"Why don't you have a try yourself, Sir William," he said, with a not very friendly grin; "or won't what d'you call 'em work for its master?
You had my thoughts for nothing, I'll give you twopence for yours."
There was an ill-suppressed titter from the more frivolous portion of the spectators; but Lord Malvin turned round and looked at the young man with a frown of disapproval. There was something in that leonine head and those calm wise eyes which compelled him to silence.
Then Herr Schmoulder, a famous savant from Berlin, spoke.
"It would an interesting demonstration make," he said, "of der statement of der relative power that the strong and weak brain possesses if we could see der apparatus in operation upon der thought vibrations transformed of an intelligence which not equal to our own is."
Mrs. Hoskin-Heath chimed in, her beautiful, silvery notes coming, after the deep, grave, guttural, like a peal of bells heard in the lull of a thunderstorm.
"What a _good_ idea, Sir William!" she said. "I wish you would let me send for my footman. He is sure to be in the servants' hall. It would be so interesting to know his real opinion of me and my husband; and he certainly is a most consummate fool, and would be a thoroughly good subject for such an experiment. I brought him out of Gloucestershire.
You know, he was one of the under-footmen at my brother's place, and I have been trying to train him, though with little success. I mean that he is too stolid to be shy, and, therefore, won't object at all, as some men would, to put the cap on and sit down here in the dark. He won't be frightened, I am sure."
"By all means, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath," Gouldesbrough said with a smile. "No doubt one could not have a better subject, and I really shall be able to illustrate the difference between the relative values of brain-power by this means. You will all be able to notice the difference in the vividness and outline of the pictures or words that will appear."
Sir William turned round for Wilson Guest, whom he proposed to send upon the mission, but could not find him.
"I will ring for the butler," he said, "and tell him to fetch your man, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath."
"Oh! don't do that," a voice said upon the second tier.
"I--I--am--er--not feeling very well, Sir William, and I was going to ask your permission to go and sit down in the hall for a few minutes; I will tell one of your servants, they are sure to be about."
The voice was the voice of Donald Megbie. He did not look at all ill, but he stepped down with a smile and went out of the laboratory, while everybody waited for the advent of Mrs. Hoskin-Heath's footman.
Once more Sir William looked round to see if Wilson Guest had returned.
The actual projecting apparatus by which the transformed light rays were thrown upon the screen required some attention. The delicate apparatus which focussed the lens of the projector, in order to bring it into the nearest possible co-ordination with the light which it had to magnify and transmit, needed some little care.
"Will you excuse me for a moment," he said to everybody there, "if I leave you in darkness again, until the man comes? I wish to attend to a portion of the mechanism here, and I can only do so by turning off the lights."
There was a chorus of "Oh, please do so, Sir William," and suddenly the laboratory was once more plunged into utter blackness.
Nobody talked much now, curiously enough. For a moment there was nothing heard but the regular beating of Lady Poole's fan, and one whispering conversation which might, or might not, have been carried on between Lord Landsend and Mrs. Hoskin-Heath.
Then the thunder, which had been quiet for a little time, began to mutter once more. The dark air became hot and full of oppression. And in the dark Lord Malvin took the hand of Marjorie Poole in his own. "Be brave," he said into her ear. "I know what you must suffer, believing what you believe."
She whispered back to him.
"I have known it ever since I have been in this place," she said. "Oh!
Lord Malvin, I have known it quite certainly, _Guy is in this house_!"
"Donald Megbie has gone out, as you saw just now," he answered. "Be brave! be strong! I believe that God is guiding you. I too have felt the psychic influence of something strange and very, very terrible in the air of this house."
In a moment more the beginning of the end came. The great twelve-foot circle of light flashed out upon the screen, but now with an extraordinary brightness and vividness, such as the spectators had not seen before during the course of the experiments. For a space of, perhaps, ten seconds, there was no sound at all. Nobody quite realized that anything out of the ordinary was happening, except possibly the scientists, who had a complete grasp of the mechanical methods of the experiments and realized that in this room, at any rate, no one was wearing the cap.
There was a loud cry of astonishment, and, so it seemed, of alarm.
Sharply outlined against the brilliant circle, sharply outlined in a gigantic shape, and standing full in the screen of the light that streamed from the lens of the projector, the spectators saw that Sir William Gouldesbrough was standing. They caught a glimpse of his face.
It was a face like the face of a dead man. His arms were whirling in the air like mills, and then as a cry died away in mournful echoes in the high roof of the laboratory, there was a dead sound as the figure of the scientist disappeared and fell out of the circle of light upon the floor.
Upon the screen itself there came a picture. It was the picture of a girl, but of a girl with a face so sweetly tender and compassionate, so irradiated with utter confidence and trust, so pained and yet so tender, that no painter had ever put so wonderful a thing on canvas, and no Madonna in the galleries of the world was more beautiful or more kind.
And the face was one that they all knew well and recognized in a moment.
It was the face of one of them, the face of Marjorie Poole, and it was so beautiful because it was painted by an artist whose pictures have never before appealed so poignantly to human eyes--it was painted by despairing Love itself.
At that marvellous sight, a sight which none of those present ever forgot in after life, a strange cry went up into the high-domed roof. It was a cry uttered by many voices and in many keys. There was a gasp of excitement and of fear, shrill women's tones, the guttural of the Teuton, the bass of the startled Englishmen, the high, staccato cry of the Latin, as the French savants joined in it.
But in whatever key the exclamations were pitched, they all blended into something like a wail, a composite, multiple thing, the wail of a company of people who had seen something behind the Veil for the first time in their lives.
The picture glowed and looked out at them in all its ineffable tenderness and glory, and then grew dim, trembled, dissolved, and melted away.
Then upon the screen came words, terrible, poignant words--
"MARJORIE, MARJORIE DEAR, I KNOW THAT YOU ARE NEAR ME, NOW IN BODY AS YOU ARE ALWAYS NEAR ME IN THOUGHTS. I FEEL IT, I KNOW IT, AND EVEN IN THIS CRUEL PRISON, THIS HOPELESS PRISON, WHERE I AM DYING, AND SHALL SHORTLY DIE, I KNOW THAT YOU ARE NEAR ME IN BODY, AND IN THAT SPIRIT YOU ARE ALWAYS MINE AND I AM ALWAYS YOURS. LOVE, IF THE THOUGHTS THAT THEY ARE ROBBING ME OF, IF THE THOUGHTS THAT FILL MY MIND, AND WHICH THOSE TWO FIENDS ARE PROBABLY LOOKING AT AND LAUGHING OVER, HAVE ANY POWER AT ALL, THEN I SEND THEM TO YOU WITH MY LAST EFFORT, IN ONE LAST ATTEMPT TO REACH YOU AND TO SAY THAT I LOVE YOU AND TO SAY GOOD-BYE."
The circle of white light grew dimmer. Faint, eddying spirals of something that seemed like smoke rose up and obscured the words. They saw an ashen vapour of grey creep over the circle, as the shadow of the moon creeps over the sun at an eclipse. Then the circle disappeared finally, and they were left once more in the dark.
In the dark, indeed, but not in silence. A tumult of agonized voices filled the laboratory. And over them all a brave voice beat in upon the sound with the strong and regular assurance of a great bell, a bell like the mighty mass of metal which hangs in the ancient belfry of Bruges.
Lord Malvin was calling to them to be calm and silent, was telling them that he knew what all this meant and that they must be of courage and good cheer.
Then some one struck a match. It was Lord Landsend, his face very white and serious. He held it up above his head and called to Lord Malvin.
"Here you are, Sir," he said. "I will get down to you in a second. Then we can find the switch to turn on the electric light."
He stumbled down to where Lord Malvin sat,--showing the value of the practical man and polo player in a crisis--and together the two peers, the famous and honoured scientist and the wealthy young man whom the world flattered and called _dilettante_ and a fool, went their way to the switch-table in the guiding light of this small torch.
Suddenly a blaze of light dispelled the darkness and showed a company of ghosts looking at each other with weeping faces.
It showed also the figure of a girl sunk upon its chair in a deadly swoon. And it showed also the body of Sir William Gouldesbrough lying upon the floor between the series of machines and the screen upon the opposite wall. The dead face was so horrible that some one ran up immediately and covered it with a handkerchief.
This was Lord Landsend.
The tumult was indescribable, but by sheer power of authority and wisdom Lord Malvin calmed them all. His hand was raised as the hand of a conductor holds the vehemence of a band in check.
In a few short trenchant sentences he told them the history of the strange occurrence which Donald Megbie and Mrs. Poole had brought to his notice; and even as he told them, Sir Harold Oliver and Lady Poole were bringing back the unconscious girl to life and realization.
"The man is here," Lord Malvin said, "the man is here. Guy Rathbone lies dying and prisoned in this accursed house. Sir Harold Oliver, I will ask you to remain with these ladies while I will go forth and solve this horrid mystery."
He looked round with a weary, questioning eye, seeking who should be his companion, and as he did so young Lord Landsend touched him on the arm and smiled.
"Come, my dear boy," the old man said with a melancholy smile of kindness, "you are just the man I want; come with me."
Then, before he left the laboratory, he spoke a few rapid words in French to one or two of the foreign scientists.
Upon that, these gentlemen went down among the strange and fantastic apparatus upon the tables and lifted up That which but a few minutes ago had held the soul and the personality of Sir William Gouldesbrough. They carried the long, limp, terrible dead Thing to the other end of the room, where there was a screen.