The Fear Motif and Other Stories
Date: 1899-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Mystery; Murder; Ghosts
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain where copyright is “Life+80” or less, and in the USA.

THE FEAR MOTIF
AND OTHER STORIES

ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD

MobileRead Edition
2023

Unsettling tales swirling with currents of the mysterious and the uncanny and the weird.

Ethel Watts Mumford (1876/1878 – 1940) was an American author from New York City. She was a heavy producer of plays, vaudeville sketches, novels, short stories, joke collections, songs, poems, and articles. She also painted and illustrated books.

The contents of this book were first published in various periodicals 1900 ~ 1909. This ebook is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+80” or less, and in the USA.

CONTENTS:

- An Unfair Exchange
- When Time Turned
- The Intruder
- The Woman in Gray
- The Fear Motif

An Unfair Exchange

I can’t say I was frightened, but I felt chill, and my heart thumped when I saw the table, with its rubber sheet — the basins, in which I caught the gleam of steel — and the neat array of linen and knives. The room was long and bare, flooded with a blue-white light, and smelled faintly — a sickening, sweetish smell that permeated everything.

1 had elected to come to the table, rather than to be brought unconscious. I wanted to cling to my ego as long as possible — to be a man to the last — for I realized that with an operation for appendicitis there comes always the great question of life and death. My twin brother, Fred, was waiting in the outer room. He alone of all the family knew my condition and the step I was about to take. Why worry the rest, and give them the anxiety of waiting for the news? I was in good hands. Dr. Jerrold was my classmate and devoted to me. I thought of all this dimly, as I lay myself out with the help of my old chum and his assistant. A black-eyed nurse flitted in and out, bringing things. The light blazed into my eyes, and the pain in my right groin was hot and torturing. I saw Dr. Jerrold raise a muzzle-like apparatus, and pour something into it — the smell of ether filled the room. I shivered a little. Another doctor entered and was greeted cheerfully.

“All ready?” he asked.

The muzzle descended gently over my face. I gagged and gasped. A cold wave swept over me.

“Breathe in,” said the voice of the assistant, immeasurably above me.

Instantly a small, powerful voice at my ear repeated rapidly: “Breathe in — breathe in — breathe in — breathe in!”

There came an explosion of light above my eyes. I gasped again, while the big voice boomed, far, far distant: “Breathe in!” And the little one at my ear took it up once more: “Breathe in — breathe in — breathe in — breathe in — n — n — !”

I began to move with excessive velocity through an atmosphere of no resistance, supported by the voice. I was a flaming meteor! I flew through space without end — masses of white star-dust wheeling beside me. The air was cold and buoyant — that other ether that dwells between the worlds. On and on we were hurled furiously! The roar of comets in their course, and the whirr of planets in their orbits becoming confused with the insistent voice that bade me breathe. I knew that if I did not obey I should fall — fall for ever; so I filled my lungs to bursting, and, as I inhaled, was impelled onward with new force.

We approached a mass of light that grew steadily. The sun! I thought. We should be attracted into it, of course, and perish! The light was too cold for the burning sun; it was white — chill white. Then I heard distantly the sound of voices — and the center of the glare became a gigantic question mark that stretched across the heavens.

I began to slow up and to swing from side to side, like a ship at sea. The voice was gone. A deadly illness grew upon me — and the question mark became the back of a white enameled chair. Then there was a period of pain and nausea, but a cool hand soothed my brow. I was held firmly but gently, or I should have rolled about in spite of my weakness. I began to think again — I remembered that I had been operated upon.

“Is it over?” I asked, amazed; for it seemed but a moment ago that I saw the last of the bare, white room.

“Yes,” said the nurse. “Don’t talk!”

I saw she had blue eyes. A strange man came in, spoke to her and looked at me. “Getting on nicely,” he said. Then some remarks were exchanged about temperature and pulse.

I was slowly assorting the fragments of my consciousness. I had a pain in the old place, but of a new kind. I felt bandages and dressings. My poor racked body seemed to be trying to tell me the terrible ordeal it had been through — “when you were away” — it spoke through every miserable nerve and relaxed muscle, as if saying: “Yes, we were always conscious — we knew. It was terrible — where did you go?” and my ego, in turn, tried to explain. I looked at my hand on the counterpane. It was changed; so small and thin. I glanced at the room. Evidently they had decided it would be best not to put me in the one I had chosen. This was probably the retreat of the doctor’s wife — it was filled with womanly trifles, though all superfluous furniture had been removed. The nurse sat by me, bathing my head from time to time, and, as the sickening taste in my mouth increased, she gave me a bit of ice to cool my tongue — only a bit, but such a relief.

A twinge of agony bit at my side. “Hell!” I ejaculated. The nurse looked startled. She held my hand a moment, then took my temperature with a tiny glass thermometer she put under my tongue — nodded her head, and moved away.

The strange man came in again a little later, walked up to me and held my hand.

“How goes it, little one?” he said.

I looked surprised. “The nausea is better,” I said; “but—”

“You must be very quiet, my dear; appendicitis is no joke, and though your case was a simple one — the inflammation had not extended — still you must be obedient and very still — it’s hard, of course, and you’ll suffer a great deal, but you are courageous.”

I only half-listened. “Where,” I asked, “is Dr. Jerrold?”

It was his turn to lie surprised. “He is — with a case — why?”

“Oh!” I answered. “I thought he wouldn’t have gone — he was so anxious about me.”

“Was he?” said the man. “Well, be quiet now — like a good girl.”

“Good — what?” I gasped suddenly.

He leaned over me and looked me in the face; he felt my pulse. “The ether is still on,” he said, and slipped out of the room.

I put my hand to my head — vaguely — and felt a heavy braid of hair. I believe I screamed. The nurse ran to me. I waved at her frantically. “Bring me a mirror!” I commanded.

“Lie still,” she said gently.

“Bring me a mirror!” I said, “or I’ll get up and get it!”

She pinned me to the bed with one strong hand and rang a bell.

“Violent?” asked the man, returning.

She nodded.

He came toward me and between them they held me fast and spoke soothingly. Then, to my amazement and rage, I burst into tears.

“A mirror!” I sobbed. “Bring me a mirror!” I was almost insane.

The man gave a nod of consent, the nurse left me and brought a hand-glass from the bureau.

I looked! The face I saw was that of a young girl — her black eyes flaming with excitement — her face drawn by suffering, and white, but for two scarlet spots on the cheeks. About my head — for it was mine — was a great coil of brown hair! I fainted.

When I regained consciousness, the man and the nurse were bending over me. Then followed a confused period. I was half mad, and every time I grew conscious the same horrible question — who and what was I — faced me, and threw me off my balance again. My temperature would not go down — my pulse beat wildly. The doctor finally administered opiates.

The days that followed were terrible beyond description. I could not grasp the awful thing that had happened. I doubted my sanity. But as conviction grew that I was not a victim of a delusion, but of some amazing change, I fought that theory with all the will in me. I felt trapped and cruelly abused. I could confide nothing of my trouble or I risked the insane asylum. So I fought the fearful battle out alone, and the horror of it came near unsettling my reason. Often I had recourse to touching something to make sure I was not mistaken — the coverlid, the medicine bottles, the spoons; each served as a focus for my poor wits. But the accuracy of my vision and touch, with the logical sequence of my life, convinced me finally that, whatever had happened to my soul — this body, at least, Was in normal surroundings.

At last, after days of misery, I became sufficiently master of myself to begin to make an effort to discover my new personality. But the instant I asked questions my doctor and nurse became alarmed. So I took the part of silence, and they thought me better.

A week or more after my operation, a strange, handsome, middle-aged lady was admitted.

“Who is that?” I asked the nurse, unwarily.

She heard me, and, though evidently prepared for my affliction, it struck home.

“Don’t you know me?” she begged. “Oh, Polly! Polly, dear — don’t you know your mother!”

The nurse put up a warning hand, but the poor woman’s distress had touched me. Since this strange and terrible thing had happened, I might as well make the best of it.

“Of course, mother,” I said; “how stupid of me.”

She almost cried for joy this time. The doctor came in.

“Don’t excite my patient,” he said, looking over her head the while at the nurse, who smiled. His face cleared.

“How — how are they all?” I asked at a venture; for the doctor and nurse were watching me like hawks.

“Marjie is well,” said the lady. “Tom is staying with us. Your father is very tired, dear, for we’ve all been so anxious about you. But now that you’re getting well again, he is better too. We shall all be so glad to have our dear, laughing Polly back again. Your father is looking about for a horse for you, so when you’re up you can have one all to yourself.”

“Thank you,” I said vaguely. “Remember me — give my love to — all of them.” I judged Tom and Marjie to be my brother and sister, so I thought it safe to say: “Tell Tom he’s a poor sort of a brother if he doesn’t write me all the news. I can have a letter, can’t I, Doc?”

There was a miserable silence.

My new mother said gently: “Tom is not your brother, Polly. Don’t you remember?”

She picked up my left hand and held it up before me. On the third finger was a heavy, old-fashioned ring, set with a solitaire. “Good Lord!” I thought. “I’m engaged, am I — engaged to a man named Tom!” They must have seen the terror on my face. My mother’s lip quivered.

“You had better go,” the doctor said. “She mustn’t be tired.”

They left me, all but the nurse. I lay thinking. Then I determined to take the bull by the horns.

“Nurse,” I said, “what is the rest of my name; Polly — what? I can’t remember.”

“Polly Delano,” she answered.

“And how many brothers and sisters have I?”

“One sister, Marjorie.”

“And I’m engaged to Tom who? — do you happen to know?”

“Yes, Tom Tregenna.”

“Tom Tregenna,” I exclaimed excitedly. “You don’t mean it? Why, I know him well!”

I saw my mistake. “I mean I remember all about him — and I had forgotten so many things.”

During the days that followed I was introduced to the members of my new family, one by one, and gradually learned to navigate fairly safely through the narrows and shallows of conversation. I was so taken up mentally that my physical condition bothered me little — though I suffered from lying still so long, and the usual dressing was far from pleasant. In three weeks I was allowed to move from my bed. I was woefully weak. I, who had been the center rush of my college team, and had kept my condition perfect since I graduated, could not move unaided, and, in the frail body I had come to occupy in some strange way, could not even lift a book. I began to see a few friends, though always carefully prepared for any condition of mind. I caught them watching me curiously. The most trying ordeal was when Tom came. He was tremulous with eagerness, yet I could see he feared the meeting — and God knows I feared it, too — but I was so glad to stand on firm ground once more that I greeted him rapturously. Then I forgot, and began in my own character:

“Tom, I’m that glad to see you — my lord, man! — but this has been a siege! Nobody can ever know what I’ve been through — never! — and, say, old chap. I’m rusty; what’s all the news? How’s Will Featherly? and what became of little Ponsonby and that Taunton girl? The club was talking of nothing else when I was taken sick.”

Tom looked amazed, but answered my questions. “When did you meet Ponsonby? I did not know you knew him.”

“Know him!” said I. “Why, Ponsonby and I spent a month together in Quimberley’s camp in Maine.”

“You did? When?”

“Two years ago — we had splendid sport.”

“Who chaperoned?”

“Nobody; there weren’t any ladies—”

“No ladies!”

“No. There was some talk of Mrs. Q. coming up; but we rather preferred keeping bachelors’ hall.”

Then Tom began humoring me. “Of course, Polly, dear—”

“Say,” I went on, “I want awfully to see Dr. Jerrold; can’t you manage it? Ask what’s-his-name, the Medico, to get him to come.”

“Of course,” said Tom, with a jealous look in his eyes.

I laughed aloud. “You’re not going to be jealous of him, I hope.” I roared in unladylike mirth.

“Well, why are you asking for him? Dr. Benson says you asked for him almost as soon as you came out from the ether.”

“Because,” I answered, “I have an idea that Jerrold will be able to help me more than anyone else. Get Benson to talk me over with him.”

Tom promised, and kissed me good-bye. I shall never forget it — it gave me the horrors for a week!

The next day when Benson came I pretended to sleep, for I did not want to be bothered with him; and I had discovered in my new brain a depth of innocent deceit that amazed me. The doctor and the nurse discussed me in low voices.

“The strange thing is,” said Benson, “that Dr. Jerrold has an appendicitis case followed by loss of identity with a hallucination of change of sex — a combination utterly unknown before. And he tells me he operated on the same day, almost at the same hour, that we did. It’s most extraordinary — and Miss Delano’s insisting that Jerrold is the only man who could understand her case. It’s very odd. He’s coming here today to consult; she insists on it.”

“How’s his case coming on?” asked the nurse interestedly.

“Not well. They’ve had all sorts of trouble. The case to begin with was worse than ours, and when the complication arose they had all sorts of trouble. Patient was hysterical — took everything hard — begged for an imaginary family of sisters and brothers and fiancés and things — refused to have anything to do with his own family — wouldn’t listen to reason, and now he’s fretting himself so, the recovery is very doubtful.”

By this time I was so interested that I forgot my sham sleep and was staring, open-eyed, at the speaker.

“Did — did — Jerrold operate that case at his private sanitarium?” I demanded.

“Yes,” said the doctor, surprised.

“Was it — he — was his name Lloyd Callandar?”

“I believe it was.”

“O Lord! — O Lord!” I groaned, “What in thunder can I do? — and he may not recover, you say — Good heavens, man — don’t say that!” — and I sat up, for I was stronger now.

“Come, come,” said Benson cheerily. “Don’t feel that way. Because one case of appendicitis turns out badly it doesn’t mean yours will too. You’re almost well now — don’t work yourself up, my dear.”

“But he mustn’t die!” — and here again I cried bitterly, and felt better for it. I thought in despair of what to do. I had evidently located my lost body — but the occupant was killing it — this girl soul, who had usurped my place — or, I hers. How was it? Anyway she had no right to murder me. I had done the best I could for her body; I hadn’t lost her reason for her — confound her — and there she was fretting my poor sick hulk to death. I hated her!

An immeasurable pity and affection for my lost carcass invaded me, and I cried some more. Then I reasoned that I must reach her some way — must give her a star to steer her benighted and tempest-tossed course by. She must know that I had her body in charge, and would be only too glad to give it back to her — but how! There I was stumped; but then, that could be attended to later. The thing was to stop her before she killed me. Heavens! then her released ego would come and oust me, or insist on inhabiting this single shell together — and then what could we do!

I saw madness staring me in the face! but I gripped myself and waited for Dr. Jerrold. He came. He was mightily interested. I begged to see him alone. He sat beside me as I talked.

“I hear,” I said, “that you have a similar case to mine that you are treating. A loss of identity, accompanied by hallucination of change of sex.”

“You put it well, Miss Delano.”

“May I ask you what you have been able to do for your patient?”

“Not much,” he answered. “I’m sorry to say we have a very stubborn case.”

“You know this Mr. Callandar well — he is a friend of yours, is he not?”

“Yes; that makes it more distressing.”

“Would you recognize any of his peculiarities if you met them elsewhere? For instance, he has a knack for drawing — give me a pencil, please.”

He handed me one.

I tried to sketch with my former facility, but the hand I now owned would not obey. I shook my head.

“I know his style well,” said Jerrold; “but what has that to do with the question?”

I was baffled. “You will be surprised,” I said, “when I tell you that Callandar and I are old friends, unknown to anyone. For instance, you remember the incidents of the night you spent together at Tunicliff, with young Trainor, and the confession he made when he died?” (Jerrold was startled this time.) “You think that is known to none save you and Callandar; but you see I know too.”

“But you are engaged to someone else?” I saw a suspicion dawn in his eyes, but I did not stop to care.

“You see,” I continued, “I know him well. Now, will you take a note from me to him — and not read it? It is for him alone — it may help.”

Jerrold bowed in silence.

I took up the pencil and a sheet of note paper and began:

Miss Delano: — Don’t trouble; I am in charge of your body. Believe me, it will all come right. Don’t fret; try to accommodate yourself to your new home until we can meet and talk it over. You must get get well. Remember I hold you accountable for my body — I have done my best for yours — and you owe it to me to save mine.

From the soul in your body to the soul in mine.

Lloyd Callandar

I folded this extraordinary letter and directed it to myself. “There may be an answer,” I added; “will you bring it to me tomorrow? And say nothing to anyone, please.”

He went away, and in a fever of anxiety I awaited the reply I knew would come.

Jerrold called the next day about noon.

“Your note seemed to quiet my patient wonderfully,” he told me. “Here is your answer.”

I tore it open; it ran:

Thank God! I thought I was mad! Then it’s true — all true. I will get well, Mr. Callandar, indeed I will. I won’t fret any more. I shall do all in my power to make your body sound and whole for you — and then we must find some way to exchange our egos. I could laugh, I am so happy to know I’m not insane. Write me again, and tell me how all my people are.

From the soul in your body to the soul in mine.

I wrote in answer a description of all the family and what they did and said. I dwelt upon Tom’s jealousy of the doctor, and Jerrold’s mystification. I told her of her new horse, of her mother’s delight in my — her — rapid recovery. I told all my difficulties in assuming her position and name.

In exchange, she told me how my mother was tending her; and how Fred brought her, every day, the most extraordinary bits of gossip from my various clubs. How she was coming to have a very different idea of men in general and certain of her acquaintances in particular. I shuddered at the thought of my innocent brother and his yarns. However, she was beginning to see the humor of the situation, particularly of my troubles with Tom — that seemed to delight her immensely. She mended daily. Jerrold was almost ill himself of curiosity as to what our letters contained. That he had a notion of some intrigue — a secret marriage, perhaps — was evident. He even threw out hints that I was not treating Tom fairly.

As for Tom himself, I must own that with returning strength, a spirit of mischief possessed me to make his life a burden to him — he certainly made mine a trial. I badgered him mercilessly. I showed him by my inferences that I knew of many little trifles in his past of which his Polly might well be in ignorance. He spent a very miserable month, I fear. He often said to me sadly: “Polly, you are greatly changed,” and every time I laughed.

The letters from the real Polly were a delight to me, and I grew to watch for them with more than anxiety. But, most of all, I wanted to see her. At this time I would sit for hours before the looking glass admiring the curve of my — her — lips, I mean, and the beauty of her hair. I took great care of that hair for her sake; I knew she would wish to find it well groomed and fine. Her eyes were lovely. I caught myself gazing at my reflection with lover-like intenseness till I blushed violently — which was very pretty to watch. I was charming in a white cashmere wrapper, and my hands were beautiful, though too thin and transparent now.

I got on splendidly with the family; there were occasional relapses, of course; but on the whole I did very well indeed, Polly coaching me by letter.

The day came at last when I was taken for my first drive since my illness. Polly had informed me the day before that she expected to be taken home — my home — on that day, and I managed to be driven in that direction, in hopes of seeing myself and Polly.

We met! I was in her new landau, well wrapped up in her furs. She was with Fred in a hansom. I started when I saw my old self. I was so white and thin. But lo! and behold! up came my long arm and my paw of a hand, and threw a dainty kiss at me. It was Polly, rejoicing to see her old self again. I had to laugh. I threw back my head and ha-ha’d! I made a dive at my hat to wave it — and found it fastened to my back hair with a lot of long pins. Polly almost fell over the apron of the hansom, she laughed so heartily, and Fred drew her back and looked hopelessly puzzled and anxious.

As for Tom, who was driving with me, he was hot. “I did not know that you knew Callandar, Polly; but even if you do, it’s mighty bad form for both of you, let me say, to carry on like that. I wish you would remember that you are not only engaged, but engaged to be married to me!”

I awoke suddenly to realization and turned on him raging. He going to marry me! — Polly, I mean! — not if I could help it! He wasn’t worthy of her, that I knew; and, well — I would not have it. Polly and I were bound by too close a tie to allow that cad of a Tom Tregenna to come between us. I pulled off my glove in trembling haste. I dragged at the old-fashioned solitaire.

“Take it back,” I said hoarsely. “The engagement is broken!”

“I won’t believe it, Polly,” he said, with a look in his eyes that made me feel like a brute. He took the ring and gazed at it, heart-brokenly. “It was my mother’s!” he choked.

It broke me all up, but I stood my ground.

“Polly! Polly!” he urged. “You’re not well — wait, think it over. You’re not your true self now.”

I shook my head. “I know,” I answered. “But everything is changed since I was ill, everything — please don’t make it hard for me.”

We drove on in silence. He helped me up the steps when we reached home, and left me in charge of “Mother!”

“Was it a pleasant drive, dear?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’ve broken my engagement,” I said bluntly, “and don’t want anyone to speak to me about it” — and fled.

When I reached my room — full of feminine fripperies — I gasped with relief. Polly shouldn’t marry Tom anyway — but — but — what a base advantage I had taken of my tenure of her will! I hated myself while I rejoiced. I spent a restless night.

The next day came a note, this time by post, from Polly, saying:

I’m now installed in your rooms. They smell horribly of tobacco smoke and I have had to get a barber to shave you, as I didn’t know how. You had a full beard, as you — I mean I — may have noticed when we met. All this by way of saying that I’ll be allowed to go about soon, and if you will name a day next week, I might call and see you — think of that! We have a very great deal to say to each other now. You don’t know how fond of you I’ve grown. I look at myself all day. You must have a fine figure when you’re well. I haven’t learned to allow for your big shoulders or long legs yet. Indeed, I don’t know that I want to swap back to my old self. I’m having a beautiful time with your friends; there are packs of them up to see me all the time. You’re awfully popular, you know. They are teaching me poker; it’s one of the things I forgot during my illness. Well, so-long, old man — (You see how adaptable I am) — I’ll look you up as soon as the mater lets me out.

Your affectionate

Tenant

This letter worried me — not little. Suppose, as was more than possible, she should insist on — on retaining my body. How could I evict her? And I was not at all pleased in my new shape, now that health and strength were returning. I found a whole volume of rules and regulations — things I must and mustn’t do. I was nagged continually on a thousand small matters: My language, my manners — everything. I couldn’t move unattended. I couldn’t move freely. In short, I foresaw that when I finally resumed my health, life would hardly be worth living. My books were all selected for me, and I missed sorely some steady occupation. Charities and embroidery did not interest me, though my fingers seemed willing to tackle the latter.

Now, suppose through the refusal of Miss Delano to come to her own again, I should be condemned! Oh, heavens, no! I wrote and appointed the earliest possible date. I informed all the family that I insisted on seeing Mr. Callandar alone, or I’d make a scene. Tears I found at my disposal and an excellent argument.

At last — Oh, what a weary week it was! — the day, the hour came. I had dressed myself very carefully in Polly’s prettiest tea-gown. I listened eagerly for the doorbell for hours — at last it tinkled. I saw my familiar bulk in the doorway. I ran down the stairs — ran against the startled maid coming up with my card — and bounded into the parlor, regardless of the fact that the doctor had forbidden violent exercise.

Polly was standing by the fireplace, shyly, looking very big. She sat down, caught my feet in the rug, and bumped my shoulders on the sofa back, after first hitting my head on the chandelier. “Oh! Oh!” said Polly ruefully. “That’s always the way! How well I do look, Mr. Callandar!”

Then she looked at me. It was my face, but it was Polly, my Polly I had grown to love by letter, that looked at me from my eyes. My heart swelled to bursting beneath the pink tea-gown, and I came across and kissed myself right on the mustache that she hadn’t shaved off after all.

A moment of utter bliss! — and then! — I found myself sitting in the chair, and Polly — Polly’s soul in Polly’s body this time — standing beside me — with her face very close to mine. We had exchanged again!

“Oh! Oh!” cried she. “What have I — what have you — what have we done?”

“It’s all right. O Polly, Polly, dear! we’re all so — mixed up — do let’s get married, and — I love you — sweetheart!”

I stood up and kissed her again. This time we did not swap souls, though it felt very much as if we might.

Then suddenly, “Oh, gracious!” she exclaimed. “I’m engaged — to Tom Tregenna — what shall I do?”

“Oh, no, you’re not. I broke it off for you!”

“What made you take such liberties,” she inquired hotly. “I’d like to know how you knew I’d allow it — that’s just like you men!”

“What do you know about it?” I spoke rashly on the old lines of defense — and then we looked at each other and laughed.

So we were very happy, but Dr. Jerrold continues to think Polly the worst coquette on record, and so, I fear, does Tom Tregenna.

“Black Cat”, Jun 1900

When Time Turned

I dropped in at my friend Dr. Lamison’s rooms, for I had been dull and bored all day, and Lamison, partly by reason of his profession, partly because of his own odd humor and keen insight, is a delightful companion. To my disgust he was not alone, but deep in an animated discussion with an elderly gentleman of pleasant appearance. Being in no mood to talk to strangers I was about to make my excuses and retire, but Lamison signed to me to remain. “Let me present my friend Robertson, Mr. Gage,” he said politely, as we both bowed with due formality. “Robertson,” he continued, addressing me, “you will be interested in what this gentleman has to say on the Philippines — he has spent some years out there.”

Mr. Gage smiled reminiscently. “Yes, I spent some little time in the Islands. In fact, I am just on the point of going there now, and am very sorry I shall not see them again.”

“What?” I asked. “If you’re going, why do you say you will never see the place again?”

Lamison broke in abruptly. “That is a long story. Let’s go on with the question we had in hand. You were saying that the Malays are singularly shrewd and cunning.”

Mr. Gage brightened visibly. “They are, indeed. Now, when I was in Manila,” — and he launched into a highly instructive lecture on the Malay and all his works, talking rapidly and tersely; his phrases full of vigor and originality, his descriptions vivid and picturesque; in fact, it has rarely been my good fortune to listen to so brilliant a conversationalist — though conversation it could hardly be called, for by common consent he had the floor to himself.

Occasionally I asked a question, or Lamison punctuated the discourse with nods of approval as he flicked his cigar ashes on the floor. From the Philippines we wandered to the Chinese empire and its destiny. Gage had spent two years in Tientsin and Hong Kong and was as well informed and interesting as man could be. His observation was phenomenal, and his memory likewise, and he had a way of presenting his facts that was positively evocative. I felt, after listening to him, that the recollections were my own, so distinctly did he force his mental pictures into my consciousness. He was eminently moderate in all his views, avoiding extremes and holding a mean of charity and common sense that is, to say the least, unusual.

A flash of lightning that stared suddenly through the windows, and was followed by a terrific thunder clap, made us start and pause. Mr. Gage arose and, going to the window, looked out into the murky night, remarking as he did so on the suddenness and violence of storms in the tropics.

I seized the occasion to nod to Lamison. “What a brilliant chap,” I said. “I never heard a man express himself so well and sanely — who is he, anyway?”

“A gentleman and a scholar, also my guest for the present,” my host answered. “So you think him well balanced?”

“Eminently so,” I said heartily. “Not many men could state the facts of an international feud with such moderation.”

Dr. Lamison smiled a strange, grave smile.

Our companion came back from the window whereon the heavy wash of the rain was now playing, and refilled his glass from the pitcher of shandygaff.

“So you are just on the point of making your first trip to the East?” Lamison asked, to my unutterable amazement.

Gage nodded. “Yes. In a few days I shall have decided.”

I looked blankly at him.

“Then I suppose you will have your quarrel with the family by next week?” my friend went on.

Gage sighed deeply. “Yes, I shall have to go through with it again. Fortunately the worst stages come first, and I have been feeling the after effects for some days already.”

Lamison looked at my confusion with amusement.

“Tell Robertson about it all, old man,” he said. “He is perfectly trustworthy, and yours is such an interesting story. To begin with, tell him how old you are.”

Gage laughed, a quick boyish chuckle, and sprang up gaily, stretching himself before the sparkling fire. “Just three and twenty,” he answered hilariously.

I looked at him carefully. His iron-gray hair, the infinitesimal tracery of lines that covered his face and hands like a fine-spun web, and the slight stiffness of his joints, in spite of his quick and rather graceful movements, bespoke a man in the later fifties. I understood now. He was doubtless one of the curious cases of mania which the doctor was constantly picking up and studying.

“Tell him how it happened,” Lamison suggested.

Gage’s face grew grave. “It’s very sad, part of it — but on the whole I have been blest above all men, for I have lived my life twice over. It was this way” — he sat down once more in the easy chair from which he had risen. “I was devotedly fond of my wife — one of the most charming women in the world, Mr. Robertson; but I lost her. She died, very suddenly, under singularly painful circumstances.” His mouth twitched, but he controlled himself. “I was away on business in Washington when the news of her sudden illness reached me. I waited for nothing, but left by the fast train. I remember giving ten dollars to the driver of the cab I hailed on my arrival, if he would reach my house in ten minutes. Aside from that the journey is only a blur of strain and horror. My memory becomes clear again with the moment when I saw my doorstep, wet and shining in the rain. I noted the reflected carriage lamp on the streaming pavement. The servant who opened the door at the sound of the stopping of my cab was crying. The house was brilliantly lit and I could hear hurried footsteps on the floor above and catch a glimpse of the blue-clad figure of a trained nurse. I rushed upstairs and into my wife’s room. She raised one hand feebly toward me, and a flash of recognition lit up her face for an instant and then faded into waxen blankness. I can’t describe that hour — it is too keenly terrible for me to repeat and it is not necessary to the story. At last it was all over, and her dear eyes closed forever, as I thought then. A great emptiness settled upon my brain and heart. Then came a slow tightening and straining sensation somewhere inside the dome of my skull, that seemed as fast as St. Peter’s. A snap, sharp as a broken banjo string and perfectly audible, was its climax. Then I steadied myself and looked about. Nothing had changed. The room was still, for the others had gone and we were left alone together — my wife and I. The silence was awful. Only the clock ticked louder and louder and louder till it beat like a drum. Then I glanced at the timepiece, an ordinary little porcelain thing that my wife kept by her on the medicine table, and a cold fear gripped me as I looked, for I realized that something wonderful and terrible was happening. With each tick the second hand jerked one second backwards — the hands were moving around the clock face from right to left. I started, and almost at the same instant I felt the hand I held in mine grow relaxed and warm. I gave a cry. The door opened. The nurse, who had been the last to leave the chamber of death, came in. I saw her do exactly what she had done before — but reversed. Then my sister backed in from the opposite side, exactly as she had walked out, and turning, showed me her tear-stained, convulsed face with the very movement with which she had left us. The others came in; it was a strange phenomenon. The doctor was there now, standing at the head of the bed. I looked at the clock. It was ticking and the hands slowly turning backwards. All at once I realized what had happened. Time had turned.

“I gasped when the thing dawned on me, it was so stupendous. But I saw my sweet wife’s eyelids flutter, I saw her breath coming with difficulty, and I suffered once more with all my soul that terrible death agony. She turned toward me and lifted her hand with the gesture I had seen as I entered the room. In spite of myself I rose, and left her. I went down the stairs — the servant was there — I passed out into the street, to find the cab that had brought me standing before the door. I backed in. The horse trotted backward all the way to the station and I found myself on the train speeding backwards to the city I had left to come post haste to my darling’s bedside.

“My reason shivered in my skull. If I could not sift this matter I knew I should go mad. The thing was strange past all endurance. So I sat in the train that was carrying me over the miles so recently covered, and considered. A dawn of delight came to me. It would not be so long before all this horror would have doubly passed. I would have to go to the hotel and receive that terrifying, crushing telegram announcing Isabelle’s illness once more. Then I should go over the business that had called me on to Washington, but after that I should go back to my wife to find her strong and well, to live over again the happy years of our married life, to watch her growing daily younger, while I grew young with her. What matter that little tiffs re-occurred — they were so few, and the joy of those years so infinitely great. And that, Mr. Robertson, is just what happened.”

He went on, after a pause, in which he seemed lost in happy reverie. “In a week I had grown somewhat accustomed to doing over again the things I had done, only reversed; it seemed almost a matter of course; and, after all, I cared little, for I knew I was soon going to find Isabelle, to be greeted by her good-bye kiss, the same with which she had bid me Godspeed on the fatal journey. I could hardly hold my impatience as, at last, I backed up to the house, and when I saw her standing on the porch as I had last seen her, well and strong, dressed in the pretty gray cloth so becoming to her bright complexion and copper-colored hair, I could have cried with joy. She greeted me as I expected, with good-byes, but my heart sang with delight as we went into the house together. I put down my dress-suit case, and we ate luncheon together, beginning with dessert and ending with the delicate omelette she had prepared herself, in honor of my unusual freedom to lunch with her. We went over our old conversations. I was longing to tell her of my delight in her presence, of my gratitude for the extraordinary reversal of nature that gave her back to me, but I could not, I was under bondage of the past. I could only say what I had said, do what I had done.

“Luncheon over — or rather, correctly speaking, before it had begun — I bade her good-bye in my heart, but greeted her in my speech and went down to the treadmill round of my office work. My recent bereavement made me so tender of her presence, so hungry for the sight of her that my very soul longed to expand itself in loving words and acts; I yearned to do and say a thousand affectionate things, but I could only do as I had done. I began to appreciate how I had let our relations become commonplace, and I hated myself for it. I saw a thousand ways in which I could have made her happier, or spared her pain, yet I could not take advantage of my new realization of my love of her. Ah, it takes such an experience as mine to make a man understand what he has missed and what he might have been. But even if I could not say to her what I so dearly longed to show myself, yet in my heart no gesture of hers went unnoted, no tone of her voice unloved. She delighted me wholly and completely, and the caresses that I gave her in seeming perfunctoriness, and the words seemingly mere habits of expression, were really the outlet of my soul’s yearning to her. We were very happy. For years we were constantly together, and never was wife so appreciated. Then a great fear began to grip my heart. I remember it came suddenly, in the very midst of the little feast we were having to celebrate the first year of our wedded life — our ‘first anniversary.’ I realized that soon, in the very joy of our honeymoon I must anticipate our separation — the wedding would take place, next we would be engaged, then mere acquaintances, and after that — oh, desolation — it would be before I met her, and I should never see her again.

“I lived that year, our second honeymoon, and the last of our life together, torn between the joy of my returned happiness and the terrible knowledge of my coming loss. The wedding day came and I could have cried out in my agony, but I could give my pain no voice. I had no tears, only smiles and laughter that must be gone through with, though my heart was breaking. Imagine it if you can, sirs. Was ever a man so tried? Then came the period of our engagement, when I knew we were drifting slowly and surely apart — and the happiness and misery of that time was, perhaps, the hardest of all to bear, even worse than the actual slow separation, though after my declaration, when our relations were formal and distant, it broke my heart to see her, whom I had loved so long, treat me as a mere acquaintance; and with it was the awful knowledge that there was no future hope, no possibility of our meeting, on this earth at least. The poignant day of my first meeting with her arrived at last. I saw her, as I had seen her then, so many years before, lighting that conventional ballroom with her presence, a radiant vision, all gold and rose, her tall, graceful figure gowned in soft, filmy drapery. I saw her with all my heart and soul, with all the pent-up memories of my twice lived life, for I remembered it was the first, and knew it was the last time I should see her. She vanished and I was left alone. For some time afterwards, although I was living over my cheerful, happy-go-lucky bachelor days, I was internally of a suicidal turn of mind, even on my return journeys in the East. I could not resign myself to losing this girl that, according to reversed time, I had never met. But youth is gay, and its recuperative powers strong, and I am growing steadily younger, you see. Then, too, other loves came and went, or rather went and came, and in spite of myself I am able to contemplate my double past with the buoyancy of my second youth. Yet it is all very strange, and recently unaccountable intervals have intruded into my life, such as this evening, for instance. You, gentlemen, are not a part of my boyish past, and yet you seem to be interpolated into my otherwise coherently backward existence. This has been happening for some time, and grows more marked. You may be dreams of my old life that I had forgotten, but I am at a loss to account for it fully. For instance — how could I have foretold then what the future had in store? and yet in one sense that is what I am doing now, in telling you my experience. You must admit that it is confusing.”

Gage’s story had fairly made me dizzy. I admitted that it was confusing! I hardly knew what to think. I even turned an anxious eye on the clock over the fireplace to assure myself that its hands still moved from left to right. As I faced it, Lamison regarded me with his amused but sympathetic eye.

“I hope to interpolate myself a great deal into your world, Gage,” he said. “It’s time you stopped in your mad career of growing younger. I don’t want you on my hands when you become a troublesome stripling, or even when you have to unlearn your college education.”

Gage laughed. “It will be rather hard, but I did enjoy my Harvard days, before I had that row with the family. Whew! How the old man did blow me up! And when I think I have to hear all that over again, it makes me sick.” He paused again, and assisted his courage from the cheering pitcher. “Another thing that worries me,” he went on, “is this: Have you noticed that, although all the happenings of my life seem to follow in well ordered reverse sequence, what I say does not? For instance, by all rights I should repeat my sentences verbatim backwards. ‘I am glad to see you,’ in reversed language would be, ‘You see to glad am I.’ Now, in all my years of reversed experiences, although the order of conversation progresses backwards, the sentences themselves make perfect forward sense. This drives me to distraction.”

The whole impossible proposition danced before me, but Lamison was evidently delighted.

“Good! Gage, splendid! You are making progress — your logic is returning. I am unspeakably glad.”

Gage looked at him wonderingly. “Why should you? It is only more confusing. Ah, well, I should not be unhappy if it were not for the awful prospect of being a baby again. That revolts me, like becoming senile. It is such a horrible thing to become a squirming, senseless infant — it makes me shiver, it keeps me from sleeping, it is a menace too ugly and loathsome to be endured. Fancy it, gentlemen, the ignominy of it — the hideous helplessness.”

“We’ll find a way to prevent that,” Lamison said soothingly. “You are better already. It won’t be long before we set it all straight. Come, come, be a man—” for Gage suddenly flung himself on the table, his face buried in his hands, moaning slowly.

“I don’t want to be a baby — I don’t want to be a baby.”

This exhibition was so pitiful that I turned to Lamison, almost with tears in my eyes. “Is there any hope for him?” I asked.

Lamison nodded. “Yes, he’ll pull through. A condition brought on by overwork and the sudden death of his wife, of whom he was devotedly fond. You see how he is beginning to realize the discrepancies in his imaginary life. He will come out all right — in time.”

Gage now had himself under control and sat up shamefacedly.

“Don’t mind me, Mr. Robertson,” he said. “I don’t often break down this way, and I wouldn’t have you imagine for one instant that I regret my life. I could not have asked a greater boon of Fate than those happy years restored to me, when time had turned.”

He rose gravely, excused himself and left us, and we sat silent and deeply thoughtful, staring into the red embers of the fire.

“Black Cat”, Jan 1901

The Intruder

The dowager duchess sat, still and grim, amid the dimmed splendors of the great hall of the chateau. She was small, slender, aristocratic to the tips of her lean fingers. The poise of her head was haughty, the glance of her eye, save to her few equals, a scornful rebuff. The dowager duchess not only represented the ancient house of Vantôme, but came herself of a line that traced itself back to dim days of heroic legends — the Gleōcs-Keral of Brittany. Now she awaited the coming of her only son, Germain Marie Claude Raoul, Duke of Villiers-Vantôme, and his parvenu bride.

Mellow chimes from the clock-tower of the Henry IV. wing rang out the hour — eleven. The sonorous music, beating softly through the wide halls, gathered mystery and depth as it reverberated from the Gothic arches of the chapel to drift in roaring cadence down the echoing corridors. The dowager duchess shuddered. Only half an hour more, and the stately palace must acknowledge an upstart American as its mistress. As she gazed on the painted ornaments of the huge, hooded fireplace — the rampant stags of Vantôme — tears rose to her eyes, tears of humiliation and disappointment. Was it for this she had servilely labored since the death of her husband? She had administered the estate with a hand of iron, that its dwindling revenues might provide the hereditary luxury, that Raoul might appear in Paris in the state befitting his rank, might live as the Duke de Vantôme should live, and marry a woman whose quarterings should do honor to the princely parchments of his father’s pedigree. She had cloistered herself to live to this end, and to command the loyalty of peasants, the grudging homage of neighboring chatelaines. She had lived rigidly by the old régime; but her son had succumbed to the new.

She had refused to attend his wedding, giving ill health as her excuse; had been represented by her gift alone, the famous Valois necklace — noblesse oblige; the gifts of the dowager duchess must be princely.

Slow color mounted to her ashen cheeks, at the recollection of the Marquise de Vaux’s scornful congratulations.

“Ah, ma chère, I hear from Paris, Raoul is to make a great marriage, a dot of millions, they say — oh, but millions and millions and millions — made in pork!”

“Raoul does not need to consider money,” the dowager duchess had answered, superbly mendacious; “the lands are intact.” The marquise had winced, visibly. The estates of Vaux were mortgaged, neglected.

“Nor family, either, it would seem,” the viper tongue had retorted.

“Yes, he has sufficient of that, also.” The dowager duchess had the better of the encounter, yet the stab went deep.

The flighty, beruffled occupants of Arques Forret had dared to call upon her, excusing the intrusion by their intimacy with the foreign fiancée. Fortunately, she had been able to crush them with the accumulated magnificence of the château and her own queenly demeanor.

The sound of wheels aroused her from painful reverie.

Subdued whisperings in the corridor warned her that the servants were collected to welcome the new chatelaine. The ponderous, bronze-studded doors swung wide. The soft-toned tapestries undulated along the walls. A breath of Autumn air, sad with the memories of fallen leaves, swept into the room.

She remained seated in her ancient, throne-like chair, before the fire, only turning her head slightly as her tall son hurried to her side. Silently, she extended the thin fingers heavy with rings.

“Be welcome, my son,” she said, at length.

He kissed the proffered hand.

“Madame, my mother — I present to you my wife, Claire.”

With stately grace she turned to the intruder. “My son’s wife should be welcome to Vantôme.”

The girl bowed gracefully, but the flush that mantled her cheeks revealed her sense of the grudging reception accorded her.

The dowager duchess regarded her daughter-in-law fixedly, noting every line of the frail, fashionably gowned figure, every detail of the small, oval face, with its wide-set, blue eyes, and crown of iridescent black hair. The girl shivered slightly.

“You are cold,” the dowager duchess suggested. “Raoul, there is wine and cake upon the table. The Autumn winds are chill.”

“Thank you,” said the bride, simply. “I am cold. I have only just recovered from a long illness, as perhaps you know.”

“My son has told me. You must be weary. Amélie will conduct you to your apartments.”

A gaunt woman, wearing the characteristic garb of Arles, appeared at the door as her name was spoken. With a sigh, half of weariness, half of relief, the Duchess Claire rose.

“Pardon my not accompanying you,” the unforgiving voice went on; “I do not walk with ease.” As the dowager spoke, she slightly lifted an ebony cane.

“An accident in the hunting field,” her son hastened to explain, with a slight laugh. “You would never imagine that my mother was once a most enthusiastic sportswoman, first in every boar hunt in the arrondissement, would you?”

The girl looked up with a quick wonder in her blue eyes. She knew little or nothing of the ancien régime.

“Go and rest, Claire,” her husband persisted, gently. “Remember, you are an invalid still. Amélie, see that she is well cared for.”

The woman nodded, as her young mistress, with an inclination to the others, passed before her.

“Pretty and presentable, is she not, madame, ma mère?” said the duke, playfully, anxiety piercing the lightness of his tone.

His mother’s eyes froze, her mouth set tight. “Pretty she is — presentable, never! The daughter of a parvenu, without race, without pride — presentable? Not among your father’s people nor mine!”

“She’s a sweet little girl,” her son insisted, his brow darkening. “Her dot will place us once more among the first houses of France.” That he loved his wife sincerely, was the last reason he would have dreamed of putting forward. He dreaded his mother’s ridicule.

“Better poverty! And this” — with a sweeping gesture to the faded glories of the hall — “is not poverty; yet better the poverty of Gilles of the crossroads, than a stain upon that!” She pointed bitterly to the shield and rampant stags of the carved mantel.

Raoul winced. “Do you love me, mother?” he asked, abruptly.

She turned to him. Her hard eyes softened, her mouth relaxed. “You are my only son,” she answered.

He leaned over her, solicitous, tender. “Then be kind to her — for my sake. Remember, she is young, very young. She has been ill, is only half recovered. If her father had not been called back to America, we should have postponed the wedding till the new year. Don’t make it hard for her!”

“It is not as your mother that I object to this marriage,” she said, slowly, avoiding a direct answer to his request. “It is the widow of Duke Henri of Villiers-Vantôme who rebels, the last descendant of du Guesclin, of the Gleōcs-Kerals, who weeps over this dishonor. I know it is useless, I know that in this age all that is thought of is money, all that gives position is extravagance. I belong to the relegated generation, with which honor and breeding is the only seal of superiority. I cannot accept this mésalliance as you would have me.”

“She is a sick child, mother.”

“She is an intruder in the house of your forefathers.” The dowager duchess rose, leaning heavily upon her ebony cane. “Your hand, Raoul.” He hastened to her assistance. “The gallery,” she said, quietly.

They crossed the huge room slowly, her quick eyes flashing with pride unutterable upon the tattered banners, the shining trophies, the stands of armor; resting with loving recollection upon the vast Breton chests of carved wood, black with age, ponderous with Gothic locks, that had contained her marriage linens, heirlooms of the vast, rugged castle in which her early years had bloomed and waned.

Her son swung back the door to the passage, held the tapestry aside as she entered, and rejoined her, offering his arm.

The gallery was vast, long and narrow, one side a series of deep-set Gothic windows looking out upon terraces, where a sundial stared blankly at gray, Autumnal heavens, and mossy, marble rims confined dark spaces of water that reflected the deep green of huge hedges of trimmed box and cedar.

On the wall, facing the somber outlook, the portraits of the dead lords of Vantôme, with their ladies, hung, row on row — belaced seigneurs and mincing dames, by Mesnard; stalwart, beruffled gentlemen, by Vandyke; a subtle, smiling Italian countess, pictured by da Vinci; a black-browed, Spanish infanta, by Murillo; a laughing demoiselle de Bourgogne, by Rubens, and many more. Not one of all that pictured gathering but bore, either upon the masterly canvas, or its convoluted frame, the arms and tokens of heraldic fame — not one.

The dowager duchess made no comment. The duke understood; yet he persisted in his attempt to break down the barriers of caste. As they reëntered the great hall, he turned to her once more.

“Madame, ma mère, you will go to her soon; will you not? Make some excuse — anything. Be gentle with her, make her feel at home. You were once a bride. You know what it must be to come among strange faces and surroundings. Besides, she is not even of our country — think how alone she is! Mother, forget you are a Vantôme — remember you are a woman!”

They paused a moment by the huge center-table with its weight of treasures — massive silver candlesticks, enamel boxes, the great horn of carved ivory, gift of Mazarin to Duke Jean IV., the bowl of priceless d’Oiron faīence, the work of the Countess Hélène herself. The eyes of the dowager duchess rested upon a casket of wrought steel. A strange look flitted across her pale, set face, a look at once of horror and fanaticism.

“Is this woman a heretic?” she asked, turning suddenly.

“She is a Protestant, madame, ma mère. We were married by special dispensation. I have no doubt,” he added, grasping at this straw of hope, “that, if you will gain her confidence, you can win her to the Church.”

She shook her head. “If she has not recanted for your sake, she will not for mine,” she answered, coldly.

The strange look deepened in her old eyes, her thin, claw-like fingers played nervously with the hasps of steel. There was a moment’s silence.

“Leave me now, Raoul,” she said, slowly; “I wish to be alone. Later, I shall go to see your wife. She seems not well — I shall do for her what seems necessary.”

The duke’s face lighted up, joyously. “You are good, madame, ma mère. I knew, in the end, you would accept her for my sake.”

“For your sake I shall do much. May God forgive me!”

He raised her unresisting hand to his lips. She seemed not to notice it, her head was sunk upon her breast, her eyes fixed upon the foliated lock.

“I leave you, then, madame, ma mère.”

She nodded, absently.

Once alone, she glanced up, quickly, casting a look almost furtive about the silent room. Helmets gleamed in the subdued light. Omphale and Hercules stared out unseeing from the tapestry, the gargoyles of the carved beams grimaced, unobservant.

“None can ever guess,” said the dowager duchess, slowly. She sought at her side the silver chatelaine with its trousseau of keys, which had been worn for generations by the ladies of Vantôme. She fitted and turned the key in the ancient box, threw back the lid, and looked within. There lay various packets wrapped in soft silk; one, larger and flatter than the others, she withdrew daintily. A yellowed slip of paper bore characters in old French: “The gloves of Catharine de’ Medici, Queen of France, wife of Charles IX., given by her to Jeanne de Gae, second wife of Michael de Vantôme. These gloves were poisoned by Conotelli, the celebrated alchemist, who accompanied Catharine when, as Princess of Florence, she was married to the son of Francis I. To put one on is said to be certain and painless death, leaving no trace whatsoever. The secret, which belonged originally to the Borgias, died with the physician of the great Catharine.”

She folded the slip, concealing it in her bosom.

A few moments later, the dowager duchess requested admittance to the presence of the new mistress of the manor.

Claire shivered slightly, as she lay on the great carved bed with its hangings of embroidered Genoese velvet, and, drawing her lacy négligée about her, struggled to a sitting position. “If she will pardon — will pardon — !” she stammered. The slow tap of the ebony cane and the heavy step outside her door made her tremble anew. In her weakness, she feared this haughty woman of ice and iron, as she had feared no one else in her life. She longed for the comforting presence of her husband, but it would be best to receive his mother at once.

Amélie flew to the door. The dowager duchess dropped the arm of the manservant who escorted her, and leaned her weight upon the faithful Arlésienne.

“Pierre, bring the steel casket from the table in the tapestry hall — now, at once.” The cane tapped impatiently. Turning, the dowager advanced slowly toward the bed.

Claire gazed, fascinated; she strove to rise, but sank back as, with a wave of her hand, her stately visitor directed. Amélie placed a chair for her mistress, taking up her position behind it.

“The casket for which I have sent contains some heirlooms. They should have formed a part of my wedding gift, but I preferred to wait till you came to place them in your keeping. In your country, perhaps, they do not value such things.”

“Oh, yes, indeed we do,” cried the girl. “You don’t know how I love this wonderful place and all the beautiful things. Please don’t think we Americans have so little appreciation—”

She broke off, tremulous, uncertain. Something in the inflexibility of the stern mouth before her, in the concentrated fire of the dark eves that burned into hers, made her feel strangely apprehensive. To her overwrought nerves, the woman before her seemed a terrible incarnation of some bird of prey, with curving beak and lean, unmerciful talons, herself its weak and fluttering quarry.

“Many of these things — trifles, some of them — were gifts or souvenirs of the great men and women who have honored Vantôme with their presence,” the duchess went on. “Raoul never has taken the interest in these matters that he should. Half of these trophies he has never seen, nor has he ever cared to inquire into their history when he has been shown them. Yet, as chatelaine, you must guard and care for them.”

“You honor me, madame,” said the Duchess Claire.

A knock at the door interrupted them. The gaunt servant received the casket, and, placing it on the bed, was dismissed.

The older woman opened the box painfully; the lock was stiff and complicated; her jeweled fingers trembled.

“This,” she said, reverently, opening a tattered velvet case of almost unrecognizable blue, “is the marshal’s baton of Angoulême, and this, the ring of Cardinal Richelieu.”

Claire sat up, her eyes wide, her breath coming quick. “How wonderful!” she murmured. The ring of Richelieu! — a huge, engraved amethyst, set in heavy gold. She slipped the band upon her finger, turning it over and over with awe.

“This is the tambour and part of the embroidery, just as she left it, made by Anne of Brittany during her brief stay in Normandy. She occupied the turret apartments in the old wing.”

“Here?” asked Claire, under her breath.

“Here,” said the dowager duchess. “This pin belonged to Mary Stuart, the Scottish princess, when she was the wife of the dauphin of France. These were her rooms — this is the bed she slept in.”

Claire’s eyes traveled in bewilderment over the huge, dark pillars, the red and tarnished gold of the hangings. “Mary Queen of Scots!” she murmured. “This — this is all like a dream, a sort of fairy story. I — I can’t realize—”

The older woman smiled, contemptuously. “Here is the snuff-box my lord of Buckingham presented, when he was envoy from England at the court of Louis XV. The fan was the Montespan’s; this star, the gift of Louis XIV. to Duke John — the royal party occupied Ventôme during the Autumn hunts; that dagger Diane de Poitiers wore to the chase — see the entwined crescents on the guard and the leaping stag upon the hilt. But, perhaps, I weary you.”

“No, no!” cried the Duchess Claire. “This is all fairyland, too good to be true. I shall wake up — I know I shall!”

“Here is a diamond shoe-buckle of La Pompadour’s. The reliquaire was made by Benvenuto Cellini to the order of Cardinal Vantôme.” The claw fingers touched the last packet, fearfully. There was a pause, the bright eyes clouded. A spasm contracted the grim mouth, leaving it livid and determined.

The Duchess Claire gave no heed. With reverent fingers, she turned and re-turned the golden reliquary, with its garlands and sculptured saints, wondering, dreaming. All these treasures, hers! treasures heavy with the weight of centuries — actual, tangible links in the great human chain of history, bringing the past here to her hands — hands born and grown in that far, new world, where the wheel of Fortune whirled a hundred years of concentrated living into as many days. Something of the awe of mighty heights and depths grew in her soul, leaving her shrinking upon the brink of eternities of time and life. She raised her eyes to the face of the woman beside her. It was white as death itself, and as cold.

“These,” said the dowager duchess, bending low over the packet in her lap, “are the gloves of Queen Catharine de’ Medici. They were embroidered for the wife of Duke Michael. They have never been worn — look, how soft and flexible they are after all these years.”

The Duchess Claire took the gloves, silently.

“How sweet they smell,” she said, softly, raising them to her face, breathing the strange, dim fragrance they exhaled. “What is it? It’s like nothing that I know — it seems hardly of earth.”

“Put one on your hand for a few moments.” The dowager duchess looked away, her eyes fixed on the ivory-and-silver crucifix upon the wall. “Your hand will retain the perfume, so they say, for a long, long time. It was a secret, the property of Catharine’s court physician, and it died with him.”

The girl obeyed, gently pulling on the embroidered gauntlet, preserved almost miraculously, its texture still flexible and fine, its golden flowers still whole, though brown with age.

“See how it fits!” she exclaimed. “It might have been made for me instead of for the wife of Duke Michael.”

“Jean wishes to know at what hour you wish the déjeuner.” The Arlésienne stood at the door.

“When the duke is ready,” said the dowager duchess. Then, turning to her daughter-in-law: “Don’t try to come down. Stay and take your rest. Amélie will serve you here, and Raoul shall come to you afterward. Let us put back your treasures now.”

One by one, the storied relics were returned to their places, folded, enwrapped, encased many times, the girl stripping the gauntlet from her hand, reluctantly, and the gloves of the Florentine disappeared from the light of day to their steel prison.

With a sigh, the bride leaned back among her pillows. “I am so sleepy!” she murmured.

The dowager duchess rose with the help of her ebony cane, standing above the girl, a dark, brooding shadow.

“My daughter,” she said — there was something tense and terrible in her tone — “my daughter, you will forgive me, if I have dealt hardly with you. Remember, I have but one son, and for him I have wished only the greatest and best the world had to give. I am the descendant of the kings of Brittany; my husband came from the lords of the Norman conqueror. When the hour comes that I must be judged, remember this. Forgive what seemed cruel.”

The Duchess Claire sought to open her eyes, sought to make reply. Her lips repeated, mechanically, “What seemed cruel — forgive—” and, with a little sigh, like a tired child, she turned on her pillows, and fell asleep. Her face grew yellow-white as wax, her breathing difficult. How black seemed her hair on the white pillow!

Slowly, the dowager duchess crossed the room; slowly, the sound of her ebony cane and dragging footfall sounded down the echoing corridor. She found her way, unaided, to the wide hall, where the banners hung in tattered glory, where the shining arms of forgotten heroes gleamed in martial array.

There, in her great throne-chair, she sat down, her heart dead within her shrunken breast.

“No one will ever know,” murmured the dowager duchess. “My son’s sons have been spared a low-born mother — God rest her soul!”

“Smart Set”, Dec 1902

The Woman in Gray

In all London one finds no gathering place of all nations to match the square salon precedent to the low-ceiling dining-room and tiled terrace of the Savoy. The waiting hall, raised several feet above the level of the lower rooms, gives exceptional opportunities for observation, of which Bradford Venner was availing himself.

One woman only, of all the butterfly throng, attracted his attention. “Queer type,” he thought. “Wonder what she is besides anemic. What color! — arsenic tablets, I suppose. What won’t women do!”

His glance wandered to a vision in rose and gold, and thence to a dowager in black velvet. Both were banal. A lady, accompanied by an adoring staff of men, caught his eye. He noted her elaborate coiffure, strident laugh and high color, and his interest reverted to the lonely, pale woman. He found his gaze returned by two mysterious dark eyes, deep sunken under straight brows. Tender and thoughtful they might once have been; now they were filled with self-searching and resentful wonder. So absorbed was Bradford in his effort to analyze the strange expression, that he forgot the persistence of his stare, until, with a twitch of the gray-spangled skirts and a pressure of the gray-gloved hand upon the arm of her chair, the stranger half rose, in her face the light of struggling recognition.

Bradford started and turned away. He did not know her, of that he was certain. And he had no desire to scrape a hotel acquaintance — and yet — she was a lady; that was evident. She must have mistaken him for someone else — Clint, perhaps, his twin brother; people were always making mistakes. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets with a nervous movement. It was a bore, that extraordinary resemblance: one never knew — Why on earth should he want to look at that creature again? And why was Roberts so late? But look he must.

She had collapsed upon the seat once more, with the relaxation of infinite weariness, while she slowly folded and unfolded a feather fan — marabou, soft as a puff of smoke. She was looking in his direction, but through him, past him, with tired watchfulness, intent upon the distant entrance. Every other personality in the room faded and vanished. It was as if he looked into an empty banquet hall, wherein this woman sat solitary. He noted the heavy coils of her blue-black glossy hair — too heavy a load for her slender white throat. It seemed to pull her head backward, giving it a haughty pose that the anguished eyes belied. Her nose was fine, her mouth beautifully modeled but curled half in pain, half disgust, as if some bitter draught were proffered. Her low-cut gown of cloudy tone was spangled and embroidered lavishly, yet it did not glitter nor contrast sharply. She wore no jewels save a pearl collar, from which depended three gray pearls.

Bradford shook himself angrily, turned on his heel, walked down the wide corridor and, through the glass partition by the writing-desk, glanced in upon the busy diners in the outdoor “French” café. Roberts was not to be found. He looked at his watch — nine docks Whatever could be the matter!

He turned again restlessly, and retraced his steps. He re-crossed the waiting-room and stopped short. The woman in gray had risen and was walking toward the low stair. Her movements were hurried, her face “all stretched to speak.” With a swift, graceful sweep she raised her spangled skirts as she mounted, showing a tiny, steel-beaded slipper. Another instant, and she was close beside him. He heard a gentle, silken swish, the faint “click” of metal pailletes, noticed a subtle perfume as of sandalwood and violet, and heard a troubled, low whisper, “I must explain, must explain!” Like a cloud she drifted by him, and with vague trouble of spirit he watched her slender form trailing its wake of glinting draperies. She hurried on, turned to the right as she neared the entrance, and disappeared from his view.

“Oh, Venner,” exclaimed Roberts at his elbow, “I’m awfully sorry to have kept you waiting like this. Couldn’t help it, you know. I’ve just sold Hodges my motor car, and I wanted to settle the deal. Come on, let’s feed.”

Venner hardly appeared to listen. “You know everybody in London,” he said abruptly. “Who was that woman in gray, who came from below there, just as you spoke to me?”

“Woman in gray? Didn’t notice. Couldn’t have been anybody. Savoy full of strangers, anyhow. Come on, let’s get outside. I’ll tell Gustav to give us ducks.”

They settled themselves at one of the little tables set under the glass-domed entrance to the right of the door.

“Where’s Clint these days?” inquired the host, when, the order given, he lit a cigarette and settled back in his chair.

Venner laughed. “I haven’t the least idea. Nice for twins who are supposed to be so inseparable, and all that, isn’t it? But Clint is such an Arab, and I’m such an Indian — and there you are,”

“Haven’t seen him in two years,” observed Roberts.

“No more have I. Last letter I had was from Paris about a month ago. I was thinking that when twins were so near each other, they ought to make an effort to exchange the time of day” — Venner sipped his soup — “even if we haven’t a taste in common.”

“Taste in common!” exclaimed Roberts. “It’s just because you’re so blamed alike, that you can’t get on better, and each one of you thinks the other an extremist. You’re twins, mentally and morally and physically.”

Venner shrugged.

“Not morally, you mean,” interpreted Roberts tactlessly.

Bradford drew away. “No,” he said coldly. “I did not mean that; my brother’s private affairs are his own and, I have no doubt, bear the limelight as well as those of other men — when he chooses to court publicity.”

Roberts laughed, his coarse-fibered nature quite unaware of the boorishness of his remarks, or the evident annoyance of his companion. “Oh, you know what I mean,” he insisted. “Nothing against him, but men generally don’t class him up with you. He may take with the women, Lord bless ’em! but he’s driven a bit too carelessly, and that last mess, you know—”

“No, I don’t know,” Bradford retorted — “and if you don’t mind, let’s talk over our business, and drop Clint.”

“Oh, very well,” said the host. “Here, pour that champagne, waiter — didn’t know you affected the ‘brotherly love’ pose. Sorry — but we all know, you know — so there’s no harm done. By the way, about that company of yours — just how much stock has been taken up?”

Venner’s frown vanished, and he was soon absorbed in the details of his new scheme. It was not until the “péche melba,” the inevitable London sweet, had made its appearance that his mind had time to revert to Roberts’s earlier remarks, but by the time coffee was served his shrewd brain had recovered the thread of those insinuations, and was busily following where they led.

“That last mess” — what was meant by that? he wondered. He would not deign to touch the subject again with Roberts, or, indeed, with anyone. His loyalty was too deep for that. Uneasiness entered his spirit. Evidently this man, and the world at large, were in possession of facts or stories concerning his brother’s recent life of which he was totally ignorant. And Clint, after all, had a way of being guilty — not of anything criminal, nor even beyond the pale, but guilty, nevertheless, of things better left undone or unsaid — things that earned a shrug or a sneer from those who looked on. Bradford was as reticent as he was sympathetic and broadminded, but the sun of his solar system was pride of race, and that had more than once been sorely wounded by his twin’s recklessness, the likeness between the brothers only adding to the difficulties.

Dinner was over only a few moments before the supper throng arrived. Venner excused himself on the plea of an engagement, drew back his chair, took his hat and coat from the attendant, and prepared to slip between the floral barriers. As he did so he caught sight of the gray woman coming rapidly down the main corridor. Involuntarily he paused. Her actions were, as before, hurried and anxious. Her expression of dreary unhappiness hurt him. Her lips moved. He knew what she was saying, although no sound could have reached him where he stood — “I must explain, I must explain!”

She came close to the wide entrance. Venner could see the shine of the intense electric light on her eyes, its vivid flash on her metal spangles, its sparkle on the diamond bars of her jeweled collar. Yet her beautifully gowned, graceful figure and splendid head with its mass of elaborately dressed hair seemed somehow antique, like a Greek mask of grief. Its extreme modern note was lost in the intensity of its human passion. She turned suddenly, with a very slight gesture that, nevertheless, showed her evident despair. A moment later she was gone.

With a strange sensation of wonder and sympathy Venner roused himself, ordered a cab, and was driven rapidly through the bustle and hurry of supper hour, to the Carlton. He had no engagement, but hoped to meet a friend or two, and idle away an hour in pleasant gossip. Roberts’s personality was still on his nerves, and he longed to erase it by some pleasanter contact. But fate seemed against him. The place was thronged, but the clientele was unusually uninteresting — an overdressed Russian woman, smoking defiantly in the faces of two over-décolleté dowagers, seemed the only woman present who was not an importation from Mme. Tousaud’s. A hideous nightmare feeling settled upon him. They were all mechanical figures, these people, moving by cunningly devised springs — awkward, unnatural, uncanny.

He turned away, when a familiar laugh and a light touch brought him to a standstill.

“Are you going to cut me?” demanded a warm and friendly voice.

“Cut you — never!” His greeting was boyishly cordial. “Of all the women in the world, you are the one I most needed. Can you give me a moment, an hour, a year or two? — anything you will.”

She nodded. “Yes, boy, it just happens you may have the hour. I was on my way to my rooms when I caught a glimpse of you, and started in pursuit. Let us sit here; we can watch the Zoo, without feeling as if we made a part of it. What has come over our old London, I wonder. Did you ever see such queer people?” Mrs. Carghate smoothed a straying lock at her temple, and settled deep into a chair; a strong personality enshrined in a vigorous, middle-aged body, that neither defied nor sought to disguise the finger of Time, but fused his work into harmony with her own dauntless spirit. She smiled divinely upon Venner. “Tell me all about yourself — and there must be quite an accumulation; I haven’t seen you — in — let me see — ten months, at least.”

“Whose fault?” he asked ruefully.

“Mine and yours. I’m such an old gad-about — and so are you. It’s been Cairo and Nice and Paris, then Paris and Aix and Chamounix and Paris — and some more Paris. But that is neither here nor there; or, rather, it is here and there and everywhere. Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, I’ve been floating a lot of schemes, and incidentally, it’s been tigers and an elephant or so, and a few lions and some more tigers, some zebras and leopards, and back to tiger; a rhino, a hippo, then up to tiger again. You have re-occurring Paris, and I have reoccurring tigers and schemes.”

She nodded approval. “That shows how alike we are in our tastes. Paris is the schemer and the tiger among cities — the most beautiful and dangerous, the gaudiest and most velvety. Well, and the heart, boy?”

“Did Paris get yours? No more did the tigers get mine — and I’m afraid I’m not a ladies’ man. I leave all that to my brother.” His companion’s brows contracted suddenly; a swift compression of the lips spoke volumes. Venner laid his hand an instant over hers.

“Please, will you tell me what the trouble is? What has my brother done? I meet insinuations and shrugs — it’s — it’s difficult for me to ask, you understand; but I must know, and better than anyone else you can tell me — won’t you?”

She looked at him incredulously. “Haven’t you seen him in this last year?”

“No; I’ve been away — East Africa.”

“And you’ve not been told?”

“No.”

She was silent a moment. “It’s not a pleasant task you give me, boy.”

“I know,” he answered.

“I wonder what makes it,” she mused. “Here you are, twins — like as two beads on a string, yet you are my dear, good Brad, and he is Clint — whom nobody quite forgives for living—” She paused again, and twined her slender fingers in the diamond flexibility of her lorgnette chain. “You will have to hear it, I suppose, sooner or later,” she began. “You remember your brother was devoted to Countess Kesorleff for some years. There — was — a great deal of talk—”

Bradford flushed. “Yes, I heard something of it. I even thought Clint would marry her after her husband died.”

“We all thought that.” There was a moment’s pause ere she took up the thread of her narrative. “Poor woman!” she murmured, “poor woman!

“She was terribly in love with Clint, and had never been at pains to conceal it. It was her whole life, her whole being. She was one of those women in whom love kills every other passion, every other thought.

“It may be that very intensity wearied your brother. Anyhow, after devoting himself to her for years, till she was merely tolerated in the circles where she used to queen it over all, after compromising her in every way in the world—”

“I don’t believe there was a thing in it,” Venner interrupted. “It was his vanity — I know him.”

“There was this in it: She adored the ground he walked on; she lived only in what she thought was his devotion, and then, when her husband died and she was free — he left her. He wanted the questionable notoriety of being the beautiful countess’s adorer, but he didn’t want to be saddled with a wife.”

“I see,” said Bradford.

“She couldn’t comprehend what you ‘see’ so easily. It simply wouldn’t take root in her consciousness. She didn’t understand. Where pride would have protected another woman, it offered her no refuge. If one loves enough, one has no pride — do you know that, boy? — Not yet, I think; but I know, and it’s a terrible lesson to learn. Well, the world looked on and wondered how it would end. And Clint did what many a man has done before — forced a misunderstanding, trumped up a quarrel, and then — wouldn’t forgive her — wouldn’t hear a word she had to say; accused her of disloyalty and treachery, washed his hands of her and her love — and still she could not understand. She strove in every way to bridge the gap. He wouldn’t see her, her letters were returned unopened. Knowing herself innocent she fought desperately, always believing in his sincerity, always believing that in truth he was misinformed, or mistaken about her. And it was such a transparent game he played. They found his letters — it was such a miserable, tragic farce, any child could have read between the lines. But she was in love — that was all. At last, heart-broken and hopeless, she wrote ‘Finis’ to the story — wrote it in blood! — poor, troubled soul, shot herself in her rooms at the Savoy!”

Mrs. Carghate ceased speaking, and Venner remained silent.

“It was just what we might have known from the first,” mused Mrs. Carghate. “If we hadn’t been trussed and skewered with our own conventions. It was written all over her — for all her Parisian gowns and modern manner — she was a true, primitive woman. Hers was a sort of desperate, tragic beauty, even in her most radiant moments, and it was the intensity and simpleness of her emotions that made them electrical. You could always feel her presence in a room. She seemed to wipe out the personality of every other woman, though she dressed very unobtrusively; indeed, always affected a sort of very light half-mourning — even after her husband died. She wasn’t at all sorry,and didn’t intend to lie about it even in gowns. She was elemental — even her name told it — Eve. But, there, boy, don’t take it to heart. It’s no fault of yours, and we know so little of causes, perhaps we may be unjust to Clinton. Anyway, the play is over, the curtain rung down, the audience dispersed, the actors gone—”

She broke off, her expressive face suddenly transfixed in astonishment. Venner followed the direction of her gaze, and his own face underwent a marked change. Incredulous anger glowed at his heart.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “It’s Clint! He dares show himself in London — now!”

Mrs. Carghate rose. “Don’t provoke a scene, Brad,” she interposed hastily in a cool, poised voice, that instantly steadied him. “There’s no use attracting public attention, you know.”

Venner smiled composedly. “You are quite right. But I must see him. Either he or I will leave London at once. The situation is intolerable. You will excuse me — I must speak with him — now.”

“Good night,” she said, extending her hand, “good night; telephone me in the morning, will you? It’s all quite too bad; but don’t be hasty — never mind me,” she added, as he rose to conduct her to the elevators. “He is leaving. If you want to see him — hurry.”

She turned from him quickly, releasing him from the duties of courtesy.

When Bradford reached the entrance he was only in time to hear the order, “To the Savoy!” The words staggered him. Would Clinton show himself there after all that had happened? What depths of callousness must cover his brother’s soul! “To the Savoy!” hastily securing his coat and hat, he called a hansom, to follow his brother’s lead as rapidly as possible. All the way his anger rose. How dare a man face all London on the very scene of the pitiful tragedy he had impelled! Could he bring himself face to face with such memories? It was beyond belief.

As he turned at the Savoy, the other hansom preceded him only by a few yards. He did not wait for his own vehicle to stop. Thrusting the fare to the cabby, he leaped to the pavement and ran forward. His brother should not, must not, have time to alight — they would drive on together and have it out between them.

The first carriage drew up before the door, the starter moved forward to assist, when through the wide doors came the woman in gray — so swiftly, so silently, she scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Her eyes shone joyously, her lips were apart, as if her haste of soul, too great for the utmost speed of her body, must instantly voice itself.

Brad gasped. Again her presence forced itself upon him with marvelous distinctness. He caught the light of her eyes, the glitter of her spangles, the sparkle of her collar, as so many vivid high lights in the picture.

Another instant and she had passed the flunky. One gray-gloved hand caught the hansom rail, a slim, steel-beaded slipper flashed upon the step, and she had entered the hansom with his brother. What could it mean?

Breathless, Venner ran forward. The servant was bending toward the interior of the cab. “Savoy, sir,” Bradford heard the man repeat twice.

“Here!” he cried impatiently. “That’s my brother — I wish to speak with him.”

The man stepped back. “Yes, sir — I’m afraid, sir — gentleman’s drunk, sir—”

“Drunk!” Bradford thrust the starter aside. Collapsed in the corner of the hansom, sprawled Clinton. He was alone. Bradford sprang beside his brother, endeavoring to lift him to a sitting posture. The body rolled and slipped from him — it was limp and warm, but the light striking full on his face, revealed death.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “Good God! Here — help!” He turned to the startled attendant. “Where is the woman in gray — where did she go? This may be murder!”

“’Eavens!” exclaimed the man, “murder! — there waren’t no woman in gray — ’e was alone in the ’ansom.”

“Why she jumped in here beside him — you must have seen — cabby, you must have seen her come!”

“No, sir; it’s the shock, sir. Now, don’t take on — there’s been no woman in gray ’ereabouts, and my fare I picks up alone at the Carlton. There’s been no woman hat hall, sir, hanyw’ares.”

“Smart Set”, Apr 1906

The Fear Motif

Chuzenji the beautiful is a placid sheet of water enclosed by volcanic mountains, whose slopes are firm and pure in line, like master strokes from a giant brush.

Sumner Boyd had been attracted by the quaint fishing village, whose balconies overhang the lake — the old temple, with its mossy steps and giant gate — the odd little boats, with their naked rowers, and the stately sampans that sailed gravely by. He decided to spend a summer there, lonely though it would undoubtedly be. In the spring he engaged a bungalow fronting the high road, backing toward the water, and bounded to left and right by ample gardens. Here he set up his household gods. He even went to the extreme of bringing up a piano — a tough, weather-proof little upright. It had to be transported by oxen from the railway at Nikko. And great was the amusement of his friends at the venture, greater yet the wonder of servants and town folk when it was unpacked. It was set up in the main room, which opened toward the road. Above it and to right and left Boyd hung three mirrors, reflecting what passed behind him while he played. He had not struck a dozen chords before many auditors gathered, and, as he did not appear to observe them, gave themselves free rein. They evidently thought the performance absurd; they grimaced and laughed, frankly expressing their judgments of the uncouth din.

But whatever they may have felt, the instrument was a comfort to its owner. When Boyd’s friends came to console him in his solitude, the little mirrors would reflect emotions far different from the laughter and derision of the Japanese. Often it was an old song or a timeworn hymn he was asked for; then, as he played or sang he saw many a look of homesickness — many a smile, half tears, in the betraying mirrors.

One summer afternoon — during the great pilgrimage to Nantai San, Nikko’s holy mountain — Boyd sat at his instrument, intently curious over the shifting visions in the mirrors. Past the door and upward led the road upon which trooped the pilgrims, with mushroom hats, white robes, staffs, bare, dusty ankles and sandal-shod feet. They passed in groups and singly — sad and merry, old and young — in endless procession.

Unconsciously he began to play the Pilgrim Chorus from Tannhaüser, though the joyous, happy band outside was far from embodying the grief-worn spirits of Wagner’s opera. Though half conscious of the incongruity, even of the absurdity, of the music in this scene, he kept on with the theme, becoming more and more rapt as it developed. The passing figures in the glass dimmed and blurred, and at last, concentrated into a single care-worn face, deep lined by haggard suffering — a face prematurely old, lit with desperate eagerness. A moment more brought the realization that the pathetic vision was no creature of the imagination, but a reflection from the real world of the dusty thoroughfare outside.

A man was sitting on the edge of the veranda, looking in. His was the face reflected in the glass. He did not see the mirror that revealed him; he was, indeed, utterly unconscious of all save the music. His dress was that of the poorest native; but no native would have been affected by that song. Boyd played the Chorus to the end, then drifted off through chord after chord, trying old, familiar melodies. He played “Home, Sweet Home,” “Die Wacht am Rhine,” “Santa Lucia.” The man showed no recognition, but the haunting look of soul starvation in his face deepened to agony.

Under that peasant’s dress surely lay a mystery. Boyd became keen to discover it. Could he but touch with his music the hidden chord of feeling, the stranger would reveal himself. The musician experimented — with simple songs, those to which the heart-strings of memory vibrate — but with no success.

At last, made impatient by failure, he turned and made a gesture of invitation, “Won’t you come in?”

Instantly the man flushed, rose and hurried away.

“Maté! maté!” called Boyd. “Stop, stop!”

Half a dozen white-clad pilgrims paused and turned to him with smiling faces. The man scurried on, disappearing at a turn of the road. Boyd was mystified.

The next day brought a similar experience — this time the pilgrim would not venture so near the house. His reflected image could be seen as he sat on the other side of the road, ready for instant flight — intent upon the music, nevertheless, with a pitiful insistence — a look half beseeching, half terrified.

He sat there all the afternoon, while his puzzled entertainer played. But when Boyd rose, the listener vanished.

That was the last seen of him for some days. Then came the beginning of a strange companionship.

As time passed, there grew upon the lonely American at Chuzenji the sensation of being haunted. He never sat down to his piano without the feeling of a presence near him. Sometimes the form of the vanishing pilgrim flitted across the glass. But always when search was made the road and the garden were deserted — there seemed no place for a man to hide.

Gradually Boyd became accustomed to his invisible auditor. At last he came to crave his presence as a stimulus to his playing. There was a weird enchantment in the mysterious proximity of the spirit he could feel answering to every note. One must live through it, as Boyd had, to know that intense yearning for the music of one’s own people, the desire that comes when the only music to be had is that of alien instruments — the only songs, the inharmonious carollings of incomplete scales. There was no mistaking the eyes of the man. All the lures that Boyd put forward, however, were of no avail — the Unknown persisted in his unaccountable conduct. The mystery deepened.

October came, and with it return to Yokohama and business interests. “Must” is a cruel mistress. At last goods and chattels were packed and crated, the piano sent coastward — and Boyd slept his last night in the dismantled house. The persistent presence of the shadow filled the bare rooms, seemed to whisper outside the paper shoji screen with the restless, unhappy question of an uneasy spirit. All next day the traveler was possessed by an uncomfortable suspicion that he was followed. At Nikko he felt freer, but no sooner was he settled in the “City Athwart the Beach,” than the invisible audience again made its presence known.

At this juncture came Pentanoff, the Hungarian pianist, on his tour around the world, and, having letters of introduction, was everywhere feted and entertained.

Boyd’s musical inclinations and piano brought them much together. The virtuoso was a pale little man, with a shock of fuzzy hair and an impetuous manner. His mother was an English woman, and, besides his mastery of what was literally his “mother tongue,” he had inherited from her a certain poise and gentle directness unusual in his hot-headed race.

One night, in Sumner’s bungalow, as the two sat over their coffee and cigars, the host told of his weird experience.

“I’m sure he’s near us now!” he exclaimed, as he finished the tale. “I am vividly conscious of him, though where he keeps himself is a mystery.”

Pentanoff was all interest. “Not German, French, nor English, you say? — nor American, or he would have answered to all three — Scandinavian?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Russian?”

“No, — I tried the Russian hymn — if anything, that hymn scared him away.”

“I wonder—” said Pentanoff, tapping with tuneful finger a minor note — Then rapidly, nervously, slamming the music stool into position, he settled himself, and plunged into the ringing measures of a Polish battle hymn. How he played! Boyd felt an electrifying thrill. He could not keep still, he rose and walked about the room. That tormenting, irresistible music ran riot in his blood. He wanted a forlorn hope to lead — a height to storm — a dash to death with drawn sabre, in some mad charge for liberty!

The hysteria of the passionate song shook him like a great wind. He turned — and came face to face with his Chuzenji Tannhauser! Great tears coursed down the man’s cheeks. He turned to speak — only dry sobs came. Pentanoff heard, and whirled around. The musician spoke in a language Boyd did not understand.

The man threw himself on his knees in a passion of weeping. It was some moments before he controlled himself.

Pentanoff received then a merciful inspiration. Turning to the piano, he played gentle, half-savage airs, strange, thrilling songs of the infancy of a people — the simplest, sweetest, saddest in the world. They soothed like an enchantment, the poor creature at his feet. Gradually the scalding tears gave place to gentle sobs of childlike relief, infinitely pitiful — then silence.

Again the musician spoke, his eyes, with gentle test, intent upon the keyboard. The answer came, hesitating, halting.

“Would you mind,” Pentanoff said, “leaving us alone?”

Boyd reluctantly left the room and far into the night he heard the hum of voices — then more of the strange eerie music.

Dawn had almost come when Pentanoff rejoined him.

“It’s very sad!” he said.

“Tell me,” demanded the host after a lengthened silence. “Am I to be ‘pied piper’ against my will, and not know why?”

“It’s very sad!” he repeated. “His whole story is disconnected — a sort of patchwork of memory — and there are hopeless rents in it. He is my countryman. He was a Nihilist.” Again Pentanoff lapsed into silence, an odd look in his inscrutable eyes. “An official in his district,” he resumed at length, “had become obnoxious to the Association, and was condemned. The Circle, of which your man was a member, was called upon to furnish the murderer. They drew lots, and it fell to him — Fate is such an ironical dame! He was the first violin in the most popular orchestra, and it was decided that the offender might be shot at one of the balls which it was known they would both attend. Unfortunately for the Society, chance had not chosen wisely, the avenger had a gentle soul — he was weak — he couldn’t do it. I wish you had heard him describe it. I feel as if I had lived it all myself, or dreamed it in a nightmare. He sat through the evening, his violin trembling in his hand, his revolver lying in his breast. Dance after dance went by, and still he did not shoot. He pictured it to himself, as he pictured it to me — how the man would fall — how that brilliant gathering would rise in screaming disorder — how he would be seized — perhaps not have time to empty another cartridge into his own brain! He saw it over and over again while the lights winked and glared at him, and perspiration hung chill at his temples. He could not kill in cold blood!

“He was ordered to play a solo. He determined that this once — this the last time, he would play — and then — he would make an end of it. He improvised — tearing out from his soul all that terrible day of fear had held for him. He lost trace of everything but his music, and his misery. He paused. The audience he had held spellbound burst into a roar of applause. The host sent him his own glass of wine, the hostess her gold bracelet. He was dazed for a few moments, then the mists cleared — and he saw that his man had gone!

“Vaguely he murmured the name. Someone told him that the official had received a message which called him away. The rest of the evening is a blank. He remembers only stumbling into the outside darkness.

“According to his code of honor he must give himself up to the Society. That meant a disgrace he could not bear — and death! — that he feared with overpowering terror. He went home, secured his little savings, and fled.

“Realizing that his fellow-conspirators would leave nothing undone to find him, and make an example of him as a renegade and coward, he lived panic stricken — hiding, running, starving for days at a time, possessed by a Fear that daily grew upon him. Of course, he overestimated the power of the secret organization — all its members do. But he had been trained in its narrow circle till it made the bounds for his world.

“He does not seem to know how long, or where, he wandered, but after months of anguished flight he reached the sea coast, and concealed himself in a vessel whose destination he did not even guess. She was an English tramp, bound for the China ports, Yokohama her last call, he learned when hunger forced him on deck. He was impressed as stoker. They did not put him off at Calcutta, as they had threatened, but let him work his way to Japan. Even on board the ship he did not feel himself safe from the grasp of the men whose confidence he had betrayed. He lived in apprehension. His mind was already in the clutch of the fixed idea — the monomania of the hunted.

“When he reached the farthest East, he was terrified at prospect of the return voyage. He thought of embarking for America, and had almost completed arrangements for that, when he imagined he recognized a face in the crowd — fancied he saw a hand make the signal of his Society! Mad with fear, he fled, wandering and begging — ever making for remoter regions. Reaching the mountains, he buried himself in a little village of charcoal burners.

“There he lived ten years, perhaps longer. He picked up the language and gradually became identified with the people, who accepted him at first with curiosity, at last with friendship, ever with uniform gentleness.

“The Fear was with him always, though its cause had after a time vanished from his clouded mind. Only one longing, one need, remained clear and persistent — music! He strung a samisen to a European scale, and worked with the koto, but their tinklings were a poor solace.

“In his restlessness he began journeying, following pilgrimages from place to place, till he happened to fall in with the Nantai San procession. Suddenly — you can imagine what it must have been to him — out of the blur of white road and dusty, blue shadows, came the long lost tones — the melodies for which his heart hungered. He was drawn to them as by a spell. Memories sprang to life! faint and indistinct at first, dim visions of another existence. He followed the sounds till he came to your veranda, and sat there looking in at the strange, yet familiar instrument. Slowly he drank in harmonies, long forgotten, long sought for. When at last you rose and spoke to him, the old terror smote his heart, and he fled.

“But the music drew him back. He would often crouch under the little porch, listening with all his soul. In those long summer months his mind was born again — but the dread remained. When you went away, he followed you.

“Tonight — but you know the rest — the final awakening came. He was exhausted. I played him to sleep at last. He’s in there now, poor wretch! Think of it — what a life!”

The two men sat silent. For the moment they entered that strange existence of fear and longing — understood the unutterable effort of that numbed brain working through a labyrinth of darkness, guided only by the slender thread of sound — leading slowly out into the light!

Pentanoff rose. “I’ll come back in the morning,” he said, “to talk over what we had best do. Leave the poor devil where he is; let him alone — I’ve made him comfortable, and he’ll sleep for twenty-four hours at least.”

Bidding his friend good-night, Boyd went to his room and to bed, falling into a heavy doze, from which he suddenly awoke. He was sitting bolt upright in his bed, startled. He was sure he had heard some strange noise. It came again — three great chords on the piano!. The suddenness of the awakening had confused him. For some moments he was at a loss to account for the sounds in the room beneath. His feet slipped to the floor — then a rush of music held him still and silent.

What was it? — this overwhelming uprising of sound? Terror, terror, abject terror! in every note. Then fragments of longing, yearning — reminiscent melodies — and again Fear, smiting, all-benumbing Fear!

Boyd swayed back and forth, blinded with tears. Again and again he tried to rise, but sank down trembling.

A crash — a discord, that seemed to break the very heart of the instrument — then silence, through which the last chord hummed in a roaring circle of sound.

Snatching his dressing-gown, Boyd ran to the sitting-room. The swinging lamp that hung from the ceiling was turned low, and threw distorted, gigantic shadows as it swung slightly to and fro in the draught of the opened door. The room at first glance seemed empty — but across the keyboard of the piano, lay huddled a limp shape — one arm hanging idly, the other bent under the drooping head.

Slowly the body lost balance; sinking, collapsing to the floor. The thread in the labyrinth was broken!

“Black Cat”, Apr 1909