"Well, of course you're right," I said, carelessly, and at that moment I
put my hand on the letter. I turned my back and put it in my pocket.
I went hurriedly to the barn. The runabout trap and the mare were out.
Then I finished dressing, and had breakfast. Soon after, William drove
into the yard, and I called from the library window--"Where have you
been?"
"Just to the station, sir."
"What for? Has my freight arrived?"
"Mr. Hurn, for the 11.10,"--he explained respectfully.
"Ah, yes!" I cried, in an overvoice; "I keep forgetting that I have just
waked up. You saw him off? Ah--did he leave any message for me? I
overslept, and did not see him this morning."
"No, sir; I had no message," he replied. "But he's a liberal man, Mr.
Hurn, sir." He grinned and slapped his pocket; then, with a look of
doubt, he straightened out one leg to allow his hand inside; the look
grew more doubting; he stood up and searched systematically, under the
seat, everywhere.
"Guess it rolled out," I said, very much interested. "What was it?"
"A silver dollar," he answered, mournfully.
"Oh, well, I'll make that up," I called, and shut the window.
I took out my watch and made a calculation; Auber's train was probably
at Newark. I could stand it no longer, and I went toward his room,
stamping on the bare floor, whistling nervously, and rattling the
rickety balustrade. I banged open the door and began to shout: "Auber!
you've missed your----"
He did not move. He was lying on his back, with his arms extended evenly
outside the bedclothes, which were tucked close around his breast. He
lay as if in state, with that dull dusty pallor on his face, and that
eyeless vacancy of an effigy on a marble tomb--a voidness of expression,
with masklike indications of duration and immobility. On the
reading-table, at his bedside, I noticed his watch lying face up. It was
two or three minutes of the noon hour.
Sitting down on the bed, I touched Auber on the shoulder. He did not
move. An intuition, growing till it all but became an idea, and then
remaining short of expressibility, unable to perceive even its own
indefiniteness--a film for impressions where there is no light--such
was the vagueness of my guess concerning the metamorphosis that was
taking place. Yet I began to understand that Auber Hurn, the real man,
was not there, not on the bed, not in my house at all. It was as if the
Person were being gradually deducted, leaving only the prime flesh to
vouch for the man's existence. Even as I sat in wonder, with my eyes
upon him, the life tinge faded utterly from his skin. There was a
fleeting shadow as if of pain. His breast sank in a long outbreathing,
and then, after seconds and minutes, it did not rise again. I listened.
The room seemed to be listening with me. The silence became stricken
with awe, with the interminable and unanswering awe--the muteness of
death.
We believed in the thing. Ezekiel and Judson came down in response to my
telegrams, and we sat here talking it all over, hours through the night.
It was inevitable to believe in it. We took his body up in the darkness,
and buried it in the scree on my hill; then we came back to Auber's
room, and faced each other by the empty bed.
"This is not for the practical world, or for the law," I said. "No
coroner on earth could return a verdict here."
"We could never see the thing clearly again if the practical world got
hold of it," said Judson. "Look; you have to believe so much!" He had
picked up Auber's purse from the table, where it had lain beside his
watch. He opened it over the bed. A roll of bills fell out--and one
silver dollar.
"That belongs to William, before the law," said Ezekiel.