By The Waters Of Paradise

: American Mystery Stories

I





I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the

fact argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning

words by heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance

of events depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my

possessing any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am

too imaginative, and the earliest impressions I received were of a

kind to stimulate the imagination abnormally. A long series of

little misfortunes, so connected with each other as to suggest a

sort of weird fatality, so worked upon my melancholy temperament

when I was a boy that, before I was of age, I sincerely believed

myself to be under a curse, and not only myself, but my whole

family and every individual who bore my name.



I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and

all his predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It

is a very old house, and the greater part of it was originally a

castle, strongly fortified, and surrounded by a deep moat supplied

with abundant water from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of

the fortifications have been destroyed, and the moat has been

filled up. The water from the aqueduct supplies great fountains,

and runs down into huge oblong basins in the terraced gardens, one

below the other, each surrounded by a broad pavement of marble

between the water and the flower-beds. The waste surplus finally

escapes through an artificial grotto, some thirty yards long, into

a stream, flowing down through the park to the meadows beyond, and

thence to the distant river. The buildings were extended a little

and greatly altered more than two hundred years ago, in the time of

Charles II., but since then little has been done to improve them,

though they have been kept in fairly good repair, according to our

fortunes.



In the gardens there are terraces and huge hedges of box and

evergreen, some of which used to be clipped into shapes of animals,

in the Italian style. I can remember when I was a lad how I used

to try to make out what the trees were cut to represent, and how I

used to appeal for explanations to Judith, my Welsh nurse. She

dealt in a strange mythology of her own, and peopled the gardens

with griffins, dragons, good genii and bad, and filled my mind with

them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a view of the

great fountains at the head of the upper basin, and on moonlight

nights the Welshwoman would hold me up to the glass and bid me look

at the mist and spray rising into mysterious shapes, moving

mystically in the white light like living things.



"It's the Woman of the Water," she used to say; and sometimes she

would threaten that if I did not go to sleep the Woman of the Water

would steal up to the high window and carry me away in her wet

arms.



The place was gloomy. The broad basins of water and the tall

evergreen hedges gave it a funereal look, and the damp-stained

marble causeways by the pools might have been made of tombstones.

The gray and weather-beaten walls and towers without, the dark and

massively furnished rooms within, the deep, mysterious recesses and

the heavy curtains, all affected my spirits. I was silent and sad

from my childhood. There was a great clock tower above, from which

the hours rang dismally during the day, and tolled like a knell in

the dead of night. There was no light nor life in the house, for

my mother was a helpless invalid, and my father had grown

melancholy in his long task of caring for her. He was a thin, dark

man, with sad eyes; kind, I think, but silent and unhappy. Next to

my mother, I believe he loved me better than anything on earth, for

he took immense pains and trouble in teaching me, and what he

taught me I have never forgotten. Perhaps it was his only

amusement, and that may be the reason why I had no nursery

governess or teacher of any kind while he lived.



I used to be taken to see my mother every day, and sometimes twice

a day, for an hour at a time. Then I sat upon a little stool near

her feet, and she would ask me what I had been doing, and what I

wanted to do. I dare say she saw already the seeds of a profound

melancholy in my nature, for she looked at me always with a sad

smile, and kissed me with a sigh when I was taken away.



One night, when I was just six years old, I lay awake in the

nursery. The door was not quite shut, and the Welsh nurse was

sitting sewing in the next room. Suddenly I heard her groan, and

say in a strange voice, "One--two--one--two!" I was frightened,

and I jumped up and ran to the door, barefooted as I was.



"What is it, Judith?" I cried, clinging to her skirts. I can

remember the look in her strange dark eyes as she answered:



"One--two leaden coffins, fallen from the ceiling!" she crooned,

working herself in her chair. "One--two--a light coffin and a

heavy coffin, falling to the floor!"



Then she seemed to notice me, and she took me back to bed and sang

me to sleep with a queer old Welsh song.



I do not know how it was, but the impression got hold of me that

she had meant that my father and mother were going to die very

soon. They died in the very room where she had been sitting that

night. It was a great room, my day nursery, full of sun when there

was any; and when the days were dark it was the most cheerful place

in the house. My mother grew rapidly worse, and I was transferred

to another part of the building to make place for her. They

thought my nursery was gayer for her, I suppose; but she could not

live. She was beautiful when she was dead, and I cried bitterly.



The light one, the light one--the heavy one to come," crooned the

Welshwoman. And she was right. My father took the room after my

mother was gone, and day by day he grew thinner and paler and

sadder.



"The heavy one, the heavy one--all of lead," moaned my nurse, one

night in December, standing still, just as she was going to take

away the light after putting me to bed. Then she took me up again

and wrapped me in a little gown, and led me away to my father's

room. She knocked, but no one answered. She opened the door, and

we found him in his easy chair before the fire, very white, quite

dead.



So I was alone with the Welshwoman till strange people came, and

relations whom I had never seen; and then I heard them saying that

I must be taken away to some more cheerful place. They were kind

people, and I will not believe that they were kind only because I

was to be very rich when I grew to be a man. The world never

seemed to be a very bad place to me, nor all the people to be

miserable sinners, even when I was most melancholy. I do not

remember that anyone ever did me any great injustice, nor that I

was ever oppressed or ill treated in any way, even by the boys at

school. I was sad, I suppose, because my childhood was so gloomy,

and, later, because I was unlucky in everything I undertook, till I

finally believed I was pursued by fate, and I used to dream that

the old Welsh nurse and the Woman of the Water between them had

vowed to pursue me to my end. But my natural disposition should

have been cheerful, as I have often thought.



Among the lads of my age I was never last, or even among the last,

in anything; but I was never first. If I trained for a race, I was

sure to sprain my ankle on the day when I was to run. If I pulled

an oar with others, my oar was sure to break. If I competed for a

prize, some unforeseen accident prevented my winning it at the last

moment. Nothing to which I put my hand succeeded, and I got the

reputation of being unlucky, until my companions felt it was always

safe to bet against me, no matter what the appearances might be. I

became discouraged and listless in everything. I gave up the idea

of competing for any distinction at the University, comforting

myself with the thought that I could not fail in the examination

for the ordinary degree. The day before the examination began I

fell ill; and when at last I recovered, after a narrow escape from

death, I turned my back upon Oxford, and went down alone to visit

the old place where I had been born, feeble in health and

profoundly disgusted and discouraged. I was twenty-one years of

age, master of myself and of my fortune; but so deeply had the long

chain of small unlucky circumstances affected me that I thought

seriously of shutting myself up from the world to live the life of

a hermit and to die as soon as possible. Death seemed the only

cheerful possibility in my existence, and my thoughts soon dwelt

upon it altogether.



I had never shown any wish to return to my own home since I had

been taken away as a little boy, and no one had ever pressed me to

do so. The place had been kept in order after a fashion, and did

not seem to have suffered during the fifteen years or more of my

absence. Nothing earthly could affect those old gray walls that

had fought the elements for so many centuries. The garden was more

wild than I remembered it; the marble causeways about the pools

looked more yellow and damp than of old, and the whole place at

first looked smaller. It was not until I had wandered about the

house and grounds for many hours that I realized the huge size of

the home where I was to live in solitude. Then I began to delight

in it, and my resolution to live alone grew stronger.



The people had turned out to welcome me, of course, and I tried to

recognize the changed faces of the old gardener and the old

housekeeper, and to call them by name. My old nurse I knew at

once. She had grown very gray since she heard the coffins fall in

the nursery fifteen years before, but her strange eyes were the

same, and the look in them woke all my old memories. She went over

the house with me.



"And how is the Woman of the Water?" I asked, trying to laugh a

little. "Does she still play in the moonlight?"



"She is hungry," answered the Welshwoman, in a low voice.



"Hungry? Then we will feed her." I laughed. But old Judith

turned very pale, and looked at me strangely.



"Feed her? Aye--you will feed her well," she muttered, glancing

behind her at the ancient housekeeper, who tottered after us with

feeble steps through the halls and passages.



I did not think much of her words. She had always talked oddly, as

Welshwomen will, and though I was very melancholy I am sure I was

not superstitious, and I was certainly not timid. Only, as in a

far-off dream, I seemed to see her standing with the light in her

hand and muttering, "The heavy one--all of lead," and then leading

a little boy through the long corridors to see his father lying

dead in a great easy chair before a smoldering fire. So we went

over the house, and I chose the rooms where I would live; and the

servants I had brought with me ordered and arranged everything, and

I had no more trouble. I did not care what they did provided I was

left in peace and was not expected to give directions; for I was

more listless than ever, owing to the effects of my illness at

college.



I dined in solitary state, and the melancholy grandeur of the vast

old dining-room pleased me. Then I went to the room I had selected

for my study, and sat down in a deep chair, under a bright light,

to think, or to let my thoughts meander through labyrinths of their

own choosing, utterly indifferent to the course they might take.



The tall windows of the room opened to the level of the ground upon

the terrace at the head of the garden. It was in the end of July,

and everything was open, for the weather was warm. As I sat alone

I heard the unceasing splash of the great fountains, and I fell to

thinking of the Woman of the Water. I rose and went out into the

still night, and sat down upon a seat on the terrace, between two

gigantic Italian flower pots. The air was deliciously soft and

sweet with the smell of the flowers, and the garden was more

congenial to me than the house. Sad people always like running

water and the sound of it at night, though I cannot tell why. I

sat and listened in the gloom, for it was dark below, and the pale

moon had not yet climbed over the hills in front of me, though all

the air above was light with her rising beams. Slowly the white

halo in the eastern sky ascended in an arch above the wooded

crests, making the outlines of the mountains more intensely black

by contrast, as though the head of some great white saint were

rising from behind a screen in a vast cathedral, throwing misty

glories from below. I longed to see the moon herself, and I tried

to reckon the seconds before she must appear. Then she sprang up

quickly, and in a moment more hung round and perfect in the sky. I

gazed at her, and then at the floating spray of the tall fountains,

and down at the pools, where the water lilies were rocking softly

in their sleep on the velvet surface of the moonlit water. Just

then a great swan floated out silently into the midst of the basin,

and wreathed his long neck, catching the water in his broad bill,

and scattering showers of diamonds around him.



Suddenly, as I gazed, something came between me and the light. I

looked up instantly. Between me and the round disk of the moon

rose a luminous face of a woman, with great strange eyes, and a

woman's mouth, full and soft, but not smiling, hooded in black,

staring at me as I sat still upon my bench. She was close to me--

so close that I could have touched her with my hand. But I was

transfixed and helpless. She stood still for a moment, but her

expression did not change. Then she passed swiftly away, and my

hair stood up on my head, while the cold breeze from her white

dress was wafted to my temples as she moved. The moonlight,

shining through the tossing spray of the fountain, made traceries

of shadow on the gleaming folds of her garments. In an instant she

was gone and I was alone.



I was strangely shaken by the vision, and some time passed before I

could rise to my feet, for I was still weak from my illness, and

the sight I had seen would have startled anyone. I did not reason

with myself, for I was certain that I had looked on the unearthly,

and no argument could have destroyed that belief. At last I got up

and stood unsteadily, gazing in the direction in which I thought

the face had gone; but there was nothing to be seen--nothing but

the broad paths, the tall, dark evergreen hedges, the tossing water

of the fountains and the smooth pool below. I fell back upon the

seat and recalled the face I had seen. Strange to say, now that

the first impression had passed, there was nothing startling in the

recollection; on the contrary, I felt that I was fascinated by the

face, and would give anything to see it again. I could retrace the

beautiful straight features, the long dark eyes, and the wonderful

mouth most exactly in my mind, and when I had reconstructed every

detail from memory I knew that the whole was beautiful, and that I

should love a woman with such a face.



"I wonder whether she is the Woman of the Water!" I said to myself.

Then rising once more, I wandered down the garden, descending one

short flight of steps after another from terrace to terrace by the

edge of the marble basins, through the shadow and through the

moonlight; and I crossed the water by the rustic bridge above the

artificial grotto, and climbed slowly up again to the highest

terrace by the other side. The air seemed sweeter, and I was very

calm, so that I think I smiled to myself as I walked, as though a

new happiness had come to me. The woman's face seemed always

before me, and the thought of it gave me an unwonted thrill of

pleasure, unlike anything I had ever felt before.



I turned as I reached the house, and looked back upon the scene.

It had certainly changed in the short hour since I had come out,

and my mood had changed with it. Just like my luck, I thought, to

fall in love with a ghost! But in old times I would have sighed,

and gone to bed more sad than ever, at such a melancholy

conclusion. To-night I felt happy, almost for the first time in my

life. The gloomy old study seemed cheerful when I went in. The

old pictures on the walls smiled at me, and I sat down in my deep

chair with a new and delightful sensation that I was not alone.

The idea of having seen a ghost, and of feeling much the better for

it, was so absurd that I laughed softly, as I took up one of the

books I had brought with me and began to read.



That impression did not wear off. I slept peacefully, and in the

morning I threw open my windows to the summer air and looked down

at the garden, at the stretches of green and at the colored flower-

beds, at the circling swallows and at the bright water.



"A man might make a paradise of this place," I exclaimed. "A man

and a woman together!"



From that day the old Castle no longer seemed gloomy, and I think I

ceased to be sad; for some time, too, I began to take an interest

in the place, and to try and make it more alive. I avoided my old

Welsh nurse, lest she should damp my humor with some dismal

prophecy, and recall my old self by bringing back memories of my

dismal childhood. But what I thought of most was the ghostly

figure I had seen in the garden that first night after my arrival.

I went out every evening and wandered through the walks and paths;

but, try as I might, I did not see my vision again. At last, after

many days, the memory grew more faint, and my old moody nature

gradually overcame the temporary sense of lightness I had

experienced. The summer turned to autumn, and I grew restless. It

began to rain. The dampness pervaded the gardens, and the outer

halls smelled musty, like tombs; the gray sky oppressed me

intolerably. I left the place as it was and went abroad,

determined to try anything which might possibly make a second break

in the monotonous melancholy from which I suffered.





II





Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the

small events which, after the death of my parents, influenced my

life and made me unhappy. The grewsome forebodings of a Welsh

nurse, which chanced to be realized by an odd coincidence of

events, should not seem enough to change the nature of a child and

to direct the bent of his character in after years. The little

disappointments of schoolboy life, and the somewhat less childish

ones of an uneventful and undistinguished academic career, should

not have sufficed to turn me out at one-and-twenty years of age a

melancholic, listless idler. Some weakness of my own character may

have contributed to the result, but in a greater degree it was due

to my having a reputation for bad luck. However, I will not try to

analyze the causes of my state, for I should satisfy nobody, least

of all myself. Still less will I attempt to explain why I felt a

temporary revival of my spirits after my adventure in the garden.

It is certain that I was in love with the face I had seen, and that

I longed to see it again; that I gave up all hope of a second

visitation, grew more sad than ever, packed up my traps, and

finally went abroad. But in my dreams I went back to my home, and

it always appeared to me sunny and bright, as it had looked on that

summer's morning after I had seen the woman by the fountain.



I went to Paris. I went farther, and wandered about Germany. I

tried to amuse myself, and I failed miserably. With the aimless

whims of an idle and useless man come all sorts of suggestions for

good resolutions. One day I made up my mind that I would go and

bury myself in a German university for a time, and live simply like

a poor student. I started with the intention of going to Leipzig,

determined to stay there until some event should direct my life or

change my humor, or make an end of me altogether. The express

train stopped at some station of which I did not know the name. It

was dusk on a winter's afternoon, and I peered through the thick

glass from my seat. Suddenly another train came gliding in from

the opposite direction, and stopped alongside of ours. I looked at

the carriage which chanced to be abreast of mine, and idly read the

black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass

handrail: BERLIN--COLOGNE--PARIS. Then I looked up at the window

above. I started violently, and the cold perspiration broke out

upon my forehead. In the dim light, not six feet from where I sat,

I saw the face of a woman, the face I loved, the straight, fine

features, the strange eyes, the wonderful mouth, the pale skin.

Her head-dress was a dark veil which seemed to be tied about her

head and passed over the shoulders under her chin. As I threw down

the window and knelt on the cushioned seat, leaning far out to get

a better view, a long whistle screamed through the station,

followed by a quick series of dull, clanking sounds; then there was

a slight jerk, and my train moved on. Luckily the window was

narrow, being the one over the seat, beside the door, or I believe

I would have jumped out of it then and there. In an instant the

speed increased, and I was being carried swiftly away in the

opposite direction from the thing I loved.



For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place, stunned by the

suddenness of the apparition. At last one of the two other

passengers, a large and gorgeous captain of the White Konigsberg

Cuirassiers, civilly but firmly suggested that I might shut my

window, as the evening was cold. I did so, with an apology, and

relapsed into silence. The train ran swiftly on for a long time,

and it was already beginning to slacken speed before entering

another station, when I roused myself and made a sudden resolution.

As the carriage stopped before the brilliantly lighted platform, I

seized my belongings, saluted my fellow-passengers, and got out,

determined to take the first express back to Paris.



This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that

it did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face,

or about the woman to whom it belonged. I did not try to explain

to myself how the face, and the woman, could be traveling by a fast

train from Berlin to Paris on a winter's afternoon, when both were

in my mind indelibly associated with the moonlight and the

fountains in my own English home. I certainly would not have

admitted that I had been mistaken in the dusk, attributing to what

I had seen a resemblance to my former vision which did not really

exist. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind, and I was

positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved. I did not

hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris. I

could not help reflecting on my ill luck. Wandering as I had been

for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I should be

traveling in the same train with that woman, instead of going the

other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a time.



I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal

hotels; I went to the theaters; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in

the morning, and picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive

with me in the afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I

attended the services at the English Church. I hung about the

Louvre and Notre Dame. I went to Versailles. I spent hours in

parading the Rue de Rivoli, in the neighborhood of Meurice's

corner, where foreigners pass and repass from morning till night.

At last I received an invitation to a reception at the English

Embassy. I went, and I found what I had sought so long.



There she was, sitting by an old lady in gray satin and diamonds,

who had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen gray eyes that seemed

to take in everything they saw, with very little inclination to

give much in return. But I did not notice the chaperon. I saw

only the face that had haunted me for months, and in the excitement

of the moment I walked quickly toward the pair, forgetting such a

trifle as the necessity for an introduction.



She was far more beautiful than I had thought, but I never doubted

that it was she herself and no other. Vision or no vision before,

this was the reality, and I knew it. Twice her hair had been

covered, now at last I saw it, and the added beauty of its

magnificence glorified the whole woman. It was rich hair, fine and

abundant, golden, with deep ruddy tints in it like red bronze spun

fine. There was no ornament in it, not a rose, not a thread of

gold, and I felt that it needed nothing to enhance its splendor;

nothing but her pale face, her dark strange eyes, and her heavy

eyebrows. I could see that she was slender too, but strong withal,

as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in the midst of

the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation.



I recollected the detail of introduction in time, and turned aside

to look for my host. I found him at last. I begged him to present

me to the two ladies, pointing them out to him at the same time.



"Yes--uh--by all means--uh," replied his Excellency with a pleasant

smile. He evidently had no idea of my name, which was not to be

wondered at.



"I am Lord Cairngorm," I observed.



"Oh--by all means," answered the Ambassador with the same

hospitable smile. "Yes--uh--the fact is, I must try and find out

who they are; such lots of people, you know."



"Oh, if you will present me, I will try and find out for you," said

I, laughing.



"Ah, yes--so kind of you--come along," said my host. We threaded

the crowd, and in a few minutes we stood before the two ladies.



"'Lowmintrduce L'd Cairngorm," he said; then, adding quickly to me,

"Come and dine to-morrow, won't you?" he glided away with his

pleasant smile and disappeared in the crowd.



I sat down beside the beautiful girl, conscious that the eyes of

the duenna were upon me.



"I think we have been very near meeting before," I remarked, by way

of opening the conversation.



My companion turned her eyes full upon me with an air of inquiry.

She evidently did not recall my face, if she had ever seen me.



"Really--I cannot remember," she observed, in a low and musical

voice. "When?"



"In the first place, you came down from Berlin by the express ten

days ago. I was going the other way, and our carriages stopped

opposite each other. I saw you at the window."



"Yes--we came that way, but I do not remember--" She hesitated.



"Secondly," I continued, "I was sitting alone in my garden last

summer--near the end of July--do you remember? You must have

wandered in there through the park; you came up to the house and

looked at me--"



"Was that you?" she asked, in evident surprise. Then she broke

into a laugh. "I told everybody I had seen a ghost; there had

never been any Cairngorms in the place since the memory of man. We

left the next day, and never heard that you had come there; indeed,

I did not know the castle belonged to you."



"Where were you staying?" I asked.



"Where? Why, with my aunt, where I always stay. She is your

neighbor, since it IS you."



"I--beg your pardon--but then--is your aunt Lady Bluebell? I did

not quite catch--"



"Don't be afraid. She is amazingly deaf. Yes. She is the relict

of my beloved uncle, the sixteenth or seventeenth Baron Bluebell--I

forget exactly how many of them there have been. And I--do you

know who I am?" She laughed, well knowing that I did not.



"No," I answered frankly. "I have not the least idea. I asked to

be introduced because I recognized you. Perhaps--perhaps you are a

Miss Bluebell?"



"Considering that you are a neighbor, I will tell you who I am,"

she answered. "No; I am of the tribe of Bluebells, but my name is

Lammas, and I have been given to understand that I was christened

Margaret. Being a floral family, they call me Daisy. A dreadful

American man once told me that my aunt was a Bluebell and that I

was a Harebell--with two l's and an e--because my hair is so thick.

I warn you, so that you may avoid making such a bad pun."



"Do I look like a man who makes puns?" I asked, being very

conscious of my melancholy face and sad looks.



Miss Lammas eyed me critically.



"No; you have a mournful temperament. I think I can trust you,"

she answered. "Do you think you could communicate to my aunt the

fact that you are a Cairngorm and a neighbor? I am sure she would

like to know."



I leaned toward the old lady, inflating my lungs for a yell. But

Miss Lammas stopped me.



"That is not of the slightest use," she remarked. "You can write

it on a bit of paper. She is utterly deaf."



"I have a pencil," I answered; "but I have no paper. Would my cuff

do, do you think?"



"Oh, yes!" replied Miss Lammas, with alacrity; "men often do that."



I wrote on my cuff: "Miss Lammas wishes me to explain that I am

your neighbor, Cairngorm." Then I held out my arm before the old

lady's nose. She seemed perfectly accustomed to the proceeding,

put up her glasses, read the words, smiled, nodded, and addressed

me in the unearthly voice peculiar to people who hear nothing.



"I knew your grandfather very well," she said. Then she smiled and

nodded to me again, and to her niece, and relapsed into silence.



"It is all right," remarked Miss Lammas. "Aunt Bluebell knows she

is deaf, and does not say much, like the parrot. You see, she knew

your grandfather. How odd that we should be neighbors! Why have

we never met before?"



"If you had told me you knew my grandfather when you appeared in

the garden, I should not have been in the least surprised," I

answered rather irrelevantly. "I really thought you were the ghost

of the old fountain. How in the world did you come there at that

hour?"



"We were a large party and we went out for a walk. Then we thought

we should like to see what your park was like in the moonlight, and

so we trespassed. I got separated from the rest, and came upon you

by accident, just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look of

your house, and wondering whether anybody would ever come and live

there again. It looks like the castle of Macbeth, or a scene from

the opera. Do you know anybody here?"



"Hardly a soul! Do you?"



"No. Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come. It is easy for

her to go out; she does not bear the burden of the conversation."



"I am sorry you find it a burden," said I. "Shall I go away?"



Miss Lammas looked at me with a sudden gravity in her beautiful

eyes, and there was a sort of hesitation about the lines of her

full, soft mouth.



"No," she said at last, quite simply, "don't go away. We may like

each other, if you stay a little longer--and we ought to, because

we are neighbors in the country."



I suppose I ought to have thought Miss Lammas a very odd girl.

There is, indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover

that they live near each other and that they ought to have known

each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness

and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck

anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me,

however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face

too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last and could

talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill luck in

everything, the whole meeting seemed too good to be true. I felt

again that strange sensation of lightness which I had experienced

after I had seen her face in the garden. The great rooms seemed

brighter, life seemed worth living; my sluggish, melancholy blood

ran faster, and filled me with a new sense of strength. I said to

myself that without this woman I was but an imperfect being, but

that with her I could accomplish everything to which I should set

my hand. Like the great Doctor, when he thought he had cheated

Mephistopheles at last, I could have cried aloud to the fleeting

moment, Verweile doch, du bist so schon!



"Are you always gay?" I asked, suddenly. "How happy you must be!"



"The days would sometimes seem very long if I were gloomy," she

answered, thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I find life very pleasant,

and I tell it so."



"How can you 'tell life' anything?" I inquired. "If I could catch

my life and talk to it, I would abuse it prodigiously, I assure

you."



"I dare say. You have a melancholy temper. You ought to live out-

of-doors, dig potatoes, make hay, shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches,

and come home muddy and hungry for dinner. It would be much better

for you than moping in your rook tower and hating everything."



"It is rather lonely down there," I murmured, apologetically,

feeling that Miss Lammas was quite right.



"Then marry, and quarrel with your wife," she laughed. "Anything

is better than being alone."



"I am a very peaceable person. I never quarrel with anybody. You

can try it. You will find it quite impossible."



"Will you let me try?" she asked, still smiling.



"By all means--especially if it is to be only a preliminary

canter," I answered, rashly.



"What do you mean?" she inquired, turning quickly upon me.



"Oh--nothing. You might try my paces with a view to quarreling in

the future. I cannot imagine how you are going to do it. You will

have to resort to immediate and direct abuse."



"No. I will only say that if you do not like your life, it is your

own fault. How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy, or

of the hollowness of existence? Are you consumptive? Are you

subject to hereditary insanity? Are you deaf, like Aunt Bluebell?

Are you poor, like--lots of people? Have you been crossed in love?

Have you lost the world for a woman, or any particular woman for

the sake of the world? Are you feeble-minded, a cripple, an

outcast? Are you--repulsively ugly?" She laughed again. "Is

there any reason in the world why you should not enjoy all you have

got in life?"



"No. There is no reason whatever, except that I am dreadfully

unlucky, especially in small things."



"Then try big things, just for a change," suggested Miss Lammas.

"Try and get married, for instance, and see how it turns out."



"If it turned out badly it would be rather serious."



"Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably. If

abuse is your particular talent, abuse something that ought to be

abused. Abuse the Conservatives--or the Liberals--it does not

matter which, since they are always abusing each other. Make

yourself felt by other people. You will like it, if they don't.

It will make a man of you. Fill your mouth with pebbles, and howl

at the sea, if you cannot do anything else. It did Demosthenes no

end of good, you know. You will have the satisfaction of imitating

a great man."



"Really, Miss Lammas, I think the list of innocent exercises you

propose--"



"Very well--if you don't care for that sort of thing, care for some

other sort of thing. Care for something, or hate something. Don't

be idle. Life is short, and though art may be long, plenty of

noise answers nearly as well."



"I do care for something--I mean, somebody," I said.



"A woman? Then marry her. Don't hesitate."



"I do not know whether she would marry me," I replied. "I have

never asked her."



"Then ask her at once," answered Miss Lammas. "I shall die happy

if I feel I have persuaded a melancholy fellow creature to rouse

himself to action. Ask her, by all means, and see what she says.

If she does not accept you at once, she may take you the next time.

Meanwhile, you will have entered for the race. If you lose, there

are the 'All-aged Trial Stakes,' and the 'Consolation Race.'"



"And plenty of selling races into the bargain. Shall I take you at

your word, Miss Lammas?"



"I hope you will," she answered.



"Since you yourself advise me, I will. Miss Lammas, will you do me

the honor to marry me?"



For the first time in my life the blood rushed to my head and my

sight swam. I cannot tell why I said it. It would be useless to

try to explain the extraordinary fascination the girl exercised

over me, or the still more extraordinary feeling of intimacy with

her which had grown in me during that half hour. Lonely, sad,

unlucky as I had been all my life, I was certainly not timid, nor

even shy. But to propose to marry a woman after half an hour's

acquaintance was a piece of madness of which I never believed

myself capable, and of which I should never be capable again, could

I be placed in the same situation. It was as though my whole being

had been changed in a moment by magic--by the white magic of her

nature brought into contact with mine. The blood sank back to my

heart, and a moment later I found myself staring at her with

anxious eyes. To my amazement she was as calm as ever, but her

beautiful mouth smiled, and there was a mischievous light in her

dark-brown eyes.



"Fairly caught," she answered. "For an individual who pretends to

be listless and sad you are not lacking in humor. I had really not

the least idea what you were going to say. Wouldn't it be

singularly awkward for you if I had said 'Yes'? I never saw

anybody begin to practice so sharply what was preached to him--with

so very little loss of time!"



"You probably never met a man who had dreamed of you for seven

months before being introduced."



"No, I never did," she answered gayly. "It smacks of the romantic.

Perhaps you are a romantic character, after all. I should think

you were if I believed you. Very well; you have taken my advice,

entered for a Stranger's Race and lost it. Try the All-aged Trial

Stakes. You have another cuff, and a pencil. Propose to Aunt

Bluebell; she would dance with astonishment, and she might recover

her hearing."





III





That was how I first asked Margaret Lammas to be my wife, and I

will agree with anyone who says I behaved very foolishly. But I

have not repented of it, and I never shall. I have long ago

understood that I was out of my mind that evening, but I think my

temporary insanity on that occasion has had the effect of making me

a saner man ever since. Her manner turned my head, for it was so

different from what I had expected. To hear this lovely creature,

who, in my imagination, was a heroine of romance, if not of

tragedy, talking familiarly and laughing readily was more than my

equanimity could bear, and I lost my head as well as my heart. But

when I went back to England in the spring, I went to make certain

arrangements at the Castle--certain changes and improvements which

would be absolutely necessary. I had won the race for which I had

entered myself so rashly, and we were to be married in June.



Whether the change was due to the orders I had left with the

gardener and the rest of the servants, or to my own state of mind,

I cannot tell. At all events, the old place did not look the same

to me when I opened my window on the morning after my arrival.

There were the gray walls below me and the gray turrets flanking

the huge building; there were the fountains, the marble causeways,

the smooth basins, the tall box hedges, the water lilies and the

swans, just as of old. But there was something else there, too--

something in the air, in the water, and in the greenness that I did

not recognize--a light over everything by which everything was

transfigured. The clock in the tower struck seven, and the strokes

of the ancient bell sounded like a wedding chime. The air sang

with the thrilling treble of the song-birds, with the silvery music

of the plashing water and the softer harmony of the leaves stirred

by the fresh morning wind. There was a smell of new-mown hay from

the distant meadows, and of blooming roses from the beds below,

wafted up together to my window. I stood in the pure sunshine and

drank the air and all the sounds and the odors that were in it; and

I looked down at my garden and said: "It is Paradise, after all."

I think the men of old were right when they called heaven a garden,

and Eden a garden inhabited by one man and one woman, the Earthly

Paradise.



I turned away, wondering what had become of the gloomy memories I

had always associated with my home. I tried to recall the

impression of my nurse's horrible prophecy before the death of my

parents--an impression which hitherto had been vivid enough. I

tried to remember my old self, my dejection, my listlessness, my

bad luck, my petty disappointments. I endeavored to force myself

to think as I used to think, if only to satisfy myself that I had

not lost my individuality. But I succeeded in none of these

efforts. I was a different man, a changed being, incapable of

sorrow, of ill luck, or of sadness. My life had been a dream, not

evil, but infinitely gloomy and hopeless. It was now a reality,

full of hope, gladness, and all manner of good. My home had been

like a tomb; to-day it was Paradise. My heart had been as though

it had not existed; to-day it beat with strength and youth and the

certainty of realized happiness. I reveled in the beauty of the

world, and called loveliness out of the future to enjoy it before

time should bring it to me, as a traveler in the plains looks up to

the mountains, and already tastes the cool air through the dust of

the road.



Here, I thought, we will live and live for years. There we will

sit by the fountain toward evening and in the deep moonlight. Down

those paths we will wander together. On those benches we will rest

and talk. Among those eastern hills we will ride through the soft

twilight, and in the old house we will tell tales on winter nights,

when the logs burn high, and the holly berries are red, and the old

clock tolls out the dying year. On these old steps, in these dark

passages and stately rooms, there will one day be the sound of

little pattering feet, and laughing child voices will ring up to

the vaults of the ancient hall. Those tiny footsteps shall not be

slow and sad as mine were, nor shall the childish words be spoken

in an awed whisper. No gloomy Welshwoman shall people the dusky

corners with weird horrors, nor utter horrid prophecies of death

and ghastly things. All shall be young, and fresh, and joyful, and

happy, and we will turn the old luck again, and forget that there

was ever any sadness.



So I thought, as I looked out of my window that morning and for

many mornings after that, and every day it all seemed more real

than ever before, and much nearer. But the old nurse looked at me

askance, and muttered odd sayings about the Woman of the Water. I

cared little what she said, for I was far too happy.



At last the time came near for the wedding. Lady Bluebell and all

the tribe of Bluebells, as Margaret called them, were at Bluebell

Grange, for we had determined to be married in the country, and to

come straight to the Castle afterwards. We cared little for

traveling, and not at all for a crowded ceremony at St. George's in

Hanover Square, with all the tiresome formalities afterwards. I

used to ride over to the Grange every day, and very often Margaret

would come with her aunt and some of her cousins to the Castle. I

was suspicious of my own taste, and was only too glad to let her

have her way about the alterations and improvements in our home.



We were to be married on the thirtieth of July, and on the evening

of the twenty-eighth Margaret drove over with some of the Bluebell

party. In the long summer twilight we all went out into the

garden. Naturally enough, Margaret and I were left to ourselves,

and we wandered down by the marble basins.



"It is an odd coincidence," I said; "it was on this very night last

year that I first saw you."



"Considering that it is the month of July," answered Margaret with

a laugh, "and that we have been here almost every day, I don't

think the coincidence is so extraordinary, after all."



"No, dear," said I, "I suppose not. I don't know why it struck me.

We shall very likely be here a year from today, and a year from

that. The odd thing, when I think of it, is that you should be

here at all. But my luck has turned. I ought not to think

anything odd that happens now that I have you. It is all sure to

be good."



"A slight change in your ideas since that remarkable performance of

yours in Paris," said Margaret. "Do you know, I thought you were

the most extraordinary man I had ever met."



"I thought you were the most charming woman I had ever seen. I

naturally did not want to lose any time in frivolities. I took you

at your word, I followed your advice, I asked you to marry me, and

this is the delightful result--what's the matter?"



Margaret had started suddenly, and her hand tightened on my arm.

An old woman was coming up the path, and was close to us before we

saw her, for the moon had risen, and was shining full in our faces.

The woman turned out to be my old nurse.



"It's only Judith, dear--don't be frightened," I said. Then I

spoke to the Welshwoman: "What are you about, Judith? Have you

been feeding the Woman of the Water?"



"Aye--when the clock strikes, Willie--my Lord, I mean," muttered

the old creature, drawing aside to let us pass, and fixing her

strange eyes on Margaret's face.



"What does she mean?" asked Margaret, when we had gone by.



"Nothing, darling. The old thing is mildly crazy, but she is a

good soul."



We went on in silence for a few moments, and came to the rustic

bridge just above the artificial grotto through which the water ran

out into the park, dark and swift in its narrow channel. We

stopped, and leaned on the wooden rail. The moon was now behind

us, and shone full upon the long vista of basins and on the huge

walls and towers of the Castle above.



"How proud you ought to be of such a grand old place!" said

Margaret, softly.



"It is yours now, darling," I answered. "You have as good a right

to love it as I--but I only love it because you are to live in it,

dear."



Her hand stole out and lay on mine, and we were both silent. Just

then the clock began to strike far off in the tower. I counted--

eight--nine--ten--eleven--I looked at my watch--twelve--thirteen--I

laughed. The bell went on striking.



"The old clock has gone crazy, like Judith," I exclaimed. Still it

went on, note after note ringing out monotonously through the still

air. We leaned over the rail, instinctively looking in the

direction whence the sound came. On and on it went. I counted

nearly a hundred, out of sheer curiosity, for I understood that

something had broken and that the thing was running itself down.



Suddenly there was a crack as of breaking wood, a cry and a heavy

splash, and I was alone, clinging to the broken end of the rail of

the rustic bridge.



I do not think I hesitated while my pulse beat twice. I sprang

clear of the bridge into the black rushing water, dived to the

bottom, came up again with empty hands, turned and swam downward

through the grotto in the thick darkness, plunging and diving at

every stroke, striking my head and hands against jagged stones and

sharp corners, clutching at last something in my fingers and

dragging it up with all my might. I spoke, I cried aloud, but

there was no answer. I was alone in the pitchy darkness with my

burden, and the house was five hundred yards away. Struggling

still, I felt the ground beneath my feet, I saw a ray of moonlight-

-the grotto widened, and the deep water became a broad and shallow

brook as I stumbled over the stones and at last laid Margaret's

body on the bank in the park beyond.



"Aye, Willie, as the clock struck!" said the voice of Judith, the

Welsh nurse, as she bent down and looked at the white face. The

old woman must have turned back and followed us, seen the accident,

and slipped out by the lower gate of the garden. "Aye," she

groaned, "you have fed the Woman of the Water this night, Willie,

while the clock was striking."



I scarcely heard her as I knelt beside the lifeless body of the

woman I loved, chafing the wet white temples and gazing wildly into

the wide-staring eyes. I remember only the first returning look of

consciousness, the first heaving breath, the first movement of

those dear hands stretching out toward me.





That is not much of a story, you say. It is the story of my life.

That is all. It does not pretend to be anything else. Old Judith

says my luck turned on that summer's night when I was struggling in

the water to save all that was worth living for. A month later

there was a stone bridge above the grotto, and Margaret and I stood

on it and looked up at the moonlit Castle, as we had done once

before, and as we have done many times since. For all those things

happened ten years ago last summer, and this is the tenth Christmas

Eve we have spent together by the roaring logs in the old hall,

talking of old times; and every year there are more old times to

talk of. There are curly-headed boys, too, with red-gold hair and

dark-brown eyes like their mother's, and a little Margaret, with

solemn black eyes like mine. Why could not she look like her

mother, too, as well as the rest of them?



The world is very bright at this glorious Christmas time, and

perhaps there is little use in calling up the sadness of long ago,

unless it be to make the jolly firelight seem more cheerful, the

good wife's face look gladder, and to give the children's laughter

a merrier ring, by contrast with all that is gone. Perhaps, too,

some sad-faced, listless, melancholy youth, who feels that the

world is very hollow, and that life is like a perpetual funeral

service, just as I used to feel myself, may take courage from my

example, and having found the woman of his heart, ask her to marry

him after half an hour's acquaintance. But, on the whole, I would

not advise any man to marry, for the simple reason that no man will

ever find a wife like mine, and being obliged to go farther, he

will necessarily fare worse. My wife has done miracles, but I will

not assert that any other woman is able to follow her example.



Margaret always said that the old place was beautiful, and that I

ought to be proud of it. I dare say she is right. She has even

more imagination than I. But I have a good answer and a plain one,

which is this,--that all the beauty of the Castle comes from her.

She has breathed upon it all, as the children blow upon the cold

glass window panes in winter; and as their warm breath crystallizes

into landscapes from fairyland, full of exquisite shapes and

traceries upon the blank surface, so her spirit has transformed

every gray stone of the old towers, every ancient tree and hedge in

the gardens, every thought in my once melancholy self. All that

was old is young, and all that was sad is glad, and I am the

gladdest of all. Whatever heaven may be, there is no earthly

paradise without woman, nor is there anywhere a place so desolate,

so dreary, so unutterably miserable that a woman cannot make it

seem heaven to the man she loves and who loves her.



I hear certain cynics laugh, and cry that all that has been said

before. Do not laugh, my good cynic. You are too small a man to

laugh at such a great thing as love. Prayers have been said before

now by many, and perhaps you say yours, too. I do not think they

lose anything by being repeated, nor you by repeating them. You

say that the world is bitter, and full of the Waters of Bitterness.

Love, and so live that you may be loved--the world will turn sweet

for you, and you shall rest like me by the Waters of Paradise.





From "The Play-Actress and the Upper Berth," by F. Marion Crawford.

Copyright, 1896, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.