!;: :, 
 
 1 
 
 '. 
 
 II JFNCIV 
 
 IRLF 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNlVZRCiTY OF 
 
 CALIF;,; NIA 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
AN ITINERANT HOUSE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
AN ITINERANT HOUSE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 EMMA FRANCES DAWSON 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERNEST C. PEIXOTTO 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 WILLIAM DOXEY 
 
 1897 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 WILLIAM DOXEY 
 
 1896 
 
 THE MURDOCK PRESS 
 
3 07 
 MS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The romance of "A Gracious Visitation " was writ- 
 ten because Mr. Doxey wished a new and long story 
 for the book. The length of it has crowded out one 
 or two tales. 
 
 The "prose poem," "In Silver Upon Purple," was 
 also written for this volume. 
 
 The other stories appear here by kind permission 
 of the following-named publications. 
 
 " The Dramatic in My Destiny" was written at the 
 request of the late Mr. Fred. M. Somers, when he 
 and Mr. A. Roman started The Calif ornian (the 
 present Overland), and given the honou of opening 
 the first number. 
 
 "Singed Moths " was written for the same magazine, 
 but Mr. Somers having returned to The Argonaut, 
 asked for its appearance in that paper. The dreams 
 mentioned in it are not fiction. 
 
 "Are the Dead Dead?" " The Second Card Wins," 
 and "An Itinerant House" were also in The Argonaut. 
 
 "A Stray Reveler "and "A Sworn Statement" were 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 written by the request of Mr. Ambrose Bierce for 
 Christmas issues of The Wasp. 
 
 As the idea in the last-named story, of the com- 
 munication of a vision through the touch, is in " Called 
 Back," it may be well to state that the story was 
 published before the novel. 
 
 Not long ago, the New York magazine, Short 
 Stories, offered five prizes for one-page "etchings," to 
 be dramatic, queer, humorous, pathetic, or descriptive. 
 There were thirteen hundred and forty-five competi- 
 tors. The prize for being queer was awarded to "The 
 Night Before the Wedding." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 An Itinerant House i 
 
 Singed Moths . . . . < . . . . J . .33 
 A Stray Reveler . . . ., . ... . . .75 
 
 The Night Before the Wedding 91 
 
 The Dramatic In My Destiny 97 
 
 A Gracious Visitation . ^ .' . ., . . . .141 
 
 A Sworn Statement 213 
 
 "The Second Card Wins" 231 
 
 In Silver Upon Purple 275 
 
 "Are the Dead Dead?" .283 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Telegraph Hill, San Francisco i 
 
 "Idiots" . '.'.,...,...... 7 
 
 "The great cross on Lone Mountain stood out 
 black against scarlet clouds" . . . . .43 
 
 "Think of flitting souls going out into such a 
 night" 66 
 
 "As she spoke and I gazed at the screen" . . 80 
 
 " I heard a chuckle, as his wide sleeve swept care- 
 lessly over the table" 119 
 
 "She looked very shadowy in sweeping, misty 
 robes and floating hair" 128 
 
 " It was a wild night" 222 
 
 "Now I see the beach near the Cliff House" . 269 
 "A white hand was laid on his shoulder". . . 318 
 
AN ITINERANT HOUSE. 
 
AN ITINERANT HOUSE. 
 
 ' ' Eternal longing with eternal pain, 
 Want without hope, and memory saddening all. 
 All congregated failure and despair 
 Shall wander there through some old maze of wrong." 
 
 "His wife?" cried Felipa. 
 
 "Yes/* I answered, unwillingly; for until 
 the steamer brought Mrs. Anson I believed in 
 this Mexican woman's right to that name. I 
 felt sorry for the bright eyes and kind heart 
 that had cheered Anson's lodgers through 
 weary months of early days in San Francisco. 
 
 She burst into tears. None of us knew how 
 
Itinerant 
 
 to comfort her. Dering spoke first: " Beauty 
 always wins friends." 
 
 Between her sobs she repeated one of the 
 pithy sayings of her language: "It is as easy 
 to find a lover as to keep a friend, but as hard 
 to find a friend as to keep a lover." 
 
 "Yes," said Volz, "a new friendship is like 
 a new string to your guitar you are not sure 
 what its tone may prove, nor how soon it may 
 break." 
 
 "But at least its falsity is learned at once," 
 she sobbed. 
 
 "Is it possible," I asked, "that you had no 
 suspicion ?" 
 
 "None. He told me" She ended in a 
 fresh gust of tears. 
 
 " The old story," muttered Dering. "Mar- 
 ryatt's skipper was right in thinking every- 
 thing that once happened would come again 
 somewhere." 
 
 Anson came. He had left the new-comer at 
 the Niantic, on pretense of putting his house 
 in order. Felipa turned on him before we 
 could go. 
 
 " Is this true ?" she cried. 
 
 Without reply he went to the window and 
 stood looking out. She sprang toward him, 
 with rage distorting her face. 
 
Itinerant 
 
 " Coward! " she screamed, in fierce scorn. 
 
 Then she fell senseless. Two doctors were 
 called. One said she was dead. The other, 
 at first doubtful, vainly tried hot sealing-wax 
 and other tests. After thirty-six hours her 
 funeral was planned. Yet Dering, once medi- 
 cal student, had seen an electric current used 
 in such a case in Vienna, and wanted to try it. 
 That night, he, Volz, and I offered to watch . 
 When all was still, Dering, who had smuggled 
 in the simple things needed, began his weird 
 work. 
 
 " Is it not too late ? " I asked. 
 
 " Every corpse," said he, "can be thus 
 excited soon after death, for a brief time only, 
 and but once. If the body is not lifeless, the 
 electric current has power at any time." 
 
 Volz, too nervous to stay near, stood in the 
 door open to the dark hall. It was a dreadful 
 sight. The dead woman's breast rose and fell; 
 smiles and frowns flitted across her face. 
 
 "The body begins to react finely," cried 
 Dering, making Volz open the windows, while 
 I wrapped hot blankets round Felipa, and he 
 instilled clear coffee and brandy. 
 
 "It seems like sacrilege! Let her alone!" 
 I exclaimed. " Better dead than alive !" 
 
 "My God! say not that!" cried Volz; "the 
 
Sin Itinerant 
 
 nerve which hears is last to die. She may 
 know all we say." 
 
 "Musical bosh!" I muttered. 
 
 "Perhaps not," said Dering; "in magnetic 
 sleep that nerve can be roused." 
 
 The night seemed endless. The room 
 gained an uncanny look, the macaws on the 
 gaudy, old-fashioned wall-paper seemed flut- 
 tering and changing places. Volz crouched in 
 a heap near the door. Dering stood by Felipa, 
 watching closely. I paced the shadowy room, 
 looked at the gleam of the moon on the bay, 
 listened to the soughing wind in the gum-trees 
 mocking the sea, and tried to recall more 
 cheerful scenes, but always bent under the 
 weight of that fearful test going on beside me. 
 Where was her soul? Beyond the stars, in 
 the room with us, or "like trodden snowdrift 
 melting in the dark?" Volz came behind, 
 startling me by grasping my elbow. 
 
 "Shall I not play?" he whispered. "Fa- 
 miliar music is remembrance changed to sound 
 it brings the past as perfume does. Gypsy 
 music in her ear would be like holding wild 
 flowers to hei nostrils." 
 
 "Ask Dering," I said; "he will know 
 best." 
 
 I heard him urging Dering. 
 
Itinerant 
 
 "She has gypsy blood," he said; "their 
 music will rouse her." 
 
 Dering unwillingly agreed. "But nothing 
 abrupt begin low," said he. 
 
 Vaguely uneasy, I turned to object; but 
 Volz had gone for his violin. Far off arose a 
 soft, wavering, sleepy strain, like a wind 
 blowing over a field of poppies. He passed, 
 in slow, dramatic style, through the hall, play- 
 ing on the way. As he came in, oddly sus- 
 tained notes trembled like sighs and sobs; 
 these were by degrees subdued, though with 
 spasmodic outbursts, amid a grand movement 
 as of phantom shapes through cloud-land. One 
 heart-rending phrase recurring as of one of the 
 shadowy host striving to break loose, but 
 beaten back by impalpable throngs, number- 
 less grace-notes trailing their sparks like fire- 
 works. No music of our intervals and our 
 rhythms, but perplexing in its charm like a 
 draught that maddens. Time, space, our very 
 identities, were consumed in this white heat of 
 sound. I held my breath. I caught his arm. 
 
 "It is too bold and distracting," I cried. 
 "It is enough to kill us! Do you expect to 
 torment her back? How can it affect us so?" 
 
 "Because," he answered, laying down his 
 violin and wiping his brow, "in the gypsy 
 
Itinerant 
 
 minor scale the fourth and seventh are aug- 
 mented. The sixth is diminished. The fre- 
 quent augmentation of the fourth makes that 
 sense of unrest." 
 
 "Bah! Technical terms make it no 
 plainer," I said, returning to the window. 
 
 He played a whispered, merry discordance, 
 resolving into click of castanets, laugh, and 
 dance of a gypsy camp. Out of the whirl of 
 flying steps and tremolo of tambourines rose a 
 tender voice, asking, denying, sighing, implor- 
 ing, passing into an over-ruling, long-drawn 
 call that vibrated in widening rings to reach 
 the farthest horizon nay, beyond land or 
 .sea, "east of the sun, west of the moon." 
 With a rush returned the wild jollity of men's 
 bass laughter, women's shrill reply, the stir of 
 the gypsy camp. This dropped behind vague, 
 rolling measures of clouds and chaos, where to 
 and fro floated grotesque goblins of grace-notes 
 like the fancies of a madman; struggling, ris- 
 ing, falling, vain-reaching strains; fierce cries 
 like commands. The music seemed another 
 vital essence thrilling us with its own emotion. 
 
 "No more, no more!" I cried, half gasping, 
 and grasping Volz's arm. "What is it, Der- 
 ing?" 
 
 He had staggered from the bed and was try- 
 
Itinerant 
 
 ing to see his watch. "It is just forty-four 
 hours!" he said, pointing to Felipa. 
 
 Her eyes were open ! We were alarmed as 
 if doing wrong and silently watched her. Fif- 
 teen minutes later her lips formed one word: 
 
 "Idiots!" 
 
 Half an hour after she flung the violin from 
 bed to floor, but would not speak. People 
 began to stir about the house. The prosaic 
 sounds jarred on our strained nerves. We 
 felt brought from another sphere. Volz and I 
 were going, but Felipa's upraised hand kept 
 us. She sat up, looking a ghastly vision. 
 Turning first toward me she quoted my 
 words : 
 
 " 'Better dead than alive !' True. You knew 
 I would be glad to die. What right had you 
 to bring me back? God's curses on you! I 
 was dead. Then came agony. I heard your 
 voices. I thought we were all in hell. Then 
 I found how by your evil cunning I was to be 
 forced to live. It was like an awful night- 
 mare. I shall not forget you, nor you me. 
 These very walls shall remember here, 
 where I have been so tortured no one shall 
 have peace ! Fools ! Leave me ! Never come 
 in this room again !" 
 
 We went, all talking at once, Dering angry 
 
8 Qitt Itinerant 
 
 at her mood; Volz, sorry he had not reached 
 a soothing pianissimo passage; I, owning we 
 had no right to make the test. We saw her 
 but once more, when with a threatening nod 
 toward us she left the house. 
 
 From that time a gloom settled over the 
 place. Mrs. Anson proved a hard-faced, cold- 
 hearted, Cape Cod woman, a scold and 
 drudge, who hated us as much as we disliked 
 her. Home-sick and unhappy, she soon went 
 East and died. Within a year, Anson was 
 found dead where he had gone hunting in the 
 Saucelito woods, supposed a suicide; Dering 
 was hung by the Vigilantes, and the rest were 
 scattered on the four winds. Volz and I were 
 last to go. The night before we sailed, he for 
 Australia, I for New York, he said: 
 
 " I am sorry for those who come after us in 
 this house." 
 
 " Not knowing of any tragedy here/' I said, 
 " they will not feel its influence." 
 
 "They must feel it," he insisted; "it is 
 written in the Proverbs, * Evil shall not depart 
 from his house.'" 
 
 Some years later, I was among passengers 
 embarking at New York for California, when 
 there was a cry of " Man overboard !" In the 
 confusion of his rescue, among heartless and 
 
Qln Itinerant 
 
 pitiful talk, I overheard one man declare that 
 the drowned might be revived. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" cried a well-known voice 
 behind me. "But they might not thank 
 you." 
 
 I turned to find Volz ! He \vas coming out 
 with Wynne, the actor. Enjoying our com- 
 radeship on the voyage, on reaching San Fran- 
 cisco we took rooms together, on Bush Street, 
 in an old house with a large garden. Volz 
 became leader of the orchestra, and Wynne, 
 leading man at the same theatre. Lest my 
 folks, a Maine deacon's family, should think 
 I was on the road to ruin, I told in letters 
 home only of the city missionary in the 
 house. 
 
 Volz was hard worked. Wynne was not 
 much liked. My business went wrong. It 
 rained for many weeks; to this we laid the 
 discomfort that grew to weigh on us. Volz 
 wreaked his sense of it on his violin, adding 
 to the torment of W r ynne and myself, for to 
 lonesome anxious souls "the demon in music" 
 shows horns and cloven foot in the trying 
 sounds of practice. One Sunday Volz played 
 the "Witches Dance," the "Dream," and 
 " The long, long weary day." 
 
 "I can bear it no longer!" said Wynne. 
 
io 2ln Itinerant 
 
 " I feel like the haunted Matthias in ' The 
 Bells.' If I could feel so when acting such 
 parts, it would make my fortune. But I feel 
 it only here." 
 
 "I think," said Volz, "it is the gloria 
 fonda bush near the window; the scent is too 
 strong." He dashed off Strauss' fretful, con- 
 flicting "Hurry and Delay." 
 
 "There, there! It is too much," said I. 
 " You express my feelings." 
 
 He looked doubtful. "Put it in words," 
 said he. 
 
 "How can I?" I said. "When our firm 
 sent me abroad, I went sight-seeing among old 
 palaces, whose Gobelin tapestries framed in 
 their walls were faded to gray phantoms of 
 pictures, but out of some the thrilling eyes fol- 
 lowed me till I could not stay in their range. 
 My feeling here is the uneasy one of being 
 watched." 
 
 "Ha!" said Volz. "You remind me of 
 Heine, when he wrote from Livorno. He 
 knew no Italian, but the old palaces whispered 
 secrets unheard by day. The moon was inter- 
 preter, knew the lapidary style, translated to 
 dialect of his heart. ' ' 
 
 " * Strange effects after the moon,' " mused 
 Wynne. " That gives new meaning to Kent's 
 
Qln Itinerant fonse. n 
 
 threat: * I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of 
 you!'" 
 
 Volz went on : " Heine wrote : ''The stones 
 here speak to me, and I know their mute lan- 
 guage. Also, they seem deeply to feel what 
 I think. So a broken column of the old Roman 
 times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather- 
 beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands 
 me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering 
 among ruins. 1 " 
 
 " Perhaps, like Poe's hero," said I, "'I 
 have imbibed shadows of fallen columns at 
 Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my 
 very soul has become a ruin.' " 
 
 " But I, too," said Wynne, " feel the unrest 
 of Tannhauser: 
 
 'Alas ! what seek I here, or anywhere, 
 Whose way of life is like the crumbled stair 
 That winds and winds about a ruined tower, 
 And leads no whither.' " 
 
 " I am oppressed," Volz owned, " as if some 
 one in my presence was suffering deeply." 
 
 " I feel," said Wynne, " as if the scene was 
 not set right for the performance now going 
 on. There is a hitch and drag somewhere 
 scene-shifters on a strike. Happy are you 
 poets and musicians, who can express what is 
 vague." 
 
12 Qtn Itinerant 
 
 Volz laughed. "As in Liszt's oratorio of 
 'Christus,'" said he, " where a sharp, ear- 
 piercing sostenuto on the piccolo-flute shows 
 the shining of the star of Bethlehem." He 
 turned to me. "Schubert's 'Wanderer' 
 always recalls to me a house you and I know 
 to be under a ban." 
 
 " Haunted?" asked Wynne. " Of all spec- 
 ulative theories, St. Martin's sends the most 
 cold thrills up one's back. He said none of 
 the dead come back, but some stay." 
 
 "What we Germans call gebannt tied to 
 one spot," said Volz. " But this is no ghost, 
 only a proof of what a German psychologist 
 holds, that the magnetic man is a spirit." 
 
 "Go on, 'and tell quaint lies' I like 
 them," said Wynne. 
 
 I told in brief outline, with no names, the 
 tale Volz and I knew, while we strolled to 
 Telegraph Hill, passing five streets blocked by 
 the roving houses common to San Francisco. 
 
 Wynne said: " They seem to have minds 
 of their own, with their entrances and exits in 
 a moving drama." 
 
 "Sort of 'Poor Jo's,'" said I. 
 
 " Castles in chess," said Volz. 
 
 "lo-like," said Wynne, "with a gad in 
 their hearts that forever drives them on." 
 
Itinerant 40ns. 13 
 
 A few foreign sailors lounged on the hill top, 
 looking at the view. The wind blew such a 
 gale we did not stay. The steps we had 
 known, cut in the side, were gone. Where 
 the old house used to be, goats were browsing. 
 
 " Perchance we do inhabit it but now," 
 mockingly cried Wynne; " methinks it must 
 be so." 
 
 " Then," said Volz, thoughtfully, " it might 
 be what Germans call 'far-working' acted 
 in distance that affects us." 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked. " Do you 
 know anything of her now?" 
 
 "I know she went to Mexico," said he; 
 "that is all." 
 
 "What is 'far- working?'" asked Wynne. 
 " If 1 could act in the distance, and here too 
 1 what larks!"' 
 
 "Yes ' if," said I. "Think how all our 
 lives turn on that pivot. Suppose Hawthorne's 
 offer to join Wilkes' exploring expedition had 
 been taken!" 
 
 "Only to wills that know no 'if is 'far- 
 working' possible," said Volz. "Substance 
 or space can no more hinder this force than 
 the one of mineral magnetism. Passavent 
 joins it with pictures falling, or watches stop- 
 ping at the time of a death. In sleep-walking, 
 
i4 Sin itinerant 
 
 some kinds of illness, or nearness of death, the 
 nervous ether is not so closely allied to its 
 material conductors, the nerves, and may be 
 loosened to act from afar, the surest where 
 blood or feeling makes attraction or repulsion/' 
 Wynne in the two voices of the play 
 repeated : 
 
 " VICTOR. Where is the gentleman? 
 CHISPE. As the old song says: 
 
 * His body is in Segovia, 
 His soul is in Madrid."' 
 
 We could learn about the house we were in 
 only that five families had moved in and out 
 during the last year. Wynne resolved to 
 shake off the gloom that wrapped us. In 
 struggles to defy it, he on the strength of a 
 thousand-dollar benefit, made one payment on 
 the house and began repairs. 
 
 On an off-night he was vainly trying to 
 study a new part. Volz advised the relief to 
 his nerves of reciting the dream scene from 
 " The Bells," reminding him he had compared 
 it with his restlessness there. Wynne denied 
 it. 
 
 "Yes," said Volz, "where the mesmerizer 
 forces Matthias to confess." 
 
 But Wynne refused, as if vexed, till Volz 
 offered to show in music his own mood, and I 
 
Itinerant ijjouse. 15 
 
 agreed to read some rhymes about mine. Volz 
 was long tuning his violin. 
 
 "I feel," he said, ''as if the .passers-by 
 would hear a secret. Music is such a subtle 
 expression of emotion like flower-odor rolls 
 far and affects the stranger. Hearken ! In 
 Heine's 'Reisebilder,' as the cross was thrown 
 ringing on the banquet table of the gods, they 
 grew dumb and pale, and even paler till they 
 melted in mist. So shall you at the long- 
 drawn wail of my violin grow breathless, and 
 fade from each other's sight." 
 
 The music closed round us, and we waited 
 in its deep solitude. One brief, sad phrase 
 fell from airy heights to lowest depths into a 
 sea of sound, whose harmonious eddies as 
 they widened breathed of passion and pain, 
 now swooning, now reviving, with odd pauses 
 and sighs that rose to cries of despair, but the 
 tormenting first strain recurring fainter and 
 fainter, as if drowning, drowning, drowned 
 yet floating back for repeated last plaint, as if 
 not to be quelled, and closing, as it began, the 
 whole. 
 
 As I read the name of my verses, Volz mur- 
 mured: "LesNuits Blanches. No. 4. Stephen 
 Heller." 
 
1 6 &n Itinerant 
 
 SLEEPLESS NIGHTS. 
 
 Against the garden's mossy paling 
 I lean, and wish the night away, 
 
 Whose faint, unequal shadows trailing 
 Seem but a dream of those of day. 
 
 Sleep burdens blossom, bud, and leaf, 
 
 My soul alone aspires, dilates, 
 Yearns to forget its care and grief 
 
 No bath of sleep its pain abates. 
 
 How dread these dreams of wide-eyed nights ! 
 
 What is, and is not, both I rue, 
 My wild thoughts fly like wand'ring kites, 
 
 No peace falls with this balmy dew. 
 
 Through slumb'rous stillness, scarcely stirred 
 By sudden trembles, as when shifts 
 
 O'er placid pool some skimming bird, 
 Its Lethean bowl a poppy lifts. 
 
 If one deep draught my doubts could solve, 
 The world might bubble down its brim, 
 
 Like Cleopatra's pearl dissolve, 
 With all my dreams within its rim. 
 
 What should I know but calm repose ? 
 
 How feel, recalling this lost sphere? 
 Alas ! the fabled poppy shows 
 
 Upon its bleeding heart a tear ! 
 
 Wynne unwillingly began to recite: "'I 
 fear nothing, but dreams are dreams ' " 
 
 He stammered, could not go on, and fell to 
 the floor. We got him to bed. He never 
 
Qtn Itinerant tyonst. 17 
 
 spoke sanely after. His wild fancies appalled 
 us watching him all night. 
 
 "Avaunt Sathanas! That's not -my cue," 
 he muttered. "A full house to-night. How 
 could Talma forget how the crowd looked, and 
 fancy it a pack of skeletons? Tell Volz to 
 keep the violins playing through this scene, it 
 works me up as well as thrills the audience. 
 Oh, what tiresome nights I have lately, 
 always dreaming of scenes where rival women 
 move, as in ' Court and Stage/ where, all 
 masked, the king makes love to Frances 
 Stewart before the queen's face ! How do I 
 try to cure it? 'And being, thus frighted, 
 swear a prayer or two and sleep again.' 
 Madame, you're late; you've too little rouge; 
 you'll look ghastly. We're not called yet; 
 let's rehearse our scene. Now, then, I enter 
 left, pass to the window. You cry 'is this 
 true?' and faint. All crowd about. Quick 
 curtain." 
 
 Volz and I looked at each other. 
 
 "Can our magnetism make his senses so 
 sharp that he knows what is in our minds?" 
 he asked me. 
 
 "Nonsense!" I said. "Memory, laudanum, 
 and whisky." 
 
 "There," Wynne went on, "the orchestra 
 
1 8 &n -Itinerant 
 
 is stopping. They 've rung up the curtain. 
 Don't hold me. The stage waits, yet how 
 can I go outside my door to step on dead 
 bodies ? Street and sidewalk are knee-deep 
 with them. They rise and curse me for dis- 
 turbing them. I lift my cane to strike. It 
 turns to a snake, whose slimy body writhes in 
 my hand. Trying to hold it from biting me, 
 my nails cut my palm till blood streams to 
 drown the snake." 
 
 He awed us not alone from having no con- 
 trol of his thoughts, but because there came 
 now and then a strange influx of. emotion as if 
 other souls passed in and out of his body. 
 
 * Is this hell ? " he groaned. What blank 
 darkness ! Where am I ? What is that infer- 
 nal music haunting me through all space ? If 
 I could only escape it I need not go back to 
 earth to that room where I feel choked, 
 where the very wall paper frets me with its 
 flaunting birds flying to and fro, mocking my 
 fettered state. * Here, here in the very den of 
 the wolf!' Hallo, Benvolio, call-boy's hunt- 
 ing you. Romeo 's gone on. 
 
 ' See where he steals 
 Locked in some gloomy covert under key 
 Of cautionary silence, with his arms 
 Threaded, like these cross-boughs, in sorrow's knot.* 
 
Itinerant fanse. 19 
 
 What is this dread that weighs like a night- 
 mare ? ' I do not fear ; like Macbeth, I only 
 inhabit trembling/ * For one of them she is 
 in hell already, and burns, poor soul ! For the 
 other' Ah! must I die here, alone in the 
 woods, felled by a coward, Indian-like, from 
 behind a tree ? None of the boys will know. 
 * I just now come from a whole world of mad 
 women that had almost what, is she dead ?' 
 Poor Felipa!" 
 
 "Did you tell him her name?" I asked Volz. 
 
 "No," said he. "Can one man's madness 
 be another's real life?" 
 
 "Blood was spilt the avenger's wing hov- 
 ered above my house," raved Wynne. "What 
 are these lights, hundreds of them serpent's 
 eyes? Is it the audience coiled, many- 
 headed monster, following me round the world? 
 Why do they hiss? I 've played this part a 
 hundred times. ' Taught by Rage, and Hun- 
 ger, and Despair?' Do they, full-fed, well- 
 clothed, light-hearted, know how to judge me? 
 'A plague on both your houses!' What is 
 that flame? Fire that consumes my vitals 
 spon-ta-neous combustion! It is then possible. 
 Water! water!" 
 
 The doctor said there had been some great 
 strain on Wynne's mind. He sank fast, 
 
20 Qtn Itinerant 
 
 though we did all we could. Toward morning 
 I turned to Volz with the words : 
 
 "He is dead." 
 
 The city missionary was passing the open 
 door. He grimly muttered : 
 
 "Better dead than alive!" 
 
 "My God! say not that!" cried Volz. 
 " The nerve which hears is last to die. He 
 may know - " 
 
 He faltered. We stood aghast. The room 
 grew suddenly familiar. I tore off a strip 
 of the gray tint on the walls. Under it 
 we found the old paper with its bright 
 macaws. 
 
 "Ah, ha!" Volz said; "will you now deny 
 my theory of 'far- working?' " 
 
 Dazed, I could barely murmur: "Then 
 people can be affected by it !" 
 
 " Certainly," said he, "as rubbed glasses 
 gain electric power." 
 
 Within a week we sailed he for Brazil, I 
 for New York. 
 
 Several years after, at Sacramento, Arne, 
 an artist I had known abroad, found me on the 
 overland train, and on reaching San Francisco 
 urged me to go where he lodged. 
 
 " I am low-spirited here," he said; " I don't 
 know why." 
 
Itinerant ijjonse. 21 
 
 I stopped short on the crowded wharf. 
 "Where do you live?" I asked. 
 
 " Far up Market Street/' said he*. 
 
 " What sort of a house?" I insisted. 
 
 " Oh nothing modern over a store," he 
 answered. 
 
 Reassured, I went with him. He lived in a 
 jumble of easels, portfolios, paint, canvas, bits 
 of statuary, casts, carvings, foils, red curtains, 
 Chinese goatskins, woodcuts, photographs, 
 sketches, and unfinished pictures. On the 
 wall hung a scene from " The Wandering 
 Jew," as we saw it at the Adelphi, in London, 
 where in the Arctic regions he sees visions 
 foreshadowing the future of his race. Under 
 it was quoted : 
 
 - "All in my mind is confused, nor can I 
 
 dissever 
 The mould of the visible world from the shape of my 
 
 thought in me 
 The Inward and Outward are fused, and through them 
 
 murmur forever 
 
 The sorrow whose sound is the wind and the roar of 
 the limitless sea." 
 
 " Do you remember," Arne asked, "when 
 we saw that play? Both younger and more 
 hopeful. How has the world used you? As 
 for me, I have done nothing since I came here 
 
22 &n Itinerant iponse. 
 
 but that sketch, finished months ago. I have 
 not lost ambition, but I feel fettered." 
 
 "Absinthe? opium? tobacco?" I hinted. 
 
 " Neither/' he answered. " I try to work, 
 but visions, widely different from what I will, 
 crowd on me, as on the Jew in the play. Not 
 the unconscious brain action all thinkers know, 
 but a dictation from without. No rush of cre- 
 ative impulses, but a dragging sense of some- 
 thing else I ought to paint." 
 
 "Briefly," I said, "you are a * Haunted 
 Man/" 
 
 " Haunted by a willful design," said he. 
 " I feel as if something had happened some- 
 where which I must show." 
 
 " What is it like?" I asked. 
 
 " I wish I could tell you," he replied. " But 
 only odd bits change places, like looking in 
 a kaleidoscope; yet all cluster around one 
 centre." 
 
 One day, looking over his portfolios, I found 
 an old Temple Bar, which he said he kept for 
 this passage which he read to me from T. 
 A. Trollope's "Artist's Tragedy:" 
 
 " The old walls and ceilings and floors must be sat- 
 urated with the exhalations of human emotions! 
 These lintels, doorways, and stairs have become, by 
 long use and homeliness, dear to human hearts, and 
 
Itinerant Ijanse. 23 
 
 have become so intimately blended a portion of the 
 mental furniture of human lives, that they have con- 
 tributed their part to the formation of human char- 
 acters. Such facts and considerations have gone to 
 the fashioning of the mental habitudes of all of us. If 
 all could have been recorded! If emotion had the 
 property of photographing itself on the surfaces of the 
 walls which had witnessed it ! Even if only passion, 
 when translated into acts, could have done so ! Ah, 
 what palimpsests! What deciphering of tangled 
 records! What skillful separation of successive 
 layers of 'passionography!'" 
 
 "I know a room," said Arne, " thronged 
 with acts that elbow me from my work and 
 fill me with unrest." 
 
 I looked at him in mute surprise. 
 
 " I suppose," he went on, " such things do 
 not interest you." 
 
 "No yes," I stammered. " I have marked 
 in traveling how lonely houses change their 
 expression as you come near, pass, and leave 
 them. Some frown, others smile. The Bible 
 buildings had life of their own and human dis- 
 eases; the priests cursed or blessed them as 
 men." 
 
 " Houses seem to remember," said he. 
 " Some rooms oppress us with a sense of lives 
 that have been lived in them." 
 
 " That," I said, " is like Draper's theory 
 
24 Qtn Itinerant 
 
 of shadows on walls always staying. He 
 shows how after a breath passes over a coin 
 or key, its spectral outline remains for months 
 after the substance is removed. But can the 
 mist of circumstance sweeping over us make 
 our vacant places hold any trace of us?" 
 
 "Why not? Who can deny it? Why do 
 you look at me so?" he asked. 
 
 I could not tell him the sad tale. I hesi- 
 tated; then said: " I was thinking of Volz, a 
 friend I had, who not only believed in what 
 Bulwer calls * a power akin to mesmerism and 
 superior to it, once called Magic, and that it 
 might reach over the dead, so far as their ex- 
 perience on earth/ but also in animal magne- 
 tism from any distance." 
 
 Arne grew queerly excited. " If Time and 
 Space exist but in our thoughts, why should it 
 not be true?" said he. " Macdonald's lover 
 cries, * That which has been is, and the Past 
 can never cease. She is mine, and I shall find 
 her what matters it when, or where, or 
 how?'" He sighed, "In Acapulco, a year 
 ago, I saw a woman who has been before me 
 ever since the centre of the circling, chang- 
 ing, crude fancies that trouble me." 
 
 " Did you know her?" I asked. 
 ' No, nor anything about her, not even her 
 
Itinerant ^onse. 25 
 
 name. It is like a spell. I must paint her 
 before anything else, but I cannot yet decide 
 how. I feel sure she has played a- tragic part 
 in some life-drama." 
 
 " Swinburne's queen of panthers/' I hinted. 
 
 " Yes. But I was not in love. Love I must 
 forego. I am not a man with an income." 
 
 " I know you are not a nincompoop!" I 
 said, always trying to change such themes by 
 a jest. I could not tell him I knew a place 
 which had the influence he talked of. I could 
 not re-visit that house. 
 
 Soon after he told me he had begun his 
 picture, but would not show it. He com- 
 plained that one figure kept its back toward 
 him. He worked on it till he fell ill. Even 
 then he hid it. " Only a layer of passionog- 
 raphy," he said. 
 
 I grew restless. I thought his mood affected 
 mine. It was a torment as well as a puzzle to 
 me that his whole talk should be of the influ- 
 ence of houses, rooms, even personal property 
 that had known other owners. Once I asked 
 him if he had anything like the brown coat 
 Sheridan swore drew ill-luck to him. 
 
 "Sometimes I think," he answered, "it is 
 this special brown paint artists prize which 
 affects me. It is made from the besc asphal- 
 
26 &n Itinerant fonse. 
 
 turn, and that can be got only from Egyptian 
 mummy-cloths. Very likely dust of the mum- 
 mies is ground in it. I ought to feel their ill- 
 will." 
 
 One day I went to Saucelito. In the still 
 woods I forgot my unrest till coming to the 
 stream where, as I suddenly remembered, An- 
 son was found dead, a dread took me which I 
 tried to lose by putting into rhyme. Turning 
 my pockets at night, I crumpled the page I 
 had written on, and threw it on the floor. 
 
 In uneasy sleep I dreamed I was again in 
 Paris, not where I liked to recall being, but 
 at "Bullier's," and in war-time. The bald, 
 spectacled leader of the orchestra, leaning 
 back, shamming sleep, while a dancing, stamp- 
 ing, screaming crowd wave tri-colored flags, 
 and call for the " Chant du Depart." Three 
 thousand voices in a rushing roar that makes 
 the twenty thousand lights waver, in spas- 
 modic but steady chorus : 
 
 ' ' Les departs parts parts ! 
 Les departs parts parts ! 
 Les departs parts parts I" 
 
 Roused, I supposed by passing rioters, I did 
 not try to sleep again, but rose to write a letter 
 for the early mail. As I struck a light I saw, 
 smoothed out on the table, the wrinkled page I 
 
Itinerant f case. 27 
 
 had cast aside. The ink was yet wet on two 
 lines added to each verse. A chill crept over 
 me as I read : 
 
 FOREST MURMURS. 
 
 Across the woodland bridge I pass, 
 
 And sway its three long, narrow planks, 
 To mark how gliding waters glass 
 
 Bright blossoms doubled ranks on ranks ; 
 And how through tangle of the ferns 
 Floats incense from veiled flower-urns, 
 What would the babbling brook reveal? 
 What may these trembling depths conceal? 
 Dread secret of the dense woods, held 
 With restless shudders horror-spelled! 
 
 How shift the shadows of the wood, 
 
 As if it tossed in troubled sleep ! 
 Strange whispers, vaguely understood, 
 
 Above, below, around me creep ; 
 While in the sombre-shadowed stream 
 Great scarlet splashes far down gleam, 
 The odd-reflected, stately shapes 
 Of cardinals in crimson capes ; 
 Not those but spectral pools of blood 
 That stain these sands through strongest flood? 
 
 Like blare of trumpets through black nights 
 
 Or sunset clouds before a storm 
 Are these red phantom water-sprites 
 
 That mock me with fantastic form ; 
 With flitting of the last year's bird 
 Fled ripples that its low flight stirred 
 
28 2tn Itinerant 
 
 How should these rushing waters learn 
 Aught but the bend of this year's fern? 
 The lonesome wood, with bated breath, 
 Hints of a hidden blow and death! 
 
 I could not stay alone. I ran to Arne's room. 
 As I knocked, the falling of some light thing 
 within made me think he was stirring. I went 
 in. He sat in the moonlight, back to me before 
 his easel. The picture on it might be the one 
 he kept secret. I would not look. I went to 
 his side and touched him. He had been dead 
 for hours ! I turned the unseen canvas to the 
 wall. 
 
 Next day I packed and planned to go East. 
 I paid the landlady not to send Arne's body to 
 the morgue, and watched it that night, when 
 a sudden memory swept over me like a tidal 
 wave. There was a likeness in the room to 
 one where I had before watched the dead. Yes 
 there were the windows, there the doors 
 just here stood the bed, in the same spot I sat. 
 What wildness was in the air of San Francisco ! 
 
 To put such crazy thoughts to flight I would 
 look at Arne's last work. Yet I wavered, and 
 more than once turned away after laying my 
 hand on it. At last I snatched it, placed it on 
 the easel and lighted the nearest gas-burner 
 before looking at it. Then great heavens! 
 
Qln Itinerant ijjonse. 29 
 
 How had this vision come to Arne? It was 
 the scene where Felipa cursed us. Every de- 
 tail of the room reproduced, even the gay 
 birds on the wall-paper, and her flower-pots. 
 The figures and faces of Dering and Volz were 
 true as hers, and in the figure with averted 
 face which Arne had said kept its back to him, 
 I knew myself! What strange insight had 
 he gained by looking at Felipa? It was like 
 the man who trembled before the unknown 
 portrait of the Marquise de Brinvilliers. 
 
 How long I gazed at the picture I do not 
 know. I heard, without heeding, the door- 
 bell ring and steps along the hall. Voices. 
 Some one looking at rooms. The landlady, 
 saying this room was to let, but unwilling to 
 show it, forced to own its last tenant lay there 
 dead. This seemed no shock to the stranger. 
 
 "Well," said her shrill tones, "poor as he 
 was he's better dead than alive!" 
 
 The door opened as a well-known voice 
 cried: "My God! say not that! The nerve 
 which hears is last to die " 
 
 Volz stood before me! Awe-struck, we 
 looked at each other in silence. Then he 
 waved his hand to and fro before his eyes. 
 
 "Is this a dream?" he said. "There," 
 pointing to the bed; "you" to me; "the 
 
30 &n Itinerant 
 
 same words the very room ! Is it our 
 fate?" 
 
 I pointed to the picture and to Arne. " The 
 last work of this man, who thought it a fancy 
 sketch?" 
 
 While Volz stood dumb and motionless be- 
 fore it, the landlady spoke : 
 
 "Then you know the place. Can you tell 
 what ails it? There have been suicides in 
 this room. No one prospers in the house. 
 My cousin, who is a house-mover, warned me 
 against taking it. He says before the store 
 was put under it here it stood on Bush Street, 
 and before that on Telegraph Hill." 
 
 Volz clutched my arm. " It is ' The Flying 
 Dutchman' of a house!" he cried, and drew 
 me fast down stairs and out into a dense fog 
 which made the world seem a tale that was 
 told, blotting out all but our two slanting forms, 
 bent as by what poor Wynne would have 
 called "a blast from hell," hurrying blindly 
 away. I heard the voice of Volz as if from 
 afar: "The magnetic man is a spirit!" 
 
SINGED MOTHS. 
 
SINGED MOTHS. . 
 
 In Yorkshire, England, night-moths are called souls. 
 
 Poor moth ! thy fate my own resembles 
 ***** * 
 
 What gained we, little moth ? Thy ashes 
 
 Thy one brief parting pang may show, 
 And withering thoughts for soul that dashes 
 
 From deep to deep are but a death more slow. 
 
 Carlyle's Tragedy of the Night-Moth. 
 
 KATHARINE'S DIARY. 
 
 June 21. Waiting for Elizabeth to-night, 
 Charlotte and I sat in silence, unbroken save 
 by the slight sounds of our work. 
 
 " While I pay court to a new ' one-eyed des- 
 pot,' I want to ask if you have thought that 
 this is Midsummer Eve?" I asked at last, 
 with a scornful laugh, but feeling more like 
 crying, as I stopped the sewing-machine for a 
 new needle. 
 
 " No, is it?" Charlotte answered, with a 
 long sigh, and soon looking up from her desk 
 to add: "Now I have spoiled that sheet of 
 legal-cap! You made me think of our lawn 
 with colored lanterns, our lace dresses, wide 
 
 33 
 
34 Sinpfc iftotrjs. 
 
 Roman sashes, diamonds and whole pearls, the 
 kind men and fond women, and instead of 
 'City and County of San Francisco, ss.,' I 
 wrote Strauss waltzes and strawberry-ices. 
 How could you?" 
 
 "Well," said I, "I had been thinking all 
 day of the change our gloves and boots too 
 shabby for daylight, hats years old, black silks 
 that knew some of our old ' tea-fights ' and 
 have to be court-plastered like beaten pugil- 
 ists, our dread to see things wear out or break 
 because not sure of new ones, even what 
 should pay car-fare kept for a loaf of bread." 
 
 "Our only caller," said Charlotte, "the 
 landlady for her rent. Neither time nor money 
 for books or papers. Theatre, concert, sail, 
 and drive, joys for us no more than if we were 
 ghosts." 
 
 "Shunned," said I, "except for insult, by 
 those in our old rank of life, as if with our 
 money went our culture, wit, sense, and 
 purity." 
 
 "Innocent souls," said Charlotte, "forced 
 to toil fourteen or sixteen hours a day, while 
 the vile wretch at San Quentin works eight 
 or ten, and sleeps with no care for food or 
 rent." 
 
 "A steady grind of small economies," I 
 
Singed JHctljs. 35 
 
 went on, " that are both comic and cruel a 
 struggle for ten cents' worth of flour, one 
 candle, five cents' worth of sugar, seventy- 
 five-cent boots, and twenty-five-cent gloves." 
 
 "Forced to think," said Charlotte, "of 
 claims due the unyielding body, and forget 
 there can be joys the spirit needs; that we 
 ever knew sunrise parties on horseback, gar- 
 den-shaded hammocks at noon, sea-sands at 
 sunset, or serenades by moonlight." 
 
 "In San Francisco," said I, "we know 
 neither the fire-side glow thrown on our old 
 silver-laden side-board in winter, nor the for- 
 eign travel of our summers, nor the red and 
 yellow woods of fall we saw from the marble- 
 terrace overlooking our landscape garden, with 
 its lake and Swiss cottage where the trees 
 looked as if seen through the stained windows 
 of our great library." 
 
 "Outdoors," said she, "we see only wind- 
 blown dust or rain; indoors, we know our 
 work, and an hysterical sort of good spirits." 
 
 "Our past in the East," I said, "is gone 
 like a dream; folks treat us as though with our 
 lost money went our brains." 
 
 "Not all," said she. 
 
 "Only exceptions that prove the rule," I 
 answered 
 
36 Qingeir JHotljs. 
 
 After another hour of quiet, Charlotte lighted 
 a fire, filled the tea-kettle, and spread the 
 cloth. 
 
 " We will have a party supper," she said. 
 "Elizabeth will be tired and hungry. If we 
 had flour and a bit of suet (I have nearly for- 
 gotten what butter is), we could have some 
 griddle cakes. If we had this or that, we 
 could have the other. What will you have? 
 broiled chicken, custard pie, and citron 
 cake?" 
 
 "Oyster soup, quail on toast, and an ome- 
 lette soufitee," I replied 
 
 ' If wishes were horses, beggers might ride ; 
 If wishes were fishes, we'd have some fried.' " 
 
 "Perhaps Elizabeth will bring something," 
 said Charlotte, as she set a cup of milk and a 
 five-cent loaf of bread on the table. "She 
 was to get some sewing from the Wertley's 
 they may give her some cake." 
 
 "Don't!" I cried, it vexes my pride to take 
 such gifts yet I am so tired of potatoes and 
 salt, and milk and water." 
 
 "And owing for the potatoes and milk," 
 said Charlotte, grimly; "even the five dollars 
 Elizabeth will get for playing for the Wert- 
 ley's children's party ought to go in how 
 
Jttotljs. 37 
 
 many ways! all to the grocer, or for rent, 
 for coal, for milk, or to get dresses dyed, or 
 - O dear! it is after eleven j she must 
 come soon. Ah! here she is." 
 
 Elizabeth came up stairs, tired and out of 
 breath, with two small jars, which she set on 
 the table, saying: "More frill and no shirt! 
 Pickles and jam the housekeeper gave me. 
 Good soul, she didn't know what a farce it 
 was, that we had nothing to eat with them, 
 that the scent of dinner in houses I passed go- 
 ing there to-night made me feel ill." ! 
 
 We laughed, but our voices were full of 
 tears. 
 
 "In the children's lessons, to-day," said 
 Elizabeth, " we read (what I felt as they could 
 not) about the pagan goddess of death, ' Hel ' 
 in the realm of the Cold Storm. Hunger 
 is her table, Starvation her knife, Delay her 
 man, Slowness her maid, Precipice her thresh- 
 old, Care her bed, burning Anguish the hang- 
 ings of her room." 
 
 "Oh, don't!" I cried; "the water boils; 
 come, we will play it is tea but we must 
 sweeten it with smiles, as we have no 
 sugar." 
 
 " No one came to see the room, I suppose," 
 said Elizabeth, as we gathered round the table, 
 
38 0ittjg*& Jttolljs. 
 
 "though I answered the notice so quickly; 
 nor any one to take lessons." 
 
 "No," said Charlotte, "nothing has hap- 
 pened except that Biddy has sent us some coal 
 and wood." 
 
 " Think of our old servant coming to own 
 this house, and letting us the upper part 
 swelling round in a big fur cloak, and showing 
 us charity! Bah!" 
 
 "Never mind," said Charlotte, "her good 
 heart gave her grace to say the fairies sent it. 
 We are lucky to have such a friend when I 
 have got word that, as some one will do the 
 work cheaper, this is the last of my copying." 
 
 We all sighed. 
 
 " Elizabeth," said I, " I thought Mrs. Wert- 
 ley was to send some sewing by you." 
 
 "Mrs. Wertley," said Elizabeth, "did not 
 like it because I played something more than 
 dance-music when asked to by one of her 
 guests, and outshone her daughter. So I have 
 lost my place as governess." 
 
 Charlotte and I groaned. 
 
 "Oh, Charlotte," said Elizabeth, "haven't 
 you got some verses to read to us to-night?" 
 
 Charlotte searched her papers, and read : 
 
Singefc iftottjs. 39 
 
 "BETTER DAYS. 
 
 " What pathos sounds within the common phrase 
 On careless tongues : * They have known better 
 
 days!' 
 
 As if for them were dimmed this sun's gold rays, 
 The dazzling miracle of winter's snow, 
 The festal pomp of summer's blossom show 
 Were seen by them through veil of sombre haze. 
 
 " God help poor souls on whom that burden lays ! 
 They walk through narrow, crooked, lonely ways, 
 Look on their darkened life in sore amaze, 
 To Care and Sorrow and Regret fast bound, 
 To toil and moil in endless chain-gang round, 
 And almost view the Past as madman's craze. 
 
 " Rare is the soul that sympathy betrays, 
 As if they lose all claim to blame or praise, 
 Or from their poverty contagion strays. 
 
 Chafed raw by rough and seamy side of life, 
 They stagger, wounded, crippled, by the strife, 
 And often lost within the novel maze. 
 
 " Of all the blessings that the soul portrays 
 When, as the heart-sick and world-wearied prays, 
 We shall some time see heaven's glories blaze. 
 Naught can surpass the certainty of this: 
 That once within that sphere of perfect bliss, 
 Our thoughts can never turn to ' better days ' ! " 
 
 When Charlotte paused, Elizabeth was cry- 
 ing, but I said: " We will have good times. 
 You must not despair. If you do not marry, I 
 
40 Singed 
 
 will, /do not mean to dress St. Catharine's 
 hair in the next world, as the old saying has 
 it that a maid must!" and I chanted the old 
 prayer: 
 
 "'A husband, Saint Catharine, 
 A handsome one, Saint Catharine, 
 A rich one, Saint Catharine, 
 A nice one, Saint Catharine, 
 And soon, Saint Catharine ! '" 
 
 " Position before money," said Elizabeth. 
 
 " Biddy would say love before money," 
 said Charlotte. 
 
 "No," said I, "money, money, money! 
 Think of our heartaches and headaches, not 
 only the picturesque of life, but the comforts 
 denied us, all for lack of money ! I would 
 marry the Devil if he were rich ! " 
 
 " Oh, Katharine ! " they cried. 
 
 "I would! I would!" said I, striking my 
 fist on the table. 
 
 " One might be tempted," said Elizabeth to 
 Charlotte, who nodded. 
 
 " There could be inducements," said she. 
 
 The clock struck twelve ; the house shook, 
 and the windows jarred. 
 
 " Was that a shock of earthquake?" Char- 
 lotte asked. 
 
 " Only a blast of wind," said Elizabeth. 
 
Singeir Jflotljs. 41 
 
 " No," I said, "there is some one knocking 
 at the outside door," 
 
 "It is too late to open it," said Charlotte. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " I cried. " Bright moonlight, 
 and three of us ! Let us all go. If not Fate 
 for one of us, we can be the three Fates for 
 him!" 
 
 They unwillingly followed me ; but, at the 
 last moment, I shrank, and it was Elizabeth 
 who opened the door. A man who did not 
 look quite strange to us, stood on the steps. 
 
 " Pardon me," he said, taking off his hat; 
 " 1 followed you from Mrs. Wertley's, but did 
 not start in time to overtake you. I heard you 
 say you had a room to let. Can you excuse 
 my coming at this untimely hour, and let me 
 see it?" 
 
 We looked at each other. It would not do 
 to lose a chance of a lodger. We let him in. 
 
 A true American, plain, thin, sharp-faced, 
 alert, and confident. He wanted to avoid bad 
 smells; he said he left his last quarters on 
 that account. He took the room, paid a 
 month's rent, and said he would come in the 
 morning. 
 
 When he had gone, we took hands and 
 danced round our table, spread with "Duke 
 Humphrey's dinner." 
 
42 Singeb ittotfya. 
 
 " See what Midsummer Eve has brought 
 us!" 1 cried. 
 
 At that moment the front door blew open, 
 a wild gust of wind tore through the house, 
 and put out the light; and, as we felt round in 
 the dark, Charlotte said : 
 
 " There was something uncanny about that 
 man. I am sorry he is coming." 
 
 "So am I," said Elizabeth; "but I thought 
 I ought not to say so." 
 
 "I feel the same," I said; "but is it not as 
 uncanny to be without money?" 
 
 And over a sputtering candle, burning blue, 
 we all nodded at each other like so many 
 doomed witches. 
 
 CHARLOTTE'S DIARY. 
 
 August 15. It does not seem now that less 
 than two months ago we were in despair. Mr. 
 Orne's taking the room, and the ease with 
 which he helped us to work more fit for us, 
 have been such relief. I have gone back to 
 my pictures, and Elizabeth to her music. 
 Katharine picked up in the street some money 
 for which no owner could be found, that has 
 paid half our debts. 
 
 Our handsome, dark, Spanish-looking lodger, 
 
43 
 
 who tells me he is a poor, "devil-may-care" 
 artist, went with me up on our flat roof to- 
 night, to see a fine sunset. Strangely far- 
 sighted, more like eagle than mart, he saw 
 things out of the range of most people's vis- 
 ion, and told me of ships far at sea. The 
 great cross on Lone Mountain stood out black 
 against scarlet clouds, while above stretched 
 shadowy shapes as of angels. 
 
 "It reminds me," I said, "of an ecstasy of 
 Saint Francis of Assisi, in a little chapel of 
 Santa Croce in Milan a cross standing up 
 dark and strong in shade, a figure in friar's 
 robes borne up in the gloom, as if floating on 
 it, his arms lifted to arms of some vision he 
 sees." 
 
 He gave one of his odd, scornful laughs'. 
 " What could the vision tell him?" he asked. 
 
 "The angels know all," I said. 
 
 "Not everything," he answered; "there 
 are three things they do not know." 
 
 "What are they?" 
 
 "The day of the Second Advent, men's 
 hearts, and the number of the elect. Then 
 they have no tongues." 
 
 I thought I must try to reform this stray- 
 ing soul. "Don't you remember your Bible?" 
 I asked. 
 
44 
 
 "I know all about Job, Jethro, and Balaam," 
 he answered; " they studied sorcery." 
 
 " This view changes like magic," I said; 
 "all may be fog save where the sun rises a 
 blood-red ball on its image in the bay, the two 
 a huge pillar of fire, like sign and portent; or, 
 sole rift at noon, a sheet of gold holding the 
 shipping in black outlines; or, sky all blue, 
 the bay looks a brook to be spanned by foot- 
 plank, the city seems of toy-houses, the 
 Golden Gate a mountain-hemmed lake; or 
 the city shrunk into a patch of black mist, 
 the bay is a great sheet of quicksilver; or, 
 the city stretches everywhere, mountains and 
 bay are withdrawn in vague, sad distance. 
 It is like the views one takes in changing moods 
 of the other world." 
 
 He seemed amused. "What do you know 
 of the other world?" he asked. 
 
 "As much as any one. What do you think 
 about it?" said I. 
 
 "Nothing," he replied. "Wait till you go 
 there yourself. All that has been fancied 
 about it does not near the truth. People are 
 much surprised when they die." 
 
 And he laughed low and long, as if all to 
 himself, at some secret thought. 
 
 "Angels came in dreams in Bible-times," I 
 
Jftotljs. 45 
 
 said. "I once had a dream which was a great 
 comfort to me. I thought I asked some one if 
 we were immortal and should meet our friends. 
 He answered, 'You ought to know by your 
 own spirit.' " 
 
 ''Has your spirit never deceived you?" 
 asked our lodger; " does it not daily tell you 
 wrong, for or against things you would do or 
 think?" 
 
 I sighed to have to own how often my own 
 thought had duped me. What strange power 
 this man has like a baleful star to stir 
 doubt in my heart ! But my first distrust of 
 him is gone; instead, he seems more like some 
 one dear to me of old. By a fine sympathy 
 he often seems to know before I speak what I 
 am about to say, as if he read my mind. "If 
 evil, there is also good - " I began. 
 
 He frowned. "There is too much light!" 
 he cried, and we came indoors. 
 
 As I went down the stairs I looked back, 
 saw his swarthy face in the fiery glow of the 
 sunset, and saw for an instant a wonderful 
 model for a picture of the Prince of Darkness. 
 
46 Singcb 4Jl0tl)0. 
 
 ELIZABETH'S DIARY. 
 
 August jo. Our lodger, who proves a 
 thorough musician though he tells me he is 
 heir to a proud foreign title seems like an 
 old friend, now I am used to his odd blonde 
 beauty. He took me to-night to hear Faust. 
 It was brought out with more care than often 
 given, the voices sweet and well-trained, the 
 acting good; but Mr. Orne was restless, and 
 laughed at it all; and it had not so vivid a 
 charm for me as before, though I shuddered at 
 the weird warnings that in the overture, with 
 mystic awe, hint all the tragic love-tale. 
 
 "Where," I asked him, "has the music 
 fled when the instrument is broken? It seems 
 like a soul." 
 
 "You do not know," he answered, "of any 
 hereafter for your own soul !" 
 
 "No," said I; "but neither do we know all 
 the hidden chances for bliss or woe in our 
 lives; that we do not know, does not make 
 them less there." 
 
 "Swayed by this music," he said, "you 
 are not the same person who left home. Self 
 thus made and unmade each moment, one is 
 but a drift of atoms, unlikely to meet again !" 
 
 " Is it chance, or are we clock-work?" I said, 
 
Singefc ittotljs. 47 
 
 as the opera went on, and I was filled with a 
 sense of the folly of striving against fate. 
 " Or are we ruled by unearthly powers, as 
 these instruments are played upon" and forced 
 to yield certain strains? " 
 
 " That is not for you to know," he said. 
 
 "Perhaps," said I, " vibrations from angels' 
 choirs jar us like the atoms of Chladni, into 
 our places." 
 
 "Then an infernal chorus," said he, "may 
 cause the discord of awful crimes?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, " a spell from hell. What 
 can the real Mephisto think of this stage 
 copy?" 
 
 " It is as if a wild bloom tried to be a hot- 
 house flower," he said. "How would you 
 like a crude mockery of yourself?" 
 
 As we sat there, I could almost fancy in 
 him a queer, flitting likeness to the Mephis- 
 topheles before us, like an image in a brook, 
 shaken and changed by speaking to him. 
 
 While the music stirred me as wind blows a 
 leaf, I saw so many unmoved faces in the 
 crowd that I asked him : " Why does the effect 
 of music vary on different persons?" 
 
 "Because," said he, "in music the un- 
 earthly touches the human. Some have no 
 soul, no vital spark to move like Tyndall's 
 
43 Singcfc iUotljs. 
 
 sensitive flame, which shrinks at a hiss, thrills 
 at a jar, and leaps at a waltz." 
 
 " Music seems to me," I said, "as if we 
 heard a spirit trying to take bodily shape, but 
 failing." 
 
 " Like that Mephisto there," he said; and 
 after we reached home he still scoffed at that 
 singer's make-up and acting. 
 
 " Why, even his laugh," said he, " had not 
 the true ring. This is the way he should have 
 looked and laughed" and he donned my 
 cloak, with its tasseled hood above his head 
 in grotesque shape, and gave a wild laugh, 
 which sent cold chills over us, and made 
 Biddy, passing along the hall, stop and cross 
 herself. 
 
 " You have frightened Biddy," I said. 
 
 "Oh, no," he said, "it is her own soul 
 that scares her." 
 
 Then he brought his violin, and played Tar- 
 tini's "Dream" for a good-night "to make 
 you dream," he told us. 
 
 " How strange it is," I said, " that dreams 
 else forgotten sometimes come back to us 
 at the sound of music." 
 
 " If they could only be brought again and 
 finished," said Katharine, " you might read the 
 letter which lately came to you, Charlotte." 
 
4Jlotl)0 49 
 
 "What was that?" he asked, with keen 
 interest. 
 Charlotte read to him her verses : 
 
 " UNKNOWN. 
 
 " To me what could that note reveal 
 
 Which glimmered through my dream? 
 
 Large, white, with an unbroken seal, 
 From whom 't was sent no gleam. 
 
 Like planet's wheel our dreams conceal 
 Strange hints of Life's hid scheme. 
 
 " Was it from friend in distant star? 
 
 Or one on earth, in sleep? 
 Or that twin-soul whose path lies far 
 
 From waking glances sweep?' 
 Or sent to mar all joys that are 
 
 Where Dream-land shadows creep r 
 
 " The music-score of demon-band? 
 
 Or summons to witch ball? 
 Or form of compact wily planned 
 
 And signed with mystic scrawl, 
 From fairy-land, or goblin damned, 
 
 To hold my soul in thrall? 
 
 " Did my good angel send me balm 
 
 For heart too ill at ease? 
 Perhaps a spray from heavenly palm, 
 
 As signal of release 
 Or tale of charm in that fair calm, 
 
 To cheer and give me peace? 
 
50 Singeft 
 
 " What were its contents, grave or glad 
 
 Reply to all I ask, 
 When worn and weary, baffled, mad 
 
 Despairing at Life's task, 
 I would have had the reason sad, 
 
 Not wear its iron mask. 
 
 ** Was it a message from the dead, 
 
 Of hope, or warning sign ? 
 Accursed be whatever led 
 
 My soul from sleep divine ! 
 O'er note unread in that dream fled 
 
 I often muse and pine ! 
 
 " Do not open a letter which comes in your 
 sleep," said Mr. Orne, plainly vexed at such 
 nonsense ; " evil spirits are as likely to be 
 near as good ones. The world of sleep is their 
 carnival." 
 
 Charlotte looked pale and startled. Kath- 
 arine laughed. 
 
 " 1 do not need to dream," said I. "I have 
 other warnings." 
 
 " What sort?" he asked, eagerly. 
 
 " Oh a little bird tells me," 1 said. 
 
 "Take care," said he, as he left us; " it 
 may be the bird of the Amazon, the ' Lost 
 Soul'!" 
 
Singed 4Jl0tl)s. 51 
 
 BIDDY GOSSIPS. 
 
 "Sit down, Mrs. O'Shane; I can talk an' 
 iron too. Did ye mind the gintleman who 
 wint out as ye kem in? He's the strange 
 lodger. Though he's been here since June, 
 an' it's now the middle of September, he is, 
 an' always will be, the strange lodger. The 
 ladies upstairs are all greatly taken wid him, 
 but what they can like I can't, thin. Him 
 wid his club-foot, his hair in two curls like 
 horns, his sly, cruel eyes, wid small whites to 
 thim, his foxy, pinted ears, an' claw-fingers ! 
 
 "The first mornin' he was here, I was on 
 the front steps, comin' from market, whin he 
 wint out; an' the sight of him made me cross 
 mysilf . He gave me a scowl that was heart- 
 scaldin', and he seemed to jist melt into air 
 like a flash, he was gone so quick wid his 
 flame-colored hair an' whiskers, like the Judas- 
 beard in the garden ; his hollow back, too thin 
 to cast a shadow ; an' his feet of unaven size. 
 Sure, God's writin' is plain enough ! 
 
 " It gives me a turn to hear his knock, for 
 ne '11 not touch the bell. It is no work for thim 
 to care for his room ; he niver seems to have 
 moved anythin'. They wondered why the 
 piant died in tne hangin'- basket in the hall. 
 
52 Simjefc 
 
 But I saw him brush by it one day ; it was 
 that killed it. 
 
 " Thin he nearly crazes me, makin* the 
 wildest music on his fiddle. It 's always the 
 sly lad that takes to playin' on that, an* 
 there 's nothin' plain an' open about him. 
 The three sisters are charmed wid him in- 
 toirly. But the sight I got of him one night 
 was enough for me warnin' for anybody. 
 He had taken Miss Elizabeth to the theatre ; 
 an* after they kem back, he caught her opera- 
 cloak, as it was slippin' from her shoulders to 
 the floor, an' threw it over himsilf wid the 
 pinted hood on his head, stickin' up like a 
 horn. Ugh ! what a divil he looked ! I 
 wondered what was in his nose thin. An' 
 he gave a screech of a laugh that curdled my 
 blood an' set my hair on ind. Sure, he 's one 
 of those ye ought to hate at sight; an' ye 
 may know, if ye have much to do wid 'em, 
 ye will come to be ready to travel many a 
 hard mile to hear the dirt fall on their coffins. 
 
 " Even the cat there knows more than the 
 three women ; grave an' still as she is, she 
 knows what bad spirits have power at Mid- 
 summer Eve, an' that was the night the quare 
 man kem. 
 
 "I tell ye, I think he's sort o' bewitched 
 
Sittgefc iflottys. 53 
 
 the sisters. They aven think they are wid 
 him whin 1 know they are not. One will be 
 tellin' me of goin' to a concert wid him. The 
 same afternoon another says to me she was 
 walkin' wid him, an' the other will speak of 
 his bein' wid her here in the house ! They 
 are not much better off than before he kem, 
 but they think they are. Lone, worried 
 women take odd notions. They are jist out 
 of their heads about him, but they '11 come to 
 grief, mind ye. Mind ye, he who eats wid 
 the Divil has need of a long spoon ! Perhaps 
 they think it 's in love they are, but it 's not 
 love. It's not the feelin' I had for Patrick, 
 which made me not care whether he had cabin 
 an' pig, or not. Don't mind me, I have to 
 wipe away the tears when I think of him, 
 though his grave is far away as Ireland an' 
 twenty-five years can make it. But whin ye 
 have known the rale thing, ye can tell what is 
 sham. No, they are thinkin' of what they '11 
 git, not of the man. 
 
 " Must ye go? Wait till I open the door for 
 ye. Stay, do ye see that tall figure, a little 
 lame, skulkin' up the street in the moonlight? 
 Kape on the other side of the way, an' count 
 yer beads as ye go, an' don't look at him, 
 for he has the evil eye. Run now, for he 
 
54 Singeb 4lt0tl)0. 
 
 always moves so quick, I can think of nothin' 
 but what I once heard the priest say in a ser- 
 mon: 'And I beheld Satan like lightnin' fallin' 
 from heaven.' " 
 
 CHARLOTTE'S DIARY. 
 
 September 30. To-day Mr. Orne took me 
 to the park to see the Victoria Regia, like a 
 bit of a sunrise cloud. He bought me a bou- 
 quet, but the heat of his hand withered it in 
 a moment. He is so odd darting here and 
 there. I was speaking of the flower of the 
 Holy Ghost, thinking he was by me, but sud- 
 denly found him distant the whole length of 
 the greenhouse. When we came home, he 
 drew the great lily with one or two dashes of 
 his pencil ; but though a true copy, I thought 
 the outline bore, too, an odd likeness to an 
 elfin face ; but he talked me out of it. 
 
 " Though Saint Cyprian saw the Devil in a 
 flower, you need not," he said. 
 
 "You work so quickly," I replied; "it makes 
 me think of the Devil's crucifix, painted by 
 two strokes of his brush in the convent of the 
 Capuchin friars at Rome. He did it for a soul 
 bound to him ; and the soul was so struck with 
 its heartrending truth, that he made the sign 
 of the cross, and got free." 
 
Singeb Jttotfys. 55 
 
 "It is well known," he said, "the Devil 
 would be an artist/' 
 
 " Is art an evil power ?" I asked. 
 
 " Doctor Donne/' said he, " preached be- 
 fore Oliver Cromwell that the Muses were 
 damned spirits of devils. No one can mark 
 where the presence of evil comes and goes. It 
 may be very near, and you not know it." 
 
 I tried to work on his portrait, but in vain. 
 He changes so much with his moods, and the 
 fire of his eyes is not to be copied. The girls 
 want to see it, but I keep it screened. To-day 
 he was very restless ; told me secrets of color 
 thought to have been lost for ages; tossed 
 over my portfolios of sketches and rhymes 
 with mingled praise and blame. He found and 
 read to me : 
 
 " UNFULFILLED. 
 
 " The night was dark and wet, in long gone age, 
 
 When Genevieve to mass with maidens went ; 
 The gleaming torches, carried by a page 
 
 Through gustvwind and rain, were quickly spent; 
 She touched them, and again their ruddy glare 
 Shone on the pious souls who wandered there. 
 
 ' No fire of this world 'thus the legend ran ; 
 ' T was her same force celestial that could snare 
 The secret thought of man ! 
 
56 
 
 " Upon the gilded tomb of Genevieve 
 
 In church of Saint Etienne du Mont, the quaint, 
 With airy stair from shadowed aisle to eave 
 
 Behind a golden grating lies the saint. 
 Forever tapers shine. Who buys one tries 
 To send some earnest prayer to Paradise. 
 
 Ah ! long I watched its eager, changing flare 
 As hands raised, palm to palm, point toward the 
 skies 
 
 My burning, burning prayer ! 
 
 " Wind-shaken, like my thought that bold aspired, 
 
 It paused, drooped fainting, rose again, implored, 
 While I, like frantic moth, all my desire 
 
 Cast on the flame that yearningly adored. 
 Around my sacred hope this aureole 
 Became a steady beacon for my soul, 
 
 And through long years of darkness and despair 
 Its cheering rays athwart my care would roll, 
 My glowing, glowing prayer ! 
 
 " At last, like smoke-wreath poising over flame, 
 
 The shadow of my hope loomed just in view, 
 But floated off, nor ever nearer came. 
 
 Was it within my sway for joy or rue? 
 Who shall define the bounds of will and fate, 
 Man's choice, or hand of Providence debate? 
 
 To lose it was to see Hell's lurid flashes, 
 And Heaven is to find there, incarnate, 
 My prayer that burned to ashes ! " 
 
 The strange smile that curled his lip made 
 me in despair throw down my brush. 
 
Sittgeb 4H0U)S. 57 
 
 " There the Catholics are like the followers 
 of Confucius," said he, "who think what is 
 burned rises to the next world. Do you recall 
 the Devil of human size on the outer gallery of 
 Notre Dame in Paris? Do you think he 
 watches the smoke of the city to know what 
 people want? Eastern tales are nearer right 
 that keep him in ruins and desert places." 
 
 " Like the minds he wrecks or lays waste." 
 
 He flashed upon me a glance of keen ques- 
 tion, then bent again over the sketch-books. 
 He found a photograph of my favorite " Paolo 
 and Francesca," falling, falling, forever and 
 ever, murky shadows reaching from below to 
 engulf them, the light of lost Paradise stream- 
 ing from above, a troop of filmy forms in the 
 background watching. 
 
 " Is it not the worst of all for each that they 
 must both go?" I asked. 
 
 " Would not their parting be worse?" said 
 he. " Nothat is not hell." 
 
 With his swift pencil he sketched some 
 woeful figures looking back one who sees his 
 bosom friend forget him ; one who knows his 
 foe pleased at his death ; one who finds his 
 secrets come to the gaze of the world ; one 
 who learns that the woman for love of whom 
 he died loves and regrets him. 
 
58 Singed ittotfys. 
 
 " Hell," he said, " is to keep the same pas- 
 sions without the human frame in which to 
 show them to be in your old haunts and see 
 things going against your wishes with no 
 power to hinder ; no dropping through bottom- 
 less pit, no raging flame could be worse. What 
 would you choose for heaven?" 
 
 " To look back," I said, "and see at least 
 one of my pictures live on. I would give my 
 soul for that." 
 
 He clasped my hand as if to close a compact, 
 and, as the other arm went round my waist, 
 he said: "But your own image, mirrored in 
 the soul that loves you, maybe more lasting." 
 
 I felt his fiery kiss upon my mouth. Be- 
 wildered, I could have believed that over his 
 shoulder I saw the figures in his sketches be- 
 gin to dance and jeer at me. I shrank back. 
 At that moment, Katharine and Elizabeth burst 
 in where we were, like jealous sisters in a 
 fairy tale. 
 
 KATHARINE'S DIARY. 
 
 October 15. I went with Mr. Orne to a 
 ball last night. The girls helped me dress, 
 and each lent of her best, but I was so dazed 
 with the strain of trying to look gay, while 
 dulled by vain struggle to feel well, in our old 
 
Singeir Jflotfjs. 59 
 
 worn things, that all the hours I was gone, 
 though I seemed to see rich robes of Flanders 
 lace and Genoa velvet he had sent for me to 
 wear, yet I was mindful how Elizabeth had 
 warned me of some carefully darned lace that 
 would not bear a touch, and Charlotte had 
 dyed an old sash-ribbon, and painted flowers 
 over stains, and we had all sighed over the 
 whole. 
 
 But here I was, as if in a leaf far back in 
 the book of my life, in full dress once more, 
 whirling with a rich and gay escort down a 
 long hall of dancers, the band playing the 
 " Lucifer" waltzes, my partner buoying me 
 clear of the crowd. He seems to know every 
 one ; he was nodding right and left. 1 would 
 cry: "Why, do you know him?" " Inti- 
 mately," he would answer. And once, as he 
 said so, the voice of a passing dancer reached 
 our ears, and made us smile: " The Devil is 
 nearer a man than his coat or his shirt." 
 
 He slipped on my finger a ring set with an 
 opal of occult power and mystic fire, like the 
 lurid light in his eyes ; and when I said, " I 
 like 'a pearl with a soul in it,'" he replied: 
 " That is its very charm for me the soul in 
 it," looking at me as if he could will my very 
 soul from me. I heard people groan that the 
 
60 Singeb ittotlje. 
 
 supper was gone, but he brought me dainties 
 in plenty, and unlike what others had found. 
 I heard him jesting in many languages with 
 this or that one, well known and liked by all. 
 He told me he had just made a fortune in min- 
 ing stocks. As I sipped and played with my 
 spoon, caught the witch-gleam of my opal, felt 
 pleased with the fine mesh of my laces, the 
 shadow and glow of my velvet, I felt that to 
 gain all such spendthrift wants of mine would 
 make heaven of earth. Then the man went 
 by who had quoted Luther. Was the Devil so 
 near? Who was our strange lodger, who filled 
 my mind with such wild thoughts, like an evil 
 planet drawing forth all the bad in my nature? 
 Then I forgot my doubts in the swift whirl of 
 music and dance. 
 
 As we stood on our steps and he searched 
 for his latch-key, I watched the fire of my 
 opal, burning like a will-o'-the-wisp in the 
 moon-lit dark. 
 
 " It has a weird life of its own!" I cried; 
 and, fearing my sisters' eyes of wonder and 
 envy, " Take it ! " I said. 
 
 "Not without you," he answered, bending 
 over me, and a sudden, brief kiss scorched my 
 lips. 
 
 Then the girls, who had sat up for us, and 
 
Singeb iHoltya. 61 
 
 heard the carriage, had opened the door and 
 swept us upstairs with them. 
 
 I could have thought them jealous by the 
 way Charlotte cried: "You look changed in 
 some way like a shining spirit against a dark 
 cloud!" And Elizabeth added : "It does not 
 matter much about your dress, after all ! " 
 
 I stood before our bureau-glass. It showed 
 me the darned lace and dyed ribbon with 
 which they had dressed me. Had I imagined 
 my fine things? Perhaps I had but fancied 
 the ball, the lights, and music, and my 
 lover ! The ring was gone. 
 
 And then the next I knew, they had un- 
 dressed me and put me in bed, and Elizabeth 
 was cooling my head with damp cloths, while 
 Charlotte was fanning me, and I heard them 
 murmur together, as if far off. "What did 
 she mutter about a ring set with a spark 
 from hell? " Elizabeth asked. And Charlotte 
 answered: " That she was sealed to Satan ! " 
 
 ELIZABETH'S DIARY. 
 
 October 31. This afternoon, as I played 
 Gr6goire's fine "Etude du Diable," I was 
 startled to my feet by finding Mr. Orne stood 
 close behind me to hear. 
 
62 Singefc ifloiljs. 
 
 ''Good, is n't it?" I asked. 
 
 "Not the right thought," said he; "listen." 
 And he drew from his violin strains of dread 
 meaning. 
 
 "That is more unearthly," I said; "a 
 spirit might play so." 
 
 "And a wicked one?" he answered. "The 
 Mussulman legend runs, that the Devil is given 
 leave to fill his spare time with music, song, 
 love-poetry, and dancing." 
 
 " How is it that you can surpass all others?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " Because I have the will the secret magic 
 of all success." 
 
 " Teach me," I cried, " to win power, posi- 
 tion!" 
 
 "Will you leave your sisters without fare- 
 well," he asked, " and fly with me at twelve 
 to-night, knowing no more of where you go 
 than that you will have rank and sway be- 
 yond your wildest dreams?" 
 
 He drew me to him ; his burning lips touched 
 mine. Then my sisters rushed in, with that 
 new, watchful way of theirs, and he went 
 out. 
 
 This evening, as we sat together for the last 
 time in our safe, warm, bright room, with a 
 rising storm stirring all round the house, I 
 
Bingeb Jttotljs. 63 
 
 could hardly keep from telling the girls that I 
 was going abroad, and all he had promised me. 
 Indeed, I did hint about it, but they thought it 
 only one of our old day-dreams, and Katharine, 
 as if sure that hers was coming true, began to 
 tell us how she should build her castle. Lean- 
 ing proudly on the mantelpiece, she looked 
 statuesque, as if the petrifying effect of wealth 
 had begun. 
 
 "But how sad it is," she said, "to think 
 that death can bear me from it all." 
 
 " My pictures," said Charlotte, "will live 
 when I am gone." 
 
 "Position," said I, "may be prized even 
 then, if we can look back." 
 
 " Yees can take nothin wia ye," said 
 Biddy, who had come in unheard, " but 
 love." 
 
 We all started, and then laughed in scorn. 
 
 " Sure, the priest was tellin' only last Sun- 
 day," said she, " how Saint Theresa could say 
 nothing worse of the Divil than ' Poor wretch, 
 he loves not/ Her notion of hell was that no 
 love was there. But love is all we 're sure of 
 in heaven." 
 
 "Biddy, have you come to preach a ser- 
 mon?" I asked. 
 
 "No, I beg yer pardon. 'Tis All Souls" 
 
64 Singefc ifloirja. 
 
 Eve, and I thought maybe yees would come 
 to vespers to-night. The music '11 be fine." 
 
 For a moment we thought of going. I half 
 rose; Katharine went a step or two toward 
 the door ; Charlotte left her seat. Was it the 
 unfelt wind which blows us on the shoals of 
 destiny which drove us back ? 
 
 "Not now, Biddy," said I; "some other 
 time. To-night Charlotte is, at last, going to 
 let us see her portrait of our lodger. Don't 
 you want to wait and see it?" 
 
 Charlotte placed it where we could view it 
 in the long glass, which had lights around it, 
 " like a shrine," Biddy said, as if she did not 
 like it. 
 
 As Charlotte unveiled it, Katharine and I 
 cried, in surprise : " This is not his likeness ! " 
 
 And Biddy, laughing, said: " Not a bit, not 
 a bit like him!" 
 
 "It is not only better-looking, but it is 
 another man," said I ; "there is no Spanish 
 knight about him." 
 
 "No, indeed," said Katharine; "the true 
 type of an American I call him." 
 
 "Why no," said I; "he is a pure German 
 blonde." 
 
 Biddy heard, half-grinning, half-frowning. 
 " Oh, yees are all bewitched, an' 'tis Allhal- 
 
JHotljs. 65 
 
 lows Eve," she said; " come to the holy 
 vespers, do." 
 
 But we laughed and sent her off ; and when 
 she had gone Mr. Orne suddenly stood in the 
 door, as if he had sprung through the floor, 
 and paused, looking at his picture. 
 
 " Come and tell us," cried Katharine, " how 
 is it that Charlotte could paint you in this 
 way?" 
 
 " No two persons see alike," he said. 
 "One seems to different people to have as 
 many characters, perhaps as many aspects. 
 How few agree when speaking of any one ! " 
 
 "But this," said Katharine, "has not your 
 mouth; and you are neither light nor dark." 
 
 " But this," said I, " has not your chin, nor 
 your fair hair." 
 
 " But this," said Charlotte, " has your dark 
 curls. It is just like you, except the eyes, 
 perhaps." 
 
 Then we all stared wildly at each other. 
 
 "But this," said Biddy, glancing in, with 
 her bonnet on, "is All Souls' Eve, if yees 
 would only come." 
 
 "Where?" cried Mr. Orne, in a voice of 
 scorn. But, seeing him, she fled like light- 
 ning, and the outer door echoed like thunder 
 after her. 
 
66 
 
 He soon followed. "But not to vespers," 
 he said, laughing. 
 
 Katharine, Charlotte, and I wrangled over 
 the picture till Charlotte screened and put it 
 by, and sat at her desk to rhyme ; while I, at 
 the piano, with precious minor keys, unlocked 
 the inner gates of the realm of musing, and 
 Katharine sat with open book on lap, but look- 
 ing in the fire. Hours went by with no word 
 between us. We did not heed when Biddy 
 came home, nor know when Mr. Orne passed 
 through the door, but found him with us again. 
 
 "This is a fine gale," he said. "Bodies 
 may be housed, but think of flitting souls go- 
 ing out into such a night." 
 
 " Is it the wind and storm," cried Charlotte, 
 "which set me to writing this?" And, while 
 the winds tore round the house in a witches' 
 dance she read to us : 
 
 "AFTER DEATH. 
 
 " All through the unseen realm of air I float; 
 The souls that, passing, mount to God, I note ; 
 Each flashing through the void like fiery mote 
 By fierce wind blown. 
 
 " Death makes an anvil of our pigmy world, 
 And drives these sparks these spirits upward 
 
 whirled 
 
 That glimmer on till all the dark is furled, 
 Before the throne ! 
 
JHotljs. 67 
 
 " I would look back and linger, linger yet 
 What can I feel but passionate regret? 
 When I remember thy dear eyelids wet, 
 What shall atone? * 
 
 " But, borne by some resistless force, I go 
 To learn what but immortal spirits know 
 Or faint and fading into darkness flow 
 Dread path unknown ! 
 
 " The earth becomes a distant waning star. 
 What ! is this all ? A memory floating far ; 
 My conscience for the dreaded judgment bar ; 
 And this alone?" 
 
 In the shadowed chimney-corner Mr. Orne 
 nearly went out of sight as she read. He 
 seemed coming and going by the flickering fire 
 as she paused or went on ; and, at the end, 
 I thought he had left the room ; but a sudden 
 glow of the fire showed that there he sat. 
 Then he added some verses, while Katharine's 
 book " Footfalls on the Boundaries of Another 
 World" slid to the floor, as she bent toward 
 pictures in the fire ; Charlotte leaned on her 
 desk, with her face in her hands ; and I, drift- 
 ing off in a dream-skiff, trailed my hands 
 through a rippling tide of music. 
 
 In a few minutes he read to us : 
 
 " No dazzling ranks of angels' choirs appear, 
 Nor bands of wailing spirits damned are here, 
 A merely silent, lonely, misty sphere 
 Forever shown, 
 
68 
 
 " Where darts that restless flame, my naked soul. 
 But sometimes yet at thy fond thought's control 
 I can return, thy faithful heart my goal, 
 My Love, my Own ! 
 
 " Know at thy tears I tremble, almost wane, 
 Thy sighs revive my smouldering fire again, 
 The best of life, our love, may yet remain, 
 Eternal grown. 
 
 " But if thou canst forget, my light will pale, 
 When no regret of thine seeks my lost trail, 
 Then, only then, within dim depths I fail, 
 Expire, alone ! " 
 
 I roused from my rapt gaze at him to find 
 Charlotte and Katharine looking at him as in- 
 tently as if they, with their sudden jealousy, 
 fancied the lines meant for them. The winds 
 howled and shook the house, the rain beat 
 against the pane, Mr. Orne, uneasy, too, 
 walked up and down the long room, and his 
 deep, rich voice, a cordial that warmed the 
 ear, broke forth in " King Death is a rare old 
 fellow!" He paused after one verse before 
 Katharine. "Even Money is powerless before 
 him," said he. 
 
 He stopped after the next verse by Char- 
 lotte. " Yet Death may be foiled by Fame," 
 he said. 
 
 As he came near me at another verse, he 
 
Singeb itlotlja. 69 
 
 said: "On a level with all at the touch of 
 'his yellow hand.'" 
 
 We heard his voice die away in the distance 
 in the ghostly old song about King Death. By 
 the queer, subtile sway of one spirit over 
 another, my sisters seemed to feel that parting 
 was near. They could not have acted other- 
 wise if either of them thought of going. 
 
 "Good-night, girls," said Charlotte, start- 
 ing, but coming back to kiss us. " Perhaps I 
 should say good-by. 'Who has seen to- 
 morrow?'" 
 
 Soon after, Katharine rose. " Good-night," 
 she said, kissing me, "and good-by till we 
 meet again." 
 
 1 sit here alone, writing. I have listened to 
 the vanishing sound of her footsteps; I am 
 tempted to call them back. But it is on the 
 stroke of twelve. The storm rages still more 
 wildly; an awful night to be out. What a 
 surprise is in store for my sisters ! When I 
 next see them, how strange will be our meet- 
 ing! 
 
 BIDDY GOSSIPS AGAIN. 
 
 "Sure, an' it's kind of ye, Mrs. O'Shane, 
 to come in this pourin' rain to-night. Give me 
 the umbrill, an' sit ye down by the fire. Yes, 
 
70 Singeir Jftottys. 
 
 it has stormed night an' day for a week ever 
 since Allhallows Eve, heaven save us 1 
 
 " Tell ye all about it? Oh, they got worse 
 an* worse all three wild in love wid him, an 7 
 that jealous they did n't want one of them to 
 be alone wid him. Now, he was all wrapped 
 up in Miss Elizabeth, playing duets wid his 
 witch of a fiddle, showin' her how to write 
 music, an' talkin' of his high rank at home ; 
 then jist the same wid Miss Charlotte, teach- 
 in* her how to mix colors, an' touchin' up her 
 pictures, an' tellin' her she was a wonder, an' 
 folks wouldn't forget her, an' writin' verses 
 wid her ; an' jist as deep wid Miss Katharine, 
 plannin' how she was to make her fortune in 
 no time, an' always showin' off in some way 
 how rich he was. 
 
 " How did I know his ways so well? Did n't 
 I use to be goin' through the hall quite care- 
 less, an' hear it all? Ye may learn a good 
 dale that way, by niver hurryin' yourself. 
 Many's the time he nearly caught me, but I 
 got into the dark corner, wid my apron over 
 my head, quakin' as he went by. But at last 
 he got a dog an awful big, black crater, wid 
 eyes like coals, an' I had to kape down here. 
 
 " I did talk to thim. I could n't make thim 
 see him as I did, try as much as I would. Ye 
 
Singeb Jttotljs. 71 
 
 might as well warn water not to run down hill. 
 An* he windin' round thim like a snake, I 
 used to think. May the holy saints kape us ! 
 Is that only the shutters knockiri'? Let us 
 say a prayer or two. It makes me shake to 
 think of him now. 
 
 "About the mornin' after All Souls' Eve, is 
 it? Listen to this, thin: His sketches an' 
 verses they thought so much of had turned to 
 black paper! They each had his picture, 
 they called it, but neither one looked like him, 
 an' that mornin' they had sunk to a little heap 
 of ashes under where they had hung! An' 
 Miss Elizabeth's portrait of him was never as 
 she thought she left it, nor as her sisters 
 thought it looked, but it was like him as I saw 
 him, only it had no eyes ! 
 
 " If ye' 11 believe it each one showed me 
 that night a fine necklace the strange man had 
 given her, a secret from the others. It was 
 good as a play to see them comin', one after 
 the other, on the same errand. Poor dears ! 
 Bless us and save us ! don't move your chair 
 with such a sudden noise, it makes me jump ; 
 an' don't kape lookin' behind ye ! Miss Char- 
 lotte's was coral, all carved into little imps ; 
 Miss Elizabeth's was like great coals of fire 
 carbuncles, she said 'twas; an' Miss Kath- 
 
72 Singeb 
 
 arine's was like little red sparks rubies, she 
 called them, an* said it must have cost a great 
 deal of money. But next mornin' their bureau 
 drawers, where they kept their fine things, 
 held no necklaces nothin' but a heap of dead 
 leaves, an* dust, an* pebbles ! 
 
 " No, it was only a red line round the throat 
 each wore for a chain at daylight. Dead, 
 then? Dead as Pharaoh! 
 
 "Yes, he was gone, an* they will not find 
 him, either; though the police an' reporters 
 call me a crazy old woman to doubt it, but I'm 
 sure they'll have their trouble for their pains. 
 Where is he? The Divil knows ! " 
 
A STRAY REVELER. 
 
A STRAY REVELER. 
 
 The Picture Which Was a Prophecy. 
 
 ' Who hath known the ways and the wrath, 
 The sleepless spirit, the root 
 And blossom of evil will?" 
 
 " Which is the room, and which is the pic- 
 ture?" 1 asked my friend Aura, when she 
 received me after my long absence abroad, 
 during which I heard she had fallen heir to a 
 fortune, but found her looking pinched and 
 wan. 
 
 The picture filled nearly one side of the 
 room, which was arranged as an exact copy 
 of it, even having a lattice-window opening 
 lengthwise, put in to match the painted one. 
 Carpet, Navajo rugs, chairs, tables, draperies 
 were alike. A strip of carpet hid the lower 
 part of the frame, so that one might fancy he 
 saw double parlors instead of one room and 
 a painting. The screen in the room stood at 
 just such an angle as just such a screen stood 
 
 75 
 
76 & Strag Reveler. 
 
 in the painted scene. Tall Japanese vases, 
 low bookcase, hanging shelves filled with 
 rare, odd trifles, were all thus doubled. 
 
 " Yes," she said, seeing me glance to and 
 fro, " I felt impelled to copy everything painted 
 there, and to banish all my room held before. 
 That knotted rope under glass on the mantel? 
 Well, no; that was neither in the picture nor 
 here, till now ; the fact is, I hold the property 
 Penniel left me only by keeping that there. 
 Two of his friends, Dacre and Chartram, re- 
 ceived bequests on condition of calling here 
 unexpectedly at irregular intervals to see that 
 I let it remain always in my sight." 
 
 "I don't like it there." 
 
 " Nor I; but there is nothing puzzling about 
 it as about the picture, finished just before 
 he he died. That is a legacy I have often 
 pondered over. Why did he call it prophetic? 
 I always wonder where the window in it looks, 
 and that inner door ajar, showing a banquet- 
 scene. Is it a Christmas revel?" 
 
 " One of the female figures resembles you 
 why, it is meant for you ! " 
 
 " Don't, don't say so! It makes me un- 
 easy, and angry, too; for I will not believe in 
 the * mystic* nonsense of his scribbling, paint- 
 ing, and acting tribe." 
 
Bender. 77 
 
 " Yet you always let them hang round 
 you." 
 
 "Because they are amusing, often hand- 
 some, and sometimes have money. But few 
 come now, except Chartram and Dacre, in 
 their uncertain visits. I am no longer gay 
 enough company." 
 
 " Pshaw! as if the influence of one who is 
 dead could thus last!" 
 
 "If not, how could there be so many true 
 tales of curses which have followed individuals 
 or families through generation after genera- 
 tion. I never used to believe any such thing. 
 I am forced to keep the picture under the 
 terms of Penniel's will, and I cannot help 
 studying it." 
 
 "Did Penniel paint it?" 
 
 " Yes. He put me in that festive scene 
 because I am yet alive. He once spoke of 
 ghosts as stray revelers after life's banquet. 
 The vacant seat beside me was to signify 
 his absence. 'Not eternal,' he wrote; M 
 shall come back when you least expect 
 it.'" 
 
 "You make me shiver. Let us talk of 
 other things. What a pretty inlaid table 
 wild -fowl flying over a marsh isn't it? 
 Ah! it is just like that one in the picture, 
 
78 & Stras 
 
 even to a manuscript lying upon it spread 
 open under a horseshoe paper-weight." 
 
 "You see," said Aura, "one drifts inevit- 
 ably to that painting. What the manuscript 
 there represents I have often asked myself. 
 The one beside you, Dacre wrote. Read it." 
 
 It was : 
 
 "A FLIGHT OF FANCY. 
 
 " In single file wild-ducks drift by. 
 
 Dyed red by western glow. 
 Belated swallows lonely fly, 
 And strange birds trooping go. 
 
 " Though flown from forest-pine remote, 
 
 Or from near orchard-pear, 
 Along the water-depths they float, 
 As on the heights of air. 
 
 " The lake, with mirror-surface spread, 
 
 Bronzed by the day's bright close, 
 To each wayfarer overhead, 
 A shadowy double shows. 
 
 "Ah ! thus reflected in my soul 
 
 What flitting thoughts will stray 
 From hidden source ancestors' dole, 
 Or sunshine of my day. 
 
 " Fantastic shapes that, circling, throng, 
 
 Some charming, some unblest ; 
 I snare one in this fragile song, 
 I cannot count the rest." 
 
Eeueier. 79 
 
 I made another effort to divert her mind. 
 " What is behind your lovely screen?" I asked. 
 
 " Nothing. What is behind that one?" she 
 asked, pointing to the pictured one. " That 
 question haunts me like the indefinite meaning 
 of some passage in Browning or Rossetti." 
 
 " What have you learned by your study of 
 it?" 
 
 "What do you discover by examining that 
 screen near you?" 
 
 " Masses of interwoven flowers with trailing 
 vines and lights and shadows athwart the 
 whole. Who painted it?" 
 
 "Chartram; and while he was doing it he 
 and I suddenly detected amid those apparently 
 random dashes of color eleven letters. Look 
 again begin at the lower left-hand corner and 
 cross diagonally here are lilies of the valley, 
 then eschscholtzias, a branch of xanthoxylum 
 fraxineum, tuberoses, azalias, lobelia, iris- 
 lilies, oleander blossoms, Neapolitan violets, 
 ixia-lilies, and stephanotis flowers." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Don't you see? Two words not merely 
 spelled by the first letter of the plants' names, 
 as the old-fashioned ' regard ' rings were set 
 with ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, 
 and diamond, but by looking carefully you can 
 
8o <3t 
 
 discern, in the seemingly careless spray or 
 cluster, the letter in indistinct and fanciful 
 form." 
 
 As she spoke and I gazed at the screen, I was 
 surprised to distinguish so plainly now the 
 words, Lextalionis! so skillfully placed as to 
 elude a careless glance. "The law of re- 
 venge!" I cried. "Was this more of your 
 old coquetries?" 
 
 " No ; I did not tire of Penniel as usual. He 
 had one charm all my other lovers had lacked : 
 a stronger will than mine." 
 
 I looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 "When you went away you remember 
 I was starving genteelly starving. I met 
 Penniel; he was engaged to an heiress, i 
 reasoned with myself that she did not need his 
 money as I did. I used every art to win him 
 from her." 
 
 "Oh, Aura!" 
 
 "I did, I did ! I may own it now, since both 
 are dead." 
 
 "Both?" 
 
 " Yes; he broke the engagement on account 
 of something I told him about her. She died 
 soon after, some say broken-hearted; but, of 
 course, we know that is a mere phrase. I pre- 
 sume she got a cold, or something." 
 
Straj) Easier. 81 
 
 "And your refusal of him killed him ? " 
 "No; I accepted him. All went well until 
 one night we went on horseback with a party 
 of friends, on a moonlight trip to* the Cliff 
 House. While there, he overheard me own 
 my worship for money. 'Not marry for it ? ' 
 I said. ' It is a woman's duty. 1 And he met 
 there that night some old friend who completely 
 disproved all I had told him about Helen Roth- 
 say, the girl who died. Oh, how angry he was! 
 his eyes were lurid, he never spoke to me 
 again. Next day he sent back to me these 
 verses he had found that Dacre had written for 
 me to give him as mine, though you know 
 there is nothing nonsensical about me." 
 She gave me to read a 
 
 "VILLANELLE. 
 
 "What clouds of laughing little Loves arise 
 On buoyant wing are all about me blown ! 
 I dream within the night of his dark eyes. 
 
 " How blest to be, though but in flower guise, 
 
 Worn on his heart until my life were flown ! 
 What clouds of laughing little Loves arise ! 
 
 '* Forgotten is the sun, to-day's blue skies, 
 
 I know nor time nor space nor any zone ; 
 I dream within the night of his dark eyes 
 
82 Qt Strag 
 
 "By fancied blisses borne to Paradise, 
 
 Like some translated saint that Art has shown. 
 What clouds of laughing little Loves arise ! 
 
 "Such lotos-eating lures until one dies, 
 
 No poppy-petals such nepenthe own ; 
 I dream within the night of his dark eyes. 
 
 "For him my passion waxes crescent-wise ; 
 
 Will wind and tide of Fate its sway disown? 
 What clouds of laughing little Loves arise ! 
 I dream within the night of his dark eyes." 
 
 " He also sent me a letter telling me of these 
 discoveries and taking leave. ' 1 shall avenge 
 Helen's wrongs,' he wrote, ' I shall avenge my 
 own wrongs, but in my own time and in my 
 own way. You shall suffer for what you have 
 done, if I have to come back from the next 
 world to make you. Poor or rich, old or young, 
 sad or gay, remember that I have not forgot- 
 ten.'" 
 
 "He died soon after?" 
 
 "Yes; in a year and a day from the time we 
 first met, which was Christmas Eve." 
 
 Company came, and I could hear no more. 
 
 Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve, Aura 
 sent for me. I found her in the same room, 
 looking thinner and more depressed, and study- 
 ing the painting. 
 
 " Don't!" I said; "you will dream of it." 
 
Strag Beoeler. 83 
 
 " I did. 1 have been in the picture, gathered 
 a leaf from that graceful clump of ferns grow- 
 ing in the odd jar, sat in that antique chair, 
 and looked from that open window/' 
 
 I could not understand my hitherto matter- 
 of-fact friend. " What did you see?' I asked. 
 
 " The same grand sunrise that thrilled us, 
 Penniel, Dacre, Chartram, and I, as we re- 
 turned from a New Year's Eve ball. A sunrise 
 Penniel wrote about." 
 
 She showed me these lines : 
 
 "A NEW-YEAR'S DAWN. 
 
 "Through fog that veils both sky and bay there gleam 
 
 The sun and wraith, red glowing ; 
 So interblended that one flame they seem 
 As if dread portent showing. 
 
 "Where will it lead us through the year untried, 
 
 Through what vast desert places, 
 Vague tracts of time whose misty margins glide 
 Within eternal spaces? 
 
 "I, weary pilgrim in Life's caravan, 
 
 That pillared fire must follow 
 Past pyramid and sphinx of Doubt and Ban, 
 Mirage of Hope, how hollow ! 
 
 "Palm-shaded wells of joy, too far apart, 
 
 Long leagues through changeful weather, 
 Unless that foe in ambush, my own heart, 
 Leaps, and we fall together ! " 
 
84 & Strajj 
 
 " What else happened?" I asked. 
 
 " Nothing. I was dimly conscious of coming 
 from that room into this. I want to stay here. 
 Tell me about your travels, and divert me." 
 
 I talked to her a long while ; then she brewed 
 rich chocolate, which we sipped as we sat 
 silently listening to the sounds of mirth from a 
 party given by boarders in the opposite room, 
 listening to the fog-horn and the wind, till 
 drowsiness stole over us insensibly as the fog 
 crept round the house, as if forming an im- 
 palpable barrier around a region enchanted. 
 
 Suddenly Aura started out of her doze with 
 a piercing cry, and sat trembling from head to 
 foot. "I have been there again," she said. 
 
 " You have not left your chair." I mur- 
 mured, half-awake; " you dropped asleep." 
 
 " Perhaps you think so ; but I have been in 
 the picture." She shuddered as she turned 
 her head to look at it. " There were two 
 vacant places at the table. I no longer sat 
 there, but wandered about the outer room 
 while the guests at supper were watching and 
 whispering and pointing, and a murmur of 
 'Lex lalionis ! ' ran from mouth to mouth. I 
 felt that some horror waited for me and drew 
 me to that screen, but I tried not to go. I 
 went to the window, but the view was changed 
 
Strug Eetieler. 85 
 
 to the blackness of midnight. I looked in the 
 mirror, yet saw nothing reflected but the room 
 behind me. I was not to be seen. I noticed 
 the perfume of the flowers in the "bouquet on 
 the table. I saw this room, with our figures 
 sitting before the fire, with our chocolate-tray 
 between us, as a picture on the wall of that 
 room. I took the manuscript from the table, 
 and found it to be verses, as we thought. I 
 can repeat them : 
 
 BALLADE OF THE SEA OF SLEEP. 
 
 When from far headland of the Night I slip, 
 
 What potent force within the rising tide 
 Bears me resistless as the billows dip, 
 
 To meet their shifting wonders, eager-eyed, 
 Or float, half-conscious what stars watch me glide, 
 
 To fear when nightmare monster's weight o'erpowers, 
 Or laugh with nymphs and mermen in their bowers 
 
 Through blinding tempest toss on breakers steep, 
 Or fall for countless fathoms past what lowers 
 
 Below the dream waves of the sea of Sleep ! 
 
 I trace, with sails all set, the unbuilt ship, 
 
 And sunken treasure, ere the waves subside ; 
 Find here the wrecked craft making phantom trip ; 
 
 Define the misty bounds : upon this side, 
 The mighty mountains of the Dark abide ; 
 
 On that, the realms of Light expand like flowers; 
 There, 'tis the rocky coast of Death that towers ; 
 
 Here, on the shoals, Life must its lighthouse keep. 
 Who is it that vague terror thus empowers 
 
 Below the dream-waves of the sea of Sleep? 
 
86 Qt 0traj> fteueier. 
 
 On shore all day I find slight fellowship, 
 
 But in those surges fain would plunge and hide : 
 Those depths hold joys that none above outstrip. 
 
 Perchance I cannot choose what shall betide 
 Friend flown afar I clasp, dread foe deride, 
 
 Forget that sorrow all my heart devours, 
 Avenge the wrongs that Fate upon me showers. 
 
 Not my control can lift the tide at neap, 
 Nor quell its rise. Who thus my will deflours 
 
 Below the dream-waves of the sea of Sleep ? 
 
 ENVOY. 
 
 Archangels, princes, thrones, dominions, powers ! 
 Which of ye dwarf the centuries to hours, 
 
 Or swell the moments into eons' sweep? 
 Is it the Prince of Darkness, then , who cowers 
 
 Below the dream-waves of the sea of Sleep ? 
 
 I was full of indecision and fear about 
 looking behind the screen, but, at last, I did 
 look" 
 
 Her voice failed. I gave her some wine 
 
 " What did you think you saw?" 
 
 " Think! I saw it." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Don't ask me!" she cried, shuddering. 
 " I cannot describe it. Can you imagine the 
 aspect of a corpse, long dead, mouldering, 
 luminous, all blue light, and threads and tatters 
 of its burial robe? O God, save us!" Her 
 glance rested on the mantel. " I will not keep 
 
Strag fteueUr. 87 
 
 that rope. I will not! I will not ! Curses on 
 him and his memory ! " 
 
 She snatched down the glass case, broke it, 
 and flung the rope in the grate. We watched 
 it as the fire consumed it and for a few mo- 
 ments held its charred outlines as it had fallen 
 in a distinct semblance of a closed hand with 
 index-finger pointing toward the screen ! Our 
 eyes met above it. "Do poets and artists 
 possess an extra sense?" she muttered, grasp- 
 ing my arm in awe. 
 
 " But the property I'M stammered in sudden 
 alarm. " What will you do without that?" 
 
 " No one need know at present of this con- 
 flagration. I will lock up and go abroad. I 
 will start to-morrow ! " 
 
 Just then we heard the voices of Dacre and 
 Chartram in the hall. We stared at each 
 other in dismay. "They must not come 
 here!" she cried, and hurrying toward the 
 next room disappeared behind the screen. 
 The next instant a blood-curdling shriek rang 
 through the room, rooting me to the spot where 
 I stood. Before I knew anything more, Dacre 
 and Chartram were standing by me, asking 
 what was the matter. I could not speak. 
 Weighed down by a sense of dread, I could 
 only point to the screen. As they turned it 
 
88 
 
 aside, throwing another part of the room into 
 shadow, the picture vanished in gloom, but 
 the room took a more picturesque aspect. 
 The door ajar showed, across the narrow hall, 
 the open door where the merry-makers paused, 
 leaning forward with startled faces and anx- 
 ious gestures. Aura was lying full length on 
 the carpet, dead ! Her face was full of terror. 
 Was it only a shadow, that livid line around 
 her neck as if she had been strangled? As 
 we turned away in horror, Dacre uttered a cry 
 of surprise, and touching Chartram, pointed 
 to the vacant space on the mantel. 
 
 "The rope?" they cried with one voice, 
 like the chorus to a tragic opera. 
 
 " She had just burned it," 1 stammered. 
 
 They looked at each other. " Did she fur- 
 nish Penniel with the means to destroy her?" 
 Dacre asked Chartram. 
 
 " Tell me," I begged, " what is the mystery 
 of that rope?" 
 
 There was a moment's delay. Then Chart- 
 ram gave the startling reply : "It was the one 
 with which Penniel hung himself." 
 
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE 
 WEDDING. 
 
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE 
 WEDDING 
 
 Etching. 
 
 'Any one may dream." Polish Jew. 
 
 Mother. Eh! What? John, I'm glad you 
 woke me. 
 
 Crying, was I? 
 
 Oh! it seemed as if I had married Seth 
 instead of you. Yet it was bitter to lose the 
 years that you and I have been dear to each 
 other. May our girl be half as happy ! 
 
 Father. There, there, Ann ! All have hard 
 trials in sleep as well as out. Strange truths 
 show there, and masks fall. I was dreaming, 
 too. (Sighs.) I wonder what became of my 
 old sweetheart Jane ! 
 
 Bride. His friend ! Urge not. Your eyes 
 are kind. You would be gentle, tender. 1 
 should adore you ! I only dreamed that I was 
 bound. I dare go to the world's end, the 
 
 fartherest star, with you yet I tremble 
 
 91 
 
92 lje Nigljt Before ttye 
 
 Best Man. My shy darling ! He is too 
 fierce, but / why, the whole grand universe 
 shaped toward ottr blissful meeting ! Fear not, 
 you and Love and I part never, but, still pil- 
 grims three, shall pass to Paradise. 
 
 Bridesmaid. I wept for this! To be, if 
 once only, folded to your heart, your fond lips 
 on mine! My soul's great deep reflects alone 
 your face ! I could kill myself to keep it there 
 not know you hers! She care as you de- 
 serve? I worship you ! Her right is not like 
 mine. 
 
 Bridegroom. You draw me as by a spell. 
 Before your eyes* fire the world I knew melts 
 into nothingness! Life was a milk-and-por- 
 ridge nursery rhyme ! Now first grown to my 
 full stature, with the strength, the will of a 
 god, I defy earth, hell, and heaven ! Come ! 
 
 Servant. (To another as they wake with 
 a start.) Gone to be married, but changed 
 about ! I saw them. I was not asleep ! I heard 
 them ; I got up and looked through the crack 
 of the door. Downstairs went one couple at 
 a time. Queer-looking like spirits! 
 
 Watch-dog. They came out. Where did 
 they go? Dust rises in the road as from car- 
 riages rolling off opposite ways. (Roused.) 
 Two o'clock and a full moon. (Suddenly bay- 
 
Nig!)t Before il)e toefcbittg. 93 
 
 ing.) Powers of Air ! whom dull man doubts. 
 /see you! / know your work tangling 
 sleepers' thoughts with luring, mocking, heart- 
 rending hints of What Might Be i * 
 
THE DRAMATIC IN MY DESTINY. 
 
THE DRAMATIC IN MY DESTINY. 
 
 "Who shall say, 'I stand!' nor fall? 
 Destiny Is over all." 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 " Alcohol is for the brutish body, opium for 
 the divine spirit," said Tong-ko-lin-sing, as he 
 lighted the lamp. " The bliss from wine grows 
 and wanes as the body has its time of growth 
 and loss, but that from opium stays at one 
 height, as the soul knows no youth nor age." 
 He brought the jar of black paste, rounded up 
 by layer on layer of poppy petals. " Opium 
 soothes, collects, is the friend alike of rich or 
 poor. It has power to prove to the sinner that 
 his soul is pure, and make the unhappy forget ; 
 it reverses all unpleasant things, like the pho- 
 nograph playing a piece of music backward." 
 He handed me the pipe flute-like, fit instru- 
 ment for the divine music of Dreamland, though 
 clumsy bamboo the earthen bowl with the 
 rich coloring of much smoking, like a China- 
 man himself. "Dead faces look on us, and 
 
 97 
 
98 lje JUramatic in iHg Sleeting. 
 
 dead voices call, for the soul then gains its full 
 stature, can mix with the immortals, and 
 does ; when alone and in silence, it can know 
 that Time and Space have no- bounds." He 
 took a wire, which he dipped in the jar and 
 held in the flame. " Strangest of all is the 
 power of opium to form as well as repeat, 
 even from odds and ends in our minds. There 
 are herbs which inspire, those which destroy, 
 and those which heal. The Siberian fungus 
 benumbs the body, and not the mind; the Him- 
 alayan and the New Granadan thorn-apple 
 brings spectral illusions ; why should there not 
 be those which may cast prophetic spells?" 
 The few drops of the paste clinging to the 
 wire bubbled and burned. He smeared it on 
 the rim of the pipe-bowl. " Opium has the 
 power of a god; it can efface or renew the 
 Past, and ignore or foretell the Future." 
 
 I drew three or four whiffs of whitish 
 smoke ; the bowl was empty. Again he went 
 through the long course of filling. "Though 
 it bring dream within dream, like our Chinese 
 puzzles mark their meaning, for our Chinese 
 saying is, ' The world's nonsense is the sense 
 of God!"' 
 
 I heard. I knew him for my queer teacher 
 of Chinese, who knew French, English, and 
 
Dramatic in iHg dDesting. 99 
 
 Sanscrit as well, whom I was wont to muse 
 over here in "Chinatown," as over a relic, 
 until oppressed with thought of the age of his 
 country, until San Francisco seemed a town 
 built of a child's toy-houses, and ours but a 
 gadfly race. I knew the room, with its odd 
 urns and vases, fans and banners, some of the 
 last with stain which shows the baptism of 
 human blood, given to make them lucky in 
 war; the china and bronze gods, ugly and im- 
 possible as nightmare visions ; the table, with 
 lamp and pot of tar-like paste, my Chinese 
 grammar, and paper and ink ; the other table, 
 with its jar of sweetmeats, covered with clas- 
 sical quotations, basket of queer soft-shelled 
 nuts, and bottle of Sam-Shoo rice-brandy ; the 
 much-prized gift, a Lianchau coffin, standing 
 up in the corner ; the mantelpiece, with Tong- 
 ko-lin-sing's worn lot of books, where the 
 great poet, Lintsehen, leaned on Shakspeare, 
 Sakuntala stood beside Paul and Virginia, 
 Robinson Crusoe nudged Confucius and Hiou- 
 enthsang, and Cinderella sat on Laotse; and 
 hanging above them a great dragon-kite which 
 would need a man to control it. I knew the 
 Chinese lily, standing in the pebbles at the 
 bottom of a bowl of clear water on the window- 
 sill, by a globe of gold-fish; and, beyond, 
 
ioo lj ^Dramatic in ills 
 
 the Oriental street (for it was in the region 
 bounded by Kearny, Stockton, Sacramento, 
 and Pacific streets, where fifty thousand aliens 
 make an alien city, a city as Chinese as Pe- 
 king, except for buildings and landscape, and 
 not unlike the narrow, dirty, thronged streets, 
 with dingy brick piles, of Shanghai); the cafe 
 across the way, with green lattice-work, and 
 gilding, and gay colors in its gallery; the lot- 
 tery-man next door, setting in order his little 
 black book covered with great spots like blood ; 
 the rattle of dice coming from the half-open 
 basement next to us ; the cries of stray ven- 
 ders of sweetmeats ; no sound of any language 
 but the Chinese passionless drone, too cramped 
 for all the changes of life's emotions, with its 
 accent unswerving as Fate ; the only women 
 among the passers-by shuffling along with stiff 
 outworks of shining hair, bright with tinsel 
 and paper flowers, and wide sleeves waving 
 like bat-wings, broad fans, spread umbrellas, 
 and red silk handkerchiefs sometimes in one 
 of these a baby slung over its mother's back, 
 perhaps one less gayly dressed tottered on 
 goat-feet between two girls who held her up ; 
 little children like gaudy butterflies in green 
 and gold, purple and scarlet, crimson and 
 white, boys in gilt-fringed caps, girls with 
 
l)e ^Dramatic in JHs UJesting. 101 
 
 hair gummed into spread sails, and decked 
 like their elders ; an endless line of dark, mys- 
 terious forms, with muffling blouse and flaunt- 
 ing queue, the rank, poisonous undergrowth 
 in our forest of men. I was idly aware of all 
 this. I knew that I, Yorke Rhys, quite care- 
 free and happy, had nothing to dread. I 
 calmly dropped down the tide of sleep but 
 what was this vivid and awful dream all in 
 brighter hues and deeper shadows, and more 
 sharply real than Dreamland seems, without 
 the magic touches of opium? As if looking in 
 a mirror, like the Lady of Shalott, I saw all 
 past scenes at once as a great whole. Against 
 the mystic gloom of opium everything stood 
 out as the night shows the stars ; the soul had 
 a mood that could focus All since the making 
 of the world, and only then knew how far off, 
 fading, stretch the bounds of Time, the untold 
 reach of the Universe, which we wrongly 
 think we daily see and know. I saw into it 
 all as a leader reads an opera-score. I was 
 unused to dreaming, being seldom alone and 
 without time for long walks, and I wondered 
 when my own mind mocked me with odd bits 
 it held, jumbled and awry, like my own like- 
 ness in rippling water, mostly what I had once 
 thought of, but not as I thought it. Past 
 
102 fl)e HJratnatic in 
 
 events started forth, not as what I had gone 
 through with, but as a part of my inner sense, 
 with old fancies about passing trifles ; as when 
 one, though rapt in some strong feeling, may 
 yet mark the number of notes in a bird's song, 
 or of boughs to a tree, or of petals to a flower, 
 as if the mind must be double, we think ; but 
 in my dream I learned that it is yet more com- 
 plex. In the vast poppy fields of Bengal, 
 likened to green lakes where lilies bloom, near 
 the holy city of Benares, which dates itself 
 back to creation, I idly plucked a white blos- 
 som on a lonely stalk, and flung it down, when 
 it at once changed to a shapeless form, which 
 chased me. Then it seemed it had been my 
 curse through far-off ages, the frost that 
 chilled me when I was a flower, the white cat 
 that killed me when I was a bird, the white 
 shark that caught me when I was a fish in 
 all places a white cloud between me and my 
 sunshine. My horse, in gold armor, thickly 
 gemmed, bore me from the field where a silk 
 tent held my love, with others of King Ar- 
 thur's court, to a gloomy-raftered cobwebbed 
 hall, where shield and battle-axe were given 
 me, and soon I wept over the shattered helm 
 of one whom I had loved yet killed. Where 
 silver cressets shone behind diamond panes, 
 
f&tye ?Bramatic in ittg UDestinji. 103 
 
 and dragon-banners flew from gilded turrets of 
 my castle, I waited at a postern in the wall for 
 a note from my lady-fair, but the pale spectre 
 of a scorned lover told me she was dead. 
 Through the lapse of ages, over strange lands, 
 in old and new-world town or wild, I often lost 
 my way, but never the sense of an unseen 
 foe. Now, at a masked ball in some old 
 palace, where I was dogged by a white domino 
 with whom 1 must fight a duel ; then, in the 
 red glare of the southern moon in the Arizona 
 desert, through stillness overwhelming as 
 noise, I fled from a figure hid in a Moqui 
 blanket. By huge fires, 1, too, waited the 
 coming of Montezuma. I was Montezuma, 
 held down by weight of the mountain which 
 bears his profile at Maricopa Wells. My great 
 white shadow flitted after me across the red 
 and yellow of Colorado scenery. In the aw- 
 ful depths of Gypsum Canon, I gazed in de- 
 spair up at the round, well-like heights for 
 chance to flee from It. At the Royal Gorge, 
 peering from the cliff straight down for over 
 two thousand feet, I gladly saw It at the base. 
 Eased, I stood on a mountain-top, where, as I 
 turned, I saw the four seasons most wonder- 
 ful view that could be brought by a wizard of 
 old to a king's windows ; but here I suddenly 
 
104 QLl)t ^Dramatic in 
 
 found a white mist that turned as I did, and 
 strove to shape itself to my form. Crossing 
 the plains of Nevada, It was the white dust 
 which choked and blinded me from sight of 
 the pink and purple mist-veiled peaks. In a 
 Mexican mine, at a shrine to the Virgin, cut in 
 the rock where her lamp glowed through last- 
 ing night, It was the large white bead of my 
 rosary of Job's Tears, which took my thoughts 
 from prayer and broke my vows. Again, It 
 was the mirage of Arizona midnights or noons, 
 and I was one of the coyotes who leave their 
 holes to howl. It was a spectre that strove to 
 burden me with the secret of the pre-historic 
 ruins of the Casa Grande. It brooded as a 
 mist over the Colorado River while I hid in its 
 depths a corpse as if it might be my ghost. 
 Here I could have been safe, since that stream 
 does not give up its dead, but as a small bird I 
 was forced to cross a wide sea, chased through 
 days and nights by a great white gull. Lost 
 in the jungle of a Chinese forest, I suddenly 
 came to a clearing where beetle and glow- 
 worm were staking out a grave for some one 
 near and dear to me, whose death I could not 
 hinder. I watched until they began to mark a 
 second grave oh, for whom? But I was torn 
 from this sight, and thrust in the heart of a 
 
^Dramatic in Hip testing. 105 
 
 Chinese city. I wound through its crooked 
 streets to a dark flight of steps, which came to 
 an end; no rail, no step, darkness before I 
 could get quite down ; and I was again creep- 
 ing from the top of a like staircase. Over and 
 over 1 tried to go down these vanishing stairs. 
 At last, 1 was faced suddenly, as if he sprang 
 through a trap-door, by a huge white form 
 that tried to tell me something, some strange 
 fact linked with my fate, which would explain 
 a secret that had long chafed me. But what? 
 I shook with fear Tong-ko-lin-sing spoke to 
 me. I woke. My first glance fell on the pure, 
 sweet-scented lily, calm and fair, in its clear, 
 glass-bowl, and the relief was so great that 
 tears sprang to my eyes. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 " 'Was it not Fate, whose name is also Sor- 
 row?' " said Elinor. 
 
 We were looking at Randolph Rogers's 
 "Lost Pleiad, " in the inner room of Morris & 
 Schwab's picture-store. 
 
 "No," said I, kindling at a glance from her 
 fine eyes; "Fate is well named when in one's 
 favor, but cannot be truly against one. I 
 could master it ; so could others. Man rules 
 
106 fle Dramatic in 
 
 his own life it need not depend on others 
 he gains what he strives for, and need never 
 yield to evil forces." 
 
 " Then you have no pity for the man who 
 killed another here yesterday?" 
 
 " None. That is the worst of crimes. I 
 respect the Brahmins, who hold life sacred 
 even in an insect. No. Heaven may keep 
 me from other sin I will hold myself from 
 murder." 
 
 " Your friend, Noel Brande, does not think 
 as you do." 
 
 "No; but he gains his wishes because he 
 is brave enough to try and fight what he calls 
 doom." 
 
 " That is not the only point on which you 
 differ." 
 
 " No; but we are too fond of each other to 
 quarrel." 
 
 " Even Fate could not break your friend- 
 ship?" 
 
 " Never. I defy it." 
 
 "It is as good as a fortune to be sure of 
 one's self," she said, looking at me for an in- 
 stant with such approval that I was bewitched 
 enough to have spoken my love if others had 
 not come in, and we soon strolled home. 
 
 Her shy, brief glances stirred my brain like 
 
fl)e Dramatic in ittg JDesting. 107 
 
 wine. Was it true that the woman who could 
 look long in a man's eyes could not love him? 
 I sighed with joy. I was in the gay mood 
 which the Scotch think comes just before ill 
 luck. It had been a very happy day. I had 
 taken her to drive in the Park in the morning ; 
 I had found her in the picture-store in the 
 afternoon. As we went up our boarding-house 
 steps, I felt that the world was made for me. 
 As she passed through the storm-door before 
 me, I stayed for mere lightness of heart to 
 drop a gold piece in the apron of Nora, the 
 neat Irish nurse-girl, sitting outside with Eli- 
 nor's little cousins. Elinor had glided so far 
 alone that .Si-ki, coming toward her with a 
 card that had been left for her, did not see 
 me. I watched him, thinking of what Nora 
 had told of his skill in making melon-seed 
 fowls, and carving flowers from vegetables, 
 and of her dislike for his hue 'Mike an old, 
 green copper," she said. He did have an odd 
 sort of tea-color to his skin, not unlike that of 
 morphine-lovers, but I thought he looked no 
 worse than Nora, with her face like a globe- 
 fish. Elinor, with hand on the newel, paused 
 to look at the card. Amazed and angry, I saw 
 Si-ki dare to lay his hand on hers, saying : 
 "Nicey! Nicey!" 
 
io8 &lje Dramatic in Jttji Sleeting. 
 
 Elinor's hand that I had not yet held but 
 as any one might, in a dance, or to help her 
 from a carriage! The sight filled me with 
 such rage, that, just as I would have brushed 
 a gnat out of the world, I sprang on Si-ki and 
 began beating him. I was in such fury that I 
 scarcely knew when Elinor and Nora fled, or 
 that the French lady hung over the railing up- 
 stairs, in her white frilled wrapper, with but 
 one of her diamond sparks in her ears, and 
 her hair half dressed, crying to heaven ; that 
 the Spanish lady stood in the parlor-door, clap- 
 ping her hands; that the German professor 
 opening his door, the Italian merchant running 
 down-stairs, the English banker, the American 
 broker, and my friend Brande, coming in from 
 the street, all tried to stop me. 
 
 "Keep back! It is a matter between us 
 two!" I answered them all. "Between us 
 two!" timing my blows to my words. I 
 thrashed him till my cane snapped in two. 
 " Between us two ! " I turned him out. " Be- 
 tween us two!" I cried, and flung him down 
 the steps. " Between us two ! " I muttered to 
 myself as I went up-stairs to my room, with a 
 passing glimpse of Elinor, disturbed and blush- 
 ing, in the doorway of her aunt's room. She 
 did not come to dinner. The foreign boarders 
 
Dramatic in ifljj JDesting. 109 
 
 were shocked or excited ; the others amused or 
 unmoved; the landlady was vexed. I was 
 filled with shame to have spent so much force 
 and feeling on such a wretch, and 'to have dis- 
 tressed Elinor by setting all these tongues in 
 motion about her ; to think that I, Yorke Rhys, 
 high-born and high-bred, should have deigned 
 to so beat a creature of no more worth in the 
 world than a worm. But, as I told Brande 
 that night in my room, I had a strange dislike 
 for Si-ki. 
 
 " He was too cat-like," I said, "with his 
 grave air, his slyness and soft tread, his self- 
 contained cunning." 
 
 "Yes," said Brande; "our rough classes 
 are like the larger kind of beast ; those of the 
 Chinese are like rats and gophers the timid, 
 wiry, alert creatures who pose on their hind- 
 legs in nursery-tale pictures." 
 
 " They look like a child's drawing on a 
 slate," I said; " outlines of a man, in square- 
 cut robes." 
 
 "But that Chinese teacher of yours is 
 worse," said he; "dark as if the gloom of 
 ages had taken man's shape, with as still 
 motion, locked behind his reserve, as if cased 
 in mail. It is like dealing with ghost or 
 sphinx." 
 
no {!) ^Dramatic in ittg 
 
 "He shows the effect of inherited civiliza- 
 tion," said I; "dignified, priestly, close- 
 mouthed as if his millions of ancestors in him 
 frowned at me as one of a short-lived race a 
 sort of Mormon-fly with its life of one night." 
 
 " He and the Chinese grammar both would 
 be too much for me to meet/' said Brande. 
 
 " But they have each their charm," I said. 
 "The grammar shows the hidden working of 
 the mind, the laws of thought." 
 
 "That early hieroglyphic you told me 
 about," said he, "of folding-doors and an ear, 
 which meant 'to listen/ shows the same law 
 of thought that our landlady has. What hid- 
 den force let her have only raw coolies for 
 months after she sent off a trained servant for 
 his thefts? We hear of their 'high-binders' 
 and other secret societies. You have not 
 known the last of that cur you whipped." 
 
 " Pshaw ! I soon start for China, anyway," 
 said I "glad of the pay promised me there 
 for three years, and tired of roughing it in 
 Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona; but I wish 
 I wish I could have had a chance with your 
 friends on California street." 
 
 " I wish you had," he said; "but never 
 mind. You will have gained the Chinese lan- 
 guage, and, judging by your feat of to-day, 
 
Dramatic in JUg UDestins. in 
 
 the Chinamen had better not cross your path. 
 Was it for this we moved to this house of 
 seven gabbles ?" +' 
 
 "For this," I answered, glumly. "Why 
 did we move?" For we were scarcely settled. 
 I came to be near Elinor, and Brande because 
 he wished to be with me. 
 
 " There is the cause," he said, nodding 
 toward the window as a gust of wind swept 
 by. " People wonder at the roving impulse of 
 the San Franciscans. It is the wind which 
 urges and compels them to arise and go ; it has 
 even driven me to try and mock the monotone 
 of its chant." 
 
 He took from his pocket and read to me 
 these lines : 
 
 THE WIND! THE WIND! THE WIND! 
 
 Refrain, refrain, O wind! from such complaining, 
 Or deign at last to make thy murmurs sane. 
 
 Explain, explain thy pathos ever paining 
 Thy vain desire torments and tires my brain. 
 Refrain ! Refrain ! 
 
 At last reveal how vanished ages freighted 
 Thy voices with their added woe and pain ; 
 
 Forbear to mutter I feel execrated. 
 Urge not, for naught impatience can attain. 
 Refrain ! Refrain 1 
 
ii2 I)e Dramatic in 
 
 At last, at last, cease all thy raging clamor, 
 Nor beat and pant against my window-pane. 
 
 I listen now ; at last thine eerie hammer 
 Mine ear hath welded for thy mystic strain 
 Nay, crouch not nigh with clank of heavy chain. 
 Refrain ! Refrain ! 
 
 At last thy blast, whose mocking threat just passed, 
 Must feign new breath. What awful secret (lain 
 
 For ages in thy realm of space, too vast 
 For thought) shall thy next startling sounds contain ? 
 I fain would flee thy sighs constrain. 
 Refrain ! Refrain ! 
 
 Insane, far-off, pathetic tones retaining, 
 
 No grain of all that caused them may remain ; 
 Again renewing in thy wild campaigning 
 
 The strain of bugles under Charlemagne ; 
 Again unearthly voices, summons feigning, 
 
 Ordain the death of Joan of Lorraine ; 
 Again high shrieks that castle-turrets gaining 
 
 Thrill pain and dread through Cawdor's haunted 
 
 Thane; 
 Again low sighs (no bliss of love attaining) 
 
 That gain the longing lips of lorn Elayne. 
 Mock strain and creak of hollow oak distraining 
 
 Profane magician Merlin in Bretagne. 
 Complain the English peasant's ear detaining, 
 
 Remain to him the sad song of the Dane. 
 Draw rein, O souls of dead! who ride (retaining 
 
 A train of howling dogs) new souls to gain. 
 To vain and vague lament my thought constraining. 
 Refrain ! Refrain ! 
 
Dramatic in illg EDsstinB. 113 
 
 Though rain, though sun thine own rapt mood sustain- 
 ing 
 
 Of vain regret, no more must thou complain, 
 Nor strain to show, in depths and glooms remaining, 
 
 Wild main and reefs that wrecked, old days of pain. 
 Disdain, deride no more, my whole thought gaining 
 
 With skein of subtle hints that are my bane ; 
 Of rain that slants athwart mid-ocean plaining 
 
 While train of shadows crosses heaven's plain, 
 No reign of stars, nor moon whose crescent waning 
 
 Might vein the purple dusk with amber stain ; 
 Far lane of snow no mortal foot profaning, 
 
 Moraine may lock, or iceberg rent in twain ; 
 In chain of peaks, where thunder-clouds are gaining, 
 
 Unslain old echoes rise and roll again 
 Again. Thine incantations oft sustaining 
 
 With strain of distant bells that chimes maintain 
 Ingrain with melancholy, hope quite draining, 
 
 Like plaintive fall of castles built in Spain. 
 O'erlain with laugh and yell and sob complaining, 
 
 The train of sound is broken, scattered, slain. 
 Regain, constrain to far and further waning 
 Refrain I Refrain ! 
 
 How reign such fancies? By thy weird ordaining, 
 
 Or lain amid the fibres of my brain ? 
 The vane of thought turned by thy mournful plaining, 
 
 Shrill strain of days remote and love long slain, 
 Shows plain inheritance of grief pertaining 
 
 To train of ancestors whose acts enchain 
 Old pain, far peaks of woe chill heights attaining, 
 
 Faint stain of ancient crime starts out amain, 
 The bane, the burden of Unrest remaining 
 
 Through wane of ages though no clue is plain ; 
 
ii4 l)e Dramatic in ills 
 
 Old vein volcanic, quicksands cruel feigning, 
 Or main in tumult as chance gales constrain, 
 
 My brain-palimpsest but dim trace containing, 
 Made plain, O Wind ! when thy fierce cries arraign. 
 Refrain ! Refrain ! 
 
 As he ceased, the wind, which had thrust in 
 its undertone of sympathy, rose so strongly 
 that the house trembled like a boat, and in the 
 close, creeping fog we might have been far out 
 at sea, for any sign to be seen of the city be- 
 low us. We sat in silence, broken suddenly 
 by a quick, urgent knocking. Brande opened 
 the door. Elinor's aunt stood there, looking 
 wild. Without heeding him, she called to me : 
 
 "How could you do it? Why did you do 
 it?" 
 
 " Because he insulted her," I stammered. 
 
 " He has done worse now ! " she said. 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Brande, while 
 I stood in speechless wonder. 
 
 "I mean," said she, still looking at me, 
 "that Nora brought some Chinese sweetmeats 
 that she said you had sent Elinor, but it seems 
 they were given her by Si-ki." 
 
 "By Si-ki!" we both cried. 
 
 " With word that they were what you had 
 once promised to get for her." 
 
 "Well?" I gasped. 
 
^Dramatic in 4flj) Stestinji. 115 
 
 " Elinor, poor girl, at once tasted them " 
 "And " 
 
 " and now lies senseless!" 
 " Great heavens ! " cried Brande, turning to 
 me. "Poisoned?" 
 
 " Poisoned ! " I moaned. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Chased by Brande as by a shadow, I in 
 turn tracked two policemen, through a net- 
 work of horror like a nightmare through the 
 foreign city in the heart of San Francisco, like 
 a clingstone in its peach. In single file, drop- 
 ping story below story under the sidewalks, 
 we slipped and stumbled in mildew, damp, and 
 dirt, where the coolies flitted round like gnomes, 
 where no window let in light, no drain bore off 
 bad air. We searched narrow galleries run- 
 ning everywhere, often bridging each other 
 like those of an ant-hill, and dark ways where 
 but one could pass. We bent at doorways 
 that barred our path at sudden turns, peered 
 into vile dens that lined the way, and, choking 
 and strangling, climbed above ground, where 
 we scanned the thousands of workmen in the 
 many boot and shoe factories and cigar-works ; 
 hunted through the numberless gambling-hells, 
 
n6 rje Dramatic in 
 
 but could not pass the old watchman, with 
 wrinkled face like a baked apple, sitting on a 
 stool in front of a red curtain (the color for 
 luck), before he jerked the cord dangling near 
 him, when bells warned, doors were barred, 
 bolts shot like lightning, door upon door sud- 
 denly thrust itself across our path, or a screen 
 slyly slid before us, turning us unaware into 
 another passage. In this way, through secret 
 signs, the whole ground-plan of a building 
 would shift and dupe like a mirage. We might 
 at last find a group of men merely talking, 
 with neither dice, domino, dragon, or demon- 
 pictured parchment card, button, nor brass 
 ring, in sight no copper with square centre 
 hole, nor other trace of Fan-Tan ; or find such 
 utter darkness that fear seized us and drove us 
 out. We viewed their pent, full workshops 
 and boarding-houses, each story refloored once 
 or twice between the first floor and ceiling, and 
 their lodgings where they are shelved in tiers. 
 We tried to find their courts of justice, but 
 found secret laws within our laws, like puzzle 
 in puzzle, and all in charge of the six-headed 
 chief power, the strong Six Companies, from 
 whose joint decree there is no appeal. All 
 hedged from us by a Great Wall of their 
 language, for what I heard spoken was not the 
 
&!)e ^Dramatic in M$ tH^sting. 117 
 
 written language I had learned from books 
 and of their ways, formed by such long, slow 
 growth that it is the soul of their past ages 
 which still lives it is the same Chinese who 
 lived before the flood who watch us now. 
 Worn out, Brande and I started for home, but 
 on the way stopped to see Tong-ko-lin-sing. 
 He had been playing chess with his friend Si 
 Hung Chang, who left as we went in, and he 
 packed the chessmen in their box while he 
 heard our tale, but said nothing. His face was 
 a clear blank when Brande asked about secret 
 societies. I tried all forms of begging and urg- 
 ing I could think of. He would not know what 
 we meant. He offered us cigars, and took his 
 pipe, as if he wished us to go his own pipe, 
 with a small tube on one side, in which to burn 
 an opium-pill. Too dear to him to trust in the 
 hands of a "foreign devil," I had not been 
 given a chance to touch it. Brande laid a 
 large gold-piece on the table. Tong-ko-lin-sing 
 smiled, wavered, but sank back into grave 
 silence. Brande poured forth a stream of 
 abuse. Tong-ko-lin-sing, bland and deaf, eyed 
 his Lianchau coffin with pride, and fell into 
 deep thought. I opened the door, and signed 
 to Brande to follow me. He did so, swearing 
 at the whole Chinese race as sly fools. We 
 
n8 f&tye ^Dramatic in Iflg 
 
 were half-way downstairs, when Tong-ko-lin- 
 sing shuffled out on the landing and called after 
 us, the English words having a queer effect of 
 centred force when intoned like Chinese : 
 
 " Red-haired devils ! barbarians ! all of you ! 
 Like bears beating their stupid heads against 
 the Great Wall. Are the black-haired people 
 not your betters? Great in mind as in num- 
 bers, did we not make paper and ink, and 
 print, a thousand years before your time? 
 and travel by a compass more than twenty- 
 five hundred years before your Christ?" He 
 shuffled back, but swung out again to add: 
 " Do we not excel in dyes, in sugar, in porce- 
 lain, gunpowder, and fireworks?" He started 
 toward his room, but turned back to cry: 
 "Think of our secrets in the working of 
 metals, our triumphs in the casting of bells, 
 our magic mirrors which reflect what is 
 wrought on their backs!" He seemed to 
 have really done this time, but stopped in his 
 door for this boast: "Look at our silk, cot- 
 ton, linen, engraved wood and iron, carved 
 ivory, bronze antiques, fine lacquer-work! 
 We make as brilliant figures in the universe 
 as our rare colors on our famous pith-paper ! " 
 His grand air struck Brande as so absurd that 
 in his nervous excitement he laughed. Tong- 
 
lje UJramatic in iUg IDesting. 119 
 
 ko-lin-sing darted out again, shaking his fore- 
 finger at us, as if in the Chinese game of Fi-fi, 
 or like our " Fie ! for shame ! " 
 
 "You foreign devils would be wiser than 
 your forefathers. You care nothing for the 
 sages of old. What do you know of our three 
 thousand rules and forms? You need a tri- 
 bunal like ours at Peking, a Board of Rites! " 
 Going through his door, he called over his 
 shoulder: " What is your poor country? Not 
 fit for our graves ! To be happy on earth one 
 must be born in Suchow, live in Canton, and 
 die in Lianchau. T-r-r-r! Begone!" 
 
 I had gone back a few steps, and could see 
 into his room. I heard a chuckle as his wide 
 sleeve swept carelessly over the table as he 
 went by it. He passed on. There was no 
 money there. 
 
 "Who could have foreseen such a lecture 
 from a jumping-jack in brocade drawers, tight 
 to the ankle, and a loose blouse?" said Brande, 
 as we hurried home. " He has the wholly 
 irresponsible air of a clothier's sign-suit swing- 
 ing in the wind, but he knows the points of the 
 compass! " 
 
 We found Elinor seemed to have changed 
 for the worse and still senseless. After Brande 
 left me I sat in my window, too sad and too 
 
120 fl)e Dramatic in iHg 
 
 tired to go to rest. I saw Goat Island loom 
 large, but blurred by fog, like Heine's phan- 
 tom isle, faint in the moonshine, where mists 
 danced and sweet tones rang, but the lovers 
 swam by, unblest, off into the wide sea. 
 Elinor and I, too, had touched no isle of bliss, 
 but passed comfortless into a sea of uncer- 
 tainty which might widen into eternity. Sweet 
 as it had been to be on the brink of owning our 
 love, what would I not have given now to have 
 some fond words? even but one kiss, to re- 
 call in time to come if I could not think of 
 such a loss. I lighted my room, and tried to 
 read or write, but in vain. I only thought of 
 her. " Oh ! " I groaned, " if I could have had 
 some proof that she loved me!" As I sat, I 
 saw in a long mirror the door behind me open, 
 and Elinor come! In misty white trailing 
 robe, she looked unreal. Could it be, I 
 thought, that they had left her alone to leave 
 her room in a trance? A thrill of joy shot 
 through me that she should even uncon- 
 sciously come straight to me. I sprang to my 
 feet and turned toward her to find I was 
 alone! I sank again in my chair. Was I 
 losing my wits? No she was there there 
 in the mirror, looking at me with the deepest 
 woe in her face ! She reached her arms to- 
 
&lje ^Dramatic in ills fttestins. 121 
 
 ward me, as if she longed to embrace me, and 
 looked so sorry, so sorry for me. 
 
 " Did I stay with Tong-ko-lin-sing, and 
 take opium again?" I murmured. 
 
 She made a gesture of farewell and half 
 turned to go. 
 
 "Elinor! Elinor!" I cried. 
 
 A spasm of grief crossed her face. Filled 
 with wonder, sorrow, and surprise, I rose 
 again, but she made a motion of despair and 
 left the room before I could turn. Did she go? 
 Was she there, or was my brain wild? My 
 own shadow, crossing the ceiling toward the 
 door as I moved, startled me. Had I not read 
 of the ill-will between shadows and the beings 
 that live in mirrors? Mad I should surely be 
 if I stayed longer alone ; yet I opened the door 
 most unwillingly. The dim hall was still and 
 vacant. I went to Elinor's door. Her aunt 
 said for the last half-hour they had not felt 
 sure she was not dead, but there had just 
 come back signs of life ; they could see that 
 she breathed again. The doctor had slight 
 hope. She gave me a slip of paper covered 
 with Elinor's dainty penciling. 
 
 " I found that in Elinor's pocket," she said, 
 "in the dress she wore when out with you 
 yesterday. I thought you would like to read 
 
i22 (l)e Dramatic in 
 
 it.*' And the grim, old woman really looked 
 with pity at me. 
 
 I wrung her hand, and rushed to my room to 
 read : 
 
 THE LOST PLEIAD. 
 "Merope mortalis nupsit." 
 
 Spellbound, by planet that I fain would spurn, 
 
 To circle like the forms in poet's soul, 
 Like them for starry heights to madly yearn, 
 
 Yet feel the tension of the Earth's control, 
 
 And ever drifting seem 
 Like blossom floating down restraining stream. 
 
 Through vast cloud-spaces, up and down I wheel, 
 While years, like vagrant winds, shift far below? 
 
 The stillness of the upper air I feel 
 Is like the rest the immortals ever know. 
 Here 1 forget how man 
 
 Through haste and strife his life can merely plan. 
 
 His life, like that reflected in a glass, 
 Knows not the sweep of that among the gods 
 
 Has its set limits that he may not pass 
 Except he vow himself to Art's long odds, 
 And Sorrow's eyes of woe 
 
 Must some time fix on each with baleful glow. 
 
 More wise than man the acts of Nature are 
 The little dewdrop pearling twilight leaf 
 
 Will take unto its inmost heart a star 
 Which mortals give but careless glance and brief, 
 Nor heed when slants the sun 
 
 What mystic signs gleam red, gold clouds upon. 
 
HJramalic in iftn EDestinn. 123 
 
 Forlorn, I fail forever Pleiad height 
 Float downward just above the phantom realm 
 
 Where Fame and Beauty, Love and Power, take flight, 
 Fate ever whirling after to o'erwhelm. 
 See rise the Day's bold crown, 
 
 Or muffled Night with stolen stars slink down . 
 
 With slow pulse poise while moonless midnights pass. 
 
 And vivid on the velvet dark is lain, 
 By memory painted, that sweet time alas ! 
 
 When yet I knew, as nymph in Dian's train, 
 
 The gods, the stars, the tides, 
 The sylvan fauns and satyrs naught besides. 
 
 Not for the goddess, stag, and hunt, I sigh- 
 
 Nor for my sister Pleiades above, 
 As for the blissful moments long gone by 
 
 In rapture and despair of mortal love. 
 
 This is the potent spell 
 Which sends me drifting down the cloud-sea swell ! 
 
 "It cannot be!" I cried, with bursting 
 heart. " Our drama is not ended. Some- 
 where, some time, it must go on, even though 
 she passes now behind the green curtain of a 
 grassy grave !" 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 The next day found no change in Elinor, 
 and found us again with the policemen, hunt- 
 ing Chinatown. Standing on corners while a 
 drove of coolies passed, crowding and bleating 
 
124 1) Dramatic in 
 
 like sheep, or the din of funeral music jarred 
 on our nerves ; down in cellars, damp and 
 green and gloomy as sea-caves, and the roar of 
 the city overhead not unlike that of the sea ; 
 up on roofs as cheerless to live on as leafless 
 trees, but full of coolies, like chattering mon- 
 keys no jungle of a Chinese forest less fit 
 for human life. And through it all I was 
 haunted by thoughts of happy hours I had 
 passed with Elinor, which came back like 
 scenes in another life, as if I had already gone 
 down to hell dewy garden-alleys with foun- 
 tains and whispering shrubs, blossoms and 
 bird-songs, radiance, bloom and sweet scent, 
 all that gave a charm to life unlike this foul 
 quarter as a perfect poem to vile doggerel, 
 music to discord, light to dark. One China- 
 man we saw everywhere ; on a corner across 
 the way; at the head of steps as we were 
 coming up ; at the foot of the stairs when we 
 were on a roof ; bowing at a shrine with gold 
 and saffron legends and scarlet streamers round 
 the door, and through the dim inner light and 
 scent of burning sandal-wood, the gleam of 
 tinsel and flare of lamp, before an ugly image ; 
 in one of what Brande called their chop-(stick)- 
 houses, feasting on shark's-fin or bird's-nest 
 soup ; watching a group in a wash-house who 
 
^Dramatic in Jtts ^Jesting. 125 
 
 play Fi-fi to see who shall pay for a treat of 
 tea; in a barber-shop, among those undergoing 
 dainty cleansing of eyes, ears, and nostrils, 
 trimming and penciling of eye'brows and 
 lashes ; or at a market-stall (kept in the win- 
 dow of some other kind of shop), haggling for 
 pork, or fish, or fowl its only stock; always 
 in the background of our scene, even in the 
 theatre, watching the ground and lofty tum- 
 bling, until the crowd and noise and bad air 
 forced us to leave, when, as I came out last of 
 our party, I nearly fell over him. 
 
 " Tong-ko-lin-sing ! " 
 
 "Why all this trouble for a woman?" he 
 asked, gravely. " Women are plenty, for to 
 become one is a future punishment of ours for 
 sin when men. I have seen her with you; 
 she wore the tiger's-claw jewelry you got 
 through me. Like most American women, she 
 would not make a * mother of Meng,' our wise 
 woman, who has passed into a proverb. Then 
 she wore black, which is ill-luck for body and 
 mind." 
 
 Nothing could have better set off Elinor's 
 golden hair and fresh. daisy-bloom than the 
 soft laces and black velvet she had so often 
 worn beside me at concert or play. I could 
 almost see her again with me at the thought. 
 
i26 I)e ^Dramatic in 
 
 I drew a deep sigh. " Where is Si-ki?" I 
 cried, making a vain clutch at Tong-ko-lin- 
 sing's sleeve. But the others had turned back 
 for me, and my Chinese teacher's jacket and 
 cap of black astrakhan fur soon melted into 
 the darkness of some too near alley. Had he 
 followed us all day from mere curiosity, or 
 could he help us? We went to his door, but 
 knocked in vain, though we all saw a line of 
 light under his door as we went upstairs, not 
 there when we came down. Disheartened, 
 we went home. Elinor had not changed. We 
 could not try to sleep, but sat in my room. 
 
 " I wish," said Brande, " you looked as full 
 of life and joy as you did the last time I saw 
 you come home with Miss Elinor." 
 
 "O Noel!" 1 cried, "if I could but live over 
 that last happy day, when to see her by me 
 was thrilling as music, when to breathe the 
 same air was exciting as wine ! " 
 
 " Like Socrates under the plane-tree," he 
 mused, " 'borne away by a divine impression 
 coming from this lovely place.' " 
 
 1 'Yes," I said; "life was all changed, my 
 soul was no more pent by bodily bounds, my 
 eyes saw everything by an inner light which 
 made all fair." 
 
 "That reminds me," said he, "of some 
 
JUramatic in ittg Resting. 127 
 
 verses about the picture over Miss Elinor's 
 piano." 
 
 He searched his note-book, found, and read : 
 
 
 
 AN INTERLUDE. 
 
 Tall candles and a wood-fire's fitful burning 
 Seem like a spell to conjure from the wall 
 
 One picture's living eyes, which, though returning 
 To shadows that engulf, hold me in thrall. 
 
 Against the wall a sad musician leaning 
 Across the strings has lain caressing bow, 
 
 But pauses for some thought that intervening 
 Yet holds him waiting, listening so. 
 
 As if of life so near, yet far on-flowing, 
 
 Some consciousness had thrilled and made him know 
 And long to step into the circle, showing 
 
 Such charmed one within the hearth-fire's glow. 
 
 My life, like his, is picturesque, transcending 
 What can be felt, or heard, or seen, except 
 
 When passing flashes of emotion, lending 
 Some added senses, over me have swept. 
 
 More sad, more glad, and more enchanting 
 
 And my existence may to angels seem 
 Like that of phantom through dim vapors flaunting, 
 
 Forever near some vague, elusive dream. 
 
 Perchance they mark me pause and look and listen, 
 In some bright moment's exaltation brief, 
 
 As if, though circling shadows oft imprison, 
 My music waits but for a turning leaf ! 
 
i28 l) Dramatic in ills 
 
 '"Spirits in prison/" said I; "where do 
 you think they go when first set free? to 
 another world, or to the dearest friend in 
 this?" 
 
 " That would depend," he answered, "upon 
 the kind of spirit that goes. One like Miss 
 Elinor now " 
 
 "Do not speak of her death," I cried; 
 "though I have thought before that you did 
 not like her." 
 
 " No," said he, " I do not, but with no rea- 
 son. It is a mere feeling that repels, and did 
 at first sight, lovely as she is. I need not 
 speak of her death to say that her spirit is one 
 that would" 
 
 I started. Elinor had come in at the door 
 behind him, and stood looking at me, making 
 a sign of caution, as if she did not wish Brande 
 to know of her presence. What had brought 
 her to my room? She looked very shadowy 
 in sweeping, misty robes and floating hair. 
 Perhaps she was not in her right mind. I was 
 sorely vexed to have Brande see her come to 
 me. I had even wild thoughts of blindfolding 
 him, while she should have time to flee. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked. " You look as if 
 you saw a ghost." 
 
 "Nothing," I faltered. While I wondered 
 
Dramatic in 4ft 2 Westing. 129 
 
 what was best to do, she looked anxiously at 
 me, and made motions toward Brande, as if I 
 meant to do him mortal harm, as if warning 
 me back from a crime. Such strange move- 
 ments perplexed me, so that, seeing my ab- 
 sorbed gaze, Brande looked behind him. 
 
 "What do you see?" he cried, as he 
 turned, and to my horror added, " there is 
 nothing here!" 
 
 Had he gone mad, or had I? 
 
 " Don't you see her?" I gasped, hardly able 
 to get on my feet, for a sinking at my heart 
 seemed to root me to my chair. 
 
 " Poor fellow! " he said to himself in pity. 
 "He has lost his wits! See, my boy," he 
 said to me, rising and walking toward her. 
 " Empty space, all empty space." 
 
 He swung his arms about him, but she 
 moved swiftly toward me, still with the same 
 air of warning me, then paused and spread 
 her arms, as if to keep us apart. 
 
 "Elinor! What is it? Speak!" I cried, 
 rushing toward her. 
 
 But Brande caught me in his arms, and by 
 main force bore me to a chair in spite of my 
 struggles and prayers. A look of despair came 
 in her face. Her warnings doubled in zeal and 
 number. 
 
130 Stye ^Dramatic in ills 
 
 " Let me go!" I panted. 
 
 " I cannot let you dash your brains out 
 against the wall/* he said. 
 
 I made one more vain strain to leave my 
 seat. He held me in a grasp of iron. 
 
 " What shall I do?" he groaned to himself, 
 and turned white about the lips, for unseen I 
 had made out to draw my pistol from my 
 pocket, and now suddenly held it toward him. 
 
 " Yorke Rhys ! " he shouted, but did not let 
 go his hold. 
 
 How can I tell it? The room turned black 
 to me. Then I found Elinor had fled, and my 
 friend lay at my feet with a bullet through his 
 heart ! 
 
 I have a confused remembrance of the board- 
 ers rushing in. I knew the glint of the French 
 lady's diamond ear-drops, and the down on her 
 opera-cloak, just from the theatre, the wrought 
 band of the German professor's smoking-cap, 
 and the palm-leaves on the Spanish lady's 
 cashmere shawl, thrown over her night-robes 
 as she came from her bed. They thought 
 Brande had shot himself, for I sat there 
 vaguely asking over and over : 
 
 " Why did he doit?" 
 
 There was a murmur of "Don't tell him." 
 The crowd gave way for Elinor's aunt, who 
 
JBramatic in iftfj ^testing. 131 
 
 came and laid my head against her breast in 
 dear motherly fashion. 
 
 " What does Elinor want?" I asked. "She 
 has just been here." 
 
 She only said, "Poor boy!" and smoothed 
 my hair. 
 
 Something in their faces smote me with 
 dread. "He is out of his head!" they 
 whispered. 
 
 " Tell me," I urged, "where is Elinor? She 
 was here just now." 
 
 The Spanish and the French lady looked in- 
 quiringly at Elinor's aunt. I turned my face 
 up to hers just in time ere I lost my senses (or 
 did that make me faint?) to see her lips shape 
 the words : 
 
 " Elinor died just now ! " 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 I lay on my bed, dimly aware of a long, 
 slow lapse of time. Was it of weeks, months, 
 or years? I could not tell. Sometimes I saw 
 the sunshine veer round the room, and knew 
 day after day passed, but not how many. 
 Some of the boarders came and went, to my 
 dull senses like visions in dreams : the French 
 lady, trim and straight, nodded and twinkled 
 
132 l) HOratnalic in IUj] Resting. 
 
 past, whiffs from the German professor's pipe 
 curled near me, the tinkle of the Spanish lady's 
 guitar rang faint and far. Elinor's aunt had 
 often shaken and smoothed my pillow, but I 
 did not know why nor how I came to be in 
 this weak state of mind and body, and no one 
 spoke of it to me even after I could sit up, till 
 one day Nora brought me a folded page of 
 note-paper, which, she said, fell from my 
 clothes when I was undressed the night I 
 fainted, and she had kept it for me, " because 
 it had Miss Elinor's writing on it." It was 
 "The Lost Pleiad." All my weight of woe 
 dropped on me anew. I knew what star had 
 fallen from my sky. 
 
 " You kept it for me all this time?" I said, 
 as I gave her some money. " I suppose I was 
 sick some weeks." 
 
 "Months," she answered. 
 
 I sighed. How much in debt such long idle- 
 ness and illness must have brought me ! And 
 I must have lost my chance for work in China. 
 Letters must be written. I opened my desk. 
 It had not been locked, and a pile of receipted 
 board and doctor's bills I had never seen lay 
 in it, with a letter dated the very day that 
 Elinor that Noel that I fell ill, from Brande's 
 friends on California Street. It told me that 
 
Dramatic in tt HJestinrj. 133 
 
 through his strong efforts I was given a place 
 with them, which made sure the income I had 
 longed for to let me marry and stay in my own 
 country. They had kept the place'waiting for 
 me, and meanwhile paid my bills. Through 
 Brande's influence ! And I had killed my best 
 friend ! I gasped for air, opened the windows 
 and walked the room. I could trace my troubles 
 all back to that infernal Si-ki. Hastily making 
 ready, I stole out unseen, and rushed to Tong- 
 ko-lin-sing. As I went in, his Tien-Sien lark 
 was filling the room with its song, standing on 
 the floor of its cage, which was on the table in 
 front of his master, who sat reading in his 
 bamboo easy -chair. Tong-ko-lin-sing was 
 struck with the change in me, and wished to 
 talk of it. 
 
 "I must find Si-ki," I said. 
 
 " In a field of melons do not pull up your 
 shoes," said he; "under a plum-tree do not 
 adjust your cap. If I go with you, it will look 
 as if I knew where to find him. I do not." 
 
 "You can find him. You must hunt for 
 him," I persisted. 
 
 It was like talking to a blank wall. He was 
 unmoved except to ask : 
 
 " The lady ?" 
 
 " Is dead. I must find Si-ki." 
 
134 &l) Dramatic in Jftj) Resting. 
 
 Quite shocked that I should be so straight- 
 forward, he said: "She has ascended to the 
 skies?'' 
 
 I nodded impatiently. 
 
 " To what sublime religion did she belong?" 
 he asked. 
 
 I told him. I piled a small heap of gold and 
 silver on the table under his eyes. 
 
 He spoke in high praise of her faith, but 
 added : 
 
 " Religions are many. Reason is one. We 
 are all brothers." 
 
 While speaking, he put the money out of 
 sight, hung up the bird-cage, and opened his 
 door. 
 
 We searched parts of Chinatown which 
 would have been barred to me without a Chi- 
 nese comrade ; underground depths, like the 
 abysses after death ; upper stories and roofs of 
 buildings that towered in air as if striving for 
 space to breathe; narrow, crooked alleys, 
 where loungers talked across from windows 
 about the American straying there, and 
 seemed to think I was led by Tong-ko-lin-sing 
 because in some way his prisoner. He offered 
 odd trifles from the depths of his sleeves, in 
 small pawn-shops, which held queer gather- 
 ings pistols of all styles, daggers, even the 
 
Dramatic in Jfls SDestinj). 135 
 
 fan-stiletto, clothes, beds and bedding, tea, 
 sugar, clocks, china, and ornaments. He 
 called on large warehouses, where the heads 
 of great firms met us ; and behind huge jars 
 the size of men, wrought silk screens, giant 
 kites, odd baskets, and gay china, but not be- 
 yond the queer foreign scent of such stores, 
 we were given rare tea in tiny cups holding 
 no more than our dessert-spoons. He drew 
 me through woody ards and vegetable gardens, 
 and over fish-dryers' sheds. All knew and 
 looked up to Tong-ko-lin-sing as one who knew 
 the written language, but could not help him. 
 He went to the Six Companies; but neither 
 the Ning Yang, which owns the most men in 
 San Francisco, nor the Sam Yup, which sends 
 the most men to other States ; neither the Hop 
 Wo, nor the Kong Chow, nor the other two, 
 nor the great washhouse company, could or 
 would tell us anything. One after another he 
 asked the throng of small curbstone dealers, 
 the pipe-cleaners, cigarette-rollers, vegetable 
 or sweetmeat venders, and cobblers, even the 
 gutter-snipes. 
 
 At last, the cobbler who always sits on the 
 south side of Clay Street, just below Dupont, 
 told him something which 1 did not catch, but 
 he heard with a start. He wavered and urged 
 
136 QLtye ^Dramatic in 
 
 me to give up the search. I would not. He 
 set off a new way, and soon darted into an 
 alley full of the grimy, blackened buildings 
 which can never be used after the Chinese 
 have lived in them, whose dark horrors re- 
 called some scene elsewhere known in what 
 past age? I saw round me only the signs of a 
 civilization older than the Pharaohs. I heard 
 the twang and squeak of rude instruments, 
 which, two thousand years before the three- 
 stringed rebec (sire of our violin) was heard in 
 Italy, played in balmy tea-gardens these same 
 old songs of love, difficulty, and despair. Here 
 crowded the strange buildings, here crouched 
 the quaint shadows of an Oriental city, known 
 to me when? where? in some dark-hued 
 picture? 
 
 As Tong-ko-lin-sing started down some 
 breakneck steps, I stopped a moment for 
 breath, and looked around me. A street-lamp 
 lighted a Chinese poster close by me, a signed 
 and sealed notice from the Chin Mook Sow 
 society, offering a thousand dollars, not for the 
 taking of two offenders, but for their assassina- 
 tion ! I shuddered and crawled down the nar- 
 row, shaky stairs. On the last landing from 
 which I could see the narrow strip of sky, I 
 looked up. Two great golden planets watched 
 
SEtye Dramatic in iHg iDestinjj. 137 
 
 me. I groaned and went on. I felt the crooks 
 of this under-world soon shut all out, like a 
 coffin-lid. My love was dead. My friend was 
 murdered. I cursed aloud. I followed Tong- 
 ko-lin-sing only by the strained tension of my 
 nerves, through which I saw him in the dark, 
 as plain as if in light, and heard him mutter- 
 ing in Chinese, monotonous as the shrilling 
 of the wind far overhead. He went in at a 
 door through a long passage that had a 
 strange smell that made me feel faint, a smell 
 of death till, after a moment's pause, as if 
 to make sure he was right, and giving me a 
 warning touch, he opened a door into a dimly 
 lighted den, while the sickening scent grew 
 worse. 
 
 "Si-ki!" he called. 
 
 What was this ghostly form, white as a 
 skeleton, which slowly glimmered through the 
 gloom before my amazed eyes? Dizzy from 
 the fetid scent, yet held by my horror as by 
 transfixing spear, with failing heart and quak- 
 ing limbs, I saw the ghastly figure cross the 
 rotten, slimy floor toward us. 
 
 " My dream ! My dream I'M murmured as 
 I clung to Tong-ko-lin-sing for support. 
 
 An awful voice, discordant as a Chinese 
 gong, the hollow voice of a leper, a voice un- 
 
138 &l)e Dramatic in illg 
 
 earthly as if we had been shades met in 
 another world, cried: 
 
 " Between us two ! Between us two!" 
 
A GRACIOUS VISITATION. 
 
A GRACIOUS VISITATION. 
 
 All those strange things and secret decrees and unrevealed trans- 
 actions, which are above the clouds and far beyond the regions of 
 the stars, shall combine In ministry. Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 Who sleeps on graves, rises mad, or a poet. Tzigane Proverb. 
 
 S33 
 
 
 
 ' PPP 
 
 The first time so faint and far that I could 
 not tell it from the hauntings of the inner ear 
 known to all musicians, the chance strains 
 evoked for me by the differing keys of the fog 
 signals. 
 
 I lived in a region of remote sounds. On 
 Russian Hill I looked down as from a balloon; 
 all there is of the stir of the city comes in dis- 
 tant bells and whistles, changing their sound, 
 just as the scenery moves, according to the 
 state of the atmosphere. The islands shift as 
 if enchanted, now near and plain, then re- 
 moved and dim. The bay widening, sapphire 
 blue, or narrowing, green and gray, or, before 
 
142 & (Orations Visitation. 
 
 a storm, like quicksilver. The hills over the 
 water drawing close, green or snowy, showing 
 whether their buildings miles away are of 
 brick or wood, or all is thrust into blue dis- 
 tance, or brushed away, a bank of fog looking 
 as if the world reached no farther. The city 
 lights twinkling of long lines of romances or 
 hidden by the gray slides that shut off all in 
 life but the wails of warning to the sailors. 
 Great heat spreading stretches, as of piles 
 of white wool upon the water. Sharp edges 
 everywhere bringing the city huddling into 
 itself, as in fear of the coming storm. It 
 is like having genii for companions, so pictur- 
 esque and constantly varying are the alternate 
 movement and exchange of currents from the 
 sea of air and the sea of water, tremendous 
 forces of life, showing me personality, pulse 
 and arteries, as traced by Maury, who even 
 suggests for the ocean a heart the equator. 
 Their companionship enlarges and enriches the 
 mind, the air uplifting with its symbolic effects, 
 the sea responding to movements of far-off 
 worlds, and a highway for distant nations. 
 
 I watched not only our steamers and ferry- 
 boats and yacht-races, like a flock of white 
 birds hovering over the blue, but Arctic 
 whaler, South Sea trader, Mexican, Chilean, 
 
21 rations tJisitatian. 143 
 
 and Peruvian coaster, Chinese junk, Austra- 
 lian and Japanese merchantmen, Malay prahu, 
 double-decker, corvette, frigate, men-of-war 
 under all flags. 
 
 Never again my husband's ship, never 
 again ! 
 
 To have my house full of curios he had 
 brought from long voyages, and to be able to 
 always look at the shipping on the water, was 
 some comfort for the sore heart that sought 
 loneliness as' a wounded animal hides. At 
 first there were long, wakeful nights, when I 
 sat in my window, till the harbor-lights grew 
 like dear friends. Gradual healing came, in 
 the stillness which makes the town, although 
 within stone's throw below, seem yet un- 
 built; on the pure blasts from mid-ocean 
 spaces where none have breathed ; in the gor- 
 geous sunsets that give the meanest Cinde- 
 rella the freedom of fairy cities ; in never-to- 
 be-forgotten cloud effects, as when the aerial 
 sea hints knowledge of ocean depths, showing 
 mackerel spots or the Pope's signet, once, a 
 perfect skeleton of a whale, and, before a tem- 
 pest, a gigantic, livid hand, with its Saturn 
 finger torn out, pointed long toward the Golden 
 Gate, as if calling up a gale, or signalling its 
 coming from thousands of miles at sea. Often 
 
i44 21 Gracious bisitation. 
 
 the whole sky was of such terrific import that 
 I feared Michelet's waves, like a mob of eye- 
 less, earless beasts, foaming at the mouth, de- 
 manding universal death, suppression of the 
 earth, and return to chaos; but I learned that 
 a dread menace of the sky may mean nothing 
 here, ending in dire effects on distant waters. 
 I had no longer to fear for my husband's ship. 
 I could enjoy seeing a storm sweep in, slowly 
 blotting Gate, Presidio, Tamalpais, and Angel 
 Island, in my view hours before its descent 
 upon the eastern side of the town ; or black 
 clouds as of thunder over Tamalpais fringe 
 into trailing wreaths like smoke that blow in- 
 land, shaking loose rafter and blind, and 
 rattling door-lock; or hearing a gale beating 
 doors and windows, threatening down the 
 chimney, straining to lift the whole house, 
 and shrieking in wrath about it. 
 
 All this made the busy streets very dull. 
 Born with a sort of temperamental hasheesh in 
 my veins which makes a book affect like a 
 whirlwind, a picture soothe as manna from 
 Heaven, a piece of music seem crushing disas- 
 ter, I lived in exciting times, as if always look- 
 ing on at the opera of the Flying Dutchman. 
 This led to my rhyming about one of its airs. 
 
Orarious faisitation. 145 
 
 SPINNING SONG. 
 
 Wagntr-Listz. 
 
 I turn the wheel of thrumming whir, 
 
 Hear tread of life and love and hate. 
 I burn, I feel through humming stir 
 The thread is rife with grief and fate. 
 Witch-cat light purring, purrring light, 
 Breathe of high wind by wizard sold, 
 White horses' flight in rushing might 
 By lashing blast alone controlled. 
 
 Yo-ho-ho-ho! Yo-ho-ho-ho! 
 
 Far sailor-cries float, dinning long, 
 Blend billowy, fray in thinning throng, 
 
 I thrill, I play the spinning song. 
 
 Twirl, wheel, whose magic moan and drone 
 
 Shades golden hope with tint of gloom. 
 Whirl, wheel, whose tragic monotone 
 Braids holden scope with hint of doom. 
 The wheel the wheel the wheel the wheel- 
 
 Dream-spinner moving to and fro 
 Night hours reveal a plunging keel 
 Where rolling gale and breakers blow. 
 
 Yo-ho-ho-ho! Yo-ho-ho-ho / 
 
 Far sailor-cries float, dinning long, 
 Veer billowy, stray in thinning throng. 
 
 Sheer thrill, I play the spinning song. 
 
 Roll, fashion murmur, in thy gyre, 
 
 Of seashells' muffling, that is yet 
 Dole, passion, all the world's desire, 
 
 Brief foam-bells ruffling our veins' fret 
 
146 31 <S>rtui0us tositation. 
 
 Glide, slurring, slurring wheel, go round, 
 
 Mock cordage-wail of fated sail 
 Make blurring, blurring of a sound 
 
 As if all frail hearts did bewail. 
 
 Yo-ho-ho-ho! Yo-ho-ho-ho! 
 
 Far sailor-cries float, dinning long, 
 Blown billowy, spray in thinning throng. 
 
 I thrill, I play the spinning song. 
 
 In vain my friends, toiling up to see me, 
 urged me to move, saying it was not safe for 
 me to live there alone. I never felt lonely. 
 If not playing or reading, I had my reveries. 
 In these, since living here, the same scenes 
 came again and again, as if people sitting by 
 me had always the same thoughts which I 
 grew to know, as my husband and I from long 
 companionship read each other's minds. I saw 
 granite quays, a vast city of miles of straight 
 lines, utterly flat; against its pale sky minarets 
 and domes of pink and gray, as of great Baby- 
 lon blushing into view through the mhst of 
 time. Was I looking through telescope at a 
 dead world, or was this an immense, vague, 
 dreary marsh? A bog, snow- weighted alders 
 and willows here and there, and endless rows 
 of stakes along a plank-road. Big moose with 
 branching antlers, wolves shaggy and dark, 
 outlined against a moon-lit horizon. Black 
 
& (Sracions i)isilation. 147 
 
 troops of ravens and crows, blown, upset, 
 borne off helpless in zigzag trailing through 
 sheets of storm like a fall of white fox fur. 
 High terraces of birch and maple lengthening 
 into scattered pines, and yet fewer firs; then 
 the silence of centuries felt under the copper 
 moon, beside the rivers of molten silver of a 
 polar night. Sledge, barge, caravan. A lonely 
 ship becalmed upon her tremulous reflection 
 countless fathoms below, white upon the dark- 
 ness of night, with stars glancing amid the rig- 
 ging. A vessel rolling with slanting spar and 
 swelling canvas, flying through the foam of a 
 wild wash leaping windward. A knot of sailor- 
 faces, lowering and heavily lined, swaying 
 with the bound of the ship and showing by 
 fitful light of a swinging lamp below deck. 
 An island with tufted tree-tops, and beach so 
 white as to dazzle. 
 
 ^ 
 
 9* 
 
 
 PP 
 
 The second time I heard it with quick re- 
 membrance. An old French sea-song which 
 Richepin calls that master-piece of an un- 
 known, a revelation of man and high soul- 
 tides; the words are few, the notes but five, 
 the refrain only traderi tra lanlaire et trouloula. 
 
148 21 Gracious Visitation 
 
 yet, as he says, all the sea, the breath of 
 space, cries from wrecks, the mirth and the 
 terror of the sailor's hard life are there, and 
 heard at sunset it has the melancholy grandeur 
 of an evocation of Night. How often my hus- 
 band and I had together listened to it, the 
 favorite " chantez" of a French sailor who 
 voyaged with him for years ! Ah ! that very 
 day the Russian priest had read in my face a 
 famished heart. 
 
 Looking down upon the Latin Quarter, with 
 its rows of prim Boston houses, its Mexican 
 corner-stores, its French tiny conservatory- 
 fronts, the buildings showing the mingling of 
 foreign elements in its people, "the character- 
 istic Russian fleck of gold upon green" shows 
 the Greek church. I liked to go there some- 
 times, for the reverent attitude of a standing 
 congregation, the priests in picturesque hats 
 and brocade robes, upon carpets spread for 
 them, the swinging censer, burning tapers, and 
 chanting of stately music of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, allowing neither voice of organ nor of 
 woman. Here I listened to a relic of days of 
 hiding in catacombs, the thrilling Greater 
 Compline, with its striking effect of choirs 
 upon opposite sides bandying like a ball four 
 exultant words. The choirs alternate through 
 
21 radons tHsitation. 149 
 
 twenty-six phrases, all ending in " God is with 
 us!" which is at last sung by the united 
 voices. It is like hearing the earnest prophet 
 Isaiah himself, for his are the words. Thus I 
 came to know one of the priests, a stately old 
 man whose look was that of a human-faced 
 bull of Nineveh. I like to think I had a share 
 in what Aivasovky painted, that arrival of 
 relief from America to the famine-stricken 
 Riazan. By hard work I was able to collect a 
 large sum for that fund. When, on this day, I 
 gave it to the priest he said, after thanking me : 
 " You have a sad face, Mrs. Trevelyan. 
 Few of us get through this battle of life un- 
 scarred. I have known so many, so many of 
 the wounded. To those who live here for 
 years it is a city of haunted corners, haunted 
 not only by our own old footsteps and hopes 
 that rose and fell to their beat, but by 
 knowledge that here was a suicide, there a 
 murder, hither and yon the vague " found 
 dead." You look like a Russian friend of 
 years ago. It is one of those chance resem- 
 blances of face, or figure, or voice, that are so 
 strange so sweet so sad. For life has its 
 haunted corners, too, with their own tragedies. 
 Bitter is a famine of the heart ! I shall pray 
 for your peace." 
 
150 21 (>rcm0B0 fcisitatiott. 
 
 His lofty, Mithraic head-gear did not mar 
 the remains of romantic blonde beauty. As I 
 looked at him I wondered what heartbreak he 
 had known or caused. He gave me a costly 
 icon, the Madonna and Child with gold-winged 
 angels round them, all the faces finely painted 
 on porcelain, and silver arabesques hiding the 
 figures. 
 
 On my way home I went on the green hill- 
 top. All the southern portion of the city was 
 shrouded in smoke, it towered above in the 
 Afrite columns of the Arabian Nights, it spread 
 low like a tumultuous ocean, no more of the 
 town in sight than as if the Last Hour had 
 long been burning it. Against the east side of 
 the Swedenborgian minister's hermitage a tall 
 clump of scarlet passion-flowers added its 
 solemn legend to the scene. It was a purple 
 and white one I had known running over the 
 door of my eastern home. The crown of 
 thorns, sponge, scourge, nails, and five 
 wounds in this bloody guise cast a weird 
 gloom as if I had met the Witch of Endor. 
 Grave and tired I turned homeward. The 
 owner of a fine house near had gone abroad, 
 the care-taker, a sad woman who had known 
 better days, stood at the gate as I passed. 
 
 " I hate to go in ! " said she. " The house 
 
31 <B>radotts Visitation. 151 
 
 looks bigger and darker and more lonesome 
 every night ! How strange it is that you are 
 never afraid ! There has been so much crime 
 here lately, too." 
 
 I said some cheering words to her. When I 
 reached my house I looked back; she still 
 stood there. I thought I would go over later 
 and keep her company a while. 
 
 Alone, thinking of her, of the starving 
 Russians, and of the priest's words, an old 
 " charm" came into mind, and set me to 
 rhyming an appeal, not for myself alone, 
 though worded so, but meant as for all 
 stricken and despairing. 
 
 THE RUNE OF THE HEALING. 
 
 Come! forces of an ancient "healing charm/ 
 Begged of soft heart and lofty soul its balm. 
 
 Deeper than plummets fall 
 It has no limitary, 
 
 In height or breadth no thrall : 
 Help! by the heart of Mary! 
 Help! by the soul of Paul! 
 
 Aid, O, brave mother-heart, full heart of Mary, 
 
 For one decree we know : 
 
 "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul ! " Nor 
 vary 
 
 Our souls, white shields, all show 
 
 Like pure Sir Galahed's 
 
 A red cross come and go. 
 
152 & Gracious bisitction. 
 
 Rossini's Inflammatus , wild appealing, 
 Breathes, fitly, pathos, passion, depth of feeling, 
 In keen, uplifting ecstasy revealing 
 
 My heart inflamed for thee, 
 
 Thy heart aglow for me ! 
 
 Hear both mild reed, bluff brass, imploring, soaring, 
 
 "I weep! I weep! I weep!" 
 Ineffable the agony adoring, 
 
 Sigh upon sigh doth leap, 
 Grief rippling eddy spreads, 
 The strings in shudder keep. 
 
 "Because unloved, unloved, goes Love, so tender!" 
 Let me be one with thee, Great Heart surrender 
 Melt into thee there let me glide Befriender ! 
 The music-tide at neap- 
 While in I trembling creep ! 
 
 Kind Powers of overwhelming awe and might ! 
 Immortal allies against mortal plight ! 
 
 The ages cannot pall 
 Confiding tributary 
 
 That cries when ills befall : 
 Help! by the heart oj Mary! 
 Help ! by the soul of Paul! 
 
 Aid me, high soul of Paul, illuminating 
 
 The way through dark and mire. 
 Soul of Initiate, irradiating 
 
 Cheer from Eternal Fire. 
 
 Like pure Sir Galahad's, 
 
 Thy strength can never tire. 
 
<3>rad0tis Visitation. 153 
 
 Thou great Intelligences close beholding, 
 
 Thine things unseen, and the unknown, unfolding 
 
 All mysteries that life and death are moulding, 
 
 To thee naught can be dire, 
 
 Thy fervor 1 desire. 
 
 Of vast depths open to thy thought's entreating 
 
 What daring hints are thine, 
 Impassioned mystic ! " Grace and peace " thy greeting, 
 
 For to thy wisdom fine 
 
 Move with commingling threads 
 
 The earthly and divine. 
 Thy meditation as a planet beaming, 
 Thy intuition like a meteor streaming, 
 Thy revelation light from Heaven gleaming, 
 
 Let faith and hope combine 
 
 With love, the greatest, mine ! 
 
 Heart 
 That grieved and pitieth even passing smart 
 
 Soul 
 Caught up into wide vision of the whole 
 
 Hark to the eager call 
 From life but fragmentary 
 
 To love fulfilling all : 
 Help! by the heart of Mary! 
 Help! by the soul of Paul! 
 
 I went to a window, thinking about going to 
 cheer the care-taker, and the sunset kept me 
 there. The usual bands of rose and turquoise 
 of our twilight horizon were not to be seen; 
 the whole sky was dappled in pink as often by 
 
i54 21 (Stations Visitation. 
 
 day in white. The meaning of the low-hang- 
 ing smoke was shown. The air was in a 
 tumult of the strange symbolism which seems 
 to reveal personality, showing broken rainbow, 
 fallen castle, ruined bridge in the sky before 
 a storm. Here were glimpses of palaces, 
 churches, monasteries as of the Kremlin es- 
 planade. None of the sadness of Gothic art, 
 with its vain upward reaching, but the true 
 romance of Muscovite architecture, all its wild 
 caprices of blue, red, and apple-green, of rose- 
 in-bloom and lily-in-bud bell-towers, gilded 
 spires and cupolas, rococo and Byzantine 
 joined, like fantastic freaks of frost, and here 
 and there were touches of snow. There was 
 Frederick the Great's room, coated with amber, 
 the raised parts translucent; here the famous 
 pavement of agates. Lovely letters of the 
 Russian alphabet, in Greek attitudes, drifted 
 in line, like the decorative frieze in Oriental 
 palaces. Amid a crowd of half-revealed figures, 
 the chief one, in Byzantine style, three times 
 the height of others, even seemed to carry the 
 long sword of Paul. 
 
 The third time, the name flashed upon me, 
 
2t rations Visitation. 155 
 
 the Complaint of the Three Mariners. Close 
 by came men's voices in cooing, sputtering 
 Russ. Sailors often climbed up the hill to look 
 at the sea, as actors enjoy the theatre. 
 Now, the words came back to me : 
 
 "We were two, we were three, 
 We were three mariners 
 Of Groix." 
 
 When I answered a knock at my door five 
 unknown Russians, sailors, by their bronzed 
 faces and the dress of three of them, stood 
 bowing before me. 
 
 "Mrs. Trevelyan," said the handsome 
 leader, a haughty Pole in fur pelisse and cap, 
 "my name is Vladimir Stroganoff. I am the 
 supercargo of the Stormy Petrel. We know 
 of your interest in Russia and call to pay our 
 respects.'' 
 
 The second, a fine-looking gentleman, wore 
 a blue coat with gold buttons, a gold plate on 
 the shoulder with raised crown and stars and 
 a number, and a very white flat-topped cap. 
 He said: "I am Boris Volokhoff, formerly of 
 the Russian navy; later, master of the Jolly 
 Polly." 
 
 How could a master-mariner's widow re- 
 fuse? I thought they knew the priest. 1 let 
 them in. 
 
156 Qi racums thoitation. 
 
 The third was a big, clumsy man of over- 
 bearing way, with a whiskey-bottle sticking 
 out of his pocket, outlined through his old blue 
 boat-cloak with a look of hoar frost upon it, 
 the salt of what far seas! " I am Dmitri 
 Dmitrivitch, second mate of the Stormy 
 Petrel," he blustered. "I want to say to 
 you, Mrs. Trevelyan, you are the one woman 
 in ten that we Russians say has a soul ! " 
 
 The other two were in sailor suits. The 
 fourth was a wiry man, with onyx eyes and 
 the indrawn gaze of the wizard Finns; his hair 
 was like Finland granite, reddish speckled with 
 gray; he wore ear-rings. On his shoulder, 
 also bowing to me, perched a tiny monkey, as 
 if his familiar. 
 
 He and the boy bowed first to the icon. 
 Then he said: " I am Alexis Prayrafsky; and 
 this boy," motioning toward the last one, "is 
 Ivan Bitiagofsky, both of us seafaring men, 
 sailor and cabin-boy of the Stormy Petrel." 
 
 The boy was a sad-faced Kalmuck, wearing 
 one big earring. He handed me some flowers. 
 The monkey hurried down to present one to 
 me and dashed back up his master's arm. 
 
 " The castor-oil tree in your garden," said 
 the captain, "looks like an old friend. My 
 father had a plantation of it." 
 
& radons Visitation. 157 
 
 " It pleases us," said the supercargo, "to 
 find here our petunias, marigolds, daisies, ver- 
 benas, red poppies and thyme." 
 
 "Have you been here long?" I asked. 
 
 "Well yes some time," said he; " we are 
 so to speak marooned." 
 
 I concluded they were changing ships. 
 
 " You find this a contrast to the bigness and 
 flatness of St. Petersburg," said I. 
 
 " There 's nothing here like St. Isaac's; that 
 cost millions," the boy burst forth. " To gild 
 the copper of the cupola fourteen bushels of 
 English ducats were melted down. Fourteen 
 bushels of ducats! Our Nevsky shrine is a 
 pyramid fifteen feet high, a ton and a half of 
 pure silver! " 
 
 "You would like Gautier's words about St. 
 Petersburg," said I, "a city of gold upon a 
 horizon of silver." 
 
 " Our sky," said the supercargo, "is never 
 sapphire; it is like opal or the chill blue of 
 steel." 
 
 "Always," added the captain, "like late 
 afternoon on your Atlantic coast." 
 
 " There are times when this looks like a 
 foreign seaport," I said, "when the water 
 seems to have risen and crowded the city 
 under the hills; there are views from these 
 
158 !3l (Stations Visitation. 
 
 corners satisfying as food, like the eastward 
 glimpse from Jackson and Taylor streets." 
 
 "The water is always threatening," said 
 the Finn, "to carry out the Mexican monk's 
 old prophecy of this city's drowning." 
 
 " There are none of these illusions on the 
 stern coast of the prim Puritans and their 
 descendants," said the captain. " Mirage be- 
 longs to a different class of people." 
 
 "An atmosphere of miracle," I said, "suits 
 a city of a saint." 
 
 "We have no begging friars in Russia," the 
 mate boomed at me in a hoarse voice. " It is 
 not your St. Francis that interests Russians, 
 but your bear, the favorite animal of our St. 
 Sergius." 
 
 The boy had run to a window. "Look!" 
 he cried. "A shooting star ! Come to fetch 
 souls!" 
 
 I saw a glance of meaning going from one to 
 another till all five had caught it. 
 
 " One of our superstitions," said the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 I brought forward my samovar a.n& made tea, 
 serving it in their fashion in glasses, with 
 lemon and big lumps of sugar for them to hold 
 and nibble now and then, the monkey joining 
 in this. The Kalmuck slyly spilled drops 
 
Qt rations Visitation. 159 
 
 toward the north, south, east, and west, like 
 the tribute paid by the New Mexican Indians. 
 
 " I used to wish,'* said 1, " that my husband 
 would go to Russia to bring me beautiful things 
 made there." 
 
 They glanced at each other. Presently the 
 supercargo drew from his pocket and showed 
 me bracelets of globes of crystal and of ame- 
 thyst. The Finn had a spoon carved by monks 
 with the text: "Seek by prayer and supplica- 
 tion." Stroganoff brought out a necklace of 
 rose tourmalines set with diamonds. The 
 sailor showed turquoises from the old mines of 
 Nishapur, dozens set in rolls of wax. The 
 mate's boat-cloak had hidden bolts of tissues 
 woven with gold and silver threads, and slip- 
 pers of gay morocco covered with gold em- 
 broidery. Volokhoff showed a brooch of 
 exquisite niello work, and then a Moldavian 
 woman's necklace of gold coins. The monkey 
 darted upon their glitter and ran home proudly 
 wearing it. 
 
 I vainly tried to buy some of the finery. 
 They beamed upon me with smiling refusal 
 that showed their gleaming teeth. " No, no; 
 not these," they said, and put them away. 
 
 " I would like to show you some Russian 
 ornaments a neighbor has," I said; "we can- 
 not tell the inscriptions." 
 
160 & rations thsitation. 
 
 1 started toward the door. There was a 
 general rising. 1 found myself surrounded 
 and got back to my chair, but in the gentlest 
 manner, by my big-waisted, baby-eyed callers. 
 
 "No," said the captain; "let us look at 
 your curios ." 
 
 They politely feigned interest in what could 
 not have been new to them : costly shawls of 
 palm-leaf covered Cashmere, and heavily em- 
 broidered crape, of which, with Flemish guipure 
 lace, I had made portieres and mantel-drapery; 
 French trifles in porcelain, gold, and ivory; 
 crystal and gold perfume-caskets, a fan that 
 was Pompadour's, some Sevres cups and 
 saucers; rare old amber Satsuma jars; huge 
 polar-bear skins ; wide-spread antlers ; carved 
 tusks, odd bronzes, Parian statuettes and 
 groups; an emu's egg of palest green, a large 
 fan of white peacock feathers, a carved teak- 
 wood table from India ; a cherry-stone brace- 
 let bearing three years of Chinese carving; 
 bits of the Constitution, the Bounty, and 
 the first Atlantic cable ; from Corea a carved 
 tortoise-shell necklace and box topped with 
 dragons and a little ivory god that was 
 never to be laid on its back or it would, 
 bring ill-luck on the one who gave it to my 
 husband, her family had owned it for three 
 
01 <B>raci0n0 Visitation 161 
 
 centuries; things collected through many 
 years, numberless, of varying worth, but 
 some of extreme value. 
 
 The Russians vied with each other in trying 
 to please me with stories. The mate told of 
 trees of seaweed, mountain-ranges of coral, 
 and great grottoes of amber. The supercargo 
 named treasures of the Troitsa monastery: 
 coats of mail wrought with verses from the 
 Koran; the chain of the first of the Roman- 
 offs, every link with an engraved prayer and 
 one of the Czar's titles, ninety-nine in all; 
 Gospels encrusted with gems and clasped by 
 cameos; diamond-set chalices; and brocade 
 dalmatics worked with flowers in precious 
 stones. The captain mentioned the African 
 trees of silver-gray, where the gray parrots 
 roost unseen. 
 
 The boy told of the Granovitai'a Palata, the 
 Facet Palace, the whole inside known as the 
 Gilded Room, its gold walls covered with dark 
 paintings and legends in the fine old Sclavonic 
 letters, the very height of the dazzling, gloomy, 
 and imposing. " It is like walking in a story- 
 book," he said. 
 
 They were all pleased with a pastel an 
 artist friend had made for lines of mine, which 
 he had framed beneath it. 
 
1 62 Qt radons toisitation. 
 
 A FOG. 
 
 Dim, shifting shape, the buildings loom afar, 
 Is it a driving snowstorm held in air? 
 
 Almost I hear the sleigh-bells' beating jar 
 White silence sound but faintly can impair 
 In scene like crystal ball of icy glare, 
 
 For Memory, mystic seer its visions are ! 
 
 Dim, shifting shape the buildings loom afar, 
 Is it a snowfall spellbound in the air? 
 
 I watch o'er tufted palm the evening-star. 
 
 Then aerial currents drifting, duping, snare, 
 The wailing fog-horn warns of harbor-bar, 
 
 On far-off frosty road I seem to fare. 
 Dim, shifting shape, the buildings loom afar, 
 
 Is it a film of snowflakes charmed in air? 
 
 "A fog is as mysterious as beautiful/* said 
 the captain. " There is a wide difference in 
 the stillness inside and outside. It has inter- 
 spaces where sound never penetrates; this 
 causes wreck even near fog- whistles. " 
 
 " In the next house," said I, "they have a 
 pastel much like this, but larger, by the same 
 artist; let me borrow it to show you." 
 
 Again I had almost reached the hall. Then 
 the supercargo was politely leading me across 
 the room, and the others were between me and 
 the door. 
 
 "Do not take the trouble," they were all 
 gently saying. 
 
21 radons Visitation. 163 
 
 " Let the Finn show you some of his 
 sorcery/' said the captain. 
 
 At once the sailor's arms were waving, and 
 the air was full of flying cards which returned 
 to him and were caught by monkey as well as 
 by master. Through our silence of r watching 
 him there came once a sound like a faraway 
 cry, and again I saw that meaning look go 
 round. Stroganoff begged for music. I played 
 Glinka and Rubinstein. Volokhoff sang a 
 Muscovite love-song, a mingling of joy and 
 grief; a smothered fire, the southern sun 
 and northern gloom. Dmitrivitch began to 
 bellow : 
 
 " Five betel-nut palms of Bombay," intones 
 of a fog-horn, but was checked by the captain. 
 Stroganoff played strains of Tschaikowsky's 
 pathetic symphony, showing me the trom- 
 bones' heart-broken cries, dying away, one by 
 one, at the close. 
 
 "Like expiring torches at a midnight fu- 
 neral," said he. 
 
 " Moliere's ! " I suggested. 
 
 "Juliet's," he said. 
 
 "Why," I asked, "do people speak as if 
 deep feeling could be only in play or song or 
 story?" 
 
 "Lord love ye, ma'am!" roared the big 
 
164 21 (B>rad0B0 bisitation. 
 
 mate, "we could spin you yarns that beat 
 playhouse and book all to tatters." 
 
 " I should like nothing better," said I. 
 
 "Tell her," said the boy, " about the galleon 
 foundered off Acapulco with crusadoes of gold, 
 chests of pieces of eight, wrought crucifixes of 
 precious ore, gold and silver bars, silks, spices, 
 costly tea, chocolate, and sweetmeats." 
 
 "I might tell of fire at sea," said- the cap- 
 tain, "or wild adventure on the coast of 
 Africa, when I was in the ' black ivory ' trade 
 and could have got one hundred blacks for one 
 white woman." 
 
 " I could make your blood run cold, Mrs. 
 Trevelyan," shouted the great mate, "all 
 about being hemmed in by icebergs, or chased 
 by sharks." 
 
 " Speak about the Manila ship," the boy 
 said, "that had four hundred and fifty in the 
 crew, carried a hundred and fifty pirates, 
 prisoners, and a three-million-dollar cargo of 
 gold, satins, musk, jewels, wines, and con- 
 serves." 
 
 "I can tell of St. Elmo's lights," said the 
 Finn, " or of were-wolves among some wedding 
 guests." 
 
 "Tell," the boy urged, "about when the 
 pirates counted out five hundred and ninety- 
 
21 <B>racion0 bisitation. 165 
 
 nine guineas in half and whole pieces, all of 
 Queen Anne's time, yet fresh and delightful 
 to feel of." 
 
 "She wants to hear," asserted the mate, 
 positively, "about a ship being ketched in the 
 bottom of a whirling blow, in pitch dark, noth- 
 ing left of creation but a hole of lightway up 
 over us, the eye of the storm, we calls it, 
 leering down to see how we takes it, or how 
 to upset us." 
 
 " I want her to hear," said the boy, " about 
 the three ships Dampier met, laden deep as 
 they could swim with tons and tons of quince 
 marmalade, that would have had eight hun- 
 dred thousand gold pieces only they got wind 
 of freebooters." 
 
 " 1 could make your face as long as a wet 
 hammock, ma'am," cried the mate, " about a 
 masked cap'n, and a lady made to walk the 
 plank." 
 
 " Come, come," said the supercargo, "Mrs. 
 Trevelyan is not to get nervous. Let us tell 
 her our own story. You begin it, captain." 
 
 "That'll ease off a point or so for each 
 man," thundered the mate, "a five-stranded, 
 left-handed twister !" 
 
 The captain began : " The Jolly Polly was 
 a tramp vessel, now smuggling opium, or 
 
i66 21 radons Visitation. 
 
 musk, then in the ' black ivory ' line, another 
 time carrying pirates' treasure. I need not 
 say what cruise I was on when we sighted a 
 ship we had several times heard of from ves- 
 sels spoken. They reported her as 'acting 
 strangely.' She carried a distress-signal, the 
 reversed ensign, and colors that cried 'To 
 Speak/ yet she was said to run away from 
 any attempt to reach her. When we saw her 
 she carried fore-sail, lower top-sail, spanker 
 and main-sail set; everything else was in con- 
 fusion, as if dropped suddenly. She was 
 painted blue, with a fine red and gold line her 
 length, and a red, blue and gold figure-head. 
 The name on the stern read The Stormy 
 Petrel. She seemed to wait for us, gently 
 swaying, as if but a mermaid's fan in motion, 
 she was so far and small to the naked eye. 
 There was no gleam from polished brass and 
 glass as she moved ; all looked dingy. As we 
 came up there was no answer to our cries. 
 Nobody showing on deck to watch the coming 
 of the boat I sent, I had curiosity enough to 
 set off myself in a second boat. There was 
 no one on board the Petrel. We could find no 
 trace of hurt; she had not struck a reef or 
 been run into; stern, sternpost, and rudder 
 were all right. Seamen's chests and some of 
 
& (^radons bisilaiian. 167 
 
 their clothes left about were dry. They had 
 not met very heavy weather. A little bottle 
 of vanilla on the cook's table had not been 
 upset; the pitch in the water-ways had not 
 started; hull, masts, and yards were perfect; 
 there was not a crack in the grimed paint of 
 the deck-house. The deck was smeared 
 everywhere with old stains of blood. It was 
 flush-decked ; you looked from the taff rail along 
 a platform whose length was broken only by 
 skylights, the forward windlass, and once by 
 the galley long-boat, but that and all the boats 
 were gone. The cabin was large, panelled in 
 pale blue and red and gold, and light with a big 
 stern window. There was a woman's long 
 black cloak here, a lace handkerchief and 
 carved ivory fan there. A table under the lamp 
 bore books and papers. A woman's diary, 
 made of loose sheets, had dates of months 
 after the last entry in the log, but now weeks 
 old. It was merely bits about the weather 
 and her being all alone. There was a piece of 
 poetry in the same writing on a sheet of paper 
 fallen to the floor, where there was also a 
 small square of paper, folded once, with the 
 word 'Act/' on it, in a man's writing. The 
 captain's chronometer, sextant, and charts 
 were gone. No bills of lading, no manifest, 
 
1 68 Ql (^rations Visitation. 
 
 were found. The cargo had been taken away, 
 but small wedges of gold were scattered about, 
 proving it had been a treasure ship. Why it 
 had been deserted was a riddle we did not 
 think we could ever solve, but in the hope of 
 salvage-claim we took the Petrel in tow. 
 
 "Some days later we all heard^ one dark 
 night, the whistling of a Russian air, but could 
 not tell where it came from. The crew thought 
 the Petrel might be haunted; but I was sure 
 the sound came from another side, and long 
 hung over the starboard rail listening. It came 
 and went, a fine, loud whistling of a beautiful 
 old tune, slowly louder and louder, till the man 
 in the forecastle cried : 
 
 " ' It's right off the bow, sir; but I don't see 
 anything.' 
 
 " Again and again it rose and fell, with a 
 hopeless sadness in it that curdled my blood. 
 I ordered the Polly stopped and had rockets 
 sent up. At last these showed a little boat 
 drifting close by, with a boy sitting in it and 
 whistling, whistling, with no sign of seeing 
 or hearing us. I had a boat lowered for a mate 
 and some rowers, and had port-fires burning 
 to show them how to find the boy and come 
 back to us. When the boy was hoisted on 
 board he cried : 
 
Qt (Sradons Visitation. 169 
 
 cap'n and the second mate! Why 
 have n't I come across 'em?' 
 
 "He was dazed and could hardly be made 
 to eat and drink what was brought him, and 
 soon fell into the dead sleep of exhaustion. To 
 all our questions his only reply was once to 
 exclaim : 
 
 "'Oh! I was so afraid of drifting ashore 
 and finding Chocolate Charley and his 
 gang!'" 
 
 The captain rose, and saying "Allow me," 
 carried a light from the mantelpiece to a table. 
 It was the third time he had moved the lamps ; 
 he had them now near windows. I concluded 
 that his nerves took whims. 
 
 "I wish I hadn't! cried the boy. "I 
 wish I had'nt! But how could I know ? And 
 I was so afeard ! It was blessed hard on me, 
 too ! When I see the Jolly Polly I thought it 
 was only one of my dreams till I see it was 
 tugging another one that lurches and peeps from 
 behind just as if on the lookout for me, but 
 trying not to have me find out it was the 
 Stormy Petrel. I was in one of my queer 
 spells. I could n't help myself. I let 'em take 
 me on board. When they all crowds round, 
 asking this and that, at first I says : 
 
 " ' I don't know about that ship.' 
 
1 70 & radons faisilation. 
 
 " But I used to sit and stare at it so that 
 Cap'n Volokhoff says at last: 
 
 " * You do know about the Petrel ; I see it in 
 your face.' 
 
 '" Where is the lady?' says I, for 1 was 
 most dead with wanting to know. 
 
 " ' There was nobody on the Petrel when we 
 found it,' says he. 
 
 "My heart was full; I couldn't see. I 
 burst out crying, and cried a good while, for all 
 I had left her there alone. She was so kind, 
 and pretty enough for a figure-head, and I 
 liked her so much till the last, and then I was 
 only afeard. When they sets us adrift in the 
 Petrel we knowed it was going to be all chance 
 with us, but we tries to cheer each other up. 
 
 " She says: 'We must meet some vessel.' 
 
 " ' We 've got lots to eat,' says I. 
 
 " ' We are safer here than on some island,' 
 says she. 
 
 "1 says: 'We've got rid of Black Bill's 
 blue mug and his boosy set.' 
 
 "I tells her fine pirate-stories, only she'd 
 laugh when I did n't see anything funny. She 
 tells me of grand doings at court ; soldiers there 
 with big diamonds in their epaulets and sword- 
 hilts ; ladies in dresses of lace ' like a spider's 
 web,' says she, 'and worth as much as rubies 
 
21 <S>rad0ns tHsitation. 171 
 
 and diamonds/ She 'd been to a great ball the 
 night she come to the ship. 
 
 " ' I had not gone home/ says she, * when I 
 was forced to hurry to the wharf. 'I had to 
 pay the driver of a droski with my lace over- 
 dress. It was a fortune for him.' 
 
 "Her handsome yellow satin she wears 
 caught up all round over her lace-trimmed 
 skirts, rather tumbled and soiled now. She 
 hides it all under her long cloak, only on deck, 
 when it blowed chilly, she has to wear my 
 pea-jacket and the bo'sun's sou'wester ; though 
 that couldn't hide the fine lady. She was 
 good company then. She tells me about see- 
 ing nine bushels of pearls at the Troitsa mon- 
 astery, just left over from embroidery. She 'd 
 been to feasts where she had real caravan tea, 
 the ten-dollars-a-pound kind, not hurt by sea- 
 voyaging ; and oysters and grapes and water- 
 melon, brandied cherries and sugar-glazed 
 filberts ! 
 
 "We tried to forget where we was, for we 
 could n't bear to stay on deck, on account of 
 the splashes of blood, nor in the cabin it was 
 too lonesome. It was hard to take in that we 
 two was there alone, after all we 'd known go- 
 ing on up and down. 
 
 are going to meet the Portuguese 
 
172 & radons Visitation. 
 
 carrack that never come home,' says I, 'with 
 a castellated stern rising into a tower from 
 her poop and pooproyal, and in her hold 
 thousands of pounds' worth of gold and silver 
 bars, ingots, doubloons and ducats, gems, and 
 minted money. That's the ship you ought 
 to be on ! ' 
 
 "'It does sound like 'my ship',' says she. 
 
 " The time come when we didn't say much. 
 We watches for days a smooth swell, most too 
 lazy to go by us, and the slow sway across 
 the deck of the shadow of the mizzen-mast, 
 like a lullaby, listens to the straining of bulk- 
 heads, clicking of doors loosely hooked, and 
 the flapping of the canvas, till we feels we 
 might as well be dead and under hatches. 
 Then a breeze would send us skimming like 
 the gulls slanting against the wind or hanging 
 in the air round us, for the lady makes me 
 scatter feed on deck for 'em. When we 'd 
 feel the stir and rush we 'd cheer up and 
 watch the snow of foam behind us and see 
 things in it, same as you can looking in the 
 fire. She see flower-wreaths, hearts, and stars 
 mostly, but I could make out fortress and can- 
 non and smoke of battle. Dear heart ! how 
 afeard she was of a stiff blow, when the rig- 
 ging screamed and the mast-heads leaned over, 
 
21 radons Visitation. 173 
 
 and we has to steady ourselves by rail or be- 
 laying-pin. Once or twice in many weeks 
 we see ships creep out and in the haze on the 
 horizon. I hoists the colors 'To Speak ' and 
 a brand new white ensign I finds in the color- 
 chest. 
 
 "'To show 'em we ain't pirates,' I says. 
 'When they ketches sight of that the first 
 mate with a telescope will run up on the 
 main-royal yard, the second mate with a tel- 
 escope will climb up on the fore-royal yard, 
 and the cap'n will be trumpeting : 'Ahoy ! '" 
 
 " She laughs and says : ' Think of their sur- 
 prise to find, after all that hurrah, only a 
 woman and a boy." 
 
 " But the vessels we see gets swallowed in 
 fog or we did. And the Portuguese carrack, 
 too ! After we 'd been hurried along for days 
 by short winds, or stopped as if anchored for 
 weeks, she gets downhearted. I knowed by 
 her eyes that she cries a good deal, but she 
 never let me see her doing of it. She knowed 
 it was dirty luck for me, too. She asks me 
 about my folks and makes me tell her things 
 she could say to 'em in case she ever got 
 home and I never did. I wants to do the same 
 for her, but she says : 
 
 " ' It is better for you yourself that you 
 
174 & radons bisitalion. 
 
 should not name me. There is only one I 
 want to reach. I don't know where.' 
 
 " One day I see her leaning over the bul- 
 wark rail and goes up to her. She was looking 
 where the ensign shadowed a white streak 
 under the stern that made me think of a burial 
 at sea and the body sinking. 
 
 " 'Haul it down! ' she says, with a shiver. 
 ' It is too like a shroud ! ' 
 
 " So I does, but I hated to lose such a big 
 signal. Then she takes spells of walking, 
 walking, walking sometimes all night above 
 and below, all over the ship ; though, while she 
 was in her right mind, she was shy of the 
 bloody deck. I put off and put off trying to 
 clean it up ; it turned my stomach to think of 
 it. After a while she would n't eat nor talk, 
 but sits all the time writing, writing. I got 
 afeard of her big, wild eyes and crazy ways, 
 and when I see a branch with green leaves on 
 the water, I says to myself: 
 
 " 'We can't be far from some island; I'll 
 risk it I 1 I'd always been fond of sitting in 
 the cap'n's gig to watch the foam and spray 
 about the rudder when we gets a breeze, and 
 she did n't mind my going there now. Little 
 by little, I lays in provisions, and one night 
 when she was standing behind the interlacing 
 
Qt <5radons Visitation. 175 
 
 of the main shrouds, looking ahead, I sets to 
 work and slowly, one end at a time, gets the 
 gig lowered. Right you are ! The night was 
 mild, the lady had no wrap, her hair was 
 dressed very fine, and she was a-letting down 
 her long train. The next minute I knowed 
 she 'd be a-pacing to and fro, a-singing a polo- 
 naise, and a-playing she was at the ball. I 
 seen her do it lots of times. Over and over 
 I 'd put off going, and maybe I 'd stayed this 
 time if she hadn't set up her forlorn piping. 
 A polonaise is just a high swagger of a march, 
 no more dance of the hornpipe sort than stand- 
 ing still is, and when the music is sad, like the 
 ' Oginski,' it is all sobs and a catching of the 
 breath. So I drops gently after the gig, and 
 lets the ship move off with naked davits and 
 hanging tackle. I hate's to lose the Petrel ; as 
 I looks up at it the spars was tossing against 
 the moon as if it knowed, from flying jib-boom 
 end to the taffrail, the whole yarn, and was 
 uneasy as I was. I was sorry right off when 
 I could n't get back. A wind rose and carried 
 me away. I lost sight of the ship and found 
 no island. 1 felt it serves me right for desert- 
 ing the poor lady. Some nights, when the 
 sky was a mass of stars, there was liberty 
 and brightness of morning, but the others I 
 
1 76 21 radons l)isitalion. 
 
 Folks on shore don't know what the dark 
 means; at sea it is thick black, like velvet. 
 Sometimes all the top of the water would 
 flicker and gleam, as if thinking about me or 
 trying to tell me something. One black night 
 there comes up a wet squall, and the lightning 
 looks to be slanting right after me. I was too 
 scared to do anything at night, but on a calm 
 day, though I didn't know what way to go, I 
 used to row and row till I was dead tired and 
 didn't care what come. I was lonesome for 
 the lady, and I missed the noise of big sails 
 beating the masts. I knowed no vessel would 
 sight me, for often a haze shut the horizon in 
 to within a few yards, and in clear weather 
 my boat on the big blue made about as much 
 show as a bird. I found I'd only divided a 
 clove hitch, the lady and I had each now one 
 to ourselves. So I goes on, day after day, 
 night after night, never knowed when some 
 big monster might knock my boat over and 
 drag me down, and soon I had nothing left to 
 eat. One night the full moon hangs like a 
 big gold-piece in the sky, and I could seem to 
 hear the lady singing the Ukrainian love-song, 
 * The Moon.' I could n't bear to hear her it 
 was sweet, but just like storm-clouds coming 
 up, it made me want to cry yet the time had 
 
31 radons bisitation. 177 
 
 come when I begins to whistle it for company 
 every night. I got forgetful spells, when I 
 didn't know how I come to be there alone, 
 and, by the powers! each day and night 
 seemed a year long. It was a rum start to 
 find the Jolly Polly had got me, but the queer- 
 est of all was when the lookout soon after 
 sighted an island, so far away, shining and 
 sparkling, and the water pounding so white on 
 the reef I thinks of a bit of green glass dropped 
 in snow. The air was so clear, like looking 
 through a telescope, we see a man come to the 
 shore long afore we gets nigh. The sun was 
 like a ball of fire sinking into an ocean as of 
 blood ; there was a red glare on the whitening 
 breakers, on clouds of sea-birds, on the dazzle 
 of green and white, and on that figure standing 
 on the beach, as if he 'd sent for us, the man 
 the crew of the Petrel thought had danger in 
 him, they says : 
 
 " ' He and his shadow is the worst cards in 
 the pack ! ' 
 
 " It was calm as if he had been tying up 
 the winds in knots of his handkerchief. Here 
 was the Petrel coming right back where 
 she'd been set adrift, and there stood, by 
 the men's yarns, a Finn who could sail a 
 ship in contrary winds. 
 
178 Qt radons thsitatian. 
 
 "'The Knave of Spades/ they calls him, 
 'and his shadow, the Nine Spot?' 
 
 "There was a little imp standing beside 
 him, no bigger than a sprit-sail knot, and I 
 says to myself : 
 
 '"That's the Ace!' 
 
 Here the restless boy left the room, run- 
 ning to the front door and back. I thought he 
 feared the Finn might not like his words ; still 
 he had been dodging out and in all the 
 evening. 
 
 "When I see two ships driving tandem," 
 said the sailor, "and as they draws near 
 makes out that the hind one is the Petrel, I 
 was struck all of a heap. 
 
 " ' Shiver my timbers ! ' says I to the mon- 
 key. ' If it ain't the whole blessed ship, from 
 cross-trees to kelson ! ' 
 
 "And the monkey takes off his cap and 
 scratches his head and smooths his chin, and 
 tries, too, to think it all out. 
 
 " I see the boy on deck of the Polly, but no 
 sign of the lady. They sends a boat off for 
 me, and when I climbs aboard the vessel, here 
 is Ivan ready to square off at me. 
 
 " 'Do you know each other?' says the 
 captain. 
 
 "'It's the Knave of Spades! He has got 
 
& (^radons foisitation. 179 
 
 us back,' cries the boy. 'The Petrel was 
 here and he cut the hawser.' 
 
 "'What could you see in the darkness?' 
 says I. 'It was Chocolate Charley, 'cause he 
 suspects I wants to get aboard and leave 'em.' 
 
 " 'Where is he? Where are they all?' says 
 Ivan. 
 
 " ' Gone to the bottom or come out t' other 
 side of the world ! ' says I. ' Black Bill give 
 me a mauling, and they clears out when I 
 knowed nothing. Where's the lady?' 
 
 " ' Gone,' says he, and turns his back. 
 
 " The Petrel had a fiery set of Malays, Por- 
 tuguese, Chileans, and a lot of half-breeds. 
 Some of 'em had been ugly and put in irons ; 
 that cripples us by want of hands, and a big 
 blow drives us leagues and leagues out of our 
 course. They lays it all to the Finn. One 
 dark night I was at the wheel, but I knows 
 what 's going on, that the first mate, who was 
 on watch, is being gagged and bound. It 
 wa' n't no use for me to try to stop it. 
 
 " Black Bill, one of the Malays, says to me: 
 ' Old Jack of Spades, just keep off ! You 
 might have put one of your spells on 'em and 
 saved us this trouble. But we '11 keep you to 
 whistle up winds for us.' 
 
 "Chocolate Charley, a quadroon, and 
 
i So & radons Visitation. 
 
 Gentleman George, a Portuguese, who might 
 have been an earl, he was so high and mighty 
 and lazy, gets the cap'n and second mate on 
 deck by some trick, and then has four men 
 seize each one. 
 
 "'Now/ they says, 'we've taken the 
 ship! You've got to agree to navigate her 
 where we say, or we '11 cast you adrift.' 
 
 " The cap'n was pluck clear through. He 
 swears blue streaks and thunders out : ' I 
 scorn to even answer you ! ' 
 
 " The mate loves a fight, and he sets to and 
 trips up two of the men holding him, and 
 punches another on the head and doubles up 
 the fourth by a dig in the ribs. 
 
 "'Look out for squalls, cap'n!' he says. 
 "I '11 attend ioyour men now.' And he steers 
 for 'em. 
 
 "There was an orderly set on board, too; 
 they gets at the arms-chest, as well as the 
 others, and comes a-running up and takes 
 sides agin Chocolate Charley and his men, 
 and so here was as pretty a fight as ever you 
 see, bang of pistol and clash of cutlass in a 
 pitched battle right off and the deck running 
 blood. 
 
 " 'You ought to have sanded the deck first, 
 man-of-war fashion,' I sung out. 
 
01 (Smmoas toisitation. 181 
 
 "'You mind your wheel!' hollers Bill. 
 We '11 sand the deck with bodies ! ' 
 
 ' ' There was a good deal of dull thumping of 
 the deck, and many goes overboard without a 
 boat and with a stiff air of thinking they could 
 walk the water, or not caring whether land 
 or water waits for their feet. The first mate 
 was one of these, died where he was gagged 
 and bound, maybe from fright at being help- 
 less. There was few left of the good men 
 and true sort, and they was mostly the scared 
 ones who never shows fight. The launch was 
 lowered, the cap'n and second mate forced to 
 go over into it by pistols held at their heads. 
 The cap'n was fond of his ship, let alone the 
 disgrace of losing a treasure-cargo, and as the 
 Petrel sheers off his last look at us was pitiful. 
 I knowed he was steering near the wind; 
 they 'd killed him as much as if they 'd shot 
 him. He was speechless, but the mate yells 
 and yells back till the ship lost hail of him, 
 telling the leaders of the mutiny what blasted 
 fools they was, for none of 'em could navigate. 
 The first thing was to help themselves from 
 the ship's stores, and they drinks all hands 
 quiet for a spell. The poor lady had heard 
 the row and locks herself up and tells through 
 the door anybody that comes that she is ill. 
 
182 & (^radons bisitation. 
 
 She was such a frail wax-doll they cares noth- 
 ing for her more than for a foam-wreath. 
 They tears and yells and sings till they drops. 
 When they sobers up, they has a long talk and 
 decides to land at some island and bury the 
 treasure to lose its link with the ship. 
 
 " * There was a stiff blow last night,' says 
 Chocolate Charley to me, * and we knows 
 who called it up, you Jack of Spades, and 
 we're not going to risk our cargo with you. 
 Just you find a desert island now, if you 
 values your life ! ' 
 
 " I knows more about setting a course than 
 they thinks, so I steers in a certain direction, 
 though it was many days afore we sights an 
 island; and Chocolate Charley was suspicious, 
 and used to stand and glare at me and want to 
 curse, but hardly dare, 'cause they was afeard 
 of the Finn's power for bedevilment. And I 
 don't know but some of 'em thought I con- 
 jured up the island we finds. It did look like 
 a vision, with its coral-grit like drifts of snow 
 heaped on the dark blue water, its tall spikes 
 of grass, its clumps of cocoanut-trees with 
 tufted heads, its glaring green, and its birds of 
 gold and red and blue. We could n't get very 
 near, and the treasure has to be carried ashore 
 by boat-loads, and some of it gets swamped in 
 
21 (Srcuiotis Visitation. 183 
 
 the surf. I'll not deny 1 was looking at it, 
 hoping it might. It took several days. The 
 rest of us men goes ashore, too ; the scary ones 
 had to help. 
 
 "I finds out, one afternoon, why supplies 
 was taken off the vessel, too. Chocolate 
 Charley was the only one for burying the 
 treasure; Black Bill was for building a big 
 raft, to get picked up with it at sea, and no 
 proof it was a steal nor trouble of coming 
 back to dig it up, and nobody else finds it. I 
 overhears Gentleman George mutter : 
 
 " * If we leave it here, we 'd better bury the 
 Finn with it to leave him on guard.' 
 
 '"If you do,' says I, 'by the powers! re- 
 member me when the next storm rises, that 's 
 all!' 
 
 "At dusk I steals down to the water's edge 
 and waits for the steady ones, meaning for us 
 to get back to the ship on the sly and get off 
 with the lady and cabin-boy left on board. I 
 could navigate well enough. There was such 
 a thunder of big rollers I hears nobody behind 
 me. The first I knows I gets flung up the 
 beach. Chocolate Charley was sawing away 
 on the hawser with his sea-gully. He had a 
 sheet in the wind's eye, and never thinks how 
 taut the Petrel was pulling. When the haw- 
 
184 31 <S> radons Visitation. 
 
 ser snaps, it jerks him into the surf. The 
 vessel starts off in a hurry. I see the lady in 
 the big stern-window, a light behind her. She 
 springs to her feet. The boy shows dimly, 
 hanging over the bulwark rail ; I hears his 
 faint cry for 'Alexis ! ' for we gets on well 
 together. Chocolate Charley, carried by the 
 tide, goes plunging after, as if in chase, and he 
 never comes back. The scary ones did n't get 
 round. Black Bill and Gentleman George 
 come running down, thinks I cast Chocolate 
 Charley into the water, and falls upon me; 
 Gentleman George, too lazy to do more than 
 hold me, while Black Bill give me such a drub- 
 bing I knowed nothing for days. 
 
 "When I comes to myself there was no 
 noise but the beating of the surf on the reef. 
 It was broad day. There was this little 
 man," patting the monkey, "stands by me 
 and looks anxious. 
 
 "When he finds that I see him, he offers his 
 paw, as much as to say : 
 
 " ' Let me know if I can do anything.' 
 
 " I was too weak for a while to stir. When 
 I could sit up I see all the litter of raft-building. 
 They must have shanghaied the timid men for 
 the sake of having their help. They had left 
 pork and rum and biscuit, 'cause they was 
 
01 (B>raci0tts bisitation. 185 
 
 afeard of me. 1 had been simply marooned. 
 It wa' n't likely there was any cache, though I 
 hunts some, but finds no sign. The company 
 of the monkey was worth more than the 
 treasure there. Poor little castaway, he must 
 have been some wrecked sailor's pet, for 
 monkeys are not found on those islands, and I 
 never heerd of one that had evoluted into 
 being born with a little cap, which he has on 
 when I first see him. He was fine company, 
 not to talk, but a deep thinker ; he used to sit 
 by me watching the sea for a sail, and look 
 dreadfully old and wise seemed to know the 
 most of the two of us. He would climb a tree 
 and throw cocoanuts down, and take care not 
 to hit me, and watch me fish, as if he felt him- 
 self above such silly trifling away of time, 
 always staying by me, unless he sees 1 means 
 to shoot a bird ; then he runs into the woods 
 till the noise is over. Sometimes he would 
 study hard over a tattoo-mark on my wrist 
 and arm ; it was plain he thought it ought to 
 run up to my shoulder ; he would push up my 
 sleeve and puzzle over the matter and look up 
 in my face. So I made out that his master 
 must have had the long tattoo he was remem- 
 bering. When 1 first see the Jolly Polly stav- 
 ing along with the Petrel behind, I says to 
 
i86 & Gracious bisitation. 
 
 him : * By thunder ! ' And he claps his paw 
 on his knee, as if the sight was just what sur- 
 prised him. When the Jolly Polly takes us 
 aboard he acts all at home, and sits up in the 
 rigging as if he was hired for the lookout. 
 The boy and I could n't talk much about the 
 lady. We did n't think to see anybody belong- 
 ing to the Petrel, but as we goes into Honolulu 
 I grabs Ivan's arm, and says I : 
 
 "'Did you ever lay eyes on that man 
 afore? Over there, at the top of the landing- 
 stairs. See him stare at us ! ' 
 
 " 'Lord!' says the boy. 
 
 " But we never run afoul of Black Bill 
 and Gentleman George, and you may lay 
 to that. As soon as I stands up again on 
 that there island 1 spends the same hour 
 every night thinking of 'em and their raft, 
 and dancing three steps to the right, three 
 steps to the left, and three turns with my 
 arms raised to the full moon, and whistling, 
 whistling, whistling. You get great help in 
 such things from doing of it in a lonely 
 place; you needn't think your wish with 
 such heavy under-lines, so to speak; mine 
 took to 'em like pitch. 
 
 ' ' There was a shipshape gale come up that no 
 raft could live in / ' ' 
 
21 (S>raci0ns Visitation. 187 
 
 The sailor's little wizard-chum gave him a 
 pat on the head, as if in high approval. 
 
 "Who the lady was or where she come from, 
 nobody on the Petrel knew," the big mate's 
 rumbling voice began: "If she'd waited till 
 daylight the police or custom-house officers 
 would have ketched her. It was along in the 
 third watch she come gliding down the wharf 
 like a black shadow. As she sweeps along 
 the deck we see right off she was Ai, fore, 
 main, and mizzen. Under her long, black cloak 
 there was the edge of a primrose satin ball- 
 dress. She seems sort of wild to find some 
 one she expects to meet, and begs the cap'n 
 to wait wait wait! But he sees she was 
 a way-up lady and was afeard of trouble. She 
 didn't tell who was to come, only says 
 'Wait!' Our supercargo was a stranger, 
 who didn't come nor send word. The cap'n 
 scented some police business; so off we goes, 
 hand over hand, right on time. The cap'n 
 give her the cabin the supercargo would have 
 had, and the officials overhauling us afore we 
 starts did n't notice there was any door where 
 the cap'n slid the big screen he kept for scary 
 times. When we gets fairly off up she comes 
 on deck. She had all us officers taut in tow, 
 first look she was a dainty duff, with lots of 
 
1 88 & (Stations tesitation. 
 
 plums, but she didn't see anybody there. 
 She just cries and wrings her hands and holds 
 her arms towards the last of the Russian shore. 
 It is queerly level to what this coast is, so flat, 
 so low, just a pencil-line between sea and sky, 
 the slope of the water often hiding the land, 
 the lighthouse towers looks like sails. 
 
 "'Oh! for your wings to go back to go 
 back ! ' she cries to the gulls. 
 
 "The captain tries to calm her, and gets 
 her to go below agin, and there she stays 
 for weeks. She 'd only just come on deck, 
 biting lemons all day, when we had the 
 mutiny. There was great wonder about our 
 missing supercargo, and through that it at last 
 got told about among the crew that the Petrel 
 was a treasure-ship. We did have, but did n't 
 mean to have all hands know, six hundred 
 thousand pounds in gold from the big Golenski 
 mines, even where it was consigned kept 
 secret, so far, by the captain and first mate. 
 We had weeks of fog and days of gale, and 
 that tremendous blow, after some of the ugly 
 men had been put in irons, sends us far off our 
 track, and the Petrel was a lost bird till she 
 could have all hands at work. 
 
 "I never sailed along of a harder set; I 
 knowed Chocolate Charley, Black Bill, and 
 
& (gracious bisitation. 189 
 
 Gentleman George was ripe for the gallows, 
 but I didn't think they'd break out this trip 
 till I found them athwart my hawse. It was 
 a lovely fight after I sails slap in. Blows and 
 kicks and cries and stamp and rush of feet, 
 and roar of shots and cutlasses clashing, and 
 the deck slippery with gore ! Lord love ye ! 
 it was fun ! Never got so thirsty in my life ! 
 Pity the leaders got drownded, I'd have liked 
 to dangle 'em, a pretty row of 'em, from a 
 yard-arm ! If all the steady men on board had 
 been decent and loved fighting as I do, as a 
 baby loves sweets, we could have got Black 
 Bill and his gang into irons. And when that 
 mess of swabs cast the cap'n and me loose, I 
 was swearing mad, 'cause I knowed we could 
 have got the best of 'em, if there 'd been 
 enough spunk on board. When the cap'n see 
 his pet ship going off with this here precious 
 cargo right afore his blessed dead-lights and 
 knows the cruise is bungled for good and all, 
 he jumps overboard. All his plans about ship 
 and treasure, all his concern in life amounts to 
 a few bubbles floating by me ! I must have 
 been within half a plank of death, tossing in 
 that there boat nigh upon a month. I got out 
 of provisions; the soft-headed lubbers flung 
 only a little stock on board; it's a wonder the 
 
1 90 Qt rations Visitation. 
 
 likes of 'em done so much. I turned light- 
 headed, and when I hove in sight of the Black 
 Gull Ijknowed nothing of it; but they sees and 
 sends a boat. 1 was for fighting when they 
 sheers alongside, and they has to seize me. I 
 was sick for weeks after they left me at Hono- 
 lulu. When I gets outdoors I goes to the land- 
 ing-stairs and sits in the sun with other salts 
 stranded there, to do my share of jawing about 
 rot'ry storms and pirates. 
 
 " There was a Russian not long from China 
 and Japan that I had some talk with; but I 
 never thinks, by a long sea-mile, that he 
 knowed anything about the Petrel, till the 
 Jolly Polly come a-towing of her round the 
 bight. When I gets a bit over my own set- 
 back by it, I sees a sudden change in this 
 man's face, a whiteness, a set holding of him- 
 self together, as if some shock was a-threaten- 
 ing to knock him to pieces. 
 
 "'Do you know either of the ships?' 
 says I. 
 
 "He looks at me as though he did n't know 
 what I says; and it was plain he couldn't 
 speak." 
 
 The mate took the sailor's cards into his 
 ragged fingers with livid patches of nails and 
 set himself to playing solitaire ', keeping his air 
 
<3t Gracious tUsitatian. 191 
 
 of bluster toward the game, and fierce, even in 
 his silence. 
 
 " The day before I was to leave .St. Peters- 
 burg," said Stroganoff, "as supercargo on the 
 Stormy Petrel, a note came inviting me to the 
 theatre, signed by an unknown name. Lock- 
 ing my door and lowering my window-shades, 
 I dipped a glass-brush in a corrosive liquid and 
 wet the paper. The common ink vanished. 
 The page turned blank. Then, like a flock of 
 wild geese trooping across a pale autumn sky, 
 letters in another handwriting rushed into 
 sight. Here was a notice to appear that night 
 at an ' illegal ' tea-party to be given by our 
 'Circle' at the house of Vassily Botcharov, 
 late ataman or leader in a military affair which 
 had failed. This was to talk of and guess at 
 the unknown fate of some members of our 
 Circle who had been lost by the late failure, 
 doubtless carried off secretly. I was about to 
 give up this life of constant dread. I would 
 not have gone to Vassily 's but for the hope of 
 persuading my friend F6odor Bolchakoff and 
 his betrothed, Nadia Hilkoff, to also leave the 
 country. They had become too well known 
 as at least 'sympathizers' with the Circle. 
 Fodor was still a 'legal' man, living under 
 his own name, with a genuine passport, but we 
 
192 3t <B>rad0ns Visitation. 
 
 knew he had been lately watched. He had 
 ' tarnished ' his rooms by letting a refugee stay 
 there. Nadia was an aristocratic convert to 
 our Circle, had inherited money, and, to divert 
 suspicion, still wore clothing too costly and ele- 
 gant for one of her views. She looked very 
 beautiful that evening when we three mingled 
 with the dancers at a ball in the Taurida 
 Palace; her dress was of point-lace, over 
 primrose satin ; bouquets were held on shoulder 
 and skirt by clusters of diamonds, and there 
 was a string of pearls in her hair. F6odor was 
 as fine-looking as she." 
 
 The Finn, leaning toward me with his eyes 
 intently upon me, pointed to Stroganoff. I 
 had a vision of this handsome man, not in his 
 fur pelisse, but dressed as a military officer, 
 gold embroidery on his uniform, diamonds on 
 his heavy gold epaulets, buckle, sword-hilt 
 and scabbard, stepping through the stately 
 polonaise, with the beauty, in the famous half- 
 mile of ball-room and conservatory with 
 twenty thousand wax-lights on pillars, on 
 plants, tracing border of friezes and outlining 
 arches. 
 
 " Petroff, one of the intermediate class who 
 aid secretly and know movements and ad- 
 dresses of the Circle and its friends, said in 
 my ear, as he passed in a dance : 
 
Qt radons bisitatiou. 193 
 
 " 'The wolves are out to-night/ 
 
 " This need not mean that they would visit 
 Vassily. In a waltz Nadia whispered : 
 
 " 'I met Dudorov Katchenski.' 
 
 " 'Where?' I asked anxiously; he was one 
 of our 'disappeared.' 
 
 "'On the Nevskoi Prospect. Swiftly as 
 my carriage passed, he yet made the sign not 
 to speak to him.* 
 
 "We could not leave the ball too long be- 
 fore others." 
 
 The vision fled. Stroganoff wore his 
 pelisse and sat before me. The Finn sank 
 back, drawing the long breath of exhaustion. 
 
 " Hours after midnight are especially danger- 
 ous, yet Vassily's safety-signal in his window 
 awaited our coming. Nothing had been learned 
 of other vanished members. 
 
 " There was still to be ' removed ' the official 
 of the Fortress, who had lately escaped the 
 Circle. Such officers know our unbroken law, 
 not to follow if they take themselves off; but 
 he boldly stayed, and we had letters from the 
 prisoners complaining of fresh cruelties from 
 him. To decide who should move as our 
 avenging hand, Vassily wrote 'Act/' on a slip 
 of paper, folded and placed it, with many look- 
 ing like it, in a Chinese jar, stirred them as if 
 
194 21 radons Visitation. 
 
 a careful brew of poison, and offered the bowl 
 to each of us. No sign was made as to which 
 one had drawn the word. I feared Nadia's 
 heightened color betrayed her as its owner. I 
 felt sure she had it when she gave all her 
 jewels to Tchartkoff, an old gray-beard who 
 had just been to Paris to sell such contribu- 
 tions to the Cause and was going again. I 
 urged her and Fodor to leave on the Petrel ; 
 but, as we say, the mind muddled the reason ; 
 they would not hear of it. 
 
 " Tchartkoff startled all by flinging a big 
 bomb among us. It exploded from the fall into 
 a thousand bits of candy a French device. 
 
 " ' Is it ready?' he asked; for names of per- 
 sons or things are left out of the Circle. 
 
 " ' I have to fit the touch-holes, that is all,' 
 said Vassily. His wary ear caught some 
 sound, which made him snatch the candle from 
 the window, just as Petroff tore up the stairs 
 and burst, breathless, into the room, crying: 
 
 " ' Save yourselves ! The police ! ' 
 
 " I managed to murmur to Feodor and 
 Nadia : ' Come to the ship if you can get 
 there/ and then we had fled by different ways. 
 
 " I doubled and turned through our secret 
 roads, passing across gardens, and even 
 through houses, but as soon as I stepped into a 
 
& (Stations Visitation. 195 
 
 main street I was stopped, and twenty-four 
 hours later was on my way to Siberia. None 
 of our Circle were in my gang of prisoners. 
 There was no way to learn whether they were 
 in some other lot or were not caught. To ask 
 would bring them into danger they might have 
 eluded. So with torture about them for my 
 close companion, I crossed that awful desert 
 where villages show like mustard-seeds, scat- 
 tered so far in the white waste. To escape 
 would be only to die by hunger or by wolves. 
 Even the few trees hold their branches in 
 gestures of fear and despair, softened only by 
 powder and filigree of snow from a low sky 
 of unbroken gray. The Great Post Road was 
 punishment enough. I was saved from work 
 in the Nerchinsk mines. I met in Siberia a 
 high official, who, on account of old family 
 obligations, secretly helped me to join, in 
 disguise, a tea-caravan returning to China. 
 Another journey of week after week, that 
 long land route to Shanghai, by sleigh through 
 Siberia, camel through Tartary, boat and mule 
 through China; but now a sense of freedom 
 gave me strength. 
 
 "Uncertain what to do, weary in mind and 
 body, I wandered to Nagasaki, and then to 
 Honolulu, where I lingered, not knowing that 
 
196 Ql racious bisitation. 
 
 I waited to see, with amazement, the arrival 
 of the Petrel, to hear the story of the 
 captain of the Polly, and to walk up on his 
 left and say: 
 
 " 'I was the supercargo of that ship.' 
 
 " I steps up on the cap'n's right," said the 
 gruff Dmitrivitch, "and I says to him, says I : 
 " * I was the second mate. ' " 
 
 Furious with himself about his game, he sat 
 glowering at the cards. 
 
 Stroganoff had gone to the piano, and was 
 softly playing. 
 
 " Then," said the captain, " I sold the Jolly 
 Polly and the chance of salvage-claim for the 
 Stormy Petrel. We all had a touch of cholera, 
 and there was not much left of us when we 
 reached San Francisco." 
 
 "Thank you," I said. "How I wish I 
 could have seen what the lady had written ! " 
 
 The captain drew from his pocket a folded 
 paper, yellow with age and blue with damp, 
 opened it and read to me an appeal from the 
 poor lady to her lost lover. The undercurrent 
 of Stroganoff's music made it seem very 
 touching. 
 
 " It has the stress of Mascagni's Intermez- 
 zo!" I cried. "And he never knew!" 
 
 " That is as it may be," said Volokhoff. 
 
Qt radons tHsitation. 197 
 
 " We cannot tie and unite knots in the 
 thread of destiny," said Stroganoff. 
 
 " It leaves the story so incomplete," I said. 
 " But that is real life. Or is it that our 
 glimpse is uncertain?" 
 
 " Life is a bungled voyage anyhow," 
 growled Dmitri vitch. " By the time you gets 
 the hang of your sealed orders you're too nigh 
 port to set your course different, and you 're 
 sure to wish you could." 
 
 He was in another fume over solitaire, glar- 
 ing at cards and Ivan till the poor boy ran out. 
 
 " What a man is to know would be sure to 
 reach him," said Volokhoff. "We have a 
 story of a captain who put to sea without pay- 
 ing a debt contracted on a relic of the cross. 
 A storm arose, which he calmed by throwing 
 overboard a chest with the money, which 
 floated safely to the claimant. He was to 
 receive it; it could be sent recklessly." 
 
 "As we say," said Stroganoff, "what must 
 be, must be." 
 
 " Now, she is dead," I said, sadly. 
 
 "What is being dead ? " cried the Finn, with 
 indifferent air, looking at me with pity through 
 that veiled gaze of his onyx eyes, always look- 
 ing in rather than out. 
 
 " If we only knew ! " I cried. 
 
198 01 <&>raci0ns Visitation. 
 
 " Creations of one kingdom, marine, animal, 
 or vegetable, " said Volokhoff, "frequently 
 imitate those of another. So the spiritual 
 body is often born with a mockery of physical 
 blindness and deafness." 
 
 The Pole had glided into a strain by Chopin. 
 
 "You are the only one/ 1 I said, "lever 
 heard interpret that angelic voice as I do. It is 
 not grieving, but comforting." 
 
 I brought him my rhymes about it. 
 
 FUNERAL MARCH. 
 Chopin. 
 
 Hear muffled throb of the heavy hearts, helpless and 
 
 terrified. 
 Death, like a wind, blowing fragile web of their affairs 
 
 aside, 
 Tore it and tattered and dashed it to earth, stunned, 
 
 aghast, they chide : 
 
 Merged in the One? Or transfigured self ? What and 
 
 where is the dead ? 
 Death is a sphinx, in vain Life has put ear to its lips 
 
 and pled 
 Blank desert space ! And may be no more though All 
 
 were to be read. 
 
 All of the body wants are met, 
 
 How should the spirit famish yet? 
 
 Its thoughts are dream and vision pearled, 
 
 For its delight there lies unfurled 
 
(Stations bisitation. 199 
 
 Transcendent beauty of the world, 
 Though but pontoon to bear ye, hurled 
 Above what dizzy deep on deep ! 
 Below illimitable steep ! 
 Through vastness ye in grandeur sweep i 
 Yet fear and question, yearn and weep ! 
 The answers in your longings leap ! 
 
 What know ye? Where Earth wheels in flight, 
 
 Thrown by one of the shapes of might 
 
 That weave the stars in web of light? 
 
 What on the moon's far side is lain ? 
 
 Why tide of wind and sea complain ? 
 
 How thunder roars in rolling wane 
 
 A burst of sobs through tears of rain ? 
 
 Why sap in weed or pine-tree vein 
 
 Stirs, winding as to piper-strain? 
 
 How one loam yieldeth balm and bane ? 
 
 Could / change when the mere plum-spray 
 
 Engrafted on the peach may stay 
 
 An individual branch? Nay, nay, 
 
 That great law moveth not astray, 
 
 I still am /, shall be alway ! 
 
 And I then gone because unseen, 
 Though not when wall might intervene ? 
 Yet, Nature warns, mark shrivel, cower, 
 The clematis ; the orchid dower 
 Of hidden strength awaiting hour ; 
 The deathless resurrection-flower ! * 
 
 * South American. One which the writer's family has had 
 nearly forty years, looks like a ball of brown evergreen, English- 
 walnut size, but expands to a saucer-like lily whenever put in 
 water. 
 
200 21 <8>rcui0tis feisitation. 
 
 Though wide the field of night and deep, 
 
 The dark no sickle-moon may reap, 
 
 The dawn-flushed clouds in radiance heap ; 
 
 Foreshadowings so round ye creep, 
 
 But dull to miracle ye keep, 
 
 For of the hints that hide and peep, 
 
 How great is this : ye rise from sleep ! 
 
 Hear leaden beat of the hapless hearts, sullen, 
 
 rebellious, tried. 
 None know the Truth's rapt exaltation, or who could 
 
 here abide? 
 Yet Voice of tender vibration ! now this their 
 
 thought as they glide : 
 
 The dragging worm in his cloak of fur knows not of 
 
 overhead, 
 He, too, must follow his kin, wrap himself in a dying 
 
 bed 
 What beauty rises ! What joy ! On inaudible wings 
 
 outspread ! 
 
 He read it aloud. He and Volokhoff looked 
 at each other and then at me. 
 
 They spoke together : " You are right, Mrs. 
 Trevelyan." 
 
 Ivan came in, muttering: "Seitshas! Set 
 tshas! (Directly, directly!) 
 
 Dmitrivitch muttered back: " They'll have 
 to belay that talk ! " 
 
 Again that meaning glance ran round among 
 them. 
 
21 (Stations ibisitation. 201 
 
 Volokhoff rose, saying: "Vladimir, son of 
 Stroganoff, it is time." 
 
 The clumsy bulk of Dmitrivitch, in my room 
 filled with frail treasures, made his " Stand by 
 to go about! " as he rose, seem needful. 
 
 We had a last round of tea with a general 
 "Vosh durrivia!" (Here 's to you !) 
 
 "Mrs. Trevelyan, pardon our long stay," 
 said Stroganoff, with that unseen motion that 
 gives play to the pelisse, crosses, doubles, and 
 clasps it around the body, which it swathes 
 mummy-like. 
 
 " You are not likely to see us again," said 
 Volokhoff. 
 
 " We shall not forget you," said Ivan. 
 
 Dmitirivich loomed over me in an effort to 
 be gentle that was yet alarming. " Recol- 
 lect," he said, "if your ship is ever in irons, 
 on a lee shore, the Russians will come to the 
 
 ( f 
 
 You will hear us spoken of to-morrow," 
 said the captain. 
 
 " I am glad you came," said I; " I am sorry 
 for exiles." 
 
 "That word is not used in Russia," said 
 the supercargo. "We say and please re- 
 member us as ' involuntary emigrants.' " 
 
 " Sometimes you gets in the midst of a hur- 
 
202 QV tSrciricms imitation. 
 
 ricane and your masts going over the side 
 before you knows it," darkly hinted the big 
 mate, " but don't you be afeard. Just think 
 of yourself as safe right among 
 
 " ' Five betel-nut palms of Bombay.' " 
 
 " Think of the marooned," said the Finn. 
 
 I opened the doors ; they passed out, bow- 
 ing. 
 
 The boy gave me the comforting cry of the 
 sea-watch : "All 's well ! " 
 
 The monkey, impressed by all this leave- 
 taking, took off his tiny cap to me, but the 
 lurch of the sailor's shoulder forced him to 
 hastily put it on and clutch his master's collar. 
 
 They filed off into the darkness from whence 
 they came. 
 
 The mate questioned: "Napravi?" (to the 
 right ?) The captain ordered : * ( Na leva / ' ' (to 
 the left !) and away they went. 
 
 As their steps went down into Jones street 
 their voices rose with true swinging deep-sea 
 roll in other lines of that old, old chant spread 
 from Breton fishermen to sailors of all coun- 
 tries : 
 
 " The north wind, the north wind, 
 The north wind came on to blow." 
 
 Farther and farther, fainting away in the 
 
01 (Stations bisitation. 203 
 
 mysterious night, like a salt breath of mid- 
 ocean, or cries of sea-birds over the lonely 
 deep, a concentration of the poetry and color 
 of a calling filled with the sublime symbolism 
 of air and sea. 
 
 So I lost my friends. I have never seen 
 them since; but in nights of storm I have 
 fancied I heard on gusts of wind their voices 
 cheering me from afar with : 
 
 " We were two, we were three, 
 We were three mariners." 
 
 There was such a sense outdoors of the 
 night being far gone that I drew in and 
 locked the door, thinking "It must be too 
 late now to visit that poor care-taker." To 
 decide I looked at the hall clock. It was past 
 two! 
 
 I slept late next day, only roused at noon 
 by long and loud knocking at the front and 
 back door, even upon the windows. I hurried 
 into a wrapper and opened the front door. 
 Who were these urgent callers, with eager, 
 anxious faces, exclaiming, as if relieved, " Here 
 she is!" and "She is here!" and crowding 
 upon my steps? Not only neighbors, but po- 
 licemen and reporters and some of my friends 
 from the Mission, Hayes Valley and Oakland! 
 
204 31 (fi>raci0ns bisitation. 
 
 They looked at me with an air of doubting 
 that they really saw me. 
 
 "You are alive, then!" a reporter said, 
 and two or three of my friends began to 
 cry. 
 
 "Why not?" said I. "Why do you come 
 like this?" 
 
 A policeman spoke: "The houses on each 
 side of you were broken into last night and 
 robbed, and the care-taker of the fine house 
 was brutally murdered ! " 
 
 "It was lucky for you," said a neighbor, 
 " that you had a party." 
 
 " You are mistaken," I said. 
 
 "Well, your house was lighted in every 
 window, up and down, back and front," said 
 another. 
 
 Was this the reason of Ivan's running 
 about ? 
 
 "And we heard music! " said a third neigh- 
 bor. 
 
 " Nothing else could have saved you," said 
 a fourth; "lots of folks know about your 
 valuable curios" 
 
 I could not believe my kindly pink-cheeked 
 blondes were in league with those criminals. 
 I explained nothing. The reporters went off 
 in a huff. One of my friends took me home 
 
& <5rari0us biaitatian. 205 
 
 with her. Others insisted upon coming to 
 stay with me at night. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when I left my 
 friend, a sea-captain's wife living on Tele- 
 graph Hill. I came down Greenwich street 
 and was looking over at the green and gray 
 of the Russian Church, thinking of Pouch- 
 kine's St. Petersburg: 
 
 " Under a pale-green sky, 
 Weariness, chill, and granite ! " 
 
 when the Russian priest came up the steps 
 at the corner of Washington Square. 
 
 " Mrs. Trevelyan ! " he cried. " In a city of 
 battle, murder, and sudden death, you are yet 
 safe, thank Heaven ! " 
 
 " Saved, too, by a call from some of your 
 countrymen," said I, and told the story. 
 
 "Stroganoff !" he cried, as if stunned, and 
 made me repeat the tales told by the super- 
 cargo and the boy. 
 
 He grew younger as he listened, with his 
 eyes on fleecy clouds in the west. " Poor 
 Nadia ! " he murmured. 
 
 I had not yet told her name. 
 
 The long slope northward of Russian Hill 
 rose sharp-edged with light from an amber 
 sunset, but that was not the gleam I saw on 
 his face. 
 
206 & Gracious Visitation. 
 
 The slope is like the graceful flank of a 
 mastodon, and, with the house on the brink 
 of Vallejo street, overhanging Taylor, re- 
 minded me of the children's drawing on a 
 slate, where a house in the left upper corner 
 has a path leading from and to it, undulating 
 until it forms an animal, with the house for 
 its head. 
 
 The Latin Quarter at this hour is like a de- 
 serted village; but one or two passers-by 
 greeted the priest as "B&tiushka" (father). 
 One old man, more intimate, said: 
 
 " Good evening, Fodor." 
 
 The story was complete, I thought. We 
 went down into the Square to cross by the 
 diagonal path. 
 
 "The lady's poem," he said with a sigh. 
 " If I could only have read it ! " 
 
 " I remember it," said I. 
 
 We sat on a bench near the giant willow, 
 and I repeated the lines as if another voice 
 spoke through me. 
 
 A CRY IN THE DARK. 
 
 O, if I knew, if / knew, if I knew ! 
 Against flood-tide of grief and dread and smart 
 How prove my faithful love ? by what sure art ! 
 
 The Judgment Day I shall forget to rue 
 
Qt radons t)isitation. 207 
 
 If it but bring us face to face, we two ! 
 
 Hear me ! though in abysmal broken heart : 
 
 On pinnacle of joy upraised, apart: 
 Or here, unseen, the while I weep for you. 
 
 Who shall forbid my message? It should leap 
 The wreck of worlds, black chaos, touch with glow 
 Cloud-drift of spirits in tumultuous flow, 
 
 Your thought in sudden lift and splendor steep ! 
 
 I call to you from my soul's utmost deep, 
 Now if you know, if you know, if you knowf 
 
 The priest's face shone; the kindling of an 
 inner light had grown into radiance. 
 
 We left the Square, following Powell street, 
 and turned up Vallejo, where Russian Hill 
 seemed to rise to meet and listen to us, 
 abruptly towering above us, dark, sinister 
 even with its lanterns, like a ladder of light 
 for several almost upright blocks. It took 
 the part of a third person in our talk, one 
 who knew most. 
 
 The dog-howl whistle of one of our men-of- 
 war pierced the air. I thought of the erect 
 bearing of Volokhoff and Stroganoff. " Is 
 there a Russian man-of-war in port?" I asked. 
 
 "No," he replied, "nor any Russian ves- 
 sel." 
 
 The hill loomed nearer, higher, the street- 
 lights wavered, as if the wisest one of our trio 
 
2o8 & Orations tHsitation. 
 
 drew breath. We turned up Mason street, for 
 I must skirt the steep hill. 
 
 " There are no strange Russian sailors here 
 now." 
 
 "Would you be sure to know ?" 
 
 " Certain; they do nothing new without 
 burning a taper before a saint in church." 
 
 We crossed Broadway, and a few steps 
 southward paused and looked back. I was to 
 call here for my friends who were going to 
 stay with me. 
 
 " Come to the church, to-morrow," he said, 
 "and I will give you a motiben. 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Prayer, chant, and the burning of incense; 
 a service of thanksgiving to your guardian 
 angel. You had a night-watch to keep you." 
 
 Even in the dimness I could see that sudden 
 look of youth still wrapping him like a mantle. 
 
 Aloft over tightly packed roofs, rising high, 
 crowding north and west above the Spanish 
 church the last street light of the great hill 
 flared as if out of the sky. From our almost 
 diagonal view across the block there looked no 
 road to what seemed a friendly sign from hid- 
 den guard. 
 
 I asked what I had not before thought of : 
 " Why do they call it Russian Hill ?" 
 
Qi <B>raci0tis biaitation. 209 
 
 " Oh ! you have not been here long ; you do 
 not know !" he replied. His right hand was 
 on his breast. I saw the third and little finger 
 draw into the palm, in the Russian sign of the 
 cross. "Years ago before I fled from the 
 Nerchinsk mines they buried on that hill 
 five unknown Russian sailors." 
 
A SWORN STATEMENT. 
 
A SWORN STATEMENT. 
 
 Being the Deposition of Mr. Audenried's Valet. 
 
 This ae night, this ae night, 
 
 Every night and alle, 
 Fire and sleet and candle-light, 
 
 And Christ receive thy saule. 
 
 Lykewake Dirge. 
 
 1 first met Mr. Audenried through his adver- 
 tising for a valet. I liked his appearance, and 
 engaged with him at a lower salary than one 
 of my experience and ability will usually work 
 for. He was then living in a furnished house 
 on Rincon Hill, whence he could see the bay. 
 He sat for hours looking at it and writing 
 verses. He had money, but was neither 
 young nor strong, and seldom went out. He 
 had been very handsome, was still fine-look- 
 ing, with eyes that glowed with a lurid, in- 
 ternal fire. 
 
 There was one other person in the house, a 
 quiet lady, yet one to be noticed and remem- 
 bered. 1 pride myself on my discretion. It 
 was nothing to me how many " Coralies" or 
 213 
 
214 31 Sworn Statement. 
 
 "Camilles" existed. It was long before I 
 alluded to her, though I met her in the upper 
 hall, on the stairs, and sometimes found her in 
 the room with my master and myself, or just 
 outside the door, standing near, as if waiting 
 for me to go. After a while, I got the notion 
 that she did not like me, and it made it 
 unpleasant. After long thinking it over, for 
 I did not want to leave, I gave a month's 
 notice. 
 
 " Why is this, Wilkins?" says Mr. Auden- 
 ried. " If it is a question of wages, stay on. 
 I like your quiet ways,*' says he. That is 
 just what he says. 
 
 "To tell the truth, sir," I says, "it's not 
 my pay it's the lady, sir." 
 
 "What!" says he. 
 
 So then I told of her air of watchful dislike, 
 and how I was not used to being spied upon, 
 and that it was needless my recommendations 
 could all show. He turned quite pale, so white 
 that I thought Heaven forgive me if I'd made 
 trouble between them, for she looked sad 
 enough anyway. He did not speak for a long 
 while. 
 
 Then he muttered to himself: "TKyman, 
 too!" 
 
 He made me tell him all over again. Then, 
 
Qi 6morn Statement. 215 
 
 after a pause, he says: "Find me another 
 place, Wilkins, and help me move." 
 
 So I thought there was a quarrel; We did 
 move from house to house, from street to 
 street, from city to city, all through the State 
 and to others near. Mr. Audenried never 
 spoke of her, nor noticed her, but as soon as 
 she came, as she always did come, he at once 
 gave the order to start. He seemed to watch 
 my face, and I fancied he knew in that way 
 when she was about. I wondered what their 
 story might be, and tried to make out from 
 verses he wrote that time, but all I could 
 get hold of were these : 
 
 PROPHETIC. 
 
 Unto the garden's bloom close set 
 
 Of lily, larkspur, violet, 
 
 Sweet jasmine, rose, and mignonette 
 
 More beauty lending, 
 Fair Marguerite stands in the sun, 
 Plucks leaves from daisy, one by one, 
 While Faust, impatient, sees it done 
 
 And waits the ending. 
 
 See ! on the garden-wall behind, 
 Their happy shadows plain defined, 
 Bent heads and eager hand, outlined 
 Like soft engraving ; 
 
2i 6 Qt 0uj0rn Statement. 
 
 And there athwart their fingers' pose 
 A shape whose presence neither knows. 
 Mephisto ! 'T is his head that shows 
 A cock's plume waving ! 
 
 Sometimes we rested a few days or weeks, 
 sometimes went on, day after day, without 
 stopping, but she was my master's shadow; 
 she followed us everywhere. I used to try 
 and puzzle out what their secret was. If it 
 had been love, it must now be hate, I told 
 myself, seeing how they often met and passed 
 without a word. He did not appear to even 
 see her. 
 
 We had come back to San Francisco, and it 
 was nearing Christmas-time when I was first 
 seized with my queer spells. We had taken 
 another furnished house, far out and high upon 
 Washington street. I thought we had got rid 
 of the woman; but coming home late one after- 
 noon I found her in the window, while my 
 master had been looking over his writing-desk. 
 Before him lay withered flowers, a ribbon, a 
 lady's glove, and a photograph with some look 
 of this persistent woman, but younger and 
 handsomer. 
 
 I felt uneasy. Mr. Audenried sat with head 
 on his hand, lost in thought. When 1 spoke 
 he did not hear nor notice me until I put the 
 
01 6to0rn Statement. 217 
 
 medicine he had sent for into the hand in his 
 lap. Then he did not know it at first, though 
 in giving the parcel I touched his hand. Some- 
 thing about him I could not describe kept me 
 an instant motionless in that position. 
 
 A stupor came over me. The carved ivory 
 hourglass we had filled with Arizona sand 
 from before the Casa Grande, our bright, 
 thick Moqui blanket on the lounge, our 
 foreign fur rugs, our Japanese fans, bronzes, 
 and china the whole room came and went 
 as to one who is sleepy yet tries to keep 
 awake. Again and again it vanished, re- 
 appearing enlarged to twice, three times, its 
 size. Then it was lost in a mist, from which 
 rose a different scene. 
 
 The chandelier had changed to long lines of 
 lights, the pictures to great mirrors, and arches 
 with banners and streamers. Devices in ever- 
 green showed that it was Christmae Eve. I 
 was aware of a rush and whirl of dancers, 
 walz-music, flowers, gay colors, and the scent 
 of a sandal-wood fan; but I saw plainly only 
 one woman, young, gay, lovely, but with a 
 faint likeness to some one I had seen who was 
 older and wretched. I rubbed my eyes, and 
 when I opened them at the sound of my mas- 
 ter's voice, it was the room I knew, with all 
 
2i8 & Groom Statement. 
 
 its familiar objects, and he and I were there 
 alone. 
 
 One day I met our quiet lady coming from 
 Mr. Audenried's study, and found him there 
 in a fainting-fit. As I was helping him across 
 the hall to his bedroom I had the second of my 
 odd attacks. 
 
 A dullness and vague fear troubled me. 
 Our many-branched antlers, our lacquered- 
 work and carved cabinets and great Chinese 
 lantern, the stained-glass skylight, the big 
 vase of pampas-grass, the open doors and 
 windows, the sunny yard, with callas and 
 geraniums in bloom, all wavered before me, 
 went and came and vanished. 
 
 I saw a room with flowered chintz in cur- 
 tains and furniture-covers, a glowing anthra- 
 cite fire, and Christmas wreaths hanging in 
 long windows looking on frost-bound garden 
 and river. And the beautiful woman of the 
 ball ! Still young, but now unhappy, looking 
 at me in despair. Both arms outstretched 
 in an agony of entreaty, and tears rolling 
 down her cheeks. Terribly distressed by 
 her woe, I gave a cry of pity just as Mr. 
 Audenried, gasping and falling on the bed, 
 brought me back to him, to myself, and to 
 his 
 
01 6to0rn Statement. 219 
 
 Putting away his things for the night I 
 found these verses in a woman's writing: 
 
 IN ABSENCE. 
 
 In my black night no moonshine nor star-glimmer 
 On my long, weary path that leads Nowhere 
 
 I get no shimmer 
 
 Of that great glory our day knew. 
 I cannot think the world holds you; 
 It is not ours, this Land of Vague Despair 
 
 I scarce can breathe its air. 
 
 I am as one whom some sweet tune, down dropping, 
 Has left half-stunned by silence like a blow; 
 
 Like one who, stopping 
 In drifting desert sands, looks back 
 Where sky slants down above his track, 
 To mark the tufted palm whose outlines show 
 
 An oasis below ; 
 
 Like one whom winter wind and rain are blinding, 
 And storm-tossed billows bear from land away, 
 
 Who, no hope finding, 
 Should yield himself to bitter fate. 
 Can I do this ! Ah, God ! too late 
 Have I not felt thy dear, warm lips convey 
 
 Commands I must obey ? 
 
 " Forget-me-not ! " a kiss for every letter. 
 " Forget-me-not! " a kiss for every word. 
 
 It could not better 
 Have stamped itself upon my soul 
 It passed beyond my own control. 
 All thought, all circumstance are by it stirred, 
 Invisible, unheard. 
 
220 Qt. Sttmrn Statement. 
 
 Though, like Francesca, ever falling, falling 
 Through dizzy space to endless depths afar, 
 
 Thy kiss recalling 
 Would charm me to forget my woe ; 
 Of Heaven or Hell I should not know, 
 Nor as I passed see any blazing star, 
 
 Nor mark its rhythmic jar. 
 
 If such remembrance only moon-reflection 
 On depths untried of my soul's unknown sea 
 
 Mere recollection 
 
 Could hold me spellbound by its sway, 
 What of your true kiss can I say? 
 Ah! that is wholly speechless ecstasy, 
 
 No words for that could be! 
 
 I thought it might be I had myself grown 
 nervous about the quiet lady, to have these 
 crazy fits after seeing her, and I dreaded to 
 have her come again. But it was not my 
 place to urge Mr. Audenried to move, and he 
 seemed tired of changing. 
 
 One evening he had a severe attack of pal- 
 pitation of the heart, and called me in great 
 haste. I had been wondering what had put 
 him in such a flutter, when that lady opened 
 the door and glanced round the room as if she 
 had forgotten something, but did not come in. 
 Mr. Audenried was so ill that he had to sit up 
 in bed and have me hold him firmly, my hands 
 pressing his breast and his back. 
 
31 Sworn Statement. 221 
 
 Again that strange dread and drowsiness fell 
 on me like a cloud. My master's pearl combs, 
 brushes, crystal jewel-box, with its glittering 
 contents, and a bunch of violets in a wine- 
 glass on the bureau, his Japanese quilted 
 silk dressing-gown thrown over a chair, em- 
 broidered slippers here, gay smoking -cap 
 there, and a large lithograph of Modjeska, 
 glimmered through a fog, came back, with- 
 drew again. 
 
 The one high gas-burner became a full 
 moon, the walls fell away ; I stood out of doors 
 in a summer night's dimness and stillness that 
 make one feel lonely; grass, daisies, and but- 
 tercups underfoot, and overhead stars and 
 endless space. The beautiful woman, worn 
 and wild-looking, with flashing eyes, stood 
 there in a threatening posture, calling down 
 curses ! I shrank in horror, though the vision 
 lasted, as before, not more than a quarter of a 
 second. 
 
 Mr. Audenried, wasted and wan, had grown 
 so nervous that after this time he refused to 
 be left alone, and above all, cautioned me to 
 stay beside him on Christmas Eve. 
 
 "An unpleasant anniversary to me," he 
 says. 
 
 The doctor advised him to change to a hotel, 
 
222 Qt Sroorn Statement. 
 
 to have cheerful society. We moved to the 
 Palace Hotel, and to divert his mind from its 
 own horror Mr. Audenried gave a dinner-party 
 in his rooms on Christmas Eve. 
 
 It was a wild night, just right for " Tam 
 O'Shanter," which one of the gentlemen re- 
 cited. The weather or my master's forced 
 gayety made me gloomy. There was a raw 
 Irish waiter to help, and once I went into the 
 anteroom just in time to catch him about to 
 season one of Mr. Audenried's private dishes 
 from a bottle out of our Japanese cabinet. It 
 was marked " Poison, " but he could not read. 
 
 "What could possess you," I says, "to 
 meddle with thatf" 
 
 "Sure," he says, "the lady showed me 
 which to take." 
 
 " The lady I What lady?" I says, trembling 
 from head to foot. 
 
 "A dark lady," says he, "with a proud 
 nose and mouth, and eyebrows in one long, 
 heavy line." 
 
 I was horrified. I did not want to figure in 
 a murder case. I liked Mr. Audenried too well 
 to leave. I was too poor to lose a good place. 
 I resolved to stay and protect him, but my 
 heart beat faster. For my own safety I meant 
 to say over the multiplication-table, and not 
 
01 0nj0rn Statement. 223 
 
 get bewitched or entranced again. I told my- 
 self over and over, "She shall not outwit 
 me." 
 
 The wind and rain beat against the win- 
 dows, and I heard one of our guests singing 
 "The Midnight Revellers:" 
 
 " The first was shot by Carlist thieves 
 
 Three years ago in Spain ; 
 The second was drowned in Alicante, 
 
 While I alone remain. 
 But friends I have, two glorious friends, 
 
 Two braver could not be; 
 And every night when midnight tolls 
 
 They meet to laugh with me ! " 
 
 As I took in some wine, a gentleman was 
 saying: "Too wild a story for such a com- 
 monplace background as San Francisco." 
 
 " One must be either commonplace or sated 
 with horrors to say that," says Mr. Audenried. 
 " What city has more or stranger disappear- 
 ances and assassinations? There have been 
 murders and suicides at all the hotels. Other 
 cities surpass it in age, but none in crime and 
 mystery." 
 
 It was a lively party. A love-song from one 
 of the gentlemen turned the talk on love 
 affairs, and I went in just as Mr. Audenried 
 was saying: "Aaron Burr relied wholly on 
 
224 & 0tn0rn Statement. 
 
 the fascination of his touch. I believe in the 
 magnetism of touch ; that it cannot only im- 
 part disease but sensations. Holding a 
 sleeper's hand while I read, by no will- 
 power of mine he dreamed of scenes I saw in 
 my mind." 
 
 Trained servant as I am, I disgraced myself 
 then. I dropped and broke some of our own 
 bubble-like glasses I was carrying. I was so 
 unnerved by this explanation of my queer 
 turns. It flashed upon me how they had only 
 come when I was touching him. I had heard 
 a former master, a learned German, talk 
 about his countryman Mesmer, and I under- 
 stood that what had appeared to me in my 
 spells was what Mr. Audenried was thinking 
 of! 
 
 I could scarcely recover myself for the rest 
 of the company's stay. I recollect no more 
 about it, except that somebody played the flute 
 till it seemed as if a twilight breeze sighed for 
 being pent in our four walls and longed to join 
 its ruder brother-winds outside ; and that'Mr. 
 Audenried read these verses of his : 
 
Stoorn Statement. 225 
 
 RONDEL. 
 
 To-night, O friends! we meet " Kriss Kringle"; 
 
 He comes, he comes when falls betwixt us 
 The chiming midnight-bells' soft klingle, 
 When, glad, we crowd round cheery ingle, 
 
 Or, lonely, grieve that joy has missed us; 
 
 Or, in cathedral gloom, pray Christus; 
 Or drain gay toasts where glasses jingle. 
 
 Though marshalled hosts of cares have tricked us, 
 In wine's Red Sea drown all and single 
 "Christmas!" 
 
 Drown recollection that afflicts us 
 Our bowls, like witches' caldrons, mingle 
 
 Too much of old Yule-tide that kissed us 
 
 The bitter drink that Life has mixed us 
 Forget, and shout till rafters tingle 
 "Christmas!" 
 
 The last guest had hardly gone when Mrs. 
 Carnavon's card was brought up. This was 
 an elderly lady we had met in our travels, 
 who took an interest in Mr. Audenried's case, 
 though a stranger. She came in, bright and 
 chatty, and my master was so cheered up by 
 it that he readily let me leave. 
 
 I did not want to go. I had not been drink- 
 ing ; I was well and in my right mind, but my 
 whole skin seemed to draw up with a shiver 
 and thrill as at some near terror. But he sent 
 me to a druggist to have Mrs. Carnavon's 
 vinaigrette refilled. 
 
226 & Sroorn Statement. 
 
 As I left the passage to our suite of rooms 
 and turned into the long, lonesome hall, more 
 dreary than ever in its vastness at this quiet, 
 late hour, I saw a little way ahead our bru- 
 nette stepping into the elevator. I fancied a 
 mocking smile on her face as she looked back 
 at me. I forgot the multiplication-table, whose 
 fixed rules were to keep me in my senses. 
 For the first time it struck me that she was 
 the woman of my visions, grown older and 
 sadder. 
 
 I hurried, but when I reached the door 
 she had gone, and stout Mrs. Lisgar was 
 coming up, like the change of figures in a 
 pantomime. She was another mystery of 
 mine; for her maid had told me Mrs. Lisgar 
 and my master knew each other abroad, but 
 were sworn foes now, neither of us knew 
 why. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Madam," I says; "did 
 you see the lady who just went down? A 
 handsome brunette, with eyebrows that join 
 above a Roman nose, and a very short upper 
 lip. Where did she go?" 
 
 Mrs. Lisgar swelled bigger and redder. 
 " Has Mr. Audenried sent you to annoy me?" 
 she says. 
 
 "Certainly not, Madam," says I. "But 1 
 
01 Srnorn Statement. 227 
 
 saw her! heavy, meeting eyebrows, scorn- 
 ful mouth, and " 
 
 " Silence, sir ! " she cried. " There was no 
 one in the elevator. Don't you know you are 
 speaking of my poor sister, dead for many 
 years?" 
 
 In my confusion I gasped out at random: 
 " Mrs. Carnavon is here. Do you know 
 her?" 
 
 Mrs. Lisgar says: "She was my sister's 
 most intimate friend. But you are either 
 drunk or crazy. I was with her when she 
 died in Arizona last week." 
 
 An awful suspicion seized me ; a cold sweat 
 broke out on my brow. I had not lost sight of 
 Mr. Audenried's door. I bowed to Mrs. Lisgar 
 and tried to hurry back, but a numbness in 
 every limb weighed me down till I seemed to 
 move as slowly as the bells that were striking 
 twelve. 
 
 As I drew near, I heard angry voices inside, 
 then a fearful groan, which seemed to die off in 
 the distance. But I found every room in our 
 suite vacant, except for my figure, which I 
 caught glimpses of at every turn, staring out 
 of the great mirrors, ghastly, haggard, with 
 bloodshot eyes, and a strained look about the 
 mouth, madly straying among the lights and 
 
228 & 0ro0m Statement. 
 
 flowers, tables with remnants of the feast, and 
 the disordered chairs, which after such a revel 
 have a queer air of life of their own. 
 
 A long window in the parlor stood wide 
 open. Chilled with fright, with I don't know 
 what vague thought, I ran and looked out. 
 Six stories from the street, nothing to be seen 
 outside but the night and storm, neither on 
 the lighted pavement far below, nor among 
 drifting clouds overhead ! Nothing but impen- 
 etrable darkness then and afterward over Mr. 
 Audenried's fate. 
 
 This is all I can tell of the well-known 
 strange disappearance of my unhappy master. 
 It is the truth, the whole truth and nothing 
 but the truth 
 
"THE SECOND CARD WINS." 
 
"THE SECOND CARD WINS." 
 
 A house with two doors is difficult to guard. Spanish Proverb. 
 
 I. THE LOVELY MRS. CLARE SPEAKS. 
 
 I read people at a glance always could; it 
 was born in me, as it seems to have been born 
 in my husband to dispute it; and I don't care 
 what he says, I shall still think there was 
 some strange secret between Mark Dillon and 
 that woman. There was always something 
 queer about him. I saw it at first, when Sam 
 brought him to our rooms in the hotel and pre- 
 sented him to me as his "old friend from In- 
 dia, who joins us for the opera." I thought it 
 was shyness that kept him dumb, for he only 
 bowed and stared. 
 
 "Oh, from India !" I cried, warmly, shak- 
 ing hands; "the one I am to thank for the 
 rare fan sent to Sam's wife ! I am so glad to 
 meet you." 
 
 "You have it, then?" he said, looking 
 closely at me. 
 
 231 
 
232 "(Elje Beronir Carir 
 
 He was plainly struck with Sam's taste in 
 the choice of a wife. He never got over his 
 surprise, but always watched me with a 
 puzzled air, as he might look at a strange 
 bird or flower, even turning to gaze after me. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, among my treasures," I said. 
 " I was waiting for Sam to take me to the 
 opera to-night. Here it lies with my India 
 shawl." 
 
 I took it up, a gay bunch of bright feathers 
 with a picture on one side, mounted on sandal- 
 wood and silver beaten by the patient toil of 
 India into frostlike flowers and leaves, one 
 spray even twisted round the red tassel. 
 
 "Now, do tell me the story," I begged. 
 " You wrote in the note to Sam which came 
 with it that it was enchanted. What did you 
 mean?" 
 
 He looked startled. " I had nearly forgot- 
 ten that," he said. " It was a spell cast by 
 an old Hindoo whom I vexed by smiling at his 
 tricks of magic." 
 
 "Has it worked?" I asked, lightly, as I 
 drew on my long gloves while we waited for 
 Sam, whose man is so slow in the last touches 
 of his toilet. 
 
 Mr. Dillon looked uneasy. " In spite of my 
 common sense," he said, "though I thought I 
 
6er0n& Olarb toine." 233 
 
 was above such delusions, I must confess that 
 the spell is working. Where will it end?" he 
 asked himself. 
 
 "Oh, how awful! What is it?" I asked, 
 adding with a laugh, " I shall look at my 
 lovely fan with a half fear of it." 
 
 "Well," he said, after a moment's thought, 
 ".I will tell you, for it is not you who are to 
 suffer. But, first, please tell me the date of 
 your marriage." 
 
 " Why the fan was among my bridal 
 gifts ! Have you forgotten when you sent it?" 
 
 "Oh yes," he replied, with what seemed 
 a painful effort of memory. " Well, this is its 
 story : While I was at the Rajate of Puttiala, 
 a rich and powerful baboo, Lall Chunder, 
 asked his friends to come and see a great 
 juggler show his tricks. Foreigners and na- 
 tives all went, on elephants, camels, and 
 horses. The baboo's divan was in the centre 
 of his courtyard. We sat round him, the 
 natives smoking hookahs. There was a din 
 of tumtum wallahs, and a troop of nautch- 
 dancers. Then, to the sound of gongs and 
 trumpets, came the sorcerer on a gayly 
 decked elephant. He made gracious salaams 
 to us, and, after sending paper birds and 
 butterflies in long flights chosen by us, calling 
 
234 "(&lje Seconfc Carfc (Bins." 
 
 up from a far-off pack any card we named, 
 and other slight tricks often shown, he had a 
 fire made, into which he cast fragrant spices, 
 and, while they burned, he put on a robe 
 covered with strange signs ; from a pocket in 
 this he took a wooden ball full of holes where 
 long thongs hung out. Grasping one of these, 
 he flung the ball into the air with such force 
 that it passed, unreeling as it went, at once 
 out of our sight and stayed in the clouds. 
 Then he made climb the thong a camel, which 
 quickly vanished in the sky ; a boy was sent 
 after, making many trips, and bringing at each 
 descent something for the baboo's guests. 
 These gifts were left in a pile, while the boy 
 was told to bring the rest on the camel. He 
 went up, but the animal, now loaded, came 
 down alone. The conjurer called three times ; 
 then, in a rage, snatched a knife and himself 
 ran up the thong. We could see nothing, but 
 heard his fierce threats and the boy's wild 
 cries. He soon threw down one of the boy's 
 hands, then a foot, then the other hand, the 
 other foot, the trunk, and then the head. He 
 ran down, panting, and with blood on his robe, 
 laid the parts of the boy's body all in place, 
 still raging at him, and gave them a kick, 
 when the boy rose and bowed to us and 
 
8cc0n& Carfc tOins." 235 
 
 divided the gifts among us, who were in each 
 case chosen by the magician, after making us 
 pass singly behind the vapors of hte mystic 
 fire. With each thing he gave some warning. 
 The natives, much excited, call on Brahma, 
 Vishnu, Calle, and all the calendar of Indian 
 gods; but the foreigners smiled at the fine 
 jugglery, and I laughed out. The sorcerer 
 looked at me long and gravely, and cast that 
 fan to my lot. He came to me, spread it, 
 and, showing me the picture on it, said: "I 
 have put you there. That figure will go away 
 when you leave the world. Though you send 
 this fan straight as an arrow, it shall yet 
 swerve from its course. When her hand 
 holds it, will be when your sun sinks behind 
 a golden mist!" 
 
 "But I don't understand/' said I, "about 
 the working of the spell." 
 
 "Come, come," said Sam, bustling in, 
 "what are you talking about, Mark? You 
 look too grave for opera bouffe," and hurried 
 us off. 
 
 During the evening I overheard Mr. Dillon 
 ask Sam, "Why did you never write how 
 matters stood?" 
 
 Sam took his opera-glass and looked over 
 the house, and searched all his pockets for 
 
236 "(El)* Seronb OTarfr ttlins." 
 
 cardamoms, before he answered, "Why 
 should I ?" 
 
 I knew at once what they must mean. Of 
 course, Sam would prefer to have his wife 
 seen to boasting of her beauty. 
 
 After we came home Sam asked how I liked 
 his friend. 
 
 " What makes him seem so queer?" I said. 
 
 "How?" demanded Sam, bristling, as usual, 
 for fear some one may have slighted me. 
 "What did he say?" he asked, anxiously. 
 " What was he telling you here ?" 
 
 I told him, adding: " He seems so absorbed 
 and odd." 
 
 But Sam, who, while I was telling him the 
 story, was crazy enough to knock over my 
 best cloisonn6 bowl and break a Dresden vase, 
 only said : "Asked when we were married, did 
 he? The infernal climate of India must have 
 affected his brain." 
 
 So I ceased to wonder at Mark Dillon's 
 odd ways, even at his looking troubled at 
 seeing me carrying that fan, and really 
 trying to have me change it for a carved 
 cherry-stone bracelet he brought from China. 
 I did not mind his losing himself in thought 
 when near us, or watching me, as if I 
 puzzled him. Sam had explained it all, but 
 
Beronfc (Earfc tDins." 237 
 
 he could never set my mind at ease about 
 that woman. 
 
 I pride myself on my power to study char- 
 acter and motives. It is simply impossible to 
 hoodwink me. The moment I first set eyes on 
 her on the overland train I thought, " There 
 is a woman with a story." And to think that 
 even now I do not know what that story was 
 is enough to make me let down my back hair 
 and scream, as I did at Aunt Ann's yesterday 
 when the oysters were not cooked to suit me. 
 She looked able to travel anywhere alone, as 
 she was then. I had my maid and man- 
 servant, of course. What with my lovely 
 Skye, and "Ouida's" latest, my shawls, 
 lunch - basket, candy -jar, and writing-desk 
 (for Sam expects to hear every day), I could 
 not travel without; I don't see how any one 
 can, though Babette was half-sick and wholly 
 cross, and Alphonse smelled of cheap cigars in 
 the smoking-car ; so that really I did have my 
 troubles. She sat in the next seat, and I 
 could not help showing her some kindness in 
 the way of canned turkey, and stuffed olives, 
 and sherry, for she seemed strong in neither 
 body nor purse. She had severe nervous 
 headaches, and I loaned her my vinaigrette. 
 As she returned it, just as we were nearing 
 San Francisco, she said: 
 
238 "<&i)e geconft (Earir toins." 
 
 "You have been kind to me. I am very 
 grateful. May I ask the meaning of that mon- 
 ogram?" pointing to the initials set in bril- 
 liants in the side of the little gold flask. 
 
 " My name is Clare/' I said. " Those let- 
 ters stand for my husband's name." 
 
 "Ah!" she said, "I am also Mrs. S. C. 
 My name is Capel." 
 
 " Indeed!" said I; "that is a name in my 
 husband's family. It is his middle name." 
 
 " How strange ! but my husband has no 
 relatives living," said she. 
 
 I wanted to ask about her husband, but 
 feared she was a widow. 
 
 She seemed to read my thoughts. 
 
 " My husband is in California somewhere," 
 she went on. "I am going to try and find 
 him." 
 
 " Then you have not lately heard from 
 him?" I asked. 
 
 " Not for ten years," was her startling reply. 
 
 What would Sam say, I thought, to such 
 conduct in a husband ! 
 
 " How surprised he will be," I said. 
 
 " Yes," said she. "I did not know where 
 to write." 
 
 I wanted to ask if she thought he was 
 worthy of such search, but I saw she was 
 
Second Qlarir tiOins." 239 
 
 poor. Perhaps she hoped he had money. Pos- 
 sibly she was still fond of him. But I thought 
 he had most likely forgotten her ; for, though 
 plainly a bright woman, she had none of the 
 dainty curves and fair rose tints that do a 
 man's eyes good such as I know please Sam 
 in me. I urged her to come to my hotel. I 
 had reached home Thursday night, a week 
 before my husband expected me. I planned 
 to surprise him, but found he had gone on a 
 hunting and fishing trip to San Gregorio. 
 When he came back, I meant to make him 
 help my new acquaintance. I took her under 
 my wing, chose her room, made Babette dress 
 her hair, and we went down to breakfast 
 together Friday morning, when who should 
 sit in front of us but Mark Dillon ! He was 
 so amazed to find I had come that he seemed 
 really nervous. 
 
 "Bless my soul Mrs. Clare!" said he, 
 looking as much at her as at me, and then got 
 very red and confused. I never quite knew 
 before how much he admired me. I felt so 
 glad to be at home again, I urged him to come 
 to my rooms after breakfast and practice 
 duets. When he came, Mrs. Capel was with 
 me, and I presented him to her. I saw then 
 he did not seem at ease. 
 
240 "fftlje Secottb Carir toins." 
 
 " This is a new friend of mine," I told him. 
 " Her husband is somewhere in California, 
 and I am going to help her find him." 
 
 " You help her ! Good gracious no yes 
 certainly oh! of course by all means," 
 was his strange reply. 
 
 He seemed more absent-minded than ever, 
 as if trying to see his way clear for something. 
 At last he said: "Mrs. Clare, I got a letter 
 last night from Sam. Want to hear it?" 
 
 " No," said I ; " I found one waiting for me, 
 in case I got here while he was gone." 
 
 "Ah! with a sonnet to your eyebrow?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " No. Sam never writes verse to me now- 
 adays," I said. 
 
 " He does to me," said he; " and I want 
 you ladies to hear it," with stress on the word 
 " ladies," as he saw Mrs. Capel about to leave 
 the room. She waited. He went on : " Sam 
 has sent up a rare shot of his, a loon, to be 
 stuffed for our club-rooms. Says he has not 
 had very good luck this season, and it seems 
 to have made him downhearted, to judge from 
 his rhymes : 
 
241 
 
 PORTENT. 
 
 No looker-on but wild growth, like the fern, 
 I feel the hidden current's forceful sway ; 
 
 I must attend to weird cries of the hern, 
 Must round the marsh with phantom vapors stray. 
 
 And pause, breast-high, where reeds and rushes rear 
 Their flaunting craze, to watch the white gulls' flight, 
 
 As, high athwart wide-roving clouds, they veer 
 Through darkening air, like waning flecks of light. 
 
 The sluggish water dreads the storm's first dip, 
 Turns rolling eyes of light toward sullen sky ; 
 
 The winds, as in the cordage of a ship, 
 Through tangled forest wander piping by. 
 
 They mock the cries of shipwrecked sailors ; shout, 
 And wail, and laugh, till I, excited, scream 
 
 Dead silence follows ! for the goblin rout 
 Then know man's presence in their sylvan dream. 
 
 I turn where cypress branches interlace 
 
 To arch against the sun's red wane, 
 Outlining vast cathedral's gloomy space, 
 
 Half-lit by Gothic window's scarlet stain. 
 
 Within this holy hush and solitude 
 Entranced 1 linger, and forget forget; 
 
 No Past above me here can darkly brood, 
 Nor Future watch upon my footsteps set. 
 
 What voice of hidden Mephistopheles 
 With scornful echo startles the lagoon? 
 
 I feel the current of my life-blood freeze 
 At dread derisive laughter of a loon ! 
 
242 " Htye 0ec0nir QTarfc tDins 
 
 Alas ! although I shot him in my dreams 
 1 hear his warning cry, and watch the storm, 
 
 Till, where the lightnii j through the shadow gleams 
 Upon the marsh, I see my lifeless form ' " 
 
 " What nonsense ! " I began, when the' look 
 on his face and hers stopped me. He had 
 handed her the verses to look at, but, with 
 only a glance at them, she was looking at him 
 with a painfully earnest question in her gaze, 
 while his face was that of a culprit who is- 
 caught. For the moment I could have sworn 
 they were not the strangers I had thought 
 them. Then she rose, tried to excuse herself, 
 and started to go to her room, but was so 
 faint, I, with Babette, had to help her reach it. 
 
 " Worn out from her journey," I explained 
 to Mr. Dillon. 
 
 "No excuse needed, Mrs. Clare; I saw for 
 myself." 
 
 Then he made a series of failures with our 
 duets for flute and piano which were wont to 
 make us sure of being asked to musical par- 
 ties. In the middle of Drouet's " Semiram- 
 ide" he broke down, and turned it off by 
 asking: 
 
 "Where did you make her acquaintance?" 
 
 " On the overland train. Ah, you are smit- 
 ten, as 1 was," I said. 
 
Seronb (Earfc toins." 243 
 
 " 
 
 Are you pleased with her?" he asked. 
 Sworn lasting friendship, and vowed to 
 help her find her own true love," said I. 
 
 To hide his next mistake he said, "How do 
 you know he is her own true love ?" 
 
 " Oh, I know he must be," I replied. 
 
 "The word 'fickle' is unknown to you?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Yes. Isn't Sam my model?" 
 
 He failed again, and begged to be excused 
 from further practice. 
 
 Mrs. Capel kept her room with a nervous 
 headache all Saturday, but on Sunday I made 
 her drive with Mr. Dillon and me to the Cliff 
 House. I wisely planned it so neither knew 
 the other was going until too late to pause 
 starting with her and taking him up on the 
 way. There was a warning of coming storm 
 in the black haze that, as Mr. Dillon said, 
 made the air a magic crystal, showing far-off 
 places as if near, and by the time we had 
 finished luncheon and gone out on the balcony, 
 a wall of fog hid the sea but for what seemed 
 a short space before us. Some one in the par- 
 lor played a snatch of Wagner's "Spinning- 
 Song." 
 
 " Too monotonous," I said. 
 
 "The droning wheel," said Dillon; "but 
 
244 "Stye Seconir OTarir toin0." 
 
 you can hear the footfall of fate, see the red 
 sails and black masts of the doomed ship, and, 
 in Listz's version, hear the wind whistle in 
 the rigging." He turned to her as if she had 
 asked a question. "But when the captain 
 finds Senta at her wheel, she is bound to 
 another." 
 
 "What can be done then?" I asked. 
 
 " Truly," said he, still looking at her, 
 " what can be done?" 
 
 She thought a moment before replying: 
 " There is the decision of Heine's lover : 
 
 " 'As fickle as the wind thy heart 
 
 That flutters to and fro ; 
 With black sails sails my ship, 
 Across the seas to go." 1 
 
 He sprang up and began pacing up and 
 down, when suddenly a full-rigged vessel, 
 looming through the mist, passed within hail, 
 more phantom-like than real. 
 
 " Like a dream ! " she said. 
 
 "And to them," said he, "this shore looks 
 like dreamland." 
 
 " Noiseless, ghostly, and swift as the ' Fly- 
 ing Dutchman/ " she said. 
 
 "How absurd for people to rave over that 
 opera! " said I. " That old fogy striding along 
 
"Stye Beconfc arir toins." 245 
 
 the beach, so many paces to certain orchestral 
 chords, and so on ; nothing to get so excited 
 over, as folks like you all do." 
 
 "It is because he is fated like the figure 
 on the fan," he said with a sigh, and asked 
 us to excuse him a while. I was glad to have 
 him go, for she had caught his trick of watch- 
 ing me, and I was impatient under the musing 
 gaze of two. 
 
 When he had gone, she asked : " Suppose it 
 to be Senta who finds the Captain faithless, 
 what ought she to do?" 
 
 " You could ask no better person," I said. 
 
 "How do you mean?" she asked, looking 
 at me with wonder. 
 
 I felt proud of being appealed to. / knew 
 what should be done, and I told her at once : 
 " Make him pay for the ship she sets sail in." 
 
 " Money ! " she said bitterly. 
 
 " Yes," said I. "A man should pay for for- 
 getting me. But such a thing is not possible 
 to Sam." 
 
 "One would think you, who have all the 
 money you want, would not value it," she 
 said. 
 
 " Not quite all I want. Sam has promised 
 me a hundred thousand dollars for my birth- 
 day, next week, and I am glad to get it." 
 
246 "t&tye Second (tarir 
 
 "A hundred thousand dollars ! " she said, as 
 if deep in thought; and after a pause went 
 on : " Suppose a woman to have had two 
 lovers, and to have chosen the one who proves 
 least faithful - " 
 
 " Don't fancy such things ! " I cried. "Wait 
 till he is found. Oh, why don't you advertise 
 for your husband?" 
 
 "Lost, strayed, or stolen," drawled Mr. 
 Dillon, who had lounged back unseen, and 
 startled us by speaking. 
 
 " How shall I make amends?" he asked. 
 
 " By writing some verses about that mirage- 
 like vision of a sail," said Mrs. Capel. 
 
 While he wrote, with note-book on knee, 
 the fog cleared, and there was a strange sun- 
 set which charmed them, but I was too vexed 
 over the damp the fog left on my crimps to care. 
 
 He said : " A poem in colors ! " 
 
 She quoted : * ' The setting of a great hope 
 is like the setting of the sun ! " 
 
 "Why was that not said in verse instead of 
 prose?" said he. 
 
 "Use it," she hinted. 
 
 " It would be no worse theft," he answered, 
 "than 'Sweet By-and-By,' which is but a 
 poor version of the old Irish air, * Has sorrow 
 thy young days shaded?' " 
 
Second Carfc toins." 247 
 
 Soon after he read to us : 
 
 HAPHAZARD. 
 
 In the balcony jutting above the wild ocean, 
 Like scene an Arabian Night reveals, 
 
 Where oft we linger, with gay emotion, 
 To look at the rocks and the sunning seals, 
 
 To number the clouds and the gulls, wind-shaken, 
 And name the crowding white horses whose manes 
 
 Float and flutter to spray as they sink overtaken 
 Th' sea reclaims 
 
 'T was here we stood, when a mist unbroken 
 Made the world seem sketched on a vapored pane, 
 
 Gray walls surrounded, and blurred all token 
 Whether sun or moon might arise or wane ; 
 
 'T was like a dawning or dreamy gloaming, 
 And a potent spell upon you and me, 
 
 For as we paused there our thoughts were roaming 
 Ships at sea. 
 
 As if in conjurer's crystal, looming 
 Through murky depths, sailed a ship afar 
 
 Like thistle-down in its phantom blooming, 
 Or a floating film a breath might mar; 
 
 As if carved of the moonstone's cloudy sheen, 
 Through the mist it glimmered with softened glow, 
 
 Ai J its sails afret with the wind were seen 
 Intaglio. 
 
 And you murmured, " Perhaps in that vessel one 
 passes 
 
 Whom we might have adored had we known ; 
 And it may be their view our own so surpasses 
 
 Their fantasies shoreward are blown." 
 
248 " f&tye Qeconb 
 
 "Alas!" I answered, "We have no warning 
 
 When the things that almost occur are near 
 Or, like our dreams between dusk and dawning, 
 Disappear!" 
 
 Then they fell to talking of omens, second 
 sight, the sway of one mind over another, and 
 such ghostly stuff, to my high glee and scorn. 
 
 " People who can believe in such things," I 
 said, "are easily duped/' 
 
 "Mrs. Clare," he said, "as I have often 
 told you, you must some time be most com- 
 pletely fooled. It is sure to be. " 
 
 I had not time to tell him what a vain boast 
 this was, when Sam, who had reached town, 
 learned where we had gone, and followed, 
 came out among us. As, nodding to Mr. Dil- 
 lon, he rushed toward me, he noticed Mrs. 
 Capel, but he was quite overcome at the 
 sight of me. He turned pale, his eyes 
 flashed, he could scarcely speak. 
 
 "What is it?" I cried. "Are you ill?" 
 
 He tried to turn it off with some pretense of 
 a passing faintness, but he seemed stunned. 
 Of course, I understood he was vexed not 
 to have been here when I returned. 
 
 "Why didn't I hear from you?" he asked 
 Mr. Dillon, angrily. 
 
 "I sent a dispatch in reply to your letter," 
 said his friend. 
 
Qetorib Cfltfc toins." 249 
 
 " I never got it," said Sam, crossly. 
 
 1 think Mrs. Capel must have one of the 
 sensitive electroplate minds Mr. Dillon talks 
 of; for she said nothing, only, turning red and 
 pale by turns, watched Sam with searching 
 gaze, as was natural when I had promised her 
 his help. I hastened to make them acquainted, 
 to tell him about her, and beg him to aid her 
 to find her husband ; but she put up one hand 
 as if to stop me, vainly tried to speak, and 
 looking an appeal to Mark Dillon I shall 
 always think his queer aspect then was con- 
 scious guilt, slid out of her chair in a deep 
 swoon, from which Mr. Dillon and I had hard 
 work to revive her, while Sam looked on, 
 frightened and displeased. He was so kind he 
 would not come to town with us for fear of 
 crowding us in her faint state. But I knew he 
 was angry to have our meeting so broken in 
 upon by a stranger. Indeed, it made him 
 take such a dislike to her that he refused to 
 have anything to say to her. 
 
 " You are prejudiced," 1 said. 
 
 "Perhaps 1 am," he replied, coolly, and 
 would have nothing to do with her. He 
 seemed all worn out by his trip to San Gre- 
 gorio, and in the evening had a severe fit of 
 cramp in his right arm and shoulder. My 
 
250 "fftlje Ketonb Carir toins. 1 ' 
 
 head was so full of Mrs. Capel that I had just 
 burst out about it : 
 
 " I believe I know where to lay my hand on 
 her husband." 
 
 Sam looked amazed, gave a husky sort of 
 roar, and that very moment was seized with 
 this cramp that kept his man rubbing him for 
 a long time. When Alphonse had been sent 
 out, I went on, though Sam had to look over 
 some business papers, and could hardly attend 
 to me. 
 
 " I feel sure that Mr. Dillon knows," I said. 
 
 Sam looked up as if annoyed. He cannot 
 bear anything roundabout, while I like mys- 
 teries. Perhaps because I can solve them. 
 
 " Yes," said I, at the risk of vexing him 
 about his friend, "/ believe he is her hus- 
 band." 
 
 Sam gave a sigh of relief, the cramp had 
 been so bad. With an admiring glance he 
 cried "By Jove! I never thought of that. 
 There 's woman's keen wit ! " 
 
 But then I always knew I was more shrewd 
 than others. "As a reward of merit" he 
 brought me some fine candies, saying, "A 
 Market -street confectioner advertises these 
 as * high-toned.' Does he mean their rank 
 flavor?" 
 
Seconb Carb toins." 251 
 
 Perhaps they made me dream, as the lady 
 in the next room says it is the sugar in the 
 whisky-punch which flies to one's head ; any- 
 way, I dreamed strangely that night. I 
 seemed to stand at the elbow of some man 
 whose face I could not see as he bent over a 
 letter he was writing a queer letter; and 
 the dream was so plain that I saw him trace 
 each word, and, leaning over him, read as he 
 wrote : 
 
 "As disembodied spirits we might agree ; but as life 
 is as it is, so dependent on our mortal frames and tem- 
 peraments, I have made my choice." 
 
 I roused from sleep to find myself in bed 
 alone. Babette had left the night-lamp burn- 
 ing, as usual. I knew Sam was in the next 
 room casting up accounts, as he often sat up 
 to do. Then, puzzling over Mark Dillon and 
 that woman, I dropped off again to the same 
 dream the figure writing with face bent 
 toward the right, and myself standing at his 
 left shoulder. He had written on, and while 
 I watched, his hand formed these words : 
 
 " Silence, with instant departure for Europe, with a 
 solemn promise never to return or send a message to 
 me by word or letter. These are my sole terms, even 
 if I must pay at the rate of a thousand dollars for each 
 letter in the words." 
 
252 "(El)* Bttorib Carfc 
 
 Again I struggled to my senses ; I sat up in 
 bed to be sure I was now awake. Sam came 
 in, and was alarmed, thinking I was ill. 
 
 " I wish," said I, "I could give Mr. Dillon a 
 piece of my mind." 
 
 ' ' Better not meddle in what does not con- 
 cern you," said Sam, quite gruffly for him. 
 
 An hour or two later, I was roused by Sam's 
 talking in his sleep. " Is she not worth a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars?" he muttered. He was 
 dreaming of the sum he had promised me. 
 Then he grew angry. " Why won't you 
 go?" he cried, fiercely. "There is the 
 money! " 
 
 "Sam! Sam!" I called, "who is meddling 
 now with other folks' affairs. You are dream- 
 ing." 
 
 Only half-awake, he cried : * ' You shall not 
 part us ! " and grasped me firmly by the arm. 
 
 " What is the matter?" I said, waking him 
 at last. 
 
 "What was I saying?" he asked anxiously, 
 and scarcely slept again. So I did not wonder 
 he did not want to go to the theatre Monday 
 night, as I had before his return engaged with 
 Mrs. Capel and his friend to do. 
 
 "You must guard yourself to-night," I said 
 to Mr. Dillon, as we went to call for Mrs. 
 
Seconb OTarb toins." 253 
 
 Capel. " I have lent her the bewitched 
 fan." 
 
 1 did not think of his taking it seriously ; but 
 he muttered : " Great heavens ! has it reached 
 her at last?" 
 
 " What is that?" I asked. " It seems to me 
 we are all a little crazy about this stranger." 
 
 " It is all your fault," he answered; "you 
 brought her here." 
 
 "Did 1?" I asked. "It was her absent 
 husband you know very well what brought 
 her I think you know him. 1 ' I added this 
 recklessly, but was surprised at the effect ; he 
 got so excited. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Clare," he cried, "don't ask 
 me anything about it! I know nothing, noth- 
 ing, nothing! " 
 
 "As well as you know yourself" I went 
 on; "you are " I faltered. I felt I was 
 verging on rudeness. We had reached her 
 door. I dared not go on. But he understood. 
 
 "7 her husband! It is like telling a man 
 who is bound hand and foot that he is free ! 
 I" 
 
 But his nervous knock brought her at once 
 to her door, and I lost whatever he meant to 
 say. 
 
 After we were in our box, Mrs. Capel looked 
 
254 "l)e Seronb (Earir tains." 
 
 at the play-bill. " The burlesque Evan- 
 geline!" she exclaimed, and turned to Mr. 
 Dillon. " You have known a burlesque Evan- 
 geline in real life. There are such footballs of 
 fate." 
 
 He looked quickly at me. "We will not 
 talk of unhappy things to-night," he said; 
 then, turning to her, added: " Silence is 
 golden.'" 
 
 Bent on making us enjoy, he brought us 
 flowers and candy, and talked more than his 
 wont. He toyed a while with the Indian fan, 
 sketching the history of fans, and ending, as 
 he returned it to Mrs. Capel, with : "Among 
 the Asiatics a fan on a plate of special shape 
 told a condemned nobleman his sentence, and 
 when he reached to take the gift, was the mo- 
 ment of losing his life." 
 
 "What a sigh you gave as you took the 
 fan, Mrs. Capel," I said, "as \iyou had been 
 sentenced." 
 
 " To exile with no hope of reprieve," said 
 Mr. Dillon. 
 
 Some stir of late-comers caught my glance ; 
 when I again looked at Mrs. Capel her breast 
 heaved, the fan, half-open, shook in her hand; 
 behind it I caught a glimpse of a long slip of 
 paper, like a check. 
 
Senmb QTarfc toins." 255 
 
 " I feel faint," she said. Mr. Dillon brought 
 her some water, and then she sat back out of 
 sight, and he talked to me about those we 
 knew who were in the house. But as I do not 
 choose to let people dupe me with secrets right 
 under my eyes, I soon said: 
 
 " Was that a love poem ?" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" he asked. 
 
 " That paper slyly thrust in and creased to 
 fold with the fan," I said. 
 
 I think the sounds from the orchestra 
 screened a muttered oath, he looked so 
 angry. 
 
 " Was it poetry?" I insisted. 
 
 " Not poetry, but a bit of philosophy and 
 a secret of mine," he added. 
 
 " I shall ask her to let me see it," I said, for 
 I was provoked that he should try to fool me. 
 
 He seemed confused, and, turning, looked at 
 Mrs. Capel. The fan lay closed in her lap. 
 "Allow me," he said, gently taking it from 
 her. At the same moment his glance, roving 
 over the house, fell on some one he knew. 
 " Excuse me," he said, and rushed out. He 
 came back almost at once, and, sitting beside 
 me, opened the fan, withdrew a slip of thin 
 paper from the sliding sticks and gave it to me. 
 1 quickly unfolded it and found a blank ! 
 
256 "QTlje Scconb QTarfc tains. 1 ' 
 
 " Mrs. Clare, you have a very vivid fancy," 
 he said, with his cynical smile, which makes 
 me sometimes almost hate him, and think if 
 not Sam's friend I would cut him. 
 
 " Only think," he went on, " how all these 
 commonplace people around us have each a 
 story as picturesque and diverting as any 
 play! There is a chance for your fancy." 
 
 11 1 should like to know all about their pri- 
 vate lives," I said. 
 
 " Heaven forbid!" he cried. "Never try 
 to go behind the scenes in real life. You 
 would find the same dingy makeshifts, cur- 
 tains, traps, and sudden steps up and down, 
 as on the stage." 
 
 Mrs. Capel came forward, and seemed like 
 herself again. But I watched them both, for 
 I felt that 1 was on the track of a strange 
 story. Coming out, I was behind them, and 
 found on the floor where Mrs. Capel had been 
 sitting a sheet of paper, on which these lines 
 were written (without doubt, Mr. Dillon had 
 meant them for me. I cannot remember 
 breaking any promise to him that is, of 
 course, just poetical flummery. He must, man- 
 like, have forgotten for the moment that I had 
 lent the fan, and that it was not I who would 
 find them in it, and his feint about the blank 
 
"l)e Qetorib OTarfc toins." 257 
 
 paper was done to hide his shame at his 
 blunder. It was all quite plain) : 
 
 A FANTASY. 
 
 " Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills and wings 
 Darkening, and blind inexpiable things." 
 
 I. -THE FAN. 
 
 Toy the most feminine ! Woman's will ! Yet 
 Chinese the saying is now I forget! 
 
 Ivory, filmy, the fan of frail fret 
 
 Holding one realm 
 With the Marie Antoinette collaret 
 Baleful in ray, crime beset carcanet 
 
 Famed gem on gem. 
 
 Eight words by Chinese sage at Woman hurled. 
 In minor tones my heart-throbs there upwhirled ! 
 
 Bauble of lace all embroidered, unfurled 
 
 Shadow in freak, 
 
 That, at the court and play, feigned to the world 
 Blush-roses bloomed upon rouged and empearled 
 
 Pompadour's cheek. 
 
 That pedant ere he posed o'er learned primer, 
 Quaffed Rose-In-Bloom romance in foaming brimmer! 
 
 Down through the Feasts of the Lantern that 
 glimmer 
 
 Three thousand years, 
 After the eye of fair Kansi lent shimmer 
 Over her masque, premier fan, none make dimmer 
 
 This of vague fears ! 
 
258 "l)c geconb (Harb toins." 
 
 II. SPREAD. 
 
 Reed broken ; trailing wing : a darkened sky ; 
 Each are inherence of that bitter cry ! 
 
 Far, high horizon, leaning awry, 
 
 A pallid moon 
 
 Ruminant wandering through a blue sky. 
 Curlew low flying, gull hanging high, 
 
 Down-tilting loon. 
 
 World-grief Is through his murmur surging free, 
 So moan the billows, and the wind in tree ! 
 
 Who is here, roaming alone by the sea, 
 
 Drift on the shore, 
 
 Blown and oblique? Let the dream -figure flee I 
 Why doth he, beating his brow, turn to me? 
 
 What to deplore? 
 
 His breaking heart in a proverb embalming, 
 How could a cynic in China be harming? 
 
 Picture of dread, a prophetic alarming, 
 
 Fate and despair ! 
 
 Meanwhile the orchestra thrills with its charming 
 Traumbilder^ Lumbye, composer, becalming 
 
 Castle in air ! 
 
 111.- FURLED. 
 
 Phrase like a ghost with a finger on lip ! 
 Love-hooded heart like a bird let to slip ! 
 
"ftlje Second (Hard tomg." 259 
 
 Plume upon plume here with down on the tip, 
 
 Hovered in flight 
 
 O'er bramble-hid city, voyaging ship, 
 Desert, mirage and simoon, but to dip * 
 
 At tranquil height. 
 
 On wind of every fan blown to its aim, 
 
 Blows, blowing yet, that sigh of wrathful blame ! 
 
 Filigree-silver and sandal-wood frame 
 
 Hint caravan ; 
 
 Deep mining-tunnel with torches aflame ; 
 Incense and rite in the great Brahma name, 
 
 Blessing or ban. 
 
 All the world over doth Beauty cajole, 
 Love learn the wisdom of that Chinese dole ! 
 
 Clouds of enchantment around you uproll 
 
 From fan and glove, 
 
 As if each flower you Ve worn left its soul, 
 Like painted dream, where to Earth downward stole 
 
 Cherub, or Love ! 
 
 IV. THE TASSEL. 
 
 Few are his words, but how much they betray ; 
 Pathos of novel or heart-rending play ! 
 
 If as the Magi held though all astray, 
 
 Life a blind road, 
 I but intangible fibre obey 
 Spun from unpitying star 01 my day, 
 
 What may this bode ? 
 
260 "l)e Seconb arb 
 
 My heart his tent, I hear him low complain: 
 Star falling, venomed flower, are in the strain ! 
 
 Mine to be fashioned like mere tassel-skein ? 
 
 Frosted the flame, 
 
 Chill of your coldness to fire in my vein ! 
 // Flung from your hand as whim may ordain. 
 
 Like puppet-game? 
 
 V.- THE BOX. 
 
 Passionate sage and I ! Hearts of one race ! 
 On my Great Wall of woe his words I trace ! 
 
 Trifle may prophesy, even that case, 
 
 Cushioned with crape. 
 Broad, rounded top with a narrowing base, 
 Black on the white of your velvet and lace, 
 
 A coffin shape ! 
 
 The saying ? Truth in China or Japan 
 A woman's word is like a broken fan ! 
 
 Tuesday, I was on my way to the street; 
 the elevator had just touched the ground-floor, 
 when I found that stupid Babette had given 
 me the wrong gloves, two of the same hue, 
 but where one had twelve buttons the other 
 had but six. I signed to the boy to go up 
 again ; but he waited for a couple just coming 
 from the street-door, who entered, and, in the 
 
Beronb orb tDina." 261 
 
 change from outdoors to darkness, did not see 
 me in the corner, but kept on talking. 
 
 "You must cheer up," she said, "and not 
 look on life as a losing game." 
 
 " Perhaps you thought it one," he sneered, 
 "till you had the chance to cry checkmate. 
 You can talk thus when you could give up the 
 certainty of happiness in a second venture, 
 give up the most constant of your girlhood's 
 lovers, give up the opportunity to redeem a 
 broken promise all for the possibilities of 
 money! " 
 
 "But think of those possibilities!" she 
 answered; "happiness is among them as 
 surely as money need not be reckoned in hap- 
 piness, ^fou cannot judge; you have not 
 known the bitter taste of poverty 
 
 " But I do judge. 1 know you are lost in a 
 golden mist. 1 can not see how you could keep 
 from seizing your freedom." 
 
 "At the cost of that butterfly's wings?" 
 she asked. "Why should I break down a 
 lovely flower? I could not hurt one who has 
 been kind to me." 
 
 " But my conscience is not easy to have 
 matters go this way," said he. 
 
 "What is a man's conscience?" she said. 
 " A passing gust of wind that blows in the line 
 
262 " <g|e Second Car& toins. 
 
 of his glance, always coming up behind him, 
 never blowing against him!" 
 
 "But he has obeyed the dictates of con- 
 science in " 
 
 "Dictates of conscience!" she broke in, 
 " in a man who knows no difference between 
 a desire and a duty!" 
 
 " I can not wonder that you are bitter," he 
 said, " to find your husband as you have " 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Capel!" I cried, grasping her 
 arm, " have you found him? Oh, I'm so 
 glad! kiss me, my dear. Oh, tell me all 
 about it! Come to my rooms I will not go 
 out this afternoon." 
 
 I suppose 1 startled them both, seizing hold 
 of her in the dimness, for she really screamed : 
 "O my soul! I didn't see you!" 
 
 " Great heavens! Mrs. Clare!" cried Mark 
 Dillon. ''Mrs. Capel is not well. She is on 
 her way to her room to lie down. She has 
 found" 
 
 "A kind friend in you, Mrs. Clare," she 
 broke in. "I feel your sympathy. No I 
 have not found the man I married." 
 
 Then the elevator touched our floor, and she 
 and I stepped out. Mr. Dillon bowed and 
 went down again. Mrs. Capel's eyes gleamed, 
 and her lips wore a tense curve, as she begged 
 
Seconb arb toina." 263 
 
 me to excuse her; she needed rest. As I 
 watched her pass down the hall, her air made 
 me think of the woman Sam can not bear to 
 see walk into the dining-room, because her gait 
 recalls some one he has known. The more I 
 thought over their strange talk together, the 
 more sure I felt that there was some secret 
 between them. I meant to know what. 
 
 Our hotel gave a hop on Wednesday night. 
 Sam and I were on the floor waiting for the 
 music to begin. He often gets the band to 
 play what he likes. 
 
 " Have you told the leader what you will 
 have?" asked Mark Dillon, as he strolled up 
 to us. " Shall I name ' The Open Road* ?" 
 
 /'Or 'Man lives but once,'" Sam an- 
 swered, and his friend gave the order. 
 
 When we sat down, he joined us, saying, 
 after one of his old, long looks at me : 
 
 "Well Mrs. Capel has gone." 
 
 Sam walked off, as he always did when she 
 was spoken of. So dull of Mr. Dillon not to 
 know /was the one most interested in her. 
 
 " Without a word of farewell!" I said. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he answered; "she sent a 
 good-by to you. She got a letter Monday 
 night that caused her sudden start. She 
 meant to leave yesterday morning, but missed 
 he train." 
 
264 "l)e Seconb Carb toms." 
 
 "Poor woman!" said I. "How I wish we 
 could have helped her ! She had her journey 
 for nothing." 
 
 "No," he said; "she gained by it expe- 
 rience." 
 
 " Yes," said 1; " she is richer, I suppose." 
 
 " Ah?" He spoke as if surprised. 
 
 "Yes," 1 answered; "in thought and 
 feeling." 
 
 " Oh yes," said he; " yes, I think she is 
 richer. It has been worth to her at least a 
 hundred thousand dollars." 
 
 He was watching me so closely that I knew 
 he felt I suspected him, and 1 changed the 
 subject by asking: " Isn't it a shame about 
 the break in stocks?" 
 
 "Break! Why, you are dreaming. Stocks 
 are booming." 
 
 " Oh, no. Sam has just lost in them the 
 hundred thousand dollars he promised me for 
 my birthday." 
 
 "Is it possible? I was not aware oh, 
 yes, to be sure." 
 
 His wits seemed to be straying; but I 
 suppose he was lost in admiration of my ex- 
 quisite dress gold-colored satin and cloth-of- 
 gold, embroidered with seed-pearls. Or was he 
 thinking about her? 
 
0er0nfc QTar& tains." 265 
 
 "How would her husband have felt if she 
 had found him?" I asked. 
 
 " How can I more than another answer that 
 question?" said he. " Ask Sam." 
 
 " I am sorry for him," I said. 
 
 " For whom?" he asked. 
 
 " For her husband," I answered. " He has 
 lost a good wife." 
 
 " Well," he said, musing, " I once thought 
 she had a soul. But only a few souls are made. 
 Half the world have none. I 'm afraid she was 
 like the most of us, mere painted slides on the 
 lantern of Life. But suppose we will say 
 suppose she had found him married again?" 
 
 "But," said I, losing patience, " she didn't 
 even find him." 
 
 "Oh, no," he replied, quickly; "I didn't 
 say she did." 
 
 He had been idly playing with my Indian 
 fan, and now suddenly asked if I did not think 
 the figure in the picture less plain than of 
 yore. " The old juggler really could foretell 
 then," he muttered. 
 
 But I wanted to solve the mystery, and 
 began by asking, "Why don't you marry?" 
 
 He smiled. " Shall I say I am the victim of 
 the cruel laws of being, or of chance ? I only 
 wait at a banquet where I inhale the odor of 
 
266 "Slje Seconir Carb 
 
 other men's cake, and hear the plash of others' 
 wine." 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked. 
 
 " That married women please me most," he 
 said. 
 
 Of course, I knew it all the time, but was 
 surprised that he owned it to me. 
 
 "But lately," he went on, "my wonted 
 pose of looker-on has been disturbed. I have 
 just been a heavy loser by getting too 
 absorbed in another man's game." 
 
 "What was it? Faro?" 
 
 " No yes yes, it was a very good game 
 of faro. Do you know what that is?" 
 
 "No. How is it played?" 
 
 "It is all chance," he replied; "the first 
 card loses, and the second card wins." 
 
 He bowed and loitered off through the 
 whirling, jostling throng. I was glad to lose 
 sight of his cynical smile and sound of his 
 affected drawl. It was two or three hours 
 later, just twelve o'clock, when, tired of 
 dancing, I sat listening to the " Oginski," and 
 waiting for Sam, who stood not far off, telling 
 some one the love-lorn legend of the music. 
 After the last bar, I heard his words: " Here 
 the Polish lover, mad with despair, went 
 from the ballroom out into the night and shot 
 himself." 
 
Seconfr QTarfc toine." 267 
 
 A chilly wind swept round me, a gust that 
 tore my fan out of my tight-gloved left hand, 
 which was trying to also hold bouquet and 
 handkerchief, while I beckoned Sam to come. 
 
 " They must have opened a window some- 
 where/' I told him. " Do have it closed." 
 
 " I feel the wind, too, now I come here," he 
 said, picking up my fan, and going to see about 
 it, but he came back without finding any 
 reason for the blast. " I feel it only here," he 
 said; but we went to our rooms. As we left 
 the elevator, a rush of cold air again chilled us 
 to the marrow. I shivered, and trying to draw 
 my cloak more closely round me, the fan 
 slipped out of my hand as if some one had 
 snatched it, and in some odd chance was 
 thrown over the banisters as we passed the 
 stairs, and falling many feet on the marble 
 pavement, was wholly shattered. I could have 
 cried, I was so vexed to lose it. I wished I 
 had taken the cherry-stone bracelet. 
 
 " The house seems full of draughts to-night," 
 said Sam, as he locked our door. 
 
 Shivering, too, I answered, " I wonder how 
 far Mrs. Capel has got on her journey." 
 
 " She can't be colder in the cars than we 
 are here," said Sam, poking the fire, which we 
 always have at night ; but all at once it seemed 
 to have been needless, for we had to open the 
 
268 "i)e Kecorib OTarb toins." 
 
 windows. Sam tried to comfort me for the loss 
 of the fan ; but he was in a very jolly mood, 
 and kept pirouetting all through the rooms. 
 "By Jove!" he cried, " this is a world worth 
 living in, isn't it? Oh, Minnie! you looked 
 as sweet as a peach to-night. I 'm so proud of 
 you ! I 'm very sorry about your fan." 
 
 " Oh, I am!" said I. "There is nothing like 
 it in this country." 
 
 "Not only that," he said, "but I hate to 
 have Mark know it is ruined. But I 'm so 
 happy to-night I can't grieve so much. Come 
 and kiss me, Minnie." 
 
 Dear Sam ! There never was a more fond 
 and faithful husband. How I pity wives with 
 husbands who can be false ! 
 
 II. PASSAGE FROM THE DIARY OF 
 MRS. CAPEL. 
 
 Thursday morning. My nerves have been 
 so shaken by the ordeal I have passed that I 
 could not rest well last night. As I lay in my 
 berth the very motion of the train seemed to 
 throb against my brain. "You are not the 
 same poor creature who passed over this very 
 road a week ago not the same not the 
 same!" I could not keep from thinking of 
 poor old Mark. How true he had been ! But 
 
Qetonb Carb toins." 269 
 
 what folly it would have been to trust any 
 man again! I drew my watch from under my 
 head, made out to see that the hands. were on 
 twelve, and then dropped to sleep as to a series 
 of strange visions. Out of blank darkness 
 suddenly shapes itself before me that fan from 
 India, which will confront me. I can not turn 
 so that it does not follow, until I see and cry 
 out: " Why the figure has gone from the 
 picture!" Then it all vanishes. Now 1 see 
 the beach near the Cliff House. There is a 
 full moon, and Mark paces there alone, though 
 a high wind is blowing. But such a weight is 
 on my soul that I groan myself awake. (Could 
 he have been there, I wonder? Was his mind, 
 looking out on the moonlit sea and lovely 
 sands, reflected in mine, and vividly defined 
 against the chiaroscuro of dreamland ?) Then 
 I am in a ballroom, the band playing the wildly 
 sad " Oginski," full of deep-drawn sighs and 
 longing. I am conscious of a swarm of 
 dancers, yet seem to be only sure of Samuel 
 and my lovely friend who sits near him, look- 
 ing very beautiful, and takes no notice of 
 Mark, who comes up with some queer dis- 
 figurement of his face, and behaves very 
 strangely, snatching her fan out of her hand 
 and flinging it on the floor. (Probably I 
 
270 "(Erje Second <Ear& toins." 
 
 dreamed this because I knew he disliked to 
 see her have it.) She pays no heed to him, 
 but shivers. Samuel gets her fan, and soon 
 they all three leave the hall, she and "Clare" 
 acting as if chilly. Mark again tears the fan 
 from her, and dashes it down as if from some 
 great height. Dream-like, she does not notice 
 him, though grieved to lose her fan, which, I 
 see, is shivered to bits. Then I lose sight of 
 all of them I hang across the firm but un- 
 seen arm of some shadowy presence that bears 
 me away with it. I hear no voice, but feel 
 borne in upon me these words: "Beyond 
 even the possibilities of Money!" I float in 
 mid-air, though it does not seem so much that 
 I move higher and higher, as that my old sur- 
 roundings drop away is tkati\\e city with its 
 net of lights far below? and that vast silver 
 shield must be the ocean ! Clouds bar off that 
 view. I am chilled and breathless. How daz- 
 zling the stars grow ! Is that dim speck our 
 world down there by the moon? Is this 
 I feel the unseen arm loose its hold, and the 
 vapor that seems like a presence shoots far 
 above, as if torn from me. I am falling, fall- 
 ing through endless depths. I awoke with a 
 convulsive start, to find myself in the swinging 
 train, with the crazy beat upon my brain. 
 " Not the same ! Oh, not the same ! " 
 
Seronb (tarb toine." 271 
 
 III. PARAGRAPH FROM SAN FRANCISCO 
 PAPERS OF THURSDAY EVENING. 
 
 Last night, Mark Dillon left the hop at the 
 
 Hotel, and with a party of gentlemen 
 
 drove to the Cliff House. Leaving them at 
 supper, he went out on the beach at midnight, 
 and shot himself in the temple. No cause for 
 the suicide is known. He was a man of refine- 
 ment and culture, but had spent most of his 
 fortune in foreign travel. He was well known 
 in society as musician and poet, and in his 
 pocket were found these lines (dated yester- 
 day): 
 
 A LOST HOPE. 
 Oft when the sun has set 
 A wondrous afterglow will linger yet ; 
 Through darkening dome the trailing gorgeous hues 
 
 Unite, dissolve, slow change to shadows gray 
 As echoes of some haunting tune perplex, 
 That come and go and vex, 
 And all the idler's hollow thought confuse 
 With occult sway. 
 
 When a great hope has set 
 Long must its halo stir a deep regret, 
 Illuminating oft the gloomy thought 
 
 With rays from sunken argosy. 
 The floating cloud of foiled sweet fancies nued 
 
 By it, are viewed 
 
 With aching heart and soul that, half-distraught,, 
 Yearn oh, how helplessly! 
 

 IN SILVER UPON PURPLE: "STAR- 
 CROSS'D LOVERS." 
 
I 
 
 IN SILVER UPON PURPLE: "STAR- 
 CROSS'D LOVERS." 
 
 Pastel. 
 
 " From no human equation can you eliminate that unknown 
 factor, the most mysterious of all, the unexpected." 
 
 Midsummer and midnight in an Italian city in 
 the sixteenth century. The narrow, crooked 
 streets are dim and quiet. The purple dark 
 above is strewn with worlds like silver sands, 
 yet so solemn and mysterious one feels that 
 they may form cabalistic characters, and 
 dreads some consequence yet hanging in the 
 stars. 
 
 A nobleman passes along the lonely streets 
 toward the cemetery, followed by his page, 
 who bears a torch and a basket of flowers. 
 The torchlight casts glints upon the heavy 
 gold embroidery of a sinister heraldic flower 
 which wreathes the young gentleman's white 
 cloak, and lets the white satin puffing in his 
 slashed sleeves gleam, the gems set in the hilt 
 of his rapier flash. The frosty plumes in his 
 
 275 
 
276 In Siber Upon JJurple. 
 
 hat nod above a refined, proud face. Many 
 women have sighed, have wept, because he 
 passed them without a glance. The stately 
 elegance of the man himself is far more than 
 his adornments. What could thwart the will 
 of such a fine, majestic being ? 
 
 Those shifting, silver sands, that dust of 
 worlds, athwart the purple dark long-blown 
 and blowing far ! 
 
 " These milky blossoms," he muses, "are 
 not white enough to match the purity of that 
 fair girl who was to have been my wife. I 
 ought to thank Heaven that I lose her only 
 as the bride of Death. I could never have 
 yielded her to any other bridegroom. My 
 Beautiful! My Own!" 
 
 He will never know that she loved, even 
 married, another. He moves haughtily to- 
 ward that unforeseen but immediate, sudden 
 fray in which he is to be killed. 
 
 Athwart the purple dark, long-blown and 
 blowing far, those shifting silver sands, that 
 dust of worlds ! 
 
 The page tries to stride like his master, and 
 longs to be the grown man who can do as he 
 likes. The shadows leap from them, point at 
 them, draw grotesque likenesses of them, 
 crowd back and follow. Here is a lofty win- 
 
Jn Siber Hpon JJnrple. 277 
 
 dow, over which a fantastic gargoyle, half- 
 demon, half-dragon, is lolling out its tongue, 
 as if in derision, but a shadow closes its 
 mouth, even cowls its head, and leaves its 
 sharp claws, holding an open book, its coiled 
 tail, by which it hangs from the roof, without 
 meaning. Below, in the open window, a girl 
 of scarlet lips and bright eyes is leaning out 
 into the summer night. Many men, with their 
 hungry hearts in their eyes, have followed 
 her to and from mass. What shall assail with 
 stifling torment a creature of such grace and 
 charm ? 
 
 Long-blown and blowing far, that dust of 
 worlds, athwart the purple dark those shifting 
 silver sands ! 
 
 She sees the picturesque passing of knight 
 and page. She knows their mission. She 
 does not regret the death ; her own lover was 
 too much taken by that girl at the late 
 masque. " I have been wrong not to let him 
 know how his wooing has thrilled me," she 
 thinks. "When he serenaded me the night 
 before, I neither lighted my window nor flung 
 down a flower. I will make amends now for 
 my long neglect of him. I will embroider that 
 old love-song he sang for the border of the 
 cloak he shall wear at our wedding. It stiall 
 
278 Jn Qiluer &pon Jtarple. 
 
 be of sky-blue velvet, the border of satin, 
 the five lines, the stems of the notes, the bars 
 in silver, the notes of seed-pearls. With ropes 
 of pearls and white plumes on his hat, how 
 handsome he will look! His beauty is a 
 melody, a harmony for the eye beyond any 
 the ear ever heard ! And its theme is Love ! " 
 
 The purple dark, that shifting dust of 
 worlds, those silver sands long-blown and 
 blowing far athwart ! 
 
 The serene night is too pitiful to let her feel 
 any foreboding of ill, of news that dawn will 
 bring of a triple tragedy to-night in the ceme- 
 tery, any hint of the secret which will be such 
 distress to her to know that her lover has 
 already married the girl whose beauty be- 
 witched him at the masque. 
 
 An old nurse who has come from a palace in 
 mourning, and whose black figure, thrown up 
 by the circling rays of torchlight, is a blot on 
 the paler darkness behind her, sees by the 
 dancing flare the beatified girl in the window 
 and the passing beneath of the jaunty, dis- 
 dainful cavalier and his strutting, envious 
 page. The lovely girl, with pink roses in dark 
 curls shadowing her high forehead, wears deep 
 rose-velvet, heavily embroidered with crystal 
 beads, the bodice a glittering mass of them, 
 
In Siloer Hpon purple. 279 
 
 like a vision, all for an instant, of tears she is 
 soon to shed. The old woman has a vivid 
 glimpse of her against a background of gold- 
 colored tapestry. The gargoyle grins, its 
 mouth gapes into mock laughter, then appears 
 to hastily shut, as grim shadows close around 
 the dreaming girl and pursue the departing 
 cavalier. 
 
 "Now, afore Heaven! why couldn't they 
 fall in love with one another?" the nurse 
 mumbles. " Just as young and handsome as 
 the others, and with the chinks ! Yet these 
 must go down through the ages, as they say, 
 forever famous as the jilted ones! Nobody 
 will be concerned about what they may have 
 suffered. A dainty beauty, a brave gallant 
 they deserve a better fate. Poor County 
 Paris! Poor Rosaline!" 
 
 That dust of worlds, those shifting, silver 
 sands long-blown and blowing far athwart the 
 purple dark ! 
 
'ARE THE DEAD DEAD?" 
 
; 
 
 "ARE THE DEAD DEAD?" 
 
 
 Who shall determine the power of sympathy, or assign to that 
 power its limit? 
 
 My story is so strange that I cannot expect 
 many to believe it. Only a short time ago 
 I myself would have scoffed at such a tale. I 
 would not tell it, but for the faint hope that it 
 may lead others if such there be to own to 
 any like experience ; for I cannot think that I 
 alone, of all the world, have had such glimpse 
 of the mysterious outlying region usually 
 veiled from mortals. Whoever you are, now 
 about to read what comes, I implore you com- 
 fort me, if you can, by writing: " I, too, have 
 heard and seen!" Come forward and share 
 my burden before I lose my mind. 
 
 Marvel not that I grant the request of the 
 club which asked for this statement. Since 
 that awful experience I feel lifted above the 
 paltry secret-keeping of this world. I own 
 our spiritual kinship. On the Day of Judg- 
 ment all will be known ; why should I hesitate 
 to give now a brief account of what, after all, 
 283 
 
284 "&re tlje 
 
 might have happened to any one ? For we are 
 all tangled in strange meshes of circumstance. 
 
 But it must be seldom that one is allowed to 
 see how one's thoughts or acts here may, long 
 after one is gone, affect people one may not 
 have known ; to see how, before unguessed, 
 life might have been different; to find that 
 one's passions last as strong as in life, or 
 stronger. But are they not one's self ! With- 
 out them we might as well be lost in the 
 Universal Spirit of the Brahmins. 
 
 That no one has seen and heard such proof 
 of this until now weighs nothing against it. 
 Sir John Herschel has said, that of all the 
 fusions that might be of the fifty or sixty ele- 
 ments which chemistry shows there are on the 
 earth, it is likely nay, almost sure that some 
 have not been made. Those who cannot un- 
 derstand my story should remember that to 
 the blind the touch of ice or fire is the same. 
 Those who doubt this tale are like the Indian 
 prince told of by Hume, who would not think 
 thare could be ice. 
 
 1 have another reason for writing this; I 
 owe it to the club upon which I rather forced 
 myself to tell the cause of my abject terror 
 when they saw nothing. I know some of 
 them thought I was crazed; they will feel 
 
ttje EJeafc Eleabr' 285 
 
 sure of it, perhaps, when I say that, so far 
 as human judgment could go, it seemed to me 
 at first that my joining them sprang from the 
 wealth of bloom this year on the great helio- 
 trope under my parlor-window, and from a 
 chance call ; but now these seem but links in 
 a chain, running into past and future beyond 
 our ken. 
 
 I filled a vase on my piano with the flowers, 
 whose strong, sweet, wine-like odor led me to 
 rhymes. Then I played and sang till, through 
 the dreamful scent and the charm of music, I 
 was rapt in clouds far above the world, and so 
 little pleased to have a caller that I paid slight 
 heed to him ; and, on the plea of playing for 
 him, did some hard practice, till, with aching 
 arms, I turned round to find he had caught up 
 the leaf of note-paper I had written on, and 
 was placing his eyeglass to see what it was. 
 With some notion that it was a joke to do so, 
 he read aloud my 
 
 RONDEL. 
 
 Strange depth of passion freights the heavy scent 
 Of heliotrope ; there breathes a discontent 
 
 From pallid purple upon snow upthrown, 
 Like haze of hills afar with white cloud blent; 
 
 All vague regret and mad desire seem loan 
 From odor blown. 
 
286 "&re ttje JDecrtr 
 
 Sweet things that never were pervade my thought, 
 As when sad music sounds, with yearning fraught, 
 
 That makes the present pass behind two tears, 
 All that the future may unfold seem naught. 
 
 Some past unknown was blest. Too quickly veers 
 The lapse of years. 
 
 1 cannot read nor sing I only sigh. 
 
 A haunting presence in my room is nigh ; 
 
 I suffocate with a delicious dole. 
 What spirit stronger than my own is by? 
 
 Is this fierce will, that can my mind control, 
 The flower's soul? 
 
 "Humph!" said he. "You ought to join 
 the Ghost Club." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 1 asked. "1 had 
 not heard of one." 
 
 " Well, it is kept quiet," he said ; "but it is 
 a small club, whose members go to houses said 
 to be haunted, to see what truth there may be 
 in the tales. You know that one out on 
 Valencia street, near Fifteenth? They have 
 spent some time there ; and in the large house 
 here in town, on Sutter street, which was 
 vacant so long, and at last taken, with its fine 
 grounds, for a beer-garden." 
 
 "What happened?" I asked. "Was any 
 one frightened into a fit?" 
 
 "No," said he; "they have seen nothing 
 
"Sir* tlje 8)*ai> Eeabr' 287 
 
 yet. But if you watch to-morrow night, you 
 will see them marching up here to the house 
 over the way." 
 
 I began to be interested. " That house!" 
 I said. "I did not know anything was the 
 matter with it. But I know it has long been 
 to let." I did not tell him what a part of my 
 reveries it had been not only for its pictur- 
 esque look, but because of the music I had 
 once heard from its windows. 
 
 "It is not easy to let," he went on, "be- 
 cause the first owner poisoned himself there. 
 Why don't you join the club ? You are fan- 
 ciful enough. I can give you letters to the 
 chief members." 
 
 "I might for fun," I said; "I have no 
 faith." 
 
 "Neither have they; they call it a quest 
 for truth." 
 
 I let him write the letters two to women, 
 one to a man three out of the seven who 
 formed the club. The last thing that night I 
 paused by my window to look over at the 
 house square, high, dark, outlined against 
 the stars, far above the street, which was cut 
 through the hill at some date since the build- 
 ing of the house, which stands near the head 
 of about a hundred zigzag steps, with landings 
 
288 "<3lr* ti)e 
 
 here and there at the turns, the first flight 
 boarded from the street, and looking like a 
 switch-tender's hut on a railroad. 
 
 Behind an uncared-for garden of dusty ever- 
 greens, and half-hidden in yellow and white 
 jasmine, the lonely house, with its closed win- 
 dows, made me think of a giant with shut 
 eyes lying in a garden under a spell. Did it 
 ever dream? Sometimes I half -believed in 
 flitting lights and changeful shadows behind 
 one shutterless window upstairs, but thought 
 it must be the reflection of the headlight of a 
 passing street-car dummy. 
 
 That house had long been like a conscious 
 comrade in my day-dreams. It was linked in 
 my mind with an offer of marriage I once had 
 from one for whom I cared very little, but 
 whom circumstances nearly brought me to 
 accept. But through the open windows came 
 such a strain of warning music that, creatures 
 of chance impulses that we are, swayed by a 
 look or a tone, my mind changed in spite of 
 me. I was lifted out of my usual self, and 
 had strength to do right. I never knew any- 
 thing of the unseen singer but his love for 
 his art as shown by daily study which I 
 heard. That " sound which was a soul" 
 surely saved me from making my life a mere 
 
JDeafr SDeafc?" 289 
 
 hard, rude outline, from losing all the pic- 
 turesque effects of light and shade which 
 romance, hope, and feeling give. But it was 
 strangely done, by making the man at my feet 
 so suddenly hateful to me. 
 
 I could not help wishing to join the Ghost 
 Club, though I thought our pains would be 
 vain. I felt a strange interest in the plan. It 
 made me restless that night. While dressing 
 in the morning, I looked up again at the 
 lonesome-looking house, and, nodding gayly 
 toward it, cried : " You have haunted me/" 
 
 No one could have felt lighter-hearted and 
 more free from dread than I, as during the day 
 I presented my letters, and gained consent to 
 my joining the club "for that one house. " 
 Heaven knows I have now no wish to thus 
 visit another ! 
 
 When the club gathered that night at the 
 doorway to the steps over the way, I joined 
 them. A queer group. A believer, a doubter, 
 an inquirer, a strict church member, and 
 others who came, as I did, for pastime. Some 
 were late, and had not yet come when we 
 wound up the long stairs, and waited at the 
 door for some one who was to bring the key. 
 
 " Nothing is too strange to happen/' said 
 the inquirer, who, with his wife, seemed 
 
tlje 
 
 gravely exploring a strange region. " There 
 is nothing which may not be in the wide mar- 
 gin of the unknown around all we know." 
 
 "The Bible tells us," said the pious man, 
 " ' There is a universe to us invisible, but not, 
 therefore, unreal."' 
 
 "But I cannot think," said the doubter, 
 "that those who have gone there think of us; 
 for ' Death remembers to forget.' " 
 
 "Yet Isaac Taylor thought," said the be- 
 liever, "the human and extra-human crowd 
 might be within any given bounds; but as they 
 are commonly unseen and unheard by us, so 
 we may be the same to them." 
 
 " Like the voices the Talmud tells of," said 
 a Jewess, laden with flesh and lace and dia- 
 monds, "the sounds which pass through the 
 world, and are not heard by any creatures 
 in it." 
 
 He nodded, and went on: "Jung Stilling 
 and Oberlin also held, we can be only ghosts 
 to them, as they to us." 
 
 " No one ever saw a ghost not made by his 
 fancy," said the doubter a Jew. "It is 
 always like that German tale of a student 
 who fought a duel with a spectre, who, when 
 he dropped the cloak from his face, was seen 
 to be himself!" 
 
ilje JDeair flDeab?" 291 
 
 "That is why the club was formed," said 
 the believer; "doctors own that more than 
 one may have an illusion, but say there is 
 no such thing as delusion for a group of 
 people." 
 
 The pious man patted my Spitz dog. " He 
 may see more than we can," said he, "as 
 Balaam's ass saw the angel." 
 
 "Yes," said the joker, "to * speak by the 
 card,' when we are within an ace of meeting 
 hobgoblins, and the deuce is to pay, Tray will 
 knock spots out of them." 
 
 As we went into the house, I found in the 
 man who had the key an old neighbor. 
 
 "Why, Mr. H -- !" I cried. 
 
 He started nervously, and looked around in 
 great surprise. "Miss W - !" said he, 
 "are you here? with those asking eyes of 
 yours? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't believe in it," I laughed; "I 
 am only curious, like the rest." 
 
 Not so much then as since, I have thought 
 of his strange look at me, and the shrug of his 
 shoulders, which seemed to lift me off his 
 mind, for he paid no more heed to me that 
 night. 
 
 The others glanced here and there through 
 the open doors, with an eager air, in marked 
 
292 "<&re il)* SDeair 
 
 contrast with Mr. H - 's studied unconcern. 
 They noticed his manner, and spoke of it. 
 
 "I never look about me in this house," he 
 said, gravely, "or in any of these old places," 
 he added, and hurried off. 
 
 The inquirer plunged down the steps, caught 
 him on the first landing, and cried: "Why? 
 Why not?" 
 
 Mr. H - hesitated. "Well you might 
 look for the ghosts of the restless, roving folks 
 who wandered to California," he answered, 
 and ran down. 
 
 As we stood in the hall, the believer made 
 us a speech about being in a fit state, and 
 urged that we should be placed in rooms by 
 ourselves, or no more than two together. 
 Though, after some wrangling, we were 
 allowed a light in each room, we were to sit 
 idle and not speak. I was left in a small 
 room, with a window on the street. The 
 others went where he told them. The silence 
 which soon reigned made it seem as if there 
 was no one in the house. Fearless as I had 
 always boasted of being, a strange dread at 
 last settled on me. I could not lose that feel- 
 ing as of some one just at the door, which we 
 know in vacant furnished houses. I tried to 
 forget why we came. I counted, each way, 
 
tlje ftteab SDeafc?" 293 
 
 the figures in carpet and curtains. I noticed 
 all in the room, the common and uncommon, 
 from chairs, table, and sofa to a veiled picture 
 and an old-fashioned secretary, whose torn 
 green silk behind the glass doors showed some 
 stray leaves of manuscript. 
 
 I wondered in which room the old owner 
 took poison. Supposing it to be true, as some 
 have thought, that suicide chains the spirit to 
 earth, why should we know it? What right 
 had we to pry into the unknown ? I shrank 
 from the test, and was seized with nervous 
 trembling. Even my dog grew restless, and 
 ran home just as, much to my relief, a late- 
 comer entered the house. 
 
 He came in the room where I was a shy, 
 quiet young man, who went toward the win- 
 dow, but, suddenly seeing me, started, stared, 
 and dropped into a seat. It struck me some 
 way that he was in awe of me. I was half- 
 amused to think he might be taking a stranger 
 for a ghost. 
 
 Long we sat amid the shadows, silent and 
 strange, as if both by some spell called up 
 from the shades by the club. The oil-lamp 
 burned dimly. I faintly saw my companion's 
 glowing eyes, and fine profile, like that on 
 antique vase or coin, and the small spray of 
 
294 "3tw tlje Eteair 
 
 the breath-of-heaven's snowflake flowers that, 
 with a blood-red pink, he wore as a button- 
 hole bouquet. 
 
 The floor cracked like a goblin telegraph. 
 The banisters creaked as if people were 
 going up and down the stairs. The wind 
 in sudden gusts rattled the tin roof till it 
 seemed like the tramp of an army. But I 
 heard with my mind's ear once more the 
 passionate love-songs and snatches from operas 
 which had of old so charmed me from this 
 very window. 
 
 I could not keep my eyes off this man. 
 Dazed, I looked at him. Where had I known 
 him? I seemed flooded by a tidal wave 
 of memories of what? bits of dreams? 
 sleeping or waking ones? Was it a tide of 
 inherited memories surging through my veins 
 with the hot blood of some ancestress who 
 had, like me now, loved at first sight one like 
 him, this man of graceful movement and head 
 like an antique bust? Who could tell? I 
 gazed at him, mad with vague, keen longing 
 and remembrance, excited as with wine by 
 the new and piquant charm of feeling the 
 overwhelming power of his presence, yet see- 
 ing him wholly unaware of it, and even shy. 
 I was under a spell subtle as the scent of the 
 
JDeafc JDeafc?" 295 
 
 blossoms which nestled where 1 longed to lay 
 my head, upon his breast. 
 
 When the hours of our fruitless waiting had 
 passed, and we all stumbled down the wind- 
 ing, grass-grown steps, from starlight through 
 shadow into the gas-lit street, I was dizzy with 
 the intoxication of his glances, and lay awake 
 the rest of the night. Who was he ? One of 
 this crazy club. I wanted nothing to do with 
 them. I resolved not to join them again. But 
 just as I had waked all night, I dreamed all 
 day. This, then, was love, to look into eyes 
 of such dazzling enchantment that all else 
 became dull. I could do nothing but think of 
 him. I envied the girls in the "Arabian 
 Nights," who could always send an old 
 woman to tell a young man he was loved, 
 and bring him. I longed for the freedom of 
 the birds of the air, who are not held in check 
 by the straight-jacket of custom which keeps us 
 from blows or kisses at first sight. As the day 
 wore on, 1 could not keep from going up there 
 to look about in the light. The key had been 
 left with me. I took it, but hardly meant to 
 use it. I thought I would walk in the garden. 
 The still, old place had an odd charm for me. 
 San Francisco was gone; its hum sounded 
 faint, like a distant sea ; it seemed far off, as 
 
296 "&r* tl)* Wecti 
 
 if one of the vanished Five Cities of the Plain, 
 to me on this hilltop, alone, with the fierce 
 wind and dazzling sky, better comrades and 
 more akin than the breathless, thronged 
 streets and crowding buildings. The clouds 
 floated near. The garden shrubs whispered 
 their secrets. It was so solitary that, though 
 the sunshine was over all, and an army of 
 wall-flowers formed their torch-lit ranks round 
 the door, there seemed to be no relief from 
 a weight of loneliness. It seemed almost 
 remote enough for Death to overlook. Was it 
 haunted? The house looked at me with its 
 pleasant windows, and lured me to go in. The 
 sense of intrusion was too strong for me to go 
 all over it. I went into the room where I sat 
 the night before. I had not paused to mark 
 the dusty gloom, or to feei nervous, when I 
 happened to glance througn the glass of the 
 secretary. I bent to admire the writing thrust 
 behind the worn green silk. I saw my own 
 Christian name. I opened the doors. Frag- 
 ments which had lain there by chance so 
 long, plainly worthless, at the mercy of the 
 next tenant, whoever it might be. I took 
 them by right of my name of Rose. They 
 were leaves torn from a note-book, mostly the 
 record of a singer's daily practice; so many 
 
ilje Eteafc JDeafc?" 297 
 
 
 
 minutes to these exercises or to those, or to 
 songs, and so much time to French and Italian. 
 But here and there came these entries : 
 
 Rose ! sweet blossom in the wilderness of names, 
 freighted with fragrance of lovers' vows folded in it, 
 with hints of passionate meetings and farewells em- 
 balmed in amber moonlights, of dusky old gardens at 
 nightfall, whose satin - cheeked flowers wakeful, 
 pale, and tearful, or crumpled, flushed, and warm, 
 tossing in their dreams all sigh their hearts out for 
 the day who loved and rode away for a Rose should 
 have an ardent soul. She would not look at me now ; 
 but when skilled in my art, famous, rich who 
 knows? 
 
 This evening I saw her sitting in her window, look- 
 ing lonely and sad, for her drooping head reminded me 
 of a heavy-hearted flower. Could I but be her shelter- 
 ing and supporting leaf ! But I am like the ground at 
 the feet of my Rose no more able to come near her 
 sweet lips, or touch her dainty hand ! Soon her cur- 
 tains were drawn. Into the moon-lit space between 
 our houses, from the depths of my heart, I sang 
 Fesca's impassioned " Maiden at the Window." 
 
 I love her ; but how can that serve her the love of 
 one with no wealth beyond his silver tenor and his 
 golden hope. She might as well be the wild rose who 
 blushes in lonely woodlands, her sweet soul unblessing 
 and unblest, and dies with no knowledge of bliss that 
 might have been hers. She may never know of the 
 kisses I long to give her. It is strange to think of our 
 
298 "&r* ttje JDeair 
 
 cool unconsciousness of precious treasures of heart and 
 soul in those around us whom we never know. 
 
 How hard is my fate! My mind is like a phantom 
 battle-field, with this conflict carried on in silence an 
 awful, noiseless war, as of shadows ; but, to me, what 
 dread realities ! Sometimes I think I must break my 
 bond with my cousin. What a cursed fool I was 
 to bargain away my freedom for the sake of her 
 money, for study here and in Europe ! But love was 
 to me only a name. When 1 made that contract I had 
 not seen Rose. 
 
 To see Rose sitting here before me, to hear her say, 
 " I love you ! " would be enough to come back for 
 from another world. But what we miss here must be 
 gone forever. 
 
 " We shall go down to earth, 
 
 And be raised again from her ; 
 But there is no resurrection birth 
 For the things that never were." 
 
 Sometimes I seem to live but to see her shadow on 
 her curtain, her flitting form in the garden, or going in 
 or out. Bliss and woe ! Then I force myself to scales 
 and exercises of the like sameness, that may dull my 
 senses like a narcotic. 
 
 Last night, at my open window, I poured out my 
 whole soul in the love-songs of Beethoven and Schu- 
 bert. Edith supposed I was making out my hours of 
 practice. The only neighbors near enough to hear 
 may have thought me mad, but I did not care. I had 
 
"Sir* tlje IDeab ?Dea5?" 299 
 
 seen &?r lighted room grow dark ; I knew my voice 
 rang through her dreams. The nightingale singing to 
 the rose, I thought ; and was I not also leaning my 
 breast against a thorn ? 
 
 My God! What an awful feeling is jealousy! 
 Three days ago, through our open windows, I watched 
 Rose with a suitor. It was plain that he was wooing, 
 and that she, though, it seemed, not much caring, still 
 she listened. I thought of the "Malediction" from 
 HaleVy's "Charles the Sixth." My teacher, an old 
 opera-singer, had told me how the spell of this fatal air 
 followed the pointing finger of a tenor of the Grand 
 Opera at Paris : now it was one of the audience who 
 dropped in a fit; then he signed downward, and the 
 shock was upon a carpenter under a trap-door; again, 
 reaching up, a scene-shifter fell senseless. I burst into 
 the solemn air. If ever such subtle influence worked, 
 I meant it should now. I wished there could be poison 
 in sound. I hated that unknown man. I willed him 
 to lose his cause. I thought how Stradella's heavenly 
 tones in his own hymn, the prayer of a bruised and 
 rueful soul, changed the minds of those who had come 
 to slay him. Could I make mine evil enough to crush 
 that man's hopes? My song should be an alembic 
 through which passion, hate, and despair could distill 
 a strong and malign force. I shook. I grew afraid of 
 my own voice, of my own soul. The man rose as if 
 unwilling to leave. I willed him to go. I quaked from 
 head to foot. Cold drops beaded my brow. In the 
 glass I caught sight of my uplifted, menacing hand, 
 and of my eyes, which were strange to me, blazing 
 with a fierce, inward fire, like those of a wild beast that 
 
300 "are tl)e SDeair 
 
 sees its prey. He went. I drew free breath. I felt as 
 if I had been out of my body. And I did not find my 
 voice for two days after. Can there be truth in the 
 old saying that curses come home? 
 
 How can I bear to drift away with no anchor in her 
 life? Oh, it is too, too hard. I have studied so long ; 
 I owe too much to Cousin Edith. I must keep on. But 
 I must earn enough to pay her, and then, when I re- 
 turn, I shall be free ! O Rose! shall I find you here 
 the same? Heaven grant it ! I go to study, to sing, 
 so Edith thinks; but 7 I am sure of but one thing ; I 
 go to return . 7 shall come back! 
 
 This was all of the journal. There was 
 nothing else in the secretary, except a book of 
 poems by the Countess Hahn-Hahn. Side by 
 side with her *' Playful Love" was pinned a 
 page of note-paper, which bore the last of her 
 verses, in a version made by the writer of the 
 diary: 
 
 Must I die? straight will soar 
 
 My soul above to thee ; 
 And thou new life will lend, 
 
 New light to me. And I 
 Could I with thee quite blend, 
 
 I should not fear to die. 
 
 Shall I with spirits keep? 
 
 No ; though I soar, depart 
 As spirits heavenward sweep, 
 
 Yet th' heaven is thy heart. 
 
tlje JDeafc JBeafc?" 301 
 
 Thou wilt thy truant shield, 
 
 And ever sympathize, 
 And ope to him the field 
 
 Of that calm paradise. 
 
 * 
 
 And then the portal golden 
 
 Soft, softly close again, 
 Where I, in peace enf olden, 
 
 Shall ever rest from pain. 
 As, of a morn, the bee 
 
 In tulip lies apart, 
 I sleep all hid in thee, 
 
 Swayed of and in thy heart. 
 
 I was amazed at these bits of a shattered 
 romance ; for the writer had long been known 
 abroad, and I had read of his being made 
 court-singer for life in a far-off country. It 
 was like too late looking down some charming 
 road one might have taken. I sighed. Was 
 my sigh echoed, or was it the sound of the 
 swaying boughs of the old gum-trees ? I could 
 not stay. I ran home to think it over. I 
 remembered the weird music which had so 
 strangely mingled with my thoughts when I 
 refused the man whom he saw. I was still 
 lost in wonder over it when, in spite of my 
 resolves, I joined the club at night. Neither 
 my companion of the night before nor my old 
 neighbor were there this time. 
 
302 "&re tlje JDeertr 
 
 "This is a risky scheme," said the believer; 
 " it is playing with edged tools." 
 
 "We fail to see anything," said the inquirer, 
 "because visions must come without being 
 evoked, as by the witches in the play." 
 
 "Shut off in different rooms," said the 
 joker, " who knows which is witch." 
 
 " What I can not make agree with there 
 being ghosts," said the learned-looking in- 
 quirer, "is this: Heraclitus says, 'Nothing is, 
 but all flows; being is not a station, but a 
 motion, a constant becoming.' So those out of 
 the flesh are not the same as when in it. 
 Always moving on, no one crosses the same 
 stream or sees the same picture twice." 
 
 " Then," cried the joker, " debtor and 
 creditor of yesterday lose that relation to-day. 
 Owe, let us be joyful!" 
 
 "Buddha," said the doubter, "called the 
 soul a current of states ; when the mechanism 
 goes to pieces, the soul is gone. It was only 
 the mass of associations, experience, and 
 memory." 
 
 " That," said the believer, " puts man on a 
 level with a table or chair." 
 
 " Yes," said the joker, " let us be chary of 
 that unstable belief." 
 
 " Life is a current of states," said I; "it is 
 
llje Uteab ftteab? 11 303 
 
 not in our frames, or in years, but in moments 
 of bliss or woe, hope or despair, pain, disgust, 
 strength, or weakness. Those who have not 
 known * raptures and desolations/ have no 
 spirit to come back." 
 
 We were placed as before, but not without 
 much dispute. 
 
 I thought of the odd folks now in these 
 rooms, queer as the thoughts that lurk in the 
 cells of a madman's brain. I waited, like 
 them, but not for the same reason. I was 
 anxious for his coming, though I felt faint and 
 ready to run home to shun meeting his eyes. 
 What if he did not come ? At the thought, a 
 weight on my spirits changed the look of the 
 room, as a cloud dulls the sunny landscape. 
 With a thrill, a shiver of delight, I heard him 
 enter. 
 
 As he stood for a moment, looking at me over 
 the lamp on the table, the faint radiance 
 making his statuesque beauty glow out of the 
 dimness as if conjured by a spell, the scent of 
 the breath -of -heaven and clove -pink in his 
 button-hole might have been that of spices 
 burned for an incantation. What was it I saw 
 in those fine eyes? Neither scorn nor pity; 
 they were kind, but full of an overwhelming 
 surprise. 
 
304 "Qlre trje 
 
 " Again!" he murmured; then kept the club 
 rule of silence. 
 
 1 was confused. I could scarcely breathe. 
 My head whirled. I reeled to a chair. The 
 flickering rays of the lamp danced about him, 
 like my restless thoughts, while we waited. 
 Waited? I forgot the club, the house, that I 
 was in the city, in the world. 1 knew only 
 that the man I loved sat before me. I could 
 not love those who sought me. How was it 
 that my heart leaped at a glance from this 
 stranger's eyes? Stranger? Had we not 
 known each other from the first of creation ? 
 The king had come to his own again ! 
 
 After even the little I had known of the club 
 disputes, I was not surprised to see the pale 
 young man shun the others when we all left. 
 As we went out into the windy night, the well- 
 known street and view seemed new. I felt 
 as if I had left the real world behind; that, 
 truly, one "lived" only in "raptures and deso- 
 lations." San Francisco, the club, were vague 
 phantoms, dreams within dreams. I roused to 
 myself at my own gate, with Mr. H - 's 
 voice in my ear: 
 
 "Are these all?" he asked, looking after the 
 members going down the street. And watch- 
 ing, with a pang of regret, their vanishing 
 forms, I forgot to answer. 
 
irje EDectfr JDectfr?" 305 
 
 Then I cried: "Mr. H - , it has just come 
 back to me how you urged my folks not to take 
 that very house a year or two ago.. Why did 
 you do so ? ' ' 
 
 " I don't want to see any one live in ft, ".he 
 answered. "My friend K - , the rare tenor, 
 used to be there. Poor fellow! He was to 
 have married a cousin, whose money helped 
 him to study music ; but I have always thought 
 his heart was elsewhere. She held him in a 
 thrall, which wore upon him; and the voice, 
 most frail of all instruments, is hurt by worry. 
 His was, and at last left him. This shock,, and 
 disappointment, killed him." 
 
 "Oh, I am so sorry!" I cried. "I never 
 saw him, but I shall not forget his voice. In 
 'Robin Adair' it was like <the flute of the 
 twilight wind.' " 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. H -- . "As I stood by his 
 grave, I thought of what Antipater said over 
 the tomb of Orpheus : ' Here lies a poet ; here 
 lies a soul that sang ; here lies the sound of the 
 wind.' He did not want to die, though he 
 would say to me, * Then I shall be free!' His 
 cousin, a spiteful woman, seemed to hate to 
 have him escape her control, though he did 
 that whenever he sang. His voice raised a 
 magic wall around him we could only listen 
 
306 
 
 afar. _ After his death, she said to me, 'He 
 has got away from me now' but wait till I 
 die! 1 with a motion that was a threat. She 
 would not return here, and has been trying to 
 have the house sold." 
 
 "But why did you not want us to move 
 there?" I asked."" 
 
 "He once said to me," Mr. H - went on: 
 "'If, when I dream, I can see the old house, 
 go over it, see her in the window across the 
 way, may it not be that such pleasure, felt 
 by me now through none of the nerves of 
 sense, will be known to my spirit after I die ? 
 Perhaps, unheard, unseen, the two worlds 
 blend, and we shall move along our old paths, 
 with rare visions of the living, who will seem 
 unreal and awful to us. I wonder if my soul 
 could then affect one I loved, or must I be a 
 flitting spectre with no power. We shall see.' " 
 
 " Then you believe - ? " I began. 
 
 "I have no belief," he said, quickly. "It 
 seems to me nothing is too strange to happen," 
 unconsciously repeating the words of a club- 
 member. 
 
 "No," I thought, after he left me, "I should 
 wonder at nothing after feeling this sudden 
 deep interest in two strangers, such regret for 
 the singer, and such absorbing passion for my 
 
If)* JDtfetfr JEeafcT 1 307 
 
 companion of the last two evenings." Why 
 had I not asked Mr. H - who he was? 
 
 The next night I meant should be my last 
 with the club, shrunk this time to* the inquirer 
 and wife, and the joker. 
 
 " I half believe," said the inquirer, "shadows 
 are bound to go through tragedies whose scenes 
 shift with no lookers-on, night after night, year 
 after year, as if the hour could not forget, and 
 would not let the place do so. It is the horror 
 of Doom. But it is not for all to have it proved 
 to them. Our inner sense has its bounds, like 
 our other senses." 
 
 The joker wound the great hall-clock, which 
 began to work with convulsive gasps, as if it 
 had been scared into silence. " Too fright- 
 ened," he said, "to cover its face with its 
 hands." 
 
 The small room where I sat had at once a 
 charm and a sadness for me. I was filled with 
 the vain desire to have known its old tenant. 
 I wondered about the end of such strong 
 passions as his. Can they cease here ? Are 
 they merely to brighten our path, like vivid 
 colors in flowers and sky ? In fancy I heard 
 again the lovely tenor airs from "Lucia," 
 "Faust," and "Martha" which had of old 
 rung through this window. I thought of his 
 
308 "&rs ttye EDeafc 
 
 journal, and his translation of the German 
 love-song. And I was haunted haunted by 
 two lines of Jean Ingelow's 
 
 "I have no place on sea or shore, 
 But only in thy heart." 
 
 But through it all ran the stronger under- 
 current of longing for the coming of the pale 
 young member of the club a longing that 
 made me blame my fickle heart, so touched by 
 one stranger's love and grief, and just as much 
 thrilled by another's sweet eyes; a longing 
 that made me tremble, and made my heart, at 
 the sound of his step, feel as if clutched by 
 Fate, and nearly powerless to beat. 
 
 He started at seeing me, and, pausing an 
 instant, murmured, "Once more!" and sank 
 into a chair which stood back to the door; and 
 again I was spellbound by his shy but ardent 
 gaze, by the scent of the same sweet flowers 
 he wore. 
 
 With none of my suitors, thronging like bees 
 about the honey of my wealth, had I ever felt 
 this tumult of emotion. I was glad of the club 
 rule of silence. I could have thrown myself 
 into his arms, but I could not speak. 
 
 What was the fatal enigma his eyes held? 
 They had a mystic spell, as if they had seen 
 
"Qtre ttye Uteafc SDeafc?" 309 
 
 deeper than most eyes. Looking into them, 
 my soul was lured down an unknown tide, on 
 and on, voyaging through their unspeakable 
 glory, with glimpse of a new world behind 
 them, dropping through endless gulfs, till only 
 by a fierce strain I turned my head away, 
 blinded, breathless, dazed, and awed; for far 
 down in those fathomless depths I touched 
 eternity I found the immortal Love! 
 
 Sitting there so long, so still, it seemed to 
 my strained nerves that we were like ghosts, 
 and only the pictures on the wall had life and 
 motion. The hall-clock groaned twelve times, 
 but my watch lacked ten minutes of twelve. 
 A cold draught rushed in as at the opening and 
 closing of some of the doors. A nameless fear 
 seized me. But a woman I had not yet seen 
 with the club looked in at the open door, sur- 
 prise, doubt, and scorn in her intent face. 
 
 A woman more to be feared than a ghost, I 
 thought, as I marked her evil look. She paused 
 in amaze at sight of us. Suddenly the dim 
 light wholly failed. To be in the dark was to 
 recall the errand here of the club. It could not 
 be borne, even with others near me. After 
 crossing what seemed an endless space, I 
 reached the mantel, felt for a match, found 
 one, and groped back to the centre-table. 
 
3io 
 
 As I lighted the lamp, I saw him watching 
 me with questioning eyes, as if unmoved by 
 the loss of the light or its return. I saw her 
 looking in with a wicked smile. A jealous 
 woman, I judged all the more as she drew 
 back before he could turn to find the cause of 
 my changed looks. But he was curious enough 
 to leave the room. Was she his wife ? Was I 
 bewitched by a man bound to another woman ? 
 Has each case its like ? Was another man in 
 this very house held in bonds? These ques- 
 tions perplexed me all night. 
 
 The next afternoon I went over to look for a 
 favorite lace handkerchief, dropped in coming 
 out with the club. I found it caught on a 
 thistle, near the top stair. It was Sunday, and 
 the chimes of Saint Patrick's Church came to 
 me clear and sweet. Some of the words which 
 are sung to the air they played ran through 
 my mind: 
 
 "A realm of shadowy forms out yonder lies. 
 
 Faint sounds of friendly voices come and go, 
 That seem to lure us forth into the air ; 
 
 But whence they come perchance no ear may know, 
 And where they go perchance no foot may dare." 
 
 I looked at the old house, longed and yet did 
 not like to go in. But I knew none of the club 
 
311 
 
 were likely to come until night, when they 
 were to make their last visit and as for 
 ghosts, had we not tested it? What worse 
 than to be haunted by vain yearnings after a 
 different past, or to know a present not to be 
 shaped by my will because a woman may not 
 speak first. Perhaps I was to fade the un- 
 gathered rose that cannot seek its lover's 
 hand! Surely, if he felt as I did, he could 
 not long rest without seeking me outside of the 
 club. 
 
 I pushed in through the dreary hall. I 
 passed on into the small front room. It gave 
 me the same feeling of sorrow and regret. It 
 was like the return from a funeral. How 
 sorry I now felt that I had never known the 
 people who used to live here ! I had often 
 thought, perhaps the friends we never meet 
 might have been the dearest. I could not tear 
 myself away. For the first time by daylight 
 I looked from the window, which, to my sur- 
 prise, had a full view of my own room across 
 the way. They must have known more of 
 me than I ever knew about them. 
 
 The house shook in the wind, as if stirred 
 by unseen hands, but in the room all was still 
 as if in a picture. There were the rusty nails 
 and black moss in the grass-grown garden, and 
 
312 "Sir* llje JEeafr 
 
 stairs, as at the "moated grange"; but no fly 
 buzzed in the window, no mouse squeaked in 
 the wainscot, no bird chirped on the roof. 
 Nothing moved but the clock in the hall, and 
 the shadow of a gum-tree across the floor. My 
 little dog and I sat still as statues. 
 
 As in the gloom of Gerome's pictures, rag- 
 ged beggar and peddler, in the softened light 
 of oriental canvas-covered streets, become 
 grand and suggestive ideals, so in this dim, 
 lonely room common things had a weird, un- 
 real look; the lounge took coffin-shape ; the 
 tall, narrow secretary loomed like a monument 
 near it. I could fancy the veil over the pic- 
 ture stirred. The chairs gave sudden creaks, 
 as if bearing unseen burdens. 
 
 I looked out of the window, and saw the 
 buildings of the city far below stand out in the 
 light of the sinking sun, with sudden sharp 
 lines, as long-forgotten things start up in the 
 mind of one dying. Why were my thoughts 
 all of death? Then a line of phantoms of 
 silent tunes, long since sung here, passed by 
 my ears. 
 
 I thought of the surprise and dislike in that 
 woman's face the night before, and of what 
 slight ground for jealousy she had, when he 
 and I sat in such silence, but recalling his 
 
JDeafc?" 313 
 
 speaking eyes, my heart's quickened beating, 
 and the flushes I felt mount my cheeks, I knew 
 she had good cause. 
 
 I was vexed at myself, both for being here 
 almost against my will, and for a nervous fear 
 which had come over me when once inside 
 the house. I would not yield to it. There 
 was a scrap of paper on the table. I drew a 
 pencil from my pocket, and tried to forget by 
 writing about 
 
 THE GHOST OF YESTERDAY. 
 
 Faint in the cloudless sky yet shnws 
 The last night's moon, whose phantom white 
 
 Has haunted dawn's pale-blue and rose 
 With thrilling gleam of lost delight, 
 
 And lingers through the blaze of noon, 
 Like Banquo's ghost at Macbeth 's feast. 
 
 Avaunt, O Spectre whose weird rune 
 Appears to me when thought of least ! 
 
 Though clouds from out life's sky seem furled 
 
 By dazzling bliss, to me is clear 
 Far off and dreamlike my own world 
 
 Burnt out, my yesterday thus here ! 
 
 A long-drawn sigh, which sounded close by 
 me, made me look up. Bravely as I had tried 
 to think only of the words I wrote, I was 
 startled. My dog crouched at my feet and 
 
314 
 
 barked. Had I left the front door on the latch ? 
 I rushed to see. Turning in the hall with the 
 feeling of being watched, I saw a woman's 
 head peering round a distant door. There was 
 a familiar look about her. Thinking it must 
 be one of the club, I started toward her, but 
 she drew back and closed the door, which she 
 held against me. 
 
 Was she afraid of me? I laughed, a little 
 nervously, wrenched it open but no one was 
 in sight! I called, no answer, but, glancing 
 up, saw the same head hanging over the ban- 
 isters upstairs, and part of her dress. I was 
 struck with something so wicked in her look 
 that my little Spitz ran cowering and whining 
 to the street-door. But, thinking I ought to 
 explain my presence there, I went upstairs. 
 To my surprise, the woman, without waiting 
 for me, passed down the long hall and turned 
 a corner. 
 
 I hurried after, thinking I might have fright- 
 ened her, if she were a nervous member, and, 
 in my haste, nearly fell through to the lower 
 story, for at the turning yawned an opening 
 where stairs had been taken down. My dress 
 caught on a nail in the floor, and held me back 
 just in time. As I freed my skirt, I saw that 
 from the hall-window, just beyond the pitfall, 
 
315 
 
 my house could be seen better than from 
 downstairs. A smothered chuckle, followed 
 by a cry of rage, made me look down. The 
 woman was watching me from below. There 
 must be some other flight, I thought, yet found 
 none, and went to the lower room, but she had 
 hidden. 
 
 My verses, dropped as I ran out, were torn 
 into shreds, and strewed on the floor. Think- 
 ing it was one of my dog's tricks, I felt I ought 
 not to have brought him, that I must wait and 
 excuse myself to her. I turned to look for 
 him. What was this fluffy mass by the hall- 
 door ? Not my gay little comrade ? This poor 
 creature in spasms ! Some evil power was at 
 work here. Even that cruel-faced woman 
 would be welcome company. I called. No 
 reply. I tried to open the outer door, but it 
 seemed barred by the rusty, large lock, to 
 which there was no key. 
 
 I strove to be brave. I went through the 
 lower part. The back door was fast. I 
 thought she must have fled that way. It 
 was awful to be alone there ! I saw nothing 
 strange, but felt as if dogged, doors opening 
 behind me as soon as I closed them. I tried 
 to think it was caused by the jar of my steps 
 and the uneven flooring, but 1 felt the Bible 
 
316 "&re tlje tDectfr 
 
 was right to forbid the calling of spirits. Had 
 not the Ghost Club brought all this horror 
 upon me? It made no odds that they had 
 been searching to prove there was no such 
 thing. There was the ugly story of the 
 hanged man, whose body was dissected and 
 his skull ground to dust; yet in the night the 
 bits were seen to join, one by one, till the 
 man was whole, and went out of the door. 
 
 I went back to the front room. Trying to 
 forget my fears, I raised the gauze screen from 
 the portrait over the mantel. It was not unlike 
 the face of the strange woman ! In my vexa- 
 tion toward her, I flung the veil against it 
 again. The next instant, my elbows were 
 fiercely gripped from behind. I was rushed 
 swiftly toward the window I had opened when 
 I first came in. My heart nearly stopped 
 beating. Years of torture seemed crowded into 
 that one moment. I was to be thrown out, to 
 fall from that great height to the street. I 
 shrieked in hopeless terror. I was suddenly 
 cast on the floor, and, when I could look round, 
 I saw that woman near the door, with her hard 
 face turned as if to listen. 
 
 Some one was on the steps. She glided out, 
 and was upstairs, as the front door, forced by 
 stronger hand than mine, opened, and, to my 
 
tl) HJeair SDeaft?" 317 
 
 deep relief and joy, the pale young man came 
 in. Braced by the relief of his coming, then I 
 could talk to him. He only nodded once in a 
 while, but his eyes again held mine. To my 
 questions about the woman, he shook his head, 
 and seemed surprised when I said, " She was 
 here last night. " 
 
 So she had gone when he went out. I did 
 not wonder she was jealous, as I stood there, 
 hardly conscious of anything but the charm of 
 his presence, and the scent of the bit of breath- 
 of-heaven and blood-red pink he wore. And 
 he he kept the club rule of silence. But I 
 thought I knew what he was thinking. I had 
 not slept since I had last seen him. I passed 
 the night watching, as I lay in bed, the old 
 house looming dim and large against the 
 starry sky, or, half-dozing, dreamed of flitting 
 lights in the windows and echoing strains of 
 music. 
 
 I had not slept for thinking of him. Fancy- 
 ing what bliss his kisses might be, waked me 
 as fully as a real draught of wine. Heaven 
 help me! And he knew it he knew it; his 
 eyes told me that. 
 
 Those wonderful eyes! They seemed so 
 near and dear a part of myself, that I forgot we 
 were, as the world goes, strangers. Surely we 
 
318 "&ru tlje SDeafc 
 
 had known each other for eternities. I forgot 
 that it was not a woman's part to woo. I 
 thought only of my love my love, fierce as 
 the wind, resistless as the sea, wide-spreading 
 as the sky ! I lost my senses. 
 
 "Where have you been all these years?" 
 I cried. "We must have known each other 
 before, for I love you, I love you, and it is no 
 new feeling. My life has been a dream, a 
 nightmare at last I am awake! Do not 
 leave me again, for I could not bear it. 
 Stay! Stay!" 
 
 "Oh, if it might only be !" he murmured. 
 
 He came nearer, bent over as if to kiss me, 
 when a white hand was laid on his shoulder. 
 He turned in amazement. She stood beside 
 him. 
 
 "You/" he groaned, with a gesture of de- 
 spair, and reeled back. He grew, if possible, 
 more bloodless than ever. I could see him 
 tremble. Dismay and dread in his face, and 
 a hunted look came into his eyes. 
 
 With a look of triumph at me, she beckoned 
 him. Making a motion toward me, as of 
 mingled farewell and warning, he slowly went 
 after her, though often turning to look back. 
 I followed. They passed along the hall, where 
 my dog lay dead, out of the front door, and 
 
llje IDeab jDDeab?" 319 
 
 slowly down the long steps. At each landing 
 he stopped and gazed back, then followed her 
 into the dusk through which the members of 
 the club were toiling up among them Mr. 
 H - , with a lighted lantern. They paid no 
 heed to the figures going down, and were sur- 
 prised at my wild agitation. 
 
 " Look ! Look ! " I cried to Mr. H - . 
 
 "Why! Your eyes have been answered!" 
 he muttered, staring at me. 
 
 "What is it?" "Where?" "When?" 
 "What happened?" "What's the matter, 
 H -- ?" urged the club. 
 
 "Let us get away from this house!" he 
 cried, looking uneasily behind him, and sign- 
 ing to the doubter to lock the door. His hand 
 trembled so that the lantern shook, as he said : 
 
 "I came over, in case any of you were 
 here, to warn you. I have just heard Miss 
 Edith L - , who lived here, died in Paris last 
 night." 
 
 "Last night! at ten minutes of twelve 
 o'clock?" I gasped, suddenly faint. 
 
 "Well," he thought a moment, " yes 
 ten minutes past nine there would just make 
 it how did you know of it?" 
 
 " Tall, light eyes, a set, stern face not 
 without malice?" I stammered. 
 
320 "Qlr* llje fttectfr 
 
 " I thought you never saw her?" he said. 
 
 " Tall, dark, with a face like an antique 
 bust, divine eyes?" I went on. 
 
 " Then you had seen him," said he. Struck 
 by a sudden thought, he added: "Do you 
 mean can it be that you how where?" 
 
 I caught his arm. "See there!" I cried, 
 pointing where the two forms one looking 
 up over his shoulder had paused on the 
 lowest landing, but now moved on. Could it 
 be that my touch made him see as I did ? 
 
 "My God!" he cried, his nerveless hand 
 dropping the lantern. "Then I was too late ! " 
 
 I sank, limp and helpless, on the top stair. 
 The glare of the lantern on the club's eager 
 faces round me, with their various looks of 
 wonder, doubt, content, fear, and pity; the 
 jeering sound of the fog-horn; the shock of 
 such an end to my romance ; a keen sense of 
 life's "raptures and desolations," all made 
 me hysterical, as I burst forth : 
 
 "You you think -- ?" 
 
 "I know" he answered, with awe-struck 
 face, white to the very lips that could scarcely 
 say the words, "you have seen the ghosts!" 
 
TORED AT NRL 
 
2106 00209 9361