Soon I began to regret my evasive answer. When a man gets to be real proud of his work of art, he wants somebody to admire it with him and tell him how nice it is. I had believed I should be close-mouthed about those letters, but when I had taken off the few at the top signed with Jim's name I noticed there was nothing in them to tell who wrote them.

Why shouldn't Hygeia enjoy them with me? If a few seemed to affect her, a clue to her heart's entrance would appear, and then I could undertake the composition of more with greater earnestness than ever. A man can do better in such business for himself. Just a few would do no harm, at any rate. She would not know who "Devoted Darling" and "Jamie" and "My Dearest Own" might be, with no envelopes and addresses to give the thing away, and if she did, what would it matter? She would soon forget me as well as the letters. Why not brighten the dull moments?

There is no limit to the persuasive questions a fool can put to himself.

"I thought you rang for something," she said.

"Why, I remember--I was thirsty. Please let me have some grape-juice off the ice."

While she was gone I thought it all out carefully and decided not to show the letters. It would be better to be a little cagy for a while.

When Hygeia returned, I again changed my mind and pa.s.sed over to her a dozen or so choice specimens.

"Please sit right down and read these and tell me what you think of them," said I.

She went over to the window and presently began to laugh a little louder than the regulations would permit. That suited me, because it proved the style would melt if addressed to her; taken second-hand and cold that way, she was bound to laugh at them. Letters in divorce cases referring to the defendant woman as "a dream in curves" were no joke to the fair one who had sighed over them. Buckwheat cakes and love-letters must be done to order and served hot, or the steam dews on them and soggy fermentation ensues, giving off laughing-gas.

"Why, who in the world could have written this nonsense?" laughed Hygeia. "It sounds exactly like that letter one of the nurses found in the sun parlor the other day--the same in many respects as that letter--which has been pa.s.sed around for the entertainment of the nurses and the doctors. That also must belong to you. Shall I get it for you?"

"Perhaps I dropped some carelessly, but it's no matter," said I. "Let me see it some time and I can tell you. What do you think of them?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHY, WHO IN THE WORLD COULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS NONSENSE?"

LAUGHED HYGEIA.--_Page_ 214.]

"Think of them!" And she smiled as if she was pleased, as she continued to turn page after page. "Surely you could not have written them, did you, Mr. Hopkins?"

"I? A friend of mine--you showed him in the other day--thought they would keep my mind occupied, so he brought them here."

"Well, I'm glad he did and that you let me read them. I think the other nurses would enjoy them. May I not read a few to them?"

"Certainly, take all you want and read all you please; only return them in order."

"But did your friend say who wrote them? If they concerned you personally at all, or your friend, Mr. Hosley, of course I should not want to take such liberties with them. Do they?"

"Why, my friend who brought them to me thought of publishing those letters," said I, "just before he brought them to me, but I persuaded him not to. Both the woman and her husband--"

"Why, did he really win her heart with them, and did they get married?"

"Certainly. Letters like that are written to win," I answered, with quiet satisfaction, even though murder had been the outcome of my art.

"The lady and her husband dead and gone (honesty would have made me say 'or gone'), the letters fell into the possession of my friend, who in a way deals in such curios. I bought them from him for a song (some songs are worth one thousand dollars), although he was not over-anxious to sell them."

"Well, if you bought them from a dealer in letters, then they must have belonged to strangers. Really, are you fooling? Are you telling me the truth?"

"I have not, since I have known you, told you a single thing which is not true. But tell me, why do you doubt my sincerity? Why do you care if they concern me?" I wondered if I could have smitten her slightly, and my shoulders began to broaden against the pillow and a sensation of feeling handsome pa.s.sed over me, although I had not been to a barber in weeks.

"Well, it would seem cruel to take your love-letters, you know, Mr.

Hopkins, and read them to the other nurses to laugh over, now wouldn't it?"

"As you state it, perhaps it would," said I. "But what do you care about Hosley? Why do you ask if they concern him? Has Miss Tescheron spoken to you about him?" I was getting suspicious again, for she had refused, on one excuse or another, to let me see Mr. Marshall. It had flashed on me several times again that there was a bare chance of Marshall being Hosley under another name given to him by a person mistaken in identifying him, or that he was trying to hide from me under an alias so easy for him to a.s.sume, and had induced Miss Tescheron, perhaps, to avoid meeting me. The flowers, perhaps, were only to mislead me.

"Did I really ask if they concerned Mr. Hosley?" And she looked at me with such a teasing air.

"You surely did."

"Well, you used to have so much to say about him I thought perhaps you might have heard from him, you know, through this gentleman who called, and if you are still friendly to him you would not want to have his letters read around the hospital to furnish entertainment. Still, these letters were written by a married man, and I understand you and Mr.

Hosley are bachelors. Mr. Hosley might have written these letters as a bachelor, I feared, and might not be proud to hear them now. He--"

"Tell me, if you thought of reading them to Mr. Hosley, where is he? It might interest me to know. You sometimes talk strangely, as if you know where he is, and yet you will not tell me. Has Miss Tescheron confided his whereabouts to you? If so, please tell me, for I would, indeed, like to confront that gentleman mighty well."

"Then you are really friendly to Mr. Hosley, and may look for him when you leave here?" She spoke as if I were about to confirm her impression that I knew only good of Hosley.

"I shall certainly find him, never fear. But my friendship for that man is dead--slain by his own hand," said I, bitterly.

This seemed to shock her rudely, but she quickly recovered and asked:

"Why look for a man in whom you have no interest? Has he committed some crime that you would track him down?"

"I will track that man down to his very grave," said I, solemnly, shaking my forefinger at her as she rested one hand on the foot of the bed and looked at me with breathless interest. "Miss Tescheron shall know all that I learn. If she should ever happen to call here to see you, be sure to tell her that, if you please; but you need not say I told you to tell her. Only, I shall be willing to have her know that I am on the trail of that scoundrel. There--I did not mean to burden you with my opinion of Hosley. I had intended to leave here quietly without saying a word about him. The secret has clawed at my heart so that I have not been able to keep it. And what matters it? You do not know him.

I am satisfied that he has skipped to parts unknown, because he fears that officers are watching for him here. My, but it is terrible!

Terrible! How can such villains achieve their dastardly ends with women and escape detection! Some mysterious influence seems to cover them, in all their devilish ways, from the suspicion of innocent people. Perhaps their victims in many cases shrink from exposing them. Oh, forgive me for burdening you with this awful mystery! It almost drives me mad!"

"Mystery! What has he done? In heaven's name, tell me!" And she almost screamed as she clenched the bed with both hands and leaned far toward me, those wonderful eyes staring in horror. The effect of my eloquence was greater than I suspected, but I continued to expand with commensurate pride.

"He murdered a woman but two days before he sought to marry Miss Tescheron"; and as I said it, I sank upon my pillow with a hand across my eyes to stay the tears which a more vivid presentation of the crimes of Hosley brought to my eyes. When I looked up, the nurse, pale but calm, was looking at me.

How wide I was of the mark! Instantly she had conceived the idea that the letter she had been reading to furnish diverting comedy in the next room was burdened with tragedy for the young woman to whom she had become deeply attached. Her training had taught her to maintain self-control in the emergency. Another woman, brought face to face with a murderer fondling his next victim with gory hands, might have swooned or excitedly rushed to the rescue of the fair prey with wild denunciations of the criminal.

"My! but you seem pale," I said anxiously.

"Your ghost story frightened me, Mr. Hopkins. Please don't tell me any more like that. It is now time for your luncheon."

There were so many things on my schedule of routine that it was always time for some cruel requirement to steal her away from me.

As she pa.s.sed out I noticed a strange expression of care upon her beautiful face. I could not account for it, unless my earnestness had impressed her. Her point of view made the serious letters comedy for her at first; perhaps this was the reaction. There could be no reason for her agitation, based on her transient interest in Miss Tescheron, I imagined, for she had only met her for a few minutes at a time. It must have been my eloquence, the power of my dramatic art to so vividly portray the hideous Hosley that she became quite as much affected as if she had intimately known the criminal, and had followed his creeping, serpentine ways for bringing the next creature into his power. It rather pleased me to find that I could exercise this wonderful influence--a force so long latent in a superior intellectual equipment, obscured by a disenchanting personal appearance, especially unconvincing then, for I never looked particularly well in bed.

A nurse I had not seen before brought my luncheon, and with it the letter, which I quickly recognized belonged to my thousand-dollar collection.

"Your nurse sends this letter, which I am told is yours," said my new guardian. "She is ill and the doctor has ordered her to rest."

"Ill? Why, I am very, very sorry to hear that," said I. "Tell me, please, how seriously ill she is. Only a moment ago she left here looking very pale. Do tell me about her."

"Why, that is all I know."

The next day I learned that Hygeia had gone to her home in Connecticut for a brief vacation. Something had happened; I did not know what. The doctor, it appears, advised that a vacation would be the thing. I could learn no more. I was able to get her address, and wrote a long letter to her, but no reply came. I began to doubt the strength of my magnetic power over her, so encouragingly demonstrated, and was utterly miserable again. Every other worldly interest became dim; the last ray of hope had gone and through the dark valley of despair I stumbled alone.

Marshall, I learned, had left the same day Hygeia departed, but I did not care. I should not have spoken to him. I was in no humor to talk with him over that tame experience pa.s.sed through while I was unconscious. When burning over a slow fire, a man is not fit for reminiscence. Two weeks later, after an illness of ten weeks, I was discharged from the hospital with all wounds healed except the one I received there, and perhaps that other--the maddening effect of Hosley's infidelity.

CHAPTER XVI