THE HOUSE OF THE VAMPIRE

by

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK

Author ofNineveh and Other Poems

New YorkMoffat, Yard & Company1912Copyright, 1907, byMoffat, Yard & CompanyNew YorkPublished September, 1907Reprinted October, 1907The Premier PressNew York

_To My Mother_

THE HOUSE

OF THE

VAMPIRE

I

The freakish little leader of the orchestra, newly imported from Sicilyto New York, tossed his conductor's wand excitedly through the air, drowning with musical thunders the hum of conversation and the clatterof plates. 

Yet neither his apish demeanour nor the deafening noises that respondedto every movement of his agile body detracted attention from the figureof Reginald Clarke and the young man at his side as they smilingly woundtheir way to the exit. 

The boy's expression was pleasant, with an inkling of wistfulness, whilethe soft glimmer of his lucid eyes betrayed the poet and the dreamer. The smile of Reginald Clarke was the smile of a conqueror. A suspicionof silver in his crown of dark hair only added dignity to his bearing, while the infinitely ramified lines above the heavy-set mouth spoke atonce of subtlety and of strength. Without stretch of the imagination onemight have likened him to a Roman cardinal of the days of the Borgias, who had miraculously stepped forth from the time-stained canvas andslipped into twentieth century evening-clothes. 

With the affability of complete self-possession he nodded in response togreetings from all sides, inclining his head with special politeness toa young woman whose sea-blue eyes were riveted upon his features with alook of mingled hate and admiration. 

The woman, disregarding his silent salutation, continued to stare at himwild-eyed, as a damned soul in purgatory might look at Satan passing inregal splendour through the seventy times sevenfold circles of hell. 

Reginald Clarke walked on unconcernedly through the rows of gay diners, still smiling, affable, calm. But his companion bethought himself ofcertain rumours he had heard concerning Ethel Brandenbourg's mad lovefor the man from whose features she could not even now turn her eyes. Evidently her passion was unreciprocated. It had not always been so. There was a time in her career, some years ago in Paris, when it waswhispered that she had secretly married him and, not much later, obtained a divorce. The matter was never cleared up, as both preservedan uncompromising silence upon the subject of their matrimonialexperience. Certain it was that, for a space, the genius of ReginaldClarke had completely dominated her brush, and that, ever since he hadthrown her aside, her pictures were but plagiarisms of her formerartistic self. 

The cause of the rupture between them was a matter only of surmise; butthe effect it had on the woman testified clearly to the remarkable powerof Reginald Clarke. He had entered her life and, behold! the world wastransfixed on her canvases in myriad hues of transcending radiance; hehad passed from it, and with him vanished the brilliancy of hercolouring, as at sunset the borrowed amber and gold fade from the faceof the clouds. 

The glamour of Clarke's name may have partly explained the secret of hischarm, but, even in circles where literary fame is no passport, hecould, if he chose, exercise an almost terrible fascination. Subtle andprofound, he had ransacked the coffers of mediæval dialecticians andplundered the arsenals of the Sophists. Many years later, when thevultures of misfortune had swooped down upon him, and his name was nolonger mentioned without a sneer, he was still remembered in New Yorkdrawing-rooms as the man who had brought to perfection the art oftalking. Even to dine with him was a liberal education. 

Clarke's marvellous conversational power was equalled only by hismarvellous style. Ernest Fielding's heart leaped in him at the thoughtthat henceforth he would be privileged to live under one roof with theonly writer of his generation who could lend to the English language therich strength and rugged music of the Elizabethans. 

Reginald Clarke was a master of many instruments. Milton's mighty organwas no less obedient to his touch than the little lute of thetroubadour. He was never the same; that was his strength. Clarke'sstyle possessed at once the chiselled chasteness of a Greek marblecolumn and the elaborate deviltry of the late Renaissance. At times hiswinged words seemed to flutter down the page frantically like Baroqueangels; at other times nothing could have more adequately described hismanner than the timeless calm of the gaunt pyramids. 

The two men had reached the street. Reginald wrapped his long springcoat round him. 

"I shall expect you to-morrow at four, " he said. 

The tone of his voice was deep and melodious, suggesting hidden depthsand cadences. 

"I shall be punctual. "

The younger man's voice trembled as he spoke. 

"I look forward to your coming with much pleasure. I am interested inyou. "

The glad blood mounted to Ernest's cheeks at praise from the austerelips of this arbiter of literary elegance. 

An almost imperceptible smile crept over the other man's features. 

"I am proud that my work interests you, " was all the boy could say. 

"I think it is quite amazing, but at present, " here Clarke drew out awatch set with jewels, "I am afraid I must bid you good-bye. "

He held Ernest's hand for a moment in a firm genial grasp, then turnedaway briskly, while the boy remained standing open-mouthed. The crowdjostling against him carried him almost off his feet, but his eyesfollowed far into the night the masterful figure of Reginald Clarke, toward whom he felt himself drawn with every fiber of his body and thewarm enthusiasm of his generous youth. 

II

With elastic step, inhaling the night-air with voluptuous delight, Reginald Clarke made his way down Broadway, lying stretched out beforehim, bathed in light and pulsating with life. 

His world-embracing intellect was powerfully attracted by the GiantCity's motley activities. On the street, as in the salon, his magneticpower compelled recognition, and he stepped through the midst of thecrowd as a Circassian blade cleaves water. 

After walking a block or two, he suddenly halted before a jeweller'sshop. Arrayed in the window were priceless gems that shone in the glareof electricity, like mystical serpent-eyes--green, pomegranate andwater-blue. And as he stood there the dazzling radiance before him wastransformed in the prism of his mind into something great and verywonderful that might, some day, be a poem. 

Then his attention was diverted by a small group of tiny girls dancingon the sidewalk to the husky strains of an old hurdy-gurdy. He joinedthe circle of amused spectators, to watch those pink-ribboned bits offemininity swaying airily to and fro in unison with the tune. Oneespecially attracted his notice--a slim olive-coloured girl from a landwhere it is always spring. Her whole being translated into music, withhair dishevelled and feet hardly touching the ground, the girl suggestedan orange-leaf dancing on a sunbeam. The rasping street-organ, perchance, brought to her melodious reminiscences of some flute-playingSavoyard boy, brown-limbed and dark of hair. 

For several minutes Reginald Clarke followed with keen delight eachdelicate curve her graceful limbs described. Then--was it that she grewtired, or that the stranger's persistent scrutiny embarrassed her?--themusic oozed out of her movements. They grew slower, angular, almostclumsy. The look of interest in Clarke's eyes died, but his whole formquivered, as if the rhythm of the music and the dance had mysteriouslyentered into his blood. 

He continued his stroll, seemingly without aim; in reality he followed, with nervous intensity, the multiform undulations of the populace, swarming through Broadway in either direction. Like the giant whosestrength was rekindled every time he touched his mother, the earth, Reginald Clarke seemed to draw fresh vitality from every contact withlife. 

He turned east along Fourteenth street, where cheap vaudevilles arestrung together as glass-pearls on the throat of a wanton. Gaudybill-boards, drenched in clamorous red, proclaimed the tawdryattractions within. Much to the surprise of the doorkeeper at aparticularly evil-looking music hall, Reginald Clarke lingered in thelobby, and finally even bought a ticket that entitled him to enter thissordid wilderness of décolleté art. Street-snipes, a few workingmen, dilapidated sportsmen, and women whose ruined youth thick layers ofpowder and paint, even in this artificial light, could not restore, constituted the bulk of the audience. Reginald Clarke, apparentlyunconscious of the curiosity, surprise and envy that his appearanceexcited, seated himself at a table near the stage, ordering from thesolicitous waiter only a cocktail and a programme. The drink he leftuntouched, while his eyes greedily ran down the lines of theannouncement. When he had found what he sought, he lit a cigar, payingno attention to the boards, but studying the audience with cursoryinterest until the appearance of Betsy, the Hyacinth Girl. 

When she began to sing, his mind still wandered. The words of her songwere crude, but not without a certain lilt that delighted the unculturedear, while the girl's voice was thin to the point of being unpleasant. When, however, she came to the burden of the song, Clarke's mannerchanged suddenly. Laying down his cigar, he listened with raptattention, eagerly gazing at her. For, as she sang the last line andtore the hyacinth-blossoms from her hair, there crept into her voice astrangely poignant, pathetic little thrill, that redeemed the execrablefaultiness of her singing, and brought the rude audience under herspell. 

Clarke, too, was captivated by that tremour, the infinite sadness ofwhich suggested the plaint of souls moaning low at night, when lustpreys on creatures marked for its spoil. 

The singer paused. Still those luminous eyes were upon her. She grewnervous. It was only with tremendous difficulty that she reached therefrain. As she sang the opening lines of the last stanza, aninscrutable smile curled on Clarke's lips. She noticed the man'srelentless gaze and faltered. When the burden came, her singing was hardand cracked: the tremour had gone from her voice. 

III

Long before the appointed time Ernest walked up and down in front of theabode of Reginald Clarke, a stately apartment-house overlookingRiverside Drive. 

Misshapen automobiles were chasing by, carrying to the cool river'smarge the restlessness and the fever of American life. But the bustleand the noise seemed to the boy only auspicious omens of the future. 

Jack, his room-mate and dearest friend, had left him a month ago, and, for a space, he had felt very lonely. His young and delicate soul foundit difficult to grapple with the vague fears that his nervous brainengendered, when whispered sounds seemed to float from hidden corners, and the stairs creaked under mysterious feet. 

He needed the voice of loving kindness to call him back from the valleyof haunting shadows, where his poet's soul was wont to linger overlong;in his hours of weakness the light caress of a comrade renewed hisstrength and rekindled in his hand the flaming sword of song. 

And at nightfall he would bring the day's harvest to Clarke, as aworshipper scattering precious stones, incense and tapestries at thefeet of a god. 

Surely he would be very happy. And as the heart, at times, leads thefeet to the goal of its desire, while multicoloured dreams, likedancing-girls, lull the will to sleep, he suddenly found himselfstepping from the elevator-car to Reginald Clarke's apartment. 

Already was he raising his hand to strike the electric bell when a soundfrom within made him pause half-way. 

"No, there's no help!" he heard Clarke say. His voice had a hard, metallic clangour. 

A boyish voice answered plaintively. What the words were Ernest couldnot distinctly hear, but the suppressed sob in them almost brought thetears to his eyes. He instinctively knew that this was the finale ofsome tragedy. 

He withdrew hastily, so as not to be a witness of an interview that wasnot meant for his ears. 

Reginald Clarke probably had good reason for parting with his youngfriend, whom Ernest surmised to be Abel Felton, a talented boy, whom themaster had taken under his wings. 

In the apartment a momentary silence had ensued. 

This was interrupted by Clarke: "It will come again, in a month, in ayear, in two years. "

"No, no! It is all gone!" sobbed the boy. 

"Nonsense. You are merely nervous. But that is just why we must part. There is no room in one house for two nervous people. "

"I was not such a nervous wreck before I met you. "

"Am I to blame for it--for your morbid fancies, your extravagance, theslow tread of a nervous disease, perhaps?"

"Who can tell? But I am all confused. I don't know what I am saying. Everything is so puzzling--life, friendship, you. I fancied you caredfor my career, and now you end our friendship without a thought!"

"We must all follow the law of our being. "

"The laws are within us and in our control. "

"They are within us and beyond us. It is the physiological structure ofour brains, our nerve-cells, that makes and mars our lives. 

"Our mental companionship was so beautiful. It was meant to last. "

"That is the dream of youth. Nothing lasts. Everything flows--panta rei. We are all but sojourners in an inn. Friendship, as love, is anillusion. Life has nothing to take from a man who has no illusions. "

"It has nothing to give him. "

They said good-bye. 

At the door Ernest met Abel. 

"Where are you going?" he asked. 

"For a little pleasure trip. "

Ernest knew that the boy lied. 

He remembered that Abel Felton was at work upon some book, a play or anovel. It occurred to him to inquire how far he had progressed with it. 

Abel smiled sadly. "I am not writing it. "

"Not writing it?"

"Reginald is. "

"I am afraid I don't understand. "

"Never mind. Some day you will. "

IV

"I am so happy you came, " Reginald Clarke said, as he conducted Ernestinto his studio. It was a large, luxuriously furnished room overlookingthe Hudson and Riverside Drive. 

Dazzled and bewildered, the boy's eyes wandered from object to object, from picture to statue. Despite seemingly incongruous details, the wholearrangement possessed style and distinction. 

A satyr on the mantelpiece whispered obscene secrets into the ears ofSaint Cecilia. The argent limbs of Antinous brushed against the garmentsof Mona Lisa. And from a corner a little rococo lady peered coquettishlyat the gray image of an Egyptian sphinx. There was a picture of Napoleonfacing the image of the Crucified. Above all, in the semi-darkness, artificially produced by heavy draperies, towered two busts. 

"Shakespeare and Balzac!" Ernest exclaimed with some surprise. 

"Yes, " explained Reginald, "they are my gods. "

His gods! Surely there was a key to Clarke's character. Our gods areourselves raised to the highest power. 

Clarke and Shakespeare!

Even to Ernest's admiring mind it seemed almost blasphemous to name acontemporary, however esteemed, in one breath with the mighty master ofsong, whose great gaunt shadow, thrown against the background of theyears has assumed immense, unproportionate, monstrous dimensions. 

Yet something might be said for the comparison. Clarke undoubtedly wasuniversally broad, and undoubtedly concealed, with no less exquisitetaste than the Elizabethan, his own personality under the splendidraiment of his art. They certainly were affinities. It would not havebeen surprising to him to see the clear calm head of Shakespeare risefrom behind his host. 

Perhaps--who knows?--the very presence of the bust in his room had, tosome extent, subtly and secretly moulded Reginald Clarke's life. A man'ssoul, like the chameleon, takes colour from its environment. Evencomparative trifles, the number of the house in which we live, or thecolour of the wallpaper of a room, may determine a destiny. 

The boy's eyes were again surveying the fantastic surroundings in whichhe found himself; while, from a corner, Clarke's eyes were watching hisevery movement, as if to follow his thoughts into the innermostlabyrinth of the mind. It seemed to Ernest, under the spell of thispassing fancy, as though each vase, each picture, each curio in theroom, was reflected in Clarke's work. In a long-queued, porcelainChinese mandarin he distinctly recognised a quaint quatrain in one ofClarke's most marvellous poems. And he could have sworn that the grin ofthe Hindu monkey-god on the writing-table reappeared in the weird rhythmof two stanzas whose grotesque cadence had haunted him for years. 

At last Clarke broke the silence. "You like my studio?" he asked. 

The simple question brought Ernest back to reality. 

"Like it? Why, it's stunning. It set up in me the queerest train ofthought. "

"I, too, have been in a whimsical mood to-night. Fancy, unlike genius, is an infectious disease. "

"What is the peculiar form it assumed in your case?"

"I have been wondering whether all the things that environ us day by dayare, in a measure, fashioning our thought-life. I sometimes think thateven my little mandarin and this monkey-idol which, by the way, Ibrought from India, are exerting a mysterious but none the less realinfluence upon my work. "

"Great God!" Ernest replied, "I have had the identical thought!"

"How very strange!" Clarke exclaimed, with seeming surprise. 

"It is said tritely but truly, that great minds travel the same roads, "Ernest observed, inwardly pleased. 

"No, " the older man subtly remarked, "but they reach the sameconclusion by a different route. "

"And you attach serious importance to our fancy?"

"Why not?"

Clarke was gazing abstractedly at the bust of Balzac. 

"A man's genius is commensurate with his ability of absorbing from lifethe elements essential to his artistic completion. Balzac possessed thispower in a remarkable degree. But, strange to say, it was evil thatattracted him most. He absorbed it as a sponge absorbs water; perhapsbecause there was so little of it in his own make-up. He must havepurified the atmosphere around him for miles, by bringing all the evilthat was floating in the air or slumbering in men's souls to the pointof his pen. 

"And he"--his eyes were resting on Shakespeare's features as a man mightlook upon the face of a brother--"he, too, was such a nature. In fact, he was the most perfect type of the artist. Nothing escaped his mind. From life and from books he drew his material, each time reshaping itwith a master-hand. Creation is a divine prerogative. Re-creation, infinitely more wonderful than mere calling into existence, is theprerogative of the poet. Shakespeare took his colours from manypalettes. That is why he is so great, and why his work is incrediblygreater than he. It alone explains his unique achievement. Who was he?What education did he have, what opportunities? None. And yet we find inhis work the wisdom of Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh's fancies anddiscoveries, Marlowe's verbal thunders and the mysterious loveliness ofMr. W. H. "

Ernest listened, entranced by the sound of Clarke's mellifluous voice. He was, indeed, a master of the spoken word, and possessed a miraculouspower of giving to the wildest fancies an air of vraisemblance. 

V

"Yes, " said Walkham, the sculptor, "it's a most curious thing. "

"What is?" asked Ernest, who had been dreaming over the Sphinx that waslooking at him from its corner with the sarcastic smile of five thousandyears. 

"How our dreams of yesterday stare at us like strangers to-day. "

"On the contrary, " remarked Reginald, "it would be strange if they werestill to know us. In fact, it would be unnatural. The skies above us andthe earth underfoot are in perpetual motion. Each atom of our physicalnature is vibrating with unimaginable rapidity. Change is identical withlife. "

"It sometimes seems, " said the sculptor, "as if thoughts evaporated likewater. "

"Why not, under favorable conditions?"

"But where do they go? Surely they cannot perish utterly?"

"Yes, that is the question. Or, rather, it is not a question. Nothingis ever lost in the spiritual universe. "

"But what, " inquired Ernest, "is the particular reason for yourreflection?"

"It is this, " the sculptor replied; "I had a striking motive and lostit. "

"Do you remember, " he continued, speaking to Reginald, "the Narcissus Iwas working on the last time when you called at my studio?"

"Yes; it was a striking thing and impressed me very much, though Icannot recall it at the moment. "

"Well, it was a commission. An eccentric young millionaire had offeredme eight thousand dollars for it. I had an absolutely originalconception. But I cannot execute it. It's as if a breeze had carried itaway. "

"That is very regrettable. "

"Well, I should say so, " replied the sculptor. 

Ernest smiled. For everybody knew of Walkham's domestic troubles. Havingtwice figured in the divorce court, he was at present defraying theexpenses of three households. 

The sculptor had meanwhile seated himself at Reginald's writing-table, unintentionally scanning a typewritten page that was lying before him. Like all artists, something of a madman and something of a child, he atfirst glanced over its contents distractedly, then with an interest sointense that he was no longer aware of the impropriety of his action. 

"By Jove!" he cried. "What is this?"

"It's an epic of the French Revolution, " Reginald replied, not withoutsurprise. 

"But, man, do you know that I have discovered my motive in it?"

"What do you mean?" asked Ernest, looking first at Reginald and then atWalkham, whose sanity he began to doubt. 

"Listen!"

And the sculptor read, trembling with emotion, a long passage whosemeasured cadence delighted Ernest's ear, without, however, enlighteninghis mind as to the purport of Walkham's cryptic remark. 

Reginald said nothing, but the gleam in his eye showed that this time, at least, his interest was alert. 

Walkham saw the hopelessness of making clear his meaning without anexplanation. 

"I forget you haven't a sculptor's mind. I am so constituted that, withme, all impressions are immediately translated into the sense of form. Ido not hear music; I see it rise with domes and spires, with paintedwindows and Arabesques. The scent of the rose is to me tangible. I canalmost feel it with my hand. So your prose suggested to me, by itsrhythmic flow, something which, at first indefinite, crystallisedfinally into my lost conception of Narcissus. "

"It is extraordinary, " murmured Reginald. "I had not dreamed of it. "

"So you do not think it rather fantastic?" remarked Ernest, circumscribing his true meaning. 

"No, it is quite possible. Perhaps his Narcissus was engaging thesub-conscious strata of my mind while I was writing this passage. Andsurely it would be strange if the undercurrents of our mind were notreflected in our style. "

"Do you mean, then, that a subtle psychologist ought to be able to readbeneath and between our lines, not only what we express, but also whatwe leave unexpressed?"

"Undoubtedly. "

"Even if, while we are writing, we are unconscious of our state of mind?That would open a new field to psychology. "

"Only to those that have the key, that can read the hidden symbols. Itis to me a matter-of-course that every mind-movement below or above thethreshold of consciousness must, of a necessity, leave its imprintfaintly or clearly, as the case may be, upon our activities. "

"This may explain why books that seem intolerably dull to the majority, delight the hearts of the few, " Ernest interjected. 

"Yes, to the few that possess the key. I distinctly remember how anuncle of mine once laid down a discussion on higher mathematics andblushed fearfully when his innocent wife looked over his shoulder. Theman who had written it was a roué. "

"Then the seemingly most harmless books may secretly possess the powerof scattering in young minds the seed of corruption, " Walkham remarked. 

"If they happen to understand, " Clarke observed thoughtfully. "I canvery well conceive of a lecherous text-book of the calculus, or of areporter's story of a picnic in which burnt, under the surface, undiscoverable, save to the initiate, the tragic passion of Tristram andIseult. "

VI

Several weeks had elapsed since the conversation in Reginald Clarke'sstudio. The spring was now well advanced and had sprinkled the meadowswith flowers, and the bookshelves of the reviewers with fiction. Thelatter Ernest turned to good account, but from the flowers no poemblossomed forth. In writing about other men's books, he almost forgotthat the springtide had brought to him no bouquet of song. Only now andthen, like a rippling of water, disquietude troubled his soul. 

The strange personality of the master of the house had enveloped thelad's thoughts with an impenetrable maze. The day before Jack had comeon a flying visit from Harvard, but even he was unable to free Ernest'ssoul from the obsession of Reginald Clarke. 

Ernest was lazily stretching himself on a couch, waving the smoke ofhis cigarette to Reginald, who was writing at his desk. 

"Your friend Jack is delightful, " Reginald remarked, looking up from hispapers. "And his ebon-coloured hair contrasts prettily with the gold inyours. I should imagine that you are temperamental antipodes. "

"So we are; but friendship bridges the chasm between. "

"How long have you known him?"

"We have been chums ever since our sophomore year. "

"What attracted you in him?"

"It is no simple matter to define exactly one's likes and dislikes. Evena tiny protoplasmic animal appears to be highly complex under themicroscope. How can we hope to analyse, with any degree of certitude, our souls, especially when, under the influence of feeling, we see asthrough a glass darkly. "

"It is true that personal feeling colours our spectacles and distortsthe perspective. Still, we should not shrink from self-analysis. We mustlearn to see clearly into our own hearts if we would give vitality toour work. Indiscretion is the better part of literature, and itbehooves us to hound down each delicate elusive shadow of emotion, andconvert it into copy. "

"It is because I am so self-analytical that I realise the complexity ofmy nature, and am at a loss to define my emotions. Conflicting forcessway us hither and thither without neutralising each other. Physicologyisn't physics. There were many things to attract me to Jack. He wassubtler, more sympathetic, more feminine, perhaps, than the rest of mycollege-mates. "

"That I have noticed. In fact, his lashes are those of a girl. You stillcare for him very much?"

"It isn't a matter of caring. We are two beings that live one life. "

"A sort of psychic Siamese twins?"

"Almost. Why, the matter is very simple. Our hearts root in the samesoil; the same books have nourished us, the same great winds have shakenour being, and the same sunshine called forth the beautiful blossom offriendship. "

"He struck me, if you will pardon my saying so, as a rather commonplacecompanion. "

"There is in him a hidden sweetness, and a depth of feeling which onlyintimate contact reveals. He is now taking his post-graduate course atHarvard, and for well-nigh two months we have not met; yet so manyinvisible threads of common experience unite us that we could meet afteryears and still be near each other. "

"You are very young, " Reginald replied. 

"What do you mean?"

"Ah--never mind. "

"So you do not believe that two hearts may ever beat as one?"

"No, that is an auditory delusion. Not even two clocks beat in unison. There is always a discrepancy, infinitesimal, perhaps, but a discrepancynevertheless. "

A sharp ring of the bell interrupted the conversation. A moment later acurly head peeped through the door. 

"Hello, Ernest! How are you, old man?" the intruder cried, with a laughin his voice. Then, noticing Clarke, he shook hands with the great manunceremoniously, with the nonchalance of the healthy young animal bredin the atmosphere of an American college. 

His touch seemed to thrill Clarke, who breathed heavily and then steppedto the window, as if to conceal the flush of vitality on his cheek. 

It was a breath of springtide that Jack had brought with him. Youth is aPrince Charming. To shrivelled veins the pressure of his hand imparts aspark of animation, and middle age unfolds its petals in his presence, as a sunflower gazing at late noon once more upon its lord. 

"I have come to take Ernest away from you, " said Jack. "He looks atrifle paler than usual, and a day's outing will stir the red corpusclesin his blood. "

"I have no doubt that you will take very good care of him, " Reginaldreplied. 

"Where shall we go?" Ernest asked, absent-mindedly. 

But he did not hear the answer, for Reginald's scepticisms had moredeeply impressed him than he cared to confess to himself. 

VII

The two boys had bathed their souls in the sea-breeze, and their eyes inlight. 

The tide of pleasure-loving humanity jostling against them had carriedtheir feet to the "Lion Palace. " From there, seated at table andquenching their thirst with high-balls, they watched the feverishpalpitations of the city's life-blood pulsating in the veins of ConeyIsland, to which they had drifted from Brighton Beach. 

Ernest blew thoughtful rings of smoke into the air. 

"Do you notice the ferocious look in the mien of the average frequenterof this island resort?" he said to Jack, whose eyes, following theimpulse of his more robust youth, were examining specimens of feminineflotsam on the waves of the crowd. 

"It is, " he continued, speaking to himself for want of an audience, "the American who is in for having a 'good time. ' And he is going to getit. Like a huntsman, he follows the scent of happiness; but I warrantthat always it eludes him. Perhaps his mad race is only the epitome ofhumanity's vain pursuit of pleasure, the eternal cry that is neveranswered. "

But Jack was not listening. There are times in the life of every manwhen a petticoat is more attractive to him than all the philosophy ofthe world. 

Ernest was a little hurt, and it was not without some silentremonstrance that he acquiesced when Jack invited to their table twocreatures that once were women. 

"Why?"

"But they are interesting. "

"I cannot find so. "

They both had seen better times--of course. Then money losses came, withwork in shop or factory, and the voice of the tempter in the commercialwilderness. 

One, a frail nervous little creature, who had instinctively chosen aseat at Ernest's side, kept prattling in his ear, ready to tell thestory of her life to any one who was willing to treat her to a drink. Something in her demeanour interested him. 

"And then I had a stroke of luck. The manager of a vaudeville was myfriend and decided to give me a trial. He thought I had a voice. Theycalled me Betsy, the Hyacinth Girl. At first it seemed as if peopleliked to hear me. But I suppose that was because I was new. After amonth or two they discharged me. "

"And why?"

"I suppose I was just used up, that's all. "

"Frightful!"

"I never had much of a voice--and the tobacco smoke--and the wine--Ilove wine. "

She gulped down her glass. 

"And do you like your present occupation?"

"Why not? Am I not young? Am I not pretty?"

This she said not parrotwise, but with a simple coquettishness that wasall her own. 

On the way to the steamer a few moments later, Ernest asked, half-reproachfully: "Jack--and you really enjoyed this conversation?"

"Didn't you?"

"Do you mean this?"

"Why, yes; she was--very agreeable. "

Ernest frowned. 

"We're twenty, Ernest. And then, you see, it's like a course insociology. Susie--"

"Susie, was that her name?"

"Yes. "

"So she had a name?"

"Of course. "

"She shouldn't. It should be a number. "

"They may not be pillars of society; still, they're human. "

"Yes, " said Ernest, "that is the most horrible part of it. "

VIII

The moon was shining brightly. 

Swift and sure the prow of the night-boat parted the silvery foam. 

The smell of young flesh. Peals of laughter. A breathless pianola. Thetripping of dancing-feet. Voices husked with drink and voices soft withlove. The shrill accents of vulgarity. Hustling waiters. Shop-girls. Bourgeois couples. Tired families of four and upward. Sleeping children. A boy selling candy. The crying of babies. 

The two friends were sitting on the upper deck, muffled in their longrain-coats. 

In the distance the Empire City rose radiant from the mist. 

"Say, Ernest, you should spout some poetry as of old. Are your lipsstricken mute, or are you still thinking of Coney Island?"

"Oh, no, the swift wind has taken it away. I am clean, I am pure. Lifehas passed me. It has kissed me, but it has left no trace. "

He looked upon the face of his friend. Their hands met. They felt, withkeen enjoyment, the beauty of the night, of their friendship, and of thecity beyond. 

Then Ernest's lips moved softly, musically, twitching with a strangeascetic passion that trembled in his voice as he began:

 _"Huge steel-ribbed monsters rise into the air Her Babylonian towers, while on high, Like gilt-scaled serpents, glide the swift trains by, Or, underfoot, creep to their secret lair. A thousand lights are jewels in her hair, The sea her girdle, and her crown the sky; Her life-blood throbs, the fevered pulses fly. Immense, defiant, breathless she stands there. 

 "And ever listens in the ceaseless din, Waiting for him, her lover, who shall come, Whose singing lips shall boldly claim their own, And render sonant what in her was dumb, The splendour, and the madness, and the sin, Her dreams in iron and her thoughts of stone. "_

He paused. The boat glided on. For a long time neither spoke a word. 

After a while Jack broke the silence: "And are you dreaming of becomingthe lyric mouth of the city, of giving utterance to all its yearnings, its 'dreams in iron and its thoughts of stone'?"

"No, " replied Ernest, simply, "not yet. It is strange to whatimpressions the brain will respond. In Clarke's house, in the midst ofinspiring things, inspiration failed me. But while I was with that girlan idea came to me--an idea, big, real. "

"Will it deal with her?"

Ernest smiled: "Oh, no. She personally has nothing to do with it. Atleast not directly. It was the commotion of blood and--brain. Theair--the change. I don't know what. "

"What will it be?" asked Jack, with interest all alert. 

"A play, a wonderful play. And its heroine will be a princess, a littleprincess, with a yellow veil. "

"What of the plot?"

"That I shall not tell you to-day. In fact, I shall not breathe a wordto any one. It will take you all by surprise--and the public by storm. "

"So it will be playable?"

"If I am not very much mistaken, you will see it on Broadway within ayear. And, " he added graciously, "I will let you have two box-seats forthe first night. "

They both chuckled at the thought, and their hearts leaped within them. 

"I hope you will finish it soon, " Jack observed after a while. "Youhaven't done much of late. "

"A similar reflection was on my mind when you came yesterday. Thataccounts for the low spirits in which you found me. "

"Ah, indeed, " Jack replied, measuring Ernest with a look of wonder. "Butnow your face is aglow. It seems that the blood rushes to your headswifter at the call of an idea than at the kiss of a girl. "

"Thank God!" Ernest remarked with a sigh of relief. "Mighty forceswithin me are fashioning the limpid thought. Passion may grip us by thethroat momentarily; upon our backs we may feel the lashes of desire andbathe our souls in flames of many hues; but the joy of activity is theultimate passion. "

IX

It seemed, indeed, as if work was to Ernest what the sting of pleasureis to the average human animal. The inter-play of his mental forces gavehim the sensuous satisfaction of a woman's embrace. His eyes sparkled. His muscle tightened. The joy of creation was upon him. 

Often very material reasons, like stone weights tied to the wings of abird, stayed the flight of his imagination. Magazines were waiting forhis copy, and he was not in the position to let them wait. They suppliedhis bread and butter. 

Between the bread and butter, however, the play was growing scene byscene. In the lone hours of the night he spun upon the loom of his fancya brilliant weft of swift desire--heavy, perfumed, Oriental--interwovenwith bits of gruesome tenderness. The thread of his own life intertwinedwith the thread of the story. All genuine art is autobiography. It isnot, however, necessarily a revelation of the artist's actual self, butof a myriad of potential selves. Ah, our own potential selves! They aresometimes beautiful, often horrible, and always fascinating. They loomto heavens none too high for our reach; they stray to yawning hellsbeneath our very feet. 

The man who encompasses heaven and hell is a perfect man. But there aremany heavens and more hells. The artist snatches fire from both. Surelythe assassin feels no more intensely the lust of murder than the poetwho depicts it in glowing words. The things he writes are as real to himas the things that he lives. But in his realm the poet is supreme. Hishands may be red with blood or white with leprosy: he still remainsking. Woe to him, however, if he transcends the limits of his kingdomand translates into action the secret of his dreams. The throng thatbefore applauded him will stone his quivering body or nail to the crosshis delicate hands and feet. 

Sometimes days passed before Ernest could concentrate his mind upon hisplay. Then the fever seized him again, and he strung pearl on pearl, line on line, without entrusting a word to paper. Even to discuss hiswork before it had received the final brush-strokes would have seemedindecent to him. 

Reginald, too, seemed to be in a turmoil of work. Ernest had littlechance to speak to him. And to drop even a hint of his plans between thecourses at breakfast would have been desecration. 

Sunset followed sunset, night followed night. The stripling April hadmade room for the lady May. The play was almost completed in Ernest'smind, and he thought, with a little shudder, of the physical travail ofthe actual writing. He felt that the transcript from brain to paperwould demand all his powers. For, of late, his thoughts seemed strangelyevanescent; they seemed to run away from him whenever he attempted toseize them. 

The day was glad with sunshine, and he decided to take a long walk inthe solitude of the Palisades, to steady hand and nerve for the finaltask. 

He told Reginald of his intention, but met with little response. Reginald's face was wan and bore the peculiar pallor of one who hadworked late at night. 

"You must be frightfully busy?" Ernest asked, with genuine concern. 

"So I am, " Reginald replied. "I always work in a white heat. I amrestless, nervous, feverish, and can find no peace until I have givenutterance to all that clamours after birth. "

"What is it that is so engaging your mind, the epic of the FrenchRevolution?"

"Oh, no. I should never have undertaken that. I haven't done a stroke ofwork on it for several weeks. In fact, ever since Walkham called, Isimply couldn't. It seemed as if a rough hand had in some way destroyedthe web of my thought. Poetry in the writing is like red hot glassbefore the master-blower has fashioned it into birds and trees andstrange fantastic shapes. A draught, caused by the opening of a door maydistort it. But at present I am engaged upon more important work. I ammodelling a vessel not of fine-spun glass, but of molten gold. "

"You make me exceedingly anxious to know what you have in store for us. It seems to me you have reached a point where even you can no longersurpass yourself. "

Reginald smiled. "Your praise is too generous, yet it warms likesunshine. I will confess that my conception is unique. It combines withthe ripeness of my technique the freshness of a second spring. "

Ernest was bubbling with anticipated delights. His soul responded toReginald's touch as a harp to the winds. "When, " he cried, "shall we beprivileged to see it?"

Reginald's eyes were already straying back to his writing table. "If thegods are propitious, " he remarked, "I shall complete it to-night. To-morrow is my reception, and I have half promised to read it then. "

"Perhaps I shall be in the position soon to let you see my play. "

"Let us hope so, " Reginald replied absent-mindedly. The egotism of theartist had once more chained him to his work. 

X

That night a brilliant crowd had gathered in Reginald Clarke's house. From the studio and the adjoining salon arose a continual murmur ofwell-tuned voices. On bare white throats jewels shone as if in each asoul were imprisoned, and voluptuously rustled the silk that clung tothe fair slim forms of its bearers in an undulating caress. Subtleperfumes emanated from the hair and the hands of syren women, commingling with the soft plump scent of their flesh. Fragrant tapers, burning in precious crystal globules stained with exquisite colours, sprinkled their shimmering light over the fashionable assemblage andlent a false radiance to the faces of the men, while in the hair and thejewels of the women each ray seemed to dance like an imp with its mate. 

A seat like a throne, covered with furs of tropic beasts of prey, stoodin one corner of the room in the full glare of the light, waiting forthe monarch to come. Above were arranged with artistic _raffinement_weird oriental draperies, resembling a crimson canopy in the totaleffect. Chattering visitors were standing in groups, or had seatedthemselves on the divans and curiously-fashioned chairs that werescattered in seeming disorder throughout the salon. There were criticsand writers and men of the world. Everybody who was anybody and a littlebigger than somebody else was holding court in his own small circle ofenthusiastic admirers. The Bohemian element was subdued, but notentirely lacking. The magic of Reginald Clarke's name made stately damesblind to the presence of some individuals whom they would have passed onthe street without recognition. 

Ernest surveyed this gorgeous assembly with the absent look of asleep-walker. Not that his sensuous soul was unsusceptible to theatmosphere of culture and corruption that permeated the whole, nor tothe dazzling colour effects that tantalised while they delighted theeye. But to-night they shrivelled into insignificance before thesplendour of his inner vision. A radiant dreamland palace, his play, hadrisen from the night of inchoate thought. It was wonderful, it was real, and needed for its completion only the detail of actual construction. And now the characters were hovering in the recesses of his brain, wereyearning to leave that many-winded labyrinth to become real beings ofpaper and ink. He would probably have tarried overlong in this fancifulmansion, had not the reappearance of an unexpected guest broken hisreverie. 

"Jack!" he exclaimed in surprise, "I thought you a hundred miles awayfrom here. "

"That shows that you no longer care for me, " Jack playfully answered. "When our friendship was young, you always had a presentiment of mypresence. "

"Ah, perhaps I had. But tell me, where do you hail from?"

"Clarke called me up on the telephone--long-distance, you know. Isuppose it was meant as a surprise for you. And you certainly lookedsurprised--not even pleasantly. I am really head-over-heels at work. But you know how it is. Sometimes a little imp whispers into my earsdaring me to do a thing which I know is foolish. But what of it? My legsare strong enough not to permit my follies to overtake me. "

"It was certainly good of you to come. In fact, you make me very glad. Ifeel that I need you to-night--I don't know why. The feeling camesuddenly--suddenly as you. I only know I need you. How long can youstay?"

"I must leave you to-morrow morning. I have to hustle somewhat. You knowmy examinations are taking place in a day or two and I've got to cram upa lot of things. "

"Still, " remarked Ernest, "your visit will repay you for the loss oftime. Clarke will read to us to-night his masterpiece. "

"What is it?"

"I don't know. I only know it's the real thing. It's worth all thewisdom bald-headed professors may administer to you in concentrateddoses at five thousand a year. "

"Come now, " Jack could not help saying, "is your memory giving way?Don't you remember your own days in college--especially the mathematicalexaminations? You know that your marks came always pretty near theabsolute zero. "

"Jack, " cried Ernest in honest indignation, "not the last time. The lasttime I didn't flunk. "

"No, because your sonnet on Cartesian geometry roused even themath-fiend to compassion. And don't you remember Professor Squeeler, whose heart seemed to leap with delight whenever he could tell you that, in spite of incessant toil on your part, he had again flunked you inphysics with fifty-nine and a half per cent. ?"

"And he wouldn't raise the mark to sixty! God forgive him, --I cannot. "

Here their exchange of reminiscences was interrupted. There was a stir. The little potentates of conversation hastened to their seats, beforetheir minions had wholly deserted them. 

The king was moving to his throne!

Assuredly Reginald Clarke had the bearing of a king. Leisurely he tookhis seat under the canopy. 

A hush fell on the audience; not a fan stirred as he slowly unfolded hismanuscript. 

XI

The music of Reginald Clarke's intonation captivated every ear. Voluptuously, in measured cadence, it rose and fell; now full and stronglike the sound of an organ, now soft and clear like the tinkling ofbells. His voice detracted by its very tunefulness from what he said. The powerful spell charmed even Ernest's accustomed ear. The first pagegracefully glided from Reginald's hand to the carpet before the boydimly realised that he was intimately familiar with every word that fellfrom Reginald's lips. When the second page slipped with seemingcarelessness from the reader's hand, a sudden shudder ran through theboy's frame. It was as if an icy hand had gripped his heart. There couldbe no doubt of it. This was more than mere coincidence. It wasplagiarism. He wanted to cry out. But the room swam before his eyes. Surely he must be dreaming. It was a dream. The faces of the audience, the lights, Reginald, Jack--all phantasmagoria of a dream. 

Perhaps he had been ill for a long time. Perhaps Clarke was reading theplay for him. He did not remember having written it. But he probably hadfallen sick after its completion. What strange pranks our memories willplay us! But no! He was not dreaming, and he had not been ill. 

He could endure the horrible uncertainty no longer. His overstrungnerves must find relaxation in some way or break with a twang. He turnedto his friend who was listening with rapt attention. 

"Jack, Jack!" he whispered. 

"What is it?"

"That is my play!"

"You mean that you inspired it?"

"No, I have written it, or rather, was going to write it. "

"Wake up, Ernest! You are mad!"

"No, in all seriousness. It is mine. I told you--don't youremember--when we returned from Coney Island--that I was writing aplay. "

"Ah, but not this play. "

"Yes, this play. I conceived it, I practically wrote it. "

"The more's the pity that Clarke had preconceived it. "

"But it is mine!"

"Did you tell him a word about it?"

"No, to be sure. "

"Did you leave the manuscript in your room?"

"I had, in fact, not written a line of it. No, I had not begun theactual writing. "

"Why should a man of Clarke's reputation plagiarise your plays, writtenor unwritten?"

"I can see no reason. But--"

"Tut, tut. "

For already this whispered conversation had elicited a look like a stabfrom a lady before them. 

Ernest held fast to the edge of a chair. He must cling to some reality, or else drift rudderless in a dim sea of vague apprehensions. 

Or was Jack right?

Was his mind giving way? No! No! No! There must be a monstrous secretsomewhere, but what matter? Did anything matter? He had called on hismate like a ship lost in the fog. For the first time he had notresponded. He had not understood. The bitterness of tears rose to theboy's eyes. 

Above it all, melodiously, ebbed and flowed the rich accents of ReginaldClarke. 

Ernest listened to the words of his own play coming from the older man'smouth. The horrible fascination of the scene held him entranced. He sawthe creations of his mind pass in review before him, as a man might lookupon the face of his double grinning at him from behind a door in thehideous hours of night. 

They were all there! The mad king. The subtle-witted courtiers. Thesombre-hearted Prince. The Queen-Mother who had loved a jester betterthan her royal mate, and the fruit of their shameful alliance, thePrincess Marigold, a creature woven of sunshine and sin. 

Swiftly the action progressed. Shadows of impending death darkened thehouse of the King. In the horrible agony of the rack the old jesterconfessed. Stripped of his cap and bells, crowned with a wreath ofblood, he looked so pathetically funny that the Princess Marigold couldnot help laughing between her tears. 

The Queen stood there all trembling and pale. Without a complaint shesaw her lover die. The executioner's sword smote the old man's headstraight from the trunk. It rolled at the feet of the King, who tossedit to Marigold. The little Princess kissed it and covered the grinninghorror with her yellow veil. 

The last words died away. 

There was no applause. Only silence. All were stricken with the dreadthat men feel in the house of God or His awful presence in genius. 

But the boy lay back in his chair. The cold sweat had gathered on hisbrow and his temples throbbed. Nature had mercifully clogged his headwith blood. The rush of it drowned the crying voice of the nerves, deadening for a while both consciousness and pain. 

XII

Somehow the night had passed--somehow in bitterness, in anguish. But ithad passed. 

Ernest's lips were parched and sleeplessness had left its trace in theblack rings under the eyes, when the next morning he confronted Reginaldin the studio. 

Reginald was sitting at the writing-table in his most characteristicpose, supporting his head with his hand and looking with clear piercingeyes searchingly at the boy. 

"Yes, " he observed, "it's a most curious psychical phenomenon. "

"You cannot imagine how real it all seemed to me. "

The boy spoke painfully, dazed, as if struck by a blow. 

"Even now it is as if something has gone from me, some strugglingthought that I cannot--cannot remember. "

Reginald regarded him as a physical experimenter might look upon thesubject of a particularly baffling mental disease. 

"You must not think, my boy, that I bear you any malice for yourextraordinary delusion. Before Jack went away he gave me an exactaccount of all that has happened. Divers incidents recurred to him fromwhich it appears that, at various times in the past, you have been onthe verge of a nervous collapse. "

A nervous collapse! What was the use of this term but a euphemism forinsanity?

"Do not despair, dear child, " Reginald caressingly remarked. "Yourdisorder is not hopeless, not incurable. Such crises come to every manwho writes. It is the tribute we pay to the Lords of Song. Theminnesinger of the past wrote with his heart's blood; but we moderns dipour pen into the sap of our nerves. We analyse life, love art--and thedissecting knife that we use on other men's souls finally turns againstourselves. 

"But what shall a man do? Shall he sacrifice art to hygiene andsurrender the one attribute that makes him chiefest of created things?Animals, too, think. Some walk on two legs. But introspectiondifferentiates man from the rest. Shall we yield up the sweetconsciousness of self that we derive from the analysis of our emotion, for the contentment of the bull that ruminates in the shade of a tree orthe healthful stupidity of a mule?"

"Assuredly not. "

"But what shall a man do?"

"Ah, that I cannot tell. Mathematics offers definite problems that admitof a definite solution. Life states its problems with less exactness andoffers for each a different solution. One and one are two to-day andto-morrow. Psychical values, on each manipulation, will yield adifferent result. Still, your case is quite clear. You have overworkedyourself in the past, mentally and emotionally. You have sown unrest, and must not be surprised if neurasthenia is the harvest thereof. "

"Do you think--that I should go to some sanitarium?" the boy falteringlyasked. 

"God forbid! Go to the seashore, somewhere where you can sleep and play. Take your body along, but leave your brain behind--at least do nottake more of it with you than is necessary. The summer season inAtlantic City has just begun. There, as everywhere in American society, you will be much more welcome if you come without brains. "

Reginald's half-bantering tone reassured Ernest a little. Timidly hedared approach once more the strange event that had wrought such havocwith his nervous equilibrium. 

"How do you account for my strange obsession--one might almost call it amania?"

"If it could be accounted for it would not be strange. "

"Can you suggest no possible explanation?"

"Perhaps a stray leaf on my desk a few indications of the plot, aremark--who knows? Perhaps thought-matter is floating in the air. Perhaps--but we had better not talk of it now. It would needlesslyexcite you. "

"You are right, " answered Ernest gloomily, "let us not talk of it. Butwhatever may be said, it is a marvellous play. "

"You flatter me. There is nothing in it that you may not be able to doequally well--some day. "

"Ah, no, " the boy replied, looking up to Reginald with admiration. "Youare the master. "

XIII

Lazily Ernest stretched his limbs on the beach of Atlantic City. Thesea, that purger of sick souls, had washed away the fever and the fretof the last few days. The wind was in his hair and the spray was in hisbreath, while the rays of the sun kissed his bare arms and legs. Herolled over in the glittering sand in the sheer joy of living. 

Now and then a wavelet stole far into the beach, as if to caress him, but pined away ere it could reach its goal. It was as if the enamouredsea was stretching out its arms to him. Who knows, perhaps through theclear water some green-eyed nymph, or a young sea-god with the tang ofthe sea in his hair, was peering amorously at the boy's red mouth. Thepeople of the deep love the red warm blood of human kind. It is alwaysthe young that they lure to their watery haunts, never the shrivelledlimbs that totter shivering to the grave. 

Such fancies came to Ernest as he lay on the shore in his bathingattire, happy, thoughtless, --animal. 

The sun and the sea seemed to him two lovers vying for his favor. Thesudden change of environment had brought complete relaxation and hadquieted his rebellious, assertive soul. He was no longer a solitary unitbut one with wind and water, herb and beach and shell. Almostvoluptuously his hand toyed with the hot sand that glided caressinglythrough his fingers and buried his breast and shoulder under itsglittering burden. 

A summer girl who passed lowered her eyes coquettishly. He watched herwithout stirring. Even to open his mouth or to smile would have seemedtoo much exertion. 

Thus he lay for hours. When at length noon drew nigh, it cost him agreat effort of will to shake off his drowsy mood and exchange his airycostume for the conventional habilaments of the dining-room. 

He had taken lodgings in a fashionable hotel. An unusual stroke of goodluck, hack-work that paid outrageously well, had made it possible forhim to idle for a time without a thought of the unpleasant necessity ofmaking money. 

One single article to which he signed his name only with reluctance hadbrought to him more gear than a series of golden sonnets. 

"Surely, " he thought, "the social revolution ought to begin from above. What right has the bricklayer to grumble when he receives for a week'swork almost more than I for a song?"

Thus soliloquising, he reached the dining-room. The scene that unfoldeditself before him was typical--the table over-loaded, the womenover-dressed. 

The luncheon was already in full course when he came. He mumbled anapology and seated himself on the only remaining chair next to a youthwho reminded him of a well-dressed dummy. With slight weariness his eyeswandered in all directions for more congenial faces when they werearrested by a lady on the opposite side of the table. She was clad in asilk robe with curiously embroidered net-work that revealed a nervousand delicate throat. The rich effect of the net-work was relieved by thestudied simplicity with which her heavy chestnut-colored hair wasgathered in a single knot. Her face was turned away from him, but therewas something in the carriage of her head that struck him as familiar. When at last she looked him in the face, the glass almost fell from hishand: it was Ethel Brandenbourg. She seemed to notice his embarrassmentand smiled. When she opened her lips to speak, he knew by the hauntingsweetness of the voice that he was not mistaken. 

"Tell me, " she said wistfully, "you have forgotten me? They all have. "

He hastened to assure her that he had not forgotten her. He recollectednow that he had first been introduced to her in Walkham's house someyears ago, when a mere college boy, he had been privileged to attend oneof that master's famous receptions. She had looked quite resolute andvery happy then, not at all like the woman who had stared so strangelyat Reginald in the Broadway restaurant. 

He regarded this encounter as very fortunate. He knew so much of herpersonal history that it almost seemed to him as if they had beenintimate for years. She, too, felt on familiar ground with him. Neitheras much as whispered the name of Reginald Clarke. Yet it was he, and theknowledge of what he was to them, that linked their souls with a commonbond. 

XIV

It was the third day after their meeting. Hour by hour their intimacyhad increased. Ethel was sitting in a large wicker-chair. She restlesslyfingered her parasol, mechanically describing magic circles in the sand. Ernest lay at her feet. With his knees clasped between his hands, hegazed into her eyes. 

"Why are you trying so hard to make love to me?" the woman asked, withthe half-amused smile with which the Eve near thirty receives the homageof a boy. There is an element of insincerity in that smile, but it is aweapon of defence against love's artillery. 

Sometimes, indeed, the pleading in the boy's eyes and the cry of theblood pierces the woman's smiling superiority. She listens, loves andloses. 

Ethel Brandenbourg was listening, but the idea of love had not yetentered into her mind. Her interest in Ernest was due in part to hisyouth and the trembling in his voice when he spoke of love. But whatprobably attracted her most powerfully was the fact that he intimatelyknew the man who still held her woman's heart in the hollow of his hand. It was half in play, therefore, that she had asked him that question. 

Why did he make love to her? He did not know. Perhaps it was theirresistible desire to be petted which young poets share withdomesticated cats. But what should he tell her? Polite platitudes wereout of place between them. 

Besides he knew the penalty of all tender entanglements. Women treatlove as if it were an extremely tenuous wire that can be drawn outindefinitely. This is a very expensive process. It costs us the mostprecious, the only irretrievable thing in the universe--time. And to himtime was song; for money he did not care. The Lord had hallowed his lipswith rhythmic speech; only in the intervals of his singing might helisten to the voice of his heart--strangest of all watches, that tellsthe time not by minutes and hours, but by the coming and going of love. 

The woman beside him seemed to read his thoughts. 

"Child, child, " she said, "why will you toy with love? Like Jehovah, heis a jealous god, and nothing but the whole heart can placate him. Woeto the woman who takes a poet for a lover. I admit it is fascinating, but it is playing _va banque_. In fact, it is fatal. Art or love willcome to harm. No man can minister equally to both. A genuine poet isincapable of loving a woman. "

"Pshaw! You exaggerate. Of course, there is a measure of truth in whatyou say, but it is only one side of the truth, and the truth, you know, is always Janus-faced. In fact, it often has more than two faces. I canassure you that I have cared deeply for the women to whom my love-poetrywas written. And you will not deny that it is genuine. "

"God forbid! Only you have been using the wrong preposition. You shouldhave said that it was written at them. "

Ernest stared at her in child-like wonder. 

"By Jove! you are too devilishly clever!" he exclaimed. 

After a little silence he said not without hesitation: "And do you applyyour theory to all artists, or only to us makers of rhyme?"

"To all, " she replied. 

He looked at her questioningly. 

"Yes, " she said, with a new sadness in her voice, "I, too, have paid theprice. "

"You mean?"

"I loved. "

"And art?"

"That was the sacrifice. "

"Perhaps you have chosen the better part, " Ernest said withoutconviction. 

"No, " she replied, "my tribute was brought in vain. "

This she said calmly, but Ernest knew that her words were of tragicimport. 

"You love him still?" he observed simply. 

Ethel made no reply. Sadness clouded her face like a veil or like a greymist over the face of the waters. Her eyes went out to the sea, following the sombre flight of the sea-mews. 

In that moment he could have taken her in his arms and kissed her withinfinite tenderness. 

But tenderness between man and woman is like a match in apowder-magazine. The least provocation, and an amorous explosion willensue, tumbling down the card-houses of platonic affection. If heyielded to the impulse of the moment, the wine of the springtide wouldset their blood afire, and from the flames within us there is no escape. 

"Come, come, " she said, "you do not love me. "

He protested. 

"Ah!" she cried triumphantly, "how many sonnets would you give for me?If you were a usurer in gold instead of in rhyme, I would ask how manydollars. But it is unjust to pay in a coin that we value little. To aman starving in gold mines, a piece of bread weighs more than all thetreasures of the earth. To you, I warrant your poems are the standard ofappreciation. How many would you give for me? One, two, three?"

"More. "

"Because you think love would repay you with compound interest, " sheobserved merrily. 

He laughed. 

And when love turns to laughter the danger is passed for the moment. 

XV

Thus three weeks passed without apparent change in their relations. Ernest possessed a personal magnetism that, always emanating from him, was felt most deeply when withdrawn. He was at all times involuntarilyexerting his power, which she ever resisted, always on the alert, alwayswarding off. 

When at last pressure of work made his immediate departure for New Yorkimperative, he had not apparently gained the least ground. But Ethelknew in her heart that she was fascinated, if not in love. The personalfascination was supplemented by a motherly feeling toward Ernest that, sensuous in essence, was in itself not far removed from love. Shestruggled bravely and with external success against her emotions, neverlosing sight of the fact that twenty and thirty are fifty. 

Increasingly aware of her own weakness, she constantly attempted tolead the conversation into impersonal channels, speaking preferably ofhis work. 

"Tell me, " she said, negligently fanning herself, "what new inspirationhave you drawn from your stay at the seaside?"

"Why, " he exclaimed enthusiastically, "volumes and volumes of it. Ishall write the great novel of my life after I am once more quietlyinstalled at Riverside Drive. "

"The great American novel?" she rejoined. 

"Perhaps. "

"Who will be your hero--Clarke?"

There was a slight touch of malice in her words, or rather in the pausebetween the penultimate word and the last. Ernest detected its presence, and knew that her love for Reginald was dead. Stiff and cold it lay inher heart's chamber--beside how many others?--all emboxed in the coffinof memory. 

"No, " he replied after a while, a little piqued by her suggestion, "Clarke is not the hero. What makes you think that he casts a spell oneverything I do?"

"Dear child, " she replied, "I know him. He cannot fail to impress hispowerful personality upon all with whom he comes in contact, to theinjury of their intellectual independence. Moreover, he is so brilliantand says everything so much better than anybody else, that by his verysplendor he discourages effort in others. At best his influence willshape your development according to the tenets of his mind--curious, subtle and corrupted. You will become mentally distorted, like one ofthose hunchback Japanese trees, infinitely wrinkled and infinitelygrotesque, whose laws of growth are not determined by nature, but by thediseased imagination of the East. "

"I am no weakling, " Ernest asserted, "and your picture of Clarke isaltogether out of perspective. His splendid successes are to me a sourceof constant inspiration. We have some things in common, but I realisethat it is along entirely different lines that success will come to me. He has never sought to influence me, in fact, I never received thesmallest suggestion from him. " Here the Princess Marigold seemed to peerat him through the veil of the past, but he waved her aside. "As for mystory, " he continued, "you need not go so far out of your way to findthe leading character?"

"Who can it be?" Ethel remarked, with a merry twinkle, "You?"

"Ethel, " he said sulkingly, "be serious. You know that it is you. "

"I am immensely flattered, " she replied. "Really, nothing pleases mebetter than to be immortalised in print, since I have little hopenowadays of perpetuating my name by virtue of pencil or brush. I havebeen put into novels before and am consumed with curiosity to hear theplot of yours. "

"If you don't mind, I had rather not tell you just yet, " Ernest said. "It's going to be called Leontina--that's you. But all depends on thetreatment. You know it doesn't matter much what you say so long as yousay it well. That's what counts. At any rate, any indication of the plotat this stage would be decidedly inadequate. "

"I think you are right, " she ventured. "By all means choose your owntime to tell me. Let's talk of something else. Have you writtenanything since your delightful book of verse last spring? Surely now isyour singing season. By the time we are thirty the springs of pure lyricpassion are usually exhausted. "

Ethel's inquiry somehow startled him. In truth, he could find nosatisfactory answer. A remark relative to his play--Clarke's play--roseto the threshold of his lips, but he almost bit his tongue as soon as herealised that the strange delusion which had possessed him that nightstill dominated the undercurrents of his cerebration. No, he hadaccomplished but little during the last few months--at least, by way ofcreative literature. So he replied that he had made money. "That issomething, " he said. "Besides, who can turn out a masterpiece everyweek? An artist's brain is not a machine, and in the respite fromcreative work I have gathered strength for the future. But, " he added, slightly annoyed, "you are not listening. "

His exclamation brought her back from the train of thoughts that hiswords had suggested. For in his reasoning she had recognised the samearguments that she had hourly repeated to herself in defence of herinactivity when she was living under the baneful influence of ReginaldClarke. Yes, baneful; for the first time she dared to confess it toherself. In a flash the truth dawned upon her that it was not her lovealone, but something else, something irresistable and very mysterious, that had dried up the well of creation in her. Could it be that the samepower was now exerting its influence upon the struggling soul of thistalented boy? Rack her brains as she might, she could not definitelyformulate her apprehensions and a troubled look came into her eyes. 

"Ethel, " the boy repeated, impatiently, "why are you not listening? Doyou realise that I must leave you in half an hour?"

She looked at him with deep tenderness. Something like a tear lent asoft radiance to her large child-like eyes. 

Ernest saw it and was profoundly moved. In that moment he loved herpassionately. 

"Foolish boy, " she said softly; then, lowering her voice to a whisper:"You may kiss me before you go. "

His lips gently touched hers, but she took his head between her handsand pressed her mouth upon his in a long kiss. 

Ernest drew back a little awkwardly. He had not been kissed like thisbefore. 

"Poet though you are, " Ethel whispered, "you have not yet learned tokiss. "

She was deeply agitated when she noticed that his hand was fumbling forthe watch in his vest-pocket. She suddenly released him, and said, alittle hurt: "No, you must not miss your train. Go by all means. "

Vainly Ernest remonstrated with her. 

"Go to him, " she said, and again, "go to him. "

With a heavy heart the boy obeyed. He waved his hat to her once morefrom below, and then rapidly disappeared in the crowd. For a momentstrange misgivings cramped her heart, and something within her calledout to him: "Do not go! Do not return to that house. " But no soundissued from her lips. Worldly wisdom had sealed them, had stifled theinner voice. And soon the boy's golden head was swallowed up in thedistance. 

XVI

While the train sped to New York, Ethel Brandenbourg was the one objectengaging Ernest's mind. He still felt the pressure of her lips upon his, and his nostrils dilated at the thought of the fragrance of her hairbrushing against his forehead. 

But the moment his foot touched the ferry-boat that was to take him toManhattan, the past three weeks were, for the time being at least, completely obliterated from his memory. All his other interests that hehad suppressed in her company because she had no part in them, camerushing back to him. He anticipated with delight his meeting withReginald Clarke. The personal attractiveness of the man had never seemedso powerful to Ernest as when he had not heard from him for some time. Reginald's letters were always brief. "Professional writers, " he waswont to say, "cannot afford to put fine feeling into their privatecorrespondence. They must turn it into copy. " He longed to sit with themaster in the studio when the last rays of the daylight were tremulouslyfalling through the stained window, and to discuss far into thedarkening night philosophies young and old. He longed for Reginald'svoice, his little mannerisms, the very perfume of his rooms. 

There also was a deluge of letters likely to await him in his apartment. For in his hurried departure he had purposely left his friends in thedark as to his whereabouts. Only to Jack he had dropped a little notethe day after his meeting with Ethel. 

He earnestly hoped to find Reginald at home, though it was well nigh teno'clock in the evening, and he cursed the "rapid transit" for itsinability to annihilate space and time. It is indeed disconcerting tothink how many months, if not years, of our earthly sojourn the dwellersin cities spend in transportation conveyances that must be set down as adead loss in the ledger of life. A nervous impatience against thingsmaterial overcame Ernest in the subway. It is ever the mere stupidobstacle of matter that weights down the wings of the soul and preventsit from soaring upward to the sun. 

When at last he had reached the house, he learned from the hall-boy thatClarke had gone out. Ruffled in temper he entered his rooms and wentover his mail. There were letters from editors with commissions that hecould not afford to reject. Everywhere newspapers and magazines openedtheir yawning mouths to swallow up what time he had. He realised at oncethat he would have to postpone the writing of his novel for severalweeks, if not longer. 

Among the letters was one from Jack. It bore the postmark of a littleplace in the Adirondacks where he was staying with his parents. Ernestopened the missive not without hesitation. On reading and rereading itthe fine lines on his forehead, that would some day deepen intowrinkles, became quite pronounced and a look of displeasure darkened hisface. Something was wrong with Jack, a slight change that defiedanalysis. Their souls were out of tune. It might only be a passingdisturbance; perhaps it was his own fault. It pained him, nevertheless. Somehow it seemed of late that Jack was no longer able to follow thevagaries of his mind. Only one person in the world possessed a similarmental vision, only one seemed to understand what he said and what heleft unsaid. Reginald Clarke, being a man and poet, read in his soul asin an open book. Ethel might have understood, had not love, like acloud, laid itself between her eyes and the page. 

It was with exultation that Ernest heard near midnight the click ofReginald's key in the door. He found him unchanged, completely, radiantly himself. Reginald possessed the psychic power of undressingthe soul, of seeing it before him in primal nakedness. Although no wordwas said of Ethel Brandenbourg except the mere mention of her presencein Atlantic City, Ernest intuitively knew that Reginald was aware of thetransformation that absence had wrought in him. In the presence of thisman he could be absolutely himself, without shame or fear ofmis-understanding; and by a strange metamorphosis, all his affectionfor Ethel and Jack went out for the time being to Reginald Clarke. 

XVII

The next day Ernest wrote a letter of more or less superficialtenderness to Ethel. She had wounded his pride by proving victorious inthe end over his passion and hers; besides, he was in the throes ofwork. When after the third day no answer came, he was inclined to feelaggrieved. It was plain now that she had not cared for him in the least, but had simply played with him for lack of another toy. A flush of shamerose to his cheeks at the thought. He began to analyse his own emotions, and stunned, if not stabbed, his passion step by step. Work was callingto him. It was that which gave life its meaning, not the love of aseason. How far away, how unreal, she now seemed to him. Yes, she wasright, he had not cared deeply; and his novel, too, would be writtenonly _at_ her. It was the heroine of his story that absorbed hisinterest, not the living prototype. 

Once in a conversation with Reginald he touched upon the subject. Reginald held that modern taste no longer permitted even thephotographer to portray life as it is, but insisted upon an individualvisualisation. "No man, " he remarked, "was ever translated bodily intofiction. In contradiction to life, art is a process of artificialselection. "

Bearing in mind this motive, Ernest went to work to mould from thematerial in hand a new Ethel, more real than life. Unfortunately hefound little time to devote to his novel. It was only when, after a goodday's work, a pile of copy for a magazine lay on his desk, that he couldthink of concentrating his mind upon "Leontina. " The result was thatwhen he went to bed his imagination was busy with the plan of his book, and the creatures of his own brain laid their fingers on his eyelid sothat he could not sleep. 

When at last sheer weariness overcame him, his mind was still at work, not in orderly sequence but along trails monstrous and grotesque. Hobgoblins seemed to steal through the hall, and leering incubioppressed his soul with terrible burdens. In the morning he awokeunrested. The tan vanished from his face and little lines appeared inthe corners of his mouth. It was as if his nervous vitality were sappedfrom him in some unaccountable way. He became excited, hysterical. Oftenat night when he wrote his pot-boilers for the magazines, fear stoodbehind his seat, and only the buzzing of the elevator outside broughthim back to himself. 

In one of his morbid moods he wrote a sonnet which he showed to Reginaldafter the latter's return from a short trip out of town. Reginald readit, looking at the boy with a curious, lurking expression. 

 _O gentle Sleep, turn not thy face away, But place thy finger on my brow, and take All burthens from me and all dreams that ache; Upon mine eyes a cooling balsam lay, Seeing I am aweary of the day. But, lo! thy lips are ashen and they quake. What spectral vision sees thou that can shake Thy sweet composure, and thy heart dismay? Perhaps some murderer's cruel eye agleam Is fixed upon me, or some monstrous dream Might bring such fearful guilt upon the head Of my unvigilant soul as would arouse The Borgian snake from her envenomed bed, Or startle Nero in his golden house. _

"Good stuff, " Reginald remarked, laying down the manuscript; "when didyou write it?"

"The night when you were out of town, " Ernest rejoined. 

"I see, " Reginald replied. 

There was something startling in his intonation that at once arousedErnest's attention. 

"What do you see?" he asked quickly. 

"Nothing, " Reginald replied, with immovable calm, "only that your stateof nerves is still far from satisfactory. "

XVIII

After Ernest's departure Ethel Brandenbourg's heart was swaying hitherand thither in a hurricane of conflicting feelings. Before she had timeto gain an emotional equilibrium, his letter had hurled her back intochaos. A false ring somewhere in Ernest's words, reechoing with anever-increasing volume of sound, stifled the voice of love. His jewelledsentences glittered, but left her cold. They lacked that spontaneitywhich renders even simple and hackeneyed phrases wonderful and unique. Ethel clearly realised that her hold upon the boy's imagination had beena fleeting midsummer night's charm, and that a word from Reginald's lipshad broken the potency of her spell. She almost saw the shadow ofReginald's visage hovering over Ernest's letter and leering at her frombetween the lines in sinister triumph. Finally reason came andwhispered to her that it was extremely unwise to give her heart into thekeeping of a boy. His love, she knew, would have been exacting, irritating at times. He would have asked her to sympathise with everyphase of his life, and would have expected active interest on her partin much that she had done with long ago. Thus, untruth would have stoleninto her life and embittered it. When mates are unequal, Love must paintits cheeks and, in certain moods at least, hide its face under a mask. Its lips may be honeyed, but it brings fret and sorrow in its train. 

These things she told herself over and over again while she penned acool and calculating answer to Ernest's letter. She rewrote it manytimes, and every time it became more difficult to reply. At last she puther letter aside for a few days, and when it fell again into her hand itseemed so unnatural and strained that she destroyed it. 

Thus several weeks had passed, and Ernest no longer exclusively occupiedher mind when, one day early in September, while glancing over amagazine, she came upon his name in the table of contents. Once moreshe saw the boy's wistful face before her, and a trembling somethingstirred in her heart. Her hand shook as she cut the pages, and a mist oftears clouded her vision as she attempted to read his poem. It was apiece of sombre brilliance. Like black-draped monks half crazed withmystic devotion, the poet's thoughts flitted across the page. It was thewail of a soul that feels reason slipping from it and beholds madnessrise over its life like a great pale moon. A strange unrest emanatedfrom it and took possession of her. And again, with an insight that wasprophetic, she distinctly recognised behind the vague fear that hadhaunted the poet the figure of Reginald Clarke. 

A half-forgotten dream, struggling to consciousness, staggered her byits vividness. She saw Clarke as she had seen him in days gone by, grotesquely transformed into a slimy sea-thing, whose hungry mouths shutsucking upon her and whose thousand tentacles encircled her form. Sheclosed her eyes in horror at the reminiscence. And in that moment itbecame clear to her that she must take into her hands the salvation ofErnest Fielding from the clutches of the malign power that hadmysteriously enveloped his life. 

XIX

The summer was brief, and already by the middle of September many hadreturned to the pleasures of urban life. Ethel was among thefirst-comers; for, after her resolve to enter the life of the young poetonce more, it would have been impossible for her to stay away from thecity much longer. Her plan was all ready. Before attempting to seeErnest she would go to meet Reginald and implore him to free the boyfrom his hideous spell. An element of curiosity unconsciously enteredher determination. When, years ago, she and Clarke had parted, the manhad seemed, for once, greatly disturbed and had promised, in hisagitation, that some day he would communicate to her what wouldexonerate him in her eyes. She had answered that all words between themwere purposeless, and that she hoped never to see his face again. Theexperience that the years had brought to her, instead of elucidatingthe mystery of Reginald's personality, had, on the contrary, made hisbehaviour appear more and more unaccountable. She had more than oncecaught herself wishing to meet him again and to analyse dispassionatelythe puzzling influences he had exerted upon her. And she could at lastview him dispassionately; there was triumph in that. She was dimly awarethat something had passed from her, something by which he had held her, and without which his magnetism was unable to play upon her. 

So when Walkham sent her an invitation to one of his artistic "at homes"she accepted, in the hope of meeting Reginald. It was his frequentationof Walkham's house that had for several years effectively barred herfoot from crossing the threshold. It was with a very strange feeling shegreeted the many familiar faces at Walkham's now; and when, toward teno'clock, Reginald entered, politely bowing in answer to the welcome fromall sides, her heart beat in her like a drum. But she calmed herself, and, catching his eye, so arranged it that early in the evening theymet in an alcove of the drawing-room. 

"It was inevitable, " Reginald said. "I expected it. "

"Yes, " she replied, "we were bound to meet. "

Like a great rush of water, memory came back to her. He was stillhorribly fascinating as of old--only she was no longer susceptible tohis fascination. He had changed somewhat in those years. The lines abouthis mouth had grown harder and a steel-like look had come into his eyes. Only for a moment, as he looked at her, a flash of tenderness seemed tocome back to them. Then he said, with a touch of sadness: "Why shouldthe first word between us be a lie?"

Ethel made no answer. 

Reginald looked at her half in wonder and said: "And is your love forthe boy so great that it overcame your hate of me?"

Ah, he knew! She winced. 

"He has told you?"

"Not a word. "

There was something superhuman in his power of penetration. Why shouldshe wear a mask before him, when his eyes, like the eyes of God, piercedto the core of her being?

"No, " she replied, "it is not love, but compassion for him. "

"Compassion?"

"Yes, compassion for your victim. "

"You mean?"

"Reginald!"

"I am all ear. "

"I implore you. "

"Speak. "

"You have ruined one life. "

He raised his eyebrows derogatively. 

"Yes, " she continued fiercely, "ruined it! Is not that enough?"

"I have never wilfully ruined any one's life. "

"You have ruined mine. "

"Wilfully?"

"How else shall I explain your conduct?"

"I warned you. "

"Warning, indeed! The warning that the snake gives to the sparrowhelpless under its gaze. "

"Ah, but who tells you that the snake is to blame? Is it not rather theoccult power that prescribes with blood on brazen scroll the law of ourbeing?"

"This is no solace to the sparrow. But whatever may be said, let us dropthe past. Let us consider the present. I beg of you, leave this boy--lethim develop without your attempting to stifle the life in him orimpressing upon it the stamp of your alien mind. "

"Ethel, " he protested, "you are unjust. If you knew--" Then an ideaseemed to take hold of him. He looked at her curiously. 

"What if I knew?" she asked. 

"You shall know, " he said, simply. "Are you strong?"

"Strong to withstand anything at your hand. There is nothing that youcan give me, nothing that you can take away. "

"No, " he remarked, "nothing. Yes, you have changed. Still, when I lookupon you, the ghosts of the past seem to rise like live things. "

"We both have changed. We meet now upon equal grounds. You are nolonger the idol I made of you. "

"Don't you think that to the idol this might be a relief, not ahumiliation? It is a terrible torture to sit in state with lipseternally shut. Sometimes there comes over the most reticent of us adesire to break through the eternal loneliness that surrounds the soul. It is this feeling that prompts madmen to tear off their clothes andexhibit their nakedness in the market-place. It's madness on my part, ora whim, or I don't know what; but it pleases me that you should know thetruth. "

"You promised me long ago that I should. "

"To-day I will redeem my promise, and I will tell you another thing thatyou will find hard to believe. "

"And that is?"

"That I loved you. "

Ethel smiled a little sceptically. "You have loved often. "

"No, " he replied. "Loved, seriously loved, I have, only once. "

XX

They were sitting in a little Italian restaurant where they had often, in the old days, lingered late into the night over a glass of LacrimæChristi. But no pale ghost of the past rose from the wine. Only awriggling something, with serpent eyes, that sent cold shivers down herspine and held her speechless and entranced. 

When their order had been filled and the waiter had posted himself at arespectful distance, Reginald began--at first leisurely, a man of theworld. But as he proceeded a strange exultation seemed to possess himand from his eyes leaped the flame of the mystic. 

"You must pardon me, " he commenced, "if I monopolise the conversation, but the revelations I have to make are of such a nature that I may wellclaim your attention. I will start with my earliest childhood. Youremember the picture of me that was taken when I was five?"

She remembered, indeed. Each detail of his life was deeply engraven onher mind. 

"At that time, " he continued, "I was not held to be particularly bright. The reason was that my mind, being pre-eminently and extraordinarilyreceptive, needed a stimulus from without. The moment I was sent toschool, however, a curious metamorphosis took place in me. I may saythat I became at once the most brilliant boy in my class. You know thatto this day I have always been the most striking figure in any circle inwhich I have ever moved. "

Ethel nodded assent. Silently watching the speaker, she saw a gleam ofthe truth from afar, but still very distant and very dim. 

Reginald lifted the glass against the light and gulped its contents. Then in a lower voice he recommenced: "Like the chameleon, I have thepower of absorbing the colour of my environment. "

"Do you mean that you have the power of absorbing the special virtuesof other people?" she interjected. 

"That is exactly what I mean. "

"Oh!" she cried, for in a heart-beat many things had become clear toher. For the first time she realised, still vaguely but with increasingvividness, the hidden causes of her ruin and, still more plainly, thehorrible danger of Ernest Fielding. 

He noticed her agitation, and a look of psychological curiosity cameinto his eyes. 

"Ah, but that is not all, " he observed, smilingly. "That is nothing. Weall possess that faculty in a degree. The secret of my strength is myability to reject every element that is harmful or inessential to thecompletion of my self. This did not come to me easily, nor without astruggle. But now, looking back upon my life, many things becometransparent that were obscure even to me at the time. I can now followthe fine-spun threads in the intricate web of my fate, and discover inthe wilderness of meshes a design, awful and grandly planned. "

His voice shook with conviction, as he uttered these words. There wassomething strangely gruesome in this man. It was thus that she hadpictured to herself the high-priest of some terrible and mysteriousreligion, demanding a human sacrifice to appease the hunger of his god. She was fascinated by the spell of his personality, and listened with afeeling not far removed from awe. But Reginald suddenly changed his toneand proceeded in a more conversational manner. 

"The first friend I ever cared for was a boy marvellously endowed forthe study of mathematics. At the time of our first meeting at school, Iwas unable to solve even the simplest algebraical problem. But we hadbeen together only for half a month, when we exchanged parts. It was Iwho was the mathematical genius now, whereas he became hopelessly dulland stuttered through his recitations only with a struggle that broughtthe tears to his eyes. Then I discarded him. Heartless, you say? I havecome to know better. Have you ever tasted a bottle of wine that had beenuncorked for a long time? If you have, you have probably found itflat--the essence was gone, evaporated. Thus it is when we care forpeople. Probably--no, assuredly--there is some principle prisoned intheir souls, or in the windings of their brains, which, when escaped, leaves them insipid, unprofitable and devoid of interest to us. Sometimes this essence--not necessarily the finest element in a man's ora woman's nature, but soul-stuff that we lack--disappears. In fact, itinvariably disappears. It may be that it has been transformed in theprocesses of their growth; it may also be that it has utterly vanishedby some inadvertence, or that we ourselves have absorbed it. "

"Then we throw them away?" Ethel asked, pale, but dry-eyed. A shudderpassed through her body and she clinched her glass nervously. At thatmoment Reginald resembled a veritable Prince of Darkness, sinister andbeautiful, painted by the hand of a modern master. Then, for a space, heagain became the man of the world. Smiling and self-possessed, he filledthe glasses, took a long sip of the wine and resumed his narrative. 

"That boy was followed by others. I absorbed many useless things andsome that were evil. I realised that I must direct my absorptivepropensities. This I did. I selected, selected well. And all the timethe terrible power of which I was only half conscious grew within me. "

"It is indeed a terrible power, " she cried; "all the more terrible forits subtlety. Had I not myself been its victim, I should not now find itpossible to believe in it. "

"The invisible hand that smites in the dark is certainly more fearfulthan a visible foe. It is also more merciful. Think how much you wouldhave suffered had you been conscious of your loss. "

"Still it seems even now to me that it cannot have been an utter, irreparable loss. There is no action without reaction. Even I--evenwe--must have received from you some compensation for what you havetaken away. "

"In the ordinary processes of life the law of action and reaction isindeed potent. But no law is without exception. Think of radium, forinstance, with its constant and seemingly inexhaustible outflow ofenergy. It is a difficult thing to imagine, but our scientific men haveaccepted it as a fact. Why should we find it more difficult to conceiveof a tremendous and infinite absorptive element? I feel sure that itmust somewhere exist. But every phenomenon in the physical world findsits counterpart in the psychical universe. There are radium-souls thatradiate without loss of energy, but also without increase. And there aresouls, the reverse of radium, with unlimited absorptive capacities. "

"Vampire-souls, " she observed, with a shudder, and her face blanched. 

"No, " he said, "don't say that. " And then he suddenly seemed to grow instature. His face was ablaze, like the face of a god. 

"In every age, " he replied, with solemnity, "there are giants who attainto a greatness which by natural growth no men could ever have reached. But in their youth a vision came to them, which they set out to seek. They take the stones of fancy to build them a palace in the kingdom oftruth, projecting into reality dreams, monstrous and impossible. Oftenthey fail and, tumbling from their airy heights, end a quixotic career. Some succeed. They are the chosen. Carpenter's sons they are, who havelaid down the Law of a World for milleniums to come; or simpleCorsicans, before whose eagle eye have quaked the kingdoms of the earth. But to accomplish their mission they need a will of iron and the wit ofa hundred men. And from the iron they take the strength, and from ahundred men's brains they absorb their wisdom. Divine missionaries, theyappear in all departments of life. In their hand is gathered to-day thegold of the world. Mighty potentates of peace and war, they unlock newseas and from distant continents lift the bars. Single-handed, theyaccomplish what nations dared not hope; with Titan strides they scalethe stars and succeed where millions fail. In art they live, the makersof new periods, the dreamers of new styles. They make themselves thevocal sun-glasses of God. Homer and Shakespeare, Hugo and Balzac--theyconcentrate the dispersed rays of a thousand lesser luminaries in onesinging flame that, like a giant torch, lights up humanity's path. "

She gazed at him, open-mouthed. The light had gone from his visage. Hepaused, exhausted, but even then he looked the incarnation of a force noless terrible, no less grand. She grasped the immensity of hisconception, but her woman's soul rebelled at the horrible injustice tothose whose light is extinguished, as hers had been, to feed an alienflame. And then, for a moment, she saw the pale face of Ernest staringat her out of the wine. 

"Cruel, " she sobbed, "how cruel!"

"What matter?" he asked. "Their strength is taken from them, but thespirit of humanity, as embodied in us, triumphantly marches on. "

XXI

Reginald's revelations were followed by a long silence, interrupted onlyby the officiousness of the waiter. The spell once broken, theyexchanged a number of more or less irrelevant observations. Ethel's mindreturned, again and again, to the word he had not spoken. He had saidnothing of the immediate bearing of his monstrous power upon her ownlife and that of Ernest Fielding. 

At last, somewhat timidly, she approached the subject. 

"You said you loved me, " she remarked. 

"I did. "

"But why, then--"

"I could not help it. "

"Did you ever make the slightest attempt?"

"In the horrible night hours I struggled against it. I even implored youto leave me. "

"Ah, but I loved you!"

"You would not be warned, you would not listen. You stayed with me, andslowly, surely, the creative urge went out of your life. "

"But what on earth could you find in my poor art to attract you? Whatwere my pictures to you?"

"I needed them, I needed you. It was a certain something, a rich coloureffect, perhaps. And then, under your very eyes, the colour thatvanished from your canvases reappeared in my prose. My style became moreluxurious than it had been, while you tortured your soul in the vainattempt of calling back to your brush what was irretrievably lost. "

"Why did you not tell me?"

"You would have laughed in my face, and I could not have endured yourlaugh. Besides, I always hoped, until it was too late, that I might yetcheck the mysterious power within me. Soon, however, I became aware thatit was beyond my control. The unknown god, whose instrument I am, hadwisely made it stronger than me. "

"But why, " retorted Ethel, "was it necessary to discard me, like acast-off garment, like a wanton who has lost the power to please?"

Her frame shook with the remembered emotion of that moment, when yearsago he had politely told her that she was nothing to him. 

"The law of being, " Reginald replied, almost sadly, "the law of mybeing. I should have pitied you, but the eternal reproach of yoursuffering only provoked my anger. I cared less for you every day, andwhen I had absorbed all of you that my growth required, you were to meas one dead, as a stranger you were. There was between us no furthercommunity of interest; henceforth, I knew, our lives must move intotally different spheres. You remember that day when we said good-bye?"

"You mean that day when I lay before you on my knees, " she correctedhim. 

"That day I buried my last dream of personal happiness. I would havegladly raised you from the floor, but love was utterly gone. If I amtenderer to-day than I am wont to be, it is because you mean so much tome as the symbol of my renunciation. When I realised that I could noteven save the thing I loved from myself, I became hardened and cruel toothers. Not that I know no kindly feeling, but no qualms of consciencelay their prostrate forms across my path. There is nothing in life forme but my mission. "

His face was bathed in ecstasy. The pupils were luminous, large andthreatening. He had the look of a madman or a prophet. 

After a while Ethel remarked: "But you have grown into one of themaster-figures of the age. Why not be content with that? Is there nolimit to your ambition?"

Reginald smiled: "Ambition! Shakespeare stopped when he had reached hisfull growth, when he had exhausted the capacity of his contemporaries. Iam not yet ready to lay down my pen and rest. "

"And will you always continue in this criminal course, a murderer ofother lives?"

He looked her calmly in the face. "I do not know. "

"Are you the slave of your unknown god?"

"We are all slaves, wire-pulled marionettes: You, Ernest, I. There isno freedom on the face of the earth nor above. The tiger that tears alamb is not free, I am not free, you are not free. All that happens musthappen; no word that is said is said in vain, in vain is raised nohand. "

"Then, " Ethel retorted, eagerly, "if I attempted to wrest your victimfrom you, I should also be the tool of your god?"

"Assuredly. But I am his chosen. "

"Can you--can you not set him free?"

"I need him--a little longer. Then he is yours. "

"But can you not, if I beg you again on my knees, at least loosen hischains before he is utterly ruined?"

"It is beyond my power. If I could not rescue you, whom I loved, what inheaven or on earth can save him from his fate? Besides, he will not beutterly ruined. It is only a part of him that I absorb. In his soul arechords that I have not touched. They may vibrate one day, when he hasgathered new strength. You, too, would have spared yourself much painhad you striven to attain success in different fields--not where I hadgarnered the harvest of a lifetime. It is only a portion of his talentthat I take from him. The rest I cannot harm. Why should he bury thatremainder?"

His eyes strayed through the window to the firmament, as if to say thatwords could no more bend his indomitable will than alter the changelesscourse of the stars. 

Ethel had half-forgotten the wrong she herself had suffered at hishands. He could not be measured by ordinary standards, this dazzlingmadman, whose diseased will-power had assumed such uncanny proportions. But here a young life was at stake. In her mind's eye she saw Reginaldcrush between his relentless hands the delicate soul of Ernest Fielding, as a magnificent carnivorous flower might close its glorious petals upona fly. 

Love, all conquering love, welled up in her. She would fight for Ernestas a tiger cat fights for its young. She would place herself in the wayof the awful force that had shattered her own aspirations, and save, atany cost, the brilliant boy who did not love her. 

XXII

The last rays of the late afternoon sun fell slanting through Ernest'swindow. He was lying on his couch, in a leaden, death-like slumber that, for the moment at least, was not even perturbed by the presence ofReginald Clarke. 

The latter was standing at the boy's bedside, calm, unmoved as ever. Theexcitement of his conversation with Ethel had left no trace on thechiselled contour of his forehead. Smilingly fastening an orchid of anindefinable purple tint in his evening coat, radiant, buoyant with life, he looked down upon the sleeper. Then he passed his hand over Ernest'sforehead, as if to wipe off beads of sweat. At the touch of his hand theboy stirred uneasily. When it was not withdrawn his countenance twitchedin pain. He moaned as men moan under the influence of some anæsthetic, without possessing the power to break through the narrow partition thatseparates them from death on the one side and from consciousness on theother. At last a sigh struggled to his seemingly paralysed lips, thenanother. Finally the babbling became articulate. 

"For God's sake, " he cried, in his sleep, "take that hand away!"

And all at once the benignant smile on Reginald's features was changedto a look of savage fierceness. He no longer resembled the man ofculture, but a disappointed, snarling beast of prey. He took his handfrom Ernest's forehead and retired cautiously through the half-opendoor. 

Hardly had he disappeared when Ernest awoke. For a moment he lookedaround, like a hunted animal, then sighed with relief and buried hishead in his hand. At that moment a knock at the door was heard, andReginald re-entered, calm as before. 

"I declare, " he exclaimed, "you have certainly been sleeping the sleepof the just. "

"It isn't laziness, " Ernest replied, looking up rather pleased at theinterruption. "But I've a splitting headache. "

"Perhaps those naps are not good for your health. "

"Probably. But of late I have frequently found it necessary to exactfrom the day-hours the sleep which the night refuses me. I suppose it isall due to indigestion, as you have suggested. The stomach is the sourceof all evil. "

"It is also the source of all good. The Greeks made it the seat of thesoul. I have always claimed that the most important item in a greatpoet's biography is an exact reproduction of his menu. "

"True, a man who eats a heavy beefsteak for breakfast in the morning isincapable of writing a sonnet in the afternoon. "

"Yes, " Reginald added, "we are what we eat and what our forefathers haveeaten before us. I ascribe the staleness of American poetry to thegriddle-cakes of our Puritan ancestors. I am sorry we cannot go deeperinto the subject at present. But I have an invitation to dinner where Ishall study, experimentally, the influence of French sauces on myversification. "

"Good-bye. "

"Au revoir. " And, with a wave of the hand, Reginald left the room. 

When the door had closed behind him, Ernest's thoughts took a moreserious turn. The tone of light bantering in which the precedingconversation had taken place had been assumed on his part. For the lastfew weeks evil dreams had tortured his sleep and cast their shadow uponhis waking hours. They had ever increased in reality, in intensity andin hideousness. Even now he could see the long, tapering fingers thatevery night were groping in the windings of his brain. It was awell-formed, manicured hand that seemed to reach under his skull, carefully feeling its way through the myriad convolutions where thoughtresides. 

And, oh, the agony of it all! A human mind is not a thing of stone, butalive, horribly alive to pain. What was it those fingers sought, whatmysterious treasures, what jewels hidden in the under-layer of hisconsciousness? His brain was like a human gold-mine, quaking under theblow of the pick and the tread of the miner. The miner! Ah, the miner!Ceaselessly, thoroughly, relentlessly, he opened vein after vein andwrested untold riches from the quivering ground; but each vein was alive vein and each nugget of gold a thought!

No wonder the boy was a nervous wreck. Whenever a tremulous nascent ideawas formulating itself, the dream-hand clutched it and took it away, brutally severing the fine threads that bind thought to thought. Andwhen the morning came, how his head ached! It was not an acute pain, butdull, heavy, incessant. 

These sensations, Ernest frequently told himself, were morbid fancies. But then, the monomaniac who imagines that his arms have been mangled orcut from his body, might as well be without arms. Mind can annihilateobstacles. It can also create them. Psychology was no unfamiliar groundto Ernest, and it was not difficult for him to seek in some casualsuggestion an explanation for his delusion, the fixed notion thathaunted him day and night. But he also realized that to explain aphenomenon is not to explain it away. The man who analyses his emotionscannot wholly escape them, and the shadow of fear--primal, inexplicablefear--may darken at moments of weakness the life of the subtlestpsychologist and the clearest thinker. 

He had never spoken to Reginald of his terrible nightmares. Coming onthe heel of the fancy that he, Ernest, had written "The Princess Withthe Yellow Veil, " a fancy that, by the way, had again possessed him oflate, this new delusion would certainly arouse suspicion as to hissanity in Reginald's mind. He would probably send him to a sanitarium;he certainly would not keep him in the house. Beneficence itself in allother things, his host was not to be trifled with in any matter thatinterfered with his work. He would act swiftly and without mercy. 

For the first time in many days Ernest thought of Abel Felton. Poor boy!What had become of him after he had been turned from the house? He wouldnot wait for any one to tell him to pack his bundle. But then, that wasimpossible; Reginald was fond of him. 

Suddenly Ernest's meditations were interrupted by a noise at the outerdoor. A key was turned in the lock. It must be he--but why so soon? Whatcould have brought him back at this hour? He opened the door and wentout into the hall to see what had happened. The figure that he beheldwas certainly not the person expected, but a woman, from whose shouldersa theatre-cloak fell in graceful folds, --probably a visitor forReginald. Ernest was about to withdraw discreetly, when the electriclight that was burning in the hallway fell upon her face and illuminedit. 

Then indeed surprise overcame him. "Ethel, " he cried, "is it you?"

XXIII

Ernest conducted Ethel Brandenbourg to his room and helped her to removeher cloak. 

While he was placing the garment upon the back of a chair, she slipped alittle key into her hand-bag. He looked at her with a question in hiseyes. 

"Yes, " she replied, "I kept the key; but I had not dreamed that I wouldever again cross this threshold. "

Meanwhile it had grown quite dark. The reflection of the street lanternswithout dimly lit the room, and through the twilight fantastic shadowsseemed to dance. 

The perfume of her hair pervaded the room and filled the boy's heartwith romance. Tenderness long suppressed called with a thousand voices. The hour, the strangeness and unexpectedness of her visit, perhaps evena boy's pardonable vanity, roused passion from its slumbers and onceagain wrought in Ernest's soul the miracle of love. His arm encircledher neck and his lips stammered blind, sweet, crazy and caressingthings. 

"Turn on the light, " she pleaded. 

"You were not always so cruel. "

"No matter, I have not come to speak of love. "

"Why, then, have you come?"

Ernest felt a little awkward, disappointed, as he uttered these words. 

What could have induced her to come to his rooms? He loosened his holdon her and did as she asked. 

How pale she looked in the light, how beautiful! Surely, she hadsorrowed for him; but why had she not answered his letter? Yes, why?

"Your letter?" She smiled a little sadly. "Surely you did not expect meto answer that?"

"Why not?" He had again approached her and his lips were close to hers. "Why not? I have yearned for you. I love you. "

His breath intoxicated her; it was like a subtle perfume. Still she didnot yield. 

"You love me now--you did not love me then. The music of your words wascold--machine-made, strained and superficial. I shall not answer, I toldmyself: in his heart he has forgotten you. I did not then realise that adangerous force had possessed your life and crushed in your mind everyimage but its own. "

"I don't understand. "

"Do you think I would have come here if it were a light matter? No, Itell you, it is a matter of life and death to you, at least as anartist. "

"What do you mean by that?"

"Have you done a stroke of work since I last saw you?"

"Yes, let me see, surely, magazine articles and a poem. "

"That is not what I want to know. Have you accomplished anything big?Have you grown since this summer? How about your novel?"

"I--I have almost finished it in my mind, but I have found no chance tobegin with the actual writing. I was sick of late, very sick. "

No doubt of it! His face was pinched and pale, and the lines about themouth were curiously contorted, like those of a man suffering from apainful internal disease. 

"Tell me, " she ventured, "do you ever miss anything?"

"Do you mean--are there thieves?"

"Thieves! Against thieves one can protect oneself. "

He stared at her wildly, half-frightened, in anticipation of somedreadful revelation. His dream! His dream! That hand! Could it be morethan a dream? God! His lips quivered. 

Ethel observed his agitation and continued more quietly, but with thesame insistence: "Have you ever had ideas, plans that you began withouthaving strength to complete them? Have you had glimpses of vocal visionsthat seemed to vanish no sooner than seen? Did it ever seem to you as ifsome mysterious and superior will brutally interfered with the workingsof your brain?"

Did it seem so to him! He himself could not have stated more plainlythe experience of the last few months. Each word fell from her lips likethe blow of a hammer. Shivering, he put his arm around her, seekingsolace, not love. This time she did not repulse him and, trustingly, asa child confides to his mother, he depicted to her the suffering thatharrowed his life and made it a hell. 

As she listened, indignation clouded her forehead, while rising tears ofanger and of love weighed down her lashes. She could bear the pitifulsight no longer. 

"Child, " she cried, "do you know who your tormentor is?"

And like a flash the truth passed from her to him. A sudden intimationtold him what her words had still concealed. 

"Don't! For Christ's sake, do not pronounce his name!" he sobbed. "Donot breathe it. I could not endure it. I should go mad. "

XXIV

Very quietly, with difficulty restraining her own emotion so as not toexcite him further, Ethel had related to Ernest the story of herremarkable interview with Reginald Clarke. In the long silence thatensued, the wings of his soul brushed against hers for the first time, and Love by a thousand tender chains of common suffering welded theirbeings into one. 

Caressingly the ivory of her fingers passed through the gold of his hairand over his brow, as if to banish the demon-eyes that stared at himacross the hideous spaces of the past. In a rush a thousand incidentscame back to him, mute witnesses of a damning truth. His play, thedreams that tormented him, his own inability to concentrate his mindupon his novel which hitherto he had ascribed to nervous disease--all, piling fact on fact, became one monstrous monument of Reginald Clarke'scrime. At last Ernest understood the parting words of Abel Felton andthe look in Ethel's eye on the night when he had first linked his fatewith the other man's. Walkham's experience, too, and Reginald's remarkson the busts of Shakespeare and Balzac unmistakably pointed toward thenew and horrible spectre that Ethel's revelation had raised in place ofhis host. 

And then, again, the other Reginald appeared, crowned with the lyricwreath. From his lips golden cadences fell, sweeter than the smell ofmany flowers or the sound of a silver bell. He was once more the divinemaster, whose godlike features bore no trace of malice and who hadraised him to a place very near his heart. 

"No, " he cried, "it is impossible. It's all a dream, a horriblenightmare. "

"But he has himself confessed it, " she interjected. 

"Perhaps he has spoken in symbols. We all absorb to some extent othermen's ideas, without robbing them and wrecking their thought-life. Reginald may be unscrupulous in the use of his power of impressing uponothers the stamp of his master-mind. So was Shakespeare. No, no, no!You are mistaken; we were both deluded for the moment by his picturesqueaccount of a common, not even a discreditable, fact. He may himself haveplayed with the idea, but surely he cannot have been serious. "

"And your own experience, and Abel Felton's and mine--can they, too, bedismissed with a shrug of the shoulder?"

"But, come to think of it, the whole theory seems absurd. It isunscientific. It is not even a case of mesmerism. If he had said that hehypnotised his victims, the matter would assume a totally differentaspect. I admit that something is wrong somewhere, and that the home ofReginald Clarke is no healthful abode for me. But you must also rememberthat probably we are both unstrung to the point of hysteria. "

But to Ethel his words carried no conviction. 

"You are still under his spell, " she cried, anxiously. 

A little shaken in his confidence, Ernest resumed: "Reginald is utterlyincapable of such an action, even granting that he possessed theterrible power of which you speak. A man of his splendid resources, aliterary Midas at whose very touch every word turns into gold, is underno necessity to prey on the thoughts of others. Circumstances, I admit, are suspicious. But in the light of common day this fanciful theoryshrivels into nothing. Any court of law would reject our evidence asmadness. It is too utterly fantastic, utterly alien to any humanexperience. "

"Is it though?" Ethel replied with peculiar intonation. 

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Surely, " she answered, "you must know that in the legends of everynation we read of men and women who were called vampires. They arebeings, not always wholly evil, whom every night some mysterious impulseleads to steal into unguarded bedchambers, to suck the blood of thesleepers and then, having waxed strong on the life of their victims, cautiously to retreat. Thence comes it that their lips are very red. Itis even said that they can find no rest in the grave, but return totheir former haunts long after they are believed to be dead. Those whomthey visit, however, pine away for no apparent reason. The physiciansshake their wise heads and speak of consumption. But sometimes, ancientchronicles assure us, the people's suspicions were aroused, and underthe leadership of a good priest they went in solemn procession to thegraves of the persons suspected. And on opening the tombs it was foundthat their coffins had rotted away and the flowers in their hair wereblack. But their bodies were white and whole; through no empty socketscrept the vermin, and their sucking lips were still moist with a littleblood. "

Ernest was carried away in spite of himself by her account, whichvividly resembled his own experience. Still he would not give in. 

"All this is impressive. I admit it is very impressive. But you yourselfspeak of such stories as legends. They are unfounded upon any tangiblefact, and you cannot expect a man schooled in modern sciences to admit, as having any possible bearing upon his life, the crude belief of theMiddle Ages!"

"Why not?" she responded. "Our scientists have proved true the wildesttheories of mediæval scholars. The transmutation of metals seems to-dayno longer an idle speculation, and radium has transformed into potentialreality the dream of perpetual motion. The fundamental notions ofmathematics are being undermined. One school of philosophers claims thatthe number of angles in a triangle is equal to more than two rightangles; another propounds that it is less. Even great scientists whohave studied the soul of nature are turning to spiritism. The world isovercoming the shallow scepticism of the nineteenth century. Life hasbecome once more wonderful and very mysterious. But it also seems that, with the miracles of the old days, their terrors, their nightmares andtheir monsters have come back in a modern guise. "

Ernest became even more thoughtful. "Yes, " he observed, "there issomething in what you say. " Then, pacing the room nervously, heexclaimed: "And still I find it impossible to believe your explanation. Reginald a vampire! It seems so ludicrous. If you had told me that suchcreatures exist somewhere, far away, I might have discussed the matter;but in this great city, in the shadow of the Flatiron Building--no!"

She replied with warmth: "Yet they exist--always have existed. Not onlyin the Middle Ages, but at all times and in all regions. There is nonation but has some record of them, in one form or another. And don'tyou think if we find a thought, no matter how absurd it may seem to us, that has ever occupied the minds of men--if we find, I say, such aperennially recurrent thought, are we not justified in assuming that itmust have some basis in the actual experience of mankind?"

Ernest's brow became very clouded, and infinite numbers of hiddenpremature wrinkles began to show. How wan he looked and how frail! Hewas as one lost in a labyrinth in which he saw no light, convincedagainst his will, or rather, against his scientific conviction, that shewas not wholly mistaken. 

"Still, " he observed triumphantly, "your vampires suck blood; butReginald, if vampire he be, preys upon the soul. How can a man suckfrom another man's brain a thing as intangible, as quintessential asthought?"

"Ah, " she replied, "you forget, thought is more real than blood!"

XXV

Only three hours had passed since Ethel had startled Ernest from hissombre reveries, but within this brief space their love had matured asif each hour had been a year. The pallor had vanished from his cheeksand the restiveness from his eyes. The intoxication of her presence hadrekindled the light of his countenance and given him strength to combatthe mighty forces embodied in Reginald Clarke. The child in him had maderoom for the man. He would not hear of surrendering without a struggle, and Ethel felt sure she might leave his fate in his own hand. Love hadlent him a coat of mail. He was warned, and would not succumb. Still shemade one more attempt to persuade him to leave the house at once withher. 

"I must go now, " she said. "Will you not come with me, after all? I amso afraid to think of you still here. "

"No, dear, " he replied. "I shall not desert my post. I must solve theriddle of this man's life; and if, indeed, he is the thing he seems tobe, I shall attempt to wrest from him what he has stolen from me. Ispeak of my unwritten novel. "

"Do not attempt to oppose him openly. You cannot resist him. "

"Be assured that I shall be on my guard. I have in the last few hourslived through so much that makes life worth living, that I would notwantonly expose myself to any danger. Still, I cannot go withoutcertainty--cannot, if there is some truth in our fears, leave the bestof me behind. "

"What are you planning to do?"

"My play--I am sure now that it is mine--I cannot take from him; that isirretrievably lost. He has read it to his circle and prepared for itspublication. And, no matter how firmly convinced you or I may be of hisstrange power, no one would believe our testimony. They would pronounceus mad. Perhaps we _are_ mad!"

"No; we are not mad; but it is mad for you to stay here, " she asserted. 

"I shall not stay here one minute longer than is absolutely essential. Within a week I shall have conclusive proof of his guilt or innocence. "

"How will you go about it?"

"His writing table--"

"Ah!"

"Yes, perhaps I can discover some note, some indication, some proof--"

"It's a dangerous game. "

"I have everything to gain. "

"I wish I could stay here with you, " she said. "Have you no friend, noone whom you could trust in this delicate matter?"

"Why, yes--Jack. "

A shadow passed over her face. 

"Do you know, " she said, "I have a feeling that you care more for himthan for me?"

"Nonsense, " he said, "he is my friend, you, you--immeasurably more. "

"Are you still as intimate with him as when I first met you?"

"Not quite; of late a troubling something, like a thin veil, seems tohave passed between us. But he will come when I call him. He will notfail me in my hour of need. "

"When can he be here?"

"In two or three days. "

"Meanwhile be very careful. Above all, lock your door at night. "

"I will not only lock, but barricade it. I shall try with all my powerto elucidate this mystery without, however, exposing myself to needlessrisks. "

"I will go, then. Kiss me good-bye. "

"May I not take you to the car?"

"You had better not. "

At the door she turned back once more. "Write me every day, or call meup on the telephone. "

He straightened himself, as if to convince her of his strength. Yet whenat last the door had closed behind her, his courage forsook him for amoment. And, if he had not been ashamed to appear a weakling before thewoman he loved, who knows if any power on earth could have kept him inthat house where from every corner a secret seemed to lurk!

There was a misgiving, too, in the woman's heart as she left the boybehind, --a prey to the occult power that, seeking expression in multipleactivities, has made and unmade emperors, prophets and poets. 

As she stepped into a street car she saw from afar, as in a vision, theface of Reginald Clarke. It seemed very white and hungry. There was nohuman kindness in it--only a threat and a sneer. 

XXVI

For over an hour Ernest paced up and down his room, wildly excited byEthel's revelations. It required an immense amount of self-control forhim to pen the following lines to Jack: "I need you. Come. "

After he had entrusted the letter to the hall-boy, a reaction set in andhe was able to consider the matter, if not with equanimity, at leastwith a degree of calmness. The strangest thing to him was that he couldnot bring himself to hate Reginald, of whose evil influence upon hislife he was now firmly convinced. Here was another shattered idol; butone--like the fragment of a great god-face in the desert--intenselyfascinating, even in its ruin. Then yielding to a natural impulse, Ernest looked over his photographs and at once laid hold upon theaustere image of his master and friend. No--it was preposterous; therewas no evil in this man. There was no trace of malice in this face, theface of a prophet or an inspired madman, a poet. And yet, as hescrutinised the picture closely a curious transformation seemed to takeplace in the features; a sly little line appeared insinuatingly aboutReginald's well-formed mouth, and the serene calm of his Jupiter-headseemed to turn into the sneak smile of a thief. Nevertheless, Ernest wasnot afraid. His anxieties had at last assumed definite shape; it waspossible now to be on his guard. It is only invisible, incomprehensiblefear, crouching upon us from the night, that drives sensitive natures tothe verge of madness and transforms stern warriors into cowards. 

Ernest realised the necessity of postponing the proposed investigationof Reginald's papers until the morning, as it was now near eleven, andhe expected to hear at any moment the sound of his feet at the door. Before retiring he took a number of precautions. Carefully he locked thedoor to his bedroom and placed a chair in front of it. To make doublysure, he fastened the handle to an exquisite Chinese vase, a gift ofReginald's, that at the least attempt to force an entrance from withoutwould come down with a crash. 

Then, although sleep seemed out of the question, he went to bed. He hadhardly touched the pillow when a leaden weight seemed to fall upon hiseyes. The day's commotion had been too much for his delicate frame. Byforce of habit he pulled the cover over his ear and fell asleep. 

All night he slept heavily, and the morning was far advanced when aknock at the door that, at first, seemed to come across an immeasurabledistance, brought him back to himself. It was Reginald's manservantannouncing that breakfast was waiting. 

Ernest got up and rubbed his eyes. The barricade at the door at oncebrought back to his mind with startling clearness the events of theprevious evening. 

Everything was as he had left it. Evidently no one had attempted toenter the room while he slept. He could not help smiling at thearrangement which reminded him of his childhood, when he had sought bysimilar means security from burglars and bogeys. And in the broaddaylight Ethel's tales of vampires seemed once more impossible andabsurd. Still, he had abundant evidence of Reginald's strange influence, and was determined to know the truth before nightfall. Her words, thatthought is more real than blood, kept ringing in his ears. If such wasthe case, he would find evidence of Reginald's intellectual burglaries, and possibly be able to regain a part of his lost self that had beensnatched from him by the relentless dream-hand. 

But under no circumstances could he face Reginald in his present stateof mind. He was convinced that if in the fleeting vision of a moment theother man's true nature should reveal itself to him, he would be soterribly afraid as to shriek like a maniac. So he dressed particularlyslowly in the hope of avoiding an encounter with his host. But fatethwarted this hope. Reginald, too, lingered that morning unusually longover his coffee. He was just taking his last sip when Ernest entered theroom. His behaviour was of an almost bourgeois kindness. Benevolencefairly beamed from his face. But to the boy's eyes it had assumed a newand sinister expression. 

"You are late this morning, Ernest, " he remarked in his mildest manner. "Have you been about town, or writing poetry? Both occupations areequally unhealthy. " As he said this he watched the young man with theinscrutable smile that at moments was wont to curl upon his lips. Ernesthad once likened it to the smile of Mona Lisa, but now he detected in itthe suavity of the hypocrite and the leer of the criminal. 

He could not endure it; he could not look upon that face any longer. Hisfeet almost gave way under him, cold sweat gathered on his brow, and hesank on a chair trembling and studiously avoiding the other man's gaze. 

At last Reginald rose to go. It seemed impossible to accuse thissplendid impersonation of vigorous manhood of cunning and underhandmethods, of plagiarisms and of theft. As he stood there he resembledmore than anything a beautiful tiger-cat, a wonderful thing of strengthand will-power, indomitable and insatiate. Yet who could tell whetherthis strength was not, after all, parasitic. If Ethel's suspicions werejustified, then, indeed, more had been taken from him than he could everrealise. For in that case it was his life-blood that circled in thoseveins and the fire of his intellect that set those lips aflame!

XXVII

Reginald Clarke had hardly left the room when Ernest hastily rose fromhis seat. While it was likely that he would remain in undisturbedpossession of the apartment the whole morning, the stake at hand was toogreat to permit of delay. 

Palpitating and a little uncertain, he entered the studio where, scarcely a year ago, Reginald Clarke had bidden him welcome. Nothing hadchanged there since then; only in Ernest's mind the room had assumed anaspect of evil. The Antinous was there and the Faun and the Christ-head. But their juxtaposition to-day partook of the nature of the blasphemous. The statues of Shakespeare and Balzac seemed to frown from theirpedestals as his fingers were running through Reginald's papers. Hebrushed against a semblance of Napoleon that was standing on thewriting-table, so that it toppled over and made a noise that weirdlyre-echoed in the silence of the room. At that moment a curious familyresemblance between Shakespeare, Balzac, Napoleon--and Reginald, forcibly impressed itself upon his mind. It was the indisputablesomething that marks those who are chosen to give ultimate expression tosome gigantic world-purpose. In Balzac's face it was diffused withkindliness, in that of Napoleon sheer brutality predominated. The imageof one who was said to be the richest man of the world also rose beforehis eyes. Perhaps it was only the play of his fevered imagination, buthe could have sworn that this man's features, too, bore the mark ofthose unoriginal, great absorptive minds who, for better or for worse, are born to rob and rule. They seemed to him monsters that know neitherjustice nor pity, only the law of their being, the law of growth. 

Common weapons would not avail against such forces. Being one, they werestronger than armies; nor could they be overcome in single combat. Stealth, trickery, the outfit of the knave, were legitimate weapons insuch a fight. In this case the end justified the means, even if thelatter included burglary. 

After a brief and fruitless search of the desk, he attempted to forceopen a secret drawer, the presence of which he had one day accidentallydiscovered. He tried a number of keys to no account, and was thinking ofgiving up his researches for the day until he had procured a skeletonkey, when at last the lock gave way. 

The drawer disclosed a large file of manuscript. Ernest paused for amoment to draw breath. The paper rustled under his nervous fingers. Andthere--at last--his eyes lit upon a bulky bundle that bore this legend:"_Leontina_, A Novel. "

It was true, then--all, his dream, Reginald's confession. And the housethat had opened its doors so kindly to him was the house of a Vampire!

Finally curiosity overcame his burning indignation. He attempted toread. The letters seemed to dance before his eyes--his hands trembled. 

At last he succeeded. The words that had first rolled over like drunkensoldiers now marched before his vision in orderly sequence. He wasdelighted, then stunned. This was indeed authentic literature, therecould be no doubt about it. And it was his. He was still a poet, a greatpoet. He drew a deep breath. Sudden joy trembled in his heart. Thisstory set down by a foreign hand had grown chapter by chapter in hisbrain. 

There were some slight changes--slight deviations from the originalplan. A defter hand than his had retouched it here and there, but forall that it remained his very own. It did not belong to that thief. Theblood welled to his cheek as he uttered this word that, applied toReginald, seemed almost sacrilegious. 

He had nearly reached the last chapter when he heard steps in thehallway. Hurriedly he restored the manuscript to its place, closed thedrawer and left the room on tiptoe. 

It was Reginald. But he did not come alone. Someone was speaking to him. The voice seemed familiar. Ernest could not make out what it said. Helistened intently and--was it possible? Jack? Surely he could not yethave come in response to his note! What mysterious power, what dimpresentiment of his friend's plight had led him hither? But why did helinger so long in Reginald's room, instead of hastening to greet him?Cautiously he drew nearer. This time he caught Jack's words:

"It would be very convenient and pleasant. Still, some way, I feel thatit is not right for me, of all men, to take his place here. "

"That need not concern you, " Reginald deliberately replied; "the dearboy expressed the desire to leave me within a fortnight. I think he willgo to some private sanitarium. His nerves are frightfully overstrained. "

"This seems hardly surprising after the terrible attack he had when youread your play. "

"That idea has since then developed into a monomania. "

"I am awfully sorry for him. I cared for him much, perhaps too much. ButI always feared that he would come to such an end. Of late his lettershave been strangely unbalanced. "

"You will find him very much changed. In fact, he is no longer thesame. "

"No, " said Jack, "he is no longer the friend I loved. "

Ernest clutched for the wall. His face was contorted with intense agony. Each word was like a nail driven into his flesh. Crucified upon thecross of his own affection by the hand he loved, all white and tremblinghe stood there. Tears rushed to his eyes, but he could not weep. Dry-eyed he reached his room and threw himself upon his bed. Thus helay--uncomforted and alone. 

XXVIII

Terrible as was his loneliness, a meeting with Jack would have been moreterrible. And, after all, it was true, a gulf had opened between them. 

Ethel alone could bring solace to his soul. There was a great void inhis heart which only she could fill. He hungered for the touch of herhand. He longed for her presence strongly, as a wanton lusts forpleasure and as sad men crave death. 

Noiselessly he stole to the door so as not to arouse the attention ofthe other two men, whose every whisper pierced his heart like a dagger. When he came to Ethel's home, he found that she had gone out for abreath of air. The servant ushered him into the parlor, and there hewaited, waited, waited for her. 

Greatly calmed by his walk, he turned the details of Clarke'sconversation over in his mind, and the conviction grew upon him thatthe friend of his boyhood was not to blame for his course of action. Reginald probably had encircled Jack's soul with his demoniacalinfluence and singled him out for another victim. That must never be. Itwas his turn to save now. He would warn his friend of the danger thatthreatened him, even if his words should be spoken into the wind. ForReginald, with an ingenuity almost satanic, had already suggested thatthe delusion of former days had developed into a monomania, and anyattempt on his part to warn Jack would only seem to confirm this theory. In that case only one way was left open. He must plead with Reginaldhimself, confront at all risks that snatcher of souls. To-night he wouldnot fall asleep. He would keep his vigil. And if Reginald shouldapproach his room, if in some way he felt the direful presence, he mustspeak out, threaten if need be, to save his friend from ruin. He hadfully determined upon this course when a cry of joy from Ethel, who hadjust returned from her walk, interrupted his reverie. But her gladnesschanged to anxiety when she saw how pale he was. Ernest recounted toher the happenings of the day, from the discovery of his novel inReginald's desk to the conversation which he had accidentally overheard. He noticed that her features brightened as he drew near the end of histale. 

"Was your novel finished?" she suddenly asked. 

"I think so. "

"Then you are out of danger. He will want nothing else of you. But youshould have taken it with you. "

"I had only sufficient presence of mind to slip it back into the drawer. To-morrow I shall simply demand it. "

"You will do nothing of the kind. It is in his handwriting, and you haveno legal proof that it is yours. You must take it away secretly. And hewill not dare to reclaim it. "

"And Jack?"

She had quite forgotten Jack. Women are invariably selfish for thosethey love. 

"You must warn him, " she replied. 

"He would laugh at me. However, I must speak to Reginald. "

"It is of no avail to speak to him. At least, you must not do so beforeyou have obtained the manuscript. It would unnecessarily jeopardise ourplans. "

"And after?"

"After, perhaps. But you must not expose yourself to any danger. "

"No, dear, " he said, and kissed her; "what danger is there, provided Ikeep my wits about me? He steals upon men only in their sleep and in thedark. "

"Be careful, nevertheless. "

"I shall. In fact, I think he is not at home at this moment. If I go nowI may be able to get hold of the manuscript and hide it before hereturns. "

"I cannot but tremble to think of you in that house. "

"You shall have no more reason to tremble in a day or two. "

"Shall I see you to-morrow?"

"I don't think so. I must go over my papers and things so as to be readyat any moment to leave the house. "

"And then?"

"Then--"

He took her in his arms and looked long and deeply into her eyes. 

"Yes, " she replied--"at least, perhaps. "

Then he turned to go, resolute and happy. How strangely he had maturedsince the summer! Her heart swelled with the consciousness that it washer love that had effected this transformation. 

"As I cannot expect you to-morrow, I shall probably go to the opera, butI shall be at home before midnight. Will you call me up then? A wordfrom you will put me at ease for the night, even if it comes over thetelephone. "

"I will call you up. We moderns have an advantage over the ancients inthis respect: the twentieth-century Pyramus can speak to Thisbe even ifinnumerable walls sever his body from hers. "

"A quaint conceit! But let us hope that our love-story will end lesstragically, " she said, tenderly caressing his hair. "Oh, we shall behappy, you and I, " she added, after a while. "The iron finger of fatethat lay so heavily on our lives is now withdrawn. Almost withdrawn. Yes, almost. Only almost. "

And then a sudden fear overcame her. 

"No, " she cried, "do not go, do not go! Stay with me; stay here. I feelso frightened. I don't know what comes over me. I am afraid--afraid foryou. "

"No, dear, " he rejoined, "you need not be afraid. In your heart youdon't want me to desert a friend, and, besides, leave the best part ofmy artistic life in Reginald's clutch. "

"Why should you expose yourself to God knows what danger for a friendwho is ready to betray you?"

"You forget friendship is a gift. If it exacts payment in any form, itis no longer either friendship or a gift. And you yourself have assuredme that I have nothing to fear from Reginald. I have nothing to give tohim. "

She rallied under his words and had regained her self-possession whenthe door closed behind him. He walked a few blocks very briskly. Thenhis pace slackened. Her words had unsettled him a little, and when hereached home he did not at once resume his exploration of Reginald'spapers. He had hardly lit a cigarette when, at an unusually early hour, he heard Reginald's key in the lock. 

Quickly he turned the light out and in the semi-darkness, lit up by anelectric lantern below, barricaded the door as on the previous night. Then he went to bed without finding sleep. 

Supreme silence reigned over the house. Even the elevator had ceased torun. Ernest's brain was all ear. He heard Reginald walking up and downin the studio. Not the smallest movement escaped his attention. Thushours passed. When the clock struck twelve, he was still walking up anddown, down and up, up and down. 

One o'clock. 

Still the measured beat of his footfall had not ceased. There wassomething hypnotic in the regular tread. Nature at last exacted its tollfrom the boy. He fell asleep. 

Hardly had he closed his eyes when again that horrible nightmare--nolonger a nightmare--tormented him. Again he felt the pointed delicatefingers carefully feeling their way along the innumerable tangledthreads of nerve-matter that lead to the innermost recesses of self.... 

A subconscious something strove to arouse him, and he felt the fingerssoftly withdrawn. 

He could have sworn that he heard the scurrying of feet in the room. Bathed in perspiration he made a leap for the electric light. 

But there was no sign of any human presence. The barricade at the doorwas undisturbed. But fear like a great wind filled the wings of hissoul. 

Yet there was nothing, nothing to warrant his conviction that ReginaldClarke had been with him only a few moments ago, plying his horribletrade. The large mirror above the fireplace only showed him his ownface, white, excited, --the face of a madman. 

XXIX

The next morning's mail brought a letter from Ethel, a few lines ofencouragement and affection. Yes, she was right; it would not do for himto stay under one roof with Reginald any longer. He must only obtain themanuscript and, if possible, surprise him in the attempt to exercise hismysterious and criminal power. Then he would be in the position todictate terms and to demand Jack's safety as the price of his silence. 

Reginald, however, had closeted himself that day in his studio busilywriting. Only the clatter of his typewriter announced his presence inthe house. There was no chance for conversation or for obtaining theprecious manuscript of "Leontina. "

Meanwhile Ernest was looking over his papers and preparing everythingfor a quick departure. Glancing over old letters and notes, he becamereadily interested and hardly noticed the passage of the hours. 

When the night came he only partly undressed and threw himself upon thebed. It was now ten. At twelve he had promised Ethel to speak to herover the telephone. He was determined not to sleep at all that night. Atlast he would discover whether or not on the previous and other nightsReginald had secretly entered his room. 

When one hour had passed without incident, his attention relaxed alittle. His eyes were gradually closing when suddenly something seemedto stir at the door. The Chinese vase came rattling to the floor. 

At once Ernest sprang up. His face had blanched with terror. It waswhiter than the linen in which they wrap the dead. But his soul wasresolute. 

He touched a button and the electric light illuminated the wholechamber. There was no nook for even a shadow to hide. Yet there was noone to be seen. From without the door came no sound. Suddenly somethingsoft touched his foot. He gathered all his will power so as not tobreak out into a frenzied shriek. Then he laughed, not a hearty laugh, to be sure. A tiny nose and a tail gracefully curled were brushingagainst him. The source of the disturbance was a little Maltese cat, hisfavourite, that by some chance had remained in his room. After its essayat midnight gymnastics the animal quieted down and lay purring at thefoot of his bed. 

The presence of a living thing was a certain comfort, and the reservoirof his strength was well nigh exhausted. 

He dimly remembered his promise to Ethel, but his lids drooped withsheer weariness. Perhaps an hour passed in this way, when suddenly hisblood congealed with dread. 

He felt the presence of the hand of ReginaldClarke--unmistakably--groping in his brain as if searching for somethingthat had still escaped him. 

He tried to move, to cry out, but his limbs were paralysed. When, by asuperhuman effort, he at last succeeded in shaking off the numbness thatheld him enchained, he awoke just in time to see a figure, that of aman, disappearing in the wall that separated Reginald's apartments fromhis room.... 

This time it was no delusion of the senses. He heard something like asecret door softly closing behind retreating steps. A sudden fierceanger seized him. He was oblivious of the danger of the terrible powerof the older man, oblivious of the love he had once borne him, obliviousof everything save the sense of outraged humanity and outraged right. 

The law permits us to shoot a burglar who goes through our pockets atnight. Must he tolerate the ravages of this a thousand times moredastardly and dangerous spiritual thief? Was Reginald to enjoy the fruitof other men's labour unpunished? Was he to continue growing into themightiest literary factor of the century by preying upon his betters?Abel, Walkham, Ethel, he, Jack, were they all to be victims of thisinsatiable monster?

Was this force resistless as it was relentless?

No, a thousand times, no!

He dashed himself against the wall at the place where the shadow ofReginald Clarke had disappeared. In doing so he touched upon a secretspring. The wall gave way noiselessly. Speechless with rage he crossedthe next room and the one adjoining it, and stood in Reginald's studio. The room was brilliantly lighted, and Reginald, still dressed, wasseated at his writing-table scribbling notes upon little scraps of paperin his accustomed manner. 

At Ernest's approach he looked up without evincing the least sign ofterror or surprise. Calmly, almost majestically, he folded his arms overhis breast, but there was a menacing glitter in his eyes as heconfronted his victim. 

XXX

Silently the two men faced each other. Then Ernest hissed:

"Thief!"

Reginald shrugged his shoulders. 

"Vampire!"

"So Ethel has infected you with her absurd fancies! Poor boy! I amafraid.... I have been wanting to tell you for some time.... But Ithink... We have reached the parting of our road!"

"And that you dare to tell me!"

The more he raged, the calmer Reginald seemed to become. 

"Really, " he said, "I fail to understand.... I must ask you to leave myroom!"

"You fail to understand? You cad!" Ernest cried. He stepped to thewriting-table and opened the secret drawer with a blow. A bundle ofmanuscripts fell on the floor with a strange rustling noise. Then, seizing his own story, he hurled it upon the table. And behold--the lastpages bore corrections in ink that could have been made only a fewminutes ago!

Reginald smiled. "Have you come to play havoc with my manuscripts?" heremarked. 

"Your manuscripts? Reginald Clarke, you are an impudent impostor! Youhave written no word that is your own. You are an embezzler of the mind, strutting through life in borrowed and stolen plumes!"

And at once the mask fell from Reginald's face. 

"Why stolen?" he coolly said, with a slight touch of irritation. "Iabsorb. I appropriate. That is the most any artist can say for himself. God creates; man moulds. He gives us the colours; we mix them. "

"That is not the question. I charge you with having wilfully andcriminally interfered in my life; I charge you with having robbed me ofwhat was mine; I charge you with being utterly vile and rapacious, ahypocrite and a parasite!"

"Foolish boy, " Reginald rejoined austerely. "It is through me that thebest in you shall survive, even as the obscure Elizabethans live in himof Avon. Shakespeare absorbed what was great in little men--a greatnessthat otherwise would have perished--and gave it a setting, a life. "

"A thief may plead the same. I understand you better. It is yourinordinate vanity that prompts you to abuse your monstrous power. "

"You err. Self-love has never entered into my actions. I am careless ofpersonal fame. Look at me, boy! As I stand before you I am Homer, I amShakespeare ... I am every cosmic manifestation in art. Men have doubtedin each incarnation my individual existence. Historians have more totell of the meanest Athenian scribbler or Elizabethan poetaster than ofme. The radiance of my work obscured my very self. I care not. I have amission. I am a servant of the Lord. I am the vessel that bears theHost!"

He stood up at full length, the personification of grandeur and power. Atremendous force trembled in his very finger tips. He was like agigantic dynamo, charged with the might of ten thousand magnetic stormsthat shake the earth in its orbit and lash myriads of planets throughinfinities of space.... 

Under ordinary circumstances Ernest or any other man would have quailedbefore him. But the boy in that epic moment had grown out of hisstature. He felt the sword of vengeance in his hands; to him wasintrusted the cause of Abel and of Walkham, of Ethel and of Jack. Hiswas the struggle of the individual soul against the same blind and cruelfate that in the past had fashioned the ichthyosaurus and the mastodon. 

"By what right, " he cried, "do you assume that you are the literaryMessiah? Who appointed you? What divine power has made you the stewardof my mite and of theirs whom you have robbed?"

"I am a light-bearer. I tread the high hills of mankind.... I point theway to the future. I light up the abysses of the past. Were not mystature gigantic, how could I hold the torch in all men's sight? Thevery souls that I tread underfoot realise, as their dying gaze followsme, the possibilities with which the future is big.... Eternally secure, I carry the essence of what is cosmic ... Of what is divine.... I amHomer ... Goethe ... Shakespeare.... I am an embodiment of the sameforce of which Alexander, Cæsar, Confucius and the Christos were alsoembodiments.... None so strong as to resist me. "

A sudden madness overcame Ernest at this boast. He must strike now ornever. He must rid humanity of this dangerous maniac--this demon ofstrength. With a power ten times intensified, he raised a heavy chair soas to hurl it at Reginald's head and crush it. 

Reginald stood there calmly, a smile upon his lips.... Primal crueltiesrose from the depth of his nature.... Still he smiled, turning hisluminous gaze upon the boy ... And, behold ... Ernest's hand began toshake ... The chair fell from his grasp.... He tried to call for help, but no sound issued from his lips.... Utterly paralysed heconfronted ... The Force.... 

Minutes--eternities passed. 

And still those eyes were fixed upon him. 

But this was no longer Reginald!

It was all brain ... Only brain ... A tremendous brain-machine ... Infinitely complex ... Infinitely strong. Not more than a mile awayEthel endeavoured to call to him through the night. The telephone rang, once, twice, thrice, insistingly. But Ernest heard it not. Somethingdragged him ... Dragged the nerves from his body dragged, dragged, dragged.... It was an irresistible suction ... Pitiless ... Passionless... Immense. 

Sparks, blue, crimson and violet, seemed to play around the livingbattery. It reached the finest fibres of his mind.... Slowly ... Everytrace of mentality disappeared.... First the will ... Then feeling ... Judgment ... Memory ... Fear even.... All that was stored in hisbrain-cells came forth to be absorbed by that mighty engine.... 

The Princess With the Yellow Veil appeared ... Flitted across the roomand melted away. She was followed by childhood memories ... Girls'heads, boys' faces.... He saw his dead mother waving her arms to him.... An expression of death-agony distorted the placid features.... Then, throwing a kiss to him, she, too, disappeared. Picture on picturefollowed.... Words of love that he had spoken ... Sins, virtues, magnanimities, meannesses, terrors ... Mathematical formulas even, andsnatches of songs. Leontina came and was swallowed up.... No, it wasEthel who was trying to speak to him ... Trying to warn.... She wavedher hands in frantic despair.... She was gone.... A pale face ... Dark, dishevelled hair.... Jack.... How he had changed! He was in the circleof the vampire's transforming might. "Jack, " he cried. Surely Jack hadsomething to explain ... Something to tell him ... Some word that ifspoken would bring rest to his soul. He saw the words rise to the boy'slips, but before he had time to utter them his image also had vanished. And Reginald ... Reginald, too, was gone.... There was only the mightybrain ... Panting ... Whirling.... Then there was nothing.... Theannihilation of Ernest Fielding was complete. 

Vacantly he stared at the walls, at the room and at his master. Thelatter was wiping the sweat from his forehead. He breathed deeply.... The flush of youth spread over his features.... His eyes sparkled with anew and dangerous brilliancy.... He took the thing that had once beenErnest Fielding by the hand and led it to its room. 

XXXI

With the first flush of the morning Ethel appeared at the door of thehouse on Riverside Drive. She had not heard from Ernest, and had beenunable to obtain connection with him at the telephone. Anxiety hadhastened her steps. She brushed against Jack, who was also directing hissteps to the abode of Reginald Clarke. 

At the same time something that resembled Ernest Fielding passed fromthe house of the Vampire. It was a dull and brutish thing, hideouslytransformed, without a vestige of mind. 

"Mr. Fielding, " cried Ethel, beside herself with fear as she saw himdescending. 

"Ernest!" Jack gasped, no less startled at the change in his friend'sappearance. 

Ernest's head followed the source of the sound, but no spark ofrecognition illumined the deadness of his eyes. Without a present andwithout a past ... Blindly ... A gibbering idiot ... He stumbled downthe stairs.