He was busy at the time with some railroad work, and several days passed before he found opportunity to develop the plates.He took them from the bath in which they had lain with a number of others, and went energeti-cally to work upon them, whistling some very saucy songs he had learned of the guide in the Red River country, and trying to forget that the face which was presently to appear was that of a dead woman.He had used three plates as a precaution against accident, and they came up well.But as they devel-oped, he became aware of the existence of something in the photograph which had not been apparent to his eye in the subject.He was irritated, and without attempting to face the mystery, he made a few prints and laid them aside, ardently hoping that by some chance they would never be called for.
However, as luck would have it, -- and Hoyt's luck never had been good, -- his em-ployer asked one day what had become of those photographs.Hoyt tried to evade making an answer, but the effort was futile, and he had to get out the finished prints and exhibit them.The older man sat staring at them a long time.
"Hoyt," he said, "you're a young man, and very likely you have never seen anything like this before.But I have.Not exactly the same thing, perhaps, but similar phenomena have come my way a number of times since I went in the business, and I want to tell you there are things in heaven and earth not dreamt of --""Oh, I know all that tommy-rot," cried Hoyt, angrily, "but when anything happens Iwant to know the reason why and how it is done.""All right," answered his employer, "then you might explain why and how the sun rises."But he humored the young man sufficiently to examine with him the baths in which the plates were submerged, and the plates them-selves.All was as it should be; but the mys-tery was there, and could not be done away with.
Hoyt hoped against hope that the friends of the dead woman would somehow forget about the photographs; but the idea was un-reasonable, and one day, as a matter of course, the daughter appeared and asked to see the pictures of her mother.
"Well, to tell the truth," stammered Hoyt, "they didn't come out quite -- quite as well as we could wish.""But let me see them," persisted the lady.
"I'd like to look at them anyhow."
"Well, now," said Hoyt, trying to be soothing, as he believed it was always best to be with women, -- to tell the truth he was an ignoramus where women were concerned, -- "I think it would be better if you didn't look at them.There are reasons why --"he ambled on like this, stupid man that he was, till the lady naturally insisted upon see-ing the pictures without a moment's delay.
So poor Hoyt brought them out and placed them in her hand, and then ran for the water pitcher, and had to be at the bother of bath-ing her forehead to keep her from fainting.
For what the lady saw was this: Over face and flowers and the head of the coffin fell a thick veil, the edges of which touched the floor in some places.It covered the feat-ures so well that not a hint of them was visible.
"There was nothing over mother's face!"
cried the lady at length.
"Not a thing," acquiesced Hoyt."I
know, because I had occasion to touch her face just before I took the picture.I put some of her hair back from her brow.""What does it mean, then?" asked the lady.
"You know better than I.There is no ex-
planation in science.Perhaps there is some in -- in psychology.""Well," said the young woman, stammer-
ing a little and coloring, "mother was a good woman, but she always wanted her own way, and she always had it, too.""Yes."
"And she never would have her picture taken.She didn't admire her own appear-ance.She said no one should ever see a picture of her.""So?" said Hoyt, meditatively."Well, she's kept her word, hasn't she?"The two stood looking at the photographs for a time.Then Hoyt pointed to the open blaze in the grate.
"Throw them in," he commanded."Don't let your father see them -- don't keep them yourself.They wouldn't be agreeable things to keep.""That's true enough," admitted the lady.
And she threw them in the fire.Then Vir-gil Hoyt brought out the plates and broke them before her eyes.
And that was the end of it -- except that Hoyt sometimes tells the story to those who sit beside him when his pipe is lighted.
