The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1915-06-26
CHAPTER XIX.
The Voice of the Wind.

Hours afterward Brood sat alone in
the room where the tragedy occurred.
Much had transpired in the interim to
make those hours seem like separate
and distinct years to him, each hour
an epoch in which a vital and memoir.
able incident had been added to his
| already overfull measure of expert
ence. Underneath all was an ever.
present sense of insecurity, as IL the
whole order Of life had been suddenly
deprived of foundation or support. No
matter where he looked, there was not
the slightest ray of light in the dark.
ness that enveloped his understand
ing. Something tremendous had hap
pened. aside from the visible. phys
ical incident that had stunned him
temporarily at the outset of the tragic
era, something that was beyond COM
prehension and intangible and which
continually doomed up before him as a
specter that had neither shape nor
substance ant yet was as completely
positive as anything else that had
transpired. He could account for the
shooting, the emotions preceding that
unhappy occurrence. the Intervention
of fate that saved Yvonne from death
and laid low the substitute, the sense
of horror that ensued, the sudden rev.
citation that came to him as he looked
into Frederic's face with its closed
eyes, and the agony of suspense that
now consumed him, but a cloud still
hung over him that his intelligence
could not penetrate nor his physical
being dispel. no matter how hard he
struggled to clear way to the open.
He had seen vision. Its effect on
him had been overpowering. The for.
titude of lifetime had been shattered
In single instant of contact with the
influence that had at last made itself
felt In physical manifestation after all 1
these years of spiritual attendance. He
had never been completely free from
the vague notion that Matilde was
near him In spirit, that there was an
actual identity to the presence that
filled his dreams and denied him the
boon Of foreetfulness for a single In.
slant Of the hours when he was awake
He had never tried to Danish her from
his memory. He wanted to forget her.
to put her out of his thoughts alto.
gether, for obvious reasons, but the
fact that she remained the dominant |
figure in his present despite the past
was proof, even to him, that she was
and always would be the controlling |
force in his mind if not in his heart.
Now he was ordering himself to face
new complexities. He was confronted |
by the most improbable of hallucina-
lions. 1t was not an intangible shadow
mat ne now had to contend with but
something definite. something that
took shape and Knocked him. In his
bitter indictment against circum-
he argued that his brain was
nomentarily unbalanced following the
'hock caused by the. shooting, and that
n It's disordered state he had pictured
-hings that did not exist. 1t was only
to assume that he had suf-
cred from the effect of a startling.
vivid hallucination, and yet there was
strange. insistent voice somewhere
n his clearing mind that persuaded
linn against his will that he had actual
y seen the face of Matilde.
Admitting that he had been deceived
" trick of the Imagination, there
till remained certain indisputable
acts to confound him. First OF all.
ne absolute conviction that Yyonne
lad the power to preserve the life that
Jung so precariously in the balance.
ie could not overcome the amazing
eiief that she, and not the skilled
urgeon, would check the sure progress
death. Something told him that she
represented a force even mightier
nan death and that she would prevail.
o matter what betide. =
He had refused to see the newspa-
er men who came. Doctor Holder I
'isely had protested against secrecy.
Murder will out" he had said fret. s
lily, little realizing how closely the '
lite old saying applied to the situa-
on. He had accepted the statements 4
fvonne and Ranjab as to the acct u
entail discharge Of the weapon. but I
'r some reason had refrained from