Part 5

"The days go swiftly by With study and with work. I am too tired At night to think. I read anatomy, Materia medica and other things, And do the work an undergraduate Is called upon to do. And every week I spend three afternoons with the nuns and sew, And care for children of the poor whose mothers Are earning bread away. I go to church And talk with Mother Janet. And I pray At morning and at night for you, and ask For strength to live without you and for light To understand why love of you is mine, And why you are not mine, and whether God Will give you to me some day if I prove My womanhood is worthy of you, dear. And sometimes when our days of bliss come back And flood me with their warmth and blinding light I take my little crucifix and kiss it, And plunge in work to take me out of self, Some service to another. So it is, This sewing and this caring for the children Stills memory and gives me strength to live, And pass the days, go on. I shall not draw Upon your thought with letters, still I ask Your thought of me sometimes. Would it be much If once a year you sent me a bouquet To prove to me that you remember, sweet, Still cherish me a little, give me faith That in this riddle world there is a hand, Which spite of separation, thinks and touches Blossoms that I touch afterward? Dear heart, I have starved out and killed that reckless mood Which would have taken you and run away. Oh, if you knew that this means killing, too, The child I want--our child. You have a cross No less than I, beloved, even if love Of me has passed and eased the agony I thought you knew--your cross is heavy, dear, Bound, but not wedded to her, never to know The life of marriage with her. Yet be brave, Be noble, dear, be always what God made you, A great heart, patient, gentle, sacrificing, Bring comfort to her tedious days, forbear When she is petulant, for if you do, I know God will reward you, give you peace. I pray for strength for you, that never again May you distress her as you did, I did When she found there was someone. Lest she know Destroy this letter, all I ever write, So that her mind may never fix itself Upon a definite person, on myself. But still remaining vague may better pass To lighter shadows, nothingness at last. I try to think I sinned, have so confessed To get forgiveness at my first communion. And yet a vestige of a thought in me Will not submit, confess the sin. Well, dear, You can awake at midnight, at the pause Of duty in the day, merry or sad, Light hearted or discouraged, if you chance, To think of me, remember I send prayers To God for you each day--oh may His light Shine on your face!"

So Widow Wenner read, And wondered of the writer, since no name Was signed; and wept a little, dried her eyes And flushed with anger, said, "adulteress, Adulteress who played the game of pity, And wove about my husband's heart the spell Of masculine sympathy for a sorrowing woman, A trick as old as Eden. And who knows But all the money went here in the end? For if a woman plunges from her aim To piety, devotion such as this, She will plunge back to sin, unstable heart, That swings from self-denial to indulgence And spends itself in both."

Then Widow Wenner Took up the second letter:

"I have signed To go to France to-day. I wrote you once I planned to take the veil, become a nun. But now the war has changed my thought. I see In service for my country fuller life, More useful sacrifice and greater work Than ever I could have, being a nun. The cause is so momentous. Think, my dear, This woman who still thinks of you will be A factor in this war for liberty, A soldier serving soldiers, giving strength, Health, hope and spirit to the soldier boys Who fall, must be restored to fight again. I've thrown my soul in this, am all aflame. You should have seen me when I took the oath, And raised my hand and pledged my word to serve, Support the law. I want to think of you As proud of me for doing this--be proud, Be grateful, too, that I have strength and will To give myself to this. And if it chance, As almost I am hoping, that the work Should break me, sweep me under, think of me As one who died for country, as I shall As truly as the soldiers slain in battle. I leave to-morrow, will be at a camp Some weeks before I sail. I telephoned you This morning twice, they said you would return By two-o'clock at least. I write instead. But I shall come to see you, if I can Sometime this afternoon, and if I don't, This letter then must answer. Peace be with you. To-day I'm very happy. Write to me, Or if you do not think it best, all right, I'll understand. Before I sail I'll send A message to you--for the time farewell."

Then Widow Wenner read the telegram The third and last communication: "Sail To-day, to-morrow, very soon, I know. My memories of you are happy ones. A fond adieu." This telegram was signed By Elenor Murray. Widow Wenner knew The name at last, sat petrified to think This was the girl who brazened through the dinner Some years ago when Gregory Wenner brought This woman to his home--"the shameless trull," Said Mrs. Wenner, "harlot, impudent jade, To think my husband is dead, would she were dead-- I could be happy if I knew a bomb Or vile disease had got her." Then she looked In other pigeon holes, and found in one A photograph of Elenor Murray, knew The face that looked across the dinner table. And in the pigeon hole she found some verses Clipped from a magazine, and tucked away The letters, verses, telegram in her bag, Closed up the safe and left.

Next day at breakfast She scanned the morning _Times_, her eyes were wide For reading of the Elenor Murray inquest. "Well, God is just," she murmured, "God is just."

* * * * *

All this was learned of Gregory Wenner. Even If Gregory Wenner killed the girl, the man Was dead now. Could he kill her and return And kill himself? The coroner had gone, The jury too, to view the spot where lay Elenor Murray's body. It was clear A man had walked here. Was it Gregory Wenner? The hunter who came up and found the body? This hunter was a harmless, honest soul Could not have killed her, passed the grill of questions From David Borrow, skilled examiner, The coroner, the jurors. But meantime If Gregory Wenner killed this Elenor Murray How did he do it? Dr. Trace has made His autopsy and comes and makes report To the coroner and the jury in these words:--

DR. TRACE TO THE CORONER

I cannot tell you, Coroner, the cause Of death of Elenor Murray, not until My chemical analysis is finished. Here is the woman's heart sealed in this jar, I weighed it, weight nine ounces, if she had A hemolysis, cannot tell you now What caused the hemolysis. Since you say She took no castor oil, that you can learn From Irma Leese, or any witness, still A chemical analysis may show The presence of ricin,--and that she took A dose of oil not pure. Her throat betrayed Slight inflammation; but in brief, I wait My chemical analysis.

Let's exclude The things we know and narrow down the facts. She lay there by the river, death had come Some twenty hours before. No stick or stone, No weapon near her, bottle, poison box, No bruise upon her, in her mouth no dust, No foreign bodies in her nostrils, neck Without a mark, no punctures, cuts or scars Upon her anywhere, no water in lungs, No mud, sand, straws or weeds in hands, the nails Clean, as if freshly manicured.

Again No evidence of rape. I first examined The genitals _in situ_, found them sound. The girl had lived, was not a virgin, still Had temperately indulged, and not at all In recent months, no evidence at all Of conjugation willingly or not, The day of death. But still I lifted out The ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus, The vagina and vulvae. Opened up The mammals, found no milk. No pregnancy Existed, sealed these organs up to test For poison later, as we doctors know Sometimes a poison's introduced _per vaginam_.

I sealed the brain up too, shall make a test Of blood and serum for urea; death Comes suddenly from that, you find no lesion, Must take a piece of brain and cut it up, Pour boiling water on it, break the brain To finer pieces, pour the water off, Digest the piece of brain in other water, Repeat four times, the solutions mix together, Dry in an oven, treat with ether, at last The residue put on a slide of glass With nitric acid, let it stand awhile, Then take your microscope--if there's urea You'll see the crystals--very beautiful! A cobra's beautiful, but scarce can kill As quick as these.

Likewise I have sealed up The stomach, liver, kidneys, spleen, intestines, So many poisons have no microscopic Appearance that convinces, opium, Hyoscyamus, belladonna fool us; But as the stomach had no inflammation, It was not chloral, ether took her off, Which we can smell, to boot. But I can find Strychnia, if it killed her; though you know That case in England sixty years ago, Where the analysis did not disclose Strychnia, though they hung a man for giving That poison to a fellow.

To recur I'm down to this: Perhaps a hemolysis-- But what produced it? If I find no ricin I turn to streptococcus, deadly snake, Or shall I call him tiger? For I think The microscopic world of living things Is just a little jungle, filled with tigers, Snakes, lions, what you will, with teeth and claws, The perfect miniatures of these monstrous foes. Sweet words come from the lips and tender hands Like Elenor Murray's, minister, nor know The jungle has been roused in throat or lungs; And shapes venene begin to crawl and eat The ruddy apples of the blood, eject Their triple venomous excreta in The channels of the body.

There's the heart, Which may be weakened by a streptococcus. But if she had a syncope and fell She must have bruised her body or her head. And if she had a syncope, was held up, Who held her up? That might have cost her life: To be held up in syncope. You know You lay a person down in syncope, And oftentimes the heart resumes its beat. Perhaps she was held up until she died, Then laid there by the river, so no bruise. So many theories come to me. But again, I say to you, look for a man. Run down All clues of Gregory Wenner. He is dead-- Loss of a building drives to suicide-- The papers say, but still it may be true He was with Elenor Murray when she died, Pushed her, we'll say, or struck her in a way To leave no mark, a tap upon the heart That shocked the muscles more or less obscure That bind the auricles and ventricles, And killed her. Then he flies away in fear, Aghast at what he does, and kills himself. Look for a man, I say. It must be true, She went so secretly to walk that morning To meet a man--why would she walk alone?

So while you hunt the man, I'll look for ricin, And with my chemicals end up the search. I never saw a heart more beautiful, Just look at it. We doctors all agreed This Elenor Murray might have lived to ninety Except for jungles, poison, sudden shock. I take my bottle with the heart of Elenor And go about my way. It beat in France, It beat for France and for America, But what is truer, somewhere was a man For whom it beat!

* * * * *

When Irma Leese, the Aunt of Elenor Murray, Appeared before the coroner she told Of Elenor Murray's visit, of the morning She left to walk, was never seen again. And brought the coroner some letters sent By Elenor from France. What follows now Is what the coroner, or the jury heard From Irma Leese, from letters drawn--beside The riffle that the death of Elenor Murray Sent round the life of Irma Leese, which spread To Tokio and touched a man, the son Of Irma Leese's sister, dead Corinne, The mother of this man in Tokio.

IRMA LEESE

Elenor Murray landing in New York, After a weary voyage, none too well, Staid in the city for a week and then Upon a telegram from Irma Leese, Born Irma Fouche, her aunt who lived alone This summer in the Fouche house near LeRoy, Came west to visit Irma Leese and rest.

For Elenor Murray had not been herself Since that hard spring when in the hospital, Caring for soldiers stricken with the flu, She took bronchitis, after weeks in bed Rose weak and shaky, crept to health again Through egg-nogs, easy strolls about Bordeaux. And later went to Nice upon a furlough To get her strength again.

But while she saw Her vital flame burn brightly, as of old On favored days, yet for the rest the flame Sputtered or sank a little. So she thought How good it might be to go west and stroll About the lovely country of LeRoy, And hear the whispering cedars by a window In the Fouche mansion where this Irma Leese, Her aunt, was summering. So she telegraphed, And being welcomed, went.

This stately house, Built sixty years before by Arthur Fouche, A brick home with a mansard roof, an oriel That looked between the cedars, and a porch With great Ionic columns, from the street Stood distantly amid ten acres of lawn, Trees, flower plots--belonged to Irma Leese, Who had reclaimed it from a chiropractor, To cleanse the name of Fouche from that indignity, And bring it in the family again, Since she had spent her girlhood, womanhood To twenty years amid its twenty rooms. For Irma Leese at twenty years had married And found herself at twenty-five a widow, With money left her, then had tried again, And after years dissolved the second pact, And made a settlement, was rich in fact, Now forty-two. Five years before had come And found the house she loved a sanitarium, A chiropractor's home. And as she stood Beside the fence and saw the oriel, Remembered all her happiness on this lawn With brothers and with sisters, one of whom Was Elenor Murray's mother, then she willed To buy the place and spend some summers here. And here she was the summer Elenor Murray Returned from France.

And Irma Leese had said: "Here is your room, it has the oriel, And there's the river and the hills for you. Have breakfast in your room what hour you will, Rise when you will. We'll drive and walk and rest, Run to Chicago when we have a mind. I have a splendid chauffeur now and maids. You must grow strong and well."

And Elenor Murray Gasped out her happiness for the pretty room, And stood and viewed the river and the hills, And wept a little on the gentle shoulder Of Irma Leese.

And so the days had passed Of walking, driving, resting, many talks; For Elenor Murray spoke to Irma Leese Of tragic and of rapturous days in France, And Irma Leese, though she had lived full years, Had scarcely lived as much as Elenor Murray, And could not hear enough from Elenor Murray Of the war and France, but mostly she would urge Her niece to tell of what affairs of love Had come to her. And Elenor Murray told Of Gregory Wenner, save she did not tell The final secret, with a gesture touched The story off by saying: It was hopeless, I went into religion to forget. But on a day she said to Irma Leese: "I almost met my fate at Nice," then sketched A hurried picture of a brief romance. But Elenor Murray told her nothing else Of loves or men. But all the while the aunt Weighed Elenor Murray, on a day exclaimed: "I see myself in you, and you are like Your Aunt Corinne who died in ninety-two. I'll tell you all about your Aunt Corinne Some day when we are talking, but I see You have the Fouche blood--we are lovers all. Your mother is a lover, Elenor, If you would know it."

"O, your Aunt Corinne She was most beautiful, but unfortunate. Her husband was past sixty when she married, And she was thirty-two. He was distinguished, Had money and all that, but youth is all, Is everything for love, and she was young, And he was old."

A week or two had passed Since Elenor Murray came to Irma Leese, When on a morning fire broke from the eaves And menaced all the house; but maids and gardeners With buckets saved the house, while Elenor Murray And Irma Leese dipped water from the barrels That stood along the ell.

A week from that A carpenter was working at the eaves Along the ell, and in the garret knelt To pry up boards and patch. When as he pried A board up, he beheld between the rafters A package of old letters stained and frayed, Tied with a little ribbon almost dust. And when he went down-stairs, delivered it To Irma Leese and said: Here are some letters I found up in the garret under the floor, I pried up in my work.

Then Irma Leese Looked at the letters, saw her sister's hand, Corinne's upon the letters, opened, read, And saw the story which she knew before Brought back in this uncanny way, the hand Which wrote the letters six and twenty years Turned back to dust. And when her niece came in She showed the letters, said, "I'll let you read, I'll tell you all about them":

"When Corinne Was nineteen, very beautiful and vital, Red-cheeked, a dancer, bubbling like new wine, A catch, as you may know, you see this house Was full of laughter then, so many children. We had our parties, too, and young men thought, Each one of us would have a dowry splendid-- A young man from Chicago came along, A lawyer there, but lately come from Pittsburgh To practice, win his way. I knew this man. He was a handsome dog with curly hair, Blue eyes and sturdy figure. Well, Corinne Quite lost her heart. He came here to a dance, And so the game commenced. And father thought The fellow was not right, but all of us, Your mother and myself said, yes he is, And we conspired to help Corinne and smooth The path of confidence. But later on Corinne was not so buoyant, would not talk With me, your mother freely. Then at last Her eyes were sometimes red; we knew she wept. And, then Corinne was sent away. Well, here You'll guess the rest. Her health was breaking down, That's true enough; the world could think its thoughts, And say his love grew cold, or she found out The black-leg that he was, and he was that. But Elenor, the truth was more than that, Corinne had been betrayed, she went away To right herself--these letters prove the case, Which all the gossips, busy as they were, Could not make out. The paper at LeRoy Had printed that she went to pay a visit To relatives in the east. Three months or so She came back well and rosy. But meanwhile Your grandfather had paid this shabby scoundrel A sum of money, I forget the sum, To get these letters of your Aunt Corinne-- These letters here. This matter leaked, of course. And then we let the story take this form And moulded it a little to this form: The fellow was a scoundrel--this was proved When he took money to return her letters. They were love letters, they had been engaged, She thought him worthy, found herself deceived Proved, too, by taking money, when at first He looked with honorable eyes to young Corinne, And won her trust. And so Corinne lived here Ten years or more, at thirty married the judge, Her senior thirty years, and went away. She bore a child and died--look Elenor Here are the letters which she took and nailed Beneath the garret floor. We'll read them through, And then I'll burn them."

Irma Leese rose up And put the letters in her desk and said: "Let's ride along the river." So they rode, But as they rode, the day being clear and mild The fancy took them to Chicago, where They lunched and spent the afternoon, returning At ten o'clock that night.

And the next morning When Irma Leese expected Elenor To rise and join her, asked for her, a maid Told Irma Leese that Elenor had gone To walk somewhere. And all that day she waited. But as night came, she fancied Elenor Had gone to see her mother, once rose up To telephone, then stopped because she felt Elenor might have plans she would not wish Her mother to get wind of--let it go. But when night came, she wondered, fell asleep With wondering and worry.

But next morning As she was waiting for the car to come To motor to LeRoy, and see her sister, Elenor's mother, in a casual way, Learn if her niece was there, and waiting read The letters of Corinne, the telephone Rang in an ominous way, and Irma Leese Sprang up to answer, got the tragic word Of Elenor Murray found beside the river. Left all the letters spilled upon her desk And motored to the river, to LeRoy Where Coroner Merival took the body.

Just As Irma Leese departed, in the room A sullen maid revengeful for the fact She was discharged, was leaving in a day, Entered and saw the letters, read a little, And gathered them, went to her room and packed Her telescope and left, went to LeRoy, And gave a letter to this one and that, Until the servant maids and carpenters And some lubricous fellows at LeRoy Who made companions of these serving maids, Had each a letter of the dead Corinne, Which showed at last, after some twenty years, Of silence and oblivion, to LeRoy With memory to refresh, that poor Corinne Had given her love, herself, had been betrayed, Abandoned by a scoundrel.

Merival, The Coroner, when told about the letters, For soon the tongues were wagging in LeRoy, Went here and there to find them, till he learned What quality of love the dead Corinne Had given to this man. Then shook his head, Resolved to see if he could not unearth In Elenor Murray's life some faithless lover Who sought her death.

The letters' riffle crawled Through shadows of the waters of LeRoy Until it looked a snake, was seen as such In Tokio by Franklin Hollister, The son of dead Corinne; it seemed a snake: He heard the coroner through neglect or malice Had let the letters scatter--not the truth;-- The coroner had gathered up the letters, Befriending Irma Leese; she got them back Through Merival. The riffle's just the same. And hence this man in Tokio is crazed For shame and fear--for fear the girl he loves Will hear his mother's story and break off Her marriage promise.

So in reckless rage He posts a letter off to Lawyer Hood, Chicago, Illinois--the coroner Gets all the story through this Lawyer Hood, Long after Elenor's inquest is at end. Meantime he cools, is wiser, thinks it bad To stir the scandal with a suit at law. And then when cooled he hears from Lawyer Hood Who tells him what the truth is. So it ends.

* * * * *

These letters and the greenish wave that coiled At Tokio is beyond the coroner's eye Fixed on the water where the pebble fell:-- This death of Elenor, circles close at hand Engage his interest. Now he seeks to learn About her training and religious life. And hears of Miriam Fay, a friend he thinks, And confidant of her religious life, Head woman of the school where Elenor Learned chemistry, materia medica, Anatomy, to fit her for the work Of nursing. And he writes this Miriam Fay And Miriam Fay responds. The letter comes Before the jury. Here is what she wrote:--

MIRIAM FAY'S LETTER