V.
THE REAL MYSTERY.
Mr. Austin Buckingham found on his table, when he returned from his walk with Henry Wilding, a scrap of paper. It had nothing on it but the words "The Mystery." This was the heading which he had made for his story. He had been interrupted by his caller just as he had written the words. He had not the remotest notion when he set them down what the mystery was which he meant to reveal. The title now seemed like a prophecy to him. Instead, however, of jotting down an outline of his story, he took out his note-book and wrote busily:
"I wish I knew just what I saw this evening. I had walked out with Henry Wilding, who called, and who was going, he said, to his cousin's. Now, I will not conceal from my faithful journal that I was moved by a desire to know just who his cousin was and where he or she lived; for by a most fortunate chance I have found out that my maiden without a name lives, or probably lives, at a Mr. Martindale's, on this street. I tried to draw Wilding out without betraying my own interest, but he was very obtuse, and even seemed to be ashamed of his cousin. At any rate, he parried my questions, and of course I could not push my curiosity. However, I got the better of him, and walked out with him when he left. As luck would have it again, the shades were drawn at the house where he stopped, and the bright light within made the scene perfectly distinct. I talked on the door-step about I know not what, half hoping that Wilding would invite me in, but really absorbed in watching two ladies who sat by a table. One was my fair unknown, the other a lady whom I have occasionally seen, and whom I take to be Wilding's cousin,—though this is all guess-work. Whether she is or not, she is evidently a very unpleasant sort of body, for, whatever she said, the other was plainly exceedingly vexed and mortified. She covered her face with her hands. At one time she made a movement as if to leave. She looked earnest and troubled. I could vow she was about to burst into tears. Her face was very expressive. No one who shows such sudden changes can help being a person of rare sensibility. I am almost out of conceit of making her the heroine of my story, though, to be sure, I am not likely to interfere with her personal rights, so long as I do not know either her name or her history.
"To come back to the pantomime which I saw through the window. It was probably by no means so mysterious in reality as it appeared to me. Yet what could it have been? or, rather, how can I appropriate it for my purposes? I have it! The very situation of looking through a window shall serve as the critical point in my story, only it shall be the hero of my story, and not an idle spectator like myself, who does the looking. The young poet, Wilding in disguise, only walks out at night. He is a shy fellow, who even in public holds his hat, as it were, before his face. He keeps by himself in his garret, brooding over his poems, and seeing no one, until he almost loses the power of ordinary association with other people. When night comes, he walks, sometimes through the night. But his loneliness has generated a desire for companionship which he can satisfy only by ghostly intercourse. So, instead of knowing people, he imagines them, and falls in love with his imaginations. He observes that one house looking toward the sea always keeps its curtains drawn. He falls into the way of stealing by every night to catch a glimpse of a fireside. There he sees a fair girl,—and I may as well draw her portrait like that of my unknown friend,—with eyes that are downcast but when raised suddenly grow large and lustrous, with hands that fold themselves when disengaged, with hair that peeps shyly over the forehead, and with a figure that seems always to be listening. She becomes the world to him. He has renounced all common association with men and women, and he peoples the world which he has thus brushed out with shapes caught from this one girl. The very silence which separates them makes him more quick in his imagination to invest her with the grace which her distant presence never denies."
"Bah! what superfine nonsense I am writing!" exclaimed Buckingham, pushing his note-book aside, but continuing to sit before his fire in revery.