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Dr. Leroy found Mrs. Walters in the attractive sitting-room, brightened by flowers (most of them sent by Christopher) that had been set apart for Penelope. The medium, usually so serene, was pale and agitated and had evidently been repairing some recent disorder of her hair and dress.
“She is asleep, doctor,” panted Seraphine, and she pointed to the closed door of the bedroom. “We have had quite a bad time.”
Then Seraphine told the doctor what had happened. She and Penelope had spent the evening pleasantly, sewing and chatting, and Mrs. Wells had seemed her old joyous self, free from fears and agitations. She listened with touching confidence when the medium assured her that her mother's exalted spirit was trying to help her. And she promised to bear in mind Dr. Leroy's injunction that, just before composing herself to sleep, she must hold the thought strongly that she was God's child, guarded from all evil by the power of God's love. Also she would search into her heart to find the obstacle that prevented her mother from coming closer to her.
About nine o'clock Penelope said she was sleepy andwould lie down to rest, at which Seraphine rejoiced, hoping this might indicate a break in the spell of fear that had kept Mrs. Wells in exhausting suspense. Perhaps this was an answer to their prayers. She assisted the patient, lovingly and encouragingly, to prepare herself for the night and at half-past nine left her in bed with the light extinguished and the door leading into the sitting-room open, so that she could hear the slightest call.
About twenty minutes later, as Seraphine sat meditating, her attention was attracted by a sound from the bedroom and, looking through the door, she was surprised to see Mrs. Wells sitting up in bed and writing rapidly on a large pad from which she tore sheets now and then, letting these fall to the floor. So dim was the bedroom light that it was impossible for Penelope to see her penciled writing, nor did she even glance at the words, but held her eyes fixed in a far-away stare, as if she were guided by some distant voice or vision. After a time, Penelope ceased writing and sank back in slumber upon her pillow, allowing the pad to fall by her side.
“Automatic writing,” nodded the psychologist.
“Yes. I entered the bedroom softly and picked up the sheets. There are two communications, one in a large scrawl written by a woman—I believe, it is Penelope's mother. The other is in a small regular hand with quick powerful strokes, evidently a man's writing. There! You see the handwriting is quite different from Penelope's.”
Leroy studied the sheets in silence.
“Have you read these messages?”
“I read one of them, doctor, the one from Penelope's mother—it is full of love and wisdom—and I was just beginning the other when a terrible thing happened. That is why I sent for you. I was sitting in this rocking chair with my back turned to the bedroom door, absorbed in reading this message, when suddenly—”
“Wait! Let me read it first. Hello! It's for Captain Herrick.”
“Not all of it. Won't you read it aloud, doctor?”
The medium closed her eyes while Leroy, speaking in a low tone but distinctly, repeated this mysterious communication:
Tell Captain Herrick it was I he saw on the battlefield guiding the stumbling footsteps of my little girl, helping her to find the place where he lay. I realized that, through her love for him, which she would experience later, she would build better and higher ideals than the ones she was then holding deep within her soul. Tell him also that he is in danger from something he is carrying....
Here the writing became impossible to decipher.
“See how the powers of Love work against the powers of Evil!” mused the psychic. “I must show this to Captain Herrick. Well, what happened?”
Seraphine went on to say that she had just begun to read the second piece of automatic writing and had only finished a few lines—enough to see that it was very different from the first—when she felt a clutch of hands around her throat and realized that Fauvette had crept up cunningly from behind. There had beena struggle in which the medium tried vainly to cry out for help or to reach the bell, but her enemy was too strong for her, and she had grown weaker; then, using strategy, she let herself fall limp under the murderous hands, whereupon Fauvette, laughing triumphantly, had loosened her grip for a moment and allowed Seraphine to free herself.
“Then I caught her and held her so that I could look into her eyes and, finally, I subdued her. She cried out that she would come back again, but I forced her to lie down and almost instantly she fell into a deep sleep.”
“It was your love and your fearlessness that gave you the victory,” Leroy said quietly. Then he took up the other message and read it with darkening eyes.
“Horrible! The change must have come while she was writing this.”
He opened the bedroom door softly and, with infinite compassion in his rugged face, bent over Penelope who was sleeping peacefully, her loveliness marred by no sign of evil.
An hour passed now, during which the spiritual physician gave Seraphine her instructions for the night and made preparations for the struggle that he knew was before him.
Meantime Captain Herrick had reached the sanitarium and, finding Dr. Owen in the study, had laid before him a plan to save Penelope, if it was true, as Christopher believed, that her trouble was simply in the imagination. He proposed to divert his sweetheart's attention so that she would not know when thedeadly Fauvette hour was at hand. And to this end he had arranged to have the clocks set back half an hour.
“It can't do any harm, can it, sir?” he urged with a lover's ardor, “and it may succeed. Dr. Leroy says it's fear that's killing her. Well, we'll drive away her fear. I've fixed it at the church down the street, the one that chimes the quarter-hours, to have that clock put back. And the clocks in the house are easy. What do you think of it, sir?” he asked eagerly.
The old doctor frowned in perplexity.
“I don't know, Chris. You'll have to put this up to Dr. Leroy. He's a wonderful fellow. I've had my eyes opened tonight or my soul—something.”
The two men smoked solemnly.
“I believe we're going to save Penelope, my boy—somehow. It's a mighty queer world. I don't know but we are all more or less possessed by evil spirits, Chris. What are these brainstorms that overwhelm the best of us? Why do good men and women, on some sudden, devilish impulse, do abominable things, criminal things, that they never meant to do? We doctors pretend to be skeptical, but we all come up against creepy stuff, inside confession stuff that we don't talk about.”
He was silent again.
“There was a patient of mine in Chicago, a tough old rounder,” Owen resumed, “who changed overnight into the straightest chap you ever heard of—because he went down to the edge of the Great Shadow—he was one of the passengers saved from the Titanic. Hetold me that when he was struggling there in the icy ocean, after the ship sank,he saw white shapes hovering over the waters, holding up the drowning! I never mentioned that until tonight.”
They smoked without speaking.
“I—I had an experience like that myself, sir,” ventured Christopher. “I've never spoken of it either—people would call me crazy, but—that night when I lay out there in front of Montidier, among the dead and dying, I saw a white shape moving over the battlefields.”
“You did?”
“Yes, sir. It was the figure of a woman—coming towards me—she seemed to be leading Penelope. I saw her distinctly—she had a beautiful face.”
Silence again.
Dr. Leroy joined them presently and, on learning of Captain Herrick's plan, he made no objections to it, but said it would fail.
“We are dealing with an evil power, gentlemen, that is far too clever to be deceived by such a trick,” he assured them; but Christopher was resolved to try.
Leroy then described Seraphine's narrow escape and showed them the automatic writing, the message from Penelope's mother, not the evil message; whereupon Christopher, in amazement, gave the corroborative testimony of his battlefield experience. The psychologist nodded gravely.
At five minutes of twelve (correct time) Seraphine sent down word that Mrs. Wells had awakened and was asking eagerly for Captain Herrick.
“Go to her at once, my young friend,” directed Leroy. “Do all you can to encourage her and make her happy. Tell her there is nothing to fear because her mother's pure soul is guarding her. Show her this message from her mother. And whatever happens do not let your own faith waver. I assure you our precautions are taken against everything. God bless you.”
When Christopher had gone, Leroy told Dr. Owen about the second communication in automatic writing which he had withheld from Captain Herrick.
“This is undoubtedly from the evil spirit,” he said, and he read it aloud:
“I was one of many loosed upon earth when the war began. I rode screaming upon clouds of poison gas. I danced over red battlefields. I entered one of the Gray ones, an officer, and revelled with him in ravished villages. Then I saw Penelope going about on errands of mercy, I saw her beautiful body and the little spots on her soul that she did not know about, and when her nerves were shattered, I entered into her. Now she is mine. I defy YOU to drive me out. Already her star burns scarlet through a mist of evil memories. I see it now as she sleeps! I shall come back tonight and make her dream.”
“You see what we have against us,” Leroy said, and his face was sad, yet fixed with a stern purpose.
And now the old materialist asked anxiously, not scoffingly: “Doctor, do you really believe that this spirit can drag Mrs. Wells down?”
“That depends upon herself. Mrs. Wells knowswhat she must do. I have told her. If she does this, she will be safe. If not—”
His eyes were inexpressibly tragic, and at this moment the neighboring chimes resounded musically through the quiet sanitarium—a quarter to twelve!
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When Seraphine led Captain Herrick into the bedroom where Penelope lay propped up against pillows, her dark hair in braids and a Chinese embroidered scarf brightening her white garment, it seemed to Christopher that his beloved had never been so adorably beautiful.
Gallantly and tenderly he kissed the slim white hand that his lady extended with a brave but pathetic smile.
Seraphine withdrew discreetly.
The lovers were alone.
It was an oppressive night, almost like summer, and Penelope, concerned for her sweetheart's comfort, insisted that he take off his heavy coat, and draw up an easy chair by her bedside.
They tried to talk of pleasant things—the lovely flowers he had sent her—how well she was looking—but it was no use. The weight of the approaching crisis was upon both of them.
“Oh, Chris, how we go on pretending—up to the very last!” she lifted her eyes appealingly. “We know what has happened—what may happen, but—” she drew in her breath sharply and a little shiver ran through her. “I—I'm afraid.”
He took her hand strongly in his and with all a lover's ardor and tenderness tried to comfort her. Then, rather clumsily, he showed her the automatic writing, not quite sure whether to present this as a thing that he believed in or not.
Penelope studied the large, scrawled words.
“How wonderful!” she murmured. “I remember vaguely writing something, but I had no idea what it was. My mother! It must be true! It's her handwriting. She was watching over us, dear—she is watching over us still. That ought to give us courage, oughtn't it?”
She glanced nervously at the little gilt clock that was ticking quietly over the fireplace. Ten minutes to twelve!
“What is this danger, that she speaks of, Chris? What is it—that you are carrying?”
The captain's answer was partly an evasion. He really did not know what danger was referred to, unless it could be a small flask from the laboratory with a gas specimen for Dr. Owen that he had left in the other room in his coat, but this was in a little steel container and could do no harm.
“It may mean some spiritual danger, Pen, from selfishness or want of faith or—or something like that,” he suggested. “I guess I am selfish and impatient—don't you think so?”
“Impatient, Chris?”
“I mean impatient for you to get well, impatient to take you far away from all these doctors and dreams,and just have you to myself. That isn't very wicked, is it, sweetheart?”
He stroked her hand fondly and looked deep into her wonderful eyes. Penelope sighed.
“I—I suppose it will all be over soon—I mean we shall know what's going to happen, won't we?”
It was her first open reference to the peril hanging over them, and again, involuntarily, she glanced at the clock. Five minutes to twelve! It was really twenty-five minutes past twelve!—but she did not know that.
“Darling, I don't believe anything is going to happen. Our troubles are over. You are guarded by this beautiful love—all these prayers. I've been saying prayers, myself, Pen—for both of us.”
“Dear boy!”
“I want you to promise me one thing—you love me, don't you? No matter what happens, you love me?”
Her eyes glowed on him.
“Oh yes, with all my heart.”
“You're going to be my wife.”
“Ye—es, if—if—”
“All right, we'll put down theifs. I want you to promise that if this foolish spell, or whatever it is, is broken tonight—if nothing happens at half-past twelve, and you don't have this bad dream, then you'll forget the whole miserable business and marry me tomorrow. There! Will you?”
“Oh, Chris! Tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow! I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, but I believe I can cure you myself. Will you promise, Pen?”
Her eyes brimmed with tears of gratitude and fondness.
“You want me—anyway?”
“Anyway.”
“Then I say—yes! I will! I will! Oh my love!” She drew him slowly down to her and kissed his eyes gently, her face radiant with sweetness and purity. A moment later the chimes rang out twelve.
As the minutes passed Christopher watched her in breathless but confident expectation. The crisis had come and she was passing it—she had passed it safely. They talked on fondly—five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and still there were no untoward developments, no sign of anything evil or irrational. Penelope was her own adorable self. The spell was broken. Nothing had happened.
“You see, it's all right?” he laughed. “You needn't be afraid any more.”
“Wait!” she looked at the clock. “Ten minutes yet!”
He longed to tell her that they had already passed the fatal moment, passed it by twenty minutes, but he restrained his ardor.
“Chris, my love, if we are really to be married tomorrow—how wonderful that seems!—I must have no secrets from you. What my mother said is true—a woman must cleanse her soul. I want to tell you something—for my sake, not for yours—then we will never refer to it again.”
“But, Penelope—”
“For my sake, Chris.”
“It isn't about that steamboat?”
“It is, darling. I must tell it. Fix the pillows behind me. There! Sit close to me—that's right. Now listen! This dream is a repetition of what happened on the boat. It would have been much better if I had told you all about it long ago.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Because—it is not so much the memory of what I did that worries me, as the fear that—you will be ashamed of me or—or hate me—when you know.”
Herrick saw that her cheeks were flushed, but at least her mind was occupied, he reflected, and the minutes were passing.
“I could never be ashamed of you, Penelope.”
“If I were only sure of that,” she sighed, then with a great effort, and speaking low, sometimes scarcely lifting her eyes, she told her lover the story of the Fall River steamboat.
The main point was that her husband, a coarse sensualist, whom she despised, had, during the year preceding his death, accepted achambre apartarrangement, that being the only condition on which Penelope would continue to live with him, but, on the occasion of this journey down from Newport, he had broken his promise and entered her stateroom.
“It was an oppressive night, like this,” she said, “and I had left the deck door ajar, held on a hook. I was trying to sleep, when suddenly I saw a man's arm pushed in through the opening. I shall neverforget my fright, as I saw that black sleeve. Do you understand what I mean? Look!”
Gathering her draperies about her, Penelope sprang lightly out of bed and moved swiftly to the bedroom door, while Christopher, startled, followed the beauty of her sinuous form.
“His arm came through—like this,” she stepped outside the bedroom, and, reaching around the edge of the door showed her exquisite bare arm within. “See? Then my husband entered slowly and—as soon as I saw his eyes,” her agitation was increasing, “I knew what to expect. His face was flushed. He had been drinking. He looked at me and—then he locked the door—like this. I crouched away from him, I was frozen with terror, but—but—” she twined her hands in distress. “Oh, you'll hate me! I know you'll hate me!”
“No!”
“I tried so hard to resist him. I pleaded, I wept. I begged on my knees—like this.”
“Please—please don't,” murmured Christopher, as he felt the softness of her supplicating body.
“But Julian was pitiless. He caught me in his arms. I fought against him. I struck him as I felt his loathsome kisses. I said I would scream for help and—he laughed at me. Then—”
She stopped abruptly, leaving her confession unfinished, and, standing close to her lover, held him fascinated by the wild appeal of her eyes and the heaving of her bosom.
Suddenly Christopher's heart froze with terror. Thedreaded change had come. This glorious young creature whose glances thrilled him, whose flaunted beauty maddened him, was not Penelope any more, butthe other, Fauvette, the temptress, the wanton.
“Chris!” she stepped before him splendid in the intensity of her emotion. Her garment was disarranged, her beautiful hair spread over her white shoulders. She came close to him—closer—and clung to him.
“Why—why did you lock that door?” he asked unsteadily.
“I did not notice,” she answered in pretended innocence, and he knew that she was lying. “Do you mind, dear? Do you mind being alone with me?” Then, before he could answer, she offered her lips. “My love! My husband! Kiss me!”
It was too much. He clasped her in his arms and held her. He knew his danger, but forgot everything in the deliciousness of her embraces.
“Penelope!”
She drew back in displeasure.
“No! I'm not Penelope. Look at me! Look!”
What was it the soldier read in those siren eyes—what depths of allurement—what sublime degradation?
“Fauvette!” he faltered.
“Yes, your Fauvette. Say it!”
He said it, knowing that his power of resistance was breaking. He was going to yield to her, he could not help yielding. What did the consequences matter? She was too beautiful.
Then slowly, musically, the neighboring chimes resounded.
A quarter to one!
And Christopher remembered.
God! What should he do? He straightened from her with hands clenched and eyes hardening.
In a flash she saw the change. She knew what he was thinking and pressed close to him, offering again her red lips.
“No!”
“Don't be a fool! You can saveher, your goody-goody Penelope. It's the only way. I will leave her alone, except occasionally—I swear I will.”
“No! You're lying!” It seemed as if he repeated words spoken within him.
“Lying?” Her eyes half closed over slumberous fires. “Do you think Penelope can ever love you as I can—as your Fauvette can? Share her with me or—” she panted, “or you will lose her entirely. Penelope dies tomorrow night, you know that, unless—”
Frantically she tried to encircle him with her arms, but Herrick repulsed her. Some power beyond himself was strengthening him.
“Oh!” she cried in fury, “you don't deserve to have a beautiful woman. Very well! This is the end!” She darted to the bedroom door and unlocked it. “Come! I'll show you.”
Deathly pale, she led the way into the sitting-room and, going to Christopher's coat, she drew out a small flask.
“There! This is the danger she wrote about.Iknow.Spiritual danger! Ha! I'm going to open this. Yes, I am. You can't stop me.”
“Don't! It's death!”
But already she had unscrewed a metal stopper and drawn forth a small glass vial filled with a colorless liquid.
“One step nearer, and I'll smash this on the floor!” she threatened. “If I can't have you,shenever shall!”
The captain faced her quietly, knowing well what was at stake.
“Penelope!”
She stamped her foot. “I'm not Penelope. I'm Fauvette. I hate Penelope. For the last time—will you do what I want?”
“No!”
She lifted the vial.
“Stop!” came a masterful voice, and, turning, they saw Dr. Leroy standing in the outer doorway. Back of him were Seraphine and Dr. Owen.
“Give that to me.”
The psychologist advanced toward her slowly, holding out his hands. Fauvette stared at him, trembling.
“No! I'll throw it down.”
His eyes blazed upon her. His outspread arms seemed to envelope her.
“You cannot throw it down! Come nearer! Give it to me!”
Like a frightened child she obeyed.
“Now go into the bedroom! Lie down! Sleep!”
Again she obeyed, turning and walking slowly to the bed; but there she paused and said with scornful deliberateness: “You can drive me out now, but I'll come back when she sleeps. I'll make her dream. Damn you! And tomorrow night—Ha! You'll see!”
Dr. Leroy's stern gaze did not falter, but compelled Penelope to go back to the couch, where almost immediately her tragic eyes closed in slumber.
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What happened on the last day, or rather the last night, of Mrs. Wells' psychological crisis may be regarded either as a purely subjective phenomena, a dream or a startling experience of the soul, or as something that came from without, a telepathic or spiritualistic manifestation. In any case note must be made of the testimony of Dr. William Owen, an extremely rational person, that after midnight on this occasion he distinctlysawscarlet lights moving about the darkened room near Penelope's couch.
The patient passed the day quietly (after sleeping late) and was advised not to see her lover, although Dr. Leroy did not insist upon this. Mrs. Wells agreed, however, that any conversation with Christopher might be harmfully agitating, and was content to send him a loving message, together with a sealed communication that was not to be opened unless—unless things went badly.
“Do you think I am going to pull through tonight, doctor?” she asked tremulously about three in the afternoon.
“I am sure you will, Mrs. Wells, if you will onlytrust me and do what I have told you to do. Your fate is in your own hands—entirely.”
Dr. Leroy spoke confidently, but she shook her head in distress of mind.
“I wish I could believe what you say. I would give anything to feel sure that my mother is watching over me, trying to come to me; but I can't believe it. If she wants to come, why doesn't she do it? Why didn't she come to me last night when I needed her so terribly?”
“Seraphine has told you why, she says the conditions are not right. Is that so surprising? Take a telephone—you can't talk over it unless the connections are right, can you? Take a telescope or a microscope—you can see nothing through them unless the instruments are in focus, can you? Take an automobile—it will not move an inch unless all the parts are properly adjusted, will it? You may have the finest photographic camera in the world, yet you will get no picture unless you expose the sensitive plate in just the right way—isn't that true? Suppose a savage refused to believe in photography, or in the telephone, or the telescope, or in any of our great inventions, unless they would operate according to the fancy of his ignorant mind, regardless of scientific laws? What results would he get? The very same kind that we get in the psychic world if we refuse to obey psychic laws.”
The fair patient moved wearily on her pillow with signs of increasing discouragement.
“I have not refused to obey psychic laws, I don't know what the laws are. How can I believe in something that is entirely unknown to me? I can't do it, I can't do it.”
“But, Mrs. Wells, when so much is at stake, when everything is at stake, can't you take an open-minded attitude toward these mysteries? Why not submit to the indicated conditions and see what happens? If there is only one chance in a hundred that your mother can really come to you and help you, why not take that chance? You believe that your mother is an exalted spirit, don't you?”
“Oh, yes. I am sure she is.”
“You don't doubt that she would be glad to help you in your present trouble, if she could, do you?”
“No, of course not, but what can I do? I say my prayers, I try to have good thoughts—what else can I do?”
The spiritual healer answered with sudden impressiveness.
“Penelope, you must cleanse your soul of evil. There is something you are keeping back—perhaps you do not know what it is yourself. I can only tell you to think, to look into the past, to search into your soul—just as if you were coming before a great, wise, loving Judge who cannot be deceived. He wants you to confess something—I don't know what it is, you must find that out for yourself—but when you have confessed, Iknowthat help will come to you through your mother. Now close your eyes. Don't speak. Think! Think of your mother.”
He laid his hands gently on her forehead and for some minutes there was silence.
“Now I shall leave you alone. In an hour I will send Seraphine to you.”
Then he left her.
At four o'clock Mrs. Walters came in with an armful of flowers from Christopher and the two women talked of indifferent things over their tea. Then they went for a drive in the park and Penelope returned blooming like a lovely rose; but not one word did she breathe of her deeper thoughts. Seraphine waited.
Seven o'clock!
At last the barrier of pride and reserve began to crumble. Penelope turned to her old friend, trying at first to speak lightly, but her troubled eyes told the story of tension within. Then came the confession—in broken words. There were two things on her conscience—one that she had done, but it wasn't exactly her fault, one that she did not do, but she meant to do it. She supposed that was a sin just the same.
Mrs. Walters smiled encouragingly.
“It can't be so serious a sin, can it? Tell me everything, Pen.”
With flaming cheeks the young widow told how she had meant to adopt a child—in France—that would really have been—her own child. She did not do this because she met Captain Herrick, but—she would have done it. The other thing was what happened on the Fall River steamboat—with Julian. On that tragic summer night, she had finally yielded to him and—she had wanted to yield!
To which Seraphine made the obvious reply: “Still, my dear, he was your husband.”
“But I had sworn that never—never—it was so—ignoble! I despised him. Then I despised myself.”
The medium listened thoughtfully.
“You trust me, don't you, Pen? You know I want to do what is best for you?” She passed her arm affectionately around her distressed friend.
“Oh, yes. You have proved it, dearest. I'll never be able to repay your love.”
Mrs. Wells began to cry softly.
“Please don't. We need all our courage, our intelligence. It doesn't matter how wrong you have been in the past, if you are right in the present. The trouble with you, dear child, is that you cannot see the truth, although it is right under your eyes.”
“But I am telling the truth,” Penelope protested tearfully. “I am not keeping anything back.”
“You don't mean to keep anything back—but—”
The psychic's deep-set, searching eyes seemed to read into the soul of the fair sufferer.
“You showed me parts of your diary once—what you wrote in New York after your husband died—before you went to France. There were four years—you remember?”
“Yes.”
“How would you interpret those four years, Pen? You were not worried about money—Julian left you enough to live on. You had no children, no responsibilities. You were in splendid health and very beautiful. What was in your mind most of the time? How did you get that idea of adopting a child in France?It must have come gradually. How did it come?Whydid it come?”
“Because I was—lonely.”
“Is that all? Think!”
There was silence.
“Why did you dance so much during those four years?”
“I like dancing. It's good exercise.”
“And all those allurements of dress—clinging skirts, low-cut waists, no corsets—why was that?”
“I hate corsets. I don't need them. I can't breathe in corsets.”
“And those insidious perfumes?”
“I don't see what that has to do with it.”
“Those are little indications. But take the main point, your desire to have a child—of your own. Do you really love children, Pen? Have you ever shown that you do? Did you try to have children when you were married?”
“Nothischildren! God forbid!”
Seraphine hesitated as if dreading to wound her friend.
“I must go on, dear. We must get to the bottom of this. Suppose you had done what you intended to do? And had come back to America with an adopted child? And suppose no one had ever known the truth, about it—do you think you would have been happy?”
Penelope sighed wearily.
“Is a woman ever happy?”
“Wait! Let us take one point. You have always loved men's society, haven't you? That's natural,they're all crazy about you. Well, do you think that would have changed just because you had a child? Do you?”
“No—no, I suppose not.”
“You would have been just as beautiful. You would have gone on wearing expensive clothes, wouldn't you? You would have kept up the old round of teas and dinners, theatres, dances, late suppers—with a train of men dangling after you—flirting men, married men—men who try to kiss women in taxicabs—you know what I mean?”
Penelope bit her red lips at this sordid picture.
“No,” she said, “I don't think I would have done that. I would have changed, I intended to change. That was why I wanted a child—to give me something worthy of my love, something to serve as an outlet for my emotions.”
The medium's eyes were unfathomably sad and yearning.
“Is that true, Pen? A child calls for ceaseless care—unselfishness. You know that? Did you really long for a child in a spirit of unselfish love? Did you?”
But Penelope was deaf to this touching appeal.
“Certainly,” she answered sharply. “I wanted a child to satisfy my emotional nature. What else do you think I wanted it for?”
Mrs. Walters' face shone with ineffable tenderness.
“That is what I want you to find out, my darling. When you have answered that question I believe the barrier that keeps your dear mother away will beremoved. Now I am going to leave you to your own thoughts. God bless you!”
At ten o'clock Dr. Leroy directed Mrs. Wells to prepare herself for the night and told her she was to sleep in a different room, a large chamber that had been made ready on the floor below. As Penelope entered this room a dim light revealed some shadowy pieces of furniture and at the back a recess hung with black curtains. In this was a couch and two chairs and on the wall a familiar old print, “Rock of Ages,” showing a woman clinging to a cross in a tempest.
“Please lie down, Mrs. Wells,” said Leroy with cheerful friendliness. “You don't mind these electrics?”
He turned on a strong white light that shone down upon the patient and threw the rest of the room into darkness. Then Penelope, exquisitely lovely in her white robe, stretched herself on the couch, while the doctor and Seraphine seated themselves beside her.
“This light will make you sleep better when I turn it off,” explained the physician. Then he added: “I will ask Dr. Owen to come in a little later.”
Eleven o'clock!
Not yet had the patient spoken and time was passing, the minutes that remained were numbered. Mrs. Walters essayed by appealing glances to open the obstinately closed doors of Penelope's spiritual consciousness, but it was in vain.
Half past eleven!
The spiritual healer rose, his face set with an unalterable purpose.
“I will turn down the light, Mrs. Wells,” he said quietly. “I want you to compose yourself. Remember that God is watching over you. You are God's child. He will guard you from all evil. Hold that thought strongly as you go to sleep.”
Penelope closed her eyes. Her face was deathly pale in the shadows. The minutes passed.
“I—I am afraid to go to sleep,” the sufferer murmured, and her hands opened and closed nervously as if they were clutching at something.
“Think of your mother, dear,” soothed Seraphine. “Her pure spirit is near you, trying to come nearer.Oh God, keep Penelope, Thy loving child, under the close guardianship of her mother's exalted spirit in this her hour of peril.”
Twelve o'clock by the musical, slow-chiming bells!
Then at last Penelope spoke, her face transfigured with spiritual light and beauty.
“Doctor,—I—I know I have only a few minutes,” she began haltingly, but almost immediately became calm, as if some new strength or vision had been accorded her. “I realize that my troubles have come from selfishness and—sensuality. I have deceived myself. I blamed my husband for encouraging these desires in me, but—I knew what kind of a man my husband was before I married him. There was another man, a much finer man, who asked me to be his wife, but I refused him because—in a way I—wanted the kind of husband that—my husband was.”
She went on rapidly, speaking in a low tone but distinctly:
“In the years after my husband's death I was—playing with fire. I craved admiration. I wanted to go as near the danger point—with men—as I dared. I deceived myself when I said I wanted a child—of my own—to satisfy my emotional nature. What I really wanted was an excuse—to—give myself—to a man.”
Some power beyond herself upheld the penitent in this hard ordeal. Her eyes remained fixed on the Cross to which she seemed to cling in spirit even as the woman pictured there clung to the Cross with outstretched arms.
There was an impressive silence, then the spiritual teacher, his voice vibrant with tenderness and faith, spoke these words of comfort:
“Penelope, you have cleansed your soul. You can sleep without fear. When your dream begins you will know that the powers of love are guarding you. You are God's child. No harm can befall you, for you will reach out to the Cross,you will reach out to the Cross!”
“Yes,” she murmured faintly. Her eyelids fluttered and closed. She drew a long sigh of relief, then her breathing became regular and her face took on an expression of lovely serenity. She was sleeping.
And then the dream!
Penelope was in that tragic stateroom once more. She heard the throb of engines and sounds on the deck overhead—the echoing beat of footsteps, while the steady swish of the waters came in through the open window. She turned restlessly on her wide brass bed trying to sleep.
How oppressive was the night! She looked longingly at the stateroom door which she had fixed ajar on its hook. If she could only go out where the fresh breezes were blowing and spread her blanket on the deck—what a heavenly relief!
Penelope sat up against her pillows and looked out over the sighing waters illumined by an August moon. In the distance she watched the flashes of a lighthouse and counted the seconds between them....
Suddenly she froze with terror at the sight of a black sleeve, a man's arm, pushed in cautiously through the door, and a moment later Julian entered. She saw him plainly in the moonlight. He wore a dinner coat. He looked handsome but dissipated. His face was flushed, his dress disordered. He came to her bed and caught her in his arms. He kissed her. He drew her to him, close to him. She remembered the perfume of his hair. He said she belonged to him. He was not going to let her go. Promises did not matter—nothing mattered. This was a delicious summer night and—
“Oh God, let Thy love descend upon Penelope and strengthen her,” prayed Seraphine, kneeling by the couch.
The dream moved on relentlessly toward its inevitable catastrophe. Penelope tried to resist the intruder, but she knew it was in vain. She wept, protested, pleaded, but she knew that presently she would be swept in a current of fierce desire, she would wish to surrender, she would be incapable ofnotsurrendering.
“Oh God, let the spirit of the mother come close to her imperilled child,” prayed Seraphine.
In her dream Penelope was yielding. She had ceasedto struggle. She was clasped in her husband's arms and already was turning willing and responsive lips to his, when her eyes fell upon the porthole, through which the distant lighthouse was sending her a message—it seemed like a message of love and encouragement. She saw the mighty shaft towering serenely above dark rocks and crashing waters, and watched it change with beautiful gradations of light into a rugged cross to which a woman was clinging desperately. The waves beat against her, the winds buffeted her, but she cried to God for help and—then, as she slept Penelope recalled Dr. Leroy's words and, still dreaming, stretched out her hands to the Cross, praying with all her strength that her sins might be forgiven, that her soul might be cleansed, that she might be saved from evil by the power of God's love.
Instantly the torture of her dream was relieved. The brutal arms that had clasped her fell away. The ravisher, cheated of his victim, drew back scowling and slowly faded from her view, while from a distance a white figure with countenance radiant and majestic approached swiftly and Penelope knew it was the pure spirit of her mother coming to save her, and presently on her brow she felt a kiss of rapturous healing.
“My child!” came the dream words, perfectly distinct, although they were unspoken. “God will bless you and save you.”
Penelope smiled in her sleep and her soul was filled with inexpressible peace.
“I saw the mother's exalted spirit hovering over her child,” Seraphine wrote of this clairvoyant vision. “Isaw the evil entity, leering hideously, go out of Penelope in a glow of scarlet light. I knew that the wicked dream was broken. My darling was saved.”
An hour passed, during which the two doctors and the medium watched anxiously by the sleeping patient.
Finally the young woman stirred naturally and opened her eyes.
“Oh, Dr. Leroy!” she cried joyfully. “It is true—what you said. It stopped—the dream stopped. And my mother came to me in my sleep. She kissed me. She blessed me. Oh!” Penelope glanced eagerly about the room.
Leroy greeted her with grave kindness.
“Your troubles are all over, Mrs. Wells. You need never have any more of these fears.”
“Is that really true?”
“Yes, I am quite sure of what I say.”
“How wonderful!”
He bowed gravely.
“God's love is very wonderful.”
Again the radiant eyes seemed to search for some one. Penelope glanced appealingly at Seraphine.
“I understand, dear,” beamed Mrs. Walters. “He is waiting outside. He will be so happy,” and a moment later Christopher entered.