Young Gwilliam, fresh and brown from his two years in the wilds, and with two inches added to his chest measure, hurried to the club and searched for Drysdale. He found his Petronius sitting just as he had left him, in the accustomed well-cushioned chair, in the accustomed corner, on his face the accustomed quiet, faintly amused smile. Gwillam drew up a chair opposite; the necessary ceremonies were performed, and then they plunged into one of those long garrulous gossips, which they both liked so well.
“I saw Craig, to-day,” said young Gwillam, after a time. He paused.
“Yes,” said Drysdale, non-committally.
“He looked badly,” added Gwillam suggestively. Drysdale made no answer.
Gwillam leaned forward. “Tell me what has happened,” he urged. “I liked Craig; he was always a good sort of fellow. And he is young too—not much older than myself; but to-day he looked like an old man—thin, gray, stooped—a wreck.”
“He has discovered the virtues of his uncle’s wedding gift,” said Drysdale.
“His uncle’s wedding gift?” echoed Gwillam wonderingly.
“Did you never hear of it?” asked Drysdale. “It was quite a subject of conversation at one time. Everyone knew of it and laughed. It was a very strange gift and it was given by a very strange old gentleman. He is dead now, but I can imagine him, if he has any knowledge of what has taken place, grinning with the keenest delight. It is just the sort of thing he would have enjoyed.
“It really began,” said Drysdale, “at Craig’s wedding breakfast. You see, old Forsythe—Craig’s uncle—was delighted at Craig’s marriage. He—Forsythe—was old even then; he had a great deal more money than anyone needs; and he used to worry dreadfully about what would become of it when he was gone. To be sure he could leave it all to Craig, as he intended to do; but life is short, Craig would die, and then who would get the money? He often wished that Craig had a family of youngsters, upon whom he might settle it, so that for fifty or sixty years at least it would be safe. And when Craig became engaged to marry the old gentleman immediately made a new will and from that time on displayed a joy so open and unrestrained that it was scarcely decent. At the wedding breakfast his glee was almost childish; he became quite garrulous, and it needed constant effort to restrain him from telling stories, which, however humorous they might prove to be, were, even in their beginnings, quite evidently improper. Still, though with some difficulty, he was kept within bounds until he insisted on making a speech. As he rose from his seat, a glass of wine held unsteadily in his trembling old hand, a wicked smile on his thin old lips, a feeling of uneasiness pervaded the company, and it was very generally felt that whatever he might say, it could be very well dispensed with. But no one remonstrated. When one has a relative who is at once very wealthy and very old, it is astonishing how lenient one becomes to his little failings.
“ ‘My dear Robert—my dear Amy,’ began old Forsythe, glancing first at Craig and then at his wife; ‘I have already given you your wedding gift as you know.’ This was quite true; the old reprobate had given them an extremely substantial check, to which he found it impossible not to make allusion. ‘But that was more or less formal—the gift dictated by convention. And I wanted to give you something intimate—something, trifling perhaps, but personal—something so appropriate that it should become part of your lives. For a long time I racked my poor old brains in vain; and then, only yesterday, I had an inspiration—quite an inspiration!’ he added fondly.
“Craig and his wife exchanged glances of relief. The speech would probably pass off without disaster after all.
“ ‘You may remember,’ resumed the old gentleman, ‘that when I was younger I traveled extensively, but it has probably escaped your minds that I spent much time in Arabia. Nevertheless that is so. I traveled, not with any thought of exploring or attaining scientific results, but for my own pleasure only. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I avoided the main routes of travel, and always, so far as was possible, sought remote and primitive regions. It was in such a place that late one afternoon I came upon a romantic little glade, hidden between two ridges of the mountains I was traversing. All around, the country was bleak and barren, but here the grass was of the greenest and the foliage of the freshest; and it needed only a slight investigation to discover that this desirable state of affairs was due to the waters of a little spring which rose from the ground at one end of the glade. The water was remarkably clear and transparent, and over the spring itself was a small structure of stone, which, though half ruined by the passage of time, still bore a very evident resemblance to a miniature temple. My interest was strongly aroused; I scented a story, and I had my guide make inquiry of the villagers. I was right; there was a story and one which interested me greatly. For at that time I was still young and, though it is I who say it, not without attraction for the ladies; and I still entertained hopes that some day I would know those joys and delights that have come to my lucky young nephew. So I got from my baggage an old crystal flask, which I had picked up in Bassorah, and filled it from the spring; my guide produced an aromatic gum which he was in the habit of burning for the enjoyment of its odor, and we hermetically sealed the flask, which from that day to this I have always preserved most carefully. The day is long past, however, when it can be of use to me, whereas the time has only just begun, my dear Robert and my dear Amy, when it can be of use to you. So it is this flask, my dears, which I have chosen as my real gift to you.’
“He fumbled beneath the flowers and ferns which covered the table before him, and from its hiding-place produced something which he held high in his hand that all might see. It was a flask of crystal, long, slender and delicately fashioned, and filled to the very stopper with a liquid which, though colorless and transparent, seemed in the blazing light to sparkle and give forth faint iridescent gleams. It was a beautiful thing, and Craig’s wife gave a little exclamation of delight as the old gentleman bowed courteously and handed it to her.
“ ‘But Uncle Robert,’ she reminded him, as she took it, ‘the story? You said there was a story.’
“ ‘Oh, yes, my dear,’ replied Uncle Robert, ‘you shall have the story, which is most important. For you must know that the spring is a magic spring, and the water in the flask is magic too, with most magical properties. The spring had its origin in the tears of an unfortunate young maiden named Zubaydah, who, on the very spot where it now flows, found the body of her lover Ghanim, cruelly slain. She fell on his breast, lamenting wildly, and when they tore him away from her embracing arms, she would not stir, but remained there, refusing drink and food alike, and weeping, weeping constantly, until in the end she too died. Their story is most pathetic and some day you shall hear it; but now it is of no further importance, save for the fact that when they bore her tenderly away, a spring was flowing from the ground she had so plentifully watered with her tears. And the water of that spring had this remarkable quality: that when a flask of it is jointly possessed by true lovers, so long as neither commits a crime against their mutual love, the water remains as you saw it, clear, sparkling, translucent; but should either of the lovers prove false to the other, the water becomes dark, thick, muddy—an ugly symbol of the wrong that has been done.
“ ‘Always, even when I was quite young,’ concluded old Forsythe, ‘there was in my nature a strong materialistic strain—a strain of cynicism some said; but to me it seemed rather a strain of common sense, which enabled me to see things as they were, quite uninfluenced by the emotional disturbances which impaired the calm judgments of my fellows. So, though at this time I expected to marry and, of course, expected that my wife would be in love with me when we married, yet I was quite aware that there could be no guarantee that she would remain so. The value of a flask of this water to a person so able as myself to gaze without blinking upon the realities of life, was very evident. I should present it to my wife on our wedding day and tell her its story; and though I knew it could avail no more than anything else on this earth to keep me her love, yet I hoped that it might serve to guard me against those unpleasant little eccentricities of conduct which sometimes follow the death of conjugal affection. It was with this hope that I always preserved it, and it is with a similar hope on your behalf, my dear Robert, that I have presented you and Amy with the flask.’
“The old gentleman sat down in the midst of a stunned silence. It was, of course, an atrocious thing that he had done. On their very wedding day to suggest that the love of the bridal pair might not last forever! Craig’s face was pale and his lips were tightly compressed; on Amy’s cheeks burned two angry red spots. But, as I have said before, when one has a relative who is very old and also very wealthy, it is astonishing how lenient one becomes toward his lapses from what one believes to be the correct standards of taste and conduct. Neither Craig nor his wife spoke; the silence lasted yet another moment, then some one made a remark, which, however pointless, at least had the merit of provoking a general conversation, in the course of which old Forsythe and his crudeness were ignored by general consent.
“A little later Craig found his wife upstairs, just as she had donned her traveling dress. Uncle Robert, of course, was not there; and Craig permitted himself to become quite angry. The flask stood sparkling in the sunlight, on a little table where Amy had placed it on coming into the room. Craig would have smashed it to pieces, but Amy stayed his hand.
“ ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘your uncle may ask for it when he comes to see us, and we could not afford to offend him by telling him we had destroyed it.’
“The fact that it was she who saved the flask from destruction, afterwards seemed to Craig a rare bit of irony; but at the time he saw only an early proof of the wise, semi-maternal interest every good wife takes in her husband’s affairs, and he found it so inexpressibly touching that, instead of smashing the flask, he kissed his wife.
“Nevertheless, they did not exhibit old Forsythe’s wedding gift conspicuously in their drawing-room, though it was there that they found it greeting them upon returning from their trip. What to do with it was quite a problem until Mrs. Craig found a vacant space behind a row of books in the library, and there it was promptly bestowed. You see, as a hiding-place, this spot had two great virtues: it hid, which is a requisite of all hiding-places, and it allowed the flask to be quickly produced in case of Uncle Robert’s visits, which was a requisite of this particular hiding-place.
“After about two years had passed, however, they found that they had lost all sensitiveness upon the subject, and they even, at times, with a decided feeling of being an old married couple, treated the episode humorously for the benefit of their friends. ‘Dear Uncle Robert and his quaint idea of an appropriate wedding gift!’ They were able to adopt this attitude the more easily, perhaps, because there seemed so little probability that the event, to guard against which Uncle Robert had given them the flask, would ever occur. They were a model couple—Darby and Joan in all respects save that of age, and neither had ever shown the slightest inclination to stray beyond the strictest limits imposed by the matrimonial tether. This in spite of the fact that for two years they had not been separated for twenty-four hours at a time. Or should I say because of it? One can never tell. At any rate, when Uncle Robert died, about this time, he had been entirely forgiven, and they grieved for him quite sincerely.
“Now it happened that the bulk of the estate which the old gentleman had left to Craig and any possible children, was stock in a rubber concession in two of the smaller South American states; and it also happened that just after Forsythe’s death, acute trouble began to develop between the two countries. After several weeks of great anxiety, Craig felt that he had no choice, but must go and defend his interests in person. Accordingly, he immediately began his preparations for the trip. Mrs. Craig desired earnestly to go with him, but of this he would not hear.
“ ‘I shall not be gone over two months at the most,’ he said, ‘and that is not really such a long time. Besides, there will be danger for you if it comes to hostilities; and there is always fever.’
“In the end Mrs. Craig was persuaded to stay at home, and Craig went alone. On the night before he sailed he had an inspiration. He was in the library, disposing of some odds and ends of his affairs, when the inspiration came to him. He went to the bookshelves, pushed aside some books and took out the crystal flask. For a moment he held it in the light of the reading lamp, admiring the lustre of the delicate glass and the clear transparency of the liquid it contained. A smile curved his lips, and he held the neck of the flask over the flame of the lamp until the sealing gum was softened, then removed the stopper, poured out part of the contents and refilled the flask with ink. When he had replaced the stopper, he again held the flask to the light, but now the liquid it contained was a dirty, muddy gray—the color he wished. He smiled again in satisfaction, and returned the flask to its old place on the bookshelf.
“You see, he had conceived the idea of an excellent joke upon his wife. She would in all probability discover the flask at some time during his absence; she would realize immediately what he had done; and he could imagine her laughing with him across the thousand miles that separated them. And what a finish it would make to their story! Perhaps, too, she would play up to the situation by pretending to take her discovery seriously. The affair was full of humorous possibilities, and he amused himself greatly in anticipating them.
“But the absence which was to have extended over not more than two months, as a matter of fact, lasted for a little more than a year. During all this time it was never certain that Craig would not be able to return almost immediately; there was therefore no reason for his wife to join him, and she remained at home—alone.
“Upon what must have happened I can only touch lightly, because I cannot understand it. Mrs. Craig was alone, it is true, but her husband loved her; and when he left, she had undoubtedly cared for him. Of course, with the sudden increase in Craig’s income, she was thrown with a set she had never met before; she and Craig had not been poor, but this change meant wealth, really great wealth, and perhaps it turned her head. Perhaps, being as strangely illogical and as strongly resentful of fancied slights as women always are in matters which concern their affections, she had convinced herself that Craig need never have stayed from her so long, if his inclination and his duty had not traveled along the same road, and in her anger sought for revenge. Perhaps … but I do not know. One can never tell.
“When at last Craig returned home, however, she greeted him with manifestations of greatest pleasure; and Craig himself, when I met him on the street two days after his arrival, seemed radiantly happy. He had reason to be; he had wealth, occupation, strength and the love of the woman whom he loved. He probably thought himself, and he certainly seemed to me, one of the favored ones of the world.
“It was in all probability on the evening of this day that he first thought of the flask, and then it dawned on him quite suddenly that his wife had not spoken of it. His joke, of course, had failed, because if she had seen the flask during his absence, he would long since have heard something of it. Still, he would get it out and make what he could of the change that had come over it.
“ ‘Amy,’ he said, ‘we have forgotten to look at the flask.’ He watched her closely, but her face did not change. She did not even show the slight surprise that might have been expected at his sudden introduction of the subject.
“ ‘So we have,’ she answered. She smiled slightly. ‘If you think an inspection necessary, will you get it?’ She was so ready that it seemed almost as if she had been waiting for his suggestion; but he did not notice this—at the time.
“He walked across the room, already smiling as he thought of the surprise in store for her. Still smiling he reached down into the vacant space behind the books until he found the flask, then turned and held it to the light….
“That was a year ago.
“The next day Craig went to Canada. He did not return until his wife had sailed for Europe. She is still there, and Craig is—as you saw him.”
Drysdale stopped.
“But what was the matter? What was wrong?” exclaimed young Gwillam. “What—”
Drysdale interrupted him.
“You see,” he said, “when he looked at the flask that night, it had once more been filled with a perfectly clear and transparent liquid.”
