"I remember nothing that happened before I was nine years old," she said.
He bent down suddenly and looked into her face. "Weir, what do you mean? There is always an uncomfortable suggestion of mystery whenever one speaks of your mother or your childhood. What is the reason you cannot remember? Did you have brain fever, and when you recovered, find your mind a blank? Such things have happened."
"No," she said, desperately, as if she had nerved herself for an effort. "That was not it. I have often wanted to tell you, but I cannot bear to speak of it. The old horror always comes back when I think of it. But I feel that I ought to tell you before we are married, and I will do so now since we are speaking of it. I did not have brain fever, but when I was nine years old--I died."
"You what?"
"Yes, it is true. They called it catalepsy, a trance; but it was not; I was really dead. I was thrown from a horse a few months after my mother"s death, and killed instantly. They laid me in the family vault, but my father had ice put about me and would not have me covered, and went every hour to see me, as he told me afterward. I remember nothing; and they say that when people are in a trance they are conscious of everything that pa.s.ses around them. I knew nothing until one night I suddenly opened my eyes and looked about me. It was just such a night as this, only in mid-winter; the wind was howling and shrieking, and the terrible gusts shook the vault in which I lay.
The ocean roared like thunder, and I could hear it hurl itself in its fury against the rocks at the foot of the castle. A lamp was burning at my feet, and by its flickering light I could see in their niches on every side of me the long lines of dead who had lain there for centuries. And I was alone with them, locked in with them; no living creature within call! And I was so deathly cold. There was a great block of ice on my chest, and slabs of it were packed about my limbs so tightly that I could not move. I could only feel that horrible, gla.s.sy cold which I knew had frozen the marrow in my bones and turned my blood to jelly; and the pain of it was something which I have no words to describe. I tried to call out, but the ice was on my chest, and I could hardly breathe. Then for a moment I lay trying to collect my thoughts. I did not know where I was. I did not know that I was in the vault of my ancestors. I only felt that I had been wandering and wandering in some dim, far-off land looking for someone I could never find, and that suddenly I had come into another world and found rest.
But although I did not know that I was in the vault at Rhyd-Alwyn, and that my name was Weir Penrhyn, I knew that I was laid out as a corpse, and that the dead were about me. Child as I was, it seemed to me that I must go frantic with the horror of the thing, stretched out in that ghastly place, a storm roaring about me, bound hand and foot, unable to cry for help. I think that if I had been left there all night I should have died again or lost my mind, but in a moment I heard a noise at the grating and men"s voices.
""I must go in and see her once more," I heard a strange voice say.
"It seems cruelty to leave her alone in this storm." And then a man came in and bent over me. In a moment he called sharply, "Madoc!--bring me the light." And then another man came, and I looked up into two strange, eager, almost terrified faces. I heard incoherent and excited voices, then the ice was dashed off my chest and I was caught up in a pair of strong arms and borne swiftly to the house.
They took me to a great blazing fire and wrapped me in blankets and poured hot drinks down my throat, and soon that terrible chill began to leave me and the congealed blood in my veins to thaw. And in a few days I was as well as ever again. But I remembered no one. I had to become acquainted with them all as with the veriest strangers. I had the natural intelligence of my years, but nothing more. Between the hour of my soul"s flight from its body and that of its return it had been robbed of every memory. I remembered neither my mother nor any incident of my childhood. I could not find my way over the castle, and the rocks on which I had lived since infancy were strangers to me.
Everything was a blank up to the hour when I opened my eyes and found myself between the narrow walls of a coffin."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Dartmouth. "Why, you are a regular heroine of a sensational novel."
Weir sprang to her feet and struck her hands fiercely together, her eyes blazing. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she cried, pa.s.sionately. "Can you never be serious? Must you joke about everything? I believe you will find something to laugh at in the marriage service. That thing I have told you is the most serious and horrible experience of my life, and yet you treat it as if I were acting a part in a melodrama in a third-rate theatre! Sometimes I think I hate you."
Dartmouth caught her in his arms and forced her to sit down again beside him. "My dear girl," he said, "why is it that a woman can never understand that when a man feels most he chaffs, especially if he has cultivated the beastly habit. Your story stirred me powerfully; the more so because such things do not happen to every-day girls--"
"Harold!"
"Do not wrong me; I am in dead earnest. As a plain matter of fact, I never heard of anything so horrible. Thank heaven it happened when you were so young! No woman"s will and spirit could rise superior to such a memory if it were a recent one. But am I forgiven?"
"As you are perfectly incorrigible, I suppose there is no use being angry with you," she said, still with a little pout on her lips. "But I will forgive you on one condition only."
"Name it."
"You are never to mention the subject to me again after to-night."
"I never will; but tell me, has the memory of your childhood never come back for a moment?"
"Never. All I remember is that sense of everlasting wandering and looking for something. For a long while I was haunted with the idea that there was something I still must find. I never could discover what it was, but it has left me now. If you had not been so unkind, I should have said that it is because I am too happy for mysterious and somewhat supernatural longings."
"But as it is, you won"t. It was an odd feeling to have, though.
Perhaps it was a quest for the memories of your childhood--for a lost existence, as it were. If ever it comes again, tell me, and we will try and work it out together."
"Harold!" she exclaimed, smiling outright this time, "you will be trying to a.n.a.lyze the cobwebs of heaven before long."
"No," he said, "they are too dense."
VI.
It was eleven o"clock when they parted for the night. Dartmouth went up to his room and sat down at his desk to write a letter to his father. In a moment he threw down the pen; he was not in a humor for writing. He picked up a book (he never went to bed until he felt sleepy), and crossed the room and sat down before the fire. But he had not read two pages when he dropped it with an exclamation of impatience: the story Weir had told him was written between every line. She had told it so vividly and realistically that she had carried him with her and almost curdled his blood. He had answered her with a joke, because, in spite of the fact that he had been strongly affected, he was angry as well. He hated melodrama, and the idea of Weir having had an experience which read like a sensational column in a newspaper was extremely distasteful to him. He sympathized with her with all his heart, but he had a strong distaste for anything which savored of the supernatural. Nevertheless, he was obliged to acknowledge that this horrible, if commonplace experience of Weir"s had taken possession of his mind, and refused to be evicted. The scene kept presenting itself in all its details again and again, and finally he jumped to his feet in disgust and determined to go to the long gallery which overhung the sea, and watch the storm. Rhyd-Alwyn was built on a steep cliff directly on the coast, and exposed to all the fury of the elements. In times of storm, and when the waves were high, the spray flew up against the lower windows.
He left his room and went down the wide hall, then turned into a corridor, which terminated in a gallery that had been built as a sort of observatory. The gallery was long and very narrow, and the floor was bare. But there were seats under the windows, and on a table were a number of books; it was a place Dartmouth and Weir were very fond of when it was not too cold.
It was a clear, moonlit night, in spite of the storm. There was no rain; it was simply a battle of wind and waves. Dartmouth stood at one of the windows and looked out over the angry waters. The billows were piling one above the other, black, foam-crested, raging like wild animals beneath the lash of the shrieking wind. Moon and stars gazed down calmly, almost wonderingly, holding their unperturbed watch over the war below. Sublime, forceful, the sight suited the somewhat excited condition of Dartmouth"s mind. Moreover, he was beginning to feel that one of his moods was insidiously creeping upon him: not an attack like the last, but a general feeling of melancholy. If he could only put that wonderful scene before him into verse, what a solace and distraction the doing of it would be! He could forget--he pulled himself together with something like terror. In another moment there would be a repet.i.tion of that night in Paris. The best thing he could do was to go back to his room and take an anodyne.
He turned to leave the gallery, but as he did so he paused suddenly.
Far down, at the other end, something was slowly coming toward him.
The gallery was very long and ill-lighted by the narrow, infrequent windows, and he could not distinguish whom it was. He stood, however, involuntarily waiting for it to approach him. But how slowly it came, as one groping or one walking in a dream! Then, as it gradually neared him, he saw that it was a woman, dimly outlined, but still unmistakably a woman. He spoke, but there was no answer, nothing but the echo of his voice through the gallery. Someone trying to play a practical joke upon him! Perhaps it was Weir: it would be just like her. He walked forward quickly, but before he had taken a dozen steps the advancing figure came opposite one of the windows, and the moonlight fell about it. Dartmouth started back and caught his breath as if someone had struck him. For a moment his pulses stood still, and sense seemed suspended. Then he walked quickly forward and stood in front of her.
"Sioned!" he said, in a low voice which thrilled through the room.
"Sioned!" He put out his hand and took hers. It was ice-cold, and its contact chilled him to the bone; but his clasp grew closer and his eyes gazed into hers with pa.s.sionate longing.
"I am dead," she said. "I am dead, and I am so cold." She drew closer and peered up into his face. "I have found you at last," she went on, "but I wandered so far. There was no nook or corner of Eternity in which I did not search. But although we went together, we were hurled to the opposite poles of s.p.a.ce before our spiritual eyes had met, and an unseen hand directed us ever apart. I was alone, alone, in a great, gray, boundless land, with but the memory of those brief moments of happiness to set at bay the shrieking host of regrets and remorse and repentance which crowded about me. I floated on and on and on for millions and millions of miles; but of you, my one thought on earth, my one thought in Eternity, I could find no trace, not even the whisper of your voice in pa.s.sing. I tossed myself upon a hurrying wind and let it carry me whither it would. It gathered strength and haste as it flew, and whirled me out into the night, nowhere, everywhere.
And then it slackened--and moaned--and then, with one great sob, it died, and once more I was alone in s.p.a.ce and an awful silence. And then a voice came from out the void and said to me, "Go down; he is there;" and I knew that he meant to Earth, and for a moment I rebelled. To go back to that terrible--But on Earth there had been nothing so desolate as this--and if you were there! So I came--and I have found you at last."
She put her arms about him and drew him down onto the low window-seat.
He shivered at her touch, but felt no impulse to resist her will, and she pressed his head down upon her cold breast. Then, suddenly, all things changed; the gallery, the moonlight, the white-robed, ice-cold woman faded from sense. The storm was no longer in his ears nor were the waves at his feet. He was standing in a dusky Eastern room, familiar and dear to him. Tapestries of rich stuffs were about him, and the skins of wild animals beneath his feet. Beyond, the twilight stole through a window, but did not reach where he stood. And in his close embrace was the woman he loved, with the stamp on her face of suffering, of desperate resolution, and of conscious, welcomed weakness. And in his face was the regret for wasted years and possibilities, and a present, pa.s.sionate gladness; _that_ he could see in the mirror of the eyes over which the lids were slowly falling....
And the woman wore a clinging, shining yellow gown, and a blaze of jewels in her hair. What was said he hardly knew. It was enough to feel that a suddenly-born, pa.s.sionate joy was making his pulses leap and his head reel; to know that heaven had come to him in this soft, quiet Southern night.
VII.
Dartmouth opened his eyes and looked about him. The storm had died, the waves were at rest, and he was alone. He let his head fall back against the frame of the window, and his eyes closed once more. What a dream!--so vivid!--so realistic! Was it not his actual life? Could he take up the threads of another? He felt ten years older; and, retreating down the dim, remote corridors of his brain, were trooping memories of a long, regretted, troubled, eventful past. In a moment they had vanished like ghosts and left no trace; he could recall none of them. He opened his eyes again and looked down the gallery, and gradually his perceptions grasped its familiar lines, and he was himself once more. He rose to his feet and put his hand to his head.
That woman whom he had taken for the ghost of one dead and gone had been Weir, of course. She had arisen in her sleep and attired herself like the grandmother whose living portrait she was; she had piled up her hair and caught her white gown up under her bosom; and, in the shadows and mystery of night, small wonder that she had looked as if the canvas in the gallery below had yielded her up! But what had her words meant?--her words, and that dream?--but no--they were not what he wanted. There had been something else--what was it? He felt as if a mist had newly arisen to cloud his faculties. There had been something else which had made him not quite himself as he had stood there with his arms about the woman who had been Weir, and yet not Weir. Above the pain and joy and pa.s.sion which had shaken him, there had been an unmistakable perception of--an attribute--a quality--of another sort--of a power, of which he, Harold Dartmouth, had never been conscious--of--of--ah, yes! of the power to pour out at the feet of that woman, in richest verse, the love she had awakened, and make them both immortal. What were the words? They had been written legibly in his brain; he remembered now. He had seen and read them--yes, at last, at last! "Her face! her form!" No! no! not that again. Oh, why would they not come? They had been there, the words; the sense must be there, the inspiration, the battling for voice and victory. They were ready to pour through his speech in a flood of song, but that iron hand forced them back--down, down, setting blood and brain on fire.
Ah! what was that? Far off, at the end of some long gallery, there was a sweet, dying strain of music, and there were words--gathering in volume; they were rolling on; they were coming; they were thundering through his brain in a mighty chorus! There! he had grasped them--No!
that iron hand had grasped them--and was hurling them back. In another moment it would have forced them down into their cell and turned the key! He must catch and hold one of them! Yes, he had it! Oh!
victory!--"Her eyes, her hair."
Dartmouth thrust out his hands as if fighting with a physical enemy, and he looked as if he had been through the agonies of death. The conflict in his brain had suddenly ceased, but his physical strength was exhausted. He turned and walked uncertainly to his room; then he collected his scattered wits sufficiently to drop some laudanum and take it, that he might ward off, if possible, the attack of physical and spiritual prostration which had been the result of a former experience of a similar kind. Then, dressed as he was, he flung himself on the bed and slept.
VIII.
When Dartmouth awoke the next day, the sun was streaming across the bed and Jones"s anxious face was bending over him.
"Oh, Mr. "Arold," exclaimed Jones, "you"ve got it again."
Dartmouth laughed aloud. "One would think I had delirium tremens," he said.
He put his hand over his eyes, and struggled with the desire to have the room darkened. The melancholy had fastened itself upon him, and he knew that for three or four days he was to be the victim of one of his unhappiest moods. The laudanum had lulled his brain and prevented violent reaction after its prolonged tension; but his spirits were at zero, and his instinct was to shut out the light and succ.u.mb to his enemy without resistance. If he had been anywhere but at Rhyd-Alwyn he would not have thought twice about it; but if he shut himself up in his room, not only would Weir be frightened and unhappy, but it was probable that Sir Iltyd would question the desirability of a son-in-law who was given to prolonged and uncontrollable attacks of the blues. He dressed and went down-stairs, but Weir was nowhere to be found, and after a search through the various rooms and corners of the castle which she was in the habit of frequenting, he met her maid and was informed that Miss Penrhyn was not well and would not come down-stairs before dinner. The news was very unwelcome to Dartmouth.
Weir at least would have been a distraction. Now he must get through a dismal day, and fight his enemy by himself. To make matters worse, it was raining, and he could not go out and ride or hunt. He went into Sir Iltyd"s library and talked to him for the rest of the morning. Sir Iltyd was not exciting, at his best, and to-day he had a bad cold; so after lunch Dartmouth went up to his tower and resigned himself to his own company. He sat down before the fire, and taking his head between his hands allowed the blue devils to triumph. He felt dull as well as depressed; but for a time he made an attempt to solve the problem of the phenomenon to which he had been twice subjected. That it was a phenomenon he did not see any reason to doubt. If he had spent his life in a vain attempt to write poetry and an unceasing wish for the necessary inspiration, there would be nothing remarkable in his mind yielding suddenly to the impetus of acc.u.mulated pressure, wrenching itself free of the will"s control, and dashing off on a wild excursion of its own. But he had never voluntarily taken a pen in his hand to make verse, nor had he even felt the desire to possess the gift, except as a part of general ambition. He may have acknowledged the regret that he could not immortalize himself by writing a great poem, but the regret was the offspring of personal ambition, not of yearning poetical instinct. But the most extraordinary phase of the matter was that such a tempest could take place in a brain as well regulated as his own. He was eminently a practical man, and a good deal of a thinker. He had never been given to flights of imagination, and even in his attacks of melancholy, although his will might be somewhat enfeebled, his brain could always work clearly and cleverly. The lethargy which had occasionally got the best of him had invariably been due to violent nervous shock or strain, and was as natural as excessive bodily languor after violent physical effort. Why, then, should his brain twice have acted as if he had sown it with eccentric weeds all his life, instead of planting it with the choicest seeds he could obtain, and watering and cultivating them with a patience and an interest which had been untiring?