“On the very afternoon,” Turl went on, “before the day when Davenport could have Mr. Bud's room to himself, Bagley sent for him in order to confide some business to his charge. This was a customary occurrence, and, rather than seem to act unusually just at that time, Davenport went and received Bagley's instructions. With them, he received a lot of money, in bills of large denomination, mostly five-hundreds, to be placed the next day for Bagley's use. In accepting this charge, or rather in passively letting it fall upon him, Davenport had no distinct idea as to whether he would carry it out. He had indeed little thought that evening of anything but his purpose, which he was to begin executing on the morrow. As not an hour was to be lost, on account of the time necessary for the healing of the operations, he would either have to despatch Bagley's business very quickly or neglect it altogether. In the latter case, what about the money in his hands? The sum was nearly equal to that which Bagley had morally defrauded him of.

“This coincidence, coming at that moment, seemed like the work of fate. Bagley was to be absent from town a week, and Murray Davenport was about to undergo a metamorphosis that would make detection impossible. It really appeared as though destiny had gone in for an act of poetic justice; had deliberately planned a restitution; had determined to befriend the new man as it had afflicted the old. For the new man would have to begin existence with a very small cash balance, unless he accepted this donation from chance. If there were any wrong in accepting it, that wrong would not be the new man's; it would be the bygone Murray Davenport's; but Murray Davenport was morally entitled to that much—and more—of Bagley's money. To be sure, there was the question of breach of trust; but Bagley's conduct had been a breach of friendship and common humanity. Bagley's act had despoiled Davenport's life of a hundred times more than this sum now represented to Bagley.

“Well, Davenport was pondering this on his way home from Bagley's rooms, when he met Larcher. Partly a kind feeling toward a friend he was about to lose with the rest of his old life, partly a thought of submitting the question of this possible restitution to a less interested mind, made him invite Larcher to his room. There, by a pretended accident, he contrived to introduce the question of the money; but you had no light to volunteer on the subject, Larcher, and Davenport didn't see fit to press you. As for your knowing him to have the money in his possession, and your eventual inferences if he should disappear without using it for Bagley, the fact would come out anyhow as soon as Bagley returned to New York. And whatever you would think, either in condemnation or justification, would be thought of the old Murray Davenport. It wouldn't matter to the new man. During that last talk with you, Davenport had such an impulse of communicativeness—such a desire for a moment's relief from his long-maintained secrecy—that he was on the verge of confiding his project to you, under bond of silence. But he mastered the impulse; and you had no sooner gone than he made his final preparations.

“He left the house next morning immediately after breakfast, with as few belongings as possible. He didn't even wear an overcoat. Besides the Bagley money, he had a considerable sum of his own, mostly the result of his collaboration with you, Larcher. In a paper parcel, he carried a few instruments from those he had kept since his surgical days, a set of shaving materials, and some theatrical make-up pencils he had bought the day before. He was satisfied to leave his other possessions to their fate. He paid his landlady in advance to a time by which she couldn't help feeling that he was gone for good; she would provide for a new tenant accordingly, and so nobody would be a loser by his act.

“He went first to a drug-store, and supplied himself with medicines of tonic and nutritive effect, as well as with antiseptic and healing preparations, lint, and so forth. These he had wrapped with his parcel. His reason for having things done up in stout paper, and not packed as for travelling, was that the paper could be easily burned afterward, whereas a trunk, boxes, or gripsacks would be more difficult to put out of sight. Everything he bought that day, therefore, was put into wrapping-paper. His second visit was to a department store, where he got the linen and other articles he would need during his seclusion,—sheets, towels, handkerchiefs, pajamas, articles of toilet, and so forth. He provided himself here with a complete ready-made 'outfit' to appear in immediately after his transformation, until he could be supplied by regular tailors, haberdashers, and the rest. It included a hat, shoes, everything,—particularly shoulder braces; he put those on when he came to be fitted with the suit and overcoat. Of course, nothing of the old Davenport's was to emerge with the new man.

“Well, he left his purchases to be called for. His paper parcel, containing the instruments, drugs, and so forth, he thought best to cling to. From the department store he went to some other shops in the neighborhood and bought various necessaries which he stowed in his pockets. While he was eating luncheon, he thought over the matter of the money again, but came to no decision, though the time for placing the funds as Bagley had directed was rapidly going by, and the bills themselves were still in Davenport's inside coat pocket. His next important call was at one of Clark & Rexford's grocery stores. He had got up most carefully his order for provisions, and it took a large part of the afternoon to fill. The salesmen were under the impression that he was buying for a yacht, a belief which he didn't disturb. His parcels here made a good-sized pyramid. Before they were all wrapped, he went out, hailed the shabbiest-looking four-wheeled cab in sight, and was driven to the department store. The things he had bought there were put on the cab seat beside the driver. He drove to the grocery store, and had his parcels from there stowed inside the cab, which they almost filled up. But he managed to make room for himself, and ordered the man to drive to and along South Street until told to stop. It was now quite dark, and he thought the driver might retain a less accurate memory of the exact place if the number wasn't impressed on his mind by being mentioned and looked for.

“However that may have been, the cab arrived at a fortunate moment, when Mr. Bud's part of the street was deserted, and the driver showed no great interest in the locality,—it was a cold night, and he was doubtless thinking of his dinner. Davenport made quick work of conveying his parcels into the open hallway of Mr. Bud's lodging-house, and paying the cabman. As soon as the fellow had driven off, Davenport began moving his things up to Mr. Bud's room. When he had got them all safe, the door locked, and the gas-stove lighted, he unbuttoned his coat and his eye fell on Bagley's money, crowding his pocket. It was too late now to use it as Bagley had ordered. Davenport wondered what he would do with it, but postponed the problem; he thrust the package of bills out of view, behind the books on Mr. Bud's shelf, and turned to the business he had come for. No one had seen him take possession of the room; no eye but the cabman's had followed him to the hallway below, and the cabman would probably think he was merely housing his goods there till he should go aboard some vessel in the morning.

“A very short time would be employed in the operations themselves. It was the healing of the necessary cuts that would take weeks. The room was well enough equipped for habitation. Davenport himself had caused the gas-stove to be put in, ostensibly as a present for Mr. Bud. To keep the coal-stove in fuel, without betraying himself, would have been too great a problem. As for the gas-stove, he had placed it so that its light couldn't reach the door, which had no transom and possessed a shield for the keyhole. For water, he need only go to the rear of the hall, to a bath-room, of which Mr. Bud kept a key hung up in his own apartment. During his secret residence in the house, Davenport visited the bath-room only at night, taking a day's supply of water at a time. He had first been puzzled by the laundry problem, but it proved very simple. His costume during his time of concealment was limited to pajamas and slippers. Of handkerchiefs he had provided a large stock. When the towels and other articles did require laundering, he managed it in a wash-basin. On the first night, he only unpacked and arranged his things, and slept. At daylight he sat down before a mirror, and began to design his new physiognomy with the make-up pencils. By noon he was ready to lay aside the pencils and substitute instruments of more lasting effect. Don't fear, Miss Hill, that I'm going to describe his operations in detail. I'll pass them over entirely, merely saying that after two days of work he was elated with the results he could already foresee upon the healing of the cuts. Such pain as there was, he had braced himself to endure. The worst of it came when he exchanged knives for tweezers, and attacked his eyebrows. This was really a tedious business, and he was glad to find that he could produce a sufficient increase of curve without going the full length of his design. In his necessary intervals of rest, he practised the new handwriting. He was most regular in his diet, sleep, and use of medicines. After a few days, he had nothing left to do, as far as the facial operations were concerned, but attend to their healing. He then began to wear the shoulder-braces, and took up the matter of voice.

“But meanwhile, in the midst of his work one day,—his second day of concealment, it was,—he had a little experience that produced quite as disturbing a sensation in him as Robinson Crusoe felt when he came across the footprints. While he was busy in front of his mirror, in the afternoon, he heard steps on the stairs outside. He waited for them, as usual, to pass his door and go on, as happened when lodgers went in and out. But these steps halted at his own door, and were followed by a knock. He held his breath. The knock was repeated, and he began to fear the knocker would persist indefinitely. But at last the steps were heard again, this time moving away. He then thought he recognized them as yours, Larcher, and he was dreadfully afraid for the next few days that they might come again. But his feeling of security gradually returned. Later, in the weeks of his sequestration in that room, he had many little alarms at the sound of steps on the stairs and in the passages, as people went to and from the rooms above. This was particularly the case after he had begun the practice of his new voice, for, though the sound he made was low, it might have been audible to a person just outside his door. But he kept his ear alert, and the voice-practice was shut off at the slightest intimation of a step on the stairs.

“The sound of his voice-practice probably could not have been heard many feet from his door, or at all through the wall, floor, or ceiling. If it had been, it would perhaps have seemed a low, monotonous, continuous sort of growl, difficult to place or identify.

“You know most speaking voices are of greater potential range than their possessors show in the use of them. This is particularly true of American voices. There are exceptions enough, but as a nation, men and women, we speak higher than we need to; that is, we use only the upper and middle notes, and neglect the lower ones. No matter how good a man's voice is naturally in the low register, the temptation of example in most cases is to glide into the national twang. To a certain extent, Davenport had done this. But, through his practice of singing, as well as of reading verse aloud for his own pleasure, he knew that his lower voice was, in the slang phrase, 'all there.' He knew, also, of a somewhat curious way of bringing the lower voice into predominance; of making it become the habitual voice, to the exclusion of the higher tones. Of course one can do this in time by studied practice, but the constant watchfulness is irksome and may lapse at any moment. The thing was, to do it once and for all, so that the quick unconscious response to the mind's order to speak would be from the lower voice and no other. Davenport took Mr. Bud's dictionary, opened it at U, and recited one after another all the words beginning with that letter as pronounced in 'under.' This he did through the whole list, again and again, hour after hour, monotonously, in the lower register of his voice. He went through this practice every day, with the result that his deeper notes were brought into such activity as to make them supplant the higher voice entirely. Pronunciation has something to do with voice effect, and, besides, his complete transformation required some change in that on its own account. This was easy, as Davenport had always possessed the gift of imitating dialects, foreign accents, and diverse ways of speech. Earlier in life he had naturally used the pronunciation of refined New Englanders, which is somewhat like that of the educated English. In New York, in his association with people from all parts of the country, he had lapsed into the slovenly pronunciation which is our national disgrace. He had only to return to the earlier habit, and be as strict in adhering to it as in other details of the well-ordered life his new self was to lead.

“As I said, he was provided with shaving materials. But he couldn't cut his own hair in the new way he had decided on. He had had it cut in the old fashion a few days before going into retirement, but toward the end of that retirement it had grown beyond its usual length. All he could do about it was to place himself between two mirrors, and trim the longest locks. Fortunately, he had plenty of time for this operation. After the first two or three weeks, his wounds required very little attention each day. His vocal and handwriting exercises weren't to be carried to excess, and so he had a good deal of time on his hands. Some of this, after his face was sufficiently toward healing, he spent in physical exercise, using chairs and other objects in place of the ordinary calisthenic implements. He was very leisurely in taking his meals, and gave the utmost care to their composition from the preserved foods at his disposal. He slept from nightfall till dawn, and consequently needed no artificial light. For pure air, he kept a window open all night, being well wrapped up, but in the daytime he didn't risk leaving open more than the cracks above and below the sashes, for fear some observant person might suspect a lodger in the room. Sometimes he read, renewing an acquaintance which the new man he was beginning to be must naturally have made, in earlier days, with Scott's novels. He had necessarily designed that the new man should possess the same literature and general knowledge as the bygone Davenport had possessed. For already, as soon as the general effect of the operations began to emerge from bandages and temporary discoloration, he had begun to consider Davenport as bygone,—as a man who had come to that place one evening, remained a brief, indefinite time, and vanished, leaving behind him his clothes and sundry useful property which he, the new man who found himself there, might use without fear of objection from the former owner.

“The sense of new identity came with perfect ease at the first bidding. It was not marred by such evidences of the old fact as still remained. These were obliterated one by one. At last the healing was complete; there was nothing to do but remove all traces of anybody's presence in the room during Mr. Bud's absence, and submit the hair to the skill of a barber. The successor of Davenport made a fire in the coal stove, starting it with the paper the parcels had been wrapped in; and feeding it first with Davenport's clothes, and then with linen, towels, and other inflammable things brought in for use during the metamorphosis. He made one large bundle of the shoes, cans, jars, surgical instruments, everything that couldn't be easily burnt, and wrapped them in a sheet, along with the dead ashes of the conflagration in the stove. He then made up Mr. Bud's bed, restored the room to its original appearance in every respect, and waited for night. As soon as access to the bath-room was safe, he made his final toilet, as far as that house was concerned, and put on his new clothes for the first time. About three o'clock in the morning, when the street was entirely deserted, he lugged his bundle—containing the unburnable things—down the stairs and across the street, and dropped it into the river. Even if the things were ever found, they were such as might come from a vessel, and wouldn't point either to Murray Davenport or to Mr. Bud's room.

“He walked about the streets, in a deep complacent enjoyment of his new sensations, till almost daylight. He then took breakfast in a market restaurant, after which he went to a barber's shop—one of those that open in time for early-rising customers—and had his hair cut in the desired fashion. From there he went to a down-town store and bought a supply of linen and so forth, with a trunk and hand-bag, so that he could 'arrive' properly at a hotel. He did arrive at one, in a cab, with bag and baggage, straight from the store. Having thus acquired an address, he called at a tailor's, and gave his orders. In the tailor's shop, he recalled that he had left the Bagley money in Mr. Bud's room, behind the books on the shelf. He hadn't yet decided what to do with that money, but in any case it oughtn't to remain where it was; so he went back to Mr. Bud's room, entering the house unnoticed.

“He took the money from the cover it was in, and put it in an inside pocket. He hadn't slept during the previous night or day, and the effects of this necessary abstinence were now making themselves felt, quite irresistibly. So he relighted the gas-stove, and sat down to rest awhile before going to his hotel. His drowsiness, instead of being cured, was only increased by this taste of comfort; and the bed looked very tempting. To make a long story short, he partially undressed, lay down on the bed, with his overcoat for cover, and rapidly succumbed.

“He was awakened by a knock at the door of the room. It was night, and the lights and shadows produced by the gas-stove were undulating on the floor and walls. He waited till the person who had knocked went away; he then sprang up, threw on the few clothes he had taken off, smoothed down the cover of the bed, turned the gas off from the stove, and left the room for the last time, locking the door behind him. As he got to the foot of the stairs, two men came into the hallway from the street. One of them happened to elbow him in passing, and apologized. He had already seen their faces in the light of the street-lamp, and he thanked his stars for the knock that had awakened him in time. The men were Mr. Bud and Larcher.”

Turl paused; for the growing perception visible on the faces of Florence and Larcher, since the first hint of the truth had startled both, was now complete. It was their turn for whatever intimations they might have to make, ere he should go on. Florence was pale and speechless, as indeed was Larcher also; but what her feelings were, besides the wonder shared with him, could not be guessed.