BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT.
It had been brain fever. For ten days Edward was helpless, but under the
care of the two loving women he rapidly recovered. The time came when he
could sit in the cool of the evening upon the veranda and listen to the
voices he had learned to love--for he no longer disguised the truth from
himself. The world held for him but one dream, through it and in the
spell of his first home life the mother became a being to be reverenced.
She was the fulfilled promise of the girl, all the tender experiences of
life were pictured in advance for him who should win her hand and heart.
But it was only a dream. During the long hours of the night as he lay
wakeful, with no escape from himself, he thought out the situation and
made up his mind to action. He would go to Col. Montjoy and confess the
ignorance of his origin that overwhelmed him and then he would provide
for his ward and go away with Virdow to the old world and the old life.
The mental conclusion of his plan was a species of settlement. It helped
him. Time and again he cried out, when the remembrance came back to him,
but it was the honorable course and he would follow it. He would go
away.
The hours of his convalescence were the respite he allowed himself. Day
by day he said: "I will go to-morrow." In the morning it was still
"to-morrow." And when he finally made his announcement he was promptly
overruled. Col. Montjoy and Norton were away, speaking and campaigning.
All primaries had been held but two. The colonel's enemies had conceded
to him of the remaining counties the remote one. The other was a county
with a large population and cast four votes in the convention. It was
the home of Swearingen, but, as frequently happens, it was the scene of
the candidate's greatest weakness. There the struggle was to be titanic.
Both counties were needed to nominate Montjoy.
The election took place on the day of Edward's departure for Ilexhurst.
That evening he saw a telegram announcing that the large county had
given its vote to Montjoy by a small majority. The remote county had but
one telegraph office, and that at a way station upon its border. Little
could be heard from it, but the public conceded Col. Montjoy's
nomination, since there had been no doubt as to this county. Edward
hired a horse, put a man upon it, sent the news to the two ladies and
then went to his home.
He found awaiting him two letters of importance. One from Virdow, saying
he would sail from Havre on the 25th; that was twelve days previous. He
was therefore really due at Ilexhurst then. The other was a letter he
had written to Abingdon soon after his first arrival, and was marked
"returned to writer." He wondered at this. The address was the same he
had used for years in his correspondence. Although Abingdon was
frequently absent from England, the letters had always reached him. Why,
then, was this one not forwarded? He put it aside and ascertained that
Virdow had not arrived at the house.
It was then 8 o'clock in the evening. By his order a telephone had been
placed in the house, and he at once rang up the several hotels. Virdow
was found to be at one of these, and he succeeded in getting that
distinguished gentleman to connect himself with the American invention
and explained to him the situation.
"Take any hack and come at once," was the message that concluded their
conversation, and Virdow came! In the impulsive continental style, he
threw himself into Edward's arms when the latter opened the door of the
carriage.
Slender, his thin black clothes hanging awkwardly upon him, his trousers
too short, the breadth of his round German face, the knobs on his
shining bald forehead exaggerated by the puffy gathering of the hair
over his ears, his candid little eyes shining through the round,
double-power glasses, his was a figure one had to know for a long time
in order to look upon it without smiling.
Long the two sat with their cigars and ran over the old days together.
Then the professor told of wondrous experiments in sound, of the advance
knowledge into the regions of psychology, of the marvels of heredity.
His old great theme was still his ruling passion. "If the mind has no
memory, then much of the phenomena of life is worse than bewildering.
Prove its memory," he was wont to say, "and I will prove immortality
through that memory."
It was the same old professor. He was up now and every muscle working as
he struggled and gesticulated, and wrote invisible hieroglyphics in the
air about him and made geometrical figures with palms and fingers. But
the professor had advanced in speculation.
"The time will come, my young friend," he said at last, "when the mind
will give us its memories complete. We shall learn the secrets of
creation by memory. In its perfection we shall place a man yonder and by
vibration get his mind memory to work; theoretically he will first write
of his father and then his grandfather, describing their mental lives.
He will go back along the lines of his ancestry. He will get into Latin,
then Greek, then Hebrew, then Chaldean, then into cuneiform
inscriptions, then into figure representation. He will be an artist or
musician or sculptor, and possibly all if the back trail of his memory
crosses such talents. Aye," he continued, enthusiastically, "lost
nations will live again. The portraits of our ancestors will hang in
view along the corridors of all times! This will come by vibratory
force, but how?"
Edward leaned forward, breathless almost with emotion.
"You say the time is come; what has been done?"
"Little and much! The experiments----"
"Tell me, in all your experiments, have you known where a child,
separated from a parent since infancy, without aid of description, or
photograph, or information derived from a living person, could see in
memory or imagination the face of that parent, see it with such
distinctness as to enable him, an artist, to reproduce it in all
perfection?"
The professor wiped his glasses nervously and kept his gaze upon his
questioner.
"Never."
"Then," said Edward, "you have crossed the ocean to some purpose! I have
known such an instance here in this house. The person is still here! You
know me, my friend, and you do not know me. To you I was a rich young
American, with a turn for science and speculation. You made me your
friend and God bless you for it, but you did not know all of that
mystery which hangs over my life never to be revealed perhaps until the
millennium of science you have outlined dawns upon us. The man who
educated me, who enriched me, was not my parent or relative; he was my
guardian. He has made me the guardian of a frail, sickly lad whose
mystery is, or was, as complete as mine. Teach us to remember." The
words burst from him. They held the pent-up flood that had almost
wrecked his brain.
Rapidly he recounted the situation, leaving out the woman's story as to
himself. Not to his Savior would he confess that.
And then he told how, following his preceptor's hints about vibration,
he had accidentally thrown Gerald into a trance; its results, the second
experiment, the drawing and the woman's story of Gerald's birth.
During this recital the professor never moved his eyes from the
speaker's face.
"You wish to know what I think of it? This: I have but recently ventured
the proposition publicly that all ideal faces on the artist's canvas are
mind memories. Prove to me anew your results and if I establish the
reasonableness of my theory I shall have accomplished enough to die on."
"In your opinion, then, this picture that Gerald drew is a mind memory?"
"Undoubtedly. But you will perceive that the more distant, the older the
experience, we may say, the less likelihood of accuracy."
"It would depend, then, you think, upon the clearness of the original
impression?"
"That is true! The vividness of an old impression may also outshine a
new one."
"And if this young man recalls the face of a woman, who we believe it
possible--nay, probable--is his mother, and then the face of one we know
to be her father, as a reasonable man, would you consider the story of
this negro woman substantiated beyond the shadow of a doubt?"
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt."
"We shall try," said Edward, and then, after a moment's silence: "He is
shy of strangers and you may find it difficult to get acquainted with
him. After you have succeeded in gaining his confidence we shall settle
upon a way to proceed. One word more, he is a victim of morphia. Did I
tell you that?"
"No, but I guessed it."
"You have known such men before, then?"
"I have studied the proposition that opium may be a power to effect what
we seek, and, in connection with it, have studied the hospitals that
make a specialty of such cases."
There was a long silence, and presently Edward said:
"Will you say good-night now?"
"Good-night." The professor gazed about him. "How was it you used to say
good-night, Edward? Old customs are good. It is not possible that the
violin has been lost." He smiled and Edward got his instrument and
played. He knew the old man's favorites; the little folk-melodies of the
Rhine country, bits of love songs, mostly, around which the loving
players of Germany have woven so many beautiful fancies. And in the
playing Edward himself was quieted.
The light from the hall downstairs streamed out along the gravel walk,
and in the glare was a man standing with arms folded and head bent
forward. A tall woman came and gently laid her hand upon him. He started
violently, tossed his arms aloft and rushed into the darkness. She
waited in silence a moment and then slowly followed him.