 Section 10 of The Haunted Organist of Hurley-Burley and Other Stories. The Haunted Organist of Hurley-Burley and Other Stories by Rosa Mulholland. A Strange Love Story. Part 1. At the foot of a certain street in Innsbruck, right above the famous gold-roofed house, rise the purple walls of the Alps, mountain walls so apparently straight and perpendicular that they seem, according to the mood of the spectator, either to block the way to heaven or to lead to it by difficult ascent. On a summer day a young girl who knew all the accessible paths of yonder great stepping-stones to the skies, walked down this street in Innsbruck with her back to the golden roof and all the purple glory of the Alps behind and above her. She wore a high-crowned alpine hat with a silver tassel and a costume of hunting green cloth. Her face was round and fair, and her crystal-clear eyes had a look of unusually vivid intelligence. The hair which curled softly and crisply around her temples and was plated in thick masses at the back of her head was of that fairness which is almost white and a seldom seen except on very young children. Her features were small and softly moulded, and something very like the light of genius was shining from her countenance. She walked on with a bright, preoccupied look as if something beautiful which other people could not see had caught her eye and fixed her attention, and then suddenly turned in at the open door of that curious church where a strange company of bronze men and women occupy forever the centre of the nave. The only living creatures in the church were a few old women in furry headdresses, at prayer, and a very young man who was standing with folded arms studying the bronze statues. The girl made no noise, crossing the threshold of the door, but the moment she entered the young man started electrically and turned to see her coming towards him a glow of delight on his face as if the sun had suddenly shone out upon it. She came quietly and stood by his side. Have you gazed enough for today? she asked with a twinkle of glee in her eyes. Come on, Max. It is your work I want to see, not these. Max shook his head, but caught the little hand she placed imperatively on his, and followed her out of the shadows of the church into the dazzling summer street, where the sun was glittering on the eaves of the gold-roofed house and making the huge alpine walls behind it take a richer purple than before. Max was a tall youth with a square-browed, dreamy face, full of a kind of rugged beauty. His eyes had not the vivid light that glanced from the eyes of the girl, but they were full of dreams of glories to come, burning with a latent fire destined yet to give its share towards the warming and the lighting up of the world. He led the way into a small house at the corner of the street, and up a staircase into a bare room littered with clay, with half-formed images and casts, and where an unfinished statue in clay stood near the window. From the face of this statue he withdrew the cloth and gazed discontentedly at the face of the creature he had made, a nymph graceful and lovely with the features of the girl at his side. It is you, Hilda, he said, without your soul in the eyes. When you are not here it is like you, but when I see your face beside it. Nonsense! You do not want a likeness of me, said Hilda. You want an ideal being. It only wants a little tenderness, dear Max. May I touch it? Max nodded, and Hilda's little fingers passed over the clay with a few delicate touches, while a curious look of intellectual power grew on her face and changed its character for a moment. After a few minutes she withdrew behind Max and peeped over his shoulder to see the effect of what she had done. Max drew a deep breath and stared in amazement at the change which had been wrought. The statue which had been coldly perfect seemed to breathe. Your power is supernatural, he murmured. The work is now divine. You are dreaming, said Hilda, laughing. All the divinity in it is your own. I but drew forth what you had left slightly veiled. Max shook his head. I am too much the artist, he said, not to recognize your gift. But I am not jealous of you, Hilda. With you by my side what may I not hope to accomplish? Hilda laid a hand on his arm and looked into his face with joyful eyes. Do not make me vain, she said. But if cooking you dinner and keeping your house in order, doing all that a woman can do to make your home happy, and your difficult upward path a little easier, if all that helps you accomplish great things, then indeed I shall feel you are the better for me. Max took both her hands in his and looked down into her eyes with a wondering, worshipping gaze which troubled almost as much as it delighted her. As if she feared what might be his next change of mood, she turned away her head and said gaily, come with me now at once. You promise to take a holiday today? Let us be off to the mountains and leave this nymph to her solitary thoughts. He put on his hat mechanically and again followed her withers she would lead him. They went out of the town and took the road to the mountains. The world was exquisite and Max shook himself out of his dreams to enjoy it. Hilda prattled to him between bursts of laughter about all that had occurred at home up yonder in the blue since his last visit there, what droll things the children had said, what a pleasant dance there had been at a neighbour's wedding, how Lisbeth had burned a hole in her new dress and all the trouble there had been to get it nicely mended. People going down to the town passed them and said, that is Max Edelstein and his betrothed Hilda. What a pity they cannot get married at once, said one. They could have their light, for Hilda has a nice little penny which her father left her. It is a pity when people are too clever, you see. Nothing will suit them but going to Rome. They will be a long time saving to go to Rome. Who is there to buy his sculptures in Innsbruck? Better if he had been content with wood carving like so many of his friends. The lovers reached the nook of the mountains in which their village nestled. Lisbeth, Hilda's sister-in-law, was expecting them and had made a little feast. A table was spread under a tree at her door and a troupe of little sun-burnt children came dashing out to meet Hilda and her Max. Lisbeth, a good-humoured brown-eyed woman with a flame-coloured handkerchief twisted around her head and wearing her holiday jacket of black embroidered with threads of gold, came out of the house with a baby on one arm and placed some fruit upon the table. The wooden chalet was set deep in a cool green cave of bows on a platform of rock and under it and opposite to it lay a dazzling landscape of purple crag, teeming golden valley and woods of all the richest hues of green. Up a pathway seemingly made for goats, our lovers climbed and were welcomed by the motherly Lisbeth. The master of the little home, Lisbeth's husband, Hilda's brother, wood-carver, hunter and tiller of the earth now appeared and the elders partook of Lisbeth's feast in the shade while the little sun-burnt children capered and danced in the sun. Max cast off the cloud of dreaminess that often wrapped him up and talked to frits about the crops and the hunts and all that was interesting in the mountaineer's life. The artist disappeared for the time and Max was merely a stalwart youth of the mountains with an unusually picturesque and intellectual face. Hilda took the baby in her arms and laughter and prattled made the time fly fast to Lisbeth said, Oh, Max, have you seen the present that Hilda has given me? She has modelled my little dead Lisa so that I think I have her back. Will you not show it to me, Hilda? Yes, if you please, but it is only interesting to Lisbeth, dear Max. The day passed and evening came. Songs were sung and Hilda accompanied them on the zither, throwing away her silver-tassled hat she put on an apron, prepared the supper and carried it out under the trees. Her fair head gleamed in the sunset as she went and came, and as the wave of warm light suddenly fell across her face and hands, Max thought she looked like a ministering angel descended to wait upon them. After supper some young friends came from a little distance and Fritz strummed the zither while a dance was held in a bit of green close pie. Hilda danced with as much glee as any of the children. The moon shone out. The children pulled Hilda's hair about till it floated around her like a gold and silver mantle, and Max would not have put it up again and danced with her while it streamed about her shoulders. Hilda looks beautiful tonight, does she not? said one of her friends. What a pity she will marry that melancholy Max. He's not melancholy now when he is dancing. He's always strange and full of fancies. I would rather marry a man who could make a joke. The dancing was over, the neighbours had gone home, and Max was asking again to see Hilda's model of Lispeth's little angel Lisa. Hilda led him up the narrow stairs and into her own small chamber where one of the ruddy little dancers of an hour ago was asleep in her bed. It was a tiny brown room where almost the only decoration was the oblong moonlit picture of pine and crag framed by the open window. Hilda struck a light and lit a handlamp and discovered on a bench the model of the child who was dead. Max folded his arms and gazed at it long and critically. Hilda, he said, I wonder if you know what a genius you possess. Through my love for you I've learned to dabble in clay. That is all, said Hilda. I have no genius and I do not want it. About this going to Rome, it is you who ought to go, not I. Max, where are you wits? I wish there was money enough for two, then we could go together. But as there is not, why I must wait till you can afford to send for me. What I mean is this, Hilda, said Max, with the sadness in his eyes deepening to gloom. You have a distinct genius of your own and I ought not be so selfish as to absorb you into my own life and work. You have money to take yourself to Rome and there you ought to go. Marriage for you will be the ruin of an artist. Not the ruin of you, I hope. No of yourself. Then let me be ruined, dear Max, and let the world lose what it will never have possessed. I belong to you and not either to art or to the world. I'm a traitor to art to listen to you. Then be a traitor. I love you better as a traitor. Max shook his head and gloomily withdrew the hand which Hilda had touched with her own. Hilda uttered a sudden cry and snatching a hammer which lay near raised it in her hands as if she would strike the model of the child and destroy it. Hilda! cried Max, seizing her wrists and struggling with her. It shall not part us! she cried passionately. Hush! here's Liespeth! whispered Max. Is it not lovely? said Liespeth, coming up on tiptoe and speaking softly as if in a sacred place. See, dear Max, how Hilda loves my children. One of them sleeps alive in her arms, pointing to the bed. Another sleeps here in death always before our eyes by the magic of her hands. Ah! what a tender mother our clever Hilda will be! Hilda burst into tears, dropped the hammer, and turning abruptly to the window, leaned her arms on the sash and wept with sobs into the night. She has never quite got over the death of that child, murmured Liespeth. Come away, Max, and let her have her cry in peace. An hour later still Liespeth was sitting, spinning at her door in the moonlight, and singing to herself simple songs about little child angels who sometimes come down for a time, and live in good man's houses and lie in fond mother's arms. But after a time have to go back to heaven. At a little distance Max and Hilda were walking up and down, their faces now gleaming in the shade under the trees, their figures now casting shadows in the light of the moon. Round them lay a great circling abyss of gloomy darkness, fringed with black pine tops, and crowned by frowning crags, and a silver veil was hanging over all. What I mean is this, Hilda was saying. You forget that I am a woman, and judge me by yourself. You think that because you have taught me to model in clay a little, that I must want to be an artist and conquer the world. But you are my world, and I will conquer no other. Max's clasp tightened on her hand. You must not deny your own power. But I'm jealous of it, and I hate it. Whenever it comes before you as to day, as tonight, a cloud covers your face, and a shadow rises up between us. Though you love the woman, you would banish the artist from your heart, and therefore Max, because I love you, I will kill that power that disturbs you and me. Never while I live will I touch clay again. Then you will make me a murderer, a destroyer of one of heaven's best gifts. Rather, I will save you from being the murderer of my heart. Why, oh, why, will you not let me be happy? I would rather bake your bread and sweep your floor than be the owner of the best studio in Rome. Would we were there side by side, Hilda? Without you, my inspiration will be gone. My works will be dull and dead. Because your coffee will not be as good as some I could make for you. Because I shall be without your suggestions, your criticism, your touch that calls life into a face. What would I not give to possess that magic touch? Me, perhaps, said Hilda sadly. I would die to give it to you, that is, if it has any existence. Max shuddered. Do not talk of dying, he said. If you were to die, there is no kind of death. If you were to die, there is no kind of death so hateful as my life would become. Hush, said Hilda, putting her fingers across his lips. Only the good God knows anything about death. Summer deepened, and as the time approached for Max's departure for Rome, he founded more and more difficult to think of tearing himself away from Hilda. You are my inspiration, my soul, he said. Without you I shall fail and be only half a sculptor. Dear Max, I will come to you whenever you can send for me. Do you think the mountains will not be dreary, and the very children's voice is sad in my ears till I can stand by your side again? Hilda, would you dare? Would you venture to come with me? With you? Hilda's pale face colored to the hue of a rose for a moment, and turned paler than before. She trembled and drew her breath hard, and then she spoke with a gladness of a bird's song in her voice. If you will dare it, Max, why so will I? All the shadows disappeared at once from the young man's face and his eyes shone. You may have hardships to endure, my darling, he said, kissing her hands rapturously. They will be welcome, laughed Hilda, if only to prove how strong I am. You mean to walk across the mountains, Max, and so will I, if you will take me. What an autumn walk it will be! And once in Rome, why, Max, I will save you your money by my economy. Your money, Hilda, ah, Max, you forget that the cast of your nymph has gone on before us, and that before we get there she may be sold. Heaven granted, cried Max, while a lightning flash crossed his face. If I were ambitious before my Hilda, I am ten times more ambitious now. Hilda was one of those women, to whom no personal sacrifice is too great to add, be it never so little to the happiness of the beloved. She was well aware that in accompanying Max, hardships and difficulties were awaiting her, but she also knew that with her by his side, Max would have better courage to cope with and conquer the world. She said to herself that she would eat little, labor hard, patch and mend her clothes and his, to all that lay within her to cover the extra expense of her presence in his home. They were married in a little church in their mountains, with a band of children smiling round them, and Lyspeth weeping behind their backs. Oh, why had not Max been satisfied to remain a carver of wood at home, then Hilda need not have left her kindred, and might have flourished among them through long and happy days? Why indeed, good Lyspeth, yours is one of those questions which can never be answered. The day after their marriage, they set out to cross the mountains on foot. A wallet on Max's shoulder held all their luggage, a purse soon into Hilda's dress contained their wealth. Glorious autumn weather reigned over the mountain world. The hollows under the pines had never looked so purple, the peaks and crags so rosy eight, the clouds so gold, the firmament so blue as when Max, the sculptor, with his wife by the hand, went trudging along the narrow paths that led the way from Innsbruck up to Trent. In this memorable journey they spent their honeymoon. In the morning travelling bravely over the rough roads, climbing rude heights, the while hardly daring to expend their breath in speech, at noon cooling their tired feet in some running water, and eating their frugal dinner under the deep broad shadow of the pines. At evening saying a prayer at some simple shrine, and afterwards stepping on gaily through the cooler atmosphere, saying the sunset colours fade along the mountains, and the moonshine come forth to light them upon yet another mile of the way. Nights spent in the rudest chalets, a day stolen here and there to explore some town through which they passed, endless happy conversations about their love, their art, their future, the heaven of united life that lay on before them. So was accomplished the passage of the mountains, not the greatest of their difficulties that lay in their path by Edelstein and Hilda, his wife. Through the queer old streets of Verona they walked and under its lofty arches, and then away across the Italian plains, dropping like a pair of swallows into art galleries and churches, but hurrying ever with eager steps towards Rome. And there they stood at last one day, weary, dusty, poor and friendless, but glad at heart and full of hope. A studio and two rooms were hired at once, and Max went to work upon marble and clay. The nymph was not sold, but what of that? It would do to furnish the studio till other works were created by the sculptor's hand. Hilda's ingenuity was exerted to make the vast, almost empty rooms which were their dwelling look home-like and gay. A curtain here, a spray of flowers there, a rude vase of fine form and striking color in a corner, trifles like these made a home out of a wilderness. Singing, sewing, tripping in and out on household errands, or standing behind her husband's shoulder discussing his work with him, Hilda's days were as happy as a queen's. They were in Rome, they were together. Max had lost his melancholy, and he had forgotten his strange fancy about that genius of hers which surely never could have existed. If he remembered it at all he but glanced at it pleasantly, and the thought of it passed easily away. If in moments of depression he called her to him and asked her to touch his work, she would answer reproachfully that her hands were full of flour, and that his dinner must spoil were she to soil them with this clay. Winter and spring passed over. The little store of money had diminished sadly, and no work of Max's had been sold to replenish the household purse. Hilda held the said purse, and always spoke cheerfully of its contents to Max, who, wrapped in his dreams, scarcely realized how the passing days were running away with silver and gold. Neither did he notice that Hilda's always pale face was growing paler and paler. A custom to gazing on faces of marble, he was not so struck with her pallor as another might have been, and the look of care always disappeared from her eyes when his were turned upon her. Max in Rome, conscious of growing power with a brain full of beautiful things as yet uncreated, had all he wanted and noticed nothing wrong. His home was bright and pleasant, and the food he needed was regularly placed before him. The long summer in Rome did not tell upon his strength as it told upon hers, but as she did not complain, he was not aware that she had become less healthy than of old. It was when Winter came round again that Hilda took fear to her heart in earnest and counted the money that was left with paling lips. How could she tell Max that the funds were so low? She would not tell him, and yet where could she find money to go on with? Then it was that she broke her resolution never to touch clay again. On the chill winter mornings when Max was sleeping soundly, having got to rest late at night, Hilda would creep into the studio and go to work. What she produced there Max little dreamed of, but from time to time sundry small, graceful and original figures found their way into shops where such things were sold. They were quickly disposed of, and the money they fetched replenished Hilda's exhausted purse. She jealously guarded her secret, and Max toiled on, dreaming of glorious works he was to do in the future, and only occasionally waking up to observe that Hilda was a wonderful manager of their slender means. He never guessed that she was giving her health, her talents, her life, for the pittance that supported them both from one week to another. It was by means of these little figures of Hilda's that the nymph came to be sold after all. She was in the habit of going in, on her way to market, in the mornings, to speak to the dealer who had her works in charge, and to learn if any orders had been left for her. One day an English gentleman was standing in conversation with a dealer when she appeared, and as she entered the shop she heard the words, Here, sir, is the lady herself. The gentleman was young and a fair complexion, and had a shrewd, sensible, and with all refined and sympathetic face. He bowed to Hilda, and made known his business at once. He wanted two other original figures beside those of hers he had already bought. Hilda took the order, and then, with a sudden impulse, said, If you would kindly come to see me at my home, my husband could show you something more worthy of your attention. The stranger was interested, and promised to call as she desired. Then she said with a little embarrassment, Please do not speak to my husband of these figures of mine. I do not wish him to know of their existence. He would think I fatigued myself. The stranger took the situation at once, bowed, and assured her he would remember her wishes. He thought she looked thoroughly fatigued indeed, and wondered for a moment how long she would have the power so to exhaust herself. And this was the beginning of the friendship between Max Adelstein and Donald Stewart, which lasted through so many after years. That very day Donald paid his first visit to the studio, and bought the nymph with Hilda's features, paying for it with a noble sum. The patronage of the wealthy Englishman, or rather Scotchman, was all that was needed to bring Adelstein's genius to notice. Money and orders for work flowed upon him, and the crisis of his fortune was passed. Many new comforts appeared in his home, and Hilda no longer rose in the chill hours to do secret work with her hands in the clay. Her figures were seen no more in the shops, her artistic efforts were all in the past, and on the sweet spring days she lay on a couch at her window, with her eyes fixed steadfastly on the everlasting hills. Still Max did not see that she was dying. Donald Stewart did, and to him she spoke of her approaching death. Do not disturb Max, she said to his good friend, when he would come from the studio into her little sitting-room to visit her. He thinks I shall be strong soon, and his thoughts are with his work. One day I know he will astonish the world, and in that day he will not so much need me. Nay, I do not mean to doubt his heart, I know he loves me well, and perhaps will never love another. But he has passed the point up to which he needs a woman's devoted love and care. When does a man cease to need that? said Donald Stewart. Hilda was gazing wistfully at the purple hills. During the next twenty years, she said, Max will live in his art alone. His own creations will be his idols, sweetened to him by my memory, which will cling around them. His life will pass in the happy throes of work such as his, and he will hardly miss me from his home. After twenty years have passed. She paused, and a look of intense pity and longing settled in her eyes. Who can look so far ahead as twenty years? said Stewart, guessing her thought. At the end of that time he will begin to need me again, said Hilda. The first harvest of life will be one. The desire for a little rest will have begun to awaken him. He will look around and want me at his fireside. Oh God, that I then could come back to him. Stewart's eyes filled with tears. A strange idea, he said softly. But I have no doubt or fear, but that you will really be near him. Your spirit will never lose sight of him. Hilda smiled. Never, she said. Never is God as good, but all I meant more than that. If the Creator would grant me my heaven and let him return, even years hence to this world to Max. Donald's heart was shaken by the pathetic cry in her voice, but he knew not what to answer to so startling a speech. Do not be shocked at me, Mr. Stewart, she said, turning to him with one of her old smiles. But this is an idea that at times charms away my pain. And if I come, she added playfully, laying her little palms together like a childhood prayer, I will come without the talent which I believe was the only flaw that Max could ever see in me. Anything of genius I may have I hereby solemnly bequeath to my husband. If I come again from heaven, I come without it. In the flush of the Roman spring she slipped away from them almost unawares one morning, uncovered with Italian wildflowers she was laid in her grave. Max took her death in a way that surprised even Donald Stewart. He appeared stunned and unable to realize what had happened. So happy had he been in their late good fortune that this sudden and unforeseen ending of all their joy seemed to unhinge his mind. He became dull, absent, almost stupid, absorbed in the memory of Hilda whose presence was still around him and whom he could not let go into the past. He did not hear when spoken to, took no part in the life around him, neglected his work, and forgot to enter his studio. Orders remained unfinished, and people began to say that the promising young sculptor had got softening of the brain. He would not stir from Rome that summer, nor leave the rooms where Hilda's dresses and little ornaments and possessions still held their place as if they might be needed in any moment. Through all the changes of that hot season in Rome Donald stuck fast by his side, and when at last Max fell ill of a terrible fever, Donald took the place of a nurse by his bed. Thanks to his friend's unwirried efforts, Max arose out of his sickness, but pale and cadaverous like the living skeleton of himself. His mind seemed clearer now, and on the first occasion when sitting in Hilda's chair the window he spoke to Stewart of his wife, he wept like a child over his vanished happiness. He blamed himself bitterly for his conduct to her in many ways. Having learned from the dealer who had sold her wonderful little figures how hard she had worked to produce and dispose of them unknown to him, he made a misery of this proof of her unselfish devotion to him. I knew she had distinct genius, he said, and if I had insisted on her developing it she might have been alive today. She denied herself sleep and suffered cold and weariness to provide the money which I was stupid enough not to perceive she must have earned. Her love was indeed limitless, said Stewart consolingly, but you need not blame yourself. She had no wish to develop a separate genius from yours. She said to me, what, said Adelstein, anything that she said I must hear, that if she could come back to you she would come without that talent which she thought you magnified and which she did not love in herself. Come back? Yes, it was an odd thing to say, but another proof of her devotion to you. It grew out of a conversation I had with her one day. When I was wrapped up in my selfish work, when you saw what was coming and I would not, that was her comfort. She dreaded a lingering trial for you. If she could come back, did she say that, Donald? She said, I think there's no harm in my repeating to you her tender and fantastic thought. She said that she could wish that God would give her her heaven by allowing her to come back to you twenty years hence. Twenty years hence? She thought for twenty years you could live absorbed in the splendid labours that are around and before you. After that, I? After that you would want her more. I understood her to mean that if she could return to you then, as young and sweet as she was a year ago, then when your genius had slaked its thirst for work and a little tired you might look round for companionship and human love, that so to come would be the desire of her soul. A strange light came on Adelstein's face, brightening steadily into a glow of exaltation. You think she will come, Donald? Stewart started and stared. He felt a qualm of fear that he had been unwise in speaking as he had done while his friend's brain might still be in a delicate state. I think, dear old fellow, is that gently, that such a fancy of hers only assures you that she will watch and wait for you in eternity. Who can count on living twenty years? And two like you will be sure to clasp hands when you at last have passed the verge of the grave. But that was not what she meant, said Max almost queerlessly. Since I have survived her death I may live to be a hundred, and she spoke of twenty years. Mark me, Donald, she will come. I must get on with my work and be ready to receive her. Stewart was pained and puzzled by the strange manner in which Max fastened on this fanciful idea. He said no more then, but could not fail to notice how this conversation formed a sort of turning point in his friend's convalescence. Max began to recover in earnest and now worried himself because his weakness prevented his returning to work at once. A little more alarmed for his friend's mind than for his bodily health, Stewart determined to leave no effort on May to restore the poor fellow to his normal state of health and strength, and, being himself a rich man, he saw his way to providing the necessary care and change for the invalid who interested him so much. He ordered his yacht to come to meet them in the Mediterranean, and packing up Max he carried him away for a summer's cruise across the world. The voyage was a great success, and Adelstein was, or appeared to be, completely restored to health of body and mind. He no longer talked despondingly and ceased altogether to speak of his dead wife. Donald was almost inclined to blame him for this, and said to himself that, after all, those who sorrow most wildly for bereavement are apt to be those who forget the soonest. Adelstein did not return to Rome, but set up a studio in Paris. After that the star of his fortunes rose higher and higher. Stewart had married and settled down on his Scottish estate, and only occasionally saw or heard of his friend during a few days spent from time to time in the French capital, or by a short but affectionate letter penned in moments of weariness by the great sculptor to his friend. And so the years went over, and the name of Max Adelstein was of European fame. Twenty years passed away. Adelstein had been established along in London, and many of his most beautiful works had been created for and prized by Englishmen. Unbounded success was his, and admiration and adulation had been poured out upon him. Nevertheless he lived in his work alone, had few friends, took long walks with his pipe for soul companion, and was never to be seen in large social gatherings. His only society was that of one or two friends who sometimes dined with him in his perfectly appointed house. In women he felt no interest whatever, and would not have their company, no matter how flatteringly it might be offered to him. Invitations from great ladies dropped it to his hands, but they failed to bring him captive into even the most charming drawing-rooms. People said it was affectation, moroseness, conceit, which made him live the life of a reckless in the heyday of his fame, but Adelstein did not hear or did not heed what they had to say. End of Section 10 Recording by Kotla Christenstotter San Mateo, California Section 11 of The Haunted Organist of Hurley Burley and Other Stories This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Kotla Christenstotter The Haunted Organist of Hurley Burley and Other Stories by Rosa Mulholland A Strange Love Story Part 2 On a certain hot night in the end of June, Max Adelstein sat at his lonely dinner table with wine before him which he did not drink. His eyes were fixed on the opposite wall with a strange look of intense expectation mingled with longing. From time to time a slight frown of impatience contracted his brows, his fingers moved restlessly, lifted the glass of wine, but set it down again untasted. And then again the nerves of his face relaxed and, as if obedient to a familiar self-control, the whole man dropped back into a quiescent state of thought. Twenty years had made a great change in the youthful sculptor of Innsbruck. His dark locks had changed to silver-white, but, waving and plentiful as they were, this peculiarity only enhanced the beauty of a singularly vigorous and noble countenance. His dark eyes burned under a brow on which intellectual power sat enthroned. The dreamy sadness, which lurked in some of the lines of the face, had no weakening effect on its general expression, but just tempered the overwhelming force that was visible in every feature and every movement of the head. After sitting for an hour wrapped in his reverie he got up, and leaving the room, walked down a long passage to his studio which was at the back of the house. Here a lamp burned low, and he did not turn the flame to a fuller height, but paced up and down the large room till by degrees the white figures around him became visible to his eyes in the semi-darkness. With folded arms and heads sunk on his breast he continued thus to give himself up to his thoughts or dreams, and at last paused before a statue at the feet of which burned the lamp which gave its dim light to the place. It was the marble statue of the nymph which bore Hilda's features, and which had been touched to greater tenderness of expression by her fingers in the days of their betrothal and in the spring of their lives. This first work of his, sold to Donald Stewart, had been returned to him by that faithful friend after Hilda's death, and for it he had substituted a work of equal beauty, which held a high place of honour in the Scotchman's home. As Adelstein stood gazing at the features, dimly seen, but kissed to warmth by the red light of the lamp, a knock came on the door, and before the owner of the studio had time to express impatience at being interrupted the door opened, and somebody came in. Max! Adelstein uttered a kind of cry, strange to hear from the lips of such a man. You, Donald! he said after a moment's struggle with some violent emotion. I thought it was someone else. Are you not going to welcome me, old friend? said Stewart, struck by something strange in his friend. And why are you moaning here alone in the dark? We artists have ways of our own going on, said Adelstein with a short laugh, but you are welcome indeed, my friend. And he seized Donald's hand in both his own, and almost crushed it with the energy of his grip. When were you not welcome? All right, old fellow! Get some more light that I may see how you are thriving! Adelstein struck a match and applied it to a large lamp on a bracket. I never let servants in here if I can help it, he said, offered a box of cigars to his friend, lit his own pipe, and the two smoked for a few minutes in silence. Stewart watched his friend's face as it settled back into its habitual lines, and something that he saw there and did not like, something indescribable which he had seen there before on occasions, but never so plainly as now, disturbed him. He scarcely knew how to begin a conversation, so full was his mind of something he did not venture to mention, but Max saved him the trouble of starting a subject. Donald, he said suddenly, do you remember what night this is? Ah, said Stewart, this night twenty years I held Hilda dead in my arms. My dear friend, began Stewart, and some months later you told me of something she said, said, about coming back. Max, Stewart, I am expecting her. That is why I started when you came in at the door. I thought it was she. Good Heaven Adelstein, are you in earnest? Ernest, said Adelstein, laying down his pipe, am I a man to jest and on such a subject? Are those we love allowed to come back? Stewart said gently, trying to control his uneasiness, and to speak naturally. Of that I know nothing. She never broke a promise, and her love was perfect. That is all I know. I do not believe in ghosts, said Stewart gravely. Ghosts? Nor I. She will not come as a ghost, Donald. She will come as my wife, real as herself, to live with me and comfort me for the rest of my life. Stewart was silent. The words fell heavily on his heart. Max had overworked himself, and his friend remembered painfully how, many long years ago, certain fears for his friend had troubled his mind. Max, old fellow, he said, if providence should alter the usual order of nature's law to comfort a heart so noble as yours, I for one will rejoice, as I think you know. In the meantime, come out of this place for a while. You work too hard, and live too much alone. Where shall I go? Take my advice for once, and let me take you, not for a solitary ramble, but into a crowd. Believe me, old friend, you have been doing yourself harm. Strange ideas are getting into your brain. There can be nothing like a complete change for putting you straight. Max passed his hand over his head. I believe you are right, Stewart. I want a change. I will do anything you bit me. First of all, then, before we make further plans, come off with me now to Lady B's. I am intimate with her, and she will only be too proud to receive you. Adelstein winced. I cannot bear a ballroom, he said. The sight of dancing has a curious effect upon me. I think of whirling dervishes, now our dancing in the mountains. He stopped as a vision, clear and vivid as if only seen yesterday, arose before his eyes, with Hilda and himself dancing among the children and neighbors in the light of the sinking sun under the shadow of the purple hills. There will be no dancing. It is only a solemn reception. There will be a brilliant crowd, and we will just walk through. You need not speak unless you like, and we will come away any moment you please. It is sorely against the grain, said Max. But I will go to please you. He rose and made a weary movement of hand to head. He will wait a few minutes while I dress. Stewart, he added suddenly, turning his hand on the door and making a step toward his friend. Forgive me if I seem ungracious. I am going not only to please you, but to escape from myself. His rooms have begun to seem haunted to me. Something has been going wrong. I will shake off a weakness. All right, said Stewart. Blues from overwork, an over-concentration of thought in one spot. I know all about it, though I am not a worker. Half an hour afterwards, they entered a brilliantly lighted house in St. James's, and were soon moving through a crowd composed of many of the most distinguished men and women in London. The hostess, who had seen Adelstein's noble face before, in his own studio, was gratified at his appearance in her rooms and received him with flattering kindness. At a whispered word from Stewart, however, she allowed him to pass on into the crowd where few knew him by sight, owing to the extremely retired life which he had hitherto led. He is not very well, Donald said to Lady B. And I have coaxed him out for once, but we must not frighten him. If a fuss is made about him, he will go back to his shell. And tacked being one of Lady B's virtues, she took no for the notice of the famous sculptor. Out of one magnificent room into another the friends sauntered, keeping together, till at last Stewart paused to talk to some friends who greeted him warmly and held him fast, and Adelstein, straying on alone, found his way into a drawing-room smaller than the others, with walls paneled in faint gold-coloured silk, upon which a few rare deep-toned pictures were shown to the fullest advantage. There he took up his position at a corner of the tall cavern mantelpiece, and looked abstractedly around the place, with the air and with the feeling of a man who has no part in the lives of the people by whom he finds himself surrounded. Suddenly his eyes became fixed, and an extraordinary change passed over his countenance. A shifting of the groups of people who occupied the centre of the room took place, and an opening in the crowd showed him the figure of a woman dressed in white, sitting against the corner of an antique cabinet, and looking like a picture of Saint Barbara with her tower rising straight behind her. She was a girl about twenty, exceedingly fair and pale, with a quantity of that faint gold hair which belongs to babes, and which near the delicate yellow in the silken panels looked strangely approaching to silver. Although womanly in figure, there was a certain snowly ethereal look about her, the only deep touch of colour lying in the depths of her blue and crystal-clear eyes. She had a lonely look, and the air of awaiting someone whom she expected to come for her, and she seemed as little belonging to the crowd as Adelstein himself. She was gazing through the doorway near, yet as if seeing nothing, at her unconsciousness of self in her face and attitude. It is said that if one human being looks long and intently at another, the person so observed will soon feel the effect of the unseen gaze, and be constrained to meet it. However that may be, the fair-haired girl turned her graceful head after some time, and looked straight across the room at Adelstein, who was gazing at her with heaven knows what expression of recognition and rapture in his eyes. A shock of surprise passed over her, and then a puzzled look crossed her face as if she thought she ought to know the distinguished-looking person who thus seemed to claim her acquaintance, and was embarrassed at not remembering his identity. At this moment Stuart reached the room and stood by his friend's side, who did not see him, but started adhering the Scotchman's voice at his ear. Look, Donald! There she is! said Adelstein, in a low voice thrilling with emotion, and without removing his eager gaze from the white-clad girl at the other side of the room. She? Who? asked Donald, startled by his tone and manner. Hilda! My wife! murmured Max, in a voice in which Lois was the utterance, an agony of joy and amazement spoke. Max, you're aware of how oddly you are looking at that lady who is a perfect stranger to you, said Stuart, and passed his hand through his friend's arm, trying to drag him away. Stranger? said Adelstein, with a little laugh of joy. Do you mean to say, man, that you do not recognize her? I do indeed see a curious likeness, Adelstein, but surely I need hardly say to you, be yourself, and do not give way to a hallucination. Max did not appear to hear him. See how she looks at me? he muttered as the girl once more turned her fascinated eyes, half frightened, half attracted on his. Donald, do not hold me back! I must go and claim her. Oh, heaven! How strange to meet such a place as this! Stuart was shocked and agitated at this unexpected result of his attempt to cure his friend of a monomania. Amazed himself at the extraordinary resemblance in the girl before him to the long-lost Hilda, who slept in her Italian grave, he could only think of one way of cutting short so painful a moment as this, and strove to induce Adelstein to quit the room with him. But another glance at Max told him he must humor the great sculptor, as he would humor a madman. Listen to me, Adelstein, he said. Even if it be she, there are certain rules of etiquette to be observed. We must ask our hostess to introduce you to her. What, to my own wife? Yes, no one here knows that she is your wife, except yourself, and you should not appear to be rude to a lady. You are right, Donald, always right. Come, then, and let us lose no time. Stuart had hoped to make his friend forget this craze and tried to lead him into other rooms to interest him in the sculptures of an old and richly decorated mansion, but he found that such a hope was vain. Her Adelstein dragged him straight to Lady B's presence and obliged him to ask for the desired introduction. Lady B, my friend Mr. Adelstein wishes to be introduced to a certain young lady in white in the yellow drawing-room. Can you kindly gratify his wish? I can guess who she is, said Lady B, pleased at the interests shown by the great artist, usually so indifferent and a favourite of her own. She is Miss Trevelyan, a peculiarly beautiful and striking girl. Max smiled a strange smile at Stuart, as if to say, We will humour this amiable woman and keep our own secret for the present, and then both men followed their hostess as she moved towards the yellow drawing-room. The introduction was made. Lady B returned to the friends who required her presence elsewhere, and Adelstein stood by the girl in white trying to frame a sentence with his trembling lips. Stuart also stood by, having been introduced to the lady, and endeavoured by his matter-of-fact remarks to restore equanimity to the two evidently embarrassed people. An acquaintance coming up claimed his attention for a few minutes, as obliged to stand aside to let some ladies pass. In the crowd he drifted to some distance. When he was once more disengaged he turned to look for his friend, but Adelstein and the lady were gone. With a misgiving which he could not smother, Donald Stuart set out to search the rooms for his friend. After an interval of half an hour, and when he was almost thinking of returning to Adelstein's house to seek him there, he had last discovered the sculptor and the white lady sitting in a retired nook half behind a curtain, and at an open window, beyond which the lighted tower of Westminster was seen to loom and burn in the purple dark midnight sky. The sculptor's fine head was in relief against the sky, and he was gazing in his companion's face with an intensity of love and joy which no words could express. What he was saying, Donald could not hear, but he was pouring forth the rapid words in a low, impassioned voice. The girl was pale as death and sat listening like a person who strives to remember, her eyes fixed on Adelstein's face. A look of awe was on her broad white brow, and with a strange, almost supernatural feeling, which he could not account for, Stuart felt shocked at her amazing likeness to the long dead and buried Hilda. Adelstein said, Stuart, excuse me, but I think you said you were anxious to leave this place early, and it is now about half past twelve. Max looked up at him with a smile. Without noticing his words, he turned to the lady, and, taking her hand, laid it in Stuart, saying, Hilda, this is our dear good friend Donald. You remember Donald, my Hilda? The girl suffered her hand arrest in Stuart's and murmured dreamily. Yes, I remember. He seems quite familiar to me. Good heavens, thought Stuart, has my madman met with a madwoman to complete his ruin, or has she found out that he is mad, and is she humouring his whim through fear? Miss Trevelyan, he said, relinquishing her hand. I must beg you to excuse the peculiarity of my friend's conduct in addressing you so, and by a name that is not yours. He has not been well, and I see that he is hardly himself. They call me Hilda, said the girl, looking strangely and reproachfully at Stuart. Why should he address me by another name? Then she turned her face again towards Max, who seemed at once to forget Donald's presence, and they continued their low-voiced communing as though he had not been there. Amazed and pained, Stuart turned away, and, uncertain how to act, found himself in the room with Lady Bee, his hostess. Lady Bee, he said, my friend Adelstein is greatly taken with your friend, Miss Trevelyan. By the way, what is her Christian name? Hilda, what do you ask? I have a fancy in Lady's names. Tis a pretty name. And, by the way, a story is told of a curious dream her mother had, which was the cause of her being so called. They are cornish people, and the girl is full of romance. So is the mother, who is dead. You interest me greatly, said Donald. My friend seems wonderfully taken with her. Don't let him put his heart into the matter, said Lady Bee, laughing, for the child is already engaged. It is a long story, and she has been very troublesome. Were I to tell you the whole, you would understand why I call her romantic. Lady Bee turned away to answer a question, asked from another side, and Stuart stood musing perplexity over the information he had received. Already engaged! And Max called her his wife, he reflected. The girl is full of romance, and to me she seemed quite ready to obey his thought. There is a storm of trouble in the air if I cannot get Max out of England by to-morrow night. And yet he may forget all this to-morrow morning. If he be the madman I fear I must take him to be. After some time spent very uneasily, Stuart went back to the window where he had left his friend with the lady he had called his wife. Both were gone. Five minutes afterwards he met Edelstein coming through the crowd to meet him with a beaming countenance. They took her away, he said with a slight laugh, the people who are her friends. I could not object, of course, and we are parted for the present, but think of it, Stuart, letting my own wife go away with the strangers. But I shall see her to-morrow and explain everything to her father. Donald felt sick at heart. He was too much perplexed and troubled to try to reason with his friend, and besides he feared a quarrel with a madman. He accompanied Edelstein home and went with him into his studio. As they stood before the statue whose face had been modelled from Hilda's, Max raised the lamp till the red light fell full on the marble features. Look, Donald! Look! She has not changed one atom! The likeness was indeed marvellous, even Stuart acknowledged that the two Hilda's were, outwardly at least, the same. My dear fellow, he said, I acknowledge that there is a startling resemblance, but go to sleep on this, and tomorrow your thought will be more clear. You must not make people talk about Miss Trevelyan. Max smiled a peculiar smile. You think I am mad, Stuart, he said. I know you think I am mad, but can she be mad too? That would be too singular a coincidence. Do you mean to tell me that the young lady you met for the first time tonight has declared that she knows herself to be your dead wife, returned to this world to be with you? You have put it into excellent words, good Donald. Knowing your skeptical mind, I almost shrank from stating the fact so plainly. My poor Max! Touch, Donald, don't put me in a passion. Did you yourself not solemnly convey to me her promise? She made no promise, Max. It was the fond and futile wish of a dying woman that I unfortunately repeated to you. Your wife was too sensible to religious a woman to believe that such return from the dead could ever be. There is nothing in religion to forbid such belief, said Max doggedly. She has returned out of her heaven by the force of her all-powerful love. She was reborn into this world the very year after she quitted it. I wish you would go to bed Adelstein and sleep upon it. Max smiled. After twenty years of silence I have talked with my wife tonight. Said he. And I have much to think over before I can sleep. But, dear old friend, I would not keep you here wrangling with me. When I have a little recovered from the shock of this wonderful happiness, I shall be able to thank you for being the bearer a second time of a blessing into my life. Meantime, take your rest. When you have a little got over that your natural surprise, you will wake up and recognize my hilda. Donald left his friend, feeling half stunned with amazement to the occurrences of the night. That Max, whom he believed to be mad, should reason with him pityingly, as if his were the weaker mind seemed to finish the extreme oddity of the whole situation. His only hope for Adelstein lay now in the likelihood that the girl might lead the way out of the confusion of this hour. If indeed she had been subject to some spell while in Adelstein's presence, perhaps when no longer under his personal influence she might be roused to see the folly of the position in which she had placed him, as well as herself. Before laying his head on his pillow that night, Stuart resolved to go in the morning, as early as might be, to ask an interview with the woman whom Adelstein claimed as his wife. The next morning, however, Donald remembered that he must go to Lady B for Miss Trevelyan's address, and on his way to that lady he decided on opening his mind to her at once as Miss Trevelyan's friend, at least in as far as he dared. He was fortunate in finding Lady B at home. I have come to you on a curious errand, he said. I want you to give me some account of Miss Trevelyan's character, disposition and circumstances. I am prompted by no idle curiosity. You come in the interest of your friend the sculptor, said the lady, who evidently fell in love with her last night. If her father had been here he would hardly have been pleased, for I think I mentioned to you he has already promised her to another man. He has promised her? Well, that is the way to put it. The girl is, as I told you, full of romance. She has been brought up in a gloomy old house on a wild Cornish coast, without a mother and without youthful friends and companions. She is dreamy and sentimental, and has fancies about herself. Every woman has a right to a little of that kind of thing, said Stuart, who had married his own wife for love. Heaven knows there are enough women of a different type. I suppose the man her father has chosen is rich. Enormously wealthy and very much in love with her. Tis true he is neither young nor interesting. He is a city banker, and Miss Trevelyan is a needy, almost ruined man. You mean there is not a glimpse of hope for my friend Adelstein? I think there is none. But if she herself should prefer him, he is not poor, and he is a distinguished man, and he is probably younger than the person of her father's choice. Considerably so, I should say, and a thousand times more fascinating, I am sure. In every way more desirable, I believe. Nevertheless, his suit is hopeless. Lady Bee, I will confide in you wholly. My friend is no common man. Early in life he married a wife whom he tenderly loved, and whose untimely death almost unhinged his brain. Miss Trevelyan bears an extraordinary resemblance to the dead Hilda. Hilda? How odd! Yes, the case is full of peculiarities. Now I greatly fear that if Adelstein should continue to see Miss Trevelyan, and afterwards lose her, the total wreck of his mind may be the consequence. Believe me, I am not overstating the truth. I appeal to you to assert immediately whether there is hope for him or not, and if not to remove Miss Trevelyan out of his path. You make a strange demand, my friend. Why should not Mr. Adelstein be able to take care of himself, or his friends to be able to take care of him? Why should the girl's movements be interfered with? She is enjoying her first season in London, and it is only half over. Her father is in Parliament, and it does not suit him to move about just now. How can I ask him to take his daughter out of Mr. Adelstein's way? Dear Lady Bee, for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to see what can be done. I myself will do my best to get Max out of London. For the present I will only ask you to see Miss Trevelyan and learn her mind, and appeal to her not to encourage Adelstein. There I am all with you. I will see the child at once, though I cannot but think, friend Donald, that you take an exaggerated view of the situation, and allow your own turn for romance to run away with your judgment. Late that afternoon, Lady Bee took her way to the lodgings in St. James's, where Mr. Trevelyan and his daughter had taken up their abode for the season. The house and its appointments bore out Lady Bee's assertion that Mr. Trevelyan was a needy, if not a ruined, gentleman. She was shown into a rather dingy drawing-room, and in a few minutes the pale girl of the night before, the second Hilda, came into the room with her radiant countenance. She was dressed in a soft white woolen gown with crimson roses at her throat. Her clear blue eyes were dilated with joy, her face was paler than ever, her fair hair, which shone like mixed gold and silver, glittered softly on her temples, and fell back in a heavy plate on her shoulders. She extended her hands to her friend with a happy, eager movement. Why, Hilda, how glorified you look! I'm glad to see you looking so happy, my dear. Yes, I am happy! said Hilda quietly, and stole her arms around her friend's neck. Yet you were rather naughty last night, Hilda, talking so much to that Mr. Adelstein in the absence of your fiancée. The girl withdrew from her friend's embrace and sat down by her side. You do not understand, she said, and how can I tell you? Mr. Adelstein and I are no new friends. Indeed you surprised me extremely. I'm sure I do, and I fear I shall also surprise others who love me, but Max has the first and highest claim. My dear Hilda, can anything be the matter with my ears? You seem to hear me pretty well. Hilda, I am angry with you. You mean to tell me that you have thrown over your betrothed, set your father's will at naught, and all for a stranger? Not for a stranger, Lady B. I am Max Adelstein's wife. Lady B uttered a cry, and then sat still, gazing at the girl before her. You are either quite mad, she said at last, or you are a double-dealing and unworthy woman. Hilda smiled mysteriously and put her hands on her friend's shoulders and kissed her tenderly. Do not be angry, she said, till you hear my story. And as she sat down at Lady B's feet and began to speak at length, all her friend listened patiently to her tale. The burden of what she had to say was the same as that reiterated by Adelstein to Steward. She was the Hilda of Innsbruck. She had died and had promised to return. They had recognized each other on the instant they had met. They were husband and wife, and no strangers of a day. Nobody should dare depart them. Looking at her innocent, ingenuous face, Lady B seized her hands and sighed heavily. Here was a mind gone astray. How sad! How incomprehensible! A lonely, unnatural bringing up had induced eccentricity. A romantic incident had inflamed her imagination, and reason was overturned at a blow. What could be done for this unfortunate girl? My friend Steward knew something of this, she reflected, and that is why he so urgently desired that they should not meet again. Now which is the lunatic here, and is the lunacy catching like the measles? When Lady B reached home again she found Steward awaiting her return. As she entered her own drawing-room with a scared pale face, Donald came to meet her. She sank into a chair and Steward waited impatiently till she was able to speak. Your friend is a madman, she said at last. That is what I dread, said Steward sadly. My only hope for him rested upon the lady. From your manner I conclude that my worst fears are realized. What are your worst fears? That she shares his delusion. What is his delusion? That his dead wife has fulfilled a promise he fancies she made, and has returned to this world to be near him. He has communicated his mania to her. What does she say about herself? That she has always been followed by indistinct memories of a former life, that the moment she saw him she recognized him, that everything he told her of the past she instantly recollected, that heaven has granted them both the boon of her return, that she belongs, and will belong to no one else but him, that nothing shall part them but death. It seems too strange a coincidence, yet an imaginative girl might be influenced by a mind like Adelsteins. My friend, what shall we do with them? If they could marry they might possibly be happy. It can never be, I believe, I for one do not like to open the matter to her father, yet I think you ought to be told. The next day Lady B wrote a carefully worded letter to Mr. Trevelyan, and by night had a short note for him and answer. It said, that madman Adelstein has been here, and Hilda and he have told me their ridiculous story. I have given him my mind, and to-morrow Hilda goes away to friends. Even to you I will not tell where I have sent her. Let her be lost to the world till she has returned to her senses. End of Section XI. The next day Lady B handed this note to Mr. Steward, and Donald at once went off to Adelstein whom he found lost in grief, having just returned from the Trevelyan's lodgings where he had learned that the young lady was gone. Steward tried to rouse him up. Come, come, he said, be a man and shake this madness off. Think of your wife in heaven and leave this girl to the disposal of her father. She is already pledged to another man. Against her will, said Adelstein calmly, she herself had given no pledge. How could she, being already my wife? But do not torture me, Donald. She is gone, it is true, but I shall find her again. Be it so, old friend, all that I can do to help you, I will do. In the meantime, while we are all at fault, come with me to my scotch mountain side. There you can get up your strength and consider what further steps to take. After much persuasion, Adelstein consented to accompany his friend. All his attempts to hear further tidings of Hilda had proved vain, and as no letter came from her to him, he concluded that she was closely watched. Donald hoped, on the contrary, that she had only returned to her senses. On a lovely June evening the two friends arrived at the gate leading into Stewart's private grounds in a lovely part of Scotland, and leaving their carriage with the servants, walked up a winding bypass which tacked along a garden-wreathed mountain side. At their feet lay the sea, guarded by cliffs which were low here and high there, and at one part formed themselves into a sort of lofty bridge leading from Stewart's charming dwelling on the upper heights to the sand-strewn and rock-bound shore beneath. At one point they stood still to admire the magnificent view, their gaze resting on the violet-tipped peaks in the clouds, and then falling and following the golden light that ran along the smooth wave toward the golden west, and Adelstein raised his hat with a gesture of reverent delight. Colour is hardly a sculptor's province, he said with a smile, but I could almost wish at this moment to be a painter. Donald was delighted. I think I can make you happy here, he said, for a week at least. You can go when you're tired of us." Adelstein smiled his answer. His thoughts had been carried away to the Alps, to the Roman hills. That delicate violet on these lovely mountains had coloured his imagination with their own suggestions. His soul was away with hill down the Alps. They continued their walk, still climbing, and presently here and there between bush and scour glimpses of Donald's home came into view. One steep path of a few yards remained to be travelled, and at the top of it a figure in white appeared with one arm thrown around a young ash-tree, a figure leaning forward as if watching for their approach. A few more steps and they were face to face with Hilda. Good heavens! cried Donald. Mr. Valiant, how have you come here? She had slipped her hand through Adelstein's arm and, looking at Stuart, frankly, said, Ah, Mr. Stuart, what an unkind welcome! How often in the old days have you hoped I should come here? Donald turned to his friend. What does this mean, Max? he said. Has it been a pre-concerted plan? If a plan at all, a plan of providence, said Adelstein, whose face was shining with satisfaction, the same power that has sent Hilda back into the world has been able to place her feet upon your hills. That is all I have to say. Hilda will tell us the rest. As for me, I have felt that turn where I might I should meet her again. My father sent me here, said Hilda. Indirectly he sent me here. He placed me with his friends a mile away, and Mrs. Stuart met me with them, and invited me to spend a few days with her. I have felt, like Max, that our parting would not be for long. This morning Mrs. Stuart said to me, my husband arrived this evening and he brings with him his old friend the sculptor Adelstein, and I was not the least surprised to hear it. Then they turned away, hand in hand, just as Hilda and Max used to saunter together on the alps long ago, and Donald, amazed and troubled, went in at his own door and retired to take counsel with his wife. Mrs. Stuart was greatly astonished at the tale her husband had to tell. I took fancy to the girl, she said. There's something so uncommon about her. It was but natural to ask her to come here. The people she was with are stiff and hard in their way, and she seemed so pleased to get away from them. It was very natural, Jeannie, said her husband, and it was also natural in me to bring poor Adelstein here. The coincidence is the part of it that takes away my breath. I think we can hardly be to blame, said Mrs. Stuart. If Trevelyan had been acquainted with me it could not have happened, said Donald, but he knows nothing of me and I know little of him. The only thing for me to do is to write to him stating the case as it stands, and meantime, if possible, to get Adelstein away with me on an excursion somewhere. The evening passed quietly away. The host and hostess, secretly ill at ease, exerted themselves to appear as if nothing was wrong. At dinner time Adelstein talked brilliantly and was so transformed that Donald, his friend of years scarcely knew him. Hilda appeared in the rich dress of pure white in which he had met her in London, and her face was shining with tranquil happiness. There were no other guests. As the hours passed by, Mrs. Stuart, who could not detect symptoms of madness in either of her guests, reflected that it was a thousand pities that these two must be parted. Later in the evening Hilda sang scotch and German ballads, sang the songs that the other Hilda had sung twenty years ago before the door of her alpine home. Adelstein sat by her side, gazing at her with looks of worship. After the ladies had retired to rest, Stuart put his arms through that of his friend, and drew him out on the terrace overlooking the sea. My dear fellow, he said, fortune has been playing curiously into your hands, I admit, but you see I cannot allow this sort of thing to go on. Miss Trevelyan is here by a strange accident. Now until her father comes or sends to remove her, you must take yourself away. I will go with you on an excursion round the coast, anywhere you like, so that you can get out of this house for a time. Adelstein smiled. Donald, he said, you are the soul of honour and always were. You would sacrifice even the happiness of your old friend to your idea of honour. I respect you. I feel with you where any other matter than this is concerned. But when you speak of Miss Trevelyan you forget that you speak of Max Adelstein's wife. That is the one point which I cannot keep before you. Man, man, cried Donald, out of all patience. Will you not give up this unholy craze? Does Providence work miracles for you alone? Come, come, old friend, do not exasperate me. The world is full of miracles, Donald, only we do not perceive them. I will not believe that you do not recognise Hilda. I see a startling likeness, but that does not overturn my reason. I see a likeness in person, but many differences in character. The first Hilda had a noble mind, strong, clear, common sense. Nay, she had genius, which is not always allied with the other quality. Miss Trevelyan is weak, imaginative, and without any strength of character. I have thought of some differences, and they only strengthened my belief, if indeed it needed strengthening. In the first place, you wrong the lady, you are pleased to call Miss Trevelyan, and Miss Trevelyan, I am willing you should call her till our marriage can be solemnised again. She is not weak in character, as you believe. She is feminine, believing. In short, she knows what you will not admit. As for the genius that once distinguished her. Ah, Donald, do you forget what you told me she said when promising to return to me if she could? If I come, she said, I will come without the talent which I believe was the only flaw that Max could ever see in me. She was wrong there. I saw no flaw in her, and by her talent and devotion she carried me over the worst, the hardest bit of my career, but she thought it. Anything of genius I may possess, she continued, I hereby solemnly bequeath to Max. And herein lies the secret of my later complete success. If I come again, she said, I will come without it. He drew a little pocketbook out of his breast, and read over again the words in Stuart's writing. Do you forget jotting this down? He asked, and afterwards giving it at my request to me. I have never parted with it for a moment since you put it in my hands. And so have driven yourself mad on one point, said Stuart, aghast at this result of his own well-mint action. I am not mad, Donald, said Max, quietly putting the book back in its resting place, but these are among the things that are beyond our ken. There's no use in battling with a madman, said Stuart to his wife that night. I cannot bring him to reason, and the girl seems as much astray as he. I have communicated with her father already. In the morning I will write him a fuller account of the unexpected meeting here, and this is all I can do. I cannot see that either is mad, said Mrs. Stuart, and to me it seems like sin to meddle between them. I can then not marry and be happy in their touching delusion, if delusion it be. If delusion it be, said Stuart, my dear, are you losing your senses too? I hope not, Donald. I have always been called matter of fact, but I would rather not dwell on this point. I take my stand simply on this, that I would like to see so interesting a pair married and happy. There I heartily agree with you, but I am not her father, nor are you her mother, and her father must have his voice in the matter. Nothing more was said, but early in the morning Stuart rose and went to his study to write his letter to Hilda's father. This written and dispatched, he went out to the garden to wait for the summons to breakfast. Returning to the house he met his wife coming down the path. Neither Mr. Adelstein nor Hilda's to be found, she said hurriedly. Good heavens! said Stuart. Has no one seen them? The gardeners saw them about six o'clock this morning. Where? Here in the garden. When he arrived to begin his work he met Mr. Adelstein walking about and looking as if he had not slept all night. Presently Miss Travellian appeared, fresh and bright after her sleep, and walked among the roses, gathering them as she went, and splashing herself with dew. She seemed surprised to see Mr. Adelstein. They spoke together for some time, never seeming to notice the presence of the gardener, at last Mr. Adelstein said, come then, and took her by the hand and they walked away together hand in hand, and then the sun rose high suddenly and he could not see where they went for the blaze of light. He thinks they went down towards the cliffs. Perhaps they've only gone for a walk, said Stuart, but with a face of anxiety. Mrs. Stuart shook her head. I think, she said, that you will never see them again till they are indeed man and wife. Hasty marriages are easily made in this country, remember? And all your sympathies are with the crazy pair, said Stuart almost angrily. You do not think of the trouble that I shall get into with her friends. Even while the husband and wife talked in the garden the sky darkened and great drops of rain began to fall. The wind rose and there was every sign of a storm. Stuart, nothing daunted by the weather, set off post haste in a carriage with a pair of horses to follow in the track of his friend. He felt conviction that his wife's words were true, that Adelstein had taken the matter into his own hands and would make hill to his wife before friends or enemies could interfere. The route he followed ran along by the sea and after an hour's driving through the storm he arrived at a small fishing seaport where he made inquiries among the people. He soon learned that his fears were realized. A lady and gentleman had presented themselves that morning to the clergyman of the place and had been married. Immediately afterwards they had hired a hooker to carry them. Some said to France, some said to Ireland. Half an hour after they left the peer the storm began to rise. Many had watched the hooker through a glass with some anxiety, but it had seemed to hold on its way steadily enough and was now out of sight. Ireland or France said Mr. Stuart impatiently. Surely someone knows where they are going. Who would take them in a hooker from here to France? Our hookers will do better work than you think said a brawny fisherman, but I heard them talk about Ireland. Mr. Stuart was in despair. I did not matter. After all, towards what country the husband and wife had set their faces. He thought bitterly of Lady B and her friend, Mr. Trevelyan, and wished impatiently that this extraordinary elopement had taken place from under any roof rather than his own. Of Adelstein's happiness he could not even think so vexatious were the circumstances in which he found himself unexpectedly placed. Stamping up and down the peer while he made his reflections he scarcely noticed that the storm was becoming wilder every moment till suddenly a furious gust almost sweeping him from his foothold startled him out of his musing and changed his feeling of anger against the runaway pair into anxious fears for their safety. Gazing round him after a long look at the now raging sea he was aware of a group of solemn weather-beaten faces scanning his features with sympathy and he immediately questioned the men as to the amount of danger to be apprehended from the storm. It's a bad day and it'll be a war night, said one who had made himself spokesman for the rest. I would rather your friends had tain their flight by land. Sick at heart now, Stuart pressed the seafaring men with questions. Their fear was that the hooker would run upon some of the rocks along the coast. Donald took his way to the inn of the village where his horses were put up and decided on sending a message to his wife and remaining in this place for the night. It did not appear to him that he could effect much good by doing so, yet he felt more within reach of news on this spot than he should have felt in his drawing-room at home. Towards evening the tempest swelled into a hurricane. One or two houses were flung down in the little town, slates and chimneys from all sides clattered into the street, and the bells from the various points of danger on the rocky coast clanged and tolled the black night through. Stuart walked his room hour after hour and tried to check his gloomy thoughts by recurring to the suggestion of one of the sailors that after all the hooker might have put in somewhere along the coast before the storm became so furious. This was the only hope that presented itself in the midst of horror and he clung to it with all his might. Nevertheless, as he left his room in the wild, scared light of the morning, and went out to look about, he felt a dread at heart that some unforeseen catastrophe had ended the curious drama in which he had been obliged unwillingly to take apart. About twelve o'clock the storm went down, but the weather remained bleak and sullen. Stuart ordered his carriage and set off by the coast road, stopping at all the dwellings and villages he went along, asking if a hooker had been harboured or wrecked in the neighbourhood. The search was vain. The answer to questions, as to harbour, generally was, no hooker could live in such a hurricane as that of last night. When it was quite evening, he had last met a man upon the road who had some little news to give him, having heard of people who had been washed in that morning near a village some miles further on by the shore. Yes, there was a man and there was a woman. The woman was a lady and had been taken into somebody's house. Stuart now drove as fast as his horses could carry him and arrived at the place where the sea had given up its prey. Oh, I! said the folks he met. A sailor-boy and a lady had been washed in alive. A gentleman and one or two others had been drowned. Then a revulsion of feeling swept over Donald Stuart and his heart cried out for the faithful friend of so many bygone years. If one must be taken, why could it not have been the woman who had lent her weakness to help a great mind to its ruin? He forgot the father who would hold him, Donald Stuart, accountable for the fate of a child, and thought only of his own irreparable loss. He was taken into a humble fisherman's house, and there by the fire sat the sailor lad who had survived the wreck. In a few strong words he told the story of the night's catastrophe. The gentleman was as brave as a lion, he said. He lashed the lady to the mast, and that was how she was saved. For himself the gentleman counted surely on his swimming. He was a powerful swimmer, and must have been dashed upon the rocks and stunned. He, the lad saved, could not swim a stroke. These things were well known to be all chance or fate. The waves which had killed the skillful swimmer had but tossed the helpless boy roughly in their embrace, and hurled him safe upon sand. In an inner room Hilda was lying upon a bed. She did not speak, but fixed one long strange look upon Donald Stuart, and then turned away her face to the wall. Stuart sent for his wife immediately, and that kind woman nursed the girl through what proved to be a dangerous illness. When she was sufficiently restored they carried her home to their house, where her father had arrived to meet her. A rather narrow-minded, unsympathetic man, Mr. Travellian, was unable to take any lenient view of his daughter's conduct. While she lay in peril of death his grief was extreme, but once she was out of danger his anger rose high again, and he resolved that as soon as she was able to bear them his reproaches should be equal to her desserts. However, when he saw her sit listening to his hard words with an absent, unmoved expression of face, as if she hardly heard him, or did not understand him, his eloquence failed, and he felt more fear than wrath stirring within him. What do you think of her? he asked timorously of Mrs. Stuart. I know what you mean, she said, but I do not find any flaw in her brain. She is simply overwhelmed by a depth of agony which you and I cannot fathom. But how can she feel such grief for a man of whom she knew so little? You surely do not believe her story that she lived a former existence and was Adelstein's wife? I cannot tell you exactly what I believe, said Mrs. Stuart with a troubled look. Perhaps I am a little overtired myself with anxiety and nursing, but I have been powerfully impressed by the strength and vividness of her own conviction on the subject. Her ravings were most strange. She does not speak about the matter now. Try to get her to speak, said the father who was softening every moment towards his child. Mrs. Stuart tried to lead her to open her mind on the strange subject which engrossed it. Hilda sat at the window, her fair, almost silvery head sat in a framework of roses, her face deadly pale, her eyes darkened with her habitual shadow of grief. Stuart, looking at her, was startled afresh by her extraordinary resemblance to the dying Hilda, who, sitting thus at a window looking out to the Roman hills, had spoken to him those fatal words which he had too faithfully recorded and repeated to her husband. Overwhelmed by an almost supernatural feeling that forced him against his will to share momentarily the delusion of his lamented friend and to imagine that he saw the Hilda of Rome in the flesh before him, he arose hastily and went out of the room. My dear, said Mrs. Stuart, struck with something in the girl's eyes which had suddenly turned on her. Will you not speak to me a little, if only to ease your poor heart? What can I say? said Hilda with a wan smile. There is one thought ever in my mind, and who can share it with me? I rashly asked to have my heaven and returning to the earth to him. My prayer was granted, not for my heaven, but for my purgatory. Dear child, and my punishment I shall have to endure. I am not going to die, as you all seem to fear. I shall live many years in my purgatory, and I shall not be allowed to be idle in my pain. Work will be found for me to do. As soon as she was sufficiently restored to health, her father took her away to her old home in Cornwall, where she lived with him as a jujuful and tender daughter till his death, which occurred a few years after these events. But there was always something in her face which seemed to mark her as different from other girls, and no man dared ask her to be his wife. After her father's death she went abroad and joined the devoted ranks of the sisters of charity. Further we cannot follow her, but she is living still. The Haunted Organist of Hurley-Burley and Other Stories by Rosa Mulholland Section 13 The Senor John, Part 1 It seems but this morning that I got up before the sun in our little wooden house to cook, bake, wash in the river, help to mow the grass, coax my father, serve my brother Nicolo, and be as happy as the grasshoppers that sing both day and night. We lived upon a very high alp, and we were poor, though we did not suffer hardship. In winter we had plenty of pine logs to keep the fire alive, and at night we were very gay, singing songs and playing the zither. In summer we breakfasted on the grass and the faint dawn, dined under the long roof at the sheltered side of the house, and supped by the starlight. After which I danced for my father while Nicolo played the pipe, the chance passing of travellers was an excitement to us. A woodcarver from the Tyrol sprained his foot near our place, and taught Nicolo to carve whilst we nursed him. This was something to be grateful for, as travellers would buy the work, and besides it gave our boy something to do. He was a cripple from his birth, one foot did not come to the ground somehow, and his back was a good deal bent. He had a very square face, with bright eyes and brown hair, and was said to be quite a Swiss as our mother had been. The first figure he carved was my patron saint Christopher, wading through the torrent with the child-god on his shoulders, and it was given me after he had bitten one of my fingers, because I had stayed out alone in the moonlight, forgetting to fetch him. He never was so vexed, however, that I could not offer him comfort, asking him to plait my long hair, which came to my ankles. I would sit down on the ground with my back against his knees, when he would dress the hair beautifully. If I were restless he would hurt me, if I were patient he would kiss me, and if his work pleased him fully he was blithe the rest of the day. Once I went with my father to a feast at a lower village, the Festa of St. Florian. This was the first occasion on which I wore my mother's costume. On the night before the feast I was holding out my foot to note how my shabby shirt had crept up my leg. My father came and measured me with his Alpenstock. You are now as tall as your mother, he said. You may henceforth wear her clothes. He shed tears in the morning when he saw me in her dress, but was so well pleased afterwards that I ran to the nearest tarn to see what I might be like. The tarn was nearly filled with rosy clouds, besides a gigantic pine tree which tapered up and broke them. I seized the somber draperies of the pine tree, and gazing into the water saw a maiden like the women whose fathers are wealthy vine-dressers. Her petticoat was of orange cloth, her long narrow apron of a rich shade of blue. Her black velvet bodice was laced with gold over white, and a deep red sash was folded well about her waist. The only part of the picture that I knew was a pale dark countenance with red lips, and the wide black eyes that seemed to take up half the face. I marked Nikolo's plaits and the silver arrows he had fastened in them, and the bunch of scarlet ash-berries which he had fixed behind my ear. I saw that this was myself, and I ran merrily to the chalet to hug my little Nikolo and tell him not to pinch our neighbour Teresa, who was kindly coming to keep house for him whilst my father and I were away. Plusy, though, with his mule came to meet us, a young man of the village who had sometimes business on our alp. He brought us to see his house in which he had just put pretty furniture, and asked us to praise the fresco of Saint Florian upon the gable, which he had lately got retouched for the festa. He had also made a new staircase up to his balcony, and the people joked Plusy, though, saying he meant to take a wife. It was a very pleasant festa. People treated me as a woman, now that I was grown enough to wear my mother's clothes. I was often asked to dance and listen to with attention when I sang and played the zither. The next day Plusy, though, brought us a long way upon our road towards home. We could not get him to leave us till the worst of the journey was passed. Thanks to his stout mule, we got over all our difficulties, and were going along merrily when we heard a voice above us shouting through the pines. Right above our heads there was a desert of lonely crags, a wild and dreaded place where death lies in wait for men. My father left me sitting upon a pine stump and went shouting up the crags, seeking the stranger who had called. He returned with him by and by, and we hurried along on our journey. For though the air was flushed with color, yet the darkness was close at hand. We hastened along in silence, dragging each other up steeps, and going hand in hand, step by step, slowly along narrow, shifty places. The traveller had a fair foreign look, which is, to us, most perfect beauty. His locks shone in the twilight after my father's dusky head had got lost in the gloom of the pines. Arrived at our alp at last, we found Teresa preparing supper, and Nicolo sitting in the doorway piping shrilly up to the moon. The stranger gave me his hand up to last ascent, then raised it to his lips. My pretty little girl, he said, you have certainly saved my life. When Nicolo saw us coming, he limped to meet us. Who is this that has come with you, Netta, who smiles and kisses your hand? Hush, Nicolo! He is English, but he understands our talk. The stranger threw down his hat and knapsack before the door. The firelight shone over the threshold, and our neighbour Teresa appeared, carrying out the supper table which she placed upon the grass. The next morning when I wakened, I peeped down between the rafters of my bedroom in the loft, and saw the stranger talking to my father in the doorway. I crept down the ladder and found nobody in the place. Nicolo had lit the fire for me, and gone away to his work, and I heard my father's voice shouting in the distance. The señor was then gone. I heaved a sigh between regret and relief, and seized hold of a pitcher and prepared to go to the tarn. I made a step across the threshold and started back. The señor was leaning, smoking against our chalet. I sprang back so quickly that I broke the pitcher, and had to press my hands on my eyes to keep the tears from falling. Child, said the señor, smiling in at me. Why do you take such pains to hide your face? One does not see so pretty a thing every day. I'm not pretty this morning, I said. It was only my mother's clothes, and I was hiding my face in trouble because I have broken my jug. And you were going to fetch water, he said, and yonder pale is too heavy for you, and it was all owing to me that you broke the pitcher? He lifted the pale on his shoulders. Come, let us fetch the water, he said. I shall want to show you the way. We fetched the water together, and the stranger taught me to call him Señor John. He had an air of grand and gentle, and a pleasant light in his eyes. He laughed gaily when amused, and that encouraged me. At breakfast we saw no Nicolo, and I invited the Señor John to look at his carvings, at St. Barnaba with her tower, St. Dorothy and her roses, St. Vincent among his orphans, St. Elizabeth whose royal mantle was filled with bread. Nicolo had carved them all, and they stood in a row in his workshop. They were far the finest things we had got in our chalet. Yet when I brought the Señor to look at them, Nicolo shut the door in his face. Never mind, said the Señor John, we can amuse ourselves. I wish to make a sketch of you if you don't object to sit. I ought to be at my work, I said, but ran to tell my father who was chopping wood in the pine-break. It is an honor not to be refused, he said. You must ask the good Teresa to stay and prepare our dinner. The Señor spread out his pictures for me to see, saying he was an artist only by love and not by profession. I thought that love must have the best of it, so beautiful was his work, much finer than Placidos Fresco, which was considered something fine. There were pictures of lovely ladies who were of his own country, and their beauty seemed to laugh at me, and my heart began to sink. Señor, I said almost tearfully, shall I not return to the chalet and put on my mother's clothes? Your mother's clothes, he cried amazed. Those I had on yesterday, the colors are gay and bright, else I shall make such an ugly picture you will throw it away. You make far the prettiest picture I have ever seen, he said, and I shall hang it up where I can look at it every day. I blushed with surprised delight. Thank you, Señor John, I muttered, and crossed my hands as he had arranged them, and gazed over into the pine forest in a way which he had already approved. The Señor remained at our chalet for a whole week. Every morning we started on some new excursion, he and I together, for my father had not time to attend to him, and Nicolo could not walk. One evening we were all at supper when Placido appeared with his mule coming up our alp. My father welcomed him kindly and bade him sit down and eat. He looked strangely at the Señor John, and then at me, but our new friend spoke to him pleasantly, and they were soon conversing together. Placido was a large man with a calm face. He had dark, thoughtful eyes, and brows well bent above them, and a heap of coal-black locks that left his temples broad and bare. He had a slow, gentle smile, but was quick and firm in speech, as steady as Placido Lores was a byword in his village. After supper was over, Placido seized on the supper table, and carried it back to the chalet, I following on his steps with a dish and ewer. As I washed the platters and restored them to their shelves, Placido put logs on the fire and blew them into flames. I finished my task and put off my apron, chattering gaily to him all the time. I could see his figure looming out against the firelight, and at the same time my father and the Señor John standing, talking, out in the moonlight. Placido had given me very absent answers, but at last made a sudden move, and with two long strides stood right before me. Neda, he said, I came to ask if you would marry me. I was utterly amazed and a good deal frightened. He looked so very determined, as if I must come off that moment, whether I would or not. My knees knocked together, and I clung to the table. You don't really mean it, Placido. You cannot want a wife. Not any wife, he said. I only ask for you. Oh, Placido, don't, I said. Look you, my dearest little one, he urged. You may think me a rough lover, but never was a wife more loved and prized than you will be, if you come to me. Thank you, Placido, I said. You mean to be very kind to me, but I do not think about marrying, and please be so very good as not to ask me again. My father and the Señor John here put in their heads at the door. What is this that is going on, said my father? Neda, are you scolding our neighbor? Oh, no, no, cried Placido. It is only that my suit displeases her. I asked her just now to marry me, and she does not wish to consent. What? cried my father, turning to me. You don't mean to say that you would refuse so kind an offer? Do not think about me, my daughter. I would rather see you provided for than to keep you for my comfort. I do not like to marry, I said, weeping. I do not love Placido, and it would be dreadful to have to marry him. Placido's face flushed, and then turned pale again. I did not come here to make you weep, he said, sadly. The pain of my disappointment is not worth one of your tears. He turned to go away, but my father seized him by the arm. Wait, my dear friend, he said, and do not be offended at a girl who is still a child. Then turning to the Señor who had looked on gravely at this scene. Señor, come to my assistance, he cried. Neda will heed your counsel. The Señor looked at me tenderly with an uneasy look in his face. As you say she is only a child, he said. I beg you will give her a little longer time to play. So be it then, said my father. I drew a long breath of relief and looked gratefully at the friend who had saved me. Placido gazed from me to the Señor, and from the Señor back to me. Then suddenly laid hold of his Alpenstock and bait us a quick good night. After this we had some more pleasant days, till at last there arrived a sad one when the Señor prepared to leave us. I felt an odd pain in my heart which I could not drive away. The night before his departure I was standing at the fire alone. The logs were almost burnt and lay in a red heap on the hearth. The Señor came and stood by me. Neda, when I am gone you must often think of me. I strove with a sensation of choking. What, have you not a word for me? I do not want to weep, I cried, and my tears came down in a storm. I will certainly come back next year, said the Señor, and then you will be a woman grown. I rung my hand away from him and fled to my loft. The next morning at breakfast he scarcely looked at me. My father was going a journey with him and they talked about the roads. Niccolo, who had now become Mary, made faces behind the Señor's back, while I stood miserably in the doorway, rubbing my chilly hands together. The travellers bait us good-bye and Niccolo went off to his workshop, but I stood gazing drearily down the alp. The Señor turned and came back to me. By yourself a ribbon, pretty one, he said, when you go to the next festa. In another moment he was gone and I had a piece of gold in my hand. I uttered a moan of indignation and went flying down the alp. Señor John, Señor John! I cried, in a voice that must have been shrill enough to frighten the eagles. I crushed the money into his hand, but it fell to the ground between us, and he hurried off laughing and looking over his shoulder. I dug the earth with my nails and buried the gold where it lay, then fled away into the pine-break to weep long and fiercely. That evening Placido came back and repeated his question. I gave him a sullen no, and he went away more sadly than he had done before. And then I began to get happy again, for Niccolo did not pinch me and talk to me all about his carvings just as before the Señor came. But my father came back from his journey with a troubled face. Placido has left his village, he said, and gone to push his way in the world. End of Section 13, Recording by James K. White, Chula Vista