"Get up from this wet ground, you fellow! How did you ever come here
in this beastly weather?" He heard a deep sympathetic voice by his
side. Awakened from his swoon, soon he looked amazed around him. What
had happened? He did not know at all. His limbs were helpless and he
lay on the ground where he must have fallen. His treasured source
of income, his precious book, containing all his humorous lectures,
lay rain-soaked near his side. How long he had been lying there
unconscious, he did not know himself. A slim well-dressed man stood
before him, doing his best to help him get up and trying to comfort him
as much as he could, shaking his head wonderingly, and inquiring how he
ever happened to be lost in such a place.
The lecturer looked about him with great relief. He did not see the
gnomes anywhere. So it was not true what they told him, what they
sneered at--
His heart rejoiced. It was only a hallucination, nothing else. All he
had seen and heard must have been a stupid fancy of his tired brain.
The best proof was, that he found himself lying helplessly on the
ground, just awakening from a swoon.
Yes, the condition of his brain was at fault; that was as clear as
daylight. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, while a feeling of unspeakable joy
surged through his heart, now gladdened with thankfulness.
"I came near believing all that stupid nonsense of those wicked gnomes
about my----"
"Hey! listen to me, poor fellow! What in Heaven's name, are you doing
here on that wet ground?"
It was not until the stranger by his side had repeated his question
that he could pull himself together and answer in a stammering voice,
while a cold shiver shook his emaciated frame.
He looked at the stranger with dilated eyes. "Beg pardon sir. I--I must
have lost my way. I was to give a humorous lecture at a neighboring
hotel, and--and fell down," he said helplessly, picking up his
rain-soaked book, which he had discovered within reach.
"Why, you are wet through and through, my man. What can I do for you?"
asked the stranger with deep sympathy.
A strange look of wonder illuminated the face of the downfallen man.
He stammered: "If you would have the great kindness to help bring me
to the Mountain View Hotel. You see, I am expected there. I've got to
earn some money tonight yet." He paused to cough; his voice seemed
sepulchral.
"I have a motherless child to support." His head was bent to hide his
emotion. "My girlie must have all she needs. I--I couldn't stand it if
they were to let her go hungry. God!" Again a vehement cough shook his
wasted frame.
"Well, well, this turns out all right. I'll bring you there as we are
staying in the same hotel."
"He's got fever, sir--better let's get him on the box," he heard the
coachman say who stood by his side looking with obvious pity at the man
before him.
A few paces away, a closed carriage was standing with two lighted
lanterns in front of it.
The storm had relented for a while, and mysterious silence fell upon
the scene.
"Ogden!" now called out an excited woman's voice from within the
carriage. "To miss the table d'hote on account of that wretched
beggar. Why it's just unpardonable!"
"That voice!... God have mercy!"
The man on the ground stammered as if struck by lightning. His eyes
dilated, starting out of their sockets and staring horrified at the
carriage.
"That voice," he repeated. "Could it be possible? Could she be there?
Am I still under the influence of that horrible hallucination?" he
moaned piteously. He could not and would not believe a word of all they
told him.
Again he seemed to hear the revolting chuckle of the insolent gnomes,
from the Traunstein, repeating their malignant tales of the outrageous
conduct of his--
"Up with you quickly, for we'll have more rain within a short time!"
said Mr. Ogden, now in a sympathetic voice, and at the same time
heeding the woman's command in the carriage, which he would not have
ignored for any consideration.
The coachman assisted the stranger to his seat on the box, and then Mr.
Ogden entered the carriage, closing the door carefully.
Then the splendid team of horses set off like the wind. "God have pity
on me! that voice!"
He could never forget the voice of that alluring siren who had goaded
him on, until he saw nothing but her seductive face, listened to
nothing but her deceitful declarations of love, without thinking of his
mother's grief and her death!
Could it be possible? She here in that closed carriage with another
man? No, no! It was another hallucination of his feverish brain.
How could she ever have attained such wealth? "Nonsense!" he murmured
smilingly to himself, drawing a long breath of relief. Ah! how he had
adored that faithless woman!
The smiling expression died out of his face, and a mournful compassion
for his deserted child stole into his troubled countenance. Why did she
bring so much misery into his life? Every fibre of his noble heart had
been throbbing with uncontrollable love for her! And now----the light
of life, the hope of future years, was blotted out, clouds of despair
and a grim night of an unbroken desolation fell like a pall on his
heart and brain. Nothing to look forward to but misery!