Chapter 9. Battling With The Invisible

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_ CHAPTER IX. BATTLING WITH THE INVISIBLE

It seemed to his secretary the next day that Felix Brand was in a calmer mood. She had become accustomed to read with ease his tell-tale countenance, through which shone so plainly his states of mind and feeling, and the first anxious glance she cast upon him with her morning greeting relieved her forebodings of another trying day.

The signs of inward struggle were no longer manifest, though the same dogged resolution still sharpened the lines of his face, and it was evident that he was more able to concentrate himself upon his work than he had been for many days. Whatever the trouble was that had barked and snapped so incessantly about him that his combat with it had distracted his attention and engrossed his energies, for the present at least, it seemed to be cast aside. In the late afternoon Henrietta heard him make an engagement over the telephone with Mildred Annister.

Before he left the office, as he was signing the letters she had typed, he stopped over one, after writing his name, and considered it for a moment. It was concerned with an effort he was making to get control of the marble quarry in which he was interested.

"No," he said, "I'll leave this matter until tomorrow. Please call my attention to it in the morning, if I should happen not to think of it. And there are some books, here is a list of them, which I should like to have here, ready to consult, the first thing tomorrow. You may send the boy for them now and leave them on my desk. These two he may buy, but the others have him get from the library. If any of these shouldn't be in have him buy those also, for I particularly want to have them ready for use as soon as I get here. And I shall probably," he added, looking at her with his pleasant smile as he picked up his hat and gloves, "work you very hard tomorrow looking up references and finding things for me that I remember to have seen somewhere inside the covers of those books."

Henrietta went home much pleased by the favorable turn affairs had taken. The better prospect for her own personal comfort had its share in her gratification. But it was small beside her relief that her employer seemed to have won through his besetting harassments and, his pleasant, winning self again, was once more earnestly devoting himself to his affairs. For these had suffered during the last few weeks, while his absorption in his hidden troubles not only had kept him from devoting proper attention to them, but even had seemed to dull his capacities. He himself had felt that his artistic perceptions, usually so true and keen, were blunted and blurred. Upon the design for one of his commissions, a country house in the Berkshires, he had made beginning after beginning, only to throw each one aside in disgust and discouragement. Nor had the various other orders in hand advanced much better. He had not even begun the design for the capitol building, although he was under contract to have it finished in three months.

Henrietta knew that he was beginning to feel worried about the unsatisfactory trend of his work and she had been watching the course of affairs with secret anxiety. She knew, too, that recently he had been disappointed and annoyed by several business matters. He prided himself upon his acute business sense, but lately he had blundered more than once in his orders to his stock brokers and had lost some money.

But, puzzled though she was by these developments in Felix Brand's character and temperament and apprehensive of their results, if she could have witnessed the scene that was taking place in his apartment ten or twelve hours after he bade her that smiling farewell for the day, far greater would have been her alarm and bewilderment.

It was well toward morning, but every light in every room was shining at its brightest. From one room to another, from end to end of the suite and back again, its master was walking rapidly, constantly, as if he feared to stop for an instant or even to check his pace. The light, muffled sound of his hurried tread barely disturbed the silence that hung, close and heavy, over the rooms; that brooding silence of the late hours of the night which seems to have hushed all the sounds that ever were, but out of which almost any sound might be born.

As he rushed through drawing room, chambers, dining room, library, like another Wandering Jew urged pitilessly, incessantly, back and forth in a contracted round, not another living eye did his own encounter in the brilliantly lighted rooms. He was entirely alone. But every now and then his voice rang sharply through the stillness in angry, resentful, resolute tones.

"You shall not! You shall not!" he shouted, shaking his fist at the empty air and squaring his shoulders as though he expected some ghostly enemy to materialize from behind a door or out of the folds of a portiere.

He threw off his coat and waistcoat and, wiping the sweat from his face, hurried on again in his ceaseless round.

In the dining room he halted at the sideboard and filled a glass with brandy and soda. It was his custom to drink sparingly at all times and when alone he rarely touched liquor of any sort. So now, when he saw how much of the brandy bottle was empty, he gave a low whistle of amazement.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Have I drank all that tonight? And I wouldn't know that I'd taken a drop!"

He swallowed the mixture eagerly, as if it were some elixir from which he expected to gain new strength, and turned back upon his tramp. As he passed through his bedroom his gaze longingly sought the bed and his steps wavered toward it. His eyelids yearned for sleep and his strength was ebbing. With a stiffening of his muscles and a clenching of his fists he held himself steadily on his course.

"No, you don't," he muttered. "I won't give in! Do you hear me? I will not give in!"

He marched on, his head thrust forward, his mouth set hard in dogged determination and his hands clenched in his pockets. As he passed through the library he suddenly wavered and a spasm of apprehension crossed his face. He paused uncertainly for a moment, then strode to the entrance door of the apartment, made sure that it was locked, and brought the key back with him. A gleam of triumph mingled with the fear and anxiety in his face and eyes as he turned the combination lock of a little safe set in the wall behind a screen. The door swung open and with a smile of exultation he put the key inside and was about to close the door again when he stopped short, and, as if with the flashing of some new thought, his whole face and figure sagged.

"What's the use?" he muttered disappointedly. "He probably knows this combination, damn him, as well as I do!"

Anger rose in a quick flood and with a wrathful oath he flung the key on the floor. His face was grimmer and more resolute than before as he whirled about and rushed from the room. Already pale and drawn, it went a shade whiter with the effort of will that kept him on his feet and still moving. At the door of the drawing room his hands flew upward to the height of his shoulders and doubled into fists. His eyes were fixed in a blank stare and his face was working in a mortal agony.

"Ah-h-h!" he gasped.

And then: "There!" he cried in a triumphant tone, as with one foot he sent spinning across the room the chair beside which he had halted. His breast was heaving and his breath coming hard as he looked this way and that with wild eyes. Throwing open a window he put out his head and caught the cold air upon his streaming face. The sky was brightening with the promise of dawn.

"Good God!" he groaned as he turned back into the room. "Why did I try to stick this out alone? Why didn't I do something, go somewhere, have some of the fellows come here to an all-night game? Oh, I was afraid--that's the truth, I was afraid--and you knew it, damn you, you knew it!" he ended in angry tones.

In the library he looked wistfully toward his favorite easy chair, for his knees trembled with weariness. "No, no, I must not stop. If I sat down I'd go to sleep, and then----"

He wheeled about and started back. But he held his head higher and walked with a more confident air. "I'm winning," he exclaimed, and there was glad surety in his voice. "It was a close call, but I'm winning! Get back to where you belong, you dog! Go back to where you came from, damn you, and stay there! I've won, I tell you!" And he stamped his foot and cried again, "I've won!"

But confident though he was of having won this victory, whatever it might be, over the invisible enemy whom he seemed both to hate and to fear, he did not yet dare to cease from his tramp. Back and forth he still went; and presently, pausing beside the open window, he saw that the sky was flushed with sunrise and heard the roar and rattle of another day rising from the streets.

"A bath soon, and breakfast," he thought, "and then out for the day, and I'll be fairly safe once more. And if things get hard, I'll motor over to Staten Island and take Miss Marne's sister out again. That experiment helped a lot yesterday."

He went through the rooms, putting up shades and pushing back curtains and switching off electric lights. His face was white and haggard and in his eyes still lingered the look of wild anxiety which had filled them for so many hours. With hands that trembled he poured another glass of brandy and soda. As he passed the door of his chamber his step lagged, he turned and looked in.

"No! No!" he cried harshly, and tried to walk on. But his feet were like lead and held him there. Once more his body stiffened for battle, his teeth ground together and his lips shut in a straight, hard line.

He staggered a little way toward the bed, trying to hold himself back, as if he were wrestling, with all his remnant of strength and will, against some immaterial, compelling force. Striking out with one fist, as at some foe beside him, he shouted thickly, "Go! Go back, I say!" And with a supreme effort he wheeled about and with uncertain, heavy steps moved back toward the door.

"I will not! I will not!" he muttered, his voice unsteady and anguished. From his face had faded the determined look and his eyes, glassy and staring, were turned upward in terrified appeal.

Even as he spoke his feet once more refused to move. They seemed rooted to the floor, but his body, though he tried his best still to face toward the entrance, turned again toward the bed. He caught at the door and braced himself against it for a moment. Then his grasp weakened and his arms fell down.

The clutching will that was battling with his moved him one step, and then another, toward the end that he feared, though he strove so fiercely against it that the sinews of his neck seemed about to burst through their restraining skin. Stiffening his body, catching at chairs and tables and putting all his strength into the effort to hold his feet firm upon the floor, he fought with the intangible force that gripped him.

"I will not! I will not!" he gasped; and with a mighty effort tore himself from his bonds and rushed toward the door. But again viewless hands seized him and turned him suddenly about. His haggard face flushed to a dull red and beaded with sweat as he fought with the unseen power that impelled him, step by step, across the room.

With breath coming in gasps, he struggled on desperately, sometimes gaining a little space and again losing more; and seeing himself, despite his utmost efforts, forced nearer and nearer to the goal that he knew meant his vanquishment. Inch by inch he fought the way with his invisible enemy to the very bedside. Even there, with his last ounce of strength, he made a final, futile effort to break away from his intangible captor. Then he flung up his arms and covered his face and with a long "oh-h-h," that was half a rageful, hysterical cry and half a moan of despair, he sank face downward upon the bed.

He had lost the battle in what he had thought to be the very hour of victory. _

Read next: Chapter 10. Hugh Gordon Wins Henrietta's Confidence

Read previous: Chapter 8. Days Of Stress

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