Ben straightened, but the dim images in his mind were not clear enough
for him to answer in the affirmative. "I'm afraid not."
Melville leaned forward in his chair. "Ask him if he remembers winning
the canoe race at Lodge Pole--or the time he shot the Athabaska Rapids."
Ben turned brightly to him, but slowly shook his head. "I can't remember
ever hearing of them before."
"I think you would, in time," Forest remarked. "They must have been
interesting experiences. Now what do these mean to you?--Thunder
Lake--Abner Darby--Edith Darby--MacLean's College----"
Ben relaxed, focusing his attention on the names. For the instant the
scene about him, the anxious, interested faces, faded from his
consciousness. Thunder Lake! Somewhere, some time, Thunder Lake had had
the most intimate associations with his life. The name stirred him and
moved him; dim voices whispered in his ears about it, but he couldn't
quite catch what they said. He groped and reached in vain.
There was no doubt but that an under-consciousness had full knowledge
of the name and all that it meant. But it simply could not reach that
knowledge up into his conscious mind.
Abner Darby! It was curious what a flood of tenderness swept through him
as, whispering, he repeated the name. Some one old and white-haired had
been named Abner Darby: some one whom he had once worshipped with the
fervor of boyhood, but who had leaned on his own, strong shoulders in
latter years. Since his own name was Darby, Abner Darby was, in all
probability, his father; but his reasoning intelligence, rather than his
memory, told him so.
The name of Edith Darby conjured up in his mind a childhood playmate,--a
girl with towzled yellow curls and chubby, confiding little hands....
But these dim memory-pictures went no further: there were no later
visions of Edith as a young woman, blossoming with virgin beauty. They
stopped short, and he had a deep, compelling sense of grief. The child,
unquestionably a sister, had likely died in early years. The third name
of the three, MacLean's College, called up no memories whatever.
"I can hardly say that I remember much about them," he responded at
last. "I think they'll come plainer, though, the more I think about
them. I just get the barest, vague ideas."
"They'll strengthen in time, I'm sure," Forest told him. "Put them out
of your mind, for now. Let it be blank." The alienist again leaned
toward him, his eyes searching. There ensued an instant's pause,
possessing a certain quality of suspense. Then Forest spoke quickly,
sharply. "_Wolf_ Darby!"
In response a curious tremor passed over Ben's frame, giving in some
degree the effect of a violent start. "_Wolf_ Darby," he repeated
hesitantly. "Why do you call me that?"
"The very fact that you know the name refers to you, not some one else,
shows that that blunted memory of yours has begun to function in some
degree. Now think. What do you know about 'Wolf' Darby?"
Ben tried in vain to find an answer. A whole world of meaning lingered
just beyond the reach of his groping mind; but always it eluded him. It
was true, however, that the name gave him a certain sense of pleasure
and pride, as if it had been used in compliment to some of his own
traits. Far away and long ago, men had called _him_ "Wolf" Darby: he
felt that perhaps the name had carried far, through many sparsely
settled districts. But what had been the occasion for it he did not
know.
He described these dim memory pictures; and Forest's air of satisfaction
seemed to imply that his own theories in regard to Ben's case were
receiving justification. He appeared quite a little flushed, deeply
intent, when he turned to the next feature of the examination. He
suddenly spoke quietly to old Ezra Melville; and the latter put a small,
cardboard box into his hands.
"I want you to see what I have here," Forest told Ben. "They were your
own possessions once--you sent them yourself to Abner Darby, your late
father--and I want you to see if you remember them."
Ben's eyes fastened on the box; and the others saw a queer drawing of
the lines of his face, a curious tightening and clasping of his fingers.
There was little doubt but that his subconsciousness had full cognizance
of the contents of that box. He was trembling slightly, too--in
excitement and expectation--and Ezra Melville, suddenly standing erect,
was trembling too. The moment was charged with the uttermost suspense.
Evidently this was the climax in the examination. Even McNamara, the
Governor, was breathless with interest in his chair; Forest had the rapt
look of a scientist in some engrossing experiment. He opened the box,
taking therefrom a roll of white cotton. This he slowly unrolled,
revealing two small, ribboned ornaments of gold or bronze.
Ben's starting eyes fastened on them. No doubt he recognized them. A
look of veritable anguish swept his brown face, and all at once small
drops of moisture appeared on his brow and through the short hairs at
his temples. The dark scar at his temple was suddenly brightly red from
the pounding blood beneath.
"The Victoria Cross, of course," he said slowly, brokenly. "I won it,
didn't I--the day--that day at Ypres--the day my men were trapped--"
His words faltered then. The wheels of _his_ memory, starting into
motion, were stilled once more. Again the great darkness dropped over
him; there were only the medals left in their roll of cotton, and the
broken fragments of a story--of some wild, stirring event of the war
just gone--remaining in his mind. Yet to Forest the experiment was an
unqualified success.
"There's no doubt of it!" he exclaimed. He turned to McNamara, the
Governor. "His brain is just as sound as yours or mine. With the right
environment, the right treatment, he'd be on the straight road to
recovery. In a general way of speaking he has recovered now, largely,
from the purely temporary trouble that he had before."
McNamara focused an intent gaze first on Ben, then on the alienist. "It
is, then--as you guessed."
"Absolutely. The night of his arrest marked the end of his trouble; you
might say that his brain simply snapped back into health and began to
function normally again, after a period of temporary mania from
shell-shock. It is true that his memory was left blank, but there
doesn't seem to be any organic reason for it to be blank--other than
lack of incentive to remember. Catch me up, if you don't follow me. In
other words, he has been slowly convalescing since that night: under the
proper stimuli I have no doubt that everything would come back to him."
"And our friend here--Melville--offers to supply those stimuli."
"Exactly. And it's up to you to say whether he gets a chance."
Thoughtfully the executive drummed his desk with his pencil. Presently a
smile, markedly boyish and pleasant, broke over his face. More than
once, in the line of duty imposed by his high office, he had been
obliged to make decisions contrary to every dictate of mercy. He was all
the more pleased at this opportunity to do, with a clear conscience, the
thing that his kindness prompted. He turned slowly in his chair.
"Darby, I suppose you followed what the doctor said?" he asked easily.
"Fairly well, I think."
"I'll review it, if I may. It seems, Ben, that you have been the victim
of a strange set of unfortunate circumstances. Due to the efforts of an
old family friend--a most devoted and earnest friend if I may say
so--we've looked up your record, and now we know more about you than you
know about yourself. You served in France with Canadian troops and
there, you will be proud to know, you won among other honors the highest
honor that the Government of England can award a hero. There you were
shell-shocked, in the last months of the war.
"You did not return to your home. Shell-shock, Forest tells me, is a
curious thing, resulting in many forms of mania. Yours led you into
crime. For some months you lived as a desperate criminal in Seattle. You
came to yourself in the act of breaking into a bank, only to find that
your memory of not only your days of crime but all that had gone before
was left a blank. That night, as you know, marked your arrest.
"Forest has just explained that you are organically sound--that the
recovery of your memory is just a matter of time and the proper stimuli.
Now, Ben, it isn't the purpose of this State to punish men when they are
not responsible for their deeds. Melville tells me that your record, in
your own home, was the best; your war record alone, I believe, would
entitle you to the limit of mercy from the State. I don't see how we can
hold you responsible for deeds done while you were mentally disabled
from shell-shock.
"All you need for complete recovery, to call everything back in your
mind, is the proper stimuli. At least that is the opinion of Doctor
Forest. What those proper stimuli are of course no one knows for
sure--but Doctor Forest has a theory; and I think he will tell you that
he will share the credit for it with the same man who has been your
friend all the way through. They think they know what is best for you.
The final decision has been put up to me as to whether or not they shall
be permitted to give it a trial.
"This good friend of yours has offered to try to put it through. He has
a plan outlined that he'll tell you of later, that will not only be the
best possible influence toward recalling your memory, but will also give
you a clean, new start in life. A chance for every success.
"So you needn't return to Walla Walla, Darby. I'm going to parole
you--under the charge of your benefactor. Melville, from now on it's up
to you."
The little, withered gray man looked very solemn as he rose. The others
were stricken instantly solemn too, surprised that the droll smile they
were so used to seeing had died on the homely, kindly face. Even his
twinkling eyes were sobered too.
Vaguely amused, yet without scorn, McNamara and Forest got up to shake
his hand. "I'll look after him," Melville assured them. "Never fear for
that."
Slight as he was, wasted by the years, his was a figure of unmistakable
dignity as he thanked them, gravely and earnestly, for their kindness in
Ben's behalf. Soon after he and his young charge went out together.