Chapter IV: Preface (3)

One morning--my visits had become almost daily now--I saw at once that there was something wrong with Mrs. Wilton, and she saw also that I perceived it.

“You need not feel my pulse, doctor; it is my heart,” she said in answer to my looks. “You will think me foolishly weak, I know,” she added, forcing a smile, “but I am miserable because my husband is going to leave me.”

“Leave you! For how long?” I inquired anxiously.

She blushed, and, looking down, answered shyly, “Till this evening. Ah, don’t laugh,” she implored; “we have never been separated for so long since we were married. I am nervous and fanciful, I suppose, but I scarcely slept last night for thinking of it, and when I did, a dreadful dream kept repeating itself--

“Oh, you must not mind dreams,” I answered.

“I never did much before, but this--ah, Charlie!” she cried, as Mr. Wilton came in booted and spurred, “I will come and see you mount.”

I saw the parting from the drawing-room window where I stood--saw her husband place his hands on either side of the sweet face, and gaze down into it with a look of unutterable love; saw their lips meet together for a moment; after that he kissed her forehead and her beautiful fair hair, then sprang into the saddle, and rode off swiftly as though he could not trust himself to linger longer. At the gate, turning, he waved a last farewell.

She came into the drawing-room presently.

“Doctor, excuse me. I think I will lie down,” she said, her large blue eyes looking peculiarly plaintive, brimming as they were with tears. My presence was not needed then. I bowed and took my leave.

But the evening of that day I was sent for to Croft House.

“He has not returned,” were the first words spoken by Mrs. Wilton, as I entered the drawing-room. “And, oh! what a day it has been,” she continued feverishly; “so long, so sad! I seem to have lived a cruel lifetime in each hour.”

“But it is not late. You said Mr. Wilton would not return till evening,” I urged.

“It has been evening a long time now. See, the sun is setting. Then it will be night.” She shuddered.

I sat with her an hour, perhaps, trying in vain to distract her thoughts. And I too--knowing not how or why--became uneasy. She told me her husband had gone to D----, the nearest town, for letters he expected to find at the post-office. I knew that I could have ridden there and back easily in the time. Still, a thousand simple causes might have delayed him. I begged her to take courage, suggesting she would probably laugh to-morrow at the fears she had entertained to-day. But she shook her head.

“I suffer too much ever to laugh at such feelings as these,” she said in a half-whisper. “I do not wish to think it, but it is as though I _knew_ something dreadful was--Oh, I cannot, I dare not clothe the terrible thought in words. That would make it seem so real--so almost certain. Dr. Gray, can this be the punishment for my disobedience--_come so soon_?” she asked in awe-struck tones.

I could not answer her, but proposed that she should wrap a mantle round her and come with me into the garden to watch for her husband. She thanked me gratefully, and I carried a basket seat out for her and placed it on the lawn.

Sitting with her hands clasped about her knees--paler, more fragile, more childish looking than I had ever seen her--of a sudden I felt, rather than saw, that a change had come to her. She bent forward as though listening intently, and at the same moment a distant sound struck on my ear--the galloping of a horse on the high road.

Was there ever before on human countenance such a beatified expression as that which dawned and deepened on Mrs. Wilton’s as the sound approached? It was close to us now, but the trees in the garden hid the road from our view. Without slackening speed the horse galloped in at the open gate.

“Oh, Charlie, Charlie! Oh, thank God!” cried the girl, in what seemed a wild, ungovernable ecstasy of gratitude and joy. But I pulled her back or the horse would have been upon her.

Then I saw that the animal was riderless, covered with dust and foam; that the bridle hung loose, dragging on the gravel.

A groom who had been on the watch came out. In another moment all the household were assembled on the lawn.

Mrs. Wilton had fallen back, as I thought fainting, in my arms. But no, her senses had not forsaken her. She raised herself and pointed in the direction the horse had come.

“He lies there, there!” she cried, and pushing me from her, ran forward towards the gate. I bade the servants bring lanterns and follow me. To Mrs. Wilton, who was out in the road by this time, I said all I could say to dissuade her from going with me; but my words fell on deaf ears. Feeling it was useless--in one sense cruel--to persist, I compelled her to take my arm. Endowed for the time, by excitement, with almost superhuman strength, she seemed to drag me forward rather than to lean on me. After proceeding about a mile, we came to a bit of level road which for some distance in front showed clear and distinct in the moonlight. Here, I felt certain, we had lost all trace of the horse’s shoe marks, which hitherto had been every now and again perceptible in the dusty highway.

“There is a shorter cut--if he knew of it,” I said, and stopped.

“Then if there is he would come by it--he would be sure to find out and come by it,” she cried.

And I led her back a little distance to a gate at the entrance of a wood, where sure enough were traces sufficient to show we were again on the right track. Servants with lanterns had overtaken us by this time; so, calling out at intervals and listening in vain for a response, we entered the dark wood. Through it was an almost unfrequented bridle path, considered somewhat unsafe by day but particularly so at night; the gnarled roots of trees forming a raised network upon the ground. It was with considerable difficulty we made our way. Mrs. Wilton stumbled many times, would have fallen but for my support. At last she loosed my arm and ran forward, signing me not to follow her. In another moment the wood resounded with a wild and piercing cry. She had seen what the rest of us had failed to see, and when I came up to her she was kneeling beside her husband, her arms clasped about his neck, her face close pressed to his. One agonized look she gave me as I bent over them: “My dream!” she said. I understood.

There was an ugly wound on the back of poor Charlie Wilton’s head; the body was still warm, but the heart had ceased to beat. Though Mrs. Wilton did not speak again, she never completely lost her senses, but her mind seemed stunned. We put some hurdles together and carried him back thus to Croft House.

An inquest was held, every particular of which was minutely reported in the county newspaper, to appear in condensed form in most of the journals of the day. But no friends of the dead man ever came forward, nor was it satisfactorily proved whether his death had been the result of violence or of an accidental fall from his horse in the dangerous pathway through the wood.

The post-office officials at D---- perfectly remembered the deceased calling for letters on the day in question, giving the name of Wilton; but there were none for him. In the bank was lodged to his credit some five or six thousand pounds.

I took upon myself the arrangements for the funeral as of everything else. Mrs. Wilton’s mind had not sufficiently recovered from the shock it had received on that terrible night to understand or care for what went on around her. Only once--when I urged writing to her friends--did she even momentarily rouse herself to answer me. “My father will never forgive me,” she said. “I acted in defiance of his commands. No, I cannot write to him.” Then she added: “He has married again,” which perhaps in part explained.

A month later a baby was born--a boy whom she called Charlie--and when she spoke the name, tears sprang to her eyes for the first time. It was not until I saw those tears that I had the slightest hope of her mind rallying from the shock; but then I knew that the living child would save her. She looked upon him as having been sent direct from heaven to solace her for her loss. She regarded him as an emanation from the departed spirit of her husband. There was certainly something uncommon about the child. He was pretty, but not engaging. He never cried; but it may also be said, he never smiled. He did not suffer, but there was about him none of the joyousness of childhood. It seemed as though the thunder-cloud that had burst over the mother’s head had left its shadow on the child.

Between two and three years after Mr. Wilton’s death a change seemed likely to occur in my own prospects. A rich relation--a physician of high standing--wrote urging me to come to London immediately, on a matter, so he said, of the greatest importance to myself. There was nothing to prevent my complying with his request. The village was in a healthy state; my outside practice might be made to spare me. I wrote stating I would be with him on the following day.

I went to Croft House to say good-bye. It was summer. Mrs. Wilton was sitting out on the lawn with Charlie on a rug close at her feet. She made room for me beside her, and we talked together for a short time of her affairs and of the child. It was not until I had risen to go that I broached the subject of my departure. She looked surprised, alarmed.

“But, Charlie,” she said; “if he should be ill?”

“I would not go if he were ill. I will return at once if he should need me,” I answered earnestly. “But is he not the picture of health? Why, he seems exempt from every childish trouble.”

I told her my relative’s address, knowing she only cared to have it in case she needed me for her boy; then I lifted the child in my arms and kissed him. “Good-bye, little man!” I said cheerfully. He was a splendid little fellow, of whom his mother might well be proud; he resembled his father, too, and was growing more like him every day.

I was about to set the child down, but something--some feeling I cannot define--impelled me to hold him closer; to look into his face--his eyes--more scrutinizingly than I had ever done. And so looking, I shuddered at the thought that then assailed me. Great powers! Could fate be so cruel? Had heaven no pity for this poor mother who, so young, had already surely borne enough of sorrow? I put the boy down quickly and turned away.

Perhaps--perhaps after all I may have been mistaken!

I reached London, and Dr. B---- ‘s residence that evening, and my worthy relative quickly explained the object of his summons. He wished me to undertake, with his supervision, a case requiring the utmost care and consideration; one which rendered it necessary that a medical man should reside for a time beneath the same roof as his patient, and be with him night and day.

This patient was Lord Welbury, a self-made man so far as his immense wealth was concerned; but he came of an ancient and honourable race.

I accepted the munificent conditions offered, and within a couple of hours of my arrival in town was driven to Lord Welbury’s house in Belgravia, and entered upon the duties of my post.

For some days and nights my responsibilities absorbed all my attention. The life of a sick man hung on a thread, my medical capacity was taxed to its utmost; I knew not, nor cared I, for the time being, what went on outside that chamber.

The crisis passed, my patient began rapidly to recover. The first day that he was able to sit up in his room he asked me a startling question. He said: “Doctor, am I sane?”

“Your mind has never been affected,” I answered unhesitatingly. “Your lordship is as sane as I am.”

“Good. Therefore a will made by me now could not be invalid?”

“Most certainly not on the ground of incompetency.”

“Then my will must be made to-morrow or next day at latest. This illness has warned me to delay no longer. My niece’s child will be my heir.”

His words set me musing and turning over in my mind how this could be.

“Your lordship is childless, then?” The remark slipped from me almost unawares; but they were fateful words, as the result proved. “I beg your pardon,” I added, seeing surprise and some annoyance written on his face.

“Not at all,” he answered courteously. “I supposed you were acquainted with my family affairs, for they are no secret. I _have_ a son, though no communication has passed between us for nearly four years. He set me and my wishes at defiance by marrying beneath him, consequently will inherit little more than an empty title. I mean to leave my fortune to my niece’s child. The boy was committed to my care when his parents went to India, two years ago. He is a fine little fellow, and it shows how close in attendance you have been on me if you did not even know he was in the house--”

“Was your son’s name Charles--that of the girl he married Una?” I asked, scarcely heeding his last words. My heart was beating faster than it should, my voice in my earnestness less steady than it ought to be.

“Yes. But why these questions?”

I knew he was well enough now to hear the truth, therefore I answered: “Because it is my belief your lordship’s son is dead. I will relate to you a sad story; when I have finished you will be able to judge whether or not you are concerned in it.” Then I told, as briefly as I could, the Croft House tragedy; and as I did so, read in the ever-increasing interest with which he listened to my tale that my suspicions were correct.

That the man I had to deal with was of a proud, egotistical, unsympathetic nature I was well aware; that the death of his only son would not vitally affect him I had rightly guessed; but I was scarcely prepared for the interest he displayed on learning of the existence of his grandchild. The better nature of the man seemed touched. I spoke of little Charles’s beauty, his likeness to his father, even hinted at a resemblance to Lord Welbury himself. With the feverish impatience of an invalid he demanded that the boy should be sent for at once.

“He cannot come without his mother. The two lives are bound together as one.”

“Then write to the mother and bid her bring him,” was the imperious reply. And the speaker turned his face away as though to intimate no more was to be said. The affair was settled.

On quitting the room I encountered a nurse leading a smiling, rosy little urchin, clad in velvet and rich lace.

“Speak prettily to the kind doctor, Georgie,” said the nurse. “This is the little heir, sir,” she whispered to me.

Three days later Mrs. Wilton--I must still call her so--and her son arrived. I met them at the station and took them in one of his lordship’s carriages to the house. The boy, exhausted apparently by the journey, was asleep when he entered it; he was still sleeping when his mother carried him across the threshold of Lord Welbury’s door.

His lordship’s reception of her was not ungracious. Could he fail to feel touched at sight of this gentle, beautiful young creature, who had loved his son so well! But it was evident he resented the fact that his grandson, whom he had specially desired to welcome, could not be prevailed upon to notice him, or enticed to leave his mother’s arms.

“Excuse him. He is so tired,” pleaded the young mother, reading the disappointment on her father-in-law’s face.

“Well, well. Off to bed with him, then. Bring him to me bright and smiling in the morning.”

Bright and smiling! Somehow the words struck me--even haunted me--they were so totally inapplicable to Charlie. I tried to remember if I had ever seen a smile upon that grave baby-face, but tried in vain.

When I entered Lord Welbury’s room next day--my presence there at nights was now dispensed with--the old man, in dressing-gown and slippers, was reclining in an easy chair. In front of him stood Mrs. Wilton, with Charlie clinging to her long black draperies.

“Come here, Gray,” exclaimed his lordship, irritably. “I cannot get my grandson to notice me. What is to be done?”

“Charlie is shy. He has been used to no one but me,” murmured the mother, raising her eyes with an appealing look in them to mine.

“Madam, I fear you are spoiling him,” said Lord Welbury sharply. “The other child took to me at once, but this--”

“Send for the other, sir,” I suggested, and presently “the little heir,” with whom I had previously made acquaintance, was brought in by his nurse. The latter sat down in a far corner with some knitting. The child--as apparently he had been accustomed to do--ran to the old man and scrambled at his knee. “I love ‘ou, I love ‘ou,” he cried.

Lord Welbury’s face was radiant.

“Now, Charlie, my man,” said he, as the other child after his affectionate greeting scampered off to play beside his nurse.

Charlie was placed on his grandfather’s knee.

“Say ‘I love you,’” whispered Mrs. Wilton, as she tried to clasp her own child’s arms about Lord Welbury’s neck.

“Say I love ‘ou,” echoed the boy mechanically; then dropped his head and lay quite placidly as though he slept.

“Ha, ha, the young rascal! He’s making himself at home at last,” observed Lord Welbury, well pleased. “And now that I come to see him more closely, he’s not unlike what his father was at the same age, only quieter. Do you know he almost strikes me as being a little dull. Have you found him so, madam?”

“I have been too sad a companion for him, sir. I know--I feel it now,” sighed the poor mother, her eyes wandering from her own boy to follow the antics of the other, who astride a stick, was careering merrily about the room.

“That can be soon remedied,” said Lord Welbury, putting Charlie off his knee; “let the two youngsters romp together. I warrant they’ll make friends if let alone.”

And in order to try the experiment, we three sat apart and kept up some desultory talk. This lasted but a short time, however. It was broken in upon by a startled cry from the younger boy, Georgie, who, apparently terror stricken, rushed across the room.

“Naughty boy, naughty boy! Send him away. He’s making faces at me,” cried the spoilt child in an outburst of passion, pointing with outstretched finger at his little companion.

The nurse dropped her knitting, and rose instantly. “I have seen it from the first,” she said, calmly confronting us. “The child is half an idiot, my lord.”

All eyes were turned at poor Charlie, who stood among some broken toys, his features distorted into the ghastly semblance of a smile.

Mrs. Wilton, running to her boy, shielded him with her arms. “My darling, my darling! Has God no pity?” she cried, and bore him from the room. She had prayed day and night--this unhappy mother--to see either a smile on her baby’s lips or a tear in his eye, and hitherto her prayer had been denied. It was granted now. The poor dulled senses of the child, roused into something like activity by the antics of his little lively playfellow, had caused the lips to smile. But what a smile!

Lord Welbury turned pale. A look of disgust, not unmixed with anger, settled on his face.

“There is no doubt the boy is imbecile,” he said, as I was about to follow Mrs. Wilton from the room. “Dr. Gray, were you aware of this when you allowed him to be brought here?”

“I was not aware of it,” I replied readily. For the sad foreboding that first assailed me on the lawn at Croft House had received no confirmation hitherto. “But even if the case is as we fear,” I added earnestly, “it may be curable.”

“Excuse me, doctor,” he interrupted. “No man who has seen that child as we have seen him can have the slightest doubt but that he is an idiot for life.”

“On the contrary, my lord, we must regard the matter from another point. Remember the shadow that rested on his mother before his birth. Where there is no hereditary taint--”

“What then? On the mere chance of the child being curable, do you suppose I am going to leave my money to him? No!” he cried excitedly. “My own life is too precarious for me to delay longer the settling of my affairs. My niece’s child is still my heir. I regard the other as _non est_. For heaven’s sake don’t let me have my feelings harrowed by the sight of that poor idiot any more. The mother shall have a handsome annuity. I pity her.”

And that day Lord Welbury made his will, leaving his immense fortune as he had said.

Once more I returned to my country practice; Mrs. Wilton and Charlie to Croft House.

Never was grief grander in its simplicity, or more nobly borne than that of Mrs. Wilton. She still prayed--prayed with the faith which we are told will move mountains. Her eyes, when not raised to heaven, were bent on her child, ever seeking for the dawning of that intelligence which she believed must come in answer to her prayers. She tried to teach him his childish lessons; she read, she talked to him; even chanted in a low, sad voice the nursery rhymes that happy mothers sing.

At last, one day, exercising over herself a supreme control, she told her son the story of his father’s death, told it in simple, child-like language, but with a pathos that might have moved a heart of stone.

The boy was standing at her knee, she holding his unresponsive hand. But, as she proceeded with her narration, he pressed gradually closer to her side. With a thrill of rapture she looked at the drooped eyelids, hoping, praying to see a tear glisten on the dark curled lashes. Trembling, she reached the climax of her sad tale, and bending over him:

“Charlie,” she whispered, “Charlie, he was _dead_! you understand?”

Alas, she knew then, even ere she had done speaking that the boy was incapable of understanding her. His eyes were closed. He slept!

And he seemed for ever thus. Whether the beautiful but expressionless eyes were open or closed his mental faculties were in that dulled dormant state, it might be said they slept.

“He is like that little statue of Jesus now,” she once said to me, pointing to a marble figure of Christ, “but some day God will awaken his soul. Ah, doctor, shall I live to see that day?”

I scarcely thought she could, but did not tell her so.

From the day on which she related the story of her husband’s death, she herself drooped visibly.

But grief kills very slowly. Five years passed by. Lord Welbury was dead. His wealth--with the exception of the annuity to his son’s widow--was left to his niece’s child; his title now by right became his grandson’s.

The boy grew fast; he was eight years old, but his mind still slumbered. He knew the sound of his mother’s voice, would come to the side of her couch when called; would lie for hours folded in her arms, whispering back her loving words, repeating her gentle admonitions like an echo. The words apparently conveyed no meaning, but they touched some hidden chord.

Weaker and weaker grew Mrs. Wilton.

On one of my daily visits the sick nurse, who was in constant attendance now, whispered to me that the end was near. I was startled, shocked, to perceive _how_ near!

“Doctor, dear friend,” she gasped very faintly, as I pressed her poor transparent hand; but her whole attention was riveted on her son; she was gazing at him with eyes out of which the light of earth was fading fast. It was evident she desired to say something, but it was some time before the words would come. At last, gathering strength, she said in a low, penetrating voice that scarcely faltered: “I am going to leave you, Charlie. _Here_ I could not help you, but when in heaven I see our dear Lord face to face--when on my knees before the great white throne--”

For an instant an expression of rapture irradiated her features; the next, with a slight sigh she sank back upon the pillow.

I touched Charlie on the shoulder. He dropped upon his knees and, unprompted, joined his trembling hands in prayer. His gaze was directed upward. His countenance assumed a look of intensity I had never seen on it before. Quite suddenly he rose, and flinging himself sobbing across the bed, “Oh, mother, mother! Do not leave me all alone,” he cried.

“See! Your son is saved!” I whispered, bending over Mrs. Wilton. But I was speaking to the dead.

And yet, even as I looked upon the still white face, the lips seemed parting into a smile of the most holy, calm, ineffable content. Could it be as she herself had said? Was she already kneeling before the great white throne--had God listened to her prayer at last?

A few more words and this “o’er true tale” is ended.

From the moment of his mother’s death, the mists that had obscured poor Charlie’s mind dispersed.

I took him to live with me, and watched his young intelligence grow day by day to healthy vigour. Not even a shadowy semblance of a cloud rests now upon his mind. He has succeeded to his grandfather’s wealth as well as to the title, for “the niece’s child” is dead.

The present Lord Welbury ranks amongst England’s noblest sons--he is one of the greatest philanthropists of the day.

E. M. DAVY.

VI.

JOHN BARTINE’S WATCH: THE DOCTOR’S STORY.

“THE exact time? Good heavens! my friend, why do you insist? One would think--but what does it matter; it is easily bed-time--isn’t that near enough? But, here, if you must set your watch, take mine and see for yourself.”

With that, he detached his watch--a tremendously heavy, old-fashioned one--from the chain and handed it to me, then turned away and, walking across the room to a shelf of books, began an examination of their backs. His agitation and evident distress surprised me; they appeared altogether reasonless. Having set my watch by his, I stepped over to where he stood and said, “Thank you.”

As he took his watch and re-attached it to the guard, I observed that his hands were unsteady. A slight pallor had come into his face. With a tact, upon which I greatly prided myself, I sauntered carelessly to the sideboard and took some brandy and water, then, begging his pardon for my thoughtlessness, asked him to have some and went back to my seat by the fire, leaving him to help himself, as was our custom. He did so, and presently joined me at the hearth, as tranquil as if nothing unusual had happened.

This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where John Bartine was passing an evening. We had dined together at the club, had come home in a hack and, in short, everything had been done in the most prosaic way; and why John Bartine should break in upon the natural and established order of things to make himself spectacular with a display of emotion, apparently for his own entertainment, I could nowise understand.

The more I thought of it, while his brilliant conversational gifts were commending themselves to my inattention, the more curious I grew and, of course, had no difficulty in persuading myself that my curiosity was friendly solicitude. That is the disguise that curiosity commonly assumes to evade resentment. So I ruined one of the finest sentences of his monologue by cutting it short without ceremony.

“John Bartine,” I said, “you must try to forgive me, if I am wrong; but with the light that I have at present I cannot concede your right to go all to pieces when asked the time o’night. I cannot admit that it is proper to experience a mysterious reluctance to look your own watch in the face, and to cherish in my presence, without explanation, painful emotions which are denied to me and which are none of my business.”

To this ridiculous speech, Bartine made no immediate reply, but sat looking gravely into the fire. Fearing that I had offended, I was about to apologize and beg him to think no more about the matter, when, looking me calmly in the eyes, he said:

“My dear fellow, the levity of your manner does not at all disguise the hidden impudence of your demand; but happily I had already decided to tell you what you wish to know, and no manifestation of your unworthiness to hear it shall alter my decision. Be good enough to persuade me to have a fresh cigar and you shall hear all that I can tell you about the matter.

“This watch,” he said, “had been in my family for three generations before it fell to me. Its original owner, for whom it was made, was my great-grandfather, Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a wealthy planter of Colonial Virginia and as stanch a Tory as every lay awake nights contriving new kinds of maledictions for the head of Mr. Washington, and new methods of aiding and abetting good King George. One day this worthy gentleman had the deep misfortune to perform for his cause a service of capital importance which was not recognized by those who suffered its disadvantages as legitimate. It does not matter what it was; but among its minor consequences was my excellent ancestor’s arrest one night in his own house by a party of Mr. Washington’s rebels. He was permitted to say farewell to his weeping family and was then marched away into the darkness, which swallowed him up forever.

“Not the slenderest clew to his fate was ever found. After the war the most diligent inquiry and the offer of large rewards failed to turn up any of his captors or any fact concerning him. He had disappeared, and that was all.”

Something in John Bartine’s manner that was not in his words--I hardly knew what it was, or how it manifested itself--prompted me to ask:

“What is your view of the matter, Bartine--of the justice of it?”

“My view of it,” he flamed out, bringing his clenched hand down upon the table as if he had been in a public-house dicing with blackguards--”my view of it is that it was a characteristically dastardly assassination by that d----d traitor, Washington, and his ragamuffin rebels!”

For some minutes nothing was said; Bartine was recovering his temper, and I waited. Then I said:

“Was that all?”

“No--there was something else. A few weeks after my great-grandfather’s arrest his watch was found lying on the porch at the front door of his dwelling. It was wrapped in a sheet of letter-paper bearing the name of Elizabeth Bartine, his only daughter, my grandmother. I am wearing that watch.”

Bartine paused. His usually restless black eyes were staring fixedly into the grate, a point of red light in each, reflected from the glowing coals. He seemed to have forgotten my existence.

A sudden threshing of the branches of a tree outside one of the windows, and almost at the same instant a rattle of rain against the glass, recalled him to a sense of his surroundings. A storm had risen, heralded by a single gust of wind, and in a few moments the steady splash of the water on the pavement was distinctly audible. I hardly know why I relate that incident; it seemed somehow to have a certain significance and relevancy which I am enabled now to discern. It at least added an element of seriousness, almost solemnity. Bartine resumed:

“I have a singular feeling towards this watch--a kind of affection for it; I like to have it about me; though partly from its weight, and partly for a reason that I shall now explain, I seldom carry it. The reason is this: Every evening when I have it with me I feel an unaccountable desire to open it and consult it, even if I can think of no reason for wishing to know the time. But if I yield to it, the moment my eyes rest upon the dial I am filled with a mysterious apprehension--a sense of imminent calamity. And this is the more unsupportable the nearer it is to eleven o’clock--by this watch, no matter what the actual hour may be. After the hands have registered eleven the desire to look is gone; I am entirely indifferent. But then I can consult the thing as often as I like, with no more emotion than you feel in looking at your own.

“Naturally, I have trained myself not to look at that watch in the evening before eleven; nothing could induce me. Your insistence this evening upset me a trifle. I felt very much as I suppose an opium-eater might feel if his yearning for his special and particular kind of hell were re-enforced by opportunity and advice.

“Now, that is my story, and I have told it in the interest of your trumpery science; but if on any evening hereafter you observe me wearing this damnable watch, and you have the thoughtfulness to ask me the hour, I shall beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of being knocked down.”

His humour did not amuse me. I could see that in relating his hallucination he was again somewhat disturbed. His concluding smile was positively ghastly, and his eyes had resumed something more than their old restlessness; they shifted hither and thither about the room with apparent aimlessness, and I fancied had taken on a wild expression, such as is sometimes observed in cases of dementia. Perhaps this was my own imagination; but at any rate I was now persuaded that my friend was afflicted with a most singular monomania.

Without, I trust, any abatement of my affectionate solicitude for him as a friend, I began to regard him as a patient rich in possibilities of profitable study. Why not? Had he not described his delusion in the interest of science? Ah, poor fellow, he was doing more for science than he knew; not only his story but himself was in evidence. I should cure him if I could, of course, but first I should make a little experiment in psychology--nay, the experiment itself might be a step in his restoration.

“That is very frank and friendly of you, Bartine,” I said cordially, “and I’m rather proud of your confidence. It is all very odd, certainly. Do you mind showing me the watch?”

He detached it from his waistcoat, chain and all, and passed it to me without a word. The case was of gold, very thick and strong, and curiously engraved. After examining the dial and observing that it was nearly twelve o’clock, I opened it at the back and was interested to observe an inner case of ivory, upon which was painted a miniature portrait in that exquisite and delicate manner which was in vogue during the eighteenth century.

“Why, bless my soul!” I exclaimed, experiencing the keenest artistic delight--”how under the sun did you get that done? I thought miniature painting on ivory was a lost art.”

“That,” he replied, gravely smiling, “is not I; it is my excellent great-grandfather, the late Bramwell Olcott Bartine, Esquire, of Virginia. He was younger then than later--about my age, in fact. It is said to resemble me; do you think so?”

“Resemble you? I should say so! Barring the costume, which I supposed you to have assumed out of compliment to the art--or for vraisemblance, so to say--and the no mustache, that face is yours in every feature, line and expression.”

No more was said at that time. Bartine took a book from the table and began reading.

I heard outside the incessant plash of the rain in the street. There was occasional hurried footfalls on the sidewalks; and once a slower, heavier tread seemed to cease at my door--a policeman, I thought, seeking shelter in the doorway. The boughs of the trees tapped significantly on the window-panes, as if asking for admittance. I remember it all through these years and years of a wiser, graver life.

Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old-fashioned watch key from the chain and quickly turned back the hands of the watch a full hour; then, closing the case, I handed Bartine his property, and saw him replace it.

“I think you said,” I began, with assumed carelessness, “that after eleven the sight of the dial no longer affects you. As it is now nearly twelve”--looking at my own timepiece--”perhaps, if you don’t resent my pursuit of proof, you will look at it now.”

He smiled good-humoredly, pulled out the watch again, opened it, and instantly sprang to his feet with a cry that Heaven has not had the mercy to permit me to forget! His eyes, their blackness strikingly intensified by the absolute pallor of his face, were fixed upon the watch, which he clutched in both hands.

For some time he remained in that attitude without uttering another sound; then, in a voice that I should not have recognized as his, he said:

“D----n you! it is two minutes to eleven.”

I was not unprepared for some such outbreak, and without rising replied, calmly enough:

“I beg your pardon; I must have misread your watch in setting my own by it.”

He shut the case with a sharp snap and put the watch in his pocket. He looked at me and made an attempt to smile; but his lower lip quivered and he seemed unable to close his mouth. His hands, also, were shaking and he thrust them clenched into his coat pockets.

The courageous spirit was manifestly endeavoring to subdue the coward body. The effort was too great. He began to sway from side to side, as from vertigo; and before I could spring from my chair to support him his knees gave way and he pitched awkwardly forward and fell upon his face--dead!

The post-mortem examination disclosed nothing; every organ was normal and sound. But when the body had been prepared for burial a faint, dark circle, as if made by contusion, was seen to have developed about the neck; at least, I was so assured by several persons who said they saw it; but of my own knowledge I cannot say if that was true.

Nor can I affirm my knowledge of the limitations of the principle of heredity. I do not know that in the spiritual, as in the temporal, world natural laws have no post-facto validity. Surely, if I were to guess at the fate of Bramwell Olcott Bartine, I should guess that he was hanged at eleven o’clock in the evening, and that he had been allowed several hours in which to prepare for the change.

As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient for five minutes, and--Heaven forgive me!--my victim for eternity, there is no more to say. He is buried, and his watch with him; I saw to that. May God rest his soul in Paradise and the soul of his unfortunate Virginian ancestor, if, indeed, they are two souls.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

VII.

TWO WILLS.

DR. BROWN had returned home late from a visit to one of his patients. It was a serious case--doubly so for Brown--for not only had his notoriously sure diagnosis failed him in this case, but the patient was one of a family with which he had been on an intimate footing for years, and consequently his personal interest was awakened. The doctor saw no hope whatever for the sick woman. Since early morning he had hourly expected her death. Weary and dispirited, after a light and hasty supper, he sat down at his writing-table, and once more passed in review the whole course of his patient’s illness. Every circumstance was recalled.

“Unaccountable! perfectly unaccountable!” he murmured over and over again, and, with each repetition, he shook his grey head.

“Doctor!” Brown started up in alarm. He had not dreamed that anyone beside himself was in the room. As he looked up, he saw a lady standing by the door, dressed in a peculiar nightrobe with only a light shawl thrown over it.

“My God! What is that?”

It was indeed the subject of his thoughts. Amazed beyond expression, Brown sprang from his armchair and hastened toward the intruder. “My dear Madam! Mrs. Morley, in heaven’s name, why are you here?”

“Never mind, doctor. Sit down and write what I tell you.”

Brown mechanically obeyed the command. There was something in the look and bearing of his visitor which forbade contradiction. Strangely thrilled, Brown took up his pen and wrote at her dictation the following words: “I hereby direct that, in case of my death, my body be opened, and the cause of my illness and final demise be officially and authoritatively stated by a competent physician. I am convinced that I am poisoned, and that by my own husband, and only through such a statement as the aforesaid will it be put out of his power to get possession of the property coming to my only child, his step-daughter. My will relating to this property is in the hands of my lawyer, Mr. Batt, in London. Mr. Batt is, as I have unfortunately only lately discovered, a man open to bribery, and my husband counts upon this characteristic for the attainment of his object: that is to say, he hopes to induce this lawyer, by pure falsification, to make the will read in his favor. I believe he has already succeeded in doing this, for, when, yesterday, I desired to see a lawyer of this town, in order to have him take down my last wishes, my husband put every obstacle in the way of his coming. I have put a sealed copy of my will in the double bottom of the little box which stands always upon the table at my bedside. The ostensible contents of the box are my daughter’s first cap and a lock of my father’s hair.”

Dr. Brown had driven his pen as if under the domination of a higher power. He was not conscious of having once lifted it from the paper to the inkstand, and yet there stood the written characters, black and clear, upon the white paper, and reminded him that he was not alone; furthermore, that the head and heart whose wish and request these characters had recorded, belonged to an existence which held his own being, thought, and will in its power.

He made an heroic effort to regain the mastery of himself, and with a powerful shake, as if to free himself from the grasp of this strange will, he arose. “Madam, I--”

“Yes, but, doctor, the master sent me to tell you to come right away. Mrs. Morley has been lying for two hours like dead, and the master thinks it must be nearly over with her.”

Brown staggered back in amazement, and stared so vacantly at the waiting coachman that the man was struck dumb.

“Jan? Where did you come from? Mrs. Morley is not yet----”

“Dead? No, doctor, not yet, but the master says she can’t last much longer.”

“Very well. You see to the horses, and I’ll come right away.”

Dr. Brown put his hands to his head. He had need to convince himself by some such means of his own mortal existence. Then he seized his hat and coat and hurried after the coachman.

Drawing his coat tightly about him, he leaned back in the corner of the carriage and racked his brain over the strange occurrence, but to no purpose. The doctor was a hard-headed, practical man, and if any one had related to him the events of the past day, he would have laughed him to scorn; but, earnestly as he tried to do so now, it was impossible for him to conjure up a smile. The carriage stopped and Mr. Morley was at the door to receive him.

“I am glad you have come, doctor. I was afraid you would be too late. As the clock struck twelve, there was absolutely no breath nor pulse, and not until half-an-hour ago did she seem to come back a little to life. She has just asked for you.”

These words were spoken outside the sick-room door. The doctor laid aside his coat and went in, followed by Mr. Morley. The physician felt something like horror at being in the near presence of this man, who since half-an-hour ago had figured in his mind as the murderer of his wife; and here in the sick-room while looking upon the dying woman, in whose features he again saw plainly his recent guest, even here, did he feel again that compelling force which had put the pen in his hand at home.

The sick woman seemed to have been anxiously awaiting his coming, for her great, earnest eyes fastened themselves upon him, as he entered the room, and as he bent over her, he heard distinctly the low whispered words: “Doctor, my child!” and in the same low whisper Dr. Brown replied: “I will see that your will is executed.”

Then he raised his head and encountered a look from those eyes which spoke a world of gratitude; and this was the last conscious look which lighted them, for as Mr. Morley now softly approached, she looked wanderingly at him, and then her eyelids closed, and her muscles relaxed, and with a gentle sigh her heart ceased to beat.

“All is over,” said the doctor, as he stepped back to give place to the mourning husband, who threw himself down beside his wife.

When he arose and turned toward the doctor, a tear glittered on his lashes. His voice was hoarse and tremulous when he thanked the physician for all the pains which he had taken during the long illness of his wife, concluding with, “I shall never forget it!”

Dr. Brown only shook his head. He was thinking of the dead woman’s will, and answered evasively: “I could not have helped your wife much, since I never discovered the real cause of her illness.”

“No self-reproaches, doctor! You did what you could, and whether this disease can be exactly diagnosed seems to me, from what I know of it, altogether doubtful.”

“Every disease,” replied the doctor, “must finally disclose its cause to the patient and thorough investigator; but in this case there were so many accompanying phenomena that it was quite impossible to discover the exact cause of the predominant disorder, at least in the living body.”

The doctor, as he said this, looked sharply at his companion, over whose countenance a slight cloud seemed to pass; yet there was scarcely any discernible change in his voice as he replied: “No, no, doctor, we won’t do that! The beloved body was sufficiently tormented in life; in death at least it shall be at rest!”

“Yes, but it was the wish of the dead; and isn’t there any direction as to that in the will?”

“No!--yet perhaps--I don’t know. Anyway the will is to be read t-omorrow, and should any such direction be found there--well, I suppose I shall have to carry it out. I will send immediately an announcement of the death to our attorney, Mr. Batt of London. You will be present at the opening of the will, will you not?”

“Most certainly!”

The doctor during this conversation had again approached the bed of death. He carefully scrutinized the surroundings and, as if in an absent-minded manner, picked up a little box from the table which stood beside the bed and carelessly pushed back the cover. At sight of the contents he could hardly restrain an exclamation; for there, exactly as had been described to him, were a baby’s cap, yellow with time, and a lock of hair, tied with a ribbon.

“Probably some of your wife’s keepsakes?” he remarked, turning inquiringly to Morley.

“Yes, and as such they must be given into the hands of her daughter.”

“Will you allow me the pleasure of sending them to her by my sister who is going to Switzerland to-morrow?”

“I suppose it would be more proper that she should receive them at my hands; and yet, as I shall have to remain here for some time yet, and a journey home in her delicate state of health would be hard for the child, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will send them to her. Give her my blessing with them, and tell her that from this time forth I shall be more a father to her than ever.”

Dr. Brown thrust the little box deep into his breast-pocket, and took his leave with the assurance that he would faithfully execute Mr. Morley’s commission.

Once at home under the light of the lamp, he was not long in searching for the further contents of the box, and he was filled with both horror and astonishment as his search brought to light, from beneath a cunningly-contrived double floor, the will as it had been described to him--a clear, correct copy. After this discovery, the doctor awaited with feverish anxiety the hour for the announced opening of the will.

At last it arrived, and Brown had to acknowledge to himself that its contents agreed exactly with the copy in his hands until it came to the names of the heirs. Here appeared clearly and plainly, “my daughter, Mara Dix;” and there, just as plainly, “my husband, John Morley.” No directions with regard to an inquest or autopsy appeared therein.

“I demand proof of the genuineness of that will!” rang loud and clear through the room. No one could imagine from whom the words proceeded. The will had been drawn up and carefully preserved by a prominent attorney in London, and the family involved was one of the first in the country; and now came this demand, which, as everybody knew, was an unmitigated insult. Who had brought it forward? The chairman looked all about the room. There he stood--Dr. Brown! He had again, quite unconsciously, come under the spell of that mysterious power, and in obedience to its behest had called out those words; now that they were spoken, he would not recall them. Standing upright, the doctor repeated: “I demand an examination of the will!” As he spoke, he had the comfortable feeling of having kept a promise.

“By what authority?” asked the attorney.

“As the guardian of the deceased’s daughter.”

“Have you anything to offer in support of this request?”

“Yes, a copy of the original will.”

“Will?”

“And this has reference to an entirely different party.”

“Allow me to look at the document.”

Dr. Brown handed over the copy. A committee retired with it to another room. On their return the chairman announced that in accordance with Dr. Brown’s request, a preliminary examination of the will having been made, the judge had decided to enter a complaint against Attorney Batt of London for having falsified the will, and at the same time to place the property of the heiress-at-law under legal protection.

“Dr. Brown, have you anything further to say in the matter?”

“I beg you will order an autopsy.”

“On what grounds?”

“It was the wish of the deceased.”

“Is that your only reason?”

“No, but because I have a strong suspicion that the deceased came to her death through slow and protracted poisoning.”

All present were filled with horror.

Again the court withdrew, and again the decision was a fulfilment of the doctor’s request; and when the verdict at the ensuing inquest was brought in, it was expressed in one word: Poison!

VII.

A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

A GENERAL PRACTITIONER.