"No, I suppose I was knocked senseless. The last thing I can remember
is going down the embankment. I tried to jump, but my foot caught, and
I struck my head against something. There was a young woman in the
opposite berth--was she killed, I wonder? She had two little children.
I suppose I have been unconscious for sometime. It must have happened
yesterday, didn't it?"
"It was several days ago," said the doctor, soothingly. "You had
better rest a while, and then you can tell us more, and about
yourself."
"This lady can tell you all about me. She has known me all my life,"
and he closed his eyes wearily.
The doctor looked at me significantly, and I followed him into the
hall.
"What in the world does this mean? That young man is no more
Charlie Reynolds than I am. I can only account for the case in one
way, and that is a very unusual one. The operation I performed last
week restored his skull to its normal shape. There was quite a
deep indenture and a consequent pressure upon the brain, which
undoubtedly affected, probably suspended, his memory. Now this young
man--minister, did you say?----"
"Yes," I interrupted. "But this is the awful part of it. He is
dead--buried--five years ago. I saw him buried, have gone to his grave
many times, and now he lies there and talks to me. And Charlie
Reynolds, drunkard and robber. Oh, no! no!"
"You say your friend was killed in a railroad accident on his vacation
trip? How was the body identified? Who saw it after it was sent
home?"
"None of his family saw the remains, he was so badly burned. I see. It
must have been the wrong body."
"And the railroad, of course, had him cared for until he was well. And
then he couldn't tell who he was, and drifted about until he fell into
bad company. He has been a cat's paw for this gang, no doubt. Well,
you've got a pretty little sensation upon your hands. I'd like to see
you get back and tell your story."
I wondered how he could talk and smile so carelessly, but in that
country nobody is surprised at anything. I went back to my patient,
after dispatching a messenger for Howard, who was working in the "San
Jacinto," twenty miles away.
Chester, as I could safely call him now, was extremely anxious about
his fellow passengers, and thought they must be in the hotel at this
time. I was familiar with the shocking details of the disaster at the
time, but could not recall them with sufficient accuracy to satisfy
him. The five years intervening were apparently entirely lost. He
could scarcely believe us when we told him that he had lain
unconscious for more than a week.
Howard came in the evening, and was amazed beyond his power of
expression. He thought over the complex situation a long time before
he made any effort to communicate with the family of the patient.
Chester could not understand why we had not telegraphed before, and we
could not explain. We called a council of three and debated. Chester
Mansfield, the gifted, irreproachable minister of our large church,
was held to be tried for robbery and assault as soon as he was able to
appear. We could not take him away. What word could we send to the
young wife, about whom he continually asked, and the old mother? We
finally left it to Howard, who telegraphed to the wife that her
husband had been found alive, though recovering from serious illness;
that he was in our care, but wished her to join him as soon as
possible; and that the body sent home as his must have been that of
another man.
When we told Chester that she had been sent for he exclaimed, "How can
she leave her baby? She would have been with me but for that three
months old baby." The baby was now a tall boy of five in kilts.
Although the complications arising from this strange case were
countless, we managed to keep the real story from Chester until he was
sufficiently recovered to bear it, and indeed we did not then tell him
of the serious misdeeds of his other self.
But when the young wife came after her long journey, and we led her,
for the first time without her mourning dress, up to his room, he knew
that to her he was in truth one risen from the dead. I opened the door
for her, and when I heard her cry of joy as she sprang forward,
satisfied at last of his identity, and his low, "My love, my love!" I
closed the door and went away to weep a few tears to myself, but not
of sorrow.
My story is told. We secured bail for Charles Reynolds and took him
home, to await the fall term of court, where he expects to have no
difficulty in proving his innocence in his present person. To himself
his case presents some metaphysical and moral studies quite at
variance with his own belief. He cannot yet comprehend the silence of
his conscience at this time of need. The sensation created by our
return, and all subsequent events, are well known to those who will
read this statement, so that I need tell no more.
My only object in writing so minute an account, and detailing such
conversations as I could remember, is to protect him forever, as far
as my word will avail, from any insinuation of intentional or
conscious wrong doing in those five lost years, knowing as I do the
conditions of life exacted of a clergyman and fearing some future
recrimination.
* * * * *