POSSESSED
(From Penelope's Diary)
At Dr. Leroy's Sanitarium.
I understand why people kill themselves. There was an hour last night, that horrible hour between four and five (I have seen so many hospital patients die then), when I was resolved to kill myself. Seraphine was sleeping in the next room—she has not left me since I came to this place yesterday—and I longed to waken her for a last talk, but decided not to. What was the use? I must settle this for myself—whether it was possible for me to go on living or not, I must fight out this battle alone—with my own soul.
I decided to kill myself because I felt sure, after what had happened, that I was condemned to madness. This is evidently a place where mad people are treated. They call it a Sanitarium, but I know what that means. Seraphine speaks of Dr. Leroy (I have only seen him once) as a wonderful spiritual healer and she says I will love him because he is so kind and wise; but none of this deceives me. I know they have brought me to a place for mad people.
Here is a thought that makes me waver—what if death is not annihilation? What if I find myself in some new state where there are other horrors and terrors—worse than those that I have suffered? The Voices tell me this—taunting me. And then Christopher! He loves me so much! He will be so sorry, if I do this!
While I was hesitating—it was just before dawn—Seraphine came to me. She talked to me, soothed me, and, at last, she told me the truth about myself. She said that all my troubles come from this, that I am possessed by an evil spirit! Literally possessed! This is what she was leading up to when she told me about the great company of earth-bound souls that are hovering about us since the war, striving to come back!
The extraordinary part of it is that I no longer regard this as a fantastic impossibility. I no longer reject it. I am not terrified or horrified by the thought, but almost welcome it, since it offers an explanation of what has happened that does not involve madness. I am either possessed by an evil spirit or I am mad, and of these two I prefer the evil spirit. That, at least, is a definite cause carrying with it the hope of a cure, for we read that evil spirits were cast out in olden times, and they may be again.
One thing convinces me that what Seraphine says is true—I did something at Roberta's party that my own soul or spirit, even in madness, could never have done. I accused Christopher of committing a crime. I accused him of treason! Christopher! My love! Seraphine bears witness to this. I must be possessed by an evil spirit! This would account for something else that happened last night. I was just falling into a troubled sleep when—no, I cannot tell it!
∵
Christopher sent me a gorgeous basket of roses this morning with his love. He loves me in spite of the devil and all his angels—he said that to Seraphine. How wonderful! I wish they would let me see him, and yet—I am ashamed. How can I ever face Christopher again?
There is something strange about Roberta Vallis—I feel it. She did not come in to speak to me or say good-bye before I left her apartment—that morning. Why not? I asked Seraphine if there was anything the matter with Roberta—had I done anything to offend her?—but the only answer I could get was that Roberta is not well. Seraphine is keeping something back—I am sure of it.
Seraphine knows of two cases where evil spirits have been cast out. One was a New York silversmith who had never shown any talent for art, but who suddenly began to paint remarkable pictures, which sold for good prices. He was desperately unhappy, however, because he felt sure that he was becoming insane. He had visions of scenes that he was impelled to paint and he suffered from clairaudient hallucinations. Two well known neurologists declared that he was a victim of paranoia and must soon be confined in an asylum. This man was brought back to a normal condition by Dr. Leroy's treatment, and the first step in his improvement was when he grasped the idea that his abnormal symptoms were due to possession. This satisfied his reason and drove away his fears (I understand that), especially when he was assured that an evil spirit can be driven out by the power of God's love as easily as an evil germ or humour of the body can be driven out by the same agency. What a blessed thought!
Seraphine says we must obey the safeguarding rules with which God has surrounded the operation of His love, if we would enjoy the blessed guardianship of that love. We must not expect God to change His rules for us. We must cleanse our hearts of evil!
The other case of possession was not a patient of Dr. Leroy, but came under Seraphine's notice while she was attending a sufferer. This was Alice E——, a charming, refined girl about twenty, the daughter of well-bred people who lived in Boston. They were somewhat stricter in family discipline than most American parents, consequently Alice, from babyhood up, was guarded and protected in every possible way. She and her mother were almost inseparable companions. There was absolutely no way in which Alice could have become acquainted with people of the underworld, or heard the vile expressions that she afterward used in an evil personality. Her face showed unusual innocence and purity, her disposition was affectionate and serene.
But when she was about seventeen Alice began to have strange spells of irritability; she would grow sullen and stubborn, and soon these ugly moods became more violent; she would burst into horrible tirades against her father and mother and declare that she couldn't stand their goody-goody ways, that they were so damned pious they made her sick. Then rage and lust seemed to possess her and she would talk about men in a shocking way, using unspeakable words, while the expression of her face and the posture of her body became those of a wanton.
At first Alice could not tell when these attacks were coming on, but later, when she was about twenty, she knew and would beg her family to keep “that dreadful, horrible girl” from taking hold of her. “She's going to change me! Oh, keep her away! Don't let her get me!” she would cry out in terror.
Through the last days of the poor girl's life the struggle between the real Alice and the gutter woman went on almost constantly. Alice would implore Seraphine to make the wicked girl go away so that when the end came (she knew she was going to die) she might be herself. But the evil spirit had firm possession and a few hours before her death Alice's mouth was coarse and sensual, her eyes were wicked, her whole expression revolting.
Seraphine sent word to the family that they must not come into the room; then, kneeling by the bedside of the dying girl, she nerved herself for a last struggle between the powers of good and evil. With all the strength of her pure soul she invoked God's love to restore and heal this afflicted child ere she departed for the Great Beyond; and, an hour before the end, the family were admitted to the chamber and looked upon Alice's pillowed face, sweetly smiling, beautiful and unsullied, as they had always known her and cherished her. God's love had prevailed!
∵
When Seraphine left me my mind had become calm and hopeful and I had given up my wicked purpose. I fell asleep praying that God would save me from the powers of darkness, that His love would watch over me and protect me from all evil, especially from that dream on the Fall River steamboat, the one that has tortured me so many nights.
I awakened suddenly to the knowledge that a terrible thing had happened, an incredible thing. I was alone in my bedroom, and yet I was not alone! I had escaped one degradation only to face another. I was awake, fully awake; yet I was more abdominally tempted than ever I was in my dreams. With all the strength of my soul I fought against the aggressions of a real presence that—that touched me! I cried out, I struggled, I begged God to save me or else to let me die. And then Seraphine came to me again in my agony.
But before she came the Voices sounded worse than ever, nearer about me than ever. Why was I such a fool? Why was I so obstinate in resisting my fate? Was I not Their appointed sacrifice? Why not be resigned to the inevitable? Why not ...? They laughed and fluttered close to me with vile murmurings while I prayed against them with all my strength.
“God of love, guard Thy child; God of power, save Thy child,” I prayed.
A harsh, cruel voice broke in to tell me that Roberta Vallis was dead, she died of terror because she had defied Them, as I had defied Them; and, in three days, the Voice said that I, too, would die of terror. Three days remained to me, three nights with my dream and a hideous awakening, unless—
Then Seraphine opened my bedroom door and I sobbed in her arms a long time before I could speak.
“Is—is Roberta dead?” I gasped.
She looked at me strangely and I knew it was true.
“Yes, dear,” she answered gently, and tried to comfort me again, but it was in vain.
“I have only three days to live, Seraphine,” I said solemnly. “Three days and three nights!”
Then I told her what the evil spirit had said, and she listened with grave attention.
CHAPTER XV
DR. LEROY
There may now be presented, as bearing upon Mrs. Wells' strange illness, a conversation which took place between Dr. William Owen and Dr. Edgar Leroy, the psychic healer, on the evening following Penelope's entrance into the Leroy sanitarium on Fortieth Street, just south of Bryant Park.
Owen began in his bluff, outspoken way: “Doctor, I have put into your hands a lady I am very fond of, in spite of the fact that your theories contradict everything I stand for. Not very complimentary, is it?—but I may as well tell you the truth. Mrs. Wells has not improved under my treatment, I admit that, and I have turned her over to you as a sort of last hope.”
Leroy's rather stern face brightened with a flash of humor.
“The same thing has happened to other physicians, doctor. I believe you diagnose this case as shell shock?”
“Unquestionably—with unfavorable developments, dual personality complications—I wrote you.”
“Yes. I spent several hours with Mrs. Wells last evening when she arrived. She was agitated, but I soothed her and explained certain things that had troubled her, and, gradually, she grew calm. I think I can help her.”
In spite of himself Dr. Owen was favorably impressed both by the man and his surroundings. There was nothing garish or freakish or Oriental about the place, which was furnished with the business-like simplicity of an ordinary doctor's office. And Leroy certainly had a fine head—a clean-shaven face with heavy black brows under which shone grave, kindly eyes that twinkled now and then in good-natured understanding. He was about ten years younger than his colleague.
“May I ask, doctor, if there is any scientific evidence to prove the existence of this healing spiritual power that you use or think you use?” In spite of himself, Owen put this question a little patronizingly.
“There are the results—the cures. And there is the evidence of Christianity. Spiritual power is the basis of Christianity, isn't it?”
A deeper note sounded here, and the hard-headed materialist began to realize that he was in the presence of an unusual personality, developed by suffering and struggle, a man who had finally reached a haven of sure and comforting belief. There was great kindness in this face as well as strength.
“Nothing else? Is there no evidence similar to that which convinces us that the X-rays really exist?”
Leroy thought a moment, then he spoke with a quiet impressiveness that was not lost upon Dr. Owen.
“There is evidence that would probably convince any fair-minded person who was willing to give to the investigation time enough to get results. The X-rays were not discovered in a day, were they? Suppose I tell you how I got into this occult field—would that interest you?”
“Very much.”
“Take that other chair—make yourself comfortable—that's better. It began accidentally with certain persistent hallucinations, as I used to call them, in a patient of mine, a Southern lady whom I attended when I was a regular practitioner like yourself. These hallucinations worried me, and, being an open-minded man, I found it impossible to dismiss them as of trivial importance; so I began an investigation that led me—well, it led me very far, it is still leading me, for I am scarcely over the threshold of that mysterious region where spirit phenomena occur. I resolved to know for myself whether these things are true.”
“And you think they are true?”
“I know they are true,” was the grave reply.
Dr. Owen listened attentively while Leroy described his first groping efforts to determine whether or not he personally possessed psychic powers. He began with regular periods of mental concentration, an opening of the soul, as it were, to spirit impressions; he would sit alone, in a state of meditative receptiveness for ten or fifteen minutes every day, and later several times a day, waiting for something to happen—he did not know what.
Day after day the psychologist persisted in this singular experiment and, soon, he began to see small blue figures, irregularly shaped, that moved rapidly about the room and cast no shadows. Some of these blue figures were luminous, and among them were occasional luminous white figures. As weeks passed and his efforts continued, there came a noticeable increase in the number of these moving shapes until, when the doctor desired it, he could make them swarm everywhere, over the walls, the pictures, the bookcases.
“Wait!” interrupted Owen. “Do you see these blue shapes or luminous figures at all times? Do you see them now?”
“No. I only see them when I desire to see them—when I prepare myself to use them—for a case.”
Leroy told how the phenomena continued to increase in frequency and in intensity, how gradually he felt an unmistakable sense of power growing in himself, as if he had somehow tapped a vast source of energy, a kind of spiritual trolley-line, and he was now impelled to use this power. He made his first trial on a poor man who had suffered for years from headaches that seemed incurable.
“Stretch out on that reclining chair, close your eyes, don't think of anything,” ordered the experimenter. Then he laid his hands on the man's forehead and concentrated his mind in the psychic way he had adopted. Almost immediately the blue shapes appeared in great numbers, and began to pour themselves in fine, pulsing streams, like a purplish mist, over the patient's brow and head and shoulders, over his whole body until he was completely enveloped in them, laved by them, penetrated by them.
“That was a crude beginning,” Leroy went on, “but it drove away those obstinate headaches for three months; then a second laying on of hands completed the cure. After that, as months passed, other persons were cured in the same way—especially nervous cases. Whatever these blue streams are, they benefit the patient in most cases. One woman told me, during a treatment, that she saw blue shapes about her!”
“You hypnotized her,” declared Owen.
“Possibly. I did not intend to.”
“What I want to know is, have you ever treated a case like this one of Mrs. Wells?”
“Yes, I treated a young woman in Mrs. Wells' profession, a trained nurse. She came of good family and was very intelligent, but she was driven toward certain forms of depravity. It was pretty bad. All efforts to change her had failed and, at last, her mother in desperation decided to try psychic treatment.”
“And you cured her?”
“Yes. She is now doing useful work in Washington for the Red Cross.”
“How did you cure her—it wasn't simply by the laying on of hands, was it?”
“No. I recognize the necessity of getting at the forgotten or concealed causes of these abnormalities, just as Freud does in his psycho-analysis, but, instead of following the uncertain trail of dreams, I conceived the idea of discovering the truth by clairvoyant revelation. I engaged Mrs. Seraphine Walters to assist me in my work. She has astonishing psychic gifts and—” he hesitated.
“Yes?”
“In her entranced condition, Mrs. Walters discovered things about this young woman, painful things that had been hidden for years and—well, I was able to relieve her of her fears and check her waywardness,” he concluded abruptly.
“But the details? Tell me more about this case. What were the painful things that Mrs. Walters discovered?”
Leroy shook his head.
“What's the use? I can state the result of my treatment, but if I go into details, if I try to make you understand the cause of this young woman's evil desires and how I overcame them—” he paused, his eyes shining with an inspired light. “Don't you see, doctor, you and I do not speak the same language. You are always in opposition. You have no faith. It's your narrow training.”
“Narrow?” snorted the other.
“Yes, you scientists are childishly narrow. You believe in atoms and ions and electrons that you have never seen and never will see, but if anyone mentions secrets of the soul that control human happiness, you laugh or sneer.”
“Not necessarily. I suppose you refer to your theory of possession by evil spirits. If you could only furnish any evidence—”
“It isn't my theory. It's as old as Christianity, it's a part of Christianity. As to evidence, my dear sir, you are blind to evidence. The young lady I speak of was despaired of by everybody, she was on her way to an insane asylum, two alienists had declared her case hopeless, yet, thanks to psychic treatment, she was restored to health and happiness. Does that impress you? Not at all if you call it a coincidence. And if I am fortunate enough to cure Mrs. Wells, whom you have failed to cure, you will call that a coincidence, too.”
Dr. Owen tried to control his irritation, but his prejudices got the better of him.
“Of course I want to see Mrs. Wells cured, but—do you mean to tell me seriously that you believe she is possessed by an evil spirit?”
“I believe that some malignant influence is near her and able to control her—intermittently. How else do you account for the facts in her case? Even Mrs. Wells believes this.”
“That is because Seraphine put the notion in her head. It's unfortunate.”
“No, she believes this because of the way her friend died. You know how she died?”
“Miss Vallis? She died suddenly, but the cause of her death is doubtful. People die suddenly from all sorts of causes.”
“Yes,” answered Leroy with a significant tightening of the lips, “and one of the causes is fear. People die suddenly of fear, doctor.”
“Referring to Mrs. Wells and her bad dreams?”
“Precisely. If you had seen her last night—after midnight—watching the clock with dark, furtive glances, watching, waiting, as the hands approached half past twelve, you would understand what fear can do to a woman. That is Mrs. Wells' worst symptom, she is afraid—not all the time but intermittently.”
Owen leaned forward in concentrated attention.
“Why was she in such a state at half past twelve rather than at any other time?”
“Because the change in her takes place then, the change into her other personality.”
“Fauvette? You saw her—in that personality?”
“Yes. I saw her. Besides, she told me about it in advance. She knows what is going to take place, but is powerless against it. Every night at exactly half past twelve there comes a violent period that lasts until one o'clock. Then she falls into a deep sleep, and a dream begins, always the same dream, a horrible dream that terrifies her and drains her life forces. She had this dream last night, she will have it again tonight, and again tomorrow night. She believes that she will die tomorrow night, just as her friend died!”
“Good God! What a pity!” exclaimed Owen. “Why does she think she is going to die tomorrow night?”
“Her Voices tell her so, and she believes them.”
“She told you this?”
“Yes.”
The older man tapped impatiently on his chair-arm.
“And you? What did you say to her? You surely do not believe that Mrs. Wells will die tomorrow night? You know these are only the morbid fancies of an hysterical woman, don't you?”
Leroy rose quietly and took down a volume from the bookcase.
“How we love to argue over the names of things!” he answered gravely. “I don't care what you call the influence or obsession that threatens this lady. I ask, What do you propose to do about it? Do you believe that Mrs. Wells will die tomorrow night? Do you?”
Owen moved uncomfortably on his chair, frowned, snapped his fingers softly and finally admitted that he did not know.
“Ah! Then is it your idea to wait without doing anything until tomorrow night comes, and see if Mrs. Wells really does die at half-past twelve, and then, if she does, as the Vallis woman died, to simply say: 'It's very strange, it's too bad!' and let it go at that? Is that your idea? Will you take that responsibility?”
“No, certainly not. I don't mean to interfere with your plans. I told you I have left this matter entirely in your hands,” answered the skeptic, his aggressiveness suddenly calmed.
“Very well. Take my word, doctor, fear is terribly destructive, it may cause death. Listen to this case, cited by a French psychologist.” He turned over the pages. “Daughter of an English nobleman, engaged to a man she loves, perfectly happy; but one night she is visited, or thinks she is, by her dead mother who says she will come for her daughter the next day at noon. The girl tells her father she is going to die. She reads her Bible, sings hymns to the accompaniment of a guitar, and just before noon, although apparently in excellent health, she asks to be helped to a large arm chair in her bedroom. At noon exactly she draws two or three gasping breaths and sinks back into her chair, dead. That shows what fear will do.”
But his adversary was still unconvinced.
“What does that prove? Do you think you could have saved this young woman if you had been in charge of the case?”
“Perhaps. I hope to save Mrs. Wells.”
“How?”
Leroy hesitated, frowned with a nervous squinting, as if he were trying to solve a baffling problem.
“How? I wish I could tell you, doctor, but you would not understand. That is the sad part of my work, I am all alone.”
His eyes burned somberly, then he spoke with intense feeling.
“Not one of you orthodox physicians will join me in my effort to save millions of unfortunates from the tragedy of our state hospitals. You won't lift a hand to help me. You all say there is nothing to be done. What a wicked evasion of responsibility! Nothing to be done? I tell you there is everything to be done. Suppose you had a daughter or a sister or a wife who was suffering from such an affliction—how would you feel? God grant you may never know how you would feel. Why do you doctors scoff at miracles when the Bible is full of them and we all live among them? What is life but an unceasing miracle? Tell me how you move your finger except by a miracle? What is vision? What is death? How do you know that spirits of the departed, good and bad, do not come back to help us—or to harm us? Many great men believe this and always have. Many fine women know that this is true. Mrs. Walters has actually seen an evil spirit hovering about a girl who was called insane. How do you know that insanity is not caused by evil possession?”
“Hold on! I can't answer all those questions,” laughed Owen and now his manner changed quite charmingly as he made an amende honorable. “I'm a stubborn old fool, doctor. I ought to have had more sense than to get into this argument. What I care about is to have this dear lady restored to health and happiness. There!” He held out his hand. “Forgive me! The more miracles you can work for her cure, the better I shall like it.”
At this Leroy relented in his turn.
“Dr. Owen, I will not conceal from you that Mrs. Wells is in great peril. I have no more doubt that she will die tomorrow night, unless she consents to do something that I have already indicated to her as necessary, than I have of your presence in this room.”
“Extraordinary! Do you really mean that? What is this thing? Is it a definite thing, or is it some—some spiritual thing?”
Dr. Leroy sighed and shook his head.
“It's hard for you to believe, isn't it? I suppose you want me to give Mrs. Wells a dose of medicine or put a hot water bag at her feet. No, doctor, it's much more difficult than that.”
The veteran pondered this in puzzled exasperation.
“If Mrs. Wells does this definite thing that you have told her to do, will she be saved?”
“Yes, I think so,” Leroy spoke confidently.
There came a knock at the office door, but both men were so absorbed in their conversation that they paid no attention to it.
“Is there any doubt about her doing this definite thing that will save her?”
“That's the trouble, she fights against doing it with all her strength. She says she cannot do it. But I tell her she must do it!”
The knock sounded sharper. An attendant had come with a message from Seraphine asking Dr. Leroy to come to her at once. She was upstairs in Mrs. Wells' sitting-room. Something serious had happened.
“Tell Mrs. Walters that I will be right up,” he said. “You had better wait here, doctor.” Leroy glanced at his watch. “It's half-past nine. We have three hours.”
CHAPTER XVI
IRRESPONSIBLE HANDS
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 and would 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 been a 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 the deadly 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. He told 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 knows what 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!
CHAPTER XVII
THE HOUR OF THE DREAM
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 the ifs. 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—”
“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 a chambre apart arrangement, 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 never forget 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. The dreaded change had come. This glorious young creature whose glances thrilled him, whose flaunted beauty maddened him, was not Penelope any more, but the 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 save her, 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. I know. 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, she never 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.
CHAPTER XVIII
PLAYING WITH FIRE
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 distinctly saw scarlet 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 only trust 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, I know that 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? Why did 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?”
“Not his children! 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 be removed. 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 of not surrendering.
“Oh God, let the spirit of the mother come close to her imperilled child,” prayed Seraphine.
In her dream Penelope was yielding. She had ceased to 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. “I saw 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.
CHAPTER XIX
PRIDE
(Fragments from Penelope's Diary)
Paris, Three Months Later.
It is three months since I wrote this diary, three lonely months since I said good-bye to Christopher, or rather wrote good-bye, for I should never have had the courage to leave him, if I had tried to give him my reasons—face to face. I have never seen him or heard from him since that terrible night at Dr. Leroy's when the evil cloud was lifted from my soul and I knew and remembered—everything!
I have never heard from Seraphine. They do not even know where I am, they must not know—that is part of my plan, but it is frightfully hard. I pray for strength to be reconciled to my life of loneliness and to find comfort in good works; but the strength has not come to me. Every day I think of Christopher and the separation from him grows harder and harder. Life is not worth living.
∵
I am perfectly sane and normal, just as I was before my hallucinations. No more voices, or fears, or wicked dreams. Sometimes I wish I could dream of Christopher; but I never do, I never dream of anything. I suppose I should be grateful for that and glad that my cure is so complete. Oh, dear!
∵
I wear myself out at the dispensary for poor French children and try my best to smile and be cheerful and to interest myself in their pitiful needs and sorrows; but my heart is not in this work and my smiles are forced. Many nights I cry myself to sleep.
And yet I did right. I go over it all in my mind and I see that I did right. There was nothing else for me to do. I had to decide for both of us, and I decided. I thought of those dreadful things that I did, and—meant to do—those things that neither Christopher nor I can possibly forget ... how could Christopher ever have confidence in me as his wife? How could we ever be happy together with those memories between us?
∵
I try to remember the exact words that I wrote to my lover that morning when I went away. I hope I did not make him suffer too much. But of course he suffered—he must have. I told him we could not see each other any more, or write to each other, or—anything. I knew I would have been too weak to resist the call of my love and he would have been too fine, too chivalrous, to let me go. He would have said: “You are cured now, dear” (which I really am) “and there is no reason why we should not be married—” which is true, except that he would always have had the fear, deep down in his heart, that I might relapse into what I had been. How could a high-minded man like Chris bear the thought that the woman he loved, the woman who was to be the mother of his children, had acted like a wanton? He could not bear it. It is evident that I did right.
And yet—
∵
I often wonder what another woman would have done in my place. She loves a man as I loved Christopher—as I love him still. She is proud, she has always been admired, she cannot bear the thought of being pitied. And suddenly she learns that she has disgraced herself, she has violated the sacred traditions of modesty that restrain all women. She has acted like an abandoned woman towards the man she worships. God! It is true she has done this without knowing it, without being responsible for it, but she has done it, and that ineffaceable memory will always shame her, if she becomes his wife. Day after day she will read it in his eyes, in his reticencies, in his efforts to be cheerful—she will know that he remembers—what she was!
NO! She could not bear it, no woman with any pride could bear it.
Pride!
What is pride? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Would I be a finer woman if I could endure this humiliation and gracefully accept forgiveness? I suppose some women would take it all simply, like a grateful patient cured of an illness. Alas! that is not my nature.
∵
How little we know ourselves! We all wear masks of one kind or another that hide our true personalities even from ourselves. How will a woman act in sudden peril? In a moral crisis? In the face of shattering disgrace? Let the most beautiful wife and mother realize that some painful chapter in her life is to be opened to the world—what price will she not pay to avert this scandal?
Julian had a friend who on a certain night stood before a locked door with an officer of the law. His wife was on the other side of that door—with a companion in dishonor. The husband was armed. He was absolutely within his rights. They broke down the door. And then—
Not one of those tragic three could have told in advance what would happen when that door crashed in. As a matter of fact the woman alone was calm—coldly calm.
“Yes,” she said, “I am guilty. Now shoot! Why don't you shoot? You are afraid to shoot!”
Which was true.
The husband was afraid; and the lover was more afraid; it was the erring wife who cut the best figure. But who could have foreseen this dénouement?
∵
After all I only did those abominable things because I was ill—when I was not myself; whereas now I am well, and the evil has passed from me. Besides, I only showed that wicked side of my nature to Christopher, through my love; it is inconceivable that I could ever have acted that way with another man. Christopher knows that. He knows there is no possible doubt about that. How much difference does this knowledge make to him—I wonder.
∵
I am going to leave Paris. I am too unhappy here. It seems there is a great need for nurses at Lourdes—that strange miracle place where pilgrims go to be healed—and I have volunteered for service. If the sick are really cured by miracles I don't see why they need nurses; but never mind that. It will give me a change and I may see some unfortunate men and women who are worse off than I am. Oh, if God would only work a miracle so that I can have Christopher and make him happy! But that can never be. Why not? Why do I say that after what has happened to me? Was it not a miracle that saved me from those hideous evils? Then why not other miracles?
∵
At Lourdes. Two Weeks Later.
Speaking of miracles, I am living among them. I am working in the Bureau de Constatations where the miraculés—those who are supposed to have been miraculously healed—are questioned and examined by doctors, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics, Atheists, who come from all over the world to investigate these cures from the standpoint of a religion or pure science. What sights I have seen! Men and women of all ages and walks of life testifying that the waters of the sacred grotto have freed them from this or that malady, from tumors, lameness, deafness, blindness, tuberculosis, nervous trouble and numerous other afflictions. By thousands and tens of thousands these unfortunates crowd here from the four corners of the earth, an endless procession of believers, and every year sees scores of the incurable cured, instantly cured—even the sceptical admit this, although they interpret the facts differently. Some say it is auto-suggestion, others speak of mass hypnotism, others regard it as a scientific phenomenon not yet understood like the operation of the X-rays. And many wise men are satisfied with the simple explanation that it is the work of God, manifested today for those who have faith exactly as in Bible times.
∵
I was stabbed with poignant memories this afternoon when a tall black-bearded peasant told the doctors that his father, who accompanied him, and who had been insane, a violent neurasthenic, shut up in an asylum for four years, had been restored by the blessed waters to perfect health and had shown no abnormality of body or mind for eight years. These statements were verified by scientists and doctors.
Eight years! If I really believe in the permanent recovery of this poor man, as the doctors do, why am I doubtful about my own permanent recovery? The answer is that I am not doubtful for myself, but for Christopher. He might reason like this, he might say to himself—he is so loyal that he would die rather than say it to me: “I know Penelope has been restored to her normal condition of mind, but that normal condition includes a strong inherited and developed tendency towards—certain things,”—my cheeks burn with shame as I write this. “How do I know that this tendency in her, even if she remains herself, will not make trouble again—for both of us?”
How could Christopher be sure about this?
He could not be sure!
CHAPTER XX
THE MIRACLE
(From Penelope's Diary)
Lourdes. A Week Later.
Today, with a multitude of the afflicted, I bathed in the piscine, a long trough filled with holy water from the grotto. The water was cold and not very clean (for hours it had received bodies carrying every disease known to man), but as I lay there, wrapped in a soaking apron and immersed to the head, I felt an indescribable peace possessing my soul. Was it the two priests who held my hands and encouraged me with kindly eyes? Was it the shouts and rejoicings, the continual prayers of pilgrims all about me? Or was it a sudden overwhelming sense of my own unworthiness, of my ingratitude and lack of faith and a rush of new desire to begin my life all over again, to forget my selfish repining? Whatever it was I know that as I arose from the bath and bowed before the statue of the Blessed Virgin, I was caught by a spiritual fervor that seemed to lift me in breathless ecstasy.
A young woman who was blind stood beside me, splashing water from a hand basin upon her reddened, sightless eyelids, and praying desperately. Together with her I prayed as I never had prayed, crying the words aloud, over and over again, as she did, while tears poured down my cheeks:
“Oh, Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous!”
As I came away and started back to the Bureau, walking slowly under the blazing Pyrenees sun, I knew that an extraordinary change had taken place in me. I was not the same woman any more. I would never again be the same woman. I was like the child I knew about that had been miraculously cured of infantile paralysis; or like the widow I had spoken to who had been miraculously cured of a fistula in the arm that had been five times vainly operated upon; or like the old woman I had seen who had been miraculously cured of an “incurable” tumor that had caused her untold suffering for twenty-two years. I was a miraculée, like these others, hundreds of others, one more case that would be carefully noted down by skeptical investigators on their neatly ruled sheets, if only the mysteries of a sick soul could be revealed!
Suddenly a great burst of singing drew my attention to the open space beyond the gleaming white church with its sharp-pointed towers, and I drew nearer, pushing my way through a dense multitude gathered to witness the procession of pilgrims and the Blessing of the Sick. In all the world there is no such sight as this, nothing that can stir the human soul so deeply. Inside the concourse, fringing the great crowds, lay the afflicted—on litters, on reclining chairs, on blankets spread over the ground; standing and kneeling, men, women and children from all lands and of all stations, pallid-faced, emaciated, suffering, dying, brought here to supplicate for help when all other help has failed them.
“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!” chanted a priest with golden voice and ten thousand tongues responded:
“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!”
“Jesus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitie de nous!” came the inspired cry.
“Jesus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitie de nous!” crashed the answer.
“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!”
“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!” thundered the multitude, and the calm hills resounded.
It was an immense, an indescribable moment, not to be resisted. I felt myself literally in the presence of God, and choking, almost dying with emotion, I waited for what was to come.
Suddenly at the far end of the crowd a great shouting started and spread like a powder-train, with a violent clapping of hands.
“A miracle! A miracle!” the cries proclaimed.
They told me afterwards that five miraculous cures were accomplished at this moment, but I knew nothing about it. My eyes were closed. I had fallen to my knees in the dust and was sobbing my heart out, not in grief but in joy, for I knew that all was well with me now and would be in the days to come. I knew that Christopher would be restored to me, and that I would be allowed to make him happy. There would be no more doubt or fear in either of us—only love. I knew this!
As I knelt there filled with a spirit of infinite faith and serenity, it seemed as if, above the tumult of the crowd, I heard my name spoken gently—“Penelope!”
I knew, of course, that it could not be a real voice, for I was a stranger here, yet there was nothing disturbing to me in this illusion. It came rather like a comforting benediction, as if some higher part of me had inwardly expressed approval of my prayerful aspirations, and had confirmed my belief that Christopher would be restored to me.
“Penelope!” the voice spoke again, this time with unmistakable distinctness, and now I opened my eyes and saw Seraphine standing before me.
“Seraphine! Where did you come from? I thought you were in America—in New York.”
Smiling tenderly she helped me to my feet and led me away from the multitude.
“Let us go where we can talk quietly,” she said.
“We will go to the hospice, where I am staying,” I replied, not marvelling very much, but more than ever filled with the knowledge that God was guiding and protecting me.
“This has been a wonderful day for me, Seraphine,” I told her when we came to my room, “the most wonderful day in my whole life.”
“I know, dear,” she answered calmly, as if nothing could surprise her either.
Then I explained everything that had happened—why I had left America so suddenly, why I had felt that I must never see Christopher again.
“But you don't feel that way any more?” she asked me with a look of strange understanding in her deep eyes.
“No,” said I, “everything is changed now. My fears are gone. I see that I must count upon Christopher to have the same faith and courage that I have in my own heart. Why should I expect to bear the whole burden of our future? He must bear his part of it. The responsibility goes with the love, doesn't it? I saw that this afternoon—it came to me like a flash when the procession passed. Isn't it wonderful?”
“Dear child, the working of God's love for His children is always wonderful. This is a place of miracles”—she paused as if searching into my soul—“and the greatest miracle is yet to come.”
I felt the color flooding to my cheeks.
“What do you mean?”
“I must go back a little, Penelope, and tell you something important. You haven't asked about Captain Herrick.”
“Is he—is he well?” I stammered.
She shook her head ominously.
“No. He is far from well. You did not realize, dear, what an effect that letter of yours would have upon him. It was a mortal blow.”
I tried to speak, but I could not; my bosom rose and fell with quick little gasping breaths, as if I was suffocating.
“There was no particular illness,” my friend continued, “just a general fading away, a slow discouragement. He had no interest in anything, and about a month ago Doctor Owen told me the poor fellow would not live long unless we could find you.”
“Oh, if I had only known! If I had dreamed that he would care so—so much,” I sobbed. “How—how did you find me?”
Seraphine answered with that far-away, mystic look in her eyes: “It was your mother, dear—she told me we must go to Lourdes, she said it quite distinctly, she said we must sail that very week, or it would be too late—and we did sail.”
I stared at her with widening, frightened eyes.
“Seraphine! You don't mean that—that Christopher is—here?” I cried.
The clairvoyant bowed her head slowly.
“He is here, at the hotel, but he is very ill. He took cold on the ship and—it got worse. He has pneumonia.”
“Oh!” I breathed. I could feel my lips go white.
“The doctor is with him now, and a trained nurse. I left them to search for you. I knew I should find you—somewhere.”
I rose quickly and caught my companion's arm.
“Come! We must go to him.”
“No! You cannot see him until tomorrow. This is the night of the crisis.”
“Please!” I begged.
“No! You must wait here. I will send you word.” Then she left me.
Hour after hour I waited at the hospice, knowing that Seraphine would keep her promise and send me some message. At about nine o'clock a little boy came with a note saying that I must come at once. Christopher was worse.
As we hurried through the square, the whole place was ablaze with lights, the church itself outlined fantastically in electric fires, while great crowds of chanting pilgrims moved in slow procession, each man or woman carrying a torch or lantern or shaded candle and all lifting their voices in that everlasting cry of faith and worship:
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Until the day of my death I shall hear that thunderous chorus sounding in my ears whenever memory turns back my thoughts to this fateful night.
Seraphine met me at the door of the chamber where Christopher lay, feverish and delirious. A French doctor, with pointed beard, watched by the patient gravely, while a sad-eyed nurse held his poor feet huddled in her arms in an effort to give them warmth. Already the life forces were departing from my beloved.
The doctor motioned me silently to a chair, but I came forward and sat on the bed, and bending over my dear one, I called to him fondly:
“Chris! It's Penelope! Oh, my dear, my dear! Don't you know me?” I pleaded.
But there was no answer, no recognition.
An hour passed, two hours and still there was no indication that my dear Christopher realized that I was near him, bending over him, praying for him. He turned uneasily in his fever and now and then cried out with a great effort in his delirium; but he never spoke my name or made any reference to his love for me. It was heartbreaking to be there beside him and yet to feel myself so far away from him.
At about eleven the doctor saw that a change was coming and warned me that there would be a lucid interval which would precede the final crisis.
“Within an hour we shall know what to expect,” he said. “Either your friend will begin to improve—his heart action will be stronger, his breathing easier, or—he will sink into a state of coma and—” the doctor finished his sentence with an ominous gesture. “You must have courage, dear lady. The balance of his life may be turned by you—either way. It will be a shock for him to see you here, a great shock. I cannot tell how that shock may affect him. It may save him, it may destroy him. No man of science in my place would take the responsibility of saying to you that you must or must not show yourself to this man at this moment. You must take the responsibility for yourself—and for him.”
“I understand, doctor,” I said. “I will take the responsibility.”
Again we waited in anguished silence, and soon the change came just as the doctor said it would. Christopher's eyes opened naturally and I saw that the glassy stare had gone out of them. He knew where he was, he knew what he was saying, he would recognize me, if he saw me; but I drew back into the shadows of the room where I could watch him without being seen. I wanted to think what I must do.
Christopher beckoned Seraphine and the doctor to come close to him.
“I want you to write something for me,” he said in weak tones but quite distinctly to Seraphine. “I may not come out of this. I—I don't care very much whether I do or not, but—get some paper—please—and a pencil. The most important thing is about my money—all that I have—everything in the world, understand? I—I leave it all to the only woman I have ever loved—or ever could love—Penelope Wells.”
When he had said this he settled back on the pillow and breathed heavily but with a certain sense of relief, as if his mind was now at rest. I bit my lip until my teeth cut into it to keep myself from crying out.
“You are both witnesses to this—to what I have said—you've written it down?” he looked at Seraphine and the doctor who nodded gravely.
“You must find Penelope and tell her that—that she made a mistake to go away. I understand why she did it, but it was a mistake. Tell her I said that we all of us have a whole lot to be sorry for and we must not only ask to be forgiven, but we must be glad to accept the forgiveness of others for—for whatever we have done that is wrong, and we must believe that they are sincere in forgiving us. Tell her that I would have been glad to—to forgive her for—for everything.”
His strength was evidently failing and the doctor told him that he had better not try to talk any more. But Christopher smiled in that quaint brave way that I knew so well and lifted his thin white hands in protest.
“Just one thing more—please. It won't make any particular difference, doc, and I want to say it. I want you to be sure to tell her this—write it down. Tell her two things. One is that there isn't any argument about my loving her because I am dying for her—now—that's a fact. There isn't anything else I want to live for if I can't have Penelope. The other thing is that—” He paused as a violent spasm of coughing shook his wasted body, and again the doctor told him to be quiet, but he gave no heed.
“The other thing is—be sure to tell her this—that I would sooner have lived with Penelope—I don't care how many devils she was possessed with—than with all the saints in the calendar. I loved her—” He struggled to raise himself and then lifting his voice in a supreme effort, “I loved her good or bad. I—I couldn't help loving her. There—that's all. Let me sign it.”
This was too much for me. As I saw my dear love tracing his name with painful strokes, I could control myself no longer and rushed out of the darkness to him, feeling that I must cry out wildly against his leaving me. I must fight the grim shadows that were enveloping him. I must keep him for myself by the fierce power of my love.
Just then a great glare from the torches filled the chamber and Christopher's eyes met mine. I stood speechless, choked with emotion, and as I tried to force my will against these obstacles of weakness, the cry of the pilgrims resounded from the streets below, a vast soul-stirring cry:
“Hosanna! hosanna au fils de David!”
At this I fell on my knees by the bedside and buried my face in my hands. I realized suddenly that it was not for me to dispute God's will even for this life that was so dear to me, even for our great love. Once more I must fight my selfish pride and yield everything into God's keeping for better or for worse. But with all my soul I prayed, not daring to look up: “Dear God, save him! Give him back to me.”
Then I felt Christopher's hand on my head, resting there lovingly.
“Penelope!” he said.
“Chris!”
Down in the street the lines of fire swept past in a molten sea while the roar of worshipping voices came up to me:
“Hosanna! hosanna au fils de David!”
And still I prayed, with my head buried in my arms: “Save him! Dear God, save him and give him back to me!”
CHAPTER XXI
THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN THAT NOBODY TELLS
(Extracts from Penelope's Diary)
Two Years Later.
A woman who has been saved, as I have been, from a fate worse than death must be grateful, and ready to show her gratitude by helping others, especially other women. I have a message of hope for those who have heard the Voices, for those who have gone down into the Black Valley, where I was—they can come back into the sunshine of happiness. The powers of Light are stronger than the powers of Darkness, and Love conquers Fear always in those who cleanse their souls of evil.
And I have a warning for thousands and tens of thousands of women who have not yet glimpsed the Gates of Despair, but are drifting towards them and will surely pass through them, as I did, unless they understand the perils that surround and beset their lives.
With my husband's assistance and approval, I have selected from my diary parts that bear on the emotional problems of women today. Christopher says I have told the truth about women that nobody tells, and he wants me to make it known, so that others, being enlightened, may avoid the mistakes I made and be spared the consequences of these mistakes. Dear Chris! His judgment encourages me, and yet—
How fully shall I speak, so that my words may do good, not harm?
I can only have faith in my honesty of purpose, and hold to my belief that, in spite of my limitations, I have a message to deliver that will be helpful. Yes, I must deliver this message. God will not allow so sincere a motive to fail. Perhaps the reason for all my sufferings and mistakes, the reason for my existence was that I should deliver this message.
ARE CERTAIN WOMEN PREDESTINED TO UNHAPPINESS
THROUGH THE INFLUENCE OF THE STARS?
Soon after my deliverance from evil, Seraphine cast my horoscope (I wonder why she never did this before?), and now much that was previously inexplicable in my life is made clear to me. She says that astrology is not a cheap form of trickery, but a recognized field of knowledge and investigation.
From the earliest times wise men have emphasized the influence of the stars upon human lives—for good or ill. I like to believe this. It gives one a broader and more charitable view of one's fellow creatures, of their sins and weaknesses, to realize the presence about us of these vast and mysterious forces.
My horoscope, with its queer phraseology, reads:
“Your Neptune is in evil aspect to your Venus, which makes you attract men almost irresistibly.”
This was the case, Seraphine says, with Georges Sand, George Eliot and various women in history who were the favorites of kings, although some of them had little beauty. They were dowered, however, with this terrific magnetism for the opposite sex.
I remember, even as a school girl, how the boys used to fight over me, while they scarcely noticed prettier and brighter girls. I never understood this, any more than they did, for I was rather indifferent to them. There was one girl in our set who attracted the boys as much as I did, but she was also drawn to them. When this girl was about eighteen her father began to receive anonymous notes telling of his daughter's escapades and warning him to guard her more carefully. Finally there came an open scandal when the girl ran away with a married man. At the time I thought myself a better and stronger character than she, since I resisted temptation, but my horoscope shows that I had “in beneficent aspect” certain planets that were “evilly aspected” for my friend, and this made her temptations greater than mine.
Seraphine says that the horoscope, wisely used, is like an automobile light in the darkness—it reveals dangers in the road that may be avoided. “The stars incline, but do not compel,” she always tells her clients and assures them that, by power of the will, we can overcome any influence of the stars, strengthening the good and weakening the evil aspects. That is a blessed thought.
When I was a trained nurse I received many confidences from women and some confessions of an intimate nature. At one time I took care of a married woman in Washington, a neurasthenic case, and this woman told me that she had several times tried to kill herself because of a curse that seemed to be hanging over her. Twice, following an irresistible impulse, she had left her husband with another man for whom she had no particular affection. It was a kind of recurrent madness which she did not understand except that she was positive that it had something to do with the phases of the moon. During about ten days of the month when the moon was “dark,” she was perfectly normal, but when a new moon appeared she was conscious of a vague uneasiness that increased and finally became acute when the moon was full, this being her time of peril.
Venus in conjunction with Mars, Seraphine says, brings love at first sight, but in evil aspect to Mars it makes one liable to sex-excesses.
She says that a good Neptune in the 5th house, the house of Romance, or in the 7th house, the house of Marriage, brings an ideal and spiritual attachment; but in evil aspect in either of these houses it brings an immoral relationship or a marriage to one who is morally or physically deformed. This was the condition in my own horoscope and certainly poor Julian was deformed morally.
What a strange and fascinating light all this throws upon human behavior! How it clears up mysterious infatuations and explains incredible follies! Seraphine knows a woman of fifty—she is a grandmother and a most estimable person—who has always had and still has this power of attracting men violently to her. On one occasion this woman was in a railway station in New York, waiting for her son, when a fine looking man approached her and, lifting his hat, asked if she could direct him to the train that would soon leave for Chicago. She told him in her well-bred way, and he left her; but a few minutes later he returned and said with intense feeling that he had never believed in love at first sight, but now he did. He was compelled to believe in it now.
When she drew back he told her that he was a widower, a man of means, living in the West, that he could give her the best references and—the point was that his infatuation for her was so great that he begged her to consider whether she would be willing to marry him. He would do everything in his power to make her happy, but declared that he could not and would not try to live without her another day.
Knowing her horoscope the woman did not get angry at this presumption, but gently declined the offer, and begged the man to leave her. He bowed and withdrew, but came back once again after she had joined her son and explained to the astonished young man his hopes and aspirations toward the mother. Whereupon, as the woman still refused, he finally left, to all appearances broken-hearted.
I have had one experience of this sort myself that shows how even the noblest man may suddenly suffer an infatuation capable of sweeping him on to disaster. It was at the time of my husband's death—during days when he lay half conscious in the hospital following his automobile accident. A distinguished clergyman, Dr. B——, who had known Julian slightly, visited him here and in this way made my acquaintance. And he fell violently in love with me.
For months during my early widowhood he saw me almost every day and wrote me impassioned letters, declaring that I was the only woman in the world for him, I was his true mate, he could not live without me, he was ready to give up everything for me, to go away with me to some distant city—any city—and begin life all over again.
This clergyman was a man of fifty, a brilliant preacher, widely honored and loved, who had never in his life, he assured me, committed any deliberately sinful act such as this would be, for he was married to a fine woman who had been his faithful companion for many years and had borne him two children—two boys. All this he was ready to renounce for me—reputation, honor, duty. He said it was fate. His desire for me was too strong to be resisted. The sin, the disgrace, the pain that he would cause—none of these could keep back this man of God from his evil purpose.
ARE WOMEN DISLOYAL TO OTHER WOMEN?
In many pages of my diary (written sincerely at the time) I present the conventional view of sex offences, the comforting view to women.
But—
When I search deep into my soul with an honest desire to find the truth, I am not sure that women are as blameless in the sex struggle with men as I would like to believe. Very often they are less pursued than pursuing. Every man of the world can recall the cases where women have played the rôle of temptress, using their charms against unwilling victims, notably husbands of other women. I am afraid the rule is that women are disloyal to other women where there is any serious emotional conflict.
The editor of a popular magazine told me once about a prize contest that they had for the best essay on a woman's sex solidarity union—they called it the W.S.S.U. The idea was that if women would stand together against men they could get anything in the world they wanted—equal rights and privileges, equal wages, fair treatment in every department of life; and do away with evils of ignorance and poverty, child labor evils, prostitution evils. We could have an ideal world if women, using their sex power, would only stand together against men.
Hundreds of letters were received from women, who thought this a wonderful idea; but they all agreed that it was impossible to carry it out, because women would never be loyal to one another.
That is true; I know it, and every woman knows it—women are disloyal to other women whenever it becomes a question of men. They might agree on a W.S.S.U. program, but they would never stick to it, poor things, because every blessed one of them who was at all good looking would be ready to go over to the opposition at the first favorable opportunity. Only the homely women would be loyal!
ARE WOMEN GREATER HYPOCRITES THAN MEN?
In all my troubles I kept at least to the form of religious belief, although I missed the substance, namely, that any life can be made happy, even glorious, if it is founded on purity of soul and unselfish love and service. I was selfish—even in my love; therefore I brought upon myself the fruits of selfishness which are ill health, inefficiency and unhappiness. The beauty of a selfish woman fades quickly.
Once I wrote this in my diary:
“Alas, how soon love passes! Ten or fifteen years and the best of it is gone. After that the dregs! A woman of thirty! Ugh! I shall be thirty next year. A woman of forty! No wrinkles at forty, says the beauty advertisement, but that is a lie. A woman of forty is a pitiful, tragic figure, especially if she is a little beautiful. No man wants her any more.”
I was mistaken. The beauty of unselfish love never passes. There are sisters of charity whose faces are exquisitely beautiful at fifty. Seraphine is forty-five and her face shines with heavenly radiance. Her skin is as smooth as a girl's and free from lines because she thinks good thoughts and does kind acts. The greatest beauty tonic in the world is the habit of kindness.
In one place I find this:
“Women are naturally religious, especially women with a strong sex nature; they believe in God, in spiritual mysteries; they are deeply stirred by religious music and by the ritual of worship; they love the architectural impressiveness of a church, the stained glass windows far up among majestic arches, the candles, the incense, the far-away chanting.
“I was brought up an Episcopalian, but when I am tired or discouraged I often go into St. Patrick's Cathedral—it is so beautiful—and say my prayers there. At any hour I find others praying, men and women—they come in off Fifth Avenue quite naturally and cross themselves and bow to the Altar and kneel straight up—they don't just lean forward the way we do. I love to imitate them—cross myself and go down on one knee and dip my fingers in the font of Holy Water as I come away. Sometimes I wish I was a Catholic and could confess my sins. It might help me.
“I do not think religion keeps women back very much from doing what they want to do or have resolved to do in love affairs. It is a comfort, an emotional satisfaction rather than a restraint. They come tripping in on their high heels with all their smiles and finery, and they trip out again, unchanged in their sentimental natures. A woman will go to church in the afternoon and flirt with another woman's husband in the evening. She will respond devoutly after the Commandments 'Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law,' even though she knows that her heart is inclined to break one of these laws.”
This is true in the main, although I believe now that women, because they are highly emotional, are sincere for the moment when they kneel down to say their prayers and confess their sins, even if they half know that they may continue in wrong-doing. I suppose women are less logical here than men who will often stay away from church entirely when they are breaking the moral law and when they know that they intend to go on breaking it. I am sure it is better, however, for men and women to go to church, even at the risk of a little hypocrisy, than not to go at all.
ARE WOMEN DISINGENUOUS IN SENTIMENTAL AFFAIRS?
I suppose we must admit that there are many women, in all classes of society—not mercenary women—who extend to men a certain measure of sex complaisance and feel no deep regret for this behavior, so long as things go well.
Once I wrote in my diary:
“Of course women will not admit sex indiscretions—wild horses could not drag the truth out of them. The attractive ones, those who have had emotional experiences with men, will hide them, following the feminine free masonry of centuries. And unattractive women will call high heaven to witness that nothing of that sort has ever happened to them. They have always found men respectful and considerate.”
I asked Julian about this one day when he was in a penitential mood and he said:
“Of course you are right, the indiscretions of women are numerous, inevitable; but it is the fault of men. The evidence is all about us. Any woman may ascertain this from her husband, her father, her grandfather, or her great-grandfather, if she can persuade one of these gentlemen to be honest with her.”
The ghastly truth is—this is the truth that has filled the world with tears—that the average full-blooded male citizen is polygamous in his instinct and to some extent in his practice.
Every reasonably attractive woman who has been called upon to face the facts of life knows that men are impelled towards women by a force of desire that they call over-powering. It is not over-powering, as thousands of clean-minded men have proved, it is no more over-powering than the desire to gamble or the desire to take drugs; it can be conquered as these other desires have been conquered; but centuries of wayward living under relaxed standards (the double standard) have made men believe that it is over-powering and they act accordingly. And women yield on one pretense or another, smilingly or tearfully—how can they resist the dominant will of half the human race?
I find this in my diary heavily underscored:
“How can the same act be a sin for half the race and not a sin for the other half? For centuries men have proclaimed that women must not give themselves to men, but men may give themselves to women. Is there any greater absurdity? Wine may mix with water, but water must not mix with wine.”
If these sex-complaisant women were really filled with remorse, burdened with a sense of shame, we should all know it. Their eyes, their voices, their daily lives would reveal it. Could a million women be in physical pain, say from starvation, without all the world knowing it? Is pain of the soul less torturing than pain of the body? The fact is that these women are not in spiritual pain. They regard what they have done (often regretfully) as a result of impossible conditions in the world today, a world controlled by men.
I can speak about these things with a certain authority, since, for years, I sympathized with the self-indulgent point of view, in fact I lived in an artistic and Bohemian milieu where many of my friends followed the line of least resistance. I may even confess that I might have gone with the current, had I not seen the harm and unhappiness that resulted. It does not pay to be self-indulgent.
“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION”
The suspicion that many women are disingenuous in regard to these irregularities of conduct was forced upon me some years ago in a conversation with Kendall Brown, who, for all his eccentricities, is a keen observer of life.
I give the conversation at some length just as I wrote it down in my diary:
“Kendall insists that women like me—he calls me a Class A woman which makes me furious for I'm afraid I am one—are never really on the level in sentimental affairs. If we were on the level, he says, we would not make such a fuss about the grand conspiracy of men against our virtue. There would be no point to it, for our virtue would never be in any danger unless we half-wished it to be. He says that the three great sins mentioned in the Bible and in all religions are killing, stealing and sex offences. Now, the attitude of the human race toward these sins, as established by centuries of habit, makes it almost impossible for the average citizen, man or woman, to either kill or steal. 'Isn't that true?' he asked.
“I agreed that the thought of stealing is so abhorrent to me that I could not imagine any temptation strong enough to make me a thief. I might have some reserves about killing, however, in fact I have once or twice felt a sympathy for ... well, no!
“'All right,' he went on. 'Now, if women were on the level in guarding their virtue and always had been, just as they are on the level in regard to stealing, don't you see that it would be utterly impossible for any man under any circumstances (barring violence which does not happen once in ten thousand times) to have his way with a woman? This habit of virtue would be so deeply ground into you women, into the very depth of your being, that nothing could overcome it. But as we look about us and observe women in all classes of society, we see that there is no such condition, no such habit, which proves that women are not and never have been on the level. What do you say to that, speaking as a pretty woman?'
“I did not say anything, I was so indignant—speechless—at his impertinence, and while I was searching for some answer to this outrageous statement, my poet friend proceeded:
“'You know how strong habits are, Penelope, all habits. Take smoking, or drinking cocktails, or even coffee. I swore off coffee six weeks ago. During the first week I was nearly crazy for it—had headaches, felt rotten, but I stuck it out. In the second week it was much easier for me not to take coffee. At the end of a month the habit was established and now I have no more craving for coffee. If I leave it alone for six months the chances are that nothing will ever make me drink coffee again, especially if I hypnotize myself with the idea that coffee is bad for my heart action, that I'm a nice little hero to have cut it out and that now I am going to live to be over ninety. You see?
“'Now then, the drift of all this is that the habit of virtue in women if it really was an on-the-level habit that they believed in with all their souls and would fight for with all their strength, would be utterly and absolutely unbreakable—no man could overcome it. The only reason why men in all times and in all lands have overcome women's virtue is because women themselves have never attached the importance to it that they pretend to attach. That isn't a very gallant speech, but it is true.'”
As I said, I became angry at Kendall's accusations and refused to continue the discussion, but if I were to answer the poet now, after my wider experience of life, especially after my sufferings, I should feel obliged to acknowledge that he struck a hard blow at feminine complacency. The trouble with women is that there is an increasing tendency among them, especially among those who live in cities full of pleasures and excitements, to compromise with evil, to go as near the danger line as possible, so long as they do not cross it. And this cowardly, dallying virtue is almost no virtue at all. There was a time when women prayed sincerely: “Lead us not into temptation”; now it seems as if they pray to be led into temptation, with just this reservation: that they may come out of it unscathed. Demi-vierges!
I have watched many attractive women treading the primrose path and I have seen that it always leads them to unhappiness. Not that they are disgraced or openly degraded—life goes on with many of them very much as before, but gradually their faces change, their souls change. They could have done so much better; they could have been useful, respected and self-respecting figures in the world through loving service. After all, life is very short and the only things that really matter are the things that happen in our own souls. No one can fail in life who does not fail inside, and no one can succeed in life who only succeeds outside. I learned that from Dr. Leroy.
IS PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP POSSIBLE TO AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN?
In telling the truth about my life and my innermost feelings I must quote passages from my diary that were written in a light and often flippant spirit, that being my mood at the time; but the lesson is there just the same and in many instances tears follow close behind the laughter. Furthermore, I thank God that my regeneration has not taken away my sense of humor. One of the great troubles with neurasthenic women is that they do not laugh enough.
I wrote the following about a year after my husband's death:
“We women are irrational creatures. Our emotions control us, and these emotions change from day to day, from hour to hour. We never know how we will act under any given circumstances—that may depend upon some man.”
The truth is that the attraction which draws a man and a woman together in what they call platonic friendship always has something of the physical in it—on one side or the other. Or on both sides. Women will not admit this, but it is true. They talk about the intellectual bond that joins them to a man—what a precious interchange of thoughts! Or the spiritual bond—such a soulful and inspiring companionship—nothing else, my dear! I used to talk that way myself about Jimsy Brooks before my husband died. He was my unchangeable rock of defense whenever the subject of platonic friendship came up. Other men might fail and falter, make fools of themselves, seek opportunities for—nonsense, but Jimsy was Old Reliability. I could tell him everything, even my troubles with Julian, I could trust him entirely. Alas!
One day I received this warning from Seraphine: “My beloved Penelope, you are riding for a fall! I have had you in mind constantly since you told me of your new friendship with Mr. R——. I know you intend to be truly platonic and I can see you smiling as you recall your many years' friendship with Jim Brooks to prove that such a thing is possible. But, my dear, take warning in time. While it has apparently worked out in that case, I am certain it is only the thought of losing 'even that that he has' which has prevented Jimsy from telling you of his love long ago. Your new playmate may cause you many heartaches before the game is played out. Think it over.”
Dear old Seraphine! How well she knows the human soul! A month later I wrote this in my diary:
“Seraphine was right. My bubble has vanished into thin air. Jimsy Brooks has declared his love for me and a wonderful thing has gone out of my life forever. I had always felt so perfectly safe with Jimsy. When I think of the all-day picnics that we two used to go on together and the outrageous things I have done, I blush all over.
“I remember our trip to Bear Mountain and the sparkling stream that beckoned me into its depths. I wanted to wade in it, to sit on one of the smooth round stones in the middle and in general to behave like a child. All of which I did, for there was only Jimsy to see and he didn't matter in the least. He never so much as glanced at my bare feet and legs when I splashed through the ripples with my dress pinned up!
“I remember how I kissed his hand where a fish barb had torn it.... 'Kiss it, make it well,' and all the while I must have been hurting him cruelly. God knows I did not mean to, I would not have hurt him for the world.
“This sort of thing is all very well from a woman's angle, but is it well for a man? Jimsy says no, and when I remember the expression in his eyes, I am afraid I must agree with him. I had thought of him more as I would think of a girl chum, only infinitely more desirable, for he had the power of really doing things for me—he was a cross between a nice old friendly dog that would fetch and carry at my bidding and a powerful protector who could (and did) stand between me and unpleasant happenings.
“Jimsy has gone out of my life and left a terrible loneliness. He says that some day, when he has learned resignation, he will come back and we can take up the threads of our friendship just where we have laid them down ... but that can never be, you cannot build up a new friendship on the ashes of an old one. Poor Jim Brooks! I shall never forget what a wonderful thing he was in my life. And now that I have learned my lesson, my new platonic friend Mr. R—— can take his professed platonic friendship elsewhere. I am through, henceforth all men are acquaintances ... or lovers!”
As I look back on my life and try to draw wisdom from my mistakes, I see some things clearly and one is that it is impossible for a woman like me to enjoy the close friendship of an attractive man without danger. No matter how honorable he is or how sincere the woman is, there will be danger. The only case where there is no danger is where there is no physical attraction. I might have been safe enough with some anemic saint, but not with one who had pulsing red blood in his veins—certainly not!
Here is a characteristic episode written before I married Julian, during those months of hard struggle in New York:
“Last night Kendall Brown talked to me like an angel.
“'I'll give you a case in point, Pen,' he was saying. 'A beautiful woman like you, an exquisite, lithe creature is sitting on a sofa under a soft light, leaning against pillows—just as you are now; and a man like me, a poor adoring devil, a regular worm, is sitting at the other end of the sofa looking at this woman, drinking in her loveliness, thrilling to the mysterious lights in her eyes, the caressing tenderness of her voice and all the rest of it. This man wants to reach out and take this woman in his arms—draw her to him—press his lips to hers. But he doesn't do it, because—well, she wouldn't stand for it. Besides, it isn't right. Perhaps she is a married woman. Perhaps he is married.
“'Now what I want to know is why this chap can't behave himself and regard his fair friend as he would an exquisite rose in a garden—somebody else's garden. Why can't he say to himself: “This woman is one of God's loveliest creatures, but she does not belong to me. I can look at her, I can rejoice in her beauty, but I mustn't touch her or try to harm her.” Why can't he say that to himself? Isn't it a wicked thing for a man to crush and bruise and destroy a lovely flower, to scatter its color and perfume just for a wayward impulse?'
“I shall never forget the earnestness, the tenderness in the eyes and voice of this harum scarum poet whose record in women conquests makes a rich chapter in the annals of Greenwich Village. At this moment he was quite sincere, or thought he was. There were tears in his eyes.
“And what did I do? I rose from my pillows and said, with a little laugh and toss of my head: 'Very pretty, Kendall, you ought to make a poem of it.' Then I went over to the victrola and set it going in a fox-trot, one of my favorites. I was restless and began to move about slowly to the music while Kendall watched me with a different light growing in his eyes. I wore a clinging white house garment—I suppose I was at my best.
“'Let's dance it, Pen, just gently so as not to disturb the folks downstairs,' he said. So we danced the fox-trot and my hair brushed against his cheek—he really dances very well for a poet.
“After he had gone I sat thinking of this for a long time, puzzled about myself and about Kendall. This afternoon I saw him again as I was passing through the Brevoort Café. He came up to me, smiling, and drew me aside.
“'Don't you see what a little faker you are, Pen?' he laughed. 'It's just as I said, you are none of you on the level, you pretty women. Why did you set that victrola going last night and tempt me to—to—yes you did, you know darn well you did. Why did you let your cheek brush against mine? Come, be honest, if you can. You're laughing, you adorable little devil—you expected me to kiss you.'
“'Impertinent!' I said. 'You do yourself too much honor, sir.'
“'I say you expected me to kiss you.'
“'No.'
“'Liar!' He wrinkled up his nose amusingly.
“I suppose I was a liar. I did expect Kendall Brown to—well—not to kiss me necessarily, but to make it perfectly clear that he wanted to. It was a ridiculous and unnecessary bit of posing on his part to act as if he did not want to. The French have a saying that a pretty woman always expects a suitor to know just when to be lacking in respect.”
HOW SHALL A WOMAN SATISFY HER HEART'S LONELINESS?
I quote from my diary without comment another significant conversation that took place during the early months of my widowhood. How I resented, at this time, any suggestion that I was inclined to venture too near the sentimental danger line!
And yet....
“Tonight I had a long talk with Kendall Brown on the same old subject—what is a woman to do who longs for the companionship of a man, but does not find it?
“Kendall always says disconcerting things, he is brutally frank; but I like to argue with him because I find him stimulating, and he does know a lot about life.
“'The trouble with women like you, Pen,' he said, 'is that you are not honest with yourselves. You pretend one thing and end by doing something quite different; then you say that you never intended to do this thing. Why can't you be consistent?'
“'Like men?'
“'Well, at least men know what they are going after, and when they have done a certain thing, they don't waste time regretting it or insisting that they meant to do something else.'
“'You think women are hypocrites?'
“'Yes.'
“'If women are hypocrites, if women are afraid to tell the truth about sentimental things, it is because you men have made them so,' I replied with feeling.
“Kendall answered good-naturedly that he held no brief for his own sex, he acknowledged that men treat women abominably—lie to them, abandon them, and so on; but he kept to his point that women create many of their troubles by drifting back and forth aimlessly on the changing tide of their emotions instead of establishing some definite goal for their lives.
“'Women yield to every sentimental impulse—that is why they weep so easily. Watch them at a murder trial—they weep for the victim, then they weep for the murderer. Half their tears are useless. If women would put into constructive thinking some of the vital power they waste in weeping and talking they could revolutionize the world.'
“'Could they reform the men?' I retorted, but when he tried to answer I stopped him. What was the use? I knew what he would say about this, and I really wanted to get his ideas on the other point.
“'Come back to the question,' I said. 'Take the case of a well-bred woman surrounded by stifling, conventional influences of family and friends, who sees lonely years slipping by while nothing comes that satisfies her womanhood. She may have money enough, comforts, even luxuries, but she longs for the companionship of a man. What is she to do?'
“He answered with his usual positiveness:
“'She must take the initiative. She must go after what she supremely wants, just as a man would, using her power—I assume that she is reasonably attractive. She must break through restraints, and drive ahead towards the particular kind of emotional happiness that suits her. That is what God created her for, to achieve by her own efforts this emotional happiness. If she wants it enough she can get it. We can all of us do anything, have anything on condition that we want it enough to pay the price for it. The price is usually the elimination of other things that interfere.'
“'Suppose a woman wants a husband? Suppose she is forty—and not rich? Do you mean to say she can get a husband?'
“Here my poet, blazing with conviction, leaned towards me, pointing an emphatic forefinger.
“'I tell you, Penelope Wells, it is possible for any reasonably attractive woman up to forty-five to get a reasonably satisfactory husband if she will work to get him as a man works to make money. She can't sit on a chair and twirl her thumbs and wait for a husband to drop into her lap out of the skies like a ripe plum. She must bend destiny to her purposes. She must make sacrifices, create opportunities, move about, use the intelligence that God has given her. The world is full of men who are half ready to marry—she must turn the balance!
“'Listen! If I were a lonely woman yearning for matrimony I would pick out one of these eligible males and make him my own. I would make him feel that the thing he wanted above all other things was to have me for his wife. How would I do this? I would study his desires, his needs, his weaknesses; I would make myself so necessary to him—as necessary as a mother is to a child—that he couldn't get along without me. I tell you it can be done, Pen, by the resistless power of the human will. The trouble with most of us is that we don't want things hard enough. If a woman wants a husband hard enough she will get him—nothing can prevent it!'
“I smiled at these fantastic views, although I admit, that we women ought to be more masters of our fates than we are. In my own case I suppose it would have been better if I had left Julian of my own volition, because it was right to leave him, instead of waiting for an automobile accident to separate us.
“'Please be sensible, Kendall,' I protested. 'Give me thoughts that apply to the world as it is, not extravagant fancies. You know perfectly well that there are thousands, tens of thousands, of fairly attractive women in all classes of society, especially in the wage earning class, who have no chance to marry the kind of man they wish to marry. Besides, there are a million more women than men in American. They can't all get husbands, can they? There aren't enough men to go around. And there are other thousands of wretched women tied to husbands who will not consent to a divorce. What are all these unhappy women to do?'
“'Can't they get along without men?' he laughed.
“'Can men get along without women?' I answered, rather annoyed. Kendall saw that I was serious and changed his tone.
“'Let me get this straight, Pen. If a woman longs for the companionship of a man—you mean the intimate companionship? You are not talking about platonic friendship?'
“'No, I mean the intimate companionship.'
“'And she cannot marry? Then what is she to do? Is that what you mean?'
“'Yes.'
“'Ah! Now we come to the heart of the discussion. You want to know if there are cases where self-respecting women enter into irregular love affairs and never regret it? Is it possible for a woman to break the moral law without suffering disastrous consequences? Are there cases where a girl or a woman yields to the desperate cry of her soul for a mate without degradation and without loss of her self-respect? Can such things be? Do you want my honest opinion?' The poet's eyes challenged me.
“'Yes, that is exactly what I want, I want the truth.'
“Whereupon Kendall Brown assured me that he has known a number of rather fine women, self-supporting and self-respecting, the kind of women who say their prayers at night and try to be kind, who, nevertheless, have had liaisons that have not resulted in shame and sorrow or in any moral or material disaster.
“'Are you sure of this? How can you be sure?'
“'Because I have talked frankly with these women. Sometimes I was in a position where I could, and, anyhow, women tell me things. They know it is my business to study life, to glimpse the heights and depths of human nature. I would be a poor poet if I couldn't do that.'
“'And these women told you that they have never felt regrets?'
“'Practically that—yes; several of them said that they would do the same thing over again if they had to relive their lives. They have been happier, more efficient in their work, they have had better health, calmer nerves, a more serene attitude towards life because of these love affairs.'
“'I don't believe it,' I declared. 'These women lied to you. They kept something back. The thing is wrong, abominable, and nothing can make it right or decent. I would rather die of loneliness.'
“I shall never forget Kendall's superior smile as he answered me:
“'Oh, the inconsistency of a woman! She will not marry, she will not have an affaire, yet she longs for the intimate companionship of a man. She wants to go swimming, but insists upon keeping away from the water.'
“I bit my lip in vexation of spirit.
“'Dear friend, don't be annoyed with me,' my poet continued with a quick change to gentleness. 'I didn't make the world or put these troublesome desires and inconsistencies into the hearts of women. Listen! I'll give you my best wisdom now: If a woman cannot marry and will not have a lover, then she must stop all stimulation of her emotions, she must put men out of her thoughts, out of her life and concentrate on something worth while that will not harm her. Let her take up the purely intellectual life, some cultural effort—history, art, municipal reform, anything, and absorb herself in it. Or let her follow the old path that has led thousands of women to peace of mind—let her seek the comforts of religion.' Then smiling, he added: 'You might become a missionary, Pen, in China or Armenia. I'll bet you'd be flirting with some mandarin or pasha before you got through.'
“Again I bit my lip, for I knew very well that the religious life would never satisfy me. If I entered a convent I should probably run away from it in despair. What a horrible situation to want to do right and long to do wrong at the same time!
“Kendall Brown must have read my thoughts.
“'There is one thing you self-pitying ladies must learn,' he went on, 'that is to play the game of life according to the rules. You can't have your cake and eat it. You can't amuse yourselves with fire without getting burned.'
“I was silent.
“'You must stop flirting with temptation—that's what you all do, you pretty women, fascinating women. You can't deny it.'
“'I do deny it,' I said weakly.
“'Oh come now! How about dancing—when a woman has a sinuous, clinging body and wears no corsets and—you know what I mean. Isn't that temptation?'
“'It's horrid of you, Kendall Brown, to suggest such things. Only a person with evil thoughts—'
“His eyes twinkled at me good-humoredly but I refused to be conciliated.
“'And how about the ancient and honorable practice of kissing?' he persisted. 'Of course it is not done any more, I realize that. No pretty woman in these austere days ever thinks of allowing a man to kiss her—except her husband, but—seriously, isn't kissing a temptation? Isn't it, Pen?'
“By this time my nerves were decidedly ruffled.
“'You are too foolish!' I stormed. 'I wish you would go home. I am tired of your ex-cathedra statements and your self-sufficiency.'
“'No,' he flung back, studying me with his keen gray eyes, 'you are tired of the truth.'”
CONCERNING THE DOUBLE STANDARD
With great diffidence I venture to say a word about the most perplexing and embarrassing question in the world:
Shall men be allowed to do certain things without any particular punishment or social condemnation, while women are punished mercilessly for doing these same things—things that men compel them to do?
The double standard!
Shall women try to change this standard, and, if so, in which direction—up or down?
Is it desirable that the weaker sex be given more liberty in emotional matters, or that the stronger sex be given less liberty?
I know that some distinguished women, great artists, stage favorites and others have succeeded brilliantly in spite of sex irregularities; but this proves nothing. These women succeeded because they had genius or talent, not because they were immoral, just as certain men of genius have succeeded in spite of an addiction to various evil practices. They would probably have achieved more splendid careers had they been able to conquer these weaknesses. Besides, we are considering what is best for the majority of men and women, not for an exceptional few.
I have a friend, a public school teacher in Chicago,—Miss Jessie G——, who holds advanced views on these matters and admits that she herself has been a sex transgressor. She has never been sordid or mercenary, she has always believed that she was actuated by sincere affection, but the fact remains that she has had several affairs with men. She has broken the moral law. And while she professes not to regret this and insists that she would repeat these affairs if she had to live her life over again, yet, I have felt in talking with her that this cannot possibly be true.
Miss G—— has fine instincts, is fond of music, is proud of her profession and shrinks from the thought that she might be considered déclassée; at the same time she knows that on more than one occasion she has been treated coldly by men and women familiar with the facts of her life. For example, at summer hotels, in spite of her good looks and apparent respectability, she has been denied introductions to charming women who would disapprove of her behavior.
That hurts!
Even the bravest of our advanced women thinkers know in their hearts that they writhe under the pity or scorn of their sister women.
It is certain that a decent woman who enters into irregular relations with a man whom she loves must endure great distress of mind; her relations with this man are at best unsatisfactory. She accepts the disadvantages of wifehood and foregoes the advantages. She can see her adored one only with difficulty at uncertain times and places. She lives in constant fear of discovery. She is doomed to torturing loneliness for, in the nature of things, she cannot have her lover with her whenever she longs to have him, there must be days and weeks of the inevitable separation. Nor dare she write to him freely, lest the letters fall into wrong hands. In no way may she reveal her love, the proudest treasure in her life, but must hide it like a thing of shame.
“My poor child,” I would say to such a woman, if I might, “remember that the hard test comes when things go wrong, when money fails, when beauty fades. Suppose your beloved falls ill. You cannot go to him, speak to him, minister to him on his bed of pain, though your heart is breaking. Even if he is dying, you can only wait ... wait in anguish of soul for some cold or covert message. You have no rights at his side that the family respect—his family. Who are you? Are you his wife? No! Then you are nothing, less than nothing; you are the temptress, the mistress! You love him? Bah! Can such a woman love?”
Miss G—— once acknowledged to me that while she has enjoyed the companionship of superior men whom she would never have known but for her moral laxity, yet she has paid a heavy price here, since she no longer values the acquaintance of men in her own sphere of life. From two such men (excellent, average men) she has received offers of marriage that she refused because their society no longer satisfied her after that of others more brilliant and highly placed; but she might easily have been happy with one of these two, had not her ideals been raised to a level beyond her legitimate attainment.
I might present other difficulties that must be faced by a woman who says she is tired of the old standards of virtue and will live her life as a man lives his, but I need not detail these difficulties. In her deepest soul every woman knows that the thought of a wayward existence is abhorrent to her better nature. She hates the double standard, she knows it has worked only evil in the world—it is a debasement of all that is noblest, a betrayal of all that is most beautiful. The double standard has done more harm to the human race than all the wars of history.
Women know this, but they are afraid to speak out, they are afraid to fight for their ideals, and passing years find men clinging to hideous sex privileges—one law of morality for men and another law for women.
I believe that American women could change all this, they could abolish the wicked double standard, as they have abolished saloons and houses of degradation, if they would face the facts of life instead of ignoring them. It is merely a matter of courage and organization. Suppose a hundred women in a single city should pledge themselves to bar from their homes and acquaintance notorious sex offenders—men offenders? And to question clean-minded men of their acquaintance, influential men, about these things and to get honest answers? And to have these answers openly discussed—perhaps in the churches? Why not? What are churches for except to fight evil?
What would the average man say to a woman whom he respected and trusted if she asked him to tell her, on his honor as a good citizen, whether he believes that the double standard is helpful or harmful to the women of America? Helpful or harmful to the children of America? To the manhood of America? Whether he is glad or sorry to think of the effects that his double-standard pleasures have had upon American women? Whether he would wish his sons to follow in his double-standard footsteps? Whether he would be willing to give up his double-standard privileges, if by so doing, he could save ten American women like his mother or his daughter from destruction? Would he be willing to do that? Will he give his pledge to do that?
Think how such a leaven of decency and clean manhood might spread throughout the land! It might start a single-standard revival that would sweep the world. By the power of courage and faith and the love of God!
SHALL A WIFE FORGIVE HER HUSBAND FOR UNFAITHFULNESS?
I have thought deeply about this, remembering what I suffered with Julian. It is terribly hard to tell the truth; a woman is filled with shame for herself and for her whole sex when she tries to tell the truth about the unfaithfulness of husbands.
How long shall a wife forgive? How much shall she deliberately ignore?
Many women say: “I would never forgive my husband if he deceived me.” Others say: “I would never forgive my husband if I knew that he had deceived me.” And still others say: “If my husband must deceive me, I hope he will never let me know it.”
The tragic truth is (as all women vaguely suspect) that thousands of devoted husbands, hundreds of thousands of average husbands have at one time or another fallen from grace. Julian used to say that if all the men in America who have broken the seventh commandment were sent away to do penance on lonely mountain tops, we should run short of mountains.
He told me also that a man can love his wife so sincerely that he would gladly die for her, yet, in a moment of temptation, he may be untrue to her. Julian was an impossible person, but other clean-minded men, including my dear Christopher, have told me the same thing.
The truth is that most men have never learned to resist sex temptation; they grow up with the knowledge that they need not resist temptation, which is the fault of society, as now organized, the fault of wrong teaching, of insincere preaching, of nation-wide hypocrisy.
I have come to see that women, so long as they have not set themselves as a body against this evil system (which they might evidently change if they would act together) have no right to complain of its inevitable consequences. Men will abandon sex excesses, as they have abandoned drinking excesses, gradually, through education, through reasonable appeal, through the resistless force of public opinion intelligently aroused and directed by devoted women. And in no other way!
Meantime, it is the duty of individual wives to be merciful, as far as they can, towards erring husbands. The cure lies often in more love from the wife rather than in less love.
To any tortured wife who knows or half knows certain things about her husband, I say this—“Dear friend, as long as you love him, forgive him. As long as he loves you, forgive him. Be patient—enduring. Make the hard fight against sensuality with your husband, but don't let him know you are making it. Make this fight exactly as you would a similar fight against alcohol or drugs.”
A woman must be on her guard, however, lest she hide under a cloak of forgiveness, some base motive in her own heart. Alas! I know, better than anyone, how easily we women can deceive ourselves.
There is an ignoble forgiveness that is based on love of material advantages—love of money. There are women who tolerate faithless husbands because they are too cowardly or indolent to fight the battle of life alone. What would they do if they left their sheltered homes? Who would provide comforts and luxuries? How would they dress themselves? How would they live? Shall it be by working? But they hate to work. They have never learned to work. It was partly as a defense against this woman helplessness that I took up trained nursing while Julian was still alive.
A still more degrading forgiveness is based on sensuality. There are women married to brutes of husbands who will endure every humiliation, surrendering all their fine ideals and high purposes rather than leave these coarse mates.
I first realized this just before I went abroad to nurse the soldiers. I had gone to the Adirondacks that summer for a rest, and one day on a motor trip I stopped for luncheon at a farm house, and there I recognized an old friend from my home town, Laura K——, who was to have had a brilliant musical career. It was she who had encouraged me to develop my voice; but I never could have been the great artist that Laura might have been. A famous impresario had judged her voice to be so fine—it was a glorious contralto—that he had offered to advance money for her musical studies abroad. He assured Laura that in three years she would be a blazing star on the grand opera stage.
That was the last I had heard of my old friend, and here suddenly I found her, married to a hulking mountaineer, half trapper, half guide. Here was my wonderful, burning-eyed Laura, who might have had the world at her feet, a farm drudge taking in summer boarders! How was this possible?
I spent the afternoon seeking an answer to this riddle. We walked out into the forest and talked for hours, but whenever I pressed for an explanation, she halted in confusion. Her mother was old and ill and—she did not wish to leave her. But, I pointed out, she had never spoken of this before, she had always cared supremely about her voice, about her great musical triumph that was to be. Was not that true? Yes, of course, but—the mountain air was so good for her mother. And she made other trivial excuses.
Finally, I got the truth as we were strolling home in the twilight and met her husband slouching along with a gun over his shoulder. As I caught his sullen, tawny glance and sensed his superb, muscular figure, I suddenly understood. He nodded curtly and passed on—this cave man!
“That was the reason, Laura, wasn't it?” I whispered.
She looked at me in silence, biting her lips, and blushed furiously.
“Yes,” she confessed, “that was the reason.”
IS IT A WOMAN'S DUTY TO TELL HER HUSBAND OF PAST TRANSGRESSIONS?
I am not sure what I really believe about this in my deepest soul. Thousands of women who long to do right will agree with me that it is a terribly difficult question to answer.
If this were an ideal world where men and women had been purified and spiritualized to a Christ-like loftiness of soul, one would say yes; but it is not. A loving wife does not wish her husband to confess to her his past transgressions, she takes him as he is and is happy to start a new life with him, turning over a clean page. She only asks that he be loyal and faithful in the future. And if she is ready to give him similar loyalty and faithfulness, if she has sincerely repented of any sinful act, is not that sufficient? Why must she risk the destruction of their happiness by a revelation that will do no good to anyone? Why must she give her husband needless pain?
And yet—
While the vast majority of women will agree that such feminine reticence about past wrong-doing is justifiable, the truth, as I have come to see it, is that, in so agreeing, women must subscribe to a creed of deliberate deception. A man marries a woman whom he believes to be virtuous, a woman whom he might refuse to marry if he knew that she were not virtuous. And this woman does nothing to disabuse him of his error. Is that right? She allows her husband to keep a certain good opinion of her that is not justified. No matter how excellent her motive may be, the fact remains that this marriage rests upon an insecure foundation, upon an implied falsehood. Thousands of plays and stories have been constructed on this theme, and they usually end unhappily.
Suppose a man who had been in prison should marry a woman who was ignorant of this cloud on his life, trusting to chance that his criminal record would never be discovered? The two cases are somewhat parallel. What would the woman say if she learned later that she had unwittingly married an ex-convict? Would she not prefer that he had told her the truth before he married her?
On the other hand it may be argued that a woman's sin, being presumably the fault of some man, may be properly expiated, in part at least, by some other man. But that does not dispose of the difficulty that a woman who conceals past indiscretions from her husband is condemned to live a lie.
One deception almost invariably leads to another deception until a whole chain or net of equivocations, ruses, trickeries, is established with the hideous possibility of some shocking divorce scandal, possibly years later when innocent children may be the sufferers.
Even if such disaster is averted and the truth is never revealed, even if all goes well apparently through happy married years, yet the poison of deceit may work a spiritual disaster in this woman—such a disaster as overwhelmed me—or it may bring about a lowering of moral standards in a woman, a stifling of religious life, that will have sinister and far-reaching consequences.
The greatest need in the world today is the need of spirituality among women, for they are the teachers of the young.
As illustrating the frightful harm that may result from such a lack of spirituality in a woman, I quote from my diary the case of a great English lady whom I met while I was nursing in the battle region back of Verdun. She had come from London to be near her son, a magnificent soldier, the handsomest Englishman I have ever seen, who had been wounded in the Mesopotamian campaign and was now here for his convalescence.
“Lady Maude H—— G—— is a fascinating woman,” I wrote. “She must have been a great beauty in her day, and she seems to be a figure in the rich, smart London set. She speaks quite casually of being invited to this or that palace for a chat and a cup of tea with one of the princesses or even with the Queen. During hours that she spent at the hospital she talked to me frankly and charmingly about many things connected with her boy and his future. She is worried lest some designing woman get him in her power, and one day she told me that she has arranged matters for Leonard so that he will be spared certain perils of this kind that might surround him in London. This excellent and brilliant mother has solved her son's problem—the sex problem—in the following extraordinary way, which proves, so she seems to think, her love and wisdom. She has arranged matters—goodness knows how—so that Leonard will be on excellent terms with two beautiful young matrons in her set and in this way he will not be vamped off by any unscrupulous chorus girl. These two beauties are to serve for the delectation of this young warrior until he can make a suitable marriage. What a commentary upon the morals and standards of high society!”
How can one explain such incredible baseness?
This woman is not an ignoble person. On the contrary she is kind and generous, full of the best intentions. She has simply reached a point in her selfish round of vanity and pleasure-seeking where she can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. Her soul is withered, starved, because it has been deprived of God's love and God's truth; yet the deterioration came gradually, no doubt, beginning with petty lies and compromises and evasions of responsibility. If she had any past transgression on her conscience it is certain she never told her husband about it.
It is a rule among women (with few exceptions) that idleness and uselessness make for selfishness and sensuality. Also for irreligion. These ultra mondaines think of God in an amiable, well-bred way—they approve of God, and they say their prayers in an amiable, well-bred way; but none of this avails to regenerate their lives or to combat the sensuality of their self-indulgent men. Nor does it save these women themselves from submitting to a social regime that is largely based on indulgence of the senses and the appetites. Il y en a, de ces femmes du monde, qui se conduisent d'une façon pire que les filles de joie.
As for myself I told my husband everything. I kept back nothing of my waywardness and sinfulness, my evil thoughts and desires. I admit that most men would not forgive a wife or a young bride who confessed to some sex transgression committed before her marriage. I also admit that the chances are against a husband's discovering such a transgression, if the wife keeps silent. It is apparently to the wife's advantage to keep silent; it apparently pays, in this case, to live a lie; but if deeper values are considered, if the sacredness of a woman's soul is taken into account, then a woman will see that she must confess, regardless of consequences. Alas, this is a very hard thing for the ordinary woman to do—the ordinary woman who is neither a saint on a stained glass window nor the heroine of a novel. But if she has the moral courage to confess her sin (knowing that life is given us for something else than temporary advantage), then, having cleansed her soul, she will be singularly blessed with peace of mind, and will be given strength to bear whatever comes, even loneliness. Besides, there are men who know how to forgive. God knows most of them have need enough to be forgiven themselves.
EPILOGUE
A WOMAN'S LITANY
(Written by Penelope Wells)
I dedicate to other women who may have done wrong, as I did, or who may be sorely tempted as I was, these thoughts that have comforted me—they have been like a consecration of my life. I have had them printed on vellum in a little red book no larger than a visiting card and so thin that I can slip it inside my glove. This is my talisman. I read these thoughts whenever I am wavering or discouraged, wherever I may be, in crowds or solitude, walking in the street, sitting in a car, and they always give me new heart and courage.
I
When I am weak or embittered, indolent, envious, I know that I can find strength through the performance of some loving act, however small. I can brighten the dullest sky with the sunshine of a little love. I know that sin and evil come chiefly from selfishness and sensuality. I can conquer selfishness by love. I can conquer sensuality by love. I can overcome all evil, all fear, all vanity, by love. There is no death, but the death of love. From which,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
II
I know that pride is the worship of self: but humility is the worship of God. Pride leads to discontent, but humility in loving service (no matter how obscure) gives peace of mind. From all forms of pride,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
III
I know that only harm can come to me from dwelling upon past mistakes, follies, sins. I cannot change these so I put them out of my thoughts and concentrate on the present, which is mine to do with as I please. From all vain regrets,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
IV
I know that right living comes only from right thinking. To do right under stress of law or custom while desiring to do wrong is to make a mockery of virtue. I must sincerely desire to do right. The forces of life-control must act from within me, not from without. From all hypocrisy and false pretense,
Dear Lord, deliver me.
V
I know that a woman cannot be virtuous if she longs for sensuality, or dallies with it, or dwells upon it in her thoughts, even though she refrain from any sinful act. Nor can a married woman be a truly virtuous wife if she yields to perverse revellings of the imagination which defile body and soul—even with her husband! From all defilements of love,
Dear Lord, deliver me.