A DEAD MAN’S FACE by Hugh Conway

Imaginative beings who invent marvelous tales may take what license they please, but a simple narrator is nothing if not accurate; so, before beginning this, I looked up old correspondences and various memoranda made at the time when the following things occurred. The first paper upon which I put my hand was a letter. I may as well open with a copy of it:

“Dear Old Boy.—I have met her at last—my fate—the one woman in the world for me. Nothing is settled as yet; but I should not write this unless hope were a certainty. You must wish me joy, although she is a widow and an American—two qualifications which I know you will find fault with. No matter; when you see her you will recant and be envious. Yours ever,

“Claud Morton.”

The writer was my brother—I was going to say my only brother, but I had another once, although the less said about him the better. Nearly every family has its black sheep. Ours had been a peculiarly sable one. When he died, some years ago, I passed a sponge over his long list of delinquencies, and tried to think of him as kindly as possible. He died a disgraced man, far away from home.

I call this black sheep, Stephen, my brother, not Claud’s, the fact being that Claud can scarcely be said to have known him. I stood in age midway between the two. Claud was sixteen years younger than Stephen, so that when the latter was shipped off as irreclaimable, the former was a little golden-haired fellow of seven.

The above letter made me feel both glad and sorry. I was glad that the boy—he was still the boy to me, although his age was seven-­and-twenty—was going to be married; but I was sorry that his choice had not fallen on one of his own countrywomen, and one who could have given him her first love. Still, all this was his own peculiar business. No doubt he had made a suitable choice, and the only thing left for me to do was to write him a cheerful letter of congratulation, and hope that his love affairs would soon be happily settled.

A week went by; then came a long letter from him. He had proposed in orthodox form, and had been duly accepted. His letter lies before me at this moment, and I feel sad as I read again the two pages covered with the lover’s usual raptures.

I am not a mercenary man, but I own I felt somewhat disappointed on learning that she was poor. Somehow one associates wealth with an American widow who is sojourning in England. But, so far as I could gather from Claud’s letter, Mrs. Despard, or Judith, as he called her, was not well off. He spoke of her as being all alone in London, which fact, he added, would necessarily hasten his marriage. It would take place, he hoped, in a week or two. In conclusion he pressed me to run up to town in order to make the acquaintance of my future sister-in-law.

I was very busy at the time—I may say, in passing, that my business is to cure people’s ailments, not to tell stories—nevertheless I managed to pay a flying visit to town, and was duly presented to Claud’s betrothed.

Yes, she was handsome—strikingly handsome. Her whole appearance was much out of the common. She was tall, superbly built, on a large scale, perhaps, yet graceful as a panther in every movement. Her face gave evidence of much character, power, and determination, and of passion also, I decided. Her rich dark beauty was at that time in full bloom, and although I saw at a glance that she was some years older than my brother, I was not at all inclined to blame Claud for his rapturous expressions. So far as personal charms went, I could find no fault with Judith Despard. For the rest it was easy to see that she was passionately in love with Claud, and for the sake of this I gladly overlooked all my fanciful objections to his choice, and congratulated him heartily on having won so beautiful a creature.

Yet, strange to say, in the midst of his newfound happiness my brother seemed any thing but his usual cheerful self. He, the merriest and most talkative of men, seemed taciturn, moody and preoccupied. The curious thing was that his changed manner struck me particularly while we were in Mrs. Despard’s company. He spoke and behaved in the most affectionate and lover-like way, but there was in his general bearing something which puzzled me altogether. It seemed to me that he might perhaps be nervous as to what impression his fair friend might make upon the elder brother whom he so reverenced and respected.

This theory of mine was strengthened by the fact that when, at night, we found ourselves alone and I was able to freely express my admiration of Mrs. Despard’s good looks, he brightened up considerably, and we sat until a very late hour, and talked over the past, the present and the future.

“When do you mean to be married?” I asked.

“In a fortnight or three weeks. There is nothing to wait for. Judith is living alone in lodgings. She has no friends to consult, so we shall just walk to church some morning and get it over.”

“Well, let me walk with you. I should like to see the last of you.”

“All right, old fellow. But you’ll be the only one—unless Mary likes to honor us.”

Mary was my wife; but as her time was just then fully occupied by a very young baby, I did not think it at all likely she would be able to make the long journey to town.

“I shall fix the earliest day I can,” added Claud. “The fact is, I have been feeling rather queer lately. I want a change.”

Thereupon I questioned him as to what ailed him. So far as I could ascertain, all that was the matter was his having worked too hard, and being a little below par. I prescribed a tonic, and quite agreed with him as to the benefit which he would derive from change of air.

When I reached home my wife scolded me for my stupidity. It seems that it was my duty to have found out all about Mrs. Despard’s antecedents, relations, connections, circumstances, habits and disposition, whereas all I could say was that she was a beautiful widow with a small income and that she and Claud were devoted to each other.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Morton, scornfully, “like all other men, the moment you see a pretty face you inquire no further. I quite tremble for Claud.”

When I reflected how little I really knew about Mrs. Despard, I felt abashed and guilty. However, Claud was a full-grown man, and no fraternal counsel was likely to turn him aside from his desire.

In the course of a few days he wrote me that he was to be married on the 5th of the next month. I made arrangements which would enable me to go to the wedding; but three days before the date named I heard again from him. The wedding was postponed for a fortnight. He gave no reason for the delay; but he said he was anxious to see me, and to-morrow he should run down to my home.

He came as promised. I was aghast when I saw him. He looked worn, haggard, wretched. My first thought was that business had gone wrong with him. His looks might well be those of a man on the brink of ruin. After the first greeting I at once took him to my study in order to be put out of suspense. Just as I was about to begin my anxious questions he turned to me.

“Frank, old fellow,” he said, imploringly, and with a faint attempt at a smile, “don’t laugh at me.”

Laugh! That was the last thing I was likely to do. I pressed his hand in silence.

“You won’t believe me, I know,” he continued. “I can’t believe it myself. Frank, I am haunted.”

“Haunted!” I was bound to smile, not from any disposition toward merriment, but in order to show the poor boy the absurdity of his idea.

“Yes, haunted. The word sounds ridiculous, but I can use no other. Haunted.”

“What haunts you?”

He came close to me and grasped my arm. His voice sank to a hoarse whisper.

“A horrible, ghastly, grewsome thing. It is killing me. It comes between me and my happiness. I have fought and struggled against this phantom terror. I have reasoned calmly with myself. I have laughed my own folly to scorn. In vain—in vain. It goes, but it comes again.”

“Overwork,” I said, “insomnia, too many cigars, late hours; and had you been a drinking man I should add, too much stimulant, too little food, anxiety, perhaps. Have you any thing on your mind—any special worry?”

“Of course I have,” he said, pettishly. “Did I not tell you it is killing me?”

“What is killing you?”

He rose and paced the room excitedly; then suddenly he stopped short, and once more clutched my arm.

“A face,” he said, wildly—“a man’s face; a fearful white face that comes to me; a horrible mask, with features drawn as in agony—ghastly, pale, hideous! Death or approaching death, violent death, written in every line. Every feature distorted. Eyes starting from the head. Every cord in the throat standing out, strained as by mortal struggle. Long dark hair lying flat and wet. Thin lips moving and working—lips that are cursing, although I hear no sound. Why should this come to me—why to me? Who is this dead man whose face wrecks my life? Frank, my brother, if this is disease or madness, cure me; if not, let me die.”

His words, his gestures, sent a cold thrill through me. He was worse, far worse, than I had feared.

“Claud,” I said, “you are talking nonsense. Cure you! of course I mean to cure you. Now sit down, collect yourself, and tell me how this hallucination comes.”

“Comes! How does it come? It gathers in corners of the room; it forms and takes shape; it glares at me out of the wall; it looks up at me from the floor. Ever the same fearful white dying face, threatening, cursing, sometimes mocking. Why does it come?”

I had already told the poor fellow why it came, but it was no use repeating my words. “Tell me when you see it,” I asked; “at night—in darkness?”

He hesitated, and seemed troubled. “No, never at night. In broad daylight only. That to me is the crowning terror, the ghastliness of it. At night I could call it a dream. Frank, believe me, I am no weak fool. For weeks I have borne with this. At last it has conquered me. Send it away, or I shall go mad!”

“I’ll send it away, old boy, never fear. Tell me: can you see it now?”

“No; thank God, not now.”

“Have you seen it to-day?”

“No; to-day I have been free from it.”

“Well, you’ll be free from it to-morrow, and the next day, and the next. It will be gone forever before you leave me. Now come and see Mary and the babies. I haven’t even asked you how Mrs. Despard is.”

A curious look crossed his face. “I think she grows more beautiful every day,” he said. Then he seized my hand. “Oh, Frank,” he exclaimed, “rid me of this horror, and I shall be the happiest man in the world.”

“All right,” I answered, perhaps with more confidence than I felt.

Although I made light of it to my patient, his state greatly alarmed me. I hastened to put him under the strictest and most approved treatment. I enforced the most rigid sumptuary laws, made him live on plain food, and docked his consumption of tobacco unmercifully. In a few days I was delighted to find that my diagnosis of the case was correct. Claud was rapidly recovering tone. In a week’s time he seemed restored to health.

The days went by. As yet Claud had said nothing about leaving me; yet, unless the date was once more adjourned, he was to be married on the 19th. I did not counsel him to postpone the happy day. He was by now so well that I thought he could not do better than adhere to his arrangement. A month’s holiday, spent in the society of the woman he loved, would, I felt certain, complete his cure, and banish forever that grisly intruder begotten of disorganized nerves.

From the monotonous regularity and voluminous nature of their correspondence it was evident, delay and separation not­withstanding, that matters were going on quite smoothly between Claud and Judith Despard. Every day he received and wrote a long letter. Nevertheless, it was not until the 16th of the month that I knew exactly what he meant to do about his marriage.

“Frank,” he said, “you have been wonderfully kind to me. I believe you have saved my life, or at least my reason. Will you do something more for me?”

“Even unto half my kingdom,” I answered.

“Look here: I am ashamed of the feeling, but I absolutely dread returning to town. At any rate I wish to stay there no longer than is needful. Thursday morning I must, of course, be there, to be married. You think me cured, Frank?” he added, abruptly.

“Honestly, yes. If you take care of yourself you will be troubled no more.”

“Yet why do I dread London so? Well, never mind. I will go up by the night mail on Wednesday—then I need only be there for a few hours. Will you do this for me—go up on Wednesday morning, see Judith, and explain how it is that I shall not see her until we meet in the church?”

“Certainly, if you wish it. But you had better write as well.”

“Yes, I shall do that. There are several other little things you must see to for me. The license I have, but you must let the clergy­man know. You had better go and see my partners. They may think it strange if I marry and go away without a word.”

Thinking it better that he should have his own way, I promised to do as he wished. Upon my arrival in town on Wednesday afternoon I went straight to Mrs. Despard’s. I was not sorry to have this opportunity of seeing her alone. I wished to urge upon her the necessity of being careful that Claud did not again get into that highly wrought nervous state, from which my treatment had so happily extricated him.

She was not looking so well as when last I saw her. At times her manner was restless, and she seemed striving to suppress agitation. She made no adverse comments on her lover’s strange whim of reaching town to-morrow only in time for the ceremony. Her inquiries as to his health were most solicitous, and when I told her that I no longer feared any thing on his account, her heartfelt sigh of relief told me how deeply she loved him.

Presently she looked me full in the face. Her eyes were half closed, but I could see an anxious, eager look in them. “He saw a face,” she said. “Has it left him?”

“He told you of his queer hallucination, then?’’

“No; but once or twice when sitting with me he sprang to his feet and muttered: ‘Oh, that face! that ghastly, horrible face! I can bear it no longer!’ Then he rushed wildly from the room. What face did he see, Dr. Morton?”

To set her mind at rest, I gave her a little scientific discourse, which explained to her how such mental phenomena were brought about. She listened attentively, and seemed satisfied. Then I bade her adieu until to-morrow.

The marriage was to be of the quiet kind. I found that Mrs. Despard had made no arrangement for any friend to accompany her; so, setting all rules of etiquette at defiance, I suggested that, although the bridegroom’s brother, I should call for her in the morning and conduct her to the church. To this she readily consented.

Somehow that evening I did not carry away such a pleasing impression of my brother’s bride as I did when first I met her. I can give no reason for this, except that I was not forgetful of my wife’s accusation, that when first I met Judith Despard I had been carried away by the glamour of her beauty, and thought of nothing else. As I walked to Claud’s rooms, which I occupied for the night, I almost regretted that he had been so hasty—certainly I wished that we knew more of his bride. But it was now too late for regrets or wishes.

I called for Mrs. Despard at the appointed hour, and found her quite ready to start. Her dress was plain and simple—I can not describe it; but I saw that in spite of her excessive pallor she looked very beautiful. In the carriage on our way to the church she was very silent, answering my remarks with monosyllables. I left her in peace, supposing that at such a moment every woman must be more or less agitated.

When the carriage drew up at the church door, the bride laid her hand upon my arm. I could feel that she was trembling. “Claud will be here?” she asked. “Nothing will stop him?”

“Nothing. But I may as well step out and see that he is waiting.”

Yes, Claud was in the church waiting for us. We exchanged greetings. The old sexton summoned the curate; and Judith Des­pard, my brother, and myself walked up to the altar rails.

Claud looked very well that morning; a little fagged perhaps, but the long night journey would account for that. He certainly looked proud and happy as he stood on the altar step side by side with the woman who in a few minutes would be his wife.

But before the curate had finished reading the opening address a great change came over him. From where I was standing I could see only his side face, but that was enough to show me that he was suffering from some agitation—something far above the nervousness so often displayed by a bridegroom. A deadly pallor came over his face, small beads of perspiration sprang to his brow, and I noticed that those tell-tales of mental disturbance, the hands, were so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white. It was evident that he was suffering anguish of some kind, and for a moment I thought of stopping the service. But the rite is but a short one, and from whatever cause Claud’s agitation might proceed, it was perhaps better to trust to him to curb it for a few moments than to make a scene. Nevertheless I watched him intently and anxiously.

Then came the charge to declare any impediment. As the curate made the conventional pause, Claud, to my surprise, glanced round in a startled way, as if fearing that his marriage would at the last moment be forbidden. The look on his face was now one of actual terror.

Both bride and bridegroom said their “I wills” in such low tones that I could scarcely hear their voices. Then, in pursuance of my duty, I gave the woman to the priest. He joined the hands of Claud and Judith.

After having played my little part I had not moved back to my former station. I was now close to the bride, and as Claud turned to her, could see his face to advantage. It was positively distorted with suppressed emotion of some kind. His mouth was set, and I could see that his teeth were closed on his under lip. He did not look at his fair bride. His gaze passed over her shoulder. In fact, he seemed almost oblivious to her presence. I was dreadfully frightened.

The clergyman’s voice rang out: “I, Claud, take thee, Judith, to my wedded wife.” Then, hearing no echo of his words, he paused.

“Repeat after me,” he prompted. Again he began, “I, Claud—”

But his voice was drowned in a louder one, which rang through the empty church. With a fierce cry, as of inexpressible rage, Claud had thrown the bride’s hand from him, and was pointing and gesticulating toward the wall, upon which his eyes had been riveted.

“Here!—even here!” he almost shrieked. “That cursed, white, wicked, dying face! Whose is it! Why does it come between me and my love! Mad! Mad! I am going mad!”

I heeded not the clergyman’s look of dismay, or the bride’s cry of distress. I thought of nothing but my unfortunate brother. Here, at the moment which should be the happiest he had yet known, the grewsome hallucination had come back to him. I threw my arm round him and tried to calm him.

“It is fancy, dear boy,” I said. “In a moment it will be gone.”

“Gone! Why does it come? What have I to do with this dying man? Look, Frank, look! Something tells me if you look you will see it. There! there! Look there!”

His eyes were ever fixed on the same point. He grasped my arm convulsively. I am ashamed to say that I yielded, and looked in the direction of his gaze.

“There is nothing there,” I said, soothingly.

“Look!” he exclaimed. “It will come to you as to me.”

It may have been the hope of convincing Claud of the illusionary nature of the sight which tormented him, it may have been some strange fascination, wrought by his words and manner, which made me for some moments gaze with him. God of heaven! I saw gradually forming out of nothing, gathering on the blank wall in front of me, a face, or the semblance of a face, white, ghastly, horrible! Long, dank, wet-looking dark hair, eyes starting from their sockets, lips working—the whole appearance that of the face of a man who is struggling with death: in every detail as Claud had described it. And yet to me that face was more terrible than ever it could be to Claud.

I gazed in horror. I felt my eyes growing riveted to the sight as his own. I felt my whole frame trembling. I knew that in another moment I should be raving as wildly as he raved. Only his hoarse whisper recalled me to my senses.

“You see?” he asked, or rather asserted.

Horror forced the truth from me. “I see, or fancy I see,” I answered.

With a wild laugh Claud broke from me. He rushed down the church and disappeared. As he left me, the face, thank Heaven! faded from the wall, or from my imagination.

I turned to my companions. Judith Despard was lying in a dead swoon on the altar steps; the curate with trembling hands was loosening the throat of her dress. I called for water. The sexton brought it. I bathed the poor woman’s temples, and in a few minutes she sighed, opened her eyes, and then shuddered. I took her in my arms and staggered to the church door. The curate removed his surplice and followed me. I placed my almost senseless burden in the carriage.

“For Heaven’s sake, see her home,” I said to the curate. “I must go and look after my brother. As soon as I have seen him I will come round to Mrs. Despard’s. Get her home quickly. The coachman knows where to go.”

The brougham drove off. I threw myself into a cab, and drove toward Claud’s rooms. I hoped he might have gone straight there.

To my great relief, when I reached his house he was on the door-step. We entered his room together; he sank wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. I was scarcely less agitated than himself, and my face, as I caught its reflection in the mirror, was as white as his own. I waited for him to speak.

Presently he raised his head. “Go to her,” he said. “Ask her why that face comes between us. You saw it—even you. It can be no fancy of mine. Tell her we can meet no more.”

“I will wait until you are calmer before I go.”

“Calm! I am myself now. The thing has left me, as it always does. Frank, I have hidden from you one peculiarity of my state. That awful face never shows itself to me unless I am in her company. Even at the altar it came between us. Go to her; ask her why it comes.”

I left him, but did not quit the house for some time. I went into an adjoining room and tried to collect my thoughts; for, as I said, my mind was more troubled than even Claud’s could be.

I am ashamed to re-assert it; I am willing to own that excitement, my brother’s impressive manner, superstition which I did not know I possessed—any thing that may bear a natural explanation—may have raised that vision. But why should that phantom, gathering and growing from nothing until it attained to form, or at least semblance, have been the face of one I had known? Why should the features distorted in deadly agony have been those of my brother Stephen? For his was the dreadful face which Claud’s prompting or my own imagination had raised.

Almost like one in a dream I went to do Claud’s bidding. I was thankful, upon reaching Mrs. Despard’s, to find that she had gone to her room, and left word that she could see no one to-day. This gave me time to consider the position.

Acting on a sudden impulse, I went to the telegraph office, and sent instructions to my wife to forward to me, by passenger train, a small box in which I kept old letters and papers. Then I went back to Claud, and after some persuasion induced him to leave town at once. I told him I would arrange every thing on the morrow. He was better away.

In the morning my box arrived. In it I found what I wanted. After the calming effects of a night’s rest I felt ashamed of my weakness as I drew from old letters a photograph of my brother Stephen—one taken about two years before the report of his death reached us. Nevertheless I put the portrait in my pocket, and about noon went to Mrs. Despard’s.

I was at once admitted, and in a few minutes she came to me. She looked worn and haggard, as if sleep had not visited her for nights. Dark circles had formed round her fine eyes; lines seemed to have deepened round her firm, passionate mouth. She advanced eagerly toward me and held out her hand. I took it in silence. Indeed, I scarcely knew what to say or how to act.

“Where is Claud?” she asked, in a quick voice, but scarcely above a whisper.

“He has left town for a few days.”

She pressed her hand to her heart. “Does that mean I shall see him no more?”

“I am afraid I must say it does. He thinks it better you should part.”

She gave a sharp cry, and walked up and down the room wringing her hands. Her lips moved rapidly, and I knew she was muttering many words, but in so low a key that I could not catch their meaning. Suddenly she stopped, and turned upon me fiercely.

“Is this by your council and advice?” she demanded.

“No. It is his own unbiassed decision.”

“Why?—tell me why? He loved me—I love him. Why does he leave me?”

The passionate entreaty of her voice is indescribable. What could I say to her? Words stuck in my throat. It seemed the height of absurdity for a sane man to give a sane woman the true reason for Claud’s broken faith. I stammered out something about his bad state of health.

“If he is ill, I will nurse him,” she cried. “I will wait for years if he will give me hope. Dr. Morton, I love Claud as I never before loved a man.”

She clasped her hands and looked imploringly into my face. In a mechanical way I drew the portrait of my dead brother from my breast. She saw the action.

“His likeness!” she cried, joyfully. “He sends it to me! Ah, he loves me!”

I handed her the photograph. “Mrs. Despard,” I asked, “do you know—”

I did not finish the question, yet it was fully answered. Never, I believe, save then did a human face undergo such a sudden, frightful change. The woman’s very lips grew ashen, her eyes glared into mine, and I saw them full of dread. She staggered—all but fell.

“Why is it here—who is it?” she gasped out.

I was a prey to the wildest excitement. To what revelation was this tending? what awful thing had I to learn?

“Listen,” I said, sternly. “Woman, it is for you to answer the question. It is the face of this man, his dying face, that comes between you and your lover.”

“Tell me his name.” I read rather than heard the words her dry lips formed.

“The name he was once known by was Stanley.”

A quick, sharp shudder ran through her. For a moment I thought she was going to faint.

“He is dead,” she said. “Why does he come between my love and me? Others have loved or said they loved me since then. They saw no dead faces. Had I loved them I might have married and been happy. Claud I love. Why does the dead man trouble him?”

“That man,” I replied, “was my brother—Claud’s brother.”

She threw out her arms with a gesture of utter despair. “Your brother—Claud’s brother!” she repeated. Then she fixed her eyes on mine as if she would read the secrets of my soul.

“You are lying,” she said.

“I am not. He was our eldest brother. He left England years ago. He passed under a false name. He died. When and how did he die?”

She sank, a dead weight, into a chair; but still she looked at me like one under a spell. I seized her wrist.

“Tell me, woman,” I cried—“tell me what this man was to you; why his dying face comes to us? The truth—speak the truth.”

She seemed to cower beneath my words, but her eyes were still on my face. “Speak!” I cried, fiercely, and tightening my grasp upon her wrist. At last she found words.

“He was my husband; I killed him,” she said in a strange voice, low yet perfectly distinct.

I recoiled in horror. This woman, the widow and self-­confessed murderess of one brother, within an ace of being the wife of the other!

“You murdered him?” I said, turning to the woman.

“I murdered him. He made my life a hell upon earth. He beat me, cursed me, ruined me. He was the foulest-hearted fiend that ever lived. I killed him.”

No remorse, no regret in her words. Quite overcome, I leaned against the chimney-piece. Bad as I knew Stephen Morton to have been, I could at that moment only think of him as a gay, light-hearted school-boy, my elder brother, and in those days a perfect hero in my eyes. No wonder my heart was full of vengeance.

Yet even in the first flush of my rage I knew that I could do nothing. No human justice could be meted out to this woman. There was nothing to prove the truth of her self-accusation. She would escape scot-free.

“Would that I could avenge his death!” I said, sullenly.

She sprang to her feet. Her dark eyes blazed. “Avenged!” she cried. “Is it not doubly, trebly avenged? Has he not taken all I care for in life from me? Has he not taken my love from my side? Coward in life, coward in death. When I killed him I knew he would try to come back to me. He has tried for years. Ah, I was too strong for him. I could banish the face with which he strove to haunt me. I could forget. I could love. I could have been happy. Yet he has conquered at last. Not me—he could not conquer me—but the one I love. Oh, the coward is avenged!”

In spite of my feeling of abhorrence, I gazed on the speaker in amazement. Her words were not those of one who had committed a black crime, but of one who had suffered wrong. The strange, fanciful idea that the dead man had been trying to haunt her, but had been kept at bay by her strong will, was in my experience unprecedented. As I saw the agony of mind under which she was labouring, the thought came to me that perhaps her words were true, that my brother’s death was this day avenged. I resolved to leave her. I could gain no good by prolonging the painful scene.

She was still pacing the room in fierce passion. Suddenly she stopped short, and in thrilling accents began to speak. It seemed as if she had forgotten my presence.

“See,” she cried, “the river-bank—the dark rushing stream. Ah, we are all alone, side by side, far away from every one. Fool! if you could read my heart, would you walk so near to the giddy brink? Do you think the memory of the old love will stay my hand when the chance comes? Old love is dead: you beat it, cursed it to death! How fast does the stream run? Can a strong man swim against it? Oh, if I could be sure—sure that one push would end it all and give me freedom! Once I longed for love—your love. Now I long for death—your death. Oh, brave, swift tide, are you strong enough to free me forever? Hark! I can hear the roar of the rapids in the distance. There is a deep fall from the river cliff; there are rocks. Fool! you stand at the very edge and look down. The moment is come. Ah!”

With her last exclamation she used a violent gesture, as if pushing something fiercely from her. She was, I knew, in her excitement, re-acting the tragedy.

“Free! free! free!” she cried, with a delirious, almost rapturous laugh, and clasped her hands. “Hold him, brave stream! Sweep him away. See! he swims; but he dare not swim with you. You are hurrying down to the rapids. He must face you, and wrestle with you for his life. Bear him down; keep him from me. If he masters you, he will land and kill me. Hold him fast, brave stream! Ha! his strength fails. He is swept away; he is under. No, I see him again. He turns his face to me. He knows I did it. With his last breath he is cursing me. His last breath! He is gone, gone forever! I am free!”

The changes in her voice, ranging from dread to tearful joy, her passionate words, her eloquent gestures, all these combined to bring the very scene before my eyes. I stood spell-bound, and even, as she described it, seemed to see the unfortunate man battling for dear life in the rushing stream, growing every moment weaker and weaker. As the woman’s last wild exclamation—“Gone forever! I am free!”—rang through the room, I seemed to hear the cry of despair drowned as the waves closed over the wretched man’s head. I knew every detail of my brother’s fate.

I turned to leave the room. I longed to get away, and if possible to banish the events of the day from my mind. It was not given to me to be Stephen Morton’s avenger.

My hand was on the door, when the woman sprang to my side. She grasped my arm and drew me back into the room.

“Look!” she whispered. “Do you see it! There! The face—that awful face! It has come at last to me. The dead man has conquered. There! look! His eyes glaring, his mouth mocking. Now it has once come, I shall see it always—always. Look!”

No, I was not doomed again to see or to fancy I saw that face. Its mission, so far as I was concerned, was at an end. But the look of concentrated horror which Judith Despard cast at the wall of the room beggars description. Then with a piteous cry she fell at my feet, and seemed to strive to make me shield her from something she dreaded. I raised her. She broke from my grasp, and again fell upon the floor, this time in paroxysms of madness.

My tale is ended. That night she was removed to a private lunatic asylum, where for three years she was kept at my expense. She died raving mad, and from inquiries I made I know that from the moment when it first appeared to her to the hour of her death the face of the man she had killed was ever with Judith Despard.