Tibby

CHAPTER III THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE

“I have succeeded in becoming acquainted with the lady in black,” remarked Elinor Wylie, a few days subsequent to the date of the beginning of this story, as, with her husband, she came slowly up from the dining-room and entered their private apartment. “Did I tell you?”

“No, I think not. Do you find her as interesting as fancy painted her?” drawled Mr. Wylie languidly.

“Yes, more so. At least, I find her very refined and cultured. She has surely been in better circumstances.”

“Ah, the pity of it, in this world of ours!” replied Mr. Wylie, throwing himself into a luxurious armchair and shaking his head expressively. “It is the story common to the lives of too many Americans. One day we’re dining at Delmonico’s, the next, starving in a hovel. Ah, seductive, evanescent, elusive Fortune, why do we trifle with you? To me the pathos of life is epitomized in the words, ‘She has seen better days.’”

“I have engaged her to sew for me.”

“Indeed!” Mr. Wylie’s eyebrows were elevated quizzingly. “What has become of Madame Somers?”

“I found out by asking Mrs. Wallace,” continued Mrs. Wylie, following her own train of thought, and 28ignoring his question, “that the block on Herald Street had an establishment for making and selling ready-made clothing, so that I felt sure she did sewing, and I followed her home one day and saw her enter a stairway leading up over Mrs. Dray’s hairdressing rooms. I accordingly asked Mrs. Dray if she could tell me where I might find a woman to do plain sewing or embroidery, and she spoke at once of a worthy woman in the block who wanted to get work, and directed me to her rooms. She is on the third floor, in wretched little quarters, but she has pretty things about her. She met me kindly, and when I made known my business, seemed glad to get work. I’m thankful that I went, for, if you will believe me, Horace, she had been making buttonholes for Darkson at a quarter of a cent apiece, supporting herself and child upon that.”

“Such things are painful to hear of,” said Mr. Wylie, shaking his head again. “I trust you will pay her better.”

“Of course. And, Horace, she has been making cotton blouses and overalls for workmen for eighty-five cents a dozen. Think of it.”

“I suppose you learned her name and history?” he interrogated.

“Yes—no—” hesitated Mrs. Wylie. “I learned her name was, or at least she told me to call her Mrs. Lucien, and the child’s name is Dolores. Odd, isn’t it? She nicknames her Dolly. Such a sweet little creature, too. I wonder if that is Mrs. Lucien’s real name?” she continued musingly as she toyed with a tassel of the upholstering.

29Mr. Wylie sank into the depths of his chair and studied the opposite wall intently for several moments.

“I wish,” he said, “I could think of whom it is she reminds me. I believe if I could see her gowned in white silk and diamonds I should remember.”

“What an idea,” laughed his wife. “I should like to see her so dressed, I confess. She should have more color in that pale face and less sadness in those dark eyes, then she would shine in such a brilliant setting. Yes, I am sure she has a history.”

“Which you did not learn?”

“Which I did not learn.”

Again Mr. Wylie sat wrapped in thought, stroking his massive chin softly.

“Do you remember, Nell, all who composed our party two years ago in the Adirondacks? Or was it three years?”

“More nearly four, I think. Why, there was Judge Matthews and wife; the Misses Eldridge—just think, Fannie is married; Mrs. Harmon and her brother; Tiny Lewis, Dr. Bessemer, and Cousin Harry and Lottie,—and—no—let me see! That was all that there were at Paul Smith’s, I believe, except the time that we went to Au Sable Chasm we met Major—oh—what was his name, that Major Somebody and his wife, that Cousin Harry was so taken with at the fancy ball? Don’t you remember her, Horace? They went to Childwold with us, too.”

Mr. Wylie started.

“Ah, I remember! He went West. He did have 30a lovely wife. I wonder if she is the one I am reminded of.”

“And then there were the Pemberton girls who went to Saranac with us, and old Professor Sawyer with his bugs and beetles, hunting specimens. What a perfectly lovely time we had that summer.”

“Yes,” dreamily. “We’d better be planning a trip for next season. This fad of staying in the city because it’s cooler won’t last, I fancy. I’ve been thinking of Ocean Beach,” tentatively.

“And I of Bar Harbor; but it doesn’t matter. We’ve been most everywhere,” Mrs. Wylie said with a little sigh. “I don’t know but what I have enjoyed Forest City as much as I should any other place. It has been delightfully cool here on the lake.”

“Yes, but I suspect that my little Nell has a hankering for the moon, just the same. I reckon we’d better go to the seashore for a little while next month, just to break the monotony of life. And if you go, you’ll want to take Tibby with you, I suppose.”

“Most assuredly. She’s a perfect treasure. I couldn’t get along without her.”

“I see you are becoming much attached to her.”

“Indeed I am. I never had a maid before so deft and pleasing.”

“I’m afraid she’s too pretty for her position.”

“O, no; not too pretty. Children like a pretty companion. Robbie never obeyed Mrs. Harbeck as he does Tibby. But she has remarkable eyes. For some reason she has taken a great dislike to that 31young man with the eye-glasses, on the third floor. It’s amusing to see the look with which she regards him. Yesterday Tibby was waiting at the head of the stairs for Robbie and that man came along and stared at her rather insolently through his glasses. You should have seen Tibby. Her eyes began to dilate like those of a tigress at bay, and she returned his stare. The fellow started down, but for some reason stumbled and made a very ungraceful descent to the bottom of the staircase. It really seemed as if Tibby made him fall. You can imagine her delight at his mishap.”

“That is the way of womankind,” said Mr. Wylie, smiling. “They laugh at our downfalls, unless we drag them down with us, which we’re apt to do. Tibby is no exception; but seriously, do not pet her too much, or she may forget what is due to her position in life. She must not appear impertinent.”

“I’m sure she behaves well. Tibby is not ill-bred. Her parents were quite superior people, if they did live on a farm. Tibby boasts that her mother was a Devereaux, grand-niece to an earl,” said Mrs. Wylie, laughing.

“The little minx! She has pride enough, no doubt, and who cannot boast of ancestors in America! She certainly is a bright girl, and has a remarkably pretty face. She cannot fail to attract attention, especially as you treat her like a younger sister, rather than like a servant. It is really unfortunate for her that she is so unlike the ordinary maid.”

“I have thought of all this, Horace, and I mean to make more of her than simply a servant. In time 32she will grow to be my trusted friend and companion, I am sure. Why may she not? She is well-born; better than many in our best society.”

“You dear little philanthropic soul, you’d better adopt her at once. But don’t pick up too many pretty girls to waste sympathy upon or I shall be neglected, I fear. Besides, I have often noticed how illy such kindness is repaid. You might have cause to regret it.” Mr. Wylie picked up the evening paper and was soon absorbed in its columns.

CHAPTER IV THROUGH CLAIRVOYANT VISION

And now, as the exhibitor of a panorama might say, it becomes necessary to introduce our readers or audience to new scenes and stranger people. But these strangers being near and dear to the heart of the writer, if not yet to the reader, become in their lives so intermingled and interwoven in the lives and histories of the persons first introduced that we can no longer allow them to remain behind the scenes.

We must also go back in time several years to a period when the prairies of the West were in some portions less thickly populated than at present, and the mushroom growth of the towns was still a marvel to the slower growing East. To a time, also, when the so-called modern spiritualism was of a newer growth and when esoteric philosophy, occultism, and the many other isms dealing with the life beyond the grave were less talked of.

The place, a small town in western Iowa, and a country farm-house, nestles down in one of the horse-shoe coves formed by the bluffs above the eastern border of the Missouri River.

There are no neighboring dwellings in sight, though but a few rods away are other houses situated also in coves in the bluffs, forming quite a large community, living near but out of sight of each other.

34Large herds of horses and cattle are seen grazing upon the unfenced pasture land, and a small schoolhouse standing out like a beacon from a ridge of highland is the only building visible, except the barns and corn-cribs belonging to the farms.

The house itself is low and long, with several additions or lean-tos, but has an air of comfort and hospitality, looking out as it does upon the many acres of rolling plateau, where far away is seen the dark line of the country road winding about the base of the bluffs or climbing steeply up the sides of them. A long lane branches from the main road and leads up to the house, and affords a view of any coming visitor for some distance away, and lines of cowpaths thread the steep hills at the back of the dwelling.

Thus sequestered and hill-environed lived Squire Bartram with his wife and two sons, enjoying the peace and plenty of the average well-to-do farmer, with none of the business care and excitements which a life in town might bring.

Squire Bartram was one of those who had the good fortune to have been born in that most coveted birth-place, Massachusetts, and perhaps, better than all, he first opened his eyes upon the renowned and beautiful Berkshire Hills. In early childhood he had been taught the religion and creed of those Puritan fathers who founded the first homes there, and had been brought up to a most strict observance of all moral and evangelical law. His life had been frugally and honestly spent upon a farm up to the time when, listening to the preaching of the early apostles 35of Mormonism, he felt himself called to a priesthood among the Saints.

Later, when he had endured martyrdom and privations for the sake of this belief, he found himself face to face with the till-then concealed doctrine of plural marriage. From this his Puritan instincts revolted and he quitted the church with many others who located near Council Bluffs. But, cast out from a church he had loved, his faith shattered, his illusions destroyed, he was ready to turn to any creed or ism which came his way.

As he learned more of the newly taught creed of modern spiritism, he began to give it credence, the more so as he believed he could understand, from such a standpoint, the life of the prophet Joseph Smith. Was not Smith a spirit-medium and were not the trances and visions which he claimed to have had similar or identical with those mediumistic exhibitions which he now witnessed? Might not the prophet himself have been deceived and the revelation which he supposed to have come from God been but the communication of a false and dangerous spirit? In this way, only, could he find an apology for the prophet, whom he had loved and believed in as little less than a god.

Squire Bartram’s sons had grown up stalwart, brainy lads, ambitious and capable. Nathan, the elder, who had lately brought to his father’s home a bright little sixteen-year-old wife, with black eyes, shining ringlets and bird-like movements, had prepared a home on the Nebraskan prairies, to which he was soon to take his bride. He had preempted a 36homestead, bought another one hundred and sixty acres, and thus secured a nice farm on the plain some distance north of the Platte River. He had, after the manner of the pioneers of the country, built himself an adobe house, and was now ready to begin life in earnest.

His wife, Lissa, whose sister lived in that locality, was possessed of the delighted eagerness of a child to see and occupy the new home and was almost impatient of the delay which Nathan insisted upon, namely, the visit of a few weeks at his father’s house.

The sun had already been hidden from view by the huge bluff behind the house, though it was still broad daylight at the homestead, and good Mrs. Bartram had dallied in her supper work to talk with Nathan’s wife, when the Squire put his head in at the door to announce that Professor Russell, the noted seer, medium, and clairvoyant, would honor them with a visit and give them proof of his supernatural powers.

“For the land’s sake,” exclaimed Mrs. Bartram, “why didn’t you tell us before! Here I hain’t got my work done up yet. How long before he’ll be here, I wonder?”

“O, not for a half hour or so; he stopped down to Job Atkins to help find them that colt that was lost,” replied the Squire.

“And how can he help them, unless he’s the one that took it? Them that hides can find, I take it,” continued the good lady, with a sniff. “I haven’t 37much use for these folks that knows too much and whose ways are dark.”

“Wait until after you see the Professor, before you judge,” said the Squire.

“And so we are to be entertained to-night by one who is in league with the powers of darkness,” said Donald, a young man of eighteen years, as he entered the family room and seated himself by the side of his new sister-in-law. “Lissa, don’t you tremble at the thought of the evil wraiths that are to fill this room?”

“I fear more the evil spirit that shall animate your Professor, Donald,” replied Melissa, who in her Eastern home had imbibed a deep prejudice against the so-called spiritualists.

“His spirit? Mne, let me see. I believe a big Injun, Stuck-in-the-mud, or some such high-sounding name, is his especial Control; but he is not confined to one familiar. His demons are many.”

“How absurd,” laughed Lissa.

“You won’t say so after to-night. I’ll wager the best pony on the ranch you’ll be a firm convert before the evening is over. Maybe I’ll add a side-saddle, too. Eh, Lissa?”

“I’m afraid I can’t gratify you by accepting any such foolishness as that, even for the sake of the saddle, or permit you to wager upon a certainty of losing.”

“Did I ever tell you how the Professor found his wife?” Donald asked.

“No, but I suppose you’ll tell me through some celestial matrimonial agency,” she replied.

“Sure! His wife was a strongly developed medium 38living in London, England. One day, while in a trance, the Professor, here in the United States, was made cognizant of the existence of this lady by spirit agency, and instructed to write to her, which he did. It seems she had received a communication concerning him at about the same time and in the same manner, with the same instructions, which she also followed. The two letters reached their destinations simultaneously, and each person, with the other’s letter in hand, could summon the writer’s materialized spirit before him. In this way they communicated with each other at will, and finally the lady embarked for this country at his request. He was kept daily informed as to her whereabouts, and when she arrived at New York he was there to meet her, and they were married speedily, only one letter from each having passed between them, and yet each was well acquainted with the past history of the other.”

“Impossible! You must be very credulous, Donald, to believe such a story as that.”

“Quite convenient, wasn’t it? If the black powers would deal as kindly with me I should not long remain a bachelor. This knowing to a certainty all about the lady of one’s choice would remove the fear of flying into the dangers we know not of. One could be certain then if she did up her hair on curl-papers.” And Donald glanced significantly at Lissa’s shining ringlets.

“Surely, you don’t pretend to believe such a preposterous story, Donald,” she said, laughing.

“We have the Professor and his wife to testify to 39it, neither one ever known to l—prevaricate; and in the mouths of two witnesses the truth shall be affirmed,” misquoted Donald. “At any rate one story is good until another is told.”

“They must be a pair of charlatans, and I don’t think I care to make their acquaintance.”

“I suspect you begin to fear them. There is no telling what they may discover,” Donald said with mock gravity. “But here comes the redoubtable hero himself. All hail, ye Prince of Darkness, hail!” he continued in a sepulchral voice, as a step was heard outside the door.

A moment later the Professor entered the apartment. Melissa had time, while he greeted the head of the family, to note that he was a medium-sized, wiry-looking man, of about forty, with very long red hair hanging to his shoulders, and bristling whiskers of the same color. His lower jaw was prominent and his ears were flattened very close to his head. But his most remarkable feature was a pair of keen gray eyes, which gleamed restlessly from under rather overhanging brows.

When presented to Lissa he fixed his eyes upon her in a way that caused her to suppress a shudder, and regarded her steadily for a moment, then, still holding her by the hand, which she would gladly have withdrawn, he said:

“You look like your mother, Mrs. Bartram, except that she has blue eyes. She has a scar on her left wrist, made in a peculiar manner.”

Lissa blushed painfully, and followed his eyes to her own wrist as she drew away her hand. She 40knew the history of the scar alluded to, though she believed it unknown to any one outside her own immediate family. She felt the inquiring eyes of her husband’s relatives upon her, and sat down ill at ease.

Presently the company were seated about a table in the center of the room, and the clairvoyant announced himself in readiness to afford proof of his wonderful powers.

Accordingly, two or three lines cut from a letter from a sister of the bride were placed in his hand, so rolled that no words written there could give any clue to the writer.

Professor Russell gazed passively at the rolled scrap for a time, then the muscles of his face began to twitch slightly, his eyes became vacant and partly closed; there was a convulsive movement of his shoulders, a long-drawn sigh, and he began to speak.

“I can see a wilder scene than this, a country as far as the eye can reach, a vast table-land, dotted here and there with adobe houses and their contiguous cotton-wood groves of one or two years’ growth. One of these houses stands facing south, and in the doorway I can see a woman. She is looking anxiously westward, shading her face with her hand. She has on a dress of some dark material, partly covered with a kitchen apron. She has dark hair and—ah, now she has removed her hand; she looks like a lady in this room, except that she is taller, and her hair, a shade lighter, is worn in braids instead of curls. Her gray eyes have an anxious look in them. A number of ponies are corralled near the house. What is she looking at?”

41The Professor spoke slowly, as if studying the scene of his clairvoyant vision. Nathan and Lissa exchanged glances, while Donald rolled up his eyes with a concealed affectation of awe. Squire Bartram appeared interested, and glanced toward Lissa inquiringly, while his wife, good soul, gazed sternly and forbiddingly at the Professor as though she believed him in league with his Satanic majesty, and the ghosts of her Puritan forefathers were warning her against him.

Meanwhile the face of the man was working strangely.

“The house has disappeared from my vision,” he cried, “and I can see a still wilder country, through which runs a placid, shining river. A large party of Indians are cantering across the prairie, mounted on round, sleek-looking mustangs. With them is a white man, young and handsome, with light, flowing hair, and fearless blue eyes. He is dressed in hunting costume, with wide-brimmed hat, and he rides a white pony with an army saddle and large stirrups. There is a coil of rope at his saddle bow and a couple of pistols and a hatchet in his belt. He carries also a rifle.

“The ground over which they are traveling is torn and trampled as if an army had lately traversed it, and—ah, yes, I see, away in the west, a herd of buffalo looking like a great black cloud against the sky, and showing distinctly against the red of the setting sun behind it. But, look, they have turned their course toward the south and are running their horses at full speed! They turn in their saddles and look 42northward. I see! There is another party coming from that direction.”

The Professor looked fixedly a moment and continued:

“They are Indians, also; a larger band, and hideously painted. The others are spurring their horses toward the river to escape this hostile band, who have seen them, and like the wind are rushing down upon them. Their horses are more fleet, they are gaining upon them—they lift their rifles and shoot! Good! Their shots do not reach them. The white man rises in his stirrups and returns the fire. The Indians of his party follow his example. Their rifles have longer range and their shots tell. Several saddles of the pursuing party are empty.”

The man spoke eagerly now. His restless gray eyes kindled, and his face glowed with animation. His story had produced a like effect upon his listeners, all of whom showed more or less excitement.

Lissa was pale, her large, dark eyes fixed intently upon the speaker, while her small hands gripped each other tightly in her lap. Squire Bartram peered over his spectacles and rubbed one palm upon the other, a habit he had when deeply moved. Donald looked from one to another quizzingly, but said nothing.

“The fleeing party have reached the river and taken refuge behind the protecting bank—yes, their shots speak now. One, two, three of the painted devils reel from their ponies. More fall! Half of them are down! On come the rest, swinging their hatchets! They are at the bank! They fight hand to hand with their tomahawks. Great Scott! There 43he is struck, he is down!—the white man is hurt!—he topples over and falls backward down the bank!—he sinks into the river and disappears!”

A shriek from Lissa interrupted the further description of the scene. Nathan sprang to her side, and in the confusion that followed the Professor seemed to lose sight of his vision, nor could he be persuaded to again enter the clairvoyant state.

Poor Lissa was greatly excited. The man had so accurately described her brother-in-law, then living in Nebraska, and knowing as she did that he was in command of a party of Pawnee scouts she could not free herself from the idea that the scene depicted was a true one, notwithstanding her former scepticism.

CHAPTER V THE LETTER

“What would you give me for a letter from Nebraska,” said Donald a few days after the Professor’s visit, as he flung himself from his horse and sat down on the steps of the veranda where Lissa sat, with her lap full of flowers which she had been gathering.

“O Donald, give it to me quick! I can’t wait a minute,” she cried, espying the gleam of white sticking from the pocket of his coat.

“But tell me first, before you read it, whether you have any faith in Professor Russell’s vision,” he said, teasing.

“Yes, no; I don’t know. I can tell better after I have read Alice’s letter.”

“Of course, but that will not demonstrate your faith. However, I’ll be good and let you have it.” And Donald placed the coveted missive in her hand.

With the remembrance of the vision before her, Lissa’s fingers trembled as she tore open the envelope. The letter would confirm or refute the truth of the Professor’s clairvoyance. And although she would not admit for a moment even to herself that she believed in any spirit agency, she understood so little of clairvoyancy as to believe it connected with supernatural phenomena.

As she read the letter, her expressive eyes dilated with wonder and awe.

45“What is it?” asked Nathan, noticing her agitation.

She placed the written pages in his hand.

“Read that, Nathan, and tell me what to think, what to believe. Read it aloud that all may hear and judge.”

Nathan took the letter and read as follows:

“‘Don’t you wish you were here with me this summer evening? Outside, the white stillness of the great prairie woos one to meditation and letter writing. Now you will expect something poetical and fine, will you not? Well, the inspiration is here, but alas, I am one of those “Who cannot sing, but die with all their music in them.” My muse deserted me in my infancy. Besides I have been having unexpected duties.

“‘Mark is at home laid up with a couple of wounds, not serious ones, I am happy to say, but such as to give me an opportunity to coddle and pet him for a time. I am not sure I am sorry he received them, but don’t whisper this to him.

“‘How did he get them, did you ask? Well, he was away on a hunting expedition with a band of his Pawnees, when they were surprised by some Sioux. Mark got a flesh wound in his shoulder from a tomahawk blow, and a bullet grazed him in the left side. Close call, wasn’t it? The skirmish was on the bank of the Niobrara, where Mark’s party had fled for shelter, and he managed to get under water until a 46clump of hazel-brush enabled him to climb out and hide. He was too exhausted from the loss of blood to fight any longer. However, his men drove off the Sioux and found him and brought him home. Mark says I have represented him in a cowardly position. I hope not. He was in a dead faint when the men found him. Anyway, I don’t see any bravery in standing up to have your scalp taken off by a savage, do you? But men are so very sensitive upon those points.

“‘I can hardly wait for your arrival. Mark says I act like a crazy woman whenever I speak of it. O Lissa, Lissa, Lissa! We’re out of the world here, but I am sure you will enjoy it. I hug myself with delight whenever I think of seeing you so soon.’”

Nathan paused in his reading.

“It is wonderful,” he said. “Professor Russell must have seen the entire skirmish.”

“Yes,” responded Lissa, “unless he may have heard of it in some way. Alice does not say upon what day Mark was hurt.”

“Ah, you are yet a doubting Thomas,” Nathan said, smiling fondly upon the winsome upturned face of his girl-wife.

“No, only looking for a peg to hang a doubt upon. Nathan, I am very anxious to get to our new home.”

“My dear, we shall be there in a fortnight. I must wait until the wagon is finished, you know. I hope, little one, you will not be disappointed when you see what a poor home it is,” he continued, shaking his head doubtfully.

47“I shall not be. Read the rest of Alice’s letter.”

Nathan continued his reading:

“‘Just think, sister, of having no social barriers or stiff conventionalities to hamper one. No fussing to prepare elaborate toilets, no two-minute fashionable calls to make, no questioning as to what one shall wear. I am happy and well-dressed for any occasion in my pink gingham. It is a pretty gingham, and made up prettily, I assure you, as I made it myself. Then, we are all so well acquainted with one another, and call each other by the first names, and run about to each other’s houses whenever we please and stay as long as we please, and talk about our chickens and ponies, and—and—O Lissa, dear, you cannot realize what a free, wild life this is. And the air is so pure and invigorating.’”

“And there’s plenty of it,” interpolated Donald.

“Yes, too much, sometimes,” said Nathan.

“Now don’t, Nate! Don’t say a word to discourage me. If I were going to Kansas I should be afraid of cyclones, but I am sure we shall have none in Nebraska.”

“And if we should, you know we have the dug-out,” Nathan replied.

“I’d really advise you, Lissa, to arrange to sleep all the time in the dug-out. It would be so uncomfortable to wake up some morning and find yourself occupying some one else’s farm or tree-top,” said Donald.

Lissa smiled indulgently, but made no reply, and Nathan continued reading the letter.

CHAPTER VI AN OLD-FASHIONED JOURNEY

“Put on your big sun hat and dust wrap,” Nathan had said, “we are to drive through a wild region much of the way and shall have plenty of dust and sun, besides you need have little fear of meeting acquaintances on our long path over the prairie.”

And Lissa had packed in big trunks, that were to be sent ahead of them by express, all the pretty dresses and hats which were so becoming to her, and reserved only the most serviceable costume for that season of the year. This she covered with an ample linen wrap, and tied a leghorn flat over her shining curls.

They were to go in a wagon, and, contrary to the usual emigrant fashion, an uncovered one. Nathan wanted a light spring-wagon to use upon his farm, and Lissa insisted that she could see the country and enjoy the ride after the fleet little mustangs better in that particular wagon than in any other possible conveyance.

They started upon a beautiful September morning, one of those days which seem to blend the perfection of summer loveliness with the delightful, hazy charm of early autumn.

“All you need now is a brass band and a banner,” Donald said, as Nathan drove up to the door with the scrubby little ponies attached to the brightly 49painted wagon, “and you could take a bridal tour in first-class style.

“And, Lissa, if you should meet any Indians by the way be sure you shake hands with them, and say ‘How,’ which is the Indian for ‘How d’you do.’ It means, you know, that you are ready for decapitation if it so pleases them and only question their manner of procedure. They might be offended if you omitted this little ceremony, and become unpleasant; and, Lissa, if any of them shall ask you for a lock of your hair don’t hesitate to cut off a curl and give it to them with the sweetest smile you can muster, for they might take a notion to take the whole of them just to hang in their belts for ornaments, and—But I don’t mean to frighten you, ’pon my soul I don’t!” he continued, noting the suspicion of tears in Lissa’s bright eyes and the tremor in her voice as she turned to bid good-by to Squire Bartram and the irrepressible, fun-loving brother whom she had taken into her affection.

“The wild home to which you are going will have one star of the first magnitude to brighten it before many days, but I reckon it will be rather dark in this quarter of the heavens to-night,” he said, looking graver than she had ever before seen him.

“O Don, how can that be, when you are to remain?” Lissa replied, smiling through her tears.

“I am a planet and only shine by reflected light,” he replied; “not that I shall cast any reflection upon what has gone before,” he added in his old manner. “But don’t be surprised if you should see a stray comet out on the prairies before many moons-there’s 50no telling when one may be liable to strike you.”

“The sooner the better,” she responded brightly, and with a few more words of final adieu they drove away.

They had several miles of drive to the ferry which should transport them across the Missouri River, or the “Big Muddy” as the Indians named its roily waters.

“It well deserves its name,” observed Lissa.

“Yes,” responded Nathan, “and this river keeps its color and current separate unto itself for many miles after emptying into the clear Mississippi.”

“I should say the Mississippi refused to be polluted by it and tried to quarantine against it,” Lissa returned.

They noted the pretty villages along the shore, which had looked so near to them from the bluffs, before they crossed to the Nebraska side and found themselves in the flourishing city of Omaha. There was little to distinguish it from other cities in the East, except the regularity of its streets and the newer style of architecture which uniformly met their gaze. An hour later they were out upon the broad, balsam-scented prairie.

The wind-swept grasses nodded to them invitingly and the unrebuked sun shone down smilingly upon the unmarred handiwork of Nature.

Lissa was enraptured. This was the unfettered life of which she had dreamed. Her buoyant spirit was exhilarated by the fresh, flower-scented air and the glory of the landscape.

51“O Nathan, I shall never want to go East again!” she cried as they approached the Platte River and viewed the magnificent stretch of land for several miles up the valley, so level, so perfect, with the shining thread of the river like a prescient nerve carrying health and vigor to the adjacent territory. And far at the north and south the soft gray hills arose, joining the clear blue of the sky above as if earth, enamoured with the beauty of heaven, had arisen to meet the sky’s embrace.

They had been riding many hours, when Nathan said: “Look yonder, Lissa, in our way. If I am not greatly mistaken, your desire to see a wild Indian is about to be gratified.”

Lissa beamed with excitement. A wild Indian! Should she be afraid?

“How can you tell at such a distance? I can see nothing but a dark object, and cannot determine if it be man or beast,” she said.

“You have not trained your eye to long distances. I can see that it is a pony and that it has a rider, and the swift, steady gallop, together with the position of the rider, suggests an Indian; besides, we are in a locality where we are more likely to meet the ‘noble redman’ coming alone upon the prairie than his white brother.”

Lissa watched the approach of the stranger with a shade of uneasiness. The thought of meeting a savage aboriginal, who to her mind was connected with all sorts of deeds of fiendish cruelty, caused a fluttering of the heart which Nathan’s assurances could not wholly allay.

52“How,” was Nathan’s salutation to the man as he drew near; and “how” was the guttural response of the Indian as he came to an abrupt halt by the side of the wagon, sitting in statuesque uprightness upon his pony. Not a muscle of his face moved. His countenance was as stolid and blank as if cut in stone, and during the time Nathan conversed with him in the Pawnee dialect he neither smiled nor expressed any feeling or thought in his face.

Lissa studied this native specimen with much interest while Nathan detained him. He was clad in gala costume and was going down to attend an Indian festival at Omaha, he said. His head was bound with a woolen scarf of red and black, knotted behind with falling ends. Beneath this his long, straight, black hair fell to his shoulders. Several long feathers were stuck in this zone, and a plaited lock of hair hung over it from the crown of his head. His brown face was smeared with little lines of red paint, seemingly ingrained in his skin, and his ears had long slits in them, which were literally filled with ear-rings of different kinds, sticking out in bunchy confusion. A large red blanket covered his shoulders and one arm. The other was free and cinctured with numerous bracelets, while his hand grasped the rope which bound the lower jaw of his pony. He wore deer-skin leggins, fringed and ornamented profusely, and beaded moccasins.

Around his neck were strings of wampum and other beads, and he carried the primitive bow and arrows.

“I am glad you saw him,” said Nathan, “for it 53may be a long time before you will have opportunity of seeing another Indian so magnificently dressed. Their every-day costume is much less elaborate. Besides, this fellow is rich. Those wampum beads around his neck are money and current coin with them. You noticed it was a long string, wound several times about his neck. He also had on wampum bracelets. That braided necklace, made of what looked like dried grass, is a charm, and a valuable possession. It is made from a rare grass or weed which is found only a spear in a place, and is very fragrant. He carried the bow and arrows, instead of gun, to take part in the festival.”

“Did you ever see him before?”

“O, yes. His name is We-wan-shee. He is one of Mark’s scouts. He tells me they have been having trouble with the Indians stealing from the post. Squint-eye and Handle-the-bow have been thieving, and the chief has given them up to the Government for punishment.”

“What did they steal,” asked Lissa.

“Horses. They make little account of anything else. They have not been many years subject to the United States Government, and are quite primitive in their habits and manners, you will find. I’ll take you down to the reservation as soon as we are settled. You will enjoy them immensely.”

“I suppose there is no danger in going among them,” she ventured.

“O, no,” and Nathan laughed. “I believe you are trembling now. You are not afraid of that one Indian, I hope.”

54“Yes,” Lissa said meekly, “I believe I was. It is lonely on this immense prairie, with no sign of habitation anywhere, and—he looked ferocious.”

Again Nathan laughed.

“You’ll get used to them when you have them for neighbors.”

In the middle of the afternoon they stopped upon the banks of the river and baited their horses, and rested while partaking of their luncheon which they had brought with them. They had passed through many small towns on their way, towns of mushroom growth, and at one of them they had bought their dinner.

“We are upon the old overland route,” Nathan said. “Over this road many emigrants have toiled along, suffering and dying, many of them at the hands of the Indians. Do you see that ridge of earth which seems to have been artificially thrown up there? That was undoubtedly a sort of breastwork hastily made by a party of emigrants who were assaulted at this place.”

Lissa shuddered. “Can it be possible I am really in this wild land of which I have read. I wonder if any were killed here, and if the ground has been soaked with their blood. How strange it all seems! I can imagine so much since seeing that Indian. He does not look much like those I have seen at Niagara, selling bead-work.”

“Not much; and you will receive another impression should you ever see a band out on a war expedition against a hostile band, fully decorated with warpaint 55and feathers. They really look formidable then.”

Lissa shivered again.

“We have made good time to-day. How far do you think we have driven?” Nathan asked as, toward evening, they approached the suburbs of a small town.

“I am sure I have no idea. The ponies have trotted steadily all day. These mustangs are good travelers, if they are small.”

“They have endurance. I have been out on a hunt with the Indians when we have kept in the saddle for a hundred miles at a time, the ponies loping or running most of the way.”

“But how could you stand it to ride so far?”

“O, I can sleep in the saddle if necessary. One never knows what he can do until he is put to the test. But I think we have come about forty-five miles to-day. Yonder is the town. They are just lighting it. How pleasant it looks, doesn’t it, this evidence of life after so many miles of uninhabited wilds.”

“The ride has been perfectly delightful,” said Lissa. “I never better enjoyed a day in my life.”

They drew rein at a freshly painted building, bearing a sign “Badger House.” The landlady was evidently a Yankee, for she began a series of questions to Lissa. Where did they hail from? Where were they going? Had she ever been West before?

To Lissa’s responses she vouchsafed a consolatory remark: “Well, I’m kind of sorry for you. There is nothin’ but work out here. Ye don’t look as if 56ye’d seen much hardships. Ye’ll git awful homesick, I reckon. What with the poor crops and the hot winds, and the grasshoppers, there ain’t much to look for’d to.” After which she left the room to see to their supper.

The next morning they started early, that they might get well on their way before the intense heat of mid-day. They had been traveling for some time, when Lissa suddenly started and grasped Nathan’s arm.

“Stop, stop!” she cried; “I’ve been here before. I know just what is before us! Ah, how can it be—and yet, yet, I’ve seen it all before. Just beyond that large tree the ground descends to a river. There is a marshy strip of ground at the left, and a log lying diagonally, thus.” Lissa indicated the position by crossing her hands. She was excited and eager. “What does it all mean? Am I, too, clairvoyant?”

“We will see,” he said, chirruping to his horses. They soon came to the height overlooking the river flats. Before them lay the scene Lissa had described. The tears started in her eyes.

“O Nathan, have I ever lived in another form than this? I certainly could never have been here before. I cannot understand it.”

“Not unless you have been here in a dream.” At the word, Lissa started.

“Ah, I know now. I remember! It is a dream! It is written down in my journal. I wrote it when I first began to keep a journal, many years ago. The dream made such an impression upon me, I wrote it 57down, and a description of the scene. I have frequently read it over since.”

“What happened here, do you remember?”

“No, I could not remember at the time, but I awoke with great fright, trying to cry out, with the feeling that I had been passing through some terrible experience, with this scene clearly imprinted upon my consciousness.”

“It is a very strange coincidence, Lissa, but this is the place where a white man was flayed alive a number of years ago by the Indians.”

“Ah, I remember reading of it, and how horrible it was.”

“The man brought the punishment upon himself. He wantonly shot an Indian woman. It was a terrible method of torture, however. He was flayed before the eyes of his friends, and afterwards burned, I am told.”

“Oh, dreadful, dreadful!”

“The remainder of the party were allowed to go, I believe, after being made to witness his suffering and death. I used to know the man when I lived in Illinois,” Nathan added. “Remember, it is not so many years ago. We are to go among the same tribe of Indians. Probably those who committed the outrage are still living.”

“Don’t let us speak of it. It horrifies me. I will look up the date of my dream in my journal, when we get home, and see if it corresponds with the date of the tragedy. If it should prove to be the same, I should believe that I saw the crime in my sleep. Ugh!”

58“We will stop to rest under this tree,” said Nathan. “This is the first large tree we have seen for some distance.”

Later in the day they halted at a ranch, and bought some delicious water-melons of a smiling and inquisitive Dutch farmer, who grew them. After mid-day they stopped by the side of a lovely, quiet river, and enjoyed their luncheon, taken in this primitive fashion.

“I wonder if I was ever so hungry before,” said Lissa. “These peaches are delicious, and surely melons were never so sweet and appetizing. The biscuits are ambrosia and this lemonade is nectar. It was a good idea to bring this ice, for the river water must be very warm to drink.”

The lunch ended, Lissa went down to the water and bathed her face and hands in its limpid depths. Suddenly she found the skirt of her gown covered with persistent burrs, which stuck to her fingers as she tried to remove them, and pricked and irritated her hands intolerably.

Nathan laughed heartily at her discomfiture.

“Why, those are only sand-burrs, dear. I wonder if you have never before made their acquaintance? We have no patent upon them, and you may find them in many parts of the country, East and West. We don’t lay entire claim to them here.”

“I should hope not,” said Lissa ruefully; “at least, we might dispense with them, if they would permit us to, which is doubtful.”

Lissa tried again to free herself from the noxious 59weed. With Nathan’s help she at last succeeded, and they resumed their journey.

The sun was painting the western horizon a glorious crimson when they entered the last town on their route.

“Now, Lissa, we have twenty miles farther to travel before reaching home. We have already come over forty miles to-day. Shall we stop in this town and wait until morning?”

“O, no, no, no, not for anything. Alice will be looking for us and I am so anxious to see her and our home. Do let us go on, or will it be too great a drive for our horses?”

“They can endure it better than you, but I don’t think Alice will expect you before to-morrow night. People usually take four days to drive through. However, if you wish we will not stop.”

It was pleasant driving in the cool of the evening and the ponies sped along rapidly, apparently little wearied by the many miles behind. They had gone but a part of the distance, however, when the sound of a galloping horse over the soft turfed ground struck upon the ear. Soon it was beside them and a cheery voice saluted them.

“Hello, Nathan, is that you?”

“Why, Mark, how d’you do?”

Nathan grasped the hand of the handsome, yellow-haired fellow who came along beside the wagon.

“This is our brother, Mark Cramer, Lissa.”

“And this is the little sister I have known so well, 60but never seen,” said Mark. “You are very welcome to this western borderland, I assure you. Alice is wild with happy anticipation of your coming.”

Lissa’s sister had come West and married the year before, and this was Lissa’s first meeting with her brother-in-law.

“I heard in C—— that you were seen to drive through, so I hurried on to catch you. My horse is fleet, but I have run him all the way. You drive fast.”

“I think our desire to reach home has been communicated to the horses. They have needed no urging,” Nathan replied.

“I wish you would change places with me,” Lissa said. “I am tired of riding in a wagon, and a horseback ride would rest me.”

Mark hesitated. “My horse has never been ridden by a woman, or in fact only once or twice by anybody, and is but illy broken. I took him from a herd of wild bronchos from the plains. They were brought here a few days ago. I fear he isn’t altogether safe; besides, the saddle—”

“Lissa is an expert horsewoman,” said Nathan, interrupting him. “If he is not really vicious, I think she can manage him. As to the saddle, she is used to that kind. Turn the off stirrup to this side, and it will be all right.”

All being soon arranged for her, Lissa stepped from the wagon to the horse’s back, and experienced a delightful sensation of rest and exhilaration at the idea of a canter in the dewy, evening air over this wild, strange country. She started on ahead. Her 61horse sprang into a lope, increased his speed to a run, and she was soon skimming over the road at a pace unparalleled in her experience. She became alarmed and sought to check him, but was unable to do so. The spirited, half-wild thing had taken the bit in his teeth, and heeded not her utmost strength upon the bridle rein. She heard the wagon coming behind her, and knew they were running their horses at their highest speed to try to keep her in sight, but the mustangs, jaded as they were, were no match for the swift-winged Pegasus beneath her. On, and on, and on he sped, faster, faster, and faster, until the gentle breeze became a strong wind, taking her breath. How long would she be able to hold out, she wondered. At the rate they were going it would not be long before they would reach home. Home—what a meaning that word had for her. But suppose the pony took a wrong road; this road was marked only by the borders of high grass on both sides. There might be branches leading no one knew where.

She had passed beyond the sound of the wagon now. On, on, on the swift creature flew, no pause, no break in his mad flight. They must have covered five miles at least, she determined. Her breath was coming in frightened gasps, and her hands were trembling. She felt that she could not keep her seat much longer. Suddenly the horse stumbled slightly and slackened his gait. Lissa nearly fell, but by a desperate effort recovered herself. She was holding tightly to the saddle horn. Again the horse stumbled—there must be holes in the ground. Slump, slump, slump. What was the matter? The broncho 62was going much slower now, and Lissa spoke soothingly to him, and drew up on the rein. He submitted to her, and subsided into an easy canter. At last, as the soil seemed to frequently give way under his feet, he came down to a walk and permitted her to keep him slowly at that gait, until she heard the welcome sound of the wagon behind her, when she halted and waited until they came up.

“What a fright you have given us!” cried Nathan, a quiver of relief in his voice. “We feared you had been carried off bodily to the plains or thrown down by the way-side. Why did you ride so fast?”

“For the reason that I was obliged to. Whirlwind—I have named him—paid no more attention to my commands for him to moderate his speed than if I had been a gad-fly. He fairly flew with me until he stumbled, back here. He seemed to lose courage or confidence then, and went slower.”

“I wonder you did not fall,” said Mark. “I was afraid of prairie-dog town. These little fellows undermine the ground until it is hardly safe to ride over.”

“And we, then, have been over a prairie-dog settlement?” questioned Lissa.

“Yes, there is a large one here extending a mile on either side of the road. If you had come through here in daylight you would have seen them coming out of their little houses, and heard them bark.”

“I think I did hear one. Have they a little piping voice?”

“Yes, very likely you did hear them. You will 63often pass here and have plenty of chance to study them,” said Nathan.

“Do they do any harm?”

“No, except to undermine the ground and make it treacherous to travelers.”

The remainder of their journey was uneventful, and before midnight the two sisters were united, and talking so animatedly that the night bid fair to be sleepless.

“Come, Alice,” Mark said at last, “Lissa must be very tired and you are to have weeks and months together now to tell everything to one another. You don’t want to make her ill at the beginning.”

“No, I do not. But it does seem glorious to have some one to talk to.”

“As if we were not of any use in that line?”

Alice made a pretty grimace.

“You are away so much. And then it—it is different.”

But Alice kissed her sister, and left her to spend the remainder of the balmy night in her new home.

CHAPTER VII IN THE NEW HOME

The next morning when Lissa awoke the sun was shining brightly in through one of the small windows of her adobe house and she had leisure to look about her, and to survey this new, and to her, novel style of architecture.

The house was built of sod and mud, the roof being formed of poles of cotton-wood covered with sod, and brightly green with the upspringing grass. The inside of the house was lined by a strong paper, firmly stretched and fastened at the corners, and presented a smooth and cleanly looking wall. Through the windows Lissa could see the vast prairies level gray, dotted with small houses, similar in construction to this one to which her husband had brought her.

There were but two large rooms in the house, and one bed-room. No second story, as the roof was low. A large cupboard stood in one corner of the kitchen and another in the bed-room.

“That shall be my dressing-case,” said Lissa to herself; “in this other I will put up some hooks and a curtain, for a wardrobe.”

Just back of the house was a symmetrical little grove of cotton-wood trees of perhaps three or four years’ growth. Some ponies corralled near, together with herds of cattle grazing at a distance, gave life 65to the scene; the sunlit grass sparkled and waved invitingly, and the halo of the early morning enveloped all, presenting a landscape of pleasing attractiveness.

All this Lissa noted with the eye of an artist as, while dressing, she peered from the door and window, wondering what had become of Nathan, for he had risen while she slept.

She was interrupted in her musing by the arrival of Alice, who came in, bright and cloud-dispelling, bearing a basket which she placed on the table, while she laughed at the wonder in Lissa’s large eyes.

“I’ve come to take you over to breakfast with me,” she said. “Ah, I see you haven’t even thought of breakfast yet. What a lazy girl! We get up early here in the West. The sun doesn’t have to climb any mountains or tall tree-tops before he reaches us. Why, how bewildered you look! I’ve been to the post this morning, pony and I. Nate sent by me to get a few things which are in the basket.”

“You don’t mean to say you carried that big basket on the back of that diminutive pony?” Lissa exclaimed.

“To be sure I did, and another one like it. But come now, we’ll walk over. It will give you an appetite for breakfast.”

When Lissa had once more returned to her own home, which, humble as it was, had an irresistible attraction for her, she found plenty of employment in unpacking and arranging the contents of the large trunks which had been brought out from C—— the previous day. Although at first it seemed impossible to find places for so many things, there was pleasure 66in devising ways and means. Lissa found that the trunks could be utilized as packing-cases and window-seats, the dry-goods boxes converted into cupboards and wardrobes, and before many hours, with Nathan’s assistance, she had succeeded in arranging everything to her satisfaction.

As they were seated at their little table for an early tea, Lissa suddenly gave a faint scream and overturned a cup of the scalding fluid which she was handing to her husband, soiling the snowy whiteness of the table-cloth.

“Why, Lissa, what is the matter?” cried Nathan, in alarm; but following the direction of her eyes, he saw the face of an Indian flattened against the pane of glass of their small window, and his alarm changed to mirth.

The redman, seeing he was noticed, presented himself at the door, and drawing in his chest, and assuming a most woe-be-gone expression, said “te-cawpox,” accompanying his words by a gesture indicating that he desired something to eat.

“He says he is hungry,” said Nathan. “What can we give him?”

Lissa lifted the plate of warm biscuits from the table, but Nathan interposed.

“He’ll take them all without any compunction if you offer them,” he said, and selecting a couple, he handed them to the Indian, who dropped them into a dirty-looking sack he carried, then spoke again in his harsh guttural words, which Nathan interpreted as a request for water-melon.

“He knows I have them growing out here and has 67probably helped himself as fast as they have ripened, in my absence. Now he will beg the remainder. Well, I must give him one, I suppose.” And going to the little garden at the side of the house he plucked one from the vines and gave it to the Indian, who returned a grunt of satisfaction and departed.

Then Nathan related anecdotes of their savage neighbors until Lissa, her fright over, laughed merrily.

“I am afraid I shall be constrained to keep the curtains down in your absence if there is any danger of being frequently startled by such apparitions,” she said, with a shake of her curly head.

“You’ll mind nothing about it in a short time. I must take you out to the reservation, and show you the noble redman in his home. But, come to the door, I have a present for you. I see Mark has driven over the ponies.”

They stepped into the open doorway, and as Nathan whistled a call, a beautiful white pony started up from the group grazing near, and came cantering toward them.

“I have had this horse in training for a long time, and she is as docile and gentle as a kitten. Puss,” he said, stroking the pony’s smooth neck, “this is your new mistress. No one shall ever drive or ride you from this day, but this little lady.”

Lissa flushed with pleasure and put out her hand to caress the pretty creature, which seemed to understand, and acknowledged her acquaintance by dropping its head and rubbing its pink nose in her palm.

“Come, jump on her back. She requires no bridle, 68but will move in any direction you may indicate by the motion of your hand.”

Lissa permitted Nathan to seat her, and at the word the gentle little creature lifted her ears and stared across the prairie at an easy lope, most delightful to the rider. Lissa was charmed.

“How delightful! How intelligent! How easy!” she cried, as the pony, obeying the wave of her hand, turned back toward the house. “As easy as a rocking-chair. How I shall enjoy going about with her.”

“She is perfectly safe, and never scares at anything except farming implements. She usually prefers to make a detour whenever she sees a drag or plow. We tried to hitch her to a mower when we first brought her here, but she utterly refused to be coerced into service and tried to get away by vaulting into the air, lying down in the harness, and performing other gymnastic feats. In fact, she behaved in such an utterly demoralized manner, even kicking and biting, that we concluded we would not subject her to such a trial again.”

“The poor thing! She felt it to be a degradation and would not submit to it. I do not blame her.” And Lissa caressed her pityingly.

A few days subsequent to this Nathan announced his intention of going to the trading post and Indian village, inviting Lissa to accompany him.

Accordingly, one bright morning they mounted their horses, and after a refreshing canter of several miles came in sight of the reservation.

They overtook on the way a number of Indians, bestriding scrubby little mustangs, which they managed 69with rope reins tied to the under jaws of the ponies. At the post Nathan was greeted by a shout of “Ho, ho, ho, Cheiks-ta-ka-la-sha!” which Nathan interpreted as a greeting to the “white-man-chief” from the approaching brave.

The lazy aboriginal then begged the privilege of sharing Nathan’s pony. He was weary and would ride. But Nathan declined to grant the request, telling him the pony was not strong enough to carry double.

Several other Indians welcomed him in the same manner, each one asking about the chuppet who accompanied him.

Soon they were at the village, a collection of Indian huts covering quite an area of ground, built of sod or mud and most of them circular in form, with but two openings, one at the top for the escape of smoke, and a low passageway through which one must stoop to enter.

At this season of the year the huts were but little occupied, being infested with fleas, and small tents, made of poles covered by blankets or bison skin, afforded more inviting shelter from sun and rain.

Little nude children ran about here and there, or ducked in the waters of the river, like so many young goslings. Stalwart Indian-braves sauntered to and fro lazily about the wigwams or squatted on the ground under cover of their tents. The Indian industries seemed to be confined to the women, who were laboriously employed roasting corn in holes in the ground or scraping and rubbing the bison skins which had been recently brought in from the plains; 70for the braves were just home from their summer hunt, and preparations were going forward for their great green-corn festival.

In vain our Eastern woman looked for the beautiful Indian maiden of poesy and song. She concluded no poet could find inspiration to write of these dirty humans, with unpleasant faces and tangled locks.

Presently they rode to the tent of the chief of the tribe, who invited them to dismount and enter.

As Lissa followed Nathan into the small tent she confessed to an instinctive desire to flee in the opposite direction, for as she sat down upon the cushion her host placed for her, six Indian warriors entered and squatted down in a circle around her husband and herself. A timid look at Nathan, however, met assurance, and she tried to banish fear, but the thought of the white man flayed on the banks of the river would force itself upon her, and she found herself looking at their hands with a feeling of horror, which with an effort she sought to keep from appearing in her face.

Two women were laboring assiduously at a large bison skin at the door of the tent, scraping, pounding, and rubbing it, until it was white as a piece of cotton, but paying little attention to her, save now and then a stolen glance up from their work.

Then Lissa was attracted to the movements of the chief, who took a long-handled, red-clay pipe and filled it from several bone cups, filled apparently with a variety of herbs, then lighted it, and after taking two or three whiffs passed it to the Indian at his right, and thus it was handed around the 71circle. The herbs gave out a pungent odor as they burned, which to Lissa was sickening, and she was thankful that she was passed by and only Nathan invited to smoke with them their calumet.

The chief then took another of the odd-looking cups, and filling it with a kind of chowdered, dried meat gave it to Lissa.

She was embarrassed, for she dared not refuse it, yet shuddered at the thought of tasting it. Nathan answered her imploring looks by laughing and explaining to the donor that the white squaw was from the land of the rising sun and had not learned to appreciate such a treat. The chief, too, smiled, a little contemptuously Lissa thought, at her ignorance of this dainty, and called to one of the squaws to bring her corn.

Lissa was glad to accept the shining ear of maize, roasted within its husk to an appetizing brown, and she ate it with a relish, much to the satisfaction of the Indians and the woman who brought it.

In the mean time, Nathan, his eyes twinkling with amusement, was carrying on an animated conversation with one of the Indians in their dialect, and gesticulating toward Lissa, as if she might be furnishing the topic of discussion. She felt relieved when her husband arose and proposed their departure.

When they were again in their saddles and careening over the flower-strewn sward Nathan explained that the Indian was attempting to bargain for the “white chuppet,” offering for her his three squaws, two ponies, a wagon, some wampum—in fact, all of his possessions.

72“And you were really bartering me before my face, and I ignorant of it?” said Lissa. “Well, I like that!”

“Yes, and the fellow was terribly in earnest too. He thought you would make a good wife to hoe his corn and work for him,” laughed Nathan.

“Oh, the horrid creature! How my ideal of the ‘noble redman’ has fallen since coming here.” And she quoted:

“O Nate, where are they, those beautiful children of the forest, whom Longfellow and other poets dreamed of? The squaws are positively ugly with their tangled hair, narrow eyes, high cheek bones, nakedness and dirt. The men are not bad. They are at least straight and symmetrical,” she added.

“The women are bowed down and deformed by hard labor and heavy burdens,” Nathan replied. “Be thankful for what civilization has done for women.”

“Oh, it is dreadful! Those great lazy fellows lying about and doing nothing. ‘Noble redmen’ indeed! Ignoble, rather.”

“Well, the Quakers are at work among them. We may expect an improvement in the next generation, if not in this. But here we are at the post. Come, we will go in and look about.”

In addition to the stores and trinkets of Indian manufacture for sale, Lissa was interested in the 73girls of the Quaker school, who, though dressed in the calico dresses of civilized America, were yet far from the ideal maiden she thought. They were shy, hiding their faces if she looked at or attempted to speak to them. And these were the real American girls, the product of the soil.

“Lissa,” said Nathan, when they were again in their saddles, “Major Andrews, who has charge of the government stores here, offers me a position as bookkeeper in his office this fall and winter, and I think I had perhaps better take it, as I can do little on the farm until spring. What do you think?”

Lissa’s heart sank at the thought of his being away from home, but she answered bravely: “By all means accept it if it will be for the best. It will keep us through the long winter, and we can start fairly upon the farm when the spring comes.”

So it was arranged, and in the years that followed, when crops were blighted from the drought or hot winds, and other accidents impoverished them, Nathan could earn a livelihood at the office desk, and fared better than his neighbors.

CHAPTER VIII MOTHER AND CHILD

“Come, darling, dinner is ready,” and Mrs. Lucien held out her arms to the tiny sprite who was busily engaged in pinning a scrap of torn lace about a broken-nosed doll, her face a study in its eager intentness of purpose.

“O mamma, has we somefin’ nice?” she exclaimed as her eyes fell on the small table bearing the articles of food. “Why tan’t we have oranges every day?”

“My dear, mamma has not had money to buy them, but a good lady has given mamma work to do, which brings money. Is not baby glad? Maybe we may have good things to eat every meal, for Dolly, now.” Mrs. Lucien kissed the child’s little face passionately, then turned away her own, lest the tears should be seen that trembled in her lashes.

It was a mean little room, as Mrs. Wylie had said, only lighted by one narrow window, but the taste of its simple furnishing accorded with the faces of mother and child. Mrs. Lucien’s was one of those rare faces seen only occasionally among the masses, purely oval, with soft outlines and exquisite delicacy of expression. The eyes seemed to index the soul in their spirituality and clearness. It seemed impossible to think of guile or hypocrisy finding lodgment in the heart of a woman with such a face. The tinge 75of melancholy resting upon it only added to its attractiveness.

The child was the counterpart of the mother, even to the soulful eyes and mobile lips. It was evident, as Mrs. Wylie had observed, that Mrs. Lucien had seen better days. There was an unmistakable air of culture and refinement in her manner, a dignity and grace of carriage that could come only with one to the manner born. She appeared to be a stranger in Forest City and was markedly uncommunicative as to her past life and history in her intercourse with the few who sought further acquaintance with her.

Mrs. St. John, on the second floor, had been attracted by her face, and tried, through the child, to know more of her, but succeeded illy. The child was as reserved as the mother, or had been kept in ignorance of its history. One thing she noticed, it never spoke of its father, and Mrs. St. John discreetly withdrew, and refrained from further investigation.

“There must be something wrong when people are so much afraid to let you know anything of them,” she reflected. She could not afford to risk her own reputation by becoming associated with her.

Mrs. Wylie, too secure in worldly caste to be deterred by such considerations, had a new interest, and would leave no means untried to learn more of her protege.

She found she had an endless amount of sewing to be done, and made many calls with reference to it, as well as necessitating much going to and from her own rooms by Mrs. Lucien. And in all of those interviews 76the little woman chatted away as blithely as though her caller were an intimate friend instead of a stranger sewing woman, this being characteristic of Elinor Wylie, and the outgrowth of her kindness of heart, which neither fashion nor society, conventionality nor worldliness could repress.

Mr. Wylie joked her daily upon her enthusiasm, which increased with acquaintance.

“She is entirely lovable, Horace, and entirely refined and cultured. I have not her superior in my whole circle of acquaintances,” she reiterated one night, when he had chidden her for spending so much of her time with Mrs. Lucien. “If she were not so proud I should have gotten her out of that dark little jail of a room before now, but I dare not openly offer her charity. But, Horace, I have made a discovery. She was formerly from New York, and she came here to be among strangers. I suspect—”

“Well, what do you suspect?” said her husband, as she hesitated in her speech.

“Why—I half suspect she has run away from her husband,” admitted Mrs. Wylie reluctantly, hastening to add, “I am quite sure she had a good reason and that no blame can attach to her, whatever the cause.”

Mr. Wylie shook his head.

“Do not let your enthusiasm blind your eyes, Elinor. I give you credit for being pretty keen-sighted usually, but a woman with such a history may not be a desirable associate for my wife.”

“Horace!” the blue eyes were raised reproachfully 77to his face. “Even if my suspicions are correct,—and they are only suspicions,—we may suppose a case where she might be entirely blameless, and oh, so much more to be pitied, because of these very circumstances which may cast a shadow over her fair name! Surely she needs my friendship so much the more.”

“You precious little philanthrope!” said her husband fondly. “It is difficult to answer you, but suppose there are plenty of associates for Mrs. Horace Wylie whose characters are above suspicion and need no vindication. And yet,” he continued gravely, “the woman’s face is vindication for her. Do as you think best. Shall we invite her to attend the lecture with us to-morrow night?”

“Yes, if you will. She so seldom goes anywhere, and I am sure she needs recreation. I could wish it was something besides Dr. Lyman’s lectures, however. I am always glad to get home from one of them, and I dream of ghosts and goblins when I sleep afterwards.”

There was a compassionate look on Mr. Wylie’s face as he turned toward his wife.

“I am surprised, Nell, that you cannot appreciate what I enjoy so much. Surely, Dr. Lyman is a very interesting speaker.”

“A good talker, yes, but I do not like his subject,” and the little lady drew herself farther upon the sofa and pursed up her lips defiantly.

“And yet the subject is one that may materially affect us?”

“I do not believe it can materially affect us; if it 78does spiritually, why, it may. We shall find out after we leave this world, probably, all about it. What is the use of believing that the spirits of our friends can communicate with us. I don’t want them to. It’s horrid, the whole of it.”

“I do not see anything particularly horrid about it. If I should die and live again in the spiritland and should come back and reveal myself to your material sight and talk with you as I do now, would you consider it particularly horrid? That is,” he continued with his pleasant drawl, “supposing I come in immaculate broadcloth, shining boots, etc., and present you with a check for a few thousands to squander in bon-bons.”

“Oh, do stop talking so dreadfully! I will not think about it.”

“Then you will not want me to come back?” he queried provokingly. “Especially if you are wedded to your second, and well provided for?”

“Yes—no—I do not know. I think I should be dreadfully afraid of you if you did.”

“Aren’t you a little afraid of me now? Come, confess. Aren’t you?”

Mrs. Wylie made a grimace.

“No, I hope not, but I am afraid of Dr. Lyman.”

“And why do you fear him?” said her husband, laughing as he bent over and twirled one of her bright curls over his finger. “What do you fear in him?”

“I am afraid he will mesmerize me and make me think as he does. There you have my reason for disliking 79him, and to go to the Lyceum,” said Elinor, flushing slightly.

Again her husband laughed.

“Ah, that is it. Do you think there would be any harm in that?”

“Why, I think it would be dreadful to be hypnotized; to have any one control your will and make you think and do things you would not do otherwise.”

“I have an idea,” cried Mr. Wylie; “let me try it on you. Come, look me right in the eyes, relax all your muscles and think of nothing but me.” Mr. Wylie fixed his mischievous dark eyes upon his wife.

She closed her own eyes tightly, and turned her face away.

“Never! It would make me forever your slave. I have not much will of my own now, and you would take that away from me. No, thank you!”

“As if a woman ever lived who did not have her own sweet will and way. But, Nellie, you may call upon Mrs. Lucien to-night, and ask her to accompany us. I shall be curious to know her opinion of the Doctor and his hobby.”

“Mne! How kind you are! Man’s curiosity again! Well! I’ll go just to gratify you, but she may not be willing to go to such a place even in your company.”

Mr. Wylie smiled indulgently, but made no reply.

“Horace, I can almost believe Tibby exercises some such influence over Robbie. It is really remarkable, the ease with which she can subdue him, 80and put him to sleep at any time she desires. Mrs. Harbeck used to fuss for hours.”

“Tibby exercises a power woman has, since the world began—the power of her beauty. Tibby is such a pretty girl, and Robbie is susceptible to it. I remember when I was a youngster, the pretty teachers always had the least trouble with me. Children have aesthetic instincts, and Robbie recognizes the influence, if he does not yet understand it. Dame Harbeck was a good old soul, but she did lack winsomeness. Eh, Nellie?”

Mrs. Wylie laughed.

“I wonder if that does make a difference.”

“Certainly, and is it not a moral duty to cultivate beauty in the race?”

CHAPTER IX A NEW DEVELOPMENT

True to her promise, Mrs. Wylie called the following afternoon at the small room she had learned to designate as Number Nineteen, and invited Mrs. Lucien to accompany herself and Mr. Wylie to the Lyceum.

Mrs. Lucien’s pale face flushed slightly, and an eager, pleased look came for a moment into her eyes, then she shook her head.

“You are very kind, Mrs. Wylie, but you forget—that I never go out.”

“I know you should go. You are growing as pale as a calla, shut up here so closely. You owe it to yourself and little Dolores here, to go whenever you can. Besides, I have quite set my heart upon having you with us, and I am supposed to always have my own way,” she added playfully. “I want some one along who can enjoy a good lecture, if I cannot, and Mr. Wylie thinks Dr. Lyman a very fine speaker. I am sure you will reconsider your answer and go with us.”

“But, your husband—I am afraid—”

“Will be delighted. In fact, he first proposed your going,” said the other, feeling that Mrs. Lucien was yielding. “You shall bring little Dolores to our rooms and Tibby will look after her with Robert. 82She’ll be sure to enjoy it, for Tibby is a rare entertainer. Robert is quite happy with her.”

“Dolly never makes any one any trouble,” replied Mrs. Lucien, smiling fondly upon her child. “It is true I have taken considerable interest in Dr. Lyman’s lectures as reported in the papers, and in his subject. I have myself witnessed phenomena in the so-called spirit manifestations which I could not account for by any knowledge of my own, scientific or otherwise. If it is not spirits, then what is it?”

Mrs. Wylie shook her head.

“I confess I am very incredulous,” she said, smiling. “I think sometimes with old Mr. Hucklebone, that it is the work of the Evil One, and feel like avoiding it; but my husband is interested in the subject, and I go to these lectures to please him. I cannot say that I enjoy them, however.”

“Can you not believe the soul is immortal? And if so, why may not one come back to this earth and linger near those one has loved? Shall spirits be limited by time and space? These are finite things. Does not the spirit belong to the infinite?” Mrs. Lucien’s voice was low, sweet, and persuasive.

“I do not deny that it may be so, because I see nothing to entirely disprove such a possibility; but I cannot see what good it can do us or any one else to seek intercourse with those who have passed to the other world. There has been a boundary line and a veil of death placed between Time and Eternity, mortals and immortals, and it better remain. What I cannot countenance is that people give up their religion to take up spiritism. Why the testimony of 83the spirit of mortal man (admitting that it may testify) should weigh more than the great Spirit of the Universe, in whom even the wild Indian believes and whom we designate our Creator, is to me a strange thing. It is making a religion of spiritism that I object to.”

Mrs. Wylie spoke with unusual seriousness and her friend did not immediately respond.

“I do not think I believe in making a religion of it either,” she said after a moment of silence; “but there is so much one does not understand, and if by actual converse with those who have gone before and tested the mysteries of the unknown we may learn without doubt of the life in store for us, it is a satisfaction, to say the least.”

“But can we know without doubt? Do we know with what we are conversing? I confess I have seen so much charlatanry I cannot be sure of anything.”

“Have you not had experiences in your life, dear Mrs. Wylie, which have demonstrated to you a psychic power beyond explanation, save by this theory of spirit force?”

“Possibly; though I only think of one instance now which might be of this class,” said Mrs. Wylie reflectively.

“And may I ask if you will tell me that?” questioned Mrs. Lucien eagerly.

“It happened several years ago. I took a sudden determination to visit my parents, and started immediately, without notifying them of my coming. Arriving at the station I found my father waiting for me, he having been impressed with the fact of 84my coming, in some unaccountable way; my thought of the early day having been communicated to him by a sort of mental telegraphy, I imagine.”

“Ah, yes, there are so many instances of that kind. I have had many myself. I wonder, sometimes, if I am naturally superstitious. There have been many peculiar examples of second sight or clairvoyance in our family. It has been traditional for generations, and proven by accumulated evidence, that no great calamity can befall any member of us without forewarning, not alone to the victim, but to the others of the household. The warning always comes in the same way.”

“And that is—?” Mrs. Wylie questioned.

“By a footstep at the door,” continued Mrs. Lucien. “Before any death or evil to any one of the house we are startled by hearing a footstep come to the door, step heavily once or twice and then vanish from sound and sight. If the door is opened no one is visible to mortal eyes. Sometimes it comes more than once the same evening, and we know the evil is near at hand.” Mrs. Lucien spoke in a low, soft voice, of indescribable sadness, as she continued: “It has come to me several times, once before a trouble worse than death. Ah, and the footsteps were heavy and loud. I can hear and feel them yet, treading on my very heart. Then they came again before my darlings died, and I knew there was no hope, no hope that God would hear my prayer and spare them to me, though they were all I had. Truly, I can say there is no justice in the heavens. But forgive me, dear friend, I did not mean to so far forget myself,” 85she added, turning her white face toward the little woman, whose eyes were filled with tears of sympathy.

“And you have had other children, and lost them? How sorry I am for you,” cried Mrs. Wylie impulsively.

“Yes, three; but I do not think of them as lost, only gone before. They come to me at night and I feel the touch of the tiny hands upon my forehead—only Freddie, he never comes to me. But I see you are surprised. As I said before, I have seen much of spiritism, enough to make me credulous. It is a blessed thought to me that my darlings may be near me, and that possibly when I am myself more spiritual I may reach out my hands and grasp their little ones and enjoy more fully their loved presence. I am glad I may go to hear Dr. Lyman. He may make plain to me those things I desire to know, may teach me how to make such things possible.”

Mrs. Wylie knew not how to respond to her. There was so much about this theory to which she was opposed. She was disappointed in her friend, and yet she could not condemn her. She took her leave shortly, wishing Dr. Lyman at the antipodes.

CHAPTER X THE GHOSTS OF THE CABINET

“My dear, I have come to invite you to a real materialistic seance,” said Mrs. Wylie, a few weeks later, as she called at the door of Mrs. Lucien’s improved lodgings.

Mrs. Lucien’s eye brightened, and she clasped her hands with childish naivete.

“Really?”

“Yes, really! Mr. Wylie has an especial invitation and tickets given him, so we shall not feel that we are intruding. He bade me come at once and tell you, as he knew how much you desired to witness such an exhibition.”

“How kind you are, dear Mrs. Wylie. I cannot express how grateful I am to you for such an opportunity,” said Mrs. Lucien warmly.

“It is arranged, then; we will call for you at half-past seven this evening.” And Mrs. Wylie tripped away, feeling that she had at least given pleasure by the invitation, little as she herself desired to attend the seance. The lectures of Dr. Lyman, which she had attended to please her husband, had rather prejudiced her against than converted to his teaching, and she could not appreciate the interest which her friends seemed to take in them. As for this seance, she would go that Mrs. Lucien might have the desired 87privilege of attending, but her conscience disapproved of it.

At the appointed time the trio took a carriage to Scoville Street as directed, and stopped before a small story-and-a-half house, with an “L” upon one side, and a broken paling in front.

“I am bound to investigate everything thoroughly,” said Mrs. Wylie, in a whisper, as they went toward the house.

“Certainly, that is your privilege, my dear. I am sure the spirits will have no objections,” said Mr. Wylie.

They were met at the door by a grave-looking man, who asked for their credentials, and when Mr. Wylie had presented his card of invitation they were ushered into a small square room furnished only by a centre table holding a lamp, a little old-fashioned carpet lounge standing in one corner, upon which two or three persons were seated conversing in subdued tones, and a tall base-burner stove offering warmth to a small group of people gathered about it.

No one spoke to the members of our party, who, while warming themselves by the fire, gazed into an empty room adjoining. This room had only the light of a single lamp fastened near the ceiling in one corner and covered and shaded by a Japanese umbrella. A string depended from this lamp to the cabinet in the opposite corner of the room. An antique, black hair-cloth tete was near the cabinet, and a carved mahogany stand stood between the only two windows in the room. The remaining space of 88the apartment was taken up by chairs for the invited spectators.

All these separate details Mrs. Wylie observed and noted. Then she turned to the man who admitted them.

“Am I permitted to examine this room?” she asked smilingly.

“Certainly, madam, we court the most careful investigation in this matter. Examine thoroughly everything in this room,” and in a solemn manner he conducted them forward to the cabinet and lifted the curtains of plain black cloth which hung before it. Rolling these, he threw them over the top of the pole, that she might enter the cabinet and explore the interior.

Mrs. Wylie felt of the wall, which was covered with a faded paper; tapped it to see if there were closets in the partition, pressed it to learn if it was movable, examined for cracks or evidence of secret panels, but could discover nothing. She even examined the carpet and saw that the tacks holding it to the floor were rusted as if not recently lifted or changed. She looked under and behind the tete, but could discover no possible place of concealment in the room.

“Are you satisfied, my curious Pandora?” said Mr. Wylie, who had been watching her with a faint, indulgent smile upon his lips.

“Yes, I find only plain, bare walls, and no visible outlet, save by the one door through which we entered.”

89“Good! Perhaps your scepticism will vanish after to-night.”

Mrs. Wylie shook her head and peered again at the ceiling and dependent lamp. She was prepared for trickery, even if she could not fathom it.

“Still unconvinced? Oh, most doubting of Thomases!” said Mr. Wylie, with a gesture of despair.

“Only cautious and conservative,” whispered Mrs. Lucien.

“Conservatism, what crimes of doubt and unbelief are committed in thy name!” responded the other.

By this time people were beginning to file into the room, until the chairs were filled.

Our friends sat down near the door, where the hard-coal fire cast a dim light into the room, and directly opposite the cabinet. No other light was left in the room after the entrance of the medium.

This person, who was tall and large-framed, and who weighed apparently about two hundred and fifty pounds, walked over to the tete and sat down.

“I will sit here for a time, and perhaps we may have a manifestation before I am under control,” she said. “Will anybody please sing.”

The spectators began to sing religious hymns, and almost immediately, to Mrs. Wylie’s astonishment, the curtains parted by invisible power and a little figure of light, with indistinguishable features, stepped forth.

“Good-evening, everybody. How do you do?” came from it in a thin, piping voice.

Some of those present, who had evidently seen the 90apparition before, addressed it as Starlight, and the vision vanished.

The medium then arose and stepped into the cabinet. No sooner had she done so than three or four men’s voices were heard speaking together. One, a Jack Tar, with nautical phrases; another, the guttural voice of the American Indian, a third that of an educated citizen.

Some in the audience seemed to recognize and greet the voices.

After a period of quiet and another hymn the curtains again parted and a slender woman appeared. No one approached her as she stood before them and delivered a short oration, the theme of which was “Universal Progress,” the diction and thought in no wise remarkable.

She withdrew to give place to another figure, which called a name in a soft, plaintive voice.

“Oh, it is my wife!” cried a man in the audience, and he went forward, and grasping the materialized spirit by the arm, he led her forward about the room, while she shook hands with other friends who seemed to recognize her.

Mrs. Wylie shook in an agony of apprehension.

“Don’t, don’t let her come near me!” she gasped, while her heart beat to suffocation. She looked at the white, eager face of Mrs. Lucien, and the not less interested face of her husband. She clutched him by the arm, while she grew hot and cold by turns. But the figure turned away before reaching her, and stepped back into the cabinet. Then several others 91came out and were recognized, kissed, and spoken to by friends.

At length came the figure of a man, who spoke in a faint voice.

The usher came to the lady sitting next to Mrs. Wylie upon the left.

“It is for you,” he said.

The lady arose, went across the room to the cabinet, clasped the figure in her arms, calling him her dear brother, and when he disappeared came back to her seat, sobbing and crying bitterly.

Mrs. Wylie wrung her hands in the pause of darkness and silence which followed.

“Oh! Mrs. Lucien, Mrs. Lucien, the next will be for you,” she whispered. As if to confirm her words a figure of light advanced, so clear, so luminous, so fair that a suppressed murmur arose from the spectators. It seemed to float through the air and hover suspended before the cabinet. Mrs. Lucien had arisen and moved forward with outstretched arms.

“Mamma, mamma!” a bird-like voice repeated, and fluttering like a bird in the air the tiny hands brushed the white face of the entranced woman. Then by its side a second figure appeared, larger but less distinct. For a moment they hovered flutteringly before her, then disappeared, and the usher led the now nearly fainting Mrs. Lucien to her seat.

Another figure appeared, a man. A woman behind Mrs. Wylie arose and went forward.

“O Jim!” she cried.

“I have been so sorry,” a feeble, moaning voice replied, “that I did not do more for you when in the 92flesh. I had no opportunity, before I passed over, to tell you what was in my heart. I realize now that I blighted your life by selfishly yielding to my appetite. I would undo it all if I could, but it is too late.” With a groan he disappeared.

Then a little boy ran out from the cabinet and cried:

“I want my mash!”

“Oh, that is little Eddie!” exclaimed a girl from the audience, and she ran forward to clasp the little figure in her arms.

At last came a figure of beauty and light, with extended, fluttering hands and eager face. “This is for you,” said the usher, coming toward Mrs. Wylie, who felt bound to her chair and unable to move.

As the man approached her she felt as though her heart ceased to beat, but she passively suffered him to lead her to the cabinet.

“Sister, sister,” whispered the little sprite, and its tiny hands sought to take hers. She felt the soft, cool touch of its hand upon her own, then drew back with uncontrollable fear.

“She wants to kiss you,” said the man, but Mrs. Wylie was too terrified to permit it. Then the figure, so transparent and ethereal, vanished in the cabinet and again all was darkness.

When Mrs. Wylie was again seated there was a sound as of rushing wind, and two little Indian girls came running out of the cabinet. One ran back. The other called her out again.

“This is little Moonlight. Come on!” said number one.

93“Good-evening, everybody!” said number two timidly.

Number one laughed and danced about, while number two ran back into the cabinet.

“Dance for us, Starlight,” said a gentleman who seemed to recognize her as a well-known favorite.

“Mne! No music,” she said.

The gentleman began to whistle.

“No, no good,” cried Starlight.

Mrs. Wylie could never after account for the influence which prompted her to lean forward and clap her hands to the time of a waltz, while she hummed a gay air.

“Mne! That’s good!” cried Starlight, and her little feet kept time with the grace of a ballet-dancer.

“Good-night, good-night, good-night!” she cried, and danced back behind the curtains of the cabinet, and all was still.

The audience arose and began to go out of the room, and Mrs. Wylie, with a dazed, unnatural sensation, turned to her friend. “Am I asleep or dreaming?” she asked.

“I feel like asking the same question,” said Mrs. Lucien. “What a wonderful experience this has been.”

When they were seated in the carriage, and proceeding homeward, Mr. Wylie turned to his wife.

“Well, Nellie,” he said, “what do you think of it?”

“I think,” responded Mrs. Wylie slowly, “that I was hypnotized.”

94“Hypnotized!” exclaimed Mr. Wylie and Mrs. Lucien in unison.

“Yes, hypnotized. I began to grow cold and feel so strangely as soon as that medium sat down there. I think she sat outside long enough to mesmerize us all. You remember she had them sing to distract our thoughts.”

“I must say, Elinor, when you try to be idiotic you succeed a little better than any one I ever knew before you.” Mr. Wylie looked his annoyance.

“But, Horace, if I was not under some influence, why did I sing and clap my hands for that spirit to dance? Do you think I would have done such an absurd and unheard of thing of my own volition?”

“There’s no telling what you might or might not do, Elinor. I confess you surprise even me very frequently.”

Mrs. Wylie sighed. It seemed difficult to combat the now apparently fixed belief of her husband in spirit manifestation.

“Did you hear the music that seemed to be playing in the air above our heads from the moment the medium entered the room?” inquired Mrs. Lucien.

“No, I did not notice it; did you, Horace?”

Mr. Wylie shook his head.

“How strange! I heard the sound of many instruments blending in a wonderful harmony,” murmured Mrs. Lucien.

“A further proof that we were hypnotized,” replied Mrs. Wylie. “You, Mrs. Lucien, were the most susceptible and first brought under control?”

Mr. Wylie looked disgusted.

95“A proof, Elinor, that you were too frightened to know what was transpiring about you. I am not surprised that Mrs. Lucien should perceive harmonies beyond the hearing of our ears, or of less sensitively organized ones. We were curious, antagonistic, unbelieving. We were determined not to hear and therefore were deaf to the melodies which entranced her.”

“Entranced?”

“Yes, I think we were all entranced, and made to see or hear anything,” replied Mrs. Wylie.

CHAPTER XI THE FIRE

It is the spring of Lissa’s second year in her Nebraska home. Nathan, through with his winter duties at the post, has become farmer again, and the prairie, yet gray with the tall wild grass of the previous year, is black-dotted with patches of newly plowed land, while the upspringing verdure gives the landscape a gray-green tint of great beauty.

Lissa has grown to love this Western home, and as we see her now, tripping about the floor of her humble cabin, there is a maturer look in her bright face and pliant figure, and though she is paler in cheek and lip, her smile speaks the joy in her heart. Her neat calico gown is supplemented by a white cambric apron, and as she critically glances about her she is a picture of womanly contentment. She is obliged to make up in swiftness now the time demanded from her work to care for the little seraph who kicks, squirms, and even cries in her waking hours if she is not given immediate and undivided attention. Their house has grown with their family, and a nice little lean-to has been built, giving an extra room, and Lissa seems to have forgotten to wish for the spacious walls or wide balconies of her former home. She has as good as her neighbors, 97and luxuries are only comparative, after all. It must be confessed, Lissa is not a little vain of the handsome silver, few pieces of cut-glass, and dainty napery which were among her wedding gifts, and which she can now display on occasions to the admiration and envy of her less fortunate neighbors. Only Alice, of all her neighborhood, can outshine her in this, but Mark is an army officer, and quite the great man of the place, and she cannot feel envious of one of the family.

It is nearly dinner time and baby must be put aside while Lissa prepares the table. A motherly solicitude shines in her dark eyes as she places the little autocrat in her crib (a large wicker clothes-basket), puts in her clutching, uncertain grasp the rubber ring, and turns toward her work.

she sings, in her clear treble.

Thus sings and rhymes the girl-mother, and the cloth is laid in a short space of time, and few moments later the dignified, manly figure of Nathan enters.

“How smoky it is getting outside,” Lissa says as she catches a glimpse of the atmosphere through the open doorway.

“Yes, the fires must be making considerable headway 98across the river. The smoke is much denser than it was this morning when I began plowing.”

“You think it is all across the river? No danger of its getting over here?” Lissa questions, a note of anxiety in her voice.

“O, no; the river ’ll protect us. I should think Linkwell and Jordan, over there, would need to start back fires, though.”

“We’ve been fortunate, this spring, not to have any started on this side,” Lissa says.

“Yes, with as much tall, dry grass as there is about. We don’t generally have any fear of fires at this time of year. It’s the fall when they rage worst. The spring burning is unusual,” continues Nathan in his measured speech. “But I suppose some one thought he’d burn off his piece of ground before plowing, and was careless about it, as we were once upon a time. His plowed strip may have been too narrow, or the wind too high.”

“Oh, one cannot be too careful!” Lissa says with feeling. “I think what a close call we had when you let me fire the ten-acre lot by the canon, and all because the sod was not quite overturned on that rocky place at one corner.”

“Yes, but I reckon it was a good thing to happen. You wouldn’t have known how to fight a fire if we had not had that experience. Now if one should start up you would know what to do.”

“Yes,” she says reflectively.

The meal ended, Nathan goes again to his work, which is now upon the upper end of the farm, nearly 99two miles from the house, and Lissa, when the dinner-work is over, sits down to rock her baby to sleep.

The smoke has become quite dense by this time, and as she looks out across the river she sees leaping spires of orange-colored flames amidst the lifting, rolling clouds of smoke.

“Ah, baby Lucy, we are fortunate not to be over there,” she says, and clasps the little one more closely while she croons a lullaby.

Suddenly she is attracted by the strange actions of the family cat, which has been stretched out upon a rug across the room. Puss darts across the floor to the window, and placing her forepaws upon the window-seat, looks out. Then with a look of terror she runs to Lissa, and crouching at her feet begins to mew piteously.

“What is it, Menkin?” asks Lissa, putting down her hand to stroke the creature’s back. The cat darts again to the window, and Lissa, following her, sees that which blanches her face and lips to chalky whiteness.

The fire has crossed the river! The wind has carried the burning cinders even to the nearer bank, and now, only three-quarters of a mile away, she can see the curling smoke, and tongues of red fire lapping the dry grass.

Frantic with alarm, her thoughts work rapidly. She drops her baby into the basket and rushes out to the well, which, with its buckets, stands near the house.

Heavens! How long it seems ere, working desperately, hand over hand upon the rope, she can 100bring the filled bucket to the top of the curb. Then with a pail of water and a gunny-sack she flies across the fields to meet the oncoming fire. With supernatural strength, evolved from her terror, with the wet sacking she beats back the ravening flames madly, frantically, and with all the force of over-strained muscles and fear-nerved energy she fights the merciless element, until at last, blinded by smoke, and scorched and blackened, she turns toward the house, and flies with all the strength left her, her only hope now to get her baby and run with it to the only haven of safety, the black soil of the plowed land.

Snatching her child from its pillow and folding it in her smoke-begrimed arms she dashes again through the doorway and runs on and on over the soft earth, until, with many yards of the moist, upturned sod about her, she pauses and turns her eyes backward toward her humble yet beloved home.

With fascinated gaze she watches the flames creep nearer and nearer, now only like red snakes in the grass, then as the tall weeds catch, like sheets of scarlet, wound and twisted in smoke-clouds.

The fire has parted at the place where her frenzied efforts have been most effective, and one part is sweeping down the side of the road opposite the house, the other around the barn-yard toward the stables. She can see the horses corralled beyond the barn, and anticipating their fate she hides her face in her child’s clothing and sobs.

She is startled by hearing the sound of galloping horses and looks out to see a drove of frightened 101animals come madly down the road ahead of the flames. Will their instincts guide them toward a place of safety? A burning stack across the road is adding to the blinding smoke, and she can see through smarting eyes but a short distance around her.

“O God! spare the poor creatures tied there and helpless,” she prays. “Oh, why didn’t I think to loose them?”

She crouches down over her child and gives away to her grief. Suddenly she hears steps near her, and glancing up, the pink nose of Puss, her pony, is thrust into her hand.

“O you dear creature, how did you get away?” she falters. Then as she perceives the dragging rope, yet fastened to the up-pulled stake, she knows what Puss in her fright has been able to accomplish.

“We all have superhuman strength given us in our time of need,” she murmurs. She strains her eyes for a glimpse of the burning house, but the smoke is so painful she is fain to hide her face, while her faithful horse rubs its head against her as if to assure her of sympathy.

“Lissa!” cries an anxious voice near her.

“O Nate! Oh, our poor horses and our home! What shall we do?”

“I am thankful you are safe, Lissa. I feared you might not remember to come here soon enough. Keep your eyes covered and crouch down close to the ground. This smoke from that burning stack is overpowering.”

102“And our burning house and barns! O Nate,” wails Lissa, “those poor, poor horses!” She bows her head again, and for some moments neither speak.

“Lissa, Lissa, look up!” cries Nathan suddenly, his voice thrilling with a note of exultation. “Our home is safe! Do you hear? Safe!”

Lissa raises her eyes. The smoke has lifted, and to their surprise and joy they see revealed to them the buildings standing, unharmed. The fire, although raging across the road, has let the barrier of only a few feet, the width of one wagon-track, turn its course, and now, passing on, has left only a blackened, smoking trail behind it.

It has passed back of the stables, turned by the yards, and left them and the horses untouched.

“It is a miracle, Lissa!” says Nathan devoutly, his slow speech giving force to his words. “As soon as the turf cools we can go home,—home—think of it!”

But Lissa is weeping hysterically.

“What, crying when the danger is over? This is not the time to cry. What is it for, little girl?”

“O Nate, Nate—Nate! I—can’t help it! I—I’m—so happy! I—I’m so glad!” she sobs.

“There, there, give me the baby. Your nerves are all unstrung, that is certain, and small wonder at it. But what’s this? What’s the matter with your hands? Why, child, they are all blistered and burned. What have you been doing?”

“I—I fought the fire,” falters Lissa.

“My poor child!”

103“I beat it back just as long as I could,” she pants.

“And divided it, and saved our home! I understand all now,” Nathan answers in broken tones.

“No, it was the yards, I think. It was a miracle. I only beat it out up to the road.”

“And kept it on that side. But these poor hands must be looked after. Aren’t they paining you?”

“I—I haven’t thought of them,” replies Lissa. “How could I when these poor animals and—and our house were in such danger.”

CHAPTER XII A NEW MEDIUM

“My dear Mrs. Lucien—why, what is the matter?”

Mrs. Wylie ran hurriedly to her friend’s side, but stopped, frightened at the unseeing, vacant stare which met her. During the fortnight intervening since the seance she had met her friend daily, but never had seen her as now.

Mrs. Lucien sat by a small sewing-table, her hands resting upon it, her eyes gazing vacantly into space. Her expression was uncanny in its fixity, and her hands moved restlessly over the smooth surface before her. Her aspect was that of one whose outer senses were locked and all thought and sight turned inward.

The little Dolores, who had opened the door to Mrs. Wylie, resumed her position by her mother, her hands resting in her mother’s lap, her troubled eyes searching her mother’s face.

Mrs. Wylie, unable to win any response or recognition, stood silent and frightened, watching the entranced woman. Then her eyes fell upon the swiftly moving fingers. What was she doing? Surely she was forming letters—writing. Was it possible? She seemed to see her own name spelled from the ends of those fingers. Mrs. Wylie had seen such things before from professed mediums. Suddenly 105a thought came to her. She detached the little gold pencil from her watch guard and laid in with her shopping-tablet on the table before the woman. In a moment Mrs. Lucien seized the pencil and was writing rapidly, her eyes still fixed and unseeing.

When she at last relinquished the tablet Mrs. Wylie took it up, and read in letters scrawling and unlike the chirography of her friend, the following:

“Why do you hesitate on the dark borders of prejudice and ignorance? Why not come into the full light of the truth? Our hands would gladly lead you if you would take them. There is much to believe that is truth; there is much to reject that is untruth. You accept much untruth. But you shall soon know all.

What did this meaningless missive prove? That Mrs. Lucien was other than she seemed? Mrs. Wylie could think of no one having those initials. Ah, yes. She did have a friend, long ago, by the name of Emma Boyleson. She could not remember her middle name, or if she had one. It might have been “M.” But she was dead, died a long while ago, when only a little more than a child. And why, if it came from her,—Mrs. Wylie’s instincts denied the possibility,—why should she write such stuff as this? Simply to mystify her? Could she be mistaken in Mrs. Lucien? Could it be possible that she was one of those dreaded charlatans? But if so, how could she have known anything about Emma 106Boyleson? She had never mentioned her, so far as she could remember, even to Mr. Wylie.

She would arouse Mrs. Lucien and sift this affair thoroughly.

“Mrs. Lucien! Mrs. Lucien!” she said imperatively.

She was gratified to see a change pass over the woman’s face. Mrs. Lucien started, shivered, pressed her hands to her forehead.

“What is the matter, Mrs. Lucien,” again demanded Mrs. Wylie, bending over her.

The dazed woman brushed her eyes and looked about her.

“Have I been asleep?” she asked plaintively.

“Yes, and writing me a letter in your dreams,” chirruped her visitor gaily. “Now you may arouse yourself and interpret it for me.”

Mrs. Lucien shook her head, while the look of awe deepened in her face.

“Ah, can it be possible,” she murmured, “that Dr. Lyman told me the truth, and that I am really a medium? How strange it seems, and yet he promised me it should be.”

“You a medium?” Mrs. Wylie shrank from her hostess involuntarily.

“Yes, Dr. Lyman told me I was mediumistic, and that if I would sit down at just the same time every evening, and allow myself to become entirely passive I would soon be made the instrument to take and convey the words of the invisible to the visible. I did not think, however, to obtain this so soon.”

“O Mrs. Lucien, how could you lend yourself 107to such experiments? You would not deceive me, would you? Tell me truly, did you know what you were doing when you wrote that message to me?”

“No more than I know what I do in my sleep. I have a feeling that I have had dreams, but I cannot recall them.”

“Did this ever happen before?”

“I have had this feeling and a partial remembrance of dreams, but I do not know what I have ever written.”

“Do you think Dr. Lyman had anything to do with this?”

“No, only so far as he has assisted in developing me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I think he exercised some—mesmeric power or influence over me, while in attendance at his lectures.”

“You horrify me! And would you continue to go and hear him, when you knew this?”

“Why, yes. I hoped he might develop me into a medium. Why should I not?” Mrs. Lucien’s innocent, dark eyes looked up inquiringly.

“I think it is dreadful—dreadful! I would not be under his influence for anything.”

“But it is not his influence. It is—Oh! I cannot tell you. It is a power from beyond. Why should I fear to speak to those I love?”

“I cannot bear to think of it,” Mrs. Wylie said, shivering. “We do not know to whom we are talking. We have no proof of their identity, and know not if the power be good or evil.”

108“What, not when we see, as we did a short time ago, the faces of those we have known and loved here on earth?”

Mrs. Wylie shook her head.

“A delusion of the senses!” she said positively.

Mrs. Lucien gazed pityingly upon her.

“I am sure, dear Mrs. Wylie, that when we see a photograph taken of a spirit face we can not doubt its genuineness. Cameras do not lie.”

“Don’t they? I am not sure. I have heard that people have tried to get pictures of materialized spirits, and failed. The camera plate reveals nothing, proving the delusions. Did you ever see an authentic spirit-photograph?”

“My father did, and I have often heard him tell the story, although he does not profess to believe in spiritism. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and while in the West, a number of years ago, one of his brother knights sickened and died. The family had no good portrait of the man, and my father, who was superintending the funeral arrangements, obtained permission to get some one to take a picture of the corpse.

“There was a young lady photographer a few doors away and she was called in. She told them she was out of negative plates (they were in a country town where supplies were not readily obtainable) but that any glass would do. Accordingly she found a pane of window glass, and cut it to the required dimensions and prepared it otherwise for the holder. My father propped the man upon pillows as well as he could, and the artist focused upon him with care. 109Removing the plate she took it to a dark closet, previously prepared, to apply the developing solution, and then brought it forth to show to my father. He looked at it, and exclaimed in surprise, for instead of the dead man alone, there were three figures upon the negative, a very good portrait of the corpse, and on either side a man and a woman, their faces growing more distinct as they looked. The artist was as much surprised as my father, and could not account for the phenomenon. At last they called in a friend of the family, who at once recognized and pronounced the portraits to be those of a deceased brother and sister of the dead man. The widow corroborated their statements, recognizing them and calling them by their names. My father ordered the artist to take another picture, as he wanted to keep this, and she did so, obtaining one of the dead man alone. I have not only my father’s word for this, but that of others who were present at the time and acquainted with the facts. Certainly, dear Mrs. Wylie, that could have come only from actual materialized spirits before the camera.”

“Unless the images were already stamped upon the plate by some natural process before the picture was taken. The glass might have been some old cast-off negative from a studio; or I have read of breath pictures stamped upon window-panes by natural, if not well-understood, forces. There might have been a mirror behind the dead man, which reflected your father and the artist as the picture was being taken. Of course it is very mysterious, but might have a simple explanation if we could find it. 110The orientals believe they have astral bodies which they can project at will. I am willing, I think, to believe in anything, rather than spirits; for, my dear friend, even if we grant that the spirits of our dear departed are near us, and acting as guardian-angels to us, do you think it would be necessary for them to resort to so much that is unpleasant and almost ludicrous in order to make us aware of their presence? And even if they are able to make themselves visible to the eye of the camera, is it well for us to try to communicate with them and to seek to discover that which God has hidden from us?”

“My dear, we are told to seek for the truth. And why, then, is it not well? Surely, if the presence of my children was dear to me on earth, it is dear to me now.”

“Yes, if you were in heaven with them; but I cannot believe such doubtful converse as this, gotten through mediumistic agency, can be well for any one.”

“I can see no possible harm in it,” returned Mrs. Lucien, with an air of conviction. “Even Christ materialized after his crucifixion.”

“But He didn’t have a cabinet and a medium to assist Him,” replied Mrs. Wylie, with some asperity. “There is really so much that is despicable and demoralizing connected with the history of this belief that I confess I have little patience with the followers of it.”

“My dear, wrong has been done in all sects and societies. Any new belief is apt to draw to itself many who are no honor to it.”

111“But think of all this buffoonery of materialization in a cabinet, and table-rappings, and tying with cords, and so forth. I cannot believe in it. Hermann can surpass it by his magic.”

“Did not Moses and Elijah materialize?”

“Not in a cabinet. Besides, the days of miracles are passed.”

“I cannot think so,” said Mrs. Lucien, clasping her hands and looking upward with a rapturous glance.

“Well,” said Mrs. Wylie, rising, “I am sorry you are so much interested in the subject. I have never seen anything but sorrow come of it.”

“Is there not sorrow everywhere, Mrs. Wylie? This day is, I think, symbolical of life, or of many lives.” She threw open a window, and the two stepped out upon a small balcony above the street.

A heavy calm was over and about all nature. The whistle of the oncoming train, the rattle of the car over the pavement was louder and more discordant than on brighter, sunnier days. Even the voices of the people on the street grew distinct and harsh, as the air, damp with the approaching storm, bore their words with clearness to the twain above them.

Little gusts of wind caught up the dust from the trampled pavement, and whisked it over, in tyrannous derision, and a dusky, yellow hue shone upon the faces of humanity. The swinging signs before the shop creaked and groaned ominously, and the flag upon the tall pole in the park shook out its folds, then wound them about the halyards and hung limp and spiritless.

112The faint muttering of a cloud skirting the horizon was at times heard, when the sound of busy humanity was for a moment hushed.

Mrs. Lucien stood, leaning over the railing of the veranda, her pale cheek resting in the soft upturned palm of her hand, and her eyes fixed on the moving panorama before her.

“I feel as though listening to the voice of God coming from yonder storm-cloud,” she said. “How responsive is all nature to the ominous warning there. Even the trees seem to be holding their breaths and waiting for the presence to pass by. Notice how different is the quiver of the leaflets now from their usual merry, rollicking dance in the wind and sunshine at other times.”

“I suppose the atmosphere is more dense and heavy,” said Mrs. Wylie, determined not to be betrayed into sentimentality.

“I like to think they understand the portent of the thunder and are afraid,” replied the other. “They are saying their prayers now, and asking that they may survive the blows and buffeting of the coming tempest. Hear the sparrows chirp to call their families together. To me there is no time so grand, so inspiring as this.”

“But if you were in the West, where cyclones are common, what would you feel?” asked the practical Mrs. Wylie.

“Fear, terror, and trembling like the leaves, no doubt,” replied Mrs. Lucien. “The anger and fury expressed in a tornado must be dreadful. I shudder at the thought of it. But after the wind comes a 113still small voice. Ah, how can people who live and breathe the beneficent air of heaven, who witness the wonderful phenomena of nature, say or believe there is no grand, marvelous unity controlling it all? Truly, it is the fool who sayeth in his heart, there is no God.

“We can feel His wonderful love and care in the beautiful earth and flowers about us, can perceive His righteous law in the retributive justice of all nature, and His might and omnipotence in the thunder-storm and cyclone. Ah, it is a wonderful thing to live, to know that in a little while we shall have crossed to the other side, beyond time and eternity. And then we may see and know the Law-giver, this Almighty One, who carries worlds in his hands, yet deigns to note a sparrow’s fall.”

“Yes,” assented Mrs. Wylie, “it is a wonderful thing to live.” But she sighed. She could not forget the scene that presented itself to her eyes earlier in the morning, and she bade her friend good-by abstractedly, and passed out into the hurrying world upon the street, her mind heavy and oppressed.

CHAPTER XIII A DOMESTIC JAR

Mrs. Wylie went back to her home in a very dissatisfied frame of mind. She mentally scourged herself for having been instrumental in bringing Mrs. Lucien under Dr. Lyman’s influence. The whole subject was distasteful to her and she resolved to keep away from Mrs. Lucien as much as possible in the future. She could not rest, however, until she had unburdened herself to her husband.

“Horace, I am very sorry we ever met Mrs. Lucien,” she said that evening as they sat in the quiet of their parlor at the hotel.

“Regret meeting Mrs. Lucien?” Mr. Wylie raised his eyebrows quizzically. “And why, may I ask? Am I to infer that you do me the honor to be—”

“No, no, of course not. But—I feel that we have done her harm—an incalculable amount of harm.”

“We do her harm? Will you be so kind as to explain your anomalous words? I am not accustomed to think of myself as a dangerous character, either specially or as regards the body-politic,” he replied, frowning.

“I mean that, by our aid, she went to hear Dr. Lyman, and I am afraid his pernicious theories will ruin her,” faltered Mrs. Wylie, as she detected her husband’s disapproval.

“My dear, I would have you choose your adjectives 115more carefully. Pernicious is an offensive word to use in connection with a subject of which you know so little. Oblige me by deferring your judgment until you are better acquainted with the subject. Your blind prejudice is making you censorious.” Mr. Wylie employed his most lofty tone and manner.

“I never want to know more of the subject, and I shall always regret that I ever went or took Mrs. Lucien to hear that man!” Mrs. Wylie’s blue eyes filled with tears.

“Why, see here, Puss, you seem more out of humor than usual. What has happened to Mrs. Lucien?”

“Matter enough! She is entirely carried away with that—that Dr. Lyman’s creed,” she stammered.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me where she has gone,” he suggested with serio-comic gravity.

Mrs. Wylie smiled through her tears.

“O, she is here yet, at least in body, but her mind is up in the clouds roving around after familiar spirits. She was in some kind of a trance when I went there to-day, and wrote me a letter purporting to come from some mystical source.”

“Ah?” Mr. Wylie became interested.

“It didn’t amount to anything. The whole thing was dreadful.”

“Why dreadful? Did you keep the letter?”

“Yes, here it is upon my shopping-tablet.” She detached the ivory ornament and handed it to him. He studied it carefully, then said:

116“And she was unconscious when she wrote this, you say?”

“Yes, apparently.”

“Strange, strange. It is as I thought. Mrs. Lucien will develop into a writing medium. It is such ethereal natures as hers that are chosen.”

“But, Horace, I cannot endure the thought of such a thing.”

“And why not, pray?” Again his eyebrows were exasperatingly elevated.

“Because there is no good in it. Because it will ruin her, body and soul. Whoever goes into that belief does so at his peril. He either becomes insane or helplessly demoralized before many months or years.”

“Where have you learned so much, Mrs. Wylie? It appears to me I have never seen you so much excited over anything before. Who has been talking to you?”

“I heard Mr. Smalley’s address at church last Sunday evening, which you would not go to hear. He said it was a most pernicious and dangerous theory to follow. That it led to—”

“O, I know. It is the wholesale condemnation of heterodoxy by orthodoxy. It is believe what I believe or be damned. All else is of the Devil. It has been the habit of most people since the world began to denounce as heresy, or ridicule as madness, things too high for their sight or too deep for their comprehension. But the day has gone by for this sort of thing. It is merely a confession of ignorance, now-a-days, 117to assert a total disbelief in psychic and supernatural phenomena.”

“But, Horace, there is much fraud and trickery connected with it. Think of that exposé last winter of that Mrs. Brunner.”

“O, that is liable to happen in any creed or theology. There are always some who make pretensions from merely selfish motives.”

“But, Horace, this is no theology. That is what I think so dreadful about it. If people would only not make a religion of it and accept the utterance of the so-called spirits for their guide in spiritual maters.”

“It seems to me spirits should be good guides in spiritual matters,” said Mr. Wylie, smiling.

“Horace, Mr. Smalley said that, as a rule, false religions always led to sexual immorality; that we would find the history of spiritism associated with divorces and worse. Husbands separating from their wives, wives from their husbands, minds becoming unbalanced, business neglected, and a general lowering of the whole social fabric, mentally and morally. You know, Horace, many spiritists are free-lovers.”

“I am surprised that my wife has permitted herself to listen to such utterances. Hereafter, I prefer you do not go to hear Rev. Mr. Smalley. I will take you with me.”

“And I will not go with you to any more of those horrid seances!” said Mrs. Wylie.

“Very well. I shall not compel you to do so. But this childish anger and lack of self-control is very 118distasteful to me. I hope I may not have a repetition of it.” Mr. Wylie arose and left the room, while his wife threw herself upon a sofa and shed tears of anger and grief over this experience of marital infelicity.

A small wedge may divide in halves a tree, but when divided no power on earth can unite them as closely as before; and little cracks in the soil of home life may form a place for germ deposits in which dissensions, strife, and all manner of unpleasantness are bred.

Mrs. Wylie would not have confessed to her dearest friends that her life the succeeding winter was less happy than before, but it was true she felt a growing estrangement between herself and husband.

He was, possibly, as kind and indulgent as ever, treating her as a fond parent might treat a wayward child, but she missed the old-time confidences and evening talks.

Probably there had never been that true unity of soul with soul that should constitute the real marriage, but Elinor Wylie’s husband had always seemed so proud of her, and fond, that until this winter she had felt no lack in his affection. But, alas, so small a thing will turn and divide a shallow stream, and when turned, how far apart the separate branches may run. And the ideal marriage of true unity of thought and purpose is so rarely consummated. Hence the world of divided lives.

Mrs. Wylie felt that they were drifting away from each other, and every wife knows what that may be. To feel the division growing wider and 119wider, deeper and more impassable, and be impotent to stop it.

The little coolnesses and differences which are at first made up with kisses of cementing power grow more frequent and bitter. The endearing word is less frequently given. By and by the good-by kiss is forgotten when he leaves her, the salute of greeting omitted when he returns, and each heart grows harder and harder, bitterer and bitterer, until at last he thinks of her but to censure and condemn, she of him but to dislike and fear. And finally, as Byron writes, “Hating one another, wishing one another dead, they live respectably as man and wife.”

Only the first act of this drama of life had as yet come to Mrs. Wylie, but the little imp of unrest had crept into her breast, and the quiet happiness of other days was no more. Horace Wylie spent less time at home than formerly, and when there buried himself in books and papers, and thus the little woman was left much to herself to seek pleasure and excitement where she could.

The one thing which caused Mrs. Wylie more heart-ache than any other was her husband’s growing interest and adherence to the creed of Dr. Lyman. Although that subject was tabooed between them, she knew he regularly attended seances during the winter and no longer even asked her to accompany him.

Mrs. Wylie was grievously disappointed in Mrs. Lucien and went less frequently to see her, for she knew her friend had been led into giving public seances, 120and as a writing medium and psychometrist was being much talked of in the city and sought after by a certain set, many of whom Mrs. Wylie felt she would not care to acknowledge as acquaintances, although they belonged to a psychical society or club of which Mr. Wylie was a member. This club had made much of Mrs. Lucien and brought her before the public.

Hence, Mrs. Wylie, being left to her own resources, went more in society, was gayer, more extravagant and fashionable than ever, and little Robert was left more and more to the care of the remarkable Tibby.

Tibby grew and waxed beautiful, and became more and more a fact and factor in Mr. Wylie’s household. She was no longer only nurse to the child, but companion and friend to Mrs. Wylie. It was Tibby’s fingers that brushed away the headache brought on by social dissipation. It was Tibby’s sympathy and advice that soothed away the little vexations that sometimes distressed her mistress. Mrs. Wylie would as soon have thought of giving up little Robert as this Tibby who had grown into her heart and love. Even Mr. Wylie was not insensible to the charm of her presence. He began to treat her more as a daughter of the house and indulge her in any whim or fanciful taste she might entertain.

Truly, Tibby was in a fair way to become spoiled, according to his earlier theories; but Mr. Wylie seemed to have forgotten those early fears, and now helped in the spoiling.

121And thus, when Mr. Wylie’s business required his removal to the Pacific slope, Tibby went with this family of her adoption, secure in her present and future needs.

And there, among strangers and strange scenes she was known as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Mr. Wylie. Teachers were procured for her, and a broader culture and further accomplishments were added to the native graces of our little country girl.

Tom and Bess became pleasant memories of that past which now seemed to Tibby so far away, and though she laughed and shed tears occasionally over their misspelled and somewhat illegible letters, she no longer pined for the companions of her childhood.

CHAPTER XIV BEFORE THE PUBLIC

The large hall of the Lennox is filled with a curious and heterogeneous assemblage of men and women. The majority of those present are believers in spiritism, and ready and more than willing to credit all the phenomena witnessed to spirit agency. A few are there who came in the honest endeavor to learn the truth and to discover if there is something in the mystic realms beyond the sight which may be made clear to their comprehension. There are others, however, who came with malice aforethought, desiring to thwart and expose the trickery which they believe is practised by the medium.

Before all this multitude she whom we have called Mrs. Lucien appears to give an exhibition of psychometric reading and slate-writing.

She has changed slightly since we saw her. She is even thinner and more ethereal looking than she was then. Her eyes have a pained, timid look in them, as if the life she is leading is fraught with haunting ghosts and mocking spectres, with tortured nerves and sleepless nights. Mrs. Lucien has had much to cause her extreme dejection and pain.

These exhibitions which she gives are for the most part but as dreams to her. She has little realization of what she says or does in the trance state into which she passes. But it has happened once or twice 123that she has been unable to become fully passive and entranced. Then she has been obliged to simulate such a condition or wholly disappoint her audience and make an utter failure of her work. It is the fear of this deception, to which she may be compelled to resort at any time, which frightens her and fills her with self-loathing.

She has that fear upon her now as she comes forward and sits down before the audience, her pale face waxen in the gaslight.

If she should fail! She sits very still, seeking to hold her thoughts in abeyance, that she may woo that sweet forgetfulness and waking dream which reveals to her the mysteries of the invisible.

It is coming.

Her hands grow cold and sink weightily upon her lap. She feels the mystic power enveloping her, creeping down, over and around her. The lights grow dimmer and dimmer. Her eyelids are freighted with leaden compresses.

Soon eyes and ears are closed to all external sights and sounds. Strange melodies, fitful and harmonious, sound within, and strange lights, like electric sparks, flash across and illumine the recesses of her brain.

She feels as if mind and body had become separate and apart. Thoughts new and uncalled for come to overwhelm her. Then voices from out of the distance are heard. Words, words come in numbers, half-consciously to her lips, but she hears them as afar off. She sees with closed eyes, and in this inner vision message after message written out before her.

124Words written upon a scrap of paper and crushed in her hand stand out in bright distinctness before her mental vision. Words in languages other than those she speaks are known to her. She forgets them as soon as uttered. No—hark! “Tell Harry his mother is waiting for him.”

Did her lips utter those words? She cannot tell. Words, words, words—where do they come from? She is under control. No power or volition of her own consciousness moves her. Songs, sweet songs, she hears. Does she sing them? Is she out of mortal life or in it?

It is over!

The world in which she has been living floats away like evanescent smoke in ether-filled space. She awakens to the unfriendly glare of the foot-lights, the restless, garish crowd, the unfeeling world again.

Ugh! She shudders. If she could never more waken. Whence comes this pain, this actual pain which racks her?

Even that is over at last, and she can arise and escape from it all. How gladly she would shut herself up in her own little room with Dolores again. But it must not be. The five dollars a night for these exhibitions must be earned and laid by for Dolores.

She puts on her wraps and enters her carriage to be whirled away to the hotel, her temporary abiding place. What are her thoughts and reflections upon this lonely, homeward ride!

“O God, O God!” she is saying; “show me some other way! Am I wrong, wicked to do this? 125Where does it come from, this power? From Thee or from the shades of darkness? If I only knew! If I only knew! Why did it ever come to me? Why should my life be so differently ordered from that of other and happier women? Can it be I am the same who was once safe and sheltered in the comforts of home? Safe? Did not the serpent enter my Eden—even there?

“O God! why did it come? Can this life be real? If I could but waken and find it all a dream.”

CHAPTER XV WELCOME GUESTS

We will pass over the first few years of Lissa’s pioneer life, only mentioning one or two experiences which, though common to that section of the country, brought terror and anxiety to the heart of our little bright-eyed woman. Again they experienced the sweeping of a prairie fire near them, when Nathan came expecting to find their home in ashes, and another hour when a blizzard drove them terrorstricken to their dug-out, where, during the long night, they listened to the shrieking and pounding of the elements, expecting every moment to have the roof torn from the house.

There had been seasons of famine and distress, too, when neighbors had been obliged to turn to each other for aid, and the higher and diviner attributes of mankind had shone forth as gold from the crucible, and others, alas! had been proven so encased in the rock of selfishness that when Famine’s gaunt wolf howled about they thought only of themselves and their own safety, and consoled their consciences by quoting, “Charity begins at home.”

But these trials had drawn the little community more closely together, and the habit of calling each other by the first name became general, showing the unity of feeling among them.

Nathan, owing to his winter employment, escaped 127the privations common to many, and Mark, also, had not to depend upon the mutability of the seasons for a livelihood.

Lissa had grown fully in the enjoyment of her home; and in the company of her bright-eyed little daughter, who pattered about the house, adding to her joy as well as care, she realized the ideal life of a mother. What is it to her that away in the East the luxuries of life are magnified, and things unessential to her are there necessities?

She has enough to eat, enough to wear, so far as comfort demands; and the fashion periodical which is sent to her each month keeps her in touch with the outside world. She can fashion the simple fabrics which serve to replenish her wardrobe after the latest modes. She reads the daily papers, sent to her in bundles six or eight at a time, and is familiar with the doings of metropolitans. If the time shall ever come when she shall need to go back to city life she will be ready.

Look at her now as she steps to the door in anticipation of Nathan’s home-coming. Her shining ringlets hang about her fair face in the way her husband loves best to see them; her arched, short upper lip describes the Cupid’s bow over the full under one, and her large, luminous black eyes, gleaming with slumbering fires, look out upon the smooth, sunlit expanse before her. She is a beautiful and charming picture of a happy and contented wife.

A half hour later Nathan entered and greeted the little woman tenderly, while he noted with the eye of love the pallor of the upturned face.

128“I am afraid the care of baby and all is getting to be too much for you again,” he said. “I must get Neoka back from the post to help you. I think she will prove more tractable, now the Quakers have had her in charge so long. I want you to get out more. You are getting to look too much like a cellar plant. Besides, we have visitors coming and I want you to have time to enjoy them.”

Lissa’s eyes dilated eagerly.

“O Nate, it can’t be—Who is it? It can’t be—mamma?”

“Yes, dear, and Donald.”

“Mamma and Donald? But how did they come together? Where are they? O Nate, I don’t understand!” And Lissa pressed her hand to her heart.

“There, there, dear. Don’t get excited. I’m afraid I’ve told you too suddenly. Your mother stopped with Alice to have me come on and let you know. They’ll be here after a little while. Donald is out tethering the ponies, and waiting, for the same reason.”

“O Nate, now I’m entirely happy!” And Lissa caught up the child and laughed and cried while she kissed it ecstatically.

“Hello, sis! Aren’t you embracing the wrong one? You might save a little for the rest of us.” Lissa looked up to see Donald’s laughing face framed in the doorway. She extended both hands to him. “O Don, I’m so happy, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!” she gasped, her tears mingling with her smiles.

“Well, Lissa, I don’t actually know which is the 129more becoming to you—perhaps both. I always did like April weather. You are fully as dazzling as a rainbow now. It was rather bad for us to come and surprise you, that’s a fact; but I knew you wouldn’t mind me, and Nathan tells me you didn’t receive your mother’s letter.”

“No, and I’m glad I didn’t. I could never have waited for her to get here; no, never! I should have started alone across the prairies, horseback, to meet her. But how changed you are, Don. You look so much taller and bigger, and—my!—so much older!”

“Ah, it’s the added wisdom of my college years,” replied Donald with assumed gravity. “That’s what ages a fellow. It’s the Greek and Latin that you see sticking out all over me that has changed me.”

Lissa looked up into the smiling eyes of this big brother and wondered if it was those four years of hard study that had so chiseled and thinned the boyish face of her remembrance.

“I suspect that mustache is responsible for some of the change,” she said aloud.

“So? Shall I shave it off? It’s an outgrowth of calculus.”

“No, you’re all right as you are. I’m not sure but you’re improved.”

“O, that morsel of flattery is sweet, at last, and I’ve been fishing for it so long,” said Donald, with an expansive sigh. “I rather expected you to say at once, ‘how much handsomer you’ve grown!’”

“I am very glad I did not say it,” said Lissa, with a grimace. “But I see mamma coming. Excuse me, Donald, I must run to meet her!” and Lissa, 130with all the abandon of a school-girl, ran down the path to meet the stately mother, whose tears were ready to mingle with those of her beloved child. And when, a few moments later, Lissa came in clinging fondly to the maternal arm, the crimson flush of excited pleasure in her cheeks, the intervening years seemed to have been stricken out and one saw but the girl of sixteen who so trustingly gave her future into Nathan’s care and bade good-by to Donald in his Iowa home.

But there is little Lucy to be shown to grandma, and kissed and commented upon, and the tea is cold, and the cakes in danger of being spoiled before Lissa is recalled to her duties as hostess.

“Ah, Donald, dear, I shall let you all starve, I am sure, before I can bring myself down to such mundane affairs as bread and butter again. How delightful this is. I didn’t know I was homesick before, but now I think I must have been. But how did you happen to be with mother, Don?” she babbled.

“Our meeting was ‘purely accidental,’ as the fiction writers say. I saw her at the station and heard her inquiring for a carriage to bring her out here, and so I made bold to introduce myself. Of course she saw at a glance the honesty in my face, and knew I was a confidence man—”

“Oh, oh!” cried Lissa.

“And I told her I was a poor navigator bound for the same harbor and we set sail together,” Donald concluded.

Mrs. Clyne nodded. “That is true, notwithstanding 131Mr. Bartram’s rather mixed metaphor,” she said, smiling.

“Ah, how strangely it happened, and fortunately. And now you will spend the winter with us; and you, too, I hope, Donald.”

“I have to take charge of a surveying party for a few weeks. After that I may be back to spend some time here.”

“Ah, yes, I remember you are a civil engineer. You will enjoy the hunting in the winter on the buffalo grounds.”

“Not hunting buffalo, I hope. At the rate they are being slaughtered they will soon be extinct,” said Nathan.

“Never fear, Nathan, I’ve little taste that way. It’s too noble an animal,” replied Donald.

“Come, now, I have made new tea, and we will have supper. It’s supper here, mother, instead of dinner, and I know you are all ravenously hungry after your long ride of twenty-five miles from the station.”

“It seems to me an extremely long distance to be from a railway,” said Mrs. Clyne, after they were seated around the table, where Lissa’s silver shone resplendent. “How did you happen to come so far from one when you bought?”

Nathan smiled.

“I took up the land first, believing at the time the line would run nearer, and it is only a question of time when it will do so.”

“I suppose this is a great farming country.”

“We have much to contend with here,” said Nathan. 132“The ground is rich, but has little depth. We are liable to have a wind-storm that will carry the land from one farm to another.”

“Free transportation and exchange of farms,” said Donald.

“Yes; again, we have a fine crop of grain or corn nearly in ear, when there will come a hot wind and sear the leaves like a fire. We are never quite sure, or able to prognosticate here for the future, whether we will have corn, beans, and potatoes to eat, beans and potatoes, or whether it will be beans alone.”

“And you sometimes have real fires,” said Mrs. Clyne. “I have worried about them ever since the one you wrote me about, which Lissa fought. How did you do it, dear?”

“Really, I don’t know. I was so frightened that I didn’t have time to think. The grass was not so high on this side of the river or I don’t know what might have happened.”

“Lissa aided in turning the fire. I doubt if it would have spared us otherwise,” said Nathan.

“I shall always believe it a real miracle that time,” said Lissa. “It was only a day or two before that that Nathan had brought the calves around to crop the grass before the house. Had it not been for that, it surely would have burned. And who inspired him to bring them just when he did?”

“I think you all learned something that time,” said Alice. “You have since followed Mark’s example and kept the grass cut around the house. But there’s always danger in the fall, when the weeds are high in the outlying fields.”

133“When Mr. Elmer’s house was burned it was nearly as terrifying. Nathan was thirty-five miles from home, and men came across the fields and lighted back fires for me. The wind was driving the flames up from the south and burning corn-fields and houses by the way,” Lissa said.

“How dreadful! You sometimes have it very cold here also,” said Mrs. Clyne.

“Yes, but we are used to that, and our houses are warm. Don’t worry about that, mother.”

“Certainly not, I can stand it if you can, I am sure. But how are you off socially? Have you pleasant neighbors?”

“Yes, indeed, and neighbors are neighbors, here. We call each other by the first name,—that is, most of us do,—and we are not above borrowing from one another when necessary.”

“I should think not,” laughed Alice. “We have often loaned our dresses and shoes.”

“And that isn’t all.” And then the twain looked at each other and laughed again.

“I don’t see how you ever became accustomed to it, girls. You were brought up to such a different life,” Mrs. Clyne remarked.

“O, it’s easy, just as easy as learning to skate,” responded Lissa, not finding at hand any more suitable comparison. “It comes to one naturally in a little time.”

Mrs. Clyne shook her head. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t come to me. I’m too old.”

“O, now mother, don’t think that. You’ll really enjoy it. And we have some really nice people 134here. The McClearys, for instance; and the Davitts and the Youngs and the Garretts. Then we know every one for miles away, and intimately.”

“Yes,” said Alice, “we know all the private affairs of each other. If Mrs. Garrett gets a new dress all the neighbors know of it, and if I have company to tea, or make plum butter, it is known from here to C——”

“Ah, it’s all beyond me,” Mrs. Clyne sighed.

“And when we visit one another we take our work along and stay to tea,” giggled Lissa, “whether we are invited or not.”

“And just think, mother, I have been in a carriage but once or twice since we came here. I always go horseback,” added Alice. “And Donald,—I’m sure you’ll allow me to follow our custom out here and call you so, as you are one of the family,—the young folks go ‘sparking’ out here, and—”

“And sit in the corner and hold each other’s hands,” put in Nathan.

“Whew, that sounds interesting. I’m booked for at least one winter here. Are the girls pretty?”

“Most assuredly, and there are heaps of them, as we say here. There are more girls than boys, for some reason. Really I don’t know of more than half a dozen marriageable young men in this section.”

“I suppose with so much land in sight they preempt a portion and marry to live upon, and secure it,” said Donald. “But who are the girls?”

“Well, there are the Pemberton twins, who look so exactly alike you could never tell which was which,” continued Alice.

135“That sounds interesting! Two fair ones must be better than one. Shall I put a mem. in my note-book concerning them?”

“It will not be necessary. You will see them soon enough, and will rarely see one without the other. They are quite the rage, and have cropped yellow curls, and milky blue eyes.”

Donald lifted his eyebrows quizzically.

“Lissa is such a fine word photographist, one can see their very image,” he said.

“Come, Don, leave the women to their gossip and come with me,” said Nathan. “I want a history of the old home since you were here.” And the two men sauntered out into the night and the wonderful silence of the moonlit prairie.

CHAPTER XVI AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

Among the visitors at Lissa’s home was one whom she at first received with scant hospitality, if not actual discourtesy. This was Professor Russell.

How he had chanced to come to their neighborhood she never knew. He had accompanied her husband home from the post one evening, and the dismay she felt at the sight of him had not been easily disguised.

Why he should have sought them was a question that often returned to her as the months brought frequent visits from him, sometimes prolonged into weeks of sojourn in the neighborhood. Sometimes for months nothing would be seen of him, then suddenly he would appear like a dangerous comet, bringing a feeling of uneasiness to Lissa, wherefore she could not have told.

When inquired of as to his wanderings and uncertain appearances, he always said he had been in the East, but added no further account of himself.

Lissa at first distrusted and disliked him instinctively. His bland, insinuating manner was thrown away upon her, she told herself.

And yet she feared him too much to refuse him admittance to her home. Since that night when, at the house of Squire Bartram, he had so accurately described her brother-in-law’s encounter with the 137Sioux she had not doubted his power of divination or clairvoyance, or whatever the faculty might be termed. But it was an uncanny, unpleasant power, and she felt a shudder of superstitious terror whenever he approached her.

She would have been glad of any justifiable pretext to keep him from visiting them, and was happy when the weeks would roll by without his appearing among them.

This feeling, however, gradually wore away in some measure as she became more accustomed to his presence, and as her sister, and later her mother, became interested in his theories, she began to tolerate with more patience his teaching of spiritism.

He held frequent seances in the neighborhood, and many of the families about her had become more or less interested in the doctrines, few of them openly opposing them and their teacher, except her handsome brother-in-law, Mark Cramer. He was outspoken in his condemnation of both the man and his ism.

One mild November afternoon, when the sisters and mother were together at Lissa’s home, the name of a sister who had died in infancy was mentioned.

“If,” said Alice, “there is any truth in Professor Russell’s communications, I would like to have him bring me word from Elsie. No one here, not even Mark, knows of her having existed, as we so rarely mention her.”

Lissa assented, and observed that it was the anniversary of her death, the thirteenth of November.

Before they had finished their conversation upon 138the topic they were startled by a rap at the outer door and Lissa opened it to see the ubiquitous Professor himself, who, after shaking hands with the sisters and Mrs. Clyne, seated himself, and without asking for either Nathan or Mark, observed suavely:

“As both of your husbands are to be at home to-day, I called to see if we might not invite in some of the neighbors and hold a seance this evening.”

“But Nathan is absent,” said Lissa, “and will not be home until Saturday.”

“And Mark is out upon the plains, forty miles from here,” added Alice.

The Professor smiled indulgently.

“They are both coming home and will be here before evening,” he said with an air of assurance.

The three women exchanged glances. Was this but talk, or did he have the power of unveiling the future as well as the past? Or did he clairvoyantly see Nathan and Mark directing their course thither-ward?

“You speak with conviction, Professor,” Lissa at length replied. “Have you received intelligence from the absent ones which is not known to us?”

“That which I see, ye cannot now perceive,” the man said sententiously. “Yet the time is coming when you as well shall have the power to lift the veil which hides the dreaded unknown and learn the mysteries which are only revealed to those who are willing to seek in the right manner and submit themselves to the spirit influences which surround them. You can never know, Mrs. Clyne, the peace you will experience when you have ceased to resist and rebel 139against the gentle influences which seek only to promote your happiness and well-being. There is one angelic form now hovering about you and anxiously striving to win recognition from those so near and dear to her when on earth.”

“Can you tell her name,” questioned Lissa, as the man, with his eye fixed upon the opposite wall, paused and seemed wrapped in thought.

“It is a woman, young and beautiful. She must be a near relative. Her name is E-l-s-i-e—Elsie.”

Alice looked at her mother with awe-shaded eyes. Whence did this man’s knowledge come? It was certainly remarkable. He could not have known Elsie.

Further speculation or conversation was arrested by the sound of a horse’s feet outside the door, and in a moment the handsome, smiling face of Mark Cramer appeared. His curling, yellow hair hung in womanish profusion to his powerful shoulders, over which a large soft hat rested becomingly. His hunting costume of gray, with belt and pistols, spoke of his wild, free life; and his clear blue eyes, florid complexion, and Herculean frame made a magnificent picture of manly strength and perfection, as for a brief time he stood framed in the open doorway against the back-ground of the setting sun.

A moment later, and Alice, with a little cry of welcome, sprang to greet him. The Professor aroused himself from his semi-trance, and Mrs. Clyne and Lissa were extending their hands and expressing surprise at his coming.

“How did you chance to come home so much earlier 140than you expected?” Alice asked radiantly, when the greetings were over and they were seated. “We did not look for you for a fortnight.”

“We lost one of our men, Wish-has-ta, and as he was to marry Enona, daughter of the chief, when he returned, we thought it our first duty to look him up, and so started back to see what had become of him.”

“And did you find him?”

“Well, yes, in town. He had become separated from us by buffalo. The mad little mustang he rode kept along with the herd, in spite of him, for several miles, or until at last he came to a ravine and managed to fall into it. He narrowly escaped being trampled to death as the herd went over him, but he got out with only a few injuries. He lost his pony, however, and instead of following us, made his way back to camp. He left word at C—— that he was safe, as he knew we’d be looking for him.”

“And did you see Nathan,” asked Lissa.

“Yes, he’ll be home to-night too. I came into C—— early and called at his place of business. That’s a fine place Nathan has, with the Major. Good pay and light duties. Much better than his position at the post.”

“Yes, only it keeps him away from home more. And so you will both be here to-night after all. Professor Russell, you have in this case proven a true prophet.”

“I trust I am in every case,” he replied, with an expressive gesture of the hand. “I do not rely upon lying spirits for my information.”

141“Well,” said Lissa, not perceiving Mark’s frown of disapproval, “if we have a seance here to-night we must get word to our neighbors.”

“I will myself go and call Mrs. McCleary and good Auntie Dearborn,” said Russell, “and will get word to the Jenkinsons and Sol Garrett, if you wish.”

“Be sure and have Esther McCleary present,” said Mrs. Clyne. “I am greatly interested in that girl.”

“Certainly; no meeting would be complete without her,” responded Russell, bowing himself from the room.

“Esther will not come if she can avoid it,” said Alice after the Professor had gone. “She feels deeply mortified because of the exhibition she was forced to make of herself at Mr. Jenkinson’s. She herself has no faith in spiritism, even though her mother is so absorbed in it.”

“Poor girl, I pity her,” Lissa said. “It is a shame the way her mother misuses her. Letting her have all the care of that large family, while she sits in her easy chair and holds communion with spirits, as she claims.”

“Was she always like that,” asked Mrs. Clyne. “I confess she impresses me as being just a little out,” tapping her forehead significantly.

“She was quite an invalid when she first came here,” replied Lissa, “and of course the burden of household care fell upon Esther, and since Mrs. McCleary has been in better health she does not seem inclined to shoulder responsibility of any kind, and Esther is cook, housekeeper, and nurse to those children, 142as entirely as though she were the only woman about the house. She is a delicate girl, too, and must break down soon if she is not relieved of some of her burdens, I’m afraid.”

“Mrs. McCleary was all right until she became a convert to this accursed spiritism,” said Mark. “I have known her for years. She used to live near my old home in Iowa, and was a good, capable woman; but she seems now to have no interest in anything that does not come from the other world. If Esther should die and become a spirit she might become an object of her interest and solicitude. I am utterly disgusted with Russell and all of his nonsense about spirit manifestations, and revelations, and the like. In my opinion, all the spirit he communes with is the spirit of evil, his Satanic majesty. I can’t have a bit of faith in the fellow, and I believe Nathan feels as I do about it.”

“O, come now,” said Alice, “you are too bad, Mark. Professor Russell certainly believes in his creed himself, and is honest in his convictions, whether they be right or wrong.”

“I even doubt that,” replied Mark.

“He foretold your coming here to-day. What do you think of that?” asked Alice triumphantly.

“I think he probably saw Wish-has-ta, who told him we would certainly come back for him, or possibly he may have seen me in C—— after my arrival. I stopped there several hours. Depend upon it, he learned it from no disembodied spirit.”

“And more than that, Mark, he told us about our 143sister Elsie, and I am sure he could not have heard about her,” Alice continued.

“Unless he may have heard you talking about her, with mother or Lissa, lately.”

Lissa flushed.

“How suspicious you are, Mark. I am sure he might have learned these things through spirit agency, as well as many others which can be explained in no other way.”

“How do you know, Alice, that they can be explained in no other way?”

“But have not all tribes and races believed in spiritualism since the beginning of the world,” said Mrs. Clyne.

“In a kind of spiritualism, perhaps; so have they believed in many other isms, but that does not prove them true,” replied Mark. “The heathen searchers after God have found Him in the water, in the fire, in the sun, and in the creatures of His making, and have worshiped the spirit of the universe as manifested in material things; but these so-called spiritists put aside the Creator and make a religion of a belief in spirits of mortals, like themselves.”

“But do you not think this should strengthen one’s faith in the soul’s immortality? Are we not spirits living in material bodies? And when the material body dies, if our spirits are immortal, why should not they seek to manifest themselves to their friends on earth? I am sure if you would read Davis’s works you would have less scepticism,” said Alice with some warmth.

“Alice, have you been reading them?” Mark spoke 144quickly and almost harshly. The color deepened in Alice’s face.

“Certainly I have, and many others. What harm can come of learning all one can? I am sure we should not condemn any creed until we investigate it.”

Mark frowned. “Where did you get all these books?”

“Professor Russell has brought them to us, and mother, Lissa and I have read them at his request, and I assure you we have been much interested in them.”

“All of them, as well as Swedenborg, teach sound morality and oppose evil.”

“Your Bible teaches you that, Alice; and as I understand it, it does not teach you that the spirit of mortal man comes back on earth to perform the absurd feats of overturning tables, rapping and tapping upon furniture, making it dance around the room, and like antics. It seems to me, if I were a spirit, I would prefer to be engaged in some more dignified occupation.”

“I hope, Mark,” said Mrs. Clyne, “you won’t let prejudice make you unjust. There is certainly much about this matter which we cannot understand, and is it not our duty to learn all we can?”

“Mother, there is much about this that I don’t understand, neither do I understand how the juggler or the East Indian magician performs his marvelous feats, nor can I see that it is necessary for us to know.”

145“But if the knowing would be valuable to us? If we should learn from it?”

“I have great faith in my mother’s Bible. I believe that teaches all the religion it is wisdom for us to understand. I prefer the teachings of Christ and his disciples to any disembodied spirit, good or bad,—the Professor admits that evil as well as good spirits commune with mortals,—and I never have seen any really good results from a belief in spiritism. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ I find that in many instances its believers become its victims, and either end their days in a mad-house or permit themselves to drift into free-love doctrines or some other demoralizing fad, until they become unprincipled and lose the respect of their fellow-men. This much I have learned from observation, and I have yet to see one person whom this belief has made better, nobler, or more useful to society. Nor, in my opinion, improved in what pertains to good morality and good citizenship.”

Alice looked abashed, but Lissa said:

“I am afraid you will not relish spending your first evening here at a spirit-seance. I am sorry that the Professor happened to come at this time.”

“I prefer to be here if Alice is to be present at such a meeting; in fact, I strongly object to her attending one in my absence,” Mark said. “I will say in all sincerity, I wish she and you had never seen this Russell or heard of his abominable ism. I am sorry that you have been fed on such literature as he has been sending you, and I regret more, that you have given enough credence to it to tolerate his society 146or his absurd seances. He is, in my opinion, a gross humbug.”

“But that is only your opinion, Mark,” suggested Alice.

“I don’t believe there is any mystery about this that cannot be explained by one of three hypotheses: first, animal magnetism or hypnotism; second, jugglery or sleight of hand in the medium; third, thought transference, mind-reading and telepathy, or perhaps I should say the force, not yet well understood, that makes these things possible. These, aided by the excited and overwrought imagination of the witnesses, can produce any phenomena adduced. There are men with strong wills, sufficient to control entirely those with whom they come in contact, and make them do, think, feel or believe whatever they suggest. We have frequently seen these exhibitions from traveling mesmerists, who make no pretense to spiritism, nor attribute their power to spirit agency. I believe the Davenport brothers perform their feats in the same manner. It seems to me that our mind, like our body, is dual, and that one part of it can come entirely under the control of another person if we are sufficiently interested in anything to be off our guard. How differs this spiritism from the Babylonian necromancy? Undoubtedly there is a force which, if understood by man, would enable him to put himself in a hypnotic state at will, and when in that state to see clairvoyantly, hear clair-audiently, and communicate with other minds or intelligences in the same condition. Hence the remarkable clairvoyant dreams, visions, 147etc., which come under peculiar stresses of excitement. There is a queer thing about this force which may manifest itself in another way. I remember that when I was at college we boys used to try this experiment. We would place one of our number in a chair and two of us would lift him high from the floor—while he held tightly to the chair—by merely placing the little fingers of one hand under the bend of his knees and the forefingers of the other hand under his elbows. We would use no force, seemingly, in lifting him, and he would appear but a featherweight, but we would all hold our breath at the same instant and think of lifting him. We lifted men weighing two hundred pounds in this way. Ordinarily the muscles of those fingers would not sustain such a weight. What then was the force which aided us? Mind-reading is a proven fact, as is hypnotism. Subjects in the hands of a hypnotist will imagine themselves Napoleon, Washington, or any individual suggested, and assume the character and carriage of such individuals, talking, reasoning, and affirming in harmony with the character assumed.

“Why then should we attribute everything of this kind seen at a spirit seance to spirits?”

“Professor Russell is clairvoyant,” said Lissa.

“But clairvoyancy, or psychic force, is not spiritism, and those mediums are either self-deceived or deceive their audiences by their legerdemain. I can understand that in some instances they might be self-deceived, as a hypnotic subject, by suggestion. It seems this second intelligence of ours will reason 148from a false starting point as well as from a correct one, and, given a false suggestion—”

“But, Mark,” again interrupted Alice, “you are only giving your opinion and we all have a right to our own individual opinions, and we think and reason for ourselves.”

Mark sighed. “Yes, only do not let that Professor think and reason for you. Read your Bible, and pray God that you may not be deceived.” Then, passing his hand caressingly over her fair hair he continued lightly, “Don’t you think we have had enough of this for the present?”

“Yes; only—Mark, I want to say one thing. The Bible contains many passages which confirm the truth of spiritism. Don’t you remember the fingers of a man’s hand that wrote upon the wall at Belshazzar’s feast?”

“Ah, some more of Russell’s thinking for you. That is the worst of it. Almost anything may be proven by the Bible in the hands of a skilful and unscrupulous manipulator, who quotes solitary texts without reference to the subject which precedes or follows them. Professor Russell has doubtless called your attention to many such ‘proofs.’ Beware of the blind leaders of the blind, Alice. I do not object to the spiritualism of the Bible, which comes from God; but I do make a distinction between that and the modern spiritism, which consists of buffoonery and worse. This demon worship, or worship of spirits who like to assume the form and speech of an Indian child, or ignorant buffoon, is ridiculous. 149Let me see, what was it Mrs. Jenkins said her mother appeared in?”

“In the form of a morning-glory,” said Lissa, laughing. “But I didn’t know before, Mark, that you were such a theologian.”

Mark smiled.

“I went to Sunday-school when I was a boy, and I had a praying mother and father. Besides, I used to hear the Bible read each day when I was at home, and one does not forget his early lessons.”

“Well, come to tea now. I think your ride and talk must have given you an appetite.”

“It does not require a canter over the prairies nor a dissertation on spiritism to give me that when you are the cook,” he replied gallantly, and the party gathered about the table.

Later, when Lissa and her mother were busy in the other room, Alice approached her husband.

“Did I understand you to say that you did not wish me to see Professor Russell when you are away?”

“I may not have said as much, but I should much prefer you do not.”

Alice’s cheeks reddened and she lifted her chin angrily.

“Yes,” repeated Mark, noticing her rising color, “I mean what I say. Russell must keep away from my house in my absence.”

“And I say—” began Alice, but paused as the door opened and Nathan entered, accompanied by the light-hearted, fun-loving Donald.

“O Don, we just needed you. Every one is so 150sepulchral here to-night,” cried Lissa. Then she continued in a half-whisper to Mark: “Even Professor Russell has no power over Donald. He did not foretell his coming.”

“Mne! I suspect he would have been willing to have excused his absence,” remarked Mrs. Clyne.

“You do look a little solemncholy, that’s a fact,” Donald said.

“Don’t we? And all because we are going to have a spirit seance to-night.”

Nathan started.

“How does this happen,” he asked. “I thought that Russell had left the neighborhood.”

“He has returned. It’s the old story of the bad penny,” replied Lissa.

“Isn’t it the still older story of the serpent in the garden?” suggested Donald.

“Yes, I think you’ve hit it, Don,” said Mark. “The cloven hoof is in evidence and he leaves a trail of brimstone behind him.”

“That must have been what made this room look so blue when we came in. His excellency must have been here, I take it. Are there not yet blue flames playing in the corners?”

“If not there will be, doubtless, before the evening is over. But I must make haste or you two hungry men will not get any supper. Come, sit down and eat before it is cold.”

“I, for one, need no second bidding,” said Donald.

CHAPTER XVII AN OLD-TIME SEANCE AMIDST OLD-TIME SCENES AND OLD-TIME FOLKS

When the tea things had been carried away and stowed with the washed and shining dishes in the cupboard at one side of the room, the floor swept, and the apartments made tidy, Lissa ushered into it, as first to arrive, Mr. Jenkinson and Mrs. Jenkinson and their mother, Mrs. Price.

They were English people, and firm converts to spiritism, Mrs. Price being so absorbed in it as to appear of unbalanced mind. Mrs. Jenkinson had a delicate constitution and a nervous temperament, which made her easily excited and wrought upon. Already she figured as a medium.

They were soon joined by Solomon Garrett, a stoutly built farmer of the neighborhood, who had, several years before this, come from Scotland with a party of Mormon emigrants. When met by the plural-marriage doctrine he had renounced his faith and refused to continue his journey to Salt Lake City. Subsequently he had located on the Nebraska plain. His conversion to this new creed of spiritism had been recent and half-hearted.

With him were the Pemberton twins, two pale, fair-haired young ladies, who looked so exactly alike as to appear one and the same person. No one except their mother could identify them, and it was said 152that in their childhood she was liable to whip Clementina for the sins of Seraphina.

The young ladies themselves seemed to enjoy the confusion they caused, and dressed always in twin gowns, imitating closely each other’s speeches and gestures. It has been asserted on the best of authority, their own words and their mother’s, that if one was ill the other one was likewise affected. And since they had become spiritists they claimed to have been visited by the same visions and communications.

Following the Pemberton twins came the McCleary family, whom I shall more fully describe.

Those present were the father, mother, son, George and daughter Esther.

Mr. McCleary was a small, quiet, pale, sleek, red-eyed, inoffensive little man, usually known as Mrs. McCleary’s husband. He seemed to feel it his bounden duty to affirm all his wife’s statements, and when asked a question had a way of casting an imploring glance at her,—as if begging her to answer for him, which she usually did,—but who, so far as known, was a kind, indulgent father to his children, and an honest and industrious neighbor. When not otherwise engaged, Mr. McCleary might be found amusing himself with a planchette. With it he talked, reasoned, and speculated upon the problem of life. Sometimes he whispered to the partner of his bosom certain wonderful secrets which he believed the planchette had imparted to him. And—they were secrets no longer.

Mrs. McCleary was a short, well-preserved 153woman of the “fat, fair and forty” type. She had remarkable black eyes, blue-black, waving hair, and very white, plump hands, with which she continually gesticulated to accompany the unceasing flow of words from her tongue. Her speech retained enough of the Irish brogue to make it pleasant to the ear.

Mrs. McCleary imagined herself an invalid, though no one, not even herself, could determine the nature of the malady with which she was afflicted. It seemed to be rather a delicacy of constitution than any pronounced illness. Some of her neighbors were uncharitable enough to remark that if Mrs. McCleary were to receive some shock that would rouse her from the helpless state she fancied herself to be in she would be as well and strong as any one.

George McCleary, an undergraduate from an Eastern college, was in no way remarkable, but Esther was the hundredth woman, whose influence was felt throughout the little community.

She was but a slight, delicately built girl of eighteen years, yet what a marvel of diligence and endurance.

In the McCleary family there were six children younger than herself, and upon Esther devolved almost the entire care and responsibility of the household, a responsibility which she accepted uncomplainingly and discharged faithfully.

Esther was pretty and more than pretty. She was interesting. There was in her face a sweetness and brightness of expression that charmed all who met her, and won their affection. Then, too, she was 154one of those to whom all turn for instruction and advice. She knew how to do things. From the fashioning of a gown to the most intricate fancywork, as well as the rarer concoctions in the culinary department, Esther was the most competent authority in the neighborhood.

Nor did her usefulness end here. In the sick room she was unequaled. “A most uncommon handy person to have around,” one of the good fathers in the community had said, and perhaps that best expressed her qualifications. God bless the “handy” person.

What if Esther’s features were slightly irregular and her figure too slight for beauty. No one thought of that after the first half hour of her acquaintance.

Donald felt his gaze returning repeatedly to that pale, cream-tinted face, as seated that night near his sister-in-law he listened to the chatter of the women.

Mrs. McCleary sank into an easy chair, panting and short-breathed from the exertion of removing her wraps, and turning to Lissa began to talk volubly.

“How very noice ye look, dear! Your hair curls so beautifully. When Esther was a little girl Oi used to do up her hair on curl-papers for her, but now she must do it for herself. It is really too much for me. Alice, Oi see yer not intoirely free from thet cough yet. Ye should nivver let it run. It moight run ye into consumption. Oi’ve known many a case to turn out so, hev ye not Miss Lissa? Ye must attind to it. Oi do wish ye’d thry some of moi Indian cough surrup. Oi hev a commoonication from 155a great Indian docther, advoising it. Mrs. Cloyne, did Oi tell ye how Georrge was cured of the faver?”

All this she uttered without pausing for reply.

Donald glanced at Esther at the mention of curl-papers, but not a tinge of color dyed the paleness of her cheeks. She was evidently accustomed to her mother’s revelations. George, however, looked a trifle annoyed at the mention of his name.

Mrs. Clyne took advantage of the woman’s brief halt for breath to say that she had never heard the story.

“Well, ye see, Georrge, was very ill, so ill we’d given him oop ter die, an’ Oi was cryin’ an’ prayin’ the great docther ter do sumthing fer him, whin if ye’ll belave me, the boy reached oop his hand, an’ in a moment we saw some leetle black specks lyin’ in it, lookin’ fer all the world like Ayer’s pills. He held thim so we all saw thim an’ thin he put thim in his mouth, an’ in the shortest toime he was aslape, an’ frim that very hour he was better.”

“What do you think it was?” asked Mrs. Clyne.

“Why, bless your sowl, what could it be but medicine put in his hand by some watchful spirit? Ye needn’t smoile, Mr. Mark Cramer, nor you, Mr. Bartram; there were a plenty present who’ll swear to what Oi tell ye. Ain’t it so, Mr. McCleary?”

“Yis, yis,” the little man mumbled; “it is as she says.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of Professor Russell, who came bustling in with Auntie Dearborn, a sprightly, handsome old lady, who was carrying 156a huge basket upon her arm, which appeared filled with manuscripts.

She was most becomingly dressed in black silk, with fine white lace at wrist and throat, and her pink-tinted face, white hair, mild blue eye beaming with kindliness, and lips wreathed in smiles, made a beautiful picture. She had arrived at a sweet old age. Every one liked her, despite her eccentricities, which some pronounced a mild form of insanity. Alas, the borderland between sanity and insanity is scarcely defined, and if good Auntie Dearborn was insane she has many companions who would scorn such accusations. Who among us does not like to believe we have an inspired pen?

Auntie was thoroughly imbued with the idea that the spirits of the departed poets used her hand as the medium for presenting their verses to the public, and she kept a constant and ever-accumulating supply of her “poetry” on hand to read whenever she could find audience.

After shaking hands with Lissa and kissing her most affectionately, the old lady said in a stage whisper:

“You see, my dear, I have brought along some o’ my poetry, for I know’d you would want to hear it, because I’ve really been inspired by the great Byron himself this week. It is most remarkable.”

Lissa smiled kindly.

“Thank you, Auntie. I shall be glad to hear it, I am sure, and so, perhaps, will others here. You will stay with me to-night of course?”

“Well, now really, dearie—it would be very pleasant 157and you’re drefful kind to ask me, but you see there’s Natty, poor dog, shut up in his kennel, who’ll howl all night if I don’t come back, and the chickens will have to be fed in the morning—”

Here she was interrupted by the announcement of the Professor that if they were ready the company would form themselves into a circle about the room, as he saw several spirit forms impatient to communicate with their friends.

In compliance with his request they were soon seated, except Esther, who, unobserved by all except Donald, slipped quietly out of the room.

Joining hands, the members of the circle sat expectant, their eyes closed.

We are describing an old-time seance, reader, and may be forgiven the minuteness of detail, for even with later experiment with psychic forces it is found there is magic in the mystic circle.

The silence was broken by Russell, who declared there was a disturbing element in the circle. Some sceptical person repelled the gentle spirits who desired to communicate.

All eyes were turned upon Mark Cramer, who smiled as he arose and left them. Then Esther McCleary was missed.

“Where is Esther?” asked Mrs. McCleary plaintively. “Oi declare that girrl has left the room ag’in. Oi desire her to sit with us.”

And Mark was sent after the run away.

“They’re asking for you, Miss Esther,” he said as he saw her shrink into a dark corner of the adjoining room as he entered it.

158“O dear! Can’t you hide me somewhere? I don’t want to go. I shall have to dance again. It’s all so terrible, and I don’t believe it’s right, do you, Mr. Cramer?”

“No, Esther; but then my opinion should have little weight against so many. I sat down in the circle thinking I might be able to help you. I am really sorry for you, if you are unable to withstand the mesmeric powers of that rascal—for I believe that is all there is of it. Try, if you are obliged to sit with them, to keep control of your own will. Put all your soul in opposition to him and don’t forget yourself for a moment. Can’t you?”

“I’ll try; oh, I’ll try, but I’m afraid ’twill be no use! Ah, they’re calling me again, and I must go. Come into the room and help me if you can.”

Mark reentered, seating himself in one corner of the room outside the circle. The Professor made room for Esther beside himself, but she declined his civility, and passed around to the side of her mother, not noticing, until too late to retreat, that she had placed herself next to Donald Bartram. She flushed slightly as she gave him her hand, humiliated that she should be placed in such a position.

Again silence prevailed for the space of several minutes. Donald glanced through half-closed eyes about the circle, noting the placid content of Auntie Dearborn, the grim determination of Solomon Garrett, the complacent expectancy of Mrs. McCleary, the awed, half-frightened look of Lissa, the sly, furtive glance which each Pemberton twin cast frequently at her sister, and he felt a hysterical inclination 159to laugh. The thought must have been communicated to his companion upon the right, for he felt her fingers tremble in his. He rolled his eyes up to hers with an affected air of terror. Then a ripple of merriment burst from Esther’s lips, in which he joined. The Pemberton twins giggled in unison, while all started and opened their eyes.

Russell frowned and demanded quiet, fixing his gray eyes upon Esther. Mrs. McCleary rebuked her daughter, but explained that Esther was “hystericky,” and biting her lips to subdue the nervous inclination to laugh, Esther closed her eyes and quiet was restored. Donald, thrilled by her trembling fingers, dared not again look toward her, and presently he saw Mrs. Jenkinson, his neighbor on the left, begin to jerk spasmodically. Her eyelids quivered, she sighed a few times, then drawing her hands from those who clasped them she began rubbing them briskly together, then slapped them energetically for a moment, while every eye was fixed upon her. She was under “control.”

Suddenly she began to speak in a high, shrill voice.

“My friends, I have a message for you to-night,” and continuing without hesitancy she delivered a somewhat tedious harangue to the listening believers, who sat awed and open-eyed, as if her words were really from the world beyond. All present knew Mrs. Jenkinson to be illiterate and only able to use provincialism in conversation. They marvelled at the correct English which fell from her 160lips, even though the thought expressed was of little value.

Her “inspired” speech ended, Mrs. Jenkinson sank into a chair, dropped her face in her hands and remained quiet.

A few moments later Mrs. McCleary began to manifest similar signs of influence, and sang in a sweet, plaintive voice the old hymn, “Oh, sing to me of heaven, when I am called to die! Sing songs of holy ecstasy to waft me to the sky,” etc.

Mark remembered that Mrs. McCleary was not a singer in her natural state, and again was forced to marvel at this exhibition of power which he had no faith to believe emanated from the source prescribed by Russell.

Donald, too, was becoming interested, and forgot the humorous side of the spectacle. When his eyes again sought Esther’s, to his surprise he found them fixed and vacant, her face unusually pale and rigid. He noticed, too, that the small, brown hand he held felt cold and unnatural. Glancing from her to Russell he saw the man looking fixedly at her. Then the Professor arose, and passing to Esther’s side moved his hands several times before her face, though without touching her. He then took a handkerchief from one of the gentlemen and bound it tightly over her eyes, closely shutting out every ray of light.

“I think, my friends,” he said, as he placed several chairs in the unoccupied space of the room, “we shall prove that, though Esther cannot see with mortal vision, there are spirit forms about her who will 161direct her course and thus demonstrate their presence.”

All sat in hushed expectancy until Esther, rising from her chair, glided like a phantom to the middle of the floor, and humming a soft, slow waltz, she floated about the room, avoiding the chairs and other articles in her way without losing step or breaking time in the least.

It was wonderful. Mark would have been staggered in his scepticism had he not seen the same performance once enacted by a subject in the hands of a noted mesmerist.

“This is only further proof of the scheming falseness of that villain Russell,” he reflected. “It shall not be my fault if he is not banished from my house from this day forth. If he would only attribute his power to the right source I could endure him, but spirits—bah!”

For ten minutes the girl waltzed without interruption, then, as if led by unseen hands, she passed from the room and threw herself, apparently exhausted, upon a small lounge in the adjoining apartment.

“She has been dancing with a stronger partner than herself and got tired out,” said Russell coarsely. “We’ll let her rest a while.”

When the company was again seated in the circle Mark slipped out and removed the handkerchief from the eyes of the prostrate girl. Her face was chalky in its pallor, and there was scarcely a perceptible evidence of respiration.

“My God! How like death this is,” muttered Mark as he bent over her. “If she were my daughter 162she should never come into the presence of that man again. Then he strove to waken her.

“Esther, Esther,” he said, shaking her gently by the arm. “Awake!” But not a muscle of the rigid face relaxed. He lifted her hands and slightly punctured the smooth flesh with a pin. She did not wince nor show that she felt it. Again and again he sought to arouse her. Mark was beginning to fear that the sleep was one which would find its awakening in another world, when Russell entered the room.

“You can see the result of your spirit-waltz, Professor,” he said.

Russell placed his hand upon the girl’s brow.

“Ah, yes, she has been taking a fine nap after it. But she is waking up now. Come, Esther, ain’t it about time for you to come out to see us again? I’m afraid you’re a sleepy-head. Come, you’re awake now!” and laughing coarsely, Professor Russell returned to the company.

Esther, to Mark’s delight, arose to a sitting posture, passed her hands several times over her eyes as if striving to collect her thoughts, and seeing only Mark present, asked plaintively:

“What is it, Mr. Cramer? Where am I? What has happened?” She looked about the room in a bewildered way. Then, as the sound of voices from the adjoining apartment fell upon her ear she turned, and burying her face upon the lounge burst into hysterical weeping.

Mark sprang to her side.

163“Don’t Esther, child! Don’t cry! What is the matter?”

“O Mr. Cramer, have I been dancing again? Has that horrible, horrible man made me a waltzing puppet for the people to laugh at? It is too dreadful! What shall I do? What shall I do?”

“I am sure there was nothing ridiculous or laughable in your dancing, for it was really artistic; but truly, Esther, are you entirely unconscious when you perform that feat?”

“Indeed I am. I could not believe them when they told me about it the first time I danced that way. This time it seemed when I awoke as if I had been dreaming of dancing or of hearing dance-music. He makes me do it, that horrible man! I am sure the spirits have nothing to do with it.”

“Your hands are placed some of the time as though dancing with a partner.”

“Are they? I can’t help it. I remember nothing since Mr. Bartram made me laugh in the circle,—oh, he was witness to my disgraceful exhibition!—until I seemed to hear the Professor’s voice, and looking up I saw you there.”

“You say you seem to have heard dance-music in a dream?”

“Yes, I have a feeling as though I had been floating up in the air and hearing music. A sort of dim remembrance of a dream. Oh, if mamma would never compel me to see him again! I shall leave home and go where he shall never find me if that man continues to come to our house. He is so detestable! 164I hate him!” And the girl shuddered and again covered her face with her hands.

“I have told mamma so, but she will not listen to me. She is wholly wrapped up in the belief of spirits, and in Russell.”

“Your dislike is very strong to be based only upon this power he has of making you dance hypnotically,” Mark said. “Are you just to him?”

“I have reasons enough for my dislike of him,” Esther replied, compressing her lips. “And what am I to do if my own mother will not listen to me? Think of being subject to the power of such a man. I believe him thoroughly unprincipled, and—”

“The villain! If he dares!” Mark ground his teeth.

Here Lissa put her head in at the door.

“Come, Mark,” she whispered, “Professor Russell is writing messages.”

Mark stepped quietly into the sitting-room just as the Professor, who sat at a small table scrawling with a pencil a profusion of characters on a sheet of writing-paper, finished it and paused, while the paper was passed from hand to hand for examination.

At first nothing could be made of it. Finally some one discovered it was addressed to Lissa. Another read it Alice, and still another Anna.

By this time the Professor had aroused himself, and read with little difficulty:

“Lissa, my dear sister: How long I have desired to speak with you and let you know I am near 165you. The only added happiness I could wish for in this life is recognition of my friends on earth. If you will let me converse with you, and Alice, and mother, I will improve every opportunity. I can see you, so cast away all doubt and fear, and help me to communicate with you. Believe,

Lissa found she could trace the words as read, now that she knew what they were.

The Professor produced two slates, between which he placed a small pencil, and immediately all in the room heard distinctively the sound of the scratching of the pencil as it apparently wrote upon the slate.

When the slates were brought forth from beneath the table and opened there was a long communication upon one of them for Mrs. McCleary, purporting to have come from her mother, and Mrs. McCleary declared it was in her own handwriting. She could “recognize it anywhere,” she said.

Whereupon Sol Garrett took part in the conversation.

“I’ve been a thinkin’ sence I sot here a good deal about this here writin’ business. An’ it seems to me mighty curis how my old mother came to write me a message when she never in her hull life writ me a word, nor never learnt how. Even her will was signed with her cross-mark. I reckon she must ‘a ben learnin’ pretty fast sence she died.”

Donald’s eyes twinkled merrily as he glanced at Russell’s face, which really showed embarrassment for a moment.

166“We cannot tell, Mr. Garrett, what her opportunities may have been in the other world. We may know hereafter much that is hidden from us now,” he said after a little preliminary cough to clear his throat.

“Well, how is it that Injun control o’ yourn hain’t learned to read an’ write, if their chances are so good over there? He allus complains ’cause he can’t read.”

“Perhaps because he is of another language and nation,” replied Russell, evidently annoyed at the persistence of his interlocutor.

“Wall, ye see my mother was a Scotch woman, and didn’t talk as we do, an’ I can’t see how she come to use such perty English in that letter.”

“Perhaps,” interposed Russell hastily, “there was some mistake about it and the letter was intended for some one else.”

“It was directed to me,” persisted the farmer, “an’ I don’t know another feller round these parts that answers to the name of Solomon Garrett.”

“Well, we will not discuss this matter now,” said Russell, anxious to turn the subject of conversation. “Mother Dearborn is going to read us a poem, Mrs. Bartram tells me. We will listen to that now, and continue this subject at another time.”

Auntie Dearborn, thus appealed to, fumbled in her big basket, and after opening several papers selected one, which she smilingly announced was “inspired by Lord Byron himself.” Then in a musical voice she read:

168When Auntie had finished reading this production, which all present declared truly Byronic, Professor Russell bade them each write upon a piece of paper the name of some departed friend and the spirits would respond to their questions through his “control.”

The slips were written, folded as directed, and thrown into a hat, while the Professor again went into a trance state, and taking one of the slips in his fingers—his eyes having been previously bandaged—he awaited communication from the other world.

“I can see a name, ‘Henry Arthur,’” he read slowly. “He is present. I see him distinctly. He is of medium height and wears a uniform.”

“It is my brother,” said Mrs. Jenkinson. “He was in Her Majesty’s service in England. Are ye well, Henry, and happy?” she asked.

“I am well, and much happier than I ever was upon earth,” came from the Professor’s lips in a thin, nasal tone. “You have the right principle, Helen. No one can be sick. There is no sickness, if we only deny the belief in such a thing. Stick to your faith and you are all right.”

The Professor selected a second paper.

“I see the name Maria,” he said. “Maria, are you there? Will you answer if a friend wishes to speak with you?”

“Has she—has she blonde hair?” asked Donald, with some hesitation.

“Yes, and blue eyes,” answered Russell. “She is very delicate and pale, and is holding out her hands to you.”

169“Ah, yes; she wants me to take her, probably. Sorry I can’t. Ask her if she is all right and likes the other world as well as this.”

The answer came in a husky falsetto:

“Yes, better.”

“Do you forgive me for all my ill conduct toward you?”

“Yes, I have nothing to regret. I remember only the delight of our acquaintance and your many kindnesses.”

“You are sure you forgive me for the last blow I dealt you?”

“Yes, I know it was not your heart that spoke, in that, but the force of circumstances.”

“You forgive all my neglect and—cruelty?”

“O yes, if there was anything to forgive.”

“Are you surrounded by friends?”

“Yes, there are many we both have known.”

“Ah, Tommy and Jack, and the rest, I suppose. Are you where I may see you if at any time I should pass in my checks?”

“O yes; certainly.”

“Well, good-by.”

“Good-by.”

“I feel greatly relieved after this revelation,” Donald said, “as it settles two doubts in my mind which have always troubled me. First, as to whether it is a crime to slay innocent creatures whose only fault, perhaps, is a proclivity to take what is not theirs; and second, as to whether there is more than one heaven and whether we shall meet our victims in the other world. I killed Maria because she would steal 170chickens, a natural propensity for which I should not have blamed her, probably. She was my favorite cat, and my conscience has never been quite easy since, but now that I know that she is all right and safe I feel relieved.”

A peal of laughter from Mark was echoed by a loud guffaw from Solomon Garrett and several others in the room.

“Mr. Bartram, I consider such levity out of place,” said Russell angrily. “It seems that you are the same incorrigible Don that you were when I knew you in Iowa. Age doesn’t seem to have improved you.”

“But if Maria’s spirit was not there how could you have seen her?” asked Donald innocently.

“There are many spirits who bear the name of Maria while upon earth,” Russell replied with dignity.

“But the one whose name I wrote is the one who should have appeared; and I repeat, I am glad to know she is all right.”

“How you can jest on this subject is more than I can understand,” replied the other, as he began to make preparations for departure.

The Pemberton twins giggled and said in unison, “How funny.”

At this juncture Auntie Dearborn began to chuckle. She appeared to try to control her desire to laugh, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, while her face grew red. But the more she tried to stifle the laughter, the more it overcame her. Finally her merriment became almost convulsive, and 171Auntie shrieked in a frenzy of mirth. And in the midst of the laughter, for the effect was contagious, Professor Russell took his leave.

This hysteria of the old lady was not an uncommon phenomenon, and excited little comment among the guests, though most of them joined heartily in the outburst, and departed to their homes freed from the superstitious awe which had held them earlier in the evening.

CHAPTER XVIII MAJOR WALDEN

The fire was burning with active energy in the tall stove, and the dish of water sitting upon it, “to keep the room healthy,” was sending forth steam clouds, as Nathan and Lissa, after closing the door behind the last departing guest, returned to their family room.

Donald had walked home with Esther McCleary, and Mrs. Clyne had retired for the night, leaving them alone.

“It is an ugly night,” Nathan said, shivering and lifting his shoulders, as he stood with his hands held behind him and his back to the stove.

“Yes, and I’m afraid I’m going to have neuralgia in my face again,” said Lissa, pressing her cheek closer to the glowing heat of the fire.

“That’s too bad. I should think that wisdom-tooth would have done troubling you some time. Ain’t it through yet?”

“No; I pity teething children, if they have the pain I have.”

“Better get good and warm before you go to bed. The house seems unusually cool to-night.”

“It’s having the doors open so much. But, Nathan, what is the matter? You have been uncommonly grave and silent all the evening. I hope you have had no trouble at the office?”

173“I have had no trouble,—only,—well, something happened which was quite unlooked for by me, anyway. Major Walden is in trouble, I think, though I do not understand the nature of it.”

Lissa looked interested, and her eyes searched his face questioningly.

Nathan drew up a chair and sat down.

“We were both in the office looking over some notes and papers in the desk this morning when the mail was brought in. There were two or three letters and some newspapers, which latter he tossed over to me to examine. While thus engaged I was startled by a strange sound from the Major, and looking up I at first thought he was in a fit. His face was pale and distorted, and he shook like a man with the ague. He clenched an open letter in his hand, which I thought must be answerable for his condition. I sprang to him and unbuttoned his collar, as he appeared to be choking, and he seemed to be relieved, though it was some time before he could control himself, or articulate. When he did, it was to hiss the words ‘scoundrel, villain, devil!’ with insane fury. I did not know how to act, or what to say to him, and so after shutting and fastening the door, that no one might intrude on us,—an act which he seemed to approve,—I stepped into a little private office opening from the room and busied myself with the ledger accounts, while I waited for him to grow calmer.

“It was fully an hour, I think, before he called me, and then I was surprised at the change in him. He looked ten years older, and his face had the pinched 174look of one recovering from an illness. His hands shook and he seemed entirely unnerved. ‘Nathan,’ he said, ‘I have received a severe shock, and it has proven almost too much for me. But there are reasons why I wouldn’t want my family to know anything about it, and I shall have to ask you to say nothing here of what you have heard or witnessed. I will explain it all when I feel able to do so. At present I think the best thing for me to do is to take a little change of air, and I believe I’ll run down to Omaha for a day or two. I reckon I’m really sick enough to warrant a day off,’ he said, trying to smile.

“‘Just call at noon and say to Mrs. Walden that I’ve gone to Omaha on business. Had to hurry off to catch a train, or some such clap-trap, or say—I’ll write a note to that effect. You see, I fancy she’d better not see me now.’

“I told him his countenance would betray him, for he really looked ill, and he had much better not go home if he wanted to conceal the fact, and so he went off to the station and left me to fix up matters as best I could. I am more puzzled about the matter, as I am familiar with all his business affairs and investments, and know everything is ship-shape and flourishing. However, as he promised to explain everything when he returns, I need not speculate upon it now I suppose.

“There is another matter I wanted to speak of,” continued Nathan, “and that is in regard to this man Russell. I don’t know what to think of him. Mark is terribly opposed to him and his coming to 175their home, and if we encourage Alice’s meeting him here—”

“I think Mark has no right to let unreasoning prejudice rule him the way he does,” interrupted Lissa. “He knows nothing against him, and yet he is ready to accuse him of all the crimes in the decalogue.”

“I don’t like to think of his power over Esther McCleary, Lissa.”

“O, as for Esther, I don’t think she need yield to his power if she prefers not to. She can avoid him.” Lissa spoke sharply.

“Not when her mother compels her to see him. My child, do you really believe in spiritism yourself?”

“Why, Nate, what a question for you to ask! I am sure you are the one who gave the most credence to it when I first knew you. I didn’t take any stock in it then.”

“And now?”

“And now I think there’s something in it which cannot be accounted for in any other way, and—I think it is a blessed thought that our friends are near us after death.”

“I don’t know whether it is or not. It can’t be pleasant for them to be witnessing all the pain and suffering which we are perhaps bearing. If we are promised happiness in the other world it would seem a poor fulfilment of it to me. I could not be happy if I could look back and see you suffering for food and not be able to provide it.”

“I was not thinking so much of their happiness, 176I confess, Nathan,” Lissa murmured. “But if I should die, and be happy, wouldn’t you like to feel that I was near you? Wouldn’t you like to hear from me?”

“But how could I be sure of it? I think I should prefer you did not have to worry over me any more. I was really startled by a remark made by Major Walden the other day. In the course of conversation I chanced to allude to Professor Russell in some way, and spoke of his being a spirit-medium. The Major turned on me with more anger and vehemence than I have ever before seen in him and said, ‘Bartram, in God’s name have nothing to do with one of those mediums! Shun him as you would a rattlesnake that crawls in the grass at your feet, for I tell you his bite is as deadly, and you never know when he may strike. On no account give him access to your home and family. As you value your present peace of mind or your domestic happiness, never let him cross your threshold!’ I was a trifle knocked out, but I told him the medium had been and was a friend of the family and frequent visitor at my house, and that he appeared to be a respectable and intelligent man. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘the Devil may wear the garb of a saint, but he’s not to be trusted for all that. I pray you be warned, and shun the fellow in time, as you would old Clovenhoof himself! I know what I’m talking about.’ I suppose Walden is prejudiced for some reason, but I can’t help wishing Russell did not come here.”

“I’m sure I can’t see what possible harm he can do here,” Lissa replied.

177“But about Alice. She was not looking well to-night, and I am sorry to have her oppose Mark.”

“O, of course she feels bad, because Mark has forbidden her to have Russell at the house when he is not there, and Alice is very set in her way. It may make trouble between them. I know Mark was angry, for Alice told me so, and she said he should find she had mind enough to attend to her own affairs. I expect she’d let him come in spite of Mark.”

“We will hope not,” said Nathan gravely. “Mark may have wisdom in his objection to Russell. I wish he did not come here.”

“How absurd you are. You were the one who introduced him to me, who believed in him and tried to overcome the horror which in infancy I had imbibed of spiritism. And now, because of Major Walden’s prejudice, and Mark’s fanaticism, you are ready to turn round and forbid a spiritist your hospitality.”

“Well, perhaps I am wrong. I confess I have an unaccountable fear and distrust of him. I presume Walden’s warning has had something to do with it. I shouldn’t blame the man for his belief.”

“But if the belief takes away all fear of death, why should we not embrace it? If I should die before you, I want you to teach little Lucy that her mamma is near and watching over her. Don’t you think it might keep her from wrong-doing if she knew it?”

“If she knew it? Ah, there’s the thing! If we really knew.”

178“But, haven’t we proof? What human, unassisted, could turn water into wine as Professor Russell did a few weeks ago?”

“But haven’t you heard Mark’s exposé of that? That is simple. Mark can do the same.”

“Mark Cramer?”

“Yes; Mark’s university training has served him a good turn in this as in everything else. You know he is a good chemist, and he can prepare the glasses so that when water is poured into them a pleasant wine is produced. He claims the Professor does the same. You will not deny that Mark speaks the truth. We have known him much longer than Professor Russell,—or at least much better,—and you know he is the soul of honor.”

“Oh, how awful it is for Mark to do such a thing!” said Lissa severely. “I wonder he does not receive some terrible punishment. I am sure he will if he is not more believing. I pity Alice.”

Nathan felt like retorting that he pitied Mark, but he forbore.

“I confess,” he said, “I did feel as if Russell was almost sacrilegious in assuming to duplicate one of Christ’s miracles, but I can see no harm in Mark’s exposing the means employed.”

“One thing, Nathan, I want to speak of now, while I think of it. If I should die first, I will, if there is such a thing as the spirit returning to earth—come back to you. Now let us determine upon a test, and see how I shall come in such a way as to be convincing to you if you are left behind. We will tell no living soul what it is. Then if one of us goes 179and can fulfil the conditions, there can be no doubt in the other’s mind of its genuineness. If I go first and give you the test, you will have no doubt my disembodied spirit is near you.”

Nathan looked thoughtfully at his wife.

“Your idea is a good one, but God knows I don’t like to think of a time when it could be tested. Still, it might be a satisfaction to the one that is left.”

Then they planned a test that should never again be spoken aloud or imparted to another person.

“There would be danger from the mind-reader, even in this,” Nathan said to himself. “He might surmise the secret and make use of it to deceive. Ah, how can we know the truth?”

The next morning the white snow had covered and shut in all the outer world, and so filled the air that they could only get to the stables by tying themselves to ropes, and the cold was so intense that many of the fowls froze upon their perches in the coops.

CHAPTER XIX LED INTO ERROR

Some time after the occurrences of the last chapter, Nathan received a note from Major Walden, requesting him to call at his house.

He went directly, and was ushered into the library, where he found his friend looking worn and dejected, as if from haunted days and sleepless nights.

Major Walden motioned Nathan to a seat, and then paced slowly up and down the room, as though striving to compose himself before giving to his friend the promised revelation.

At length he paused, and seating himself a short distance from his visitor said gravely:

“Bartram, I am about to confide to you a chapter from my private history which perhaps might better never be disclosed, and in doing so I am subjecting myself to a painful trial and tearing open a wound not yet healed. And yet I cannot otherwise explain to you the scene which you witnessed a few days since. My story may serve to show you the venom that may exist in a species of human reptile. I need not say that I trust this to you alone. You will understand how great the cause I have for secrecy when you have heard what I am about to relate to you.

“Twelve years ago my business often took me up and down the Hudson. Upon one of those trips I 181met one who seemed to me the perfection of female loveliness. Her deep, dark eyes seemed wells of crystal purity and innocence, and her sweet, fair face haunted my vision for days.

“I found myself comparing, mentally, every lovely woman I met with the one face ever before me, and finally began to consider myself a victim to a case of love at first sight. It is needless to say my trips upon the Hudson were frequently repeated after this, and at length fate rewarded me by giving me once more the same lovely fellow-passenger. I managed to find a mutual acquaintance and so followed up my advantage as to become, in a few months, an accepted visitor at her father’s house. She was an only child, the idol of an aged father and mother, who at the end of the following year made me the happiest of men by giving me their daughter’s hand in marriage.

“Everything prospered with me. My wife was all that could be desired; three lovely children were born to us; my business ventures were successful, and until five years ago there seemed to be nothing wanting to make the harmony of our united lives complete.

“About this time, at the house of a friend, we met a spirit-medium, a Dr. Teasdale. How he ever obtained admittance there I do not know, but there he was, and there we were forced to make his acquaintance. He held a seance, as he called it, and among other things told what my wife had written and sealed in our presence and which never left her hand. I discovered afterwards a bit of impression 182paper concealed beneath the outer cover of the book he handed her to write upon, which probably aided the spirits in making their revelation. This so interested my wife that she attended a number of seances, and finally invited the Doctor to our house, where he became a frequent visitor.

“I never liked the fellow. There was a sort of sneaking hypocrisy about him, it seemed to me, that made me prefer his room to his company.

“However, as I seldom interfered with my wife’s actions, I said nothing, thinking she would soon penetrate his shallow mask of deceit and become disgusted with him, as I had.

“In one of his trances he wrote and delivered to me a sealed communication, purporting to be from the spirit world, hinting,—barely hinting,—among other things, infidelity on the part of my wife. I waited until the other guests had gone, and then I called the wretch to one side and told him what I thought of him, and bade him never set foot, under any pretense, within my doors again.

“I told my wife I had forbidden the fellow the house because he was disagreeable to me, and she seemed more pleased than otherwise at what I had done and said she, too, participated in my growing dislike of him. I hoped then I had seen the last of him.

“A short time after this my wife was summoned by telegram to visit her mother, who was ill, and left home, taking with her the children, my business being such as to prevent my accompanying her.

“While she was gone two letters came to the 183house addressed to her and I noticed the superscription resembled the chirography of the Doctor. I wondered what he could have to say to her, but laid the letters aside unopened, thinking it unnecessary to forward them, and that I would deliver them to her upon her return and satisfy myself as to their contents. I own I had some curiosity, as I could not imagine a reason for correspondence with the villain. One evening, just before her return, as I was turning over some papers in the writing-desk, a letter fell out addressed in the same peculiar handwriting. It had been opened, and this time my curiosity overcame my scruples of honor, and I opened it and read a most impassioned love-letter to my wife, signed ‘Devotedly yours, Z. T.,’ which I could only interpret Zenas Teasdale.

“I hesitated no longer to open and devour the contents of the two letters which had come to her later, and before I had finished, the characters traced in ink had burned into my very soul, and my tongue was parched with a thirst that water could not quench. The words stood before my gaze like demon eyes.

“The first letter spoke of the pleasure the writer had received in the perusal of my wife’s last ‘white-winged message of love’ and quoted from her letter sentences about the ‘bear that growled around her hearthstone’ meaning me—and other like extravagant expressions, and concluded by assuring her of his never-dying affection, and hope of their ultimate union in spiritland, where no disagreeable tyrant 184should ever presume to forbid them the pleasure of each other’s company.

“The second letter, written three days later, chided her with her long delay in answering, and informed her that the writer had received a communication from the invisible world to the effect that the obstacle in their way was about to be removed, and pictured the delights in store for them.

“All night I paced the room and swore and raved alternately. But with the morning came calmer reflection. Retribution would overtake them, I concluded, if left to themselves; I would not put my own neck in jeopardy for the sake of such despisable wretches as they seemed to me. Besides, a softer feeling, in spite of me, would creep into my heart, when I thought of the happy past, and I felt I could not take the life of one who had been dearer than all else to me—who was now the mother of my innocent children. They would be from this time motherless. I would not make them also fatherless, but would keep my life blameless and unblemished for their sweet sakes. The stain of their mother’s fall would be dark enough.

“She returned home that day. I shall never forget how sweet and fair she looked as she tripped from her carriage up the steps and into the room where I stood like an avenging Nemesis. Her bright hair was blown into little rings about her forehead, and a smile wreathed her sweet lips, which expected the kiss of greeting.

“See,” he said as he took from his desk a miniature and handed it to Nathan, “was she not beautiful? 185And that picture was but a poor representation of her, for art cannot produce on ivory the thousand pretty changes of expression which constituted one of the chief charms of her face.”

Nathan looked attentively at the fair, sweet face of the picture, and agreed as to its beauty. The Major continued:

“I met her sternly, and she must have seen in my face something of what I was about to utter, for the smile left her cheeks and gave place to a look of terror indescribable.

“‘Agnes,’ I began, ‘do not dare to face with a smile the husband you have betrayed, wronged, and made a cuckold of in his own house; miserable woman, that should ever have lived to become so low and vile a creature, with so fair a face!’ She gazed at me in fear and horror and I verily believe she for the time thought me insane. She pressed both hands to her heart as though to quiet its fluttering,—ah, God! I can see her yet,—and then gasped, ‘Markham, for Christ’s sake, what do you mean? What, oh! what has happened?’

“I cannot describe accurately the scene which followed. I know I flaunted the letters in her face, I accused her of her treachery, and called her to account in the worst possible terms, such a maddened brute was I, and refused to listen to anything she tried to say in denial or palliation of her guilt.

“She fell on her knees before me, and begged and implored me to listen to her—to believe her. She called on God to witness and attest her innocence. But I mocked at her, and told her that after such 186conduct as hers had been, a falsehood was as nothing; that I would not believe her if the angel Gabriel came down from heaven to testify in her behalf. I bade her begone from my sight, that I might not so far forget myself as to punish her crime with violence. Then she begged, if she must leave me, that I would let her have the children. Finally, as I remained obdurate, she prayed only for the one little girl, the youngest, three years old—the baby, and most helpless one. The boys might stay with me, but this little one, her baby, she could not give up. She should die without her baby, and she pleaded as only a mother can plead for this one boon, the privilege of caring for her own child, which she had herself brought into this cruel world.”

Here the Major’s voice faltered, and there was a sympathizing moisture in Nathan’s eyes as he continued:

“A shame upon such laws as give any one, even a father, the right to deprive a mother of her God-given privilege!”

“Amen!” said Nathan under his breath.

“Finally I promised her that if at the end of six months I heard no report of her holding any communication with Teasdale I would let the little Eva go to her mother; but if I learned of her seeing or having anything to do with that creature I would never allow the child to even see her. With that she must be content. I had a sort of fiendish delight in the thought that through the mother’s love for her child I might keep her from the arms of her paramour.

187“Finally I left her, saying that I should expect her to take the next boat back to her father’s and that I would make suitable provision for her maintenance so long as she remained away from Teasdale; and that I desired that she should take with her everything belonging to her or that might help to remind me of her who was once my wife. That was the last time I ever met her.

“When I came back in the evening the nurse told me the mistress had gone away, and the children were in the nursery crying for mamma.

“Here was a feature of the case I had not, in my anger, counted upon. What should I do to appease the children? I concluded to transfer my business to other hands for the time, shut up the house, and take the children to my parents, thinking that perhaps grandma might be the best substitute for mother. This, as soon as I could make the necessary arrangements, I did.

“That night upon returning to my room I read, written in trembling hand upon an open page of my note-book, these words, which are burned into my memory: ‘Markham, my husband,—for God knows no act of mine has made me other than your wife,—I feel that the time will come when my innocence will in some way be vindicated. It may never be while I live, but I cannot believe a just and over-ruling Providence will allow such a foul wrong to be done and the perpetrator to go unpunished. And some day, in some way, justice will be done to me or my memory. Then you may, perhaps, realize the tithe of what I now suffer in the remorse which will follow 188you to the grave. Deal gently and tenderly with my babies who are to be without a mother, and remember, as you would have God deal justly with you, to keep your promise and allow the little Eva to cheer her mother’s desolate heart at the end of this terribly long probation. May Heaven forgive you and open your eyes to the fatal and terrible mistake you have made, is the prayer of your injured and heart-broken Agnes.’

“Well, we had not been long at their grandmother’s before the children were taken sick with that terrible ravaging disease, diphtheria, and in three short days Arthur and Eva, the youngest boy and the baby girl, were chill and cold in death. I would have sent for their mother, I think, had more time been given me; but they were taken down so suddenly and the disease made such rapid progress that ere I was aware of their danger death had already set its seal upon them, and I could only telegraph their mother the sad tidings that two of her loved ones were no more.

“It was some time before I heard from her, and then came such a letter as I never read before, and have never dared to read a second time, so full was it of hopeless agony and pain. I could not sleep for nights after. The words kept ringing in my ears, together with the plaintive moans of my little ones, who cried for mamma with their last conscious moments. I would think, sometimes, that if I lived until the morning I would take the first train to my wife, and despite her treachery would forgive and take her once more to my heart and trust; but the 189morning light would dissolve alike my visions and my resolutions, and I had to read but one of Teasdale’s letters to harden my heart to all such sentiments. Do you wonder that I never doubted the genuineness of those letters? How could I doubt with the remembrance of their finding ever before me?

“After the death of my little ones I went to Chicago, that metropolis of bustle and activity, hoping a change of scene and business would lift the pall of gloom that rested upon my spirits. There I became acquainted with my present wife. At the hotel where I boarded we were thrown into daily intercourse, and as I became impressed with the strong, quiet dignity and purity of her life, a warmer sentiment seemed to gradually thaw my heart, the more so as I perceived she manifested an evident partiality for me.

“I found it easy, with the aid of those letters, to procure a divorce from Agnes, in Chicago, and last fall I married my second wife and came here, bringing with us the one child left me, whom you have often seen. I have lived a peaceful and quiet life, and striven so far as possible to banish from my memory and thoughts the scenes of the past—that beautiful and nearly tragical past, the happiest days of my life and the most miserable, until—Well, you were with me in my office when a certain letter was delivered to me but a short time ago, and you witnessed the effect upon me and wondered at my agitation. I promised to explain its cause. You will wonder no longer when I tell you that the letter 190was from Teasdale and contained a full confession of his villainy. In it he avows the perfect innocence of Agnes, and explains just how and why he secreted the letter in my secretary and wrote the others in her absence, thus wreaking a terrible vengeance on us both.

“Admiring my wife, he hoped if he could in some way separate us he might get her into his power; and when she, with scorn, repelled his slightest advances toward her, and I with threats drove him from the house, he became unscrupulous as to his mode of revenge. He bribed one of the servants to place the letter where I found it, as soon as he learned of my wife’s absence from home, and then sent the other two letters, conceived with diabolical cunning that the result would be just what it has been. And I, blind fool that I was, worked right into his hands, and acted the damnable part of an Othello, entailing a life of misery and lifelong regret upon both myself and my innocent Agnes.

“If I were free I would hasten to her, the bride of my youth, and on bended knee implore her forgiveness of the most grievous wrong ever committed by man upon the gentle being who gave her life into his hands, and whose only fault was having loved and trusted so stupid a fool as I.

“As it is I cannot right one wrong without committing another. There lives the wife of my youth, mother of my son and co-partner in the right to that little grave upon the hillside where sleep the two innocents, flesh of our flesh. Here is the wife who married me in all trust, who will soon be mother, 191also, of my child. Was ever man so unfortunately placed? Curses upon a system that makes it easy for a man to get a divorce upon the most trivial pretext. If I had only—but why speak of what cannot be changed? I can see nothing but days and nights of sleepless remorse in my pathway, whichever way I turn, whatever happens. On my life, Bartram, the future is too black a hell to enter into! Were it not a cowardly act, I believe I would make an end of my wretched existence.”

“Have you told her, your present wife, of all this?” Nathan asked.

“No; I could not tell her all. It seemed unnecessary. She knew when she married me that I had divorced my first wife for infidelity. Were I to tell her now of this late discovery she would at once jump at correct conclusions in the matter and be inconsolably wretched, for I believe she loves me, unworthy as I am; while I—I must strive against hating any object that stands in the way of retracing my steps back to those halcyon days of love and happiness. I tell you, Bartram, the human heart is a wayward animal and hard to be held in the leash. But forgive me for giving utterance to thoughts that should never be allowed lodgment in my brain.”

“Have you written to your first wife, Agnes?” Nathan inquired, as Major Walden began gloomily to pace the floor of the library.

“Yes; I wrote telling her all,—all my misery,—and inclosed the letter from Teasdale. She shall have that to clear herself there, and she shall have the satisfaction of knowing that remorse with guilt 192is harder to bear than injustice with innocence. I think, after a time, I will tell Mrs. Walden as much as is necessary, and let little Freddy go to his mother. I have promised Agnes that, and I have made my will providing liberally for her, for I feel as if this strain cannot long be borne without the snapping of some of those strings that are essential to the harmony of this mysterious something we call life, and the grave or mad-house will ere long claim a victim.”

“You have my profound sympathy, Major,” said Nathan; “but you know it is said, ‘life has no wounds time cannot heal.’”

“I know, I know; but, alas, I am haunted by a fear that Agnes may not be living; that she may have been crushed by this terrible blow of my inflicting! She was so sensitive, so gentle. Oh, I cannot bear the thought! I want her to know the truth, now.”

“Do you not think she might know that, even if in the other world?” Nathan ventured.

“For God’s sake, don’t say that! It savors too much of that accursed creed that has been at the bottom of all my trouble,” said Walden with savage vehemence. “The nauseating flavor of the other world which I have been obliged to taste from the hands of these spiritists has given me no appetite for any more of it, I assure you. I’ll think of Hades or Nirvana, but not of that intermediate place where spirits are supposed to roam. Ugh! I’ll have none of it!”

CHAPTER XX SPIRITS OF THE AIR

Alice Cramer stood by the small window of her home, her fingers unconsciously thrumming on the pane, while she gazed out into the shadowing twilight of early spring.

The road was a dark line in the gray landscape and she watched eagerly for a figure to arise from it into vision. It was the evening that Mark should 194come, and she remembered that she had parted from him almost in anger. She had expected then to see him soon again, in a few weeks at the furthest, but the weeks had grown into months. There had been trouble with the Indians on the frontier and Mark was ordered to report for active duty and sent away a long distance from home. What a long, dreary winter it had been, even though her mother had been with her. Alice sighed as she thought of it. Even the mother had gone back to her Eastern home now, and she was alone.

Ah, she was glad, very glad Mark was coming; but there was a shadow of fear tinging the brightness of her joy. She had disobeyed him. She compressed her lips as she thought again of the command he had laid upon her. Why had he been so bitter and prejudiced in regard to Professor Russell? Mark was usually so tolerant of others’ beliefs and foibles. It could not be from the cause the Professor had once insinuated. A hot flush of shame swept over her as she thought of that dreadful insinuation. Surely, the man had forgotten himself when he hinted that. She should never dare repeat his words to Mark. He would shoot him, she feared. Perhaps Mark was right in his dislike for the man, but she could not refuse to credit his doctrine. Surely, surely she had proof of unseen visitants surrounding her. She felt their presence.

And even as she thus thought, a shiver of fear came over her. The air about her grew chill. In imagination she could see without, in the gathering darkness, a host of shadowy forms flitting backward 195and forward before her, like swarms of tiny insects in the atmosphere. How they swarmed about her and over her as she grew colder and her breathing more difficult. Involuntarily she turned her head and glanced backward over her shoulder. The shadows had deepened in the room. A frightful figure began to take shape before her excited vision. Her heart beat loudly and painfully. Her breath came in gasps. A moment, and the shape began to approach her. She gazed in fascinated terror into the darkness, not daring to move. Nearer and nearer it came,—ah, God! Alice felt her limbs sinking beneath her, and dropping to the floor she cowered and covered her face with her hands.

Oh, the fright and awfulness of that moment! She felt the forms all about her, shadowing and overpowering her. She heard them in a swarming, buzzing confusion of sound. Suddenly, out from it all came another sound, louder and more distinct, but she was too paralyzed to reason.

She heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside. Nearer and nearer they came. The door opened. Some one approached in the half darkness. There was a rushing and roaring as of many waters in Alice’s brain, and she crouched lower and lower and uttered a faint shriek of terror.

“Alice, Alice!” a voice called in her ear. “Alice, where are you? All in the dark by yourself?” Then, as the visitor nearly stumbled over the heap upon the floor, he started back involuntarily. “Great Heavens! What has happened? What is the matter? Alice, can this be you upon the floor? Why, 196child, what has happened? Did I startle you by coming sooner than you expected?”

Mark Cramer, with anxious countenance, bent over the cowering figure of his wife.

Her face was still buried in her hands, her frame shaking, her whole attitude one of extreme fear.

Mark’s heart sank with a fear of unknown dangers. This was a strange welcome after his long absence.

Alice’s letter had, it is true, prepared him to find her ill, perhaps only depressed, for he had noted the dejection of spirits in the written words, but he could account for that; but could this shrinking, cowering creature be his formerly light-hearted and happy wife? Surely he had expected nothing like this.

Nothing less than a serious nerve shock could have caused this condition. From what source could the shock have come? Could it be, Alice had brooded in her cabin until she had become insane? These and a hundred other thoughts rushed through his brain in the space of a moment as he bent over the abject form of his wife.

“Alice, dear Alice, have you no welcome for me after all these long months?”

Mark tried to raise her, but she shrank back from him, limp and helpless, yet trembling as with palsy.

“Alice, do you know me? Have you lost your mind? My God, what a home-coming is this! You surely are not afraid of me, Mark? Speak to me, Alice.”

She looked up at him with dazed eyes and tried to speak, but her lips would not obey her will.

197“Alice, O Alice!” Mark lifted the trembling figure in his arms and held her tightly. “Alice Cramer, do you not know me? What has happened to put you in this state?”

She turned her white face against his shoulder, hiding it.

Darker thoughts took possession of the man. Was there a reason why his wife should fear him, her husband? His blood grew hot with anger. Had that villain, Russell, so poisoned her mind that she feared his return, or had some person, just previous to his return, frightened and prostrated her? He glanced into the adjoining room and listened for any noise to denote an intruder. No, Alice was alone.

“Alice, speak to me!” he commanded sternly.

“Mark, Mark,” she murmured. “Oh! has it gone? Can you save me from it?” And again she shrank fearingly against his arm.

“There is nothing here, Alice; only I, Mark. What has disturbed you so? Was any one here before I came? Has any one been trying to frighten you?”

Alice raised her head and looked shrinkingly behind her, clinging closer to her husband as she did so. Then she began to sob, and clutch his shoulders tightly.

“Yes—oh—I do not know! I saw it behind me here in the room. It was so hideous—so dreadful! I saw it over my shoulder there!”

“I think, my dear, it was only the shadow cast by my horse as it came down the road.”

198“Oh, no, no, it was there!”

Mark looked distressed.

“Alice, I shall not dare leave you alone again while your nerves are in this state. Do you know that there has been nothing here but spectres of your excited imagination. Since when have you conjured gruesome hobgoblins out of the darkness? You never saw such things before, did you?”

Alice hid her face in his bosom.

“Yes, Mark, many times. They are always about me. When I walk they come up behind me and I hear their padding footsteps following me. They even pull my hair sometimes at night when I cannot sleep. Oh, I cannot bear it!”

Mark frowned, and chewed his mustache reflectively, but he repressed the words that came to his lips.

“My dear child, I am home with you now.”

“Yes, Mark, and I am so—so—glad! But you will go away and then they will come again.”

“I wish you might go when I do. You are nearly ill with nervous prostration. You should see a doctor right away.”

“O, no, Mark! Not a doctor! I am not sick!”

“What has caused this trouble, Alice? I do not know unless it is that miserable hound Russell. Can you not believe me when I tell you this is all a mere delusion of the senses? You have thought and thought over, and allowed your mind to dwell upon that wretched ism until it has nearly shipwrecked you. It was an evil day when that villain darkened our door.” And Mark ground his teeth in impotent 199wrath. “But come, let us have a light and drive away the spirits of darkness.”

“But, Mark, dear,” said Alice, as she arose and lighted a lamp, “can you not see that, to me, it is truth? I really see and hear them, and if it were not for these hideous ones—”

“They are all hideous—the whole doctrine is hideous, my dear, and only such as an unbalanced mind can conceive of,” he said hastily. “For my sake,—for God’s sake,—try and use some reason and judgment in the matter! You used to feel different from this—you, the little fearless woman of five years ago. I was so proud of you for your bravery, as became a soldier’s wife. You were all right until that man came here—until that serpent came into our Eden. Now you are frightened, and faint at your own shadow. But forgive me, dear, I didn’t come home to scold you. I am sure it is because you are not well and your nerves are to blame for it all. Queer things, these nerves, to play us such pranks. You are better, are you not?”

Alice turned her face, still pale and wan, toward him, and said in a voice yet unsteady: “We will not talk of it any more. It is too dreadful.”

“No, we will choose pleasanter themes. I have some news for you. I have received a letter from my sister Elinor, and she thinks of coming to make us a visit. She will have a fine rest here after her round of society life.”

“But I thought she was in California.”

“So she is, but will stop and visit us on the way 200East. I know it will do you good to have her here. She is always bright and happy.”

Alice’s lip quivered at the implied reproach, though Mark had no intention of meaning it as such.

“But will she be happy here? I am afraid our rude little cabin will scarcely make her comfortable.”

“Don’t worry about that, child. Nellie is a good-hearted little woman, in spite of her wealth and love of society, and she will enjoy the change, I assure you.”

“I feel—afraid to see her,” said Alice, the tears quivering in her lashes.

“Alice, dear, can it be this lonely, isolated life that is ruining your health and nerves? Shall I give up my commission and go back East?”

“Oh, no, Mark! It is pleasant here—only—” And Alice again looked apprehensively behind her.

“My poor child, we will go East,—anywhere,—to get you away from these scenes and influences,” he murmured.

“But, Mark, do you not think they are everywhere? In the East and West and North and South? The air is full of them, it seems to me. What used to seem only thin, pure, fresh air, sweet to breathe, and space vast and limitless, appears now a thickly populated ether or chaos in which are countless thousands of spirits floating or coming and going in surging, whirling, maddening confusion. Oh, you cannot see with my eyes! If you could you would pity me!” Alice leaned against her husband’s arm and her tears fell softly. “You wouldn’t scold me if you knew.”

201“Poor child, poor child! I will not scold you nor laugh at you. I will cure you. I know disordered nerves are as bad as other functional disorders, or worse, and it is a physician you need, and a big dose of rest, and you shall have them. You shall not be left alone again, either. You are not afraid when I am here?”

“No, you seem to exercise control even over the inhabitants of the air.”

“I thank God I am able to. Did you know, Alice, Nathan’s little Lucy is ill?”

“Little Lucy? Ah, how sorry I am. How did you learn it?”

“I met Nathan down the road and came home with him.”

“Mark, dear, how I am neglecting you. I am sure you are tired and hungry, and here I have been taking your time with my woes, and forgetting your needs. Supper is all ready, however, except making the tea.”

“Ah, that begins to sound like home again. Yes, I am hungry. I am always hungry when I can come home to my own table and have my good wife’s cooking.”

And Alice, intent upon the hospitable entertainment of her husband, forgot, for the time, the spectres that haunted her.

CHAPTER XXI THE REAPER

The spring brought trouble deep and lasting to the home of Nathan. Their child, upon whom Lissa had rested her heart and hopes after the manner of all mothers since the dawn of creation, sickened and died.

One day its little, warm lips had been pressed to hers, while its eyes looked inquiringly into her face with the mysterious intensity of infancy. The next, the waxen body lay cold and still before her unknowing and unheeding, and the weighted agony of her heart was beyond expression.

Oh, mothers who have had this experience, how I pity you! How my heart bleeds for you! It is to tear out a vital part of your being, to rend the very cords of life, to see that precious little casket of clay, so pure, so fair, borne away. How can you bear it?

Lissa did not bear her trial bravely, but sank beneath it. For days she neither ate nor slept. She would sit in the spot where her baby died, and beg that it should return to her. She would pray that it might become materialized and appear to her as the children she had at one time seen come from a cabinet at a seance. That seemed to be her one thought, to see it, to feel its little warm hands once more.

203Nathan watched her with increasing anxiety, scarce naming, even to himself, what he feared. At last one morning she startled him by declaring that the child had come to her in the night. That she had seen it and touched its hands.

“It was but a dream, dearest. Little Lucy is safe in Jesus’ arms. Think of that, Lissa, safe!”

She turned from him impatiently.

“I don’t want to think of it. I want her myself. I have the best right to her. It was cruel to take my baby, my only one. He must let her come back to me.”

“But, my dear, that is impossible. Our little one is safe in a better world, where no harm nor evil can approach her. She is waiting for us there. Some day you can go to her, Lissa, but she may not come to you.”

“But I know she can and does. She is there in that corner of the room. Sit very still, and she will come to you. See her?”

Nathan, startled in spite of himself, would sit, awed and expectant, looking in the direction indicated, while his wife, wrapped in eager absorption, would remain motionless, becoming angry if he disturbed her.

And thus the weeks passed, bringing no relief. Lissa’s nature seemed completely changed. She no longer took interest in her household affairs, but left everything to her domestic, who at best was an indifferent housekeeper. Nathan came home each week to find neglect and chaos, where had once been care and order.

204Lissa was petulant and easily irritated, and her dark, sad eyes looked as if she never slept. She lost in flesh and color and her constant and ever-recurring theme of conversation was the child she had lost.

“Ah, how far from comforting is this belief which my poor wife has embraced! If Lissa would only become reconciled to the fact that the child cannot come to her again, she would soon recover from her sorrow,” he said to Mark Cramer, as after an unusually trying hour with her he walked slowly with his brother-in-law toward the latter’s house. “It is certainly wrong to try to recall the dead.”

“I agree with you. God pity those who have no other belief than spiritism.”

“Amen!” replied Nathan. “It has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Poor Lissa keeps herself and every one around her wretched by constantly talking of her lost one. I feel at times she is losing her mind. She seems to care for nothing but what she calls ‘communing with her child.’ I can see that she is failing in health as well as mind. I hoped when the first outburst of grief was over she would, like other mothers, become resigned, but if anything she is becoming more absorbed in it. I cannot blame her friends for staying away from her. They do not want to hear the same story continually. If I propose that we go away for a time she looks alarmed and refuses to leave the house, because of the nightly visits of her little one. Surely, surely, Mark, it is a delusion. It cannot be that she does see her?” he questioned.

205“I certainly believe, Nate, that she is self-deceived and that unless her mind can in some way be diverted and given other food she will die or become insane. I was surprised to-day to see the change in her, even in the short time I have been gone.”

“If she would only take some interest in her household affairs, but she leaves everything to Neoka, who is poorly fitted for such responsibility. I might send for her mother—”

Mark shook his head. “I am afraid her mother gives too much credence to this wretched fallacy that is making all the trouble,” he said.

“Well,” groaned Nathan, “I’m to blame for all this! If I had never brought that man Russell into the neighborhood this need never have happened.”

“Possibly not, but you don’t know. The Devil usually has some way of finding victims. He might have sent along some other of his emissaries. I suppose he has plenty, even of this kind. But I will think about this and see if I cannot find some way of deliverance.”

“Heaven grant you may, and soon!”

“I’ve often wondered,” said Mark, “why you ever had anything to do with this belief. I always supposed you too sound a man to be deceived easily, and yet you have half seemed to accept the doctrine.”

“I never told you of an experience I had, a number of years ago, while I was railroading, did I? You know I ran on the road three or four years. At the time the incident happened I was acting as conductor on a freight train running between R—— and Council Bluffs. I had a friend, George Marvin, 206who was also a railroad man, and we were close chums. He was a splendid fellow and supported a widowed mother, who idolized him.

“One day he came down to the station and told me he had had a bad dream the night before, and felt sure that if he went out upon his run he’d meet with an accident. I pooh-poohed at him, but he was terribly depressed and insisted that he’d had a warning and must not go. So finally we hunted one of the boys to go in his place, and he jumped on a passing train to ride up to the street-crossing near his home, standing on the step of the third car from the engine. As the train moved out between the tracks upon which other cars were standing, George leaned out too far, was struck by some projection from a freight car, knocked under the wheels, and killed instantly.

“It was a terrible thing. I couldn’t sleep for nights after it happened. And his poor mother—well, she never got over it. It killed her inside of six weeks.

“Two or three weeks after George was killed I took a freight train up to the junction, where I was ordered to side-track and wait for the express to pass me. I was some behind time, owing to an accident up the road, when I pulled out onto the switch, and I was slowing up to stop, when the rear door of the caboose was thrown open with a bang, and if you’ll believe me, there stood George Marvin, as natural as life.

“‘Nate,’ he said, ‘go back and close your switch.’ Then he jumped off, and the door closed. For a moment 207I forgot but that George was living. I rubbed my eyes to see if I was awake. I went to the end of the car, and looked out, but no one was in sight. There were four drovers in the car playing cards and laughing. While I was looking at them and wondering what it all meant, the door flew open again and George Marvin once more appeared. ‘Nate,’ he said, very slowly and expressively, ‘go back and close your switch.’ I asked the drovers if they saw any one. They said, ‘Yes, a fellow told you to close your switch.’ ‘That man has been dead two weeks,’ I said.

“They urged me to go back and see what it meant, and as the train had stopped, I ran back and found a piece of coal had fallen between the rails and prevented the switch—which worked automatically—from closing. I got it out and closed the switch just as the express came in sight. Otherwise it would have run into us, and another railroad horror would have been recorded. Now how do you account for that?”

“Had it not been for the drovers seeing the vision I should think you might have seen, standing in the rear of the car, that the switch did not close; but as you were carrying on another train of thought, perhaps thinking of your friend, you were not conscious of noticing it; and that the other part of your mind warned you. Your imagination supplied the vision.”

“But the drovers?”

“Well, perhaps it was thought transference. You received the impression passively, scarcely realizing 208it. The passive mind might have transferred it to their minds. I must confess there is much we cannot understand even in the laws that govern mental telepathy.”

CHAPTER XXII NEW ARRIVALS

The soft and balsam-scented air of summer fluttered the white curtains of Alice Cramer’s house as she sat before the open doorway awaiting, with no little anxiety, the arrival of her fashionable sister-in-law from San Francisco.

And when her practised eye saw the carriage, a mere speck against the sky, coming across the prairie, her heart throbbed with the dread of meeting and she looked about her mean little apartments with a sense of embarrassment. What had come over her, that she should have lost the self-possession and ease of manner inherent in her, and become timid and awkward as the most illiterate of her neighbors?

“I have been so long out of the world I am no longer myself,” she murmured, “and yet—and yet it is not wholly that. I seem to be living in a state of chronic fear. If only her coming will free me from those other visitors.”

With a choking sensation in her throat, and trembling in her limbs, she arose as the carriage turned from the highway toward the house. She took in with a glance the blonde-haired, blue-eyed sister, the curled, elaborately-dressed child, and then her eyes rested upon the most beautiful face she had ever seen, it seemed to her. A face so commanding and 210bright, so impellingly attractive, she gazed at it in joyous wonder.

Mark lifted them down from the carriage, one by one, and presented them to her, and the tears started in her eyes as Elinor kissed her fondly, called her sister Alice, and appeared to overlook the shabby apartments which had so distressed the housewife a few minutes before.

The little boy bounded and capered in the joy of freedom as he looked at the boundless prairie, and Tibby Waring’s eyes glowed with tender moistness as she feasted upon the beauty of the expanse before her.

“Oh, Mrs. Wylie, how lovely it is to breathe freely again,” she murmured as, after removing her wraps with the dust and stain of travel, she stood, later in the day, outside the cabin door and watched the red sun touch the prairie’s distant rim.

“Yes, Tibby, you will be a child again with all these country wilds about you. You will have chickens, cows, and horses to your heart’s content. Mark, do you remember how we youngsters used to go out to grandpa’s?”

“Indeed I do. I remember how you tried to walk a log across Willow brook and fell in.”

“And I remember when grandpa whipped you for taking eggs from under his sitting hen.”

“Because a little girl about your size—you haven’t grown much—told me to do it.”

“Yes, and I ran and hid in the dry-house and fell asleep there. What a time they had finding me.” And Elinor laughed at the recollection.

211“’Twas old Tige that found you. We never could understand how he opened the dry-house door,” responded Mark.

“Ah, those happy, happy days,” sighed Elinor. “Look yonder, Tibby, what a lovely group of ponies.”

“They are coming this way. May I go to meet them, Mr. Cramer?” And Tibby, with Robbie at her heels, swiftly went across the crisp, dry turf toward the approaching horses.

“Is it safe for her, Mark?” asked Elinor, looking anxiously after her protege.

“Yes, come on, we will follow them.”

“How lovely they are, Mr. Cramer. Are they all gentle? May I go near them?” asked Tibby as the twain approached her.

“If you are not afraid, select one for your own use,” Mark replied.

Tibby went nearer and surveyed them for a moment.

“I like that roan the best, though he looks a trifle wicked,” she said, pointing to one a little distance from the herd.

“Ah, that is Tempest. He is a little wild. Better choose again.”

The horse lifted his ears and struck the ground with his fore-foot challengingly, as Tibby slowly went toward him. Mark expected to hear him snort viciously and take to his heels as she neared him, but to his surprise the horse kept his position.

Then, as Tibby spoke to him, he backed a little, and again struck the ground with his foot.

212“Soh! Good fellow, good fellow! Come here!” Tibby paused, and holding out her hand beckoned the animal toward her. Then they stood looking at one another steadily. Finally the roan took a few steps forward, striking the ground, and seeming to question her right to command him.

“Come here, I tell you!” said Tibby imperiously, again, and to the surprise of all the horse once more took a few steps nearer her. Haltingly it walked toward her, nearer, its eyes fixed on the girl and her outstretched hand. A few more steps and it was within reach, and Tibby’s hand was upon its nose and she had conquered.

“Well, I’m astonished at that!” exclaimed Mark. “He’s the Devil’s own, usually. He must have an eye for beauty, the rascal.”

Tibby stood and stroked the animal’s nose, whispering to him as she did so, and feeding him grass which she pulled from the ground.

“You are not afraid, Tempest. You must always come when I call you. Soh! Good Tempest; come, sir, come! I’ll show you to the mistress.” And Tibby turned toward the house, the horse following the hand touching his nose.

“Why, if that girl ain’t leading Tempest!” Alice exclaimed. “He’s the wildest colt of the lot. Even Mark hasn’t been able to do much with him, he’s so vixenish. And without a bridle! How did she manage it?”

“She can manage almost anything,” laughed Mrs. Wylie. “I sometimes think she manages all of us. I don’t know how we should get along without her.”

213“Where did you find her?”

“In a country place not far from Forest City. I took her for a nurse girl for Robbie, but as I wrote you, I’ve made a companion and daughter of her. She is invaluable in any capacity. The only trouble I have is keeping the young men from running off with her. She attracts a great deal of attention wherever we are stopping, and woe be it to any young woman who purposely ignores her. She makes her a wall-flower from that time on, and draws away every young man who would pay the offending one any attention.”

“But how can she do it? Of course she is remarkably handsome, but that does not always—”

“The goodness knows! It’s her own secret. Sometimes I think it is her compelling eyes that bring every one to her upon whom she casts them. Haven’t you noticed that quality in them?”

“They are wonderfully bright, and—electrical,” replied Alice.

“Electrical? Yes, that is the word. Aren’t they? I can sound Tibby’s praises by day and night. One feels them ever when not looking at her.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Cramer, “we have very few young men here. None of much account, except Donald Bartram. He is nice, and entirely eligible, so you need not fear him. The girl is remarkably attractive.”

Tibby Waring had indeed become an important element in Mr. Wylie’s household. Every one liked her, from Robbie, who was restless and uneasy in 214her absence, to Grandma Wylie, who, when she made her annual visits, insisted that Tibby was better than a doctor to relieve her aches and rheumatic pains. And Mr. and Mrs. Wylie found need of her on all occasions.

From the position of servant she had become a daughter of the house. Her ready wit and imperturbably good humor made her a welcome adjunct in the parlor, and if some of Mrs. Wylie’s society friends sneered and complained of her when by themselves for her presumption in forcing an unknown girl upon them, they were careful not to shadow forth any dislike in her presence. Latterly, when traveling, Mrs. Wylie had introduced her as a foster-daughter, and thus Tibby was saved any affronts.

Alice Cramer was never weary of watching both Tibby and her sister-in-law and feasting upon the brightness and freshness of their apparel, with the many little accessories of fashion which, of late, were unknown to her. And Mrs. Wylie herself was like a wild bird set at liberty. She sang and rode with Tibby and Mark over the plains, her fluffy blonde hair blowing in the wind, and her pink and white complexion, which no wind could mar, only took on a richer tinge, more healthful and attractive. But she became alarmed at the peculiarities which she observed in Alice.

One day, while galloping over the soft turf, she questioned her brother.

“Mark, is Alice entirely sane?”

“Sane, Nellie! What do you mean?”

215“Why, she acts so strangely at times. She sits and looks back over her shoulder in such a startled way, and early this morning, after you had gone out, I heard some one cry out in her room and I ran in there to see what was the matter. She was sitting up in bed and brushing the wall about her with a broom. Her face was red, her eyes bright, and she kept saying, ‘Get away with you, you little imps!’

“‘Why, Alice,’ I cried, ‘what ails you?’ She dropped her broom and looked embarrassed when she saw me, and said imploringly, ‘I can’t help it, Nellie! Don’t blame me, I can see such horrible crawling things on the walls. There are all manner of creatures, some on two legs and some on four or more, and they grin and chatter in such a fiendish way I have to fight them.’ And she began to sob. I told her it was only her imagination from disordered nerves, and she ought to have a doctor. But she assured me she was well, physically. One can see, however, from her thinness and pallor that such is not the case.”

Mark’s face grew dark and he shut his teeth hard.

“Nellie, it all comes from the evil machinations of one man who has been coming here to the house; a spirit-medium, he calls himself, but I imagine him an agent for Satan. He holds seances, and has given Alice books to read until she is filled with his theories. She has been alone too much since mother went home, and has become melancholy and nervous. I am very glad you are with us. Try to keep her cheerful and her mind off those things as much as possible. I need help.”

216Mrs. Wylie sighed.

“Ah, I know what it is, Mark. Horace has been interested in this subject, and I have seen more of it than I enjoy. Horace’s sister in Oakland is a believer and gives up her house to seances and meetings of that sort.”

“Indeed, I am surprised that so solid a man as Mr. Wylie should give ear to such nonsense.”

“But, Mark, you can’t say it is all nonsense. There are very many bright people who believe in it, though they are perhaps the exceptions; but there is certainly something supernatural about it.”

“No, Nellie, I do not think it is supernatural. It is only because we do not understand Nature’s laws and forces that we thus designate the phenomena produced. I really believe the time will come when every phenomenon adduced will be explained from natural hypothesis. Much of it can be now. I am not sure but all of it can.”

“I have a friend, Mark, a very sweet young woman, who I am sure would not stoop to deceit, who can do many wonderful things. She can write messages from the spirit world, is clairvoyant, and can, if an article is placed in her hand, describe the owner, his surroundings, etc. I have recently heard that she has developed as a materializing medium.”

“But, my dear, she may be ever so honest and be self-deceived. Those things do not prove the agency of any disembodied spirit. We all have more or less of the psychometric power, no doubt, which, although we cannot account for it, is no more wonderful than the electric current and many other forces 217of Nature. There certainly seems to be a force which connects individuals and forms a medium for thought transference. The Hindoos understand this much better than we do, hence the mysteries of their conjuring tricks. They must make use of this psychic force of which we are but dimly conscious. Possibly we may, in the future, learn to control it as we do now the lightning. But there is no spirit agency in it.”

“The most mysterious to me is the slate-writing,” said Mrs. Wylie. “My friend does that also. I have seen instances where there seemed to be absolutely no opportunities for fraud.”

“We may have belief in the power of mind over matter. I have thought much over this and am willing to admit that the spirit of man may even act upon matter to produce this slate-writing, but I believe it is the medium’s spirit rather than any other. If the disembodied spirit is supposed to do this, why not the spirit or intelligence of the medium also? All things considered, I prefer to believe the medium responsible. Of course, in many cases it is probably only a trick or sleight of hand, in substituting one slate for another; but I think I have seen cases myself where such explanation could not be given.

“But this hypnotic force which can make a subject do, believe, assume personalities and see whatever is suggested to him is a wonderful force and I know not what its limits are. It may account for the supposed slate-writing. The Oriental can produce phenomena beyond anything known here, and yet, as I understand, he does not pretend that his power 218comes from the spirits of departed friends. As for mind over matter, the planchette is certainly governed by the intelligence of the operator or manipulator.”

“If,” said Mrs. Wylie, “one mind may influence another, now annihilating time and space, why may not the mind or spirit of the dead so act after it is separated from the body?”

“I do not deny that such a thing is possible. I am not prepared to state absolutely that such things are impossible, but I have never had any proof sufficient to convince me that they were at all probable, and I don’t believe that spirits have anything to do with all this table rapping, etc., which really amounts to nothing. You will find that all written answers to questions, even in slate-writing, tell only that which is known to some one in the room. If a question is asked which demands an unknown answer the so-called spirit either refuses to speak or the answer is so ambiguous as to admit of several interpretations. Really I have never seen one such communication that even stated a fact clearly. They usually deal in generalities.”

“That is true. I’ve often told Horace that they could get along all right until some question was asked which the mind-reader could not find out about, and then they fail. I have heard that only inferior spirits are capable of producing psychical phenomena.”

“So we have the Indian children and big medicine-men to instruct us so much. Strange that people should pin their faith to the utterances of spirits of 219those with whom they would not associate were they living upon earth.”

“After all, it’s the making a religion of it that I object to,” said Mrs. Wylie, “and letting these communications, wherever evolved, control one’s morals and living.”

“Did you ever know a person made better by giving up his religion and substituting spiritism?”

“No, that is it. I have often told Horace that the doctrine tended to demoralization; but he will not listen to me. Of course there is much that is wrong in the followers of any religion, but this seems especially lowering in its tendency, so far as I have observed.”

“Well, you can see what it has done for my poor Alice. And her sister Lissa is nearly insane from it. It will unbalance the mind if not the moral nature.”

“I suspect you will not be willing to go and hear Mrs. Lucien when she comes to C—— upon her Western tour. I care nothing for the exhibition in itself, but am a little anxious to know how she has developed. I have not seen her since she first began to try her mystic powers, as we went to the Pacific coast soon afterwards.”

“O, yes, I am willing to see your friend. I am not so intolerant as that. She may, as I said, be sincere and self-deceived. Such a condition might be possible. However, it is quite as likely you are deceived in her. By the way, you have a remarkable maid—this Tibby. She is extremely pretty and has wonderful eyes.

“Ah, you are stricken with a shaft from those 220eyes. I don’t wonder at it. Tibby has been with me ever since she was fourteen, and I have heard that remark over and over again from each one to whom I have introduced her.”

“I could believe she practises hypnotism, though perhaps unconsciously.”

“Ah, I have frequently suggested as much to Horace, but he says it is her beauty. She certainly can do what she wishes with any one. The young men at the summer hotels where we stop swarm about her like bees about a honey jar, but she does not seem to care for them. Sometimes she plays the most absurd tricks upon them. One evening, when we were at the Metropolitan, a young man called whom I had especially recommended to Tibby. I left them in the parlor and stepped out upon the veranda. Shortly, Miss Tibby followed me, her eyes dancing with mischief. ‘Where is Mr. Bevington,’ I asked. ‘In the parlor, asleep,’ she said demurely. I went in, and sure enough, there the fellow sat in an easy chair, sound asleep, his jaw dropped, and looking anything but picturesque and charming. Tibby stood by me, looking wickedly at him.

“‘There, you see how gentlemanly your fine young man is,’ she said. ‘I must be interesting company. Don’t you pity me? Shall I cover him with a shawl and let him sleep?’ I shook my head at her. ‘Better waken him.’

“‘Mr. Bevington, we’ll excuse you if you would rather sleep at home,’ she said. I wish you could have witnessed his confusion when he awoke, as he did immediately upon Tibby’s addressing him. I 221really pitied the poor fellow. He muttered, of course, something about late hours, etc., but I am satisfied Tibby had something to do with his sleeping. She has, when she chooses, a very soothing influence over one.”

“So I perceive. I saw an instance of her mesmeric power yesterday. She wanted to go and ride upon Tempest (by the way, there is a proof of her strength. Tempest was the worst horse on the ranch) and Robbie insisted upon her staying with him. She sat down upon the horse-block and looked at the child until he came to her as if she had been leading him by a rope.

“‘I think you may as well sleep while I am gone,’ she said, ‘to keep you out of mischief.’ To my surprise the little fellow dropped down by the side of the block and appeared to be asleep in a minute. He slept until she returned from her ride, when she awakened him, and they both came in together.”

“You don’t think there is any harm in it? It will not hurt Robbie?” asked Mrs. Wylie anxiously. “I have learned to rely upon her so completely.”

“Perhaps not, though I have heard that it weakens the will to be frequently mesmerized. But we’ll hope she does not abuse her power.”

“Really, Mark, I believe I obey Tibby myself. We have never disagreed upon anything yet, that I did not yield, I am sure. And when I have a headache she can sooth it away with her touch.”

“Tibby has a very positive character. I fancy Donald is interested in her already.”

222“Donald! Why, I thought they told me he was fond of Esther McCleary.”

Mark smiled.

“I do not know—possibly. Meanwhile, have I your permission to talk with your protege on the subject of mesmeric influences?”

“Most assuredly, or upon any other subject. But really, Mark, isn’t there something uncanny about a person possessed of such power?”

Again Mark smiled.

“You are possessed of the intolerance of our forefathers. You would not suffer a witch to live.”

“Well, it does seem as if such a person had a familiar spirit. We are commanded to abhor such, and in olden time they were put to death, it is true.”

“I do not class hypnotists with spirit-mediums,” Mark replied. “And I have an idea with regard to Tibby which may be useful. She should be able to exorcise other evil influences, as did the priests of old. I’d like to pit her against Russell.”

“Russell? O, yes, he’s the man to whom you ascribe Alice’s perversion of mind. Well, I wish she might be able to. I wish she might.”

CHAPTER XXIII THE COUNTERPLOT

Mark sought a convenient opportunity to interview Tibby. He found the girl one morning pacing slowly up and down the pathway leading to the horses’ corral, her riding-whip in her hand and riding-skirt upon her arm. She was smiling softly to herself and flipping the tops of the tall balsam weeds with her whip as she passed them. She looked up, a startled, challenging look in her large eyes as he approached her.

“Well, Miss Tibby, what new mischief are you hatching to-day?” Mark asked as he joined her.

“None, I assure you. I was only thinking how I would like to see a prairie on fire.”

“I trust the wish has not been father to the act. You haven’t set a match to it?”

“O, no! I haven’t yet looked up a convenient hiding-place for myself. And then I don’t believe I’m quite so bad as Nero. My desire to see a burning Rome is not strong enough to make me set it on fire.”

“Indeed? You reassure me!”

“As if that were necessary.”

“You haven’t told me what you really think of us here, Miss Tibby.”

“I think it is lovely here; you have so much breathing space.”

224“Is that all we are supposed to do—breathe?”

“There doesn’t seem to be a chance for much else. Now does that sound impolite? I don’t mean it so.” Tibby flicked the toe of her boot with her whip, and drew in one of the deep corners of her mouth as if she had said something she ought not to.

“Not in the least impolite. It’s a fact. We may exist here, not much else.”

“But I didn’t mean that. I like it here very much. But one is so free from restraint, breathing seems the easiest and about the only necessary thing to do.”

“You were country born?”

“Yes, and I remember it seemed there as if I was repressed and confined and I looked yearningly out into the greater liberty of the world. Think of it! From the freedom of country I longed for liberty.”

“And now?” Mark questioned.

“And now I am not tired of the other life. O, no. I enjoy it truly, only I think part of the people one meets in society life are often very silly and flat, as—as—” she hesitated for a comparison, then gave the familiar one of her childhood,—“as dishwater.”

“Isn’t that the trouble with a part of the people everywhere? After all, it’s a great thing to be to the manner born,” said Mark, setting his large hat farther back upon his head, and looking the bright sun in the face.

“Ain’t it? There is an ease, a consciousness of power, a—a something which the very rich have which one may covet. Perhaps it is the consciousness of always being well-dressed. I think that was what I used to covet. As to birth, I had nothing to 225envy in any of them. My mother was a Devereaux, my great uncle an earl.” Tibby lifted her chin with conscious pride. Mark saw that the girl was still smarting from affronts received when she was only Mrs. Wylie’s servant.

“Even in this democratic America we still are proud of what we please to call blue blood, are we? Well, it may be foolish, but I reckon it won’t hurt us,” said Mark. “I hope many of us are better men than our ancestors of feudal times, however. Our women are certainly more intelligent, if we may believe history.”

“Yes?” Tibby was looking out into the expanse dreamily, her eyes narrowed and yellow in the sunlight.

“What do you call the restraints of society life?” questioned Mark suddenly.

“The necessity of putting on war paint and feathers. The necessity of hiding behind a mask of conventionality and pleasant phrases, of fine clothes and fine speeches. I enjoy it immensely—immensely.” Tibby shut her lips tightly to emphasize her words. “But after all, it is artificial, and the only fun is seeing through it all. It’s really more fun to be a spectator than an actor in a comedy. The actors see all the tinsel and making up.”

“But you have been an actor?”

“Yes, in the minor roles.”

“Tibby, Mrs. Wylie tells me you sometimes see people you do not like and have a way of punishing them.”

226“Yes,” said Tibby meekly; “sometimes.”

“Miss Tibby, haven’t we walked about enough? Let us sit down upon this roller. I want to talk to you. You conquered Tempest very easily. I believe you have uncommon power,” he continued, as Tibby sat down and began to fan her face with her riding-hat.

“Do you think so?” Tibby’s voice was mockingly suggestive.

“Yes, I am convinced of it. And I have been waiting for an opportunity to ask how long you have known and used this power.”

Tibby looked keenly at Mark.

“I am not sure I understand you. To what power do you refer?”

“The power to make every person or beast yield to your will. You are a hypnotist, Miss Waring, and an uncommonly powerful one.”

The girl looked up eagerly.

“Do you really think so, Mr. Cramer? I have wondered myself if that might not be the case. I know—have known for a long time—that if I really willed any one to do a thing, he was quite apt to do it. When I was a little girl I used to sit in church and make people turn and look at me—it was the only way I could amuse myself through those long sermons which my stepmother made me listen to every Sunday; and sometimes I have made people stumble, or even fall, just for fun or to punish them. I know it wasn’t a praiseworthy amusement, but—” Tibby hesitated.

“You can put Robbie to sleep.”

227She nodded. “How did you know?”

“I have been watching you.”

“You don’t think there is any harm in it?” she questioned in a troubled voice.

“Perhaps not, yet I do not think I would exercise my power in that way. It might weaken the lad’s will. I am sure you would not willingly do him harm.”

“Oh, no, indeed! I never mean to do any one any harm. I have sometimes played jokes on the dudes at the hotels, or occasionally punished some one, as Mrs. Wylie told you.”

“There is a person whom I wish you would punish, if it be in your power.”

“And that is—?”

“Professor Russell. You know who he is, and what he has done. If he comes here again, use all the power you possess to get control of that man.”

“What shall do with him if I can hypnotize him?”

“Anything. Show him up for what he is. And above everything, break his power or influence over others.”

“You may be sure I will. Mrs. Wylie has been telling me of him, and that he is responsible for Mrs. Cramer’s nervous condition.”

“Yes, and for a hundred other offenses, large and small. Lissa Bartram is nearly insane over his accursed delusions. By the way, can you not suggest a different train of thought for her? She sits brooding over her sorrow, and trying to recall the spirit of her child. You know the hypnotist can get control 228of the mind and govern the current of thought by suggestion. Can you not turn her morbid fancies into dreams of hope and brightness? Ah, Miss Tibby, if you can bring relief to that darkened spirit you will be an angel of light!”

“Mr. Cramer, I will try. I wish I understood better just how to use the power I have. I know I have it—but sometimes I forget and fail to make people do as I wish. But I am interested in Mrs. Bartram, and will do what I can.”

“Come, let us walk over there now,” said Mark. “The others are occupied with themselves.”

“All right. I’ll leave my riding accoutrements here, and we will go. I wonder, Mr. Cramer, if this power comes from a strong will.”

“Are you strong-willed?”

“Ah, you answer my question in the Yankee fashion. I suppose I am. My stepmother used to call me ‘that self-willed, headstrong girl,’ because I could coax papa to let me have my own way sometimes. And when I was right, why should I not have it?” The uptilted chin rose higher.

“It is usually woman’s way,” Mark replied.

“The right way is. I agree with you.”

Tibby walked forward with the free, upspringing step of perfect health and high spirits.

“Mr. Cramer, you have not answered my question. What is this power of hypnotic control?”

“You should know better than I, Miss Waring. So far as I understand it, it is the controlling of one person’s will and senses by another, the subject passively submitting to it. I cannot imagine your hypnotizing 229me, for I am naturally very positive myself. You might do so if I were off my guard. Neither have I your power over others. Why, is not clear to me.”

“I made you ask a question for me a couple of days ago,” Tibby confessed, laughing.

“When?” Mark looked surprised.

“It was when you and Mrs. McCleary were talking together, and I wanted to hear her tell about the planchette. So I told you to ask her—that is, willed you to. And immediately you turned around and said, ‘Well, how does Mr. McCleary get on with his planchette?’”

Mark laughed.

“I remember I was sorry for starting her off upon her hobby, and was provoked at myself for asking afterwards,” he said. “But here we are at Nathan’s. I’ll take you in and then I’ll leave you to entertain Lissa in your own way.”

They found her sitting listlessly by her low window, her hands folded in her lap, her sad, dark-rimmed eyes full of unshed tears.

“I have brought Miss Waring over to keep you company for a while,” Mark said brightly. “I think you’ll get along well together without me, so I’ll run back to Alice. How are you feeling? Better?”

Lissa arose and came forward to meet them with extended hands, then her eyes followed Tibby’s about the disordered room. A flush of color came faintly into her cheeks.

“I—am about as usual, thank you,” she said to Mark, then apologetically to Tibby: “Neoka has 230neglected the work to-day. She wanted a holiday and I let her off, and have not attended to it myself.”

“Are you not well, Mrs. Bartram?” asked Tibby.

“No—that is, I am better than I was,” she stammered, looking at Tibby in an embarrassed way.

“You ought to be out in this lovely sunshine. Don’t you think so, Mr. Cramer?”

“Yes, indeed. There’s life and health in every gleam, thanksgiving to the sun,” misquoted Mark, and he touched his hat and turned away.

“I have a headache,” began Lissa.

“Which I can rid you of in short order,” cried Tibby. “Did Mrs. Wylie never tell you what a good doctor I am? I can always cure her headaches in a moment. May I try upon you?”

Mrs. Bartram signified her assent, and Tibby stepped to her side and began to rub her head, talking the while in her low, rich tones.

“You are to stop thinking about anything and let your head rest easily against the back of the chair. I will take the pain here and carry it away on the ends of my fingers—so. Ah, you are beginning to feel better already. The pain is going, now almost gone—now it is gone. Isn’t it? I do not think it will trouble you any more.”

Lissa smiled. “It has gone,” she murmured.

“Ah, that is lovely. Now we will go and walk. It will complete my cure. Shall we go down by the river and gather plums?”

Lissa assented, and Tibby noticed the brighter look that already animated her face.

When, three hours later, the twain came back to 231the house, their arms filled with wild flowers and plants, Lissa’s dark eyes were shining with a new interest, and the dawn of a brighter life had shone upon the darkened, despairing soul of Nathan’s wife.

CHAPTER XXIV THE TRAIL OE THE SERPENT

“Alice, have you seen Esther McCleary lately?” Mark asked abruptly as he entered the house.

“No, I have not. She seems to avoid us since Elinor and Tibby came. I wonder if it is on account of Donald? Why does she act so?”

“I am afraid, Alice, there has been, or will be, a tragedy in Esther’s life, which will wreck it,” Mark answered.

“Why, what do you mean? What can have happened?”

“Have you heard nothing about her mysterious wanderings away from home lately?”

“No.”

“Well, it seems she has been given to somnambulancy. She has gotten up in the middle of the night and left the house upon more than one occasion. Last night, when I was coming home from the fort, I came upon her walking alone upon the prairie, wringing her hands and sobbing bitterly. I called to her, and she at first tried to run from me, but at last she allowed me to put her upon my horse and bring her home. I questioned her, and finally the poor child told me the cause of her wanderings. It seems Russell’s power did not end with his presence, but after hypnotizing her a number of times he could control her, even though absent. He never tried to 233use this baneful power until recently, or since he was here the last time before now.”

“But when did he come back? I didn’t know he had returned,” said Alice, a troubled look upon her face.

“The Lord only knows!” replied Mark, with a scowl. “I hoped we’d seen the last of him.”

“I did too, Mark. I really did. I have been so much happier since Elinor and Tibby came, and now, when it is most time for them to go, to think he’s come again.”

“He must not come here—after they have gone away, at any rate. I don’t mind it much if they are here, for Tibby, I think, will be a match for him. But afterwards, if I catch him here I’ll shoot him like the vermin he is!”

“But, Mark, they’d hang you for it.”

“’Twould be in a good cause. But really I don’t think he’ll come again after I have interviewed him once. This affair of Esther’s is going to make the place too hot for him.”

“O, yes, you were telling me. Go on. What about Esther?”

“Why, it appears he willed her to meet him in the cotton-wood grove that borders the canon. The poor child swears that she knew nothing and was conscious of nothing until she found herself face to face with this arch-fiend, alone and beyond the call of friends. She tried to flee from him, but could not. He seemed to hold her, powerless to help herself.”

“You horrify me, Mark!”

234“I am myself so enraged I can hardly exercise self-control. Think of having a man in the community with the power to call his victims to him at will.”

“Does Donald know of this?”

“No, I think not yet. I am afraid that when he does it will end everything between him and Esther, if there has been anything, which I doubt. I believe Don has a friendly interest in Esther, but I suspect he is growing fond of Tibby.”

“Indeed! Well, I don’t see how he could help it. But Esther is such a good girl.”

“Yes, before she became the nervous wreck she is, because of that—Russell.” Mark ground his teeth.

“O Mark, this is dreadful, dreadful! What can be done?”

“The hound must be driven from this community, now and forever. This poor girl’s obsession is sufficient excuse for a mob with tar and feathers. Were it not for the publicity of the thing, and the pain Esther would experience should these night wanderings be made public, I would organize a posse myself, to-night, and ride the fellow out of the territory on a rail.”

“Ah, Mark, you must not go against the laws of the land. Mob violence can never be right.”

“I don’t know, Alice—when one has a case like this which the law would not touch.”

“Will not the law touch it?”

“I don’t know. I am going to town to-morrow to find out if there is not some way in which he may be held under the law. As for Esther, I wish she might 235be sent away from this place—away from his hateful influence and pestiferous power.”

“Ah, could she get away from it? Is there any place where it might not follow her? Mark, wouldn’t it be well for you to see Mrs. McCleary? Surely she could not sanction such possession of her daughter.”

“That is a good idea, Alice. I will go to see her to-day—now. If there’s a heart in that woman I’ll try to find it. This is a mission for which you are better suited, but in your nervous state it may be more than you could do.”

“I would rather trust you,” Alice replied.

Mark rapped at Mrs. McCleary’s door a half hour later, and asked the child who admitted him if he might see her mother.

“Well, well! Oi declare, Mr. Mark, Oi’m delighted if you’ve found toime an’ inclination to give us a little of yer society,” cried Mrs. McCleary, coming forward. “Oi told Esther Oi didn’t see why some of the neighbors didn’t call oftener. We’re always glad to see ’em. And how is Alice, and that noice sister, and the perty girl with her? Oi am shure Alice must enjoy their company so much.” As she paused to take breath, Mark interposed.

“We do both enjoy them very much. But where is Esther, Mrs. McCleary?”

“Esther? O, she is giving the children their baths. Oi have to leave all such work to her now. But she’ll be through varry soon, Oi’m shure. Just help yourself to some of them plums on the table, Misther Mark.”

236“Thank you. They are very nice, and I always enjoy eating them. This fruit makes up to us for the lack of apples and other fruits of the East, which we have not started here yet. Nature is compensative. But I want to talk to you, Mrs. McCleary, rather than Esther, and upon a somewhat delicate subject.”

“Yes?” Mrs. McCleary’s voice slid upward interrogatively. “Oi waant ter know.”

“Do you know the extent of Professor Russell’s power over your daughter?”

“Why, to be shure, Mr. Cramer. Who should know, if not her mother?”

“And do you approve of his compelling her to walk in the fields at night? Believe me, Mrs. McCleary, I ask this from no idle motive. I am interested in your daughter’s welfare and good name.”

“He compel her? Professor Russell compel her? Why, ye’re crazy, Mark Cramer!” The woman’s Irish temper was rising.

“But it is true she has gotten up in the night and wandered away, alone, is it not?”

“It is thrue Esther has walked in her shlape once or twice.”

“But is he not the cause, when she goes to meet him?”

“Mr. Cramer, what d’ye mean, insinuating such things of my Esther?”

“Mrs. McCleary, this is a painful revelation I must make you. But I know that this has occurred, at least once, and I know that Esther was constrained 237to go to this meeting by other power than her volition.”

“Oi don’t belave ye, Mark Cramer,” said the now thoroughly angry woman. “Oi don’t know what yer object is in coming here and defaming moy poor girrl. Oi don’t belave Professor Russell would use any power he has to hurt moy child’s good name. It’s all along of yer prejudice of the maan, that yer thryin’ to make trouble.”

“But, Mrs. McCleary, listen to me, I beg of you, for Esther’s sake. You don’t want me to believe that Esther would go of her own free will to such an appointment?”

“If she has gone, it’s the sperits as has led her. And Oi can’t belave they would harm a hair of her head, aither. When the sperits used to come here first, McCleary used to say, ‘Ye’ll lose all yer friends, Miranda, av ye toike ony sthock in these sperits,’ and Oi sez, sez Oi, ‘If moy friends can’t sthand the sperits, they’re not moy friends at all, an’ I can get along without thim.’”

Mrs. McCleary was thoroughly aroused, and her hands trembled as she clasped the arms of her rocking-chair.

“You are willing, are you, that the spirits should compromise your daughter? Mrs. McCleary, there is not a man, woman, or child in this community that would not grieve to hear this thing of Esther, and would gladly shield and protect her from such influences; but her own mother will not listen nor try to save her.”

“Ye don’t know what ye’re talking about, Mark 238Cramer. If the sperits—but I don’t belave it at all, at all.”

“Mother!” It was Esther herself who interrupted them, Esther standing in the doorway, her face white to chalkiness, her dark-lined eyelids heavy with their burden of tears, her voice thrilling with its passionate intensity. “Mother, Mr. Cramer speaks the truth. It is no spirit that controls me, but the wicked, black one—oh, blacker than hell itself!—which lodges in the breast of that dreadful man, Russell. I have prayed to you, O my mother, to save me from him. I have prayed to Heaven as well, upon my bended knees, but Heaven and my own mother have been deaf to my prayers. You would not hear me, you would not believe me. Yes, you, you, mother, have made me see him, forced me against my own will to see him, until he now controls me, body and soul. If he bade me, I should walk into the bottomless pit. And I hate him, hate him, hate him! O mother, mother, mother!” Esther’s voice ended in a shriek and her slender body swayed as she staggered forward toward the woman whose breast should have been her safe and sure refuge.

Mark caught the half-fainting girl and supported her to a chair.

“Try to calm yourself, Esther,” said Mark.

“Yes, Esther, do be calm! Ye’ve upset moy nerves complately. What does make ye take on so? Oi nivver saw ye in sich a state, nivver.”

“Mrs. McCleary, in view of all this, will you not 239promise me that Russell shall never again enter this house?” Mark asked with resolution.

“Oi—oh—what can Oi promise? Where is Mr. McCleary. It seems to me ye’re all afther drivin’ me crazy!” And putting her handkerchief to her face she sobbed and waved one hand despairingly.

Fortunately the hesitating, shuffling, uncertain step of Mr. McCleary was heard coming up the path, and in a few moments he entered the room.

He looked from one to the other in a helpless, bewildered manner, then turned to his wife.

“Mr. McCleary, will you try to keep Professor Russell from your house? This is all trouble of his making. He has gained possession of your daughter’s will until she is obliged to wander out upon the prairie at night if he bids her to do so. She is completely in his power, poor girl. Only careful watchfulness upon your part and the expulsion of the villain from the community can avail. Look at your child, Mr. McCleary, and see if you will permit him to destroy her!” said Mark, with feeling.

He pointed to the sobbing face of Esther, now pressed against the back of the chair, and ghastly in its grief.

The little man looked helplessly at his wife, then at his stricken child, and his head shook with agitation.

“Yes, I’ll try—I’ll try. We will, won’t we, Miranda? We’ll try to keep him away from Esther. I say, Esther, do you want him kept away?” he continued, going to her side and lifting her poor head in 240his arms. “My little girlie, do ye want him kept away?” he quavered.

“Yes, yes! O papa, if he had never come here!” she moaned, pressing her forehead against his breast. “Papa—papa!”

Mr. McCleary blew his nose and coughed uneasily.

“I’ll promise yer, Mr. Cramer. I’ll promise he sha’n’t. He sha’n’t come if I can prevent it. Poor Esther—there, little girl! He sha’n’t come here again if I can help it.”

For a wonder, Mrs. McCleary said nothing, but with her face concealed in her handkerchief, rocked back and forth in her chair to the accompaniment of her sobbing; and feeling that Esther was finding comfort in the paternal arms, with the old man’s promise, Mark took his leave.

“Nor if I can prevent it, shall he come here again!” he muttered as he walked away. “And I think I can—I think I can.”

CHAPTER XXV TIBBY CONQUERS

Upon the second afternoon of Mark’s absence from home Alice was surprised by the dreaded appearance of Professor Russell. The man had changed his outward guise considerably. His auburn whiskers had given place to a smooth-shaven chin. A red mustache, grizzled with white, decked his upper lip, and his hair was closely cut. Even his eyebrows seemed to have shared in the general cut, and the man looked sleeker and, if possible, more like Uriah Heep than before. Alice did not at first recognize him as he came toward the house, but a glance from those gray-green eyes identified him.

She shrank back with a perceptible shudder of abhorrence.

“You here, Professor? I supposed you had departed to lands afar!” she exclaimed.

“You did not then receive notice of my coming?” he asked, with a meaning look.

“Notice? No—why—how could I?”

“I have numerous unseen messengers.”

Again Alice shivered, and turning toward her sister-in-law, beckoned her approach. Mrs. Wylie left the bunch of prairie flowers she was plucking, and came forward, while at the same time Tibby came around the corner of the house, leading Robert.

As Alice presented the Professor to each in her 242turn, she observed the keen look he cast upon them, and noted later the return of his gaze to Tibby. Her beauty was evidently not lost upon him.

As for Tibby, she regarded him steadily, as again and again his eyes sought hers. They appeared like two children trying to look one another out of countenance. Then Russell’s eyes fell and he turned to enter the house, while Tibby, her eyes dancing in triumph, followed him in and sat down opposite him, watching him much as a cat watches the crevice in a wall through which a mouse has disappeared. Evidently Tibby was very ill-bred. There was a peculiar electrical charging of the air. Mrs. Wylie noticed it, and looked apprehensively out of doors to see if a storm was approaching, then at Alice. Alice felt its influence and trembled. Tibby alone seemed unmoved and entirely serene. A wicked, yellow gleam shone in her expressive eyes.

“Is your husband at home, Mrs. Cramer?” Russell asked at length, after taking a chair a short distance from the door, and tilting it slightly backward against the wall.

“No, I am sorry to say he is not. But why do you ask, Professor? I supposed you always knew.”

“I have neglected to make inquiry this time, Mrs. Cramer. Undoubtedly I might have learned had done so.”

Tibby rolled up her eyes with an expression of youthful innocence.

“What a lovely idea that would be for making calls, Mrs. Wylie! One could always go and leave cards when people were away from home.”

243Mrs. Wylie shook her head at the girl reprovingly.

“Ahem! I have taken the liberty to invite over some of our friends for a meeting to-night,” said the Professor.

Mrs. Cramer could hardly repress signs of her annoyance.

“I am very sorry—” she began. “It is unfortunate Mark is not here or that you did not take the trouble to inquire beforehand. For he decidedly objects to anything of the kind here in his absence.”

Truly, Alice was becoming brave.

“I am sorry for Mark’s blindness,” the Professor said, with priestly assumption.

“Mark blind? How very strange. I should never have suspected it,” said Tibby with childish naivete.

“He is blind to the truth, Miss Waring. A sort of moral blindness, which is the worst form of ophthalmia.”

“Oh!” Tibby opened her eyes to their widest extent and met his look squarely. Then her eyes narrowed until only a rim of blue was visible, and she did not take them off the visitor. It soon became evident that the Professor was annoyed by this childish scrutiny. He changed his position several times and finally turned upon the girl abruptly.

“Have we ever met before, Miss Waring?”

“I think not,” Tibby said, with an emphasis that sounded much like “I hope not,” but she did not relax her persistent watchfulness. Surely the girl, though handsome, was very ill-mannered. She acted like a child who had met an interesting specimen.

244“Have you had any new experiences, Mrs. Cramer?” the man asked, again changing his position nervously. He was evidently upon the defensive so far as Tibby was concerned, and did not care to longer challenge her attention.

“N—no,” said Alice. “I think I have been less annoyed by unpleasant influences, lately,”—then, catching Tibby’s eye,—“since you went away,” she added.

Professor Russell gave Alice a sharp glance, as if to determine whether any disrespect was intended by her remark, while Tibby’s eyes danced mirthfully.

“We trust,” said Mrs. Wylie, with a dignified raising of her chin, “that as Mrs. Cramer is getting her nerves under better control, she will not be haunted any more by imaginary spectres.”

“You think them, then, a mere delusion of the senses?”

“Most assuredly.”

“But if I should tell you that I, who am not in the least nervous, can see forms about Mrs. Cramer, why should she not see them?”

“Because they are not there. Because you make her see them. Mr. Russell, we feel, my brother and I, that you have done a serious wrong to Alice, and I know if Mark were here he would not permit you to see her.”

“Eh? What? Not to see her? Mark must be beside himself. Why, I am sorry. I regret very much that—that—that—Why, bless you! how sleepy this warm weather makes me. I have really allowed myself to become wearied. Perhaps I ate 245too hearty a dinner. Mrs. Cramer, may I trouble you for a glass of water?” And Russell started up and passed his hands before his eyes as if to brush cobwebs from them. “I have been walking about in the heat all day and it’s almost overcome me, I reckon.”

Alice rose to go to the well at the back of the house, and it was several moments before she returned.

“Here is the water, Professor,” she said, coming forward with a pitcher and glass upon a small tray. “I have drawn some fresh for you.”

But her words seemed wasted upon the man before her, who was apparently deaf and blind to all external influences. “Why, can it be he’s asleep?” she continued, under her breath.

“Ah, I hardly think—he’d be so severe as that. I am—much—interested—much in—the dark,” muttered Russell. “I’m—m—m—” His chin dropped, his eyes closed, and he sank back heavily in his chair. Tibby arose and approached him with cat-like tread, looking at him eagerly. She waved her hand before his face. “Yes, you’re asleep fast enough!” she said exultantly. The man began to breathe with the measured rhythm of deep sleep.

“Mrs. Cramer, you are free from that man’s influence,” Tibby continued, with a long sigh of conscious relief. “I was so afraid I could not get him under control, as he might be on his guard. But you distracted his attention, Mrs. Wylie, and then I got him. He was warm and tired from walking, and a heavy dinner too, probably. Did I do the baby 246act well? He probably thought I was the personification of rustic innocence and did not fear me. Ah, you’re asleep now, old fellow, and cannot awaken until I give you permission. I can see Donald Bartram coming,” she continued, looking out of the door. She waited for him to come up, standing upon the step of the cabin, a picture of animated life.

“For once, Mr. Bartram, you are on hand when you are wanted.” And she courtesied to him mockingly.

“For once? Rather say, always,” he replied with assurance. “But what is it now? Whew!” as he caught sight of the slumbering man.

“Can you ask? Don’t you see it is a sleeping beauty; and as he’s liable to wait until the Millenium for the princess to come to awaken him, or a thousand years, more or less, suppose we bury him.”

Donald looked from the face of the laughing girl to the sleeping man, in amazement.

“I put him to sleep,” she vouchsafed.

“By all that’s good, if old Russell hasn’t met his match!” he whispered.

“O, you needn’t whisper, he won’t waken; and it isn’t a lucifer-match, so don’t look surprised, but please suggest to me what to do with him.”

“It’s Tibby that has put him there,” said Mrs. Wylie. “She has mesmerized the creature. Ugh! I hope there is no danger of his wakening.”

“Not until I waken him,” said Tibby.

“Then suppose you wait until Gabriel sounds his trumpet,” Donald suggested.

“Mr. Bartram, I am bad enough, but you are positively 247wicked! To think of punishing poor Mrs. Cramer by having such a clod as this left around to look at.”

“Miss Waring, if the man is in a hypnotic sleep, any suggestion you may make to him, he will act upon. Why not use him as he has Esther McCleary? Make an exhibition of him.”

“What, make him dance? I might try. Wouldn’t it be fun? We should have a larger audience, though. I wonder if I can. Oh, what a joke it will be!”

“Certainly you can. He can be made to dance, talk, make a speech—even tell the truth, perhaps. Try it!”

“He said when he came in he had invited some people here to a seance to-night,” said Mrs. Wylie. “It is nearly time to expect them, is it not?”

“That’s so. Jump on your pony and go after Esther, Mr. Bartram. How I wish Mr. Cramer were here. It will be a joke for them to find him asleep.” And Tibby’s eyes glowed wickedly, with yellow fire in them.

Donald, nothing loth, started upon his errand.

“Be sure he does not waken,” he said.

“Never fear! I’ll see to that,” she called after him.

Poor Alice Cramer had not spoken since the drama began. She was frightened, yet glad in her secret heart. She feared this man so much, it was a satisfaction to see him harmless and sleeping, and Mark would be home before the night was over.

“Ah, Mrs. Cramer,” cried Tibby, “just pay no attention 248to him. I’ll make him go and lay in the corner, if he is in your way.”

“Oh, no!” cried Alice, frightened at her daring. “Let him remain where he is. You’re sure you can bring him out when you please?”

“Yes, indeed!”

Alice stepped about softly, as if in fear she would wake him, while she arranged the furniture in the room.

“I am sorry he arranged for a seance here to-night,” she whispered. “Mark will be angry.”

“But he isn’t to have one. Don’t you see. It’s I that will have the seance, and he is to dance at it. Oh, you wicked man, I have heard enough about you! Are you not wicked? Answer me!”

“Yes, I am wicked,” came from the lips of the slumberer.

Tibby clapped her hands with delight.

“I can see Sol Garrett coming now,” Alice said, going to the door.

“Dear me! What will they say?”

“They’ll say Satan is outwitted,” said Mrs. Wylie.

“Well, I am sure I hope it is all right,” Alice replied, with a sigh.

Before Mr. Garrett reached the house, Donald galloped up from the opposite direction and threw himself from the horse.

“How is it, have you got him fast?” he asked, hurrying in.

“Yes, but where is Esther?”

Donald frowned.

249“She is either not at home or would not see me,” he said.

“And her mother?”

“Was nursing a headache and would not see me.”

“Ah, then they will not be here. I am so sorry,” murmured Tibby. “Esther ought to see him act the clown’s part.”

Mrs. Jenkinson soon arrived, with Auntie Dearborn and the Pemberton twins. Sol Garrett waited to come in with Lissa Bartram, and three or four others soon followed them. They all started back at the sight of the sleeping Professor, and looked at one another inquiringly.

“Too much spirits,” said Tibby audaciously.

“Why, you don’t say? Has he been drinking?” queried Auntie Dearborn in a loud whisper.

“No, he’s overcome by spirits, but not of that kind,” Donald said.

“A stronger spirit than his own controls him,” added Mrs. Wylie.

“Strong spirits are always dangerous,” giggled Tibby in an aside to Donald.

“Weak ones are more so,” he replied in the same tone.

The company were soon seated about the room, looking curiously at the slumbering medium.

Then Donald explained to them that his sleep was an unnatural one, induced by Miss Waring, who had, like the Professor, hypnotic powers.

“We propose to prove to you that much that this man has taught is fallacy,” he said. “That which he has claimed to be spirit manifestation is much of 250it only hypnotic suggestion.” Then at a signal from him Tibby came forward.

“Come, Professor!” she said with authority. “You are asleep, very sound asleep, are you not? You cannot open your eyes if you try to, can you?” The man made an evident vain effort to do so.

“Now, put out your arm.” The subject obeyed. “Put it down.” Again he obeyed her.

“He is all right,” said Donald, biting his mustache nervously. “He will dance if you tell him to.”

“Come, these people have come here to see you dance, Professor. You know you are a dancing master and can perform in a wonderful manner. Mr. Bartram will whistle a jig for you. Now begin!”

Donald gave Tibby a humorous grimace, but he struck up a lively tune, and the Professor, springing to his feet with the agility of a youth, kept time with him in a most ludicrous manner. He flourished, kicked, double-shuffled and pirouetted in the manner of a professional stage minstrel.

“That will do now! You are tired,” said Tibby, after the man had continued his exhibition until his audience was convulsed with laughter.

“You see,” said Donald, “it was not spirits, but hypnotism, that made Miss McCleary entertain us by waltzing.”

“That is true, is it not, Professor?” Tibby asked.

“Yes,” he nodded, “it is true.”

“Well, I swan!” said Solomon Garrett. “If this don’t beat all creation! Has that man been foolin’ us all this time, or is he dancin’ with spirits himself.”

251“He is controlled by this lady here. There is nothing supernatural about it,” replied Donald. “She controls him, as he has us, many times, making us see and believe what had no existence. Miss Waring will make him see things not here.” He looked at Tibby.

“Professor, Mark Cramer is standing over you with a horse-whip. Look out, he is going to strike you!” The man showed signs of terror, and shrank away from the supposed antagonist. “You had better strike back.” He doubled up his fist and struck back with energy. “There, you have hit him, he is down.” The Professor glared at the floor, smiling with the air of a conquering pugilist.

“Here is a piece of candy for him,” said Donald, handing Tibby a piece of balsam-weed.

“Yes, here, Professor, you are fond of sweets. Eat this.”

The Professor took the stick and bit it, smacking his lips, and chewing it with apparent relish.

“What is it?” asked Tibby.

“Candy,” he responded.

“No, it’s poison,” she said.

Immediately his face was distorted and he strove to eject it from his mouth.

“There, it is all right. You know you have been deceiving these people and now you are going to make a speech and tell them the truth. Tell them how you tricked them,” continued Tibby.

“My friends,” said Russell, “I will now undertake to explain to you all that has seemed to you mysterious and supernatural. I am a mind-reader and a 252hypnotist. I sometimes figure as a spirit-medium. I have the power of going into a trance, when my senses no longer control my mind, and then I can see through time and space; and what has seemed to you unaccountable except by spirit agency is simply the result of natural forces not yet well understood.”

“That is true,” said a voice at the door, and the spectators turned to see Mark Cramer entering the room. Tibby gave him a meaning look and put her fingers to her lips.

“I have deceived you and worked harm among you,” the Professor went on; “and not only here, but in many other parts of the country. I am planning more mischief still. Esther McCleary is in my power—”

“Stop! You have said enough!” cried Tibby, alarmed at his words.

“Yes, I’ve said enough,” he repeated.

“Shall I awaken him?” Tibby asked, turning to Mark.

“So you’ve really hypnotized the villain. Good girl!” cried Mark, and his hand was extended to her in friendly appreciation.

“Yes, he’s been dancing, and giving himself away badly,” said Donald.

“Are you all satisfied that he is a fraud and a villain?” asked Mark, looking about him.

“We have his own word that he is,” replied Sol Garrett.

“O, his dancing was too funny,” giggled the Pemberton twins.

“I don’t know what to think of it, but I believe 253the Professor will explain it when he comes out of his trance,” said Mrs. Jenkinson. “I am sure he has been under control.”

“Under Miss Waring’s control,” said Mark, with a frown. “Can it be that you will yet ascribe this to spirit agency?”

“He was controlled by a dancing master,” said the twins.

“Mark, I wish you would send him away,” whispered Alice; “I am so tired.”

“You may as well awaken him,” Mark said. “These people are bound to be deceived.”

“Awake!” cried Tibby.

For a moment the Professor’s face became convulsed, he struggled desperately, then fell prone upon the floor. Donald and Solomon Garrett assisted him to his feet, and for a few moments he stood staring and glaring about him.

“What are you doing here, sir, when I forbade you the house?” cried Mark. “Get out of here at once, and never let me see your face in this part of the country again, if you value your miserable life!”

The man glared at Mark in impotent rage.

“Come, go! I know all your iniquity and I swear I’ll have a mob after you before another night if you’re in this vicinity!”

Mark spoke with angry vehemence.

“I go, but your wife will follow me,” Russell said, turning and fixing his eyes upon Alice Cramer. Mark saw her totter forward, and catching her in one arm he drew a revolver from his belt and levelled it at the Professor’s head.

254“Will you go?” he hissed.

Professor Russell did not stop long to question the muzzle of a revolver, and sprang out into the night. The neighbors, too, frightened by Mark’s savagery, made short adieux and went home.

Alice was nearly unconscious from her fright, and Mark bore her to a couch.

“I should like to have kicked that hound into the middle of next week!” he muttered. “Heaven knows what he has done to my poor Alice.”

“I hope it’s not I who have harmed Mrs. Cramer,” faltered Tibby.

“No, no, child! Not you! You have done good work. I wish I had been here earlier.”

Tibby lifted Mrs. Cramer’s white face in her arms and whispered softly to her. “He has gone, and will never harm nor frighten you again.”

“Mark did not kill him?” she questioned.

“No, only frightened him away. Mark is here.”

“You will not let him come again,” she said, looking with appealing eyes into Tibby’s face.

“Never!” said Tibby with finality.

With a sigh of relief she sank back upon her pillow, and after a time, Tibby, believing her asleep, stole softly away.

“I’ve been a brute to frighten Alice so,” Mark said as Tibby came out.

“No, it was Russell that frightened her. I wish before I wakened him I had driven him out and told him not to stop going,” Tibby replied.

“We would have a second edition of the Wandering Jew,” Mark responded.

CHAPTER XXVI ESTHER’S DISAPPEARANCE

The shock of Professor Russell’s last visit and forced departure prostrated Alice Cramer, and in the days that followed, a little life that should have brightened Mark’s home opened its eyes to shut them too quickly, and went away into the unknown from whence it came, leaving desolation and sorrow behind it. But this bereavement was swallowed up in the anxiety for the mother, who for many days seemed about to follow her child.

At the same time another calamity befell the community, a tragedy that touched all hearts. This was nothing less than the sudden and unaccountable disappearance of Esther McCleary upon the night Russell had been driven from Mark’s house.

Where she went or how, no one could determine. She had gone to her room at the usual hour of retiring. In the morning she was gone, leaving no word or trace of her going. Her mother refused to believe that any harm could have befallen her, and would have kept the matter secret; but the poor father at last dared to think for himself, and notified the neighbors.

With their help he searched the canon and the weed-covered tracts of the prairies to find, perchance, her body, while Donald went to the nearest railway 256stations to learn if she had been seen to depart by any of them, but to no avail.

Whether she had, in the depth of her despair, taken her own life; whether, to free herself from the noxious presence of Russell, she had disguised herself and fled to parts unknown; whether she had been spirited away by some of his familiar spectres, or whether, in his complete obsession of her, the unprincipled scoundrel had abducted her, could not be learned. She was gone, and the unfortunate mother had leisure to inquire of her own conscience, how far she had been to blame for this tragedy in her home.

Professor Russell had not been seen in the neighborhood again, and during Alice’s convalescence the unfortunate events occurring during her illness, as well as those preceding it, were rarely alluded to, and her friends were delighted to find her apparently happier and brighter than formerly. Lissa, too, had largely recovered her normal condition, owing chiefly to Tibby’s influence, and the world looked brighter to some of the actors in this part of it.

The exposure of the deception practised upon them, added to the mysterious disappearance of Esther upon the same night of Russell’s departure, staggered the belief of many of his converts, and no seances were held in the neighborhood.

The weeks wore away, and yet Mrs. Wylie remained at her brother’s home. She felt as if Alice really needed the companionship of Tibby and herself. In the early autumn Mr. Wylie was going to New York on business and would call for her, and together they would go East. The sojourn had been 257a pleasant one for Mrs. Wylie, despite the tragedies enacted, the excitement, and the absence of the fashionable circle of her friends. Her little boy had grown brown and stout-limbed in his liberty, and she herself was rested and happy. The long letters from her husband, which came with unfailing regularity, filled with news and anecdotes of the life in which he lived, helped to break the monotony of rural life, and as September approached and she began to look forward to his coming, the little estrangements were forgotten and Nellie Wylie dwelt fondly upon her husband’s perfections as she talked of him to her sister-in-law.

“You cannot think, Alice, what a wonderful business man Horace is,” she said as they sat in the little doorway of the house one beautiful September evening watching the sun sink behind the fringe of cotton-wood trees in the distant west. “If he were to fail in business to-day he would be on sound footing to-morrow. He seems to know instinctively what to do. I need never have any fear for the future, having him to rely on.”

“He has been very kind to allow you to stay with us so long. He must be very lonely without his family,” Alice replied.

“Yes, though he is with his sister a great deal, and she is—Forgive me, dear, I was about to say she was one of those dreadful spiritists. But really she is fanatical in her beliefs and goes to such lengths in it. That is the one regret I have for being away. I don’t like her influence over Horace. But forgive me, Alice, I beg of you. Though I hope now you 258feel the same as I do about it, I know I should not have introduced the subject.”

“On the contrary, I am very glad you have done so. I want to tell you that since Professor Russell went away I have seen fewer visions and thought less upon the subject. I am really much less nervous than when you came, and yet I cannot entirely rid myself of those—spirit presences. If the evil ones have been driven away, there are kind ones who come to me in my dreams. I believe Tibby exorcised the evil ones who made life such a torture to me, and I cannot tell you how thankful I am that you came here this summer and brought me deliverance. But for this I should have been lying there with my baby, or been in the mad-house. I am sure of it. But I see Mark coming. I must run and see if tea is made for him.”

“Well, sister mine,” Mark said, springing from his horse and throwing the reins over its neck. “When do you expect to hear from Horace?”

“To-day, now! Give me the letter quick!” she cried, holding out her hands to him. “Ah, a telegram. He must have started, then.” And she hastily tore open the envelope. “Yes, it is from Johnson, his partner, and says, ‘Wylie started on No. 5, to-night, for the East.’ Oh, isn’t that grand! He will be here in a few days.”

“You have been somewhat lonely here in the wilds, I suspect, little sister; but we shall regret your going.”

“And I shall miss you all very much, wherever I am; but I suppose Horace will be willing to stop 259only a very short time, so we can be here but a few days longer. Let me see, this is the eighth. He should be here by the twelfth, should he not? Robbie, come here, dear. Papa is coming. Do you hear?” And Nellie Wylie caught up the little fellow and kissed him in the exuberance of her delight.

“I am glad you will leave Alice in so much better health, mentally and physically, than she was when you came,” Mark said.

“Yes, and better than all, with that man banished from this place.”

CHAPTER XXVII A LEGAL DOCUMENT IS RECEIVED

“He will be here to-day! Surely, Horace will be here to-day,” Nellie Wylie repeated to herself as the hours crept slowly on and the time arrived when, by her reckoning, her husband should have reached C——.

Mark had driven out to meet him, and the little woman scanned again and again the broad bosom of the plain for a sight of the returning carriage. The grass was dry and golden in the sunlight and her eyes ached from the reflected brightness as, shading them with her hand, she stood for the fiftieth time before the cabin door and sought to trace the slender thread of roadway.

“Alice, I am sure there is some one coming,” she cried at last, as a brown speck became visible against the horizon. Alice came and looked over her shoulder.

“It is only Jackson, the mail-carrier, I am afraid,” Alice replied. “You know, dearie, Mark would be detained for a little time, while Jackson has hastened directly here. You must not look too much upon Horace’s coming to-night, for the train may have been delayed or many things may have happened to detain him.”

The letter-box was fastened at the roadside nearly opposite Mark’s house, but seeing Alice in the doorway, 261Jackson threw his package of mail to her and galloped on to the next post.

“Here is a letter for you, dear,” said Alice as she sorted out the mail and came slowly up to the waiting sister.

“A letter? And from Horace, too! He must have written before he started.” And her bright eyes glanced eagerly over the sheet she had hurriedly opened. “Oh, merciful Heaven!”

The cry startled Alice, and she turned to see Elinor stagger as if stricken by a blow and then sink in a limp and helpless heap upon the ground.

“Why, Elinor! Nellie! What is it?” cried Alice, running to her and lifting the poor fallen head in her arms. “My poor Nellie! Is it bad news? Tell me!” she implored, while she rubbed the pulseless wrists and tried to arouse her to consciousness.

“Mamma, mamma!” cried little Robbie, frantic with alarm, trying to open her eyes with his little brown fingers. “Mamma! Is she dead?”

“No, Robbie, not dead. Oh, my child!” cried Alice; “if Mark would only come!”

“Uncle Mark is coming,” cried Robbie, and Alice lifted her head with a silent prayer of thanksgiving as she heard the sound of horses’ footsteps over the soft earth.

“How glad I am you’ve come!” she sobbed, as a few moments later he reached her side. “What can have happened to poor Nellie? Some dreadful news, I’m afraid.”

Mark lifted the letter, which still remained in her nerveless fingers. An enclosure fell from it to the 262ground. He picked it up and hastily looked it over. It was evidently a legal document, and as he read the first line his face grew pale with surprise and anger.

“Great Scott! What is this! Oh, my poor little girl!” And the great-hearted Mark Cramer turned away his head and groaned aloud. He turned to see Elinor staring at him with rigid eyes, full of wonder.

“What has happened, Mark—Alice? Oh, I know, I know!” and again the blue eyes were covered with the heavy eyelids. Then Mark lifted her in his arms, and bearing her as lightly as though she were a child, he carried her into the cabin and laid her upon a couch.

“Poor child, poor child!” he muttered. “It is her only chance of forgetfulness. It would be better almost if she never wakened.”

“Mark Cramer, will you tell me what has happened?” cried Alice, who had followed him in and now stood holding Robbie’s hand, her eyes dilated and expectant. Mark hesitated, but finally said through closed teeth:

“That paper is a copy of a bill of divorcement from Nellie.”

“A divorce? I don’t understand!” Alice caught her breath.

“Yes, that knave of a Wylie has divorced this poor girl! God only knows for what or why he has done so. But, by the eternal powers, I’ll know why! That man shall answer to me for this!” Mark’s eyes blazed.

“Hush, Mark! You are excited and know not what you are saying. There must be some mistake. 263It is probably only a joke. He has written Elinor every day, kind, affectionate letters, and I think he was to have come to-day, may be here in a few hours. He is only playing a practical joke upon her.”

“If so, he shall pay dearly for his joke!” Mark exclaimed. “Ah, my poor little sister! My poor Elinor!”

“Don’t, Mark! Think of Robbie hearing you! There is surely some mistake.”

“It’s a mistake he shall rue,” he groaned.

But Mark’s anger gave way to fear as hour after hour went by and Elinor only awoke from one swoon to go into another. Mark paced the floor, distracted with anxiety.

“Poor Nellie, I dread the hour when she shall finally awaken. Heaven is merciful to her in thus keeping her unconscious,” he repeated again and again. “What can have made the change in Horace Wylie? I should have supposed him too proud a man to have entered a divorce court, even if their life had been unpleasant. And I have always believed them to be congenial and happy. Surely my poor little sister loved him.”

“I am afraid, Mark, there is another woman in the case,” Alice said with conviction. “Depend upon it, no man could do such a cold-blooded, cruel act as this unless his affections were enchained by some other charmer who has usurped his wife’s place in his heart.”

“Hush! she hears you,” Mark whispered, as a faint moan came from the couch and he saw the blue 264eyes slowly unclosed to be fixed with painful directness upon him.

“What is it, dear; can I do anything for you?” he asked, going to her and stroking her curl-fringed forehead with his hand.

“Where is Tibby,” she murmured.

“Sure enough, where is Tibby? Alice, is it not time for Tibby to be home? Where did she go?”

“She went over to Nathan’s this morning, and has not yet returned. Shall I go after her?”

Elinor shook her head and looked with stony, unseeing, fixed eyes at the farthest corner of the ceiling. How pinched and drawn the white face looked, that had bloomed so rosily a few hours before.

A moan again escaped her white lips. Alice sighed in sympathy.

“Don’t, Nellie! Think of Robbie. Poor Robbie, he wants to speak to you.”

“Mamma, I love you,” Robbie said, softly patting her cheek with his little brown palm. “What makes you sick, mamma?”

“Robbie, Robbie, dear, dear Robbie! O God! O God! It cannot be!”

And again her eyes closed and she was still.

“It is better, anything is better than that awful stare,” Mark said, bowing his head. At last, as evening approached, Tibby was seen coming slowly along over the gray plain, swinging her hat in her hand and laughing with Donald, who accompanied her. Alice looked at the flushed face of the happy girl, so radiant, so hopeful, so roseate, and her heart sank at the thought of her meeting with the crushed, 265broken lily who lay upon the couch behind her. And she slipped quietly out of the door to meet Tibby and prepare her.

She put up her hand, enjoining quiet, as Tibby swung her hat in salutation.

“Tibby, dear,” Alice said as the twain came to her side, “Mrs. Wylie has received bad news, and is quite overcome by it. She asked for you and I think you may be able to comfort her.”

Tibby’s face blanched a little, and the laughing lips were sobered.

“I will go in at once. Good-by, Mr. Bartram. I’ll leave you to Mrs. Cramer’s care.” And she flitted away.

“We’re in great trouble, Donald. Mark will explain to you at another time,” Alice said.

“You have my sympathy, whatever it may be,” the young man replied gravely. “If I can be a help in any way, command me.”

“Thank you, Donald, we are always sure of that.”

He lifted his hat.

“You may bring Lissa over to-morrow. Perhaps the skein of mystery may be untangled by that time and more explainable,” she said as he turned away.

With the coming of Tibby the stony stare of Elinor’s eyes was washed away by blessed tears, and with her head upon Tibby’s breast she wept long and silently, while Tibby soothed her with whispered words. Then after a time the sobs became less frequent, and to the relief of all, Elinor slept.

“Thank God for this! and thank you, Tibby, also!” Mark ejaculated. “I feared her mind would 266give away to the shock. But this sleep will restore her. What a blessing is sleep. This world would be a mad-house of maniacs without it.”

“Yes, Mr. Cramer; but may I not now know what this all means?”

Mark handed Tibby the document which had wrought the ruin. She read it through with corrugated brow, and then sat thoughtfully with it in her hand.

“Can you understand the cause for this, Tibby?”

She shook her head.

“No, unless—I do not know, but there was a woman on the boat with us when we went to Santa Barbara, whom Mr. Wylie seemed to admire and who appeared completely infatuated with him. So much so as to cause remark. I did not tell Mrs. Wylie, but I overheard people talking of her. She was in some way one of his kind, that is, she believed in spiritism and he seemed to enjoy her society.

“Mrs. Wylie did not like her because she had been at the hotel in the mountains when we were there, and the ladies had been somewhat scandalized by her behavior. But of course it seems incredible that she should have been able to cause trouble. I should not think of her, only at the time I felt such an instinctive dislike for her, and fear, as if she was dangerous.” Tibby spoke with evident reluctance. “I am afraid I tried to punish her sometimes.”

“Punish her? How?”

“O, I made her upset her coffee, spill her soup, 267and do other awkward things. I am glad now that I did them; that is, if she is to blame—for this.”

“I see you feel convinced that she is,” Mark said. “And I am inclined to trust your intuition.”

Tibby’s care of Mrs. Wylie was untiring, and when another day had come and the grief-tortured woman could control herself sufficiently to talk of her trouble, Mark sought from her to learn something more of the cause of it; but any suggestion of the idea that Horace had been beguiled by another woman met with indignant protest from Elinor.

“O, no, no; there is nothing of the kind! Horace has always been devoted to me. I think he must be insane. I can account for this in no other way. I am sure his belief in spiritism has in some way been the primary cause of the trouble. It does unbalance the mind, we know,” she faltered. “We never had any disagreement except over that.”

“Yes,” Mark said, “I am willing to believe that anything may come from embracing that creed. But what does he write you, Elinor?”

“Here is the letter. Read it and interpret it if you can. I have read it several times with no further enlightenment,” she replied sadly.

“‘I fear this letter may prove a surprise to you, and a shock. I hardly know how to make you understand the reason why I have taken this step. It seems to be a necessary one. But I have not taken it without due reflection. I am convinced our marriage has not been the soul-marriage, which is the 268only true one, and that our tastes and requirements are so dissimilar, it is better that we should go separate ways. I am willing to provide abundantly for all your needs and for Robbie. You will, of course, desire to keep him with you at least until he is old enough to be sent away to school. I have placed with my attorney a sum of money which shall be paid to you regularly each month, sufficient, I am sure, for all your requirements, and I shall be glad to supplement it if at any time you desire more.

“‘Is there anything here at home which you would especially desire me to send you? I imagine you will prefer to make Forest City your permanent home, and I would suggest that you keep Tibby with you as long as possible. Your harp and piano I have already had boxed awaiting your order. And now, dear Nellie, I hope you will accept this trial in the right spirit, believing it for the best, as I do. It has been a trial, also, to me, I assure you, but it has seemed a duty, if not an actual necessity.

“The man is certainly insane, or—”

“Infatuated with some other woman,” interrupted Alice as Mark hesitated.

“I will never believe that,” said Elinor pathetically. “I shall write to him. Yes, I must write to him. This seems so unreal, I am constantly feeling as though I should awaken and find it but a painful dream.”

269“Yes, write to him by all means, and learn, if possible, the cause of this change of heart.”

“I’ve been wondering where I should address him. You know his partner wired me that he had started for New York. You don’t think he could have gone through east, already?”

“I will go to town to-day and telegraph Johnson,” Mark responded.

He did so, and received this reply:

“Wylie left San Francisco for New York, the eighth instant, in company with his wife.”

“‘Oh, my prophetic soul!’” quoted Alice, when she heard it, and Tibby nodded assent.

“I know it is that woman of the boat. My instincts did not deceive me,” she said.

How Elinor lived through the next fortnight she could never have told. She remained as one stunned, and unable to talk to any one. She would lie on the couch for hours and not move, or sit under the canopy of the doorway, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, her sad eyes staring pathetically into space. When spoken to she would arouse herself with a start, and look at her friends with so pitiful an expression in her blue eyes that they would turn away to hide their tears of sympathy. She ate only when urged to do so, and slept only when forced to do so by Tibby.

“If we could only interest her in something,” Alice said over and over, for she scarcely even noticed little Robbie.

270At last Lissa came in one day, bringing her herbarium of Nebraska flowers.

“This was a God-send to me,” she said, “when I was brooding over my sorrow. Perhaps I can interest Mrs. Wylie in it.”

“O, how much you have done with it,” cried Tibby, “since the time when you and I made our first botanical excursion together.”

“You drew my attention from the dead to the living, growing things about me, Tibby, dear, and I can never thank you enough,” Lissa replied.

Wonderful as it may seem, Mrs. Wylie did allow herself to become interested in the bright descriptions which Lissa gave her of the native wild flowers of the State, and promised to go with her in the afternoon to gather autumn specimens, and thus the first step was taken in distracting her mind from her grief.

CHAPTER XXVIII HORACE WYLIE’S PHILOSOPHY

Let us now make a flying trip to the Pacific slope and go back to that hour of parting at San Francisco to learn more of the motives that prompted the tragedy in Elinor Wylie’s life.

Passenger train No. 9, eastward bound, pulled slowly out of the great depot building of the Oakland Mole, and the hurrying and excited throng of people pressed forward, jostling elbows and crowding one another after the manner of travelers, who sometimes leave their politeness and good breeding behind them when they take up their valises.

The coaches were fast becoming filled, when a gentleman entered one of them, accompanied by a child and two ladies, one a pretty blonde, whom he helped to a seat and bent over in tender leave-taking.

“Good-by, Nellie! Write me when you get through, or better, wire me from Denver, so I may know all is well. Tibby is with you, so I need not worry if the trains run right.”

The little lady smiled through tear-moistened eyelids as she replied, and kissing her again, and the child, and shaking hands with her companion, he sprang from the train as it began to move.

Horace Wylie stood watching the long line of coaches as they moved away from him, biting the ends of his mustache in an absent, absorbed inattention, then turned slowly back within the gates, a strange mixture of emotions controlling him.

272The inward monitor, conscience, was not yet stifled, and it was holding a mental mirror before his vision. He caught a flitting glimpse of his real self, stripped of all the sophistries and delusions under which he loved to hide. Was he not a traitor, double-dyed? For a moment he felt an impulse to rush after the departing train and seek to stop it in its flight. A vision of his wife, looking trim and attractive in her fashionable costume, remained and upbraided him with her trusting blue eyes.

It was but a moment, however. Another face superseded it—a dark, brilliant face, with passionate southern eyes, and red, full lips; a face more sensuous, more bewilderingly intoxicating to him in its voluptuous beauty and piquancy.

Horace Wylie shrugged his shoulders and shook himself as if to shake off the oppression of self-reproach. He had made his decision and would abide by it. After all, what mattered it? He had but one life to live. It was right to get all the enjoyment out of it within his reach.

He had not confessed to himself before why he had been so willing, and more than willing, that his wife should make a visit of three months at her old home. It had been her wish to go, and he had magnanimously granted her permission. Thus he told himself. But he knew he concealed, under a pretense of self-denial, the secret joy he felt that her own voluntary act should lend aid to the furtherance of his half-formed designs. He had not told the better part of himself what these designs were. It is doubtful whether at this time he had faced the fact 273that they were designs at all. They were mere desires. At least they were vague, shadowy, evanescent creations, taking form from his desires, and developing slowly in the secret, dark chambers of his bosom.

He felt now, rather than thought consciously, that the barrier which had restrained the current of his impulses was washed away and he might sink in the lethal waters or be drifted away from prudence and engulfed in the maelstrom of pleasure. He could not say vice, but a guilty consciousness oppressed him now as he stood upon the platform watching the last curling waves of smoke float backward.

Wylie boasted of being a man of progressive ideas, a modern philosopher, who had outgrown the old-fogyism of the past generation and arisen to a plane where he could sit and lay down laws unto himself—mark out a plan of life for this world and the hereafter. He was well-read in modern sciences and a student of mental philosophy. He confessed himself infidel in that he denied the Divine origin of the Scriptures, laughed at what he called the pretty fables that bound the conscience of the orthodox Christian, and felt himself superior in his latter-day wisdom. He claimed to be a free-thinker and a liberalist, who read Huxley and venerated Ingersoll, but had adopted a modern creed more in accordance with modern requirements. He confessed to a decided leaning toward spiritism. In fact, if his ideas were really expressed, he believed a man had a right to do about as he pleased in this world, despite moral and civil law. Not that he would have confessed 274as much to himself. That was another of his self-delusions. But he had outgrown in theory, with the fables taught him in his youth, his boyish code of morality. He had also outgrown, so he believed, his love for his wife, whom he had married many years ago, when he was but twenty-one, a mere boy, incapable of judging or choosing wisely. So he argued with the better self. Not that he found serious fault with her. He secretly wished he might do so, but she had been faithful to him, he believed, and upheld the family honor; was pretty, stylish, domestic, social, and a kind mother to his son. All this he was forced to acknowledge. But she was one ideaed, commonplace, he told himself, and she was not his spiritual affinity. Ah, there was a reason furnished by his lately adopted creed. She was not his affinity.

He could remember a time when she was all in all to him. But he had outgrown that time too. Of course he loved his boy, and if,—if certain imaginings and fancies should materialize,—well, he needn’t consult his better self about that yet.

“Hello, have you fallen asleep, watching that train off?” A friendly hand slapped him upon the shoulder.

Wylie started as though his thoughts were patent to all observers.

“I—I have just sent off Elinor and the boy,” he said with confusion.

“Ah, that is—shall I say fortunate or unfortunate? Fortunate for them perhaps—bad for you. And you were following them with your mind. Are they to remain away long?”

“Three months. They will go to the Atlantic 275coast before they return.” Wylie spoke with an effort.

“And what will you do while they are gone? Board at the club, I suppose.”

“Yes, at the Bohemian. I am at the office all day, and most of the nights, so shall have little time to miss my family.”

“I see. Well, come to the club oftener, when you can get away. By the way, have you attended any of Mrs. Mount’s receptions lately?”

“Yes, I go often. They are enjoyable, which is saying much.”

Wylie spoke with enthusiasm. His companion shrugged his shoulders suggestively.

“I suppose that depends whether you are in sympathy or not with the very liberal ideas discussed there.”

“Are you not in sympathy?”

“I don’t like some of the people who go there.”

“Did you ever find a society every individual of which you deemed companionable?”

“Possibly not, but I have reference to two or three conspicuous persons who are notorious for their immorality.”

“To whom do you refer? Not Mr. Falkner?”

“Yes, Mr. Falkner for one. He is much married and divorced.”

“I am sure all was legal, so far as I know. He separated from number one, and was again married. When number two ran away and left him, he obtained a second divorce, and—married again.”

Wylie’s companion looked at him with curious eyes.

276“I am surprised that you approve of him. From his conduct last evening I should judge there will be a chance for a third divorce. I cannot like the man.”

“His conduct? How?” Wylie inquired, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, nervously. His companion gave him a scrutinizing look.

“With Mrs. Hartner,” he replied in a dry tone.

Horace Wylie winced, but he said in a tone of affected indifference, “I consider Mrs. Hartner a lady.”

“Yes? Do you know where her husband is?”

“No.”

“It is rumored that he has been hired to leave the country.”

“For what reason?”

“To enable her to get a divorce.”

“So? Well, it’s none of my affairs,” and Wylie laughed a mirthless laugh.

“Nor mine, but if I were interested in the lady I should keep her away from Mrs. Mount’s. Ta, ta, Wylie. This is my corner.”

Young Holden sauntered around it slowly, out of sight.

“Confound the fellow! Why did he say that to me? It can’t be that he suspects—but no, that is impossible. There is something confoundedly disreputable about a divorce, that’s a fact. But this double life is risky, especially with such a keen-witted wife as Elinor, and Berenice is so determined, and insists—well, time enough to think of this later. It’s a relief to know that Elinor is where she need not hear all the gossip of the clubs.”

CHAPTER XXIX DRIFTING

The autumnal days were nearly gone, and occasionally was felt the sharp tooth of the biting wind as it swept over the open prairie and drove the Westerner into his cabin, with a tingling warning in his ears that winter was soon to come. Then again the sun would shine brightly and the soft graces and tints of Indian summer would brighten the landscape.

The weeks had brought a degree of calmness and resignation to Elinor Wylie, and to Tibby varied experiences. For some reason, though Donald Bartram spent most of his spare time with her, she preferred not to be recognized as the object of his affections. Poor Esther McCleary’s disappearance was too recent, and although nothing definite had been known as to Donald’s interest in her, the gossips of the neighborhood had been pleased to couple their names together.

It was not certain that Esther was dead. She might purposely have hidden herself from Professor 278Russell, and if so might return at any time, now that the man came no more to the community.

It ill became Donald to give so much time to this fair enchantress who deserved so little consideration from him. Of all the provoking, undisciplined minxes, Tibby appeared the worst. Alice and Nellie wondered daily at his forbearance, and commented on Tibby’s behavior.

As for Donald himself, he was drifting with the tide of events, and the pastime pleased him too well to care to interrupt it by very serious thoughts or determinations. Tibby was interesting. He enjoyed her society. That was sufficient.

To-day he had claimed Tibby for a ride to the post, and as they came cantering slowly along the soft gray turf, Tibby with her riding-hat tipped back from her wide, smooth forehead, her feline eyes half closed from the sun’s bright rays, her dark hair partly escaped from comb and pin, and fluttering in curled rings about her face, her red lips half parted above the white teeth, she looked to the man a disheveled Hebe, too adorable, too incomprehensible to withstand.

His eyes flashed with a new resolution as he rode up close by her side.

“Miss Tibby, were you never serious in your life,” he asked, bending toward her.

The girl slackened her horse’s pace and looked over and past him reflectively.

“Yes, once,” she said at last, as if she had taken time to review her life from the beginning.

“I should like to know when it was.”

279“Well, I will tell you, though it is a very impertinent question for you to ask, and I feel under no obligation to answer it. It was when I lived in the country and had an attack of quinsy. I couldn’t speak for three whole days, and the village doctor diagnosed my case as diphtheria. I expected to die, of course, and I really felt quite serious and anxious, I must confess.”

“You had reason to, if you could not talk,” Donald replied in a dry tone.

“So I thought. When one can neither talk nor breathe, one has time for serious reflection. Now, please, Mr. Bartram, don’t say anything about the delight of my friends under the circumstances, for I think I have heard something of the kind before. I wrote notes to them.”

“That must have been delightful.”

“For them or me?”

“Both. Miss Waring, why are you so unlike other girls?”

Tibby opened her eyes to their widest extent.

“You alarm me, Mr. Bartram,” she said. “How am I different? I’ll wager two bits that I know. It’s these freckles on the side of my nose.” She turned her head toward him with a bewitching air of candor. “I don’t mind them, indeed I don’t. Besides, they are not there all the time, only since I came here and rode about in the sun and wind so much.”

“I am afraid you are incorrigible. You know very well that’s not what I mean.”

“O, isn’t it?” ruefully. “Perhaps you wouldn’t 280mind telling me how I am at fault. I don’t want to be told. I—am very sensitive, as sensitive as a—a nettle, so please do let me down easy, that’s a good fellow,” she said in a wheedling tone.

“You are not sensitive. You don’t care what any one says or thinks of you.”

“Don’t I? Then I must be desperately wicked. My mother used to say that Don’t Care represented total depravity.”

“It is evident you do not care what I think of you,” Donald said, looking straight before him.

“Mr. Bartram, your discernment is wonderful; or is it intuition? Whichever it is, you arrive at correct conclusions. What did you kill when you went hunting last week? Lovely little birds, whose song has been wantonly stilled forever?”

“Indeed, no. I am not so wicked as to kill song birds, not even though heartless women delight to decorate their hats with their dead bodies.”

“Ugh, I do not,” said Tibby, with a shudder. “I don’t even like women who are thoughtless enough to wear them. They are as bad as the Indians who love to dangle scalp-locks from their belts.”

“Granted it is thoughtlessness rather than carelessness, why do you not make it your business to do missionary work among your fashionable sisters and help save the birds.”

The girl shook her head slowly.

“I haven’t enough influence. I do use what I have. But it does no good. Woman’s vanity is such that she will sacrifice even the lives of innocent little birds for the sake of adding to her finery. O, 281I am really disgusted with my sex when I think of it.”

“Why not use the other power you have and make women see this as you do?”

Tibby looked at Donald thoughtfully.

“I’ll do it. When I get back to—”

“Civilization, you mean. Why not say it? I shall not be offended.”

“The first service I attend in church I’ll make every woman feel the weight of the poor bird upon her hat, if possible. It shall be the heaviest sin upon her conscience. She shall feel the ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ But you have not told me what you did kill.”

“Nothing except prairie chickens and a gray wolf.”

“Are there wolves here?”

“Not right here, perhaps, but not many miles away. You may see them in the gray of the morning standing on the top of the sandhills, apparently taking a survey of the country.”

“‘The gray wolf like a sentinel stands,’” quoted Tibby. “Do you know I don’t like to think of hunting or killing anything and I think the reason so many accidents happen to hunters is because the spirits of the victims come back to play mischief with the guns.”

“If you really believe that, you are a spiritist, are you not?” Donald asked absently as he looked at the glowing face before him. “It is a fact there are a great many accidents among hunters.”

“Yes, guns are discharged unaccountably. If we may believe the Eastern religions that our souls are 282reclothed in the form of animals, why may not one of these freed spirits avenge itself; that is, if it be permitted to drift about in ether and overlook us?”

“Or if there is an animal’s heaven. You know Professor Russell saw the spirit of my cat.”

“So I heard. It must have been a spirituelle cat.”

“You look very pretty with your hat tilted in that way,” Donald said irrelevantly.

“Thank you, but such a remark is entirely foreign to the subject under discussion and in very bad taste,” replied Tibby, with a pout of her red lips. “To punish you, I shall not speak to you for a long time.”

“Won’t you,” he answered dreamily, his eyes partly closed against the half-veiled sun.

“Most assuredly not,” she answered with a finality that should have been convincing. Then as she did not speak they rode on for some time, silently gazing, as their horses walked slowly, at the beauty of the wonderful farm-lit expanse before them, the gray fields, the dotted river wold, the sand hills in the distance, the adobe dwellings and the adjacent stacks, all silently touched by the golden glory of the setting sun.

“I like this gray landscape,” Tibby said, breaking the harmony of silence. “Its very monotony is restful. A symphony in gray and gold. A light gray sky, a darker ground, and a girdle of gray hills against the horizon. The whole sun-tipped. Even the river is hidden to-day, usually shining in evidence.

quoted Donald.

“Say rather, ‘Twilight gray had in her sober livery all things clad,’” responded Tibby. “See, the sun has disappeared.”

“I have an idea,” began Donald.

“All your own,” asked Tibby gravely, while she whipped the tall weeds by the roadside with her riding-whip.

“No,” Donald replied pleasantly; “it is borrowed.”

“You don’t care then to pass it on.”

“No.”

Again they rode for several rods in silence, while Tibby, with wicked insistence, punished the balsam-weeds and kept her face turned from her companion.

“Miss Tibby.”

“Tabitha, if you please.”

“Miss Waring.”

“Ah, you are improving.”

“Is this our last ride?”

“I hope not,” she replied, looking about her in feigned alarm. “You are not expecting the day of judgment?”

“Why not? We know not the day nor the hour—”

“O dear! What have I done now, that you should talk like judge, jury, and executioner all in one?”

284“I am a pretty good judge.”

“Of what? Live-stock?” Tibby replied pertly.

“I should not presume to judge the dead.”

“Indeed!”

“Have you enjoyed your wild sojourn here, Miss Waring?”

“Extravagantly! There are some marplots, of course,” she added, looking at Donald and smiling wickedly. “But I really have enjoyed the summer.”

“It’s a pity this fine weather cannot always last.”

“I never did enjoy a croaker!”

“I am a weather prophet. This fine day is the herald of a storm. We shall have few such before the winter will be upon us.”

“I am sorry. Tempest and I have been such good comrades, have we not, old boy?” Tibby patted the horse’s neck with her gauntleted hand.

“You have kind words for everything except me,” Donald said accusingly.

Tibby laughed a ringing, merry laugh, and turned toward Donald with shining, challenging eyes.

“The poor little man, was I unkind to him? I really didn’t know it. What shall I say that is kind?”

“That you love me and will become my wife.” It was an unsuitable time and place for such a demand, and Donald realized it when the words had escaped his tongue. He had not intended to say as much at this time, and he execrated himself for his folly.

Again Tibby’s large eyes opened to their widest extent, rebellion and reproach in their depths.

“O, you foolish, wicked man! How you have 285disappointed me! Where is Esther McCleary? O, you shifting weather-vane!”

“Don’t, Miss Tibby. Why should you ask me of Esther? You surely do not think me responsible for her abduction. Esther was to me as to you, a friend. I never professed to love her, or any other woman save you.”

“You are mad! You don’t know your own mind!”

“I’m afraid you do not, Tibby. Listen to me.”

“Hush! I command you!” Then, with a laugh, she touched her horse with her riding-whip. “Race for me then!” And she was off like a rocket.

Donald accepted the challenge. Madly they flew along over the gray sward, Tibby several yards in advance, her mellow laugh ringing back to him as the two mustangs, evidently enjoying the fun, settled down to their fastest paces, needing no urging. But urge as he might, Donald could not gain the advantage Tibby had taken at the outset, and for four miles they rode thus, until flushed, panting and defiant, Tibby drew rein at Mark’s doorway, and reached her hands to Mark himself to take her down from the horse.

“Why, what foolishness now? I’m afraid you’ve been racing,” he said, noticing the heaving flanks of the horses.

“Yes,” Tibby explained, with a note of contempt in her voice, “that presumptuous young man thought he could catch me. I hope he realizes his folly.” And she shot a triumphant glance at Donald, who 286had dismounted and stood by his horse’s head. He smiled serenely.

“Yes, when you are carried on the back of a Tempest,” he replied. “Besides, we didn’t start fair.”

“Ah, the beaten ones always complain of a poor start, don’t they, Mr. Cramer? I shall always ride Tempest. I can never give him up, never!—for anything but a cyclone,” she added, with another swift glance at Donald. Mark laughed.

“You’ll have to take him with you when you go, I reckon,” he said.

“You dear man! And you dear horse, not to stumble and betray me! What more can I ask for in this life?”

Donald stood looking thoughtfully at Tibby for a moment while she stroked and patted her pony, then, reaching out his hand for the bridle, he led the horses to the stable, while Tibby, provoked at Donald’s calm acceptance of defeat, went slowly into the house.

“I do wish I could make him angry just once,” she said to herself. “He is so exasperatingly cool and self-controlled, I can do nothing with him. He must think me the most undisciplined girl extant. But I beat him in the race. What should I have done if I had not?”

Meanwhile, Donald called himself unflattering names for so far forgetting time and place in his wooing, but smiled as he thought, “She has challenged me to race for her, and I shall win at last. The race is to the one with the best staying qualities, and I shall not know when I am beaten. She is worth racing for.”

CHAPTER XXX THE COMING OF THE STORM

Winter was slow in claiming sovereignty over Nebraska in the year of which we write, and coquetted with summer through all the weeks of November and December. Such snows as had come were light and short-lived, and the winds had been less furious and threatening than usual at this season of the year.

Donald and Tibby had enjoyed many rides over the gray plains and river wold, and were apparently the best of friends, notwithstanding Donald’s premature declaration. But their camaraderie was far from sweethearting. It looked as if Tibby had decided to put their acquaintance on the I’ll-be-a-sister-to-you footing.

To a less determined man than Donald this might have been disheartening, but he had firm faith in the efficacy of persistence, and though he never annoyed Tibby with declarations of love, he made her ever conscious of him as the considerate, attentive lover.

As for Tibby, she badgered, cajoled, teased, and tried his temper and patience in the manner for which girls have been noted since the world began. Why it is that the average girl delights in such actions has never been satisfactorily explained, the parallel of such conduct being found only in the cat playing with the live mouse.

With Tibby the feline nature seemed fully developed, 288and she toyed with the victim in her claws most exasperatingly. Never consciously had she given Donald reason to think, or flatter himself, that she cared for him except as a good comrade with whom to pass the winter and summer of her sojourn in this western land.

But when Tibby behaved worst there lurked a smile of conscious power in the unrevealed depths of Donald’s gray eyes, much to the girl’s vexation and discomfiture, while he remained outwardly unruffled. He had entered the race to win, and his nature was buoyant and strong. Why need he be discouraged? Physically strong, handsome, and athletic, he was possessed of average ability, enjoyed a good income, and his future looked promising. Why should he fail? Thus he reasoned.

A fortuitous chain of events had thrown Donald into Tibby’s society and kept him in close communication with her until he felt that he knew her better, appreciated more her real worth, of nature and character, than any one else about her. She had challenged him to win her. He would make it the business of his life to do so.

Mrs. Wylie’s change of plans had aided him in keeping Tibby in the community, though had she gone away he doubtless would have followed her. The bereaved woman shrank from meeting her society friends in Forest City, and to go to the Pacific Slope was to put her in proximity to her recreant husband, and—sadder to contemplate—his newly wedded wife. And Elinor had listened to her brother’s persuasions to spend the winter in their 289home. Thus, much to Donald’s satisfaction, Tibby had remained to be his daily companion in this isolated region. The world, with its modern pleasures, seemed far away from them. He need fear no competitor while she remained here. For this reason Donald could bide his time, free from anxious disquietude.

“How lovely the air is this morning,” cried Tibby one day in early January as she stepped from the door of Mark’s home and looked across the farm-lit plains to the brightening glory of the winter sun in a sky of cloud-fleeced blue. The low-lying ridge of hills skirting the eastern horizon gave the effect of a mural and fortress-crowned landscape, and Tibby’s eyes glowed with pleasure as she gazed about her.

“You should not brave, bare-headed, even the winter’s mildness,” said Donald, who had come over early to bring a message from Lissa.

“Since when were you called Dr. Bartram?” asked Tibby mockingly.

“I was only prescribing the ounce of prevention,” returned Donald.

“O, the cure comes later, I suspect.”

“I am afraid it will have to, for one so careless as you are inclined to be.”

“This is a lovely day for a ride. I am going to ride Tempest over to Anna Falkner’s,” Tibby continued, ignoring his remark.

“Better not go so far. This bright morning is a weather breeder. I can feel snow in the air.”

“Mr. Bartram, the role of mentor does not become you.”

290“Think not? How am I as a weather prophet?”

“Worse and worse! One could have no faith in your predictions.”

“Not until they have been proven correct, perhaps.”

“Tibby,” said Elinor Wylie, interrupting them, “hadn’t you better come in and make an angel-food cake this morning? Alice is busy and the girl doesn’t know how.”

“Certainly, there’s nothing I like to do so well,” responded Tibby cheerfully, springing up the steps and starting toward the kitchen.

“Sha’n’t I come too?” asked Donald. “I want to learn to cook; besides, you don’t know how useful I can make myself.”

“Do you hear that, Mrs. Wylie? The audacity of the man! As chief cook I am queen of the kitchen and no intruder dare enter its precincts.”

“Without invitation, of course. But I expect to be invited.”

“O, you do? The conceit of some people is unbearable. Well, if you will be upon your good behavior I’ll not be inhospitable. But see that you don’t talk too much and make me spoil the cake. What do you expect to do to help me?”

“O, stone raisins, and build fires, and—and—look at you.”

“Stone raisins? We don’t use them in this kind of cake, you ignorant fellow.”

“Donald sat down by the stove and watched the girl as she broke the eggs and separated the yolks 291from the white, and dexterously whipped the latter to a snowy froth; then sifted the flour.

“Whew! What a lot of eggs you use!” he exclaimed.

“The whites of eleven only, and I’ll make a gold cake of the yolks. That’s economy.”

“Ah, I understand.”

“As you do the magic of Hermann. You wouldn’t know how to make this if you watched me make a dozen, I am sure.”

“The whites of eleven eggs,” began Donald.

“Yes, and one glass of flour sifted five times, with a teaspoonful of cream of tartar.”

“But cream of tartar is sour, and cakes should be sweet, shouldn’t they?” questioned Donald.

Tibby looked at him with an expression of pitying contempt.

“I told you, you couldn’t understand it. It’s beyond your comprehension.”

“Try me and see! What else do you put in this wonderful compound? Sugar, of course?”

“Yes, one and one-half cups of sugar and a teaspoonful of flavoring. That’s all.”

“O, that’s easy to remember,” said Donald, repeating it glibly.

“Good boy! You’ll do with good tuition. Then you must beat, not stir, the sugar and flour and beaten eggs together in this way. See?”

“Yes,” answered Donald, noting with admiring eyes the movements of the rounded wrists as she exemplified her instructions.

“And now you must put the batter into a bright 292cake pan, perfectly dry, and bake fifty minutes in a slow oven.”

“But how can I tell whether the oven is slow or quick?” he asked.

“That is something beyond your comprehension. One of the things out of your reach, you know.”

“Ah, I see! I confess I have my limitations. But what is the name of this snowy creation? Didn’t I hear Mrs. Wylie speak of angels?”

“Certainly! This is angel’s food.”

“Ah! Food for angels, or made by them? Which?”

“Neither. It is of the earth, earthy. Even you can safely eat it.”

But Donald was watching the graceful contour of the dimpled elbow beneath the uprolled sleeve, and did not for a moment respond to her retort.

“Yes—ah—what is it?” he asked, recalling himself.

Tibby’s pink chin was elevated. “Shakespeare never repeats,” she said sententiously.

“But you are not Shakespeare.”

“Well, I’m nearly the same thing. I’m bakin’,” she said with a giggle.

“O, you’re too bad! Such a pun as that is atrocious! Bacon? Oh!” And Donald sank back in his chair and made a feint of fanning himself. “I’m struck all in a heap.”

“Well, when young men are so impolite one feels like throwing puns, or any handy weapon, at their heads. I may take the rolling pin next,” said Tibby.

“Really, Miss Tibby, I beg your pardon for my 293inattention, but the fact is, I was following a train of thought which was—”

“Composed of empty cars,” put in Tibby.

“No, I assure you, heavily freighted.”

“Indeed!” with an exasperating lifting of the brows. “No doubt you were reflecting upon your past misdeeds.”

“I was thinking of you.”

“Then your thoughts were not worth questioning. Your train was surely overloaded. To punish you, I shall bid you adieu, and go to get ready for my ride,” replied Tibby, with a severe tightening of her pretty lips, as she went over to the sink and began to wash the dusting of flour from her arms and hands.

“I suppose you do not intend to invite me to ride with you,” Donald remarked tentatively.

“No, indeed. You might take cold. And besides you prophesied a storm.”

“If you should be caught out in a blizzard I might be of some help to you.”

Tibby turned and faced him, her mischievous, glowing eyes holding his.

“You?” she said.

“Yes, even I.”

“But if I don’t want you along?”

“I shall meekly stay at home, of course. But it strikes me you are extremely unkind.”

“Not to myself. Besides, I do not want you to run into danger. See?” She gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of her eyes. “Mr. Bartram, I am going to ride and meditate all by myself to-day.”

294“If I withdrew to a safe distance couldn’t you meditate at home?”

Donald looked through half-closed lids at the mocking eyes and pouting lips before him.

“There is nothing like a canter over the prairies to aid one’s meditation.”

“I wish I could persuade you to stay at home to-day. You are certainly taking a great risk in going, at least in going so far.”

“It is my risk. No one else need worry about it.”

“You are of too much value to your friends to expect their unconcern in what affects you so seriously. Even I am anxious, you see,” continued Donald, speaking quietly.

“Even you? Of all persons in the world least interested, or ought to be. Since when have you become responsible for my actions?”

“Since I learned to care for you more than all others.”

“Mr. Bartram, you are melodramatic. I shall not listen to you any longer,” said Tibby, a flush dyeing her cheeks as she gathered up the discarded apron and hung it up.

“Will you not shorten your ride and come home before the storm?” Donald asked persistently.

“I shall not measure the length of my rides by your tape measure,” retorted Tibby, tossing her head, while the crimson spot on her cheek deepened; “neither shall I let you accompany me, even if you rode behind me. Your presence would mar all my pleasure.”

Tibby felt the tactless impertinence of her words, 295and her eyes fell beneath the gray ones fixed questioningly upon her.

“That’s pretty severe, if you mean it,” Donald replied, speaking with great deliberation. “Thank you for your frank manner of telling truths, however. It is good of you. One would rather be hit straight in the forehead than in the back. Is it George Eliot that says, ‘Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through’?”

“Why don’t you get angry with me?” Tibby tapped the floor impatiently with the toe of her boot.

“Because you are trying to make me so, and besides, it isn’t my year to be angry,” he said with a drawl, his gray eyes still upon her.

“O, you insufferable prig!” exclaimed the girl desperately. “As if the man ever lived who didn’t get angry. Tell me, were you never angry?”

“Yes, I think so—once,” he drawled. “Yes, now I reflect upon the matter, I remember I was once, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I’d rather not repeat it, even to please you, Miss Tibby.”

The girl turned from him petulantly.

“I think it would please me very much,” she said. “Such even tempers are abominable. Good-by!” And Tibby backed out of the room, waving her hand dramatically toward him. “Dryden tells us to ‘Beware the fury of a patient man,’ and I will run before your wrath breaks forth.”

“Is Tibby more perverse than usual this morning?” Alice asked as Donald buttoned up his coat preparatory to departure.

“Yes, in tempting Providence by riding to the fort 296this morning. If I am not very much mistaken, we are to have a small blizzard before night.”

“O! I hope not,” sighed Mrs. Wylie. “I have never experienced one, but Alice has been telling me of blizzards, and of people perishing in them not far from their own doors. I cannot realize such a thing possible.”

“Wait until you’ve seen one,” said Donald soberly. He shook his head as he stepped out of doors. “Tell that wilful girl to take no chances,” he said, turning back. “There’s surely a storm coming. She will not listen to me.”

“Don’t forget, Mrs. Cramer, to take my cake from the oven in fifteen minutes,” Tibby said a little later, entering the room.

“Why do you go when there is a storm coming?” inquired Mrs. Wylie.

“Who says there is a storm coming? No one but Donald, and he is a croaker. I’m not afraid. Tempest will be a match for any storm that ever blew.” And a few moments afterwards Tibby tripped gaily down the path to the horse’s stable, her riding-skirt thrown over her arm, and her whole figure alert with joyous anticipation. As she emerged upon the back of her favorite horse and swept past the pedestrian, Donald, she called out saucily:

“Isn’t a Tempest more in evidence to-day than a blizzard, Mr. Bartram?”

Donald waved his hand at her, and she was gone, her low, rich laugh coming back to him in the moist air.

Before Donald reached Nathan’s the sky had begun 297to be flecked with clouds, light and fleecy, that seemed to speed swiftly high in the air. Then he felt drops of rain that seemed to come out of the somewhere. At intervals the sun would shine brightly and warm. As the hours wore away Donald’s anxiety increased.

Lissa looked out at three o’clock, to see the sky overcast with clouds, and large scattering flakes of snow floating about in the chill air. At the same moment Donald rode up from the stables on the back of his favorite horse, Duke, a large, powerful animal, of great intelligence and endurance.

“I am going over to Mark’s, Lissa,” he cried, “to see if Tibby has returned. Within a half hour it will be impossible to see a rod ahead of one. If that wilful girl should attempt to start back in the face of the storm, as she is almost sure to do, she can never get home alone. Don’t go out of doors yourself. I’ve made all secure at the stables. If Tibby has returned I shall be back in a few moments. If not, I shall go to meet her.”

Lissa’s face paled.

“I know the danger, Donald. I hope, oh, I hope you’ll find her all right at Mark’s!”

Donald was already far down the road, when the wind, suddenly veering, swept the house with such a shock Lissa was glad to close the door and draw up to the great stove for warmth.

A few moments later Donald was at Mark’s door, and the swift-falling snowflakes were already obscuring the landscape when he rapped with his riding-whip and met the startled face of Mrs. Cramer.

298“Has Miss Waring returned?” he asked anxiously, searching Alice’s countenance.

“No, and I am becoming worried about her. She would be sure to start home when she saw the storm coming up.”

“Yes, I am going to try to find her. The wind is rising fast. Can you lend me a couple of blankets?”

Alice flew to an adjoining room, and quickly returned with a bright woolen parcel, which Donald strapped to his saddle securely, while a wild gust of wind swept past him and struggled and tugged with him for their possession.

“Why are you carrying your rifle?” Alice asked, noting his strange accoutrement.

“I will tell you,” said Donald, again seating himself firmly in the saddle. “Have you a gun here?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“And you know how to use it?”

“Most assuredly.”

“Then you must help me to find my way. I want you to fire it every time you hear the report of my rifle. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Don. Do you think the danger is so great?”

“Yes, we are in for a furious storm. Now remember, answer all my signals, and—if you should not hear from me for a time, keep firing every few moments anyway.”

“Yes, Don. Heaven help you to find Tibby and bring her home safely to us!”

A moment later Donald was lost to view in the whirling, swirling masses of snow that filled the air, 299and Alice, taking down the heaviest gun from the wall, examined it carefully, and loaded it with a charge of powder.

“What are you doing with that gun, Alice?” asked Mrs. Wylie, who, hearing the sound of voices, had risen from her couch and now came into the room.

“I am going to answer Donald’s signals to guide him through the storm.”

Mrs. Wylie’s eyes opened wide with alarm.

“But why has Donald gone out in it?” she questioned, looking from the window into the impenetrable, snow-filled air.

“To find Tibby, Elinor.”

Mrs. Wylie sank down in a chair and pressed her hands to her side, while her lips grew white.

“Why—Alice, do you suppose Tibby can be out in this terrible storm? I have been sleeping and did not realize it was upon us until the gusts struck the house and I heard you talking with some one—Donald, was it?”

“I hope, Elinor, that Tibby has not started out in this, but if she has she may lose her way and freeze if some one does not find her. I have been very uneasy about her for some time.”

“Oh, how dreadful, dreadful!” And as Mrs. Wylie continued to gaze out into the opaque snow-world about her she began to realize for the first time what a western blizzard might mean. “Why did I not have sense enough to keep that child at home?” she moaned. “I shall never forgive myself if she is lost.”

“We should both of us have seconded Donald’s caution, I’m afraid,” replied Alice. “I am not so 300weather-wise as he, yet I should have known what such a morning in midwinter portended here. Tibby delights in teasing Donald, and of course would not heed his warning; but she would have listened to us had we been persistent.”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid I am the one who always listens to her. I don’t see why she treats Don so,” Mrs. Wylie said.

“Don’t you? I think I do. It is because she cares for him, and will not acknowledge it, even to herself. But do look at the storm, Elinor. Is it not terrifying? Where does all this snow come from? The ground is already heavily sheeted with it. And listen to the wind. How it wails and shrieks, buffets and pounds. We are fortunate in being safely housed, Elinor.”

“But if Tibby is out in it! Oh, I cannot bear the thought!”

“Hark! there is the report of Donald’s rifle. I must answer it.” And Alice sprang to the window, and raising it a little way, put forth the heavy gun and discharged it, its detonation bringing an answering shriek from Mrs. Wylie.

CHAPTER XXXI CAUGHT IN A BLIZZARD

Tibby had foolishly dallied in her home-coming. Even after mounting her horse she sat in the saddle and indulged in the prolonged exchanges of good-bys so common to young girls, until the blackening sky and threatening flakes of snow admonished her, forcibly, to return in haste.

Tempest, glad to have permission to go at last, sped over the ground with wonderful strides, covering the first half of the journey in a short space of time; but as the wind arose and the soft flakes gave way to hard, rice-like, cutting kernels of snow that beat in his face, he became staggered in his pace, and finally, as the storm in all its fury bore down upon them, both horse and rider lost all knowledge of distance and location, their only effort being to keep the road. Tibby, blinded by the storm, and forced to ride with her head bent forward and down, felt her faithful beast stop and whirl half around as a furious blast, chill as the arctic snows, struck them. The icy flakes cut into her flesh like splinters of steel as she lifted her face to look about her. She could see nothing except the whirling deluge of white enveloping her. She was lost, lost.

“O Tempest, good Tempest!” she wailed, “can you see the path no longer? Will not your instincts guide you home? Try again, Tempest! Alas, I 302know not which way to turn you! But go, Tempest, go! We shall freeze if we stay here. Go!”

But the horse, buffeted by the driving storm in his face, would move forward only a few paces, then turn his head and stop, bewildered.

“O my God, what shall I do?” she moaned.

The cold was creeping up her limbs and benumbing her. She felt that she must die there, and so near home. She thought she must have traversed nearly the distance, if they had kept the road. Ah, if they had kept the road. She was in doubt as to that. The horse, cowering and baffled, had turned around. She turned him back, facing the storm, and with hand and voice she urged him forward. For several moments he plunged into the opaque snow-world before them, then again blinded, baffled, and storm-beaten, the faithful animal stopped, and bowed his head to the fury of the elements.

Tibby lost courage, and laying her face on the poor beast’s neck, sobbed in despair. Oh! why had she been so wilful and neglectful of Donald’s warning? He had been anxious about her, and tried to save her, but she had in her silly pride and egotism ignored him and his counsel, and now she must die. How cold she was. Her breath came in short, hard pants. The wind seemed to take it from her and carry it away. It seemed to her that the elements sported with life, and the wind, with demoniac shrieks of frenzy and laughter, pounded and pommeled and bruised her as she lay upon the neck of the trembling, cowering beast which had borne her so gallantly that morning.

303“O Tempest, Tempest, we are surely lost, lost!” she wailed. “God has let loose all his furies upon us; no where on the bleak, cold, storm-driven and storm-beaten prairie is there shelter for us. If a stable were but a rod away we could not find it. We must die, must die, good horse! Die—i—i—i—ie!” Her chattering teeth would scarcely permit the words to pass.

Tibby tried to pray, but the words would not form themselves. She could only think of her child’s prayer of “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and she remembered reading once of a man who, upon the neck of a maddened bull, thus prayed, and in a hysterical revulsion of emotion she laughed,—laughed and shrieked with the shrieking wind, in hysterical gasps,—laughed even in the face of death. Then, chill and trembling, she felt as if the hand of the grim reaper was upon her, and she lay motionless upon the neck of the horse, half unconscious.

Suddenly she was startled by a sound—the crack of a rifle not far distant. The horse started and lifted its head, then whirled around again in the direction of the sound. She felt the quiver of the animal beneath her, and with an effort roused herself. There was hope in that sound. Some one was near.

“Go, Tempest, go!” she cried. “There is some one near! Some one is looking for us!”

The horse, as if understanding the meaning of the rifle-shot, was already plunging forward, and Tibby clung sobbing, in convulsive reaction, to his neck.

She tried to shout, but the howling wind drowned even her powerful and far-reaching voice. It was 304blowing fearfully now. Each gust nearly tore her from the saddle by its violence, benumbed as she was by the cold. Again the friendly rifle-crack sounded its peal of deliverance in her ears. And farther away she heard, more faintly, a second sound, like an echo, respond.

“They are searching for us, and it must be—Donald!” she thought. Good Donald, whom she had treated so illy! If she ever lived through this terrible time—but how cold it was. She must not die now, so near, almost within sound of his voice. The horse, animated by the nearness of the deliverer, was struggling ahead, not swiftly, but desperately, in the persistent, whirling phalanx of snow. Again, a third time, the friendly rifle spoke, and its tone rang sweetest music to the nearly paralyzed and helpless girl. She felt her faithful horse turn, guided by the sound; she felt his heaving flank, against which her feet were placed for warmth, sway, as he pressed onward, and then she heard him neigh, loud and strong. Good creature! She tried to pat his neck with her numb fingers. His voice was stronger than hers. Hark! Is that an answering neigh borne to her? She cannot shout, for her voice is spent; but Tempest, good Tempest, is calling for her. She clings with desperate grip to his mane. Is that a voice coming out of the darkness of the snow-world? A roar, deeper than the roar of the storm, sounds in her ears, and she feels herself sinking, sinking, down, down.

“Tibby, Tibby!”

She hears a voice at her side and Donald is clasping 305her and enveloping her in something woolen and warm. She tries to reach to him her poor frozen hands as she sobs “Don, Don!” and then in a thankfulness too deep for words she snuggles down in the warm folds of the blanket and again drops her head upon the neck of her noble horse.

“That is right, keep your head down! I will lead Tempest,” she hears Donald say, shouting in his strong voice to her, and again Tibby realizes they are yet in the clutches of the merciless blizzard; but her fear is gone, for Donald is with her and will save her.

“Now don’t be frightened. I must discharge the gun to get my direction,” he shouts again when he has tucked her comfortably in the blankets. Tibby hears the detonation answered by a fainter sound at their left.

“We are all right, child. Alice is signaling us. Try and hold out a little longer.” And Tibby feels the motion of the horse as it sways beneath her, and is dimly conscious of a sense of warmth and relief unutterable. And she forgets the storm, the danger, the oppression of death which was upon her, and sinks away into a half-sleeping state, from which she is aroused only when, at the door of Mark’s home, Donald lifts her from the saddle and carries her into shelter somewhere. She hears, as though far away, the repeated echoes of the rifle; she hears murmured words of encouragement from her rescuer, and then she opens her eyes in bewildered uncertainty as to her surroundings and feels that she has awakened from a harassing dream to find herself safely at 306home, and with a sigh of relief she lays her head more heavily upon Donald’s shoulder and sinks away to sleep again.

Not until afterwards did she realize the struggle Donald had undergone while bringing her home. Not until the neighbors had gathered about her, days later, and commented on the terrible severity and destruction of the storm, which had lasted three days and brought death and sorrow to many homes. Then Tibby heard of those who but a stone’s-throw from their own doors had perished; of others who, like herself, had been lost and wandered about to finally lie down and die; of horses and cattle, in large numbers, frozen to death; of a whole school of children who, headed by the teacher, had tried to make their way through the impenetrable snow and fallen to be gathered in the icy embrace of the blizzard, and delivered into the arms of Death.

And as Tibby reflected upon her narrow escape from the grim harvester, she turned in horror from her wilful self, as she stood with the light of recent experiences upon her. How nearly fatal had been that foolish ride across the prairie which she had wilfully persisted in taking in the face of better counsel. But for Donald, whom she had snubbed and abominably ill-treated, she would have perished. Ah, she was punished, and yet she would not be willing to owe so much to any other man. Donald had been forced to remain at Mark’s until the storm lessened in its severity, but he had gone away before Tibby had fully recovered from her lethargy. He had aided in caring for her frost-bitten ears and 307hands, but he had not returned to make inquiry concerning her since then. Tibby was becoming restless at his continued absence. Was he thoroughly disgusted with her behavior that day of the storm? she questioned.

Could any one have been more exasperating and unladylike? Yes, she merited his contempt—and he had saved her life, saved her from such a terrible death. Ah, if she could blot out the memory of that morning. How she despised herself, her foolish, egotistical self. He would be divine if he ever forgave her. She had tried to make him angry, and how she had been punished. She had even mocked at him when he paid her the highest compliment a man can pay a woman. Why had she acted thus? Why must a woman always be false to herself?

Thus, bitterly, Tibby cogitated, and scourged herself, and shed tears of contrition. But the second week went by and still Donald came not to see her. Tibby became hysterical. She was wildly mirthful and hilarious at times, and again her eyes showed signs of weeping.

Mrs. Wylie became anxious concerning her protege, fearing she was ill. Tibby ate little, and was in every way capricious, and unlike her strong, forceful self. “The shock of her dangerous ride has unnerved her,” Mrs. Wylie reiterated. She believed she ought to consult a physician, but as the nearest one was twenty-five miles away she put off doing so, hoping for an improvement in her child.

At last Tibby could stand the uncertainty no longer. She must know if she was forgiven and reestablish 308the friendship between them, and thank Donald for preserving her life.

She resolved to interrogate Mrs. Cramer, and act upon her advice.

For some reason she felt less reluctant to advise with her than with Mrs. Wylie. She found her hostess putting on her wraps preparatory to going out.

“My dear Mrs. Cramer,” she said coaxingly, “I want to see Donald Bartram, and thank him for rescuing me. I was too ill to do so when he was here, and besides I did not know the magnitude of the risk he ran. Do you think it would be proper for me to send him a note, asking him to call?” There was a touch of anxiety in Tibby’s tone.

“Why, certainly,” replied Alice. “We are not at all conventional here. Besides, the straightforward way is always the best, I think.”

“I hope so,” responded Tibby soberly.

“Yes, you write your note, and I will take it over to him now. Mrs. Wylie and I are going over to Lissa’s.”

“Here it is, I have written it beforehand,” Tibby returned, a flush of carmine vividly emphasizing her embarrassment. “I would rather you did not—that is—Mrs. Wylie need not know of it—at least not now,” she stammered.

“Certainly not. I’ll give it to Donald myself.” And Alice took the gingerly proffered note and slipped it into her pocket.

“It is all right, dear,” she smiled cheerily, in answer to the pathetic questioning of Tibby’s eyes, and she tripped away blithely, happy at the thought that 309she had made a discovery which would aid in adjusting matters to her liking.

Alice awaited her opportunity to place the missive in Donald’s hand, unobserved by any one else, and was pleased to see the start he gave as he looked at it.

Alice Cramer, like every other womanly woman, was a born matchmaker, and this evidence of contrition on the part of Tibby filled her benevolent heart with delight. This submissive, questioning air of the girl was so unlike her usual imperious manner that Alice augured much from it.

“You will go, Don?” she whispered when he again approached her.

“Yes, if you think best.” He met her eyes with an inquiring look.

Alice nodded.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Donald set out across the fields toward Mark’s home with some reluctance. He knew he had, by rescuing Tibby, put her, in a sense, under obligation to him, and he dreaded to meet her upon such a footing. He had remained away from her, resolved that until the remembrance of that struggle in the storm had become less vivid, he would never force his attentions upon her; would never annoy her with words of love.

“If she really cares for me she will be conscious of it in time, and I shall know it,” he reflected. “I will not trade upon the service I have done her. I want her love, not her gratitude.” And he set his 310lips firmly in the resolution not to be betrayed into a renewal of his suit until a more fitting season.

Donald found Tibby sitting dejectedly by the stove, her feet upon the fender and her dimpled chin resting upon her pink, upturned palm, while her eyes studied intently the red coals before her. This was the picture of which he caught a glimpse through the low window as he approached the door. At the sound of his footsteps she sprang up and came forward to meet him, the scarlet flame of the fire blazing in cheek and lip.

“It is so nice of you to come,” she said, giving him her hand in welcome. “You have been so shy of receiving thanks that you have remained away an age.”

“I am glad if it has seemed an age to you,” he answered, smiling. “One likes to have his absence noticed.”

“I didn’t realize how much—how very much I am indebted to you,” she began shyly.

“Don’t, please, Miss Tibby. You know there is no question of debts or credits between friends. I am thankful God gave me strength and direction to find you. It is a serious thing to battle with the elements in the West, Miss Waring.” Donald spoke gently and soberly.

“I realize it now. Can you ever forgive me for my dreadful talk that morning?” Tibby’s lip quivered slightly and she dropped her eyes.

“Why, was it dreadful? I don’t remember it to have been so.”

“And my wilfulness in going against your—advice?” 311she continued, resolved to finish her confession.

“Ah, that was nothing strange. One could not expect an Eastern born-and-bred maiden to be weather-wise on the prairies or realize the kind of storms we have here until she had some experience with them.”

“But she might have sense enough to take some one else’s word for it,” Tibby replied, tapping the floor with her foot.

“Ah, Miss Tibby, I’m afraid we all like to experience for ourselves. We don’t relish excitements second-hand, nor always have faith in the words of others.”

“Well,—I—hope I’m forgiven,” Tibby faltered.

“Indeed, yes, if there was anything to forgive. I didn’t think there was. In fact, I am sure there was nothing of the kind. However, it must be pleasant to exercise the divine function and have no room in one’s heart to remember a wrong. How pleasant this fire is. Nature makes recompense for all the cold and storm outside by giving us the blessing of fire.”

“Yes,” absently replied Tibby, twirling her handkerchief about her finger, and gazing before her in abstraction.

“I am afraid you are thinking, Miss Tibby,” Donald said, after an interval of silence, in which both had studied the fire.

Tibby turned and looked at him with challenging eyes.

“Would you know of what I am thinking?” she asked.

312“If I might dare ask so much, yes.”

“I was wondering what one should do who has done what she regrets.”

“Undo it, if she can,” Donald replied, speaking lightly. “What is it you do when you are sewing? Pull out the wrong stitches and do it all over again, do you not?”

“I wonder if you could or would help me in the undoing.”

“Most assuredly, if I can.” Donald saw a roseate flame, deeper than that in the stove, blaze in her cheeks.

Tibby put her two hands to her forehead and shaded her eyes.

“But you don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what? I do not understand you.”

“You don’t help me.”

“But you must first tell me how.”

“O, you are bound to make me go down in the dust before you,” she said. “You will not—help me. Suppose you unravel the work, back to—to—that time—when you—asked me to be your wife,” she whispered.

“Tibby, Tibby, darling, do not jest with me!” Donald took the pink fingers in his, and the downcast eyes were uncovered save by the dark lashes. “Look at me, Tibby, and tell me—if I ask you the same question again, what will you say?”

“Yes, Donald, if you can bear to take such a wilful, good-for-nothing girl as I have been.”

“Tibby, dear, it is love I want, not gratitude. If it is because I saved your life—”

313“Indeed, indeed, Donald, it is because—I—I love you, have always loved you,—ever since—”

“Since when, sweetheart?”

“Since I found you were the one man I could not control,” she whispered.

CHAPTER XXXII A SURPRISE

At Boxwell Hall a large audience sat expectantly waiting the appearance of Mrs. Lucien.

Among the members present there were five with whom our readers are familiar. The lights were yet turned low, and there was the usual buzz and hum of low-voiced conversation which even those afflicted with superstitious awe could not repress.

“I had some trouble to persuade Major Walden to come,” said Nathan in an aside to his wife. “He has such a horror of this sort of thing, he flatly refused at first; but when I asked him as a personal favor to meet you, he consented.”

“I am sure he can’t denounce Mrs. Lucien, if she is as Elinor describes her,” said Lissa. “I have really begun to like her, just from the description. Ah, I wonder if she is coming now. What a perfectly seraphic face.”

Mrs. Lucien was clothed in a soft, clinging gown of white wool, from which her pure, oval face arose in statuesque grace and beauty.

The dark waves of her hair were brushed back from the rounded forehead and gleamed in shining ripples to her neck as the glare of the foot-lights fell upon her.

“What a striking face! A painter might have made a model of her for a Madonna. She is grace 315personified,” whispered Alice. “I can think of nothing but a statue of one of the graces.”

“Doesn’t she look more like a painting of St. Cecilia?” Mark replied.

“Yes, she does look like her. She is about to speak.”

The chairman of the psychical club led her forward and briefly introduced her as Madame Lucien, who would give exhibitions of psychometric reading and slate-writing. Mrs. Lucien bowed slightly for a moment to the vociferous clapping of hands which greeted her, and then spoke in a low, sympathetic voice, which thrilled her hearers.

“Dear Friends: I do not come to you to-night with any gift or knowledge of my own winning. For some inscrutable reason it has been given me to read that which my physical eyes cannot discern. By some psychic telepathy, or telegraphy, which is as mysterious to me as to any one here, I am made the bearer of messages and permitted to see and describe to you that which is not visible to our mortal eyes.”

She turned toward the gentleman by whom she had been presented, who now bound a handkerchief tightly over her eyes, and addressing the audience, requested that while Madame Lucien was passing under control an usher would gather up from the audience such articles as they would like to submit to the medium for psychic reading and identification.

Handkerchiefs, gloves, pocket knives, etcetera, were being collected, and Nathan was about to detach a charm from his watchguard with which to 316test her powers, when he chanced to glance up at Major Walden.

He was startled. The scene at the office seemed about to be reenacted. The Major’s face was livid and distorted.

“What is the matter?” Nathan asked with alarm.

“You—you—knew of this!” Walden hissed, with a desperate effort at self-control.

“Knew of what? Great Heavens, Major, what do you mean?”

“I can’t stay here. I will not!” He arose to his feet, and Nathan, taking his arm, led him to the open air.

“You’re a villain, sir! I wouldn’t have treated an enemy as you have me. And I thought you my friend and trusted you. O Nathan, Nathan, how could you have done it? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Major Walden, I don’t understand what I have done that was wrong. ’Pon my honor I don’t!” said Nathan stoutly. “You knew it was a spirit—”

“Did you ask me to that place to-night? Tell me!”

“I certainly did, but I did not suppose it could be so offensive to you.”

“You asked me there to see her?”

“Her? Whom? My wife? I asked you to meet my wife, and Mrs. Wylie, and—”

“And her, the woman that—”

“Good God!” cried Nathan, a light breaking in upon him. “You don’t mean that Mrs. Lucien is—”

“My lost wife, Agnes! Yes.”

“Oh! my poor friend, forgive me. I never 317dreamed of such a thing. Believe me, Major, I am innocent of any such plot as this. Mrs. Lucien is an entire stranger to me. I only knew of her through Mrs. Wylie’s friendship for her, and she knows nothing of her past history. We have been blind instruments in the hands of Providence, Major. Why should it have happened?”

“God knows, or the Devil. I’d rather have seen Agnes in her coffin, Bartram. That villain Teasdale must be with her.”

“Impossible! Did he not tell you otherwise? Don’t, Major, lay that crime upon her in your excitement. Surely, surely she is blameless and good. Her face shows that.”

“Aye! Her face is the face of an angel. O Agnes, Agnes! Nathan, I’m beset by a thousand furies and fiends of torture. What shall I do? I want to see her and talk with her. I must, now, now—that I’ve seen her at all.”

Nathan was perplexed.

“You might call at her hotel and see her in the morning,” he ventured to suggest.

“No, I’ll see her to-night. I’ll be here at the door when this infernal business is over, and I will see and speak to her. I want to lift the weight from my conscience, if possible, and I will speak to her.”

“But, think of the shock to her. My friend, is it best?”

“Best? Perdition take me! I don’t know what is best. Leave me! Go back into the hall and tell your friends I am sick—vertigo—jimjams—anything. But leave me to think.”

318“But,” began Nathan, loth to leave him by himself in his excited condition.

“Go in! I can’t be spoken to now. Go back into the hall. Will you?” he exclaimed vehemently.

Nathan turned away slowly and reentered the building, beset with many misgivings. What might not this irascible and tortured man do if left alone?

Mrs. Lucien had begun her reading. She held in her hand a knife which had been submitted to her for test.

“I am sure the person to whom this knife belongs is one of very orderly habits, or was. The present owner has not had it very long. I can see the woman to whom it formerly belonged. She has auburn hair, and is rather below the medium height. She is laughing, and says she won the knife on a philopena.”

“Is this true?” asked the chairman, taking the knife from Mrs. Lucien and holding it up.

“It is true,” responded a man from the audience. “I am acquainted with the knife’s history.”

Suddenly an idea presented itself to Nathan, upon which he immediately acted.

He picked up one of the Major’s gloves which, in his agitation, he had withdrawn and left behind him, and motioning to an usher, asked him to place it upon the table for Madame Lucien’s reading. Then he awaited results with eager curiosity.

One after another the articles were taken up and read.

“This brings me face to face with an aged 319woman,” she said, as a thimble was presented. “She calls ‘Annette, Annette.’”

A woman across the aisle from Nathan began to sob. He noticed the tawdry showiness of her attire, and read in her face a pathetic history as she stood up to reclaim the thimble. “It was my mother’s,” she sobbed, as she dropped back into her seat.

Then Madame Lucien’s fingers lifted the glove Nathan had sent to her.

“I am sure the owner of this glove is a person of very positive character,” she began. “He will combat any irrational belief, or one not proven to his satisfaction. I can feel a chill of opposition. I—I—can—” Mrs. Lucien began to breathe in gasps. Her hands shook. Nathan was frightened at the spasm of agony which swept her face. She dropped the glove and stretched out her hands helplessly.

The manager came forward and assisted her from the platform, amid a buzz of excitement in the audience, returning in a few moments to announce that Madame Lucien had been affected by the heat of the room and would be unable to continue the reading, but he would introduce in her place the trance medium Mr. Eugene Potts, who was both clairvoyant and audient.

While this scene was transpiring in Boxwell Hall, Major Walden was hurrying down the street as though driven by a legion of furies. He felt that he must get away or do that for which he might be sorry. On, on he walked, heeding not his direction or whereabouts. He was fleeing from her and from this nightmare of horror which beset him. And the 320vision before his eyes of the pale, spirituelle face of his lost one kept pace with him. He could not escape it.

An hour later he had turned his steps homeward. He had walked away the uncontrollable emotion which had possessed him at the sight of Agnes, and a calmer spirit prevailed. He had decided that it was better that he should not meet her again. He would go to his office and write her fully, and send her again the letter which he had sent to her Eastern home and which had been returned to him through the dead letter office but a few days before this. She should know how completely he had been punished for his lack of trust in her, and should forgive him, if her sweet, forgiving nature could do so.

The people were returning from the hall. He stepped into the shadow of a doorway and waited for the crowd to pass by and the street to become once more deserted. He realized he scanned each face and figure closely. Was he hoping to see her? No, it were better that he did not; he had settled that question, but now, in the struggle with himself.

The street lamps flamed and flickered, casting weird shadows on the darkened buildings of the business street where he stood. Ahead of him, as he again started forward, he saw a solitary individual stop under a light and take a letter from his pocket, which, leaning against the lamp-post, he began to read. Something in his figure and attitude arrested Major Walden’s attention. He looked at him searchingly as he approached him. At the moment 321the man, hearing his footsteps, turned his face from the letter toward him.

A flame of angry fire shot from the Major’s brain to each prescient nerve and muscle of his being. With a spring he was upon the man, his hand upon his throat.

“Ah, ha! You miserable, white-livered abomination! It is well I have found you now,—now, when your victim is here in this city,—you fiend-ambassador of Satan! Killing is too good for you!”

The attack was so sudden the victim had no chance to cry out, and sank to the ground, with no show of resistance, the Major’s hand in a death-grip upon his throat, shutting off breath from his lungs.

“Take that—and that—and that!” cried Walden, raining the blows with his clenched fist upon the other’s face and shoulders. “I shall kill you! do you hear?”

The victim struggled, his eyes, protruding from their sockets, pleaded for mercy, and his speechless tongue hung swollen from his lips. Voices were heard approaching him, but the infuriated and frenzied man did not heed them. The higher man had, for the time, been lost in the maddened animal.

“You snake! It is a joy to throttle you, to see your lying tongue palsied! Your forked tongue that has stung with its venom God’s best and purest. A thousand deaths could not pay for the ruin you have made, you viper!” and the Major’s eyes, red with passion and fury, glared into the terrified ones beneath him.

It is a fearful thing to see a man, made in the 322image of God, unchain the passions of his soul and allow them to control him. Major Walden was, for the time, a madman.

“Hold on, what’s the matter here?” cried a voice, and a hand grasped the collar of the would-be murderer.

“I should think the fellow was holding on with a vengeance,” said another voice. “Come, let up that fellow, or you’ll be an assassin.”

Releasing his hand from his victim’s throat, Major Walden wrenched himself free from the intruder’s clutch, and planting his foot upon the prostrate man, turned defiantly.

“Is it murder to kill a reptile—a miserable, venomous viper?” he hissed.

“Good God! It is the Major. Have you gone mad, friend? What does this mean?”

“It means that I’ve nearly or quite squeezed the life out of that villain Teasdale. I’ll assure you I shall not let him go till I’ve finished him.”

“Markham! O Markham!”

“Agnes!” he faltered, as he heard the tones of her voice, so pathetic in its intensity.

She stood before him, her hands clasped, her pale face agonized with fear and supplication.

It was a scene for a painter. The gladiatorial attitude of the Major, the frightened faces of Lissa, Elinor, and Alice, with Nathan and Mark standing at either side as rescuers.

“‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord,’” feebly quoted Agnes.

The Major’s hands fell. He took his foot from 323Teasdale’s body as the man began to breathe and struggle to rise.

Mark bent forward to assist him, then started back in disgust.

“It’s that contemptible hound Russell,” he said, with a gesture of abhorrence. “Lie where you are, sir, you travesty upon man, until we see about this! Lie still, or, by the powers, I’ll finish you myself!”

“Get him out of my sight, or I’ll not answer for the results!” the Major cried in a hoarse voice. “There is all of murder in my heart, and my conscience would not trouble me more than if I had killed a snake.”

“The lock-up’s the place for him. He’s unfit to run loose,” said Mark.

“I’m sorry to be found in such company, Captain Cramer, but Nathan will explain to you my cause of provocation,” Walden continued. “And this letter will explain to you,” turning to Mrs. Lucien.

He took a letter from his pocket with a dead letter stamp upon it, and handed it to her. “This has but recently been returned to me from Washington.”

“Wait! He shall explain,” cried Nathan, catching the battered and bleeding Teasdale, or Russell, by the collar and jerking him forward.

“Here, you knave, explain to these ladies that those letters you wrote and sent were but forgeries, fabricated and secreted by you or your emissaries, to work ruin and unhappiness.”

Russell gulped and gasped in an effort to speak.

“Speak! Out with it! Tell the truth!” Mark commanded savagely.

324“I admit it,” he groaned at last. “I wrote the letters and bribed a servant to hide them in a desk at the Major’s house when his wife was away from home, in the hope that he might find them and believe that she was false to him. She knew nothing of them, nor did she ever receive a letter from me.”

“Oh, wretched man! How could you conceive of such infamy!” murmured Agnes, turning away her pallid face.

“It is to be hoped you will receive a just reward for your wickedness,” said Mrs. Wylie, who in the light of this scene could unravel all the mysteries that had so long puzzled her with regard to Mrs. Lucien’s past history.

“He shall receive it if there is any justice in this land of ours,” said Mark. “This is not the only crime he has to answer for. What could have been your object in this case, you dog?”

“Revenge!” Russell uttered the word with an evil sneer.

“Can you ever forgive me, Agnes?” Major Walden had turned from Russell and was looking at Agnes beseechingly.

“As I hope to be forgiven, Markham,” she replied solemnly.

“Thank you. It is more than I have a right to expect. I—” His voice broke in its utterance, and he turned away to recover his self-control.

“And now what shall we do with this fellow?” asked Nathan. “Turn him over to the police?”

“He certainly should not be allowed to go about leaving in his wake the slimy trail of the serpent,” 325responded Mark. “I’ll swear out a warrant charging him with abducting Esther McCleary.”

“There are reasons,” said Major Walden, “why it might be unpleasant to bring my affair into court. However, I am ready to testify against him if needed.”

Mark turned again toward Russell, but to his consternation and astonishment the man had vanished. Before the eyes of six persons he had managed to glide away unobserved. They looked up and down the streets, peered into stairways, and searched alleys, but he was not to be found. He had disappeared as suddenly and entirely as though the ground had opened and swallowed him.

“A guard of his imps must have snatched him away,” said Nathan as the men came back from their search to the place they had left the women.

“Perhaps he assumed his natural form and slithered away on the ground to his den,” said Walden.

“I imagine the fellow must have hypnotized us,” Mark replied. “I can’t account for his getting away without being seen by some of us by any other hypothesis. But let us believe it is good riddance. He’ll not be apt to trouble any of us again. I should like to have had him reveal Esther’s whereabouts, however.”

“It’s a pity he’s at large to ruin other homes,” Mrs. Wylie murmured. “But if God permits him to live, I suppose we may.”

“Markham!”

“Agnes!” The Major turned toward his former wife and stood with bowed head and dejected countenance.

326“I must ask you a question which has been upon my lips since I met you, but which I am almost—afraid to ask. Is Freddie alive?”

“Yes, Agnes, yes. He is with me. I will send him to you at once. Oh, my God!”

“What is it? Is he ill? Is anything wrong concerning him, my precious boy?”

“No, he is well,” he groaned. “Freddie is well, and bright and good. You may well be proud of him.”

“Thank God, oh, thank God!” She put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed for very joy. The other women wept with her. Finally, while her moistened eyes shone with the happiness of the moment, she said tremulously: “I have news for you, Markham. I want to tell you what perhaps I should not have kept from you, that God sent me solace for the loss of my children. A little girl was born to me soon after the death of my darlings. She is with me here at the hotel. Do you care to see her, your child, the little Dolores?”

“Yes, only—Good God, I cannot!”

“Markham, I do not understand you. Have you aught against me now?” Agnes Walden said, raising her eyes, now filled with doubt and questioning, to search his face.

“No, no; Heaven knows I have not, but—some one tell her. I cannot.” Major Walden turned from her and walked forward several paces, his face set and drawn.

“He has another family, another wife,” said Lissa softly. “God pity both him and you!”

CHAPTER XXXIII CONCLUSION

It is radiant summer-time and the June roses are making the air sweet with fragrance. June breezes are fanning alike the flower-crowned prairie of the West and the crowded thoroughfares of the Eastern cities.

The electric current has bridged distances and connected the breath-note of Chicago with that of New York. By it we can listen to the voices of our friends, across the mighty expanse of the continent. We can even store up their words and songs and reecho them at will. A strange force is this invisible current of which we are now learning the Alpha. What its ultimate possibilities are, who shall determine? With it the opposing forces of nature are made subservient and the very winds can be made messengers between physical and sentient beings.

We look at the trolley car passing our door and wonder at the power that propels it. Little by little we are opening our souls to the reception of beliefs in the invisible powers of nature.

How far is it to the end? What new and marvelous revelations shall each succeeding year bring to us?

A reception is being held in the parlors of the hotel where the scene of our first chapter was laid. 328Forest City has become a town of metropolitan proportions and its citizens are among the most progressive people of these twentieth century days.

Among the guests filling the parlors are several whose names are household words throughout our land.

“A strange case,” says one, “that reported of double identity. A Welshman half of the time and an Englishman the other half, and the two wholly unacquainted with each other.”

“Did you hear,” inquires another, “of the psychic experience of Dr. Seba?”

“No, what was it?”

“Why, as I heard it, the Doctor was out one day at the farther end of Grande Avenue, and on his way home, when he felt an impelling force direct him to go to a certain house. It was a place which he had never before visited, and he could not account for the power which moved him. However, he yielded to the influence, and arrived just in time to save the life of a lady taken with hemorrhage from the lungs. He prescribed for her, wondering that no one expressed any surprise at seeing him there, and did not know until he reached his down-town office that a telephone message directing him to that same place awaited him, having been received by his clerk after he had left the office.”

“How do you account for it?”

“Telepathy. The message was taken to him by a mental current, no more mysterious nor wonderful than that which propels that electric fan there. All the mechanism of the world is governed by unchanging 329law. Thought transference, hypnotism, clairaudience and clairvoyance are undoubtedly governed by laws which, when understood, may appear simple. Science is a divine revelation, and some genius will be given the key by which its mysteries shall be deciphered. Tesla’s discoveries are opening the door to a before-closed world of knowledge. The Roentgen ray has proven supposed opaque bodies transparent. Who among us would not have denied a few years ago the possibility of such a thing? And then think of wireless telegraphy, another wonderful discovery.”

“Of course you have read Hudson’s explanation of psychic phenomena?”

“Yes; his idea of subjective mind explains much of the before-unexplained, so-called spirit manifestations, at least to my satisfaction; but there is much more that I would like to understand. It will be some time, I imagine, before we shall equal the Hindoos in the knowledge of psychic forces. I confess, when I read of some of their performances, I am ready to believe it supernatural.”

“True, but think how much is no longer mysterious which, a few years ago, was deemed supernatural!”

“Yes, we are a progressive people. For one thing, Doctor, mental therapeutics has done much to prevent the mortality from drug-poisoning. Don’t you think so?”

“Ahem! Well, yes, perhaps it has. The great trouble is, when a person is given a glimmering of a great truth he immediately jumps at conclusions 330and carries the idea beyond the bounds of common sense. I am Rosicrucian enough to believe that nature has given an antidote to every ill human flesh is heir to, and that every leaf and flower that grows has its beneficent uses if we were wise enough to understand them. I don’t deny that the mind has much to do with the condition of the body, but I believe even mind influence has its limitations. Of course, nervous and hysterical people are most susceptible to it, and oftentimes diseases exist only in the mind.”

“What do you think of hypnotism as a factor in healing, Doctor?”

“Well, the French have been experimenting somewhat with that. It is even a more dangerous agent to use than electricity. Hypnotism may be dangerous even if self-imposed. For one thing, I believe it is enervating to the will, and a person controlled by the will of another may be evilly influenced. Again, what is insanity but the loss of control of the will over the subjective mind. Each time a person yields himself to the control of another or suffers himself to be put in the condition called trance, is he not approaching the borderland of insanity?”

“I suppose, generally speaking, a sound nervous organization is not susceptible to hypnotic influence.”

“Not as susceptible as the more frail, disturbed ones.”

“But, Doctor, it is a great thing to control delirium and render a subject insensible to pain, even during a surgical operation.”

331“Yes, if it can be done. I am told that it has been done, and may serve with a certain class of subjects; but it will not reset a broken arm nor remove a cancer. I have not much use for it.”

“Beware, Doctor, we have not learned all its possibilities yet. By the way, that Major Walden and his wife are a fine couple.”

“Yes; did you ever hear that they had been twice married?”

“Twice married? No; how was that?”

“Why, it seems that a rascally spirit-medium separated them ten or fifteen years ago, and the Major married again. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, number two was smashed up in a railway wreck and the story turned out in the orthodox fashion. She herself used to be a clairvoyant or something of the kind.”

“What, not that pretty woman he has with him now?”

“The same. I heard her myself once, out in Denver.”

“Ugh! That is incredible. She is the last one I should think of connecting with the idea of spirit-mediumship. She looks as innocent as an angel.”

“Ah, my friend, see what prejudice will do. She is as innocent as one, in my opinion. She was merely self-deceived as to the source of her power, and not understanding it, supposed it supernatural. It is a wonder it had not either killed her or made her insane, for even self-imposed hypnotism, as I said before, seems to weaken and wear both the mental and physical beings, and where one escapes injury, many 332suffer from it. But we all hug our delusions. The more monstrous, the dearer they are to us.”

“And yet, as you have already stated, what may appear false to us in one generation may prove to be truth in the next.”

“Yes; but remember the hunter after Truth took from his breast the shuttle of Imagination and wound on it the thread of his wishes, and so wove his net to entrap Truth. What we must do is to hunt for Truth with a different net, one in which credulity and desire have no place.”

“But, Doctor, who shall determine when we have complied with the requirements? May each generation pass away, holding but a feather from Truth’s wing in his hand? Shall we believe in nothing of which a shadow of doubt remains in our minds? What creed—what ism can bear the test?”

“We read, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ We are also told that Truth is the work of God, falsehood the work of man. If any belief bear evil fruit, shall we not reject it? According to Froude, ‘The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness.’ Let us apply that test to modern beliefs. Wherever we find misery, wretchedness, or demoralization concomitant or subsequent, let us reject the creed or belief as false and dangerous.”

We have been told to learn of the philosophers always to look for natural causes in all extraordinary events; and when such natural causes are wanting, recur to God.