I will say, first, that Atlantic City did me a lot of good. I came back to town happier than I have been for months, in fact I was so encouraged that I decided to amuse myself a little, as you advised. Last night I went to a rather gay ball with some friends, and I was beginning to think myself almost normal, when suddenly--alas!

I had a strange experience this morning that frightens me. I was sitting at my desk writing a note when I glanced towards the window where there is a bowl of gold fish, three beautiful fish and two snails. It amuses me to watch them sometimes. Well, as I looked up, the sunshine was flashing on the little darting creatures and I felt myself drawn to the bowl, and for two or three minutes I stood there staring into it as if I expected to see something. Then, presently I _did_ see something, I saw myself inside the bowl--in a kind of vision. I saw myself just as distinctly as I ever saw anything.

In order that you may understand this, doctor, I must explain that Captain Herrick took me home from the ball. It was two o'clock in the morning when we left the place and it had blown up cold during the rain, so that the streets were a glare of ice and our taxi was skidding horribly. When we got to Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue there came a frightful explosion; a gas main had taken fire and flames were shooting twenty feet into the air. I was terrified, for it made me think of Paris--the air raids, the night sirens, the long-distance cannon.

Captain Herrick saw that I was quite hysterical and said that I mustn't think of going up to Eightieth Street. I must spend the night at his studio in Washington Square, only a few doors away, and he would go to a hotel. I agreed to this, for I was nearly frozen.

When we entered the studio I was surprised to find what a beautiful place it was. It seems that Captain Herrick has rented it from a distinguished artist. There is a great high ceiling and a wonderful fireplace where logs were blazing. I was standing before this fireplace trying to warm myself, when there came a crash overhead, it was only a gas fixture that had fallen, but it seemed to me the whole building was coming down. I almost fainted in terror and Chris caught me in his arms, trying to comfort me. Then, before I realized what he was doing, he had drawn me close to him and kissed me.

This made me very angry. I felt that he had no right to take advantage of my fright in this way and I told him I would not stay in his studio a minute longer. And I did not. I almost ran down the stairs, then out into the street. It was foolish to get so agitated, but I could not help it. I went over to the Brevoort and spent the night there. You will understand in a minute why I am telling you all this, it has to do with the vision that I saw in the bowl of gold fish.

In this vision I saw myself enter Captain Herrick's studio just as I really did--in my white satin dress. Christopher was with me in his uniform. Then I saw myself lying on a divan and--Chris was bending over me, kissing me pa.s.sionately. He kissed me many times, it seemed as if he would never stop kissing me--in the vision. All this was as clear as a motion picture. The extraordinary part of it is, that I neither resisted him nor responded in any way, I just seemed to be lying there--with my eyes closed--as if I were asleep.

I am very much distressed about this. I _know_ that I did not really lie down on Captain Herrick's divan--I would not have done such a thing for the world. I _know_ Captain Herrick did not really kiss me in that pa.s.sionate way, as I saw him kiss me in the bowl of gold fish, but I _feel_ that he did. I am afraid that he did. I can't get over the feeling that he did. This sounds like madness, doesn't it? A woman cannot be ardently kissed by a man without knowing it, can she? Perhaps I am mad--perhaps this is the way mad people feel.

Help me, doctor, if you can, and above all _please_ see Captain Herrick--he is an old friend of yours--and find out exactly what I did at his studio. I must know the truth. And I can't ask Chris, can I?

Yours in anguish of soul,

PENELOPE WELLS.

P. S.--Please telephone me as soon as you get this and make an appointment to see me.

CHAPTER IV

FIVE PURPLE MARKS

During his thirty years of medical experience among neurasthenic and hysterical women, Dr. William Owen had never encountered a more puzzling case than the one before him on this brisk winter morning when he set forth to answer the urgent appeal of Penelope Wells. Here was a case fated to be written about in many languages and discussed before learned societies. A Boston psychologist was even to devote a chapter of his great work "Mysteries of the Subconscious Mind" to the hallucinations of Penelope W----. Poor Penelope!

When Dr. Owen entered her attractive sitting room with its prevailing tone of blue, he found his fair patient reclining on a _chaise longue_, her eyes heavy with anxiety.

"It's good of you to come, doctor. I appreciate it," she gave him her hand gratefully. "I expected to go to your office, but--something else has happened and I am--discouraged." Her arm fell listlessly by her side. "So I telephoned you."

"I am glad to come, you know I take a particular interest in you," he smiled cheerily and drew up a chair. "We must expect these set-backs, but you are improving. You show it in your face. And your letter showed it. I read your letter carefully--studied it and--"

"You haven't seen Captain Herrick?" she asked eagerly.

"Not yet. I have asked him to dine with me this evening."

Penelope sighed wearily and twined her fingers together in nervous agitation.

"It's all so distressing. I can't understand it. Why did I see myself in that bowl of gold fish, so distinctly? Tell me--why?"

"You mustn't take that seriously, Mrs. Wells. These crystal visions are common enough--the books are full of them. It's a phenomenon of self-hypnotism. You are in a broken-down nervous condition after months of excessive strain--that's all, and these hallucinations result, just as colored shapes and patterns appear when you shut your eyes tight and press your fingers against the eye-b.a.l.l.s."

This did not satisfy her. "What I want to know is whether there is any possibility that I really did what I saw myself do in that vision? Do you think there is?"

"Certainly not. I believe you did exactly what you tell me you did--you spent a few minutes in Christopher's studio and then came away angry because he kissed you. By the way, I don't see why one kiss from a man who loves you and has asked you to marry him should have offended you so terribly, especially when you admit that you care for him?"

His tone was one of good-humored indulgence for capricious beauty, but Mrs. Wells kept to her seriousness.

"I didn't mean that I was really angry with Captain Herrick. I was angry at myself for the thrill of joy I felt when he kissed me and I was frightened by the wave of emotion that swept over me. I have been frightened all these days--even now!" She covered her eyes with her hand as if shrinking from some painful memory.

"Please don't agitate yourself. You must not get hysterical about this.

You must have confidence in me and in your own powers of recuperation.

And you must be sure to give me all the facts. Did I understand you to say that something else has happened--since you wrote me?"

"Yes, something quite unbelievable--it happened last night."

"Tell me about it--quietly, just as if you were discussing somebody else."

Penelope smiled wistfully. "How kind and wise you are! I will try to be calm, but--it is hard for me. I had a dream last night, doctor, and this dream is true. I have evidence that it is true. I did something last night without knowing it, and then I dreamed about it."

"You did something without knowing it?"

"Yes, I put on a red dress and a black hat that I have not worn for four years, not since my husband died. For four years I have only worn black or white."

"Do I understand you to say that you put on these things without knowing that you put them on?"

"Yes."

"How do you know you did?"

"My maid told me so. You see my dream was so extraordinarily vivid--I'll give you the details in a minute--that, as soon as I awakened, I rang for Jeanne and questioned her. 'Jeanne,' I said, 'you know the red dress that I have not worn since my husband died?' She looked at me in a queer way and said: 'Madame is laughing at me. Madame knows quite well that she wore the red dress last night.' Then she recalled everything in detail, how I sent her to a particular shelf where this dress was folded away and got her to freshen up a ribbon and press the skirt where it was wrinkled. Jeanne is also positive that I put on my black hat. Then, she says, I went out; I left the house at five minutes to nine and came back about eleven. There is no doubt about it."

"And you remember nothing of all this?"

"Nothing. So--so you see," she faltered, then she leaned impulsively toward the doctor. "As an expert will you please tell me if it is possible for a woman to act like that unless her mind is affected?"

Dr. Owen tried to take this lightly. "I'm a fairly sane citizen myself, but if you asked me which suit I wore yesterday, I couldn't tell you."

"You couldn't suddenly put on red clothes without knowing it, if you had been wearing black clothes for years, could you?" she demanded.

He laughed. "When it comes to clothes I might do anything. I might wear a straw hat in January. But I couldn't go out of the house without knowing it. Do you mean to tell me you don't remember going out of the house last night?"

"I certainly do not. I remember nothing about it. I would have sworn that I went to bed early," she insisted.

"Hm! Have you any idea where you went?"

"Yes--I know where I went, but I only know this from my dream. I know I went to Captain Herrick's studio. You--you can ask him."

"Of course. You haven't asked him yourself--you haven't telephoned, have you?"

"No, no! I would be ashamed to ask him."