CHAPTER IV.
"I do not know what witchcraft's in him."
Had he been put upon the rack Loyd Morton would still have been unable to give any coherent account of his vigil at the bedside of Romaine Effingham. Four hours had elapsed from the moment that he closed the chamber-door until, upon the stroke of midnight, it opened to admit Colston Drummond. Reflection failed to assist him to any satisfactory explanation regarding the flight of the time. He was morally certain that he had not lost an instant in slumber, the tension upon his mind would be almost proof positive that he could not have lapsed into unconsciousness; and yet the span seemed a complete void as he looked back upon it.
Romaine still lived; indeed her hold upon vitality had visibly strengthened since Morton's advent, yet, so far as his cognizance of the phenomenon went, Nature unassisted had taken the resurrection into her own hands. Resurrection was Morton's estimate of the miracle, since every token of immediate dissolution was present in the appearance of his patient when first he bent over her. The eyes were glazed, the flesh clammy, and the pulsations imperceptible. The extremities were cold with that peculiar chill which is so eloquent to the practised touch. Death's conquest was imminent, perhaps assured, and he had done nothing to avert the dread consummation—nothing save to murmur the name of one which embodied, for him, the quintessence of existence here and hereafter.
"Paula!" he had murmured, half tentatively, half mechanically.
It must have been the result of sorcery if simply at the utterance of that name Death furled his pale flag and left the field to his erstwhile routed opponent. Yet such was the case, as the physician's keen senses promptly detected. The young man experienced a thrill second to none that as yet he had encountered in his professional career, as upon his finger-tips came the delicate flutter of the pulse, while to his eager sight followed a gentle upheaval of the breast that sent a quivering sigh to his listening ear.
It was a supreme moment to Loyd Morton.
Naturally his first impulse was to apply some restorative and thus assist resuscitation. There was brandy at hand, a small quantity of which he inserted, drop by drop, between the parted lips. The effect produced seemed magical; the respiration became steady, a delicate glow crept into the wan cheeks, while a genial warmth attended by that most encouraging of symptoms, a dew-like moisture, relaxed the cold rigidity of the hands that returned the faintest possible pressure as they rested in the young doctor's clasp. Every token of convalescence by degrees made itself manifest and progressed until the soft gray eyes unclosed, instinct with crescent intelligence.
The watcher bent eagerly so that his countenance should fill the field of her vision, so that her awakening consciousness should grasp his personality to the exclusion of all other objects. Apparently the unpremeditated act met with flattering success, in that Romaine Effingham's first utterance framed his name.
"Loyd!"
It was simply an articulate breath, but it was a conscious utterance capable of interpretation, and Morton was satisfied; nay, he was enraptured.
"Paula!" he exclaimed, in his exaltation, "Paula, you have come back to me!"
"I have—come back," was the tremulous reply.
"And we shall never, never again be parted," he urged with passionate intensity.
The dilated eyes watched him as if spell-bound.
"You understand that you are no longer Romaine, but Paula, my own dear, true love," he continued, giving each word its due import; "Romaine has gone to her rest, but you have returned to make my life once more worth the living! Oh, my dear one, tell me that you realize the situation, that you comprehend my words! Let me hear you say that you are Paula, my wife."
"Paula, your wife," came the obedient echo.
Had he been in his normal condition of self-control, Morton's exuberant satisfaction might have been tempered by a consciousness of the fact that he was forcing his own volition upon a cataleptic subject; the strained circumstances under which he labored, however, spared him this somewhat matter-of-fact view of the case. Indeed, he had closed all avenues of approach to unwelcome spectres of the scientific order, for the time being at least. Moreover, he had permitted himself to lose sight of an attribute which upon more than one occasion had been imputed to him. It had been whispered among his hyper-sensitive patients that the young physician possessed that most mysterious, yet positive, of gifts, mesmeric power, animal magnetism,—what you will. Be that as it may, Loyd Morton undoubtedly exerted a strong attraction for those in whom he was personally interested. Babblers had informed him of his endowment much, be it said, to his annoyance; but the fact remained that he held his fellow man in thrall, whether he would or not.
Either of the above considerations would have tinctured his overflowing cup with bitterness; but as he had already drained that cup of joy, it remained for digestion to prove whether the adverse mixture had crept in in some ingustable form.
A few more words of passionate admonition he addressed to his patient ere the eye-lids drooped and the breathing became measured as in that profound slumber which succeeds exhaustion.
And thereupon began that extraordinary vigil, during which Morton was conscious of naught save the assured resurrection and possible—he dared not think probable—reincarnation.
She had placed her hand in his ere she fell asleep, and he sat close beside her scarcely venturing to relinquish it into the keeping of its fellow where it rested upon her breast. By the light of the shaded lamp he studied the calm beauty of the girl's features, the restful slumber lending a heightening touch to their exquisite outline.
Always a being set above and apart from his anxious existence, he had seen even less than formerly of Romaine since his marriage, and in that time she had matured into the perfection of womanhood. He had loved her, as he had loved the other members of her family, with a love born of gratitude. There had been no sentiment in this love beyond that of grateful appreciation; he had loved Romaine exactly in the vein that he had loved her brothers; had he been called upon, he would have laid down his life for any of them with undiscriminating loyalty. Having been his intimate friend, Malcolm might have stood first in a test of self-sacrifice, but there had never been the slightest shade of difference in his sense of allegiance to either Hubert or Romaine. In a word, he had never loved Romaine otherwise than as a friend; within the niche before which his soul bowed down in all-absorbing idolatry he had set up the image of the woman who had been his wife, and as it was a case of soul-worship with him, the niche remained occupied to the eternal exclusion of rival effigies.
He recalled with a flutter of timid pride how officious friends, ambitious of his welfare, had ventured to couple his name with that of Romaine.
"You were her brother's 'Fidus Achates,'" they urged; "you have received not only marks of affection from every member of her family, but positive encouragement in every form. Take Malcolm's vacant place and be a son and brother and husband all in one."
To this friendly folly he smiled in answer, saying, "You admit that I assumed the rôle of Achates to perfection, do you?"
"Certainly!" was the reply.
"Then let me rest upon my laurels. I am wise in my own generation. I know the limit of my histrionic ability and have no wish to attempt an impersonation of Phaethon."
Hence his friends inferred that he was disinclined to court Romaine Effingham through modesty or diffidence, little dreaming that he refused to enter the lists through lack of inclination. Even upon this night as he sat at her bed-side, keeping vigil while she slept, satisfied that she was convalescent, he was simply grateful that heaven in its mercy had spared her to her mother and brother, and—
A cold perspiration akin to the dews of death, pearled upon his brow, grown suddenly pallid, as a problem of dire import flitted like a grewsome spectre into the field of his speculation.
"If," suggested the phantom, with appalling reason, "she is spared to her mother and brother, is she not spared as well to her affianced lover? Will he not shortly claim her as his own? And if, as you have been persuaded to believe, her soul is at rest while the soul of one you have loved and lost is renascent, incarnate in her body, how will you bear this second separation, this alienation in life, which promises to be infinitely more trying than that of death?"
He sat as one spell-bound, listening in horror to the silent voice.
He relaxed his hold upon the girl's hand and it fell limply at her side. His eyes grew haggard with the speechless agony of uncertainty, while his pallid lips strove to utter the cry of his anguished soul, "My God, why did I not foresee this emergency? Thou art my judge that I would not cause her one instant's misery, would not cast my shadow in the path of her perfect happiness for my life, and yet"—"And yet," resumed the voice of the phantom—alas, with no intonation of mockery—"and yet you must secure her body in order to claim communion with the soul that now animates it. Look upon her, strive to realize that this is Paula your wife and no longer the daughter of your benefactors."
"Oh, grant me some proof!" he moaned; "Paula! Paula, speak to me! In heaven's name, give me the satisfaction of knowing that you are with me once again, or this uncertainty will drive me mad!" He had dropped upon his knees at the bedside and had almost roughly resumed possession of her hand, passionately pressing it to his lips. "Paula," he cried, "assure me that you are here, grant me some token that you recognize me, Loyd, your husband, and help me to shape my course of action, for now is the appointed time; one precious moment lost and we may be estranged, hopelessly parted. I am groping in darkness like unto the shadow of death. If ever I needed thy guiding hand, I need it now, in this supreme, this awful moment. Oh, hear me, Paula! I conjure you, speak to me!"
As if in answer to his desperate exhortation, she stirred in her sleep, and he felt the soft flutter of her hand as it lay crushed between his.
"No, no!" he panted, "you must speak, or I shall not be satisfied that it is indeed you! Call me Loyd, husband—anything you will, so that I recognize your presence?"
He arose and bent low above her, almost crying aloud in exultation as her lips parted to exhale his name, simply his name.
"Loyd!"
Then the profound slumber resumed its sway.
He raised the quiescent figure in his arms and imprinted a passionate kiss upon the low brow.
"Did you not promise me," he whispered, "that before the dawn of another day I should take a living body in my arms and know that it is animated by your soul? Your prophecy has come true and I thank God for it!"
Very gently he lowered the delicate form among the pillows and with a reverent touch placed the hand that he had caressed, within the clasp of its fellow; then he turned and began to pace the shadowy chamber in a state of uncontrollable excitement.
"She warned me," he murmured, "that consequences would arise over which she should have no control; warned me that I should have to confront them. I assured her that I was not only ready, but eager to accept the chances. What was my conviction at that moment compared with the overwhelming conviction that commands me now? Then she was intangible, invisible even,—a spirit; now she is in the flesh and has addressed me with lips of flesh! Be the consequences what they may, this body which has served her soul with the means of reincarnation shall belong to me, as wholly and entirely as her soul, which is mine to all eternity!"
"You do not love that body," whispered the spectral Mentor; "beautiful as in itself it is, it possesses no attraction for you."
"By degrees I shall learn to cherish it," was the undaunted reply; "shortly I shall love it as being her abode."
Argument was out of the question in his existing condition of mental exultation; not that he had quite lost his grip upon himself, since some semblance of common-sense had borne ecstatic fancy company in her flight to the lofty pinnacle upon which she now poised, as his next more material thought gives evidence. He had reached the fire-place in his nervous perambulation and had paused upon the hearth, mechanically setting his gaze upon the smouldering embers.
"I would to heaven," he muttered, "that Paula's spirit had returned to me in any other guise than this! I shudder before the complication that looms upon the near horizon, and yet in what am I to be blamed for what of necessity must transpire in the immediate future? How can I be expected, in the very nature of things, to be able to explain to Drummond the reason that he should cease to cherish his love and relinquish all to me? Would he not consider me hopelessly insane were I to lay before him the reason for my determined action, expose a scheme which even in my eyes seems unparalleled in the history of man? No, no! I am convinced that so occult a compact must remain an inviolable secret between the Infinite and me. I feel myself to be but a mere factor in some great covenant, an instrument, a simple means tending towards an end of which I am in ignorance."
The smouldering embers fell together upon the hearth, emitting one expiring lance of flame, illumining his pallid features grown tense and rigid with resolution.
"I may be forced to dissimulation, even to deceit," he concluded, turning away from the dazzling gleam, "in order to effect my purpose. Already, as it were unconsciously, have I prepared Mrs. Effingham for possible catastrophes. I have told her that her daughter will recover, but in the same breath I warned her that I feared for her mental condition. Why I so warned her, heaven only knows. So far as I know at present that utterance was a lie, a base, ignoble fabrication; but it came unbidden to my lips, and who shall say that it came not at the instigation of some mysterious power beyond and above me? Who shall deny that, since I have ceased to be the man I was, some species of clairvoyant skill has descended upon me as the natural concomitant of the atmosphere of unreality that henceforth I shall breathe?"
He turned quickly and crept to the bedside, a desperate expression kindling in his haggard eyes as they rested upon the sleeping girl.
"Whether the issue proves me to be clairvoyant or brands me with falsehood, I must establish mental aberration in my patient, or lose my prize," he muttered; "I have burned my bridges and there is no retreating now!"
Scarcely had the incoherent words escaped his lips ere a clock tolled midnight and simultaneously the sound of wheels upon the terrace disturbed the peaceful course of night.
Thereupon followed the confusion of the muffled unclosing and closing of doors, excited voices and hurrying footsteps.
The sleeper stirred and moaned. Morton drew himself up into an attitude of unconscious defence, vaguely preparing himself for menace or attack, and in the next instant the door was thrust open to admit Colston Drummond.
No need to glance twice at the handsome face in order to guess the ungovernable anxiety and disarray that possessed the young lover.
"Is she alive?" he gasped, advancing into the middle of the chamber.
For answer, Morton imperiously waved him back in silence.
"No, no!" he cried, "give me some satisfaction! Tell me at least that I have not arrived too late! In God's name, why do you not speak?"
Barring his impetuous passage to the bedside, even laying detaining hands upon Drummond's shoulders, Morton was about to reply, when a low cry disturbed the ominous pause.
Snatched from her profound slumber and unobserved, Romaine Effingham had struggled up to a sitting posture and straightway fallen back with the cry which had startled the silence.
"Oh, why will you torture me?" she moaned piteously, flinging her arms across her face as if in desperate effort to shut out the sight of some uncanny apparition; "take him—take him away and let me—rest! In mercy, let me rest!"
"Romaine! Great heaven! what does this mean?"
"Silence!" commanded Morton, releasing his hold and retreating a step, while a gleam of triumph flickered for one brief moment in his sunken eyes; "Mr. Drummond, if you have any respect for the life of Miss Effingham, you will instantly leave this room!"
"Her life?" echoed Drummond in suspense, "it appears to me rather as if her reason were in jeopardy!"
"You are right," came the firm response, "her reason is gone—she is mad!"