"Well, doctor," she began, "you have returned to pass sentence upon me?"
"By no means, Mrs. Revaleon," he answered, hastily; "I have only to say that your case is a singular one. While I have no reason to believe that any real danger will ever result from the 'condition' of which you complain, I am forced to admit that I know of no treatment for you at this time. I beg you to excuse me now, as I am called to attend a critical case. My servant will wait upon you."
And with these hasty words, Morton took his departure.
CHAPTER III
"Now help, ye charming spells and periapts!"
Sir Francis Bacon maintained that every man is a debtor to his profession, and that in seeking to receive countenance and profit therefrom, he should of duty endeavor, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto. Undoubtedly every genuine professor realizes this obligation; while if he be of a truly appreciative nature, he will not lose sight of a concomitant duty towards those whose favor has lent encouragement to the practice of his art or profession, especially at the period of its incipience.
Such a debt of gratitude did young Doctor Loyd Morton owe the Effingham family.
Sidney Effingham had been a magnate in his day; a man who had freely given his distinguished influence towards the refinement of our, in some respects, too rapid Republican growth, and he had gone down to the tomb of his ancestors, leaving behind him worthy exemplars in the persons of his widow, his son and daughter. There had been an elder son, Malcolm by name, whose unwavering friendship for Morton in boyhood and early manhood had opened an avenue to the penniless student and orphan into the bosom of the Effingham family; but Malcolm Effingham had died of the Roman fever in Italy, and it had been Morton's melancholy duty, as the young gentleman's travelling-companion and guest, to close his friend's eyes in death and return to America with his body.
The untimely demise of his elder son had proved a grievous stroke to Sidney Effingham; yet he bore up bravely, in a measure transferring his thwarted interest to Malcolm's friend and class-mate. Thus it came about that Loyd Morton owed the perfecting of his education to Mr. Effingham, who insisted that the young man should return to Europe at his expense and complete his studies. Moreover, such was his almost morbid affection for all that pertained to his dead son, Sidney Effingham bequeathed a comfortable living to Morton, thus acknowledging him, as it were, an adopted son.
The death of this beneficent gentleman occurred during Morton's courtship in Germany, precipitating his marriage and immediate return to his native land. Though the widow welcomed young Mrs. Morton with maternal fervor, to Morton she frankly expressed her regret that he had placed himself beyond the possibility of assuming Malcolm's vacant place in her household.
"But my interest in you remains unabated," she assured the young physician, "and it shall be my pleasure to do all that lies in my power to insure you success in your chosen profession. Otherwise, leaving my personal affection for you out of the account, I should fail in my duty as the wife and mother of those who held your welfare and success so closely at heart."
And Serena Effingham had acted in accordance with her noble convictions and promise. Thanks to her unflagging interest in his behalf, Morton seemed to spring with winged feet into the coveted haven of fashionable patronage. There is no gainsaying the fact that he maintained his position by consummate ability, and equally there is no disputing the fact that he was fortunate in the possession of such eminently influential backing.
As has been stated, such were his engagements that but few hours of the day or night could he call his own, even during the period of his bereavement. His success had been phenomenal, two brief years having assured his standing among the leading physicians of his day.
This great burden of obligation weighed upon the young doctor's mind, as he sat beside Malcolm Effingham's brother while the carriage-wheels dashed through the murky streets of the town and out over the sodden road that led to Belvoir, – weighed upon his mind to the partial obliteration of his recent weird experience with Margaret Revaleon.
Romaine Effingham – dying!
Oh, it seemed incredible! How was it possible to couple that brilliant spirit with the grim austerity of Death?
"And yet," he thought, with a sickening pang at his heart, "should she die now, in her nineteenth year, she will have enjoyed as many days as were vouchsafed my poor Paula."
Paula! Merciful heaven, how came it about that he should feel at that moment as though he were summoned to Paula's bedside and not Romaine's?
With a start that was half-guilty, half-superstitious, he laid his hand upon the arm of the mutely eloquent figure at his side.
"Hubert!" he exclaimed in the tone of one who would fain drown the voice of conscience, "Hubert, my dear boy, why do you not speak? Are you so anxious?"
"Anxious!" replied young Effingham, "I am almost distracted. What will become of us should anything happen to Romaine! O Loyd, what was I to mother compared with father and Malcolm? what am I to her compared with Romaine?"
"You are unjust to yourself, Hubert, you – "
"Hush, hush! Such words from you, who know us so well, sound like lame condolence! I cannot bear it while there is a glimmer of hope. By and by, should there be no help for it, I may be glad to listen to you; but not now – oh, not now!"
"Hubert," Morton remarked after a momentary pause, "you must be calm. In the few minutes that remain to us I must learn from you something concerning Romaine's condition."
"God knows I am willing to help you all I can."
"What has happened to her? How is she affected?"
"We were sitting at dinner, Romaine being in her usual health and spirits. Indeed, I do not remember when she has been so gay. I suppose her high spirits were caused by the receipt of a letter to-day from Colley, stating that he should sail from Havre by the following steamer, and might outstrip his letter."
At mention of that name, which was simply the nickname of Colston Drummond, the affianced lover of Romaine Effingham, Loyd Morton shuddered involuntarily.
"Well, well," he urged, "what then?"
"Well, in the midst of a burst of laughter – you know her laugh, so like a peal of bells – Romaine suddenly turned ashy pale, and, with a gasp, sank back in her chair. My God, I shall never forget my sensation at that moment! She looked as father looked when he died."
"What did you do?"
"Do! We did everything that should be done in such an emergency. Mother was as firm as a rock; but I saw the look of despair in her eyes as she turned to me, saying, 'Go for Loyd, with all speed; go yourself, and bring him back!' – I have secured you; I have done all that I can. The rest remains with you."
"With me!" gasped Morton. "Do you mean to say that you have not called in some other physician at such a crisis?"
"We have perfect confidence in you, Loyd."
"Good heavens! This is too great a responsibility! I am not – not – " He was going to add, "I am not equal to such an emergency. You must send at once for some other doctor," when he paused abruptly, turning ghastly pale as the words recurred to him, unbidden as the mournful rustling of the leaves of memory,
"A woman's soul is trembling upon the threshold of eternity. If you are alone with her when that soul takes wing, my spirit will instantly take its place, and your skill will do the rest. Accomplish the resurrection of that body, and secure our further communion."
Consultation with another physician might be the means of saving Romaine Effingham's life! After all, what mattered it if he were destined to resurrect her body, though henceforth it was to become the domicile of a soul for the recovery of which he would have sacrificed twenty thousand Romaines?
Consequently he bit his lips in silence. And at that moment the massive gateway of Belvoir gave back a sepulchral echo of the grinding carriage-wheels, while lights glimmered wanly beyond the fog-trailed lawn.
An exceedingly charming girl was Romaine Effingham. She possessed that unconscious grace which resides in the joy of youth and ease of heart. She was beautiful, accomplished, brilliant, and when, upon the eve of his departure for Europe, her engagement to Colston Drummond was announced, the fashionable world joined its plaudits and congratulations to its acknowledgments for the favor of having been permitted to witness at least one genuine example of the eternal fitness of things.
Not to have known Romaine Effingham personally, may be accounted a positive deprivation; while, to have been ignorant of the existence of "Colley" Drummond, that estimable corypheus of patrician youth, was equivalent to confessing one's self quite unknown; and that without a shade of irony, since Colston Drummond was, in the best sense, a man of that world which has reason to consider itself well-born. So much having been admitted, one may feel inclined to sympathize with the legion who loved Romaine and admired her lover.
It was a grievous sight indeed, to see the fair young girl low lying in her dainty chamber, with the pallid sign of death on lip and cheek. Equally pitiful was it to mark the mute anguish of that noble mother, whose life had been one era of devotion to her children. They had been her very idols – her treasures beyond price. She had passed whole days and nights in attendance upon them during their slight juvenile ailments – days and nights which to fashionable women of her ilk are precious epochs of social dissipation. To have gone into society leaving one of her children ill at home, it mattered not how trifling the indisposition, would have been as utter an impossibility to Serena Effingham as for her to have regarded with an indifferent eye the present deathlike syncope of her beautiful daughter. As she had been faithful in the minutiæ of maternal duty, so was she proportionally constant in greater exigencies. With eyes haggard with suspense, she watched the wan face upon the pillow, while her heart-beats told her how the laggard moments dragged themselves away – away from the happy past, on towards the menacing future.
A sepulchral silence had settled upon the house, portentous in its profundity; consequently the slightest sound seemed almost painfully magnified. Naturally, then, the roll of the carriage-wheels upon the flagging before the principal entrance sounded an alarm to the anxious watcher's heart.
"They have come at last!" she breathed. "God grant that they come not in vain!"
With the prayer trembling upon her lips, she met Loyd Morton at the head of the staircase. She noted the deadly pallor upon the young doctor's face and the unusual dilation of his eyes; but she thought they argued his keen anxiety, as, in a certain sense, they did. She gave him her hand, with a firm clasp, and dimly noted that his were as cold as ice. She drew him to her and kissed him, heedless of the fact that he failed to return the salute.
"You must save her, Loyd," she murmured. "Our hope is built upon your skill. If ever you loved us, have pity upon us now!"
He made no reply to the solemn injunction; perhaps words failed him at that supreme moment, perhaps he felt silence to be the wiser course. She relinquished her hold upon him, and he crossed the hall. At the door of the dimly lighted chamber he paused and turned abruptly. The rustle of her dress betrayed the fact that she was close in his wake.
"Permit me to make an examination," he faltered, with evident constraint; "I – I will then report." The strained circumstances seemed to invest his words with a defiant ring – at least, her woman's instinct suggested the fancy; but she respected his request and joined her son, where he stood, at the head of the staircase, leaning upon his arm for support. From where they stood, mother and son could see Morton bending above the inanimate form, could watch him as he lowered his head close to the pillow, holding it in that position for what seemed a very eternity.
Was he listening for some token of fluttering vitality? Was he applying some remedy?
Once Serena Effingham started, as a single word, possibly a name, reached her listening ear from the dim chamber. Was it a name she heard? If so, whose name? For an instant she was half inclined to fancy that her tense anxiety had produced some passing delusion. Yet, had she been put upon her oath, she would have been forced to confess that the name which had reached her was that of one dead – the name of Paula!
The fancy appeared preposterous; she had no intention of betraying such a piece of sensationalism to her son, while Hubert Effingham had no opportunity of inquiring into the cause of her sudden emotion, since at the moment Morton quitted the bedside and came quickly forth to join them.
"Her swoon is yielding," he said, in answer to the eloquent appeal of their eyes.
"Thank God!"
"Yes, she had passed beyond the portals of death, but she has returned." He spoke according to his present conviction, not as the scientist he prided himself upon being. "She will shortly be conscious," he added, cutting short their eager queries; "her mind will be in an acutely sensitive condition, and, absolute quiet throughout the house is indispensable. I will watch till midnight when, if her condition is favorable, I will relinquish my place to you." He glanced at Serena Effingham. "I would advise you to secure what rest you can during the intervening hours."
He turned to re-enter the chamber, when the lady laid a detaining hand upon his arm.
"Loyd," she whispered, "tell me one thing. What do you consider the cause of this awful trance?"
"Her heart," he answered.
"Then she may die as her father died?"
"It does not follow. She may never have a recurrence of the trouble. What I fear is – "
"What do you fear?"
The sensitive lines of his face seemed to petrify as with a desperate resolution he replied:
"I fear her mind may be affected by this attack."
"Her mind! Oh, Loyd, tell me anything but that!"
"Would you prefer her death?" he demanded, almost harshly.
"Oh, no, no, no!"
"Then let us hope for the best; or at least make the best of the inevitable. You may take comfort in the fact that I promise you Romaine's life."
He turned abruptly as he spoke, and entering the chamber, silently but securely closed the door.
Then it was that the mother's fortitude gave way, and turning to her son, she flung herself upon his breast and burst into tears.
"Oh, Hubert," she sobbed, "what dreadful spell is upon us? After all these years – though I have known Loyd from his infancy, have loved him almost as one of my own children, to-night he seems a stranger to me! What does it mean? what does it all portend?"
He strove to soothe her with loving words, and almost bearing her precious weight in his arms, he led her away to her own apartments.
And then, in expressive silence, the night wore on to its mid-watch. The pale crescent of the moon dropped behind the hills, while here and there a lonesome star peered forth in the rifts of the scudding wrack.
At last, and just upon the stroke of midnight, the vigil was disturbed by the sound of wheels, of footsteps, of voices, and by the muffled unclosing and closing of doors. Loyd Morton started from his chair at the bedside of the sleeping girl. He was pallid to the lips, and with difficulty commanded the desperate condition of his nerves. Contrary to his commands, the door of the chamber had been opened to admit the stalwart figure of a man. The pair had not met in many a year, but in the dim radiance of the shaded lamp, their recognition was instantaneous.
For an instant Morton quailed. The intruder who had braved his authority, to which even the anxiety of a mother deferred, was Colston Drummond!
The confrontation bristled with omen.
CHAPTER IV
"I do not know what witchcraft's in him."
Had he been put upon the rack Loyd Morton would still have been unable to give any coherent account of his vigil at the bedside of Romaine Effingham. Four hours had elapsed from the moment that he closed the chamber-door until, upon the stroke of midnight, it opened to admit Colston Drummond. Reflection failed to assist him to any satisfactory explanation regarding the flight of the time. He was morally certain that he had not lost an instant in slumber, the tension upon his mind would be almost proof positive that he could not have lapsed into unconsciousness; and yet the span seemed a complete void as he looked back upon it.
Romaine still lived; indeed her hold upon vitality had visibly strengthened since Morton's advent, yet, so far as his cognizance of the phenomenon went, Nature unassisted had taken the resurrection into her own hands. Resurrection was Morton's estimate of the miracle, since every token of immediate dissolution was present in the appearance of his patient when first he bent over her. The eyes were glazed, the flesh clammy, and the pulsations imperceptible. The extremities were cold with that peculiar chill which is so eloquent to the practised touch. Death's conquest was imminent, perhaps assured, and he had done nothing to avert the dread consummation – nothing save to murmur the name of one which embodied, for him, the quintessence of existence here and hereafter.
"Paula!" he had murmured, half tentatively, half mechanically.
It must have been the result of sorcery if simply at the utterance of that name Death furled his pale flag and left the field to his erstwhile routed opponent. Yet such was the case, as the physician's keen senses promptly detected. The young man experienced a thrill second to none that as yet he had encountered in his professional career, as upon his finger-tips came the delicate flutter of the pulse, while to his eager sight followed a gentle upheaval of the breast that sent a quivering sigh to his listening ear.
It was a supreme moment to Loyd Morton.
Naturally his first impulse was to apply some restorative and thus assist resuscitation. There was brandy at hand, a small quantity of which he inserted, drop by drop, between the parted lips. The effect produced seemed magical; the respiration became steady, a delicate glow crept into the wan cheeks, while a genial warmth attended by that most encouraging of symptoms, a dew-like moisture, relaxed the cold rigidity of the hands that returned the faintest possible pressure as they rested in the young doctor's clasp. Every token of convalescence by degrees made itself manifest and progressed until the soft gray eyes unclosed, instinct with crescent intelligence.
The watcher bent eagerly so that his countenance should fill the field of her vision, so that her awakening consciousness should grasp his personality to the exclusion of all other objects. Apparently the unpremeditated act met with flattering success, in that Romaine Effingham's first utterance framed his name.
"Loyd!"
It was simply an articulate breath, but it was a conscious utterance capable of interpretation, and Morton was satisfied; nay, he was enraptured.
"Paula!" he exclaimed, in his exaltation, "Paula, you have come back to me!"
"I have – come back," was the tremulous reply.
"And we shall never, never again be parted," he urged with passionate intensity.
The dilated eyes watched him as if spell-bound.
"You understand that you are no longer Romaine, but Paula, my own dear, true love," he continued, giving each word its due import; "Romaine has gone to her rest, but you have returned to make my life once more worth the living! Oh, my dear one, tell me that you realize the situation, that you comprehend my words! Let me hear you say that you are Paula, my wife."
"Paula, your wife," came the obedient echo.
Had he been in his normal condition of self-control, Morton's exuberant satisfaction might have been tempered by a consciousness of the fact that he was forcing his own volition upon a cataleptic subject; the strained circumstances under which he labored, however, spared him this somewhat matter-of-fact view of the case. Indeed, he had closed all avenues of approach to unwelcome spectres of the scientific order, for the time being at least. Moreover, he had permitted himself to lose sight of an attribute which upon more than one occasion had been imputed to him. It had been whispered among his hyper-sensitive patients that the young physician possessed that most mysterious, yet positive, of gifts, mesmeric power, animal magnetism, – what you will. Be that as it may, Loyd Morton undoubtedly exerted a strong attraction for those in whom he was personally interested. Babblers had informed him of his endowment much, be it said, to his annoyance; but the fact remained that he held his fellow man in thrall, whether he would or not.
Either of the above considerations would have tinctured his overflowing cup with bitterness; but as he had already drained that cup of joy, it remained for digestion to prove whether the adverse mixture had crept in in some ingustable form.
A few more words of passionate admonition he addressed to his patient ere the eye-lids drooped and the breathing became measured as in that profound slumber which succeeds exhaustion.
And thereupon began that extraordinary vigil, during which Morton was conscious of naught save the assured resurrection and possible – he dared not think probable – reincarnation.
She had placed her hand in his ere she fell asleep, and he sat close beside her scarcely venturing to relinquish it into the keeping of its fellow where it rested upon her breast. By the light of the shaded lamp he studied the calm beauty of the girl's features, the restful slumber lending a heightening touch to their exquisite outline.
Always a being set above and apart from his anxious existence, he had seen even less than formerly of Romaine since his marriage, and in that time she had matured into the perfection of womanhood. He had loved her, as he had loved the other members of her family, with a love born of gratitude. There had been no sentiment in this love beyond that of grateful appreciation; he had loved Romaine exactly in the vein that he had loved her brothers; had he been called upon, he would have laid down his life for any of them with undiscriminating loyalty. Having been his intimate friend, Malcolm might have stood first in a test of self-sacrifice, but there had never been the slightest shade of difference in his sense of allegiance to either Hubert or Romaine. In a word, he had never loved Romaine otherwise than as a friend; within the niche before which his soul bowed down in all-absorbing idolatry he had set up the image of the woman who had been his wife, and as it was a case of soul-worship with him, the niche remained occupied to the eternal exclusion of rival effigies.
He recalled with a flutter of timid pride how officious friends, ambitious of his welfare, had ventured to couple his name with that of Romaine.
"You were her brother's 'Fidus Achates,'" they urged; "you have received not only marks of affection from every member of her family, but positive encouragement in every form. Take Malcolm's vacant place and be a son and brother and husband all in one."
To this friendly folly he smiled in answer, saying, "You admit that I assumed the rôle of Achates to perfection, do you?"
"Certainly!" was the reply.
"Then let me rest upon my laurels. I am wise in my own generation. I know the limit of my histrionic ability and have no wish to attempt an impersonation of Phaethon."
Hence his friends inferred that he was disinclined to court Romaine Effingham through modesty or diffidence, little dreaming that he refused to enter the lists through lack of inclination. Even upon this night as he sat at her bed-side, keeping vigil while she slept, satisfied that she was convalescent, he was simply grateful that heaven in its mercy had spared her to her mother and brother, and —
A cold perspiration akin to the dews of death, pearled upon his brow, grown suddenly pallid, as a problem of dire import flitted like a grewsome spectre into the field of his speculation.
"If," suggested the phantom, with appalling reason, "she is spared to her mother and brother, is she not spared as well to her affianced lover? Will he not shortly claim her as his own? And if, as you have been persuaded to believe, her soul is at rest while the soul of one you have loved and lost is renascent, incarnate in her body, how will you bear this second separation, this alienation in life, which promises to be infinitely more trying than that of death?"
He sat as one spell-bound, listening in horror to the silent voice.
He relaxed his hold upon the girl's hand and it fell limply at her side. His eyes grew haggard with the speechless agony of uncertainty, while his pallid lips strove to utter the cry of his anguished soul, "My God, why did I not foresee this emergency? Thou art my judge that I would not cause her one instant's misery, would not cast my shadow in the path of her perfect happiness for my life, and yet" – "And yet," resumed the voice of the phantom – alas, with no intonation of mockery – "and yet you must secure her body in order to claim communion with the soul that now animates it. Look upon her, strive to realize that this is Paula your wife and no longer the daughter of your benefactors."
"Oh, grant me some proof!" he moaned; "Paula! Paula, speak to me! In heaven's name, give me the satisfaction of knowing that you are with me once again, or this uncertainty will drive me mad!" He had dropped upon his knees at the bedside and had almost roughly resumed possession of her hand, passionately pressing it to his lips. "Paula," he cried, "assure me that you are here, grant me some token that you recognize me, Loyd, your husband, and help me to shape my course of action, for now is the appointed time; one precious moment lost and we may be estranged, hopelessly parted. I am groping in darkness like unto the shadow of death. If ever I needed thy guiding hand, I need it now, in this supreme, this awful moment. Oh, hear me, Paula! I conjure you, speak to me!"
As if in answer to his desperate exhortation, she stirred in her sleep, and he felt the soft flutter of her hand as it lay crushed between his.
"No, no!" he panted, "you must speak, or I shall not be satisfied that it is indeed you! Call me Loyd, husband – anything you will, so that I recognize your presence?"
He arose and bent low above her, almost crying aloud in exultation as her lips parted to exhale his name, simply his name.
"Loyd!"
Then the profound slumber resumed its sway.
He raised the quiescent figure in his arms and imprinted a passionate kiss upon the low brow.
"Did you not promise me," he whispered, "that before the dawn of another day I should take a living body in my arms and know that it is animated by your soul? Your prophecy has come true and I thank God for it!"
Very gently he lowered the delicate form among the pillows and with a reverent touch placed the hand that he had caressed, within the clasp of its fellow; then he turned and began to pace the shadowy chamber in a state of uncontrollable excitement.
"She warned me," he murmured, "that consequences would arise over which she should have no control; warned me that I should have to confront them. I assured her that I was not only ready, but eager to accept the chances. What was my conviction at that moment compared with the overwhelming conviction that commands me now? Then she was intangible, invisible even, – a spirit; now she is in the flesh and has addressed me with lips of flesh! Be the consequences what they may, this body which has served her soul with the means of reincarnation shall belong to me, as wholly and entirely as her soul, which is mine to all eternity!"
"You do not love that body," whispered the spectral Mentor; "beautiful as in itself it is, it possesses no attraction for you."
"By degrees I shall learn to cherish it," was the undaunted reply; "shortly I shall love it as being her abode."
Argument was out of the question in his existing condition of mental exultation; not that he had quite lost his grip upon himself, since some semblance of common-sense had borne ecstatic fancy company in her flight to the lofty pinnacle upon which she now poised, as his next more material thought gives evidence. He had reached the fire-place in his nervous perambulation and had paused upon the hearth, mechanically setting his gaze upon the smouldering embers.
"I would to heaven," he muttered, "that Paula's spirit had returned to me in any other guise than this! I shudder before the complication that looms upon the near horizon, and yet in what am I to be blamed for what of necessity must transpire in the immediate future? How can I be expected, in the very nature of things, to be able to explain to Drummond the reason that he should cease to cherish his love and relinquish all to me? Would he not consider me hopelessly insane were I to lay before him the reason for my determined action, expose a scheme which even in my eyes seems unparalleled in the history of man? No, no! I am convinced that so occult a compact must remain an inviolable secret between the Infinite and me. I feel myself to be but a mere factor in some great covenant, an instrument, a simple means tending towards an end of which I am in ignorance."
The smouldering embers fell together upon the hearth, emitting one expiring lance of flame, illumining his pallid features grown tense and rigid with resolution.
"I may be forced to dissimulation, even to deceit," he concluded, turning away from the dazzling gleam, "in order to effect my purpose. Already, as it were unconsciously, have I prepared Mrs. Effingham for possible catastrophes. I have told her that her daughter will recover, but in the same breath I warned her that I feared for her mental condition. Why I so warned her, heaven only knows. So far as I know at present that utterance was a lie, a base, ignoble fabrication; but it came unbidden to my lips, and who shall say that it came not at the instigation of some mysterious power beyond and above me? Who shall deny that, since I have ceased to be the man I was, some species of clairvoyant skill has descended upon me as the natural concomitant of the atmosphere of unreality that henceforth I shall breathe?"