“I told Merry about the quarrel, and Alda chanced to overhear me. You must realize that when she is not in the attacks of dementia she is as sane as you or I. But she got it into her head that Uncle Sampson had offended or injured me, and she resolved, I’ve learned from her since, that she would avenge that insult. Never before had she been inclined to homicidal mania, never did we think of her as becoming menacing or dangerous—Doctor Rogers would not have left her except that he thought she would go right along as she has been for years. A fit of fierce anger now and then, or a mad tempest of rage and foolish actions, always followed by a period of exhaustion and many days of languor. But this time, the disease took a new turn, and Alda went over to Pleasure Dome, taking my key to let herself in. Like all unbalanced brains, hers has a crafty slyness and she is very cunning when she wishes to be. She, I know now, for she has told me, read a story about a man who was killed by a nail driven in his head. Her poor, distorted mind chose to imitate that act, and she took with her a nail and a mallet. She did kill Uncle Sampson, as he slept, she put all those strange things round about him, she threw his watch in the water pitcher—she is always throwing things away—and then she took the waistcoats, which she coveted, for her fancy work, the Totem Pole, which she admired, and finding his door locked—she had locked it herself—she stepped up on the window sill and dived into the lake. She is a perfect mermaid in the water; she can dive anywhere and swim for any length of time and under any conditions.”
“She had thrown out the waistcoats first?” asked March.
“Had she? I daresay. She was a little lame just then, having twisted her ankle a bit, but she swam to her canoe, got in it and paddled home in safety.”
“You didn’t miss her while she was absent?” Keeley inquired, interestedly.
“No, indeed. She hadn’t been out at night lately, though at one time she did have the habit. She usually occupies the guest room, but when I have friends staying here, we keep her in a room in the third story. It is a pleasant room, but soundproof and securely barred. She was there during the funeral.”
“Then you knew nothing of the tragedy until next day?”
“Nothing. And even then, when Mrs. Fenn called up and told me, I didn’t think of Alda. I supposed it was heart failure or apoplexy. But when I learned of the nail I suspected the truth, and later, Alda told me all. She has no regret—I mean, her sense of right and wrong is so clouded now that she cannot think clearly. Her mentality has dwindled rapidly of late, and even now—she is sleeping after a sedative—I think she will not recover her mind to the extent of sanity she has shown of late. I’m not sure I am telling you this so you can understand it, but I am so stunned, so dazed to think the time has come to tell it, that I want only to tell it truthfully and all at once, I don’t want to have to go over it again——”
Merivale appeared in the doorway.
“Miss Alma,” she said, gravely, and in solemn tone, “Miss Alda is going.”
Alma rose, not hastily, but with a sweet dignity, and turning to me, said: “Come with me, Gray.”
It was like a chrism; I felt sanctified to be chosen to stand at her side in this supreme moment.
The others followed us, but I did not know it then.
Alma and I went up the stairs together and she turned toward the guest room.
There on the bed lay the counterpart of my own darling. I knew now that it was Alda whom I had seen that night in the canoe; it was Alda whom Posy May and her friends had seen in tantrums with the nurse, it was Alda who—poor demented, irresponsible child—had killed Sampson Tracy, in blind imitation of the story she had read about the nail.
She was beautiful, even as Alma was beautiful, but the light in her eyes was not the light of reason, rather the weird light of visions seen by a deficient mentality. But even as we looked, the restless eyes closed, the restless body subsided into stillness, and a coma set in, from which Alda Remsen never awakened.
We sent for a doctor, but there was nothing to be done, and though she lingered for two days, the spirit was at last set free, Alda was released, and Alma’s long and ghastly term of servitude was over.
It has ever since been my pleasure and duty to bring only sunshine into that life that knew no real sunshine for many long years.
Alma felt she never wanted to see Pleasure Dome again, so the place was sold and we travelled in many lands, returning at last to found a home far removed from any memories of painful association.
The Moores are still our dearest friends, and the Merivales our staunch henchmen and caretakers; while Alma and I, sufficient to one another, take for our motto: “All for Love, and the World Well Lost!”
THE END
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