The Ivory Snuff Box

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

When the meal was over, she asked one of the attendants, who seemed to be a sort of housekeeper, or head nurse, if there would be any objection to her taking the phonograph, which was a small and rather cheap affair, to her room. She wished to amuse herself, she explained, playing over some of the records.

The woman regarded her curiously for a moment, but as there seemed nothing out of the way in the request, she assented, with the caution, however, that she should not use the instrument except during the day. "Some of our patients are very nervous," she explained. "It might annoy them, if they were sleeping. Of course, if there are any complaints, you will not continue."

Grace got one of the nurses to carry the instrument to her room, and selected several records from those which she found in a cabinet on which it stood. There were several American records—she took all of these, and some others selected at random.

She did not play The Rosary at once, but made use of one of the other records. The horn of the instrument she directed toward the open window. When she had finished the first air, and adjusted her own record upon the plate of the machine, she felt afraid that it might at once be recognized as strange and new, but apparently no one paid any attention to it.

She continued her playing as long as she dared without running the risk of attracting undue attention. When at last she stopped, she felt as though she never wanted to hear the strains of The Rosary again.

After dinner, she determined to disregard the suggestion of the housekeeper to confine her playing to the daytime, and moving the machine somewhat nearer the window, played the song over three times in rapid succession. She had just begun to rewind the clockwork for a fourth time when there was a loud knocking at the door, and Dr. Hartmann entered hastily in response to her rather frightened "Come in."

He was scowling fiercely, and took no pains to conceal the fact that he was angry. "Miss Ellicott," he growled, "we cannot possibly permit you to play the instrument any longer. It annoys the other patients. I am surprised that my housekeeper did not inform you so at once. Several have already complained. I shall have to take it back to the library." He gathered up the instrument and started toward the door, then seemed for a moment to regret his brusqueness. "You will pardon me, I know, but it is quite out of the question. Good-evening." In a moment he had gone.

Grace sat down and burst into tears. It was not the taking away of the phonograph which distressed her—she felt that if anything could be accomplished by its use, it had already been done—but the hopelessness of the whole situation.

Nearly eighteen hours had elapsed, since she had stolen, half-fainting, from the sight of Richard's white and agonized face. Even Lablanche's assurances that Hartmann would do her husband no serious injury, failed to comfort her. The whole affair of the phonograph seemed trivial and useless. What message could the words of this song give him—what in fact could they mean to anyone, except a message of hopeless love?

When the hour for going to bed had come, she threw herself, without undressing, on the bed, and lay sleepless, in the darkened room. The vision of Richard, as she had seen him, his face within the circle of light, the night before, tortured her incessantly. It seemed somehow so wrong, so cowardly of her, to lie here in comfort doing nothing to aid him who, in name at least, was united to her forever, and in love was more dear to her than her own soul. She could not sleep, and presently rose and sat at the window, her elbows resting upon the sill, gazing hungrily out at the little square brick building where she knew Richard lay confined.