The Lampasas Daily Leader (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 186, Ed. 1 Friday, October 9, 1931 Page: 3 of 4
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i
THE LAMPASAS LEADER
TheTracerofEoos
Chronicles of Dr. Phileas Immanuel, Soul Specialist
Bg VICTOR ROUSSEAU
?
THE RETURN OF CLAUDIA
•J—>yAUL Tarrant, the millionaire,
I_} and I had received invitations
from Dr. Phileas Immanuel to a
little dinner which he intended
to give in his apartments at the “Mon-
ticello.” We were to meet a patient
of his, and the Doctor had intimated
that the case possessed unusual and
Interesting features. 'We arrived al-
most together and were shown up to
the Doctor’s quarters, where we were
introduced to a Mr. Robinson and Miss
Gladys Aldyne, his fiancee. Miss Al-
dyne, was a charming girl, of the
sweetest and liveliest nature, and we
all got on capitally together.
“Mr. Robinson is one of my oldest
friends,” explained the Doctor. “In
fact, I facilitated at his present incar-
nation, when his father was Consul-
General at Athens, twenty-six years
ago.”
“I trust you will facilitate at many
incarnations more,” said Seth Robin-
son, quizzing the little Greek. “If you
hadn’t that reincarnation craze, Doc-
tor, I should call you a really great
man. And if you can cure my trou-
ble,” he added in a low voice, with
an involuntary glance at Miss Aldyne,
“I shall consider you the most won-
derful man alive.”
Dinner was served and proved ex-
cellent. The Doctor had some huge
ripe Peloponnesus olives, I rempmber,
and the taste of them and of his wine
I, lingers in my mouth yet. I noticed,
however, that he would not let Miss
Aldyne have any wine.
“Fill my glass, please,” said she to
the servant; and when the man drew
near the Doctor held up his finger.
“No!” he said curtly.
The change in Miss Aldyne’s ex-
pression was astounding. I was to-
tally unprepared for such a glance as
ehe shot at Immanuel, or for the ex-
plosion that followed.
“You are forgetting yourself!” she
exclaimed, starting up in her chair,
and pointing her finger at him with
a gesture of the utmost approbrium.
“How dare you say that I am not to
have wine! Are you out of your
^senses?”
“No wine,” replied the Doctor bland-
[jly, and the servant withdrew. Miss
[Aldyne stood gfaring at him for a full
Fhalf minute, the Doctor returning her
gaze with an expression of polite de-
termination. Then Miss Aldyne sat
down with a bewildered air, and a
moment later was chatting as natur-
ally as ever. I was convinced that she
•had totally forgotten her outburst.
It must have been so, for when we
rose, from the table, waiving the privi-
lege of our smoke, Miss Aldyne took
the Doctor by the arm and hugged it.
‘Dear Dr. Immanuel, you are so good
to us all,” she said. “Do you know,
j Mr. Tarrant, he insists that I am a
i patient of his and suffer from neuras-
thenia. Seth brought me to him, and
11 think I allow the relationship of doc-
Itor and patient to continue because I
I can’t bear the thought of ever losing
him.”
“You’ll never lose me, my dear, pa-
tient or no patient,” answered Im-
(- manuel, patting her hand. “Well, let’s
go in.”
A pleasant chat followed, perhaps
of an hour’s duration. Then occurred
another singular outburst on Miss Al-
dyne’s part which positively horrified
me.
She had been turning over the
pages of a photograph album, contain-
ing snapshots taken by the Doctor in
India, and had been chatting with us
in the most natural way in the world.
Suddenly something happened. I re-
alized that the atmosphere had be-
come tense. Dr. Immanuel was the
first to notice the change. He crossed
the room hurriedly and took the album
from the girl’s hands. As he did so I
saw that she had been looking at a
photograph showing a temple filled
with images of gods.
“Let me show you something else,”
said Dr. Immanuel.
The girl did not answer him. She
was standing up stiffly, and looking at
Mr. Robinson with the utmost hatred.
She did not notice Immanuel at all.
Her hate seemed too intense for
words, and the poor fellow hung his
head shamefacedly. Evidently it was
an accustomed scene; in her hyster-
ical moods, I imagined she became ab-
normal in this manner. Miss Aldyne
crossed the room toward Seth Robin-
son, her arm aloft, as though she
wielded a whip and he were her slave.
Then Immanuel interposed.
“Sit down in that chair!” he com-
manded curtly.
Miss Aldyne turned on him; she
seemed about to obey; when all in an
instant she had driven her fist into
the Doctor’s face and knocked him
down. It was a splendid manifesta-
tion of strength, and delivered with
a singular deliberation, as though Miss
Aldyne were accustomed to knock
down all who offended her.
We all stood rooted to our places.
Dr. Immanuel rose up slowly. There
was a fleck of blood upon his lip,
where the blow had fallen. As he got
on his feet, however, Miss Aldyne
L sprang toward him with an expression
of the utmost concern; again she was
the happy, vivacious girl of two min-
utes before.
“O, dear Doctor, did you hurt your-
self?” she asked solicitously. “You
must have tripped over the fringe of
the rug. I hopq you are not hurt. No
—yes, there is a mark on your lip;
it is bleeding.”
“It is nothing,” answered the Doctor
calmly. “Won’t you all sit down,
please?” he continued. “It was all my
fault; I shouldn’t have left those grue-
some Indian photographs lying about,”
he whispered to Robinson, and the
poor fellow nodded miserably.
Half an hour later the couple de-
parted, she clinging to his arm and
looking up into his face with manifest
adoration, he obviously enthralled by
her, and trying to conceal the unhap-
piness about which she rallied him.
When he had seen them to the
door, Dr. Immanuel came back. We
sat round his fireplace and clipped
off the ends of our perfeetos.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Immanuel,
leaning against the mantel, which was
too high for him, and made him look
like a benefieient gnome, “I told you
that this case possessed interesting
features.”
“Yes,” answered Tarrant, “you did.
What is it? Demoniacal possession?”
“Pooh!” answered the Doctor light-
ly. “I don’t believe in that.”
“The New Testament is full of it”
“Yes, but the demon of those times
did not correspond to what we call
the evil spirit,” answered the Doctor.
“The demon, or daemon, as it was
spelled, was simply an inner monitor,
a friend who watched over one. So-
crates had his demon who always ad-
vised him when he was in doubt
Don’t you remember, in that splendid
speech of his before the judges who
sentenced him to death, he refused to
purchase his life by ceasing to preach,
and told them that he believed death
must be a good thing, because his de-
mon had not dissuaded him from the
course he was taking? No, Tarrant—
there may be devils that take posses-
sion of human beings, but I am very,
very sceptical. What the evangelists
called demons were simply the pre-
vious personalities in the subjects,
trying to live’ again in their present
incarnation.” v
“You mean,” I said, “that Miss Ak
dyne’s personality in her previous ex-
istence is trying to oust the present
one?”
“Yes—precisely,” the Doctor an-
swered. “It’s succeeding, too. When
my friend Robinson brought her to
me she was simply moody and neuro-
tic. Now she is fast losing her mind.
The old personality is conquering the
present one. I am afraid I shall have
to kill it,” he continued- “But it’s a
hard thing to kill.”
As we made no reply, he continued:
“It’s a curious case, and yet many
of these cases of double personality
are reported from time to time. Us-
ually, however, they represent mere
fissures in the stream of the present
personality. There is the famous case
of Miss Beauchamp, for instance, to
be found in all) medical books upon
this subject, in which a single person-
ality divided into nine parts, many of
them hating and plaguing each other.
One of these personalities would take
possession of the, subject and stuff
beetles down her back, afterward
awakening the dominant self, which
had a horror of beetles.
“However, in this case we have to
deal with two antagonistic personal-
ities, one of which has lived its life
and has no business meddling here.
In the Miss Beauchamp case the prob-
lem was to unite the nine several
strands into one. Here it is to kill
the usurper. And I shall kill her—
that woman who knocked me down—
just ns easily as I would kill a rat.”
He looked like a fierce little fighter
as he stood there, clenching his fists
at the memory of the blow. And yet,
I don’t think Immanuel would -have
killed a rat. Stay, though, I remem-
ber now a certain story of a vivi-
section; but that has no place here.
“Did you ever read Hans Andersen’s
‘Fairy Tales’?” continued the Doctor.
“If so, you are acquainted with the
Danish legend which appears and re-
appears all through those stories of
the beautiful princess who was
changed at night into a malignant
devil, and this had to be killed or
exorcised before the hero could marry
his princess. Well, here is the case.
“Seth Robinson is a perfectly nor-
mal American gentleman of irre-
proachable character and unimagin-
ative mind. Who was he eighteen
hundred odd years ago? Probably a
simple Roman gentleman of the old,
fast vanishing school which had made
his country the ruler of the world.
Or, since he was born in Athens, per-
haps the last personality of Mr. Rob-
inson was an Athenian gentleman.
Whatever he was, his life was so nor-
mal and natural that his personality
disintegrated in the proper manner.
It can never be recalled.”
“You mean that his last personality
has utterly vanished?” asked Tar-
rant. “That is a hideous thought—
it means, annihilation.”
“No more so than that the actor is
annihilated when he strips off Othel-
lo’s mask or Hamlet’s doublet,” an-
swered ImmanueL . “Remember, Tar-
rant, all these succeeding personali-
ties are nothing but phantoms as-
sumed by the larger self, the soul.
You, for example, as Paul Tarrant, the
millionaire, will, I hope, utterly dis-
appear; but the underlying self, which
will enter into its own heritage at
death, will never die, though it may
subsequently assume a beggar’s robes
or a priest’s tonsure or a soldier’s
uniform. And it is right and proper
that the personality should disinte-
grate. Suppose the actor would not
lay aside his crown and robes when
the curtain went down; would we not
strip them from him with scant cere-
mony? Well, then, Miss Gladys Al-
dyne, that dear little patient of mine
who is so happy with Seth, shall not
be made the victim of her last person-
ality. I am going to kill it. And I
shall do so without compunction, for
Claudia is nothing but a phantom
which will not lay its trappings
aside.”
“Claudia?”
“Yes. That imperious, strong-fisted
Roman harridan, who knocked me
down because I would not give her
wine for dinner and so enable her
to assume the advantage over poor
Gladys Aldyne. I mastered her then—
but the unfortunate sight of that In-
dian temple reminded her of her own
temples in sunny Greece and enabled
her to take me at a disadvantage.”
“So Gladys Aldyne was that—Clau-
dia?”
“Unquestionably. And I think Seth
Robinson, whom she hates so bitterly,
was a lover that once rejected her.
She seems to love and hate him with
equal strength. Not much alike, the
pair, you say? Well, Hamlet is not
much like a clown, and yet we can
fwve.o.4 •
the art of appearing now without any
premonitory symptoms indicative of
the change, and she means to kill
Seth. Fortunately she exhausted her
capabilities for harm, temporarily,
with this act, and Gladys, finding her
lover bleeding upon the ground was
thrown into a condition resembling
catalepsy—really a neutral condition
in which neither of the personalities
could gain the advantage.
“Well, Seth is very fond of Gladys,
but of course he took a serious view
of the matter. He consulted me
about the advisability of breaking off
the engagement, and the upshot is
that I persuaded Miss Gladys to come
down here and rest for a month. Now
we have her we are going to keep
her till she is cured. Seth has gone
off to the Adirondacks, very misera-
ble, and that is the situation.”
“And you intend—”
“To kill Claudia tomorrow, or as
soon as she gives me the opportunity.
Confound that woman!” he added, in
a manner which would have been
amusing under other circumstances,
“what does she mean by trying to
murder Seth—the best fellow alive?
Why, she ought to have been in her
grave for eighteen hundred years.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t know that she
is dead,” I suggested, and a moment
afterward repented what seemed to
me a very foolish speech. But Im-
manuel1 looked at me in surprise.
“Why, my dear fellow, positively
that never occurred to me,” he said.
The sanitarium was a finely-located
new building, containing single rooms
and suites for the patients, set in the
midst of several acres of grounds,
and fronting on a small lake. There
was a small resident staff of physi-
“O, DEAR DOCTOR, DID YOU HURT YOURSELF?” SHE SAID SOLICI-
TOUSLY. “YOU MUST HAVE TRIPPED OVER THE FRINGE OF
THE RUG.”
conceive of an actor essaying both , clans and nurses, over whom Dr. Im-
parts. Perhaps Claudia was the vie-; manuel wielded unquestioned au-
tim of circumstances; perhaps Gladys i thority. I learned afterward that
Aldyne has in her the seeds of an
equally imperious nature. Anyway,
there you have the two women and
the man; and Claudia must be killed,
stripped of every vestige of person-
ality, and relegated to the phantasmal
these doctors were drawn from all
parts of the world, and consisted of
advanced thinkers, like himself; thus
any friction which might have been
caused by Dr. Immanuel’s unusual
theories was obviated. We were ac-
shadow-world to which she belongs, i corded rooms in the physicians’ part
Soon, gentlemen, I shall let you know
what my plans are.”
of the house, and met Miss Aldyne
at dinner an hour or twro later. She
We separated soon afterward. My | knew us immediately, and was very
wrnrk kept me busy for the next couple
of weeks, and I did not see Immanuel
at all until one evening I received
a telephone call from Paul Tarrant.
“Can you come down to Rutger s to-
morrow hnd stay over Sunday?” he
asked. “I have had a letter from our
friend Immanuel; he says that he
wants us to be his guests at a sani-
tarium there in which he seems to
have a controlling interest. I think,”
he added, “that he’ll have something
to tell us about that strange case we
saw at his rooms.”
Fortunately my work enabled me
to take the three days’ vacation. I
postponed my few engagements and
met Tarrant at the station on the
following morning. We ran down to
Rutger’s in about an hour and a quar-
ter. In the station was Immanuel
outside was' his dog-cart. Immanuel
had a horror of motor-cars.
“I’m glad you managed to come,”
he said, when we were seated and he
had touched up the pony. “You re-
member Miss Aldyne, poor girl?”
“Very well,” said Tarrant. “Have
you killed her double yet?”
The doctor did not smile at the
pleasantry.
“I’m sorry to say events have taken
a very bad turn,” he said. “Claudia
has become too strong for Gladys.
She tried to kill Robinson last week.”
• “To murder her fianefi?” exclaimed
Tarrant.
“Yes, and in the most diabolical
fashion—with a pair of shears. He
called on her when she was cutting
out patterns, and she was unusually
affectionate, he said, and ho w'as
thrown entirely off his guard. He
happened to turn suddenly and—well,
he was wearing an unusually broad
belt, but he has a nasty flesh wound
in the back. Claudia has mastered
merry over her situation
“You didn’t think, when last we
met—or first, rather—that our next
meeting would be in a lunatic asylum,
did you?” she said to me.
“O, come, Miss Gladys—not a luna-
tic asylum!” protested Immanuel.
“Well, Doctor; if some of these peo-
ple aren’t off their heads I don’t know
what is the matter with them,” she
answered, and I saw a momentary
expression of fear come into her
eyes.
“My dear Miss Gladys,” said Im-
manuel gently, leaning toward her,
“you trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she answered seriously; “but
why doesn’t Seth come to see me?”
“You don’t trust me, then?” asked
Dr. Immanuel.
“Of course I do,” she answered.
“But if you weren’t here—well, I
j should be terribly frightened. And
I you’ll tell me about Seth soon?”
j “My dear, in a couple of days I
think you shall see Seth for yourself
and have your fears allayed. Now—
will' you be cheerful till Monday?”
She nodded. Suddenly I felt—I saw
no change but felt—that sense of op-
pression again, as though something
malignant were near, something dan-
gerous and terrible. I think Tarrant
felt it, too. Miss Gladys had taken
up her knife to cut her portion of
meat; it slipped out of her hand, and
the fragment, with a little spray of
gravy, went into the face of the Doc-
tor, who was still leaning toward her.
He drew back hastily, wiping his
eyes, and Miss Aldyne was instantly
all apologies. But I knew and he
knew that it had been done on pur-
pose—and besides, this was not Miss
Aldyne.
No, and she did not come back all
during that evening. We sat with
her in her private apartment, watch-
ing her and each other like cats. She
chatted and gossiped—and all the
while her eyes were filled with fires
of slumbering hate. And presently I
began to notice that our conversation
was of a peculiarly restricted kind.
It never dealt with current events.
For instance, when Tarrant made
some passing allusion to the war in
China she looked at him without com-
prehension, and yet as though she
were on her guard and dimly aware
that something was wrong. And when
addressed as Miss Aldyne she an-
swered as though she had assumed
that name—that is the best way in
which I can explain the strange man-
ner of her speech.
“Well, Madam,” said Dr. Immanuel
presently, “you are so much better
that I think we can let you go home
tomorrow. You seem to have realized
now that your beliefs are only illu-
sions, have you not?”
“My beliefs?” she answered, as
though with an effort of thought.
“Yes—I think so.”
“For example, that absurd delusion
of yours that you have some outland-
ish name like Gladys, and that you
are engaged to your worst enemy—”
“Crassides!” she exclaimed, as
though the name had suddenly come
into her mind after she had long for-
gotten it.
“The man who insulted you and
spurned your love,” went on Im-
manuel remorselessly.
She clenched her fists and closed
her eyes and lay back in her chair,
apparently overcome with the most
intense accession of hatred.
“But he is dead!” she cried, start-
ing up suddenly, like a fury. “I pois-
oned him.”
“At the banquet?”
“What else should I have done?”
she cried. “Yes. I bade him to the
banquet and lavished caresses and
loving words on him. Then when the
wine was to be drunk I had set be-
fore him a goblet into which I had
poured Parisian poisons, so swift that
one dies instantly and without knowl-
edge of it. It had been my purpose
to give him that German drug which
brings a sure and lingering death. I
had wanted to gloat over him, dying
—but my heart misgave me. I could
not torture the body that I had loved.
So I chose Parisian poison, subtle and
very swift. And then I pledged him,
and we drank; I from my goblet of
pure wine and he from his poisoned
cup. And so he died.”
“Ah! You are sure he died?” asked
Immanuel keenly.
A convulsion seemed to seize her.
Her lips parted, she glared at him,
seemed about to answer—and then
Gladys Aldyne was looking out of her
eyes at us. She looked round blankly.
“Why, my dear Doctor, how in the
world did I get up here?” she asked.
“I thought we were at the dinner ta-
ble.”
“Ah! You forget,” answered the
Doctor lightly. “But your memory is
growing stronger, my dear. We’ll
have you out of here and back with
Seth next week. And now I am going
to send you to bed. You want all the
rest you can get. Good night.”
“Good night, Doctor,” she answered,
taking his hand in hers affectionately.
She bade us good night also, with less
spontaneity but much good -will, and
so we left her.
“Well, gentlemen,” said the Doc-
tor, as we lingered at his door, “to-
morrow I hope to exorcise Mademoi-
selle Claudia for ever. I have learned
quite a good deal about her. She was
the daughter of a Greek senator, an
only child, and mistress of a house-
hold of slaves, whom she abused in
quite the conventional fashion. Her
memory is pretty clear, but when she
spoke of Parisian and German drugs
there wras a little confusion—she
meant Egyptian and Scythian, proba-
bly. What part young Crassides
played in her affairs you learned this
evening. I have a certain theory
which I think will enable me to put
her back in the limbo to which she
belongs—but I have had a devil of a
time waking her up sufficiently to
learn her history. You won’t forget
that exquisite confession she made
about the poisoned cup? All right:
one word more. Tomorrow night we
four dine alone in a private dining
room which has something of the
character of a property room. There
I reconstruct my scenes for just such
occasions as this present one. And,
gentlemen, you will not see Miss
Gladys tomorrow before dinner—nor
Mademoiselle Claudia, either.”
Nor did 'we see the Doctor. We
spent the day strolling round the fine
grounds of the institution, and in
looking over the interior. The ar-
rangements were perfect, and the pa-
tients all sufferers from those- forms
of mental maladies in which Dr. Im-
manuel was a specialist. He did not,
I was told, take any incurable cases.
At six o’clock there came a tap at
my door. I opened it—to find the
Doctor standing outside, wearing a
long cloak which completely concealed
his figure. When he came in he threw
it off and disclosed himself in an
ancient Greek costume. And it suit-
ed him far better than modern clothes,
in which he always had the look of a
masquerader.
“I have brought you a tunic and
toga,” he said, depositing a bundle
upon the bed. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” I answered. “And
Tarrant—”
"I expect he has put his on al-
ready,” answered our host, laughing.
“By the way, you can preserve the il-
lusion? I have had the room fitted
with banqueting couches and aid the
apparatus. All right; take the pri-
vate stairway down and it is the third
room—the locked one.”
Half an hour later we were await-
ing Immanuel and his patient In a
room which might have been the in-
terior of a Greek J^ouse, so well was
the illusion maintained. I looked at
Tarrant, reclining on his divan, to
flowing robes of white, and he looked
at me.
“‘One man in his time plays many
parts,’ ” he quoted. “But, seriously, I
shouldn’t like my business friends to
see me now.”
Steps, as of clogs, were heard out-
side, and Immanuel' entered, in com-
pany with Miss Gladys, who was wear-
ing a gown with lace at the sleeves,
and a little pearl necklace, the gift of
Robinson. She looked at us in astonish-
ment; and when Immanuel threw off
his cloak and stood revealed in toga
and with sandaled feet her amaze-
ment was about equal to our sense of
playing the fool.
“Why, my dear Doctor—” she be-
gan.
“Never mind, never mjnd,” an-
swered Immanuel briskly. “This is
part of a play.”
“But, Doctor, I don’t understand. I
never heard of such a sanitarium as
you seem to run. Is this part of the
cure?”
The little doctor was staring at her
in disgust. Evidently the venemous
Claudia was wary and, tvarned by
some instinct of approaching danger,
absolutely refused to make her ap-
pearance. But Miss Gladys was al-
ways gentle.
“Well, Doctor,” she said, sitting
down on a carved chair which looked
like the section of a boat, “what is
my part? What am I to do?”
“Why, we will just have a little
visit;” answered Immanuel. He was
parrying to gain time. But even he
looked overwhelmed with confusion.
“What setting is this?” Miss Gladys
asked. “Ancient Roman?”
“Greek, my dear,” said the Doctor.
“Purely Greek. No doubt you your-
self once knew this setting very well.”
Miss Gladys laughed. “I see yott
will never get rid of that craze of
yours,” she said. “Do you know, Doc-
tor, sometimes I think you ought to-
be a patient here, instead of chief
physician.”
We twirled our thumbs. I tried, to
hide my bare feet under my flowing
robe. The minutes passed in desul-
tory conversation. The Doctor ros©
and, taking an amphora of wine from
an ancient stand, filled two chalices
of purple glass. “Will you drink with
me, Claudia?” he asked.
“Claudia!” said Miss Gladys, rising
up an.d looking at him with an ex-
pression of distinct terror.
Suddenly the tramp of heavy foot-
steps rang out on the flags. The door
opened. Seth Robinson burst in.
“I couldn’t stay away any longer,”
he burst out. “I’m going to take
Gladys away. I must, Doctor; I want
her and I’ve behaved like a cur when
she was in trouble, poor girl. I—”
Suddenly he perceived us in our
Greek attire, the couches, the am-
phora with the two cups, of wine. He
looked round in amazement, which
rapidly became anger. Dr. Immanuel
slipped behind him and I heard the
key click in the door.
“What is all this?” inquired Seth
Robinson angrily.
“Look behind you!” I yelled.
He leaped aside, and fortunately to
the right direction. There at his side
stood Claudia, livid with fury, her
fists clinched, her eyes blazing. A
surgeon’s scalpel was quivering to
the wall' opposite, in a direct line with
Robinson’s shoulder. She must have
hidden it before she entered.
Immanuel sprang to the table and
seized the cups of wine. He handed
one to Robinson. “Drink when I give
the signal,” he hissed in his ear.
“Don’t speak, don’t question; drink,
for all you want in the world depends
on it.”
Robinson, trembling, took the cup,
and the wine lapped over its edge as
he tried to steady it. To Claudia the
Doctor gave the other.
"Will you not drink with Cras-
sides?” he asked, assuming the atti-
tude of a toastmaster. He raised his
hand. “Face her, Seth,” he said to
a lower voice. The man and woman
were almost side by side. Claudia,
holding her cup extended in one hand,
with never a tremor of the glass,
placed the free arm round Robinson’s
neck. She looked lovingly and in-
quiringly at him. They raised their
glasses together and drained them.
Then Claudia dashed hers down on the
mosaic floor.
“You fool!” she hissed. “Now die,
you who scorned me!”
“O, come, Gladys, I never scorned
you,” said Seth Robinson in a sorrow-
ful voice. “Is that why you flung the
knife at me?”
The situation was on the verge of
pathos. But the denouement came so
swiftly that its instant purpose es-
caped me. I saw Immanuel spring to
Claudia’s side and whisper something
and point to Robinson, saw a look
of intense terror come into her eyes;
and then she went down, a crumpling
heap upon the floor.
“You’ve killed her,” shouted Robin-
son, leaping at Immanuel’s throat
“No, my dear boy, I have saved
her,” he answered, tenderly raising
the prostrate form. “Now carry her
out Gentlemen, disappear before sh©
recovers and sees you in that cos-
tume.” He locked the door and I saw-
him helping Robinson to place Miss
Aldyne on a couch in the hall. Then
as we ascended the private stairway
Immanuel came pattering after us.
“Victory!” he cried, seizing our
hands. “Already she is reviving, and
there isn’t any mistake about who
she is now, or who she is going to be.
Claudia is dead!”
“She may come back,” hazarded
Tarrant.
“No, my dear boy,” Immanuel an-
swered. “She’s dead now for ever.
You see,” he added, “one of her
slaves, who hated her, had changed
the cups, so that Crassides escaped
alive, and Claudia died so quickly that
she never knew she was dead. I’ve
just convinced her.”
(Copyright, 1917, by W. G. Chapman.)
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The Lampasas Daily Leader (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 186, Ed. 1 Friday, October 9, 1931, newspaper, October 9, 1931; Lampasas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth905710/m1/3/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Lampasas Public Library.