Chapter VIII: Part 8

The fence offered a real support, for the iron frame about its top became a narrow but strong rest for my feet. But the fence was not particularly high, and as I progressed the earth, owing to the inequalities of the ground, often was only a few inches above my head. Anyone stopping to look would have seen a man—a madman, as he would have supposed—standing on his head against the iron fence, and occasionally moving forward by convulsive movements of his rigid arms.

The traffic had thinned, and there seemed to be few pedestrians on my side of the thoroughfare. A wild idea seized me—to negotiate the distance to your home, Haswell, clinging to the fences along the way. I thought it could be done, and you were the only person to whom I felt I could tell my strange story with a hope of belief.

Had I attempted the journey, I should have been lost without a doubt; somewhere along the way my arm sockets would have rebelled, my grasp would have torn away, and I would have been plunged into the depths of a star-strewn space and become a wanderer in the void speeding toward an unimagined destiny. As it happened, this was not to be.

I had reached the end of the side fence, and was just beginning to make my way around to the front, when I was seen by a woman—a young woman, who came along the street at that moment. I knew nothing of her presence until her muffled scream reached my ears. Seeing me standing apparently on my head, she thought me a maniac.

To me she seemed a woman upside down, and I looked into her face as one looks into a reflection in the depths of a pool. A street lamp depended from the pavement above me and not far from my position of the moment, and in its light I saw that her face was young and sweet. I wonder, Haswell, if there can be any situation, however incredible, in which the face of a lovely woman will not command attention? I think not.

Well, it was a sweet face—and she did not scream again. I said to her: “Please do not be frightened. I am not crazy, although I do not wonder that you think so. Preposterous as it may seem, I am for the time being in a normal position; were I to stand upon the earth as you do, I would—”

I was going to say that I would vanish from her side, but I realized that this would be too much for her.

“I would be suffocated,” I finished. “The blood would rush to my head, and I would die.”

Then she spoke, and her voice was filled with tenderness. It was easy to understand that she believed me quite mad; but she did not fear me.

“You are ill,” she said. “You need assistance. May I not go for help? Is there not someone you would like summoned?”

Again, Haswell, I thought of you. But would she carry a message? Would she not, instead, go for the police? Was she not even now meditating a ruse by which I might be captured before I did myself an injury? And I knew now that I could not continue by myself. Sooner or later I would be forced to drop, or I would certainly meet—not a handsome young woman but a policeman. My mind was quickly made up. I said to her:

“Thank you, my dear, for your offer; but you are in error. There is nobody who can help me now; perhaps there never will be. But this is my home here, behind me, and rather than frighten people I shall go back as I came and stay within doors. But I appreciate your kindness, and I am glad that you do not believe me mad and that you are not afraid of me. It may be that some day I shall be cured of this strange trouble, and if that day comes I should like to meet you again and thank you. Will you tell me your name?”

Then she told me her name, flutteringly, and—I almost screamed again.

Her name, Haswell, was _Penelope_! Penelope Pollard!

I all but let go of the railing that supported me, and as I wavered and seemed about to fall she gave a low cry and, turning, ran away into the darkness.

She had gone for help. I knew it, and shortly I knew that I would be the center of an embarrassing and probably a jeering crowd. And so I turned and went back. The return journey was worse than the forward journey had been, but after an agony of tortured limbs and straining sinews I found myself back in my study, and there, thoroughly worn out, I fell prone upon the floor—or the ceiling—in a corner, and went instantly to sleep.

Hours later, when I awoke, I was lying on the carpeted floor of my study, and the sun was pouring in at my window as it had done in past years. Again I was subordinate to the laws of terrestrial gravity. I fancy that as the influence passed I slid gradually down the wall until, without shock, I reached the floor.

My landlord was beating upon my door, and after a dazed moment or two I rose and tried to let him in. But as I had thrown away the key, I had to pretend that I had lost it and had accidentally made myself a prisoner. When he had freed me, I asked him if there had been any inquiry after me, and he told me there had not. So it seemed that my fair friend of the night before had not returned with a posse of bluecoats. I was grateful and I determined at the first opportunity to look her up.

From that day forward I looked for her—Penelope Pollard. I traced Pollards until I almost hated the name. There were Sylvias and Graces and Sarahs and Janes and all the thousand and one other epithets bestowed on feminine innocence, but never a Penelope—never, Haswell, until last week.

_Penelope!_

Last week I found her. And where? Haswell, she lives within three doors of my own home. She had lived there all the time. She had seen me many times before my fateful night, and she had seen me often afterward—always walking the earth normally like other human beings, save for that one astounding evening. She was willing to talk, and glad to discuss my case; she is a highly intelligent girl, I may say. She has since told me that on that evening she believed me to be drunk. It amused her, but it did not frighten her. That is why she did not go for help; she believed it to be a drunken whim of mine to walk around on my hands, and that it would pass in its own time.

That, Haswell, is the story of my amazing connection with the star Penelope. You will understand that nearly fifty years must pass before it will again be in perihelion, and by that time, probably, I shall be dead.

I am very glad of it; one such experience is enough. Perhaps also you will understand that I would not have missed it that once for all the worlds in all the solar systems.

* * * * *

“I think your friend was right,” I remarked, after a long silence. “You certainly were drunk, Raymond. Just as certainly as you are drunk tonight. Or did the whole thing happen tonight, as you went along?”

“Drunk?” he echoed. “Yes, I am drunk, Haswell—drunk with a diviner nectar than ever was brewed by man. Drunk with the wine of Penelope—the star Penelope. I have kept the best part of the story until the end. Next week Penelope and I are to be married. I am here tonight by her permission for a last bout with my old friend Haswell. It is my final jamboree. Congratulate me, Diccon!”

Of course, I congratulated him, and I did it sincerely; but the whole story still vastly puzzles me. Mrs. Raymond is a charming woman, and her name certainly is Penelope. But does that prove anything?

Almost Broke, Youth Falls Co-Heir to $12,000,000

Howard Girard, eighteen years old, had spent his last dime and was wondering where he could raise a bit of change. Then he got a job in a printing shop in Evanston, Illinois. And then, all at once, he got word that he had fallen co-heir to a $12,000,000 fortune left by his grand-uncle, Antoine Damange of Paris. Things like this have happened in romantic novels. They don’t often happen in actual life. Howard, notified of his remarkable good fortune, said, “Well, that’s pretty good,” and then announced his intention of sticking to his job at the printing shop. His share of the estate will amount to about $2,000,000.

THE PURPLE HEART

_The Story of a Haunted Cabin_

_By_ HERMAN SISK

I was weary of the fog that hung over me like a pall, fatigued to the point of exhaustion. Since early afternoon the chill wind had forced it through my clothing like rain. It depressed me.

The country through which I traveled alone was desolate and unpeopled, save here and there where some bush assumed fantastic form. The very air was oppressive. As far as I could see, were hills—nothing but hills and those bushes. Occasionally I could hear the uncanny cry of some hidden animal.

As I pushed on, a dread of impending disaster fastened itself upon me. I thought of my home, of my mother and sister, and wondered if all was well with them. I tried to rid myself of this morbid state of mind; but, try as I would, I could not. It grew as I progressed, until at length it became a part of me.

I had walked some fifteen miles, and was so weary I could scarcely stand, when I came suddenly upon a log cabin. It was a crude affair, quite small, and stood back some distance from the little-used road in a clump of trees. A tiny window and a door faced the direction from which I approached. No paint had ever covered the roughly-hewn logs from which it was made, and the sun and the wind and the fog had turned the virgin wood to a drab brown.

I felt it was useless to knock, for the cabin had every appearance of being deserted. However, rap I did. No voice bade me enter, and with an effort I pushed open the door and staggered into the house. Almost immediately my weary legs crumpled under me, and I toppled and struck heavily on my face.

When I regained consciousness, a rough room, scantily furnished, greeted my eye. There was an ill-looking table, the top of which was warped and rectangular in shape, standing in the center. To one side was a rustic chair. Beyond the table was a bunk built into the wall; and on this lay a man with shining eyes and a long, white beard. A heavy gray blanket covered all of him but his head.

“You’re right on time,” he said in a high-pitched voice.

I looked at him closely.

“I don’t know you,” I said.

“Nor I you; but I knew you would come.”

“You are ill and need help?” I asked.

“No,” he replied in his strange monotone. “But on this day some one always visits here. None has ever returned. But I have yet to be alone on the night of this anniversary.”

There was something so weird in the way he looked at me out of those big, watery eyes that I involuntarily shuddered.

“What anniversary?” I asked.

“The murder of my father,” he answered. “It happened many years ago. A strange man came to this cabin just as you have done.”

He paused. I said nothing.

“You wish to stay all night?” he asked.

“Yes, if I may,” I replied. A moment later I regretted it.

“Quite so,” said he, with a slight nod of his white head. “Those were the very words he addressed to us. We took him in. When morning came I found my father dead in there,” rolling his eyes and raising his head to indicate some point behind him, “with a dagger in his heart. You can see the room if you open the door behind me.”

I looked at him a moment, hesitating. Then I went to the door and pushed it open. Cautiously glancing into the other room, I saw there was nothing there but a bunk similar to the one the old man occupied.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, evidently sensing my fear. “Nothing will hurt you now. It’s after midnight when it happens.”

“What happens?” I asked.

“I don’t know. No two men have the same experience. It all depends on one’s state of mind.”

“You mean—” I began.

“Yes,” he interrupted. “One man saw hands reaching toward him and ropes in the air. He was escaping the gallows. Another saw faces of beautiful girls. He was on his way to a large church wedding. A third saw pools of blood and the white snow stained by human life. He was again living through a massacre in Russia.”

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“No. No one does. The cabin is quite deserted. I come each year to welcome the evening’s guest.”

“Is there no other place to stay?” I asked, a sudden fear seizing me.

“None. Besides, it is growing dark without, and you would lose your way _even if you could leave_.”

There was something ominous in the way he uttered these last five words.

“Yes,” he went on, as if I had asked the unuttered question in my mind, “you may think you can go, but you cannot. That is the curse my father placed on this cabin. And I come each year to see that his word is obeyed. Whoever enters that door yonder on this date must stay until morning, and endure the agonies that only the rising sun can dispel.”

I looked about me to make sure that he and I were the only living things in the room.

“What is to prevent my leaving?” I asked.

“Try to,” he replied, an eerie note of glee in his queer voice.

I walked to the door and gave it a mighty pull. To my utter amazement, it was locked!

I tried again, this time with greater determination; but the door remained unyielding. A sudden terror seized me. I turned to beseech the old man to let me go, but _he was not there!_

I looked quickly about me. He was nowhere to be seen. I ran into the other room. It was as empty as before. I rushed to the door there and pulled vigorously, but my efforts were in vain.

Returning to his bunk, I examined it closely. To my great astonishment, the heavy gray blanket was gone. In desperation I tried once more the door through which I had entered the cabin. It was still as inflexible as concrete.

Darkness fell fast and the room became very dim. I groped about and discovered some matches and a candle on a shelf under the table. I struck a match and lighted the candle. Letting some of the tallow drip onto the table, I made a stick for it. I then sat down on the edge of the bunk and anxiously awaited developments. But nothing occurred to mar the somber silence of my prison.

Thus I remained until my watch pointed to the hour of nine. My journey had greatly fatigued me, but my fears counterbalanced my weariness, so that I kept awake in spite of it.

At length, however, my eyelids grew heavy; my eyes became bleary, so that the candle multiplied, and my head drooped until my chin rested on my chest.

Letting the candle burn, I lay back on the hard bunk. I was cold and very nervous, and greatly felt the need of food and dry clothing. But my fatigue soon overcame me and I fell asleep.

When I awakened, a sense of suffocation and bewilderment hung over me. Whereas the room had been cold when I lay down, it now seemed close and hot. I pulled myself to a sitting posture. The room was dark. The candle was out.

I jumped to my feet and started toward the table. But in another moment I stood frozen to the spot, my eyes arrested and my body palsied by what I saw before me.

* * * * *

At the far end of the room was a purple glow in the shape of a human heart. It was stationary when I saw it, but almost immediately it began to move about the room. Now it was at the window. Then beside the table. Again it moved quickly but silently into the other room.

I pulled my frightened senses together and groped my way to the table. I found a match. With trembling hands, I struck it and lit the candle. To my surprise, it was almost as tall as when I had fallen asleep. I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock.

A moment later the flame was snuffed out and I was again in total darkness. I looked wildly about me. Horrors! The purple heart was beside me! I shrank back in terror. It came closer.

Suddenly I acquired superhuman courage. I grasped for the spectre. I touched nothing. I placed my left hand before me at arm’s length. _Lo!_ it was between me and my hand!

Presently it moved away. A great calm settled over me and I began to sense a presence in the room. Now, without any fear and with steady hand, I again struck a match and lighted the candle. It was promptly extinguished. I struck another with similar results.

And now something brushed my lips and an arm was passed lightly about my shoulders, but I was no longer afraid. The room continued cozily warm, and a greater sense of peace came over me.

Presently I lay down again and watched the purple heart as it came toward me and took its place at the edge of the bunk, like some loved one sitting beside me.

I must have fallen asleep again, for I knew no more until broad daylight awakened me, and I found myself lying in the middle of the room. There was no fog. The sun was shining brightly, and a broad beam was streaming through the dusty window pane. The candle and the matches were no longer visible.

Suddenly I thought of the locked door. Springing to it, I gave a mighty pull. It opened easily!

I snatched my cap from the rough floor and hurried into the warm sunlight.

A short distance from me a man came trudging along. He was a powerful-looking fellow of middle age and was dressed in coarse working clothes.

“Do you know anything about that cabin?” I shouted, as we drew closer.

“Sure. It’s haunted,” he replied. He looked hard at me. “Were _you_ in there last night?”

I related my experience.

“That’s queer!” he muttered. “But I ain’t surprised. Last night was the night.”

“What night?” I demanded.

“Ten years ago an old man was murdered in that cabin, and his son swore on his deathbed he’d come back every anniversary and lure somebody into the cabin for the night and torture him.”

He shuddered, his white face staring at the cabin.

“Come away!” he whispered. “Come away! It’s haunted! It’s haunted!”

FELINE

_A Whimsical Storiette_

_By_ Bruce Grant

Myra looked up from her writing.

“David,” she said, “I am positive I heard a cat outside.”

The man only growled, settled himself deeper in his comfortable chair, and continued to read.

The giant breath of the blizzard rattled the windows. The snow flung itself wrathfully against the panes. Outside it was bitter cold.

“I can’t bear to think of a cat outside on a night like this,” continued Myra.

“Forget it!” exclaimed David, arousing himself. “You are continually thinking of cats. All that I hear from you is cats. You dream of cats, you occupy your mind with cats. I heard no cat crying outside. It is only your imagination.”

“No; I heard a cat—I am sure,” insisted Myra.

It was warm inside. David sat beneath a green-shaded reading lamp. The pyramid of light fell on his tall figure, attired in a dressing-gown and slippers, slouched comfortably in the chair.

Myra sat at a desk, scribbling in a book, now and then tapping her lips with her penholder. She wore a clinging, yellow negligée, and her hair was done back tightly on her head. In her sleek, brown coil of hair at the back there was a large Spanish comb.

“David; I _know_ I heard a cat then!” she cried, throwing down her pen. “You surely must have heard it, too.”

David laid down his book.

“When you are through dreaming of cats,” he said, “I’ll be able to read.”

Myra rose.

“I cannot bear to think of a cat out on a night like this—a little homeless cat.”

Then she walked from the room.

David mused. _Cats!_ Nothing but cats! She had gone insane on the subject of cats. He had never known her to be so unreasonable about cats. She seemed worse since their cat, Rodolpho, had died. Her mind seemed now occupied with nothing but cats. He was sure she had been writing something about cats in her book.

To prove his contention he walked to the desk. He picked up the small, leather-bound book. He read:

_“THE SNOWSTORM._

_“Against the pane the snow flakes press_
_Like dainty kitten paws._
_Outside the chill wind stings and cuts,_
_Like angry kitten claws.”_

David laid the note-book down. There! He had been right. He strode back to his chair. Myra returned to the room.

“I looked out of the dining-room window,” she said. “I could not see the cat. It is awful outside.”

She paused.

“Cats are such unfortunate creatures. In fact, all animals are unfortunate—animals domesticated by man. They never know when their masters are going to turn against them, or at least ignore them.”

“People treat cats that way because cats are good for nothing,” David put in. “Cats enter your home, eat your food, roll up on your bed, and do nothing. Rat traps are better for catching rats and mice. You don’t need cats in the scheme of things. They are worthless.”

“Yes,” added Myra softly, in a passionless voice. “A woman comes into your home, and eats your food, and spends your money, and curls up on your bed. A cook and a housekeeper can do better work than she.”

“There is no comparison,” cried David. “A woman at least shows you some affection—a cat never.”

“A woman shows affection when she knows that it is wanted,” Myra said in a distant voice.

There was an awkward silence. These arguments never came to anything. Why did they indulge in them? They always led to disagreeable subjects, or touched on the fatuity of marriage. No, such arguments never did any good. Far better if both remained silent. David picked up his book.

“Cats are very intelligent animals,” Myra continued, half aloud. “They know instantly when they are not wanted. If anyone in a household hates a cat, there is no need of that person speaking gruffly or striking the cat. The cat will know. Cats have powers of divination which are denied most humans. They are such sensitive creatures. They respond to the least touch, the least kind thought. They slink away at the least unkind word, at the least unkind thought.”

She hesitated, trifling with her pen.

“They know when they are not wanted. I should not be surprised if a cat would go out into the cold—on a night like this—if it knew it was not wanted.”

“Stop such darn foolishness!” growled David.

Myra looked at him, raising her eyebrows quizzically.

“Please don’t talk that way,” she said.

For an instant there came over him a surge of hatred. Would she ever leave him alone! Alone for a few minutes of peaceful reading. Wasn’t she contented to live quietly and peacefully without continually worrying herself about cats, and whether or not her husband still loved her.

She was talking:

“It is true I love cats. I have loved them all my life. They are the most beautiful and graceful of animals. But please forgive me if I hurt you by talking about them. They show me affection. They seem to know that I love them.”

But David was not listening. He was thinking. She was like a cat. Her movements were catlike. Truly, she was every inch a cat. Come into your home, absorb your warmth, eat your food, taunt you, insist on being stroked and petted at every turn—truly a remarkable woman, as remarkable as those small animals she adored, David scowled.

Events tumbled over themselves in his mind. She was susceptible to men. When one caressed her with his voice she almost purred with pleasure. She loved those who flattered her. He had flattered her most and had won her. She now still expected all the flattery and little attentions which he had given her before. She could not “settle down.” He felt that he exuded hate at that moment. He felt that at last his eyes were opened.

Myra got up from her desk again.

“I’m going out into the back yard and see if I can find that kitty,” she announced.

David could not read now. He sat silently in his chair, repressing the wrathful things that tried to force themselves from his lips. He heard Myra putting on her shoes.

She peeped in finally and smiled wistfully. He sat in the same spot. The back door closed softly.

David gradually began to grow calmer. He sat and waited. In the silent house, the quiet broken only by the rattling of the windows and the thudding of the snow against the glass, he began to look back over his married life.

They had been more or less happy during the three years. It would be hard to find another woman who would put up with his idiosyncrasies. What a fool he was! Myra was a wonderful woman, after all, the most wonderful in the world!

He walked to the back door and called out into the night. He rushed through the snow and the cutting wind. He returned and waited. The clock told off the long hours.

Then it came to him—Myra’s words, “I should not be surprised if a cat would go out on a night like this—into the cold—if it knew it was not wanted....”

Chicagoans to Live in the Air Fifty Years Hence

Fifty years from now Chicago’s citizens will no longer be rooted to the ground, but will fly in the air like birds, according to Mrs. William J. Chalmers, who has been closely identified with the city’s progress.

“As we overstepped the bounds between earth and water, so we will overstep that between earth and air,” she declares. “Whether it will be through some simple device which we will attach to our shoulders or feet, or whether we will learn breath control so that we can literally swim through the air, I cannot say. Certainly in fifty years this will come to pass—that we will all own small aeroplanes, so perfected that it will be possible for us to alight on the window ledges of our apartments, whether they be ten or twenty stories high. Chicago will, fifty years hence, have become a seaport. Steam-ships will be run electricity and will attain tremendous speed. But steamers will be used for heavy loads and passenger travel will be by aeroplane.”

TWO HOURS OF DEATH

_A Ghost Story_

_By_ E. THAYLES EMMONS

_A few weeks ago, while looking over some old papers which I found in the desk of my deceased father, I chanced upon the following manuscript. Whether it is a true record of some adventure in my father’s life, or a bit of fiction which he had at some time prepared for publication, I do not know; but I am inclined to believe that it is indeed a true narrative. I have ascertained that such a man as Felix Sayres actually did exist; that he was an intimate friend of my father, and that he died in the strange manner described in the manuscript; but further than that I know nothing. However, I submit the whole thing as I found it, without change._

* * * * *

As I picked up my morning paper, the first item to catch my eye was the following:

DIES IN MADHOUSE

INMATE FOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS DIES SUDDENLY.

Felix Sayres, aged 69 years, who has been an inmate of the
Eastwood Asylum for the Insane for the past thirty-five years,
was found dead in his cell yesterday morning. At one time
he was a well-known scientist of this city, but at the age
of thirty-four became hopelessly insane, and has since been
confined in the asylum, of which he was, at the time of his
death, the oldest inmate.

Felix Sayres was my college chum, and in later years my closest friend, and now that he is dead I am at liberty to reveal the remarkable story concerning him, a part of which not even he has ever known, though a principal actor in the awful scene which has been indelibly stamped on my memory, haunting my waking hours and recurring to me in oft-repeated dreams.

My friend was a man of genius and ability, and had it not been for the terrible misfortune which came upon him, he would have become famous in the scientific world. Nearly all of his time, day and night, was given over to scientific research, in finding and working upon new hypotheses and bringing to light discoveries in that strange world into which he had evidently been born.

I was at that time his most intimate friend, and to me a great many of his hopes and secrets were confided. Many nights have I passed in his laboratory, listening to his explanation of some new theory, or aiding him in his experiments.

It was always a source of great pleasure to me thus to pass a portion of my time, although my mind was not of the same scientific trend as that of my friend. His theories were always so lucidly elaborated and so strong fundamentally that the most abstract of them seemed, even in the embryo, capable of actual demonstration, and so great was my confidence in him that I always stood ready to assist in any experiment or test.

At one point, however, I drew the line. Sayres, while none the less engaged with material subjects, was constantly dabbling in various psychical experiments with which I refused absolutely to have anything to do. The occult, I argued, should remain occult. Had it been intended that we should see beyond the things of this world the power would have been given us ages ago, I maintained, and the less one dealt with such unsolvable problems as vexed my friend the happier would be his life. Having no desire for knowledge of the supernatural, I studiously avoided all dealing with it, and it was tacitly understood, between Sayres and myself, that beyond the line of ordinary conversation the subject was forbidden. I knew, however, that for him the thing had great fascination and that my opinion did nothing to banish it from his mind.

At the time of which I write I had not seen Sayres for several weeks, as was often the case when he was deepest in his books and experiments. I had called at his laboratory, but his servant had said that no one was to be admitted, and I knew that it was useless to attempt to see him. At length I received a letter from him, saying that he had something of interest to disclose and urging me to “come tonight!”

When I arrived at my friend’s laboratory I found him in a high state of nervous excitement, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger. He greeted me effusively, and with his usual directness, plunged at once into the matter at hand, which was evidently uppermost in his mind. Seating himself at the opposite side of the table and directly facing me, he began:

“Thornton, I want you to prepare yourself to hear of something that is to be entirely different from anything I have heretofore shown you. It is something that to mankind has always been vague, uncertain, unfathomable—something, in fact, that has existed only in imagination and in theory, but never in demonstration. I will show it to you tonight, and to the world tomorrow, in such a manner as entirely to revolutionize life and living, death and dying.

“As you very well know, my religious beliefs have always been skeptical; but my skepticism has arisen rather from insufficiency of faith with which to overcome the lack of direct evidence which mortals have concerning spiritual things than from stubborn unbelief. That there is a Supreme Being I have never doubted. His many works are too manifest, and it is impossible to conceive of such a creation as this earth and all its delicate mechanisms, and of the rest of the universe with all its unknown wonders, without some vast Supernatural oversight.

“Although I have never discussed the subject to any great extent, I have nursed it as a pet and secret hobby, and have spent many hours in work along certain lines in connection with it. In the beginning, I put finiteness aside from the question. The human mind, or soul, with its unlimited powers, has always been regarded by me as the most wonderful of all creations. I have been able to find no entirely satisfactory definition of this ‘mind’ from a purely physical standpoint, and therefore sought to obtain one. Nobody will say that the soul is material; it belongs to the body and develops with it, but is no part of it.

“Life is but a taper, which a slight breath may easily puff out, but this indeterminable thing called ‘mind,’ I reasoned, must be governed by different laws. Is it possible that the Creator ruled that the greatest of all His works should be blotted out with the cessation of life in that sordid mass of clay, the body? Or did He arrange to reclaim it, together with its spiritual complement, to a world of its own, as men have for ages believed?

“Skeptic as I have been, I have always been willing to concede that the idea of a spiritual existence, while vague, seems no more wonderful than thousands of other things which we see about us daily, and for the reason that they are manifest, give them no thought whatever.

“As a basis for the theory which I set myself to formulate, I took what I shall term ‘mind atoms.’ As I have before said, we cannot regard the mind force as a material thing; but, as a contradictory fact, we know that it is _something_, and further than that generality we are ignorant. Then, as the mind force governs alike every portion of the body, this indeterminable something of which it is composed, I reasoned, must be in one portion as in another.

“I then placed these mind atoms as being diffused in the space occupied by the body and lying even between the atoms of its material composition. If, at death, this mind is merely withdrawn from the body—all of which I worked upon as already determined—would it not occupy in the spirit world the same space and retain the same shape of the human form from which it had fled?

“Then the idea suggested itself that if some powerful and undiscovered action could be produced (by the use of drugs, probably), causing an instantaneous and simultaneous separation of every mind atom from the physical atoms, the effect would be a spiritual death, while at the same time physical vitality would not be in the least impaired. I then went one step further and added the supposition that as the effects of the action wore away it would be possible for the soul to re-enter the body, even as it had been driven out, and creation would again be complete.

“I have worked untiringly, and wrought experiment after experiment, until at last I have succeeded in producing a drug that will accomplish all that I have explained to you. I have used it on various animals and have seen them recover from the effects of it, and thus have ascertained that it is harmless. I ventured to try it on myself, and I know that _I have certainly solved the mystery of the future_, although during the brief period in which my soul was in the spirit world I could make but few observations, and those of minor importance.

“I saw no other spiritual beings, but remained, for the most, close by my soulless body, waiting for the proper moment to return to my physical life, if it were indeed to be possible; but I am confident that what I have accomplished renders the unrevealed capable of being revealed and robs the hereafter of all its secrets.”

* * * * *

He paused, and for a moment, so bewildered was I by the strangeness of it all, that I sat speechless, my brain in a whirl.

Thinking to overcome my amazement, I reached for the wine decanter, which was on the table before me, and into the glass nearest me I poured some of the strong wine which Sayres always kept at hand. After draining it, I looked up to see a gleam of satisfaction flit across his countenance.

“Thornton,” said he, “in that glass of wine there was enough of the drug to render you temporarily dead for two hours, as I can best calculate. In five minutes you will be unconscious. I want you to undergo the same experience which I have safely passed through, so that we may later exchange ideas on the subject.”

In spite of his assurance, a deadly fear took possession of me, and I swore and expostulated at his unfair treatment. With undisturbed calm, he again spoke to me, endeavoring to dispel my fears, and assuring me that he would be conversing with me again at the end of the two hours.

Even as he was speaking his words became indistinct, and an overpowering dizziness seized me. Then came a moment of which I have no recollection, after which, by the fact that I stood, or _seemed_ to stand, within a few feet of the chair in which I had been seated, _gazing at myself_, even now in the same position, I knew that my body was without a soul, even as Sayres had said, and that I was the soul standing there!

I looked about me, and in place of the invisible atmosphere which I was accustomed to, the room seemed filled with a constantly moving, pulsating vapor, dense, gray and foglike, but through which I could discern objects with as much ease as ordinarily.

I saw my friend lift my body from the chair, lay it on a bench and place a cushion under the head. Then he began pacing to and fro, up and down, back and forth, and I found that I could move about at will and follow him.

I attempted to speak to him, but now there was no sound; I reached forth my hand to grasp a chair, but it offered no resistance, and I realized that I indeed occupied no space, but was nevertheless in space and a part of space. I saw my friend’s lips move as though he were speaking. I heard no sound, but was able to understand his words, although he did not address me.

The glare of the lamps gave me a sensation which, had I been in my physical form, I should have termed pain, and I much preferred to keep in a dark corner. By a direct mental communication, of which I was not at the time aware, I was able to signify this fact to Sayres, and he at once turned out all the lights, leaving the laboratory lighted only by a low fire in the grate at the end of the room. I was then astonished to find that the absence of light had no effect upon my visual powers, and that I could see in the dark as well as before.

From this I drew the conclusion that in reality I possessed no visuality, as it seemed. My senses I had left behind with my physical self, and here they were replaced by a strange comprehension of everything about me. I still had the abilities which the senses convey, but their actual presence was lacking.

I could flit through the air with as much ease as I could walk on the floor, and could even have sunk through that same floor had I desired, for the most solid substance offered no resistance to my form. I was able to pass directly through anything.

The success of the experiment, up to this point, served to restore my confidence in Sayres and I entertained no doubt but that at the end of the stated time I could return to my body again. I therefore determined to lose no time in making all the observations possible.

Sayres was still pacing the room, and it was evident from his actions that in a large degree fear was the cause of his restlessness. He knew that in all probability I was constantly near him, and he would have avoided coming in contact with me had he been able to do so. Felix Sayres possessed courage beyond that of many men, but few mortals can be brought face to face with the supernatural without experiencing fear.

All of us have at various times—sometimes by day, but more often at night—undergone the feeling of the proximity of some ghostly presence, giving rise to a sensation of coldness and choking horror. This was clearly demonstrated to me now, for whenever myself and Sayres came within a few feet of each other I could easily see that he felt my presence. He made no attempt to communicate with me and paid no heed to the various things I did to attract his attention.

After a little, he seemed to recover himself and calmly walked across the room to where my soulless body lay, and stood looking down at it. By the gleam in his eyes, and by my wonderful supernatural power of comprehension, I knew in an instant that overwork and nervous strain had at last done their work, that the cord of reason had snapped and that my friend was a madman!

His lips moved and I heard him, or rather _felt_ him, address my body:

“At last I have you in my power! I have waited long for this moment, and at last my waiting is to be rewarded. I have driven the soul from the body, and the body lives; but now I will take away life itself, and you will be dead!”

The word seemed to please him, and he murmured slowly:

“Dead, _dead_!”

* * * * *

I heard him continue in his madness:

“It is you who have stolen the honors due me; it is you who would prevent me from becoming famous; it is you, curse you, who will marry the only woman I can ever love—and then you ask me to let you live! No, damn you!”

He then took from a drawer nearby a large and peculiarly-shaped dissecting knife which I had often seen him use, and, with the deliberation of the insane, he proceeded to sharpen it on a steel, testing it from time to time with his thumb.

In my overpowering fear for the safety of my physical self, I know not all that I did, but I do know that it was all in vain. How I longed for the power of speech! And what would I not have given for the use of my own strong body with which to cope with him!

But I was utterly in his power and at his mercy, and the sickening thought came to me that I, the spirit, must stand passive by his side and see my body, still living, hacked and mutilated by the knife he held. I called for help, but knew there was no sound, and in despair I waited.

I heard the madman that was once my friend mutter: “That will do,” and, with the gleaming blade in his hand, he started across the room, and I knew that the awful moment was at hand.

I attempted to grapple with him, but my hands felt nothing. Another step and he would be at the bench and it would all be over. Instinctively, I threw myself between the madman and my body, with my arms stretched forth as if to keep him away. How it was accomplished I cannot tell, but by the look of mortal terror that came in the face before me, such as I have never since seen drawn in any countenance, I knew that I had _become visible_ and that he saw me!

I can imagine the picture at this moment—the spirit guarding the helpless counterpart of itself—and indeed it must have been a tableau to have struck fear to the stoutest heart. My friend’s eyes dilated with horror; the knife dropped from his hand.

One moment thus he stood. Then his lips parted, and I knew that he had uttered a shriek. He then fell at my feet, blood flowing from his mouth and nostrils, his eyes rolling in terror.

I remained chained to the spot by the fear that he would recover from his fit and carry out his fiendish intention.

At length the same feeling of dizziness, which I had before experienced, returned to me, and almost before I could realize what was taking place I found myself sitting upright on the bench, body and soul again united, and the form of Sayres at my feet, to convince me that all was not a hideous dream.

I placed my poor friend on the bench, and finally I succeeded in bringing him back to consciousness, but in a very weak condition.

He passed through a very severe illness, but never regained his sanity. He remained hopelessly insane.

Of this awful story I have related he never recollected any part. I was unable to find any of the wonderful drug in his laboratory, and am as ignorant of its composition now as I was on that terrible night. I have been silent on the matter, hoping that some day Sayres would again regain his reason, but now that he is dead I have been impelled to write this narrative.

Neurotic Women Have Queer Mania

The astonishing fraud perpetrated by Evelyn Lyons of Escanaba, Michigan, who, with the aid of a hot water bottle, fooled the doctors into believing that she had a fever of 118 degrees, is not without precedent. She was the victim of an odd mania that often seizes abnormal women who crave wide notoriety. Doctors and psychologists have long been acquainted with this strange caprice of neurotic women, but it is rarely that one maintains the fake illness for as long a time as did Miss Lyons, who set the nation’s medical fraternity in a tempest of learned discussion before her sham was discovered.

This erratic desire to be an object of curiosity often takes other forms, as in the case of Mary Ellen MacDonald of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, who, in order to attract attention, turned herself into a “spook.” By starting mysterious fires around her home, walking stealthily through the farmhouse at night and slapping the faces of sleeping persons, rapping on the walls and so forth, she contrived to spread a feeling of dread throughout the countryside. The superstitious country folk were sure that the house was haunted, and as Miss MacDonald carried her hoax still further—sending weird radio messages, tying knots in the tails of cows, attiring herself in ghostly gowns and fleeing across the moonlit fields—the fear of disembodied spirits spread rapidly, and the uncanny “manifestations” became a matter of nation-wide discussion.

Spiritualists, mediums, and others journeyed to Antigonish, and, after watching the unearthly “phenomena,” were unanimously agreed that a spirit, or spirits, had returned to haunt the community.

Then Dr. Walter Prince of the Psychical Research Society went there, investigated the “ghost” more thoroughly, and traced all the terrifying happenings to Mary Ellen MacDonald.

Meanwhile, however, Miss MacDonald—like Miss Lyons, the “fever girl”—had gratified her craving for notoriety.

_HAMILTON CRAIGIE Spins Another Yarn in His Inimitable Style_

MIDNIGHT BLACK

Rita Daventry sat bolt upright in her bed, her ears strained against the singing silence, breath indrawn sharply through her parted lips.

There had been no sound, save as a sound heard in dreams, but as she sat there, rigid, tense, in the thick darkness, leaning forward a little in the great bed, she was certain that she was not alone.

Someone or _something_ was in the room.

The blackness was like an invisible wall; it pressed upon her eyelids now like a gigantic and smothering hand. And then, all at once, she heard it: the brief _clink_ of metal upon metal; a rustle, like the flicker of a wind-blown leaf.

Simply by reaching forth her hand she could have pressed the wall switch, flooded that midnight blackness with the blazing effulgence of the electrolier, but she could not. Eyes strained against that velvet black, she crouched now, in the immensity of the great bed, the silken case of the sheets turned suddenly to ice, her pulses hammering to the tension of her hard-held breathing, there in the stifling dark.

There came a clanking, a whirring as of wings invisible; then, from the wall clock, there boomed twelve heavy strokes—midnight.

She heard the slow _tick-tock_ of that steady beat, and then, of a sudden she heard something else: the muffled ticking of a watch.

The sound was not loud—it came to her as through walls of silence—but it was nearer now. She was certain of it.

The door was closed; it was a heavy, sound-proof affair; the intruder, whoever he might be, had entered by the window. Rita Daventry knew that he was armed, and desperate—desperate with the cold courage of a cornered grizzly; a housebreaker, who, if attacked, would shoot his way out, reckless of consequences. To such a man, murder, as the price of his liberty, would be a little thing.

And with the thought she stiffened; her mouth opened, to release the scream, at the first sound of which she knew that aid would come, unthinking, swift, reckless, too, in its first fury of intrepid action.

But she would not summon that scream.

On the floor above, her husband was working now in his laboratory. But the man below would have the advantage of that midnight black; with the opening of the door, he would shoot him down with the ruthless, cold cruelty of a wolf.

But that was not all the reason. To Rita Daventry, alone now with this invisible menace of the dark, there had come, on a sudden, a thought to freeze her blood, the thought of Ronald Armitage.

It had been only the night before, at a studio tea, that Armitage had made the threat, or the promise, that came to her now with a sudden, cold prevision of tragedy. Armitage was young, reckless, debonair, of an engaging manner with women; and Rita had encouraged him—well, just a little, she told herself.

It was a fascinating game—in the playing. The paying—that would be another matter. And as if the words had been spoken in her ear, she was hearing now the smooth voice, thickened a trifle with his potations, with that faintly roughened, passionate undertone:

“... Daventry doesn’t care, does he? Why should _you_? I tell you, Rita, you’ve gotten into my blood. Some night _between you and me_—the witching hour, ha? I _promise_ you I’ll be there; and you won’t have to _look_ to find me!”

The handsome, dissipated face had come close to hers; there had been a menace in the tone, as well as a caress. And the fact that the man had been—well—not himself could not condone. The noise, the lights, the music upon which, dancing together, they had floated as on a languorous, steep wave of sound and motion, could not condone.

Rita had had no excuse save the oft-repeated, sophisticated sophistry of “The last time; this will be the very last!” And she had gone on, protesting, if at all, with a half-mutinous, wholly unconsidered coquetry, which, at the last, had led to this!

* * * * *

Ronald Armitage had the reputation of being something of a “blood;” the Armitages had sowed and reaped, and of young Ronald it was said that he would stop at nothing for the accomplishment of his desires.

And now, alone in that vast bed, hearing again that stealthy movement by the window, the girl checked again sharply in the act of reaching forth her hand. With her finger upon the button, she froze, rigid, as that smooth, stealthy advance moved closer.