Chapter III: Book I: The Characters Concerned (2)

As he stood above the roaring water he formulated a theory with regard to the relationship of the personalities he had just left behind him. "The girl is being persecuted by this man Clarke, who is madly in love with her. She has an inner repugnance to him; but he is a clergyman, and that means a great deal to a girl in the adoration stage. Her mother, a nice, religious sort of person, favors the preacher, of course; but the father probably despises him. Clarke is evidently losing his hold on the rock-ballasted keel of his creed, and in his shipwreck he may carry that girl down with him; such cases are all too common. If he is married, he is all the more dangerous. But it is not my duty to interfere." He ended, resolute to put the whole problem from him: "The girl has legal guardians--on them rests the blame if she is corrupted. To reform this world has never been my call."

But he could not rid himself of a growing sense of responsibility. His mind returned again and again to the complication into which he had suddenly been thrust. "Perhaps this desire on the part of the girl to go away to study is only an instinctive desire to escape. It would be like that preacher to have a worn, little, commonplace wife. What can Lambert be thinking of to let such a man come into his home and direct the daily life of both his wife and daughter? He is neglecting his plain duty."

He fell asleep, fancying himself on the way up the trail to the mine, and when he woke to find the good, rectifying rays of the morning sun filling his room the theories of the night were absurd. He desired to see the girl again, not to warn her of her peril, but because she was piquant and lovely, as befitted her romantic surroundings.

VI

IN THE MARSHALL BASIN

It must have been about eleven o'clock next morning when Serviss rode up and dismounted at the Lambert gate, and in the flaming light of mid-day the sense of mystification, the feeling that the girl was in the coils of some invisible menace, had entirely vanished. The preacher had sunk to the rôle of a conceited clerical ass who regarded science as an enemy to his especial theories and the visible universe as an outlying province of Calvinism; while Viola, who came to the door, was again most humanly charming, delighting his eyes like the morning.

She smiled blithely and spoke collectedly, in response to his greeting; but when he asked her to be his guide to the wonders of the region her face clouded in dismay.

"Oh, I'm sorry; I wish I could; but I must carry a message up to my father at the mine."

"Very well, why not take me? I infer you go on horseback?"

She hesitated. "Yes, but it's a long, hard ride--and you said you were tired of the saddle."

"I was yesterday; but I feel quite rested now. By all means let me accompany you. I should particularly enjoy mounting high to-day. I should also like to meet your father."

"Very well, I will speak to mother," she replied, with shining face, and disappeared within.

The mother, mindful of Serviss's connection with a great university, made no objection to the plan. On the contrary, she was pleased and flattered by his interest in her daughter, and a few moments later the young people rode off up the mountain road side by side and in high spirits.

Serviss winced at times at the childish flatness of Viola's comment, but her voice was musical and her face flower-like--therefore he forgave her. With all his knowledge of the constitution of matter, he was still young and in the mating mood.

They talked of the flowers, of the trails, of the birds to be found on the heights for a time; but soon, inevitably, they came to talk of themselves. Under his questioning she outlined her plans for a musical education, and this led at last to a consideration of the Reverend Mr. Clarke.

At the first mention of his name the girl's face distinctly darkened and her answers became curiously studied, almost evasive--or so it seemed to Serviss.

"Yes, I play in his church," she said, "and he teaches me. He is a splendid musician--don't you think so? I owe a great deal to him. He has helped me so much--especially in my phrasing. He is a wonderful man. We are fortunate in having him with us."

"He struck me as a little morbid, not to say morose. Has he had trouble in his church?"

Her answer was deep-toned and affectedly solemn in one so young. "No, but his wife passed out last year."

"Passed out? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean she died."

"Oh, I see!" His inflection checked her confidence, and they rode for a little way in silence.

Serviss was thinking. The situation is now clear. Clarke is working upon this sweet and charming girl in order to have her take the place of his dead wife. A sorrowful thing to think of, but not so bad as I have been imagining. At length he asked: "What else can you tell me about this Mr. Clarke? Is he a native of the West?"

"Oh no, he is from the East. He had a big church in Brooklyn; but his health gave out and he was forced to leave it. He came here for the baths and the air. He is much better now."

"He retains all his intellectual diseases, however. What medicine will he find for those?" Meeting the girl's startled glance, he hastened to add: "I beg your pardon, I was just wondering if he were as morbid when he came as he now seems."

"Oh no! He was quite cheerful till his wife went away. That changed him greatly. For months he hardly left his study. He reads too much even now. That is why he looks so pale. His house is packed with books."

"He seems in need of fresh air. How does your father get on with him?"

"Not at all well."

"I inferred that. Your father is a man of deeds--of open air--I take it."

"Mr. Lambert isn't my own father," she took this opportunity to explain. "My own father passed to the other side when I was eleven."

"Pardon my curiosity, Miss Lambert, but you've used a phrase once or twice which I've heard the people of a certain faith use. Is your mother a spiritualist?"

She looked at him with timid eyes, then turned quickly away. "She--she used to be; she's studying theosophy now."

"And the minister is trying to convert you all to his especial theory! I can imagine his discourses. No wonder you want to flee."

The girl's whole face, voice, and manner changed--became bitter, passionate. "Oh, I hate it! I hate it! I want to be free of it all!"

The intensity of her utterance amazed Serviss, and he studied her profile in silence before he answered. "I think I know what you mean, and I sympathize with you. You're too young to be troubled by the doubts and dismays of men like Clarke. He is preposterous in the face of a landscape like this. Let us forget him and his 'isms.'" With these words he straightened in his saddle and lifted his eyes towards the height before them. "Isn't that superb!"

They were drawing near the great gray boundary-wall of the valley, and the sound of roaring water grew tumultuous as they rounded the curve in the road and came into the little triangular nook which had been anciently formed by the Colorow as it descended in power from its source in the high parks. On the left the ledges rose almost sheer for a thousand feet, and from the edge of this cliff ore-buckets, a-slide on invisible cables, appeared in the sky, swooping like eagles, silently dropping one by one, to disappear, tamely as doves, in the gable end of a huge, drab-colored mill which stood upon the flat beside the stream. Beyond the mill Mount Ignacio rose darkly purple, hooded in white clouds.

The entire scene was typical of the West, of its energy, its greed, and its faith. Here was life--life and buoyant health--and the blood of the young scientist quickened as he comprehended the daring, the originality of the miner's plan.

"Is this your father's enterprise?" he asked, in the hope of an affirmative answer. A man of this quality would hang the minister if necessary.

"Oh no. We've got to climb the hill and cross the upper Basin before we reach our mine. This is the ore from the San Luis tunnel."

She was, happily, of the sunny world now, and, with a gay smile, turned her horse into a narrow trail and called back to him: "We climb here." He followed, admiring the strength and grace of her rounded figure as her horse zigzagged up the steep acclivity. She was troubled by no problems at this moment. She was rather a daughter of the mountains, a sister to the eagles.

She stopped once or twice to permit him to locate the far-famed peaks rising one by one to the south of them, and the third time she drew rein he was a-foot, and she said, "We're almost to the top of this grade; it's easier in the Basin."

"I am thinking only of my horse," he answered. "You see, he is carrying a forty-pound saddle, and is not so fresh as yours. I'm sorry to delay you."

The Basin was a most glorious valley, bowl-shaped, green with grass and groves of aspen and fir, and flooded with a cataract of sunshine. All about it ran a rim of lofty summits, purple in shadow, garnet and gold and green in the sun. Here and there a prospect-hole showed like a scar, or a gray, dismantled stamp-mill stood like a disintegrating bowlder beside its yellow-gray dump of useless ore. Serviss, familiar with the rise and fall of the silver-miner, looked over the lovely valley with a certain sense of satisfaction, for he was able to reconstruct its beauty before that flood of devastating humankind swept up from the eastern plain. "Nature is reasserting her dominion," he said, aloud. "Mining is a wounding business--like murder."

The girl glanced away to the south. "We'll have to hurry if we reach camp by one o'clock," she called, and he waved his hand as a sign of surrender to her leadership.

They overtook a long train of burros bearing a most miscellaneous cargo of odds and ends of machinery, nail-kegs, iron-rods, bundles of bolts, lumber, oil, and boxes of groceries.

"This is all father's--all for the new mill," said the girl, nodding and smiling at the Mexicans in charge of the donkeys. "Hello, Clint!" she called, cheerily, to another muleteer, a little farther up the trail, a brown, good-looking young fellow, who saluted her joyfully, his eyes aglow with adoration.

"Every man is her suitor," thought Serviss, with a twinge of disapproval. "Think what she must seem to that leather-colored Arab urging forward those donkeys!" And a knowledge of her danger--he put it that way--began to oppress him. "She is too fine and sweet to marry among these rough miners."

She, it seemed, was not afraid of mountaineers, for she had a gay nod and a bright word for every one she met, though some of them were brutal-mouthed and grimy and sullen. Serviss derived no comfort from the fact that the most sinister of them brightened for an instant in the light of her adorable smile.

At last, far ahead, they came in sight of the mill on a bare peak. The white clouds which had been silently gathering round the great domes swiftly overspread the whole sky. The air grew chill as November. The wind began to roar in the firs with a stern mournfulness which went to the heart of the man; but the girl, without once stopping her horse, unrolled her raincoat and put it on, calling back at her cavalier as she did so with a fine, challenging, gleeful shout.

They were very high now. Perennial ice lay in the gullies and on the north side of the cliffs, and the air was light and keen. Suddenly the wind died away. A gray hush came over the valley. The water in the streams lost its vivid green and became lead-color streaked with white foam. One by one the mountains were blotted out by the storm. The world of sky and rocks grew mysterious, menacing; but the girl pushed fearlessly forward, singing like a robin, while the rain slashed over her, and the thunder boomed and re-echoed from crag to crag like warning guns in magnificent alarums. "I love this!" she cried, her clear voice piercing the veil of water like a flute note. "Don't you?"

Serviss was not without imagination, and the contrast of this jocund, fearless, free young maid with the silent, constrained girl of the night before moved him to wonder. "Here she is herself--nature's own child," he thought. "Last night she was a 'subject'--a plaything of the preacher's. Strange the mother does not realize her daughter's danger."

The storm passed as quickly as it came, and when they drew rein at the mine the sun was shining. The mill, standing on a smooth, steep slope, and sheltered on the north by a group of low firs, seemed half a ruin, but was, in fact, being rebuilt and enlarged. All about it were dumps of clay, slippery with water, and rough bunk-houses and ore-sheds. All the structures were rude, masculine, utilitarian, and the girl grew each moment in delicacy and refinement by contrast.

In answer to her halloo a plainly clad man came to the door, his face set in amazement.

"Why--see here--daughter! I wasn't looking for you to-day."

"I'm here just the same," she laughingly replied. "Here are some telegrams. Professor Serviss, this is my father."

Joseph Lambert was a small man, with shy, blue eyes and a low and gentle utterance. He carried his head leaning a little to the left and seemed a shade discouraged, almost melancholy. He was, however, a brave, silent, tireless little man, who had made one great fortune in silver-mines only to lose it in the panic. He was now cannily working a vein which had a streak of gold in it, and, like all miners, was just on the point of making a "strike." He was distracted with work, and, though cordial, could not at the moment give much time to his visitor.

"Well, now, Viola, you take Professor Serviss into the cook-house and feed him. I guess you'll find something left over. If not, you will have to scratch up something."

Viola thereupon led the way into the kitchen, greeting each man she met, cooks and waiters alike, with impartial, clear-eyed joyousness and trust, and when the food came on she ate without grimace or hesitation. The cook, a big, self-contained Chinaman, came in with a china cup.

"Use this klup--tin klup no good for lady." His voice was gruff and his manner that of one who compels a child to use a napkin; but it was plain he adored her. As she thanked him he shuffled away with an irrepressible grin.

All this produced in Serviss an uneasiness. To him she was a lamb venturing among wolves. "She should not expose herself to the coarse comment, the seeking eyes of these fellows," he indignantly commented, blaming the acquiescent mother and the absent-minded step-father. "This childlike trust is charming, but it is not war."

Her essential weakness of defence, her innocence, began to move him deeply, dangerously. He began to understand how she had turned to Clarke for companionship, not merely because he was a clergyman, but because he was a young man of more than usual culture and attainment, whose sympathy and counsel promised aid and comfort in her loneliness. "She does not love him; she merely admires certain sides of his character; she fears to marry him, and quite properly. His morbid faith would destroy her."

As they were returning to the office they met the young driver of the mule-train, and Viola introduced him as "Mr. Ward, of Boston."

He was tall and spare, with a fine, sensitive, boyish face--a face of refinement which his rough, gray shirt, faded leggings, and badly battered hat belied.

"Mr. Ward is out here for his health, also," Viola explained. "All the really nice people are 'one-lungers.'"

"Isn't it sad?" said Ward, gravely. "However, Miss Lambert is only partly right. I made my health an excuse. I'm here because I like it."

Serviss bent a keen look upon him. "You don't look as if you had ever been sick."

"I'm not. I came out here to escape college--and my father's business." He laughed. "But don't betray me. I'm supposed to be 'slowly improving.'"

There was something fine and hawklike in the young fellow's profile as he stood negligently leaning on the door-frame, his eyes on the flushed face of the girl; and Serviss experienced another pang of jealous pain--they were so young, so comely, so full of the fire and imagination of youth. At the moment his own fame and special tasks were of small account.

Upon their return to the office Lambert met them in the same absent-minded, apologetic way. "I'm just getting some new machinery into place and haven't a minute, but you must make yourself as much at home as you can. Viola will show you around."

Serviss protested that he needed no entertainment, that he was not tired, and that he was well content to sit in the door and smoke and watch the changing glory of the peaks, and this he did while Viola moved about among the workmen in earnest conversation with her step-father.

"She is explaining me," Serviss reasoned. "I wish I could hear what she says. It would be amusing to know myself as she sees me. I hope she doesn't think me middle-aged as well as wise."

Lambert listened to his daughter's words with attention, for a professor in a college was an exalted person in his eyes, and one of his chief regrets at the moment was that he was unable to say to Serviss, "I am a college man myself"; but this he could not do for the reason that the death of his father had taken him out of his class at the beginning of his third year, and put him at the head of a large family as its breadwinner.

"He looks like a very young man, almost a boy--too young to be a professor; but then"--here his eyes twinkled--"when I was at Jefferson all professors seemed old to me. What's he doing here?"

"Just riding through the mountains on his vacation."

"What does your mother think of him?"

"She likes him very much."

"Well, I won't make any objection, then."

Viola stared--then blushed furiously. "What do you mean?"

"Why, didn't you bring him up here to see how I liked him?"

She pounded him with her little brown fist while tears of mortification filled her eyes. "Now, you stop that! You're teasing me. Why, I've only known him three days."

He laughed silently, shaking his head. "Well, these things move quickly sometimes--and how was I to know but you'd known him in the East--you seemed so chummy-like--"

"You've spoiled everything," she wailed, deeply disturbed and painfully self-conscious. "You're mean to me."

He became instantly contrite. "There, now, don't you mind my joking. Of course I was fooling. It's all safe between us, anyway."

But the mischief was done. She forgave him, but never again would she be the same to him, to her mother, or to the imperturbable young man smoking his pipe beneath the firs. He _was_ young--that was only too plain to her now; not so young as Clinton, but not the middle-aged person she had been fancying him to be.

As they were about to start on their homeward trail, Serviss sought opportunity to say: "Mr. Lambert, I met this man Clarke at your house last night, and I want to say that I don't think his influence on your family is particularly wholesome. He's morbid and given to fads."

Lambert replied: "I know what you mean, professor, and I believe you're right. I don't believe in him myself, and I don't take any stock in any of his notions, but my wife does. She thinks he's of the Covenant, somehow. I wish you'd talk with her and try to have her let up on Viola. I don't think they're doin' right by her. If she was my own girl I'd stop it--I would so." Then he added, in a curious tone, this vague defence: "As for Viola, she would be all right if they would leave her alone. She's gifted in a way I don't understand; but if she isn't twisted by Clarke's foolishness she's going to make some man a good wife. She's a good girl, and, as I say, if she was my own child I'd serve notice that this circle business should stop. I wish you'd talk to 'em. I don't count--but they'll listen to you. I'm glad to have met you. I hope you'll come up again. I'd like to mill that business over with you; it's all very curious, but I'm just plumb distracted with work now."

"I beg you not to apologize--it's time to start back, anyhow."

As they rode away down the valley, the girl silent and constrained, Serviss pondered Lambert's words, which were plainly directed against Clarke. His sense of responsibility was increased by Lambert's trust in him. "This won't do," he decided; "I must pull out or I will find myself laden with the woes of the entire family, and Clarke's distresses besides."

The girl was invested now with compelling pathos. Each mile they descended seemed to deepen the returning shadow on her face. The gayety, the buoyancy of the upward trail was gone. She was silent, constrained, and sad; and he set to work to restore her to the simple and girlish candor of the morning. He called attention to the wonders of the western sky. He shouted to induce echoes, and challenged her to a race, and at the last descent dared her to ride down in one of the ore-buckets, seeking to bring the smiles back to her lips.

She responded to his cheer, but not as before. Something clouded her clear glance--her smiles died quickly, and the poise of her head was less alert.

When they had reached the wagon-road and he could ride by her side, he, too, became serious. "I hope I haven't given offence in any way, Miss Lambert? If I have, I assure you it was entirely unintentional, and I beg your pardon."

She looked away. "You have done nothing," she said, slowly.

"But you seem distinctly less friendly to me. I hope you didn't take anything I said concerning your mother's faith to heart. I had no intention of attacking her beliefs, but I must be honest with you--I don't like Mr. Clarke. There's something unwholesome about him, and what you've told me to-day is not reassuring. Evidently he took the death of his wife very hard, and it has added to his natural tendency towards a sort of spiritual monomania. As a matter of fact, he's more Spiritualist than Calvinist at present. Isn't that so?"

The girl's face grew sullen and weary. "Oh, I don't know, I'm tired of it all."

"He endlessly talks his grind, I suppose. How foolish, how sickly it all seems--here in the presence of uncontaminated nature! In such sunlight as this it seems insanity to sit in a book-walled room and grow bloodless with dreaming over insoluble problems. And yet a friend of mine told me that these towns, and especially California towns, were filled with seers and prophets. The occult flourishes in the high, dry atmosphere, those of the faith say. Don't you permit Clarke to destroy your love of nature, Miss Lambert; you belong to the sane and sunny world, and he has no right to bring his gloomy conceptions home to you. You are too young and too naturally joyous to be concerned with the problems of disease and death. You were made to be happy."

He ended with greater earnestness than he had intended to use, and the effect of his words on the girl was very great. She could not speak; tears were in her eyes, and her bosom heaved most piteously. His sense of her helplessness deepened, and he added, "Will you permit me to talk to Mr. Clarke about you and your plans?"

This seemed to alarm her. "No, no!" she cried out, distressfully. "Please don't say anything to him about me. It will do no good. You don't understand, and I can't tell you," she added, breathlessly.

"Very well," he said, soothingly; "but, remember, your case interests me exceedingly, and you may call on me at any time and I will gladly help."

She turned a pale and tearful face towards him and extended her hand.

"I thank you very, very much. You _have_ helped me more than I can say."

During the remainder of the ride he discussed the springs, the source of the streams, the caverns, and other natural features of the scene, and had the satisfaction of seeing her face in a smile before he left her.

He went back to his hotel with a feeling of having spent six days in her company rather than six hours. She absorbed his entire thought, and so keen was his sense of her beleaguerment that he resolved to call upon Clarke in order to define his character and to understand his motives. "His passions or his doubt overshadow the girl's sky, and I'm going to find out whether his designs are those of friend or fiend." At the moment he had a feeling that they were those of a devouring fiend.

VII

THE FORCES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Clarke's church typified the decaying faith of its pastor. Grass was serenely pushing up through the rotting planks of the walk which led from the street to the basement "study" just as the natural goodness and cheer of man returns to dominion through the barriers of custom. The paint was blistering and peeling from the clap-boarding on the sunny side of the main building, and in one of the windows a piece of shingle had been set to repair a broken pane. It had the appearance of neglected age.

"The preacher was right--the creed of his church, as of all others, in a lesser degree perhaps, is too crass, too mechanical, too childish to tally the ideals of a generation which is each day awakening to some new potency of matter, some wider conception of the universe."

On the study door, checked by the sun and worn by the rain, the tourist applied his knuckle, and a voice, formal and sonorous, called out, "Come in!"

Opening the door, which led directly into a dark little den with only one window, Serviss confronted Clarke reading by a green-shaded lamp, in whose light he appeared as pallid, as remote from the sun, as a monk of the Middle Ages.

He rose quickly upon recognizing his visitor. "I'm glad to see you, professor; I beg your pardon for not rising. I thought the knock came from my janitor. Take a seat, please." He gathered a handful of books from a yellow arm-chair and pushed it forward with his foot. "Your visit is most opportune. I was meditating a call at your hotel to-night. I wanted to get your idea concerning two or three scientific discoveries which seem to me to have a most important bearing on the welfare of the race."

Serviss became each moment more keenly aware of being face to face with a task which required all his tact, his self-possession, and his wit, for the man before him was immured in self-conceit, accustomed to carrying his point by a rush of words, and was, withal, a student possessed of unusual intellectual resource. He made a very handsome figure as he took his seat amid his books. His face, freshly shaven, gleamed like blue-white marble, and his abundant dark hair, drawn away from his brow by careless fingers, lay in a tumbled mass above his ear, adding a noticeably sculptural finish to his shapely head. His hands, thin, long, and restless, alone betrayed the excitement which the coming of this Master of the Germ engendered in him. He was eager to question, but he waited for his visitor to begin, which he did with manly directness.

"I have called to talk with you about Miss Lambert. She and her mother having honored me by asking my advice as to her study in New York, I would like to know whether you, as their pastor, counsel this movement on her part?"

The clergyman's sentient fingers sought, found, and closed tightly upon a ruler. "That I cannot answer directly," he said, slowly. "Miss Lambert's case is not simple. She is a very remarkable musician, that you know, and yet her talent is fitful. She sometimes plays very badly. I am not at all sure she has the temperament which will succeed on the music-stage."

"I made a somewhat similar remark to the mother myself."

"Moreover, her interests are not the only factors in the problem. Mrs. Lambert's life is bound up in her daughter, and without her she would suffer. The well-being of the family as a whole is against her going."

"You have your own interests, too, I dare say."

Clarke's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"It would be difficult to replace her here in your church-work, would it not?"

The clergyman returned to his candid manner. "It would, indeed. She is the only organist in the village, and is invaluable to me, especially in the Sunday-school."

"I am disposed to consider her interests, and not those of the mother and father, or even the church," pursued Serviss. "I am of those who recognize the rights of the young as of chief importance to the race."

Clarke seized upon this as a gage of battle. "The race! Oh, you inexorable men of science! What do we care for the race? We would save individuals. The race can take care of itself. The race is only an abstraction--it cannot suffer. Of what avail to the individual to know that the race is to be perfected a thousand years hence?"

"We wander," interposed Serviss, with decision. "The question is really quite simple. Shall we advise the Lamberts to send their daughter to New York to study music, or shall we counsel her to remain here, and in marriage to some good, honest young miner resign herself to the common lot of women. Her talent should determine."

A dull flush rose to the cheek of the preacher, his eyes fell and his voice unconsciously softened. "Marriage is still a long way off for Viola Lambert; she is but a child, and, besides--" He paused.

Serviss smiled. "They marry young in the West, I believe. Besides, she must be twenty, and quite robust."

"She seems but a child to me," repeated Clarke, returning to his clerical manner, and something in the hypocritical tone of his speech angered and disgusted Serviss, and to himself he said: "He is a fraud. He does not intend to let the girl pass out of his control." Then aloud he reopened the discussion: "It all comes back to a question of the girl's talent. If it is sufficient to enable her to earn a living in some larger community, she has a right to go; if not, she should certainly stay here. I believe in the largest possible life for every human being, and Miss Lambert's ambition is a perfectly legitimate craving. Furthermore, she seems eager to escape from this life. She hints at some sort of mysterious persecution. She has not defined her troubles in detail, but I inferred that some undesirable suitor made life miserable for her." With these words he bent a keen glance at Clarke.

"You are quite mistaken, sir. Miss Lambert has many admirers but no suitors. I have cautioned her against entanglements of that kind. I have shown how they would interfere with her work."

"You mean her work in your church?"

Clarke's eyes again took on the narrowed glance of suspicion. "Partly that, but more on account of other and higher work which I hope to see her do."

"To what do you refer?"

"Pardon me, of that I cannot at present speak; I can only say that it is a work whose preliminary stages can be passed as well here as in New York City--better, in fact."

"You arouse my curiosity--"

Clarke suddenly awoke from his musing and became aggressive. He resolutely changed the subject. "Before you go I want to ask you--do you, as a chemist, deny the immortality of the soul?"

"Chemistry does not concern itself with the soul."

"Do you, as a _man_, deny the immortality of the soul?"

"I neither deny nor affirm. I have never concerned myself with the question."

Clarke was a little daunted. "You leave the most vital question in all this world uninvestigated!"

"Yes, because I was long ago convinced that the problem of death, like the origin of life, is insoluble, and why waste time on the insoluble? To pore upon the constitution of matter is a species of mediævalism. I am concerned with what bacteria do--not what they are."

"I deny that the question of immortality _is_ insoluble!" replied Clarke, his eyes glowing with the fire of his faith. "It is because you scientists ignore the phenomena of spiritism that you remain ignorant of the messages which come from the other side."

"What other side?"

"The realm of those you call 'the dead.'" He caught up a book. "There is the word of a German scientist, a hundred times more eminent than you, and here are the conclusions of two great Englishmen, members of the Royal Academy, who have investigated and have been convinced of the return of the dead."

"I know those men," replied Serviss, coldly. "The common opinion is that they ceased to be scientists when they wrote these volumes. All were past their prime and bereaved, and one was nearly blind. Their true balance of judgment was lost before they set to work on what you call their investigations. The German was considered insane on the 'Fourth Dimension.' But what has this girl to do with your 'realm of the dead' or my study of cancerous tissue? She belongs to the realm of music and flowers. I beg you to remember that. You have no right to throw over her the shadow of your religious perplexities any more than I would have the right to lay before her my knowledge of parasitic growths. Youth, and especially young womanhood, has its rights, and one of them is to be blithe. You admit that you are losing faith; why destroy hers? Your doubts and despairs should not touch her. But they have. She is troubled and sad by reason of your attitude towards life, and especially by your insistence upon the presence of death in the world."

This was not precisely what Serviss had started out to say, but as he went on a sense of being misled, a suspicion that he was playing into the hands of the enemy, kept him from putting into words the strong conviction which had seized him.

The preacher put his interlocked fingers behind his head, and, looking at his visitor beneath lowered, contemptuous lids, replied: "My dear sir, you don't know a thing of what you're talking about."

The note of patronization, the tone of superior wisdom, stung the scientist. He felt in the clergyman's reply not merely opposition, but insult. His very pose was an affront.

"I don't know your motives, that is perfectly true, but I can infer them. It is due me to say that I am not in the habit of mixing in where I am not wanted; but as Mr. and Mrs. Lambert have both asked my advice, I shall give it. The girl is morbid and unhappy here, and I shall tell them to send her away for a time. She has musical talent. I shall advise them to allow her to go East to study."

The preacher's smile deepened into a sneer. "I think I understand _your_ motives, and I shall oppose her going. What is there to restrain a man who recognizes neither spirit nor God?"

Serviss was at first astounded, then hot at the grossness of this insinuation, and his strong, brown hands clinched in the instinct to punish--to retaliate--but his anger cooled to the level of words, and he said: "This interview has more than convinced me of the justice of Lambert's distrust of you. I shall see him again and repeat the warning I have already given." And with these words he turned and went out.

It was with a sense of astonishment and relief that he re-entered the daylight, for the sunset glow was not yet out of the sky. A moment before the world had seemed enveloped in midnight darkness, and lo! here now were the splendid peaks, the singing river, all aglow with golden light. The encounter of the moment before receded swiftly, became incredible, but the preacher remained squat in his den like a vampire in his cave.

As he went slowly up the street he acknowledged a feeling of growing weight, of uncertainty. Having given his word in such wise, he had become the defender, the protector of one of whom he knew nothing that was reassuring. His youth seemed to have suddenly taken on care. His vacation had ended in a cloud of distrust. From the detachment of the scientist he had descended to the level of a moralist and meddler, and, most significant of all, a meddler in the affairs of a young and attractive girl.

VIII

DR. BRITT EXPLAINS

Serviss had just written and sealed a letter to his sister, wherein he said, "I shall remain a few days longer here in the mountains--they interest me greatly," when a knock on the door announced the bell-boy bearing a card.

"Dr. Britt!" exclaimed Serviss, with pleasure. "Bring him up, please," and to himself added, "Now we will learn something definite about this amazing group of people."

The manner in which Britt entered the room proclaimed a distinctive character. He edged himself through the door, not stealthily, but carelessly, casually. He, too, was tall, with a wide, dark beard curling over very pink and rather plump cheeks, and in his bright black eyes a sardonic sheen played as he loosely shook his host's hand. His expression was that of a man perpetually amused, as if anticipating a joke or recollecting a mockery. His voice was as languid as his limbs, but his words were precise and to their mark.

Serviss greeted him heartily. "I am glad to meet you, Dr. Britt; take a seat. I have heard of you through Miss Lambert."

"I saw you on the street," replied Britt, without change of expression, "so I looked over the register to find out who you were. I'm mighty glad to meet up with you. I know you very well by reputation, and Weissmann is an old acquaintance of our family's. What are you doing out here? Visiting the Lamberts?"

For some reason this directness disturbed Serviss a little. "No--oh no! I just drifted in over the divide from the desert, and met Miss Lambert by accident, quite by accident. I dropped into Colorow to rest and rinse the desert dust away, before returning East. Turn about is fair play--what are you doing here?"

Britt struck his left breast with his thumb. "Same old story--busted lung. Whenever you strike a suspicious character out here he's either a 'one-lunger' or a 'remittance man.'"

"That's what makes your country worth while."

"I don't know about that, but you'll find a good many of us waiting. When you fellows develop an anti-toxin for the consumption 'bug,' we're all going back to God's country."

"We're hot on its trail," replied Serviss, jocularly.

"I know you are. I 'read after you,' as they say out here. In fact, I've got a little 'farm,' and take a shy at breeding the beasts myself. I'd like you to come in and give me a hint or two."

"With pleasure," Serviss heartily responded. "So you know Weissmann?"

"I used to. My father was an attaché of the embassy at Berlin at one time, and was a factor in getting old 'Hair and Goggles' to come over; he was a conceited ass at that time, with more wool than brains, the governor always said; but the governor wanted to do something for the college."

Serviss studied the card. "Do I know your father?--is he still in public life?"

"He is not." Britt's glance veered. "The governor, I'm sorry to say, has a weakness for toddy, and I've retired him. He boards in White Plains with Patsy Cline summers, and relapses winters."

Serviss changed the subject. "By-the-way, I want to ask you about this man Clarke. What kind of a chap is he?"

Britt's answer was languid but adequate. "Three parts fakir and the rest fanatic."

"I was afraid so--and the Lamberts, what of them?"

"Mrs. Lambert is a dear old ninny. Viola is a mighty bright girl suffering from a well-developed case of hysteria and auto-hypnosis."

"What do you mean?" asked Serviss, sharply.

Britt checked himself. "I ought not to speak of it, I suppose, but, as you are a stranger and can keep a professional secret, I will explain. The mother is a spiritualist--has been for years--and, being on the lookout for it, naturally discovered what she calls 'mediumship' in Viola when a child. By carefully nursing the delusion in herself and in her subject, she has been able to develop a rare 'up-rush of the subliminal,' as Myers would say. When I came here to take Dr. Randall's practice, I found among his papers elaborate notes on the girl's development."

"You amaze me!" exclaimed Serviss. "She seems so normal and so charming."

"In reality she's the most extraordinary puzzle I have ever undertaken to solve. It seems, according to Randall, that this power came upon her soon after the death of her little brother--a couple of years younger than herself. I'll let you see these notes if you like. They're very curious; in fact, I brought the book along--I wanted your opinion of them and your advice as to the girl's treatment."

Serviss leaned forward in growing interest. "By all means let me see the notes. You begin to throw light on something that puzzled me."

Britt drew a small brown book from his pocket and said: "Your first thought will be to relate this business to hysteria, and one of Randall's first entries is a reflection along these lines: 'There is much inconclusive literature on the shelves of medical libraries on the subject of hysteria, and many diverse ailments are thrown into that box of explanations.'" Britt looked up. "He's right there, but he goes on to slate the medical profession thus: 'The mind of a child, like any other expanding, growing thing, tends to depart from the norm--loves apparently to surprise its progenitors. Holding in its grasp latent tendencies of all ages, of all the race, it may at any time astound by its sudden expansion in unexpected directions, as well as by its inexplicable failure to follow ordained grooves.'" Here Britt paused again. "You can see the old chap was hard hit. He now gets evolutionary. 'We are all goats, satyrs, and serpents potentially--even from the neurologist's point of view our minds are infinitely complex.'"

Serviss said, "All this is wise, but is it pertinent?"

"He's coming at it. 'Now, what we men of medicine call hysteria seems to be a violent and, in a sense, unaccountable departure from the norm, induced by the removal of some check--by some deep change in the nervous constitution. Thus a girl suddenly refuses to eat, has visions, shouts, and sings uncontrollably, perhaps speaks in an unknown tongue--she is said to be hysterical. A mother, hearing of the death of her child, begins to laugh, passes at length into a cataleptic state, during which a child's voice sounds from her throat; this, too, is hysteria. A man of forty-five becomes melancholy, professes to hear music inaudible to others, develops automatic writing, and trances in which he is able to hear distant voices, and to read sealed letters; this, too, is hysteria. In reality, nothing is explained.'"

"What of it?" interrupted Serviss. "Let's have the application."

"He makes his point in the next paragraph: 'In conformity with this habit, when called in by Mrs. Lambert to study her daughter, who had passed suddenly into deep sleep and was speaking with the voice of her grandfather, I, with owlish gravity, pronounced her attack a case of hysteria. "Take her on a little trip," said I. "Keep her well nourished and out-of-doors, and she will outgrow it."'"

"Very good advice."

"So it was, but mark the sequel: '_She did not outgrow it._' He puts this in italics. 'The power within her gained in mastery, and, what is most singular and baffling to me, she continues to be a hearty, healthy child in all other ways, and yet at times she seems the calm centre of a whirlwind of invisible forces. Chairs, books, thimbles, even the piano, move to and fro without visible pushing. Electric snapping is heard in the carpet under her little feet, and loud knocking comes upon the walls--'"

"Ah!" exclaimed Serviss, and recalled the knocking at his first visit, while the girl was at the piano.

"Here he drops into italics again. '_One by one all the familiar manifestations of the spiritualistic medium are being reproduced by this pretty maiden here in this mountain home._'"

"Good Lord, what a pity!" exclaimed Serviss.

Britt read on: "'The mother, aggrieved and alarmed by the rude way in which the girl is buffeted, has been put to her paces to conceal the topsy-turvy doings of her household. Stones are hurled through the windows, cabinets are opened by invisible and silent locksmiths, _and I have seen these things and can offer no explanation_.'" Britt closed the book. "Right here the old doctor lost his nerve, up to this time he was a fairly acute observer. His next entry is evidently some weeks or, possibly, months later. He says: 'Slowly we have learned to understand the phenomena, but we cannot control them, and the child is still cruelly embarrassed by intrusive tappings and cracklings as she visits her friends or as she sits in her seat in school. She has become afraid to sleep alone, and calls piteously for a light whenever the noises begin.'"

"The poor child--"

"You may well say that," replied Britt. "She has told me that her time of greatest trial comes just after the family have had their evening meal, and while she is seated at her book; but Randall grows eloquent in his description of what took place: 'Almost every night at seven o'clock the obscure powers begin their uncanny and invisible riot, ending by seizing upon the child as if to destroy her, compelling her in the end to sleep. Then her voice, her limbs, seem at the disposal of some invisible intelligence.' You see, the old man is weakening. He says no more of hysteria, and nothing about taking the girl away."

"Do you mean to tell me he joined in fostering this delusion?"

"Mark his change of tone. He goes on: 'The mother, convinced by her reading, as well as by messages in writing, believes that the spirits of her dead are trying to communicate with her, and so sits night after night terrified yet hoping, waiting for further instructions from the imponderable ones.'" Britt turned a few pages rapidly. "Listen to this. Here is the key to the old man's change of heart: 'To-night the child began to speak to me in the voice of a man. Hoarse words rose from deep in her throat, a voice and words impossible to her in her normal condition. The voice purported to be my father's. It is all very singular. I do not understand how she could know the things this voice uttered to me.' You see," said Britt, "he has ceased to be the medical adviser." He turned a number of pages slowly. "Well, the girl passed rapidly through these various phases, according to Randall. She wrote messages with her left hand, wherein her grandfather McLeod detailed the method of treating her, and Randall was so far gone that he acquiesced. From her eleventh to her fifteenth year she lived under this 'control.' The manifestations increased in power and definiteness. The 'controls' at last were three--her grandfather, her brother, and her own father. At sixteen the most violent of the manifestations ceased, and the girl went away to school. At this point Joe Lambert enters--he married the mother."

"How did he take these doings?"

"He seems to have been a silent and reluctant witness; the doctor only mentions him incidentally. There are one or two pitiful letters from the girl written while at school, detailing several embarrassing returns of the 'spirits,' but, on the whole, she was happy. According to the record, her vacations must have been a torment, for 'Waltie,' that's no _Polter-geist_, seemed determined to make up for lost time. He came every night, making life a hell for his sister. She could go nowhere, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the mother kept her dreadful secret."

Serviss, with darkened brow, writhed uneasily in his chair. "I have heard of these things before now, but this is a new view of a medium's development. I don't understand the mother's attitude."

"Randall notes that the mother was resigned and content as soon as she was convinced of the return of her dead father and husband and son, and at present will not think of giving up her fancied communion, especially as the 'guides' constantly assure her that 'they' will protect the girl. But observe the senility of this note in Randall's diary: 'Martha comes regularly to me now, and I am happy in a renewed sense of her companionship. Indeed, I fancy at times that I can see her. She showed me her hands last night; I could see them plainly against the window. I had quite a controversy with Lambert after the sitting. "It's all bad business," he said. "I am scared when I think of what's going to become of Viola. Here she is growing to be a big girl, and a pretty girl, and she ought to be out in company--she ought to be singing and dancing like other girls. She ought to marry like other girls and be happy, and she can't be so long as these things are going on. It isn't right."'"

"No more was it," said Serviss. "It was villainous."

"Randall was too far gone to even agree. 'But it hasn't hurt her,' I replied; 'and, indeed, this marvellous fact resigns me to the practice. I can't endure now the thought of being cut off from Martha and Paul, our precious boy. It would be like shutting the door in their faces. Besides, they are in control; we could not stop their use of the girl if we were to try. As for me, it is now my life. I am old. My friends, my dear ones, are all on that side. I have only a few more days to live, and then--' Right here the old man stopped. He lived a month or two after that, but he made no more notes, and when I came on the scene Clarke was in control of the situation. I had no acquaintance with the family and no personal knowledge of the case till Lambert called one day and told me of the sittings going on in the little cottage. He had a notion that I might be able to cure the girl."

Serviss had listened to Britt with growing pain and indignation--pain at thought of Viola's undoing, indignation that the mother and her physician could so complacently join in the dark proceedings. "Of course, you took hold of the case."

"I tried to, but Mrs. Lambert and Clarke would not admit that the girl was in need of my care. They invited me to join the circle as a spectator, which I did. I am still the onlooker--merely."

"You don't mean to say they are still experimenting with her?"

"You may call it that. They sit regularly two or three nights each week. Clarke is preparing to renounce his pulpit and startle the world by a book on 'spiritism,' as he calls his faith. The girl is his source of thunder."

Serviss sank back into his chair and darkly pondered. "That explains a number of very strange words and actions on the girl's part. What is her attitude? She seemed to me extremely discontented and unhappy."

"She _is_ unhappy. She understands her situation and has moments of rebellion. She knows that she is cut off from her rightful share in the world of young people, and feels accursed."