Corbridge, the spiritualist manager, in which he informed me that Dr.
Hildstein, the German scientist, of whom he had previously spoken to me,
had set sail for America and would probably arrive in about ten days.
"As soon as possible after his arrival," wrote Mr. Corbridge, "we shall
resume possession of the subject of whom you have been kind enough to
take charge during the time when we had no need of him. He will then be
dematerialized in order that we may cause him to manifest himself in our
séances whenever it may be desirable; but never, I may say, in the
complete and perfect physical condition to which he was unintentionally
materialized the first time. I promised you that I would give you at
least three days' notice of our intention to resume work on this
subject, and I have now been much better than my word. I have written
very plainly of our intentions, because we wish you to understand
exactly what we are going to do; and should we succeed in our proposed
experiment, which we certainly expect to do, we shall, probably, make
public our whole action in the affair, for this course would most
greatly benefit both ourselves and our cause. It will not be necessary
for you to inform the subject of our intention, for our power over him
will be as great at one time and at one place as at another; and as his
co-operation is not in any way needful, you will see for yourself that
it will be pleasanter for him not to concern himself with what we are
about to do."
When I had read this letter, I sat for half an hour with it open in my
hands. It came upon me like a shower of iced water. I had supposed that
the spiritualists had utterly abandoned their endeavors to dematerialize
Mr. Kilbright. Therefore, the news of the revival of these criminal
intentions greatly shocked me. To be sure, the coming scientist might
have no such power as he pretended to possess, but this supposition did
not comfort me. If the man had not already had success in that sort of
thing it is not likely that he would come over here to attempt it now.
When I had sufficiently quieted my mental agitation I wrote instantly to
Mr. Corbridge, and in my letter I assumed a very confident tone. I told
him that Mr. Kilbright's circumstances had so changed that the intended
action of the spiritualists in regard to him was now rendered
impossible. He had become an active member of society, had gone into
business, and would be married in April. The mere statement of these
facts would, I felt quite certain--so I wrote--cause the spiritualists
to instantly relinquish all idea of carrying out their previous
intention in regard to this most estimable man. If, however, any inhuman
craving for scientific investigation should cause them to persist in
their cruel and criminal designs, the utmost power of the law should be
invoked against them. "To take away human life," I wrote, "in a case
like this is murder, no matter how it is done, and should you take away
Mr. Kilbright's life, or even attempt it, you shall be indicted and
punished for this cold-blooded and premeditated crime."
Before I had read this letter, I found it absolutely necessary for my
peace of mind that I should make my wife acquainted with the threatened
danger, and confer with her as to what it would be well to do. Of
course, Mrs. Colesworthy was greatly shocked when I read her Corbridge's
letter, but she recovered courage sooner than I had done.
"It's all stuff and nonsense," she said. "The man is just as much alive
as you and I are, and I don't believe any human power can turn him into
a spirit. They might kill him, but then he would be a dead man and not a
spiritual mist or vapor. I don't believe they even intend to try to do
anything of the kind. They merely wish you to hand him over to them so
they can make him work for them for little or no pay. They think, and
with good reason, too, that by this time you have taught him how to get
along at the present day, and that he may now be of some use to them."
I showed her the letter I had written, and she highly approved of it.
"If I were you," she said, "I would send that letter, and then I would
not do another thing. Take my word for it, you will never hear from
those people again."
We resolved, of course, that we would say nothing to Mr. Kilbright or
Lilian about this matter, for it was unwise to needlessly trouble their
minds; but we could not help talking about it a great deal ourselves. In
spite of the reassuring arguments which we continually thought of, or
spoke of to each other, we were troubled, anxious, and apprehensive.
"If we could only get them safely married," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "I
should feel at ease. Certainly those people would not do anything to him
then."
"I don't believe they can do anything to him at all," I answered. "But
how a marriage is going to protect him I cannot imagine."
"Of course, you can't explain such things," said my wife, "but I do
wish they were married and settled."
Not long after this she came to me with a supposition. "Supposing," she
said, "that those people find it impossible to dematerialize him, they
might do something which would be a great deal worse."
"What could that possibly be?" I asked.
"They might materialize his first wife," said she, "and could anything
be more dreadful than that? I suppose that woman lived to a good old
age, and to bring her forward now would be a height of cruelty of which
I believe those people to be fully capable."
"My dear," I exclaimed, "don't bring up any harrowing possibilities
which no one but yourself is likely to think of."
"I wish I could be sure of that," she said. "I have heard, but I don't
know how true it is, that spirits cannot be called up and materialized
unless somebody wants them, and I don't suppose there is anybody who
wants the first Mrs. Kilbright. But these men might so work on Mr.
Kilbright's mind as to make him think that he ought to want her."
I groaned. "Dear me!" I said. "I suppose if they did that they would
also bring up old Mr. Scott's mother, and then we should have a united
family."
"And a very funny one it would be," said my wife, smiling,
notwithstanding her fears, "for now I remember that old Mr. Scott told
me that his grandmother died before she was sixty, but that his mother
lived to be seventy-five. Now, he is eighty, if he is a day, so there
would be a regular gradation of ages in the family, only it would run
backward instead of in the usual way. But, thinking it over, I don't
believe the spiritualists will permanently bring up any more of that
family. If they did, they would have to support them, for they could not
ask old Mr. Scott to do it, who hasn't money enough to satisfy his
descendants, and ought not to be expected to support his ancestors."
My letter must have had a good deal of effect upon Mr. Corbridge, for in
less than a week after it was written he came into my office. He
informed me that he and his associates were about to give a series of
séances in our town, but that he had come on before the others in order
to talk to me. "I am extremely sorry," he said, "to hear of this
proposed marriage. We want to do what is right and fair, and we have no
desire that any act of ours shall create a widow."
"Then," I exclaimed, "you relinquish your design against Mr.
Kilbright?"
"Not at all," said he. "We shall carry out our plan before our subject
marries. If you choose to hurry up matters and have the wedding take
place before we are ready to proceed with our dematerializing process,
we shall be very sorry, but the blame must rest on you. You should have
had consideration enough for all parties to prevent any such
complication as an engagement to marry. As to what you said in your
letter in regard to invoking the law against us, I attach no weight
whatever to that threat."
"You will find you have made a great mistake," said I, angrily, "when I
have brought the law to bear upon you, which now I shall not delay to
do."
"You will merely bring ridicule upon yourself," he said, "if you assert
that the man you wish to protect is Amos Kilbright. We can prove by
records, still to be seen in Bixbury, that said person died in seventeen
eighty-five. On the other hand, if you choose to assert that he is, or
was, anybody else, how are you going to prove it? All that you can say
is that the person you refer to came from, you knew not where, and has
gone, you know not where. If you declare that at one time he was a
materialized spirit, you know very well how such a statement as that
would be received in a court of law. It will be much wiser to let it be
supposed that the person who has lately been seen about this town has
run off to Canada, than to make any sort of legal inquiry into the
matter. If said person were really a man we could have nothing to do
with his disappearance, while if he were a materialized spirit the law
would have nothing to do with him."
I arose and paced the floor. There was entirely too much force in this
man's arguments, but, although I could not immediately answer him, his
cool determination to persevere in his iniquitous designs so angered me
that I declared that he should be punished if I had to do it myself.
"Then you admit," he said, with a smile, "that the law cannot do it. The
situation," he continued, "is very plain to us. Although the law can
take no cognizance of our action, the case will be very different with
all believers in spiritualism, and those who are interested in us. The
news that we have done this thing will spread through the spiritualistic
circles of the world."
"Has your German arrived?" I asked, abruptly.
"Not yet," answered Corbridge, "but we expect him in a few days. He
will come directly to this town, because we wish to give him an
opportunity of observing the subject in his present form before
beginning the dematerializing process."
"What refinement of cruelty!" I exclaimed.
"Oh, of course, the doctor will not make himself known," said Corbridge.
"He will merely wish to take a good look at the subject, and see for
himself how perfect his materialization has been. Then he will know just
what work is before him."
And, so saying, Mr. Corbridge went away, leaving me too angry to speak,
if, indeed, I could have thought of anything which it would have been
worth my while to say.
When Mrs. Colesworthy heard what Corbridge had said, she turned white.
"They must be married instantly!" she exclaimed. "I knew that was the
only way."
It was all very well to talk of an immediate marriage, but it was not so
easy to bring it about. It was yet a week before the day fixed for the
wedding, and the happy lovers were busy with their preparations, never
dreaming of the danger which hung over them. What reason could we give
for hastening the marriage rites? At one time we thought it might be
wise to explain to them fully the state of the case, but from this
course we were deterred for fear of the terrible effect that the news
might have on Lilian. Should she hear of the design of Dr. Hildstein,
she would never again have a moment's peace, married or unmarried. Once
I advised that the two be dissuaded from marrying, at least for a year.
In that time we could see if these people really had any power over Mr.
Kilbright.
"That will not do at all," said Mrs. Colesworthy. "It will be very long
to postpone their happiness; and besides, if that German gets hold of
Mr. Kilbright while he is still unmarried, he will snap him up, or
rather, blow him out in no time."
"I thought we had persuaded ourselves," I said, sadly, "that no one
could have any real power of dematerialization."
"So we had," said she, "but that sort of persuasion does not always
last."
The result was that we did nothing but hope for the best. But we could
not blame ourselves, for, really, there was nothing else to do. I had
given up all idea of endeavoring to put Mr. Corbridge and his associates
under legal restriction, because if they had power to do the evil we
feared, they could do it in one place as well as another, and no court
could determine when, how, or by whom Mr. Kilbright had been
dematerialized.
The day before the wedding-day the German doctor arrived in our town;
and, having heard this, I went immediately to the hotel where Mr.
Corbridge and his party were staying. The spiritualistic manager was not
glad to see me, and frankly said so.
"I had hoped," he remarked, "that you had concluded to keep out of this
thing. It is no concern of yours; you can be of no possible good to
anybody; and the wisest thing you can do will be to drop it."
I assured him that I had no intention of dropping it, and that I should
do everything in my power to protect Mr. Kilbright.
"Then, again," continued Corbridge, "there is really no need of giving
yourself all this worry. Dr. Hildstein may succeed, and he may not. We
have failed, and so may he. He has seen the subject, and has come to a
very philosophical and sensible conclusion in regard to him. He will not
believe, merely on our assertion, that the man is a materialized spirit.
He will proceed with his experiments, and if they fail he will consider
that the man is a man, and was never anything else. If they succeed,
then he will be quite satisfied that he had a perfect right to
dematerialize what we had materialized."
"Then you really believe," I said, "that there is a chance that he may
fail?"
"Of course there is," said Corbridge. "I do not know his methods, and
there may be nothing in them."
I had no doubt that this change of tone in Corbridge was intended to
produce in me a feeling of security, that they might thus rid themselves
of me. But, though I saw through his purpose, the man's words encouraged
me. Of course there must be a good deal of doubt about the German's
powers; and, after all, there might be no cause whatever for our
anxieties.
"Now, sir," said Corbridge, as I left, "if I were you I would trouble
myself no more about this matter. If Dr. Hildstein fails, you will still
have your man to do your copying, or your surveying, or anything you
like. If he succeeds, we are all in the same condition we were a year
ago. 'That subject did not exist at that time; he does not exist at this
time;' that will be all we shall have to say about it."
"You forget," I said, severely, "the wife he may leave behind him."
"I have nothing to say about that," said Corbridge, rather sharply. "It
is a reprehensible business, and I have nothing to do with it."
I went away without seeing the German doctor, but as I heard he spoke no
English, and as I did not know German, an interview with him would have
been of no avail.
Neither Mrs. Colesworthy nor myself slept that night; we were so filled
with anxious fears. But when the day broke, bright and clear, and I had
hurried round to Mr. Kilbright's lodgings, and had found him as full of
life and vigor as I had ever seen him, we were greatly comforted, and
ate our breakfasts with fair appetites.
"If it had been a dark and lowering day," said my wife, "I don't believe
I could have swallowed a mouthful."
The marriage was to take place at noon, and the happy pair were to start
by the first afternoon train for the sea-shore, where they were to spend
a week. Mr. Kilbright hated locomotives and railroads almost as much as
ever, but he had told me some time before that he intended to conquer
this prejudice, if such a thing were possible.
"Being one of you, I must do as you do," he had said.
The wedding was to be a very simple one. Miss Budworth was to go from
her mother's house to the church, where Mr. Kilbright was to meet her.
We insisted that he should dress at our house, where he would find
better accommodations than at his lodgings; and we assigned him our best
guest-room, where he repaired in very good season, to array himself in
his wedding suit.
It was not quite eleven o'clock when I went upstairs to see if I could
be of any use to Mr. Kilbright in regard to the conclusion of his
toilette. I knocked at the door, but received no answer. Waiting a few
moments, I opened it and entered. On the floor, in front of a tall
dressing-glass, was a suit of clothes. Not only did I see the black
broadcloth suit--not laid out at length, but all in a compact heap--but
I saw the shoes and stockings, the collar and cravat; everything. Near
by lay a whisk broom.
The truth was plain. While giving the last touches to his wedding
attire, all that was Amos Kilbright had utterly disappeared!
I stood where I had stopped, just inside the door, trembling, scarcely
breathing, so stunned by the terrible sight of those clothes that I
could not move, nor scarcely think. If I had seen his dead body there I
should have been shocked, but to see nothing! It was awful to such an
extent that my mind could not deal with it!
Presently I heard a step, and slightly turning, saw my wife close by me.
She had passed the open door, and seeing me standing as if stricken into
a statue, had entered.
It did not need that I should speak to her. Pale as a sheet she stood
beside me, her hand tightly grasping my arm, and with her lips pallid
with horror, she formed the words: "They have done it!"
In a few moments she pulled me gently back, and said, in quick, low
tones, as if we had been in presence of the dead: "In less than an hour
she will be at the church. We must not stay here."
With this she turned and stepped quickly from the room. I followed,
closing the door behind me.
Swiftly moving, and without a word, my wife put on her hat and left the
house. Mechanically I followed. I could speak no word of comfort to that
poor girl, at this moment the happiest of expectant brides. I knew that
I had not the power to even attempt to explain to her the nature of the
dreadful calamity that had fallen upon her. But I could not let my wife
go alone. She, indeed, must speak to Lilian, but there were other
members of the family; I might do something.
To my great surprise, Mrs. Colesworthy did not turn into the street
which led to the Budworths' house, but went straight on. I thought at
first she was going to the church to countermand the wedding
preparations. But before I could put a question to her she had gone
around a corner, and was hurrying up the steps of the principal hotel in
our town.
"Is Dr. Hildstein in?" she asked of the first person she met.
The man, gazing astonished at her pallid face, replied that he was, and
immediately conducted us to a little parlor on the first floor, the door
of which stood partly open. Without knocking, Mrs. Colesworthy hastily
entered, I closely following. A middle-aged man suddenly arose from a
small table at which he was sitting, and turning quickly toward us, made
an abrupt exclamation in German.
As I have said, I do not understand German, but Mrs. Colesworthy knows
the language well, and, stepping up to the man, she said (she afterward
told me the meaning of the words that passed between them): "Are you Dr.
Hildstein?"
"I am," he said, his face agitated by emotion, and his eyes sparkling,
"but I can see no one, speak to no one! I go out this moment to observe
the result of an important experiment!"
My wife motioned to me to close the door. "You need not go," she said,
"I can tell you that your experiment has succeeded. You have
dematerialized Mr. Kilbright. In one hour he was to be married to a
noble, loving woman; and now all that remains where he stood is a pile
of clothes!"
"Do you tell me that?" exclaimed the doctor, wildly seizing his hat.
"Stop!" cried Mrs. Colesworthy, her face glowing with excitement, her
eyes flashing, and her right arm extended. "Stir not one step! Do you
know what you have done?"
"I have done what I had a right to do!" exclaimed the doctor, almost in
a shout. "If he is gone he was nothing but a spirit. Tell me where--"
"I will tell you this!" exclaimed my wife. "He was a great deal more
than a spirit. He was a man engaged to be married at twelve o'clock this
day. You may think there is no law that will sweep down on you, but I
tell you there is; and before the clock strikes twelve you shall know
it. Do you imagine you have come upon a people who will endure the
presence of an ogre? a wretch, who reduces to nothing a fellow human
being, and calls it an experiment? When we tell what you have done--my
husband cannot speak German, but he is a leader in this town, and he
supports me in all I say--when we have told what you have done there
will be no need of courts, or judges, or lawyers for you. Like a wild
beast you will be hunted down; you will be trampled under foot; you will
be torn to pieces! Fire, the sword, the hangman's noose, clubs, and
crowbars will not be enough to satisfy the vengeance of an outraged
people upon a cold-blooded wretch who came to this country solely for
the purpose of perpetrating a crime more awful than anything that was
ever known before! Did you ever hear of lynching? I see by your face you
know what that means. You are in the midst of a people who, in ten short
minutes, will be shrieking for your blood!"
The man's face changed, and he looked anxiously at me. I did not know
what my wife had been saying, but I had seen by her manner that she had
been threatening him, and I shook my uplifted fist.
"Now heed what I say," cried Mrs. Colesworthy, "if you do not wish to
perish at the hands of an infuriated mob; to die a thousand deaths
before your vile spirit leaves this world, knowing that, besides the
torments you feel, and those which are to come, you will be in the power
of men who will bring you back in a half-finished form to make sport at
their meetings whenever they feel like it--"
Drops of perspiration stood on the doctor's face. "Stop that!" he
cried, throwing up his arm. "I cannot stand that! I did not know the
subject had such friends!"
"Nothing shall be stopped!" exclaimed my wife, "and everything shall
happen unless you immediately sit down at that table, or wherever you do
those things, and rematerialize Mr. Kilbright, just as you found him,
and into the very clothes that were left lying upon the floor!"
The doctor stepped forward--his face was now pale--and addressed himself
very deferentially to my wife, totally ignoring me. "If you will
retire," he said, "I will try; I swear to you that I will try."
"There is not a minute to be lost," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "not one
second. And, if as much as a finger-nail is missing, remember what I
have told you!"
And with this we quickly left the room.
As we went down the steps of the hotel Mrs. Colesworthy looked at her
watch. "It is twenty-five minutes to twelve," she said. "We must get
home as fast as we can."
We hurried along, sometimes almost running. When we reached our house,
Mrs. Colesworthy motioned to me to go upstairs. She had no breath left
with which to speak. I ran up, and stood for a moment at the closed door
of our guest-room. With my hand on the knob, I was unable to open it. I
heard a step on the stairs behind me, and I opened the door.
There stood Mr. Kilbright in his wedding clothes, with the whisk-broom
in his hand.
He turned at the sound of my entrance.
"Do you know," cried the cheery voice of my wife, from just outside the
door, "that we have barely fifteen minutes in which to get to the
church?"
"Can that be?" cried Mr. Kilbright. "The time has flown without my
knowing it. We must truly make haste!"
"Indeed we must," said Mrs. Colesworthy, and as she stepped back from
the door, she whispered in my ear: "Not a look, not a tremble to let him
know!"
In less than thirty seconds we were on our way to the church, in the
carriage which had been ordered for the purpose.
On the church porch we found old Mr. Scott. He was dressed in his best
clothes, and greeted us cordially. "In good time," he said. "I am glad
to see that. It promises well." And then, looking around to see that no
one was within hearing, he came nearer to us. "If I were you," he
continued, "I wouldn't say nothin' to folks in general about
relationships, for there are people, and very good people, too, whose
minds haven't got on far enough to make 'em able to understand
telephones and the other new kinds of wonders."
We acknowledged the force of his remarks, and all went into the church.
Three days after the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Kilbright on their
wedding tour, my wife received a letter from Dr. Hildstein, written by
himself from New York, but addressed in the handwriting of Mr.
Corbridge.
"I return," he wrote, "to Germany, perfectly happy in having succeeded
in my experiments; but nevermore, esteemed lady, will I dematerialize a
subject who has remained long enough in this world to make friends, and
I am the only man who can do this thing."