The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

while, she spoke in lowmelodious tones, which mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of thefalling water, until the two sounds became one. I heard in the murmur,I heard in the voice, these words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her handdropped from my bosom; a momentary obscurity passed like a flying shadowover the bright daylight in the room. I looked for her when the lightcame back. She was gone.

  My consciousness of passing events returned.

  I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that the eveningwas at hand. I saw the carriage approaching the summerhouse to take usaway. I felt my mother's hand on my arm, and heard her voice speakingto me anxiously. I was able to reply by a sign entreating her not to beuneasy about me, but I could do no more. I was absorbed, body and soul,in the one desire to look at the sketch-book. As certainly as I hadseen the woman, so certainly I had seen her, with my pencil in her hand,writing in my book.

  I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. I looked atthe blank space on the lower part of the page, under the foregroundlines of my unfinished drawing. My mother, following me, looked at thepage too.

  There was the writing! The woman had disappeared, but there were herwritten words left behind her: visible to my mother as well as to me,readable by my mother's eyes as well as by mine!

  These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I copy them here:

  When the full moon shines On Saint Anthony's Well.

  CHAPTER IX. NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL.

  I POINTED to the writing in the sketch book, and looked at my mother. Iwas not mistaken. She _had_ seen it, as I had seen it. But she refusedto acknowledge that anything had happened to alarm her--plainly as Icould detect it in her face.

  "Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George," she said.

  I made no reply. It was needless to say anything. My poor mother wasevidently as far from being satisfied with her own shallow explanationas I was. The carriage waited for us at the door. We set forth insilence on our drive home.

  The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fastened on it; mymind was absorbed in recalling the moment when the apparition beckonedme into the summer-house and spoke. Putting the words and the writingtogether, the conclusion was too plain to be mistaken. The woman whom Ihad saved from drowning had need of me again.

  And this was the same woman who, in her own proper person, had nothesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving the house in whichwe had been sheltered together--without stopping to say one gratefulword to the man who had preserved her from death! Four days only hadelapsed since she had left me, never (to all appearance) to see meagain. And now the ghostly apparition of her had returned as to a triedand trusted friend; had commanded me to remember her and to go to her;and had provided against all possibility of my memory playing me false,by writing the words which invited me to meet her "when the full moonshone on Saint Anthony's Well."

  What had happened in the interval? What did the supernatural manner ofher communication with me mean? What ought my next course of action tobe?

  My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched out her hand, andsuddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the sight of the writingin it were unendurable to her.

  "Why don't you speak to me, George?" she said. "Why do you keep yourthoughts to yourself?"

  "My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. "I can suggest nothing andexplain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one question of whatI am to do next. On that point I believe I may say that my mind is madeup." I touched the sketch-book as I spoke. "Come what may of it," Isaid, "I mean to keep the appointment."

  My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses.

  "He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. "George, you don'treally believe that you saw somebody in the summer-house? The place wasempty. I tell you positively, when you pointed into the summer-house,the place was empty. You have been thinking and thinking of this womantill you persuade yourself that you have actually seen her."

  I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her writing on thispage," I answered. "Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong."

  My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in taking therational view, nevertheless the writing frightened her.

  "It is not a week yet," she went on, "since I saw you lying betweenlife and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk of keeping theappointment, in your state of health? An appointment with a shadowySomething in your own imagination, which appears and disappears, andleaves substantial writing behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonderyou can help laughing at yourself."

  She tried to set the example of laughing at me--with the tears in hereyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to regrethaving opened my mind so freely to her.

  "Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. "Perhaps I maynot be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint Anthony's Well; Ihave not the least idea where it is. Suppose I make the discovery, andsuppose the journey turns out to be an easy one, would you like to gowith me?"

  "God forbid" cried my mother, fervently. "I will have nothing to dowith it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak to thedoctor."

  "By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person. Wepass his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner. In themeantime, let us say no more on the subject till we see the doctor."

  I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was sadlydisturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest noises on theroad startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr. MacGlue, who lookedat all mortal matters from the same immovably practical point of view,might really have its use, in my case, as a species of moral remedy.

  We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants had leftthe dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch doctor as I havetold it here; and, that done, I opened the sketch-book to let him seethe writing for himself.

  Had I turned to the wrong page?

  I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the lampthat hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right page. Therewas my half-finished drawing of the waterfall--but where were the twolines of writing beneath?

  Gone!

  I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white paperlooked back at me.

  I placed the open leaf before my mother. "You saw it as plainly as Idid," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the bottom of thepage."

  My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror.

  "Gone?" I asked.

  "Gone!"

  I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. Noincredulous smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed hislips. He was listening to us attentively. He was waiting gravely to hearmore.

  "I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, "that I saw theapparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that page. I declarethat I took the book in my hand, and saw these words written in it,'When the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' Not more than threehours have passed since that time; and, see for yourself, not a vestigeof the writing remains."

  "Not a vestige of the writing remains," Mr. MacGlue repeated, quietly.

  "If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," I went on,"ask my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the writing too."

  "I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered Mr. MacGlue,with a composure that surprised me.

  "Can you account for it?" I asked.

  "Well," said the impenetrable doctor, "if I set my wits at work, Ibelieve I might account for it to the satisfaction of some people. Forexample, I might give you what they call the rational explanation, tobegin with. I might say that you are, to my certain knowledge, in ahighly excited nervous condition; and that, when you saw the apparition(as you call it), you simply saw nothing but your own strong impressionof an absent woman, who (as I greatly fear) has
got on the weak oramatory side of you. I mean no offense, Mr. Germaine--"

  "I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking plainly--therational explanation is thrown away on me."

  "I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the rather that I'mentirely of your opinion. I don't believe in the rational explanationmyself."

  This was surprising, to say the least of it. "What _do_ you believe in?"I inquired.

  Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him.

  "Wait a little," he said. "There's the _ir_rational explanation to trynext. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of your mind betterthan the other. We will say this time that you have really seen theghost (or double) of a living person. Very good. If