The talkers

Sadoul went home. His thoughts were not very clear. The interview at the laboratory seemed unreal; the day itself like one that had not dawned. He remembered little of what they said in the office—except that Pockman had called him a crazy bum.

The large apartment which he had furnished for two, but which he alone inhabited awaiting the expiration of the lease, appeared unusually dreary and unreal.

The two canaries he had bought, the black cat, the potted flowers, furniture, books—everything had taken on a misty, wavering aspect. He had a numb sensation in his head, and he seated himself in the living room, his hat and coat still on.

The only sound that broke the silence was the interminable seed-cracking of the canaries.

In the dull aftermath of fear, lethargy drugged his nerves and clouded thought.

He was tired to his very bones, tired, benumbed. And so, rested all alone there in the gray daylight.

The cat came in, and, passing his chair, paused to look up at him. Then went on, noiselessly, without further notice.

About one o’clock his Japanese servant announced luncheon.

Sadoul awoke, rid himself slowly of coat and hat, went to the dining room, and ate what was offered.

After that he sought his study, where some manuscripts lay in various untidy stages.

After all, he had to keep going—he had to eat and clothe himself and go on living—or—did he have to go on at all?

He seemed, finally, to come to that conclusion, pulled a pad toward him, inked his pen.

He had been writing for two hours or more when his servant came and announced a lady.

“Who?” demanded Sadoul.

“She no name, sir.”

“All right—in a minute.”

The Jap retired; Sadoul went on writing—was still writing when something moved at his doorway; and he raised his head. Gilda Greenway stood there.

Sadoul’s visage turned a clay grey; Gilda’s face, too, was very white, framed in her dark furs.

“Sadoul,” she said in a low voice, “what have you done to me?”

He sat as though paralysed for a while. Finally the shock passed; he got up, rested against his desk, and after a moment found his voice:

“Are you coming back?” he asked, somewhat indistinctly.

“No. Answer me; what is it you have done to me?” she repeated.

He moistened his lips, staring at her:

“I don’t know what you mean, Gilda.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Sit down and tell me what you—think I have done to you.”

“Very well.” She seated herself. He took his desk chair, his eyes never leaving her.

“Now,” she said, “tell me what you have done to me.”

“Nothing. You fainted at Derring’s. Pockman brought you around——”

“You thought me dead!”

“Did Stuart Sutton say so?”

“Yes, he told me.”

“Did he tell you what Pockman did to—revive you?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll tell you. A gold-headed pin got loose from your hair and pierced a vital spot in the nape of your neck.... That was our theory. Sutton came to me; I got Pockman; he operated. That’s all.”

“You thought me dead. So did Dr. Pockman.”

“We were mistaken. What of it?”

“But you did think I was dead!”

“What of it?” he repeated, now in full control of his voice and himself.

She leaned a little toward him: “Were you alone with me—after you thought me dead?”

“No.”

“That is a lie, Sadoul.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I know it’s a lie. You were alone with me after you thought me dead. I saw you!”

He made no reply, waiting.

“That is all I remember,” she said, “—lying dead on a chair and looking at you.... I was dead. I didn’t know it until now—until this very instant. But I know it, absolutely, now.”

His sombre eyes regarded her without expression and in silence.

She was watching them, too; and now she drew her white-gloved hand from her muff and rested it on her knee, clenched tightly.

“You once told me,” she said, “that I never could escape you, even by dying.

“You told me that while Charcot was interested only in paralysing the body by inducing hypnosis, there was no reason why the indestructible life-principle itself could not be caught and controlled at the moment of death.... Did you tell me that?”

“Yes.”

“What did you mean by the indestructible life-principle? The escaping soul?”

“You can call it that if you like.”

She clenched her gloved hand tighter:

“You told me that, at death, the life-principle has been seen and even photographed. Is that true? Or is it one of your psychic lies?”

“It is faintly luminous and has been photographed in the dark,” he said patiently, and now quite prepared for whatever else she had to say to him.

“What happened when I died?” she demanded, her childlike face whiter than ever.

“If you insist that you really died—I regret to say I was not present——”

“I saw you!”

His shadowy smile flickered a moment.

“Sadoul!”

“Well, Gilda?”

“Did you try to stop my soul from leaving me?”

“No; I wouldn’t have been such a blithering fool. Where do you get that stuff?” he added with his sneering laugh. “I told you, once, that photographs had been made in a dark death-chamber, which did really show a nebulous something apparently freeing itself from the dead and assuming something like a human shape.”

“Yes, you told me that.”

“I certainly did. Also, I may have told you that psychic materialisations also have been photographed, exuding in rather unpleasant and luminous convolutions from the medium.

“All students of psychology are interested. I am. Psychic phenomena in their relation to hypnosis also interest me——”

“Yes. That is how you destroyed me.”

After a silence: “There was no destruction,” he said in a low voice.

“What do you call it then, Sadoul? You caught my soul—spirit—or whatever you call my tenant—outside my body. You hypnotised it, paralysed it, left my body for days without a tenant!... And once, when you released me, and I returned, I found a new tenant in possession.... Since that time I have had to turn her out a thousand times!... When I—died—she was there, waiting. We struggled for possession. And she is still waiting her opportunity to slip in—always watching—always near.... Last evening, suddenly, she got possession of me—I was tired—off my guard. She locked me out——”

Gilda’s face began to flush and her gloved hands crisped and beat against her muff, crushing and scattering the bunch of violets:

“That’s what you did to me!” she cried, “—you tried to catch my soul outside of me and kill it, or something—so you could let in that other one! You’ve always tried to—always, always! You wanted my body, not caring what tenant it had! And you’ve tried to drive me out and let the other in!—you tried it even when I was dead!”

She sat striking her muff hysterically with her little, gloved fists, her green eyes alight and the pretty mouth distorted with a rage she had never known until that instant.

“I’ve wanted to live rightly,” she said; “but this Other One interferes! There was no other one until you let her in. She comes, now, before I know it.... When I am almost happy—thinking no wrong, God knows——”

She sprang up, trembling: “Can’t you let me alone?” she said. “I never liked you; I never shall live with you.”

Sadoul’s eyes glowed, and he slowly got up from his chair:

“If you won’t live with me, you’ll live with no other man,” he said.

“I don’t want to! I couldn’t, anyway—with the memory of that civil ceremony rising like a nightmare to frighten me——”

“You had better remember it ... when such men as Sutton are dangling around you,” he said with his alarming smile.

Gilda’s face flushed scarlet.

“I shall remember it,” she said.... “It’s the Other One who—who frightens me——”

She took up her muff, abruptly, walked swiftly to the door, turned, trembling, blinded with tears:

“Now, do you understand what you have done to me!” she said in a choking voice. “Even the Other One cares nothing for you! Even if she ever manages to destroy me, it gains you nothing! And that’s what you’ve done to me and to yourself!”

He followed her to the hall and detained her on the landing.

“Remember,” he said, “I tolerate no other man.”

“There is no other man.”

“There may be.”

She pushed by him and pressed the elevator bell.

“My God!” he whispered—“My God! Can’t you be even half human, Gilda?”

“That’s the trouble. I’m not more than that, now, I suppose.”

He kept on saying under his breath, “My God, my God! I can’t go on this way! I can’t go on without you——”

The ascending cage interrupted.

She nodded adieu.

“Let me know where you are,” he said.

The cage dropped. She made no reply. He stood still for a moment, dragging at his lips with bony fingers, then he snatched his hat and ran down the spiral iron stairway.

But he was too late at the street door; and the porter had not noticed which way her taxi turned.