The boy was beside himself with emotion. He was sure he had felt a nestling motion in his idol. He was impatient to see her eyes open. She was still cold. He thought she was not quite so cold as she had been.

William noted the looks of astonishment, but felt no desire to explain.

He spoke sharply to James:

"Take the Doctor to the reception room. I will come there as soon as I have attended to Augustus, who is nervous and excited."

James dared not disobey his master, so he led the physician back, while William, with his children, went into his study. Augustus was so excited that his face flushed and his whole body trembled; his eyes flashed brilliantly.

"She did move, father,--I felt it. Make her move again. She is not so cold as she was. I want to see her eyes open, father."

"Yes, my son. Now remain quiet. What! You will not trust her to me?"

"I want to hold her."

"Do not hold her so tightly. I cannot work on her if you do. There; now you can rub her feet, while I do her spine."

"She moved again, father. I felt it. Make her open her eyes."

"No, my boy, we will be content if she sleeps, like her mother. She is becoming less rigid. Rub them vigorously. There. Her eyes opened just as her lungs did. We cannot feed her. What shall we do?"

"I knew you would save her, father. I love to hear her cry. She shall have something to eat. Will you carry us back to mamma, now?"

Without comment, William took them up, and started back, happy that Clarissa would find her baby beside her, warm and living, when she woke.

Just before they reached her room, Augustus spoke:

"Father, I think sister will have as bad a temper as mine. I like to hear her cry, but I think she is angry; do not you?"

"It sounds like it, my son."

"I expect she does not realize she would have died if you and I had not taken care of her. It's a wonder I ever lived to grow up when Dinah is so careless."

Hearing the baby crying, Dinah immediately took her from Augustus, and put her beside her mother, who was still sleeping. William put Augustus in his chair, where he could watch both mother and babe. He turned toward the bed just in time to see the glad surprise upon Clarissa's face as she heard the fretful cry of the baby. Never was music so sweet as that. She drew the baby to her, and as she leaned to kiss her, William left the room.

He went directly to the reception room, where the doctor was waiting for him. He was by no means pleased a strange physician had been called in.

If she was ill and unwilling to have him treat her, why did she not send for Baxter or Harrington? What would they think if they heard of this?

What a position it placed him in. He could not, and would not explain to any person (even them) this last estrangement in his family. He would conquer Clarissa's haughty spirit. Now was a good time for him to begin.

Entering the room, he bowed and said:

"I am happy to inform you the indisposition from which my wife was suffering when she summoned you, has pa.s.sed away. She is now resting comfortably. We appreciate your compliance. I will now discharge our obligation and indebtedness to you, if you will apprise me of the amount."

The doctor was surprised at his dismissal, without even a look at the patient, but no more so than at the summons to go to the Professor's house. He thought it very strange that he should be called there, knowing the Professor was the intimate friend of several prominent pract.i.tioners. He felt greatly flattered at the call, but now he was dismissed without so much as seeing the patient.

He quickly took his leave, after expressing gratification at the recovery of Mrs. Huskins, and receiving a larger fee than he had asked "as a reward for his promptness," as William told him.

Relieved of his presence, William went back to his study to try to work out to his own satisfaction, the cause of the horrible scene he had just pa.s.sed through. That seemed the only word capable of expressing the torture of mind he endured when he saw that look so closely resembling death upon Clarissa's face. How he had fought to conquer that condition.

How many more such problems must he meet? Could he always conquer them as he had this?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Think as he would, William could not account for this latest condition of Clarissa and her babe. The thought of the babe had not once recurred to him. From the time of her birth she had appeared to be physically a well child. What could be the cause of this close resemblance to death, which had temporarily deceived such keen eyes as his.

This was not the most perplexing problem either, although this was unanswerable in his present state. The child's pa.s.sing into this deathlike state was not so remarkable, owing to Clarissa's physical weakness and nearness to death, (for he knew how much the condition of the mother affects the small and negative babe) as was its return to health and vigor, without apparent labor upon his part first, for Augustus had declared, while his mind had been taken up with James and the strange physician, that the babe had moved. To be sure, he had worked hard upon it after he had taken the two children alone to his room, but what made her move before he had worked upon her? He believed Augustus when he said she did move.

How to account for this apparent death and recovery was what baffled him. Had he been the only one deceived, he would have thought his fears and anxiety for Clarissa had rendered him temporarily nervous and fearful, but Dinah and Augustus were equally deceived, and united in the a.s.sertion.

It was the baby's coldness and rigidity that had alarmed and produced in Clarissa the condition of a seeming death struggle. What could it be that had caused this? He asked himself that one question until his mind and brain was a complete tangle of conjecture, but not one plausible or satisfying answer came to his consciousness.

While he was seeking the solution to it, let us try to account for the same. William was a practised and proficient psychologist. He was accustomed to control the individuality and personality of others, by force of will, or, as some persons prefer to say, mind suggestions; use whatever words you will, it all resolves itself to one point. He temporarily dominated the consciousness of others, making them, for the time being, obey and express his own thoughts and desires.

Being shut out from the a.s.sociation and companionship of his family, he chafed, fretted and suffered as only such a nature as his can suffer. He was pursued by pictures of Clarissa's leaving him again and misery of the darkest type settled upon his soul.

His wife was the one object of adoration in his life. He loved his children as well as any man loves his children, and would gladly have suffered to spare them suffering, but never could they occupy their mother's place in his affections, or satisfy his soul's hunger. They could do this better than another woman could, because they were hers; they were a part of her--an expression of their mutual love; therefore, he prized their comfort and welfare beyond his own, but Clarissa was the object of his veneration.

Her smile and approval gauged his happiness. That he was not equally necessary to her tortured him.

Never had she bestowed upon him the same degree of affection he had proffered her. He was satisfied and happy if he had her, but she was not equally contented; after the children came, her first thought was of them, and their happiness, and what time and affection they did not require, she gave to him. He was an unusually jealous and exacting man, and could not help feeling jealous of even his children, for he wanted to be first in her affections and interest, and the thought she should again leave him alone was simply maddening.

This second separation would be incomparably worse than the first. His love for her as a bride had not approached the degree and depth of the ardor he felt for the mother of his children. Having for so many years been deprived of her presence and love, he prized it more highly now than he could possibly have done in their early married days.

When he found no man had stepped between them in that first separation, he felt so relieved, so happy, so proud of his boy, he thought at first, he would be content with second place in her love; when little Clarissa came, she was only another object upon which to bestow his warm love, and he fervently believed her coming would cement and strengthen Clarissa's love for him, the father of her children.

His hopes had been rewarded in her early sickness, furnishing him a degree of happiness he had never before known; to be thus positively a.s.sured his presence was necessary to their happiness, and then, without warning, when he was planning to do his boy the greatest good possible to perform for him, she turned upon him like a tigress, banishing him from her presence, threatening to take her children and leave him again.

The first desolation had been bad enough, but the second would be infinitely worse. Had he been selfish, cross, jealous or exacting, he could have endured this new and unexpected banishment better, but so far as he knew how, he had striven to make his family happy, consulting, in every instance, their pleasure before his own.

Since she had returned to him, Clarissa herself had been the dictator; he had faithfully kept his promise she should reign and not he, only intruding upon her presence and life when she gave him permission. They had both, he knew, been happier in their reunion than in their first union, or marriage.

Clarissa had proven her love to him many ways. He could not doubt her loyalty to him, and that was what puzzled him. He had not the smallest shadow of a doubt she loved him only, considering other men as his opponents but why--why did she threaten to leave him, when he spoke of trying to heal Augustus?

He repeated over and over to himself that he would not be jealous of his own children, knowing he had no occasion to be jealous of anyone else.

He was sorry he had spoken so harshly to her. She was ill and nervous and knew very little about mesmeric influence.

Truly, he had no real distinct memory of what he had said. When she was a little stronger, he would go to her and ask her pardon and a.s.sistance to help Augustus, that he, an innocent victim, should not pay his father's debt of jealousy and injustice. As William thought this out, he did not realize what a growth in real true love it proclaimed.

Studying them from a psychologist's standpoint, it is easy to understand the cause of the phenomena that disconcerted and puzzled him. He was, at the time of the baby's sickness, throwing the full and complete might of his practiced will into the thoughts of demanding his wife to send for him, thinking he would rather be in her presence even though she were psychologized than banished from it as he was now.

She was holding the baby close to her, just at that time, thinking how she should plan out the future so her darlings should be best situated.

Suddenly she felt the strong, magnetic power which she knew so well from her experience with it, producing in her head, a dizzy sensation.

Believing he was going to carry out his threat to make her fear her children's presence, (for she knew it was his thought waves), she drew her baby still closer to her, in defiance, while her eyes at once sought Augustus' face to see if he was in any way affected.

She had no concern for the baby who was feeding from her breast; her one thought was of Augustus. He was the one his father had threatened to mesmerize; he should not do it while she was alive. Augustus sat drawing before her. He was irritable and cross, for he had wanted to go and see Merle, but his mother had insisted upon his staying with her.

Well as he loved to draw, the enjoyment vanished when he was crossed in his desires and compelled to draw. His face was the picture of disappointment. His mother's anxious scrutiny marked the pallor and symptoms of yielding to what she thought his father's mesmeric influence.