"To all the many questions he then asked me I returned only incoherent replies, but I was careful to be again raving about buried riches upon the next visit. In this way I kept him by me long enough to influence him, and in less than a month he was completely subject to my will. I tested my power over him in divers ways. Any delicacy I wished I compelled him to bring me. In this way I was enabled to regain a portion of my lost strength. When I concluded the time had come for me to make good my escape, I caused him to come to my cell at midnight and remove the bricks from the slit while I put on the disguise he had brought me. Once out of my stone tomb we carefully walled it up again and then departed to find my imaginary hidden treasure. We made our way without trouble to Algiers, for my companion had money, and sailed thence via Gibraltar for England. During the trip my companion jumped overboard and was drowned in the Bay of Biscay. Thus I was completely freed from Ceuta and its terrible pest-hole.

"From England I sailed to New York, reaching America penniless and in ill health. Things not going to my liking in New York, I came to Boston and took up my old callings of gambler and detective. It was at this time that I saw John Darrow's curious notice in the newspaper, offering, in the event of his murder, a most liberal reward to anyone who would bring the assassin to justice.

"Mon Dieu! How I needed money. I would have bartered my soul for a tithe of that amount. It was the old, old story, only new in Eden. Ah! but how I loved her! She must have money, money, always money! That was ever her cry. When I could not supply it she sought it of others, and this drove me mad. If, I said to myself, I could only get this reward! This was something really worth working for, and if I could but get it, she should be mine only. I at once set to work upon the problem.

"It was not an easy thing to solve. I might be able to hire a man to do the deed for me, but he would hardly be willing to hang for it without disclosing my part in the transaction. It was at this time that I first met M. Latour on Decatur Street. He at once impressed me as being just the man I wanted, and I began to gradually subdue his will. In this circumstances greatly aided me. When I found him he was in very poor health and without any means of sustenance. His daughter was able to earn a little, but not nearly enough to keep the wolf from the door. Add to this that he had a cancer, which several physicians had assured him would prove fatal within a year, that he was afflicted with an almost insane fear that his daughter would come to want after his death, and you have before you the conditions which determined my course. My first thought was to influence him to do the deed himself, but, recalling the researches of M. Charcot in these matters, I came to the conclusion that such a course would be almost certain to lead to detection, since a hypnotic subject can only be depended upon so long as the conditions under which he acts are precisely those which have been suggested to him. Any unforeseen variations in these conditions and he fails to act, exposes everything, and the whole carefully planned structure falls to the ground. When, therefore, the time came which I had set for the deed, I found it possible to drug M. Latour, abduct him from his home, and to keep him confined and unconscious until I had killed Mr. Darrow in a manner I will describe in due course. As soon as I had committed the murder and established what I fondly believed would be a perfect alibi in my attendance at the examination, I secretly conveyed the still unconscious M. Latour to his rooms and awaited his return to consciousness. I then asked him how he came in such a state and what he was doing in Dorchester. He was, of course, ignorant of everything. Little by little I worked upon him till he came to believe himself guilty of John Darrow's murder.

"I had availed myself of his interest in the subject of cancer to get him to the library. It is one of my maxims never to take an avoidable risk, for which reason I made Latour apply for the books I wanted, as well as for the medical works he desired to peruse. As he was ambidextrous, I suggested the use of the two names Weltz and Rizzi, the former to be written with his right and the latter with his left hand. I was actuated in all this by two motives. First, I was manufacturing evidence which might stand me in good stead later, as well as minimising somewhat my own risk in getting the information I needed; and, secondly, I was getting Latour into a good atmosphere for my hypnotic influence. Not a word of all these matters did he relate to his daughter, whom he loves with a devotion I have never seen equalled. Indeed, it was this very affection that made my plan feasible. When I had convinced him he was a murderer I showed him Mr. Darrow's curious advertisement offering a reward, should he be assassinated, to anyone bringing about the conviction of his assailant.

"'In a year,' I said to him, 'you will die of cancer, if your crime be not previously discovered and punished. Your daughter will then be penniless. How much better for you to permit me in a few months to accuse you of the murder. You then confess; I claim and secure the reward and secretly divide with you; you are sentenced; but as considerable time will transpire between this and the date set for your execution, you in the meantime will die of cancer, leaving Jeannette well provided for.'

"I think my influence over him would have been sufficient to have compelled him to all this, could he have reasoned out no benefit accruing to himself or daughter by such a course, but with circumstances thus in my favour my task was an easy one. The public knows all it need know of what occurred after this. This man, Maitland, was in the next room to Latour's, overheard our conversation, and even phonographed our words and photographed our positions. It has always been a matter of pride with me to gracefully acknowledge that three aces are not so good as a full house, therefore I confess myself beaten, though not subdued.

"I consider this the very best tribute I can pay to the genius of the man who has undone me. I take my punishment, however, into my own hands.

"In my haste to have done with all this and to start on my long and chartless journey, I had well-nigh forgotten to tell just how I killed Mr. Darrow. No hypodermic syringe had anything to do with it. The while plan came to me while reading that fatal page upon which I left my telltale thumb-signature in my search for some feasible plan of making away with my victim. I need not go into particulars, for I know perfectly well that this Maitland knows to a nicety how the thing was done. The Daboia Russellii, or Russell's viper, is one of the best known and most deadly of Indian vipers. I procured one of these reptiles at the cost of great delay and some slight risk. That is the whole story. On the night of the murder I took the viper in a box and went down to the water-front, near the Darrow estate. Here I cut a small pole from a clump of alders, made a split in one end of it, and thrust it over the tail of the viper. It pinched him severely and held him fast despite his angry struggles to free himself and to attack anything within his reach. All that remained to be done was to thrust this through the window into the darkened room and to bring the viper within reach of Mr. Darrow. This I did, being careful to crouch so as not to obstruct the light of the window. When I heard my victim's outcry I withdrew the pole, and with it, of course, the viper, and made good my escape. That the reptile bit Mr. Darrow under the chin while his back was toward the window was mere chance, though I regarded it as a very lucky occurrence, since it seemed to render the suicide theory at first inevitable.

"I had had some fear lest the hissing of the viper might have been heard, for which reason I hazarded the only question I asked at the examination, and was completely reassured by its answer. I should perhaps state that my purpose in keeping in the background at this examination was my desire to avoid attracting attention to my deformed foot and my halting gait. This latter I had taken pains to conceal at my entrance, but I knew that the first step I took in forgetfulness would expose my halting habit. I had no fear of either Osborne or Allen, but there was something about this Maitland that bade me at once be on my guard, and, as I have said before, I never take an avoidable risk. For this reason I sat at once in the darkest corner I could find and remained there throughout the examination. I thought it extremely unlikely, though possible, that an attempt might be made to track the assassin with dogs, yet, since that is precisely the first thing I myself would have done, I decided that the risk was worth avoiding. I accordingly set the boat adrift to indicate an escape by water, and then waded along the beach for half a mile or so, carrying the pole, boards, etc., with me. As I kept where the water was at least six inches deep I knew no dog could follow my trail. At the point where I left the water I sat down upon a rock and put on my stockings and shoes, thoroughly saturating them at the same time with turpentine, and pouring the remainder of the bottle upon the rock where I had sat. As I had known prisoners escaped from Libby Prison to pass in this way undetected within twenty feet of bloodhounds upon their trail, I felt that my tracks had been well covered, and made all possible haste to get ready to attend the examination with the special detail.

"And now I have finished. Before this meets any other eye than mine I shall be dead—beyond the punishment of this world and awaiting the punishment of the next. Lest some may fancy I do not believe this,—thinking that if I did I could not so have acted,—let me say there is no moral restraining power in fear. Fear is essentially selfish, and selfishness is at the bottom of all crimes, my own among the rest. I leave behind me none who will mourn me, and have but one satisfaction, viz.: the knowledge that I shall be regarded as an artist in crime. I take this occasion to bid the public an adieu not altogether, I confess, unmixed with regrets. I am now on that eminence called 'Life'; in a few minutes I shall have jumped off into the darkness, and then—-all is mystery."

When I had finished reading this article we all remained silent for a long time. Gwen was the first to speak, and then only to say slowly, as if thinking aloud: "And so it is all over."



CHAPTER IV

It often happens that two souls who love are, like the parts of a Mexican gemel-ring, the more difficult to intertwine the better they fit each other.

You may be assured that, after reading M. Godin's confession, we looked forward to seeing Maitland with a good deal of interest. We knew this new turn of affairs would cause him to call at once, so we all strove to possess our souls in patience while we awaited his coming. In less than half an hour he was with us. "The news of your success has preceded you," said Gwen as soon as he was seated. "I wish to be the first to offer you my congratulations. You have done for me what none other could have done and I owe you a debt of gratitude I can never repay. The thought that I was unable to carry out my father's wishes,—that I could do nothing to free his name from the reproaches which had been cast upon it, was crushing my heart like a leaden weight. You have removed this burden, and, believe me, words fail to express the gratitude I feel. I shall beg of you to permit me to pay you the sum my father mentioned and to—to—" She hesitated and Maitland did not permit her to finish her sentence.

"You must pardon me, Miss Darrow," he replied, "but I can accept no further payment for the little I have done. It has been a pleasure to do it and the knowledge that you are now released from the disagreeable possibilities of your father's will is more than sufficient remuneration. If you still feel that you owe me anything, perhaps you will be willing to grant me a favour."

"There is nothing," she said earnestly, "within my power to grant for which you shall ask in vain."

"Let me beg of you then," he replied, "never again to seek to repay me for any services you may fancy I have rendered. There is nothing you could bestow upon me which I would accept." She gave him a quick, searching glance and I noticed a look of pain upon her face, but Maitland gave it no heed, for, indeed, he seemed to have much ado either to know what he wanted to say, or knowing it, to say it.

"And now," he continued, "I must no longer presume to order your actions. You have considered my wishes so conscientiously, have kept your covenant so absolutely, that what promised to be a disagreeable responsibility has become a pleasure which I find myself loth to discontinue. All power leads to tyranny. Man cannot be trusted with it. Its exercise becomes a consuming passion, and he abuses it. The story is the same, whether nations or individuals be considered. I myself, you see, am a case in point. I thank you for the patience you have shown and the pains you have taken to make everything easy and pleasant for me; and now I must be going, as I have yet much to do in this matter. It may be a long time," he said, extending his hand to her, "before we meet again. We have travelled the same path—" but he paused as if unable to proceed, and a deadly pallor overspread his face as he let fall both her hand and his own. He made a heroic effort to proceed.

"I—I shall miss—very—very much miss—pray pardon me—I—I believe I'm ill—a little faint I'd—I'd better get out into the air—I shall—shall miss—pardon—I—I'm not quite myself— goodbye, good-bye!" and he staggered unsteadily, half blindly to the door and out into the street without another word. He certainly did look ill.

Gwen's face was a study. In it surprise, fear, pain, and dismay, each struggled for predominance. She tried to retain her self-control while I was present, but it was all in vain. A moment later she threw herself upon the sofa, and, burying her face in the cushions, wept long and bitterly. I stole quietly away and sent Alice to her, and after a time she regained her self-control, if not her usual interest in affairs.

As day after day passed, however, and Maitland neglected to call, transacting such business as he had through me, the shadow on Gwen's face deepened, and the elasticity of manner, whereof she had given such promise at Maitland's last visit, totally deserted her, giving place to a dreamy, far-away stolidity of disposition which I knew full well boded no good. I stood this sort of thing as long as I could, and then I determined to call on Maitland and give him a "piece of my mind."

I did call, but when I saw him all my belligerent resolutions vanished. He was sitting at his table trying to work out some complicated problem, and he was utterly unfitted for a single minute's consecutive thought. I had not seen him for more than two weeks, and during that time he had grown to look ten years older. His face was drawn, haggard, and deathly pale.

"For Heaven's sake, George," I exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?"

"I've an idea I'm spleeny," he replied with a ghastly attempt at a smile. This was too much for me. He should have the lecture after all. The man who thinks he is dying may be spleeny, but the man who says he is spleeny is, of the two, the one more likely to be dying.

"See here, old man," I began, "don't you get to thinking that when you hide your own head in the sand no one can see the colour of your feathers. You might as well try to cover up Bunker Hill Monument with a wisp of straw. Don't you suppose I know you love Gwen Darrow? That's what's the matter with you."

"Well," he replied, "and if it is, what then?"

"What then?" I ejaculated. "What then? Why go to her like a man; tell her you love her and ask her to be your wife. That's what I'd do if I loved—" But he interrupted me before I had finished the lie, and I was not sorry, for, if I had thought before I became involved in that last sentence, how I feared to speak to Jeannette —well, I should have left it unsaid. I have made my living giving advice till it has become a fixed habit.

"See here, Doc," he broke in upon me, "I do love Gwen Darrow as few men ever love a woman, and the knowledge that she can never be my wife is killing me. Don't interrupt me! I know what I am saying. She can never be my wife! Do you think I would sue for her hand? Do you think I would be guilty of making traffic of her gratitude? Has she not her father's command to wed me if I but ask her, even as she would have wed that scoundrel, Godin, had things gone as he planned them? Did she not tell us both that she should keep her covenant with her father though it meant for her a fate worse than death? And you would have me profit by her sacrifice? For shame! Love may wither my heart till it rustles in my breast like a dried leaf, but I will never, never let her know how I love her. And see here, Doc, promise me that you will not tell her I love her—nay, I insist on it."

Thus importuned I said, though it went much against the grain, for that was the very thing I had intended, "She shall not learn it first through me." This seemed to satisfy him, for he said no more upon the subject. When I went back to Gwen I was in no better frame of mind than when I left her. Here were two people so determined to be miserable in spite of everything and everybody that I sought Jeannette by way of counter-irritant for my wounded sympathy.

Ah, Jeannette! Jeannette! to this day the sound of your sweet name is like a flash of colour to the eye. You were a bachelor's first and last love, and he will never forget you.



CHAPTER V

All human things cease—some end. Happy are they who can spring the hard and brittle bar of experience into a bow of promise. For such, there shall ever more be an orderly gravitation.

My next call on Maitland was professional. I found him abed and in a critical condition. I blamed myself severely that I had allowed other duties to keep me so long away, and had him at once removed to the house, where I might, by constant attendance in the future, atone for my negligence in the past. Despite all our efforts, however, Maitland steadily grew worse. Gwen watched by him night and day until I was finally obliged to insist, on account of her own health, that she should leave the sick room long enough to take the rest she so needed. Indeed, I feared lest I should soon have two invalids upon my hands, but Gwen yielded her place to Jeannette and Alice during the nights and soon began to show the good effects of sleep.

I should have told you that, during all this time, Jeannette was staying with us as a guest. I had convinced her father that it was best she should remain with us until the unpleasant notoriety caused by his arrest had, in a measure, subsided. Then, too, I told him with a frankness warranted, I thought, by circumstances that he could not hope to live many weeks longer, and that every effort should be made to make the blow his death would deal Jeannette as light as possible. At this he almost lost his self-control. "What will become of my child when I am gone?" he moaned. "I shall leave her penniless and without any means of support."

"My dear Mr. Latour," I replied, "you need give yourself no uneasiness on that score. I will give you my word, as a man of honour, that so long as Miss Darrow and I live we will see that your daughter wants for none of the necessities of life,—unless she shall find someone who shall have a better right than either of us to care for her." This promise acted like magic upon him. He showered his blessings upon me, exclaiming, "You have lifted a great load from my heart, and I can now die in peace!" And so, indeed, he did. In less than a week he was dead. I had prepared Jeannette for the shock and so had her father, but, for all this, her grief was intense, for she loved her father with a strength of love few children give their parents. In time, however, her grief grew less insistent and she began to gain something of her old buoyancy.

In the meantime, Maitland's life seemed to hang by a single thread. It was the very worst case of nervous prostration I have ever been called to combat, and for weeks we had to be contented if we enabled him to hold his own. During all this time Gwen watched both Maitland and myself with a closeness that suffered nothing to escape her. I think she knew the changes in his condition better even than I did.

And now I am to relate a most singular action on Gwen's part. I doubt not most of her own sex would have considered it very unfeminine, but anyone who saw it all as I did could not, I think, fail to appreciate the nobility of womanhood which made it possible. Gwen was not dominated by those characteristics usually epitomised in the epithet 'lady.' She was a woman, and she possessed, in a remarkable degree, that fineness of fibre, that solidity of character, and that largeness of soul which rise above the petty conventionalities of life into the broad realm of the real verities of existence.

It occurred on the afternoon of the first day that Maitland showed the slightest improvement. I remember distinctly how he had fallen into a troubled sleep from which he would occasionally cry out in a half-articulate manner, and how Gwen and I sat beside him waiting for him to awaken. Suddenly he said something in his sleep that riveted our attention. "I tell you, Doc," he muttered, "though love of her burn my heart to a cinder, I will never trade upon her gratitude, nor seek to profit by the promise she made her father. Never, so help me God!"

Gwen gave me one hurried, sweeping glance and then, throwing herself upon the sofa, buried her face in the cushions. I forbore to disturb her till I saw that Maitland was waking, when I laid my hand upon her head and asked her to dry her eyes lest he should notice her tears.

"May I speak to him?" she said, with a look of resolution upon her face. I could not divine her thoughts, as she smiled at me through her tears, but I had no hesitancy in relying upon her judgment, so I gave her permission and started to leave the room.

"Please don't go," she said to me. "I would prefer you should hear what I have to say." I reseated myself and Gwen drew near the bedside. Maitland was now awake and following her every motion.

"I have something I want to say to you," she said, bending over him. "Do you feel strong enough to listen?" He nodded his head and she continued. "You have already done a great deal for me, yet I come to you now to ask a further favour,—I will not say a sacrifice —greater than all the rest. Will you try to grant it?"

The rich, deep tones of her voice, vibrant with tender earnestness, seemed to me irresistible.

"I will do anything in my power," the invalid replied, never once moving his eyes from hers.

"Then Heaven grant it be within your power!" she murmured, scarcely above a whisper. "Try not to despise me for what I am about to say. Be lenient in your judgment. My happiness, perhaps my very life, depends upon this issue. I love you more than life; try to love me, if only a little!"

I watched the effect of this declaration with a good deal of anxiety. For fully half a minute Maitland seemed to doubt the evidence of his senses. I saw him pinch himself to see if he were awake, and being thus reassured, he said slowly: "Try—to—love—you! In vain have I tried not to love you from the moment I first saw you. Oh, my God! how I adore you!" He reached his arms out toward her, and, in a moment, they were locked in each other's embrace.

I saw the first kiss given and then stole stealthily from the room. There was now no need of a doctor. The weird, irresistible alchemy of love was at work and the reign of medicine was over. I did not wish to dim the newly found light by my shadow, and,—well,—I wanted to see Jeannette, so I left.

I need not tell you, even though you are a bachelor, how fast Maitland improved. Gwen would permit no one else to nurse him, and this had much to do with the rapidity of his recovery. In a month he was able to go out, and in another month Gwen became Mrs. Maitland. A happier pair, or one better suited to each other, it has never been my privilege to know. As I visited them in their new home I became more and more dissatisfied with bachelor existence, and there were times when I had half a mind to go straight to Jeannette and ask her advice in the matter. Ah, those days! They will never come to me again. Never again will a pink and white angel knock so loudly at my heart, or be so warmly welcomed. I wonder where she is and if she is thinking of me.

And now I may as well stop, for my narrative is over, and I hear someone coming along the hail, doubtless after me. It is only Harold, so I may add a word or two more. I am writing now with difficulty, for some frolicsome individual has placed a hand over my eyes and says, "Guess." I can just see to write between the fingers. Again I am commanded, "Guess!" so I say carelessly, "Alice." Then, would you believe it, someone kisses me and says: "Will you ever have done with that writing? The children wish me to inform you that they have some small claim upon your time." You see how it is. I've got to stop, so I say, as becomes an obedient gentleman: "Very well, I will quit upon one condition. I have been wondering where on earth you were. Tell me what you have been doing with yourself. I have been repeating in retrospect all the horrors of bachelordom."

"Why, Ned dear," my wife replies, "I've only been down-town shopping for Harold and little Jeannette. Bless me, I should think I'd been gone a year!"

"Bless you, my dear Jeannette," I reply; "I should think you had," and I draw her down gently into my lap and kiss her again and again for the sake of the conviction it will carry. She says I am smothering her, which means she is convinced.

You see I have learned some things since I was a bachelor.

THE END