Ida passed with a quick step through the sitting-room and upstairs to her
bedroom, where she locked the door and threw herself upon the bed in a
paroxysm of tearless sobbing.
"I believe I have no more tears left," she whispered, as at last she
raised herself and arranged her dishevelled hair.
She sat awhile in woful reverie upon the edge of the bed, and then
crossed the room to a beautiful writing-desk which Miss Ludington had
given her. She opened it, and, taking out several sheets of paper,
prepared to write. "If I had not run upstairs that moment," she murmured,
"I must have told him the whole horrible story. But it is better this
way. I believe it would have killed me to see the look on his face. Oh,
my darling, my darling! what will you think of me when you know?" and
then she sat down to write.
She stopped so many times to cry over it that it was midnight when the
writing was finished. It was a letter, and the superscription read as
follows:--
"To my lover, Paul, who will never love me any mere after he reads this,
but whom I shall love for ever:--
"This letter will explain to you why my room is empty this morning. I
could stand it no longer: to be loved and almost worshipped, by those
whom I was basely deceiving. And so I have fled. You will never see me or
hear from me again, and you will never want to after you have read this
letter. All the jewellery and dresses, and everything that Miss Ludington
has given me, I have left behind, except the clothes I had to have to go
away in, and these I will return as soon as I get where I am going. Oh,
my poor Paul! I am no more Ida Ludington than you are. How could you ever
believe such a thing? But let me tell my shameful story in order. Perhaps
it was not so strange that you were deceived. I think any one might have
been who held the belief you did at the outset.
"I am Ida Slater, Mrs. Slater's daughter, whom she named after Miss
Ludington, because she thought her name so pretty when they went to
school together as children in Hilton. I was born in Hilton twenty-three
years ago, several years after Miss Ludington left the village. My father
is Mr. Slater, of course, but he is the person you know as Dr. Hull,
which is an assumed name. Mrs. Legrand, who is no more dead than you are,
is a sister of my father. Her husband is dead, and father acts as her
manager, and mother helps about the séances, and does what she can in any
way to bring a little money. We have always been very poor, and it has
been very, very hard for us to get a living. Father is a man of
education, and had tried many things before we came to this, but nothing
succeeded. We grew poorer and poorer, and when this business came in our
way he had to take up with it or send us to the almshouse. It is not an
honest business, at least as we conducted it; but, oh, Paul! none of you
that are rich understand that to a very poor man the duty of supporting
his family seems sometimes as if it were the only duty in the world.
"Well, when mother came to visit Miss Ludington, and saw that picture
which is so much like me, and so little, mother says, like what Miss
Ludington ever was, and when she found out about your belief in the
immortality of past selves, the idea first came to her of deceiving you.
"That story of mother's going to Cincinnati was a lie, to prevent your
suspecting that she had anything to do with the business. Mrs. Rhinehart
is an imaginary person. At first, the idea was only to get you interested
in the séances, for the profit of the fees; but when they saw how
entirely deceived you were by my resemblance to the picture, the scheme
of getting me into this house occurred to them.
"Or rather it did not occur to them at all. It was you, Paul, yourself,
who suggested it, when you said that night after the first séance, that
if a medium died in a trance, you believed the materialized spirit could
not dematerialize but would return to earth. But for that the idea would
never have occurred to them.
"It seemed a daring plot, but many things favoured it. I had lived in
Hilton up to within a few years, and knew every stick and stone of the
old as well as the new part of the village. I had wandered all over the
old Ludington homestead time and again. Mother knew as much about Miss
Ludington's early life as she did herself, and could post me on the
subject, and there was my wonderful resemblance to the picture, which, of
itself, would be almost enough to carry me through.
"It was for my sake entirely that they proposed this scheme. My father
and mother may be looked down upon by the world as a very poor kind of
people, but they have always been very good to me. I will not have you
blame them except as you blame me with them. They thought that in this
way I could be rescued from the hard and questionable life which they
were living, and in which they did not wish me to grow up. If the plan
succeeded, and you were deceived and took me here, thinking me the true
Ida, they believed that I would be secured a life of happiness and
luxury. They had seen, too, how you were in love with the true Ida, and
made no question that you would love me and marry me.
"It was that more than all, Paul, that decided me to do it. I had fallen
in love with you that night of the first séance when I stood before you
and you looked at me with such boundless, adoring love. I think it would
have turned almost any girl's head to be looked at in that way. And then,
Paul, you are very handsome.
"I always had a taste for acting. They used to say I would have done well
on the stage, and the idea of playing a role so fine and so bold as this
took my fancy from the start. It was that, Paul, that, and the notion of
your making love to me, more than any thought of the wealth and luxury I
might get a share in, which made me consent to the plan.
"That sickness of Mrs. Legrand's between the séances--I am telling you
all, Paul--was only a sham, so that we might see how much in earnest you
were, and to get time for me to learn by heart all mother could teach me
about the Hilton of forty years ago and Miss Ludington's girlhood. There
were so many lists of names to be kept in mind, and school-room
incidents, picnics, and flirtations; but it was as interesting as a
romance, and being a Hilton girl, it did not take me long to make myself
as much at home with the last generation as with my own. Sometimes mother
would say to me, 'Ida, if I did not know that you are a good girl, and
would be good to Miss Ludington, I would not betray my old friend this
way. I would not do it for any one but you, and if I did not believe that
in deceiving her you would make her very happy--far happier than now.'
"I think, in spite of all, she was very fond of Miss Ludington, for she
made me promise, again and again, that I would be very good to her, as if
I could have helped being good to such a gentle, tender-hearted person as
she.
"You see, in our business, we had shown to so many sad people what they
believed to be the forms and faces of their dead friends, and had sent
them away comforted, that we had come to feel our frauds condoned by the
happiness they caused, and that we were, after all, doing good.
"As for you, Paul, mother had no scruples. She said that I was a good
girl, and any man was lucky to get me. I was not sure of that, but I knew
that any girl would be fortunate whom you loved. She had a dress cut for
me in the exact pattern of that in the picture--a very old-fashioned
pattern, but very becoming to me--and all was ready. You know the rest.
"I forgot to say that the reason the dress all fell to pieces the day
after I came here was that it had been treated with a chemical
preparation, which had completely rotted the texture of the cloth. Indeed
I had trouble to keep it together that first night. Father saw to this
part. He understands chemistry, and indeed, everything else except how to
make a living.
"There was no trap-door in the floor in Tenth Street, but the whole
ceiling of the cabinet was a trap-door, the edges hidden by the breadth
of the boards forming the partition which enclosed it. It rose on oiled
hinges, with a pulley and a counter-weight, at a touch of a finger, and
the person who was to appear, unless it was a part that the medium
herself could take, descended in an instant by letting down a short light
ladder, wrapped in cloth, so as to make no sound. The draught of air just
before the appearance, which Miss Ludington had spoken of in her talks
with me, was something that we never thought of, and was caused, I
suppose, by the drawing of the air up through the raised ceiling.
"It was all so easy, so easy; we need not have taken half the precautions
we did; you were so absolutely convinced from the first moment that I was
the Ida of the picture. From the time I came home with you that night
till now there has been no question of my proving who I was, but only of
Miss Ludington's proving, and of your proving, to me, that you were the
persons you claimed to be. It was not whether I was related to her, but
only that she was related to me, which Miss Ludington thought in any need
of demonstration.
"And as for you, Paul, it is not your fault that I was not your wife
weeks ago.
"And so I should have been, and Miss Ludington's heir besides, but for
two particulars in which our plot was fatally defective. It provided for
all contingencies, but made no allowance for the possibilities that I
might prove capable of gratitude towards Miss Ludington, and that I might
fall in love with you. Both these things have happened to me, and there
is no choice left me but to fly in the night. Of course I had expected
you to fall in love with me, and had fancied you so much, after seeing
you the first time, as to feel that it would be very fine to have you for
a lover, and even for a husband. But that was not really love at all. I
think if you could understand even a little what dismay came over me when
I first realized that my heart was yours, you would almost pity me. After
that, to deceive you was torture to me, and yet, to tell you the truth
would have been to make you loathe me like a snake. Oh, Paul! think of
what I have suffered these past weeks, and pity me a little!
"You will understand now why it was that I could not bear to have the
circumstances of the fraud we had practised on you alluded to in my
presence, and why, after the first few days, I never spoke of them
myself.
"When father, whom you know as Dr. Hull, came that day to see how the
plot was succeeding, I thought I should die with shame. He tried to catch
my eye, and to get a chance to speak with me, but I avoided him. He must
have gone away very much puzzled by my conduct, for it had been arranged
between us that he should come. By that time, you see, I had become
heart-sick of the part I was playing.
"But, Paul, you must not think that it was mere sham, father's drawing
you out so much to talk at the table that night, and pretending to be so
much taken up with what you said. He is great for being taken up with new
ideas, and I think his interest was quite genuine. I knew before I left
home that he half believed you to be right about the immortality of past
selves. For my part, I believe it wholly, and that I have abused not only
Miss Ludington and you, but the spirit of her whom I have personated.
"If Miss Ludington had not so loaded me with kindness I could have borne
it, better, but to have that sweet old lady fairly worshipping the ground
one trod on, and covering one with gifts, and dresses, and jewels, would
have been too much, I think, for the conscience of the worst person in
the world.
"I should have fled from the house before I had been here a week but for
you, Paul. I could not bear to leave you. If I had only gone then I
should have saved myself much; for what would it have been to leave you
then to what it is now!
"It was very wrong in me to promise to marry you that night when you came
to me; for I knew then as well as now that I never could. But I loved you
so, I had no strength. Oh, these last happy weeks! I wonder if you have
been so happy as I--so happy or so miserable, I don't know which to say;
for all the time there was a deadly sickness at my heart, and every night
I cried myself to sleep, and woke up crying; and yet I loved you so I
could not but be happy in being where you were. Remember always, Paul,
that if I had not loved you so, I should have let you marry an
adventuress; for that is what I suppose you will call me now--you, who
could not find words tender enough for me. Yes, if I had loved you less,
I would have been your wife, and I would have made you very happy, just
as we made so many poor people happy at our séances--by deceiving them.
But I could not deceive you.
"It is true that I have been meanwhile deceiving you, but it has only
been from day to day. I knew it was not to last, and I lacked strength to
end it sooner. Think how dear your kisses must have been to me, that I
could endure them with the knowledge all the while that if you knew whom
you were kissing, you would spurn me with your foot.
"As soon as you began to urge me to name a day for our marriage I knew
that the end was near. You wondered why I cried so whenever you spoke of
it. You know now. To-day Miss Ludington told me that she intended to
adopt me and leave me her fortune, so that I need feel under no necessity
to marry you if I did not wish to. Think of that, Paul! Can you conceive
of any one so low, so base, as to be capable of taking advantage of such
a heart? As she was talking to me, I made up my mind that I must go
to-night.
"This evening, when I was helping her to bed (I have been so glad to do
all I could for her; it took away a little of my shame to see how happy I
made her) she seemed so troubled because I could not keep my tears from
falling. When you read her this she will think her sympathy wasted. And
yet she will not think hard of me. She could not think hard of any one,
and I am sure I love her dearly, and always shall.
"Oh, Paul, my darling, do not despise me utterly! My love was pure; it
was as pure as any one's could be, though I have been so bad. I think my
heart was breaking when you found me crying on the piazza to-night. It
was not only that I must leave you, and never look on your face again,
but that I must give over my memory to your scorn and loathing. When you
took me in your arms and comforted me, my resolution all gave way, and I
felt that I would not, could not, go. I think I was on the point of
throwing myself at your feet and confessing all, and begging to be taken
as the lowest servant in the house, so that I might be near you.
"And then it was that you began to explain to me that, although I might
not be aware of it, the reason that I would not be your wife was that,
having come from heaven, my nature was purer than that of earthly women,
and shrank from marriage as a sacrilege.
"Think of your saying that to me!
"When I comprehended you, and saw that you actually believed what you
said, I realized the folly of imagining that you could ever pardon me for
what I had done, or that the gulf between what I was and what you thought
me to be could ever be bridged. So it was that you yourself gave me back
the resolution and the strength to leave you, which went from me when I
was in your arms. I was overcome with such shame and self-contempt that I
could not even kiss you as I left you for ever.
"I have told you my whole story, Paul, that you may know not alone how
black my deception was, but how bitterly I have expiated it. I came into
this house a frivolous girl; I leave it a broken-hearted woman. Do not
blame me too harshly. It is myself that I have injured most. I leave you
as well off as before you saw me; free to return to your spirit-love. She
will forgive you. It is my only consolation that she is but a
spirit-love. If she were a woman I could never have given you up to her.
Never! Oh, Paul! If I could only hope that you would not wholly despise
me, that you, would think sometimes a little pitifully of
"IDA SLATER."
She next wrote a note to Miss Ludington, full of contrition and
tenderness, and referring her to Paul's letter for the whole story. It
was after two o'clock in the morning when she finished the second letter,
and laid it in plain view beside the other. She next removed her jewels
and exchanged her rich costume for the simplest in her wardrobe, and
having donned cloak and hat, extinguished the light, and softly unlocking
the door, stepped into the hall.
Perfect silence reigned in the house. As she stood listening the clock in
the sitting-room struck three. There was no time to lose. The early
summer dawn would soon arrive, and, before the first servants of
neighbours were stirring she must be outside the grounds and well on her
way.
There was a late risen moon, and enough light penetrated the house to
enable her to make her way without difficulty. As she passed Paul's door
she stopped and stood leaning her forehead against the casement for some
minutes. At last she knelt and pressed her lips to the threshold, and,
choking down a sob, went on downstairs. As she passed through the
sitting-room she paused a moment before the picture. "Forgive me," she
whispered, looking up at the dimly visible face of Ida Ludington, and
passed on. Unfastening a window that opened upon the piazza, she stepped
forth and closed it behind her.
At the first light sound of her feet upon the walk, the mastiff that
guarded the house bounded up to her, and seeing who it was, licked her
hand. The big beast had fallen in love with her on her first arrival, and
been her devoted attendant ever since. She sat down on the edge of the
walk and put her arms around his neck, wetting his shaggy coat with her
tears. Here was a friend who would know no difference between Ida Slater
and Ida Ludington. Here was one who loved her for herself.
Presently she rose, dried her eyes, and went on down the street, the dog
trotting contentedly behind her. As she came to a point beyond which the
trees cut off the view of the house, she stood still, gazing back at it
for a long time. Finally, with a gesture of renunciation, she turned and
passed swiftly out of sight.