The supper bell now rang through the vast corridors of the Mountain
View Hotel, crowded with tourists from all parts of the continent.
Ladies, gorgeously dressed, commenced to take their seats at the supper
tables in the dining room, escorted by elegantly garbed gentlemen;
some of them in full evening dress, others again in black cutaway. The
clatter of knives and forks had already begun. The spacious dining room
was brightly illuminated. At the further end a carpet-covered platform
was visible, whose edges were a bank of flowers. Everything was
tastefully arranged. A pianist was already hammering away at a waltz
of one of the latest operatic successes, with frightful execution, as
an introduction to the interesting program of the evening, anxiously
awaited by the patrons of the house.
The clatter, the bustling noise, had suddenly stopped and all eyes were
riveted expectantly on the man who had just entered. Our humorist,
suffering in mind and body alike, pale and haggard, with restless eyes,
made his appearance in the borrowed clothes which hung loosely about
his emaciated form, tossing back his long locks with his right hand,
while holding the cherished book tightly in the other, he came down to
the very edge of the platform and smiled and bowed in all directions.
He looked exhausted and weary, as he was. But the room was crowded and
he had to go on, whether he wanted or not, so he commenced: "Ladies and
gentlemen."
He got no further. A mist swam suddenly before his eyes. A shiver shook
his emaciated frame, his face became flushed and bloated and he stared
and stared.
A side door had been opened a few minutes before and Mr. Ogden entered
with the much admired Cleopatra on his arm.
They passed through the crowded dining room, close to the speaker's
platform. She had changed her dazzling costume for a simpler, but an
extremely stylish dress of blue silk. She still wore some of the lilies
in the marvelous golden hair, which was now fastened with a gold comb
into a plain Greek knot. She was all aglow with excitement. The triumph
of the afternoon was still lingering on her handsome face. She felt
like shouting it out to everybody. Such conquest does not come often to
a woman in the ordinary walks of life.
She walked proudly, with a queenly step to her seat, nodding to some
casual acquaintances with a charming smile. And then she took her
seat and turned a glance of curiosity upon the famished face of the
entertainer. Their eyes met--and for a few seconds sank into each
others' like sharp daggers. A red tinge covered her startled face, then
she turned away, whiter than the lilies on her breast. She trembled
visibly and looked frightened, casting down her eyes.
Mr. Ogden did not seem to have noticed any change in her appearance and
gazed with a shocked countenance and great pity at the reduced exterior
of the poor humorist. Suddenly a great excitement was noticeable among
all the guests sitting around the small tables. Several gentlemen had
left their seats, rushed towards the place where the poor entertainer
had collapsed after recognizing his faithless wife garbed in that
splendor, so shamefully acquired, of which the wicked gnomes were
whispering so constantly into his ears.
He still believed in her then; but now--the dark, threatening
expression in his livid face was frightful to behold. He murmured
something about the gnomes that nobody could understand, staring with
hatred in his dilated eyes in the direction where she sat--she, the
mother of his innocent child, now disgraced forever!
"God! What have I done to deserve such a punishment?" he murmured
once more, pressing his bloodless lips tightly together as a cold
perspiration broke out on his deathlike face.
A vision of his mother's warning and sorrows was presented to his
benighted intelligence and made him cry with terror and shame.
The conflicting emotions were too much for the sadly undermined
constitution.
"The wicked gnomes!" he whispered with audible scorn and contempt in
his blazing eyes, as if sudden madness had seized on him, and then
tried to curse her, but not another word escaped his tightly closed
lips, though the blood began to gush from them.
The truth, so cruelly thrust upon him, ended his life's drama; his eyes
closed, he fell in a heap to the floor.
The pitying guests stood helplessly around him and did not know what to
do. Mr. Ogden was the first one who had presence of mind to send to the
nearest village in search of a doctor.
The beautiful Cleopatra sat there as pale as a ghost and was afraid
to go near the prostrate form of her unhappy husband, fearing that
someone might lift the veil and show the audience the ugliness of her
real self. A feeling of restlessness rushed upon her as if the shameful
story were being written on her flushed face. She could not endure it
any longer and left the dining room.
Mr. Ogden did not notice her departure, and busied himself around the
dying man, asking what he could do for him. The poor man pointed to a
letter in his side pocket where the addresses of his friends in Dresden
were written down.
"The gnomes!... the gnomes!" he stammered once more as the shadow of
death began to close in upon him. The blood streamed out incessantly,
and before the aid of a doctor could be secured, he was a corpse.