The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-01-13
The Globes Daily Short Story

| the power you believe you possess over
me. If you die I will make the trial.
| and see if / have power to start the
wheels of life into motion again, after
| death has stopped Them
so the unholy compact was made be-
| tween u.s.
II went abroad to pursue my investi-
cations in the realms of the mysterious.
During our absence from each other we
We're in constant communication, by
some subtle and uneXplainable influence
of mind on mind. Call it mental tele-
pathy or what you will, there was be-
tween us a mind intercourse which was
not cognizant of space.
lone day message came from him
to come home at once. He felt that
death was near at hand and wanted me
to be with him when the great change
came.
II started homeward at once. but
death was ahead of me. When I
cached the bedside of my friend he
had been dead an hour.
LAS 1 stood and looked upon him
felt none Of the grief men seem to feel
for the friends they lose I felt, in
stead, a wild, mad longing to bring to
bear upon the dead man the power of
my will, and force life to come back
to him.
''That night, while all the elements
carrying out my plan, entered the
room in Which my dead friend lay, and
bore away his body The rain Cbliter-
ated all traces Of my footsteps, and when
morning came there was not clue to
assist in the discovery of the midnight
visitor.
Il bore the body to my room, by
fight of stairs communicating with it
from the garden below. Over this room.
which is situated at the base of a tower,
at one corner of the house, is another
room, connecting with it by a narrow
stairway. This upper room Jonn For
dyce and I had fitted up as a sort Of
laboratory, and no one was ever admit
ted to it. In this room I bore the
body, and laid it upon a couch l had
prepared for it,
land then began the test of my fan
cied power
81 knelt beside the body, and took the
cold hands in mine. I closed the
door Of my mind and locked it against
the admission of any other thought than
the one idea that had control Of me.
| concentrated my mind my will. upon the
awful task before me, and brought all
the power Of my personality to bear
upon this supreme effort of my life.
7" Mysterious principle that we call
life / kept saying over and over,
come back, come back
1.-THE night was giving way to the first
| gray light of dawn before success re-
J warded my effort. 1t seemed as if the
trial was to end in utter failure. In one
! last wild, cumulative attempt, cried
| out;
Come back, come back! Is the I'M
seen, unknown thing man calls God
strong enough to battle a will like mine?
| Life that once dwelt in this form, /
| command you to come back to itv
1oHo 90 ~
! be the one thing that was lacking to
| bring success, for scarcely had I ut
| tered the terrible wards before I saw
! change taking place in the form over
which I was bending. A faint flush
came stealing back into the marble
| cheeks. I felt a culver in the cold
| hands, as if current of life began to
move there, and presently I felt a SEN
sation of warmth beneath my clasp.
! Bending down to the still face I lelt
a breath upon my cheek.
have done it,! I cried, in fierce
| exultation. I have done what blind,
1 foolish men say no one but God can
| do. 1 have forced life to obey my
will. and he who was dead lives again
4 Then came the sudden reaction from
| the terrible tension which had been upon
my mind, and I sank upon the floor,
weaker than new born babe, and I'M
| consciousness came to me. Oh, Cod
| if it had only been death:
Hours passed before / came to a
knowledge of life again. When did
so, the body Of my friend lay there in
| the same position it had occupied when
temporary oblivion had come to me.
Il knelt beside it and peered into the
| still face. here was the color Of life
| there. I could feel the breath coming
and going over the lips that were awful
still. But the hands I pressed in mine
| had no responsiveness in them. Again
| ! called the name of my friend, but no
| reply came. There was nothing to tell
that I was heard.
Like lightning fash the truth came
to me- 1 had called back life to the
dead, and nothing more! The soul was
not there! Before me was a living,
breathing form, but that which had made
! it man was not in it!
| "hen ] knew that I had undertaken
the work of a God and failed. My
power was not strong enough TO control
that which is infinitely more than the
! principle of life.
| -'Oh, the anguish, the remorse Of that
| terrible moment! I stood there baffled,
I'm the presence of an unseen God, and
His voice said to me, out of time and
space: You have sinned the sin that
is beyond all pardon, and you must pay
the penalty of it.
And have I not paid it? Oh Godi
|
ever shut out from your mercy, because
| I have meddled with that which be-
longs to you a1one-have I not suffered
enough here to entitle me to the boon
! of oblivion in the hereafter? 1 ask
for nothing more. Blot me out from
among men, and let it be as if I had
never been. But that cannot be. I
must pay the penalty of my sin by a
lifetime of remorse. He who dares to
take upon himself the work of a God
must take upon himself the endless ex-
istence of God to suffer in.
Day after day that CHASTITY thing lay
there in that upper room, where it is
lying now, motionless as marble, save
for the movement that breath gave it.
Never once the lids were lifted by so
much as a hairs breadth from the eyes
beneath. Never once the hands that
were crossed upon the breast thrilled in
response to my appealing touch. 1t was
a thing of death in life, infinitely more
terrible to look upon than any ghostly
visitor from the other world could ever
be- 1t awed me, fascinated me- it ter
rified me. 1t had a strange and irresist-
ible, power over me. I would shut the
door upon it, determined never to en-
ter the room in which it was again But