The Kiss of Death

By LAURA WITHROW

There are all kinds of kisses—of love, of friendship, of peace, of brotherhood. And there is the Judas kiss. This author tells a startling story of still another kind

I AM happy this morning. Not even when I was a carefree child did the blood pulse so gaily through my veins. My heart is beating time to music in my soul that is as joyous as are the songs of birds; music that sings one triumphant refrain:

"It is over. You are free. You are FREE!"

While every nerve and fibre of my being is thrilling with that exultant, welcome song, Nature herself gives a token she understands and is rejoicing with me.

That crimson and gold radiance, widening and deepening-the dividing line between night and day, tells me in the Great Mother's mystic. silent language that happiness is to come. That rainbow splendor, brightening the dull, gray earth, is an omen of joy, of love and peace.

I believe in omens.

Had I heeded Nature's warnings, I would never have been his wife: but let that pass. Those strange, sad bitter days are over and must be forgotten. l turn now to the future that waits, rich with promise.

Before permitting mind and heart to run riot along the golden pathway I will tread, I must see him under the grassy earth on the hillsides, and over him a marble shaft, its presence a reminder that the past is dead; its white finger pointing. heavenward, as a suggestion of the life and joy to come.

As I close the door on all that should not have been; that might have been so different, I will wear black of the most somber dye, so that the world may see how I am sorrowing for my husband.

I will hide my Great Secret, just as I hid my fierce heartaches from its impertinent gaze. One bares the heart only to those who understand—through love.

They, his own people, in the hour after It was over, found me wearing a filmy white gown, redolent with the perfume of dead years. I wore it last in my girlhood days. The fancy occurred to me that by putting it on I might blot out the unhappy married life between the Then and Now, and be a girl again.

My black robes lay in a neglected heap on the floor, and in my shimmering draperies I was pacing restlessly up and down the room, eyes and mind and heart wandering in the Land of Happy Dreams.

Sadly they watched me, and tried to speak words of consolation. At last I persuaded them to go away, and then I turned the key. When alone I waved my white arms with glee, and laughed-softly, lest they hear. It was such a relief to be free, after those years of bondage! I laughed and cried in one breath for joy.

Then, wearing that fleecy robe, and pinning a bunch of red roses at my breast, symbol of the new life pulsing within me, I studied myself in the mirror to see whether the inner woman, the soul of me, had thrown off the shackles.

The transformation was weird and wonderful. It was as if you had taken a delicate brush and painted out the lines of grief and care left by the sun on the daguerreotype of a woman who had known years of pain and sorrow.

In that hour of freedom my features softened. The burden fell from me. The roses of youth bloomed in my cheeks. The light of youth shone now in my eyes. I smiled back at the radiant vision and promised it life's best gifts—peace, contentment, love.

When, decorously clad in deepest black, I passed the portal of my doorway, I dared not let them look into my eyes, fearing the triumphant light I knew was there, would betray me, and tell the heart's truth—that l was happy. Never before had I known such happiness because he was lying down there in the dark drawing-room, dead to earth's voices evermore.

I am free, free!

I could chant the words until they would ring far above the harsh roll of the sea, and the shrill voices of the winds . . .

Yet in the first hours after he passed on there were fear-haunted moments. I found myself listening for footsteps—his footsteps, and an icy hand clutched my heart. It seemed as if he were living, and in another instant would be by my side, the old, mocking, sneering smile in his eyes and on his lips. That was only yesterday, though if I count time by heart-throbs, it was years ago.

To drive away his spirit, if it were lingering in the old, familiar places, I asked them to leave me. I would spend the last night alone with my husband.

With eyes speaking sympathy, and imploring me to be brave and calm, they slipped away, and left me among the shadows.

NOW I was alone with the dead; my dead.

It was such a new and delicious experience to be beyond his power. Long I studied the white face. Death had been kind. The spirit had taken with it the evil that fast was molding the helpless clay. I was shown the man my husband was meant to be, the man he might have been.

The sneer was gone from the curved lips which told Love's tale. The hard lines had faded from the face. With the frown gone that had become habitual in life, nobleness sat on the broad, high brow. It was a weird metamorphosis. He was younger, and was again the lover, now that he belonged to Death.

But this change did not make me sorry. It only steeled my heart still more against him. It showed at this late day all he might have been to me.

With folded arms I walked around the still figure, watching it and thinking of the girlhood hopes and dreams of happiness, which one by one he trampled under ruthless, cruel feet, with mocking laughter for my youth and inexperience; for my fantasies, my castles in the air. The wasted years and my darkened life, all his work, confronted me.

Suddenly I felt that he was near. My heart stood still, but not with fear; repulsion, rather. It was as if he could put out his hand and touch me, and I felt the old horror at the mere thought of physical contact.

Then it occurred to me that even with the added power death gives the spirit, he might not know I had conquered. He might not understand that I had sent his soul away, and thus freed myself from that unholy bondage.

I wanted him to know. To tell him would be my revenge for all that I had suffered. His death was retribution, but this would be revenge! Now was my chance. With the empty shell between us I would tell him. I knew that he was hovering over the white face watching me, so I stood at the feet and faced him. And in my eyes was the triumphant joy that was singing in my heart.

"You are dead, dead, dead," I chanted to that spirit creature.

"Do you know what that means? You are There and I am Here. The barrier between us you may never pass. You are not my husband. I will bury that which lies between us now, with the pomp and circumstance due the man I married. Then I will forget you; or, if I remember, it will be with exultant joy, because you have passed to your own place, and I am in my own. Oh, I am so happy!"

Suddenly there were queer, rustling noises around me, as of swinging draperies, and an icy blast struck me full in the face. I became cold from head to feet, just as when he was alive and near. Then I was certain he heard and understood, and I laughed mockingly.

"But that is not all I want to tell you," I continued, in low, measured bell-like tones, that vibrated strangely in the still room; tones that had in them the echo of music, but the finality of death itself.

"I did it. I killed your earth life and sent you wandering on your dark way. Do you hear? I, your wife, the woman you thought you owned, body and soul and spirit!

"Do you not recollect, I told you more than once when you were cruel that I would kill you some time? And you answered me sneeringly, reminding me of my forgiving spirit.

"You knew me too well to fear such a threat. I wanted to do right. I would be sorry for my wicked words when my anger had passed away.

"Then you, whose every act was a mockery of all things holy, would quote Scripture, applicable to me, as an unruly wife. You were so sure of me. Do you remember?

"You were right. I was not dangerous in my stormy moods. My anger was too fleeting, But those gusts of passion were the beginning of the end.

"Each day my heart became harder and colder until it was ice and iron; until the only living thing within me was my hatred of you, my husband.

"Always you would have me near you, and I felt as if life itself was ebbing from me in a steady stream of hate, and loathing, and resentment wide enough to sweep you from my sight.

"Yet I was treating you pleasantly, kindly, trying to make both you and the world believe I loved you. For I would not admit I had failed to find happiness.

"Next came the quiet hours when I thought the situation over calmly, and decided you must die. I had borne you as my cross for weary years, trying to make a nobler man of you, and failed. You were so certain you were perfect that you were hopeless. I could do no more.

"It was either your death or mine; that was clear to me. My death would not help you. You would be no better, no nobler with the years; no readier to die, ii I passed on and let you live.

"So I decided you must go, even though it was into the darkness, and give me freedom, happiness.

"My decision formed, I delved deeper into those old books on magic, the books you so abhorred, until I mastered their secret.

"It confirmed my belief.

"I could send you from earth if I concentrated the hatred you had bred in my soul, and turned the deadly current on you.

"Coolly, calmly, with inscrutable eyes, I began my task.

"While smiling in your face, listening without a murmur to your jeering, mocking words, I concentrated all the strength of my soul, and sent forth against you magnetic waves that vibrated with hate and bitterness. Always they whispered 'death', and your robust health began to fail. When you consulted a physician about your strange symptoms, you, who never had been ill, joy winged my feet. The hatred you had bred in my soul was stronger than you. I would be free!

"THE doctor did not understand your case, and could do nothing for you. In all his experience he had never known a parallel.

"Physically perfect, without a care; contented in your home, and prosperous in your profession; yet you were racked with pain, grew weaker, thinner, paler.

"How you clung to me, begging me to save your life, and asking my forgiveness daily for all your past unkindness!

"You did not intend to hurt me. Oh, no! You were only jesting. You had been harsh, sometimes, because you loved me. On account of your love you expected more of me than of other women; for you loved me tenderly. You blamed me, because you wanted me to be perfect.

"I listened as the sphinx might, while I bathed your aching head. It was too late for the best of excuses. Your words only hastened the end; for they were false as the mirage in the desert, inspired by the fear of death, and the desire to get full service from me—love and care.

"It was so characteristic of you! Never once did you think of me; self was always first. You were consistent to the end.

"Outwardly I was the devoted wife. As always in our married years, I gave you the creature comforts—kindness, too; even that which looked like love. I could afford to be magnanimous.

"Every day you thought the change for the better was at hand—tomorrow you would begin to mend; but each rising sun found you weaker; as I knew it would. Ever that subtle fluid was weakening your life forces, for my singular power became stronger daily.

"You would ask me to take you in my arms and kiss you. Do you remember?

"This was the hardest ordeal of my day—to touch you as would one who loved you. It gave the lie to all that was holiest and best within me, and yet it helped me to success.

"I knew that when the end came it would be when I had to kiss you. All the hatred and loathing and repulsion in me passed then from my soul to yours.

"Sometimes you would faint when your lips touched mine, and the watchers would whisper it was because of your great love for me. They could not read our souls.

"The doctor admitted defeat, and advised me to be brave; the end was coming swiftly. I knew it.

"You wanted a kiss. You would sleep. but first I must say good night.

"I knew you would sleep—soundly, too; and I asked if you were ready should death come.

"Your dull eyes, from which life's brightness had faded, flashed with the old, wicked, jealous, suspicious light. You rallied and flung back bitterly:

"'You need not flatter yourself that I will die. You will never have an opportunity to marry another. I shall live to bury you.' Those were your last words.

"I smiled, and then—I took you in my arms. Holding you close to my heart, I kissed you tenderly, once—twice—

"The fountain of my own life stood still in that moment of supreme effort. For an instant I thought my soul was going. too!

"Then with startled eyes, as if in that comprehensive, last glance which swept this world and another, you saw the Unknown in awful guise, spirit and body parted company. I was free!

"Oh, yes, I shed tears, hysterical tears; but they were tears of joy, not sorrow. No one understood, and so they pitied me—the widow. Yet I was delirious with happiness.

"Had I gone from you, and let you live, I would have feared you, though half the world lay between us. Always I would have expected to turn and find you by my side. Now I can defy and mock you; for I do not fear the dead.

"Oh, I am happy!

"I have my freedom, and Love is waiting somewhere down the way; the love that glorifies a woman's life. Even now, from afar, I feel the presence of the One who will he all to me that you were not.

"Earth could not hold both him and you."

AS I spoke those words to that spirit creature, two malignant eyes stared at me out of space. They were his eyes, seemingly suspended in the air over that still figure stretched between us. But such eyes!

They were larger than in life, and stared at me with the expression of one who had faced unnamable horrors. There was that in them I could not fathom. I had seen them reveal evil passions in life; but now the wickedness of a myriad of worlds blazed in their depths. It was as if they had lived all of evil known in all the shining spheres, and were eager, though powerless, to put it into words. There was in those eyes, too, the hopelessness of the lost souls in the Halls of Darkness.

Slowly, slowly, they came toward me, staring into my eyes, burning into my soul their awful message.

They were Death personified; Death come for me!

Instinctively I knew that if shaken with one quiver of fear, I, too, would cross the line to my home-land.

In this crucial moment I faced him serene, smiling, unafraid.

He could not claim my soul. Our paths had parted, never again to touch in any world. Suddenly he, too, knew.

As he realized the truth, and his helplessness, he who had tried to take me with him, a wild, hopeless, bitter cry walled up and down the room, coming from everywhere at once, and died away like the moans of a sobbing child.

Again an icy blast struck me. Then followed stillness, a strange sense of isolation. Voice and wind and eyes were gone. He knew all. He knew that he was conquered. He had fled.

I was alone. I was free! . . .

Free? . . .