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The White Cat

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Title: The White Cat

Creator: Gelett Burgess

Illustrator: Will Grefé


        
Release date: May 13, 2015 [eBook #48084]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48084

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE CAT ***




Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover art]




[Illustration: "Chester," she cried, "take me." Page 313]




                            *THE WHITE CAT*


                                  _By_

                            *GELETT BURGESS*

                           Author of Vivette
                       A Little Sister of Destiny
                                  etc.



                         With Illustrations by

                               WILL GREFE



                                NEW YORK
                            GROSSET & DUNLAP
                               PUBLISHERS




                             COPYRIGHT 1907
                       THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

                                 MARCH




                              *PART FIRST*



                            *THE WHITE CAT*



                                  *I*


I came to myself with a disturbing sense that something was wrong with
me.  My discomfort, increasing steadily, resolved itself into two
distinct factors--a pain in my side at every breath and a throbbing ache
in the top of my head.  I realized that I was in bed, and the first
strangeness of it struck me.  I could not account for it.  The wild,
spicy odor of flowers came to me, adding to my perplexity.  Then I
opened my eyes.

The place was so dimly lighted that for some seconds my sluggish wits
were unable to interpret the blotches of shadow and the vague glimmering
spots.  These, however, gradually resolved themselves into
comprehensible forms.  I perceived that I was in a strange room, large
and airy; for even in the obscurity I got a feeling of free, clean
space, and of that chaste emptiness which is apt to distinguish the
guest-chamber of a well-kept house.  I heard, now, the steady,
deliberate ticking of a clock a little way off, and somewhere below was
a small grinding sound, so low as to be almost a mere vibration, like a
coffee-mill in operation.  Near by, a door closed and latched softly.

I moved and attempted to sit up, but a sharp stab in my side warned me
that my hurt was perhaps more serious than I had thought.  There was a
lump on my head, too, which probably accounted for my lapse of
consciousness.

Setting my memory painfully to work, groping back through the darkness
of my mind for something to explain the mystery, much as one might
descend a dark, unlighted stairway, I came upon the last fact that had
been recorded by my brain.  I had been putting on speed--the road
through the woods was straight, level and deserted--hoping to get up to
town early in the afternoon.  The steering-gear of my motor-car had
given way.  I had felt the wheels suddenly veer, then, before I put on
my brake, the front of the car went down and the rear was thrown up and
over with the momentum, sending me flying through the air.

I wondered, lazily, how much the machine had suffered.  Then, I must
have dropped off to sleep again, for when I next opened my eyes there
was a flickering ray of light in the room.  This time I was keenly alert
mentally, desirous of some explanation of my situation.  Where was I,
and who had cared for me?

The light grew brighter, still wavering, slanting across the wall where
it rocked and shifted, casting long, distorted shadows that danced up
and down.  Some one was evidently coming up-stairs with a light.  The
door was hidden by a projecting angle of the wall, however, and so for a
few moments I saw nobody.

In those seconds the room was illuminated gradually more and more,
showing a white-painted wainscot with a dull green wall above, where a
few Japanese prints hung. Opposite my bed was a window with small,
old-fashioned panes; there was another beside me.  The rays glinted on
the polished sides of several pieces of old mahogany furniture and
flared yellow on brass candle-sticks and on the gilded frame of an eagle
mirror.  Finally the glare stopped its undulating, the shadows grew
steadier on the wall, and, as I gazed eagerly for a first glimpse of my
visitor, a young woman, bearing a silver candlestick, came into the
room. She looked immediately over to where I lay, and then, catching my
surprised stare, her expression changed wonderfully from a rather
pathetic abstraction to an animated interest.  With something not quite
a smile on her face she walked nearer my bed, and stood for a moment
without speaking, still looking at me.  Her attitude hinted that she saw
in me something--as if, for instance, it were a sort of picturesqueness
which was unexpected enough to appeal to her imagination.  She rested
for a moment, poised and calm, but intensely attentive, fascinated.

And I, at the same time, was instantly conscious of so curious a
sentiment that I must stop to attempt to describe it.

I conceived myself to be a connoisseur in women, and I estimated her at
first sight as one unique, even extraordinary.  But though to my mind
she was indubitably beautiful, it was not her beauty that for the moment
thrilled me.  It was chiefly her "newness," the very novelty of her
visitation. I felt a sudden, compelling desire to prolong the mystery of
her presence rather than to have it explained.  I tried, mentally, to
delay her first word, to hold her back from any definite explanation
till my eyes had had their fill of her--till they had, so to speak,
solved her equation--till my wonder had spent itself in the vision,
exhausting all its possibilities of delight.  Her charm was, in its
unexpectedness, so alluring, that she was like a pleasant dream which
one lingers with and detains.

She was small, but her head was so exquisitely proportioned to her body
that one did not notice her size.  I have called her young, though she
was twenty-seven, for her graceful figure and pose were still girlishly
maintained.  The shape of her small head was defined by a quaint
coiffure, the dark, fine hair being banded in an encircling plait up
past her tiny ears and over, like a coronal, showing a sweeping
high-bred curve over her low brow.  All this gave her a tender, virginal
aspect; but her soft, deep brown eyes were so saddened by warm shadows
below the lids, her mouth was so tremulously sensitive, with its
slightly parted lips, and the little lines that women fear had begun to
write her history so suggestively upon her face, that, as I gazed at
her, I saw a woman who had lived and suffered, a woman as intense as she
was delicate in all her moods.

She was clad in a bewilderingly feminine peignoir of lace and
embroidery, open at the neck, and covered with another long, straightly
hanging garment of shimmering pale-green silk, richly decorated with odd
patterns.  This gave her to my wondering eyes quite the appearance of a
medieval princess, or the heroine of some old fairy tale.  The
impression was intensified by the long chain she wore, set with fire
opals which flashed in the candle-light.  From it, below her waist,
there hung a golden star.

And, strangest of all, most provocative to my fancy, she also appeared,
with extraordinary sympathy, almost with prescience, to feel something
of my wonder as she paused and stood silent, retarding her greeting, in
answer to my unspoken thought.  While our eyes held each other in that
marvelous communion, she did not smile; it was rather from her quivering
mouth that I got the idea that she, too, was touched by the spell, and
was keenly alive to the potentiality of the situation.  She seemed to
hold her breath lest the wonder should pass too soon.

That moment was as sublimely unreal as anything I have ever known, and,
within its unmeasurable limits, as potent.  It was tense, instinct with
fine, secret emotions too faint for analysis.  Messages came and went,
electric.  It was, in short, the psychological moment that comes but
once to any friendship, and, coming, is usually hurried past without
appreciation of its mysterious charm.  It was that most suggestive of
preludes, an instinctive, conscious pause upon the magic threshold of
Romance.  That she felt its quality also overpowered me.  The minute
passed like a falling star, and in its glory we seemed to travel miles
together.

Then, with a visible effort, she spoke.

Her voice was light and clear, so expressively modulated that I have,
despite myself, to compare it only to fairy footsteps passing over
flower-tops.  Its tones poised and hovered as if on the wing, though
they were as sure as the melody of an old song.  It was, above all else,
graceful, and usually it held a trace of mental eagerness, but its
characteristic quality came more from delicate nuances of feeling than
from any vibrant intensity. It had the fluidity of running water.

With her first word she smiled, and some of the melancholy escaped from
her eyes.

"Oh, you are better now!  I'm _so_ glad!"

The silver thread of magic that had bound as was broken, and the episode
became real and humorous on the instant.  I could not help smiling in my
turn, for assuredly, from my point of view, I was, physically, decidedly
the worse.  I took it from her, by her remark, that I had been ill.

"Yes," I replied, "I suppose I must be better, since you say so, but I
seem to be quite bad enough.  How long have I been here?"

"Twenty-four hours.  You have been a little delirious, you know.  I was
getting quite anxious about you, though the doctor said there was no
danger."

She came nearer, and put her small beautiful hand upon my cheek.  I
noticed that she wore no rings.  The touch of her fingers was soft and
cool.

"I'm glad your fever has gone," she said, "Have you much pain?"

I felt sore all over, and there was trouble with my side when I moved;
my head seemed to be splitting.  But I was so much more interested in
her, and how I came to be there, that I dismissed my symptoms with a
shrug, and asked what had happened.

"You were thrown from your automobile," she said, "and you were pretty
badly shaken up.  There was a rib broken, and a slight concussion of the
brain, I believe, but nothing serious.  You'll have to stay here several
days, at least, and keep quiet. Doctor Copin had to go back to town, and
I must notify him that you are all right now.  You mustn't fret about
it, for you are perfectly welcome to stay here and it won't trouble us
in the least.  Only I'm afraid you'll be terribly bored.  It's quiet
here, and I'll be rather dull company."

"I'm not worrying, I assure you," I said. "I'm in no hurry to get well."

She smiled again, faintly but with a quick appreciation, and took a seat
in an arm-chair which stood beside my bed.  I caught a glimpse of a
green silk stocking and an exquisitely small foot in a fantastically
shaped slipper.  She went on:

"I have been a good deal troubled because we have, of course, no idea
who you are.  I was afraid that some of your friends might be alarmed
about you.  So, if there is any one we can notify, or send for, give me
the address and the message, and I'll send it over to the telegraph
office at the Harbor, or I can telephone for you, if there's any one in
town. Doctor Copin could call and explain your condition, if you
prefer."

As she leaned her face on her slender hand and looked at me, she added:
"Your motor has been taken care of, so you needn't worry about that.
Uncle Jerdon hauled it into the stable, and it can stay there until you
have a chance to have it repaired."

"You were good to take me in and to get a doctor," I said, watching the
tiny vertical lines come and go in her forehead.

"Oh, Doctor Copin happened to be with me when you were brought in by
Uncle Jerdon.  I really don't know how you managed to escape with your
life."

"I didn't deserve to escape.  I was running considerably over the speed
limit, I imagine.  I wanted to get back to town early."  How much rather
would I have discussed the queer little corners of her lips that changed
so distractingly, and the transparent shadow under her cheek-bone that
spiritualized her whole expression now and again!

"Oh, I must take your message!" she exclaimed, a little embarrassed by
the pause that had fallen.

She rose and went over to an antique secretary, bringing back a pad of
paper and a pencil.  Reseating herself, she waited for me to dictate.  I
thought a while and then gave her a short report of my condition to be
sent to my partner.  Having written this down she went out of the room
quietly, leaving the candle with me.  No sooner had she left than my
pain returned.  For the time I had forgotten all about it.

In spite of this, the thought of her filled me with a restful peace.  I
didn't in the least want to know who she was, so long as I might see
her, and hear her talk to me in that smooth, melodious, eager voice,
whose sound had established her convincingly as a lady of rare promise.
The prospect of having to spend several days in her society, or at least
near her, was as pleasant a thought as I could well imagine.  The fruit
of our moment was a mystery, rich and fragrant, which I wished only not
to destroy.  I found myself trying, in her absence, to recall each
feature of her face, her poses, and her hands so keenly alive and full
of graceful gesture.  That I did not wonder who she was--what was her
name, her situation, her history--came, perhaps, from the state of
bodily weakness in which my accident had left me, but it seemed to me
then that it was not merely the passivity of my physical state; it was
an epicurean joy I took in tasting my impressions drop by drop.

Meanwhile, as I thought it all over, my eyes wandered over that part of
the room visible in the candle-light, from the four-posted bed in which
I lay, and almost unconsciously I noted the many evidences of taste and
wealth.  The furniture was all of antique style, undoubtedly genuine
specimens of the best designs of the later colonial period.

The Japanese prints were the only pictures visible that I could see.
They seemed like Utamaro's and Hiroshige's mostly, though near by were a
couple of Yoshitora's and Toyokuni's brilliant actresses, veritable
riots of color against the dull green of the wall.  The floor was of oak
parquetry, covered with Persian rugs of what I knew to be rare weaves.
Altogether, the room had, in its severe formal way, the dignity of a
museum.

She came back, after about ten minutes, with a tray of toast and tea, a
jar of Bar-le-duc, and the most appetizing of lamb chops.

"Do you feel hungry?" she asked, setting the tray down upon a stand at
the head of the bed.

As I assented most heartily, she leaned over and propped the pillows up
behind my back, and then set the silver salver before me on the spread.
Drawing up her chair, she sat down near enough to pour the tea and hand
me what else I required.  As she did so I noted the delicate way she
held everything she touched--her fingers slightly parted naturally,
curling like an acanthus leaf.

"You say that I have been out of my head?" I began.

"Yes, at intervals, since yesterday afternoon."

"I dimly remember it, now.  Yes, it was curious.  Somehow, though, it
seems to me that there were two women here, though never at the same
time, I think--but no doubt I got it all mixed up."

She looked down quickly, as if confused, but she replied, "Oh, it must
have been Leah,--the other one.  She's my maid; or, perhaps, rather more
my companion.  You must see her.  I think she's wonderful.  I wonder if
you will!"  She made the last remark under her breath, as if she spoke
to herself rather than to me.

She went to the door and called, "Leah!" So few persons can raise their
voices prettily, that I was delighted to hear it sound as musical as
when she spoke to me.  As she returned, the light shone on her
soft-flowing, silken gown, making it look like frosted silver.  In a few
moments Leah entered the room, bearing a lighted lamp.

I was surprised, I confess, after what my hostess had said, perhaps as a
test of my sensibility, to see that the maid was a negress, but, after
giving her my first glance, I was still more surprised to see that she
was of a kind one seldom sees, the best type, in fact, of Northern
negro.  As she approached us she had the bearing of a woman of great
refinement and a face which, though uncompromisingly dark, showed an
extraordinary mental if not moral caste.  Her skin was a warm brown,
something of the color of a Samoan, though more reddish than mulatto in
tinge.  This, I found afterward, was the result of a remote crossing
with American Indian blood; it was just enough to enrich the color, and
to keep down some of the negroid fullness of the lips and modify the
crispness of her curling hair.  Leah might, indeed, be considered
beautiful; what could not, at least, be denied, was the impression of
character which was stamped upon her. It was patent in her face, her
carriage and her voice.  I watched her in admiration. There was a
neatness and an immaculate cleanness about her, and I could easily
understand how my hostess might regard her as a friend.

Leah's affection for her mistress was evident by the sympathetic manner
in which she listened, and by the softness of her look when her eyes
fell on my hostess.  There was in that look more than the traditional
fondness of a negro "mammy" for her charge.  I felt immediately one of
those quick reactions one sometimes has with servants, or with other
persons whom social customs have relegated to a conventionally inferior
position.  It was a case of spiritual noblesse oblige.  Seeing her so
fine, so sensitive, so tactful, I was myself put unconsciously upon my
best behavior.  I could not forget this in any look or any word I gave
her.  I was constantly watching myself lest I, a guest, a man of a
dominant race, should, in consideration and in delicacy, fall behind
this servant, this negress.  It was a curious delicacy she seemed to
enforce.

I can give this effect of Leah upon me, but it is not so easy to
describe the cause.  She effaced herself, she kept her place rarely.
But with all this, she radiated--she had a potent personality.  She put
down the lamp, she straightened the covers of my bed, answered a few
questions, speaking in a rich contralto voice, and went out.  That was
all.  But in those few moments she had impressed me.

It was, no doubt, because of my enjoyment in watching, silently, what
went on, that gave my companion the idea that I was exhausted. She
apparently inferred that I wished to be left alone, and, rising, she
took the tray from my lap and set it down while she readjusted my
pillows.  Then, removing a little silver Nuremberg bell, she took up the
tray again, and rose to leave me.

"I'll leave the bell here at the head of your bed, Mr. Castle," she said
(she had learned my name, of course, when she took my message), "and
Leah will be glad to do anything for you that you wish."

As she turned, she looked back, smiling.

"Oh, I haven't told you my own name, yet, have I?  I'm Miss
Fielding--Joy Fielding. There's nobody here but Leah and me, except
Uncle Jerdon, our man-of-all-work, and King, the Chinaman.  Midmeadows
is a lonely place, though it's lovely in the summer. Well, I hope you'll
be able to sleep well, and be much better in the morning.  I'll hope to
see you then.  Good night."  She left me after placing the lamp just out
of sight.

Later, Leah entered, bringing me some books to read, in case I should be
wakeful. I dipped into them all immediately, seeking for further
evidence of Miss Fielding's taste. One was of poems, one of essays, one
of short stories, and one a novel.

The house was silent.  I heard nothing until quite late, when the two
women came up-stairs to retire.  By their voices and footsteps, I made
out that Leah slept in the room next to mine, and Miss Fielding across
the hall, farther off.  There was some soft conversation, Leah's voice
deep and rich, Miss Fielding's rising several notes above, always with
that fluttering, delicate quality which I had noticed.  Then the doors
closed, and I heard nothing more except, somewhere below, a heavy
rhythmic snoring which I assumed came from Uncle Jerdon's room.

There came to me now one of those weary, irksome vigils of the sick,
when the darkness and the pain seem to cooeperate to stretch out the
hours to infinite lengths.  I tried one position and another, I lighted
the candle and put it out again, but my discomfort and my sleeplessness
persisted.  I could think of nothing else but Joy Fielding, Joy
Fielding, Joy Fielding!  I think that a little of my delirium returned,
also; but all through my torment I kept repeating to myself that I did
not want to know who she was.  I refused to speculate upon that, except
in ways that were romantic and fantastic.  What matter-of-fact,
commonplace explanation of her life there might be, I wanted to hold off
as long as possible.




                                  *II*


I was awakened early by the sunshine which came pouring across my bed
from the window opposite, lighting up the white wainscoting and showing
the room now, clean and brightly distinct to the least detail of the
crisp Japanese prints upon the wall.

One sash and the window-shade had been left up, and I could see the
slope of a hill which rose behind the house, seeming to shut the place
in.  The other window was filled with the waving boughs of an
apple-tree. The day was fine and balmy; the fresh air of the morning
swept deliciously over my bed. It was maddening to have to lie there
helpless.

Before long I heard doors opening and closing below, and the sounds of
preparations for breakfast--the rattling of a stove, a pump that
squeaked whimsically like a braying donkey, the clatter of pots and
pans, and a Chinaman's voice singing in a queer falsetto.  With the
odors of flowers and damp earth the smell of coffee came up to me,
mingled, too, with a whiff from the stable.  Then the clock, whose
hourly chimes had measured for me the slow march of the night, struck
seven with a peal of golden notes.

I heard footsteps come up-stairs to the hall outside my half opened
door.  There was a soft tapping across the way, and Leah's voice asked
quietly:

"What would you like for breakfast, Miss Joy?"

I could just make out the reply in Miss Fielding's blithe tones:

"Oh, just a couple of butterflies' wings, Leah, and a drop of rose-dew,
please."

How prettily it sounded!  From another it might have seemed silly to me,
but not from her.  I was amused at her fancy.  Miss Fielding, then, was
a poet.  It was all so in key with the freshness of the morning and the
gay sweet sunshine!

I was more comfortable now, and more sane.  So, as I lay awaiting her, I
wondered how such a woman, so instinct with refinement and with the air
of having had considerable social experience, was to be found in so
far-away a place.  I knew of no residences in this vicinity except an
occasional farmhouse; it was remote even from any village. The sight of
her as she appeared last night in her elegant negligee came back to me,
like the scene of a play.  I longed to see her again, to discover if,
perhaps, I had not exaggerated it all, or even, perhaps, had dreamed of
one so exquisitely gracious.

Leah, also, was a part of the strangeness. She had none of the
disturbing beauty of the quadroon--her beauty was without _diablerie_,
it was far from showing any sensuality.  It was even spiritual in type.
Her face, as I brought it up, was more than intelligent, it was lighted
by an inward vision.  The more I thought of her, the more I wondered if
I had not been tricked by my impressionability, by the strangeness of my
adventure, by the glamour of the night awakening.  To put it to the
test, I took advantage of Miss Fielding's suggestion and rang the bell.

Leah appeared in a few moments, and came a little shyly into the room.
She wore a clean, fresh, crisp gown of blue, like a hospital nurse's
uniform, and was as trim and dignified.  No, I had not been mistaken.
The light of day showed her still more remarkable than I had remembered.
Her regular features, her smooth, coffee-colored skin, her well-kept
shapely hands, all testified to an extraordinary breeding.

"Are you ready for your breakfast, sir?" she asked.  Her voice was like
honey as she inquired how I had passed the night, and apologized for
Uncle Jerdon's snoring.

"I'll bring your water first," she suggested, and retired noiselessly,
to return in a moment with a bowl, some towels and toilet articles.

She seemed a little embarrassed by the situation, but assisted me in
sitting up. Then, finding that I could do for myself well enough, she
went down-stairs, and by the time I had finished my washing, she was
back with the tray.

"Miss Joy will be in to see you in a little while, sir," she said as she
made me comfortable with dexterous adjustments of my pillows.

But for her "sir," she had in no way acted as a servant, though, on the
other hand, she had assumed no attitude of equality.  I could not help
admiring the fine neutrality she maintained without committing herself
to either role.  All my first impressions of her were intensified by
this demeanor, and I awaited the opportunity of assuring her by my own
manner of my lack of prejudice on account of her color.  Indeed, it was
not long before I was almost as unconscious of it, so far as any social
distinction was concerned, as a child might have been.

Miss Fielding came in a little later, dewy and shining, dressed all in
white--an embroidered linen blouse and a short skirt of serge, which
made her seem even younger than I had remembered.  The sight of her
expressive, thoughtful, eager face, and the music in her sympathetic
voice gave my room quite another aspect.  It became a stage again where
last night's drama would go on. How long I had waited for her, and now
she was come!  Only an invalid, perhaps, can understand the difference
in atmosphere in that first quick sight of an expected delightful
presence to one who has waited for the weary hours to go by and bring
the wished-for vision.

She made a few kind inquiries as to my condition, moving meanwhile about
the room, disposing of the fresh roses she had brought, lowering the
window-sashes and raising the shades, rapid and graceful as a bird on
the wing.  She was all modern, now; the medieval princess had given
place to something more complex, and as much more interesting. Every
word, every inflection of her voice, every gesture of her hand, every
expression of her mobile face showed subtlety of thought and sentiment;
she was obviously a creature of fine distinctions, of nuances of
feeling, though at present her talk was as simple and joyous as a
child's.  That simplicity of hers, however, was the simplicity of a
Greek temple, made up of subtle ratios and proportions, of imperceptible
curves and esoteric laws.

She drew up a chair, at last, and sat down beside me.  We looked at each
other frankly, and smiled, aware of a common thought, the desire to
prolong the situation as far as we might.  This quickness of her
imagination was a delight.  But the game was becoming too humorous, now,
in broad daylight, for us to keep it up.  Our romance was in danger.

"I'm bursting with the obvious," I remarked.

She shook her finger at me with spirit. "If you dare!"

"Oh, I'll not be the first.  Man though I am, I can restrain my
curiosity."

How quickly her face changed!  An almost infantile look came into it, as
she said:

"There are so many more curious things than curiosity, if you know what
I mean. Curiosity is such a destructive process, don't you think?"

"And this is creative?  The not satisfying it, I mean."

"Yes, wonder is--and mystery.  It ramifies so.  It splits the ray."  She
made a queer, mystical gesture, all her own.

"Oh, it quite blossoms!" I said.  "I breathe all sorts of perfumes never
smelt."

Her eager look came back, and she smiled joyously.  "How quick you are!
I wish we could keep it up a while!  I should have liked to marry
Bluebeard!  What a splendid dowry he gave!  Oh, I would never have
opened the door!  There was so much more outside than in, wasn't there?
But now the role is yours; you must be Bluebeard's wife--or Robinson
Crusoe.  Oh, you must stay on the island--this island with me, and not
try to get off. There are a few little places we can explore without
danger--will you be satisfied with them?"

Somehow I got the spirit of it, as at hearing some words of a strange
language eloquently spoken.  She was warning me off--but from what?  I
would find out soon enough, should the meaning need to be made more
definite.  It was like a game of jackstraws; if I did not play gingerly
I should bring down the commonplace upon us.  My situation was
delicate--it almost seemed that I had arrived, in some way,
inopportunely.

But she had gone on.  "Did you read my books?" she asked, taking up one
of them.

"I read that one--the poems.  I got quite lost in them."

"Which ones?"  She looked up from the book eagerly.

"_The Journey_, and,--" I hesitated, "--_The Riders_."  I was watching
her face earnestly.

"Oh, how right you are!"  She was perfectly simple about it.  There was
no conceit in her.  "It means, doesn't it, that we already have a
language?  But you must read the essays, too.  Then maybe we'll have a
philosophy."

"I'll explore them with pleasure."  I tried to keep the appeal out of my
voice.  "I have such a lot of things to do before I go."

She got this quite as I intended.  "Well, we'll be perfectly natural and
let come what may, as it seems to be all decided for us.  We won't force
the game.  But I'm afraid you'll never be contented.  You'll leave the
island first, I'm quite sure."

I protested; she shook her head slowly.  I knew she was thinking very
hard of something. Her smile was wistful, her eyes, always fixed on
mine, were almost somber in their expression.

"Would you dare promise?"

I knew now there was something behind all this; some fear of my
presence.

"Shall I?" I fenced, more to draw her on than from any doubt of her
meaning or reluctance to agree with her wish.

"It's base of me--it's foolish, too, for it can really do no good.  But,
you see, I don't quite know you, do I?"

"And don't quite want to?" I was unkind enough to say, but only with the
same motive as before.  I wanted to get at the bottom of it--find out
what it was she dreaded, and dared not acknowledge that she did.

She was a little hurt and said that it wasn't fair to say so, that I
wasn't playing the game. I was properly contrite, and, for the moment,
gave up the duel.

"Let it be a promise, then," I said.

At this, I thought she looked relieved; and that she should be so at my
bare word touched me.  It did cross my mind that, perceiving my
adaptability to this sort of affair, she might perhaps have taken an
adventitious means of heightening the romance of the situation with such
innuendo; but she seemed to me to be altogether too direct for that, and
too sapient, as well.

"Thank you.  I may hold you to that promise. Does that seem ungracious?"

There it was.  There was most definitely something which she didn't wish
me to know, and which my advent jeoparded.  I was truly sorry for her
now, and a little embarrassed at my position.  Meanwhile her eyes were
steadily questioning mine, as if to make sure that I was to be trusted.
I took up her last remark to relieve the tensity of her mood.

"You couldn't be ungracious, I'm sure.  I should as soon suspect Leah!"

She laughed more freely.  "Oh, I'm so glad you appreciate her!  That
says more for you than all the rest."

"The rest?" I insisted, quite ready for a compliment.

She gave it to me with her head a little on one side, and her right
eyebrow, the irregular one, whimsically upraised.

"Yes.  Your keeping it up so well, you know."

"Oh, I'll keep it up!  It's the chief charm of being here, flat on my
back, in a strange place.  I'm sure it will be most amusing."

"I'm not so sure.  I'm full of moods and whims--you're going to be
terribly disappointed in me sometimes--though that sounds like
vanity--and I may take advantage of your complaisance, of your promise,
that is. I hope you won't regret it."

So it rested, my promise not to be too inquisitive (for I took its
meaning to be that), given and accepted.  It quite whetted my appetite,
you may be sure.  If all this talk seems fine-spun, it is my fault in
the telling of it, for in the give-and-take we perfectly understood each
other.  I can not, of course, give her delicate inflections, but these,
with her looks and gestures, said as much as her words.

But if this equivocal conversation was vague and shadowy, she could pass
into the sunshine as deftly.  She seemed to do so now, as she rose and
went to the open window and whistled.  A chorus of barks answered her.
She turned to me.

"I must go down to my dogs," she said. "I wish you could see them--that
is, if you like collies.  I have five, all thoroughbreds--they're
beauties!  You'll have to get acquainted with them as soon as you're
able to go down-stairs."

She leaned a little out of the window and called, "Hi!  Nokomis!"
drawing out the vowels.  A deep bark responded.

"Hiawatha!" she called next, and she was answered by a sharp, frenzied
yelping. "Minnehaha!" followed--she almost sang the name, which was
replied to like the others.  Then Chevalier and John O'Groat greeted her
in turn.

"I'm going to take them for their morning run," she said, as she left
me.  "I'll examine you on the essays when I come back."

She went down, and soon after I heard her talking, evidently to Uncle
Jerdon and to King.  Then the barking rose ecstatically, receded in the
distance, and finally was lost. I took up the essays and read for a
while. My head was much better, and my soreness was slowly disappearing,
but the constrained positions I had to hold to keep my rib from paining
me made me too weary and impatient to put my mind on my book.  I could
hardly wait for Miss Fielding to return, and lay inert, watching the
flies drift lazily through the sunshine that filled the room, hoping
that Leah, at least, might come in to break my ennui.  I welcomed even
the hoarse, squeaky cry of King's pump, the occasional crowing of a
rooster, the twittering of birds in the apple-tree, and the many little
homely sounds of country life.  The fragrant perfume of the roses in the
room was a blessed reminder of Miss Fielding's kindness.

In a half-hour, I heard the dogs approaching, and she came into the room
again, hatless, bringing a new breath of June with her. Her hair was
blown to a silky veil through which her eyes shone and her rosy cheeks
glowed as she smiled at me over the footboard of my bed.  Throwing off
her little white bolero, a saucy thing with black velvet collar and
cuffs, she went to the mirror and gathered up the loose strands of hair,
tucking them in, here and there, with deft touches of her fingers, and
adjusting them with dark tortoise-shell pins, until her little head,
coiffed high, was as smooth as a cat's.

She came up to the bedside and was quick to notice by my nervous
movements that I was suffering.  Sitting down she began to tell gaily of
her walk over the hill, and, as she spoke, my aching was calmed as if
she had laid a finger on the electric switch that controlled it.  Then
she suggested reading to me, and took up the volume of poems we had
discussed.

Her voice was not quite intense enough for strong emotion; it had not
the momentum, so to speak, to carry the lines along with the swing and
rhythm necessary.  It was too light for that, but it more than made up
for it by its sympathetic tenderness and the delicacy of its inflection.
Her tones lulled me, and I fell asleep.

In the afternoon she brought her mending, and we talked for a couple of
hours or so, always keeping, as she expressed it, "on the island."  What
personalities we discussed, that is, had no reference to her history or
her plans.  She warned me off very cleverly several times when the talk
approached her circumstances or even her moods and tastes.

When she confessed that she played a little on the piano and violin, I
positively insisted upon my rights as an invalid to be amused. She
rolled up her work and went to get her violin without excuses or
apologies.

I waited with considerable anxiety to hear what and how she would play,
not committing myself as to my own choice of composers. She began in her
own room, and through the opened doors I heard the strains of the _Prize
Song_ played with great verve and sentiment. I was delighted.  She came,
still playing, into my chamber, her sleeves rolled up (she said she
could not play else), and accepted my compliments graciously and simply.
Then, walking up and down, absorbed, she gave me fragments of Cesar
Franck's sonata for the violin and piano.  To watch her, supple, virile,
rapt, to note her clever, accomplished technique, her passionate,
free-armed command of the bow--I have seldom seen such a splendid attack
or so sure and true a vibrato--was a joy beautifully associated with the
clarity and subtle craftsmanship of the master.

So she ran on, alternating her renditions with scraps of talk that
showed a keen musical sense and an appreciation of the radical,
ultra-modern movement of the time.  Next she burst into a vibrant,
dramatic Polish folksong that excited me like a fire.  And finally, as a
_tour de force_, her eyes dancing as she watched me over her shoulder
with some new audacious devil in her smile, she enchanted me with a
vivid piece most astonishingly enlivened with flights of
technique--trills, brilliant chord passages, and runs with the upward
and downward "staccato bow."  Then she threw down her fiddle and came up
to me, laughing.

That evening she had another delight for me, coming to my bedside and
reading Villon and Verlaine in the original, translating the old French
for me when I was perplexed by the _argot_.  And for the picture, I need
only add that Leah was of the circle, and made her own comments!




                                 *III*


There was, next morning, a little dialogue much like that which I had
overheard the day before, except that this time it was "stewed
rose-leaves with a small pot of sunshine," which Miss Fielding was
fanciful enough to demand.  I wondered what, after such a pleasantry,
she did have; for I took it to be some joke between her and Leah, who,
no doubt, translated the metaphor into something more substantial.

As I ate breakfast, I could hear Miss Fielding singing in her room.  She
came in before I had finished my egg and coffee, bringing an armful of
new magazines.  This time she was dressed in pongee and wore a short
string of graduated white coral beads which was mimicked, when she
smiled, by her little teeth.

"I've found out about you--quite by accident, though, Mr. Castle,
really," she said gaily; and, opening one of the magazines, she tapped
with her hand the picture of a country house my firm had just rather
successfully completed.  "So you're an architect! And I'm the first to
get off the island, after all!"

"It doesn't matter, I suppose, so long as I stay on?" I asked.

"Oh, this doesn't by any means absolve you of your promise," she
answered, examining the illustration carefully, still standing at the
foot of the bed.

"You aren't really very much wiser, are you?  There are architects _and_
architects, you know."

"Yes," she said, apparently thinking of something else.  "Quite as there
are women and women," she added, turning over the pages idly.

"There's only one of _your_ sort!" I exclaimed.

A queer smile passed and was repressed upon her lips, molding them into
new curves. "Yes, only one of _me_."

"I don't exactly mean that, either," I went on.  "The fact is, rather,
that there is more than one of me.  There's the architect and the man in
me--and how many more!  One is always astonishing the others.  Aren't
there, after all, several of you, Miss Fielding?"

She gave me a frightened glance, then tossed the magazine on the bed.
It wasn't petulance; she seemed to be disturbed at the subject.

"Oh, I'm only a White Cat!" she said cryptically.

She seemed anything but that, to me.

"I'll tell you about it sometime--perhaps," she added.  "But not now."

She stood with her hands behind her back, raising herself on her toes,
and changed the subject.  "I'm awfully anxious to show you this house,
now that I know you're an architect. It's one of the oldest hereabout,
and it was a wreck when I bought it.  I've had it all done over inside,
and I shall expect you to compliment me on my taste, for it's mainly my
own ideas."

"What I've seen of it is charming--but a bit impersonal, perhaps."

"Oh, this is only the guest-chamber.  One doesn't inflict one's ideas on
the transient visitor.  Of course this is a bloodless, sexless place.
You'll find personality enough in my room, I fancy.  I hope you'll be
able to get down-stairs by day after to-morrow, and have a chance to
look about at the place.  I'm sure you'll love Midmeadows.  I'm
expecting the doctor down here this afternoon, and he'll probably be
able to tell you how long you'll have to stay.  I do hope you won't get
well too fast, Mr. Castle."

"Trust me for that," I said.  "I give you fair notice, I shall probably
do some malingering. But I shall be glad to see the doctor, if only to
make sure that I can impose on him."

My heart sank, nevertheless, at the thought of his interruption of our
idyl.  I felt an illogical right to her by discovery, a certain
franchise in her good graces that Fate herself had given me.  The
possible weakening of our alliance, however, was only the negative side
of my annoyance.  The positive aspect was that Doctor Copin seemed to be
an old acquaintance, even a friend; for Miss Fielding had mentioned that
she was going to walk over to the Harbor to meet him.  It was possible,
even--and the idea was poison--that she was in love with him.  Well, I
must needs wait and see him before I decided as to that chance.

I asked her to call her dogs again, and, seeing that it might amuse me,
she offered to bring Nokomis, the best-behaved, and matron of the
kennel, up to see me.  I accepted eagerly, and, from the window, she
called her favorite.

Nokomis was one of the most beautiful collies I have ever seen, a tawny
red, or sable, with white ruff, feet, and tail-point.  Her head was very
finely shaped--not too dull for keenness, nor with too much of the silly
greyhound's tapering muzzle, as not a few flat-headed prize-winners,
bred chiefly for color and coat, have.  She had dark brown eyes set with
that obliqueness that gives the breed its characteristic look of
brightness, kindness and craft.  Her small ears, as she entered, were
semi-erect, giving her, as she stopped with her head slightly on one
side, the sharp, doubtful expression of the fox.  She came with her flag
up, as if she were on exhibition before judges, marched to Miss Fielding
and waited for orders.

"Isn't she a darling?" Miss Fielding said affectionately, rubbing her
pet's neck.  "You hasn't got flappy, saddle-bag ears and a high forehead
and a velvet jacket, _has_ you!  I don't see no snipey nose!  Hasn't she
got an 'honest, sonsie, bawsint face,' Mr. Castle? Only it isn't
'bawsint.'  And look at her gawcie tail, wi' upward curl!'  She has old
Cockie herself for an ancestor, _she_ has!"

Nokomis gravely stood on her hind legs with her forepaws on her
mistress' skirt, panting--smiling, I might well say.  Then, in obedience
to a word and a gesture, she dropped and came over to me in so dignified
and friendly a way that I fell promptly in love with her.  Her outer
coat was abundant, straight and stiff, the under one so thick and soft
and furry that I could not find the skin. Her ruff was magnificent, her
chest deep and strong.  I was sure she would be a good worker; her wit
had already been proved.

Miss Fielding was pleased with my appreciation, and consented to having
Nokomis remain, and so, for the rest of the day, except for occasional
inquisitive excursions, she lay on the floor beside my bed, thumping her
tail and listening attentively whenever I looked down to speak to her.

Early in the afternoon Miss Fielding put on a fresh linen waist and
corduroy skirt to set out for the station.  Before she went she moved
about the room, readjusting the flowers, drawing a shade or two which
threatened to let the sun into my eyes, renewing my pitcher of water and
so on, giving me in five minutes a dozen evidences of her tact,
thoughtfulness and consideration.  Then, with a last warning to Nokomis
to take good care of me, she went away, leaving the apartment
depressingly empty.

Leah came in occasionally, however, to see if I was comfortable, but I
could get little talk from her.  She answered all my questions, looking
at me with her melting, deep brown eyes, which were really not a little
like those of old Nokomis, but volunteering no remark of her own.
Between the two I managed to be fairly patient till, at about three
o'clock, Miss Fielding returned with the doctor.  I was aware of their
approach for some time before they arrived by the joyous barking of the
collies in front of the stable.  At this Nokomis pricked up her ears,
but was too well-bred to pay more attention.  I had laughed at her for
yawning wide with her wolf-like jaws, and she was sensitively on her
dignity.

Doctor Copin was tall and thin and younger than I had expected; and like
most young doctors he attempted to make much of his years by a pointed,
reddish beard.  Nature had assisted him in this attempt, also, by
removing enough of his hair to give him a shiny bald forehead almost to
the crown of his head, and making him near-sighted enough to require
strong eye-glasses.  But all this could not induce me to think him more
than twenty-seven or eight years of age.  His eyes were of that china
blue which, with red hair, is so apt to give a selfish, heartless
expression, which went very well with his general bloodlessness.  Except
for those protruding blue eyes he might, with his yellowy-brown suit and
his slender, long hands, have been an animated caricature, done in red
chalk.  Worst of all, to my mind, he made puns.

He approached me with the jocose air affected by physicians, and looked
me over with a grin.  I could see, under his sparse beard, that he had a
lizard chin receding comically.

"Well, Mr. Castle," he said, "I expect you haven't been climbing any
more trees with your machine lately, have you?  Feeling like Adam, after
the creation of Eve, with that fourth rib of yours!  Let me have a feel
of it. Ah!"

He prodded me a little.  "Well, we're doing so-so," he went on.  "If you
were a football player you'd be up in five minutes. How's the head?  I
suppose you haven't had quite such a big one since you put on long
pants.  You're not having many long pants these days, I fancy, with that
cracked bone in your chest, are you!"  And so on.  I tried to smile, and
did not succeed till I had caught sight of Miss Fielding's face frowning
over his shoulder.

I was doing well, it seemed.  It was nothing but a matter of time and
patience.  The worst of it was the shaking up, and for that, rest was
all that was necessary.

I answered his pleasantries, asked him the news in town, and thanked him
for what he had done, which, indeed, was not much.  If I have given the
impression that he was an ass, that was not at all how he impressed me.
Though he persistently refused to talk sense, and turned everything I
said into jest, I was ready enough to believe that he knew his business
and stood well in the profession.  I got little more than this however,
for he soon left for a talk--likely a professional one, I imagined--with
my hostess.  This lasted till, after an early dinner, he left the house
to be driven back to the station by Uncle Jerdon. Idle and bored as I
was, while alone, I speculated upon his relations with Miss Fielding;
but from what I had seen I could hardly regard him as a rival.  Still, I
knew well enough that one could not predicate from a man's appearance
how women might like him. Doctor Copin would not be here in attendance,
much less as a visitor, unless there was some value in him.  He
evidently knew the place well enough to have been at Midmeadows often.
It made me, for no particular reason that I could name, uncomfortable.

It was still and warm, the beginning of the hush of twilight, the birds'
chattering quieted, when voices came plainly up to me through the open
window beside my bed. Miss Fielding and the doctor were coming round a
corner of the house on their way to the stable.

"I wish when she comes, next time, you'd have Leah let me know," I heard
Doctor Copin say earnestly.

"I won't promise to do that," was her reply.

"Why not?" he asked sharply.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked.

"You know well enough.  You know how interested I am in her."

"I wish I _did_!"

This was the last I could make out, for they passed into the yard behind
the house. I heard the carriage drive off, and soon after Miss
Fielding's voice inside the house, calling for Leah to come down.  I
thought that I detected a strain of excitement, even of alarm in her
tones.

A half-hour afterward, she came into my room with a chess-board, and
asked me if I played the game.  I was delighted to try it with her,
though I was poor enough at it, and she beat me easily.

She was quite as charming as ever, but, as I studied my strategy, she
had time in the silent pauses to fall into little moods of reverie,
letting the talk drop naturally.  I was not too absorbed in my play to
notice it, and once or twice I looked up from the board to see her face
show a tragic expression, clearing, under my surveillance, with what
seemed to be a forced smile.  The little lines near her eyes seemed to
have deepened since morning, and two vertical ones came, at times,
cutting upright clefts between her brows.  Once or twice she put her
hand to her head suddenly. Her listlessness accented her grace, but she
seemed distinctly older.

After she had announced mate in three moves she awaited my capitulation.
Then she put the board and men aside wearily.

"You'll find it desperately stupid here, I know, Mr. Castle," she began.
"I wish we could be more amusing, but I'm a bit blue to-night."

"I only reproach myself for not being able to make you forget it," I
said.  "As for myself, I always feel like the hero of a fairy tale when
you're about."

She gave her head a quick, backward shake, as if to free her mind of
some disturbing thought.  "Oh, I told you I was the White Cat, you
know!" she replied.  "Can't you imagine how interesting it must be for
us to have any one here at all, and you most especially?  Why, I feel
that you are a friend, already.  If it hadn't been so, I shouldn't have
dared to confess so frankly that I'm depressed."

"What can I possibly say of you, then, who have proved yourself so
friendly?  I shall be glad when it comes my turn to give, and yours to
receive."

"Oh, that time will come soon enough, I'm afraid," she said, folding her
hands in her lap, and looking down at them.

"You make me quite long for it!"

"Oh, don't long for it!" she exclaimed, and then rose nervously to stand
facing the lamp with a fixed, entranced gaze.  "It will mean, perhaps,
that I shall need all your sympathy, all your charity," she added,
turning, ever so slowly, to look down at me.

"I will give anything you ask----"

"And I shall ask nothing," she put in quickly.  Again she threw her head
back with that quick, freeing gesture.  I saw what she meant.  It would
be put to my tact and intuition.

She held out her hand impulsively and put it into mine.  It seemed very
small and slight, and it was cold.  Then, summoning a smile so rapid
that it came and went in a flash, she bade me good night and left the
room.

For fully an hour after that, I heard her voice and Leah's in a steady,
low conversation in the room across the hall.  At nine, Leah came in to
adjust the light and see that I wanted nothing.  I fell into an uneasy
sleep, waking at every cock-crow.




                                  *IV*


The next day was harsh and cloudy. There was a light fog in from the
sea, enough to make it a little cold, and to depress my spirits.  It
was, therefore, with great impatience that I awaited the matutinal visit
from my hostess.  She was usually up betimes; to-day she slept late.

It had already become one of my chief diversions to listen for the
little morning colloquy in the hall, but to-day I heard nothing till
after eight o'clock, when Leah came upstairs, knocked on the opposite
door, which was always half-open at night, and put her usual question.

Miss Fielding's voice came sharp and clear, a little querulous.

"Oh, I'll have bacon and eggs, I think; but wait a while, Leah; I'm
sleepy and I don't want to get up yet."

Leah closed my own door softly and went down-stairs.  I was
disappointed.  I hoped Miss Fielding was not in a bad humor, though that
seemed impossible.  When Leah came up with the tray and gave me a "good
morning," I said:

"Leah, I wish you'd ask Miss Fielding if Nokomis can't come up into my
room this morning, will you?"

She hesitated just long enough for me to notice that she was troubled;
then she put down the tray, saying:

"Nokomis is a queer old dog, Mr. Castle, and I don't know that she'll
come."

"Why, she was here all day yesterday and we had a beautiful time
together!"

"I know."  Leah turned to leave.  "I'll speak about it, of course,
but--well, these dogs have all sorts of fancies, and you can't always
depend upon them.  They will and they won't."  She did not look at me as
she answered, and went out immediately.

I felt that I had somehow blundered into an indiscretion, though what it
was I couldn't possibly see.  It made me exceedingly uncomfortable, for
I would have done anything rather than take advantage of the kindness
and hospitality with which I had been treated.  I remembered that I had
not yet heard the dogs barking; that might possibly mean something, but
it gave me no clue.  I had to give it up and try to make amends as well
as I might.

A little later I heard Miss Fielding's door slam, and her footsteps
running down the stairs.  That she had not come in to see me, even if
for only a few words, did not decrease my annoyance.  Shortly after came
a chorus of barks, but I fancied that they were not of the same mood
that I had noted before; there seemed to be something antagonistic in
their protesting notes, as if some stranger had perhaps passed the
house.  I had got the idea that Midmeadows was a lonely place, though I
had not yet seen the outside of the building, and no doubt the collies
were distrustful of visitors.  I waited expectantly to hear Miss
Fielding call them, one by one, as she had before; but, if she did so, I
missed it.

For half an hour or more there was a steady pounding down-stairs, and,
when Leah came for my tray, I heard some one whistling, the least bit
out of tune.  Leah was silent and reserved.  She asked how I had slept,
and if I were better, and there the conversation ended.

Finally, at about eleven o'clock, Miss Fielding came in.  I looked up
eagerly.

She wore a stiffly laundered shirt-waist, noticeably stained and soiled,
though it had evidently been put on clean that morning. She wore no
stock, and the neck was turned away in a V, carelessly, showing a little
gold chain with a sapphire pendant, and the sleeves were rolled up above
her dimpled elbows.  She had a heavy walking-skirt and heavy mannish
shoes whose soles projected a full half-inch beyond the uppers.  Her
hair, which, before, I had always seen exquisitely coiled high on her
head, was done in a full pompadour, though now it fell in flat folds
over her forehead and wisped out in the back of her neck.

She came up to my bedside and smiled frankly at me.  I got a pronounced
odor of Santal.

"Well, how are you to-day?" she said jovially.  "Do you feel better?"

I said that I did, noticing that she wore three rings on her left hand.
It was good to see her so full of life and energy.

"You certainly were a sight when you were brought in," she went on; "I
was frightened to death.  I never saw any one unconscious before, and I
thought you were dead, for sure. Isn't it lucky the doctor was here?
I'm awfully sorry your auto was smashed up so, for I'd like to try it
myself.  I've been wanting one.  Yours is a foreign make, isn't it? I've
been looking it over.  It's a water-cooled engine, I see.  But I want a
six-cylinder. I'm going to see if Uncle Jerdon and I can't patch it up
so that it'll go."

"Fancy a girl's caring about machinery!" I said, smiling at her
enthusiasm.  "You're the last person in the world I'd ever think would
have any interest in it."

"Why?" she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, and, turning down her
sleeves, covered her round, strong arms.

"I thought that you were more of the artistic temperament."

"Oh, I like to use my hands," she said. She held one out, its fingers
stiffly opened, then clenched her fist firmly.  "They're stronger than
they look.  Try it!"

She took my hand in hers and gave me a grip as strong as any ordinary
man's.

"That comes from your violin practice, I suppose," I remarked.

Her eyes were on mine, and I saw that the pupils were dilated, and the
irises so dark as almost to appear black.  She did not answer me for a
moment, and then simply nodded vaguely and changed the subject.

"I've taken the clock apart more than once. The dining-room one, I mean.
When the hands point to eight, it strikes four and it's half-past two,
really.  I have to tell time by an algebraic formula.  I'm going to
dissect it again and see if I can't get it right."  She laughed merrily,
swinging her foot back and forth.

At that moment the collies began to bark again.  She sprang up
impatiently, and went to the window.

"Darn those dogs!" she complained, "don't they make a horrid racket,
though!  I can't keep them quiet."  Then she raised the sash abruptly,
leaned out and cried, "Hush up, there!"

Their answer was a chorus of indignation. She let down the window with a
clatter, and walked to the mirror to rearrange her hair, using silver
pins that shone conspicuously in her dark locks.  Her skirt had sagged
away from her belt, at the back, from the violence of her work, no
doubt, and she reached to fix it, turning to smile at me coquettishly
after she did so.

"Do you like my hair done high or low?" she asked.

"I like it best the way I first saw it, that night," I said.  "It was
done in a fillet, or a bandeau, wasn't it?"

"Why, no!  It was pompadoured, wasn't it?  Oh, yes--perhaps it was--I
forget--but it's so fine that I can't do anything with it."

Except for these little lapses of abstraction when she stared so
puzzlingly at me, she was in high spirits.  Her presence filled the room
with electricity; she surcharged its atmosphere. She seemed more virile
than ever, more full of life, so full that it actually seemed to splash
over in all sorts of energetic gestures of her head and hands.  As she
stood, now, in the center of the room, she made a quick dash at a fly
that drifted past, caught it in her hand, smiled at her dexterity, and
tossed it aside.  She made passes and rapid motions with her arms, as if
she were swinging a tennis racket, and tapped her toes and heels in a
little clog-dance as she walked. I saw that she was getting bored.

"Well," she said at last, "I must go to work.  If there's anything you
want Leah will do it for you.  You can call her.  There's the bell.
Don't hesitate to ring it.  I'll be so glad when you can come
down-stairs and see the place.  It's a jolly old shack--you'll like it!"

She waved her hand jauntily and swung out of the room.  I heard her run
downstairs, and a little later the pounding and the whistling
recommenced.

She semed different to-day, but I imagined that perhaps it was only that
she was feeling better in health and mind, though she had not appeared
really ill before.  She seemed younger than ever, too, the little lines
in her face seemed to be mostly ironed out.  No doubt it was, as women
say, "her day."  Her beauty was more obvious; it was undeniable.

Yet something about her manner troubled me.  I was distinctly
disappointed; she seemed less subtle, less imaginative.  She was no
longer the princess of my fairy tale; the spell had waned.  But if her
familiarity and naturalness upon further acquaintance were less
romantic, they were more real, and had some of the actuality of prose.
We could still be good friends, for I liked her immensely.  Perhaps she
had thought we had gone too far sentimentally, and was trying to put our
relations upon a firmer and more matter-of-fact basis.  Perhaps, even,
Doctor Copin's visit had, in some way, affected her, and she had
considered that her _entente_ with me was becoming dangerous.  Well, it
was certainly my place, as a stranger thrust upon her hospitality, to
take whatever cue she gave me, disappointing as that line of conduct
should prove.  For I had been stirred and awakened by her.  I could not
deny that to myself.  And no doubt I had taken her altogether too
seriously.

I saw no more of her till late in the afternoon, but, meanwhile, Leah
made me a welcome visit.  After luncheon she asked me, quite modestly,
if I would like her to read to me or would rather play chess.  I chose
the reading, wanting very much the opportunity of studying her.  Her
attention seemed, however, to be distracted; I was sure of it when, a
little later, she excused herself to go downstairs.  Then I noticed the
barking of the dogs, high-pitched and excited.

She came back soon to finish her reading, and, that done, we fell to
talking.  As she sat, her dark face was outlined against the white
woodwork of the alcove like a silhouette. Her white teeth shone.

I asked her about her education.

"I went to a school for colored women," she said, "fitting myself to be
a teacher.  But of course it's hard for a colored girl to get a chance,
except with her own race, and I didn't want to go South.  Then I got
this place with Miss Fielding."

"I can't imagine any situation more delightful," I said, watching her.

Her eyes burned, smothered in quickening tears, but her voice was calm
enough.  "It's lovely here.  I don't mind the loneliness a bit. It's
nothing to what I have endured in big cities."

She gave it to me simply, with no apparent bid for sympathy, but I knew
enough of the pathetic isolation of the educated negro, cut off from any
real mental communion with the blacks as well as with the whites, to
interpret the repression of her manner.  There was a tragedy in her
words.

"Well," I said, "it strikes me that you're in luck to be here with such
a companion as Miss Fielding.  And she's as fortunate, too. I'm sure you
get on beautifully.  Still, how she can stand it, away off from every
one, I don't see quite so well."

"Do you think she's--unhappy!" Leah asked after a pause.

"Certainly not to-day, at least.  Yesterday I shouldn't have been quite
so sure that she wasn't."

"Oh, she has her moods," Leah admitted. "I do my best to indulge them."
She looked up at me.  "So must you, too, Mr. Castle!"  She held my eyes
deliberately, as if expecting my promise.

"How could I be so ungrateful as not to, in the circumstances?"

"I mean--you see, she doesn't like to be questioned.  I have to be very
careful.  She has her fancies, and often seems inconsistent, even a bit
eccentric.  It may be her life here alone.  You know she sees so few
people. You won't notice it?"  Still her eyes appealed to me.

"I shan't at least show that I do."

She seemed dissatisfied.

"Except, perhaps, to you," I added, trying, as I had tried with Miss
Fielding, to get to the bottom of her dread.

"Oh, not to me," she begged.  "She's too fine for us to be discussing.
I've said too much already, I'm afraid.  I don't know why I did.
Only----"

I said it for her.  "Only, I am quartered on you, here, and you can't
get rid of me. You have, in a way, a spy in camp.  By an accident, I'm
here, and you're at my mercy. Isn't that it?  You don't, I mean, quite
know what I am, and you'd like to be able to trust me, whatever
happens."   It was a jump in the dark for me.

I could see her fingers working; she had clasped her hands.

"Oh, I hope I haven't given you the idea that anything is likely to
happen," she said anxiously.  "If I have, I'm quite sorry I spoke.  If
you'll only take everything quite as a matter of course--that's all I
mean--her moods, you know, and not think things--"  She ended without
attempting to be more lucid, for there was a sound of some one coming
up-stairs.

Miss Fielding came into the room, and her delicate right eyebrow rose at
seeing Leah sitting there, doing nothing.

"Leah, go down and tie up the dogs; they're chasing all over the place!"
Her voice was crisp and peremptory.

Leah went away quietly; I got a swift glance of mute appeal at me as she
left.  Miss Fielding came to my side and looked down at me quizzically,
her thumbs in her belt.

"Do you mind telling me your name?" she said.  "It's rather awkward not
to know, you know."

"Oh, Castle's my real name, right enough," I answered.

"Castle?" she repeated, and then, as if recollecting: "Of course, but I
meant your first name."  Her face cleared.

"Chester Castle," I enlarged.  "A good name for an architect, isn't it?"

"An architect, really?  Then I'll have to get you to help me on my
little house.  But you're too good-looking for an architect," she
laughed.  "I thought they always wore pointed beards, like doctors."

"Oh, I'm not a Beaux-Arts man," I said, keeping up with her mood.

"Are you married?"

"No, I'm happy to say I'm not."

"So am I!" she laughed.  "That is to say, I'm glad _I'm_ not, and I'm
glad you're not. My name is Joy.  Isn't it silly?  It doesn't fit me at
all.  I ought to have been called Edna."

"Very well, then, you shall be!" I volunteered.

She took it without surprise or annoyance. "Oh, I don't stand on
ceremony.  That's silly.  If you're going to stay here for a week I
shall have to call you Chester.  Do you mind?  It's an awful bore to
have to say 'Mr. Castle' all the time."

"By all means.  My mother and my friends call me 'Chet'--"

"That's better still.  Chet."  She tried it audibly.  "I rather like
that."

"You're welcome to it."  I laughed at her directness.

"But you haven't asked me any questions! I should think you'd be
curious.  Really, it isn't at all complimentary to have you so
indifferent."

"Oh, I'm only keeping 'on the island'," I returned.

"Keeping--what?"

"Don't you remember--about staying 'on the island'?  You know you asked
me yourself to."

"Oh, yes--did I?  I forget."  The puzzled look on her face had appeared
again, but was driven away.  "Well, there really isn't much to know
about me.  It's stupid enough here at Midmeadows.  It's my own place,
you know.  It used to belong to my grandfather.  I've had it ever since
he died. I suppose it's good for me here, for I'm ill a good part of the
time.  I'm up and I'm down.  But when I'm up, I'm up pretty high, and
when I'm down, I'm 'way down in the depths."

She had sat down in a chair and had crossed her legs, one over the
other, wagging one foot and clasping her hands across her knees so
tightly that the blood was driven from her white knuckles to the ends of
her purple fingers.  It is always an awkward pose; I have often wondered
how a pretty girl could ever take it.  Now she drew her chair closer to
the bedside and took my hand.

"Let me see your hand," she said suddenly. "I'll read your palm, if you
like."

She bent over it, drawing so near that her head was quite close to mine,
so close that, had it not been for the perfume she used, I should have
got the odor of her hair.  When she turned to me, smiling, she seemed
very near indeed, though none too near me.  She began her reading of the
lines, holding my hand in both hers, pointing to the signs with one
finger, trying the resistance of my thumb, squeezing the flesh to
determine its firmness, kneading it and handling it in quite the
professional manner.  It took her some time. The opinions she gave me
were not particularly affording, but they were rather cleverly put.  She
made a good deal of my "magnetism," saying that she could actually feel
it. I was properly flattered.  I could feel hers, easily enough.

Then she dropped my hand, rose and yawned as freely as had Nokomis
herself.

"I'm starving!" she exclaimed.  "I must see what's the matter with
dinner.  I'm sorry you can't come down, Chet.  I hate to eat all alone."

"Why, doesn't Leah eat with you?" I asked, surprised.

"No, I can't quite go _that_!" she said emphatically, as she made an
irrelevant athletic gesture.  "I have to draw the line somewhere, you
know.  I have Uncle Jerdon sometimes, though, just for the fun of seeing
him eat.  He's perfectly lovely!  He holds his fork in the Kansas City
style, this way--"  She illustrated a familiar restaurant attitude, with
the thumb and little finger of her left hand braced under a paper-knife,
the three middle fingers curled atop.  "Then he always loads up his fork
with his knife, a little piece of meat, and a little piece of potato,
and a little dab of butter and a little swish of gravy and then--"  She
showed me how, pretending to toss it into her mouth, and wiped her lips
with the back of her hand, in a way that made me laugh aloud.  "You
could hear him eat, 'way up here!  Golly! it makes me hungry to talk
about it!" she added.  "I'll see you later, Chet.  Oh--I'll send you up
some current jelly.  I made it myself; sure cure for the measles!
Remember, you have to like it!"  And she was off in a two-step.

I smiled to myself at her pantomime, after she was gone.  How I had
misjudged her at first!  She seemed commoner, but our friendship was,
perhaps, more natural.  She was no longer the wonderful, exotic,
medieval princess in the tower, but she was a frank, wholesome creature,
full of human charms and faults.  I decided, by reason of that sane
analysis, that I was improving in health. My bang on the head, no doubt,
had made me unduly impressionable.

She did not keep her word in regard to coming in after dinner.  Leah
brought up my tray, as usual, and took it away, saying that she was
unable to stay with me.  She seemed abstracted and nervous, and I
forbore to question her.  I spent a dreary evening alone.

The pounding went on for two hours or more after dinner, and then Miss
Fielding came up-stairs to her room.  She contented herself with putting
her head through the doorway and calling out "Good night, Chet!" and
then I heard her door slam.  There was no talk between the two women
that I could hear.




                                  *V*


"Sliced kisses, fried in tears," were the words I heard Miss Fielding
reply to Leah's morning call, early the next day.  I had waited long,
for the day was bright and I wakened at sunrise.  Her fanciful order put
one immediately into a good humor, and I was intensely curious to see
what the day would bring forth.

The collies were barking vociferously, joyously.  Suddenly they stopped,
and then, one by one, I heard them greet their mistress.  It was very
prettily done.  Leah, coming in, found me smiling, and smiled back at
me. Seeing me so much better, she offered timidly to help dress me, and
I welcomed her proposal to bring me hot water and what was necessary for
shaving.  My own clothes had been sent down, so I prepared myself for my
chatelaine's visit.

Joy came into my room with a sweet, low, "Good morning, Mr. Castle!"
which threw me back not a little, after what had taken place on the
yesterday.  I was about to hazard some good-natured sarcasm, but the
sight of her face inhibited it, and something of what Leah had said came
back to me.  I answered the greeting without comment, therefore, and
waited for her to set the pace.

She was in an exquisitely fresh, simple organdy frock, and had on a
garden hat and gauntleted garden gloves; her arms were filled with
roses.  Her brow wrinkled slightly as she noticed the fading blossoms
which had been left in the vases.

"I'm afraid I neglected you yesterday," she said, as she set about
removing the dejected roses and putting fresh ones in their places.  As
she came near me, I noticed little dewy drops on her neatly coiled hair,
where she had dashed it with violet water.  There was no trace of any
other scent, save that of the roses.  She drew off her gloves and I saw
that she wore no rings.

She sat down for a moment.  I had observed before that not only could
Miss Fielding be remarkably graceful in pose and in action, but that she
could be as astonishingly _gauche_ as well.  Astonishingly, that is, for
her--for one who _could_ be so graceful.  This, however, was decidedly
one of her graceful days, or rather, perhaps, as Leah had said, moods.
Her lines melted and composed. There was positive elegance in the way
she used her hands, gesticulating freely.  It enhanced the charm of her
voice, so limpid and full of feeling.

"Isn't it a beautiful morning!  What a shame it is that you can't get
up.  You must hurry and convalesce--just enough to be able to see the
place, and not so much as to have to go away.  Perhaps you can get into
a chair by to-morrow.  Did you hear my doggies?  I can recognize each of
them by the voice, and you will be able to, too, if you only stay here
long enough.  Nokomis is the deepest-toned one.  She's the oldest, you
know, and the most dignified.  Hiawatha is the little yappy one.  He's a
very silly little pup!"

"I'm sorry Nokomis didn't want to come up to see me, yesterday," I said.
"But I hope you'll pardon my taking the liberty of asking for her.  I
know you probably don't often allow them in the house."

"Why, of _course_ Nokomis can come up; the idea!  She'd love it.  Would
you like to see her now?"  Then, with her eyes on mine, and noticing my
bewildered look, no doubt, she added, with a queer expression, "Nokomis
wasn't quite well yesterday.  She is getting old, you know."  She rose
restlessly. "Will you wait a moment, please?  I want to speak to Leah,"
and she went out.

Something had passed over her spirits, I couldn't tell what.  It was
like the shadow of a cloud sweeping rapidly across a sunny hillside.
Whatever it was, it was gone when she returned.

She went directly to the window, threw up the sash, and called down,
"Nokomis!  Hi, Nokomis!"  A bark responded.

"Come up here, old lady!  Yes, come right up.  Wipe your feet, please.
Wipe your _feet_, Nokomis!"

The next thing there was a pattering of feet upon the stairs, and the
bitch bounded into the room, her tail wagging.  She ran up to Miss
Fielding immediately for orders.

"Go and say 'How d'you do?' to Mr. Castle, Nokomis," said Miss Fielding,
pointing at me.

Nokomis dropped to the floor again, and with the dignity of a duchess
walked over to where I lay, raised her beautiful eyes to mine, lifted a
forepaw and laid it on the bed.  I shook it and felt for the dog's neck.

"Now, Nokomis--" Miss Fielding began.

She was down on the instant, went to her mistress and stood waiting, her
head on one side, her ears half erect, her tail low.

"Go and bring up Chevalier, please," was the command.  Nokomis was off
like an arrow, and presently there was a to-do in the yard.  By this
time I could recognize Nokomis' heavy note among the others.  Then she
and a tan-and-black collie came rollicking into the room.  Both came
immediately up to their mistress.

"Here's Chevalier, Mr. Castle.  He's a pretty good show dog, isn't he?
He hasn't got a fancy livery, but he's all right, except his tail's set
on a bit too high, and there's a little feather to his hind legs below
the hock."

Chevalier whined, and looked up at Miss Fielding.  I was quite ready to
believe the dog understood what she said.

"Oh, that's all right, Chev, you's a booful, good doggie, and I love
you!  Chevalier's strain harks back to the original Scott--he's quite a
swell, in his way, and has got blue ribbons.  But they all want
tri-colored calico dogs, now.  Go over and pay your respects, Chevalier,
please!"

The dog came up to me, was patted, and left with Nokomis, who was next
instructed to return with John O'Groat, a big dog, almost wholly black,
with a rather blunter muzzle than the others.

"John's got pretty good blood, too, and his mother was from the Lothian
Hills, like Norval--no, that was the Grampians.  A little hollow-backed,
and his forelegs aren't quite straight, but Jack's a good dog, aren't
you, Jack?  A fine worker, too."

Jack was certainly listening to every word attentively, whether he
understood or not. After he had gone, Nokomis brought up Minnehaha, one
of her own youngsters, pure white.

"Poor little Minnie," said Miss Fielding, "she's got yellow eyes and a
thin coat, but I love her just as much!"  Taking the forepaws she held
her own face tantalizingly near the dog's tongue.  "Just as much, I do.
Now go over to Mr. Castle, Miss!"

Last of all came Hiawatha, a frenzied, wriggling, capering puppy,
sable-and-white like his mother, yelping, crouching, bounding,
hysterical with joy.  Miss Fielding and I fell to laughing at his
antics, but Hiawatha was too young to care.  He was up on top of my bed
in half a minute, and stifling me with his eagerness, lapping my face
and hands, growling, snarling, biting, scratching all at once. When this
frisky, capering bunch of enthusiasm had departed, quite out of his head
with the excitement of the visit, Miss Fielding talked dog for ten
minutes.  She had not forgotten, however, to compliment her pets with a
lump of sugar apiece, filched from my tray and dropped from the window
with strict precedence.

"Oh," I said, looking at her with admiration, "I do think your own name
is the best!  It's so like you."

"What d'you mean?" she asked, coming up to me.

"Why--Joy," I replied.

"Of course it is!  Isn't it fun to have a name like that?  One has quite
to live up to it, though.  It inspires me, sometimes, when I'm blue."

"Yes; it has distinction.  I don't see why you ever should prefer Edna."

"Oh, Edna--" she said seriously.  She waited a moment, to shake from her
skirt the sand the dogs' paws had left.  "Well, I do like Edna,
sometimes.  It depends upon my mood, I suppose.  You know I told you I
had moods.  Don't try to reconcile me, I know I'm inconsistent.  But I'm
a woman," she added, looking up more brightly, "and I suppose I have
that right."

"I haven't decided whether you're a woman or not," I returned.
"Sometimes I have thought you were a princess in disguise."

"Oh, that's nice of you!  But why?"

"You're so mysterious, so whimsical, so detached, so romantic."

"Take care!" she warned severely. "You aren't trying to swim off the
island, are you?"

I opened my eyes at this.

"You still hold me to my promise--after yesterday?"

"Why not?" she said, a little blankly.

"Why, I thought we were well off the island--at least _you_ were.  I
thought that you had given up the game."

"Why?" she asked, looking at me directly, in seeming surprise.  "I think
you must have mistaken my meaning."

I couldn't quite get it.  "You asked me all sorts of questions, anyway,
you know," I ventured.

Her eyes begged for mercy.  "I'm sorry if I was impertinent----"

"Oh, I don't mean that, of course.  You couldn't be.  You had a perfect
right to ask, of course."

"Can't I row back in a boat, please?" she pouted whimsically.  "Don't
give it up yet. Not till I give you specific leave of absence. I suppose
I'm spoiled.  I want my cake to keep and eat, too."

I was a little relieved at her recognition of her own inconsistency,
though I felt a queer hiatus somewhere.  It was as if, mentally, I had
tried to go up a step where there was none.  But I let the subject drop.
She took up the books on the stand and began to look them over.

"Don't you think Leah reads beautifully?" she asked.

"It's charming to hear her, but; if you don't mind, I prefer to hear
you."

She took all my compliments so graciously, without either embarrassed
denial or vanity, that I loved to watch her when I tried a gallantry.
Now she only nodded to me, sweepingly, with mock deference, and went on:

"Leah and I disagree somewhat.  I have more manner, perhaps, and less
rhythm. We read a good deal together.  I think she sees Browning much
more clearly than I. Perhaps I feel him more keenly."

"She's a remarkable girl--I was going to add 'for a negress,' but I
needn't qualify it."

"Oh, no!  You don't _know_ how fine she is."  Seating herself she added,
as if to herself, in a sort of sigh: "What that girl has done for me!"

"I am sure that she would say just that of you," I remarked.

"Oh, I try her a good deal, sometimes. Her mother was my nurse.  When I
sent for Leah, I didn't expect to get anything more than, perhaps, some
of the hereditary devotion darkies have, even if I got that.  But I got
a friend.  You can't trust her too far, Mr. Castle, believe me!  She's
pure gold."

It happened that, as she spoke, Leah herself came into the room with
letters for me. Miss Fielding took the girl's hand and pressed it
against her own cheek affectionately. As she did so, I noticed a
peculiar scar--a livid U-shaped mark on Leah's wrist. It was the sort of
scar that might be left from the wound of a carving-tool--one of the
narrower gouges.

"Was I very horrid yesterday, Leah?" Miss Fielding asked, looking up
into the fine brown face.

"Oh, _please_, Miss Joy!" Leah begged uneasily.

"Of course _you_ understand, Leah; I only want Mr. Castle to know I'm
sorry," Miss Fielding insisted.

"I need only to look at you to be sure you're sorry, and to look at Leah
to be sure that there's no need of it," I declared.  "At any rate,
there's no need of my understanding. In fact that's just what I thought
you _didn't_ want me to do.  Isn't it?"

Leah looked quickly from me to Miss Fielding, and back again.

"Yes, I suppose it is," Miss Fielding said slowly, thoughtfully.  "Let's
get back on the island again.  I'm sure it's big enough for us."

We stayed, therefore, "on the island" all that afternoon, touching, that
is, but lightly on personal topics.  But though we did not go wide, we
went deep enough to make the talk hold us absorbed for an hour or more.
In quite another way, I think, we went far, as well.  Miss Fielding was
a stimulating conversationalist.  She made me feel at my best.  She had
that happy way of meeting me on my ground every little while, then going
on, and giving me a hand up to hers, and so, by a series of alternate
agreements and divergencies, keeping the discussion both sympathetic and
various.  In most of this quick give-and-take Leah was a passive
listener unless specially appealed to, at which times she often
expressed herself so succinctly and sapiently that Miss Fielding and I
looked at her, and then at one another with a comic expression of
admiration and depreciation of our own powers.

With such conversation the day went fast. In the afternoon Miss Fielding
read to me, and in the evening I spent two or three hours in passive
delight listening to her violin.

My pain had almost subsided, now, and I looked forward with something
more poignant than regret at being able to be up and about, knowing that
would mean the beginning of the end of our companionship.




                                  *VI*


The next morning Miss Fielding slept late, and her breakfast order was,
as it had been two days before, prosaic.  Then, also, she had slept
late.  This coincidence struck me and gave me a presentiment.  I looked
curiously for the first sight of her to confirm or destroy a theory that
I had been incubating during my long night hours alone.  The fact that,
as I ate my breakfast, I could hear her whistling in her room helped
along my hypothesis.  So did Leah's apparent mental detachment.

Miss Fielding romped into my room at about half-past nine, and with a
laugh and a "Good morning, Chet!" pirouetted up to my bed.  My theory
instantly gained plausibility. Her manner was what I had anticipated.
Her dress, also, was significant.

She had on a fussy sort of silk waist, inappropriate, I thought, with
her cloth walking-skirt.  Her hair was elaborately "marcelled," and she
wore bangles that clinked on her wrists; there was the same odor of
Santal that I had previously noticed.  What was most suggestive was that
this get-up was apparently meant to impress me.  At least, that was how
I interpreted her coquettish smile. I shouldn't care to say that she
showed actual poor taste--it was only, I thought, poor taste for _her_.
She needed such adjuncts of fashion so little!

"See here," she said, tossing her head and pointing at me dramatically,
"you're getting altogether too lazy!  I think that you've been in bed
long enough.  I'm going to get you down-stairs to-day.  The doctor said
three or four days in bed would do, and now it's five. How do you feel?"
She shook the post of my bed with mock ferocity, as if to expend some
surplus energy.  There seemed to be an extra ounce of blood in her this
morning.

"Oh, I'm game!" I replied.  "Nothing would suit me better."

"I'll get the library ready, then; Leah and Uncle Jerdon will help you
down.  Then you can watch me work, if you don't mind.  I'm trying to
finish my coffret."  She felt thoughtfully of her biceps.  "I'll get
quite a muscle before I'm through.  I shall have driven about twelve
hundred nails by the time it's done."

She walked to the door, swinging her arms, and called, "Leah!  Come up
here!  Quick!"

Leah appeared, out of breath, as if, for the moment, she had expected
that an accident had happened.  She gave a quick apprehensive look
about.

"Leah, we're going to get Mr. Castle downstairs to-day.  Is Uncle Jerdon
about?"

"Do you think Mr. Castle is well enough to be moved, yet?" Leah
ventured.

"Didn't I say he was going down-stairs?" Miss Fielding repeated
impatiently.  "I think we can decide that question.  You do as I say.
Go and get Uncle Jerdon, and be quick about it, too!"

"She's spoiled.  She thinks she runs this house," Miss Fielding
complained to me, when Leah had left.

I said nothing, watching her closely.  My theory was now pretty well
substantiated.  I could not pass this scene off as merely one of the
"moods" that she and Leah had both mentioned.  There was something
definitely wrong with Miss Fielding to-day--something more than a mere
whim of temper.  There had been something wrong two days before, when
she had acted similarly.  She was distinctly not herself, if her normal
self was the graceful, delicate, tactful creature who had first charmed
me.

It was not only her mood or her taste in costume that seemed different.
It was something not quite describable which seemed to permeate her
whole personality.  She had taken a chair and sat with her right arm
cast up over the back.  The angle of her raised elbow threw her into a
distinctly awkward position.  Her gestures, too, were characteristic of
this mysterious difference.  When they were not distinctly imitative, as
in mimicking Uncle Jerdon's table-manners, they were irrelevant, mere
spasmodic exhibitions of activity--as when she caught the fly, or swung
her arms with active tennis-like gestures.  This spontaneous irrelevancy
she showed now in the way she doubled her fists and brought them
athletically to her shoulders, as she talked, or, raising her foot a
little, made circles with her toe, showing the slenderness and
suppleness of her ankle.  I don't say that all this ebullition of high
spirits wasn't, in its way, charming.  It was. But it was different from
the way she had acted yesterday.  Perhaps I can best describe it by
saying that she seemed quite ten years younger.

She sprang up and, apropos of nothing at all, proceeded to dance or hop
sidewise across the room and back hilariously, in sheer excess of vigor.
It was what she called "galumphing," and, from time to time, during the
day, usually at the end of some little over-serious conversation, she
repeated the performance, to my great amusement and delight.  It was the
absurdly meaningless gamboling of a kid, but it was so delicious in its
inconsequence that every time it provoked my laughter.

While we were talking nonsense there, Leah came up with Uncle Jerdon.
Uncle Jerdon was distinctly a New England type--the chin-bearded,
straw-chewing farmer, quaintly original, confident, droll.  He was well
on in years, a dried-up, wrinkled, toothless bachelor with sparse,
straw-colored hair, long in the neck, and twinkling blue eyes full of
good nature.  He wore overalls and reeked of the stable.

Miss Fielding introduced him, and I shook his skinny hand.

"Wall," he drawled, "thinkin' abeout movin', be ye?  I guess Leah an'
me'll make a pretty good elevator.  I'll help ye get dressed, fust-off,
an' then we'll take ye up tenderly, lift ye with care."

The two women left while I got my clothes on.  It felt good to leave the
bed.

"We been a-tinkerin' on that air machine o' yourn, but it's a leetle bit
too much for us, I guess," Uncle Jerdon said.  "You'll have to send
deown a man, I expect.  I wouldn't ride in one o' them pesky things for
all the gold of Ophir, no sirree, bob!  When I want to go to ride I want
to see the back of a good hoss--I know I'll get home by sun-deown."

He monologued away thus as he helped me into my clothes, and, when I had
finished, called to Leah.

She came in, and I took an arm of each, though I scarcely needed their
help.  We descended a narrow, paneled stairway slowly but safely,
without causing me any pain, and turned into a door on the left-hand
side of the lower hall.  There I found a morris chair ready for me,
drawn up before a wide brick fireplace where an oak log was burning.
Uncle Jerdon left me with a wink at seeing Leah placing a foot-stool for
me and drawing up a taboret on which were cigars and cigarettes.  There
ensconced, I looked about with interest.

It was a large room, finished all in paneled unvarnished redwood, most
beautiful in color--a lighter red than mahogany, with more softness and
bloom.  Two sides were lined with book-cases, except for the
chimney-breast; another was almost filled with a broad bow-window of
leaded glass with a deep seat covered with corduroy cushions.  There was
a narrow shelf supported by carved brackets part way up, and a cornice
above that. Between the adzed beams of the ceiling were panels of old
Spanish leather, lacquered and stamped.  The whole effect was a modified
French Renaissance worked out with many charming originalities of
detail.  The pilasters, and the elaborate mantel with its ornamented
moldings and graceful consoles, showed handicraft of an interesting
sort. They seemed to have been carved by some artistic amateur, being
boldly cut without the machine-like regularity of the professional.
There was, besides the unusualness of the wood, much to interest me as
an architect.

The library was well filled without appearing crowded, and everything,
furniture and appointments, betokened, as had my chamber, not only
taste, but luxury.  It was evident that Miss Fielding was very well off,
and knew how to use her money.  It was as evident that she had a strong
personality, for there were details that were unique.  A large prism of
rock-crystal, for instance, carelessly resting in the sunshine upon the
dull brown cushions of the window-seat, threw a prismatic spot of
splendor upon the ceiling.  It was like a gorgeous butterfly pinned to
the leather.  There was a silver cage of waltzing Japanese mice upon the
mantel, little grotesque, pied creatures that spun wheels, washed their
necks with their paws and nibbled at rice.  The books, too, were
arranged upon the shelves apparently not as regards subjects, but rather
on account of their bindings, giving masses of color, green and red and
brown and black and white.

But it had all been indubitably so well lived in, its properties all
ministered so to one's comfort, and the tones were all so restful and
admirably composed, that I could imagine no more charming environment
for a rainy day with Miss Fielding.

A great library table stood in the center of the apartment, one end of
which was covered with magazines--everything from _The Journal of
Abnormal Psychology_ to the _Pink 'Un_. Upon the other end, resting on a
hide of ooze leather, were scattered tools and materials, and the
unfinished chest upon which Miss Fielding had been working.  This was
covered with young calfskin, the soft hair still on, a pretty brindled
tan and white, and it was bound on the edges with brass strips. These
were fastened in place by close rows of brass-headed nails, which
accounted for the pounding I had heard.  I was admiring the workmanlike
way in which the chest was made, when Miss Fielding came in.

"What d'you think of my 'bossy coffret'?" she said.  "Isn't it going to
be a beauty? My own invention.  Don't steal the scheme, and I'll show
you how."

She stood up to the table, and, taking one of the brass strips, laid off
the divisions and punched holes for the nails, and then hammered it on.
She kept up, meanwhile, a running fire of persiflage.  Occasionally she
would stop to toss her hammer into the air and catch it nimbly by the
handle as it fell.

"I thought you were going to call me Edna," she said after a while,
pausing with some nails in her mouth to look over at me. "Don't you like
the name?"

"I thought _you_ didn't like it," I said, my eyes turning from her
brisk, clever hands, to her absorbed face.  A wave passed over it as I
looked--that baffled expression I had noticed before.

"Did I say so!"  Her hammer was poised in mid air.

"Why, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so.  It doesn't matter.  Nicknames seldom stick,
anyway."  She placed a nail in the hole.

"Oh, I don't object to 'Chet' at all."

"'Chet' goes, then."  She drove in her nail with a frown.

Before I had thought of my promise, I said: "It's funny you don't
remember it!"

Bang, _bang-bang_!  Another nail went in, driven viciously.

I fully expected that she would speak of "the island" again, but she
didn't.  Instead, she dropped her tools, and said:

"I'm building a house, too!"

"Where?" I asked.

She laughed and galumphed across the room and back again without looking
at me, before she answered.  Then she stopped at the door and called up
for Leah to bring down her bunch of keys.  When these had come, she
knelt in front of the window-seat and unlocked a cupboard below it.
From this she brought out a little model house, built of pasteboard,
perfect in all its details.

It had windows of mica, behind which were white sashes and lace-paper
curtains.  The house, an old-fashioned New England homestead, was placed
in a little yard of green velvet divided by paths of sandpaper, and set
out with toy trees.  A child would have loved it.  A fairy would have
appropriated it at first sight.  As an architect, the model made a great
appeal to me.  It had charm and atmosphere, good massing, good
proportions, detail and color.  I complimented her enthusiastically.

She was poking about the little front porch and the platform in the
rear, where a miniature ash-barrel stood, adjusting the doors and blinds
with her slender forefinger, when she frowned and said:

"Why, some one's broken that tree in front!  Leah, have you been
touching this house?  There's a blind gone, too!"

"No, Miss Joy, I haven't touched it!" Leah protested.

Miss Fielding stamped her foot.  "You must have!  It was all right when
I left it here last.  Who could have done it, if you didn't?"

Leah grew more and more uneasy, but stood her ground.  "Indeed, I didn't
touch it, Miss Joy!" she repeated.

"You're all the time meddling with my things.  I've caught you at it
before.  You know altogether too much.  Well, go back to your work now!"

Leah left in silence, and Miss Fielding put back the house and locked it
up.  A hard look came into her face that I had not seen before.

Her temper passed off almost as soon as it had risen, and she was as gay
as before. So until luncheon-time, she worked while I looked over the
magazines and talked with her.

We sat, at luncheon, on opposite sides of the table in a long and rather
narrow room without windows, lighted by a huge skylight. The walls of
this strange place were covered with an old-fashioned imitation tapestry
paper whose fanciful patterns consisted of consecutive scenes from _The
Lady of the Lake_. Everything about the table was heavy, spotless,
valuable and old, from the yellow linen to the hand-made forks and
spoons.  We were waited upon by King, a smiling, round-faced Chinaman
with a cue coiled up on top of his head, and wearing a snowy white
uniform.  He moved like a ghost in and out. Leah and Uncle Jerdon I
noticed, when the door was opened, eating at a table in the kitchen.

Miss Fielding and I spent the afternoon together in the library.  She
worked and talked alternately; it appeared that she could not do both at
once, and always had to stop with her tool in hand when she spoke to me,
like a child.  Occasionally she would come over to my chair and seat
herself familiarly upon the arm as she joked with me.  Then she would
spring up, to galumph up and down the room, sidewise, running her hand
mischievously through my hair as she passed. I took no notice of the
liberty, but I was a little surprised at it.  It began to rain that
afternoon and by five o'clock it was so dark that Leah came in to light
the candles in the silver sconces on the walls.  Miss Fielding's spirits
were gradually tamed.  I asked her to play the violin for me but she
refused moodily without excuses.

Our talk fell to books, and I went back to Leah's surprising love for
Browning.

"Oh, Leah knows more than is good for her," Miss Fielding said.  She was
on the window-seat, looking out at the steadily falling rain, her feet
curled up under her. "Leah's so educated that she's unhappy; it's a
great mistake, that.  I can't seem to keep her in her place any more.
But really, I don't see any poetry in Browning, do you?"

"Why!" I said, "I thought you were fond of Browning--that you 'felt'
him, even if you didn't 'see' him.  Didn't Leah do that for you?"

"Leah!  Fancy!  What d'you mean by 'seeing' and 'feeling' him, anyway?"
She turned to me with her chin resting on the curled back of her hand.

"They're your own words," I answered, testily perhaps.

She opened her eyes wider.  "Oh, I mean what do _you_ mean?"

I didn't answer.

"If I said it," she continued slowly, as if searching for a plausible
excuse, and then giving it up, "I suppose I was trying to impress you.
You mustn't expect me to be consistent _all_ the time."

"I'll never expect you to be again," I said, now irritated by her
contrariness.  I suppose I showed it in my tone.

She came right over to me, and took my hand, sitting on the arm of my
chair.  "Oh, Chet," she pleaded, "don't mind me.  I'm a fool, and I know
it.  I know you don't approve of me any more, but I can't stand it to
have you cross with me.  I can't bluff you any longer, so I might as
well tell you.  The fact is, my memory is bad.  It's really a disease.
Amnesia is the name of it.  Now do you see?  It isn't my fault, is it?
I can't depend upon myself for anything.  Sometimes I absolutely forget
all about a thing that happened only yesterday.  I have great blank
spaces in my life when I don't know what has happened.  It's perfectly
awful! Did you ever hear of any one like that?"

"Do you really mean to tell me that you forget what you said to me about
Browning?" I asked her, taking her hand, for I was filled with a sudden
pity.

"Yes, Chet, sure I do!"  She rolled my seal ring between her fingers as
she looked down.

"And about preferring 'Joy' to 'Edna', too?"

"Oh, did I say that, too?  Yes, I forget."

"It doesn't seem possible!" I exclaimed. Then, tentatively, almost
fearfully, for it seemed the crux: "And about 'the island'?"  I held my
breath.

"What 'island'?"

I dropped her hand.  It was too much for me.  "Oh, never mind."  I
sighed.  "I'm very sorry.  But I don't quite see, yet.  Has this
anything to do with your refusal to play for me?"

She rose, now, and tossed her head back, with that shake I had noticed
before.  The gesture seemed to be the only link between her two moods,
and, for a moment, she seemed to be again the melancholy princess.  But
the phase passed instantly, and she grew petulant.

"I don't know how to play well enough. It bores me."

I refused to let her off, however.  "Then how about playing chess?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, I haven't got the kind of
brain for chess."

My mind leaped over the remark, obviously untrue, to get to the other
side of the perversity, where I might see more clearly.

"But it's incredible!" I cried.  "How do you get along?  How do you
account for things?  Do you mean to tell me that you can't remember
yesterday, for instance? Not even what you did?"

She was growing more and more impatient. "No--sometimes I don't know how
much time I've lost at all.  You see, it's like being asleep, that's
all.  That's what Doctor Copin comes down here for."

"Oh, I see!" I exclaimed.

"That, and other things--" she hinted coquettishly.

"Ah?"  I raised my eyebrows.  "Among the other things, I suppose, is the
fact that you're perfectly charming."

"Oh, I don't think he quite ignores that," she laughed, and then, her
mood changing, as if it had been pent up by such serious discussion and
sought relief, she bounded away and galumphed madly up and down the
room, waving her hands.

After dinner we spent the evening by the fire.  She had put on an
evening gown of black net over silver tissue, in which she looked more
like a princess than ever.  But it was only the costume now; her
demeanor was far from royal.  She snuggled herself into a bunch on the
fur rug by the hearth, disclosing one slender ankle and a stocking of
snaky silver silk.  Had she not been so slender and _petite_, I might
almost say she sprawled, though her hoidenish abandon was not quite
immodest.  She had her coffee and a cigarette or two, chattering a
steady stream meanwhile.  I could get no more about her malady out of
her; the subject seemed to annoy her.  But I could not get it out of my
mind.  I went back over what had passed, and found that her explanation
accounted for much that had baffled me.  Still, it did not account for
everything.  It did not account, for instance, for the way she now
treated me.

[Illustration: After dinner we spent the evening by the fire.]

She got up, after a while, as if annoyed at my abstraction, and began to
roam up and down the room.

"I guess coffee makes me a little drunk," she remarked.  I did not quite
get the point of this till she stopped behind my chair and ran her
fingers through my hair carelessly.

"What a jolly wig you've got, Chet!  Your hair is almost as fine as
mine."

The familiarity made me, I confess, somewhat uncomfortable.  I was
neither a prig nor a prude, but her talk of the afternoon had wrought on
me.  I couldn't quite see my way. I didn't at all like, for instance,
what she had said about Doctor Copin's coming down--for more than one
reason.  Perhaps it was this, more than any instinctive dislike of her
unconventionality, that put me on my guard with her, and made me appear
to ignore what I acknowledge, in other circumstances I might have been
tempted to take advantage of.  For she was distinctly making up to me. I
could see that very plainly.  She did like me.  So I was unchivalrous
enough, or chivalrous enough, if you like, to try to keep her at arm's
length, though that is putting it rather too strongly.

It was not so easy, though, that night, with the seclusion, the
comfortable open fire, the soft lights, and the rain outside.  The
situation was romantic; I was alone with a pretty girl, prettily gowned,
and quite frankly desirous of a little more intimate companionship than
I vouchsafed.  Somehow I was rather proud of myself, having at that
time, after all, such hazy reasons for forbearance. I scarcely need add
to this that I was becoming fond of Miss Fielding, in spite of the
puzzling mystery about her.  She was alluring in any mood.  My
intuitions, however, were all for caution.

With such distractions the hours flew fast. The candles burned low and
flickered till we talked only by the light of the fire.  She told me a
good deal of her life as a girl--there were no lapses of memory at that
time--how she had been left an orphan and had always been more or less
of a hermit thereafter. Part of the time she played with my hand, quite
as a child might.  Part of the time she sat, her chin at her knees,
gazing into the dying flames in the fireplace.  Then she would smile,
look up suddenly, and quote some nonsense rhyme, or make fun of my
discretion. Her body was never quite still; she was nervous and
restless.  If nothing else about her moved, her toe would be describing
little circles on the rug.

She and Leah helped me up-stairs at ten o'clock.  Miss Fielding flung me
a cheery "Good night, Chet!" and went into her room alone.

A few minutes after, I heard a soft tapping at my door.  Leah was there
with a jug of milk and some biscuits.

"I thought you might like something to eat, perhaps, before you went to
bed," she said. "Miss Joy forgot to speak of it."

"Thank you, Leah," I said, taking the little tray.  I was about to close
the door when she gave me a look that delayed me.

"Did you want anything else?" I asked.

"Do you mind if I speak to you for a minute?" she asked.  She stopped
and listened intently for a moment.

"Leah, where in the world are you?" Miss Fielding called impatiently.

Leah, spoke in an undertone to me. "Please wait.  I'll be in as soon as
I can."  Then she went into Miss Fielding's room.

I left my door ajar and sat down by the window.  The rain had ceased,
and a full moon was breaking through masses of drifting cumulous clouds
over the top of the hill behind the house.  I could hear the dogs
snapping and growling occasionally in their sleep, and below, in his
little box of a room off the library, Uncle Jerdon's deep snoring. I
must have been there for fifteen minutes before Leah reappeared with her
candle.  She shut the door noiselessly and came softly up to my side.

"Mr. Castle, how are you feeling, now?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm afraid I'm getting well," I said, smiling.  "Why?  Do you think
I ought to be leaving?"  I asked the question jocosely, but she took it
up with seriousness.

"I'm really afraid you'd better, Mr. Castle."  She looked me square in
the eyes. Her own shone very wide and deep.

"I don't wish to hurry you," she went on, "but it will be much better
for you to leave as soon as you can.  You'll forgive me for mentioning
it, won't you?  I hope that you won't think that I don't realize my
position; but--I can only say that I am doing what I think is best.  If
I weren't so sure that you are a gentleman, and a friend of Miss Joy's,
I'd never dare mention it.  But, oh, there'll be trouble if you stay,
and Heaven knows we've had trouble enough."  Her voice grew lower at the
end of her sentence, and then she breathed poignantly, "Oh, _please_
go!"

I felt a pang of self-reproach and a great pity for her.  "Oh, I'll go!"
I reassured her. "I understand.  Or, at least, if I don't quite
understand, I'm sure you're quite right.  I think I can get away
to-morrow morning, if you'll get the carriage for me."

"I'll attend to that.  Uncle Jerdon can drive you to the station.  And
don't, please, mention it to Miss Joy that I spoke to you about it.  She
may ask you to stay--she likes you, really; but she doesn't know what I
know, and I don't dare tell her."   She clasped her hands and pressed
them closely to her breast in the intensity of her feeling, as she
added, "You must help me, Mr. Castle! I have nobody else to turn to."

"Are you sure that I can't help you by staying here?" I asked.  "I'll do
anything you suggest.  Why can't you trust me?  I dread to think of your
having to fight it out alone, whatever it is."

"Oh, I don't dare to tell--I have no right to tell," she moaned, turning
half away, looking down.  "Indeed, I wish I might.  It's breaking my
heart."  She turned to me again with a desperate glance.  "We'll get on,
somehow."

"The doctor will help you, won't he? Surely you can trust him?"

She gave me a frightened look, and her white teeth shone through her
parted lips, gleaming in contrast to her fine dark face. Then her eyes
strayed again, and she said, slowly, "Do _you_ think he can be trusted?"

"Why not?" I replied, watching her sharply.  "How, at any rate, can I
tell, after having seen him only once?"

She gave a quick indrawn sigh.  "Oh, once was enough for _me_!"

"You mean--that you _don't_ trust him?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"I mean I'm not sure that I do."   She was speaking slowly now, choosing
her words with an effort.  "That's quite as bad, isn't it?  For I don't
know what to do about him. I am afraid that I may make things worse,
perhaps."

"You're sure that you can't tell me?"

"Oh, I daren't!  If I were only sure, I might, but even then it would be
hard."  Her voice was plaintive, and yet her accent was decisive.

There was a pause in which I thought of many things.  As I waited,
uncertain, my eyes stayed on the fine, erect, colored girl before me, so
passionately loyal to her mistress, so delicately sensitive to the
anomalous part she was playing.  Though her resolution had in no way
broken down, I could see how she was wrought upon, how difficult a
position was hers in that strange house.

"Well," I said finally, "there's of course nothing for me to do, then,
but to leave.  Miss Fielding has told me explicitly that your judgment
can be depended upon.  I have no right here, of course; I'm an
interloper----"

She put a dark, well-shaped hand on my arm, in timid reproach.

"Yet, I hope you can trust me," I added, not hesitating to clasp that
hand in friendship and confidence.

She took it away quickly, but looked at me with her soul in her dark
eyes.  "Oh, I'm sure of you!" she said simply.

"You make it very hard for me to go," I ventured.

"I shall think of you," she replied.  "I shall long for your strength
and judgment. I must think it over, more, and try to decide on a line of
action.  It may be--I won't promise--that I shall send for you to come
down."

"I'll come at a moment's notice!" I exclaimed. "Oh, do let me help in
some way!"

"Would you?"  She clasped her hands to her breast again and sighed, as
if I had really helped her by my promise.  Then, "I'm glad to be able to
know that.  Miss Joy likes you.  I think you have a rare sympathy for
her condition.  It's a relief.  Then we'll leave it that way.  So you'll
go?"

"To-morrow morning," I answered.




                                 *VII*


We met, next morning, in the library, for I could move alone, now, and
had gone down early.  My hostess, dressed in white duck, was in her most
exquisitely graceful mood, quite the delicate, refined, intense woman I
had first known.

"Do you really think that it's safe for you to leave to-day!" she asked,
when I had announced my intention to her.  "I am afraid we shall miss
you very much, Mr. Castle.  I feel quite as if I had made a friend."

"If you do, it more than repays me for my accident, Miss Fielding.  It
only remains for you to prove it by permitting me to do something for
you."

She smiled quickly.  "Stay here a while longer, then!"

"Ah, you know how glad I'd be to!  But I really must get back.  I've
imposed on your hospitality unconscionably, already."

"Oh, well," she turned to the window, "if you're going to pay me the
conventional compliments, we won't press it."

"If you knew what an immensely unwarranted interest I've begun to take
in you, you'd spare _me_," I replied.

She held out her hand to me, her graceful fingers slightly divergent,
exquisitely posed. "Thank you for your gallantry," she said. "You came
out of the dark, were literally dumped here, you know, and it has been
wonderful that we have understood each other as well as we have."  She
stayed my interruption, with a wave of her hand.  "Oh, I understand you,
I think, at least well enough to be sure of you.  But, let's be
frank--you don't _quite_ understand me, yet.  You don't quite approve of
me.  Nevertheless, you like me, and we can be friends.  It may indeed be
that I shall put you, sometime, to the test, and give you the chance of
proving it.  Until that time comes, you'll have to stay on the island,
Mr. Castle, I'm afraid."

I saw by these words that she must have forgotten her revelations of the
night before. It didn't seem quite fair not to let her know. So, risking
her displeasure, I came out with it.

"May I venture to remind you of what you said last night?"

She looked hard at me.  "What did I say?  What do you mean?  About what?
We talked of so many things, you know."  She was embarrassed, on the
defense, watching eagerly my first word of enlightenment.

"About your memory," I prompted.

"My memory?  I don't quite recall--"  Her lips were parted and her fists
closed a little as she waited.

"About your having amnesia, you know."

Her hand went to her heart.

"I only mention it," I said, "because I don't want to take advantage of
any ignorance you may have concerning my position--and what I _do_ know.
If you have forgotten possibly, I think I ought to tell you, for I can't
pretend to be on the island when I am not.  It seems to me that quite in
spite of myself I've got off it.  What you said about Doctor Copin----"

She caught me up, now, a little wildly, discarding further attempt at
evasion.  Her face had suddenly grown white.  "What did I say?" she
asked.

"Oh, only that he was treating you for the amnesia," I replied.  I
couldn't possibly repeat the rest of it.

She put her hands to her face for a moment, hiding its expression.  Then
she withdrew them, compressed her lips, and, tipping her head back a
little, shook it with the old gesture, as if to regain control of
herself. Then she came up to me and put both her hands on my shoulders.

"It isn't your fault, I know, Mr. Castle. But you _are_ off the island,
and I'm afraid--that it's all over, now."

"Isn't it really all begun, rather?" I replied.

Her hands dropped to her sides, and she walked away to the window.  "Oh,
I don't know, I don't know!" she moaned.  "You have made me think
terrible things.  But never mind.  I didn't want you to know about me, I
hoped we could be friends without.  I couldn't risk it, I can't risk it
now.  You mustn't try to find out, you mustn't even wonder.  Just be a
little sorry for me--and wait."

She sat down in the broad window-seat, and laid her head back for a
moment among the silk pillows, with a wearied settling of her body,
closing her eyes.  I didn't know what to say or do, so I did nothing,
and was silent. She sat up again, took the crystal prism that still lay
there, and gazed into it abstractedly, as if she were seeing visions.
Then, still holding it, she looked up at me with a faraway smile.  It
was a new expression I saw on her face; it had the pathetic look of some
elf, lost in a strange, terrible land.  At last she said, "Come over
here, and sit down beside me, please!"

I did so; and, still fondling the prism, which shot prismatic colors
into the room, she said, as with great effort:

"Did you ever, in your childhood, read the story of the _White Cat_?
It's a fairy tale, you know."

The name had struck me as familiar when she used it before, but I could
not recall the story.

"It was one of those tales of the three quests, wasn't it?" I said.

"Yes; there are many variations of the same theme.  It is the story of a
king and his three sons.  The father decided first to leave his throne
to the one who would find the smallest dog in the world; then he gave
them another quest, to find a piece of cloth that would go through the
eye of a needle.  Of course, the youngest son won each time, but the
king wasn't contented, and for the final test commanded them to find the
most beautiful lady in the world."

"And the youngest son won, of course. He always does, but he never plays
fair. He's always helped by a fairy godmother or something."

"Of course.  Such are the ethics of Fairyland. This prince was helped by
a white cat. While he was on his travels he found her castle in a deep
forest, and he was carried in by invisible hands."

"Just like me," I remarked.

She looked at me for a moment with an amusing expression of surprise,
and a timid smile crept to her face.  "That's so, isn't it?  How queer!
Why, I'll have to give you my little Hiawatha, to carry it out, won't I?
Will you take him?"

"Oh, if you would!" I said.  "I'd love to have him.  It will be
delightful to have something that has belonged to you."

"He's not the smallest dog in the world, but he's yours."

"And the third quest?" I reminded her.

"The third quest was the hardest of all. He came to White Cat's castle
again, and he stayed a year.  They had a most delightful time together."

"I can understand _that_.  Just as we have had."

Her gaze went down to her feet.  "Yes, just as we have had here at
Midmeadows."

I reached over and took the prism from her hand.  I couldn't help
wanting to touch her, however casually.

"And of course--you don't need to tell me--he did find the fairest lady
in the whole world."

She smiled dimly and clasped her hands. "Thank you," she said, not too
absorbed to pay me most graciously for my compliment. Then, more
seriously, she added, "Yes, I am the White Cat.  That is the way you
must think of me, when you have gone.  The enchanted White Cat!"

I dared not answer.  All the peculiar moods she had shown me came up for
a new vision.  So she knew that something was the matter, something of
which her amnesia was only a symptom.  She had never come so close to it
before.  I stooped down, took her hand and carried it to my lips.

"White Cat," I said, "I don't know whether you are enchanted or not, but
I know you're enchanting!"

"Be careful I don't scratch you!" she said, a little bitterly.

"Ah, White Cat never did that, I'm sure."

"Yes, once, when she was invisible.  The Prince doubted her.  Do you
know how it ended?" she asked.

"How?"

"White Cat told the Prince that, to destroy the fatal work of the
fairies, it was necessary for him to cut off her head and her tail and
fling them into the fire."  She put her hand gently upon mine.  "Would
you do that for me, if I asked it?"

I puzzled with it.  There was something tragic in her tone, but I was
quite at a loss to interpret her symbolism.

"Would it ever come to that?  Are you likely to call on me?" I asked
her.

She tipped back her head again, shaking away some unpleasant idea.

"Ah, this is only the first quest, you know. You may never come again to
my palace. But _would_ you?"

A dreadful meaning came straight from her eyes to mine.

"No, I'm afraid I would not.  It would be too terrible!"

She threw off a light laugh, and rose and walked to the book-case beside
the chimney. Here she took down an old, tattered, red-covered volume and
rapidly turned the pages till she found her place.  Then she came back
to her seat beside me, and, pointing to the lines, read aloud:


"'I!' exclaimed the Prince.  'Blanchette, my love!  I be so barbarous as
to kill you!  Ah! you would doubtless try my heart; but rest assured it
is incapable of forgetting the love and gratitude it owes to you.'

"'No, son of a king,' continued she, 'I do not suspect thee of
ingratitude.  I know thy worth. It is neither thou nor I who in this
affair can control our destiny.  Do as I bid thee.  We shall both of us
begin to be happy, and, on the faith of a cat of reputation and honor,
thou wilt acknowledge that I am truly thy friend.'"


"But it ended happily, like all fairy tales. So will yours, I'm sure," I
remarked.

She let the book drop wearily.  "It must end some way--why not that?"

I clasped her hand.  "You must not think of it, Miss Fielding!  It
appals me."

"Well, I won't speak of it again.  But I should be glad to have a friend
who would help me, if worst came to worst."

"You forget that, in spite of what I know, I am still on the island,
after all; I can't yet judge of such a necessity."

"Well, Leah and I will fight it out."

"You said, once, that I could trust Leah in everything.  Do you still
mean that?"

"Absolutely.  In fact, you can trust her when you're uncertain of me.
Do you understand?  I can't make it too emphatic."

"I understand," I said.

It was almost time to go now, and so, while I went up-stairs to see that
my things were ready, Miss Fielding and Leah got Hiawatha, fixed a
collar and chain on him, and put him into the carriage, highly excited
at the prospect of traveling.  Leah shook my hand and looked into my
eyes with gratitude.

Uncle Jerdon drove up to the front door, and I got in beside him and
captured the frisky puppy, who proceeded to bite my hand playfully.  It
had been arranged that I was to send some one down to repair the
automobile, and I permitted myself to hope that I might find in that a
sufficient excuse to come back myself.  So it was not altogether with a
feeling of permanent parting that I finally gave my hand to Miss
Fielding.

"Well, good-by, White Cat," I said, as Uncle Jerdon took up the reins.

"Good-by, Prince!" she answered, smiling.

We drove off, and, as we turned into the long lane which led to the
highroad, I saw the two women standing in the sunshine, at the front
door, and waved a last farewell to them. With all the sinister
suggestions that had been crowding upon me, I could not bear to leave
them alone.  "White Cat White Cat," was still echoing in my ears.

Uncle Jerdon winked at me.

"Lord, she's as crazy as a loon, ain't she?"

"Do you think so?" I asked coldly.

"Plum' crazy.  She ought to be into an asylum, and would be, if she had
any folks to send her there.  But she's a dandy when she's all right,
you can bet on that!"

I did not encourage him to go on, and for the rest of the way to the
station we talked of his rheumatism and the extravagance of his nephew's
second wife.




                             *PART SECOND*



                                  *I*


My machine had been repaired for a week, but I had not had it brought up
to town, when I received a note from Leah.  It was dated "Tuesday."

"Come down immediately," she wrote, "if you can think of a plausible
pretext, but don't say that I sent for you.  Miss Fielding will not ask
you, herself, but we need you very much.  I trust to you."

I took an early afternoon train the next day, and, finding no one to
meet me at the station, engaged a carriage to take me over to Miss
Fielding's place.  My driver would, I am sure, have been glad to gossip
with me upon the lady's affairs, but I headed off all his hints, knowing
pretty well from Uncle Jerdon's insinuations what the tenor of the
neighborhood talk must be.

Midmeadows was about four miles from the station, and a half-mile back
from the county road.  The house was approached by two long lanes
overgrown with shrubbery and hazels, one from the seaside on the east,
and one from the main road on the north.  We took the latter, a wild and
tangled wagon-track, filled with stones and hummocks, and worn into deep
holes.  The boughs of trees constantly scraped across the top of the
buggy and often hung low enough to threaten our eyes.  Near the house,
the lane took a turn round the corner of an extensive, old-fashioned
garden of hollyhocks, rose-bushes, poppies and violets, then swung up to
the green, eight-paneled front door, with its transom of old bull's-eye
panes. The copse came in close to the garden, partly inclosing it on two
sides.  To the right of the house vegetables were planted, with meadows
beyond, and behind, the hill rose almost from the stable.  The whole
place had a charming natural wildness, and seemed, as indeed it was,
miles away from any other human habitation; but it was not uncared-for;
its natural features had been amended and composed with the care of a
true artist.

The house itself was long and low, covered with unstained shingles.  A
great square brick chimney rose from the middle of the gambrel-roof.
The lower windows were leaded and built out into wide bays, but they
showed above the little-paned sashes of the original building.  The
front was almost hidden by climbing Cecil Bruner roses, now odorously in
bloom.  The southern side was lined with a row of geraniums which rose
in huge bushes.  Here, in the second story, was another bay-window of
curious construction, somewhat resembling the stern of an old galleon.
It was Miss Fielding's sitting-room, which I had not yet visited.

The place seemed deserted, for not even the dogs were visible.  I got
out and knocked, while my driver waited curiously to catch what was,
probably, a rare glimpse of the mistress of the house.

Joy herself, wearing a white duck sailor suit, with a red handkerchief
knotted about her neck, answered my knock.  She held her hand to her
eyes to shade them from the rays of the afternoon sun, so that I could
not, at first, quite make out her expression.  The first thing she
showed, after her surprise, was a most cordial satisfaction at seeing
me.  She did not, apparently, expect me, but my presence delighted her.
I saw next that she was in trouble.  The very intensity of her welcome
alarmed me.  The two vertical lines between her brows were deeply cut
into her forehead, her lips were quivering, there were dark circles
under her eyes.

She drew me quickly into the library, and I saw terror in her look.  Her
cheeks were pale and wan.  Her hand trembled, as it lay on the back of a
chair where she leaned.

"Oh, I am so glad you have come!" had been her first speech, murmured in
the hall, and it was repeated now as I stood before her.  "I am so glad
you have come!  I need you so!"

I had fancied before that her face was one capable of expressing
tragedy--not every woman's is.  Tragedy shadowed her face now, giving
her a newer, more dramatic beauty so moving that, despite my alarm, I
could not help wondering at it.

"You are not well," I exclaimed.

"Oh, well enough--" she replied.

"Something is the matter--what is it?"

"Sit down and I'll try to tell you."  She dropped into a chair, with her
elbow on the table, letting her cheek fall into the hollow of her palm.
Her eyes closed for a moment; the soft, long lashes shading her pale
cheek. Then she shook herself and sat erect.  "I'm so sleepy!" she
moaned.  "I haven't slept since night before last."

I sprang up from the window-seat. "Won't you lie down here and rest?
Do!" I pleaded.

"Oh, I don't dare!  I don't dare!" she cried.

"Tell me what is troubling you, so that I may try to help you!"

She looked up and said, "Leah has gone!" and she put out a hand that
trembled with a despairing gesture.

"Gone?" I repeated.  "Where!"

"I don't know where.  I don't know when she went.  I don't know even
why."

"Do you fear she has met with an accident, then?"

"Oh, no, not that.  Worse than that!"  She spoke helplessly.

"Worse?" I could not understand.

"I mean I think I must have driven her away."

I still could not guess.  "Why, how could you have done that?  You mean
that she took offense at something, perhaps?"

"Oh, I must have made it impossible for her to stay."

"But what did you do?  She was devoted to you."

She sprang up and wailed out with bitter vehemence, "Oh, I don't know!
I don't _know_! If I only knew, I could do something.  But what can I
do, now?  She's gone.  She was my right hand, my eyes, my ears, my
memory--but it's not _that_!  It's that I could have been cruel enough
to her to drive her away. Where is she?  Where could she have gone, do
you think?  I've waited and waited to hear from her, or for her to come
back--two whole days!  I didn't go to bed at all last night.  I didn't
dare, lest she should come while I was asleep."

"You expect her to return, then?"

She was walking up and down the room, her hands clasped behind her back
tightly.  I could see that she was on the verge of hysteria.  She turned
to me again, and said:

"Oh, Leah would never abandon me, never!  She's too true for that.  But
she's afraid to come back!"

I went up to her and led her gently to the seat.

"Now," I said, "tell me exactly what has happened."

She broke out again wildly, her face twitching with excitement.  "I
don't _know_!  Don't you _see_ I don't know?  That's the horror of it!
I may have killed her, for all I know!"

"Ah!  Do you mean," I began, afraid to say it, "that you've forgotten?"

She stared at me.  "Forgotten?  Well, you may call it that.  Yes, I've
forgotten."  She put her face into the pillow and began to sob
convulsively.  After this nervous crisis had spent itself she sat up,
wiped her eyes and said with a faint, spectral smile:

"Oh, I'll have to tell you everything, now. I can't bear it any longer.
It was bad enough while I had Leah to depend upon, but now I must have
somebody to confide in, or I shall go mad--if I haven't already gone
mad."

I looked over at the table where I noticed a coffee-pot and a cup on a
salver.  "How much coffee have you drunk?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know.  Cup after cup.  I've been drinking it all day to
keep me awake."

"That accounts for your nerves.  You must rest.  If you sleep a little,
you'll get your strength back."

She sprang up suddenly, her gripped fists raised, her head thrown back
in a sudden new access of alarm.  "Oh, no, no, no!  You don't
understand!  I _daren't_ sleep!  I'm afraid--afraid!  How do I know what
may happen, now when I'm so worn out!"

I had done considerable thinking while I was away, and I had done some
reading as well.  I was beginning now to make it out, piece by piece,
and put it together in an astonishing whole.  It was too late, in this
crisis, for reserves, too late for me to keep to my promise of not
trying to know.  The girl was distraught and alone.  And, indeed, the
door to the cupboard where her skeleton had been hidden was now well
ajar.

"You are afraid, you mean, of the _other_ one?" I brought it out
deliberately.

She stared at me, like a somnambulist.

"Yes," she whispered, "of the 'other one.'"

Then for the first time, and quite unconsciously, I think, she used my
name.  It seemed so natural to me that I was not surprised.

"Oh, I'm so glad you know, at last, Chester.  I'm so glad that it will
be easier to tell you."  She put her hand on my arm and looked up at me
in tenderest confidence. "Now you know why I called myself the 'White
Cat.'"

"Yes, I see.  Don't be alarmed.  I'll help you.  You must calm yourself
and we'll find out a way.  I know _her_, you know."

"Yes, I know you do.  You must tell me all about her, sometime.  How you
must have hated me!"

"Perhaps I can manage her, but no matter about her, now.  We must think
it all out, and decide calmly what to do.  I'm not afraid.  Trust me,
and I'll see you through. It will all come out right, I'm sure."

I went on so, purposely iterating such phrases to lull her, and key down
the intense strain which wrought upon her.  Her eyes kept on me, and I
saw my influence work--my suggestion, I might say, since it was
purposely hypnotic.  Her hysteria made her abnormally sensitive to the
treatment.  She relaxed her attitude slightly, sighed, and dropped back
among the silken pillows behind her.

"Oh, you're so good!" she breathed. "You _will_ help me, I'm sure.  You
have helped me already!  You're so strong--it's such a comfort to have
you here!"  She reached her hand out shyly and put it in mine, where it
lay, small and cold.  It was the first time she had done so, except
under the direct stress of an earnestness strong enough to rob the act
of any personal suggestion. It was a distinct caress, fearless and
genuine.

"Now," I said, "begin at the beginning, and tell me all about what has
happened."

She took it up again with a new courage. "As I've said, I don't know
when Leah left. I only know that when I rang for her yesterday morning
she didn't come.  I went into her room and she wasn't there.  She wasn't
down-stairs.  King didn't know anything about it."

"Nor Uncle Jerdon?"

"Uncle Jerdon has been away for three days, visiting his nephew, who's
ill.  You see, she--the other one--was here for two days running.  It
hasn't happened so for years.  So whether it happened, whatever did
happen, on Monday or Tuesday, I can't tell.  Leah might have left either
day."

"How do you know that 'the other one' was here for two days?"

"Only because Sunday is the last thing I remember before yesterday
morning.  The doctor was down then.  You know that there's a hiatus when
she's here--a perfect blank in my memory.  I lose time, as she does,
when I'm here."

Her mention of the doctor started a new train of thought, but I put that
by for the present, to tell her of the letter I had received from Leah,
which made it probable that she had left on Tuesday, the second day of
"the other one."  The situation was serious enough, I was sure, for me
to disobey Leah's injunction to secrecy.

"Oh," said Joy, "that relieves my mind a little.  It shows that Leah had
a plan, and she must have stayed somewhere near here, expecting you,
though how she happened to miss you, I don't see.  It's quite right for
you to have told me, for I had already telephoned to you--to-day, after
you started.  I was surprised to see you appear so soon, for that
reason.  I was at my wits' end yesterday, but I hated to drag you into
this.  But what could I do?  Doctor Copin has gone out of town for a few
days."

"I'm glad you sent for me," I said.  "I shan't have to feel that I'm
intruding.  But now the question is, why doesn't Leah come back?  Why
didn't she wait for me at the station?"

"She must have been awfully frightened, to have gone away like this,"
Joy said.

"Perhaps _she_ discharged her--I know she complained of Leah a good
deal."

"Yes, I've thought of that.  But I fear it's even worse."

"In any case, there's no reason why she shouldn't come back, now that
'the other one' has disappeared," I said.

"How can Leah tell?" Joy exclaimed. "How will she know whether it is I
or 'the other one'?  We're really the same person, outwardly.  There's
no difference that she could recognize unless she talked to me. That's
what has terrified me."

Then, for the first time, I saw the dilemma. How, indeed, could Leah
know?  The same woman, the same clothes--but yet, how different!  "Have
you no sign?" I asked. "Haven't you ever arranged it with Leah so that
she can tell?"

"Oh, not for a case like this.  It has never been necessary.  You see,
the change always comes at night, at least always during sleep, so that
when I wake up she can tell right off, by asking me what I'll have for
breakfast. We've arranged it so that I shall always give a fanciful
reply, and let _her_ give an obvious commonplace one.  But now, Leah
daren't come in, for she knows that if I should happen to be 'the other
one,' there'll be the same terrible something that happened before--a
quarrel, or worse."

"Still, there are some apparent differences. You dress differently, it
seems to me. You usually wear white.  Won't Leah know by her experience
of you both?"

"Oh, no; you can't tell.  _She's_ so whimsical--sometimes she'll do one
thing, and sometimes another, like a child.  You can't depend on her.
She's tricky, too."

"I could tell, I'm sure--by your eyes. Hers are darker, and the pupils
are dilated, aren't they, usually?"

"Yes--but Leah daren't come near enough for that, don't you see?  Oh,
she must be in agony, poor girl!  But how do I know?  She may be dead!"

"You forget that she has written to me since leaving."

"Oh, yes--that is a relief.  But I may have hurt her."

"Oh, Joy!  Don't say _you_ could have--it was not you, it was Edna."

"Well, how can I tell whether or not I'm responsible?"

"I don't think she would have struck her," I said.

"No?  She did once, though.  She stabbed Leah with a carving-tool on the
wrist.  It always sickens me to see that scar.  Oh, she has a temper!
Poor Leah!"

She lay back on the cushions again and closed her eyes.  Her hand had
relaxed in mine.

I looked at her, so wearied and pale, and said softly:

"You just drop off to sleep for a little while, and I'll think it
over--"

She nerved her body, and pulled herself up.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed.  "I'm dying for sleep, but don't you see I
can't?  If I should fall asleep who would it be that would awake? It
might be _she_."

"By Jove!" I cried, "I hadn't thought of that!"

"I've thought of nothing else.  That's why I've stayed up and kept awake
while I am so exhausted.  If Leah comes back, she must find me here, and
not 'the other one.'  I must see her and find out what has happened--we
must arrange for everything and decide what plan to adopt to circumvent
_her_. Oh, I _must_ keep awake!"  Even as she spoke her head dropped
again heavily.

"You can't tell, then, when the change is likely to come?"

"Sometimes I have a feeling--a premonition--like that night, don't you
remember, when I was so blue?  I knew that I was going to change.  But
usually I can't tell. _She_ has come lately, about two days in the
seven, but irregularly.  It's almost always after a deep, heavy sleep.
You remember how late _she_ used to lie abed?  That's what worries me
now.  I'm absolutely exhausted, and if I do fall asleep, I'll go down
deep. So deep, I'm afraid, that I'll change.  Can you think what a
horror that is to me?  I must stay up till Leah comes.  You must promise
to keep me awake by every means in your power.  But even then, what are
we going to do?  How can we arrange a way for Leah to get along with
her?"

"That's where I come into the game," I said.  "I think I can solve that
problem."

"How did you get on with her?" Joy asked timidly.  It was quite as if
she were asking about another woman, and feared to commit an
impertinence.  "Do you like her?" she added.

"She's not to be compared to you, of course.  But there's much that's
likable about her, and at least, we get on beautifully. And so we shall
this time, if she'll only let me stay.  That's the difficulty."

"Oh, _she'll_ let you stay, she'll be only too glad.  She likes you,
Leah says."  Her brows drew together, and I wondered how much she knew.

"Well, then, I'll undertake to make her keep Leah."

"Oh, if you can do that--on any terms--we can stand it, both of us.
Leah will suffer anything, I'm sure, rather than leave me."

"One thing more, then--since I must have all the information if I am to
do anything--what does _she_ know?"

"About me?  Nothing, I think.  At least she has never been told, I
mean--we've always kept it from her.  She thinks she's the only one."

"I don't see how that can be possible!"

"It does seem strange; but then, you know she's mentally undeveloped.
In some ways she's a mere child.  And then, too, she has never known it
to be any different--why should she suspect that there is another
personality--that she isn't the real Joy Fielding?  She's conscious that
she loses time, so to speak, and she thinks it is only the fault of her
memory."

I thought it over a while.  Then I said: "She wouldn't say much about it
to me, and so I didn't quite get her point of view.  It baffles me.  She
must know that she does things in the lapses, even if she doesn't recall
them."

"I don't know that she's even aware of that.  She may think that she's
unconscious, during these lapses, but most likely it is just like
dreams.  Even if we vaguely remember them, for a moment, we forget them,
and they don't seem to have been real--or, perhaps, they're like
delirium, or insane intervals, of which she has no memory.  Why, a man
may even be simply drunk, and not recall what he has done, and that self
is, really, a different personality."

"But," I pursued, "do _you_ forget, too?"

"Yes.  That is, almost always.  At times I have had vague formless
memories, as one has of dreams--that's about as much as this second life
ever is associated with my normal one--if what I now have is the
normal--how do I know even that?  But I have known about the duality
almost from the first, and of course Leah keeps me informed of
everything that happens.  You see, sometimes I'm not even aware that
there _has_ been a lapse--I don't realize that it isn't just the next
day.  Leah tells _her_ as little as possible about me.  She's easily
managed and put off, usually, but somehow of late she seems to have
grown stronger.  She seems to be developing mentally.  It frightens me a
little."

"You don't think that anybody has told her, possibly?" I suggested.

"There's nobody to tell her.  Of course Leah never would."

"Uncle Jerdon?"

"Oh, he thinks I'm crazy, and he never talks, anyway, I'm sure.  He
doesn't realize what's happening, for, after all, we're not obviously
different; _she_ might be taken for me in some queer mood, I mean," she
added.

"King?"

"I believe he thinks that I'm possessed of a devil.  Which I think I
am!"  She paused to smile faintly.  "Anyway, he minds his own business.
I have an idea that he has a reason for wanting to keep quiet."

"Or, lastly, then, the doctor?"  I put it hesitatingly, yet I wanted to
know what she would say.  Her answer was prompt.

"He wouldn't tell, I'm sure.  Why, he wants to cure me.  It would spoil
all chance of that, I think, if _she_ knew."

I wasn't so sure of the doctor, after what Leah had said to me, but it
would do no good, now, to mention that.  She had trouble enough at
present not to worry her with new doubts.

"Then, is it possible that she might have come across some evidence of
you, in your writings, or something that would arouse her curiosity?"

"Oh, I think she hasn't the least suspicion. As I said, it must all seem
natural enough for her to lose time--she has always done so.  Everything
is accounted for to her by the fact that she forgets.  Of course, I am
careful to hide everything that is strictly my own, anything, that is,
that she would not understand.  Leah keeps all my private letters under
lock and key.  I'm very careful, for I've been on my guard since it
first began."

"How long?" I asked.

"Ever since I was thirteen.  That's when she came first."

"It's incredible!" I exclaimed.  "Of course, I've heard of such multiple
personalities, of the celebrated ones, but they've seemed only like
queer, improbable cases out of a book--monstrosities.  Or I've regarded
them as half-crazed or hysterical or somnambulistic.  But _you_, Miss
Fielding!  You seem so beautifully sane, so poised, so complete--it's
like a fairy tale.  Oh, you are the 'White Cat'!  You are under a
spell!"

"It's only because I'm not a poor girl that I'm not a mere 'case,' I
assure you.  You don't know what a life I've led, how every physician
I've had has wanted to study me, or put me in a sanatorium or a hospital
or an asylum or worse.  Yes, if I hadn't the money, I should probably be
in a mad-house at this moment.  Do you realize how easy it would be for
a physician to put me there? From the ordinary point of view, I'm
virtually insane part of the time.  I have been in great danger,
Chester.  But, having some money, I have been able to get away from
people and seclude myself and retain my freedom--if you call it freedom
to be cheated out of part of your natural life!  I have had Leah, and
she was enough.  She understands, she's loyal, and she is, above all,
wise and good."

"But the doctor--what about him?"

"Of course I must have a physician at times, and Doctor Copin is a good
one, and interested in my case.  He has been most kind to me.  Of course
I _am_ interesting, though, psychologically, and he's probably written a
monograph about me for some medical society already.  But I have him
chiefly for medical troubles, and to keep general run of this thing,
enough to advise me."

This was rather different from what Edna had led me to believe, so I
said:

"He hasn't attempted to treat you for this psychological dissociation?"

"No.  He has wanted to.  In fact, he's always urging me to allow him to
see what he can do, but I won't let him.  He wants to hypnotize me--but
I don't quite dare--would you?"

"No," I said.  "I'd advise you not to.  If that's to be done you ought
to go to a great specialist."

I thought I had a clue now that would bear following up, but I decided
to think it over a while before I spoke of it.

So intently had we talked, that we had scarcely noticed the darkness
which had fallen until King's gong aroused us.  Joy rose wearily.

"Would you mind lighting the candles?" she said.

She waited till all the sconces were burning and then, as I went to the
window, she said:

"No, leave the shades up, please!  I want the windows left so that Leah,
if she comes, may look in.  I feel somehow that she is near here, that
she will come this evening, if she dares."

"Why haven't you been out where she could see you, then?  Have you
thought to call her?"

She looked at me blankly.  "Why, I _haven't_ thought of that, have I?
But would she dare come?"

"Try it now!" I exclaimed.

"I will!"  She went to the front door and threw it open and cried:

"Leah!--Leah!--Leah!  Come here!  It's all right.  I want you, dear!"

There was enough in the scene--the stillness that ensued, the gathering
mysterious twilight that shrouded the house, the tragic quaver in Joy's
voice--to make me thrill to its dramatic power.  She stood there for a
few minutes, all in white, waiting, her hands clasped on her breast,
vividly illuminated by the candles.  But no sound came out of the
shadows of the night.

Joy closed the door; then, with quick second thought, she returned to
leave it ajar, and came back into the library.

We had moved almost to the dining-room, when, on a sudden whim, she
paused, turned and looked toward the window.  My own eyes followed hers.
There was a dark face peering in--so dark that the whites of the eyes
and the teeth were almost all that was visible, though enough to show
who it was.

"_Leah!_" Joy cried, and ran again to the door, crying out hysterically.
She called again, but no answer came.

It occurred to me that the excited accents of Joy's voice might well be
misleading, and for the first time I thought to try myself. Joy had
returned, to throw herself down, sobbing, full length upon the
window-seat, her heart breaking with the suspense and disappointment.
The strain was too much for her, after her hours of hope and fear.  I
did not stop to comfort her then, but ran to the doorway and stood in
the lighted hall there in plain sight.

"Leah!" I called.  "Come here, it's I--Mr. Castle.  I want you!"

There was still no reply, but, feeling sure that Leah must be near at
hand, I started off vaguely in the dark.  I had gone but to the turn of
the lane when I heard footsteps, running.  Then in a rush Leah was upon
me, and had seized my hand.

"Oh, Mr. Castle!  I'm so glad you've come--but I was afraid to go in.  I
was afraid I might make it worse if _she_ was there. Who is it?  Tell me
quick!  Is it my own Miss Joy, or the other?"

"It's Joy," I assured her, "and she's waiting for you.  You must come at
once."

She paused a moment, evidently wondering if I knew the secret.

"You're sure?" she said.  "You know that there are two?"

"Yes--I know everything, now, and this is Joy--_your_ Joy!"

She bounded forward, and I with her, stumbling in the dark, into the
doorway, to the library.  There for a moment she stopped, trembling so
violently that her teeth chattered audibly.  Joy was still lying
stretched out at full length upon the cushions of the window-seat.  At
the first glance Leah did not see her, but then she ran forward, knelt,
and threw her arms about her mistress.

But the next instant, starting back as if she had embraced a corpse, she
sprang up and faced me, her eyes opened wide in horror.

"Oh, Mr. Castle, she's _asleep_!  Miss Joy's _asleep_!"




                                  *II*


For a moment I was too surprised to realize the full significance of
Leah's cry.  Then Joy's own words came back--the wail of her harassed
soul--"If I should fall asleep, who would it be that would awake?"
There she lay, asleep at last.  Her small head lay upon her arm, and her
oval face was now flushed, her lips half parted, showing her little
blue-white teeth.  The crisp white duck blouse moved gently with her
breathing--beneath her skirt two tiny red shoes lay one over the other.

As she herself had said, she was so utterly exhausted that she would "go
down deep."  Dared we awaken her?  Certainly not Leah, who, of course,
had seen the whole awful possibility on the instant.

I had to decide.  What was to be done must be done quickly.  If Joy were
allowed to sleep long and deeply we might confidently expect "the other
one" to awaken.  The question was, could we, perhaps, rouse her before
that incomprehensible change had taken place?  It seemed to be the only
thing to do.  I determined, at all events, to take the risk.

Meanwhile, Leah had fallen into a chair, overcome with the
disappointment of the situation.  She was in a distressing state; her
skirt was torn and soiled, her shoes dusty, her waist disheveled.  Her
black hair was awry; she was hatless.  I thought at first that she, too,
had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue.

I went to her and laid a hand on her shoulder to rouse her.  She started
with a frightened jump.

"Leah," I said, "I'm going to awaken Miss Fielding.  It's the only thing
to do, I think.  We may be able to get her again, before she changes.
But if not, we must be ready with some plan by which to manage Edna.  We
must hurry, though.  First, tell me in the fewest possible words what
has happened.  Joy, of course, didn't know."

Leah had braced herself for the ordeal and was now quick, alert and
concise.  "She got angry on account of my 'trying to run her,' she said.
You see 'the other one' was here for two days.  I've always been able to
manage her for one day, but the second day she seemed to be much
stronger, and it was worse than it has ever been before.  She found out
that I had burned some of her old clothes--Miss Joy had told me to--and
so she discharged me and told me to leave the place immediately.  I
wouldn't go, and she went into the barn and got a horsewhip and
threatened me with it.  I was afraid, Mr. Castle!  She was in a fearful
temper.  I was afraid she'd kill me.  Then I went.  I stayed all night
in the Harbor.  I wrote to you as soon as I got there, for I couldn't
get you on the telephone.  Yesterday I hung about the place all day, but
she didn't appear, and I was afraid to come in.  I positively didn't
dare, though I knew it probably was Miss Joy.  To-day I stayed in that
old cabin down by the road all day, for I was pretty sure it must be
_she_ who was here.  I was so tired I fell asleep and that's how I
missed you, I suppose.  I've had hardly anything to eat since
yesterday--only a few biscuits I brought with me."

I had been thinking out a plan as I listened, and as soon as she had
finished I gave Leah her orders.

"Listen, now.  If it is 'the other one' who awakens, I'll tell her that
I happened to meet you in the Harbor, and induced you to come back, on
my own responsibility.  Do you see? I'll manage it; you needn't be
afraid.  I'll take care of you, and it will be all right. Of course if
it is Joy who wakes up, that will be better.  But we must act quickly.
Can you tell immediately who it is that awakens, Joy or 'the other
one'?"

"Oh, we can tell that easily enough, by the way she treats me!"

"Very well, then.  You must awaken her now!"

I sat down where I could watch, and Leah went hesitatingly up to her
mistress again, and shook her shoulder gently.

"Wake up, Miss Joy!" she said softly, but firmly.  "Wake up, you're
catching cold, honey."

Joy moaned, turned a little, then drew herself together again drowsily.

"Wake up, Miss Joy, you must have your dinner now!"

She moved again, and muttered, "Oh, I'm so sleepy!  Let me go to sleep,
Leah, please!"

Again Leah shook her.  It seemed cruel to have to bring that exhausted
body back to life.  "Wake up, Miss Joy.  Mr. Castle's here to see you!
Wake up!"

She opened her eyes now, and stared vacantly at us.  Then her face
changed gloriously.  She flung her arms round Leah's neck.

"Oh, Leah!  Leah!  You've come back to me!"

It was some moments before either of the women was able to speak.  They
clung to each other, sobbing.

After the first hurried words of explanation were over, Joy went up to
her room to wash her face and freshen herself for what was yet to be
done.  Leah went with her, almost too happy to think of her own sorry
appearance.  Both came down, after a while, in a change of costume, and
went with me into the dining-room where King was patiently waiting to
serve the meal so long delayed.  Joy showed plainly the ravages which
two days of suspense and agony had accomplished, but she was braced
mentally by my presence and Leah's return, and in a condition to discuss
calmly what was to be done.  Leah had also rallied from her collapse,
and the dinner brought her strength and courage.

The meal was over before we had settled how Leah could be kept in favor
with "the other one"--whom we agreed, hereafter, to call Edna--and we
were still uncertain as to our actions in regard to many other
complications which might arise.  It depended principally upon the
extent of my influence with Edna.  To hear Joy discuss these phases of
her condition in that other state--her fondness for me, her whims, her
weaknesses--gave me a strange sensation.  But what struck me as most
remarkable in her talk was the sense of justice she always showed in
regard to Edna.  One might have expected Joy to resent the intrusion of
this second personality, so inimical to her own interests, but she never
failed to acknowledge Edna's rights.  Indeed, her whole attitude was
that Edna was strictly another person, rather than some part of herself
broken off and endowed with an independent existence--which was my
theory of the situation.

I quite lost myself in the subtleties of the case.  To know that
probably on the morrow I should be face to face with this same woman, in
form and feature precisely the same, and yet as different from her,
really, as the West is from the East, gave me, in spite of my effort to
concentrate my mind upon the affair, a sort of mental instability which
was disconcerting.  I could not quite believe that she would or could
change.  She seemed too real, too normal, if I may qualify such
adjectives.  And besides all this, I had begun to think of her in
another way, which made the prospect of any such change seem unbearable.

Meanwhile, Joy grew steadily sleepier. She roused herself occasionally,
by an effort, but would droop the moment she had stopped speaking.
Coffee no longer stimulated her. She began to walk up and down the room,
leaning on Leah's arm, as if she were fighting off the effects of
laudanum.  Her suffering was cruel.  We had, at last, to resort to
strychnia.

So, for another hour we talked, while she became more haggard, more
weak.  Up and down, up and down the room they went.  We talked of
seeking the advice of some specialist, here or abroad, of the
possibility of a direct appeal to Edna, in the chance of some compromise
to be effected, of Leah's actions should she be peremptorily discharged
again, of the prospect of her being able to stay in the vicinity, to
return as soon as Joy's own personality had reasserted itself, of the
proper method of safeguarding Joy's property, of the possibility of
Edna's actually departing from Midmeadows--there were a hundred sides to
the subject, and all baffling. There seemed to be nothing to do but to
await further developments and see if I myself could not succeed in
managing Edna.  I rather wondered at the fact that Joy did not once
mention the doctor as a possible cooeperator with us.  It seemed to me
that she instinctively distrusted him, though she never permitted
herself to say so.  It was no doubt her fairness, rather than any
conviction of his ability, that prevented.

Finally she stopped, scarcely able to hold herself up, as frail as a
wilted flower, and said, with an effort at a smile:

"I'm afraid it's no use, Chester; I'm too far gone to think.  I can't
control my mind any longer.  I must have sleep.  You and Leah will have
to settle it together--I'll leave it all to you--I'll agree to whatever
you think best.  I'm no more use than a baby to-night.  Let me be your
little sister and tell me what to do.  I'm tired, tired--tired."

My heart ached for her.  Her mouth was trembling like a child's just
before crying, her eyelids hung heavy, all but closed.  What she must
suffer at the thought of sinking into temporary oblivion and resigning
herself to the inevitable possession of "the other one," I could easily
imagine.  I implored her to go to bed.

When the two women had left, I pulled down the curtains, seated myself
in the armchair, lighted my pipe and began to think it over.

I had seen Edna but twice, but, from what had happened, I was able to
form a fair idea of her character.  She was, in the first place, by no
means the equal of Joy's true self.  Mentally she was less developed; in
some respects, as Joy had said, a mere child. She was inclined to be
untidy, full of animal spirits, and constructive, in a mechanical way.
She was not fond of animals; not, at least, of the dogs, and the same
strain showed itself, I thought, in her prejudice against Leah, as a
colored woman.  There was something of that lack of charity, also, in
the fun she had made of Uncle Jerdon, something of which Joy herself
would be incapable.  Edna was inclined to be bromic; Joy was indubitably
a sulphite.  Lastly, there was, I remembered, that hint of--what would I
call it?--indiscretion? forwardness?--in the way she had "made up" to me
that last evening I spent with her.

Here, perhaps, was a suggestion as to how I might manage her.  It was
not pleasant; the less so because I must necessarily keep it from both
Joy and Leah.  From Joy for obvious reasons--I could not think of
permitting her to suspect that, even in this other phase, she was in the
least lacking in delicacy--from Leah because she was, in her way, finer
even than Joy.  It would cause her, in fact, the keener suffering to
know that any such thing was going on in the house. And yet I could not
quite bear to act, even in these circumstances, secretly.  The matter
had been left to my judgment; but I could not yet make up my mind what
was right.  It was a choice of two evils, perhaps, but the thought of
permitting even the lesser one to obtain troubled me.  In a few words,
Edna was apparently fond of me.  I didn't care to put it any more
strongly than that at present, nor to say that I would admit this basis
of friendship as a condition in which I could manage her.  But the
thought was affording. While I was turning over in my mind this phase of
the problem Leah came down.

"She fell asleep while I was undressing her," she said, taking a chair
drearily.  "I have never seen her so absolutely exhausted. She'll sleep
late to-morrow; and," she added with a shudder, "she'll not wake up
herself."

"Well, then, we'll have to be prepared for Edna," I replied.

"I'm so afraid of to-morrow!" said Leah. "Not for myself, you know, Mr.
Castle.  I'm willing to endure anything.  But if she insists upon my
leaving here again, what shall I do?  I simply _can't_ leave Miss Joy!
What would she ever do without me?"

"I think I can manage it," I said, though, indeed, I was far from being
confident.  And then, to draw her out more, I added: "What I'm wondering
is, if we hadn't better send for Doctor Copin."

"Oh, don't!" she pleaded.  "You must take hold of this alone, Mr.
Castle.  He's been down here several times since you left, and I'm more
afraid of him than ever. More, even, than I am of _her_."

"Why, what has happened?"

"Oh," she cried, "that's just what I don't know.  She sent me away
usually, and often they were alone together all day.  Sometimes they
went off on long walks, too."

"With _her_--with Edna, I mean, or with Joy?"

"Oh, with Edna, of course--never with Miss Joy herself."

This gave me more to think about.  If she had acted with the doctor as
she had with me, a good deal depended upon the kind of man Doctor Copin
was.

"You saw nothing, then, to arouse your suspicions?" I asked.

I saw immediately, from her embarrassment, that she had; but she finally
said:

"No, nothing to amount to anything, I think."  It was easy to see her
motive in this denial, I thought.  She could not bring herself to say
anything that might seem like an accusation of her mistress, even her
mistress in this other person.  She went on:

"There's another thing that worries me. She's been telephoning to the
doctor almost every day.  She never did that before, and I can't
understand it.  I don't think of any reason she can have, for physically
she's quite well."

"You mean Edna has?"

"No!  Miss Joy herself.  Of course Edna does, all the time."

"How long since Joy has been doing so?"

"About two weeks--she began, I think, soon after you left."

"And the doctor has been coming oftener?"

"Yes."

"Does the doctor come usually when Joy is here, or when Edna is?"

"Almost always when it's Edna."

"How does Doctor Copin know when she is here?"

"That's a mystery.  I've wondered myself about it, but I don't know."

"Leah," I said, after thinking a while, "do you think you can trust me,
whatever you should happen to notice that seems, let us say, a bit too
much like what the doctor might be imagined as doing?"

"You mean?"  She drew a quick breath. "Oh, _that_?  Why should you
suggest it? Don't ask me to, please!"

"It would be better than permitting you to be driven away, wouldn't it?"
I insisted.

She did not answer.

"I don't say that any such thing will be necessary," I added, "but I
don't want you to be surprised at anything.  I don't want, in any way,
to be underhanded with you. It seems that you must, in any case, leave
it wholly to me.  That is, of course, provided there is no one else you
can call on."

"Oh, there's nobody else!  Miss Joy has no near relatives, and any one
we might send for would perhaps be only too glad to have her shipped off
to an asylum so that they could get hold of her property.  That's what
has always complicated it.  That's why she lives here alone.  It might
be, too, why we should watch the doctor himself."  She stretched out her
hands appealingly to me. "Oh, Mr. Castle, you must have heard of such
cases--I'm told they're common.  Can't we drive _her_ away for ever?"

"The doctor probably knows a good deal more about that than I," I
replied.  "I think that's probably why he's so much interested. But, if
you _don't_ trust him, the very fact that he does know so much about the
subject makes him the more dangerous.  I must have a talk with him.  Do
you know when he'll come again?"

"He may be here at any time.  There's no telling.  I don't think Miss
Joy knows, but I have an idea that he may have arranged it with Edna.
You can find that out for yourself to-morrow, can't you?"

"I think that I may be able to find out a good deal, if you'll only
close your eyes."

Again that quick, indrawn breath, as if she were struck with a sudden
pain, and she rose and stood before me.

"Oh, Mr. Castle, I can't help trusting you! I _must_ trust you!"

"Will it help you," I said, looking her straight in the eyes, "if I tell
you that I like Joy immensely--that, in fact, I'm very, very fond of
her?"

She took both of my hands in hers, kneeling before me.  "Oh, Mr.
Castle!" she cried, "if you only _do_!  If I could believe that, it
would be such a comfort to me!  I've wanted to believe it ever since you
first came down. She's so alone--she has no one in the world but me!
She needs you so much!  Oh, you could do so much for her!"

"There's nothing, Leah, that I wouldn't do for her, believe me.
Nothing!  Do you know what that means?  It means that I may have to do
what she herself would never consent to have me do."

That was as far as I dared to go with the girl; indeed, it was almost as
far as I had gone with myself.  I could see hints of what it might
possibly come to; but just how it would work out, I had no idea.  It
would be time enough for that, when it was time.  But, on the whole,
Leah was pacified and strengthened by my confession.  As she was nearly
in a state of collapse, by this time, I sent her to bed, and remained to
smoke in the library.

The question was, now, whether Edna wouldn't wonder why I had come down.
I had, of course, the excuse of my motor-car to account for that, but I
thought it likely that she wouldn't be exigent in the matter of excuses,
and would be quite ready, for her own reasons, to welcome me to
Midmeadows.  At any rate, I decided that I would stay, whether or no.
Joy most certainly wanted me here, now that the White Cat was out of the
bag, and I was quite prepared to strain a point, if necessary, to induce
Edna to be hospitable.

It was now ten o'clock, and, excited as I was, I found myself in no mood
for sleep. So, hearing King grinding coffee in the kitchen, I walked out
there to make his acquaintance.  As I came in, he looked up and grinned
serenely.

"Hello!  You come back?" he said affably.

"Yes, I'm back, King," I replied, and stood with my hands in my pockets,
watching.

"I thought you come!" he said, nodding his head wisely.

"Oh, you did, did you?" I inquired.  "Why?"

He went on automatically with his coffee-mill, still grinning inanely.
"You likee Miss Fielding?" he asked audaciously.

"Heap much!" I said, laughing.  He laughed with me.

"Aren't you lonesome here, King?" I asked next.  "Not many Chinamen
around here, are there?"

"Oh, Chinamen no good!  All time make tlouble."  He poured the ground
coffee into a canister and took down a pot.

"There's a Chinese laundry over at the Harbor.  Don't you go over there
sometimes to smoke a pipe?"

"Aw!  No good smoke pipe.  More better stay here."

Now this was contrary to the habits of Chinamen as I had known them, and
I scented something interesting.

"You no play fan-tan?" I asked.

"Aw!  Fan-tan no good," King replied contemptuously.  "All time lose
heap money. No good!"

He shook his head again as he shook down his fire, poked it, and went to
the sink to wash his hands and wipe them on the roller towel.  I watched
his deft, precise movements; he was like a machine in the accurate way
in which he handled everything.

"What tong do you belong to, King?" I asked presently.

He gave me a cunning look.

"What-a-matter you?" he demanded. "What for you want to know?"

"Hip Sing?" I persisted.  "See Yup? Sam Yup?  What tong?"

"You sabbee China tong?" he asked.

"Oh, sure!  You tell me, King.  I keep him quiet.  I no tell."

"Say!" he exclaimed, approaching me, grinning, "sometime you help me get
away?"

"You in trouble, eh?  What's the matter! Hatchet-men after you?"

He still grinned in the absurd way Celestials have, when the subject is
most serious. "No catchee _me_!" he declared.

"Oh, I see.  They're trying to find you, eh?  What's the matter?  You
steal China girl?  You take tong money?  You kill Sam Yup man, maybe?"

He kept his grin and his secret.  "Tha's all light, no catchee me!" was
all I could get out of him.  But I thought I had a suspicion as to why
he was contented to stay alone, so far from any of his race, and never
go to town or even smoke opium or play fan-tan at the Harbor.




                                 *III*


By the next morning my mind had cleared somewhat, and I rose full of
eagerness and interest for what was to come.  I looked forward to it,
now, as to a play where I myself was to go upon the stage and act a
part.  I got down-stairs early, to be ready upon the scene.

The day was fine, and I stepped outside, first, to pay a visit to the
dogs, who scrambled over me in an ecstasy of delight, crouched, leaped,
ran off and returned, exuberant with life and affection.  King was
outside, watering a patch of flowers, and grinned a welcome.  I took a
turn down the lane, reveling in the sweet-scented morning air laden with
the perfume of the hundreds of rose-bushes in front of the house, and
then back, quite tuned up for any emergency.

Leah had not yet appeared, so I went into the music-room which opened
from the hall, opposite the library.  Here further evidence of Miss
Fielding's taste was evident, though, except perhaps for my own chamber,
it was the most formal room in the house, with as fine a collection of
Chippendale, Sheraton and Heppelwhite furniture as I have ever seen, and
a ceiling plainly a replica of Adam's.  The room, in fact, was almost
like one of those chambers in show palaces whose entrances are roped off
with crimson cords.  I felt that I oughtn't to be surprised if, on
approaching the harpsichord in the corner, I found upon it a printed
card with the legend: "_Defense de toucher_."

While I was looking about, I heard Leah's footsteps hurrying down the
stairs.  I turned and waited for her, and my glance must have spoken as
plainly as any words, for as soon as she saw me she said:

"It's 'the other one,' Mr. Castle.  She's up, now.  She's telephoning to
the doctor."

"How is she?" I asked.

"She's fresh and well enough, but she's in a bad temper.  I had an
unpleasant scene with her.  She wanted to know why I was here, and I
told her what you said--that you had met me and asked me to come back
with you.  Then she quieted down a little, and asked me when you came
and how long you were going to stay.  She seemed to be glad that you
were here, and it pacified her, but I'm awfully afraid that she'll send
me away again!"

"Don't lose courage," I said.  "If she's glad to see me, that's a good
sign, and it will make it easier for me.  But we mustn't seem to be
plotting here together.  It won't do to arouse her suspicions, whatever
we do.  You leave it to me, and cheer up!"

With that, I walked into the library and waited.  It was not long before
I heard Miss Fielding's door open and heard her whistling as she came
rollicking down the stairs.

These noises, so thoroughly dissociated from my idea of Joy herself,
created unconsciously a mental impression; an expectation that, without
thinking of the absurdity of it, quite unprepared me for the sight of
her when she appeared.  I don't quite know what I did expect--something
a bit unfamiliar, unnatural, I suppose--but what I saw was, of course,
only the Miss Fielding I had always seen, pretty, slender, exquisite,
the same brown-eyed, dark-haired creature as ever, at first glance the
same woman whom I had left the night before, only now refreshed and full
of life.  It gave me a distinct shock.  At second glance, it is true,
there were almost undefinable, yet perfectly distinguishing marks of the
new personality--of Edna; and as I noted them--the carelessness of her
hair, her dilated pupils, the rolled-up sleeves of her shirt-waist, the
odor of Santal, and above all a refreshing youthfulness--I adjusted
myself quickly to the situation.

She came forward with a swinging stride and her hand held out in jovial
welcome, smiling.  Her grip was like a man's, as she said, "Isn't it
dear of you to come down and see me, Chet!  I was afraid that you'd got
enough of me before and wouldn't ever want to come back again.  I've
missed you awfully.  Sure, I have!"

She kept the hand I gave her, and swung it playfully.  I said something
about the automobile.

"I hope you can stay a while, now you've come," she went on.  "There are
all sorts of things we can do, now you're well, you know.  Is your rib
all right, now?  Can I hug you, if I want to?"  She laughed frankly at
me.

"I want to talk to you about Leah," I said. "I hope you'll forgive my
taking the liberty of bringing her back, but I knew that you would have
changed your mind, and would miss her terribly.  I thought that, if I
brought her back and asked you to keep her, it would save you the
embarrassment of sending for her, you know.  Of course, you must have
her here.  You could never find any one who would fit in as well, who
knows your ways; and, even if you could, Leah's too fine a girl to let
go that way."

Her face clouded and she answered pettishly.  "That girl's no good,
Chet.  She's regularly spying on me.  She watches me all the time, and I
won't have it.  She interferes with my things, too, and she thinks she's
too good to be a servant.  If she'd only keep her place I wouldn't mind
so much, but I won't have a nigger putting on airs with me.  I've got to
get rid of her!"

"But you can't get along without some one," I protested.

"Oh, yes, I can!"

"Why, even Uncle Jerdon's not here, now."

"Well, there's King."

"King isn't exactly what you'd call a chaperon, is he?"

She laughed and began to galumph up the room and back.  "Oh, I don't
need one, do I?"

"It seems to me you do if I'm to stay here!"

"'Fraid-cat, 'fraid-cat!" she taunted, starting off again, sidewise.

I had to laugh, and by a quick inversion she became serious, coming back
to me, her chin up, her hands behind her, jiggling up and down on
tip-toes.

"Do you really want me to keep Leah?" she asked.

"I really do," I answered gravely.

"Why?"

"Because I'm fond of you, and I think you ought to have her help."

"Oh!" she exclaimed.  "_Are_ you really fond of me, Chet?"

"Of course I am--when you behave."

"I might try her again," she said thoughtfully.

"She must stay here as long as I do, at least; or else I can't remain."

She inserted her little finger into a buttonhole of my coat and said,
without looking up, "Will you stay as long as I keep her, then?" She
looked up, now, to smile at her strategy.

"I won't promise that," I replied, "but I shall certainly go if you get
rid of her."

"Then I'll keep her.  But it will be for you to see that she behaves,
Mr. Chet."

With that, she was away again, debonairly frolicsome.

I felt as if I had won the first battle, and could afford to hope that I
might manage her. I was, however, skating on pretty thin ice, and it
would take considerable skill to keep out of danger if I pursued these
tactics much further.  I had to encourage her enough to propitiate her
and keep her friendly, without letting the affair get away from my
control.

She danced into the library again to suggest that we go for a walk, and
I followed her outdoors.  As we passed the yard in the rear I saw the
dogs lying in the sun.  We had not got within twenty feet of them when
they all rose, laid back their ears and began to growl.  Old Nokomis,
who had greeted me so affectionately, only a half-hour ago, stood with
her brush down, grumbling, her head tilted, her eyes on Miss Fielding.

She turned to King, who was filling a pail at the pump.

"Say, King, you tie up the dogs in the stable, hear?  I won't have them
about, barking and growling at me."  She made an impatient threatening
gesture at Nokomis, who retreated, still watching sharply, till, with an
angry yelp, she turned, and ran into the stable.  The other collies
followed her.  It was uncanny.

"I'm going to sell those dogs pretty soon," she remarked carelessly,
kicking at a thistle. "I don't see why in the world you wanted that
puppy."

"Because you offered him to me," I answered, to see what she would say.

"Take them all, then, if you like," she said.  "I confess I'm afraid of
them sometimes."

We went along a lane behind the stable and beside a potato patch, and
then, rising rapidly, through a gateway to a scrubby hillside, covered
with huckleberry bushes and sweet fern.  Miss Fielding, for so I must
still call her, or you will perhaps forget that she was to all intents
and purposes physically the same in this secondary personality, stuck
her hands in the pockets of her red golf-jacket and swung up the path
between the boulders, with a frank joyousness and comradeship that
seemed as natural in its abandon as the windy air and the sunshine; and
yet, mingled with it, was a sort of innocent trickery--the petty ruses
of a primitive woman cropping out through a veneer of civilization.

I doubt if I can recall in precisely their order the little things which
occurred after that to make me notice as evidences of her pursuit of me,
but, as significant of her degree of craft, they amused me mightily.  If
I mention them, however, it is only fair to me to bear in mind that I
regarded her quite as an abnormal phase of womanhood.  She was not
merely another person in Miss Fielding's guise, she was only the part of
a person--a collection of functions sufficiently synthesized to have an
independent consciousness and volition, but by no means a perfect whole.
This is, I believe, the modern interpretation of multiple personality.
Certain definite psychological tracts are split off and run themselves,
so to speak.  One might perhaps say that it is as if France, Germany,
Austria and Italy should float off the map, and achieve a lesser Europe
of their own.  The line of cleavage in Miss Fielding's case was chiefly
along intellectual and moral lines; Edna was a lesser and, mentally, a
younger Joy--less cultured, less conscientious.  It was quite in this
way that I studied her.

She stopped in the lane before we got to the gate, and, unfastening the
little gold chain with a sapphire pendant which she had about her neck,
held it out to me.

"Here, would you mind taking this, Chet? Keep it safe for me, please!
I'm afraid I may lose it."

I reached for it, but before I could take it she had herself tucked it
into my vest pocket and patted the place humorously.

She stopped again, afterward, to ask me to tie her shoe-lace.  It was
patently one of the many attempts she was always making to establish a
closer physical contact, an effort to keep the relation personal.  I
remember, also, that not long afterward, having climbed up a sandy bank
with my help, and with compliments upon my strength, she stopped at the
top to take off that same shoe and empty it of sand, disclosing quite
unaffectedly a delicate little foot in a grass-green silk stocking.  I
helped her also over several stone walls, as she appeared to expect it,
smiling to think how often she must have scaled them unassisted.  We
passed cows of which she professed to be much afraid and clung tightly
to me for protection.  It all sounds crude enough, but it was prettily
done, and I was more amused than critical.

We reached the top of the hill and threw ourselves down on the grass to
rest.  To the east, the land fell away, mottled with boulders and
bushes, with a bunch of trees here and there, and away in the distance
was the sea.  On the other sides the middle distance was blocked with
woods.  It was warm and sweet with a fresh earthy smell, and still as a
church.

She lay prone and, plucking a blade of grass, fell to playing with an
ant-hill under her nose.  I watched her, lazy and peaceful, basking in
the June sunshine.

"Have you seen Doctor Copin lately?" I asked.

"No.  He may come down to-day, though. I hope he will."

"Oh, you like him, then?" I said, giving my voice the inflections of
mock jealousy.

"Not as well as I do you," she said, rolling a little nearer me to
tickle my ear with her straw.

"What makes you think he'll come?"

"I telephoned to him this morning, and he said he might.  He's just got
back to town and wants to see me.  He runs down when he likes."

"On business, I suppose?"

"Yes, about my memory.  He makes diagram things and tries experiments on
me."

I was interested.  "Experiments?  What kind?"

"Oh, he asks me if I remember things. You see, he tries to tell with his
diagram things just when I shall forget and when I'll remember, and he
comes down to fix them up.  I don't understand it much, but he says that
he's going to cure me."

"Oh, he's going to make you remember everything, I suppose."

"I hope so."

"Do you remember what happened yesterday?" I asked.

"Why, I sent Leah away, didn't I?"

"No, that was three days ago."

"Was it?" she returned, heading off an infuriated ant with her straw.
She seemed to take little interest in the subject.

"What did you want me to take back Leah for, anyway?" she asked.

"I think she's honest and devoted.  She's thoroughly fine.  Do you
realize what temptations a girl might have who knew that you forgot
things?"

"I suppose she would.  I never thought of that."  As she spoke she
crushed the ant with a twig.

"And Leah's mother was your nurse, too, wasn't she?"

"Yes, but Leah presumes on that and thinks that she can do anything she
wants. Doctor Copin doesn't like her, either.  He's got another girl he
wants me to engage."

I couldn't help exclaiming, "Oh, I hope you won't!"

"Well, perhaps I won't, if you don't want me to, Chet.  I was going to
ask your advice about it.  It'll make the doctor furious, but I don't
mind.  Poor Doctor Copin!  I'm sorry for him, though.  He's awfully hard
up."

"Why!  Is he so poor?" I smelled a mouse.

"He's all the time complaining to me, at any rate."

"I should think you'd be afraid to keep much money in the house.  It's
such a lonely place for burglars, you know."

"Oh, I don't keep much on hand.  But I always have a little.  I have a
small income. It comes down every month.  It's rents or stocks or
something.  It's safely invested and I don't bother about it."

It struck me that she took all this rather easily, but I soon found that
it was the way she took everything.  It had always been that way with
her, and she saw nothing strange in it.  Her amnesia accounted for
everything.  I saw how easily she might be led.  Impressionable, and
with a hasty, wilful temper, one who knew her temperament could soon
learn to control her.  I began to see how Leah's influence, which had
heretofore been potent, might, perhaps, be undermined by the doctor.
Here was the next thing to be investigated.  But I would have to wait
till I had had a talk with him.

She plucked a dandelion and put it into my buttonhole, looking up at me
coquettishly as she did so.

"Chet, d'you know, I like you!" she remarked.

"Oh, I'm not a bit offended at that," said I.

"I wish I could make you like me a little."

"You _are_ looking for a sinecure, aren't you!"

She returned to her ants and poked at them meditatively.

"I don't know why I tell you such things," she went on.  "I've never
done so before. But you understand--don't you!"

Oh, yes.  I understood.  I had heard that sort of thing often enough
before.

"I like you because you treat me just as you'd treat a man.  You're not
always remembering that I'm a woman.  The doctor--"  She broke off.  I
understood this, too, but it amazed me to find that she, so far away
from the world, could have so easily found the woman's way.

"You've got a perfectly stunning profile," was her next play.

I showed her how, by pressing in the tip of my nose, it could be made
decidedly Hebraic in contour.  She pulled my hand away with a pretty
protest at the outrage to my looks.

Next, she complained that her hair was "horrid," and that after it was
shampooed she could never do anything with it; she calmly took it down
and combed it, a fine silken cascade of brown.  It was quite beautiful
enough to warrant the exhibition, which she ended by plaiting it into
two magnificent braids falling below her waist.  Finally, she got up and
gave me her coat to hold for her while she put it on, a process which
she delayed unnecessarily, snuggling slowly into the sleeves and looking
coyly up at me over her shoulder.  Then she seized my hand, and, before
I knew it, had started to run me down the hill.  She stumbled and
fell--on purpose, I'm confident--and I picked her up.  How such contacts
and familiarities affected me, considering my growing fondness for Miss
Fielding, I leave you to imagine.

We walked down the path as gleefully as children playing truant, and,
arrived at the stable, she proposed that we go in to examine my machine,
which she was anxious to try.  The dogs had been shut up in the
harness-room, and as soon as we approached, they set up a discordant
barking.  Edna scowled and went to the door to look in.

"Stop that noise!" she commanded irritably.  A new chorus assailed her.

She had opened the door only a crack, but, as she spoke, Nokomis
wriggled through, forcing it open, and, crouching in front of her, ears
laid back, growled angrily.  Quick as a flash Edna took up a short whip
that stood in the corner and lashed at the bitch. Nokomis was upon her
in an instant, and, before I could prevent, had seized her ankle and
nipped it severely.  Edna screamed and struck again, this time with the
butt of the whip, hitting Nokomis squarely on the forehead.

Yelping, Nokomis released her hold and with her tail between her legs
dashed out of the stable door and disappeared.

Meanwhile, I had closed the door of the harness-room and had run to
Edna.  Her face was white, with sudden rage rather than pain.  Nokomis
had given her only a nip--the skin was not cut.

"I'll have them all shot to-morrow, if I have to do it myself!" she
cried.

I did my best to calm her, and in a few moments she had recovered her
temper enough to laugh at the episode, though her spite against Nokomis
remained.  She forgot it in my explanation of the motor, which she
examined with great intelligence.

Luncheon was ready when we reached the house and we went into the
dining-room. Here it was dim and cool and we fell naturally into a more
placid humor.  Edna seemed less the impetuous, irresponsible child she
had been that forenoon, and I got my first hint of what was
characteristic of her in this condition--that, as the day wore on, she
seemed to grow steadily older and more developed mentally.

Over her shoulder the tapestry paper showed a picture of the combat
between James Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu; behind her the door opened
and shut from time to time admitting King with his dainty dishes.  He
came and went like a ghost, all in white, while Leah, in a dark gown
to-day, hovered like a shadow in the kitchen.

Edna had an amusing and not unpleasant sort of _gaminerie_ at table.
She was fond of selecting the daintiest, littlest piece of celery from
the dish and tossing it over to my plate. She did not hesitate to use
her fingers in cunning, unconventional ways, not as if she knew no
better, but as if she knew herself to be pretty enough, and charming
enough, to invest the solecism with a personal indulgent humor.  So she
dipped her bread in the gravy audaciously, so she crushed her
strawberries with her fork to a red welter of pulp, and added cream with
a flourish. She carried it off perfectly; it was quite a distracting
sight.

At two o'clock we got out my machine and set out for the station to meet
Doctor Copin, she guiding the car according to my instructions. She was
an apt pupil, and though the first stretch of rough lane required
considerable skill in handling the motor, we got out to the highroad
without accident, and put on top speed.  The excitement of it kindled
her spirits and a dangerous light shone in her eyes.  She was bareheaded
and the wind brought a fine glow to her cheeks.

"Isn't it great!" she exclaimed.  "I'm going to get a car the first
thing I do."

Her touch was clever and firm on the wheel, and she passed from one
speed to another and handled the spark like an expert, already.  There
was no time for much coquetry, now, but I got a glance now and then on
the straight level runs.  She swung up to the station with style, and my
hand, though ready to help her, was not needed.  I congratulated her
upon her skill and she was pleased as a child.

"Oh, I'm going to show the doctor!" she cried.  "You wait till he gets
in and I'll give him a run for his money!"

The train appeared in a few minutes, and Doctor Copin, with his
professional bag, got out from the parlor-car.  He seemed to be much
surprised at seeing me.  I thought that I detected something like
annoyance, too, in his expression.  I wondered if she had not informed
him of my being at Midmeadows when she had telephoned in the morning.
He greeted me cordially enough, however, inquired as to my condition,
made a dull joke about my ribs, and got into the back seat of the car.
I kept my place in front beside Edna, coaching her as we went along.

I talked commonplaces to the doctor, who replied laconically, and Edna,
being absorbed with her work, kept quiet, her lips closed tightly, her
eyes on the road ahead, waiting for her chance to make speed.  After we
had got a little outside the village there was a sharp up-grade, and I
saw her hand fly to the speed lever.

"Be careful how you throw in that clutch," I warned her.  "Give it to
her easy, now!"

Her thought was all for impressing the doctor with her ability as a
_chauffeuse_, however, and she was too impatient.  She released the
clutch and threw her lever back to second speed.  By the time she
dropped her clutch back in again, however, the car had lost momentum,
stopped and begun to roll down-hill, the engine still going furiously.
The gears meshed, but something had to give under the strain, and with a
snap the chain parted.  The freed motor shook the car with its velocity.
I grabbed the throttle from her, stopped the engine, set the brake, and
the car came to a standstill.

"Oh!" she wailed, "I've broken something, haven't I?"

"I'm afraid you have," I answered, laughing. "But I'll see what can be
done."

I crawled underneath the car, taking the attitude that has now become
classic, and saw that it would be a case of fastening in a new link.  I
backed out, looked in my tool-box and found that there were no extra
links there.

"I can't mend the thing here," I explained. "You and the doctor will
have to get out and walk and leave me here.  You'd better send some one
back with a horse to tow me home."

She almost cried with shame and regret, but there was nothing for it but
to do as I had suggested.  I noticed a faint smile on the doctor's thin
face.  He was undoubtedly glad of the dilemma, as it would temporarily
rid him of my company.

"It's too bad I can't sew it up for you," he said dryly.  "I'm afraid it
will require a capital operation, Castle.  You'd better have a
consultation with Uncle Jerdon.  But if you need any anesthetic to keep
it out of pain while you're waiting, I'll lend you my bag."

"Oh, my machine is used to it, you know," I replied.  "If you'll only
send back the coroner it'll be all right."

"Well, we'll hope for a _change_ soon," he said.  I verily believe the
man meant it for a pun, for he closed one eye as he got it off. Edna
giggled.

So they set out and left me.  I took a seat, lighted a cigar, and waited
as patiently as I could, not at all pleased at the thought of his having
a free hour or two with her.  At last Uncle Jerdon appeared on the
scene, driving a span of horses.

"Hello," he greeted me.  "The same old, sweet song, eh?  Well, we all
have to come to it, sooner or later.  You ought to lead a hoss behind
when you go.  I'd as soon trust to an airship."

He harnessed his team to the car, and we proceeded slowly home.  It was
a humiliating experience, as it always is, but Uncle Jerdon was plainly
hugely amused at my predicament.

"I guess the doctor wan't sorry ye had to stop here alone," he remarked.
"He's a-makin' the most of his time, naow, I expect. Nothin' like a
little friendly rivalry for a bashful man."

"How long have you been back?" I asked, not caring for his
personalities.

"Oh, I jest happened to meet 'em in the north lane as I come.  I guess
they wan't expectin' to see nobody there, by the way it looked.  Miss
Fielding ain't so crazy but what she knows what she's abaout sometimes,
I tell ye!"  At which he went off into an ebullition of silent laughter.
This was disquieting enough information, for I could guess what he had
seen, though I couldn't afford to encourage him.  So I changed the
subject.

"How long have you been down here with Miss Fielding!"

"Goin' on two year," he answered.

"I suppose the neighbors talk about her a good deal?"

"I reckon they do!  But they don't get nothin' outen me.  I sit an' look
wise an' chew a straw an' let 'em talk.  Lord, how they do try to pump
me!"

"Doesn't she ever see any of them?"

"Oh, yes, sometimes, when she's O.K., but she don't encourage 'em
callin' much.  They think she's so high and mighty, though, that they
don't bother her to any great extent."

He proceeded now of his own accord.

"She's happy enough alone, I take it. Lord!  I don't mind her at all.  I
attend to my business and she to hern.  It ain't as if I was a woman an'
curious, ye know.  But when she abuses dumb critters, then I do get mad.
I jes' see ol' Nokomis in the hazels, as I come past.  She had her tail
atween her laigs, an' I'm afraid that means trouble.  I usually see to
it that the dogs is got outen the way when she's looney, but I expect
Leah must have forgot to attend to 'em.  Funny King didn't, either.  But
it will happen on occasion.  Some day they's goin' to be trouble.  Ol'
Nokomis knows more'n most folks herself.  I believe King's crazy, too.
He's got a heathen idol in his cabin he's all the time worshipin'.
Burns punk-sticks an' a little peanut-oil lamp in front of it, night an'
day.  But I get my own quiet fun outen it all.  I'm satisfied."

We got the car safely home, and I spent the rest of the afternoon, with
Uncle Jerdon's assistance, in mending the chain and doing other
necessary cleaning and repairs. Miss Fielding and Doctor Copin stayed
shut in the library.  When I had gone up to my room to clean myself,
Leah, came in, bearing fresh towels.

"Oh, Mr. Castle, can't you go in and join them?" she said.  "I hate to
have them alone for so long--you don't know how I dread it!"

"What are you afraid of?" I asked.

"I don't know!  I don't know!  Only I don't trust him."

"Have you seen anything more?"

"Enough to make me worried."  Then she brought out painfully, "Mr.
Castle, do you think we would have any right to--to listen!"

"You mean really to eavesdrop?"

"Yes."  There was a look of pain in her eyes.  I saw by this confession
how far she had gone with her fears.

"I hardly think so, yet," I answered.  "It would be pretty hard for us
to do, wouldn't it?"

"But you remember that Miss Joy said, last night, that she would leave
it all to your judgment.  Oughtn't we, to protect her, perhaps, find out
just what it is he's doing?"

I thought it over at length.  But it was a resource that I couldn't help
wanting to leave till the last.  After all, it wasn't as bad as that,
yet.  Except in Edna's familiarities with me, and Leah's vague fears, I
had no reason for fearing anything wrong.  All depended upon the
doctor's motives in being alone with her.  He might, indeed, be making
love to her, but then, perhaps he was truly in love; he might even want
to marry her.  It was a maddening thought for me, but, after all, it
was, strictly, none of my business.  He had a right to try to woo her,
and it couldn't, at any rate, go far without Joy herself becoming aware
of it.  She would be the first to acknowledge that Edna had a right to
permit it.  If, however, he were dishonest in his motive, if he were,
for instance, after her money, that was quite another matter, and it was
obviously my place to interfere.  We should have, at least, to see that
Edna could not get hold of any property.

Lastly, and this seemed, at that time, most probable, he might only be
carrying on a series of experiments with an interesting patient for some
technical end.  True, Joy had herself refused to permit him to treat
her, and this probably accounted for his devoting himself to Edna; but
it was not, so far as I could see, dangerous.  My position, therefore,
was a delicate one, and I made up my mind to have another talk with Joy
before showing my hand in interference.

I went over all this with Leah and she listened attentively.  She
iterated that she didn't trust Doctor Copin, and that she feared there
was danger at hand.  I could see that the hint that he might want to
marry Edna frightened her most of all.

"How can I tell Miss Joy?" she said. "How can I hint that Edna is too
free with him--and all the rest that I suspect?  Why, Mr. Castle, if she
knew that, it would kill her! But _oughtn't_ I tell her?  Is it fair for
her not to know?  It's the most awful situation! I can't bear to think
of it!  We must save her from herself, though, as well as from the
knowledge of herself--do you see?"

She was sensitively alive to the intricate phases of honor that were
entangled in the situation, and, showing such fineness and delicacy, I
could quite ignore the fact that she was a negress.  But that was merely
the negative aspect of my admiration for her.  From this time on, the
more I was thrown with her in the intimate way required by our
cooeperation, the more I began actually to find in her a positive
beauty, a beauty that was truly of her race and type--a beauty that
foreshadowed what, were environment to permit its development, her race
might in time attain, when, even though the skin were still dark, the
features, insensibly modified by mental processes, would lose something
of the extravagance of modeling now so repellent to whites.

Such vision came in moments like this, when her spirit was aroused and
free.  Usually, and always when suffering patiently the contempt or
anger of Edna, I saw her only as the personification of loyalty, the
loyalty of the hound who licks the hand that smites him. It was then as
if her woman's soul were crushed back farther into the figure of the
servant.  But always those two qualities were finely blended in her--she
was slave and friend, not alternately but at once.  One dwelt with the
other in perfect peace.  No hunchback ever carried his deformity with a
nobler grace than she the trial of her color.

Miss Fielding and the doctor remained closeted together till
dinner-time, when we three met at table.  She was slightly flushed and
her eyes were keen and bright.  It was as if she somehow saw more--as if
she had passed from that curious, mentally apathetic state which I have
called childlike, and were inspecting a new world.  But this analysis,
no doubt, comes from what I learned later rather than from my
observation at that time.  Perhaps all that impressed me then was that
she had, in some way, changed.  I could find no way in which to account
for the precise degree of difference that I noticed. She was alternately
gay and abstracted, at which latter times she fell unconsciously into
poses so like those of her normal self--Joy's self--that it gave me,
often, a start of surprise.

But, as if to cover all this, the doctor was more than usually jocose in
a mechanical way so devoid of real humor that it irritated me.  Try as I
might, I could not get him to talk seriously.  At every remark or
question of mine, he threw me off with some nons

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