Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-20

Doctor" he said, a wish you would
come and see Mrs. Westhayen. She is not
at all we'll"
l rose hurriedly and went upstairs with
him. He seemed greatly distressed and
quite unnerYed. scarcely answering the
questions l put to him concerning the ma
ture of the attack. / found Miss Carlyon
attending beside the bed upon which Mrs.
Westhaven lay, white, limp, utterly unlike
herself. She smiled family when l adj
dressed her, but l could not induce her to
speak to me. She looked to me like per-
son who had received a sudden and severe
shock l asked Miss Carlyon where Mrs.
Westhaven had passed the afternoon. She
replied that her sister had gone out and re-
turned Just before dinner, apparently much
exhausted: she had been in this condition
all the evening Miss Carlyon's voice was
cold and strained, and her restless eyes
travelled the room over as she spoke to me.
Westhayen watched her every word anx-
iously. | had not believed him capable of
such deep feeling for his unloved wife.
administered a sleeping draught and left
the room, followed by Westhaven.
turned to speak to him. He stood before
me like a desperate hunted animal, and
there flashed across me a sudden, horrible
suspicion that he was in some way con-
nected with his wifes illness. An instant's
swift reflection convinced me of my in
justice-her symptoms were not those of a
person to whom an injurious drug had
been given, and the ren0rse l felt colored
my manner to him with even greater kind
mesa.
So gave him an opinion which was the
result more of weeks observation than of
my visit that evening to the patient.
" Frankly, l will tell yon, said, " that l
think Mrs. Westhaven will eventually sue
cumb to the same illness which attacked
her sister. Three months ago | would have
refuted this theory as untenable in view of
her superabundant vitality, but to the eyes
of a stranger it is possibly more apparent
than to her family, to you, that she is very
much changed in health and appearance
I paused. Westhaven drew bis breath in
short, dry gasps. His hands moved rest
lessly along the back of a chair before him.
Do you think my wife will die?"
scarcely recognized his voice. replied
gently
Not necessarily so. a change of eli
Carlyon; she is certainly different person
from what she was when l first saw her. In
fact" added, rehectively, Miss Carlyon
has gained in almost exact proportion to
Mrs. Westhaven's loss"
Westhaven started violently. His face
grew livid. He regarded me with strange
expression, one which could not fathom.
l continued quietly;
Il should give Mrs. Westhayen no medi
cine. If she does not improve you must
take her back 10 the East. Miss Carlyon
need not be considered: l believe her to be
quite restored to health
| think no one ever impressed me so dis
agreeably as Miss Cariyon at this period.
She had recovered her health in most
way, but it seemed to bring
her neither happiness nor good temper. 1t
was impossible to converse with her upon
the most trivial topics. Her capricious
was wearisome in the ex-
IRENE. And her indifference to her sister
utterly repulsiye. Westhaven was oblivious
10 it. Whatever was the fascination she
exerted over him, he was quite subservient
to the spell. She chung persistently to his
side and monopolized the time and atten-
ton which should have been given for hui
sake to his wife.
avoided Westhayen. He was great
disappointment to me, and | had entirely
lost respect for him, though | firmly be-
lieved his greatest sin to be weakness in the
hands OF an INSCRIPTIONS woman. One
day he came to me quite beside himself.
Miss Carlyon was ili-in the old wayne
had believed her entirely recovered-he
was in despair. His wife, he said, was
much better. I did not know what to ad-
wise. / was not a practicing physician, and
I had come to the firm conclusion that |
had better not NEEDLE with complicated
and perplexing hereditary trouble which
promised no successful cure. I preferred
not to advise at all, but promised to see
them in the evening. Westhayen lett me
saw nothing of him through the day
and toward o'clock in the afternoon I re-
preached myself for what might seem to
him an objectionable Indifference on my
part, and on an impulse, went directly to
his rooms. The day was insutferably hot.
There were few guests in the hotel, the
season was well over and no one was visi-
bic in the corridors Thsre was not & sound
save the splashing of a fountain which
played in the court below, cooling the air
l walked leisurely along the
gallery, gazing upward at the bit of blue
sky above the open court, intensely blue as
only tropical sky can be.
| suddenly paused, transdxed, incapable
of further motion.
stood before door leading into an in
ner sitting-room of Westhaven s-a room
which l had entered but once, which I be-
lieved he used for q study. The large glass
ventilator above the door was swung par
tally open, and tipped at such an angle
that the interior of the room, glowing in
the fierce sunlight which poured into it
through the open window, was reflected
with the fatal detailed reproduction of
photography upon the surface of the glass,
! ~ LOT;
burned upon my brain in an instant
Upon a long table before the window,
through which the sun bsat holly, lay a
long. glass case, with convex sides, and
within this uncovered case, liyid, CHASTITY,
unconscious, lay Mrs. Westhaven. Her
face was drawn by an expression of terri
bic agony. her limbs were rigid, her hands
clutched convulsively, her beautiful, white
breast was bare. The blazing rays of the
sun, concentrated by the strong lens formed
by the convex side of the case threw the
spectrum directly over her heart. She was
absolutely mOtiouless / could not see even
that she breathed. Just where the actinic
rays of the spectrum fell upon her soft skin,
those mysterious rays, whose terrible chem
ical power has yet to be fathomed, were
placed two fine glass tubes connecting with
a nlagneto-elec battery by the side Of
the case, manipulated by Westhayen.
His face | could not see; il was bent over
the body Of his wife; his whole attitude
breatned a desperate and fearful anxiety.
Through those delicate tubes flowed a
something, ultra etheric, the faintest au-
rora, and passing into the battery it was
transmitted by means OF connecting wires
to the hands of Miss Carlyon, who, seated
almost directly beneath the yentilstor,
held the handles of the battery firmly in
her grasp. Her head was thrown back,
her face was clearly reflected above me,
her eyes were shining, her breath came
quickly. The silence of death was in the
room felt the painful excitement Of a
scientist pending a dangerous experiment.
l could have shrieked aloud in nervous
horror, hut seemed to have lost the power
of articulation. felt sure that this ultra
etheric matter was vital fluid, the very es-
sence of life. Unjust be conveyed by odic
force engendered by the immeasureable
power Of the actiuic rays. Then a foul
murder was being committed in this room
by a process of inconceivable tortured As
I stood there, powerless, penetrating to the