By them he was evidently held in favour. What could I say? I knew absolutely nothing to his dis-credit. His manners were those of a cultivated and considerate gentleman; and to women a man's man-ner is the man. On one or two occasions when I saw Miss Corray walking with him I was furious, and once had the indiscretion to protest. Asked for rea-sons, I had none to give, and fancied I saw in her expression a shade of contempt for the vagaries of a jealous mind. In time I grew morose and con-sciously disagreeable, and resolved in my madness to return to San Francisco the next day. Of this, however, I said nothing.
4
There was at Auburn an old, abandoned cemetery.
It was nearly in the heart of the town, yet by night it was as gruesome a place as the most dismal of human moods could crave. The railings about the plots were prostrate, decayed, or altogether gone.
Many of the graves were sunken, from others grew sturdy pines, whose roots had committed unspeak-able sin. The headstones were fallen and broken across; brambles overran the ground; the fence was mostly gone, and cows and pigs wandered there at will; the place was a dishonour to the living, a calumny on the dead, a blasphemy against God.
The evening of the day on which I had taken my madman's resolution to depart in anger from all that was dear to me found me in that congenial spot. The light of the half moon fell ghostly through the foliage of trees in spots and patches, revealing much that was unsightly, and the black shadows seemed conspiracies withholding to the proper time revelations of darker import. Passing along what had been a gravel path, I saw emerging from shadow the figure of Dr. Dorrimore. I was myself in shadow, and stood still with clenched hands and set teeth, trying to control the impulse to leap upon and stran-gle him. A moment later a second figure joined him and clung to his arm. It was Margaret Corray!
I cannot rightly relate what occurred. I know that I sprang forward, bent upon murder; I know that I was found in the grey of the morning, bruised and bloody, with finger marks upon my throat. Iwas taken to the Putnam House, where for days I lay in a delirium. All this I know, for I have been told. And of my own knowledge I know that when consciousness returned with convalescence I sent for the clerk of the hotel.
'Are Mrs. Corray and her daughter still here?' Iasked.
'What name did you say?'
'Corray.'
'Nobody of that name has been here.'
'I beg you will not trifle with me,' I said petu-lantly. 'You see that I am all right now; tell me the truth.'
'I give you my word,' he replied with evident sin-cerity, 'we have had no guests of that name.'
His words stupefied me. I lay for a few moments in silence; then I asked: 'Where is Dr. Dorrimore?'
'He left on the morning of your fight and has not been heard of since. It was a rough deal he gave you.'
5
Such are the facts of this case. Margaret Corray is now my wife. She has never seen Auburn, and dur-ing the weeks whose history as it shaped itself in my brain I have endeavoured to relate, was living at her home in Oakland, wondering where her lover was and why he did not write. The other day I saw in the Baltimore Sun the following paragraph:
'Professor Valentine Dorrimore, the hypnotist, had a large audience last night. The lecturer, who has lived most of his life in India, gave some mar-vellous exhibitions of his power, hypnotizing anyone who chose to submit himself to the experiment, by merely looking at him. In fact, he twice hypnotized the entire audience (reporters alone exempted), making all entertain the most extraordinary illusions.
The most valuable feature of the lecture was the disclosure of the methods of the Hindu jugglers in their famous performances, familiar in the mouths of travellers. The professor declares that these thaumaturgists have acquired such skill in the art which he learned at their feet that they perform their miracles by simply throwing the "spectators"into a state of hypnosis and telling them what to see and hear. His assertion that a peculiarly susceptible subject may be kept in the realm of the unreal for weeks, months, and even years, dominated by what-ever delusions and hallucinations the operator may from time to time suggest, is a trifle disquieting.'
