The Heart Line. Gelett Burgess
I hear she has a fine education; some say she's went to college, even."
"Yes, she has. She went to a woman's college in the East, once."
"Then what's she living in this pigsty for, I'd like to know! It beats all, this room does. Let me come in for a moment and just look round a bit, will you? I won't touch nothing at all, sure."
The boy protested, and it might have come to a physical struggle had not footsteps been heard coming up the narrow stairway. The visitor peered over the railing of the balusters.
"That's her!" she whispered hoarsely.
A head, rising, looked between the balusters, like a wild animal gazing through the bars of its cage. It was the head of a woman of twenty-seven or eight, and though her face had a strange, wild expression, with staring eyes, she was, or had undoubtedly been, a lady. Her hair, prematurely gray, was parted in the center and brought down in waves over her ears. Her eyebrows, in vivid contrast, were black; and between them a single vertical line cleft her forehead. What might have been a rare beauty was now distorted into something fantastic and mysterious, though when at rare intervals she smiled, a veil seemed to be drawn aside and she became an engaging, familiar, warm-hearted woman. She was dressed in a brilliant red gown and dolman of mosaic cloth with a Tyrolean hat of the period. Such striking color was, thirty years ago, uncommon upon the streets, but, even had it been more usual, the severity of her costume with neither a bustle nor the elaborate ruffles and trimmings then in vogue, would have made her conspicuous.
She came up, with a white face, gasping for breath after her climb, one hand to her heart. For a moment she seemed unable to speak. Then suddenly and sharply she said:
"Francis, shut the door!"
The boy obeyed, coming out into the hall, with a hand still holding the knob.
"The lady wanted me to let her in, but I wouldn't do it, Mamsy," he said.
Madam Grant turned her eyes upon the apologetic, cringing figure, whose thin, skinny fingers plucked at her shawl.
"I just called neighborly like, thinkin' maybe you'd give me a settin', Madam Grant," she said.
Madam Grant had come nearer, now, and stood gazing at her visitor. The expression of scorn had faded from her face, her eyes glazed. She spoke slowly in a deliberate monotone.
"Your name is Margaret Riley."
The woman nodded. Her lips had fallen open, and her eyes were fixed in awe.
"Who are the three men I see beside you?" demanded Madam Grant.
"They was only two! I swear to God they was only two!"
"There is a little child, too."
"For the love of Heaven!" Mrs. Riley moaned. "Send 'em away, send 'em away, tell 'em to leave me be!"
Madam Grant's eyes brightened a little, and her color returned.
"Come in the room and I will see what I can do for you."
The three entered, Mrs. Riley, half terrified but curious, darting her eyes about the apartment, sniffing at the foul odor, her furtive glances returning ever to the mad woman. Francis went to the bookcase and resumed his reading without manifesting further interest in the visitor. Madam Grant seated herself upon a wooden box covered with sacking and untied the strings of her hat.
"What do you want to know?" she asked sharply.
"I got three tickets in the lottery, and I want to know which one to keep," Mrs. Riley ventured, somewhat shamefaced.
Madam Grant gave a fierce gesture, and the line between her brows grew deeper. "I'll answer such questions for nobody! That's the devil's work, not mine. How did your three husbands die, Margaret Riley?"
The woman held up her hands in protest. "Two, only two!" she cried; "and they died in their beds regular enough. God knows I wore my fingers out for 'em, too!"
"They died suddenly," Madam Grant replied impassively. "Who's the other one with the smooth face—the one who limps?"
Mrs. Riley coughed into her hands nervously. "It might be my brother."
"It is not your brother. You know who it is, Mrs. Riley; and he tells me that you must give back the papers."
"Oh, I'll give 'em back; I was always meanin' to give 'em back, God knows I was! I'll do it this week."
"In a week it will be too late."
"I'll do it to-morrow."
"You'll do it to-day, Mrs. Riley."
"I will, oh, I will!"
"Now, if you want a sitting, I'll give you one," Madam Grant continued. "That is, if I can get Weenie. I can't promise anything. She comes and she goes like the sun in spring."
"Never mind," said Mrs. Riley, rising abruptly. "I think I'll be going, after all." She started toward the door.
The clairvoyant's face had set again in a vacant, far-away expression and her voice fell to the same dead tone she had used before. She clutched her throat suddenly.
"He's in the water—he's drowning—he's passing out now—he's gone! You are responsible, you! you! You drove him to it with your false tongue and your crafty hands. But you'll regret it. You'll pay for it in misery and pain, Margaret Riley. Your old age will be miserable. You'll escape shame to suffer torment!"
Mrs. Riley's face, haggard and terrified, was working convulsively. Without taking her eyes from the medium, she ran into the front room and shook the boy's shoulder.
"Wake her up, Frankie, I don't want no more of this! Wake her up, dear, and let me go!"
Francis arose lazily and walked over to Madam Grant. He put his arm tenderly about her and whispered in her ear.
"Come back, Mamsy dear! Come back, Mamsy, I want you!" He began stroking her hands firmly.
Mrs. Riley, still gazing, fascinated, at the group, backed out of the room and closed the door. Her steps were heard stumbling down the stairs. Madam Grant's eyes quivered and opened slowly. She shuddered, then shook the blood back into her thin, white hands. Finally she looked up at Francis and smiled. "All right, dear!"
Her smile, however, lasted but for the few moments during which he caressed her; then the veil fell upon her countenance, and her eyes grew strange and hard. She gazed wildly here and there about the room.
"What's that in Boston?" she asked suddenly, the pitch of her voice sharply raised, as she pointed to the shells upon the rubbish of the floor.
"Only some peanuts I was eating, Mamsy," said the boy, guiltily watching her.
"Somebody has been in Toledo, somebody has been in New York! I can see the smoke of the trains!" Her eyes traveled around an invisible path, from mound to mound of dirt and scraps, noticing the slight displacements the boy had made in his quest for food. He watched her sharply, but without fear.
"Oh, the train didn't stop, Mamsy; they were express trains, you know."
"Don't tell me, don't tell me!"
She pointed with her slender forefinger here and there. "New Orleans is safe; New Orleans is always a safe, strait-laced old town; but the place isn't what it was! They've left the French quarter now to the Creoles, but I know a place on Royal Street where the gallery whispers—O God! that gallery with the magnolia trees—and the leper girl across the street in the end room!" Her voice had sunk to a harsh whisper; now it rose again. "Chicago—all right. I wouldn't care if it weren't. Baltimore—he never was in Baltimore. But what's the matter with Denver? Somebody's been to Denver!" She turned her gaze point-blank upon Francis.
He met it fairly.
"Oh, no, Mamsy, nobody ever goes to Denver, Mamsy dear!"
She knelt down and groped tentatively, sensitively, across the layer of dust that sloped toward