º
THE LEIsu RE HOUR SERIEs
- A collection of works whose character is light and entertaining,
though not trivial. While they are handy for the pocket or the
satchel, they are not, either in contents or appearance, unworthy of a
place on the library shelves. 16mo, cloth. $1.00 per vol.
About, Edmund.
THE MAN witH THE BROKEN EAR.
THE NOTARy’s NOSE.
Alexander, Mrs.
BLIND FATE.
Allen, Grant.
RECALLED TO LIFE.
Auerbach, Berthold.
ON THE HIEIGHTS. 2 vols.
THE VILLA. ON THE RHINE. 2 vols.
Beers, Prof. Henry A.
A CENTURY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.
Caird, Mona.
A ROMANCE OF THE MOORS.
Democracy.
AN AMERICAN Novel.
Fothergill, Jessie.
THE FIRST VIOLIN.
Macfarlane, A. R.
THE CHILDREN of THE EARTH.
Richardson
CLARISSA
///?///0/7
SEPTEMBER, 1891.
St., New York.


J EFOME A. J.E ROM ES BOO A. S.
DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE (And Six Essays).
with upwards of 10 O Illustrations by G. C.
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IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW.
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advanced by the author.”—N. Y. Tribune.
THREE MEN IN A BOAT.
(To Say Nothing of the Dog.) ~~
Illustrations by A. FREDERICS, 12mo, Cloth,
$1.25; Paper, 40 cts.
Describes the adventures and mishaps of a vacation trip on the
River Thames.
“A tour de force in fun.”—Saturday Review.
“Irresistibly funny.”— Vanity Fair.
- STAGE-LAND.
Curious Habits and Customs of its Inhabitants.
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The Brief Career of a Would-be Actor.
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HEMR/ HOL T & CO., Publishers, 29 W. 23d St., We


I.E/SURAE HOUR SEA’/ES.
RECALLED TO LIFE
/
MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
NEW York City
BY
GRANT ALLEN
|
gºlf L5
ºf AEW YORK
5A,P
* --—
9 3
New York . . . . . . . .
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY : . . .
1891 . . . . . . . . . . .
º


CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. UNA CALLINGHAM's FIRST RECollections, - I
II. BEGINNING LIFE AGAIN, • - - - . 7
III. AN UNExPECTED Visitor, - - - - I6
IV. THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHs, . - . 28
V. I BECOME A Woman, - - - - - 4O
VI. RELIVING MY LIFE, . • - - - . 5 I
VII. THE GRANGE AT WOODBURY, . - - - 6O
VIII. A Vision of DEAD YEARs, - - - . 73
IX. HATEFUL SUSPICIONs, - - - - - 8O
X. YET ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH, - - - . 91
XI. THE VISION RECURs, - - - - . IOI
XII. THE MooREs of Torquay, - - - . IO7
XIII. DR. Ivor of BABBICOMBE, - - - . I I 5
XIV. MY WELCOME TO CANADA, - - - . I22
XV. A NEw AcquaintANCE, . - - - . I33
XVI. MY PLANs ALTER, - - - - - . I5O
XVII. A STRANGE RECOGNITION, - - - . I 58
XVIII. MURDER WILL OUT, . - - - - . I66
XIX. THE REAL MURDERER, . - - - . I 74
XX. THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA, . - - . I 82
XXI. THE PLOT UNRAVELS ITSELF, . - - . I95
XXII. My MEMORY RETURNs, - - • - . 202
XXIII. THE FATAL SHOT, . - - - - • 2 I2
XXIV. ALL’s WELL THAT ENDS WELL, º º . 224
iii





OF NEW YORK
RECALLED TO LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
UNA CALLINGHAM'S FIRST RECOLLECTION.
| may sound odd to say so, but the very earli.
est fact that impressed itself on my memory
was a scene that took place—so I was told——when
I was eighteen years old, in my father's house,
The Grange, at Woodbury.
- My babyhood, my childhood, my girlhood, my
school days were all utterly blotted out by that
one strange shock of horror. My past life be-
came exactly as though it had never been. I
forgot my own name. I forgot my mother
tongue. I forgot everything I had ever done or
known or thought about. Except for the power
to walk and stand and perform simple actions of
everyday use, I became a baby in arms again,
with a nurse to take care of me. The doctors
told me, later, I had fallen into what they were
pleased to call “a Second State.” I was examined
and reported upon as a Psychological Curiosity.


2 AºA2CA ZZZZZ) 7"O Z/FE.
But at the time, I knew nothing of all this. A
thunderbolt, as it were, destroyed at one blow
every relic, every trace, of my previous existence;
and I began life all over again, with that terrible
scene of blood as my first birthday and practical
starting point.
I remember it all even now with horrible dis-
tinctness. Each item in it photographed itself
vividly on my mind's eye. I saw it as in a pic-
ture—just as clearly, just as visually. And the
effect, now I look back upon it with a maturer
judgment, was precisely like a photograph in an-
other way too. It was wholly unrelated in time
and space; it stood alone by itself, lighted up by
a single spark, without rational connection before
or after it. What led up to it all, I hadn't the
very faintest idea. I only knew the Event itself
took place; and I, like a statue, stood rooted in
the midst of it.
And this was the Picture as, for many long
months, it presented itself incessantly to my
startled brain, by day and by night, awake or
asleep, in colors more distinct than words can
possibly paint them.
I saw myself standing in a large, square room—
a very handsome old room, filled with book-
shelves like a library. On one side stood a table,
and on the table a box. A flash of light ren-
dered the whole scene visible. But it wasn't
light that came in through the window. It was


4 A’ECALLED TO LIFE.
neck, and his elbows. But what little I saw was
printed indelibly on the very fiber of my nature.
I could have recognized that man anywhere if I
saw him in the same attitude. I could have
sworn to him in any court of justice on the
strength of his back alone, so vividly did I picture
it.
He was tall and thin, but he stooped like a
hunchback.
There were other points worth notice in that
strange mental photograph. The man was well-
dressed, and had the bearing of a gentleman.
Looking back upon the scene long after, when I
had learned once more what words and things
meant, I could feel instinctively this was no com-
mon burglar, no vulgar murderer. Whatever
might have been the man's object in shooting my
father, I was certain from the very first it was not
mere robbery. But at the time, I am confident,
I never reasoned about his motives or his actions
in any way. I merely took in the scene, as it
were, passively, in a great access of horror, which
rendered me incapable of sense or thought or
speech or motion. I saw the table, the box, the
apparatus by its side, the murdered man on the
floor, the pistol lying pointed with its muzzle
toward his body, the pool of blood that soaked
deep into the Turkey carpet beneath, the ledge
of the window, the young man's rounded back as
he paused and hesitated. And I also saw, like an


UAVA CALL/NGHAM'S RECOLLECTION. 5
instantaneous flash, one hand pushed behind him,
waving me off, I almost thought, with the gesture
of one warning.
Why didn't I remember the murderer's face?
That puzzled me long after. I must have seen
him before. I must surely have been there when
the crime was committed. I must have known at
the moment everything about it. But the blank
that came over my memory, came over it with
the fatal shot. All that went before, was to me
as though it were not. I recollect vaguely, as
the first point in my life, that my eyes were shut
hard, and darkness came over me. While they
were so shut, I heard an explosion. Next mo-
ment, I believe, I opened them, and saw "this
Picture. No sensitive-plate could have photo-
graphed it more instantaneously, as by an elec-
tric spark, than did my retina that evening, as for
months after I saw it all. In another moment, I
shut my lids again, and all was over. There was
darkness once more, and I was alone with my
Horror.
In years then to come, I puzzled my head
much as to the meaning of the Picture. Gradu-
ally, step by step, I worked some of it out, with
the aid of my friends, and of the evidence ten-
dered at the coroner's inquest. But for the mo-
ment I knew nothing of all that. I was a new-
born baby again. Only with this important
difference. They say our minds at birth are like


6 RECALLED 7"O LIFE.
a sheet of white paper, ready to take whatever
impressions may fall upon them. Mine was like
a sheet all covered and obscured by one hateful
picture. It was weeks, I fancy, before I knew or
was conscious of anything else but that. The
Picture and a great Horror divided my life be-
tween them.
Recollect, I didn't even remember the mur-
dered man was my father. I didn't recognize
the room as one in our own old house at Wood-
bury. I didn't know anything at all except what
I tell you here. I saw the corpse, the blood, the
box on the table, the wires by the side, the bot-
tles and baths and plates of an amateur photog-
rapher's kit, without knowing what they all
meant. I saw even the books not as books but
as visible points of color. It had something the
effect on me that it might have upon any one else
to be dropped suddenly on the stage of a theater
at the very moment when a hideous crime was
being committed, and to believe it real, or, rather,
to know it by some vague sense as hateful and
actual. -
Here my history began. I date from that Pic-
ture. My second babyhood was passed in the
shadow of the abiding Horror.


CHAPTER II.
BEGINNING LIFE AGAIN.
HAT happened after is far more vague to
me. Compared with the vividness of that
one initial Picture, the events of the next few
months have only the blurred indistinctness of all
childish memories. For I was a child once more,
in all save stature, and had to learn to remember
things just like other children.
I will try to tell the whole tale over again ex-
actly as it then struck me.
After the Picture, I told you, I shut my eyes in
alarm for a second. When I opened them once
more there was a noise, a very great noise, and
my recollection is that people had burst wildly
into the room, and were lifting the dead body,
and bending over it in astonishment, and speak-
ing loud to me, and staring at me. I believe they
broke the door open, though that's rather infer-
ence than memory; I learnt it afterward. Soon
some of them rushed to the open window and
looked out into the garden. Then, suddenly, a
man gave a shout, and leaping on to the sill,
jumped down in pursuit, as I thought, of the mur-
7


BEGINAW/AWG LIFE AGAIN. 9
-
-
They rather passed before me dreamily in long
procession, like a vague panorama. When peo-
ple spoke to me, it was like the sound of a for-
eign tongue. I attached no more importance to
anything they said than to the cawing of the
rooks in the trees by the rectory.
At the end of five days, the doctor came once
more, and watched me a great deal, and spoke in
a low voice with a woman in a white cap and a
clean white apron who waited on me daily. As
soon as he was gone, my nurse, as I learned after-
ward to call her, it's so hard not to drop into
the language of everyday life when one has to
describe things to other people, my nurse got
me up, with much ado and solemnity, and
dressed me in a new black frock, very dismal and
ugly, and put on me a black hat, with a dreary-
looking veil; and took me downstairs, with the
aid of a man who wore a suit of blue clothes and
a queer sort of helmet. The man was of the sort
I now call a policeman. These pictures are far
less definite in my mind than the one that begins
my second life; but still, in a vague kind of way,
I pretty well remember them.
On the ground floor, nurse made me walk; and
I walked out to the door, where a cab was in
waiting, drawn slowly by a pair of horses. Peo-
ple were looking on, on either side, between the
door and the cab–great crowds of people, peer-
ing eagerly forward; and two more men in blue


Io RECALLED TO LIFE.
*, *
suits were holding them off by main force from
surging against me and incommoding me. I
don't think they wanted to hurt me; it was
rather curiosity than anger I saw in their faces.
But I was afraid, and shrank back. They were
eager to see me, however, and pressed forward
with loud cries, so that the men in blue suits had
hard work to prevent them.
I know now there were two reasons why they
wanted to see me. I was the murdered man's
daughter, and I was a Psychological Phenom-
enOn.
We drove away, through green lanes, in the
cab, nurse and I; and in spite of the Horror,
which surrounded me always, and the Picture,
which recurred every time I shut my eyes to
think, I enjoyed that drive very much, with all
the fresh vividness of childish pleasure. Though
I learnt later I was eighteen years old at least, I
was in my inner self just like a baby of ten
months, going ta-ta. At the end of the drive, we
drew up sharp at a house, where some more men
stood about, with red bands on their caps, and
took boxes from the cab and put them into a
van, while nurse and I got into a different car-
riage, drawn quickly by a thing that went puff-
puff, puff-puff. I didn't know it was a railway,
and yet in a way I did. I half forgot, half re-
membered it. Things that I'd seen in my
previous state seemed to come back to me, in fact,


BEGINAVING LIFE AGAIN. II
as soon as I saw them; or at least to be more
familiar to me than things I’d never seen before.
Especially afterward. But while things were re-
membered, persons, I found by and by, were com-
pletely forgotten. Or rather, while I remembered
after a while generalities, such as houses and men,
recognizing them in the abstract as a house, or a
man, or a horse, or a baby, I forgot entirely par-
ticulars, such as the names of people and the
places I had lived in. Words soon came back to
me; names and facts were lost : I knew the world
as a whole, not my own old part in it.
Well, not to make my story too long in these
early childish stages, we went on the train, as it
seemed to me, a long way across fields to Aunt
Emma's. I didn't know she was Aunt Emma
then, for, indeed, I had never seen her before;
but I remember arriving there at her pretty little
cottage, and seeing a sweet old lady, barely
sixty, I should say, but with smooth white hair,
who stood on the steps of the house and cried like
a child, and held out her hands to me, and
hugged me and kissed me. And it was there
that I learned my first word. A great many
times over, she spoke about “Una.” She said it
so often, I caught vaguely at the sound. And
nurse, when she answered her, said “Una” also.
Then, when Aunt Emma called me, she always
said “Una.” So it came to me dimly that Una
meant me. But I didn't exactly recollect it had


I 2 RECALLED TO LIFE.
been my name before, though I learned in due
time afterward that I'd always been called so.
However, just as first, I picked up the word as a
child might pick it up; and when, some months
later, I began to talk easily, I spoke of myself
always in the third person as Una. I can
remember with a smile now how I went one day
to Aunt Emma—I, a great girl of eighteen—and
held up my skirt, that I'd muddied in the street,
and said to her, with great gravity:
“Una naughty girl. Una got her frock wet.
Aunt Emma going to scold poor Una for being
so naughty?”
Not that I often smiled, in those days; for, in
spite of Aunt Emma's kindness, my second girl-
hood, like my first, was a very unhappy one.
The Horror and the Picture pursued me too
close. It was months and months before I could
get rid for a moment of that persistent night-
mare. And yet I had everything else on earth
to make me happy. Aunt Emma lived in a
pretty east-coast town, with high bracken-clad
downs and breezy common beyond; while in
front stretched great sands, where I loved to
race about and to play cricket and tennis. It
was the loveliest town that ever you saw in your
life, with a broken chancel to the grand old
church, and a lighthouse on a hill, with delicious
views to seaward. The doctor had sent me there
(I know now) as soon as I was well enough to


AEG/AWAV/AVG LIFE AGA/AW. I3
move, in order to get me away from the terrible
associations of The Grange at Woodbury. As
long as I lived in the midst of scenes which would
remind me of poor father, he said, and of his
tragical death, there was no hope of my recovery.
The only chance for me to regain what I had lost
in that moment of shock was complete change
of air, of life, of surroundings. Aunt Emma, for
her part, was only too glad to take me in; and as
poor papa had died intestate, Aunt Emma was
now, of course, my legal guardian.
She was my mother's sister I learned as time
went on ; and there had been a feud while he lived
between her and my father. Why, I couldn't
imagine. She was the sweetest old soul I ever
knew, indeed; and what on earth he could have
quarreled with her about I never could fathom.
She tended me so carefully that as months went
by the Horror began to decrease and my soul to
become calm again. I grew gradually able to
remain in a room alone for a few minutes at a
time, and to sleep at night in a bed by myself, if
only there was a candle, and nurse was in another
bed in the same room close by me.
Yet every now and again a fresh shivering fit
came on. At such times I would cover my head
with the bedclothes and cower, and see the
Picture even so, floating visibly in mid-air like a
vision before me.
My second education must have been almost


I4 AºECAZLED TO LIFE.
as much of a business as my first had been, only
rather less longsome. I had first to relearn the
English language, which came back to me by
degrees, much quicker, of course, than I had
picked it up in my childhood. Then I had to
begin again with reading, writing, and arithmetic—
all new to me in a way, and all old in another.
Whatever I learned and whatever I read seemed
novel while I learned it, but familiar the moment
I had thoroughly grasped it. To put it shortly, I
could remember nothing of myself, but I could
recall many things, after a time, as soon as they
were told me clearly. The process was rather a
process of reminding than of teaching, properly so
called. But it took some years for me to recall
things, even when I was reminded of them.
I spent four years at Aunt Emma's, growing
gradually to my own age again. At the end of
that time I was counted a girl of twenty-two,
much like any other. But I was older than my
age; and the shadow of the Horror pursued me
incessantly.
All that time I knew, too, from what I heard
said in the house, that my father's murderer had
never been caught, and that nobody even knew
who he was, or anything definite about him. The
police gave him up as an uncaught criminal. He
was still at large, and might always be so. I knew
this from vague hints, and from vague hints


BEGINAVING LIFE AGAIN. I5
alone; for whenever I tried to ask, I was hushed
up at once with an air of authority.
“Una, dearest,” Aunt Emma would say, in her
quiet fashion, “you mustn't talk about that night.
I have Dr. Wade's strict orders that nothing must
be said to you about it, and above all, nothing
that could in any way excite or arouse you.”
So I was fain to keep my peace; for though
Aunt Emma was kind, she ruled me still in all
things like a little girl, as I was when I came to
her.


CHAPTER III.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
NE morning, after I'd been four whole years at
Aunt Emma's, I heard a ring at the bell, and,
looking over the stairs saw a tall and handsome
man, in a semi-military coat, who asked, in a most
audible voice, for Miss Callingham.
Maria, the housemaid, hesitated a moment.
“Miss Callingham's in, sir,” she answered, in
a somewhat dubious tone; “but I don't know
whether I ought to let you see her or not. My
mistress is out; and I've strict orders that no
strangers are to call on Miss Callingham when her
aunt's not here.”
And she held the door ajar in her hand unde-
cidedly.
The tall man smiled, and seemed to me to slip
a coin quietly into Maria's palm.
“So much the better,” he answered, with unob-
trusive persistence; “I thought Miss Moore was
out. That's just why I've come. I'm an officer
from Scotland Yard, and I want to see Miss Cal-
lingham—alone—most particularly.”
Maria drew herself up and paused.
16


A W UAVEXPECTED VISITOR. 17
My heart stood still within me at this chance
of enlightenment. I guessed what he meant; so
I called over the stairs to her, in a tremor of ex-
citement:
“Show the gentleman into the drawing-room,
Maria. I'll come down to him at once.”
For I was dying to know the explanation of
the Picture that haunted me so persistently; and
as nobody at home would ever tell me anything
worth knowing about it, I thought this was as
good an opportunity as I could get for making a
beginning toward the solution of the mystery.
Well, I ran into my own room as quick as quick
could be, and set my front hair straight, and
slipped on a hat and jacket (for I was in my
morning dress), and then went down to the draw-
ing-room to see the Inspector.
He rose as I entered. He was a gentleman, I felt
at once. His manner was as deferential, as kind,
and as considerate to my sensitiveness as any-
thing it's possible for you to imagine in any one.
“I’m sorry to have to trouble you, Miss Calling-
ham,” he said, with a very gentle smile; “but I
daresay you can understand yourself the object
of my visit. I could have wished to come in a
more authorized way; but I've been in corre-
spondence with Miss Moore for some time past
as to the desirability of reopening the inquiry
with regard to your father's unfortunate death;
and I thought the time might now have arrived


18 RECALLED 7"O LIFE,
when it would be possible to put a few questions
to you personally upon that unhappy subject.
|Miss Moore objected to my plan. She thought
it would still perhaps be prejudicial to your
health—a point in which Dr. Wade, I must say,
entirely agrees with her. Nevertheless, in the in-
terests of justice, as the murderer is still at large,
I've ventured to ask you for this interview; be-
cause what I read in the newspapers about the
state of your health—”
I interrupted him, astonished.
“What you read in the newspapers about the
state of my health !” I repeated, thunderstruck.
“Why, surely they don't put the state of my
health in the newspapers?”
For I didn't know then I was a Psychological
Phenomenon.
The Inspector smiled blandly, and, pulling out
his pocket-book, selected a cutting from a pile
that apparently all referred to me.
“You’re mistaken,” he said briefly. “The
newspapers, on the contrary, have treated your
case at great length. See, here's the latest re-
port. That's clipped from last Wednesday's .
Telegraph.”
I remembered then that a paragraph of just
that size had been carefully cut out of Wednes-
day's paper before I was allowed by Aunt Emma
to read it. Aunt Emma always glanced over
the paper first, indeed, and often cut out such


AAW UAVEXPECTED VISITOR. I9
offending paragraphs. But I never attached
much importance to their absence before, because
I thought it was merely a little fussy result of
auntie's good old English sense of maidenly
modesty. I supposed she merely meant to spare
my blushes. I knew girls were often prevented
on particular days from reading the papers.
But now I seized the paragraph he handed me,
and read it with deep interest. It was the very first
time I had seen my own name in a printed news-
paper. I didn't know then how often it had fig-
ured there. -
The paragraph was headed, “THE WOODBURY
MURDER,” and it ran something like this, as well
as I can remember it:
“There are still hopes that the miscreant who
shot Mr. Vivian Callingham at The Grange, at
Woodbury, some four years since, may be tracked
down and punished at last for his cowardly crime.
It will be fresh in every one's memory, as one of
the most romantic episodes in that extraordinary
tragedy, that at the precise moment of her
father's death, Miss Callingham, who was present
in the room during the attack, and who alone
might have been a witness capable of recognizing
or describing the wretched assailant, lost her
reason on the spot, owing to the appalling shock
to her nervous system, and remained for some
months in an imbecile condition. Gradually, as
we have informed our readers from time to time,
*


2O RECALLED TO LIFE.
Miss Callingham's intellect has become stronger
and stronger; and though she is still totally un-
able to remember spontaneously any events that
occurred before her father's death, it is hoped it
may be possible, by describing vividly certain
trains of previous incidents, to recall them in
some small degree to her imperfect memory. Dr.
Thornton, of Welbeck Street, who has visited her
from time to time on behalf of the Treasury, in
conjunction with Dr. Wade, her own medical
attendant, went down to Barton-on-the-Sea on
Monday, and once more examined Miss Calling-
ham's intellect. Though the doctor is judiciously
reticent as to the result of his visit, it is generally
believed at Barton that he thinks the young lady
sufficiently recovered to undergo a regular inter-
rogatory; and in spite of the fact that Dr. Wade
is opposed to any such proceeding at present, as
prejudicial to the lady's health, it is not unlikely
that the Treasury may act upon their own medical
official's opinion, and send down an Inspector
from Scotland Yard to make inquiries direct on
the subject from Miss Callingham in person.”
My head swam round. It was all like a dream
to me. I held my forehead with my hands, and
gazed blankly at the Inspector.
“You understand what all this means?” he said
interrogatively, leaning forward as he spoke.
“You remember the murder?”
“Perfectly,” I answered him, trembling all over.


– mº
AM UAVEXPECTED VISITOR. 21
“I remember every detail of it. I could describe
to you exactly all the objects in the room. The
Picture it left behind has burned itself into my
brain like a flash of lightning !”
The Inspector drew his chair nearer.
“Now, Miss Callingham,” he said, in a very
serious voice, “that's a remarkable expression—
‘like a flash of lightning.' Bear in mind, this is a
matter of life and death to somebody somewhere.
Somebody's neck may depend upon your answers.
Will you tell me exactly how much you re-
member?”
I told him in a few words precisely how the
scene had imprinted itself on my memory. I re-
called the room, the box, the green wires, the
carpet; the man who lay dead in his blood on the
floor; the man who stood poised ready to leap
from the window. He let me go on unchecked
till I'd finished everything I had to say spontane-
ously. Then he took a photograph from his
pocket, which he didn't show me. Looking at it
attentively, he asked me questions, one by one,
about the different things in the room at the time
in very minute detail: Where exactly was the
box? How did it stand relatively to the unlighted
lamp? What was the position of the pistol on
the floor? In what direction was my father's
head lying? Though it brought back the Horror
to me in a fuller and more terrible form than
ever, I answered all his questions to the very best


22 RECAM/CAED TO LIFE.
of my ability. I could picture the whole scene
like a photograph to myself; and I didn't doubt
the object he held in his hand was a photograph
of the room as it appeared after the murder. He
checked my statements, one by one, as I went on,
by reference to the photograph, murmuring half
to himself now and again: “Yes, yes, exactly
so"; “that's right”; “that was so,” at each item I
mentioned.
At the end of these inquiries, he paused and
looked hard at me.
“Now, Miss Callingham,” he said, again peering
deep into my eyes, “I want you to concentrate
your mind very much, not on this Picture you
carry so vividly in your own brain, but on the
events that went immediately before and after it.
Pause long and think. Try hard to remember.
And first, you say, there was a great flash of light.
Now, answer me this: was it one flash alone, or
had there been several?”
I stopped and racked my brain. Blank, blank,
as usual.
“I can't remember,” I faltered out, longing
terribly to cry. “I can recall just that one scene,
and nothing else in the world before it.”
He looked at me fixedly, jotting down a few
words in his note-book as he looked. Then he
spoke again, still more slowly:
“Now, try once more,” he said, with an en-
couraging air. “You saw this man's back as he


AM UNEXPECTED WISITOR. 23
was getting out of the window. But can't you
remember having seen his face before? Had he
a beard? a mustache? What eyes? what nose?
Did you see the shot fired? And if so, what sort
of person was the man who fired it?”
Again I searched the pigeon-holes of my
memory in vain, as I had done a hundred times
before by myself. -
“It's no use,” I cried helplessly, letting m
hands drop by my side. “I can't remember a
thing, except the Picture. I don't know whether
I saw the shot fired or not. I don't know what
the murderer looked like in the face. I've told
you all I know. I can recall nothing else. It's
all a great blank to me.”
The Inspector hesitated a moment, as if in
doubt what step to take next. Then he drew
himself up and said, still more gravely:
“This inability to assist us is really very singu-
lar. I had hoped, after Dr. Thornton's report,
that we might at last count with some certainty
upon arriving at fresh results as to the actual mur-
der. I can see from what you tell me you're a
young lady of intelligence—much above the
average—and great strength of mind. It's
curious your memory should fail you so pointedly
just where we stand most in need of its aid.
Recollect, nobody else but you ever saw the
murderer's face. Now, I'm going to presume
you're answering me honestly, and try a bold


24 AECALLED TO LIFE.
means to arouse your dormant memory. Look
hard, and hark back. Is that the room you
recollect? Is that the picture that still haunts
and pursues you?” -
He handed me the photograph he held in his
fingers. I took it, all on fire. The sight almost
made me turn sick with horror. To my awe and
amazement, it was indeed the very scene I remem-
bered so well. Only, of course, it was taken from
another point of view, and represented things in
rather different relative positions to those I fig-
ured them in. But it showed my father's body
lying dead upon the floor; it showed his poor
corpse weltering helpless in its blood; it showed
myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing awestruck,
gazing on in blank horror at the sight; and in the
background, half blurred by the summer evening
light, it showed the vague outline of a man's
back, getting out of the window. On one side
was the door; that formed no part of my mental
picture, because it was at my back; but in the
photograph it too was indistinct, as if in the very
act of being burst open. The details were vague
in part, probably the picture had never been
properly focussed, but the main figures stood
out with perfect clearness, and everything in the
room was, allowing for the changed point of view,
exactly as I remembered it in my persistent men-
tal photograph.
w


AM UAVEXPECTED WIS/7'OR. 25
I drew a deep breath.
“That's my Picture,” I said slowly. “But it re-
calls to me nothing new. I—I don't understand
it.”
The Inspector stared at me hard once more.
“Do you know,” he asked, “how that photo-
graph was produced, and how it came into our
possession?"
I trembled violently.
“No, I don't,” I answered, reddening. “But—
I think it had somethingto do with the flash like
lightning.”
The Inspector jumped at those words like a
cat upon a mouse.
“Quite right,” he cried briskly, as one who at
last, after long search, finds a hopeful clew where
all seemed hopeless. “It had to do with the
flash. The flash produced it. This is a photo-
graph taken by your father's process. . . . . Of
course you recollect your father's process?"
He eyed me closely. The words, as he spoke
them, seemed to call up dimly some faint mem-
ory of my pre-natal days—of my First State, as
I had learned from the doctors to call it. But
his scrutiny made me shrink. I shut my eyes and
looked back.
“I think,” I said slowly, rummaging my memory
half in vain, “I remember something about it. It
had something to do with photography, hadn't


26 AºA2CA LZAZA) 7"O LIFE.
it? . . . . No, no, with the electric light. . . . . I
can't exactly remember which. Will you tell me
all about it?”
He leaned back in his chair, and, eyeing me all
the time with that same watchful glance, began
to describe to me in some detail an apparatus
which he said my father had devised for taking
instantaneous photographs by the electric light,
with a clock-work mechanism. It was an appa-
ratus that let sensitive-plates revolve one after
another opposite the lens of a camera; and as
each was exposed, the clock-work that moved it
produced an electric spark, so as to represent such
a series of effects as the successive position of a
horse in trotting. My father, it seemed, was of
a scientific turn, and had just perfected this new
automatic machine before his sudden death. I
listened with breathless interest; for up to that
time I had never been allowed to hear anything
about my father—anything about the great
tragedy with which my second life began. It
was wonderful to me even now to be allowed to
speak and ask questions on it with anybody,
so hedged about had I been all my days with
mystery.
As I listened, I saw the Inspector could tell
by the answering flash in my eye that his words
recalled something to me, however vaguely. As
he finished, I leant forward, and with a very


AAV UAVEXP/EC 7'ED V/S/7'OA’. 27
flushed face, that I could feel myself, I cried, in a
burst of recollection:
“Yes, yes. I remember. And the box on the
table—the box that's in my mental picture, and
is not in the photograph—that was the apparatus
you've just been describing.”
The Inspector turned upon me with a rapidity
that fairly took my breath away.
“Well, where are the other ones?” he asked,
pouncing down upon me quite fiercely.
“The other what?” I repeated, amazed, for I
didn't really understand him.
“Why, the other photographs” he replied, as
if trying to surprise me. “There must have been
more, you know; it held six plates. Fxcept for
this one, the apparatus, when we found it, was
empty.”
His manner seemed to crush out the faint spark
of recollection that just flickered within me.
I collapsed at once. I couldn't stand such
brusqueness.
“I don't know what you mean,” I answered in
despair. “I never saw the plates. I know noth-
ing about them.”


CHAPTER IV.
THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS.
THE Inspector scanned me closely for a few
minutes in silence. He seemed doubtful,
suspicious. At last he made a new move.
“I believe you, Miss Callingham,” he said, more
gently. “I can see this train of thought dis-
tresses you too much. But I can see, too, our
best chance lies in supplying you with indepen-
dent clews which you may work out for yourself.
You must re-educate your memory. You want
to know all about this murder, of course. Well,
now, look over these papers. They'll tell you, in
brief, what little we know about it. And they
may succeed in striking afresh some resonant
chord in your memory.”
He handed me a book of pasted newspaper
paragraphs, interspersed here and there, in red
ink, with little manuscript notes and comments.
I began to read it with profound interest. It was
so strange for me thus to learn for the first time
the history of my own life; for I was quite
ignorant as yet of almost everything about my
First State, and my father and mother,
28


THE STORY OF THE PAIOTOGRAPHS. 29
The paragraphs told me the whole story of the
crime, as far as it was known to the world, from
the very beginning. First of all, in the papers,
came the bald announcement that a murder had
been committed in a country town in Stafford-
shire; and that the victim was Mr. Vivian Calling-
ham, a gentleman of means, residing in his own
house, The Grange, at Woodbury. Mr. Calling-
ham was the inventor of the acmegraphic process.
The servants, said the telegram to the London pa-
pers, had heard the sound of a pistol shot, about
half-past eight at night, coming from the direction
of Mr. Callingham's library. Aroused by the re-
port, they rushed hastily to the spot, and broke
open the door, which was locked from within. As
they did so, a horrible sight met their astonished
eyes. Mr. Callingham's dead body lay extended
on the ground, shot right through the heart, and
weltering in its life-blood. Miss Callingham stood
by his side, transfixed with horror, and mute in
her agony. On the floor lay the pistol that had
fired the fatal shot. And just as the servants
entered, for one second of time the murderer, who
was otherwise wholly unknown, was seen to leap
from the window into the shrubbery below. The
gardener rushed after him, and jumped down at
the same spot. But the murderer had disappeared
as if by magic. It was conjectured he must have
darted down the road at full speed, vaulted the
gate, which was usually locked, and made off at a


3o A&AECAZZAZA) 7"O Z/FE.
rapid run for the open country. Up to date of
going to press, the Telegraph said, he was still at
large and had not been apprehended.
That was the earliest account—bald, simple,
unvarnished. Then came mysterious messages
from the Central Press about the absence of any
clew to identify the stranger. He hadn't entered
the house by any regular way, it seemed; unless, in-
deed, Mr. Callingham had brought him home him-
self and let him in with the latch-key. None of the
servants had opened the door that evening to any
suspicious character; not a soul had they seen,
nor did any of them know a man was with their
master in the library. They heard voices, to be
sure, voices, loud at times, and angry, but they
supposed it was Mr. Callingham talking with his
daughter. Till roused by the fatal pistol shot,
the gardener said, they had no cause for alarm.
Even the footmarks the stranger might have left
as he leaped from the window were obliterated
by the prints of the gardener's boots as he
jumped hastily after him. The only person who
could cast any light upon the mystery at all was
clearly Miss Callingham, who was in the room at
the moment. But Miss Callingham's mind was
completely unhinged for the present by the
nervous shock she had received as her father fell
dead before her. They must wait a few days till
she recovered consciousness, and then they might
confidently hope that the murderer would be


THE STORY OF THE PA/O 7 OGAAAPA/S. 3 I
identified, or at least so described that the police
could track him.
After that, I read the report of the coroner's
inquest. The facts there elicited added nothing
very new to the general view of the case. Only,
the servants remarked on examination, there was
a strange smell of chemicals in the room when
they entered; and the doctors seemed to suggest
that the smell might be that of chloroform,
mixed with another very powerful drug known to
affect the memory. Miss Callingham's present
case, they thought, might thus perhaps in part be
accounted for. You can't imagine how curious
it was for me to see myself thus impersonally
discussed at such a distance of time, or to learn
so long after that for ten days or more I had been
the central object of interest to all reading
England. My name was bandied about without
the slightest reserve. I trembled to see how
cavalierly the press had treated me.
As I went on, I began to learn more and more
about my father. He had made money in
Australia, it was said, and had come to live at
Woodbury some fourteen years earlier, where my
mother had died when I was a child of four; and
some accounts said she was a widow of fortune.
My father had been interested in chemistry and
photography, it seemed, and had lately completed
a new invention, the acmegraph, for taking suc-
cessive photographs at measured intervals of so


32 RECAL/A2/) TO LIFE.
many seconds by electric light. He was a grave,
stern man, the papers said, more feared than loved
by his servants and neighbors; but nobody about
was known to have a personal grudge against him.
On the contrary, he lived at peace with all men.
The motive for the murder remained to the end
a complete mystery.
On the second morning of the inquest, how-
ever, a curious thing happened. The police, it
appeared, had sealed up the room where the
murder took place, and allowed nobody to enter
it till the inquiry was over. But after the jury
came round to view the room, the policeman in
charge found the window at the back of the
house had been recently opened, and the box
with the photographic apparatus had been stolen
from the library. Till that moment nobody had
attached any importance to the presence of this
camera. It hadn't even been opened and exam-
ined by the police, who had carefully noted every-
thing else in the library. But as soon as the box
was missed strange questions began to be asked
and conjecturally answered. The police for the
first time then observed that though it was half-
past eight at night when the murder occurred,
and the lamp was not lighted, the witnesses who
burst first into the room described all they saw as
if they had seen it clearly. They spoke of things
as they would be seen in a very bright light,
with absolute definiteness. This set up inquiry,


THE STOA' V OF THE PAWO TOGAEA PA/S, 33
and the result of the inquiry was to bring out the
fact, which in the excitement of the moment had
escaped the notice of all the servants, that as they
entered the room and stared about at the murder,
the electric flash of the apparatus was actually in
operation. But the scene itself had diverted their
attention from the minor matter of the light that
showed it. -
The Inspector had been watching me narrowly
as I read these extracts. When I reached that
point, he broke in with a word of explanation.
“Well, that put me on the track, you see,” he
said, leaning forward once more. “I thought to
myself, if the light was acting, then the whole
apparatus must necessarily have been at work, and
the scene as it took place must have been photo-
graphed, act by act, and step by step, exactly as
it happened. At the time, the murderer, who-
ever he was, can't have known the meaning of
the flashes. But later, he must have come to
learn in some way what the electric light meant,
and must have realized, sooner than we did, that
there in the box, in the form of six successive
negatives of the stages in the crime, was the
evidence that would infallibly convict him of this
murder.” He stroked his mustache thoughtfully.
“And to think, too,” he went on, with a somewhat
sheepish air, “we should have had those photo-
graphs there in our power all those days and
nights, and have let them in the end slip like that


7A/E STORY OF 7//E PA/O 7'OGAEA PA.S. 35
yet manufactured; so, to carry it away in his
hands would no doubt have led to instant detec-
tion. I concluded, therefore, the man would take
off the box entire, so as to prevent the danger of
removing the plates on the spot; and as soon as
he reached a place of safety in the shrubbery, he'd
fling away the camera, either destroying the in-
criminating negatives then and there or carrying
them off with him. The details of the invention
had already been explained to me by your father's
instrument maker, who set up the clock-work for
him from his own designs; and I knew that the
removal of the plates from the box was a delicate,
and to some extent a difficult, operation. So I
felt sure they could only have been taken out in
a place of comparative safety, not far from the
house; and I searched the shrubbery carefully to
find the camera.” -
“And you found it at last?” I asked, unable to
restrain my agitation.
“I found it at last,” he answered, “near the far
end of the grounds, just flung into the deep grass,
behind a clump of lilacs. The camera was there
intact, but five plates were missing. The sixth,
from which the positive you hold in your hand
was taken, had got jammed in the mechanism in
the effort to remove it. Evidently the murderer
had tried to take out the plates in a very great
hurry and with trembling hands, as was not un-
natural. He had succeeded with five, when the


36 A&AECALLED TO LIFE.
sixth stuck fast in the groove of the clock-work.
Just at that moment, as we judged, either an
alarm was raised in the rear, or some panic fear
seized on him. Probably the fellow judged right
that the most incriminating pictures of all had
by that time been removed, and that the last
would only show his back, if it included him at
all, or if he came into focus. Perhaps he had
even been able unconsciously to count the flashes
at the moment, and knew that before the sixth
flash arrived he was on the ledge of the window.
At any rate, he clearly gave up the attempt to
remove the sixth, and flung the whole apparatus
away from him in a sudden access of horror. We
guessed as much both from the appearance of
the spot where the grass was trampled down, and
the way the angle of the camera was imbedded
forcibly in the soft ground of the shrubbery.”
“And he got away with the rest " I exclaimed,
following it up like a story, but a story in which
I was myself an unconscious character.
“No doubt,” the Inspector answered, stroking
his chin regretfully. “And what's most annoying
of all, we've every reason to suppose the fellow
stole the things only a few minutes before we
actually missed them. For we saw grounds for
supposing he jumped away from the spot, and
climbed over the wall at the back, cutting his
hands as he went with the bottle-glass on the top


-
7A/E S 7'OA’ Y OF 7"AAE A2A/O Z'OGA’AA’AyS. 37
to prevent intruders. And what makes us think
only a very short time must have elapsed between
the removal of the plates and the moment we
came upon his tracks is this—the blood from his
cut hands was still fresh and wet upon the wall
when we found it.”
“Then you only just missed him " I exclaimed.
“He got off by the skin of his teeth. It's wonder-
ful, when you were so near, you shouldn't have
managed to overtake him One would have
thought you must have been able to track him to
earth somehow!”
“One would have thought so,” the Inspector
answered, rather crestfallen. “But policemen,
after all, are human like the rest of us. We
missed the one chance that might have led to an
arrest. And now, what I want to ask you once
more is this: Reflecting over what you've heard
and read to-day, do you think you can recollect—
a very small matter—whether or not there were
several distinct flashes?”
I shut my eyes once more, and looked hard
into the past. Slowly, as I looked, a sort of
dream seemed to come over me. I saw it vaguely
now, or thought I saw it. Flash, flash, flash, flash.
Then the sound of the pistol. Then the Picture,
and the Horror, and the awful blank. I opened
my eyes again, and told the Inspector so.
“And once more,” he went on, in a very insinu-


38 RECALLED 7"O LIFE.
ating voice. “Shut your eyes again, and look
back upon that day. Can't you remember
whether or not, just a moment before, you saw
the murderer's face by the light of the flashes?”
I shut my eyes and thought. Again the flashes
seemed to stand out clear and distinct. But no
detail supervened—no face came back to me. I
felt it was useless.
“Impossible!” I said shortly. “It only makes
my head swim. I can remember no further.”
“I see,” the Inspector answered. “It's just as
Dr. Wade said. Suggest a fact in your past
history, and you may possibly remember it; but
ask you to recall anything not suggested or al-
ready known, and all seems a mere blank to you!
You haven't the faintest idea, then, who the
murderer was or what he looked like?”
I rose up before him solemnly, and stared him
full in the face. I was wrought up by that time
to a perfect pitch of excitement and interest.
“I haven't the faintest idea,” I answered, feel-
ing myself a woman at last, and realizing my free-
dom; “I know and remember no more of it than
you do. But from this moment forth I shall not
rest until I've found him out, and tracked him
down, and punished him. I shall never let my
head rest in peace on my pillow until I've dis-
covered my father's murderer!”
“That's well,” the Inspector said sharply, shut-
ting his notes up to go. “If you persevere in that


7"HE STORY OF THE PAIOTOGRAPHS. 39
mind, and do as you say, we shall soon get to the
bottom of the Woodbury Mystery!”
And even as he spoke a key turned in the front
door. I knew it was Aunt Emma, come in from
her marketing.


CHAPTER V.
I BECOME A. WOMAN.
UNT EMMA burst into the room, all horror
and astonishment. She looked at the In-
spector for a few seconds in breathless indigna-
tion; then she broke out in a tone of fiery re-
... monstrance which fairly surprised me:
“What do you mean by this intrusion, sir? How
dare you force your way into my house in my
absence? How dare you encourage my servants
to disobey my orders? How dare you imperil
this young lady's health by coming here to talk
with her?”
She turned round to me anxiously. I suppose
I was very flushed with excitement and surprise.
“My darling child,” she cried, growing pale all
at once, “Maria should never have allowed him to
come inside the door! You should have stopped
upstairs! You should have refused to see him
I shall have you ill again on my hands, as be-
fore, after this. He'll have undone all the good
the last four years have done for you!”
But I was another woman now. I felt it in a
moment.
4o


A BAECOM/A2 A WOA/AAV. 4I
“Auntie, dearest,” I answered, moving across
to her, and laying my hand on her shoulder to
soothe her poor ruffled nerves, “don’t be the
least alarmed. It's I who am to blame, and
not Maria. I told her to let this gentleman in.
He's done me good, not harm. I'm so glad to
have been allowed at last to speak freely about
it t” -
Aunt Emma shook all over, visibly to the
naked eye.
“You’ll have a relapse, my child !” she ex-
claimed, half crying, and clinging to me in her
terror. “You’ll forget all you've learned you'll
go back these four years again! Leave my
house at once, sir! You should never have
entered it !”
I stood between them like a statue.
“No, stop here a little longer,” I said, waving
my hand toward him imperiously. “I haven't
yet heard all it's right for me to hear. . . . .
Auntie, you mistake. I'm a woman at last. I
see what everything means. I'm beginning to
remember again. For four years that hateful
Picture has haunted me night and day. I could
never shut my eyes for a minute without seeing
it. I've longed to know what it all meant; but
whenever I've asked I've been repressed like a
baby. I'm a baby no longer. I feel myself a
woman. What the Inspector here has told me
already, half opens my eyes. I must have them


42 AºA2CAELED TO LIFE.
opened altogether now. I can't stop at this
point. I'm going back to Woodbury."
Aunt Emma clung to me still harder in a per-
fect agony of passionate terror.
“To Woodbury, my darling 7" she cried.
“Going back? Oh, Una, it'll kill you !”
“I think not,” the Inspector answered, with a
very quiet smile. “Miss Callingham has re-
covered, I venture to say, far more profoundly
than you imagine. This repression, our medical
adviser tells us, has been bad for her. If she's
allowed to visit freely the places connected with
her earlier life, it may all return again to her; and
the ends of Justice may thus at last be served
for us. I notice already one hopeful symptom:
Miss Callingham speaks of going back to Wood-
bury.” -
Aunt Emma looked up at him, horrified. All
her firmness was gone now.
“It's you who've put this into her head" she
exclaimed, in a ferment of horror. “She'd a-never
thought of it herself. You've made her do it!”
“On the contrary, Auntie,” I answered, feeling
my ground grow surer under me every moment
as I spoke, “this gentleman has never even by the
merest hint suggested such an idea to my mind.
It occurred to me quite spontaneously, I must
find out now who was my father's murderer! All
the Inspector has told me seems to arouse in my
brain some vague, forgotten chords. It brings


I BECOME A. WOMAAW. 43
back to me faint shadows. I feel sure if I went
to Woodbury I should remember much more.
And then, you must see for yourself, there's an-
other reason, deºr, that ought to make me go.
Nobody but I ever saw the murderer's face. It's
a duty imposed upon me from without, as it were,
never to rest again in peace till I've recognized
him.”
Aunt Emma collapsed into an easy-chair. Her
face was deadly pale. Her fingers trembled.
“If you go, Una," she cried, playing nervously
with her gloves, “I must go with you too ! I
must take care of you. I must watch over you!”
I took her quivering hand in mine and stroked
it gently. It was a soft and delicate, white little
hand, all marked inside with curious ragged scars
that I'd known and observed ever since I first
knew her. I held it in silence for a minute.
Somehow I felt our positions were reversed to-
day. This interview had suddenly brought out
what I know now to be my own natural and in-
herent character—self-reliant, active, abounding
in initiative. For four years I had been as a child
in her hands, through mere force of circumstances.
My true self came out now and asserted its
Supremacy.
“No, dear,” I said, smoothing her cheek; “I shall
go alone. I shall try what I can discover and
remember myself without any suggestion or ex-
planation from others. I want to find out how


44 RAE CALLED TO LIFE.
things really stand. I shall set to work on my
own account to unravel this mystery.”
“But how can you manage things by yourself?”
Aunt Emma exclaimed, wringing her hands de-
spondently. “A girl of your age without even
a maid and all alone in the world ! I shall be
afraid to let you go. Dr. Wade won't allow it.”
I drew myself up very straight, and realized
the position.
“Aunt Emma,” I said plainly, in a decided
voice, “I’m a full-grown woman, over twenty-one
years of age, mistress of my own acts, and no
longer a ward of yours. I can do as I like, and
neither Dr. Wade nor anybody else can prevent
me. He may advise me not to go: he has no
power to order me. I'm my father's heiress, and
a person of independent means. I've been a
cipher too long. From to-day I take my affairs
wholly into my own hands. I'll go round at once
and see your lawyer, your banker, your agent,
your tradesmen, and tell them that henceforth I
draw my own rents, I receive my own dividends,
I pay my own bills, I keep my own banking ac-
count. And to-morrow or the next day I set out
for Woodbury.”
The Inspector turned to Aunt Emma with a
demonstrative smile.
“There, you see for yourself,” he said, well
pleased, “what this interview has done for her!"
But Aunt Emma only drew back, wrung her


A BECOME A. WOMAAW. 45
hands again in impotent despair, and stared at
him blankly like a wounded creature.
The Inspector took up his hat to leave. I
followed him out to the door, and shook hands
with him cordially. The burden felt lighter on
my shoulders already. For four long years that
mystery had haunted me day and night, as a thing
impenetrable, incomprehensible, not even to be
inquired about. The mere sense that I might
now begin to ask what it meant seemed to make
"it immediately less awful and less burdensome to
Ine.
When I returned to the drawing-room, Aunt
Emma sat there on the sofa, crying silently, the
very picture of misery.
“Una,” she said, without even raising her eyes
to mine, “the man may have done as he says; he
may have restored you your mind again; but
what's that to me? He's lost me my child, my
darling, my daughter!”
I stooped down and kissed her. Dear, tender-
hearted auntie! she had always been very good
to me. But I knew I was right, for all that, in
becoming a woman—in asserting my years, my
independence, my freedom, my duty. To have
shirked it any longer would have been sheer
cowardice. So I just kissed her silently, and
went up to my own room—to put on my brown
hat, and go out to the banker's.
From that moment forth, one fierce desire in


46 : AºECALLED 7'O LIFE.
life alone possessed me. The brooding mystery
that enveloped my life ceased to be passive, and
became an active goad, as it were, to push me
forward incessantly on my search for the run-
away. I was the creature of a fixed idea. A fiery
energy spurred me on all my time. I was
determined now to find out my father's murderer.
I was determined to shake off the atmosphere of
doubt and forgetfulness. I was determined to
recall those first scenes of my life that so eluded
my memory. -
Yet, strange to say, it was rather a burning
curiosity and a deep sense of duty that urged
me on, than anything I could properly call affec-
tion—still less, revenge or malice. I didn't re-
member my father as alive at all; the one thing
I could recollect about him was the ghastly look
of that dead body, stretched at full length on the
library floor, with its white beard all dabbled in
the red blood that clotted it. It was abstract
zeal for the discovery of the truth that alone
pushed me on. This search became to me hence-
forth an end and aim in itself. It stood out, as
it were, visibly in the imperative mood: “Go
here”; “go there”; “do this”; “try that”; “leave
no stone unturned anywhere till you've tracked
down the murderer!” Those were the voices
that now incessantly though inaudibly pursued
ine.
Next day I spent in preparations for my de-


I BECOME A WOMAAV. 47
parture. I, would hunt up Woodbury now,
though fifty Aunt Eminas held their gentle old
faces up in solemn warning against me. The day
after that again, I set out on my task. The pull
was hard. I had taken my own affairs entirely
into my own hands by that time, and had provided
myself with money for a long stay at Woodbury.
But it was the very first railway journey I could
ever remember to have made alone; and I con-
fess, when I found myself seated all by myself in
a first-class carriage, with no friend beside me, my
resolution for a moment almost broke down again.
It was so terrible to feel one's self boxed up
there for an hour or two alone, with that awful
Picture staring one in the face all the time from
every fence and field and wall and hoarding. It
obliterated Pears' Soap; it fixed itself on the yel-
low face of Colman's Mustard.
I went by Liverpool Street, and drove across
to Paddington. I had never, to my knowledge,
been in London before; and it was all so new to
me. But Liverpool Street was even newer to me
than Paddington, I noticed. A faint sense of
familiarity seemed to hang about the Great
Western line. And that was not surprising, I
thought, as I turned it over; for, of course, in the
old days, when we lived at Woodbury, I must
often have come down from town that way with
my father. Yet I remembered nothing of it all
definitely; the most I could say was that I


48 A&AECALLED TO LIFE.
seemed dimly to recollect having been there be.
fore—though when or where or how, I hadn't the
faintest notion.
I was early at Paddington. Mr. Browning's
pies somehow failed to attract me. I walked up
and down the platform, waiting for my train. As
I did so, a boy pasted a poster on a board; it was
the contents sheet of one of the baser little
society papers. Something strange in it caught
my eye. I looked again in amazement. Oh,
great heavens! what was this in big flaring
letters?
MISS UNA CALLINGHAM AND THE WOOD BURY MYS-
TERY | IS SHE SCREENING THE MURDERER P A POS-
SIBLE EXPLANATION |
The words took my breath away. They were
too horrible to realize. I positively couldn't
speak. I went up to the book-stall, laid down
my penny without moving my lips, and took the
paper in my hand in tremulous silence.
I dared not open it there and then, I confess.
I waited till I was in the train, and on my way
to Woodbury.
When I did so, it was worse, even worse than
my fears. The article was short, but it was very
hateful. It said nothing straight out-the writer
had evidently the fear of the law of libel before
his eyes as he wrote, but it hinted and insinu-
ated, in a detestable undertone, the most vile
inuendoes. A Treasury Doctor and a Police In-


A BAECOM/AE A WOMAAV. 49
spector, it said, had lately examined Miss Calling-
ham again, and found her intellect in every respect
perfectly normal, except that she couldn't re-
member the face of her father's murderer. Now,
this was odd, because, you see, Miss Callingham
was in the room at the moment the shot was
fired; and, alone in the world, Miss Callingham
had seen the face of the man who fired it. Who
was that man? and why was he there, unknown
to the servants, in a room with nobody but Mr.
Callingham and his daughter? A correspondent
(who preferred to guard his incognito) had sug-
gested in this matter some very searching ques-
tions: Could the young man—for it was allowed
he was young—have been there with Miss Calling-
ham when Mr. Callingham entered? Could he
have been on terms of close intimacy with the
heroine of The Grange Mystery, who was a young
lady—as all the world knew from her photo-
graphs—of great personal attractiveness, and who
was also the heiress to a considerable property?
Could he have been there, then, by appoint-
ment, without the father's knowledge? Was this
the common case of a clandestine assignation?
Could the father have returned to the house un-
expectedly, at an inopportune moment, and found
his daughter there, closeted with a stranger—
perhaps with a man who had already, for sufficient
grounds, been forbidden the premises? Such
things might be, in this world that we live in; he


5o RECALLED TO LIFE.
would be a bold man who would deny them cate-
gorically. Could an altercation have arisen on
the father's return, and the fatal shot have been
fired in the ensuing scuffle? And could the
young lady then have feigned this curious relapse
into that Second State we had all heard so much
about, for no other reason than to avoid giving
evidence at a trial for murder against her guilty
lover?
These were suggestions that deserved the
closest consideration of the authorities charged
with the repression of crime. Was it not high
time that the inquest on Mr. Callingham's body
should be formally reopened, and that the young
lady, now restored (as we gathered) to her own
seven senses, should be closely interrogated by
trained legal cross-examiners?
I laid down the paper with a burning face. I
learned now, for the first time, how closely my
case had been watched, how eagerly my every
act and word had been canvassed. It was hateful
to think of my photograph having been exposed
in every London shop-window, and of anonymous
slanderers being permitted to indite such scandal
as this about an innocent woman. But, at any
rate, it had the effect of sealing my fate. If I
meant even before to probe this mystery to the
bottom, I felt now no other course was possibly
open to me. For the sake of my own credit,
for the sake of my own good fame, I must find
out and punish my father's murderer,


CHAPTER VI.
RELIVING MY LIFE.
FTEN, as you walk down a street, a man or
woman passes you by. You look up at them
and say to yourself, “I seem to know that face”;
but you can put no name to it, attach to it no
definite idea, no associations of any sort. That
was just how Woodbury struck me when I first
came back to it. The houses, the streets, the
people, were in a way familiar; yet I could no
more have found my way alone from the station
to The Grange than I could find my way alone
from here to Kamschatka.
So I drove up first in search of lodgings. At
the station even several people had bowed or
shaken hands with me respectfully as I descended
from the train. They came up as if they thought
I must recognize them at once; there was recog-
nition in their eyes; but when they met my blank
stare, they seemed to remember all about it, and
merely murmured in strange tones:
“Good-morning, miss! So you're here; glad
to see you've come back again at last to Wood-
bury.” -
This reception dazzled me. It was so strange,
51


52 RAECALLED TO LIFE.
so uncanny. I was glad to get away in a fly by
myself, and to be driven to lodgings in the clean
little High Street. For to me, it wasn't really
“coming back” at all: it was coming to a strange
town, where every one knew me, and I knew no-
body.
“You’d like to go to Jane's, of course,” the
driver said to me with a friendly nod as he
reached the High Street: and not liking to con-
fess my forgetfulness of Jane, I responded with
warmth that Jane's would, no doubt, exactly
suit me.
We drew up at the door of a neat little
house. The driver rang the bell.
“Miss Una's here,” he said confidentially; “and
she's looking for lodgings.”
It was inexpressibly strange and weird to me,
this one-sided recognition, this unfamiliar famili-
arity; it gave me a queer thrill of the super-
natural that I can hardly express to you. But I
didn't know what to do, when a kindly-faced,
middle-aged English upper-class servant rushed
out at me, open-armed, and hugging me hard to
her breast, exclaimed, with many loud kisses:
“Miss Una, Miss Una' So it's you, dear; so it
is! Then you've come back at last to us!”
I could hardly imagine what to say or do.
The utmost I could assert with truth was, Jane's
face wasn't exactly and entirely in all ways un-
familiar to me. Yet I could see Jane herself was


REL/V/AVG MY L/AWE. 53
so unfeignedly delighted to see me again, that I
hadn't the heart to confess I'd forgotten her very
existence. So I took her two hands in mine—
since friendliness begets friendliness—and hold-
ing her off a little way, for fear the kisses should
be repeated, I said to her very gravely:
“You see, Jane, since those days I’ve had a
terrible shock, and you can hardly expect me to
remember anything. It's all like a dream to me.
You must forgive me if I don't recall it just at
once as I ought to do.”
“Oh yes, miss,” Jane answered, holding my
hands in her delight and weeping copiously.
“We've read about all that, of course, in the
London newspapers. But there, I'm glad, any-
how, you remembered to come and look for my
lodgings. I think I should just have sat down
and cried if they told me Miss Una'd come back
to Woodbury, and never so much as asked to see
me.”
I don't think I ever felt so like a hypocrite in
my life before. But I realized at least that even
if Jane's lodgings were discomfort embodied, I
must take them and stop in them, while I re-
mained there, now. Nothing else was possible.
I couldn't go elsewhere.
Fortunately, however, the rooms turned out to
be as neat as a new pin, and as admirably kept as
any woman in England could keep them. I
gathered from the very first, of course, that Jane


54 RAECAZZZZ) 7"O Z/FE.
had been one of the servants at The Grange in
the days of my First State; and while I drank
my cup of tea, Jane herself came in and talked
volubly to me, disclosing to me, parenthetically,
the further fact that she was the parlor-maid at
the time of my father's murder. That gave me a
clew to her identity. Then she was the witness
Greenfield who gave evidence at the inquest I
made a mental note of that, and determined to
look up what she'd said to the coroner, in the
book of extracts the Inspector gave me, as soon
as I got alone in my bedroom that evening.
After dinner, however, Jane came in again, with
the freedom of an old servant, and talked to me
much about the Woodbury Mystery. Gradually,
as time went on that night, though I remembered
nothing definite of myself about her, the sense
of familiarity and friendliness came home to me
more vividly. The appropriate emotion seemed
easier to rouse, I observed, than the intellectual
memory. I knew Jane and I had been on very
good terms, sometime, somewhere. I talked with
her easily, for that I had a consciousness of
companionship.
By and by, without revealing to her how little
I could recollect about her own personality, I
confessed to Jane, by slow degrees, that the
whole past was still gone utterly from my
shattered memory. I told her I knew nothing
except the Picture and the facts it comprised;


AºELIV/AWG MY LIFE. 55
and to show her just how small that knowledge
really was, I showed her (imprudently enough)
the photograph the Inspector had left with me.
Jane looked at it long and slowly, with tears in
her eyes. Then she said at last, after a deep
pause, in a very hushed voice:
“Why, how did you get this? It wasn't put
in the papers.”
“No,” I answered quietly, “it wasn't put in the
papers. For reasons of their own, the police kept
it unpublished.”
Jane gazed at the proof still closer.
“They oughtn't to have done that,” she said.
“They ought to have sent it out everywhere
broadcast—so that anybody who knew the man
could tell him by his back.”
That seemed to me such obvious good sense
that I wondered to myself the police hadn't
thought long since of it; but I supposed they
had some good ground of their own for holding
it all this time in their own possession.
Jane went on talking to me still for many
minutes about the scene:
“Ah, yes; that was just how he lay, poor dear
gentleman And the book on the chair, too !
Well, did you ever in your life see anything so
like ' And to think it was taken all by itself, as
one might say, by magic. But there ! your poor
papa was a wonderful clever man. Such things
as he used to invent | Such ideas and such


56 AºA2CAAZZZ) 7"O ZZAPA2.
machines! We were sorry for him, though we
always thought, to be sure, he was dreadful severe
with you, Miss Una. Such a gentleman to have
his own way, too—so cold and reserved like. But
one mustn't talk nothing but good about the
dead, they say. And if he was a bit hard, he
was more than hard treated for it in the end, poor
gentleman."
It interested me to get these half sidelights on
my father's character. Knowing nothing of him,
as I did, save the solitary fact that he was the
white-haired gentleman I saw dead in my Picture,
I naturally wanted to learn as much as I could
from this old servant of ours as to the family
conditions.
“Then you thought him harsh in the servants'
hall?” I said tentatively to Jane. “You thought
him hard and unbending?”
“Well, there, miss,” Jane ran on, putting a
cushion to my back tenderly,–it was strange to
be the recipient of so much delicate attention
from a perfect stranger, “not exactly what
you'd call harsh to us ourselves, you know: he
was a good master enough, as long as one did
what was ordered, though he was a little bit
fidgetty. But to you, we all thought he was
always rather hard. People said so in Wood-
bury. And yet, in a way, I don't know how it
was, he always seemed more'n half afraid of you.
He was careful about your health, and spoiled


REZYVING MY LIFE. 57
and petted you for that: yet he "as always pull-
ing you up, you know, and looking after what
you did : and for one thing, I remember, there's
many a time you were sent to bed when you were
a good big girl for nothing on earth else but be-
cause he heard you talking to us in the hall about
Australia.”
“Talking to you about Australia!” I cried,
pricking my ears. “Why, what harm was there
in that? Why on earth didn't he want me to
talk about Australia?”
“Ah! what harm indeed?” Jane echoed blandly.
“That's what we often used to say among our.
selves downstairs. But Mr. Callingham, he was
always that way, miss—so strict and particular.
He said he'd forbidden you to say a word to
anybody about that confounded country; and
you must do as you were told. He seemed
to have a grudge against Australia, though it
was there he made his money. And he always
would have his own way, your father would.”
While she spoke, I looked hard at the white
head in the photograph. Even as I did so, a
thought occurred to me that had never occurred
before. Both in my mental Picture, and in look-
ing at the photograph when I saw it first, the feel-
ing that was uppermost in my mind was not
sorrow, but horror. I didn't think with affection
and regret and a deep sense of bereavement
about my father's murder. The emotional ac-


58 A’A2C4 / L.A. D 7TO LIFE.
companiment that had stamped itself upon the
very fiber of my soul was not pain but awe. I
think my main feeling was a feeling that a foul
crime had taken place in the house, not a feeling
that I had lost a very dear and near relative.
Rightly or wrongly, I drew from this the inference,
which Jane's gossip confirmed, that I had
probably rather feared than loved my father.
It was strange to be reduced to such indirect
evidence on such a point as that; but it was all I
could get, and I had to be content with it.
Jane, leaning over my shoulder, looked hard
at the photograph too. I could see her eyes
were fixed on the back of the man who was seen
disappearing through the open window. He was
dressed like a gentleman, in knickerbockers and
jacket, as far as one could judge, for the even-
ing light rather blurred that part of the picture.
One hand was just waved, palm open, behind
him. Jane regarded it hard. Then she gave an
Odd little start:
“Why, just look at that hand " she cried, with
a tremor of surprise. “Don't you see what it is?
Don't you think it's a woman's?”
I gazed back at her incredulously.
“Impossible,” I answered, shaking my head.
“It belongs, as clear as day, to the man you see in
the photograph. How on earth could his hand be
a woman's then, I'd like to know? I can see the
shirt-cuff.”


AºA2 LZW/AWG MY LIFE. 59
“Why, yes,” Jane answered, with simple com-
mon sense; “it’s dressed like a man, of course,
and it's a man to look at ; but the hand's a
woman's, as true as I'm standing here. Why
mightn't a woman dress in a man's suit on pur-
pose? And perhaps it was just because they
were so sure it was a man as did it, that the police
has gone wrong so long in trying to find the
murderer.”
I looked hard at the hand myself. Then I shut
my eyes, and thought of the corresponding object
in my mental Picture. The result fairly staggered
me. The impression in each case was exactly
the same. It was a soft and delicate hand, very
white and womanlike. But was it really a
woman's? I couldn't feel quite sure in my own
mind about that; but the very warning Jane gave
me seemed to me a most useful one. It would
be well, after all, to keep one's mind sedulously
open to every possible explanation, and to take
nothing for granted as to the murderer's person-
ality.


CHAPTER VII.
THE GRANGE AT WOODBURY.
STOPPED for three weeks in Jane's lodgings;
and before the end of that time Jane and I
had got upon the most intimate footing. It was
partly her kindliness that endeared me to her,
and her constant sense of continuity with the
earlier days which I had quite forgotten; but it
was partly too, I felt sure, a vague revival within
my own breast of a familiarity that had long ago
subsisted between us. I was coming to myself
again, on one side of my nature. Day by day I
grew more certain that while facts had passed
away from me, appropriate emotion remained
vaguely present. Among the Woodbury people
that I met, I recognized none to say that I knew
them, but I knew almost at first sight that I liked
this one and disliked that one. And in every
case alike, when I talked the matter over after-
ward with Jane, she confirmed my suspicion that
in my First State I had liked or disliked just
those persons respectively. My brain was upset,
but my heart remained precisely the same as
CVCI.
69


THE GRAMGE A 7" WOODB UR Y. 61
wº-
On my second morning I went up to The
Grange with her. The house was still unlet.
Since the day of the murder, nobody cared to
live in it. The garden and shrubbery had been
sadly neglected: Jane took me out of the way as
we walked up the path, to show me the place
where the photographic apparatus had been
found embedded in the grass, and where the
murderer had cut his hands getting over the wall
in his frantic agitation. The wall was pretty high
and protected with bottle-glass. I guessed he
must have been tall to scramble over it. That
seemed to tell against Jane's crude idea that a
woman might have done it.
But when I said so to Jane, she met me at once
with the crushing reply, “Perhaps it wasn't the
same person that came back for the box.” I saw
she was right again. I had jumped at a conclu-
sion. In cases like this one must leave no
hypothesis untried, jump at no conclusions of any
sort. Clearly, that woman ought to have been
made a detective.
As I entered the house the weird sense of
familiarity that pursued me throughout rose to a
very high pitch. I couldn't fairly say, indeed,
that I remembered the different rooms. All I
could say with certainty was that I had seen
them before. To this there were three excep-
tions,—the three that belonged to my Second
State, the library, my bedroom, and the hall and


62 A’ECALLED TO LIFE.
staircase. The first was indelibly printed on my
memory as a component part of the Picture, and
I found my recollection of every object in the
room almost startling in its correctness. Only,
there was an alcove on one side that I'd quite
forgotten, and I saw why most clearly. I stood
with my back to it as I looked at the Picture.
The other two bits I remembered as the room in
which I had had my first great illness, and the pas.
sage down which I had been carried or helped
when I was taken to Aunt Emma's.
I had begun to recognize now that the emo-
tional impression made upon me by people and
things was the only sure guide I still possessed
as to their connection or association with my past
history, and the rooms at The Grange had each
in this way some distinctive characteristic. The
library, of course, was the chief home of the
Horror which had hung upon my spirit even dur-
ing the days when I hardly knew in any intelli-
gible sense the cause of it. But the drawing-room
and dining-room both produced upon my mind a
vague consciousness of constraint. I was dimly
aware of being ill at ease and uncomfortable in
them. My own bedroom, on the contrary, gave
me a pleasant feeling of rest and freedom and
security; while the servants' hall and the kitchen
seemed perfect paradises of liberty.
“Ah! many's the time, miss,” Jane said, with a
sigh, looking over at the empty grate, “you'd


7"HE GRANGE A T WOODB UR Y. 63
come down here to make cakes or puddings, and
laugh and joke like a child with Mary an' me. I
often used to say to Emily—her as was cook here
before Ellen Smith, 'Miss Una's never so happy
as when she's down here in the kitchen.' And
‘That's true what you say,’ says Emily to me,
many a time and often.”
That was exactly the impression left upon my
own mind. I began to conclude, in a dim, power-
less way, that my father must have been a some-
what stern and unsympathetic man; that I had
felt constrained and uncomfortable in his presence
upstairs, and had often been pleased to get away
from his eye to the comparative liberty and ease
of my own room or of the maid-servants' quarters.
At last, in the big attic that had once been the
nursery, I paused and looked at Jane. A queer
sensation came over me.
“Jane,” I said slowly, hardly liking to frame
the words, “there's something strange about this
room. He wasn't cruel to me, was he?”
“Oh no, miss,” Jane answered promptly.
“He wasn't never what you might call exactly
cruel. He was a very good father, and looked
after you well; but he was sort of stern and
moody like—would have his own way, and didn't
pay no attention to fads and fancies, as he called
'em. When you were little, many's the time he
sent you up here for punishment—disobedience
and such like.”


64 - RAE CALLED TO LIFE.
I took out the photograph and tried, as it were,
to think of my father as alive and with his eyes
open. I couldn't remember the eyes. Jane told
me they were blue; but I think what she said
was the sort of impression the face produced
upon me. A man not unjust or harsh in his
dealings with myself, but very strong and master-
ful. A man who would have his own way in
spite of anybody. A father who ruled his
daughter as a vessel of his making, to be done
as he would with, and be molded to his fashion.
Still, my visit to the Grange resulted in the
end in casting very little light upon the problem
before me. It pained and distressed me greatly,
but it brought no new elements of the case into
view; at best, it only familiarized me with the
scene of action of the tragedy. The presence of
the alcove was the one fresh feature. Nothing
recalled to me as yet in any way the murderer's
features. I racked my brain in vain; no fresh
image came up in it. I could recollect nothing
about the man or his antecedents.
I almost began to doubt that I would ever suc-
ceed in reconstructing my past, when even the
sight of the home in which I had spent my
childish days suggested so few new thoughts or
ideas to me.
For a day or two after that I rested at Jane's
lest I should disturb my brain too much. Then
I called once more on the doctor who had made


66 RECALLED TO LIFE.
Dr. Marten, who used to take you on his knee
when you were a tiny little girl, and bring you
lollipops from town to the great detriment of
your digestion, and get into rows with your poor
father for indulging you and spoiling you? You
must surely remember me?”
I shook my head slowly. I was sorry to disap-
point him, but it was necessary before all things
to get at the bare truth.
“I'm afraid not,” I answered. “Do please for-
give me! You must have read in the papers, like
everybody else, of the very great change that has
so long come over me. Bear in mind, I can't re-
member anything at all that occurred before the
murder. That first illness is to me the earliest
recollection of childhood.”
He gazed across at me compassionately.
“My poor child,” he said in a low voice, like a
very affectionate friend, “it’s much better so. You
have been mercifully spared a great deal of pain.
Una, when I first saw you at The Grange after
your father's death, I thanked Heaven you had
been so seized. I thanked Heaven the world had
become suddenly a blank to you. I prayed hard
you might never recover your senses again, or
at least your memory. And now that you're
slowly returned to life once more, against all
hope or fear, I'm heartily glad it's in this peculiar
way. I'm heartily glad all the past's blotted out
for you. You can't understand that, my child?


THE GRANGE A 7" WOODB UR V. 67
Ah, no, very likely not. But I think it's much the
best for you that all your first life should be wholly
forgotten.” He paused for a second. Then he
added slowly: “If you remembered it all, the
sense of the tragedy would be far more acute and
poignant even than at present.”
“Perhaps so,” I said resolutely; “but not the
sense of mystery. It's that that appalls me so!
I'd rather know the truth than be so wrapped up
in the incomprehensible.”
He looked at me pityingly once more.
“My poor child,” he said, in the same gentle
and fatherly voice, “you don't wholly understand.
It doesn't all come home to you. I can see
clearly, from what Inspector Wolferstan told me,
after his visit to you the other day > y
I broke in, in surprise.
“Inspector Wolferstan " I cried. “Then he
came down here to see you, did he?”
It was horrible to find how all my movements
were discussed and chronicled.
“Yes, he came down here to see me and talk
things over,” Dr. Marten went on, as calmly as if
it were mere matter of course. “And I could see
from what he said you were still spared much.
For instance, you remember it all only as an
event that happened to an old man with a long
white beard. You don't fully realize, except in-
tellectually, that it was your own father. You're
saved, as a daughter, the misery and horror of


7 HE GRAAWGAE A 7" WOODE UR Y. 69
ducted the post-mortem, and put Justice off the
scent? And was I now practically at the mercy
of the criminal I was trying to track down? The
thought for a second or two made me feel terribly
uncomfortable. But I glanced at his back and at
his hands, and reassured myself. That broad,
short man was not the slim figure of my Picture
and of the photograph. Those large red hands
were not the originals of the small and delicate
white palm just displayed at the back in both
those strange documents of the mysterious mur-
der. -
The doctor came over again, and drew his chair
close to mine.
“Una, my child,” he said slowly, “I love you
very much, as if you were my own daughter. I
always loved you and admired you, and was
sorry—oh, so sorry!—for you. You've quite for-
gotten who I am; but I've not forgotten you.
Take what I say as coming from an old friend,
from one who loves you and has your interest at
heart. For Heaven's sake, I implore you, my
child, make no more inquiries. Try to forget—
not to remember. If you do recollect, you'll be
sorry in the end for it.” -
“Why so?” I asked, amazed, yet somehow feel-
ing in my heart I could trust him implicitly.
“Why should the knowledge of the true circum-
stances of the case make me more unhappy than
I am at present?”


7o RECALLED 7"O LIFE.
He gazed harder at me than ever.
“Because,” he replied, in slow tones, weighing
each word as he spoke, “you may find that the
murder was committed by some person or per-
sons you love or once loved very much indeed.
You may find it will rend your very heart-strings
to see that person or those persons punished.
You may find the circumstances were wholly
otherwise than you imagine them to be. . . . .
Let sleeping dogs lie, my dear. Without your
aid, nothing more can be done. Don't trouble
yourself to put the bloodhounds on the track of
some unhappy creature who might otherwise es-
cape. Don't rake it all up afresh. Bury it—bury
it—bury it.”
He spoke so earnestly that he filled me with
vague alarm.
“Dr. Marten,” I said solemnly, “answer me
just one question. Do you know who was the
murderer?”
“No, no!” he exclaimed, starting once more.
“Thank heaven, I can't tell you that I don't
know. I know nothing. Nobody on earth
knows but the two who were present on the night
of the murder, I feel sure. And of those two,
one's unknown, and the other has forgotten.”
“But you suspect who he is?” I put in, probing
the secret curiously.
He trembled visibly.
“I suspect who he is,” he replied, after a mo-


7"HE GRAWGE A 7" WOODBURY. 71
ment's hesitation. “But I have never communi-
cated, and will never communicate, my suspi-
cions to anybody, not even to you. I will only
say this: the person whom I suspect is one with
whom you may now have forgotten all your past
relations, but whom you would be sorry to pun-
ish if you recovered your memory. I formed a
strong opinion at the time who that person was.
I formed it from the nature and disposition of the
wound, and the arrangement of the objects in the
room when I was called in to see your father's
body.”
“And you never said so at the inquest ' " I
cried, indignant.
He looked at me hard again. Then he spoke
in a very slow and earnest voice:
“For your sake, Una, and for the sake of your
affections, I held my peace,” he said. “My dear,
the suspicion was but a very slender one. I had
nothing to go upon. And why should I have
tried to destroy your happiness?”
That horrible article in the penny society paper
came back to my mind once more with hideous
suggestiveness. I turned to him almost fiercely.
“So far as you know, Dr. Marten,” I asked,
“was I ever in love? Had I ever an admirer?
Was I ever engaged to any one?”
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled a sort of
smile of relief.
“How should I know?” he answered. “Admir-


72 RECALLED 7"O LIFE.
ers?—yes, dozens of them; I was one myself.
Lovers?—who can say? But I advise you not to
push the inquiry further.”
I questioned him some minutes longer, but
could get nothing more from him. Then I rose
to go. -
“Dr. Marten,” I said firmly, “if I remember all,
and if it wrings my heart to remember, I tell you
I will give up that man to justice all the same !
I think I know myself well enough to know this
much at least, that I never, never could stoop
either to love or to screen a man who could com-
mit such a foul and dastardly crime as this one.”
He took my hand fervently, raised it with
warmth to his lips, and kissed it twice over.
“My dear,” he said, with tears dropping down
his gentle old cheeks, “this is a very great mys-
tery—a terrible mystery. But I know you speak
the truth. I can see you mean it. Therefore, all
the more earnestly do I beg and beseech you, go
away from Woodbury at once, and as long as you
live think no more about it.”


CHAPTER VIII.
A VISION OF DEAD YEARS.
THE interview with Dr. Marten left me very
much disquieted. But it wasn't the only dis-
quieting thing that occurred at Woodbury. Be-
fore I left the place I happened to go one day
into Jane's own little sitting-room. Jane was
anxious I should see it; she wanted me to know
all her house, she said, for the sake of old times:
and for the sake of those old times that I couldn't
remember, but when I knew she'd been kind to
me, I went in and looked at it.
There was nothing very peculiar about Jane's
little sitting-room; just the ordinary English land-
lady's parlor. You know the type: square table
in the middle; bright blue vases on the mantel-
piece; chromo-lithograph from the Illustrated Lon-
don News on the wall; rickety whatnot with glass-
shaded wax-flowers in the recess by the window.
But over in one corner I chanced to observe a
framed photograph of early execution, which
hung faded and dim there. Perhaps it was be-
cause my father was such a scientific amateur,
but photography, I found out in time, struck the
73


74 RECALLED 7"O LIFE.
key-note of my history in every chapter. I didn't
know why, but this particular picture attracted
me strangely. It came from The Grange, Jane
told me: she'd hunted it out in the attic over the
front bedroom after the house was shut up. It
belonged to a lot of my father's early attempts that
were locked in a box there. “He’d always been
trying experiments and things,” she said, “with
photography, poor gentleman.”
Faded and dim as it was, the picture riveted
my eyes at once by some unknown power of at-
traction. I gazed at it long and earnestly. It
represented a house of colonial aspect, square,
wood-built, and veranda-girt, standing alone
among strange trees whose very names and as-
pects were then unfamiliar to me, but which I
nowadays know to be Australian eucalyptuses.
On the steps of the veranda sat a lady in deep
mourning. A child played by her side, and a col-
lie dog lay curled up still and sleepy in the fore-
ground. The child, indeed, stirred no chord of
any sort in my troubled brain; but my heart
came up into my mouth so at sight of the lady,
that I said to myself all at once, in my awe, “That
must surely be my mother!”
The longer I looked at it, the more was I con-
vinced I must have judged aright. Not indeed
that in any true sense I could say I remembered
her face or figure. I was so young when she died,
according to everybody's account, that even if I'd


76 AºA, CA LZ/2 D 7"O Z//7E.
That night I went to sleep fast, and slept for
some hours heavily. I woke with a start. I had
been dreaming very hard. And my dream was
peculiarly clear and lifelike. Never since the first
night of my new life—the night of the murder—
had I dreamed such a dream, or seen dead objects
so vividly. It came out in clear colors, like the
terrible Picture that had haunted me so long.
And it affected me strangely. It was a scene,
rather than a dream—a scene, as at the theater;
but a scene in which I realized and recognized
everything.
I stood on the steps of a house,_a white
wooden house, with a green-painted veranda,
the very house I had seen that afternoon in the
faded photograph in Jane's little sitting-room.
But I didn't think of it at first as the house in the
old picture. I thought of it as home—our own
place—the cottage. The steps seemed to me
very high, as in childish recollection. A lady
walked about on the veranda and called to me: a
lady in a white gown, like the lady in the photo-
graph, only younger and prettier, and dressed
much more daintily. But I didn't think of her
as that either: I called her mamma to myself. I
looked up into her face, oh, ever so much above
me. I must have been very small indeed when
that picture first occurred to me. There was a
gentleman, too, in a white linen coat, who pinched
my mamma's ear, and talked softly and musically.


A VISIOM OF DEAD YEARS. 77
But I didn't think of him quite so; I knew he was
my papa; I played about his knees, a little scam-
pering child, and looked up in his face, and teased
him and laughed at him. My papa looked down
at me, and called me a little kitten, and rolled me
over on my back, and fondled me and laughed
with me. There were trees growing all about,
big trees with long gray leaves; the same sort of
trees as the ones in the photograph. But I didn't
remember that at first; in my dream, and in the
first few minutes of my waking thought, I knew
them at once as the big blue-gum trees.
I awoke in the midst of it, and the picture per-
sisted.
Then, with a sudden burst of intuition, the
truth flashed upon me all at once. My dream
was no mere dream, but a revelation in my sleep.
It was my intellect working unconsciously and
spontaneously in an automatic condition. For
the very first time in my life, since the night of
the murder, I had really remembered something
that occurred before it.
This was a scene of my First State. In all
probability it was my earliest true childish recol-
lection. I sat up in bed, appalled. I dared not
call aloud or ring for Jane to come to me. But if
I'd seen a ghost, it could hardly have affected me
more profoundly than this ghost of my own dead
life thus brought suddenly back to me. Gazing
away across some illimitable vista of dim years, I


78 PECALLED TO LIFE.
remembered this one scene as something that
once occurred, long ago, to my very self, in my
own experience. Then came a vast gulf, an un-
bridged abyss; and after that, with a vividness as
of yesterday, the murder.
I held my ears and crouched low, sitting up in
my bed in the dark. But the dream seemed to go
on still; it remained with me distinctly.
The more I thought it over, the more certain it
appeared as part of my own experience. Putting
two and two together, I made sure in my own
mind this was a genuine recollection of my life in
Australia. I was born there, I knew; that I had
learned from everybody. But I could distinctly
remember having lived there now. It came back
to me as memory. The dream had reinstated it.
And it was the sight of the photograph that
had produced the dream. This was curious, very.
A weird idea came across me. Had I begun, in
all past efforts to remember, at the wrong end?
Instead of trying to recollect the circumstances
that immediately preceded the murder, ought I to
have set out by trying to reinstate my First Life,
chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, from child-
hood upward? Ought I to start by recalling, as
far as possible, my very earliest recollections in
my previous existence, and then gradually work
up through all my subsequent history to the date
of the murder?


A VISION OF DEAD YEARS. 79
The more I thought of it, the more convinced
was I that that was the right procedure.
It was certainly significant that this vague,
childish recollection of something which might
have happened when I was just about two years
old should be the very first thing to recur to my
memory. Yet so appalled and alarmed was I by
the weirdness of this sudden apparition, loom-
ing up, as it were, all by itself in the depths of my
consciousness, that I hardly dared bring myself
to think of trying to recall any other scenes of
that dead and past existence. The picture rose
like an exhalation, hanging unrelated in mid-air,
a mere mental mirage; and it terrified me so
much, that I shrank unutterably from the effort
of calling up another of like sort to follow it.


AIA 7'EFUL SUSP/CIONS. 8T
framing for my room than most of 'em. The ex-
ecutors took no notice when they found what
they was. They opened the box to see if it was
dockyments.”
“Well, Jane,” I said, “I shall go up and bring
them every one away with me. It's possible they
may help me to recollect things a bit.” I drew
my hand across my forehead. “It all seems so
hazy,” I went on. “Yet when I see things again,
I sometimes feel as if I almost recognized them.”
So that very morning we went up together (I
wouldn't go alone), and got the rest of the photo-
graphs—very faded positives from old-fashioned
plates, most of them representing persons and
places I had never seen; and a few of them
apparently not taken in England.
I didn't look them all over at once just then.
I thought it best not to do so. I would give my
memory every possible chance. Take a few at a
time, and see what effect they produced on me.
Perhaps—though I shrank from the bare idea
with horror—they might rouse in my sleep such
another stray effort of spontaneous reconstruc-
tion. Yet the last one had cost me much nervous
wear and tear—much mental agony.
A few days after, I went away from Woodbury.
I had learned for the moment, I thought, all that
Woodbury could teach me; and I longed to get
free again for a while from this pervading atmos-
phere of mystery. At Aunt Emma's, at least, all


84 RECALLED TO LIFE.
He had left it to his little girl, and after her to his
wife; so that first my father, and then I myself,
came in, in the end, to both the little estates,
though my mother's had been settled on the chil-
dren of the first marriage. Aunt Emma always
thought my father had married for money: and
she said he had been hard and unkind to mamma:
not indeed cruel—he wasn't a cruel man—but
severe and willful. He made her do exactly as
he wished about everything, in a masterful sort
of way that no woman could stand against. He
crushed her spirit entirely, Aunt Emma told me;
she had no will of her own, poor thing; his indi-
viduality was so strong, that it overrode my
mother's weak nature rough-shod. Not that he
was rough. He never scolded her; he never ill-
treated her; but he said to her plainly, “You are
to do so and so"; and she obeyed like a child.
She never dared to question him.
So Aunt Emma had always said my mother was
badly used, especially in money matters—the
money being all, when one came to think of it,
her own or her first husband's; and, as a conse-
quence, auntie was never invited to The Grange
during my father's lifetime.
When we reached Barton-on-the-Sea, Jane and
I, on our way from Woodbury, Aunt Emma was
waiting at the station to meet us. To my great
disappointment, I could see at first sight she
didn't care for Jane; and I could also see at first


FIA 7TEFUL SUSP/CVONS. 85
sight Jane didn't care for her. This was a serious
blow to me, for I leaned upon those two more
than I leaned upon any one; and I had far too
few friends in the world of my own to afford to
do without any one of them.
In the evening, however, when I went up to my
own room to bed, Jane came up to help me as she
always did at Woodbury. I began at once to tax
her with not liking Aunt Emma. With a little
hesitation, Jane admitted that at first sight she
hadn't felt by any means disposed to care for
her. I pressed her hard as to why. Jane held
off and prevaricated. That roused my curiosity;
you see, I'm a woman. I insisted upon know-
ing.
“Oh, miss, I can't tell you!" Jane cried, grow-
ing red in the face, “I can't bear to say it out.
You oughtn't to ask. It'll hurt you to know I
even thought such a thing of her "
“You must tell me, Jane,” I exclaimed, with a
cold shudder of terror, half guessing what she
meant. "Don't keep me in suspense. Let me
know what it is. I’m accustomed to shocks now.
I know I can stand them.”
Jane answered nothing directly. She only held
out her coarse red hand and asked me, with a face
growing pale as she spoke:
“Where's that picture of the murder?” -
I produced it from my box, trembling inwardly
all over.


86 RECALLED TO LIFE.
Jane darted one finger demonstratively at a
point in the photograph.
“Whose hand is that?” she asked with a strange
earnestness, putting her nail on the murderer's.
The words escaped me in a cry of horror, al-
most before I was aware of them:
“Aunt Emma's " I said, gasping. “I never
noticed it before.”
. Then I drew back and stared at it in speechless
awe and consternation.
It was quite, quite true. No use in denying it.
The figure that escaped through the window was
dressed in man's clothes, to be sure, and as far as
one could judge from the foreshortening and the
peculiar stoop, had a man's form and stature.
But the hand was a woman's—soft, and white,
and delicate; nay more, the hand, as I said in my
haste, was line for line Aunt Emma's.
In a moment a terrible sinking came over me
from head to foot. I trembled like an aspen leaf.
Could this, then, be the meaning of Dr. Marten's
warning that I should let sleeping dogs lie, lest I
should be compelled to punish some one whom I
loved most dearly? Had Fate been so cruel to
me, that I had learned to cling most in my Sec-
ond State to the very criminal whose act had
blotted out my First? Had I grown to treat like
a mother my father's murderer?
Aunt Emma's hand 1 Aunt Emma's hand
That was Aunt Emma's hand, every touch and


88 RECALLED TO LIFE.
Not that for a second I believed it true. I
could never believe it. Aunt Emma, so gentle,
so kindly, so sweet: incapable of hurting any liv-
ing thing; the tenderest old lady that breathed
upon earth; and my own mother's sister, whom I
loved as I never before loved any one ! Aunt
Emma the murderess! The bare idea was pre-
posterous! I couldn't entertain it. My whole
nature revolted from it.
And indeed, how very slight, after all, was the
mere scrap of evidence on which Jane ventured
to suggest so terrible a charge A man—in
man's clothes—fairly tall and slim, and appar-
ently dark-haired, but stooping so much that he
looked almost humpbacked: how different from
Aunt Emma, with her womanly figure, and her
upright gait, and her sweet old white head
Why, it was clearly ridiculous.
And yet, the fact remained that as Jane
pointed to the Picture and asked, “Whose hand
is that?” the answer came up all spontaneously
to my lips, without hesitation, “Aunt Emma's"
I sat there long in my misery, thinking it over
to myself. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't
go and confide to Aunt Emma's ear this new and
horrible doubt—which was no doubt after all, for
I knew it was impossible. I hated Jane for sug-
gesting it; I hated her for telling me. Yet I
couldn't be left alone. I was far too terrified.
“Oh, Jane,” I cried, looking up to her, and yet


HATEFUL SUSP/CIOM.S. 89
despising myself for saying it, “you must stop
here to-night and sleep with me. If I'm left by
myself in this room alone, I know I shall go mad—
I can feel it—I'm sure of it!” Jane stopped with
me and soothed me. She was certainly very kind.
Yet I felt in a dim, underhand sort of way it was
treason to Aunt Emma to receive her caresses at
all after what she had said to me. Though to be
sure it was I, not she, who spoke those hateful
words. It was I myself who had said the hand
was Aunt Emma's.
As I lay awake and thought, the idea flashed
across me suddenly, could Jane have any grudge
of her own against Aunt Emma? Was this a
deliberate plot? What did she mean by her
warnings that I should keep my mind open?
Why had she said from the very first it was a
woman's hand? Did she want to set me against
my aunt? And was Dr. Marten in league with
her? In my tortured frame of mind, I felt all
alone in the world. I covered my head and
sobbed in my misery. I didn't know who were
my friends and who were against me.
At last, after long watching, I dozed off into an
uneasy sleep. Jane had already been snoring long
beside me... I woke up again with a start. I was
cold and shuddering. I had dreamed once more
the same Australian dream. My mamma as be-
fore stood gentle beside me. She stooped down
and smoothed my hair, I could see her face and


90 AºA, CAZZAZ D 7"O Z/FE.
her form distinctly. And I noticed now she was
like her sister, Aunt Emma, only younger and
prettier, and ever so much slighter. And her
hand, too, was soft and white like auntie's—very
gentle and delicate.
It was just there that I woke up—with the
hand before my eyes. Oh, how vividly I noted
it! Aunt Emma's hand, only younger, and un-
scarred on the palm. The family hand, no
doubt: the hand of the Moores. I remembered,
now, that Aunt Emma had spoken more than
once of that family peculiarity. It ran through .
the house, she said. But my hand was quite dif-
ferent; not the Moore type at all; I supposed I
must have taken it, as was natural, from the Cal-
linghams.
And then, in my utter horror and loneliness, a
still more awful and ghastly thought presented
itself to me. This was my mother's hand I saw
in the picture. Was it my mother, indeed, who
wrought the murder? Was she living or dead?
Had my father put upon her some grievous
wrong? Had he pretended to get her out of the
way? Had he buried her alive, so to speak, in
some prison or madhouse? Had she returned in
disguise from the asylum, or the living grave,
to avenge herself and murder him? In my pres-
ent frame of mind, no idea was too wild or too
strange for me to entertain. If this strain con-
tinued much longer, I should go mad myself with
suspense and horror!


CHAPTER X.
YET ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH.
EXT morning my head ached. After all I'd
suffered, I could hardly bear to recur to the
one subject that now always occupied my thoughts.
And yet, on the other hand, I couldn't succeed
in banishing it. To relieve my mind a little, I
took out the photographs I had brought from the
box at The Grange, and began to sort them over
according to probable date and subject.
They were of different periods, some old, some
newer. I put them together in series, as well as
I could, by the nature of the surroundings. The
most recent of all were my father's early attempts
at instantaneous electric photography—the at-
tempts which led up at last to his automatic
machine, the acmegraph, that produced all uncon-
sciously the picture of the murder. Some of
these comparatively recent proofs represented
men running and horses trotting; but the best of
all, tied together with a bit of tape, clearly be-
longed to a single set, and must have been taken
at the same time at an athletic meeting. There
was one of a flat race, viewed from a little in
front, with the limbs of the runners in seemingly
9I


92 Ae/2CALLED TO LIFE.
ridiculous attitudes, so instantaneous and there-
fore so grotesquely rigid were they. There was
another of a high jump, seen from one side at the
very moment of clearing the pole, so that the
figure poised solid in mid-air as motionless as a
statue. And there was a third, equally success-
ful, of a man throwing the hammer, in which the
hammer, in the same way, seemed to hang sus-
pended of itself, like Mahomet's coffin, between
earth and heaven. -
But the one that attracted my attention the
most was a photograph of an obstacle-race, in which
the runners had to mount and climb over a wagon
placed obtrusively sideways across the course on
purpose to baffle them. This picture was taken
from a few yards in the rear; and the athletes
were seen in it in the most varied attitudes.
Some of them were just climbing up one side of
the wagon: others had mounted to the top ledge
of the body; and one, standing on the further
edge, was in the very act of leaping down to the
ground in front of him. He was bent double, to
spring, with a stoop like a hunchback, and bal-
anced himself with one hand held tightly behind
him.
As my eye fell on that figure, a cold thrill ran
through me. For a moment I only knew some-
thing important had happened. Next instant I
realized what the thrill portended. I could only
see the man's back, to be sure, but I knew him in


94 AºA2CALLED 7"O LIFE.
cles contracted. Yet for all that, we both knew
him for the same man at once. That stooping
back was unmistakable; that position of the hand
was characteristic and unique. We were sure he
was the same man. I trembled with agitation. I
had a clew to the murderer!
Yet, strange to say, that wasn't the first
thought that occurred to my mind. In the relief
of the moment, I looked up into Jane's eyes, and
exclaimed, with a sigh of profound relief:
“Then you see how mistaken you were about
the hands and Aunt Emma!”
Jane looked closely at the hand in the photo-
graph once more.
“Well, it's curious,” she said slowly. “That's
a man, sure enough; but he'd ought to be a
Moore. The palm's your aunt's as clear as ever
you could paint it!”
I glanced over her shoulder. She was per-
fectly right. It was a man beyond all doubt, the
figure on the wagon. Yet the hand was Aunt
Emma's, every line and every stroke of it; ex-
cept, of course, the scars. Those, I saw at a
glance, were wholly wanting.
And now I had really a clew to the murderer.
Yet how slight a clew Just a photograph of
men's backs. What men? When and where?
It was an athletic meeting. Of what club or
society? That was the next question now I had
to answer. Instinctively I made up my mind to
f


YET AAVO THER PA/O TOGRAPH. 95
answer it myself, without giving any notice to the
police of my discovery.
Perhaps I should never have been able to
answer it at all but for one of the photographs
which, as I thought, though lying loose by itself,
formed part of the same series. It represented
the end of a hundred-yard race, with the winners
coming in at the tape by a pavilion with a flag-
staff. On the staff a big flag was flying loosely in
the wind. The folds hid half of the words on its
center from sight. But this much at least I could
read:
ER . . . OM . . OY . . . LETI . . . UB.
I gazed at them long and earnestly. After a
minute or two of thought, I made out the last
two words. The inscription must surely be
Something-or-other Athletic Club.
But what was “Er . . . om . . oy . . . .”?
That question staggered me. Gazing harder at
it than ever, I could come to no conclusion. It
was the name of a place, no doubt; but what
place, I knew not.
“Er”? No, “Ber”; just a suspicion of a B
came round the corner of a fold. If B was the
first letter, I might possibly identify it.
I took the photograph down to Aunt Emma
without telling her what I meant. She couldn't
bear to think I was ever engaged in thinking of
my First State at all.
“Can you read the inscription on that flag,


YE 7" A WO 7"HEA PAHOTOGRAPH. 97
maps; and in the second place, my brain soon
got muddled and dazed with trying to fit in the
names with the letters on the flag. Two hours
had passed away, and I'd only got as far down as
Lancashire and Durham. And most probably,
even so, I would never come upon it.
Then, suddenly, a bright idea broke on my
brain at once. The Index' The Index 1 Pre-
sumably, as no fold seemed to obscure the first
words, the name began with what looked like a
B. That was always something.
A man would have thought of that at once, of
course: but then, I have the misfortune to be
only a woman.
I turned to the Index in haste, and looked
down it with hurried eyes. Almost sooner than
I could have hoped, the riddle unread itself.
“Ber-Berb-Berc-Berd—” I read out. “Berkshire:
Berham : Berhampore; that won't do; Berlin:
Berling: Bernina; Berry—what's that? Oh,
great Heavens!”—my brain reeled—“Berry Pom-
eroy " .
It was as clear as day. How could I have missed
it before? There it seemed to stand out almost
legible on the flag-staff. I read it now with ease:
“Berry Pomeroy Athletic Club.”
I looked up the map once more, following the
lines with my fingers, till I found the very place
where the name was printed. A village in Dev-


98 AºA2CAA’D 7"O Z/FE.
onshire, not far from Torquay. Yes! That's it!
Berry Pomeroy. The murderer was there on the
day of that athletic meeting!
My heart came up into my mouth with
mingled horror and triumph. I felt like a blood-
hound who gets on the trail of his man. I would
track him down now, no doubt—my father's
murderer!
I had no resentment against him, no desire for
vengeance. But I had a burning wish to free
myself from this environing mystery.
I wouldn't tell the police or the Inspector, how-
ever, what clew I had obtained. I'd find it all
out for myself without any one's help. I remem-
bered what Dr. Marten had said, and determined
to be wise. I'd work on my own lines till all was
found out; and then, be it who it might, I sternly
resolved I'd let justice be done on him.
So I said nothing even to Jane about the dis-
covery I'd just made. I said nothing to anybody
till we sat down at dinner. Then, in the course
of conversation, I got on the subject of Devon-
shire.
“Auntie,” I ventured to ask at last, in a very
casual way, “did I ever, so far as you know, go
anywhere near a place called Berry Pomeroy?”
Aunt Emma gave a start.
“Oh, darling, why do you ask?” she cried.
“You don't mean to say you remember that, do
you? What do you want to know for, Una? You


VET ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH. 99
can't possibly recollect your Torquay visit,
surely"
I trembled all over. Then I was on the right
track!
“Was I ever at Torquay?” I asked once more,
as firmly as I could. “And when I was there, did
I go over one day to Berry Pomeroy?”
Aunt Emma grew all at once as white as death.
“This is wonderful!” she cried in an agitated
voice. “This is wonderful—wonderful! If you
can remember that, my child, you can remember
anything.”
“I don't remember it, Auntie,” I answered, not
liking to deceive her. “To tell you the truth, I
simply guessed at it. But when and why was I
at Torquay? Please tell me. And did I go to
Berry Pomeroy?” for I stuck to my point, and
meant to get it out of her.
Aunt Emma gazed at me fixedly.
“You went to Torquay, dear,” she said in a very
slow voice, “in the spring of the same year your
poor father was killed; that's more than four
years ago. The Willie Moores live at Torquay,
and several more of your cousins. You went to
stop with Willie's wife, and you stayed five weeks.
I don't know whether you ever went over to Berry
Pomeroy. You may have and you mayn't; it's
within an easy driving distance. Minnie Moore
has often written to ask me whether you could
go there again; Minnie was always fond of you,
2324


IOO AºA2CA LZAZZ) 7"O Z/FE.
and thinks you'd remember her: but I've been
afraid to allow you, for fear it should recall sad
scenes. She's about your own age, Minnie is;
and she's a daughter of Willie Moore, who's my
own first cousin, and of course your dear mother's.”
I never hesitated a moment. I was strung up
too tightly by that time.
“Auntie, dear,” I said quietly, “I go to-morrow
to Torquay. I must know all now. I must hunt
up these people.” -
Auntie knew from my tone it was no use trying
to stand in my way any longer.
“Very well, dear,” she said resignedly. “I
don't believe it's good for you: but you must do
as you like. You have your father's will, Una.
You were always headstrong.”


CHAPTER XI.
THE VISION RECURS.
HATED asking auntie questions, they seemed
to worry and distress her so; but that even-
ing, in view of my projected visit to Torquay, I
was obliged to cross-examine her rather closely
about many things. I wanted to know about my
Torquay relations, and as far as possible about
my mother's family. In the end I learned that the
Willie Moores were cousins of ours on my mother's
side, who had never quarreled with my father like
Aunt Emma, and through whom alone, accord-
ingly, in the days of my First State, Aunt Emma
was able to learn anything about me. They had
a house at Torquay, and connections all around;
for the Moores were Devonshire people. Aunt
Emma was very anxious, if I went down there at
all, I should stop with Mrs. Moore, for Minnie
would be so grieved, she said, if I went to a
hotel or took private lodgings. But I wouldn't
hear of that myself. I knew nothing of the
Moores—in my present condition—and didn't like
to trust myself in the hands of those who to me
were perfect strangers. So I decided on going to
Ior


To2 A’ECAZZF/D 7"O Z/FE.
the Imperial Hotel, and calling on the Moores
quietly to pursue my investigation.
Another question I asked in the course of the
evening. I had wondered about it often, and now,
in these last straits, curiosity overcame me.
“Aunt Emma,” I said unexpectedly, after a
pause, without one word of introduction, “how-
ever did you get those scars on your hand.
You've never told me.”
In a moment, Aunt Emma blushed suddenly
crimson like a girl of eighteen.
“Una,” she answered very gravely, in a low
strange tone, “oh, don't ask me about that, dear.
Don't ask me about that. You could never un-
derstand it. . . . . I got them . . . . in climbing
over a high stone wall . . . . a high stone wall,
with bits of glass stuck on top of it.”
In spite of her prohibition, I couldn't help ask-
ing one virtual question more. I gave a start of
horror:
“Not the wall at The Grange?” I cried. “Oh,
Aunt Emma, how wonderful l’”
She gazed at me astonished.
“Yes, the wall at The Grange,” she said simply.
“But I don't know how you guessed it. . . . . Oh,
Una, don't talk to me any more about these
things, I implore you. You can't think how they
grieve me. They distress me unspeakably.”
Much as I longed to know, I couldn't ask her
again after that. She was trembling like an aspen


7"HE VISIOW RECUR.S. Io3
leaf. For some minutes we sat and looked at the
fireplace in silence.
Then curiosity overcame me again.
“Only one question more, Auntie,” I said.
“When I came to you first, you were at home
here at Barton. You didn't come to Woodbury
to fetch me after the murder. You didn't attend
the inquest. I've often wondered at that. Why
didn't you bring me yourself? Why didn't you
hurry to nurse me as soon as you heard they'd
shot my father?”
Aunt Emma gazed at me again with a face like
a sheet.
“Darling,” she said, quivering, “I was ill. I
was in bed. I was obliged to stay away. I'd
hurt myself badly a little before. . . . . Oh, Una,
leave off! If you go on like this, you'll drive me
mad. Say no more, I implore of you.”
I couldn't think what this meant; but as auntie
wished it, I held my peace, all inwardly trembling
with suppressed excitement.
That night, when I went up to bed, I lay awake
long, thinking to myself of the Australian scene.
In the silence of the night it came back to me
vividly. Rain pattered on the roof, and helped
me to remember it. I could see the blue-gum
trees waving their long ribbon-like leaves in the
wind. I could see the cottage, the veranda, my
mother, our dog; nay, even, I remembered now,
with a burst of recollection, his name was Carlo.


Io.4 RECALLED 7"O Z/FE,
The effort was more truly a recollection than be-
fore; it was part of myself; I felt aware it was
really I myself, not another, who had seen all this,
and lived and moved in it.
Slowly I fell asleep, and passed from thinking
to dreaming. My dream was but a prolongation
of the thoughts I had been turning over in my
waking mind. I was still in Australia; still on
the veranda of our wooden house; and my
mamma was there, and papa beside her. I knew
it was papa, for I held his hand and played with
him. But he was so much altered, so grave and
severe; though he smiled at me good-humoredly.
Mamma was sitting behind, with baby on her lap.
It seemed to me quite natural she should be there
with baby. The scene was so distinct—very
vivid and clear. It persisted for many minutes,
perhaps even hours. It burnt itself into my brain.
At last, it woke me up by its very intensity.
As I woke, a great many thoughts crowded in
upon me all at once. This time I knew instantly
it was no mere dream, but a true recollection.
Yet what a strange recollection how unexpected
how incomprehensible! How much in it to settle !
how much to investigate and hunt up and inquire
about !
In the first place, though I was still in my
dream a little girl, much time must have elapsed
since the earlier vision; for my papa looked far
older, and graver, and sterner. He had more hair


7"HE VISIOW RAECURS. Io5
about his face, too, a long brown beard and heavy
mustache; and when I gazed hard at him men-
tally, I could recognize the likeness with the white-
bearded man who lay dead on the floor; while, in
my former recollection, I could scarcely make out
any resemblance of the features. This showed
that the second scene came long after the first; my
father must by that time have begun to resemble
his later self. A weird feeling stole over me.
Was I going to relive my previous life, piece-
meal? Was the past going to unroll itself in slow
but regular panorama to my sleeping vision. Was
my First State to become known like this, in suc-
cessive scenes, to my Second?
But that wasn't all. There were strange ques-
tions to decide, too, about this new dream of dead
days. What could be the meaning of that mys-
terious baby?. She seemed to be so vivid, so
natural, so real; her presence there was so much
a pure matter of course to me, that I couldn't for
a moment separate her from the rest of the Pic-
ture. I remembered the baby, now; as I remem-
bered my mother, and my father, and Australia.
There was no room for doubt as to that. The
baby was an integral part of my real recollection.
Floating across the dim ocean of years, I was cer-
tain that night I had once lived in such a scene,
with my mamma, and baby.
Yet oh, what baby? I never had a brother or
sister of my own, except the half-sister that died


Ioé RECALLED TO LIFE.
—the clergyman's child, Mary Wharton. And
Mary, from what I had learned from Aunt Emma
and others, must have died when I was only just
five months old, immediately before we left Aus-
tralia. How, then, could I remember her, even
in this exalted mental state of trance or dream?
And, above all, how could I remember a far ear-
lier scene, when my papa was younger, when his
face was smooth, and when there was no other
baby?
This mystery only heightened the other mys-
teries which surrounded my life. I was surfeited
with them now. In very despair and listless-
ness, I turned round on my side, and dozed
dreamily off again, unable to grapple with it.
But still that scene haunted me. And still,
even in sleep, I asked myself over and over again,
“How on earth can this be? What's the meaning
of the baby?”
Perhaps it was a little sister that died young,
whom I never had heard of. And perhaps not.
In a life such as mine, new surprises are always
possible.


CHAPTER XII.
THE MOORES OF TORQUAY.
TRANGE to say, in spite of everything, my
sleep refreshed me. I woke up in the morn-
ing strong and vigorous—thank goodness, I have
physically a magnificent constitution—and packed
my box, with Jane's help, for my Torquay expe-
dition.
I went up to London and down to Torquay
alone, though Jane offered to accompany me. I
was learning to be self-reliant. It suited my
plans better. Nobody could bear this burden for
me but myself; and the sooner I learnt to bear it
my own way, the happier for me.
At Torquay station, to my great surprise, a
fresh-looking girl of my own age rushed up to
me suddenly, and kissed me without one word of
warning. She was a very pretty girl, pink-cheeked
and hazel-eyed; and as she kissed me, she seized
both my hands in hers, and cried out to me
frankly:
“Why, there you are, Una dear! Cousin
Emma telegraphed us what train you'd arrive by;
so I’ve driven down to meet you. And now,
197


IIO RECALLED TO LIFE.
laughing. “I thought you'd remember that. I
must say you enjoyed yourself wonderfully at
Berry Pomeroy!”
“Remember what?” I cried, all eagerness; for
I saw she attached some special importance to
the recollection. And yet it was terrible she
should jest about the clew to my father's mur-
derer!
Minnie looked arch. When she looked arch,
she was charming.
“Why, I never saw you prettier or more en-
gaging in your life than you were that day,” she
said evasively, as if trying to pique me. “And
you flirted so much, too! And everybody ad-
mired you so. Everybody on the grounds—
especially one personſ”
I looked up at her in surprise. I was in my
own room, seated by the dressing-table, late at
night, when we'd gone up to bed; and Minnie
was beside me, standing up, with her bedroom
candle in that pretty white little hand of hers.
“What do you mean?” I exclaimed eagerly.
“Was it a dance—or a picnic?”
“Oh, you know very well,” Minnie went on
teasingly, “though you pretend you forget. He
was there, don't you know. You must remember
him, if you've forgotten all the rest of your pre-
vious life. You say you remember the appropri-
ate emotions. Well, he was an emotion; at
least, you thought so. It was an Athletic Club


THE MOORES OF TORQUA Y. III
meeting; and Dr. Ivor was there. He went
across on his bicycle.”
I gave a start of surprise. Minnie looked down
at me half maliciously.
“There, you see,” she said archly again, “at Dr.
Ivor you change color. I told you you'd remem-
ber him '''
I grew pale with astonishment.
“Minnie dear,” I said, holding her hands very
tight in my own, “it wasn't that, I assure you.
I've forgotten him utterly. If ever I knew a Dr.
Ivor, if ever I flirted with him, as you seem to
imply, he's gone clean out of my head. His
name stirs no chord—recalls absolutely nothing.
But I want to know about that Athletic Meeting.
Was my poor father there that day? And did he
take a set of photographs?”
Minnie clapped her hands triumphantly.
“I knew you remembered " she cried “Of
course, Cousin Vivian was there. We drove over
in a break. You must remember that. And he
took a whole lot of instantaneous photographs.”
My hand trembled violently in my cousin's. I
felt I was now on the very eve of a great dis-
covery.
“Minnie,” I said tentatively, “do you think
your papa would drive us over some day and—
and show us the place again?”
“Of course he would, dear,” Minnie answered,
with a gentle pressure of my hand. “He’d be


II 2 AºA2CA LZ/2/) 7"O Z/FE.
only too delighted. Whatever you choose. You
know you were always such a favorite of papa’s.”
I knew nothing of the sort; but I was glad to
learn it. I drew Minnie out a little more about
the Athletics and my visit to Berry Pomeroy.
She wouldn't tell me much ; she was too illusive
and indefinite; she never could get the notion out
of her head, somehow, that I remembered all
about it, and was only pretending to forgetfulness.
But I gathered from what she said, that Dr.
Ivor and I must have flirted a great deal; or, at
least, that he must have paid me a good lot of
attention. My father didn't like it, Minnie said;
he thought Dr. Ivor wasn't well enough off to
marry me. He was a distant cousin of ours, of
course—everything was always “of course” with
that dear bright Minnie—what, didn't I know
that? Oh, yes, his mother was one of the Moores
of Barnstaple, Cousin Edward's people. His
name was Courtenay Moore Ivor, you know—
though I knew nothing of the sort. And he was
awfully clever. And, oh, so handsome!
“Is he at Berry Pomeroy still?” I asked, trem-
bling, thinking this would be a good person to get
information from about the people at the Ath-
letic Sports.
“Oh dear, no,” Minnie answered, looking hard
at me curiously. “He was never at Berry Pom-
eroy. He had a practice at Babbicombe. He's
in Canada now, you know. He went over six


THE MOORES OF TOROUA y. I 13
months after Cousin Vivian's death. I think,
dear,”—she hesitated,—“he never quite got over
your entirely forgetting him, even if you forgot
your whole past history.”
This was a curious romance to me, that Minnie
thus sprang on me—a romance of my own past
life of which I myself knew nothing.
We sat late talking, and I could see Minnie
was very full indeed of Dr. Ivor. Over and over
again she recurred to his name, and always as
though she thought it might rouse some latent
chord in my memory. But nothing came of it.
If ever I had cared for Dr. Ivor at all, that feeling
had passed away utterly with the rest of my
experiences.
When Minnie rose to go, I took her hand once
more in mine. As I did so, I started. Some-
thing about it seemed strangely familiar. I
looked at it close with a keen glance. Why, this
was curious! It was Aunt Emma's hand; it was
my mother's hand; it was the hand in my mental
Picture; it was the hand of the murderer!
“It's just like auntie's,” I said with an effort,
seeing Minnie noticed my start.
She looked at it and laughed.
“The Moore hand,” she said gayly. “We all
have it, except you. It's awfully persistent.”
I turned it over in front and examined the
palm. At sight of it my brain reeled. This was
surely magic! Minnie Moore's hand, too, was


II.4 AºA2CAA/A2D 7"O Z/FE.
scarred over with cuts, exactly like Aunt
Emma's .
“Why, how on earth did you do that?” I cried,
thunderstruck at the discovery.
But Minnie only laughed again, a bright girlish
laugh.
“Climbing over that beastly wall at The
Grange,” she said with a merry look. “Oh, what
fun we did have: We climbed it together. We
were dreadful tomboys in those days, dear, you
and I; but you were luckier than I was, and
didn't cut yourself with the bottle-glass.”
This was too surprising to be passed over un-
noticed. When Minnie was gone, I lay awake
and pondered about it. Had all the Moores got
scars on their hands, I wondered? And how
many people, I asked myself, had cut themselves
time and again in climbing over that barricaded
garden-wall of my father's?
The Moore hand might be hereditary, but not
surely the scars. Was the murderer, then, a
Moore, and was that the meaning of Dr. Marten's
warning?


CHAPTER XIII.
DR. IVOR OF BABBICOMBE.
WO days later, Cousin Willie drove us over to
Berry Pomeroy. The lion of the place is the
castle, of course; but Minnie had told him before-
hand I wanted, for reasons of my own, to visit
the cricket field where the sports were held “the
year Dr. Ivor won the mile race, you remember.”
So we went there straight. As soon as we
entered, I recognized the field at once, and the
pavilion, and the woods, as being precisely the
same as those presented in the photograph. But
I got no further than that. The captain of the
cricket club was on the ground that day, and I
managed to get into conversation with him, and
strolled off in the grounds. There I showed him
the photograph and asked if he could identify the
man climbing over the wagon: but he said he
couldn't recognize him. Somebody or other from
Torquay, perhaps; not a regular resident. The
figures were so small, and so difficult to make sure
about. If I'd leave him the photograph, per-
haps—but at that I drew back, for I didn't want
115


PR. I VOR OF BA BAE/COMEAE. 117
Minnie took it up abstractedly and looked at it
with an indefinite gaze.
“Why, this is the cricket field !” she cried, as
soon as she collected her senses. “One of your
father's experiments. The earliest acmegraphs.
How splendidly they come out! See, that's Sir
Everard at the bottom; and there's little Jack
Hillier above; and this on one side's Captain
Brooks; and there, in front of all—well, you know
ſhim, anyhow, Una. Now, don't pretend you for-
get ! That's Courtenay Ivor "
Her finger was on the man who stood poised
ready to jump. With an awful recoil I drew
back and suppressed a scream. It was on the tip
of my tongue to cry out, “Why, that's my father's
murderer!”
But, happily, with a great effort of will, I re-
strained myself. I saw it all at a glance. That,
then, was the meaning of Dr. Marten's warning !
No wonder, I thought, the shock had disorganized
my whole brain. If Minnie was right, I was in
love once with that man. And I must have seen
my lover murder my father!
For I didn't doubt, from what Minnie said, I
had really once loved Dr. Ivor. Horrible and
ghastly as it might be to realize it, I didn't doubt
it was the truth. I had once loved the very man
I was now bent on pursuing as a criminal and a
murderer.
“You're sure that's him, Minnie?” I cried, try-


AR. WWOR OF BA BAE/COMBAE. I 19
under the window till his vile deed was done, and
then leapt out upon it in a second and dashed off
whence he came like a flash of lightning.
It was a premeditated crime, in that case, not
the mere casual result of a sudden quarrel.
I must find out this man now, were it only to
relieve my own sense of mystery.
“Minnie,” I said once more, screwing up my
courage to ask, “where's Dr. Ivor now? I mean—
that is to say—in what part of Canada?”
Minnie looked at me and laughed.
“There, I told you so" she said merrily.
“It's not the least bit of use your pretending
you're not in love with him, Una. Why, just
look how you tremble! You're as white as a
ghost! and then you say you don't care for poor
Courtenay ! I forget the exact name of the place
where he lives, but I've got it in my desk, and I
can tell you to-morrow. Oh, yes; it's Palmyra,
on the Canada Pacific. I suppose you want to
write to him. Or perhaps you mean to go out
and offer yourself bodily.”
It was awful having to bottle up the truth in
one's own heart, and to laugh and jest like this;
but I endured it somehow.
“No, it's not that,” I said gravely. “I’ve
other reasons of my own for asking his address,
Minnie. I want to go out there, it's true; but
not because I cherish the faintest pleasing recol-
lection of Dr. Ivor in any way.”


12O AºA, CA ZZZZ) 7"O ZZAPAE.
Minnie scanned me over in surprise.
“Well, how you are altered, Una" she cried.
“I love you, dear, and like you every bit as much
as ever. But you've changed so much. I don't
think you're at all what you used to be. You're
so grave and somber.”
“No wonder, Minnie,” I exclaimed, bursting
gladly into tears—the excuse was such a relief;
“no wonder, when you think how much I've
passed through ſ”
Minnie flung her arms around my neck, and
kissed me over and over again.
“Oh, dear!” she cried, melting. “What have I
done? What have I said? I ought never to have
spoken so. It was cruel of me—cruel, Una dear.
I shall stop here to-night, and sleep with you.”
“Oh, thank you, darling!” I cried. “Minnie,
that is good of you. I'm so awfully glad. For
to-morrow I must be thinking of getting ready
for Canada.”
“Canada!” Minnie exclaimed, alarmed. “You’re
not really going to Canada! Oh, Una, you're jok-
ing! You don't mean to say you're going out
there to find him 7”
I took her hand in mine, and held it up in the
air above her head solemnly.
“Dear cousin,” I said, “I love you. But you
must promise me this one thing. Whatever may
happen, give me your sacred word of honor you'll
never tell anybody what we've said here to-night.


DR. / VOR OF BABBAECOMBE. I2 I
You'll kill me if you do. I don't want any living
soul on earth to know of it.”
I spoke so seriously, Minnie felt it was impor-
tant.
“I promise you,” she answered, growing sud-
denly far graver than her wont. “Oh, Una, I
haven't the faintest idea what you mean, but no
torture on earth shall ever wring a word of it
from me!” -
So I went to bed in her arms, and cried myself
to sleep, thinking with my latest breath, in a
tremor of horror, that I'd found it at last. Cour-
tenay Ivor was the name of my father's mur-
derer!


I 24 RECALLED TO LIFE.
Toward evening I ventured even to go into the
grounds of The Grange, and look about every-
where on the chance that I might see you. Per-
haps your father might be out. I went round
toward the window, which I now know to be the
library. As I went, I saw a bicycle leaning up
against the wall by the window. I thought that
must be some visitor, but still I went on. But
just as I reached the window, I saw a flash of
electric light; and by the light I could make out
your father's head and beard. He looked as if he
were talking angrily and loudly to somebody.
The window was open. I was afraid to stop
longer. In a sudden access of fear, I ran across
the shrubbery toward the garden-wall. To tell
you the truth, I was horribly frightened. Why,
I don't know; for nothing had happened as yet.
I suppose it was just the dusk and the mean
sense of intrusion.”
She paused and wiped her brow. I sat still,
and listened eagerly.
“Presently,” she went on, very low, “as I ran
and ran, I heard behind me a loud crash—a sound
as of a pistol shot. That terrified me still more.
I thought I was being pursued. Perhaps they
took me for a burglar. In the agony of my terror,
I rushed at the wall in mad haste, and climbed
over it anyhow. In climbing, I tore my hand, as
you see, and made myself bleed, oh, terribly
However, I persevered, and got down on the


MY WELCOME TO CAMADA. I 25
other side, with my clothes very little the worse
for the scramble. And, fortunately, I was carry-
ing a small light dust cloak; I put it on at once,
and it covered up everything. Then I began to
walk along the road as fast as I could in the direc-
tion of the station. As I did so, a bicycle shot
out from the gate in the opposite direction, going
as hard as it could spin, simply flying toward
Whittingham. Three minutes later a man came
up to me, breathless. It was the gardener at
The Grange, I believe.
“‘Have you seen anybody go this way?' he
asked. “A young man, running hard? A young
man in knickerbockers?'
“‘N—no,' I answered, trembling, for I was
afraid to confess. “Not a soul has gone past!’
“Of course, I didn't know of the murder as
yet; and I only wanted to get off unperceived to
the station.
“I’d bound up my hand in my handkerchief by
that time, and held it tight under my cloak. I
went back by train unnoticed, and returned to my
friend's house. I hadn't even told them I was go-
ing to Woodbury at all. I pretended I'd been
spending the day at Whittingham. Next morn-
ing, I read in the paper of your father's murder.”
I stared hard at Aunt Emma.
“Why didn't you tell me this long ago?” I
cried, in an agony of suspense. “Why didn't you
give evidence and say so at the inquest?"


I 26 RECA CIAE D TO LIFE.
“How could I?" Aunt Emma answered, look-
ing back at me appealingly. “The circumstances
were too suspicious. As it was, everybody was
running after the young man in knickerbockers.
Nobody took any notice of a little old lady in a
long gray dust-cloak. But if once I’d confessed
and shown my wounded hand, who would ever
have believed I’d nothing to do with the murder?
—except you, perhaps, Una. Oh no; I came
back here to my own home as fast as ever I
could, for I was really ill. I took to my bed at
once. And as nobody called me to give evidence
at the inquest, I said nothing to anybody.”
“But the bicycle !” I cried. “The bicycle !
You ought to have mentioned that. You were
the only one who saw it. It was a clew to the
murderer.”
“If I'd told,” Aunt Emma answered, “I should
never have been allowed to take charge of you at
all. I thought my one clear duty was to my sis-
ter's child; it was to take care of your health in
your shattered condition. And even now, Una, I
tell you only for this: if you find out anything
new, in Canada or here, try not to drag me into
it. I couldn't stand the strain. Cross-examina-
tion would kill me.”
“I’ll remember it, Auntie,” I said, wearied out
with excitement. “But I think you did wrong,
all the same. In a case like this, it's everybody's
first duty to tell all he knows, in the interests of
justice.”


MY WELCOME TO CAAVADA. 127
However, this confession of Aunt Emma's ren-
dered one thing more certain to me than ever
before. I was sure I was on the right track now,
after Courtenay Ivor. The bicycle clinched the
proof.
But I said nothing as yet to the police, or to
my friendly Inspector. I was determined to hunt
the whole thing up on my own account first, and
then deliver my criminal, when fully secured, to
the laws of my country.
Not that I was vindictive. Not that I wanted
to punish the man. No; I shrank terribly from
the task. But to relieve myself from this persis-
tent sense of surrounding mystery, and to free
others from suspicion, I felt compelled to discover
him. It seemed to me like a duty laid upon me
from without. I dared not shirk it.
On the way out to Quebec, the sea seemed to
revive strange memories. I had never crossed it
before, except long, long ago, on my way home
from Australia. And now that I sat on deck, in
a wicker-chair, and looked at the deep dark waves
by myself, I began once more, in vague snatches,
to recall that earlier voyage. It came back to me
all of itself. And that was quite in keeping with
my previous recollections. My past life, I felt
sure, was unfolding itself slowly to me in regular
succession, from childhood onward.
Sitting there on the quarter-deck, gazing hard
at the waves, I remembered how I had played on
a similar ship years and years before, a little girl


128' . A’ECA CAED TO LIFE.
in short frocks, with my mamma in a long folding-
chair beside me. I could see my mamma, with a
sort of frightened smile on her poor pale face;
and she looked so unhappy. My papa was there
too, somewhat older and grayer——very unlike the
papa of my first Australian picture. His face was
so much hairier. Mamma cried a good deal at
times, and papa tried to comfort her. Besides,
what struck me most, there was no more baby. I
wasn't even allowed to speak about baby. That
subject was tabooed—perhaps because it always
made mamma cry so much, and press me hard to
her bosom. At any rate, I remembered how
once I spoke of baby to some fellow-passenger in
the saloon, and papa was very angry, and caught
me up in his arms and took me down to my
berth; and there I had to stop all day by myself
(though it was rolling hard), and could have no
fruit for dinner, because I'd been naughty. I was
strictly enjoined never to mention baby to any
one again, either then or at any time. I was to
forget all about her.
Day after day, as we sailed on, reminiscences of
the same sort crowded thicker and thicker upon
me. Never reminiscences of my later life, but
always early scenes brought up by distinct sugges-
tions of that Australian voyage. When we
passed a ship, it burst upon me how we'd passed
such ships before; when there was fire-drill on
deck, I remembered having assisted years earlier


MY JVELCOME TO CANADA. 129
at just such fire-drill. The whole past came back
like a dream, so that I could reconstruct now the
first five or six years of my life almost entirely.
And yet, even so, there was a gap, a puzzle, a
difficulty somehow. I couldn't make the chro-
nology of this slow-returning memory fit in as it
ought with the chronology of the facts given to
me by Aunt Emma and the Moores of Torquay.
There was a constant discrepancy. It seemed to
me that I must be a year or two older at least
than they made me out. I remembered the voy-
age home far too well for my age. I fancied I
went back further in my Australian recollections
than would be possible from the dates Aunt Em-
ma assigned me.
Slowly, as I compared these mental pictures of
my first childhood one with the other, a strange
fact seemed to loom forth, incomprehensible, in-
credible. When first it struck me, all unnerved
as I was, my reason staggered before it. But it
was true, none the less; quite true, I felt certain.
Had I had two papas, then?—for the pictures dif-
fered so. Was one, clean-shaven, trim, and in a
linen coat, the same as the other, older, graver,
and sterner, with much hair on his face, and a
rough sort of look, whom I saw more persistently
in my later childish memories? I could hardly
believe it. One man couldn't alter so greatly in
a few short years. Yet I thought of them both
alike quite unquestioningly as papa; I thought


MY WAE/COME 7'O CAAVA DA. I31
deck. It was unendurable that the memory of
that one event should thus dog me through life
with such ubiquitous persistence. I tore open
the sheet. There, with horrified eyes, I read this
hateful paragraph, in the atrociously vulgar style
of Trans-Atlantic journalism:
The Sarmatian, expected off Belle Isle to-morrow morn-
ing, brings among her passengers, as we learn by telegram,
the famous Una Callingham, whose connection with the so-
called Woodbury Mystery is now a matter of historical in-
terest. The mysterious two-souled lady possesses, at pres-
ent, all her faculties intact, as before the murder, and is
indeed, people say, a remarkably spry and intelligent young
person ; but she has most conveniently forgotten all the
events of her past life, and more particularly the circum-
stances of her father's death, which is commonly conjectured
to have been due to the pistol of some unknown lover. Such
freaks of memory are common, we all know, in the matter
of small debts and of newspaper subscriptions, but they sel-
dom extend quite so far as the violent death of a near rela-
tion. However, Una knows her own business best. The
Sarmaţian is due alongside the Bousecours Quay at 1o A. M.
on Wednesday, the Ioth; and all Quebec will, no doubt, be
assembled at the landing-stage to say “Good-morning" to
the two-souled lady.
The paper dropped from my hand. This was
too horrible for anything! How I was ever to go
through the ordeal of the landing at Quebec after
that, I hadn't the faintest conception. And was
I to be dogged and annoyed like this through all
my Canadian trip by anonymous scribblers? Had


132 RAECALLED TO LIFE,
these people no hearts; no consideration for the
sensitiveness of an English lady?
I looked over the side of the ship at the dark
blue water. Oh, how I longed to plunge into it
and be released forever from this abiding night-
mare


CHAPTER XV.
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
HE moment we reached the quay at Quebec,
some two days later, a dozen young men, with
little notebooks in their hands, jumped on board
all at once.
“Miss Callingham " they cried with one accord,
making a dash for the quarter-deck. “Which is
she? Oh, this! If you please, Miss Callingham,
I should like to have ten minutes of your time to
interview you!”
I clapped my hands to my ears, and stood back,
all horrified. What I should have done, I don't
know, but for a very kind man in a big rough
overcoat, who had jumped on board at the same
time, and made over to me like the reporters. He
stepped up to me at once, pushed aside the young
men, and said in a most friendly tone:
“Miss Callingham, I think? You'd better come
with me, then. These people are all sharks.
Everybody in Quebec's agog to see the Two-
souled Lady. Answer no questions at all. Take
not the least notice of them. Just follow me to
the Custom House. Let them rave, but don't
speak to them.”
133


134 FECALLED 7"O LIFE.
“Who are you?” I asked blindly, clinging to
his arm in my terror.
“I’m a policeman in plain clothes,” my new
friend answered; “and I've been specially detailed
by order for this duty. I'm here to look after
you. You've friends in Canada, though you may
have quite forgotten them. They've sent me to
help you. Those are two of my chums there,
standing aside by the gangway. We'll walk you
off between us. Don't be afraid. Here, you sir,
there; make way! No one shall come near you.”
I was so nervous, and so ashamed, that I ac-
cepted my strange escort without inquiry or re-
monstrance. He helped me, with remarkable
politeness for a common policeman, across to
the Custom House, where I sat waiting for my
luggage. Reporters and sightseers, meanwhile,
pressed obtrusively around me. My protector
held them back. I was half wild with embarrass-
ment. I'm naturally a reserved and somewhat
sensitive girl, and this American publicity made
me crimson with bashfulness.
As I sat there waiting, however, the two other
policemen to whom my champion had beckoned
sat one on each side of me, keeping off the idle
crowd, while my first friend looked after the lug-
gage and saw it safely through the Customs for
me. He must be an Inspector, I fancied, or some
other superior officer, the officials were so defer-
ential to him. I gave him my keys, and he


A WE W ACQUAINTANCE. I35
looked after everything himself. I had nothing,
for my part, to do but to sit and wait patiently
for him. -
As soon as he was finished, he called a porter to
his side.
“Vite!” he cried, in a tone of authority, to the
man. “Un fiacre.”
And the porter called one.
I started to find that I knew what he meant.
Till that moment, in my Second State, I had
learned no French, and didn't know I could speak
any. But I recognized the words quite well as
soon as he uttered them. My lost knowledge
reasserted itself.
They bundled on my boxes. The crowd still
stood around and gaped at me, open-mouthed.
I got into the cab, more dead than alive.
“Alleg!" my policeman cried to the French-
Canadian driver, seating himself by my side. “A
1a gare du chemin de fer Pacific/ Aussi vite que
possible!”
I understood every word. This was wonderful.
My memory was coming back again.
The man tore along the streets to the Pacific
railway station. By the time we reached it we
had distanced the sightseers, though some of
them gave chase. My policeman got out.
“The train's just going!” he said sharply.
“Don’t take a ticket for Palmyra, if you don't
want to be followed and tracked out all the way.


136 RECALLED TO LIFE.
They'll telegraph on your destination. Book to
Kingston instead, and then change at Sharbot
Lake, and take a second ticket on from there to
Palmyra.”
I listened, half dazed. Palmyra was the place
where Dr. Ivor lived. Yet, even, in the hurry of
the moment, I wondered much to myself how the
policeman knew I wanted to go to Palmyra.
There was no time to ask questions, however,
or to deliberate on my plans. I took my ticket
as desired, in a turmoil of feelings, and jumped
on to the train. I trusted by this time I had
eluded detection. I ought to have come, I saw
now, under a feigned name. This horrid pub-
licity was more than I could endure. My police-
man helped me in with his persistent politeness,
and saw my boxes checked as far as Sharbot Lake
for me. Then he handed me the checks.
“Go in the Pullman,” he said quietly. “It’s a
long journey, you know; four-and-twenty hours.
You've only just caught it. But if you'd stopped
in Quebec, you'd never have been able to give the
sightseers the slip. You'd have been pestered all
through. I think you're safe now. It was this
or nothing.”
“Oh, thank you so much ſ” I cried, with heart-
felt gratitude, leaning out of the window as the
train was on the point of starting. I pulled out
my purse, and drew timidly forth a sovereign.
“I’ve only English money,” I said, hesitating, for


138 AºA, CA/C/A2D 7"O Z/FE.
but to look for him? Strange, horrible questions!
My heart stood still within me at this extraordi-
nary revelation.' Yet I was so frightened at the
moment, alone in a strange land, that I felt al-
most grateful to the murderer himself for his
kindness in thinking of me and providing for my
reception.
As I settled in my seat and had time to realize
what these things meant, it dawned upon me by
degrees that all this was less remarkable, after all,
than I first thought it. For they had telegraphed
from England that I sailed on the Sarmatian;
and Dr. Ivor, like everybody else, must have read
the telegram. He might naturally conclude I
would be half-mobbed by reporters; and as it was
clear he had once been fond of me, hateful as I
felt it even to admit the fact to myself, he might
really have desired to save me annoyance and
trouble. It was degrading, to be sure, even to
think I owed anything of any sort to such a
wretch as that murderer; yet in a certain corner
of my heart I couldn't help being thankful to him.
But how strange to feel I had come there on
purpose to hunt him down How horrible that
I must so repay good with evil!
Then a still more ghastly thought surged up
suddenly in my mind. Why on earth did he
think I was going to Palmyra? Was it possible
he fancied I loved him still—that I wanted to
marry him? Could he imagine I'd come out just


A NEW ACQUAIAWTAMCE. I39
to fling myself at his feet and ask him to take me?
Could he suppose I'd forgotten all the rest of my
past life, and his vile act as well, and yet remem-
bered alone what little love, if any, I ever had
borne him. It was incredible that any man, how-
ever wicked, however conceited, should think such
folly as that—that a girl would marry her father's
murderer; and yet what might not one expect
from a man who, after having shot my father, had
still the inconceivable and unbelievable audacity
to take deliberate steps for securing my own com-
fort and happiness? From such a wretch as that,
one might look for almost anything!
For ten minutes or more, as we whirled along
the line in the Pullman car, I was too dazed and
confused to notice anything around me. My
brain swam vaguely, filled full with wild whirling
thoughts; the strange drama of my life, always
teeming with mysteries, seemed to culminate in
this reception in an unknown land by people who
appeared almost to know more about my business
than I myself did. I gazed out of the window
blankly. In some vague dim way I saw we were
passing between rocky hills, pine-clad and beauti-
ful, with deep glimpses now and then into the
riven gorge of a noble river. But I didn't even
realize to myself that these were Canadian hills—
those were the heights of Abraham—that was the
silver St. Lawrence. It all passed by like a living
dream. I sat still in my chair, as one stunned and


I 4o AºA, CA LZ/2 D 7"O Z//7/2.
faint; I gazed out, more dead than alive, on the
unfamiliar scene that unrolled itself in exquisite
panorama before me. Quebec and the Lawren-
tian hills were to me half unreal: the inner senses
alone were awake and conscious.
Presently a gentle voice at my side broke, not
at all unpleasantly, the current of my reflections.
It was a lady's voice, very sweet and musical.
“I'm afraid,” it said kindly, with an air of ten-
der solicitude, “you only just caught the train,
and were hurried and worried and flurried at the
last at the station. You look so white and tired.'
How your breath comes and goes! And I think
you're new to our Canadian ways. I saw you
didn't understand about the checks for the bag-
gage. Let me take away this bag and put it up
in the rack for you. Here's a footstool for your
feet; that'll make you more comfortable.”
At the first sound of her sweet voice, I turned
to look at the speaker. She was a girl, perhaps a
year or two younger than myself, very slender
and graceful, and with eyes like a mother's. She
wasn't exactly pretty, but her face was so full of
intelligence and expression that it was worth a
great deal more than any doll-like prettiness.
Perhaps it was pleasure at being spoken to kindly
at all in this land of strangers, perhaps it was re-
vulsion from the agony of shame and modesty I
had endured at Quebec; but, at any rate, I felt
drawn at first sight to my sweet-voiced fellow-trav-


A WE W A COUAZAVTANCE. I4 I
eler. Besides, she reminded me somewhat of
Minnie Moore, and that resemblance alone was
enough to attract me. I looked up at her grate-
fully.
“Oh, thank you so much ſ” I cried, putting my
bag in her hand. “I’ve only just come out from
England; and I'd hardly time at Quebec to catch
the train; and the people crowded around so, that
I was flustered at landing; and everything some-
how seems to be going against me.”
And with that my poor overwrought nerves
gave way all at once, and without any more ado I
just burst out crying.
The lady by my side leant over me tenderly.
“There—cry, dear,” she said, as if she'd known
me for years, stooping down and almost caressing
me. “Jack,”—and she turned to a tall gentle-
man at her side,-"quick! you've got my black
bag; get me out the sal volatile. She's quite
faint, poor thing; we must look after her in-
stantly.”
The person to whom she spoke, and who was
apparently her husband or her brother, took down
the black bag from the rack hastily, and got out
the sal volatile, as my friend directed him. He
poured a little into a tumbler and held it quietly
to my lips. I liked his manner, as I'd liked the
lady's. He was so very brotherly. Besides, there
was something extremely soothing about his
quick, noiseless way. He did it all so fast, yet


I42 FECALLED TO LIFE.
without the faintest sign of agitation. I couldn't
help thinking what a good nurse he would make;
he was so rapid and effective, yet so gentle and so
quiet. He seemed perfectly accustomed to the
ways of nervous women.
I dried my eyes after a while, and looked up in
his face. He was very good-looking, and had a
charming soft smile. How lucky I should have
tumbled upon such pleasant traveling compan-
ions! In my present mental state, I had need of
sympathy. And, indeed, they took as much care
of me, and coddled me up as tenderly, as if they'd
known me for years. I was almost tempted to
make a clean breast of my personality to them,
and tell them why it was I had been so worried
and upset by my reception at Quebec: but I
shrank from confessing it. I hated my own name,
almost, it seemed to bring me such very unpleas-
ant notoriety.
In a very few minutes I felt quite at home with
my new friends. I explained to them that when
I landed I had no intention of going on West by
train at once, but that news which I received on
the way had compelled me to push forward by
the very first chance; and that I had to change
my ticket at a place called Sharbot Lake, whose
very position or distance I hadn't had time to dis-
cover. The lady smiled sweetly, and calmed my
fears by telling me we wouldn't reach Sharbot
Lake till mid-day to-morrow, and that I would


I44 RECALLED 7"O LIFE.
Remember, though, in some ways I was a woman
full grown, in others I was little more than a four-
year-old baby.
“Do you know a Dr. Ivor there?” I asked
eagerly, leaning forward.
“Oh, yes, quite well,” the lady answered, arrang-
ing my footstool more comfortably as she spoke.
“He's got a farm out there now, and hagily prac-
tices at all. How queer it is! One always finds
one knows people in common. Is Dr. Ivor a
friend of yours?”
I recoiled at the stray question almost as if I’d
been shot. “Oh, no!” I cried, horrified at the
bare idea of such treason. “He’s anything but
a friend. . . . . I—I only wanted to know about
him.”
The lady looked at Jack, and Jack looked at
the lady. Were they telegraphing signs? I fan-
cied somehow they gave one another very mean-
ing glances. Jack was the first to speak, breaking
an awkward silence. -
“You can't expect every one to know your own
friends, or to like them either, Elsie,” he said
slowly, with his eyes fixed hard on her, as if he
expected her to flare up.
My heart misgave me. A hateful idea arose in
it. Could my sweet traveling companion be en-
gaged to my father's murderer?
“But he's a dear good fellow, for all that, Jack,”
Elsie said stoutly; and strange as it sounds to say


A WE W ACQUAIAWTAMCE. I47
in their kind plan for my temporary housing.
Besides, after my horrid experience at Quebec, it
was such a positive relief to me to meet anybody
nice and delicate, that I couldn't find it in my heart
to refuse these dear people. And then, perhaps
it was best not to go quite on to Palmyra at once,
for fear of unexpectedly running against my
father's murderer. If I met him in the street,
and he recognized me and spoke to me, what on
earth could I do? My head was all in a whirl,
indeed, as to what he might intend or expect; for
I felt sure he expected me. I made one last de-
spairing effort.
“If I stop at your house, though,” I said, half
ashamed of myself for venturing to make condi-
tions, “there's one promise you must make me—
that I shan't see Dr. Ivor unless you let me know
and get my consent beforehand.”
Jack, as I called him to myself, answered gayly
back with a rather curious smile:
“If you like, you need see nobody but
our own two selves. We'll promise not to in-
troduce anybody to you without due leave, and
to let you do as you like in that and in every-
thing.”
So I yielded at last.
“Well, I must know your name,” I said tenta-
tively.
And Jack, looking queerly at me with an in-
quiring air, said:


148 A’ECALLED 7'O L/FE.
“My sister's name's Elsie; mine's John Che-
riton.”
“And yours?” Elsie asked, glancing timidly
down at me.
My heart beat hard. I was face to face with
a dilemma. These were friends of Courtenay
Ivor's, and I had given myself away to them. I
was going to their house, to accept their hospi-
tality—and to betray their friend Never in my
life did I feel so guilty before. Oh! what on
earth was I to do? I had told them too much ; I
had gone to work foolishly. If I said my real
name, I should let out my whole secret. I must
brazen it out now. With tremulous lips and
flushed cheek, I answered quickly, “Julia Mars-
den.”
Elsie drew back, all abashed. In a moment
her cheek grew still redder, I felt sure, than my
OWn.
“Oh, Marsden" she cried, eyeing me closely.
“Why, I thought you were Miss Callingham "
“How on earth did you know that?” I ex-
claimed, terrified almost out of my life. Was I
never for one moment to escape my own person-
ality?
“Why, they put it in the papers that you were
coming,” Elsie answered, looking tenderly at me,
more in sympathy than in anger. “And it's writ-
ten on your bag, you know, that Jack put up in
the rack there. . . . . That's why we were so


CHAPTER XVI.
M Y P L A N S A. L T E R.
HE rest of that day we spent chatting very
amicably in our Pullman arm-chairs. I
couldn't understand it myself—when I had a mo-
ment to think, I was shocked and horrified at it.
I was so terribly at home with them. These
were friends of Dr. Ivor's—friends of my father's
murderer! I had come out to Canada to track
him, to deliver him over, if I could, to the strong
hand of Justice. And yet, there I was talking
away with his neighbors and friends as if I had
known them all my life, and loved them dearly.
Nay, what was more, I couldn't in my heart of
hearts help liking them. They were really sweet
people—so kind and sympathetic, so perceptive
of my sensitiveness. They asked no questions
that could hurt me in any way. They showed no
curiosity about the object of my visit or my rela-
tion to Dr. Ivor. They were kindness and cour-
tesy itself. I could see Mr. Cheriton was a gentle-
man in fiber, and Elsie was as sweet as any woman
on earth could be.
By and by, the time came for the Pullman
159


MY PLA WS AZTER. 151
saloon to be transformed for the night into a reg-
ular sleeping-car. All this was new to me, and I
watched it with interest. As soon as the beds
were made up, I crept into my berth, and my new
friend Elsie took her place on the sofa below me.
I lay awake long and thought over the situation.
The more I thought of it, the stranger it all
seemed. I tried hard to persuade myself I was
running some great danger in accepting the Che-
riton's invitation. Certainly, I had behaved with
consummate imprudence. Canada is a country,
I said to myself, where they kidnap and murder
well-to-do young Englishmen. How much easier,
then, to kidnap and murder a poor, weak, stray
English girl! I was entirely at the mercy of the
Cheritons, that was clear; and the Cheritons were
Dr. Ivor's friends. As I thought all the circum-
stances over, the full folly of my own conduct
came home to me more and more. I had let
these people suppose I was traveling under an as-
sumed name. I had let them know my ticket
was not for Palmyra but for Kingston, where I
didn't mean to go. I had told them I meant to
change it at Sharbot Lake. So they were aware
that no one on earth but themselves had any idea
where I had gone. And I had further divulged
to them the important fact that I had plenty of
ready money in Bank of England notes! I stood
aghast at my own silliness. But still, I did not
distrust them. -


I52 RECALLED TO LIFE.
No, I did not distrust them. I felt I ought to
be distrustful. I felt it might be expected of me.
But they were so gentle-mannered and so sweet-
natured, that I couldn't distrust them. I tried
very hard, but distrust wouldn't come to me.
That kind fellow Jack—I thought of him, just so,
as Jack already—couldn't hurt a fly, much less
kill a woman. It grieved me to think I would
have to hurt his feelings. -
For now that I came to look things squarely in
the face in my berth by myself, I began to see
how utterly impossible it would be for me after
all to go and stop with the Cheritons. How I
could ever have dreamt it feasible I could hardly
conceive. I ought to have refused at once. I
ought to have been braver. I ought to have said
outright: “I’ll have nothing to do or say with any
one who is a friend or an acquaintance of Courte-
nay Ivor's.” And yet, to have said so would have
been to give up the game for lost. It would have
been to proclaim that I had come out to Canada
as Courtenay Ivor's enemy.
I wasn't fit, that was the fact, for my self-im-
posed task of private detective.
A good part of that night I lay awake in my
berth, bitterly reproaching myself for having
come on this wild-goose chase without the aid of a
man—an experienced officer. Next morning, I
rose and breakfasted in the car. The Cheritons
breakfasted with me, and, sad to say, seemed more


AM Y PLAAVS AL 7"E.R. 155
lar. But at least you'll spend one night with us,
and then we can arrange all the other things after-
ward.”
My mind was made up.
“No, not even one night,” I said. I couldn't
accept hospitality from Dr. Ivor's friends. Be-
tween his faction and mine there could be noth-
ing now but the bitterest enmity. How dare I
even parley with people who were friends of my
father's murderer? -
Yet I was sorry to disappoint that good fellow,
Jack, all the same. Did he want me to sleep one
night at his house on purpose to rob me and mur-
der me? Girl as I was, and rendered timorous in
some ways by the terrible shocks I had received,
I couldn't for one moment believe it. I knew he
was good. I knew he was honorable, gentle, a
gentleman.
So, journeying on all morning, we reached Shar-
bot Lake, still with nothing decided. At the lit-
tle junction station, Jack got me my ticket. That
was the turning point in my career. The die was
cast. There I lost my identity. A crowd lounged
around the platform, and surged about the Pull-
man car, calling to see “Una Callingham.” But
no Una Callingham appeared on the scene. I
went on in the same train, without a word to any-
one, all unknown save to the two Cheritons, and
as an unrecognized unit of common humanity. I
had cast that horrid identity clean behind me,


156 AºA. C.4 L IAEA) TO LIFE.
The afternoon was pleasant. In spite of my
uncertainty, it gave me a sense of pleased confi-
dence to be in the Cheritons' company. I had
taken to them at once, and the more I talked
with them, the better I liked them. Especially
Jack, that nice brotherly Jack, who seemed al-
most like an old friend to me. You get to know
people so well on a long railway journey. I was
quite sorry to think that by five o'clock that after-
noon we should reach Adolphus Town, and so
part company.
About ten minutes to five we were collecting
our scattered things, and putting our front hair
straight by the mirror in the ladies' compart-
ment. -
“Well, Miss Cheriton,” I said warmly, longing
to kiss her as I spoke, “I shall never forget how
kind you two have been to me. I do wish so
much I hadn't to leave you like this. But it's
quite inevitable. I don't see really how I could
ever endure y 9
I said no more, for just at that moment, as the
words trembled on my lips, a terrible jar thrilled
suddenly through the length and breadth of the
carriage. Something in front seemed to rush into
us with a deep thud. There was a crash, a fierce
grating, a dull hiss, a clatter. Broken glass was
flying about. The very earth beneath the wheels
seemed to give way under us. Next instant, all
was blank. I just knew I was lying, bruised and


M Y PAEAAVS A / TEA’. I57
stunned and bleeding, on a bare dry bank, with
my limbs aching painfully.
I guessed what it all meant. A collision, no
doubt. But I lay faint and ill, and knew nothing
for the moment as to what had become of my
fellow-passengers.


CHAPTER XVII.
A STRANGE RECOGNITION.
RADUALLY I was aware of somebody moist-
ening my temples. A soft palm held my
hand. Elsie was leaning over me. I opened my
eyes with a start.
“Oh, Elsie,” I cried, “how kind of you!”
It seemed to me quite natural to call her Elsie.
Even as I spoke, somebody else raised my head
and poured something down my throat. I swal-
lowed it with a gulp. Then I opened my eyes
again.
“And Jack, too,” I murmured.
It seemed as if he'd been “Jack” to me for years
and years already.
“She knows us!" Elsie cried, clasping her hands.
“She's much better—much better. Quick, Jack,
more brandy! And make haste there — a
stretcher!”
There was a noise close by. Unseen hands
lifted me up, and Jack laid me on the stretcher.
Half an hour at least must have elapsed, I felt
sure, since the first shock of the accident. I had
been unconscious meanwhile. The actual crash
158


16o AºA, CALLED 7"O ZZAPE.
sense of this new-threatened horror. “Whatever
I do, dear, I won't see Dr. Ivor”
Jack had come in while she spoke, and was
standing by the bed, I saw now. The servant had
gone out. He lifted my arm, and held my wrist
in his hand.
“I’m a doctor myself, Miss Callingham,” he
said softly, with that quiet, reassuring voice of his.
“Don’t be alarmed at that; nobody but myself
and Elsie need come near you in any way.”
I smiled at his words, well pleased.
“Oh, I'm so glad you're a doctor!” I cried, much
relieved at the news; “for I'm not the least little
bit in the world afraid of you. I don't mind your
attending me. I like to have you with me.” For
I had always a great fancy for doctors, somehow.
“That's well,” he said, smiling at me, such a
sweet, sympathetic smile, as he felt my pulse with
his finger. “Confidence is the first great requisite
in a patient: it's half the battle. You're not seri-
ously hurt, I hope; but you're very much shaken.
Whether you like it or not, you'll have to stop
here now for some days, at least till you're thor-
oughly recovered.”
I'm ashamed to write it down, but I was really
pleased to hear it. Nothing would have induced
me to go voluntarily to their house with the in-
tention of stopping there—for they were friends
of Dr. Ivor's. But when you're carried on a
stretcher to the nearest convenient house, you're


A STRAAWGE RECOGN/7'ION. 161
not responsible for your own actions. And they
were both so nice and kind, it was a pleasure to
be near them. So I was almost thankful for that
horrid accident, which had cut the Gordian knot
of my perplexity as to a house to lodge in.
It was a fortnight before I was well enough to
get out of bed and lie comfortably on the sofa.
All that time Jack and Elsie attended me with
unsparing devotion. Elsie had a little bed made
up in my room; and Jack came to see me two or
three times a day, and sat for whole hours with
me. It was so nice he was a doctor' A doctor,
you know, isn't a man—in some ways. And it
soothed me so to have him sitting there with Elsie
by my bedside.
They were “Jack” and “Elsie” to me, to their
faces, before three days were out; and I was plain
“Una” to them: it sounded so sweet and sisterly.
Elsie slipped it out the second morning as natur-
ally as could be.
“Una'd like a cup of tea, Jack;” then, as red as
fire all at once, she corrected herself, and added,
“I mean, Miss Callingham.”
“Oh, do call me Una " I cried; “it’s so much
nicer and more natural. . . . . But how did you
come to know my name was Una at all?" For
she slipped it out as glibly as if she'd always called
me SO.
“Why, everybody knows that!" Elsie answered,
amused. “The whole world speaks of you


162 FECAZZED 7"O LIFE.
always as Una Callingham. You forget you're a
celebrity. Doctors have read memoirs about you
at Medical Congresses. You've been discussed in
every paper in Europe and America.”
I paused and sighed. This was very humiliat-
ing. It was unpleasant to rank in the public mind
somewhere between Constance Kent and Laura
Bridgman. But I had to put up with it.
“Very well,” I said, with a deep breath, “if
those I don't care for call me so behind my
back, let me at least have the pleasure of
hearing myself called , so by those I love, like
you, Elsie.”
She leant over me and kissed my forehead with
a burst of genuine delight.
“Then you love me, Una " she exclaimed.
“How can I help it?” I answered. “I love you
dearly already.” And I might have added with
truth, “And your brother also.”
For Jack was really, without any exception, the
most lovable man I ever met in my life—at once
so strong and manly, and yet so womanly and so
gentle. Every day I stopped there, I liked him
better and better. I was glad when he came into
my room, and sorry when he went away again to
work on the farm; for he worked very hard; his
hand was all horny with common agricultural
labor. It was sad to think of such a man having
to do such work. And yet he was so clever, and
such a capital doctor. I wondered he hadn't done


A STRA AVGA RAECOGAV/7”/OAV. 163
well and stayed in England. But Elsie told me
he'd had great disappointments, and failed in his
profession through no fault of his own. I could
never understand that; he had such a delightful
manner. Though perhaps I was prejudiced; for,
in point of fact, I began to feel I was really in
love with Jack Cheriton.
And Jack was in love with me too. This was a
curious result of my voyage to Canada in search
of Dr. Ivor Instead of hunting up the criminal,
I had stopped to fall in love with one of his friends
and neighbors. And I found it so delicious, I
won't pretend to deny it. I was absolutely happy
when Jack sat by my bedside and held my hand
in his. I didn't know what it would lead to, or
whether it would ever lead to anything at all; but
I was happy meanwhile just to love and be loved
by him. I think when you're really in love, that's
quite enough. Jack never proposed to me: he
never asked me to marry him. He just sat by my
bedside and held my hand; and once, when Elsie
went out to fetch my beef-tea, he stooped hastily
down and kissed me, oh, so tenderly I don't
know why, but I wasn't the least surprised. It
seemed to me quite natural that Jack should kiss
me.
So I went idly on for a fortnight, in a sort of
lazy lotus-land, never thinking of the future, but
as happy and as much at home as if I’d lived all
my life with Jack and Elsie. I hated even to


A STRAAWGE RECOGAVITIOM. 165
He sprang lightly on to the parapet of the
veranda. Then, with one hand held behind him
to poise himself, palm open backward, he leapt
with a bound to the road, and darted after her
hurriedly.
My heart stood still within me. That action
revealed him. The back, the open hand, the
gesture, the bend—I would have known them any-
where. With a horrible revulsion I recognized
the truth. This was my father's murderer! This
was Courtenay Ivor'


CHAPTER XVIII.
M U R D E R W I L L O U T.
E was gone but for three minutes. Meanwhile,
I buried my face in my burning hands, and
cried to myself in unspeakable misery.
For, horrible as it sounds to say so, I knew per-
fectly well now that Jack was Dr. Ivor: yet, in
spite of that knowledge, I loved him still. He
was my father's murderer; and I couldn't help
loving him
It was that that filled up the cup of my misery
to overflowing. I loved the man well; and I must
turn to denounce him. He came back, flushed
and hot, expecting thanks for his pains.
“Well, she'll get you the lemon, Una,” he said,
panting. “I overtook her by the big tulip tree.”
I gazed at him fixedly, taking my hands from
my face, with the tears still wet on my burning
cheek.
“You’ve deceived me!” I cried sternly. “Jack,
you've given me a false name. I know who you
are, now. You're no Jack at all. You're Courte-
nay Ivor”
He drew back, quite amazed. Yet he didn't
166


I68 RECALLED TO LIFE.
me, indeed, than to crouch; to be shocked and
indignant.
“Explain yourself,” I said coldly, in a very
chilly voice. “Courtenay Ivor, I give you three
minutes to explain. At the end of that time, if
you can't exonerate yourself, I walk out of this
house to give you up, as I ought, to the arm of
Justice?”
He looked at me, all pity, yet inexpressibly re-
proachful.
“Oh, Una,” he cried, clasping his hands—those
small white hands of his—Aunt Emma's hands—
the murderer's hands—how had I never before
noticed them?—“and I, who have suffered so
much for you ! I, who have wrecked my whole
life for you, ungrudgingly, willingly I, who have
sacrificed even Elsie's happiness and Elsie's future
for you ! This is too, too hard Una, Una, spare
me.” -
A strange trembling seized me. It was in my
heart to rush forward and clasp him to my breast.
Murderer or no murderer, his look, his voice, cut
me sharply to the heart. Words trembled on the
tip of my tongue: “Oh, Jack, I love you!” But
with a violent effort I repressed them sternly.
This horrible revulsion seemed to tear me in two.
I loved him so much. Though till the moment
of the discovery I never quite realized how deeply
I loved him.
“Courtenay Ivor,” I said slowly, steeling myself


MURDER WILL OUT. 169
once more for a hard effort, “I knew who you
were at once when I saw you poise yourself on
the parapet. Once before in my life I saw you
like that and the picture it produced has burned
itself into the very fiber and marrow of my being.
As long as I live I can never get rid of it. It was
when you leapt from the window at The Grange
at Woodbury after murdering my father!”
He started once more.
“Una,” he said solemnly, in a very clear voice,
“there's some terrible error somewhere. You're
utterly mistaken about what took place that
night. But oh, great heavens ! how am I ever to
explain the misconception to you? If you still
think thus, it would be cruel to undeceive you.
I daren't tell you the whole truth. It would kill
you ! It would kill you!”
I drew myself up like a pillar of ice.
“Go on,” I said, in a hard voice; for I saw he
had something to say. “Don't mind for my heart.
Tell me the truth. I can stand it.”
He hesitated for a minute or two.
“I can't!” he cried huskily. “Dear Una, don't
ask me! Won't you trust me, without? Won't
you believe me when I tell you, I never did
it?”
“No, I can't,” I answered with sullen resolu-
tion, though my eyes belied my words. “I can't
disbelieve the evidence of my own senses. I saw
you escape that night. I see you still. I've seen


17o AºA2 CA/C LED TO Z/FE.
you for years. I know it was you, and you only,
who did it !” -
He flung himself down in a chair, and let his
arms drop listlessly.
“Oh! what can I ever do to disillusion you?” he
cried in despair. “Oh what can I ever do?
This is too, too terrible!”
I moved toward the door.
“I’m going,” I said with a gulp. “You've de-
ceived me, Jack. You've lied to me. You have
given me feigned names. You have decoyed me to
your house under false pretenses. And I recognize
you now. I know you in all your baseness. You're
my father's murderer! Don't hope to escape by
playing on my feelings. I'd deserve to be mur-
dered myself, if I could act like that! I'm on my
way to the police office, to give you in custody on
the charge of murdering Vivian Callingham at
Woodbury "
He jumped up again, all anxiety.
“Oh, no, you mustn't walk!” he cried, laying his
hand upon my arm. “Give me up, if you like;
but wait till the buggy comes back, and Elsie'll
drive you round with me. You're not fit to go a
step as you are at present. . . . . Oh! what shall
I ever do, though. You're so weak and ill.
Elsie'll never allow it.”
“Elsie'll never allow what?” I asked; though I
felt it was rather more grotesque than undignified
and inconsistent thus to parley and make terms


MURDER WILL OUT. 171
with my father's murderer. Though, to be sure,
it was Jack, and I couldn't bear to refuse him.
He kept his hand on my arm with an air of au-
thority.
“Una, my child,” he said, thrusting me back—
and even at that moment of supreme horror, a
thrill ran all through my body at his touch and his
words—“you mustn't go out of this house as you
are this minute. I refuse to allow it. I'm your
doctor, and I forbid it. You're under my charge,
and I won't let you stir. If I did, I'd be re-
sponsible.”
He pushed me gently into a chair.
“I gave you but one false name,” he said
slowly—“the name of Cheriton. To be sure, I
was never christened John, but I'm Jack to my
intimates. It was my nickname from a baby.
Jack's what I've always been called at home—
Jack's what, in the dear old days at Torquay, you
always called me. But I saw if I let you know
who I was at once, there'd be no chance of recall-
ing the past, and so saving you from yourself.
To save you, I consented to that one mild decep-
tion. I succeeded in bringing you here, and in
keeping you here till Elsie and I were once more
what we'd always been to you. I meant to tell
you all in the end, when the right time came.
Now, you've forced my hand, and I don't know
how I can any longer refrain from telling you.”
“Telling me what?” I said icily. “What do


172 RAECA/C/CAED 7"O ZZAPE.
you mean by your words? Why all these dark
hints? If you've anything to say, why not say it
like a man?”
For I loved him so much that in my heart of
hearts I half hoped there might still be some ex-
cuse, some explanation.
He looked at me solemnly. Then he bent back
in his chair and drew his hand across his brow. I
could see now why I hadn't recognized that deli-
cate hand before: white as it was by nature, hard
work on the farm had long bronzed and distorted
it. But I saw also, for the first time, that the
palm was scarred with cuts and rents—exactly
like Minnie Moore's, exactly like Aunt Emma's.
“Una,” he began slowly, in a very puzzled tone,
“if I could I'd give myself up and be tried, and
be found guilty and executed for your sake,
sooner than cause you any further distress, or ex-
pose you to the shock of any more disclosures.
But I can't do that, on Elsie's account. Even if
I decided to put Elsie to that shame and dis-
grace—which would hardly be just, which would
hardly be manly of me—Elsie knows all, and
Elsie'd never consent to it. She'd never let her
brother be hanged for a crime of which (as she
knows) he's entirely innocent. And she'd tell out
all in full court—every fact, every detail—which
would be worse for you ten thousand times in the
end than learning it here quietly.”
“Tell me all,” I said, growing stony, yet trem-


MURDER WILL OUT. I73
ſ
bling from head to foot. “Oh, Jack,”—I seized
his hand,-‘‘I don't know what you mean' But I
somehow trust you. I want to know all. I can
bear anything—anything—better than this sus-
pense. You must tell me! You must explain to
me!”
“I will,” he said slowly, looking hard into my
eyes, and feeling my pulse half unconsciously with
his finger as he spoke. “Una, darling, you must
make up your mind now for a terrible shock. I
won't tell you in words, for you'd never believe it.
I'll show you who it was that fired the shot at Mr.
Callingham.”
He moved over to the other side of the room,
and unlocking drawer after drawer, took a bundle
of photographs from the inmost secret cabinet of
a desk in the corner.
“There, Una,” he said, selecting one of them
and holding it up before my eyes. “Prepare your-
self, darling. That's the person who pulled the
trigger that night in the library”
I looked at it and fell back with a deadly shriek
of horror. It was an instantaneous photograph.
It represented a scene just before the one the In-
spector gave me. And there, in its midst, I saw
myself, as a girl, with a pistol in my hand. The
muzzle flashed and smoked. I knew the whole
truth. It was I myself who held the pistol and
fired at my father!


THE REAL MURDERER. 177
now, I did it. It all comes back to me at last. I
fired at him, just so. I aimed the loaded pistol
point-blank at his heart. I can hear the din in my
ears. I can see the flash at the muzzle. And then
I flung down the pistol—like this—at my feet:
and darkness came on and I forgot everything.
Why, Dr. Marten knew that much I remember,
now, he told me he'd formed a very strong impres-
sion, from the nature of the wound, and the posi-
tion of the various objects on the floor of the
room, who it was that did it ! He must have seen
it was I who flung down the pistol.”
Jack gazed at me in suspense. “He’s a very
good friend of yours, then,” he murmured, “that.
Dr. Marten. For he never said a word of all that
at the inquest.”
“But I must give myself up!” I cried, in a fever
of penitence for what that other woman who once
was me had done. “Oh, Jack, do let me ! It's
hateful to know I'm a murderess and to go un-
punished. It's hateful to draw back from the
fate I’d have imposed on another. I'd like
to be hanged for it. I want to be hanged.
It's the only possible way to appease one's con-
science.”
And yet, though I said it, I felt all the time it
wasn't really I, but that other strange girl who
once lived at The Grange and looked exactly like
me. I remembered it, to be sure; but it was in my
Other State: and, so far as my moral responsi-


178 RECALLED TO LIFE.
bility was concerned, my Other State and I were
two different people.
For I knew in my heart I couldn't commit a
murder.
Jack rose without a word, and fetched me in
some brandy.
“Drink this,” he said calmly, in his authorita-
tive medical tone; “drink this before you say an-
other sentence.”
And, obedient to his order, I took it up and
drank it.
Then he sat down beside me, and took my hand
in his, and with very gentle words began to reason
and argue with me.
He was glad I had struggled, he said, because
that broke the first force of the terrible shock for
me. Action was always good for one in any great
crisis. It gave an outlet for the pent-up emotions,
too suddenly let loose with explosive force, and
kept them from turning inward and doing serious
harm, as mine had done on that horrible night of
the accident. He called it always the accident, I
noticed, and never the murder. That gave me
fresh hope. Could I really after all have fired
unintentionally? But no; when I came to look
inward, to look backward on my past state, I
was conscious all the time of some strong and
fierce resentment smoldering deep in my heart at
the exact moment of firing. However it might
have happened, I was angry with the man with


THE REAL MURDEREA’. 179
the long white beard; I fired at him hastily, it is
true, but with malice prepense and deliberate in-
tent to wound and hurt him.
Jack went on, however, undeterred, in a low and
quiet voice, soothing my hand with his as he spoke,
and very kind and gentle. My spirit rebelled at
the thought that I could ever for one moment
have imagined him a murderer. I said so in one
wild burst. Jack held my hand, and still reasoned
with me. I like a man's reasoning; it's so calm
and impartial. It seems to overcome one by its
mere display of strength. If I’d changed my mind
once, Jack said, I might change it again, when
further evidence on the point was again forthcom-
ing. I mustn't give myself up to the police till I
understood much more. If I did, I would com-
mit a very grave mistake. There were reasons
that had led to the firing of the shot. Very grave
reasons, too. Couldn't I restore and reconstruct
them, now I knew the last stage of the terrible
history? If possible, he would rather I should ar-
rive at them by myself than that he should tell me.
I cast my mind back all in vain.
“No, Jack,” I said trustfully. “I can't remem-
ber anything one bit like that. I can remember
forward sometimes, but never backward. I can
remember now how I flung down the pistol, and
how the servants burst in. But not a word, not
an item, of what went before. That's all a pure
blank to me.”


THE REAL MURDERER. 181
“Oh, Jack,” I said trembling, “in spite of the
shock, I believe I can do it now. I believe I can
remember. The scales are falling from my eyes.
I'm becoming myself again. What you've said
and what you've shown me seems to have broken
down a veil. I feel as if I could reconstruct all
now, when once the key's suggested to me.”
He smiled at me encouragingly. Oh, how
could I ever have doubted him P
“That's right, darling,” he answered. “I should
have expected as much, indeed. For now for the
very first time since the accident you've got really
at the other side of the great blank in your mem-
ory.”
I felt so happy, though I knew I was a murder-
ess. I didn't mind now whether I was hanged or
not. To love Jack and be loved by him was quite
enough for me. When he called me “darling,”
I was in the seventh heaven. It sounded so
familiar. I knew he must have called me so,
often and often before, in the dim dead past that
was just beginning to recur to me.


CHAPTER XX.
THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA.
HELD his hand tight. It was so pleasant to
know I could love him now with a clear con-
science, even if I had to give myself up to the
police to-morrow. And indeed, being a woman, I
didn't really much care whether they took me or
not, if only I could love Jack, and know Jack
loved me.
“You must tell me everything—this minute—
Jack,” I said, clinging to him like a child. “I
can't bear this suspense. Begin telling me at
once. You'll do me more harm than good if you
keep me waiting any longer.”
Jack took instinctively a medical view of the
situation.
“So I think, my child,” he said, looking lov-
ingly at me. “Your nerves are on the rack, and
will be the better for unstringing. Oh, Una, it's
such a comfort that you know at last who I am |
It's such a comfort that I'm able to talk to you
to-day just as we two used to talk four years ago
in Devonshire l’’
“Did I love you then, Jack?” I whispered,
182


THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA. 183
nestling still closer to him, in spite of my horror.
Or rather, my very horror made me feel more
acutely than ever the need for protection. I was
no longer alone in the world. I had a man to
support me. -
“You told me so, darling,” he answered, smooth-
ing my hair with his hand. “Have you forgotten
all about it? Doesn't even that come back?
Can't you remember it now, when I’ve told you
who I am and how it all happened?”
I shook my head.
“All cloudy still,” I replied vaguely. “Some
dim sense of familiarity, perhaps, as when people
say they have a feeling of having lived all this
over somewhere else before, but nothing more
certain, nothing more definite.”
“Then I must begin at the beginning,” Jack
answered, bracing himself for his hard task, “and
reconstruct your whole life for you, as far as I
know it, from your very childhood. I'm par-
ticularly anxious you should not merely be told
what took place, but should remember the past.
There are gaps in my own knowledge I want you
to eke out. There are places I want you to help
me myself over. And besides, it'll be more satis-
factory to yourself to remember than to be told it.”
I leaned back, almost exhausted. Incredible as
it may seem to you, in spite of that awful photo-
graph, I couldn't really believe even so I had
killed my father. And yet I knew very well now


THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA. 187
So, step by step, Jack reminded me of every-
thing in my own past life, up to the very night of
the murder, with which my Second State dated.
I'd come back from Torquay a week or two be-
fore, very full indeed of Jack, and determined, at
all costs, sooner or later, to marry him. But
though I had kept all quiet, papa had suspected
my liking on the day of the Berry Pomeroy ath-
letics, and had forbidden me to see Jack, or to
write to him, or to have anything further to say
to him. He was determined, he told me, who-
ever I married, I shouldn't at least marry a beg-
garly doctor. All that I remembered; and also,
how, in spite of the prohibition, I wrote letters to
Jack, but could receive none in return—lest my
father should see them.
And still, the central mystery of the murder
was no nearer solution. I held my breath in ter-
ror. Had I really any sort of justification in kill-
ing him? -
Dimly and instinctively, as Jack went on, a
faint sense of resentment and righteous indigna-
tion against the man with the white beard rose
up vaguely in my mind by slow degrees. I knew
I had been angry with him, I knew I had defied
him, but how or why as yet I knew not.
Then Jack suddenly paused, and began in a
different voice a new part of his tale. It was
nothing I remembered or could possibly remem-
ber, he said; but it was necessary to the compre-


188 RECALLED TO LIFE.
hension of what came after, and would help me
to recall it. About a week after I left Torquay,
it seemed, Jack was in his consulting-room at
Babbicombe one day, having just returned from a
very long bicycle ride,-for he was a first-rate
cyclist,-when the servant announced a new pa-
tient, and a very worn-out old man came in to
visit him. The man had a ragged gray beard and
scanty white hair; he was clad in poor clothes,
and had tramped on foot all the way from Lon-
don to Babbicombe, where Jack used to practice.
But Jack saw at once under this rough exterior
he had the voice and address of a cultivated gen-
tleman, though he was so broken down by want
and long suffering and exposure and illness that
he looked like a beggar just let loose from the
workhouse. -
I held my breath as Jack showed me the poor
old man's photograph. It was a portrait taken
after death—for Jack attended him to the end
through a fatal illness; and it showed a face thin
and worn, and much lined by unspeakable hard-
ships. But I burst out crying at once the very
moment I looked at it. For a second or two, I
couldn't say why; I suppose it was instinct.
Blood is thicker than water, they tell us; and I
have the intuition of kindred very strong in me, I
believe. But at any rate, I cried silently, with
big hot tears, while I looked at that dead face of
silent suffering, as I never had cried over the pho-


7THE STRAAWGAE/8 FROM 7THE SEA. 189
tograph of the respectable-looking man who lay
dead on the floor of the library, and whom I was
always taught to consider my father. Then it
came back to me, why. . . . . I gazed at it and
grew faint. I clutched Jack's arm for support.
I knew what it meant now. The poor worn old
man who lay dead on the bed, with that look of
mute agony on his features, was my first papa;
the papa in the loose white linen coat; the one I
remembered with childlike love and trustfulness
in my earliest babyish Australian recollections!
I couldn't mistake the face. It was burnt into
my brain now. This was he, though much older
and sadder, and more scarred and lined by age
and weather. It was my very first papa. My
own papa. I cried silently still. I couldn't bear
to look at it. Then the real truth broke upon me
once more. This, and this alone, was in very
deed my one real father!
I seized the faded photograph and pressed it to
my lips.
“Oh, I know him!” I cried wildly. “It's my
father! My father!”
Some minutes passed before Jack could go on
with his story. This rush of emotions was too
much for me for a while. I could hardly hear
him or attend to him, so deeply did it stir me.
At last I calmed down, still holding that pa-
thetic photograph on the table before me.
“Tell me all about him,” I murmured, sobbing.


THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA. I91
Jack looked at me and shook his head.
“You’ve much to learn yet, Una,” he answered.
“The story's a long one. You were not eigh-
teen but twenty-two at the time. You've been
deliberately misled as to your own age all along.
You developed late, and were always short for
your real years, not tall and precocious as we all
of us imagined. But you were four years older
than Mr. Callingham pretended. You're twenty-
six now, not twenty-two as you think. Wait, and
in time you'll hear all about it.”
He went on with his story. I listened, spell-
bound. The unhappy man explained to Jack
how he had been wrecked on the voyage, and
escaped on a raft with one other passenger; how
they had drifted far south, before waves and cur-
rents, till they were cast at last on this wretched
island; how they remained there for a month or
two, picking up a precarious living on roots and
berries and eggs of sea-birds; and how at last, one
day, he had come back from hunting limpets and
sea-urchins on the shore of a lonely bay—to find,
to his amazement, his companion gone, and him-
self left alone on that desolate island. His fellow-
castaway, he knew then, had deceived and de-
serted him
There was no room, indeed, to doubt the
treachery of the wretched being who had so
basely treated him. As he looked, a ship under
full sail stood away to northward. In vain the


I92 AºA, CA///ED 7"O Z/AWE.
unhappy man made wild signals from the shore
with his tattered garments. No notice was taken
of them. His companion must deliberately have
suppressed the other's existence, and pretended
to be alone by himself on the island.
“And his name?” Jack asked of the poor old
man, horrified.
The stranger answered without a moment's
pause:
“His name, if you want it, was Vivian Calling-
ham.”
“And yours?” Jack continued, as soon as he
could recover from his first shock of horror.
“And mine,” the poor castaway replied, “is
Richard Wharton.”
As Jack told me those words, another strange
thrill ran through me.
“Richard Wharton was the name of mamma's
first husband. Then I'm not a Callingham at
all !” I cried, unable to take it all in at first
in its full complexity. “I’m really a Whar-
ton "
Jack nodded his head in assent.
“Yes, you're really a Wharton,” he said.
“You're the baby that died, as we all were told.
Your true Christian name's Mary. But, Una, you
were always Una to all of us in England; and
though the real Una Callingham died when you
were a little girl of three or four years old, you'll
be Una always now to Elsie and me. We can't


THE STRANGER FROM 7 HE SEA. I93
think of you as other than we've always called
you.”
Then he went on to explain to me how the
stranger had landed in London, alone and friend-
less, twenty years later, from a passing Australian
merchant vessel which had picked him up on the
island. All those years he had waited, and fed
himself on eggs of penguins. He landed by him-
self, the crew having given him a suit of old
clothes, and subscribed to find him in immediate
necessaries. He began to inquire cautiously in
, London about his wife and family. At first, he
could learn little or nothing; for nobody remem-
bered him, and he feared to ask too openly, a sort
of Enoch Arden terror restraining him from pro-
claiming his personality till he knew exactly what
had happened in his long absence. But bit by
bit, he found out at last that his wife had married
again, and was now long dead; and that the man
she had married was Vivian Callingham, his own
treacherous companion on the Crozet Islands.
As soon as he learned that, the full depth of the
man's guilt burst upon him like a thunderbolt.
Richard Wharton understood now why Vivian
Callingham had left him alone on those desert
rocks, and sailed away in the ship without telling
the captain of his fellow-castaway's plight. He
saw the whole vile plot the man had concocted at
once, and the steps he had taken to carry it into
execution.


194 RECALLED TO LIFE.
Vivian Callingham, whom I falsely thought my
father, had gone back to Australia with pretended
news of Richard Wharton's death. He had
sought my widowed mother in her own home up
country, and told her a lying tale of his devotion
to her husband in his dying moments on that
remote ocean speck in the far Southern Pacific.
By this story he ingratiated himself. He knew
she was rich; he knew she was worth marrying;
and to marry her, he had left my own real father,
Richard Wharton, to starve and languish for
twenty years among rocks and sea-fowl on an
lonely island'
My blood ran cold at such a tale of deadly
treachery I remembered now to have heard
some small part of it before. But much of it, as
Jack told it to me, was quite new and unex-
pected. No wonder I had turned in horror that
night from the man I long believed to be my own
father, when I learned by what vile and cruelly
treacherous means he had succeeded in imposing
his supposed relationship upon me! But still, all
this brought me no nearer the real question of
questions—why did I shoot him?


CHAPTER XXI.
THE PLOT UNRAVELS ITSELF.
S Jack went on unfolding that strange tale of
fraud and heartless wrong, my interest every
moment grew more and more absorbing. But I
can't recall it now exactly as Jack told me it. I
can only give you the substance of that terrible
story.
When Richard Wharton first learned of his
wife's second marriage during his own lifetime to
that wicked wretch who had ousted and sup-
planted him, he believed also, on the strength of
Vivian Callingham's pretenses, that his own
daughter had died in her babyhood in Australia.
He fancied, therefore, that no person of his kin
remained alive at all, and that he might proceed
to denounce and punish Vivian Callingham.
With that object in view, he tramped down all the
way from London to Torquay, to make himself
known to his wife's relations, the Moores, and to
their cousin, Courtenay Ivor of Babbicombe—my
Jack, as I called him. For various reasons of his
own, he called first on Jack, and proceeded to
detail to him this terrible family story.
195


196 A’/ CALLED 7'O Z/FE.
At first hearing, Jack could hardly believe such
a tale was true of his Una's father, as he still
thought Vivian Callingham. But a strange
chance happened to reveal a still further compli-
cation. It came out in this way. I had given
Jack a recent photograph of myself in fancy dress,
which hung up over his mantelpiece. As the
weather-worn visitor's eye fell on the picture, he
started and grew pale.
“Why, that's her ſ” he cried, with a sudden’
gasp. “That's my daughter—Mary Wharton "
Well, naturally enough Jack thought, to begin
with, this was a mere mistake on his strange vis-
itor's part.
“That's her half-sister,” he said, “Una Calling-
ham—your wife's child by her second marriage.
She may be like her, no doubt, as half-sisters
often are. But Mary Wharton, I know, died some
eighteen years ago or so, when Una was quite a
baby, I believe. I've heard all about it, because,
don't you see, I'm engaged to Una.”
The poor wreck of a clergyman, however, shook
his head with profound conviction. He knew
better than that.
“Oh, no,” he said decisively; “that's my child,
Mary Wharton. Even after all these years, I
couldn't possibly be mistaken. Blood is thicker
than water; I'd know her among ten thousand.
She'd be just that age now, too. I see the crea-
ture's vile plot. His daughter died young, and


THE PLO 7" UAVRA PE/S / 7"SELF. 197
he's palmed off my Mary as his own child, to
keep her money in his hands. But never mind
the money. Thank Heaven, she's alive! That's
her That's my Mary 1”
The plot seemed too diabolical and too improb-
able for anybody to believe. Jack could hardly
think it possible when his new friend told him.
But the stranger persisted so—it's hard for me
even to think of him as quite really my father—
that Jack at last brought out two or three earlier
photographs I’d given him some time before; and
his visitor recognized them at once, in all their
stages, as his own daughter. This roused Jack's
curiosity. He determined to hunt the matter up
with his unknown connection. And he hunted it
up thenceforward with deliberate care till he
proved every word of it.
Meanwhile, the poor broken-down man, worn
out with his long tramp and his terrible emotions,
fell ill almost at once, in Jack's own house, and
became rapidly so feeble that Jack dared not ques-
tion him further. The return to civilization was
more fatal than his long, solitary banishment. At
the end of a week he died, leaving on Jack's mind
a profound conviction that all he had said was
true, and that I was really Richard Wharton's
daughter not Vivian Callingham's.
“For a week or two I made inquiries, Una,”
Jack said to me as we sat there, “inquiries which
I won't detail to you in full just now, but which


THE PLOT UNRA VELS ITSEZF. I99
cover the falsification, he left Melbourne at once,
and traveled about for some years on the Conti-
nent in out-of-the-way places till all had been for-
gotten. You went forth upon the world as Una
Callingham, with your true personality as Mary
Wharton all obscured even in your own memory.
Fortunately for your false father's plot, you were
small for your age, and developed slowly: he gave
out, on the contrary, that you were big for your
years and had outgrown yourself, Australian-wise,
both in wisdom and stature.”
“But my mother!” I exclaimed, appalled.
“How could she ever consent to such a wicked
deception?”
“Mr. Callingham had your mother completely
under his thumb,” Jack answered with prompti-
tude. “She couldn't call her soul her own, your
poor mother—so I've heard: he cajoled her and
terrified her till she didn't dare to oppose him.
Poor shrinking creature, she was afraid of her life
to do anything except as he bid her. He must
have persuaded her first to acquiesce passively in
this hateful plot, and then must have terrified her
afterward into full compliance by threats of ex-
posure.”
“He was a very unhappy man himself,” I put in,
casting back. “His money did him no good. I
can remember now how gloomy and moody he
was often at The Grange.”
“Quite true,” Jack replied. “He lived in per-


2OO RAE CALLED TO LIFE.
petual fear of your real father's return, or of some
other breakdown to his complicated system of
successive deceptions. He never had a happy
minute in his whole life, I believe. Blind terrors
surrounded him. He was afraid of everything,
and afraid of everybody. Only his scientific work
seemed ever to give him any relief. There, he
became a free man. He threw himself into that
heart and soul, on purpose, I fancy, because it
absorbed him while he was at it, and prevented
him for the time being from thinking of his posi-
tion.”
“And how did you find it all out?” I asked
eagerly, anxious to get on to the end.
“Well, that's long to tell,” Jack replied. “Too
long for one sitting. I won't trouble you with it
now. Discrepancies in facts and dates, and in-
quiries among servants both in England and in
Victoria, first put me upon the track. But I said
nothing, at the time, of my suspicions to any-
one. I waited till I could appeal to the man's own
conscience with success, as I hoped. And then,
besides, I hardly knew how to act for the best. I
wanted to marry you; and therefore, as far as was
consistent with justice and honor, I wished to spare
your supposed father a complete exposure.”
“But why didn't you tell the police?” I asked.
“Because I had really nothing definite in any
way to go upon. Realize the position to yourself,
and you'll see how difficult it was for me. Mr.


CHAPTER XXII.
MY MEMORY RETURNS.
“W T last my chance came,” Jack went on. “I’d
found out almost everything; not, of course,
exactly by way of legal proof, but to my own en-
tire satisfaction; and I determined to lay the mat-
ter definitely at once before Mr. Callingham. So
I took a holiday for a fortnight, to go bicycling
in the Midlands I told my patients; and I fixed
my headquarters at Wrode, which, as you proba-
bly remember, is twenty miles off from Woodbury.
“It was important for my scheme I should catch
Mr. Callingham alone. I had no idea of entrap-
ping him. I wanted to work upon his conscience
and induce him to confess. My object was rather
to move him to remorse and restitution than to
terrify or surprise him.
“So on the day of the accident—call it murder,
if you will—I rode over on my machine, unan-
nounced, to The Grange to see him. You knew
where I was staying, you recollect—”
At the words, a burst of memory came suddenly
Over me.
“Oh, yes!” I cried, “I remember. It was at
the Wilsons', at Wrode. I wrote over there to
2O2


MY MEMORY RETURNS. - 203
tell you we were going to dine alone at six that
evening, as papa had got his electric apparatus
home from his instrument-maker, and was anxious
to try his experiments early. You'd written to
me privately—a boy brought the note—that you
wanted to have an hour's talk alone with papa. I
thought it was about me, and I was, oh, ever so
nervous !” -
For it all came back to me now, as clear as
yesterday.
Jack looked at me hard.
“I'm glad you remember that, dear,” he said.
“Now, Una, do try to remember all you can as I
go along with my story. . . . . Well, I rode over
alone, never telling anybody at Wrode where I
was going nor giving your stepfather any reason
of any sort to expect me. I trusted entirely to
finding him busy with his new invention. When
I reached The Grange, I came up the drive unper-
ceived, and, looking in at the library window, saw
your father alone there. He was pottering over
his chemicals. That gave me the clew. I left my
bicycle under the window, tilted up against the
wall, and walked in without ringing, going straight
to the library. Nobody saw me come, nobody
saw me return, except one old lady on the road,
who seemed to have forgotten all about it by the
time of the inquest.”
I nodded and gave a start. I knew that must
have been Aunt Emma,


206 RECALLED TO LIFE.
like yesterday. I see the room before my eyes.
I remember every syllable; I could repeat every
sentence of it.”
Jack drew a deep sigh of intense relief.
“Thank God for that ſ” he exclaimed, with pro-
found gratitude. “Then I'm saved, and you're
saved. We can both understand one another in
that case. We know how it all happened ſ”
“Perfectly,” I answered. “I know all now.
As I sat there and cowered, I heard a knock at
the door, and before papa could answer, you en-
tered hastily. Papa looked round, I could hear,
and saw who it was in a second.
“‘Oh, it's you!' he said coldly. “It's you, Dr.
Ivor. And pray, sir, what do you want here this
evening?’”
“Go on t” Jack cried, intensely relieved, I could
feel. “Let me see how much more you can
remember, Una.”
“So you shut the door softly and said:
“‘Yes, it's I, Mr. Callingham,’” I continued all
aglow, and looking into his eyes for confirmation.
“‘And I’ve come to tell you a fact that may sur-
prise you. Prepare for strange news. Richard
Wharton has returned to England ''
“I knew Richard Wharton was mamma's first
husband, who was dead before I was born, as I’d
always been told; and I sat there aghast at the
news; it was so sudden, so crushing. I'd heard
he'd been wrecked, and I thought he'd come to


MY MEMORY RETURNS. 207
life again; but as yet I didn't suspect what was
all the real meaning of it.
“But papa drew back, I could hear, in a perfect
frenzy of rage, astonishment, and terror.
“‘Richard Wharton' he hissed out between
his teeth, springing away like one stung. ‘Rich-
ard Wharton come back? You liar! You sneak!
He's dead this twenty years! You're trying to
frighten me.’
“I never meant to overhear your conversation.
But at that, it was so strange, I drew back and
cowered even closer. I was afraid of papa's voice.
I was afraid of his rage. He spoke just like a
man who was ready to murder you.
“Then you began to talk with papa about
strange things that astonished me—strange things
that I only half understood just then, but that by
the light of what you've told me to-day I quite
understand now—the history of my real father.
“‘I’m no liar,' you answered. “Richard Whar-
ton has come back. And by the aid of what he's
disclosed, I know the whole truth. The girl you
call your daughter, and whose money you've
stolen, is not yours at all. She's Richard Whar-
ton's daughter Mary!'
“Papa staggered back a pace or two, and came
quite close to the screen. I cowered behind it in
alarm. I could see he was terrified. For a min-
ute or two you talked with him, and urged him
to confess. Bit by bit, as you went on, he recov-


208 A’z CALLED 7"O Z/AºE.
ered his nerve, and began to bluster. He didn't
deny what you said; he saw it was no use; he
just sneered and prevaricated.
“As I listened to his words, I saw he admitted
it all. A great horror came over me. Then my
life was one long lie. He was never my father.
He had concocted a vile plot. He had held me
in this slavery so many years to suit his own pur-
poses. He had crushed my mother to death, and
robbed me of my birthright. Even before that
night, I never loved him. I thought it very
wicked of me, but I never could love him. As he
spoke to you and grew cynical, I began to loathe
and despise him. I can't tell you how great a
comfort it was to me to know, to hear from his
own lips, I was not that man's daughter.
“At last, after many recriminations, he looked
across at you, and said, half laughing, for he was
quite himself again by that time:
“‘This is all very fine, Courtenay Ivor—all
very fine in its way; but how are you going to
prove it? that's the real question. Do you think
any jury in England will believe, on your unsup-
ported oath, such a cock-and-bull story? Do you
think, even if Richard Wharton's come back, and
you've got him on your side, I can't cross-exam-
ine all the life out of his body?'
“At that you said gravely, wanting to touch
his conscience, I suppose:
“‘Richard Wharton's come back, but you can't


THE FATAL SHOT. 213
I loved best in the world. For I loved you bet-
ter than life, Jack! Oh, the strain of it was terri-
ble ! I see it all now. I live it all over again.
With one wild bound I leapt forward, and, hardly
knowing what I did, I pressed the button, turned
off the current from the battery, and rushed
wildly upon him. I suppose the knob I pressed
not only released you, but set the photographic
machine at work automatically. But I didn't
know it then. At any rate, I remember now, in
the seconds that followed, flash came fast after
flash. There was a sudden illumination. The
room was lighter than day. It grew alternately
bright as noon and then dark as pitch again by
contrast. And by the light of the flashes, I saw
you, half-dazed with the chloroform, standing
helpless there.
“I rushed up and caught the man's arm. He
was never my father! He dropped the bottle
and struggled hard for the possession of the pis-
tol. First he pointed it at you, then at me, then
at you again. He meant to shoot you. I was
afraid it would go off. With a terrible effort I
twisted his wrist awry, in the mad force of pas-
sion, and wrenched the revolver away from him.
. He jumped at my throat, still silent, but fierce
like a tiger at bay. I eluded him, and sprang
back. Then I remember no more, except that I
stood with the pistol pointed at him. Next, came
a flash, a loud roar. And then, in a moment, the


2I4 RECALLED TO LIFE.
Picture. He lay dead on the floor in his blood.
And my Second State began. And from that
day, for months, I was like a little child again.”
Jack looked at me as I paused.
“And then?” he went on in a very low voice,
half prompting me.
“And then all I can remember,” I said, “is how
you got out of the window. But I didn't know,
when I saw you, it was you or any one else.
That was my Second State then. The shot
seemed to end all. What comes next is quite
different. It belongs to the new world. There,
my life stopped dead short and began all over
again.” -
There was a moment's silence. Jack was the
first to break it.
“And now will you give yourself up to the
police, Una?” he asked me quietly.
The question brought me back to the present
again with a bound.
“Oh! what ought I to do?” I cried, wringing
my hands. “I don't quite know all yet. Jack,
why did you run away that last moment and
leave me?”
Jack took my hand very seriously.
“Una, my child,” he said, fixing his eyes on
mine, “I hardly know whether I can ever make
you understand all that. I must ask you at first
at least just simply to believe me. I must ask
you to trust me and to accept my account.


THE FA TAL SHOT. 217
know it's true; so do I; but who else would
believe us? No man's bound to criminate him-
self. You shot him to save my life, at the very
moment when you first learned all his cruelty
and his vileness. The rest of the world could
never be made to understand all that. They'd
say to the end, as it looks on the surface, “She
shot her father to save her lover.’”
“You’re right,” I said slowly. “I shall let this
thing rest. But the photographs, Jack—the ap-
paratus—the affair of the inquest?”
“That was all very simple,” Jack answered.
“For a day or two, of course, I was in a frantic
state of mind for fear you should be suspected,
or the revolver should betray you. But though I
saw the electric sparks, of course, I knew nothing
about the photographs. I wasn't even aware that
the apparatus took negatives automatically. And
I was so full of the terrible reports in the news-
papers about your sudden loss of health, that I
could think of nothing else—least of all my own
safety. As good luck would have it, however, the
clergyman at Wrode, who knew the Wilsons, hap-
pened to speak to me of the murder, all England
called it the murder and talked of nothing else for
at least a fortnight, and in the course of conver-
sation he mentioned this apparatus of Mr. Cal-
lingham's construction. “What a pity,' he said,
‘there didn't happen to be one of them in the
library at the time ! If it was focused toward the


218 RECALLED TO LIFE.
persons, and had been set on by the victim, it
would have photographed the whole scene, the
murder, the murderer.’
“That hint revealed much to me. As he spoke,
I remembered suddenly about those mysterious
flashes when you burst all at once on my sight
from behind the screen. Till that moment, I
thought of them only as some result of your too
suddenly turning off the electric current. But
then it came home to me in a second that Mr.
Callingham must have set out his apparatus all
ready for experimenting—that the electric appa-
ratus was there to put it in working order. The
button you turned must not only have stopped
the current that nailed me writhing to the spot:
it must also have set working the automatic photo-
graphic camera!
“That thought, as you may imagine, filled me
with speechless alarm: for I remembered then
that one of the flashes broke upon us at the exact
moment when you fired the pistol. Such a possi-
bility was horrible to contemplate. The photo-
graphs by themselves could give no clew to our
conversation or to the events that compelled you,
almost against your own will, to fire that fatal
shot. If they were found by the police, all would
be up with both of us. They might hang me if
they liked; except for Elsie's sake, I didn't mind
much about that; but for your safety, come what


THE FA TAZ SHOT. 219
might, I felt I must manage to get hold of them
or to destroy them. -
“Were the negatives already in the hands of the
police? That was now the great question. I
read the reports diligently, with all their descrip-
tions of the room, and noticed that while the table,
the alcove, the screen, the box, the electrical appa-
ratus, were all carefully mentioned, not a word
was said anywhere about the possession of the
negatives. Reasoning further upon the descrip-
tion of the supposed murderer as given by the
servants, and placarded broadcast in every town
in England, I came to the conclusion that the po-
lice couldn't yet have discovered the existence of
these negatives; for some of them must surely
have photographed my face, however little in
focus; while the printed descriptions mentioned
only the man's back, as the servants saw him
escaping from the window. The papers said the
room was being kept closed till the inquest, for in-
spection in due time by the coroner's jury. I
made up my mind at once. When the room was
opened for the jurors to view it, I must get in
there and carry them off, if they caught me in the
attempt.
“It was no use trying before the jury had seen
the room. But as soon as that was all over, I
judged the strictness of the watch upon the prem-
ises would be relaxed, and the windows would


222 AºECAZZED 7"O ZIFE.
“At that moment, I either heard, or fancied I
heard, a loud noise of pursuit, a hue and cry be-
hind me. Zeal for your safety had made me pre-
ternaturally nervous. I looked about me hur-
riedly, thrust the negatives I'd recovered into my
breast-pocket as fast as ever I could, flung the ap-
paratus away from me with the sixth plate jammed
hard in the groove, and made off at the top of my
speed for the wall behind me. For there, at that
critical point, it occurred to me suddenly that the
sixth and last flash of the machine had come and
gone just as I stood poising myself on the ledge
of the window-sill; and I thought to myself—
rightly as it turned out—this additional evidence
would only strengthen the belief in the public
mind that Mr. Callingham had been murdered by
the man whom the servants saw escaping from the
window.
“The rest, my child, you know pretty well
already. In a panic on your account, I scrambled
over the wall, tearing my hands as I went with
that nasty bottle-glass, reached my bicycle out-
side, and made off, not for the country, but for
the inn where they were holding the coroner's in-
quest. My left hand I had to hold, tied up in my
handkerchief to stop the bleeding, in the pocket
of my jacket; but I thought this the best way, all
the same, to escape detection. And, indeed, in-
stead of being, as I feared, the only man there in
bicycling dress and knickerbockers, I found the


ALL’S WELL 7"HA 7" EAWDS WELZ. 225
came, after a bit, a lull of languid interest; the
papers began to forget the supposed facts of the
murder, and to dwell far more upon your own
new rôle as a psychological curiosity. They
talked much about your strange new life and its
analogies elsewhere. I was anxious to see you,
of course, to satisfy myself of your condition; but
the doctors who had charge of you refused to let
you mix for a while with any one you had known
in your First State; and I now think wisely. It
was best you should recover your general health
and faculties by slow degrees, without being puz-
zled and distracted by constant upsetting recol-
lections and suggestions of your past history.
“But for me, of course, at the time, the separa-
tion was terrible. Each morning, I read with fev-
erish interest the reports of your health, and
longed, day after day, to hear of some distinct
improvement. And yet at the same time I was
terrified at every approach to complete convales-
cence; I feared that if you got better at all, you
might remember too quick, and that then the
sudden rush of recollection might kill you or up-
set your reason. But by and by it became clear
to me you could remember nothing of the actual
shot itself. And I saw plainly why. It was the
firing of the pistol that obliterated, as it were,
every trace of your past life in your disorganized
brain. And it obliterated itself too. Your new
life began just one moment later, with the Pic-


226 A’ECAZZED TO LIFE.
ture of the dead man stretched before you in his
blood on the floor, and a figure in the background
disappearing through the window.”
How clever he was, to be sure ' I saw in a
moment Jack had interpreted my whole frame of
mind correctly and wonderfully.
“Well, I went back to Babbicombe,” Jack con-
tinued, “and, lest my heart should break for want
of human sympathy, I confided every word of my
terrible story to Elsie. Elsie can trust me; and
Elsie believed me. Gradually, as you began to
recover, I realized the soundness of your doctor's
idea that you should be allowed to come back to
yourself by re-education from the very beginning,
without any too early intrusion of reminiscences
from your previous life to confuse and disturb
you. But I couldn't go on with my profession,
all the same, while I waited. I couldn't attend,
as I ought, to my patient's wants and ailments;
I was too concentrated upon you; the strain was
too great upon me. So I threw up my practice,
came out to Canada, bought a bit of land, and
began farming here, and seeing a few patients
now and again locally, just to fill up my time
with. I felt confident in the end you would re-
cover and remember me. I felt confident you
would come to yourself and marry me. But still,
it was very long work waiting. Every month,
Elsie got news indirectly from Minnie Moore, or
some one, of your state of health; and I intended


ALL’S WELL THA 7" ENDS WELL. 227
to go back and try to see you as soon as ever you
were in a condition to bear the shock of reliving
your previous life again.
“Unfortunately, however, the police got hold
of you before I could carry my plan into execu-
tion. As soon as I heard that, I made up my
mind at once to go home by the first mail and
break it all gently to you. So Elsie and I started
for Quebec, meaning to sail by the Dominion
steamer for England. But at the hotel at Que-
bec we saw the telegrams announcing that you
were then on your way out to Canada. Well, of
course we didn't feel sure whether you came as a
friend or an enemy. We were certain it was to
seek me out you were coming to America; but
whether you remembered me still and still loved
me, or whether you had found out some stray clew
to the missing man, and were anxious to hunt me
down as your father's murderer, we hadn't the
slightest conception. So, under those circum-
stances, we thought it best not to meet you our-
selves at the steamer, or to reveal our identity too
soon, for fear of a catastrophe. I knew it would
be better to wait and watch; to gain your confi-
dence, if possible; in any case, to find out how
you were affected on first seeing us and talking
with us.
“Well, then, as the time came on for the Sarma-
tian to arrive, it began to strike me by degrees
that all Quebec was agog with curiosity to see


228 AºA2CADEED TO LIFE.
you. I dared not go down to meet you at the
quay myself, but the Chief Constable of Quebec,
Major Tascherel, was an old friend and fellow-
officer of my father's; and when I explained to
him my fears that you might be mobbed by sight-
seers on your arrival at the harbor, and told him
how afraid I was of the shock it might give you
to meet an old friend unexpectedly at the steam-
er's side, he very kindly consented to go down
and see you safe through the Custom House. It
was so lucky I knew him. If it had not been for
that, you might have been horribly inconven-
ienced.
“As you may imagine, when we first saw you
get into the Pullman car, both Elsie and I felt
our hearts come up into our mouths with sus-
pense and anxiety. We'd arranged it all so on
purpose, for we felt sure you were on your way
to Palmyra to find us; but when it came to the
actual crisis, we wondered most nervously what
effect the sight of us might have upon your sys-
tem. But in a moment I saw you didn't remem-
ber us at all, or only vaguely attached to us some
faint sense of friendliness. That was well, be-
cause it enabled us to gain your confidence easily.
As we spoke with you, the sense of friendly inter-
est deepened. I knew that, all unconsciously to
yourself, you loved me still, and that in a very
short time, if only I could see you and be with
you, I might bring all back to you.”








WOMAN'S WORK IN America.
Edited by ANNIE NATHAN MEYER. Introduction by JULIA WARD
Howe, 12mo, $1.50. -
CoNTENTs : Woman in Education. -(a) In the East, Mary F.
Eastman, (b) In the West, May Wright Sewall. (c) In the South,
Christine Ladd Franklin.-In Literature, Helen Gray Cone.—In
Journalism, Susan E. Dickinson.—In Medicine, Dr. Mary Putnam
Jacobi...—In Ministry, Rev. Ada C. Bowles.—In the State, Mary A.
Livermore.—In Law, Ada M. Bittenbender. —In Industry, Alice
Hyneman Rhine.—In Philanthropy. (a) Care of Poor, Josephine
Shaw Lowell. (b) Care of Sick, Edna D. Cheney. (c) Care of Crim-
inals, Susan Barney, (d) Care of Indians, A. B. Quinton, (e) Work
of the W. C. T. U., Frances Willard. (f) Work of the Red Cross,
Clara Barton. (g) Anti-Slavery Movement, Lilie B. Chace Wyman.
Bishop Potter says: “Very valuable and interesting. . . . An inspir-
ing evidence of woman's emancipation from stupid and unjust restrictions and
of the noble service to her kind which she is so richly gifted to render.”
Harper's Weekly says: “A very valuable chapter in American History
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The Christian Union says: “The story of such a movement, the aspira-
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women. . . . Mrs. Meyer has done an excellent work.”
FANNY KEMBLE'S FURTHER RECORDS.
Uniform with ‘‘RECORDS OF A GIRLHooD,” and “RECoRDs of
LATER LIFE.” 12mo, $2.00.
JERRY.
By SARAH BARN ELL ELLIOTT. 12mo, $1.25.”
The N. Y. Herald says: “‘Jerry’ is a remarkable story, and full of heart.
. . . Cannot be outlined; it should be read by all who like thoughtful stories,
the end of which cannot be guessed from the beginning.”
The N. Y. Tribune says: “All the scenes in Durden's mine are excellent,
The mystery and the terror of the old workings are indicated with decided power,
and the description is graphic and impressive. . . . . Jerry" is a really fresh,
vigorous, and highly interesting story.”
The N. Y. World says: “This is the most distinctly original American
novel that has been published in ten years. In plot, in sentiment, and charac-
ter, it is redolent of the soil from which it sprung. . . . It is a book which
will stand more than one reading, and that is saying much for a novel of the
present day.” -
- CREEK LITERATURE.
By THoMAS SERGEANT PERRY, anthor of “English Literature in
the Eighteenth Century,” etc. 8vo, 877 pp. Illustrated. $7.50.
T * Y. Tribune says: “Careful, sufficiently full, and commendably
clear erry has adopted the method of illustrating his text by copious cita-
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t intelligence upon these questions.”
H011 & 00., Publishers, 29 W. 23d St., Wew York. §