CHAPTER XXV
THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH
It was late in the day when Virdow awoke. The excitement, the unwonted hours which circumstances forced him to keep, brought at last unbroken rest and restored his physical structure to its normal condition.
He dressed himself and descended to find a brief telegram announcing the safety of Edward. It was a joyful addition to the conditions that had restored him. The telegram had not been opened. He went quickly to Gerald's room and found that young man at work upon a painting of Rita as he had seen her last – the profile sketch. His emotional nature had already thrown off its gloom, and with absorbed interest he was pushing his work. Already the face had been sketched in and the priming completed. Under his rapid and skillful hands the tints and contours were growing, and Virdow, accustomed as he was to the art in all its completeness and technical perfection, marveled to see the changed face of the woman glide back into view, the counterpart he knew of the vivid likeness clear cut in the sensitive brain that held it. He let him work undisturbed. A word might affect its correctness. Only when the artist ceased and laid aside his brush for a brief rest did he speak.
Gerald turned to him as to a co-laborer, and took the yellow slip of paper, so potent with intelligent lettering. He read it in silence; then putting it aside went on with his painting. Virdow rubbed his brow and studied him furtively. Such lack of interest was inconceivable under the conditions. He went to work seriously to account for it and this he did to his own satisfaction. In one of his published lectures on memory, years after, occurred this sentence, based upon that silent reverie:
"Impressions and forgetfulness are measurable by each other; indeed, the power of the mind to remember vividly seems to be measured by its power to forget."
But afterward Gerald picked up the telegram, read it intently and seemed to reflect over the information it contained. Later in the day the postman brought the mail and with it one of the "extras." Virdow read it aloud in the wing-room. Gerald came and stood before him, his eyes revealing excitement. When Virdow reached the part wherein Edward was described as never removing his eyes from his antagonist, his hearer exclaimed:
"Good! He will kill him!"
"No," said Virdow, smiling; "fortunately he did not. Listen."
"Fortunately!" cried Gerald; "fortunately! Why? What right has such a man to live? He must have killed him!" Virdow read on. A cry broke from Gerald's lips as the explanation appeared.
"I was right! The hand becomes a part of the eye when the mind wills it; or, rather, eye and hand become mind. The will is everything. But why he should have struck the guard – " He went to the wall and took down two pistols. Handing one to Virdow and stepping back he said: "You will please sight at my face a moment; I cannot understand how the accident could have happened." Virdow held the weapon gingerly.
"But, Herr Gerald, it may be loaded."
"They are empty," said Gerald, breeching his own and exposing the cylinder chambers, with the light shining through. "Now aim!" Virdow obeyed; the two men stood at ten paces, aiming at each other's faces. "Your hand," said the young man, "covers your mouth. Edward aimed for the mouth."
There was a quick, sharp explosion; Virdow staggered back, dropping his smoking pistol. Gerald turned his head in mild surprise and looked upon a hole in the plastering behind.
"I have no recollection of loading that pistol," he said. And then: "If your mind had been concentrated upon your aim I would have lost a finger and had my weapon driven into my face." Virdow was shocked at the narrow escape and pale as death.
"It is nothing," said Gerald, replacing the weapon; "you would not hit me in a dozen trials, shooting as you do."
At 10 o'clock that night Edward, pale and weary, entered. He returned with emotion the professor's enthusiastic embrace, and thanked him for his care and attention of Gerald and the household and for his services to the dead. Gerald studied him keenly as he spoke, and once went to one side and looked upon him with new and curious interest. The professor saw that he was examining the profile of the speaker by the aid of the powerful lamp on the table beyond. The discovery set his mind to working in the same direction, and soon he saw the profiles of both. Edward's did not closely resemble the other. That this was true, for some reason, the expression that had settled upon Gerald's face attested. The portrait had been covered and removed.
Edward, after concluding some domestic arrangements, went directly to his room and, dressed as he was, threw himself upon his bed and slept.
And as he slept there took place about him a drama that would have set his heart beating with excitement could he have witnessed it. The house was silent; the city clock had tolled the midnight hour, when Gerald came into the room, bearing a shaded lamp. The sleeper lay on his back, locked in the slumber of exhaustion. The visitor, moving with the noiselessness of a shadow, glided to the opposite side of the bed, and, placing the lamp on a chair, slowly turned up the flame and tilted the shade. In an instant the strong profile of the sleeper flashed upon the wall. With suppressed excitement Gerald unwrapped a sheet of cardboard, and standing it on the mantel received upon it the shadow. As if by a supreme effort, he controlled himself and traced the profile on his paper. Lifting it from the mantel he studied it for a moment intently and then replaced it. The shadow filled the tracing. Taking it slowly from its position he passed from the room. Fortunately his distraction was too great for him to notice the face of Virdow, or to perceive it in the deep gloom of the little room as he passed out.
The German waited a few moments; no sound came back from the broad carpeted stair; taking the forgotten lamp, he followed him silently. Passing out into the shrubbery, he made his way to the side of the conservatory and looked in. Gerald had placed the two profiles, one on each side of the mirror, and with a duplex glass was studying his own in connection with them. He stood musing, and then, as if forgetting his occupation, he let the hand-glass crash upon the floor, tossed his arms in an abandonment of emotion, and, covering his face with his hands, suddenly threw himself across the bed.
Virdow was distressed and perplexed. He read the story in the pantomime, but what could he do? No human sympathy could comfort such a grief, nor could he betray his knowledge of the secret he had surreptitiously obtained. He paced up and down outside until presently the moving shadow of the occupant of the room fell upon his path. He saw him then take from a box a little pill and put it in his mouth, and he knew that the troubles of life, its doubts, distress and loneliness, would be forgotten for hours.
Forgotten? Who knows? Oh, mystery of creation; that invisible intelligence that vanishes in sleep and in death; gone on its voyage of discovery, appalling in its possibilities; but yet how useless, since it must return with no memory of its experience!
And he, Virdow, what a dreamer! For in that German brain of subtleties lived, with the clearness of an incandescent light in the depths of a coal mine, one mighty purpose; one so vast, so potent in its possibilities, as to shake the throne of reason, a resolution to follow upon the path of mind and wake a memory never touched in the history of science. It was not an ambition; it was a leap toward the gates of heaven! For what cared he that his name might shine forever in the annals of history if he could claim of his own mind the record of its wanderings? The future was not his thought. What he sought was the memory of the past!
He went in now, secure of the possibility of disturbing the sleeper, and stood looking down into the room's appointments; there were the two profiles on either side of the mirror; upon the floor the shivered fragments of the hand-glass.
Virdow returned to his room, but before leaving he took from the little box one of the pellets and swallowed it. If he was to know that mind, he must acquaint himself with its conditions. He had never before swallowed the drug; he took this as the Frenchman received the attenuated virus of hydrophobia from the hands of Pasteur – in the interest of science and the human race.
As he lay upon his bed he felt a languor steal upon him, saw in far dreams cool meadows and flowery slopes, felt the solace of perfect repose envelop him. And then he stood beside a stream of running water under the shade of the trees, with the familiar hills of youth along the horizon. A young woman came and stood above the stream and looked intently upon its glassy surface. Her feature were indistinct. Drawing near he, too, looked into the water, and there at his feet was the sad, sweet face of – Marion Evan. He turned and then looked closer at the woman; he saw in her arms the figure of an infant, over whose face she had drawn a fold of her gown. She shook her head as he extended his hand to remove this and pointed behind her. There the grass ran out and only white sand appeared, with no break to the horizon.
Toiling on through this, with a bowed head, was a female figure. He knew her; she was Rita, and the burden she, too, carried in her arms was the form of a child. The figures disappeared and a leaf floated down the stream; twenty-six in succession followed, and then he saw a man descending the mountains and coming forward, his eyes fixed on something beyond him. It was Edward. He looked in the same direction; there was a frail man toiling toward him through the deep sands in the hot sunlight. It was Gerald. And then the figures faded away. There memory ceased to record.
Whatever else was the experience of that eager mind as it wandered on through the mystery, and phantasmagoria has no place in science. He remembered in the morning up to one point only.
It was his last experience with the drug.
CHAPTER XXVI
GATHERING THE CLEWS
Edward drifted for several days upon the tide of the thoughts that came over him. He felt a singular disinclination to face the world again. He knew that as life goes he had acquitted himself manfully and that nothing remained undone that had been his duty to perform. He was sensible of a feeling of deep gratitude to the old general for his active and invaluable backing; without it he realized then that he would have been drawn into a pitfall and the opportunity for defense gone. He did not realize, however, how complete the public reaction had been until card after card had been left at Ilexhurst and the postman had deposited congratulatory missives by the score. One of these contained notice of his election to the club.
Satisfactory as was all this he put aside the social and public life into which he had been drawn, conscious that, while the affront to him had been resented and rendered harmless, he himself was as much in the dark as ever; that as a matter of fact he was without name and family, without right to avail himself of the generous offers laid at his door. Despite his splendid residence, his future, his talents and his prestige as a man of honor, he was – nobody; an accident of fate; a whim of an eccentric old man.
He should not involve any one else in the possibility of ruin. He should not let another share his danger. There could be no happiness with this mystery hanging over him.
Soon after his return, while his heart was yet sore and disturbed, he had received a note from Mary. She wrote:
"We suffer greatly on your account. Poor papa was bound down by circumstances with which you are familiar, though he would gone to you at any cost had it been necessary. In addition his health is very delicate and he has been facing a heavy sorrow – now realized at last! Poor little mamma's eyesight is gone – forever, probably. We are in deep distress, as you may imagine, for, unused as yet to her misfortune, she is quite helpless and needs our constant care, and it is pitiful to see her efforts to bear up and be cheerful.
"I need not tell you how I have sorrowed over the insult and wrongs inflicted upon you by a cowardly connection of our family, nor how anxious I was until the welcome news of your safety reached us. We owe you much, and more now since you were made the innocent victim of a plot aimed to destroy papa's chances.
"It is unbearable to think of your having to stand up and be shot at in our behalf; but oh, how glad I am that you had the old general with you. Is he not noble and good? He is quite carried away with you and never tires of talking of your coolness and courage. He says everything has ended beautifully but the election, and he could remedy that if papa would consent, but nothing in the world could take papa away from us now, and if he had been elected his resignation would have speedily followed.
"I know you are yet weary and bitter, and do not even care to see your friends, but that will pass and none will give you a more earnest welcome when you do come than
"Mary."
He read this many times, and each time found in it a new charm. Its simplicity and earnestness impressed him at one reading and its personal interest at another; its quick discerning sympathy in another.
It grew upon him, that letter. It was the only letter ever penned by a woman to him. Notes he had had by the score; rich young men in the great capitals of Europe do not escape nor seek to escape these, but this was straight from the heart of an earnest, self-reliant, sympathetic woman; one of those who have made the South a fame as far as her sons have traveled. It was a new experience and destined to be a lasting one.
Its effect was in the end striking and happy. Gradually he roused himself from the cynical lethargy into which he was sinking and began to look about him. After all he had much to live for, and with peace came new manhood. He would fight for the woman who had faith in him – such a fight as man never dared before. He looked up to find Virdow smiling on him through his tears.
He stood up. "I am going to make a statement now that will surprise and shock you, but the reason will be sufficient. First I ask that you promise me, as though we stood before our Creator, a witness, that never in this life nor the next, if consciousness of this goes with you, will you betray by word or deed anything of what you hear from my lips to-night. I do not feel any uneasiness, but promise."
"I promise," said Virdow, simply, "but if it distresses you, if you feel bound to me – "
"On the contrary, the reason is selfish entirely. I tell you because the possession of this matter is destroying my ability to judge fairly; because I want help and believe you are the only being in the world who can give it." He spoke earnestly and pathetically. "Without it, I shall become – a wreck." Then Virdow seized the speaker's hand.
"Go on, Edward. All the help that Virdow can give is yours in advance."
Edward related to him the causes that led up to the duel – the political campaign, the publication of Royson's card, and the history of the challenge.
"You call me Edward," he said; "the world knows me and I know myself as Edward Morgan. I have no evidence whatever to believe myself entitled to bear the name. All the evidence I have points to the fact that it was bestowed upon me as was my fortune itself – in pity. The mystery that overspreads me envelops Gerald also. But fate has left him superior to misfortune."
"It has already done for him what you fear for yourself – it has wrecked his life, if not his mind!" The professor spoke the words sadly and gently, looking into the night through the open window.
Edward turned toward him in wonder.
"I am sure. Listen and I will tell you why. To me it seems fatal to him, but for you there is consolation." Graphically he described then the events that had transpired during the few days of his stay at Ilexhurst; his quick perception that the mind of Gerald was working feverishly, furiously, and upon defined lines to some end; that something haunted and depressed him. His secret was revealed in his conduct upon the death of Rita.
"It is plain," said Virdow finally, "that this thought – this uncertainty – which has haunted you for weeks, has been wearing upon him since childhood. Of the events that preceded it I have little or no information."
Edward, thrilled to the heart by this recital and the fact to which it seemed to point, walked the floor greatly agitated. Presently he said:
"Of these you shall judge also." He took from the desk in the adjoining room the fragmentary story and read it. "This," he said, as he saw the face of the old man beam with intelligence, "is confirmed as an incident in the life of Gerald or myself; in fact, the beginning of life." He gave the history of the fragmentary story and of Rita's confession.
"By this evidence," he went on, "I was led to believe that the woman erred in the recognition of her own child; that I am in fact that child and that Gerald is the son of Marion. This in her last breath she seemed to deny, for when I begged her to testify upon it, as before her God, and asked the question direct, she cried out: 'They lied!' In this it seems to me that her heart went back to its secret belief and that in the supreme moment she affirmed forever his nativity. Were this all I confess I would be satisfied, but there is a fatal fact to come!" He took from his pocket the package prepared for Gen. Evan, and tore from it the picture of Marion.
"Now," he exclaimed excitedly, "as between the two of us, how can this woman be other than the mother of Gerald Morgan? And, if I could be mistaken as to the resemblance, how could her father fall into my error? For I swear to you that on the night he bent over the sleeping man he saw upon the pillow the face of his wife and daughter blended in those features!" Virdow was looking intently upon the picture.
"Softly, softly," he said, shaking his head; "it is a true likeness, but it does not prove anything. Family likeness descends only surely by profiles. If we could see her profile, but this! There is no reason why the child of Rita should not resemble another. It would depend upon the impression, the interest, the circumstances of birth, of associations – " He paused. "Describe to me again the mind picture which Gerald under the spell of music sketched – give it exactly." Edward gave it in detail.
"That," said Virdow, "was the scene flashed upon the woman who gazed from the arch. It seems impossible for it to have descended to Gerald, except by one of the two women there – the one to whom the man's back was turned. Had this mental impression come from the other source it seems to me he would have seen the face of that man, and if the impression was vivid enough to descend from mother to child it would have had the church for a background, in place of the arch, with storm-lashed trees beyond. This is reasonable only when we suppose it possible that brain pictures can be transmitted. As a man I am convinced. As a scientist I say that it is not proved."
Edward, every nerve strained to its utmost tension, every faculty of mind engaged, devoured this brief analysis and conclusion. But more proof was given! Over his face swept a shadow.
"Poor Gerald! Poor Gerald!" he muttered. But he became conscious presently that the face of Virdow wore a concerned look; there was something to come. He could not resist the temptation to clear up the last vestige of doubt if doubt could remain.
"Tell me," he said, "what do you require to satisfy you that between the two I am the son of Marion Evan?"
"Two things," said Virdow, quickly. "First, proof that Rita was in no way akin to the Evan family, for if she was in the remotest degree, the similarity of profiles could be accounted for. Second, that your own and the profile of Marion Evan were of the same angle. Satisfy me upon these two points and you have nothing to fear." A feeling of weakness overwhelmed Edward. The general had not seen in his face any likeness to impress him. And yet, why his marked interest? The whole subject lay open again.
And Marion Evan! Where was he to obtain such proof?
Virdow saw the struggle in his mind.
"Leave nothing unturned," said Edward, "that one of us may live free of doubt, and just now, God help me, it seems my duty to strive for him first."
"And these efforts – when – "
"To-night! Let us descend."
"We go first to the room of the nurse," said Virdow. "We shall begin there."
Edward led the way and with a lighted lamp they entered the room. The search there was brief and uneventful. On the wall in a simple frame was a portrait of John Morgan, drawn years before from memory by Gerald. It was the face of the man known only to the two searchers as Abingdon, but its presence there might be significant.
Her furniture and possessions were simple. In her little box of trinkets were found several envelopes addressed to her from Paris, one of them in the handwriting of a man, the style of German. All were empty, the letters having in all probability been destroyed. They, however, constituted a clew, and Edward placed them in his pocket. In another envelope was a child's golden curl, tied with a narrow black ribbon; and there was a drawer full of broken toys. And that was all.