But Bill had heard nothing. He had schooled himself to noises. Sunday morning sermons made him drowsy, and he often slept profoundly when Mrs. V. ragtimed on the piano.
He had not heard that scream of terror. He had not sensed the thing which had fallen upon his hitherto happy home. It required a vigorous shaking to arouse him.
But when once awake and listening to his wife’s rehearsal of the incident, Bill Vanderhook was stirred. He was no longer drowsy. He was never so wide awake. The Mayor of Kankakee paled and trembled. Memory was rife. He recalled Alonzo Leffingwell’s departure and the cause. He remembered his own part in that fatal introduction. He remembered the mystic’s claim upon Mrs. V. And worse than all, he could not forget the conditional curse pronounced upon himself.
Bill Vanderhook realized his responsibility. A cold thrill ran spineward and radiated therefrom. It is said that drowning men pass in review a whole lifetime. So Bill Vanderhook in that one moment saw as in a vision his own domestic past. Though the years had but augmented his own devotion to Imogene Silesia, he had sometimes fancied that she, since coming into the Presidency of the Advanced-Thought-Extension Club, had at times appeared indifferent and distrait. He now recalled with an inward chill the foreboding that she now rarely came into the Drug Store except for a check, and that she no longer entered joyously into the yearly replenishing of the “Stock.”
He remembered further, that on one or two occasions she had spoken as if she missed something in him. She had once or twice yawned when he was repeating some very flattering things said about himself in his several capacities and offices.
A spasm of fear shook the gray matter in the druggist’s head, swept through the spine and circled round into the Solar Plexus—where masculine emotions seem to center. He felt very weak all in a minute.
“Imogene, Imogene, where is that Flask? Gimme that—I’ve got a chill; I might as well try it now.”
The flask, an elegant silver and cut glass affair, had been among the evening’s gifts. It was presented by the old Base Ball Nine. It was full when it took its place in line with other cards, but it was lighter when congratulations were over.
It was empty when the Mayor of Kankakee dropped it on the floor by his bedside.
Still he was cold, very cold, and still the fatal words “REMEMBER, YOU ASSUME MY RESPONSIBILITY” rang through the chambers of his memory.