The Haunted Bell | Page 6

had Wagner denied all knowledge of the gong to him? Having denied, why should he now make an attempt to buy it back? In seeking answers to these questions he was silent.
"Well, dear?" inquired his wife after a pause. "You didn't answer me."
"No, don't sell the gong," he exclaimed abruptly. "Don't sell it at any price. I--I want it. I'll give you a cheque for your charity."
There was something of uneasiness in her devoted eyes. Some strange, subtle, indefinable air which she could not fathom was in his manner. With a little sigh which breathed her unrest she finished her breakfast.
On the following morning still another letter came from Johann Wagner. It was an appeal--an impassioned appeal--hurriedly scrawled and almost incoherent in form. He must have the gong! He would give five thousand dollars for it. Mrs. Phillips was frankly bewildered at the letter, and turned it over to her husband. He read it through twice with grimly-set teeth.
"No," he exclaimed violently; "it sha'n't be sold for any price!" Then his voice dropped as he recollected himself. "No, my dear," he continued, "it shall not be sold. It was a present from you to me. I want it, but"--and he smiled whimsically--"if he keeps raising the price it will add a great deal to your charity fund, won't it?"
Twice again within thirty-six hours Mr. Phillips heard the bell ring--once on one occasion and four on the other. And now visibly, tangibly, a great change was upon him. The healthy glow went from his face. There was a constant twitching of his hands; a continual, impatient snapping of his fingers. His eyes lost their steady gaze. They roved aimlessly, and one's impression always was that he was listening. The strength of the master spirit was being slowly destroyed, eaten up by a hideous gnawing thing of which he seemed hopelessly obsessed. But he took no one into his confidence; it was his own private affair to work out to the end.
This condition was upon him at a time when the activity of the speculative centres of the world was abnormal, and when every faculty was needed in the great financial schemes of which he was the centre. He, in person, held the strings which guided millions. The importance of his business affairs was so insistently and relentlessly thrust upon him that he was compelled to meet them. But the effort was a desperate one, and that night late, when a city slept around him, the bell sounded twice.
When he reached his downtown office next day an enormous amount of detail work lay before him, and he attacked it with a feverish exaltation which followed upon days and nights of restlessness. He had been at his desk only a few minutes when his private telephone clattered. With an exclamation he arose; comprehending, he sat down again.
Half-a-dozen times within the hour the bell rang, and each time he was startled. Finally he arose in a passion, tore the desk-telephone from its connecting wires and flung it into the waste-basket. Deliberately he walked around to the side of his desk and, with a well-directed kick, smashed the battery-box. His secretary regarded him in amazement.
"Mr. Camp," directed the financier sharply, "please instruct the office operator not to ring another telephone-bell in this office--ever."
The secretary went out and he sat down to work again. Late that afternoon he called on his family physician, Doctor Perdue, a robust individual of whom it was said that his laugh cured more patients than his medicine. Be that as it may, he was a successful man, high in his profession. Doctor Perdue looked up with frank interest as he entered.
"Hello, Phillips!" was his greeting. "What can I do for you?"
"Nerves," was the laconic answer.
"I thought it would come to that," remarked the physician, and he shook his head sagely. "Too much work, too much worry and too many cigars; and besides, you're not so young as you once were."
"It isn't work or cigars," Phillips replied impatiently. "It's worry--worry because of some peculiar circumstances which--which--"
He paused with a certain childish feeling of shame, of cowardice. Doctor Perdue regarded him keenly and felt of his pulse.
"What peculiar circumstances?" he demanded.
"Well, I--I can hardly explain it myself," replied Mr. Phillips, between tightly-clenched teeth. "It's intangible, unreal, ghostly--what you will. Perhaps I can best make you understand it by saying that I'm always--I always seem to be waiting for something."
Doctor Perdue laughed heartily; Mr. Phillips glared at him.
"Most of us are always waiting for something," said the physician. "If we got it there wouldn't be any particular object in life. Just what sort of thing is it you're always waiting for?"
Mr. Phillips arose suddenly and paced the length of the room twice. His under jaw was thrust out a little, his teeth crushed together,