The man with the mask :: :: University of Virginia Library

This world of ours has many beautiful sights,
but the holiest spectacle which it offers to the
eye of God, is, a husband and a wife sitting by
their own fireside, while the winter's sleet and
snow beats against the window pane. Upon
the knee of the wife sleeps a rosy boy, whose
tiny hands are folded over his breast, while the
light of Home plays over his golden curls and
over his face, which smiles in slumber as though
a dream was passing before the eyes of his soul.
There they are, shut out from all the world,
the curtains drawn across the window, the old
clock ticking in one corner, and hickory logs
blazing upon the hearth, with a cheerful glow
and an odor that tells of forest trees, green and
hearty with the vigor of the summer time.

The snow lays white and cold upon the
fields without, beneath a dull and leaden sky.
A silence reigns over the leafless woods, deep
as death, and only broken by fitful gusts of the
drear north wind. All is drear and desolate
around that grey stone house, built upon the
side of a hill, with a strip of woodland encircling
it on every side but one, and that one
side opens through the darkness of night a
glimpse of Philadelphia, with a light haze resting
upon its wilderness of roofs.

Within the two storied stone house the old
clock throbs in its walnut case, and the hickory
fire burns beneath the chimney arch.

The husband sits on one side, with an open
volume resting on his knee. His eyes are
fixed upon the face of the wife, who is seated
opposite, her hands clasped over the sleeping
boy, nestling on her knee, while her gaze rests
dreamily upon the fire.

The husband is a man of only twenty-five
years. He has thrown aside his coat and boots.
A loose dressing gown falls aside from his
chest, and his feet encased in slippers are
placed near the fire. A man of regular features,
brown hair, eyes of clear deep blue, and
a lip that gives a light like a ray from heaven
to his face whenever he smiles.

The wife is a woman, or rather a girl, of
only nineteen years. Her form is enveloped
in a loose gown of a light azure color, which,
with its flowing folds, conceals rather than discloses
the outlines of her shape. Along her
pale face stray loosened curls of golden hair,
and beneath the arch of her brows shine eyes
that are as blue as a cloudless heaven. Her
hands and feet are small; her cheek pale but
transparent as alabaster; her neck elegantly
shaped and white as a snow-flake.

Altogether, it is a beautiful picture. You
can imagine for yourselves the details of this
room. The walls covered with a plain paper,
the floor concealed by a carpet of rich warm
coloring, the mahogany stand on which the
candle is placed, and the mirror which, hung
near the old clock, reflects the face of the husband,
as he looks into the eyes of his wife.

They are listening to the beating of the
storm upon the window pane. As each gust
of wind dies away, they are looking into the
fire, and from the very coals framing some picture
dear to memory. The wife suffers her
mild eyes to rest for a moment upon her slumbering
Boy, and the Husband turns his gaze
from the cheerful fire to the glowing face of his
Wife. Altogether, this scene is very quiet;
entirely common-place in its character, such a
scene in fact as may be witnessed in ten
thousand homes by the light of a winter's fire.

At length the Husband broke the deep stillness,
which had prevailed for a quarter of an
hour, by an exclamation:

“God bless us, Alice!” he said, fixing his
eyes upon the fire with a dreamy gaze: “How

time flies! Here, in this quiet home, three
years ago, we were married. Three years!
And yet it seems but yesterday. Don't you
remember, Alice, that it was our intention to
have been married in the large mansion in
Arch street, but you preferred this quiet
country seat of Oakleaf?”

“It is so beautiful in summer time,” responded
Alice in a whisper, as she passed her
hand through the curls of her sleeping boy:
“and even in winter, when all is bleak and
dreary. It is so pleasant to escape from the
noise and bustle of the great city, and sit down
by our quiet Oakleaf fireside. Then, you remember
Arthur, that it was here at Oakleaf
that we first met, when we were but children.”

Arthur rose and laid his hand upon the
golden tresses of his young wife — “Here,”
he whispered, bending down so that his lips
well nigh touched her cheek, so pale and transparent,
“Here our first and only child was
born, and Alice — ” his words were scarcely
audible, but the pale cheek of his wife was
flushed with a glow like the day-break of a
summer day in June.

As he bent over her, she raised her face and
looked up into his eyes. Very beautiful it
was to see her gaze, as her soul — the soul of
the Mother and the Wife — seemed to pass
from her clear deep eyes into the eyes of the
Husband.

“I may die.” she whispered, “Die in giving
life to my child. You will not forget me,
Arthur? O, how beautiful Oakleaf is in the
spring! And yet when the spring flowers
come they may bloom upon my grave!”

There was a holy sadness written upon the
face of the young Wife, who, on the threshold
of the joys and anguish of maternity, spoke of
Death with a tear, and yet with a smile.

“Banish these gloomy presentiments, Alice!
You will not die before me. And then, Alice,
we should always bear in mind that there is a
kind Father yonder, who guides the courses of
our life, and does all things well.”

Look upon this scene with your own eyes.
Contrast the face of the young husband, with
dark brown hair, curling over the forehead,
with the countenance of the young wife, with
flowing hair of sunny gold — a countenance
chaste and womanly, in which the maiden and
the mother seem to mingle — and last of all, let
your gaze rest upon the sleeping child, where
the beauty and the thought of each face, is reflected
as in a mirror.

Surround these three forms with the sacred
atmosphere of Home. Listen to the music of
the winter fire as it crackles and sings under
the chimney arch. Listen to the voice of the old
clock, as it throbs away in its walnut case.
Hark! The gust beats against the window,
but all within is the quiet, the unutterable peace
of Home.

What can mar the peace or wreck the
happiness of this Husband and Wife, who find
a Heaven by their winter fireside?

And after you have surveyed this scene, and
drank in its calm and unpretending sanctity,
come with me to another apartment of this
mansion of dark grey stone.

Seated beside a lamp, which breaks the
shadows of a small room, furnished after the
fashion of the Revolution, behold a young
woman of twenty-two years, whose jet-black
hair and eyes darker than midnight, give a peculiar
beauty to a pale face, with sharp coldly
chisseled features. She wears a dark dress,
which fits closely to her neck, and envelopes a
slender but symmetrical shape. Her hand
small and death-like, with long and tapering
fingers, rests upon the mahogany table, on
which the lamp is burning, and her eyes
gleaming beneath their dark lashes, are fixed
intently upon the person seated opposite.

That person is a young man who seems
prematurely old with thought and study. His
figure long and lean, and bent as with untimely
age, is clad in the Quaker garb. Upon his
great coat of shapeless drab, hang particles of
sleet and snow, for he has but a moment since
passed from the dreary night, into the warmth
and comfort of this dimly lighted room. His
face you cannot see, for it is shadowed by an
ample hat, very broad in the rim, and with fur
like yellowish snow. With large hands clasped
upon his knees, he sits there like an ungainly
statue, his head drooped, as he converses with
the young woman in low and measured tones.

“You had a stormy ride from the City?”
remarked the young woman.

“Truly so. It is a strange fancy that
induces friend Bayne to reside here in the

winter. I even put my horse away with my
own hands, for it seems there are no servants
at Oakleaf but thyself?”

“I am no servant,” answered the young
woman, with a proud curl of her thin lip —
“I am the friend of Alice Bayne.”

“O! Thee sews for her, and she pays thee
with food and clothing?” said the Quaker,
falling into an ungrammatical dialect, peculiar
to portions of his sect: “I had forgotten.”

He spoke without raising his head, but his
words were not without their effect on the
young woman. She colored from the neck
to the forehead — her bust small but beautifully
shaped, rose and fell with quick pulsations.

“As you please, Doctor,” she answered,
“I am only a poor relation of the rich merchant's
wife. A poor relation is something
worse than a slave. I know that.”

Silence prevailed for a few moments, when
the Quaker remarked, in his whispering way —

“Do they expect me?”

“Alice expected your father, Doctor
Gatherwood,” was the answer.

“Ah! My father is palsied, and of course
unable to attend to his patients. I have taken
his practice off his hands. Why should Alice
expect my father on a night like this? Was I
not here, in this very house, two years ago
when her first child was born?”

The speaker did not raise his head, but his
words seemed to create a singular emotion in
the mind of the listener.

Her slight frame, from the small foot to the
white neck, shook with a violent tremor. Her
features grew sharper and more compressed.
She hid her brilliant eyes with her death-like
hand.

“I remember,” she said in a low but
emphatic voice.

“Does thee?” was the answer in a lower
tone, but with an emphasis more distinct.

These words, I remember, and does thee?
unmeaning as they look on paper, acquire a
deep significance from the accent and the
emotion which accompanied their utterance.
The young woman trembled as she spoke,
while the Doctor uttered the words with a
sound very much like suppressed laughter.

“Does Alice Bayne ever speak of me?”
asked the Doctor after a pause.

“Never,” was the answer.

“Does Arthur Bayne ever speak of me.'

“Often. As the son of old Doctor Gatherwood,
the friend of his father. And as —”
she paused, still shading her eyes with her
hand. Yet beneath the shadow of that hand,
you may see the thin nether lip quiver with a
violent tremor.

“And as —” the Doctor echoed, without
raising his head.

“As the able and benevolent Physician,
who, two years ago, saved the life of a beloved
wife.”

These words appeared to give a vast deal of
satisfaction to the Quaker. He drew a long
breath, gave utterance to an emphatic sound,
which neither sigh nor chuckle, seemed a composition
of both, and —

“Ann,” said he, “thee may prepare me a
glass of Jamaica spirits and hot water, spiced
with a little lemon, and sweetened with sugar,
as it is very likely that I will have to sit up
all night, watching for the event which is soon
to add another blossom to the hearth of friend
Arthur.”

After this exceedingly long sentence, the
Quaker drew another deep breath and spread
forth his large hands upon his bony knees,
still keeping his face within the shadow of his
broad rim.

Ann did not seem to hear his words. Her
hand over her eyes, she sat like a statue, her
bosom heaving and her lip quivering.

“Does thee hear Ann?” cried the Doctor in
a sharp tone.

Ann rose, and with a noiseless step left the
room. Turning his head over his shoulder,
the Doctor eyed her slender form until it disappeared.

He was now alone, in that quiet room, furnished
in an old-fashioned style, with a wood
stove roaring away beneath the carved mantel-piece.

Still he did not change his position, nor remove
the broad-rimmed hat from his brow.

“Well — w-e-ll!” he soliloquized — Truly
a Doctor's life is a troublesome affair! Night
and day one is the slave of every body who
chooses to summon one from the dinner table
or the comfortable bed. Arthur here is very
rich, and loves his wife with an affection that
is truly idolatrous. Indeed they are a comely
couple.”

At this moment Ann returned, and held before
the Doctor an antique silver bowl, carved
all over with flowers and Cupids, and steaming
with some fragrant liquid, which poetically
might be called nectar, but more familiarly is
designated “Rum Punch.”

The Doctor seemed to gaze intently into her
pale face, as she extended the bowl, in her delicate
hand.

“Take it Reuben,” she said quickly—“Oh!
such a headache as I have!” She pressed her
unoccupied hand against her forehead.

Reuben took the bowl, and seemed — beneath
the shadows of that ponderous hat — to
inhale the combined fragrance of rum, lemon,
and sugar, with all the nostrils of his soul.

At the same instant Ann glided toward the
door by which she had entered, but passed for
a single moment behind the back of the Doctor,
pressing her finger to her lip, while her dark
brows met in a frown. It was a picture. The
lean Doctor in Quaker garb, calmly inhaling
the fragrance of the steaming bowl, while behind
him stood that slender form, with a pale
face, darkened by an emotion which looked
like the intensity of hatred or of fear.

“Ann where is thee?” asked Reuben, without
turning his head.

She glided to the door, opened it with a
sudden jar, and exclaimed in a careless tone —
“Did you speak, Reuben? I was about going
up stairs to see Alice for a moment — ”

“Very good. And thee may give my best
wishes to Alice and Arthur, and don't forget to
say that I am here. Thee understands?”

“Yes, Reuben,” said Ann, and with that
word she left the room.

Dr. Reuben Gatherwood was alone.

For a moment he listened to the subdued
echo of the young woman's footsteps as she
ascended the stairs. After that moment was
passed, all was breathlessly still once more.
The sleet was heard beating at intervals against
the shutters, and the wood-stove beneath the
mantel -piece sung away, with a low simmering
sound.

Reuben rose from the chair, and advancing
to the bureau which stood in the shadows in
one corner, he held his hand for an instant
over a capacious silver pitcher. When he returned
to the light again, he held the punch-bowl
in his hand, but it was empty.

Bending to the lamp — his face shadowed
by the broad rim you will remember —he
intently examined the interior of the silver
bowl. And at the bottom of the bowl appeared
a white sediment, very thin, and scarce perceptible,
had it not been for the strong ray of
the lamp, shining into the glittering interior of
the vessel.

Dr. Reuben Gatherwood uttered an emphatic
“humph!”

“Truly his sugar is exceedingly white,”
he murmured — “only the flavor is very peculiar.”

Reuben quietly placed the silver cup beneath
the table, and without removing his hat,
drew a book from his pocket, and began to read
by the light of the lamp. As leaning back in
his chair he peruses the pages of the volume,
the light shines upon the lower part of his face.
You can discover a wide mouth with almost
imperceptible lips, and a chin remarkable for
its massive outline. The lips move in a peculiar
smile as Dr. Reuben reads; a smile
which indicative of neither joy nor sorrow,
conveys a meaning which strikes you with an
unpleasant sensation, but which you in vain
attempt to define.

“Truly these French writers are a very
singular race,” soliloquized Reuben as he read:
“Now here is a work by an eminent French
Physician, with annotations on the margin by a
Preacher of this city. The work itself displays
considerable science, but the annotations are
exceedingly curious. For instance — ” Reuben
reads aloud, but in suppressed voice, the
passage which follows —

Hark! a cry, very low but full of agony, resounds
through the Home. For the first time that sound disturbs
the stillness of a Home which Marriage has made
sacred to the eye of God. It is the wail of the young
wife, who struggling in the agonies of motherhood, is
about to give life to a first child. That sound only
strikes upon the ears of the libertine to produce a sneer
or a laugh. Brutal in his estimate of woman at all
times, he regards her sacred agonies, when she is passing
from the Wife into the Mother, with cold indifference,
or a ribald jest. At this time, however, Woman
is a spectacle for the reverence of men and angels. Her
love consecrated by marriage, is now ripening fast into
the fruit of a New Life. She is on the eve of giving
birth to a NEW SOUL. She may yield her life a holy
gift to her new born babe. She may survive, but
volumes cannot depict, after what a chaos of pain and
agony. At this epoch of the life of woman, what is the

course of your modern civilization? At this crisis of
life and death, too often of life out of death, how does
the custom of the world treat this woman, who a year
ago was Maiden, who has been sacred and sealed to all
but the eye of a Husband? It introduces a Stranger
into the marriage chamber. It invests that Stranger
with powers that far exceed what the most bigoted
Protestant attributes to the Roman Catholic Priest.
And to this Strange Man, society entrusts the life, and
more than life, the purity of the Wife and Mother.
And —

“Truly that is very fine!” remarked Doctor
Reuben, when he had completed this passage.
“We men of the Medical profession are fearful
people. Yet let me read further —

Why should not Woman be prepared by education
to fill the place which now is occupied by the Male
Physician? Do you say that she is not capable of receiving
such an education? The history of the world,
the very fact of woman's organization, gives you the lie.
How many thousands that are unmarried, or that are
widowed, might by a reform in the opinions of the social
world, be elevated into the position of Ministering
Angels by the couch of Maternity!

“How many!” echoed Doctor Reuben,
while his thin lips curled with a frightful sneer
— “That is the question? Truly it seems to
me, that society might find this out some day.
But until it does find it out, the world will wag
as usual. Women who are unmarried, or who
are widowed, may slave for nine pence a day,
or take up the life and the wages of prostitution.
But the idea of educating women into
Doctors — is it not absurd? The public think
so. Is not the public the best judge.
Again — ”

Doctor Reuben read another passage:

How often have we seen THE Doctor, seated in his
easy chair, bottle in hand, and a few chosen boon companions
round him, telling with many a sneer and obscene
jest, the secrets of some Home into which he has
been admitted as a professional visiter! As a Student
this Physician learned his art by practicing in the huts
of the poorest of the poor. As a Doctor he gains admittance
into the households of the respectable and the
rich. Husband! you are wont to welcome the Doctor
as your best friend. Listen to him now, as he tells in
detail the agonies of your wife, and for the amusement
of his bottle companions, pollutes with every elaboration
of a libertine fancy, the dearest sanctities of your Home.
Wife! you look to the Doctor as the saviour of your
life; he aided you in the hour of life and death; he
lifted you from death into life; he saved the child of
your bosom. Behold this same Doctor as he leaves
your home, and enters the room in which the friends of
his leisure hours await him. Hark! to the laughter as
he tells his pleasant story, and turns the anguish of
your maternity into a brothel joke.

“This is bitter!” soliloquized Doctor Reuben.
“Truly these annotations flatter my
profession. Yet hold — here is another note
in pencil — ”

How many homes have been poisoned forever by the
treachery of an eminent, long trusted, and even sanctimonious
Physician! Do you blame him, Husband?
Reflect. It is yourself that have tempted him. You
have placed life, honor, purity in his hands, and then
wonder that he betrays them all. If the dark history
of women's degradation were truly written, how many
cases of lost purity should we trace home to the
treachery of a confidential physician!

“Very well!” was the exclamation of Doctor
Reuben — “Worse and worse! What will
not these Physicians do?”

Doctor Reuben laughed and read on:

There is but one remedy. Respect that modesty
which is an eternal barrier between Woman and dishonor.
Let no man cross the last and most sacred retreat
of your Home. Let no libertine sneer, let no
oracular dogma uttered by a renowned Professor, shake
you from your purpose. Woman, and none but Woman,
is the proper Physician by the couch of Motherhood.

“But thee forgets, my good annotator, that
Woman is a being of inferior intellect,” was
the commentary of Doctor Reuben. “Doth
not society think so? Should we not be foolish
indeed, did we refuse to believe what society
preaches?”

Woman can be educated, and well educated in the
most difficult branches of the Medical profession. The
day is coming when the introduction of a Strange Man
into the Home, will be looked upon as an act of shameless
insult to the Wife, yes, as a crime only second to
dishonor itself.

Doctor Reuben placed the book in his pocket
again, for he heard a footstep in the entry.

In an instant Ann Clarke entered the room.
As she came near the light it might be seen that
her pale face indicated an effort to suppress a
violent agitation.

“Doctor,” she said, resting her hand on
the back of his chair, “I trust you found your
warm drink palatable?”

The Doctor did not turn his head, much
less glance toward the speaker, as he replied
— “It was indeed pleasant. I thank thee,
Ann. How do our friends come on up
stairs?”

Ann bent her head, and whispered in his
ear.

“Ah! indeed — so soon!” he exclaimed,
and rising from the chair, left the room with a
hurried step.

And then Ann Clarke, left alone, sank into
the chair which he had occupied, and clasping
her hands, exclaimed aloud —

“God help me! That I should be in the
power of a man like this!”

It is impossible to depict the intense anguish
of her pallid face. The features were sharpened
as with the touch of death; her eyes
flashed with feverish light.

“But,” she said slowly, “his career is
almost done.”

She paced the floor with irregular steps —
now pausing as if the act of listening, now
turning a horror-stricken countenance toward
the light.

“What matter,” she murmured incoherently
— “A life like his only curses the earth. It
is no harm to destroy a noxious reptile.”

She paused, and glanced around the room,
from the table to the side-board.

“The cup, what has he done with the cup?”

Ere she had time to solve this question, the
door opened and Arthur Bayne entered the
room. His countenance was pale and troubled.

Go up stairs, Ann,” he whispered, sinking
in the chair which the Doctor and the young
woman had occupied by turns — “Quick, Ann,
for God's sake! There is no time to be
lost.”

Ann hurried to the door, and as suddenly
retraced her steps:

“Mr. Bayne,” she said with a face utterly
colorless, and a voice that trembled in every
accent: “I have an important revelation to
make to you — ”

Arthur looked up with a mingled look of
impatience and wonder — “To-morrow, Ann,
to-morrow I will talk with you — ” he said
with a hasty gesture.

“To-morrow will be too late — ”

“Ann, Ann, would you have me sacrifice the
life of Alice, for the sake of any revelation,
however important?” cried Arthur, his face
flushing with anger — “Up stairs at once, and
for God's sake!”

At this moment Ann caught a glimpse of the silver cup which the Doctor had concealed beneath
the table.

“He has not drank,” she exclaimed aloud,
wringing her hands, as her face was stamped
with an inexpressible dismay.

Arthur looked upon her as one would survey
a lunatic.

“Why Ann, what can be the matter with
you? Who has not drank? What mean
you?”

“Nothing, nothing,” she replied hastily;
“You know I was watching very late last
night, and I am feverish for want of sleep. I
will go up stairs without delay. Poor Alice!
How could I be so thoughtless as to attempt to
converse with you, on a matter which can just
as well be told to-morrow!”

She left the room without another word.

The young Husband would have thought
strangely of her broken words, and her hesitation,
at any other than the present time, but
now the extremity of his wife absorbed every
faculty of his soul.

“Doctor Reuben is indeed a tried Physician
and a faithful friend.” He repeated these
words very often in a low tone.

Then resting his arm upon the table, and
supporting his cheek in his hand, he gazed
upon the floor witth a look of the keenest
anxiety, the most harrowing suspense. The
moisture started from his forehead; he pressed
his lip between his teeth, and — wrung by the
agitation of mind and body — even bit his nails
until the blood started from his finger-ends.

“If Alice should die!” he exclaimed repeatedly
— “If Alice should die!”

For three hours the Husband kept his weary
watch, and after a world of suspense and mental
torture, he heard a low footstep in the
entry.

Ann entered the room — her face was
deathly pale.

“Speak,” cried Arthur, in the tone of a
frenzied man — “Alice — she is not dead?”

“Alice surrives,” answered Ann in a whisper
— “Come up stairs and look upon the
new-born child.”