Chapter 5 No.5

"Get up from this wet ground, you fellow! How did you ever come here in this beastly weather?" He heard a deep sympathetic voice by his side. Awakened from his swoon, soon he looked amazed around him. What had happened? He did not know at all. His limbs were helpless and he lay on the ground where he must have fallen. His treasured source of income, his precious book, containing all his humorous lectures, lay rain-soaked near his side. How long he had been lying there unconscious, he did not know himself.

A slim well-dressed man stood before him, doing his best to help him get up and trying to comfort him as much as he could, shaking his head wonderingly, and inquiring how he ever happened to be lost in such a place.

The lecturer looked about him with great relief. He did not see the gnomes anywhere. So it was not true what they told him, what they sneered at-

His heart rejoiced. It was only a hallucination, nothing else. All he had seen and heard must have been a stupid fancy of his tired brain. The best proof was, that he found himself lying helplessly on the ground, just awakening from a swoon.

Yes, the condition of his brain was at fault; that was as clear as daylight. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, while a feeling of unspeakable joy surged through his heart, now gladdened with thankfulness.

"I came near believing all that stupid nonsense of those wicked gnomes about my--"

"Hey! listen to me, poor fellow! What in Heaven's name, are you doing here on that wet ground?"

It was not until the stranger by his side had repeated his question that he could pull himself together and answer in a stammering voice, while a cold shiver shook his emaciated frame.

He looked at the stranger with dilated eyes. "Beg pardon sir. I-I must have lost my way. I was to give a humorous lecture at a neighboring hotel, and-and fell down," he said helplessly, picking up his rain-soaked book, which he had discovered within reach.

"Why, you are wet through and through, my man. What can I do for you?" asked the stranger with deep sympathy.

A strange look of wonder illuminated the face of the downfallen man. He stammered: "If you would have the great kindness to help bring me to the Mountain View Hotel. You see, I am expected there. I've got to earn some money tonight yet." He paused to cough; his voice seemed sepulchral.

"I have a motherless child to support." His head was bent to hide his emotion. "My girlie must have all she needs. I-I couldn't stand it if they were to let her go hungry. God!" Again a vehement cough shook his wasted frame.

"Well, well, this turns out all right. I'll bring you there as we are staying in the same hotel."

"He's got fever, sir-better let's get him on the box," he heard the coachman say who stood by his side looking with obvious pity at the man before him.

A few paces away, a closed carriage was standing with two lighted lanterns in front of it.

The storm had relented for a while, and mysterious silence fell upon the scene.

"Ogden!" now called out an excited woman's voice from within the carriage. "To miss the table d'hote on account of that wretched beggar. Why it's just unpardonable!"

"That voice!... God have mercy!"

The man on the ground stammered as if struck by lightning. His eyes dilated, starting out of their sockets and staring horrified at the carriage.

"That voice," he repeated. "Could it be possible? Could she be there? Am I still under the influence of that horrible hallucination?" he moaned piteously. He could not and would not believe a word of all they told him.

Again he seemed to hear the revolting chuckle of the insolent gnomes, from the Traunstein, repeating their malignant tales of the outrageous conduct of his-

"Up with you quickly, for we'll have more rain within a short time!" said Mr. Ogden, now in a sympathetic voice, and at the same time heeding the woman's command in the carriage, which he would not have ignored for any consideration.

The coachman assisted the stranger to his seat on the box, and then Mr. Ogden entered the carriage, closing the door carefully.

Then the splendid team of horses set off like the wind. "God have pity on me! that voice!"

He could never forget the voice of that alluring siren who had goaded him on, until he saw nothing but her seductive face, listened to nothing but her deceitful declarations of love, without thinking of his mother's grief and her death!

Could it be possible? She here in that closed carriage with another man? No, no! It was another hallucination of his feverish brain.

How could she ever have attained such wealth? "Nonsense!" he murmured smilingly to himself, drawing a long breath of relief. Ah! how he had adored that faithless woman!

The smiling expression died out of his face, and a mournful compassion for his deserted child stole into his troubled countenance. Why did she bring so much misery into his life? Every fibre of his noble heart had been throbbing with uncontrollable love for her! And now--the light of life, the hope of future years, was blotted out, clouds of despair and a grim night of an unbroken desolation fell like a pall on his heart and brain. Nothing to look forward to but misery!

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