Part 28
"Your last letter about my wife, doctor, was very unsatisfactory," said Hayward, "and I came to see about it. Surely she cannot be so ill as you report. When you admitted her you said she would recover her health in a very short time."
"Excuse me, Mr. Graham; but if you wish to take issue with me as to your wife's condition, I will have to insist on the request in my letter of yesterday--that you remove her at once," the physician said with decision.
"I do not desire to do that," Graham replied; "but I cannot understand what has happened here to change her prospects of recovery, of which you were so confident when you admitted her. Besides that I do not see why you forbid me to communicate with her. She is certa--"
"Wait a moment, Mr. Graham. You must understand that in our prejudgment of these cases we do not arrogate to ourselves infallibility; but that in our treatment of them we do demand for ourselves absolute authority to say what shall and what shall not be done, and the very strictest obedience to that. This is a very peculiar case. It has one element that is altogether unique. Never before have I met it in my practice or seen it in the books. I am doing the best I can with it, and if you do not de--"
"That is not it, doctor. I have no suggestions to make to you as to the proper treatment, nor any objection, indeed, to complying with any reasonable restriction; but when you say that I shall not see or communicate with my wife at any time, it seems unreasonable. Does she have no lucid intervals in which I might see her? Does she never think or speak of me--never write to me?"
"Yes, Mr. Graham, she has lucid intervals. She speaks of you at times, oftentimes. And she writes to you occasionally, but I have decided that it would not--"
"Has written to me? And you have not sent me the letters? Surely, surely, doctor, I am not crazy, that you should withhold letters from me! Have you the letters? Has she written often?"
"She has written often; but only on two occasions was there anything except disjointed sentences. She--"
"And when was that? And where are the letters?"
"I have them," replied the doctor, "but I do not think that--"
"I demand to see them, sir! I'm not in your hospital for treatment!"
"Very well," said the doctor, "I'll get them for you."
He went to a filing cabinet and took out a package of papers and came back across the room with two sheets of paper which he handed to Hayward, and watched him as he read them.
The first was as sweet and gentle and loving a letter as the heart of man could desire. Some of the references in it were a little bit obscure and inaccurate, but Hayward was too much elated with the tender, petting things it said to notice trifles so inconsequential. He revelled in it like a hungry man at a feast. He gulped down its sweetness ravenously: and took the second. What! The first sentence was the jab of a misshapen barb--and every following sentence a twisting of that barb in the flesh.
"My God, this is awful!" he groaned. "I am sorry you gave it to me. Have you no other like the first?"
"No," said the doctor. "All her other writings have been mere scraps or incoherent mixtures of such things as are in the first letter you have there with such as are in the one you have just read. These are the only ones in each of which her mood was fixed and distinct."
Hayward took the first letter and read it over again as hungrily as at first.
"In which mood does she seem most to be?" he asked.
"In the mood to write that first letter, fortunately; but the case is peculiar in that very fact. I have studied it with--"
"Let me see her," Hayward broke in. "May I see her? I must see her!"
"I would advise against it," the doctor said, in a tone and manner that was intended to be a polite refusal of permission.
"But I _must_ see her, I tell you. I demand to see her! I am her husband, and if she is quiet to-day I demand to see and speak to her."
"Mr. Graham, this case is unique, as I have told you before; and even if she is quiet I think it best not to--"
"Now, doctor, stop right there a moment. She is my wife, and I will not be bound by any orders her mother may have given you! I am going to see her this once. I assume all responsibility, sir!"
The physician looked at him with a sneer of contempt on his face.
"Very well, Mr. Graham," he said finally. "You shall see her. But permit me to say that Mrs. Phillips has had the good sense and the good taste to make no suggestions to me as to how I shall manage this case.... Come right along down to the ward, sir."
He led the way down a long hall and, tapping upon a door, was admitted into a transverse corridor by an attendant.
"How is Mrs. Graham?" he asked in an undertone.
"Quiet at the moment, sir."
Hayward heard Helen's voice and started forward eagerly. The physician caught him by the arm and restrained him.
"Wait," he whispered. "Let's listen a minute."
It was hard for Hayward to wait. He could hear Helen's words coming from the second door down the corridor, and only the doctor's hand stayed him from rushing into her presence. They moved quietly nearer to the door and stood still to hear what she was saying. As they listened tides of joy rolled in upon Hayward's heart....
Helen was humming a song that her husband had heard of old. Her voice, though somewhat weak, had its old joyous ring. Hayward could easily imagine she was coming tripping down to the stable for her horse to take a morning canter. When she finished the song and was silent, he noted for the first time that the grated door to her cell was locked and its rungs and pickets were heavily padded. He resented that, and turned upon the physician to protest, but was held by the doctor's signal for silence. He obeyed, but his resentment grew as Helen's words came again in gentle accents to them.
She was moving slowly about, and was evidently arranging some flowers--to judge by the things she was saying to them. It was very kind of the doctor, her husband thought, to let her have her flowers--she was always so fond of them.... In half a minute she was singing a lullaby that she had sung to their baby. Hayward could hardly contain himself. And when he heard her walk across the room,--to a window, it seemed,--and say, in a tone so expressive of longing: "If Hayward would only come and take me out to-day! It is such a beautiful day outside," he snatched his arm free of the doctor's hand and called to her as he sprang in front of the door.
Helen turned at his call, and looked at him for a space with dilated eyes. In that space Hayward saw that her cell was padded throughout, floor and walls, and that there was not a flower or a flower-pot in the room, that her clothing was torn, her hair streaming and dishevelled. Before he had time to make any inferences from these facts, Helen, still gazing at him with that peculiar stare, started across the room to him, saying gladly, "Oh, you have come to take me out driving!"
Nearly to the door she stopped. Slowly her face changed its whole expression. The wide-eyed stare gave way, and the old Helen looked at him a moment from her eyes. In another moment her face was convulsed in a spasm of aversion.
"Go away! Go away!" she cried out wildly as she turned from him. Retreating into a far corner of her cell, she called to the attendant, "Oh, save me!--take him away!--keep him away!"
"Why, Helen, don't you know me?" Hayward called to her.
"Yes, yes, I know you, but in God's name leave me! Don't let him in! Don't let him in!" she pleaded with the physician, who also had come to the door.
"I'll not hurt you, Helen. You know I'll not hurt you. Don't run from me. You know I'll not hurt you."
Hayward motioned to the physician to unlock the door. Whereupon Helen uttered a blood-curdling scream as she cowered back into her corner.
"Don't! Don't!! He has already hurt me, doctor! Go away! Go _away_! The poison of your blood is in my veins and will not come out! It is polluted, forever polluted! A knife--_a knife_! Give me a knife, doctor, that I may let it out. Please give me a knife. I have prayed you daily for one and you won't give it to me. Kill me--_save me_! My blood is _unclean_, and he did it! My baby was black, _black_!--and its negro blood is in my veins! A knife, doctor! A knife!! Oo-o-a-ugh!! I'll tear it out, then!"--and she clawed and tore and bit at her wrists in an agony of endeavour to purge her veins of the tainted fluid which had brought to life that fright, her baby.
Hayward stood helpless and terror-stricken before the door, and his staying only drove Helen into more horrible paroxysms.
"Come away, man, come away," the doctor commanded; and he obeyed weakly.
"Great God," he said when he was back in the physician's office, "that is awful, awful! How can she live, doctor, if she is shaken and torn by such dementia as that?"
"I cannot say whether she will live, Mr. Graham," the doctor replied; "but her periods of dementia give her the only relief that she enjoys. As a remedy for exhaustion they are our only hope for her life so far appearing."
"I don't understand," said Graham, "how such suffering as that can be a relief from exhaustion."
"I did not say that," said the doctor. "I said her _periods of dementia_ give her relief from exhaustion. As I said before, Mr. Graham, this is an absolutely unique case. It is--"
"Unique in what?" asked Graham.
"It is unique in this," said the physician: "It is in her sane moments--in her lucid intervals, when she is fully conscious of her condition and situation--that she raves and tears herself and cries out against the devils that are torturing her. It is in such moments that her eyes have the light of reason in them. On the other hand, it is when she is _insane_, demented--when her mind is unhinged and wandering--that she is quiet and peaceful and happy. The letter you enjoyed was written when she was crazy. The one that tortured you was written when she was clothed and in her right mind."
"My God, doctor, that cannot be! Do not tell me that!" cried Hayward, shaken like a reed. "Tell me whether there is hope for her?"
"As I said, Mr. Graham, the case is unique and therefore any opinion is nothing more than a bare opinion, but to me her case is hopeless for the reason that her violences are based not upon hallucinations--which might pass--but upon _facts_ which no sane mind can deny. At present the only hope for her life is that her periods of dementia, with their peace and quiet, will increase: and that her sane moments, in which she suffers the tortures of the damned, will become briefer and fewer. Only that will save her from death from exhaustion."
"No, no, doctor! Can't you--"
* * * * *
A soldier in uniform stepped into the recruiting office, saluted, handed the officer his papers, and stood at _attention_, saying simply, "I desire to re-enlist."
The officer unfolded the "honourable discharge" and read aloud, "Sergeant John Hayward Graham." Looking the paper over, he turned to Graham.
"Yes, this is all right--if you are physically fit; but you have waited so long you have lost your rank and will have to begin at the very bottom again."
"Yes, sir. I understand, sir."
"Very well, the clerk can make out the new papers from these while the surgeon looks you over. Where do you wish to serve--in the United States or the Philippines?"
"Anywhere my country needs a man, sir."
THE END.
* * * * * * * *
*From*
*L. C. Page & Company's Announcement List of New Fiction*
*The Call of the South*
BY ROBERT LEE DURHAM. Cloth decorative, with 6 illustrations by Henry Roth . . . $1.50
A very strong novel dealing with the race problem in this country. The principal theme is the _danger_ to society from the increasing miscegenation of the black and white races, and the encouragement it receives in the social amenities extended to negroes of distinction by persons prominent in politics, philanthropy and educational endeavor; and the author, a Southern lawyer, hopes to call the attention of the whole country to the need of earnest work toward its discouragement. He has written an absorbing drama of life which appeals with apparent logic and of which the inevitable denouement comes as a final and convincing climax.
The author may be criticized by those who prefer not to face the hour "When Your Fear Cometh As Desolation And Your Destruction Cometh As A Whirlwind;" but his honesty of purpose in the frank expression of a danger so well understood in the South, which, however, many in the North refuse to recognize, while others have overlooked it, will be upheld by the sober second thought of the majority of his readers.
* * * * *
*The House in the Water*
BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, author of "The Haunters of the Silences," "Red Fox," "The Heart of the Ancient Wood," etc. With cover design, sixteen full-page drawings, and many minor decorations by Charles Livingston Bull. Cloth decorative, with decorated wrapper . . . $1.50
Professor Roberts's new book of nature and animal life is one long story in which he tells of the life of that wonderfully acute and tireless little worker, the beaver. "The Boy" and Jabe the Woodsman again appear, figuring in the story even more than they did in "Red Fox;" and the adventures of the boy and the beaver make most absorbing reading for young and old.
The following chapter headings for "The House in the Water" will give an idea of the fascinating reading to come:
THE SOUND IN THE NIGHT (Beavers at Work).
THE BATTLE IN THE POND (Otter and Beaver).
IN THE UNDER-WATER WORLD (Home Life of the Beaver).
NIGHT WATCHERS ("The Boy" and Jabe and a Lynx See the Beavers at Work).
DAM REPAIRING AND DAM BUILDING (A "House-raising" Bee).
THE PERIL OF THE TRAPS (Jabe Shows "The Boy").
WINTER UNDER WATER (Safe from All but Man).
THE SAVING OF BOY'S POND ("The Boy" Captures Two Outlaws).
"As a writer about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an enviable place. He is the most literary, as well as the most imaginative and vivid of all the nature writers."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
"His animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science and literary exactness."--_New York World_.
"Poet Laureate of the Animal World, Professor Roberts displays the keenest powers of observation closely interwoven with a fine imaginative discretion."--_Boston Transcript_.
* * * * *
*Captain Love*
THE HISTORY OF A MOST ROMANTIC EVENT IN THE LIFE OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN DURING THE REIGN OF HIS MAJESTY GEORGE THE FIRST. CONTAINING INCIDENTS OF COURTSHIP AND DANGER AS RELATED IN THE CHRONICLES OF THE PERIOD AND NOW SET DOWN IN PRINT
BY THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "The Red Feathers," "Brothers of Peril," etc. Cloth decorative, illustrated by Frank T. Merrill . . . $1.50
A stirring romance with its scene laid in the troublous times in England when so many broken gentlemen foregathered with the "Knights of the Road;" when a man might lose part of his purse to his opponent at "White's" over the dice, and the next day be relieved of the rest of his money on some lonely heath at the point of a pistol in the hand of the self-same gambler.
But, if the setting be similar to other novels of the period, the story is not. Mr. Roberts's work is always original, his style is always graceful, his imagination fine, his situations refreshingly novel. In his new book he has excelled himself. It is undoubtedly the best thing he has done.
* * * * *
*Bahama Bill*
BY T. JENKINS HAINS, author of "The Black Barque," "The Voyage of the Arrow," etc. Cloth decorative, with frontispiece in colors by H. R. Reuterdahl . . . $1.50
The scene of Captain Hains's new sea story is laid in the region of the Florida Keys. His hero, the giant mate of the wrecking sloop, _Sea-Horse_, while not one to stir the emotions of gentle feminine readers, will arouse interest and admiration in men who appreciate bravery and daring.
His adventures while plying his desperate trade are full of the danger that holds one at a sharp tension, and the reader forgets to be on the side of law and order in his eagerness to see the "wrecker" safely through his exciting escapades.
Captain Hains's descriptions of life at sea are vivid, absorbingly frank and remarkably true. "Bahama Bill" ranks high as a stirring, realistic, unsoftened and undiluted tale of the sea, chock full of engrossing interest.
* * * * *
*Matthew Porter*
BY GAMALIEL BRADFORD, JR., author of "The Private Tutor," etc. With a frontispiece in colors by Griswold Tyng . . . $1.50
When a young man has birth and character and strong ambition it is safe to predict for him a brilliant career; and, when The Girl comes into his life, a romance out of the ordinary. Such a man is Matthew Porter, and the author has drawn him with fine power.
Mr. Bradford has given us a charming romance with an unusual motive. Effective glimpses of the social life of Boston form a contrast to the more serious purpose of the story; but, in "Matthew Porter," it is the conflict of personalities, the development of character, the human element which grips the attention and compels admiration.
* * * * *
*Anne of Green Gables*
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY. Cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
Every one, young or old, who reads the story of "Anne of Green Gables," will fall in love with her, and tell their friends of her irresistible charm. In her creation of the young heroine of this delightful tale Miss Montgomery will receive praise for her fine sympathy with and delicate appreciation of sensitive and imaginative girlhood.
The story would take rank for the character of Anne alone; but in the delineation of the characters of the old farmer, and his crabbed, dried-up spinster sister who adopt her, the author has shown an insight and descriptive power which add much to the fascination of the book.
* * * * *
*Spinster Farm*
BY HELEN M. WINSLOW, author of "Literary Boston." Illustrated from original photographs . . . $1.50
Whatever Miss Winslow writes is good, for she is in accord with the life worth living. The Spinster, her niece "Peggy," the Professor, and young Robert Graves,--not forgetting Hiram, the hired man,--are the characters to whom we are introduced on "Spinster Farm." Most of the incidents and all of the characters are real, as well as the farm and farmhouse, unchanged since Colonial days.
Light-hearted character sketches, and equally refreshing and unexpected happenings are woven together with a thread of happy romance of which Peggy of course is the vivacious heroine. Alluring descriptions of nature and country life are given with fascinating bits of biography of the farm animals and household pets.
* * * * *
*Selections from L. C. Page and Company's List of Fiction*
*WORKS OF ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS*
_Each one vol., library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50_
*The Flight of Georgiana*
A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
"A love-story in the highest degree, a dashing story, and a remarkably well finished piece of work."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
*The Bright Face of Danger*
Being an account of some adventures of Henri de Launay, son of the Sieur de la Tournoire. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
"Mr. Stephens has fairly outdone himself. We thank him heartily. The story is nothing if not spirited and entertaining, rational and convincing."--_Boston Transcript_.
*The Mystery of Murray Davenport*
(40th thousand.)
"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done. Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of this praise, which is generous."--Buffalo News.
*Captain Ravenshaw*
OR, THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE. (52d thousand.) A romance of Elizabethan London. Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other artists.
Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we had anything so good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.
*The Continental Dragoon*
A ROMANCE OF PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778. (53d thousand.) Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
A stirring romance of the Revolution, with its scene laid on neutral territory.
*Philip Winwood*
(70th thousand.) A Sketch of the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events that occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and London. Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.
*An Enemy to the King*
(70th thousand.) From the "Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire." Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the adventures of a young French nobleman at the court of Henry III., and on the field with Henry IV.
*The Road to Paris*
A STORY OF ADVENTURE. (35th thousand.) Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
An historical romance of the eighteenth century, being an account of the life of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry.
*A Gentleman Player*
HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH. (48th thousand.) Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
The story of a young gentleman who joins Shakespeare's company of players, and becomes a friend and protege of the great poet.
*Clementina's Highwayman*
Cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
Mr. Stephens has put into his new book, "Clementina's Highway man," the finest qualities of plot, construction, and literary finish.
The story is laid in the mid-Georgian period. It is a dashing, sparkling, vivacious comedy, with a heroine as lovely and changeable as an April day, and a hero all ardor and daring.
The exquisite quality of Mr. Stephens's literary style clothes the story in a rich but delicate word-fabric; and never before have his setting and atmosphere been so perfect.
* * * * *
*WORKS OF CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS*
*Haunters of the Silences*
Cloth, one volume, with many drawings by Charles Livingston Bull, four of which are in full color . . . $2.00
The stories in Mr. Roberts's new collection are the strongest and best he has ever written.
He has largely taken for his subjects those animals rarely met with in books, whose lives are spent "In the Silences," where they are the supreme rulers. Mr. Roberts has written of them sympathetically, as always, but with fine regard for the scientific truth.
"As a writer about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an enviable place. He is the most literary, as well as the most imaginative and vivid of all the nature writers."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
"His animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science and literary exactness."--_New York World_.
*Red Fox*
THE STORY OF HIS ADVENTUROUS CAREER IN THE RINGWAAK WILDS, AND OF HIS FINAL TRIUMPH OVER THE ENEMIES OF HIS KIND. With fifty illustrations, including frontispiece in color and cover design by Charles Livingston Bull.
Square quarto, cloth decorative . . . $2.00
"Infinitely more wholesome reading than the average tale of sport, since it gives a glimpse of the hunt from the point of view of the hunted."--_Boston Transcript_.
"True in substance but fascinating as fiction. It will interest old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who know animals and those who do not."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
"A brilliant chapter in natural history."--_Philadelphia North American_.
*The Kindred of the Wild*
A BOOK OF ANIMAL LIFE. With fifty-one full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull. Square quarto, decorative cover . . . $2.00