and, stepping up to the man, she said (she afterward
told me the meaning of the words that passed between them): "Are you Dr.
Hildstein?"

"I am," he said, his face agitated by emotion, and his eyes sparkling,
"but I can see no one, speak to no one! I go out this moment to observe
the result of an important experiment!"

My wife motioned to me to close the door. "You need not go," she said,
"I can tell you that your experiment has succeeded. You have
dematerialized Mr. Kilbright. In one hour he was to be married to a
noble, loving woman; and now all that remains where he stood is a pile
of clothes!"

"Do you tell me that?" exclaimed the doctor, wildly seizing his hat.

"Stop!" cried Mrs. Colesworthy, her face glowing with excitement, her
eyes flashing, and her right arm extended. "Stir not one step! Do you
know what you have done?"

"I have done what I had a right to do!" exclaimed the doctor, almost in
a shout. "If he is gone he was nothing but a spirit. Tell me where--"

"I will tell you this!" exclaimed my wife. "He was a great deal more
than a spirit. He was a man engaged to be married at twelve o'clock this
day. You may think there is no law that will sweep down on you, but I
tell you there is; and before the clock strikes twelve you shall know
it. Do you imagine you have come upon a people who will endure the
presence of an ogre? a wretch, who reduces to nothing a fellow human
being, and calls it an experiment? When we tell what you have done--my
husband cannot speak German, but he is a leader in this town, and he
supports me in all I say--when we have told what you have done there
will be no need of courts, or judges, or lawyers for you. Like a wild
beast you will be hunted down; you will be trampled under foot; you will
be torn to pieces! Fire, the sword, the hangman's noose, clubs, and
crowbars will not be enough to satisfy the vengeance of an outraged
people upon a cold-blooded wretch who came to this country solely for
the purpose of perpetrating a crime more awful than anything that was
ever known before! Did you ever hear of lynching? I see by your face you
know what that means. You are in the midst of a people who, in ten short
minutes, will be shrieking for your blood!"

The man's face changed, and he looked anxiously at me. I did not know
what my wife had been saying, but I had seen by her manner that she had
been threatening him, and I shook my uplifted fist.

"Now heed what I say," cried Mrs.