“I WENT first to Mannheim, Lady Janet, as I told you I should in my
letter, and I heard all that the consul and the hospital doctors could
tell me. No new fact of the slightest importance turned up. I got my
directions for finding the German surgeon, and I set forth to try what I
could make next of the man who performed the operation. On the question
of his patient’s identity he had (as a perfect stranger to her) nothing
to tell me. On the question of her mental condition, however, he made a
very important statement. He owned to me that he had operated on another
person injured by a shell-wound on the head at the battle of Solferino,
and that the patient (recovering also in this case) recovered--mad. That
is a remarkable admission; don’t you think so?”
Lady Janet’s temper had hardly been allowed time enough to subside to
its customary level.
“Very remarkable, I dare say,” she answered, “to people who feel any
doubt of this pitiable lady of yours being mad. I feel no doubt--and,
thus far, I find your account of yourself, Julian, tiresome in the
extreme. Go on to the end. Did you lay your hand on Mercy Merrick?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything of her?”
“Nothing. Difficulties beset me on every side. The French ambulance
had shared in the disasters of France--it was broken up. The wounded
Frenchmen were prisoners somewhere in Germany, nobody knew where.
The French surgeon had been killed in action. His assistants were
scattered--most likely in hiding. I began to despair of making any
discovery, when accident threw in my way two Prussian soldiers who had
been in the French cottage. They confirmed what the German surgeon told
the consul, and what Horace himself told _me_--namely, that no nurse
in a black dress was to be seen in the place. If there had been such a
person, she would certainly (the Prussians inform me) have been found in
attendance on the injured Frenchmen. The cross of the Geneva Convention
would have been amply sufficient to protect her: no woman wearing that
badge of honor would have disgraced herself by abandoning the wounded
men before the Germans entered the place.”
“In short,” interposed Lady Janet, “there is no such person as Mercy
Merrick.”
“I can draw no other conclusion,” said Julian, “unless the English
doctor’s idea is the right one. After hearing what I have just told you,
he thinks the woman herself is Mercy Merrick.”
Lady Janet held up her hand as a sign that she had an objection to make
here.
“You and the doctor seem to have settled everything to your entire
satisfaction on both sides,” she said. “But there is one difficulty that
you have neither of you accounted for yet.”
“What is it, aunt?”
“You talk glibly enough, Julian, about this woman’s mad assertion that
Grace is the missing nurse, and that she is Grace. But you have not
explained yet how the idea first got into her head; and, more than that,
how it is that she is acquainted with my name and address, and perfectly
familiar with Grace’s papers and Grace’s affairs. These things are a
puzzle to a person of my average intelligence. Can your clever friend,
the doctor, account for them?”
“Shall I tell you what he said when I saw him this morning?”
“Will it take long?”
“It will take about a minute.”
“You agreeably surprise me. Go on.”
“You want to know how she gained her knowledge of your name and of Miss
Roseberry’s affairs,” Julian resumed. “The doctor says in one of two
ways. Either Miss Roseberry must have spoken of you and of her own
affairs while she and the stranger were together in the French cottage,
or the stranger must have obtained access privately to Miss Roseberry’s
papers. Do you agree so far?”
Lady Janet began to feel interested for the first time.
“Perfectly,” she said. “I have no doubt Grace rashly talked of matters
which an older and wiser person would have kept to herself.”
“Very good. Do you also agree that the last idea in the woman’s mind
when she was struck by the shell might have been (quite probably) the
idea of Miss Roseberry’s identity and Miss Roseberry’s affairs? You
think it likely enough? Well, what happens after that? The wounded woman
is brought to life by an operation, and she becomes delirious in the
hospital at Mannheim. During her delirium the idea of Miss Roseberry’s
identity ferments in her brain, and assumes its present perverted form.
In that form it still remains. As a necessary consequence, she persists
in reversing the two identities. She says she is Miss Roseberry, and
declares Miss Roseberry to be Mercy Merrick. There is the doctor ‘s
explanation. What do you think of it?”
“Very ingenious, I dare say. The doctor doesn’t quite satisfy me,
however, for all that. I think--”
What Lady Janet thought was not destined to be expressed. She suddenly
checked herself, and held up her hand for the second time.
“Another objection?” inquired Julian.
“Hold your tongue!” cried the old lady. “If you say a word more I shall
lose it again.”
“Lose what, aunt?”
“What I wanted to say to you ages ago. I have got it back again--it
begins with a question. (No more of the doctor--I have had enough of
him!) Where is she--_your_ pitiable lady, _my_ crazy wretch--where is
she now? Still in London?”
“Yes.”
“And still at large?”
“Still with the landlady, at her lodgings.”
“Very well. Now answer me this! What is to prevent her from making
another attempt to force her way (or steal her way) into my house? How
am I to protect Grace, how am I to protect myself, if she comes here
again?”
“Is that really what you wished to speak to me about?”
“That, and nothing else.”
They were both too deeply interested in the subject of their
conversation to look toward the conservatory, and to notice the
appearance at that moment of a distant gentleman among the plants and
flowers, who had made his way in from the garden outside. Advancing
noiselessly on the soft Indian matting, the gentleman ere long revealed
himself under the form and features of Horace Holmcroft. Before entering
the dining-room he paused, fixing his eyes inquisitively on the back
of Lady Janet’s visitor--the back being all that he could see in the
position he then occupied. After a pause of an instant the visitor
spoke, and further uncertainty was at once at an end. Horace,
nevertheless, made no movement to enter the room. He had his own jealous
distrust of what Julian might be tempted to say at a private interview
with his aunt; and he waited a little longer on the chance that his
doubts might be verified.
“Neither you nor Miss Roseberry need any protection from the poor
deluded creature,” Julian went on. “I have gained great influence over
her--and I have satisfied her that it is useless to present herself here
again.”
“I beg your pardon,” interposed Horace, speaking from the conservatory
door. “You have done nothing of the sort.”
(He had heard enough to satisfy him that the talk was not taking the
direction which his Suspicions had anticipated. And, as an additional
incentive to show himself, a happy chance had now offered him the
opportunity of putting Julian in the wrong.)
“Good heavens, Horace!” exclaimed Lady Janet. “Where did you come from?
And what do you mean?”
“I heard at the lodge that your ladyship and Grace had returned last
night. And I came in at once without troubling the servants, by the
shortest way.” He turned to Julian next. “The woman you were speaking of
just now,” he proceeded, “has been here again already--in Lady Janet’s
absence.”
Lady Janet immediately looked at her nephew. Julian reassured her by a
gesture.
“Impossible,” he said. “There must be some mistake.”
“There is no mistake,” Horace rejoined. “I am repeating what I have just
heard from the lodge-keeper himself. He hesitated to mention it to Lady
Janet for fear of alarming her. Only three days since this person had
the audacity to ask him for her ladyship’s address at the sea-side. Of
course he refused to give it.”
“You hear that, Julian?” said Lady Janet.
No signs of anger or mortification escaped Julian. The expression in his
face at that moment was an expression of sincere distress.
“Pray don’t alarm yourself,” he said to his aunt, in his quietest tones.
“If she attempts to annoy you or Miss Roseberry again, I have it in my
power to stop her instantly.”
“How?” asked Lady Janet.
“How, indeed!” echoed Horace. “If we give her in charge to the police,
we shall become the subject of a public scandal.”
“I have managed to avoid all danger of scandal,” Julian answered; the
expression of distress in his face becoming more and more marked while
he spoke. “Before I called here to-day I had a private consultation with
the magistrate of the district, and I have made certain arrangements at
the police station close by. On receipt of my card, an experienced man,
in plain clothes, will present himself at any address that I indicate,
and will take her quietly away. The magistrate will hear the charge in
his private room, and will examine the evidence which I can produce,
showing that she is not accountable for her actions. The proper medical
officer will report officially on the case, and the law will place her
under the necessary restraint.”
Lady Janet and Horace looked at each other in amazement. Julian was,
in their opinion, the last man on earth to take the course--at once
sensible and severe--which Julian had actually adopted. Lady Janet
insisted on an explanation.
“Why do I hear of this now for the first time?” she asked. “Why did you
not tell me you had taken these precautions before?”
Julian answered frankly and sadly.
“Because I hoped, aunt, that there would be no necessity for proceeding
to extremities. You now force me to acknowledge that the lawyer and the
doctor (both of whom I have seen this morning) think, as you do, that
she is not to be trusted. It was at their suggestion entirely that
I went to the magistrate. They put it to me whether the result of
my inquiries abroad--unsatisfactory as it may have been in other
respects--did not strengthen the conclusion that the poor woman’s mind
is deranged. I felt compelled in common honesty to admit that it was so.
Having owned this, I was bound to take such precautions as the lawyer
and the doctor thought necessary. I have done my duty--sorely against my
own will. It is weak of me, I dare say; but I can _not_ bear the
thought of treating this afflicted creature harshly. Her delusion is so
hopeless! her situation is such a pitiable one!”
His voice faltered. He turned away abruptly and took up his hat.
Lady Janet followed him, and spoke to him at the door. Horace smiled
satirically, and went to warm himself at the fire.
“Are you going away, Julian?”
“I am only going to the lodge-keeper. I want to give him a word of
warning in case of his seeing her again.”
“You will come back here?” (Lady Janet lowered her voice to a whisper.)
“There is really a reason, Julian, for your not leaving the house now.”
“I promise not to go away, aunt, until I have provided for your
security. If you, or your adopted daughter, are alarmed by another
intrusion, I give you my word of honor my card shall go to the police
station, however painfully I may feel it myself.” (He, too, lowered his
voice at the next words ) “In the meantime, remember what I confessed
to you while we were alone. For my sake, let me see as little of Miss
Roseberry as possible. Shall I find you in this room when I come back?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
He laid a strong emphasis, of look as well as of tone, on that one word.
Lady Janet understood what the emphasis meant.
“Are you really,” she whispered, “as much in love with Grace as that?”
Julian laid one hand on his aunt’s arm, and pointed with the other to
Horace--standing with his back to them, warming his feet on the fender.
“Well?” said Lady Janet.
“Well,” said Julian, with a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye, “I
never envied any man as I envy _him!_”
With those words he left the room.