He was plainly vacillating. "Think of the fat news-items my flight will add to the stew."
Kate shuddered. "Oh, I know! I hope you don"t blame me.--It"s true, I _am_ to blame. I _did_ insist on your going to see her." She was beginning to suffer with this thought, when he put out his hand and drew her to him with affectionate wish to comfort her.
"Don"t a.s.sume that worry, Kit. She profoundly interested me from the first, and I do not regret my acquaintance with her--even at this moment. I believe she is essentially untouched by this business and that she can be cleansed of all Clarke"s influence. His death removes her worst enemy; and if I can persuade her parents to leave her with us, I am perfectly certain I can root out the deepest of her delusions."
"Then go," she said, in final surrender. "Conventions ought not to count against saving a sweet, good girl. Go and help her, and if you bring her back here, I"ll receive her gladly."
Morton opened the door, and while Kate went to Viola he said: "Mr.
Lambert, if you will add me to your party, I will be glad to go with you."
Lambert seized his host"s hand and wrung it hard. "My boy, you save my life! I thought of asking you, but I couldn"t find the nerve. We"ll all need you--the girl worst of all." Tears were in his eyes as he added, huskily; "Yes, we need you."
Viola, with shining face, came running towards them, "Oh, Professor Serviss! Is it true? Are you going?"
"Yes, if you will let me."
"Let you! Oh, you don"t know what it means to have you with us."
He looked down upon her with a smile whose full message she could not read, but it expressed something very tender and disconcerting. "You can"t know what it means to me to go. You see, I daren"t quite trust you alone with these indulgent parents and as your physician it is my duty to see that my prescriptions are fully carried out."
During the bustle of preparation for the journey, he found opportunity to rea.s.sure Kate: "Thus far, she has no inkling of what is in our minds." He closed his fist as if shaking it in the face of an implacable foe, and, through his set teeth, added: "I accept the challenge! I welcome you and all your dark band to the utterance!"
Kate turned pale. "Don"t say that!" she whispered. "It"s like tempting Providence."
"I fear neither Providence nor demons; but I am afraid of you. Keep away from Viola as much as you can. If there is any truth in mind-reading she is likelier to divine your thought than mine."
Kate"s eyes suddenly grew dim. "Morton, I brought this on you, and I"m beginning to doubt. I don"t believe I want you to go with her, after all." She put her hands on his shoulders and gave way to a feeling of loss and loneliness. "I"ve always hoped--I"ve always looked forward to your having a splendid, dignified wife; and though I like her. I don"t believe--she"s up to you."
"Now, don"t trouble about that, sis. The important thing to me is, am I worthy of her? She entered my heart the first time I saw her, and has never left it. She came at a time when I was certain no woman would ever move me again. I am indebted to her--now, that"s the truth.
And so"--he stooped and kissed her--"if she decides to come to me, I shall feel grateful to you. If she decides not to come--you can be grateful to her!"
XXII
THE SPIRITUAL RESCUE
With a conviction that he was entering upon a new order in his life, Morton Serviss opened the door of the coach for Viola and her mother.
Never before had he evaded a contest, or asked for consideration from authority, and deceit had been quite foreign to him; but now, after a deceptive word to the hall-boy, he was conscious of furtively scanning the people approaching on the walk, aware of his weakness and his doubt, for no man of regular and candid life can become a fugitive with entire belief in the righteousness of his flight. He must perforce of conscience look back for a moment.
Once within the carriage he put all question aside and joined Lambert in his attempt to keep from the women the slightest suspicion that his sudden departure involved any serious change in their fortunes. The miner had taken his place beside his wife, thus bringing the young people side by side on the forward seat, and this arrangement had much to do with filling Morton"s mind with a new and delicious content, for Viola"s face was almost constantly lifted to his, and at every lurch of the vehicle her soft shoulder touched his arm, while the faint perfume of her garments rose like some enchanter"s incense, dulling his sense of duties abandoned, quickening his delight in her beauty, and restoring his joy in his own youth. What did the judgment of the world matter at such a time?
He said little on the ride, just enough to hold the conversation to subjects far removed from the causes of their retreat. He was convinced of Viola"s ability to read (in a vague way) what lay in his thought, but he also believed in his power to prevent this by a positive and aggressive att.i.tude of mind. Beneath his silences, as beneath his words, ran an undercurrent of suggestion from his subliminal self to hers. Lambert rose n.o.bly to his duty and directed the conversation to the mine and its increasing generosity of output, and to news of the men and their families in whom Viola took deep interest. In the midst of this most wholesome recollection they ended their drive.
At the station Morton remained on guard with the women, while Lambert attended to the trunks and boxes, and at the earliest moment, with care not to betray haste, they pa.s.sed through the gates and into their car, but no feeling of relief came to either of the men till the train began to move. Then Lambert, with a profound sigh, exclaimed: "Well, now we"re off and we"ve got the trunks, so let"s be happy."
Mrs. Lambert alone remained sad and distraught, and her husband soon drew her away to their own seat, leaving the young people together, a deed for which Morton silently, but none the less fervently, thanked him, affording as it did the chance for his long-desired personal explanation.
The car was spa.r.s.ely occupied and the section opposite was quite empty, and, with a sense of being quite alone with Viola, he lightly began: "I feel like a truant school-boy, and I"m wondering what Weissmann will say to-morrow morning when his "first-a.s.sistant" fails to appear."
"I hope you are not neglecting your work for--for us," she said, losing a little of her brightness.
"Nothing will suffer. I do not profess to be the main prop of our laboratory, and, besides, I don"t care. I"m off for a holiday, whether or no." At the word "holiday" Clarke"s grisly shadow rose between them and would not down. To the suicide his holiday was due.
Viola again seemed to dimly divine his thought, for she hesitatingly said: "I am troubled about Mr. Clarke. I must write him a letter and tell him that I don"t hate him now. I really begin to feel sorry for him, and I wish I hadn"t been so hard."
"You have nothing to reproach yourself for, and you would better let him pa.s.s entirely out of your life, and be glad the wrench is over,"
he decisively replied.
She sighed and shivered a little. "He knew we were deserting him. His look haunts me. I wish I had stopped to say good-bye. He will be very lonely without us."
"He is too fanatic to win my sympathy, and he has forfeited yours."
"But he was sincere, professor. He really wanted to make the world happier."
He was resolute to keep her mind clear of all thought of Clarke, and imperiously said: "Don"t call me professor, and let"s talk of other and pleasanter things than Clarke. We are well out of his shadow-world, and you are never to re-enter it. I want you to forget that you ever sat in a "circle" or heard a "voice.""
"Oh, I can"t expect to pa.s.s entirely out of that," she exclaimed, as though the possibility came near her for the first time. "On mother"s account I must continue to sit now and then. She couldn"t live without her communion with papa and Waltie."
This brought him face to face with his opportunity, and he seized it manfully. "Your saying that, gives me opportunity for saying something which has been taking shape in my mind since last night. I do not pretend to fully understand the basis of your mother"s faith, and I do not blame her, but I am filled with indignation that you should be called upon to suffer bondage to the dead. I rebel against it." His voice was tense with feeling. "And I will not have it so. I lunched to-day with Dr. Tolman, of whom you"ve heard me speak, and after describing your case to him--without using your name, of course--I asked his opinion. In reply he gave me every encouragement. The fact that you are young and in good physical health, he said, makes it possible for you to become as normal as any other girl."
"Do you believe that, Dr. Serviss?"
"I am perfectly certain of it, if you will meet my conditions. I am confident of my power to free you from your trances and all their phenomena, but you must, at once and for all time, break every tie that binds you to your "controls.""
"I"m afraid they will not consent."
"You must not say such a thing, much less think it," he sharply interrupted. "Your soul, your mind, should be sovereign. You should look rather to science for guidance"--here he smiled meaningly--"and to me, of course, as a representative of science. If you acknowledge the authority of the dead, or even that of your mother, my power is to that extent curtailed. It is to be in effect a war of light and darkness, science and superst.i.tion. We are willing to join issue with your shadow foes, provided your best self is with us in the struggle.
I engage myself to free you if you will permit me to act."
She leaned towards him with pale face and limpid, heavenly eyes. "You have been good to me, but I cannot ask you to fight my battles. You have so much else to do in the world."
"I have nothing better to do," he responded, with a lover"s glance.
"Nothing can interest me so profoundly; nothing will give me greater pleasure."
She went on, fervently: "I can"t tell you how you comfort me. When you are near me I have no fear of anything; but you oughtn"t to give up your work to treat me. We can never pay you for what you"ve already done for us."
"Don"t try, and pray don"t exaggerate my sacrifices. You must remember I am an investigator, and you--are a most absorbing problem." She drew away from him slightly, and he returned to a more serious tone. "The influence of mind over mind is the present, or at least the coming, problem, and you have opened a new world to me. The question of your future, your cure, absorbs me, and while I am by no means a rich man, as money runs these days, I am quite able to follow out any line of investigation which may interest me."
Her face clouded, "I wish I didn"t have to be investigated."
"So do I, and that brings up something which I must say, even at the risk of seeming hard and cruel. If you wish to live your full, free life, you must cut yourself off from _all_ of your old a.s.sociations.
Clarke and Pratt have pa.s.sed out of your life, but your mother--" He paused abruptly. When he resumed his tone was almost pleading: "You have said that you trusted me, that you wished for my help. Did you mean it?"
"I did, indeed I did!"