Part 3

“While I stood revolving in my mind this terrible mystery I heard the sound of hurried footsteps. My wife had returned from her afternoon walk. I went downstairs, arriving in the lower hall just as she entered. She came sweeping in with her usual vivacity, her eyes bright, a faint rose tint on her cheeks, enveloped in that atmosphere of exhilaration that was like a breath of ozone, and which gave her a charm above ordinary women.

“Something in my appearance must have startled her, for she paused at sight of me and waited for me to approach. I went to her, kissed her, and then, clasping her gloved wrists in mine, looked steadfastly at her and said, ‘Dear, where is Leila?’

“In a moment her brilliant color faded. Her eyes fell. Then, suddenly wrenching herself free from me, she moved unsteadily towards the staircase, pausing with her hand on the banister only long enough to say, ‘You have broken your pledge. Leave me alone until to-morrow. Then you shall know everything.’

“Then I heard the sound of her garments on the stairs, presently the closing of her door, and the key turning in the lock.

“All that night I restlessly walked the floor of my room, trying to bring order out of the chaos of my mind. Fear, love, trust, suspicion, all by turns possessed me; but in the end my belief in the goodness of the woman I loved conquered. At early dawn I knocked at my wife’s door. There was no response. I tried the knob; it yielded and I entered. There was a dim light in the room; but she was gone. On her dressing-table was a letter which told me all.

“The first few paragraphs are sacred to me alone. I will begin her letter where she commenced her own history.

“‘My name,’ she wrote, ‘is Olive Berkeley. I was born in England, the only child of a retired naval officer. My father had a moderate fortune, and for eighteen years I lived a quiet, carefree life in a Devonshire country-house. During my nineteenth year my father’s income was so much reduced by unlucky investments that we moved to London that I might study art, with a view to supporting myself. Two years later my father, who was my only near relative, died suddenly, leaving me less than a hundred pounds clear of debt. By this time, however, I felt confident of success in my profession, and, thinking America offered a better field than England for a self-supporting woman, I came to New York. Here I took a studio with the intention of giving lessons in drawing and painting.

“‘But the pupils did not come; my pictures failed to catch the popular fancy; my money was soon spent. Overwork and worry culminated in illness, and I soon found myself deeply in debt without a friend in the world to whom I could apply for aid. In this extremity I accepted the first work I could obtain—a situation as companion to Mrs. Paul Fancourt.

“‘This woman, whose violent temper and moody disposition had driven her husband to foreign countries before the honeymoon was over, was the terror of her household. She, I believe, took a dislike to me from the first on account of a singular resemblance between us, and also because she saw I was her equal by birth and education. At any rate, she delighted in humiliating me in every way, as well as in making my duties as laborious as possible. I hated to touch a morsel of food under her roof, but my unmet obligations made it impossible for me to resign my position, as I did not know where else I could obtain remunerative work, and I had a horror of debt. But, though I outwardly kept my temper, a volcano of hurt pride and misery burned within me.

“‘One Wednesday night I went to my room more than usually worn and enraged by Mrs. Fancourt’s caprices. It had been one of her stormiest days, culminating in the discharge of her butler, and the bitterest invectives against the other servants. I had just retired, and had hardly fallen asleep, when the bell over my head rang violently. Springing up, I slipped on a dressing-gown and went downstairs. Mrs. Fancourt was sitting in an easy-chair reading a novel. The hands of the clock on the mantel pointed to eleven. Without looking at me, she motioned to a table not three yards away, saying insolently, “Bring me that paper-knife.”

“‘“Never,” I answered passionately.

“‘With this she rose and came towards me, striking me full in the face with the paper-covered novel in her hand.

“‘Then it was as if all my pent-up self-control snapped. I sprang toward her, seized her by the shoulders, shook her until my strength was spent, and flung her from me.

“‘She fell heavily, striking her temple upon a sharp corner of the fender, where she lay quite still. I hurried forward and spoke to her. There was no response and I lifted her face to the firelight. To my horror I found that she was dead.

“‘And what was to become of me? I had killed her in a fit of passion, I could not deny, though it was by accident. How could I prove my innocence? I was without friends or money. When my debts were brought to light, might not theft and the fear of discovery be advanced as the motive for the crime? If not the scaffold, I saw, at least, prison bars before me.

“‘Instinctively looking around for something to wrap about me, I caught up a satin-lined garment of Mrs. Fancourt, and, slipping it on, rang the bell. Wishing to spare the one who answered it a shock, I met the housekeeper in the hall.

“‘“What is it, Mrs. Fancourt?” asked the woman very respectfully, evidently mistaking me for her mistress.

“‘In that instant there flashed into my half-crazed brain the wild idea that I might personify Mrs. Fancourt for the time being. The death of the poor, unknown English girl could be of little moment, while the announcement of the death of Mrs. Fancourt would cause much more comment.

“‘With this idea, I told the housekeeper to come to me in half an hour; then, with the courage of desperation, I clothed the dead body in one of my dresses, arrayed myself in one of Mrs. Fancourt’s gowns, darkened my eyebrows to simulate hers, and let my hair fall about my face in confusion.

“‘Meantime, I had determined to insure myself against detection by the three remaining servants by getting rid of them at once, a plan rendered all the easier by the fact that it simply carried out Mrs. Fancourt’s mood of the day. In fact, it had been her custom to vent her feelings by discharging her entire corps of servants in a body and with no warning; and their comings and goings caused not the slightest comment.

“‘The scheme succeeded to perfection. The other servants, terrified by the catastrophe, gladly left the house at once, especially as each was provided with two weeks’ wages in advance. Mrs. Fancourt’s only sister and near relative was traveling in Europe; her husband was at the antipodes. Of course there was a coroner’s inquest; but, as nothing was proven to the contrary, a verdict of death by accident was brought in. The whole matter passed off very quietly; few outside the household knew that Mrs. Fancourt had an English companion or that she had died. Those who did thought it very kind of Mrs. Fancourt to give the companion burial in her own family lot.

“‘Then I fell sick, and for weeks raved with brain fever. When I recovered I was but the ghost of my former self, and friends of the dead woman who came to call after my recovery said they never would have known me.

“‘As soon as I was able I devoted myself to art, which now, by a freak of fortune, brought me large returns. I not only paid the debts of my “deceased English companion,” but supported myself comfortably without touching the fund left at the disposal of Mrs. Fancourt by her husband. That I never could have done. I should have been happy but for the grief I felt at having—though unwittingly—caused the death of another. There has never been a moment when I would not have willingly yielded up my life, could it have restored that of my victim. The fact that I usurped her name and position was due to a momentary cowardice. There was only one thing belonging to the dead woman that I coveted, and that was her husband!—and not even him until that night of nights when he came into my monotonous life and kissed me with that quiet air of ownership and dominion!

“‘I had dreaded your coming, fearing you, above all others, would discover the fraud. And when your message reached me, and, on the impulse of the moment, I sent that fatal answer, “Come,” it had hardly left my hand before I regretted it. For at once it flashed upon me how impossible it would be to account for all or to conceal all. But from the instant that you stood before me I was conquered by another feeling than that of dread,—I loved you. Love and not fear held me to the lie. And it was my respect for you and for myself that made me insist upon that marriage ceremony.

“‘I always knew that should you discover the deceit I should leave you—not because I felt guilty of crime—for of that I have always felt morally innocent—but because I won and married you under false pretenses. I cannot bear to lose one iota of your respect and remain where I can miss it.’”

Here Paul Fancourt closed his story. I heard the high wind lashing the trees; darkness was growing dense; the early November evening was closing in.

“It was seven years ago to-night that I first met her in this house,” went on Fancourt.

“Surely you have taken measures to find her?”

“I have done everything under heaven. Once in awhile I grow desperate and try everything over again. But it is useless. And yet I have a feeling that she will return, and that if she does it will be to this house. So I am just waiting here, waiting—

“Well, John?”

“A lady to see you, sir,” said the butler at the door.

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know, sir; she wouldn’t give any name.”

Fancourt rose and went towards the door; but before he reached it his visitor pushed past the servant and stood,—a tall, veiled figure in black,—clutching nervously at the drapery at the door. Then she threw back her veil. I caught a glimpse of a marvelous face and hair sprinkled with snow about the temples, of two dark, beautiful eyes fixed on Paul.

“I—I couldn’t stay away—any longer,” she whispered huskily.

Fancourt rushed towards her with an inarticulate cry. Then, with hands outstretched, “My wife,” he gasped, “I—”

But what followed I shall never know; for the next moment I had retreated into the library, where for half an hour I sat diligently reading a book held upside down.

What I do know, however, is this: All that I have told happened three years ago; and up to the present time Paul Fancourt’s third experiment in matrimony has proved a triumphant success.

A Telepathic Wooing.

BY JAMES BUCKHAM.

Dr. Amsden was utterly and hopelessly in love with beautiful Miriam Foote. But, in spite of his six feet of splendid manhood—or, perhaps, because of them—the young doctor was so timid in the presence of the fair sex, and particularly in the presence of the fascinating Miriam, that he could no more bring himself to utter a syllable of sentiment to that young woman than he could walk up to the venerable and dignified president of the State Medical Association and tweak his nose! The two things seemed equally preposterous and impossible.

At this juncture of affairs, curiously enough, there fell into the hands of Dr. Amsden a book that offered a magical solution of the problem that perplexed him,—viz., how to make love to the woman who had ensnared his heart, without being conscious of doing it. This book was called “The Law of Psychic Phenomena,” and its central theory was that the “subjective mind,” or soul, of any person, by a process of auto-suggestion, may enter into communication with the subjective mind of another person, at any distance whatsoever. A condition of sleep, either cataleptic or natural, is induced by the agent in himself; but previously to falling to sleep he must concentrate his whole mental energy and will-power upon the determination to convey a certain image, or message, or both to the subjective mind of the person with whom he wishes to communicate. Then away goes his spirit—his phantasm—while he is buried in unconscious slumber, appears in his very image to the person designated, and delivers the message with his very voice and manner. Truly, a marvelous theory, and of untold significance to timid lover’s and bashful solicitors of every kind.

According to this theory, Dr. Amsden, in order to make telepathic love to Miriam Foote, need simply drop to sleep, on a certain night, with a strong determination to send his phantasm to the young woman with an eloquent plea of affection. That was all. It was not even necessary for him to furnish the general substance, introduction, or any portion of this glowing address. He need simply specify that it should be passionate and rich in verbal color,—ordering a proposal much as he would a dinner at a first-class hotel, with perfect confidence that at the proper time it would be served in proper form. To be sure, this method of wooing was not in strict accordance with the traditional etiquette of such affairs. It might even be considered that this proposal by a sort of phantasmal proxy was hardly fair to the object of the experiment. A ghost is, after all, but a ghost, whether it be attached to a bodily tenement or be simply a spirit at large, and even the most heavenly minded young woman might cherish a prejudice in favor of a fleshly lover. On the other hand, however, the choice lay not between two methods of wooing, but between this and none at all; and how easy, how delightful a method of making a proposal of marriage. It could all be performed, like a painful surgical operation, during merciful sleep. Then the lover when next he met the lady in his every-day person would know by her manner whether she had accepted or rejected him. The more Dr. Amsden considered this fascinating project the more trivial seemed his scruples against its fulfilment. Indeed, he asked himself judicially, was it not a fundamental doctrine of metaphysics that only the soul was real, and so-called matter was simply the shadow cast by the spirit? This being the case, his vulgarly named ghost was in reality no ghost at all, while his bodily presence was the real phantasm.

Having arrived at this comfortable, though to the lay mind slightly abstruse, conclusion, Amsden wavered no longer. “I will do it,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I will do it to-night—or—no, a few days must be given to subduing the flesh and concentrating the energies of the subjective mind. On Saturday evening, at the time of my regular weekly call, I will make an end to this painful uncertainty. Though I cannot but hope that she looks upon my suit with favor, I shall never dare to broach the subject of love openly in the flesh. My ghost—or, at least, what is vulgarly known as a ghost—shall speak, and I will abide by the result.”

On his return from dinner that evening Dr. Amsden locked all the doors and darkened all the windows of his apartments. Then, after smoking a meditative cigar, he went to bed. It was barely eight o’clock in the evening when his head touched the pillow, but, as he had planned to send his image to Miss Foote at precisely nine o’clock, before that young lady should have retired to her chamber, he wished to have ample time to get himself to sleep. Besides, he was really tired and drowsy, which was certainly a favorable condition for his experiment. He had feared that he would be excited and nervous; but already the suggestion of sleep which he had been constantly reiterating for the past hour was beginning to tell upon his brain. The formula, “I am about to go to sleep, I am becoming sleepy, I sleep,” was having a most magical effect.

Dr. Amsden dropped into the misty chasm of slumber in less than fifteen minutes after getting to bed. But that fifteen minutes had been spent in strenuous command, on the part of the objective mind, that the subjective mind should go, at precisely nine o’clock, to the home of Miss Foote, present itself in the exact and correct image of the lover, and make an ardent appeal to the affections of the lady.

In about two hours Amsden awoke, bathed in perspiration, and feeling thoroughly exhausted. He was not conscious of having dreamed at all, and yet it seemed to him as if he had just shaken off a most horrible nightmare. He arose, lit the gas, and consulted his watch. It was just ten o’clock. “Thank heaven,” he cried, “I did not wake before the time!” He went back to bed, and fell instantly into the deep slumber of complete exhaustion, from which he did not wake until late the next morning.

For two days he did not see Miss Foote. Then he summoned up courage to call upon her. She came downstairs looking pale and anxious, and the moment that Amsden’s eyes fell upon her his heart began to throb with suffocating violence. Undoubtedly his experiment had succeeded as far as the proposal was concerned—but should his attitude be that of the accepted or rejected lover?

Hardly noticing his stammering expressions of solicitude for her altered looks, Miriam led the way into the drawing-room, and, motioning him to a chair, seated herself in a dim corner at the other side of the room. Then, with her blue eyes lowered and her fingers twisting nervously, she said:—

“Dr. Amsden, I owe you an apology. When you called two nights ago and asked me to be your wife I was too much agitated to answer you. To tell the truth,” she continued, reddening a little, “the eloquence of your words, their poetry and melody, so surprised and overcame me that I could not answer as you deserved. When I left you and walked to the other side of the room it was only that I might gain possession of myself, and when I looked up and found you gone—”

“Gone!” exclaimed Amsden, groaning audibly.

“Yes, gone like a spirit (here Miss Foote paused, while Amsden clutched at his chair, feeling as though his whole body were turning to sand and dribbling down upon the floor) without a word of good-bye, I feared that I had mortally offended you and that you would never come back to—”

“Then you were not angry because my ghost—because I left like a ghost? You wanted me to come back? But why?”

“I—I think you ought to know,” said the girl, blushing.

And the next moment Dr. Amsden was kneeling at her feet.

“I did it in a dream—no, I don’t mean that—I mean this is a dream. I ought to explain.”

“No, don’t try. I understand,” said Miriam softly.

The girl’s head sank forward on his shoulder. She was crying a little, but she suffered her lover’s arms to slip around her waist, and into his trembling hand she pressed her own.

It was done, the impossible, the inconceivable! And even Amsden felt in his heaving heart that he had never done anything so easy and so utterly delightful in his whole life.

It was true that Miriam did not understand, but Amsden felt that at such a juncture any explanations would be not merely out of place, but even indelicate.

To his credit be it said, however, that on one occasion before his marriage he attempted to confess to Miriam all the circumstances of his proposal; but while he was still struggling with his introduction she stopped him with a peremptory gesture.

“I don’t understand a word about subjective and objective minds,” she said, in a wounded voice. “All I know is that you made me the most beautiful proposal I had ever heard—I mean imagined—but of course if you want to take it back by saying that you were not responsible at the time—”

Whereupon Amsden was obliged to consume two delightful hours in assuring his sweetheart that he was a blundering fool, and that his metaphysical nonsense, translated, meant that it was his best self that had made that eloquent proposal, and that he was only afraid his every-day self was not one tenth good enough for her.

The Prince Ward.

BY CLAUDE M. GIRARDEAU.

The hospital was almost finished, but, as there were several wards still unendowed, the board of managers gave a reception. Ostensibly, to enable a curious public to inspect the building; in reality, to obtain benefactions. Among the visitors was a Mr. Prince, a Southerner, and reputed wealthy. He seemed greatly interested in the hospital, and selected for endowment a single ward on the second floor, department of surgery. It was at once completed at his expense and christened with his name.

Its first occupant was his wife. She looked like a dying woman to the superintendent, but he entered her case on the new books without comment, and she was examined by the surgeons in charge. They advised an immediate operation as the only hope—and that a slight one—of saving her life. In fact, they knew she could not recover either with or without it; but the operation would be an interesting one.

“I did not think I was so ill,” said Mrs. Prince pathetically, as the nurse took her back to her room.

“Guess she hasn’t looked in a glass lately,” was the attendant’s unspoken comment.

“She looks for all the world like a starved cat,” she said to another nurse, later on, “with her big green eyes and her black hair. Won’t I have a sweet time combing all that hair? It’s about two yards long. She’s more hair than anything else.”

The morning of the operation found Mrs. Prince cold with nervous terror.

“Do you think I will suffer much?” she inquired of the nurse tremulously.

“Oh, no, indeed,” replied that functionary, with professional cheerfulness, plaiting away at the endless lengths of hair. “If I was you, I’d have about half of this cut off.”

Mrs. Prince looked at the long, heavy plaits, then up at the nurse, her gray eyes darkening.

“If you cannot take care of it,” she said quietly, “I will tell the superintendent to send me another woman.”

The nurse colored.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said awkwardly.

When the toilet of the condemned was completed Mr. Prince came in with a huge handful of roses, smiling genially as his eyes fell on his wife.

“Why, P’tite, you look like John Chinaman in that funny shirt.”

She smiled in return, but wanly.

“I suppose I do look absurd.” She held out her arms; he filled them with the roses, and sat down by the narrow bed. She turned aside her head to hide the sudden tears. He drew her plaits of hair from neck to heel and bent to kiss her cheek as the doctors came in to administer ether.

“Madame Kanaris is here,” he said softly, “and begs to see you. May she come in?”

“Madame Kanaris!” She stared up at him with dilating eyes. “When did she come to B⸺? What is she doing here?”

“The nurse said I might come in for one little moment,” said an exquisitely melodious voice at the door directly facing the sick woman.

The men all looked up. A woman, young, beautiful as the day, stood on the threshold, her tender deep blue eyes fixed upon the patient with an expression of the liveliest emotion.

Her radiant hair, her dazzling complexion, her superb figure enveloped in furs, and the indescribable grace of her attitude made the sick woman appear grotesquely skeleton-like and ghastly.

It was Life confronting Death. Death raised itself upon an emaciated arm, and spoke to Life:—

“I cannot see you now, madame. The physicians have just come in, as you see. I beg that you will go away.”

Prince sprang to his feet and approached the visitor.

“I did not know the physicians would be here,” he murmured. “Shall I take you downstairs? Will you wait for me in the parlors?”

While he was speaking to Madame Kanaris his wife motioned to a surgeon. “I am ready. But, O doctor, are you sure it will make me quite dead? Are you sure I shall not be just iced over, with a frightful consciousness underneath? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” said the surgeon pityingly, stealing a glance at the figures in the doorway. “You will be blotted out of existence during the operation. Do not be afraid.”