第72章

"Just what I thought, too, when I first heard it!" he said."My friend was neither offended nor surprised.After inviting me to go to his house, and judge for myself, he referred me to a similar case, publicly cited in the 'Cornhill Magazine,' for the month of April, 1879, in an article entitled 'Bodily Illness as a Mental Stimulant.' The article is published anonymously; but the character of the periodical in which it appears is a sufficient guarantee of the trustworthiness of the statement.I was so far influenced by the testimony thus cited, that I drove to Sandsworth and examined the case myself.""Did the examination satisfy you?"

"Thoroughly.When I saw him last night, the poor boy was as sane as I am.There is, however, a complication in this instance, which is not mentioned in the case related in print.The boy appears to have entirely forgotten every event in his past life, reckoning from the time when the bodily illness brought with it the strange mental recovery which I have mentioned to you."This was a disappointment.I had begun to hope for some coming result, obtained by the lad's confession.

"Is it quite correct to call him sane, when his memory is gone?"I ventured to ask.

"In this case there is no necessity to enter into the question,"the doctor answered."The boy's lapse of memory refers, as I told you, to his past life--that is to say, his life when his intellect was deranged.During the extraordinary interval of sanity that has now declared itself, he is putting his mental powers to their first free use; and none of them fail him, so far as I can see.His new memory (if I may call it so) preserves the knowledge of what has happened since his illness.You may imagine how this problem in brain disease interests me; and you will not wonder that I am going back to Sandsworth tomorrow afternoon, when I have done with my professional visits.But you may be reasonably surprised at my troubling _you_ with details which are mainly interesting to a medical man."Was he about to ask me to go with him to the asylum? I replied very briefly, merely saying that the details were interesting to every student of human nature.If he could have felt my pulse at that moment, I am afraid he might have thought I was in a fair way of catching the fever too.

"Prepare yourself," he resumed, "for another surprising circumstance.Mr.Winterfield is, by some incomprehensible accident, associated with one of the mischievous tricks played by the French boy, before he was placed under my friend's care.

There, at any rate, is the only explanation by which we can account for the discovery of an envelope (with inclosures) found sewn up in the lining of the lad's waistcoat, and directed to Mr.

Winterfield--without any place of address."I leave you to imagine the effect which those words produced on me.

"Now," said the doctor, "you will understand why I put such strange questions to you.My friend and I are both hard-working men.We go very little into society, as the phrase is; and neither he nor I had ever heard the name of Winterfield.As a certain proportion of my patients happen to be people with a large experience of society, I undertook to make inquiries, so that the packet might be delivered, if possible, to the right person.You heard how Mrs.Eyrecourt (surely a likely lady to assist me?) received my unlucky reference to the madhouse; and you saw how I puzzled Sir John.I consider myself most fortunate, Father Benwell, in having had the honor of meeting you? Will you accompany me to the asylum to-morrow? And can you add to the favor by bringing Mr.Winterfield with you?"This last request it was out of my power--really out of my power--to grant.Winterfield had left London that morning on his visit to Paris.His address there was, thus far, not known to me.

"Well, you must represent your friend," the doctor said."Time is every way of importance in this case.Will you kindly call here at five to-morrow afternoon?"I was punctual to my appointment.We drove together to the asylum.

There is no need for me to trouble you with a narrative of what Isaw--favored by Doctor Wybrow's introduction--at the French boy's bedside.It was simply a repetition of what I had already heard.

There he lay, at the height of the fever, asking, in the intervals of relief, intelligent questions relating to the medicines administered to him; and perfectly understanding the answers.He was only irritable when we asked him to take his memory back to the time before his illness; and then he answered in French, "I haven't got a memory."But I have something else to tell you, which is deserving of your best attention.The envelope and its inclosures (addressed to "Bernard Winterfield, Esqre.") are in my possession.The Christian name sufficiently identifies the inscription with the Winterfield whom I know.

The circumstances under which the discovery was made were related to me by the proprietor of the asylum.

When the boy was brought to the house, two French ladies (his mother and sister) accompanied him.and mentioned what had been their own domestic experience of the case.They described the wandering propensities which took the lad away from home, and the odd concealment of his waistcoat, on the last occasion when he had returned from one of his vagrant outbreaks.

On his first night at the asylum, he became excited by finding himself in a strange place.It was necessary to give him a composing draught.On goin g to bed, he was purposely not prevented from hiding his waistcoat under the pillow, as usual.

When the sedative had produced its effect, the attendant easily possessed himself of the hidden garment.It was the plain duty of the master of the house to make sure that nothing likely to be turned to evil uses was concealed by a patient.The seal which had secured the envelope was found, on examination, to have been broken.

"I would not have broken the seal myself," our host added."But, as things were, I thought it my duty to look at the inclosures.