Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1903-03-05
XIX.

W1GI9 Lit udu H1oI lICI E14L4o O1Oo-
mont, at the junction of the higher with
the lower road. He glanced up the hill
to the right, and saw the sharp angles
of Ned Crosmont's house standing out
black in the darkness, without a ray of
light from any of the windows to in
dictate that there was life within. And
yet it was not ten O'Clock. The draw
ing-roOm, the dining-rOOm, Alma's bed
room. and the little chamber with the
Uncovered window where she shut
herself in to listen to the dream
music which cOmforted her, were all
on the same side of the house, and the
faintest CLEAN Of light in any Of them
would have been visible to him from
the spot where he stood staring up at
the blank, cherries building with i'll
tent eyes. He did not attempt to ap-
preach it; the attraction which had
drawn him SO far seemed to have sud
denly ceased, and given place, exactly
as it had done on the two previous oc-
casions when he had been under its
power, to commonplace reflections on
his own idiOtcy in giving way to it.
His reason had resumed its full sway;
and while he was surprised at the dis
covery that Alma, who by all analogy
should have been a bad sleeper, afraid
of the darkness and prone to long
night-watches, had evidently retired to
rest exceedingly early, it was quite
plain to him that he had come on a
fools errand, and that it would be the
height of indiscretion to go a yard
nearer and risk being caught prowling
round the house when all folk Of hon
est intentions were supposed to be
safely in their homes.
SO he turned his back on the house,
and retraced the few steps he had
taken up the hill. But when he reach
ed the bottom, and faced the thicket
of trees growing by the water-side, he
became conscious of a signing wind
hat came through the branches and
over the lake, and he heard the little
waves splash up against the shore,
and the bOughs rustic and crack over
his head, and in each sound there was
a low wall hat pierced his heart, and
lASlNIS LilI WV LII q S"S
fear For he knew that it was no
physical human voice that was calling
to him, and that these noises of the
night, which now seemed to bear a
human message of pain and prayer to
him, were only such as he had heard a
thousand times before and taken no
note of.
A ffn. rtnylSor n rnur r,@,@,Nrtr 1nnn
er IN a state of hazy stupefaction, his
reasoning faculties in vain trying to
get the mastery yer the hayward
brain, it seemed to him that the faint,
fancies which began to run riot in his
wailing note which formed the accom-
came from the opposite shore Of the
lake. At the same moment the rest
less fever to go forward seized him
again: why should he not make the
tour of the lower and the higher roads,
and thus passing close under the walls
of the Crosmont's house on his way
back, try to discover an explanation of
forth in the mud and the rain on a
miserable February night. By the
time he got to the point where the
higher road again joined the lower neal
the entrance of the village, however,
his thoughts had wandered away to
DR.. Peele and his story, and to the ON
nectiOn between the opera written by
the sO-called mad composer in the lit
tie front room, and the dream-music
which his own daughter, twenty-five
years later, heard within the same
walls. Had not the dreams of the
mesmerist-musician been realized?
Did not the poetical creation of his
heart and mind stand embodied in
Alma, whose pure and sensitive soul
shone out Of her brown eyes as that
of the imaginary "PsyChe' had done
in his inspired fancy? Through
Armathwaite's excited brain there
flashed "reminiscences of the old Greek
legend of the beautiful maiden con-
demned to marry a monster, and per-
secuted by Venus for her innocent
rivalry; and mingled with these
scraps of legend came vivid pictures
of the realities among which he lived,
of Lady Kildonan in her splendid
beauty coaXing him, commanding CrOs-
mont; Of the simple and kindly middle
aged husband who could think no i'll
of the wife he loved; of the old doc
tor, dying oppressed by the burden Of
a secret which weighed upon him
night and day; of a fair. sweet woman
in whom the life and reason were be-
ing Slapped out at the will Of a rival
who was something worse than heart
less.
This last picture stood out in his
mind with striking vividness, and re-
manned there clear as a material pic
ture, long after the rest had faded out
of his brain. Through the mist,
through the soft rain, he seemed to
see her bodily presence, with a faint
dusky outline indeed, but unmistak-
able, irresistibly pathetic, a m|ournful,
darkly-clothed figure, the folds of
whose drapery seemed. absolutely to
change and shift before his ' as if
the very wind which buffeted him
were playing with the garments of the
image in his mind. Still. as he walk
ed. the figure remained before him,
until the idea crossed his brain that
it might be really the physical pres
ence, and not merely a mental image,
of the woman who occupied his
thoughts that he was following. He
now perceived for the first time that
he had left Mereside behind MIN, and