The Art of Disappearing

it was the same trouble a year afterwards. Now, if you wait, and have patience, and don't do anything one way or another for a month, you'll be real glad

t the force of her words and took his resolve against the seduction of t

ss it's something very wise and good. But I'm going now to think the matter over by myself,

two miles away. Often had her dear sons left the door for the same wa

o strongly Horace sat down to s

re, sure, definite, soft as a bed, tender as Martha, lovely as a dream. There will be no vulgar outcry when you untie the

would encourage its return. It was necessary for him to fix the present status of the woman whom he had once called his wife. He could reason from that point logically. She had never been his wife except by the forms of law. Her treason had begun with his love, and her uncleanness was part of her nature; so much had he learned on that fearful night which revealed

the world so beautiful as she. Her figure rose before him more entrancing than this fairy lake with its ever-changing loveliness. Its shadows under the trees were in her eyes, its luster

the pain of his desolation gripped him the result was invariable: she rose out of the mist of pain, not like a fury, or the harpy she was, but beautiful as the morning, far above him, with glorious eyes fixed on the heavens. He thought it rather the vision of his lost happiness than of h

ion of the problem of his future life. He could do little without smirching that honored name. He might take his own life. But that would be to punish the innocent and to reward the guilty. His wealth would become the gilding of adultery, and her joy would become perfect in his death. Imagine him asleep in the grave, while she laugh

r right to explain his absence at her pleasure. He could ruin her ruined life by exposing her. Then would come the divorce court, the publicity, the leer of the mob, the pointed fingers of scorn. Impossible! Why could he not leave the matter untouched and ke

unged into the lovable water, not only did grief leave him, but Horace Endicott returned; that Horace who once swam a boy in such lakes, and went hilarious with the wild joy of living. He dashed about the pool in a gay frenzy, revelling in the sensation that tragedy had

y last sleep, my last kiss as you steal the breath from me? None would do it gentlier. You give me rele

ne looks into the face of a suffering friend. Here were two castaways, cut off from the highway of life, imprisoned in circumstances as firmly as if behind prison grills. For him there was hope, for the pool nothing. At this moment its calm face pictured profound sadness. The black shadow of the woods lay deep on the west bank, but its remotest edge showed a brilliant green, where th

l young, he opened an old volume at the play of Hamlet and read the story through. Surely he had never read this play before? He recalled vaguely that it had been studied in college, that some great actor had played it for him, that he had believed it a wonderful thing; memories now less real than dreams. For in reading it this night he entered into the very s

atio, what a

hus unknown, shal

ever hold me

from felic

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early choked him. Like the sleek murderer and his plump queen, the two creatures hatefulest to him lived their meanly prosperous lives on his bounty. What conscience flamed so dimly in the Danish prince that he could hesitate before his opportunity? Long ago, had Horace been in his place, the guilty pair would have paid in blood for their lust and ambition. Hamlet would not kill himself beca

him. He had never felt any special influence of religion in his life. In what circumstances had Hamlet been brought up, that religious feeling should have so serious an effect upon him? Doubtless the prince had been a Catholic like his recent acquai

elcome him when he emerged from the path through the woods; the underbrush rustled, living things scurried away into bush and wave, the weeds on

rtunate," he said, "and I am goi

r death there can be anything; and were it little and slender as a spider's web, it might be too much for the sleep that is supposed to know no waking and no dreams. After all, he thought, how much are men alike; for the quandary of Hamlet is mine; I kn

spot into original elements ... to be no more what I am, either to myself or others ... then no inquest, no search, no funeral, no tears ... nothing. And afte

would be. And at that moment the wo

ou wish to disapp

icket, the vines at the window, the strange theory of the priest about disappearing. He reviewed that theory as a judge might review a case, so he thought; but in fact his mind was swinging at headlong s

himself in headlong with a shout. He felt as he slipped through the water but he did not utter the thought, that if this intoxication did not last he would never leave the pool. It endured and increased. He swam about like a demented fish. On that far shore where the reeds grew he paddled through the mud and thrust his head among the sedges kissing them with laughter. In another pl

ney, the stay in the village, the peculiar character of the man, his odd theory, were like elements of an antidote, compounded to meet that venom which the vicious had injected i

e in God