 Section 0 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1. 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 Jimmy Jacobson. Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne, Editor. Section 0, Riddle Stories. Introduction by Julian Hawthorne. When Poe wrote his Immortal Dupin Tales, the name Detective Stories had not been invented. The detective of fiction not having been as yet discovered. And the title is still something of a misnomer. For many narratives involving a puzzle of some sort, belonging to the category which I wish to discuss, are handled by the writer without expert detective aid. Sometimes the puzzle solves itself through operation of circumstance. Sometimes somebody who professes no special detective skill happens upon the secret of its mystery. Once in a while some ventures some genius has the courage to leave his enigma unexplained. But ever since Gaborio created his Le Coq, the transcendent detective has been in favor. And Conan Doyle's famous Gentleman Analyst has given him a fresh lease of life and reanimated the stage by reverting to the method of Poe. Sherlock Holmes is Dupin Redivivus and Mutatus Mutandis. Personally, he is a more stirring and engaging companion. But so far as kinship to probabilities or even possibilities is concerned, perhaps the older version of him is the more presentable. But in this age of marvels, we seem less difficult to suit in this respect than our forefathers were. The fact is, meanwhile, that in the riddle story, the detective was an afterthought, or more accurately, a deus ex machina to make the story go. The riddle had to be unriddled, and who could do it so naturally and readily as a detective? The detective as Poe saw him was a means to this end and it was only afterwards that writers perceived his availability as a character. Le Coq accordingly becomes a figure in fiction, and Sherlock Holmes, while he was yet a novelty, was nearly as attractive as the complications in which he involved himself. Riddle's story writers in general, however, encounter the obvious embarrassment that their detective is obliged to lavish so much attention on the professional services which the exigencies of the tale demand of him. And he has very little leisure to expound his own personal equation. The rather sense the attitude of peering into a millstone is not of itself conducive to elucidations of oneself. The professional endowment obscures all the others. We ordinarily find, therefore, our author dismissing the individuality of his detective with a few strong black chalk outlines and devoting his main labor upon what he feels the reader will chiefly occupy his own ingenuity with, namely the elaboration of the riddle itself. Reader and writer sit down to a game, as it were, with the odds, of course, altogether on the latter's side, apart from the fact that a writer sometimes permits himself a little cheating. It more often happens that the detective appears to be in the writer's pay and aids the deception by leading the reader off on false sense. Be that as it may, the professional sleuth is in nine cases out of ten a dummy by malice pre-pence, and it might be plausibly argued that in the interest of pure art, that is what he ought to be. But genius always finds a way that is better than the rules, and I think it will be found that the very best riddle stories contrive to drive character and riddle side by side and to make each somehow enhance the effect of the other. The intention of the above paragraph will be more precisely conveyed if I include, under the name of detective, not only the man from the central office, but also anybody whom the writer may, for ends of his own, consider better qualified for that function. The latter is a professional detective so far as the exigencies of the tale are concerned, and what becomes of him after that nobody need care. There is no longer anything to prevent his becoming, in his own right, the most fascinating of mankind. But in addition to the dummy ship of the detective, or to the cases in which the mere slip of circumstance takes his place, there is another reason against narrowing our conception of the riddle story to the degree which the alternative appellation would imply, and that is that it would exclude not a few of the most captivating riddle stories in existence. For in De Quincey's Avenger, for example, the interest is not in the unraveling of the web, but in the weaving of it. The same remark applies to Bowers' strange story. It is the strangeness that is the thing. There is, in short, an inalienable charm in the mere contemplation of mystery and the hazard of fortunes. And it would be a pity to shut them out from our consideration, only because there is no second-sided conjurer on hand to turn them into plain matter of fact. Yet we must not be too liberal, and a ghost's story can be brought into our charmed and charming circle, only if we have made up our minds to believe in the ghosts. Otherwise, their introduction would not be a square deal. It would not be fair, in other words, to propose a conundrum on a basis of ostensible materialism, and then, when no other key would fit, to palm off a disembodied spirit on us. Tell me beforehand that your scenario is to include both worlds, and I have no objection to make. I simply attune my mind to the more extensive scope. But I rebel at an unheralded ghostland and declare frankly that your tale is incredible. And I must confess that I would, as leaf, have ghosts kept out altogether. Their stories make a very good library in themselves and have no need to tag themselves on to what is really another department of fiction. Nevertheless, when a ghost's story is told with the consummate art of a Miss Wilkins and of one or two others on our list, consistency in this regard ceases to be a jewel. Art proves irresistible. As for adventure stories, there is a fringe of them that comes under the riddle story head, but for the most part, the riddle story begins after the adventures have finished. We are to contemplate a condition, not to watch the events that ultimate in it. Our detective, or anyone else, may of course meet with hap and mishaps on his way to the solution of his puzzle. But an astute writer will not color such incidents too vividly, lest he risk forfitting our preoccupation with a problem that we came forth for to study. In a word, one thing at a time. The foregoing disquisition may seem uncalled for by such rigid moralists as have made up their minds not to regard detective, or riddle stories as any part of respectable literature at all. With that sect, I announce at the outset that I am entirely out of sympathy. It is not needed to compare the gold bug with Paradise Lost. Nobody denies the superior literary stature of the latter, although as the Oxford senior Wrangler objected, what does it prove? But I appeal to Emerson, who in his poem of The Mountain and the Squirrel, states the nub of the argument with incomparable felicity as follows. You will recall that the two protagonists had a difference, originating in the fact that the former called the latter little prig. Bunn made a very sprightly retort, summing up to this effect. Talents differ, all is well and wisely put. If I cannot carry forests on my back, neither can you crack a nut. Andes and Paradise Lost are expedient and perhaps necessary in their proper atmosphere and function. But squirrels and gold bugs are indispensable in our daily walk. There is as fine and as true literature in Poe's tales as in Milton's epics. Only the elevation and dimensions differ. But I would rather live in a world that possessed only literature of the Poe caliber than shiver in one echoing solely the strains of the Miltonian muse. Mere human beings are not constructed to stand all day, a tiptoe on the misty mountaintops. They like to walk the streets most of the time and sit in easy chairs. And writings that picture the human mind and nature in true colors and in artistic proportions are literature and nobody has any business to poo-poo them. In fact, I feel as if I were knocking down a man of straw. I look in vain for any genuine resistance. Of course the gold bug is literature. Of course any other story of mystery and puzzle is also literature, provided it is as good as the gold bug. Or I will say since that standard has never since been quite attained, provided it is a half or a tenth as good. It is goldsmith's work. It is Chinese carving. It is dadelian. It is fine. It is the product of the ingenuity lobe of the human brain working and expatiating in freedom. It is art, not spiritual or transcendental art, but solid art to be felt and experienced. You may examine it at your leisure. It will always be ready for you. You need not fast or watch your arms overnight in order to understand it. Look at the nice setting of the mortises. Mark how the cover fits. How smooth is the working of that spring drawer. Observe that this bit of carving, that seemed mere ornament, is really a vital part of the mechanism. Note moreover how balanced and symmetrical the whole design is, with what economy and foresight every part is fashioned. It is not only an ingenious structure. It is a handsome bit of furniture and will materially improve the looks of the empty chambers, or disorderly or ungainly chambers that you carry under your crown. Or if it happens that these apartments are noble in decoration and proportions, then this captivating little object will find a suitable place in some spare nook or other and will rest or entertain eyes too long focused on the severely sublime and beautiful. I need not, however, rely upon abstract argument to support my contention. Many of the best writers of all time have used their skill in the inverted form of storytelling as a glance at our table of contents will show, and many of their tales depend for their effect as much on character and atmosphere as on the play and complication of events. The statement that a good detective or riddle story is good in art is supported by the fact that the supply of really good ones is relatively small, while the number of writers who would write good ones if they could and who have tried and failed to write them is past computation. And one reason probably is that such stories for their success must depend primarily upon structure. A sound and perfect plot, which is one of the rare things in our contemporary fiction. Our writers get hold of an incident or a sentiment or a character or a moral principle or a bit of technical knowledge or a splotch of local color or even a new version or dialect, and they will do something in two or ten thousand words out of that and call it a short story. Magazines may be found to print it, for there are all manner of magazines, but nothing of that sort will serve for a riddle story. You cannot make a riddle story by beginning it and then trusting to luck to bring it to an end. You must know all about the end and the middle before thinking even of the beginning. The beginning of a riddle story, unlike those of other stories and of other enterprises, is not half the battle. It is next to being quite unimportant and, moreover, it is always easy. The unexplained corpse lies weltering in its gore in the first paragraph. The inexplicable cipher presents its enigma at the turning of the opposite page. The writer who is secure in the knowledge that he has got a good thing coming and has arranged the manner in details of its coming cannot go far wrong with his exhortium. He wants to get into action at once and that is his best assurance that he will do it in the right way. But oh what a labor and a sweat it is what a planning and trimming what a remodeling, curtailing, interlining what despair succeeded by new lights what heroic expedience tried at the last moment and dismissed the moment after what waste paper baskets full of futilities and what gallant commencements all over again. Did the reader know or remotely suspect what terrific struggles the writer of a really good detective story has sustained? He would regard the final product with a new wonder and respect and read it all over to find out how the troubles occurred. But he will search in vain there are no signs of them left no not so much as a scar. The tale moves along as smoothly and inevitably as oiled machinery obviously it could not have been arranged otherwise than it is and the wise reader is convinced that he could have done the thing himself without half trying. At that the writer smiles a bitter smile but it is one of the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. Nobody except him who has tried it will ever know how hard it is to write a really good detective story. The man or woman who can do it can also write a good play according to modern ideas of plays and possesses force of character, individuality and mental ability. He or she must combine the intuition of the artist with the talent of the master mechanic. That will seldom be a poet and will generally care more for things and events than for fellow creatures. For although the story is often concerned with writing some wrong or avenging some murder yet it must be confessed that the author commonly succeeds better in the measure of his ruthlessness in devising crimes and giving his portraits of devils and extra touch of black. Mercy is not his strong point. However he may abound injustice and he will not stickle at piling up the agony if thereby he provides opportunity for enhancing the picturesqueness and completeness of the evil doer's due. But this leads me to the admission that one charge at least does lie against the door of the riddle story writer and that is that he is not sincere. He makes his mysteries backward and knows the answer to his riddle before he states its terms. He deliberately supplies his reader also with all manner of false sense well knowing them to be such and concocts various seeming artless and innocent remarks and illusions which in reality are diabolically artful and would deceive the very elect. All this I say must be conceded but it is not unfair. The very object ostensibly of the riddle story is to prompt you to sharpen your wits. And as you are yourself the real detective in the case so you must regard your author as the real criminal whom you are to detect. Credit no statement of his save as supported by the clearest evidence to be continually repeated to yourself Timeo Daneos et Dona Farentes. Nay never so much as them. But as I said before when the game is well set you have no chance whatever against the dealer. And for my own part I never try to be clever when I go up against these thimble riggers. I believe all they tell me and accept the most insolent gold bricks and in that way I occasionally catch some of the very ableist of them napping for they are so subtle that they will sometimes tell you the truth because they think you will suppose it to be a lie. I do not wish to catch them napping however I cling to the wisdom of ignorance and childishly enjoy the way in which things work themselves out the cul-de-sac resolving itself in the very last moment into a promising corridor towards the outer air. At every rebuff it is my happiness to be hopelessly bewildered and I gape with admiration when the Gordian knot is untied. If the author be old fashioned enough to apostrophize the gentle reader I know he must mean me and docilely give ear and presently tumble head foremost into the treacherous pit he has digged for me. In brief I am there to be sold and I get my money's worth. No one can thoroughly enjoy riddle stories unless he is old enough or young enough or at any rate wise enough to appreciate the value of the faculty of being surprised. Those sardonic and omniscient persons who know everything beforehand and smile compassionately or scornfully at the artless outcries of astonishment of those who are uninformed may get an ill-natured satisfaction out of the persuasion that they are superior beings but there is very little meat in that sort of happiness and the uninformed have the better lot after all. I need hardly point out that there is a distinction and a difference between short riddle stories and longer ones, novels. The former require far more technical art for their proper development. The enigma cannot be posed in so many ways but must be stated once for all. There cannot be false sense in a few of them. There can be small opportunity for character drawing and all kinds of ornament and comment must be reduced to their very lowest terms. Here indeed, as everywhere, genius will have its way and while a merely talented writer would deem it impossible to tell the story of the gold bug in less than a volume Poe could do it in a few thousand words and yet appeared to have said everything worth saying. In the case of the Sherlock Holmes tales they form a series and our previous knowledge of the hero enables the writer to dispense with much description and accompaniment that would be necessary had that eminent personage been presented in only a single complication of events. Each special episode of the great analyst's career can therefore be handled with the utmost economy and yet fill all the requirements of intelligent interest and comprehension. But as a rule, the riddle novel approaches its theme in a spirit essentially other than that which inspires the short tale. We are given as it were a wide landscape instead of a detailed genre picture. The number of the dramatist persona is much larger and the parts given to many of them may be very small though each should have his or her necessary function in the general plan. It is much easier to create perplexity on these terms but on the other hand the riddle novel demands a power of vivid character portrayal and of telling description which are not indispensable in the briefer narrative. A famous tale published perhaps 40 years ago but which cannot be included in our series tells the story of a murder the secret of which is admirably concealed till the very last and much of the fascination of the book is due to the ability with which the leading character and some of the subordinate ones are drawn. The author was a woman and I have often marveled at women who also seldom attempt this form of literature. Many of them possess a good constructive faculty and their love of detail and of mystery is notorious. Perhaps they are too fond of sentiment and sentiment must be handled with caution in riddle stories. The fault of all riddle novels is that they inevitably involve two kinds of interest and can seldom balance these so perfectly that one or the other of them shall not suffer. The mind of the reader becomes weary between human characters on one side the mysterious events on the other and would prefer the more single-eyed treat of the short tale. Wonder too is a very tender and short-lived emotion and sometimes perishes after a few pages. Curiosity is tougher but that too may be baffled too long and end by tiring of the pursuit while it is yet in its early stages. Many excellent plots admirable from the constructive point of view have been wasted by stringing them out too far. The reader recognizes their merit but loses his enthusiasm on account of a sort of monotony of strain. He wickedly turns to the concluding chapter and the game is up. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was published about 1860 I think in weekly installments and certainly they were devoured with insatiable appetite by many thousands of readers. But I doubt whether a book of similar merit could command such a following today and I will even confess that I have myself never read the concluding parts and do not know to this day who the woman was or what were the wrongs from which she so poignantly suffered. The tales contained in the volumes herewith offered are the best riddle or detective stories in the world according to the best judgment of the editors. They are the product of writers of all nations and translation in this case that are more likely to be misleading than with most other forms of literature. For a mystery or a riddle is equally captivating in all languages. Many of the good ones perhaps some of the best ones have been left out either because we missed them in our search or because we had to choose between them and others seemingly of equal excellence and were obliged to consider space limitations which however generously laid out must have some end at last. Be that as it may we believe that there are good enough stories here to satisfy the most gargantuan hunger and we feel sure that our volumes will never be crowded off the shelf which has once made room for them. If we have now and then a little transcended the strict definition of the class of fiction which our title would promise we shall nevertheless not anticipate any serious quarrel with our readers. If there be room to question the right of any given story to appear in this company there will be all the more reason for accepting it on its own merits for it had to be very good indeed in order to overcome its technical disqualification and if it did not rightfully belong there there would probably be objections as strong to admitting it in any other collection between two or more stools it would be a pity to let it fall to the ground so let it be forgiven and please us with whatever gift it has. In many cases where copyrights were still expired we have to express our acknowledgements to writers and publishers who have accorded us the courtesy of their leave to reproduce what their genius or enterprise has created and put forth. To our readers we take pleasure in presenting what we know cannot fail to give them pleasure a collection of the fruits of the finest literary ingenuity and nicest art accessible to the human mind. Gaudiat non caveat emptor Julian Hawthorne End of Section 0 Section 1 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 1 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 Jim Jacobson Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne Section 1 American Mystery Stories by The Waters of Paradise by Francis Marion Crawford Part 1 I remember my childhood very distinctly I do not think that the fact argues a good memory for I've never been clever at learning words by heart in prose or rhyme so that I believe my remembrance of events depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my possessing any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I'm too imaginative and the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes so connected with each other as to suggest a sort of weird fatality so worked upon my melancholy temperament when I was a boy that before I was of age I sincerely believed myself to be under a curse and not only myself but my whole family and every individual who bore my name. I was born in the old place where my father and his father and all his predecessors had been born beyond the memory of man. It is a very old house and the greater part of it was originally a castle strongly fortified and surrounded by a deep moat supplied with abundant water from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have been destroyed and the moat has been filled up. The water from the aqueduct supplies great fountains and runs down into huge oblong basins in the terraced gardens one below the other each surrounded by a broad pavement of marble between the water and the flower beds. The waste surplus finally escapes through an artificial grotto some 30 yards long into a stream flowing down through the park to the meadows beyond and thence to the distant river. The buildings were extended a little and greatly altered more than 200 years ago in the time of Charles II but since then little has been done to improve them though they have been kept in fairly good repair according to our fortunes. In the gardens there are terraces and huge hedges of box and evergreen some of which used to be clipped into shapes of animals in the Italian style. I can remember when I was a lad I used to try to make out what the trees were cut to represent and how I used to appeal for explanations to Judith, my Welsh nurse she dealt in a strange mythology of her own and peopled the gardens with griffins, dragons, good gene eye and bad and filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a view of the great fountains at the head of the upper basin and on moonlit nights the Welsh woman would hold me up to the glass and bid me look at the mist and spray rising into mysterious shapes moving mystically in the white light like living things. It's the woman of the water she used to say and sometimes she would threaten that if I did not go to sleep the woman of the water would steal up to the high window and carry me away in her wet arms. The place was gloomy the broad basins of water and the tall evergreen hedges gave it a funereal look and the damp stained marble causeways by the pools might have been made of tombstones. The gray and weather beaten walls and towers without the dark and massively furnished rooms within the deep mysterious recesses and the heavy curtains all affected my spirits I was silent and sad from my childhood there was a great clock tower above from which the hours rang dismally during the day and told like a knell in the dead of night there was no light nor life in the house for my mother was a helpless invalid and my father had grown melancholy in his long task of caring for her he was a thin dark man with sad eyes kind I think but silent and unhappy next to my mother I believe he loved me better than anything on earth for he took immense pains for me and what he taught me I have never forgotten perhaps it was his only amusement and that may be the reason why I had no nursery governess or teacher of any kind while he lived I used to be taken to see my mother every day and sometimes twice a day for an hour at a time then I sat upon a little stool near her feet and she would ask me what I had been doing and what I wanted to do I dare say she saw already the seeds of a profound melancholy in my nature for she looked at me always with a sad smile and kissed me with a sigh when I was taken away one night when I was just six years old I lay awake in the nursery the door was not quite shut and the Welsh nurse was sitting sewing in the next room suddenly I heard her groan and say in a strange voice one two one two I was frightened and I jumped up and ran to the door barefooted as I was what is it Judith? I cried clinging to her skirts I can remember the look in her strange dark eyes as she answered one two leaden coffins fallen from the ceiling she crooned working herself in her chair one two a light coffin and a heavy coffin falling to the floor then she seemed to notice me and she took me back to bed and sang me to sleep with a queer old Welsh song I do not know how it was but the impression got hold of me that she had meant that my father and mother were going to die very soon they died in the very room where she had been sitting that night it was a great room my day nursery full of sun when there was any and when the days were dark it was the most cheerful place in the house my mother grew rapidly worse and I was transferred to another part of the building to make place for her they thought my nursery was gayer for her I suppose but she could not live she was beautiful when she was dead and I cried bitterly the light one the light one the heavy one to come crooned the Welsh woman and she was right my father took the room after my mother was gone and day by day he grew thinner and paler and sadder the heavy one the heavy one all of lead moaned my nurse one night in December standing still just as she was going to take away the light after putting me to bed then she took me up again and wrapped me in a little gown and led me away to my father's room she knocked but no one answered she opened the door and we found him in his easy chair before the fire very white quite dead so I was alone with the Welsh woman till strange people came and relations whom I had never seen and then I heard them saying that I must be taken away to some more cheerful place they were kind people and I will not believe that they were kind only because I was to be very rich when I grew to be a man the world never seemed to be a very bad place for me nor all the people to be miserable sinners even when I was most melancholy I do not remember that anyone ever did me any great injustice nor that I was ever oppressed or ill treated in any way even by the boys at school I was sad I suppose because my childhood was so gloomy and later because I was unlucky and everything I undertook till I finally believed I was pursued by fate and I used to dream that the old Welsh nurse and the woman of the water between them had vowed to pursue me to my end but my natural disposition should have been cheerful as I have often thought among the lads of my age I was never last or even among the last in anything but I was never first if I trained for a race I was sure to sprain my ankle on the day when I was to run if I pulled an ore with others my ore was sure to break if I competed for a prize some unforeseen accident prevented my winning it at the last moment nothing to which I put my hand succeeded and I got the reputation of being unlucky until my companions felt it was always safe to bet against me no matter what the appearances might be I became discouraged and listless in everything I gave up the idea of competing for any distinction at the university comforting myself with a thought that I could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree the day before the examination began I fell ill and when at last I recovered after a narrow escape from death I turned my back upon Oxford and went down alone to visit the old place where I had been born feeble in health and profoundly disgusted and discouraged I was 21 years of age master of myself and of my fortune but so deeply had the long chain of small unlucky circumstances affected me that I thought seriously of shutting myself up from the world to live the life of a hermit and to die as soon as possible death seemed the only cheerful possibility in my existence and my thoughts soon dwelt upon it all together I had never shown any wish to return to my own home since I had been taken away as a little boy and no one had ever pressed me to do so the place had been kept in order after a fashion and did not seem to have suffered during the 15 years or more of my absence nothing earthly could affect those old grey walls that had fought the elements for so many centuries the garden was more wild than I remembered it the marble causeways about the pool looked more yellow and damp than of old and the whole place at first looked smaller it was not until I had wandered about the house and grounds for many hours that I realized the huge size of the home where I was to live in solitude then I began to delight in it and my resolution to live alone grew stronger the people had turned out to welcome me of course and I tried to recognize the changed faces of the old gardener the old housekeeper and to call them by name my old nurse I knew it once she had grown very grey since she heard the coffins fall in the nursery 15 years before but her strange eyes were the same and the look in them woke all my old memories she went over the house with me and how is the woman of the water I asked trying to laugh a little does she still play in the moonlight she is hungry answered the Welsh woman in a low voice hungry then we will feed her I laughed but old Judith turned very pale and looked at me strangely feed her you will feed her well she muttered glancing behind her at the ancient housekeeper who tottered after us with feeble steps through the halls and passages I did not think much of her words she had always talked oddly as Welsh women will and though I was very melancholy I am sure I was not superstitious and I was certainly not timid only as if in a far off dream I seemed to see her standing with the light in her hand and muttering the heavy one all of lead and then leading a little boy through the long corridors to see his father lying dead in a great easy chair before a smoldering fire so we went over the house and I chose the rooms where I would live and the servants I had brought with me ordered and arranged everything and I had no more trouble I did not care what they did provided I was left in peace and was not expected to give directions for I was more listless than ever owing to the effects of my illness at college I dined in solitary state and the melancholy grandeur of the vast old dining room pleased me then I went to the room I had selected for my study and sat down in a deep chair under a bright light to think or to let my thoughts meander through labyrinths of their own choosing utterly indifferent to the course they might take the tall windows of the room opened to the level of the ground upon the terrace at the head of the garden it was in the end of July and everything was open for the weather was warm as I sat alone I heard the unceasing splash of the great fountains and I fell to thinking of the woman of the water I rose and went out into the still night and sat down upon a seat on the terrace between two gigantic Italian flower pots the air was deliciously soft and sweet with the smell of the flowers and the garden was more congenial to me than the house people always like running water and the sound of it at night though I cannot tell why I sat and listened in the gloom for it was dark below and the pale moon had not yet climbed over the hills in front of me though the air all above was light with their rising beams slowly the white halo in the eastern sky ascended in an arch above the wooded crests making the outlines of the mountains more intensely black by contrast as though the head of some great white saint were rising from behind a screen in a vast cathedral throwing misty glories from below I longed to see the moon herself and I tried to reckon the seconds before she must appear then she sprang up quickly and in a moment more hung round and perfect in the sky I gazed at her and then at the floating spray of the tall fountains and down at the pools where the water lilies were rocking softly on the bleep on the velvet surface of the moonlit water just then a great swan floated out silently into the midst of the basin and wreathed his long neck catching the water in his broad bill and scattering showers of diamonds around him suddenly as I gazed something came between me and the light I looked up instantly between me and the round disk of the moon rose a luminous face of a woman with great strange eyes and a woman's mouth full and soft but not smiling hooded in black, staring at me as I sat still upon my bench she was close to me so close that I could have touched her with my hand but I was transfixed and helpless she stood still for a moment but her expression did not change then she passed swiftly away and my hair stood up on my head while the cold breeze from her white dress was wafted to my temples as she moved the moonlight shining through the tossing spray of the fountain made traceries of shadow on the gleaming folds of her garments in an instant she was gone and I was alone I was strangely shaken by the vision and some time passed before I could rise to my feet for I was still weak from my illness and the sight that I had seen would have startled anyone I did not reason with myself for I was certain that I had looked on the unearthly and no argument could have destroyed that belief at last I got up and stood unsteadily gazing in the direction which I thought the face had gone but there was nothing to be seen nothing but the broad paths the tall dark evergreen hedges the tossing water of the fountains pool below I fell back upon the seat and recalled the face I had seen strange to say now that the first impression had passed there was nothing startling in the recollection on the contrary I felt that I was fascinated by the face and would give anything to see it again I could retrace the beautiful straight features the long dark eyes and the wonderful mouth most exactly in my mind and when I had reconstructed every detail from memory I knew that the whole was beautiful and that I should love a woman with such a face I wonder whether she's the woman of the water I said to myself then rising once more I wandered down the garden descending one short flight of steps after another from terrace to terrace by the edge of the marble basins through the shadow and through the moonlight I crossed the water by the rustic bridge above the artificial grotto and climbed slowly up again to the highest terrace by the other side the air seemed sweeter and I was very calm so that I think I smiled to myself as I walked as though a new happiness had come to me the woman's face seemed always before me and the thought of it gave me an unwanted thrill of pleasure unlike anything I had ever felt before I turned as I reached the house and looked back upon the scene it had certainly changed in the short hour since I had come out and my mood had changed with it just like my luck I thought to fall in love with a ghost but in old times I would have sighed and gone to bed more sad than ever at such a melancholy conclusion tonight I felt happy almost for the first time in my life the gloomy old study seemed cheerful when I went in the old pictures on the walls smiled at me and I sat down in my deep chair with a new and delightful sensation that I was not alone the idea of having seen a ghost and a feeling much the better for it was so absurd that I laughed softly and I took up one of the books that I had brought with me and began to read that impression did not wear off I slept peacefully and in the morning I threw open my windows to the summer air and looked down at the garden at the stretches of green and at the colored flower beds at the circling swallows and at the bright water a man might make a paradise at this place I exclaimed a man and a woman together from that day the old castle no longer seemed gloomy and I think I ceased to be sad for some time too but I got interest in the place and to try and make it more alive I avoided my old Welsh nurse lest she should damp my humor with some dismal prophecy and recall my old self by bringing back memories of my dismal childhood but what I thought of most was the ghostly figure I had seen in the garden that first night after my arrival I went out every evening and wandered through the walks and paths but try as I might did not see my vision again at last after many days the memory grew more faint and my old moody nature gradually overcame the temporary sense of lightness I had experienced the summer turned to autumn and I grew restless it began to rain the dampness pervaded the gardens and the outer halls smelled musty like tombs the grey sky oppressed me intolerably I left the place as it was and went abroad determined to try anything which might possibly make a second break in the monotonous melancholy from which I suffered End of Section 1 Section 2 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1 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 Jimmy Jacobson Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne, Editor Section 2 by The Waters of Paradise by Julian Hawthorne Part 2 Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the small events which, after the death of my parents influenced my life and made me unhappy the gruesome forebodings of a Welsh nurse which chanced to be realized by an odd coincidence of events enough to change the nature of a child and to direct the bent of his character in after-years the little disappointments of schoolboy life and the somewhat less childish ones of an uneventful and undistinguished academic career should not have suffice to turn me out at one in twenty years of age a melancholic listless idler Some weakness of my own character may have contributed to the result but in a greater degree it was due to my having a reputation of my work However, I will not try to analyze the causes of my state for I should satisfy nobody, least of all myself Still less will I attempt to explain why I felt a temporary revival of my spirits after my adventure in the garden It is certain that I was in love with the face I had seen and that I longed to see it again that I gave up all hope of a second visitation grew more sad than ever and finally went abroad But in my dreams I went back to my home and it always appeared to me sunny and bright as it had looked on that summer's morning after I had seen the woman by the fountain I went to Paris I went farther and wandered about Germany I tried to amuse myself and I failed miserably With the aimless whims of an idle and useless man come all sorts of suggestions for good resolutions One day I made up my mind that I would go and bury myself in a German university for a time and live simply like a poor student I started with the intention of going to Leipzig determined to stay there until some event should direct my life or change my humor or make an end of me altogether The express train stopped at some station of which I did not know the name It was dusk on a winter's afternoon and I peered through the thick glass from my seat Suddenly another train came gliding in from the opposite direction and stopped alongside of ours I looked at the carriage which chanced to be a breast of mine and idly read the black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass handrail Berlin, Cologne, Paris Then I looked up at the window above I started violently The cold perspiration broke out of my forehead In the dim light not six feet from where I sat I saw the face of a woman the face I loved the straight, fine features the strange eyes the wonderful mouth the pale skin Her headdress was a dark veil which seemed to be tied about her head and passed over the shoulders under her chin As I threw down the window I felt on the cushion seat leaning far out to get a better view A long whistle screamed through the station followed by a quick series of dull clanking sounds Then there was a slight jerk and my train moved on Luckily the window was narrow being the one over the seat beside the door or I believe I would have jumped out of it then and there In an instant the speed increased and I was being carried swiftly away from the direction from the thing I loved For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place stunned by the suddenness of the apparition At last one of the two other passengers a large and gorgeous captain of the White Cunigsburg Curriciers civilly but firmly suggested that I might shut my window as the evening was cold I did so with an apology and relapsed into silence The train ran swiftly on for a long time and it was already beginning to back in speed before entering another station when I aroused myself and made a sudden resolution as the carriage stopped before the brilliantly lighted platform I seized my belongings saluted my fellow passengers and got out determined to take the first express back to Paris This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that it did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face of the woman to whom it belonged I did not try to explain to myself how the face and the woman could be travelling by a fast train from Berlin to Paris on a winter's afternoon when both were in my mind indelibly associated with the moonlight and the fountains in my old English home I certainly would not have admitted that I had been mistaken in the dark attributing to what I had seen a resemblance to my former vision which did not really exist There was not the slightest doubt in my mind and I was positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved I did not hesitate and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris I could not help reflecting on my ill luck Wandering as I had been for many months it might as easily have chance that I should be travelling in the same train with that woman instead of going the other way But my luck was destined to turn for a time I searched Paris for several days I dined at the principal hotels I went to the theatres I rode in the Voie de Moulin in the morning and picked up an acquaintance whom I forced to drive with me in the afternoon I went to Mass at the Madeleine and I attended the services at the English church I hung about the Louvre and Notre-Dame I went to Versailles I spent hours in parading the Rue de Rivoli in the neighbourhood of Maurice's Corner where foreigners pass and repass from morning till night At last I received an invitation to a reception at the English Embassy I went and I found what I had sought so long There she was sitting by an old lady in grey satin and diamonds who had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen grey eyes that seemed to take in everything they saw with very little inclination to give much in return But I did not notice the chaperone I saw only the face that had haunted me for months and in the excitement of the moment I walked quickly towards the pair forgetting such a trifle as the necessity for an introduction She was far more beautiful than I had thought but I never doubted that it was she herself and no other Vision or no vision before this was the reality and I knew it Twice her hair had been covered Now at last I saw it and the added beauty of its magnificence glorified the whole woman It was rich hair, fine and abundant golden with deep ruddy tints in it like red bronze spun fine There was no ornament in it not a rose, not a thread of gold and I felt that it needed nothing to enhance its splendor nothing but her pale face her dark strange eyes and her heavy eyebrows I could see that she was slender too but strong with all as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in the midst of the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation I recollected the detail of introduction in time and turned aside to look for my host I found him at last I begged him to present me to the two ladies pointing them out to him at the same time Yes, by all means replied his Excellency with a pleasant smile He evidently had no idea of my name which was not to be wondered at by him Lord Cangorm, I observed Oh, by all means answered the Ambassador with the same hospitable smile Yes, the fact is I must try to find out who they are such lots of people you know Oh, if you will present me I will try and find out for you I said, laughing Ah, yes, so kind of you Come along, said my host We threaded the crowd and in a few moments we stood before the two ladies Allow me to introduce Lord Kemgon, he said Then, adding quickly to me Come and dine tomorrow, won't you? He glided away with his pleasant smile and disappeared in the crowd I sat down beside the beautiful girl conscious that the eyes of the duena were upon me I think we have been very near meeting before I remarked by way of opening the conversation My companion turned her eyes full upon me with an air of inquiry She evidently did not recall my face if she had ever seen me Really, I cannot remember She observed in a low and musical voice When? In the first place you came down from Berlin by the express ten days ago I was going the other way and our carriages stopped opposite each other I saw you at the window Yes, we came that way but I do not remember She hesitated Finally, I continued I was sitting alone in my garden last summer near the end of July, do you remember? You must have wandered in there through the park You came up to the house and looked at me Was that you? She asked in evidence surprise Then she broke into a laugh I told everybody I had seen a ghost There had never been any can-gorms in the place since the memory of man We left the next day and never heard that you had come there Indeed, I did not know the castle belonged to you Where were you staying, I asked Where? Why with my aunt, where I always stay She's your neighbor since it is you I beg your pardon, but then Is your aunt Lady Bluebell? I did not quite catch Don't be afraid, she is amazingly deaf Yes, she is the relic of my beloved uncle the 16th or 17th Baron Bluebell I forget exactly how many of them there have been And I, do you know who I am? She laughed, well-knowing that I did not No, I answered frankly I have not the least idea I asked to be introduced because I recognized you Perhaps, perhaps you are a Miss Bluebell Considering that you are a neighbor I will tell you who I am, she answered No, I am of the tribe of Bluebells But my name is Lamasse Given to understand that I was christened in Margaret Being a floral family, they call me Daisy A dreadful American man once told me that my aunt was a Bluebell And that I was a hair-bell with two L's and an E Because my hair is so thick I warn you so that you may avoid making such a bad pun Do I look like a man who makes puns? I asked, being very conscious of my melancholy face And sad looks Miss Lamasse eyed me critically No, you have a mournful temperament I think I can trust you, she answered Do you think you could communicate to my aunt the fact that you are a can-gorm And a neighbor? I'm sure she would like to know I leaned toward the old lady, inflating my lungs for a yell But Miss Lamasse stopped me That is not the slightest use, she remarked You can write it on a bit of paper, she's utterly deaf I have a pencil, I answered, but I have no paper Would my cuff do, do you think? Oh, yes, replied Miss Lamasse with alacrity Men often do that I wrote on my cuff Miss Lamasse wishes me to explain that I am your neighbor, can-gorm Then I held out my arm before the old lady's nose She seemed perfectly accustomed to the proceeding Put up her glasses, read the words, smiled, nodded And addressed me in the unearthly voice Peculiar to people who hear nothing I knew your grandfather very well, she said Then she smiled and nodded to me again, and to her niece And relapsed into silence It is all right, remarked Miss Lamasse Aunt Bluebell knows she is deaf And does not say much like the parrot You see, she knew your grandfather How odd that we should be neighbors Why have we never met before? If you had told me you knew my grandfather When you appeared in the garden I should not have been at the least surprised I answered rather irreverently I really thought you were the ghost of the old fountain How in the world did you come there at that hour? We were a large party and we went out for a walk Then we thought that we should like to see What your park was like in the moonlight And so we trespassed I got separated from the rest And came upon you by accident Just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look Of your house and wondering whether anybody Would ever come and live there again It looks like the castle of Macbeth Or a scene from the opera Do you know anybody here? Hardly a soul, do you? No, Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come It is easy for her to go out She does not bear the burden of the conversation I'm sorry you find it a burden, said I Shall I go away? Miss Lamasse looked at me with a sudden gravity In her beautiful eyes And there was a sort of hesitation About the lines of her full soft mouth No, she said at last, quite simply Don't go away, we may like each other If you stay a little longer And we ought to because we're neighbors In the country I suppose I ought to have thought Miss Lamasse A very odd girl There is indeed a sort of free masonry Between people who discover that they live Near each other And that they ought to have known each other before But there was a sort of unexpected frankness And simplicity in the girl's amusing manner Which would have struck anyone else As being singular, to say the least of it To me, however, it all seemed natural enough I had dreamed of her face too long Not to be utterly happy when I met her at last And could talk to her as much as I pleased To me, the man of ill luck in everything The whole meeting seemed too good to be true I felt again the strange sensation of lightness Which I had experienced after I had seen Her face in the garden The great room seemed brighter Life seemed worth living My sluggish melancholy blood ran faster And filled me with a new sense of strength I said to myself that without this woman I was but an imperfect being But that with her I could accomplish everything To which I should set my hand Like the great doctor when he had thought He had cheated Mephistopheles at last I could have cried aloud to the fleeting moment For while, doch, du bist so schön! Are you always gay? I asked suddenly How happy you must be The days would sometimes seem very long If I were gloomy, she answered thoughtfully Yes, I think I find life very pleasant And I tell it so How can you tell life anything? I inquired If I could catch my life and talk to it I would abuse it prodigiously, I assure you I dare say you have a melancholy temper You ought to live out of doors, dig potatoes, make hay Shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches And come home muddy and hungry for dinner It would be much better for you Than moping in your rook tower and hating everything It is rather lonely down there, I murmured Apologetically, feeling that Miss Lamasse was quite right Then marry and quarrel with your wife, she laughed Anything is better than being alone I'm a very peaceable person I never quarrel with anybody You can try it, you will find it quite impossible Will you let me try? she asked, still smiling By all means, especially if it is to be only a preliminary canter I answered rashly What do you mean? she inquired Turning quickly upon me Oh, nothing, you might try my paces with a view to quarreling in the future I cannot imagine how you're going to do it You'll have to resort to immediate and direct abuse No, I will only say that if you do not like your life It is your own fault How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy Or of the hollowness of existence Are you consumptive? Are you subject to hereditary insanity? Are you deaf like Aunt Bluebell? Are you poor like lots of people? Have you been crossed in love? Have you lost the world for a woman Or any particular woman for the sake of the world? Are you feeble minded, a cripple, an outcast? Are you repulsively ugly? She laughed again Is there any reason in the world why you should not enjoy all you have got in life? No, there's no reason whatever Except that I'm dreadfully unlucky Especially in small things Then try big things just for a change Suggested Miss Lamasse Try and get married for instance And see how it turns out If it turned out badly It would be rather serious Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably If abuse is your particular talent Abuse something that ought to be abused Abuse the conservatives Or the liberals It doesn't matter which Since they're always abusing each other Make yourself felt by other people You will like it if they don't It will make a man of you Fill your mouth with pebbles And howl at the sea if you cannot do anything else It did dimasthenes no end of good, you know You'll have the satisfaction of imitating a great man Really Miss Lamasse I think the list of innocent exercises you propose Very well If you don't care for that sort of thing Care for some other sort of thing Care for something or hate something Don't be idle It's short and though art may be long Plenty of noise answers nearly as well I do care for something I mean somebody, I said A woman? Then marry her Don't hesitate I do not know whether she would marry me I replied, I've never asked her Then ask her at once Answered Miss Lamasse I shall die happy if I feel I've persuaded A melancholy fellow creature To rouse himself to action Ask her by all means and see what she says If she does not accept you at once She may take you the next time Meanwhile you will have entered the race If you lose there are the all-agent trial steaks And the consolation race And plenty of selling races into the bargain Shall I take you at your word Miss Lamasse? I hope you will she answered Since you yourself advise me I will Miss Lamasse Will you do me the honour to marry me? For the first time in my life The blood rushed to my head And my sight swam I cannot tell why I said it It would be useless to try to explain The extraordinary fascination The girl exercised over me Or the still more extraordinary feeling Of intimacy with her which had grown In me during that half hour Lonely, sad, unlucky As I had been all my life I was certainly not timid But to propose to marry a woman After half an hour's acquaintance Was a piece of madness Of which I never believed myself capable And of which I should never be capable again Should I be placed in the same situation? It was as though my whole being Had been changed in a moment by magic By the white magic of her nature Brought into contact with mine The blood sank back into my heart And a moment later I found myself Staring at her with anxious eyes To my amazement she was as calm as ever But her beautiful mouth smiled And there was a mischievous light In her dark brown eyes Fairly caught, she answered For an individual who pretends To be listless and sad You are not lacking in humor I had really not the least idea What you were going to say Wouldn't it be singularly awkward For you if I had said yes? I never saw anybody begin To practice so sharply What was preached to him With so very little loss of time You probably never met a man Who had dreamed of you for seven months Before being introduced No, I never did She answered gaily It smacks of the romantic Perhaps you are a romantic character after all I should think you were if I believed you Very well You have taken my advice Entered for a stranger's race And lost it Try the all-agent trial-stakes You have another cuff and pencil Proposed to Aunt Bluebell She would dance with astonishment And she might recover her hearing Part 3 That was how I first asked Margaret Lamasse to be my wife And I will agree with anyone Who says that I behaved very foolishly But I have not repented of it And I never shall I have long ago understood That I was out of my mind That evening But I think my temporary insanity On that occasion has had the effect Of making me a saner man Ever since Her manner turned my head For it was so different from what I had expected To hear this lovely creature Who in my imagination Was a heroine of romance If not of tragedy Talking familiarly and laughing readily Was more than my equanimity could bear And I lost my head as well as my heart But when I went back to England in the spring I went to make certain arrangements at the castle Certain changes and improvements Which would be absolutely necessary I had won the race for which I had entered myself so rashly And we were to be married in June Whether the change was due to the orders I had left with the gardener and the rest of the servants Or to my own state of mind I cannot tell At all events the old place did not look the same To me when I opened my window On the morning after my arrival There were the gray walls below me And the gray turrets flanking the huge building There were the fountains The marble causeways, the smooth basins The tall box hedges The water lilies and the swans Just as of old But there was something else there too Something in the air, in the water And in the greenness that I did not recognize A light over everything By which everything was transfigured The clock in the tower struck seven And the strokes of the ancient bell Sounded like a wedding chime The air sang with a thrilling treble Of the songbirds, with the silvery music Of the plashing water And the softer harmony of the leaves Stirred by the fresh morning wind There was a smell of new-mown hay From the distant meadows And of blooming roses from the beds below Waffed it up together to my window I stood in the pure sunshine And drank the wine I stood in the pure sunshine And drank the air And all the sounds and the odors that were in it And I looked down at my garden and said It is paradise, after all I think the men of old were right When they called heaven a garden And Eden a garden inhabited By one man and one woman The earthly paradise I turned away Wondering what had become Of the gloomy memories I had always associated With my home I tried to recall the impression of my nurse's Horrible prophecy before the death of my parents An impression which hitherto Had been vivid enough I tried to remember my old self My dejection, my listlessness My bad luck, my petty disappointments I endeavored to force myself to think As I used to think If only to satisfy myself That I had not lost my individuality But I succeeded in none of these efforts I was a different man I changed being Incapable of sorrow, of ill luck Or of sadness My life had been a dream Not evil, but infinitely gloomy And hopeless It was now a reality Full of hope, gladness, and all manner of good My home had been like a tomb Today it was paradise My heart had been as though it had not existed Today it beat with strength And youth and the certainty Of happiness I reveled in the beauty of the world And called loveliness out of the future To enjoy it before time should bring it to me As a traveller in the plains Looks up to the mountains And already tastes the cool air Through the dust of the road Here I thought we will live and live for years There we will sit By the fountain toward evening In the deep moonlight Down those paths we will wander together On those benches we will rest and talk Among those eastern hills We will ride through the soft twilight And in the old house we will tell tales On winter nights when the logs burn high And the holly berries are red And the old clock tolls out the dying year On these old steps In these dark passages and stately rooms There will one day be the sound Of little pattering feet And laughing child voices Will ring up to the vaults of the ancient hall Those tiny footsteps Shall not be slow and sad as mine were Nor shall the childish words Be spoken in an odd whisper No gloomy Welsh woman Shall people the dusty corners With weird horrors Nor utter horrid prophecies Of death and ghastly things All shall be young and fresh And joyful and happy And we will turn the old luck again And forget that there was ever any sadness So I thought, as I looked out My window that morning And for many mornings after that And every day it all seemed more real Than ever before And much nearer But the old nurse looked at me a scance And muttered odd sayings about the woman Of the water I cared little what she said For I was far too happy At last the time came near for the wedding Lady Bluebell and all the tribe Of the Bluebells, as Margaret called them Were at Bluebell Grange For we had determined to be married And to come straight to the castle afterwards We cared little for travelling And not at all for a crowded ceremony At St. George's in Hanover Square With all the tiresome formalities afterwards I used to ride over to the Grange every day And very often Margaret would come With her aunt and some of her cousins To the castle I was suspicious of my own taste And was only too glad to let her Have her way about the alterations And improvements in our home We were to be married on the 30th of July And on the evening of the 28th Margaret drove over with some of the Bluebell Party In the long summer twilight We all went out into the garden Naturally enough, Margaret and I Were left to ourselves And we wandered down by the marble basins It is an odd coincidence, I said That it was on this very night last year That I first saw you Considering that it is the month of July Answered Margaret with a laugh And that we have been here almost every day I don't think the coincidence is so Extraordinary after all No, dear, said I I suppose not I don't know why it struck me We shall very likely be here a year from today And a year after that The odd thing when I think of it Is that you should be here at all But my luck has turned I ought not to think anything odd That happens now that I have you It is all sure to be good A slight change in your ideas Since that remarkable performance Of yours in Paris, said Margaret Do you know, I thought You were the most extraordinary man I had ever met And I thought you were the most charming Woman I had ever seen I naturally did not want to lose Any time in frivolities I took you at your word and followed Your advice, I asked you to marry me And that was the delightful result What's the matter? Margaret had started suddenly And her hand tightened on my arm An old woman was coming up the path And was close to us before we saw her For the moon had risen And was shining full in our faces The woman turned out to be my old nurse It's only Judith, dear Don't be frightened, I said Then I spoke to the Welsh woman What are you about, Judith? Have you been feeding the woman of the water? When the clock strikes willy My lord, I mean Muttered the old creature Drawing aside to let us pass And fixing her strange eyes on Margaret's face What does she mean? Asked Margaret when we had gone by Nothing, darling The old thing is mildly crazy But she's a good soul We went on in silence For a few moments And came to the rustic bridge Just above the artificial grotto Of the park dark and swift In its narrow channel We stopped and leaned on the wooden rail The moon was now behind us And shone full upon the long vista Of basins and on the huge walls And towers of the castle above How proud you are to be Of such a grand old place Said Margaret softly It is yours now, darling, I answered You have as good a right To love it as I But I only love it because I love it, dear Her hand stole out And lay on mine And we were both silent Just then the clock began to strike Far off in the tower I counted Eight Nine Ten Eleven I looked at my watch Twelve Thirteen Still it went on Note after note ringing out monotonously Through the still air We leaned over the rail Instinctively looking in the direction Whence the sound came On and on it went I counted nearly a hundred out of sheer curiosity For I understood that something had broken And that the thing was running itself down Suddenly there was a crack As a breaking wood A cry and a heavy splash And I was alone clinging to the broken end Of the rail of the rustic bridge I did not think I hesitated While my pulse beat twice I sprang clear of the bridge into the black Rushing water, dived to the bottom Came up again with empty hands Turned and swam downward through the grotto Into the thick darkness, plunging And diving at every stroke, striking My head and hands against jagged stones And sharp corners, clutching At last something in my fingers And dragging it up with all my might I spoke, I cried aloud But there was no answer I was alone in the pitchy darkness with my burden And the house was five hundred yards away Struggling still I felt the ground beneath my feet I saw a ray of moonlight The grotto widened And the deep water became a broad and shallow brook As I stumbled over the stones And at last laid Margaret's body On the bank in the park beyond I willy as the clock struck Said the voice of Judith The Welsh nurse As she bent down and looked at the white face The old woman must have turned back And followed us, seen the accident And slipped out by the lower gate Of the garden I, she groaned You have fed the woman of the water This night willy while the clock was striking I scarcely heard her As I knelt beside the lifeless body Of the woman I loved Chafing the white wet temples And gazing wildly into the water I remember only the first returning Look of consciousness The first heaving breath The first movement of those dear hands Stretching out towards me That is not much of a story, you say It's the story of my life, that is all It is not pretend to be anything else Old Judith says my luck turned On that summer's night While I was struggling in the water To save all that was worth living for A month later I found myself in the water For a month later There was a stone bridge above the grotto And Margaret and I stood on it And looked up at the moonlit castle As we had done once before And as we have done many times since For all those things happened Ten years ago last summer And this is the tenth Christmas Eve We have spent together by the roaring logs In the old hall, talking of old times And every year There are more old times to talk of There are curly-headed boys, too With red-gold hair and dark brown eyes Like their mothers And a little Margaret With solemn black eyes like mine Why could she not look like her mother, too As well as the rest of them The world is very bright At this glorious Christmas time And perhaps there is little use In calling up the sadness of long ago Unless it be to make the jolly Firelight seem more cheerful The good wife's face looked glatter And to give the children's laughter A clear ring, by contrast With all that is gone Perhaps, too, some sad-faced Listless melancholy youth Who feels that the world is very hollow And that life is like a perpetual funeral service Just as I used to feel myself May take courage for my example And having found the woman of his heart Ask her to marry him After half an hour's acquaintance But on the whole I would not advise any man to marry For the simple reason That no man will ever find a wife like mine And being obliged to go farther He will necessarily fare worse My wife has done miracles But I will not assert that any other woman Is able to follow her example Margaret always said That the old place was beautiful And that I ought to be proud of it I dare say she's right She has even more imagination than I But I have a good answer And a plain one, which is this That all the beauty of the castle Comes from her She has breathed upon it all As the children blow upon the cold glass Window panes in winter And as their warm breath crystallizes Into landscapes from fairyland Full of exquisite shapes and traceries Upon the blank surface So her spirit has transformed Every gray stone of the old towers Every ancient tree And hedge in the gardens Every thought in my once melancholy self All that was old as young And all that was sad is glad And I am the gladdest of all Whatever heaven may be There is no earthly paradise Without woman Nor is there anywhere a place so desolate So dreary, so unutterably miserable That a woman cannot make it seem heaven To the man she loves And who loves her I hear certain cynics laugh And cry that all that Has been said before Do not laugh, my good cynic You are too small a man To laugh at such a great thing as love Prayers have been said before Now by many, and perhaps You say yours too I do not think they lose anything By being repeated, nor you By repeating them You say that the world is bitter And full of the waters of bitterness Love and so live That you may be loved The world will turn sweet for you And you shall rest like me By the waters of paradise From the play actress and the Upper birth by Francis Marion Crawford Copyright 1896 by G. P. Putnam's Sons End of section 2 3 The Shadows on the Wall by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman 1852 to 1930 Henry Edwards with Edward in the study The Night Before Edward Died said Carolyn Glyn She was elderly, tall, and harshly thin with the hard colorlessness of face and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red and her eyes were red She was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty. She filled a great rocking chair with her superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth, her black silks whispering and her black frills fluttering. Even the shock of death for her brother Edward, late dead, in the house, could not disturb her outward serenity of demeanor. She was grieved over the loss of her brother. He had been the youngest, and she had been fond of him, but never had Emma Brigham lost sight of her own importance amidst the waters of tribulation. She was always awake to the consciousness of her own stability in the midst of vicissitudes and the splendor of her permanent bearing, but even the expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister Carolin's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and distress in response. I think Henry might have controlled his temper when poor Edward was so near his end, said she with an asperity which disturbed slightly the rosy odd curves of her beautiful mouth. Of course he did not know, said Rebecca Ann in a faint tone, strangely out of keeping with her appearance. One involuntarily looked again to be sure that such a feeble pipe came from that full-swelling chest. Of course he did not know it, said Carolin quickly. She turned on her sister with a strange, sharp look of suspicion. How could he have known it, said she. Then she shrank as if from the others possible answer. Of course you and I both know he could not, said she conclusively, but her pale face was paler than it had been before. Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was now sitting up straight in her chair. She seized rocking and was eyeing them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her face. Given one common intensity of emotion and similar lines showed forward and the three sisters of one race were evident. What do you mean, said she impartially to them both. Then she too seemed to shrink before the possible answer. She even laughed an evasive sort of laugh. I guess you don't mean anything, said she, but her face were still the expression of shrinking horror. Nobody means anything, said Carolin firmly. She rose and crossed the room toward the door with grim decisiveness. Where are you going, asked Mrs. Brigham. I have something to see to, replied Carolin, and the others at once knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in the Chamber of Death. Oh, said Mrs. Brigham. After the door had closed behind Carolin, she turned to Rebecca. Did Henry have many words with him, she asked. They were talking very loud, replied Rebecca evasively, yet with an answering gleam of ready response to the others' curiosity in the quick lift of her soft blue eyes. Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still set up straight with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead between the pretty rippling curves of her over hair. Did you hear anything she asked in a low voice with a glance toward the door? I was just across the hall in the south parlor, and that door was open to this door a jar, replied Rebecca with a slight flush. Then you must have. I couldn't help it. Everything? Most of it. What was it? The old story. I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living on here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him. Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door. When Emma spoke again, her voice was still more hushed. I know how he felt, said she. He had always been so prudent himself, and worked hard at his profession. And there Edward had never done anything but spend, and it must have looked to him as if Edward was living at his expense, but he wasn't. No, he wasn't. It was the way father left the property, that all the children should have a home here, and he left money enough to buy the food and all if we had all come home. Yes, and Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will, and Henry ought to have remembered it. Yes, he ought. Did he say hard things? Pretty hard from what I heard. What? I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he thought he had better go away. What did Edward say? That he would stay here as long as he lived, and afterwards too, if he was in mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out, and then… What? Then he laughed. What did Henry say? I didn't hear him say anything, but… But what? I saw him when he came out of this room. He looked mad. You've seen him when he looks so. Emma nodded. The expression of horror on his face had deepened. Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched him? Yes, don't. Then Caroline re-entered the room. She went up to the stove in which a wood fire was burning. It was a cold, gloomy day of fall, and she warmed her hands which were reddened from recent washing in cold water. Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door which was still a jar, as it did not easily shut, being still swollen with the damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together with a sharp thud which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfully with a half exclamation. Caroline looked at her disapprovingly. It is time you control your nerves, Rebecca, said she. I can't help it, replied Rebecca with almost a wail. I am nervous. There is enough to make me so, the Lord knows. What do you mean by that? asked Caroline with her old air of sharp suspicion, and something between challenge and dread of its being met. Rebecca shrank. Nothing, said she. Then I wouldn't keep speaking in such a fashion. Emma, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought to be fixed. It shut so hard. It will shrink enough after we've had a fire a few days, replied Caroline. If anything is done to it, it will be too small. It will be a crack at the sill. I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to Edward, said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice. Hush, said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door. Nobody can hear with the door shut. He must have heard it shut, and… Well, I can say what I want to before he comes down, and I'm not afraid of him. I don't know who is afraid of him. What reason is there for anybody to be afraid of Henry? demanded Caroline. Mrs. Brigham trembled before her sister's look. Rebecca gasped again. There isn't any reason, of course. Why should there be? I wouldn't speak so, then. Somebody might overhear you and think it was queer. We run the joys and the South Parlor suing, you know. I thought she went upstairs to stitch her on the machine. She did, but she has come down again. Well, she can't hear. I say again, I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having words with poor Edward the very night before he died. Edward was in a sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults. I always thought a great deal of poor Edward myself. Mrs. Brigham passed a large fluff of handkerchief across her eyes. Rebecca sobbed outright. Rebecca said Caroline admonishingly, keeping her mouth stiff and swallowing determinately. I never heard him speak a cross word unless he spoke cross to Henry that last night. I don't know, but he did from what Rebecca overheard said Emma. Not so much cross as sort of soft and sweet and aggravating sniffled Rebecca. He never raised his voice at Caroline, but he had his way. He had a right to in this case. Yes, he did. He had as much right here as Henry, sobbed Rebecca. And now he's gone, and he will never be in this home that poor Father left him and the rest of us again. What do you really think Ailed Edward asked Emma in hardly more than a whisper? She did not look at her sister. Caroline sat down in a nearby armchair and clutched the arms convulsively until her thin knuckles whitened. I told you, said she. Rebecca held her handkerchief over her mouth and looked at them above it with terrified streaming eyes. I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach and had spasms. But what do you think made him have them? Henry called it gastric trouble. Henry called it gastric trouble. You know, Edward has always had dyspeptia. Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. Was there any talk of an examination, said she? Then Caroline turned on her fiercely. No, said she, in a terrible voice. No. The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of terrified understanding through their eyes. The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and the push from without made the door shake ineffectually. It's Henry, Rebecca sighed, rather than whispered. Mrs. Brigham settled herself after a noiseless rush across the floor into her rocking chair again and was swaying back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back when the door at last yielded and Henry Glyn entered. He cast a covertly sharp, comprehensive glance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm. At Rebecca quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her face and only one small reddened ear as attentive as the dog's uncovered and revealing her alertness for his presence. At Caroline sitting with her strained composer in her armchair by the stove. She met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear and defiance of the fear and of him. Henry Glyn looked more like this sister than the others. Both had the same hard delicacy of form and feature. Both were tall and almost emaciated. Both had a sparse growth of gray blonde hair far back from high intellectual foreheads. Both had an almost noble aquilinity of feature. They confronted each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose marble liniaments emotions were fixed for all eternity. Then Henry Glyn smiled and the smile transformed his face. He looked suddenly years younger and an almost boyish recklessness and irresolution appeared in his face. He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance. He leaned his head back, flung one leg over the other and looked laughingly at Mrs. Brigham. I declare Emma you grow younger every year, he said. She flushed a little and her placid mouth widened at the corners. She was susceptible to praise. Our thoughts today ought to belong to the one of us who will never grow older said Carolyn in a hard voice. Henry looked at her still smiling. Of course, we none of us forget that, said he in a deep gentle voice. But we have to speak to the living Carolyn and I have not seen Emma for a long time. The living are as dear as the dead. Not to me said Carolyn. She rose and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca also rose and hurried after her sobbing loudly. Henry looked slowly after them. Carolyn is completely unstrung said he. Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his manner was stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and naturally. His death was very sudden said she. Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving. Yes said he. It was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours. What did you call it? Gastric. You did not think of an examination? There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his death. Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some life horror over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold before an inflection of his voice. She rose tottering on weak knees. Where are you going asked Henry in a strange breathless voice. Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some suing which she had to do. Some black for the funeral and was out of the room. She went up to the front chamber which she occupied. Carolyn was there. She went close to her and took her hands and the two sisters looked at each other. Don't speak don't. I won't have it said Carolyn finally in an awful whisper. I won't replied Emma. That afternoon the three sisters were in the study. The large front room on the ground floor across the hall from the south parlor when the dust deepened. Mrs. Brigham was hamming some black material. She sat close to the west window for the waning light. At last she laid her work on her lap. It's no use. I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light said she. Carolyn who was writing some letters at the table turned to Rebecca in a usual place on the sofa. Rebecca you had better get a lamp she said. Rebecca started up. Even in the dusk her face showed her agitation. It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet. She said in a piteous pleading voice like a child. Yes we do return Mrs. Brigham preemptorily. We must have a light. I must finish this tonight or I can't go to the funeral and I can't see to sew another stitch. Carolyn can see to write letters and she is farther from the window than you are said Rebecca. Are you trying to save Carolyn or are you lazy? Rebecca glim cried Mrs. Brigham. I can go and get the light myself but I have this work all in my lap. Carolyn's pen stopped scratching. Rebecca we must have the light said she. Have we better have it in here asked Rebecca weekly? Of course why not cried Carolyn sternly. I am sure I don't want to take my sewing into the other room when it is all cleaned up for tomorrow said Mrs. Brigham. Why I never heard such a to do about lighting a lamp. Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a lamp a large one with a white porcelain shade. She set it on a table an old-fashioned card table which was placed against the opposite wall from the window. That wall was clear of bookcases and books which were only on three sides of the room. That opposite wall was taken up with three doors the one small space being occupied by the table. Above the table on the old-fashioned paper of a white setting glass traversed by an indeterminate green scroll hung quite high a small gilt and black framed ivory miniature taken in her girlhood of the mother of the family. When the lamp was set on the table beneath it the tiny pretty face painted on the ivory seemed to gleam out with a look of intelligence. What have you put that lamp over there for asked Mrs. Brigham with more off impatience than her voice usually revealed. Why didn't you set it in the hall and have done with it? Neither Carolyn nor I can see if it is on that table. I thought perhaps you would move replied to Rebecca Horsley. If I do move we can't both sit at that table. Carolyn has her paper all spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the middle of the room then we can both see. Rebecca hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with an appeal that was fairly agonizing at her sister Carolyn. Why don't you put that lamp on this table as she says asked Carolyn almost fiercely. Why do you act so Rebecca. I should think you would ask her that said Mrs. Brigham. She doesn't act like herself at all. Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the room without another word. Then she turned her back upon it quickly and seated herself on the sofa and placed a hand over her eyes as to shade them and remain so. Does the light hurt your eyes and is that the reason why you didn't want the lamp asked Mrs. Brigham kindly. I always like to sit in the dark replied Rebecca chokingly. Then she snatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep. Carolyn continued to write Mrs. Brigham to Sue. End of section three. Recording by Ernst Schnell. Section four of library of world's best mystery and detective stories volume one. This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org. Recorded by Jay Martin. Library of the world's best mystery and detective stories volume one. By Julian Hawthorne editor. Section four The Shadow on the Wall. Part two by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman. Suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she soared glanced at the opposite wall. The glance became a steady stare. She looked intently her work suspended in her hands. Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches. Then she looked again and again turned to her task. At last she laid her work in her lap and stared concentratedly. She looked from the wall around the roof taking note of the various objects. She looked at the wall long and intently then she turned to her sisters. What is that she said? What! asked Carolyn Harshley. Her pens scratched loudly across the paper. Rebecca gave one of her convulsive gasps. That strange shadow on the wall replied Mrs. Brigham. Rebecca sat with her face hidden. Carolyn dipped her pen in the ink stand. Why don't you turn around and look? asked Mrs. Brigham in a wandering and somewhat aggrieved way. I am in a hurry to finish this letter. If Mrs. Wilson-Ebbett is going to get word in time to come to the funeral replied Carolyn shortly. Mrs. Brigham rose her work slipping to the floor and she began walking around the room, moving various articles of furniture with her eyes on the shadow. Then suddenly she shrieked out. Look at this awful shadow! What is it, Carolyn? Look! Look! Rebecca! Look! What is it? All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone. Her handsome face was livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow. Look! she said, pointing her finger at it. Look! What is it? Then Rebecca burst out in a wild wail after a shuddering glance at the wall. Oh, Carolyn! There it is again! There it is again! Carolyn! Glenn! You look! said Mrs. Brigham. Look! What is that dreadful shadow? Carolyn rose, turned, and stood, confronting the wall. How should I know, she said. It has been there every night since he died, cried Rebecca. Every night? Yes, he died Thursday. This is Saturday. That makes three nights, said Carolyn rigidly. She stood as if holding herself calm with a vice of concentrated will. It looks like, like, stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense horror. I know what it looks like well enough, said Carolyn. I've got eyes in my head. It looks like Edward burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear only. Yes, it does, said Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone matched her sisters. Only, oh, it's awful! What is it, Carolyn? I ask you again. How should I know? replied Carolyn. I see it there like you. How should I know any more than you? It must be something in the room, said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly around. We've moved everything in the room. The first night it came, said Rebecca. It's not anything in the room. Carolyn turned upon her with a sort of fury. Of course it's something in the room, she said. How you act? What do you mean by talking so? Of course it is something in the room. Of course it is, agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Carolyn suspiciously. Of course it must be. It is only a coincidence. It just happened so. Perhaps it is that fold of the window curtain that makes it. It must be something in the room. It's not anything in the room, repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror. The door suddenly opened and Henry Glenn entered. He began to speak. Then his eyes followed the direction of the others. He stood stock still, staring at the shadow on the wall. It was life-size and stretched across the white parallelogram of a door. Half across the wall space on which the picture hung. What is that? he demanded in a strange voice. It must be due to something in the room, Mrs. Brigham said faintly. It's not due to anything in the room, said Rebecca again with a shrill intensity of terror. How you act, Rebecca Glenn, said Carolyn. Henry Glenn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut of emotions, horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved to the furniture with fierce jerks turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered. It must be something in the room, he declared in a voice which seemed a snap like a lash. His face changed. The inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident until one almost lost sight of his liniments. Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brigham clutched Carolyn's hand. They both stood in a corner out of the way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He moved every piece of furniture. When the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow, he flung it to the floor, his sisters watching. Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed and began straightening the furniture which he had flung down. What an absurdity, he said easily, such a to-do about a shadow. That's so, I said of Mrs. Brigham in a scared voice which she tried to make natural. As she spoke, she lifted a chair near her. I think you had broken the chair that Edward was so fond of, said Carolyn. Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show of anxiety. Just as good as ever, he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking at his sisters. Did I scare you? he said. I should think you might be used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look queer-like. And I thought if there was any way of accounting for it, I would like to do it without any delay. You don't seem to have succeeded, remarked Carolyn dryly with a slight glance at the wall. Henry's eyes followed hers, and he quivered perceptively. Oh, there is no accounting for shadows, he said, and he laughed again. A man is a fool to try to account for shadows. Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept his back to the wall, as did indeed the others. Mrs. Brigham pressed close to Carolyn as she crossed the hall. It looks like a demon, she breathed in her ear. Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy. Rebecca brought up the rear. She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so. I can't sit in that room again this evening, she whispered to Carolyn after supper. Very well we'll sit in the south room, replied Carolyn. I think we will sit in the south parlor, she said aloud. It isn't as damp as the study, and I have a cold. So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry read the newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nine o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The three sisters looked at one another. Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly around her, and began tiptoeing toward the door. What are you going to do? inquired Rebecca agitatedly. I'm going to see what he is about, replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously. She pointed as she spoke to the study door across the hall. It was a jar. Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed. It was still a jar and a streak of light showed from top to bottom. The hall lamp was not lit. You had better stay where you are, said Carolyn, with guarded sharpness. I'm going to see, repeated Mrs. Brigham firmly. Then she folded her skirt so tightly that her bulk, with its swelling curves, was revealed in a black silk sheet. She went with a slow tattle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye at the crack. In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated eyes. Carolyn sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this. Henry Glenn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow must be between the table, on which the lamp stood and the wall, was making systematic passes and thrusts all over and through the intervening space with an old sword which had belonged to his father. Not an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and calculation. The blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror. Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly. Mrs. Brigham toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her before she related what she had seen. He looks like a demon, she said again. Have you got any of that old wine in the house, Carolyn? I don't feel as if I could stand much more. Indeed, she looked overcome. Her handsome, placid face was worn and strained and pale. Yes, there's plenty, said Carolyn. You can have someone you go to bed. I think we had all better take some, said Mrs. Brigham. Oh my God, Carolyn, what? Don't ask and don't speak, said Carolyn. No, I'm not going to, replied Mrs. Brigham. But Rebecca moaned aloud. What are you doing that for? asked Carolyn harshly. Poor Edward, returned Rebecca. That is all you have to groan for, Carolyn. There is nothing else. I am going to bed, since Mrs. Brigham, I shan't be able to be at the funeral if I don't. Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlor was deserted. Carolyn called to Henry in the study to put out the light before he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour when he came into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He sat it down on the table and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was terrible. His fair complexion showed livid. His blue eyes seemed dark blanks of awful reflections. Then he took the lamp up and returned to the library. He set the lamp on the center table and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table and the shadow sprang out from the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him. The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the south room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until Henry carried a lamp, in there after the others had retired for the night. He saw, again, the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before the light. The next morning at breakfast Henry Glennon announced that he had to go to the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He very seldom left home and just now his practice had been neglected on account of Edward's death. He was a physician. How can you leave your patients now? asked Mrs. Brigham, wanderingly. I don't know how to, but there is no other way, replied Henry easily. I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford. Consultation, inquired Mrs. Brigham. I have business, replied Henry. Dr. Mitford was an old classmate of his, who lived in a neighboring city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of consultation. After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that after all Henry had not said that he was going to consult with Dr. Mitford and she thought it very strange. Everything is very strange, said Rebecca with a shudder. What do you mean, inquired Caroline Sharply. Nothing, replied Rebecca. Nobody entered the library that day, nor the next, nor the next. The third day Henry was expected home, but he did not arrive and the last train from the city had come. I call it pretty queer works, said Mrs. Brigham. The idea of a doctor leaving his patients for three days, anyhow, at such a time as this, and I know he has some very sick ones. He said so. And the idea of a consultation lasting three days. There is no sense in it, and now he has not come. I don't understand it for my part. I don't either, said Rebecca. They were all in the South Parlor. There was no light. There was no light in the study opposite, and the door was ajar. Presently Mrs. Brigham rose. She could not have told why. Something seemed to impel her. Some will outside her own. She went out of the room again, wrapping her rustling skirts around that she might pass noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study. She has not got any lamps, said Rebecca in a shaking voice. Carolyn, who was writing letters, rose again, took a lamp. There were two in the room, and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen, but she stood trembling, not venturing to follow. The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it. It was on the South door, on the other side of the house, from the study. Rebecca, after hesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door. She remembered that the servant was out. Carolyn and her sister Emma entered the study. Carolyn set the lamp on the table. They looked at the wall. Oh, my God, guessed Mrs. Brigham. There are, there are two shadows. The sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering with a telegram in her hand. Here is a telegram. Henry is dead. End of section four, recorded by J. Martin.