They sat on canvas chairs on the sand outside the porch of the sanatorium, warmly wrapped in rugs, for the summer evenings in New Mexico are cold, and watched the shadows of evening tarnish the gold of the mesa. Like children, they held hands under the protecting shelter of the rug. They talked of little Julia off in Mount Mark, how she was growing, the color of her eyes, the shape of her fingers. They talked of her possible talents, and how they could best be developed, judging as well as they could in advance by the assembled qualities of all her relatives. David suggested that they might be prejudiced in her favor a little, for as far as they could determine there was no avenue of ability closed to her, but Carol stanchly refused to admit the impeachment. They talked of the schools best qualified to train her, of the teachers she must have, of the ministers they must demand for her spiritual guidance. They talked of the thousand bad habits of other little girls, and planned how Julia should be led surely, sweetly by them.
Then they were silent, thinking of the little pink rosebud baby as she had left them.
The darkness swept down from the mountains almost as sand-storms come, and Carol leaned her head against David's shoulder. She was happy. David was so much better. The horrible temperature was below ninety-nine at last, and David was allowed to walk about the mesa, and his appetite was ravenous. Maybe the doctors were wrong after all. He was certainly on the high-road to health now. She was so glad David had not known how near the dark valley he had passed.
David was rejoicing that he had never told Carol how really ill he had been. She would have been so frightened and sorry. He pictured Carol with the light dying out in her eyes, with pallor eating the roses in her cheeks, with languor in her step, and dullness in her voice,—the Carol she would surely have been had she known that David was walking under the shadow of death. David was very happy. He was so much better, of course he would soon be himself. Things looked very bright. Somehow to-night he did not yearn so much for work. It was Carol that counted most, Carol and the little Julia who was theirs, and would some day be with them. The big thing now was getting Julia ready for the life that was to come to her.
He was richly satisfied.
"Carol, this is the most wonderful thing in the world, companionship like this, being together, thinking in harmony, hoping the same hopes, sharing the same worries, planning the same future. Companionship is life to me now. There is nothing like it in all the world."
Carol snuggled against his shoulder happily.
"Love is wonderful," he went on, "but companionship is broader, for it is love, and more beyond. It is the development of love. It is the full blossom of the seed that has been planted in the heart. Service is splendid, too. But after all, it takes companionship to perfect service. One can not work alone. You are the completion of my desire to work, and you are the inspiration of my ability to work. Yes, companionship is life,—bigger than love and bigger than service, for companionship includes them both."
As the evenings grew colder, the camp chairs on the mesa were deserted, and the chattering "chasers" gathered indoors, sometimes in one or another of the airy tent cottages, sometimes before the cheerful blaze of the logs in the fireplace of the parlors, but oftenest of all they flocked into Number Six of McCormick Building, where David was confined to his cot. Always there was laughter in Number Six, merry jesting, ready repartee. So it became the mecca of those, who, even more assiduously than they chased the cure, sought after laughter and joy. In the parlors the guests played cards, but in Number Six, deferring silently to David's calling, they pulled out checkers and parcheesi, and fought desperate battles over the boards. But sometimes they fingered the dice and the checkers idly, leaning back in their chairs, and talked of temperatures, and hypodermics, and doctors, and war, and ghosts.
"I know this happened," said the big Canadian one night. "It was in my own home and I was there. So I can swear to every word of it. We came out from Scotland, and took up a big homestead in Saskatchewan. We threw up a log house and began living in it before it was half done. Evenings, the men came in from the ranches around, and we sat by the fire in the kitchen and smoked and told stories. Joined on to the kitchen there was a shed, which was intended for a summer kitchen. But just then we had half a dozen cots in it, and the hands slept there. One night one of the boys said he had a headache, and to escape the smoke in the kitchen which was too thick to breathe, he went into the shed and lay down on a cot. It was still unfinished, the shed was, and there were three or four wide boards laid across the rafters at the top to keep them from warping in the damp. Baldy lay on his back and stared up at the roof. Suddenly he leaped off the bed,—we all saw him; there was no door between the rooms. He leaped off and dashed through the kitchen.
"'What's the matter?' we asked him.
"'Let me alone, I want to get out of here,' he said, and shot through the door.
"We caught just one glimpse of his face. It was ashen. We went on smoking. 'He's a crazy Frenchman,' we said, and let it go. But my brother was out in the barn and he corralled him going by.
"'I am going to die, Don,' he said. 'I was lying on the bed, looking up at the rafters, and I saw the men come in and take the big white board and make it into a coffin for me. I am going home, I want to be with my folks.'
"Don came in scared stiff, and told us, and we said 'Pooh, pooh,' and went on smoking. But about eleven o'clock a couple of fellows from another ranch came over and said their boss had died that afternoon and they could not find the right sized boards for the coffin. They wanted a good straight one about six feet six by fourteen inches. We looked in the barns and the sheds, and could not find what they wanted. Then we went into the lean-to, where there were some loose boards in the corner, but they wouldn't do.
"'Say,' said one of them, 'how about that white board up there in the rafters? About right, huh?'
"We pulled it down, and it was just the size. They were tickled to get it, for they hated to drive twelve miles to town through snowdrifts over their heads.
"'That's the big white board that Baldy saw,' said Don suddenly. Yes, by George! We sent for Baldy that night to make sure, and it was just what he had seen, and the very men that came for the board. Baldy was mighty glad he wasn't the corpse."
"Mercy," said Carol, twitching her shoulders. "Are you sure it is true?"
"Gospel truth. I was right there. I took down the board."
"I know one that beats that," said the Scotchman promptly. "They have a sayin' over in my country, that if you have a dream, or a vision, of men comin' toward you carryin' a coffin, you will be in a coffin inside of three days. One night a neighbor of mine, next farm, was comin' home late, piped as usual, and as he came zigzaggin' down a dark lane, he looked up suddenly and saw four men marchin' solemnly toward him, carryin' a coffin. McDougall clutched his head. 'God help me,' he cried. 'It is the vision.' Then he turned in his tracks and shot over a hedge and up the bank, screamin' like mad. The spirits carryin' the coffin yelled at him and, droppin' the coffin, started up the hill after him. But McDougall only yelled louder and ran faster, and finally they lost him in the hills. So they went back. They were not spirits at all, and it was a real coffin. A woman had died, and they were takin' her in to town ready for the funeral next day. But the next day we found McDougall lyin' face down on the grass ten miles away, stone dead."
The girls shivered, and Carol shuffled her chair closer to David's bed.
"Ran himself to death?" suggested David.
"Well, he died," said the Scotchman.
"Is it true?" asked Carol, glancing fearfully through the screen of the porch into the black shadows on the mesa.
"Absolutely true," declared the Scotchman. "I was in the searchin' party that found him."
"I—I don't believe in spirits,—I mean haunting spirits," said Carol, stiffening her courage and her backbone by a strong effort.
"How about the ghosts that drove the men out into the graveyards in the Bible and made them cut up all kinds of funny capers, and finally haunted the pigs and drove 'em into the lake?" said Barrows slyly.
"They were not ghosts," protested Carol quickly. "Just evil spirits. They got drowned, you know,—ghosts don't drown."
"It does not say they got drowned," contradicted Barrows. "My Bible does not say it. The pigs got drowned. And that is what ghosts are,—evil spirits, very evil. They were too slick to get drowned themselves; they just chased the pigs in and then went off haunting somebody else."
Carol turned to David for proof, and David smiled a little.
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "perhaps it does not particularly say the ghosts were drowned. It says they went into the pigs, and the pigs were drowned. It does not say anything about the spirits coming out in advance, though."
Carol and Barrows mutually triumphed over each other, claiming personal vindication.
"Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Duke?" asked Miss Tucker in a soft respectful voice, as if resolved not to antagonize any chance spirits that might be prowling near.
"Call them psychic phenomena, and I may say that I do," said David.
"How do you explain it, then?" she persisted.
"I explain it by saying it is a phenomenon which can not be explained," he evaded cleverly.
"But that doesn't get us anywhere, does it?" she protested vaguely. "Does it—does it explain anything?"
"It does not get us anywhere," he agreed; "but it gets me out of the difficulty very nicely."
"I know a good ghost story myself," said Nevius. "It is a dandy. It will make your blood run cold. Once there was a—"
"I do not believe in telling ghost stories," said Miss Landbury. "There may not be any such thing, and I do not believe there is, but if there should happen to be any, it must annoy them to be talked about."
"You shouldn't say you don't believe in them," said Miss Tucker. "At least not on such a dark night. Some self-respecting ghost may resent it and try to get even with you."
Miss Landbury swallowed convulsively, and put her arm around Carol's waist. The sudden wail of a pack of coyotes wafted in to them, and the girls crouched close together.
"Once there was a man—"
"It is your play, Mr. Barrows," said Miss Landbury. "Let's finish the game. I am ahead, you remember."
"Wait till I finish my story," said Nevius, grinning wickedly. "It is too good to miss, about curdling blood, and clammy hands, and—"
"Mr. Duke, do you think it is religious to talk about ghosts? Doesn't it say something in the Bible about avoiding such things, and fighting shy of spirits and soothsayers and things like that?"
"Yes, it does," agreed Nevius, before David could speak. "That's why I want to tell this story. I think it is my Christian duty. You will sure fight shy of ghosts after you hear this. You won't even have nerve enough to dream about 'em. Once there was a man—"
Carol deliberately removed Miss Landbury's arm from her waist, and climbed up on the bed beside David. Miss Landbury shuffled as close to the bed as propriety would at all admit, and clutched the blanket with desperate fingers. Miss Tucker got a firm grip on one of Carol's hands, and after a hesitating pause, ensconced her elbow snugly against David's Bible lying on the table. Gooding said he felt a draft, and sat on the foot of the cot.
"Once there was a man, and he was in love with two women—oh, yes, Mrs. Duke, it can be done all right. I have done it myself—yes, two at the same time. Ask any man; they can all do it. Oh, women can't. They aren't broad-minded enough. It takes a man,—his heart can hold them all." The girls sniffed, but Nevius would not be side-tracked from his story. "Well, this man loved them both, and they were both worth loving—young, and fair, and wealthy. He loved them distractedly. He loved one because she was soft and sweet and adorable, and he called her Precious. He loved the other because she was talented and brilliant, a queen among women, the center of every throng, and he called her Glory. He loved to kiss the one, and he loved to be proud of the other. They did not know about each other, they lived in different towns. One night the queenly one was giving a toast at a banquet, and the revelers were leaning toward her, drinking in every word of her rich musical voice, marveling at her brilliancy, when suddenly she saw a tiny figure perch on the table in front of her fiancé,—yes, he was fiancéing them both. The little figure on the table had a sweet, round, dimply face, and wooing lips, and loving eyes. The fiancé took her in his arms, and stroked the round pink cheek, and kissed the curls on her forehead. Glory faltered, and tried to brush the mist from before her eyes. She was dreaming,—there was no tiny figure on the table. There could not be. Lover—they both called him Lover; he had a fancy for the name—Lover was gazing up at her with eyes full of pride and admiration. She finished hurriedly and sat down, wiping the moisture from her white brow. 'Such a strange thing, Lover,' she whispered. 'I saw a tiny figure come tripping up to you, and she caressed and kissed you, and ran her fingers over your lips so childishly and—so adoringly, and—' Lover looked startled. 'What!' he ejaculated. For little Precious had tricks like that. 'Yes, and she had one tiny curl over her left ear, and you kissed it.' 'You saw that?' 'Yes, just now.' She looked at him; he was pale and disturbed. 'Have you ever been married, Lover?' she asked. 'Never,' he denied quickly. But he was strangely silent the rest of the evening. The next morning Glory was ill. When he called, they took him up to her room, and he sat beside her and held her hand. 'Another strange thing happened,' she said. 'The little beauty who kissed you at the banquet came up to my bed, and put her arms around me and caressed and fondled me and said she loved me because I was so beautiful, and her little white arms seemed to choke me, and I struggled for breath and floundered out of bed, and she kissed me and said I was a darling and tripped away, and—I fainted.'"
"Mr. Nevius, that isn't nice," protested Miss Landbury.
"Lover said urgent business called him out of town. He would go to Precious. Glory was getting freakish, queer. Precious never had visions. She was not notionate. She just loved him and was content. So he went to her. She dimpled at him adoringly, and led him out to her bower of roses, and sat on his knee and stroked his eyes with her pink finger tips, and he kissed the little curl over her left ear and thought she was worth a dozen tempestuous Glories. But suddenly she caught her breath and leaned forward. He spoke to her, but she did not hear. Her face was colorless and her white lips were parted fearfully. For she saw a lovely, radiant, queenly woman, magnificently gowned, the center of a throng of people, and Lover was beside her, his face flushed with pride, his eyes shining with admiration. Her fine voice, like music, held every one spellbound. Precious clasped her tiny hands over her rose-bud ears and shivered. She shut her eyes hard and opened them and—what nonsense! There was no queenly lady, there was no loud, clear, ringing voice. But her ears were tingling. She turned to Lover, trembling.
"'How—how—how funny,' she said. 'I saw a radiant woman talking, and she fascinated all the world, and you were with her, adoring her. Her voice was like music, but so loud, too loud; it crashed in my ears, it deafened me.'
"Lover's brows puckered thoughtfully. 'How did she look?' he asked.
"'Tall and white, with crimson lips, and black hair massed high on her head. And her voice was just like music.'
"The next morning Precious was ill. When Lover went to her she clung to him and cried. 'The lovely lady,' she said,' 'she came when I was alone, and she said I was a beautiful little doll and she would give me music, music, a world full of music. And her voice was like a bell, and it grew louder and louder, and I thought the world was crashing into the stars, and I screamed and fell on the floor, and when I awoke the music was gone, and—I was so weak and sick.'
"Lover decided to go back to Glory until Precious got over this silly whim. But he had no peace. Glory was constantly tormented by the loving Precious. And when he returned to Precious, the splendor of Glory's voice was with her day and night. He lost his appetite. He could not sleep. So he went off into the woods alone, to fish and hunt a while. But one night as he sat in his tent, he heard a faint, far-off whisper of music,—Glory's voice. It came nearer and nearer, grew louder and louder, until it crashed in his ears like the clamor of worlds banging into stars, as Precious had said. And then he felt a tender caressing finger on his eyes, and soft warm arms encircled his neck, and soft red lips pressed upon his. Closer drew the encircling arms, more breathlessly the red lips pressed his. He struggled for breath, and fought to tear away the dimpled arms. The music of Glory's voice rose into unspeakable tumult, the warm pressure of Precious' arms rendered him powerless. He fell insensible, and two days later they found him,—dead."
There was a brief eloquent silence when Nevius finished his story. The girls shivered.
"A true story?" queried David, smiling.
"A true story," said Nevius decidedly.
"Um-hum. Lover was alone in the woods, wasn't he? How did his friends find out about those midnight spirits that came and killed him?"
The girls brightened. "Yes, of course," chirped Carol. "How did folks find out?'
"Say, be reasonable," begged Nevius. "Spoiling another good story. I say it is a true tale, and I ought to know. I," he shouted triumphantly, "I was Lover."
Hooting laughter greeted him.
"But just the same," contended Barrows, "regardless of the feeble fabrications of senile minds, there are ghosts none the less. The night before we got word of my father's death, my sister woke up in the night and saw a white shadow in her window,—and a voice,—father's voice,—said, 'Stay with me, Flossie; I don't want to be alone.' She told about it at breakfast, and said it was just five minutes to two o'clock. And an hour later we got a message that father had died at two that night, a thousand miles away."
"Honestly?"
"Yes, honestly."
"I knew a woman in Chicago," said Miss Landbury, "and she said the night before her mother died she lay down on the cot to rest, and a white shadow came and hovered over the bed, and she saw in it, like a dream, all the details of her mother's death just as it happened the very next day. She swore it was true."
"Don't talk any more about white shadows," said Carol. "They make me nervous."
"Wouldn't it be ghastly to wake up alone in a little wind-blown canvas tent in the dead of night, and find it shut off from the world by a white shadow, and hear a low voice whisper, 'Come,' and feel yourself drawn slowly into the shadow by invisible clammy fingers—"
"Don't," cried Miss Landbury.
"That's not nice," said Carol.
"Don't scare the girls, Barrows. Carol will sleep under the bed to-night."
"I am with the girls myself," said Gooding. "There isn't any sense getting yourself all worked up talking about spirits and ghosts and things that never happened in the world."
"Oh, they didn't, didn't they? Just the same, when you reach out for a cough-drop and get hold of a bunch of clinging fingers that aren't yours, and are not connected with anybody that belongs there,—well, I for one don't take any chances with ghosts."
A sudden brisk tap on the door drew a startled movement from the men and a frightened cry from the girls. The door opened and the head nurse stood before them.
"Ten-fifteen," she said curtly. "Please go to your cottages at once. Mr. Duke, why don't you send your company home at ten o'clock?"
"Bad manners. Ministers need hospitality more than religion nowadays, they tell us."
"Oh, Miss David," cried Miss Tucker, "won't you go out to my tent with me? I feel so nervous to-night."
"What is the matter?" asked the nurse suspiciously, looking from one to another of the flushed faces and noting the restless hands and the fearful eyes.
"Nothing, nothing at all, but my head aches and I feel lonesome."
The nurse contracted her lips curiously. "Of course I will go," she said.
"Let me come too," said Miss Landbury, rising with alacrity. "I have a headache myself."
Huddled together in an anxious group they set forth, and the nurse, like a good shepherd, led her little flock to shelter. But as she walked back to her room, her brows were knitted curiously.
"What in the world were the silly things talking about?" she wondered.
"David Duke," Carol was informing her husband, as she stood over him, in negligee ready to "hop in," "I shall let the light burn all night, or I shall sleep in the cot with you. I won't run any risk of white shadows sitting on me in the dark."
"Why, Carol—"
"Take your pick, my boy," she interrupted briskly. "The light burns, or I sleep with you."
"This cot is hardly big enough for one," he argued. "And neither of us can sleep with that bright light burning."
"David," she wailed, "I have looked under the bed three times already, but I know something will get me between the electric switch and the bed."
David laughed at her, but said obligingly, "Well, jump in and cover up your head with a pillow, and get yourself settled, and I will turn off the lights myself."
"It is a sin and a shame and I am a selfish little coward," Carol condemned herself, but just the same she was glad to avail herself of the privilege.
A little later the white colony on the mesa was in darkness. But Carol could not sleep. The blankets over her head lent a semblance of protection, but most distracting visions came to her wide and burning eyes.
"Are you asleep, David?" she would call at frequent intervals, and David's "Yes, sound asleep," gave her momentary comfort.
But finally he was awakened from a light sleep by a soft pressure against his foot. Even David started nervously, and "Ghosts" flashed into his logical and well-ordered brain. But no, it was only the soft and shivering form of his wife, curling herself noiselessly into a ball on the foot of his cot. David watched her, shaking with silent laughter. Surreptitiously she slipped an arm beneath his feet, and circled them in a deadly grip. If the ghosts got her, they would get David's feet, and in her girlish mind ran a half acknowledged belief that the Lord wouldn't let the ghosts get as good a man as David.
Wretchedly uncomfortable as to position, but blissfully assured in her mind, she fell into a doze, from which she was brought violently by a low whisper in the room:
"Mrs. Duke."
"Oooooooo," moaned Carol, diving deep beneath the covers.
David sat up quickly.
"Who is there?"
"It is I, Miss Landbury," came a frightened whisper. "Can't I stay with you a while? I can't go to sleep to save me,—and honestly, I am scared to death."
This brought Carol forth, and with warm and sympathetic hospitality she turned back the covers at the foot of the bed and said:
"Yes, come right in."
David nudged her remindingly with his foot. "Since there are two of you to protect each other," he said, laughing, "suppose you go in to Carol's bed, and leave me my cot in peace."
This Carol flatly refused to do. If Miss Landbury was willing to share the foot of David's cot, she was more than welcome. But if she meant to stand on ceremony and go into that awful big black room without a minister, she could go by herself, that was all. Carol lay down decidedly, and considered the subject closed.
"I don't want to sleep," said Miss Landbury unhappily. "I am not sleepy. I just want a place to sit, where I—I won't keep seeing things."
"Turn on the light, Carol," said David. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, both of you."
"That's all right," defended Carol. "You are a preacher, and ghosts don't bother—"
"Don't say ghosts," chattered Miss Landbury.
"Well, what is the plan of procedure?" inquired David patiently. "Are you going to turn my cot into a boarding-house? You girls stay here, and I will go in to Carol's bed. Give me my bath robe, honey, and—"
"Oh, please," gasped Miss Landbury.
"And leave us on this porch with nothing but screen around us?" exclaimed Carol. "I am surprised at you, David."
David turned his face to the wall. "Well, make yourselves comfortable. Good night, girls."
The girls stared at each other in the darkness, helplessly, resignedly. Wasn't that just like a man?
"I tell you what," said Carol hopefully, "let's bring the mattress and the blankets from my bed and put them on the floor here beside David, and we can all sleep nicely right together."
"Oh, that's lovely," cried Miss Landbury. "You are the dearest thing, Mrs. Duke."
Hurriedly, and with bated breath, they raided Carol's bed, tugging the heavy mattress between them, quietly ignoring the shaking of David's cot which spoke so loudly of amusement.
"I'll crawl right in then," said Miss Landbury comfortably.
"I sleep next to David, if you please," said Carol with quiet dignity.
Miss Landbury obediently rolled over, and Carol scrambled in beside her.
"Turn off the light," suggested David.
"Oh, yes, Miss Landbury, turn it off, will you?" said Carol pleasantly.
"Who, me?" came the startled voice. "Indeed I won't."
"David, dearest," pleaded Carol weakly.
"Go on parade in my pajamas, dear?" he questioned promptly.
"Let's both go then," compromised Carol, and she and Miss Landbury, hand in hand, marched like Trojans to the switch in the other room, Carol clicked the button, and then came a wild and inglorious rush back to the mattress on the floor.
"Good night, girls."
"Good night, David."
"Good night, Mr. Duke."
"Good night, Miss Landbury."
"Good night, Mrs. Duke."
Then sweet and blessed silence, which lasted for at least five minutes before there sounded a distinct, persistent rapping on their door.
Carol and Miss Landbury rushed to the protection of each other's arms, and before David had time to call, the door opened, the switch clicked once more, and Gooding, his hair sticking out in every possible direction, his bath robe flapping ungracefully about his knees, confronted them.
"This is a shame," he began ingratiatingly. "I know it. But I've got to have some one to talk to. I can't go to sleep and— Heavens, what's that on the floor?"
"It is I and my friend, Miss Landbury," said Carol quietly. "We are having a slumber party."
"Yes, all party and no slumber," muttered David.
"Well, I am glad I happened in. I was lonesome off there by myself. You know you do get sick of being alone all the time. Shove over, old man, and I'll join the party."
David looked at him in astonishment.
"Nothing doing," he said. "This cot isn't big enough for two. Go in and use Carol's bed if you like."
"It's too far off," objected Gooding. "Be sociable, Duke."
"There isn't any mattress there anyhow," said Carol.
They looked at one another in a quandary.
"Go on back to bed, Gooding," said David, at last. "This is no time for conversation."
Gooding would not hear of it. "Here I am and here I stay," he said with finality. "I've been seeing white shadows and feeling clammy fingers all night."
"Well, what are you going to do? We've got a full house, you can see that."
"Go and get your own mattress and blankets and use them on my bed," urged Carol.
Miss Landbury turned on her side and closed her eyes. She was taken care of, she should worry over Mr. Gooding!
"I don't want to stay in there by myself," said Gooding again. "Isn't there room out here?"
"Do you see any?"
"Well, I'll move in the room with you," volunteered David.
Miss Landbury sat up abruptly.
"We won't stay here without you, David," said Carol.
"I tell you what," said Gooding brightly, "we'll get my mattress and put it in the room for me, and we'll move David's mattress on Carol's bed for David, and then we'll move the girls' mattress in on the floor for them."
No one offered objections to this arrangement. "Hurry up, then, and get your mattress," begged Carol. "I am so sleepy."
"I can't carry them alone through those long dark halls," Gooding insisted. Miss Landbury would not accompany him without a third party, Carol flatly refused to leave dear sick David alone in that porch, and at last in despair David donned his bath robe and the four of them crossed the wide parlor, traversed the dark hall to Gooding's room and returned with mattress, pillows and blankets. After a great deal of panting and pulling, the little party was settled for sleep.
It must have been an hour later when they were startled into sitting posture, their hearts in their throats, by piercing screams which rang out over the mesa, one after another in quick succession.
"David, David, David," gasped Carol.
"I'm right here, Carol; we're all right," he assured her quickly.
Miss Landbury swayed dizzily and fell back, half-conscious, upon the pillows. Gooding, with one bound, landed on David's bed, nearly crushing the breath out of that feeble hero of the darkness.
Lights flashed quickly from tent to tent on the mesa, frightened voices called for nurses, doors slammed, bells rang, and nurses and porters rushed to the rescue.
"Who was it?" "Where was it?" "What is it?"
"Over here, I think," shouted a man. "Miss Tucker. I called to her and she did not answer."
A low indistinct sound, half groan, half sobbing, came from the open windows of the little tent. And as they drew near, their feet rattling the dry sand, there came a warning call.
"A light, a light, a light," begged Miss Tucker. The nurses hesitated, half frightened, and as they paused they heard a low drip, drip, inside the tent, each drop emphasized by Miss Tucker's sobs.
The porter flashed a pocket-light, and they opened the door. Miss Tucker lay in a huddled heap on her bed, her hands over her face, her shoulders rising and falling. The nurses shook her sternly.
"What is the matter with you?" they demanded.
Finally, she was persuaded to lift her face and mumble an explanation. "I was asleep, and I heard my name called, and I looked up. There was a white shadow on the door. I seized my pillow and threw it with all my might, and there was a loud crash and a roar, and then began that drip, drip, drip,—oh-h-h!"
"You silly thing," said Miss Alien. "Of course there was a crash. You knocked the chimney off your lamp,—that made a crash all right. And the lamp upset, and it is the kerosene drip, dripping from the table to the floor. Girls who must have kerosene lamps to heat their curlers must look for trouble."
"The white shadow—" protested the girl.
"Moonshine, of course. Look." Miss Alien pulled the girl to her feet. "The whole mesa is in white shadow. Run around to the tents, girls," she said to her assistants, "and tell them Miss Tucker had a bad dream,—nothing wrong. We will have a dozen bed patients from this night's foolishness."
Miss Tucker refused to be left alone and a nurse was detailed to spend the night with her.
When the nurses on their rounds reached Miss Landbury's room in the McCormick Building, they had another fright. The room was empty. The bed was cold,—had not been occupied for hours, likely. They rushed to the head nurse, and a wild search was instituted.
The Dukes' room, Number Six, McCormick, was wrapped in darkness.
"Don't go near them," Miss Alien said. "Perhaps they did not hear the noise, and Mr. Duke should not be disturbed."
So the wild search went on.
But after a time, a Mexican porter, with a lantern, seeking every nook and corner, plodded stealthily around a corner of the McCormick.
He heard a gasp beside him, and turning his lantern he looked directly into the window, where four white, tense faces peered at him with staring eyes. He returned their stare, speechlessly. Then he saw Miss Landbury.
"Ain't you lost?" he ejaculated.
Miss Landbury, frightened out of her senses, and not recognizing the porter in the darkness, shot into her bed on the floor, and David answered the man's questions. A moment later an outraged matron, flanked by two nurses, marched in upon them.
"What is the meaning of this?" they demanded.
"Search me," said David pleasantly. "Our friends and neighbors got lonesome in the night and refused to sleep alone and let us rest in contentment. So they moved in, and here we are."
Both Gooding and Miss Landbury positively declined to go home alone, and other nurses were appointed to guard them during the brief remaining hours of the night. At four o'clock came sleep and silence and serenity, with Carol on the floor, clutching David's hand, which even in sleep she did not resign.
The next morning a huge notice was posted on the bulletin board.
"Any one who tells a ghost story, or discusses departed spirits, in this institution or on the grounds thereof, shall have all privileges suspended for a period of six weeks."By order of the Superintendent."
"Chicago, Illinois.
"Dearly Beloveds:
"Nearly I am converted to matrimony as a life career. Almost I feel it is worth the sacrifice of independence, the death of originality, the banishment of special friendship, and the monotonous bondage of rigid routine.
"I have just come back from Mount Mark, where I had my second visit with little Julia. She is worth the giving up of anything, and the enduring of everything. She is marvelous.
"When I first saw her, just after Aunt Grace brought her home,—I think I told you that I went without a new pair of lovely gray shoes at ten dollars a pair in order to go to Mount Mark to meet her,—she was very sweet, and all that, but when they are so rosily new they are more like scientific curiosities than literary inspirations. But I have met her again, and I am everlastingly converted to the domestic enslavement of women. One little Julia is worth it. So as soon as I find the husband, I am going to cultivate my eleven children. You remember that was the career I picked out in the days of my tender youth.
"Her face is big and round and white, and her eyes are bluer than any summer sky the poets could rave about. Her lips are the original Cupid's bow,—in fact, Julia's lips have about convinced me that Cupid must have been a woman, certainly he could ask no more deadly weapon for shattering the hearts of men. Her hair is comical. It is yellow gold, but it sticks straight out in every direction. It is the most aggravatingly, irresistibly defiant hair you ever saw in your life. It makes you kiss it, and brush it, and soak it in water, and shake Julia for having it, and then fall in love with her all over again.
"She is just beginning to talk. When I arrived the whole family was assembled to do me honor, Prudence and Fairy, Lark and all the babies. Julia seemed to resent her temporary eclipse in the limelight. She crowed in a compelling way, and when I advanced to bow reverently before her, she pointed a fat, accusing finger at me, and said, 'Who is 'at?' Her very first word,—and no presidential message ever provoked half the storm of approval her little phrase called forth. We laughed, and kissed each other, and begged her to say it again, and Prudence said 'Oh, if Carol could have heard that,' and then we all rushed off and cried and scolded each other for being so silly, and Julia screamed. Oh, it was a formal afternoon reception all right.
"And I am putting a little three-line ad in the morningTribune. 'Young, accomplished, attractive lady without means, of strong domestic tendencies, desires a husband, eugenic, rich, good looking. Object matrimony.'
"Of course I know that I repeat myself. But if you don't say 'Object matrimony,' some men wouldn't catch the point.
"And so you are out of the San and keeping house again. A brand-new honeymoon, of course, and cooing doves, and chiming bells, and all the rest of it. When the rest of us back here write to each other, we say at the end, 'Carol is well and David is better.' It conveys the idea of a Thanksgiving service and a hallelujah chorus. It means Good night, God bless you, and Merry Christmas, all in one.
"By the way, do you remember William Canfield Brewer, the original advertiser who got moved out when I moved in? Well, between you and me, almost for a while I did begin to see some charms in matrimony. He came again, and was properly introduced. And took me for a drive,—it seems he had just collected his salary,—and he came again, and we went to the park, and he came again. And that was when I began to see the halo around the wedding bells. One night he was telling me his experiences in saving money,—uproariously funny, my dear, for he never could save more than five dollars a month, and ran in debt fifteen dollars to encompass it. He said:
"'My wife used to say it was harder work for me to carry my salary home from the office than to earn it right at the start.'
"I laughed,—I thought of course it was a joke. I guess the laugh was revealing, for he turned around suddenly and said:
"'You knew I was married, didn't you, Connie?' First time he ever called me Connie.
"Well, the halo vanished like a flash and hasn't got back yet.
"I said, 'No, I didn't know it.'
"'Why, everybody knows it,' he expostulated.
"'I did not.'
"'We are devoted to each other,' he said, laughing lightly, 'but we find our devotion wears better at long distance. So she lives wherever I do not, and we get along like birdies in their little nest. I haven't seen her for two years.'
"Then he went on with his financial experiences, evidently calling the subject closed.
"When he started home, he said, 'Well, what shall we do Sunday?'
"'Nothing, together. You are married.'
"'Well, I don't get any fun out of it, do I?'
"'No, maybe not. But I have a hunch I won't get much fun out of it, either.'
"'I forgot about the parsonage.' He considered a moment. 'All right, I'll hunt her up and have her get a divorce,' he volunteered cheerfully.
"He was very puzzled and perplexed when I vetoed that. He says I can't have the true artistic temperament, I am so ghastly religious. At any rate, I have not seen him since, and have not answered his notes. Now, don't weep over me, Carol, and think my young affections were trifled with. They weren't—because they didn't have time. But I am not taking any chances.
"Henceforth I get my sentiment second hand.
"The girl at our table, Emily Jarvis, who is a spherist, attributes all the good fortune that has come to you and David to the fact that at heart you are in harmony with the spheres. You don't know what a spherist is, and neither do I. But it includes a lot of musical terms, and metaphors, and is something like Christian Science and New Thought, only more so. Spherists believe in a life of harmony, and somehow or other they get the spheres back of it, and believe in immaterial matter, and that all physical manifestations are negative, and the only positive, or affirmative, is 'harmony.'
"Emily is very, very pretty, and that sort of excuses her for digging into the intricacies of spheral harmonies. Even such unmitigated nonsense as sphere control, spirit harmony, and mental submission, assumes a semblance of dignity when expounded by her cherry-red lips. She speaks vacuously of being under world-dominance, and has absolutely no physical consciousness. She says so herself. If she ignores her tempting curves and matchless softness, she is the only one in the house who does. In fact, it is only the attraction of her very physical being, which she denies, that lends a species of sense to her harmonious converse. She and I are great friends. She says I am a harmonizer on the inside.
"She is engaged to a man across the hall, Rodney Carter. She has the room next to mine. His voice is deep and carrying, hers is clear and ringing, and the walls are thin. So I have benefited by most of their courtship. But the course of true love, you know. She has tried spiritually and harmoniously to convert him to immaterialism, but Rodney is very conscious of his physical, muscular, material being, and he hoots at her derisively, but tenderly.
"'Oh, cut it out, Emily,' he said, one evening. 'We can only afford one spirit in the family. One of us has got to earn a living. Spirits, it seems, require plenty of steak and potatoes to keep them in harmony. I could not conscientiously lead you to the altar, even a spheral altar, if I were not prepared to pay house rent and coal bills. One's enough, you can be our luxury.'
"'But, Rod, if you are in harmony you can earn our living so much more easily. You must get above this notion of material necessities. There are no such things.'
"'I don't believe it,' he interrupted coldly. 'There are material necessities. You are one of them. The most necessary in the world. You may be harmonious, but you are material, too. That is why I love you. I couldn't be crazy about a melodious breath of air ghosting around the back yard. And I am not strong for disembodied minds, either. They make me nervous. They sound like skulls and cross-bones, and whitening skeletons to me. I love you, your arms, your face, all of you. It may not be proper to talk about it, but I love it. Can you imagine our minds embracing each other, thrilling at the contact,—oh, it's tommyrot. A fool—'
"'It may be tommyrot to you, Rod,' said Emily haughtily. 'But the inspiration of the matchless minds of the mystic men of the Orient—'
"'Inspiration of idiocy. What do mystic men of the Orient know about warm-blooded Americans, dead in love? I might kiss the air until I was blue in the face,—nothing to it,—but let me kiss you, and we are both aquiver, and—'
"'Rodney Carter, don't you dare say such things,' she cried furiously. 'It is insulting. Besides it has nothing to do with it. It isn't so anyhow. And what is more—'
"'There's nothing mysterious about us. Let the old Chinesers pad around in their bare feet and naked souls if they want to. We are children of light, we are, creatures of earth, earthly. We're—'
"'Oh, I can't argue with you, Rod,' she began confusedly.
"'I don't want you to. Kiss me. One kiss, Emily mine, will confound the whole united order of Maudlin Mystics. I am willing to risk all the anathemas contained in an inharmonious sphere for one touch of your lips. Go ahead with your sacred doctrine of universal and spiritual imbecility, but soften its harshness with worldly, physical, sin-suggesting kisses, and I am in tune with the infinite.'
"Then Emily broke the engagement, and Rodney, after relieving himself of more heretical opinions of spiritual simplicity and mystic madness, stalked unmelodiously away, slamming her door, and his own after it.
"What I didn't hear of it myself, Emily told me afterward, for we are very confidential.
"The whole house was intensely interested in the dénouement. Rodney sat stolidly at his table, crunching his food, gazing reproachfully and adoringly at Emily's proudly lifted head. Emily, for all her unconsciousness of physical necessity, lost her appetite, and grew pale. The mental and physical may have nothing in harmony, as she says, but certainly her mental upheaval resulting from the lack of Rodney's demonstrations of love, affected her physical appetite as well as her complexion.
"When Rodney met Emily in the halls, he made her life miserable.
"'Good morning, Long Sin Coo.' 'Hello, Ghostie.' 'Hey, Spirit, may I borrow a nip of brandy to make an ethereal cocktail for my imaginary nightcap?'
"And he opened his transom and took to talking to himself out loud. So Emily decided to close her transom. It stuck. She asked my assistance, and we balanced a chair on a box and I held it steady while she got up to oil the transom. But first she would lose her balance, then she would drop the oil can, then the box would slip. She couldn't reach the joints, or whatever you call them, and when she stood on tiptoe she lost her balance. Then she got her finger in the joint and pinched it, emitting a most material squeal as she did so. Happening to glance through the transom, she saw Rodney standing below in the hall, grinning at her with inharmonious, unspiritual, unsentimental glee, and she tugged viciously at the transom, banging herself off the box, upsetting the chair, and squirting oil all over me as she fell.
"Rodney rushed to the rescue, but Emily was already scrambling into sitting posture, scared, bruised and furious. She had torn her dress, twisted her ankle, bumped her head and scratched her face. And Rodney had seen it.
"Ignoring me, Rodney sat down on the box and looked her over with cold professional eyes.
"'My little seeker after truth,' he said, 'you are a mystic combination of spirit and mind. You are in tune with the infinite spheres. You are a breath in a universal breeze. Therefore you feel no inconvenience. Get up, my child, and waltz an Oriental hesitation down the hall and convince yourself everlastingly that you are in truth only a mysterious unit in a universe of harmonic chords.'
"Emily dropped her head on the oil can, lifted up her voice and wept. And Rodney, with an exclamation that a minister's daughter can not repeat, took the unhappy mystic into his arms.
"'Sweetheart, forgive me. I am a brute, I know. Knock me on the head with the oil can, won't you? Don't cry, sweetheart,—Emily, don't.'
"Finally Emily spoke. 'You are as mean and hateful as you can be, Rodney Carter,' she said, burrowing more deeply into his shoulder. 'And I despise you. And I am going to marry you, too, just to get even with you. Give me back my engagement ring.' Rodney ecstatically did. The touch of her lovely, material body must have thrilled him, for he kissed her all over the top of the head, her face being hidden.
"I stood my ground. I was looking for literary material since I never have a chance to make romance for myself. Emily spoke again.
"'I know now that the Vast Infinite intends us for each other. I have been dwelling in Perfect Harmony the last four days, trusting the All Perfection to bring us together again. So I know that our union was decreed from the foundation by the Universal sphere. I tell you, Rod, you can't get ahead of the Infinite.'
"Then I went to my own room, and they never knew when I left,—they didn't even remember I had been there. But as I came back from answering the phone at eleven o'clock, I met Rod in the hall. He had some books in his hand. He ducked them behind him when he saw me. I reached for them sternly, and he pulled them out rather sheepishly. I read the titles, 'Spheral Mentality,' 'Infinite Spheres,' 'Spheral Harmony.'
"'Made me promise to read 'em, too,' he confided in a whisper. 'And by George, she is worth it.'
"Oh, I tell you, Carol, these boarding-houses are chuck full of literary material. Really, I am developing. I know it. I feel it every day. I rub elbows with every one I meet, and I like it. I don't care if they aren't 'My Kind' at all. I am learning to reach down to the same old human nature back of all the different kinds. Isn't that growth?
"You asked about the millionaire's son. He still comes to see me every once in a while. He says he can't promise to let me spend all of his millions for missions if I marry him,—says he has too much fun spending them on himself,—but he insists that I may do whatever I like with him. Isn't it too bad I can't feel called upon to take him in hand?
"Anyhow, if I had a million dollars do you know what I would do? Buy an orphans' home, and dump 'em all in a big ship and go sailing, sailing over the bounding main. I'd kidnap Julia and take her along.
"He was here last week, and sent his love to you, and best wishes to David. He told me to ask particularly how your complexion gets along out in the sunny mesa land.
"I want to see you. I am saving up my pennies religiously, and when they have multiplied sufficiently I am coming. Thanks for the invitation.
"Lovingly as always,
"Connie."