The Argosy, October 1906 — page 205: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

her face and figure—every detail of her dress; it was surely my wife.” : “Heavens, man!” “I broke in. % What do. you mean 2 LEP “TI don’t know—let me tell you all.” He spoke in a voice so tense that I sank back obediently. = “ My temptation was to run to a ; but the man whose step I had heard was on-the porch now, and in an instant passed inside. I rushed to the window, half-crazed. Suddenly he came _ into the. light, : his. arm about my wife’s shoul- ders—— and his face buried. in his hands. For -a moment he did not “speak, and I could frame no sentence whee did not seent erude and rough. He roused lett deny aed with his teeth set and Aands clenched, spoke three words: s = Tt Wes myself. — nped frem my chair. = “My God, ge _ What ‘do “you mean ?”’ “= — it came to” ‘me in: an instant that he was ifisane, yet there was no evidence of an. unbalanced mind. in. either his face er manner of speech. _ “As T live ae am ‘before you,” he said, “I saw myself there, my arm about — It was no delusion, — my wife’ s shoulder. - no trick of the ‘mind—nothing but. a bare fact. — 7 There I was. Wer they—went up-stairs. together. I remember the cool glass against my face; fer I had come — close to the window. i shook from head- to foot, and then, coward that I am, I ran back to the station, caught a train for the city, and here I am. At least, I think | so—am I?” — As he ceased speaking, ‘great waves a chill swept through my body. The -man’s mind must have left him. _ His great grief, and the strain of the famil-— iar trip to Montclair, had tricked his — brain. - "Psychologically, it was very sim-— yet his tone, though intense, was ple; very. low,- and there “was no evidence of raving in his words or manner. long time, so it seemed. te me, os did ~ not- speak. os rising suddenly, he said: ee Don’ t enuan this sitet am sure * you. will understand why I could: oe THE NEW NEIGHBOR ACROSS THE ‘HALL. -$at staring into the dying fire. 575 stay alone. ‘I feel stronger now. To- morrow you may be able to help me, but gee to-night we can do ‘nothing. Good. night.” He held out his hand, and before I — could frame one of the thousand ques- tions which whirled through my mind he gathered up his coat and hat and ‘passed out of the room. I stood, fairly stunned, wanting to trun after him; to force him back into his chair until I could learn the truth, and--help him out of his—his what = oe “should f call it? My Vsitor stopped, his Sotly- shaking 2 -T heard my door shut, and then I sank back into my seat, and for a long time Grad- ually my mind cleared, as I rooted out one fallacy after another until I formed a working basis. Obviously, I- reasoned, the case was one of a psychological nature. The pic- ture which had tortured him for nearly an heur so mastered his mind as to cempletely blank all else. Yet he had - been conscious. of material_objects about him which I judged to be real. All in all, this did not satisfy me. The strength of character and mental ferce which the man had shewn, his abil- ity to brace himself. under what was to him a strain of awful reality made it un- tenable. I discarded insanity as an impossible theory, and tried to abanden the psychological idea. When I did this, however, it left my mind but -ene solutiot=—the man was right. Yet, how could that be? It was absurd. And then I would mutter to the coals: “ Perhaps, after all, such things do happen. I don’t believe in them, but it may be. I can’t say that they do occur, but I can’t say that they don’t.” suddenly, as I sat gazing at the whi- tening reds of the fire, a thought struck me which made me sit up very quickly. The man was in evening dress! For a moment I was staggered. Ob- viously my new neighbor was a practical jeker; perhaps a man who knew my - For: a— weakness for such cases as he had pre- sented, through some common friend at the club. Evidently there would be a sequel to this joke, running through many menths, cues years, which would find expres- U cComicbooks.co