her husband to foreign countries before the honeymoon was over, was
the terror of her household. She, I believe, took a dislike to me from
the first on account of a singular resemblance between us, and also
because she saw I was her equal by birth and education. At any rate, she
delighted in humiliating me in every way, as well as in making my duties
as laborious as possible. I hated to touch a morsel of food under her
roof, but my unmet obligations made it impossible for me to resign my
position, as I did not know where else I could obtain remunerative work,
and I had a horror of debt. But, though I outwardly kept my temper, a
volcano of hurt pride and misery burned within me.
“‘One Wednesday night I went to my room more than usually worn and
enraged by Mrs. Fancourt’s caprices. It had been one of her stormiest
days, culminating in the discharge of her butler, and the bitterest
invectives against the other servants. I had just retired, and had hardly
fallen asleep, when the bell over my head rang violently. Springing up, I
slipped on a dressing-gown and went downstairs. Mrs. Fancourt was sitting
in an easy-chair reading a novel. The hands of the clock on the mantel
pointed to eleven. Without looking at me, she motioned to a table not
three yards away, saying insolently, “Bring me that paper-knife.”
“‘“Never,” I answered passionately.
“‘With this she rose and came towards me, striking me full in the face
with the paper-covered novel in her hand.
“‘Then it was as if all my pent-up self-control snapped. I sprang toward
her, seized her by the shoulders, shook her until my strength was spent,
and flung her from me.
“‘She fell heavily, striking her temple upon a sharp corner of the
fender, where she lay quite still. I hurried forward and spoke to her.
There was no response and I lifted her face to the firelight. To my
horror I found that she was dead.
“‘And what was to become of me? I had killed her in a fit of passion,
I could not deny, though it was by accident. How could I prove my
innocence? I was without friends or money. When my debts were brought
to light, might not theft and the fear of discovery be advanced as the
motive for the crime? If not the scaffold, I saw, at least, prison bars
before me.
“‘Instinctively looking around for something to wrap about me, I caught
up a satin-lined garment of Mrs. Fancourt, and, slipping it on, rang
the bell. Wishing to spare the one who answered it a shock, I met the
housekeeper in the hall.
“‘“What is it, Mrs. Fancourt?” asked the woman very respectfully,
evidently mistaking me for her mistress.
“‘In that instant there flashed into my half-crazed brain the wild idea
that I might personify Mrs. Fancourt for the time being. The death of
the poor, unknown English girl could be of little moment, while the
announcement of the death of Mrs. Fancourt would cause much more comment.
“‘With this idea, I told the housekeeper to come to me in half an hour;
then, with the courage of desperation, I clothed the dead body in one
of my dresses, arrayed myself in one of Mrs. Fancourt’s gowns, darkened
my eyebrows to simulate hers, and let my hair fall about my face in
confusion.
“‘Meantime, I had determined to insure myself against detection by the
three remaining servants by getting rid of them at once, a plan rendered
all the easier by the fact that it simply carried out Mrs. Fancourt’s
mood of the day. In fact, it had been her custom to vent her feelings by
discharging her entire corps of servants in a body and with no warning;
and their comings and goings caused not the slightest comment.
“‘The scheme succeeded to perfection. The other servants, terrified
by the catastrophe, gladly left the house at once, especially as each
was provided with two weeks’ wages in advance. Mrs. Fancourt’s only
sister and near relative was traveling in Europe; her husband was at
the antipodes. Of course there was a coroner’s inquest; but, as nothing
was proven to the contrary, a verdict of death by accident was brought
in. The whole matter passed off very quietly; few outside the household
knew that Mrs. Fancourt had an English companion or that she had died.
Those who did thought it very kind of Mrs. Fancourt to give the companion
burial in her own family lot.
“‘Then I fell sick, and for weeks raved with brain fever. When I
recovered I was but the ghost of my former self, and friends of the dead
woman who came to call after my recovery said they never would have known
me.
“‘As soon as I was able I devoted myself to art, which now, by a freak
of fortune, brought me large returns. I not only paid the debts of my
“deceased English companion,” but supported myself comfortably without
touching the fund left at the disposal of Mrs. Fancourt by her husband.
That I never could have done. I should have been happy but for the grief
I felt at having—though unwittingly—caused the death of another. There
has never been a moment when I would not have willingly yielded up my
life, could it have restored that of my victim. The fact that I usurped
her name and position was due to a momentary cowardice. There was only
one thing belonging to the dead woman that I coveted, and that was her
husband!—and not even him until that night of nights when he came into
my monotonous life and kissed me with that quiet air of ownership and
dominion!
“‘I had dreaded your coming, fearing you, above all others, would
discover the fraud. And when your message reached me, and, on the impulse
of the moment, I sent that fatal answer, “Come,” it had hardly left my
hand before I regretted it. For at once it flashed upon me how impossible
it would be to account for all or to conceal all. But from the instant
that you stood before me I was conquered by another feeling than that of
dread,—I loved you. Love and not fear held me to the lie. And it was my
respect for you and for myself that made me insist upon that marriage
ceremony.
“‘I always knew that should you discover the deceit I should leave
you—not because I felt guilty of crime—for of that I have always felt
morally innocent—but because I won and married you under false pretenses.
I cannot bear to lose one iota of your respect and remain where I can
miss it.’”
Here Paul Fancourt closed his story. I heard the high wind lashing the
trees; darkness was growing dense; the early November evening was closing
in.
“It was seven years ago to-night that I first met her in this house,”
went on Fancourt.
“Surely you have taken measures to find her?”
“I have done everything under heaven. Once in awhile I grow desperate and
try everything over again. But it is useless. And yet I have a feeling
that she will return, and that if she does it will be to this house. So I
am just waiting here, waiting—
“Well, John?”
“A lady to see you, sir,” said the butler at the door.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know, sir; she wouldn’t give any name.”
Fancourt rose and went towards the door; but before he reached it his
visitor pushed past the servant and stood,—a tall, veiled figure in
black,—clutching nervously at the drapery at the door. Then she threw
back her veil. I caught a glimpse of a marvelous face and hair sprinkled
with snow about the temples, of two dark, beautiful eyes fixed on Paul.
“I—I couldn’t stay away—any longer,” she whispered huskily.
Fancourt rushed towards her with an inarticulate cry. Then, with hands
outstretched, “My wife,” he gasped, “I—”
But what followed I shall never know; for the next moment I had retreated
into the library, where for half an hour I sat diligently reading a book
held upside down.
What I do know, however, is this: All that I have told happened three
years ago; and up to the present time Paul Fancourt’s third experiment in
matrimony has proved a triumphant success.
[Illustration]
A Telepathic Wooing.
BY JAMES BUCKHAM.
Dr. Amsden was utterly and hopelessly in love with beautiful Miriam
Foote. But, in spite of his six feet of splendid manhood—or, perhaps,
because of them—the young doctor was so timid in the presence of the
fair sex, and particularly in the presence of the fascinating Miriam,
that he could no more bring himself to utter a syllable of sentiment to
that young woman than he could walk up to the venerable and dignified
president of the State Medical Association and tweak his nose! The two
things seemed equally preposterous and impossible.
At this juncture of affairs, curiously enough, there fell into the hands
of Dr. Amsden a book that offered a magical solution of the problem that
perplexed him,—viz., how to make love to the woman who had ensnared his
heart, without being conscious of doing it. This book was called “The Law
of Psychic Phenomena,” and its central theory was that the “subjective
mind,” or soul, of any person, by a process of auto-suggestion, may
enter into communication with the subjective mind of another person,
at any distance whatsoever. A condition of sleep, either cataleptic or
natural, is induced by the agent in himself; but previously to falling
to sleep he must concentrate his whole mental energy and will-power upon
the determination to convey a certain image, or message, or both to the
subjective mind of the person with whom he wishes to communicate. Then
away goes his spirit—his phantasm—while he is buried in unconscious
slumber, appears in his very image to the person designated, and delivers
the message with his very voice and manner. Truly, a marvelous theory,
and of untold significance to timid lover’s and bashful solicitors of
every kind.
According to this theory, Dr. Amsden, in order to make telepathic love
to Miriam Foote, need simply drop to sleep, on a certain night, with a
strong determination to send his phantasm to the young woman with an
eloquent plea of affection. That was all. It was not even necessary for
him to furnish the general substance, introduction, or any portion of
this glowing address. He need simply specify that it should be passionate
and rich in verbal color,—ordering a proposal much as he would a dinner
at a first-class hotel, with perfect confidence that at the proper time
it would be served in proper form. To be sure, this method of wooing was
not in strict accordance with the traditional etiquette of such affairs.
It might even be considered that this proposal by a sort of phantasmal
proxy was hardly fair to the object of the experiment. A ghost is, after
all, but a ghost, whether it be attached to a bodily tenement or be
simply a spirit at large, and even the most heavenly minded young woman
might cherish a prejudice in favor of a fleshly lover. On the other hand,
however, the choice lay not between two methods of wooing, but between
this and none at all; and how easy, how delightful a method of making a
proposal of marriage. It could all be performed, like a painful surgical
operation, during merciful sleep. Then the lover when next he met the
lady in his every-day person would know by her manner whether she had
accepted or rejected him. The more Dr. Amsden considered this fascinating
project the more trivial seemed his scruples against its fulfilment.
Indeed, he asked himself judicially, was it not a fundamental doctrine of
metaphysics that only the soul was real, and so-called matter was simply
the shadow cast by the spirit? This being the case, his vulgarly named
ghost was in reality no ghost at all, while his bodily presence was the
real phantasm.
Having arrived at this comfortable, though to the lay mind slightly
abstruse, conclusion, Amsden wavered no longer. “I will do it,” he said,
jumping to his feet. “I will do it to-night—or—no, a few days must
be given to subduing the flesh and concentrating the energies of the
subjective mind. On Saturday evening, at the time of my regular weekly
call, I will make an end to this painful uncertainty. Though I cannot but
hope that she looks upon my suit with favor, I shall never dare to broach
the subject of love openly in the flesh. My ghost—or, at least, what is
vulgarly known as a ghost—shall speak, and I will abide by the result.”
On his return from dinner that evening Dr. Amsden locked all the doors
and darkened all the windows of his apartments. Then, after smoking a
meditative cigar, he went to bed. It was barely eight o’clock in the
evening when his head touched the pillow, but, as he had planned to send
his image to Miss Foote at precisely nine o’clock, before that young
lady should have retired to her chamber, he wished to have ample time to
get himself to sleep. Besides, he was really tired and drowsy, which was
certainly a favorable condition for his experiment. He had feared that
he would be excited and nervous; but already the suggestion of sleep
which he had been constantly reiterating for the past hour was beginning
to tell upon his brain. The formula, “I am about to go to sleep, I am
becoming sleepy, I sleep,” was having a most magical effect.
Dr. Amsden dropped into the misty chasm of slumber in less than fifteen
minutes after getting to bed. But that fifteen minutes had been spent in
strenuous command, on the part of the objective mind, that the subjective
mind should go, at precisely nine o’clock, to the home of Miss Foote,
present itself in the exact and correct image of the lover, and make an
ardent appeal to the affections of the lady.
In about two hours Amsden awoke, bathed in perspiration, and feeling
thoroughly exhausted. He was not conscious of having dreamed at all,
and yet it seemed to him as if he had just shaken off a most horrible
nightmare. He arose, lit the gas, and consulted his watch. It was just
ten o’clock. “Thank heaven,” he cried, “I did not wake before the time!”
He went back to bed, and fell instantly into the deep slumber of complete
exhaustion, from which he did not wake until late the next morning.
For two days he did not see Miss Foote. Then he summoned up courage to
call upon her. She came downstairs looking pale and anxious, and the
moment that Amsden’s eyes fell upon her his heart began to throb with
suffocating violence. Undoubtedly his experiment had succeeded as far
as the proposal was concerned—but should his attitude be that of the
accepted or rejected lover?
Hardly noticing his stammering expressions of solicitude for her altered
looks, Miriam led the way into the drawing-room, and, motioning him to
a chair, seated herself in a dim corner at the other side of the room.
Then, with her blue eyes lowered and her fingers twisting nervously, she
said:—
“Dr. Amsden, I owe you an apology. When you called two nights ago and
asked me to be your wife I was too much agitated to answer you. To tell
the truth,” she continued, reddening a little, “the eloquence of your
words, their poetry and melody, so surprised and overcame me that I could
not answer as you deserved. When I left you and walked to the other side
of the room it was only that I might gain possession of myself, and when
I looked up and found you gone—”
“Gone!” exclaimed Amsden, groaning audibly.
“Yes, gone like a spirit (here Miss Foote paused, while Amsden clutched
at his chair, feeling as though his whole body were turning to sand and
dribbling down upon the floor) without a word of good-bye, I feared that
I had mortally offended you and that you would never come back to—”
“Then you were not angry because my ghost—because I left like a ghost?
You wanted me to come back? But why?”
“I—I think you ought to know,” said the girl, blushing.
And the next moment Dr. Amsden was kneeling at her feet.
“I did it in a dream—no, I don’t mean that—I mean this is a dream. I
ought to explain.”
“No, don’t try. I understand,” said Miriam softly.
The girl’s head sank forward on his shoulder. She was crying a little,
but she suffered her lover’s arms to slip around her waist, and into his
trembling hand she pressed her own.
It was done, the impossible, the inconceivable! And even Amsden felt in
his heaving heart that he had never done anything so easy and so utterly
delightful in his whole life.
It was true that Miriam did not understand, but Amsden felt that at such
a juncture any explanations would be not merely out of place, but even
indelicate.
To his credit be it said, however, that on one occasion before his
marriage he attempted to confess to Miriam all the circumstances of his
proposal; but while he was still struggling with his introduction she
stopped him with a peremptory gesture.
“I don’t understand a word about subjective and objective minds,” she
said, in a wounded voice. “All I know is that you made me the most
beautiful proposal I had ever heard—I mean imagined—but of course if you
want to take it back by saying that you were not responsible at the time—”
Whereupon Amsden was obliged to consume two delightful hours in assuring
his sweetheart that he was a blundering fool, and that his metaphysical
nonsense, translated, meant that it was his best self that had made that
eloquent proposal, and that he was only afraid his every-day self was not
one tenth good enough for her.
[Illustration]
The Prince Ward.
BY CLAUDE M. GIRARDEAU.
The hospital was almost finished, but, as there were several wards
still unendowed, the board of managers gave a reception. Ostensibly, to
enable a curious public to inspect the building; in reality, to obtain
benefactions. Among the visitors was a Mr. Prince, a Southerner, and
reputed wealthy. He seemed greatly interested in the hospital, and
selected for endowment a single ward on the second floor, department of
surgery. It was at once completed at his expense and christened with his
name.
Its first occupant was his wife. She looked like a dying woman to the
superintendent, but he entered her case on the new books without comment,
and she was examined by the surgeons in charge. They advised an immediate
operation as the only hope—and that a slight one—of saving her life. In
fact, they knew she could not recover either with or without it; but the
operation would be an interesting one.
“I did not think I was so ill,” said Mrs. Prince pathetically, as the
nurse took her back to her room.
“Guess she hasn’t looked in a glass lately,” was the attendant’s unspoken
comment.
“She looks for all the world like a starved cat,” she said to another
nurse, later on, “with her big green eyes and her black hair. Won’t I
have a sweet time combing all that hair? It’s about two yards long. She’s
more hair than anything else.”
The morning of the operation found Mrs. Prince cold with nervous terror.
“Do you think I will suffer much?” she inquired of the nurse tremulously.
“Oh, no, indeed,” replied that functionary, with professional
cheerfulness, plaiting away at the endless lengths of hair. “If I was
you, I’d have about half of this cut off.”
Mrs. Prince looked at the long, heavy plaits, then up at the nurse, her
gray eyes darkening.
“If you cannot take care of it,” she said quietly, “I will tell the
superintendent to send me another woman.”
The nurse colored.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said awkwardly.
When the toilet of the condemned was completed Mr. Prince came in with a
huge handful of roses, smiling genially as his eyes fell on his wife.
“Why, P’tite, you look like John Chinaman in that funny shirt.”
She smiled in return, but wanly.
“I suppose I do look absurd.” She held out her arms; he filled them with
the roses, and sat down by the narrow bed. She turned aside her head to
hide the sudden tears. He drew her plaits of hair from neck to heel and
bent to kiss her cheek as the doctors came in to administer ether.
“Madame Kanaris is here,” he said softly, “and begs to see you. May she
come in?”
“Madame Kanaris!” She stared up at him with dilating eyes. “When did she
come to B⸺? What is she doing here?”
“The nurse said I might come in for one little moment,” said an
exquisitely melodious voice at the door directly facing the sick woman.
The men all looked up. A woman, young, beautiful as the day, stood on
the threshold, her tender deep blue eyes fixed upon the patient with an
expression of the liveliest emotion.
Her radiant hair, her dazzling complexion, her superb figure enveloped
in furs, and the indescribable grace of her attitude made the sick woman
appear grotesquely skeleton-like and ghastly.
It was Life confronting Death. Death raised itself upon an emaciated arm,
and spoke to Life:—
“I cannot see you now, madame. The physicians have just come in, as you
see. I beg that you will go away.”
Prince sprang to his feet and approached the visitor.
“I did not know the physicians would be here,” he murmured. “Shall I take
you downstairs? Will you wait for me in the parlors?”
While he was speaking to Madame Kanaris his wife motioned to a surgeon.
“I am ready. But, O doctor, are you sure it will make me quite dead? Are
you sure I shall not be just iced over, with a frightful consciousness
underneath? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” said the surgeon pityingly, stealing a glance at the
figures in the doorway. “You will be blotted out of existence during the
operation. Do not be afraid.”
He took her cold hand into a warm, compassionate palm. In a few seconds
she was carried past her husband and Madame Kanaris, who were still
talking in the corridor.
Prince was startled as the procession of doctors and nurses came out of
the room.
His companion glanced at them, and her brilliant color faded.
“Do not leave me,” she gasped, holding him by the arm. “Take me away. I
should not have come.”
Prince hesitated. The stretcher was being carried into the elevator. He
turned to the beautiful, agitated woman beside him, drew her hand through
his arm, and they went downstairs together.
The operation was long, difficult, and dangerous, taxing both nerve and
skill. The operating-room was very hot. One of the nurses fainted, and a
young doctor, sick at heart and stomach, helped her away, glad to get out
himself.
The operating surgeon, a keen, self-possessed practitioner, looked at the
patient when all was over, with a deep breath of relief.
“The very worst case of its kind I ever saw,” he remarked to a colleague.
“It will be a miracle if she recovers, although I would give one of my
ears to make it possible.”
After three days of delirium and torture the woman died.
It was the twenty-eighth day of February.
Madame Kanaris came into the ward alone, and stood for a few moments
looking down at the face on the narrow pillow.
“She could never have recovered in any event?” she said questioningly to
the nurse.
“I don’t see how she could,” was the calm reply.
Madame put out a flashing hand.
“May I see?” she said with delicate curiosity.
The nurse lifted a layer of batting.
The beautiful visitor gave a cry of dismay and clapped the hand to her
face.
“I thought it would make you sick,” said the nurse quietly. “I guess you
had better go to the window.”
Madame stood with her lace handkerchief pressed to her lips and gazed
upon the ice and snow without.
Presently she said:—
“Mr. Prince desires the hair of his wife. Will you kindly cut off the
plaits close to the head.”
“It does seem a pity,” observed the nurse, snipping at the plaits
stolidly, “to take the only thing from her she seemed to care much about.
I guess they can bury my hair with me.”
“She is not to be buried,” replied madame softly, still gazing upon the
whiteness without. “It would be a pity to burn such splendid hair, would
it not?”
“Oh!” said the nurse, “I see. Going to send her to the new crematory?”
“Are you a New Englander?” gently inquired the lady, turning her dark
blue eyes upon the inquisitive attendant.
“I guess I am. Why?”
“I have always heard that New Englanders asked a great many questions.”
The nurse colored and snapped the scissors vigorously through the last
strands of hair. The thick, short locks stuck out stiffly behind the dead
woman’s ears. The nurse held out the snakelike braids to Madame Kanaris,
who drew back a little.
“Please put them in this box for me,” she said quickly. “Mr. Prince will
send for it.”
In leaving the room she touched the dead forehead lightly with a finger,
crossed herself, and murmured something in a strange tongue.
“Catholic, I guess,” sniffed the nurse, watching her as she went down
the corridor, with that mingling of envy and unwilling admiration that
the beautiful Greek always succeeded in implanting in the bosoms of her
less-favored sisters.
In a few days’ time Prince and Madame Kanaris returned to the hospital
with a picture they desired hung in the ward. It might have been
an idealized portrait of Mrs. Prince,—the face of a saint against a
background of sunset, or the head of a martyr dark against flame, as the
imagination of the beholder should suggest.
The frame was oval with an inscription below the head. It was also heavy,
of plaited bronze, with a boxlike backing. It was the work of a finished
artist, however, and, being idealized, the portrait was beautiful. It was
hung above the bed, as the other wall spaces were occupied with cheerful
landscapes.