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Page 84
"Thor called her to him, and she gladly went. He stormed and carried
with ease the fortress which, at best, I could hope only slowly to
undermine. She loved him as women love a conqueror; she might have
yielded me, at most, the grace of a condescending queen. I kept
silence: to whom could I speak? I had felt great ambitions,--to become
honored and famous,--to preach the gospel as it had not yet been
preached,--all ambitions that a lover may feel. But the tree died for
lack of nourishment. See what is left!"
He opened out his arms with a gesture wanting neither in pathos nor
dignity. Balder could not but sympathize with what he felt to be a
genuine emotion.
"Amidst the ruins of my Memphis, I kept silence. I hated--myself! for
my powerlessness to keep her. In my hours of madness I hated her too,
and him; but that was madness indeed! Deeper down was a sanity that
loved him. Since he had made my love his, I must love him. So only
might I still love her. The only beauty left my ruins was that!
"She died; and with her would have died all sanity,--all love, but
that her children kept me back from worse ruin than was mine already.
They were a link to bind me to the good. Now Thor is dead, but still
his son--her son--survives. Hence is it that you are more to me than
other men."
"Did Doctor Glyphic know nothing of this?"
"I never told him of either my hope or my despair. My beloved master!
he lived and died without suspicion that I had striven to be a brother
as well as son to him."
"When did he die?"
"Eighteen years ago," said Manetho, solemnly. "You are the first to
whom his death has been revealed. Beloved master! have I not obeyed
thy will?" And he looked up to his master's parchment visage.
"I discovered his death for myself, you know," observed Helwyse. "But
it could not have been more than eighteen years since my father, then
on the point of departure for Europe, saw Hiero Glyphic alive!"
"Yes, yes! Did he ever tell you what passed in that interview?"
demanded Manetho, eagerly.
"Little more than a farewell, I think. There was some talk about the
estate. At my uncle's death, the house was to come to you, the
property to my father or his heirs. But neither expected at that time
that it was to be their last meeting."
"Was no one mentioned beside Thor's children and myself?" asked the
priest, looking askant at Balder as he spoke.
"No my uncle neither had nor expected children, as far as I know!"
"Thor did not see her,--Gnulemah?"
"Gnulemah?--how should he have seen her?" exclaimed Balder, in
surprise.
"Then her mystery remains!" said Manetho, looking up.
He had perhaps doubted whether any suspicion of who Gnulemah really
was had found its way to the young man's mind. The latter's reception
of his question reassured him. There could be no risk in catering to
his aroused curiosity. The account Manetho now gave was true, though
falsehood lurked in the pauses.
"That day Thor came, I left the house early in the morning. It was
night when I returned; and Thor was gone. The house was dark, and at
first there was no sound. But presently I heard the voice of a child,
murmuring and babbling baby words. I passed through the outer hall and
the conservatory, and came to where we now are. The lamp was burning
as it has burned ever since.
"I saw him lying on the altar steps,--lying so!" Marrying act to word,
the Egyptian slid down and lay prostrate at the altar's foot. "He was
dead and cold!" he added; and gave way to a shuddering outburst of
grief.
Balder's nerves were a little staggered at this tale with its
heightening of dramatic action and morbid circumstance; and he was
silent until the actor (if such he were) was in some degree
repossessed of himself. Then he asked,--
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