WHITHER?
Felix Brand opened his eyes, then let the lids quickly flutter down
again. He was afraid to look about him, for he was no longer sure
where he might awaken after what seemed to him to have been no more
than an ordinary night's sleep. Apprehensively he lifted one hand to
his face and felt of his upper lip. There was no mustache upon it.
Reassured, he opened his eyes again, and with deep relief gazed about
his familiar bedroom.
"I guess it's still the next day after yesterday," he said to himself
with profound satisfaction. For a moment he centered his attention
upon himself. "And that damned Gordon has subsided," he muttered. "I
don't feel him at all this morning. That's promising. I've had a good
night's rest, now I'll have a good day and tonight I'll go to see Dr.
Annister and let him begin--the devil!" Remembrance had flashed upon
him of his last night's interview with the physician.
"But he promised to help me and he'll have to do it. I'll do anything
he says about Mildred--let her divorce me if he wants her to. A wife's
a nuisance. I'm sure I don't want to be tied up with one. What did I
do it for anyway?"
Notwithstanding his confidence that there had been no hiatus in his
life since his last waking hours, Brand glanced with some trepidation
at the date line of the morning paper. "That's right," he thought.
His eyes dropped down over the headlines and he stopped stock still,
his face paling. "Dead!" he exclaimed aloud. "Now what's to become of
me!"
As he read the article, displayed prominently on the front page, which
told of the death of Dr. Philip Annister, the famous nerve specialist,
from heart-disease, he found that he had been, in all probability, the
last person who had seen the physician alive. He remembered the sudden
failure of strength which had sent the doctor staggering back into his
arm-chair.
"I suppose," he said to himself, and was aware of no feeling of
compunction, "it was what I told him that did the business. If that
damned whelp Gordon had let me alone--what am I to do now?"
When the architect appeared at his office one look at him told
Henrietta that she was not to have a comfortable day. "Well, it's my
last one here," she thought, and had occasion, as the hours wore on,
to repeat the assurance to herself many times, for comfort's sake.
Doubly repellent though her service under him had become since that
sad day of her sister's disaster, Henrietta had felt, nevertheless,
that justice demanded of her to continue in it until the time for
which she had given notice should expire. So, loyal to her sense of
fairness, she had kept on, while aversion deepened into loathing and,
of late, was even touched with fear.
Over and over again, as her troubles and apprehensions pressed sharply
upon her, did her thoughts recur to Hugh Gordon with longing
remembrance of the sense of protection and security she had felt in
his presence. So much did she dwell upon her memories of the hours
they had spent together that in her secret heart the feeling toward
him of intimacy and confidence grew ever stronger, and more and more
frequently the thought would leap into her mind, "I wish Hugh Gordon
were here."
The day which was to be the last of her service as Felix Brand's
secretary proved to be the most trying of all that she had endured. As
one unpleasant episode succeeded another her eyes sought the clock
again and again and she told herself, "It will be only four hours
more," or, "Now it's only two hours and a half," and again, "In
seventy minutes I shall be through."
As the hours dragged on it seemed to her that Brand's temper grew
steadily worse. And he went restlessly from one thing to another,
unable to concentrate his attention upon anything. He had on hand
several pieces of work, all of which Henrietta knew he was anxious to
finish as soon as possible. But he would take up first one, then
another, only to throw each one down impatiently with a muttered oath
after a few minutes of effort.
Henrietta did not know, as Dr. Annister had not known of his inward
compulsion the night before, that within him a stern monitor was
making its orders felt and trying to force him to write the message
which was to set the seal of finality upon his next disappearance.
He was facing the utter annihilation of his soul, his personal being,
while his body, dwelt in by his ruthless enemy, should still live on,
seeing the sunshine, breathing the sweet air, loving life. He drew
back, terrified but wrathful, from the brink of this black void to
which his luring desires had led him.
What was it, that gulf of nothingness, into which his soul had plunged
so many times already? Down, down, to what unplumbed depths had it
gone, those other times? True, it had come back. But it had brought no
tidings of that dumb, black vast into which it had sunk. And thinner
and thinner had grown the thread that had drawn it back from that
unsensed abyss until now he knew that it was ready to break. His soul
was numb with the conviction that, let it be thrust once more over
the brink, it would drop beyond recall into oblivion.
It was his own death warrant that this masterful force within him was
ordering him to write--the death warrant of him, Felix Brand, ardent
lover of life and but barely past its beginning, of all of him save
only his fair physical envelope, which would still live and be glad,
though he had passed into nothingness.
Stronger and stronger, the more he resisted, grew this inner
compulsion, until it seemed to have entered into his every nerve and
bone and muscle and he feared to remain at his desk lest it force his
unwilling hand to write. For an hour he loitered about, staying his
steps in other parts of the room, wherever he could make pretense of
busying himself.
But at last, in the late afternoon, he suddenly found himself moving
in the direction of his desk. He stopped, braced himself, took another
step, another, and another, with feet that he could not compel to
cling to the floor. And, after long minutes of struggle, he sank
finally into his desk chair.
But even yet he would not give up. The muscles of his arm bulged, his
neck sinews stood out and his eyes glared red and wrathful in the
effort he was making to be his own master. But slowly, with jerking
movements, impelled by that inexorable force, his hand moved across
the desk, sought to stay itself upon book or inkwell, then, at last
completely overmastered, took pen and wrote--wrote the words sent down
to it by that dominating power that had taken possession of his will.
He glowered at the letter as it lay before him in its envelope,
sealed, stamped and addressed to "Miss Mildred Annister," and
muttered, "I'll not let it go! I'll tear it up! I'll get the best of
him yet!"
At that moment his secretary appeared at his door and asked him
concerning the disposition of certain papers. She was putting
everything in order, she told him, so that her successor would have no
difficulty in beginning the work.
"Can't you wait a minute?" he snarled at her over his shoulder.
"Oh, dear!" thought Henrietta, shrinking back. "What's wrong now, I
wonder! Well, I'll be through in ten minutes, and nothing very
dreadful can happen in that time."
Brand rose, swearing angrily, and turned upon her. The affright and
consternation in her face maddened him the more.
"Well, what do you want?" he demanded roughly. She repeated what she
had said.
"You're not going to quit today?" he exclaimed, striding back and
forth, his heart raging against the letter on his desk and all that it
meant.
She reminded him that the time for which she had agreed to remain
expired that day. "Haven't you engaged any one else, Mr. Brand?" she
asked, quailing a little as she saw the violent anger that possessed
him.
"No! What time have I had to hunt up secretaries? I can't do without
you. You'll have to stay another week."
Henrietta's spirit rose. "I shall not stay another day, Mr. Brand!
I've given you ample notice, and I have secured another position. I go
to work there next week."
He wheeled and strode toward her, a menacing figure. "I tell you,
you'll have to stay another week! You'll get no more money from me
unless you do!" he shouted.
She saw that he was beside himself with a rage that, to her, was
inexplainable, and she retreated as he came onward until she stood
with her back against the wall and he threatened in front of her, his
face working with unrestrained passion. The thought flashed upon her
that perhaps he had gone suddenly insane.
"You've got to stay," Brand shouted again. "I'll not pay you unless
you do!"
He raised his clenched fist, as if he were about to strike her in the
face. She threw up her arm to ward off the blow and her thoughts flew
to the man upon whom they had dwelt so much these recent days, with
quick longing for his care and protection.
"Oh, Hugh! Hugh! If you were here!" she whispered.
Low as was the sound it reached the ears of him who stood in front of
her with drawn fist and threatening mien. He started back and she,
with her arm before her face, did not see the awesome look that leaped
across his countenance. His arm dropped and for a moment his face was
the battle-ground of fierce, contending wills and furious passions.
Then his whole body writhed as if in a convulsion, his arms sprang
straight up in the air and a cry of mortal agony, of defeat, despair
and hopeless, futile wrath rang through the room.
So uncanny and so heartbroken was that cry, as might be the howl of a
lost soul raging impotently, that it seemed to stop the course of the
very blood in her veins. In fear and terror she dropped her guarding
arm, half feeling already the blow she expected to receive in her
face, and quailing from the raving madman she was sure was about to
spring upon her.
But instead of Felix Brand, frenzied and brutal, her eyes fell upon
the man whose help she had invoked. Hugh Gordon was before her, his
arms upraised as if in gratitude to heaven, his lifted face glowing
with triumph. She stared at him with wide, terrified eyes and cowered
against the wall, all her faculties numbed by the awesomeness of this
miraculous thing.
"I've won!" Gordon was crying in exultant tones. "That beast is
conquered at last, for good and all!"
He strode a few paces up the room and back, and his figure seemed to
grow before Henrietta's very eyes in his exultation over his victory.
As he turned back his gaze fell upon the terrified girl at whose need
he had sprung, with mighty effort, into final, lasting dominance.
"Don't be frightened," he said gently, leaning toward her with
outstretched, reassuring hand. "You called me, and I came--came to
help you, to save you, and to love you. You have nothing to fear now.
That incarnate baseness has sunk down, down, too deep for
resurrection! He shall never return!"
"Hugh! Hugh!" she quavered. "What have you done with him? Where is
he?"
Upon Gordon's exultant countenance there fell a shade of solemnity. "I
know not," he replied in awed tones. "What has become of him is one of
the mysteries of the human soul, a mystery whose beginning and whose
growth I understand, as you shall too, but whose end no man can
explain. The man whom you knew, whom everyone knew, who knew himself,
as Felix Brand, is no more. He will never exist again.
"Deliberately that man chose the worse side of his nature and
cherished it and tried to ignore and cast out the other, the better
side. But, deep down within him, that other side lived and grew
strong, until it was strong enough to take possession of his body and
cast him out. He is gone!" Gordon's voice rose again into triumphal
tones. "He has dropped into an oblivion man's thought cannot fathom
nor man's brain understand. He ordained his own destiny, he worked out
his own fate. Let him have the end that he himself invited!"
Gordon ceased speaking and leaned toward Henrietta. The terror had
left her countenance and in her eyes was the dawning of renewed trust
in him.
"Come," he said, "let us leave this place, with all of its wretched
memories."
And he took her hand and led her forth.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Fate of Felix Brand, by Florence Finch Kelly