He pressed my hand, his voice choking. "You proved that, my boy, you
proved that. How you escaped, how that horse ever cleared that fence
and cliff--
"Jack," he went on, turning impulsively, "I am a blunt man, plain and
not farseeing in things like all of these, that have come to me so swift
and fast. I don't mean these accidents--I'm used to them--life and the
whole little game of it is all a blind chance. I have taken mine all my
life--and--and--well, they've always been against me, Jack--always, even
now. I've lost--always--even as I shall lose now--Elsie. The great
hand of Fate that flings the dice for us has always thrown them loaded
for me--Jack."
He was silent. I thought of God and the Butterfly. I pitied him,
seeing nothing as he did.
"No, I am not farseeing--not farseeing--in things like the other side of
all this--not the blind chance side which has always been mine--but the
side you make yourself, someway, somehow, like this."
He drew a blurred and crumpled note from his pocket. It was Eloise's.
I had seen it last when, holding it to my breast, I had fallen asleep
that afternoon under the trees.
"This kind of a little thing, Jack," he said, handing me the little
relic. "I am a blundering fool--and I have to tell you so--to tell you
what an unseeing fool I have been. I see it all now--and yet I'd never
have seen. I found this clutched in Elsie's hand. This was her
shock--this was my folly--my unseeing folly. No, no," he cried quickly,
seeing I was about to say something. "No, no, Jack, I see it all--don't
say a word. You've been a man all through it--a white man, Jack. I am
not talking to put you on trial. I'm passing judgment on myself for
your sake, my boy; that you may understand what a selfish, unseeing fool
I have been.
"Well, it's down to this--it's all past--let it go," he added. "But
Elsie--she is of the living present. You must help me, help me a little
yet awhile Jack--till--till the crisis is past."
I pressed his hand silently. "Thank you," he said simply, "and now just
a word of explanation. This trouble of hers runs in the blood of the
Carfaxes. My grandmother, my own sister, went this way. They are keyed
high, and if a shock like this comes, it's death or an unbalancing.
When she read that," he said, "which unseeing one that I have been, was
all my fault, when she read it, Jack, she lost her reason, she was
temporarily insane when she made that leap. She is conscious now and
stronger; but still she remembers nothing up to that mental shock, the
shock of that note, that showed her all, and--oh well, I'm only a blunt
kind of a man--I can't tell it--you alone could do that. But it's this
now, Jack, you go in and talk to her. You stay with her--till we get
her right--and we've a chance to yet--Jack, until we get her right--just
let her believe--believe-- Oh, you know, Jack!"
The tears were in his eyes as he led me into Elsie's room.
Tammas and Marget were by the bed. Elsie lay amid her pillows, a
strange startled look in her eyes.
"You and the old people, Jack," whispered the doctor, rising and taking
Goff by the arm, "you all just talk to her, get her back to the dairy
and the old ways again, if you can. If she can be quieted and her mind
bridged over the shock, she'll be all right again. And to-night will
tell," he added quietly, "so be very calm. I have given her all the
morphine she'll stand, tried everything, but if she can't be made to
sleep she'll lose her mind and if she doesn't sleep to-night her mind is
doomed."
I was not certain, but I had always suspected that I possessed the power
of suggestion. I had felt it in dealing with dumb animals and weaker
people.
I sat by her, talking to her in the old way. "It is Jack, Elsie," I
said, "your own Jack. We've met in our old trysting place. We are under
our old trees, and Tammas and Marget are here and you are tired and are
going to sleep while your head is on my lap. I'll watch you
sleep--sleep now," I said softly, stroking her forehead.
There was a deep sigh, then the frightened wild look died out of her
eyes and with a smile like her old one she slept.
The doctor beckoned me. "That's good," he said in the hallway. "Just
let the nurse and Marget stay with her, let her sleep all night if she
will."
"But I will have to waken her," I said.