Chapter VIII: Part 8

Parkyn was very thoughtful for several days after the affair of the photograph, and even more reserved than usual. The boys kept their promises and did not again attempt to banter him. I fancied that he understood the studious politeness and affectionate consideration with which he was subsequently treated, although there was no comment.

Several weeks later, Parkyn and myself chanced to be alone together and, as is likely to be the case among young professional men, our talk drifted into a discussion of our aims and ambitions in life. In the course of the conversation I quite naturally commented upon the wide variance between Parkyn’s former profession and the one in the study of which he was then engaged.

“It has always puzzled me to understand, I said, how a man of your artistic temperament and admitted ability, could ever have deserted the profession of art for that of medicine.”

“Well,” replied Parkyn, “you have doubtless forgotten the fact which I long ago frankly stated to our mutual friends and yourself, that I was not highly appreciated by the public and finally despaired of success--not in making a living, for I could by dint of strong exertion do that--but in attaining the position in my profession which I felt was justly my due. I, myself, often wonder why I finally selected medicine as my field of labor, but I couldn’t sell groceries; the law wouldn’t do at all, and the ministry was out of the question, so there seemed to be nothing but medicine left.” Parkyn sighed, and remained for some moments dreamily gazing into the fireplace and listlessly poking at the glowing coals with the tongs.

“But, my dear fellow,” I said, “you have selected a profession that is nearly as difficult as art, so far as winning fame and financial success is concerned, and moreover, one which has by comparison no features of attractiveness. You will pardon me if I also say that medicine is a profession to which your sensitive organization is but poorly adapted.”

Parkyn arose and nervously paced the floor. He finally paused and facing me said, “Doctor, I realize the truth of what you say only too keenly, and what is more I detest your profession so far as I have gone. I have, however, determined not only to overcome my repugnance to it, but to blunt by sheer force of will the peculiarities of organization to which you have alluded. Distasteful as it is, medicine is delightful by comparison with the hell into which my chosen profession, art, finally precipitated me. Ye gods, man! You do not realize what--but pshaw! this is not interesting to you, and besides, I never talk of myself.”

“See here, Parkyn,” I said, “it might be far better for you to talk about yourself a little, especially to one who understands you--as I think I do. I have often suspected that there was a story connected with your change of profession and from the best of motives I am anxious to hear it. Come now, old man, out with it--I am as interested and sympathetic as you please, and as deep and silent as a well.”

Parkyn reflected for a moment and then replied, “I am quite sure you understand me much better than most of my friends, but I do not fancy being thought ridiculous, even by you, and my story might seem absurd to a man of your philosophic and rather lymphatic temperament.”

“Oh, nonsense!” I exclaimed, “I’m not so lymphatic as you seem to think. Philosophy puts a check on the impulses of the heart, while art lets them roam fancy free, yet human nature is the same in both philosopher and artist, so fire away, old fellow; I’m all ears--evolutionary relics you know.”

Parkyn leaned languidly against the corner of the mantel, his chin resting upon his hands and began:

“The details of my career up to the date of the circumstances that impelled me to leave the profession for which nature adapted me, are commonplace. My life was that of the average poor boy of artistic tastes and talents, who fights his way to the attainment of a thorough professional training. By hard work, I succeeded in getting enough money together to enable me to study with the most celebrated masters of Europe. I finally settled down in my native city, Boston, and after many trials and vicissitudes, was in due time in a fair way to earn a respectable living, although fame was by no means beating her angelic wings against the windows of my studio. It was too near the roof, I fear,” and Parkyn smiled somewhat bitterly.

“It so happened that the society of artists of which I eventually became a member, instituted a yearly exhibition of paintings patterned after the Paris Salon. As an act of extreme condescension I was especially invited by the directors of the exhibition to contribute. The invitation was gladly accepted and I promptly began casting about for a suitable theme--a matter that often constitutes the most difficult part of the artist’s labors. The department of painting in which I was particularly adept was the study of the nude and I quite naturally resolved to produce something in the line of my favorite work. And then came the search for a model.

“Contrary to the popular notion, a satisfactory model is a very scarce commodity. The human form divine rarely stands the keen professional criticism of the eye artistic. A picture is oftener the composite of several models than the actual delineation of one. The arms and shoulders of one, the feet of another, and the torso of still another may be required. Several months passed away and although the time for the exhibition was dangerously near, I had not yet found what I sought. As you may imagine, I was in despair, for having set my heart upon a certain subject for my picture, I was loth to abandon it, for another of less interest. And now comes the strangest part of my story--the part which I fear is hardly materialistic enough for you, my dear doctor,” and Parkyn hesitated.

“Go on; go on!” I exclaimed.

“I had always been an ardent student of the classics, and was in the habit of reading for an hour or two before retiring. In selecting a book almost at random from the modest little collection of odds and ends--by courtesy my library--I happened one evening to get hold of an old treatise on mythology. While reading of the gods and goddesses therein described, and admiring the artistic opportunities afforded by the social circle in which the heathen deities moved, I fell asleep in my chair, and dreaming, found that for which I had vainly sought in my waking hours--my model.

“You as a practical physician will doubtless attribute my dream to the direct impression made upon my brain by the character of the book I had been reading, and I must admit that my experience had certain features which would justify such an opinion, yet I feel nevertheless that my dream model had a basis of reality.

“I seemed to be in the midst of a vast garden--the most beautiful I had ever seen. The flowers and shrubs surpassed all forms with which I was familiar. Hovering over the rare and many hued exotics were gorgeous butterflies and humming birds, to which no description could possibly do justice. The air was redolent with the odor of the blossoms and vibrant with the songs of rare birds and the melodious strains of unseen musical instruments. ‘Surely,’ I thought, ‘this must be Paradise.’

“As I stood gazing enraptured upon the sensuous things surrounding me I became conscious that I was not alone. The garden was peopled with forms, among which I recognized some of the more familiar of the mythologic deities whom I had just left within the covers of my book. As these luminous beings passed and repassed me, I perceived that there was some central object of attraction. They appeared to be gathering about a beautiful fountain that stood, half hidden by flowering plants and foliage, in the center of the garden. Feeling that my human curiosity was justified by that which even the celestial beings about me were exhibiting, I approached the spot and there beheld a scene which astonished and delighted me beyond measure.

“Just within the spray of the fountain that glittered and sparkled with surprising brilliancy, showing combinations of colors which I had never before seen, was a golden, shell-like couch. Upon, or rather within this couch, lay the sleeping form of a most beautiful woman! Gazing upon this lovely creature, I was not surprised that the strange beings about me were attracted by her beauty. My own artistic eye was fairly entranced. I saw at once that the object of my admiration was different from the beings who peopled the celestial garden. She was human--although the loveliest of womankind.

“My first feeling of mingled awe and admiration was soon replaced by a most gratifying sense of triumph. I had found what was to me a much desired object--a perfect model for my picture! With feverish haste I drew sketch book and pencil from my pocket and endeavored to outline the only perfect female form I had ever seen.

“As is usual in the dream state, I found that I had lost all power of doing those things which were part of my daily life. I could not draw a single line; my artistic talent and indeed, even the power of voluntary motion necessary in drawing, was wholly gone. You may imagine how I despaired. Everything was real to me, and my inability to sketch the model for which I had so long sought in vain, was most distressing, so distressing that I awoke.

“I was greatly impressed by my dream, but inclined to smile at the keen disappointment that I felt on awaking. The peculiar circumstances under which I had found my model were naturally aggravating, but I consoled myself with the reflection that dream pictures are not very substantial after all, and that even though the sketch which I attempted had been made, my sketch book would have been rather evanescent. It certainly would have been lost on the way back to earth.

“Whether because of the vivid impression the vision of the female loveliness made upon me, I cannot say--you are a practical psychologist and should know more of such matters than I--but my dream repeated itself in every detail the following night. Even my unsuccessful endeavor to sketch the beautiful woman was faithfully reproduced, and I again awoke to the consciousness of keen disappointment at the loss of a long sought artistic opportunity.

“A detailed reproduction of a dream, is as you know, not common, but I felt intuitively that a further repetition would quite likely occur and when I retired on the second night following the original dream, it was with a fixed determination to so impress the vision of loveliness I had seen upon my mind, that I could from memory alone, utilize the model which had come to me in such a strange fashion.

“The wished for dream occurred precisely as on the two previous nights, and I remember making a most earnest endeavor to photograph the wonderful model upon my memory--an effort in which I was only too successful. When I awoke, my model was so vividly pictured in my mind that the work of reproducing her upon canvas was no more difficult than if her living form had been actually before me.

“And then came the disaster of my life. It was the story of Pygmalion and Galatea over again. I began my work with the enthusiasm of the artist, and completed it with the ardor of the man. I fell in love with my own creation! The self-confessed misogynist, who had never been susceptible to the real in womankind, became enslaved by an ideal from dreamland which my brush had metamorphosed into something material. I finally became intoxicated with the idea that my model must herself have a material being; that the feminine perfection I had seen in the vision was but the dream picture of a real personage--a fair woman who actually lived in the flesh!

“My picture was done! It was destined to be my last and, like the song of the dying swan, it was my masterpiece. But I had no longer a thought of the exhibition. I became infatuated with the idea that through some occult and mysterious influence I had had the opportunity of utilizing as a model the fairest of womankind. It was not by her own volition that she became my model. To hang her picture at the exhibition would be a crime. The most beautiful model in the whole world should not be gazed upon by the vulgar herd. She was mine, and mine alone. She was real; she lived, and one day we should meet, and then--

“Ah, me! Was it not thus that Aphrodite breathed the spark of life, the material essence of reality into the ivory form of Galatea? Such is the power of that worship of the ideal that the Philistine calls love, over the human heart!

“There is little more to be told. My picture became a shrine at which I worshipped by day and dreamed by night. Its possession was happiness. The failure to find the original was the acme of misery. I lost all interest in the art that had created the painting, and the very thought of devoting the talent which had developed my ideal to subjects that must ever be less worthy became abhorrent to me. My all of art, my all of life, my loftiest aspirations were there in the beautiful painting, the model for which had come to me in my dreams.

“Ah, my dear doctor!” exclaimed Parkyn, as he extended his hand imploringly towards me, “do not laugh at me. Be something more than a man of science, something more than a materialist, and do not discourage me when I say that I know that my ideal lives, know that somehow, somewhere, I am to meet her!

“You have heard my story, my dear friend. You are the first to whom I have told it, and shall be the last.”

“My dear Parkyn,” I said, when my friend had finished his story, “the very essence of materialism itself, should respect the artistic and emotional nature that could develop such an experience as you have had. I am, myself, by no means so materialistic as you suppose. We have not yet solved the mysteries of psychology. We know nothing of the workings of human affinities, and there are those, even among us men of science, who are not altogether blind to the possibilities of the occult. Men have been shattered upon the rocks and shoals of ideality before, and will be again. Not all could have so pure and fair an ideal as you have described. Your vision was extraordinary, and although as a physician I might descant to you on the relation of over-work and lack of exercise to figments of the imagination, still as a man, and one in whom the finer sensibilities are not yet dead, I must acknowledge that I not only sympathize with you, but I--well, I myself suspect that there is somewhere a substantial foundation for your dream. It is by no means impossible that you may one day find your model, and, my dear fellow, I sincerely hope you will.”

Parkyn grasped my hand warmly, and stood in silence for a moment, then, with an expression of gratification and happiness such as I had never before seen on his face, he said slowly:

“You do, indeed, understand me, doctor. Your medical philosophy is tinctured with just enough of the fire of romance, your heart has just enough of the emotional attributes of the true artist, to enable you to be something more than a mere compounder and prescriber of drugs. I understand now, why you have a penchant for psychology. Wise is he who hath read the chapter on hearts in the book of human life!”

* * * * *

The end of the college term was drawing near, and even Favell and Richardson had settled down to something like earnest work preparatory to examinations. I had just finished my dissections, as had my room-mates several weeks before, hence had no occasion to visit that gloomy and dismal room above stairs known as the hall of anatomy. When, therefore, we heard one day of a marvellously interesting subject that had just been brought over from Blackwell’s Island, our interest was not especially excited. The dissecting room is by no means haunted by students who have finished their prescribed course in anatomy. It seems, however, that one of Favell’s friends had induced him to go up to the dissecting-room one morning to inspect the anatomic wonder, which I had understood somewhat vaguely, was the body of a remarkably beautiful woman. Parkyn, Richardson and myself were just preparing to go to dinner, meanwhile wondering what had become of the ever-hungry Favell, when that worthy broke into the room in a state of great excitement, crying, “Say, boys, you just ought to see the subject that’s come in from the Island! Gee, whiz! but it’s a beauty--the handsomest thing in the shape of a woman that ever was born! Why, half the artists and all the newspaper men in New York have been up to see it. They’re all crazy over it. You boys must go up and look at it to-night, and if you don’t say that body is the most beautiful thing you ever saw, I’ll buy the dinners for the crowd. I mean you, especially, Parkyn. I suspect that you are much cleverer than any of those daubers who have seen it, and I know you’ll revel in the beauties of what might have been an artist’s model.”

Richardson and myself promptly agreed to visit the nine days wonder, but it was with extreme difficulty that I induced Parkyn to accompany us. When he did finally yield to my entreaties he turned a deaf ear to my urgent request that he take some sketching materials with him.

“You well know, doctor,” he said, “that I have reformed. I never sketch. Sketching is a lost art so far as I am concerned. You forget, my dear friend--”

I suddenly remembered, and was silent. I alone understood the sentiments that inspired his refusal.

Evening came, and our little party proceeded to the chamber of horrors which, as I supposed, Favell’s boyish nonsense had converted into a mortuary of dead female beauty. I more than half suspected a practical joke. My young friend was much given to such diversions.

Arriving at the dissecting room, we found a large congregation of men standing about one of the tables. Here and there I could see several who, sketch-book in hand, were busily at work utilizing what they evidently considered an artistic opportunity. Favell and Richardson, boylike, pushed their way through the crowd, while Parkyn and I leisurely brought up the rear. I heard the demonstrator of anatomy say--

“Well, gentlemen, we must begin our dissection. We have already devoted too much time to sentiment.”

As the professor poised his gleaming scalpel over the body, Favell exclaimed, “Wait just a moment, sir, please, here comes Parkyn.”

The professor, with whom the cultured and artistic Parkyn was a favorite, stayed his hand, and with knife upraised, waited. The crowd made way for my friend, and I stepped aside to allow him to pass ahead of me.

There are some events which are so replete with action and dramatic excitement that no one, however observing, can faithfully describe them. Note upon this point the conflicting testimony of disinterested eye-witnesses in murder trials. Such was the scene which followed the introduction of Parkyn to the presence of that body.

There was a yell like that of a maniac, a swift rush, the collision of two bodies, a heavy fall! As I sprang quickly into the midst of the swaying, trampling, excited crowd about the table, the demonstrator, pale and frightened, was just rising from the floor, his scalpel still in his trembling hand and his face cut and bleeding where his assailant had struck him in the first mad rush. Parkyn was still lying on the floor, and on endeavoring with the assistance of several students to raise him to his feet, I saw that he was insensible. Upon his temple was a deep, jagged gash where his head had come in contact with the corner of the table.

Temporary emotional insanity in a man of highly wrought nervous organization was the universal verdict, and it was with genuine sorrow and regret that poor Parkyn’s fellow students took him to the hospital, apparently in a lifeless condition.

But Parkyn did not die--his skull was not fractured. This was very fortunate, in the light of subsequent events, for he developed symptoms of meningitis, and hovered between life and death for many weeks. I remained in the city to care for him and was a proud and happy man when I was able to pronounce him out of danger.

How poor Parkyn raved as his fever and delirium rose! No one but myself knew the story of his wild, ecstatic visions and apparently erratic talk--and I said nothing.

During his illness I had occasion to open Parkyn’s trunk. While rummaging about in search of his wearing apparel, I found the pictured dream of his artist days. I knew then how powerful was the shock that made my poor friend, in intent, at least, a murderer. I care not what the world may say of the vagaries of foolish old doctors and the maunderings of aged, would-be philosophers; I care not who may doubt;--I held in my hands the picture of the beautiful subject of the dissecting hall. Beautiful beyond the power of pen or tongue to portray, realistic to a living, breathing, sentient degree, I beheld the portrait of the original of the lifeless clay which was the central figure of the romance of the dissecting room.

When Parkyn recovered from his illness his mind was a blank, so far as his artistic training and the romance of the picture and corpse were concerned. I concealed the picture, deeming it unwise to revive dangerous memories in his mind. It remained in my possession for several years. I kept it hidden because it seemed a sacrilege to permit it to be gazed upon by the eyes of the commonplace. My office was finally destroyed by fire, and I confess that I was not sorry when I discovered that the trunk which contained the painting was not among the properties saved from the flames.

Parkyn became a plodding practitioner in a little country town in New York State. I visited him some years later, and found that his ideals were represented by a short, dumpy, motherly, little red-headed wife and half a dozen tow-headed, freckle-faced youngsters that looked for all the world like turkey eggs and jack o’ lanterns.

A MATTER OF PROFESSIONAL SECRECY

The day had been a trying one. Four capital operations, between the hours of eight and ten in the morning, fifteen minutes for washing up and changing back from the rubber and white duck of the operating room to my ordinary habiliments, and with my usual fear that I was still redolent with the fumes of ether and that sickish odor of the combined horrors of blood and iodoform, I was off for my clinic at the medical school as fast as my team of thoroughbreds could take me.

A strenuous hour of teaching and, my nervous force already nearly exhausted, although my day’s work had just begun, I hurried to my office, taking barely enough time _en route_ to swallow a hasty lunch. And then came an afternoon of arduous office work, with, it seemed to me, more patients and more tough problems and petty annoyances than usual.

My office hours over, I was privileged to spend a half hour at dinner, before attending to several consultations. I wound up the day by calling at the hospital and looking over the cases I had operated in the morning, and was then driven homeward, fairly worn out, by what was, after all, merely an average day in the life of the college professor.

It was long after midnight when I retired, congratulating myself, meanwhile, that I had completed and forwarded to the publisher the last batch of MS. for my new book, and was therefore privileged to rest my weary bones and exhausted brain.

A telephone at one’s bedside is sometimes a great convenience for the physician, but there are occasions when to me it seems an invention of the devil--a something devised especially to defeat the ends of tired nature--a sort of Nemesis, which pursues one into the very midst of dreamland. When I am as tired as I was on this particular night, the ringing of my telephone bell awakens me with a sudden physical and mental shock that sets my every nerve a quiver, and makes my heart beat like a trip hammer for many minutes.

With the bell still ringing with impudent insistency, I found myself sitting bolt upright in bed and, I freely confess, swearing to the limit of my vocabulary of the profane. Having sufficiently identified myself to the party at the other end of the line he said excitedly, “Doctor, you are wanted at once at No. -- B-- Street. A man is dying. For God’s sake, hurry!”

And I stood not on the order of my going.

A handsome young man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, lay writhing in the most horrible agony, and crying, “Water, for God’s sake give me some water! I am burning up inside! My stomach and bowels are on fire!”

From time to time frightful paroxysms of vomiting came on, with the ejection of a greenish fluid mixed with blood. His sufferings were frightful to witness. He complained of cold shivers, and his teeth chattered like those of a man with an ague chill. His skin was yellow and parchment like, and his face drawn and cadaverous. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by great dark rings. Their dullness was only redeemed by the gleam of fear and horror of death that shone in their depths.

“Has this man ever before been ill, so far as you know?” I asked.

“Yes, doctor,” replied an elderly woman--evidently the landlady, for the ear marks of the cheap boarding house were plain--“this is the third attack of the kind, only this is the worst one he’s had. Until a month ago he was well and hearty. His sickness always comes on in this way, with that funny lookin’ vomit, and that burning in his stomach. This is the first time there’s been any blood, though. He was all right this morning at breakfast. He didn’t come home to dinner, and I think he must have eaten somethin’ that didn’t agree with him, at one o’ them restaurants downtown.”

I immediately gave the poor fellow a hypodermic of morphine and requested everybody to leave the room. He grew easier in a few minutes, I meanwhile administering antidotes for what seemed clearly a case of arsenical poisoning.

“My friend,” I said, “you have taken arsenic. Why did you do it?”

“No, no,” he moaned, shaking his head. “Julie, Julie!” Further than this I could get nothing intelligible out of him.

Another paroxysm of that awful pain came on, and I was obliged to resort to another hypodermic. This paroxysm left him almost pulseless. His skin grew cold and damp, and his eyes assumed that glazed and set appearance which means but one thing to the professional eye. My patient was sinking fast.

I quickly administered stimulants hypodermically and then called the sick man’s friends to his bedside.

“This man is dying,” I said quietly to the landlady. “He has but a few minutes longer to live. See if you can get him to say anything about himself.”

The woman spoke to the dying man and shook him gently, in a vain effort to arouse his attention. He revived a little for a fleeting moment and shook his head feebly, muttering in barely audible tones, “Tired--so tired--sleepy.”

This was the last flicker of his candle of life. I could no longer find the pulse at the wrist. The heart sounds grew feebler and feebler and finally ceased altogether. The face grew gray and ghastly. The eyes were set and dully staring and the jaw relaxed. There was a last convulsive expansion and contraction of the chest and a gasping, strident, laryngeal sound as the breath finally left the poor fellow’s body forever. My unfortunate patient was dead!

“What was the matter with him, Doctor?” asked in chorus the people about the bedside.

Long years of experience had brought discretion to this particular warhorse, and so I replied,

“Acute gastritis.”

I did not propose to tell all I thought I knew, or to issue premature bulletins. I wanted time to think. I scented mystery here, and perhaps crime, and let him who will condemn my taste as a depraved one, such things have always had an overpowering fascination for me.

I knew that some hours would elapse before I would be called upon for a death certificate, and much could be done in the way of investigation in that time. I resolved to keep my own counsel and allow future developments to determine whether or when I should place the case in the hands of the coroner.

But, was the case one of murder or suicide? This question I proposed to solve myself, if I could. I could at least try to do so, before turning the matter over to the authorities. If it were suicide there might be reasons satisfactory to my conscience why I should keep my counsel. There are times when the physician is justified in closing and forever locking the door of the closet that contains the grinning family skeleton. I may be telling tales out of school, but I am not ashamed to say that this has been done by men whom I revere. All honor to the profession that has the courage to protect the fair name of its _clientele_!

Of course, I had no intention of concealing what I knew, if the case should prove to be at all doubtful, nor was there in this particular case much chance of any circumstances existing which would be likely to impel me to conceal a suicide. Should the case prove to be a murder, I resolved to at once notify the coroner, no matter what the circumstances might be.

I suspected from the history of the case that it was murder, not suicide, with which I had to deal.

* * * * *

One by one the friends and curious neighbors of my late patient filed silently out of the room, till none remained save the landlady and myself. Mrs. Wharton was evidently a simple, kind-hearted creature, who had known sorrow of her own and had had experience. She quietly set about performing the last sad offices for the dead, whilst I proceeded to critically inspect the dead man’s surroundings.

Mrs. Wharton removed the pillow from beneath the head of the corpse. As she did so a letter fell from the pillow upon the floor, unnoticed save by myself.

The interest excited in my mind by that letter may be imagined. Here was a possible answer to the question I had been asking myself. The opportunity must not be lost. Under the pretext of helping Mrs. Wharton, I succeeded in placing my foot squarely over the letter. To drop and regain my handkerchief, restoring it to my pocket with that much to be desired missive concealed in its folds, was sufficiently easy, even for an amateur.

Before departing for home, I made a few ostensibly casual inquiries regarding the dead man. It appeared that he was a comparatively new boarder in the house, and had said that he had been in the city but a short time. He had not obtained any regular employment, but seemed to have plenty of money, Mrs. Wharton stated, adding, “He was an awfully nice young man, Mr. Peyton was, and everybody in the house liked him.”

“Do you know whether or not he was married?” I asked.

“Oh, my, no, he wasn’t married!” exclaimed Mrs. Wharton. “I’m quite sure he wasn’t, because he had a sweetheart--such a pretty girl, too. That’s her picture on the mantel.”

I picked up the photograph and found that the landlady had spoken “by the card”--the dead man’s sweetheart was indeed “such a pretty girl,” of the dark Spanish type--with a face full of life and passion.

“Ah,” I exclaimed to myself, “I’ll wager that we have found ‘the woman.’ Those great dark eyes, that massive head of ebon hair and those full, sensuous lips seem to me to fit into this mystery very accurately.”

“Where does the young woman live?” I asked.

“Laws, sir, I don’t know where she lives, but I understand that she works somewhere down town. Mr. Peyton used to call for her, so one of the other boarders who used to be here said, nearly every evening at closing time, at one of them big department stores. I don’t know which one, for sure, but I think it was the Emporium--or, maybe, it was Wurtzinger’s.”

I had no doubt as to my ability to recognize the original of the photograph. After making a mental note of the somewhat faded inscription upon the back, I replaced the picture upon the mantel.

“To Hartley, from Julie.” Julie was the name that the dead man had spoken, almost in his last agony. Most assuredly I must find Julie.

As may be imagined, after my arrival home I wasted none of the remaining precious moments of the night in sleeping. I fairly dashed into my study, turned on the lights, closed and locked the door instinctively, without rhyme or reason, and proceeded to read that portentous letter:

“Hartley:--

“Why did you follow me to N--? Why can you not understand? Why do you persist in harrowing my very soul in the attempt to bring back by force and arms what no longer exists? I have told you, over and over again, that I no longer love you, and that I love another with all the strength of my being. Of what good could it be to compel me, as you are trying to do, to continue a _liaison_ which I have come to detest, and which, had I been more worldly wise would never have been formed? And you threaten to expose me--you, who have nothing to lose, while I--oh, man, man! Why can you not see? And you say you love me, and you reproach me because I have said in the past--that past over which I fain would draw a veil of oblivion--that I loved you. Yes, I did love you--to my shame be it said, the more shame that I now know that the burning sentiment, the ardent affection you have expressed for me is not love, but the passion of the brute whose life revolves around his own selfish gratification. You will say this is not true, that you do love me, that your love is of the exalted type. For God’s sake then, do what you can to show me that I am wrong! By that love, I implore you to do nothing until I see you. Do not bring the girl you have so often called your Julie, to open shame! Oh, Hartley, be not harsh to me! I am the most miserable wretch, the unhappiest being on the face of the earth. Do not drive me to desperation and death. Do not ruin my future. Be merciful, I implore you. In your last letter you threaten to denounce me to my father, that you will send him my letters. Oh, why did I ever write them? Hartley, if my poor old father should ever read those letters, inspired though they were by the truest love, he would put me away from him. He would hate me, now that I am engaged to marry a man of whom he is very fond. I wrote to you in all the ardor of my first love; it was as pure and as true as it was deep, but the world could not, would not understand. I believed you when you said you loved me, and it was for the love that you expressed that I adored you. I put on paper what I should not. Had my love been one of head and not of heart--had I not believed you the noblest of men, I should not now be pleading for mercy. If my father or Mr. X---- should see those fond letters to you, what could I expect but a revulsion of feeling? If any other eyes should see them, what would not be said of me? Oh, on my bended knees I implore you to spare me,--to spare those who love me and whom I love with my whole soul. As you hope for mercy on the Judgment Day, do not inform on me--do not make my name a scandal and a reproach! Oh, will you not keep my secret from the world? For the sake of my mother, for the love you bear your own, spare me! Oh, Hartley, in God’s name hear my prayer! I have prayed God to forgive your cruel threats--to inspire you to spare me from shame. For the love of Heaven, hear me! I grow mad! I have been ill, very ill, ever since I received your last awful, threatening letter. I have had to resort to drugs--something I should not have taken, and my brain is on fire. I feel as if death itself would be sweet. Hartley, oh, Hartley; abuse me, villify me, kill me if you will, but do not denounce me! For my life I am pleading--oh, listen, listen, for--must I say it?--for your own safety hear me. I cannot stand everything. Do not drive me to madness and death--or worse! Have pity on her whom you once called--your Julie.”

As I read this heart rending missive my late patient’s case did not seem so mysterious. I do not hesitate to say, moreover, that the memory of his last horrible agonies was pleasanter to contemplate than it had been.

“The man who inspired that letter,” I exclaimed aloud, “never committed suicide. He was not man enough. That fellow died like a poisoned rat in a hole,--if the evidence counts for anything.”

Having thus become more reconciled to the death of the late Mr. Peyton, I was less inclined than ever to be in haste in promoting any legal intermeddling with what had begun to appear a just dispensation of Providence. But I was nevertheless determined to see the matter to its conclusion. I was bound to find the hand that had “poisoned the rat.” I could decide what course to pursue afterward. I was confident that I knew for whom I must look, but where? Where was “Julie?”

After a hurried breakfast I began my quest. As luck would have it I decided to visit the Emporium first. I confess that when I entered the colossal establishment and saw its large number of female employes I began to fear that, with only the given name of the person I was seeking and a mental reproduction of her photograph to guide me, my task was liable to be something like the proverbial search for the needle in the haystack.

For more than two hours I strolled about the Emporium, covertly studying the faces of the women clerks and affecting an indifference which I did not feel, without seeing any one who could by any possibility have been taken for the original of the picture. Black hair and dark eyes--the possessors of which were not seldom beautiful--were there in plenty, but none that could be compared with those I sought.

I was about to go to the office of the establishment to inquire there, under the pretext of seeking a witness of an accident case, when I caught sight of one of the floor walkers, a Mr. Courtney, who chanced to be an old patient of mine.

“Ah,” I thought, “here is some one who may help me.”

Mr. Courtney greeted me warmly, and replied courteously, when I asked for a private interview,

“Certainly, doctor, step this way.”

Having seated ourselves on a sofa in an out of the way corner of the store, I said,

“Mr. Courtney, for important reasons, which I am sure it will not be necessary to give you, I am seeking a certain young lady, who may or may not be employed in this establishment. I have been compelled to ask your assistance because I have only her description to rely upon, and know merely her given name--‘Julie.’”

I then proceeded to describe the young woman of the photograph.

My friend smiled and said,

“Your task is an easy one, doctor. There’s only one of her kind, in this establishment, at least. Do you wish to speak to the young woman?”

I was somewhat taken aback by the suddenness with which success promised to reward my search.

“W--why, yes, if it would not be too much trouble,” I replied.

Mr. Courtney rapped sharply for a messenger, and one promptly appeared.

“Tell Miss Morales, in the lace department, that I wish to see her here at once.”

The messenger departed on his mission, leaving me wondering how I had missed seeing the object of my quest. I recalled having lingered for quite a while at the lace department.

The messenger did his errand quickly and returned.

“Please, sir, Miss Morales is at home sick. The lace department manager says she hain’t been down to the store for three or four days.”

“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Courtney, “come to think of it, I haven’t seen her for several days. I had made no especial note of her absence, however, as there are so many women employes in the store, and the lace department isn’t on my floor. If you wish, doctor, I will ascertain where she lives. We keep a record of the residences of all our employes, you know.”

Mr. Courtney went to the office and returned with a card upon which was written, “Miss Julie Morales, No. -- M-- Street.”

After thanking my friend and asking him to consider my inquiry as of a confidential nature, I wended my way to the address given me.

No. -- M-- Street proved to be located some distance from the business part of the city. The house presented the semi-respectable appearance of a boarding house of the cheaper grade. A smirking, frowsy, freckle-faced Irish maid opened the door in answer to my ring, and informed me that “Miss Morales was to home” and she “guessed,” in her room.

The maid ushered me into the stuffy, cookery smelling parlor, dusted a rickety, shabby genteel, hair-cloth covered chair with her apron, and asked me to be seated.

“Who shall I be after tellin’ Miss Morales as wants to see her?”

“Never mind my name. Just tell her I am from the Emporium.”

The maid soon returned and informed me that Miss Morales would be “down in a little while.”

I had begun to grow somewhat restless, and was wondering whether the fair Miss Morales had not become suspicious and eluded me, when there was a soft rustle of skirts in the hall, the door opened, and there stood the original of the photograph--hollow eyed, wan and haggard, with deep care lines about the mouth, but still undoubtedly “Julie,” and still surpassingly lovely.

“You wished to see me, sir,” she said, in a voice which was somewhat tremulous, and unquestionably that of one who had suffered much.

“Miss Morales, I believe.”

“That is my name, sir.”

“I owe you an apology for the little deception,” I said, handing her my professional card. “As you see, I am not from the Emporium, although I obtained the address from my friend Mr. Courtney, at that establishment.”

Her hand trembled as she took the card, and she gazed at it fearfully, as though apprehensive of danger.

“Shall we not be seated?” I asked, motioning to a settee. The young woman acquiesced, almost mechanically. Seating myself beside her, I said:

“Miss Morales, while I am a total stranger to you, I wish you would not construe my visit and what I am about to say to you as either impertinent or menacing to yourself. I am here with the best of intentions, but I must discuss with you a matter which, you may be assured, is of vital importance to you. Anything you may say will be treated by me as strictly confidential--as, in short, a professional secret.”

She gazed at me helplessly, with the dumb, haunting dread of impending disaster in her beautiful eyes.

“You are, or have been, I believe,” I continued, “a very close friend of Mr. Hartley Peyton’s.”

The poor girl’s face became ghastly pale, and I feared she was going to faint, as she stammered, weakly,--

“Ye--yes, sir. We are, or at least we were, friends--we were very good friends.”

“Well,” I continued, “it may interest you to know that I was called to see him professionally last night, and found him very ill.”

“Then he is much better now; he is quite recovered, is he not, doctor?” she exclaimed eagerly, springing to her feet.

“I regret to say that he is not better. In fact,” I replied, “Mr. Peyton is--”

“My God, doctor!” she cried, “he is not dead?”

“Miss Morales, Hartley Peyton died at two o’clock this morning.” The young woman buried her face in her hands, and fell back upon the settee in a state of almost total collapse.

“Miss Morales,” I continued, “the point which mutually interests us is that the circumstances surrounding Mr. Peyton’s death were very peculiar and unusual, in fact, suspicious in the extreme. I will go further and state that I have formed a very definite opinion of the cause of his death.”

Thrown completely off her guard by fright, the poor girl moaned, “Oh, doctor, you surely do not suspect that I--you surely do not believe that I could ever have--”

“I am not at present expressing any views as to the peculiar agencies which acted directly or indirectly in causing the unfortunate man’s demise. I have merely stated to you the fact of his death, and that I have arrived at a certain conclusion as to the cause of it.

“Miss Morales, you may place the most implicit confidence in me in anything you may say to me. Any communications you may make shall be held sacred. I have not as yet discussed the unfortunate affair with any one but yourself. It may rest entirely with you as to whether or not I do so hereafter.”

“What do you wish me to do--what am I to say?” she asked, faintly.

“Nothing here,” I replied. “Your present surroundings are by no means favorable to discussion of topics of vital importance, least of all to confidential communications. I shall therefore take the liberty of asking you to come to my office”--I looked at my watch, and saw that my office hours were long past due--“at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”

The girl suddenly dropped her hands from her face, straightened up in her seat, and, with the gleam of battle in her wonderful eyes, said, tensely,

“Why should I feel called upon to make an appointment with you, an entire stranger, for the purpose of discussing a matter which, after all, does not in the least concern me. Mr. Peyton’s death, and your opinion of its cause are to me of no consequence whatever. Furthermore, your presence here is in the highest degree impertinent and uncalled for.”

“Miss Morales,” I said, quietly. “There are several reasons why you should make and keep the appointment I have requested. In the first place, it is optional with me as to whether or not the sudden death of your friend, Mr. Peyton, shall be turned over to the coroner for investigation. It may prove to be my duty to do so.”

“What do I care, whether the case is turned over to the coroner or not?” she replied, her jaws setting combatively.

“Simply because there is no telling in what direction the investigation may lead, nor to whom suspicion may be directed,” I retorted.

“Let it lead where it may, for aught I care,” she said, defiantly.

“Miss Morales, I will be more to the point. A letter was found beneath Mr. Peyton’s pillow, which, should it fall into the coronor’s hands, might suggest all sorts of foolish ideas to the minds of the ignoramuses who compose the average coronor’s jury--minds to which sentiment is an unknown quantity. The letter was signed, ‘Julie,’ a signature that corresponds very accurately with one which is inscribed on the back of a photograph of a certain young lady that was found on the mantel in the dead man’s room.”

The poor girl sank limply back upon the settee, the picture of helpless misery. I laid my hand gently upon her beautiful head, resting it there for a brief moment, and then passed quietly out.

Being somewhat versed in matters psycho-logic, I had not the slightest doubt that the fair Julie would keep the rather one sided appointment made the afternoon before. I confess, however, that her promptness surprised me a little.

The clock upon my office mantel was just striking the hour of ten, when Miss Morales was announced. I directed my attendant to usher her in, at the same time giving instructions that I was not to be disturbed until further orders.

As my beautiful visitor took the seat I proffered her, I was struck by her calm, composed demeanor. Her poise was perfect, and she showed not the slightest trace of excitement, but responded to my polite “Good morning,” as if her business were of the most matter of fact nature.

I leaned back in my chair, saying, “I am very glad you concluded to call upon me, Miss Morales, and assure you that your confidence has not been misplaced. There is hardly any need for preliminaries. Our business together this morning is unpleasant at best, and the sooner it is over the more agreeable it will be for us both, I am sure. You doubtless have something to say to me apropos of our conversation of yesterday. You will find me a good listener--and a sympathetic one.”

She sat for a moment gazing out of the open window, through which the glorious sun and balmy air of an ideal Spring morning were pouring, then, turning and looking me squarely in the eyes, said, as calmly as though entering upon a discussion of things common place:

“Since you left me, yesterday afternoon, doctor, I have passed through mental and physical agonies which, were I the worst of criminals, should have been sufficient expiation for anything I have ever done. I now feel that nothing which could possibly happen would have any terrors for me--that the worst must surely be over.”

I listened in the greatest astonishment. This was hardly the piteous supplicant I had expected.

“Pray do not think that my sufferings have resulted from the operations of a guilty conscience. I have not reproached myself for having taken advantage of humanity’s inalienable right of self-defense. But I was only a poor, weak woman after all, and the dread of punishment at human hands, even though what I had done was justifiable before God, terrified me.

“However, I lived through the ordeal of last night, and prospective punishment has now no longer any terrors for me. Face it I will, if face it I must.

“I have not come to offer any arguments in defense of any act I may have committed, nor do I intend to beg for mercy at the hands of the only person who, thus far, is in a position to accuse me of a crime. Still less have I come here for the purpose of telling you my story, for there is really nothing to add to what you already know or have surmised, and it would not be fair to ask me to review the events the culmination of which you witnessed night before last. My soul has been harrowed enough. It has received its baptism of fire. I have come merely to say to you that I do not wish you to compound any felonies with your own conscience, or risk your reputation--or perhaps even your liberty--by protecting one who is an absolute stranger to you, and not entitled to the slightest consideration on your part.

“If, knowing the circumstances--and you must know them, after attending Mr. Peyton professionally and having read a certain letter--you believe it to be your duty to turn my case over to the proper authorities, I am willing to have you do so, and shall abide by the consequences. I do not say this as one who has no longer anything to live for, but as one who has become reconciled to whatever fate has in store for her.