Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/166

 eating little; he was taking no interest in his work. He went and came from the theater automatically, impatient of company, impatient of noise, of newspaper headlines, of interruptions of any sort, anxious only to get to his room, to throw himself into a chair or upon a bed, and relapse into a state of mental drooling. After several days he roused from one of these reveries with the clear impression that some presence had been there in the room, had breathed upon him, had touched his lips, and spoken to him. He leaped up and looked about him. He opened the door and scanned the corridor. No one was there,—no echo of corporeal footsteps resounded.

Realizing that it must have been his own dream that waked him, he came back sheepishly and tried again to induce that state of mental dusk in which the odd sensation had been experienced. Soon he roused again with the knowledge that the presence had been with him and had departed; but this time a clear picture of the vision remained. It was a woman,—it was like Marien. It was, he told himself, the image of his Love. He entertained it sadly, like an apparition from the grave. The vision came again, but with repeated visits, its form began to change, until it no longer resembled the form of Marien.

This was exciting; the image might change still further till it definitely resembled some one else.

This surmise proved correct. It did change more and more until identity was for a time completely lost, but as days passed, the features ceased to blur and jumble. The eyes were now constantly blue; the complexion was consistently pink and white; the hair was brown and began to appear crinkly; the lips grew shorter, and of a more youthful red; the chin broadened and appeared fuller and softer. One morning these rosier lips smiled with a rarer spontaneity than the vision had ever shown before,