CHAPTER XVII

I understand, also, that in telling the story broadcast, as he has done, he has made free use of my name and that of my wife, as witnesses to these happenings. Wherefore, I am daily in receipt of fully a dozen letters of enquiry. Reporters, so-called scientists, mystics with long hair and unclean nails, and cranks and practical jokers of every sort and description have taken to calling at the rectory, at inconvenient hours, to cross-question me.

For example: one disreputable man, reeking of cheap liquor, came to me yesterday with the information that the story of Peter Grimm's return had converted him and that (with some slight temporary financial assistance from me) he was prepared to renounce liquor and mend his ways. He looked like a penitent. He talked like a penitent. But he most assuredly did not smell like a penitent. And I sent him about his business.

This was but one of many irritating interruptions upon my parish work to which Dr. McPherson's use of my name has subjected me.

In view of all this, I deem it advisable to save myself from further annoyance and to stop the rumour that a minister of the Gospel has turned Spiritualist, by issuing the following brief statement:

Dr. McPherson is desirous that my wife and myself endorse his belief that the occurrences at the home of the late Peter Grimm were of a supernatural nature.

We shall do no such thing.

For the single reason that neither Mrs. Batholommey nor myself, after mature reflection and dispassionate discussion, can find one atom of the Supernatural in any of the events that transpired there. Perhaps I can best make clear my point of view by rehearsing the case and my own very small connection therewith.

The fact that Dr. McPherson is of a different denomination from myself in no way biases my feelings in this case. I am an Episcopalian. And I am of liberal views toward those who are not;—with the possible exception of Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and members of a few other denominations outside the direct Apostolic Succession. Yet I confess I was shocked at the conversion (or perversion) of my old neighbour, McPherson, to a cult which, for want of a better word, I must designate as "Spiritualism."

He told me of a compact he had made with my dear friend and parishioner, Peter Grimm, to the effect that whichever of them should first leave this mortal life was to return and make known his presence to the other. I told McPherson to his face that I regarded such a compact as being even more sacrilegious than senseless. My good wife echoed my sentiments. McPherson, who has not the admirable control over his temper so needful to a medical man, chose to become angry at my outspoken opinion and said several cruelly unjust things concerning my own behaviour toward the late Peter Grimm.

I shall not stoop to denying or even repeating what he said; far less to justify myself. Yet I should like to mention, in passing, that his coarse gibe concerning my fawning on a rich man is the most unjust of all his abominable assertions.

I was in the habit of bringing cases of need before Peter Grimm's notice, it is true. And he responded right generously to every such appeal. I enlisted his financial aid for the local poor, for the Church Building Fund, for missions (home and foreign), and for the other worthy and needy cases.

But for myself or for my family I have never asked for one penny, either from Peter Grimm or from any other man. And as the gifts I have begged were in my Master's name and solely for my Master's service, I do not consider I have demeaned myself. Be that my sole defence. I am content with it.

The public, of late years, has looked askance at the attitude of clergymen toward the wealthier members of their congregation. And, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, with absolutely no cause. The Church is in need. The poor are in dire distress. Missions languish for the few paltry thousands that would carry the Word triumphant throughout the earth.

Who is to supply these needs? Who but the clergyman? Out of his own scanty salary? That hardly supports him and his. Yet, in proportion, he gives from it as never did a multimillionaire. To whom can he turn for financial help in carrying out his Master's work? To the Rich Man. And, in many cases, the day is past when he can do so without first winning the personal liking of that same rich man. Yes, and often by flattering him and smiling approvingly at his vulgar humour or soothing his equally vulgar rages.

Shame that the deathless Church of God should have been brought to such a pass!

Yes, and tenfold shame to those that sneer at the clergyman who sacrifices and tortures all that is sensitive and sacred in himself, in the effort to wheedle from the wealthy boor the money to save God's poor and God's souls! Is it pleasant for him to fawn and to be patronised? Others do it, I know. But for themselves. The clergyman must do it in his Master's name and for no personal gain.

Let the rector refuse to lower himself thus—What happens? The rich man goes to a church where flattery and subservience are more plentiful. The stiff-necked rector seeks in vain for funds. For lack of money his church runs down. It cannot keep up its charities and its other work.

Who is to blame? The rector, of course. Let us get an up-to-date man in his place. And the clergyman who refused to cringe finds himself not only without a church but with a record that bars him from getting another one. I do not say this state of affairs is universal. But I do say, from bitter experience, that it is far too prevalent. Forgive my digression. I will get back to my statement with all speed.

I have told of the "compact" between Peter Grimm and Andrew McPherson. Mr. Grimm died. Kathrien had promised him to marry his nephew, Frederik. She did not love him. She did love James Hartmann. She has admitted both those facts to me.

As the time for the wedding drew near, she was more and more loath to carry out her promise. McPherson attributes that distaste to the spiritual promptings of Peter Grimm. Can any normal woman (who has been forced to marry one man while loving another) see the remotest hint of the Supernatural in it? No!

Willem, a boy of epileptic tendencies—as McPherson himself admits—had taken his benefactor's death terribly to heart, and had brooded over it day and night. Is there any reason to doubt that in such an unbalanced nature, this brooding, coupled by fever, should have produced a delirium in which he believed he heard Peter Grimm speaking to him?

He also believed, Kathrien tells me, that he heard the circus parade pass the house ten days after it had left town. Is one belief entitled to greater credence than the other? Or did the ghost of a circus parade meander through our Main street at night, accompanied by a Spook brass band? Each idea is quite as probable as the other.

And, from the boy's own statement, Peter Grimm said to him nothing original or even betokening a mind more developed than a child's. Willem knew Kathrien was going to marry Frederik. He knew she did not want to and that he himself disliked and feared Frederik. What more likely than that he should imagine he heard Peter forbid the match?

What more likely, in his own fevered unhappiness, than that he should think Peter Grimm said "I am very unhappy"? Would a man of Peter Grimm's strength and shrewdness come back to earth and tell the child nothing of greater importance than Willem says he told? And, if he could make Willem understand such phrases as "I am very unhappy" and "Kathrien must not marry Frederik," could he not have made the boy understand anything else?

As to Frederik Grimm:—Frederik, we know, was nervous and overwrought. His uncle's death had been a shock—if not a grief. He had the added worry of knowing Kathrien did not really love him. He was in constant fear lest Anne Marie, on hearing of Peter's death, might communicate with her mother and lest the secret of his own relations with the poor girl be exposed. This suspense added to his nervousness.

The sight of her picture and the reading of her pathetic letter stirred his conscience. He forced himself to destroy both bits of evidence. And the action strongly brought before his nerve-racked senses the thought of what honourable old Peter Grimm would have said of such conduct. So strongly, in fact, that in the dark he fancied he saw Grimm's eyes glaring at him. The phenomenon is by no means uncommon and has been explained by scientists upon perfectly natural grounds.

As to Willem's sudden remembrance of half-forgotten facts concerning his own childhood, there is no parent living who cannot cite instances of newly awakened memory, in his or her own child, that are quite as remarkable. The seeing of his mother's photograph brought before Willem the recollection of scenes in which she had played a part; scenes that had been crowded from his mind by later events.

Frederik had just spoken harshly to him. And that recalled harsh words Frederik had spoken to the woman in the picture. And thus, quite simply, his memory supplied the one needful link. What is remarkable in all the foregoing? In fact, Shakespeare's Horatio says:

So much for Dr. McPherson's efforts to surround a series of normal occurrences with a halo of the Supernatural! Now, let me add a word on my own account, and I am done.

The Dead do not return to the scene of their toil and pain and tears. Would a freed convict sneak back to his prison house or the ex-galley slave to his oar? The convalescent does not crawl into the contagion ward again of his free choice. Nor, I believe, would the Lord permit the return of the Dead; even to bear a warning to those left behind.

Glance at the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke for confirmation of my belief;—at the parable of the "certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day"; and who, in torment, after death, called to Abraham to send Lazarus from Heaven to visit the Tortured One's five brethren:

"That he may testify unto men, lest they also come into this place of torment.

"Abraham said to him: 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.'

"And he said: 'Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead they would repent.'

"And he said unto him: 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded through one rise from the dead.'"

No, the whole idea is preposterous. It is far outside of God's justice and infinitely farther beyond His boundless mercy.

"He giveth His Beloved sleep";—not weary, hopeless wanderings upon the face of the earth.

Peter Grimm did not return. And this is the only comment I care to make upon Andrew McPherson's amazing theory.

CHAPTER XVIII

While Peter Grimm was invisible to all, three people were present besides myself; including the "recipient," a child of eight, who had been ill, but was almost normal at the time.

No spelling out of signals nor automatic writing was employed, but word of mouth.

I made a compact with Peter Grimm while he was in the flesh that whichever one of us should go first was to return and give the other some sign. And I propose, by the enclosed report, to show positive proof that Peter Grimm kept his compact and that I assisted in the carrying out of his instructions.

Let me introduce myself and briefly recount the circumstances which led up to the séance, as well as my own state of mind concerning manifestations:

I am a practising physician in the town of Grimm Manor, a suburb of New York City, settled at the time of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan, and named after the family, the Grimms, which first owned the farm that is now the town site.

I have always been greatly interested in Spiritualism. I have read nearly all that has been written on this subject and have known, personally, most all the so-called mediums. I have attended séances in this country and abroad and have by turns been convinced that they were genuine or frauds.

Up to the time when the events which I am about to narrate began to occur, I had been unable to come to a definite decision, as far as my own belief was concerned, as to whether or not the spirits of the dead could communicate with the living. At one time I would be led to believe they could, but then the exposure of some well-known medium as a trickster would change my opinion and I would again find myself puzzling vainly over the answer to this problem.

You doubtless remember the furore which was created in Spiritualistic circles by the announcement of an English physician that, in accordance with a compact, a friend had communicated with him after death.

This idea fascinated me. There is an old Japanese myth to the effect that if a dying man resolves to do a certain act the body will, after death, perform that act. It seemed to me that if a man could die and return to earth in spirit it must be as the result of a resolution to return made just before death and constituting the ruling passion at the time of death itself. I determined that I would put this theory to the test.

We of this materialistic world of barter and sale give little time to the consideration of the Hereafter. There are occasions with most of us when the unanswerable Why and Whence obtrudes itself on our vision, but it is a fleeting impression which vanishes with the rising of the sun on the day's work. The wonder and mystery of life may come home to us at the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, but we soon cease to marvel at the miracle of the former and a new joy banishes grief.

For, we say, what avails it, this search after the Land of the Hereafter, if there be such a place? No one has ever come back to tell us that there is; or what it is and where. It is all a matter of conjecture in which we are following round the circle trod by man since the world began.

One man believes that there is a Hereafter, a spirit land in which the Soul, stripped of all evil, reaches a state of perfection and divine happiness which justifies the stupendous feat of the Creation and the travail of those who are bound to the treadmill of life.

Another believes, pointing for proof to the dead branches from which new leaves spring, that life is endless, and that the soul, leaving the worn-out shell, takes up its dwelling in another form. Another with scorn tells us that all life is a joke and we are the butts of the cruel will of an Omnipotent power. And still another says:

"Any and all beliefs in this matter are good, for none can be proved. Let each believe that which gives him the most happiness, so long as it be noble and sweet and true."

And with this last I hold. So that if it bring peace and love and contentment into the heart of man, woman, or child to believe that the spirit of a loved one, who has solved the Problem mortal cannot solve, can return to earth and communicate by some sign or token with those who were its companions when it inhabited a human house, I say it is wrong to scoff and rail at this belief.

There has now come to me the proof that such a belief does bring peace and love and contentment, that it does cast out evil. With regard to the Psychological aspects of the circumstances which are related in the enclosed transcript, I express no opinion. I have never before had the feeling that a person dead so far as mortal existence was concerned was endeavouring to communicate with me. The debates and wrangles which go on continually between those who affirm and deny the possibility of spirit messages have always impressed me, but beyond a theory, I had no knowledge as to the right or wrong of it. However, I was strongly inclined to believe.

The fact that on many occasions so-called rappings, table liftings, writings, and other supposed spirit manifestations have been shown to be the result of mere human trickery does not necessarily prove that such demonstrations may not be the efforts of an immortal soul to make its presence known.

I say this because I want it understood that I have not allowed any prejudice, favourable or otherwise, to creep into the report that I send herewith. I go no further than to say that if my report helps to prove that the spirit of one we have loved and revered can come back and bring peace and love and happiness to mortals who are in dire need, if it can banish blighting evil from their lives; then life, for all its burdens, is not lived in vain.

Among my dearest friends was Peter Grimm, direct descendant of the founders of the village, who still occupied the old Manor House and was engaged in horticulture. Grimm's tulips were known throughout the country and his business was a large one.

There lived with him Kathrien, whom he had adopted at my suggestion (made at a time when he seemed to be getting morose and verging on becoming a recluse) that he needed a child in the house; Frederik, his nephew and heir; James Hartmann, his secretary, and Willem, the son of Anne Marie, the daughter of Marta, the housekeeper.

Anne Marie had left home in disgrace and had sent Willem to her mother after his father had deserted her. Who this man was had never been revealed, and the whereabouts of Anne Marie herself were unknown at the time I am writing of.

At those times when I leaned toward the conviction that communication between earth and spirit land was possible, I was prone to think that if it could be, it must be between a spirit and a mortal who in life typified in their affection for each other the highest type of pure love. If any mortal, I thought, could receive a spirit message, it must be one whose heart and soul are spotless, whose love is as that of a little child before it has grown to manhood and plucked at the leaves of the Tree of Knowledge.

In the day Kathrien entered his home there was born in Peter Grimm a great love for mankind, but especially for children. Not but that he had always been kindly and charitable to those who deserved his aid, but where before his life had been given up to his business, to making the brown earth do his will, he now devoted his chief thought to making Kathrien happy. This love for children was increased when Willem came to him, and I think the most perfect affection that ever existed among three persons was that which these three bore to each other.

Peter came to me recently to be treated for a cold which, while severe, was not in itself dangerous. But in examining him I found that his heart was in such a condition that a strong emotion, such as intense joy, anger, or fear might cause instant death.

I determined, on discovering this, to ask him to enter into a compact with me that whichever of us should die first should, after death, communicate with the survivor. While I was not sure (although a strong bond of affection existed between us) that I was a person fitted to receive such a communication, I was convinced that either Kathrien or Willem would understand a message sent to me from the spirit land by Peter, and, if the thing were possible, that he, if he could not reach me directly, would do so through one or the other of them.

I made the mistake of telling Colonel Lawton of Peter's condition. I might have known that he would tell his wife. She told Mrs. Batholommey, the wife of the rector.

When I suggested the compact to Peter Grimm, he pooh-poohed the whole idea, laughed at me, told me to get such nonsense out of my head.

But I stuck to it. I told him of the incident of the English doctor and his friend, of the great service that would be done to humanity and science if he or I could prove that signals could be exchanged between a land inhabited by the souls of the dead and this mortal earth. At last he consented.

The rector and his wife called after we had finished our argument, and Mrs. Batholommey as much as told Peter during the course of the conversation that he was doomed. Then poor little Willem blabbed the truth. He had overheard us discussing the matter. Peter reiterated that he would make the compact with me.

We shook hands on it, we sealed it with a touch of our glasses filled with Peter Grimm's famous plum brandy.

There was a circus in town, one of those travelling country affairs, and the parade had passed by the house. Peter gave Willem money to buy tickets.

That was the last I saw or heard in this life of mortal Peter Grimm, standing there with a smile on his face.

I had been absent but a few minutes when I heard Kathrien crying my name. I ran back to the house. Peter Grimm was dead.

Ten days later came the séance described in my enclosure. Later in the evening I went to Willem's room and had a quiet little talk with him. He was calm again and spoke freely of what seemed to him an utterly natural experience. And from that conversation I believe I confirmed still further what was already established as a fact, so far as I was concerned. Peter Grimm had kept his compact with me. He had returned!

I wanted to talk with Willem at a time when he was in a normal condition and not in the thrall of fear. I found him without fever, though weaker than he had been for several days. I assured him that he had nothing to fear from Frederik, that all of us were his friends, and that no harm could come to him.

"Now tell me, Willem," I said, "all about your seeing Uncle Peter this evening."

"I awoke very thirsty and went downstairs for a drink," the boy told me in effect. "The ice pitcher felt so cool that I rested my cheek against it and then I drank some more water. Then I heard some one calling me.

"'Willem, Willem,' a voice said, 'can you hear me? Is there no one in this house that can hear me?'

"I couldn't make out at first who it was. Then I heard it again:

"'Willem, Willem,' it said, 'you must hear me.'

"Then I looked around and saw Mynheer Peter's hat on the rack, and I knew he must have come back. But I couldn't see him.

"'Where are you, Mynheer Peter?' I asked him.

"'You cannot see me, Willem, but I am here. I want you to tell them all I am here.'

"That's as near as I can remember it. We talked a while longer. Then he said something like:

"'Go over and look on the table, Willem.'

"I went to the table and saw some torn pieces of paper.

"'Put them together, Willem,' said Mynheer Grimm.

"When I had got it all pasted together I saw it was my mother, Anne Marie; and then you and Miss Kathrien came down.

"Uncle Peter was standing over there about in the middle of the room. I could tell from his voice, but I couldn't see him.

"'Tell them about the man who made Anne Marie cry,' Mynheer Peter told me. And he kept saying, 'Hurry, Willem, before it is too late; he is coming. Hurry, Willem, hurry,' and just before Mr. Frederik came in Mynheer Peter said, 'Tell them now, Willem; he is listening at the door.'

"Before you came down I asked Mynheer Peter to take me back with him when he went and he said he would."

Now, mind you, Willem knew nothing of the compact Peter and I had made.

Peter Grimm had said he would return, if he could. I believe he did so.

My studies of the so-called "Occult" have done my reputation in this narrow provincial town much harm. I have been sneered at as a "spiritualist," a "spook hunter," an "agnostic." I am none of the three. I am a seeker after Truth; even while fully aware of the impossibility of absolutely finding that elusive quality. Nor do my researches in any way conflict with revealed religion, nor in the simple Bible faith that has ever been mine and that shall forever sustain me.

Having thus set forth my personal position in the matter—perhaps tediously and to an undue length,—I beg to call your attention to my report.

Very truly yours,
Andrew McPherson, M.D.

CHAPTER XIX

The doctor had drawn a little table close to the vacant side of the fireplace (for the coals still smouldered, and the night was damp and chill). He had placed Willem's medicines there; and a lamp, the only bright spot in the big room.

Outside, the world was bathed in moonlight, and through the window the arms of the windmill could be seen, waving solemnly round and round like some strange, black mysterious creature beckoning silently from another world.

McPherson was preparing a formal statement of the "séance" while it was still fresh in his mind. And as Willem might need him, he was filling in a waiting hour by writing.

Mrs. Batholommey's anxious face, encased in a scarf, broke in upon his concentration.

"Oh—I'm so nervous!" exclaimed the rector's wife, shudderingly, as she came into the room and going to the piano, turned up the second lamp.

"How can you sit here in such a dim light, after all that has happened in this room—just a few hours ago, too?"

Dr. McPherson, intent upon his work, was determined not to be interrupted. His only reply to Mrs. Batholommey was the scratching of his pen and the rattle of paper as he turned over a page.

"I thought perhaps Frederik had come back," she went on.

"So Willem's feeling better again?" she asked, advancing on the doctor.

"Yes," he answered abstractedly. "I took him upstairs a few minutes ago."

"Strange how the boy wants to remain in this room!" said Mrs. Batholommey.

"M'm——" grunted Dr. McPherson shortly, without looking up at all.

Mrs. Batholommey came nearer and sat down.

"Oh, Doctor! Doctor!" she cried. "The scene that took place here to-night has completely upset me."

The doctor's only reply was to turn his back on Mrs. Batholommey and begin reading his manuscript aloud in an undertone, scratching out a word here, adding something there.

Mrs. Batholommey, quite unconscious that she was a nuisance, leaned back in her chair and let her words flow on.

"Well, Doctor, the breaking off of the engagement is—er—sudden, isn't it? We've been talking it over in the front parlour, Mr. Batholommey and I."

The doctor darted a withering look at her over his spectacles.

"I suggest sending out a card——" she purred, "just a neat card" (here she measured off an imaginary card with her fingers), "saying that owing to the bereavement in the family the wedding has been indefinitely postponed. Of course," she sighed, "it isn't exactly true."

"Won't take place at all," exploded the doctor, going on at once with his reading.

"Evidently not," said Mrs. Batholommey, "but if the whole matter looks very strange to me—How is it going to look to other people—especially when we haven't any—any rational explanation—as yet? We must get out of it in some fashion. I'm sure I don't know how else we can explain—I don't like telling anything that isn't true—but—there was to be a wedding." Mrs. Batholommey waved her right hand. "There isn't to be any wedding," she waved her left hand. "At least, Frederik isn't to be in it—and one must account for it somehow?"

"Whose business is it?" fired the doctor, in a voice that made Mrs. Batholommey start like a frightened rabbit.

For one moment his eyes peered fiercely at her under their shaggy brows, and then he returned to his narrative.

"Nobody's at all," she made great haste to say. "Nobody's at all—nobody's at all, of course. But Kathrien's position is certainly unusual; and the strangest part of it is—she doesn't appear to feel her situation. She's sitting alone in the library seemingly placid and happy. She acts as if a weight were off her mind. But the main point I've been arguing is this: Should the card we're going to send out have a narrow black border, or not?"

She turned toward the doctor and indicated with her fingers the width of black border that seemed to her to fit the occasion. But her trouble was entirely wasted.

Dr. McPherson was once more engrossed in his writing, and had forgotten her existence.

"Well, Doctor," she said in an injured tone, "you don't appear to be interested. You don't even answer!"

"I couldn't," snapped Dr. McPherson. "I didn't know whether you were talking again or still."

Mrs. Batholommey was hurt, and she showed it in the reproachful look she cast at the doctor's unassailable, uninterested back.

"Oh, of course," she said, "all these little matters sound trivial to you. But men like you couldn't look after the workings of the next world, if other people didn't attend to this one. Somebody has to do it," she ended triumphantly.

"I fully appreciate the fact, Mistress Batholommey, that other people are making it possible for me to be myself——"

Here the conversation was interrupted by a couple of raps on the window pane.

"What's that?" cried Mrs. Batholommey, jumping up in alarm.

"Telegram for Frederik Grimm," came a voice from the darkness, and a form was silhouetted against the moonlight.

"Mr. Grimm's down at the hotel," said Mrs. Batholommey, hastily throwing up the window, "but I'll sign for it. Where do I sign?" she fluttered. "Oh, yes, I see, here!"

She wrote Frederik's name, then handed back the book to the telegraph boy, and closed the window. Just as she laid the telegram on the desk, Mr. Batholommey came into the room.

"Well, Doctor," he said with veiled sarcasm, "I would by all means suggest that we don't judge Frederik until the information Willem has volunteered can be verified."

"Umph!" grunted the doctor.

Then he got up and went to the telephone.

"Four—red," he called to "Central."

Mr. Batholommey betook himself to the vestibule and began to put on his rubbers with methodical care.

"However, I regret," (he went on as easily as if the doctor had not grunted) "that Frederik has left the house without offering some sort of explanation."

"Four—red?" pursued the doctor. "That you, Marget? I'm at Peter's. I mean—I'm at the Grimms'. No, don't wait up for me. Send me my bag here. I'll stay the night with Willem. Bye."

He put up the receiver and began to collect his scattered papers.

"Good-night, Doctor," said the clergyman. "Good-night, Rose."

He started toward the door, but the doctor called him back.

"Hold on, Mr. Batholommey!" he interposed. "I'm writing an account of all that's happened here to-night—from the very beginning. I've an idea it's going to make a stir. It's just the sort of thing the Society has been after——"

"Indeed!" said Mr. Batholommey in a doubtful tone.

"When I have verified every word of the evidence by Willem's mother——"

Here the Rev. Mr. Batholommey smiled behind his hand in a decidedly secular way.

"——I shall send in my report," continued the doctor. "Would you have any objection to the name of Mrs. Batholommey being used as a witness?"

Mr. Batholommey hesitated. His usually placid eyes were full of perplexity.

"Well—Doctor—I—I——"

But Mrs. Batholommey, unlike her temporising husband, did not hesitate. She rushed into the conversation all unasked.

"Oh, no, you don't!" she cried. "You may flout our beliefs,—but wouldn't you like to bolster up your report with an endorsement by the wife of a clergyman! It sounds so respectable and sane, doesn't it? No, sir! You can't prop up your wild-eyed theories against the good black of one minister's coat. Not by any means! I think myself that you have probably stumbled on the truth about Willem's mother; but that doesn't prove there's anything in all your notions, for that child knew the truth all along. He's eight years old and he was with her until he was five;—and five's the age of memory. He's a precocious boy, besides. Every incident of his mother's life lingered in his little mind. Suppose you prove by her that it's all true?—Still, Willem remembered! And that's all there is to it."

Confident that she had made a good point, Mrs. Batholommey gave her head a toss and left the field, or to be more exact, went out to get her husband's umbrella.

Mr. Batholommey felt that after this display of colours on the part of his consort, he must needs testify also.

"Don't you think, Doctor,—(mind, I'm not opposing your ideas. I'm just echoing just what everybody else thinks)—don't you believe these ideas are leading away from the heaven we were taught to believe in; that they tend toward irresponsibility—toward eccentricity? Is it healthy—that's the idea. Is it—healthy?"

Dr. McPherson shook himself like a shaggy dog.

"Well, Batholommey," he said, "religion has frequently led to the stake, and I never heard the Spanish Inquisition called healthy for anybody taking part in it. Still, religion flourishes. But your old-fashioned, unscientific, gilt, gingerbread idea of heaven blew up ten years ago—went out. My heaven's just coming in. It's new. Dr. Funk and a lot of clergymen are in already. You'd better get used to it, Batholommey, and join in the procession."

Having delivered this ultimatum the doctor became oblivious to the existence of the Batholommey family and gave his whole attention once more to his writing.

"H'm!" said Mr. Batholommey tolerantly. "When you can convince me!" (He lapsed into Dutch.) "Well, tou roustin, Doctor."

The clergyman started for the door, but his dutiful wife was there before him, his umbrella in her hand.

"Good-night, Henry," she said, beaming affectionately on him. "I'll be home to-morrow."

Then with a most coquettish glance, she purred coyly:

"You'll be glad to see me, dear, won't you?"

Mr. Batholommey beamed in his turn, and patted her on the cheek.

"Yes, my church mouse!" he said as he kissed her good-bye and went out into the night.

Mrs. Batholommey closed the doors after him, but immediately opened them a trifle and peered through the crack.

"Look out, Henry, for the trolley cars," she cried. "It's dark out there—And be careful you don't step into a mud puddle! They must be as deep as mill ponds after this rain, and there aren't half enough street lamps in this neighbourhood—you'll be in over your ankles before you know it!"

"All right!" came in a diminuendo from the clergyman's receding form. "I'll be careful. Don't stand there taking cold. Good-night!"

"Woman," thundered Dr. McPherson in a terrible voice, "close that door! Do you want my lamp to blow clean out? How can a body write with such goings-on in his ears? St. Paul was a wise man. 'Let the woman learn in silence,' he said, 'with all subjection.' Will you be good enough to heed that, and let me write in peace?"

Mrs. Batholommey fastened the door with elaborate and most deliberate care; then, as she passed the doctor's table on her way to the front parlour, she fired a parting shot.

"Write as much as you like, Doctor," she said loftily. "Words are but air. You know and I know and everybody knows that seeing is believing."

"Damn everybody!" growled the doctor, frowning at the lady's retreating figure. "It's 'everybody's' ignorance that's set the world back five hundred years. Where was I, before?" he said to himself. "Oh! Yes."

And he went back to his Statement.

CHAPTER XX

He could not bear the thought of Kathrien's eyes that had first doubted, then accused, then condemned him. All the while he had waited at the hotel, he had remembered those eyes. If he had not loved her sincerely the situation would have been comparatively easy for him; he could simply have cleared out—spent the rest of his days in Europe, if necessary, so that he might never see or hear of any one connected with Grimm Manor again in all his life.

But Kathrien! Who could have been near her and ever forget her? The turn of her head, the absolute sweetness of her—the sunshine she radiated, made it utterly impossible for one to think of forgetting—of living all one's long life without her. Frederik threw away his cigarette and lighted another as he stood outside the windows of the house and looked in.

Oom Peter was there—how could he go in then? Common sense told him that he had been smoking too much and his nerves had gone bad—that he had become an old woman with his fears and tremblings; yet—he knew Oom Peter was there—Well (he shrugged his shoulders), about all the harm that could be done had been done, and he had the money now, anyway, so he might as well go in and find out the present state of affairs. There might be, there ought to be, some word from Hicks by this time. With tight-shut lips, he walked quickly up the "stoop" steps and into the house.

As he came into the living-room he glanced at the doctor, who, with bulky form crouched over the little table, was still busily writing and heard nothing.

Frederik half-unconsciously looked toward Kathrien's room, then removed his silk hat with its mourning band, and his black gloves, and laid them with his cane on the hall table.

Then he turned toward Dr. McPherson.

"Good-evening, Doctor," he said shortly. "Any of them come to their senses yet?"

There was a defiant ring in the last sentence, though he knew in his heart that his cause was lost.

The doctor looked up long enough to say:

"Oh, Frederik, you're back again, are you?" then went on with his writing.

Frederik glanced furtively around the shadowy room, and then lighted some candles in an effort to make the place more cheerful. Suddenly his eye was riveted on the telegram resting conspicuously on his uncle's desk. On the very spot, so it happened, where he had burned Anne Marie's letter. He put down his cigarette quickly.

"Is that telegram for me?" he asked in an eager tone.

"Yes," snorted Dr. McPherson.

"Oh——" Frederik said. "It will explain perhaps why I—I've been kept waiting at the hotel—I had an appointment to meet a man who wanted to buy this business."

"Ha!" The doctor grunted indignantly.

Frederik cleared his throat.

"I may as well tell you—I'm thinking of selling out root and branch."

At this amazing news the doctor got up slowly, and turning his bushy head toward Frederik, fixed his keen eyes upon him. He was all attention now.

"Yes——?"

Then with a sheepish laugh Frederik abruptly changed the subject.

"You'll think it strange," he said, "but I simply cannot make up my mind to go near the old desk of my uncle's—peculiar, yes—isn't it?"

He smiled rather a sickly smile at the doctor, and hesitated.

"I've got a perfect—Ha! Ha!—terror of the thing!"

His laughter was quite mirthless and his fear made him a pitiable object.

The doctor, not trying to hide his contempt for him, went to the desk, took the telegram, and threw it in Frederik's direction, not even troubling to aim accurately.

It hit the floor about two feet away from the younger man's trimly shod feet, and he quickly reached over sideways and seized it. He tore it open. Then, as his eyes took in the message it contained, he drew a long breath.

He sat down mechanically, looking straight ahead of him.

"Billy Hicks," he said slowly in a dazed voice, "Billy Hicks, the man I was to sell out to, is de—I knew it—This afternoon when he phoned—something told me—but I wouldn't believe it."

Slowly he put the telegram in its envelope, and then put the envelope into his pocket; but the dazed look never left his eyes, and his face was grey white.

"Doctor," he said, turning his eyes at last, "as sure as you live, somebody else is doing my thinking for me in this house."

Dr. McPherson's heavy eyebrows met in an earnest frown as he studied Frederik.

"What?" he queried.

"To-night—here in this room," Frederik went on in a voice full of awe, "I thought I saw my uncle there——"

He pointed toward the desk with a little shudder.

"Eh?" said the doctor, with popping eyes, coming a step nearer. "You really mean that you thought you saw Peter Grimm?"

"And just before I—I saw him—I—I—had the strangest impulse to go to the foot of the stairs and call Kitty—give her the house—and run—run—get out."

"Oh!" cried the doctor sarcastically. "A good impulse. I see! Some one else must have been thinking for you—certainly."

"When I wouldn't do it," the scared voice went on, "I thought he gave me a terrible look." He covered his eyes with his hand. "A terrible look."

"Your uncle?" demanded Dr. McPherson.

"Yes," breathed Frederik. "Och! God! I won't forget that look!" he cried excitedly, uncovering his eyes again. "And as I started from the room—he blotted out—I mean I saw him blot out—Then I left the photograph on the desk, and——"

"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor triumphantly. "That's how Willem came by it. Had you never had this impulse before—to give up Kathrien—to let her have the cottage?"

"Not much—I hadn't!" said Frederik decidedly, walking back and forth a moment.

Then, looking toward the desk, he reached out his hand until it touched the back of a chair beside it, and, giving the chair a quick pull out of what was evidently to him a danger zone, he sat down.

"I told you some one else was thinking for me," he said. "I don't want to give her up. I love her." (His eyes went dark.) "But if she's going to turn against me for—well, I'm not going to sit here and cry about it. But I'll tell you one thing: from this time I propose to think for myself. I've done with this house," he cried, getting up. "I'd like to sell it along with the rest and let a stranger"—he flung the chair recklessly against the desk—"raze it to the ground.

"When I walk out of here to-night she can have it."

He looked thoughtfully at the desk a moment.

"Oh, I wouldn't sleep here—I give her the house because—well, I——"

"You want to be on the safe side in case he was there!" scoffed Dr. McPherson.

Frederik dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and there was perplexity in it as well as awe.

"How do you account for it anyway, Doctor?" he asked.

Instead of answering, the doctor asked another question.

"Frederik," he said, "when did you see Anne Marie last?"

"Now," said Frederik disagreeably, "I'm not answering questions."

"I think it only fair to tell you," said Dr. McPherson, "that it won't matter a damn whether you answer me or not. Don't fret yourself that I'm not going to find her. This has come home to me. I'm off to the city to-morrow. I'll have the truth from her; if I have to call in the police to trace her."

Frederik looked drearily at the doctor, then took up his gloves and began to put them on. After a pause he said dully, mechanically:

"Oh, I saw her about three years ago."

"Never since?" probed the doctor.

"No."

"What occurred the last time you saw her?"

"Oh," said Frederik lifelessly. "What always occurs when a young man realises that he has his life before him—and that he must be respected, must think of his future?"

"A scene took place, eh?"

"Yes," Frederik agreed laconically.

"Was Willem present?" went on the interrogation.

"Yes, she held him in her arms."

"And then—what happened?" the doctor insisted.

Frederik dropped his eyes.

"Oh," he said, "then I left the house."

He found his hat and cane as he spoke, and walked slowly toward the door.

"Then it's all true," cried Dr. McPherson in wonderment, staring abstractedly at the floor. He raised his head suddenly and looked with stern eyes at Frederik.

"What are you going to do for Willem?" he demanded.

"Well," temporised that noble soul, "I'm a rich man now—and if I recognise him—there might be trouble. His mother's gone to the dogs anyway——"

He left the speech unfinished and turned his head away uncomfortably. He could not say such things and meet the doctor's scorching look.

"You damned young scoundrel!" bellowed McPherson in wrath. "Oh, what an act of charity if the good Lord took Willem!—And I say it with all my heart. Out of all you have—not a crumb for——"

"I want you to know that I've sweated for that money," Frederik turned on the doctor long enough to say. "I've sweated for it, and I'm going to keep it!"

"You what?" howled Dr. McPherson jeeringly.

"Yes," Frederik cried in the greatest excitement, all his calmness forsaking him utterly. "I've sweated for it! I went to jail for it. Every day I have been in this house has been spent in prison. I've been doing time. Do you think it didn't get on my nerves? What haven't I had to do! I've gone to bed at nine o'clock and lain there thinking how New York was just waking up at that time, and how miserably I was out of it all. Lord! I've got up at cock-crow to be in time for grace at the breakfast table. Why, didn't I take a Sunday-school class to please him?

"Lord! Didn't I hand out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus? What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent for my own personal pleasure."

Once more Frederik started to go.

"Will rich men never learn wisdom?" soliloquised Dr. McPherson as he began to prepare some medicine for Willem.

"No, they won't," Frederik flung back over his shoulder. "But in every fourth generation there comes along a wise fellow—a spender. Well, I'm the spender here."

He pulled out another cigarette, lighted it, and put on his hat.

"Shame on you!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Your breed ought to be exterminated!"

"Oh, no," Frederik declared. "We're as necessary as you are. We're the real wealth distributors. I wish you good-night, Doctor."

And he was gone.

Disgust was still written all over the doctor's face as he measured the medicine carefully and emptied it into a glass of water. He picked up the candelabrum in his other hand, and was just starting toward the stairs and Willem's room when Kathrien came in.

"Kathrien!" he cried in a ringing voice. "Burn up your wedding dress! We've made no mistake. I can tell you that!"

A moment more and he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and, standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost protectingly—quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could feel her gentle caress.

"Oom Peter," she whispered tenderly, and her dreamy eyes grew dreamier, "Oom Peter—I know I am doing what you would have me do."

CHAPTER XXI

At the sound, Kathrien's drooping figure straightened. And a glow came into her tired eyes. The outer door opened and James Hartmann came in. He took an impulsive step toward the girl. Then he remembered himself. Turning aside to the rack, he hung his coat and hat on it, and asked, as to a casual acquaintance:

"Have you seen Frederik anywhere? He told me hours ago that he'd join me in the office in a few minutes. I waited, but he didn't come. Then Marta told me he had gone down to the hotel. I went over to see father, and I stopped at the hotel on my way back. They said Frederik had been there, but that he had just gone. I'm rather tired of playing hide-and-seek with him. Has he come in yet?"

"He has come in. But I think he has gone again. And—and, James, I think he will not come here again."

"What? Then the wedding won't be at the house?"

"The wedding won't be—anywhere."

"Kathrien!"

He stared at her, seeking to read grief, humiliation, or, at the very least, the anger engendered of a lovers' quarrel. But her face was serene, even happy. The worry was gone that had lurked behind her gentle eyes. The furrow had been smoothed from the low, white brow, and even the pathetic aura of sorrow that had clung to her as a garment since Peter Grimm's death had departed.

"Kathrien!" he repeated doubtfully, his heart thumping in an unruly fashion that well-nigh choked him.

The serene calm of the girl's face fled beneath his eager, troubled gaze.

"Frederik has gone," she said briefly. "I am not going to marry him. I broke our engagement this evening."

"And you are free—free to——?"

He checked himself, fearful to believe in the marvellous fortune that seemed to have come all at once from the Unattainable into his very grasp. And, girl-like, Kathrien was, of a sudden, panic stricken.

"It is late," she said hastily, "very late. Good-night!"

She made as though to go to her room. And James Hartmann, still full of that new fear of his own good fortune, dared not stay her.

But Peter Grimm did not hesitate.

"Katje!" pleaded the Dead Man. "Is Happiness so common that we can toy with it? Is life's greatest joy so cheap that we can thrust it aside when by a miracle it is laid at our feet? Can we afford to risk everything by putting off love when it is in our very grasp?"

The girl hesitated, paused, and seemed to busy herself with straightening some disarranged articles on the desk. The Dead Man came and stood beside her.

"He loves you, Katje," he murmured. "And only one thing really counts—Love! It is the only thing that tells, in the long run. Nothing else endures to the end. Perhaps, if you are shy now and do not let him speak, he may find courage to speak to-morrow. But perhaps he may not. And are you willing to take that chance?"

"No!" cried the girl in quick fear. "No!"

"What?" asked Hartmann, startled by the frightened denial, so meaningless to him.

"I—I didn't know I spoke," she faltered, embarrassed. "It was foolish of me. I had some strange thought. And——"

"I don't understand."

"You understand less and less every minute, James," laughed Peter Grimm. "She loves you. Are you going to let her slip through your fingers just because you haven't the courage to speak? You were brave enough early this evening when you didn't have a chance. Now that she's yours for the asking, why be tongue-tied? It was the fear of losing you that made her cry out 'No!' just now."

"Katje," demanded Hartmann, abashed at his own audacity, yet unable to keep back the words, "were you afraid I wouldn't be here in the morning to tell you I loved you? Was that why you said——?"

"How did you know?" she gasped appalled. "You read my mind."

Before she could realise the meaning of what she had said, she found herself whirled bodily from the floor and caught close in the grip of two strong arms that crushed her to a heaving breast. And Hartmann was raining kisses on her hair, her eyes, her upturned face.

"James!" she panted. "Don't! Put me down."

"Not till you say you love me," came the answer in a voice from whence all timidity had forever fled.

The tone of glad, adoring rulership thrilled her. She ceased her half-hearted struggles to free herself. Her arms, through no conscious effort of her own, crept upward until they encircled his neck.

"Say you love me!" he demanded again, in that glorious Mastery of the Loved.

"I love you," she answered obediently. "I have always loved you, I think. It's—it's very wonderful to be held like this and—and to be glad not to be let go. I—I—I don't really think I wanted you to let me go, even when I told you to."

"There is something else you must say before I let you go," he demanded, drunk with his new-born power and happiness.

"Yes? I'll say it."

"Say you will marry me to-morrow."

This time, from sheer amazement, she sprang back, out of the loosened clasp of his arms.

"To-morrow?" she gasped. "Are you crazy? Why," with a little shudder, "to-morrow was to be the day I was to——"

"To marry a man you didn't love. That would have made it forever a day of shame. You owe 'to-morrow' something to atone for that. Pay its debt by marrying me then."

"I—I can't," she protested. "What—what would people say?"

"Katje!" broke in the Dead Man. "When you shall have learned that 'what people say' is the most senseless bugbear in all this wide world of senseless bugbears, you will be far on the road to true greatness. You will have broken the heaviest, most galling, most idiotically useless fetter that weights down humanity. Being a woman you will never be able wholly to free yourself from that same fetter. But lift its weight from your soul just this once! You were going to curse your life with a blasphemously wicked, loveless marriage to-morrow. And the world would have approved. You have a chance to atone for an attempted wrong and to win happiness for yourself and the man you love, to-morrow, by marrying James then. A few representatives of the world will hold up their hands and squawk: 'How scandalously sudden! I suppose she did it to show she didn't mind Frederik's jilting her.' And for the sake of the people who would have approved a crime and who will sneer at a good and wise deed, you are going to throw away many days of bliss, and senselessly postpone the one perfect Event of your life. Is this my wise little girl or is it some one just as stubborn and foolish as her old uncle used to be? Tell me."

"Why should we care what 'people say'?" urged Hartmann as Kathrien hesitated. "The opinions of other people wreck lots of lives. Let's be great enough and wise enough to choose our own happiness! Don't let's be stubborn like poor old Mr. Grimm, and——"

"James!" she cried in wonder. "Those are just the very things I was thinking. That's the second time in a few minutes that you have read my mind."

"Perhaps it was you who were reading mine," said Hartmann. "That's what people call 'Telepathy,' isn't it?"

"Yes," smiled the Dead Man. "That is what 'people' call it—who know no better. Oh, what a jumble people do make of the simple things of the Universe!"

"Anyway," went on Hartmann, without waiting for Kathrien to reply to his question, "it doesn't matter which of us thought of it first. It's enough to know it's true. And you will marry me to-morrow?"

"Yes!" vociferated Peter Grimm.

"Y-yes," faltered the girl.

"Listen, dear," continued Hartmann, "we won't be very well off, I'm afraid. I've a little money—but not much. I know scientific gardening as not many men know it. So we won't starve. But it won't be as if you were going to marry a rich man like Frederik Grimm."

"Thank Heaven, it won't!" she breathed fervently. "And do you suppose it will matter one bit to me that we won't be rich? I wish, of course, that we didn't have to leave this dear old house, but——"

"If we had both the house and the little capital that belongs to me," answered Hartmann, "we could stay on here and make a splendid living. But what's the use of building air castles?"

"Why not?" urged the Dead Man. "They're as cheap to build as air dungeons; and a million times pleasanter to live in. But, don't fret about the house. Frederik is going to turn it over to you—I've seen to that. And you will prosper, you two, here in the home I loved."

"I believe it will come out all right!" declared the girl. "I have a feeling that it will. Intuition if you like."

"'Intuition,'" repeated the Dead Man whimsically. "Yes. Call it that, if you choose. 'Intuition' and 'telepathy' are both pretty synonyms for the words spoken to you that mortal ears are too gross to understand and whose sense sometimes finds vague resting-place in mortal brains."

"It will come out all right," she reiterated, smiling up at her lover.

"It's good to see you smile again," said Hartmann, once more drawing her close to him. "I'm glad your cloud of grief is beginning to lift."

"It has lifted," she returned. "When Oom Peter went away, and seemed utterly lost to me forever, I thought my heart would break. But now—now I know he hasn't gone. I know he has been here with me this very evening."

"I—I don't understand."

"It is true," she insisted. "You must believe it, dear. For it is very real to me. I believe he came back to set me free from my promise to Frederik. Some time—some time, I'll tell you all about it."