"Then it is a kind of new thought?" asked Hilda.

"Rather a renaissance of old thought. The modern quest of the Grail is not for the crystal cup that held the holy elements, but for the divine life itself, the principle that inspires men to action. The philosopher of our day is not a hermit, theorizing about vague abstractions, but vitally alive to the problems that confront this day and generation, and modern psychology is changing all the methods of the great processes of existence. Education, medicine, law, are all in process of transformation. Grandsons of the men who denounced Mesmer as a charlatan thronged the clinics of Charcot."

"Yes," said Silvia, "and within the next decade Munsterberg will have compelled a complete remodeling of our forms of legal procedure. No attorney worth his salt would undertake to ignore the apparatus devised by the psychologist, and the time is nearly gone by when, as he says, courts will prefer to listen to the 'science' of the handwriting experts, rather than permit the examination of a witness by methods in accord with the exact work of the psychologist."

"That is true," a.s.sented Jack, "and not the least gratifying part of the whole matter is that it isn't the unimportant who are the ones to speak respectfully of the changing ideal; in fact, the smaller a man's calibre the more sure you can be that he will cling to the established order. It is only very great men who have the courage of their intuitions long enough to prove them. Munsterberg can afford to say what he thinks. Now if I go to this meeting and tell these men that 'there are cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming,' what do you think they will say?"

Hilda smiled. "Most of them will suspect you of quoting 'Science and Health.' If they accuse you of it, read them the rest of the paragraph."

"What is it?" asked Silvia eagerly.

"I can find it in a moment," said Hilda, going to the bookshelves, and taking down a modest olive-colored volume. "Here it is. 'And where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the lowest kind of immorality into which a thinking being can fall. Yet such is the logic by which our scientific absolutists pretend to regulate our lives.' That is from the late Professor James, who is said to have been the profoundest thinker this country has ever produced, and he has said much more equally startling to those little minds that, like full bottles, have no room for more."

Dr. Earl threw back his head and laughed; his quandary was over, his course settled. He turned to Silvia with a genial smile. "Score one more victory for the Feminists," he said. "I wonder if there ever has been a time, anywhere on earth, where women were actually and aggressively noncombatants. The Spartan woman handing over her husband's shield is typical. Whenever and wherever there has been a cause worth fighting for, worth dying for--always and forever we can see the figure of the woman, shield on arm and javelin in hand, standing at the door of the slothful warrior's tent, calling him to action. Sometimes the eternal feminine leads on, but very frequently, I regret to say, it has to get back and drive, and sometimes if it did not kneel and push I fear the wheels of progress would not revolve at all; that we do go on, slowly and uncertainly, it is true, but that we go on at all, is due to the woman soul that will not let us waste our years in the wilderness when the land of promise is so near at hand. Ladies, I go!"

He rose as if to make good his words, but Hilda entered a peremptory negative, and it ended by his staying to dinner and spending a long and utterly delightful evening, which became in a sense the beginning of what he felt was a new epoch in his life. This was the understanding, the fellowship, the _bon camaraderie_ that gives existence its zest and permits one to dream of life eternal without a horror of impending weariness and boredom.

CHAPTER XV

AN EVIL PROPHECY BEGINS TO BEAR FRUIT

Leonora and Mrs. Kimball accompanied Dr. Earl to the meeting of the medical society, and if he had some doubts whether or not she would be able to follow his discourse perfectly, he had none whatever as to his own pride and pleasure in her dainty loveliness. She was gowned in white, and the season's styles were particularly becoming to her graceful and well-rounded figure. Her radiant face with its sensitive coloring resembled the delicate glow of one of those rare Sevres vases of the Empire Period.

She appreciated the compliment of the invitation, as people always appreciate the compliment of being invited to distinguished gatherings where the subjects of discussion are likely to be much beyond their range of knowledge or understanding.

There was a large attendance, for while many members of the profession had come from idle curiosity, most of those present were interested in the views of any man of standing who might throw new light upon the successful application of either medical or surgical remedies.

Whatever criticisms may be pa.s.sed upon individual pract.i.tioners, or however many Bourbons may exist in the fraternity, yet it must be apparent to the student of such matters that nowhere in the world does as large a percentage of the medical or surgical profession adopt new and improved methods of treatment of the maimed and the ill as in the United States. And nowhere in the world are such new and improved methods applied with anything like the aptness or skill as by American doctors of medicine or surgery.

The old school, the newer school, the newest school of legally recognized pract.i.tioners were there in force, as well as numbers of those who were effecting remarkable cures without any special sanction of law for their methods.

Modestly and earnestly, Dr. Earl discussed the subject that had been a.s.signed him, amplifying as much as his time would permit, and occasionally citing authorities bound to command respectful attention from scientific minds.

He was aware that he had the sympathy of most of his audience, and he was just as fully conscious of the hostility of Drs. Morris, Tower, Hersh.e.l.l, Bainbridge and two or three more of those who believed with something approaching fanaticism that all physicians and surgeons must adhere strictly to what they denominated "standard methods."

While Leonora could not comprehend the larger significance of his discourse, it gratified her pride and pleased her vanity that her fiancee was a man who could obtain such a hearing from the medical profession. The discussion that followed the address was animated and intelligent, and if the malcontents had intended any discourtesy to Dr.

Earl their plans went awry.

Dr. Earl found himself plunged deeper and deeper every day in the seemingly innumerable duties that crowded upon him. Summer came with tropical heat, but feeling that he had already enjoyed a long vacation, he made no plans, save to take his week-ends out of town, and prepared to keep office hours all summer.

Early in July, Leonora and her mother went to Bar Harbor and the Ramseys to Newport. Frank had gone West in May. He would have missed them had he possessed a free moment, but the first of August found him as busy as ever, in spite of the fact that the city was deserted by the fashionable world. Sickness has fashions of its own, and the fame he had achieved as "the surgeon who cures without operating," brought him not a few calls from those who had nothing to commend them save their suffering and their faith. Every doctor worthy the name has a set of books kept only by his recording angel, and Earl's invisible guardian made many entries that summer, and there were times when even the insistence of Leonora could not make him feel willing to leave those who seemed so wholly dependent upon his presence for their physical welfare.

Now and then, in spite of his all-absorbing work, there came to his sensitive consciousness a feeling of foreboding and dread that he could not explain, save by some subtle law of suggestion, as he recalled half in mirth and half in seriousness the dark prophecies of the astrologist at the suffrage ball. He had suspected his brother Frank, and when he learned that the seeress was Miss Renner, that suspicion had been confirmed; Frank might have given her the date of Leonora's birthday, but he had nothing to do with the warning she had given him that something would happen within the next twenty-four hours which would have a bearing on his whole career. Within two hours he had treated little Alice Bell, and out of that event had grown his more intimate acquaintance with Silvia, and the marked hostility of Dr. Morris. The child was doing as well as could be expected, but he was greatly disturbed over her condition, and was building up her general health in the hope of overcoming the disease.

He had asked Miss Renner one or two questions, but she had evaded him, and while he had thought of calling on her and asking for the promised horoscope, which she did not send, the idea seemed absurd, and he had no time to carry it out.

On the fourth of August he received a summons to come to Magnolia, Ma.s.sachusetts, to attend a former patient who was spending the summer there, and he left New York, intending to remain a week.

His movements had become a matter of interest to the ubiquitous newspaper reporter, and as the dog-days in New York were not prolific in startling items, the fact of his being sent for to attend a prominent New York man at Magnolia was seized upon and made into a fairly readable first page news story.

He arranged for the care of his patients, saw the Bells and told them of his intended absence, and spent some time talking with the frail little child who had become greatly attached to him. As he rose to go, he turned to the couch once more. "What shall I send you from Boston, little Miss Alice?" he said kindly, and the girl replied in true child fashion, "Candy." He shook his head. "You know I don't approve of much candy for small girls; but you shall have something better," he said, "you may be sure I won't forget," and with another good-by he was gone.

He took the midnight train for Boston, and his patient's motor car was waiting for him when he arrived there.

Perhaps it was the excitement of thinking what the "something better"

could be that kept Alice Bell awake that night; whatever it was, when Silvia Holland saw her the next morning her heart sank. She had a feeling that she was in some way responsible for the child also, and that she was still Dr. Earl's a.s.sistant. She watched her while she talked to Mrs. Bell, and suggested, in a tentative way, that Mrs. Bell should go to some quiet country place for a month, but the woman shook her head.

"I cannot leave the city, now," she said. "I have a great quant.i.ty of sewing that must be done for Miss Lanier's wedding in September."

"Couldn't you take it along?" asked Silvia.

"No," she said quietly, but decidedly. "Some of the things she wants fitted, and I have said I would be here any time she wanted to run into town. Besides, there are other reasons why I cannot go away now." She controlled herself with an effort. "I can never tell you, Miss Holland, how thankful I am for the work you have brought my way. You can't understand, no woman who has never been anxious to know how she was going to get the rent can understand what a blessing it is to be independent! You are doing great things for all women, Miss Holland, and not forgetting individual women as some people would, but _do_ try to make girls understand that they can never be free so long as they are dependent on somebody else for their bread and b.u.t.ter."

Silvia flushed. "You're not fretting because of the paltry little sum I advanced for your rent, are you?" she said. "I thought we were friends, and such things should not be spoken of between friends."

The woman turned to her with a face in which grat.i.tude and some great sorrow were contending emotions, and caught her hands and held them tight.

"No," she said, "I don't mind being under obligations to you; I'm almost glad to be, for the sake of knowing such a woman. You can do a kindness without making it a burden; there are people who pay a debt as if they were doing you a favor. The only thing I mind is that I am not more worthy of all you have done for me."

Silvia put her hands on the other woman's shoulders. "Don't talk to me of unworthiness," she said. "You are a brave woman and a devoted mother; it is one of the crimes of civilization that you should lack for any creature comforts, and you shall not any more. You shall earn what you need yourself, and this fall I intend to start a cla.s.s of girls in domestic economy, and you shall teach them how to make these pretty things you fashion so exquisitely."

An indescribable look of pain and rebellion pa.s.sed over Mrs. Bell's face, and she turned away from Silvia, with a quick gesture of renunciation.

"In the meantime," Silvia went on, feeling that the time had not come to seek any further confidence, "I am going to borrow Alice. I want to take her up to Nutwood for a week or two, and as I'm going this noon, suppose you gather her things together, and I'll take her right along."

The little girl gave a cry of joy, and then her face dropped. "But, mamma," she said, "will I miss my present from Dr. Earl?"

Her mother smiled and explained that the doctor had promised to send Allie "something better than candy" from Boston, where he had gone the night before. "I will forward it," she said; "you can trust mother for that."

"He has been very good to you, hasn't he?" said Silvia absently, thinking of him once more as she had seen him first, as he bent over the child, the sleeves rolled back from his powerful white arms while he bathed the matted locks and set the broken leg.

"He has that," said the woman laconically. "I'm glad to have Allie go with you, for she would miss him; he said he wouldn't be back for a week. Now be a good girl, Allie, and do just as Miss Holland tells you, and you will write mother a little letter every day, and mother will write to you." She flung her arms about the child in a sudden pa.s.sion of emotion, but the eyes that looked into Silvia's as she took her hand were dry and wretched.

"I wish you could tell me all about it," Silvia said impulsively.

"I shall, soon," she answered; "unless Fate turns kind for once, I shall tell you all, soon, very soon."

CHAPTER XVI

THE MYSTERIOUS MURDER OF EMMA BELL

The crowd going home from the resorts and roof gardens August 9th was startled by the wild cries of the newsboys: "Extra! Extra! All about the mysterious murder!"