‘After life’s fitful fever, she sleeps well!’

The few days following the one on which the spiritualistic sÉance was held were passed by Bradley in a sort of dream. The more he thought of what he had heard and seen, the more puzzled he became. At times he seemed half inclined to believe in supernatural collaboration, then he flouted his belief and laughed contemptuously at himself. Of course it was all imposture, and he had been a dupe.

Then he thought of Eustasia, and the interest which she had at first aroused in him rapidly changed to indignation and contempt.

Very soon these people ceased to occupy his thoughts at all; so self-absorbed was he, indeed, in his own trouble that he forgot them as completely as if they had never been. After all they were but shadows which had flitted across his path and faded. Had he been left to himself he would assuredly never have summoned them up again.

But he was evidently too valuable a convert to be let go in that way. One morning he received the following note, written on delicate paper in the most fairylike of fragile hands:

‘My dear Mr. Bradley,—We hold a sÉance to-morrow night at six, and hope you’ll come; at least, I do! Salem don’t particularly want you, since you broke the conditions, and he regards you as a disturbing influence. I know better: the spirits like you, and I feel that with you I could do great things; so I hope you’ll be here.

‘Eustasia Mapleleafe.’

Bradley read the letter through twice, then he gazed at it for a time in trembling hesitation. Should he go? Why not? Suppose the people were humbugs, were they worse than dozens of others he had met? and they had at least the merit of bringing back to him the presence of the one being who was all in all to him. His hesitation lasted only for a moment—the repulsion came. He threw the letter aside.

À few days later a much more significant incident occurred. As Bradley was leaving his house one morning he came face to face with a veiled woman who stood before his door. He was about to pass: the lady laid a retaining hand upon his arm and raised her veil.

It was Eustasia.

‘Guess you’re surprised to see me,’ she said, noticing his start; ‘suppose I may come in, though, now I’m here?’

Bradley pushed open the door, and led the way to his study. Eustasia followed him; having reached the room, she sat down and eyed him wistfully.

‘Did you get my letter?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t answer it?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Bradley hesitated.

‘Do you want me to tell you?’ he said.

‘Why, certainly—else why do I ask you? but I see you don’t wish to tell me. Why?’

‘Because I dislike giving unnecessary pain.’

‘Ah! in other words you believe me to be a humbug, but you haven’t the cruelty to say so. Well, that don’t trouble me. Prove me to be one, and you may call me one, but give me a fair trial first.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come to some more of our sÉances, will you? do say you’ll come!’

She laid her hand gently upon his arm, and fixed her eyes almost entreatingly upon him. He stared at her like one fascinated, then shrank before her glance.

‘Why do you wish me to come?’ he said.

‘You know my thoughts and feelings on this subject. You and I are cast in different moulds; we must go different ways.’

She smiled sadly.

‘The spirits will it otherwise,’ she said; while under her breath she added, ‘and so do I.’

But he was in no mood to yield that day. As soon as Eustasia saw this she rose to go. When her thin hand lay in his, she said softly:

‘Mr. Bradley, if ever you are in trouble come to us; you will find it is not all humbug then!’

Eustasia returned home full of hope. ‘He will come,’ she said; ‘yes, he will assuredly come.’ But days passed, and he neither came nor sent; at last, growing impatient, she called again at his house; then she learned that he had left London.

‘He has flown from me,’ she thought; ‘he feels my influence, and fears it.’

But in this Eustasia was quite wrong. He was flying not from her but from himself. The wretched life of self-reproach and misery which he was compelled to lead was crushing him down so utterly that unless he made some effort he would sink and sicken. Die? Well, after all, that would not have been so hard; but the thought of leaving Alma was more than he could bear. He must live for the sake of the days which might yet be in store for them both.

He needed change, however, and he sought it for a few days on foreign soil. He went over one morning to Boulogne, took rooms in the HÔtel de Paris, and became one of the swarm of tourists which was there filling the place.

The bathing season was then at its height, and people were all too busy to notice him; he walked about like one in a dream, watching the pleasure-seekers, but pondering for ever on the old theme.

After all it was well for him that he had left England, he thought—the busy garrulous life of this place came as a relief after the dreary monotony of town. In the evenings he strolled out to the concerts or open-air dances, and observed the fisher girls, with their lovers moving about in the gaslight; while in the mornings he strolled about the sand watching with listless amusement the bathers who crowded down to the water’s edge like bees in swarming time.

One morning, feeling more sick at heart than usual, he issued from the hotel and bent his steps towards the strand. On that day the scene was unusually animated. Flocks of fantastically-dressed children amused themselves by making houses in the sand, while their bonnes watched over them, and their mammas, clad in equally fantastic costumes, besieged the bathing-machines. Bradley walked for a time on the sands watching the variegated crowd; it was amusing and distracting, and he was about to look around for a quiet spot in which he could spend an hour or so, when he was suddenly startled by an apparition.

A party of three were making their way towards the bathing-machines, and were even then within a few yards of him. One was a child dressed in a showy costume of serge, with long curls falling upon his shoulders; on one side of him was a French bonne, on the other a lady extravagantly attired in the most gorgeous of sea-side costumes. Her cheeks and lips were painted a bright red, but her skin was white as alabaster. She was laughing heartily at something which the little boy had said, when suddenly her eyes fell upon Bradley, who stood now within two yards of her.

It was his wife.

She did not pause nor shrink, but she ceased laughing, and a peculiar look of thinly veiled contempt passed over her face as she walked on.

‘Maman,’ said the child in French, ‘who is that man, and why did he stare so at you?’

The lady shrugged her shoulders, and laughed again.

‘He stared because he had nothing better to look at, I suppose, chÉri; but come, I shall miss my bath; you had best stay here with Augustine, and make sand-hills till I rejoin you. Au revoir, BÉbÉ.’

She left the child with the nurse, hastened on and entered one of the bathing-machines, which was immediately drawn down into the sea.

Bradley still stood where she had left him, and his eyes remained fixed upon the machine which held the woman whose very presence poisoned the air he breathed. All his old feelings of repulsion returned tenfold; the very sight of the woman seemed to degrade and drag him down.

As he stood there the door of the machine opened, and she came forth again. This time she was the wonder of all. Her shapely limbs were partly naked, and her body was covered with a quaintly cut bathing-dress of red. She called out some instructions to her nurse; then she walked down and entered the sea.

Bradley turned and walked away. He passed up the strand and sat down listlessly on one of the seats on the terrace facing the water. He took out Alma’s last letter, and read it through, and the bitterness of his soul increased tenfold.

When would his misery end? he thought. Why did not death come and claim his own, and leave him free? Wherever he went his existence was poisoned by this miserable woman.

‘So it must ever be,’ he said bitterly. ‘I must leave this place, for the very sight of her almost drives me mad.’

He rose and was about to move away, when he became conscious, for the first time, that something unusual was taking place. He heard sounds of crying and moaning, and everybody seemed to be rushing excitedly towards the sand. What it was all about Bradley could not understand, for he could see nothing. He stood and watched; every moment the cries grew louder, and the crowd upon the sands increased. He seized upon a passing Frenchman, and asked what the commotion meant.

‘Ras de marÉe, monsieur!’ rapidly explained the man as he rushed onward.

Thoroughly mystified now, Bradley resolved to discover by personal inspection what it all meant. Leaving the terrace he leapt upon the shore, and gained the waiting crowd upon the sand. To get an explanation from anyone here seemed to be impossible, for every individual member of the crowd seemed to have gone crazy. The women threw up their bands and moaned, the children screamed, while the men rushed half wildly about the sands.

Bradley touched the arm of a passing Englishman.

‘What is all this panic about?’ he said.

‘The ras de marÉe!’ r Yes, but what is the ras de marÉe?’

‘Don’t you know? It is a sudden rising of the tide; it comes only once in three years. It has surprised the bathers, many of whom are drowning. See, several machines have gone to pieces, and the others are floating like driftwood! Yonder are two boats out picking up the people, but if the waves continue to rise like this they will never save them all. One woman from that boat has fainted; no, good heavens, she is dead.’

The scene now became one of intense excitement. The water, rising higher and higher, was breaking now into waves of foam; most of the machines were dashed about like corks upon the ocean, their frightened occupants giving forth the most fearful shrieks and cries. Suddenly there was a cry for the lifeboat; immediately after it dashed down the sand, drawn by two horses, and was launched out upon the sea; while Bradley and others occupied themselves in attending to those who were laid fainting upon the shore.

But the boats, rapidly as they went to work, proved insufficient to save the mass of frightened humanity still struggling with the waves. The screams and cries became heartrending as one after another sank to rise no more. Suddenly there was another rush.

‘Leave the women to attend to the rescued,’ cried several voices. ‘Let the men swim out to the rescue of those who are exhausted in the sea.’

There was a rush to the water; among the first was Bradley, who, throwing off his coat, plunged boldly into the water. Many of those who followed him were soon overcome by the force of the waves and driven back to shore; but Bradley was a powerful swimmer, and went on.

He made straight for a figure which, seemingly overlooked by everyone else, was drifting rapidly out to sea. On coming nearer he saw, by the long black hair, which floated around her on the water, that the figure was that of a woman. How she supported herself Bradley could not see; she was neither swimming nor floating; her back was towards him, and she might have fainted, for she made no sound.

On coming nearer he saw that she was supporting herself by means of a plank, part of the debris which had drifted from the broken machines. By this time he was quite near to her;—she turned her face towards him, and he almost cried out in pain.

He recognised his wife!

Yes, there she was, helpless and almost fainting—her eyes were heavy, her lips blue; and he seemed to be looking straight into the face of death. Bradley paused, and the two gazed into each other’s eyes. He saw that her strength was going, but he made no attempt to put out a hand to save her. He thought of the past, of the curse this woman had been to him; and he knew that by merely doing nothing she would be taken from him.

Should he let her die? Why not? If he had not swum out she most assuredly would have sunk and been heard of no more. Again he looked at her and she looked at him: her eyes were almost closed now: having once looked into his face she seemed to have resigned all hopes of rescue.

No, he could not save her—the temptation was too great. He turned and swam in the direction of another figure which was floating helplessly upon the waves. He had only taken three strokes when a violent revulsion of feeling came; with a terrible cry he turned again to the spot where he had left the fainting and drowning woman. But she was not there—the plank was floating upon the water—that was all.

Bradley dived, and reappeared holding the woman in his arms. Then he struck out with her to the shore.

It was a matter of some difficulty to get there, for she lay like lead in his hold. Having reached the shore, he carried her up the beach, and placed her upon the sand.

Then he looked to see if she was conscious.

Yes, she still breathed;—he gave her some brandy, and did all in his power to restore her to life. After a while she opened her eyes, and looked into Bradley’s face.

‘Ah, it is you! she murmured faintly, then, with a long-drawn sigh, she sank back, dead!

Still dripping from his encounter with the sea, his face as white as the dead face before him, Bradley stood like one turned to stone. Suddenly he was aroused by a heartrending shriek. The little boy whom he had seen with the dead woman broke from the bauds of his nurse, and sobbing violently threw himself upon the dead body.

‘Maman! maman!’ he moaned.

The helpless cries of the child forced upon Bradley the necessity for immediate action. Having learned from the nurse the address of the house where ‘Mrs. Montmorency’ was staying, he had the body put upon a stretcher and conveyed there. He himself walked beside it, and the child followed, screaming and crying, in his nurse’s arms.

Having reached the house, the body was taken into a room to be properly dressed, while Bradley tried every means in his power to console the child! After a while he was told that all was done, and he went into the chamber of death.