"What could make you think that I had lost my respect for you?" I asked in surprise.
"Because, you know, you have never come to see me since, as you used to do." She looked at me a moment wistfully, and I knew she half expected me to explain or make some excuse; but I could not, unfortunately, do either without making bad worse. I could a.s.sure her, however, honestly, that I had not lost my respect for her.
"And I came to see you when you required me," I added.
But she was not satisfied, "I know your philanthropy," she said. "But I would rather have you come as of old because you believed in me, and like and respect me. I value your friendship, and it pains me to find that you can only treat me now like any other suffering sinner. Is it going to be so always?"
("Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?")
She had not alluded to the discontinuance of my visits before. I thought she had not missed me, and, being in a double mood, had been somewhat hurt by the seeming indifference, although I would not have had her want me when I could not come. Now, however, I was greatly distressed to find the construction she had put upon my absence, and all the more so because I could not explain.
"Do not say that!" I exclaimed. "You have always had, you always will have, my most sincere respect. It is part of an unhealthy state of mind which makes you doubt the attachment of your friends."
She was glad to accept this a.s.sertion. "Ah, yes!" she said. "I know the symptoms, but I had forgotten for the moment. Thank you. I _am_ so glad to see you again!" She sighed, leaned back in her chair, folded her hands on her lap, and looked at me--"if only as a doctor," she added slowly. "You have some mysterious power over my mind. All great doctors have the power I mean; I wonder what it is. Your very presence restores me in an extraordinary way. You dispel the worry in my head without a word, by just being here, however bad it is. I used to long for you so on those days when you never came, and I used to watch for you and be disappointed when you drove past; but then I always said, "He will come to-morrow," and that was something to look forward to. I used to think at first you would get over my escapade, or learn to take another view of it; but then, when you never came, I gradually lost heart and hope, and that is how it was I broke down, I think."
This guileless confidence affected me painfully.
"But I want to discover the secret of a great doctor"s success," she pursued. "What is your charm? There is something mesmeric about you, I think, something inimical to disease at all events. There is healing in your touch, and your very manners make an impression which cures."
"Knowledge, I suppose, has nothing to do with it?" I suggested, smiling.
"No, nothing," she answered emphatically. "I have carried out directions of yours successfully which had been previously given to me by another doctor and tried by me without effect. You alter the att.i.tude of one"s mind somehow--that is how you do it, I believe."
"Well, I hope to alter the present att.i.tude of your mind completely," I answered. "And to resume. I want you to tell me how you feel when one of those tormenting thoughts has pa.s.sed. Do you suffer remorse for having entertained it?"
"Only an occasional pang," she said. "I do not allow myself to sorrow or suffer for thoughts which I cannot control. I am suffering from a morbid state of mind, and it is my duty to fight against the impulses which it engenders. But my responsibility begins and ends with the struggle. And I am quite sure that it is wiser to try and forget that such ideas ever were than to encourage them to haunt me by recollecting them even for purposes of penitential remorse."
"And when it is not a criminal impulse, that affects you---"
"_Criminal!_" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, aghast at the word.
I had used it on purpose to see its effect upon her, and was satisfied.
The moral consciousness was still intact.
"Yes," I persisted. "But when it is not an impulse of that kind, what is it that disturbs your mind?"
"Thoughts of the suffering, the awful, needless suffering that there is in the world. The perception of it is a spur which goads me at times so that I feel as if I could do almost anything to lessen the sum of it. But then, you see, my hands are tied, so that all I can do is think, think, think."
"We must change that to work, work, work," I said.
"It is too late," she answered despondently. "Body and mind have suffered-- mind and body. All that is not wrong in me is weak. I would have it otherwise, yes. But give me some anodyne to relieve the pain; that is all you can do for me now."
"I will give you no anodyne, either actual or figurative," I answered, rising to go. "If you had no recuperative force left in you there would be less energy in your despair. It rests with yourself now entirely to be as healthy-minded as ever again if you like."
I never could remember whether I said good-bye to her that day, or just walked out of the room, like the forgetful boor I sometimes am, with the words on my lips.
CHAPTER XIV.
A medical man who does not keep his moral responsibility before him in the consideration of a case must be a very indifferent pract.i.tioner, and, with regard to Evadne, I felt mine to such an extent that, before the interview was over, I had decided that I was not the proper person to treat her. I doubted my judgment for one thing, which showed that for once my nerve was at fault; and I had other reasons which it is not necessary to give. I therefore determined to run up to town to consult Sir Shadwell Rock about her. He was a distinguished colleague and personal friend of mine, a man of vast experience, and many years my senior; and I knew that if he would treat her, she could not be in better hands.
When I left As-You-Like-It I found that I had just time to drive to Morningquest and catch the last train to town. It was a four hours"
journey, but fortunately there was a train in the early morning which would bring me back in time for my own work.
I knew Sir Shadwell was in town, and telegraphed to him to beg him to see me that night at half-past eleven if he possibly, could, and, on arriving, I found him at home--very much at home, indeed, in a smoking jacket and slippers over a big fire in his own private sanctum, enjoying his bachelor ease with a cigarette and the last shilling shocker.
I apologised for my untimely visit, but he put me at my ease at once by cordially a.s.suring me that I had done him a favour. "I was going to a boring big dinner this evening when your telegram arrived, and your coming in this way suggested something sufficiently important to detain me, so I sent an excuse, and have had a wholesome chop, and--eh--_a real good time_," he added confidentially, tapping the novelette. "Extraordinary production this, really. Most entertaining. I can"t guess who did it, you know, I can"t indeed--but, my dear boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?
What can I do for you?
"First of all give me a wholesome chop if you have another in the house, for I"m famishing."
"Oh, a thousand pardons for my remissness!" he exclaimed, ringing the bell vehemently. "Of course you haven"t dined. I ought to have thought of that.
Something very important, I suppose?"
"A most interesting case."
"Mental?"
"Yes. A lady."
"Well, not another word until you"ve had something to eat. Suitable surroundings play an important part in the discussion of such cases, and suitable times and seasons also. Just before dinner one isn"t sanguine, and just after one is too much so. When you have eaten, take time to reflect--and a cigarette if you are a smoker." He had been holding his book in his hand all the time, but now he pottered to a side-table with an old man"s stiffness, peeped at the paragraph he had been reading, marked his place with a paper cutter, and muttered--"Very strange, for if she didn"t steal the jewels, who did? Mustn"t dip though; spoils it." He put the book down, and returned to me, taking off his spectacles as he came, and smoothing his thick white hair. "Now don"t say a word if you"ve read it," he cautioned me. "I always owe everybody a grudge who tells me the plot of a story I"m interested in. But, let me see, what was I saying? Oh!
Take time, that was it! There is nothing like letting yourself settle if you are at all perplexed. When the memory is crowded with details the mind becomes muddy, and you must let it clear itself. That is the secret of my own success. In any difficulty I have always waited. Don"t try to think, Much better dismiss the matter from your mind altogether, make yourself comfortable in the easiest chair in the room, get a rousing book--the subject is of no importance, so long as it interests you--and in half an hour, if the physical well-being is satisfactory, you will find the mental tension gradually relax. Your ideas begin to flow, your judgment becomes clear, and you suddenly see for yourself in a way that astonishes you."
"Then pray oblige me by resuming your seat and cigarette," I answered, "and let me transfer my difficulty to you while the moment lasts--_your_ moment!"
"When you have dined," he said good-humouredly. "I won"t hear a word while you are famishing. Tell me how you are yourself, and what you are doing.
My dear boy, it is really a pleasure to see you! Why aren"t you married?"
"Now, really, do you expect me to answer such an important question as that with my mind in its present muddy condition!" I retorted upon him.
"My many reasons are all rioting in my recollection, and I can"t see one clearly,"
The old gentleman smiled, and sat patting the arms of his chair for a little. "You"re looking f.a.gged," he remarked presently. "Work won"t hurt you, but beware of worry!"
My dinner was brought to me on a tray at this instant, and the dear old man got up to see that it was properly served. He tried the champagne himself, to be sure it was right, and gave careful directions about the coffee. His interest in everything was as fresh as a boy"s, and nothing he could do in the way of kindness was ever a trouble to him.
"You have been coming out strong in defence of morality lately," I remarked, when I had dined. "You have somewhat startled the proprieties."
"Startled the pruderies, you mean," he answered, bridling. "The proprieties face any necessity for discussion with modest discretion, however painful it may be,"
"Well, you"ve done some good, at all events," I answered. I did not tell him, but only that very day I had heard it said that his was a name which all women should reverence for what he had done for some of them.
"Well," he said, "the clergy have had a long innings. They have been hard at it for the last eighteen hundred years, and society is still rotten at the core. It is our turn now. But come, draw up your chair to the fire and be comfortable. Well, yes," he went on, rubbing his hands, "I suppose eventually morality will be taught by medical men, and when it is much misery will be saved to the suffering s.e.x. My own idea is that a woman is a human being; but the clerical theory is that she is a dangerous beast, to be kept in subjection, and used for domestic purposes only. Married life is made up to a great extent of the most heartless abuse of a woman"s love and unselfishness. Submission, you know--!"
When I had given him the details of Evadne"s case, so far as I had gone into it, he asked me what my own theory was.