This incident, trifling as it was, I think, did more than anything
which had preceded it to make me aware of the nature of that which had
befallen me. The live brute could still communicate with the living
man. Skill of scientist and philosopher was as naught to help the
human spirit which had fled the body to make itself understood by one
which occupied it still. More blessed in that moment was Lion, the
dog, than Esmerald Thorne, the dead man. I said to myself:--
"I am a desolate and an outcast creature. I am become a dumb thing in
a deaf world."
I thrust my hands before me, and wrung them with a groan. It seemed
incredible to me that I could die; that was more wonderful, even, than
to know that I was already dead.
"It is all over," I moaned. "I have died. I am dead. I am what they
call a dead man."
Now, at this instant, the dog turned his head. No human tympanum in
the room vibrated to my cry. No human retina was recipient of my
anguish. What fine, unclassified senses had the highly-organized
animal by which he should become aware of me? The dog turned his noble
head--he was a St. Bernard, with the moral qualities of the breed well
marked upon his physiognomy; he lifted his eyes and solemnly regarded
me.
After a moment's pause he gave vent to a long and mournful cry.
"Don't, Lion," I said. "Keep quiet, sir. This is dreadful!"
The dog ceased howling when I spoke to him; after a little hesitation
he came slowly to the spot where I was standing, and looked earnestly
into my face, as if he saw me. Whether he did, or how he did, or why
he did, I knew not, and I know not now. The main business of this
narrative will be the recording of facts. Explanations it is not mine
to offer; and of speculations I have but few, either to give or to
withhold.
A great wistfulness came into my soul, as I stood shut apart there from
those living men, within reach of their hands, within range of their
eyes, within the vibration of their human breath. I looked into the
animal's eyes with the yearning of a sudden and an awful sense of
desolation.
"Speak to me, Lion," I whispered. "Won't you speak to me?"
"What is that dog about?" asked the customer, staring. "He is standing
in the middle of the room and wagging his tail as if he had met
somebody."
The dog at this instant, with eager signs of pleasure or of pity--I
could not, indeed, say which--put his beautiful face against my hand,
and kissed, or seemed to kiss it, sympathetically.
"He has queer ways," observed Jason, the clerk, carelessly; "he knows
more than most folks I know."
"True," said his master, laughing. "I don't feel that I am Lion's
equal more than half the time, myself. He is a noble fellow. He has a
very superior nature. My wife declares he is a poet, and that when he
goes off by himself, and gazes into vacancy with that sort of look, he
is composing verses."
Another customer had strolled in by this time; he laughed at the
broker's easy wit; the rest joined in the laugh; some one said
something which I did not understand, and Drayton threw back his head
and guffawed heartily. I think their laughter made me feel more
isolate from them than anything had yet done.
"Why!" exclaimed the broker sharply, "what is this? Jason! What does
this mean?"
His face, as he turned it over his shoulder to address the clerk, had
changed colour; he was indeed really pale. He held his fingers on the
great sheet of blue blotting-paper, to which he pointed, unsteadily.
"Upon my soul, sir," said Jason, flushing and then paling in his turn.
"That is a queer thing! May I show it to Mr. Drayton?"
The inspector stepped forward, as the broker nodded; and examined the
blotting-paper attentively.
"It is written over," he said in a professional tone, "from end to end.
I see that. It is written with one name. It is the name of"--
"_Helen!_" interrupted the broker.
"Yes," replied the inspector. "Yes, it is: Helen; distinctly, Helen.
Someone must have"--
But I stayed to hear no more. What some one must have done, I sprang
and left the live men to decide--as live men do decide such
things--among themselves. I sprang, and crying: "Helen! Helen!
Helen!" with one bound I brushed them by, and fled the room, and
reached the outer air and sought for her.
As nearly as one can characterize the emotion of such a moment I should
say that it was one of mortal intensity; perhaps of what in living men
we should call maniac intensity. Up to this moment I could not be said
to have comprehended the effect of what had taken place upon my wife.
The full force of her terrible position now struck me like the edge of
a weapon with whose sheath I had been idling.
Hot in the flame of my anger I had gone from her; and cold indeed had I
returned. Her I had left dumb before my cruel tongue, but dumb was
that which had come back to her in my name.
I was a dead man. But like any living of them all--oh, more than any
living--I loved my wife. I loved her more because I had been cruel to
her than if I had been kind. I loved her more because we had parted so
bitterly than if we had parted lovingly. I loved her more because I
had died than if I had lived. I must see my wife! I must find my
wife! I must say to her--I must tell her-- Why, who in all the world
but me could do _anything_ for Helen now?
Out into the morning air I rushed, and got the breeze in my face, and
up the thronging street as spirits do, unnoted and unknown of men, I
passed; solitary in the throng, silent in the outcry, unsentient in the
press.
The sun was strong. The day was cool. The dome of the sky hung over
me, too, as over those who raised their breathing faces to its beauty.
I, too, saw, as I fled on, that the day was fair. I heard the human
voices say:
"What a morning!"
"It puts the soul into you!" said a burly stock speculator to a
railroad treasurer; they stood upon the steps of the Exchange,
laughing, as I brushed by.
"It makes life worth while," said a healthy elderly woman, merrily,
making the crossing with the light foot that a light heart gives.
"It makes life possible," replied a pale young girl beside her, coming
slowly after.
"Poor fellow!" sighed a stranger whom I hit in hurrying on. "It was an
ugly way to die. Nice air, this morning!"
"He will be a loss to the community," replied this man's companion.
"There isn't a doctor in town who has his luck with fevers. You can't
convince my wife he didn't save her life last winter. Frost, last
night, wasn't there? Very invigorating morning!"
Now, at the head of the street some ladies were standing, waiting for a
car. I was delayed in passing them, and as I stepped back to change my
course I saw that one of them was speaking earnestly, and that her eyes
showed signs of weeping.
"He wouldn't remember me," she said; "it was eleven years ago. But
sick women don't forget their doctors. He was as _kind_ to me"--
"Oh, _poor_ Mrs. Thorne!" a soft voice answered, in the accented tone
of an impulsive, tender-hearted woman. "It's bad enough to be a
patient. But, oh, his _wife_!"
"Let me pass, ladies!" I cried, or tried to cry, forgetting, in the
anguish which their words fanned to its fiercest, that I could not be
heard and might not be seen. "There seems to be some obstruction. Let
me by, for I am in mortal haste!"
Obstruction there was, alas! but it was not in them whom I would have
entreated. Obstruction there was, but of what nature I could not and I
cannot testify. While I had the words upon my lips, even as the group
of women broke and left a space about me while they scattered on their
ways, there on the corner of the thoroughfare, in the heart of the
town, by an invisible force, by an inexplicable barrier, I, the dead
man fleeing to my living wife, was beaten back.
Whence came that awful order? How came it? And wherefore? I knew no
more than the November wind that passed me by, and went upon its errand
as it listed.
I was thrust back by a blast of Power Incalculable; it was like the
current of an unknown natural force of infinite capability. Set the
will of soul and body as I would, I could not pass the head of the
street.