Masterpieces of Mystery

 _In Four Volumes_

 RIDDLE STORIES

 Edited by Joseph Lewis French

Garden City New YorkDoubleday, Page & Company1922

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BYDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATIONINTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATESAT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

NOTE

The Editor desires especially to acknowledge assistance in granting theuse of original material, and for helpful advice and suggestion, toProfessor Brander Matthews of Columbia University, to Mrs. AnnaKatherine Green Rohlfs, to Cleveland Moffett, to Arthur Reeve, creatorof "Craig Kennedy, " to Wilbur Daniel Steele, to Ralph Adams Cram, toChester Bailey Fernald, to Brian Brown, to Mrs. Lillian M. Robins of thepublisher's office, and to Charles E. Farrington of the Brooklyn PublicLibrary. 

FOREWORD

A distinguished American writer of fiction said to me lately: "Did youever think of the vital American way we live? We are always going aftermental gymnastics. " Now the mystery story is mental gymnastics. By thetime the reader has followed a chain of facts through he has exercisedhis mind, --given himself a mental breather. But the claims of the truemystery story do not end with the general reader. It is entitled to theconsideration of the discriminating because it indubitably takes its ownplace as a gauge of mastery in the field of the short story. 

The demand was never quite so keen as it is now. The currents ofliterature as of all things change swiftly these times. This world ofours has become very sophisticated. It has suffered itself to beexploited till there is no external wonder left. Retroactively thedemand for mystery, which is the very soul of interest, must find newexpression. Thus we turn inward for fresh thrills to the human comedy, and outward to the realm of the supernatural. 

The riddle story is the most naïve form of the mystery story. It maycontain a certain element of the supernatural--be tinged withmysticism--but its motive and the revelation thereof must be franklymaterialistic--of the earth, earthy. In this respect it is very closelyallied to the detective story. The model riddle story should be utterlymundane in motive--told in direct terms. Here again the genius of thatgreat modern master asserts itself, and in "The Oblong Box" we have anearly model of its kind. The stories of this collection cover a widerange and are the choice of reading in several literatures. 

JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH. 

CONTENTS

 I. THE MYSTERIOUS CARD _Cleveland Moffett_

 II. THE GREAT VALDEZ SAPPHIRE _Anonymous_

 III. THE OBLONG BOX _Edgar Allan Poe_

 IV. THE BIRTH-MARK _Nathaniel Hawthorne_

 V. A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED _Wilkie Collins_

 VI. THE TORTURE BY HOPE _Villiers de l'Isle Adam_

 VII. THE BOX WITH THE IRON CLAMPS _Florence Marryat_

 VIII. MY FASCINATING FRIEND _William Archer_

 IX. THE LOST ROOM _Fitz-James O'Brien_

MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY

_RIDDLE STORIES_

THE MYSTERIOUS CARD

CLEVELAND MOFFETT

Courtesy of the Author. 

I

Richard Burwell, of New York, will never cease to regret that the Frenchlanguage was not made a part of his education. 

This is why:

On the second evening after Burwell arrived in Paris, feeling lonelywithout his wife and daughter, who were still visiting a friend inLondon, his mind naturally turned to the theatre. So, after consultingthe daily amusement calendar, he decided to visit the _Folies Bergère_, which he had heard of as one of the notable sights. During anintermission he went into the beautiful garden, where gay crowds werestrolling among the flowers, and lights, and fountains. He had justseated himself at a little three-legged table, with a view to enjoyingthe novel scene, when his attention was attracted by a lovely woman, gowned strikingly, though in perfect taste, who passed near him, leaningon the arm of a gentleman. The only thing that he noticed about thisgentleman was that he wore eye-glasses. 

Now Burwell had never posed as a captivator of the fair sex, and couldscarcely credit his eyes when the lady left the side of her escort and, turning back as if she had forgotten something, passed close by him, anddeftly placed a card on his table. The card bore some French wordswritten in purple ink, but, not knowing that language, he was unable tomake out their meaning. The lady paid no further heed to him, but, rejoining the gentleman with the eye-glasses, swept out of the placewith the grace and dignity of a princess. Burwell remained staring atthe card. 

Needless to say, he thought no more of the performance or of the otherattractions about him. Everything seemed flat and tawdry compared withthe radiant vision that had appeared and disappeared so mysteriously. His one desire now was to discover the meaning of the words written onthe card. 

Calling a fiácre, he drove to the Hôtel Continental, where he wasstaying. Proceeding directly to the office and taking the manager aside, Burwell asked if he would be kind enough to translate a few words ofFrench into English. There were no more than twenty words in all. 

"Why, certainly, " said the manager, with French politeness, and cast hiseyes over the card. As he read, his face grew rigid with astonishment, and, looking at his questioner sharply, he exclaimed: "Where did you getthis, monsieur?"

Burwell started to explain, but was interrupted by: "That will do, thatwill do. You must leave the hotel. "

"What do you mean?" asked the man from New York, in amazement. 

"You must leave the hotel now--to-night--without fail, " commanded themanager excitedly. 

Now it was Burwell's turn to grow angry, and he declared heatedly thatif he wasn't wanted in this hotel there were plenty of others in Pariswhere he would be welcome. And, with an assumption of dignity, butpiqued at heart, he settled his bill, sent for his belongings, and droveup the Rue de la Paix to the Hôtel Bellevue, where he spent the night. 

The next morning he met the proprietor, who seemed to be a good fellow, and, being inclined now to view the incident of the previous eveningfrom its ridiculous side, Burwell explained what had befallen him, andwas pleased to find a sympathetic listener. 

"Why, the man was a fool, " declared the proprietor. "Let me see thecard; I will tell you what it means. " But as he read, his face andmanner changed instantly. 

"This is a serious matter, " he said sternly. "Now I understand why myconfrère refused to entertain you. I regret, monsieur, but I shall beobliged to do as he did. "

"What do you mean?"

"Simply that you cannot remain here. "

With that he turned on his heel, and the indignant guest could notprevail upon him to give any explanation. 

"We'll see about this, " said Burwell, thoroughly angered. 

It was now nearly noon, and the New Yorker remembered an engagement tolunch with a friend from Boston, who, with his family, was stopping atthe Hôtel de l'Alma. With his luggage on the carriage, he ordered the_cocher_ to drive directly there, determined to take counsel with hiscountryman before selecting new quarters. His friend was highlyindignant when he heard the story--a fact that gave Burwell no littlecomfort, knowing, as he did, that the man was accustomed to foreign waysfrom long residence abroad. 

"It is some silly mistake, my dear fellow; I wouldn't pay any attentionto it. Just have your luggage taken down and stay here. It is a nice, homelike place, and it will be very jolly, all being together. But, first, let me prepare a little 'nerve settler' for you. "

After the two had lingered a moment over their Manhattan cocktails, Burwell's friend excused himself to call the ladies. He had proceededonly two or three steps when he turned, and said: "Let's see thatmysterious card that has raised all this row. "

He had scarcely withdrawn it from Burwell's hand when he started back, and exclaimed:--

"Great God, man! Do you mean to say--this is simply--"

Then, with a sudden movement of his hand to his head, he left the room. 

He was gone perhaps five minutes, and when he returned his face waswhite. 

"I am awfully sorry, " he said nervously; "but the ladies tell methey--that is, my wife--she has a frightful headache. You will have toexcuse us from the lunch. "

Instantly realizing that this was only a flimsy pretense, and deeplyhurt by his friend's behaviour, the mystified man arose at once and leftwithout another word. He was now determined to solve this mystery at anycost. What could be the meaning of the words on that infernal piece ofpasteboard?

Profiting by his humiliating experiences, he took good care not to showthe card to any one at the hotel where he now established himself, --acomfortable little place near the Grand Opera House. 

All through the afternoon he thought of nothing but the card, and turnedover in his mind various ways of learning its meaning without gettinghimself into further trouble. That evening he went again to the _FoliesBergère_ in the hope of finding the mysterious woman, for he was nowmore than ever anxious to discover who she was. It even occurred to himthat she might be one of those beautiful Nihilist conspirators, or, perhaps, a Russian spy, such as he had read of in novels. But he failedto find her, either then or on the three subsequent evenings which hepassed in the same place. Meanwhile the card was burning in his pocketlike a hot coal. He dreaded the thought of meeting anyone that he knew, while this horrible cloud hung over him. He bought a French-Englishdictionary and tried to pick out the meaning word by word, but failed. It was all Greek to him. For the first time in his life, Burwellregretted that he had not studied French at college. 

After various vain attempts to either solve or forget the torturingriddle, he saw no other course than to lay the problem before adetective agency. He accordingly put his case in the hands of an _agentde la sûreté_ who was recommended as a competent and trustworthy man. They had a talk together in a private room, and, of course, Burwellshowed the card. To his relief, his adviser at least showed no sign oftaking offence. Only he did not and would not explain what the wordsmeant. 

"It is better, " he said, "that monsieur should not know the nature ofthis document for the present. I will do myself the honour to call uponmonsieur to-morrow at his hotel, and then monsieur shall knoweverything. "

"Then it is really serious?" asked the unfortunate man. 

"Very serious, " was the answer. 

The next twenty-four hours Burwell passed in a fever of anxiety. As hismind conjured up one fearful possibility after another he deeplyregretted that he had not torn up the miserable card at the start. Heeven seized it, --prepared to strip it into fragments, and so end thewhole affair. And then his Yankee stubbornness again asserted itself, and he determined to see the thing out, come what might. 

"After all, " he reasoned, "it is no crime for a man to pick up a cardthat a lady drops on his table. "

Crime or no crime, however, it looked very much as if he had committedsome grave offence when, the next day, his detective drove up in acarriage, accompanied by a uniformed official, and requested theastounded American to accompany them to the police headquarters. 

"What for?" he asked. 

"It is only a formality, " said the detective; and when Burwell stillprotested the man in uniform remarked: "You'd better come quietly, monsieur; you will have to come, anyway. "

An hour later, after severe cross-examination by another official, whodemanded many facts about the New Yorker's age, place of birth, residence, occupation, etc. , the bewildered man found himself in theConciergerie prison. Why he was there or what was about to befall himBurwell had no means of knowing; but before the day was over hesucceeded in having a message sent to the American Legation, where hedemanded immediate protection as a citizen of the United States. It wasnot until evening, however, that the Secretary of Legation, aconsequential person, called at the prison. There followed a stormyinterview, in which the prisoner used some strong language, the Frenchofficers gesticulated violently and talked very fast, and the Secretarycalmly listened to both sides, said little, and smoked a good cigar. 

"I will lay your case before the American minister, " he said as he roseto go, "and let you know the result to-morrow. "

"But this is an outrage. Do you mean to say--" Before he could finish, however, the Secretary, with a strangely suspicious glance, turned andleft the room. 

That night Burwell slept in a cell. 

The next morning he received another visit from the non-committalSecretary, who informed him that matters had been arranged, and that hewould be set at liberty forthwith. 

"I must tell you, though, " he said, "that I have had great difficulty inaccomplishing this, and your liberty is granted only on condition thatyou leave the country within twenty-four hours, and never under anyconditions return. "

Burwell stormed, raged, and pleaded; but it availed nothing. TheSecretary was inexorable, and yet he positively refused to throw anylight upon the causes of this monstrous injustice. 

"Here is your card, " he said, handing him a large envelope closed withthe seal of Legation. "I advise you to burn it and never refer to thematter again. "

That night the ill-fated man took the train for London, his heartconsumed by hatred for the whole French nation, together with a burningdesire for vengeance. He wired his wife to meet him at the station, andfor a long time debated with himself whether he should at once tell herthe sickening truth. In the end he decided that it was better to keepsilent. No sooner, however, had she seen him than her woman's instincttold her that he was labouring under some mental strain. And he saw in amoment that to withhold from her his burning secret was impossible, especially when she began to talk of the trip they had planned throughFrance. Of course no trivial reason would satisfy her for his refusal tomake this trip, since they had been looking forward to it for years; andyet it was impossible now for him to set foot on French soil. 

So he finally told her the whole story, she laughing and weeping inturn. To her, as to him, it seemed incredible that such overwhelmingdisasters could have grown out of so small a cause, and, being a fluentFrench scholar, she demanded a sight of the fatal piece of pasteboard. In vain her husband tried to divert her by proposing a trip throughItaly. She would consent to nothing until she had seen the mysteriouscard which Burwell was now convinced he ought long ago to havedestroyed. After refusing for awhile to let her see it, he finallyyielded. But, although he had learned to dread the consequences ofshowing that cursed card, he was little prepared for what followed. Sheread it turned pale, gasped for breath, and nearly fell to the floor. 

"I told you not to read it, " he said; and then, growing tender at thesight of her distress, he took her hand in his and begged her to becalm. "At least tell me what the thing means, " he said. "We can bear ittogether; you surely can trust me. "

But she, as if stung by rage, pushed him from her and declared, in atone such as he had never heard from her before, that never, never againwould she live with him. "You are a monster!" she exclaimed. And thosewere the last words he heard from her lips. 

Failing utterly in all efforts at reconciliation, the half-crazed mantook the first steamer for New York, having suffered in scarcely afortnight more than in all his previous life. His whole pleasure triphad been ruined, he had failed to consummate important businessarrangements, and now he saw his home broken up and his happinessruined. During the voyage he scarcely left his stateroom, but lay thereprostrated with agony. In this black despondency the one thing thatsustained him was the thought of meeting his partner, Jack Evelyth, thefriend of his boyhood, the sharer of his success, the bravest, mostloyal fellow in the world. In the face of even the most damningcircumstances, he felt that Evelyth's rugged common sense would evolvesome way of escape from this hideous nightmare. Upon landing at New Yorkhe hardly waited for the gang-plank to be lowered before he rushed onshore and grasped the hand of his partner, who was waiting on the wharf. 

"Jack, " was his first word, "I am in dreadful trouble, and you are theonly man in the world who can help me. "

An hour later Burwell sat at his friend's dinner table, talking over thesituation. 

Evelyth was all kindness, and several times as he listened to Burwell'sstory his eyes filled with tears. 

"It does not seem possible, Richard, " he said, "that such things can be;but I will stand by you; we will fight it out together. But we cannotstrike in the dark. Let me see this card. "

"There is the damned thing, " Burwell said, throwing it on the table. 

Evelyth opened the envelope, took out the card, and fixed his eyes onthe sprawling purple characters. 

"Can you read it?" Burwell asked excitedly. 

"Perfectly, " his partner said. The next moment he turned pale, and hisvoice broke. Then he clasped the tortured man's hand in his with astrong grip. "Richard, " he said slowly, "if my only child had beenbrought here dead it would not have caused me more sorrow than thisdoes. You have brought me the worst news one man could bring another. "

His agitation and genuine suffering affected Burwell like a deathsentence. 

"Speak, man, " he cried; "do not spare me. I can bear anything ratherthan this awful uncertainty. Tell me what the card means. "

Evelyth took a swallow of brandy and sat with head bent on his claspedhands. 

"No, I can't do it; there are some things a man must not do. "

Then he was silent again, his brows knitted. Finally he said solemnly:--

"No, I can't see any other way out of it. We have been true to eachother all our lives; we have worked together and looked forward to neverseparating. I would rather fail and die than see this happen. But wehave got to separate, old friend; we have got to separate. "

They sat there talking until late into the night. But nothing thatBurwell could do or say availed against his friend's decision. There wasnothing for it but that Evelyth should buy his partner's share of thebusiness or that Burwell buy out the other. The man was more than fairin the financial proposition he made; he was generous, as he always hadbeen, but his determination was inflexible; the two must separate. Andthey did. 

With his old partner's desertion, it seemed to Burwell that the worldwas leagued against him. It was only three weeks from the day on whichhe had received the mysterious card; yet in that time he had lost allthat he valued in the world, --wife, friends, and business. What next todo with the fatal card was the sickening problem that now possessed him. 

He dared not show it; yet he dared not destroy it. He loathed it; yet hecould not let it go from his possession. Upon returning to his house helocked the accursed thing away in his safe as if it had been a packageof dynamite or a bottle of deadly poison. Yet not a day passed that hedid not open the drawer where the thing was kept and scan with loathingthe mysterious purple scrawl. 

In desperation he finally made up his mind to take up the study of thelanguage in which the hateful thing was written. And still he dreadedthe approach of the day when he should decipher its awful meaning. 

One afternoon, less than a week after his arrival in New York, as he wascrossing Twenty-third Street on the way to his French teacher, he saw acarriage rolling up Broadway. In the carriage was a face that caught hisattention like a flash. As he looked again he recognized the woman whohad been the cause of his undoing. Instantly he sprang into another caband ordered the driver to follow after. He found the house where she wasliving. He called there several times; but always received the samereply, that she was too much engaged to see anyone. Next he was toldthat she was ill, and on the following day the servant said she was muchworse. Three physicians had been summoned in consultation. He sought outone of these and told him it was a matter of life or death that he seethis woman. The doctor was a kindly man and promised to assist him. Through his influence, it came about that on that very night Burwellstood by the bedside of this mysterious woman. She was beautiful still, though her face was worn with illness. 

"Do you recognize me?" he asked tremblingly, as he leaned over the bed, clutching in one hand an envelope containing the mysterious card. "Doyou remember seeing me at the _Folies Bergère_ a month ago?"

"Yes, " she murmured, after a moment's study of his face; and he notedwith relief that she spoke English. 

"Then, for God's sake, tell me, what does it all mean?" he gasped, quivering with excitement. 

"I gave you the card because I wanted you to--to--"

Here a terrible spasm of coughing shook her whole body, and she fellback exhausted. 

An agonizing despair tugged at Burwell's heart. Frantically snatchingthe card from its envelope, he held it close to the woman's face. 

"Tell me! Tell me!"

With a supreme effort, the pale figure slowly raised itself on thepillow, its fingers clutching at the counterpane. 

Then the sunken eyes fluttered--forced themselves open--and stared instony amazement upon the fatal card, while the trembling lips movednoiselessly, as if in an attempt to speak. As Burwell, choking witheagerness, bent his head slowly to hers, a suggestion of a smileflickered across the woman's face. Again the mouth quivered, the man'shead bent nearer and nearer to hers, his eyes riveted upon the lips. Then, as if to aid her in deciphering the mystery, he turned his eyes tothe card. 

With a cry of horror he sprang to his feet, his eyeballs starting fromtheir sockets. Almost at the same moment the woman fell heavily upon thepillow. 

Every vestige of the writing had faded! The card was blank!

The woman lay there dead. 

II

The Card Unveiled

No physician was ever more scrupulous than I have been, during my thirtyyears of practice, in observing the code of professional secrecy; and itis only for grave reasons, partly in the interests of medical science, largely as a warning to intelligent people, that I place upon record thefollowing statements. 

One morning a gentleman called at my offices to consult me about somenervous trouble. From the moment I saw him, the man made a deepimpression on me, not so much by the pallor and worn look of his face asby a certain intense sadness in his eyes, as if all hope had gone out ofhis life. I wrote a prescription for him, and advised him to try thebenefits of an ocean voyage. He seemed to shiver at the idea, and saidthat he had been abroad too much, already. 

As he handed me my fee, my eye fell upon the palm of his hand, and I sawthere, plainly marked on the Mount of Saturn, a cross surrounded by twocircles. I should explain that for the greater part of my life I havebeen a constant and enthusiastic student of palmistry. During my travelsin the Orient, after taking my degree, I spent months studying thisfascinating art at the best sources of information in the world. I haveread everything published on palmistry in every known language, and mylibrary on the subject is perhaps the most complete in existence. In mytime I have examined at least fourteen thousand palms, and taken castsof many of the more interesting of them. But I had never seen such apalm as this; at least, never but once, and the horror of the case wasso great that I shudder even now when I call it to mind. 

"Pardon me, " I said, keeping the patient's hand in mine, "would you letme look at your palm?"

I tried to speak indifferently, as if the matter were of smallconsequence, and for some moments I bent over the hand in silence. Then, taking a magnifying glass from my desk, I looked at it still moreclosely. I was not mistaken; here was indeed the sinister double circleon Saturn's mount, with the cross inside, --a marking so rare as toportend some stupendous destiny of good or evil, more probably thelatter. 

I saw that the man was uneasy under my scrutiny, and, presently, withsome hesitation, as if mustering courage, he asked: "Is there anythingremarkable about my hand?"

"Yes, " I said, "there is. Tell me, did not something very unusual, something very horrible, happen to you about ten or eleven years ago?"

I saw by the way the man started that I had struck near the mark, and, studying the stream of fine lines that crossed his lifeline from theMount of Venus, I added: "Were you not in some foreign country at thattime?"

The man's face blanched, but he only looked at me steadily out of thosemournful eyes. Now I took his other hand, and compared the two, line byline, mount by mount, noting the short square fingers, the heavy thumb, with amazing willpower in its upper joint, and gazing again and again atthat ominous sign on Saturn. 

"Your life has been strangely unhappy, your years have been clouded bysome evil influence. "

"My God, " he said weakly, sinking into a chair, "how can you know thesethings?"

"It is easy to know what one sees, " I said, and tried to draw him outabout his past, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. 

"I will come back and talk to you again, " he said, and he went awaywithout giving me his name or any revelation of his life. 

Several times he called during subsequent weeks, and gradually seemed totake on a measure of confidence in my presence. He would talk freely ofhis physical condition, which seemed to cause him much anxiety. He eveninsisted upon my making the most careful examination of all his organs, especially of his eyes, which, he said, had troubled him at varioustimes. Upon making the usual tests, I found that he was suffering from amost uncommon form of colour blindness, that seemed to vary in itsmanifestations, and to be connected with certain hallucinations orabnormal mental states which recurred periodically, and about which Ihad great difficulty in persuading him to speak. At each visit I tookoccasion to study his hand anew, and each reading of the palm gave mestronger conviction that here was a life mystery that would abundantlyrepay any pains taken in unravelling it. 

While I was in this state of mind, consumed with a desire to know moreof my unhappy acquaintance and yet not daring to press him withquestions, there came a tragic happening that revealed to me withstartling suddenness the secret I was bent on knowing. One night, verylate, --in fact it was about four o'clock in the morning, --I received anurgent summons to the bedside of a man who had been shot. As I bent overhim I saw that it was my friend, and for the first time I realized thathe was a man of wealth and position, for he lived in a beautifullyfurnished house filled with art treasures and looked after by a retinueof servants. From one of these I learned that he was Richard Burwell, one of New York's most respected citizens--in fact, one of herbest-known philanthropists, a man who for years had devoted his life andfortune to good works among the poor. 

But what most excited my surprise was the presence in the house of twoofficers, who informed me that Mr. Burwell was under arrest, chargedwith murder. The officers assured me that it was only out of deferenceto his well-known standing in the community that the prisoner had beenallowed the privilege of receiving medical treatment in his own home;their orders were peremptory to keep him under close surveillance. 

Giving no time to further questionings, I at once proceeded to examinethe injured man, and found that he was suffering from a bullet wound inthe back at about the height of the fifth rib. On probing for thebullet, I found that it had lodged near the heart, and decided that itwould be exceedingly dangerous to try to remove it immediately. So Icontented myself with administering a sleeping potion. 

As soon as I was free to leave Burwell's bedside I returned to theofficers and obtained from them details of what had happened. A woman'sbody had been found a few hours before, shockingly mutilated, on WaterStreet, one of the dark ways in the swarming region along the riverfront. It had been found at about two o'clock in the morning by someprinters from the office of the _Courier des Etats Unis_, who, in comingfrom their work, had heard cries of distress and hurried to the rescue. As they drew near they saw a man spring away from something huddled onthe sidewalk, and plunge into the shadows of the night, running fromthem at full speed. 

Suspecting at once that here was the mysterious assassin so long vainlysought for many similar crimes, they dashed after the fleeing man, whodarted right and left through the maze of dark streets, giving outlittle cries like a squirrel as he ran. Seeing that they were losingground, one of the printers fired at the fleeing shadow, his shot beingfollowed by a scream of pain, and hurrying up they found a man writhingon the ground. The man was Richard Burwell. 

The news that my sad-faced friend had been implicated in such arevolting occurrence shocked me inexpressibly, and I was greatlyrelieved the next day to learn from the papers that a most unfortunatemistake had been made. The evidence given before the coroner's jury wassuch as to abundantly exonerate Burwell from all shadow of guilt. Theman's own testimony, taken at his bedside, was in itself almostconclusive in his favour. When asked to explain his presence so late atnight in such a part of the city, Burwell stated that he had spent theevening at the Florence Mission, where he had made an address to someunfortunates gathered there, and that later he had gone with a youngmissionary worker to visit a woman living on Frankfort Street, who wasdying of consumption. This statement was borne out by the missionaryworker himself, who testified that Burwell had been most tender in hisministrations to the poor woman and had not left her until death hadrelieved her sufferings. 

Another point which made it plain that the printers had mistaken theirman in the darkness, was the statement made by all of them that, as theycame running up, they had overheard some words spoken by the murderer, and that these words were in their own language, French. Now it wasshown conclusively that Burwell did not know the French language, thatindeed he had not even an elementary knowledge of it. 

Another point in his favour was a discovery made at the spot where thebody was found. Some profane and ribald words, also in French, had beenscrawled in chalk on the door and doorsill, being in the nature of acoarse defiance to the police to find the assassin, and experts inhandwriting who were called testified unanimously that Burwell, whowrote a refined, scholarly hand, could never have formed those misshapenwords. 

Furthermore, at the time of his arrest no evidence was found on theclothes or person of Burwell, nothing in the nature of bruises orbloodstains that would tend to implicate him in the crime. The outcomeof the matter was that he was honourably discharged by the coroner'sjury, who were unanimous in declaring him innocent, and who brought in averdict that the unfortunate woman had come to her death at the hand ofsome person or persons unknown. 

On visiting my patient late on the afternoon of the second day I sawthat his case was very grave, and I at once instructed the nurses andattendants to prepare for an operation. The man's life depended upon mybeing able to extract the bullet, and the chance of doing this was verysmall. Mr. Burwell realized that his condition was critical, and, beckoning me to him, told me that he wished to make a statement he feltmight be his last. He spoke with agitation which was increased by anunforeseen happening. For just then a servant entered the room andwhispered to me that there was a gentleman downstairs who insisted uponseeing me, and who urged business of great importance. This message thesick man overheard, and lifting himself with an effort, he saidexcitedly: "Tell me, is he a tall man with glasses?"

The servant hesitated. 

"I knew it; you cannot deceive me; that man will haunt me to my grave. Send him away, doctor; I beg of you not to see him. "

Humouring my patient, I sent word to the stranger that I could not seehim, but, in an undertone, instructed the servant to say that the manmight call at my office the next morning. Then, turning to Burwell, Ibegged him to compose himself and save his strength for the ordealawaiting him. 

"No, no, " he said, "I need my strength now to tell you what you mustknow to find the truth. You are the only man who has understood thatthere has been some terrible influence at work in my life. You are theonly man competent to study out what that influence is, and I have madeprovision in my will that you shall do so after I am gone. I know thatyou will heed my wishes?"

The intense sadness of his eyes made my heart sink; I could only griphis hand and remain silent. 

"Thank you; I was sure I might count on your devotion. Now, tell me, doctor, you have examined me carefully, have you not?"

I nodded. 

"In every way known to medical science?"

I nodded again. 

"And have you found anything wrong with me, --I mean, besides thisbullet, anything abnormal?"

"As I have told you, your eyesight is defective; I should like toexamine your eyes more thoroughly when you are better. "

"I shall never be better; besides it isn't my eyes; I mean myself, mysoul, --you haven't found anything wrong there?"

"Certainly not; the whole city knows the beauty of your character andyour life. "

"Tut, tut; the city knows nothing. For ten years I have lived so muchwith the poor that people have almost forgotten my previous active lifewhen I was busy with money-making and happy in my home. But there is aman out West, whose head is white and whose heart is heavy, who has notforgotten, and there is a woman in London, a silent, lonely woman, whohas not forgotten. The man was my partner, poor Jack Evelyth; the womanwas my wife. How can a man be so cursed, doctor, that his love andfriendship bring only misery to those who share it? How can it be thatone who has in his heart only good thoughts can be constantly under theshadow of evil? This charge of murder is only one of several cases in mylife where, through no fault of mine, the shadow of guilt has been castupon me. 

"Years ago, when my wife and I were perfectly happy, a child was born tous, and a few months later, when it was only a tender, helpless littlething that its mother loved with all her heart, it was strangled in itscradle, and we never knew who strangled it, for the deed was done onenight when there was absolutely no one in the house but my wife andmyself. There was no doubt about the crime, for there on the tiny neckwere the finger marks where some cruel hand had closed until life went. 

"Then a few years later, when my partner and I were on the eve offortune, our advance was set back by the robbery of our safe. Some oneopened it in the night, someone who knew the combination, for it was thework of no burglar, and yet there were only two persons in the world whoknew that combination, my partner and myself. I tried to be brave whenthese things happened, but as my life went on it seemed more and more asif some curse were on me. 

"Eleven years ago I went abroad with my wife and daughter. Business tookme to Paris, and I left the ladies in London, expecting to have themjoin me in a few days. But they never did join me, for the curse was onme still, and before I had been forty-eight hours in the French capitalsomething happened that completed the wreck of my life. It doesn't seempossible, does it, that a simple white card with some words scrawled onit in purple ink could effect a man's undoing? And yet that was my fate. The card was given me by a beautiful woman with eyes like stars. She isdead long ago, and why she wished to harm me I never knew. You must findthat out. 

"You see I did not know the language of the country, and, wishing tohave the words translated, --surely that was natural enough, --I showedthe card to others. But no one would tell me what it meant. And, worsethan that, wherever I showed it, and to whatever person, there evil cameupon me quickly. I was driven from one hotel after another; an oldacquaintance turned his back on me; I was arrested and thrown intoprison; I was ordered to leave the country. "

The sick man paused for a moment in his weakness, but with an effortforced himself to continue:--

"When I went back to London, sure of comfort in the love of my wife, shetoo, on seeing the card, drove me from her with cruel words. And whenfinally, in deepest despair, I returned to New York, dear old Jack, thefriend of a life-time, broke with me when I showed him what was written. What the words were I do not know, and suppose no one will ever know, for the ink has faded these many years. You will find the card in mysafe with other papers. But I want you, when I am gone, to find out themystery of my life; and--and--about my fortune, that must be held untilyou have decided. There is no one who needs my money as much as the poorin this city, and I have bequeathed it to them unless--"

In an agony of mind, Mr. Burwell struggled to go on, I soothing andencouraging him. 

"Unless you find what I am afraid to think, but--but--yes, I must sayit, --that I have not been a good man, as the world thinks, but have--Odoctor, if you find that I have unknowingly harmed any human being, Iwant that person, or these persons, to have my fortune. Promise that. "

Seeing the wild light in Burwell's eyes, and the fever that was burninghim, I gave the promise asked of me, and the sick man sank back calmer. 

A little later, the nurse and attendants came for the operation. As theywere about to administer the ether, Burwell pushed them from him, andinsisted on having brought to his bedside an iron box from the safe. 

"The card is here, " he said, laying his trembling hand upon the box, "you will remember your promise!"

Those were his last words, for he did not survive the operation. 

Early the next morning I received this message: "The stranger ofyesterday begs to see you"; and presently a gentleman of fine presenceand strength of face, a tall, dark-complexioned man wearing glasses, wasshown into the room. 

"Mr. Burwell is dead, is he not?" were his first words. 

"Who told you?"

"No one told me, but I know it, and I thank God for it. "

There was something in the stranger's intense earnestness that convincedme of his right to speak thus, and I listened attentively. 

"That you may have confidence in the statement I am about to make, Iwill first tell you who I am"; and he handed me a card that caused me tolift my eyes in wonder, for it bore a very great name, that of one ofEurope's most famous savants. 

"You have done me much honour, sir, " I said with respectful inclination. 

"On the contrary you will oblige me by considering me in your debt, andby never revealing my connection with this wretched man. I am moved tospeak partly from considerations of human justice, largely in theinterest of medical science. It is right for me to tell you, doctor, that your patient was beyond question the Water Street assassin. "

"Impossible!" I cried. 

"You will not say so when I have finished my story, which takes me backto Paris, to the time, eleven years ago, when this man was making hisfirst visit to the French capital. "

"The mysterious card!" I exclaimed. 

"Ah, he has told you of his experience, but not of what befell the nightbefore, when he first met my sister. "

"Your sister?"

"Yes, it was she who gave him the card, and, in trying to befriend him, made him suffer. She was in ill health at the time, so much so that wehad left our native India for extended journeyings. Alas! we delayed toolong, for my sister died in New York, only a few weeks later, and Ihonestly believe her taking off was hastened by anxiety inspired by thisman. "

"Strange, " I murmured, "how the life of a simple New York merchant couldbecome entangled with that of a great lady of the East. "

"Yet so it was. You must know that my sister's condition was due mainlyto an over fondness for certain occult investigations, from which I hadvainly tried to dissuade her. She had once befriended some adepts, who, in return, had taught her things about the soul she had better have leftunlearned. At various times while with her I had seen strange thingshappen, but I never realized what unearthly powers were in her untilthat night in Paris. We were returning from a drive in the Bois; it wasabout ten o'clock, and the city lay beautiful around us as Paris lookson a perfect summer's night. Suddenly my sister gave a cry of pain andput her hand to her heart. Then, changing from French to the language ofour country, she explained to me quickly that something frightful wastaking place there, where she pointed her finger across the river, thatwe must go to the place at once--the driver must lash his horses--everysecond was precious. 

"So affected was I by her intense conviction, and such confidence had Iin my sister's wisdom, that I did not oppose her, but told the man todrive as she directed. The carriage fairly flew across the bridge, downthe Boulevard St. Germain, then to the left, threading its way throughthe narrow streets that lie along the Seine. This way and that, straightahead here, a turn there, she directing our course, never hesitating, asif drawn by some unseen power, and always urging the driver on togreater speed. Finally, we came to a black-mouthed, evil-looking alley, so narrow and roughly paved that the carriage could scarcely advance. 

"'Come on!' my sister cried, springing to the ground; 'we will go onfoot, we are nearly there. Thank God, we may yet be in time. '

"No one was in sight as we hurried along the dark alley, and scarcely alight was visible, but presently a smothered scream broke the silence, and, touching my arm, my sister exclaimed:--

"'There, draw your weapon, quick, and take the man at any cost!'

"So swiftly did everything happen after that that I hardly know myactions, but a few minutes later I held pinioned in my arms a man whoseblows and writhings had been all in vain; for you must know that muchexercise in the jungle had made me strong of limb. As soon as I had madethe fellow fast I looked down and found moaning on the ground a poorwoman, who explained with tears and broken words that the man had beenin the very act of strangling her. Searching him I found a long-bladedknife of curious shape, and keen as a razor, which had been brought forwhat horrible purpose you may perhaps divine. 

"Imagine my surprise, on dragging the man back to the carriage, to find, instead of the ruffianly assassin I expected, a gentleman as far ascould be judged from face and manner. Fine eyes, white hands, carefulspeech, all the signs of refinement and the dress of a man of means. 

"'How can this be?' I said to my sister in our own tongue as we droveaway, I holding my prisoner on the opposite seat where he sat silent. 

"'It is a _kulos_-man, ' she said, shivering, 'it is a fiend-soul. Thereare a few such in the whole world, perhaps two or three in all. '

"'But he has a good face. '

"'You have not seen his real face yet; I will show it to you, presently. '

"In the strangeness of these happenings and the still greaterstrangeness of my sister's words, I had all but lost the power ofwonder. So we sat without further word until the carriage stopped at thelittle château we had taken near the Parc Monteau. 

"I could never properly describe what happened that night; my knowledgeof these things is too limited. I simply obeyed my sister in all thatshe directed, and kept my eyes on this man as no hawk ever watched itsprey. She began by questioning him, speaking in a kindly tone which Icould ill understand. He seemed embarrassed, dazed, and professed tohave no knowledge of what had occurred, or how he had come where wefound him. To all my inquiries as to the woman or the crime he shook hishead blankly, and thus aroused my wrath. 

"'Be not angry with him, brother; he is not lying, it is the othersoul. '

"She asked him about his name and country, and he replied withouthesitation that he was Richard Burwell, a merchant from New York, justarrived in Paris, travelling for pleasure in Europe with his wife anddaughter. This seemed reasonable, for the man spoke English, and, strangely enough, seemed to have no knowledge of French, although weboth remember hearing him speak French to the woman. 

"'There is no doubt, ' my sister said, 'It is indeed a _kulos_-man; Itknows that I am here, that I am Its master. Look, look!' she criedsharply, at the same time putting her eyes so close to the man's facethat their fierce light seemed to burn into him. What power sheexercised I do not know, nor whether some words she spoke, unintelligible to me, had to do with what followed, but instantly therecame over this man, this pleasant-looking, respectable American citizen, such a change as is not made by death worms gnawing in a grave. Nowthere was a fiend grovelling at her feet, a foul, sin-stained fiend. 

"'Now you see the demon-soul, ' said my sister. 'Watch It writhe andstruggle; it has served me well, brother, sayest thou not so, the lore Igained from our wise men?'

"The horror of what followed chilled my blood; nor would I trust mymemory were it not that there remained and still remains plain proof ofall that I affirm. This hideous creature, dwarfed, crouching, devoid ofall resemblance to the man we had but now beheld, chattering to us incurious old-time French, poured out such horrid blasphemy as would haveblanched the cheek of Satan, and made recital of such evil deeds asnever mortal ear gave heed to. And as she willed my sister checked It orallowed It to go on. What it all meant was more than I could tell. To meit seemed as if these tales of wickedness had no connection with ourmodern life, or with the world around us, and so I judged presently fromwhat my sister said. 

"'Speak of the later time, since thou wast in this clay. '

"Then I perceived that the creature came to things of which I knew: Itspoke of New York, of a wife, a child, a friend. It told of stranglingthe child, of robbing the friend; and was going on to tell God knowswhat other horrid deeds when my sister stopped It. 

"'Stand as thou didst in killing the little babe, stand, stand!' andonce more she spoke some words unknown to me. Instantly the demon sprangforward, and, bending Its clawlike hands, clutched them around somelittle throat that was not there, --but I could see it in my mind. Andthe look on its face was a blackest glimpse of hell. 

"'And now stand as thou didst in robbing the friend, stand, stand'; andagain came the unknown words, and again the fiend obeyed. 

"'These we will take for future use, ' said my sister. And bidding mewatch the creature carefully until she should return, she left the room, and, after none too short an absence, returned bearing a black box thatwas an apparatus for photography, and something more besides, --somenewer, stranger kind of photography that she had learned. Then, on astrangely fashioned card, a transparent white card, composed of manylayers of finest Oriental paper, she took the pictures of the creaturein those two creeping poses. And when it all was done, the card seemedas white as before, and empty of all meaning until one held it up andexamined it intently. Then the pictures showed. 

And between the two there was a third picture, which somehow seemed toshow, at the same time, two faces in one, two souls, my sister said, thekindly visaged man we first had seen, and then the fiend. 

"Now my sister asked for pen and ink and I gave her my pocket pen whichwas filled with purple ink. Handing this to the _kulos_-man she bade himwrite under the first picture: 'Thus I killed my babe. ' And under thesecond picture: 'Thus I robbed my friend. ' And under the third, the onethat was between the other two: 'This is the soul of Richard Burwell. 'An odd thing about this writing was that it was in the same old Frenchthe creature had used in speech, and yet Burwell knew no French. 

"My sister was about to finish with the creature when a new idea tookher, and she said, looking at It as before:--'Of all thy crimes whichone is the worst? Speak, I command thee!'

"Then the fiend told how once It had killed every soul in a house ofholy women and buried the bodies in a cellar under a heavy door. 

"Where was the house?'

"'At No. 19 Rue Picpus, next to the old graveyard. '

"'And when was this?'

"Here the fiend seemed to break into fierce rebellion, writhing on thefloor with hideous contortions, and pouring forth words that meantnothing to me, but seemed to reach my sister's understanding, for sheinterrupted from time to time, with quick, stern words that finallybrought It to subjection. 

"'Enough, ' she said, 'I know all, ' and then she spoke some words again, her eyes fixed as before, and the reverse change came. Before us stoodonce more the honest-looking, fine-appearing gentleman, Richard Burwell, of New York. 

"'Excuse me, madame, ' he said, awkwardly, but with deference; 'I musthave dosed a little. I am not myself to-night. '

"'No, ' said my sister, 'you have not been yourself to-night. '

"A little later I accompanied the man to the Continental Hotel, where hewas stopping, and, returning to my sister, I talked with her until lateinto the night. I was alarmed to see that she was wrought to a nervoustension that augured ill for her health. I urged her to sleep, but shewould not. 

"'No, ' she said, 'think of the awful responsibility that rests upon me. 'And then she went on with her strange theories and explanations, ofwhich I understood only that here was a power for evil more terriblethan a pestilence, menacing all humanity. 

"'Once in many cycles it happens, ' she said, 'that a _kulos_-soul pushesitself within the body of a new-born child, when the pure soul waitingto enter is delayed. Then the two live together through that life, andthis hideous principle of evil has a chance upon the earth. It is mywill, as I feel it my duty, to see this poor man again. The chances arethat he will never know us, for the shock of this night to his normalsoul is so great as to wipe out memory. '

"The next evening, about the same hour, my sister insisted that I shouldgo with her to the _Folies Bergère_, a concert garden, none too wellfrequented, and when I remonstrated, she said: 'I must go, --It isthere, ' and the words sent a shiver through me. 

"We drove to this place, and passing into the garden, presentlydiscovered Richard Burwell seated at a little table, enjoying the sceneof pleasure, which was plainly new to him. My sister hesitated a momentwhat to do, and then, leaving my arm, she advanced to the table anddropped before Burwell's eyes the card she had prepared. A moment later, with a look of pity on her beautiful face, she rejoined me and we wentaway. It was plain he did not know us. "

To so much of the savant's strange recital I had listened with absorbedinterest, though without a word, but now I burst in with questions. 

"What was your sister's idea in giving Burwell the card?" I asked. 

"It was in the hope that she might make the man understand his terriblecondition, that is, teach the pure soul to know its loathsomecompanion. "

"And did her effort succeed?"

"Alas! it did not; my sister's purpose was defeated by the man'sinability to see the pictures that were plain to every other eye. It isimpossible for the _kulos_-man to know his own degradation. "

"And yet this man has for years been leading a most exemplary life?"

My visitor shook his head. "I grant you there has been improvement, duelargely to experiments I have conducted upon him according to mysister's wishes. But the fiend soul was never driven out. It grieves meto tell you, doctor, that not only was this man the Water Streetassassin, but he was the mysterious murderer, the long-sought-formutilator of women, whose red crimes have baffled the police of Europeand America for the past ten years. "

"You know this, " said I, starting up, "and yet did not denounce him?"

"It would have been impossible to prove such a charge, and besides, Ihad made oath to my sister that I would use the man only for thesesoul-experiments. What are his crimes compared with the great secret ofknowledge I am now able to give the world?"

"A secret of knowledge?"

"Yes, " said the savant, with intense earnestness, "I may tell you now, doctor, what the whole world will know, ere long, that it is possible tocompel every living person to reveal the innermost secrets of his or herlife, so long as memory remains, for memory is only the power ofproducing in the brain material pictures that may be projectedexternally by the thought rays and made to impress themselves upon thephotographic plate, precisely as ordinary pictures do. "

"You mean, " I exclaimed, "that you can photograph the two principles ofgood and evil that exist in us?"

"Exactly that. The great truth of a dual soul existence, that was dimlyapprehended by one of your Western novelists, has been demonstrated byme in the laboratory with my camera. It is my purpose, at the propertime, to entrust this precious knowledge to a chosen few who willperpetuate it and use it worthily. "

"Wonderful, wonderful!" I cried, "and now tell me, if you will, aboutthe house on the Rue Picpus. Did you ever visit the place?"

"We did, and found that no buildings had stood there for fifty years, sowe did not pursue the search. "[1]

[Footnote 1: Years later, some workmen in Paris, making excavations inthe Rue Picpus, came upon a heavy door buried under a mass of debris, under an old cemetery. On lifting the door they found a vault-likechamber in which were a number of female skeletons, and graven on thewalls were blasphemous words written in French, which experts declareddated from fully two hundred years before. They also declared thishandwriting identical with that found on the door at the Water Streetmurder in New York. Thus we may deduce a theory of fiend reincarnation;for it would seem clear, almost to the point of demonstration, that thismurder of the seventeenth century was the work of the same evil soulthat killed the poor woman on Water Street towards the end of thenineteenth century. ]

"And the writing on the card, have you any memory of it, for Burwelltold me that the words have faded?"

"I have something better than that; I have a photograph of both card andwriting, which my sister was careful to take. I had a notion that theink in my pocket pen would fade, for it was a poor affair. Thisphotograph I will bring you to-morrow. "

"Bring it to Burwell's house, " I said. 

 * * * * *

The next morning the stranger called as agreed upon. 

"Here is the photograph of the card, " he said. 

"And here is the original card, " I answered, breaking the seal of theenvelope I had taken from Burwell's iron box. "I have waited for yourarrival to look at it. Yes, the writing has indeed vanished; the cardseems quite blank. "

"Not when you hold it this way, " said the stranger, and as he tipped thecard I saw such a horrid revelation as I can never forget. In an instantI realized how the shock of seeing that card had been too great for thesoul of wife or friend to bear. In these pictures was the secret of acursed life. The resemblance to Burwell was unmistakable, the proofagainst him was overwhelming. In looking upon that piece of pasteboardthe wife had seen a crime which the mother could never forgive, thepartner had seen a crime which the friend could never forgive. Think ofa loved face suddenly melting before your eyes into a grinning skull, then into a mass of putrefaction, then into the ugliest fiend of hell, leering at you, distorted with all the marks of vice and shame. That iswhat I saw, that is what they had seen!

"Let us lay these two cards in the coffin, " said my companionimpressively, "we have done what we could. "

Eager to be rid of the hateful piece of pasteboard (for who could saythat the curse was not still clinging about it?), I took the strangeman's arm, and together we advanced into the adjoining room where thebody lay. I had seen Burwell as he breathed his last, and knew thatthere had been a peaceful look on his face as he died. But now, as welaid the two white cards on the still, breast, the savant suddenlytouched my arm, and pointing to the dead man's face, now frightfullydistorted, whispered:--"See, even in death It followed him. Let us closethe coffin quickly. "

THE GREAT VALDEZ SAPPHIRE

(ANONYMOUS)

I know more about it than anyone else in the world, its present ownernot excepted. I can give its whole history, from the Cingalese who foundit, the Spanish adventurer who stole it, the cardinal who bought it, thePope who graciously accepted it, the favoured son of the Church whoreceived it, the gay and giddy duchess who pawned it, down to theeminent prelate who now holds it in trust as a family heirloom. 

It will occupy a chapter to itself in my forthcoming work on "HistoricStones, " where full details of its weight, size, colour, and value maybe found. At present I am going to relate an incident in its historywhich, for obvious reasons, will not be published--which, in fact, Itrust the reader will consider related in strict confidence. 

I had never seen the stone itself when I began to write about it, and itwas not till one evening last spring, while staying with my nephew, SirThomas Acton, that I came within measurable distance of it. A dinnerparty was impending, and, at my instigation, the Bishop of Northchurchand Miss Panton, his daughter and heiress, were among the invitedguests. 

The dinner was a particularly good one, I remember that distinctly. Infact, I felt myself partly responsible for it, having engaged the newcook--a talented young Italian, pupil of the admirable old _chef_ at myclub. We had gone over the _menu_ carefully together, with a resultrefreshing in its novelty, but not so daring as to disturb the minds ofthe innocent country guests who were bidden thereto. 

The first spoonful of soup was reassuring, and I looked to the end ofthe table to exchange a congratulatory glance with Leta. What was amiss?No response. Her pretty face was flushed, her smile constrained, she wastalking with quite unnecessary _empressement_ to her neighbour, SirHarry Landor, though Leta is one of those few women who understand theimportance of letting a man settle down tranquilly and with anundisturbed mind to the business of dining, allowing no topic of seriousinterest to come on before the _relevés_, and reserving mereconversational brilliancy for the _entremets_. 

Guests all right? No disappointments? I had gone through the list withher, selecting just the right people to be asked to meet the Landors, our new neighbours. Not a mere cumbrous county gathering, nor yet ashowy imported party from town, but a skillful blending of both. Hadanything happened already? I had been late for dinner and missed thearrivals in the drawing-room. It was Leta's fault. She has got into away of coming into my room and putting the last touches to my toilet. Ilet her, for I am doubtful of myself nowadays after many years'dependence on the best of valets. Her taste is generally beyond dispute, but to-day she had indulged in a feminine vagary that provoked me andmade me late for dinner. 

"Are you going to wear your sapphire, Uncle Paul!" she cried in a toneof dismay. "Oh, why not the ruby?"

"You _would_ have your way about the table decorations, " I gentlyreminded her. "With that service of Crown Derby _repoussé_ and orchids, the ruby would look absolutely barbaric. Now if you would have had theLimoges set, white candles, and a yellow silk centre--"

"Oh, but--I'm _so_ disappointed--I wanted the bishop to see yourruby--or one of your engraved gems--"

"My dear, it is on the bishop's account I put this on. You know hisdaughter is heiress of the great Valdez sapphire--"

"Of course she is, and when he has the charge of a stone three times asbig as yours, what's the use of wearing it? The ruby, dear Uncle Paul, _please_!"

She was desperately in earnest I could see, and considering theobligations which I am supposed to be under to her and Tom, it was but alittle matter to yield, but it involved a good deal of extra trouble. Studs, sleeve-links, watch-guard, all carefully selected to go with thesapphire, had to be changed, the emerald which I chose as a compromiserequiring more florid accompaniments of a deeper tone of gold; and thedinner hour struck as I replaced my jewel case, the one relic left me ofa once handsome fortune, in my fireproof safe. 

The emerald looked very well that evening, however. I kept my eyes uponit for comfort when Miss Panton proved trying. 

She was a lean, yellow, dictatorial young person with no conversation. Ispoke of her father's celebrated sapphires. "_My_ sapphires, " sheamended sourly; "though I am legally debarred from making any profitableuse of them. " She furthermore informed me that she viewed them asuseless gauds, which ought to be disposed of for the benefit of theheathen. I gave the subject up, and while she discoursed of the work ofthe Blue Ribbon Army among the Bosjesmans I tried to understand acertain dislocation in the arrangement of the table. Surely we were moreor less in number than we should be? Opposite side all right. Who wasextra on ours? I leaned forward. Lady Landor on one side of Tom, on theother who? I caught glimpses of plumes pink and green nodding over adinner plate, and beneath them a pink nose in a green visage with anutcracker chin altogether unknown to me. A sharp gray eye shot asideway glance down the table and caught me peeping, and I retreated, having only marked in addition two clawlike hands, with pointed rufflesand a mass of brilliant rings, making good play with a knife and fork. Who was she? At intervals a high acid voice could be heard addressingTom, and a laugh that made me shudder; it had the quality of the screamof a bird of prey or the yell of a jackal. I had heard that sort oflaugh before, and it always made me feel like a defenseless rabbit. 

Every time it sounded I saw Leta's fan flutter more furiously and hermanner grow more nervously animated. Poor dear girl! I never in all myrecollection wished a dinner at an end so earnestly so as to assure herof my support and sympathy, though without the faintest conception whyeither should be required. 

The ices at last. A _menu_ card folded in two was laid beside me. I readit unobserved. "Keep the B. From joining us in the drawing-room. " TheB. --? The bishop, of course. With pleasure. But why? And how? _That's_the question, never mind "why. " Could I lure him into the library--thebilliard room--the conservatory? I doubted it, and I doubted still morewhat I should do with him when I got him there. 

The bishop is a grand and stately ecclesiastic of the mediæval type, broad-chested, deep-voiced, martial of bearing. I could picture himcharging mace in hand at the head of his vassals, or delivering over adissenter of the period to the rack and thumb-screw, but not potteringamong rare editions, tall copies and Grolier bindings, nor condescendingto a quiet cigar among the tree ferns and orchids. Leta must and shouldbe obeyed, I swore, nevertheless, even if I were driven to lock the doorin the fearless old fashion of a bygone day, and declare I'd shoot anyman who left while a drop remained in the bottles. 

The ladies were rising. The lady at the head of the line smirked andnodded her pink plumes coquettishly at Tom, while her hawk's eyes rovedkeen and predatory over us all. She stopped suddenly, creating a blockand confusion. 

"Ah, the dear bishop! _You_ there, and I never saw you! You must comeand have a nice long chat presently. By-by--!" She shook her fan at himover my shoulder and tripped on. Leta, passing me last, gave me a lookof profound despair. 

"Lady Carwitchet!" somebody exclaimed. "I couldn't believe my eyes. "

"Thought she was dead or in penal servitude. Never should have expectedto see her _here_, " said someone else behind me confidentially. 

"What Carwitchet? Not the mother of the Carwitchet who--"

"Just so. The Carwitchet who--" Tom assented with a shrug. "We needn'tgo farther, as she's my guest. Just my luck. I met them at Buxton, thought them uncommonly good company--in fact, Carwitchet laid me undera great obligation about a horse I was nearly let in for buying--andgave them a general invitation here, as one does, you know. Neverexpected her to turn up with her luggage this afternoon just beforedinner, to stay a week, or a fortnight if Carwitchet can join her. " Agroan of sympathy ran round the table. "It can't be helped. I've toldyou this just to show that I shouldn't have asked you here to meet thissort of people of my own free will; but, as it is, please say no moreabout them. " The subject was not dropped by any means, and I took carethat it should not be. At our end of the table one story after anotherwent buzzing round--_sotto voce_, out of deference to Tom--but perfectlyaudible. 

"Carwitchet? Ah, yes. Mixed up in that Rawlings divorce case, wasn't he?A bad lot. Turned out of the Dragoon Guards for cheating at cards, orpicking pockets, or something--remember the row at the Cerulean Club?Scandalous exposure--and that forged letter business--oh, that was themother--prosecution hushed up somehow. Ought to be serving her fourteenyears--and that business of poor Farrars, the banker--got hold of someof his secrets and blackmailed him till he blew his brains out--"

It was so exciting that I clean forgot the bishop, till a low gasp at myelbow startled me. He was lying back in his chair, his mighty shavenjowl a ghastly white, his fierce imperious eyebrows drooping limp overhis fishlike eyes, his splendid figure shrunk and contracted. He wastrying with a shaken hand to pour out wine. The decanter clatteredagainst the glass and the wine spilled on the cloth. 

"I'm afraid you find the room too warm. Shall we go into the library?"

He rose hastily and followed me like a lamb. 

He recovered himself once we got into the hall, and affably rejected allmy proffers of brandy and soda--medical advice--everything else mylimited experience could suggest. He only demanded his carriage"directly" and that Miss Panton should be summoned forthwith. 

I made the best use I could of the time left me. 

"I'm uncommonly sorry you do not feel equal to staying a little longer, my lord. I counted on showing you my few trifles of precious stones, thesalvage from the wreck of my possessions. Nothing in comparison withyour own collection. "

The bishop clasped his hand over his heart. His breath came short andquick. 

"A return of that dizziness, " he explained with a faint smile. "You arethinking of the Valdez sapphire, are you not? Some day, " he went on withforced composure, "I may have the pleasure of showing it to you. It isat my banker's just now. "

Miss Panton's steps were heard in the hall. "You are well known as aconnoisseur, Mr. Acton, " he went on hurriedly. "Is your collectionvaluable? If so, _keep it safe; don' trust a ring off your hand, or thekey of your jewel-case out of your pocket till the house is clearagain_. " The words rushed from his lips in an impetuous whisper, he gaveme a meaning glance, and departed with his daughter. I went back to thedrawing-room, my head swimming with bewilderment. 

"What! The dear bishop gone!" screamed Lady Carwitchet from the centralottoman where she sat, surrounded by most of the gentlemen, allapparently well entertained by her conversation. "And I wanted to talkover old times with him so badly. His poor wife was my greatest friend. Mira Montanaro, daughter of the great banker, you know. It's notpossible that that miserable little prig is my poor Mira's girl. Theheiress of all the Montanaros in a black-lace gown worth twopence! WhenI think of her mother's beauty and her toilets! Does she ever wear thesapphires? Has anyone ever seen her in them? Eleven large stones in alovely antique setting, and the great Valdez sapphire--worth thousandsand thousands--for the pendant. " No one replied. "I wanted to get a riseout of the bishop to-night. It used to make him so mad when I worethis. "

She fumbled among the laces at her throat, and clawed out a pendant thathung to a velvet band around her neck. I fairly gasped when she removedher hand. A sapphire of irregular shape flashed out its blue lightningon us. Such a stone! A true, rich, cornflower blue even by that wretchedartificial light, with soft velvety depths of colour and dazzlingclearness of tint in its lights and shades--a stone to remember! Istretched out my hand involuntarily, but Lady Carwitchet drew back witha coquettish squeal. "No! no! You mustn't look any closer. Tell me whatyou think of it now. Isn't it pretty?"

"Superb!" was all I could ejaculate, staring at the azure splendour ofthat miraculous jewel in a sort of trance. 

She gave a shrill cackling laugh of mockery. 

"The great Mr. Acton taken in by a bit of Palais Royal gimcrackery! Whatan advertisement for Bogaerts et Cie! They are perfect artists infrauds. Don't you remember their stand at the first Paris Exhibition?They had imitations there of every celebrated stone; but I neverexpected anything made by man could delude Mr. Acton, never!" And shewent off into another mocking cackle, and all the idiots round herhaw-hawed knowingly, as if they had seen the joke all along. I was toobewildered to reply, which was on the whole lucky. "I suppose I musn'ttell why I came to give quite a big sum in francs for this?" she wenton, tapping her closed lips with her closed fan, and cocking her eye atus all like a parrot wanting to be coaxed to talk. "It's a queer story. "

I didn't want to hear her anecdote, especially as I saw she wanted totell it. What I _did_ want was to see that pendant again. She had thrustit back among her laces, only the loop which held it to the velvet beingvisible. It was set with three small sapphires, and even from a distanceI clearly made them out to be imitations, and poor ones. I felt a queerthrill of self-mistrust. Was the large stone no better? Could I, evenfor an instant, have been dazzled by a sham, and a sham of that quality?The events of the evening had flurried and confused me. I wished tothink them over in quiet. I would go to bed. 

My rooms at the Manor are the best in the house. Leta will have it so. Imust explain their position for a reason to be understood later. Mybedroom is in the southeast angle of the house; it opens on one sideinto a sitting-room in the east corridor, the rest of which is taken upby the suite of rooms occupied by Tom and Leta; and on the other sideinto my bathroom, the first room in the south corridor where theprincipal guest chambers are, to one of which it was originally thedressing-room. Passing this room I noticed a couple of housemaidspreparing it for the night, and discovered with a shiver that LadyCarwitchet was to be my next-door neighbour. It gave me a turn. 

The bishop's strange warning must have unnerved me. I was perfectly safefrom her ladyship. The disused door into her room was locked, and thekey safe on the housekeeper's bunch. It was also undiscoverable on herside, the recess in which it stood being completely filled by a largewardrobe. On my side hung a thick sound-proof _portière_. Nevertheless, I resolved not to use that room while she inhabited the next one. Iremoved my possessions, fastened the door of communication with mybedroom and dragged a heavy ottoman across it. 

Then I stowed away my emerald in my strong-box. It is built into thewall of my sitting-room, and masked by the lower part of an old carvedoak bureau. I put away even the rings I wore habitually, keeping outonly an inferior cat's-eye for workaday wear. I had just made all safewhen Leta tapped at the door and came in to wish me good night. Shelooked flushed and harassed and ready to cry. "Uncle Paul, " she began, "I want you to go up to town at once, and stay away till I send foryou. "

"My dear--!" I was too amazed to expostulate. 

"We've got a--a pestilence among us, " she declared, her foot tapping theground angrily, "and the least we can do is to go into quarantine. Oh, I'm so sorry and so ashamed! The poor bishop! I'll take good care thatno one else shall meet that woman here. You did your best for me, UnclePaul, and managed admirably, but it was all no use. I hoped against hopethat what between the dusk of the drawing-room before dinner, and beingput at opposite ends of the table, we might get through without ameeting--"

"But, my dear, explain. Why shouldn't the bishop and Lady Carwitchetmeet? Why is it worse for him than anyone else?"

"Why? I thought everybody had heard of that dreadful wife of his whonearly broke his heart. If he married her for her money it served himright, but Lady Landor says she was very handsome and really in lovewith him at first. Then Lady Carwitchet got hold of her and led her intoall sorts of mischief. She left her husband--he was only a rector with acountry living in those days--and went to live in town, got into ahorrid fast set, and made herself notorious. You _must_ have heard ofher. "

"I heard of her sapphires, my dear. But I was in Brazil at the time. "

"I wish you had been at home. You might have found her out. She wasfurious because her husband refused to let her wear the great Valdezsapphire. It had been in the Montanaro family for some generations, andher father settled it first on her and then on her little girl--thebishop being trustee. He felt obliged to take away the little girl, andsend her off to be brought up by some old aunts in the country, and helocked up the sapphire. Lady Carwitchet tells as a splendid joke howthey got the copy made in Paris, and it did just as well for the peopleto stare at. No wonder the bishop hates the very name of the stone. "

"How long will she stay here?" I asked dismally. 

"Till Lord Carwitchet can come and escort her to Paris to visit someAmerican friends. Goodness knows when that will be! Do go up to town, Uncle Paul!"

I refused indignantly. The very least I could do was to stand by my pooryoung relatives in their troubles and help them through. I did so. Iwore that inferior cat's eye for six weeks!

It is a time I cannot think of even now without a shudder. The more Isaw of that terrible old woman the more I detested her, and we saw avery great deal of her. Leta kept her word, and neither accepted norgave invitations all that time. We were cut off from all society butthat of old General Fairford, who would go anywhere and meet anyone toget a rubber after dinner; the doctor, a sporting widower; and theDuberlys, a giddy, rather rackety young couple who had taken the DowerHouse for a year. Lady Carwitchet seemed perfectly content. She revelledin the soft living and good fare of the Manor House, the drives inLeta's big barouche, and Domenico's dinners, as one to whom shortcommons were not unknown. She had a hungry way of grabbing and graspingat everything she could--the shillings she won at whist, the best fruitat dessert, the postage stamps in the library inkstand--that wasinfinitely suggestive. Sometimes I could have pitied her, she was sogreedy, so spiteful, so friendless. She always made me think of somewicked old pirate putting into a peaceful port to provision and repairhis battered old hulk, obliged to live on friendly terms with thenatives, but his piratical old nostrils asniff for plunder and hispiratical old soul longing to be off marauding once more. When wouldthat be? Not till the arrival in Paris of her distinguished Americanfriends, of whom we heard a great deal. "Charming people, the Bokums ofChicago, the American branch of the English Beauchamps, you know!" Theyseemed to be taking an unconscionable time to get there. She would haveinsisted on being driven over to Northchurch to call at the palace, butthat the bishop was understood to be holding confirmations at the otherend of the diocese. 

I was alone in the house one afternoon sitting by my window, toying withthe key of my safe, and wondering whether I dare treat myself to a peepat my treasures, when a suspicious movement in the park below caught myattention. A black figure certainly dodged from behind one tree to thenext, and then into the shadow of the park paling instead of keeping tothe footpath. It looked queer. I caught up my field glass and marked himat one point where he was bound to come into the open for a few steps. He crossed the strip of turf with giant strides and got into coveragain, but not quick enough to prevent me recognizing him. It was--greatheavens!--the bishop! In a soft hat pulled over his forehead, with along cloak and a big stick he looked like a poacher. 

Guided by some mysterious instinct I hurried to meet him. I opened theconservatory door, and in he rushed like a hunted rabbit. Withoutexplanation I led him up the wide staircase to my room, where he droppedinto a chair and wiped his face. 

"You are astonished, Mr. Acton, " he panted. "I will explain directly. Thanks. " He tossed off the glass of brandy I had poured out withoutwaiting for the qualifying soda, and looked better. 

"I am in serious trouble. You can help me. I've had a shock to-day--agrievous shock. " He stopped and tried to pull himself together. "I musttrust you implicitly, Mr. Acton, I have no choice. Tell me what youthink of this. " He drew a case from his breast pocket and opened it. "Ipromised you should see the Valdez sapphire. Look there!"

The Valdez sapphire! A great big shining lump of blue crystal--flawlessand of perfect colour--that was all. I took it up, breathed on it, drewout my magnifier, looked at it in one light and another. What was wrongwith it? I could not say. Nine experts out of ten would undoubtedly havepronounced the stone genuine. I, by virtue of some mysterious instinctthat has hitherto always guided me aright, was the unlucky tenth. Ilooked at the bishop. His eyes met mine. There was no need of spokenword between us. 

"Has Lady Carwitchet shown you her sapphire?" was his most unexpectedquestion. "She has? Now, Mr. Acton, on your honour as a connoisseur anda gentleman, which of the two is the Valdez?"

"Not this one. " I could say naught else. 

"You were my last hope. " He broke off, and dropped his face on hisfolded arms with a groan that shook the table on which he rested, whileI stood dismayed at myself for having let so hasty a judgment escape me. He lifted a ghastly countenance to me. "She vowed she would see meruined and disgraced. I made her my enemy by crossing some of herschemes once, and she never forgives. She will keep her word. I shallappear before the world as a fraudulent trustee. I can neither producethe valuable confided to my charge nor make the loss good. I have onlyan incredible story to tell, " he dropped his head and groaned again. "Who will believe me?"

"I will, for one. "

"Ah, you? Yes, you know her. She took my wife from me, Mr. Acton. Heavenonly knows what the hold was that she had over poor Mira. She encouragedher to set me at defiance and eventually to leave me. She was answerablefor all the scandalous folly and extravagance of poor Mira's life inParis--spare me the telling of the story. She left her at last to diealone and uncared for. I reached my wife to find her dying of a feverfrom which Lady Carwitchet and her crew had fled. She was raving indelirium, and died without recognizing me. Some trouble she had been inwhich I must never know oppressed her. At the very last she roused froma long stupor and spoke to the nurse. 'Tell him to get the sapphireback--she stole it. She has robbed my child. ' Those were her last words. The nurse understood no English, and treated them as wandering; but _I_heard them, and knew she was sane when she spoke. "

"What did you do?"

"What could I? I saw Lady Carwitchet, who laughed at me, and defied meto make her confess or disgorge. I took the pendant to more than oneeminent jeweller on pretense of having the setting seen to, and all haveexamined and admired without giving a hint of there being anythingwrong. I allowed a celebrated mineralogist to see it; he gave no sign--"

"Perhaps they are right and we are wrong. "

"No, no. Listen. I heard of an old Dutchman celebrated for hisimitations. I went to him, and he told me at once that he had beenallowed by Montanaro to copy the Valdez--setting and all--for the ParisExhibition. I showed him this, and he claimed it for his own work atonce, and pointed out his private mark upon it. You must take yourmagnifier to find it; a Greek Beta. He also told me that he had sold itto Lady Carwitchet more than a year ago. "

"It is a terrible position. "

"It is. My co-trustee died lately. I have never dared to have anotherappointed. I am bound to hand over the sapphire to my daughter on hermarriage, if her husband consents to take the name of Montanaro. "

The bishop's face was ghastly pale, and the moisture started on hisbrow. I racked my brain for some word of comfort. 

"Miss Panton may never marry. "

"But she will!" he shouted. "That is the blow that has been dealt meto-day. My chaplain--actually, my chaplain--tells me that he is goingout as a temperance missionary to equatorial Africa, and has theassurance to add that he believes my daughter is not indisposed toaccompany him!" His consummating wrath acted as a momentary stimulant. He sat upright, his eyes flashing and his brow thunderous. I felt forthat chaplain. Then he collapsed miserably. "The sapphires will have tobe produced, identified, revalued. How shall I come out of it? Think ofthe disgrace, the ripping up of old scandals! Even if I were to compoundwith Lady Carwitchet, the sum she hinted at was too monstrous. She wantsmore than my money. Help me, Mr. Acton! For the sake of your own familyinterest, help me!"

"I beg your pardon--family interests? I don't understand. "

"If my daughter is childless, her next of kin is poor Marmaduke Panton, who is dying at Cannes, not married, or likely to marry; and failinghim, your nephew, Sir Thomas Acton, succeeds. "

My nephew Tom! Leta, or Leta's baby, might come to be the possibleinheritor of the great Valdez sapphire! The blood rushed to my head as Ilooked at the great shining swindle before me. "What diabolic jugglerywas at work when the exchange was made?" I demanded fiercely. 

"It must have been on the last occasion of her wearing the sapphires inLondon. I ought never to have let her out of my sight. "

"You must put a stop to Miss Panton's marriage in the first place, " Ipronounced as autocratically as he could have done himself. 

"Not to be thought of, " he admitted helplessly. "Mira has my force ofcharacter. She knows her rights, and she will have her jewels. I wantyou to take charge of the--thing for me. If it's in the house she'llmake me produce it. She'll inquire at the banker's. If _you_ have it wecan gain time, if but for a day or two. " He broke off. Carriage wheelswere crashing on the gravel outside. We looked at one another inconsternation. Flight was imperative. I hurried him downstairs and outof the conservatory just as the door-bell rang. I think we both lost ourheads in the confusion. He shoved the case into my hands, and I pocketedit, without a thought of the awful responsibility I was incurring, andsaw him disappear into the shelter of the friendly night. 

When I think of what my feelings were that evening--of my murderoushatred of that smirking jesting Jezebel who sat opposite me at dinner, my wrathful indignation at the thought of the poor little expected heirdefrauded ere his birth; of the crushing contempt I felt for myself andthe bishop as a pair of witless idiots unable to see our way out of thedilemma; all this boiling and surging through my soul, I can onlywonder--Domenico having given himself a holiday, and the kitchen-maiddoing her worst and wickedest--that gout or jaundice did not put an endto this story at once. 

"Uncle Paul!" Leta was looking her sweetest when she tripped into myroom next morning. "I've news for you. She, " pointing a delicateforefinger in the direction of the corridor, "is going! Her Bokums havereached Paris at last, and sent for her to join them at the GrandHotel. "

I was thunderstruck. The longed-for deliverance had but come to removehopelessly and forever out of my reach Lady Carwitchet and the greatValdez sapphire. 

"Why, aren't you overjoyed? I am. We are going to celebrate the event bya dinner-party. Tom's hospitable soul is vexed by the lack ofentertainment we had provided for her. We must ask the Brownleys someday or other, and they will be delighted to meet anything in the way ofa ladyship, or such smart folks as the Duberly-Parkers. Then we may aswell have the Blomfields, and air that awful modern Sèvresdessert-service she gave us when we were married. " I had no objection tomake, and she went on, rubbing her soft cheek against my shoulder likethe purring little cat she was: "Now I want you to do something toplease me--and Mrs. Blomfield. She has set her heart on seeing yourrubies, and though I know you hate her about as much as you do thatSèvres china--"

"What! Wear my rubies with that! I won't. I'll tell you what I will do, though. I've got some carbuncles as big as prize gooseberries, a wholeset. Then you have only to put those Bohemian glass vases and candelabraon the table, and let your gardener do his worst with his great forced, scentless, vulgar blooms, and we shall all be in keeping. " Leta pouted. An idea struck me. "Or I'll do as you wish, on one condition. You getLady Carwitchet to wear her big sapphire, and don't tell her I wish it. "

I lived through the next few days as one in some evil dream. Thesapphires, like twin spectres, haunted me day and night. Was ever man sotantalized? To hold the shadow and see the substance dangled temptinglywithin reach. The bishop made no sign of ridding me of my unwelcomecharge, and the thought of what might happen in a case ofburglary--fire--earthquake--made me start and tremble at all sorts ofinopportune moments. 

I kept faith with Leta, and reluctantly produced my beautiful rubies onthe night of her dinner party. Emerging from my room I came full uponLady Carwitchet in the corridor. She was dressed for dinner, and at herthroat I caught the blue gleam of the great sapphire. Leta had keptfaith with me. I don't know what I stammered in reply to her ladyship'sremarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of theintoxicating loveliness of the gem. _That_ a Palais Royal deception!Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce withthe lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in myeyes. A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features, as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me. I followed herto the drawing-room door. She stopped suddenly, and murmuring somethingunintelligible hurried back again. 

Everybody was assembled there that I expected to see, with an addition. Not a welcome one by the look on Tom's face. He stood on the hearth-rugconversing with a great hulking, high-shouldered fellow, sallow-faced, with a heavy moustache and drooping eyelids, from the corners of whichflashed out a sudden suspicious look as I approached, which lighted upinto a greedy one as it rested on my rubies, and seemed unaccountablyfamiliar to me, till Lady Carwitchet tripping past me exclaimed:

"He has come at last! My naughty, naughty boy! Mr. Acton, this is myson, Lord Carwitchet!"

I broke off short in the midst of my polite acknowledgments to stareblankly at her. The sapphire was gone! A great gilt cross, with a Scotchpebble like an acid drop, was her sole decoration. 

"I had to put my pendant away, " she explained confidentially; "the clasphad got broken somehow. " I didn't believe a word. 

Lord Carwitchet contributed little to the general entertainment atdinner, but fell into confidential talk with Mrs. Duberly-Parker. Icaught a few unintelligible remarks across the table. They referred, Isubsequently discovered, to the lady's little book on Northchurch races, and I recollected that the Spring Meeting was on, and to-morrow "CupDay. " After dinner there was great talk about getting up a party to goon General Fairford's drag. Lady Carwitchet was in ecstasies and triedto coax me into joining. Leta declined positively. Tom accepted sulkily. 

The look in Lord Carwitchet's eye returned to my mind as I locked up myrubies that night. It made him look so like his mother! I went round myfastenings with unusual care. Safe and closets and desk and doors, Itried them all. Coming at last to the bathroom, it opened at once. Itwas the housemaid's doing. She had evidently taken advantage of myhaving abandoned the room to give it "a thorough spring cleaning, " and Ianathematized her. The furniture was all piled together and veiled withsheets, the carpet and felt curtain were gone, there were new broomsabout. As I peered around, a voice close at my ear made me jump--LadyCarwitchet's!

"I tell you I have nothing, not a penny! I shall have to borrow my trainfare before I can leave this. They'll be glad enough to lend it. "

Not only had the _portière_ been removed, but the door behind it hadbeen unlocked and left open for convenience of dusting behind thewardrobe. I might as well have been in the bedroom. 

"Don't tell me, " I recognized Carwitchet's growl. "You've not been hereall this time for nothing. You've been collecting for a Kilburn cot orgetting subscriptions for the distressed Irish landlords. I know you. Now I'm not going to see myself ruined for the want of a paltry hundredor so. I tell you the colt is a dead certainty. If I could have got athousand or two on him last week, we might have ended our dog daysmillionaires. Hand over what you can. You've money's worth, if notmoney. Where's that sapphire you stole?"

"I didn't. I can show you the receipted bill. All _I_ possess ishonestly come by. What could you do with it, even if I gave it you? Youcouldn't sell it as the Valdez, and you can't get it cut up as you mightif it were real. "

"If it's only bogus, why are you always in such a flutter about it? I'lldo something with it, never fear. Hand over. "

"I can't. I haven't got it. I had to raise something on it before I lefttown. "

"Will you swear it's not in that wardrobe? I dare say you will. I meanto see. Give me those keys. "

I heard a struggle and a jingle, then the wardrobe door must have beenflung open, for a streak of light struck through a crack in the wood ofthe back. Creeping close and peeping through, I could see an awfulsight. Lady Carwitchet in a flannel wrapper, minus hair, teeth, complexion, pointing a skinny forefinger that quivered with rage at herson, who was out of the range of my vision. 

"Stop that, and throw those keys down here directly, or I'll rouse thehouse. Sir Thomas is a magistrate, and will lock you up as soon as lookat you. " She clutched at the bell rope as she spoke. "I'll swear I'm indanger of my life from you and give you in charge. Yes, and when you'rein prison I'll keep you there till you die. I've often thought I'd doit. How about the hotel robberies last summer at Cowes, eh? Mightn't thepolice be grateful for a hint or two? And how about--"

The keys fell with a crash on the bed, accompanied by some bad languagein an apologetic tone, and the door slammed to. I crept trembling tobed. 

This new and horrible complication of the situation filled me withdismay. Lord Carwitchet's wolfish glance at my rubies took a newmeaning. They were safe enough, I believed--but the sapphire! If hedisbelieved his mother, how long would she be able to keep it from hisclutches? That she had some plot of her own of which the bishop wouldeventually be the victim I did not doubt, or why had she not made herbargain with him long ago? But supposing she took fright, lost her head, allowed her son to wrest the jewel from her, or gave consent to itsbeing mutilated, divided! I lay in a cold perspiration till morning. 

My terrors haunted me all day. They were with me at breakfast time whenLady Carwitchet, tripping in smiling, made a last attempt to induce meto accompany her and keep her "bad, bad boy" from getting among "thosehorrid betting men. "

They haunted me through the long peaceful day with Leta and the_tête-à-tête_ dinner, but they swarmed around and beset me sorest when, sitting alone over my sitting-room fire, I listened for the return ofthe drag party. I read my newspaper and brewed myself some hot strongdrink, but there comes a time of night when no fire can warm and nodrink can cheer. The bishop's despairing face kept me company, and histroubles and the wrongs of the future heir took possession of me. Thenthe uncanny noises that make all old houses ghostly during the smallhours began to make themselves heard. Muffled footsteps trod thecorridor, stopping to listen at every door, door latches gently clicked, boards creaked unreasonably, sounds of stealthy movements came from thelocked-up bathroom. The welcome crash of wheels at last, and the soundof the front-door bell. I could hear Lady Carwitchet making her shrill_adieux_ to her friends and her steps in the corridor. She was softlyhumming a little song as she approached. I heard her unlock her bedroomdoor before she entered--an odd thing to do. Tom came sleepily stumblingto his room later. I put my head out. "Where is Lord Carwitchet?"

"Haven't you seen him? He left us hours ago. Not come home, eh? Well, he's welcome to stay away. I don't want to see more of him. " Tom's browwas dark and his voice surly. "I gave him to understand as much. "Whatever had happened, Tom was evidently too disgusted to explain justthen. 

I went back to my fire unaccountably relieved, and brewed myself anotherand a stronger brew. It warmed me this time, but excited me foolishly. There must be some way out of the difficulty. I felt now as if I couldalmost see it if I gave my mind to it. Why--suppose--there might be nodifficulty after all! The bishop was a nervous old gentleman. He mighthave been mistaken all through, Bogaerts might have been mistaken, Imight--no. I could not have been mistaken--or I thought not. I fidgetedand fumed and argued with myself till I found I should have no peace ofmind without a look at the stone in my possession, and I actually wentto the safe and took the case out. 

The sapphire certainly looked different by lamplight. I sat and stared, and all but overpersuaded my better judgment into giving it a verdict. Bogaerts's mark--I suddenly remembered it. I took my magnifier and heldthe pendant to the light. There, scratched upon the stone, was the GreekBeta! There came a tap on my door, and before I could answer, the handleturned softly and Lord Carwitchet stood before me. I whipped the caseinto my dressing-gown pocket and stared at him. He was not pleasant tolook at, especially at that time of night. He had a dishevelled, desperate air, his voice was hoarse, his red-rimmed eyes wild. 

"I beg your pardon, " he began civilly enough. "I saw your light burning, and thought, as we go by the early train to-morrow, you might allow meto consult you now on a little business of my mother's. " His eyes rovedabout the room. Was he trying to find the whereabouts of my safe? "Youknow a lot about precious stones, don't you?"

"So my friends are kind enough to say. Won't you sit down? I haveunluckily little chance of indulging the taste on my own account, " wasmy cautious reply. 

"But you've written a book about them, and know them when you see them, don't you? Now my mother has given me something, and would like you togive a guess at its value. Perhaps you can put me in the way ofdisposing of it?"

"I certainly can do so if it is worth anything. Is that it?" I was in afever of excitement, for I guessed what was clutched in his palm. Heheld out to me the Valdez sapphire. 

How it shone and sparkled like a great blue star! I made myself adeprecating smile as I took it from him, but how dare I call it false toits face? As well accuse the sun in heaven of being a cheap imitation. Ifaltered and prevaricated feebly. Where was my moral courage, and wherewas the good, honest, thumping lie that should have aided me? "I havethe best authority for recognizing this as a very good copy of a famousstone in the possession of the Bishop of Northchurch. " His scowl grew soblack that I saw he believed me, and I went on more cheerily: "This wasmanufactured by Johannes Bogaerts--I can give you his address, and youcan make inquiries yourself--by special permission of the then owner, the late Leone Montanaro. "

"Hand it back!" he interrupted (his other remarks were outrageous, butsatisfactory to hear); but I waved him off. I couldn't give it up. Itfascinated me. I toyed with it, I caressed it. I made it display itsdifferent tones of colour. I must see the two stones together. I mustsee it outshine its paltry rival. It was a whimsical frenzy that seizedme--I can call it by no other name. 

"Would you like to see the original? Curiously enough, I have it here. The bishop has left it in my charge. "

The wolfish light flamed up in Carwitchet's eyes as I drew forth thecase. He laid the Valdez down on a sheet of paper, and I placed theother, still in its case, beside it. In that moment they lookedidentical, except for the little loop of sham stones, replaced by aplain gold band in the bishop's jewel. Carwitchet leaned across thetable eagerly, the table gave a lurch, the lamp tottered, crashed over, and we were left in semidarkness. 

"Don't stir!" Carwitchet shouted. "The paraffin is all over the place!"He seized my sofa blanket, and flung it over the table while I stoodhelpless. "There, that's safe now. Have you candles on thechimney-piece? I've got matches. "

He looked very white and excited as he lit up. "Might have been anawkward job with all that burning paraffin running about, " he said quitepleasantly. "I hope no real harm is done. " I was lifting the rug withshaking hands. The two stones lay as I had placed them. No! I nearlydropped it back again. It was the stone in the case that had the loopwith the three sham sapphires!

Carwitchet picked the other up hastily. "So you say this is rubbish?" heasked, his eyes sparkling wickedly, and an attempt at mortification inhis tone. 

"Utter rubbish!" I pronounced, with truth and decision, snapping up thecase and pocketing it. "Lady Carwitchet must have known it. "

"Ah, well, it's disappointing, isn't it? Good-by, we shall not meetagain. "

I shook hands with him most cordially. "Good-by, Lord Carwitchet. _So_glad to have met you and your mother. It has been a source of the_greatest_ pleasure, I assure you. "

I have never seen the Carwitchets since. The bishop drove over next dayin rather better spirits. Miss Panton had refused the chaplain. 

"It doesn't matter, my lord, " I said to him heartily. "We've all beenunder some strange misconception. The stone in your possession is theveritable one. I could swear to that anywhere. The sapphire LadyCarwitchet wears is only an excellent imitation, and--I have seen itwith my own eyes--is the one bearing Bogaerts's mark, the Greek Beta. "

THE OBLONG BOX

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Some years ago I engaged passage from Charleston, S. C. , to the city ofNew York, in the fine packet-ship _Independence_, Captain Hardy. We wereto sail on the fifteenth of the month (June), weather permitting; and onthe fourteenth I went on board to arrange some matters in my stateroom. 

I found that we were to have a great many passengers, including a morethan usual number of ladies. On the list were several of myacquaintances; and among other names I was rejoiced to see that of Mr. Cornelius Wyatt, a young artist, for whom I entertained feelings of warmfriendship. He had been, with me, a fellow-student at C---- University, where we were very much together. He had the ordinary temperament ofgenius, and was a compound of misanthropy, sensibility, and enthusiasm. To these qualities he united the warmest and truest heart which everbeat in a human bosom. 

I observed that his name was carded upon three staterooms: and uponagain referring to the list of passengers I found that he had engagedpassage for himself, wife, and two sisters--his own. The staterooms weresufficiently roomy, and each had two berths, one above the other. Theseberths, to be sure, were so exceedingly narrow as to be insufficient formore than one person; still, I could not comprehend why there were threestaterooms for these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in one ofthose moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive abouttrifles: and I confess with shame that I busied myself in a variety ofill-bred and preposterous conjectures about this matter of thesupernumerary stateroom. It was no business of mine, to be sure; butwith none the less pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts toresolve the enigma. At last I reached a conclusion which wrought in megreat wonder why I had not arrived at it before. "It is a servant, ofcourse, " I said; "what a fool I am not sooner to have thought of soobvious a solution!" And then I again repaired to the list, but here Isaw distinctly that no servant was to come with the party: although, infact, it had been the original design to bring one, for the words "andservant" had been first written and then overscored. "Oh, extra baggage, to be sure, " I now said to myself; "something he wishes not to be put inthe hold, something to be kept under his own eye, --ah, I have it! apainting or so, and this is what he has been bargaining about withNicolino, the Italian Jew. " This idea satisfied me and I dismissed mycuriosity for the nonce. 

Wyatt's two sisters I knew very well, and most amiable and clever girlsthey were. His wife he had newly married, and I had never yet seen her. He had often talked about her in my presence, however, and in his usualstyle of enthusiasm. He described her as of surpassing beauty, wit, andaccomplishment. I was, therefore, quite anxious to make heracquaintance. 

On the day in which I visited the ship (the fourteenth), Wyatt and partywere also to visit it, so the Captain informed me, and I waited on boardan hour longer than I had designed in hope of being presented to thebride; but then an apology came. "Mrs. W. Was a little indisposed, andwould decline coming on board until to-morrow at the hour of sailing. "

The morrow having arrived, I was going from my hotel to the wharf, whenCaptain Hardy met me and said that, "owing to circumstances" (a stupidbut convenient phrase), "he rather thought the _Independence_ would notsail for a day or two, and that when all was ready he would send up andlet me know. " This I thought strange, for there was a stiff southerlybreeze; but as "the circumstances" were not forthcoming, although Ipumped for them with much perseverance, I had nothing to do but toreturn home and digest my impatience at leisure. 

I did not receive the expected message from the Captain for nearly aweek. It came at length, however, and I immediately went on board. Theship was crowded with passengers, and everything was in the bustleattendant upon making sail. Wyatt's party arrived in about ten minutesafter myself. There were the two sisters, the bride, and the artist--thelatter in one of his customary fits of moody misanthropy. I was too wellused to these, however, to pay them any special attention. He did noteven introduce me to his wife; this courtesy devolving, perforce, uponhis sister Marian, a very sweet and intelligent girl, who in a fewhurried words made us acquainted. 

Mrs. Wyatt had been closely veiled; and when she raised her veil inacknowledging my bow, I confess that I was very profoundly astonished. Ishould have been much more so, however, had not long experience advisedme not to trust, with too implicit a reliance, the enthusiasticdescriptions of my friend the artist, when indulging in comments uponthe loveliness of woman. When beauty was the theme, I well knew withwhat facility he soared into the regions of the purely ideal. 

The truth is, I could not help regarding Mrs. Wyatt as a decidedlyplain-looking woman. If not positively ugly, she was not, I think, veryfar from it. She was dressed, however, in exquisite taste, and then Ihad no doubt that she had captivated my friend's heart by the moreenduring graces of the intellect and soul. She said very few words, andpassed at once into her stateroom with Mr. W. 

My old inquisitiveness now returned. There was no servant, that was asettled point. I looked, therefore, for the extra baggage. After somedelay a cart arrived at the wharf with an oblong pine box, which waseverything that seemed to be expected. Immediately upon its arrival wemade sail, and in a short time were safely over the bar and standing outto sea. 

The box in question was, as I say, oblong. It was about six feet inlength by two and a half in breadth: I observed it attentively and liketo be precise. Now, this shape was peculiar; and no sooner had I seen itthan I took credit to myself for the accuracy of my guessing. I hadreached the conclusion, it will be remembered, that the extra baggage ofmy friend the artist would prove to be pictures, or at least a picture, for I knew he had been for several weeks in conference with Nicolino;and now here was a box, which, from its shape, could possibly containnothing in the world but a copy of Leonardo's _Last Supper_; and a copyof this very _Last Supper_, done by Rubini the younger at Florence, Ihad known for some time to be in the possession of Nicolino. This point, therefore, I considered as sufficiently settled. I chuckled excessivelywhen I thought of my acumen. It was the first time I had ever knownWyatt to keep from me any of his artistical secrets; but here heevidently intended to steal a march upon me and smuggle a fine pictureto New York, under my very nose; expecting me to know nothing of thematter. I resolved to quiz him well, now and hereafter. 

One thing, however, annoyed me not a little. The box did not go into theextra stateroom. It was deposited in Wyatt's own; and there, too, itremained, occupying very nearly the whole of the floor, no doubt to theexceeding discomfort of the artist and his wife; this the moreespecially as the tar or paint with which it was lettered in sprawlingcapitals emitted a strong, disagreeable, and, to my fancy, a peculiarlydisgusting odour. On the lid were painted the words: "Mrs. AdelaideCurtis, Albany, New York. Charge of Cornelius Wyatt, Esq. This side up. To be handled with care. "

Now, I was aware that Mrs. Adelaide Curtis of Albany was the artist'swife's mother; but then I looked upon the whole address as amystification, intended especially for myself. I made up my mind, ofcourse, that the box and contents would never get farther north than thestudio of my misanthropic friend in Chambers Street, New York. 

For the first three or four days we had fine weather, although the windwas dead ahead, having chopped round to the northward immediately uponour losing sight of the coast. The passengers were, consequently, inhigh spirits and disposed to be social. I must except, however, Wyattand his sisters, who behaved stiffly, and, I could not help thinking, uncourteously, to the rest of the party. Wyatt's conduct I did not somuch regard. He was gloomy, even beyond his usual habit, --in fact, hewas morose; but in him I was prepared for eccentricity. For the sisters, however, I could make no excuse. They secluded themselves in theirstaterooms during the greater part of the passage, and absolutelyrefused, although I repeatedly urged them, to hold communication withany person on board. 

Mrs. Wyatt herself was far more agreeable. That is to say, she waschatty; and to be chatty is no slight recommendation at sea. She becameexcessively intimate with most of the ladies; and, to my profoundastonishment, evinced no equivocal disposition to coquet with the men. She amused us all very much. I say "amused, " and scarcely know how toexplain myself. The truth is, I soon found that Mrs. W. Was far oftenerlaughed at than with. The gentlemen said little about her; but theladies in a little while pronounced her "a good-hearted thing, ratherindifferent-looking, totally uneducated, and decidedly vulgar. " Thegreat wonder was, how Wyatt had been entrapped into such a match. Wealthwas the general solution, but this I knew to be no solution at all; forWyatt had told me that she neither brought him a dollar nor had anyexpectations from any source whatever. "He had married, " he said, "forlove, and for love only; and his bride was far more than worthy of hislove. " When I thought of these expressions on the part of my friend, Iconfess that I felt indescribably puzzled. Could it be possible that hewas taking leave of his senses? What else could I think? He, so refined, so intellectual, so fastidious, with so exquisite a perception of thefaulty, and so keen an appreciation of the beautiful! To be sure, thelady seemed especially fond of him, particularly so in his absence, whenshe made herself ridiculous by frequent quotations of what had been saidby her "beloved husband, Mr. Wyatt. " The word "husband" seemed forever, to use one of her own delicate expressions, --forever "on the tip of hertongue. " In the meantime it was observed by all on board that he avoidedher in the most pointed manner, and, for the most part, shut himself upalone in his stateroom, where, in fact, he might have been said to livealtogether, leaving his wife at full liberty to amuse herself as shethought best in the public society of the main cabin. 

My conclusion, from what I saw and heard, was that the artist, by someunaccountable freak of fate, or perhaps in some fit of enthusiastic andfanciful passion, had been induced to unite himself with a personaltogether beneath him, and that the natural result, entire and speedydisgust, had ensued. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart, but couldnot, for that reason, quite forgive his incommunicativeness in thematter of the _Last Supper_. For this I resolved to have my revenge. 

One day he came up on deck, and, taking his arm as had been my wont, Isauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom, however (which Iconsidered quite natural under the circumstances), seemed entirelyunabated. He said little, and that moodily, and with evident effort. Iventured a jest or two, and he made a sickening attempt at a smile. Poorfellow! as I thought of his wife I wondered that he could have heart toput on even the semblance of mirth. At last I ventured a home thrust. Idetermined to commence a series of covert insinuations, or innuendos, about the oblong box, just to let him perceive, gradually, that I wasnot altogether the butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasantmystification. My first observation was by way of opening a maskedbattery. I said something about the "peculiar shape of that box"; and, as I spoke the words I smiled knowingly, winked, and touched him gentlywith my forefinger in the ribs. 

The manner in which Wyatt received this harmless pleasantry convinced meat once that he was mad. At first he stared at me as if he found itimpossible to comprehend the witticism of my remark; but as its pointseemed slowly to make its way into his brain, his eyes, in the sameproportion, seemed protruding from their sockets. Then he grew very red, then hideously pale, then, as if highly amused with what I hadinsinuated, he began a loud and boisterous laugh, which, to myastonishment, he kept up, with gradually increasing vigour, for tenminutes or more. In conclusion, he fell flat and heavily upon the deck. When I ran to uplift him, to all appearance he was dead. 

I called assistance, and, with much difficulty, we brought him tohimself. Upon reviving he spoke incoherently for some time. At length webled him and put him to bed. The next morning he was quite recovered, sofar as regarded his mere bodily health. Of his mind I say nothing, ofcourse. I avoided him during the rest of the passage, by advice of theCaptain, who seemed to coincide with me altogether in my views of hisinsanity, but cautioned me to say nothing on this head to any person onboard. 

Several circumstances occurred immediately after this fit of Wyatt'swhich contributed to heighten the curiosity with which I was alreadypossessed. Among other things, this: I had been nervous; drank too muchstrong green tea, and slept ill at night, --in fact, for two nights Icould not be properly said to sleep at all. Now, my stateroom openedinto the main cabin or dining-room, as did those of all the single menon board. Wyatt's three rooms were in the after-cabin, which wasseparated from the main one by a slight sliding door, never locked evenat night. As we were almost constantly on a wind, and the breeze was nota little stiff, the ship heeled to leeward very considerably; andwhenever her starboard side was to leeward the sliding door between thecabins slid open and so remained, nobody taking the trouble to get upand shut it. But my berth was in such a position that when my ownstateroom door was open, as well as the sliding door in question (and myown door was always open on account of the heat), I could see into theafter-cabin quite distinctly, and just at that portion of it, too, wherewere situated the staterooms of Mr. Wyatt. Well, during two nights (notconsecutive), while I lay awake, I clearly saw Mrs. W. , about eleveno'clock upon each night, steal cautiously from the stateroom of Mr. W. And enter the extra room, where she remained until daybreak, when shewas called by her husband and went back. That they were virtuallyseparated was clear. They had separate apartments, no doubt incontemplation of a more permanent divorce; and here, after all, Ithought, was the mystery of the extra stateroom. 

There was another circumstance, too, which interested me much. Duringthe two wakeful nights in question, and immediately after thedisappearance of Mrs. Wyatt into the extra stateroom, I was attracted bycertain singular, cautious, subdued noises in that of her husband. Afterlistening to them for some time with thoughtful attention, I at lengthsucceeded perfectly in translating their import. They were soundsoccasioned by the artist in prying open the oblong box by means of achisel and mallet, the latter being apparently muffled or deadened bysome soft woollen or cotton substance in which its head was enveloped. 

In this manner I fancied I could distinguish the precise moment when hefairly disengaged the lid, also that I could determine when he removedit altogether, and when he deposited it upon the lower berth in hisroom; this latter point I knew, for example, by certain slight tapswhich the lid made in striking against the wooden edges of the berth ashe endeavoured to lay it down very gently, there being no room for it onthe floor. After this there was a dead stillness, and I heard nothingmore, upon either occasion, until nearly daybreak; unless, perhaps, Imay mention a low sobbing or murmuring sound, so very much suppressed asto be nearly inaudible, if, indeed, the whole of this latter noise werenot rather produced by my own imagination. I say it seemed to resemblesobbing or sighing, but, of course, it could not have been either. Irather think it was a ringing in my own ears. Mr. Wyatt, no doubt, according to custom, was merely giving the rein to one of his hobbies, indulging in one of his fits of artistic enthusiasm. He had opened hisoblong box in order to feast his eyes on the pictorial treasure within. There was nothing in this, however, to make him sob. I repeat, therefore, that it must have been simply a freak of my own fancy, distempered by good Captain Hardy's green tea. Just before dawn, on eachof the two nights of which I speak, I distinctly heard Mr. Wyatt replacethe lid upon the oblong box, and force the nails into their old placesby means of the muffled mallet. Having done this, he issued from hisstateroom, fully dressed, and proceeded to call Mrs. W. From hers. 

We had been at sea seven days, and were now off Cape Hatteras, whenthere came a tremendously heavy blow from the southwest. We were, in ameasure, prepared for it, however, as the weather had been holding outthreats for some time. Everything was made snug, alow and aloft; and, asthe wind steadily freshened, we lay to, at length, under spanker andforetopsail, both double-reefed. 

In this trim we rode safely enough for forty-eight hours, the shipproving herself an excellent sea-boat in many respects, and shipping nowater of any consequence. At the end of this period, however, the galehad freshened into a hurricane, and our after-sail split into ribbons, bringing us so much in the trough of the water that we shipped severalprodigious seas, one immediately after the other. By this accident welost three men overboard with the caboose, and nearly the whole of thelarboard bulwarks. Scarcely had we recovered our senses before theforetopsail went into shreds, when we got up a storm staysail, and withthis did pretty well for some hours, the ship heading the sea much moresteadily than before. 

The gale still held on, however, and we saw no signs of its abating. Therigging was found to be ill-fitted and greatly strained; and on thethird day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our mizzen-mast, ina heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an hour or more wetried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the prodigious rolling ofthe ship; and, before we had succeeded, the carpenter came aft andannounced four feet water in the hold. To add to our dilemma, we foundthe pumps choked and nearly useless. 

All was now confusion and despair, but an effort was made to lighten theship by throwing overboard as much of her cargo as could be reached, andby cutting away the two masts that remained. This we at lastaccomplished, but we were still unable to do anything at the pumps; and, in the meantime, the leak gained on us very fast. 

At sundown the gale had sensibly diminished in violence, and, as the seawent down with it, we still entertained faint hopes of saving ourselvesin the boats. At eight P. M. , the clouds broke away to windward, and wehad the advantage of a full moon, a piece of good fortune which servedwonderfully to cheer our drooping spirits. 

After incredible labour we succeeded, at length, in getting thelong-boat over the side without material accident, and into this wecrowded the whole of the crew and most of the passengers. This partymade off immediately, and, after undergoing much suffering, finallyarrived in safety at Ocracoke Inlet, on the third day after the wreck. 

Fourteen passengers, with the Captain, remained on board, resolving totrust their fortunes to the jolly-boat at the stern. We lowered itwithout difficulty, although it was only by a miracle that we preventedit from swamping as it touched the water. It contained, when afloat, theCaptain and his wife, Mr. Wyatt and party, a Mexican officer, wife, fourchildren, and myself, with a negro valet. 

We had no room, of course, for anything except a few positivelynecessary instruments, some provisions, and the clothes upon our backs. No one had thought of even attempting to save anything more. What musthave been the astonishment of all, then, when, having proceeded a fewfathoms from the ship, Mr. Wyatt stood up in the stern-sheets and coollydemanded of Captain Hardy that the boat should be put back for thepurpose of taking in his oblong box!

"Sit down, Mr. Wyatt, " replied the Captain, somewhat sternly; "you willcapsize us if you do not sit quite still. Our gunwale is almost in thewater now. "

"The box!" vociferated Mr. Wyatt, still standing, "the box, I say!Captain Hardy, you cannot, you will not refuse me. Its weight will bebut a trifle, it is nothing, mere nothing. By the mother who boreyou--for the love of Heaven--by your hope of salvation, I implore you toput back for the box!"

The Captain for a moment seemed touched by the earnest appeal of theartist, but he regained his stern composure, and merely said:

"Mr. Wyatt, you are mad. I cannot listen to you. Sit down, I say, or youwill swamp the boat. Stay! hold him, seize him! he is about to springoverboard! There--I knew it--he is over!"

As the Captain said this, Mr. Wyatt, in fact, sprang from the boat, and, as we were yet in the lee of the wreck, succeeded, by almost superhumanexertion, in getting hold of a rope which hung from the forechains. Inanother moment he was on board, and rushing frantically down into thecabin. 

In the meantime we had been swept astern of the ship, and being quiteout of her lee, were at the mercy of the tremendous sea which was stillrunning. We made a determined effort to put back, but our little boatwas like a feather in the breath of the tempest. We saw at a glance thatthe doom of the unfortunate artist was sealed. 

As our distance from the wreck rapidly increased, the madman (for assuch only could we regard him) was seen to emerge from the companionway, up which, by dint of strength that appeared gigantic, he dragged, bodily, the oblong box. While we gazed in the extremity of astonishment, he passed rapidly several turns of a three-inch rope, first around thebox and then around his body. In another instant both body and box werein the sea, disappearing suddenly, at once and forever. 

We lingered awhile sadly upon our oars, with our eyes riveted upon thespot. At length we pulled away. The silence remained unbroken for anhour. Finally I hazarded a remark. 

"Did you observe, Captain, how suddenly they sank? Was not that anexceedingly singular thing? I confess that I entertained some feeblehope of his final deliverance when I saw him lash himself to the box andcommit himself to the sea. "

"They sank as a matter of course, " replied the Captain, "and that like ashot. They will soon rise again, however, but not till the salt melts. "

"The salt!" I ejaculated. 

"Hush!" said the Captain, pointing to the wife and sisters of thedeceased. "We must talk of these things at some more appropriate time. "

 * * * * *

We suffered much and made a narrow escape; but fortune befriended us, aswell as our mates in the long-boat. We landed, in fine, more dead thanalive, after four days of intense distress, upon the beach oppositeRoanoke Island. We remained here a week, were not ill-treated by thewreckers, and at length obtained a passage to New York. 

About a month after the loss of the _Independence_, I happened to meetCaptain Hardy in Broadway. Our conversation turned, naturally, upon thedisaster, and especially upon the sad fate of poor Wyatt. I thus learnedthe following particulars:

The artist had engaged passage for himself, wife, two sisters, and aservant. His wife was indeed, as she had been represented, a most lovelyand most accomplished woman. On the morning of the fourteenth of June(the day in which I first visited the ship), the lady suddenly sickenedand died. The young husband was frantic with grief, but circumstancesimperatively forbade the deferring his voyage to New York. It wasnecessary to take to her mother the corpse of his adored wife, and, onthe other hand, the universal prejudice which would prevent his doing soopenly was well known. Nine tenths of the passengers would haveabandoned the ship rather than take passage with a dead body. 

In this dilemma Captain Hardy arranged that the corpse, being firstpartially embalmed and packed, with a large quantity of salt in a box ofsuitable dimensions, should be conveyed on board as merchandise. Nothingwas to be said of the lady's decease; and, as it was well understoodthat Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife, it became necessarythat some person should personate her during the voyage. This thedeceased lady's maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra stateroom, originally engaged for this girl during her mistress's life, was nowmerely retained. In this stateroom the pseudo-wife slept, of course, every night. In the daytime she performed, to the best of her ability, the part of her mistress, whose person, it had been carefullyascertained, was unknown to any of the passengers on board. 

My own mistake arose, naturally enough, through too careless, tooinquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late it is a rarething that I sleep soundly at night. There is a countenance which hauntsme, turn as I will. There is an hysterical laugh which will forever ringwithin my ears. 

THE BIRTH-MARK

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

In the latter part of the last century, there lived a man of science--aneminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy--who, not longbefore our story opens, had made experience of a spiritual affinity, more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to thecare of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from thefurnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuadeda beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days, when thecomparatively recent discovery of electricity, and other kindredmysteries of nature, seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, itwas not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman, inits depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart, might all find their congenial alimentin pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, wouldascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until thephilosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force, andperhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmerpossessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over nature. Hehad devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies, ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for hisyoung wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be byintertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strengthof the latter to its own. 

Such an union accordingly took place, and was attended with trulyremarkable consequences, and a deeply impressive moral. One day, verysoon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife, with a troublein his countenance that grew stronger, until he spoke. 

"Georgiana, " said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark uponyour cheek might be removed?"

"No, indeed, " said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of hismanner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth, it has been so oftencalled a charm, that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so. "

"Ah, upon another face, perhaps it might, " replied her husband. "Butnever on yours! No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect fromthe hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect--which wehesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty--shocks me, as being thevisible mark of earthly imperfection. "

"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at firstreddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then whydid you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks you!"

To explain this conversation, it must be mentioned, that, in the centreof Georgiana's left cheek, there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usualstate of her complexion, --a healthy, though delicate bloom, --the markwore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amidthe surrounding rosiness. When she blushed, it gradually became moreindistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood, thatbathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But, if any shiftingemotion caused her to turn pale, there was the mark again, a crimsonstain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearfuldistinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pigmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say, that some fairy, at her birth-hour, had laid her tiny hand upon theinfant's cheek, and left this impress there, in token of the magicendowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many adesperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing hislips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that theimpression wrought by this fairy sign-manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. Somefastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmedthat the Bloody Hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed theeffect of Georgiana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say, that one of those small bluestains, which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble, wouldconvert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if thebirth-mark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves withwishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen ofideal loveliness, without the semblance of a flaw. After hismarriage--for he thought little or nothing of the matter before--Aylmerdiscovered that this was the case with himself. 

Had she been less beautiful--if Envy's self could have found aught elseto sneer at--he might have felt his affection heightened by theprettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, nowstealing forth again, and glimmering to-and-fro with every pulse ofemotion that throbbed within her heart. But, seeing her otherwise soperfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable, withevery moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity, which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all herproductions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or thattheir perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The Crimson Handexpressed the ineludible gripe, in which mortality clutches the highestand purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with thelowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible framesreturn to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife'sliability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre imaginationwas not long in rendering the birth-mark a frightful object, causing himmore trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul orsense, had given him delight. 

At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably, and without intending it--nay, in spite of a purpose to thecontrary--reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at firstappeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought, andmodes of feeling, that it became the central point of all. With themorning twilight, Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face, andrecognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at theevening hearth, his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral Hand that wrotemortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned toshudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance, with the peculiarexpression that his face often wore, to change the roses of her cheekinto a death-like paleness, amid which the Crimson Hand was broughtstrongly out, like a bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble. 

Late, one night, when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly tobetray the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the firsttime, voluntarily took up the subject. 

"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer, " said she, with a feeble attempt at asmile--"have you any recollection of a dream, last night, about thisodious Hand?"

"None!--none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added in adry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth ofhis emotion:--"I might well dream of it; for, before I fell asleep, ithad taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy. "

"And you did dream of it, " continued Georgiana hastily; for she dreadedlest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say--"A terribledream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget thisone expression?--'It is in her heart now--we must have itout!'--Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recallthat dream. "

The mind is in a sad state, when Sleep, the all-involving, cannotconfine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers themto break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchancebelong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fanciedhimself, with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for theremoval of the birth-mark. But the deeper went the knife, the deepersank the Hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caughthold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorablyresolved to cut or wrench it away. 

When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat inhis wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way tothe mind close-muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks withuncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise anunconscious self-deception, during our waking moments. Until now, he hadnot been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea overhis mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go, forthe sake of giving himself peace. 

"Aylmer, " resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the costto both of us, to rid me of this fatal birth-mark. Perhaps its removalmay cause cureless deformity. Or, it may be, the stain goes as deep aslife itself. Again, do we know that there is a possibility, on anyterms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little Hand, which was laidupon me before I came into the world?"

"Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject, " hastilyinterrupted Aylmer--"I am convinced of the perfect practicability of itsremoval. "

"If there be the remotest possibility of it, " continued Georgiana, "letthe attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; forlife--while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror anddisgust--life is a burthen which I would fling down with joy. Eitherremove this dreadful Hand, or take my wretched life! You have deepscience! All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved greatwonders! Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover withthe tips of two small fingers! Is this beyond your power, for the sakeof your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?"

"Noblest--dearest--tenderest wife!" cried Aylmer, rapturously. "Doubtnot my power. I have already given this matter the deepestthought--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create abeing less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper thanever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to renderthis dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, whatwill be my triumph, when I shall have corrected what Nature leftimperfect, in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his sculpturedwoman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be. "

"It is resolved, then, " said Georgiana, faintly smiling, --"And, Aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birth-mark take refuge in myheart at last. "

Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek--her right cheek--not that whichbore the impress of the Crimson Hand. 

The next day, Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed, whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constantwatchfulness which the proposed operation would require; whileGeorgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to itssuccess. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartmentsoccupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsomeyouth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of nature, thathad roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. Seatedcalmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated thesecrets of the highest cloud-region, and of the profoundest mines; hehad satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive thefires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, andhow it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others withsuch rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the humanframe, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Natureassimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from thespiritual world, to create and foster Man, her masterpiece. The latterpursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside, in unwilling recognitionof the truth, against which all seekers sooner or later stumble, thatour great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently workingin the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her ownsecrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing butresults. She permits us indeed to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like ajealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumedthese half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes orwishes as first suggested them; but because they involved muchphysiological truth, and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for thetreatment of Georgiana. 

As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was coldand tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent toreassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of thebirth-mark upon the whiteness of her cheek, that he could not restrain astrong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted. 

"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. 

Forthwith, there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which wasgrimed with the vapours of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer'sunder-worker during his whole scientific career, and was admirablyfitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skillwith which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, heexecuted all the practical details of his master's experiments. With hisvast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribableearthiness that encrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physicalnature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, wereno less apt a type of the spiritual element. 

"Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab, " said Aylmer, "and burn apastille. "

"Yes, master, " answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless formof Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself:--"If she were my wife, I'd never part with that birth-mark. "

When Georgiana recovered consciousness, she found herself breathing anatmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which hadrecalled her from her death-like faintness. The scene around her lookedlike enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into aseries of beautiful apartments, not unfit to be the secluded abode of alovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which impartedthe combination of grandeur and grace, that no other species ofadornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straightlines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For aughtGeorgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemicalprocesses, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flamesof various hue, but all uniting in a soft, empurpled radiance. He nowknelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; forhe was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magiccircle round her, within which no evil might intrude. 

"Where am I?--Ah, I remember!" said Georgiana, faintly; and she placedher hand over her cheek, to hide the terrible mark from her husband'seyes. 

"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will besuch a rapture to remove it. "

"Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it again. Inever can forget that convulsive shudder. "

In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind fromthe burthen of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of thelight and playful secrets which science had taught him among itsprofounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms ofunsubstantial beauty, came and danced before her, imprinting theirmomentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinctidea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion wasalmost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessedsway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to lookforth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. Thescenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, butwith that bewitching, yet indescribable difference, which always makes apicture, an image, or a shadow, so much more attractive than theoriginal. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon avessel, containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interestat first, but was soon startled, to perceive the germ of a plant, shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk--the leavesgradually unfolded themselves--and amid them was a perfect and lovelyflower. 

"It is magical!" cried Georgiana, "I dare not touch it. "

"Nay, pluck it, " answered Aylmer, "pluck it, and inhale its briefperfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments, andleave nothing save its brown seed-vessels--but thence may be perpetuateda race as ephemeral as itself. "

But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plantsuffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black, as if by the agency offire. 

"There was too powerful a stimulus, " said Aylmer thoughtfully. 

To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take herportrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to beeffected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. Georgiana assented--but, on looking at the result, was affrighted tofind the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while theminute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate, and threw it into a jar of corrosiveacid. 

Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals ofstudy and chemical experiment, he came to her, flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language ofthe resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of theAlchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent, bywhich the Golden Principle might be elicited from all things vile andbase. Aylmer appeared to believe, that, by the plainest scientificlogic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discoverthis long-sought medium; but, he added, a philosopher who should go deepenough to acquire the power, would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop tothe exercise of it. Not less singular were his opinions in regard to theElixir Vitæ. He more than intimated, that it was at his option toconcoct a liquid that should prolong life for years--perhapsinterminably--but that it would produce a discord in nature, which allthe world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would findcause to curse. 

"Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him withamazement and fear; "it is terrible to possess such power, or even todream of possessing it!"

"Oh, do not tremble, my love!" said her husband, "I would not wrongeither you or myself, by working such inharmonious effects upon ourlives. But I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is theskill requisite to remove this little Hand. "

At the mention of the birth-mark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank, as if ared-hot iron had touched her cheek. 

Again Aylmer applied himself to his labours. She could hear his voice inthe distant furnace-room, giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the gruntor growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmerreappeared, and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet ofchemical products, and natural treasures of the earth. Among the formerhe showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained agentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all thebreezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, thecontents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of theperfume into the air, and filled the room with piercing and invigoratingdelight. 

"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe, containing a gold-coloured liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye, thatI could imagine it the Elixir of Life. "

"In one sense it is, " replied Aylmer, "or rather the Elixir ofImmortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted inthis world. By its aid, I could apportion the life-time of any mortal atwhom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose woulddetermine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midstof a breath. No king, on his guarded throne, could keep his life, if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millionsjustified me in depriving him of it. "

"Why do you keep such a terrible drug?" inquired Georgiana in horror. 

"Do not mistrust me, dearest!" said her husband, smiling; "its virtuouspotency is yet greater than its harmful one. But, see! here is apowerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this, in a vase of water, freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. Astronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave therosiest beauty a pale ghost. "

"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" askedGeorgiana, anxiously. 

"Oh, no!" hastily replied her husband, --"this is merely superficial. Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper. "

In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiriesas to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the rooms, and thetemperature of the atmosphere, agreed with her. These questions had sucha particular drift, that Georgiana began to conjecture that she wasalready subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed inwith the fragrant air, or taken with her food. She fancied, likewise--but it might be altogether fancy--that there was a stirring upof her system: a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through herveins, and tingling, half-painfully, half-pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheldherself, pale as a white rose, and with the crimson birth-mark stampedupon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she. 

To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessaryto devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turnedover the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes, shemet with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the works of thephilosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus, Magnus, CorneliusAgrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the propheticBrazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of theircenturies, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and thereforewere believed, and perhaps imagined themselves, to have acquired fromthe investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics asway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative werethe early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society, in which themembers, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, werecontinually recording wonders, or proposing methods whereby wondersmight be wrought. 

But, to Georgiana, the most engrossing volume was a large folio from herhusband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of hisscientific career, with its original aim, the methods adopted for itsdevelopment, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances towhich either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both thehistory and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practicaland laborious, life. He handled physical details, as if there werenothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himselffrom materialism, by his strong and eager aspiration towards theinfinite. In his grasp, the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer, and loved him more profoundlythan ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment thanheretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe thathis most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if comparedwith the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merestpebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with theinestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, richwith achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet asmelancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sadconfession, and continual exemplification, of the short-comings of thecomposite man--the spirit burthened with clay and working in matter; andof the despair that assails the higher nature, at finding itself somiserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius, inwhatever sphere, might recognize the image of his own experience inAylmer's journal. 

So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana, that she laid her faceupon the open volume, and burst into tears. In this situation she wasfound by her husband. 

"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books, " said he, with a smile, though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there arepages in that volume, which I can scarcely glance over and keep mysenses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you!"

"It has made me worship you more than ever, " said she. 

"Ah! wait for this one success, " rejoined he, "then worship me if youwill. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But, come! I havesought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest!"

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst ofhis spirit. He then took his leave, with a boyish exuberance of gaiety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, andthat the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed, whenGeorgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten toinform Aylmer of a symptom, which, for two or three hours past, hadbegun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatalbirth-mark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout hersystem. Hastening after her husband, she intruded, for the first time, into the laboratory. 

The first thing that struck her eyes was the furnace, that hot andfeverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which, by thequantities of soot clustered above it, seemed to have been burning forages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around theroom were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus ofchemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseousodours, which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. Thesevere and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls andbrick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become tothe fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almostsolely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. 

He was pale as death, anxious, and absorbed, and hung over the furnaceas if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid, whichit was distilling, should be the draught of immortal happiness ormisery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he hadassumed for Georgiana's encouragement!

"Carefully now, Aminadab! Carefully, thou human machine! Carefully, thouman of clay!" muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. "Now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over!"

"Hoh! hoh!" mumbled Aminadab--"look, master, look!"

Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew palerthan ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her, and seized herarm with a grip that left the print of his fingers upon it. 

"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried heimpetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birth-mark overmy labours? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!"

"Nay, Aylmer, " said Georgiana, with the firmness of which she possessedno stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. Youmistrust your wife! You have concealed the anxiety with which you watchthe development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, myhusband! Tell me all the risk we run; and fear not that I shall shrink, for my share in it is far less than your own!"

"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer impatiently, "it must not be. "

"I submit, " replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whateverdraught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that wouldinduce me to take a dose of poison, if offered by your hand. "

"My noble wife, " said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height anddepth of your nature, until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this Crimson Hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its graspinto your being, with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except tochange your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail us, we are ruined!"

"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she. 

"Because, Georgiana, " said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger!"

"Danger? There is but one danger--that this horrible stigma shall beleft upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it! remove it!--whateverbe the cost--or we shall both go mad!"

"Heaven knows, your words are too true, " said Aylmer, sadly. "And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while, all will be tested. "

He conducted her back, and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness, which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After hisdeparture, Georgiana became wrapt in musings. She considered thecharacter of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previousmoment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honourable love, sopure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection, normiserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he haddreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment, thanthat meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for hersake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love, by degrading itsperfect idea to the level of the actual. And, with her whole spirit, sheprayed, that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest anddeepest conception. Longer than one moment, she well knew, it could notbe; for his spirit was ever on the march--ever ascending--and eachinstant required something that was beyond the scope of the instantbefore. 

The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystalgoblet, containing a liquor colourless as water, but bright enough to bethe draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather theconsequence of a highly wrought state of mind, and tension of spirit, than of fear or doubt. 

"The concoction of the draught has been perfect, " said he, in answer toGeorgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannotfail. "

"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer, " observed his wife, "I mightwish to put off this birth-mark of mortality by relinquishing mortalityitself, in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession tothose who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement atwhich I stand. Were I weaker and blinder, it might be happiness. Were Istronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die. "

"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband. "But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold itseffect upon this plant!"

On the window-seat there stood a geranium, diseased with yellowblotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a smallquantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightlyblotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. 

"There needed no proof, " said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet. Ijoyfully stake all upon your word. "

"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervidadmiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thysensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect!"

She quaffed the liquid, and returned the goblet to his hand. 

"It is grateful, " said she, with a placid smile. "Methinks it is likewater from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what ofunobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst, that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. Myearthly senses are closing over my spirit, like the leaves around theheart of a rose, at sunset. "

She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it requiredalmost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint andlingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips, ereshe was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspectwith the emotions proper to a man, the whole value of whose existencewas involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation, characteristic of the man ofscience. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of thecheek--a slight irregularity of breath--a quiver of the eyelid--a hardlyperceptible tremor through the frame--such were the details which, asthe moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thoughthad set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume; but thethoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. 

While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal Hand, andnot without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse, he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the veryact, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasilyand murmured, as if in remonstrance. Again, Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without avail. The Crimson Hand, which at first had beenstrongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek now grewmore faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but thebirth-mark, with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of itsformer distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was moreawful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out of the sky; andyou will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. 

"By Heaven, it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almostirrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. Success! Success!And now it is like the faintest rose-colour. The slightest flush ofblood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!"

He drew aside the window-curtain, and suffered the light of natural dayto fall into the room, and rest upon her cheek. At the same time, heheard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servantAminadab's expression of delight. 

"Ah, clod! Ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort offrenzy. "You have served me well! Matter and Spirit--Earth andHeaven--have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses!You have earned the right to laugh. "

These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed hereyes, and gazed into the mirror, which her husband had arranged for thatpurpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips, when she recognized howbarely perceptible was now that Crimson Hand, which had once blazedforth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all theirhappiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face, with a trouble andanxiety that he could by no means account for. 

"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she. 

"Poor? Nay, richest! Happiest! Most favoured!" exclaimed he. "Mypeerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"

"My poor Aylmer!" she repeated, with a more than human tenderness. "Youhave aimed loftily!--you have done nobly! Do not repent, that, with sohigh and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth couldoffer. Aylmer--dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"

Alas, it was too true! The fatal Hand had grappled with the mystery oflife, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in unionwith a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birth-mark--thatsole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the partingbreath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and hersoul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the grossFatality of Earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortalessence, which, in this dim sphere of half-development, demands thecompleteness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounderwisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness, which would havewoven his mortal life of the self-same texture with the celestial. Themomentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyondthe shadowy scope of Time, and living once for all in Eternity, to findthe perfect Future in the present. 

A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED

WILKIE COLLINS

Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to bestaying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city ofour sojourn. One night we were idling about the neighbourhood of thePalais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betakeourselves. My friend proposed a visit to Frascati's; but his suggestionwas not to my taste. I knew Frascati's, as the French saying is, byheart; had lost and won plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely foramusement's sake, until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughlytired, in fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a socialanomaly as a respectable gambling-house. 

"For Heaven's sake, " said I to my friend, "let us go somewhere where wecan see a little genuine, blackguard, poverty-stricken gaming, with nofalse gingerbread glitter thrown over it at all. Let us get away fromfashionable Frascati's, to a house where they don't mind letting in aman with a ragged coat, or a man with no coat, ragged or otherwise. "

"Very well, " said my friend, "we needn't go out of the Palais Royal tofind the sort of company you want. Here's the place just before us; asblackguard a place, by all report, as you could possibly wish to see. "

In another minute we arrived at the door, and entered the house. 

When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with thedoorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did notfind many people assembled there. But, few as the men were who looked upat us on our entrance, they were all types--lamentably true types--oftheir respective classes. 

We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism:here there was nothing but tragedy--mute, weird tragedy. The quiet inthe room was horrible. The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whosesunken eyes fiercely watched the turning up of the cards, never spoke;the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, who pricked his piece ofpasteboard perseveringly, to register how often black won, and how oftenred, never spoke; the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vulture eyes andthe darned great-coat, who had lost his last sou, and still looked ondesperately after he could play no longer, never spoke. Even the voiceof the croupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled and thickened inthe atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place to laugh, but thespectacle before me was something to weep over. I soon found itnecessary to take refuge in excitement from the depression of spiritswhich was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately I sought the nearestexcitement, by going to the table and beginning to play. Still moreunfortunately, as the event will show, I won--won prodigiously; wonincredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the tablecrowded round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitiouseyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going tobreak the bank. 

The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory ofChances--that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-wholefrom the corroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idleamusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knewwhat it was to want money. I never practised it so incessantly as tolose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I could coollypocket without being thrown off my balance by my good luck. In short, I had hitherto frequented gambling-tables--just as I frequentedball-rooms and opera-houses--because they amused me, and because Ihad nothing better to do with my leisure hours. 

But on this occasion it was very different--now, for the first time inmy life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My successes firstbewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that I only lost when I attempted to estimate chances, and playedaccording to previous calculation. If I left everything to luck, andstaked without any care or consideration, I was sure to win--to win inthe face of every recognized probability in favour of the bank. At firstsome of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my colour;but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk. One after another they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on atmy game. 

Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. Theexcitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interruptedby a deep-muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in differentlanguages, every time the gold was shovelled across to my side of thetable--even the imperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a(French) fury of astonishment at my success. But one man presentpreserved his self-possession, and that man was my friend. He came to myside, and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place, satisfiedwith what I had already gained. I must do him the justice to say that herepeated his warnings and entreaties several times, and only left me andwent away, after I had rejected his advice (I was to all intents andpurposes gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for himto address me again that night. 

Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried, "Permit me, my dear sir--permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleonswhich you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir! I pledge you my word ofhonour, as an old soldier, in the course of my long experience in thissort of thing, I never saw such luck as yours--never! Go on, sir--_Sacremille bombes!_ Go on boldly, and break the bank!"

I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveteratecivility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout. 

If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, personally, asbeing rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling, bloodshot eyes, mangy moustaches, and a broken nose. His voice betrayeda barrack-room intonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiestpair of hands I ever saw--even in France. These little personalpeculiarities exercised, however, no repelling influence on me. In themad excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to"fraternize" with anybody who encouraged me in my game. I accepted theold soldier's offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and sworehe was the honestest fellow in the world--the most glorious relic of theGrand Army that I had ever met with. "Go on!" cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in ecstasy--"Go on, and win! Break the bank--_Milletonnerres!_ my gallant English comrade, break the bank!"

And I _did_ go on--went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of anhour the croupier called out, "Gentlemen, the bank has discontinued forto-night. " All the notes, and all the gold in that "bank, " now lay in aheap under my hands; the whole floating capital of the gambling-housewas waiting to pour into my pockets!

"Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir, " said theold soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. "Tie itup, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; yourwinnings are too heavy for any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed. There! that's it--shovel them in, notes and all! _Credie!_ what luck!Stop! another napoleon on the floor. _Ah! sacre petit polisson deNapoleon!_ have I found thee at last? Now then, sir--two tight doubleknots each way with your honourable permission, and the money's safe. Feel it! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon-ball--_Abas_ if they had only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz--_nomd'une pipe!_ if they only had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as anex-brave of the French army, what remains for me to do? I ask what?Simply this, to entreat my valued English friend to drink a bottle ofchampagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune in foaming gobletsbefore we part!"

"Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by allmeans! An English cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! AnotherEnglish cheer for the goddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

"Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veinscirculates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? _A bas!_--thebottle is empty! Never mind! _Vive le vin!_ I, the old soldier, orderanother bottle, and half a pound of _bonbons_ with it!"

"No, no, ex-brave; never--ancient grenadier! _Your_ bottle last time;_my_ bottle this! Behold it! Toast away! The French Army! the greatNapoleon! the present company! the croupier! the honest croupier's wifeand daughters--if he has any! the ladies generally! everybody in theworld!"

By the time the second bottle of champagne was emptied, I felt as if Ihad been drinking liquid fire--my brain seemed all aflame. No excess inwine had ever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the resultof a stimulant acting upon my system when I was in a highly excitedstate? Was my stomach in a particularly disordered condition? Or was thechampagne amazingly strong?

"Ex-brave of the French Army!" cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration, "_I_ am on fire! how are _you_? You have set me on fire! Do you hear, myhero of Austerlitz? Let us have a third bottle of champagne to put theflame out!"

The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until Iexpected to see them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirtyforefinger by the side of his broken nose; solemnly ejaculated "Coffee!"and immediately ran off into an inner room. 

The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a magicaleffect on the rest of the company present. With one accord they all roseto depart. Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication; butfinding that my new friend was benevolently bent on preventing me fromgetting dead drunk, had now abandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly onmy winnings. Whatever their motive might be, at any rate they went awayin a body. When the old soldier returned, and sat down again opposite tome at the table, we had the room to ourselves. I could see the croupier, in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eating his supper insolitude. The silence was now deeper than ever. 

A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex-brave. " He assumed aportentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech wasornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by noapostrophes or exclamations. 

"Listen, my dear sir, " said he, in mysteriously confidentialtones--"listen to an old soldier's advice. I have been to the mistressof the house (a very charming woman, with a genius for cookery!) toimpress on her the necessity of making us some particularly strong andgood coffee. You must drink this coffee in order to get rid of yourlittle amiable exaltation of spirits before you think of going home--you_must_, my good and gracious friend! With all that money to take hometo-night, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits about you. You are known to be a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemenpresent to-night, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy andexcellent fellows; but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they havetheir amiable weaknesses! Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you understandme! Now, this is what you must do--send for a cabriolet when you feelquite well again--draw up all the windows when you get into it--and tellthe driver to take you home only through the large and well-lightedthoroughfares. Do this; and you and your money will be safe. Do this;and to-morrow you will thank an old soldier for giving you a word ofhonest advice. "

Just as the ex-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones, thecoffee came in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive friend handedme one of the cups with a bow. I was parched with thirst, and drank itoff at a draft. Almost instantly afterward I was seized with a fit ofgiddiness, and felt more completely intoxicated than ever. The roomwhirled round and round furiously; the old soldier seemed to beregularly bobbing up and down before me like the piston of asteam-engine. I was half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; afeeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rosefrom my chair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammeredout that I felt dreadfully unwell--so unwell that I did not know how Iwas to get home. 

"My dear friend, " answered the old soldier--and even his voice seemed tobe bobbing up and down as he spoke--"my dear friend, it would be madnessto go home in _your_ state; you would be sure to lose your money; youmight be robbed and murdered with the greatest ease. _I_ am going tosleep here: _do_ you sleep here, too--they make up capital beds in thishouse--take one; sleep off the effects of the wine, and go home safelywith your winnings to-morrow--to-morrow, in broad daylight. "

I had but two ideas left: one, that I must never let go hold of myhandkerchief full of money; the other, that I must lie down somewhereimmediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So I agreed to theproposal about the bed, and took the offered arm of the old soldier, carrying my money with my disengaged hand. Preceded by the croupier, wepassed along some passages and up a flight of stairs into the bedroomwhich I was to occupy. The ex-brave shook me warmly by the hand, proposed that we should breakfast together, and then, followed by thecroupier, left me for the night. 

I ran to the wash-hand stand; drank some of the water in my jug; pouredthe rest out, and plunged my face into it; then sat down in a chair andtried to compose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs, from the fetid atmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of theapartment I now occupied, the almost equally refreshing change for myeyes, from the glaring gaslights of the "salon" to the dim, quietflicker of one bedroom-candle, aided wonderfully the restorative effectsof cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little likea reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk of sleepingall night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still greater risk oftrying to get out after the house was closed, and of going home alone atnight through the streets of Paris with a large sum of money about me. Ihad slept in worse places than this on my travels; so I determined tolock, bolt, and barricade my door, and take my chance till the nextmorning. 

Accordingly, I secured myself against all intrusion; looked under thebed, and into the cupboard; tried the fastening of the window; and then, satisfied that I had taken every proper precaution, pulled off my upperclothing, put my light, which was a dim one, on the hearth among afeathery litter of wood-ashes, and got into bed, with the handkerchieffull of money under my pillow. 

I soon felt not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could noteven close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nervein my body trembled--every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturallysharpened. I tossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, andperseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to nopurpose. Now I thrust my arms over the clothes; now I poked them underthe clothes; now I violently shot my legs straight out down to thebottom of the bed; now I convulsively coiled them up as near my chin asthey would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changed it to thecool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now Ifiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against theboard of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain;I groaned with vexation as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night. 

What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out somemethod of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was in the conditionto imagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my brain with forebodings ofevery possible and impossible danger; in short, to pass the night insuffering all conceivable varieties of nervous terror. 

I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room--which wasbrightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window--tosee if it contained any pictures or ornaments that I could at allclearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, aremembrance of Le Maistre's delightful little book, "Voyage autour de maChambre, " occurred to me. I resolved to imitate the French author, andfind occupation and amusement enough to relieve the tedium of mywakefulness, by making a mental inventory of every article of furnitureI could see, and by following up to their sources the multitude ofassociations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand may bemade to call forth. 

In the nervous, unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found itmuch easier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, andthereupon soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's fancifultrack--or, indeed, of thinking at all. I looked about the room at thedifferent articles of furniture, and did nothing more. 

There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all thingsin the world to meet with in Paris--yes, a thorough clumsy Britishfour-poster, with a regular top lined with chintz--the regular fringedvalance all round--the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which Iremembered having mechanically drawn back against the posts withoutparticularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Then therewas the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I hadspilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and moreslowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair coveredwith dirty white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over theback. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and atawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for thetop. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, anda very large pincushion. Then the window--an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It wasthe picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume oftowering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shadinghis eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward--it might be at sometall gallows on which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had theappearance of thoroughly deserving it. 

This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward too--at thetop of the bed. It was a gloomy and not an interesting object, and Ilooked back at the picture. I counted the feathers in the man'shat--they stood out in relief--three white, two green. I observed thecrown of his hat, which was of a conical shape, according to the fashionsupposed to have been favoured by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he waslooking up at. It couldn't be at the stars; such a desperado was neitherastrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the high gallows, and he wasgoing to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into possessionof his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted the feathersagain--three white, two green. 

While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectualemployment, my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlightshining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlight night inEngland--the night after a picnic party in a Welsh valley. Everyincident of the drive homeward through lovely scenery, which themoonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to my remembrance, though Ihad never given the picnic a thought for years; though, if I had _tried_to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothing ofthat scene long past. Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tellus we are immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently thanmemory? Here was I, in a strange house of the most suspicious character, in a situation of uncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem tomake the cool exercise of my recollection almost out of the question;nevertheless, remembering, quite involuntarily, places, people, conversations, minute circumstances of every kind, which I had thoughtforgotten forever; which I could not possibly have recalled at will, even under the most favourable auspices. And what cause had produced ina moment the whole of this strange, complicated, mysterious effect?Nothing but some rays of moonlight shining in at my bedroom window. 

I was still thinking of the picnic--of our merriment on the drivehome--of the sentimental young lady who _would_ quote "Childe Harold"because it was moonlight. I was absorbed by these past scenes and pastamusements, when, in an instant, the thread on which my memories hungsnapped asunder; my attention immediately came back to present thingsmore vividly than ever, and I found myself, I neither knew why norwherefore, looking hard at the picture again. 

Looking for what?

Good God! the man had pulled his hat down on his brows! No! the hatitself was gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the feathers--threewhite, two green? Not there! In place of the hat and feathers, whatdusky object was it that now hid his forehead, his eyes, his shadinghand?

Was the bed moving?

I turned on my back and looked up. Was I mad? drunk? dreaming? giddyagain? or was the top of the bed really moving down--sinking slowly, regularly, silently, horribly, right down throughout the whole of itslength and breadth--right down upon me, as I lay underneath?

My blood seemed to stand still. A deadly, paralyzing coldness stole allover me as I turned my head round on the pillow and determined to testwhether the bed-top was really moving or not, by keeping my eye on theman in the picture. 

The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black, frowzyoutline of the valance above me was within an inch of being parallelwith his waist. I still looked breathlessly. And steadily andslowly--very slowly--I saw the figure, and the line of frame below thefigure, vanish, as the valance moved down before it. 

I am, constitutionally, anything but timid. I have been on more than oneoccasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession foran instant; but when the conviction first settled on my mind that thebed-top was really moving, was steadily and continuously sinking downupon me, I looked up shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath thehideous machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer tosuffocate me where I lay. 

I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless. The candle, fullyspent, went out; but the moonlight still brightened the room. Down anddown, without pausing and without sounding, came the bed-top, and stillmy panic terror seemed to bind me faster and faster to the mattress onwhich I lay--down and down it sank, till the dusty odour from the liningof the canopy came stealing into my nostrils. 

At that final moment the instinct of self-preservation startled me outof my trance, and I moved at last. There was just room for me to rollmyself sidewise off the bed. As I dropped noiselessly to the floor, theedge of the murderous canopy touched me on the shoulder. 

Without stopping to draw my breath, without wiping the cold sweat frommy face, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bed-top. I wasliterally spellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I couldnot have turned round; if a means of escape had been miraculouslyprovided for me, I could not have moved to take advantage of it. Thewhole life in me was, at that moment, concentrated in my eyes. 

It descended--the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, camedown--down--close down; so close that there was not room now to squeezemy finger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at the side, anddiscovered that what had appeared to me from beneath to be the ordinarylight canopy of a four-post bed was in reality a thick, broad mattress, the substance of which was concealed by the valance and its fringe. Ilooked up and saw the four posts rising hideously bare. In the middle ofthe bed-top was a huge wooden screw that had evidently worked it downthrough a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinary presses are worked downon the substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus movedwithout making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as it camedown; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amidst adead and awful silence I beheld before me--in the nineteenth century, and in the civilized capital of France--such a machine for secret murderby suffocation as might have existed in the worst days of theInquisition, in the lonely inns among the Hartz Mountains, in themysterious tribunals of Westphalia! Still, as I looked on it, I couldnot move, I could hardly breathe, but I began to recover the power ofthinking, and in a moment I discovered the murderous conspiracy framedagainst me in all its horror. 

My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had beensaved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic. How I had chafed and fretted at the fever fit which had preserved mylife by keeping me awake! How recklessly I had confided myself to thetwo wretches who had led me into this room, determined, for the sake ofmy winnings, to kill me in my sleep by the surest and most horriblecontrivance for secretly accomplishing my destruction! How many men, winners like me, had slept, as I had proposed to sleep, in that bed, andhad never been seen or heard of more! I shuddered at the bare idea ofit. 

But ere long all thought was again suspended by the sight of themurderous canopy moving once more. After it had remained on the bed--asnearly as I could guess--about ten minutes, it began to move up again. The villains who worked it from above evidently believed that theirpurpose was now accomplished. Slowly and silently, as it had descended, that horrible bed-top rose toward its former place. When it reached theupper extremities of the four posts, it reached the ceiling too. Neitherhole nor screw could be seen; the bed became in appearance an ordinarybed again--the canopy an ordinary canopy--even to the most suspiciouseyes. 

Now, for the first time, I was able to move--to rise from my knees--todress myself in my upper clothing--and to consider of how I shouldescape. If I betrayed by the smallest noise that the attempt tosuffocate me had failed, I was certain to be murdered. Had I made anynoise already? I listened intently, looking toward the door. 

No! no footsteps in the passage outside--no sound of a tread, light orheavy, in the room above--absolute silence everywhere. Besides lockingand bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden chest against it, which Ihad found under the bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran cold as Ithought of what its contents _might_ be!) without making somedisturbance was impossible; and, moreover, to think of escaping throughthe house, now barred up for the night, was sheer insanity. Only onechance was left me--the window. I stole to it on tiptoe. 

My bedroom was on the first floor, above an entresol, and looked intothe back street. I raised my hand to open the window, knowing that onthat action hung, by the merest hair-breadth, my chance of safety. Theykeep vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part of the framecracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have occupiedme at least five minutes, reckoning by time--five _hours_ reckoning bysuspense--to open that window. I succeeded in doing it silently--indoing it with all the dexterity of a house-breaker--and then looked downinto the street. To leap the distance beneath me would be almost certaindestruction! Next, I looked round at the sides of the house. Down theleft side ran a thick water-pipe--it passed close by the outer edge ofthe window. The moment I saw the pipe, I knew I was saved. My breathcame and went freely for the first time since I had seen the canopy ofthe bed moving down upon me!

To some men the means of escape which I had discovered might have seemeddifficult and dangerous enough--to _me_ the prospect of slipping downthe pipe into the street did not suggest even a thought of peril. I hadalways been accustomed, by the practise of gymnastics, to keep up myschoolboy powers as a daring and expert climber; and knew that my head, hands, and feet would serve me faithfully in any hazards of ascent ordescent. I had already got one leg over the window-sill, when Iremembered the handkerchief filled with money under my pillow. I couldwell have afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefullydetermined that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss theirplunder as well as their victim. So I went back to the bed and tied theheavy handkerchief at my back by my cravat. 

Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place, Ithought I heard a sound of breathing outside the door. The chill feelingof horror ran through me again as I listened. No! dead silence still inthe passage--I had only heard the night air blowing softly into theroom. The next moment I was on the window-sill--and the next I had afirm grip on the water-pipe with my hands and knees. 

I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should, and immediately set off at the top of my speed to a branch "Prefecture"of Police, which I knew was situated in the immediate neighbourhood. A"Sub-prefect, " and several picked men among his subordinates, happenedto be up, maturing, I believe, some scheme for discovering theperpetrator of a mysterious murder which all Paris was talking of justthen. When I began my story, in a breathless hurry and in very badFrench, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me of being a drunkenEnglishman who had robbed somebody; but he soon altered his opinion as Iwent on, and before I had anything like concluded, he shoved all thepapers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me withanother (for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers, desired hisexpert followers to get ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doorsand ripping up brick flooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly andfamiliar manner possible, to lead me with him out of the house. I willventure to say that when the Sub-prefect was a little boy, and was takenfor the first time to the play, he was not half as much pleased as hewas now at the job in prospect for him at the gambling-house!

Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining andcongratulating me in the same breath as we marched at the head of ourformidable _posse comitatus_. Sentinels were placed at the back andfront of the house the moment we got to it, a tremendous battery ofknocks was directed against the door; a light appeared at a window; Iwas told to conceal myself behind the police--then came more knocks, anda cry of "Open in the name of the law!" At that terrible summons boltsand locks gave way before an invisible hand, and the moment after theSub-prefect was in the passage, confronting a waiter half dressed andghastly pale. This was the short dialogue which immediately took place:

"We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house. "

"He went away hours ago. "

"He did no such thing. His friend went away; _he_ remained. Show us tohis bedroom!"

"I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! he--"

"I swear to you, Monsieur le Garçon, he is. He slept here--he didn'tfind your bed comfortable--he came to us to complain of it--here he isamong my men--and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in hisbedstead. Renaudin! (calling to one of the subordinates, and pointing tothe waiter), collar that man, and tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!"

Every man and woman in the house was secured--the "Old Soldier" thefirst. Then I identified the bed in which I had slept, and then we wentinto the room above. 

No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of it. TheSub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody to be silent, stamped twice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentively atthe spot he had stamped on, and ordered the flooring there to becarefully taken up. This was done in no time. Lights were produced, andwe saw a deep raftered cavity between the floor of this room and theceiling of the room beneath. Through this cavity there ranperpendicularly a sort of case of iron thickly greased; and inside thecase appeared the screw, which communicated with the bed-top below. Extra lengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; all thecomplete upper works of a heavy press--constructed with infernalingenuity so as to join the fixtures below, and when taken to piecesagain to go into the smallest possible compass--were next discovered andpulled out on the floor. After some little difficulty the Sub-prefectsucceeded in putting the machinery together, and, leaving his men towork it, descended with me to the bedroom. The smothering canopy wasthen lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen it lowered. When Imentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, had aterrible significance. "My men, " said he, "are working down the bed-topfor the first time--the men whose money you won were in betterpractise. "

We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents--every oneof the inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect, after taking down my "procès verbal" in his office, returned with me tomy hotel to get my passport. "Do you think, " I asked, as I gave it tohim, "that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they triedto smother _me_?"

"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue, " answered theSub-prefect, "in whose pocketbooks were found letters stating that theyhad committed suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything atthe gaming-table. Do I know how many of those men entered the samegambling-house that _you_ entered? won as _you_ won? took that bed as_you_ took it? slept in it? were smothered in it? and were privatelythrown into the river, with a letter of explanation written by themurderers and placed in their pocketbooks? No man can say how many orhow few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The peopleof the gambling house kept their bedstead machinery a secret fromus--even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret for them. Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at my officeagain at nine o'clock--in the meantime, au revoir!"

The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and reexamined; thegambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; theprisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty amongthem made a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the masterof the gambling-house--_justice_ discovered that he had been drummed outof the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of allsorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of stolen property, which the owners identified; and that he, the croupier, anotheraccomplice, and the woman who had made my cup of coffee, were all in thesecret of the bedstead. There appeared some reason to doubt whether theinferior persons attached to the house knew anything of the suffocatingmachinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt, by being treatedsimply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two headmyrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffeewas imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular attendants atthe gambling-house were considered "suspicious, " and placed under"surveillance"; and I became, for one whole week (which is a long time), the head "lion" in Parisian society. My adventure was dramatized bythree illustrious play-makers, but never saw theatrical daylight; forthe censorship forbade the introduction on the stage of a correct copyof the gambling-house bedstead. 

One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship musthave approved: it cured me of ever again trying "Rouge et Noir" as anamusement. The sight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps ofmoney on it, will henceforth be forever associated in my mind with thesight of a bed canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence anddarkness of the night. 

THE TORTURE BY HOPE

VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM

Many years ago, as evening was closing in, the venerable Pedro Arbuezd'Espila, sixth prior of the Dominicans of Segovia, and third GrandInquisitor of Spain, followed by a _fra redemptor_, and preceded by twofamiliars of the Holy Office, the latter carrying lanterns, made theirway to a subterranean dungeon. The bolt of a massive door creaked, andthey entered a mephitic _in-pace_, where the dim light revealed betweenrings fastened to the wall a blood-stained rack, a brazier, and a jug. On a pile of straw, loaded with fetters and his neck encircled by aniron carcan, sat a haggard man, of uncertain age, clothed in rags. 

This prisoner was no other than Rabbi Aser Abarbanel, a Jew of Arragon, who--accused of usury and pitiless scorn for the poor--had been dailysubjected to torture for more than a year. Yet "his blindness was asdense as his hide, " and he had refused to abjure his faith. 

Proud of a filiation dating back thousands of years, proud of hisancestors--for all Jews worthy of the name are vain of their blood--hedescended Talmudically from Othoniel and consequently from Ipsiboa, thewife of the last judge of Israel, a circumstance which had sustained hiscourage amid incessant torture. With tears in his eyes at the thought ofthis resolute soul rejecting salvation, the venerable Pedro Arbuezd'Espila, approaching the shuddering rabbi, addressed him as follows:

"My son, rejoice: your trials here below are about to end. If in thepresence of such obstinacy I was forced to permit, with deep regret, theuse of great severity, my task of fraternal correction has its limits. You are the fig tree which, having failed so many times to bear fruit, at last withered, but God alone can judge your soul. Perhaps InfiniteMercy will shine upon you at the last moment! We must hope so. There areexamples. So sleep in peace to-night. To-morrow you will be included inthe _auto da fé_: that is, you will be exposed to the _quéma-dero_, thesymbolical flames of the Everlasting Fire: It burns, as you know, onlyat a distance, my son; and Death is at least two hours (often three) incoming, on account of the wet, iced bandages, with which we protect theheads and hearts of the condemned. There will be forty-three of you. Placed in the last row, you will have time to invoke God and offer toHim this baptism of fire, which is of the Holy Spirit. Hope in theLight, and rest. "

With these words, having signed to his companions to unchain theprisoner, the prior tenderly embraced him. Then came the turn of the_fra redemptor_, who, in a low tone, entreated the Jew's forgiveness forwhat he had made him suffer for the purpose of redeeming him; then thetwo familiars silently kissed him. This ceremony over, the captive wasleft, solitary and bewildered, in the darkness. 

 * * * * *

Rabbi Aser Abarbanel, with parched lips and visage worn by suffering, atfirst gazed at the closed door with vacant eyes. Closed? The wordunconsciously roused a vague fancy in his mind, the fancy that he hadseen for an instant the light of the lanterns through a chink betweenthe door and the wall. A morbid idea of hope, due to the weakness of hisbrain, stirred his whole being. He dragged himself toward the strange_appearance_. Then, very gently and cautiously, slipping one finger intothe crevice, he drew the door toward him. Marvellous! By anextraordinary accident the familiar who closed it had turned the hugekey an instant before it struck the stone casing, so that the rusty boltnot having entered the hole, the door again rolled on its hinges. 

The rabbi ventured to glance outside. By the aid of a sort of luminousdusk he distinguished at first a semicircle of walls indented by windingstairs; and opposite to him, at the top of five or six stone steps, asort of black portal, opening into an immense corridor, whose firstarches only were visible from below. 

Stretching himself flat he crept to the threshold. Yes, it was really acorridor, but endless in length. A wan light illumined it: lampssuspended from the vaulted ceiling lightened at intervals the dull hueof the atmosphere--the distance was veiled in shadow. Not a single doorappeared in the whole extent! Only on one side, the left, heavily gratedloopholes sunk in the walls, admitted a light which must be that ofevening, for crimson bars at intervals rested on the flags of thepavement. What a terrible silence! Yet, yonder, at the far end of thatpassage there might be a doorway of escape! The Jew's vacillating hopewas tenacious, for it was _the last_. 

Without hesitating, he ventured on the flags, keeping close under theloopholes, trying to make himself part of the blackness of the longwalls. He advanced slowly, dragging himself along on his breast, forcingback the cry of pain when some raw wound sent a keen pang through hiswhole body. 

Suddenly the sound of a sandaled foot approaching reached his ears. Hetrembled violently, fear stifled him, his sight grew dim. Well, it wasover, no doubt. He pressed himself into a niche and half lifeless withterror, waited. 

It was a familiar hurrying along. He passed swiftly by, holding in hisclenched hand an instrument of torture--a frightful figure--andvanished. The suspense which the rabbi had endured seemed to havesuspended the functions of life, and he lay nearly an hour unable tomove. Fearing an increase of tortures if he were captured, he thought ofreturning to his dungeon. But the old hope whispered in his soul thatdivine _perhaps_, which comforts us in our sorest trials. A miracle hadhappened. He could doubt no longer. He began to crawl toward the chanceof escape. Exhausted by suffering and hunger, trembling with pain, hepressed onward. The sepulchral corridor seemed to lengthen mysteriously, while he, still advancing, gazed into the gloom where there _must_ besome avenue of escape. 

Oh! oh! He again heard footsteps, but this time they were slower, moreheavy. The white and black forms of two inquisitors appeared, emergingfrom the obscurity beyond. They were conversing in low tones, and seemedto be discussing some important subject, for they were gesticulatingvehemently. 

At this spectacle Rabbi Aser Abarbanel closed his eyes: his heart beatso violently that it almost suffocated him; his rags were damp with thecold sweat of agony; he lay motionless by the wall, his mouth wide open, under the rays of a lamp, praying to the God of David. 

Just opposite to him the two inquisitors paused under the light of thelamp--doubtless owing to some accident due to the course of theirargument. One, while listening to his companion, gazed at the rabbi!And, beneath the look--whose absence of expression the hapless man didnot at first notice--he fancied he again felt the burning pincers scorchhis flesh, he was to be once more a living wound. Fainting, breathless, with fluttering eyelids, he shivered at the touch of the monk's floatingrobe. But--strange yet natural fact--the inquisitor's gaze was evidentlythat of a man deeply absorbed in his intended reply, engrossed by whathe was hearing; his eyes were fixed--and seemed to look at the Jew_without seeing him_. 

In fact, after the lapse of a few minutes, the two gloomy figures slowlypursued their way, still conversing in low tones, toward the placewhence the prisoner had come; HE HAD NOT BEEN SEEN! Amid the horribleconfusion of the rabbi's thoughts, the idea darted through his brain:"Can I be already dead that they did not see me?" A hideous impressionroused him from his lethargy: in looking at the wall against which hisface was pressed, he imagined he beheld two fierce eyes watching him! Heflung his head back in a sudden frenzy of fright, his hair fairlybristling! Yet, no! No. His hand groped over the stones: it was the_reflection_ of the inquisitor's eyes, still retained in his own, whichhad been refracted from two spots on the wall. 

Forward! He must hasten toward that goal which he fancied (absurdly, nodoubt) to be deliverance, toward the darkness from which he was nowbarely thirty paces distant. He pressed forward faster on his knees, hishands, at full length, dragging himself painfully along, and soonentered the dark portion of this terrible corridor. 

Suddenly the poor wretch felt a gust of cold air on the hands restingupon the flags; it came from under the little door to which the twowalls led. 

Oh, Heaven, if that door should open outward. Every nerve in themiserable fugitive's body thrilled with hope. He examined it from top tobottom, though scarcely able to distinguish its outlines in thesurrounding darkness. He passed his hand over it: no bolt, no lock! Alatch! He started up, the latch yielded to the pressure of his thumb:the door silently swung open before him. 

 * * * * *

"Halleluia!" murmured the rabbi in a transport of gratitude as, standingon the threshold, he beheld the scene before him. 

The door had opened into the gardens, above which arched a starlit sky, into spring, liberty, life! It revealed the neighbouring fields, stretching toward the sierras, whose sinuous blue lines were relievedagainst the horizon. Yonder lay freedom! O, to escape! He would journeyall night through the lemon groves, whose fragrance reached him. Once inthe mountains and he was safe! He inhaled the delicious air; the breezerevived him, his lungs expanded! He felt in his swelling heart the _Veniforàs_ of Lazarus! And to thank once more the God who had bestowed thismercy upon him, he extended his arms, raising his eyes toward Heaven. Itwas an ecstasy of joy!

Then he fancied he saw the shadow of his arms approach him--fancied thathe felt these shadowy arms inclose, embrace him--and that he was pressedtenderly to some one's breast. A tall figure actually did stand directlybefore him. He lowered his eyes--and remained motionless, gasping forbreath, dazed, with fixed eyes, fairly drivelling with terror. 

Horror! He was in the clasp of the Grand Inquisitor himself, thevenerable Pedro Arbuez d'Espila who gazed at him with tearful eyes, likea good shepherd who had found his stray lamb. 

The dark-robed priest pressed the hapless Jew to his heart with sofervent an outburst of love, that the edges of the monochal hairclothrubbed the Dominican's breast. And while Aser Abarbanel with protrudingeyes gasped in agony in the ascetic's embrace, vaguely comprehendingthat all the phases of this fatal evening were only a prearrangedtorture, that of HOPE, the Grand Inquisitor, with an accent of touchingreproach and a look of consternation, murmured in his ear, his breathparched and burning from long fasting:

"What, my son! On the eve, perchance, of salvation--you wished to leaveus?"

THE BOX WITH THE IRON CLAMPS

FLORENCE MARRYAT

I

Molton Chase is a charming, old-fashioned country house, which has beenin the possession of the Clayton family for centuries past; and as HarryClayton, its present owner, has plenty of money, and (having tasted thepleasures of matrimony for only five years) has no knowledge (as yet) ofthe delights of college and school bills coming in at Christmas-time, itis his will to fill the Chase at that season with guests, to each ofwhom he extends a welcome, as hearty as it is sincere. 

"Bella! are you not going to join the riding-party this afternoon?" hesaid across the luncheon-table to his wife, one day in a December notlong ago. 

"Bella" was a dimpled little woman, whose artless expression ofcountenance would well bear comparison with the honest, genial faceopposite to her, and who replied at once--

"No! not this afternoon, Harry, dear. You know the Damers may come atany time between this and seven o'clock, and I should not like to be outwhen they arrive. "

"And may I ask Mrs. Clayton who _are_ the Damers, " inquired a friend ofher husband, who, on account of being handsome, considered himselflicensed to be pert--"that their advent should be the cause of ourlosing the pleasure of your company this afternoon?"

But the last thing Bella Clayton ever did was to take offence. 

"The Damers are my cousins, Captain Moss, " she replied; "at leastBlanche Damer is. "

At this juncture a dark-eyed man who was sitting at the other end of thetable dropped the flirting converse he had been maintaining with ayounger sister of Mrs. Clayton's, and appeared to become interested inwhat his hostess was saying. 

"Colonel Damer, " he continued, "has been in India for the last twelveyears, and only returned to England a month ago; therefore it would seemunkind on the first visit he has paid to his relatives that there shouldbe no one at home to welcome him. "

"Has Mrs. Damer been abroad for as long a time?" resumed her questioner, a vision arising on his mental faculties of a lemon-coloured woman withshoes down at heel. 

"Oh dear no!" replied his hostess. "Blanche came to England about fiveyears ago, but her health has been too delicate to rejoin her husband inIndia since. Have we all finished, Harry, dear?"--and in another minutethe luncheon-table was cleared. 

As Mrs. Clayton crossed the hall soon afterwards to visit her nursery, the same dark-eyed man who had regarded her fixedly when she mentionedthe name of Blanche Damer followed and accosted her. 

"Is it long since you have seen your cousin Mrs. Damer, Mrs. Clayton?"

"I saw her about three years ago, Mr. Laurence; but she had a severeillness soon after that, and has been living on the Continent eversince. Why do you ask?"

"For no especial reason, " he answered smiling. "Perhaps I am a littlejealous lest this new-comer to whose arrival you look forward with somuch interest should usurp more of your time and attention than weless-favoured ones can spare. "

He spoke with a degree of sarcasm, real or feigned, which Mrs. Claytonimmediately resented. 

"I am not aware that I have been in the habit of neglecting my guests, Mr. Laurence, " she replied; "but my cousin Blanche is more likely toremind me of my duties than to tempt me to forget them. "

"Forgive me, " he said, earnestly. "You have mistaken my meaningaltogether. But are you very intimate with this lady?"

"Very much so, " was the answer. "We were brought up together, and lovedeach other as sisters until she married and went to India. For someyears after her return home our intercourse was renewed, and onlybroken, on the occasion of her being ill and going abroad, as I havedescribed to you. Her husband, I have, of course, seen less of, but Ilike what I know of him, and am anxious to show them both all thehospitality in my power. She is a charming creature, and I am sure youwill admire her. "

"Doubtless I shall, " he replied; "that is if she does not lay claim toall Mrs. Clayton's interest in the affairs of Molton Chase. "

"No fear of that, " laughed the cheery little lady as she ascended thestairs, and left Mr. Laurence standing in the hall beneath. 

"Clayton, " observed that gentleman, as he re-entered the luncheon-roomand drew his host into the privacy of a bay-window, "I really am afraidI shall have to leave you this evening--if you won't think it rude of meto go so suddenly. "

"But _why_, my dear fellow?" exclaimed Harry Clayton, as his blue eyessearched into the other's soul. "What earthly reason can you have forgoing, when your fixed plan was to stay with us over Christmas Day?"

"Well! there is lots of work waiting for me to do, you know; and reallythe time slips away so, and time is money to a slave likemyself--that--"

"Now, my dear Laurence, " said Harry Clayton conclusively, "you know youare only making excuses. All the work that was absolutely necessary foryou to do before Christmas was finished before you came here, and yousaid you felt yourself licensed to take a whole month's holiday. Now, was not that the case?"

Mr. Laurence could not deny the fact, and so he looked undecided, andwas silent. 

"Don't let me hear any more about your going before Christmas Day, " saidhis host, "or I shall be offended, and so will Bella; to say nothing ofBella's sister--eh, Laurence!"

Whereupon Mr. Laurence felt himself bound to remain; and saying in hisown mind that fate was against him, dropped the subject of his departurealtogether. 

One hour later, the riding party being then some miles from MoltonChase, a travelling carriage laden with trunks drove up to the house, and Mrs. Clayton, all blushes and smiles, stood on the hall-steps towelcome her expected guests. 

Colonel Damer was the first to alight. He was a middle-aged man, butwith a fine soldierly bearing, which took off from his years; and he wasso eager to see to the safe exit of his wife from the carriage-door thathe had not time to do more than take off his hat to blooming Bella onthe steps. 

"Now, my love, " he exclaimed as the lady's form appeared, "pray takecare; two steps: that's right--here you are, safe. "

And then Mrs. Damer, being securely landed, was permitted to fly intothe cousinly arms which were opened to receive her. 

"My dear Bella!"

"My dearest Blanche--I am so delighted to see you again. Why, you arepositively frozen! Pray come in at once to the fire. Colonel Damer, myservants will see to the luggage--do leave it to them, and come and warmyourselves. "

A couple of men-servants now came forward and offered to see to theunloading of the carriage--but Mrs. Damer did not move. 

"Will you not go in, my love, as your cousin proposes?" said herhusband. "I can see to the boxes if you should wish me to do so. "

"No, thank you, " was the low reply; and there was such a ring ofmelancholy in the voice of Mrs. Damer that a stranger would have beenattracted by it. "I prefer waiting until the carriage is unpacked. "

"Never mind the luggage, Blanche, " whispered Mrs. Clayton, in hercoaxing manner. "Come in to the fire, dear--I have so much to tell you. "

"Wait a minute, Bella, " said her cousin; and the entreaty was so firmthat it met with no further opposition. 

"One--two--three--four, " exclaimed Colonel Damer, as the boxessuccessively came to the ground. "I am afraid you will think we aregoing to take you by storm, Mrs. Clayton; but perhaps you know my wife'sfancy for a large travelling _kit_ of old. Is that all, Blanche?"

"That is all--thank you, " in the same low melancholy tones in which shehad spoken before. "Now, Bella, dear, which is to be my room?"

"You would rather go there first, Blanche?"

"Yes, please--I'm tired. Will you carry up that box for me?" shecontinued, pointing out one of the trunks to the servant. 

"Directly, ma'am, " he returned, as he was looking for change for asovereign wherewith to accommodate Colonel Damer--but the lady lingereduntil he was at leisure. Then he shouldered the box next to the one shehad indicated, and she directed his attention to the fact, and made himchange his burden. 

"They'll all go up in time, ma'am, " the man remarked; but Mrs. Damer, answering nothing, did not set her foot upon the stairs until he washalfway up them, with the trunk she had desired him to take first. 

Then she leaned wearily upon Bella Clayton's arm, pressing it fondly toher side, and so the two went together to the bedroom which had beenappointed for the reception of the new guests. It was a large andcosily-furnished apartment, with a dressing-room opening from it. Whenthe ladies arrived there they found the servant awaiting them with thebox in question. 

"Where will you have it placed, ma'am?" he demanded of Mrs. Damer. 

"Under the bed, please. "

But the bedstead was a French one, and the mahogany sides were so deepthat nothing could get beneath them but dust; and the trunk, althoughsmall, was heavy and strong and clamped with iron, not at all the sortof trunk that would go _anywhere_. 

"Nothing will go under the bed, ma'am!" said the servant in reply. 

Mrs. Damer slightly changed colour. 

"Never mind then: leave it there. Oh! what a comfort a good fire is, "she continued, turning to the hearth-rug, and throwing herself into anarm-chair. "We have had such a cold drive from the station. "

"But about your box, Blanche?" said Mrs. Clayton, who had no idea of herfriends being put to any inconvenience. "It can't stand there; you'llunpack it, won't you? or shall I have it moved into the passage?"

"Oh, no, thank you, Bella--please let it stand where it is: it will dovery well indeed. "

"What will do very well?" exclaimed Colonel Damer, who now entered thebedroom, followed by a servant with another trunk. 

"Only Blanche's box, Colonel Damer, " said Bella Clayton. "She doesn'twish to unpack it, and it will be in her way here, I'm afraid. It_might_ stand in your dressing-room. "--This she said as a "feeler, "knowing that some gentlemen do not like to be inconvenienced, even intheir dressing-rooms. 

But Colonel Damer was as unselfish as it was possible for an old Indianto be. 

"Of course it can, " he replied. "Here (to the servant), just shoulderthat box, will you, and move it into the next room. "

The man took up the article in question rather carelessly, and nearlylet it fall again. Mrs. Damer darted forward as if to save it. 

"Pray put it down, " she said, nervously. "I have no wish to have itmoved--I shall require it by-and-by; it will be no inconvenience--"

"Just as you like, dear, " said Mrs. Clayton, who was becoming rathertired of the little discussion. "And now take off your things, dearBlanche, and let me ring for some tea. "

Colonel Damer walked into his dressing-room and left the two ladiesalone. The remainder of the luggage was brought upstairs; the tea wasordered and served, and whilst Mrs. Clayton busied herself in pouring itout, Mrs. Damer sank back upon a sofa which stood by the fire, andconversed with her cousin. 

She had been beautiful, this woman, in her earlier youth, though no onewould have thought it to see her now. As Bella handed her the tea sheglanced towards the thin hand stretched out to receive it, and fromthence to the worn face and hollow eyes, and could scarcely believe shesaw the same person she had parted from three years before. 

But she had not been so intimate with her of late, and she was almostafraid of commenting upon her cousin's altered appearance, for fear itmight wound her; all she said was:

"You look very delicate still, dear Blanche; I was in hopes the changeto the Continent would have set you up and made you stronger than youwere when you left England. "

"Oh, no; I never shall be well again, " was Mrs. Damer's careless reply:"it's an old story now, Bella, and it's no use talking about it. Whomhave you staying in the house at present, dear?"

"Well, we are nearly full, " rejoined Mrs. Clayton. "There is my oldgodfather, General Knox--you remember him, I know--and his son anddaughter; and the Ainsleys and their family; ditto, the Bayleys and theArmstrongs, and then, for single men, we have young Brooke, and Harry'sold friend, Charley Moss, and Herbert Laurence, and--are you ill, Blanchey?"

An exclamation had burst from Mrs. Damer--hardly an exclamation, so muchas a half-smothered cry--but whether of pain or fear, it was hard todetermine. 

"Are you ill?" reiterated Mrs. Clayton, full of anxiety for herfragile-looking cousin. 

"No, " replied Blanche Damer, pressing her hand to her side, but stilldeadly pale from the effect of whatever emotion she had gone through;"it is nothing; I feel faint after our long journey. "

Colonel Damer had also heard the sound, and now appeared upon thethreshold of his dressing-room. He was one of those well-meaning, butfussy men, who can never have two women alone for a quarter of an hourwithout intruding on their privacy. 

"Did you call, my dearest?" he asked of his wife. "Do you wantanything?"

"Nothing, thank you, " replied Bella for her cousin; "Blanche is only alittle tired and overcome by her travelling. "

"I think, after all, that I will move that trunk away for you into myroom, " he said, advancing towards the box which had already been thesubject of discussion. Mrs. Damer started from the sofa with a face ofcrimson. 

"I _beg_ you will leave my boxes alone, " she said, with an imploringtone in her voice which was quite unfitted to the occasion. "I have notbrought one more than I need, and I wish them to remain under my owneye. "

"There must be something very valuable in that receptacle, " said ColonelDamer, facetiously, as he beat a retreat to his own quarters. 

"Is it your linen box?" demanded Mrs. Clayton of her cousin. 

"Yes, " in a hesitating manner; "that is, it contains several things thatI have in daily use; but go on about your visitors, Bella: are there anymore?"

"I don't think so: where had I got to?--oh! to the bachelors: well, there are Mr. Brooke and Captain Moss, and Mr. Laurence (the poet, youknow; Harry was introduced to him last season by Captain Moss), and mybrother Alfred; and that's all. "

"A very respectable list, " said Mrs. Damer, languidly. "What kind of aman is the--the poet you spoke of?"

"Laurence?--oh, he seems a very pleasant man; but he is very silent andabstracted, as I suppose a poet should be. My sister Carrie is here, andthey have quite got up a flirtation together; however, I don't supposeit will come to anything. "

"And your nursery department?"

"Thriving, thank you; I think you _will_ be astonished to see my boy. Old Mrs. Clayton says he is twice the size that Harry was at that age;and the little girls can run about and talk almost as well as I can. ButI must not expect you, Blanche, to take the same interest in babies thatI do. "

This she added, remembering that the woman before her was childless. Mrs. Damer moved uneasily on her couch, but she said nothing; and soonafter the sound of a gong reverberating through the hall warned Mrs. Clayton that the dinner was not far off and the riding-party must havereturned; so, leaving her friend to her toilet, she took her departure. 

As she left the room, Mrs. Damer was alone. She had no maid of her own, and she had refused the offices of Mrs. Clayton, assuring her that shewas used to dress herself; but she made little progress in thatdepartment, as she lay on the couch in the firelight, with her faceburied in her hands, and thoughts coursing through her mind of whichheaven alone knew the tendency. 

"Come, my darling, " said the kind, coaxing voice of her husband, as, after knocking more than once without receiving any answer, he enteredher room, fully dressed, and found her still arrayed in her travellingthings, and none of her boxes unpacked. "You will never be ready fordinner at this rate. Shall I make an excuse for your not appearing attable this evening? I am sure Mrs. Clayton would wish you to keep yourroom if you are too tired to dress. "

"I am not too tired, Harry, " said Mrs. Damer, rising from the couch, "and I shall be ready in ten minutes, " unlocking and turning over thecontents of a box as she spoke. 

"Better not, perhaps, my love, " interposed the colonel, in mildexpostulation; "you will be better in bed, and can see your kind friendsto-morrow morning. "

"I am going down to dinner to-night, " she answered, gently, butdecisively. She was a graceful woman now she stood on her feet, andthrew off the heavy wraps in which she had travelled, with a slight, willowy figure, and a complexion which was almost transparent in itsdelicacy; but her face was very thin, and her large blue eyes had ascared and haggard look in them, which was scarcely less painful towitness than the appearance of anxiety which was expressed by theknitted brows by which they were surmounted. As she now raised her fairattenuated hands to rearrange her hair, which had once been abundant andglossy, her husband could not avoid remarking upon the change which hadpassed over it. 

"I had no idea you had lost your hair so much, darling, " he said; "Ihave not seen it down before to-night. Why, where is it all gone to?" hecontinued, as he lifted the light mass in his hands, and remembered ofwhat a length and weight it used to be, when he last parted from her. 

"Oh, I don't know, " she rejoined, sadly; "gone, with my youth, Isuppose, Henry. "

"My poor girl!" he said, gently, "you have suffered very much in thisseparation. I had no right to leave you alone for so many years. But itis all over now, dearest, and I will take such good care of you that youwill be obliged to get well and strong again. "

She turned round suddenly from the glass, and pressed her lips upon thehand which held her hair. 

"Don't, " she murmured; "pray don't speak to me so, Henry! I can't bearit; I can't indeed!"

He thought it was from excess of feeling that she spoke; and so it was, though not as he imagined. So he changed the subject lightly, and badeher be lazy no longer, but put on her dress, if she was reallydetermined to make one of the party at dinner that evening. 

In another minute, Mrs. Damer had brushed her diminished hair into thefashion in which she ordinarily wore it; thrown on an evening-robe ofblack, which, while it contrasted well with her fairness, showed thefalling away of her figure in a painful degree; and was ready toaccompany her husband downstairs. 

They were met at the door of the drawing-room by their host, who waseager to show cordiality towards guests of whom his wife thought somuch, and having also been acquainted himself with Mrs. Damer since herreturn to England. He led her up to the sofa whereon Bella sat; and, dinner being almost immediately announced, the little hostess was busypairing off her couples. 

"Mr. Laurence!" she exclaimed; and then looking around the room, "where_is_ Mr. Laurence?" So that that gentleman was forced to leave thewindow-curtains, behind which he had ensconced himself, and advance intothe centre of the room. "Oh, here you are at last; will you take Mrs. Damer down to dinner?" and proceeding immediately with the usual form ofintroduction--"Mr. Laurence--Mrs. Damer. "

They bowed to each other; but over the lady's face, as she went throughher share of the introduction, there passed so indescribable, and yet sounmistakable a change, that Mrs. Clayton, although not very quick, couldnot help observing it, and she said, involuntarily--

"Have you met Mr. Laurence before, Blanche?"

"I believe I have had that pleasure--in London--many years ago. "

The last words came out so faintly that they were almostundistinguishable. 

"Why didn't you tell me so?" said Bella Clayton, reproachfully, to Mr. Laurence. 

He was beginning to stammer out some excuse about its having been solong ago, when Mrs. Damer came to his aid, in her clear, cold voice--

"It _was_ very long ago: we must both be forgiven for having forgottenthe circumstance. "

"Well, you must renew your acquaintanceship at dinner, " said Mrs. Clayton, blithely, as she trotted off to make matters pleasant betweenthe rest of her visitors. As she did so, Mr. Laurence remained standingby the sofa, but he did not attempt to address Mrs. Damer. Only, whenthe room was nearly cleared, he held out his arm to her, and she rose toaccept it. But the next minute she had sunk back again upon the sofa, and Mrs. Clayton was at her cousin's side. Mrs. Damer had fainted. 

"Poor darling!" exclaimed Colonel Damer, as he pressed forward to theside of his wife. "I was afraid coming down to-night would be too muchfor her, but she would make the attempt; she has so much spirit. Praydon't delay the dinner, Mrs. Clayton; I will stay by her, if you willexcuse the apparent rudeness, until she is sufficiently recovered to goto bed. "

But even as he spoke his wife raised herself from the many arms whichsupported her, and essayed to gain her feet. 

"Bella, dear! I am all right again. Pray, if you love me, don't make ascene about a little fatigue. I often faint now: let me go up to mybedroom and lie down, as I ought to have done at first, and I shall bequite well to-morrow morning. "

She would accept no one's help--not even her husband's, though itdistressed him greatly that she refused it--but walked out of the roomof her own accord, and toiled wearily up the staircase which led her tothe higher stories; whilst more than one pair of eyes watched herascent, and more than one appetite was spoilt for the coming meal. 

"Don't you think that Blanche is looking very ill?" demanded BellaClayton of Colonel Damer, at the dinner-table. She had been much struckherself with the great alteration in her cousin's looks, and fanciedthat her husband was not so alarmed about it as he ought to be. 

"I do, indeed, " he replied; "but it is the last thing she willacknowledge herself. She has very bad spirits and appetite; appearsalways in a low fever, and is so nervous that the least thing willfrighten her. That, to me, is the worst and most surprising change ofall: such a high-couraged creature as she used to be. "

"Yes, indeed, " replied Mrs. Clayton; "I can hardly imagine Blanche beingnervous at anything. It must have come on since her visit to theContinent, for she was not so when she stayed here last. "

"When was that?" demanded the Colonel, anxiously. 

"Just three years ago this Christmas, " was the answer. "I don't think Iever saw her look better than she did then, and she was the life of thehouse. But soon afterwards she went to Paris, and then we heard of herillness, and this is my first meeting with her since that time. I wasvery much shocked when she got out of the carriage: I should scarcelyhave known her again. " Here Mrs. Clayton stopped, seeing that theattention of Mr. Laurence, who sat opposite to her, appeared to beriveted on her words, and Colonel Damer relapsed into thought and spokeno more. 

In the meanwhile Mrs. Damer had gained her bedroom. Women had come toattend upon her, sent by their mistress, and laden with offers ofrefreshment and help of every kind, but she had dismissed them andchosen to be alone. She felt too weak to be very restless, but she hadsat by the fire and cried, until she was so exhausted that her bedsuggested itself to her, as the best place in which she could be; butrising to undress, preparatory to seeking it, she had nearly fallen, andcatching feebly at the bedpost had missed it, and sunk down by the sideof the solid black box, which was clamped with iron and fastened with apadlock, and respecting which she had been so particular a few hoursbefore. She felt as if she was dying, and as if this were the fittestplace for her to die on. "There is nothing in my possession, " she cried, "that really belongs to me but _this_--this which I loathe and abhor, and love and weep over at one and the same moment. " And, strange torelate, Mrs. Damer turned on her side and kneeling by the iron-clampedchest pressed her lips upon its hard, unyielding surface, as if it hadlife wherewith to answer her embrace. And then the wearied creaturedragged herself up again into an unsteady position, and managed tosustain it until she was ready to lie down upon her bed. 

The next morning she was much better. Colonel Damer and Bella Claytonlaid their heads together and decided that she was to remain in beduntil after breakfast, therefore she was spared meeting with theassembled strangers until the dinner-hour again, for luncheon was adesultory meal at Molton Chase, and scarcely any of the gentlemen werepresent at it that day. After luncheon Mrs. Clayton proposed drivingMrs. Damer out in her pony-chaise. 

"I don't think you will find it cold, dear, and we can come home by thelower shrubberies and meet the gentlemen as they return from shooting, "Colonel Damer being one of the shooting party. But Mrs. Damer haddeclined the drive, and made her cousin understand so plainly that shepreferred being left alone, that Mrs. Clayton felt no compunction inacceding to her wishes, and laying herself out to please the otherladies staying in the house. 

And Mrs. Damer did wish to be alone. She wanted to think over theincidents of the night before, and devise some plan by which she couldpersuade her husband to leave the Grange as soon as possible withoutprovoking questions which she might find it difficult to answer. Whenthe sound of the wheels of her cousin's pony-chaise had died away, andthe great stillness pervading Molton Grange proclaimed that she was thesole inmate left behind, she dressed herself in a warm cloak, anddrawing the hood over her head prepared for a stroll about the grounds. A little walk she thought would do her good, and with this intention sheleft the house. The Grange gardens were extensive and curiously laidout, and there were many winding shrubbery paths about them, whichstrangers were apt to find easier to enter than to find their way out ofagain. Into one of these Mrs. Damer now turned her steps for the sake ofprivacy and shelter; but she had not gone far before, on turning anabrupt corner, she came suddenly upon the figure of the gentleman shehad been introduced to the night before, Mr. Laurence, who she hadimagined to be with the shooting party. He was half lying, half sittingacross a rustic seat which encircled the huge trunk of an old tree, withhis eyes bent upon the ground and a cigar between his lips. He was morean intellectual and fine-looking than a handsome man, but he possessedtwo gifts which are much more winning than beauty, a mind of greatpower, and the art of fascination. As Mrs. Damer came full in view ofhim, too suddenly to stop herself or to retreat, he rose quickly fromthe attitude he had assumed when he thought himself secure frominterruption and stood in her pathway. She attempted to pass him with aninclination of the head, but he put out his hand and stopped her. 

"Blanche! you must speak to me; you shall not pass like this; I insistupon it!" and she tried in vain to disengage her arm from his detainingclasp. 

"Mr. Laurence, what right have you to hold me thus?"

"What right, Blanche? The right of every man over the woman who loveshim!"

"That is your right over me no longer. I have tried to avoid you. Youhave both seen and known it! No _gentleman_ would force himself upon mynotice in this manner. "

"Your taunt fails to have any effect upon me. I have sought anexplanation of your extraordinary conduct from you in vain. My lettershave been unanswered, my entreaties for a last interview disregarded;and now that chance has brought us together again, I must have what Ihave a right to ask from your own lips. I did not devise this meeting; Idid not even know you had returned to England till yesterday, and then Isought to avoid you; but it was fated that we should meet, and it isfated that you satisfy my curiosity. "

"What do you want to know?" she asked, in a low voice. 

"First, have you ceased to love me?"

The angry light which had flashed across her face when he used force todetain her died away; the pallid lips commenced to tremble, and in thesunken eyes large tear-drops rose and hung quivering upon the longeyelashes. 

"Enough, Blanche, " Mr. Laurence continued, in a softer voice. "Natureanswers me. I will not give you the needless pain of speaking. Then, whydid you forsake me? Why did you leave England without one line offarewell, and why have you refused to hold any communication with mesince that time?"

"I _could_ not, " she murmured. "You do not know; you cannot feel; youcould never understand my feelings on that occasion. "

"That is no answer to my question, Blanche, " he said firmly, "and ananswer I will have. What was the immediate cause of your breaking faithwith me? I loved you, you know how well. What drove you from me? Was itfear, or indifference, or a sudden remorse?"

"It was, " she commenced slowly, and then as if gathering up a greatresolution, she suddenly exclaimed, "Do you _really_ wish to know whatparted us?"

"I really intend to know, " he replied, and the old power which he hadheld over her recommenced its sway. "Whatever it was it has not tendedto your happiness, " he continued, "if I may judge from your looks. Youare terribly changed, Blanche! I think even I could have made youhappier than you appear to have been. "

"I have had enough to change me, " she replied. "If you will know then, come with me, and I will show you. "

"To-day?"

"At once; to-morrow may be too late. " She began to walk towards thehouse as she spoke, rapidly and irregularly, her heart beating fast, butno trace of weakness in her limbs; and Herbert Laurence followed her, hescarcely knew why, expecting that she had desired it. 

Into Molton Grange she went, up the broad staircase and to her chamberdoor before she paused to see if he was following. When she did so shefound that he stood just behind her on the wide landing. 

"You can enter, " she said, throwing open the door of her bedroom, "don'tbe afraid; there is nothing here except the cause for which I partedwith you. " In her agitation and excitement, scarcely pausing to fastenthe door behind her, Mrs. Damer fell down on her knees before the littleblack box with its iron clamps and ponderous padlock; and drawing a keyfrom her bosom, applied it to the lock, and in another minute had thrownback the heavy lid. Having displaced some linen which lay at the top, she carefully removed some lighter materials, and then calling to theman behind her, bid him look in and be satisfied. Mr. Laurence advancedto the box, quite ignorant as to the reason of her demand; but as hiseye fell upon its contents, he started backwards and covered his facewith his hands. As he drew them slowly away again he met the sad, earnest look with which the kneeling woman greeted him, and for a fewmoments they gazed at one another in complete silence. Then Mrs. Damerwithdrew her eyes from his and rearranged the contents of the black box;the heavy lid shut with a clang, the padlock was fast again, the key inher bosom, and she rose to her feet and prepared to leave the room inthe same unbroken silence. But he again detained her, and this time hisvoice was hoarse and changed. 

"Blanche! tell me, is this the truth?"

"As I believe in heaven, " she answered. 

"And this was the reason that we parted--this the sole cause of ourestrangement?"

"Was it not enough?" she said. "I erred, but it was as one in a dream. When I awoke I could no longer err and be at peace. At peace did I say?I have known no peace since I knew you; but I should have died and wakedup in hell, if I had not parted with you. This is all the truth, believeit or not as you will; but there may, there can be nothing in futurebetween you and me. Pray let me pass you. "

"But that--that--box, Blanche!" exclaimed Herbert Laurence, with dropsof sweat, notwithstanding the temperature of the day, upon his forehead. "It was an accident, a misfortune; _you_ did not do it?"

She turned upon him eyes which were full of mingled horror and scorn. 

"I _do_ it!" she said; "what are you dreaming of? I was mad; but not somad as that! How could you think it?" and the tears rose in her eyesmore at the supposition which his question had raised than at the ideathat he could so misjudge her. 

"But why do you keep this? why do you carry it about with you, Blanche?It is pure insanity on your part. How long is it since you havetravelled in company with that dreadful box?"

"More than two years, " she said in a fearful whisper. "I have tried toget rid of it, but to no purpose; there was always some one in the way. I have reasoned with myself, and prayed to be delivered from it, but Ihave never found an opportunity. And now, what does it matter? Theburden and heat of the day are past. "

"Let me do it for you, " said Mr. Laurence. "Whatever our future relationto one another, I cannot consent that you should run so terrible a riskthrough fault of mine. The strain upon your mind has been too greatalready. Would to heaven I could have borne it for you! but you forbidme even the privilege of knowing that you suffered. Now that I haveascertained it, it must be my care that the cause of our separationshall at least live in your memory only. " And as he finished speaking heattempted to lift the box; but Mrs. Damer sprang forward and preventedhim. 

"Leave it!" she cried; "do not dare to touch it; it is _mine_! It hasgone wherever I have gone for years. Do you think, for the little spacethat is left me, that I would part with the only link left between meand my dread past?" and saying this she threw herself upon the blacktrunk and burst into tears. 

"Blanche! you love me as you ever did, " exclaimed Herbert Laurence. "These tears confess it. Let me make amends to you for this; let me tryto make the happiness of your future life!"

But before his sentence was concluded Mrs. Damer had risen from herdrooping attitude and stood before him. 

"Make amends!" she echoed scornfully. "How can you 'make amends'?Nothing can wipe out the memory of the shame and misery that I havepassed through, nothing restore the quiet conscience I have lost. I donot know if I love you still or not. When I think of it, my head swims, and I only feel confused and anxious. But I am sure of one thing, thatthe horror of my remorse for even having listened to you has power tooverwhelm any regret that may be lingering in my unworthy breast, andthat the mere fact of your bodily presence is agony to me. When I metyou to-day I was battling with my invention to devise some means ofleaving the place where you are without exciting suspicion. If you everloved, have pity on me now; take the initiative, and rid me ofyourself. "

"Is this your final decision, Blanche?" he asked, slowly. "Will you notregret it when too late, and you are left alone with only _that_?"

She shuddered, and he caught at the fact as a sign of relenting. 

"Dearest, loveliest, " he commenced. --This woman had been the loveliestto him in days gone past, and though she was so terribly changed in eyesthat regarded her less, Herbert Laurence, her once lover, could stilltrace above the languor and debility and distress of her presentappearance, the fresh, sparkling woman who had sacrificed herself forhis sake; and although his style of address signified more than hereally thought for her, the knowledge of how much she had undergonesince their separation had the power to make him imagine that thispartial reanimation of an old flame was a proof that the fire whichkindled it had never perished. Therefore it did not appear absurd in hismental eyes to preface his appeal to Mrs. Damer thus: "Dearest, loveliest--" but she turned upon him as though he had insulted her. 

"Mr. Laurence!" she exclaimed, "I have told you that the past is past;be good enough to take me at my word. Do you think that I have livedover two years of solitary shame and grief, to break the heart thattrusts in me _now_? If I had any wish, or any thought to the contrary, it would be impossible. I am enveloped by kind words and acts, by careand attention, which chain me as closely to my home as if I were kept aprisoner between four walls. I could not free myself if I would, " shecontinued, throwing back her arms, as though she tried to break aninvisible thrall. "I must die first; the cords of gratitude are boundabout me so closely. It is killing me, as nothing else could kill, " sheadded, in a lower voice. "I lived under your loss, and the knowledge ofmy own disgrace; but I cannot live under his perpetual kindness andperfect trust. It cannot last much longer: for mercy's sake, leave me inpeace until the end comes!"

"And the box?" he demanded. 

"I will provide for the box before that time, " she answered, sadly; "butif you have any fear, keep the key yourself: the lock is not one thatcan be forced. "

She took the key from her bosom, where it hung on a broad black ribbon, as she spoke, and handed it to him. He accepted it without demur. 

"You are so rash, " he said; "it will be safer with me: let me take thebox also?"

"No, no!" said Mrs. Damer, hurriedly; "you shall not; and it would be nouse. If it were out of my sight, I should dream that it was found, andtalk of it in my sleep. I often rise in the night now to see if it issafe. Nothing could do away with it. If you buried it, some one woulddig it up; if you threw it in the water, it would float. It would liestill nowhere but on my heart, where it ought to be!--it ought to be!"

Her eyes had reassumed the wild, restless expression which they tookwhilst speaking of the past, and her voice had sunk to a low, fearfulwhisper. 

"This is madness, " muttered Herbert Laurence; and he was right. On thesubject of the black box Mrs. Damer's brain was turned. 

He was just about to speak to her again, and try to reason her out ofher folly, when voices were heard merrily talking together in the hall, and her face worked with the dread of discovery. 

"Go!" she said; "pray, go at once. I have told you everything. " And inanother moment Herbert Laurence had dashed through the passage to theprivacy of his own room; and Mrs. Clayton, glowing from her drive, andwith a fine rosy baby in her arms, had entered the apartment of hercousin. 

II

Bella found her cousin sitting in an arm-chair, with the cloak stillover her shoulders, and a face of ashy whiteness, the reaction of herexcitement. 

"My dear, how ill you look!" was her first exclamation. "Have you beenout?"

"I went a little way into the shrubberies, " said Mrs. Damer; "but theday turned so cold. "

"Do you think so? We have all been saying what a genial afternoon it is:but it certainly does not seem to have agreed with you. Look at my boy:isn't he a fine fellow?--he has been out all day in the garden. I oftenwish you had a child, Blanchey. "

"Do you, dear? it is more than I do. "

"Ah, but you can't tell, till they are really yours, how much pleasurethey give you; no one knows who has not been a mother. "

"No; I suppose not. "

Mrs. Damer shivered as she said the words, and looked into the baby'sfat, unmeaning face with eyes of sad import. Mrs. Clayton thought shehad wounded her cousin, and stooped to kiss the slight offence away; butshe fancied that Blanche almost shrunk from her embrace. 

"She must be really ill, " thought the kindly little Bella, who had nonotion of such a thing as heart-sickness for an apparently happy marriedwoman. "She ought to see a doctor: I shall tell Colonel Damer so. "

In another half-hour they were at her side together, urging her to taketheir advice. 

"Now, my darling, " said the Colonel, when Mrs. Damer faintly protestedagainst being made a fuss about, "you must be good for my sake. You knowhow precious you are to me, and how it would grieve me to have you laidup; let me send for Dr. Barlow, as your cousin advises. You were verymuch overcome by the long journey here, and I am afraid the subsequentexcitement of seeing your kind friends has been too much for you. You donot half know how dear you are to me, Blanche, or you would not refusesuch a trifling request. Here have I been, for five years, dearest, onlylooking forward from day to day to meeting my dear loving little wifeagain; and then to have you so ill as this the first month of ourreunion, is a great trial to me. Pray let me send for Dr. Barlow. "

But Mrs. Damer pleaded for delay. She had become chilled through beingout in the shrubberies; she had not yet got over the fatigue of herjourney; she had caught a cold whilst crossing from Havre to Folkestone:it was anything and everything but an illness which required medicalattendance. If she were not better in the morning, she promised to makeno opposition to their wishes. 

So she forced herself to rise and dress for dinner. She appeared therecalm and collected, and continued so throughout the evening, talkingwith Mr. Laurence quite as much as with the rest of the company; and shewent to bed at the same hour as the other guests of Molton Grange, receiving with her cousin's good-night, congratulations on the evidentimprovement of her health. 

"I cannot quite make out what has come to that cousin of yours, Bella, "said Harry Clayton to his wife, as they too retired for the night; "shedoesn't appear half such a jolly woman as she used to be. "

"She is certainly very much altered, " was Mrs. Clayton's response; "butI think it must be chiefly owing to her health; a feeling of debility isso very depressing. "

"I suppose it can't be anything on her mind, Bella?" suggested thehusband, after a pause. 

"On her _mind_, Harry!" said Bella, sitting up in bed in her wonderment;"of course not; why, how could it be? She has everything she can wishfor; and, I am sure, no woman could have a more devoted husband thanColonel Damer. He has been speaking a great deal about her to me to-day, and his anxiety is something enormous. On her _mind_!--what a funnyidea, Harry; what could have put that in your head?"

"I am sure I don't know, " was the husband's reply, rather ruefullygiven, as if conscious he had made a great mistake. 

"You old _goose_, " said his wife, with an emphatic kiss, as she composedherself to her innocent slumbers. 

But before they were broken by nature, in the gray of the morning, Mrs. Clayton was roused by a tapping at the bedroom door; a tapping to whichall Mr. Clayton's shouts to "come in, " only served as a renewal. 

"Who can it be, Harry?--do get up and see, " said Bella. 

So Harry got up, like a dutiful husband, and opened the door, and thefigure of Colonel Damer, robed in a dressing-gown, and looking veryshadowy and unreal in the dawning, presented itself on the threshold. 

"Is your wife here?" demanded the Colonel briefly. 

"Of course she is, " said Mr. Clayton, wondering what the Colonel wantedwith her. 

"Will she come to Mrs. Damer? she is _very_ ill, " was the next sentence, delivered tremblingly. 

"Very ill!" exclaimed Bella, jumping out of bed and wrapping herself ina dressing-gown. "How do you mean, Colonel Damer?--when did it happen?"

"God knows!" he said, in an agitated voice; "but for some time after shefell asleep she was feverish and excited, and spoke much. I wokesuddenly in the night and missed her, and going in search of her with alight, found her fallen on the landing. "

"Fainted?" said Bella. 

"I don't know now whether it was a faint or a fit, " he replied, "but Iincline to the latter belief. I carried her back to her bed, and gaveher some restoratives, not liking to disturb you--"

"Oh! why didn't you, Colonel Damer?" interposed his hostess. 

"--and thought she was better, till just now, when she had anotherattack of unconsciousness, and is so weak after it she cannot move. Shehas fever too, I am sure, from the rapidity of her pulse, and I don'tthink her head is quite clear. "

"Harry, dear, send for Dr. Barlow at once, " thrusting her naked feetinto slippers, "and come back with me, Colonel Damer; she should not beleft for a minute. "

And she passed swiftly along the corridor to her cousin's room. As sheneared that of Mr. Laurence, the door opened a little, and a voice askedhuskily--

"Is anything the matter, Mrs. Clayton? I have been listening to noisesin the house for the last hour. "

"My cousin, Mrs. Damer, has been taken ill, Mr. Laurence, but we havesent for the doctor; I am going to her now. "

And as the door closed again she fancied that she heard a sigh. 

Blanche Damer was lying on her pillows very hot and flushed, with thatanxious, perturbed look which the eyes assume when the brain is onlyhalf clouded, and can feel itself to be wandering. 

"Blanche, dearest, " cried Bella, as she caught sight of her face, "whatis the matter? How did this happen?"

"I dreamt that he had taken it, " said Mrs. Damer, slowly and sadly; "butit was a mistake: he must not have it yet--not yet! only a little whileto wait now!--but he has the key. "

"Her mind is wandering at present, " said Colonel Damer, who had followedMrs. Clayton into the room. 

"Oh, Colonel Damer, " exclaimed Bella, tearfully, "how dreadful itis!--she frightens me! Could she have knocked her head in falling? Haveyou no idea why she got up and went into the passage?"

"Not the slightest, " he returned. And now that she examined him underthe morning light, which was by this time streaming through the openshutters, Bella Clayton saw how aged and haggard his night's anxiety hadmade him look. "My wife has been very subject to both sleeping-talkingand walking since my return, and I have several times missed her, as Idid last night, and found her walking about the room in her sleep, butshe has never been like this before. When I first found her in thepassage, I asked her why she had gone there, or what she wanted, and shesaid, 'the key. ' When I had relifted her into bed, I found her bunch ofkeys as usual, on the dressing-table, therefore I imagine she could notthen have known what she was talking about. I trust Dr. Barlow will notbe long in coming; I am deeply anxious. "

And he looked the truth of what he uttered; whilst poor little Mrs. Clayton could only press his hand and entreat him to be hopeful; and hiswife lay on her pillows, and silently stared into vacancy. 

As soon as the doctor arrived he pronounced the patient to be sufferingfrom an attack of pressure on the brain, and wished to know whether shehad not been subjected to some great mental shock or strain. 

Here Colonel Damer came forward and stoutly denied the possibility ofsuch a thing. He had joined his wife from India a month ago, at whichtime she was, though in delicate, not in bad health, and he had neverleft her since. They had crossed from Havre to Folkestone three daysbefore, and Mrs. Damer had not complained of any unusual sickness orfatigue. She was a person of a highly excitable and nervous temperament, and her appetite and spirit were variable; otherwise there had beennothing in her state of health to call for anxiety on the part of herfriends. 

Dr. Barlow listened to all these statements, and believed as much ofthem as he chose. However he waived the subject of the cause of thedisaster; the fact that it had occurred was undeniable; and the remediesfor such emergencies were immediately resorted to. But all proved alikeineffectual, for the simple reason that the irrevocable fiat had goneforth, and Blanche Damer was appointed to die. 

As the day wore on, and the case assumed a darker aspect, and thedoctor's prognostications became less hopeful, Colonel Damer workedhimself into a perfect frenzy of fear. 

"Save her, Dr. Barlow, " he had said to that gentleman, in the insanemanner in which people are used to address the Faculty, as if it was intheir power to do more than help the efforts of nature. "Save her life, for God's sake! and there is nothing that I can do for you, of earthlygood, that shall not be yours. Shall I call in other advice? Shall Itelegraph to London? Is there anyone there who can save her? It is mylife as well as hers that is trembling in the scale. For the love ofheaven, do not stand on ceremony, but only tell me what is best to bedone!"

Of course Dr. Barlow told him that if he was not perfectly satisfied, heshould wish him to telegraph to town for further advice, and mentionedseveral names celebrated in such cases; at the same time he assuredColonel Damer that he did not believe any number of doctors could domore for the patient than he was doing, and that it was impossible toguess at the probable termination of the illness for some days to come. 

Bella Clayton gave up the duty of amusing her guests, and stationedherself at the bedside of her cousin; and the unhappy husband wanderedin and out of the room like a ghost; trying to think upon each freshvisit, that there was a slight improvement in the symptoms, and spendingthe intervening time in praying for the life which he fondly imaginedhad been devoted to himself. Meanwhile, whenever Mrs. Damer opened herlips, it was to ramble on in this manner:

"Dying!" her hollow voice would exclaim; "crushed to death beneath theweight of a pyramid of blessings that lies like lead upon my chest andreaches to the ceiling. Kind words--fond care, and sweetattentions--they bow me down to the earth! I am stifling beneath theburden of their silent reproaches. Two and two are four; and four andfour is eight; eight times locked should be secure--but there is a wormthat dieth not, and a fire that is not quenched. "

"Oh! don't come in here, Colonel Damer, " poor Bella would exclaim, asthe unhappy man would creep to the foot of the bed and stand listening, with blanched cheeks, to the delirious ravings of his wife. "She doesn'tknow what she is saying, remember; and she will be better to-morrow, doubtless. Don't distress yourself more, by listening to all thisnonsense. "

"I don't believe she will ever be better, Mrs. Clayton, " he replied, onone of these occasions. This was on the third day. 

"Dearest!" the sick woman resumed, in a plaintively soft voice, withoutbeing in the least disturbed by the conversation around her, "if youhave ever loved me, you will believe in this hour that I love you inreturn. If you have given me your love, I have given you more than mylife. "

"Does she speak of me?" demanded Colonel Damer. 

"I think so, " said Bella Clayton, sadly. 

"Take it off! take it off!" cried Mrs. Damer, starting withterror--"this box--this iron-clamped box which presses on my soul. Whathave I done? Where shall I go? How am I to meet him again?"

"What does she say?" asked the Colonel, trembling. 

"Colonel Damer, I must beg you to quit the room, " said Bella, weeping. "I cannot bear to stay here with both of you. Pray leave me alone withBlanche until she is quieter. "

And so the husband left the chamber, with fellow tears in his eyes, andshe set herself to the painful task of attempting to soothe thedelirious woman. 

"If he would only strike me, " moaned Mrs. Damer, "or frown at me, ortell me that I lie, I could bear it better; but he is killing me withkindness. Where is the box?--open it--let him see all. I am ready todie. But I forgot--there is no key, and no one shall touch it: it ismine--mine. Hark! I hear it! I hear it! How could I put it there? Let mego--no one shall hold me! Let me go, I say--I _hear_ it; and--and--theworld is nothing to me!"

At last, when they had almost despaired of ever seeing her sleep again, there came an uninterrupted hour of repose from sheer weariness; andthen wide-open hollow eyes--a changed voice sounding with thequestion--"Bella! have I been ill?" and Mrs. Damer's delirium was over. 

Over with her life. For on his next visit Dr. Barlow found her sensiblebut cold and pulseless, and broke to her friends the news that twelvehours more would end her existence. 

Colonel Damer went wild, and telegraphed at once to London for men whoarrived when his wife was ready to be coffined. Bella heard the decreeand wept silently; and a great gloom fell upon the guests of MoltonChase, who had been left altogether on poor Harry's hands since Mrs. Damer's illness. 

The dying woman lay very silent and exhausted for some time after shehad waked from that brief, memory-restoring sleep. When she next spoke, she said, observing her cousin's swollen eyes--

"Am I dying, Bella?"

Poor little Mrs. Clayton did not at all know what answer to make to sucha direct question, but she managed to stammer out something which, whatever it was meant for, was taken as affirmative by the one it mostconcerned. 

"I thought so. Shall I never be able to get out of bed again?"

"I am afraid not, darling--you are so weak!"

"Yes, I am--I can hardly raise my hand. And yet I must rise if I can. Ihave something so particular to do. "

"Cannot I do it for you, Blanche?"

"_Will_ you do it, Bella?"

"Anything--everything, love! How can you ask me?"

"And you will promise secrecy? Let me look in your face. Yes, it is atrue face, as it has ever been, and I can trust you. Have the black boxmoved out of my room before I die, Bella--mind, _before_ I die, andplaced in your own dressing-room. "

"What, dear, your linen box?"

"Yes, my linen box, or whatever you choose to call it. Take it away _atonce_, Bella. Tell no one; and when I am dead, have it buried in mygrave. Surely you could manage so much for me!"

"And Colonel Damer?"

"If you speak to him about it, Bella, or to your husband, or to any one, I'll never forgive you, and I'm dying!" cried Mrs. Damer, almost risingin her excitement. "Oh! why have I delayed it so long, why did I not seeto this before? I cannot even die in peace. "

"Yes, yes, dearest Blanche, I will do it, indeed I will, " said Mrs. Clayton, alarmed at her emotion; "and no one shall know of it butmyself. Shall I send it to my room at once? You may trust entirely to mydiscretion. Pray, have no fear!"

"Yes! at once--directly; it cannot be too soon!" said Mrs. Damer, falling back exhausted on her pillow. So a servant was called, and theiron-clamped box was carried away from the sick-room and secreted inMrs. Clayton's private apartment. Mrs. Damer seemed so weak, that hercousin suggested summoning her husband to her side, but she appeared toshrink from an interview with him. 

"I have nothing to say but what will make him sad to think ofafterwards, " she murmured. "Let me die with you alone, dear Bella. It isbetter so. "

So Colonel Damer, although he went backwards and forwards all the night, was not called at any particular moment to see the last of his wife, andBlanche had her wish. She died alone with her faithful little cousinbefore the morning broke. As she was just going, she said, in a vaguesort of manner--

"Tell him, Bella, that I forgive him as I hope to be forgiven. And thatI have seen Heaven open to-night, and a child spirit pleading with theWoman-born for us; and that the burden is lifted off my soul at last. "And then she added solemnly--"I will arise and go to my Father--, " andwent before she could finish the sentence. 

Innocent Bella repeated her last message in perfect faith to ColonelDamer. 

"She told me to tell you, that she felt herself forgiven, and that shehad seen Heaven opened for her, and the weight of her sins was liftedoff her soul. Oh! Colonel Damer, pray think of that, and take comfort. She is happier than you could make her. "

But the poor faithful husband was, for the present, beyond all reach ofcomfort. 

The London doctors arrived with the daylight, and had to be solemnlyentertained at breakfast, and warmed and comforted before they weredespatched home again. The Christmas guests were all packing up theirboxes, preparatory to taking their leave of Molton Chase, for it wasimpossible to think of festivities with such a bereavement in the house. And Harry Clayton told his wife that he was very thankful that theythought of doing so. 

"It has been a most unfortunate business altogether, Bella, and ofcourse they all felt it, poor things; and the more so because they couldtake no active part in it. The house has had a pall over it the lastweek; and it would have been still worse if they had remained. As forLaurence, I never saw a man so cut up. He has eaten nothing since yourpoor cousin was taken ill. One would think she had been his sister, orhis dearest friend. "

"Is he going with the rest, Harry?"

"No; he will stay till after the funeral; then he is going abroad. Hefeels deeply with you, Bella, and desired me to tell you so. "

"He is very good--thank him in my name. "

 * * * * *

But released from the care of thinking for her guests, and sittingcrying alone in her dressing-room, poor Mrs. Clayton could not imaginewhat to do with the iron-clamped black box. She had promised Blanche notto confide in her husband, or Colonel Damer. The latter, having nofamily vault, wished to lay the remains of his wife amongst those of theClaytons in the country churchyard of Molton; but how to get the blackbox conveyed to the grave without the knowledge of the chief mournerswas a mystery beyond the fathoming of Bella's open heart. But in themidst of her perplexity, Fate sent her aid. On the second day of hercousin's death, a gentle tap sounded at her chamber door, and on herinvitation to enter being answered, she was surprised to see Mr. Laurence on the threshold--come, as she imagined, to offer his sympathyin person. 

"This is very kind of you, Mr. Laurence, " she said. 

"I can scarcely claim your gratitude, Mrs. Clayton. I have sought you tospeak on a very important but painful subject. May I ask your attentionfor a few moments?"

"Of course you may!" And she motioned him to a seat. 

"It concerns her whom we have lost. Mrs. Clayton, tell me truly--did youlove your cousin?"

"Dearly--very dearly, Mr. Laurence. We were brought up together. "

"Then I may depend on your discretion; and if you wish to save hermemory you must exercise it in her behalf. There is a small iron-clampedblack trunk amongst her boxes, which must not fall into Colonel Damer'shands. Will you have that box conveyed from her chamber to your own, and(if you will so far trust my honour) make it over to me?"

"To you, Mr. Laurence--the iron-bound box? What possible knowledge canyou have of my cousin's secret?"

"Her secret?"

"Yes--she confided that box to my care the night she died. She made mepromise to do (without question) what you have just asked me to perform, and I did it. The trunk is already here. "

And throwing open a cupboard at the side of the room, she showed him thechest which he had mentioned. 

"I see that it is, " he answered. "How do you design disposing of it?"

"She wished it to be buried in her grave. "

"That is impossible in its present state. The contents must be removed. "

"But how?" Mrs. Clayton demanded, in surprise. "It is locked and doublelocked, and there is no key. "

"_I_ have the key, " he answered, gravely. 

"Oh! Mr. Laurence, " exclaimed his hostess, trembling, "there is somedreadful mystery here. For heaven's sake tell me what it is! Whatconnection can you possibly have with this box of my poor cousin's, ifyou have only met her once in your life?"

"Did she say so?" he asked. 

"No; but I fancied so. Have you known her? When? where? and why did younot tell us so before?"

"How can I tell you now?" he said, gazing into the pure womanly faceupraised to his own, bearing an expression which was half-surprise andhalf-fear but which seemed as though it could never dream of anythinglike shame. 

"You are too good and too happy, Mrs. Clayton, to know of, or be able tosympathize with, the troubles and temptations which preceded our fatalfriendship and her fall. "

"Blanche's _fall_!" ejaculated Bella Clayton, in a voice of horror. 

"Don't interrupt me, please, Mrs. Clayton, " he said, hurriedly, coveringhis face with his hands, "or I shall never be able to tell you thewretched story. I knew your cousin years ago. Had you any suspicion thatshe was unhappy in her marriage?"

"No! none!" replied Bella, with looks of surprise. 

"She _was_ then, thoroughly unhappy, as scores of women are, simplybecause the hearts of the men they are bound to are opposed to theirs inevery taste and feeling. I met her when she first returned to England, and--it is the old story, Mrs. Clayton--I loved her, and was mad enoughto tell her so. When a selfish man and an unselfish woman have mutuallyconfessed their preference for each other, the result is easilyanticipated. I ruined her--forgive my plain speaking--and she stillloved on, and forgave me. "

"Oh, Blanche!" exclaimed Bella Clayton, hiding her hot face in herhands. 

"We lived in a fool's paradise for some months, and then one day sheleft her house and went to the Continent, without giving me any warningof her intention. I was thunderstruck when I heard it, and deeply hurt, and as soon as I had traced her to Paris, I followed and demanded anexplanation of her conduct. But she refused to see me, and when shefound me pertinacious, left the city as suddenly as she had done that ofLondon. Since which time she has answered no letters of mine, nor did weever meet until, most unexpectedly, I met her in your house. My pride, after her first refusals to see me, was too great to permit me to renewmy entreaties, and so I called her a flirt, and inconstant. I tried tobanish her remembrance from my heart--and I thought I had succeeded. "

"Oh, my poor darling!" exclaimed Mrs. Clayton. "This accounts then forher holding aloof from all her relations for so long a time, by whichmeans she estranged herself from many of them. She was working out herpenitence and deep remorse in solitary misery; and she would not evenlet me share her confidence. But about the box, Mr. Laurence; what hasall this to do with the black box?"

"When I met her in your shrubbery the other day, and reproached her forher desertion of me, insisting upon her giving me the reason of herchange of mind, she bade me follow her to her own apartment. There, unlocking the box before you, she showed me its contents. "

"And they are--?" inquired Mrs. Clayton, breathlessly. 

"Would you like to see them?" he demanded, taking a key from his pocket. "I have as much right to show them you as she would have had. But isyour love for her dead memory and reputation strong enough to insureyour eternal secrecy on the subject?"

"It is, " said Bella Clayton, decidedly. 

"This box, " continued Mr. Laurence, applying the key he held to the lockof the iron-clamped black trunk, "has accompanied my poor girl on allher travels for the last two years. The dreadful secret of its contentswhich she bore in silent, solitary misery all that time has been, Ibelieve, the ultimate cause of her death, by proving too heavy a burdenfor the sensitive and proud spirit which was forced to endure theknowledge of its shame. She was killed by her remorse. If you havecourage, Mrs. Clayton, for the sight, look at _this_--and pity thefeelings I must endure as I kneel here and look at it with you. "

He threw back the lid and the topmost linen as he spoke, and BellaClayton pressed eagerly forward to see, carefully laid amidst witheredflowers and folds of cambric, the tiny skeleton of a new-born creaturewhose angel was even then beholding the face of his Father in Heaven. 

She covered her eyes with her clasped hands, no less to shut out thesight than to catch the womanly tears which poured forth at it, and thenshe cried between her sobs--

"Oh! my poor, poor Blanche, what must she not have suffered! God havemercy on her soul!"

"Amen!" said Herbert Laurence. 

"You will let me take the box away with me, Mrs. Clayton?" he asked, gently. 

She looked up as he spoke, and the tears were standing in his eyes. 

"Yes--yes, " she said; "take it away; do what you will with it, onlynever speak of it to me again. "

He never did but once, and that was but an allusion. On the evening ofthe day on which they committed the remains of Blanche Damer to thedust, he lay in wait for Mrs. Clayton on the landing. 

"All has been done as she desired, " he whispered; and Mrs. Clayton askedfor no further explanation. The secret of which she had been made anunwilling recipient pressed so heavily on her conscience, that she wasthankful when he left Molton Grange and went abroad, as he had expressedhis intention of doing. 

Since which time she has never seen Herbert Laurence again; and ColonelDamer, whose grief at the funeral and for some time after was nearlyfrenzied, having--like most men who mourn much outwardly--found a sourceof consolation in the shape of another wife, the story of BlancheDamer's life and death is remembered, for aught her cousin knows to thecontrary, by none but herself. 

I feel that an objection will be raised to this episode by some peopleon the score of its being _unnatural_; to whom all I can say in answeris, that the principal incident on which the interest of it turns--thatof the unhappy Mrs. Damer having been made so great a coward byconscience that she carried the proof of her frailty about with her foryears, too fearful of discovery to permit it to leave her sight--is _afact_. 

To vary the circumstances under which the discovery of the contents ofthe black box was finally made, and to alter the names of places andpeople so as to avoid general recognition, I have made my province: torelate the story itself, since, in the form I now present it to myreaders, it can give pain to no one, I consider my privilege. 

MY FASCINATING FRIEND

William Archer

I

Nature has cursed me with a retiring disposition. I have gone round theworld without making a single friend by the way. Coming out of my ownshell is as difficult to me as drawing others out of theirs. There aresome men who go through life extracting the substance of every one theymeet, as one picks out periwinkles with a pin. To me my fellow-men areoysters, and I have no oyster-knife; my sole consolation (if it be one)is that my own values absolutely defy the oyster-knives of others. Notmore than twice or thrice in my life have I met a fellow-creature atwhose "Open Sesame" the treasures of my heart and brain stood instantlyrevealed. My Fascinating Friend was one of these rare and sympatheticbeings. 

I was lounging away a few days at Monaco, awaiting a summons to joinsome relations in Italy. One afternoon I had started for an aimless andrambling climb among the olive-terraces on the lower slopes of the Têtedu Chien. Finding an exquisite coign of vantage amid the roots of agnarled old trunk springing from a built-up semicircular patch of levelground, I sat me down to rest, and read, and dream. Below me, a littleto the right, Monaco jutted out into the purple sea. I could distinguishcarriages and pedestrians coming and going on the chaussée between thepromontory and Monte Carlo, but I was far too high for any sound toreach me. Away to the left the coast took a magnificent sweep, past theclustering houses of Roccabruna, past the mountains at whose baseMentone nestled unseen, past the Italian frontier, past the bight ofVentimiglia, to where the Capo di Bordighera stood faintly outlinedbetween sea and sky. There was not a solitary sail on the whole expanseof the Mediterranean. A line of white, curving at rhythmic intervalsalong a small patch of sandy beach, showed that there was a gentle swellupon the sea, but its surface was mirror-like. A lovelier scene there isnot in the world, and it was at its very loveliest. I took the _SaturdayReview_ from my pocket, and was soon immersed in an article on thecommutation of tithes. 

I was aroused from my absorption by the rattle of a small stone hoppingdown the steep track, half path, half stairway, by which I had ascended. It had been loosened by the foot of a descending wayfarer, in whom, ashe picked his way slowly downward, I recognized a middle-aged German(that I supposed to be his nationality) who had been very assiduous atthe roulette-tables of the Casino for some days past. There was nothingremarkable in his appearance, his spectacled eyes, squat nose, andsquare-cropped bristling beard being simply characteristic of his classand country. He did not notice me as he went by, being too intent on hisfooting to look about him; but I was so placed that it was a minute ormore before he passed out of sight round a bend in the path. He was justturning the corner, and my eyes were still fixed on him, when I wasconscious of another figure within my field of vision. This second comerhad descended the same pathway, but had loosened no stones on hispassage. He trod with such exquisite lightness and agility that he hadpassed close by me without my being aware of his presence, while he, forhis part, had his eyes fixed with a curious intensity on the thick-setfigure of the German, upon whom, at his rate of progress, he must havebeen gaining rapidly. A glance showed me that he was a young man ofslender figure, dressed in a suit of dark-coloured tweed, of Englishcut, and wearing a light-brown wide-awake hat. Just as my eye fell uponhim he put his hand into the inner breast-pocket of his coat, and drewfrom it something which, as he was now well past me, I could not see. Atthe same moment some small object, probably jerked out of his pocket bymistake, fell almost noiselessly on the path at his feet. In hisapparently eager haste he did not notice his loss, but was glidingonward, leaving what I took to be his purse lying on the path. It wasclearly my duty to call his attention to it; so I said, "Hi!" aninterjection which I have found serves its purpose in all countries. Hegave a perceptible start, and looked round at me over his shoulder. Ipointed to the object he had dropped, and said, "_Voilà!_" He had thrustback into his pocket the thing, whatever it was, which he held in hishand, and now turned round to look where I was pointing. "Ah!" he saidin English, "my cigarette-case! I am much obliged to you, " and hestooped and picked it up. 

"I thought it was your purse, " I said. 

"I would rather have lost my purse than this, " he said, with a lightlaugh. He had apparently abandoned his intention of overtaking theGerman, who had meanwhile passed out of sight. 

"Are you such an enthusiastic smoker?" I asked. 

"I go in for quality, not quantity, " he replied; "and a Spanish friendhas just given me some incomparable _cigarritos_. " He opened the case ashe ascended the few steps which brought him up to my little plateau. "Have one?" he said, holding it out to me with the most winning smile Ihave ever seen on any human face. 

I was about to take one from the left-hand side of the case, when heturned it away and presented the other side to me. 

"No, no!" he said; "these flat ones are my common brand. The round onesare the gems. "

"I am robbing you, " I said, as I took one. 

"Not if you are smoker enough to appreciate it, " he said, as hestretched himself on the ground beside me, and produced from a littlegold match-box a wax vesta, with which he lighted my cigarette and hisown. 

So graceful was his whole personality, so easy and charming his manner, that it did not strike me as in the least odd that he should thus makefriends with me by the mere exchange of half a dozen words. I looked athim as he lay resting on his elbows and smoking lazily. He had thrownhis hat off, and his wavy hair, longish and of an opaque charcoal black, fell over his temples while he shook it back behind his ears. He was alittle above the middle height, of dark complexion, with large and softblack eyes and arched eyebrows, a small and rather broad nose (the worstfeature in his face), full curving and sensitive lips, and a very strongand rounded chin. He was absolutely beardless, but a slight black downon the upper lip announced a coming mustache. His age could not havebeen more than twenty. The cut of his clothes, as I have said, wasEnglish, but his large black satin neck-cloth, flowing out over thecollar of his coat, was such as no home-keeping Englishman would everhave dared to appear in. This detail, combined with his accent, perfectly pure but a trifle precise and deliberate, led me to take himfor an Englishman brought up on the Continent--probably in Italy, forthere was no French intonation in his speech. His voice was rich, butdeep--a light baritone. 

He took up my _Saturday Review_. 

"The Bible of the Englishman abroad, " he said. "One of the institutionsthat makes me proud of our country. "

"I have it sent me every week, " I said. 

"So had my father, " he replied. "He used to say, 'Shakespeare we sharewith the Americans, but damn it, the _Saturday Review_ is all our own!'He was one of the old school, my father. "

"And the good school, " I said, with enthusiasm. "So am I. "

"Now, I'm a bit of a Radical, " my new friend rejoined, looking up with asmile, which made the confession charming rather than objectionable; andfrom this point we started upon a discussion, every word of which Icould write down if I chose, such a lasting impression did it make uponme. He was indeed a brilliant talker, having read much and travelledenormously for one so young. "I think I have lived in every country inEurope, " he said, "except Russia. Somehow it has never interested me. " Ifound that he was a Cambridge man, or, at least, was intimatelyacquainted with Cambridge life and thought; and this was another bondbetween us. His Radicalism was not very formidable; it amounted tolittle more, indeed, than a turn for humorous paradox. Our discussionreminded me of Fuller's description of the wit-combats between BenJonson and Shakespeare at the "Mermaid. " I was the Spanish galleon, myFascinating Friend was the English man-of-war, ready "to take advantageof all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention. " An hour spedaway delightfully, the only thing I did not greatly enjoy being thecigarette, which seemed to me no better than many I had smoked before. 

"What do you think of my cigarettes?" he said, as I threw away thestump. 

I felt that a blunt expression of opinion would be in bad taste afterhis generosity in offering an utter stranger the best he had. "Exquisite!" I answered. 

"I thought you would say so, " he replied, gravely. "Have another!"

"Let me try one of your common ones, " I said. 

"No, you shan't!" he replied, closing the case with a sudden snap, whichendangered my fingers, but softening the _brusquerie_ of the proceedingby one of his enthralling smiles; then he added, using one of the oddidioms which gave his speech a peculiar piquancy, "I don't palm off uponmy friends what I have of second best. " He re-opened the case and heldit out to me. To have refused would have been to confess that I did notappreciate his "gems" as he called them. I smoked another, in which Istill failed to find any unusual fragrance; but the aroma of mynew-found friend's whole personality was so keen and subtle, that it mayhave deadened my nerves to any more material sensation. 

We lay talking until the pink flush of evening spread along the horizon, and in it Corsica, invisible before, seemed to body itself forth fromnothingness like an island of phantom peaks and headlands. Then we rose, and, in the quickly gathering dusk, took our way down among theolive-yards, and through the orange-gardens to Monte Carlo. 

II

My acquaintance with my Fascinating Friend lasted little more thanforty-eight hours, but during that time we were inseparable. He was notat my hotel, but on that first evening I persuaded him to dine with me, and soon after breakfast on the following morning I went in search ofhim; I was at the Russie, he at the Hôtel de Paris. I found him smokingin the veranda, and at a table not far distant sat the German of theprevious afternoon, finishing a tolerably copious _déjeûner à lafourchette_. As soon as he had scraped his plate quite clean andfinished the last dregs of his bottle of wine, he rose and took his wayto the Casino. After a few minutes' talk with my Fascinating Friend, Isuggested a stroll over to Monaco. He agreed, and we spent the whole daytogether, loitering and lounging, talking and dreaming. We went to theCasino in the afternoon to hear the concert, and I discovered my friendto be a cultivated musician. Then we strolled into the gambling-room foran hour, but neither of us played. The German was busy at one of theroulette-tables, and seemed to be winning considerably. That evening Idined with my friend at the table d'hôte of his hotel. At the other endof the table I could see the German sitting silent and unnoticing, raptin the joys of deglutition. 

Next morning, by arrangement, my friend called upon me at my hotel, andover one of his cigarettes, to which I was getting accustomed, wediscussed our plan for the day. I suggested a wider flight thanyesterday's. Had he ever been to Eza, the old Saracen robber-nestperched on a rock a thousand feet above the sea, halfway between Monacoand Villafranca? No, he had not been there, and after some considerationhe agreed to accompany me. We went by rail to the little station on theseashore, and then attacked the arduous ascent. The day was perfect, though rather too warm for climbing, and we had frequent rests among theolive-trees, with delightfully discursive talks on all things under thesun. My companion's charm grew upon me moment by moment. There was inhis manner a sort of refined coquetry of amiability which I foundirresistible. It was combined with a frankness of sympathy and interestsubtly flattering to a man of my unsocial habit of mind. I was consciousevery now and then that he was drawing me out; but to be drawn out sogently and genially was, to me, a novel and delightful experience. Itproduced in me one of those effusions of communicativeness to which, Iam told, all reticent people are occasionally subject. I have myselfgiven way to them some three or four times in my life, and found myselfpouring forth to perfect strangers such intimate details of feeling andexperience as I would rather die than impart to my dearest friend. Threeor four times, I say, have I found myself suddenly and inexplicablybrought within the influence of some invisible truth-compellingtalisman, which drew from me confessions the rack could not haveextorted; but never has the influence been so irresistible as in thecase of my Fascinating Friend. I told him what I had told to no otherhuman soul--what I had told to the lonely glacier, to the luridstorm-cloud, to the seething sea, but had never breathed in mortalear--I told him the tragedy of my life. How well I remember the scene!We were resting beneath the chestnut-trees that shadow a stretch oflevel sward immediately below the last short stage of ascent that leadsinto the heart of the squalid village now nestling in the crevices ofthe old Moslem fastness. The midday hush was on sea and sky. Far out onthe horizon a level line of smoke showed where an unseen steamer wascrawling along under the edge of the sapphire sphere. As I reached theclimax of my tale an old woman, bent almost double beneath a huge fagotof firewood, passed us on her way to the village. I remember that itcrossed my mind to wonder whether there was any capacity in the natureof such as she for suffering at all comparable to that which I wasdescribing. My companion's sympathy was subtle and soothing. There wasin my tale an element of the grotesque which might have tempted a vulgarnature to flippancy. No smile crossed my companion's lips. He turnedaway his head, on pretense of watching the receding figure of the oldpeasant-woman. When he looked at me again, his deep dark eyes weresuffused with a moisture which enhanced the mystery of their tenderness. In that moment I felt, as I had never felt before, what it is to find afriend. 

We returned to Monte Carlo late in the afternoon, and I found a telegramat my hotel begging me to be in Genoa the following morning. I hadbarely time to bundle my traps together and swallow a hasty meal beforemy train was due. I scrawled a note to my new found confidant, expressing most sincerely my sorrow at parting from him so soon and sosuddenly, and my hope that ere long we should meet again. 

III

The train was already at the platform when I reached the station. Therewere one or two first-class through carriages on it, which, for a Frenchrailway, were unusually empty. In one of them I saw at the window thehead of the German, and from a certain subdued radiance in hisexpression, I judged that he must be carrying off a considerable "pile"from the gaming-table. His personality was not of the most attractive, and there was something in his squat nose suggestive of stertorouspossibilities which, under ordinary circumstances, would have held mealoof from him. But--shall I confess it?--he had for me a certainsentimental attraction, because he was associated in my mind with thatfirst meeting with my forty-eight hours' friend. I looked into hiscompartment; an overcoat and valise lay in the opposite corner from his, showing that seat to be engaged, but two corners were still left me tochoose from. I installed myself in one of them, face to face with thevalise and overcoat, and awaited the signal to start. The cry of "Envoiture, messieurs!" soon came, and a lithe figure sprang into thecarriage. It was my Fascinating Friend! For a single moment I thoughtthat a flash of annoyance crossed his features on finding me there, butthe impression vanished at once, for his greeting was as full ofcordiality as of surprise. We soon exchanged explanations. He, likemyself, had been called away by telegram, not to Genoa, but to Rome; he, like myself, had left a note expressing his heartfelt regret at oursudden separation. As we sped along, skirting bays that shone burnishedin the evening light, and rumbling every now and then through atunnel-pierced promontory, we resumed the almost affectionate converseinterrupted only an hour before, and I found him a more delightfulcompanion than ever. His exquisitely playful fantasy seemed to be actingat high pressure, as in the case of a man who is talking to pass thetime under the stimulus of a delightful anticipation. I suspected thathe was hurrying to some peculiarly agreeable rendezvous in Rome, and Ihinted my suspicion, which he laughed off in such a way as to confirmit. The German, in the mean time, sat stolid and unmoved, making somepencilled calculations in a little pocket-book. He clearly did notunderstand English. 

As we approached Ventimiglia my friend rose, took down his valise fromthe rack, and, turning his back to me, made some changes in itsarrangement, which I, of course, did not see. He then locked itcarefully and kept it beside him. At Ventimiglia we had all to turn outto undergo the inspection of the Italian _dogana_. My friend's valisewas his sole luggage, and I noticed, rather to my surprise, that he gavethe custom-house official a very large bribe--two or three goldpieces--to make his inspection of it purely nominal, and forego theopening of either of the inside compartments. The German, on the otherhand, had a small portmanteau and a large dispatch box, both of which heopened with a certain ostentation, and I observed that the official'seyes glittered under his raised eyebrows as he looked into the contentsof the dispatch-box. On returning to the train we all three resumed ourold places, and the German drew the shade of a sleeping-cap over hiseyes and settled himself down for the night. It was now quite dark, butthe moon was shining. 

"Have you a large supply of the 'gems' in your valise?" I asked, smiling, curious to know his reason for a subterfuge which accorded illwith his ordinary straight-forwardness, and remembering that tobacco isabsolutely prohibited at the Italian frontier. 

"Unfortunately, no, " he said; "my 'gems' are all gone, and I have onlymy common cigarettes remaining. Will you try them, such as they are?"and he held out his case, both sides of which were now filled with theflat cigarettes. We each took one and lighted it, but he began giving mean account of a meeting he had had with Lord Beaconsfield, which hedetailed so fully and with so much enthusiasm, that, after a whiff ortwo he allowed his cigarette to go out. I could not understand his tastein tobacco. These cigarettes which he despised seemed to me at once moredelicate and more peculiar than the others. They had a flavour which wasquite unknown to me. I was much interested in his vivid account of thepersonality of that great man, whom I admired then, while he was yetwith us, and whom, as a knight of the Primrose League, I now revere; butour climb of the morning, and the scrambling departure of the afternoon, were beginning to tell on me, and I became irresistibly drowsy. Gradually, and in spite of myself, my eyes closed. I could still hear mycompanion's voice mingling with the heavy breathing of the German, whohad been asleep for some time; but soon even these sounds ceased topenetrate the mist of languor, the end of my cigarette dropped frombetween my fingers and I knew no more. 

 * * * * *

My awakening was slow and spasmodic. There was a clearly perceptibleinterval--probably several minutes--between the first stirrings ofconsciousness and the full clarification of my faculties. I began to beaware of the rumble and oscillation of the train without realizing whatwas meant. Then I opened my eyes and blinked at the lamp, and vaguelynoted the yellow oil washing to and fro in the bowl. Then the whitesquare of the "Avis aux Voyageurs" caught my eye in the gloom under theluggage-rack, and beneath it, on the seat, I saw the light reflectedfrom the lock of the German's portmanteau. Next I was conscious of theGerman himself still sleeping in his corner, but no longer puffing andgrunting as when I had fallen asleep. Then I raised my head, lookedround the carriage, and the next moment sprang bolt upright in dismay. 

Where was my Fascinating Friend?

Gone! vanished! There was not a trace of him. His valise, hisgreat-coat, all had disappeared. Only in the little cigar-ash box on thewindow-frame I saw the flat cigarette which he had barely lighted--howlong before? I looked at my watch: it must have been about an hour and ahalf ago. 

By this time I had all my faculties about me. I looked across at theGerman, intending to ask him if he knew anything of our latetravelling-companion. Then I noticed that his head had fallen forward insuch a way that it seemed to me suffocation must be imminent. Iapproached him, and put down my head to look into his face. As I did soI saw a roundish black object on the oil-cloth floor not far from thetoe of his boot. The lamplight was reflected at a single point from itsconvex surface. I put down my hand and touched it. It was liquid. Ilooked at my fingers--they were not black, but red. I think (but am notsure) that I screamed aloud. I shrank to the other end of the carriage, and it was some moments before I had sufficient presence of mind to lookfor a means of communicating with the guard. Of course there was none. Iwas alone for an indefinite time with a dead man. But was he dead? I hadlittle doubt, from the way his head hung, that his throat was cut, and ahorrible fascination drew me to his side to examine. No; there was nosign of the hideous fissure I expected to find beneath the gray bristlesof his beard. His head fell forward again into the same position, and Isaw with horror that I had left two bloody fingermarks upon the grayshade of his sleeping-cap. Then I noticed for the first time that thewindow he was facing stood open, for a gust of wind came through it andblew back the lapel of his coat. What was that on his waistcoat? I torethe coat back and examined: it was a small triangular hole just over theheart, and round it there was a dark circle about the size of ashilling, where the blood had soaked through the light material. Inexamining it I did what the murderer had not done--disturbed theequilibrium of the body, which fell over against me. 

At that moment I heard a loud voice behind me, coming from I knew notwhere. I nearly fainted with terror. The train was still going at fullspeed; the compartment was empty, save for myself and the ghastly objectwhich lay in my arms; and yet I seemed to hear a voice almost at my ear. There it was again! I summoned up courage to look round. It was theguard of the train clinging on outside the window and demanding"Biglietti!" By this time, he, too, saw that something was amiss. Heopened the door and swung himself into the carriage. "Dio mio!" I heardhim exclaim, as I actually flung myself into his arms and pointed to thebody now lying in a huddled heap amid its own blood on the floor. Then, for the first time in my life, I positively swooned away, and knew nomore. 

When I came to myself the train had stopped at a small station, the nameof which I do not know to this day. There was a Babel of speech going onaround, not one word of which I could understand. I was on the platform, supported between two men in uniform, with cocked hats and cockades. Invain I tried to tell my story. I knew little or no Italian, and, thoughthere were one or two Frenchmen in the train, they were useless asinterpreters, for on the one hand my power of speaking French seemed tohave departed in my agitation, and on the other hand none of theItalians understood it. In vain I tried to make them understand that a"giovane" had travelled in the compartment with us who had nowdisappeared. The Italian guard, who had come on at Ventimiglia, evidently had no recollection of him. He merely shook his head, said"Non capisco, " and inquired if I was "Prussiano. " The train had alreadybeen delayed some time, and, after a consultation between thestation-master, the guard, the syndic of the village, who had beensummoned in haste, it was determined to hand the matter over to theauthorities at Genoa. The two carabinieri sat one on each side of mefacing the engine, and on the opposite seat the body was stretched outwith a luggage tarpaulin over it. In this hideous fashion I passed thefour or five remaining hours of the journey to Genoa. 

The next week I spent in an Italian prison, a very uncomfortable yetquite unromantic place of abode. Fortunately, my friends were by thistime in Genoa, and they succeeded in obtaining some slight mitigation ofmy discomforts. At the end of that time I was released, there being noevidence against me. The testimony of the French guard, of thebooking-clerk at Monaco, and of the staff of the Hôtel de Paris, established the existence of my Fascinating Friend, which was at firstcalled in question; but no trace could be found of him. With him haddisappeared his victim's dispatch-box, in which were stored the proceedsof several days of successful gambling. Robbery, however, did not seemto have been the primary motive of the crime, for his watch, purse, andthe heavy jewelry about his person were all untouched. From the GermanConsul at Genoa I learned privately, after my release, that the murderedman, though in fact a Prussian, had lived long in Russia, and wassuspected of having had an unofficial connection with the St. Petersburgpolice. It was thought, indeed, that the capital with which he hadcommenced his operation at Monte Carlo was the reward of some specialact of treachery; so that the anarchists, if it was indeed they whostruck the blow, had merely suffered Judas to put his thirty pieces outto usance, in order to pay back to their enemies with interest theblood-money of their friends. 

IV

About two years later I happened one day to make an afternoon call inMayfair, at the house of a lady well known in the social and politicalworld, who honours me, if I may say so, with her friendship. Herdrawing-room was crowded, and the cheerful ring of afternoon tea-cupswas audible through the pleasant medley of women's voices. I joined agroup around the hostess, where an animated discussion was in progresson the Irish Coercion Bill, then the leading political topic of the day. The argument interested me deeply; but it is one of my mentalpeculiarities that when several conversations are going on around me Ican by no means keep my attention exclusively fixed upon the one inwhich I am myself engaged. Odds and ends from all the others find theirway into my ears and my consciousness, and I am sometimes accused ofabsence of mind, when my fault is in reality a too great alertness ofthe sense of hearing. In this instance the conversation of three or fourgroups was more or less audible to me; but it was not long before myattention was absorbed by the voice of a lady, seated at the other sideof the circular ottoman on which I myself had taken my place. 

She was talking merrily, and her hearers, in one of whom, as I glancedover my shoulder, I recognized an ex-Cabinet Minister, seemed to begreatly entertained. As her back was toward me, all I could see of thelady herself was her short black hair falling over the handsome furcollar of her mantle. 

"He was so tragic about it, " she was saying, "that it was really_impayable_. The lady was beautiful, wealthy, accomplished, and I don'tknow what else. The rival was an Australian squatter, with a beard asthick as his native bush. My communicative friend--I scarcely knew evenhis name when he poured forth his woes to me--thought that he had anadvantage in his light moustache, with a military twirl in it. They wereall three travelling in Switzerland, but the Australian had gone off tomake the ascent of some peak or other, leaving the field to the foe fora couple of days at least. On the first day the foe made the most of histime, and had nearly brought matters to a crisis. The next morning hegot himself up as exquisitely as possible, in order to clinch hisconquest, but found to his disgust that he had left his dressing-casewith his razors at the last stopping-place. There was nothing for it butto try the village barber, who was also the village stationer, anddraper, and ironmonger, and chemist--a sort of Alpine Whiteley, in fact. His face had just been soaped--what do you call it?--lathered, is itnot? and the barber had actually taken hold of his nose so as to get hishead into the right position, when, in the mirror opposite, he saw thedoor open, and--oh, horror!--who should walk into the shop but the fairone herself! He gave such a start that the barber gashed his chin. Hiseyes met hers in the mirror; for a moment he saw her lips quiver andtremble, and then she burst into shrieks of uncontrollable laughter, andrushed out of the shop. If you knew the pompous little man, I am sureyou would sympathize with her. I know I did when he told me the story. His heart sank within him, but he acted like a Briton. He determined totake no notice of the _contretemps_, but return boldly to the attack. She received him demurely at first, but the moment she raised her eyesto his face, and saw the patch of sticking-plaster on his chin, she wasagain seized with such convulsions that she had to rush from the room. 'She is now in Melbourne, ' he said, almost with a sob, 'and I assureyou, my dear friend, that I never now touch a razor without an impulse, to which I expect I shall one day succumb, to put it to a desperateuse. '"

There was a singing in my ears, and my brain was whirling. This story, heartlessly and irreverently told, was the tragedy of my life!

I had breathed it to no human soul--_save one_!

I rose from my seat, wondering within myself whether my agitation wasvisible to those around me, and went over to the other side of the roomwhence I could obtain a view of the speaker. There were the deep, darkeyes, there were the full sensuous lips, the upper shaded with animpalpable down, there was the charcoal-black hair! I knew too well thatrich contralto voice! It was my Fascinating Friend!

Before I had fully realized the situation she rose, handed her emptytea-cup to the Cabinet-Minister, bowed to him and his companion, andmade her way up to the hostess, evidently intending to take her leave. As she turned away, after shaking hands cordially with Lady X----, hereyes met mine intently fixed upon her. She did not start, she neitherflushed nor turned pale; she simply raised for an instant her finelyarched eyebrows, and as her tall figure sailed past me out of the room, she turned upon me the same exquisite and irresistible smile with whichmy Fascinating Friend had offered me his cigarette-case that eveningamong the olive-trees. 

I hurried up to Lady X----. 

"Who is the lady who has just left the room?" I asked. 

"Oh, that is the Baroness M----, " she replied. "She is half anEnglishwoman, half a Pole. She was my daughter's bosom friend atGirton--a most interesting girl. "

"Is she a politician?" I asked. 

"No; that's the one thing I don't like about her. She is not a bit of apatriot; she makes a joke of her country's wrongs and sufferings. Shouldyou like to meet her? Dine with us the day after to-morrow. She is to behere. "

 * * * * *

I dined at Lady X----'s on the appointed day, but the Baroness was notthere. Urgent family affairs had called her suddenly to Poland. 

A week later the assassination of the Czar sent a thrill of horrorthrough the civilized world. 

 * * * * *

"Don't you think your friend might be held an accessory after the factto the death of the German?" asked the Novelist, when all the flatteringcomments, which were many, were at an end. "And an accessory before thefact to the assassination of the Czar?" chimed in the Editor. "Whydidn't he go straight from Lady ----'s house to the nearestpolice-station and put the police on the track of his 'FascinatingFriend'?" "What a question!" the Romancer exclaimed, starting from hisseat and pacing restlessly about the deck. "How could any man with apalate for the rarest flavours of life resist the temptation of takingthat woman down to dinner? And, besides, hadn't he eaten salt with her?Hadn't he smoked the social cigarette with her? Shade of De Quincey! arewe to treat like a vulgar criminal a mistress of the finest of the finearts? Shall we be such crawling creatures as to seek to lay by the heelsa Muse of Murder? Are we a generation of detectives, that we should dothis thing?" "So my friend put it to me, " said the Critic dryly, "notquite so eloquently, but to that effect. Between ourselves, though, Ibelieve he was influenced more by consideration of his personal safetythan by admiration for murder as a fine art. He remembered the fate ofthe German, and was unwilling to share it. " "He adopted a policy ofnon-intervention, " said the Eminent Tragedian, who in his hours ofleisure, was something of a politician. "I should rather say of _laissezfaire_, or, more precisely, of _laissez assassiner_, " laughed theEditor. "What was the Fascinating Friend supposed to have in herportmanteau?" asked Beatrice. "What was she so anxious to conceal fromthe custom-house officers?" "Her woman's clothes, I imagine, " the Criticreplied, "though I don't hold myself bound to explain all the ins andouts of her proceedings. " "Then she _was_ a wonderful woman, " repliedthe fair questioner, as one having authority, "if she could get arespectable gown and 'fixings, ' as the Americans say, into a smallportmanteau. But, " she added, "I very soon suspected she was a woman. ""Why?" asked several voices simultaneously. "Why, because she drew himout so easily, " was the reply. "You think, in fact, " said the Romancer, "that however little its victim was aware of it, there was a touch ofthe _Ewig-weibliche_ in her fascination?" "Precisely. "

THE LOST ROOM

FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN

It was oppressively warm. The sun had long disappeared, but seemed tohave left its vital spirit of heat behind it. The air rested; the leavesof the acacia-trees that shrouded my windows hung plumb-like on theirdelicate stalks. The smoke of my cigar scarce rose above my head, buthung about me in a pale blue cloud, which I had to dissipate withlanguid waves of my hand. My shirt was open at the throat, and my chestheaved laboriously in the effort to catch some breaths of fresher air. The noises of the city seemed to be wrapped in slumber, and theshrilling of the mosquitos was the only sound that broke the stillness. 

As I lay with my feet elevated on the back of a chair, wrapped in thatpeculiar frame of mind in which thought assumes a species of lifelessmotion, the strange fancy seized me of making a languid inventory of theprincipal articles of furniture in my room. It was a task well suited tothe mood in which I found myself. Their forms were duskily defined inthe dim twilight that floated shadowily through the chamber; it was nolabour to note and particularize each, and from the place where I sat Icould command a view of all my possessions without even turning my head. 

There was, _imprimis_, that ghostly lithograph by Calame. It was a mereblack spot on the white wall, but my inner vision scrutinized everydetail of the picture. A wild, desolate, midnight heath, with a spectraloak-tree in the centre of the foreground. The wind blows fiercely, andthe jagged branches, clothed scantily with ill-grown leaves, are sweptto the left continually by its giant force. 

A formless wrack of clouds streams across the awful sky, and the rainsweeps almost parallel with the horizon. Beyond, the heath stretches offinto endless blackness, in the extreme of which either fancy or art hasconjured up some undefinable shapes that seem riding into space. At thebase of the huge oak stands a shrouded figure. His mantle is wound bythe blast in tight folds around his form, and the long cock's feather inhis hat is blown upright, till it seems as if it stood on end with fear. His features are not visible, for he has grasped his cloak with bothhands, and drawn it from either side across his face. The picture isseemingly objectless. It tells no tale, but there is a weird power aboutit that haunts one, and it was for that I bought it. 

Next to the picture comes the round blot that hangs below it, which Iknow to be a smoking-cap. It has my coat of arms embroidered on thefront, and for that reason I never wear it; though, when properlyarranged on my head, with its long blue silken tassel hanging down by mycheek, I believe it becomes me well. I remember the time when it was inthe course of manufacture. I remember the tiny little hands that pushedthe coloured silks so nimbly through the cloth that was stretched on theembroidery-frame, --the vast trouble I was put to to get a coloured copyof my armorial bearings for the heraldic work which was to decorate thefront of the band, --the pursings up of the little mouth, and thecontractions of the young forehead, as their possessor plunged into aprofound sea of cogitation touching the way in which the cloud should berepresented from which the armed hand, that is my crest, issues, --theheavenly moment when the tiny hands placed it on my head, in a positionthat I could not bear for more than a few seconds, and I, kinglike, immediately assumed my royal prerogative after the coronation, andinstantly levied a tax on my only subjects which was, however, not paidunwillingly. Ah! the cap is there, but the embroiderer has fled; forAtropos was severing the web of life above her head while she wasweaving that silken shelter for mine!

How uncouthly the huge piano that occupies the corner at the left of thedoor looms out in the uncertain twilight! I neither play nor sing, yet Iown a piano. It is a comfort to me to look at it, and to feel that themusic is there, although I am not able to break the spell that binds it. It is pleasant to know that Bellini and Mozart, Cimarosa, Porpora, Glückand all such, --or at least their souls, --sleep in that unwieldy case. There lie embalmed, as it were, all operas, sonatas, oratorios, nocturnos, marches, songs and dances, that ever climbed into existencethrough the four bars that wall in melody. Once I was entirely repaidfor the investment of my funds in that instrument which I never use. Blokeeta, the composer, came to see me. Of course his instincts urgedhim as irresistibly to my piano as if some magnetic power lay within itcompelling him to approach. He tuned it, he played on it. All nightlong, until the gray and spectral dawn rose out of the depths of themidnight, he sat and played, and I lay smoking by the window listening. Wild, unearthly, and sometimes insufferably painful, were theimprovisations of Blokeeta. The chords of the instrument seemed breakingwith anguish. Lost souls shrieked in his dismal preludes; the half-heardutterances of spirits in pain, that groped at inconceivable distancesfrom anything lovely or harmonious, seemed to rise dimly up out of thewaves of sound that gathered under his hands. Melancholy human lovewandered out on distant heaths, or beneath dank and gloomy cypresses, murmuring its unanswered sorrow, or hateful gnomes sported and sang inthe stagnant swamps triumphing in unearthly tones over the knight whomthey had lured to his death. Such was Blokeeta's night's entertainment;and when he at length closed the piano, and hurried away through thecold morning, he left a memory about the instrument from which I couldnever escape. 

Those snow-shoes that hang in the space between the mirror and the doorrecall Canadian wanderings, --a long race through the dense forests, overthe frozen snow through whose brittle crust the slender hoofs of thecaribou that we were pursuing sank at every step, until the poorcreature despairingly turned at bay in a small juniper coppice, and weheartlessly shot him down. And I remember how Gabriel, the _habitant_, and François, the half-breed, cut his throat, and how the hot bloodrushed out in a torrent over the snowy soil; and I recall the snow_cabane_ that Gabriel built, where we all three slept so warmly; and thegreat fire that glowed at our feet, painting all kinds of demoniacshapes on the black screen of forest that lay without; and thedeer-steaks that we roasted for our breakfast; and the savagedrunkenness of Gabriel in the morning, he having been privately drinkingout of my brandy-flask all the night long. 

That long haftless dagger that dangles over the mantelpiece makes myheart swell. I found it, when a boy, in a hoary old castle in which oneof my maternal ancestors once lived. That same ancestor--who, by theway, yet lives in history--was a strange old sea-king, who dwelt on theextremest point of the southwestern coast of Ireland. He owned the wholeof that fertile island called Inniskeiran, which directly faces CapeClear, where between them the Atlantic rolls furiously, forming what thefishermen of the place call "the Sound. " An awful place in winter isthat same Sound. On certain days no boat can live there for a moment, and Cape Clear is frequently cut off for days from any communicationwith the mainland. 

This old sea-king--Sir Florence O'Driscoll by name--passed a stormylife. From the summit of his castle he watched the ocean, and when anyrichly laden vessels bound from the South to the industrious Galwaymerchants, hove in sight, Sir Florence hoisted the sails of his galley, and it went hard with him if he did not tow into harbor ship and crew. In this way he lived; not a very honest mode of livelihood, certainly, according to our modern ideas, but quite reconcilable with the morals ofthe time. As may be supposed, Sir Florence got into trouble. Complaintswere laid against him at the English court by the plundered merchants, and the Irish viking set out for London, to plead his own cause beforegood Queen Bess, as she was called. He had one powerful recommendation:he was a marvellously handsome man. Not Celtic by descent, but halfSpanish, half Danish in blood, he had the great northern stature withthe regular features, flashing eyes, and dark hair of the Iberian race. This may account for the fact that his stay at the English court wasmuch longer than was necessary, as also for the tradition, which a localhistorian mentions, that the English Queen evinced a preference for theIrish chieftain, of other nature than that usually shown by monarch tosubject. 

Previous to his departure, Sir Florence had intrusted the care of hisproperty to an Englishman named Hull. During the long absence of theknight, this person managed to ingratiate himself with the localauthorities, and gain their favour so far that they were willing tosupport him in almost any scheme. After a protracted stay, Sir Florence, pardoned of all his misdeeds, returned to his home. Home no longer. Hullwas in possession, and refused to yield an acre of the lands he had sonefariously acquired. It was no use appealing to the law, for itsofficers were in the opposite interest. It was no use appealing to theQueen, for she had another lover, and had forgotten the poor Irishknight by this time; and so the viking passed the best portion of hislife in unsuccessful attempts to reclaim his vast estates, and waseventually, in his old age, obliged to content himself with his castleby the sea and the island of Inniskeiran, the only spot of which theusurper was unable to deprive him. So this old story of my kinsman'sfate looms up out of the darkness that enshrouds that haftless daggerhanging on the wall. 

It was somewhat after the foregoing fashion that I dreamily made theinventory of my personal property. As I turned my eyes on each object, one after the other, --or the places where they lay, for the room was nowso dark that it was almost impossible to see with any distinctness, --acrowd of memories connected with each rose up before me, and, perforce, I had to indulge them. So I proceeded but slowly, and at last my cigarshortened to a hot and bitter morsel that I could barely hold between mylips, while it seemed to me that the night grew each moment moreinsufferably oppressive. While I was revolving some impossible means ofcooling my wretched body, the cigar stump began to burn my lips. I flungit angrily through the open window, and stooped out to watch it falling. It first lighted on the leaves of the acacia, sending out a spray of redsparkles, then, rolling off, it fell plump on the dark walk in thegarden, faintly illuminating for a moment the dusky trees and breathlessflowers. Whether it was the contrast between the red flash of thecigar-stump and the silent darkness of the garden, or whether it wasthat I detected by the sudden light a faint waving of the leaves, I knownot; but something suggested to me that the garden was cool. I will takea turn there, thought I, just as I am; it cannot be warmer than thisroom, and however still the atmosphere, there is always a feeling ofliberty and spaciousness in the open air, that partially supplies one'swants. With this idea running through my head, I arose, lit anothercigar, and passed out into the long, intricate corridors that led to themain staircase. As I crossed the threshold of my room, with what adifferent feeling I should have passed it had I known that I was neverto set foot in it again!

I lived in a very large house, in which I occupied two rooms on thesecond floor. The house was old-fashioned, and all the floorscommunicated by a huge circular staircase that wound up through thecentre of the building, while at every landing long, rambling corridorsstretched off into mysterious nooks and corners. This palace of mine wasvery high, and its resources, in the way of crannies and windings, seemed to be interminable. Nothing seemed to stop anywhere. Cul-de-sacswere unknown on the premises. The corridors and passages, likemathematical lines, seemed capable of indefinite extension, and theobject of the architect must have been to erect an edifice in whichpeople might go ahead forever. The whole place was gloomy, not so muchbecause it was large, but because an unearthly nakedness seemed topervade the structure. The staircases, corridors, halls, and vestibulesall partook of a desert-like desolation. There was nothing on the wallsto break the sombre monotony of those long vistas of shade. No carvingson the wainscoting, no moulded masks peering down from the simply severecornices, no marble vases on the landings. There was an eminentdreariness and want of life--so rare in an American establishment--allover the abode. It was Hood's haunted house put in order and newlypainted. The servants, too, were shadowy, and chary of their visits. Bells rang three times before the gloomy chambermaid could be induced topresent herself; and the negro waiter, a ghoul-like looking creaturefrom Congo, obeyed the summons only when one's patience was exhausted orone's want satisfied in some other way. When he did come, one felt sorrythat he had not stayed away altogether, so sullen and savage did heappear. He moved along the echoless floors with a slow, noiselessshamble, until his dusky figure, advancing from the gloom, seemed likesome reluctant afreet, compelled by the superior power of his master todisclose himself. When the doors of all the chambers were closed, and nolight illuminated the long corridor save the red, unwholesome glare of asmall oil lamp on a table at the end, where late lodgers lit theircandles, one could not by any possibility conjure up a sadder or moredesolate prospect. 

Yet the house suited me. Of meditative and sedentary habits, I enjoyedthe extreme quiet. There were but few lodgers, from which I infer thatthe landlord did not drive a very thriving trade; and these, probablyoppressed by the sombre spirit of the place, were quiet and ghost-likein their movements. The proprietor I scarcely ever saw. My bills weredeposited by unseen hands every month on my table, while I was outwalking or riding, and my pecuniary response was intrusted to theattendant afreet. On the whole, when the bustling, wide-awake spirit ofNew York is taken into consideration, the sombre, half-vivifiedcharacter of the house in which I lived was an anomaly that no oneappreciated better than I who lived there. 

I felt my way down the wide, dark staircase in my pursuit of zephyrs. The garden, as I entered it, did feel somewhat cooler than my own room, and I puffed my cigar along the dim, cypress-shrouded walks with asensation of comparative relief. It was very dark. The tall-growingflowers that bordered the path were so wrapped in gloom as to presentthe aspect of solid pyramidal masses, all the details of leaves andblossoms being buried in an embracing darkness, while the trees had lostall form, and seemed like masses of overhanging cloud. It was a placeand time to excite the imagination; for in the impenetrable cavities ofendless gloom there was room for the most riotous fancies to play atwill. I walked and walked, and the echoes of my footsteps on theungravelled and mossy path suggested a double feeling. I felt alone andyet in company at the same time. The solitariness of the place madeitself distinct enough in the stillness, broken alone by the hollowreverberations of my step, while those very reverberations seemed toimbue me with an undefined feeling that I was not alone. I was not, therefore, much startled when I was suddenly accosted from beneath thesolid darkness of an immense cypress by a voice saying, "Will you giveme a light, sir?"

"Certainly, " I replied, trying in vain to distinguish the speaker amidstthe impenetrable dark. 

Somebody advanced, and I held out my cigar. All I could gatherdefinitively about the individual who thus accosted me was that he musthave been of extremely small stature; for I, who am by no means anovergrown man, had to stoop considerably in handing him my cigar. Thevigorous puff that he gave his own lighted up my Havana for a moment, and I fancied that I caught a glimpse of long, wild hair. The flash was, however, so momentary that I could not even say certainly whether thiswas an actual impression or the mere effort of imagination to embodythat which the senses had failed to distinguish. 

"Sir, you are out late, " said this unknown to me, as he, withhalf-uttered thanks, handed me back my cigar, for which I had to gropein the gloom. 

"Not later than usual, " I replied, dryly. 

"Hum! you are fond of late wanderings, then?"

"That is just as the fancy seizes me. "

"Do you live here?"

"Yes. "

"Queer house, isn't it?"

"I have only found it quiet. "

"Hum! But you _will_ find it queer, take my word for it. " This wasearnestly uttered; and I felt at the same time a bony finger laid on myarm, that cut it sharply like a blunted knife. 

"I cannot take your word for any such assertion, " I replied rudely, shaking off the bony finger with an irrepressible motion of disgust. 

"No offence, no offence, " muttered my unseen companion rapidly, in astrange, subdued voice, that would have been shrill had it been louder;"your being angry does not alter the matter. You will find it a queerhouse. Everybody finds it a queer house. Do you know who live there?"

"I never busy myself, sir, about other people's affairs, " I answeredsharply, for the individual's manner, combined with my utter uncertaintyas to his appearance, oppressed me with an irksome longing to be rid ofhim. 

"O, you don't? Well, I do. I know what they are--well, well, well!" andas he pronounced the three last words his voice rose with each, until, with the last, it reached a shrill shriek that echoed horribly among thelonely walks. "Do you know what they eat?" he continued. 

"No, sir, --nor care. "

"O, but you will care. You must care. You shall care. I'll tell you whatthey are. They are enchanters. They are ghouls. They are cannibals. Didyou never remark their eyes, and how they gloated on you when youpassed? Did you never remark the food that they served up at your table?Did you never in the dead of night hear muffled and unearthly footstepsgliding along the corridors, and stealthy hands turning the handle ofyour door? Does not some magnetic influence fold itself continuallyaround you when they pass, and send a thrill through spirit and body, and a cold shiver that no sunshine will chase away? O, you have! Youhave felt all these things! I know it!"

The earnest rapidity, the subdued tones, the eagerness of accent, withwhich all this was uttered, impressed me most uncomfortably. It reallyseemed as if I could recall all those weird occurrences and influencesof which he spoke; and I shuddered in spite of myself in the midst ofthe impenetrable darkness that surrounded me. 

"Hum!" said I, assuming, without knowing it, a confidential tone, "may Iask you how you know these things?"

"How I know them? Because I am their enemy; because they tremble at mywhisper; because I hang upon their track with the perseverance of abloodhound and the stealthiness of a tiger; because--because--I was _of_them once!"

"Wretch!" I cried excitedly, for involuntarily his eager tones hadwrought me up to a high pitch of spasmodic nervousness, "then you meanto say that you----"

As I uttered this word, obeying an uncontrollable impulse, I stretchedforth my hand in the direction of the speaker and made a blind clutch. The tips of my fingers seemed to touch a surface as smooth as glass, that glided suddenly from under them. A sharp, angry hiss soundedthrough the gloom, followed by a whirring noise, as if some projectilepassed rapidly by, and the next moment I felt instinctively that I wasalone. 

A most disagreeable feeling instantly assailed me;--a prophetic instinctthat some terrible misfortune menaced me; an eager and overpoweringanxiety to get back to my own room without loss of time. I turned andran blindly along the dark cypress alley, every dusky clump of flowersthat rose blackly in the borders making my heart each moment cease tobeat. The echoes of my own footsteps seemed to redouble and assume thesounds of unknown pursuers following fast upon my track. The boughs oflilac-bushes and syringas, that here and there stretched partly acrossthe walk, seemed to have been furnished suddenly with hooked hands thatsought to grasp me as I flew by, and each moment I expected to beholdsome awful and impassable barrier fall across my track and wall me upforever. 

At length I reached the wide entrance. With a single leap I sprang upthe four or five steps that formed the stoop, and dashed along the hall, up the wide, echoing stairs, and again along the dim, funereal corridorsuntil I paused, breathless and panting, at the door of my room. Once sofar, I stopped for an instant and leaned heavily against one of thepanels, panting lustily after my late run. I had, however, scarcelyrested my whole weight against the door, when it suddenly gave way, andI staggered in head-foremost. To my utter astonishment the room I hadleft in profound darkness was now a blaze of light. So intense was theillumination that, for a few seconds while the pupils of my eyes werecontracting under the sudden change, I saw absolutely nothing save thedazzling glare. This fact in itself, coming on me with such uttersuddenness, was sufficient to prolong my confusion, and it was not untilafter several minutes had elapsed that I perceived the room was not onlyilluminated, but occupied. And such occupants! Amazement at the scenetook such possession of me that I was incapable of either moving oruttering a word. All that I could do was to lean against the wall, andstare blankly at the strange picture. 

It might have been a scene out of Faublas, or Gramont's Memoirs, orhappened in some palace of Minister Foucque. 

Round a large table in the centre of the room, where I had left astudent-like litter of books and papers, were seated half a dozenpersons. Three were men and three were women. The table was heaped witha prodigality of luxuries. Luscious eastern fruits were piled up insilver filigree vases, through whose meshes their glowing rinds shone inthe contrasts of a thousand hues. Small silver dishes that Benvenutomight have designed, filled with succulent and aromatic meats, weredistributed upon a cloth of snowy damask. Bottles of every shape, slender ones from the Rhine, stout fellows from Holland, sturdy onesfrom Spain, and quaint basket-woven flasks from Italy, absolutelylittered the board. Drinking-glasses of every size and hue filled up theinterstices, and the thirsty German flagon stood side by side with theaërial bubbles of Venetian glass that rest so lightly on theirthreadlike stems. An odour of luxury and sensuality floated through theapartment. The lamps that burned in every direction seemed to diffuse asubtle incense on the air, and in a large vase that stood on the floor Isaw a mass of magnolias, tuberoses, and jasmines grouped together, stifling each other with their honeyed and heavy fragrance. 

The inhabitants of my room seemed beings well suited to so sensual anatmosphere. The women were strangely beautiful, and all were attired indresses of the most fantastic devices and brilliant hues. Their figureswere round, supple, and elastic; their eyes dark and languishing; theirlips full, ripe, and of the richest bloom. The three men worehalf-masks, so that all I could distinguish were heavy jaws, pointedbeards, and brawny throats that rose like massive pillars out of theirdoublets. All six lay reclining on Roman couches about the table, drinking down the purple wines in large draughts, and tossing back theirheads and laughing wildly. 

I stood, I suppose, for some three minutes, with my back against thewall staring vacantly at the bacchanal vision, before any of therevellers appeared to notice my presence. At length, without anyexpression to indicate whether I had been observed from the beginning ornot, two of the women arose from their couches, and, approaching, tookeach a hand and led me to the table. I obeyed their motionsmechanically. I sat on a couch, between them as they indicated. Iunresistingly permitted them to wind their arms about my neck. 

"You must drink, " said one, pouring out a large glass of red wine, "hereis Clos Vougeout of a rare vintage; and here, " pushing a flask ofamber-hued wine before me, "is Lachryma Christi. "

"You must eat, " said the other, drawing the silver dishes toward her. "Here are cutlets stewed with olives, and here are slices of a _filet_stuffed with bruised sweet chestnuts"--and as she spoke, she, withoutwaiting for a reply, proceeded to help me. 

The sight of the food recalled to me the warnings I had received in thegarden. This sudden effort of memory restored to me my other facultiesat the same instant. I sprang to my feet, thrusting the women from mewith each hand. 

"Demons!" I almost shouted. "I will have none of your accursed food. Iknow you. You are cannibals, you are ghouls, you are enchanters. Begone, I tell you! Leave my room in peace!"

A shout of laughter from all six was the only effect that my passionatespeech produced. The men rolled on their couches, and their half-masksquivered with the convulsions of their mirth. The women shrieked, andtossed the slender wine-glasses wildly aloft, and turned to me and flungthemselves on my bosom fairly sobbing with laughter. 

"Yes, " I continued, as soon as the noisy mirth had subsided, "yes, Isay, leave my room instantly! I will have none of your unnatural orgieshere!"

"His room!" shrieked the woman on my right. 

"His room!" echoed she on my left. 

"His room! He calls it his room!" shouted the whole party, as theyrolled once more into jocular convulsions. 

"How know you that it is your room?" said one of the men who satopposite to me, at length, after the laughter had once more somewhatsubsided. 

"How do I know?" I replied indignantly. "How do I know my own room? Howcould I mistake it, pray? There's my furniture--my piano----"

"He calls that a piano, " shouted my neighbours, again in convulsions asI pointed to the corner where my huge piano, sacred to the memory ofBlokeeta, used to stand. "O, yes! It is his room. There--there is hispiano!"

The peculiar emphasis they laid on the word "piano" caused me toscrutinize the article I was indicating more thoroughly. Up to thistime, though utterly amazed at the entrance of these people into mychamber, and connecting them somewhat with the wild stories I had heardin the garden, I still had a sort of indefinite idea that the wholething was a masquerading freak got up in my absence, and that thebacchanalian orgie I was witnessing was nothing more than a portion ofsome elaborate hoax of which I was to be the victim. But when my eyesturned to the corner where I had left a huge and cumbrous piano, andbeheld a vast and sombre organ lifting its fluted front to the veryceiling, and convinced myself, by a hurried process of memory, that itoccupied the very spot in which I had left my own instrument, the littleself-possession that I had left forsook me. I gazed around mebewildered. 

In like manner everything was changed. In the place of that old haftlessdagger, connected with so many historic associations personal to myself, I beheld a Turkish yataghan dangling by its belt of crimson silk, whilethe jewels in the hilt blazed as the lamplight played upon them. In thespot where hung my cherished smoking cap, memorial of a buried love, aknightly casque was suspended on the crest of which a golden dragonstood in the act of springing. That strange lithograph of Calame was nolonger a lithograph, but it seemed to me that the portion of the wallwhich it covered, of the exact shape and size, had been cut out, and, inplace of the picture, a _real_ scene on the same scale, and with realactors, was distinctly visible. The old oak was there, and the stormysky was there; but I saw the branches of the oak sway with the tempest, and the clouds drive before the wind. The wanderer in his cloak wasgone; but in his place I beheld a circle of wild figures, men and women, dancing with linked hands around the hole of the great tree, chantingsome wild fragment of a song, to which the winds roared an unearthlychorus. The snow-shoes, too, on whose sinewy woof I had sped for manydays amidst Canadian wastes, had vanished, and in their place lay a pairof strange up-curled Turkish slippers, that had, perhaps, been many atime shuffled off at the doors of mosques, beneath the steady blaze ofan orient sun. 

All was changed. Wherever my eyes turned they missed familiar objects, yet encountered strange representatives. Still, in all the substitutesthere seemed to me a reminiscence of what they replaced. They seemedonly for a time transmuted into other shapes, and there lingered aroundthem the atmosphere of what they once had been. Thus I could have swornthe room to have been mine, yet there was nothing in it that I couldrightly claim. Everything reminded me of some former possession that itwas not. I looked for the acacia at the window, and lo! long silkenpalm-leaves swayed in through the open lattice; yet they had the samemotion and the same air of my favourite tree, and seemed to murmur tome, "Though we seem to be palm-leaves, yet are we acacia-leaves; yea, those very ones on which you used to watch the butterflies alight andthe rain patter while you smoked and dreamed!" So in all things; theroom was, yet was not, mine; and a sickening consciousness of my utterinability to reconcile its identity with its appearance overwhelmed me, and choked my reason. 

"Well, have you determined whether or not this is your room?" asked thegirl on my left, proffering me a huge tumbler creaming over withchampagne, and laughing wickedly as she spoke. 

"It is mine, " I answered, doggedly, striking the glass rudely with myhand, and dashing the aromatic wine over the white cloth. "I know thatit is mine; and ye are jugglers and enchanters who want to drive memad. "

"Hush! hush!" she said, gently, not in the least angered by my roughtreatment. "You are excited. Alf shall play something to soothe you. "

At her signal, one of the men sat down at the organ. After a short, wild, spasmodic prelude, he began what seemed to me to be a symphony ofrecollections. Dark and sombre, and all through full of quivering andintense agony, it appeared to recall a dark and dismal night, on a coldreef, around which an unseen but terribly audible ocean broke witheternal fury. It seemed as if a lonely pair were on the reef, oneliving, the other dead; one clasping his arms around the tender neck andnaked bosom of the other, striving to warm her into life, when his ownvitality was being each moment sucked from him by the icy breath of thestorm. Here and there a terrible wailing minor key would tremble throughthe chords like the shriek of sea-birds, or the warning of advancingdeath. While the man played I could scarce restrain myself. It seemed tobe Blokeeta whom I listened to, and on whom I gazed. That wondrous nightof pleasure and pain that I had once passed listening to him seemed tohave been taken up again at the spot where it had broken off, and thesame hand was continuing it. I stared at the man called Alf. There hesat with his cloak and doublet, and long rapier and mask of blackvelvet. But there was something in the air of the peaked beard, afamiliar mystery in the wild mass of raven hair that fell as ifwind-blown over his shoulders, which riveted my memory. 

"Blokeeta! Blokeeta!" I shouted, starting up furiously from the couch onwhich I was lying, and bursting the fair arms that were linked around myneck as if they had been hateful chains, --"Blokeeta! my friend! speak tome, I entreat you! Tell these horrid enchanters to leave me. Say that Ihate them. Say that I command them to leave my room. "

The man at the organ stirred not in answer to my appeal. He ceasedplaying, and the dying sound of the last note he had touched faded offinto a melancholy moan. The other men and the women burst once more intopeals of mocking laughter. 

"Why will you persist in calling this your room?" said the woman nextme, with a smile meant to be kind, but to me inexpressibly loathsome. "Have we not shown you by the furniture, by the general appearance ofthe place, that you are mistaken, and that this cannot be yourapartment? Rest content, then, with us. You are welcome here, and needno longer trouble yourself about your room. "

"Rest content!" I answered madly; "live with ghosts, eat of awful meats, and see awful sights! Never! never! You have cast some enchantment overthe place that has disguised it; but for all that I know it to be myroom. You shall leave it!"

"Softly, softly!" said another of the sirens. "Let us settle thisamicably. This poor gentleman seems obstinate and inclined to make anuproar. Now we do not want an uproar. We love the night and its quiet;and there is no night that we love so well as that on which the moon iscoffined in clouds. Is it not so, my brothers?"

An awful and sinister smile gleamed on the countenances of her unearthlyaudience, and seemed to glide visibly from underneath their masks. 

"Now, " she continued, "I have a proposition to make. It would beridiculous for us to surrender this room simply because this gentlemanstates that it is his; and yet I feel anxious to gratify, as far as maybe fair, his wild assertion of ownership. A room, after all, is not muchto us; we can get one easily enough, but still we should be loath togive this apartment up to so imperious a demand. We are willing, however, to _risk_ its loss. That is to say, "--turning to me, --"Ipropose that we play for the room. If you win, we will immediatelysurrender it to you just as it stands; if, on the contrary, you lose, you shall bind yourself to depart and never molest us again. "

Agonized at the ever-darkening mysteries that seemed to thicken aroundme, and despairing of being able to dissipate them by the mere exerciseof my own will, I caught almost gladly at the chance thus presented tome. The idea of my loss or my gain scarce entered into my calculations. All I felt was an indefinite knowledge that I might, in the wayproposed, regain in an instant, that quiet chamber and that peace ofmind of which I had so strangely been deprived. 

"I agree!" I cried eagerly; "I agree. Anything to rid myself of suchunearthly company!"

The woman touched a small golden bell that stood near her on the table, and it had scarce ceased to tinkle when a negro dwarf entered with asilver tray on which were dice-boxes and dice. A shudder passed over meas I thought in this stunted African I could trace a resemblance to theghoul-like black servant to whose attendance I had been accustomed. 

"Now, " said my neighbour, seizing one of the dice-boxes and giving methe other, "the highest wins. Shall I throw first?"

I nodded assent. She rattled the dice, and I felt an inexpressible loadlifted from my heart as she threw fifteen. 

"It is your turn, " she said, with a mocking smile; "but before youthrow, I repeat the offer I made you before. Live with us. Be one of us. We will initiate you into our mysteries and enjoyments, --enjoyments ofwhich you can form no idea unless you experience them. Come; it is nottoo late yet to change your mind. Be with us!"

My reply was a fierce oath, as I rattled the dice with spasmodicnervousness and flung them on the board. They rolled over and overagain, and during that brief instant I felt a suspense, the intensity ofwhich I have never known before or since. At last they lay before me. Ashout of the same horrible, maddening laughter rang in my ears. I peeredin vain at the dice, but my sight was so confused that I could notdistinguish the amount of the cast. This lasted for a few moments. Thenmy sight grew clear, and I sank back almost lifeless with despair as Isaw that I had thrown but _twelve_!

"Lost! lost!" screamed my neighbour, with a wild laugh. "Lost! lost!"shouted the deep voices of the masked men. "Leave us, coward!" they allcried; "you are not fit to be one of us. Remember your promise; leaveus!"

Then it seemed as if some unseen power caught me by the shoulders andthrust me toward the door. In vain I resisted. In vain I screamed andshouted for help. In vain I implored them for pity. All the reply I hadwas those mocking peals of merriment, while, under the invisibleinfluence, I staggered like a drunken man toward the door. As I reachedthe threshold the organ pealed out a wild triumphal strain. The powerthat impelled me concentrated itself into one vigorous impulse that sentme blindly staggering out into the echoing corridor, and as the doorclosed swiftly behind me, I caught one glimpse of the apartment I hadleft forever. A change passed like a shadow over it. The lamps died out, the siren women and masked men vanished, the flowers, the fruits, thebright silver and bizarre furniture faded swiftly, and I saw again, forthe tenth of a second, my own old chamber restored. There was the acaciawaving darkly; there was the table littered with books; there was theghostly lithograph, the dearly beloved smoking-cap, the Canadiansnow-shoes, the ancestral dagger. And there, at the piano, organ nolonger, sat Blokeeta playing. 

The next instant the door closed violently, and I was left standing inthe corridor stunned and despairing. 

As soon as I had partially recovered my comprehension I rushed madly tothe door, with the dim idea of beating it in. My fingers touched a coldand solid wall. There was no door! I felt all along the corridor formany yards on both sides. There was not even a crevice to give me hope. I rushed downstairs shouting madly. No one answered. In the vestibule Imet the negro; I seized him by the collar and demanded my room. Thedemon showed his white and awful teeth, which were filed into a saw-likeshape, and extricating himself from my grasp with a sudden jerk, fleddown the passage with a gibbering laugh. Nothing but echo answered to mydespairing shrieks. The lonely garden resounded with my cries as Istrode madly through the dark walls, and the tall funereal cypressesseemed to bury me beneath their heavy shadows. I met no one, --could findno one. I had to bear my sorrow and despair alone. 

Since that awful hour I have never found my room. Everywhere I look forit, yet never see it. Shall I ever find it?