September brought other guests, and with their arrival Amos Judd and
Molly Cabot found the easy, irresponsible routine of their happy summer
again disturbed. To his own fierce regret Amos could invent no decent
pretext for escaping a visit he had promised early in the summer, and
a more unwilling victim never resigned himself to a week of pleasure.
To the girl he was to leave behind him, he bewailed the unreasonable
cruelty of his friends. “This leaving you, Soul of my Soul, is worse
than death. I shall not eat while I am gone, and nights I shall sit up
and curse.”
But at the end of a week he returned, promptly on the minute. His
moments of depression, however, seemed rather to increase than
diminish, and, although carefully repressed, were visible to a pair of
watchful eyes. Upon his face when in repose there had always been a
melancholy look, which now seemed deepening as from an inward sorrow,
too strong to conquer. This was betrayed occasionally by a careless
speech, but to her questioning he always returned a cheerful answer.
In spite of these heroic efforts to maintain a joyful front, Molly was
not deceived, and it was evident, even to Mr. Cabot, that the young man
was either ill in body or the victim of a mental disturbance that might
be disastrous in its results. Of this he was destined to have a closer
knowledge than his daughter. It came about one Sunday morning, when the
two men had climbed a neighboring hill for a view which Mr. Cabot had
postponed from week to week since early June. This was his last Sunday
in Daleford and his final opportunity.
The view was well worth the climb. The day itself, such a day as comes
oftenest in September, when the clear air is tempered to the exact
degree for human comfort by the rays of a summer sun, was one in which
the most indifferent view could shine without an effort. Below them,
at the foot of the hill, lay the village of Daleford with its single
street. Except the white spires of the churches, little of it could be
seen, however, beneath the four rows of overhanging elms. Off to their
left, a mile or two away, the broad Connecticut, through its valley of
elms, flowed serenely to the sea; and beyond, the changing hills took
on every color from the deepest purple to a golden yellow. A green
valley on their right wandered off among the woods and hills, and in
it the stately avenue of maples they both knew so well. A silence so
absolute and so far-reaching rested upon the scene that, after a word
or two of praise, the two men, from a common impulse, remained without
speaking. As thus they sat under the gentle influence of a spell which
neither cared to break, the notes of an organ came floating upward
from the trees below them, and mingled with the voices of a choir. Mr.
Cabot’s thoughts turned at once to the friend at his side, whom he felt
must experience a yet deeper impression from these familiar scenes of
his childhood. Turning to express this thought, he was so struck by the
look upon Amos’s face, an expression of such despairing melancholy,
that he stopped in the middle of his sentence. While well aware that
these tragic eyes were always most pathetic objects in repose, he had
never seen upon a human face a clearer token of a hopeless grief.
“What is it, my boy?” he asked, laying a hand upon the knee beside him.
“Tell me. I may be able to help you.”
There was a slight hesitation and a long breath before the answer came.
“I am ashamed to tell you, Mr. Cabot. I value your good opinion so very
much that it comes hard to let you know what a weak and cowardly thing
I have been, and am.”
“Cowardly--that I do not believe. You may be weak; all of us are that;
in fact, it seems to be the distinguishing attribute of the human
family. But out with it, whatever it is. You can trust me.”
“Oh, I know that, sir! If you were only less of a man and more like
myself, it would be easier to do it. But I will tell you the whole
story. By the fourth of November I shall not be alive, and I have known
it for a year.”
Mr. Cabot turned in surprise. “Why do you think that?”
But Amos went on without heeding the question.
“I knew it when I asked Molly to be my wife; and all the time that she
has gone on loving me more and more, I have known it, and done all
I could to make things worse. And now, as the time approaches and I
realize that in a few weeks she will be a broken-hearted woman--for
I have learned what her affection is and how much I am to her--now I
begin to see what I have done. God knows it is hard enough to die and
leave her, but to die only to have played a practical joke on the girl
for whom I would joyfully give a thousand lives if I had them, is too
much.”
He arose, and standing before her father, made a slight gesture as of
surrender and resignation. The older man looked away toward the distant
river, but said nothing.
“Listen, sir, and try to believe me.” Mr. Cabot raised his glance
to the dark face and saw truth and an open heart in the eyes fixed
solemnly upon his own; and he recognized a being transformed by a
passion immeasurably stronger than himself.
“When I found she loved me I could think of nothing else. Why should I
not be happy for the short time I had to live? Her love was more to me
than any earthly thing, than any possible hereafter. Better one summer
with her than to live forever and not have known her. Oh! I thought
of her side of it, often and often; many a night I have done nothing
else, but I could no more give her up than I could lift this hill.”
He paused, drew a long breath, as if at the hopelessness of words to
convey his meaning, then added, very calmly:
“Now I am soberer, as the end approaches, and I love her more than
ever: but I will do whatever you say; anything that will make her
happier. No sacrifice can be too great, and I promise you I will make
it. I have often wished the bull had killed me that day, then I should
have her love and respect forever; and yours too, perhaps.”
“You have both now, Amos. But tell me why you think you are to die by
November fourth?”
Amos resumed his seat upon the rock and answered: “Because I have seen
myself lying dead on that day.”
“I have sometimes wondered,” said Mr. Cabot, “if that temptation would
not prove too strong for you.”
“No, sir, it was not too strong for me under ordinary circumstances,
but it happened when I was not myself, when I came out of that fever
last October, and as I lay in bed, weak and half-conscious, I felt sure
my day had come. I thought the doctor was not telling me the truth, so,
by looking ahead for myself, I learned more than I cared to know, and
saw myself lying on a sofa in a strange room, a place I had never been
into; a public building, I should think.”
“But why do you think it is to be the fourth of November, and this
year?”
“Because I looked about and saw near a window a little day calendar,
and that was the date it bore. Then on a table lay a daily paper of
the day before, and two magazines of the same month, all of this year.”
“But is it not possible the room is unoccupied and that these things
have been lying there indefinitely?”
Amos shook his head. “No, sir, it is a room that is lived in. There are
other papers lying about: books, and a letter on the desk waiting to be
mailed. And in the fireplace the embers are still glowing.”
Mr. Cabot looked with the profoundest sympathy toward his friend, who
was scaling bits of moss from the rock beside him; then he turned
again to the view and its tranquil beauty seemed a mockery. In the
village below them he could see the congregation pouring out from a
little white church like ants from a loaf of sugar. Mr. Cabot was not a
religious man, and at present there was nothing in his heart that could
be mistaken for resignation. His spirit was in revolt, his pugnacity
aroused, and with this quality he was freely endowed. Rising to his
feet he stood for a moment in silence, with folded arms, frowning upon
the distant hills.
“Amos,” he said, finally, “in spite of bygone defeats I am inclined
to resist this prophecy of yours. You were not absolutely master of
your own mind at the time, and under such conditions nothing would be
easier than to confuse your own imagining with a vision of another
character. At least it is not impossible, and if by good luck you
did happen to confound one with the other we are having our panic
for nothing. Moreover, even if this vision is correct, it need not
necessarily signify an undeviating fulfilment in every detail. It may
indicate the result to be expected in the natural order of events; that
is, if things are allowed to take their course without obstruction or
intervening influences. But it is difficult for me to believe this
faculty is to continue infallible through all your mental and physical
developments and fluctuations of faith, and never, under any possible
conditions, vary a hair’s-breadth from the truth. It is a law of nature
that a disused faculty shall weaken and lose its power, and for years
you have done your best to repress and forget it.”
“Yes, sir, but whenever employed it has been correct.”
“That may be, and its day of failure still remain a probability. In
this present case the prophecy, aside from its uncertain origin, is one
whose fulfilment is more easy to avert than some of the others. You say
the room in which you saw yourself is one you are unfamiliar with, and
consequently is not in Daleford.”
“Oh, no! There is nothing like it in this vicinity.”
“Well, suppose you were to remain in Daleford during the critical
period with two men, nominally visitors at your house, to watch you
day and night and see that you do not escape? Or, better still, let me
send you to an institution in which I am a director, where you will
be confined as a dangerous patient, and where escape, even if you
attempted it, would be as hopeless as from a prison.”
Amos doubted the success of any attempt at foiling fate, or, in other
words, giving the lie to a revelation once received, but he was willing
to do whatever his friend desired. As they walked home they discussed
the plan in detail and decided to act upon it; also to take every
precaution that Molly should be kept in ignorance.
The first week in October the house at the north end of the avenue
was empty and the Cabots were in New York. As the end of the month
approached a little tale was invented to explain the cessation for
a time of Amos’s visits, and early one afternoon the two men got
into a cab and were driven to the outskirts of the city. They
entered the grounds of a well-known institution, were received by the
superintendent and one or two other officials, then, at the request of
the elder visitor, were shown over the entire building and into every
room of any size or importance. When this inspection was over Mr. Cabot
took his companion aside and asked if he had seen the room they sought.
Amos shook his head and replied that no such room could be within the
grounds. A few minutes later the young man was shown to a chamber where
his trunk had preceded him. The two friends were alone for a moment,
and as they separated Amos gave the hand in his own a final pressure,
saying: “Don’t think I am weakening, Mr. Cabot, but I cannot help
feeling that I have seen Molly for the last time. And if you and I
never meet again, you may be sure my last thoughts were with you both.”
In a cheerful tone the lawyer answered: “I shall listen to no such
sentiments. If your prophecy is correct you are to be lying in a room
outside these grounds on November fourth. No such prophecy can be
carried out. And if the prophecy is incorrect we shall meet for several
years yet. So good-by, my boy. I shall be here the third.”
During ten days Amos was to remain under the strictest watch, to be
guarded by two men at night and by two others in the day-time, and to
be permitted under no conditions to leave that wing of the building. By
the subordinate in charge and by the four guardians he was believed to
be the victim of a suicidal mania. As the fourth of November approached
Mr. Cabot’s thoughts were less upon his business than with his
imprisoned friend. He remembered with what inexorable force he himself
had been held to the fulfilment of a prediction. He had felt the hand
of an unswerving fate; and he had not forgotten.
But the fourth of November came and went with no serious results,
and when the five succeeding days had safely passed he experienced a
relief which he was very careful to conceal. With friendly hypocrisy
he assumed a perfect confidence in the result of their course, and he
was glad to see that Amos himself began to realize that anything like a
literal fulfilment of his vision was now improbable.
One week later, the last day of durance, the prisoner and Mr. Cabot
had an interview with Dr. Chapin in the latter’s private office. Dr.
Chapin, the physician in charge, an expert of distinction in mental
disorders, was a man about sixty years of age, short, slight, and pale,
with small eyes, a very large nose, and a narrow, clean-shaven face.
His physical peculiarities were emphasized by a complete indifference
as to the shape or quality of his raiment; his coat was a consummate
misfit, and his trousers were baggy at the knees. Even the spectacles,
which also fitted badly, were never parallel with his eyes and
constantly required an upward shove along his nose. But a professional
intercourse with this gentleman led to a conviction that his mental
outfit bore no relation to his apparel. Mr. Cabot had known him for
years, and Amos felt at once that he was in the presence of a man of
unusual insight. Dr. Chapin spoke calmly and without pretension, but as
one careful of his speech and who knew his facts.
“That you should have made that visit against your will,” he said to
Mr. Cabot in answering a question, “is not difficult to explain as Mr.
Judd unconsciously brought to bear upon your movements a force to which
he himself has repeatedly yielded. If he happens to remember, I think
he will find that his thoughts were with you at that time,” and he
smiled pleasantly on Amos.
“Yes, sir, but only as a matter of interest in the novel experience I
knew Mr. Cabot was going through.”
“Certainly, but if you had forgotten the visit and if you believed at
that moment that he was to go in another direction, Mr. Cabot would
have followed the other thought with equal obedience. This unconscious
control of one intelligence over another is well established and
within certain limits can be explained, but in these affairs science
is compelled to accept a barrier beyond which we can only speculate.
In this case the unusual and the most interesting feature is the
unvarying accuracy of your visions. You have inherited something from
your Eastern ancestors to which a hypothesis can be adjusted, but
which is in fact beyond a scientific explanation. I should not be at
all surprised to find somewhere in the city the room in which you saw
yourself lying; and it is more than probable that, if unrestrained, you
would have discovered it and fulfilled your prophecy, unconsciously
obedient to that irresistible force. A blow, a fall, a stroke of
apoplexy or heart disease; the sudden yielding of your weakest part
under a nervous pressure, could easily bring about the completion of
your picture. Some of the authenticated reports of corresponding cases
are almost incredible. But before you are forty, Mr. Judd, you will
find in these visions a gradual diminution of accuracy and also, as in
this case, that their fulfilment is by no means imperative.”
For Amos there was immense relief in hearing this, especially from such
a source, and he left the building with a lighter heart than he had
known for months. Now that the danger was over, he wished the wedding
to take place at once, but Molly would consent to no undignified
haste. He found, however, an unexpected and influential ally in her
grandmother Jouvenal, just arrived from her home in Maryland for a
month’s visit, and who insisted upon the wedding taking place while
she was with them. Mrs. Jouvenal was a slender person of sprightly
manners, whose long life had been sweetly tempered by an exaggerated
estimate of the importance of her own family; but in other matters she
was reasonable and clear-headed, endowed with quick perceptions, a
ready wit, and one of those youthful spirits that never grow old. She
was interested in all that went on about her, was never bored and never
dull. It was of course a little disappointing that a girl with such an
ancestry as Molly’s, on her mother’s side, should give herself to an
unknown Judd from an obscure New England village; but her fondness for
Amos soon consoled her for the mésalliance. Molly had a strong desire
to acquaint her grandmother with the ancestral facts of the case, but
Amos refused to give his consent. Those discoveries in the attic he
insisted they must keep to themselves, at least while he was alive.
“When I am transplanted I shall be beyond the reach of terrestrial
snobs, and you can do as you please.”
The first week in December Mrs. Jouvenal was to visit her son in
Boston. “And really, my child,” she said to Molly, “it is the last
wedding in the family I shall be alive to see, and with such an exotic
specimen as you have selected, I shall not be sure of a Christian
ceremony unless I see it myself.”
As her father remained neutral Molly finally yielded, and there was a
wedding the first Wednesday in December.
X
“Do I look tired and dragged out?” asked the bride of an hour as they
drove to the train.
“You look a little tired, a little flushed, a little ashamed, and
tremendously interesting. But you may hold my hand.”
“I _am_ ashamed,” and she pushed the upturned hand from her lap and
looked out the window.
“But, Light of my Soul, you give us away by those imbecile blushes.
You might just as well thrust your head out of the carriage and cry,
‘Behold the bride and groom!’”
She smiled and leaned back, but still looked out. “That’s the horrid
feature of a honeymoon. Everybody knows it and everybody looks at you.
Is it too late to go back and undo it?”
“What a bloodcurdling thought!”
“And it shouldn’t rain on our wedding-day, little Amos.”
“Of course it rains. These are the tears of countless lovers who lived
before the days of Molly Cabot.”
But they left the rain behind them, and farther South, away down in
Carolina, they found plenty of sunshine, with green grass and flowers
and piny woods.
One of their first diversions on reaching this southern country was to
go out with a driver and a pair of horses, but the harvest of pleasure
was insufficient. “The conversation of a honeymoon,” observed the
bridegroom, “is too exalted for other ears. If we talk as the spirit
moves us, the coachman, unless in love himself, may collapse from
nausea: so let us be merciful and drive ourselves.”
Thereupon he secured a buggy with an old gray horse, and from this
combination their felicity was much increased. The old horse they
called Browser, because of the only thing he would do without being
urged; and it required but a single drive to develop his good points,
which happened to be the very qualities required. He was dreamy,
inattentive, never hasty, and not easily disgusted. His influence
was distinctly restful, and his capacity for ignoring a foolish
conversation phenomenal. It was decided by his present associates that
these virtues were either hereditary, or had been developed to the
highest perfection by a long and tender experience.
“It’s my opinion,” remarked the groom, “that being so extensively used
as a nuptial horse has resulted in his regarding honeymoon foolishness
as the usual form of conversation. He probably thinks they talk that
way in the courts and on the Stock Exchange.”
But accustomed as Browser was to cloying repetitions, there were
times when his endurance was sorely tried. On one occasion the bride
alighted from the buggy, and going a little ahead, gathered wild
flowers by the roadside; and as she returned, Amos, who was giving
Browser a handful of grass, raised his hat in a ceremonious manner and
advanced toward her with extended hand, exclaiming:
“Why, Miss Cabot! How do you do? I had no idea you were here. My name
is Judd.”
“I beg your pardon,” she replied, drawing stiffly back, “your name is
not Judd, and you don’t know what it is. I can never marry a man who--”
“Wait till you are asked,” he interrupted, then threw both arms about
her, and so they stood for a moment, she making no effort to escape.
Browser blushed and turned away.
In secluded corners of the vast and ramifying hotel piazza they spent
long evenings and watched the moon, the other people, and the distant
ocean, and talked, and talked, and talked. Of this talk no serious pen
could write. The very ink would laugh or turn to sugar and run away in
shame. And when these conversations were finished, two well-dressed and
seemingly intelligent people would arise, and with brazen faces enter
the grand rotunda of the hotel, where other guests would see them enter
the elevator, float heavenward and disappear from human eyes. But the
vexatious color still came and went in Molly’s face, and seemed ever
ready to give the lie to the gentle dignity and composure which rarely
deserted her. Strolling through the gardens of the hotel one afternoon,
they met a stately matron with her two daughters, whom Molly knew, and
as they separated after the usual conversation, Amos jeered at the
bride, saying: “Really, old Girl, it is mortifying the way you blush
upon this trip. I don’t blame the blushes for selecting such a face,
but you only give yourself away. It is merely another manner of saying
‘I know I am guilty, and just see how ashamed I am!’”
“Oh, don’t talk about it! It’s hideous, but I can’t help it. Are all
brides such fools?”
“I don’t know, I never travelled with one before, but I shall leave
you behind if you keep it up. Try and think you have been married for
twenty years. Do you suppose the daisies giggle and the sun winks
at the other planets every time we look out the window? Or that it
is because Molly and Amos are spliced that the carnations blush and
the violets hide their faces? But I will say this for you, Spirit
of Old-fashioned Roses, that all this blushing and unblushing is
tremendously becoming.”
“Thank you; but I must paint or wear a veil, or only come out at night.
There is no other way.”
The days went by, all much alike, in the sunny atmosphere of an
overwhelming content. In the woods they found a distant spot which
laid no claim to publicity, and here upon the pine carpet with the
drowsy rustling of the leaves above, they passed many hours in a serene
indifference to the flight of time. Sometimes they brought a book, not
a page of which was ever read, but no deceit was necessary, as the only
witnesses were occasional birds and squirrels whose ideas of decorum
were primitive and none too strict. One bird, who seemed to wear a
dress-suit with an orange shirt-front, considered his household in
danger and acquired an insolent habit of perching himself upon a bough
within a dozen feet, and doing his best to scare them off. But as they
reappeared day after day and respected his rights his anger gradually
diminished, until at last he varied his vituperations by a peculiar
song, both joyous and triumphant, which amused the interlopers.
“I should like to know what his little feelings really are,” said the
bride, as with a pine-needle she annoyed the sensitive portions of
the head reposing in her lap. The upturned eyes lingered for a moment
upon the patch of blue between the pine-tops, then with a look of mild
surprise turned lazily to her own.
“Do you really mean to confess, Gentle Roses, that you don’t know what
he says?”
As this speech was uttered the instrument of torture was cleverly
inserted between the parted lips. “No; and perhaps I don’t care to.”
“But listen. There! Don’t you get it? He knows we are on a honeymoon
and keeps repeating, in that victorious way:
“_Amos has got her!
Amos has got her!_”
The bride laughed; her face bent over to the one beneath, but the bird
upon the bough was not disgusted. He stood his ground and sang his song
as if Love and Folly were things to be respected.
When the day of departure came they turned their backs with sorrow upon
a resting-place whose cosey corners they knew so well and whose groves
no grateful lovers could forget. These tender memories were a soothing
recompense for descending to an earthly life. As the train moved away
she whispered, “Good-by, honeymoon!”
“Don’t say that!” exclaimed Amos. “Let us hold on to it forever. I
shall die a lover and I expect the same of you.”
The promise to Grandmother Jouvenal was not forgotten, and when they
left the train at a little station in Maryland a carriage was awaiting
them. As they entered the avenue and came in sight of the old house,
Molly regarded her companion with eager eyes to be sure that he was
properly impressed.
“It’s fine!” he exclaimed. “An ideal mansion of the period. And you say
it is over two hundred years old?”
“Yes, the main house is, but just wait till you see the inside! It’s
crammed full of colonial furniture and family portraits.”
“What on earth is the circular part at the end of that wing? Is it a
circus or only a gymnasium for your grandmother?”
Molly laughed. “That’s the library. Grandpa’s father was an astronomer
and started to build an observatory, but died when it was half-way up;
so grandpa, who was not an astronomer, finished it as a library. But it
makes a beautiful room.”
From her grandmother they received a cordial welcome. It was dark when
they arrived, and as Mrs. Jouvenal had accepted for them an invitation
to a dance that evening at the house of a neighbor, whose daughters
were old playmates of Molly’s, there was little time for seeing the
house. But Molly did not like to wait and proposed a hasty tour,
wishing to show Amos at once the old portraits and furniture and the
treasures of family silver. To this her grandmother objected. “Do wait
till to-morrow, child. Your Amos can sleep without it, and besides
the rooms are not in order yet. Remember I only came back myself this
morning, after a two months’ absence.”
And so that pleasure was delayed. They arrived early at the ball, and
as she joined him at the head of the stairs he glanced at the jewels in
her hair and asked, after a moment’s hesitation, if she would do him a
little favor.
“Of course I will. Only name it, dusky Rajah,” and looking up at him
with admiring eyes she smiled as she remembered for the hundredth time
how seriously he was annoyed by any compliment upon his appearance.
“Are you very much attached to that crescent in your hair?”
“If I were it should make no difference. You don’t like it, and that’s
enough,” and she raised her hand to remove the ornament. But he
interrupted the motion. “Don’t take it off now, for you have nothing
to replace it; but that is the smallest part of the request. The real
favor is that you shall not ask me why I do it.”
“That is asking a good deal, but I consent. And now tell me, how do I
look? There is a wretched light in there.”
“You look like what you are, the joy of to-day and the rainbow of a
happy morrow.”
“No, be serious. Is my hair in every direction?”
He regarded her gravely and with care. “Your hair is just right, and
for general effect you are far and away the prettiest, the daintiest,
the most highbred-looking girl within a thousand miles of this or of
any other spot; and if we were alone and unobserved, I should gather
you in as--” Voices close at hand caused them to turn and descend the
stairs with the solemnity of an ancient couple who find dignity a
restful substitute for the frivolities of youth. Once in the ball-room,
with the wild Hungarian music at their heels, there was little repose
for two such dancers. When the first notes of the waltz that Molly
loved above all others, came floating through the hall, Amos cut in
before a youth who was hastening toward the bride and swung her out
across the floor. As they glided away with the music that was stirring
in her heart old memories of what seemed a previous existence, she
heard at her ear “Do you remember when first we waltzed? How you did
snub me! But life began that night.”
Instead of returning at eleven o’clock, they returned at two in the
morning. By Amos’s request it had been arranged that no servant should
sit up for them, but when they entered the hall and found it dark Molly
expressed surprise that not a single light should have been left
burning. They easily found the matches, however, and lighted a candle.
Amos had just learned from the coachman that a letter ready at six in
the morning would go by an early train, so Molly showed him a little
desk of her grandmother’s in the dining-room, and then left him to
his writing. Passing through the hall toward the stairs she happened
to look into a sitting-room, and beyond it, through a corridor, saw a
portion of the big library where the moonlight fell upon a marble bust.
She paused, then returning to the door of the dining-room, asked,
“How long shall you be at that letter, little prince?”
“Not five minutes.”
“Then come into the library and see it in the moonlight. You will find
a girl there who is interested in you.”
“All right. That girl will not wait long.”
Although familiar with the old library, Molly was impressed anew by
its stately proportions as she entered from the little corridor. The
spacious room was now flooded by the moonlight that streamed through
the high windows at the farther end and brought out, in ghostly relief,
the white Ionic columns against the encircling wall. Between them, in
varying shapes and sizes, hung the family portraits, and in front of
every column stood a pedestal with its marble bust. At the present
moment the pallid face of Dante caught the moonbeams, and seemed to
follow her with solemn eyes. As she swept with a rustle of silk along
the huge, round, crimson carpet, she remembered how deeply she had been
impressed in former years by the knowledge that it was made in England
expressly for this room. The perfect stillness was broken only by
herself as she moved out into the wide circle of mysterious faces.
At her right, between two of the columns, in a lofty mirror that
filled the space from floor to cornice, marched her own reflection.
She stopped, and regarded it. With her white dress and the moonlight
upon her head and shoulders, it was a striking figure and recalled the
night, a year ago, when she stood at the window of her chamber, and
tried in vain to discover why such a vision should have startled Mr.
Amos Judd. Mr. Amos Judd! How she hated him that night! Hated him! the
dear, lovely, old, perfect Amos! She smiled, and beat time with a foot,
humming a fragment of that bewitching waltz. And the crescent that he
had asked her not to wear again, flashed back at her from the mirror.
She would remove it now, upon the instant, and never more, not even
to-night, should the dear boy be troubled by it. As her fingers touched
the jewels she saw something in the mirror that sent the blood from her
heart, and caused the hand to drop convulsively to her breast. Behind
her, across the room, in the shadow of a pedestal, were glistening two
other things that moved like a pair of human eyes. With an involuntary
cry she wheeled about, and before she could turn again at a sudden
movement behind her, an arm was thrown about her waist, strong fingers
clutched her throat and in her ear came a muttered warning: “Be quiet,
lady, or it’s up with yer!”
But the cry had reached Amos in the distant dining-room, and she heard
his footsteps hurrying across the hall. The fingers tightened at her
throat; she was pushed with violence into the shadow of the nearest
column, and held there. Gasping, strangling, she seized instinctively
with both hands the wrist that was squeezing the life from her body,
but her feeble fingers against such a strength were as nothing.
Pressing close upon her she saw the dim outline of a cap upon the back
of a head, a big neck, and a heavy chin. With bursting throbs the
blood beat through her head and eyes, and she would have sunk to the
floor but for the hands that held her with an iron force.
In this torture of suffocation came a blur, but through it she saw Amos
spring into the room, then stop for a second as if to find his bearings.
“Moll,” he said, in a half-whisper.
There was no answer. Fainting, powerless even to make an effort, she
saw the man before her raise a revolver with his other hand, and take
deliberate aim at the broad, white shirt-front, an easy target in the
surrounding gloom. In an agony of despair she made a frenzied effort,
struck up the weapon as the shot was fired, and sent the bullet high
above its mark, through the waistcoat of a colonial governor.
The next instant the fingers were torn from her throat, and as she sank
half-fainting to her knees, the two men in a savage tussle swayed out
into the room, then back with such force against a pedestal that it
tottered, and with its heavy bust came crashing to the floor.
The struggling figures also fell. The burglar was beneath, and as he
landed, his weapon was knocked from his hand. With a blow and a sudden
twist Amos wrenched away, picked up the pistol, turned upon his swiftly
rising foe, and sent a bullet through his skull. Without a sound the
man sank back again to the floor.
“Are you hurt, Moll?” was the first question as Amos took a step toward
the white, crouching figure. Her bare arm shot out into the moonlight
and a finger pointed across the library. “There’s another! look out!”
The second man, in his stocking feet like his comrade, had crept from
his hiding place, and as she pointed he swung up his pistol and pulled
the trigger. But Amos was quicker. Shots in rapid succession echoed
through the house, two, three, perhaps half a dozen, she never knew;
but she saw to her joy, that Amos at the end of it all was still
standing, while the burglar, with a smothered malediction, tumbled
heavily into an easy chair behind him, slid out of it to his knees, and
pitched forward on his face. There was a convulsive twitching of the
legs, and all was still again. Beneath him lay a bag into which, a few
moments before, had been stuffed the ancestral silver.
As she climbed painfully to her feet, grasping with tremulous fingers
a chair at her side, she saw Amos turn about, and with wavering steps,
approach the column between the windows where, in the full light of the
moon, hung a little calendar, and on it
_Nov.
4_
He uttered no sound, but his head drooped and he staggered back.
Reeling against a low divan he fell his length upon it, and lay with
upturned face, motionless as the two men upon the floor.
[Illustration: “The end has come, my Moll”]
Molly hastened to his side and bent over him with an anxious question.
In the full rays of the moon her head and neck with the white dress
were almost luminous against the dim recesses of the room behind; and
his eyes rested with a dazed, half-frightened look on the diamond
crescent, then fell to her face, and up again to the jewels in her
hair. With an effort he laid a hand upon her shoulder and answered,
with a feeble smile, “The end has come, my Moll.”
“No, no. Don’t say that! I’ll send for the doctor and have him here at
once!”
But the hand restrained her. “It’s of no use. The ball went here,
through the chest.”
“But, darling, your life may depend upon it! You don’t know.”
“Yes--I do know. My own death, with you bending over me in the
moonlight--in this room--I saw before we ever met. The same vision
again--when you stood before me in the conservatory, was what--startled
me--that night, a year ago.”
He spoke with difficulty, in a failing tone. There followed broken
words; from the face against his own tears fell upon his cheek, and she
murmured, “Take me with you, Amos.”
“No--not that;” then slowly, in a voice growing fainter with each word,
“but there is no Heaven without you, Spirit--of Old-fashioned--Roses.”
A gentle pressure from the fingers that held her own, and in the
moonlight lay a peaceful face where a smile still lingered on the lips.