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ROFESSOR'S SISTER 



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THE PROFESSOR'S SISTER. 






THE 

PROFESSOR'S SISTER 

A ROMANCE 

BY 

JULIAN HAWTHORNE, 



AUTHOR OF 
"A DREAM AXD A FORGETTING," "GARTH," 

"FORTUNE'S FOOL," "JOHN PARMELEE'S 
CURSE," ETC., ETC. 



BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AXD SAN FRANCISCO, 

PUBLISHERS. 



COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
BY 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
A DREAM AND A FORGETTING. 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 
PUBLISHERS, 



THE 
PROFESSORS SISTER. 



CHAPTER I. 

MET A P II Y S 1C S. 

" WHAT is memory, I should like to know ? " 
said Will Burlace, using the end of his broad 
middle finger as a tobacco-stopper. " How does 
it work, Ralph, my boy ? Do we remember 
everjrthing in our experience, as some philoso- 
phers hold, or does each of us take out of the 
past only that which belongs to his character 
and temperament, or are recollection and obliv- 
ion a mere lottery, over which we have no con- 
trol, or" 

" And what is the exact difference between 
memory and imagination ? " I broke in. " We 
say the past has no existence : neither have 
the conceptions of the imagination. And I 
have heard of people imagining things until 
they believed them true." 



8 The Professor's Sister. 

" Yes, why not ? " added Burlace, with a grin. 
" We are taught that the external world itself 
is but a prejudice of the mind. There is no 
reality but thought and will. Our present is a 
dream ; our past and future are the ghosts of 
dreams. You cannot make out imagination to 
be anything less than that. We talk about 
the creations of poets and novelists, and it is 
notorious that many of the personages of fiction 
from Homer to Balzac, live with a vitality that 
would put to shame Methuselah, or Augustus 
the Strong. Where shall we draw the line ?" 

"The senses originate in the brain," con- 
tinued I : " don't they end there as well ? we 
may admit that we feel sensations, but how do 
we know that the feeling and the thing felt are 
not two visions of the same thing ? " 

" Look at ghosts, spectres, and the supernat- 
ural generally,' 7 said Burlace, blowing a cloud 
of smoke into fantastic shapes and waving his 
big hand through them. " What is the dif- 
ference between a ghost and an ordinary human 
being?" 

" As a general rule," said Ralph, who had 
been sitting meanwhile on his back and shoul- 
ders, with his slippered feet broad against the 
tall porcelain stove which, as everywhere in 
Germany, dominated the apartment, "as a 
general rule, the difference between a ghost 



The Professor's Sister. 9 

and an ordinary human being is this : only 
one person sees the ghost, whereas the ordinary 
human being has been, is, or can be seen by 
whomsoever chooses to look at him. And a 
similar distinction might be drawn as between 
the contents of the memory and those of the 
imagination. If I tell you an incident of my 
past life, and you don't believe it, I can adduce 
living witnesses in support of my statement : 
but if I tell you a story, or a lie, and you are 
incredulous, I can only keep on lying." 

" I would confess and repent, if I were you," 
interposed Burlace. 

" What is that theory of yours about appari- 
tions ? " I inquired. 

" Oh, it would take me too far back to explain 
that," answered Ralph lazily. 

" It's one the professor told him, and he's 
forgotten it," Burlace asserted, winking at me 
across the table. 

" The professor is a Buddhist," said Ralph. 
" For my part, I believe neither in re-incarna- 
tion, Karma, Devachan, Nirvana, nor the 
Astral light." 

Burlace grinned again. " Nor in anything 
else!" 

" Yes," returned Ralph, in the same lazy 
tone, " I believe in God, in the Divine inspira- 
tion of the Bible, in the Incarnation, in the im- 



10 The Professor's Sister. 

mortality of the soul, and in the possible inter- 
course between the dead and the living, among 
other things." 

"A nice creed for the prize student of a 
German university ! But I suppose you are 
lying, now." 

" I am casting my pearls before Burlace, 
which is perhaps as bad." 

"Well, to begin with, what is matter ? " 

"Matter is the attestation of the constancy 
of the relation between the Creator and the 
creature." 

" Oh ! and what is nature ? " 

"Nature is the analysis of human nature, 
projected on the sphere of sense by the creative 
energy." 

"If that be the case," said I, "why does not 
the face of nature become' modified in corre- 
spondence with our growth and development ? " 

"Well," returned Ralph, "doesn't it?" 

"I haven't noticed it in my own experience/' 
I replied. 

" You would, if you were mankind. And 
even you furnish your room and dig your gar- 
den in accordance with your notion of the cor- 
rect thing. But the great geological and 
cosmical changes, the variation and extinction 
of species, alterations of climate, and all matters 
of that calibre, follow and reflect the develop- 



The Professor's Sister. 11 

ment of Humanity with a big II. And, by the 
way, that's the basis of what you call my theory 
of apparitions/ 7 

"How so?" 

"Oh, don't encourage him ! " cried Burlace. 

" You have the visible object on one side/' 
Ralph said, " and the brain on the other. The 
eye is the connecting link. The light reflected 
from objects reaches the brain through the eye, 
and the brain thereupon translates it into ideas 
of things. Such is the accepted doctrine. But in 
certain moods of abstraction and concentration. 
You are hardly conscious of the external world, 
and the images of the mind assume a correspond- 
ing substantiality. If now a disembodied be- 
ing applies itself strongly to your own spirit, 
your spiritual organ of sight which is the eye 
within the eye perceives it as a what Burlace 
calls ordinary human being." 

" Oh, my wig ! " muttered Burlace. 

' But how does your ontological'theory " 

" Why, it's simple enough. We perceive an 
ordinary human being by virtue of that uni- 
versal human constitution that we share with 
the race ; but we perceive an apparition by 
virtue of a special and finite impression wrought 
upon us by an unembodied spirit. The action 
of the organ of vision is the same in the one 
case as in the other : the apparition is, to the 



12 The Professor's Sister. 

person seeing it, as real as an actual man. Yet 
it is not real, but an illusion, because it is an 
individual, and not a general experience." 

" But an apparition is a spirit : do you call 
a spirit an illusion ? " 

" An apparition is not a spirit." 

"Neither, certainly, is it a physical being." 

"No ; it is the reflection upon the sphere of 
sense of a being who is not physical. It is an 
illusion in the same way that your reflection in 
the looking-glass is an illusion, it is nothing 
in itself, but a reality causes it." 

" May I be permitted to offer one suggestion 
in the premises ? " inquired Burlace. 

" No," said Ralph. 

"Well, here it is. Sense, according to you, 
only seems to convey messages from without : 
in truth it is concerned solely with what pro- 
ceeds from within, for the obvious reason that 
the entire material universe is but the phenom- 
enal externization of the elements of the 
human mind have I got the lingo right ? " 

"Viewing the universe, of course, from the 
point of view of use, not of form and exten- 
sion," supplemented Ralph, closing his eyes. 

" Just as you please about that ! well, now, 
your apparition is visible to the eye or to the 
eye within the eye, if you like that better say, 
to the sense of vision. But it is generally ad- 



The Professor's Sister. 13 

mitted that all our senses are but modifications 
of one sense, to wit, the sense of touch. Are 
you listening ? " 

" No ; because I knew from the start what 
you were driving at." 

" Oh, indeed ! and pray what was it ? " 

" That an apparition that can be seen ought, 
by logical inference, to be also an object of 
touch, hearing, smell and taste." 

"Well, and how are you going to wriggle 
out of that dilemma ? " demanded Burlace, with 
a snort. 

" I am comfortable where I am. I don't 
perceive your dilemma. I hold your inference 
to be unimpeachable." 

" Do you mean to say that a ghost can be 
handled" 

"Heard, smelt and tasted. Certainly, why 
not?" 

"And yet you call it an illusion !" 

"But with a reality behind it! " 

"I am going home," said Burlace, getting up 
from his chair with a grotesque assumption of 
decrepitude. " I am a very foolish, fond old 
man. I don't catch on any longer. I have 
been getting things wrong end foremost all 
these years. Matter, it seems, is but the attes- 
tation of the constancy of a relation, therefore 
I ought to be able to walk through a block of 



14 The Professor's Sister. 

houses, or pass my arm through a girl's waist 
instead of round it. Apparitions,on the contrary, 
can be felt and smelt as well as seen, therefore 
I presume that I have been consorting hitherto 
with apparitions. In fact, what am I myself but 
an apparition an illusion with a reality behind 
me ? I have heard of people being made 
nervous by having a spectre behind them ; but 
fancy the condition of a poor spectre with a 
reality behind him ! Let me get away, while 
reason yet holds her seat in this distracted 
globe ! " 

" And all because I happened to remark that 
memory is what is meant by the creation of 
man male and female," said Ralph, with a sigh. 

" Imbecility, thy name is metaphysics ! w 
muttered Burlace, as he opened the door and 
closed it behind him with a bang. So Ralph 
Merlin and I were left alone in front of the tall 
porcelain stove. 

Those delightful old student days in Dresden, 
twenty years ago ! What good times we had ! 
not because of jivhat we did, but because we 
so enjoyed doing it. What did we do, in fact ? 
we drank beer out of glass schoppen with porce- 
lain covers ; we smoked pipes and Laferme 
cigarettes ; we attended open-air concerts in 
the Grosser Garten, the Bruehlshe Terrace, the 
Waldschlo2schen 5 we fought shlaeger duels, 



The Professor's Sister. 15 

and wore high boots, black velveteen jackets, 
and caps four inches in diameter ; we went to 
masked balls, where neither we nor anybody else 
behaved quite properly ; we went to other 
dances in queer places ; we thought we owned 
the earth and the fullness thereof; and we 
talked metaphysics. There is nothing to com- 
pare with the zeal with which young men of a 
certain age and intellectual training will talk 
metaphysics. They know all that Hegel, Kant, 
Schopenhauer and Spinoza knew, and demon- 
strate that these gentlemen did not go nearly 
far nor half deep enough, and were much too 
lucid and straightforward in all their statements. 
We began where they left off, and stopped no- 
where. We dissolved the Universe, arid created 
it again each after a recipe of his own. As to so- 
ciety civilization I shudder to think how we 
objurgated and annihilated them. And moral- 
ity ! Burlace had a thermometer in his room, 
which he used to call The Register of Virtue. 
It was a huge affair, about five feet long, and 
I believe he had stolen it from the outside of a 
druggist's shop. Opposite each space of ten 
degrees he had pasted the photograph of a 
woman. Between the 30th and 40th degrees 
she was muffled up from her chin to her toes, 
and wore a big hood. Between the 40th and 
50th her hood was off and her pelisse was un- 



16 The Professor's Sister. 

buttoned. Between the 50th and 60th the 
pelisse had disappeared and you could discern 
the outlines of her figure. The 70th degree 
limit showed her in full ball costurae, very de'- 
colletee. At the 80th her costume had shrunk 
at both ends, and she was now a ballet dancer, 
very much on one leg. The next interval was 
difficult to describe ; and the final one revealed 
Eve pure and simple. When, therefore, the 
conversation turned upon moral questions, Bur- 
lace would point to this new Jacob's Ladder and 
say : " The whole problem is settled there, gen- 
tlemen. I make no comments ; none are 
needed. Let each man of you select the lati- 
tude that suits him best, and be happy. The 
equator is good enough for me." 

Burlace was able, obstinate, boisterous ; a 
scoffer and a sceptic. He had a broad sense of 
humor, but was apt to become oppressive. His 
great, strident voice ate up all other sounds, and 
finally made one's ears indignant. But he would 
standby you in trouble, and, after bullying you 
to your face, take your part behind your back. 
He and Ralph Merlin and I were, at that time, 
the only Americans there ; so we were a good 
deal together. Ralph and Burlace were gen- 
erally chaffing each other : I used to take part, 
sometimes against one, sometimes against the 
other. But, at bottom, Ralph was my friend. 



The Professor's Sister. 17 

I was often in doubt whether to take him 
seriously or in jest, but I had an instinct of 
affection towards him. And I understood better 
than any of his other companions the moods of 
his mind and heart. 



18 The Professor's /Sister. 

CHAPTEE II. 

RALPH AND HIS QUEER NOTIONS. 

RALPH MERLIN was, I believe, of Philadel- 
phia extraction. His family had been wealthy 
for several generations, and that, in America, 
means culture and high breeding. Ralph was 
of a fine patrician type. His physical organ- 
ization was delicate as a watch spring, but 
strong, healthy, and unweariable. He and 
Burlace (who weighed just ninety pounds more 
than Ralph did) had a wrestling match one 
day. After a while, Ralph got a grip on Bur- 
lace somehow, and began slowly to bend him 
over backwards. It was the power of one back- 
bone against the other. Burlace, who prided 
himself on his strength, and was always asking 
Us to feel his muscle, tugged and struggled 
like a bull. His broad visage became red, his 
throat swelled, and a great purple vein started 
out in his forehead. He grinned a hideous 
grin, showing his big teeth set together. All 
the while he was being forced over, inch by 
inch. Ralph's face did not show signs of the 
tremendous exertion he must have been 
making; only his eyes, which were fixed on 



The Professor's Sister. 19 

Burlace's, seemed to grow steadily larger and 
brighter; and his slender hands gripped those 
great, brawny muscles of Burlace's as a steel 
vice grips green wood. At last, just as Bur- 
lace's eyes rolled up, and he was about to gasp 
and collapse, Ralph suddenly loosed his hold 
and laughed, Burlace sat down on the floor, 
panting and perspiring. " You're too big for 
me," said Ralph ; and a thin stream of blood 
ran down his chin. At first I was startled, 
thinking he had ruptured a blood-vessel ; but 
he had only bitten through his lower lip. 
" Well," grunted "Will Burlace, as soon as lie 
could speak, " then I thank my stars I'm no 
smaller, that's all." 

Ralph had beautiful, arched feet, and there 
was a just perceptible arch in his nose, too; 
thin, wide nostrils, broad, straight eyebrows, 
black, over gray eyes, black wavy hair, fine 
white complexion. His upper lip was slender 
the lower full curving under sharply, to a round 
Roman chin. I never saw a more thoroughly 
masculine face; and his deep bass voice 
suited it. 

He had plainty of brains, and managed them 
well. He had graduated at Yale college when 
he was but eighteen years old ; afterwards he 
had spend three years at Cambridge in England, 
and now he was taking an engineering course 



20 The Professor's Sister. 

in Germany. He might have lived a luxurious 
club and yacht existence if he had cared to. 
But he was not contented with his inherited 
possessions ; he wanted a profession too. 
Whether, having got it, he would ever practice 
it, was another question ; but there was no 
doubt about his getting it. He was esteemed 
the best student of his time. Yet he had not 
been devoting himself exclusively to his nominal 
pursuit, by any means. He had interested him- 
self for some years past in esoteric philosophy 
and religion ; and here in Dresden he had met 
a man who was already very far advanced on 
the road Ralph was travelling. 

This was Professor Conrad Hertrugge. The 
professor was then about thirty years old, and 
by no means a general favorite with his classes. 
He was as sharp and cold as an ice-chisel, in 
the class-room. There was a strong sarcastic 
vein in him, which he was apt to use unmer- 
cifully ; and to the common run of people he 
was so curt and unsympathetic that they found 
it impossible to get up any conversation with 
him ; and after one or two attempts, they were 
glad to give him a wide berth. 

He was a pale, meagre man, with reddish 
hair, a sardonic mouth, and strange green eyes, 
which sometimes had red sparkles in them. But 
there was power in his every feature and gest- 



The Professor's Sister. 21 

ure, the power of character, knowledge, and 
purpose. He had also a power of another kind, 
rarer, and imperfectly understood. Whether 
the result of organization, special training, or 
both, it was certainly an odd and mysterious 
faculty. There are more names than one 
for it, but a name is not an explanation. For 
my part, I have never been sensible of the influ- 
ence which such persons are undoubtedly able 
to exercise ; but I have seen Conrad Hertrugge 
do what I can only describe as taking a man's 
will and consciousness out of him, and put- 
ting his own in its place. They would call it, 
nowadays, inhibition of the cortical centres of 
the brain. There is no objection, that I know 
of, to that way of accounting for it. 

The Professor, on his first meeting with 
Ralph, seemed to conceive a pronounced aver- 
sion to him. But in the course of two or three 
months, this aversion changed to a very inti- 
mate friendship. I never knew exactly what 
caused the change, but I have always surmis- 
ed that Ralph had on some occasion, and in 
some unobtrusive but effective manner, inti- 
mated his incredulity of the Professor's occult 
abilities ; and that he had been led, subsequent- 
ly, to recant his disbelief. There was no 
doubt that he would have made his recanta- 
tion freely and frankly, when he was once con- 



22 The Professor's Sister. 

vinced ; and it was not in human nature, nor 
even in Conrad Hertrugge, to resist Ralph 
Merlin when he wished to make himself agree- 
able. At all events, as I say, they became 
close friends, and were a great deal together ; 
and since both were, with this exception, in- 
clined to be solitary, their intimacy was the 
more conspicuous. What they communed 
about was of course matter of conjecture ; but 
some of the conjectures were well enough to 
have got the pair of them burned for witches 
two hundred years ago. 

For my part, I was an old comrade 01 
Ralph's, having known him before he went to 
England ; and Ralph admitted to me that he 
and Conrad were investigating certain obscure 
subjects together. He remarked, however, that 
he did not agree with Conrad as to the gen- 
eral scheme of things, and was inclined to ex- 
plain certain phenomena on another basis than 
his. To other people to Will Burlace for ex- 
ample Ralph took pleasure in making enig- 
matical replies^ which might mean anything or 
nothing, and which left them in doubt whether 
he were poking fun at them, or were out of his 
head. But there was another consideration 
involved which neither I nor others had yet 
heard of. 

When Burlace had left us that evening, 



The Professor's Sister. 23 

Ralph and I sat smoking, one on each side of 
the stove, and for a time kept silence. 

" Do } r ou know why Burlace keeps coming 
here ? " enquired Ralph, at length. He asked 
the question, not as one seeking information 
as to the fact, but in order to discover whether 
my idea accorded with his own. 

"Well, we are all three Americans, you 
know," I said. 

" Yes. But Burlace wants to have a definite 
opinion 011 all subjects. He can't endure un- 
certainty, and he is still uncertain whether I am 
a knave or a fool. When he has made up his 
mind about that, you won't see him here again." 

" Whether you are a knave or a fool ? " 

" In other words, whether I really believe 
in the mysteries of the soul, or only pretend to 
do so for ends of my own. In the former case 
I am a fool, in the latter, a knave. I made 
some progress to-night in recommending to 
him the latter alternative." 

"You imply that he is incapable of believing 
in the soul himself." 

"Yes; that is one of the points on which 
his mind is made up." 

" Why don't you, or the Professor, convert 
him ? 

" He hasn't the temperament, for one thing. 
He can be useful in his own place and way ; 



24 The Professor's Sister. 

as a mystic, he would be a nuisance to himself 
and others.' 7 

" What sort of a mystic would I make ? " 

" I have asked myself that question, and so 
has Conrad." 

Well ? 

" Well, to be an initiate, one must have 
initiative. You are too lazy. You are appre- 
ciative, and quick of apprehension ; you will 
listen to all that is told you, understand it, and 
even believe it, if it accords with your view of 
the reasonable. But you would stop there. 
You would never take any action upon the in- 
formation. By and by it would fade out of 
your mind. However much you might be a 
spiritualist in theory, in practice you will 
always be a materialist ; and the olde* you grow, 
the more will that be the case." 

"After all, Ralph, is there anything in it ? 
Granting occultism all it claims, will it ever 
produce any effect in this world ? Can you 
get further than to affect the imagination and 
the nerves ? Supposing you possess the secret 
of the universe, can you avail yourself of it to 
benefit or influence practical men ? Or do these 
magical powers (if there be any) afford any- 
thing except subjective entertainment to the 
wielders of them and curiosity and mystification 
to outsiders ? " 



The Professor's Sister. 25 

" You have seen something of what Conrad 
can do." 

" I have seen him put a man to sleep, arid 
then compel him to act out his dreams. But, at 
most, that will simply enable some men to make 
cats'-paws of some others. And that has been 
done, without magic, since the world began." 

" Magic means the production of something 
out of nothing," replied Ralph : " and that, of 
course, is an absurdity, because ex nihilo nihil 
Jit. No man can create anything, because he 
has nothing of his own to create it out of. He 
can produce an illusion, and that is all. The 
illusion is temporary, often momentary ; and 
as it seems out of reason, the effect on the 
mind is also transient. The power of reading 
and imparting thoughts, without the aid of the 
senses, and of communicating impressions at 
a distance, is curious and striking ; but the 
electric telegraph, in the development it will 
presently receive, will accomplish the same 
results more certainly and regularly. My 
belief is that you can allow the adepts all 
that they claim of control over the forces of 
Naturej and yet match them, either now or 
hereafter, with the matter-of-fact resources of 
science. I have no doubt that science will not 
only enable us to travel all over this earth, 
and converse with its inhabitants, while sit- 



26 The Professor's Sister. 

ting at home in our easy chairs, but to visit 
planets, and hold intercourse with other 
varieties of mankind, in the same way. But 
all that, and a great deal more of the same 
sort, is simply an advanced materialism, in 
which I am but moderately interested." 

" It is intercourse with spirits that attracts 

you, ? 

" Why should it ? " 

" Do you believe, then, that so called spiri- 
tual communications are merely the effects of 
unconscious cerebration and telepathy, and of 
a sort of electric or magnetic force contained 
in the human body ? " 

"Well, I don't know why we should trouble 
ourselves to invent so many handsome names 
for a very obvious fact. If you believe you 
have a soul a spirit the rest follows of course. 
Your spirit is in a certain temporary phase or 
plane, which we call the material. But it is 
also in the spiritual world, though not con- 
sciously so. And in that world it must neces- 
sarily be surrounded by a multitude of spirits 
most similar in character and genius to itself. 
But your spirit, owing to your being in a dif- 
ferent plane of being, is as imperceptible to them 
as they are to you." 

"Do you mean that there can be no inter- 
course ? " 



The Professor's Sister. 27 

" There is constant and universal uncon- 
scious intercourse." 

" If it be unconscious, how can you assert 
that it exists ? " 

"You may know it by the anology of ordi- 
nary human intercourse on this material 
plane." 

"How so?" 

" Men are only partly conscious of one an- 
other here. I see your body and your house, 
I hear your words and mark your actions. But 
what do I know of your nature, your thoughts, 
your emotions ? I guess at them, from such 
data as I have, and such inferences as I have 
skill to draw. But you and I may go through 
life within arm's reach of each other, and yet 
never once penetrate beyond the veil of each 
other's faces, never know each other, as the 
phrase is. All that each of us secretly feels to 
be himself is invisible and often unsuspected 
by the other. But the part of us (and it is the 
larger and more important part) that is invis- 
ible here, is visible in the spiritual world. There, 
our thoughts and nature our mental scenery 
appear as things. All that makes us what 
we are is seen there ; only the personal form 
that we identify with ourselves is absent, 
living in a foreign country. And that spiritual 
domain of ours is continually visited and ex- 



28 The Professor's Sister. 

amined by such spirits as are of similar mould 
.and inclinations with our own. They are of both 
good and evil quality, for there is good and 
evil in every man ; and according as we turn 
ourselves to good or to evil, is the complexion 
of our spiritual guests dark or light." 

This theory, which Kalph stated with un- 
usual gravity and earnestness, struck me as 
being rather bold, to say the least of it ; and 
yet I could not deny that it seemed in keeping 
with what we know of the laws of spiritual 
harmony and association. I had never before 
heard Ealph talk in this way. 

" If there is such a barrier as you suppose 
between the material and the physical planes," 
I said, "and the intercourse is unconscious 
on both sides, how do you account for the 
phenomena of spiritualism ? " 

" The barrier is broken down from our side," 
Ralph answered. 

" By what means ? " 

" If I want you to know a thought that is 
in my mind, I make certain audible sounds, or 
draw certain visible signs, which, by common 
agreement, shall convey that thought to you. 
Speech is a symbol, by which we bridge over 
the gulf between the world of the mind and 
that of the body. In a similar way by a 
system of symbols we converse with spirits." 



The Professor's Sister. 29 

''But spirits cannot hear our voices, nor we 
theirs." 

" Symbols are queer things/' returned Ralph ; 
" and ail spells are symbols. If you hear a 
spoken word, it arouses the corresponding 
thought in your mind. The things that we 
do in the flesh produce effects in the spiritual 
world ; and certain things, done with a certain 
purpose, draw tho spirits that are nearest to 
us into direct contact with our plane. They 
are sensible of an attraction an invitation 
and they comply with it. In so doing, they 
necessarily color themselves with our per- 
sonality, and can use only the contents of our 
memory, though so combining them as to pro- 
duce effects of novelty and surprise. That is 
the ground of the " unconscious cerebration " 
theory. But what is it that causes the brain 
to cerebrate unconsciously ? It is not our 
initiative; then it must be some other; and 
that other can only be the spirit's." 

" If you really believe you can communicate 
with spirits, I can't understand your not feeling 
interested in it." 

" The interest is limited to the fact of the 
communication ; when that has been experi- 
enced, there is nothing else to come. No spirit 
can tell us anything that we did not know, or 
had not the means of knowing, without him. 



30 The Professor's Sister. 

And the society of such spirits as can com- 
municate with us is distinctly detrimental. 
They are of the lowest and crudest class ; they 
have not found their place in their own world, 
and are therefore still lingering about the 
confines of this, like stray dogs round the 
door of a butcher's shop. They will say 
whatever they think you expect them to say, 
in order to get into still closer terrestrial rela- 
tions, and consequently they will lie indefinitely. 
On the other hand, the imagination of ignorant 
and superstitious people is excited by the idea 
of communion with the other world, and they 
conceive all manner of wild and vapid theories, 
every one of which is promptly confirmed by 
the equally foolish and unprincipled spirits. 
Both parties to the dialogue grow worse and 
worse as time goes on ; so that it's no wonder 
that the affair generally ends, on our side, with 
insanity, murder, or suicide. What is there 
to interest a reasonable person in all that ? " 

"But why should not spirits of a higher 
order come to us sometimes ? Are there no 
angels to tell us (he truths of heaven and teach 
us divine wisdom and goodness ; " 

" There are angels, no doubt," said Ealph ; 
"but there is no ground for supposing that 
they ever come here. Their state must be so 
entirely different from ours that mutual ap- 



The Professor's Sister. 31 

proach would be impossible. Besides, the only 
spiritual instruction that is worth anything, 
and whose effects are lasting, must come from 
our own consciences, and that means that it 
comes direct from God, who created us and the 
angels too. No third person can ever mediate 
between Him and any of His creatures. His 
aim is not to bull}'- us by signs and wonders, 
but to induce us to find our own way, and help 
ourselves. If you act under constraint, it is 
not you, but your constrainer, who acts." 

" Then, if there's nothing worth attention in 
these things," said I, " why do you concern 
yourself about them at all ? " 

" On the contrary, I am just beginning to 
perceive that there is something worth atten- 
tion and very much worth it, too ! Though 
the spirits can tell us nothing about the next 
world, it is in our power to find out a great 
deal about it for ourselves. If Conrad were 
not so confirmed a Buddhist, we might go far 
together." 

" He doesn't agree with you ? " 

" Buddhists are all materialists at bottom ; 
what they call spirit is but a refined form of 
matter. His results are sensational, and have 
a fascination of their own. But I'm afraid 
they will get him into trouble yet. Life is a 
great deal simpler, as well as a great deal pro- 



32 The Professor's Sister. 

founder, than he thinks. He could easily do a 
great deal of harm ; I doubt if he could do 
much good. He has a fancy that he and I are 
involved together in some way. I must say I 
hope he's mistaken. By the way, you haven't 
seen his step-mother, have you ? " 

" I didn't know he had one." 

" Well, he has, and she's a very handsome 
young woman. She can't be over five-and- 
twenty. Conrad's father was near seventy 
when he married her, and died six months ago, 
after a year of felicity if felicity it was." 

" Do she and Conrad get on well together ? " 

"I don't believe they do. There is some 
question of property, I think. Conrad's sister 
is in the step-mother's way, and " 

"He has a sister, too?" 

"A girl of nineteen or so. I have never 
seen her but, by the way, she was to have 
come home yesterday, and Conrad asked me to 
come to his house this evening. Let us go and 
have a look at the young lady the two young 
ladies. It is pnly half-past eight, and we can 
dress and be there by nine." 

" By all means," said I. And we went. 



The Professor's /Sister. 33 

CHAPTER III. 

TWO WOMEN. 

PROFESSOR CONRAD HERTRUGGE occupied a 
handsome etage on a street adjoining the pub- 
lic garden. His father had been a merchant, 
and had accumulated a great deal of money. 
But having begun life poor, and never having 
had time to amuse himself, he had not acquired 
the habit of luxury, and his house, until the 
time of his second marriage, had been as bare 
as a barn, so Kalph told me. But his new 
wife had changed all that. She was handsome 
and ambitious, and demanded a suitable envi- 
ronment. The old man yielded to all her sug- 
gestions and paid all the bills. Her taste was 
ornate, but not very pure. The great rooms 
were filled with color and decoration. Nothing 
was left untouched. It was a restless, almost 
intimidating spectacle. The eye roved from 
one glowing hue and glittering point to an- 
other, without repose. It seemed hardly law- 
ful to sit down on these satins and velvets. 
The polished floor menaced the incautious foot ; 
the tables were inlaid ; in the midst of it all 
you kept catching glimpses of your own morti- 



34 The Professor's Sister. 

fied countenance in plate-glass mirrors. I like 
comfort and hate this sort of thing, and felt a 
brutal longing to spit on the floor and put my 
feet on the buhl and marqueterie. As for fine 
art, there were clever nude statuettes by French 
sculptors, and paintings of warm Venuses, and 
I know not what else ; and, in the most con- 
spicuous part of the drawing-room, a really fine 
full-length portrait of Madame Hertrugge her- 
self. She stood facing you, in the act of re- 
moving a voluminous cloak lined with swans- 
down from her white, superb shoulders. She 
was represented in full evening dress, red 
satin. It was a good likeness: almost too 
good. It might make a sensitive person blush. 
Madame Hertrugge was white, red and black. 
Her skin was white, her cheeks and lips red, 
her hair, eyes and eyebrows black. Her mouth 
was beautifully formed, and firm, with a firm 
chin. Her eyes were rather full, imperious and 
ardent. She was overflowing with vitality. 
The hand which she extended to one in greet- 
ing was soft but strong, with long fingers. 
She was dressed in black, as became her recent 
widowhood ; but she had not the air of mourn- 
ing much. She was sensuous, voluptuous, but 
there was strength behind the voluptuousness. 
You received from her a powerful impression 
of sex. Every line of her, every movement, 



The Professor's Sister. 35 

every look, was woman. And she made you 
feel that she valued you just so far as you were 
man, You might be as nearly Caliban as a 
man can be, but if you were a man she would 
consider you. You might court her success- 
fully with a horsewhip, but if she felt the mas- 
ter in you, and were convinced that you were 
captivated by her, she would accept you. It 
was ludicrous to think of the senile old mer- 
chant having married such a creature. In 
fact, marriage, viewed in connection with this 
woman, seemed an absurdity. There was noth- 
ing holy about her, nothing reserved, nothing 
sacred. I don't mean that she was not lady- 
like, as the phrase is. She knew the society 
catechism, and practiced it to a nicety, but like 
a clever actress, rather than by instinct or sym- 
pathy. It was obvious that she didn't value 
respectability and propriety the snap of her 
white fingers, save as a means to an end ; and 
if she were in the company of one whom she 
trusted intimately, she would laugh those pop- 
ular virtues to scorn with her warm, insolent 
breath. As it was, all the forms and ceremo- 
nies in the world could not disguise her. Her 
very dress suggested rather than concealed 
what was beneath it. She was a naked god- 
dess a pagan goddess and there was no help 
for it. She made you realize how powerless 



36 The Professor's Sister. 

our nice institutions are in the presence of a 
genuine, rank human temperament. 

And be it observed that I am here writing 
of her as a temperament, and nothing more. I 
knew nothing of her former life and experience. 
I had no reason to think that her conduct had 
ever been less than unexceptionable. But the 
facts about her were insignificant compared 
with her latent possibilities. Circumstances 
might hitherto have been adverse to her develop- 
ment : but opportunity rosy, golden, audacious 
opportunity was all she needed. She certainly 
bore no signs of satiety ; she had nothing of 
the blase air. She was thirsty for life, and 
she would appreciate every draught of it. She 
was impatient to begin. And, contemplating 
her abounding, triumphant, delicious well- 
being, it seemed as if she might maintain the 
high-tide of enjoyment until she was a hun- 
dred. It really inclined one to paganism to 
look at her. What is all this gossip about 
morality and the convenances! I thought of 
Will Burlace and his thermometer. Here is a 
woman ; here is human nature as it came tor- 
rid from the creative hand. What else in the 
world can stand a moment's comparison with 
it ? What a race of cold-blooded pigmies are 
we become ! Let us eat and drink, and not 
die, either to-morrow or the day after. I am a 



The Professors Sister. 37 

temperate man, but she made me feel as if I 
had suddenly drunk a bottle of fine old Ma- 
deira. 

But, as I say, her behavior was unexception- 
able. She shook hands with me in the quiet- 
est and most undemonstrative way, and asked 
me politely how I liked Dresden, and whether 
I expected to make a long stay. Then she 
turned and spoke briefly to Ralph, and we all 
sat down on the satin and velvet. She was be- 
tween Ralph and me ; but I was directly op- 
posite the portrait, and the glance it gave me 
whenever I happened to look at it, did not har- 
monize with the kind of remarks (about the 
weather, the opera, and so forth) that the orig- 
inal of it was making. On the other hand, al- 
though the remarks were out of character, the 
tones of the rich, full voice were in keeping ; 
and I listened to them, while replying to the 
words. 

" Where is Conrad ? " asked Ralph, after a 
while. 

"Oh," she said, "he's in his study, with 
Hildegarde. Hildegarde is my daughter, you 
know," she added to me ; "though really there 
is not such a very great difference between us, 
in point of years," and she smiled. " She and 
her brother have not met for a long time, and 
apparently they have a great deal to say to 



38 The Professor's Sister. 

each other. But they will be in in a few min 
utes." 

"Miss Hertrugge has been living away from 
Dresden ? " I said. 

" She has been educated at a convent," re- 
turned the widow. " She has just completed 
her course, and will henceforth live with us. 
She is very charming I am sure you will like 
her," she added, letting her black eyes rest on 
me. 

Somehow I did not feel complimented. The 
look was an appraising one. It seemed to say, 
" Hildegarde would suit a person of your cal- 
ibre well enough ; as for me, I must have 
stronger meat ! " 

Indeed, I was inclined to agree with her. 
Merely to contemplate her was stimulus enough 
for me. I was content to let some more robust 
nature proceed further. 

"She will make it less dull for you this 
spring," remarked Ralph ; and he added, with 
the quiet audacity which he occasionally ex- 
hibited, " Mourning is a tedious business. One 
chief reason for wishing to keep some of our 
friends alive, is the dread of mourning them 
after they are dead." 

" Too much importance is given to the out- 
ward show, perhaps," said Madame Hertrugge, 
after a moment. 



The Professor's Sister. 39 

No doubt of it," said Ralph. " It is like 
most other social canons ; the fact that you are 
expected to comply with it makes you resent it. 
The way the social law puts its great bullying 
finger into our most sacred concerns is indecent. 
Birth, death, marriage, it is the same in every- 
thing. We cannot even experience religion 
except in public, and with the aid of a batch of 
priests. The aim of society seems to be to 
turn its members inside out : and the more 
it succeeds, the greater hypocrites do we all be- 
come." 

" That sounds like a paradox, Mr. Merlin," 
said our hostess. 

" It is the natural revolt of human nature 
against force. Society insists on regulating 
our behavior by averages ; we demand indi- 
vidual choice. Society being the stronger, we 
adjust the matter by obeying the letter and re- 
belling in the spirit. It is our only way of 
keeping the ownership of our own souls." 

" That," observed I, " is as much as to advo- 
cate hypocrisy." 

l - Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, 
have you riot that proverb ? " said Madame 
Hertrugge, taking Ralph's part against me. 
" Yes, you are right,''' she went on, " we are all 
something that we try not to appear to be. But 
I can at least say for myself that I do not en- 



40 The Professor's Sister. 

joy being a hypocrite. It stifles me : I am 
tempted to throw off the disguise." She made a 
gesture with her beautiful arm, a gesture that 
quickened my pulse a beat or two. Her gest- 
ures, like everything about her, were graphic 
and vividly suggestive. If she were really to 
throw off the disguise, it would be a memorable 
sight. 

At this juncture, Conrad came in, with his 
sister Hildegarde's hand ill his. 

The two stood together in the doorway a 
moment. There was very little family resem- 
blance between them, except that Hildegarde's 
hair was tawny. Her eyes, as I judged, were 
hazel ; they were large and exquisitely expres- 
sive. All her features were delicately moulded, 
and evinced great sensitiveness. Withal, there 
was a certain abstraction in her manner. It 
struck me that she would be keenly aware of 
all that passed before her, yet less through the 
ordinary channels of perception than by some 
sixth sense, some instinctive apprehension. 
It acted from the depths within her, and pene- 
trated to depths, ordinarily concealed, within 
others. She would note the false tone of a 
voi ce, and see through an assumed geniality. 
If you loved her, she would know it in spite of 
your best concealments ; if you were hostile, 
she would feel it through your sultriest com- 



The Professors Sister. 41 

placency. And, as I afterwards found by ex- 
perience, she often divined the unspoken 
thought of her interlocutor, and would even, at 
times, inadvertently reply to that, instead of 
to what had actually been said. 

She was, compared with her step-mother, as 
spirit to substance, and as light to heat. Her 
complexion was fair and pure ; her figure was 
slenderly symmetrical, and charming with un- 
studied grace. There was something strange 
about her which, at first, I did not understand ; 
but at length I came to the conclusion that it 
was her almost total lack of self-consciousness. 
This girl had no egotism. Her observations, 
her reflections, her thoughts, were of people and 
things outside herself. This, as is always the 
case, would give her singular power in emer- 
gencies. She would never say, " What will be 
the consequence of this or that to me ? " She 
would consider only the abstract result. Yet 
she would reverence noble qualities, and good- 
ness, in herself, not less than in others ; not 
because they were hers, but precisely because 
she, in comparison with them, was nothing ; 
they would not be her goodness and ability, 
but goodness and ability themselves. These 
gone she would be no complying slave, but as 
stubborn at need as a martyr. You can defeat 
a person who says "I will have it so," but the 



42 The Professor's Sister. 

world cannot influence one who says " Eight 
will have it so." 

But my observations upon Hildegarde did 
not proceed so far on this first evening. She 
bowed to Ralph and to me, with a pleasant, 
clear look, as her step-mother mentioned our 
names. In a few minutes, I was conversing 
with her and Conrad, while Madame Hertrugge 
in another part of the room, was talking to 
Ralph. But both Ralph and Hildegarde were 
inattentive, and I saw each of them look at the 
other once or twice. 

"Do you remember your own mother?" I 
asked her. 

"Oh, I can see her," she replied, turning, 
and lifting her head a little. 

" Memory, with some people, is almost like 
vision," Conrad added quickly. 

" This is a great change from the convent," 
said I. 

" I like it ! " she returned, with a simplicity 
that made me smile. 

" She and Catalina will be great friends," 
remarked Conrad. 

" Why, do you not wish it, brother ? " de- 
manded the girl. 

"I forgot your eyes!" he rejoined, with an 
odd gleam in his own, and a comical twist of 
his sardonic mouth. He certainly had not in- 



The Professor's tiister. 43 

timated that he did not wish it. "She has 
more of her mother than of her father/ 7 he 
said to me. " My father was almost as ugly as 
I am, and clever, a good brain. But an ugly 
man ought to be strong, and there he was lack- 
ing. A woman could make a fool of him." 

While he was speaking, Hildegarde rose, and 
crossed the room to where Ralph and Catalina 
Hertrugge were sitting. It was a point-blank 
interruption of a tete-a-tete that had seemed to 
be interesting to at least one of the parties to 
it. If one has the nerve> or the assurance, to 
go straight to the point in society, such a one 
will leave the subtlest schemer far behind. I 
did not know whether Hildegarde's manoeuvre 
was more than an accident ; but it evidently 
disconcerted the other lady. Hildegarde stood 
looking calmly at Ralph, and not offering to 
say anything. Catalina, cut short in what she 
was saying, must have felt annoyed ; but she 
laughed, and motioned to the other to take a 
place beside her on the lounge. Ralph had 
meanwhile risen and drawn up another chair, 
and this Hildegarde accepted, reptying, at the 
same time, to something Ralph said to her. In 
a moment Catalina exclaimed : " But we are 
forgetting our tea !" and moving to the em- 
broidered bell-rope, pulled it. Then she saun- 
tered on, with that undulating movement of the 



44 The Professor's Sister. 

hips which is so beautiful and so rare in wo- 
men, showing, as it does, perfect suppleness 
and freedom of the waist and limbs, she came 
on I say, towards Conrad and me, and sank 
into a seat near us, the train of her dress coil- 
ing over her arched feet as she did so. The 
servant appeared at the door, and she ordered 
him to bring in the tray. 

" Are you not afraid to trust Hildegarde with 
so handsome a man as Ralph ? " asked Conrad, 
with a saturnine grimace. 

" She will amuse him and he will benefit 
her, he will teach her something," Catalina 
replied ; and then, turning to me, " I shall de- 
pend on you and him to help me with her ; I 
want to make a success of her." 

'And yet they abuse step-mothers," said 
Conrad. 

All this was entertaining, and the tea was 
brought in, and some flagons of Rhine wine 
also, and we became quietly convivial all 
round. But it seemed to me that there were 
forces at work wkjch might breed events that 
would be something more than entertaining. 
Two women and one man make mischief ; and 
Conrad appeared likely to take a hand, too. 



The Professor's Sister. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCHANDAU. 

IT was several weeks before I saw either Cata- 
lina or Hildegarde again. It was then May, one 
of the loveliest months of the year in Dresden. 
The grass was soft and green, the new leaves 
made a tender verdure on the trees, and the 
lilacs were in bloom, and their perfume filled 
the air with a benediction. The sky was softly 
blue, enriched with clouds, which are nowhere 
more beautiful in form and color than in the 
valley of the Elbe. The river itself came swirl- 
ing and rippling down from amidst the distant 
hills, overflowing with the freshness and full- 
ness of the gracious season, and foaming against 
the dark piers of the old hog-backed bridge that 
had stemmed its current for centuries. The 
proprietors of the river baths had begun to 
construct their platforms and moor them out in 
the stream ; and a wooden terrace was being 
built on the bank beneath the walls of the 
Bellevue Hotel, whereon, during the summer, 
innumerable beer-drinkers would sit and imbibe 
the great German liquor in the breezy shad- 
dow, with the water eddying and sparklingbe- 



46 The Professor's Sister. 

neath them. Now, also, the open-air concerts at 
the Grosser Garten, and at the Waldschloschen, 
and other easily accessible suburbs, were in 
full blast, enabling you to hear the best of music 
at any time for five cents. All the population 
appeared to be parading about, ceaselessly 
loquacious and smiling, in fresh bonnets 
and spring waistcoats. Good old King John, 
still alive at that epoch, might sometimes 
be met toddling along the sunny side of the 
Schloss strasse, with his old queen by his side, 
and a henchman or two in attendance ; in the 
morning you might see Crown Prince Albert, 
accompanied by a lady who was too handsome 
to be royal, cantering down the Hercules Allee, 
through fretted sun and shadow. It was 
spring, full of fresh days and sunny hopes. 

One Saturday we made a party to go up the 
river to Schandau. This is a charming little 
village in a narrow winding valley, about 
twenty-five miles above Dresden. The village, 
beginning with a hotel at the river bank, pro- 
longs a line of leaf-embowered villas for some 
half a mile along the brook side, there ending 
in another hotel. You take your meals beneath 
the trees, in the open space in front of the 
hotel ; a band plays there in the afternoon ; 
on either side are precipitous cliffs, on whose 
sides trees miraculously cling, and which are 



The Professor's Sister. 47 

ascended by paths zig-zagging upward at prac- 
ticable angles. Schandau is the outpost of 
Saxon Switzerland, the loveliest little region 
in all Germany. 

The party was to include the three Hert- 
rugges Conrad, Catalina and Hildegarde, and 
Ralph, Will Burlace and myself. This was 
two cavaliers apiece for the ladies wihch, con- 
sidering the excess of women over men in Ger- 
many, ought to have been very satisfactory to 
them. But at the last moment Conrad found 
it impossible to go. As all our preparations 
were made, and the day was fine, it was de- 
cided to proceed without him. The cause of 
his defection was a telegram he had received 
at breakfast from one of the professors at Frei- 
berg, announcing an important meeting to be 
held that day to consider the case of a certain 
student, known to Conrad, who had got into 
trouble. Conrad was at first inclined not to 
comply with the summons ; but inasmuch as 
the boy's future seemed likety to depend upon 
his attendance, he finally made up his mind to 
go. At parting, he drew me aside and said : 
" I don't feel altogether satisfied about this 
thing. The student is one of the eteadiest in 
the school. I cannot understand his having 
behaved in such a manner. Will you do me a 
favor ? " 



48 The Professors Sister* 

" With pleasure." 

" Well keep the party together as much as 
possible. I shall feel more at ease if I know 
the young people are not getting too romantic. 
You are a man of sense one can trust you ; 
but the others ! " 

" There is safety in numbers, professor," I 
replied, laughing ; " and under the circum- 
stances, I do not regard what you say about 
me as a compliment. However, I will engage 
to see them all home alive this evening." 

He rubbed his chin, seemed to meditate for 
a moment, and finally turned away muttering 
something I did not catch. He took the train 
one way, and we the other. 

In spite of his absence, we were a very merry 
party. Burlace gave the guard a thaler to lock 
the door of our compartment, which was a first- 
class one. The two ladies established them- 
selves at the opposite windows, and just as the 
train started Catalina called to Ralph and 
asked him to disentangle the lace fringe of her 
scarf from on*e of the buttons of the cushion, to 
which it had somehow become attached. By the 
time he had accomplished this I had taken my 
seat opposite Hildegarde, and Burlace was on 
the other side of her ; so there was nothing left 
for Ralph but to devote himself to the beauti- 
ful widow. But it appeared to me that no one 



The Professor's Sister. 49 

was pieased with this arrangement except Cata- 
lina, leaving myself, who would have been 
contented anywhere, out of the question. That 
is to say, Burlace wanted to be with Catalina, 
Ralph wanted to be with Hildegarde, and Hil- 
degarde to put the attitude negatively, as be- 
comes a young unmarried woman Hildegarde 
did not exhibit any marked preference for the 
society of either Will Burlace or myself. As 
we had a full hour's ride before us, this was, 
perhaps, unfortunate. But the genius of 
Ralph was equal to the emergency. He did 
not, indeed, imitate the sublime example of 
Hildegarde, on an occasion already described, 
and simply and without excuse or explanation, 
change his seat from where he did not to where 
he did want to be ; but at our first stopping place, 
Pirna, he was suddenly seized with a desire to 
speak to the guard, and since the station was 
on Hildegarde's side, he was obliged to come 
to that side in order to satisfy his desire. 
What he said to the guard I do not remember ; 
but while he was standing with his head and 
shoulders out of the window, Burlace took ad- 
vantage of the opportunity to transfer himself 
to the place opposite Catalina, and then Ralph, 
finding his retreat cut off, was, of course, 
obliged to sit down by Hildegarde. So now 
we were all happy except Catalina, and myself, 



50 The Professor s Sister. 

who, as I have already explained, was the ac- 
knowledged supernumerary and mere looker- 
on. In this order we arrived at our destina- 
tion. 

After being ferried across the river to the 
Schandau landing, we strolled up the lane by 
the brookside to the hotel, and ordered our 
dinner for one o'clock. We took this walk in 
a group, the promiscuous character of which 
was almost conspicuously, albeit tacitly, pre- 
served. But at this point I abandoned for the 
nonce my role of chaperon, and declaring that 
I must and would have a bath (there are ex- 
cellent baths in the hotel), I left niy four 
friends to fight it out, or flirt it out, as best 
they might. They started off. to ascend the 
hill on the left, and were soon lost to sight in 
the bosky pathway leading thither. 

I entered my bath, congratulating myself on 
my uninteresting and uninterested character. 
But though my heart was free, my curiosity 
and speculative instincts were awake, and I 
could not hefp wondering what would come out 
of this little game at cross-purposes. Too much 
weight might easily be ascribed to what I had 
noticed ; and yet it was plain that the two 
ladies both preferred the same man, to-wit : my 
friend Ralph Merlin. I could not blame them 
for this. Ralph was to poor Burlace as 



The Professor's Sister. 51 

Hyperion to a satyr. But what would be the 
result of it ? Would Hildegarde be able to 
hold her own against so redoubtable and potent 
a beauty as Catalina. If the object of their 
rivalry had been any other man than Ralph, I 
should have doubted it. But Ralph, though 
human enough in all conscience, in spite of his 
trick of talking metaphysics and mysticism, 
was not a man to mistake an outside for an in- 
side, still less to prefer the former to the latter ; 
and moreover he did not appear to be merely 
indifferent between the two women, but had 
betrayed a certain measure of preference for 
the strange girl with the hazel eyes. Catalina, 
then, was in so far at a disadvantage ; nor was 
her situation improved by the obvious fact that 
Hildegarde reciprocated Ralph's interest. In 
a matter of love, an unsophisticated maiden 
may sometimes prove more than a match for 
even a beautiful woman of the world and a 
widow. And Hildegarde had traits of character 
that would have to be taken into consideration 
by anybody. 

Upon the whole, I was benevolent enough 
to be sorry that Catalina had not happened to 
take a fancy to poor Will Burlace. If it were 
not an ideal match, at any rate it was really 
preferable to one between her and Ralph. And 
after all, why should she be in such haste to fall 



52 The Professor's Sister. 

in love with anybody ? Only seven or eight 
months ago she had a hushand. It was true 
that the deceased Mr. Hertrugge may have won 
her not solely on his own merits ; but some 
consideration was due to the poor man's 
memory. And what w r ould Conrad say to such 
behavior ? It was already evident that he was 
not pleased about something ; though whether 
it was to the marriage of his step-mother, or 
that of his sister, that he objected, I do not 
know. Neither was I aware what power he 
possessed, if any, to oppose or check the pro- 
ceedings. But, again, possibly and 1 thought 
it quite possible Ralph might feel only an 
aesthetic or psychological interest in Hilde- 
garde, in which case a half at least of the 
Gordian knot would be cut. By this time I 
had finished my ablutions, and resuming my 
garments, 1 sat down in the courtyard to await 
the return of my friends, and the arrival of 
dinner. It was not long before I heard voices 
from the hillside, and among them the 
stentorian tones of Burlace, who seemed to be 
in a complacent mood. 1 was curious to see 
in what order the quartette would reappear. 
When, presently, they hove in sight, it ap- 
peared that fortune continued to favor Hilde- 
garde thus far. She and Ralph were together, 
walking some twenty paces behind Burlace and 



The Professor's Sister. 53 

Catalina. Nevertheless, Catalina was in high 
spirits rather unduly high, I fancied. She 
was laughing and talking with Burlace, and 
looked positively glorious, with her complexion 
like white and red roses and her eyes like black 
diamonds. I was conscious of a great and dis- 
interested sympathy for her. What a pity that 
such a woman could riot have her own way in 
everything! With so much of primal nature 
in her, she must be more good than bad. There 
was evil in her, of course, as there is in every- 
body ; but it would come to the surface only if 
she were opposed, or injured, or disappointed. 
Why could not late allow her to enjoy herself 
in her own way ? It is singular how life often 
seems to provoke people deliberately hound 
them into being worse than they might be. 
Catalina would be all right if she were let alone. 
On the other hand, if she were crossed and 
driven into a corner, she was capable of serious 
mischief. As for Burlace, he was enchanted ! 
He belonged to the class of people who are most 
sanguine at the moment when everyone else 
perceives their final discomfiture. Ralph and 
Hildegarde, like Dante and Beatrice, were 
happy but quiet. 

The dinner was good ; and we had some Mar- 
cobrunner that was so inspiring that we were 
convinced it must be the original drink of im- 



54 The Professor's Sister. 

mortality, from the famous Fountain of Youth. 
And yet, what did we want of the wine of 
youth ? It w r as twenty years ago. I would ap- 
preciate it better now. 

Every once in a while I caught a glance from 
Catalina's jubilant black eyes. What was in 
that woman's mind ? Sometimes, too, I saw 
her looking at Hildegarde ; and then her regard 
became pre-occupied and dreamy ; it made me 
think of an Eastern empress, calmly watching 
the agonies of a dying slave. Yet Hildegarde 
was neither a slave nor moribund. 

Coffee was brought, and we lighted our 
cigars. The sun had passed its zenith, and 
was shining up the narrow valley. The band 
appeared and began to play. But the music 
was too near and loud ; by common consent we 
rose, and sauntered down the shadowy path 
towards the river. On arriving there, Catalina 
pointed to a steep elevation on our right, 
covered by some small buildings, and com- 
manding a fine view, and proposed that we 
should ascend thither. It is nothing to a party 
of young people to climb a mountain in the 
evening of a day's outing. Up we went, bend- 
ing to the arduous path, breathing deep, and re- 
joicing as height after height was gained. 
Beaching the breezy summit, we found there a 
tiny " Bestauration," with benches and tables 



The Professors Sister. 55 

in front of it, and intimations of cool beer in 
the background. 

We sat down on the benches, and were 
waited upon by a neat and comely little maiden, 
with her flaxen hair braided down her back, 
after the manner of the Gretchen of romance. 
I, being otherwise mateless, entered into con- 
verse with her, and she made cheerful replies 
to my questions. There was a little dome- 
shaped structure on the top of a rocky knoll, 
overlooking even the height on which we sat; 
and I asked her what was kept in it. 

" Oh, that is the camera-obscura," she said. 
" Have you never seen one ? " 

I had; but camera-obscuras have an abiding 
fascination for me ; and I wanted to see this 
one also. Gretchen expressed her willingness 
to do the honors of it ; I laid the matter before 
the others, but none of them were inspired by 
my enthusiasm, so I left them, and went up 
with Gretchen into the mount of vision. It 
was an excellent camera, and commanded a vast 
horizon. After causing the regular series of 
sights to pass across the stage, ending up with 
our own party still seated at the tables, 
Gretchen paused and asked me if I were 
content. 

I crossed her honest little palm with silver, 
and requested her permission to remain in the 



56 The Professor's Sister. 

camera by myself for a while ; to which she 
readily assented, and departed to her other 
guests and duties. I got hold of the cord that 
moved the lens, and began to explore the neigh- 
borhood at Imp-hazard. The silent but living 
pictures, in the lovely colors of nature, suc- 
ceeded one another ; the trees waved, the river 
ran, the little skiffs sailed to and fro upon it ; 
an interminable freight train slid along the 
track, with white steam puffing from its engine. 
Once an eagle sailed leisurely athwart the sky, 
without a pulsation of his long dark wings. I 
turned the glass full upon the sky, which 
showed lakes and straits of intense azure, be- 
tween superb masses of cloud, fleecy white and 
tender gray, like the plumage of a sea-gull. 
Turning more to the west, I saw there masses 
thickening and darkening, and assuming here 
and there strange tinges of yellow and green ; 
and towards the remote horizon there was a 
whitish blue. A thunder storm was coming 
on, and setting in this direction. As the frown- 
ing cloud wall drew nearer, I could see light- 
ning wriggling across it. 

The idea of watching a thunderstorm as it 
painted itself in a camera-obscura pleased me 
hugely ; it combined the realism of nature with 
the imaginative charm of a theatre. I directed 
the lens to the little restauration, in order to 



The Professor's Sister. 57 

find out what my friends were doing ; but they 
had all vanished. Only Catalina's parasol 
lay upon one of the tables ; and Gretchen stood 
in the door of the house, glancing at the sky 
and the landscape. Had the others wandered 
off somewhere, or were they in the restauration? 
I grasped the magic cord, and set off on a voy- 
age of discovery. 



58 The Professor's lister. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SPECTRE OF THE CAMERA. 

THE nearer rim of the storm-cloud was now 
nearly overhead, and the body of the disturb- 
ance was but a mile or two distant, sweeping 
up the valley of the Elbe, and shrouding the 
lofty cliffs of Koenigstein and Lilienstein in 
driving rain. I kept the darkest part of the 
cloud on the centre of my canvas, and watched 
its swift and majestic approach. The lightning 
was incessant, and showed blue and red as well 
as white, and the un intermittent roll and ex- 
plosions of the thunder filled my ears. If my 
unfortunate companions had gone out into the 
woods, they would inevitably be drenched to 
the skin. 

I surveyed my immediate surroundings for 
several minutes without seeing traces of any of 
them. The elevation to which we had ascended, 
following the general conformation of the re- 
gion, was in the shape of an irregular butte, or 
table-land bounded on all sides by nearly verti- 
cal precipices. These precipices, however, were 
cleft by deep ravines and gullies, whereby 
access was gained to the summit ; and the sum- 



The Professor's Sister. 59 

mit itself was only comparatively level, it 
was, in fact, rough and uneven, with loose 
bowlders resting upon it, and everywhere a 
thick growth of pines and other trees. Nar- 
row footpaths wound in and out from one point 
to another ; but there had been no attempt to 
render the surface homogeneous. 

From my high standpoint, I could command 
this limited space much better than any one 
below me, and I accordingly passed it carefully 
and sj^stematically in review, with the assur- 
ance that I could not fail to discover my friends 
sooner or later, if they were anywhere upon it. 
By and by I was rewarded by the sight of 
Catalina and Will Burlace, who were standing 
together beneath the broad boughs of a pine, 
looking out at the oncoming storm. 

Presently Catalina turned to Burlace, and 
seemed to be speaking to him; he replied; 
they glanced up at the boughs above them, and 
then again out over the valley. I judged that 
she had offered some suggestion, which they 
had discussed, and to which Burlace acceded ; 
for a moment later he nodded his head, left her 
side, and walked off at a brisk pace in the 
direction of the restauration. She had doubt- 
less asked him to fetch her an umbrella, or a 
cloak to protect her from the rain. 

I followed his course for a few moments, as 



60 The Professor's Sister. 

he alternately appeared and disappeared in the 
windings of the path, and "beneath the over- 
hanging branches of the trees. It struck me 
that he was taking the wrong path, hut I was 
unable to apprise him of his error. I returned 
to the spot where he had left Catalina ; but to 
my surprise, she was no longer there. Had 
she left the tree for some more effective shelter 
from the imminent downpour, or for another 
reason ? It suddenly struck me that the 
errand on which she had despatched Burlace 
might merely be another of her expedients to get 
rid of him ; and as soon as he was out of sight 
she had transferred herself elsewhere. 

But this could be only a piece of wanton 
mischief on her part, or it might even be CO' 
quetry ; for she had nothing to gain now by 
hiding herself from him, except the certainty 
of getting wet. It was not as if she were plot- 
ting to exchange Burlace for Ralph, for Balph 
was not there. By the way, where was he ? 
and Hildegarde ? she must be with him. 

All this time the gloom of the great over- 
whelming cloud was deepening, and the savage 
flashes of lightning made the intervals between 
seem darker ; and the thunder was uninter- 
rupted, booming and crashing and leaping in 
heavy echoes from peak to peak of the hills, as 
if giants were flinging vast bowlders at one 



The Professor's Sister. 61 

another. The appearance of the surface of the 
cloud overhead was awful and bewildering; it 
boiled and eddied like an aerial maelstrom; it 
was iridescent with lurid tints, and pieces of 
vapor were ever and anon torn off from the 
main mass and snatched and twisted about 
this way and that in the fury of the upper 
whirlwind. Jt was a terrifying spectacle ; such 
a storm as this I had never seen in Germany, 
and at so early a period of the year it was un- 
precedented. I began to fear that Ralph and 
Hildegarde and the others might be exposed to 
a real danger. 

Just then a turn of the glass brought Ralph 
into view. He was hurrying across the rough 
ground and through the wood, not attempting 
to keep the path, but making a straight line 
for the restauration. He was alone, and I could 
only suppose that he, like Burlace, had started 
to procure some means of protection for Hilde- 
garde, whom he had probably left in some 
place of comparative shelter. The first breath 
of the gale had now reached the butt, but as 
yet not a drop of rain had fallen. 

All at once, Catalina stepped out from be- 
hind a rock, directly in Ralph's path, so that 
he almost ran against her. He halted sud- 
denly ; and then I witnessed a remarkable 
scene. 



62 The Professor's Sister. 

A dazzling flash of lightning glared out, and 
simultaneously with it came an appalling crash 
of thunder. I saw Catalina, as if beside her- 
self with terror or excitement, throw herself 
upon Ralph, and fling her arms round him. 

Ralph was apparently as much surprised at 
this as I was. But he instinctively put his 
hands on her shoulders, and for several mo- 
ments she clung to him, with her face against 
his breast. The gloom had closed round them, 
but in another breath it was lit up again, and 
she was looking up in his face, and speaking 
passionately. He drew back a little, but again 
she clung to him ; all the strength and fire of 
her nature were put forth ; who can tell what 
she said or intimated ? The mere distant re- 
flection of the scene, from which I could not 
turn away my eyes, revealed and concealed in 
quick and irregular alternation by the electric 
flashes, made my nerves thrill and my pulses 
beat. Beyond a doubt this magnificent crea- 
ture was offering herself to Ralph ; could any 
man withstand the intoxicating onset of such 
a spirit and passion as hers ? And to all was 
added the excitement and hurly-burty of the 
great storm, as if the elements themselves took 
part in the tumult of her heart and brain. 

It seemed to me that Ralph wavered for a 
moment. He would not have been human 



The Professor's Sister. 63 

had he remained unmoved and in command of 
himself. To hear such love so told; to feel 
her alive in his arms and pressed against him; 
to see that beautiful face so close to his that 
her lips spoke almost against his lips, and her 
eyes wet with wild tears and ardent with the 
flame of her desire looked into his own, in 
such a situation virtue dissolves like snow in 
fire. Ralph bent his head towards her ; for an 
instant darkness closed them in; and what 
took place in that instant can only be conjec- 
tured. But alas for Ralph, and for her ! 

The revulsions of feeling in such cases are 
as rapid as they are intense. I knew that 
Ealph did not love her, and that he had yielded 
to a passionate impulse only. And having 
yielded, at such a white heat of emotion, the 
recoil would be inevitable and absolute. When 
I looked again he had unclasped her arms, and 
drawn back from her a step ; they faced each 
other so, and he was speaking. As he spoke, 
at first she heard him defiantly and wrathfully, 
standing erect at her full height, with her head 
poised like a serpent's, about to strike. Then 
some word of his hit her hard ; she winced and 
her head fell ; she half-raised her hands arid 
shrunk as if to avoid a blow. And then her 
arms dropped listlessly to her sides, and the 
pose of her figure expressed the apathy of de- 



64 The Professor s Sister. 

spair. She attempted no reply ; she did not 
lift her face ; and when he left her and passed 
on, she did not turn to look after him. 

Evidently, then, he had smitten hard ; and 
few men could smite harder than he. And he 
had killed something in her. Perhaps it was 
pride ; perhaps it was something better than 
pride. We are always wrong when we judge 
our fellow-creatures, and we are wicked when 
we condemn them and shame them, no matter 
for what cause. Possibly Ralph would have 
been less cruel had he not known in his heart 
that he too was accountant for a sin. 

After Ralph was gone, Catalina moved, drew 
her shoulders together as if she felt cold, and 
passed her hands over her eyes. She took a 
step or two forward, and paused ; walked a few 
paces in another direction, and paused again. 
She seemed hardly to realize where she was, or 
what she was doing. But presently a change 
came over her ; some definite purpose had en- 
tered into her mind, and she had immediately 
become intent upon it, to the exclusion of all 
other ideas. At first I could not imagine what 
it was ; but her course was taking her directly 
to one of the most headlong precipices, which 
plunged sheer downwards, five hundred feet 
without a break, to a chaos of tumbled rocks 
beneath. What should a desperate woman, 



The Professor's Sister. 65 

whose love had just been thrust back on her 
with contumely, seek on the edge of a preci- 
pice ? The answer was terribly obvious. I 
was about to witness the suicide of Catalina, 
without being able to do any thing to avert it. 
I was powerless as a man in a dream. She was 
in one world, and I in another, with no possi- 
bility of intercommunication ; and yet we were 
perhaps not more than three hundred yards 
distant from each other. 

She was now within twenty paces of the end. 
A sloping terrace, some ten feet in height, de- 
scended to the rocky brink. At the top of the 
terrace grew two or three small evergreens, 
and just on the crest of the declivity was bal- 
anced a small bowlder, about as big as a mam- 
moth pumpkin. 

When Catalina reached this terrace, she 
stopped short, with a start, and then drew back 
behind the shelter of the evergreens. Here 
she crouched down and gazed ; and I gazed, 
too. 

On the very brink of the abyss, where the 
downward slope of the terrace ended, stood 
Hildegarde. She stood looking outward to- 
wards the storm, which filled the vast gulf be- 
fore her. She was absorbed in the spectacle. 
She held herself proudly and exultingly, like 
some divinity of earth and air ; the fighting 
o 



66 The Professor's Sister. 

wind had loosened the fastenings of her tawny 
hair, and it streamed out behind her with a 
movement like leaping flame, and her garments 
fluttered like a rent sail wrapped on a slender 
mast. She raised her arms, as if to rise on 
wings and stem the gale. 

Her position was one of imminent peril. A 
step forward a loss of halance and she would 
have been lost. But she was manifestly 
unconscious of danger, or indifferent to it. 
Her nerves were not shaken ; her heart beat 
strong and full ; her reserved and silent na- 
ture was awake and rejoicing. It needs plan- 
etary influence to arouse some souls, while 
others expand themselves at the bubbling of a 
tea-kettle. In spite of her logical danger, Hil- 
degarde was safe. I wondered whether the 
storm alone was answerable for her exaltation, 
or whether Ralph also had been concerned 
in it. 

Did the same thought come to Catalina at 
that moment ? As I turned my eyes on her, 
I saw that she* had emerged from behind the 
evergreens, and was creeping towards the small 
bowlder that was poised above the slope. All 
the while her gaze was fixed intently on Hilde- 
garde, as a panther watches a fawn upon which 
it prepares to spring. Catalina reached the 
bowlder, and laid her hands upon it. 



The Professor's Sister. 67 

Then I comprehended what was about to 
happen. A vigorous push, such as Catalina 
was fully able to give it, would send the bowl- 
der bounding down the terrace. Hildegarde 
stood exactly in its path over the precipice. It 
would strike her, and sweep her down to de- 
struction. Catalina had changed her purpose 
from suicide to murder. Ralph had crushed 
her pride and scouted her love. She would see 
to it that Hildegarde did not enjoy his love 
either. 

As I saw the wretched woman press against 
the stone, I involuntarily shouted out to warn 
Hildegarde of her fate. I might as well have 
appealed to the stars. My voice came impo- 
tently back to me from the black sides of the 
camera; and even had I been as near her as 
was her intending murderess, the reverberations 
of the thunder and the roar of the wind would 
have out-shouted my words. 

The stone stirred, and trembled on its fall. 
But before it could descend, a figure appeared 
on the very verge of the gulf. It almost 
seemed as if it must be standing on the empty 
air ; it was on a level with Hildegarde, and a 
pace or two to her left. How it had come 
there was more than I could conceive ; an in- 
stant before, a glare of lightning had shown 
the place vacant ; the next flash had, as it were. 



68 The Professor's Sister. 

brought him there, for the figure was that of 
a man, and of one whom I immediately recog- 
nized. Its appearance, and what followed 
thereupon, all passed in the fraction of a 
minute ; but it seemed to me that the new- 
comer was more clearly visible than either 
Catalina or Hildegarde ; the effigy cast by the 
lens had a kind of luminous quality in it, as if 
it had absorbed some of the electric light which 
charged the atmosphere. The figure extended 
his left hand towards Hildegarde, and beck- 
oned to her with an urgent gesture. She, too, 
evidently recognized him ; but manifested 
little or no surprise at his presence. 

The stone plunged downward ; but before 
it could reach Hildegarde, she had quietly 
stepped a pace to the left, and it flew past her 
harmlessly. I saw Catalina throw up her 
hands and stagger back, with an aspect of 
terror ; but when I looked again for the appa- 
rition of Conrad Hcrtrugge, it had vanished. 



The Professor's Sister. 69 



CHAPTER VI. 
MR. HERTRUGGE'S WILL. 

SIMULTANEOUSLY with this strange event, 
the rain, which had held off so long, rushed 
down in a gray sheet, and blotted out every- 
thing. It rattled upon the roof of the camera 
with a noise like the beating of innumerable 
kettle-drums. But I had seen enough; the 
spell that had kept me there was broken ; I 
found the door and came forth. The rain 
struck me like a shower-bath, and I was soaked 
through before I could descend the knoll to the 
level. The first thing I saw was Ealph and 
Burlace running off through the trees with 
waterproof blankets in their arms. 

I had no wish to follow them. I did not 
doubt -that they would find Catalina and Hil- 
degarde, and bring them safely back. I walked 
across to the restauration. Gretchen met me 
in the doorway with exclamations of concern 
and compassion. The Herr was so wet ! The 
Herr would catch cold ! Everybody would 
catch cold ! Never was such a storm known. 
What was to be done ! Oh weh ! Oh weh ! 



70 The Professor's Sister. 

I followed her into the kitchen, where I took 
off my coat and waistcoat and sat down before 
the cooking-stove. Gretchen trotted here and 
there, getting out dry wraps for the ladies, 
when they should return. I could think of but 
one thing the appearance of Conrad on the 
cliff. By no means could I imagine how he 
could have got there. I had seen him depart 
in the train for Freiberg. It was an hour's 
journey from Dresden thither. The first train 
back to Dresden did not leave Freiberg until 
half-past one in the afternoon. Supposing him 
to have taken it, which in itself was most un- 
likely, he would have reached Dresden at half- 
past two. The first train after that, from 
Dresden to Schandau, started at half-past 
three, arriving at half-past four. I looked at 
my watch ; it was now twenty minutes of five. 
Granting that he had been on that train, it 
would have been impossible for him to have 
been ferried across the river and to have as- 
cended the hill in less than twenty minutes ; 
and five minutes had already passed since I 
saw him. According to my reckoning then, 
the event fell at least fifteen minutes short of 
being a physical possibility. The only way 
out of the mystery was to suppose that Conrad 
had chartered an engine specially to convey 
him hither. But to charter an engine is by no 



The Professor's Sister. 71 

means so simple an affair in Germany as it is in 
America. Moreover, what conceivable motive 
could have induced Conrad to take such a step ? 
He could not have foreseen that his sister was 
to undergo any peril. 

Apart from all this, however, the conditions 
under which I saw the figure were inexplicable. 
The peculiar luminousness and distinctness 
which characterized it j the position in which 
it stood, apparently on nothing ; and the cir- 
cumstances which I now recalled, that its gar- 
ments, in the midst of a gale that was bending 
the pine trees like grass, hung down unmoved, 
as if in an atmosphere completely calm j all 
these things combined to fortify the mystery, 
I should have put down the appearance as an 
hallucination, due either to the disturbed state 
of the air, or of my own mind at the time ; but it 
had evidently been seen also by both Hildegarde 
and Catalina ; the former had obeyed its gest- 
ure to move to one side, and the latter had 
been overcome with fear. Besides, the figure 
had not appeared to me directly, but through 
the medium of the lens of the camera ; and I had 
never heard of an hallucination presenting it- 
self in that manner. 

My meditations had reached this unsatisfac- 
tory conclusion when I heard voices and steps, 
and turning, I saw my four friends entering 



72 The Professor's Sister. 

the kitchen, convoyed by Gretchen. The rain, 
meanwhile, had ceased, having been as brief 
as it was violent ; the heavy clouds were break- 
ing away in the west, and the roll of the thun- 
der sounded like the cannon of some great 
battle far to the north and east. Catalina and 
Burlace came first, laughing and talking ; then 
Hildegarde, whose face had unusual color and 
animation, and finally Ralph, whose straight 
black eyebrows lowered over his eyes. He was 
the only one of the four who seemed to be out 
of spirits. 

"At last I have had my wish," exclaimed 
Catalina, throwing off her blanket. "I have 
always wanted to be out in a thunder-storm 
without an umbrella, and now I have done it. 
Nothing could be more refreshing ! " 

" But what about dying of pneumonia ? " 
said I. 

"Dying ! I am not going to die, Monsieur. 
I am going to live and be happy ! I am al- 
ready younger than I was this morning. I 
have bathed in electricity as well as in rain- 
water." 

" And yet you would commit suicide ! " 
said I. 

She became pale in a moment, and gazed at 
me with a sort of stealthy consternation. Her 
lips parted, but she did not speak. 



The Professor's Sister. 73 

"It is nothing less than suicide," I con- 
tinued, "to think of going home in those wet 
clothes. You are on the brink of a precipice. 
Draw back ! " 

" What an old raven you are ! " put in Burlace, 
with his rough voice. " You're always for 
plaguing folks ! Madame Hertrugge is all 
right. She is dressed in woolen, and the rain 
won't hurt her. Still, madame, if you would 
like to put on one of Gretchen's gowns while 
your things are drying " 

"No, not I !" she replied, taking breath and 
recovering her self-possession. " Besides, we 
must take the train in half an hour." 

" I have a better plan than that," remarked 
Ralph. " The steamboat starts in half an hour, 
too, and you and Miss Hildegarde can have a 
stateroom on that. You can go to bed during 
the run home, and by the time you get there 
your things will be dry." 

" Oh, to be sure, Hildegarde is delicate ! " 
returned Catalina, with a touch of mockery in 
her voice, "you are quite right to consider her, 
Mr. Merlin." 

" I wish I had a horse here, I would like to 
ride," said Hildegarde. 

" Twenty-five miles on horseback would be 
a little too much, after to-day," replied Ralph, 
looking at her with undisguised tenderness, 



74 The Professor's Sister. 

"we are answerable to Conrad for you." 

"By the way," said I, glancing carelessly 
at Catalina, " have any of you seen Conrad this 
afternoon ? " 

Catalina started perceptibly, and again the 
color left her face. She dropped her eyes, and 
the hand which she put up to smooth back her 
hair, trembled. 

" I believe you've got a chill in spite of your 
woolens, Madame Hertrugge," said Burlace. 
" The boat will be the best thing, after all, 
what's that you say saw Conrad?" he added, 
staring at me with a grin of amazement. 
" There's nobody here that I know of can see 
from this to Freiberg. What are you think- 
ing of ? " 

" Well," I said, " he may have been here in 
spirit, at any rate. If we are going to take 
that steamer I think we had better be getting 
off." 

We all rose and made ready to go. Hilde- 
garde came up to me as I stood a little apart 
from the others, and looked at me anxiously. 

" Can you see spirits ?" she asked, in a low 
voice. 

" Ralph and I were debating the other day 
whether spirits could be seen," I replied. u I 
believe he argued that they could not. What 
is your opinion ?" 



The Professor's Sister. 75 

" Spirits . . . perhaps not," she said slowly. 
" But I fancied you might mean . . . how- 
ever, it is no matter." 

" The ancients used to believe in tutelary 
spirits, or something of that kind, whose office 
it was to warn them of danger, and advise them. 
I should not he surprised if some being of that 
order watched over you, some aerial Conrad, 
you know, who filled his place when he was ab- 
sent." 

Her eyes became very penetrating, and she 
was about to reply, when Ralph came up to her 
and took her arm under his with an air of 
ownership that meant something. Burlace had 
Catalina ; I brought up the rear. Matters 
were plainly coming to a head; but I felt by 
no means prepared to guarantee that the head 
would be an altogether peaceable and agreeable 
one. 

We arrived at the wharf at the same time as 
the steamboat, and started on our downward 
journey, which would last until long after 
dark. We succeeded in procuring rooms for 
the ladies, and they disappeared. Burlace 
went off to drink a glass of Schnapps in the 
cabin ; and Ralph and I obtained permission 
to sit and smoke in the engine-room, where the 
heat from the furnace made us steam like a 
laundry. 



76 The Professor's Sister. 

" I wish we had stayed at home/' I re- 
marked, after a period of silence. 

"There is no day of my life that I would be 
willing to substitute for this," Ralph returned, 
emphatically. 

" Wait until you hear what Conrad has to 
say about it," was my answer. 

He smiled and said : " You think yourself a 
good guesser." 

"I suppose you have already obtained 
Madame Hertrugge's consent ? " said I. 

"Oh, I don't care to make a secret of it," he 
returned, leaning his head on his hand and fix- 
ing his gray eyes on me. " I have reason to 
believe that I shall marry the loveliest woman 
in the world. At the same time, there is no 
need to make it a matter of common talk, until 
the preliminaries are settled." 

"And until her year of widowhood has 
expired." 

Her year of widowhood ! What the mis* 
chief do you mean ? " 

"Madame ^Hertrugge's husband died less 
than a year ago." 

He gave me a keen look. " What is your 
motive in suggesting that I contemplate marry- 
ing Madame Hertrugge ? " 

" Why not ? Do you mean to say that you 
have never done or said anything to lead her to 



The Professor s Sister. 77 

think that she was not indifferent to you ? " 

He hesitated, and his eyes darkened. " You 
have no right to ask the question," he replied 
at length ; " and I would be justified in parry- 
ing it. But I prefer to admit that there has 
been a moment in my intercourse with her 
which I wish could be wiped off the record. 
As to marrying her, there never was any 
question of that. She can't marry." 

"Why can't she?" 

" On account of a clause in her husband's 
will." 

" Oh ! He forbids her to marry under certain, 
penalties ? " 

" If she marries while Hildegarde is still un- 
married, she forfeits the enjoyment of the late 
Mr. Hertrugge's fortune." 

Here was a whimsical complication. Cata- 
lina could not marry until Hildegarde was 
married. But since it was Ralph that Catalina 
desired to marry, and since, when Hildegarde 
was married it would be to Ralph, it was 
evident that Catalina would never marry at all. 

" Love may be secondary to money in her 
estimation," I said. 

" You must ask her about that yourself. The 
will also allows her to marry in the event of 
Hildegarde's death." 

" Mr. Hertrugge was a donkey," said I. 



78 The Professors Sister. 

I was half minded to tell Ralph what I had 
seen that afternoon. Many and many a time 
since have I regretted that J did not. But lie 
had shown himself so restive under my ques- 
tions that I was reluctant to meddle any 
further ; besides, had not Hildegarde under- 
gone her peril and escaped? But what a 
sinister light this news threw upon Catalina. 
It was hardly doing her an injustice to say that 
probably nothing would induce her to give up 
her fortune ; she had married on old trades- 
man of seventy to obtain it ; and she was of a 
temperament that needs wealth, as much as 
other people need air and water. And yet she 
had offered herself to Ealph. Nor was that 
the worst. Her attempt to murder Hilde- 
garde no longer appeared as simply the wild 
revenge of a jealous woman. That fool, her 
late husband, had deliberately put a premium 
on his daughter's death; and Catalina, in re- 
moving her, would have combined with her re- 
venge a shrewd stroke of business. 

"Shall you* remain here after your mar- 
riage ? " I asked presently. 

"I shall go back to America." 

"Well," I said, "I wish you joy with all my 
heart, and I think the sooner you are married 
and off the better." 

"Thank you," said Ealph. "And now if 



The Professor's Sister. 79 

you are dry, suppose we go up on deck." 
It was a lovely evening. Nothing of im- 
portance happened during our journey. Cata- 
linaand Hildegarde made their appearance just 
before our arrival at Dresden ; and the first 
person we saw on the wharf was Conrad, in 
flesh and blood. 



80 The Professor s Sister. 



CHAPTER VII. 
BUHLACE'S LUCK. 

A FEW days later, as I was sitting in my 
room, with the implements of my work around 
me, a sheet of drawing-paper stretched on a 
board, a saucer of Indian ink, a box of drawing 
instruments, and a set of calculations for the 
construction of toothed wheel gear, with 
these, and a volume of Heine's " Reisebilder " 
(which I happened to be studying at that mo- 
ment, in order to familiarize n^self with the 
language), there came a loud knock "at my 
door. People stamp their characters upon 
everything that they do ; and there was a free- 
dom, a self-opinionativeness, and a lack of con- 
sideration for the feelings of others about this 
knock, that at once informed me who was out- 
side. I closed the volume of Heine, put it 
under a pile of drawings, took up my drawing- 
pen, dipped it in the Indian ink, and said : 

" Come in, Burlace." 

He had already turned the latch, and now 
he bounded in, with his big boots, his small 
cap, his pipe, and his noisy voice. 



The Professor's Sister. 81 

" Sit down," I said, in a preoccupied voice. 

"Don't hurry, old man," he returned, cheer- 
fully ; " IVe got the afternoon free." 

"Lucky fellow !" said I, with a sigh. "Now 
I've got work enough on hand to occupy me 
for a week." 

" In that case," he answered, " you may as 
well call a halt right here. You work too 
hard, anyway. I believe, if it wasn't for me, 
you and llalph would both of you get your 
brains addled. I never come in but I find you 
grinding awa}>- as if you were on the track of 
the Philosopher's Stone. You .make a big mis- 
take. I go in for independent thinking. A 
book is only a man's opinion, after all ; and 
one man's opinion is as good as another's, and 
sometimes a little better ! " 

" What have you been thinking about late- 
ly ? " I inquired, putting down my pen. 

"I've been wondering, for one thing, what 
you and llalph find to admire in that fellow 
Conrad. I consider him a beast." 

"And his step-mother, too?" 

" If it's all the same to you," said Burlace, 
gruffly, " I would thank you not to insinuate 
anything against Madame Hertrugge. She is 
without exception the finest and most intelli- 
gent woman I ever met." 

"Intelligent, is she?" 



82 The Professor's Sister. 

"Well, rather. Why, look here! I am 
working a good deal just now in the direction 
of investigating the origin of diseases, with a 
view to developing the theory of prevention by 
inoculation. It will be proved, some day, that 
contagious and epidemic fevers, cholera, and a 
lot more of the scourges, are the work of micro- 
scopic germs in the atmosphere and in water. 
But the entire subject is at present in a very 
obscure condition, and some of the best men 
we have, who ought to keep their minds open, 
you'd think, are still too timid and bigoted to 
take it up." 

" What has that to do with Madame Her- 
trugge's intelligence ? " 

"It has just this to do with it: that I hap- 
pened to mention the subject to her the other 
day, and she was interested in it at once. She 
asked me questions that would have done credit 
to an expert ; she saw the point of all my ex- 
planations at half a glance; and when I told 
her some of the results of microscopic investi- 
gation, she mafle me promise that I would let 
her have a look at the things herself. If you 
don't call that intelligence, I'd like to know 
what you do call it ! " 

" I might find another name for it, perhaps," 
said I. " At any rate, I might suggest a pre- 
disposing cause." 



The Professor's Sister. 83 

" What do you mean ? " 

"No harm, I assure you. But you know 
what the poet says, ' Love lends a precious 
seeing to the eye !' ? 

" What right have you, or any man, to as- 
sume that I am in love with with anybody ? " 

" It's the other way, my dear Burlace. One 
can't help noticing what is before him ; and 
you must be aware that Madame Hertrugge's 
preference for your society has been imper- 
fectly concealed, to say the least of it." 

At this Burlace's large mouth relaxed, and 
a ruddy hue showed itself beneath the bristly 
growth of his beard. "Of course," he re- 
marked, "that is a thing I can say nothing 
about. A disinterested observer would see more 
than I could. Women are strange beings; 
when you expect most of them, they are away 
off, and when you have given them up, round 
they come again. But I suppose there are 
various ways of intimating the same thing, 
and there may be something in your idea that 
her interest is quickened by a favorable regard 
for me. That would be natural, and at the 
same time it would detract nothing from the 
fact of her intelligence." 

"On the contrary," said I, laughing, "her 
intelligence is sufficiently vindicated by the 
fact of her favorable regard for you." 



84 The Professor's Sister. 

" Look here if you are chaffing me " 

" Nonsense, Will," I cried out, testily, " why 
shouldn't I chaff you ? What are love-sick 
idiots good for but to be chaffed ? I am not 
in love with your Madame Hertrugge, nor she 
with me. Do you expect me to leave my 
Heine my drawing, I mean for the privilege 
of listening to your rhapsodies ? Why don't 
you go and talk to her ? You began by call- 
ing a friend of mine a beast, and now you want 
me to sing the chorus to your amatory drivel. 
I am not tuned to that key." 

Burlace knocked the ashes out of his pipe on 
my table, and grinned. " That's all right, old 
fellow," said he. " You certainly have been 
left out in this arrangement, and between 
Ralph and me, you come to the ground. Well, 
I'm not going to tantalize you with the spec- 
tacle of my good fortune ; but when I say that 
Conrad is a beast, I mean it. If he doesn't 
look out, he will get a piece of my mind one of 
these days." 

"That will do him more injury than any of 
your inoculations for physical disease. But do 
empty yourself of your message, if you have 
one, and leave me in peace ! " 

"That fellow Conrad," continued Burlace, 
imperturbably, " actually had the face to in- 
sult Madame Hertrugge in my presence. He 



The Professor's Sister. 85 

told her to remember that her late husband 
had lived long enough to know her character ; 
and that however much her disposition might 
incline her to play fast and loose with other 
men, the terms of his will would suffice to put 
them on their guard against her. What do 
you think of that?" 

" It was pretty plain speaking. What did 
she say ? " 

" She showed the dignity and self-possession 
that only a lady is capable of. She told him 
that she valued the friendship and sympathy 
of an honest man more than any consideration 
that he (Conrad) was capable of appreciating ; 
and that rather than have her free actions 
misconstrued, she would willingly surrender 
what he was pleased to call a check upon her 
liberty." 

"Do you know to what Conrad referred ? " 

" I didn't at the time ; but she told me 
afterwards. It seems that senile old imbecile 
of a husband of hers provided in his will " 

" You needn't trouble yourself to tell me," I 
interposed ; " I know it already." 

"Oh, you do! Conrad has been warning 
you off the premises as well." , 

" I never exchanged a word with him on the 
subject." 

" I understand ! " said Burlace, after staring 



86 The Professor's Sister. 

at me for a moment. " The information came 
from our friend Ralph. I've nothing against 
Ralph ; he's all right. And if he carries out 
his intentions, I shall be under obligations to 
him. You know, of course, that as soon as he 
becomes the husband of Miss Hildegarde, there 
will be nothing to hinder Madame Hert- 
rugge " 

" And does she favor the match ? " 

"Of course she does. She has taken pains 
to become acquainted with Ralph, and to test 
his character, and she has become satisfied that 
he is unobjectionable." 

" I haven't noticed that she has taken pains 
to throw the young people together, however," 
I remarked. 

" How could she, stupid ? " demanded Bur- 
lace. " Don't you see the delicacy of her posi- 
tion ? If she were to appear as a promoter of 
the affair, wouldn't Conrad and all the other 
fools in the world scream out that she was 
scheming to retain her fortune ? She felt it to 
be her duty, as* Hildegarde's only friend of her 
own sex, to investigate the character of any 
suitor for her hand ; but, beyond that, she was 
obliged to restrict herself to what they call 
benevolent neutrality ! " 

This view of the case struck me as being so 
pathetically ludicrous that I could not help 



The Professor's Sister. 87 

laughing. After what I had witnessed at 
Schandau, the interpretation of Catalina's be- 
havior as "benevolent neutrality" was inimi- 
table. " I should have thought," I said, " that 
she would have applied to you for a certificate 
of Ralph's availability." 

" That happens to be precisely what she did," 
he returned, complacently. " I told her that 
Ralph was a trump in all respects, and that I 
was convinced that he and Hildegarde were 
born for each other." 

You did ! " 

" I did ; and she said with a tone and look 
that I am not likely to forget in a hurry that 
she had perfect confidence in my judgment and 
perception, and that I had taken a load of 
anxiety off her heart." 

"Burlace," said I, "I'm a friend of yours; 
you bore me horribly sometimes, but I like 
you, and if I knew a good sensible girl whose 
happiness and well-being I wanted to insure, I 
should tell her to get you to marry her. And 
I am now going to give you an even greater 
proof of my friendship for you by doing some- 
thing that will probably make you my enemy 
for life." 

" Go on ! " returned Burlace, \vithout evinc- 
ing, I must say, any violent symptoms of 
agitation. 



88 The Professor's Sister. 

11 Well, I advise you to pack up your trunks 
and go back by the shortest route to Chicago, 
and to forget all about Germany and everybody 
you ever met there. As sure as you stay here, 
you will get into the worst scrape that any 
honest man ever got himself into yet." 

Burlace looked at me intently for several 
moments. My tone was serious, as my feeling 
was, and he saw it. He answered me with a 
gravity and dignity that touched me not a 
little. 

" I'm sorry you said that," he observed, " but 
I'm not your enemy for it, because I don't be- 
lieve you're the man to talk loosely on such a 
subject. You meant it well ; but well I 
love that lady, and if any harm comes to me on 
that account, I'm ready and willing to take it 
as it comes. If she cares for me, I should feel 
myself so lucky that a misfortune would only 
put things straight. But if you have anything 
against her, I give you notice that I will not 
listen to it. I believe in her; I believe there 
is no purer or better woman in the world ; and 
whoever is against her must be against me 
sorry as I am to say it to you, old man." The 
voice of the honest, pig-headed fellow faltered 
at the last words, and he ostentatiously began 
to fill his pipe and hunt in impossible places 
for a match. 



The Professor's Sister. 89 

I felt as if there might be tears in my own 
eyes. My affection for Burlace had never been 
so strong as it was then ; and he was caught in 
a net from which there could be no escape that 
was not more or less disastrous. Catalina 
meant to use him as a tool to carry out her 
purposes on Hildegarde and Ralph. What her 
purposes were, or how she would employ Bur- 
lace, of course I did not know, but I could not 
doubt the intention. She had been checked 
once ; she would profit by experience, and so 
devise that there would be no check the second 
time. 

It would be useless, in Burlace's present 
state of mind, to tell him the story of my hour 
in the camera at Schandau. He would not 
credit it, even if he consented to listen to it. 
I could only keep such watch as circumstances 
permitted on her future movements. But even 
that was less my affair than either Ralph's or 
Conrad's. There were probably no secrets be- 
tween them, and they would take such meas- 
ures as they deemed necessary 

It sometimes seems as if we could help one 
another, in this world, only in minor and insig- 
nificant matters. When the real pinch comes, 
we are powerless, and can only observe the in- 
evitable approach of destiny. 



90 The Professor's Sister. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A DRAMATIC TRIUMPH. 

IN Germany, the ceremony of betrothal is an 
event of greater social importance than it is 
here ; you often see the announcement printed 
in the newspapers, and it is made the subject 
of comment and congratulation among relatives 
and friends. There is something pretty and 
patriarchal in the idea; though, society not be- 
ing quite patriarchal at the present day, I am 
not sure that the results are especially benefi- 
cient. Privacy is sometimes better than pic- 
turesqueness, in an artificial age. 

However that may be, the news of the be- 
trothal of Hildegarde Hertrugge and Ralph 
Merlin was made known, about this time, to 
interested persons ; and an invitation was 
issued to a select few to meet the young people 
at a reception given at Madame Hertrugge's 
house. I received a card, written, a little to 
my surprise, by Catalina herself : and as a 
matter of course Burlace was there. 

This was the nearest approach to a social 
estivity that had been given at the house since 



The Professor's Sister. 91 

Mr. Hertrugge's decease, and I suppose people 
were anxious to see how the widow would con- 
duct herself. The purport of the late husband's 
will was generally known, at least among the 
nearer friends of the family, so there may also 
have been some speculation as to whether the 
consequences of the anticipated marriage were 
likely to be availed of promptly, or whether 
the handsome Catalina would prefer to post- 
pone indefinitely the formation of fresh ties. 
But it was agreed that she was fortunate in 
getting released so early from what must have 
been at best a somewhat annoying stipula- 
tion. 

I came rather late, and the company had 
already assembled, and had got over the first 
formalities and uncertainties of the situation. 
The drawing-room was comfortably filled ; there 
were a number of officers, with the air of im- 
maculate and insolent self-complacency that is 
the general characteristic of German warriors, 
and has become still more marked since the war 
with France than it was before; there were 
several professors, friends of Conrad, and, for 
the most part, acquaintances of my own ; there 
were a few nondescript persons of the male sex, 
presumably relatives ; there were a dozen or 
twenty homely women, two or three good-look- 
ing ones, and one conspicuously beautiful, who, 



92 The Professor's Sister. 

1 need not say, was no other than Catalina her- 
self. 

As for ITildegarde and her lover, though they 
were in the unenviable position of being the 
cynosures of the occasion, they did not seem to 
mind it much ; their love for each other en- 
abled them to rise superior to circumstances. 
They stood near each other, as we ordinarily 
measure distance, yet remote enough for lovers, 
since two or three paces and twice as many 
people intervened between them. But across 
this gulf of time and space they ever and anon 
threw a proud glance at each other, as much as 
to say : " My love, I am yours ; the world can- 
not part us ! " It is wonderful and delightful 
how this dawn of love between two worthy 
human beings always leads them back to pure, 
primitive emotion, so that they are sure that 
they are the first, since Adam and Eve, to dis- 
cover and enter the vale of Paradise. "No 
one ever loved before ! " is the refrain of their 
thought ; and, indeed, there is always a hope 
a possibility that now at last the time may 
have come when the world, and our sad human 
life in it, is to undergo transfiguration, and be- 
gin again with those two lovers. The world 
grins at them and calls them silly; but the 
lovers know, with the deepest and soundest of 
all knowledge, how tragically and grotesquely 



The Professor's Sister. 93 

silly is the grinning world. Merely by love, 
and by that only, can all the problems of politi- 
cal economy, all the abuses of society, all the 
miseries of mankind, be solved, reformed, alle- 
viated. " Only be like us," the lovers say, 
" and you will be whole ! " The world grins ; 
but ah ! how glad and grateful its poor old 
wizened heart would be, if love could but 
gather power really to conquer it and lead it 
captive ! You may know that this is true by 
observing the eyes of elderly people, when the 
little hugging arms of infancy are round their 
necks ; and by noticing with what jealous de- 
light the world follows the fortunes of any 
lovers who have had the wisdom to be silly all 
their lives. The victories which the world en- 
joys and celebrates are never its own, but 
always those of its opponents over itself. 

One does not often meet with a pair of lovers 
having a more assured air of victory than Hil- 
degarde and "Ralph wore that evening. But 
Hildegarde was infinitely the more attractive 
object of the two, not only because she appeared 
this evening in the consummate flower of her 
maidenly loveliness, but because love, for her, 
was a self-surrender, whereas for Ralph, as for 
all men, it was more an acquisition. He 
adored and reverenced her, no doubt ; but he 
was also conscious of the pride of possession 



94 The Professor's Sister. 

of having won the treasure for his own, to 
keep and defend against all rivals. Such a 
feeling in its final analysis, is selfish. But in the 
maiden's love there is no selfishness. Her long- 
ing and amhition was not to possess him, but to 
be possessed by him ; to give herself to him so 
entirely that nothing of herself should be left 
that was not his, and him ! Their union should 
mean, not a linking together, but the merging 
of herself in him. She grudged herself even 
the happiness that his love wrought in her ; 
she would have all the happiness his, but could 
not make it so, because, the more his happiness 
was increased, the happier must she be. So 
hers was the divine inspiration, and her fair 
face was radiant with a purer light than can 
ever shine in the countenance of any son of 
Adam. 

She was dressed in feathery white ; her eyes 
had the soft, mysterious darkness that char- 
acterizes hazel eyes in moments of deep emo- 
tion. There was more color than usual in her 
cheeks; it had an opaline quality, coming and 
going with a thought or a look. For orna- 
ment she wore the opal ring that Ralph had 
given her, an exquisite stone, trembling with 
celestial fire. But, somehow, it made me sad to 
look at her. Life was not what she thought it 
was. Many cruel sorrows would come to her, 



The Professor's Sister. 95 

and the light that was in her eyes to-night 
would grow faint and infrequent. It seemed 
almost a pity that the attainment of such felic- 
ity as this should not be the immediate pre- 
lude to what those who do not love call death. 
The valleys of shadow through which we walk 
do not always give strength. Often, they be- 
numb and bewilder, and only a forlorn parody 
of the young traveller who sets forth so blithely 
arrives at last on the shore of the unknown 
river. 

I took Hildegarde's hand in mine, and made 
my formal good wishes ; but she seemed far off, 
not from any voluntary remoteness on her part, 
but because I did not inhabit the sphere of her 
existence. As for Ralph, his measureless con- 
tent was trying to mere friendship. "I hope 
you don't think you deserve her," I said to him. 

" There is no measure for measure about it," 
he replied. " The only place where a man ap- 
proximately gets his deserts, is hell ; and he 
probably imagines even that to be heaven." 

" What is heaven ? " I asked. 

" The marriage of the good and the true/ 7 
said he. " It is the marriage that makes 
heaven, not either of the contracting parties. 
That is where my chance come in." 

"You had better say nothing ; nothing you 
can say fits the occasion." 



96 The Professor's Sister. 

""Which occasion? My betrothal, or this 
reception ? " 

"True," I admitted; "and I am in the 
wrong as usual. There are times when associ- 
ation with one's kind is almost indecent. If a 
fairy were present at my betrothal, I should ask 
her for the cup of invisibility." 

After this unsatisfactory dialogue, it was a 
pleasure to turn to Catalina. There was no 
remoteness in her sphere ; she was on the earth, 
and of it. Her behavior was exactly what it 
ought to be assuming the situation to be what 
it externally appeared. She was pleased at her 
step-daughter's happiness, and yet there were 
some traces of solicitude in the look she occa- 
sionally bent upon her, as if she were not yet 
quite sure that all was for the best. As re- 
garded herself, there was a certain reserve of 
manner, conveying the impression that she was 
far from being in haste to claim the rights of 
emancipation that Hildegarde's marriage would 
confer upon her, but rather meant to substi- 
tute her owA volition for the restraint lately 
imposed by her husband's decree. Her mood, 
therefore, was one of cheerful gravity ; gravity 
being the background, and cheerfulness the 
outward ornament. 

Inasmuch as she had struck me, when I first 
met her, as being one of the most elemental 



The Professor's Sister. 97 

persons I had ever seen, a woman of a prime- 
val type, experiencing and rejoicing in the 
strong but simple passions that lie at the basts 
of human nature, I was hardly prepared to 
find her so accomplished in dissimulation. But, 
after all, dissimulation is itself an elemental 
trait. Animals dissimulate to gain their ends ; 
the bird whose nest is beneath your foot tempts 
you with the pretence of a broken wing, and the 
crocodile lies like a log until you are within 
reach of its jaws. Besides, jealousy and re- 
venge are quick and effective teachers ; and 
there is a histrionic quality in women of the 
Catalina kind which facilitates their assump- 
tion of sentiments and expressions alien to 
their real ones. Catalina was evidently a natu- 
ral artist in this respect. 

"Love is a melancholy spectacle," I said to 
her, for I too felt impelled, by magnetic sym- 
pathy perhaps, to reflect her dissimulation, 
" it promises so much and performs so little. 
Would you be willing to change places with 
that poor girl ? " 

"You are too cynical," she answered with a 
smile. " Any woman might be proud and glad 
to be loved as Ralph loves Hildegarde. If I 
were melancholy, it would be because, for me, 
the time for that has gone by." 

" I would not hear your enemy say so ! " r- 



98 The Professor's Sister. 

turned I. " If you have no more to do with 
love, it is you who must have decreed the es- 
trangement. And/' I added with an audacity 
that I myself could not but admire, " had I 
possessed Ralph's mysterious faculty for win- 
ning hearts, I should have chosen the perfect 
flower, rather than stand the hazard of the bud." 

" If you possessed the gift, possibly it would 
amend your judgment," she said, sending out 
a gleam of genuine anger from her black eyes. 
Then, with a sudden change of tone and man- 
ner, she touched my hand lightly with hers, 
and added, " Love me, if you will ; and we will 
learn wisdom from each other." 

Mockery though it was, it made me realize 
her seductive power. " I am afraid ! " I said, 
smiling. 

" Afraid ! of what ? " 

" That you would lead me to the edge of the 
precipice and push me over." 

" Ah ! " said she, slowly. We looked at each 
other for a long moment. "Why not push me 
over?" she asked at length, "you are the 
stronger." 

" But is there any need ? " I returned. 

"Ah ! " she said again, in a different key. 

Burlace was always hovering in her neigh- 
borhood, and at this moment he approached, 
probably in response to some private signal. 



The Professor's Sister. 99 

She turned from me, and I moved away. I 
had not intended to quarrel with her, and no 
benefit to anyone was likely to come from our 
little bout ; but the truth was, these attacks of 
mine were prompted by an instinct of self-de- 
fense against the influence she exerted over 
me. I am not considered generally suscep- 
tible ; but I felt a peril in her propinquity, and 
gave up Burlace for lost. 

" All goes merry as a marriage bell, Pro- 
fessor," I said to Conrad, seating myself beside 
him on a settee. " What think you ? Will 
the example prove contagious ?" and I allowed 
my eyes to rest meditatively on Burlace. 

" Your acuteness is greater than your judg- 
ment," said he. " Some people can be fright- 
ened into harmlessness ; but veiled threats, 
which you are so given to employing, only 
stimulate others to more dangerous activity. 
Pardon my frankness ; but I have a difficult 
affair on my hands, and a rash word, however 
well meant, might set the odds too much 
against me. You understand me, don't you ? " 

" In your present sense, perhaps ; but " 

" Well, never mind the other senses," he in- 
terrupted. " Did I ever tell you that the tele- 
gram I received the other day, summoning me 
to Freiberg, was a deception. The emergency 
it spoke of was a pure invention.' 7 



100 The ^Professor's lister. 

Who " 

" No matter who sent it. I mentioned it be- 
cause you may have some reason to think that 
I am able to act effectively in predicaments that 
would find other men helpless. I don't deny 
that such may sometimes be the case. But at 
other times, perhaps quite as important, I am 
as liable to be caught napping as the stupidest 
man you know. If I had been clever enough 
to see through the telegram, for example, there 
would have been no necessity for the phenom- 
enon that occurred afterwards." 

This was the first time that anything had 
passed between me and this extraordinary man 
on the subject of the apparition at Schandau. 
Indeed, I had not spoken of it to any one ; and 
if I was not surprised that he nevertheless 
knew what I had seen, it was only because 
nothing in which he was concerned could sur- 
prise me. 

"You will not object to Ralph's taking her 
to America as soon as they are married ? " said 
I, letting the mysteries go. 

" Let us get them married first," he replied, 
and even as he spoke there was a commotion and 
then a cry, at the upper end of the room. Every 
one rose ; but Conrad had already made his 
way to the centre, whither all attention was 
strained. When I got there I found him with 



The Professor's Sister. 101 

his hand on Hildegarde's pulse. She was re- 
clining, half supported by Kalph. Her eyes 
were partly open, but she was evidently un- 
conscious. 

" It is the excitement she has fainted," 
said Catalina's voice close to my ear. I turned 
sharply and saw the profile of that beautiful 
face, as she gazed steadily at the pale, inani- 
mate girl. " Bring her to my own room," she 
said, quietly. " I will take care of her. It 
will soon be over." 

" Not so soon as you think ! " said Conrad, 
looking up at her. A green light seemed to 
flash out from his eyes, and his thin lips receded 
slightly from his white teeth, in a grimace that 
cannot be described as a smile. If Catalina's 
sentence had borne a double meaning, so did 
his rejoinder, and the two foes had joined 
battle. 

The sympathetic bystanders saw only an 
episode familiar enough in ball-rooms, rendered 
a little more interesting than common by the 
fact that the young lady who had fainted was 
she in honor of whose betrothal they were as- 
sembled. They murmured their compassion 
for her, and for her handsome lover. But 
Ralph, after the first few moments, had be- 
come as cold and impassive as marble, as if 
he had read the fateful writing on the wall, and 



102 The Professor's Sister. 

interpreted it. His gaze was bent with in- 
tense concentration upon Hildegarde's face ; 
one would have said that he was willing his 
own life to substitute itself for hers. But he 
was isolated from the rest of the world ; noth- 
ing coming thence could reach him. 

" She'll come too all right ; give her air and 
a whiff of hartshorn ! " cried out Burlace, en- 
couragingly. " Don't you fret, old man ; there's 
no danger ! " 

" Poor hoy ! " murmured Catalina, with a 
secret smile, " it was a shame to spoil his happy 
evening. It was so pretty to see their delight 
in each other ! " 

Ralph rose to his feet, lifting Hildegarde 
lightly in his arms ; the throng of spectators 
fell back, and he carried her out of the room, 
accompanied by Conrad. Burlace was about to 
accompany them, when Catalina arrested him 
by a glance. 

" We won't make too much fuss about it," 
she said, speaking partly to him and partly to 
the company.' " My step-daughter is accus- 
tomed to these attacks ; she is delicate, and 
studied too hard in the convent. She will be 
as well as ever to-morrow, and her brother and 
Ralph are quite competent to take care of 
her." 

" I trust it will prove as unimportant as 



The Professor's Sister. 103 

Madame Hertrugge thinks," observed one of 
the professors, beside whom I happened to be 
standing. " At the same time it did not ap- 
pear to me like an ordinary fainting fit. A 
new disease has been diagnosed lately, very 
obscure and difficult in its features ; it is her- 
alded by abrupt spells of unconsciousness, ac- 
companied by certain peculiar symptoms, which 
I seemed to recognize in the present case. We 
are endeavoring to investigate its origin by 
the aid of the microscope ; but, so far, with- 
out any very satisfactor}'- results. If one could 
only make experiments on the human subject ! 
I wish some disposition, looking that way, 
could be made of criminals convicted of capital 
offences.'' 

" Is the disease you speak of fatal ? " I en- 
quired. 

" No cure has yet been discovered," he re- 
plied. " Its duration is from two to three 
days. It appears to be painless, and produces 
little or no change in the extern :il aspect of 
the subject, nor has dissection yet afforded any 
conclusive evidence as to the precise cause of 
death in the circumstances." 

The guests were taking their leave. Catalina 
was bidding them good-bye, with a comfortable 
smile and cheery word for each. "What a 
woman she is ! " I heard someone say. " She is 



104 The Professor's Sister. 

much more anxious about that poor girl than 
she pretends ; hut she will not allow her guests 
to be discomposed ! " 

At last, my time came to say good-night. 

"What!" exclaimed Catalina, smilingly, 
"are you, too, going to allow yourself to be 
frightened away ? I shall owe Hildegarde a 
grudge for this ! " 

" You must permit me to say that you have 
managed this affair admirably," I returned. 
" It has been an artistic and personal success. 
And yet there are so many slips between the 
cup and the lip I hardly know whether my 
congratulations may not be even now prema- 
ture. Have you no misgivings ? " 

" Come to-morrow ! " she said, holding out 
her hand. 

I took her hand. It was warm, firm and 
soft. Her eyes were clear, composed, t^iumph- 
ant. She felt no remorse, still less any fear. 
She was perfectly natural. She had met with 
an obstacle, and she had removed it. She had 
suffered a rebuff, and she had requited it. All 
is fair in love and war. 

It was a long time before I saw her again, 
and under very different circumstances. But, 
among all the times and phases in which I have 
seen her, the picture of her in my memory as 
she appeared at this moment, remains most 



The Professor's Sister. 105 

distinct. It was the most characteristic ; there 
was more in it than in any other, of the real 
woman that she was. Poisonous serpents, when 
they are most deadly, appear most beautiful, 
graceful and natural. They were made to 
inflict destruction. 



The Professor's Sister. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE PENTAGON. 

I CALLED at the Hartrugge's house on the fol- 
lowing day, to inquire as to the condition of 
Hildegarde, and was informed by the servant 
that she was still in bed. I saw none of the 
inmates, and as Ralph was not to be found in 
his own lodgings, I inferred that he also was 
with her. I then attempted to get hold of 
Burlace, but although I had good grounds for 
believing that he was in his room when I went 
to see him, his presence was denied at the door. 
Nothing remained but to wait for news to come 
to me. 

On the evening of the third day, as I was 
standing on the old bridge that connects the 
Altstadt withthe Neustadt, looking -down at 
the current which eddies forever against the 
stone abutments, some one entered the little 
semi-circular recess that I occupied, and stood 
beside me. 

I looked up at him it was Ralph and was 
about to ask him how Hildegarde was, but his 



The Professor's Sister. 107 

face apprised me that a calamity haa hap- 
pened. 

" She is dead/ 7 he said, after a moment, 
" and I am on my way to London. I do not 
care to stay for the funeral." 

" What did she die of ? " I asked, mechanic- 
ally. 

"Of a disease affecting the circulation. I 
believe it has not been classified yet. Among 
the many new inventions nowadays, there are 
some new diseases." 

" But it is recognized as a disease ? " 

" Yes." 

" How did she get it ? " 

" As she might have got a cold, or the small- 
pox. By the act of God, as the lawyers would 
say.' 1 

"What shall you do in London ? " 

" Go to a hotel, I suppose. I have no plans. 
There is nothing to be done but to wait. How 
to make the time pass most quickly is the ques- 
tion. It is becoming tedious already." 

" How are Conrad and " I hesitated. 

" Conrad and Catalina are very well, I 
believe," he answered, speaking, as he had 
done from the first, in an apathetic and listless 
tone, as of a man physically and mentally 
weary, but no longer a prey to any emotion. 
He added presently, " Catalina had no reason 



108 The Professor's Sister. 

to be my friend, or Hildegarde's either ; but I 
am bound to say she has been kind and sym- 
pathetic throughout. Conrad seems to dislike 
her ; but her only fault, as far as I can see, is 
that she is herself, and that is one common to 
all of us.' 7 

We leaned side by side upon the stone para- 
pet, looking down at the stream. I did not 
think it expedient to make any remarks 
"proper to the occasion." Hildegarde was 
dead ; Ralph's life was a blank ; I was sorry. 
We both knew these facts, and talking about 
them would benefit neither of us. What he 
had said about Catalina had evidently been 
sincerely meant, but it surprised me. For 
though it was true that I had never told him 
of her attempted crime at Schandau, yet I had 
not expected Conrad to be as reticent ; and if 
he had known that, he would scarcely have 
failed to suspect her hand in this case also. 
Why had not Conrad told him ? Did Conrad 
himself acquit her ? I could not believe it ; 
his silence must have had some motive which I 
was not in a position to understand. At all 
events, since he had not spoken, I had no cue 
to speak. 

I contented myself, therefore, with making 
some suggestions looking towards my joining 
him, in the course of a few weeks, in London. 



The Professor's Sister. 109 

I had previously made up my mind to leave 
Dresden after he and Hildegarde were married. 
I had spent over three years in somewhat des- 
ultory studies, and I did not care to remain 
after my chief friend had departed. Ralph 
made no objection to the proposal, though 
neither did he profess any particular gratifica- 
tion at it. His ailment at present was in- 
ability to care for anything. Our talk, fre- 
quently interrupted by silences, drifted into 
generalities, and finally he roused himself and 
said he must be going. Curiosity prompted me 
to say, at the last moment, " Are you sorry 
that you met her ? " 

" Oh, no," he said slowly. " I shall meet her 
again. I feel no absolute separation ; if I die, 
I shall accommodate myself to it. The convic- 
tion that our parting is only temporary makes 
it easier to bear in one way the higher way ; 
but harder in another. As it is, I. count the 
days ; but one does not count towards eter- 
nity." 

"And are you no more inclined than you 
were to try the resources of Spiritism ? " 

He shook his head. " I certainly don't wish 
to have Hildegarde parodied by the first wan- 
dering disembodied courtesan who happens to 
scent my bereavement. That would be the 
way to lose her. As long as I keep her image 



110 The Professor's Sister. 

sacred in my soul, I am safe ; but if I allow it 
to be manipulated and polluted by sensual im- 
postors I might as well have cast her living 
body before a herd of swine." 

" But what if there be no future life ? " I 
persisted. 

" Then there is no life at all. And if our 
belief that there is a life here be an illusion, 
then it would be only reasonable to expect the 
illusion to continue after the illusion of death. 
I have no anxieties on that score." 

We shook hands, and went our several ways. 
I saw him cross the bridge, with his measured, 
but elastic step, and a slight swing of his 
shoulders from side to side, that would have re- 
vealed him to me among a thousand. Gradu- 
ally the throng on the sidewalk intervening, 
rendered him indistinguishable ; and 1 plodded 
home in low spirits, and with gloomy forebod- 
ings. 

I do not belong to that numerous and re- 
spectable class who derive a certain gentle satis- 
faction from funerals. When my friends die, 
I would rather think of them as they were, and 
as I hope and believe they are, than associ- 
ate them with any thought of the effigy in the 
undertaker's box. Accordingly, I made up 
my mind not to go to Hildegarde's funeral ; 
Kalph himself had avoided the dismal cere- 



The Professor's Sister. Ill 

inony, and I had no reason to suppose that Con- 
rad would notice my absence, or be flattered 
should I be present. Moreover, I did not like 
the idea of meeting Catalina there ; whether 
her look should be undisguised triumph, or of 
hypocritical grief, it would be equally unlovely. 
So I sent a note to Conrad, saying that I 
should be out of town on the day of the sol- 
emnity, and expressing the regret I sincerely 
felt at his sister's death. 

To my surprise, he appeared at my lodgings 
the next morning. He seemed in his usual 
spirits, and, indeed, imported a lightsome tone 
into the conversation that struck somewhat 
discordantly on my ear. 

" Unless you really have business that 
demands your absence from town to-morrow, 
my dear fellow," said he, " don't think it 
necessary to go on this account. Believe me, 
I fully understand your reluctance to put in 
an appearance on the occasion ; if I had my 
way, I would willingly omit the ceremony, al- 
together. If people believe in a future life, 
they ought to be glad, instead of sorry, at the 
death of a friend ; or if they feel a selfish sor- 
row, they ought, as Christians, to suppress the 
exhibition of it. If on the other hand they 
believe that death finally ends all, what is the 
use of lamenting the irrevocable ? Let them 



112 The Professor's Sister. 

put it out of their minds as promptly as pos- 
sible, lest they invite the unpleasant reflection 
that they themselves will soon be blotted out 
of existence also." 

"I am not altogether of your way of think- 
ing," I replied, " It is right to pay respect to 
the memory of the dead. We would desire it 
when our own times comes." 

" Ah, that is the point ! " exclaimed Conrad, 
smiling. " Stroke me, and I'll stroke you ! 
But how absurd it is ! Of what avail to your 
dead flesh and bones will my conventional 
respect be or any other respect for that mat- 
ter ? As for your soul, if you concede your- 
self a soul, it will have other things to claim 
its attention than the length of its earthly ac- 
quaintances' faces, and the breadth of their hat- 
bands. No ! the whole business is the remains 
of a savage superstition, to the effect that the 
ghosts of the dead haunted the scene of their 
corporeal existence, and executed vengeance 
upon those who failed to express a proper 
poignancy of rief at their departure. Given 
the superstition, the ceremony was at least intel- 
ligible ; but that it should survive the super- 
stition is idiotic ! " 

" Possibly the superstition had some basis 
in fact," I remarked. 

He gave me a peculiar, quick glance, the 



The Professor's Sister. 113 

significance of which I did not comprehend. 
It was as if he were questioning how far I 
spoke seriously. 

" That, at any rate, is not the prevailing im- 
pression," he returned presently, " nor does it 
seem likely, on the face of it, that the ghost 
of Hildegarde could make itself very terrible 
to anybody." 

I made no answer, and, after a pause, he 
said, " However, I didn't come here to discuss 
funerals in the abstract, but to beg a little 
favor of you." 

" I shall be glad of the opportunity of doing 
you one." 

" It is simply to walk over to my house with 
me for a moment. I have something I par- 
ticularly want to show you. No ! " he added, 
with another smile, "you will not see my 
beloved step-mother. Her grief is far too 
absorbing to admit of her being visible even to 
you. So will you come ? " 

I put on my hat and accompanied him to his 
house. Opening the door with his pass-key, 
he conducted me through a passage to another 
door, on passing through which I found my- 
self in his study. 

I had never before been admitted to this 
room, and I looked round me with some 
curiosity. It was singularly bare of the 



114 The Professor's Sister. 

ordinary appurtenances to the retreat of a 
student. There was not a single book to be 
seen anywhere, nor any writing materials. 
The walls were of plaster, tinted a dull red ; 
no pictures decorated them, but in their stead 
there were sundry geometrical diagrams drawn 
with black and white lines. They conveyed 
no meaning to my mind. The ceiling was 
blue, of the same tone as the walls ; and there 
were waving lines of some obscure pattern 
traced on it. On a table, poised upon a slender 
stand, stood what I at first took to be a solid 
sphere of crystal ; it was in reality a spherical 
globe, filled with a transparent liquid, from 
which, occasionally, proceeded rays of pure 
azure light. The plan of the room was a 
pentagon. On the floor at the north end was a 
block of solid metal, apparently iron ; it also 
was pentagonal in shape, and a yard in di- 
ameter and a foot in thickness. From the 
ceiling directly above it was suspended the 
largest horse-shoe magnet I ever saw. A half- 
open cupboard revealed some steel and silver 
instruments, some glass tubes and retorts, and 
several bottles of various sizes containing 
colored liquids. Finally, the angle of the 
eastern corner of the room was concealed by a 
voluminous curtain of black velvet; and in the 
western angle, behind the glass sphere, was a 



The Professor's Sister. 115 

full-length plate mirror, in a broad black frame. 

" Now we are at home ! " observed Conrad, 
closing the door behind me. "No one can 
enter here without my consent. You may say 
that nobody would care to on any terms ; but 
I can be pretty comfortable here, in my own 
way, when I choose. Sit down and try a 
cigarette. I will be ready in a moment." 

He passed behind the black curtain as he 
spoke, and I seated myself in a chair and lit 
one of the cigarettes he had offered me, 
wondering the while what his object could 
have been in bringing me there. But the 
flavor of the cigarette was highly agreeable ; it 
had an effect upon the mind at once soothing 
and clarifying. I have sometimes awakened 
in the hour before dawn and found my intel- 
lectual faculties in a similarly calm and potent 
state. The smoke from the burning tobacco, 
rising in the still air of the room, was drawn by 
imperceptible currents into strangely graceful 
lines and figures, recalling those which the 
stricken chords of a piano produce in fine sand, 
sifted over a sheet of paper and placed within 
the instrument. I remember ascribing the 
phenomenon at the time to some subtle influ- 
ence proceeding from the great magnet. 

I sat with my head thrown back against the 
cushioned chair, abstractedly watching these 



116 The Professor's Sister. 

shifting forms, until I could almost imagine 
that they were observing some intelligible 
principle in their movements. I was just in 
the mood to weave some fanciful extravaganza 
upon the notion, when my attention was di- 
verted by Conrad's voice, and looking round, I 
saw him standing beside the curtain, with his 
hand upon it. He beckoned me to approach. 
I rose and went to him at once, and passing 
behind the fold of the curtain that he held aside 
for me, I found myself in a sort of shrine, 
lighted in some manner not obvious to me, but 
with a very soft and pleasing radiance. This 
radiance was concentrated on a sofa, set against 
the wall ; and on the sofa, clad in the same 
feathery white dress that she had worn at her 
betrothal party, lay the figure of Hildegarde, 
asleep. 



The Professor's Sister. 117 



CHAPTER X. 

LIFE AND DEATH. 

" WHAT have you done ? " I exclaimed, 
with an involuntary impulse, turning from 
this spectacle to gaze in Conrad's face. I felt 
as if I had been unawares entrapped into 
assisting at some uncanny exhibition of necro- 
mancy. 

Conrad's green eyes sparkled. " After life's 
fitful fever, she sleeps well, does she not ? " he 
said, in an ironic tone. "What disturbs you, 
my dear fellow ? Have you ever seen a more 
beautiful cadaver?" 

" Is this Hildegarde, or an image ? " said I. 
I had been greatly startled, and I believe there 
was an idea in my mind that Conrad had made 
an effigy of his sister in wax. Either that, or 
some mystery. 

He gave a slow laugh. " That is the ques- 
tion that divides critical opinion at present," he 
replied. " Is this all there is left when we die ? 
or is it but an image of what has been ? What 
think you ? " 

I looked more steadily at the figure, and 
finally, overcoming my first reluctance, bent 



118 The Professor's Sister. 

down and examined it. There could be no 
doubt that it was no waxen image, but simply 
the dead body of Hildegarde, neither more nor 
less. It lay in so natural a pose, however, and 
the illusion of quiet sleep was so perfect, that 
I could not help expecting to see the bosom 
rise in a long breath, and the great eyes open. 
But the dead never return to life, though it 
sometimes seems as if they easily might. 

u The difference is not so great, after all," 
remarked Conrad, replying, as he often did, to 
my thought instead of to anything I had said. 
"She seems to sleep; and. if you imagine that it 
is sleep and nothing more, does it not amount to 
the same thing ? " 

" You had -better ask Ealph that question," 
I replied. 

" Ralph is not ready yet to be philosophical," 
said he, smiling. "He was inclined to be ex- 
travagant in his first demonstrations, and it 
was for that reason that I persuaded him to 
leave at once. When the first shock is over, 
he will be safe ; and then he can return and 
look at her without risk." 

" He has no thought of returning," I said, 
" and even if he did, the body would be in its 
grare, and decay have set in." 

" There will be no decay in this case," re- 
turned Conrad. "I have made a pretty thor- 



The Professors Sister. 119 

ough study of the science of embalming, and I 
can affirm that I have not only fathomed all 
the secrets known to the ancients on that sub- 
ject, but I have made several independent dis- 
coveries of my own. This body might remain 
precisely in its present condition barring ac- 
cidents, of course for an indefinite number of 
centuries. She would be still fresh and young 
when Ralph is tottering on the extreme verge 
of old age ; and he might return in some future 
reincarnation (if the Buddhist theory be true), 
and still find her as you see her at this moment.' 1 

" It is an ugly thought," said I. "I rather 
wish that the body might disappear as soon as 
the soul leaves it. At all events, let it return 
to dust as soon as the process of nature allows. 
What possible object can there be in keeping 
it?" 

" In the majority of cases there would be no 
object, and my opinion would agree with yours. 
But as regards Hildegarde, there are other 
considerations. I am interested in certain 
rather curious investigations touching the con- 
nection between the soul and the body. There 
are facts that seem to indicate that so long as 
the body is preserved in its integrity, the soul 
cannot altogether abandon it. Ordinarily, the 
soul soon passes into states where all possibil- 
ity of communication with it ceases ; but, on 



120 The Professor's Sister. 

the hypothesis to which I allude, it might not 
be so inaccessible." 

" This is horrible ! " I exclaimed. " Do you 
mean to say that your scientific curiosity would 
lead you to bind the soul of your own sister to 
the neighborhood of the world from which 
death has liberated her ! It would be im- 
pious ! What end could justify it ? " 

" You had better ask Ralph that question," 
he replied, repeating my own words of a few 
minutes before. "And if that be not enough, 
you might make the inquiry of my beloved 
step-mother, Catalina ! " 

I stared at the man with an emotion not far 
removed from absolute fear. 

" Do you seriously pretend to such powers as 
these ? " I asked. 

" I can hardly be said to claim a power, if I 
avail myself of natural laws," said he, compos- 
edly ; " and whether those laws be generally 
recognized or not, does not alter the case. 
What I have just suggested does not approach 
the abnormal* so closely as did the incident 
that occurred at Schandau a few weeks ago." 

I turned away, feeling a little giddy, though 
whether by reason of the tenor of Conrad's re- 
marks, or for some more concrete cause, I 
hardly know. But Conrad took me gently by 
the arm, and led me out of the shrine. 



The Professor's Sister. 121 

" Your nerves are a little off their centre," 
he said, pleasantly, " but luckily 1 have some- 
thing here that will set you right in a moment. 
Come, sit down here." 

As he spoke I felt a rush of cold air over my 
head and neck. I was sitting, riot on the 
chair, as before, but on the pentagonal block of 
iron at the upper corner of the room. The 
rush of air came from above, apparently from 
the magnet. For a moment I felt a stifling 
sensation, and tried to rise and cry out, but I 
could do neither ; an irresistible weight pressed 
me downward, and my muscles would not obey 
my will. I thought I was dying, and felt the 
agony of it ; but then, in an instant, the agony 
and struggle was over, and a delicious sense of 
lightness and power took their place. The 
cold rush of air was now no longer cold, but 
had an exquisite, vivifying effect, as if life it- 
self, from the pure original source, were pour- 
ing into my veins. The vitality thus commu- 
nicated, though intense, was calm and deep ; it 
prompted to no physical activity, but caused 
thought and consciousness to enter an interior 
plane, where they acquired an immense devel- 
opment of scope and penetration. I sat still, 
and seemed to possess the world. 

From my present point of view, looking 
from the upper or northern angles of the pen- 



122 The Professor's Sister. 

tagonal room toward the opposite or southern 
side, the whole room appeared to arrange itself 
in a significant manner. The geometrical dia- 
grams were no longer a mere complexity of 
unmeaning lines, but combined to form the 
words of a secret, whose purport solved the 
ratio between man and nature. The subtile 
angles of the walls, so perplexing at the first 
impression, now strengthened the expression 
of the mystic diagrams, and also suggested 
that semblance of life in inanimate objects 
which one finds in the architectural systems 
of mediaeval Italy. 

A delicate gray film of perfumed smoke, 
similar to that which I had lately drawn from 
the cigarette, began to climb upwards from 
some concealed point behind me, and, mar- 
shalled by the magnetic influence, to move in 
sinuous courses across the dull blue of the 
ceiling. I presently perceived that these smoke 
wreathes harmonized by a sort of affinity with 
the eccentric curves that were inscribed over- 
head, and draped them, as it were, in aerial 
substance, as flesh drapes the human skeleton. 

Meanwhile the room gradually darkened, or 
appeared to do so to my eyes ; but the dark- 
ness did not prevent the forms on the walls 
and ceiling from continuing to be visible, 
though this may have been due merely to the 



The Professor's Sister, 123 

existence of the impression already produced 
on the retina. The effect of the darkness, at 
all events, was to cause the solid sides of the 
room, and the roof above, to seem to dissolve 
and melt away, until I felt like one poised in 
the depths of space ; but instead of terror, the 
situation wrought in me an unspeakable ex- 
hilaration and security. I recognized in the 
diagrams, the orbits of the planetary system, 
in which wheeled several worlds whereof 
science has given no account ; they were at 
immeasurable distances, outwardly estimated ; 
but, gazing at them with the eye of thought, 
I could in a moment perceive every detail of 
their glorious structure and economy. The 
smoke-wreaths bent downward and took shape 
as the great spirits of the elements; they held 
their awful countenances averted, but I saw 
that the iron pentagon on which I sat was up- 
held at each corner by their right hands. 
Whither they bore me I knew not, or whether 
they but held me motionless in the centre of 
the universe. I had no fear ; only perception. 
All was still veiled in a transparent gloom ; 
but presently a light like a star was kindled in 
the west, and gaining power, began to send 
forth azure streamers like those of the Polar 
lights, which throbbed and fell and rose again, 
increasing more and more, until the planets. 



124 The Professor's Sister. 

and the long arcs of their courses, and the re- 
mote recesses of the heavens, and the forms of 
the awful spirits that encompassed me, were 
flooded and glorified with the great radiance, 
and emerged like the soul from the mysterious 
womb of prenatal being into the living exist- 
ence of humanity. Accompanying this change 
was a sound of music, growing and multiply- 
ing,, sweet as the warbling of ^olian harps, 
and strong as the thunder of oceans plunging 
over bottomless precipices. Every sense di- 
lated and vibrated, receiving and concentrating 
the infinity of sights and sounds in the scope 
of individual intelligence ; so that I was the 
universe, and the universe was I. 

With the recognition of this truth the vision 
of space receded, the outlines of the spirits 
vanished, and the harmonious tumult of the 
music culminated in a voice, loud and yet still, 
speaking the creative word : " Come forth, and 
be ! " I was again in the pentagonal chamber, 
sparkling now with the azure lustre of the 
crystal globe, which kindled the magnetic cur- 
rents into living rainbows. Looking in the 
mirror I saw the black curtain reflected there 
tremble and part, and from within emerged the 
form of Hildegarde, dead no longer, but alive 
and erect. Her eyes had the distraught ex- 
pression of one aroused from deep sleep. There 



The Professors Sister. 125 

stood she who had died three days before, 
breathing and conscious. I saw her image in 
the glass, but I could not turn my head to see 
the reality which the glass reflected. 

Her eyes bent themselves upon me, and rec- 
ognition slowly dawned in them. She seemed 
about to speak ; but, as her lips parted, they 
grew pale, and her eyelids quivered and 
dropped. The black curtain waved, and she 
sank backwards and vanished behind its folds. 
I heard a long sigh, and nothing more. 

The azure lustre of the globe grew dim and 
dimmer, and faded out utterly. There were 
whispers arid soft sweeping movements, and 
light echoes like departing footsteps. Then 
came a confused whirring in my brain, growing 
louder and louder, and again the sickening 
tremor of the heart, and the struggle for 
breath. I crouched down, and pressed my hands 
over my face. 

"You are all right again now," said the 
voice of Conrad, speaking in a brisk and cheer- 
ful tone. " Perhaps the current may have 
been a little too strong. The effects are very 
similar to those of hashish, are they not ? " 

I looked up. Everything was as it had been 
at first. But Conrad's face was as white as a 
sheet, and his green eyes scintillated with con- 
scious power. 



126 The Professor's Sister. 



CHAPTER XL 

LED BY A SPIRIT. 

As SOON as I could complete my arrange- 
ments to do so, I left Dresden and went to 
London. What I had experienced in Conrad's 
chamber may have been partly or wholly a 
dream or illusion of the senses, similar to the 
visions of opium and hashish eaters, as Con- 
rad himself had intimated. And though I 
sometimes inclined to this view, at other times 
I could not reconcile it with the intensity and 
permanence of the effect produced upon me. 
No doubt I had fallen into an abnormal state, 
and much of the surroundings of the event 
were pure hallucination. The cigarette which 
Conrad had given me may have been drugged ; 
and I could only conjecture what might be the 
effects upon the* . brain of such magnetic or 
electric currents as his arrangements enabled 
him to produce. But the two central events of 
the experience, that I had seen Hildegarde 
dead, and had afterwards seen her to all ap- 
pearances alive, these things I could not dis- 
lodge from my mind. I could not but believe 



The Professor's tiister. 127 

that Conrad for what end it was vain to ask 
was indulging in practices which in old times 
would have brought him to the stake. Whether 
his results were achieved by sheer witchcraft, 
or by some development of the principle 
of galvanism, were questions into which I 
did not care to enter ; in either case I con- 
sidered them brutal and unholy, and I was 
resolved to tell the whole story to Ralph. He 
could claim, and would doubtless enforce the 
right to protect the remains of his dead mis 
tress from outrage. At any rate I felt bound, 
as his friend, to let him know what was going 
on, and so place him in a position to take what 
course he might deem best. 

The funeral took place before I left town, 
and though I did not attend as an invited 
guest, I took means to satisfy myself that 
Hildegarde's body was in the coffin, and that 
the coffin was safely deposited in the handsome 
tomb which the late Mr. Hertrugge had had 
built for the accommodation of himself and his 
posterity. This was so far satisfactory, though 
of course the gates of the sepulchre would be 
no barrier to a man like Conrad, either physi- 
cally or morally. 

Ralph had given me his London address, and 
I called there the evening of my arrival ; but 
he had left several days before. London is a 



128 The Professor's Sister. 

bad place to hunt for a person in ; but I hap- 
pened to know that his bankers were the same 
as mine, so, the next morning, I made inquiries 
there. I then learned that Ralph had joined 
an expedition commissioned to "develop" cer- 
tain unknown regions of Central Africa ; and 
his steamer was already several hundred miles 
on her way to her outward port. 

I had a passing impulse to go after him, for 
I was feeling rather unsettled myself ; but I 
thought better of it upon reflection. It was a 
hundred to one that I should not overtake 
him ; and even if I should chance to run across 
him in the wilds of the Zambesi, and spin my 
yarn to him, it would hardly be within his 
power to take up his march forthwith to Dres- 
den, nor to get any satisfaction when he arrived 
there. Accordingly, I gave up all thoughts of 
the matter, contenting myself by addressing 
a letter to him at Natal, on the chance of his 
finding it there ; and then I allowed the whole 
subject to sink into the latent regions of 
memory, and occupied myself with other pur- 
suits and interests. 

The very first rumors that came to hand con- 
cerning Ralph's expedition, after it had passed 
beyond the limits of regular communication, 
were to the effect that it had met with disaster. 
A tribe, supposed to be friendly, had turned 



The Professor's Sister. 129 

out quite the reverse, and the explorers had all 
been murdered. Such was the information 
supplied by a native attached to the expedi- 
tion, who came back alone to Natal. Nobody 
believed that the catastrophe was quite as bad 
as that ; the native undoubtedly exaggerated ; 
the European members of the expedition were 
more likely to have been carried into captivity 
than slaughtered. But practically, one fate 
was about as bad as the other ; for although, 
on the one hand, captivity admits a chance of 
escape, yet on the other hand a man who is 
dead has no further suffering and ignominy to 
endure. Though I did not admit it to myself, 
I presently came to the conclusion that Ralph 
was dead. It was painful to think of him as 
a captive ; and it was a fascinating subject of 
speculation whether his spirit had met Hilde- 
garde's in the other world, and had found hap- 
piness with her. 

My affairs took me to the United States ; I 
remained there over a year, chiefly in the west- 
ern and northwestern regions. I came into 
business relations with some English capitalists, 
who were interested in mining stock, and at 
length I found it expedient to return to Lon- 
don to confer with them. Reaching New York 
on my way eastwards I put up at a hotel near 
Madison Square (my travelling expenses were 



130 The Professor's Sister, 

defrayed by the English syndicate), and after 
a shave and a change of clothes, I walked out 
under the trees of the square. It was late of a 
warm June afternoon. In the centre of the 
square were benches, surrounding a circular 
fountain basin. I sat down on one of these 
benches, noticing as I did so the preoccupied 
attitude of its only other occupant, a lean, 
athletic, middle-aged man, with a short stiff 
beard and black hair, ^partly grizzled. A wide- 
brimmed Panama sombrero was pulled down 
over his forehead ; he leaned forward, with his 
elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, 
gazing intently at nothing. I took him to be 
a wealthy Cuban or Mexican, meditating over 
the lost Spanish empire, or wondering how Do- 
lores was getting along in his absence. I sup- 
pose I looked at him rather oftener than he 
thought necessary, for he suddenly roused him- 
self and turned an impatient glance upon me. 
But his expression at once changed, and he 
said with a smile : 

" You are a"t your old tricks still ! Is there 
anything in the world that can escape your 
eyes and your knowledge ? " 

" You are not Ralph Merlin ! " I said. 

"No," he answered, "but I used to be." 

I will not attempt to detail our talk ; I am 
finishing a story not beginning one. He told 



The Professor's Sister. 131 

me how his party had been attacked ; how he 
was wounded and captured ; how he had been 
assigned as a slave to a certain powerful chief; 
how he had ultimately acquired such ascend- 
ancy over the chief and the tribe that he was 
requested to take the reins of government into 
his own hands, to which he assented ; and to 
marry the retiring chiefs daughter, to which he 
demurred. He drew an amusing picture spretce 
injuricBformce, how the sable queen pursued 
him with her spite and jealousy, "my ill-luck 
following me even to mid- Africa ! " he added 
with a smile, until she made his life a bur- 
den to him ; and whereas, but for her, he might 
have settled down to pass the rest of his life 
among these savages, as it was, he deter- 
mined to escape. The story of this retreat of 
one man through a thousand or more miles of 
pathless and hostile country was at least as in- 
teresting as the celebrated Anabasis of the Ten 
Thousand described by Xenophon. And when, 
at last, he could exclaim with the old Greeks : 
" Thalassa ! Thalassa ! " he found himself on 
a part of the coast very remote indeed from 
that on which he had landed nearly eighteen 
months before. He had fallen in with a Portu- 
guese vessel bound for Ceylon, on a rambling, 
roundabout voyage ; she was run down in mid- 
ocean by a British liner on the way to Austra- 



132 The Professor's Sister. 

lia; at Melbourne he had taken passage on an 
American ship going to Honolulu, and thence 
he had journeyed by the regular steamer to San 
Francisco, and so across the continent to the 
bench in Madison Square where I found him. 

This tale, as related by Ralph, was of absorb- 
ing and various interest, and lasted us back to 
the hotel, through dinner, and well into the 
evening. But, all along, I had a feeling that 
Ralph was leaving something out, and that this 
something, moreover, embodied the real gist of 
the whole matter. Again and again there 
came a gap, or an abrupt transition in the nar- 
rative ; or he would begin a sentence, and 
leave it uncompleted, and say another thing 
altogether. Now, I wanted the whole story. 

" Are you going to complete your circuit of 
the earth ? " I asked him. " I am on my way 
to London ; and we might run over from there 
to Dresden, and look up Conrad." 

The room my sitting room at the hotel 
was almost dark ; we had not lighted the gas, 
and the only light came through the transom 
over the door. At the moment I spoke, I no- 
ticed a faint but unmistakable perfume in the 
room, as of some ethereal spice. Ralph had 
made no reply to my suggestion ; and after 
his silence had lasted a minute or two, I turned 
to see whether he had fallen asleep. 



The Professor's Sister. 133 

No ; he was not asleep. He was sitting 
erect in his chair, leaning a little forward. 
In the dim light I could see that his great 
gray eyes were wide open, and the heavy black 
brows somewhat lifted. There was a sort of 
solemn ecstasy in his expression ; his gaze was 
directed intently towards the eastern corner of 
the room, which was occupied by nothing that 
I could see but a tall mahogany wardrobe. It 
was not at the wardrobe that Ralph was gaz- 
ing, nor at anything else visible to normal 
eyesight. His whole soul was in the look ; 
and he was utterly unconscious of me, and of 
everything material in his surroundings. His 
lips moved ; he seemed to be speaking, but 
with an inward voice that carried no sound. 
He moved his head as if signifying assent ; a 
moment later the rapt expression faded out ; 
the peculiar fragrance ceased to be perceptible ; 
he passed his hands across his eyes, shifted his 
position in his chair, and said with a half 
laugh, "I'm afraid you think me dull com- 
pany ! " 

"Anything but that!" I replied. "'But 
we were not alone just now." 

"Did you see anything ?" he demanded, so 
quickly and imperatively as to show that he 
was deeply startled. 

" I did not see what you did," returned I, 
"but I saw you see it." 



134 The Professor's Sister. 

He got up, struck a match, lit the gas, and 
took a turn or two about the room. " Well," 
he said at length, resuming his chair, " You 
have stood so near me in certain crises of my 
life, that I may as well let you into my secret 
especially as you have probably half guessed 
it already. But there is more to it than that. 
For the last year, or thereabouts, I have sus- 
pected that I am insane ; I should be nearly 
certain of it, but that I am neither more nor 
less insane than I was at the beginning. Now 
I shall be very glad to have the dispassionate 
opinion of a man like you on my case. 

" Just now, I saw Hildegarde and conversed 
with her. I saw her as plainly as I now see 
you, though the gas was not lighted then. By 
no test that I am able to devise could I dis- 
tinguish between her reality and yours, for in- 
stance. I see her, I hear her, she is even sen- 
sible to my touch or so it seems to me. Dur- 
ing her presence, no doubt enters my mind 
that it is not Hildegarde, her very self ; and 
yet, immediately before and after, I am as well 
aware as you are that the thing is utterly im- 
possible. Hildegarde's body has been for 
nearly two years in the grave ; her spirit must 
long since have passed through the spiritual 
world, and entered heaven as an angel. There- 
fore this vision must be a sheer mental halluci- 



The Professor's Sister. 135 

nation, not based on any spiritual truth, but a 
spectre of insanity. I have argued it out a 
hundred times, and can come to no other con- 
clusion." 

" This is not the first time you have seen 
her, then ? " 

" No, not by many. Her appearences have 
been the central fact of my life since I first 
resolved to escape from my African principality 
and come home. Indeed, it was she who, the 
first time I saw her, urged me to go. I was 
sitting at the door of my hut; all the others 
were asleep ; the forest was still, except for the 
distant roaring of a lion. I had been thinking 
that, my life being so objectless and valueless, 
I might as well live it in one way as another, 
and that it would perhaps be best to marry 
this black princess who had so set her heart 
upon me, and breed a race of savage kings who 
should live and rule and die innocent of the 
triumphs and shames of our civilization. Then 
I looked up ; and out of the darkest aisle of 
the tropic wood I saw Hildegarde come to- 
wards me. She came quite close to me, with 
her eyes upon mine ; I was neither amazed 
nor afraid; it was as if I had expected her. 
She raised her right hand, on which was the 
opal ring I gave her, and pointed to the east. 
1 You must leave this and go, Ralph,' she said. 



136 The Professors /Sister. 

1 I will tell you the day when you must start, 
and I will guide you to the sea.' I answered 
that I would be ready ; and she passed to my 
left round the corner of the hut. As soon as 
she was gone, the amazement and fear came ; 
I sprang up to follow her, but I could not find 
her. For two days I waited, and she did not 
return. I began to say to myself that I had 
dreamed. But on the third night I slept ; 
and in the midst of my sleep I felt a touch on 
my face, and she was there. I arose and fol- 
lowed her ; we passed through the village ; she 
showed me my course by the stars, and sud- 
denly I was alone. But I went on till morn- 
ing; and if ever I got astray from the path, I 
fancied I felt a touch, directing me aright. So 
it was for many days, and I came to trust in 
her as the sailor trusts-to his compass. Often 
she warned me of perils that would otherwise 
have destroyed me. I gained the coast, as you 
know, and reached this place by devious routes. 
To-night she told me that my journey was not 
ended yet ; I a"m still to go eastward, and now 
in your company. And yet all this is in- 
sanity ! " 

" But you are not insane," I replied ; " you 
are not even suffering from monomania. 
Monomaniacs cannot reason about their in- 
firmity, or perceive that it is abnormal. Your 



The Professors Sister. 137 

experience cannot be explained on that 
ground." 

" There is no other explanation, however," 
remarked he. 

" There are hundreds of thousands of persons 
who will assure you that the thing is in accord- 
ance with known principles of life. They will 
tell you that the spirits of the dead can revisit 
those they love, to warn and guide them. They 
would regard your case as a model example of 
their belief. Why should not you believe it 
too ? " 

" Sooner than accept that theory,' 7 replied 
Ralph, "I prefer the alternative of my own in- 
sanity. The spirits that respond to our invi- 
tations are but the complement of our own 
foolish and impious curiosity. They are the 
undigested fragments of humanity, swimming 
in the cosmic stomach, as yet neither cast ir- 
revocably to waste, nor taken up into the blood 
of heaven. Hildegarde is not such an one ; 
nor, if she were, should I recognize her, or she 
me. I was clear on that head long before this 
experience began, and I cannot abandon my 
conviction now, to gratify a personal longing." 

"Is there nothing in the Buddhistic creed to 
meet your want ? " I asked. " Do you put no 
faith in their analysis of man ? Might not 
this apparition be the astral form of Hilde- 



138 The Professor's Sister. 

garde, which her love projects towards 3-011 ? " 
llalph shook his head. " I am not compe- 
tent to judge of the Hindoo philosophy," he 
remarked; "but even if their scheme has any 
truth in it, it would not apply to this case. The 
astral form is the emanation and emissary of a 
living human being. Hildegarde being dead, 
has, according to them, passed into the state of 
Devachan, there to remain until the period of 
her next incarnation ; and whatever of her so- 
called fourth principle remains in the astral 
light, would be incapable of any independent 
action. But Conrad and I have often discussed 
the whole subject, and I never could feel any 
assurance that the entire Buddhistic system is 
anything more than an ingenious and supple 
series of inventions to meet each difficulty as 
it arises." 

Hereupon I felt that if there were ever to be 
a time when the story of my experiences with 
Conrad was to be of any avail to llalph, that 
time was now come. Accordingly, I began 
with the mysterious episode at Schandau ; I 
recounted, in passing, my conversation with 
Burlace about Catalina's interest in his inves- 
tigation of disease germs ; and pointed out the 
sinister light which, in my opinion, it seemed 
to cast upon Hildegarde's sudden seizure by 
one of these very diseases. I spoke of Cata- 



The Professor's Sister. 139 

lina's scarcely disguised acknowledgment of 
the justice of my suspicions, and her defiant 
attitude. Then I described Conrad's strange 
lightsomeness of demeanor, his half-jesting con- 
versation, his invitation to me to visit his 
study, and the sight I beheld behind the black 
curtain. 

Kalph had listened, thus far, without a move- 
ment or response of any kind, even when I 
suggested that Hildegarde had been poisoned 
by her step-mother. He was never wont to be 
disturbed by the irrevocable. But at this point 
I perceived a change in the manner of his lis- 
tening ; his breathing, now held back to hear, 
and now taken in a quick sigh ; and the slight 
involuntary shiftings of his attitude, betrayed 
how strained was his attention. I went on to 
portray, as best I could, the extraordinary 
phantasmagoria that had followed in the pen- 
tagonal chamber, culminating in the appearance 
of Hildegarde herself, in her habit as she lived ; 
her seeming recognition of me, and how, before 
she could speak, the hand of death had fastened 
on her once more. 

" I did not know what to think of it then, 
and I don't know now," I concluded. "But 
since hearing your story, I cannot help think- 
ing that Conrad may have some explanations 
to make which it would be worth your while to 
listen to." 



140 The Professor's Sister. 

" Possibly ! " murmured Ralph, absently ; 
" possibly ! " Presently he got up and took 
his hat. " I must think over this," he said. 
" There may be a chance yet for my sanity. 
And yet it might be wiser to leave that in 
doubt, and go no further ! " 



The Professor's Sister. 141 



CHAPTER XII. 

TWO MEX. 

THE next day but one, Ralph and I were 
passengers on a steamship of the Bremen 
line. These steamers stop at Southampton. I 
left the vessel at that port, and went on by 
rail to London. Ralph was to continue the 
voyage to Bremen, and then proceed to Dres- 
den. 

I expected to be detained in London a week. 
After that, I promised Ralph that I would fol- 
low him to the Saxon capital. He made a 
point of this ; he seemed anxious to have a 
friendly supporter at hand. 

On the trip over, we had uniformly avoided 
the topic that must have been uppermost in 
his mind. We conversed on general matters ; 
and I noticed that Ralph's character had mel- 
lowed and deepened since the old Dresden 
days. His intellectual strength and mastery 
were as signal as before, but his eagerness and 
love of conflict were gone ; and he no longer 
looked forward, to the world's future and his 
own, as he was used to do. He seemed more 



142 The Professor's Sister. 

willing to learn than to teach. He spent much 
time in revery. The masculine sternness of 
his face was, at such periods, touch ingly soft- 
ened ; I could read in its lines something of 
his experience that he had never told me ; the 
thoughts and emotions that had turned his hair 
gray before its time. But again, I caught from 
his eyes a light of unfulfilled purpose and an- 
ticipation. There was still something for him 
to do or suffer, God knew what. 

One of the first persons I met in London 
was Burlace. He was altered, and for the 
worse. His loud, obstreperous voice had be- 
come morose and complaining; his face was 
pale and relaxed ; his bearing, instead of being 
aggressive and brisk, was sullen and lurching; 
when I saw him he was slouching down the 
Strand with a short pipe hanging from the 
corner of his mouth ; and I had not heard him 
speak a dozen words before I surmised that he 
had been too familiar with gin. 

However, he seemed glad to see me, and as 
anxious to talk as if he had been restricted to 
his own company for months. I tried to post- 
pone the interview until such time as he should 
be in a less liquorish humor ; but he would not 
be put off, and dragged me down a side alley 
to a dingy little inn, where he assured me I 
could get the best Hollands in town. " I know 



The Professor's Sister. 143 

the folks here/' he remarked, " and they keep 
a special tap for me." So we had Hollands 
and birds-eye tobacco and dirt. And Burlace 
said, ' Say, old man, here's a c'nundrum. Am 
I married or single ? " 

" You may see double," I replied, " but you 
were made for a bachelor, and you are one." 

" When you said I was made for a bachelor, 
you did not think I had lived to be married 
did you, now ? But married I am, all the 
same, though it's true I've lived a bachelor 
ever since." 

"Come," I said, "you don't know what 
you're saying." 

He struck his great paw on the table. " I 
am married, I tell you to Catalina, widow of 
the late Herman Hertrugge, of Dresden. If 
you don't believe it, go there and find out. 
She can't deny it God damn her ! " 

He stared at me with inflamed eyes, and 
wagged his head. 

" Where is your wife ? " I inquired. 

" In Hell, for all I know ; but when I saw 
her last she was in her drawing-room in Dres- 
den. Look here, old man, you've always been 
a friend of mine ; I'll tell you the story." I 
need not reproduce any further the manner of 
his speech ; but his story was strange enough. 
He had proposed to Catalina on the day before 



144 The Professor's /Sister. 

Hildegarde's betrothal reception, and she had 
agreed to marry him after her step-daughter's 
wedding should have taken place " if she lives 
to be wedded ! " she had added, in a jesting 
way. He knew the terms of the will, and un- 
derstood her to mean that she would marry him 
any way. After Hildegarde's death he re- 
minded her of her promise, and the day was 
fixed. The wedding was to be a quiet one, in 
the bride's house ; Conrad had shown himself 
well disposed to the affair, and all looked pros- 
perous. The guests came ; the priest called 
the bride and groom before him, and pro- 
nounced the words that made them man and 
wife. But no sooner had the final vows been 
spoken, than Catalina uttered a terrible shriek, 
and fainted. Every one was disconcerted; only 
Conrad retained his presence of mind ; he ex- 
plained to the guests that his step-mother had 
been laboring under considerable nervous ex- 
citement during several days previous, and 
that this was a not unnatural culmination of 
her condition*. The decks having been thus 
cleared, Catalina was taken to her room, and 
presently revived. She still manifested unac- 
countable agitation ; and when her new hus- 
band ventured to propose that they should get 
into their carriage and begin their wedding 
journey, she trembled so violently that he ; 



The Professor's Sister. 145 

feared another fain ting-fit, and postponed the 
matter until the afternoon. By that time 
Catalina seemed to have recovered her nerve ; 
she put on her traveling dress and came down- 
stairs, laughing at her late indisposition, and 
declaring that she had never felt better. The 
carriage was at the kerb; she came out leaning 
on her husband's arm, and his heart was over- 
flowing with delightful anticipations. The 
footman opened the carriage door, and Cata- 
lina's foot was on the step. 

There was nothing at all in the carriage ex- 
cept the cushions ; but Catalina suddenly 
stopped and grew as rigid as iron, and the hand 
which Burlace held in his became icy cold. 
She made no outcry, but her face assumed an 
expression that made even Burlace's lusty 
blood run cold. Her lips parted, and she 
seemed to gasp for air; then a tremor shook 
her from head to foot, and she fell back 
in her husband's arms. He thought she had 
died of a stroke of the heart, and, with the as- 
sistance of the footman, carried her back into 
the house. He and Conrad worked over her 
for an hour, and at last succeeded in bringing 
her back to consciousness. But now her cour- 
age and self-control seemed utterly broken 
down ; she was as weak and garrulous as an 
invalid child; she exhibited terror whenever 



146 The Professor s Sister. 

Burlace approached her, and shuddered when 
he addressed her. She either could or would 
not give any explanation of her state. Even- 
ing came" on, and it was necessary to give up 
all idea of starting on their trip that day. 
Catalina remained in her room in charge of a 
nurse, and Burlace, refusing Conrad's offer of 
a cot-bed in the library, went to an hotel and 
spent his wedding night there. 

The next morning he presented himself at 
the house, and was told that his wife would see 
him. He went to her room, and found her 
propped up with pillows on her bed. She was 
alone, and signed to him to sit down. He drew 
up a chair, but she begged him in a nervous 
tone not to sit so near. 

She told him that she could never live with 
him as his wife. She evaded giving any defi- 
nite or comprehensible reason for this decision, 
but said that any attempt to fulfil her marriage 
duties would, she was well convinced, result in 
her death. He pressed her energetically to be 
more explicit; she became pitifully agitated, 
and the words that fell from her seemed to 
mean, if they meant anything, that she fancied 
herself to have committed some hideous crime, 
and that she had received a warning from the 
grave. He expostulated, entreated, even 
stormed and raged, in vain. He swore that he 



The Professor's' Sister. 147 

would take her with him by force, at which 
she burst into an hysteric laugh, and 
asked him if he were stronger than death ? 
Later, she offered to make any arrangement as 
regarded money matters that he chose to sug- 
gest, even to surrendering three-fourths of her 
furtune; but with this Burlace would have 
nothing to do. He would have her, or noth- 
ing. He left her at last, she being in a condi- 
tion of semi-collapse, and he in a frame of mind 
half way between the murderous and the sui- 
cidal. He rambled about the streets all day 
and night ; the morning following he came 
back to the house, determined to enforce his 
rights. 

He was met by Conrad, who told him that 
Catalina had left Dresden. He said that he 
believed her mind was affected ; that she ap- 
peared to imagine she was haunted, or pur- 
sued by a malignant spirit. " So far as I 
can make out," Conrad had added, " she has 
got a notion that she was somehow instrumen- 
tal in bringing about the death of my sister 
Hildegarde, and she goes so for as to allude to 
you as if you were her accomplice in the affair. 
It is ridiculous, of course ; and her adhering to 
it is evidence of her mental unsoundness." 
Conrad had gone on to say that Catalina had 
extracted a promise from him not to reveal to 



148 The Professor's Sister. 

Burlace the place of her retreat j but he held 
out hopes that she would, if allowed to remain 
in quiet for a while, regain her equipoise, and 
that their married felicity would then resume 
an uninterrupted course. Burlace, utterly 
worn out in brain and body, was unable to 
struggle any longer ; he gave Conrad an ad- 
dress where to write to him in case of any 
favorable change ; then he threw himself into 
a train and came to London. 

" And I've been here ever since," he added, 
emptying his fourth glass of Hollands, and 
staring sullenly at the dregs in the bottom. 
" But I understand the whole damned swindle 
now. She was in love with that fellow Ralph 
Merlin, and she is scheming to get him. It's 
all very clever and cunning. Maybe she did 
murder Hildegarde ; I remember she came one 
day to look through my microscope ; and there 
was some stuff about that would have poisoned 
half Dresden, and no one the wiser. The girl 
was in h,er way, and it would be natural 
enough. I don't know where Ralph is ; but if 
ever I find that he has been within reach of 
her I'll squeeze the life out of her white throat 
with these fingers of mine ! " He held them 
up before me, in his sullen, drunken rage. 
"But all that about her being haunted, and 
her fainting and shrieking, that was all lies 



The Professor's Sister. 149 

and humbug. They have made a fool of me 
between 'em; but the end has not come yet. 
Look here ! do you know where Ralph is ? " 

He thrust his face abruptly into mine as he 
asked the question, as if he were ready to sus- 
pect me of being in the "plot" against him. 
Although I did not attach much weight to his 
maunderings, and was rather disposed to think 
that a dose of Ralph might prove a good thing 
for him, I prevaricated to the extent of re- 
minding him that Ralph's death had been re- 
ported a year ago, and that if he had returned 
to life since, I had seen no mention of it in the 
newspapers. But Burlace had by this time 
lost the faculty of holding a consecutive train 
of thought ; he diverged on one topic after an- 
other, and finally broke into sobs, and called 
me to witness how he worshipped Catalina. 
" I don't care what she did," he cried, sticking 
his big knuckles in his eyes, like a schoolboy ; 
" if she had cut the girl's throat with a carving- 
knife, I'd have married her just as quick. I 
love her; and when that's said, everything's 
said isn't it? She might be as wicked as 
she likes ; what's wickedness ? What's moral- 
ity, I'd like to know ! Do you remember my 
thermometer? I believe in nothing; you 
know that ; not in God nor Devil. But I 
loved that woman as no one else ever loved 



150 The Professor's Sister. 

her, or ever will. She'll find it out some day. 
I'd have stood by her in anything, 110 matter 
what good or bad. I'm a good fellow, too, 
or I was, before this happened. I'm a drunk- 
ard and a good-for-nothing loafer now; I know 
that as well as you do ; and she did it. Well, 
that's all right. Have some more gin ? Where 
are you stopping here ? " 

I gave him my address, not expecting him 
to remember it, and soon after left him. What 
he had said of himself was true ; he was a man 
of good natural abilities, and no mean accom- 
plishments. But he believed in nothing; and 
therefore a woman had been able to ruin him. 

A few days later I received a letter from 
Ralph, with the Dresden post-mark. "Come 
here as soon as you can leave your business," he 
wrote. " I have seen Conrad ; in fact he met 
me at the train, and seemed to have known I 
was coming. You know his foible is to seem 
to know everything beforehand ; and certainly 
he has queer gifts. I have told him nothing of 
my experience ; but some things he has said 
appear to indicate that he is somehow cogni- 
zant of it. I believe Catalina is in Dresden, 
or not far away from it ; I have not seen her, 
and don't suppose I shall. Conrad tells me she 
was married to Burlace, but has never lived 
with him ; I don't know the reason of either 



The Professor's Sister. 151 

fact. Next week, Conrad intends to have some 
sort of a reception at his house. I have a no- 
tion that this occasion will have an especial 
significance for me ; and I want you to be 
present." After alluding to some other sub- 
jects, he said, "I have had no visions since ar- 
riving here ; but nevertheless there has been a 
constant sense of Hildegarde's proximity. I 
feel as if I should learn more about her soon ; 
and yet I feel as if it might be best, both for 
her and for me, if I left Dresden at once and 
forever. But if so, I lack the resolution to act 
upon the impression. I shall see the matter to 
its end, let it issue how it will. And I depend 
on you." 

I arrived in Dresden on the morning of the 
day of Conrad's proposed reception. I was 
driven to the Hotel Bellevue ; but finding it 
full, I told the kutscher to take me to the Hotel 
de Saxe. There, somewhat to my perplexity, 
I found rooms already engaged for me, and a 
note from Conrad, asking me to give him the 
pleasure of my company that evening. 



152 The Professors Sister. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AN EXPERIMENT. 

THE time appointed for me to present myself 
at Conrad's was an hour or so earlier than for 
the other guests ; and when I entered I found 
only him and Ralph. I had met the hitter 
earlier in the day. Conrad greeted me with 
much cordiality. 

"Ralph and I have heen at our old work," 
he said, laughing ; " we have resumed our duel 
in the realms of the transcendental. My con- 
viction is that life has a much closer relation to 
the body than extremists on the other side are 
willing to admit. The body, we are agreed, is 
the direct creation of the soul, and only indi- 
rectly that of God I am availing myself of 
my opponent's terminology whose proper ac- 
tivity begins and ends with the soul only. 
God produces 'only what is, namely: man the 
spirit; and His creative attitude towards this 
spirit results in what appears to be, namely : 
the body of man, and the rest of the material 
universe. Now, my point is this : what we 
call the mortal life of a person is the persist- 
ence, for a certain period in the case of that 



The Professor's Sister. 153 

person, of this result of a creative attitude 
which is permanent as regards mankind at 
large. In other words, though man is con- 
stantly incarnate, individual human beings are 
constantly disincarnating, or, as we say, dying. 
The question, then, arises, what is the cause 
of this individual disincar nation, and can it be 
arrested ? " 

" Individuals die, because individuals are 
born," said Ralph. " Mankind does not die, 
because there was never a time when it did not 
exist." 

"Conceding that for the moment," returned 
Conrad, "the more practical problem remains, 
can death be arrested ? If the body only 
seems to be, at best, why may not that seeming 
be indefinitely prolonged ? Is it not true that 
death is, essentially, a change in the soul, 
the arrival of a moment when one phase of its 
activity terminates, and another phase begins? 
Evidently, then, if we wish to postpone death, 
we must direct our efforts first to the soul. 
We must devise some means by which the soul 
can be induced or compelled to delay entering 
upon its second phase, and to continue in its 
first or physical one. Are you bold enough to 
affirm that such a fact is beyond the skill of 
human science ? " 

" Suppose the body to have been blown to 



154 The Professor's Sister. 

atoms by an explosion," I began ; but he inter- 
rupted me with a laugh. 

"I admit technical difficulties in such a 
case," said he ; " though less, perhaps, as re- 
gards the physical than the spiritual predica- 
ment ; for do not our friends, the spiritualists, 
tell us tales about ' materializing 7 spirits? 
But take the case that the body, at the moment 
of the change, is substantially sound, though 
(let us say) it has been attacked by a fatal dis- 
ease, or, to speak more philosophically, the 
soul has suffered from certain delusions which 
are reflected on the physical plane as derange- 
ment of bodily function, or disintegration of 
tissue. My contention would be that the cor- 
rection of this delusion would restore the soul 
(and as a corollary the body) to a normal state, 
and re-establish physical life." 

"Well," said Ralph and he threw a pecu- 
liar glance at me as he spoke " that seems to 
be a sufficiently ingenious theory. Have you 
any practical illustrations to adduce in support 
of it?" 

" It is hardly fair to tempt me to discredit 
my good logic with imperfect facts," returned 
Conrad, laughing again ; "but are you really 
desirous to push the matter to a test ? " 

" To be frank with you," Ralph rejoined, 
"I do desire it, and I do not. If such a thing 



The Professor's Sister. 155 

as you propose can be done, I hold it to be a 
profanation of the most unmitigated sort, the 
black art in its worst form. At the same time, 
I am weak enough to put you to the proof ; if 
you can do it, let it be done." 

"Your invitation might be more cordial," 
remarked Conrad, lightly. " As to the black 
art, my dear Ralph, you know it is not at all 
in my line. My investigations, such as they 
are, have been strictly on the lines laid down 
oy Nature. I am only a beginner in science 5 
but I think I have one advantage over scientific 
men in general, in that I recognize and make 
my account with both sides of Nature, instead 
of with the physical side exclusively. Study 
of the one throws light upon the other, and 
speculations on the spirit suggest experiments 
on the body. But you shall judge for your- 
self; and, by the way, I have a right to expect 
indulgence in this case, from you especially. 
Step into my study." 

He led the way, and we followed. The pen- 
tagonal chamber looked much as it did when I 
had seen it last ; but now a handsome antique 
chest of carved oak rested upon the iron pen- 
tagon beneath the great magnet. It was se- 
cured by three massive locks. 

" This chest," observed Conrad, " has not 
been opened since I closed it nearly two years 



156 The Professors Sister. 

ago. You have only my word for this ; but I 
will say that I have no object in deceiving 
you. Here are the keys," he added, taking 
them from a hook on the wall ; " will you 
oblige me, Ralph, by unlocking the thing, and 
lifting the lid ? " 

Ralph hesitated a moment, as if summoning 
his resolution. Then he took the keys from 
Conrad's hand, and turned them, one after the 
other, in the locks. After another pause, he 
grasped the edges of the lid with both hands, 
and flung it back with such violence that it 
was torn from its hinges, and fell with a crash 
to the floor. A powerful aromatic odor imme- 
diately filled the room. 

The coffer was filled to the brim with some 
substance resembling amber, in pieces about 
the size of a raisin. It was from this, appar- 
ently, that the pleasant odor emanated. But 
what struck me particularly was the fact that 
this odor, though much stronger, was the same 
that I had noticed in my room in New York, 
at the time wnen Ralph was visited by the 
vision of Hildegarde ; and I perceived that 
Ralph recognized it also, and his face flushed 
red. He looked at Conrad with a sort of 
fierceness. 

" What is this ? " he demanded. Play me 
no tricks." 



The Professor's Sister. 157 

tc It's merely a variety of aromatic gum," re- 
turned Conrad, in a matter-of-fact tone, "which 
I placed here on account of its purifying and 
preservative qualities. It lies, as you see, in a 
shallow tray, and can be removed without 
trouble." He suited the action to the word, 
lifting out the tray, which he laid to one side. 
The space beneath appeared to be closely 
packed with folded cloths, of the texture of fine 
lawn, and having a pale, yellow hue, probably 
due to some solution in which they had been 
steeped. As Ralph remained motionless, Con- 
rad proceeded to remove these cloths one by 
one, until he had uncovered a long object, of 
roughly cylindrical shape, swathed in a cover- 
ing of heavy linen, sew^n up lengthwise down 
the centre. Its outlines conveyed the sugges- 
tion of the human form. 

" Have either of you a pen-knife ? " inquired 
Conrad. " We shall have to rip open this cov- 
ering in order to come at what is inside." 

Ralph still made no sign. I took my knife 
from my pocket, and, at a nod from Conrad, 
cut the thread of the seam from end to end. 
The covering fell apart. 

There was a filling of dried rose leaves 
within ; but these sifted down on either side, 
and revealed what, of course, I had all along 
expected to see the pure, pale countenance of 
Hildegarde. 



158 The Professor's Sister. 

"What do you think?" said Conrad, ap- 
pealing to me, as a sculptor might ask my opin- 
ion of his statue. "I can see no change ; can 
you ? " 

"None! "said I. 

And, indeed, after the lapse of these two 
years, she seemed as fresh and untouched as 
on the day when she stood beside Ralph as his 
betrothed wife. The skin seemed soft and 
pliant ; the long eyelashes, resting on the 
cheeks, needed but a thought to lift them ; and 
the curved line between the lips would melt at 
a breath. And yet, for two years, no breath 
had passed them, nor had any light visited the 
eyes. 

" What say you, my friend ? " asked Conrad, 
regarding Ralph curiously. 

" It is a wonderful piece of work," he re- 
turned, in a measured voice. "Not so warm 
as a painting, nor so ideal as sculpture ; but 
the Egyptians themselves could not have done 
better. Of what use is it ? " 

" Her soul might find a use for it," remarked 
the other, with a smile. 

" What God has parted cannot be reunited," 
said Ralph, coldly. 

" But you loved her, did you not ? and love, 
if all reports be true, is stronger than death. 
Will you test the proverb ? " 



The Professor's Sister. 159 

" Xo ; not even if I knew that love could 
work the miracle. She and I will meet here- 
after ; hut I should not deserve her love if, for 
the sake of comforting my few years of earth, 
I called her hack from heaven." 

These words were spoken in a low voice, 
weighted with emotion ; and as he spoke, he 
turned away. 

Conrad shrugged his shoulders. "That is 
well said, Ralph," he observed ; "but, after all, 
you are moralizing over what you believe to be 
an impossibility. If you were convinced that 
she would rise up at your word, like Lazarus 
in the New Testament, I fancy the word would 
not be wanting. Well, then, since love refuses, 
let us see what science can do ! I have more 
faith than you, though this is an experiment 
based, hitherto, upon theory alone." 

He stepped to the upper corner of the room 
and touched a small disk embedded there ; and 
immediately there followed a gentle whispering 
sound which I dimly remembered, and the 
great magnet began to discharge its vital en- 
ergy. The invisible current swept downwards 
on the peaceful face beneath it ; and we, who 
stood apart, felt something of the exhilarating 
coolness. The dried leaves of the roses that 
were heaped along the sides of the figure were 
stirred ; and it seemed to me that some of 



160 The Professor's Sister. 

them lost their dryness, and that their original 
softness and color came back to them. 

Conrad kept his strange eyes riveted on the 
face in the coffer with an intensity of gaze that 
almost seemed to emit a visible ray. [Ralph's 
eyes were downcast, and partly averted ; but 
he was evidently struggling against a terrible 
attraction ; the tender, human instincts of his 
nature were fighting against the barrier of 
principle and reason. Time both flies and 
stands still at such junctures ; the great mag- 
net vibrated ; and now it was beyond doubt 
that some of the petals of the roses were as 
fresh as when first shaken from the stem. But 
the peaceful face was peaceful and unresponsive 
still. 

Those moments of suspense were exhaust- 
ing, even to me, who was but an onlooker. The 
possibility that hung in the balance was of 
such gigantic significance the very meaning 
of human existence seeming to hinge upon it 
that the mind shrank from contemplating it. 
And now that the experiment had gone so far, 
success and failure appeared alike terrible. 

Suddenly Conrad raised both his arms, with 
the hands open and prone, and brought them 
downwards, and then again upwards, with a 
slow, sweeping movement. He was standing 
near the foot of the coffer, so that the gesture 



The Professors Sister. 161 

was as if he had caught some invisible sub- 
stance in the air, and driven it over the dead 
girl, from her feet to her head. He repeated 
this gesture three times ; and at the same mo- 
ment the discharge from the magnet ceased, 
the rushing sound was heard no more, and the 
chamber became as still as an Egyptian tomb 
in the heart of a hill. 

Conrad's arms fell to his sides ; he shivered, 
and a grayish pallor crept over his features, in 
which appeared lines that made him look like 
an old man. The experiment, then, had failed. 

Ralph raised his head and looked sternly 
and scornfully at him. " You yourself deserve 
to die," he said; "but you have dragged me 
into your own humiliation, and I am not wor- 
thy to inflict your punishment." 

Conrad cast a haggard glance at the corpse. 

" I would gladly have died to succeed," he 
muttered. 

"Be thankful that you did not succeed; 
what are you, or any man, to turn law into 
chaos, and gain a victory over Nature ! " 

But, all in an instant, an electric shock 
seemed to run through Conrad, and set his soul 
on fire. An awful ecstasy of triumph glared 
out of his face. His hair bristled on his head, 
and he gnashed his teeth together. 

" See ! see ! " he shrieked, tossing his arms 



162 The Professor's Sister. 

alof fc and stamping his feet on the floor. " I 
have not failed ! She lives ! she lives ! Ha ! 
ha ! ha ! Ralph Ralph Merlin ! Whose is 
the victory now ! " 

Ralph stepped forward, and Lent a long look 
into the coffer. Then he grasped Conrad with 
hands of iron. 

" Hush ! hush ! " he said, in a deep voice. 
" If God has permitted this thing, let us meet 
it with reverence ; it may mean the greatest 
blessing, or the greatest curse, of time ! " 

And even as he spoke, Hildegarde opened 
her eyes, and sat erect. She seemed per- 
plexed ; but, meeting Ralph's eyes, she smiled 
as if reassured. 



The Professor's Sister. 163 



CHAPTER XIV. 

OX ONE CONDITION. 

THE emotion of wonder is one of the most 
vehement of all ; and it is also one of the most 
transitory. Imagination revels in it, but the 
mind cannot tolerate it; and no sooner has a 
marvel taken place, than we compel it, willy- 
nilly, into some sort of accordance with the 
routine of experience. If we could not do this, 
we should probably lose our reason altogether. 
Nature abhors not a vacuum more than does 
human nature a miracle. 

That first sharp stab of amazement, when my 
eyes saw her who had lain dead for two years 
return to life, lasted but a few blind moments. 
It took but those few moments for me to raise 
and readjust my whole conception of law and 
order. Law and order still existed, and were 
as immutable as ever ; it was my view of them 
that had changed. By the time Hildegarde 
had gained her feet, and had uttered the first 
few words of her new life., I had accommodated 



164 The Professor's Sister. 

myself to the situation, and nothing remained 
but the agreeable excitement of an interesting 
novelty. 

Of course other elements entered into the 
emotions of Ralph and Conrad, to whom the 
event was quite as much personal as general in 
its bearings. But it was at once perceived by 
all of us that Hildegarde must be introduced 
only by the most circumspect degrees to the 
knowledge of what had befallen her ; and for a 
while we were sufficiently occupied in parrying 
her questions and managing her curiosity. 
She remembered having been taken suddenly 
ill ; she recalled a darkened room and the 
hushed voice of nurses ; and the last circum- 
stance in her recollection was of Conrad's say- 
ing to her, " Now, I will put you to sleep." 
He had several times exercised this power over 
her, and she had soon felt herself succumbing 
to the influence. The rest was a blank. But 
how had she got into that box ? what were the 
rose-leaves there for ? and how happened it 
that Ralph, in the space of a few hours, had 
contrived to grow a beard and to get gray 
hairs ? These things required explanation ; 
and who was to explain them ? 

" That was a good sleep you gave me, Con- 
rad," she remarked. " I was very ill before ; 
I thought I might be going to die ; but now I 



The Professor's Sister. 165 

am better and stronger than I ever was ; and 
all in such a little while ! " 

What is a little while ? What a thing time 
is, to be sure ! 

It was moving to observe Ralph's profound 
preoccupation with her, his tremulous, almost 
speechless emotion, and her happy uncon- 
sciousness of anything stranger than his beard. 
No shadow remained on her inind of the great 
gulf which she had crossed, and crossed again. 
She had brought with her no tidings of the 
other world ; and yet she had been there, and 
had experienced what no other human being 
had done. 

Conrad had drawn Ralph aside, and con- 
versed with him a few minutes ; and then he 
beckoned to me, and I followed him out of the 
room. 

We may as well leave the lovers to explain 
themselves to each other," he said. He had 
quite recovered from the wild burst of excite- 
ment with which he had greeted the success of 
his experiment, just when all had seemed to be 
lost. " I may as well tell you," he went on, 
tl that I have made all arrangements to have 
them married this evening. There are several 
reasons for this, and at all events their be- 
trothal has lasted quite long enough. The 
guests will be here in a few minutes. To 



166 The Professor's Sister. 

avoid complications, I have invited only such 
persons as are unacquainted with the peculiar 
circumstances, and have heard nothing of my 
sister's reputed death." 

" Did she die, indeed ? " I asked. 

"Really, my dear fellow, I can hardly tell 
you. According to all precedent she did. But 
you shall hear just how the matter stands. 
Catalina, as you have no doubt surmised, under 
cover of scientific curiosity, visited Burlace in 
his laboratory, and secured some of the micro- 
scopic germs that he was investigating. Noth- 
ing is easier than to administer these germs in 
the food or drink ; and neither the victim nor 
the physician can prove that a crime has been 
committed; a disease has established itself, 
and it runs its course, which, in this instance, 
was bound to be fatal ; but there is no trace of 
murder outside the mind of the murderer. 

"After making trial of all recognized means 
of combatting the disease, I saw that the girl 
must die. Then I resolved to put to the test a 
theory which 1 had speculated upon long be- 
fore. I waited until she was almost in the act 
of death ; another ten minutes would have 
seen the end. I had magnetized her several 
times previously, both to relieve small ailments 
to which she was occasionally subject, and 
also, now and then, for certain purposes of my 
own. Therefore she was completely under 



The Professor's Sister. 167 

what is called my magnetic control. I put forth 
the influence, and though there was more re- 
sistance on her part than I had expected to 
find, she yielded at last, and fell into the 
trance. 

"I argued that as long as she remained in 
this condition which, to one unfamiliar with 
its peculiar symptoms, is indistinguishable 
from death the action of the poison on her 
system would be arrested. And not only might 
it be arrested ; it might, after a certain lapse 
of time, disappear altogether, the germs them- 
selves becoming devoid of life. As to this 
last, however, I was probably mistaken. My 
subsequent study of the germs tends to show 
that they are practically indestructible, once 
they have got a lodgment in the body. But 
be that as it may, I was perfectly successful in 
the other matter. The progress of the disease 
stopped short at the instant she fell into the 
trance ; and it has remained inactive from that 
day to this." 

"You have kept her in a trance for two 
years ? " 

" Certainly ; and she might have continued 
so indefinitely. Meanwhile, she was pro- 
nounced dead ; her body was put in the coffin, 
and her funera\ was duly solemnized. A few 
weeks later, without attracting any attention, 



168 The Professor's Sister. 

I had her conveyed to my rooms, and placed 
her in the coffer where you saw her to day. 
She has lain there ever since. You saw what 
occurred this evening. And that, in brief, is 
the history of the case." 

It was a strange history ; but it seemed to 
me that the strangest features of it had been 
omitted, and that Conrad was designedly slur- 
ring over these features. What about the ap- 
parition that I had seen emerge from behind 
the black curtain in the pentagonal chamber ? 
And what of those visitations which had guided 
Ralph from the centre of Africa round the 
world ? Nor was I by any means satisfied 
that an ordinary trance would present the 
same characteristics as this of Hildegarde's. 
The body would dry up and perish in much 
less time than two years. 

When I questioned Conrad on these points, 
he answered somewhat evasively. 

" The phenomena you speak of were proba- 
bly entirely imaginary," he said. "At all 
events, how can there be any connection be- 
tween them and the experiment I was describ- 
ing ? 

" I don't know what the connection is, but 
there is one ; and I believe that it was of your 
making. I have not forgotten Schandau." 

"You must bear in mind that very little is 



The Professor's Sister. 169 

understood of the real nature of trance," he 
finally remarked. " The body is wholly quies- 
cent, but the spirit and the principles interme- 
diate between that and the body may possess a 
greater freedom and activity than before. 
Nothing would be dispersed or dissipated, as is 
the case in actual death ; but a being would 
exist in the astral light, possessing some qual- 
ities nearly allied to the physical, and yet 
capable of passing from place to place with the 
rapidity and docility of thought. Now, there 
seems to be a special relation between the 
trance-being and the will or thoughts of the 
magnetizer. Possibly it retains no will of 
its own, or but little. In that case it 
would be in a measure subject to the will 
and thought of the magnetizer, when strong- 
ly concentrated and exerted, and would be 
present in any place on \ hich his attention 
was fixed. But really, the whole question is 
so obscure that I am perplexed about it my- 
self. As to the condition of the body after so 
long a lapse of time, I may fairly take some 
credit to myself for it," he added, with a smile. 
That affair of the magnet and pentagon is an 
invention, or at least an adaptation, of my own. 
Some elements enter into its construction that 
do not appear on the surface ; and you have 
felt as well as seen something of its powers. Of 



170 The Professor's Sister. 

course it was not that that restored Hildegarde 
to life, or, if you prefer it, roused her from 
her trance. Its effect was physical merely ; it 
refreshed the body, and prepared it for its in- 
habitant. It was by reversing the passes that 
had entranced her, that I succeeded in bring- 
ing her round, though I confess there was a 
moment when I felt a trifle uneasy over the 
result." 

" I fancied you looked a little bit put out 
just then ; though I thought you seemed 
pleased just afterwards. But there is one 
thing about this business, Conrad," I added, 
dropping the ironic vein, "that seems to me 
to counterbalance all you have gained. The 
germs of the poison, you say, cannot be de- 
stroyed. If that be so, Hildegarde has only a 
reprieve. The return of life will be to her but 
a return of death, and the more tragic because 
it is a return. In how many days, or hours, 
this will come to pass, you probably know bet- 
ter than I ; but if you have not provided 
against it, I den't know why you are not a 
worse murderer than Catalina." 

" I have had it under consideration con- 
stantly almost since the first," he returned, 
rather gloomily ; and though I have not quite 
cleared up the difficulty, yet, I have at least 
ensured the prolongation of Hildegarde's life 



The Professor's Sister. 171 

indefinitely, provided that she observes cer- 
tain easy conditions." 

" What are they ? " 

"They involve only her remaining always 
within a few hours' journey of this place. The 
poison in her system is not likely to be quies- 
cent more than two or three days ; and as soon 
as it begins to act, she must again be thrown 
into the trance, and afterwards subjected to the 
influence of the great magnet. This treatment 
is indispensable, and it will probably have to 
be repeated at regular intervals. But the an- 
noyance is slight, and, in view of the result, I 
don't imagine that either she or Ralph will ob- 
ject. And now,' 7 he broke off, " our guests are 
beginning to arrive. The clergyman will be 
here immediately, and I must prepare the lov- 
ers for the happiness in store for them." 

He went out, and left me to my meditations, 
which were not of an entirely roseate hue. I 
had acquired the impression that Conrad had 
some ulterior end in view in all this, which was 
not of a wholly unselfish character, and it 
seemed to me that the necessity of constantly 
renewing Hildegarde's vitality, and of subject- 
ing her at such short intervals to the absolute 
control of her brother, might prove more irk- 
some than he seemed to anticipate. But I 
tried to hope for the best. 



172 The Professor's Sister. 

In the drawing-room several persons were 
already assembled. I had met none of them 
before, and it was evident that they had 
been summoned chiefly to act as witnesses of 
what was about to take place. Conrad entered, 
escorting the clergyman, a youngish man, with 
an amiable and feeble face. A lawyer was also 
in attendance to oversee the preparation and 
signing of the marriage contract. Finally 
Ralph came in, with Hildegarde on his arm. 

I presume that Hildegarde had by this time 
been made acquainted with the facts of her 
condition. Her face, always extremely sensi- 
tive in reflecting the states of her spirit, wore 
an expression of wistful solemnity, tempered 
with the tenderness of an exalted love, that 
somehow brought tears to my eyes. Ralph, on 
the other hand, had a look about him that was 
quite new to me, and that I did not altogether 
like. The color in his face was warm, and his 
eyes lively and bright ; a smile hovered con- 
stantly about his mouth, and he kept looking 
at Hilde garde with glances that were not 
merely lover-like, but idolatrous, and even 
seemed to express a sensuousness of feeling 
that was out of keeping with my friend's depth 
and gravity of character He rather avoided 
my eye, and when I congratulated him, he 
said, "We owe everything to Conrad. Science 



The Professor's Sister. 173 

and humanity ought to unite in canonizing 
that man. I can never excuse myself for the 
way in which I spoke to him to-day. But I 
see the error of my way, and am not likely to 
make such an ass of myself again. Is not the 
mere flesh and blood of such a woman as that 
worth a thousand souls ? " 

"Is she immortal ? " returned I. 

" What is immortality ? " said he, with a 
short laugh. "We know what is, but who 
can tell what may be ? " 

The clergyman advanced ; the couple took 
their places beside each other ; the guests 
gathered round, and the words of the covenant 
were uttered. Conrad stood behind the bride, 
and as the ceremony ended his figure seemed 
to grow taller and dilate, as if some long-de- 
sired triumph had at last been won. What 
was the meaning of it ? 

The papers remained to be signed. Ralph 
wrote his name first. Then Hildegarde took 
the pen in her hand. As she laid it down 
again, having affixed her signature, the door 
at the end of the room opened, and Catalina 
entered. 



174 The Professors Sister. 



CHAPTER XV. 

MARRIAGE. 

HER appearance was entirely unexpected by 
everybody save Conrad ; his face at once took 
on an expression of malicious satisfaction. And 
in a moment I realized the whole significance 
of the event. He had inflicted upon this 
woman a revenge as ingenious as it was over- 
whelming. 

Having first convinced her of Hildegarde's 
death, at the same time leading her to suppose 
that he was wholly unsuspicious of her agency 
in it, he had put her in a position where she 
fancied herself free to marry without prejudice 
to the terms of her husband's will. The mo- 
tives that induced her to yield to Burlace's 
suit, though l9ve could scarcely have been one 
of them, were still urgent enough to make the 
act comprehensible. But it was not a part of 
Conrad's scheme to permit her to profit by 
Burlace's protection. Whether he had any 
hand in the mysterious occurrences that kept 
them apart, and what, precisely, those occur- 



The Professor's /Sister. 175 

rences were, you can probably conjecture as 
easily as I. 

But Hlldegarde was not dead; she was 
alive ; and she was not separated forever from 
Ralph ; she was his wife. Therefore, not only 
was Catalina deprived of her fortune and 
thrown helpless on the world, but she was com- 
pelled to behold her rival's triumph and felicity, 
which she had staked and lost her own salva- 
tion to prevent. 

She did not at first see Hildegarde, and Con- 
rad immediately stepped forward to greet her 
with a great manifestation of cordiality. He 
held her in conversation for a few minutes, and 
then led her up the room, saying, in a voice 
that all might hear : 

" Ralph, and Mrs. Merlin, our celebration 
would have been incomplete if my step-mother 
had not kindly consented to come and offer you 
her congratulations." 

Catalina stopped short, as if she had run 
against a wall in the dark. Her black eyes 
wavered for a moment, but finally fixed them- 
selves upon Hildegarde in a ghastly stare. Then, 
with her hands outstretched, she drew nearer, 
step by step. Her face, though beautiful still, 
was awful to look upon at that crisis. She had 
not passed unscathed through these two years; 
there were lines around her mouth and beneath 



176 The Professor's Sister. 

her eyes that suggested tortured nerves, and 
vain attempts to drug them into insensibility. 
And these traces were dreadfully emphasized 
by the emotion of the juncture. 

She crept toward her rival as if controlled 
by a mixture of terror and desperate curiosity. 
At length, when within arm's reach, she 
doubtfully extended one hand, until the trem- 
bling finger-tips came in contact with Hilde- 
garde's shoulder. Probably she had imagined 
that the girl was but a spectre, and would van- 
ish at a touch. Had Conrad, then, made this 
innocent spirit the helpless instrument of his 
malignity ? 

But when Catalina realized that here was no 
spectral illusion, but actual flesh and blood, she 
emitted a sharp breathing sound from her 
throat, and fell back a step, pressing her hands 
against her temples. Her eyes rolled in their 
sockets. After standing so for a while, she be- 
gan to laugh softly. Oh, surely the cruelest 
vengeance might have been sated by that pite- 
ous spectacle'! The shock and bewilderment 
had been too great for her already failing 
nerves, and she was going mad before our 
eyes. 

The deep absorption of this episode had kept 
our attention from a confused nqise outside the 
door. But now the door was flung open, anc[ 



The Professor's Sister. 177 

a heavily-built man, hatless, with disordered 
dress and flushed face, half staggered and half 
stalked into the room. It was Will Burlace, 
savage with drink, and with a passion smoul- 
dering in his bloodshot eyes that was not due 
to drink alone. How had he come there ? He 
must have followed me secretly from London, 
his morbid suspicions having suggested some 
new plot on foot against him. His glance 
singled out Catalina at once, and Ralph stand- 
ing near her ; and it was plain that he deemed 
his suspicions fully justified. 

" I knew where I should find you, and how I 
should find you," he said, as he came towards 
his wife. "You thought you could pull the 
wool over my eyes, but I'm not such a fool. 
I'll settle with you now. You wouldn't give 
an honest man your heart, but I'll cut it out of 
your white body, my dear ! " 

It was doing Ralph injustice ; but so it was, 
that he was the last man whom I expected to 
see step forward to protect Catalina. And yet 
he was the only one who would. Burlace had 
a knife in his hand. Catalina lacked either 
the intelligence or the will to try to escape. 
Ealph caught the wrist of Burlace's right 
hand, which held the knife; and instantly 
they were engaged in a desperate struggle. 

It recalled to my memory that tussle of 



178 The Professor's Sister. 

theirs, years ago ; but that was in play, and 
this was deadly earnest. Burlace, besides his 
superior weight, had the fury of his jealous 
and murderous rage to enforce him ; Ralph 
seemed to me somewhat less quick and supple 
than of yore, and twice or thrice I saw him 
wince, as if from a sharp pain. I had forgot 
the assegai wound that he had received in 
Africa. 

Burlace bore him back, and I thought he 
was overcome. But, by a feint, Ralph threw 
him off his balance ; and then, in a flash, the 
knife flew from the other's hand ; the two 
whirled round, and came to the floor with a 
crash that shook the room. Burlace was un- 
dermost, and lie lay stunned. Ralph rose, but 
painfully, with a pallid face, and pressing his 
hand against his side. His old wound had 
opened, and he was bleeding internally. 



He lay in great suffering all that night ; and 
the next morning it was evident that he must 
die. Hildegarde did not leave him, and it 
seemed to me that as his strength failed, she 
also drooped and faded. She looked thin and 
frail, and her flesh was almost transparent. 
But the love in her eyes glowed stronger than 



The Professor's Sister. 179 

ever, and instead of grief, she appeared to be 
inspired with an inward spiritual joy. 

Conrad had been observing her critically; 
and at length he told Ralph plainly that the 
old poison had already recommenced its fatal 
work on her, and that it would be necessary to 
apply the remedy without delay. Ralph took 
her hand in his, and regarded her steadily. 
" You hear what your brother says ? " he said. 

" All is well with us," she replied ; " I want 
no change." 

"But your life depends upon it, Hilde- 
garde." 

" No not my life," answered she. 

" All that I have done has been for you, Hil- 
degarde ! " Conrad exclaimed. " I have loved 
you, I have avenged you, I have brought you 
back to life. Will you leave me now, and ren- 
der it all vain ? " 

"I must stay with my husband," was her 
reply. 

" Let it be so, Conrad," said Ralph, at last. 
"For my part, I am well content with this 
conclusion. It was all wrong what you at- 
tempted, and I acquiesced in. Had I lived, I 
should have lowered myself, and perhaps her 
also. There is a wisdom and kindness greater 
than any we know of. Our little efforts to 
gain power and wield it what do they amount 



180 The Professor's Sister. 

to, after all ? The worst grief that Nature 
brings us is not very grievous j but we have 
no mercy on ourselves.' 7 

" You are a fool ! " said Conrad sullenly, 
turning away. 

Kalph and Hildegarde both died that night. 
The bodies were put in coffins, and left in the 
pentagonal chamber. But when the bearers 
went to remove them, it was found that Hilde- 
garde's coffin contained only a few handf uls of 
fragrant white dust. At first I suspected 
Conrad of some subtle practice, but I have 
since come to the conclusion that this was a 
mistake. When Hildegarde's soul left her 
body for its final flight, nothing remained that 
could know corruption. And perhaps, during 
her long trance, influences had been at work 
which rendered her apparent recovery little 
more than a sort of mirage of physical exist- 
ence, destined to endure but for a moment and 
then vanish forever. 

But does she not live still, and Kalph with 
her ? I would rather trust her faith on that 
point than take my cue from Conrad, though 
he is now one of the leaders of European 
science. 

THE 



BELFORD'S 
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BONN PIATT, EDITOR. 

Washington, D. C. July 16, 1888. 

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This is the Fifteenth Edition of "Miss Varian," a fact which speaks more forcibly 
than words for its worth and interest to the novel-reading world. 

By the Author of "POEMS OP PASSION." 

"MAURINE," and other Poems. 

By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. With Photogravure Portrait of the Author. 

12mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 

" Poems of Passion " sells faster than any other book of poems published. " Maurine" 
is by the same hand and brain. The poems are as good and beautiful as those in her other 
popular work. 

STAR DUST. 

A Collection of Poems. By FANNIE ISABEL SHERRICK. 12 mo. Cloth, gilt 
$1.00. 

"These Poems show great originality and an imagery which is both forcible and 
delicate." 8t. Louis Republican. 

" A gifted writer, and many of her metrically expressed thoughts will have an enduring 
place in American Literature." Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

RENTS IN OUR ROBES. 

By MRS. FRANK LESLIE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50c. 

A brillant review of modern society and manners, by one of their most noted ex- 
ponents. Sparkling sketches and essays of modern life, invested with all the charm of 
wit, raillery, sentiment, and spontaneity which a cuLured woman of the world might be 
expected to bestow upon such a subject. " Ren s in Our Robes " is a book that helps no less 
than it entertains ; and perhaps no better idei of its charm can be conveyed, than in say- 
ing that the author has put a great deal of herself into the work. 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., Publishers, 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO. 



OFF THOUGHTS ABOUT LOVE, WOMEN, AND 
OTHER THINGS. 

By SAMUEL ROCKWELL REED, of the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette. 12mo. 
Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 

The following are some of the subjects discussed in this valuable Book of Essays, 
by one of the best writers in the country: ''Love and Marriage," "The Raby and 
the Ballot/* * Scientific Spots on Domestic Animals," " The Married Man's Liabili- 
ties," " The Women's Movement, 1 ' "How arid When to Die,' "Was the Creation a 
Failure ?" " Trial by Jury a Defeat of Justice," ' Fishing and Morals," " The Converted 
Prize-JJlghter." 

THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 

Its Foundations Contrasted with its Superstructure. By WM. RATHBONE 
GREG, author of " Enigmas of Life," "Literary and Social Judgments," 
etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

SOCIALISM AND UTILITARIANISM. 

By JOHN STUART MILL, author of "Principles of Political Economy," " A 
System cf Logic," etc., etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. 

Reminiscences of a Veteran Conductor. By CHARLES B. GEORGE. Illus- 
trated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50c. 

"No railroad man in the West has had more active or eventful experiences in 
train life." Chicago Evening Journal. 

" A very interesting book." Wisconsin. 

"He tells it all in a very chatty, agreeable style. 1 ' Official Railway Guide. 

POLITICAL ORATORY OF EMERY A. STORRS, 

From Lincoln to Garfield. By ISAAC E.ADAMS. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 
These orations cover twenty o"f the most eventful years of the nation's life, and are 
not only valuable for their matchless eloquence, but as a rich contribution to American 
history. They show the speaker to have had a masterly grasp of every subject he und< r- 
took to discuss. Every oration is rich in pointed illustration, full of important declaration 
of political principles, and sparkling throughout with genuine wit. It will be fou d to be 
an invaluable aid to those who are called upon to deliver political addresses. Indeed, no 
one can be thoroughly posted on the stirring political events of the last twenty yeara with- 
out reading Mr. Storr's orations. 

POEMS OF PASSION. 

By ELLA WHEELER, author of " Maurine" and other poems. (27th edition.) 
The most salable Book of Poems published this century. Small 12mo. 
Red Cloth, $1.00. 

No book during the last t?n years has created so genuine a sensation as " Poems rf 
Passion." It required no common courage to write so boldly and so plainly of the great 
passion of love. A part from these distinctive poems, the volume is rich in exquisite strains 
that will insure Ella Wheeler a permanent place among American poets. 

THE CONFESSIONS OF A SOCIETY MAN. 

By BLANCHE CONSCIENCE. 12rno. Cloth, $1.25. Illustrated. 

4 'The Confessions of a Society Man" can hardly be called a book for youn<* girl?, 
though the publishers* prospectus declares it to be free of one immoral word. Also it is 
difficult to determine whether it is the work of a man or of a woman. Rumor has it that 
the author is a young lawyer, very prominent in the society of Philadelphia; at least, the 
scene is laid there at first, and later on vibrates between the Quaker City, New York, 
and the fashionable summer resorts. Whoever the author is he abandons generalizations, 
and confines himself strictly to facts. He goes into details with a calm composure which 
simply takes away one's breath. . . . Bom to good social position, wealthy, educated 
partially in Europe, good-looking, well-dre?sed, well-mannered, and utterly giv^n over 
to frivolities, he is the familiar type of the reckless man of society." New York World. 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., .Publishers, 

CHICAGO, NEW TORE, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 



BOOKS MOST TALKED ABOUT. 



EDEN. 

By EDGAR SALTUS, author of " The Truth about Tristrem Varick," etc. 
Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 

In this novel Mr. Saltns describes an episode in a honeymoon. The plot is dramatic, 
the action nervous, and the scene Fifth Avenue. As a picture of contemporaneous life it 
will be condemned by every lover of the commonplace. 



A NEW "ROMANCE OF THE 19th CENTURY," 

EROS. 

A Novel. By LAURA DAINTREY, author of " Miss Varian, of New York." 
12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. Strong, interesting, and 
delightful. 

MARIE. 

A Seaside Episode. By J. P. RITTER, Jr. With Illustrations by Coultaus. 
Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 

In this poem, the author tell* an interesting love story in an exceedingly bright, 
clever, and amusing fashion, that reminds one a good deal of Byron's " Beppo." Inciden- 
tally, he patirizes society in a light vein of humor, and in a style that is graceful and epi- 
grammatic. The volume contains over forty illustrations, and is an admirable specimen of 
the bookmaker's art. 



A NEW AND EXTRAORDINARY STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 

THE ROMANCE OF A QUIET WATEEINa PLAGE. 

Being the unpremeditated Confessions of a not altogether frivolous girl (ex- 
tracted from the private correspondence of Miss Evelyn J. Dwyer). By 
NORA HELEN WARDDEL. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
Thirty beautiful Illustrations by Graves. 

" The story is very readable." .V. Y. Sun. 

"Cleverly conceived and as cleverly told, and has a dash of French flavor in it." 
Hartford Courant. 

" No American novel has been so beautifully illustrated. * * An original work, 
bracing and piquant as Worcestershire sauce or a bottle of thirty years old sherry." The 
Argus, Baltimore. 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., Publishers, 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK, and SAN FRANCISCO. 



BOOKS 



HIS WAY AND HER WILL. 

A pen-and-ink miniature of Eastern society. By A. X. 12mo. Cloth, 

$1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 
" A remarkably clever book." The American Bookseller. 
" One of the Brightest of this season's novels." East End Bulletin. 
"Better than the average " N. Y, Sun. 
" It is worth reading.*' Baltimore Argus. 

KISSES OP PATE. 

By B. HERON-ALLEN. 12rao. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 

Three hundred pages of as delightful reading as we have ever published. Julian Haw- 
thorne compliments Mr. Alien as being the ablest of the many young writers competing 
for American readers' favor. 

A SLAVE OP CIRCUMSTANCES. 

By E. DE LANCEY PIEBSON. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 

"Is a new and high- wrought society novel that will be in good demand for summer 
reading." .Boston Commonwealth. 

" The book is as novel in conception and plot as it is clever in execution ; and will be a 
valuable adjunct to a spare afternoon at the beach." Daily Spray, Ashbury Park. 

" A clever story." Buffalo Express. 

THE LONE GRAVE OP THE SHENANDOAH. 

ByDoNNPiATT. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 

Donn Piatt never wrote an uninteresting line in his long life. This book contains his 
best stories ; t ach one shows the character of the author that of a true, loving, and lovable 
man. Any man with such a vast and varied experience as that of Col. Piatt could have 
written wonderfully interesting stories, but it takes genius and born ability to write tales 
as delightful as these. 

A DREAM AND A FORGETTING. 

By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 

" ' A Dream and a Forgetting ' will put the author on a higher plane than he his yet 
attained." San Francisco Chronicle. 

" Mr Hawthorne is to be congratulated on having taken a decided step forward in his 
chosen profession." Chicago Herald. 

TOM BURTON. 

A Story of the days of '61. By N. J. W. LE CATO, author of " Aunt Sally's 
Boy Jack." 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 50 cents. 

"Told in a pleasing way." American, Baltimore. 

" The book is full of stirring incidents, and the occasional bits of natural humor add 
charms to an interesting and lively story." Jeweller's Weekly, tf. Y. 
" It will surely interest both young and old." Times, Boston. 

A NOVEL WITH A PLOT: 

THE TEUTH ABOUT TEISTBEM VAEICK. 

By EDGAR SALTUS, author of " Mr. Incoul's Misadventure," etc. 12mo. 
Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 

In this novel Mr. Saltus has treated a subject hitherto unexploited in fiction. The 
scene is Fifth Avenue, the action emotional, the plot a surprise. " There is," some one 
said, "as much mu I in the upper classes as in the lower ; only, in the former it is gilded. 1 ' 
This aphori m might serve as epigraph to Tristrem Varick. 

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.. Publishers, 

CHICAGO. NEW YOKE, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 



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