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 THE PROFESSOR'S SISTER. 
 
 
THE 
 
 PROFESSOR'S SISTER 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIAN HAWTHORNE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "A DREAM AXD A FORGETTING," "GARTH," 
 
 "FORTUNE'S FOOL," "JOHN PARMELEE'S 
 CURSE," ETC., ETC. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AXD SAN FRANCISCO, 
 
 PUBLISHERS. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
 BY 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
 A DREAM AND A FORGETTING. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 
 PUBLISHERS, 
 
THE 
 PROFESSORS SISTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MET A P II Y S 1C S. 
 
 " WHAT is memory, I should like to know ? " 
 said Will Burlace, using the end of his broad 
 middle finger as a tobacco-stopper. " How does 
 it work, Ralph, my boy ? Do we remember 
 everjrthing in our experience, as some philoso- 
 phers hold, or does each of us take out of the 
 past only that which belongs to his character 
 and temperament, or are recollection and obliv- 
 ion a mere lottery, over which we have no con- 
 trol, or" 
 
 " And what is the exact difference between 
 memory and imagination ? " I broke in. " We 
 say the past has no existence : neither have 
 the conceptions of the imagination. And I 
 have heard of people imagining things until 
 they believed them true." 
 
8 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 " Yes, why not ? " added Burlace, with a grin. 
 " We are taught that the external world itself 
 is but a prejudice of the mind. There is no 
 reality but thought and will. Our present is a 
 dream ; our past and future are the ghosts of 
 dreams. You cannot make out imagination to 
 be anything less than that. We talk about 
 the creations of poets and novelists, and it is 
 notorious that many of the personages of fiction 
 from Homer to Balzac, live with a vitality that 
 would put to shame Methuselah, or Augustus 
 the Strong. Where shall we draw the line ?" 
 
 "The senses originate in the brain," con- 
 tinued I : " don't they end there as well ? we 
 may admit that we feel sensations, but how do 
 we know that the feeling and the thing felt are 
 not two visions of the same thing ? " 
 
 " Look at ghosts, spectres, and the supernat- 
 ural generally,' 7 said Burlace, blowing a cloud 
 of smoke into fantastic shapes and waving his 
 big hand through them. " What is the dif- 
 ference between a ghost and an ordinary human 
 being?" 
 
 " As a general rule," said Ralph, who had 
 been sitting meanwhile on his back and shoul- 
 ders, with his slippered feet broad against the 
 tall porcelain stove which, as everywhere in 
 Germany, dominated the apartment, "as a 
 general rule, the difference between a ghost 
 
The Professor's Sister. 9 
 
 and an ordinary human being is this : only 
 one person sees the ghost, whereas the ordinary 
 human being has been, is, or can be seen by 
 whomsoever chooses to look at him. And a 
 similar distinction might be drawn as between 
 the contents of the memory and those of the 
 imagination. If I tell you an incident of my 
 past life, and you don't believe it, I can adduce 
 living witnesses in support of my statement : 
 but if I tell you a story, or a lie, and you are 
 incredulous, I can only keep on lying." 
 
 " I would confess and repent, if I were you," 
 interposed Burlace. 
 
 " What is that theory of yours about appari- 
 tions ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Oh, it would take me too far back to explain 
 that," answered Ralph lazily. 
 
 " It's one the professor told him, and he's 
 forgotten it," Burlace asserted, winking at me 
 across the table. 
 
 " The professor is a Buddhist," said Ralph. 
 " For my part, I believe neither in re-incarna- 
 tion, Karma, Devachan, Nirvana, nor the 
 Astral light." 
 
 Burlace grinned again. " Nor in anything 
 else!" 
 
 " Yes," returned Ralph, in the same lazy 
 tone, " I believe in God, in the Divine inspira- 
 tion of the Bible, in the Incarnation, in the im- 
 
10 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 mortality of the soul, and in the possible inter- 
 course between the dead and the living, among 
 other things." 
 
 "A nice creed for the prize student of a 
 German university ! But I suppose you are 
 lying, now." 
 
 " I am casting my pearls before Burlace, 
 which is perhaps as bad." 
 
 "Well, to begin with, what is matter ? " 
 
 "Matter is the attestation of the constancy 
 of the relation between the Creator and the 
 creature." 
 
 " Oh ! and what is nature ? " 
 
 "Nature is the analysis of human nature, 
 projected on the sphere of sense by the creative 
 energy." 
 
 "If that be the case," said I, "why does not 
 the face of nature become' modified in corre- 
 spondence with our growth and development ? " 
 
 "Well," returned Ralph, "doesn't it?" 
 
 "I haven't noticed it in my own experience/' 
 I replied. 
 
 " You would, if you were mankind. And 
 even you furnish your room and dig your gar- 
 den in accordance with your notion of the cor- 
 rect thing. But the great geological and 
 cosmical changes, the variation and extinction 
 of species, alterations of climate, and all matters 
 of that calibre, follow and reflect the develop- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 11 
 
 ment of Humanity with a big II. And, by the 
 way, that's the basis of what you call my theory 
 of apparitions/ 7 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "Oh, don't encourage him ! " cried Burlace. 
 
 " You have the visible object on one side/' 
 Ralph said, " and the brain on the other. The 
 eye is the connecting link. The light reflected 
 from objects reaches the brain through the eye, 
 and the brain thereupon translates it into ideas 
 of things. Such is the accepted doctrine. But in 
 certain moods of abstraction and concentration. 
 You are hardly conscious of the external world, 
 and the images of the mind assume a correspond- 
 ing substantiality. If now a disembodied be- 
 ing applies itself strongly to your own spirit, 
 your spiritual organ of sight which is the eye 
 within the eye perceives it as a what Burlace 
 calls ordinary human being." 
 
 " Oh, my wig ! " muttered Burlace. 
 
 ' But how does your ontological'theory " 
 
 " Why, it's simple enough. We perceive an 
 ordinary human being by virtue of that uni- 
 versal human constitution that we share with 
 the race ; but we perceive an apparition by 
 virtue of a special and finite impression wrought 
 upon us by an unembodied spirit. The action 
 of the organ of vision is the same in the one 
 case as in the other : the apparition is, to the 
 
12 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 person seeing it, as real as an actual man. Yet 
 it is not real, but an illusion, because it is an 
 individual, and not a general experience." 
 
 " But an apparition is a spirit : do you call 
 a spirit an illusion ? " 
 
 " An apparition is not a spirit." 
 
 "Neither, certainly, is it a physical being." 
 
 "No ; it is the reflection upon the sphere of 
 sense of a being who is not physical. It is an 
 illusion in the same way that your reflection in 
 the looking-glass is an illusion, it is nothing 
 in itself, but a reality causes it." 
 
 " May I be permitted to offer one suggestion 
 in the premises ? " inquired Burlace. 
 
 " No," said Ralph. 
 
 "Well, here it is. Sense, according to you, 
 only seems to convey messages from without : 
 in truth it is concerned solely with what pro- 
 ceeds from within, for the obvious reason that 
 the entire material universe is but the phenom- 
 enal externization of the elements of the 
 human mind have I got the lingo right ? " 
 
 "Viewing the universe, of course, from the 
 point of view of use, not of form and exten- 
 sion," supplemented Ralph, closing his eyes. 
 
 " Just as you please about that ! well, now, 
 your apparition is visible to the eye or to the 
 eye within the eye, if you like that better say, 
 to the sense of vision. But it is generally ad- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 13 
 
 mitted that all our senses are but modifications 
 of one sense, to wit, the sense of touch. Are 
 you listening ? " 
 
 " No ; because I knew from the start what 
 you were driving at." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! and pray what was it ? " 
 
 " That an apparition that can be seen ought, 
 by logical inference, to be also an object of 
 touch, hearing, smell and taste." 
 
 "Well, and how are you going to wriggle 
 out of that dilemma ? " demanded Burlace, with 
 a snort. 
 
 " I am comfortable where I am. I don't 
 perceive your dilemma. I hold your inference 
 to be unimpeachable." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that a ghost can be 
 handled" 
 
 "Heard, smelt and tasted. Certainly, why 
 not?" 
 
 "And yet you call it an illusion !" 
 
 "But with a reality behind it! " 
 
 "I am going home," said Burlace, getting up 
 from his chair with a grotesque assumption of 
 decrepitude. " I am a very foolish, fond old 
 man. I don't catch on any longer. I have 
 been getting things wrong end foremost all 
 these years. Matter, it seems, is but the attes- 
 tation of the constancy of a relation, therefore 
 I ought to be able to walk through a block of 
 
14 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 houses, or pass my arm through a girl's waist 
 instead of round it. Apparitions,on the contrary, 
 can be felt and smelt as well as seen, therefore 
 I presume that I have been consorting hitherto 
 with apparitions. In fact, what am I myself but 
 an apparition an illusion with a reality behind 
 me ? I have heard of people being made 
 nervous by having a spectre behind them ; but 
 fancy the condition of a poor spectre with a 
 reality behind him ! Let me get away, while 
 reason yet holds her seat in this distracted 
 globe ! " 
 
 " And all because I happened to remark that 
 memory is what is meant by the creation of 
 man male and female," said Ralph, with a sigh. 
 
 " Imbecility, thy name is metaphysics ! w 
 muttered Burlace, as he opened the door and 
 closed it behind him with a bang. So Ralph 
 Merlin and I were left alone in front of the tall 
 porcelain stove. 
 
 Those delightful old student days in Dresden, 
 twenty years ago ! What good times we had ! 
 not because of jivhat we did, but because we 
 so enjoyed doing it. What did we do, in fact ? 
 we drank beer out of glass schoppen with porce- 
 lain covers ; we smoked pipes and Laferme 
 cigarettes ; we attended open-air concerts in 
 the Grosser Garten, the Bruehlshe Terrace, the 
 Waldschlo2schen 5 we fought shlaeger duels, 
 
The Professor's Sister. 15 
 
 and wore high boots, black velveteen jackets, 
 and caps four inches in diameter ; we went to 
 masked balls, where neither we nor anybody else 
 behaved quite properly ; we went to other 
 dances in queer places ; we thought we owned 
 the earth and the fullness thereof; and we 
 talked metaphysics. There is nothing to com- 
 pare with the zeal with which young men of a 
 certain age and intellectual training will talk 
 metaphysics. They know all that Hegel, Kant, 
 Schopenhauer and Spinoza knew, and demon- 
 strate that these gentlemen did not go nearly 
 far nor half deep enough, and were much too 
 lucid and straightforward in all their statements. 
 We began where they left off, and stopped no- 
 where. We dissolved the Universe, arid created 
 it again each after a recipe of his own. As to so- 
 ciety civilization I shudder to think how we 
 objurgated and annihilated them. And moral- 
 ity ! Burlace had a thermometer in his room, 
 which he used to call The Register of Virtue. 
 It was a huge affair, about five feet long, and 
 I believe he had stolen it from the outside of a 
 druggist's shop. Opposite each space of ten 
 degrees he had pasted the photograph of a 
 woman. Between the 30th and 40th degrees 
 she was muffled up from her chin to her toes, 
 and wore a big hood. Between the 40th and 
 50th her hood was off and her pelisse was un- 
 
16 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 buttoned. Between the 50th and 60th the 
 pelisse had disappeared and you could discern 
 the outlines of her figure. The 70th degree 
 limit showed her in full ball costurae, very de'- 
 colletee. At the 80th her costume had shrunk 
 at both ends, and she was now a ballet dancer, 
 very much on one leg. The next interval was 
 difficult to describe ; and the final one revealed 
 Eve pure and simple. When, therefore, the 
 conversation turned upon moral questions, Bur- 
 lace would point to this new Jacob's Ladder and 
 say : " The whole problem is settled there, gen- 
 tlemen. I make no comments ; none are 
 needed. Let each man of you select the lati- 
 tude that suits him best, and be happy. The 
 equator is good enough for me." 
 
 Burlace was able, obstinate, boisterous ; a 
 scoffer and a sceptic. He had a broad sense of 
 humor, but was apt to become oppressive. His 
 great, strident voice ate up all other sounds, and 
 finally made one's ears indignant. But he would 
 standby you in trouble, and, after bullying you 
 to your face, take your part behind your back. 
 He and Ralph Merlin and I were, at that time, 
 the only Americans there ; so we were a good 
 deal together. Ralph and Burlace were gen- 
 erally chaffing each other : I used to take part, 
 sometimes against one, sometimes against the 
 other. But, at bottom, Ralph was my friend. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 17 
 
 I was often in doubt whether to take him 
 seriously or in jest, but I had an instinct of 
 affection towards him. And I understood better 
 than any of his other companions the moods of 
 his mind and heart. 
 
18 The Professor's /Sister. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 RALPH AND HIS QUEER NOTIONS. 
 
 RALPH MERLIN was, I believe, of Philadel- 
 phia extraction. His family had been wealthy 
 for several generations, and that, in America, 
 means culture and high breeding. Ralph was 
 of a fine patrician type. His physical organ- 
 ization was delicate as a watch spring, but 
 strong, healthy, and unweariable. He and 
 Burlace (who weighed just ninety pounds more 
 than Ralph did) had a wrestling match one 
 day. After a while, Ralph got a grip on Bur- 
 lace somehow, and began slowly to bend him 
 over backwards. It was the power of one back- 
 bone against the other. Burlace, who prided 
 himself on his strength, and was always asking 
 Us to feel his muscle, tugged and struggled 
 like a bull. His broad visage became red, his 
 throat swelled, and a great purple vein started 
 out in his forehead. He grinned a hideous 
 grin, showing his big teeth set together. All 
 the while he was being forced over, inch by 
 inch. Ralph's face did not show signs of the 
 tremendous exertion he must have been 
 making; only his eyes, which were fixed on 
 
The Professor's Sister. 19 
 
 Burlace's, seemed to grow steadily larger and 
 brighter; and his slender hands gripped those 
 great, brawny muscles of Burlace's as a steel 
 vice grips green wood. At last, just as Bur- 
 lace's eyes rolled up, and he was about to gasp 
 and collapse, Ralph suddenly loosed his hold 
 and laughed, Burlace sat down on the floor, 
 panting and perspiring. " You're too big for 
 me," said Ralph ; and a thin stream of blood 
 ran down his chin. At first I was startled, 
 thinking he had ruptured a blood-vessel ; but 
 he had only bitten through his lower lip. 
 " Well," grunted "Will Burlace, as soon as lie 
 could speak, " then I thank my stars I'm no 
 smaller, that's all." 
 
 Ralph had beautiful, arched feet, and there 
 was a just perceptible arch in his nose, too; 
 thin, wide nostrils, broad, straight eyebrows, 
 black, over gray eyes, black wavy hair, fine 
 white complexion. His upper lip was slender 
 the lower full curving under sharply, to a round 
 Roman chin. I never saw a more thoroughly 
 masculine face; and his deep bass voice 
 suited it. 
 
 He had plainty of brains, and managed them 
 well. He had graduated at Yale college when 
 he was but eighteen years old ; afterwards he 
 had spend three years at Cambridge in England, 
 and now he was taking an engineering course 
 
20 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 in Germany. He might have lived a luxurious 
 club and yacht existence if he had cared to. 
 But he was not contented with his inherited 
 possessions ; he wanted a profession too. 
 Whether, having got it, he would ever practice 
 it, was another question ; but there was no 
 doubt about his getting it. He was esteemed 
 the best student of his time. Yet he had not 
 been devoting himself exclusively to his nominal 
 pursuit, by any means. He had interested him- 
 self for some years past in esoteric philosophy 
 and religion ; and here in Dresden he had met 
 a man who was already very far advanced on 
 the road Ralph was travelling. 
 
 This was Professor Conrad Hertrugge. The 
 professor was then about thirty years old, and 
 by no means a general favorite with his classes. 
 He was as sharp and cold as an ice-chisel, in 
 the class-room. There was a strong sarcastic 
 vein in him, which he was apt to use unmer- 
 cifully ; and to the common run of people he 
 was so curt and unsympathetic that they found 
 it impossible to get up any conversation with 
 him ; and after one or two attempts, they were 
 glad to give him a wide berth. 
 
 He was a pale, meagre man, with reddish 
 hair, a sardonic mouth, and strange green eyes, 
 which sometimes had red sparkles in them. But 
 there was power in his every feature and gest- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 21 
 
 ure, the power of character, knowledge, and 
 purpose. He had also a power of another kind, 
 rarer, and imperfectly understood. Whether 
 the result of organization, special training, or 
 both, it was certainly an odd and mysterious 
 faculty. There are more names than one 
 for it, but a name is not an explanation. For 
 my part, I have never been sensible of the influ- 
 ence which such persons are undoubtedly able 
 to exercise ; but I have seen Conrad Hertrugge 
 do what I can only describe as taking a man's 
 will and consciousness out of him, and put- 
 ting his own in its place. They would call it, 
 nowadays, inhibition of the cortical centres of 
 the brain. There is no objection, that I know 
 of, to that way of accounting for it. 
 
 The Professor, on his first meeting with 
 Ralph, seemed to conceive a pronounced aver- 
 sion to him. But in the course of two or three 
 months, this aversion changed to a very inti- 
 mate friendship. I never knew exactly what 
 caused the change, but I have always surmis- 
 ed that Ralph had on some occasion, and in 
 some unobtrusive but effective manner, inti- 
 mated his incredulity of the Professor's occult 
 abilities ; and that he had been led, subsequent- 
 ly, to recant his disbelief. There was no 
 doubt that he would have made his recanta- 
 tion freely and frankly, when he was once con- 
 
22 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 vinced ; and it was not in human nature, nor 
 even in Conrad Hertrugge, to resist Ralph 
 Merlin when he wished to make himself agree- 
 able. At all events, as I say, they became 
 close friends, and were a great deal together ; 
 and since both were, with this exception, in- 
 clined to be solitary, their intimacy was the 
 more conspicuous. What they communed 
 about was of course matter of conjecture ; but 
 some of the conjectures were well enough to 
 have got the pair of them burned for witches 
 two hundred years ago. 
 
 For my part, I was an old comrade 01 
 Ralph's, having known him before he went to 
 England ; and Ralph admitted to me that he 
 and Conrad were investigating certain obscure 
 subjects together. He remarked, however, that 
 he did not agree with Conrad as to the gen- 
 eral scheme of things, and was inclined to ex- 
 plain certain phenomena on another basis than 
 his. To other people to Will Burlace for ex- 
 ample Ralph took pleasure in making enig- 
 matical replies^ which might mean anything or 
 nothing, and which left them in doubt whether 
 he were poking fun at them, or were out of his 
 head. But there was another consideration 
 involved which neither I nor others had yet 
 heard of. 
 
 When Burlace had left us that evening, 
 
The Professor's Sister. 23 
 
 Ralph and I sat smoking, one on each side of 
 the stove, and for a time kept silence. 
 
 " Do } r ou know why Burlace keeps coming 
 here ? " enquired Ralph, at length. He asked 
 the question, not as one seeking information 
 as to the fact, but in order to discover whether 
 my idea accorded with his own. 
 
 "Well, we are all three Americans, you 
 know," I said. 
 
 " Yes. But Burlace wants to have a definite 
 opinion 011 all subjects. He can't endure un- 
 certainty, and he is still uncertain whether I am 
 a knave or a fool. When he has made up his 
 mind about that, you won't see him here again." 
 
 " Whether you are a knave or a fool ? " 
 
 " In other words, whether I really believe 
 in the mysteries of the soul, or only pretend to 
 do so for ends of my own. In the former case 
 I am a fool, in the latter, a knave. I made 
 some progress to-night in recommending to 
 him the latter alternative." 
 
 "You imply that he is incapable of believing 
 in the soul himself." 
 
 "Yes; that is one of the points on which 
 his mind is made up." 
 
 " Why don't you, or the Professor, convert 
 him ? 
 
 " He hasn't the temperament, for one thing. 
 He can be useful in his own place and way ; 
 
24 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 as a mystic, he would be a nuisance to himself 
 and others.' 7 
 
 " What sort of a mystic would I make ? " 
 
 " I have asked myself that question, and so 
 has Conrad." 
 
 Well ? 
 
 " Well, to be an initiate, one must have 
 initiative. You are too lazy. You are appre- 
 ciative, and quick of apprehension ; you will 
 listen to all that is told you, understand it, and 
 even believe it, if it accords with your view of 
 the reasonable. But you would stop there. 
 You would never take any action upon the in- 
 formation. By and by it would fade out of 
 your mind. However much you might be a 
 spiritualist in theory, in practice you will 
 always be a materialist ; and the olde* you grow, 
 the more will that be the case." 
 
 "After all, Ralph, is there anything in it ? 
 Granting occultism all it claims, will it ever 
 produce any effect in this world ? Can you 
 get further than to affect the imagination and 
 the nerves ? Supposing you possess the secret 
 of the universe, can you avail yourself of it to 
 benefit or influence practical men ? Or do these 
 magical powers (if there be any) afford any- 
 thing except subjective entertainment to the 
 wielders of them and curiosity and mystification 
 to outsiders ? " 
 
The Professor's Sister. 25 
 
 " You have seen something of what Conrad 
 can do." 
 
 " I have seen him put a man to sleep, arid 
 then compel him to act out his dreams. But, at 
 most, that will simply enable some men to make 
 cats'-paws of some others. And that has been 
 done, without magic, since the world began." 
 
 " Magic means the production of something 
 out of nothing," replied Ralph : " and that, of 
 course, is an absurdity, because ex nihilo nihil 
 Jit. No man can create anything, because he 
 has nothing of his own to create it out of. He 
 can produce an illusion, and that is all. The 
 illusion is temporary, often momentary ; and 
 as it seems out of reason, the effect on the 
 mind is also transient. The power of reading 
 and imparting thoughts, without the aid of the 
 senses, and of communicating impressions at 
 a distance, is curious and striking ; but the 
 electric telegraph, in the development it will 
 presently receive, will accomplish the same 
 results more certainly and regularly. My 
 belief is that you can allow the adepts all 
 that they claim of control over the forces of 
 Naturej and yet match them, either now or 
 hereafter, with the matter-of-fact resources of 
 science. I have no doubt that science will not 
 only enable us to travel all over this earth, 
 and converse with its inhabitants, while sit- 
 
26 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 ting at home in our easy chairs, but to visit 
 planets, and hold intercourse with other 
 varieties of mankind, in the same way. But 
 all that, and a great deal more of the same 
 sort, is simply an advanced materialism, in 
 which I am but moderately interested." 
 
 " It is intercourse with spirits that attracts 
 
 you, ? 
 
 " Why should it ? " 
 
 " Do you believe, then, that so called spiri- 
 tual communications are merely the effects of 
 unconscious cerebration and telepathy, and of 
 a sort of electric or magnetic force contained 
 in the human body ? " 
 
 "Well, I don't know why we should trouble 
 ourselves to invent so many handsome names 
 for a very obvious fact. If you believe you 
 have a soul a spirit the rest follows of course. 
 Your spirit is in a certain temporary phase or 
 plane, which we call the material. But it is 
 also in the spiritual world, though not con- 
 sciously so. And in that world it must neces- 
 sarily be surrounded by a multitude of spirits 
 most similar in character and genius to itself. 
 But your spirit, owing to your being in a dif- 
 ferent plane of being, is as imperceptible to them 
 as they are to you." 
 
 "Do you mean that there can be no inter- 
 course ? " 
 
The Professor's Sister. 27 
 
 " There is constant and universal uncon- 
 scious intercourse." 
 
 " If it be unconscious, how can you assert 
 that it exists ? " 
 
 "You may know it by the anology of ordi- 
 nary human intercourse on this material 
 plane." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Men are only partly conscious of one an- 
 other here. I see your body and your house, 
 I hear your words and mark your actions. But 
 what do I know of your nature, your thoughts, 
 your emotions ? I guess at them, from such 
 data as I have, and such inferences as I have 
 skill to draw. But you and I may go through 
 life within arm's reach of each other, and yet 
 never once penetrate beyond the veil of each 
 other's faces, never know each other, as the 
 phrase is. All that each of us secretly feels to 
 be himself is invisible and often unsuspected 
 by the other. But the part of us (and it is the 
 larger and more important part) that is invis- 
 ible here, is visible in the spiritual world. There, 
 our thoughts and nature our mental scenery 
 appear as things. All that makes us what 
 we are is seen there ; only the personal form 
 that we identify with ourselves is absent, 
 living in a foreign country. And that spiritual 
 domain of ours is continually visited and ex- 
 
28 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 amined by such spirits as are of similar mould 
 .and inclinations with our own. They are of both 
 good and evil quality, for there is good and 
 evil in every man ; and according as we turn 
 ourselves to good or to evil, is the complexion 
 of our spiritual guests dark or light." 
 
 This theory, which Kalph stated with un- 
 usual gravity and earnestness, struck me as 
 being rather bold, to say the least of it ; and 
 yet I could not deny that it seemed in keeping 
 with what we know of the laws of spiritual 
 harmony and association. I had never before 
 heard Ealph talk in this way. 
 
 " If there is such a barrier as you suppose 
 between the material and the physical planes," 
 I said, "and the intercourse is unconscious 
 on both sides, how do you account for the 
 phenomena of spiritualism ? " 
 
 " The barrier is broken down from our side," 
 Ralph answered. 
 
 " By what means ? " 
 
 " If I want you to know a thought that is 
 in my mind, I make certain audible sounds, or 
 draw certain visible signs, which, by common 
 agreement, shall convey that thought to you. 
 Speech is a symbol, by which we bridge over 
 the gulf between the world of the mind and 
 that of the body. In a similar way by a 
 system of symbols we converse with spirits." 
 
The Professor's Sister. 29 
 
 ''But spirits cannot hear our voices, nor we 
 theirs." 
 
 " Symbols are queer things/' returned Ralph ; 
 " and ail spells are symbols. If you hear a 
 spoken word, it arouses the corresponding 
 thought in your mind. The things that we 
 do in the flesh produce effects in the spiritual 
 world ; and certain things, done with a certain 
 purpose, draw tho spirits that are nearest to 
 us into direct contact with our plane. They 
 are sensible of an attraction an invitation 
 and they comply with it. In so doing, they 
 necessarily color themselves with our per- 
 sonality, and can use only the contents of our 
 memory, though so combining them as to pro- 
 duce effects of novelty and surprise. That is 
 the ground of the " unconscious cerebration " 
 theory. But what is it that causes the brain 
 to cerebrate unconsciously ? It is not our 
 initiative; then it must be some other; and 
 that other can only be the spirit's." 
 
 " If you really believe you can communicate 
 with spirits, I can't understand your not feeling 
 interested in it." 
 
 " The interest is limited to the fact of the 
 communication ; when that has been experi- 
 enced, there is nothing else to come. No spirit 
 can tell us anything that we did not know, or 
 had not the means of knowing, without him. 
 
30 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 And the society of such spirits as can com- 
 municate with us is distinctly detrimental. 
 They are of the lowest and crudest class ; they 
 have not found their place in their own world, 
 and are therefore still lingering about the 
 confines of this, like stray dogs round the 
 door of a butcher's shop. They will say 
 whatever they think you expect them to say, 
 in order to get into still closer terrestrial rela- 
 tions, and consequently they will lie indefinitely. 
 On the other hand, the imagination of ignorant 
 and superstitious people is excited by the idea 
 of communion with the other world, and they 
 conceive all manner of wild and vapid theories, 
 every one of which is promptly confirmed by 
 the equally foolish and unprincipled spirits. 
 Both parties to the dialogue grow worse and 
 worse as time goes on ; so that it's no wonder 
 that the affair generally ends, on our side, with 
 insanity, murder, or suicide. What is there 
 to interest a reasonable person in all that ? " 
 
 "But why should not spirits of a higher 
 order come to us sometimes ? Are there no 
 angels to tell us (he truths of heaven and teach 
 us divine wisdom and goodness ; " 
 
 " There are angels, no doubt," said Ealph ; 
 "but there is no ground for supposing that 
 they ever come here. Their state must be so 
 entirely different from ours that mutual ap- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 31 
 
 proach would be impossible. Besides, the only 
 spiritual instruction that is worth anything, 
 and whose effects are lasting, must come from 
 our own consciences, and that means that it 
 comes direct from God, who created us and the 
 angels too. No third person can ever mediate 
 between Him and any of His creatures. His 
 aim is not to bull}'- us by signs and wonders, 
 but to induce us to find our own way, and help 
 ourselves. If you act under constraint, it is 
 not you, but your constrainer, who acts." 
 
 " Then, if there's nothing worth attention in 
 these things," said I, " why do you concern 
 yourself about them at all ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I am just beginning to 
 perceive that there is something worth atten- 
 tion and very much worth it, too ! Though 
 the spirits can tell us nothing about the next 
 world, it is in our power to find out a great 
 deal about it for ourselves. If Conrad were 
 not so confirmed a Buddhist, we might go far 
 together." 
 
 " He doesn't agree with you ? " 
 
 " Buddhists are all materialists at bottom ; 
 what they call spirit is but a refined form of 
 matter. His results are sensational, and have 
 a fascination of their own. But I'm afraid 
 they will get him into trouble yet. Life is a 
 great deal simpler, as well as a great deal pro- 
 
32 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 founder, than he thinks. He could easily do a 
 great deal of harm ; I doubt if he could do 
 much good. He has a fancy that he and I are 
 involved together in some way. I must say I 
 hope he's mistaken. By the way, you haven't 
 seen his step-mother, have you ? " 
 
 " I didn't know he had one." 
 
 " Well, he has, and she's a very handsome 
 young woman. She can't be over five-and- 
 twenty. Conrad's father was near seventy 
 when he married her, and died six months ago, 
 after a year of felicity if felicity it was." 
 
 " Do she and Conrad get on well together ? " 
 
 "I don't believe they do. There is some 
 question of property, I think. Conrad's sister 
 is in the step-mother's way, and " 
 
 "He has a sister, too?" 
 
 "A girl of nineteen or so. I have never 
 seen her but, by the way, she was to have 
 come home yesterday, and Conrad asked me to 
 come to his house this evening. Let us go and 
 have a look at the young lady the two young 
 ladies. It is pnly half-past eight, and we can 
 dress and be there by nine." 
 
 " By all means," said I. And we went. 
 
The Professor's /Sister. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TWO WOMEN. 
 
 PROFESSOR CONRAD HERTRUGGE occupied a 
 handsome etage on a street adjoining the pub- 
 lic garden. His father had been a merchant, 
 and had accumulated a great deal of money. 
 But having begun life poor, and never having 
 had time to amuse himself, he had not acquired 
 the habit of luxury, and his house, until the 
 time of his second marriage, had been as bare 
 as a barn, so Kalph told me. But his new 
 wife had changed all that. She was handsome 
 and ambitious, and demanded a suitable envi- 
 ronment. The old man yielded to all her sug- 
 gestions and paid all the bills. Her taste was 
 ornate, but not very pure. The great rooms 
 were filled with color and decoration. Nothing 
 was left untouched. It was a restless, almost 
 intimidating spectacle. The eye roved from 
 one glowing hue and glittering point to an- 
 other, without repose. It seemed hardly law- 
 ful to sit down on these satins and velvets. 
 The polished floor menaced the incautious foot ; 
 the tables were inlaid ; in the midst of it all 
 you kept catching glimpses of your own morti- 
 
34 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 fied countenance in plate-glass mirrors. I like 
 comfort and hate this sort of thing, and felt a 
 brutal longing to spit on the floor and put my 
 feet on the buhl and marqueterie. As for fine 
 art, there were clever nude statuettes by French 
 sculptors, and paintings of warm Venuses, and 
 I know not what else ; and, in the most con- 
 spicuous part of the drawing-room, a really fine 
 full-length portrait of Madame Hertrugge her- 
 self. She stood facing you, in the act of re- 
 moving a voluminous cloak lined with swans- 
 down from her white, superb shoulders. She 
 was represented in full evening dress, red 
 satin. It was a good likeness: almost too 
 good. It might make a sensitive person blush. 
 Madame Hertrugge was white, red and black. 
 Her skin was white, her cheeks and lips red, 
 her hair, eyes and eyebrows black. Her mouth 
 was beautifully formed, and firm, with a firm 
 chin. Her eyes were rather full, imperious and 
 ardent. She was overflowing with vitality. 
 The hand which she extended to one in greet- 
 ing was soft but strong, with long fingers. 
 She was dressed in black, as became her recent 
 widowhood ; but she had not the air of mourn- 
 ing much. She was sensuous, voluptuous, but 
 there was strength behind the voluptuousness. 
 You received from her a powerful impression 
 of sex. Every line of her, every movement, 
 
The Professor's Sister. 35 
 
 every look, was woman. And she made you 
 feel that she valued you just so far as you were 
 man, You might be as nearly Caliban as a 
 man can be, but if you were a man she would 
 consider you. You might court her success- 
 fully with a horsewhip, but if she felt the mas- 
 ter in you, and were convinced that you were 
 captivated by her, she would accept you. It 
 was ludicrous to think of the senile old mer- 
 chant having married such a creature. In 
 fact, marriage, viewed in connection with this 
 woman, seemed an absurdity. There was noth- 
 ing holy about her, nothing reserved, nothing 
 sacred. I don't mean that she was not lady- 
 like, as the phrase is. She knew the society 
 catechism, and practiced it to a nicety, but like 
 a clever actress, rather than by instinct or sym- 
 pathy. It was obvious that she didn't value 
 respectability and propriety the snap of her 
 white fingers, save as a means to an end ; and 
 if she were in the company of one whom she 
 trusted intimately, she would laugh those pop- 
 ular virtues to scorn with her warm, insolent 
 breath. As it was, all the forms and ceremo- 
 nies in the world could not disguise her. Her 
 very dress suggested rather than concealed 
 what was beneath it. She was a naked god- 
 dess a pagan goddess and there was no help 
 for it. She made you realize how powerless 
 
36 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 our nice institutions are in the presence of a 
 genuine, rank human temperament. 
 
 And be it observed that I am here writing 
 of her as a temperament, and nothing more. I 
 knew nothing of her former life and experience. 
 I had no reason to think that her conduct had 
 ever been less than unexceptionable. But the 
 facts about her were insignificant compared 
 with her latent possibilities. Circumstances 
 might hitherto have been adverse to her develop- 
 ment : but opportunity rosy, golden, audacious 
 opportunity was all she needed. She certainly 
 bore no signs of satiety ; she had nothing of 
 the blase air. She was thirsty for life, and 
 she would appreciate every draught of it. She 
 was impatient to begin. And, contemplating 
 her abounding, triumphant, delicious well- 
 being, it seemed as if she might maintain the 
 high-tide of enjoyment until she was a hun- 
 dred. It really inclined one to paganism to 
 look at her. What is all this gossip about 
 morality and the convenances! I thought of 
 Will Burlace and his thermometer. Here is a 
 woman ; here is human nature as it came tor- 
 rid from the creative hand. What else in the 
 world can stand a moment's comparison with 
 it ? What a race of cold-blooded pigmies are 
 we become ! Let us eat and drink, and not 
 die, either to-morrow or the day after. I am a 
 
The Professors Sister. 37 
 
 temperate man, but she made me feel as if I 
 had suddenly drunk a bottle of fine old Ma- 
 deira. 
 
 But, as I say, her behavior was unexception- 
 able. She shook hands with me in the quiet- 
 est and most undemonstrative way, and asked 
 me politely how I liked Dresden, and whether 
 I expected to make a long stay. Then she 
 turned and spoke briefly to Ralph, and we all 
 sat down on the satin and velvet. She was be- 
 tween Ralph and me ; but I was directly op- 
 posite the portrait, and the glance it gave me 
 whenever I happened to look at it, did not har- 
 monize with the kind of remarks (about the 
 weather, the opera, and so forth) that the orig- 
 inal of it was making. On the other hand, al- 
 though the remarks were out of character, the 
 tones of the rich, full voice were in keeping ; 
 and I listened to them, while replying to the 
 words. 
 
 " Where is Conrad ? " asked Ralph, after a 
 while. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "he's in his study, with 
 Hildegarde. Hildegarde is my daughter, you 
 know," she added to me ; "though really there 
 is not such a very great difference between us, 
 in point of years," and she smiled. " She and 
 her brother have not met for a long time, and 
 apparently they have a great deal to say to 
 
38 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 each other. But they will be in in a few min 
 utes." 
 
 "Miss Hertrugge has been living away from 
 Dresden ? " I said. 
 
 " She has been educated at a convent," re- 
 turned the widow. " She has just completed 
 her course, and will henceforth live with us. 
 She is very charming I am sure you will like 
 her," she added, letting her black eyes rest on 
 me. 
 
 Somehow I did not feel complimented. The 
 look was an appraising one. It seemed to say, 
 " Hildegarde would suit a person of your cal- 
 ibre well enough ; as for me, I must have 
 stronger meat ! " 
 
 Indeed, I was inclined to agree with her. 
 Merely to contemplate her was stimulus enough 
 for me. I was content to let some more robust 
 nature proceed further. 
 
 "She will make it less dull for you this 
 spring," remarked Ralph ; and he added, with 
 the quiet audacity which he occasionally ex- 
 hibited, " Mourning is a tedious business. One 
 chief reason for wishing to keep some of our 
 friends alive, is the dread of mourning them 
 after they are dead." 
 
 " Too much importance is given to the out- 
 ward show, perhaps," said Madame Hertrugge, 
 after a moment. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 39 
 
 No doubt of it," said Ralph. " It is like 
 most other social canons ; the fact that you are 
 expected to comply with it makes you resent it. 
 The way the social law puts its great bullying 
 finger into our most sacred concerns is indecent. 
 Birth, death, marriage, it is the same in every- 
 thing. We cannot even experience religion 
 except in public, and with the aid of a batch of 
 priests. The aim of society seems to be to 
 turn its members inside out : and the more 
 it succeeds, the greater hypocrites do we all be- 
 come." 
 
 " That sounds like a paradox, Mr. Merlin," 
 said our hostess. 
 
 " It is the natural revolt of human nature 
 against force. Society insists on regulating 
 our behavior by averages ; we demand indi- 
 vidual choice. Society being the stronger, we 
 adjust the matter by obeying the letter and re- 
 belling in the spirit. It is our only way of 
 keeping the ownership of our own souls." 
 
 " That," observed I, " is as much as to advo- 
 cate hypocrisy." 
 
 l - Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, 
 have you riot that proverb ? " said Madame 
 Hertrugge, taking Ralph's part against me. 
 " Yes, you are right,''' she went on, " we are all 
 something that we try not to appear to be. But 
 I can at least say for myself that I do not en- 
 
40 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 joy being a hypocrite. It stifles me : I am 
 tempted to throw off the disguise." She made a 
 gesture with her beautiful arm, a gesture that 
 quickened my pulse a beat or two. Her gest- 
 ures, like everything about her, were graphic 
 and vividly suggestive. If she were really to 
 throw off the disguise, it would be a memorable 
 sight. 
 
 At this juncture, Conrad came in, with his 
 sister Hildegarde's hand ill his. 
 
 The two stood together in the doorway a 
 moment. There was very little family resem- 
 blance between them, except that Hildegarde's 
 hair was tawny. Her eyes, as I judged, were 
 hazel ; they were large and exquisitely expres- 
 sive. All her features were delicately moulded, 
 and evinced great sensitiveness. Withal, there 
 was a certain abstraction in her manner. It 
 struck me that she would be keenly aware of 
 all that passed before her, yet less through the 
 ordinary channels of perception than by some 
 sixth sense, some instinctive apprehension. 
 It acted from the depths within her, and pene- 
 trated to depths, ordinarily concealed, within 
 others. She would note the false tone of a 
 voi ce, and see through an assumed geniality. 
 If you loved her, she would know it in spite of 
 your best concealments ; if you were hostile, 
 she would feel it through your sultriest com- 
 
The Professors Sister. 41 
 
 placency. And, as I afterwards found by ex- 
 perience, she often divined the unspoken 
 thought of her interlocutor, and would even, at 
 times, inadvertently reply to that, instead of 
 to what had actually been said. 
 
 She was, compared with her step-mother, as 
 spirit to substance, and as light to heat. Her 
 complexion was fair and pure ; her figure was 
 slenderly symmetrical, and charming with un- 
 studied grace. There was something strange 
 about her which, at first, I did not understand ; 
 but at length I came to the conclusion that it 
 was her almost total lack of self-consciousness. 
 This girl had no egotism. Her observations, 
 her reflections, her thoughts, were of people and 
 things outside herself. This, as is always the 
 case, would give her singular power in emer- 
 gencies. She would never say, " What will be 
 the consequence of this or that to me ? " She 
 would consider only the abstract result. Yet 
 she would reverence noble qualities, and good- 
 ness, in herself, not less than in others ; not 
 because they were hers, but precisely because 
 she, in comparison with them, was nothing ; 
 they would not be her goodness and ability, 
 but goodness and ability themselves. These 
 gone she would be no complying slave, but as 
 stubborn at need as a martyr. You can defeat 
 a person who says "I will have it so," but the 
 
42 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 world cannot influence one who says " Eight 
 will have it so." 
 
 But my observations upon Hildegarde did 
 not proceed so far on this first evening. She 
 bowed to Ralph and to me, with a pleasant, 
 clear look, as her step-mother mentioned our 
 names. In a few minutes, I was conversing 
 with her and Conrad, while Madame Hertrugge 
 in another part of the room, was talking to 
 Ralph. But both Ralph and Hildegarde were 
 inattentive, and I saw each of them look at the 
 other once or twice. 
 
 "Do you remember your own mother?" I 
 asked her. 
 
 "Oh, I can see her," she replied, turning, 
 and lifting her head a little. 
 
 " Memory, with some people, is almost like 
 vision," Conrad added quickly. 
 
 " This is a great change from the convent," 
 said I. 
 
 " I like it ! " she returned, with a simplicity 
 that made me smile. 
 
 " She and Catalina will be great friends," 
 remarked Conrad. 
 
 " Why, do you not wish it, brother ? " de- 
 manded the girl. 
 
 "I forgot your eyes!" he rejoined, with an 
 odd gleam in his own, and a comical twist of 
 his sardonic mouth. He certainly had not in- 
 
The Professor's tiister. 43 
 
 timated that he did not wish it. "She has 
 more of her mother than of her father/ 7 he 
 said to me. " My father was almost as ugly as 
 I am, and clever, a good brain. But an ugly 
 man ought to be strong, and there he was lack- 
 ing. A woman could make a fool of him." 
 
 While he was speaking, Hildegarde rose, and 
 crossed the room to where Ralph and Catalina 
 Hertrugge were sitting. It was a point-blank 
 interruption of a tete-a-tete that had seemed to 
 be interesting to at least one of the parties to 
 it. If one has the nerve> or the assurance, to 
 go straight to the point in society, such a one 
 will leave the subtlest schemer far behind. I 
 did not know whether Hildegarde's manoeuvre 
 was more than an accident ; but it evidently 
 disconcerted the other lady. Hildegarde stood 
 looking calmly at Ralph, and not offering to 
 say anything. Catalina, cut short in what she 
 was saying, must have felt annoyed ; but she 
 laughed, and motioned to the other to take a 
 place beside her on the lounge. Ralph had 
 meanwhile risen and drawn up another chair, 
 and this Hildegarde accepted, reptying, at the 
 same time, to something Ralph said to her. In 
 a moment Catalina exclaimed : " But we are 
 forgetting our tea !" and moving to the em- 
 broidered bell-rope, pulled it. Then she saun- 
 tered on, with that undulating movement of the 
 
44 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 hips which is so beautiful and so rare in wo- 
 men, showing, as it does, perfect suppleness 
 and freedom of the waist and limbs, she came 
 on I say, towards Conrad and me, and sank 
 into a seat near us, the train of her dress coil- 
 ing over her arched feet as she did so. The 
 servant appeared at the door, and she ordered 
 him to bring in the tray. 
 
 " Are you not afraid to trust Hildegarde with 
 so handsome a man as Ralph ? " asked Conrad, 
 with a saturnine grimace. 
 
 " She will amuse him and he will benefit 
 her, he will teach her something," Catalina 
 replied ; and then, turning to me, " I shall de- 
 pend on you and him to help me with her ; I 
 want to make a success of her." 
 
 'And yet they abuse step-mothers," said 
 Conrad. 
 
 All this was entertaining, and the tea was 
 brought in, and some flagons of Rhine wine 
 also, and we became quietly convivial all 
 round. But it seemed to me that there were 
 forces at work wkjch might breed events that 
 would be something more than entertaining. 
 Two women and one man make mischief ; and 
 Conrad appeared likely to take a hand, too. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SCHANDAU. 
 
 IT was several weeks before I saw either Cata- 
 lina or Hildegarde again. It was then May, one 
 of the loveliest months of the year in Dresden. 
 The grass was soft and green, the new leaves 
 made a tender verdure on the trees, and the 
 lilacs were in bloom, and their perfume filled 
 the air with a benediction. The sky was softly 
 blue, enriched with clouds, which are nowhere 
 more beautiful in form and color than in the 
 valley of the Elbe. The river itself came swirl- 
 ing and rippling down from amidst the distant 
 hills, overflowing with the freshness and full- 
 ness of the gracious season, and foaming against 
 the dark piers of the old hog-backed bridge that 
 had stemmed its current for centuries. The 
 proprietors of the river baths had begun to 
 construct their platforms and moor them out in 
 the stream ; and a wooden terrace was being 
 built on the bank beneath the walls of the 
 Bellevue Hotel, whereon, during the summer, 
 innumerable beer-drinkers would sit and imbibe 
 the great German liquor in the breezy shad- 
 dow, with the water eddying and sparklingbe- 
 
46 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 neath them. Now, also, the open-air concerts at 
 the Grosser Garten, and at the Waldschloschen, 
 and other easily accessible suburbs, were in 
 full blast, enabling you to hear the best of music 
 at any time for five cents. All the population 
 appeared to be parading about, ceaselessly 
 loquacious and smiling, in fresh bonnets 
 and spring waistcoats. Good old King John, 
 still alive at that epoch, might sometimes 
 be met toddling along the sunny side of the 
 Schloss strasse, with his old queen by his side, 
 and a henchman or two in attendance ; in the 
 morning you might see Crown Prince Albert, 
 accompanied by a lady who was too handsome 
 to be royal, cantering down the Hercules Allee, 
 through fretted sun and shadow. It was 
 spring, full of fresh days and sunny hopes. 
 
 One Saturday we made a party to go up the 
 river to Schandau. This is a charming little 
 village in a narrow winding valley, about 
 twenty-five miles above Dresden. The village, 
 beginning with a hotel at the river bank, pro- 
 longs a line of leaf-embowered villas for some 
 half a mile along the brook side, there ending 
 in another hotel. You take your meals beneath 
 the trees, in the open space in front of the 
 hotel ; a band plays there in the afternoon ; 
 on either side are precipitous cliffs, on whose 
 sides trees miraculously cling, and which are 
 
The Professor's Sister. 47 
 
 ascended by paths zig-zagging upward at prac- 
 ticable angles. Schandau is the outpost of 
 Saxon Switzerland, the loveliest little region 
 in all Germany. 
 
 The party was to include the three Hert- 
 rugges Conrad, Catalina and Hildegarde, and 
 Ralph, Will Burlace and myself. This was 
 two cavaliers apiece for the ladies wihch, con- 
 sidering the excess of women over men in Ger- 
 many, ought to have been very satisfactory to 
 them. But at the last moment Conrad found 
 it impossible to go. As all our preparations 
 were made, and the day was fine, it was de- 
 cided to proceed without him. The cause of 
 his defection was a telegram he had received 
 at breakfast from one of the professors at Frei- 
 berg, announcing an important meeting to be 
 held that day to consider the case of a certain 
 student, known to Conrad, who had got into 
 trouble. Conrad was at first inclined not to 
 comply with the summons ; but inasmuch as 
 the boy's future seemed likety to depend upon 
 his attendance, he finally made up his mind to 
 go. At parting, he drew me aside and said : 
 " I don't feel altogether satisfied about this 
 thing. The student is one of the eteadiest in 
 the school. I cannot understand his having 
 behaved in such a manner. Will you do me a 
 favor ? " 
 
48 The Professors Sister* 
 
 " With pleasure." 
 
 " Well keep the party together as much as 
 possible. I shall feel more at ease if I know 
 the young people are not getting too romantic. 
 You are a man of sense one can trust you ; 
 but the others ! " 
 
 " There is safety in numbers, professor," I 
 replied, laughing ; " and under the circum- 
 stances, I do not regard what you say about 
 me as a compliment. However, I will engage 
 to see them all home alive this evening." 
 
 He rubbed his chin, seemed to meditate for 
 a moment, and finally turned away muttering 
 something I did not catch. He took the train 
 one way, and we the other. 
 
 In spite of his absence, we were a very merry 
 party. Burlace gave the guard a thaler to lock 
 the door of our compartment, which was a first- 
 class one. The two ladies established them- 
 selves at the opposite windows, and just as the 
 train started Catalina called to Ralph and 
 asked him to disentangle the lace fringe of her 
 scarf from on*e of the buttons of the cushion, to 
 which it had somehow become attached. By the 
 time he had accomplished this I had taken my 
 seat opposite Hildegarde, and Burlace was on 
 the other side of her ; so there was nothing left 
 for Ralph but to devote himself to the beauti- 
 ful widow. But it appeared to me that no one 
 
The Professor's Sister. 49 
 
 was pieased with this arrangement except Cata- 
 lina, leaving myself, who would have been 
 contented anywhere, out of the question. That 
 is to say, Burlace wanted to be with Catalina, 
 Ralph wanted to be with Hildegarde, and Hil- 
 degarde to put the attitude negatively, as be- 
 comes a young unmarried woman Hildegarde 
 did not exhibit any marked preference for the 
 society of either Will Burlace or myself. As 
 we had a full hour's ride before us, this was, 
 perhaps, unfortunate. But the genius of 
 Ralph was equal to the emergency. He did 
 not, indeed, imitate the sublime example of 
 Hildegarde, on an occasion already described, 
 and simply and without excuse or explanation, 
 change his seat from where he did not to where 
 he did want to be ; but at our first stopping place, 
 Pirna, he was suddenly seized with a desire to 
 speak to the guard, and since the station was 
 on Hildegarde's side, he was obliged to come 
 to that side in order to satisfy his desire. 
 What he said to the guard I do not remember ; 
 but while he was standing with his head and 
 shoulders out of the window, Burlace took ad- 
 vantage of the opportunity to transfer himself 
 to the place opposite Catalina, and then Ralph, 
 finding his retreat cut off, was, of course, 
 obliged to sit down by Hildegarde. So now 
 we were all happy except Catalina, and myself, 
 
50 The Professor s Sister. 
 
 who, as I have already explained, was the ac- 
 knowledged supernumerary and mere looker- 
 on. In this order we arrived at our destina- 
 tion. 
 
 After being ferried across the river to the 
 Schandau landing, we strolled up the lane by 
 the brookside to the hotel, and ordered our 
 dinner for one o'clock. We took this walk in 
 a group, the promiscuous character of which 
 was almost conspicuously, albeit tacitly, pre- 
 served. But at this point I abandoned for the 
 nonce my role of chaperon, and declaring that 
 I must and would have a bath (there are ex- 
 cellent baths in the hotel), I left niy four 
 friends to fight it out, or flirt it out, as best 
 they might. They started off. to ascend the 
 hill on the left, and were soon lost to sight in 
 the bosky pathway leading thither. 
 
 I entered my bath, congratulating myself on 
 my uninteresting and uninterested character. 
 But though my heart was free, my curiosity 
 and speculative instincts were awake, and I 
 could not hefp wondering what would come out 
 of this little game at cross-purposes. Too much 
 weight might easily be ascribed to what I had 
 noticed ; and yet it was plain that the two 
 ladies both preferred the same man, to-wit : my 
 friend Ralph Merlin. I could not blame them 
 for this. Ralph was to poor Burlace as 
 
The Professor's Sister. 51 
 
 Hyperion to a satyr. But what would be the 
 result of it ? Would Hildegarde be able to 
 hold her own against so redoubtable and potent 
 a beauty as Catalina. If the object of their 
 rivalry had been any other man than Ralph, I 
 should have doubted it. But Ralph, though 
 human enough in all conscience, in spite of his 
 trick of talking metaphysics and mysticism, 
 was not a man to mistake an outside for an in- 
 side, still less to prefer the former to the latter ; 
 and moreover he did not appear to be merely 
 indifferent between the two women, but had 
 betrayed a certain measure of preference for 
 the strange girl with the hazel eyes. Catalina, 
 then, was in so far at a disadvantage ; nor was 
 her situation improved by the obvious fact that 
 Hildegarde reciprocated Ralph's interest. In 
 a matter of love, an unsophisticated maiden 
 may sometimes prove more than a match for 
 even a beautiful woman of the world and a 
 widow. And Hildegarde had traits of character 
 that would have to be taken into consideration 
 by anybody. 
 
 Upon the whole, I was benevolent enough 
 to be sorry that Catalina had not happened to 
 take a fancy to poor Will Burlace. If it were 
 not an ideal match, at any rate it was really 
 preferable to one between her and Ralph. And 
 after all, why should she be in such haste to fall 
 
52 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 in love with anybody ? Only seven or eight 
 months ago she had a hushand. It was true 
 that the deceased Mr. Hertrugge may have won 
 her not solely on his own merits ; but some 
 consideration was due to the poor man's 
 memory. And what w r ould Conrad say to such 
 behavior ? It was already evident that he was 
 not pleased about something ; though whether 
 it was to the marriage of his step-mother, or 
 that of his sister, that he objected, I do not 
 know. Neither was I aware what power he 
 possessed, if any, to oppose or check the pro- 
 ceedings. But, again, possibly and 1 thought 
 it quite possible Ralph might feel only an 
 aesthetic or psychological interest in Hilde- 
 garde, in which case a half at least of the 
 Gordian knot would be cut. By this time I 
 had finished my ablutions, and resuming my 
 garments, 1 sat down in the courtyard to await 
 the return of my friends, and the arrival of 
 dinner. It was not long before I heard voices 
 from the hillside, and among them the 
 stentorian tones of Burlace, who seemed to be 
 in a complacent mood. 1 was curious to see 
 in what order the quartette would reappear. 
 When, presently, they hove in sight, it ap- 
 peared that fortune continued to favor Hilde- 
 garde thus far. She and Ralph were together, 
 walking some twenty paces behind Burlace and 
 
The Professor's Sister. 53 
 
 Catalina. Nevertheless, Catalina was in high 
 spirits rather unduly high, I fancied. She 
 was laughing and talking with Burlace, and 
 looked positively glorious, with her complexion 
 like white and red roses and her eyes like black 
 diamonds. I was conscious of a great and dis- 
 interested sympathy for her. What a pity that 
 such a woman could riot have her own way in 
 everything! With so much of primal nature 
 in her, she must be more good than bad. There 
 was evil in her, of course, as there is in every- 
 body ; but it would come to the surface only if 
 she were opposed, or injured, or disappointed. 
 Why could not late allow her to enjoy herself 
 in her own way ? It is singular how life often 
 seems to provoke people deliberately hound 
 them into being worse than they might be. 
 Catalina would be all right if she were let alone. 
 On the other hand, if she were crossed and 
 driven into a corner, she was capable of serious 
 mischief. As for Burlace, he was enchanted ! 
 He belonged to the class of people who are most 
 sanguine at the moment when everyone else 
 perceives their final discomfiture. Ralph and 
 Hildegarde, like Dante and Beatrice, were 
 happy but quiet. 
 
 The dinner was good ; and we had some Mar- 
 cobrunner that was so inspiring that we were 
 convinced it must be the original drink of im- 
 
54 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 mortality, from the famous Fountain of Youth. 
 And yet, what did we want of the wine of 
 youth ? It w r as twenty years ago. I would ap- 
 preciate it better now. 
 
 Every once in a while I caught a glance from 
 Catalina's jubilant black eyes. What was in 
 that woman's mind ? Sometimes, too, I saw 
 her looking at Hildegarde ; and then her regard 
 became pre-occupied and dreamy ; it made me 
 think of an Eastern empress, calmly watching 
 the agonies of a dying slave. Yet Hildegarde 
 was neither a slave nor moribund. 
 
 Coffee was brought, and we lighted our 
 cigars. The sun had passed its zenith, and 
 was shining up the narrow valley. The band 
 appeared and began to play. But the music 
 was too near and loud ; by common consent we 
 rose, and sauntered down the shadowy path 
 towards the river. On arriving there, Catalina 
 pointed to a steep elevation on our right, 
 covered by some small buildings, and com- 
 manding a fine view, and proposed that we 
 should ascend thither. It is nothing to a party 
 of young people to climb a mountain in the 
 evening of a day's outing. Up we went, bend- 
 ing to the arduous path, breathing deep, and re- 
 joicing as height after height was gained. 
 Beaching the breezy summit, we found there a 
 tiny " Bestauration," with benches and tables 
 
The Professors Sister. 55 
 
 in front of it, and intimations of cool beer in 
 the background. 
 
 We sat down on the benches, and were 
 waited upon by a neat and comely little maiden, 
 with her flaxen hair braided down her back, 
 after the manner of the Gretchen of romance. 
 I, being otherwise mateless, entered into con- 
 verse with her, and she made cheerful replies 
 to my questions. There was a little dome- 
 shaped structure on the top of a rocky knoll, 
 overlooking even the height on which we sat; 
 and I asked her what was kept in it. 
 
 " Oh, that is the camera-obscura," she said. 
 " Have you never seen one ? " 
 
 I had; but camera-obscuras have an abiding 
 fascination for me ; and I wanted to see this 
 one also. Gretchen expressed her willingness 
 to do the honors of it ; I laid the matter before 
 the others, but none of them were inspired by 
 my enthusiasm, so I left them, and went up 
 with Gretchen into the mount of vision. It 
 was an excellent camera, and commanded a vast 
 horizon. After causing the regular series of 
 sights to pass across the stage, ending up with 
 our own party still seated at the tables, 
 Gretchen paused and asked me if I were 
 content. 
 
 I crossed her honest little palm with silver, 
 and requested her permission to remain in the 
 
56 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 camera by myself for a while ; to which she 
 readily assented, and departed to her other 
 guests and duties. I got hold of the cord that 
 moved the lens, and began to explore the neigh- 
 borhood at Imp-hazard. The silent but living 
 pictures, in the lovely colors of nature, suc- 
 ceeded one another ; the trees waved, the river 
 ran, the little skiffs sailed to and fro upon it ; 
 an interminable freight train slid along the 
 track, with white steam puffing from its engine. 
 Once an eagle sailed leisurely athwart the sky, 
 without a pulsation of his long dark wings. I 
 turned the glass full upon the sky, which 
 showed lakes and straits of intense azure, be- 
 tween superb masses of cloud, fleecy white and 
 tender gray, like the plumage of a sea-gull. 
 Turning more to the west, I saw there masses 
 thickening and darkening, and assuming here 
 and there strange tinges of yellow and green ; 
 and towards the remote horizon there was a 
 whitish blue. A thunder storm was coming 
 on, and setting in this direction. As the frown- 
 ing cloud wall drew nearer, I could see light- 
 ning wriggling across it. 
 
 The idea of watching a thunderstorm as it 
 painted itself in a camera-obscura pleased me 
 hugely ; it combined the realism of nature with 
 the imaginative charm of a theatre. I directed 
 the lens to the little restauration, in order to 
 
The Professor's Sister. 57 
 
 find out what my friends were doing ; but they 
 had all vanished. Only Catalina's parasol 
 lay upon one of the tables ; and Gretchen stood 
 in the door of the house, glancing at the sky 
 and the landscape. Had the others wandered 
 off somewhere, or were they in the restauration? 
 I grasped the magic cord, and set off on a voy- 
 age of discovery. 
 
58 The Professor's lister. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SPECTRE OF THE CAMERA. 
 
 THE nearer rim of the storm-cloud was now 
 nearly overhead, and the body of the disturb- 
 ance was but a mile or two distant, sweeping 
 up the valley of the Elbe, and shrouding the 
 lofty cliffs of Koenigstein and Lilienstein in 
 driving rain. I kept the darkest part of the 
 cloud on the centre of my canvas, and watched 
 its swift and majestic approach. The lightning 
 was incessant, and showed blue and red as well 
 as white, and the un intermittent roll and ex- 
 plosions of the thunder filled my ears. If my 
 unfortunate companions had gone out into the 
 woods, they would inevitably be drenched to 
 the skin. 
 
 I surveyed my immediate surroundings for 
 several minutes without seeing traces of any of 
 them. The elevation to which we had ascended, 
 following the general conformation of the re- 
 gion, was in the shape of an irregular butte, or 
 table-land bounded on all sides by nearly verti- 
 cal precipices. These precipices, however, were 
 cleft by deep ravines and gullies, whereby 
 access was gained to the summit ; and the sum- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 59 
 
 mit itself was only comparatively level, it 
 was, in fact, rough and uneven, with loose 
 bowlders resting upon it, and everywhere a 
 thick growth of pines and other trees. Nar- 
 row footpaths wound in and out from one point 
 to another ; but there had been no attempt to 
 render the surface homogeneous. 
 
 From my high standpoint, I could command 
 this limited space much better than any one 
 below me, and I accordingly passed it carefully 
 and sj^stematically in review, with the assur- 
 ance that I could not fail to discover my friends 
 sooner or later, if they were anywhere upon it. 
 By and by I was rewarded by the sight of 
 Catalina and Will Burlace, who were standing 
 together beneath the broad boughs of a pine, 
 looking out at the oncoming storm. 
 
 Presently Catalina turned to Burlace, and 
 seemed to be speaking to him; he replied; 
 they glanced up at the boughs above them, and 
 then again out over the valley. I judged that 
 she had offered some suggestion, which they 
 had discussed, and to which Burlace acceded ; 
 for a moment later he nodded his head, left her 
 side, and walked off at a brisk pace in the 
 direction of the restauration. She had doubt- 
 less asked him to fetch her an umbrella, or a 
 cloak to protect her from the rain. 
 
 I followed his course for a few moments, as 
 
60 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 he alternately appeared and disappeared in the 
 windings of the path, and "beneath the over- 
 hanging branches of the trees. It struck me 
 that he was taking the wrong path, hut I was 
 unable to apprise him of his error. I returned 
 to the spot where he had left Catalina ; but to 
 my surprise, she was no longer there. Had 
 she left the tree for some more effective shelter 
 from the imminent downpour, or for another 
 reason ? It suddenly struck me that the 
 errand on which she had despatched Burlace 
 might merely be another of her expedients to get 
 rid of him ; and as soon as he was out of sight 
 she had transferred herself elsewhere. 
 
 But this could be only a piece of wanton 
 mischief on her part, or it might even be CO' 
 quetry ; for she had nothing to gain now by 
 hiding herself from him, except the certainty 
 of getting wet. It was not as if she were plot- 
 ting to exchange Burlace for Ralph, for Balph 
 was not there. By the way, where was he ? 
 and Hildegarde ? she must be with him. 
 
 All this time the gloom of the great over- 
 whelming cloud was deepening, and the savage 
 flashes of lightning made the intervals between 
 seem darker ; and the thunder was uninter- 
 rupted, booming and crashing and leaping in 
 heavy echoes from peak to peak of the hills, as 
 if giants were flinging vast bowlders at one 
 
The Professor's Sister. 61 
 
 another. The appearance of the surface of the 
 cloud overhead was awful and bewildering; it 
 boiled and eddied like an aerial maelstrom; it 
 was iridescent with lurid tints, and pieces of 
 vapor were ever and anon torn off from the 
 main mass and snatched and twisted about 
 this way and that in the fury of the upper 
 whirlwind. Jt was a terrifying spectacle ; such 
 a storm as this I had never seen in Germany, 
 and at so early a period of the year it was un- 
 precedented. I began to fear that Ralph and 
 Hildegarde and the others might be exposed to 
 a real danger. 
 
 Just then a turn of the glass brought Ralph 
 into view. He was hurrying across the rough 
 ground and through the wood, not attempting 
 to keep the path, but making a straight line 
 for the restauration. He was alone, and I could 
 only suppose that he, like Burlace, had started 
 to procure some means of protection for Hilde- 
 garde, whom he had probably left in some 
 place of comparative shelter. The first breath 
 of the gale had now reached the butt, but as 
 yet not a drop of rain had fallen. 
 
 All at once, Catalina stepped out from be- 
 hind a rock, directly in Ralph's path, so that 
 he almost ran against her. He halted sud- 
 denly ; and then I witnessed a remarkable 
 scene. 
 
62 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 A dazzling flash of lightning glared out, and 
 simultaneously with it came an appalling crash 
 of thunder. I saw Catalina, as if beside her- 
 self with terror or excitement, throw herself 
 upon Ralph, and fling her arms round him. 
 
 Ralph was apparently as much surprised at 
 this as I was. But he instinctively put his 
 hands on her shoulders, and for several mo- 
 ments she clung to him, with her face against 
 his breast. The gloom had closed round them, 
 but in another breath it was lit up again, and 
 she was looking up in his face, and speaking 
 passionately. He drew back a little, but again 
 she clung to him ; all the strength and fire of 
 her nature were put forth ; who can tell what 
 she said or intimated ? The mere distant re- 
 flection of the scene, from which I could not 
 turn away my eyes, revealed and concealed in 
 quick and irregular alternation by the electric 
 flashes, made my nerves thrill and my pulses 
 beat. Beyond a doubt this magnificent crea- 
 ture was offering herself to Ralph ; could any 
 man withstand the intoxicating onset of such 
 a spirit and passion as hers ? And to all was 
 added the excitement and hurly-burty of the 
 great storm, as if the elements themselves took 
 part in the tumult of her heart and brain. 
 
 It seemed to me that Ralph wavered for a 
 moment. He would not have been human 
 
The Professor's Sister. 63 
 
 had he remained unmoved and in command of 
 himself. To hear such love so told; to feel 
 her alive in his arms and pressed against him; 
 to see that beautiful face so close to his that 
 her lips spoke almost against his lips, and her 
 eyes wet with wild tears and ardent with the 
 flame of her desire looked into his own, in 
 such a situation virtue dissolves like snow in 
 fire. Ralph bent his head towards her ; for an 
 instant darkness closed them in; and what 
 took place in that instant can only be conjec- 
 tured. But alas for Ralph, and for her ! 
 
 The revulsions of feeling in such cases are 
 as rapid as they are intense. I knew that 
 Ealph did not love her, and that he had yielded 
 to a passionate impulse only. And having 
 yielded, at such a white heat of emotion, the 
 recoil would be inevitable and absolute. When 
 I looked again he had unclasped her arms, and 
 drawn back from her a step ; they faced each 
 other so, and he was speaking. As he spoke, 
 at first she heard him defiantly and wrathfully, 
 standing erect at her full height, with her head 
 poised like a serpent's, about to strike. Then 
 some word of his hit her hard ; she winced and 
 her head fell ; she half-raised her hands arid 
 shrunk as if to avoid a blow. And then her 
 arms dropped listlessly to her sides, and the 
 pose of her figure expressed the apathy of de- 
 
64 The Professor s Sister. 
 
 spair. She attempted no reply ; she did not 
 lift her face ; and when he left her and passed 
 on, she did not turn to look after him. 
 
 Evidently, then, he had smitten hard ; and 
 few men could smite harder than he. And he 
 had killed something in her. Perhaps it was 
 pride ; perhaps it was something better than 
 pride. We are always wrong when we judge 
 our fellow-creatures, and we are wicked when 
 we condemn them and shame them, no matter 
 for what cause. Possibly Ralph would have 
 been less cruel had he not known in his heart 
 that he too was accountant for a sin. 
 
 After Ralph was gone, Catalina moved, drew 
 her shoulders together as if she felt cold, and 
 passed her hands over her eyes. She took a 
 step or two forward, and paused ; walked a few 
 paces in another direction, and paused again. 
 She seemed hardly to realize where she was, or 
 what she was doing. But presently a change 
 came over her ; some definite purpose had en- 
 tered into her mind, and she had immediately 
 become intent upon it, to the exclusion of all 
 other ideas. At first I could not imagine what 
 it was ; but her course was taking her directly 
 to one of the most headlong precipices, which 
 plunged sheer downwards, five hundred feet 
 without a break, to a chaos of tumbled rocks 
 beneath. What should a desperate woman, 
 
The Professor's Sister. 65 
 
 whose love had just been thrust back on her 
 with contumely, seek on the edge of a preci- 
 pice ? The answer was terribly obvious. I 
 was about to witness the suicide of Catalina, 
 without being able to do any thing to avert it. 
 I was powerless as a man in a dream. She was 
 in one world, and I in another, with no possi- 
 bility of intercommunication ; and yet we were 
 perhaps not more than three hundred yards 
 distant from each other. 
 
 She was now within twenty paces of the end. 
 A sloping terrace, some ten feet in height, de- 
 scended to the rocky brink. At the top of the 
 terrace grew two or three small evergreens, 
 and just on the crest of the declivity was bal- 
 anced a small bowlder, about as big as a mam- 
 moth pumpkin. 
 
 When Catalina reached this terrace, she 
 stopped short, with a start, and then drew back 
 behind the shelter of the evergreens. Here 
 she crouched down and gazed ; and I gazed, 
 too. 
 
 On the very brink of the abyss, where the 
 downward slope of the terrace ended, stood 
 Hildegarde. She stood looking outward to- 
 wards the storm, which filled the vast gulf be- 
 fore her. She was absorbed in the spectacle. 
 She held herself proudly and exultingly, like 
 some divinity of earth and air ; the fighting 
 o 
 
66 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 wind had loosened the fastenings of her tawny 
 hair, and it streamed out behind her with a 
 movement like leaping flame, and her garments 
 fluttered like a rent sail wrapped on a slender 
 mast. She raised her arms, as if to rise on 
 wings and stem the gale. 
 
 Her position was one of imminent peril. A 
 step forward a loss of halance and she would 
 have been lost. But she was manifestly 
 unconscious of danger, or indifferent to it. 
 Her nerves were not shaken ; her heart beat 
 strong and full ; her reserved and silent na- 
 ture was awake and rejoicing. It needs plan- 
 etary influence to arouse some souls, while 
 others expand themselves at the bubbling of a 
 tea-kettle. In spite of her logical danger, Hil- 
 degarde was safe. I wondered whether the 
 storm alone was answerable for her exaltation, 
 or whether Ralph also had been concerned 
 in it. 
 
 Did the same thought come to Catalina at 
 that moment ? As I turned my eyes on her, 
 I saw that she* had emerged from behind the 
 evergreens, and was creeping towards the small 
 bowlder that was poised above the slope. All 
 the while her gaze was fixed intently on Hilde- 
 garde, as a panther watches a fawn upon which 
 it prepares to spring. Catalina reached the 
 bowlder, and laid her hands upon it. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 67 
 
 Then I comprehended what was about to 
 happen. A vigorous push, such as Catalina 
 was fully able to give it, would send the bowl- 
 der bounding down the terrace. Hildegarde 
 stood exactly in its path over the precipice. It 
 would strike her, and sweep her down to de- 
 struction. Catalina had changed her purpose 
 from suicide to murder. Ralph had crushed 
 her pride and scouted her love. She would see 
 to it that Hildegarde did not enjoy his love 
 either. 
 
 As I saw the wretched woman press against 
 the stone, I involuntarily shouted out to warn 
 Hildegarde of her fate. I might as well have 
 appealed to the stars. My voice came impo- 
 tently back to me from the black sides of the 
 camera; and even had I been as near her as 
 was her intending murderess, the reverberations 
 of the thunder and the roar of the wind would 
 have out-shouted my words. 
 
 The stone stirred, and trembled on its fall. 
 But before it could descend, a figure appeared 
 on the very verge of the gulf. It almost 
 seemed as if it must be standing on the empty 
 air ; it was on a level with Hildegarde, and a 
 pace or two to her left. How it had come 
 there was more than I could conceive ; an in- 
 stant before, a glare of lightning had shown 
 the place vacant ; the next flash had, as it were. 
 
68 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 brought him there, for the figure was that of 
 a man, and of one whom I immediately recog- 
 nized. Its appearance, and what followed 
 thereupon, all passed in the fraction of a 
 minute ; but it seemed to me that the new- 
 comer was more clearly visible than either 
 Catalina or Hildegarde ; the effigy cast by the 
 lens had a kind of luminous quality in it, as if 
 it had absorbed some of the electric light which 
 charged the atmosphere. The figure extended 
 his left hand towards Hildegarde, and beck- 
 oned to her with an urgent gesture. She, too, 
 evidently recognized him ; but manifested 
 little or no surprise at his presence. 
 
 The stone plunged downward ; but before 
 it could reach Hildegarde, she had quietly 
 stepped a pace to the left, and it flew past her 
 harmlessly. I saw Catalina throw up her 
 hands and stagger back, with an aspect of 
 terror ; but when I looked again for the appa- 
 rition of Conrad Hcrtrugge, it had vanished. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 69 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 MR. HERTRUGGE'S WILL. 
 
 SIMULTANEOUSLY with this strange event, 
 the rain, which had held off so long, rushed 
 down in a gray sheet, and blotted out every- 
 thing. It rattled upon the roof of the camera 
 with a noise like the beating of innumerable 
 kettle-drums. But I had seen enough; the 
 spell that had kept me there was broken ; I 
 found the door and came forth. The rain 
 struck me like a shower-bath, and I was soaked 
 through before I could descend the knoll to the 
 level. The first thing I saw was Ealph and 
 Burlace running off through the trees with 
 waterproof blankets in their arms. 
 
 I had no wish to follow them. I did not 
 doubt -that they would find Catalina and Hil- 
 degarde, and bring them safely back. I walked 
 across to the restauration. Gretchen met me 
 in the doorway with exclamations of concern 
 and compassion. The Herr was so wet ! The 
 Herr would catch cold ! Everybody would 
 catch cold ! Never was such a storm known. 
 What was to be done ! Oh weh ! Oh weh ! 
 
70 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 I followed her into the kitchen, where I took 
 off my coat and waistcoat and sat down before 
 the cooking-stove. Gretchen trotted here and 
 there, getting out dry wraps for the ladies, 
 when they should return. I could think of but 
 one thing the appearance of Conrad on the 
 cliff. By no means could I imagine how he 
 could have got there. I had seen him depart 
 in the train for Freiberg. It was an hour's 
 journey from Dresden thither. The first train 
 back to Dresden did not leave Freiberg until 
 half-past one in the afternoon. Supposing him 
 to have taken it, which in itself was most un- 
 likely, he would have reached Dresden at half- 
 past two. The first train after that, from 
 Dresden to Schandau, started at half-past 
 three, arriving at half-past four. I looked at 
 my watch ; it was now twenty minutes of five. 
 Granting that he had been on that train, it 
 would have been impossible for him to have 
 been ferried across the river and to have as- 
 cended the hill in less than twenty minutes ; 
 and five minutes had already passed since I 
 saw him. According to my reckoning then, 
 the event fell at least fifteen minutes short of 
 being a physical possibility. The only way 
 out of the mystery was to suppose that Conrad 
 had chartered an engine specially to convey 
 him hither. But to charter an engine is by no 
 
The Professor's Sister. 71 
 
 means so simple an affair in Germany as it is in 
 America. Moreover, what conceivable motive 
 could have induced Conrad to take such a step ? 
 He could not have foreseen that his sister was 
 to undergo any peril. 
 
 Apart from all this, however, the conditions 
 under which I saw the figure were inexplicable. 
 The peculiar luminousness and distinctness 
 which characterized it j the position in which 
 it stood, apparently on nothing ; and the cir- 
 cumstances which I now recalled, that its gar- 
 ments, in the midst of a gale that was bending 
 the pine trees like grass, hung down unmoved, 
 as if in an atmosphere completely calm j all 
 these things combined to fortify the mystery, 
 I should have put down the appearance as an 
 hallucination, due either to the disturbed state 
 of the air, or of my own mind at the time ; but it 
 had evidently been seen also by both Hildegarde 
 and Catalina ; the former had obeyed its gest- 
 ure to move to one side, and the latter had 
 been overcome with fear. Besides, the figure 
 had not appeared to me directly, but through 
 the medium of the lens of the camera ; and I had 
 never heard of an hallucination presenting it- 
 self in that manner. 
 
 My meditations had reached this unsatisfac- 
 tory conclusion when I heard voices and steps, 
 and turning, I saw my four friends entering 
 
72 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 the kitchen, convoyed by Gretchen. The rain, 
 meanwhile, had ceased, having been as brief 
 as it was violent ; the heavy clouds were break- 
 ing away in the west, and the roll of the thun- 
 der sounded like the cannon of some great 
 battle far to the north and east. Catalina and 
 Burlace came first, laughing and talking ; then 
 Hildegarde, whose face had unusual color and 
 animation, and finally Ralph, whose straight 
 black eyebrows lowered over his eyes. He was 
 the only one of the four who seemed to be out 
 of spirits. 
 
 "At last I have had my wish," exclaimed 
 Catalina, throwing off her blanket. "I have 
 always wanted to be out in a thunder-storm 
 without an umbrella, and now I have done it. 
 Nothing could be more refreshing ! " 
 
 " But what about dying of pneumonia ? " 
 said I. 
 
 "Dying ! I am not going to die, Monsieur. 
 I am going to live and be happy ! I am al- 
 ready younger than I was this morning. I 
 have bathed in electricity as well as in rain- 
 water." 
 
 " And yet you would commit suicide ! " 
 said I. 
 
 She became pale in a moment, and gazed at 
 me with a sort of stealthy consternation. Her 
 lips parted, but she did not speak. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 73 
 
 "It is nothing less than suicide," I con- 
 tinued, "to think of going home in those wet 
 clothes. You are on the brink of a precipice. 
 Draw back ! " 
 
 " What an old raven you are ! " put in Burlace, 
 with his rough voice. " You're always for 
 plaguing folks ! Madame Hertrugge is all 
 right. She is dressed in woolen, and the rain 
 won't hurt her. Still, madame, if you would 
 like to put on one of Gretchen's gowns while 
 your things are drying " 
 
 "No, not I !" she replied, taking breath and 
 recovering her self-possession. " Besides, we 
 must take the train in half an hour." 
 
 " I have a better plan than that," remarked 
 Ralph. " The steamboat starts in half an hour, 
 too, and you and Miss Hildegarde can have a 
 stateroom on that. You can go to bed during 
 the run home, and by the time you get there 
 your things will be dry." 
 
 " Oh, to be sure, Hildegarde is delicate ! " 
 returned Catalina, with a touch of mockery in 
 her voice, "you are quite right to consider her, 
 Mr. Merlin." 
 
 " I wish I had a horse here, I would like to 
 ride," said Hildegarde. 
 
 " Twenty-five miles on horseback would be 
 a little too much, after to-day," replied Ralph, 
 looking at her with undisguised tenderness, 
 
74 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 "we are answerable to Conrad for you." 
 
 "By the way," said I, glancing carelessly 
 at Catalina, " have any of you seen Conrad this 
 afternoon ? " 
 
 Catalina started perceptibly, and again the 
 color left her face. She dropped her eyes, and 
 the hand which she put up to smooth back her 
 hair, trembled. 
 
 " I believe you've got a chill in spite of your 
 woolens, Madame Hertrugge," said Burlace. 
 " The boat will be the best thing, after all, 
 what's that you say saw Conrad?" he added, 
 staring at me with a grin of amazement. 
 " There's nobody here that I know of can see 
 from this to Freiberg. What are you think- 
 ing of ? " 
 
 " Well," I said, " he may have been here in 
 spirit, at any rate. If we are going to take 
 that steamer I think we had better be getting 
 off." 
 
 We all rose and made ready to go. Hilde- 
 garde came up to me as I stood a little apart 
 from the others, and looked at me anxiously. 
 
 " Can you see spirits ?" she asked, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " Ralph and I were debating the other day 
 whether spirits could be seen," I replied. u I 
 believe he argued that they could not. What 
 is your opinion ?" 
 
The Professor's Sister. 75 
 
 " Spirits . . . perhaps not," she said slowly. 
 " But I fancied you might mean . . . how- 
 ever, it is no matter." 
 
 " The ancients used to believe in tutelary 
 spirits, or something of that kind, whose office 
 it was to warn them of danger, and advise them. 
 I should not he surprised if some being of that 
 order watched over you, some aerial Conrad, 
 you know, who filled his place when he was ab- 
 sent." 
 
 Her eyes became very penetrating, and she 
 was about to reply, when Ralph came up to her 
 and took her arm under his with an air of 
 ownership that meant something. Burlace had 
 Catalina ; I brought up the rear. Matters 
 were plainly coming to a head; but I felt by 
 no means prepared to guarantee that the head 
 would be an altogether peaceable and agreeable 
 one. 
 
 We arrived at the wharf at the same time as 
 the steamboat, and started on our downward 
 journey, which would last until long after 
 dark. We succeeded in procuring rooms for 
 the ladies, and they disappeared. Burlace 
 went off to drink a glass of Schnapps in the 
 cabin ; and Ralph and I obtained permission 
 to sit and smoke in the engine-room, where the 
 heat from the furnace made us steam like a 
 laundry. 
 
76 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 " I wish we had stayed at home/' I re- 
 marked, after a period of silence. 
 
 "There is no day of my life that I would be 
 willing to substitute for this," Ralph returned, 
 emphatically. 
 
 " Wait until you hear what Conrad has to 
 say about it," was my answer. 
 
 He smiled and said : " You think yourself a 
 good guesser." 
 
 "I suppose you have already obtained 
 Madame Hertrugge's consent ? " said I. 
 
 "Oh, I don't care to make a secret of it," he 
 returned, leaning his head on his hand and fix- 
 ing his gray eyes on me. " I have reason to 
 believe that I shall marry the loveliest woman 
 in the world. At the same time, there is no 
 need to make it a matter of common talk, until 
 the preliminaries are settled." 
 
 "And until her year of widowhood has 
 expired." 
 
 Her year of widowhood ! What the mis* 
 chief do you mean ? " 
 
 "Madame ^Hertrugge's husband died less 
 than a year ago." 
 
 He gave me a keen look. " What is your 
 motive in suggesting that I contemplate marry- 
 ing Madame Hertrugge ? " 
 
 " Why not ? Do you mean to say that you 
 have never done or said anything to lead her to 
 
The Professor s Sister. 77 
 
 think that she was not indifferent to you ? " 
 
 He hesitated, and his eyes darkened. " You 
 have no right to ask the question," he replied 
 at length ; " and I would be justified in parry- 
 ing it. But I prefer to admit that there has 
 been a moment in my intercourse with her 
 which I wish could be wiped off the record. 
 As to marrying her, there never was any 
 question of that. She can't marry." 
 
 "Why can't she?" 
 
 " On account of a clause in her husband's 
 will." 
 
 " Oh ! He forbids her to marry under certain, 
 penalties ? " 
 
 " If she marries while Hildegarde is still un- 
 married, she forfeits the enjoyment of the late 
 Mr. Hertrugge's fortune." 
 
 Here was a whimsical complication. Cata- 
 lina could not marry until Hildegarde was 
 married. But since it was Ralph that Catalina 
 desired to marry, and since, when Hildegarde 
 was married it would be to Ralph, it was 
 evident that Catalina would never marry at all. 
 
 " Love may be secondary to money in her 
 estimation," I said. 
 
 " You must ask her about that yourself. The 
 will also allows her to marry in the event of 
 Hildegarde's death." 
 
 " Mr. Hertrugge was a donkey," said I. 
 
78 The Professors Sister. 
 
 I was half minded to tell Ralph what I had 
 seen that afternoon. Many and many a time 
 since have I regretted that J did not. But lie 
 had shown himself so restive under my ques- 
 tions that I was reluctant to meddle any 
 further ; besides, had not Hildegarde under- 
 gone her peril and escaped? But what a 
 sinister light this news threw upon Catalina. 
 It was hardly doing her an injustice to say that 
 probably nothing would induce her to give up 
 her fortune ; she had married on old trades- 
 man of seventy to obtain it ; and she was of a 
 temperament that needs wealth, as much as 
 other people need air and water. And yet she 
 had offered herself to Ealph. Nor was that 
 the worst. Her attempt to murder Hilde- 
 garde no longer appeared as simply the wild 
 revenge of a jealous woman. That fool, her 
 late husband, had deliberately put a premium 
 on his daughter's death; and Catalina, in re- 
 moving her, would have combined with her re- 
 venge a shrewd stroke of business. 
 
 "Shall you* remain here after your mar- 
 riage ? " I asked presently. 
 
 "I shall go back to America." 
 
 "Well," I said, "I wish you joy with all my 
 heart, and I think the sooner you are married 
 and off the better." 
 
 "Thank you," said Ealph. "And now if 
 
The Professor's Sister. 79 
 
 you are dry, suppose we go up on deck." 
 It was a lovely evening. Nothing of im- 
 portance happened during our journey. Cata- 
 linaand Hildegarde made their appearance just 
 before our arrival at Dresden ; and the first 
 person we saw on the wharf was Conrad, in 
 flesh and blood. 
 
80 The Professor s Sister. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 BUHLACE'S LUCK. 
 
 A FEW days later, as I was sitting in my 
 room, with the implements of my work around 
 me, a sheet of drawing-paper stretched on a 
 board, a saucer of Indian ink, a box of drawing 
 instruments, and a set of calculations for the 
 construction of toothed wheel gear, with 
 these, and a volume of Heine's " Reisebilder " 
 (which I happened to be studying at that mo- 
 ment, in order to familiarize n^self with the 
 language), there came a loud knock "at my 
 door. People stamp their characters upon 
 everything that they do ; and there was a free- 
 dom, a self-opinionativeness, and a lack of con- 
 sideration for the feelings of others about this 
 knock, that at once informed me who was out- 
 side. I closed the volume of Heine, put it 
 under a pile of drawings, took up my drawing- 
 pen, dipped it in the Indian ink, and said : 
 
 " Come in, Burlace." 
 
 He had already turned the latch, and now 
 he bounded in, with his big boots, his small 
 cap, his pipe, and his noisy voice. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 81 
 
 " Sit down," I said, in a preoccupied voice. 
 
 "Don't hurry, old man," he returned, cheer- 
 fully ; " IVe got the afternoon free." 
 
 "Lucky fellow !" said I, with a sigh. "Now 
 I've got work enough on hand to occupy me 
 for a week." 
 
 " In that case," he answered, " you may as 
 well call a halt right here. You work too 
 hard, anyway. I believe, if it wasn't for me, 
 you and llalph would both of you get your 
 brains addled. I never come in but I find you 
 grinding awa}>- as if you were on the track of 
 the Philosopher's Stone. You .make a big mis- 
 take. I go in for independent thinking. A 
 book is only a man's opinion, after all ; and 
 one man's opinion is as good as another's, and 
 sometimes a little better ! " 
 
 " What have you been thinking about late- 
 ly ? " I inquired, putting down my pen. 
 
 "I've been wondering, for one thing, what 
 you and llalph find to admire in that fellow 
 Conrad. I consider him a beast." 
 
 "And his step-mother, too?" 
 
 " If it's all the same to you," said Burlace, 
 gruffly, " I would thank you not to insinuate 
 anything against Madame Hertrugge. She is 
 without exception the finest and most intelli- 
 gent woman I ever met." 
 
 "Intelligent, is she?" 
 
82 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 "Well, rather. Why, look here! I am 
 working a good deal just now in the direction 
 of investigating the origin of diseases, with a 
 view to developing the theory of prevention by 
 inoculation. It will be proved, some day, that 
 contagious and epidemic fevers, cholera, and a 
 lot more of the scourges, are the work of micro- 
 scopic germs in the atmosphere and in water. 
 But the entire subject is at present in a very 
 obscure condition, and some of the best men 
 we have, who ought to keep their minds open, 
 you'd think, are still too timid and bigoted to 
 take it up." 
 
 " What has that to do with Madame Her- 
 trugge's intelligence ? " 
 
 "It has just this to do with it: that I hap- 
 pened to mention the subject to her the other 
 day, and she was interested in it at once. She 
 asked me questions that would have done credit 
 to an expert ; she saw the point of all my ex- 
 planations at half a glance; and when I told 
 her some of the results of microscopic investi- 
 gation, she mafle me promise that I would let 
 her have a look at the things herself. If you 
 don't call that intelligence, I'd like to know 
 what you do call it ! " 
 
 " I might find another name for it, perhaps," 
 said I. " At any rate, I might suggest a pre- 
 disposing cause." 
 
The Professor's Sister. 83 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "No harm, I assure you. But you know 
 what the poet says, ' Love lends a precious 
 seeing to the eye !' ? 
 
 " What right have you, or any man, to as- 
 sume that I am in love with with anybody ? " 
 
 " It's the other way, my dear Burlace. One 
 can't help noticing what is before him ; and 
 you must be aware that Madame Hertrugge's 
 preference for your society has been imper- 
 fectly concealed, to say the least of it." 
 
 At this Burlace's large mouth relaxed, and 
 a ruddy hue showed itself beneath the bristly 
 growth of his beard. "Of course," he re- 
 marked, "that is a thing I can say nothing 
 about. A disinterested observer would see more 
 than I could. Women are strange beings; 
 when you expect most of them, they are away 
 off, and when you have given them up, round 
 they come again. But I suppose there are 
 various ways of intimating the same thing, 
 and there may be something in your idea that 
 her interest is quickened by a favorable regard 
 for me. That would be natural, and at the 
 same time it would detract nothing from the 
 fact of her intelligence." 
 
 "On the contrary," said I, laughing, "her 
 intelligence is sufficiently vindicated by the 
 fact of her favorable regard for you." 
 
84 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 " Look here if you are chaffing me " 
 
 " Nonsense, Will," I cried out, testily, " why 
 shouldn't I chaff you ? What are love-sick 
 idiots good for but to be chaffed ? I am not 
 in love with your Madame Hertrugge, nor she 
 with me. Do you expect me to leave my 
 Heine my drawing, I mean for the privilege 
 of listening to your rhapsodies ? Why don't 
 you go and talk to her ? You began by call- 
 ing a friend of mine a beast, and now you want 
 me to sing the chorus to your amatory drivel. 
 I am not tuned to that key." 
 
 Burlace knocked the ashes out of his pipe on 
 my table, and grinned. " That's all right, old 
 fellow," said he. " You certainly have been 
 left out in this arrangement, and between 
 Ralph and me, you come to the ground. Well, 
 I'm not going to tantalize you with the spec- 
 tacle of my good fortune ; but when I say that 
 Conrad is a beast, I mean it. If he doesn't 
 look out, he will get a piece of my mind one of 
 these days." 
 
 "That will do him more injury than any of 
 your inoculations for physical disease. But do 
 empty yourself of your message, if you have 
 one, and leave me in peace ! " 
 
 "That fellow Conrad," continued Burlace, 
 imperturbably, " actually had the face to in- 
 sult Madame Hertrugge in my presence. He 
 
The Professor's Sister. 85 
 
 told her to remember that her late husband 
 had lived long enough to know her character ; 
 and that however much her disposition might 
 incline her to play fast and loose with other 
 men, the terms of his will would suffice to put 
 them on their guard against her. What do 
 you think of that?" 
 
 " It was pretty plain speaking. What did 
 she say ? " 
 
 " She showed the dignity and self-possession 
 that only a lady is capable of. She told him 
 that she valued the friendship and sympathy 
 of an honest man more than any consideration 
 that he (Conrad) was capable of appreciating ; 
 and that rather than have her free actions 
 misconstrued, she would willingly surrender 
 what he was pleased to call a check upon her 
 liberty." 
 
 "Do you know to what Conrad referred ? " 
 
 " I didn't at the time ; but she told me 
 afterwards. It seems that senile old imbecile 
 of a husband of hers provided in his will " 
 
 " You needn't trouble yourself to tell me," I 
 interposed ; " I know it already." 
 
 "Oh, you do! Conrad has been warning 
 you off the premises as well." , 
 
 " I never exchanged a word with him on the 
 subject." 
 
 " I understand ! " said Burlace, after staring 
 
86 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 at me for a moment. " The information came 
 from our friend Ralph. I've nothing against 
 Ralph ; he's all right. And if he carries out 
 his intentions, I shall be under obligations to 
 him. You know, of course, that as soon as he 
 becomes the husband of Miss Hildegarde, there 
 will be nothing to hinder Madame Hert- 
 rugge " 
 
 " And does she favor the match ? " 
 
 "Of course she does. She has taken pains 
 to become acquainted with Ralph, and to test 
 his character, and she has become satisfied that 
 he is unobjectionable." 
 
 " I haven't noticed that she has taken pains 
 to throw the young people together, however," 
 I remarked. 
 
 " How could she, stupid ? " demanded Bur- 
 lace. " Don't you see the delicacy of her posi- 
 tion ? If she were to appear as a promoter of 
 the affair, wouldn't Conrad and all the other 
 fools in the world scream out that she was 
 scheming to retain her fortune ? She felt it to 
 be her duty, as* Hildegarde's only friend of her 
 own sex, to investigate the character of any 
 suitor for her hand ; but, beyond that, she was 
 obliged to restrict herself to what they call 
 benevolent neutrality ! " 
 
 This view of the case struck me as being so 
 pathetically ludicrous that I could not help 
 
The Professor's Sister. 87 
 
 laughing. After what I had witnessed at 
 Schandau, the interpretation of Catalina's be- 
 havior as "benevolent neutrality" was inimi- 
 table. " I should have thought," I said, " that 
 she would have applied to you for a certificate 
 of Ralph's availability." 
 
 " That happens to be precisely what she did," 
 he returned, complacently. " I told her that 
 Ralph was a trump in all respects, and that I 
 was convinced that he and Hildegarde were 
 born for each other." 
 
 You did ! " 
 
 " I did ; and she said with a tone and look 
 that I am not likely to forget in a hurry that 
 she had perfect confidence in my judgment and 
 perception, and that I had taken a load of 
 anxiety off her heart." 
 
 "Burlace," said I, "I'm a friend of yours; 
 you bore me horribly sometimes, but I like 
 you, and if I knew a good sensible girl whose 
 happiness and well-being I wanted to insure, I 
 should tell her to get you to marry her. And 
 I am now going to give you an even greater 
 proof of my friendship for you by doing some- 
 thing that will probably make you my enemy 
 for life." 
 
 " Go on ! " returned Burlace, \vithout evinc- 
 ing, I must say, any violent symptoms of 
 agitation. 
 
88 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 11 Well, I advise you to pack up your trunks 
 and go back by the shortest route to Chicago, 
 and to forget all about Germany and everybody 
 you ever met there. As sure as you stay here, 
 you will get into the worst scrape that any 
 honest man ever got himself into yet." 
 
 Burlace looked at me intently for several 
 moments. My tone was serious, as my feeling 
 was, and he saw it. He answered me with a 
 gravity and dignity that touched me not a 
 little. 
 
 " I'm sorry you said that," he observed, " but 
 I'm not your enemy for it, because I don't be- 
 lieve you're the man to talk loosely on such a 
 subject. You meant it well ; but well I 
 love that lady, and if any harm comes to me on 
 that account, I'm ready and willing to take it 
 as it comes. If she cares for me, I should feel 
 myself so lucky that a misfortune would only 
 put things straight. But if you have anything 
 against her, I give you notice that I will not 
 listen to it. I believe in her; I believe there 
 is no purer or better woman in the world ; and 
 whoever is against her must be against me 
 sorry as I am to say it to you, old man." The 
 voice of the honest, pig-headed fellow faltered 
 at the last words, and he ostentatiously began 
 to fill his pipe and hunt in impossible places 
 for a match. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 89 
 
 I felt as if there might be tears in my own 
 eyes. My affection for Burlace had never been 
 so strong as it was then ; and he was caught in 
 a net from which there could be no escape that 
 was not more or less disastrous. Catalina 
 meant to use him as a tool to carry out her 
 purposes on Hildegarde and Ralph. What her 
 purposes were, or how she would employ Bur- 
 lace, of course I did not know, but I could not 
 doubt the intention. She had been checked 
 once ; she would profit by experience, and so 
 devise that there would be no check the second 
 time. 
 
 It would be useless, in Burlace's present 
 state of mind, to tell him the story of my hour 
 in the camera at Schandau. He would not 
 credit it, even if he consented to listen to it. 
 I could only keep such watch as circumstances 
 permitted on her future movements. But even 
 that was less my affair than either Ralph's or 
 Conrad's. There were probably no secrets be- 
 tween them, and they would take such meas- 
 ures as they deemed necessary 
 
 It sometimes seems as if we could help one 
 another, in this world, only in minor and insig- 
 nificant matters. When the real pinch comes, 
 we are powerless, and can only observe the in- 
 evitable approach of destiny. 
 
90 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A DRAMATIC TRIUMPH. 
 
 IN Germany, the ceremony of betrothal is an 
 event of greater social importance than it is 
 here ; you often see the announcement printed 
 in the newspapers, and it is made the subject 
 of comment and congratulation among relatives 
 and friends. There is something pretty and 
 patriarchal in the idea; though, society not be- 
 ing quite patriarchal at the present day, I am 
 not sure that the results are especially benefi- 
 cient. Privacy is sometimes better than pic- 
 turesqueness, in an artificial age. 
 
 However that may be, the news of the be- 
 trothal of Hildegarde Hertrugge and Ralph 
 Merlin was made known, about this time, to 
 interested persons ; and an invitation was 
 issued to a select few to meet the young people 
 at a reception given at Madame Hertrugge's 
 house. I received a card, written, a little to 
 my surprise, by Catalina herself : and as a 
 matter of course Burlace was there. 
 
 This was the nearest approach to a social 
 estivity that had been given at the house since 
 
The Professor's Sister. 91 
 
 Mr. Hertrugge's decease, and I suppose people 
 were anxious to see how the widow would con- 
 duct herself. The purport of the late husband's 
 will was generally known, at least among the 
 nearer friends of the family, so there may also 
 have been some speculation as to whether the 
 consequences of the anticipated marriage were 
 likely to be availed of promptly, or whether 
 the handsome Catalina would prefer to post- 
 pone indefinitely the formation of fresh ties. 
 But it was agreed that she was fortunate in 
 getting released so early from what must have 
 been at best a somewhat annoying stipula- 
 tion. 
 
 I came rather late, and the company had 
 already assembled, and had got over the first 
 formalities and uncertainties of the situation. 
 The drawing-room was comfortably filled ; there 
 were a number of officers, with the air of im- 
 maculate and insolent self-complacency that is 
 the general characteristic of German warriors, 
 and has become still more marked since the war 
 with France than it was before; there were 
 several professors, friends of Conrad, and, for 
 the most part, acquaintances of my own ; there 
 were a few nondescript persons of the male sex, 
 presumably relatives ; there were a dozen or 
 twenty homely women, two or three good-look- 
 ing ones, and one conspicuously beautiful, who, 
 
92 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 1 need not say, was no other than Catalina her- 
 self. 
 
 As for ITildegarde and her lover, though they 
 were in the unenviable position of being the 
 cynosures of the occasion, they did not seem to 
 mind it much ; their love for each other en- 
 abled them to rise superior to circumstances. 
 They stood near each other, as we ordinarily 
 measure distance, yet remote enough for lovers, 
 since two or three paces and twice as many 
 people intervened between them. But across 
 this gulf of time and space they ever and anon 
 threw a proud glance at each other, as much as 
 to say : " My love, I am yours ; the world can- 
 not part us ! " It is wonderful and delightful 
 how this dawn of love between two worthy 
 human beings always leads them back to pure, 
 primitive emotion, so that they are sure that 
 they are the first, since Adam and Eve, to dis- 
 cover and enter the vale of Paradise. "No 
 one ever loved before ! " is the refrain of their 
 thought ; and, indeed, there is always a hope 
 a possibility that now at last the time may 
 have come when the world, and our sad human 
 life in it, is to undergo transfiguration, and be- 
 gin again with those two lovers. The world 
 grins at them and calls them silly; but the 
 lovers know, with the deepest and soundest of 
 all knowledge, how tragically and grotesquely 
 
The Professor's Sister. 93 
 
 silly is the grinning world. Merely by love, 
 and by that only, can all the problems of politi- 
 cal economy, all the abuses of society, all the 
 miseries of mankind, be solved, reformed, alle- 
 viated. " Only be like us," the lovers say, 
 " and you will be whole ! " The world grins ; 
 but ah ! how glad and grateful its poor old 
 wizened heart would be, if love could but 
 gather power really to conquer it and lead it 
 captive ! You may know that this is true by 
 observing the eyes of elderly people, when the 
 little hugging arms of infancy are round their 
 necks ; and by noticing with what jealous de- 
 light the world follows the fortunes of any 
 lovers who have had the wisdom to be silly all 
 their lives. The victories which the world en- 
 joys and celebrates are never its own, but 
 always those of its opponents over itself. 
 
 One does not often meet with a pair of lovers 
 having a more assured air of victory than Hil- 
 degarde and "Ralph wore that evening. But 
 Hildegarde was infinitely the more attractive 
 object of the two, not only because she appeared 
 this evening in the consummate flower of her 
 maidenly loveliness, but because love, for her, 
 was a self-surrender, whereas for Ralph, as for 
 all men, it was more an acquisition. He 
 adored and reverenced her, no doubt ; but he 
 was also conscious of the pride of possession 
 
94 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 of having won the treasure for his own, to 
 keep and defend against all rivals. Such a 
 feeling in its final analysis, is selfish. But in the 
 maiden's love there is no selfishness. Her long- 
 ing and amhition was not to possess him, but to 
 be possessed by him ; to give herself to him so 
 entirely that nothing of herself should be left 
 that was not his, and him ! Their union should 
 mean, not a linking together, but the merging 
 of herself in him. She grudged herself even 
 the happiness that his love wrought in her ; 
 she would have all the happiness his, but could 
 not make it so, because, the more his happiness 
 was increased, the happier must she be. So 
 hers was the divine inspiration, and her fair 
 face was radiant with a purer light than can 
 ever shine in the countenance of any son of 
 Adam. 
 
 She was dressed in feathery white ; her eyes 
 had the soft, mysterious darkness that char- 
 acterizes hazel eyes in moments of deep emo- 
 tion. There was more color than usual in her 
 cheeks; it had an opaline quality, coming and 
 going with a thought or a look. For orna- 
 ment she wore the opal ring that Ralph had 
 given her, an exquisite stone, trembling with 
 celestial fire. But, somehow, it made me sad to 
 look at her. Life was not what she thought it 
 was. Many cruel sorrows would come to her, 
 
The Professor's Sister. 95 
 
 and the light that was in her eyes to-night 
 would grow faint and infrequent. It seemed 
 almost a pity that the attainment of such felic- 
 ity as this should not be the immediate pre- 
 lude to what those who do not love call death. 
 The valleys of shadow through which we walk 
 do not always give strength. Often, they be- 
 numb and bewilder, and only a forlorn parody 
 of the young traveller who sets forth so blithely 
 arrives at last on the shore of the unknown 
 river. 
 
 I took Hildegarde's hand in mine, and made 
 my formal good wishes ; but she seemed far off, 
 not from any voluntary remoteness on her part, 
 but because I did not inhabit the sphere of her 
 existence. As for Ralph, his measureless con- 
 tent was trying to mere friendship. "I hope 
 you don't think you deserve her," I said to him. 
 
 " There is no measure for measure about it," 
 he replied. " The only place where a man ap- 
 proximately gets his deserts, is hell ; and he 
 probably imagines even that to be heaven." 
 
 " What is heaven ? " I asked. 
 
 " The marriage of the good and the true/ 7 
 said he. " It is the marriage that makes 
 heaven, not either of the contracting parties. 
 That is where my chance come in." 
 
 "You had better say nothing ; nothing you 
 can say fits the occasion." 
 
96 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 ""Which occasion? My betrothal, or this 
 reception ? " 
 
 "True," I admitted; "and I am in the 
 wrong as usual. There are times when associ- 
 ation with one's kind is almost indecent. If a 
 fairy were present at my betrothal, I should ask 
 her for the cup of invisibility." 
 
 After this unsatisfactory dialogue, it was a 
 pleasure to turn to Catalina. There was no 
 remoteness in her sphere ; she was on the earth, 
 and of it. Her behavior was exactly what it 
 ought to be assuming the situation to be what 
 it externally appeared. She was pleased at her 
 step-daughter's happiness, and yet there were 
 some traces of solicitude in the look she occa- 
 sionally bent upon her, as if she were not yet 
 quite sure that all was for the best. As re- 
 garded herself, there was a certain reserve of 
 manner, conveying the impression that she was 
 far from being in haste to claim the rights of 
 emancipation that Hildegarde's marriage would 
 confer upon her, but rather meant to substi- 
 tute her owA volition for the restraint lately 
 imposed by her husband's decree. Her mood, 
 therefore, was one of cheerful gravity ; gravity 
 being the background, and cheerfulness the 
 outward ornament. 
 
 Inasmuch as she had struck me, when I first 
 met her, as being one of the most elemental 
 
The Professor's Sister. 97 
 
 persons I had ever seen, a woman of a prime- 
 val type, experiencing and rejoicing in the 
 strong but simple passions that lie at the basts 
 of human nature, I was hardly prepared to 
 find her so accomplished in dissimulation. But, 
 after all, dissimulation is itself an elemental 
 trait. Animals dissimulate to gain their ends ; 
 the bird whose nest is beneath your foot tempts 
 you with the pretence of a broken wing, and the 
 crocodile lies like a log until you are within 
 reach of its jaws. Besides, jealousy and re- 
 venge are quick and effective teachers ; and 
 there is a histrionic quality in women of the 
 Catalina kind which facilitates their assump- 
 tion of sentiments and expressions alien to 
 their real ones. Catalina was evidently a natu- 
 ral artist in this respect. 
 
 "Love is a melancholy spectacle," I said to 
 her, for I too felt impelled, by magnetic sym- 
 pathy perhaps, to reflect her dissimulation, 
 " it promises so much and performs so little. 
 Would you be willing to change places with 
 that poor girl ? " 
 
 "You are too cynical," she answered with a 
 smile. " Any woman might be proud and glad 
 to be loved as Ralph loves Hildegarde. If I 
 were melancholy, it would be because, for me, 
 the time for that has gone by." 
 
 " I would not hear your enemy say so ! " r- 
 
98 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 turned I. " If you have no more to do with 
 love, it is you who must have decreed the es- 
 trangement. And/' I added with an audacity 
 that I myself could not but admire, " had I 
 possessed Ralph's mysterious faculty for win- 
 ning hearts, I should have chosen the perfect 
 flower, rather than stand the hazard of the bud." 
 
 " If you possessed the gift, possibly it would 
 amend your judgment," she said, sending out 
 a gleam of genuine anger from her black eyes. 
 Then, with a sudden change of tone and man- 
 ner, she touched my hand lightly with hers, 
 and added, " Love me, if you will ; and we will 
 learn wisdom from each other." 
 
 Mockery though it was, it made me realize 
 her seductive power. " I am afraid ! " I said, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Afraid ! of what ? " 
 
 " That you would lead me to the edge of the 
 precipice and push me over." 
 
 " Ah ! " said she, slowly. We looked at each 
 other for a long moment. "Why not push me 
 over?" she asked at length, "you are the 
 stronger." 
 
 " But is there any need ? " I returned. 
 
 "Ah ! " she said again, in a different key. 
 
 Burlace was always hovering in her neigh- 
 borhood, and at this moment he approached, 
 probably in response to some private signal. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 99 
 
 She turned from me, and I moved away. I 
 had not intended to quarrel with her, and no 
 benefit to anyone was likely to come from our 
 little bout ; but the truth was, these attacks of 
 mine were prompted by an instinct of self-de- 
 fense against the influence she exerted over 
 me. I am not considered generally suscep- 
 tible ; but I felt a peril in her propinquity, and 
 gave up Burlace for lost. 
 
 " All goes merry as a marriage bell, Pro- 
 fessor," I said to Conrad, seating myself beside 
 him on a settee. " What think you ? Will 
 the example prove contagious ?" and I allowed 
 my eyes to rest meditatively on Burlace. 
 
 " Your acuteness is greater than your judg- 
 ment," said he. " Some people can be fright- 
 ened into harmlessness ; but veiled threats, 
 which you are so given to employing, only 
 stimulate others to more dangerous activity. 
 Pardon my frankness ; but I have a difficult 
 affair on my hands, and a rash word, however 
 well meant, might set the odds too much 
 against me. You understand me, don't you ? " 
 
 " In your present sense, perhaps ; but " 
 
 " Well, never mind the other senses," he in- 
 terrupted. " Did I ever tell you that the tele- 
 gram I received the other day, summoning me 
 to Freiberg, was a deception. The emergency 
 it spoke of was a pure invention.' 7 
 
100 The ^Professor's lister. 
 
 Who " 
 
 " No matter who sent it. I mentioned it be- 
 cause you may have some reason to think that 
 I am able to act effectively in predicaments that 
 would find other men helpless. I don't deny 
 that such may sometimes be the case. But at 
 other times, perhaps quite as important, I am 
 as liable to be caught napping as the stupidest 
 man you know. If I had been clever enough 
 to see through the telegram, for example, there 
 would have been no necessity for the phenom- 
 enon that occurred afterwards." 
 
 This was the first time that anything had 
 passed between me and this extraordinary man 
 on the subject of the apparition at Schandau. 
 Indeed, I had not spoken of it to any one ; and 
 if I was not surprised that he nevertheless 
 knew what I had seen, it was only because 
 nothing in which he was concerned could sur- 
 prise me. 
 
 "You will not object to Ralph's taking her 
 to America as soon as they are married ? " said 
 I, letting the mysteries go. 
 
 " Let us get them married first," he replied, 
 and even as he spoke there was a commotion and 
 then a cry, at the upper end of the room. Every 
 one rose ; but Conrad had already made his 
 way to the centre, whither all attention was 
 strained. When I got there I found him with 
 
The Professor's Sister. 101 
 
 his hand on Hildegarde's pulse. She was re- 
 clining, half supported by Kalph. Her eyes 
 were partly open, but she was evidently un- 
 conscious. 
 
 " It is the excitement she has fainted," 
 said Catalina's voice close to my ear. I turned 
 sharply and saw the profile of that beautiful 
 face, as she gazed steadily at the pale, inani- 
 mate girl. " Bring her to my own room," she 
 said, quietly. " I will take care of her. It 
 will soon be over." 
 
 " Not so soon as you think ! " said Conrad, 
 looking up at her. A green light seemed to 
 flash out from his eyes, and his thin lips receded 
 slightly from his white teeth, in a grimace that 
 cannot be described as a smile. If Catalina's 
 sentence had borne a double meaning, so did 
 his rejoinder, and the two foes had joined 
 battle. 
 
 The sympathetic bystanders saw only an 
 episode familiar enough in ball-rooms, rendered 
 a little more interesting than common by the 
 fact that the young lady who had fainted was 
 she in honor of whose betrothal they were as- 
 sembled. They murmured their compassion 
 for her, and for her handsome lover. But 
 Ralph, after the first few moments, had be- 
 come as cold and impassive as marble, as if 
 he had read the fateful writing on the wall, and 
 
102 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 interpreted it. His gaze was bent with in- 
 tense concentration upon Hildegarde's face ; 
 one would have said that he was willing his 
 own life to substitute itself for hers. But he 
 was isolated from the rest of the world ; noth- 
 ing coming thence could reach him. 
 
 " She'll come too all right ; give her air and 
 a whiff of hartshorn ! " cried out Burlace, en- 
 couragingly. " Don't you fret, old man ; there's 
 no danger ! " 
 
 " Poor hoy ! " murmured Catalina, with a 
 secret smile, " it was a shame to spoil his happy 
 evening. It was so pretty to see their delight 
 in each other ! " 
 
 Ralph rose to his feet, lifting Hildegarde 
 lightly in his arms ; the throng of spectators 
 fell back, and he carried her out of the room, 
 accompanied by Conrad. Burlace was about to 
 accompany them, when Catalina arrested him 
 by a glance. 
 
 " We won't make too much fuss about it," 
 she said, speaking partly to him and partly to 
 the company.' " My step-daughter is accus- 
 tomed to these attacks ; she is delicate, and 
 studied too hard in the convent. She will be 
 as well as ever to-morrow, and her brother and 
 Ralph are quite competent to take care of 
 her." 
 
 " I trust it will prove as unimportant as 
 
The Professor's Sister. 103 
 
 Madame Hertrugge thinks," observed one of 
 the professors, beside whom I happened to be 
 standing. " At the same time it did not ap- 
 pear to me like an ordinary fainting fit. A 
 new disease has been diagnosed lately, very 
 obscure and difficult in its features ; it is her- 
 alded by abrupt spells of unconsciousness, ac- 
 companied by certain peculiar symptoms, which 
 I seemed to recognize in the present case. We 
 are endeavoring to investigate its origin by 
 the aid of the microscope ; but, so far, with- 
 out any very satisfactor}'- results. If one could 
 only make experiments on the human subject ! 
 I wish some disposition, looking that way, 
 could be made of criminals convicted of capital 
 offences.'' 
 
 " Is the disease you speak of fatal ? " I en- 
 quired. 
 
 " No cure has yet been discovered," he re- 
 plied. " Its duration is from two to three 
 days. It appears to be painless, and produces 
 little or no change in the extern :il aspect of 
 the subject, nor has dissection yet afforded any 
 conclusive evidence as to the precise cause of 
 death in the circumstances." 
 
 The guests were taking their leave. Catalina 
 was bidding them good-bye, with a comfortable 
 smile and cheery word for each. "What a 
 woman she is ! " I heard someone say. " She is 
 
104 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 much more anxious about that poor girl than 
 she pretends ; hut she will not allow her guests 
 to be discomposed ! " 
 
 At last, my time came to say good-night. 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Catalina, smilingly, 
 "are you, too, going to allow yourself to be 
 frightened away ? I shall owe Hildegarde a 
 grudge for this ! " 
 
 " You must permit me to say that you have 
 managed this affair admirably," I returned. 
 " It has been an artistic and personal success. 
 And yet there are so many slips between the 
 cup and the lip I hardly know whether my 
 congratulations may not be even now prema- 
 ture. Have you no misgivings ? " 
 
 " Come to-morrow ! " she said, holding out 
 her hand. 
 
 I took her hand. It was warm, firm and 
 soft. Her eyes were clear, composed, t^iumph- 
 ant. She felt no remorse, still less any fear. 
 She was perfectly natural. She had met with 
 an obstacle, and she had removed it. She had 
 suffered a rebuff, and she had requited it. All 
 is fair in love and war. 
 
 It was a long time before I saw her again, 
 and under very different circumstances. But, 
 among all the times and phases in which I have 
 seen her, the picture of her in my memory as 
 she appeared at this moment, remains most 
 
The Professor's Sister. 105 
 
 distinct. It was the most characteristic ; there 
 was more in it than in any other, of the real 
 woman that she was. Poisonous serpents, when 
 they are most deadly, appear most beautiful, 
 graceful and natural. They were made to 
 inflict destruction. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PENTAGON. 
 
 I CALLED at the Hartrugge's house on the fol- 
 lowing day, to inquire as to the condition of 
 Hildegarde, and was informed by the servant 
 that she was still in bed. I saw none of the 
 inmates, and as Ralph was not to be found in 
 his own lodgings, I inferred that he also was 
 with her. I then attempted to get hold of 
 Burlace, but although I had good grounds for 
 believing that he was in his room when I went 
 to see him, his presence was denied at the door. 
 Nothing remained but to wait for news to come 
 to me. 
 
 On the evening of the third day, as I was 
 standing on the old bridge that connects the 
 Altstadt withthe Neustadt, looking -down at 
 the current which eddies forever against the 
 stone abutments, some one entered the little 
 semi-circular recess that I occupied, and stood 
 beside me. 
 
 I looked up at him it was Ralph and was 
 about to ask him how Hildegarde was, but his 
 
The Professor's Sister. 107 
 
 face apprised me that a calamity haa hap- 
 pened. 
 
 " She is dead/ 7 he said, after a moment, 
 " and I am on my way to London. I do not 
 care to stay for the funeral." 
 
 " What did she die of ? " I asked, mechanic- 
 ally. 
 
 "Of a disease affecting the circulation. I 
 believe it has not been classified yet. Among 
 the many new inventions nowadays, there are 
 some new diseases." 
 
 " But it is recognized as a disease ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " How did she get it ? " 
 
 " As she might have got a cold, or the small- 
 pox. By the act of God, as the lawyers would 
 say.' 1 
 
 "What shall you do in London ? " 
 
 " Go to a hotel, I suppose. I have no plans. 
 There is nothing to be done but to wait. How 
 to make the time pass most quickly is the ques- 
 tion. It is becoming tedious already." 
 
 " How are Conrad and " I hesitated. 
 
 " Conrad and Catalina are very well, I 
 believe," he answered, speaking, as he had 
 done from the first, in an apathetic and listless 
 tone, as of a man physically and mentally 
 weary, but no longer a prey to any emotion. 
 He added presently, " Catalina had no reason 
 
108 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 to be my friend, or Hildegarde's either ; but I 
 am bound to say she has been kind and sym- 
 pathetic throughout. Conrad seems to dislike 
 her ; but her only fault, as far as I can see, is 
 that she is herself, and that is one common to 
 all of us.' 7 
 
 We leaned side by side upon the stone para- 
 pet, looking down at the stream. I did not 
 think it expedient to make any remarks 
 "proper to the occasion." Hildegarde was 
 dead ; Ralph's life was a blank ; I was sorry. 
 We both knew these facts, and talking about 
 them would benefit neither of us. What he 
 had said about Catalina had evidently been 
 sincerely meant, but it surprised me. For 
 though it was true that I had never told him 
 of her attempted crime at Schandau, yet I had 
 not expected Conrad to be as reticent ; and if 
 he had known that, he would scarcely have 
 failed to suspect her hand in this case also. 
 Why had not Conrad told him ? Did Conrad 
 himself acquit her ? I could not believe it ; 
 his silence must have had some motive which I 
 was not in a position to understand. At all 
 events, since he had not spoken, I had no cue 
 to speak. 
 
 I contented myself, therefore, with making 
 some suggestions looking towards my joining 
 him, in the course of a few weeks, in London. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 109 
 
 I had previously made up my mind to leave 
 Dresden after he and Hildegarde were married. 
 I had spent over three years in somewhat des- 
 ultory studies, and I did not care to remain 
 after my chief friend had departed. Ralph 
 made no objection to the proposal, though 
 neither did he profess any particular gratifica- 
 tion at it. His ailment at present was in- 
 ability to care for anything. Our talk, fre- 
 quently interrupted by silences, drifted into 
 generalities, and finally he roused himself and 
 said he must be going. Curiosity prompted me 
 to say, at the last moment, " Are you sorry 
 that you met her ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," he said slowly. " I shall meet her 
 again. I feel no absolute separation ; if I die, 
 I shall accommodate myself to it. The convic- 
 tion that our parting is only temporary makes 
 it easier to bear in one way the higher way ; 
 but harder in another. As it is, I. count the 
 days ; but one does not count towards eter- 
 nity." 
 
 "And are you no more inclined than you 
 were to try the resources of Spiritism ? " 
 
 He shook his head. " I certainly don't wish 
 to have Hildegarde parodied by the first wan- 
 dering disembodied courtesan who happens to 
 scent my bereavement. That would be the 
 way to lose her. As long as I keep her image 
 
110 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 sacred in my soul, I am safe ; but if I allow it 
 to be manipulated and polluted by sensual im- 
 postors I might as well have cast her living 
 body before a herd of swine." 
 
 " But what if there be no future life ? " I 
 persisted. 
 
 " Then there is no life at all. And if our 
 belief that there is a life here be an illusion, 
 then it would be only reasonable to expect the 
 illusion to continue after the illusion of death. 
 I have no anxieties on that score." 
 
 We shook hands, and went our several ways. 
 I saw him cross the bridge, with his measured, 
 but elastic step, and a slight swing of his 
 shoulders from side to side, that would have re- 
 vealed him to me among a thousand. Gradu- 
 ally the throng on the sidewalk intervening, 
 rendered him indistinguishable ; and 1 plodded 
 home in low spirits, and with gloomy forebod- 
 ings. 
 
 I do not belong to that numerous and re- 
 spectable class who derive a certain gentle satis- 
 faction from funerals. When my friends die, 
 I would rather think of them as they were, and 
 as I hope and believe they are, than associ- 
 ate them with any thought of the effigy in the 
 undertaker's box. Accordingly, I made up 
 my mind not to go to Hildegarde's funeral ; 
 Kalph himself had avoided the dismal cere- 
 
The Professor's Sister. Ill 
 
 inony, and I had no reason to suppose that Con- 
 rad would notice my absence, or be flattered 
 should I be present. Moreover, I did not like 
 the idea of meeting Catalina there ; whether 
 her look should be undisguised triumph, or of 
 hypocritical grief, it would be equally unlovely. 
 So I sent a note to Conrad, saying that I 
 should be out of town on the day of the sol- 
 emnity, and expressing the regret I sincerely 
 felt at his sister's death. 
 
 To my surprise, he appeared at my lodgings 
 the next morning. He seemed in his usual 
 spirits, and, indeed, imported a lightsome tone 
 into the conversation that struck somewhat 
 discordantly on my ear. 
 
 " Unless you really have business that 
 demands your absence from town to-morrow, 
 my dear fellow," said he, " don't think it 
 necessary to go on this account. Believe me, 
 I fully understand your reluctance to put in 
 an appearance on the occasion ; if I had my 
 way, I would willingly omit the ceremony, al- 
 together. If people believe in a future life, 
 they ought to be glad, instead of sorry, at the 
 death of a friend ; or if they feel a selfish sor- 
 row, they ought, as Christians, to suppress the 
 exhibition of it. If on the other hand they 
 believe that death finally ends all, what is the 
 use of lamenting the irrevocable ? Let them 
 
112 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 put it out of their minds as promptly as pos- 
 sible, lest they invite the unpleasant reflection 
 that they themselves will soon be blotted out 
 of existence also." 
 
 "I am not altogether of your way of think- 
 ing," I replied, " It is right to pay respect to 
 the memory of the dead. We would desire it 
 when our own times comes." 
 
 " Ah, that is the point ! " exclaimed Conrad, 
 smiling. " Stroke me, and I'll stroke you ! 
 But how absurd it is ! Of what avail to your 
 dead flesh and bones will my conventional 
 respect be or any other respect for that mat- 
 ter ? As for your soul, if you concede your- 
 self a soul, it will have other things to claim 
 its attention than the length of its earthly ac- 
 quaintances' faces, and the breadth of their hat- 
 bands. No ! the whole business is the remains 
 of a savage superstition, to the effect that the 
 ghosts of the dead haunted the scene of their 
 corporeal existence, and executed vengeance 
 upon those who failed to express a proper 
 poignancy of rief at their departure. Given 
 the superstition, the ceremony was at least intel- 
 ligible ; but that it should survive the super- 
 stition is idiotic ! " 
 
 " Possibly the superstition had some basis 
 in fact," I remarked. 
 
 He gave me a peculiar, quick glance, the 
 
The Professor's Sister. 113 
 
 significance of which I did not comprehend. 
 It was as if he were questioning how far I 
 spoke seriously. 
 
 " That, at any rate, is not the prevailing im- 
 pression," he returned presently, " nor does it 
 seem likely, on the face of it, that the ghost 
 of Hildegarde could make itself very terrible 
 to anybody." 
 
 I made no answer, and, after a pause, he 
 said, " However, I didn't come here to discuss 
 funerals in the abstract, but to beg a little 
 favor of you." 
 
 " I shall be glad of the opportunity of doing 
 you one." 
 
 " It is simply to walk over to my house with 
 me for a moment. I have something I par- 
 ticularly want to show you. No ! " he added, 
 with another smile, "you will not see my 
 beloved step-mother. Her grief is far too 
 absorbing to admit of her being visible even to 
 you. So will you come ? " 
 
 I put on my hat and accompanied him to his 
 house. Opening the door with his pass-key, 
 he conducted me through a passage to another 
 door, on passing through which I found my- 
 self in his study. 
 
 I had never before been admitted to this 
 room, and I looked round me with some 
 curiosity. It was singularly bare of the 
 
114 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 ordinary appurtenances to the retreat of a 
 student. There was not a single book to be 
 seen anywhere, nor any writing materials. 
 The walls were of plaster, tinted a dull red ; 
 no pictures decorated them, but in their stead 
 there were sundry geometrical diagrams drawn 
 with black and white lines. They conveyed 
 no meaning to my mind. The ceiling was 
 blue, of the same tone as the walls ; and there 
 were waving lines of some obscure pattern 
 traced on it. On a table, poised upon a slender 
 stand, stood what I at first took to be a solid 
 sphere of crystal ; it was in reality a spherical 
 globe, filled with a transparent liquid, from 
 which, occasionally, proceeded rays of pure 
 azure light. The plan of the room was a 
 pentagon. On the floor at the north end was a 
 block of solid metal, apparently iron ; it also 
 was pentagonal in shape, and a yard in di- 
 ameter and a foot in thickness. From the 
 ceiling directly above it was suspended the 
 largest horse-shoe magnet I ever saw. A half- 
 open cupboard revealed some steel and silver 
 instruments, some glass tubes and retorts, and 
 several bottles of various sizes containing 
 colored liquids. Finally, the angle of the 
 eastern corner of the room was concealed by a 
 voluminous curtain of black velvet; and in the 
 western angle, behind the glass sphere, was a 
 
The Professor's Sister. 115 
 
 full-length plate mirror, in a broad black frame. 
 
 " Now we are at home ! " observed Conrad, 
 closing the door behind me. "No one can 
 enter here without my consent. You may say 
 that nobody would care to on any terms ; but 
 I can be pretty comfortable here, in my own 
 way, when I choose. Sit down and try a 
 cigarette. I will be ready in a moment." 
 
 He passed behind the black curtain as he 
 spoke, and I seated myself in a chair and lit 
 one of the cigarettes he had offered me, 
 wondering the while what his object could 
 have been in bringing me there. But the 
 flavor of the cigarette was highly agreeable ; it 
 had an effect upon the mind at once soothing 
 and clarifying. I have sometimes awakened 
 in the hour before dawn and found my intel- 
 lectual faculties in a similarly calm and potent 
 state. The smoke from the burning tobacco, 
 rising in the still air of the room, was drawn by 
 imperceptible currents into strangely graceful 
 lines and figures, recalling those which the 
 stricken chords of a piano produce in fine sand, 
 sifted over a sheet of paper and placed within 
 the instrument. I remember ascribing the 
 phenomenon at the time to some subtle influ- 
 ence proceeding from the great magnet. 
 
 I sat with my head thrown back against the 
 cushioned chair, abstractedly watching these 
 
116 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 shifting forms, until I could almost imagine 
 that they were observing some intelligible 
 principle in their movements. I was just in 
 the mood to weave some fanciful extravaganza 
 upon the notion, when my attention was di- 
 verted by Conrad's voice, and looking round, I 
 saw him standing beside the curtain, with his 
 hand upon it. He beckoned me to approach. 
 I rose and went to him at once, and passing 
 behind the fold of the curtain that he held aside 
 for me, I found myself in a sort of shrine, 
 lighted in some manner not obvious to me, but 
 with a very soft and pleasing radiance. This 
 radiance was concentrated on a sofa, set against 
 the wall ; and on the sofa, clad in the same 
 feathery white dress that she had worn at her 
 betrothal party, lay the figure of Hildegarde, 
 asleep. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 117 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 " WHAT have you done ? " I exclaimed, 
 with an involuntary impulse, turning from 
 this spectacle to gaze in Conrad's face. I felt 
 as if I had been unawares entrapped into 
 assisting at some uncanny exhibition of necro- 
 mancy. 
 
 Conrad's green eyes sparkled. " After life's 
 fitful fever, she sleeps well, does she not ? " he 
 said, in an ironic tone. "What disturbs you, 
 my dear fellow ? Have you ever seen a more 
 beautiful cadaver?" 
 
 " Is this Hildegarde, or an image ? " said I. 
 I had been greatly startled, and I believe there 
 was an idea in my mind that Conrad had made 
 an effigy of his sister in wax. Either that, or 
 some mystery. 
 
 He gave a slow laugh. " That is the ques- 
 tion that divides critical opinion at present," he 
 replied. " Is this all there is left when we die ? 
 or is it but an image of what has been ? What 
 think you ? " 
 
 I looked more steadily at the figure, and 
 finally, overcoming my first reluctance, bent 
 
118 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 down and examined it. There could be no 
 doubt that it was no waxen image, but simply 
 the dead body of Hildegarde, neither more nor 
 less. It lay in so natural a pose, however, and 
 the illusion of quiet sleep was so perfect, that 
 I could not help expecting to see the bosom 
 rise in a long breath, and the great eyes open. 
 But the dead never return to life, though it 
 sometimes seems as if they easily might. 
 
 u The difference is not so great, after all," 
 remarked Conrad, replying, as he often did, to 
 my thought instead of to anything I had said. 
 "She seems to sleep; and. if you imagine that it 
 is sleep and nothing more, does it not amount to 
 the same thing ? " 
 
 " You had -better ask Ealph that question," 
 I replied. 
 
 " Ralph is not ready yet to be philosophical," 
 said he, smiling. "He was inclined to be ex- 
 travagant in his first demonstrations, and it 
 was for that reason that I persuaded him to 
 leave at once. When the first shock is over, 
 he will be safe ; and then he can return and 
 look at her without risk." 
 
 " He has no thought of returning," I said, 
 " and even if he did, the body would be in its 
 grare, and decay have set in." 
 
 " There will be no decay in this case," re- 
 turned Conrad. "I have made a pretty thor- 
 
The Professors Sister. 119 
 
 ough study of the science of embalming, and I 
 can affirm that I have not only fathomed all 
 the secrets known to the ancients on that sub- 
 ject, but I have made several independent dis- 
 coveries of my own. This body might remain 
 precisely in its present condition barring ac- 
 cidents, of course for an indefinite number of 
 centuries. She would be still fresh and young 
 when Ralph is tottering on the extreme verge 
 of old age ; and he might return in some future 
 reincarnation (if the Buddhist theory be true), 
 and still find her as you see her at this moment.' 1 
 
 " It is an ugly thought," said I. "I rather 
 wish that the body might disappear as soon as 
 the soul leaves it. At all events, let it return 
 to dust as soon as the process of nature allows. 
 What possible object can there be in keeping 
 it?" 
 
 " In the majority of cases there would be no 
 object, and my opinion would agree with yours. 
 But as regards Hildegarde, there are other 
 considerations. I am interested in certain 
 rather curious investigations touching the con- 
 nection between the soul and the body. There 
 are facts that seem to indicate that so long as 
 the body is preserved in its integrity, the soul 
 cannot altogether abandon it. Ordinarily, the 
 soul soon passes into states where all possibil- 
 ity of communication with it ceases ; but, on 
 
120 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 the hypothesis to which I allude, it might not 
 be so inaccessible." 
 
 " This is horrible ! " I exclaimed. " Do you 
 mean to say that your scientific curiosity would 
 lead you to bind the soul of your own sister to 
 the neighborhood of the world from which 
 death has liberated her ! It would be im- 
 pious ! What end could justify it ? " 
 
 " You had better ask Ralph that question," 
 he replied, repeating my own words of a few 
 minutes before. "And if that be not enough, 
 you might make the inquiry of my beloved 
 step-mother, Catalina ! " 
 
 I stared at the man with an emotion not far 
 removed from absolute fear. 
 
 " Do you seriously pretend to such powers as 
 these ? " I asked. 
 
 " I can hardly be said to claim a power, if I 
 avail myself of natural laws," said he, compos- 
 edly ; " and whether those laws be generally 
 recognized or not, does not alter the case. 
 What I have just suggested does not approach 
 the abnormal* so closely as did the incident 
 that occurred at Schandau a few weeks ago." 
 
 I turned away, feeling a little giddy, though 
 whether by reason of the tenor of Conrad's re- 
 marks, or for some more concrete cause, I 
 hardly know. But Conrad took me gently by 
 the arm, and led me out of the shrine. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 121 
 
 " Your nerves are a little off their centre," 
 he said, pleasantly, " but luckily 1 have some- 
 thing here that will set you right in a moment. 
 Come, sit down here." 
 
 As he spoke I felt a rush of cold air over my 
 head and neck. I was sitting, riot on the 
 chair, as before, but on the pentagonal block of 
 iron at the upper corner of the room. The 
 rush of air came from above, apparently from 
 the magnet. For a moment I felt a stifling 
 sensation, and tried to rise and cry out, but I 
 could do neither ; an irresistible weight pressed 
 me downward, and my muscles would not obey 
 my will. I thought I was dying, and felt the 
 agony of it ; but then, in an instant, the agony 
 and struggle was over, and a delicious sense of 
 lightness and power took their place. The 
 cold rush of air was now no longer cold, but 
 had an exquisite, vivifying effect, as if life it- 
 self, from the pure original source, were pour- 
 ing into my veins. The vitality thus commu- 
 nicated, though intense, was calm and deep ; it 
 prompted to no physical activity, but caused 
 thought and consciousness to enter an interior 
 plane, where they acquired an immense devel- 
 opment of scope and penetration. I sat still, 
 and seemed to possess the world. 
 
 From my present point of view, looking 
 from the upper or northern angles of the pen- 
 
122 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 tagonal room toward the opposite or southern 
 side, the whole room appeared to arrange itself 
 in a significant manner. The geometrical dia- 
 grams were no longer a mere complexity of 
 unmeaning lines, but combined to form the 
 words of a secret, whose purport solved the 
 ratio between man and nature. The subtile 
 angles of the walls, so perplexing at the first 
 impression, now strengthened the expression 
 of the mystic diagrams, and also suggested 
 that semblance of life in inanimate objects 
 which one finds in the architectural systems 
 of mediaeval Italy. 
 
 A delicate gray film of perfumed smoke, 
 similar to that which I had lately drawn from 
 the cigarette, began to climb upwards from 
 some concealed point behind me, and, mar- 
 shalled by the magnetic influence, to move in 
 sinuous courses across the dull blue of the 
 ceiling. I presently perceived that these smoke 
 wreathes harmonized by a sort of affinity with 
 the eccentric curves that were inscribed over- 
 head, and draped them, as it were, in aerial 
 substance, as flesh drapes the human skeleton. 
 
 Meanwhile the room gradually darkened, or 
 appeared to do so to my eyes ; but the dark- 
 ness did not prevent the forms on the walls 
 and ceiling from continuing to be visible, 
 though this may have been due merely to the 
 
The Professor's Sister, 123 
 
 existence of the impression already produced 
 on the retina. The effect of the darkness, at 
 all events, was to cause the solid sides of the 
 room, and the roof above, to seem to dissolve 
 and melt away, until I felt like one poised in 
 the depths of space ; but instead of terror, the 
 situation wrought in me an unspeakable ex- 
 hilaration and security. I recognized in the 
 diagrams, the orbits of the planetary system, 
 in which wheeled several worlds whereof 
 science has given no account ; they were at 
 immeasurable distances, outwardly estimated ; 
 but, gazing at them with the eye of thought, 
 I could in a moment perceive every detail of 
 their glorious structure and economy. The 
 smoke-wreaths bent downward and took shape 
 as the great spirits of the elements; they held 
 their awful countenances averted, but I saw 
 that the iron pentagon on which I sat was up- 
 held at each corner by their right hands. 
 Whither they bore me I knew not, or whether 
 they but held me motionless in the centre of 
 the universe. I had no fear ; only perception. 
 All was still veiled in a transparent gloom ; 
 but presently a light like a star was kindled in 
 the west, and gaining power, began to send 
 forth azure streamers like those of the Polar 
 lights, which throbbed and fell and rose again, 
 increasing more and more, until the planets. 
 
124 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 and the long arcs of their courses, and the re- 
 mote recesses of the heavens, and the forms of 
 the awful spirits that encompassed me, were 
 flooded and glorified with the great radiance, 
 and emerged like the soul from the mysterious 
 womb of prenatal being into the living exist- 
 ence of humanity. Accompanying this change 
 was a sound of music, growing and multiply- 
 ing,, sweet as the warbling of ^olian harps, 
 and strong as the thunder of oceans plunging 
 over bottomless precipices. Every sense di- 
 lated and vibrated, receiving and concentrating 
 the infinity of sights and sounds in the scope 
 of individual intelligence ; so that I was the 
 universe, and the universe was I. 
 
 With the recognition of this truth the vision 
 of space receded, the outlines of the spirits 
 vanished, and the harmonious tumult of the 
 music culminated in a voice, loud and yet still, 
 speaking the creative word : " Come forth, and 
 be ! " I was again in the pentagonal chamber, 
 sparkling now with the azure lustre of the 
 crystal globe, which kindled the magnetic cur- 
 rents into living rainbows. Looking in the 
 mirror I saw the black curtain reflected there 
 tremble and part, and from within emerged the 
 form of Hildegarde, dead no longer, but alive 
 and erect. Her eyes had the distraught ex- 
 pression of one aroused from deep sleep. There 
 
The Professors Sister. 125 
 
 stood she who had died three days before, 
 breathing and conscious. I saw her image in 
 the glass, but I could not turn my head to see 
 the reality which the glass reflected. 
 
 Her eyes bent themselves upon me, and rec- 
 ognition slowly dawned in them. She seemed 
 about to speak ; but, as her lips parted, they 
 grew pale, and her eyelids quivered and 
 dropped. The black curtain waved, and she 
 sank backwards and vanished behind its folds. 
 I heard a long sigh, and nothing more. 
 
 The azure lustre of the globe grew dim and 
 dimmer, and faded out utterly. There were 
 whispers arid soft sweeping movements, and 
 light echoes like departing footsteps. Then 
 came a confused whirring in my brain, growing 
 louder and louder, and again the sickening 
 tremor of the heart, and the struggle for 
 breath. I crouched down, and pressed my hands 
 over my face. 
 
 "You are all right again now," said the 
 voice of Conrad, speaking in a brisk and cheer- 
 ful tone. " Perhaps the current may have 
 been a little too strong. The effects are very 
 similar to those of hashish, are they not ? " 
 
 I looked up. Everything was as it had been 
 at first. But Conrad's face was as white as a 
 sheet, and his green eyes scintillated with con- 
 scious power. 
 
126 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 LED BY A SPIRIT. 
 
 As SOON as I could complete my arrange- 
 ments to do so, I left Dresden and went to 
 London. What I had experienced in Conrad's 
 chamber may have been partly or wholly a 
 dream or illusion of the senses, similar to the 
 visions of opium and hashish eaters, as Con- 
 rad himself had intimated. And though I 
 sometimes inclined to this view, at other times 
 I could not reconcile it with the intensity and 
 permanence of the effect produced upon me. 
 No doubt I had fallen into an abnormal state, 
 and much of the surroundings of the event 
 were pure hallucination. The cigarette which 
 Conrad had given me may have been drugged ; 
 and I could only conjecture what might be the 
 effects upon the* . brain of such magnetic or 
 electric currents as his arrangements enabled 
 him to produce. But the two central events of 
 the experience, that I had seen Hildegarde 
 dead, and had afterwards seen her to all ap- 
 pearances alive, these things I could not dis- 
 lodge from my mind. I could not but believe 
 
The Professor's tiister. 127 
 
 that Conrad for what end it was vain to ask 
 was indulging in practices which in old times 
 would have brought him to the stake. Whether 
 his results were achieved by sheer witchcraft, 
 or by some development of the principle 
 of galvanism, were questions into which I 
 did not care to enter ; in either case I con- 
 sidered them brutal and unholy, and I was 
 resolved to tell the whole story to Ralph. He 
 could claim, and would doubtless enforce the 
 right to protect the remains of his dead mis 
 tress from outrage. At any rate I felt bound, 
 as his friend, to let him know what was going 
 on, and so place him in a position to take what 
 course he might deem best. 
 
 The funeral took place before I left town, 
 and though I did not attend as an invited 
 guest, I took means to satisfy myself that 
 Hildegarde's body was in the coffin, and that 
 the coffin was safely deposited in the handsome 
 tomb which the late Mr. Hertrugge had had 
 built for the accommodation of himself and his 
 posterity. This was so far satisfactory, though 
 of course the gates of the sepulchre would be 
 no barrier to a man like Conrad, either physi- 
 cally or morally. 
 
 Ralph had given me his London address, and 
 I called there the evening of my arrival ; but 
 he had left several days before. London is a 
 
128 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 bad place to hunt for a person in ; but I hap- 
 pened to know that his bankers were the same 
 as mine, so, the next morning, I made inquiries 
 there. I then learned that Ralph had joined 
 an expedition commissioned to "develop" cer- 
 tain unknown regions of Central Africa ; and 
 his steamer was already several hundred miles 
 on her way to her outward port. 
 
 I had a passing impulse to go after him, for 
 I was feeling rather unsettled myself ; but I 
 thought better of it upon reflection. It was a 
 hundred to one that I should not overtake 
 him ; and even if I should chance to run across 
 him in the wilds of the Zambesi, and spin my 
 yarn to him, it would hardly be within his 
 power to take up his march forthwith to Dres- 
 den, nor to get any satisfaction when he arrived 
 there. Accordingly, I gave up all thoughts of 
 the matter, contenting myself by addressing 
 a letter to him at Natal, on the chance of his 
 finding it there ; and then I allowed the whole 
 subject to sink into the latent regions of 
 memory, and occupied myself with other pur- 
 suits and interests. 
 
 The very first rumors that came to hand con- 
 cerning Ralph's expedition, after it had passed 
 beyond the limits of regular communication, 
 were to the effect that it had met with disaster. 
 A tribe, supposed to be friendly, had turned 
 
The Professor's Sister. 129 
 
 out quite the reverse, and the explorers had all 
 been murdered. Such was the information 
 supplied by a native attached to the expedi- 
 tion, who came back alone to Natal. Nobody 
 believed that the catastrophe was quite as bad 
 as that ; the native undoubtedly exaggerated ; 
 the European members of the expedition were 
 more likely to have been carried into captivity 
 than slaughtered. But practically, one fate 
 was about as bad as the other ; for although, 
 on the one hand, captivity admits a chance of 
 escape, yet on the other hand a man who is 
 dead has no further suffering and ignominy to 
 endure. Though I did not admit it to myself, 
 I presently came to the conclusion that Ralph 
 was dead. It was painful to think of him as 
 a captive ; and it was a fascinating subject of 
 speculation whether his spirit had met Hilde- 
 garde's in the other world, and had found hap- 
 piness with her. 
 
 My affairs took me to the United States ; I 
 remained there over a year, chiefly in the west- 
 ern and northwestern regions. I came into 
 business relations with some English capitalists, 
 who were interested in mining stock, and at 
 length I found it expedient to return to Lon- 
 don to confer with them. Reaching New York 
 on my way eastwards I put up at a hotel near 
 Madison Square (my travelling expenses were 
 
130 The Professor's Sister, 
 
 defrayed by the English syndicate), and after 
 a shave and a change of clothes, I walked out 
 under the trees of the square. It was late of a 
 warm June afternoon. In the centre of the 
 square were benches, surrounding a circular 
 fountain basin. I sat down on one of these 
 benches, noticing as I did so the preoccupied 
 attitude of its only other occupant, a lean, 
 athletic, middle-aged man, with a short stiff 
 beard and black hair, ^partly grizzled. A wide- 
 brimmed Panama sombrero was pulled down 
 over his forehead ; he leaned forward, with his 
 elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, 
 gazing intently at nothing. I took him to be 
 a wealthy Cuban or Mexican, meditating over 
 the lost Spanish empire, or wondering how Do- 
 lores was getting along in his absence. I sup- 
 pose I looked at him rather oftener than he 
 thought necessary, for he suddenly roused him- 
 self and turned an impatient glance upon me. 
 But his expression at once changed, and he 
 said with a smile : 
 
 " You are a"t your old tricks still ! Is there 
 anything in the world that can escape your 
 eyes and your knowledge ? " 
 
 " You are not Ralph Merlin ! " I said. 
 
 "No," he answered, "but I used to be." 
 
 I will not attempt to detail our talk ; I am 
 finishing a story not beginning one. He told 
 
The Professor's Sister. 131 
 
 me how his party had been attacked ; how he 
 was wounded and captured ; how he had been 
 assigned as a slave to a certain powerful chief; 
 how he had ultimately acquired such ascend- 
 ancy over the chief and the tribe that he was 
 requested to take the reins of government into 
 his own hands, to which he assented ; and to 
 marry the retiring chiefs daughter, to which he 
 demurred. He drew an amusing picture spretce 
 injuricBformce, how the sable queen pursued 
 him with her spite and jealousy, "my ill-luck 
 following me even to mid- Africa ! " he added 
 with a smile, until she made his life a bur- 
 den to him ; and whereas, but for her, he might 
 have settled down to pass the rest of his life 
 among these savages, as it was, he deter- 
 mined to escape. The story of this retreat of 
 one man through a thousand or more miles of 
 pathless and hostile country was at least as in- 
 teresting as the celebrated Anabasis of the Ten 
 Thousand described by Xenophon. And when, 
 at last, he could exclaim with the old Greeks : 
 " Thalassa ! Thalassa ! " he found himself on 
 a part of the coast very remote indeed from 
 that on which he had landed nearly eighteen 
 months before. He had fallen in with a Portu- 
 guese vessel bound for Ceylon, on a rambling, 
 roundabout voyage ; she was run down in mid- 
 ocean by a British liner on the way to Austra- 
 
132 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 lia; at Melbourne he had taken passage on an 
 American ship going to Honolulu, and thence 
 he had journeyed by the regular steamer to San 
 Francisco, and so across the continent to the 
 bench in Madison Square where I found him. 
 
 This tale, as related by Ralph, was of absorb- 
 ing and various interest, and lasted us back to 
 the hotel, through dinner, and well into the 
 evening. But, all along, I had a feeling that 
 Ralph was leaving something out, and that this 
 something, moreover, embodied the real gist of 
 the whole matter. Again and again there 
 came a gap, or an abrupt transition in the nar- 
 rative ; or he would begin a sentence, and 
 leave it uncompleted, and say another thing 
 altogether. Now, I wanted the whole story. 
 
 " Are you going to complete your circuit of 
 the earth ? " I asked him. " I am on my way 
 to London ; and we might run over from there 
 to Dresden, and look up Conrad." 
 
 The room my sitting room at the hotel 
 was almost dark ; we had not lighted the gas, 
 and the only light came through the transom 
 over the door. At the moment I spoke, I no- 
 ticed a faint but unmistakable perfume in the 
 room, as of some ethereal spice. Ralph had 
 made no reply to my suggestion ; and after 
 his silence had lasted a minute or two, I turned 
 to see whether he had fallen asleep. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 133 
 
 No ; he was not asleep. He was sitting 
 erect in his chair, leaning a little forward. 
 In the dim light I could see that his great 
 gray eyes were wide open, and the heavy black 
 brows somewhat lifted. There was a sort of 
 solemn ecstasy in his expression ; his gaze was 
 directed intently towards the eastern corner of 
 the room, which was occupied by nothing that 
 I could see but a tall mahogany wardrobe. It 
 was not at the wardrobe that Ralph was gaz- 
 ing, nor at anything else visible to normal 
 eyesight. His whole soul was in the look ; 
 and he was utterly unconscious of me, and of 
 everything material in his surroundings. His 
 lips moved ; he seemed to be speaking, but 
 with an inward voice that carried no sound. 
 He moved his head as if signifying assent ; a 
 moment later the rapt expression faded out ; 
 the peculiar fragrance ceased to be perceptible ; 
 he passed his hands across his eyes, shifted his 
 position in his chair, and said with a half 
 laugh, "I'm afraid you think me dull com- 
 pany ! " 
 
 "Anything but that!" I replied. "'But 
 we were not alone just now." 
 
 "Did you see anything ?" he demanded, so 
 quickly and imperatively as to show that he 
 was deeply startled. 
 
 " I did not see what you did," returned I, 
 "but I saw you see it." 
 
134 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 He got up, struck a match, lit the gas, and 
 took a turn or two about the room. " Well," 
 he said at length, resuming his chair, " You 
 have stood so near me in certain crises of my 
 life, that I may as well let you into my secret 
 especially as you have probably half guessed 
 it already. But there is more to it than that. 
 For the last year, or thereabouts, I have sus- 
 pected that I am insane ; I should be nearly 
 certain of it, but that I am neither more nor 
 less insane than I was at the beginning. Now 
 I shall be very glad to have the dispassionate 
 opinion of a man like you on my case. 
 
 " Just now, I saw Hildegarde and conversed 
 with her. I saw her as plainly as I now see 
 you, though the gas was not lighted then. By 
 no test that I am able to devise could I dis- 
 tinguish between her reality and yours, for in- 
 stance. I see her, I hear her, she is even sen- 
 sible to my touch or so it seems to me. Dur- 
 ing her presence, no doubt enters my mind 
 that it is not Hildegarde, her very self ; and 
 yet, immediately before and after, I am as well 
 aware as you are that the thing is utterly im- 
 possible. Hildegarde's body has been for 
 nearly two years in the grave ; her spirit must 
 long since have passed through the spiritual 
 world, and entered heaven as an angel. There- 
 fore this vision must be a sheer mental halluci- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 135 
 
 nation, not based on any spiritual truth, but a 
 spectre of insanity. I have argued it out a 
 hundred times, and can come to no other con- 
 clusion." 
 
 " This is not the first time you have seen 
 her, then ? " 
 
 " No, not by many. Her appearences have 
 been the central fact of my life since I first 
 resolved to escape from my African principality 
 and come home. Indeed, it was she who, the 
 first time I saw her, urged me to go. I was 
 sitting at the door of my hut; all the others 
 were asleep ; the forest was still, except for the 
 distant roaring of a lion. I had been thinking 
 that, my life being so objectless and valueless, 
 I might as well live it in one way as another, 
 and that it would perhaps be best to marry 
 this black princess who had so set her heart 
 upon me, and breed a race of savage kings who 
 should live and rule and die innocent of the 
 triumphs and shames of our civilization. Then 
 I looked up ; and out of the darkest aisle of 
 the tropic wood I saw Hildegarde come to- 
 wards me. She came quite close to me, with 
 her eyes upon mine ; I was neither amazed 
 nor afraid; it was as if I had expected her. 
 She raised her right hand, on which was the 
 opal ring I gave her, and pointed to the east. 
 1 You must leave this and go, Ralph,' she said. 
 
136 The Professors /Sister. 
 
 1 I will tell you the day when you must start, 
 and I will guide you to the sea.' I answered 
 that I would be ready ; and she passed to my 
 left round the corner of the hut. As soon as 
 she was gone, the amazement and fear came ; 
 I sprang up to follow her, but I could not find 
 her. For two days I waited, and she did not 
 return. I began to say to myself that I had 
 dreamed. But on the third night I slept ; 
 and in the midst of my sleep I felt a touch on 
 my face, and she was there. I arose and fol- 
 lowed her ; we passed through the village ; she 
 showed me my course by the stars, and sud- 
 denly I was alone. But I went on till morn- 
 ing; and if ever I got astray from the path, I 
 fancied I felt a touch, directing me aright. So 
 it was for many days, and I came to trust in 
 her as the sailor trusts-to his compass. Often 
 she warned me of perils that would otherwise 
 have destroyed me. I gained the coast, as you 
 know, and reached this place by devious routes. 
 To-night she told me that my journey was not 
 ended yet ; I a"m still to go eastward, and now 
 in your company. And yet all this is in- 
 sanity ! " 
 
 " But you are not insane," I replied ; " you 
 are not even suffering from monomania. 
 Monomaniacs cannot reason about their in- 
 firmity, or perceive that it is abnormal. Your 
 
The Professors Sister. 137 
 
 experience cannot be explained on that 
 ground." 
 
 " There is no other explanation, however," 
 remarked he. 
 
 " There are hundreds of thousands of persons 
 who will assure you that the thing is in accord- 
 ance with known principles of life. They will 
 tell you that the spirits of the dead can revisit 
 those they love, to warn and guide them. They 
 would regard your case as a model example of 
 their belief. Why should not you believe it 
 too ? " 
 
 " Sooner than accept that theory,' 7 replied 
 Ralph, "I prefer the alternative of my own in- 
 sanity. The spirits that respond to our invi- 
 tations are but the complement of our own 
 foolish and impious curiosity. They are the 
 undigested fragments of humanity, swimming 
 in the cosmic stomach, as yet neither cast ir- 
 revocably to waste, nor taken up into the blood 
 of heaven. Hildegarde is not such an one ; 
 nor, if she were, should I recognize her, or she 
 me. I was clear on that head long before this 
 experience began, and I cannot abandon my 
 conviction now, to gratify a personal longing." 
 
 "Is there nothing in the Buddhistic creed to 
 meet your want ? " I asked. " Do you put no 
 faith in their analysis of man ? Might not 
 this apparition be the astral form of Hilde- 
 
138 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 garde, which her love projects towards 3-011 ? " 
 llalph shook his head. " I am not compe- 
 tent to judge of the Hindoo philosophy," he 
 remarked; "but even if their scheme has any 
 truth in it, it would not apply to this case. The 
 astral form is the emanation and emissary of a 
 living human being. Hildegarde being dead, 
 has, according to them, passed into the state of 
 Devachan, there to remain until the period of 
 her next incarnation ; and whatever of her so- 
 called fourth principle remains in the astral 
 light, would be incapable of any independent 
 action. But Conrad and I have often discussed 
 the whole subject, and I never could feel any 
 assurance that the entire Buddhistic system is 
 anything more than an ingenious and supple 
 series of inventions to meet each difficulty as 
 it arises." 
 
 Hereupon I felt that if there were ever to be 
 a time when the story of my experiences with 
 Conrad was to be of any avail to llalph, that 
 time was now come. Accordingly, I began 
 with the mysterious episode at Schandau ; I 
 recounted, in passing, my conversation with 
 Burlace about Catalina's interest in his inves- 
 tigation of disease germs ; and pointed out the 
 sinister light which, in my opinion, it seemed 
 to cast upon Hildegarde's sudden seizure by 
 one of these very diseases. I spoke of Cata- 
 
The Professor's Sister. 139 
 
 lina's scarcely disguised acknowledgment of 
 the justice of my suspicions, and her defiant 
 attitude. Then I described Conrad's strange 
 lightsomeness of demeanor, his half-jesting con- 
 versation, his invitation to me to visit his 
 study, and the sight I beheld behind the black 
 curtain. 
 
 Kalph had listened, thus far, without a move- 
 ment or response of any kind, even when I 
 suggested that Hildegarde had been poisoned 
 by her step-mother. He was never wont to be 
 disturbed by the irrevocable. But at this point 
 I perceived a change in the manner of his lis- 
 tening ; his breathing, now held back to hear, 
 and now taken in a quick sigh ; and the slight 
 involuntary shiftings of his attitude, betrayed 
 how strained was his attention. I went on to 
 portray, as best I could, the extraordinary 
 phantasmagoria that had followed in the pen- 
 tagonal chamber, culminating in the appearance 
 of Hildegarde herself, in her habit as she lived ; 
 her seeming recognition of me, and how, before 
 she could speak, the hand of death had fastened 
 on her once more. 
 
 " I did not know what to think of it then, 
 and I don't know now," I concluded. "But 
 since hearing your story, I cannot help think- 
 ing that Conrad may have some explanations 
 to make which it would be worth your while to 
 listen to." 
 
140 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 " Possibly ! " murmured Ralph, absently ; 
 " possibly ! " Presently he got up and took 
 his hat. " I must think over this," he said. 
 " There may be a chance yet for my sanity. 
 And yet it might be wiser to leave that in 
 doubt, and go no further ! " 
 
The Professor's Sister. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TWO MEX. 
 
 THE next day but one, Ralph and I were 
 passengers on a steamship of the Bremen 
 line. These steamers stop at Southampton. I 
 left the vessel at that port, and went on by 
 rail to London. Ralph was to continue the 
 voyage to Bremen, and then proceed to Dres- 
 den. 
 
 I expected to be detained in London a week. 
 After that, I promised Ralph that I would fol- 
 low him to the Saxon capital. He made a 
 point of this ; he seemed anxious to have a 
 friendly supporter at hand. 
 
 On the trip over, we had uniformly avoided 
 the topic that must have been uppermost in 
 his mind. We conversed on general matters ; 
 and I noticed that Ralph's character had mel- 
 lowed and deepened since the old Dresden 
 days. His intellectual strength and mastery 
 were as signal as before, but his eagerness and 
 love of conflict were gone ; and he no longer 
 looked forward, to the world's future and his 
 own, as he was used to do. He seemed more 
 
142 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 willing to learn than to teach. He spent much 
 time in revery. The masculine sternness of 
 his face was, at such periods, touch ingly soft- 
 ened ; I could read in its lines something of 
 his experience that he had never told me ; the 
 thoughts and emotions that had turned his hair 
 gray before its time. But again, I caught from 
 his eyes a light of unfulfilled purpose and an- 
 ticipation. There was still something for him 
 to do or suffer, God knew what. 
 
 One of the first persons I met in London 
 was Burlace. He was altered, and for the 
 worse. His loud, obstreperous voice had be- 
 come morose and complaining; his face was 
 pale and relaxed ; his bearing, instead of being 
 aggressive and brisk, was sullen and lurching; 
 when I saw him he was slouching down the 
 Strand with a short pipe hanging from the 
 corner of his mouth ; and I had not heard him 
 speak a dozen words before I surmised that he 
 had been too familiar with gin. 
 
 However, he seemed glad to see me, and as 
 anxious to talk as if he had been restricted to 
 his own company for months. I tried to post- 
 pone the interview until such time as he should 
 be in a less liquorish humor ; but he would not 
 be put off, and dragged me down a side alley 
 to a dingy little inn, where he assured me I 
 could get the best Hollands in town. " I know 
 
The Professor's Sister. 143 
 
 the folks here/' he remarked, " and they keep 
 a special tap for me." So we had Hollands 
 and birds-eye tobacco and dirt. And Burlace 
 said, ' Say, old man, here's a c'nundrum. Am 
 I married or single ? " 
 
 " You may see double," I replied, " but you 
 were made for a bachelor, and you are one." 
 
 " When you said I was made for a bachelor, 
 you did not think I had lived to be married 
 did you, now ? But married I am, all the 
 same, though it's true I've lived a bachelor 
 ever since." 
 
 "Come," I said, "you don't know what 
 you're saying." 
 
 He struck his great paw on the table. " I 
 am married, I tell you to Catalina, widow of 
 the late Herman Hertrugge, of Dresden. If 
 you don't believe it, go there and find out. 
 She can't deny it God damn her ! " 
 
 He stared at me with inflamed eyes, and 
 wagged his head. 
 
 " Where is your wife ? " I inquired. 
 
 " In Hell, for all I know ; but when I saw 
 her last she was in her drawing-room in Dres- 
 den. Look here, old man, you've always been 
 a friend of mine ; I'll tell you the story." I 
 need not reproduce any further the manner of 
 his speech ; but his story was strange enough. 
 He had proposed to Catalina on the day before 
 
144 The Professor's /Sister. 
 
 Hildegarde's betrothal reception, and she had 
 agreed to marry him after her step-daughter's 
 wedding should have taken place " if she lives 
 to be wedded ! " she had added, in a jesting 
 way. He knew the terms of the will, and un- 
 derstood her to mean that she would marry him 
 any way. After Hildegarde's death he re- 
 minded her of her promise, and the day was 
 fixed. The wedding was to be a quiet one, in 
 the bride's house ; Conrad had shown himself 
 well disposed to the affair, and all looked pros- 
 perous. The guests came ; the priest called 
 the bride and groom before him, and pro- 
 nounced the words that made them man and 
 wife. But no sooner had the final vows been 
 spoken, than Catalina uttered a terrible shriek, 
 and fainted. Every one was disconcerted; only 
 Conrad retained his presence of mind ; he ex- 
 plained to the guests that his step-mother had 
 been laboring under considerable nervous ex- 
 citement during several days previous, and 
 that this was a not unnatural culmination of 
 her condition*. The decks having been thus 
 cleared, Catalina was taken to her room, and 
 presently revived. She still manifested unac- 
 countable agitation ; and when her new hus- 
 band ventured to propose that they should get 
 into their carriage and begin their wedding 
 journey, she trembled so violently that he ; 
 
The Professor's Sister. 145 
 
 feared another fain ting-fit, and postponed the 
 matter until the afternoon. By that time 
 Catalina seemed to have recovered her nerve ; 
 she put on her traveling dress and came down- 
 stairs, laughing at her late indisposition, and 
 declaring that she had never felt better. The 
 carriage was at the kerb; she came out leaning 
 on her husband's arm, and his heart was over- 
 flowing with delightful anticipations. The 
 footman opened the carriage door, and Cata- 
 lina's foot was on the step. 
 
 There was nothing at all in the carriage ex- 
 cept the cushions ; but Catalina suddenly 
 stopped and grew as rigid as iron, and the hand 
 which Burlace held in his became icy cold. 
 She made no outcry, but her face assumed an 
 expression that made even Burlace's lusty 
 blood run cold. Her lips parted, and she 
 seemed to gasp for air; then a tremor shook 
 her from head to foot, and she fell back 
 in her husband's arms. He thought she had 
 died of a stroke of the heart, and, with the as- 
 sistance of the footman, carried her back into 
 the house. He and Conrad worked over her 
 for an hour, and at last succeeded in bringing 
 her back to consciousness. But now her cour- 
 age and self-control seemed utterly broken 
 down ; she was as weak and garrulous as an 
 invalid child; she exhibited terror whenever 
 
146 The Professor s Sister. 
 
 Burlace approached her, and shuddered when 
 he addressed her. She either could or would 
 not give any explanation of her state. Even- 
 ing came" on, and it was necessary to give up 
 all idea of starting on their trip that day. 
 Catalina remained in her room in charge of a 
 nurse, and Burlace, refusing Conrad's offer of 
 a cot-bed in the library, went to an hotel and 
 spent his wedding night there. 
 
 The next morning he presented himself at 
 the house, and was told that his wife would see 
 him. He went to her room, and found her 
 propped up with pillows on her bed. She was 
 alone, and signed to him to sit down. He drew 
 up a chair, but she begged him in a nervous 
 tone not to sit so near. 
 
 She told him that she could never live with 
 him as his wife. She evaded giving any defi- 
 nite or comprehensible reason for this decision, 
 but said that any attempt to fulfil her marriage 
 duties would, she was well convinced, result in 
 her death. He pressed her energetically to be 
 more explicit; she became pitifully agitated, 
 and the words that fell from her seemed to 
 mean, if they meant anything, that she fancied 
 herself to have committed some hideous crime, 
 and that she had received a warning from the 
 grave. He expostulated, entreated, even 
 stormed and raged, in vain. He swore that he 
 
The Professor's' Sister. 147 
 
 would take her with him by force, at which 
 she burst into an hysteric laugh, and 
 asked him if he were stronger than death ? 
 Later, she offered to make any arrangement as 
 regarded money matters that he chose to sug- 
 gest, even to surrendering three-fourths of her 
 furtune; but with this Burlace would have 
 nothing to do. He would have her, or noth- 
 ing. He left her at last, she being in a condi- 
 tion of semi-collapse, and he in a frame of mind 
 half way between the murderous and the sui- 
 cidal. He rambled about the streets all day 
 and night ; the morning following he came 
 back to the house, determined to enforce his 
 rights. 
 
 He was met by Conrad, who told him that 
 Catalina had left Dresden. He said that he 
 believed her mind was affected ; that she ap- 
 peared to imagine she was haunted, or pur- 
 sued by a malignant spirit. " So far as I 
 can make out," Conrad had added, " she has 
 got a notion that she was somehow instrumen- 
 tal in bringing about the death of my sister 
 Hildegarde, and she goes so for as to allude to 
 you as if you were her accomplice in the affair. 
 It is ridiculous, of course ; and her adhering to 
 it is evidence of her mental unsoundness." 
 Conrad had gone on to say that Catalina had 
 extracted a promise from him not to reveal to 
 
148 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 Burlace the place of her retreat j but he held 
 out hopes that she would, if allowed to remain 
 in quiet for a while, regain her equipoise, and 
 that their married felicity would then resume 
 an uninterrupted course. Burlace, utterly 
 worn out in brain and body, was unable to 
 struggle any longer ; he gave Conrad an ad- 
 dress where to write to him in case of any 
 favorable change ; then he threw himself into 
 a train and came to London. 
 
 " And I've been here ever since," he added, 
 emptying his fourth glass of Hollands, and 
 staring sullenly at the dregs in the bottom. 
 " But I understand the whole damned swindle 
 now. She was in love with that fellow Ralph 
 Merlin, and she is scheming to get him. It's 
 all very clever and cunning. Maybe she did 
 murder Hildegarde ; I remember she came one 
 day to look through my microscope ; and there 
 was some stuff about that would have poisoned 
 half Dresden, and no one the wiser. The girl 
 was in h,er way, and it would be natural 
 enough. I don't know where Ralph is ; but if 
 ever I find that he has been within reach of 
 her I'll squeeze the life out of her white throat 
 with these fingers of mine ! " He held them 
 up before me, in his sullen, drunken rage. 
 "But all that about her being haunted, and 
 her fainting and shrieking, that was all lies 
 
The Professor's Sister. 149 
 
 and humbug. They have made a fool of me 
 between 'em; but the end has not come yet. 
 Look here ! do you know where Ralph is ? " 
 
 He thrust his face abruptly into mine as he 
 asked the question, as if he were ready to sus- 
 pect me of being in the "plot" against him. 
 Although I did not attach much weight to his 
 maunderings, and was rather disposed to think 
 that a dose of Ralph might prove a good thing 
 for him, I prevaricated to the extent of re- 
 minding him that Ralph's death had been re- 
 ported a year ago, and that if he had returned 
 to life since, I had seen no mention of it in the 
 newspapers. But Burlace had by this time 
 lost the faculty of holding a consecutive train 
 of thought ; he diverged on one topic after an- 
 other, and finally broke into sobs, and called 
 me to witness how he worshipped Catalina. 
 " I don't care what she did," he cried, sticking 
 his big knuckles in his eyes, like a schoolboy ; 
 " if she had cut the girl's throat with a carving- 
 knife, I'd have married her just as quick. I 
 love her; and when that's said, everything's 
 said isn't it? She might be as wicked as 
 she likes ; what's wickedness ? What's moral- 
 ity, I'd like to know ! Do you remember my 
 thermometer? I believe in nothing; you 
 know that ; not in God nor Devil. But I 
 loved that woman as no one else ever loved 
 
150 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 her, or ever will. She'll find it out some day. 
 I'd have stood by her in anything, 110 matter 
 what good or bad. I'm a good fellow, too, 
 or I was, before this happened. I'm a drunk- 
 ard and a good-for-nothing loafer now; I know 
 that as well as you do ; and she did it. Well, 
 that's all right. Have some more gin ? Where 
 are you stopping here ? " 
 
 I gave him my address, not expecting him 
 to remember it, and soon after left him. What 
 he had said of himself was true ; he was a man 
 of good natural abilities, and no mean accom- 
 plishments. But he believed in nothing; and 
 therefore a woman had been able to ruin him. 
 
 A few days later I received a letter from 
 Ralph, with the Dresden post-mark. "Come 
 here as soon as you can leave your business," he 
 wrote. " I have seen Conrad ; in fact he met 
 me at the train, and seemed to have known I 
 was coming. You know his foible is to seem 
 to know everything beforehand ; and certainly 
 he has queer gifts. I have told him nothing of 
 my experience ; but some things he has said 
 appear to indicate that he is somehow cogni- 
 zant of it. I believe Catalina is in Dresden, 
 or not far away from it ; I have not seen her, 
 and don't suppose I shall. Conrad tells me she 
 was married to Burlace, but has never lived 
 with him ; I don't know the reason of either 
 
The Professor's Sister. 151 
 
 fact. Next week, Conrad intends to have some 
 sort of a reception at his house. I have a no- 
 tion that this occasion will have an especial 
 significance for me ; and I want you to be 
 present." After alluding to some other sub- 
 jects, he said, "I have had no visions since ar- 
 riving here ; but nevertheless there has been a 
 constant sense of Hildegarde's proximity. I 
 feel as if I should learn more about her soon ; 
 and yet I feel as if it might be best, both for 
 her and for me, if I left Dresden at once and 
 forever. But if so, I lack the resolution to act 
 upon the impression. I shall see the matter to 
 its end, let it issue how it will. And I depend 
 on you." 
 
 I arrived in Dresden on the morning of the 
 day of Conrad's proposed reception. I was 
 driven to the Hotel Bellevue ; but finding it 
 full, I told the kutscher to take me to the Hotel 
 de Saxe. There, somewhat to my perplexity, 
 I found rooms already engaged for me, and a 
 note from Conrad, asking me to give him the 
 pleasure of my company that evening. 
 
152 The Professors Sister. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN EXPERIMENT. 
 
 THE time appointed for me to present myself 
 at Conrad's was an hour or so earlier than for 
 the other guests ; and when I entered I found 
 only him and Ralph. I had met the hitter 
 earlier in the day. Conrad greeted me with 
 much cordiality. 
 
 "Ralph and I have heen at our old work," 
 he said, laughing ; " we have resumed our duel 
 in the realms of the transcendental. My con- 
 viction is that life has a much closer relation to 
 the body than extremists on the other side are 
 willing to admit. The body, we are agreed, is 
 the direct creation of the soul, and only indi- 
 rectly that of God I am availing myself of 
 my opponent's terminology whose proper ac- 
 tivity begins and ends with the soul only. 
 God produces 'only what is, namely: man the 
 spirit; and His creative attitude towards this 
 spirit results in what appears to be, namely : 
 the body of man, and the rest of the material 
 universe. Now, my point is this : what we 
 call the mortal life of a person is the persist- 
 ence, for a certain period in the case of that 
 
The Professor's Sister. 153 
 
 person, of this result of a creative attitude 
 which is permanent as regards mankind at 
 large. In other words, though man is con- 
 stantly incarnate, individual human beings are 
 constantly disincarnating, or, as we say, dying. 
 The question, then, arises, what is the cause 
 of this individual disincar nation, and can it be 
 arrested ? " 
 
 " Individuals die, because individuals are 
 born," said Ralph. " Mankind does not die, 
 because there was never a time when it did not 
 exist." 
 
 "Conceding that for the moment," returned 
 Conrad, "the more practical problem remains, 
 can death be arrested ? If the body only 
 seems to be, at best, why may not that seeming 
 be indefinitely prolonged ? Is it not true that 
 death is, essentially, a change in the soul, 
 the arrival of a moment when one phase of its 
 activity terminates, and another phase begins? 
 Evidently, then, if we wish to postpone death, 
 we must direct our efforts first to the soul. 
 We must devise some means by which the soul 
 can be induced or compelled to delay entering 
 upon its second phase, and to continue in its 
 first or physical one. Are you bold enough to 
 affirm that such a fact is beyond the skill of 
 human science ? " 
 
 " Suppose the body to have been blown to 
 
154 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 atoms by an explosion," I began ; but he inter- 
 rupted me with a laugh. 
 
 "I admit technical difficulties in such a 
 case," said he ; " though less, perhaps, as re- 
 gards the physical than the spiritual predica- 
 ment ; for do not our friends, the spiritualists, 
 tell us tales about ' materializing 7 spirits? 
 But take the case that the body, at the moment 
 of the change, is substantially sound, though 
 (let us say) it has been attacked by a fatal dis- 
 ease, or, to speak more philosophically, the 
 soul has suffered from certain delusions which 
 are reflected on the physical plane as derange- 
 ment of bodily function, or disintegration of 
 tissue. My contention would be that the cor- 
 rection of this delusion would restore the soul 
 (and as a corollary the body) to a normal state, 
 and re-establish physical life." 
 
 "Well," said Ralph and he threw a pecu- 
 liar glance at me as he spoke " that seems to 
 be a sufficiently ingenious theory. Have you 
 any practical illustrations to adduce in support 
 of it?" 
 
 " It is hardly fair to tempt me to discredit 
 my good logic with imperfect facts," returned 
 Conrad, laughing again ; "but are you really 
 desirous to push the matter to a test ? " 
 
 " To be frank with you," Ralph rejoined, 
 "I do desire it, and I do not. If such a thing 
 
The Professor's Sister. 155 
 
 as you propose can be done, I hold it to be a 
 profanation of the most unmitigated sort, the 
 black art in its worst form. At the same time, 
 I am weak enough to put you to the proof ; if 
 you can do it, let it be done." 
 
 "Your invitation might be more cordial," 
 remarked Conrad, lightly. " As to the black 
 art, my dear Ralph, you know it is not at all 
 in my line. My investigations, such as they 
 are, have been strictly on the lines laid down 
 oy Nature. I am only a beginner in science 5 
 but I think I have one advantage over scientific 
 men in general, in that I recognize and make 
 my account with both sides of Nature, instead 
 of with the physical side exclusively. Study 
 of the one throws light upon the other, and 
 speculations on the spirit suggest experiments 
 on the body. But you shall judge for your- 
 self; and, by the way, I have a right to expect 
 indulgence in this case, from you especially. 
 Step into my study." 
 
 He led the way, and we followed. The pen- 
 tagonal chamber looked much as it did when I 
 had seen it last ; but now a handsome antique 
 chest of carved oak rested upon the iron pen- 
 tagon beneath the great magnet. It was se- 
 cured by three massive locks. 
 
 " This chest," observed Conrad, " has not 
 been opened since I closed it nearly two years 
 
156 The Professors Sister. 
 
 ago. You have only my word for this ; but I 
 will say that I have no object in deceiving 
 you. Here are the keys," he added, taking 
 them from a hook on the wall ; " will you 
 oblige me, Ralph, by unlocking the thing, and 
 lifting the lid ? " 
 
 Ralph hesitated a moment, as if summoning 
 his resolution. Then he took the keys from 
 Conrad's hand, and turned them, one after the 
 other, in the locks. After another pause, he 
 grasped the edges of the lid with both hands, 
 and flung it back with such violence that it 
 was torn from its hinges, and fell with a crash 
 to the floor. A powerful aromatic odor imme- 
 diately filled the room. 
 
 The coffer was filled to the brim with some 
 substance resembling amber, in pieces about 
 the size of a raisin. It was from this, appar- 
 ently, that the pleasant odor emanated. But 
 what struck me particularly was the fact that 
 this odor, though much stronger, was the same 
 that I had noticed in my room in New York, 
 at the time wnen Ralph was visited by the 
 vision of Hildegarde ; and I perceived that 
 Ralph recognized it also, and his face flushed 
 red. He looked at Conrad with a sort of 
 fierceness. 
 
 " What is this ? " he demanded. Play me 
 no tricks." 
 
The Professor's Sister. 157 
 
 tc It's merely a variety of aromatic gum," re- 
 turned Conrad, in a matter-of-fact tone, "which 
 I placed here on account of its purifying and 
 preservative qualities. It lies, as you see, in a 
 shallow tray, and can be removed without 
 trouble." He suited the action to the word, 
 lifting out the tray, which he laid to one side. 
 The space beneath appeared to be closely 
 packed with folded cloths, of the texture of fine 
 lawn, and having a pale, yellow hue, probably 
 due to some solution in which they had been 
 steeped. As Ralph remained motionless, Con- 
 rad proceeded to remove these cloths one by 
 one, until he had uncovered a long object, of 
 roughly cylindrical shape, swathed in a cover- 
 ing of heavy linen, sew^n up lengthwise down 
 the centre. Its outlines conveyed the sugges- 
 tion of the human form. 
 
 " Have either of you a pen-knife ? " inquired 
 Conrad. " We shall have to rip open this cov- 
 ering in order to come at what is inside." 
 
 Ralph still made no sign. I took my knife 
 from my pocket, and, at a nod from Conrad, 
 cut the thread of the seam from end to end. 
 The covering fell apart. 
 
 There was a filling of dried rose leaves 
 within ; but these sifted down on either side, 
 and revealed what, of course, I had all along 
 expected to see the pure, pale countenance of 
 Hildegarde. 
 
158 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 "What do you think?" said Conrad, ap- 
 pealing to me, as a sculptor might ask my opin- 
 ion of his statue. "I can see no change ; can 
 you ? " 
 
 "None! "said I. 
 
 And, indeed, after the lapse of these two 
 years, she seemed as fresh and untouched as 
 on the day when she stood beside Ralph as his 
 betrothed wife. The skin seemed soft and 
 pliant ; the long eyelashes, resting on the 
 cheeks, needed but a thought to lift them ; and 
 the curved line between the lips would melt at 
 a breath. And yet, for two years, no breath 
 had passed them, nor had any light visited the 
 eyes. 
 
 " What say you, my friend ? " asked Conrad, 
 regarding Ralph curiously. 
 
 " It is a wonderful piece of work," he re- 
 turned, in a measured voice. "Not so warm 
 as a painting, nor so ideal as sculpture ; but 
 the Egyptians themselves could not have done 
 better. Of what use is it ? " 
 
 " Her soul might find a use for it," remarked 
 the other, with a smile. 
 
 " What God has parted cannot be reunited," 
 said Ralph, coldly. 
 
 " But you loved her, did you not ? and love, 
 if all reports be true, is stronger than death. 
 Will you test the proverb ? " 
 
The Professor's Sister. 159 
 
 " Xo ; not even if I knew that love could 
 work the miracle. She and I will meet here- 
 after ; hut I should not deserve her love if, for 
 the sake of comforting my few years of earth, 
 I called her hack from heaven." 
 
 These words were spoken in a low voice, 
 weighted with emotion ; and as he spoke, he 
 turned away. 
 
 Conrad shrugged his shoulders. "That is 
 well said, Ralph," he observed ; "but, after all, 
 you are moralizing over what you believe to be 
 an impossibility. If you were convinced that 
 she would rise up at your word, like Lazarus 
 in the New Testament, I fancy the word would 
 not be wanting. Well, then, since love refuses, 
 let us see what science can do ! I have more 
 faith than you, though this is an experiment 
 based, hitherto, upon theory alone." 
 
 He stepped to the upper corner of the room 
 and touched a small disk embedded there ; and 
 immediately there followed a gentle whispering 
 sound which I dimly remembered, and the 
 great magnet began to discharge its vital en- 
 ergy. The invisible current swept downwards 
 on the peaceful face beneath it ; and we, who 
 stood apart, felt something of the exhilarating 
 coolness. The dried leaves of the roses that 
 were heaped along the sides of the figure were 
 stirred ; and it seemed to me that some of 
 
160 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 them lost their dryness, and that their original 
 softness and color came back to them. 
 
 Conrad kept his strange eyes riveted on the 
 face in the coffer with an intensity of gaze that 
 almost seemed to emit a visible ray. [Ralph's 
 eyes were downcast, and partly averted ; but 
 he was evidently struggling against a terrible 
 attraction ; the tender, human instincts of his 
 nature were fighting against the barrier of 
 principle and reason. Time both flies and 
 stands still at such junctures ; the great mag- 
 net vibrated ; and now it was beyond doubt 
 that some of the petals of the roses were as 
 fresh as when first shaken from the stem. But 
 the peaceful face was peaceful and unresponsive 
 still. 
 
 Those moments of suspense were exhaust- 
 ing, even to me, who was but an onlooker. The 
 possibility that hung in the balance was of 
 such gigantic significance the very meaning 
 of human existence seeming to hinge upon it 
 that the mind shrank from contemplating it. 
 And now that the experiment had gone so far, 
 success and failure appeared alike terrible. 
 
 Suddenly Conrad raised both his arms, with 
 the hands open and prone, and brought them 
 downwards, and then again upwards, with a 
 slow, sweeping movement. He was standing 
 near the foot of the coffer, so that the gesture 
 
The Professors Sister. 161 
 
 was as if he had caught some invisible sub- 
 stance in the air, and driven it over the dead 
 girl, from her feet to her head. He repeated 
 this gesture three times ; and at the same mo- 
 ment the discharge from the magnet ceased, 
 the rushing sound was heard no more, and the 
 chamber became as still as an Egyptian tomb 
 in the heart of a hill. 
 
 Conrad's arms fell to his sides ; he shivered, 
 and a grayish pallor crept over his features, in 
 which appeared lines that made him look like 
 an old man. The experiment, then, had failed. 
 
 Ralph raised his head and looked sternly 
 and scornfully at him. " You yourself deserve 
 to die," he said; "but you have dragged me 
 into your own humiliation, and I am not wor- 
 thy to inflict your punishment." 
 
 Conrad cast a haggard glance at the corpse. 
 
 " I would gladly have died to succeed," he 
 muttered. 
 
 "Be thankful that you did not succeed; 
 what are you, or any man, to turn law into 
 chaos, and gain a victory over Nature ! " 
 
 But, all in an instant, an electric shock 
 seemed to run through Conrad, and set his soul 
 on fire. An awful ecstasy of triumph glared 
 out of his face. His hair bristled on his head, 
 and he gnashed his teeth together. 
 
 " See ! see ! " he shrieked, tossing his arms 
 
162 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 alof fc and stamping his feet on the floor. " I 
 have not failed ! She lives ! she lives ! Ha ! 
 ha ! ha ! Ralph Ralph Merlin ! Whose is 
 the victory now ! " 
 
 Ralph stepped forward, and Lent a long look 
 into the coffer. Then he grasped Conrad with 
 hands of iron. 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! " he said, in a deep voice. 
 " If God has permitted this thing, let us meet 
 it with reverence ; it may mean the greatest 
 blessing, or the greatest curse, of time ! " 
 
 And even as he spoke, Hildegarde opened 
 her eyes, and sat erect. She seemed per- 
 plexed ; but, meeting Ralph's eyes, she smiled 
 as if reassured. 
 
The Professor's Sister. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OX ONE CONDITION. 
 
 THE emotion of wonder is one of the most 
 vehement of all ; and it is also one of the most 
 transitory. Imagination revels in it, but the 
 mind cannot tolerate it; and no sooner has a 
 marvel taken place, than we compel it, willy- 
 nilly, into some sort of accordance with the 
 routine of experience. If we could not do this, 
 we should probably lose our reason altogether. 
 Nature abhors not a vacuum more than does 
 human nature a miracle. 
 
 That first sharp stab of amazement, when my 
 eyes saw her who had lain dead for two years 
 return to life, lasted but a few blind moments. 
 It took but those few moments for me to raise 
 and readjust my whole conception of law and 
 order. Law and order still existed, and were 
 as immutable as ever ; it was my view of them 
 that had changed. By the time Hildegarde 
 had gained her feet, and had uttered the first 
 few words of her new life., I had accommodated 
 
164 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 myself to the situation, and nothing remained 
 but the agreeable excitement of an interesting 
 novelty. 
 
 Of course other elements entered into the 
 emotions of Ralph and Conrad, to whom the 
 event was quite as much personal as general in 
 its bearings. But it was at once perceived by 
 all of us that Hildegarde must be introduced 
 only by the most circumspect degrees to the 
 knowledge of what had befallen her ; and for a 
 while we were sufficiently occupied in parrying 
 her questions and managing her curiosity. 
 She remembered having been taken suddenly 
 ill ; she recalled a darkened room and the 
 hushed voice of nurses ; and the last circum- 
 stance in her recollection was of Conrad's say- 
 ing to her, " Now, I will put you to sleep." 
 He had several times exercised this power over 
 her, and she had soon felt herself succumbing 
 to the influence. The rest was a blank. But 
 how had she got into that box ? what were the 
 rose-leaves there for ? and how happened it 
 that Ralph, in the space of a few hours, had 
 contrived to grow a beard and to get gray 
 hairs ? These things required explanation ; 
 and who was to explain them ? 
 
 " That was a good sleep you gave me, Con- 
 rad," she remarked. " I was very ill before ; 
 I thought I might be going to die ; but now I 
 
The Professor's Sister. 165 
 
 am better and stronger than I ever was ; and 
 all in such a little while ! " 
 
 What is a little while ? What a thing time 
 is, to be sure ! 
 
 It was moving to observe Ralph's profound 
 preoccupation with her, his tremulous, almost 
 speechless emotion, and her happy uncon- 
 sciousness of anything stranger than his beard. 
 No shadow remained on her inind of the great 
 gulf which she had crossed, and crossed again. 
 She had brought with her no tidings of the 
 other world ; and yet she had been there, and 
 had experienced what no other human being 
 had done. 
 
 Conrad had drawn Ralph aside, and con- 
 versed with him a few minutes ; and then he 
 beckoned to me, and I followed him out of the 
 room. 
 
 We may as well leave the lovers to explain 
 themselves to each other," he said. He had 
 quite recovered from the wild burst of excite- 
 ment with which he had greeted the success of 
 his experiment, just when all had seemed to be 
 lost. " I may as well tell you," he went on, 
 tl that I have made all arrangements to have 
 them married this evening. There are several 
 reasons for this, and at all events their be- 
 trothal has lasted quite long enough. The 
 guests will be here in a few minutes. To 
 
166 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 avoid complications, I have invited only such 
 persons as are unacquainted with the peculiar 
 circumstances, and have heard nothing of my 
 sister's reputed death." 
 
 " Did she die, indeed ? " I asked. 
 
 "Really, my dear fellow, I can hardly tell 
 you. According to all precedent she did. But 
 you shall hear just how the matter stands. 
 Catalina, as you have no doubt surmised, under 
 cover of scientific curiosity, visited Burlace in 
 his laboratory, and secured some of the micro- 
 scopic germs that he was investigating. Noth- 
 ing is easier than to administer these germs in 
 the food or drink ; and neither the victim nor 
 the physician can prove that a crime has been 
 committed; a disease has established itself, 
 and it runs its course, which, in this instance, 
 was bound to be fatal ; but there is no trace of 
 murder outside the mind of the murderer. 
 
 "After making trial of all recognized means 
 of combatting the disease, I saw that the girl 
 must die. Then I resolved to put to the test a 
 theory which 1 had speculated upon long be- 
 fore. I waited until she was almost in the act 
 of death ; another ten minutes would have 
 seen the end. I had magnetized her several 
 times previously, both to relieve small ailments 
 to which she was occasionally subject, and 
 also, now and then, for certain purposes of my 
 own. Therefore she was completely under 
 
The Professor's Sister. 167 
 
 what is called my magnetic control. I put forth 
 the influence, and though there was more re- 
 sistance on her part than I had expected to 
 find, she yielded at last, and fell into the 
 trance. 
 
 "I argued that as long as she remained in 
 this condition which, to one unfamiliar with 
 its peculiar symptoms, is indistinguishable 
 from death the action of the poison on her 
 system would be arrested. And not only might 
 it be arrested ; it might, after a certain lapse 
 of time, disappear altogether, the germs them- 
 selves becoming devoid of life. As to this 
 last, however, I was probably mistaken. My 
 subsequent study of the germs tends to show 
 that they are practically indestructible, once 
 they have got a lodgment in the body. But 
 be that as it may, I was perfectly successful in 
 the other matter. The progress of the disease 
 stopped short at the instant she fell into the 
 trance ; and it has remained inactive from that 
 day to this." 
 
 "You have kept her in a trance for two 
 years ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; and she might have continued 
 so indefinitely. Meanwhile, she was pro- 
 nounced dead ; her body was put in the coffin, 
 and her funera\ was duly solemnized. A few 
 weeks later, without attracting any attention, 
 
168 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 I had her conveyed to my rooms, and placed 
 her in the coffer where you saw her to day. 
 She has lain there ever since. You saw what 
 occurred this evening. And that, in brief, is 
 the history of the case." 
 
 It was a strange history ; but it seemed to 
 me that the strangest features of it had been 
 omitted, and that Conrad was designedly slur- 
 ring over these features. What about the ap- 
 parition that I had seen emerge from behind 
 the black curtain in the pentagonal chamber ? 
 And what of those visitations which had guided 
 Ralph from the centre of Africa round the 
 world ? Nor was I by any means satisfied 
 that an ordinary trance would present the 
 same characteristics as this of Hildegarde's. 
 The body would dry up and perish in much 
 less time than two years. 
 
 When I questioned Conrad on these points, 
 he answered somewhat evasively. 
 
 " The phenomena you speak of were proba- 
 bly entirely imaginary," he said. "At all 
 events, how can there be any connection be- 
 tween them and the experiment I was describ- 
 ing ? 
 
 " I don't know what the connection is, but 
 there is one ; and I believe that it was of your 
 making. I have not forgotten Schandau." 
 
 "You must bear in mind that very little is 
 
The Professor's Sister. 169 
 
 understood of the real nature of trance," he 
 finally remarked. " The body is wholly quies- 
 cent, but the spirit and the principles interme- 
 diate between that and the body may possess a 
 greater freedom and activity than before. 
 Nothing would be dispersed or dissipated, as is 
 the case in actual death ; but a being would 
 exist in the astral light, possessing some qual- 
 ities nearly allied to the physical, and yet 
 capable of passing from place to place with the 
 rapidity and docility of thought. Now, there 
 seems to be a special relation between the 
 trance-being and the will or thoughts of the 
 magnetizer. Possibly it retains no will of 
 its own, or but little. In that case it 
 would be in a measure subject to the will 
 and thought of the magnetizer, when strong- 
 ly concentrated and exerted, and would be 
 present in any place on \ hich his attention 
 was fixed. But really, the whole question is 
 so obscure that I am perplexed about it my- 
 self. As to the condition of the body after so 
 long a lapse of time, I may fairly take some 
 credit to myself for it," he added, with a smile. 
 That affair of the magnet and pentagon is an 
 invention, or at least an adaptation, of my own. 
 Some elements enter into its construction that 
 do not appear on the surface ; and you have 
 felt as well as seen something of its powers. Of 
 
170 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 course it was not that that restored Hildegarde 
 to life, or, if you prefer it, roused her from 
 her trance. Its effect was physical merely ; it 
 refreshed the body, and prepared it for its in- 
 habitant. It was by reversing the passes that 
 had entranced her, that I succeeded in bring- 
 ing her round, though I confess there was a 
 moment when I felt a trifle uneasy over the 
 result." 
 
 " I fancied you looked a little bit put out 
 just then ; though I thought you seemed 
 pleased just afterwards. But there is one 
 thing about this business, Conrad," I added, 
 dropping the ironic vein, "that seems to me 
 to counterbalance all you have gained. The 
 germs of the poison, you say, cannot be de- 
 stroyed. If that be so, Hildegarde has only a 
 reprieve. The return of life will be to her but 
 a return of death, and the more tragic because 
 it is a return. In how many days, or hours, 
 this will come to pass, you probably know bet- 
 ter than I ; but if you have not provided 
 against it, I den't know why you are not a 
 worse murderer than Catalina." 
 
 " I have had it under consideration con- 
 stantly almost since the first," he returned, 
 rather gloomily ; and though I have not quite 
 cleared up the difficulty, yet, I have at least 
 ensured the prolongation of Hildegarde's life 
 
The Professor's Sister. 171 
 
 indefinitely, provided that she observes cer- 
 tain easy conditions." 
 
 " What are they ? " 
 
 "They involve only her remaining always 
 within a few hours' journey of this place. The 
 poison in her system is not likely to be quies- 
 cent more than two or three days ; and as soon 
 as it begins to act, she must again be thrown 
 into the trance, and afterwards subjected to the 
 influence of the great magnet. This treatment 
 is indispensable, and it will probably have to 
 be repeated at regular intervals. But the an- 
 noyance is slight, and, in view of the result, I 
 don't imagine that either she or Ralph will ob- 
 ject. And now,' 7 he broke off, " our guests are 
 beginning to arrive. The clergyman will be 
 here immediately, and I must prepare the lov- 
 ers for the happiness in store for them." 
 
 He went out, and left me to my meditations, 
 which were not of an entirely roseate hue. I 
 had acquired the impression that Conrad had 
 some ulterior end in view in all this, which was 
 not of a wholly unselfish character, and it 
 seemed to me that the necessity of constantly 
 renewing Hildegarde's vitality, and of subject- 
 ing her at such short intervals to the absolute 
 control of her brother, might prove more irk- 
 some than he seemed to anticipate. But I 
 tried to hope for the best. 
 
172 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 In the drawing-room several persons were 
 already assembled. I had met none of them 
 before, and it was evident that they had 
 been summoned chiefly to act as witnesses of 
 what was about to take place. Conrad entered, 
 escorting the clergyman, a youngish man, with 
 an amiable and feeble face. A lawyer was also 
 in attendance to oversee the preparation and 
 signing of the marriage contract. Finally 
 Ralph came in, with Hildegarde on his arm. 
 
 I presume that Hildegarde had by this time 
 been made acquainted with the facts of her 
 condition. Her face, always extremely sensi- 
 tive in reflecting the states of her spirit, wore 
 an expression of wistful solemnity, tempered 
 with the tenderness of an exalted love, that 
 somehow brought tears to my eyes. Ralph, on 
 the other hand, had a look about him that was 
 quite new to me, and that I did not altogether 
 like. The color in his face was warm, and his 
 eyes lively and bright ; a smile hovered con- 
 stantly about his mouth, and he kept looking 
 at Hilde garde with glances that were not 
 merely lover-like, but idolatrous, and even 
 seemed to express a sensuousness of feeling 
 that was out of keeping with my friend's depth 
 and gravity of character He rather avoided 
 my eye, and when I congratulated him, he 
 said, "We owe everything to Conrad. Science 
 
The Professor's Sister. 173 
 
 and humanity ought to unite in canonizing 
 that man. I can never excuse myself for the 
 way in which I spoke to him to-day. But I 
 see the error of my way, and am not likely to 
 make such an ass of myself again. Is not the 
 mere flesh and blood of such a woman as that 
 worth a thousand souls ? " 
 
 "Is she immortal ? " returned I. 
 
 " What is immortality ? " said he, with a 
 short laugh. "We know what is, but who 
 can tell what may be ? " 
 
 The clergyman advanced ; the couple took 
 their places beside each other ; the guests 
 gathered round, and the words of the covenant 
 were uttered. Conrad stood behind the bride, 
 and as the ceremony ended his figure seemed 
 to grow taller and dilate, as if some long-de- 
 sired triumph had at last been won. What 
 was the meaning of it ? 
 
 The papers remained to be signed. Ralph 
 wrote his name first. Then Hildegarde took 
 the pen in her hand. As she laid it down 
 again, having affixed her signature, the door 
 at the end of the room opened, and Catalina 
 entered. 
 
174 The Professors Sister. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 HER appearance was entirely unexpected by 
 everybody save Conrad ; his face at once took 
 on an expression of malicious satisfaction. And 
 in a moment I realized the whole significance 
 of the event. He had inflicted upon this 
 woman a revenge as ingenious as it was over- 
 whelming. 
 
 Having first convinced her of Hildegarde's 
 death, at the same time leading her to suppose 
 that he was wholly unsuspicious of her agency 
 in it, he had put her in a position where she 
 fancied herself free to marry without prejudice 
 to the terms of her husband's will. The mo- 
 tives that induced her to yield to Burlace's 
 suit, though l9ve could scarcely have been one 
 of them, were still urgent enough to make the 
 act comprehensible. But it was not a part of 
 Conrad's scheme to permit her to profit by 
 Burlace's protection. Whether he had any 
 hand in the mysterious occurrences that kept 
 them apart, and what, precisely, those occur- 
 
The Professor's /Sister. 175 
 
 rences were, you can probably conjecture as 
 easily as I. 
 
 But Hlldegarde was not dead; she was 
 alive ; and she was not separated forever from 
 Ralph ; she was his wife. Therefore, not only 
 was Catalina deprived of her fortune and 
 thrown helpless on the world, but she was com- 
 pelled to behold her rival's triumph and felicity, 
 which she had staked and lost her own salva- 
 tion to prevent. 
 
 She did not at first see Hildegarde, and Con- 
 rad immediately stepped forward to greet her 
 with a great manifestation of cordiality. He 
 held her in conversation for a few minutes, and 
 then led her up the room, saying, in a voice 
 that all might hear : 
 
 " Ralph, and Mrs. Merlin, our celebration 
 would have been incomplete if my step-mother 
 had not kindly consented to come and offer you 
 her congratulations." 
 
 Catalina stopped short, as if she had run 
 against a wall in the dark. Her black eyes 
 wavered for a moment, but finally fixed them- 
 selves upon Hildegarde in a ghastly stare. Then, 
 with her hands outstretched, she drew nearer, 
 step by step. Her face, though beautiful still, 
 was awful to look upon at that crisis. She had 
 not passed unscathed through these two years; 
 there were lines around her mouth and beneath 
 
176 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 her eyes that suggested tortured nerves, and 
 vain attempts to drug them into insensibility. 
 And these traces were dreadfully emphasized 
 by the emotion of the juncture. 
 
 She crept toward her rival as if controlled 
 by a mixture of terror and desperate curiosity. 
 At length, when within arm's reach, she 
 doubtfully extended one hand, until the trem- 
 bling finger-tips came in contact with Hilde- 
 garde's shoulder. Probably she had imagined 
 that the girl was but a spectre, and would van- 
 ish at a touch. Had Conrad, then, made this 
 innocent spirit the helpless instrument of his 
 malignity ? 
 
 But when Catalina realized that here was no 
 spectral illusion, but actual flesh and blood, she 
 emitted a sharp breathing sound from her 
 throat, and fell back a step, pressing her hands 
 against her temples. Her eyes rolled in their 
 sockets. After standing so for a while, she be- 
 gan to laugh softly. Oh, surely the cruelest 
 vengeance might have been sated by that pite- 
 ous spectacle'! The shock and bewilderment 
 had been too great for her already failing 
 nerves, and she was going mad before our 
 eyes. 
 
 The deep absorption of this episode had kept 
 our attention from a confused nqise outside the 
 door. But now the door was flung open, anc[ 
 
The Professor's Sister. 177 
 
 a heavily-built man, hatless, with disordered 
 dress and flushed face, half staggered and half 
 stalked into the room. It was Will Burlace, 
 savage with drink, and with a passion smoul- 
 dering in his bloodshot eyes that was not due 
 to drink alone. How had he come there ? He 
 must have followed me secretly from London, 
 his morbid suspicions having suggested some 
 new plot on foot against him. His glance 
 singled out Catalina at once, and Ralph stand- 
 ing near her ; and it was plain that he deemed 
 his suspicions fully justified. 
 
 " I knew where I should find you, and how I 
 should find you," he said, as he came towards 
 his wife. "You thought you could pull the 
 wool over my eyes, but I'm not such a fool. 
 I'll settle with you now. You wouldn't give 
 an honest man your heart, but I'll cut it out of 
 your white body, my dear ! " 
 
 It was doing Ralph injustice ; but so it was, 
 that he was the last man whom I expected to 
 see step forward to protect Catalina. And yet 
 he was the only one who would. Burlace had 
 a knife in his hand. Catalina lacked either 
 the intelligence or the will to try to escape. 
 Ealph caught the wrist of Burlace's right 
 hand, which held the knife; and instantly 
 they were engaged in a desperate struggle. 
 
 It recalled to my memory that tussle of 
 
178 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 theirs, years ago ; but that was in play, and 
 this was deadly earnest. Burlace, besides his 
 superior weight, had the fury of his jealous 
 and murderous rage to enforce him ; Ralph 
 seemed to me somewhat less quick and supple 
 than of yore, and twice or thrice I saw him 
 wince, as if from a sharp pain. I had forgot 
 the assegai wound that he had received in 
 Africa. 
 
 Burlace bore him back, and I thought he 
 was overcome. But, by a feint, Ralph threw 
 him off his balance ; and then, in a flash, the 
 knife flew from the other's hand ; the two 
 whirled round, and came to the floor with a 
 crash that shook the room. Burlace was un- 
 dermost, and lie lay stunned. Ralph rose, but 
 painfully, with a pallid face, and pressing his 
 hand against his side. His old wound had 
 opened, and he was bleeding internally. 
 
 He lay in great suffering all that night ; and 
 the next morning it was evident that he must 
 die. Hildegarde did not leave him, and it 
 seemed to me that as his strength failed, she 
 also drooped and faded. She looked thin and 
 frail, and her flesh was almost transparent. 
 But the love in her eyes glowed stronger than 
 
The Professor's Sister. 179 
 
 ever, and instead of grief, she appeared to be 
 inspired with an inward spiritual joy. 
 
 Conrad had been observing her critically; 
 and at length he told Ralph plainly that the 
 old poison had already recommenced its fatal 
 work on her, and that it would be necessary to 
 apply the remedy without delay. Ralph took 
 her hand in his, and regarded her steadily. 
 " You hear what your brother says ? " he said. 
 
 " All is well with us," she replied ; " I want 
 no change." 
 
 "But your life depends upon it, Hilde- 
 garde." 
 
 " No not my life," answered she. 
 
 " All that I have done has been for you, Hil- 
 degarde ! " Conrad exclaimed. " I have loved 
 you, I have avenged you, I have brought you 
 back to life. Will you leave me now, and ren- 
 der it all vain ? " 
 
 "I must stay with my husband," was her 
 reply. 
 
 " Let it be so, Conrad," said Ralph, at last. 
 "For my part, I am well content with this 
 conclusion. It was all wrong what you at- 
 tempted, and I acquiesced in. Had I lived, I 
 should have lowered myself, and perhaps her 
 also. There is a wisdom and kindness greater 
 than any we know of. Our little efforts to 
 gain power and wield it what do they amount 
 
180 The Professor's Sister. 
 
 to, after all ? The worst grief that Nature 
 brings us is not very grievous j but we have 
 no mercy on ourselves.' 7 
 
 " You are a fool ! " said Conrad sullenly, 
 turning away. 
 
 Kalph and Hildegarde both died that night. 
 The bodies were put in coffins, and left in the 
 pentagonal chamber. But when the bearers 
 went to remove them, it was found that Hilde- 
 garde's coffin contained only a few handf uls of 
 fragrant white dust. At first I suspected 
 Conrad of some subtle practice, but I have 
 since come to the conclusion that this was a 
 mistake. When Hildegarde's soul left her 
 body for its final flight, nothing remained that 
 could know corruption. And perhaps, during 
 her long trance, influences had been at work 
 which rendered her apparent recovery little 
 more than a sort of mirage of physical exist- 
 ence, destined to endure but for a moment and 
 then vanish forever. 
 
 But does she not live still, and Kalph with 
 her ? I would rather trust her faith on that 
 point than take my cue from Conrad, though 
 he is now one of the leaders of European 
 science. 
 
 THE 
 
BELFORD'S 
 MHGHZINE. 
 
 BONN PIATT, EDITOR. 
 
 Washington, D. C. July 16, 1888. 
 
 We have examined BELFORDS MAGAZINE; find that in its 
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 " Full of clever writing ; np to the average novel." The Globe. 
 
 The editor of iBelford's says: " It is far superior to many of the so-called novels of th 
 day." 
 
 MISS VARIAN OP NEW YORK. 
 
 By LAURA DAINTREY, author of " Bros." 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper 50 
 
 cents. 
 
 This is the Fifteenth Edition of "Miss Varian," a fact which speaks more forcibly 
 than words for its worth and interest to the novel-reading world. 
 
 By the Author of "POEMS OP PASSION." 
 
 "MAURINE," and other Poems. 
 
 By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. With Photogravure Portrait of the Author. 
 
 12mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 
 
 " Poems of Passion " sells faster than any other book of poems published. " Maurine" 
 is by the same hand and brain. The poems are as good and beautiful as those in her other 
 popular work. 
 
 STAR DUST. 
 
 A Collection of Poems. By FANNIE ISABEL SHERRICK. 12 mo. Cloth, gilt 
 $1.00. 
 
 "These Poems show great originality and an imagery which is both forcible and 
 delicate." 8t. Louis Republican. 
 
 " A gifted writer, and many of her metrically expressed thoughts will have an enduring 
 place in American Literature." Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 
 
 RENTS IN OUR ROBES. 
 
 By MRS. FRANK LESLIE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50c. 
 
 A brillant review of modern society and manners, by one of their most noted ex- 
 ponents. Sparkling sketches and essays of modern life, invested with all the charm of 
 wit, raillery, sentiment, and spontaneity which a cuLured woman of the world might be 
 expected to bestow upon such a subject. " Ren s in Our Robes " is a book that helps no less 
 than it entertains ; and perhaps no better idei of its charm can be conveyed, than in say- 
 ing that the author has put a great deal of herself into the work. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., Publishers, 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
OFF THOUGHTS ABOUT LOVE, WOMEN, AND 
 OTHER THINGS. 
 
 By SAMUEL ROCKWELL REED, of the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette. 12mo. 
 Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 The following are some of the subjects discussed in this valuable Book of Essays, 
 by one of the best writers in the country: ''Love and Marriage," "The Raby and 
 the Ballot/* * Scientific Spots on Domestic Animals," " The Married Man's Liabili- 
 ties," " The Women's Movement, 1 ' "How arid When to Die,' "Was the Creation a 
 Failure ?" " Trial by Jury a Defeat of Justice," ' Fishing and Morals," " The Converted 
 Prize-JJlghter." 
 
 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 Its Foundations Contrasted with its Superstructure. By WM. RATHBONE 
 GREG, author of " Enigmas of Life," "Literary and Social Judgments," 
 etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 SOCIALISM AND UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 By JOHN STUART MILL, author of "Principles of Political Economy," " A 
 System cf Logic," etc., etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. 
 
 Reminiscences of a Veteran Conductor. By CHARLES B. GEORGE. Illus- 
 trated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50c. 
 
 "No railroad man in the West has had more active or eventful experiences in 
 train life." Chicago Evening Journal. 
 
 " A very interesting book." Wisconsin. 
 
 "He tells it all in a very chatty, agreeable style. 1 ' Official Railway Guide. 
 
 POLITICAL ORATORY OF EMERY A. STORRS, 
 
 From Lincoln to Garfield. By ISAAC E.ADAMS. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 
 These orations cover twenty o"f the most eventful years of the nation's life, and are 
 not only valuable for their matchless eloquence, but as a rich contribution to American 
 history. They show the speaker to have had a masterly grasp of every subject he und< r- 
 took to discuss. Every oration is rich in pointed illustration, full of important declaration 
 of political principles, and sparkling throughout with genuine wit. It will be fou d to be 
 an invaluable aid to those who are called upon to deliver political addresses. Indeed, no 
 one can be thoroughly posted on the stirring political events of the last twenty yeara with- 
 out reading Mr. Storr's orations. 
 
 POEMS OF PASSION. 
 
 By ELLA WHEELER, author of " Maurine" and other poems. (27th edition.) 
 The most salable Book of Poems published this century. Small 12mo. 
 Red Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 No book during the last t?n years has created so genuine a sensation as " Poems rf 
 Passion." It required no common courage to write so boldly and so plainly of the great 
 passion of love. A part from these distinctive poems, the volume is rich in exquisite strains 
 that will insure Ella Wheeler a permanent place among American poets. 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF A SOCIETY MAN. 
 
 By BLANCHE CONSCIENCE. 12rno. Cloth, $1.25. Illustrated. 
 
 4 'The Confessions of a Society Man" can hardly be called a book for youn<* girl?, 
 though the publishers* prospectus declares it to be free of one immoral word. Also it is 
 difficult to determine whether it is the work of a man or of a woman. Rumor has it that 
 the author is a young lawyer, very prominent in the society of Philadelphia; at least, the 
 scene is laid there at first, and later on vibrates between the Quaker City, New York, 
 and the fashionable summer resorts. Whoever the author is he abandons generalizations, 
 and confines himself strictly to facts. He goes into details with a calm composure which 
 simply takes away one's breath. . . . Bom to good social position, wealthy, educated 
 partially in Europe, good-looking, well-dre?sed, well-mannered, and utterly giv^n over 
 to frivolities, he is the familiar type of the reckless man of society." New York World. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., .Publishers, 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW TORE, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
BOOKS MOST TALKED ABOUT. 
 
 EDEN. 
 
 By EDGAR SALTUS, author of " The Truth about Tristrem Varick," etc. 
 Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 In this novel Mr. Saltns describes an episode in a honeymoon. The plot is dramatic, 
 the action nervous, and the scene Fifth Avenue. As a picture of contemporaneous life it 
 will be condemned by every lover of the commonplace. 
 
 A NEW "ROMANCE OF THE 19th CENTURY," 
 
 EROS. 
 
 A Novel. By LAURA DAINTREY, author of " Miss Varian, of New York." 
 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. Strong, interesting, and 
 delightful. 
 
 MARIE. 
 
 A Seaside Episode. By J. P. RITTER, Jr. With Illustrations by Coultaus. 
 Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 In this poem, the author tell* an interesting love story in an exceedingly bright, 
 clever, and amusing fashion, that reminds one a good deal of Byron's " Beppo." Inciden- 
 tally, he patirizes society in a light vein of humor, and in a style that is graceful and epi- 
 grammatic. The volume contains over forty illustrations, and is an admirable specimen of 
 the bookmaker's art. 
 
 A NEW AND EXTRAORDINARY STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A QUIET WATEEINa PLAGE. 
 
 Being the unpremeditated Confessions of a not altogether frivolous girl (ex- 
 tracted from the private correspondence of Miss Evelyn J. Dwyer). By 
 NORA HELEN WARDDEL. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 Thirty beautiful Illustrations by Graves. 
 
 " The story is very readable." .V. Y. Sun. 
 
 "Cleverly conceived and as cleverly told, and has a dash of French flavor in it." 
 Hartford Courant. 
 
 " No American novel has been so beautifully illustrated. * * An original work, 
 bracing and piquant as Worcestershire sauce or a bottle of thirty years old sherry." The 
 Argus, Baltimore. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., Publishers, 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK, and SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
BOOKS 
 
 HIS WAY AND HER WILL. 
 
 A pen-and-ink miniature of Eastern society. By A. X. 12mo. Cloth, 
 
 $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 " A remarkably clever book." The American Bookseller. 
 " One of the Brightest of this season's novels." East End Bulletin. 
 "Better than the average " N. Y, Sun. 
 " It is worth reading.*' Baltimore Argus. 
 
 KISSES OP PATE. 
 
 By B. HERON-ALLEN. 12rao. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 Three hundred pages of as delightful reading as we have ever published. Julian Haw- 
 thorne compliments Mr. Alien as being the ablest of the many young writers competing 
 for American readers' favor. 
 
 A SLAVE OP CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 By E. DE LANCEY PIEBSON. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 "Is a new and high- wrought society novel that will be in good demand for summer 
 reading." .Boston Commonwealth. 
 
 " The book is as novel in conception and plot as it is clever in execution ; and will be a 
 valuable adjunct to a spare afternoon at the beach." Daily Spray, Ashbury Park. 
 
 " A clever story." Buffalo Express. 
 
 THE LONE GRAVE OP THE SHENANDOAH. 
 
 ByDoNNPiATT. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 Donn Piatt never wrote an uninteresting line in his long life. This book contains his 
 best stories ; t ach one shows the character of the author that of a true, loving, and lovable 
 man. Any man with such a vast and varied experience as that of Col. Piatt could have 
 written wonderfully interesting stories, but it takes genius and born ability to write tales 
 as delightful as these. 
 
 A DREAM AND A FORGETTING. 
 
 By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 " ' A Dream and a Forgetting ' will put the author on a higher plane than he his yet 
 attained." San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 " Mr Hawthorne is to be congratulated on having taken a decided step forward in his 
 chosen profession." Chicago Herald. 
 
 TOM BURTON. 
 
 A Story of the days of '61. By N. J. W. LE CATO, author of " Aunt Sally's 
 Boy Jack." 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 "Told in a pleasing way." American, Baltimore. 
 
 " The book is full of stirring incidents, and the occasional bits of natural humor add 
 charms to an interesting and lively story." Jeweller's Weekly, tf. Y. 
 " It will surely interest both young and old." Times, Boston. 
 
 A NOVEL WITH A PLOT: 
 
 THE TEUTH ABOUT TEISTBEM VAEICK. 
 
 By EDGAR SALTUS, author of " Mr. Incoul's Misadventure," etc. 12mo. 
 Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 In this novel Mr. Saltus has treated a subject hitherto unexploited in fiction. The 
 scene is Fifth Avenue, the action emotional, the plot a surprise. " There is," some one 
 said, "as much mu I in the upper classes as in the lower ; only, in the former it is gilded. 1 ' 
 This aphori m might serve as epigraph to Tristrem Varick. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.. Publishers, 
 
 CHICAGO. NEW YOKE, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 
 

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