To my great surprise, Mrs. Colesworthy did not turn into the street which led to the Budworths' house, but went straight on. I thought at first she was going to the church to countermand the wedding preparations. But before I could put a question to her she had gone around a corner, and was hurrying up the steps of the principal hotel in our town.
"Is Dr. Hildstein in?" she asked of the first person she met.
The man, gazing astonished at her pallid face, replied that he was, and immediately conducted us to a little parlor on the first floor, the door of which stood partly open. Without knocking, Mrs. Colesworthy hastily entered, I closely following. A middle-aged man suddenly arose from a small table at which he was sitting, and turning quickly toward us, made an abrupt exclamation in German.
As I have said, I do not understand German, but Mrs. Colesworthy knows the language well, and, stepping up to the man, she said (she afterward told me the meaning of the words that passed between them): "Are you Dr. Hildstein?"
"I am," he said, his face agitated by emotion, and his eyes sparkling, "but I can see no one, speak to no one! I go out this moment to observe the result of an important experiment!"
My wife motioned to me to close the door. "You need not go," she said, "I can tell you that your experiment has succeeded. You have dematerialized Mr. Kilbright. In one hour he was to be married to a noble, loving woman; and now all that remains where he stood is a pile of clothes!"
"Do you tell me that?" exclaimed the doctor, wildly seizing his hat.
"Stop!" cried Mrs. Colesworthy, her face glowing with excitement, her eyes flashing, and her right arm extended. "Stir not one step! Do you know what you have done?"
"I have done what I had a right to do!" exclaimed the doctor, almost in a shout. "If he is gone he was nothing but a spirit. Tell me where—"
"I will tell you this!" exclaimed my wife. "He was a great deal more than a spirit. He was a man engaged to be married at twelve o'clock this day. You may think there is no law that will sweep down on you, but I tell you there is; and before the clock strikes twelve you shall know it. Do you imagine you have come upon a people who will endure the presence of an ogre? a wretch, who reduces to nothing a fellow human being, and calls it an experiment? When we tell what you have done—my husband cannot speak German, but he is a leader in this town, and he supports me in all I say—when we have told what you have done there will be no need of courts, or judges, or lawyers for you. Like a wild beast you will be hunted down; you will be trampled under foot; you will be torn to pieces! Fire, the sword, the hangman's noose, clubs, and crowbars will not be enough to satisfy the vengeance of an outraged people upon a cold-blooded wretch who came to this country solely for the purpose of perpetrating a crime more awful than anything that was ever known before! Did you ever hear of lynching? I see by your face you know what that means. You are in the midst of a people who, in ten short minutes, will be shrieking for your blood!"