick them clean. " Mary looked ratherfrightened at the size of the task, but she set to work. She stemmed andstemmed until her hands were sticky and her fingers ached. A thickyellow sunbeam came crawling to her feet; the flies buzzed, divingthrough the air as though it were heavy; the cat beside her slept andwoke. It seemed to the child that she had always been in that spot andthat there would never be anything but a hot morning and piles ofshining cherries. She was looking toward the orchard where her swinghung empty when Calista hurried by the door. "Have you done them all?"she called. "Not? Well, then you finish them quick. "

The cherries lasted until dinner-time, and when that was over Maryclimbed on her father's bed and slept all afternoon. When she came outthe first thing she saw was the egg-basket piled full. "If you want togo along for eggs you ought to be here when I am ready, " said Calista. 

The little creature made no noise, but her father looked at her hard ashe sat down to supper. "What's the matter?" he asked. 

She did not answer, and Calista said, "Oh--!" with the peculiar Germaninflection of contemptuous patience. Conrad said no more. 

After supper Mary wandered out, and her aunt had to call her severaltimes. "Where were you?" she asked. 

"Down there. " The child pointed to the orchard. "A lady was there. "

Calista went to the edge of the porch and shaded her eyes. "I don't seeher, " she said. "Who was she?"

"I don't know. "

"Did you never see her before?"

"No, ma'am. "

"What did she look like?"

Mary thought hard, with the puzzled face of one who lacks words andcomparisons to convey an image that is clear enough. Calista walked alittle way into the orchard, then she looked up and down the road. 

"Wasn't it Mrs. Albrecht?" she asked. "Well, I guess it makes nothing. Come, you must go to bed. I stay with you. " With a mocking expressionshe held out her hand as to a very small child, and the little girlwalked into the house without a word, not noticing the hand. 

When she was asleep Calista came back to the porch with some sewing. Conrad appeared from the barn, stood about for a moment, and strolledtoward the orchard; then he walked in the garden for a while; finally hesat on the step with his back to her, saying nothing and looking at thesky. She preserved the silence of a bird-tamer. 

"It's a nice evening, " he said at last. 

"Yes. "

"Good weather for hay. "

"Yes, fine. "

"One field is about ready to cut. You better tell Aunt Hannah to comehome. It's too much work for you, with the men to cook for. "

"Just you let her stay and enjoy herself. I get along all right. "

After a pause she asked, "Did you see some one in the orchard just now?"

"No. "

"Mary she ran down after supper, and she said a strange lady was there. I wondered who it was. "

"I didn't see her, " he said, dully, as though he spoke from the midstof some absorbing thought; then he got up and walked away. "You bettergo in and light the lamp if you want to sew, " he said, roughly. 

Calista took her things and went at once, looking as though she were sowell satisfied that she could afford to be amused. 

Though in the next two weeks she had plenty of company Conrad neverjoined them: he spent the evenings with John Albrecht, drove toBernville, or went to bed early. He worked much harder than usual, andhis cheeks grew thin under his stubble of black beard. Calista did nottrouble him with conversation. 

"Don't you feel good?" she once asked, and when he gave a surly answershe said, carelessly, "You better get something from the doctor, " andbegan to sing immediately afterwards. But she knew how he looked evenwhen her back was turned, and she often stared at Mary in a meditativeway as though the child were the doubtful quantity in an importantcalculation. 

She was watching her so one day, when little John Albrecht and hissister had come over and the three were very busy on the grass near thekitchen window with two dolls and the old tiger-cat. In the afternoonsilence their little voices sounded clear and sweet. The cat escaped toa cherry-tree and they chased him gayly, but he went to sleep in aninsulting way in spite of the lilac switch that John flourished. 

"Look out!" Mary called. 

John looked around and said, "For what?" and she went over to him. 

There was a conversation which Calista could not hear; Mary pointedseveral times to a spot in the sunny grass; then he went running downthe road and Katie followed, looking as though she would cry when shehad time, and leaving her doll behind her. 

Calista went out. "What did you say to John to make them run off?" sheasked. 

"I told him to look out, he would hit the lady with the switch. "

"What lady?"

"She was there. "

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. "

"Can't you see her?"

"No, ma'am. "

Calista looked all about. Not a soul was in sight on the road; in theorchard and the fields nothing moved but the wind; the yard was emptyexcept for the cat slipping round the corner with his mottled coatshining. "Now listen, " she said, not unkindly. "I saw you out of thewindow, and there was no lady here. Why do you tell a story like that?"

The child looked at her in a preoccupied way and did not answer. 

"I can't have you say things that are not so, Mary. If you do it again, I have to whip you. Now pick up your doll-baby and come in. "

She spoke of it to Conrad that evening, but he did not pay muchattention. 

"I don't know if there is something wrong with Mary or, if she does seesome one, who it is, " she said. "Do you know if there are gipsiesaround?" He scarcely answered, and in a few minutes she heard him drivedown the road. She smiled to herself as she hurried through her work. Then she put Mary to bed, though it was much earlier than usual, andbegan to dress, while the little girl lay watching from among thepillows. 

Calista enjoyed the water like a sleek creature of two elements; herwhite skirts crackled and flared; her hair hid her waist. When she hadfinished her green dimity looked like foliage around a flower, and herhazel eyes turned green to match it. 

"I'm going on the front porch, " she said. "You go to sleep like a goodgirl. "

She had sat with Mary in the evening as long as she could do so withoutinconvenience. Now she saw no reason for continuing it. She had notimagination enough to know what she was inflicting. Mary gazed after heras a shipwrecked woman might watch a plank drifting out of reach, butshe said nothing; she shut her eyes and lay still for many minutes. Shewas a timid child but not cowardly, and such tangible things as a crossdog, a tramp, and a blacksnake in the orchard she had faced bravely, buther terror of the dark was indefinite and unendurable. She opened hereyes, shut them, and opened them again, looking for something dreadful. The furniture was shapeless, the bedclothes dimly white, and each timeshe looked it was darker. She did not know what she expected, and to seenothing was almost worse. A carriage going down the road comforted heras long as she could hear it, but it left a thicker silence. She pressedher lids together, breathing quickly, --to move was like invitingsomething to spring on her, --then she slid out of bed and ran down thestairs, gave a frightened glance at the front door behind which sat heraunt, who would send her up again, and slipped across the back porchinto the orchard. 

Calista heard nothing. In the hot June evening she was fresh and coolenough to be akin to the rejoicing fields, a nymph of beech or willow. Now and then she looked down the road and saw no one, but she did notseem disappointed. It was quite dark and the fireflies were trailing upand down when wheels stopped at the gate, and she drew back behind alilac-bush that screened the porch, and sat still. 

Conrad, striding up the path, started when he saw her. "Oh, it's you!"he said, coldly. She gave a short answer, and he stood frowning atnothing and looking very tall and black. "Want to take a little ride?"he asked. 

"No, I guess not. "

"You stay at home too much, " he said, presently. "You haven't been offthe place since Aunt Hannah left. "

"I don't care to go. I can't leave Mary here all alone. It wouldn't besafe. "

She stayed silently in her corner as though waiting for him to leave--awhite shadow beside the black mass of the lilac-bush. Dolly at the gatetossed her head until the reins scraped on the gate-post. Down in theorchard a whippoorwill cried. 

He was like a horse that takes the bit and the driver was his ownwill--his own self. She made no resistance when he threw himself downbeside her: she was pliant, her cheek cool, she even looked at himhaughtily. He did not know that she slipped out of his arms just beforehe would have released her, nor that she was all one flame of triumphanthappiness. She seemed as untouched as the starlight. 

"Calista, " he stammered, "I hope you overlook it. "

"What about my sister Mary?" she asked, dryly. "I thought you didn'tlook to any one else. "

"I didn't. I tell you the truth. I was unwilling. I fought it off all Icould, but now I give in. I can do no more. "

"So you think you like me as well as you like her?"

"Calista, I would ask you if Mary stood here and heard us. "

The woman seemed to bloom like an opening rose. She looked at him, butit was as though she saw some vision of success that she was just aboutto grasp. "I am satisfied, " she said. 

There was a sound on the walk, and they lifted their heads; then theywere scarcely conscious of each other's presence. Up from the gate, hernightdress hanging about her feet, her hair pale in the dim light, camethe little girl. She climbed the steps and passed fearlessly into thedark house, smiling at the two with the radiant content of happychildhood, soothed and petted, --her small right hand held up as if inthe clasp of another hand. 

 * * * * *

Calista would have chosen to clean the whole house or do a harvest-timebaking rather than write one letter, so she asked most of the guestsverbally and put off the others as long as she could. Conrad had takenHannah to Bernville to have a new silk dress fitted and buy coloredsugar for the wedding-cakes when she began the invitations. By threeo'clock they were finished, and she counted them and laid them besidethe inkstand. Then she washed her hands, spread a sheet on the floor, and got out a pile of soft white stuff, all puffs and lace andruffles--the work of weeks. 

She sewed happily, looking out now and then at the trees, which tossedlike green waves under the roaring August rain. Sometimes a gust drove ashower down the chimney and made the logs hiss. The room was warm andstill; in the interval of work it seemed to have paused and besleeping. The tiger-cat, with his paws folded under him, lay beside thehearth, and Mary on her little bench nursed her doll peacefully. Calistabegan to sing a German hymn; the words were awful, but their verysolemnity made her happier by contrast:

 "Wer weiss wie nahe mir mein Ende! Hin geht die Zeit, her kommt der Tod. 

"Look here, Mary, " she said. "Isn't this pretty?" The child came, andCalista held up the soft stuff around her; it made the little face lookbeautifully pink and white. She touched it lightly, smiling, then shewandered over to the window with her doll and looked out into the rain. 

 "Es kann vor Nacht leicht anders werden, Als es am frühen Morgen war, "

Calista sang. 

Five minutes later she asked, good-naturedly, "What are you looking at?"Mary did not answer. "Didn't you hear what I said? What's going on outthere?" Calista repeated. 

"You said I shouldn't say it, " the child whispered. 

"Say what?"

"When I see the lady. "

"Where do you see her?"

"Coming out of the orchard. "

Certain old stories returning to Calista's mind made her look at Maryfor a minute as though the child had manifested strange powers. She wentto the window and her thimble clicked on the sill as she leaned forward;then she touched her cheek. "Do you feel good?" she asked. 

"Yes, ma'am. "

She looked out again. "I want you to know for sure that no one isthere, " she said, earnestly. "Now tell me: do you see a lady?"

"Yes, ma'am. She is coming up here. "

Calista was very sober. "If your aunt Hannah doesn't teach you not totell stories, then I must, " she said. "I can't have you like this. SoonI can't believe you anything. Come here. " Mary came as if pulled. "Nowmind, I do this so that you don't say what isn't so again. " She gave thechild two good slaps on the mouth with her strong hand. 

The inherited spirit of resistance to coercion, that had made pioneersand martyrs of Mary Rhein's ancestors, was let loose too soon: it madean imp of her. She darted silently like an insect from under Calista'shand, seized the inkstand, and threw it with all her might at thebeautiful white gown. The ink poured out, dripping from fold to fold, and the stand thudded on the sheet and scattered the last drops. Marygave one look and ran across the porch and out to the road in the rain. 

Calista sat still for a moment, then she got up weakly. "Doesn't lookmuch like a wedding-dress now, " she murmured. "It's no use doinganything to it. It's done for. " She wiped the inkstand on a stainedflounce before setting it on the table. "_Now_, " she said, as thoughsome one were present who would disapprove, "I give it to her good. Ibetter fetch her in and have it done before they get back. "

The sky was low but the rain was gentle when she started down the road, and her shawl made a bright spot between the fields, green as chromos. Mary had gone toward the creek, and she followed as far as the bridge;then, as there was no one in sight, she turned up-stream. It was deepjust there and very full, carrying leaves and twigs so that it was likea little flood, and the water caught the dipping branches of the willowsand swept them along. The shellbarks looked forlorn in the rain, andthe ground was so soft that it gave under her feet. Her skirts and shoeswere heavy with wet before she saw Mary. 

The child looked as though she were being crowded out of life. She wascrying, with small weak sounds like a wretched little animal, her hairwas dark with water, and the rain drove across her face. At the sight ofCalista she began to run slowly with much stumbling; her crying mixedwith the sound of the stream. Calista followed as fast as she could. 

A little way up the creek was a log bridge without a rail. Conrad hadput it up for his own convenience, and Calista never tried to cross it. 

"Ach!" she thought, "I don't hope she runs out there!" Then she began tocall, but Mary did not look back. She fell over a root, picked herselfup, and went on, with her knees shaking. 

Suddenly she began to cry very loud, as a child does when it seescomfort, and went on much faster, making for the bridge. As she ranalong the log her arms were out to meet some one. 

Calista stared for a couple of seconds, then she raced like a savagedown to the first bend, her red shawl flying behind her. 

It lay in a pool on the kitchen floor when Conrad and Hannah came in; itwas the first thing they saw, and their voices stopped as though a handhad been laid upon their mouths. Mary was lying on the settle andCalista was doubled up against it with her face hidden. 

"What's wrong?" Conrad asked. She said nothing, and when he tried tolift her she writhed away from him. Hannah ran to Mary. The blanketswere warm, but the small creature was quite cold. 

"Now it is time you say what has happened, " she said, and Conrad stoodsilently by. 

Calista sat up, looking deadly sick. The story came out in fragments, and at the end she bowed her head, shivering and staring at nothing. 

"Did she say this before?" Hannah asked. 

Calista told wearily, and the old woman listened, a spectator of strangethings to which she alone had the clue. 

"Is that all?"

"Ach, yes! I can't remember any more. Now do what you want to do. "

Hannah spoke like a judge sentencing a criminal: "So you thought shetold lies and you whipped her--that little thing! Now I tell yousomething, Calista Yohe. That night she was born I said to Mary--yoursister Mary!--that once she came on Christmas she would be lucky and seemore than we see, and Mary was glad, and the last thing she said was: 'Ilook after her. I take care of her. ' And they say one that dies andleaves something unfinished must come back to finish it up. I guess Maryknew when to come. 

"And you are glad. I don't say you just wished this to her, but youthought would be fine not to have her around once you got married toConrad. She was lucky not to be here till you got a good hold of her. 

"You might have thought whether I would let her with you that didn'twant her, to be in the way. But I am old. It is a good thing Maryfetched her. Now I see to her myself. Don't you dare touch her. "

Conrad had been perfectly still, with the face of a man in a nightmare, but now he went to the shaking woman and lifted her in his arms. Hannahlooked at them for a moment. Then she set a great kettle of water toheat, took up the child and went out, leaving them alone together, andthey heard her footsteps in the room above as she went back and forth, getting what she needed. 

The White Sleep of Auber Hurn

BY RICHARD RICE

The thing happened in America; that is one reason for believing it. Another land would absorb it, or at least give a background to shadowover its likelihood, the scenery and atmosphere to lend an evanescentcredibility, changing it in time to a mere legend, a tale told out ofthe hazy distance. But in America it obtrudes; it stares eternally on inall its stark unforgetfulness, absorbing its background, constantlyrescuing itself from legend by turning guesswork and theory into facts, till it appears bare, irremediable, and complete, --witnessed at highnoon, and in New Jersey of all places, flat, unillusive, and American. 

The thing was as clear a fact in its unsubtle, shadowless mystery as washe--that is, as was the shell and husk of him lying there in the nextroom after I had watched the life and the person drawn out, leaving onlymere barren lees to show what had gone. Hours it lay there to prove thething, to settle it in my mind, to let me believe eternally in it. Thenwe buried it deep under the big pile of scree on my hill. As I write Ican see the white stones from the window. 

It is not all guesswork to begin with; indeed it is not guesswork at anymoment if the end is always in view, and we had to begin with the end. Itell you it was as plain as daylight. People saw him, heard him talk;saw him get off the train at Newark to mail my letter--thisone--addressed to my engineers in Trenton; heard him say, "PromisedCrenshaw to post this before reaching the city; guess this is my lastchance to keep it. " It is a little thing that counts; you can't get bythat; it alone is final; but there were a dozen more. Ezekiel saw him onthe platform hunting for the right box for west-bound mail, and saw himpost the letter after considerable trouble. When I heard that, I yieldedto the incredulous so far as to telephone to Trenton, asking if the firmhad received it. I did that, though I held the letter in my hand at thetime, and knew it had never left this house. Ezekiel was sure that hemailed the letter, that it went from his hand into the box. He waswatching carefully because just then the train began to move; butAuber, leisurely ignoring this, appeared to be comparing his watch withthe station clock, and finally looked up at the moving train as if indisapproval. Ezekiel lost sight of him in the crowd, and then, at thesame moment, he was taking his seat opposite again. 

Ezekiel said, "I thought you were going to miss the train, characteristically, for the sake of setting your watch. " And Auberreplied, rather queerly: "Great God! It's impossible now; I can seethat. " Ezekiel did not know what he meant, but remembered it afterwardwhen we were talking the whole thing over in this room. 

Besides Ezekiel, there were four men who saw him after the train leftNewark; and the porter remembered holding the vestibule door andtrap-platform open for some one as the train pulled out. 

Then there is my coachman who drove him to the train, here in Barrelton, who had his tip of a silver dollar from him. Put it in his pocket--andthen--lost it, of course. You see, there's the most conclusive link inthe chain. If William had produced his dollar, or my engineer hadreceived that letter, the whole thing would fall through--jugglery andimposition, mere ordinary faking. The hypnotic theory might still hold, but it must stretch fifty miles to an improbable source in a man who is, at the time, dying strangely on my bed. 

Of course, there is no use asking if any one on the train touchedhim, --not only saw and heard him, but shook hands with him, let us say. It is the same story as William's, or not so good. Ezekiel is sure thathe shook hands when Auber first boarded the train; Judson is sure thathe did so when he stepped across the aisle to ask about me. Yet, I tellyou that would have made no difference; let him have been as impalpableas the very air of the car, those men would have felt the flesh, just asWilliam felt his silver dollar. "Fulfilment of sure expectation on theground of countless identical experiences, " your psychologist wouldexplain. Illusion and fact were indistinguishable; and though I happenedto watch the facts, and the others the illusion, their testimony is asgood as mine. 

There is the testimony of four men that, when the smash came, they sawhim thrown from his seat, head first, into the window-jamb, and lie fora moment half through the shattered pane. Just before this, he had takenout his watch. Its familiar picture-face, and also its enamelled handsexactly together at twelve o'clock, had caught Ezekiel's eye. He saidthat Auber looked at the watch, and then leaned forward as if to callattention to the view from the window. It was then that the smash came. When Ezekiel and some others, who were only thrown to the floor, lookedup again, Auber was gone. 

You see, the time is identical; we calculated it exactly, for the trainleft Newark on time and takes just six minutes to reach the bridge; thatis, at exactly noon. When I noticed the hour here, it was, perhaps, afew minutes later, and that is not a difference in timepieces, for itwas by his own watch on the bedside table. No one saw him on the trainor on the bridge after that. It seems conclusive, just that alone. Theyfinally decided that he must have fallen from the window and somehowrolled from the sleepers into the river. 

Actually no one else in the Pullman was badly hurt. The men pickedthemselves up and rushed to the doors of the car, or climbed out of thewindows. Ezekiel put his head through the shattered pane which Auber hadstruck. Men were running toward the car ahead, from which screams came. In the excitement of rescuing those from the telescoped coach, Auber wasforgotten; but when it was all over, Ezekiel and Judson lookedeverywhere for him, till they assured themselves that he was not on thebridge. 

At all events, that is how he came to be reported among "TheMissing, --known by friends to have been on the train, --Auber Hurn, theartist. "

During that night, when Ezekiel and Judson had come down in response tomy telegrams, we sat here, talking endlessly, guessing, relating, slowlydeveloping the theory of the thing, delving into our minds for memoriesof him, gradually getting below the facts, gradually working back tothem, examining the connections, completing the chain. The main fact, the culmination, had to be the soulless shell of him, lying there in thenext room. Our theory began far away from that, in what he used to call"white sleep, " and more especially in a curious occasional associationbetween the dreams of this sleep and the landscape pictures that hepainted. What impressed you most as he recounted one of thosehalf-conscious dream concoctions, that he named "white-sleep fancies, "was the remarkable scenery, the setting of the dream. This was incharacter with his pictures, for about them both you felt thatpeculiarly pervasive "sense of place, " for which his landscape is ofcourse famous, and which in these dreams was emphasized through a subtleominousness of atmosphere. You perceived what the place stood for, itssensational elements, and you began vaguely to imagine the kind of eventfor which it would form a suitable background. In his pictures theelement was a sort of dream-infusion, as though in each scene the secretgoddess, the Naiad of the spot, must have stood close to him as hepainted, and thrilled him to understanding at her impalpable touch. Whatever the exact nature of these creative intuitions, there wasbetween his art and his dreams a lurking connection, out of which, as webelieved, finally grew his strange faculty for seeing beyond the scene, an intuition for certain events associated with what we called "anominous locality. "

This faculty began to distinguish itself from mere psychical fancythrough a curious contact of one of Auber's dreams with his actualexperience. 

The dream, which came at irregular intervals during a number of years, began with a sense of color, a glare to dazzle the eyes, till, as Auberinsisted, he awaked and saw the sunset glow over a stretch of forest. Hewas on a hillside field, spotted with daisies and clumps of tall grass. On one side a stone wall, half hidden by the grass and by a sumac hedgein full bloom, curved over the sky-line. All this was exactlyexpressible by a gesture, and when he reached the bottom of the field helooked back for a long time, and made the gesture appreciatively. It wasat this point that he always recognized the recurring dream; but hecould never remember how it was going to end. Then he entered the woodon a grassy path, and for a long time the tall tasselled grasses brushedthrough his fingers as he walked. Suddenly it grew dark, and feelingthat "it would be folly to continue, " he tried hard to remember thepoint of the dream. Just as he seemed to recollect it, the sound ofrunning water came to him, as from a ravine, and he knew that "he couldnot escape. " The low sound of running water, --the little lonely gurgleof a deep-wood brook, all but lost in the loam and brush of the silentforest, --why should he feel an incomprehensible distaste for the place?He tried feverishly to recollect the outcome of the dream, but allmemory of it had fled. Nor could he bring himself to continue on thepath; when he tried to take another step his leg dangled uselessly infront, his foot beating flimsily on the ground till he brought it backbeside the other. The longer he listened to the sound of the runningwater, the stronger grew his aversion for the place. This continuedindefinitely, till he awoke. 

You perceived the vague sense of "ominous locality" developed out of thesimplest details. There is a recognizable introduction, the field, thestone wall, the grass striking his fingers; but there is no ending, nothing happens; the dream-spell at last dissolves, and the sleeperwakes. His aversion to the sound of the brook can, therefore, come fromno conscious knowledge of a portending catastrophe in the dream. It wasalways Auber's fancy that the dream would really end in a catastrophe, which, though the mind proper continue in ignorance, casts its ominousshadow through the subconsciousness upon the surroundings of the event. 

It was also a fanciful idea of his that dreams in general imply asubconscious state coexisting constantly with the actual realm ofthought, but penetrated by our consciousness only when the will isleast active, or during sleep. With ordinary mortals sleep andconsciousness are so nearly incompatible that the notion of actualmental achievement during sleep is unthought of. Dreams are allowed torun an absurd riot through the brain, disturbing physical rest. Theremedy for this universal ailment and waste of time was to be found in"white sleep, " a bit of Indian mysticism, purporting to accomplish apartial detachment of mind and body, so that the will, which is alwaysthe expression of the link between these two, is, for the time, dissolved. The body rests, but the unfettered mind enters upon a"will-less state of pure seeing, " where dreams no longer remain themeaningless fantasies of blind sleep, but become luminous with idea andsequence. With the body thus left behind, the intellect rises to thezenith of perception, where the blue veil of earthly knowledge ispierced and transcended. 

How often had we heard Auber talk in his fantastically learned fashion, with an amused seriousness lighting up his face. At what point he beganto see something more than amusement in his dreams and theories, I neverknew; but the serious beginning of the thing took shape in an incidentwhich not even the most fervent theorist could have created for thesake of a theory. 

It was up among the little knobby hills to the north of my farm. We wereas usual sketching, and Auber had been going on all the afternoon aboutthe mournful scenery, talking of nothing but browns, and grays, and"mountain melancholy. " He had a way of stringing out a ceaseless jargonwhile he worked, --an irritating trick caught in the Paris studios. Atthe end of the afternoon, he held up a remarkable sketch, suggesting thecolor scheme for a picture in the atmosphere of oncoming dusk--a bit ofpath over the hill toward the sun. 

"You have struck it most certainly, " I said. "Be wary of finishing that;it is strangely suggestive as it is. "

He nodded; and then, as we packed up, he said, "Do you know, I have feltvaguely intimate with this spot, as if I had been here before, as if Iwere painting a reminiscence. " I remarked tritely on the commonness ofthis feeling. 

At the bottom of a hillside meadow I was hunting for the entrance of apath into a patch of woods. Auber, instead of helping me, kept gazingback at the fading light while he made random observations on the natureof the sky-line, --one of his cant hobbies. "See how crudely thecharacter of everything is defined up there against the sky, " I heardhim say, while I continued to search for the path. "Now even a sheep ora cow, or an inanimate thing, like that stone wall, for instance, --seehow its character as a wall comes out as it sweeps over the top. " Atthis moment, a little drop of surprise in his voice made me look around. He was walking backwards, one arm extended toward the hill in adescriptive gesture. "Why, it is the dream!" he murmured in hushedexcitement. "Ah, of course! I might have known it. Now, I'll turn tofind the path. "

"I wish you would, " I said. 

He started abruptly. Then he came slowly, and touched me in a queerevasive way on my shoulder. Finally he drew a long breath, and grippedme by the arm. "Don't you recognize it?" "It's the dream! See! The stonewall--the field--the sumac! Now that's the first sumac--"

"Oh, come along!" I said; "there are twenty such fields. That iscurious, though: you made the gesture. Do you recognize it all exactly?"

"It's it! the whole thing--and now, you see, I'm turning to find thepath. "

I admitted that it was curious, and said that it would be interesting tosee how it all turned out. 

For a long time Auber followed in silence, which I tried to relieve bybantering comments. I was some distance ahead, when I heard him say, "The grass is brushing through my hands. "

"Why not?" I laughed, but it rang false, for I recollected the detail. It was childishly simple; perhaps that was why the thing bothered me. Inoticed that in the growing darkness the forest took on a peculiar look. It had been partly burnt over, leaving the ground black, and some of thetrees gaunt, upbristling, and sentinel-like. The place, even in broaddaylight, would have had a night-struck appearance. At this hour, whenthe sudden forest darkness had just fallen, there was a sense of unusualgloom, easily connecting itself with strange forebodings. 

Perhaps it had been five minutes, when Auber said, "I am conscious thatI cannot take my hands out of the grass. "

As I said, it was a simple thing. With an odd impulse, I groped backtoward him till I found his wrists, and then shook them violently abovehis head. We stood there for several moments performing this absurdpantomime in the darkness. His arms, with the sleeves rolled up, feltheavy with flesh in my grip. I seemed to be handling things of dead, cold flesh. 

Then Auber said, "I can still feel my hands down in the grass. "

I drew back in a strange horror; but, at the same moment, we both stoodstock-still to listen: from some distance to the right came thetrickling sound of water. It was barely perceptible, and we listenedhard, indefinitely, while the silence congealed in our ears, and thedarkness condensed about our eyes, filling up space, and stoppingthought save just for the sound of the brook. It seemed a sort ofgrowing immobility, eternal, like after death. 

At last Auber spoke, laying a hand on my shoulder: "It is over; let usgo ahead. "

After a while we talked about it. There was little to "go" on. You see, nothing happens, and, as Auber expressed it, "the psychological data areineffective for lack of an event. " But though the whole thing remainedthen a purely psychical experience, and did not "break through, " yet ithad something of the fulness of fate. Auber, as usual, had a theory: inthe dream some manifestation was undoubtedly striving to break through, but he had been unable to facilitate the process. The presentexperience, he decided, was immature, a mere coincidence. The outcomemight yet, however, be foreseen through the dream, if the creativeperception of "white sleep" could be attained. 

That is the affair which started the whole thing. Auber must have takenthe suggestion it contained much more seriously than any of us forseveral years imagined; nor did we connect the long contemplativeness ofthe man with any definite purpose. The thing was too vague and illusiveto become a purpose at all. 

Before long there were half a dozen instances, some trivial, orseemingly coincidental, but all forming our theory. There is one Ezekielrecounted, as we sat here talking that night. It was just a matter ofold Horace MacNair's coming in on them once during a thunder-storm. Thefamily were sitting in the big hall; the ladies with their feet up onchairs to insulate them from the lightning; young Vincent Ezekielteasing them by putting his on the mantelpiece. At one point in thestorm came a terrible crash, and Auber jumped up, starting toward thedoor. Then he came back and sat down quietly. They laughed, and asked ifhe had been struck. 

"No, " he said, quite seriously, "not by the lightning, but by a curiousidea that I saw Horace MacNair opening the door. I suppose I must havedreamed it; I was nearly asleep. "

The Ezekiels looked at one another in surprise, and Mrs. Ezekiel said:"There is something curious in that, for the last time Horace was here, just before he died, he came in the midst of a thunder-storm as we weresitting here, much as we are now. And, why! I remember that he had comeover because he expected to see you, but you had not arrived. "

"That's so, " put in young Vincent, "because he said that if you had beenhere, you wouldn't have been too afraid of the lightning to stand up andshake hands. And by Jove! I had my feet on the mantelpiece! I rememberthat, because when he saw me he laughed, and lined his up beside mine. "

"He was wearing a gray rain-coat, and high overshoes that you made funof, " added Auber, shortly, and then kept an embarrassed silence. 

That was true, Ezekiel said; and Auber had not seen the man in fiveyears. 

There were many cases which we strung that night on the threads of ourtheory, all working toward its completion; and yet we neared the endwith misgiving and doubt, for we had the necessity of believing, if wewould keep ourselves still sane. All of us had noticed that so far asthere was an element of terror in the strange incidents, it lay in thefact of a subtle undercurrent of connections, as if Fate were dimlypointing all the while toward the invisible culmination. Suddenly therewould be a new manifestation of Auber's faculty, and a new instancewould be added, illusive, baffling, and yet forming each time newthreads in the vague warp and woof of something that we called ourtheory. "There it is again, " we would say to ourselves, as we sent theghostly shuttle flying in our psychological loom. 

This undercurrent appeared to touch the incident of Horace MacNair, forit seemed that the old artist had walked over to the Ezekiels that nighton purpose to talk with Auber about making a series of pictures of thesalt marshes along the Passaic River. Old Horace was dead of his heartbefore Auber arrived, but the suggestion was repeated by Ezekiel; andAuber, taking it as something like a dying request from his old master, besides appreciating its value, set to work at once. 

The long reaches of the Passaic tidal lagoon, with their mists andblowing swamp-grass, are crossed by the trestles of all the railwayswhich enter New York from the south. It was old Horace MacNair's ideathat this place, more travelled, more unnoticed, and yet morepicturesque, perhaps, than any spot near the metropolis, might be themaking of Auber's reputation. The varied, moody tones of the marsh-land, forever blending in a pervasive atmosphere of desolate beauty, suitedAuber's peculiar style. Here he would paint what passed in the populareye for the dullest commonplace, and would interpret, at the same time, both this landscape and his little-understood art. 

While he worked I frequently visited Auber on his yawl _Houri_, whichwas canvassed over for an outdoor studio, and anchored at the point fromwhich he wished to paint. One day we were tied up to a pile by theCentral Railroad trestle. It was just the heat of the day, and Auber, stretched out on a deck chair, was taking a sort of siesta. His eyeswere closed, and he had let his cigar go out. Whether it was due to thelight through the colored awning, I was not sure, but I was suddenlyattracted by a dull vacancy that seemed to be forming in hiscountenance. It stole upon the features as if they were being slowlysprinkled with fine dust, blotting their expression into a flatlifelessness. Then the rush of a train passing over the bridge disturbedhim. With a fleeting look of pain he sat up, glanced first furtively atme, and then stared hard around. 

"Was there a train?" he asked, at length. 

"Yes--an express. "

"It did not stop here on the bridge for anything?"

"No, of course not. "

"Of course not, " he agreed, absently. "How long ago?"

"Perhaps two minutes, " I said. 

He examined his watch. After a while he got up, seeming to pull himselftogether with an effort, and began scraping nervously on his picture. Inoticed that the palette-knife trembled in his hand. 

"What is the matter?" I asked, finally. 

"I feel very much upset, " he replied, and sank weakly on the hatch. "Iwas on that train and--"

I had to jump below to the ice-chest; Auber seemed to have fainted. Jerry, the skipper, and I applied cold water for five minutes, and thenAuber revived and asked for whiskey. 

"I was on the train, " he began again, persistently. "Several people, whom I knew, must have been in the chair-car with me, because I seemedto be taking part in a conversation. Was there a Pullman on the train?"he asked, abruptly. 

"Yes, " I said; "at the end. "

The answer seemed to reassure him unhappily. "I was on the train, " hecontinued, "but I could not think where I had come from. There werevague recollections of a walk, then of a long drive in the dark. Now Iwas on the train, and yet I was somehow not there even now. " I pouredout more whiskey, but he pushed it aside absently. "I was not there, norwas I here; for when I moved, something seemed to be folded about me, like bedclothes. It was all a kind of duplication, and I could be on thetrain or in the other place at will. That is why it seemed confused andunreal. We were talking about some matter of business. I held a list offigures that I referred to now and then. Once I leaned forward to lookout of the window; it was just here. I was pointing, and saying to someone, 'There is my last salt marsh!' when a great shock stopped thewords, and sent me against something in front. For a moment I wasconscious that you were leaning over me. Then I had a strange feeling ofbecoming gradually detached, as if from my very self. A weight and afeeling of bedclothes slipped from me; there was alternate glaring lightand enveloping darkness. Finally the light prevailed, and I found myselflooking up into this hideous awning. "

"Well, " I said, "that is a very queer dream!"

"Yes; it was white sleep, " he replied, slowly; "but something was addedthis time. " He put his hand on my arm appealingly. "I knew it wouldcome; I have had the beginnings of that dream before. " He spoke as iffrom a tragic winding-sheet, a veil spun in the warp of his own fancyand also in the very woof of Fate; and out of this veil, through whichnone of us ever saw, he was stretching his hand to ask of me--what?

I did what I could. Auber consented to come at once to my farm till restshould partly restore him. We reached here that night. It was just twoweeks ago; in thought, it is, for me, a lifetime. It was a time ofsuspense and waiting when diversion seemed almost irreverent, but atlast it was forced upon us by that ever-moving providence which stoodback of the whole affair. My dam broke at the upper farm. Chance?Nothing of the sort! I went up to see how it had happened, and foundsome rotten joists and rust-eaten girders. They are in the course ofevents. Auber went with me while I should see things set to rights. 

It was a simple incident, but somehow I suspected it of finality even aswe started out of the yard on the long drive. I was suspicious of thatknobby hill region, which was connected with the incipient indicationsof the whole affair. On arriving in the late afternoon, however, nothingcould be more natural than that Auber, having inspected the dam, shouldstroll on to the pasture, where he once sketched the path that runs downto his dream-meadow. 

I went back to the farmhouse, and wrote to my engineers a detail of thebreach in the dam, then sat down on the porch to enjoy a smoke. The daywas warm and dreamy; the sun, filtering through the September haze, rested on the eyelids like a caressing hand. I was soon half asleep, peering lazily at the view which zigzags down between the knobby hillsto the more cultivated farm-lands that we had left hours behind us, whenthe telephone rang. I got up and answered it:

"William?--at the farm? Oh yes--a message, a telegram--for Mr. Hurn, yousay? Is it important?--Well, go ahead--What! Must take 11. 10express--crisis on Wall Street?--meet on train--Who?--Ezekiel. "

It had come, then! Chance? No. A railroad merger; stockholdersinterested. At first I said: "I won't tell him. " Then I thought: "Afterthis supposed Sentence is delayed and delayed till he no longer looks onthe world as his prison cell, and the whole matter evaporates in apsychological mist, he will say: 'Our superstitions, my dear friend, andyour loving care, cost me just twenty thousand dollars that trip. Mypicture of the twilight path, which you would have interrupted, won'treplace a hundredth part of that. '"

I wandered down to the broken dam; there beside the breach, with theriver sucking darkly through, Josiah Peacock stood, contemplating thescene with his practical eye against to-morrow's labor. Suddenly I foundmyself mentioning the telegram. He said, "Then you'll have to driveback to-night. " I felt alarmed; surely this was none of my doing. Presently I was taking the short cut through the woods. The red glow ofsunset was fading behind me, and darkness already gathered among thetrees. Aware of a vague anxiety that impelled me forward, an odd notionthat I might be late for something, I began to hurry along, the gaunttree trunks watching like sentinels as I passed. Was I looking for AuberHurn? It was strangely reminiscent, not a real experience. "This isabsurd, " I said to myself at length, and straightened my foot to stop. Instead, I unexpectedly leaped over a fallen log, and continued withnervous strides, while I flung back a sneaking glance of embarrassment. 

On the turns of the path darkness closed in rapidly; the outlines ofobjects loomed uncertainly distant through the forest. Gradually Ibecame aware that at the end of a dim vista down which I was hurrying, something white had formed itself in the path. I stopped to look, butcould make out nothing clearly. It remained dimly ahead, and Iapproached, a few steps at a time, peering through the obscure grayshadows, striving to concentrate my vision. At last I recognized thatit was Auber Hurn in his shirt-sleeves, standing still in the middle ofthe path. Apparently he, too, was trying to see who was coming. 

"Auber!" I called. I was not sure that he replied. 

When I was very close I began at once, as if involuntarily: "Auber, yousee, I came to meet you. There is a message from Ezekiel--a Wall Streetpanic, or something. He wants you to meet him on the 11. 10 to-mor--Itwill be necess--Auber?" Had I been talking to the air? I looked aboutme. "Auber!--Auber Hurn!" I called. There was no one there; but in thehush of listening there came, as if wandering to me through the forest, the little lost gurgle of a distant brook. 

For a moment I stood fascinated by a reminiscence--and then, a suddenfear swelling in my throat, I ran. Back on the path I fled, my legsseeming to go of themselves, hurling my body violently along; my feetpounding behind, as if in pursuit, whirling around the turns, then downthe last straight aisle, past the sentinel trees, out into the light. 

When I reached the farmyard, a fresh team was being hitched to ourcarriage. 

"What! Has Mr. Hurn come back?" I asked, shakily. 

"No, " said Josiah, "but I thought maybe you'd want things ready. Didn'tyou find him?"

"Why--no, " I replied, and then repeated firmly, "No, I did not. "

I sat down, exhausted, on the porch, and waited. At the end of tenminutes Auber Hurn entered the gate, crossed to the buggy, and got in. Josiah, from between the horses where he was buckling a knee-guard, looked up in surprise. "You got that message, Mr. Hurn?"

"Yes, " said Auber, speaking very distinctly. "Mr. Crenshaw just gave itto me. "

Josiah turned to me. "I thought you said--" he began. 

"I was mistaken--I mean, I misunderstood you, " I interposed. 

Josiah stared, and then finished the harnessing. "Your coats are hereunder the seat, " he remarked. I took my place mechanically. Mrs. Josiahcame with some milk and sandwiches. I finished mine hurriedly, and tookthe reins. 

Auber sank back into his corner without a word, leaving me to feel onlya sense of desperate confused isolation, of lonely helplessness. 

At length Auber said, in a voice that startled me, a low, contentedvoice: "You were on the path? You went to find me yourself?"

"Yes, " I answered; and then, after a long time, "And you were notthere--yourself?"

"No, I was not there. " He leaned back against the cushions, and Ithought he smiled. "I was in that hill meadow. I went to sleep there fora short time. "

It was two o'clock when we drove into the yard. William was waiting totake the horses. 

As we went into the house, William asked if he should have the trap forthe 11. 10 express. I could not answer, and Auber said, looking at me inthe light of the open door, "Yes, certainly. "

I can see him now in the cheerless white hallway, his tall figureexaggerated in a long driving-cloak, his high features sharpened in thelight of the lantern. 

In taking off my coat I felt, in the pocket, the letter I had written tomy engineer in Trenton. I laid it on the hall table. "You might postthat to-morrow before you get to New York, " I said, casually. 

Then I lighted him to his room, and we said "good night. "

Undressing mechanically, I went to bed, and after a long time I slept, exhausted. 

A rumbling noise; then, after it had ceased, the realization that acarriage had driven out of the yard--that was what woke me up. The clockon my bureau said half past ten. For a moment I forgot what that meant;and then sliding out of bed, I tiptoed quickly down the hall. Putting myear to Auber's door, I listened--till I had made sure. From within camethe dull breathing of a sleeper. Throwing on a few clothes, I wentdown-stairs. The waitress was dusting in the hall. 

"Where has the carriage gone?" I asked her. 

"Why, sir, " she said, "William is taking Mr. Hurn to the station. "

After a while I had the courage to say cautiously, "I thought Mr. Hurnwas still asleep; I did not hear him come down. "

"He came down ten minutes ago, " she replied, "and in a great hurry, withno time for breakfast. "

"You saw him?" I cross-examined. 

"Yes. The carriage was waiting, and he seemed in a great hurry, thoughhe did run back to take a letter from the table there. "

I was standing between the table and the maid. 

"Well, of course you're right, " I said, carelessly, and at that moment Iput my hand on the letter. I turned my back and put it in my pocket. 

I went hurriedly to the barn. The runabout trap and the mare were out. Then I finished dressing, and had breakfast. Soon after, William droveinto the yard, and I called from the library window--"Where have youbeen?"

"Just to the station, sir. "

"What for? Has my freight arrived?"

"Mr. Hurn, for the 11. 10, "--he explained respectfully. 

"Ah, yes!" I cried, in an overvoice; "I keep forgetting that I have justwaked up. You saw him off? Ah--did he leave any message for me? Ioverslept, and did not see him this morning. "

"No, sir; I had no message, " he replied. "But he's a liberal man, Mr. Hurn, sir. " He grinned and slapped his pocket; then, with a look ofdoubt, he straightened out one leg to allow his hand inside; the lookgrew more doubting; he stood up and searched systematically, under theseat, everywhere. 

"Guess it rolled out, " I said, very much interested. "What was it?"

"A silver dollar, " he answered, mournfully. 

"Oh, well, I'll make that up, " I called, and shut the window. 

I took out my watch and made a calculation; Auber's train was probablyat Newark. I could stand it no longer, and I went toward his room, stamping on the bare floor, whistling nervously, and rattling therickety balustrade. I banged open the door and began to shout: "Auber!you've missed your----"

He did not move. He was lying on his back, with his arms extended evenlyoutside the bedclothes, which were tucked close around his breast. Helay as if in state, with that dull dusty pallor on his face, and thateyeless vacancy of an effigy on a marble tomb--a voidness of expression, with masklike indications of duration and immobility. On thereading-table, at his bedside, I noticed his watch lying face up. It wastwo or three minutes of the noon hour. 

Sitting down on the bed, I touched Auber on the shoulder. He did notmove. An intuition, growing till it all but became an idea, and thenremaining short of expressibility, unable to perceive even its ownindefiniteness--a film for impressions where there is no light--suchwas the vagueness of my guess concerning the metamorphosis that wastaking place. Yet I began to understand that Auber Hurn, the real man, was not there, not on the bed, not in my house at all. It was as if thePerson were being gradually deducted, leaving only the prime flesh tovouch for the man's existence. Even as I sat in wonder, with my eyesupon him, the life tinge faded utterly from his skin. There was afleeting shadow as if of pain. His breast sank in a long outbreathing, and then, after seconds and minutes, it did not rise again. I listened. The room seemed to be listening with me. The silence became strickenwith awe, with the interminable and unanswering awe--the muteness ofdeath. 

We believed in the thing. Ezekiel and Judson came down in response to mytelegrams, and we sat here talking it all over, hours through the night. It was inevitable to believe in it. We took his body up in the darkness, and buried it in the scree on my hill; then we came back to Auber'sroom, and faced each other by the empty bed. 

"This is not for the practical world, or for the law, " I said. "Nocoroner on earth could return a verdict here. "

"We could never see the thing clearly again if the practical world gothold of it, " said Judson. "Look; you have to believe so much!" He hadpicked up Auber's purse from the table, where it had lain beside hiswatch. He opened it over the bed. A roll of bills fell out--and onesilver dollar. 

"That belongs to William, before the law, " said Ezekiel. 

In Tenebras

A Parable

BY HOWARD PYLE

_One morning, after I had dressed myself and had left my room, I cameupon an entry which I had never before noticed, even in this my ownhouse. At the further end a door stood ajar, and wondering what was inthe room beyond, I traversed the long passageway and looked within. There I saw a man sitting, with an open book lying upon his knees, who, as I laid one hand upon the door and opened it a little wider, beckonedto me to come and read what was written therein. _

_A secret fear stirred and rustled in my heart, but I did not dare todisobey. So, coming forward (gathering away my clothes lest they shouldtouch his clothes), I leaned forward and read these words:_

"WHAT SHALL A MAN DO THAT HE MAY GAIN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN?"

_I did not need a moment to seek for an answer to the question. "That, "said I, "is not difficult to tell, for it has been answered again andagain. He who would gain the kingdom of heaven must resist and subduethe lusts of his heart; he must do good works to his neighbors; he mustfear his God. What more is there that man can do?"_

_Then the leaf was turned, and I read the Parable. _

I. 

The town of East Haven is the full equation of the American ideal workedout to a complete and finished result. Therein is to be found all thatis best of New England intellectuality--well taught, well trained; allthat is best of solidly established New England prosperity; all that isbest of New England progressive radicalism, tempered, toned, andgoverned by all that is best of New England conservatism, warmed to lifeby all that is best and broadest of New England Christian liberalism. Itis the sum total of nineteenth-century American _cultus_, and in it isembodied all that for which we of these days of New World life arestriving so hard. Its municipal government is a perfect model of amunicipal government; its officials are elected from the most worthy ofits prosperous middle class by voters every one of whom can not onlyread the Constitution, but could, if it were required, analyze its lawsand by-laws. Its taxes are fairly and justly assessed, and are spentwith a well-considered and munificent liberality. Its public works arethe very best that can be compassed, both from an artistic and practicalstand-point. It has a free library, not cumbersomely large, but almostperfect of its kind; and, finally, it is the boast of the community thatthere is not a single poor man living within its municipal limits. 

Its leisure class is well read and widely speculative, and its busyclass, instead of being jealous of what the other has attained, receivesgladly all the good that it has to impart. 

All this ripeness of prosperity is not a matter of quick growth of arecent date; neither is its wealth inherited and held by a few luckyfamilies. It was fairly earned in the heyday of New England commercialactivity that obtained some twenty-five or thirty years ago, at whichtime it was the boast of East Haven people that East Havensailing-vessels covered the seas from India to India. Now that busyharvest-time is passed and gone, and East Haven rests with opulent ease, subsisting upon the well-earned fruits of good work well done. 

With all this fulness of completion one might think that East Haven hadattained the perfection of its ideal. But no. Still in one respect it islike the rest of the world; still, like the rest of the world, it isattainted by one great nameless sin, of which it, in part and parcel, issomehow guilty, and from the contamination of which even it, with allits perfection of law and government, is not free. Its boast that thereare no poor within its limits is true only in a certain particularsense. There are, indeed, no poor resident, tax-paying, voting citizens, but during certain seasons of the year there are, or were, plenty oftramps, and they were not accounted when that boast was made. 

East Haven has clad herself in comely enough fashion with all those finegarments of enlightened self-government, but underneath those garmentsare, or were, the same vermin that infested the garments of so manycommunities less clean--parasites that suck existence from God's giftsto decent people. Indeed, that human vermin at one time infested EastHaven even more than the other and neighboring towns; perhaps justbecause its clothing of civilization was more soft and warm than theirs;perhaps (and upon the face this latter is the more likely explanation ofthe two) because, in a very exaltation of enlightenment, there were nolaws against vagrancy. Anyhow, however one might account for theirpresence, there the tramps were. One saw the shabby, homeless waifseverywhere--in the highways, in the byways. You saw them slouching pastthe shady little common, with its smooth greensward, where well-dressedyoung ladies and gentlemen played at lawn-tennis; you saw them standingknocking at the doors of the fine old houses in Bay Street to beg forfood to eat; you saw them in the early morning on the steps of the oldNorth Church, combing their shaggy hair and beards with their fingers, after their night's sleep on the old colonial gravestones under therustling elms; everywhere you saw them--heavy, sullen-browed, brutish--aliving reproach to the well-ordered, God-fearing community of somethingcruelly wrong, something bitterly unjust, of which they, as well as therest of the world, were guilty, and of which God alone knew the remedy. 

No town in the State suffered so much from their infestation, and it wasa common saying in the town of Norwark--a prosperous manufacturingcommunity adjoining East Haven--that Dives lived in East Haven, and thatLazarus was his most frequent visitor. 

The East Haven people always felt the sting of the suggested sneer; butwhat could they do? The poor were at their doors; they knew no immediateremedy for that poverty; and they were too compassionate and tooenlightened to send the tramps away hungry and forlorn. 

So Lazarus continued to come, and Dives continued to feed him at thegate, until, by-and-by, a strange and unexpected remedy for the troublewas discovered, and East Haven at last overcame its dirty son of Anak. 

II. 

Perhaps if all the votes of those ultra-intelligent electors had beenpolled as to which one man in all the town had done most to insure itsposition in the van of American progress; as to who best representedthe community in the matter of liberal intelligence and ripe culture; asto who was most to be honored for steadfast rectitude and immaculatepurity of life; as to who was its highest type of enlightenedChristianity--an overwhelming if not unanimous vote would have been castfor Colonel Edward Singelsby. 

He was born of one of the oldest and best New England families; he hadgraduated with the highest honors from Harvard, and finished hiseducation at Göttingen. At the outbreak of the rebellion he had left alucrative law practice and a probable judgeship to fight at the head ofa volunteer regiment throughout the whole war, which he did with signalcredit to himself, the community, and the nation at large. He was abroad and profound speculative thinker, and the papers which heoccasionally wrote, and which appeared now and then in the moreprominent magazines, never failed to attract general and wide-spreadattention. His intelligence, clear-cut and vividly operating, instead ofleading him into the quicksands of scepticism, had never left the hardrock of earnest religious belief inherited from ten generations ofPuritan ancestors. Nevertheless, though his feet never strayed from thatrock, his was too active and living a soul to rest content with thearid face of a by-gone orthodoxy; God's rain of truth had fallen uponhim and it, and he had hewn and delved until the face of his rockblossomed a very Eden of exalted Christianity. To sum up briefly and infull, he was a Christian gentleman of the highest and most perfect type. 

Besides his close and profound studies in municipal government, fromwhich largely had sprung such a flawless and perfect type as that ofEast Haven, he was also interested in public charities, and theexistence of many of the beneficial organizations throughout the Statehad been largely due to his persistent and untiring efforts. Themunicipal reforms, as has been suggested, worked beautifully, perfectly, without the grating of a wheel or the creaking of a joint; but thepublic charities--somehow they did not work so well; they never did justwhat was intended, or achieved just what was expected; their mechanismappeared to be perfect, but, as is so universally the case with publiccharities, they somehow lacked a soul. 

It was in connection with the matter of public charities that the trampquestion arose. Colonel Singelsby grappled with it, as he had grappledwith so many matters of the kind. The solution was the crowning work ofhis life, and the result was in a way as successful as it wasparadoxical and unexpected. 

Connected with the East Haven Public Library was the lecture-room, wherean association, calling itself the East Haven Lyceum, and comprising inits number some of the most advanced thinkers of the town, met onThursdays from November to May to discuss and digest matters social andintellectual. More than one good thing that had afterward taken definiteshape had originated in the discussions of the Lyceum, and one winter, under Colonel Singelsby's lead, the tramp question was taken up anddissected. 

He had, Colonel Singelsby said, studied that complex question veryearnestly and for some time, and to his mind it had resolved itself tothis: not how to suppress vagrancy, but how to make of the vagrant anhonest and useful citizen. Repressive laws were easily passed, but itappeared to him that the only result achieved by them was to drive thetramp into other sections where no such laws existed, and which sectionsthey only infested to a greater degree and in larger numbers. Nor inthese days of light was it, in his opinion, a sufficient answer to thatobjection that it was the fault of those other communities that they didnot also pass repressive laws. The fact remained that they had notpassed them, and that the tramps did infest their precincts, and suchbeing the case, it was as clear as day (for that which injures some, injures all) that the wrong of vagrancy was not corrected by merelydriving tramps over the limits of one town into those of another. Moreover, there was a deeper and more interior reason against thepassage of such repressive laws; to his thinking it behooved society, ifit would root out this evil, to seek first the radix from which it drewexistence; it behooved them first to very thoroughly diagnose thedisease before attempting a hasty cure. "So let us now, " said he, "setabout searching for this radix, and then so drive the spade of reform asto remove it forever. "

The discussion that followed opened a wide field for investigation, andthe conclusion finally reached during the winter was not unlike that sologically deduced by Mr. Henry George at a later date. The East HavenLyceum, however, either did not think of or did not care to advocatesuch a radical remedy as Mr. George proposed. They saw clearly enoughthat, apart from the unequal distribution of wealth, which may perhapshave been the prime cause of the trouble, idleness and thriftlessnessare acquired habits, just as industry and thrift are acquired habits, and it seemed to them better to cure the ill habit rather than to upsetsociety and then to rebuild it again for the sake of benefiting theill-conditioned few. 

So the result of the winter's talk was the founding of the East HavenRefuge, of which much has since been written and said. 

Those interested in such matters may perhaps remember the article uponthe Refuge published in one of the prominent magazines. A fulldescription of it was given in that paper. The building stood upon BayStreet overlooking the harbor; it was one of the most beautifulsituations in the town; without, the building was architecturally plain, but in perfect taste; within, it was furnished with every comfort andconvenience--a dormitory immaculately clean; a dining-room, large andairy, where plain substantial food, cooked in the best possible manner, was served to the inmates. There were three bath-rooms supplied with hotand cold water, and there was a reading and a smoking-room provided notonly with all the current periodicals, but with chess, checkers, andbackgammon-boards. 

At the same time that the Refuge was being founded and built, certainmunicipal laws were enacted, according to which a tramp appearing withinthe town limits was conveyed (with as little appearance of constraint aspossible) to the Refuge. There for four weeks he was well fed, wellclothed, well cared for. In return he was expected to work for eighthours every day upon some piece of public improvement: the repaving ofMain Street with asphaltum blocks was selected by the authorities as theinitial work. At the end of four weeks the tramp was dismissed from theRefuge clad in a neat, substantial, well-made suit of clothes, and withmoney in his pocket to convey him to some place where he might, if hechose, procure permanent work. 

The Refuge was finished by the last of March, and Colonel Singelsby wasunanimously chosen by the board as superintendent, a position heaccepted very reluctantly. He felt that in so accepting he shoulderedthe whole responsibility of the experiment that was being undertaken, yet he could not but acknowledge that it was right for him to shoulderthat burden, who had been foremost both in formulating and advocatingthe scheme, as well as most instrumental in carrying it to a practicalconclusion. So, as was said, he accepted, though very reluctantly. 

The world at large was much disposed to laugh at and to ridicule all thepreparation that Dives of East Haven made to entertain his Lazarus. Nevertheless, there were a few who believed very sincerely in theefficacy of the scheme. But both those who believed and those whoscoffed agreed in general upon one point--that it was altogetherprobable that East Haven would soon be overrun with such a wilderness oftramps that fifty Refuges would not be able to supply them with refuge. 

But who shall undertake to solve that inscrutable paradox, humanlife--its loves, its hates?

The Refuge was opened upon the 1st of April; by the 29th there werethirty-two tramps lodged in its sheltering arms, all working their eighthours a day upon the repaving of Main Street. That same day--the29th--five were dismissed from within its walls. Colonel Singelsby, assuperintendent, had a little office on the ground-floor of the mainbuilding, opening out upon the street. At one o'clock, and just afterthe Refuge dinner had been served, he stood beside his table with fivesealed envelopes spread out side by side upon it. Presently the fiveoutgoing guests slouched one by one into the room. Each was shaven andshorn; each wore clean linen; each was clad in a neat, plain, gray suitof tweed; each bore stamped upon his face a dogged, obstinate, stolid, low-browed shame. The colonel gave each the money enclosed in theenvelope, thanked each for his service, inquired with pleasantfriendliness as to his future movements and plans, invited each to comeagain to the Refuge if he chanced to be in those parts, shook each by aheavy, reluctant hand, and bade each a good-by. Then the five slouchedout and away, leaving the town by back streets and byways; each with hishat pulled down over his brows; each ten thousand times more humiliated, ten thousand times more debased in his cleanliness, in his good clothes, and with money in his pocket, than he had been in his dirt, his tatters, his poverty. 

They never came back to East Haven again. 

The capacity of the Refuge was 50. In May there were 47 inmates, andColonel Singelsby began to apprehend the predicted overflow. Theoverflow never came. In June there were 45 inmates; in July there were27; in August there were 28; in September, 10; in October, 2; inNovember, 1; in December there were none. The fall was very cold andwet, and maybe that had something to do with the sudden falling off ofguests, for the tramp is not fond of cold weather. But even grantingthat bad weather had something to do with the matter, the Refuge wasnevertheless a phenomenal, an extraordinary success--but upon verydifferent lines than Colonel Singelsby had anticipated; for even in thisthe first season of the institution the tramps began to shun East Haveneven more sedulously than they had before cultivated its hospitality. Even West Hampstead, where vagrancy was punished only less severely thanpetty larceny, was not so shunned as East Haven with the horrid comfortsof its Refuge. 

III. 

As was said, the records of the Refuge showed that one inmate stilllingered in the sheltering arms of that institution during a part ofthe month of November. That one was Sandy Graff. 

Sandy Graff did not strictly belong to the great peregrinating leisureclass for whose benefit the Refuge had been more especially founded andbuilt. Those were strangers to the town, and came and went apparentlywithout cause for coming and going. Little or nothing was known ofsuch--of their name, of their life, of whence they came or whither theirfootsteps led. But with Sandy Graff it was different; he belongedidentically to the place, and all the town knew him, the sinistertragedy of his history, and all the why and wherefore that led to hisbecoming the poor miserable drunken outcast--the town "bummer"--that hewas. 

There is something bitterly enough pathetic in the profound abasement ofthe common tramp--frouzy, unkempt, dirty, forlorn; without ambitionfurther than to fill his belly with the cold leavings from decent folks'tables; without other pride than to clothe his dirty body with thecast-off rags and tatters of respectability; without further motive oflife than to roam hither and yon--idle, useless, homeless, aimless. Inall this there is indeed enough of the pathetic, but Sandy Graff in hisutter and complete abasement was even more deeply, tragically sunkenthan they. For them there was still some sheltering ćgis of secrecy toconceal some substratum in the uttermost depths of personal depravity;but for Sandy--all the world knew the story of his life, his struggle, his fall; all the world could see upon his blotched and bloated face theouter sign of his inner lusts; and what deeper humiliation can there bethan for all one's world to know how brutish and obscene one may be inthe bottom of one's heart? What deeper shame may any man suffer than tohave his neighbors read upon his blasted front the stamp and seal ofall, all his heart's lust, set there not only as a warning and a lesson, not only a visible proof how deep below the level of savagery it ispossible for a God-enlightened man to sink, but also forself-gratulation of those righteous ones that they are not fallen fromGod's grace as that man has fallen?

One time East Haven had been Sandy Graff's home, and it was now thecentre of his wanderings, which never extended further than theimmediately neighboring towns. At times he would disappear from EastHaven for weeks, maybe months; then suddenly he would appear again, pottering aimlessly, harmlessly, around the streets or byways;wretched, foul, boozed, and sodden with vile rum, which he had procuredno one knew how or where. Maybe at such times of reappearance he wouldbe seen hanging around some store or street corner, maundering with someone who had known him in the days of his prosperity, or maybe he wouldbe found loitering around the kitchen or out-house of some pityingBay-Streeter, who also had known him in the days of his dignity andcleanliness, waiting with helpless patience for scraps of cold victualsor the dregs of the coffee-pot, for no one drove him away or treated himwith unkindness. 

Sandy Graff's father had been a cobbler in Upper Main Street, and hehimself had in time followed the same trade in the same little, old-fashioned, dingy, shingled, hip-roofed house. In time he had marrieda good, sound-hearted, respectable farmer's daughter from a neck of landacross the bay, known as Pig Island, and had settled down to whatpromised to be a decent, prosperous life. 

So far as any one could see, looking from the outside, his life offeredall that a reasonable man could ask for; but suddenly, within a yearafter he was married, his feet slipped from the beaten level pathway ofrespectability. He began taking to drink. 

Why it was that the foul fiend should have leaped astride of his neck, no man can exactly tell. More than likely it was inheritance, for hisgrandfather, who had been a ship-captain--some said a slave-trader--haddied of _mania a potu_, and it is one of those inscrutable rulings ofDivine Providence that the innocent ones of the third and fourthgeneration shall suffer because of the sins of their forebears, who haveraised more than one devil to grapple with them, their children, andchildren's children. Anyhow, Sandy fell from grace, and within threeyears' time had become a confirmed drunkard. 

Fortunately no children were born to the couple. But it was one of themost sad, pitiful sights in the world to see Sandy's patient, sad-eyedwife leading him home from the tavern, tottering, reeling, helpless, sodden. Pitiful indeed! Pitiful even from the outside; but if one couldonly have looked through that outer husk of visible life, and havebeheld the inner workings of that lost soul--the struggles, thewrestling with the foul grinning devil that sat astride of him--how muchmore would that have been pitiful! And then, if one could have seen andhave realized as the roots from which arose those inner workings, thehopes, the longings for a better life that filled his heart during theintervals of sobriety, if one could have sensed but one pang of thathell-thirst that foreran the mortal struggle that followed, as thatagain foreran the inevitable fall into his kennel of lust, and then, last and greatest, if those righteous neighbors of his who never sinnedand never fell could only have seen the wakening, the bitter agony ofremorse, the groaning horror of self-abasement that ended thedebauchery--Ah! that, indeed, was something to pity beyond man's powerof pitying. 

If Sandy's wife had only berated and abused him, if she had even criedor made a sign of her heart-break, maybe his pangs of remorse might nothave been so deadly bitter and cruel; but her steadfast and unrelaxingpatience--it was that that damned him more than all else to his hell ofremorse. 

At last came the end. One day Sandy went to New Harbor City to buyleather for cobbling, and there his devil, for no apparent reason atall, leaped upon him and flung him. For a week he saw or knew nothingbut a whirling vision of the world seen through rum-crazy eyes; then atlast he awoke to find himself hatless, coatless, filthy, unshaved, blear-eyed, palsied. Not a cent of money was left, and so that day andnight, in spite of the deadly nausea that beset him and the tremblingweakness that hung like a leaden weight upon every limb, he walked allthe thirty-eight miles home again to East Haven. He reached there aboutfive o'clock, and in the still gray of the early dawning. Only a fewpeople were stirring in the streets, and as he slunk along close to thehouses, those whom he met turned and looked after him. No one spoke tohim or stopped him, as might possibly have been done had he come home ata later hour. Every shred and filament of his poor remorseful heart andsoul longed for home and the comfort that his wife alone could give him, and yet at the last corner he stopped for a quaking moment or so in theface of the terror of her unreproachful patience. Then he turned thecorner--

Not a sign of his house was to be seen--nothing but an empty, gapingblackness where it had stood before. _It had been burned to the ground!_

Why is it that God's curse rests very often and most heavily upon themisfortunate? Why is it that He should crush the reeds that are bruisedbeneath His heel? Why is it that He should seem so often to choose thebroken heart to grind to powder?

Sandy's wife had been burned to death in the fire!

From that moment Sandy Graff was lost, utterly and entirely lost. God, for His terrible purposes, had taken away the one last thread that boundthe drowning soul to anything of decency and cleanliness. Now his deviland he no longer struggled together; they walked hand in hand. He waswithout love, without hope, without one iota that might bring a flickerof light into the midnight gloom of his despairing soul. 

After the first dreadful blast of his sorrow and despair had burneditself out, he disappeared, no one knew whither. A little over a monthpassed, and then he suddenly appeared again, drunken, maudlin, tearful. Again he disappeared, again he reappeared, a little deeper sunken, alittle more abased, and henceforth that was his life. He became a partof the town, and everybody, from the oldest to the youngest, knew himand his story. He injured no one, he offended no one, and he neverfailed, somehow or somewhere, to find food to eat, lodging for hishead, and clothing to cover his nakedness. He had been among the veryfirst to enter the Refuge, and now, in November, he was the last oneleft within its walls. He was the only one of the guests who returned, and perhaps he would not have done so had not his aching restlessnessdriven him back to suffer an echo of agony in the place where hisdamnation had been inflicted upon him. 

Between Colonel Singelsby upon the one side, the wise, the pure, thehonored servant of God, and Sandy Graff upon the other side, the vile, the filthy, the ugly, the debased, there yawned a gulf as immeasurablywide and deep as that which gaps between heaven and hell. 

IV. 

The winter of the year that saw the opening of the East Haven Refuge wasone of the most severe that New England had known for generations. Itwas early in January that there came the great snowstorm that spread itstwo or three feet of white covering all the way from Maine to Virginia, and East Haven, looking directly in the teeth of the blast that cameswirling and raging across the open harbor, felt the full force of theicy tempest. The streets of the town lay a silent desert of driftingwhiteness, for no one who could help it was abroad from home that bittermorning. 

The hail and snow spat venomously against the windows of Dr. Hunt'soffice in one of those fine old houses on Bay Street overlooking theharbor. The wind roared sonorously through the naked, tortured branchesof the great elm-trees, and the snow piled sharp and smooth in fencecorners and around north gables of the house. 

Dr. Hunt shuddered as he looked out of the window, for while all hisneighbors sat snug and warm around their hearths, he had to face theraging of the icy blast upon the dull routine of his business ofmercy--the dull routine of bread-getting by comforting the afflictionsof others. Then the sleigh drew up to the gate, the driver alreadypowdered with the gathering whiteness, and Dr. Hunt struggled into hisovercoat, tied the ribbons of his fur cap under his chin, and drew onhis beaver gloves. Then, with one final shudder, he opened his officedoor, and stepped out into the drift upon the step. 

Instantly he started back with a cry: he had trodden upon a man coveredand hidden by the snow. 

It was Sandy Graff. How long he had been lying there, no one might tell;a few moments more, and the last flicker of life would have twinkledmercifully out. The doctor had him out of the snow in a moment, and inthe next had satisfied himself that Sandy was not dead. 

Even as he leaned over the still white figure, feeling the slow faintbeating of the failing heart, the doctor was considering whether heshould take Sandy into the house or not. The decision was almostinstantaneous: it would be most inconvenient, and the Refuge was only astone's-throw away. So the doctor did not even disturb the householdwith the news of what had happened. He and the driver wrapped theunconscious figure in a buffalo-robe and laid it in the sleigh. 

As the doctor was about to step into the sleigh, some one suddenly laida heavy hand upon his shoulder. He turned sharply, for he had not heardthe approaching footsteps, muffled by the thick snow, and he had beentoo engrossed with attention to Sandy Graff to notice anything else. 

It was young Harold Singelsby; his face was very white and drawn, andin the absorption of his own suppressed agitation he did not even lookat Sandy. "Doctor, " said he, in a hoarse, constrained voice, "for God'ssake, come home with me as quickly as you can: father's very sick!"

 * * * * *

_I had often wondered how it is with a man when he closes his life tothis world. Looking upon the struggling efforts of a dying man to retainhis hold upon his body, I had often wondered whether his sliding tounconsciousness was like the dissolving of the mind to sleep in thislife. _

_That death was not like sleep was at such times patent enough--it waspatent enough that it was the antithesis of sleep. Sleep is peaceful;death is convulsed--sleep is rest; death is separation. _

_That which I here following read in the book as it lay open upon theman's knees seemed in a way dark, broken, indistinct with a certain grimobscurity; yet if I read truly therein I distinguished this greatdifference between death and sleep: Sleep is the cessation ofconsciousness from an interior life to exterior thought; death is thecessation of consciousness from the exterior mind to an interior life. _

 * * * * *

When Sandy Graff opened his eyes once more, it was to find himself againwithin the sheltering arms of the Refuge. That awakening was almost to afull and clear consciousness. It was with no confusion of thought andbut little confusion of sight, except for a white mist that seemed toblur the things he saw. 

He knew, instantly and vividly, where he was. Instantly and vividlyeverything found its fit place in his mind--the long rows of cots; thebald, garishly white walls, cold and unbeautiful in their immaculatecleanliness; the range of curtainless windows looking out upon thechill, thin gray of the winter day. He was not surprised to find himselfin the Refuge; it did not seem strange to him, and he did not wonder. Hedimly remembered stumbling through the snow-drifts and then fallingasleep, overpowered by an irresistible and leaden drowsiness. But justwhere it was he fell, he could not recall. 

He saw with dim sight that three or four people were gathered about hisbed. Two of them were rubbing his legs and feet, but he could not feelthem. It was this senselessness of feeling that first brought thejarring of the truth to him. The house-steward stood near by, and Sandyturned his face weakly toward him. "Mr. Jackson, " said he, faintly, "Ithink I'm going to die. "

 * * * * *

He turned his face again (now toward the opened window), and was staringunwinkingly at a white square of light, and it seemed to him to growdarker and darker. At first he thought that it was the gathering ofnight, but faint and flickering as were his senses, there was somethingbeneath his outer self that dreaded it--that dreaded beyond measure thecoming of that darkness. After one or two efforts, in which his stifftongue refused to form the words he desired to speak, he said, at last, "I can't see; it's--getting--dark. "

 * * * * *

He was dimly, darkly conscious of hurry and bustle around him, of voicescalling to send for the doctor, of hurrying hither and thither, but itall seemed faint and distant. Everything was now dark to his sight, andit was as though all this concerned another; but as outer things slippedfurther and further from him, the more that inner life struggled, tenaciously, dumbly, hopelessly, to retain its grip upon the outerworld. Sometimes, now and then, to this inner consciousness, it seemedalmost as though it were rising again out of the gathering blackness. But it was only the recurrent vibrations of ebbing powers, for stillagain, and even before it knew it, that life found itself quickly deeperand more hopelessly in the tremendous shadow into which it was beinginexorably engulfed. 

He himself knew nothing now of those who stood about the bed, awe-struckand silent, looking down upon him; he himself sensed nothing of theharsh convulsive breathing, and of all the other grim outer signs of thestruggle. But still, deep within, that combat of resistance to deathwaged as desperately, as vividly, as ever. 

 * * * * *

A door opened, and at the sudden noise the dissolving liferecrystallized for one brief instant, and in that instant the dying manknew that Dr. Hunt was standing beside his bed, and heard him say, in aslow, solemn voice, sounding muffled and hollow, as though from far awayand through an empty space, "Colonel Singelsby has just died. "

Then the cord, momentarily drawn tense, was relaxed with a snap, andthe last smoky spark was quenched in blackness. 

Dr. Hunt's fingers were resting lightly upon the wrist. As the last deepquivering breath expired with a quavering sigh, he laid the limp handback upon the bed, and then, before he arose, gently closed the stiffeyelids over the staring glassy eyes, and set the gaping jaws back againinto a more seemly repose. 

V. 

_So all this first part of the Parable had, as I read it, a reflectedimage of what was real and actual; of what belonged to the world of menas I knew that world. The people of whom it spoke moved and lived, maybenot altogether as real men of flesh and blood move and live, butnevertheless with a certain life of their own--images of what was real. All these things, I say (excepting perhaps the last), were clear andplain enough after a certain fashion, but that which followed showedthose two of whom the story was written--the good man and the wickedman--stripped of all their outer husk of fleshly reality, and walkingand talking not as men of flesh and blood, but as men in the spirit. _

_So, though I knew that which I was reading might indeed be as true, andperhaps truer, than that other which I had read, and though I knew thatto such a state I myself must come, and that as these two suffered, Imyself must some time suffer in the same kind, if not in the samedegree, nevertheless it was all strangely unreal, and being set apartfrom that which I knew, was like life as seen in a dream. _

_Yet let it not be thought that this Parable is all a vague dream, forthere are things which are more real than reality, and being so, must becouched in different words from such as describe the things that one'sbodily eyes behold of the grim reality of this world. Such things, beingso told, may seem as strange and as unsubstantial as that which isunreal, instead of like that which is real. _

_So that which is now to be read must be read as the other has beenread--not as a likeness of life in its inner being, but as an image ofthat life. _

 * * * * *

Sandy Graff awoke, and opened his eyes. At first he thought that he wasstill within the dormitory of the Refuge, for there before him he sawcold, bare white walls immaculately clean. Upon either hand was the rowof beds, each with its spotless coverlet, and in front was the long lineof curtainless windows looking out upon the bright daylight. 

But as his waking senses gathered to a more orderly clearness, he sawvery soon that the place in which he was was very different from theRefuge. Even newly awakened, and with his brain clouded and obscured bythe fumes of sleep, he distinguished at once that the strange, clear, lucid brilliancy of the light which came in through the row of windowswas very different from any light that his eyes had ever before seen. Then, as his mind opened wider and fuller and clearer, and as one by onethe objects which surrounded him began to take their proper place in hisawakened life, he saw that there were many people around, and that mostof the beds were occupied, and in every case by a man. The room in whichhe lay was somewhat longer than the dormitory of the Refuge, and wasconnected at the further end with what appeared to be a sort ofwaiting-room beyond. In and out of the connecting doorway people werecoming and going. Some of these seemed to be friends of those who werelying in the beds, being in every case led to some particular bedside, the occupant of which had newly awakened; others, who seemed to beattendants of the place, moved constantly hither and thither, busyingthemselves around other of the beds, where lay such as seemed to needattention. 

Sandy looked slowly around him from left to right. Some of the occupantsof the beds--and one of these lay in the cot next to him--were not yetawake, and he saw, with a sort of awe, that each of these lay strangelylike a dead man--still, motionless, the face covered with a linennapkin. Two of the attendants seemed to have these sleepers especiallyin their charge, moving continually hither and thither, to the bedsidefirst of one and then another, evidently to see if there were yet anysigns of waking. As Sandy continued watching them, he saw them at lastsoftly and carefully lift a napkin from one of the faces, whereupon theman immediately awoke and sat up. 

This occurred in a bed not very far from where he himself lay, and hewatched all that passed with a keen and thrilling interest. The man hadhardly awakened when word was passed down the length of the room to theantechamber beyond. Apparently some friends of the sleeper were waitingfor this word to be brought to them, for there entered directly twowomen and a man from the further doorway. The three came straight to thebed in which the man lay, and with great noise of rejoicing seemed towelcome the new-comer. They helped him to arise, handed him his clothespiece by piece from the chair at the bedside, and the man began dressinghimself. 

It was not until then, and until his ear caught some stray words ofthose that were spoken, that Sandy began to really realize where he wasand what had happened to him. Then suddenly a great and awful lightbroke upon him--he had died and had come to life again--his livingsenses had solved the greatest of all mysteries--the final mystery; themystery of eternity. 

It happens nearly always, it is said, that the first awakening thoughtof those who die is of the tremendous happening that has come upon them. So it was with Sandy. For a while he lay quite still, with his handsfolded, and a strange awful brooding, almost as though of fear, breathlessly wrapping his heart roundabout. But it was not for a longtime that he lay thus, for suddenly, like a second flash of lightning inthe gathering darkness of a cloud, the thought shot through him that nofriends had come to meet and to greet him as they had come to meet andgreet these others. Why had his wife not come to him? He turned hishead; the chair beside him was empty; he was without even clothes towear. 

For a while he lay with closed eyes like one stunned. Then a suddenvoice broke upon his ear, and he opened his eyes again and looked up. Atall man with calm face--almost a stern face--stood beside the bedlooking down at him. 

Somehow Sandy knew that he had no business in the bed now that he wasawake, and, with a half-muttered apology, he made a motion as if toarise, then, remembering that there were no clothes for him to wear, hesank back again upon the pillow. 

"Come, " said the man, giving his cane a rap upon the floor, "you mustget up; you have already been here longer than the law allows. "

Sandy had been too long accustomed to self-abasement in the world he hadleft to question the authority of the man who spoke to him. "I can'thelp lying here, sir, " said he, helplessly. "I've no clothes to wear. "Then he added: "Maybe if you let my wife come to me, she'd bring mesomething to wear. I hear say, sir, that I've died, and that this isheaven. I don't know why she hasn't come to me. Everybody else hereseems to have somebody to meet him but me. "

"This is not heaven, " said the man. 

A long silence followed. "It's not hell, is it?" said Sandy, at last. 

The man apparently did not choose to answer the question. "Come, " saidhe, "you waste time in talk. Get up. Wrap the sheet around you, and comewith me. "

"Where are you going to take me?" said Sandy. 

"No matter, " said the other. "Do as I tell you. " His voice was calm, dispassionate; there was nothing of anger in it, but there was thatwhich said he must be obeyed. 

Sandy drew the sheet upon which he lay about him, and then shuddering, half with nervous dread and half with cold, arose from the warm bed inwhich he lay. 

The other turned, and without saying a word led the way down the lengthof the room, Sandy following close behind. The noise of talking ceasedas they passed by the various beds, and all turned and looked after thetwo, some smiling, some laughing outright. Sandy, as he marched down thelength of the room, heard the rustling laugh and felt an echo of thesame dull humiliation he had felt when he had marched with the otherguests of the East Haven Refuge to their daily task of paving MainStreet. There as now the people laughed, and there in the same manner asthey did now; and as he had there slouched in the body, so now heslouched heavily in the spirit after his conductor. 

Opposite the end of the room where was the door through which thefriends and visitors came and went was another door, low and narrow. Sandy's guide led the way directly to it, lifted the latch, and openedit. It led to a long entry beyond, gloomy and dark. This passageway wasdully lighted by a small square window, glazed with clouded glass, atthe further end of the narrow hall, upon which fronted a row of closeddoors. The place was very damp and chill; a cold draught of air blewthrough the length of it, and Sandy, as the other closed the doorthrough which they had just entered, and so shut out the noise beyond, heard distinctly the sound of running water. Without turning to the leftor to the right, Sandy's guide led the way down the hall, stopping atlast when he had reached a door near the further end. He drew a bunch ofkeys from his pocket, chose one from among them, fitted it into thelock, and turned it. 

"Go in there, " said he, "and wash yourself clean, and then you shallhave clothes to wear. "

Sandy entered, and the door was closed behind him. The place in which hefound himself was very cold, and the floor beneath his feet was wet andslimy. His teeth chattered and his limbs shuddered as he stood lookingaround him. The noise of flowing water sounded loud and clear throughthe silence; it was running from a leaden pipe into a wooden tank, mildewed and green with mould, that stood in the middle of the room. Thestone-walls around, once painted white, were now also stained andsplotched with great blotches of green and russet dampness. The onlylight that lit the place came in through a small, narrow, slatted windowclose to the ceiling, and opposite the doorway which he had entered. Itwas all gloomy, ugly, repellent. 

There were some letters painted in red at the head of the wooden tank. He came forward and read them, not without some difficulty, for theywere nearly erased. 

_This is the water of death!_

Sandy started back so suddenly that he nearly fell upon the slipperyfloor. A keen pang of sudden terror shot through him; then a thoughtthat some grotesque mockery was being played upon him. A second thoughtblew the first away like a breath of smoke, for it told him that therecould be no mockery in the place to which he had come. His waking andall that had happened to him had much of nightmare grotesquery about it, but there was no grotesquery or no appearance of jesting about that manwho had guided him to the place in which he now found himself. There wasa calm, impassive, unemotional sternness about all that he said anddid--official, automatonlike--that precluded the possibility of any jestor meaningless form. This must indeed be the _water of death_, and hissoul told him that it was meant for him. 

He turned dully, and walked with stumbling steps to the door. He feltblindly for a moment for the latch, then his hand touched it, and heraised it with a click. The sharp sound jarred through the silence, andSandy did not open the door. He stood for a little while staringstupidly down upon the floor with his palm still upon the latch. Was theman who had brought him there waiting outside? Behind him lay the _waterof death_, but he dared not open the door and chance the facing of thatman. The sheet had fallen away from him, and now he stood entirelynaked. He let the latch fall back to its place--carefully, lest itshould again make a noise, and that man should hear it. Then he gatheredthe now damp and dirty sheet about him, and crouched down upon the coldfloor close to the crack of the door. 

There he sat for a while, every now and then shuddering convulsivelywith cold and terror, then by-and-by he began to cry. 

There is something abjectly, almost brutally, pathetic in the uglysqualor of a man's tears. Sandy Graff crying, and now and then wipinghis eyes with the damp and dirty sheet, was almost a more ugly sightthan he had been in the maudlin bathos of his former drunkenness. 

So he sat for a long time, until finally his crying ended, only for asudden sob now and then, and he only crouched, wondering dully. At lasthe slowly arose, gathering the sheet still closer around him, andcreeping step by step to the tank, looked down into its depth. The waterwas as clear as crystal; he dipped his hand into it--it was as cold asice. Then he dropped aside the sheet, and stood as naked as the day hewas born. He stepped into the water. 

 * * * * *

A deathly faintness fell upon him, and he clutched at the edge of thetank; but even as he clutched his sight failed, and he felt himselfsinking down into the depths. 

"Help!" he cried, hoarsely; and then the water closed blackly over hishead. 

 * * * * *

He felt himself suddenly snatched out from the tank, warm towels werewrapped about him, his limbs were rubbed with soft linen, and at last heopened his eyes. He still heard the sound of running water, but now theplace in which he was was no longer dark and gloomy. Some one had flungopen the slatted window, and a great beam of warm, serene sunlightstreamed in, and lay in a dazzling white square upon the wet floor. Twomen were busied about him. They had wrapped his body in a soft warmblanket, and were wiping dry his damp, chilled, benumbed hands and feet. 

"What does this mean?" said Sandy, faintly. "Was I not then to die, after all? Was not that the _water of death_?"

"_The water of death?_" said they. "You did not read the words aright;that was _the water of life_. " They helped him dress himself in hisclothes--clothes not unlike those which the East Haven Refuge had givenits outgoing guests, only, somehow, these did not make him feelhumiliated and abased as those had made him feel. Then they led him outof that place. They traversed the same long passageway through which hehad come before, and so came to the bedroom which he had left. Thetenants were all gone now, and the attendants were busied spreading thevarious beds with clean linen sheets and coverlets, as though for fresharrivals. 

No one seemed to pay any attention to him. His conductors led the way tothe anteroom which Sandy had seen beyond. 

A woman was sitting patiently looking out of the window. She turned herhead as they entered, and Sandy, when he saw her face, stood suddenlystill, as though turned to stone. _It was his wife!_

VI. 

With Colonel Singelsby was no such nightmare awakening as with SandyGraff; with him, were no such ugly visions and experiences; with him wasno squalor and discomfort. Yet he also opened his eyes upon a room solike that upon which they had closed that at first he thought that hewas still in the world. There was the same soft bed, the same warmth ofease and comfort, the same style of old-fashioned furniture. There werethe curtained windows, the pictures upon the wall, the bright warm fireburning in the grate. 

At first he saw all these things drowsily, as one does upon newlyawakening. With him, as with Sandy, it was only when his conscious lifehad opened wide and clear enough to observe and to recognize who theywere that were gathered around him that with a keen, almost agonizingthrill he realized where he was and what had befallen him. Upon one sideof his bed stood his son Hubert; upon the other side stood his brotherJames. The one had died ten, the other nineteen years before. Of allthose who had gone from the world which he himself had just left, thesestood the nearest to him, and now, in his resurrection, his opening eyesfirst saw these two. They and other relatives and friends helped him toarise and dress, as Sandy had seen the poor wretches in the place inwhich he had awakened raised from their beds and dressed by theirfriends. 

 * * * * *

All Colonel Singelsby's teachings had told him that this was not sodifferent from the world he had left behind. Nevertheless, although hewas prepared somewhat for it, it was wonderful to him how alike the onewas to the other. The city, the streets, the people coming and going, the stores, the parks, the great houses--all were just as they were inthe world of men. He had no difficulty in finding his way about thestreets. There, in comfortable houses of a better class, were many ofhis friends; others were not to be found; some, he was told, hadascended higher; others, he was also told, had descended lower. 

Among other places, Colonel Singelsby found himself during the afternoonin the house of one with whom he had been upon friendly, almostintimate terms in times past in the world. Colonel Singelsby rememberedhearing that the good man had died a few months before he himself hadleft the world. He wondered what had become of him, and then in a littlewhile he found himself in his old friend's house. It had been many yearssince he had seen him. He remembered him as a benign, venerable oldgentleman, and he had been somewhat surprised to find that he was stillliving in the town, instead of having ascended to a higher state. 

The old gentleman still looked outwardly venerable, still outwardlybenign, but now there was under his outer seeming a somewhat of restlessquerulousness, a something of uneasy discontent, that Colonel Singelsbydid not remember to have seen there before. They talked together aboutmany things, chiefly of those in the present state of existence in whichthey found themselves. It was all very new and vivid upon ColonelSingelsby's mind, but the reverend gentleman seemed constantly to forgetthat he was in another world than that which he had left behind. Itseemed to be always with an effort that he brought himself to talk ofthe world in which he lived as the world of spirits. The visit wassomehow unpleasant to Colonel Singelsby. He was impressed with a certainair of intolerance exhibited by the other. His mind seemed to dwell moreupon the falsity of the old things than upon the truth of the new, andhe seemed to take a certain delight in showing how and in what everybodybut those of his own creed erred and fell short of the Divine intent, and not the least disagreeable part of the talk to Colonel Singelsby wasthat the other's words seemed to find a sort of echo in his own mind. 

At last he proposed a walk, and the other, taking his hat and stick, accompanied him for a little distance upon the way. The talk still clungmuch to the same stem to which it had adhered all along. 

"It is a very strange thing, " said the reverend gentleman, "but a greatmany people who have come to this town since I came hither have left itagain to ascend, as I have been told, to a higher state. I think theremust have been some mistake, for I cannot see how it is possible--and infact our teachings distinctly tell us that it is impossible--for one toascend to a higher state without having accepted the new truths of thenew order of things. "

Colonel Singelsby did not make answer. He was not only growing tired ofthe subject itself, but of his old friend as well. 

They were at that moment crossing an angle of a small park shaded bythin, spindly trees. As the Colonel looked up he saw three men and awoman approaching along the same path and under the flickering shadows. Two of the men walked a little in advance, the other walked with thewoman. There was something familiar about two of the group, and ColonelSingelsby pointed at them with his finger. 

"Who are they?" said he. "I am sure there is somebody I know. "

The other adjusted his glasses and looked. "I do not know, " said he, "except that one of the men is a new-comer. We somehow grow to know whoare new-comers by the time we have lived here a little while. "

"Dear me!" cried Colonel Singelsby, stopping abruptly, "I know that man. I did not know that he had come here too. I wonder where they aregoing?"

"I think, " said the reverend gentleman, dryly--"I think that this isone of those cases of which I just spoke to you. I judge from thegeneral appearance of the party that they are about to ascend, as theycall it here, to a higher state. "

"That is impossible!" said Colonel Singelsby. "That man is a poorwretched creature whom I have helped with charity again and again, itcannot be that he is to go to a higher state, for he is not fit for it. If he is to be taken anywhere, it must be to punishment. "

The other shrugged his shoulders and said nothing, he had seen suchcases too often during his sojourn to be deceived. 

The little party had now come close to the two, and Colonel Singelsbystepped forward with all his old-time frank kindness of manner. "Why, Sandy, " said he, "I did not know that you also had come here. "

"Yes, sir, " said Sandy; "I died the same night you did. "

"Dear me!" said the Colonel, "that is very singular, very singularindeed! Where are you going now, Sandy?"

"I don't know, " said Sandy; "these gentlemen here are taking mesomewhere, I don't know where. This is my wife, " said he. "Don't youremember her, sir?"

"Oh yes, " said the Colonel, with his most pleasant air, "I remember hervery well, but of course I am not so much surprised to see her here as Iam to see you. But have you no idea where you are going?" he continued. 

"No, " said Sandy; "but perhaps these gentlemen can tell you. " And helooked inquiringly at his escort, who stood calmly listening to what wassaid. 

 * * * * *

_So far, the Parable, as I had read it, progressed onward with somecoherence and concatenation, a coherence and concatenation growingperhaps more disjointed as it advanced. Now it began to be broken withinterjectory sentences, and just here was one, the tenor of which Icould not altogether understand, but have since comprehended more orless clearly. I cannot give its exact words, but only its general form. _

_"O wretched man, " it said, "how pitiful are thy vain efforts andstrivings to keep back by thine own strength that fiery flood of hellwhich grows and increases to overwhelm thy soul! If the inflowing ofgood which Jehovah vouchsafes is infinite, only less infinite is theoutflowing of that which thou callest evil and wickedness. How, then, canst thou hope to stand against it and to conquer? How canst thou hopeto keep back that raging torrent of fire and of flame with the crumblingunbaked bricks of thine own soul's making? Poor fool! Thou maystendeavor, thou mayst strive, thou mayst build thy wall of defence higherand higher, fearing God, and living a life of virtue, but by-and-by thouwilt reach the end, and then wilt find thou canst build no higher! Thenhow vain shall have been thy life of resistance! First that flood shalltrickle over the edge of thy defence; then it shall run a stream thebreadth of a man's hand; then it shall gush forth a torrent; then, bursting over and through and around, it shall sweep away all that thouhast so laboriously built up, and shall rush, howling, roaring, raging, and burning through thy soul with ten thousand times the fury andviolence that it would have done if thou hadst not striven to keep itback, if thou hadst not resisted and fought against it. For bear this inmind: Christ said he came not to call the good to repentance, but theevil, and if thou art full of thine own, how then canst thou hope toreceive of a God that asketh not for sacrifice, but for love?"_

_Hence again the story resumed. _

 * * * * *

Colonel Singelsby had not before noticed the two men who were withSandy, now he observed them more closely. They were tall, middle-agedmen, with serious, placid, unemotional faces. Each carried a long whitestaff, the end of which rested upon the ground. There was about themsomething somehow different from anything Colonel Singelsby had everseen before. They were most quiet, courteous men, but there was that intheir personal appearance that was singularly unpleasant to ColonelSingelsby. Why, he could not tell, for they were evidently gentlemen, and, from their bearing, men of influence. He turned to Sandy again. 

"How has it been with you since you have been here?" said he. 

"It has been very hard with me, " said Sandy, patiently; "very hardindeed; but I hope and believe now that the worst is over, and thatby-and-by I shall be happy, and not have any more trouble. "

"I trust so, indeed, " said the Colonel; "but do not hope for too much, Sandy. Even the best men coming to this world are not likely to be ridof their troubles at once, and it is not to be hoped for that you, afteryour ill-spent life, should find your lot easier than theirs. "

"I know, sir, " said Sandy, "and I am very sorry. "

There was a meek acceptance of the Colonel's dictum that grated somehowunpleasantly upon the Colonel's ears. He would rather that Sandy hadmade some protest against that dictum. He approached half a step andlooked more keenly at the other, and then for the first time he saw thatsome great, some radical, some tremendous change had happened. The manbefore him was no doubt Sandy Graff, but all that was low-browed, evil, foul, was gone, as though it had been washed away, and in its place wasa translucent, patient meekness, almost like--There was something soterribly vital in that change that Colonel Singelsby shuddered beforeit. He looked and looked, and then he passed the back of his hand acrosshis eyes. "All this is very unreal, " said he, turning to his friend theminister. "It is like a dream. I begin to feel as though nothing wasreal. Surely it is not possible that magic changes can go on, and yet Icannot understand all these things in the least. "

For answer, the reverend gentleman shrugged his shoulders almost sourly. 

"Gentlemen, " said Colonel Singelsby, turning abruptly upon Sandy'sescort, "let me ask you is this a certain man whom I used to know asSandy Graff?"

One of the men nodded his head. 

"And will you tell me, " said he, "another thing? Will you kindly tell mewhere you are taking him?"

"We are about to take him, " said the man, looking steadily at theColonel as he answered--"we are about to take him to the outskirts ofthe First Kingdom. "

At the answer Colonel Singelsby actually fell back a pace in hisamazement. It was almost as though a blow had fallen upon him. "Theoutskirts of the First Kingdom?" said he. "Did I understand you? Theoutskirts of the First Kingdom? Surely there is some mistake here! It isnot possible that this man, who died only yesterday, filthy and pollutedwith iniquity, stinking in the nostrils of God with ten thousandindulged and gratified lusts--it is not possible that you intend takinghim to that land, passing by me, who all my life have lived to my bestendeavors in love to God and my neighbor?"

It was the voice of his minister that broke the answer. "Yes, they do, "said he, sharply; "that is just what they do mean. They do mean to takehim, and they do mean to leave us, for such is the law in this dreadfulplace. We, the children of light, are nothing, and they, the fuel ofhell, are everything. Have I not been telling you so?"

Colonel Singelsby had almost forgotten the presence of his acquaintance. He felt very angry at his interference, and somehow he could no longergovern his anger as he used to do. He turned upon him and fixed him witha frown, and then he observed for the first time that a little crowd hadbegun gathering, and now stood looking on, some curious and unsmiling, some grinning. The Colonel drew himself to his height, and lookedhaughtily about him. They who grinned began laughing. And now, at last, it was come Colonel Singelsby's turn to feel as Sandy Graff had felt--asthough all that was happening to him was happening in some hideousnightmare dream. As in a dream, the balancing weights of reasoning andmorality began to melt before the heat of that which burned within; asin a dream, the uncurbed inner motives began to strive furiously. Then asudden fierce anger, quite like the savage irrational anger of an uglydream, flamed up quickly and fiercely. He opened his lips as though tovent his rage, but for an instant his tottering reason regained amomentary poise. Checking himself with an effort ten thousand timesgreater than that he would have used in his former state and in theworld, he bowed his head upon his breast and stood for a little whilewith fingers interlocked, clinching his trembling hands together. So hestood for a while, brooding, until at last Sandy and his escort made amotion as if to pass by. Then he spoke again. 

"Stop a bit!" said he, looking up--"stop a bit!" His voice was hoarseand constrained, and he looked neither to the right nor to the left, butstraight at that one of the men to whom he had spoken before. "Sir, "said he, and then clearing his husky voice--"sir, " again, "I havelearned a lesson--the greatest lesson of my life! I have looked into myheart, and I have seen--I have seen myself--God help me, gentlemen!--I--maybe I am no better than this man. "

The crowd, which had been increasing, as crowds do, began to jeer at thewords, for, like most crowds, it was of a nether sort, and enjoyed theunusual sight of the gentleman and the aristocrat abasing andhumiliating himself before the reformed drunkard. 

At the sound of that ugly jeering laugh Colonel Singelsby quivered asthough under the cut of a lancet, but he never removed his eyes from theman to whom he spoke. For a moment or two he bit his nether lip in hiseffort for self-control, and then repeated, in a louder and perhapsharsher voice, "I am no better than this man!" He paused for a moment, and the crowd ceased its jeering to hear what he had to say. "I ask onlythis, " he said, "that you will take me where you are taking him, andthat I may enjoy such happiness as he is about to enjoy. "

Instantly a great roar of laughter went up from the crowd, which had nowgathered to some twenty or thirty souls. The man to whom ColonelSingelsby had spoken shook his head calmly and impassively. 

"It cannot be, " said he. 

Colonel Singelsby turned white to the very lips, his eyes blazed, andhis breath came thick and heavily. His nostrils twitched spasmodically, but still, with a supreme effort--a struggle so terrible that few menhappily may ever know it or experience it--he once more controlled thewords that sprang to his lips and struggled for utterance. He swallowedand swallowed convulsively. "Sir, " said he at last, in a voice sohoarse, so horribly constrained, that it seemed almost to rend him as itforced utterance--"sir, surely I am mistaken in what I understand; it islittle I ask you, and surely not unjust. Yesterday this man was a vile, debauched drunkard; surely that does not make him fitter for heaven!Yesterday I was a God-fearing, law-abiding man, surely that does notmake me unfit! I am not unfit, am I?"

"You are not yet fit for heaven, " answered the man, with impassivecalmness. And again, for the third time, the crowd roared with evillaughter. 

Within Colonel Singelsby's soul that fiery flood was now lashingdreadfully close to the summit of its barriers. His face was as livid asdeath, and his hands were clinched till the nails cut into his palm. "Let me understand for once and for all, for I confess I cannotunderstand all this. You say he is to go, and that I am not to go! Isit, then, God's will and God's justice that because this man for twentyyears has led a life of besotted sin and indulgence, and because I forsixty years have feared God and loved my neighbor, that he is to bechosen and I am to be left?"

The man did not reply in words, but in the steady look of his unwinkingeyes the other read his answer. 

"Then, " gasped Colonel Singelsby, and as he spoke he shook his clinchedand trembling fist against the still, blue sky overhead--"then, if thatbe God's justice, may it be damned, for I want none of it. "

Then came the end, swiftly, completely. For the fourth time the crowdlaughed, and at the sound those floodgates so laboriously built upduring a lifetime of abstinence were suddenly burst asunder and fellcrashing, and a burning flood of hell's own rage and madness rushedroaring and thundering into his depicted, empty soul, flaming, blazing, consuming like straws every precept of righteousness, every fear of God, and Colonel Edward Singelsby, the one-time Christian gentleman, theone-time upright son of grace, the one-time man of law and God, wastransformed instantly and terribly into--what? Was it a livid devil fromhell? He cursed the jeering crowd, and at the sound of his own curses ablindness fell upon him, and he neither knew what he said nor what hedid. His good old friend, who had accompanied him so far and until nowhad stood by him, suddenly turned, and maybe fearing lest somethunderbolt of vengeance should fall upon them from heaven and consumethem all, he elbowed himself out of the crowd and hurried away. As forthe wretched madman, in his raging fury, it was not the men who hadforbidden him heaven whom he strove to rend and tear limb from limb, butpoor, innocent, harmless Sandy Graff. The crowd swayed and jostled thisway and that, and as madness begets madness, the curses that fell fromone pair of lips found an echo in curses that leaped from others. Sandyshrunk back appalled before the hell-blast that breathed upon him, andhe felt his wife clutch him closer. Only two of those that were therestood unmoved; they were the two men who acted as Sandy's escort. As thetide of madness seemed to swell higher, they calmly stepped forward andcrossed their staves before their charge. There was something in theiraction full of significance for those who knew. Instantly the crowdmelted away like snow under a blast of fire. Had there not been two menpresent more merciful than the rest, it is hard to say what terriblething might not have happened to Colonel Edward Singelsby--deaf and dumband blind to everything but his own rage. These two clutched him by thearms and dragged him back. 

"God, man!" they cried, "what are you doing? Do you not see they areangels?"

They dragged him back to a bench that stood near, and there held him, whilst he still beat the air with his fist and cried out hoarse curses, and even as they so held him, two other men came--two men dark, silent, sinister--and led him away. 

Then the other and his wife and his two escorts passed by and out of thegate of the town, and away towards the mountain that stood still andblue in the distance. 

 * * * * *

_So far I read, and then I could bear to read no more, but placed myhand upon the open page of the book. "What is this dreadful thing?" Icried. "Is, then, a man punished for truth and justice and virtue andrighteousness? Is it, then, true that the evil are rewarded, and thatthe good are punished so dreadfully?"_

_Then the man who held the book spoke again. "Take away thy hand andread, " said he. _

_Then I took away my hand, and read as he bade me, and found thesewords:_

_"How can God fill with His own that which is already filled by man?First it must be emptied before it may be filled with the true good ofrighteousness and truth, of humility and love, of peace and joy. O thoufoolish one who judgest but from the appearance of things, how long willit be before thou canst understand that while some may be baptized withwater to cleanliness and repentance, others are baptized with livingfire to everlasting life, and that they alone are the children of God?"_

_Then again I read these words:_

_"Woe to thee, thou who deniest the laws of God and man! Woe to thee, thou who walkest in the darkness of the shadow of sin and evil! But tenthousand times woe to thee, thou who pilest Pelion of self-good uponOssa of self-truth, not that thou mayst scale therefrom the gate ofHeaven, but that thou mayst hide thyself beneath from the eye of theLiving God! By-and-by His Day shall come! His Terrible Lightning shallflash from the East to the West! His Dreadful Flaming Thunder-bolt shallfall, riving thy secret fastnesses to atoms, and leaving thee, poorworm, writhing in the dazzling effulgence of His Light, and shrivellingbeneath the consuming flame of His Loving-kindness!"_

_Then the leaf was turned, and there before me lay the answer to thatfirst question, "What shall a man do that he may gain the kingdom ofHeaven?" There stood the words, plain and clear. But I did not dare toread them, but turning, left that place, shutting the door to behindme. _

_Never have I found that door or entered that room again, but by-and-byI know that I shall find them both once more, and shall then and thereread the answer that forever stands written in that book, for it stilllies open at the very page, and he upon whose knees it rests isIsrafeel, the Angel of Death. _

 * * * * *

But what of the sequel? Is there a sequel? Are we, then, to sufferourselves to do evil for the sake of shunning pain in the other world? Itrow not! He who sets his foot to climb must never look backward anddownward. He who suffers most must reach the highest. There must beanother part of the story which lies darkly and dimly behind the letter. One can see, faintly and dimly but nevertheless clearly, what the poorman was to enjoy--the poor man who from without appeared to be so evil, and yet within was not really evil. One can see a vision faint and dimof a simple little house cooled by the dewy shade of green trees foreverin foliage; one can see pleasant meadows and gardens forever green, stretching away to the banks of a smooth-flowing river in whose levelbosom rests a mirrored image of that which lies beyond its fartherbank--a great town with glistering walls and gleaming spires reachingtower above tower and height above height into the blazing blue, theawful serenity of a heavenly sky. One can know that toward that town thepoor man who had sinned and repented would in the evenings gaze andwonder until his soul, now ploughed clean for new seed, might learn thelaws that would make it indeed an inhabitant of that place. It is aserene and beautiful vision, but not different from that which all maysee, and enjoy even, in part, in this world. 

But how was it with that other man--with that good man who had neversinned until his earthly body was stripped away that he might sin andfall in the spirit--sin and fall to a depth so profound that even onefurtive look into that awful abysm makes the minds of common men to reeland stagger? When that God-sent blast of fire should have burned out theselfhood that clung to the very vitals of his soul, what then? Who isthere that with unwinking eyes may gaze into the effulgent brilliancy ofthe perfect angelhood? He who sweats drops of salt in his life's innerstruggles shall, maybe, eat good bread in the dew of it, but he whosweats drops of blood in agony shall, when his labor is done, sit him, maybe, at the King's table, and feast upon the Flesh of Life and thevery Wine of Truth. 

Was it so with that man who never sinned until all his hell was letloose at once upon him?

The Little Room

BY MADELENE YALE WYNNE

"How would it do for a smoking-room?"

"Just the very place; only, you know, Roger, you must not think ofsmoking in the house. I am almost afraid having just a plain common manaround, let alone a smoking-man, will upset Aunt Hannah. She is NewEngland--Vermont New England boiled down. "

"You leave Aunt Hannah to me; I shall find her tender side. I am goingto ask her about the old sea-captain and the yellow calico. "

"Not yellow calico--blue chintz. "

"Well, yellow _shell_, then. "

"No, no! don't mix it up so; you won't know yourself what to expect, andthat's half the fun. "

"Now you tell me again exactly what to expect; to tell the truth, Ididn't half hear about it the other day; I was woolgathering. It wassomething queer that happened when you were a child, wasn't it?"

"Something that began to happen long before that, and kept happening, and may happen again; but I hope not. "

"What was it?"

"I wonder if the other people in the car can hear us?"

"I fancy not; we don't hear them--not consecutively, at least. "

"Well, mother was born in Vermont, you know; she was the only child by asecond marriage. Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are only half-aunts to me, you know. "

"I hope they are half as nice as you are. "

"Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us. "

"Well, don't you want them to know we are married?"

"Yes, but not just married. There's all the difference in the world. "

"You are afraid we look too happy!"

"No; only I want my happiness all to myself. "

"Well, the little room?"

"My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years older thanshe. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. You see, Hiram wasbound out to my grandfather when he was a boy, and when grandfather diedHiram said he 's'posed he went with the farm, 'long o' the critters, 'and he has been there ever since. He was my mother's only refuge fromthe decorum of my aunts. They are simply workers. They make me think ofthe Maine woman who wanted her epitaph to be, 'She was a _hard_ workingwoman. '"

"They must be almost beyond their working-days. How old are they?"

"Seventy, or thereabouts; but they will die standing; or, at least, on aSaturday night, after all the house-work is done up. They were ratherstrict with mother, and I think she had a lonely childhood. The house isalmost a mile away from any neighbors, and off on top of what they callStony Hill. It is bleak enough up there even in summer. 

"When mamma was about ten years old they sent her to cousins inBrooklyn, who had children of their own, and knew more about bringingthem up. She stayed there till she was married; she didn't go to Vermontin all that time, and of course hadn't seen her sisters, for they neverwould leave home for a day. They couldn't even be induced to go toBrooklyn to her wedding, so she and father took their wedding-trip upthere. "

"And that's why we are going up there on our own?"

"Don't, Roger; you have no idea how loud you speak. "

"You never say so except when I am going to say that one little word. "

"Well, don't say it, then, or say it very, very quietly. "

"Well, what was the queer thing?"

"When they got to the house, mother wanted to take father right off intothe little room; she had been telling him about it, just as I am goingto tell you, and she had said that of all the rooms, that one was theonly one that seemed pleasant to her. She described the furniture andthe books and paper and everything, and said it was on the north side, between the front and back room. Well, when they went to look for it, there was no little room there; there was only a shallow china-closet. She asked her sisters when the house had been altered and a closet madeof the room that used to be there. They both said the house was exactlyas it had been built--that they had never made any changes, except totear down the old wood-shed and build a smaller one. 

"Father and mother laughed a good deal over it, and when anything waslost they would always say it must be in the little room, and anyexaggerated statement was called 'little-roomy. ' When I was a child Ithought that was a regular English phrase, I heard it so often. 

"Well, they talked it over, and finally they concluded that my motherhad been a very imaginative sort of a child, and had read in some bookabout such a little room, or perhaps even dreamed it, and then had 'madebelieve, ' as children do, till she herself had really thought the roomwas there. "

"Why, of course, that might easily happen. "

"Yes, but you haven't heard the queer part yet; you wait and see if youcan explain the rest as easily. 

"They stayed at the farm two weeks, and then went to New York to live. When I was eight years old my father was killed in the war, and motherwas broken-hearted. She never was quite strong afterwards, and thatsummer we decided to go up to the farm for three months. 

"I was a restless sort of a child, and the journey seemed very long tome; and finally, to pass the time, mamma told me the story of thelittle room, and how it was all in her own imagination, and how therereally was only a china-closet there. 

"She told it with all the particulars; and even to me, who knewbeforehand that the room wasn't there, it seemed just as real as couldbe. She said it was on the north side, between the front and back rooms;that it was very small, and they sometimes called it an entry. There wasa door also that opened out-of-doors, and that one was painted green, and was cut in the middle like the old Dutch doors, so that it could beused for a window by opening the top part only. Directly opposite thedoor was a lounge or couch; it was covered with blue chintz--Indiachintz--some that had been brought over by an old Salem sea-captain as a'venture. ' He had given it to Maria when she was a young girl. She wassent to Salem for two years to school. Grandfather originally came fromSalem. "

"I thought there wasn't any room or chintz. "

"_That is just it. _ They had decided that mother had imagined it all, and yet you see how exactly everything was painted in her mind, for shehad even remembered that Hiram had told her that Maria could havemarried the sea-captain if she had wanted to!

"The India cotton was the regular blue-stamped chintz, with the peacockfigure on it. The head and body of the bird were in profile, while thetail was full front view behind it. It had seemed to take mamma's fancy, and she drew it for me on a piece of paper as she talked. Doesn't itseem strange to you that she could have made all that up, or evendreamed it?

"At the foot of the lounge were some hanging-shelves with some old bookson them. All the books were leather-colored except one; that was brightred, and was called the _Ladies' Album_. It made a bright break betweenthe other thicker books. 

"On the lower shelf was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat madeof balls of red-shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted bymother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had beenparticularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her earand hear the roar of the sea in it. 

"I know you will like Hiram, Roger, he is quite a character in his way. 

"Mamma said she remembered, or _thought_ she remembered, having beensick once, and she had to lie quietly for some days on the lounge; thenwas the time she had become so familiar with everything in the room, andshe had been allowed to have the shell to play with all the time. Shehad had her toast brought to her in there, with make-believe tea. It wasone of her pleasant memories of her childhood; it was the first time shehad been of any importance to anybody, even herself. 

"Right at the head of the lounge was a light-stand, as they called it, and on it was a very brightly polished brass candlestick and a brasstray, with snuffers. That is all I remember of her describing, exceptthat there was a braided rag rug on the floor, and on the wall was abeautiful flowered paper--roses and morning-glories in a wreath on alight-blue ground. The same paper was in the front room. "

"And all this never existed except in her imagination?"

"She said that when she and father went up there, there wasn't anylittle room at all like it anywhere in the house; there was achina-closet where she had believed the room to be. "

"And your aunts said there had never been any such room?"

"That is what they said. "

"Wasn't there any blue chintz in the house with a peacock figure?"

"Not a scrap, and Aunt Hannah said there had never been any that shecould remember; and Maria just echoed her--she always does that. Yousee, Aunt Hannah is an up-and-down New England woman. She looks justlike herself; I mean, just like her character. Her joints move up anddown or backward and forward in a plain square fashion. I don't believeshe ever leaned on anything in her life, or sat in an easy-chair. ButMaria is different; she is rounder and softer; she hasn't any ideas ofher own; she never had any. I don't believe she would think it right orbecoming to have one that differed from Aunt Hannah's, so what would bethe use of having any? She is an echo, that's all. 

"When mamma and I got there, of course I was all excitement to see thechina-closet, and I had a sort of feeling that it would be the littleroom after all. So I ran ahead and threw open the door, crying, 'Comeand see the little room. '

"And, Roger, " said Mrs. Grant, laying her hand in his, "there really wasa little room there, exactly as mother had remembered it. There was thelounge, the peacock chintz, the green door, the shell, themorning-glory and rose paper, _everything exactly as she had describedit to me_. "

"What in the world did the sisters say about it?"

"Wait a minute and I will tell you. My mother was in the front hallstill talking with Aunt Hannah. She didn't hear me at first, but I ranout there and dragged her through the front room, saying, 'The room _is_here--it is all right. '

"It seemed for a minute as if my mother would faint. She clung to me interror. I can remember now how strained her eyes looked and how pale shewas. 

"I called out to Aunt Hannah and asked her when they had had the closettaken away and the little room built; for in my excitement I thoughtthat that was what had been done. 

"'That little room has always been there, ' said Aunt Hannah, 'ever sincethe house was built. '

"'But mamma said there wasn't any little room here, only a china-closet, when she was here with papa, ' said I. 

"'No, there has never been any china-closet there; it has always beenjust as it is now, ' said Aunt Hannah. 

"Then mother spoke; her voice sounded weak and far off. She said, slowly, and with an effort, 'Maria, don't you remember that you told methat there had _never been any little room here_? and Hannah said sotoo, and then I said I must have dreamed it?'

"'No, I don't remember anything of the kind, ' said Maria, without theslightest emotion. 'I don't remember you ever said anything about anychina-closet. The house has never been altered; you used to play in thisroom when you were a child, don't you remember?'

"'I know it, ' said mother, in that queer slow voice that made me feelfrightened. 'Hannah, don't you remember my finding the china-closethere, with the gilt-edge china on the shelves, and then _you_ said thatthe _china-closet_ had always been here?'

"'No, ' said Hannah, pleasantly but unemotionally--'no, I don't think youever asked me about any china-closet, and we haven't any gilt-edgedchina that I know of. '

"And that was the strangest thing about it. We never could make themremember that there had ever been any question about it. You would thinkthey could remember how surprised mother had been before, unless she hadimagined the whole thing. Oh, it was so queer! They were alwayspleasant about it, but they didn't seem to feel any interest orcuriosity. It was always this answer: 'The house is just as it wasbuilt; there have never been any changes, so far as we know. '

"And my mother was in an agony of perplexity. How cold their gray eyeslooked to me! There was no reading anything in them. It just seemed tobreak my mother down, this queer thing. Many times that summer, in themiddle of the night, I have seen her get up and take a candle and creepsoftly down-stairs. I could hear the steps creak under her weight. Thenshe would go through the front room and peer into the darkness, holdingher thin hand between the candle and her eyes. She seemed to think thelittle room might vanish. Then she would come back to bed and toss aboutall night, or lie still and shiver; it used to frighten me. 

"She grew pale and thin, and she had a little cough; then she did notlike to be left alone. Sometimes she would make errands in order to sendme to the little room for something--a book, or her fan, or herhandkerchief; but she would never sit there or let me stay in therelong, and sometimes she wouldn't let me go in there for days together. Oh, it was pitiful!"

"Well, don't talk any more about it, Margaret, if it makes you feel so, "said Mr. Grant. 

"Oh yes, I want you to know all about it, and there isn't much more--nomore about the room. 

"Mother never got well, and she died that autumn. She used often tosigh, and say, with a wan little laugh, 'There is one thing I am gladof, Margaret: your father knows now all about the little room. ' I thinkshe was afraid I distrusted her. Of course, in a child's way, I thoughtthere was something queer about it, but I did not brood over it. I wastoo young then, and took it as a part of her illness. But, Roger, do youknow, it really did affect me. I almost hate to go there after talkingabout it; I somehow feel as if it might, you know, be a china-closetagain. "

"That's an absurd idea. "

"I know it; of course it can't be. I saw the room, and there isn't anychina-closet there, and no gilt-edged china in the house, either. "

And then she whispered, "But, Roger, you may hold my hand as you donow, if you will, when we go to look for the little room. "

"And you won't mind Aunt Hannah's gray eyes?"

"I won't mind _anything_. "

It was dusk when Mr. And Mrs. Grant went into the gate under the two oldLombardy poplars and walked up the narrow path to the door, where theywere met by the two aunts. 

Hannah gave Mrs. Grant a frigid but not unfriendly kiss; and Mariaseemed for a moment to tremble on the verge of an emotion, but sheglanced at Hannah, and then gave her greeting in exactly the samerepressed and non-committal way. 

Supper was waiting for them. On the table was the _gilt-edged china_. Mrs. Grant didn't notice it immediately, till she saw her husbandsmiling at her over his teacup; then she felt fidgety, and couldn't eat. She was nervous, and kept wondering what was behind her, whether itwould be a little room or a closet. 

After supper she offered to help about the dishes, but, mercy! she mightas well have offered to help bring the seasons round; Maria and Hannahcouldn't be helped. 

So she and her husband went to find the little room, or closet, orwhatever was to be there. 

Aunt Maria followed them, carrying the lamp, which she set down, andthen went back to the dish-washing. 

Margaret looked at her husband. He kissed her, for she seemed troubled;and then, hand in hand, they opened the door. It opened into a_china-closet_. The shelves were neatly draped with scalloped paper; onthem was the gilt-edged china, with the dishes missing that had beenused at the supper, and which at that moment were being carefully washedand wiped by the two aunts. 

Margaret's husband dropped her hand and looked at her. She was tremblinga little, and turned to him for help, for some explanation, but in aninstant she knew that something was wrong. A cloud had come betweenthem; he was hurt; he was antagonized. 

He paused for an appreciable instant, and then said, kindly enough, butin a voice that cut her deeply:

"I am glad this ridiculous thing is ended; don't let us speak of itagain. "

"Ended!" said she. "How ended?" And somehow her voice sounded to her asher mother's voice had when she stood there and questioned her sistersabout the little room. She seemed to have to drag her words out. Shespoke slowly: "It seems to me to have only just begun in my case. It wasjust so with mother when she--"

"I really wish, Margaret, you would let it drop. I don't like to hearyou speak of your mother in connection with it. It--" He hesitated, forwas not this their wedding-day? "It doesn't seem quite the thing, quitedelicate, you know, to use her name in the matter. "

She saw it all now: _he didn't believe her_. She felt a chill sense ofwithering under his glance. 

"Come, " he added, "let us go out, or into the dining-room, somewhere, anywhere, only drop this nonsense. "

He went out; he did not take her hand now--he was vexed, baffled, hurt. Had he not given her his sympathy, his attention, his belief--and hishand?--and she was fooling him. What did it mean?--she so truthful, sofree from morbidness--a thing he hated. He walked up and down under thepoplars, trying to get into the mood to go and join her in the house. 

Margaret heard him go out; then she turned and shook the shelves; shereached her hand behind them and tried to push the boards away; she ranout of the house on to the north side and tried to find in the darkness, with her hands, a door, or some steps leading to one. She tore her dresson the old rose-tree, she fell and rose and stumbled, then she sat downon the ground and tried to think. What could she think--was shedreaming?

She went into the house and out into the kitchen, and begged Aunt Mariato tell her about the little room--what had become of it, when had theybuilt the closet, when had they bought the gilt-edged china?

They went on washing dishes and drying them on the spotless towels withmethodical exactness; and as they worked they said that there had neverbeen any little room, so far as they knew; the china-closet had alwaysbeen there, and the gilt-edged china had belonged to their mother, ithad always been in the house. 

"No, I don't remember that your mother ever asked about any littleroom, " said Hannah. "She didn't seem very well that summer, but shenever asked about any changes in the house; there hadn't ever been anychanges. "

There it was again: not sign of interest, curiosity, or annoyance, nota spark of memory. 

She went out to Hiram. He was telling Mr. Grant about the farm. She hadmeant to ask him about the room, but her lips were sealed before herhusband. 

Months afterwards, when time had lessened the sharpness of theirfeelings, they learned to speculate reasonably about the phenomenon, which Mr. Grant had accepted as something not to be scoffed away, not tobe treated as a poor joke, but to be put aside as something inexplicableon any ordinary theory. 

Margaret alone in her heart knew that her mother's words carried adeeper significance than she had dreamed of at the time. "One thing I amglad of, your father knows now, " and she wondered if Roger or she wouldever know. 

Five years later they were going to Europe. The packing was done; thechildren were lying asleep, with their travelling things ready to beslipped on for an early start. 

Roger had a foreign appointment. They were not to be back in America forsome years. She had meant to go up to say good-by to her aunts; but amother of three children intends to do a great many things that neverget done. One thing she had done that very day, and as she paused for amoment between the writing of two notes that must be posted before shewent to bed, she said:

"Roger, you remember Rita Lash? Well, she and Cousin Nan go up to theAdirondacks every autumn. They are clever girls, and I have intrusted tothem something I want done very much. "

"They are the girls to do it, then, every inch of them. "

"I know it, and they are going to. "

"Well?"

"Why, you see, Roger, that little room--"

"Oh--"

"Yes, I was a coward not to go myself, but I didn't find time, because Ihadn't the courage. "

"Oh! _that_ was it, was it?"

"Yes, just that. They are going, and they will write us about it. "

"Want to bet?"

"No; I only want to know. "

 * * * * *

Rita Lash and Cousin Nan planned to go to Vermont on their way to theAdirondacks. They found they would have three hours between trains, which would give them time to drive up to the Keys farm, and they couldstill get to the camp that night. But, at the last minute, Rita wasprevented from going. Nan had to go to meet the Adirondack party, andshe promised to telegraph her when she arrived at the camp. ImagineRita's amusement when she received this message: "Safely arrived; wentto the Keys farm; it is a little room. "

Rita was amused, because she did not in the least think Nan had beenthere. She thought it was a hoax; but it put it into her mind to carrythe joke further by really stopping herself when she went up, as shemeant to do the next week. 

She did stop over. She introduced herself to the two maiden ladies, whoseemed familiar, as they had been described by Mrs. Grant. 

They were, if not cordial, at least not disconcerted at her visit, andwillingly showed her over the house. As they did not speak of any otherstranger's having been to see them lately, she became confirmed in herbelief that Nan had not been there. 

In the north room she saw the roses and morning-glory paper on the wall, and also the door that should open into--what?

She asked if she might open it. 

"Certainly, " said Hannah; and Maria echoed, "Certainly. "

She opened it, and found the china-closet. She experienced a certainrelief; she at least was not under any spell. Mrs. Grant left it achina-closet; she found it the same. Good. 

But she tried to induce the old sisters to remember that there had atvarious times been certain questions relating to a confusion as towhether the closet had always been a closet. It was no use; their stonyeyes gave no sign. 

Then she thought of the story of the sea-captain, and said, "Miss Keys, did you ever have a lounge covered with India chintz, with a figure of apeacock on it, given to you in Salem by a sea-captain, who brought itfrom India?"

"I dun'no' as I ever did, " said Hannah. That was all. She thoughtMaria's cheeks were a little flushed, but her eyes were like astone-wall. 

She went on that night to the Adirondacks. When Nan and she were alonein their room she said. "By-the-way, Nan, what did you see at thefarm-house? and how did you like Maria and Hannah?"

Nan didn't mistrust that Rita had been there, and she began excitedly totell her all about her visit. Rita could almost have believed Nan hadbeen there if she hadn't known it was not so. She let her go on for sometime, enjoying her enthusiasm, and the impressive way in which shedescribed her opening the door and finding the "little room. " Then Ritasaid: "Now, Nan, that is enough fibbing. I went to the farm myself on myway up yesterday, and there is _no_ little room, and there _never_ hasbeen any; it is a china-closet, just as Mrs. Grant saw it last. "

She was pretending to be busy unpacking her trunk, and did not look upfor a moment; but as Nan did not say anything, she glanced at her overher shoulder. Nan was actually pale, and it was hard to say whether shewas most angry or frightened. There was something of both in her look. And then Rita began to explain how her telegram had put her in thespirit of going up there alone. She hadn't meant to cut Nan out. Sheonly thought--Then Nan broke in: "It isn't that; I am sure you can'tthink it is that. But I went myself, and you did not go; you can't havebeen there, for _it is a little room_. "

Oh, what a night they had! They couldn't sleep. They talked and argued, and then kept still for a while, only to break out again, it was soabsurd. They both maintained that they had been there, but both feltsure the other one was either crazy or obstinate beyond reason. Theywere wretched; it was perfectly ridiculous, two friends at odds oversuch a thing; but there it was--"little room, ""china-closet, "--"china-closet, " "little room. "

The next morning Nan was tacking up some tarlatan at a window to keepthe midges out. Rita offered to help her, as she had done for the pastten years. Nan's "No, thanks, " cut her to the heart. 

"Nan, " said she, "come right down from that stepladder and pack yoursatchel. The stage leaves in just twenty minutes. We can catch theafternoon express train, and we will go together to the farm. I ameither going there or going home. You better go with me. "

Nan didn't say a word. She gathered up the hammer and tacks, and wasready to start when the stage came round. 

It meant for them thirty miles of staging and six hours of train, besides crossing the lake; but what of that, compared with having a lielying round loose between them! Europe would have seemed easy toaccomplish, if it would settle the question. 

At the little junction in Vermont they found a farmer with a wagon fullof meal-bags. They asked him if he could not take them up to the oldKeys farm and bring them back in time for the return train, due in twohours. 

They had planned to call it a sketching trip, so they said, "We havebeen there before, we are artists, and we might find some views worthtaking, and we want also to make a short call upon the Misses Keys. "

"Did ye calculate to paint the old _house_ in the picture?"

They said it was possible they might do so. They wanted to see it, anyway. 

"Waal, I guess you are too late. The _house_ burnt down last night, andeverything in it. "

The Bringing of the Rose

BY HARRIET LEWIS BRADLEY

For certain subjects one of the most valuable works of reference in allBerlin was Miss Olivia Valentine's "Adress-buch, " the contents of whichwere self-collected, self-tested, and abounded in extensive informationconcerning hotels and pensions, apartments and restaurants, familiesoffering German home life with the language, instructors, and courses oflectures, doctors, dentists, dressmakers, milliners, the most direct wayto Mendelssohn's grave in the Alte Dreifaltigkeits-Kirchhof, how to findlodgings in Baireuth during the Wagner festival, where to stay inOberammergau, if it happened to be the year of the Passion Play, and soon, indefinitely. 

Miss Valentine herself was a kind-hearted, middle-aged woman, who, asthe result of much sojourning in foreign lands, possessed an intelligentknowledge of subjects likely to be of use to other sojourners, and whowas cordially ready to share the same, according to the needs of theseason. If it were November, people came asking in what manner theycould take most profitable advantage of a Berlin winter; if it wereapproaching spring, they wanted addresses for Paris or Switzerland orItaly. It was March now and Sunday afternoon. Mr. Morris Davidson sat byMiss Valentine's table, the famous "Adress-buch" in his hand. "I supposeyou don't undertake starting parties for heaven?" he said, opening thebook. "Ah! here it is--'Himmel und Hölle. ' I might have known it, youare so thorough. "

"If you read a little further, " remarked Miss Valentine, "you will seethat 'Himmel und Hölle' is a German game. "

"Oh yes, I remember now; we play it at our pension. It's that game whereyou say 'thou' to the you-people, and 'you' to the thou-people, and areexpected to address strange ladies whom you are meeting for the firsttime as Klara and Charlotte and Wilhelmine, with most embarrassingfamiliarity, and it is very stupid if the game happens to send you toheaven. I wonder if there really is such a locality? I've been thinkinglately I should like to go there; things don't seem to agree with mevery well here. I've closed my books, walked the Thiergarten threadbare, sleep twelve hours out of twenty-four, do everything I've been told todo, with no result whatever except to grow duller. " The young man yawnedas he spoke. "Do excuse me; I've come to such a pass that I'm not ableto look any one in the face without yawning. All things considered, I amafraid I shouldn't be any better off in heaven. I'm afraid I couldn'tstand the people, there must be so many of them. I want to get away frompeople. "

"I know exactly where to send you, " said Miss Valentine. "I was thinkingabout it when you came in. It isn't heaven, but it is very near it, andit also begins with H; and you are sure to like it--that is, unless youobject to the ghost. "

"Oh, not in the least; only is the rest of it all right? Things are not, generally; either the drainage is bad or there is a haunted room, andevery one who sleeps in it dies, and of course one cannot help sleepingin it, just to see how it is going to work. "

"Nothing of the kind, " returned Miss Valentine; "the drainage isexcellent; and as for the haunted room, I once shared it half a summerwith a niece and namesake of mine, and we were never troubled by anyunusual occurrence, and we are both in excellent health and likely toremain so. The ghost is reported to have a Mona Lisa face, to be dressedin black, with something white and fluffy at the neck and sleeves, goldbracelets, a necklace and ring of black pearls, and she carries a rose. If her appearance means death or misfortune, the rose is white; if sheis only straying about in a friendly way, the rose is red. 

"The place is called the Halden--the Hill-side. I have taken theprecaution to state vaguely that it is in the neighborhood of Zurich; Iwant to do all in my power to keep the spot unspoiled. There is solittle left in Switzerland that is not tired of being looked at--thetrees are tired, and the grass, and the waterfalls; but here is a sweethidden-away nook, where everything is as fresh as before the days offoreign travel. I am going to provide you with the directions forfinding it. "

She sat down by the writing-desk, and presently gave a slip of paper toMorris Davidson, who put it carefully in his pocket-book. 

"The castle of the Halden, " Miss Valentine continued, "belonged to acertain countess, by name Maria Regina. There is a tradition that onenight a mist coming down from the mountain concealed the castle from thevillage, and when it lifted, behold! the countess and her entirehousehold had vanished forever, and not a word was ever heard from themagain. The ghost-lady is supposed to be a sister of the Countess MariaRegina, and in some way connected with the death of a young Austrianofficer who figures as a lover in the story; just whose lover no oneseems to know, but it is surmised of Maria Regina's daughter, said to bea very aristocratic and haughty young person. The castle remained closedafter this mysterious occurrence for about two hundred years, and thenan enterprising Swiss-German had it put in order for a summer hotel. What are you doing? I believe you are making extracts from my'Adress-buch. ' Now that is something I never allow. I like to give outinformation discriminately, with personal explanations. "

The young man showed what he had written. "Just a hint or two forItaly, " he said. "I may go down there next week. If I do, I shallcertainly turn aside and tarry a little at your Halden. I should liketo try whether your ghost-lady would lead me into any adventure. "

Miss Valentine did not see Morris Davidson again, but a few weeks latershe received a letter bearing a Swiss postmark:

 "DEAR MISS VALENTINE, --I am here, and in order to give complete proof of it I sacrifice my prejudice and write on ruled paper, with purple ink and an unpleasant pen, that it may be all of the Halden. The place is exactly what I wanted and needed. I am so delighted to have it to myself. I am the only guest in the castle, the only stranger in the town. I came to stay a day; I intend now to stay a week. Yesterday, my first whole day, was perfect. I went by train to Mühlehorn, and walked from there to Wallenstadt, came back for dinner, and in the afternoon climbed the hill to Amden, where I found a hepatica in bloom, and had a beautiful view of the sunset. This morning there is a mist on the mountains, which is slowly rising, so I am using the time for letter-writing. Mountain-climbing is not yet inviting, owing to the snow; but, on the whole, the season of the year is not at all unfavorable. The loneliness is what I like best. The people do not interest me; I avoid them, and must appear in their eyes even more deluded than I am to come to this secluded spot at this unseasonable moment and be satisfied with my own society--no, not my own society, but that of these kind brotherly mountains. From a prosaic pedant I can almost feel myself becoming an ecstatical hermit, and my soul getting ready to

 'smooth itself out a long cramped scroll. Freshening and fluttering in the wind. '

 What a solid satisfaction it is to have a few days free from railroad travel! I have made a roundabout journey, coming here by way of Dresden, Leipsic, Cologne, Bonn, Frankfort, Heidelberg, Strasburg, Freiburg, Basel, and Zurich. It was all pleasant, but I am glad it is over. Please never advertise the Halden as a health-resort; let it remain a complete secret between us two, so that when we wish to leave everything and hermitize we may have the opportunity. If it were not for betraying this secret, I should like to recommend the castle for its generosity. At breakfast I have put beside my plate a five-pound loaf of bread, one slice of which is fifteen inches long by six wide, and thick _ad libitum_ dimensions, the delicacy of which even a Prussian soldier would call into question. 

 "I haven't attempted to tell you what I think of your Halden. It is impossible. I simply give myself over to a few days of happiness and rest; all too soon I shall have to face the busy world again. 

 "Most gratefully yours, "MORRIS DAVIDSON. 

 "P. S. --I have not yet seen the ghost-lady. I thought I heard her footstep last night in the hall and a rustling at my door. I opened it, half expecting to find a rose upon the threshold. I found nothing, saw nothing. "

The letter was dated March 13th, and contained a pressed hepatica. Sometwo months later another letter came. It said:

 "I am still here. My Italian journey melted into a Swiss sojourn. If I stay much longer I shall not dare to go away, I feel so safe under the care of these wonderful mountains. What words has one to describe them, with their fulness of content, of majesty and mystery? I go daily up the time-worn steps behind the castle, throw myself on the grass, count the poplar-trees rising from the plain below, try to make out where earth ends and heaven begins as the white May clouds meet the snow-drifts on the mountain-tops. I am working a little again, but tramping a good deal more. I have not been so happy since I was a boy. In a certain sense I have died here, unaided by the apparition with the rose, unless, indeed, she has come in my sleep, and that of course would not count. I have died, because surely all that death can ever mean is the putting away of something no longer needed, and therefore we die daily--one day most of all. But although I have never seen the ghost-lady, I have every reason to have perfect faith in her existence. I was talking with our landlord's aged mother about it to-day. She carefully closed the door when the conversation turned in this direction, begging me never to mention the subject before the servants, and then in a half-whisper she gave me exactly the same description that you did in Berlin. "

Early in June a third letter came:

 "Will you believe me when I say I have not only seen _Her_, but _Them_; that I have sat with Them, and talked with Them--the lost ladies of the Hill-side--with the Countess Maria Regina, the proud daughter, the mysterious sister? No, certainly you will not believe me. 

 "I write nothing here of the physical results of my stay. Enough that I am ready for work; that I love my fellow-men; that I no longer dread to go to heaven for fear of their society; that I have formed an intimate friendship with the village weaver and priest and postmaster; that when we part, as we shall to-morrow, it will be affectionately and regretfully. 

 "All this you know, or have guessed. What I am about to tell, you do not know, and can never guess. 

 "It had been raining for a week. You remember what it is like here when it rains--how damp, sticky, discouraging; how cold the stone floor; how wet the fountain splashes when one goes through the court to dinner. I was driven to taking walks in the hall outside my room by way of exercise, and thus discovered in a certain dark corner a low door to which I eventually succeeded in finding a key. This door led me into an unused tower dimly lighted, hung with cobwebs, and filled with old red velvet furniture. I sat down on a sofa, and before long became conscious that I was being gazed upon by a haughty young woman, with an aristocratic nose, large dark eyes, hair caught back by tortoise-shell combs under a peculiar head-dress, having a gleam of gold directly on the top. Her gown was of dark green, with white puffs let into the sleeves below the elbows; around her tapering waist was a narrow belt of jewels; the front of her corsage was also trimmed with jewels. But the most distinctive feature of her costume consisted in a floating scarf of old-rose, worn like the frontispiece lady in some volume of 'Keepsake' or 'Token. ' Imagine meeting such a being as this unexpectedly in the long-closed tower-room of a castle after a week of Swiss rain! I forgot time, weather, locality, individuality; I began to think, in fact, that I myself might be the young Austrian officer who was murdered. Presently I noticed that my haughty young woman had a chaperon--a lady wearing a light green picturesquely shaped hood; a kerchief of the same shade bordered with golden tassels; a necklace of dark beads, from which hung a crucifix. She was not pretty, but had very plump red cheeks, and held a little dog. I learned, on nearer acquaintance, that this was the Countess Maria Regina, and as she then appeared so she had looked in the year 1695. 

 "We sat for a while silently regarding each other, Maria Regina's cheek seeming all the time to grow deeper in color, the point in which the green hood terminated more and more distinct, the little dog making ready to bark, the daughter with the floating scarf prouder and prouder, and I, as the Austrian officer, hardly daring to move, lest the sister with the rose should join the group, and that perhaps be the end of me, when I had the happy thought of going in search of her, and thus breaking the spell, and preventing the mischief which might occur should she come uninvited. I left the sofa and peered about, and could scarcely believe my eyes as I came upon her standing by the tower window, pearls, black gown, lace frills, and rose in hand, all there, although very indistinct and shadowy, the Mona Lisa face looking discreetly towards the wall. 

 "Now, my dear Miss Valentine, having related this remarkable adventure, I am about to relate one even more remarkable. It occurred this very evening, between seven and eight o'clock. I had been off for the day with the village goat-boy and his flock--the dear creatures, who have never had their bells removed to be painted over with Swiss landscapes and offered for sale as souvenir bric-ŕ-brac. I had patted the goats good-night and good-by, and going up to my room, thrown myself into a reclining-chair, deliciously tired as one can only be after a long day of Swiss mountain life. The door was open, the room full of pleasant twilight, the three ladies safe in their tower close by. I was thinking and wondering about them, when I heard a rustling at the opposite end of the room. Now, as you know, the place being spacious as a banqueting-hall, objects at a distance, especially in the half-light, might easily deceive one. This was what I thought as I saw by the window a girlish form in black, with something white at the neck and sleeves. I rubbed my hands across my eyes, looked again, and, lo! my vision had vanished completely, noiselessly, without moving from the spot; for there had not been time to move. I sprang up and crossed the room. On the window-ledge was a rose, and the rose was red. 

 "Another curious thing--the ghost-lady of the tower, according to her own authority, was forty-nine in the year 1698. I don't know how ghosts manage about their age, but my ghost of this evening couldn't have been over nineteen. 

 "Well, I have told my story. I wait for you to suggest the explanation of the second part; the first will explain itself when I bring to you, in a few days at most, and with the hearty consent and approval of the castle's present proprietor, the Countess Maria Regina, the haughty daughter, the ghost-lady herself, as found on the rainy day in the tower. 

 "I am so well, so happy, so rich in life and thoughts and hopes! I owe it all to you, and I thank you again and still again, and sign my last letter from the Halden with the sweet salutation of the country, 'Grüss' Gott!'

 "Devotedly yours, "MORRIS DAVIDSON. 

 "_Midnight, June the first. _"

In the same mail Miss Valentine received a letter from her niece andnamesake, who was travelling with friends from Munich to Geneva. 

 "MY DEAREST AUNT, --I can't possibly go to sleep without telling you about this beautiful day. Of course you knew we were going through Zurich, but you did not know we were going to give ourselves the joy of stopping for a little glimpse of the Halden country. 

 "We took a very early train this morning, and without waiting at the village, went directly on that glorious ten-mile walk to Obstalden, and dined at the inn 'Zum Hirschen. '

 "You remember it--there where we tried to express ourselves once in verse:

 "The pasture-lands stretched far overhead, And blooming pathways heavenward led, As on the best of the land we fed At the pleasant inn 'Zum Hirschen. '

 "Above us, a sky of wondrous blue; Below, a lake of marvellous hue; And glad seemed life--the whole way through, That day as we dined 'Zum Hirschen. '

 "And that was how life seemed to-day, but we were wise enough not to attempt poetry. When we got back to the village at night, we climbed up to the castle for supper. I did so hope to see your Mr. Davidson; unfortunately he had gone off for a long tramp. You should hear die alte Grossmutter talk about him; she can't begin to say flattering things enough. And where do you think I went, Aunt Olivia? Into our old room, to be sure--your Mr. Davidson's room now--the door was open, and so I entered. 

 "Oh, the view from that window!--the snow-tipped mountain over across the quiet lake, the little village, the castle garden, with its terraces and bowers! I wanted you so much!

 "Suddenly I had a feeling as if some one were coming, and very gently I pushed aside the panel door, closed it behind me, and descended in the dark--not a minute too soon, as it proved, because, firstly, when I looked back there was a light in the room above; and secondly, the rest of the party had gone to the station, expecting to find me there, and I arrived just in time to prevent us from missing the train. 

 "And, oh, dear Aunt Olivia, your Mr. Davidson has made some wonderful discovery. Die alte Grossmutter couldn't resist telling me, although she wouldn't tell me what it was; she said he was intending to bring it, or them, to you as a present, and he might be wishing to make it a surprise, and it wasn't for her to go and spoil it all. Now what do you suppose it can be? I am consumed with curiosity, and could shed tears of envy. He doesn't know a word about the secret stairway. Die alte Grossmutter hadn't thought to mention it. Imagine that! So exactly like people who possess unusual things not to appreciate them. When you build your house do put in a secret stairway, they are so convenient. The castle garden to-day was a perfect wilderness of roses; we brought as many as we could back to Zurich, and one I left on the window-ledge of our old room--an unsigned offering from a past to a present occupant. It was a red rose too, and therefore of particularly good omen at the Halden. I wonder if your Mr. Davidson has found it yet, and is asking himself how it came?

 "And now, my dearest Aunt Olivia, I kiss you good-night, and end my letter with the sweet salutation which we have been hearing all day from peasant folk--'Grüss' Gott!'

 "Lovingly, your namesake niece, "OLIVIA. 

 "_Midnight, June the first. _"

Perdita

BY HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

I. --ALFALFA RANCH

Alfalfa Ranch, low, wide, with spreading verandas all overgrown by rosesand woodbine, and commanding on all sides a wide view of the rollingalfalfa-fields, was a most bewitching place for a young couple to spendthe first few months of their married life. So Jack and I were naturallymuch delighted when Aunt Agnes asked us to consider it our own for aslong as we chose. The ranch, in spite of its distance from the nearesttown, surrounded as it was by the prairies, and without a neighborwithin a three-mile radius, was yet luxuriously fitted with all themodern conveniences. Aunt Agnes was a rich young widow, and had builtthe place after her husband's death, intending to live there with herchild, to whom she transferred all the wealth of devotion she hadlavished on her husband. The child, however, had died when only threeyears old, and Aunt Agnes, as soon as she recovered sufficient strength, had left Alfalfa Ranch, intending never to visit the place again. Allthis had happened nearly ten years ago, and the widow, relinquishing allthe advantages her youth and beauty, quite as much as her wealth, couldgive her, had devoted herself to work amid the poor of New York. 

At my wedding, which she heartily approved, and where to a greaterextent than ever before she cast off the almost morbid quietness whichhad grown habitual with her, she seemed particularly anxious that Jackand I should accept the loan of Alfalfa Ranch, apparently having an oldidea that the power of our happiness would somehow lift the cloud ofsorrow which, in her mind, brooded over the place. I had not beenstrong, and Jack was overjoyed at such an opportunity of taking me intothe country. High as our expectations were, the beauty of the place farexceeded them all. What color! What glorious sunsets! And the long rideswe took, seeming to be utterly tireless in that fresh sweet air!

One afternoon I sat on the veranda at the western wing of the house. Theveranda here was broader than elsewhere, and it was reached only by aflight of steps leading up from the lawn on one side, and by a dooropposite these steps that opened into Jack's study. The rest of thisveranda was enclosed by a high railing, and by wire nettings so thicklyovergrown with vines that the place was always very shady. I sat nearthe steps, where I could watch the sweep of the great shadows thrown bythe clouds that were sailing before the west wind. Jack was inside, writing, and now and then he would say something to me through the openwindow. As I sat, lost in delight at the beauty of the view and thesweetness of the flower-scented air, I marvelled that Aunt Agnes couldever have left so charming a spot. "She must still love it, " I thought, getting up to move my chair to where I might see still further over theprairies, "and some time she will come back----" At this moment Ihappened to glance to the further end of the veranda, and there I saw, to my amazement, a little child seated on the floor, playing with theshifting shadows of the tangled creepers. It was a little girl in adaintily embroidered white dress, with golden curls around her babyhead. As I still gazed, she suddenly turned, with a roguish toss of theyellow hair, and fixed her serious blue eyes on me. 

"Baby!" I cried. "Where did you come from? Where's your mamma, darling?"And I took a step towards her. 

"What's that, Silvia?" called Jack from within. I turned my head and sawhim sitting at his desk. 

"Come quick, Jack; there's the loveliest baby--" I turned back to thechild, looked, blinked, and at this moment Jack stepped out beside me. 

"Baby?" he inquired. "What on earth are you talking about, Silviadearest?"

"Why, but--" I exclaimed. "There _was_ one! How did she get away? Shewas sitting right there when I called. "

"A _baby_!" repeated my husband. "My dear, babies don't appear anddisappear like East-Indian magicians. You have been napping, and aretrying to conceal the shameful fact. "

"Jack, " I said, decisively, "don't you suppose I know a baby when I seeone? She was sitting right there, playing with the shadows, and I--It'scertainly very queer!"

Jack grinned. "Go and put on your habit, " he replied; "the horses willbe here in ten minutes. And remember that when you have accounted forher disappearance, her presence still remains to be explained. Orperhaps you think Wah Sing produced her from his sleeve?"

I laughed. Wah Sing was our Chinese cook, and more apt, I thought, toput something up his sleeve than to take anything out. 

"I suppose I _was_ dreaming, " I said, "though I could almost as wellbelieve I had only dreamed our marriage. "

"Or rather, " observed Jack, "that our marriage had only dreamed us. "

II. --SHADOWS

About a week later I received a letter from Aunt Agnes. Among otherthings, chiefly relating to New York's slums, she said:

"I am in need of rest, and if you and Jack could put up with me for afew days, I believe I should like to get back to the old place. As youknow, I have always dreaded a return there, but lately I seem somehow tohave lost that dread. I feel that the time has come for me to be thereagain, and I am sure you will not mind me. "

Most assuredly we would not mind her. We sat in the moonlight that nighton the veranda, Jack swinging my hammock slowly, and talked of AuntAgnes. The moon silvered the waving alfalfa, and sifted through thetwisted vines that fenced us in, throwing intricate and ever-changingpatterns on the smooth flooring. There was a hum of insects in the air, and the soft wind ever and anon blew a fleecy cloud over the moon, dimming for a moment her serene splendor. 

"Who knows?" said Jack, lighting another cigar. "This may be aturning-point in Aunt Agnes's life, and she may once more be somethinglike the sunny, happy girl your mother describes. She is beautiful, andshe is yet young. It may mean the beginning of a new life for her. "

"Yes, " I answered. "It isn't right that her life should always beshadowed by that early sorrow. She is so lovely, and could be so happy. Now that she has taken the first step, there is no reason why sheshouldn't go on. "

"We'll do what we can to help her, " responded my husband. "Let me fixyour cushions, darling; they have slipped. " He rose to do so, andsuddenly stood still, facing the further end of the veranda. Hisexpression was so peculiar that I turned, following the direction of hiseyes, even before his smothered exclamation of "Silvia, look there!"reached me. 

Standing in the fluttering moonlight and shadows was the same littlegirl I had seen already. She still wore white, and her tangled curlsfloated shining around her head. She seemed to be smiling, and slightlyshook her head at us. 

"What does it mean, Jack?" I whispered, slipping out of the hammock. 

"How did she get there? Come!" said he, and we walked hastily towardsthe little thing, who again shook her head. Just at this moment anothercloud obscured the moon for a few seconds, and though in the uncertaintwilight I fancied I still saw her, yet when the cloud passed she wasnot to be found. 

III. --PERDITA

Aunt Agnes certainly did look as though she needed rest. She seemed veryfrail, and the color had entirely left her face. But her curling hairwas as golden as ever, and her figure as girlish and graceful. Shekissed me tenderly, and kept my hand in hers as she wandered over thehouse and took long looks across the prairie. 

"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked, softly. "Just the place to be happyin! I've always had a strange fancy that I should be happy here againsome day, and now I feel as though that day had almost come. You arehappy, aren't you, dear?"

I looked at Jack, and felt the tears coming to my eyes. "Yes, I amhappy. I did not know one could be so happy, " I answered, after amoment. 

Aunt Agnes smiled her sweet smile and kissed me again. "God bless youand your Jack! You almost make me feel young again. "

"As though you could possibly feel anything else, " I retorted, laughing. "You little humbug, to pretend you are old!" and slipping my arm roundher waist, for we had always been dear friends, I walked off to chatwith her in her room. 

We took a ride that afternoon, for Aunt Agnes wanted another gallop overthat glorious prairie. The exercise and the perfect afternoon broughtback the color to her cheeks. 

"I think I shall be much better to-morrow, " she observed, as we trottedhome. "What a country this is, and what horses!" slipping her hand downher mount's glossy neck. "I did right to come back here. I do notbelieve I will go away again. " And she smiled on Jack and me, wholaughed, and said she would find it a difficult thing to attempt. 

We all three came out on the veranda to see the sunset. It was always aglorious sight, but this evening it was more than usually magnificent. Immense rays of pale blue and pink spread over the sky, and the clouds, which stretched in horizontal masses, glowed rose and golden. The wholesky was luminous and tender, and seemed to tremble with light. 

We sat silent, looking at the sky and at the shadowy grass that seemedto meet it. Slowly the color deepened and faded. 

"There can never be a lovelier evening, " said Aunt Agnes, with a sigh. 

"Don't say that, " replied Jack. "It is only the beginning of even moreperfect ones. "

Aunt Agnes rose with a slight shiver, "It grows chilly when the sungoes, " she murmured, and turned lingeringly to enter the house. Suddenlyshe gave a startled exclamation. Jack and I jumped up and looked at her. She stood with both hands pressed to her heart, looking--

"The child again, " said Jack, in a low voice, laying his hand on my arm. 

He was right. There in the gathering shadow stood the little girl in thewhite dress. Her hands were stretched towards us, and her lips partedin a smile. A belated gleam of sunlight seemed to linger in her hair. 

"Perdita!" cried Aunt Agnes, in a voice that shook with a kind ofterrible joy. Then, with a stifled sob, she ran forward and sank beforethe baby, throwing her arms about her. The little girl leaned back hergolden head and looked at Aunt Agnes with her great, serious eyes. Thenshe flung both baby arms round her neck, and lifted her sweet mouth--

Jack and I turned away, looking at each other with tears in our eyes. Aslight sound made us turn back. Aunt Agnes had fallen forward to thefloor, and the child was nowhere to be seen. 

We rushed up, and Jack raised my aunt in his arms and carried her intothe house. But she was quite dead. The little child we never saw again. 

At La Glorieuse

BY M. E. M. DAVIS

Madame Raymonde-Arnault leaned her head against the back of her gardenchair, and watched the young people furtively from beneath herhalf-closed eyelids. "He is about to speak, " she murmured under herbreath; "she, at least, will be happy!" and her heart flutteredviolently, as if it had been her own thin bloodless hand which RichardKeith was holding in his; her dark sunken eyes, instead of Félice'sbrown ones, which drooped beneath his tender gaze. 

Marcelite, the old _bonne_, who stood erect and stately behind hermistress, permitted herself also to regard them for a moment withsomething like a smile relaxing her sombre yellow face; then she tooturned her turbaned head discreetly in another direction. 

The plantation house at La Glorieuse is built in a shining loop of BayouL'Eperon. A level grassy lawn, shaded by enormous live-oaks, stretchesacross from the broad stone steps to the sodded levee, where a flotillaof small boats, drawn up among the flags and lily-pads, rise and fallwith the lapping waves. On the left of the house the white cabins of thequarter show their low roofs above the shrubbery; to the right theplantations of cane, following the inward curve of the bayou, sweepsouthward field after field, their billowy blue-green reaches blendingfar in the rear with the indistinct purple haze of the swamp. The greatsquare house, raised high on massive stone pillars, dates back to thefirst quarter of the century; its sloping roof is set with rows ofdormer-windows, the big red double chimneys rising oddly from theirmidst; wide galleries with fluted columns enclose it on three sides;from the fourth is projected a long narrow wing, two stories in height, which stands somewhat apart from the main building, but is connectedwith it by a roofed and latticed passageway. The lower rooms of thiswing open upon small porticos, with balustrades of wrought ironworkrarely fanciful and delicate. From these you may step into the rosegarden--a tangled pleasaunce which rambles away through alleys ofwild-peach and magnolia to an orange grove, whose trees are gnarled andknotted with the growth of half a century. 

The early shadows were cool and dewy there that morning; the breath ofdamask-roses was sweet on the air; brown, gold-dusted butterflies werehovering over the sweet-pease abloom in sunny corners; birds shot up nowand then from the leafy aisles, singing, into the clear blue sky above;the chorus of the negroes at work among the young cane floated in, mellow and resonant, from the fields. The old mistress of La Glorieusesaw it all behind her drooped eyelids. Was it not April too, thatlong-gone unforgotten morning? And were not the bees busy in the heartsof the roses, and the birds singing, when Richard Keith, the first ofthe name who came to La Glorieuse, held her hand in his, and whisperedhis love-story yonder, by the ragged thicket of crępe-myrtle? Ah, Félice, my child, thou art young, but I too have had my sixteen years;and yellow as are the curls on the head bent over thine, those of thefirst Richard were more golden still. And the second Richard, he who--

Marcelite's hand fell heavily on her mistress's shoulder. MadameArnault opened her eyes and sat up, grasping the arms of her chair. Aharsh grating sound had fallen suddenly into the stillness, and theshutters of one of the upper windows of the wing which overlooked thegarden were swinging slowly outward. A ripple of laughter, musical andmocking, rang clearly on the air; at the same moment a woman appeared, framed like a portrait in the narrow casement. She crossed her arms onthe iron window-bar, and gazed silently down on the startled groupbelow. She was strangely beautiful and young, though an air of soft andsubtle maturity pervaded her graceful figure. A glory of yellow hairencircled her pale oval face, and waved away in fluffy masses to herwaist; her full lips were scarlet; her eyes, beneath their straight darkbrows, were gray, with emerald shadows in their luminous depths. Herlow-cut gown, of some thin, yellowish-white material, exposed herexquisitely rounded throat and perfect neck; long, flowing sleeves ofspidery lace fell away from her shapely arms, leaving them bare to theshoulder; loose strings of pearls were wound around her small wrists, and about her throat was clasped a strand of blood-red coral, fromwhich hung to the hollow of her bosom a single translucent drop ofamber. A smile at once daring and derisive parted her lips; an elusivelight came and went in her eyes. 

Keith had started impatiently from his seat at the unwelcomeinterruption. He stood regarding the intruder with mute, half-frowninginquiry. 

Félice turned a bewildered face to her grandmother. "Who is it, mčre?"she whispered. "Did--did you give her leave?"

Madame Arnault had sunk back in her chair. Her hands trembledconvulsively still, and the lace on her bosom rose and fell with thehurried beating of her heart. But she spoke in her ordinary measured, almost formal tones, as she put out a hand and drew the girl to herside. "I do not know, my child. Perhaps Suzette Beauvais has come overwith her guests from Grandchamp. I thought I heard but now the sound ofboats on the bayou. Suzette is ever ready with her pranks. Or perhaps--"

She stopped abruptly. The stranger was drawing the batten blindstogether. Her ivory-white arms gleamed in the sun. For a moment theycould see her face shining like a star against the dusky glooms within;then the bolt was shot sharply to its place. 

Old Marcelite drew a long breath of relief as she disappeared. Asmothered ejaculation had escaped her lips, under the girl's intentgaze; an ashen gray had overspread her dark face. "Mam'selle Suzette, she been an' dress up one o' her young ladies jes fer er trick, " shesaid, slowly, wiping the great drops of perspiration from her wrinkledforehead. 

"Suzette?" echoed Félice, incredulously. "She would never dare! Who_can_ it be?"

"It is easy enough to find out, " laughed Keith. "Let us go and see forourselves who is masquerading in my quarters. "

He drew her with him as he spoke along the winding violet-bordered walkswhich led to the house. She looked anxiously back over her shoulder ather grandmother. Madame Arnault half arose, and made an imperiousgesture of dissent; but Marcelite forced her gently into her seat, andleaning forward, whispered a few words rapidly in her ear. 

"Thou art right, Marcelite, " she acquiesced, with a heavy sigh. "'Tisbetter so. "

They spoke in _nčgre_, that mysterious patois which is so uncouth initself, so soft and caressing on the lips of women. Madame Arnaultsigned to the girl to go on. She shivered a little, watching theirretreating figures. The old _bonne_ threw a light shawl about hershoulders, and crouched affectionately at her feet. The murmur of theirvoices as they talked long and earnestly together hardly reached beyondthe shadows of the wild-peach-tree beneath which they sat. 

"How beautiful she was!" Félice said, musingly, as they approached thelatticed passageway. 

"Well, yes, " her companion returned, carelessly. "I confess I do notgreatly fancy that style of beauty myself. " And he glanced significantlydown at her own flower-like face. 

She flushed, and her brown eyes drooped, but a bright little smileplayed about her sensitive mouth. "I cannot see, " she declared, "howSuzette could have dared to take her friends into the ballroom!"

"Why?" he asked, smiling at her vehemence. 

She stopped short in her surprise. "Do you not know, then?" She sank hervoice to a whisper. "The ballroom has never been opened since the nightmy mother died. I was but a baby then, though sometimes I imagine thatI remember it all. There was a grand ball there that night. La Glorieusewas full of guests, and everybody from all the plantations around washere. Mčre has never told me how it was, nor Marcelite; but the otherservants used to talk to me about my beautiful young mother, and tell mehow she died suddenly in her ball dress, while the ball was going on. Myfather had the whole wing closed at once, and no one was ever allowed toenter it. I used to be afraid to play in its shadow, and if I did strayanywhere near it, my father would always call me away. Her death musthave broken his heart. He rarely spoke; I never saw him smile; and hiseyes were so sad that I could weep now at remembering them. Then he toodied while I was still a little girl, and now I have no one in the worldbut dear old mčre. " Her voice trembled a little, but she flushed, andsmiled again beneath his meaning look. "It was many years before eventhe lower floor was reopened, and I am almost sure that yours is theonly room there which has ever been used. "

They stepped, as she concluded, into the hall. 

"I have never been in here before, " she said, looking about her withshy curiosity. A flood of sunlight poured through the wide arched windowat the foot of the stair. The door of the room nearest the entrancestood open; the others, ranging along the narrow hall, were all closed. 

"This is my room, " he said, nodding towards the open door. 

She turned her head quickly away, with an impulse of girlish modesty, and ran lightly up the stair. He glanced downward as he followed, andpaused, surprised to see the flutter of white garments in a shadedcorner of his room. Looking more closely, he saw that it was a glimmerof light from an open window on the dark polished floor. 

The upper hall was filled with sombre shadows; the motionless air washeavy with a musty, choking odor. In the dimness a few tattered hangingswere visible on the walls; a rope, with bits of crumbling evergreenclinging to it, trailed from above one of the low windows. The panelleddouble door of the ballroom was shut; no sound came from behind it. 

"The girls have seen us coming, " said Félice, picking her way daintilyacross the dust-covered floor, "and they have hidden themselves inside. "

Keith pushed open the heavy valves, which creaked noisily on theirrusty hinges. The gloom within was murkier still; the chill dampness, with its smell of mildew and mould, was like that of a funeral vault. 

The large, low-ceilinged room ran the entire length of the house. Araised dais, whose faded carpet had half rotted away, occupied an alcoveat one end; upon it four or five wooden stools were placed; one of thesewas overturned; on another a violin in its baggy green baize cover waslying. Straight high-backed chairs were pushed against the walls oneither side; in front of an open fireplace with a low wooden mantel twosmall cushioned divans were drawn up, with a claw-footed table betweenthem. A silver salver filled with tall glasses was set carelessly on oneedge of the table; a half-open fan of sandal-wood lay beside it; a man'sglove had fallen on the hearth just within the tarnished brass fender. Cobwebs depended from the ceiling, and hung in loose threads from themantel; dust was upon everything, thick and motionless; a single ghostlyray of light that filtered in through a crevice in one of the shutterswas weighted with gray lustreless motes. The room was empty and silent. The visitors, who had come so stealthily, had as stealthily departed, leaving no trace behind them. 

"They have played us a pretty trick, " said Keith, gayly. "They must havefled as soon as they saw us start towards the house. " He went over tothe window from which the girl had looked down into the rose garden, andgave it a shake. The dust flew up in a suffocating cloud, and the spikednails which secured the upper sash rattled in their places. 

"That is like Suzette Beauvais, " Félice replied, absently. She was notthinking of Suzette. She had forgotten even the stranger, whosedisdainful eyes, fixed upon herself, had moved her sweet nature tosomething like a rebellious anger. Her thoughts were on the beautifulyoung mother of alien race, whose name, for some reason, she wasforbidden to speak. She saw her glide, gracious and smiling, along thesmooth floor; she heard her voice above the call and response of theviolins; she breathed the perfume of her laces, backward-blown by theswift motion of the dance!

She strayed dreamily about, touching with an almost reverent fingerfirst one worm-eaten object and then another, as if by so doing shecould make the imagined scene more real. Her eyes were downcast; theblood beneath her rich dark skin came and went in brilliant flushes onher cheeks; the bronze hair, piled in heavy coils on her small, well-poised head, fell in loose rings on her low forehead and againsther white neck; her soft gray gown, following the harmonious lines ofher slender figure, seemed to envelop her like a twilight cloud. 

"She is adorable, " said Richard Keith to himself. 

It was the first time that he had been really alone with her, thoughthis was the third week of his stay in the hospitable old mansion wherehis father and his grandfather before him had been welcome guests. Nowthat he came to think of it, in that bundle of yellow, time-worn lettersfrom Félix Arnault to Richard Keith, which he had found among hisfather's papers, was one which described at length a ball in this veryballroom. Was it in celebration of his marriage, or of his home-comingafter a tour abroad? Richard could not remember. But he idly recalledportions of other letters, as he stood with his elbow on the mantelwatching Félix Arnault's daughter. 

"_Your son and my daughter_, " the phrase which had made him smile whenhe read it yonder in his Maryland home, brought now a warm glow to hisheart. The half-spoken avowal, the question that had trembled on hislips a few moments ago in the rose garden, stirred impetuously withinhim. 

Félice stepped down from the dais where she had been standing, and cameswiftly across the room, as if his unspoken thought had called her tohim. A tender rapture possessed him to see her thus drawing towards him;he longed to stretch out his arms and fold her to his breast. He moved, and his hand came in contact with a small object on the mantel. Hepicked it up. It was a ring, a band of dull worn gold, with a confusedtracery graven upon it. He merely glanced at it, slipping itmechanically on his finger. His eyes were full upon hers, which weresuffused and shining. 

"Did you speak?" she asked, timidly. She had stopped abruptly, and waslooking at him with a hesitating, half-bewildered expression. 

"No, " he replied. His mood had changed. He walked again to the windowand examined the clumsy bolt. "Strange!" he muttered. "I have never seena face like hers, " he sighed, dreamily. 

"She was very beautiful, " Félice returned, quietly. "I think we must begoing, " she added. "Mčre will be growing impatient. " The flush had diedout of her cheek, her arms hung listlessly at her side. She shuddered asshe gave a last look around the desolate room. "They were dancing herewhen my mother died, " she said to herself. 

He preceded her slowly down the stair. The remembrance of the womanbegan vaguely to stir his senses. He had hardly remarked her then, absorbed as he had been in another idea. Now she seemed to swimvoluptuously before his vision; her tantalizing laugh rang in his ears;her pale perfumed hair was blown across his face; he felt its filmystrands upon his lips and eyelids. "Do you think, " he asked, turningeagerly on the bottom step, "that they could have gone into any of theserooms?"

She shrank unaccountably from him. "Oh no, " she cried. "They are in therose garden with mčre, or they have gone around to the lawn. Come"; andshe hurried out before him. 

Madame Arnault looked at them sharply as they came up to where she wassitting. "No one!" she echoed, in response to Keith's report. "Then theyreally have gone back?"

"Madame knows dat we is hear de boats pass up de bayou whilse m'sieu an'mam'selle was inside, " interposed Marcelite, stooping to pick up hermistress's cane. 

"I would not have thought Suzette so--so indiscreet, " said Félice. Therewas a note of weariness in her voice. 

Madame Arnault looked anxiously at her and then at Keith. The young manwas staring abstractedly at the window, striving to recall the visionthat had appeared there, and he felt, rather than saw, his hostess startand change color when her eyes fell upon the ring he was wearing. Helifted his hand covertly, and turned the trinket around in the light, but he tried in vain to decipher the irregular characters traced uponit. 

"Let us go in, " said the old madame. "Félice, my child, thou artfatigued. "

Now when in all her life before was Félice ever fatigued? Félice, whosestrong young arms could send a pirogue flying up the bayou for miles;Félice, who was ever ready for a tramp along the rose-hedged lanes tothe swamp lakes when the water-lilies were in bloom; to the sugar-housein grinding-time, down the levee road to St. Joseph's, the little brownivy-grown church, whose solitary spire arose slim and straight abovethe encircling trees. 

Marcelite gave an arm to her mistress, though, in truth, she seemed towalk a little unsteadily herself. Félice followed with Keith, who wassilent and self-absorbed. 

The day passed slowly, a constraint had somehow fallen upon the littlehousehold. Madame Arnault's fine high-bred old face wore its customarylook of calm repose, but her eyes now and then sought her guest with anexpression which he could not have fathomed if he had observed it. Buthe saw nothing. A mocking red mouth; a throat made for the kisses oflove; white arms strung with pearls--these were ever before him, shutting away even the pure sweet face of Félice Arnault. 

"Why did I not look at her more closely when I had the opportunity, foolthat I was?" he asked himself, savagely, again and again, revolving inhis mind a dozen pretexts for going at once to the Beauvais plantation, a mile or so up the bayou. But he felt an inexplicable shyness at thethought of putting any of these plans into action, and so allowed theday to drift by. He arose gladly when the hour for retiring came--thathour which he had hitherto postponed by every means in his power. Hekissed, as usual, the hand of his hostess, and held that of Félice inhis for a moment; but he did not feel its trembling, or see the timidtrouble in her soft eyes. 

His room in the silent and deserted wing was full of fantastic shadows. He threw himself on a chair beside a window without lighting his lamp. The rose garden outside was steeped in moonlight; the magnolia bellsgleamed waxen-white against their glossy green leaves; the vines on thetall trellises threw a soft network of dancing shadows on thewhite-shelled walks below; the night air stealing about was loaded withthe perfume of roses and sweet-olive; a mocking-bird sang in anorange-tree, his mate responding sleepily from her nest in the oldsummer-house. 

"To-morrow, " he murmured, half aloud, "I will go to Grandchamp and giveher the ring she left in the old ballroom. "

He looked at it glowing dully in the moonlight; suddenly he lifted hishead, listening. Did a door grind somewhere near on its hinges? He gotup cautiously and looked out. It was not fancy. She was standing full inview on the small balcony of the room next his own. Her white robeswaved to and fro in the breeze; the pearls on her arms glistened. Herface, framed in the pale gold of her hair, was turned towards him; asmile curved her lips; her mysterious eyes seemed to be searching histhrough the shadow. He drew back, confused and trembling, and when, asecond later, he looked again, she was gone. 

He sat far into the night, his brain whirling, his blood on fire. Whowas she, and what was the mystery hidden in this isolated old plantationhouse? His thoughts reverted to the scene in the rose garden, and hewent over and over all its details. He remembered Madame Arnault'sagitation when the window opened and the girl appeared; her evidentdiscomfiture--of which at the time he had taken no heed, but which cameback to him vividly enough now--at his proposal to visit the ballroom;her startled recognition of the ring on his finger; her slurringsuggestion of visitors from Grandchamp; the look of terror onMarcelite's face. What did it all mean? Félice, he was sure, knewnothing. But here, in an unused portion of the house, which even themembers of the family had never visited, a young and beautiful girl wasshut up a prisoner, condemned perhaps to a life-long captivity. 

"Good God!" He leaped to his feet at the thought. He would go andthunder at Madame Arnault's door, and demand an explanation. But no; notyet. He calmed himself with an effort. By too great haste he mightinjure her. "Insane?" He laughed aloud at the idea of madness inconnection with that exquisite creature. 

It dawned upon him, as he paced restlessly back and forth, that althoughhis father had been here more than once in his youth and manhood, he hadnever heard him speak of La Glorieuse nor of Félix Arnault, whoseletters he had read after his father's death a few months ago--those oldletters whose affectionate warmth indeed had determined him, in thefirst desolation of his loss, to seek the family which seemed to havebeen so bound to his own. Morose and taciturn as his father had been, surely he would sometimes have spoken of his old friend if--Worn out atlast with conjecture; beaten back, bruised and breathless, from anenigma which he could not solve; exhausted by listening with strainedattention for some movement in the next room, he threw himself on hisbed, dressed as he was, and fell into a heavy sleep, which lasted farinto the forenoon of the next day. 

When he came out (walking like one in a dream), he found a gay partyassembled on the lawn in front of the house. Suzette Beauvais and herguests, a bevy of girls, had come from Grandchamp. They had been joined, as they rowed down the bayou, by the young people from the plantationhouses on the way. Half a dozen boats, their long paddles laid acrossthe seats, were added to the home fleet at the landing. Their stalwartblack rowers were basking in the sun on the levee, or lounging about thequarter. At the moment of his appearance, Suzette herself wasindignantly disclaiming any complicity in the jest of the day before. 

"Myself, I was making o'ange-flower conserve, " she declared; "an' anyhowI wouldn't go in that ballroom unless madame send me. "

"But who was it, then?" insisted Félice. 

Mademoiselle Beauvais spread out her fat little hands and lifted hershoulders. "_Mo pas connais_, " she laughed, dropping into patois. 

Madame Arnault here interposed. It was but the foolish conceit of someteasing neighbor, she said, and not worth further discussion. Keith'sblood boiled in his veins at this calm dismissal of the subject, but hegave no sign. He saw her glance warily at himself from time to time. 

"I will sift the matter to the bottom, " he thought, "and I will forceher to confess the truth, whatever it may be, before the world. "

The noisy chatter and meaningless laughter around him jarred upon hisnerves; he longed to be alone with his thoughts; and presently, pleadinga headache--indeed his temples throbbed almost to bursting, and his eyeswere hot and dry--he quitted the lawn, seeing but not noting until longafterwards, when they smote his memory like a two-edged knife, the painin Félice's uplifted eyes, and the little sorrowful quiver of her mouth. He strolled around the corner of the house to his apartment. The blindsof the arched window were drawn, and a hazy twilight was diffused aboutthe hall, though it was mid-afternoon outside. As he entered, closingthe door behind him, the woman at that moment uppermost in his thoughtscame down the dusky silence from the further end of the hall. She turnedher inscrutable eyes upon him in passing, and flitted noiselessly andwith languid grace up the stairway, the faint swish of her gownvanishing with her. He hesitated a moment, overpowered by conflictingemotion; then he sprang recklessly after her. 

He pushed open the ballroom door, reaching his arms out blindly beforehim. Once more the great dust-covered room was empty. He strained hiseyes helplessly into the obscurity. A chill reaction passed over him; hefelt himself on the verge of a swoon. He did not this time even try todiscover the secret door or exit by which she had disappeared; helooked, with a hopeless sense of discouragement, at the barred windows, and turned to leave the room. As he did so, he saw a handkerchief lyingon the threshold of the door. He picked it up eagerly, and pressed it tohis lips. A peculiar delicate perfume which thrilled his senses lurkedin its gossamer folds. As he was about thrusting it into hisbreast-pocket, he noticed in one corner a small blood-stain fresh andwet. He had then bitten his lip in his excitement. 

"I need no further proof, " he said aloud, and his own voice startledhim, echoing down the long hall. "She is beyond all question a prisonerin this detached building, which has mysterious exits and entrances. She has been forced to promise that she will not go outside of itswalls, or she is afraid to do so. I will bring home this monstrouscrime. I will release this lovely young woman who dares not speak, yetso plainly appeals to me. " Already he saw in fancy her starlike eyesraised to his in mute gratitude, her white hand laid confidingly on hisarm. 

The party of visitors remained at La Glorieuse overnight. The negrofiddlers came in, and there was dancing in the old-fashioned doubleparlors and on the moonlit galleries. Félice was unnaturally gay. Keithlooked on gloomily, taking no part in the amusement. 

"_Il est bien bęte_, your yellow-haired Marylander, " whispered SuzetteBeauvais to her friend. 

He went early to his room, but he watched in vain for some sign from hisbeautiful neighbor. He grew sick with apprehension. Had MadameArnault--But no; she would not dare. "I will wait one more day, " hefinally decided; "and then--"

The next morning, after a late breakfast, some one proposed impromptucharades and tableaux. Madame Arnault good-naturedly sent for the keysto the tall presses built into the walls, which contained theaccumulated trash and treasure of several generations. Mounted on astepladder, Robert Beauvais explored the recesses, and threw down to thelaughing crowd embroidered shawls and scarfs yellow with age, softmuslins of antique pattern, stiff big-flowered brocades, scraps of gauzeribbon, gossamer laces. On one topmost shelf he came upon a small woodenbox inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Félice reached up for it, and, moved bysome undefined impulse, Richard came and stood by her side while sheopened it. A perfume which he recognized arose from it as she lifted afold of tissue-paper. Some strings of Oriental pearls of extraordinarysize, and perfect in shape and color, were coiled underneath, with acoral necklace, whose pendant of amber had broken off and rolled into acorner. With them--he hardly restrained an exclamation, and his handinvoluntarily sought his breast-pocket at sight of the handkerchief witha drop of fresh blood in one corner! Félice trembled without knowingwhy. Madame Arnault, who had just entered the room, took the box fromher quietly, and closed the lid with a snap. The girl, accustomed toimplicit obedience, asked no questions; the others, engaged in turningover the old-time finery, had paid no attention. 

"Does she think to disarm me by such puerile tricks?" he thought, turning a look of angry warning on the old madame; and in the steadygaze which she fixed on him he read a haughty defiance. 

He forced himself to enter into the sports of the day, and he walkeddown to the boat-landing a little before sunset to see the guestsdepart. As the line of boats swept away, the black rowers dipping theiroars lightly in the placid waves, he turned with a sense of release, leaving Madame Arnault and Félice still at the landing, and went downthe levee road towards St. Joseph's. The field gang, whose red, blue, and brown blouses splotched the squares of cane with color, waspreparing to quit work; loud laughter and noisy jests rang out on theair; high-wheeled plantation wagons creaked along the lanes; negrochildren, with dip-nets and fishing-poles over their shoulders, ranhomeward along the levee, the dogs at their heels barking joyously; aschooner, with white sail outspread, was stealing like a fairy barkaround a distant bend of the bayou; the silvery waters were turning togold under a sunset sky. 

It was twilight when he struck across the plantation, and came around bythe edge of the swamp to the clump of trees in a corner of the homefield which he had often remarked from his window. As he approached, hesaw a woman come out of the dense shadow, as if intending to meet him, and then draw back again. His heart throbbed painfully, but he walkedsteadily forward. It was only Félice. _Only Félice!_ She was sitting ona flat tombstone. The little spot was the Raymonde-Arnault familyburying-ground. There were many marble headstones and shafts, and twobroad low tombs side by side and a little apart from the others. Atangle of rose-briers covered the sunken graves, a rank growth of grasschoked the narrow paths, the little gate interlaced and overhung withhoneysuckle sagged away from its posts, the fence itself had lost apicket here and there, and weeds flaunted boldly in the gaps. The girllooked wan and ghostly in the lonely dusk. 

"This is my father's grave, and my mother is here, " she said, abruptly, as he came up and stood beside her. Her head was drooped upon herbreast, and he saw that she had been weeping. "See, " she went on, drawing her finger along the mildewed lettering: "'Félix Marie-JosephArnault . . . âgé de trente-quatre ans' . . . 'Hélčne Pallacier, épouse deFélix Arnault . . . Décédée ŕ l'âge de dix-neuf ans. ' Nineteen years old, "she repeated, slowly. "My mother was one year younger than I am when shedied--my beautiful mother!"

Her voice sounded like a far-away murmur in his ears. He looked at her, vaguely conscious that she was suffering. But he did not speak, andafter a little she got up and went away. Her dress, which brushed him inpassing, was wet with dew. He watched her slight figure, moving like aspirit along the lane, until a turn in the hedge hid her from sight. Then he turned again towards the swamp, and resumed his restless walk. 

Some hours later he crossed the rose garden. The moon was under a cloud;the trunks of the crępe-myrtles were like pale spectres in the uncertainlight. The night wind blew in chill and moist from the swamp. The housewas dark and quiet, but he heard the blind of an upper window turnedstealthily as he stepped into the latticed arcade. 

"The old madame is watching me--and her, " he said to himself. 

His agitation had now become supreme. The faint familiar perfume thatstole about his room filled him with a kind of frenzy. Was this thechivalric devotion of which he had so boasted? this the desire toprotect a young and defenceless woman? He no longer dared questionhimself. He seemed to feel her warm breath against his cheeks. He threwup his arms with a gesture of despair. A sigh stirred the deathlikestillness. At last! She was there, just within his doorway; the paleglimmer of the veiled moon fell upon her. Her trailing laces wrapped herabout like a silver mist; her arms were folded across her bosom; hereyes--he dared not interpret the meaning which he read in thosewonderful eyes. She turned slowly and went down the hall. He followedher, reeling like a drunkard. His feet seemed clogged, the blood ranthick in his veins, a strange roaring was in his ears. His hot eyesstrained after her as she vanished, just beyond his touch, into the roomnext his own. He threw himself against the closed door in a transport ofrage. It yielded suddenly, as if opened from within. A full blaze oflight struck his eyes, blinding him for an instant; then he saw her. Ahuge four-posted bed with silken hangings occupied a recess in the room. Across its foot a low couch was drawn. She had thrown herself there. Herhead was pillowed on crimson gold-embroidered cushions; her diaphanousdraperies, billowing foamlike over her, half concealed, half revealedher lovely form; her hair waved away from her brows, and spread like ashower of gold over the cushions. One bare arm hung to the floor;something jewel-like gleamed in the half-closed hand; the other layacross her forehead, and from beneath it her eyes were fixed upon him. He sprang forward with a cry. . . . 

At first he could remember nothing. The windows were open; the heavycurtains which shaded them moved lazily in the breeze; a shaft ofsunlight that came in between them fell upon the polished surface of themarble mantel. He examined with languid curiosity some trifles thatstood there--a pair of Dresden figures, a blue Sčvres vase of gracefulshape, a bronze clock with gilded rose-wreathed Cupids; and then raisedhis eyes to the two portraits which hung above. One of these wasfamiliar enough--the dark melancholy face of Félix Arnault, whoseportrait by different hands and at different periods of his life hungin nearly every room of La Glorieuse. The blood surged into his face andreceded again at sight of the other. Oh, so strangely like! The yellowhair, the slumberous eyes, the full throat clasped about with a singlestrand of coral. Yes, it was she! He lifted himself on his elbow. He wasin bed. Surely this was the room into which she had drawn him with hereyes. Did he sink on the threshold, all his senses swooning intodelicious faith? Or had he, indeed, in that last moment thrown himselfon his knees by her couch? He could not remember, and he sank back witha sigh. 

Instantly Madame Arnault was bending over him. Her cool hands were onhis forehead. "_Dieu merci!_" she exclaimed, "thou art thyself oncemore, _mon fils_. "

He seized her hand imperiously. "Tell me, madame, " he demanded--"tellme, for the love of God! What is she? Who is she? Why have you shut heraway in this deserted place? Why--"

She was looking down at him with an expression half of pity, half ofpain. 

"Forgive me, " he faltered, involuntarily, all his darker suspicionssomehow vanishing; "but--oh, tell me!"

"Calm thyself, Richard, " she said, soothingly, seating herself on theside of the bed, and stroking his hand gently. Too agitated to speak, hecontinued to gaze at her with imploring eyes. "Yes, yes, I will relatethe whole story, " she added, hastily, for he was panting and strugglingfor speech. "I heard you fall last night, " she continued, relapsing forgreater ease into French; "for I was full of anxiety about you, and Ilingered long at my window watching for you. I came at once withMarcelite, and found you lying insensible across the threshold of thisroom. We lifted you to the bed, and bled you after the old fashion, andthen I gave you a tisane of my own making, which threw you into a quietsleep. I have watched beside you until your waking. Now you are but alittle weak from fasting and excitement, and when you have rested andeaten--"

"No, " he pleaded; "now, at once!"

"Very well, " she said, simply. She was silent a moment, as if arrangingher thoughts. "Your grandfather, a Richard Keith like yourself, " shebegan, "was a college-mate and friend of my brother, Henri Raymonde, andaccompanied him to La Glorieuse during one of their vacations. I wasalready betrothed to Monsieur Arnault, but I--No matter! I never sawRichard Keith afterwards. But years later he sent your father, who alsobore his name, to visit me here. My son, Félix, was but a year or soyounger than his boy, and the two lads became at once warm friends. Theywent abroad, and pursued their studies side by side, like brothers. Theycame home together, and when Richard's father died, Félix spent nearly ayear with him on his Maryland plantation. They exchanged, when apart, almost daily letters. Richard's marriage, which occurred soon after theyleft college, strengthened rather than weakened this extraordinary bondbetween them. Then came on the war. They were in the same command, andhardly lost sight of each other during their four years of service. 

"When the war was ended, your father went back to his estates. Félixturned his face homeward, but drifted by some strange chance down toFlorida, where he met _her_"--she glanced at the portrait over themantel. "Hélčne Pallacier was Greek by descent, her family having beenamong those brought over some time during the last century as coloniststo Florida from the Greek islands. He married her, barely delaying hismarriage long enough to write me that he was bringing home a bride. Shewas young, hardly more than a child, indeed, and marvellouslybeautiful"--Keith moved impatiently; he found these family detailstedious and uninteresting--"a radiant soulless creature, whose only lawwas her own selfish enjoyment, and whose coming brought pain andbitterness to La Glorieuse. These were her rooms. She chose them becauseof the rose garden, for she had a sensuous and passionate love ofnature. She used to lie for hours on the grass there, with her armsflung over her head, gazing dreamily on the fluttering leaves above her. The pearls--which she always wore--some coral ornaments, and a handfulof amber beads were her only dower, but her caprices were the insolentand extravagant caprices of a queen. Félix, who adored her, gratifiedthem at whatever expense; and I think at first she had a careless sortof regard for him. But she hated the little Félice, whose coming gaveher the first pang of physical pain she had ever known. She neveroffered the child a caress. She sometimes looked at her with asuppressed rage which filled me with terror and anxiety. 

"When Félice was a little more than a year old, your father came to LaGlorieuse to pay us a long-promised visit. His wife had died somemonths before, and you, a child of six or seven years, were left incharge of relatives in Maryland. Richard was in the full vigor ofmanhood, broad-shouldered, tall, blue-eyed, and blond-haired, like hisfather and like you. From the moment of their first meeting Hélčneexerted all the power of her fascination to draw him to her. Never hadshe been so whimsical, so imperious, so bewitching! Loyal to his friend, faithful to his own high sense of honor, he struggled against a growingweakness, and finally fled. I will never forget the night he went away. A ball had been planned by Félix in honor of his friend. The ballroomwas decorated under his own supervision. The house was filled withguests from adjoining parishes; everybody, young and old, came from theplantations around. Hélčne was dazzling that night. The light of triumphin her cheeks; her eyes shone with a softness which I had never seen inthem before. I watched her walking up and down the room with Richard, orfloating with him in the dance. They were like a pair of radiant godlikevisitants from another world. My heart ached for them in spite of myindignation and apprehension; for light whispers were beginning tocirculate, and I saw more than one meaning smile directed at them. Félix, who was truth itself, was gayly unconscious. 

"Towards midnight I heard far up the bayou the shrill whistle of thelittle packet which passed up and down then, as now, twice a week; andpresently she swung up to our landing. Richard was standing with Hélčneby the fireplace. They had been talking for some time in low earnesttones. A sudden look of determination came into his eyes. I saw him drawfrom his finger a ring which she had one day playfully bade him wear, and offer it to her. His face was white and strained; hers wore a lookwhich I could not fathom. He quitted her side abruptly, and walkedrapidly across the room, threading his way among the dancers, anddisappeared in the press about the door. A few moments later a note washanded me. I heard the boat steam away from the landing as I read it. Itwas a hurried line from Richard. He said that he had been called away onurgent business, and he begged me to make his adieux to Madame Arnaultand Félix. Félix was worried and perplexed by the sudden departure ofhis guest. Hélčne said not a word, but very soon I saw her slipping downthe stair, and I knew that she had gone to her room. Her absence wasnot remarked, for the ball was at its height. It was almost daylightwhen the last dance was concluded, and the guests who were staying inthe house had retired to their rooms. 

"Félix, having seen to the comfort of all, went at last to join hiswife. He burst into my room a second later almost crazed with horror andgrief. I followed him to this room. She was lying on a couch at the footof the bed. One arm was thrown across her forehead, the other hung tothe floor, and in her hand she held a tiny silver bottle with a jewelledstopper. A handkerchief, with a single drop of blood upon it, was lyingon her bosom. A faint curious odor exhaled from her lips and hung aboutthe room, but the poison had left no other trace. 

"No one save ourselves and Marcelite ever knew the truth. She had dancedtoo much at the ball that night, and she had died suddenly ofheart-disease. We buried her out yonder in the old Raymonde-Arnaultburying-ground. I do not know what the letter contained which Félixwrote to Richard. He never uttered his name afterwards. The ballroom, the whole wing, in truth, was at once closed. Everything was leftexactly as it was on that fatal night. A few years ago, the house beingunexpectedly full, I opened the room in which you have been staying, andit has been used from time to time as a guest-room since. My son livedsome years, prematurely old, heart-broken, and desolate. He died withher name on his lips. "

Madame Arnault stopped. 

A suffocating sensation was creeping over her listener. Only in the pastfew moments had the signification of the story begun to dawn upon him. "Do you mean, " he gasped, "that the girl whom I--that she is--was--"

"Hélčne, the dead wife of Félix Arnault, " she replied, gravely. "Herrestless spirit has walked here before. I have sometimes heard hertantalizing laugh echo through the house, but no one had ever seen heruntil you came--so like the Richard Keith she loved!"

"When I read your letter, " she went on, after a short silence, "whichtold me that you wished to come to those friends to whom your father hadbeen so dear, all the past arose before me, and I felt that I ought toforbid your coming. But I remembered how Félix and Richard had lovedeach other before she came between them. I thought of the other RichardKeith whom I--I loved once; and I dreamed of a union at last between thefamilies. I hoped, Richard, that you and Félice--"

But Richard was no longer listening. He wished to believe the wholefantastic story an invention of the keen-eyed old madame herself. Yetsomething within him confessed to its truth. A tumultuous storm ofbaffled desire, of impotent anger, swept over him. The ring he woreburned into his flesh. But he had no thought of removing it--the ringwhich had once belonged to the beautiful golden-haired woman who hadcome back from the grave to woo him to her!

He turned his face away and groaned. 

Her eyes hardened. She rose stiffly. "I will send a servant with yourbreakfast, " she said, with her hand on the door. "The down boat willpass La Glorieuse this afternoon. You will perhaps wish to takeadvantage of it. "

He started. He had not thought of going--of leaving her--_her_! Helooked at the portrait on the wall and laughed bitterly. 

Madame Arnault accompanied him with ceremonious politeness to the frontsteps that afternoon. 

"Mademoiselle Félice?" he murmured, inquiringly, glancing back at thewindows of the sitting-room. 

"Mademoiselle Arnault is occupied, " she coldly returned. "I will conveyto her your farewell. "

He looked back as the boat chugged away. Peaceful shadows enwrapped thehouse and overspread the lawn. A single window in the wing gleamed likea balefire in the rays of the setting sun. 

The years that followed were years of restless wandering for RichardKeith. He visited his estate but rarely. He went abroad and returned, hardly having set foot to land; he buried himself in the fastnesses ofthe Rockies; he made a long, aimless sea-voyage. Her image accompaniedhim everywhere. Between him and all he saw hovered her faultless face;her red mouth smiled at him; her white arms enticed him. His own facebecame worn and his step listless. He grew silent and gloomy. "He ismadder than the old colonel, his father, was, " his friends said, shrugging their shoulders. 

One day, more than three years after his visit to La Glorieuse, he foundhimself on a deserted part of the Florida seacoast. It was late inNovember, but the sky was soft and the air warm and balmy. He bared hishead as he paced moodily to and fro on the silent beach. The wavesrolled languidly to his feet and receded, leaving scattered half-wreathsof opalescent foam on the snowy sands. The wind that fanned his face wasfilled with the spicy odors of the sea. Seized by a capricious impulse, he threw off his clothes and dashed into the surf. The undulatingbillows closed around him; a singular lassitude passed into his limbs ashe swam; he felt himself slowly sinking, as if drawn downward by aninvisible hand. He opened his eyes. The waves lapped musically above hishead; a tawny glory was all about him, a luminous expanse in which hesaw strangely formed creatures moving, darting, rising, falling, coiling, uncoiling. 

"You was jes on de eedge er drowndin', Mars Dick, " said Wiley, his blackbody-servant, spreading his own clothes on the porch of the littlefishing-hut to dry. "In de name o' Gawd whar mek you wanter go inswimmin' dis time o' de yea', anyhow? Ef I hadn' er splunge in an' fotchyou out, dey'd er been mo'nin' yander at de plantation, sho!"

His master laughed lazily. "You are right, Wiley, " he said; "and you aregoing to smoke the best tobacco in Maryland as long as you live. " Hefelt buoyant. Youth and elasticity seemed to have come back to him at abound. He stretched himself on the rough bench, and watched the bluerings of smoke curl lightly away from his cigar. Gradually he was awareof a pair of wistful eyes shining down on him. His heart leaped. Theywere the eyes of Félice Arnault! "My God, have I been mad!" he muttered. His eyes sought his hand. The ring, from which he had never been parted, was gone. It had been torn from his finger in his wrestle with the sea. "Get my traps together at once, Wiley, " he said. "We are going to LaGlorieuse. "

"Now you _talkin'_, Mars Dick, " assented Wiley, cheerfully. 

It was night when he reached the city. First of all, he made inquiriesconcerning the little packet. He was right; the _Assumption_ would leavethe next afternoon at five o'clock for Bayou L'Eperon. He went to thesame hotel at which he had stopped before when on his way to LaGlorieuse. The next morning, too joyous to sleep, he rose early, andwent out into the street. A gray uncertain dawn was just struggling intothe sky. A few people on their way to market or to early mass werepassing along the narrow banquettes; sleepy-eyed women were unbarringthe shutters of their tiny shops; high-wheeled milk-carts were rattlingover the granite pavements; in the vine-hung court-yards, visible hereand there through iron _grilles_, parrots were scolding on theirperches; children pattered up and down the long, arched corridors; theprolonged cry of an early clothes-pole man echoed, like the note of awinding horn, through the close alleys. Keith sauntered carelesslyalong. 

"In so many hours, " he kept repeating to himself, "I shall be on my wayto La Glorieuse. The boat will swing into the home landing; the negroeswill swarm across the gang-plank, laughing and shouting; Madame Arnaultand Félice will come out on the gallery and look, shading their eyeswith their hands. Oh, I know quite well that the old madame will greetme coldly at first. Her eyes are like steel when she is angry. But whenshe knows that I am once more a sane man--And Félice, what if she--Butno! Félice is not the kind of woman who loves more than once; and shedid love me, God bless her! unworthy as I was. "

A carriage, driven rapidly, passed him; his eyes followed it idly, untilit turned far away into a side street. He strayed on to the market, where he seated himself on a high stool in _L'Appel du Matin_ coffeestall. But a vague, teasing remembrance was beginning to stir in hisbrain. The turbaned woman on the front seat of the carriage that hadrolled past him yonder, where had he seen that dark, grave, wrinkledface, with the great hoops of gold against either cheek? _Marcelite!_ Heleft the stall and retraced his steps, quickening his pace almost to arun as he went. Félice herself, then, might be in the city. He hurriedto the street into which the carriage had turned, and glanced downbetween the rows of white-eaved cottages with green doors and battenshutters. It had stopped several squares away; there seemed to be anumber of people gathered about it. "I will at least satisfy myself, " hethought. 

As he came up, a bell in a little cross-crowned tower began to ringslowly. The carriage stood in front of a low red brick house, setdirectly on the street; a silent crowd pressed about the entrance. Therewas a hush within. He pushed his way along the banquette to the steps. Ayoung nun, in a brown serge robe, kept guard at the door. She wore awreath of white artificial roses above her long coarse veil. Somethingin his face appealed to her, and she found a place for him in thelittle convent chapel. 

Madame Arnault, supported by Marcelite, was kneeling in front of thealtar, which blazed with candles. She had grown frightfully old andfrail. Her face was set, and her eyes were fixed with a rigid stare onthe priest who was saying mass. Marcelite's dark cheeks were streamingwith tears. The chapel, which wore a gala air with its lights andflowers, was filled with people. On the left of the altar, a bishop, ingorgeous robes, was sitting, attended by priests and acolytes; on theright, the wooden panel behind an iron grating had been removed, andbeyond, in the nun's choir, the black-robed sisters of the order weregathered. Heavy veils shrouded their faces and fell to their feet. Theyheld in their hands tall wax-candles, whose yellow flames burnedsteadily in the semi-darkness. Five or six young girls knelt, motionlessas statues, in their midst. They also carried tapers, and their raptfaces were turned towards the unseen altar within, of which the outerone is but the visible token. Their eyelids were downcast. Their whiteveils were thrown back from their calm foreheads, and floated like wingsfrom their shoulders. 

He felt no surprise when he saw Félice among them. He seemed to haveforeknown always that he should find her thus on the edge of another andmysterious world into which he could not follow her. 

Her skin had lost a little of its warm rich tint; the soft rings of hairwere drawn away under her veil; her hands were thin, and as waxen as thetaper she held. An unearthly beauty glorified her pale face. 

"Is it forever too late?" he asked himself in agony, covering his facewith his hands. When he looked again the white veil on her head had beenreplaced by the sombre one of the order. "If I could but speak to her!"he thought; "if she would but once lift her eyes to mine, she would cometo me even now!"

_Félice!_ Did the name break from his lips in a hoarse cry that echoedthrough the hushed chapel, and silenced the voice of the priest? Henever knew. But a faint color swept into her cheeks. Her eyelidstrembled. In a flash the rose-garden at La Glorieuse was before him; hesaw the turquoise sky, and heard the mellow chorus of the field gang;the smell of damask-roses was in the air; her little hand was in his. . . He saw her coming swiftly towards him across the dusk of the oldballroom; her limpid innocent eyes were smiling into his own . . . She wasstanding on the grassy lawn; the shadows of the leaves flickered overher white gown. . . . 

At last the quivering eyelids were lifted. She turned her head slowly, and looked steadily at him. He held his breath. A cart rumbled along thecobble-stones outside; the puny wail of a child sounded across thestillness; a handful of rose leaves from a vase at the foot of the altardropped on the hem of Madame Arnault's dress. It might have been thegaze of an angel in a world where there is no marrying nor giving inmarriage, so pure was it, so passionless, so free of anything likeearthly desire. 

As she turned her face again towards the altar the bell in the towerabove ceased tolling; a triumphant chorus leaped into the air, bornealoft by joyous organ tones. The first rays of the morning sun streamedin through the small windows. Then light penetrated into the nuns'choir, and enveloped like a mantle of gold Sister Mary of the Cross, whoin the world had been Félicité Arnault. 

A Faded Scapular

BY F. D. MILLET

We are seldom able to trace our individual superstitions to any definitecause, nor can we often account for the peculiar sensations developed inus by the inexplicable and mysterious incidents in our experience. Muchof the timidity of childhood may be traced to early training in thenursery, and sometimes the moral effects of this weakness cannot beeradicated through a lifetime of severe self-control and mentalsuffering. The complicated disorders of the imagination which arise fromsuperstitious fears can frequently be accounted for only by inheritedcharacteristics, by peculiar sensitiveness to impressions, and by anoverpowering and perhaps abnormally active imagination. I am sure I amconfessing to no unusual characteristic when I say that I have felt fromchildhood a certain sentiment or sensation in regard to material thingswhich I can trace to no early experience, to the influence of noliterature, and to no possible source, in fact, but that of inheriteddisposition. 

The sentiment I refer to is this: whatever has belonged to or has beenused by any person seems to me to have received some special quality, which, though often invisible and still oftener indefinable, stillexists in a more or less strong degree according to the amount of theimpressionable power, if I may call it so, which distinguished thepossessor. I am aware that this sentiment may be stigmatized as of theschool-girl order; that it is, indeed, of the same kind and class withthat which leads an otherwise honest person to steal a rag from a famousbattle flag, a leaf from a historical laurel wreath, or even to cut asignature or a title-page from a precious volume; but with me thefeeling has never taken this turn, else I should never have confessed tothe possession of it. Whatever may be said or believed, however, I mustrefer to it in more or less comprehensible terms, because it may explainthe conditions, although it will not unveil the causes, of the incidentsI am about to describe with all honesty and frankness. 

Nearly twenty years ago I made my first visit to Rome, long before itbecame the centre of the commercial and political activity of Italy, andwhile it was yet unspoiled for the antiquarian, the student, the artist, and the traveller. Never shall I forget the first few hours I spentwandering aimlessly through the streets, so far as I then knew a totalstranger in the city, with no distinct plan of remaining there, and withonly the slight and imperfect knowledge of the place that one gains fromthe ordinary travellers' descriptions. The streets, the houses, thepeople, the strange sounds and stranger sights, the life so entirelydifferent from what I had hitherto seen, all this interested me greatly. Far more powerful and far more vivid and lasting, however, was theimpression of an inconceivable number of presences--I hesitate to callthem spirits--not visible, of course, nor tangible, but still oppressingme mentally and morally, exactly the same as my physical self is oftencrushed and overpowered in a great assembly of people. I walked about, visited the cafés and concert halls, and tried in various ways to shakeoff the uncomfortable feeling of ghostly company, but was unsuccessful, and went to my lodgings much depressed and nervous. I took my note-book, and wrote in it: "Rome has been too much lived in. Among the multitudeof the dead there is no room for the living. " It seemed then a foolishmemorandum to write, and now, as I look at the half-effaced pencillines, I wonder why I was not ashamed to write it. Yet there it isbefore me, a witness to my sensations at the time, and the scrawl haseven now the power to bring up to me an unpleasantly vivid memory ofthat first evening in Rome. 

After a few days passed in visiting the galleries and the regular sightsof the town, I began to look for a studio and an apartment, and finallyfound one in the upper story of a house on the Via di Ripetta. Beforemoving into the studio, I met an old friend and fellow-artist, and asthere was room enough for two, gladly took him in with me. 

The studio, with apartment, in the Via di Ripetta was by no meansunattractive. It was large, well lighted, comfortably and abundantlyfurnished. It was, as I have said, at the top of the house, the studiooverlooked the Tiber, and the sitting-room and double-beddedsleeping-room fronted the street. The large studio window was placedrather high up, so that the entrance door--a wide, heavy affair, withlarge hinges and immense complicated lock and a "judas"--opened from theobscurity of the hall directly under the large window into the fulllight of the studio. The roof of the house slanted from back to front, so that the two rooms were lower studded than the studio, and an emptyspace or low attic opening into the studio above them was partlyconcealed by an ample and ragged curtain. The fireplace was in themiddle of the left wall as you entered the studio; the door into thesitting-room was in the further right-hand corner, and the bedroom wasentered by a door on the right-hand wall of the sitting-room, so thatthe bedroom formed a wing of the studio and sitting-room, and from theformer, looking through two doors, the bedroom window and part of thestreet wall could be seen. Both the beds were hidden from sight of anyone in the studio, even when the doors were open. 

The apartment was furnished in a way which denoted a certain amount ofliberality, but everything was faded and worn, though not actuallyshabby or dirty. The carpets were threadbare, the damask-covered sofaand chairs showed marks of the springs, and the gimp was fringed andtorn off in places. The beds were not mates; the basin and ewer were ofdifferent patterns; the few pictures on the wall were, like everythingelse in the place, curiously gray and dusty-looking, as if they had beenshut up in the darkened rooms for a generation. Beyond the fireplace inthe studio, the corner of the room was partitioned off by a dingyscreen, six feet high or more, fixed to the floor for the space of twoyards, with one wing which shut like a door, enclosing a small spacefitted up like a miniature scullery, with a curious and elaboratecollection of pots and pans and kitchen utensils, all hung in orderlyrows, but every article with marks of service on it, and more recent andobtrusive trace of long disuse. 

In one of the first days of my search for a studio I had found andinspected this very place, but it had given me such a disagreeablefeeling--it had seemed so worn out, so full of relics of otherpeople--that I could not make up my mind to take it. After a thoroughsearch and diligent inquiry, however, I came to the conclusion thatthere was absolutely no other place in Rome at that busy season where Icould set up my easel, and after having the place recommended to me byall the artists I called upon as a well-known and useful studio, and agreat find at the busy season of the year, I took a lease of the placefor four months. 

My friend and I moved in at the same time, and I will not deny that Iplanned to be supported by the presence of my friend at the moment oftaking possession. When we arrived and had our traps all deposited inthe middle of the studio, there came over the spirits of us both astrange gloom, which the bustle and confusion of settling did not in theleast dispel. It was nearly dark that winter afternoon before we hadfinished unpacking, and the street lights were burning before we reachedthe little restaurant in the Via Quattro Fontano, where we proposed totake our meals. There was a cheerful company of artists and architectsassembled there that evening, and we sat over our wine long afterdinner. When the jolly party at last dispersed, it was well pastmidnight. 

How gloomy the outer portal of the high building looked as we crossedthe dimly lighted street and pushed open the black door! A musty, dampsmell, like the atmosphere of the catacombs, met us as we entered. Ourfootsteps echoed loud and hollow in the empty corridor, and the largewax match I struck as we came in gave but a flickering light, whichdimly shadowed the outline of the stone stairway, and threw the rest ofthe corridor into a deep and mysterious gloom. We tramped up the fivelong flights of stone stairs without a word, the echo of our footstepssounding louder and louder, and the murky space behind us deepening intothe damp darkness of a cavern. At last, after what seemed aninterminable climb, we came to the studio entrance. I put the large keyin the lock, turned it, and pushed open the door. A strong draught, likethe lifeless breath from the mouth of a tunnel, extinguished the matchand left us in darkness. I hesitated an instant, instinctively dreadingto enter, and then went in, followed by my friend, who closed the doorbehind us. The heavy hinges creaked, the door shut into the jambs with asolid thud, the lock sprang into place with a sharp click, and a noiselike the clanging of a prison gate resounded and re-echoed through thecorridor and through the spacious studio. I felt as if we were shut infrom the whole world. 

Lighting all the candles at hand and stirring up the fire, we endeavoredto make the studio look cheerful, and neither of us being inclined to goto bed, we sat for a long time talking and smoking. But even the brightfire and the soothing tobacco smoke did not wholly dispel the gloom ofthe place, and when we finally carried the candles into the bedroom, Ifelt a vague sense of dismal anticipation and apprehension. We left bothdoors open, so that the light from our room streamed across the cornerof the sitting-room, and threw a great square of strong reflection onthe studio carpet. While undressing, I found that I had left mymatch-box on the studio table, and thought I would return for it. Iremember now what a mental struggle I went through before I made up mymind to go without a candle. I glanced at my friend's face, partly tosee if he noticed any indication of nervousness in my expression, andpartly because I was conscious of a kind of psychological sympathybetween us. But fear that he would laugh at me made me effectuallyconceal my feelings, and I went out of the room without speaking. As Iwalked across the non-resonant, carpeted stone floor I had the mostcurious set of sensations I have ever experienced. At nearly every stepI took I came into a different stratum or perpendicular layer of air. First it was cool to my face, then warm, then chill again, and againwarm. Thinking to calm my nervous excitement, I stood still and lookedaround me. The great window above my head dimly transmitted the skyreflection, but threw little light into the studio. The folds of thecurtain over the open space above the sitting-room appeared to waveslightly in the uncertain light, and the easels and lay-figure stoodgaunt and ghostly along the further wall. I waited there and reasonedwith myself, arguing that there was no possible cause for fear, that astrong man ought to control his nerves, that it was silly at my time oflife to begin to be afraid of the dark, but I could not get rid of thesensation. As I went back to the bedroom I experienced the samesuccession of physical shocks; but whether they followed each other inthe same order or not I was unable to determine. 

It was some time before I could get to sleep, and I opened my eyes onceor twice before I lost consciousness. From the bedroom window there wasa dim, very dim light on the lace curtains, but the window itself wasvisible as a square mass, and did not appear to illuminate the room inthe least. Suddenly, after a dreamless sleep of some duration, I awokeas completely as if I had been startled by a loud noise. The lacecurtains were now quite brilliantly lighted from somewhere, I could nottell where, but the window itself seemed to be as little luminous aswhen I went to sleep. Without moving my head, I turned my eyes in thedirection of the studio, and could see the open door as a dark patch inthe gray wall, but nothing more. Then, as I was looking again at thecurious illumination of the curtains, a moving mass came into the angleof my vision out of the corner of the room near the head of the bed, andpassed slowly into full view between me and the curtain. It wasunmistakably the figure of a man, not unlike that of the better type ofItalian, and was dressed in the commonly worn soft hat and ample cloak. His profile came out clearly against the light background of the lacecurtain, and showed him to be a man of considerable refinement offeature. He did not make an actually solid black silhouette against thelight, neither was the figure translucent, but was rather like an objectseen through a vapor or through a sheet of thin ground glass. 

I tried to raise my head, but my nerve force seemed suddenly to fail me, and while I was wondering at my powerlessness, and reasoning at thesame time that it must be a nightmare, the figure had moved slowlyacross in front of the window, and out through the open door into thestudio. 

I listened breathlessly, but not a sound did I hear from the next room. I pinched myself, opened and shut my eyes, and noticed that thebreathing of my roommate was irregular, and unlike that of a sleepingman. I am unable to understand why I did not sit up or turn over orspeak to my friend to find out if he was awake. I was fully consciousthat I ought to do this, but something, I know not what, forced me tolie perfectly motionless watching the window. I heard my roommatebreathing, opened and shut my eyes, and was certain, indeed, that I wasreally awake. As I reasoned on the phenomenon, and came naturally to theunwilling conclusion that my hallucination was probably premonitory ofmalaria, my nerves grew quiet, I began to think less intensely, and thenI fell asleep. 

The next morning I awoke with a feeling of disagreeable anticipation. Iwas loath to rise, even though the warm Italian sunlight was pouringinto the room and gilding the dingy interior with brilliantreflections. In spite of this cheering glow of sunshine, the rooms stillhad the same dead and uninhabited appearance, and the presence of myfriend, a vigorous and practical man, seemed to bring no recognizablevitality or human element to counteract the oppressiveness of the place. Every detail of my waking dream or hallucination of the night before wasperfectly fresh in my mind, and the sense of apprehension was stillstrong upon me. 

The distracting operations of settling the studio, and the frequentexcursions to neighboring shops to buy articles necessary to our meagrehousekeeping, did much towards taking my mind off the incident of thenight, but every time I entered the sitting-room or the bedroom it allcame up to me with a vividness that made my nerves quiver. We exploredall the corners and cupboards of the place. We even crawled up over thesitting-room behind the dingy curtain, where a large quantity of disusedframes and old stretchers were packed away. We familiarized ourselves, in fact, with every nook and cranny of each room; moved the furnitureabout in a different order; hung up draperies and sketches, and in manyways changed the character of the interior. The faded, weary-lookingwidow from whom I hired the place, and who took care of the rooms, carried away to her own apartment many of the most obnoxious trifleswhich encumbered the small tables, the étagčre, and the wall spaces. Shesighed a great deal as we were making the rapid changes to suit our owntaste, but made no objection, and we naturally thought it was theregular custom of every new occupant to turn the place upside down. 

Late in the afternoon I was alone in the studio for an hour or more, andsat by the fire trying to read. The daylight was not gone, and therumble of the busy street came plainly to my ears. I say "trying toread, " for I found reading quite impossible. The moment I began to fixmy attention on the page, I had a very powerful feeling that some onewas looking over my shoulder. Do what I would, I could not conquer theunreasonable sensation. Finally, after starting up and looking about mea dozen times, I threw down the book and went out. When I returned, after an hour in the open air, I found my friend walking up and down inthe studio with open doors and two guttering candles alight. 

"It's a curious thing, " he said, "I can't read this book. I have beentrying to put my mind on it a whole half-hour, and I can't do it. Ialways thought I could get interested in Gaborieau in a moment under anycircumstances. "

"I went out to walk because I couldn't manage to read, " I replied, andthe conversation ended. 

We went to the theatre that evening, and afterwards to the Café Greco, where we talked art in half a dozen languages until midnight, and thencame home. Our entrance to the house and the studio was much the same ason the previous night, and we went to bed without a word. My mindnaturally reverted to the experience of the night before, and I laythere for a long time with my eyes open, making a strong effort of theimagination to account for the vision by the dim shapes of thefurniture, the lace curtains, and the suggestive and shadowyperspective. But, although the interior was weird enough, by reason ofthe dingy hangings and the diffused light, I was unable to trace theorigin of the illusion to any object within the range of my vision, orto account for the strange illumination which had startled me. I went tosleep thinking of other things, and with my nerves comparatively quiet. 

Some time in the early morning, about three o'clock, as near as I couldjudge, I slowly awoke, and saw the lace curtains illuminated as before. I found myself in an expectant frame of mind, neither calm nor excited, but rather in that condition of philosophical quiet which best preparedme for an investigation of the phenomenon which I confidently expectedto witness. Perhaps this is assuming too eagerly the position of aphilosopher, but I am certain no element of fear disturbed my reason, that I was neither startled nor surprised at awakening as I did, andthat my mind was active and undoubtedly prepared for the investigationof the mystery. 

I was therefore not at all shocked to observe the same shape come firstinto the angle of my eye, and then into the full range of my vision, next appear as a silhouette against the curtains, and finally loseitself in the darkness of the doorway. During the progress of the shapeacross the room I noticed the size and general aspect of it with keenattention to detail and with satisfactory calmness of observation. Itwas only after the figure had passed out of sight, and the light on thewindow curtains grew dim again, much as an electric light loses itsbrilliancy with the diminution of the strength of the current, that itoccurred to me to consider the fact that during the period of thehallucination I had been utterly motionless. There was not the slightestdoubt of my being awake. My friend in the adjoining bed was breathingregularly, the ticking of my watch was plainly audible, and I could feelmy heart beating with unusual rapidity and vigor. 

The strange part of the whole incident was this incapacity of action, and the more I reasoned about it the more I was mystified by the utterfailure of nerve force. Indeed, while the mind was actively at work onthis problem the physical torpor continued, a languor not unlike theincipient drowsiness of anćsthesia came gradually over me, and, thoughmentally protesting against the helpless condition of the body, andstruggling to keep awake, I fell asleep, and did not stir till morning. 

With the bright clear winter's day returned the doubts anddisappointments of the day before--doubts of the existence of thephenomenon, disappointment at the failure of any solution of thehallucination. A second day in the studio did little towards dispellingthe mental gloom which possessed us both, and at night my friendconfessed that he thought we must have stumbled into a malarial quarter. 

At this distance of time it is absolutely incomprehensible to me how Icould have gone on as I did from day to day, or rather from night tonight--for the same hallucination was repeated nightly--without speakingto my friend, or at least taking some energetic steps towards aninvestigation of the mystery. But I had the same experience every nightfor fully a week before I really began to plan serious means ofdiscovering whether it was a hallucination, a nightmare, or aflesh-and-blood intruder. First, I had some curiosity each night to seewhether there would be a repetition of the incident. Second, I was eagerto note any physical or mental symptom which would serve as a clew tothe mystery. Pride, or some other equally authoritative sentiment, continued to keep me from disclosing my secret to my friend, although Iwas on the point of doing so on several occasions. My first plan was tokeep a candle burning all night, but I could invent no plausible excuseto my comrade for this action. Next I proposed to shut the bedroomdoor, and on speaking of it to my friend, he strongly objected on theground of the lack of ventilation, and was not willing to risk havingthe window open on account of the malaria. After all, since this was anentirely personal matter, it seemed to me the only thing to do was todepend on my own strength of mind and moral courage to solve thismystery unaided. I put my loaded revolver on the table by the bedside, drew back the lace curtain before going to bed, and left the door onlyhalf open, so I could not see into the studio. The night I made thesepreparations I awoke as usual, saw the same figure, but, as before, could not move a hand. After it had passed the window, I tried hard tobring myself to take my revolver, and find out whether I had to dealwith a man or a simulacrum. But even while I was arguing with myself, and trying to find out why I could not move, sleep came upon me before Ihad carried out my purposed action. 

The shock of the first appearance of the vision had been nearlyoverbalanced by my eagerness to investigate, and my intense interest inthe novel condition of mind or body which made such an experiencepossible. But after the utter failure of all my schemes and thecollapse of my theories as to evident causes of the phenomenon, I beganto be harassed and worried, almost unconsciously at first, by theever-present thought, the daily anticipation, and the increasing dreadof the hallucination. The self-confidence that first supported me in mynightly encounter diminished on each occasion, and the curiosity whichstimulated me to the study of the phenomenon rapidly gave way to thesentiment akin to terror when I proved myself incapable of grapplingwith the mystery. 

The natural result of this preoccupation was inability to work andlittle interest in recreation, and as the long weeks wore away I grewmorose, morbid, and hypochondriacal. The pride which kept me fromsharing my secret with my friend also held me at my post and nerved meto endure the torment in the rapidly diminishing hope of finallyexorcising the spectre or recovering my usual healthy tone of mind. Thedifficulty of my position was increased by the fact that the apparitionfailed to appear occasionally, and while I welcomed each failure as asign that the visits were to cease, they continued spasmodically forweeks, and I was still as far away from the interpretation of theproblem as ever. Once I sought medical advice, but the doctor coulddiscover nothing wrong with me except what might be caused by tobacco, and, following his advice, I left off smoking. He said I had no malaria;that I needed more exercise, perhaps; but he could not account for myinsomnia, for I, like most patients, had concealed the vital facts in mycase, and had complained of insomnia as the cause of my anxiety about myhealth. 

The approach of spring tempted me out-of-doors, and in the warm villagardens and the sun-bathed Campagna I could sometimes forget thenightmare that haunted me. This was not often possible unless I was inthe company of cheerful companions, and I grew to dread the hour when Iwas to return to the studio after an excursion into the country amongthe soothing signs of returning summer. To shut the clanging door of thestudio was to place an impenetrable barrier between me and the outsideworld, and the loneliness of that interior seemed to be only intensifiedby the presence of my companion, who was apparently as much depressed inspirits as myself. 

We made various attempts at the entertainment of friends, but they alllacked that element of spontaneous fun which makes such occasionssuccessful, and we gave it up. On pleasant days we threw open thewindows on the street to let in the warm air and sunshine, but this didnot seem to drive away the musty odors of the interior. We were much toohigh up to feel any neighborly proximity to the people on the other sideof the street. The chimney-pots and irregular roofs below and beyondwere not very cheerful objects in the view, and the landlady, who, asfar as we knew, was the only other occupant of the upper story, did notgive us a great sense of companionship. Never once did I enter thestudio without feeling the same curious sensation of alternate warm andcool strata of air. Never for a quarter of an hour did I succeed inreading a book or a newspaper, however interesting it might be. Wefrequently had two models at a time, and both my friend and myself madeseveral beginnings of pictures, but neither of us carried the work veryfar. 

On one occasion a significant remark was made by a lady friend who cameto call. She will undoubtedly remember now when she reads these linesthat she said, on leaving the studio: "This is a curiously draughtyplace. I feel as if it had been blowing hot and cold on me all the timeI have been here, and yet you have no windows open. "

At another time my comrade burst out as I was going away one eveningabout eleven o'clock to a reception at one of the palaces: "I wish youwouldn't go in for society so much. I can't go to the café; all thefellows go home about this time of the evening. I don't like to stayhere in this dismal hole all cooped up by myself. I can't read, I can'tsleep, and I can't think. "

It occurred to me that it was a little queer for him to object to beingleft alone, unless he, like myself, had some disagreeable experiencesthere, and I remembered that he had usually gone out when I had, and wasseldom, if ever, alone in the studio when I returned. His tone was sopeevish and impatient that I thought discussion was injudicious, andsimply replied, "Oh, you're bilious; I'll be home early, " and went away. I have often thought since that it was the one occasion when I couldhave easily broached the subject of my mental trouble, and I have alwaysregretted I did not do so. 

Matters were brought to a climax in this way: My friend was summoned toAmerica by telegraph a little more than two months after we took thestudio, and left me at a day's notice. The amount and kind of moralcourage I had to summon up before I could go home alone the firstevening after my comrade left me can only be appreciated by those whohave undergone some similar torture. It was not like the bracing up aman goes through when he has to face some imminent known danger, but wasof a more subtle and complex kind. "There is nothing to fear, " I keptsaying to myself, and yet I could not shake off a nameless dread. "Youare in your right mind and have all your senses, " I continually argued, "for you see and hear and reason clearly enough. It is a briefhallucination, and you can conquer the mental weakness which causes itby persistent strength of will. If it be a simulacrum, you as apractical man, with good physical health and sound enough reasoningpowers, ought to investigate it to the best of your ability. " In thisway I endeavored to nerve myself up, and went home late, as usual. Theregular incident of the night occurred. I felt keenly the loss of myfriend's companionship, and suffered accordingly, but in the morning Iwas no nearer to the solution of the mystery than I was before. 

For five weary, torturing nights did I go up to that room alone, and, with no sound of human proximity to cheer me or to break the wretchedfeeling of utter solitude, I endured the same experience. At last Icould bear it no longer, and determined to have a change of air andsurroundings. I hastily packed a travelling-bag and my color-box, leaving all my extra clothes in the wardrobes and the bureau drawers, told the landlady I should return in a week or two, and paid her for theremainder of the time in advance. The last thing I did was to take mytravelling-cap, which hung near the head of my bed. A break in thewallpaper showed that there was a small door here. Pulling the knobwhich had held my cap, the door was readily opened, and disclosed asmall niche in the wall. Leaning against the back of the niche was asmall crucifix with a rude figure of Christ, and suspended from the neckof the image by a small cord was a triangular object covered with fadedcloth. While I was examining with some interest the hiding-place ofthese relics, the landlady entered. 

"What are these?" I asked. 

"Oh, signore!" she said, half sobbing as she spoke. "Those are relics ofmy poor husband. He was an artist like yourself, signore. He was--hewas--ill, very ill--and in mind as well as body, signore. May theBlessed Virgin rest his soul! He hated the crucifix, he hated thescapular, he hated the priests. Signore, he--he died without thesacrament, and cursed the holy water. I have never dared to touch thoserelics, signore. But he was a good man, and the best of husbands"; andshe buried her face in her hands. 

I took the first train for Naples, and have never been in Rome since. 

At the Hermitage

BY E. LEVI BROWN

The October sun was shining hot, but it was cool and pleasant inside themill. The brown water in Sawny Creek lapped softly against the rocks inits bed, and the sycamore and cottonwood trees, which grew from thewater's edge up the steep, muddy banks, stood straight and motionless inthe warm sunny air, no touch of autumn upon them yet; only thesweet-gums were turning slightly yellow, and the black-gums were tingingred. It wanted two hours of sunset, but blackbirds were on their wayhome, and the thickets were noisy with their crying. 

Inside the moss-grown old mill there was music and dancing going on, for, comfortably reclining on a pile of cotton seed in the roughginning-room, with thick festoons of cobwebs everywhere, and bits ofdusty lint clinging to every splinter in its walls, a young man wasplaying a banjo, and two others, with naked feet, were dancing as iffor their lives. A slim dark girl in a blue and white homespun dress, her head turbaned with a square of the same, sat on a bag of seed cottonwatching them. 

"Now, boys, a break-down, " called out the player, "and then I must ginout Religion's cotton; come, now, lively. "

And they went lively enough. 

 "You bake the bread, and gimme the crus'; You sift the meal, and gimme the husk; You bile the pot, and gimme the grease; I have the crumbs, and you have the feast-- But mis' gwine gimme the ham-bone. "

The loose boards shook and trembled under the heavy feet, the scatteredcotton seed whirled away in little eddies, and baskets of cottonstanding about tipped a little break-down of their own. Even the girl onthe bag, whose sober, earnest face seemed out of keeping with thegayety, beat time with her bare feet. But by the time the miller threwhis banjo aside, its strings still quivering, she was standing up, andthe look of interest had given place to the old gravity. She had not apretty feature, not even the usual pretty teeth. She was a homely blackgirl. 

"See here, Religion, " said the miller, "this here's Saturday evenin', and I keeps holiday like everybody else but you; can't you git alongwithout that little tum of cotton? It ain't wuth ginnin'. "

"I'm 'bliged to have it, " she answered. "I didn't give nary day's workfor rent this week; will pay the week's rent and git sumpin beside. Wedoesn't draw no ration. "

"It's a mighty small heap o' ration you'll git out'n that tum of cottonafter you pay fifty cents for your week's rent. Don't you find itcheaper to work out the week's rent than to pay it?"

"I git fifty cents a hundred for pickin', " she answered, simply, "and Ikin pick two hundred and fifty a day, and scrap twenty-five more. Wedoesn't git but fifty cents fur a whole day's work on the plantation. "

He looked at her admiringly, at the thin supple body and long light armsthat could reach so far among the cotton bolls. He untied the bags andproceeded to fill the gin. A girl who could pick two hundred andseventy-five pounds of cotton a day was a person of some consequence. 

The gin stopped its whir, and the clerk weighed the cotton. Religionwatched him sharply, and counted the checks he handed her twice. 

"If you pass 'em at the Hermitage, " he said, "tell 'em to give youanother five-cent check; I'm short to-night. "

"I ain't goin' to the Hermitage store; I'm goin' to the ferry. They giveme cash there for the checks. "

"What do they take off?"

"They takes one cent out'n every five. But I'm 'bliged to have the hardmoney. We has to pay for a good many things we git for Min in hardmoney. " She had taken up the empty bags, but still waited. "I wish you'dplease, sir, see if you 'ain't got another check nowhere. "

"You're a sight, Religion, " he said, good-naturedly. "Here's a nickel. "

With her bags on her arm she went out across the dry grass to where alittle black mule, not much larger than a goat, was standing. Beckgreeted her with a bray astonishing for one of her size, and a switchwith her rope of a tail. Unheeding the cheerful greeting, Religion gaveall her attention to untying the halter, and soon they were going alongthe sandy road straight through the woods. 

The rickety box-wagon and the chain traces rattled noisily. Religioncracked her whip--it was a stick with a plaited leather string on theend. Beck was in a hurry to get home, and the wagon bumped along overroots and stumps until it was a wonder how Religion kept herself on theboard which served for a seat. All the swamps and woods in Sawny were inbad repute. There was an old cemetery, rambling over many acres, lost inivy and briers and immense trees, but abundant in ghost stories. Therewas the swamp through which Sherman's soldiers had cut a road, and nearby was the hill-side where many sunken hollows marked their graves. A"spirit" could be raised there at a thought's notice. Beck flew pastthese unpleasant places, and her little hoofs were clattering over theloose bridge at the foot of the hill, where, the cemetery ending, theplantation road began, when she backed suddenly--so suddenly that theboard tipped up and dropped Religion into the bottom of the wagon. 

Beck had some tricks like all of her kind, and thinking this was one, Religion was scrambling up and readjusting her seat when she saw a facebending over her that she never forgot--a strange evil face, the lowerpart hidden by a short bushy beard, the upper by many thin braids ofhair curling at the ends. Between the two crops of hair she saw a pairof small red eyes, dull and sleepy, but with a curious gleam in themlike the eyes of the snakes in the swamp, and thick widespread nostrils. She only had time to note these features and the thick rings of gold inthe great ears when the face disappeared, and, as if they floated in theair, she heard the words:

"I am the seventh son of the seventh daughter. I know all things. I cantell you what is killing your sister. "

Religion pulled up her rope reins, and Beck flew up the road as if allSherman's army were after her; nor did she slacken until she reached thegreat gateway which turned into the Hermitage. Only a flat-topped postremained of the gate, and a boy of twelve, with a face like Religion's, was perched on it. 

"Hi, dar, 'Ligion! Ho, Beck!" he cried. "Take me in an' give me a pieceof a ride anyway, " and with a twinkle of his long ashy legs he landedsafely in the wagon. 

"What you doin' here, Bud?" questioned his sister. "Why ain't you tohome with mammy and Min?"

"Min done had one o' she wussest spells, an' mammy sent me to Miss Tinafur calomel. I heerd youna comin', an' I waited; 'kase ridin' beatswalkin' black and blue. "

He looked up at her with a sly giggle, and crammed his mouth withpersimmons. He expected a scolding for delaying with the calomel, buthis sister only said:

"Quit eatin' them 'simmons. Pres'n'y we'll have to git calomel foryouna. "

They were passing through the quarter now, where every one was gettingsupper. The air was full of the appetizing odor of frying corn-bread andbacon and boiling coffee. Men sat on the door-steps or smoked in groupsunder the fine oaks which grew in the middle of the street, waiting forthe call to supper. Up at the end of the row of houses, and separated alittle from them by a wild-plum thicket, stood a house like a blackstump just seen above the green around it. It had what none of theothers possessed, a porch in front, but the rotten frame-work haddropped off piece by piece, until it was a mystery how the heavyscuppernong vine that grew upon it was supported. There were lilies androses in the clean bit of front yard, and on a box was a number ofgeraniums flourishing in tin cans. There were boxes of violets, and athick honeysuckle was hugging a post and sending out sweet yellowsprays. Beck drew up before the house with a jerk that had determinationin it. Bud jumped out with a boyish shout, but his sister caught hisarm. 

"Hush, Bud! Don't you hear Min?"

"Min made up that piece to-day, " responded Bud, in a roaring whisper. "Maw an' me's been scared pretty nigh to death. Miss Tina say it ain'tMin singin', but that spell workin' on her. "

The voice was sweet and rich, with an undercurrent of sadness runningthrough that went to the heart. It seemed to wait and tremble, thenfloat and float away, dying into softest melody. It was not the untaughtmusic of the plantation singers; it was a voice exquisitely trained. 

"Lord! Lord!" ejaculated Religion. The words held a heartful of trouble. She lowered the shafts gently and led Beck round the house. 

"That you, Religion?" inquired a voice from somewhere in the yard. 

She could hear milk straining into a pail, and the tramp of some animalover dry shucks. 

"It's me, maw, an' I got enough to pay the rent, and there'll be someover. "

"Youna mus' had good luck. Min'll be more'n middlin' glad of a fewcrackers. I thought sure the gal was gone to-day, Religion, " and a tallform rose up from beside the cow and came towards the girl. "I sut'n'ythought she was gone to-day, " continued the mother. "She just died off, and didn't 'pear to have no more life in her than a dead bird. I wasmighty scared. "

"Why youna didn't send fur me?"

"Chile, I didn't want to worry youna. Then the neighbors come in, 'kaseI did a big piece o' hollerin', an' they worked on her and fotched herback; I 'ain't been no 'count since. See how my hand trembles now. "

She placed her hand on her daughter's arm. It was large and hard, butall the ploughing, hoeing, and wood-cutting that she had done had notdestroyed its fine shape. It was cold and trembling. 

Religion took it between her own square thick ones. "Never mind, maw;she's better now, 'kase she's singin' a new piece. I'll go an' eat anddo the errands, so as to git back. You won't feel so bad when I'm here. "

The single thing which made the room she entered different from all theother rooms in the quarter was a white bed. The two other beds had theusual patchwork quilts and yellow slips. Religion touched a light-woodsplinter to the fire, and holding the light above her head, went up tothe white bed. The face on the pillow was of that pure lustrouswhiteness which is sometimes seen in very young children; the featureswere perfect. She seemed a creature of an entirely different sphere--asdifferent from Religion as a butterfly from a grub, and yet there was anindefinable likeness between the two. 

"I was waiting for you, 'Ligion, " she said, opening her eyes; "I want totell you something; come close, so ma and Bud won't hear. A woman hasbeen here, a little old woman, and she sat on the bed and told me somethings. She told me that Tina had cut off a piece of my hair and hid itin a gum-tree in the swamp, and that I never would be well till my hairwas found. 

"I remember the night she combed my hair, and how Mauma Amy said it wasbad luck to comb hair after dark; it was so thick and long then, and ithas come out so since. " She drew the long thin brown braid between herfingers. "Why should Tina want to hurt me? The only harm I ever did herwas to love her. "

She burst into tears, and Religion hugged her in mute sympathy; thatwas her only way to comfort. When Min was quiet, she stirred up thepillows and smoothed out the white spread. Then she took a tin cup fullof clabber, poured a little syrup upon it, and ate it heartily. A plateof greens was hot on the hearth, and a corn-cake was browningbeautifully in the bake-kettle. But there was no time to eat thedainties. 

John Robinson, the owner of Hermitage, was a single man. He was old, feeble, and notoriously grasping, yet the dirty, ill-smelling room whichReligion entered was strewn with choicest books, sheets of music lay onthe table and chairs, and several rare violins lay on a piano, whosemother-of-pearl keys glowed in the red firelight. 

"Who's that?" he called, in a cracked old voice, the instant he heardReligion's footsteps. He was wrapped in a cloak and sunk in an arm-chairbefore the fire. 

"Me, Marse John--Minnie's Religion. I've come to pay the rent. "

"Oh, come in, girl! Down, Bull!" he piped to a great hound that wasslowly rising from a sheepskin. "It's fifty cents. Sure you've got itall, and no nickels with holes in them?"

She placed a little tobacco-bag in his hand, and he leaned forward tothe light to count the money. He had a sharp, pinched old facesurrounded by shaggy white hair. A portrait of him taken in a long-pastday hung over the fireplace. In that he was a handsome man, with thickchestnut-brown hair. His hands shook so that the pieces of money droppedfrom them and rolled upon the brick hearth. A tall mulatto woman camefrom a near room and picked them up. 

"Count it over again, Tina, " he commanded, "and see if it's all thereand no holes in it. You can't trust Religion herself with money. How'syour sister?"

"Min ain't no better; she ain't never going to be no better in thisworld. "

"Tut, tut!" he muttered. "There should be some strength of will in thatgirl. But, pshaw! she had a mother and a line of nonentities behind her. I forgot that. Is that money all right, Tina?"

"It's all right, Marse John. "

Tina was a beautiful woman, with the smoothest brown skin, and blackhair coiled many times around a perfectly shaped head. 

The renters never waited long in Mr. Robinson's presence when theirbusiness was ended. But Religion only moved back a little and lingered. Tina, bringing a cup of cocoa, at last noticed her. 

"Why, Religion, you're not gone. "

"And why ain't you gone!" screamed the old man. 

"I--I'm waiting for the receipt, sir. "

"Waiting for the receipt?" he shrieked. "God and fury! things have cometo a pretty pass that a slave wench should wait in my house for areceipt. Get out of this, or--Bull!"

"Stand still, Religion, " cried Tina, as the dog leaped up. "Down, Bull!Marse John"--and her voice sank to a sweet, soothing tone--"you'd betternot upset yourself so; you'll be sick. "

She stroked his face and hair tenderly, and when he lay back quiet inhis chair, worn out with his passion, she beckoned to Religion to followher. They went into one of the rooms. The candle burning in it showed abed, with posts reaching to the ceiling, and an ancient mahogany chest. A handful of fire burned in the deep fireplace, and before it crouchedMack, an old slave of Mr. Robinson's--a miserable idiot, with just mindenough to perform a very few menial services. 

"Trick yer! trick yer!" he piped, in a high thin voice, like an oldwoman's. "Done got de blacksnake's head an' de dead baby's hand righthyar. Trick yer! trick yer! Git out quick!" He kept up the cry whileTina wrote the receipt, and when she led the way to the door he patteredafter them. "Git out quick, 'fore Tina trick yer. I done hope Tina trickMin. "

Religion turned fiercely. "Has you tricked my sister and brung her towhat she is?"

Tina laughed contemptuously. "Who says I put a spell on Min?"

"Min says it, an' Mack says it, an' I b'lieves it. You always wasjealous of her, 'kase Marse John taught her, and made more of her thanhe did of you. "

"Then it's likely this _spell_ will put her out of my way, " said Tina, all the sweetness gone out of her voice and face, and nothing but venomleft. She turned to go in, but Religion dropped on her knees and claspedher feet. 

"Oh, Tina! if you did put a spell on Min, take it off, for Christ'ssake. Nobody kin do it but you. Our pooty, pooty Min! she be dyin' therebefore our eyes, and we-uns can't do nothin'. Take the ban off, an' I'llwork for you the longest day I live. "

Tina dragged herself away and shut the door heavily. 

 * * * * *

Religion was in the field scattering pine straw, and Beck was theretoo, harnessed in company with a very lean Texas pony. Her mother andBud were in the same occupation, but Mollie, the old brown cow, drewtheir wagon. 

Religion was crooning a solemn old ditty, as she always did when aloneand thinking. 

"I just made up my mind this mornin' that I'd got to do sumpin when Mr. Frye come for we-uns to scatter this straw. An' I wish I knowed what todo. Oh, Lord, don't I wish I knowed what to do. There's Min been down onthat air bed one whole year come Christmas, and nobody can't say what isthe matter with her. Sich a heap o' calomel, and quinine, andturpentine, and doctor's stuff as she has took, and 'tain't done nogood. I can't count the times I been to the tavern. I know I brung offmore'n two gallons of the best whiskey, an' it's been mixed up withpine-top, an' snakeroot, an' mullein, an' I dun'no' what all, an' noneof it 'ain't done no good. An' Min is dyin' just as fast as she can die. Oh, Lord!"

A fine mule, drawing a light road-cart, trotted past. The driver was ashort, squat man, his face almost hidden in hair. It was Dr. Buzzard. Hewas known for miles as a successful "conjurer" and giver of "hands. "Most of the people around had perfect faith in his cures andrevelations, and had advised Religion to try him, but the girl objected, vaguely questioning reason and conscience, and Min was getting worse. Itwas despair, not belief, which made her whisper to herself, "I'm goin'to see him this very night. "

"Great day! 'ain't we-uns had trouble! Lord, Lord! I b'lieve one-halfthis wurl' has all the trouble fur all the rest, anyhow!"

Religion was on her way, and thinking over the family record as shewalked. The sun had set, the cotton-pickers were in, and odors of supperwere afloat. Religion was eating hers as she walked and thought--it wasa finely browned ash-cake, richly flavored with the cabbage leaves inwhich it was baked. 

The Beckets had always been very poor, hard-working people, without anyespecial grace or finer touch of nature about them. The two brothers hadmarried two sisters, and such marriages were considered unlucky. 

When Religion was a little girl her father broke his contract with hisemployer, and to escape imprisonment he ran away. Religion rememberedhis stolen visits at night, and his silent caresses of her. After awhile the visits stopped. They heard of him in a distant city, but henever came back. His brother had died long before. 

The widowed sisters stayed on the plantation, and both were favorites ofMr. Robinson. Min and Tina were half-sisters. They were as opposite incharacter as they were in appearance; everybody loved Min; she sang likea bird, and her voice had been carefully trained, and some especialprovision had been made for its further cultivation when this strangesickness overtook her. 

Good nursing was unknown on the plantations, or perhaps the slight cold, which was the beginning of the end with Min, might have been cured. Since no member of the family had died with consumption, it was notbelieved that she could have it. 

When all the home remedies and doctors' prescriptions failed, there wasbut one verdict, Min was "hurt. " It was known that her half-sister wasnot very friendly nor over-scrupulous, and it was believed that Tina, out of jealousy, had thrown an evil spell. 

The light was still lingering when Religion, turning out of the road, ran down a narrow lane bordered with turpentine woods on one side, andon the other by a field of dead pines. Away back among the latter was asubstantial log house, with good brick chimneys at either end. Therewere several smaller buildings in the yard, and in one a woman wasstooping over the fire frying cakes, a young man was thrumming a banjo, and a little boy in scantiest jeans was careening around to theinspiring strains of "Old Joe kicking up behind and before. "

Inside, the large low-ceiled room was in a blaze of light. There was atumbled bed in one corner, a table covered with dusty dishes andglass-ware in another, and a large case filled with bottles, jugs, andbundles occupied a third. Walls and ceiling were hidden by packages ofherbs and strings of roots, while over the fireplace were three shelvespiled high with cigar-boxes, carefully labelled. 

Half buried in a great chair, his breast bare, his sleeves rolled upabove his elbows, the veins in his arms standing out like cords, hislegs wrapped in a blanket and resting upon a stool, sat Dr. Buzzard, toall appearances in a deep sleep. On the floor, close to the hearth, wasa most evil-looking old crone, continually stirring a pot bubbling onthe coals. She threw one glance at Religion, and went on stirring. Thedoctor never moved. A splendid-looking mulatto noiselessly brought abox, and the girl subsided upon it. 

There were other visitors. A young man wanted help to get money that wasdue him; another sought assistance in settling a difficulty. A womanwith a child in her arms wanted to charm her recreant husband back toher; a sick one desired relief from the spell which was making her coughher life out. 

But the great man slumbered on with a gentle snore, and the old womanstirred the pot. There was not a sound in the room save his snore, theswish of the spoon, and the occasional dropping of a coal. Every one satin silent, intense expectation, waiting for--they knew not what. 

The oaken logs had died down to a bed of glowing coals when suddenly ared glare flashed from it. Religion closed her eyes, blinded by thelight. When she opened them the doctor was sitting upright, his headhanging back, his eyes wide open and staring upward, and his breastheaving as if in pain. His wife was in the room holding whisperedconsultations with each person. The men stated their complaintsbriefly, but the women detained her longer. When she had been the roundshe glided back to the side of the doctor. 

Then in a low chant, sweet and sorrowful, she repeated the story whicheach had told her, running them into a continuous recitative. The oldwoman rose from the floor, and joining in the chant in a quaveringcroon, sprinkled salt at the thresholds of the doors and at the feet ofevery person, ending by throwing a large handful up the chimney. It fellback and sputtered and cracked in the fire. Seizing one of thecigar-boxes, she sprinkled a pinch of its contents over the fire. Adense gray vapor rose. The doctor raised his arms, and let them fallslowly, three times. 

"The fire holds many secrets, " he uttered, in a hollow, unnatural voice, like one talking in his sleep; "he who would see his enemy about hiswork of destruction, let him look in the fire. "

With eyes ready to start from her head, Religion with the rest bentforward to look. She saw, or thought she saw, in the curling gray clouda woman's face. It seemed to take shape and expression, as she gazed, until it grew familiar. The forsaken woman, who had seen the face of asuccessful rival, sank heavily upon the floor. Some of the othersscreamed, some moaned and prayed. The cloud over the fire was repeatedmany times, and dissolving into fantastic shapes, pictured to theexcited fancy of the others their enemies and distresses. At last theexhibition ended, and the visitors were sent from the room, and calledin again, separately, to receive directions, medicines, and charmsagainst further evil. 

Religion found the doctor sitting at the table, surrounded by jugs, bottles, and boxes, his wife and the old woman standing on either side. He still slept, breathing heavily. His hands were on the table. 

"A girl named Religion Becket inquiring for her sister, " spoke thedoctor in the same strange voice. "The sister seems to be dying. "

"Say yes close to his right ear, " instructed the wife, and Religion didso. 

"The doctors know nothing about the case, " responded the conjurer. "Ared scorpion is inside her body feeding on her vitals. I see a womanhiding something in a black-gum tree that hangs over running water. Itis at the hour when spirits walk. The first creature that runs over thecleft where the hand is hidden is the one to torment your sister. Thatfirst creature is a red scorpion. Its young one lives in your sister'sside. I, even I, can withdraw it. "

Like one moved by some power outside of himself, his hands moved in thearray before him, lightly touching this or that bottle and bundle untilhe found what he sought. And like a careful druggist he deliberatelymeasured each ingredient, giving clear directions at the same time. WhenReligion came out she had a large bottle of medicine, several hugeplasters, and orders for a bewildering list of root teas, with a promiseof an early visit from the great man himself. 

 * * * * *

Religion was feeding the cane-mill. Bud was on the other side drawingout the crushed cane; the mother was under the shed stirring the boilingsyrup. Beck was travelling round and round doing the grinding. The sunwas set. It would soon be time to stop work. Religion seemed to beexpecting some one; she never stooped to pick up an armful of stalkswithout glancing up the road. 

"What you keep lookin' up the road for, 'Ligion?" inquired her mother, her body swaying back and forth as she drew or pushed the long woodenladle. 

"Nuthin'. I ain't lookin' fur nuthin'. "

"I b'lieve there's a spell on youna too, " said her mother, surveying heranxiously. "I wish youna'd be more keerful and not put your fingers soclose to the teeth. "

"It's time to quit, anyhow, " put in Bud; "the sun's 'way down, an' I'mmore'n middlin' hungry. "

"You kin take the mule out an' go home an' make the fire. Will you goan' git supper, Religion, or stay an' stir?"

"I reckon I'll stay and stir. You kin bring me some supper when youcome. We'll be here half the night. "

With another look up the road, where the sunlight was fast fading, shetook up the wet bags which protected her dress, and passed under theshed, glad to sit down and rest her aching limbs. The shed was aprimitive affair, but everything was convenient for syrup-boiling, andthe two long boilers were full of the golden-brown liquid. There wasnothing to do but to stir continually and keep a steady fire. 

The short autumn twilight had died out, and the fields and woods wereslipping into gloom. The cane-mill was in the overseer's yard, and backof it the quarter began. A multitude of sounds came up to Religion'sear--the crying of babies, the laughing of children, the barking ofdogs, the whistle of the boys rubbing off the mules, the scolding andcalling of women for wood and water. Night was closing in. Religionstirred and thought. 

All Dr. Buzzard's instructions had been carefully followed. He had comemany times, performed a variety of strange operations, frightened andgladdened them all one day by declaring that the red scorpion had passedout of her body through her foot and run into the fire, that now alldanger was passed, pocketed thirty dollars which Minnie and Religion hadobtained by giving a lien on Beck, the old cow, all the corn in thecrib, and every article of furniture their cabin held; and still Min wasno better--was worse, indeed, with the worry of it all. 

Some one was coming. "Is that you, Bud?" she called. 

The unnatural laugh that answered her could belong to no one but Mack. Lifting a blazing stick above her head, she peered out into thedarkness. 

"Come fur youna, " he mumbled. "Miss Tina goin' on drefful; come furyouna quick. "

"You go, Religion, " said a woman who had come unperceived. "The Lord'sgwine to cl'ar up some t'ings what's took place in this quarter. You go, an' I'll stay an' stir. "

Religion hurried away. She found Tina tossing about in a pretty whitebed, her hands and feet bound in onions, her whole body swathed in redflannel saturated with turpentine, and her head bandaged with dockleaves wet with vinegar. There was a hot fire, and the room was crowdedwith men and women. 

Dr. Buzzard was there, with a black calico bag, from which he frequentlydrew a black bottle, examined it sharply at the lamp, then gravelyreplaced it, after which he always looked at and pinched Tina's fingers. 

"Mother, " he said at last, addressing himself to Tina's mother, "thetime has come for me to show you the cause of your daughter's illness. She has been hurt. She was too beautiful and well loved to suit all Icould name. An evil hand was laid on her. "

He took out his watch, looked at it gravely, and laid it upon the table. Removing his coat, he turned back the cuffs of his brown shirt, thentook off the bandages from Tina's hands and feet. 

He rubbed each arm from the shoulder to the end of the fingers with onesweep, first lightly, then harder, snapping his fingers violently afterevery stroke. Tina writhed under the treatment, then screamed loudly, and tried to leap from the bed. He called two men to hold her, and therubbing went on. 

With each stroke he grew more and more excited. He lifted his arms highabove his head, and bore down upon Tina painfully. His eyes wereburning, and the perspiration pouring down his face. He broke into a lowhumming, and the women took it up, moaning in concert, and rocking theirbodies in sympathy. 

Suddenly he yelled out, "Ah! there it is; see there, see there; there hegoes into the fire, the miserable lizard, which was purposely put intoTina's drink, and has grown in her, and poisoned her blood until I cameto drive it out!"

Every one jumped to see the lizard, and saw nothing but the glowinglogs. There was a faint smell of burning flesh. The women fell back intotheir seats, staring fearfully into each other's faces. Tina sprangupright in bed. 

"Min is down by the Black Run calling me, an' I'm goin' to her. He toldme to put her hair and some stuff he give me into a hole in theblack-gum that hangs over the stone, and I did it. Before God! I nevermeant to hurt her. I hated her because Marse thought more of her than hedid me. He taught her, but he never taught me, and we was both hischildren. But I never meant to hurt her. Tell Religion so. I'm comin', Min; yes, I'm comin'; wait for me!"

She leaped upon the floor, but the unnatural strength supplied by thedelirium of fever had fled. She dropped at Religion's feet with a crylike a wounded dog. 

Daylight found Religion in the lonely swamp: only great pools of thickblack water and leaning trees shrouded in long gray moss. The water laystill in those levels until the sun dried it up. In just one place wasthere the slightest movement. A short descent sent a stream slowlycurling away under masses of green briers. 

The only stone known to be in the whole swamp was at the head of thestream, on a tiny hillock formed of logs and the débris of manyfreshets. It was known as Cuffee's Stone, and the story was that a slaveescaping from his master, and hiding in the swamp, had carried the stonethere to build his fire upon. Close by, its sprawling roots washed bythe running water, was an immense black-gum, in the branches of whichthe same Cuffee had built himself a covert of branches, from which hewatched his pursuers in their vain hunt for him. Had Cuffee's shade, which was said still to haunt the tree, been abroad at that hour, itwould have seen a girl narrowly scanning the rough stem, to find somecrack or cleft in which anything might be hidden. 

And she found a small crevice which would have escaped any but hersearching eyes. They lit up as if she had found a rare treasure. Inserting the point of a knife, she drew out a little bag wet andmouldy. She never stopped to examine it, but leaped from log to logthrough the briers and water out of the swamp. 

"Here's your hair, Min. Curl it round your finger three times and throwit in the fire. Oh, Min, now youna'll get well!"

A light shone in the sick girl's eyes. "Yes, I shall get well. Come outand listen to the music, Religion. "

"There isn't any music, Min. See the hair. "

"Yes, I see the hair; but, oh, the beautiful music! If I could onlylearn it!"

Religion clasped her close in her arms. The water-oaks were in agolden-brown haze, and the room was full of rich light. But it swam indarkness before the exhausted girl. 

A moment after she recovered herself, but Min was well. 

The Reprisal

BY H. W. McVICKAR

I

It was the 17th of March, yet the sun shone brilliantly, and the air wassoft and balmy as on any July day. Even the good St. Patrick could havefound no possible cause for complaint. 

Most of the invalids about the hotel had ventured forth upon theterrace, and sat in groups of twos and threes basking in the sunshine. Their more fortunate brethren who were sojourning merely for rest afterthe arduous duties of a social season had long since taken themselvesoff to the pursuits best suited to their inclinations and livers. 

One exception, however, there was to this general rule. A young man ofsome thirty years of age, who, seated upon the first step of a seriesleading from the terrace to the road, seemed quite content to enjoy thewarmth and sunshine in a purely passive way. 

To some of those seated in their invalid-chairs it seemed as if he hadnot moved or changed his position for hours, and after a while hisabsolute repose rather irritated them. 

Nevertheless, he sat there with his elbows resting on his knees and acigarette between his lips. The cigarette had long gone out, but to allappearances he was blissfully unconscious of the fact. 

A pair of rather attractive eyes were gazing into space, and at timesthere was a fine, sensitive expression about his lips, but the rest ofhis features were commonplace, neither good nor bad. His face beingsmooth-shaven gave him from a distance a decidedly boyish appearance. 

There was something, however, about him which might be termedinteresting, something a trifle different from his neighbors. Even hisclothes had that slight difference that hardly can be explained. 

After a while his attention was drawn to a very smart-looking trap, halfdog and half training cart, which for the past fifteen minutes had beendriven up and down by the most diminutive of grooms. Slowly he took inevery detail, the high-actioned hackney, the handsome harness, thelivery of the groom, even the wicker basket under the seat with itspadlock hanging on the hasp. Lazily he attempted to decipher themonogram on the cart's shining sides, but without success. Five minutesmore passed, and still up and down drove the groom. Was its owner nevercoming? he thought. Surely it must be a woman to keep it waiting such atime. Little by little he became more interested in the vehicle, andincidentally in its mistress, and he found himself conjecturing as towhat manner of person this was. Was she tall or short, fat or lean, goodfigure or bad. On the whole, he thought she must be "horsy. " Thatprobably expressed it all. 

How long these conjectures would have lasted it would be hard to say, had not just then the owner of the trap and horse and diminutive groomherself put in an appearance. She came out of the hotel entrance drawingon one tan-colored glove about three times too big for a rather prettyhand. She wore a light-colored driving-coat which reached to her heels, and adorned with mother-of-pearl buttons big enough to be used forsaucers. As she passed down the steps he had a good opportunity to takeher in, and when she stopped to give the horse a lump of sugar, a stillbetter chance for observation was afforded. 

He could hardly say whether she was good-looking or not; he was inclinedto think she was. She had a very winning smile--this he noticed as shegave some instructions to the groom. On the whole his verdict was ratherflattering than otherwise, for she impressed him as being decidedlysmart, and that with him covered a multitude of sins. 

At last she took up her skirts and stepped into the cart, gathered upthe lines, and drew the whip from its socket. The groom scrambled upsomehow, and after a little preliminary pawing of the air, the horse andcart, driver and groom, disappeared down the road. 

"Hello, Jack! What are you doing here sitting in the sun? Come along andhave a game of golf with me. "

"Thanks! By-the-bye, do you know who that young woman is who has justdriven off?"

"Certainly; Miss Violet Easton, of Washington; very fond of horses;keeps a lot of hunters; rich as mud. Would you like to know her?"

"Yes. Much obliged for the information. Oh, play golf? No; it's a veryoverrated game; you had better count me out this morning. "

An hour later, when she returned, had she taken the trouble to notice, she would have seen him still sitting at the top of the same flight ofsteps, seemingly absorbed in nothing. 

II

Three weeks had now passed since that 17th day of March, and JackMordaunt had been introduced to Miss Easton; had walked and driven withMiss Easton; had ridden Miss Easton's horses to the hunt three times aweek--in fact, had been seen so much in the society of the young womanthat gossips had already begun to couple their names. 

If, however, Miss Easton and Mr. Mordaunt were aware of this fact, itseemed in no wise to trouble them, nor to cause their meetings to beless frequent. A very close observer might, if he had taken the troubleto observe, have noticed that on these various occasions Miss Easton'scolor would be slightly accentuated, and that there was a perceptibleincrease in the interest she was wont to vouchsafe to the ordinarypublic. But then there were no close observers, or if there were theyhad other things to interest them. 

On this particular day--it was then about 2 P. M. --Jack Mordaunt leanedlazily against the office desk, deeply absorbed in the perusal of aletter. The furrow that was quite distinct between his eyes would seemto indicate that the contents of the same were far from agreeable. 

Twice already had he read the epistle, and was now engaged in going overit for the third time. 

He was faultlessly attired in his hunting things, this being Saturdayand the run of the week. Whatever disagreeableness may have occurred, Jack Mordaunt was at least a philosopher, and had no intention ofmissing a meet so long as Miss Easton was willing to see that he waswell mounted. His single-breasted pink frock-coat was of the latest cut, and his white moleskin breeches and black pink-top boots were the bestthat London makers could turn out. His silk hat and gloves lay upon theoffice desk beside him. 

"You seem vastly absorbed in that letter, Mr. Mordaunt; this is thesecond time I have tried to attract your attention, but with littlesuccess. I trust the contents are more than interesting. "

Jack whirled round to find himself face to face with Miss Easton. Try ashe would, the telltale blood slowly mounted to his tanned cheeks, suffusing his entire face with a ruddy hue. Instinctively he crumpled upthe letter in his hand and thrust it into his coat-pocket, then, with apoor attempt at a smile, answered her question. "Yes; the lettercontains disagreeable news, at least so far as I am concerned. In fact, I will have to return to New York Sunday morning. "

"But you are coming back?"

He shook his head. "I fear it will be 'good-by. '"

Did he observe the quiver of her lips? Perhaps so. Still, no one wouldhave known it as he stood there, swinging his hunting-crop like apendulum from one finger. 

And she--well, the quiver did not last long, and with a little laugh andshrug she continued: "I suppose most pleasant times come to an end, andperhaps it is better that they should come too soon than too late. But, Mr. Mordaunt, we must be going--that is, if we are to be in time for themeet. "

"Where is it to be?"

"At Farmingdale, and that is twelve miles away. "

Together they walked down the wide corridor, and many an admiring glancewas bestowed upon them as they passed, and many an insinuating wink andshrug was given as soon as their backs were turned. 

Together they passed through the hotel door on to the terrace and downthe steps--those same steps upon which Jack Mordaunt had sat just threeweeks ago and watched her drive away. There was the same trap waiting, the same diminutive-looking groom standing at the horse's head. Hehelped her in, a trifle more tenderly, perhaps, than was absolutelynecessary. Then he mounted to the seat beside her, and away they drove, the groom behind hanging on as by his eyelids. 

All during those twelve miles they talked together of anything andeverything, save on the one subject which was uppermost in their minds. Religiously they abstained from discussing themselves, and yet they knewthat sooner or later that subject would have to be broached. Instinctively, however, they both avoided it, as if in their heartsthey knew that from it no good could come. 

At Farmingdale, as they drove into the stable-yard behind the littlecountry tavern, all thoughts but of the hunt were banished, at least forthe moment. They were both too keen about the sport not to feel theirpulses quicken at the familiar scene and sounds. 

All the hunters had been sent over in the morning, and stood ready inthe adjoining stalls and sheds; grooms were taking off and foldingblankets, tightening girths and straps preparatory to the start. In themiddle of the stable-yard, O'Rourke, the first whip, was struggling withall his might and main to get into his pink coat, which had grown atrifle tight, and was giving the finishing touches to his toilet, gazingat himself in a broken piece of looking-glass that a friendly groom waspatiently holding up before him. 

Gentlemen and grooms were going and coming, giving and receiving theirfinal instructions. The baying of the hounds, and the dashes here andthere of color from pink coats, all went to make up a most charming andexhilarating picture. 

Into the midst of this noise and bustle came Miss Easton and Jack. Thegroom scrambled down from his perch, and the two got out. In an instantshe was surrounded by three or four men, all talking at the same timeand upon the same subject: "Was not the day superb?" "Did she know whichway the hounds were to run?" "Was she going to ride Midnight?" "What abeauty he was!" and a great deal more of the same kind. 

She was gracious to all, and when at last Jack returned, followed by agroom leading her horse, not one man of that group but felt that MissEaston was simply charming, and any one who married her was indeed inluck. 

Jack stood aside to let young Martin give her a lift into the saddle, and watched him somewhat wistfully as he arranged her straps and skirt. At the final call every one sought his horse, mounted, and away theywent, chattering and laughing. 

The run was one of the best of the season, and after it was over Jackfound himself riding by Miss Easton on their homeward journey. 

Perhaps the others had ridden quite fast, or perchance these two hadgone at a snail's pace, but when half-way home they looked about themand found that they were alone. 

As far as the eye could reach along the wooded road no living thing wasto be seen. The sun was setting like a globe of fire, and the red shaftsof light penetrated between the straight trunks of the tall trees, bringing them out black against the evening sky, while the soft breezemoaned through their branches laden with the odors of hemlock and pine. 

And this was the end. Another twenty minutes and the hotel would loom upbefore them, and the little farce, comedy, or tragedy, whichever itmight be, would be finished. The curtain would fall, and the twoprincipal actors would disappear. 

No art could have given a finer setting to this the last act. 

Neither cared to break the spell, and so they rode in silence until itseemed as if the intense stillness could no longer be borne. It was shewho first spoke:

"And so it is really good-by?"

For a long time he did not answer, but gazed steadily ahead of him, looking into space. 

"Yes, " he said at length, "it is good-by; and it were better had it beengood-by three weeks ago. "

"Why?"

He gave a little start, merely repeating the word after her in a queerabsent-minded way. 

"Yes, why?"

"Oh, I don't know. "

Again silence fell upon them both. 

"Violet, " it was the first time he had ever used that name. 

Violet Easton turned in her saddle and looked straight at him, trying toread something in those dreamy eyes. He met her gaze quietly. 

"Why do you call me Violet?"

"Because--because--" He drew in his breath sharply, and hesitated. 

"Because--" and she looked inquiringly in his face. 

"Don't ask me; please don't ask me. I believe I am mad. "

Again she let her eyes rest upon him with the same earnest look ofinquiry. 

He turned away, and gazed absently into the trees and underbrush. 

In a few minutes she again spoke. "Is this all you have to say, especially--especially"--and she paused a moment as if searching for aword--"if this is the end?"

Again he turned and looked at her. Their horses were now walking side byside, and very close; one ungloved hand lay upon her knee. 

He leaned over and took it, and attempted to draw her towards him. 

"No, no, not that; please not that. "

"Why?"

"Can't you see--can't you understand? You and I are going to part--thisvery night, in fact, and--and--Oh, please do not. "

He paid little heed to what she was saying, but drew her closer to him. The blood rushed to her cheeks, suffusing them with a deep red glow. Nearer and nearer he drew her, until, half-resisting, half-willing, herlips met his. It was but for an instant, and then all was over. She drewherself away from him, and the blood faded from her face until it wasvery white. Two tears welled up into her big blue eyes, overflowed, andran down her cheeks. 

"Oh, why did you do it? Otherwise we might have remained friends. Butnow, " and she looked him fair in the face, while her words came slowlyand distinctly, "you belong to me, for you are the only man that hasever kissed my lips. "

A little shiver passed over Jack as he heard her speak. He could find noexplanation for the feeling. 

The next day Miss Easton found on her plate at breakfast a big bunch ofred roses. Attached to them was a card, and on it the single word"Adieu!"

III

A month later Violet Easton sat at the writing-desk in her littleprivate parlor. Her elbows were on the table, and her head rested on herhands. Scalding tears were in her eyes, and try as she would they forcedthemselves down her cheeks. Before her lay a letter, which she had readfor the twentieth time. 

It was a simple, commonplace note at best, and seemed hardly worthy ofcalling forth such feeling. It ran as follows, and was in a man'shandwriting:

 "MY DEAR MISS EASTON, --Remembering that you told me you expected this week to run up to New York, I write in behalf of my wife to ask if you will give us both the pleasure of your company at dinner on Thursday evening. 

 "If you like, we can go afterwards to the play. 

 "How is Midnight, and is he still performing as brilliantly as ever?

 "Sincerely, J. MORDAUNT. "

At last, with a great effort, she stopped her tears, and wiping her eyeswith her soaking handkerchief, drew out a piece of note-paper from theblotter and began to write. 

The first three attempts were evidently failures, for she tore them upand threw the pieces into a scrap-basket; the fourth effort, however, seemed to prove satisfactory. 

 "MY DEAR MR. MORDAUNT, --Many thanks for your and your wife's kind invitation. I have altered my plans, and no longer expect to go to New York. 

 "Midnight is a friend I have never found wanting. 

 "Very sincerely, VIOLET EASTON. "

She read this over carefully, folded, and placed it in an envelope. Uponit she wrote the name of John Mordaunt, Esq. , and the address, andringing a bell, delivered the letter to a hall-boy to mail. 

Long after midnight she was still sitting there, gazing seemingly intospace. 

 * * * * *

Jack Mordaunt looked for an instant at the calendar which stood in frontof him upon his office desk. 

In large numbers were printed 17, and underneath the month of March wasregistered. He stopped writing for a moment. Somehow that date hadforced his mind back just one year, and as he sat there he was goingover again the incidents of that time. They were all so vivid--toovivid, in fact, to be altogether pleasing. Had he forgotten VioletEaston? He had tried to forget her, but his attempts were vain. Sincethey parted he had never heard from or of her save that one short note, and yet at odd intervals her remembrance would force itself upon hismind. Her parting words, "You belong to me, " haunted him. 

And now, just as he was imagining that the little incident was to beforever forgotten, that date had brought up freshly and distinctly everydetail of those three weeks. After all, what had he done? A passingflirtation with an attractive girl! To be sure, he had omitted to saythat he was married, but, after all it was not absolutely necessary forhim to proclaim his family history to every passing acquaintance. 

Somehow to-day the recollection of it all irritated him. He felt out ofsorts and angry with himself, and inclined to place the blame on others. He shrugged his shoulders and went on with his work. He would dismissit all now and forever, and yet, try as he would, it would persist incoming back. 

He threw down his pen and left the table, going over to the window. Theoutlook was far from encouraging, the March wind blew in eddies alongthe street, and now and then the rain came down in sheets, so that theopposite buildings were hardly visible. He shivered slightly; the roomfelt cold. He went back to his desk and rang the bell. One of the clerksanswered it at once. 

"Jones, I wish you would turn on the steam heat. The room seems chilly. "

"Sorry, sir, but the steam is on full blast. Is there anything else thatyou wish?"

"No; you can go. "

He sat down, and for the next hour again tried to concentrate his mindupon his work. It seemed useless. He looked at his watch; it was aquarter to six. "I think I will have to go home, " he muttered tohimself. "I don't feel very well, somehow. "

John, the office-boy, here put in an appearance. "I beg pardon, Mr. Mordaunt, if you don't want me any more to-night, may I go? All theother clerks have gone. "

"Yes. " And John disappeared into the outer office. 

A few minutes later he again put in his head. "Mr. Mordaunt, a ladywishes to see you; shall I show her in?"

"Certainly. "

The door was flung open, and Violet Easton entered. 

So sudden and unexpected was her appearance that Jack had to grasp thedesk to steady himself. Really, he thought, my nerves must befrightfully unstrung. I think I must take a holiday. Aloud, he said:"Why, Miss Easton, this is a most unexpected pleasure. Won't you beseated? Can I be of any service to you?"

He drew a chair up for her, and she took it, and he sank back into hisown. 

And now for the first time he had an opportunity to look at her, for shehad pushed up the heavy veil that covered her face. 

She looked ghastly white, and heavy black rings were round her eyes, "Miss Easton, you look ill. Can I get you anything?"

"Oh no. I am not ill. "

He said no more, but waited for her to speak. At last she did. "Mr. Mordaunt, I thought a long time before troubling you, but I decided thatas it was purely a matter of business you would not object. I desireyou to draw out my will, and, as I am contemplating leaving the cityto-morrow, it would be a great convenience if you could do it now andlet me sign it. Then perhaps you would be good enough to keep it for me. I have my reasons--"

"I can assure you that I shall be more than pleased to do anything yourequest. "

"Then will you kindly write as I dictate? Of course I wish you to put itin legal form, as, " and she smiled, "I prefer to avoid litigation. "

He drew towards him several sheets of legal cap, and began to write asshe dictated. 

He read it over to her when it was finished, and she nodded approval. 

"And now, if you will execute it, I will try and get the janitor and hiswife to acknowledge the instrument. I regret to say all my clerks havegone home. "

He got up and left the room, returning in a short time with the janitorand his spouse. Miss Easton took the pen from Jack's hand and wrote hername, Violet Easton, in a clear, distinct manner. The janitor subscribedhis name as one of the witnesses, and his wife did the same. 

Jack thanked them both for their trouble, and they departed. He took thedocument, and having placed it in an envelope, sealed it with his ownseal, and put it away in the safe. 

"I don't know how I can thank you, Mr. Mordaunt. If you will kindly sendyour account to me in Washington, it will be paid. "

Jack protested. "I could not think of taking any pay for such a triflingservice, I assure you. "

"Yes, but if I insist?"

"Oh, very well; I will do as you wish. "

"And now I must be going. " She rose from her chair and began drawing onher gloves, while he sat and watched her. Suddenly an irresistibledesire seemed to take possession of him. A desire in some way to makeamends for the past. 

He pushed back his chair and stood facing her. Several times heattempted to speak, but no sound would come from his parched and burninglips. He stretched forth his hand and took her ungloved one, the same ashe had done a year ago. It seemed to him that it was icy cold. Again hetried in vain to say something. Slowly he drew her close, still closerto him, until their lips again met in one long kiss. 

Her lips were cold, while his were burning hot. It seemed a long, longtime before she gently disengaged herself from his embrace. A sweetsmile flitted across her pale face. 

"Yes, " she said, as if speaking to herself, "this is the second time, but it will be the last. And now I must be going. Adieu!"

He went with her into the hall and down to the elevator, and saw herinto the cab. He forgot to ask her where she was staying. His brainseemed to be on fire. 

The next morning he felt far from well, and at the breakfast-table hiswife remarked upon his looks. 

"Oh, it's nothing, dear; I think I am a little overworked. As soon as Ican dispose of the Farley case I shall try and get away, but it is tooimportant to leave before it is decided. Is there any news in thismorning's paper?"

"Nothing very startling, except I see the death of your friend MissEaston, in Washington. "

"What!" Jack fairly grasped the table for support. "Impossible! There issome mistake. " He was now deathly white. 

"Perhaps there is some mistake; but here is the notice, " and she handedhim the paper. 

Hurriedly he ran his eye along the death notices until he came to thisone:

 "EASTON, VIOLET. --On the 17th day of March, at the residence of her father, K Street, Washington, of diphtheria, aged twenty-three years. Notice of funeral hereafter. "

For some time he sat there as if stunned, until his wife broke in uponhis thoughts. 

"It seems to me, " she said, "that you take this matter very much toheart. "

He did not answer her, but soon excused himself, and left the table. 

He went straight to his office and into his private room. With tremblingfingers he made out the combination of the safe, and opened the heavyiron doors. There, where he had placed it the night before, lay thesealed envelope. Beads of perspiration stood out upon his forehead, andhe was shaking like an aspen leaf. Surely, he thought, I must be ill ormad. He took the envelope and tore it open; his hands were trembling sothat he found it difficult to unfold the document. There, at the bottom, in her clear handwriting, was the signature of Violet Easton. There, also, were the signatures of the janitor and his wife. In feverish hastehe read the will. It was just as he had written it the night before. Itleft all her money to her father with the exception of a few gifts. 

Midnight had been left to him. He remembered protesting, but she hadtold him that she was sure he would always be kind to the animal. 

He rang the bell, and John appeared. 

"Did you show a lady in here last night just before you went home?"

"No, sir. "

"Are you positive?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Go and get the janitor, and tell him I wish to speak to him. "

In a few minutes that dignitary put in an appearance. 

"Is that your signature?" and Jack handed him the will. 

"Yes, sir; I signed it last night at your request, and so did my wife. "

"Was there a lady here at the time?"

"No, sir. "

Jack put his hand up to his forehead. "My God!" he muttered, "I must begoing mad. " Suddenly everything began to whirl about him, and he sankexhausted into his chair. 

"John, " he said, "send for a cab; I am feeling very ill, and must gohome. "

Four days later he was dead. The family doctor pronounced the case oneof malignant diphtheria. 

THE END

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Transcriber's Note:

Irregularities in hyphenation (e. G. Wide-spread and widespread) andspelling (e. G. Toward and towards) between stories have not beenchanged. 

The following errors have been corrected:

 -Pg. Vi: semi-colon to comma (so familiar to us that, ) -Pg. 72: proposes to proposed (Mr. George proposed) -Pg. 101: street to sheet (damp and dirty sheet, was almost . . . ) -Pg. 104: Missing period added (VI. ) -Pg. 111: repentence to repentance -Pg. 112: Coloned to Colonel -Pg. 125: effiulgent to effulgent -Pg. 145: so to to (been to see them lately) -Pg. 153: neckless to necklace -Pg. 186: was to with (an open fireplace with a low wooden mantel) -Pg. 187: he to she (if by so doing she could) -Pg. 207: collegate-mate to college-mate -Pg. 209: open quote added ("When Félice was a little more . . . ") -Pg. 239: lanquor to langour -Pg. 271: Nuthin. ' to Nuthin'. -Pg. 272: Religon to Religion -Pg. 278: semed to seemed -Pg. 281: decidedely to decidedly -Pg. 289: loeked to looked -Pg. 300: janior to janitor

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