A Strange Discovery
by
Charles Romyn Dake
Part 4 out of 4
friends, the memory of whom has always been dear to me, and whom it has
been my misfortune not again to meet. The day before my departure, I
drove to Peters' home, and said to him good-by. I called on Doctor
Bainbridge at his office; and Doctor Castleton I met on the street
corner, where, from the window of my apartment in the Loomis House, I
had first seen him. I hope that the later life of each of them has been
a smooth one: I know that both were good men, and that one of them was a
man of singular fascination.
As I took my leave of Doctor Castleton, and after he had spoken of the
death of Lilama, he said:
"I trust, young man, that you are pleased with your discovery--I know
that Bainbridge is;" and he accompanied the remark with a searching
glance of those large black eyes, the meaning of which I could not then
fathom, and the recollection of which has often puzzled me. Then he
smiled, and said farewell.
Doctor Bainbridge, when I had said my last words to him, spoke thus:
"May you have a pleasant journey, and a loving welcome to your home. You
will probably never return to America--or, even if you do, not to our
little city. I wish I could think that some day we shall meet again, but
we probably never shall. And yet," he continued, smilingly, "who knows!
If not again in this life, or in this world, still in some new form, on
some strange planet. It may be that on Venus the beautiful our hands
shall once more clasp; or on some water-way of Mars the ruddy, as we
pass in our gondolas, we may call a greeting to each other--or possibly
to Poe, the bright unfortunate. I am sorry that you must leave us, and I
wish you every happiness."
It was at the railroad station, to which his duties called him, that I
said to Arthur good-by; and there, as the train pulled out, through the
car-window I caught a glimpse of two moist eyes looking after the
departing train.
And now, to the patient reader, I say farewell.
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