Part 3

When he returned home, the marks of his grief were upon him, and Pauline believed that she detected a change in his health. His somewhat slender figure seemed more spare, his shoulders a trifle more stooped, and his chest contracted. Alarming symptoms, these. She had seen the first approach of the malady in his brother's case, and she could not mistake its advances. She took it upon herself to see that Maurice took proper care of himself. He was not allowed to sit in a draught, nor to go out unless properly protected from damp and cold. At the slightest alarm, a cough or failing appetite, she was ready with remedies and decoctions calculated to guard against and ward off all forms of the dread disease that was always pictured in her mind.

And now a great fear that had long lain dormant in Mrs. Thorpe's heart sprang into life. What reason had she to believe that her husband would be spared this fatality, this mysterious thing that had transmitted itself from one generation to another, and was free to lay its hand on its victims as it chose; sparing where its fickle fancy dictated, or clutching its death fingers into the heart, and refusing to relax its hold until the lifeless body lay before it, if so its ghoulish will desired? And no man could say it nay! Brooking no restraint, gaunt, mocking, stalking abroad at noonday, in the land which the Lord God had created!

The hot restlessness of heart which never wholly left her now flamed up and burned, and caused her to writhe as one in mortal pain. Questions of the gravest importance fraught with meanings she could not measure nor weigh confronted her wherever she turned. And the depth of her ignorance--humanity's ignorance--concerning the most vital things of life, seemed to her deplorable and reprehensible.

From sheer necessity she dropped the greater burden of her work. And always fond of reading, she now read incessantly and without discrimination whatever work she could find bearing on that one great problem, Life, and that other all-absorbing question, Religion. And over and over, and again and again, she pondered the meaning of it all. What does it mean--this life of man, with all of its pleasures and pain, its stress and strife, its joy and sorrow, its good and evil--for what is it given? She had been taught to believe that it is a preparatory state, a test or trial to ascertain how many are deserving of eternal bliss hereafter. And although she struggled against it and refused to look upon it, a picture persisted in painting itself upon her mental vision. This was the picture of a father who placed his children, the weak and the strong together, in an open field, and compelled them to till the soil and to dig and delve in the ground. And at times he sent punishment upon them, torment and torture and physical pain; while they, the children, toiled on in blind and stupid ignorance, never knowing what it was that had caused the father's wrath to descend upon them. And the father sat calmly at a safe distance and stoically observed their conduct. At the end of a certain period he intended to reward those who had been very good and patient, and very submissive to his will, with a beautiful home, while the others, those who had rebelled or complained, or fallen by the wayside, he would drive into another field and inflict punishment yet more dire upon them.

She never fully consented to look upon this picture, and she tried always to blot it from her vision, to erase and destroy it, and yet as often as she tried to do this she was horrified to find that by some strange machination of her mind she was condemning, repudiating the whole of creation, the scheme of the universe.

Her purpose in life was too honest, too sincere, her desires too pure to admit of her taking any halfway ground on these questions that confused and perplexed her. Her reading and research led her into many strange and unfrequented byways--hazardous, she thought them sometimes, black with peril--destruction, perhaps. And yet she had come to the place where she must know--she for herself must know the truth. And while with a trembling hand she shattered her old beliefs--graven images of doctrine--she found nothing to take their place. The sincerity of her life was crowding her off her old footing--but where? Over a precipice? She felt it to be so, and then--what then? There were days when her mind refused to act, when her mental faculties were in a state of paralysis. Sometimes she fell into the old trick of her childhood, day dreaming.

At the close of one painful, troubled day she sat before her open fire, her head against a pillow at the back of her chair. Her eyes were upon the fire at her feet. The flames leaped fitfully from time to time, and again fluttered among the embers. Slowly the gulf of the centuries was bridged and she witnessed the creation of the first man--no great task it appeared, for the dust of the earth furnished sufficient material. In our human wisdom, finite though it is, we do not permit our children to use edged tools--her eyes were on the red embers at her feet, and she saw, glowing there, the thing which infinite wisdom gave to man; that which was at once his glory and his undoing, a two-edged sword, deadly keen--good and evil. It developed that this keen edged sword was hardly the thing with which to prune and keep in order the luxurious garden set apart for man on one corner of the footstool.

The unselfishness of Woman dates back to the Garden. No sooner had Eve broken open the luscious apple and tasted its flavor than she offered to divide it. And it was not within the nature of man to refuse so dainty a morsel from a fair hand.

Then man began to wander over the face of the earth, footsore and sinstained, and in due course of time came the great Sacrifice--the spilling of blood--the Golgotha.

The smouldering fire shot into tiny tongues of flame and licked the stones on the hearth--and yet what has the great Sacrifice accomplished? Wherein is the efficacy? Hoping, fearing, faithless--ignorant, suffering, despairing--this is Life. Men and women parade before us and flaunt to the world that they are saved--saved from what? Or for what? The shame and moral degradation, the pain and the anguish date back to the Garden. Christ came to check it, but wherein are we better? The poison is in our blood and the canker in our hearts; the flesh rots from the bones and the soul reeks in iniquity; the senses long for the fleshpots of Egypt, and with one accord we gather about the board, at the feast of Belshazzer!

The flames died down, and the embers burned with a dull glow. Now a hush fell over the room and the stillness of the place folded itself about the woman motionless in her chair. The minutes slipped by and time flowed on without a break or ripple to mark its passing. The great calm stillness! Not only did it fill the room and lay like a garment about the dreamer, it filled her heart and entered her soul, and as a mother broods over her child and stills its restless wailing, it brooded over her and stilled all her tumultuous, unholy pain, and the spell of her turbulent, unwarrantable dream held her no longer.

Now the dull red coals turned to ashes and lay crumbling in the grate. And into the waiting stillness, into the majesty of the silence there breathed something divine. It radiated in the soft white light and filled the room with its presence; and in sweet devotion before it knelt Humility and Meekness and Loving-kindness; and all power was in its hands of shining light, and all wisdom was in its star-pierced crown, and all truth in the stillness of its utterance. Into the soft white stillness, into the holy of holies, breathed this rarest gift of God--Love. The mystic glory of it hung about the dreamer, and quivered in the air, and throbbed and pulsed through the universe, and all things fell into place and became part of the endless plan of the Creator.

Every unholy thought and every vagary of false belief fell away. The iniquity of the ages, and all the crime and passion and suffering of men became a cloud of vapor, like the misty foam on the ocean waves; but beneath the foam-flecked waves lies the mighty volume of the sea, and above them the limitless reach of the heavens. Now the mortal dream of the Dust man and his short-lived Eden and subsequent suffering receded into a shadowy delusion, and the reality of Life, and the substance of eternal things unfolded and encompassed all creation.

Mrs. Thorpe stirred in her chair and felt the yielding of its cushioned depths and the pressure of the pillow at her head. She heard the door open and Pauline come into the room. She sat erect in her chair and drew her hand across her forehead.

"Have you been asleep, dear?" Pauline asked.

"Perhaps, asleep and dreaming--it was a dream--yes, a dream, it was all a dream." She brushed the hair from her temples, and again: "Was it all a dream?"

*CHAPTER V*

*DR. ELDRIGE JR.*

Dr. Eldrige Jr. was a very different man from Dr. Eldrige his father. What the elder man lacked in courtesy and kindness was abundantly present in the son. He had studied under his father, practiced and consulted with him; yet in the finer issues of life, its amenities and its culture, their lives might be likened to the branches of a stream: one followed a gorge of clay between banks of rocks and barren soil; the other flowed quietly between green banks, over white sand and shining pebbles.

The elder man had been known to remark that the rub and wear of life, actual life as he had seen it, would change the color of his son's views. If any man could practice medicine as many years as he had practiced it, and not pronounce the whole human race a disgusting sham and a blasted humbug, he pitied that man, for there must be considerable of the fool in his make-up.

The son, however, was well content to go his way, seeing life as it appeared to him, and doing what lay in his power to make rough places smooth and ease the sufferings of humanity. He never undertook to modify his father's views, and on all occasions when it was possible for him to do so, he evaded crossing swords with him.

It was late one night when Dr. Eldrige Jr. left a poor home where he had been attending a patient. A wretched, ill-kept home it was, whose inmates seemed a thing apart from the divine creation. He stepped out into the night, bared his head and breathed deep of the fresh, sweet air. Above him was the tent of night, jeweled with stars, and at his feet the dew-wet grass, the dwelling place of tiny dumb creatures that cling to the earth's damp mold, and before him, like a blemish on Nature's canvas, the home built and fashioned and kept by man.

He was a reverent man, with no inclination to shift the responsibility of humanity's ignominious burden back upon the Maker. He had no solution to offer for the problem of human sin and woe, and he did not undertake to place the iniquity of existing conditions. His mission was to minister to those who needed his service, and this he did whether he found his patient in a palace or in a hovel.

Leaving the poor home where the sufferer lay, he came to the one pretentious street of the Flat. There had been some sort of a performance at the theatre, and the people were pouring out of the door. He was hurrying by, anxious to avoid the crowd, when his attention was attracted to a man and woman standing under the light of a lamp. The man was talking in a low, rapid manner, and the woman seemed but half inclined to agree to what he was saying. The doctor passed them directly under the lamplight; but neither of them noticed him or looked his way, he thought it very likely that they did not care to be seen by him. But as he went on his way a very tempest of rage burned within him.

"And that," he ejaculated to himself, "is Max Morrison, the man who is welcomed in the best homes in Edgerly! And Margaret, little Margaret, whom the children used to call 'Lassie'!" His mind went back to his boyhood days, when his father lived in a small village, and he and Margaret went to the same school. That was before Margaret's father died; he was the village blacksmith then, a hearty, whole-souled Scotchman. And what a laughing, rosy child the little Lassie was then. He remembered her temper, too, as did all who knew her at that time. He was a well-grown boy then and Margaret but a bit of a girl, but he had never forgotten her bright and winsome ways. Could this girl with the hard lines on her dark face ever have been the child that he recalled? He walked rapidly, his anger and indignation burning within him. He climbed the long hill that led from the Flat up to the church, and descended on the other side; past the parsonage with its sleeping inmates, and on to his own home. Here he again bared his head and stood quietly beneath the stars. The events of the evening oppressed him. That Margaret had been beguiled from her home was, he knew, an open secret in Edgerly. His face set in grim, hard lines.

"No one who cared to know," he was sure, "could be ignorant of the character of the man who had led her to her downfall."

The next morning the doctor visited his poor patient again, and found his condition improved. The light of reason was again in his eyes, and it was evident that he clung to life with as much desire as the most favored prince of earth clings to it.

On his return he passed the Mayhew home. A party of young people, with Mrs. Mayhew as chaperon, were starting for a day's outing among the hills. A carriage stood at the curb; he bowed to Max Morrison, who was holding the spirited horses. Geraldine Vane, who was ready to enter the carriage, greeted him pleasantly. He lifted his hat to her, and she looked into his face.

"Is not this a beautiful morning for a drive?" she said.

"It is indeed a beautiful morning," he replied, but there was a coldness in his voice and his brows were contracted. Yet, as he went on his way he was sure that Geraldine's pure white face was the fairest that God's sun ever shone upon. He watched the carriage as it turned a corner into a street that led to a country road; and all the heart within him cried out against the vision of those two, Max and Geraldine, drinking in the beauty of fields and byways, earth and sky--those two together!

When he reached his office he found his father in a fit of ill-temper. This, however, was quite a chronic condition with the old doctor.

"You've been practicing among the Flat scrubs again," he said to his son. "Strange you cannot let the miserable curs die and the earth be rid of them."

The son paid little heed to his father's coarse bluster.

"They may be scrubs," he replied in his smooth, even tones, "and they may be curs, in fact, I think you are right, father, they are scrubs and curs over on the Flat, and perhaps the earth would be better off without them; nevertheless they are men, and my work lies among men." And this quiet argument silenced the old doctor, if it did not stay his wrath.

During the long, hot summer there was much sickness on the Flat, and Dr. Eldrige Jr. spent much of his time among the sufferers. The heat was intense, and the heavens withheld the rain, the earth became dry and parched, and the dust lay thick on the meagre foliage. The name of Dr. Eldrige Jr. became a magic word in that suffering district. Hard faces grew tender and harsh words died upon the lips when his name was spoken. And day by day he went quietly about his work, relieving pain and caring tenderly for neglected old age, hardened criminals and suffering children. And hardened men and careworn women felt the stirring of new emotions within them and knew that the world is not all bad, nor life altogether bitter.

The summer days slipped by and the frost of autumn, Nature's tonic, came to aid the doctor in his efforts; and life, wretched at best, assumed its usual aspect on the Flat.

On his return from his round of visits one day the young doctor was met by his father, who was in a towering rage.

"Spending your time in the Flat filth," he growled. "Haven't you brains enough to keep out of the cursed mire? Here you are, able to minister to the puppets in high places, who, for want of better employment, spend their time nursing their aches and pains, and are proud of the size of their doctors' bills. You can dope them and dupe them quite as well as I can. Now here's a message from the Reverend Maurice Thorpe. It came an hour ago. Mrs. Thorpe has another attack of headache. Whatever that woman does to bring on those cursed spells is more than I know. If it were not for the holy fool her husband is, I should think she quarreled with him. But whatever the trouble is, all the reverends and the chosen of the Lord could go into fits and the earth be rid of them while you are to your ears in Flat mire. Now make yourself presentable and go and give Mrs. Thorpe a dose of morphine."

Dr. Eldrige Jr. hastened to do his father's bidding; not because of the old man's wrath and ire, but because he knew something of the severity of Mrs. Thorpe's attacks, and felt a very sincere sympathy for her. He found her walking to and fro in her room. She wore a crimson dressing gown, which fell loosely about her form. Her hair hung in disorder over her shoulders and rippled down her back; but she was all unconscious of her appearance. Her hands were clasped against her temples, and there was a frenzied look in her eyes, and dark blue marks lay beneath them. A white line, indicating intense pain, was drawn about her mouth.

She recognized Dr. Eldrige Jr. when he entered the room, but the fact that it was his father instead whom she had expected to see, caused her to suffer a nervous shock. She faltered in her walking and swayed uncertainly. Pauline, who was with her, sprang to her assistance.

Dr. Eldrige Jr. laid his hand on her shoulder and requested her to be seated. But she paid not the slightest attention to his request, and with eyes fixed on the floor, began again her restless walking.

"Perhaps she does not even hear you," said Pauline, "Sometimes when the pain is so intense we think she neither sees nor hears."

The doctor laid his hand on her arm and pushed the loose sleeve up to her shoulder, and in a voice that she obeyed without conscious volition, he commanded her to be quiet; then dexterously injected a dose of morphine into the flesh of her upper arm.

It was not long before her head drooped forward and her limbs seemed to grow weary, and then it was not difficult to place her comfortably upon a couch, where she soon fell into a troubled sleep. The doctor remained beside her for some time; then he prepared a powder to be given when she awoke, and took his departure.

When he returned to his office he said to his father: "I see nothing unusual about the nature of Mrs. Thorpe's headache; the pain seemed more intense than ordinary, yet it appears very like a common megrim."

"Megrim be blasted!" growled the doctor. "There's something more the matter with that woman than you or I know anything about. She's a brainy wench, and I have thought that perhaps she may be trying to find out the why and wherefore of some of the common-place things in this old world of ours. I tell you, my boy, when the Lord put Adam out of the Garden for fear he might take on too much knowledge, and set him working for his living, it showed mighty plain that there are a lot of things in this old world of ours that he never intended for man to find out. Mrs. Thorpe's mind is at the bottom of this trouble; she has let it get the upper hand of her. And I don't know but an over-dose of morphine would be the best thing for her now. It wouldn't sound bad to say that Mrs. Thorpe, wife of the Reverend Maurice Thorpe, died of heart failure during one of her nervous attacks."

*CHAPTER VI*

*PHYSICIAN AND FRIEND*

The next day a message came for Dr. Eldrige Jr. which took him past the parsonage. On his return he called on Mrs. Thorpe.

Pauline answered his ring. "Mrs. Thorpe will be pleased to see you," she said. "She is feeling better to-day."

Mrs. Thorpe received him cordially. "It is kind of you to call," she said. "I am quite myself again to-day. My headaches are usually of short duration. You doctors relieve me for the time; but I live in continual dread of the next attack. If only I could know what it is that causes this trouble there is nothing I would not do to eradicate it; for I believe if this could be overcome I should have my health again."

Dr. Eldrige recalled what his father had said about the mental condition of this woman. Could he probe her inner life and ferret out the cause of her trouble? Under the circumstances would it be right for him to do so, if he could? With these questions in mind he engaged her in easy conventional conversation, and without a suspicion of the fact on her part, he studied her face and watched her movements with quiet intensity. He desired to do all that he could for his patient's physical welfare; and the heart and mind have so great an influence over the body, that just how far a physician has a right to seek and search becomes a finely balanced question. He resolved to give her an opportunity to be frank with him if she cared to do so, but if there was anything she desired to conceal he would not intrude upon her secrecy.

"The cause of your trouble, Mrs. Thorpe, may be beyond the reach of doctors' skill. There are many ills that a physician is able to alleviate, but there may be inducing causes that no physician is able to discover."

She waited some moments before she spoke, and the doctor's eyes were upon her expectantly.

"The fate of the whole human race lies with you physicians," she said. "There is scarcely one on this earth who is every whit whole. And those for whom you cannot prescribe--?" She stopped short, and her eyes flashed abruptly into his.

The doctor saw that she had missed the import of his words, and he believed that she attributed to them a meaning that could not fail to distress her, and he hastened to correct his mistake.

"I did not mean to intimate that your trouble is beyond a physician's reach, Mrs. Thorpe," he said. "Yours is what my father calls a 'case of nerves.'"

She put out her hands as though to entreat him to desist. Always in her intercourse with the old doctor she had felt a reticence that made it impossible for her to talk with him, except on strictly professional topics; but there was something in this man's face, a plain, clear-cut face it was, and in his manner, kind and sympathetic, that inspired her confidence.

"I know," she said, "that mine is a nervous trouble, but must we admit that there is pain in this world for which there is no remedy? Maladies for which there is no physician? Must we admit the situation to be true, and stand helpless before it, that certain forms of suffering, deadly in their nature, have been laid upon humanity, for which no antidote has been given? It cannot be--this cannot be true, else what is the inference?"

"You have misunderstood my meaning, Mrs. Thorpe. You should have heard me out. I beg of you not to believe that I consider your trouble one for which there is no remedy. I meant only to call your attention to the fact that a great variety of causes may be responsible for nervous troubles. We look, naturally, for a physical cause, for a physical ailment; yet it is a mistake to believe that this must always be the case. It sometimes happens that the mind is largely responsible for the physical condition."

She waited again before she spoke. Her hands lay idly in her lap, but the doctor noticed that she was not in a state of relaxation, but that there was a restrained energy in attitude and manner.