This was the thought I hugged when Louis was released from jail, upon
her refusal to prosecute. It caused me sardonic amusement when, in
their first embrace, the tears of despair rained down their cheeks. It
recurred when they began their pitiful attempt to build anew on the
shattered foundation of love.
And then--creepingly, slyly, like a bird of ill omen casting the shadow
of its silent wings over the landscape--came retribution.
Many times, in retrospect, I lived over that brief hour of my return to
physical expression--my hour of realization. Wraithlike, arose a vision
of Velma--Velma as she had stood before me that night, staring at me
with horror. I saw the horror deepen--deepen to abject despair.
How beautiful she had looked! But when I tried to picture that beauty,
I could recall only her eyes. It mattered not whether I wished to see
them--they filled my vision.
They seemed to haunt me. From being vaguely conscious of them, I
became acutely so. Disconcertingly, they looked out at me from
everywhere--eyes brimming with fear--eyes fixed and staring--filled
with horrified accusation.
The beauty I had once coveted became a thing forbidden, even in memory.
If I sought to peer through the veil as formerly--to witness her
pathetic attempts to resume the old life with Louis--again those eyes!
It may perhaps sound strange for a disembodied creature--one whom you
would call a ghost--to wail of being haunted. Yet haunting is of the
spirit, and we of the spirit world are immeasurably more subject to its
conditions than those whose consciousness is centered in the material
sphere.
God! Those eyes. There is a refinement of physical torture which
consists of allowing water to fall, drop by drop, for an eternity
of hours, upon the forehead of the victim. Conceive of this torture
increased a thousandfold, and a faint idea may be gained of the torture
that was mine--from seeing everywhere, constantly, interminably, two
orbs ever filled with the same expression of horror and reproach.
Much have I learned since entering the Land of the Shades. At that time
I did not know, as I know now, that my punishment was no affliction
from without, but the simple result of natural law. Causes set in
motion must work out their full reaction. The pebble, cast into a quiet
pool, makes ripples which in time return to the place of their origin.
I had cast more than a pebble of disturbance into the harmony of human
life, and through my intense preoccupation in a single aim had delayed
longer than usual the reaction, I created for myself a hell. Inevitably
I was drawn into it.
Gone was every desire I had known to hover near the two who had so long
engrossed my attention. Haunted, harried, scourged by those dreadful
accusers, I sought to fly from them to the ends of the earth. There was
no escape, yet, driven frantic, I still struggled to escape, because
that is the blind impulse of suffering creatures.
The emotions that had so swayed me when I tried to blast the lives of
two who held me dear now seemed puny and insignificant in comparison
with my suffering. No physical torment can be likened to that which
engulfed me until my very being was but a seething mass of agony.
Through it, I hurled maledictions upon the world, upon myself, upon the
creator. Horrible blasphemies I uttered.
And, at last--I prayed.
It was but a cry for mercy--the inarticulate appeal of a tortured soul
for surcease of pain--but suddenly a peace seemed to have come upon the
universe.
Bereft of suffering, I felt like one who has ceased to exist.
Out of the silence came a wordless response. It beat upon my
consciousness like the buffeting of the waves.
Words known to human ears would not convey the meaning of the message
that was borne upon me--whether from outside source or welling up from
within, I do not know. All I know is that it filled me with a strange
hope.
A thousand years or a single instant--for time is a relative thing--the
respite lasted. Then, I sank, as it seemed, to the old level of
consciousness, and the torment was renewed.
Endure it now I knew that I must--and why. A strange new purpose filled
my being. The light of understanding had dawned upon my soul.
And so I came to resume my vigil in the home of Velma and Louis.
_IX._
A brave heart was Velma’s--dauntless and true.
With the effects of the tragedy still apparent in her pallor and
weakness, and in the shaken demeanor and furtive, self-distrustful
attitude of Louis, she yet succeeded in finding a place for him as
overseer of a small country estate.
I have said that I ceased to feel the torment of passion for Velma in
the greater torment of her reproach. Ah! but I had never ceased to love
her. As I now realized, I had desecrated that love, had transmuted
it into a horrible travesty, had, in my abysmal ignorance, sought to
obtain what I desired by destroying it; yet, beneath all, I had loved.
Well I know, now, that had I succeeded in my intention toward her,
Velma would have ascended to a sphere utterly beyond my comprehension.
Merciful fate had diverted my aim--had made possible some faint
restitution.
I returned to Velma, loving her with a love that had come into its own,
a love unselfish, untainted by thought of possession.
But, to help her, I must again hurt her cruelly.
Out of the chaos of her life she had slowly restored a semblance of
harmony. Almost she succeeded in convincing Louis that their old
peaceful companionship had returned; but to one who could read her
thoughts, the nightmare thing that hovered between them weighed cruelly
upon her soul.
She was never quite able to look into her husband’s eyes without a
lurking suspicion of what might lie in their depths; never able to
compose herself for sleep without a tremor lest she should wake to find
herself confronted by a fiend in his form. I had done my work only too
well!
Now, slowly and inexorably, I began again undermining Louis’ mental
control. The old ground must be traversed anew, because he had gained
in strength from the respite I had allowed him, and his outdoor life
gave him a mental vigor with which I had not been obliged to contend
before. On the other hand, I was equipped with new knowledge of the
power I intended to wield.
I shall not relate again the successive stages by which I succeeded,
first in influencing his will, then in partially subduing it, and,
finally, in driving his personality into the background for indefinite
periods. The terror that overwhelmed him when he realized that he was
becoming a prey to his former aberrations may be imagined.
To shield Velma, I performed my experiments, when possible, while he
was away from her. But she could not long be unaware of the moodiness,
the haggard droop of his shoulders which accompanied his realization
that the old malady had returned. The deepening terror in her
expression was like a scourge upon my spirit--but I must wound her in
order to cure.
More than once, I was forced to exert my power over Louis to prevent
him from taking violent measures against himself. As I gained the
ascendancy, a determination to end it all grew upon him. He feared
that unless he took himself out of Velma’s life, the insanity would
return and force him again to commit a frenzied assault upon the one
he held most dear. Nor could he avoid seeing the apprehension in her
manner that told him she knew--the shrinking that she bravely tried to
conceal.
Though my power over him was greater than before, it was intermittent.
I could not always exercise it. I could not, for example, prevent his
borrowing a revolver one day from a neighboring farmer, on pretense of
using it against a marauding dog that had lately visited the poultry
yard.
Though I knew his true intention, the utmost that I could do--for his
personality was strong at the time--was to influence him to postpone
the deed he contemplated.
That night, I took possession of his body while he slept. Velma lay,
breathing quietly, in the next room--for as this dreaded thing came
upon him they had, through tacit understanding, come to occupy separate
bedrooms.
Partially dressing, I stole downstairs and out to the tool-shed where
Louis--fearing to trust it near him in the house--had hidden the
revolver. As I returned, my whole being rebelled at the task before
me--yet it was unavoidable, if I would restore to Velma what I had
wrenched from her.
Quietly though I entered her room, a gasp--or rather a quick,
hysterical intake of breath--warned me that she had wakened.