Page:The Dead Man's Tale.pdf/10

 on both their parts--there would be an undercurrent of fear that the incident might recur—a grizzly menace, poisoning each moment of their lives together.

I had not schemed and contrived—and dared—in vain.

This was the thought I hugged when Louis was released from jail, upon her refusal to prosecute. It caused me sardonic amusement when, in their first embrace, the tears of despair rained down their cheeks. It recurred when they began their pitiful attempt to build anew on the shattered foundation of love.

And then--creepingly, slyly, like a bird of ill omen casting the shadow of its silent wings over the landscape--came retribution.

Many times, in retrospect, I lived over that brief hour of my return to physical expression—my hour of realization. Wraithlike, arose a vision of Velma—Velma as she had stood before me that night, staring at me with horror. I saw the horror deepen--deepen to abject despair.

How beautiful she had looked! But when I tried to picture that beauty, I could recall only her eyes. It mattered not whether I wished to see them--they filled my vision.

They seemed to haunt me. From being vaguely conscious of them, I became acutely so. Disconcertingly, they looked out at me from everywhere—eyes brimming with fear—eyes fixed and staring—filled with horrified accusation.

The beauty I had once coveted became a thing forbidden, even in memory. If I sought to peer through the veil as formerly—to witness her pathetic attempts to resume the old life with Louis—again those eyes!

It may perhaps sound strange for a disembodied creature--one whom you would call a ghost— towail of being haunted. Yet haunting is of the spirit, and we of the spirit world are immeasurably more subject to its conditions than those whose consciousness is centered in the material sphere.

God! Those eyes. There is a refinement of physical torture which consists of allowing water to fall, drop by drop, for an eternity of hours, upon the forehead of the victim. Conceive of this torture increased a thousandfold, and a faint idea may be gained of the torture that was mine—from seeing everywhere, constantly, interminably, two orbs ever filled with the same expression of horror and reproach.

Much have I learned since entering the Land of the Shades. At that time I did not know, as I know now, that my punishment was no affliction from without, but the simple result of natural law. Cause set in motion must work out their full reaction・ The pebble, cast into a quiet pool, makes ripples which in time return to the place of their origin. I had cast more than a pebble of disturbance into the harmony of human life, and through my intense preoccupation in a single aim had delayed longer than usual the reaction. I had created for myself a hell. Inevitably I was drawn into it

Gone was every desire I had known to hover near the two who had so long engrossed my attention. Haunted, harried by those dreadful accusers, I sought to fly from them to the ends of the earth. There was no escape, yet, driven frantic, I still strugleed to escape, because that is the impulse of suffering creatures.

The emotions that had so swayed me when I tried to blast the lives of two who held me dear now seemed puny and insignificant* n comparison with my suffering. No physical torment can be likened to that which engulfed me until my very being was but a seething mas of agony. Through it, I hurled maledictions upon the world, upon myself, upon the. creator. Horrible blasphemies I uttered.

And, at last--I prayed.

It was but a cry for mercy—the inarticulate appeal of a tortured soul for surcease of pain—but suddenly a great peace seemed to have come upon the universe.

Bereft of suffering, I felt like one who has ceased to exist.

Out of the silence came a wordless response. It beat upon my consciousness like the buffeting of the waves.