Mrs. Bowers persuaded him to take another cup of hot coffee, and then together they returned to the little apartment above to wait for the coming of the doctor and Mrs. Joyce. The young mother became philosophical at once. "After a body gets to be forty I tell you he don"t know what"s going to happen next. I reckon you better set here where you can"t see the bed," she added, kindly. "It don"t do any good, and it only makes you grieve the harder."
He obeyed her like a child and listened through his mist of tears as she rambled on. "I"ve had my share of trouble," she explained. "First my mother went, then my oldest boy, then my husband took sick. Yes, a body has to face trouble about so often, anyway, and, besides, I don"t suppose your mother was afraid of death, anyhow. I"ve known all along what her business was, ever since I came into the house, and I"ve been up to see her a few times. Still I"m not much of a believer. Dad is, though. It"s his greatest affliction that he can"t hear The Voices any more. I want to say I believe in your mother. She was a mighty fine woman; but the docterin of spiritualism I never could swaller, notwithstanding I grew up "longside of it."
The sound of a decisive step on the stairs cut her short. "I bet a cookie that"s the doctor!"
A clear, crisp, incisive voice responded to her greeting at the door, and a moment later a beardless, rather fat young fellow was confronting Victor with professional, smiling eyes. "You"re not the patient," he stated, rather than asked. Victor shook his head and pointed to the bed.
With quick step the physician entered the bedroom and set to work upon the motionless form with methodical haste. He was still busy in this way when the whir of a motor car announced Mrs. Joyce.
Victor was at the door to meet her, and when she saw him she opened her arms and took him to her broad, maternal bosom. "You poor boy!" she said, patting his shoulder. "You"re having more than your share of trouble."
He frankly sobbed out his penitence and grief. "Oh, Mrs. Joyce! She"s gone, and I was so hard last night. I"ll never forgive myself for what I said to her."
She again patted him on the shoulder with intent to comfort him. "There, there! I don"t believe you have anything to reproach yourself for, and, then, remember your mother"s beautiful faith. She has not gone far away.
Her heaven is not distant. She is very near. She has merely cast off the garment we call flesh. She is here, close beside you, closer than ever before, touching you, knowing what you think and feel."
In this way she comforted him, and in a measure drew his mind away from the memory of his cruel and unfilial words.
Sill approached her with thoughtful glance. "Are you related to this woman?"
"No, I am only a friend," replied Mrs. Joyce; "but this is her son."
"When did you discover your mother"s present condition?"
"This morning."
"Did you fold her hands and put her in the position she occupies?"
"No, that is the strange thing. When I left her last night she was--she was lying across the bed, face downward. I had just told her that I was going away and that I wanted her to go with me. She refused to do this and tried to get The Voices to speak to her. They would not come, and so she, being hurt, I suppose, by what I said, ran into the room and flung herself down on the bed, weeping. I was angry at her and did not speak to her again. I went to sleep out here on the couch, and did not see her again till morning. When I looked in at eight o"clock she was lying just as she is now."
Sill eyed him keenly. "Do you mean that you quarreled?"
Mrs. Joyce interposed. "I can explain that," she said. "Mrs. Ollnee was my friend. She was what is called a medium. She is the Mrs. Ollnee you may have read about in the papers."
"Ah!" Sill"s tone conveyed a mingling of surprise and increased interest. "So you are the son of Mrs. Ollnee?" he said, turning to Victor.
Mrs. Joyce again answered for him. "Yes; he has been away at school; he came home Sunday to comfort and protect his mother; but, unfortunately, he does not accept her faith. He rebelled against her work, and demanded that she give up her Voices. I can understand his wanting her to go away with him, and I can understand also how painful it was to her; but I don"t believe that what he said had anything to do with her pa.s.sing out.
She was very frail at best, and has many times said that she expected to leave the body in one of her trances and never again resume her worn-out garment."
"She was subject to trances, then?"
"Yes, though not strictly a trance-medium, she did occasionally pa.s.s out of the body."
"May I take your name?"
"Certainly; I am Mrs. John H. Joyce, of Prairie Avenue."
His manner changed. "Oh yes. I should have known you, Mrs. Joyce, I have seen you before. What you tell me does not explain the disposal of Mrs.
Ollnee"s body. She must have gone to her death consciously, as if preparing to sleep. Perhaps she intended only to enter a trance."
Mrs. Joyce started. "She may be in trance now! Have you thought of that, Doctor?"
Victor"s heart bounded at the suggestion. "Do you think it possible?" he asked, excitedly.
Sill remained unmoved. "She does not respond to any test, I"m sorry to say. Life is extinct."
The entrance of Doctor Eberly, a tall, stooping man with deep-set eyes and a sad, worn face, cut short this explanation. Eberly was Mrs.
Joyce"s family physician, and taking him aside she presented the case.
Eberly knew Doctor Sill, and together they returned to Mrs. Ollnee"s bedside while Mrs. Joyce kept Victor as far away from their examination as possible.
"There have been many cases of this deep trance, Victor, and we must not permit the coroner to come till we are absolutely convinced that your mother has gone out never to return."
"She must come back," he cried, huskily. "She did so much for me. I want to do something for her."
"You did a great deal for her, my dear boy. It was a great joy and comfort to her to see you growing into manhood. She was a little afraid of you, but she worshiped you all the same. Your letters were an ecstasy to her."
"And I wrote so seldom," he groaned. "I was so busy with my games, my studies, I hardly thought of her. If she will only come back to me I will give up everything for her."
"She understood you, Victor. She was a wonderful little woman, lovely in her serene, high thought. She lived on a lofty plane."
"I begin to see that," he answered, contritely. "I understand her better now."
The kindly Mrs. Bowers had slipped away back to her household below, and the men of science were still deep in a low-toned, deliberate discussion, so that Victor and the woman he now knew to be his best friend were left to confront each other in mutual study. He was wondering at her interest in him, and she was weighing his grief and remorse, thinking enviously of his youth and bodily perfection. "I wish you were my son," she uttered, wistfully.
Doctor Eberly again approached, walking in that quaint, sidewise fashion which had made him the subject of jocose remark among his pupils at the medical school.
Mrs. Joyce was instant in inquiry. "How is she, Doctor?"
"Life is extinct," he replied, with fateful precision.
"Are you sure?" she demanded.
"Reasonably so. One is never sure of anything that concerns the human organism," he replied, wearily.
She warned him: "You must remember she was accustomed to these trances."
"So I understand. Nevertheless, this is something more than trance. So far as I can determine, this body is without a tenant."
"The tenant may come back," she insisted.
He looked away. "I know your faith, but I am quite sure all is over.
_Rigor mortis_ has set in."
She rose emphatically. "I have a feeling that you are both mistaken. Let me see her. Come, Victor, why do you shrink? It is but her garment lying there."
She led the way to the bedside and laid her warm, plump hands on the pale, thin, cold, and rigid fingers of her friend. She stooped and peered into the sightless visage. "Lucy, are you present? Can you see me?"
Doctor Sill then said: "The eyes alone puzzle me. The pupils are not precisely--"