everybody knows by name at least the celebrated dr. greatrex, the discoverer of that abstruse molecular theory of the interrelations of forces and energies. he is a comparatively young man still, as times go, for a person of such scientific distinction, for he is now barely forty; but to look at his tall, spare, earnest figure, and his clear-cut, delicate, intellectual face, you would scarcely imagine that he had once been the hero of a singularly strange and romantic story. yet there have been few lives more romantic than arthur greatrex's, and few histories stranger in their way than this of his engagement. after all, why should not a scientific light have a romance of his own as well as other people?
fifteen years ago arthur greatrex, then a young cambridge fellow, had just come up to begin his medical studies at a london hospital. he was tall in those days, of course, but not nearly so slender or so pale as now; for he had rowed seven in his college boat, and was a fine, athletic young man of the true english university pattern. handsome, too, then and always, but with a more human-looking and ordinary handsomeness when he was young than in these latter times of his scientific eminence. indeed, any one who met arthur greatrex at that time would merely have noticed him as a fine, intelligent young english gentleman, with a marked taste for manly sports, and a decided opinion[pg 22] of his own about most passing matters of public interest.
already, even in those days, the young medical student was very deeply engaged in recondite speculations on the question of energy. his active mind, always dwelling upon wide points of cosmical significance, had hit upon the germ of that great revolutionary idea which was afterwards to change the whole course of modern physics. but, as often happens with young men of twenty-five, there was another subject which divided his attention with the grand theory of his life: and that subject was the pretty daughter of his friend and instructor, dr. abury, the eminent authority on the treatment of the insane. in all london you couldn't have found a sweeter or prettier girl than hetty abury. young greatrex thought her clever, too; and, though that is perhaps saying rather too much, she was certainly a good deal above the average of ordinary london girls in intellect and accomplishments.
"they say, arthur," she said to him on the day after their formal engagement, "that the course of true love never did run smooth; and yet it seems somehow as if ours was wonderfully smoothed over for us by everybody and everything. i am the happiest and proudest girl in all the world to have won the love of such a man as you for my future husband."
arthur greatrex stroked the back of her white little hand with his, and answered gently, "i hope nothing will ever arise to make the course of our love run any the rougher; for certainly we do seem to have every happiness laid out most temptingly before us. it almost feels to me as if my paradise had been too easily won, and i ought to have something harder to do before i enter it."
"don't say that, arthur," hetty put in hastily. "it sounds too much like an evil omen."
"you superstitious little woman!" the young doctor replied with a smile. "talking to a scientific man about signs and portents!" and he[pg 23] kissed her wee hand tenderly, and went home to his bachelor lodging with that strange exhilaration in heart and step which only the ecstasy of first love can ever bring one.
"no," he thought to himself, as he sat down in his own easy-chair, and lighted his cigar; "i don't believe any cloud can ever arise between me and hetty. we have everything in our favour—means to live upon, love for one another, a mutual respect, kind relations, and hearts that were meant by nature each for the other. hetty is certainly the very sweetest little girl that ever lived; and she's as good as she's sweet, and as loving as she's beautiful. what a dreadful thing it is for a man in love to have to read up medicine for his next examination!" and he took a medical book down from the shelf with a sigh, and pretended to be deeply interested in the diagnosis of scarlet fever till his cigar was finished. but, if the truth must be told, the words really swam before him, and all the letters on the page apparently conspired together to make up but a single name a thousand times over—hetty, hetty, hetty, hetty. at last he laid the volume down as hopeless, and turned dreamily into his bedroom, only to lie awake half the night and think perpetually on that one theme of hetty.
next day was dr. abury's weekly lecture on diseases of the brain and nervous system; and arthur greatrex, convinced that he really must make an effort, went to hear it. the subject was one that always interested him; and partly by dint of mental attention, partly out of sheer desire to master the matter, he managed to hear it through, and even take in the greater part of its import. as he left the room to go down the hospital stairs, he had his mind fairly distracted between the premonitory symptoms of insanity and hetty abury. "was there ever such an unfortunate profession as medicine for a man in love?" he asked himself, half angrily. "why didn't i go and be a parson or a barrister,[pg 24] or anything else that would have kept me from mixing up such incongruous associations? and yet, when one comes to think of it, too, there's no particular natural connection after all between 'chitty on contract' and dearest hetty."
musing thus, he turned to walk down the great central staircase of the hospital. as he did so, his attention was attracted for a moment by a singular person who was descending the opposite stair towards the same landing. this person was tall and not ill-looking; but, as he came down the steps, he kept pursing up his mouth and cheeks into the most extraordinary and hideous grimaces; in fact, he was obviously making insulting faces at arthur greatrex. arthur was so much preoccupied at the moment, however, that he hardly had time to notice the eccentric stranger; and, as he took him for one of the harmless lunatic patients in the mental-diseases ward, he would have passed on without further observing the man but for an odd circumstance which occurred as they both reached the great central landing together. arthur happened to drop the book he was carrying from under his arm, and instinctively stooped to pick it up. at the same moment the grimacing stranger dropped his own book also, not in imitation, but by obvious coincidence, and stooped to pick it up with the self-same gesture. struck by the oddity of the situation, arthur turned to look at the curious patient. to his utter horror and surprise, he discovered that the man he had been observing was his own reflection.
in one second the real state of the case flashed like lightning across his bewildered brain. there was no opposite staircase, as he knew very well, for he had been down those steps a hundred times before: nothing but a big mirror, which reflected and doubled the one-sided flight from top to bottom. it was only his momentary preoccupation which had made[pg 25] him for a minute fall into the obvious delusion. the man whom he saw descending towards him was really himself, arthur greatrex.
even so, he did not at once grasp the full strangeness of the scene he had just witnessed. it was only as he turned to descend again that he caught another glimpse of himself in the big mirror, and saw that he was still making the most horrible and ghastliest grimaces—grimaces such as he had never seen equalled save by the monkeys at the zoo, and (horridest thought of all!) by the worst patients in the mental-disease ward. he pulled himself up in speechless horror, and looked once more into the big mirror. yes, there was positively no mistaking the fact: it was he, arthur greatrex, fellow of catherine's, who was making these hideous and meaningless distortions of his own countenance.
with a terrible effort of will he pulled his face quite straight again, and assumed his usual grave and quiet demeanour. for a full minute he stood looking at himself in the glass; and then, fearful that some one else would come and surprise him, he hurried down the remaining steps, and rushed out into the streets of london. which way he turned he did not know or care; all he knew was that he was repressing by sheer force of muscular strain a deadly impulse to pucker up his mouth and draw down the corners of his lips into one-sided grimaces. as he passed down the streets, he watched his own image faintly reflected in the panes of the windows, and saw that he was maintaining outward decorum, but only with a conscious and evident struggle. at one doorstep a little child was playing with a kitten; arthur greatrex, who was a naturally kindly man, looked down at her and smiled, in spite of his preoccupation: instead of smiling back, the child uttered a scream of terror, and rushed back into the house to hide her face in her mother's apron. he felt instinctively that, in place of smiling, he had looked at the child with one of his[pg 26] awful faces. it was horrible, unendurable, and he walked on through the streets and across the bridges, pulling himself together all the time, till at last, half-unconsciously, he found himself near pimlico, where the aburys were then living.
looking around him, he saw that he had come nearly to the corner where hetty's little drawing-room faced the road. the accustomed place seemed to draw him off for a moment from thinking of himself, and he remembered that he had promised hetty to come in for luncheon. but dare he go in such a state of mind and body as he then found himself in? well, hetty would be expecting him; hetty would be disappointed if he didn't come; he certainly mustn't break his engagement with dear little hetty. after all, he began to say to himself, what was it but a mere twitching of his face, probably a slight nervous affection? young doctors are always nervous about themselves, they say; they find all their own symptoms accurately described in all the text-books. his face wasn't twitching now, of that he was certain; the nearer he got to hetty's, the calmer he grew, and the more he was conscious he could relax his attention without finding his muscles were playing tricks upon him. he would turn in and have luncheon, and soon forgot all about it.
hetty saw him coming, and ran lightly to open the door for him, and as he took his seat beside her at the table, he forgot straightway his whole trouble, and found himself at once in paradise once more. all through lunch they talked about other things—happy plans for the future, and the small prettinesses that lovers find so perennially delightful; and long before arthur went away the twitching in his face had altogether ceased to trouble him. once or twice, indeed, in the course of the afternoon he happened to glance casually at the looking-glass above the drawing-room fireplace (those were the[pg 27] pre-morrisian days when overmantels as yet were not), and he saw to his great comfort that his face was resting in its usual handsome repose and peacefulness. a bright, earnest, strong face it was, with all the promise of greatness already in it; and so hetty thought as she looked up at it from the low footstool where she sat by his side, and half whispered into his ear the little timid confidences of early betrothal.
five o'clock tea came all too soon, and then arthur felt he must really be going and must get home to do a little reading. on his way, he fancied once he saw a street boy start in evident surprise as he approached him, but it might be fancy; and when the street boy stuck his tongue into the corner of his cheek and uttered derisive shouts from a safe distance, arthur concluded he was only doing after the manner of his kind out of pure gratuitous insolence. he went home to his lodgings and sat down to an hour's work; but after he had read up several pages more of "stuckey on gout," he laid down the book in disgust, and took out helmholtz and joule instead, indulging himself with a little desultory reading in his favourite study of the higher physics.
as he read and read the theory of correlation, the great idea as to the real nature of energy, which had escaped all these learned physicists, and which was then slowly forming itself in his own mind, grew gradually clearer and clearer still before his mental vision. helmholtz was wrong here, because he had not thoroughly appreciated the disjunctive nature of electric energy; joule was wrong here, because he had failed to understand the real antithesis between potential and kinetic. he laid down the books, paced up and down the room thoughtfully, and beheld the whole concrete theory of interrelation embodying itself visibly before his very eyes. at last he grew fired with the stupendous grandeur of his own conception, seized a quire of foolscap, and sat down eagerly at the table to give written form to the splendid phantom that was floating[pg 28] before him in so distinct a fashion. he would make a great name, for hetty's sake; and, when he had made it, his dearest reward would be to know that hetty was proud of him.
hour after hour he sat and wrote, as if inspired, at his little table. the landlady knocked at the door to tell him dinner was ready, but he would have none of it, he said; let her bring him up a good cup of strong tea and a few plain biscuits. so he wrote and wrote in feverish haste, drinking cup after cup of tea, and turning off page after page of foolscap, till long past midnight. the whole theory had come up so distinctly before his mind's eye, under the exceptional exaltation of first love, and the powerful stimulus of the day's excitement, that he wrote it off as though he had it by heart; omitting only the mathematical calculations, which he left blank, not because he had not got them clearly in his head, but because he would not stop his flying pen to copy them all out then and there at full length, for fear of losing the main thread of his argument. when he had finished, about forty sheets of foolscap lay huddled together on the table before him, written in a hasty hand, and scarcely legible; but they contained the first rough draft and central principle of that immortal work, the "transcendental dynamics."
arthur greatrex rose from the table, where his grand discovery was first formulated, well satisfied with himself and his theory, and fully determined to submit it shortly to the critical judgment of the royal society. as he took up his bedroom candle, however, he went over to the mantelpiece to kiss hetty's photograph, as he always did (for even men of science are human) every evening before retiring. he lifted the portrait reverently to his lips, and was just about to kiss it, when suddenly in the mirror before him he saw the same horrible mocking face which had greeted him so unexpectedly that morning on the hospital[pg 29] staircase. it was a face of inhuman devilry; the face of a medi?val demon, a hideous, grinning, distorted ghoul, a very caricature and insult upon the features of humanity. in his dismay he dropped the frame and the photograph, shivering the glass that covered it into a thousand atoms. summoning up all his resolution, he looked again. yes, there was no mistaking it: a face was gibing and jeering at him from the mirror with diabolical ingenuity of distorted hideousness; a disgusting face which even the direct evidence of his senses would scarcely permit him to believe was really the reflection of his own features. it was overpowering, it was awful, it was wholly incredible; and, utterly unmanned by the sight, he sank back into his easy-chair and buried his face bitterly between the shelter of his trembling hands.
at that moment arthur greatrex felt sure he knew the real meaning of the horror that surrounded him. he was going mad.
for ten minutes or more he sat there motionless, hot tears boiling up from his eyes and falling silently between his fingers. then at last he rose nervously from his seat, and reached down a volume from the shelf behind him. it was prang's "treatise on the physiology of the brain." he turned it over hurriedly for a few pages, till he came to the passage he was looking for.
"ah, i thought so," he said to himself, half aloud: "'premonitory symptoms: facial distortions; infirmity of the will; inability to distinguish muscular movements.' let's see what prang has to say about it. 'a not uncommon concomitant of these early stages'—great heavens, how calmly the man talks about losing your reason!-'is an unconscious or semi-conscious tendency to produce a series of extraordinary facial distortions. at times, the sufferer is not aware of the movements thus initiated; at other times they are quite voluntary, and are accompanied by bodily gestures of contempt or derision for passing strangers.' why,[pg 30] that's what must have happened with that boy this morning! 'symptoms of this character usually result from excessive activity of the brain, and are most frequent among mathematicians or scholars who have overworked their intellectual faculties. they may be regarded as the immediate precursors of acute dementia.' acute dementia! oh, hetty! oh, heavens! what have i done to deserve such a blow as this?"
he laid his face between his hands once more, and sobbed like a broken-hearted child for a few minutes. then he turned accidentally towards his tumbled manuscript. "no, no," he said to himself, reassuringly; "i can't be going mad. my brain was never clearer in my life. i couldn't have done a piece of good work like that, bristling with equations and figures and formulas, if my head was really giving way. i seemed to grasp the subject as i never grasped it in my life before. i never worked so well at cambridge; this is a discovery, a genuine discovery. it's impossible that a man who was going mad could ever see anything so visibly and distinctly as i see that universal principle. let's look again at what prang has to say upon that subject."
he turned over the volume a few pages further, and glanced lightly at the contents at the head of each chapter, till at last a few words in the title struck his eye, and he hurried on to the paragraph they indicated, with feverish eagerness. as he did so, these were the words which met his bewildered gaze.
"in certain cases, especially among men of unusual intelligence and high attainments, the exaltation of incipient madness takes rather the guise of a scientific or philosophic enthusiasm. instead of imagining himself the possessor of untold wealth, or the absolute despot of a servile people, the patient deludes himself with the belief that he has made a great discovery or lighted upon a splendid generalization of the deepest and most universal importance. he sees new truths crowding upon him[pg 31] with the most startling and vivid objectivity. he perceives intimate relations of things which he never before suspected. he destroys at one blow the newtonian theory of gravitation; he discovers obvious flaws in the nebular hypothesis of laplace; he gives a scholar's-mate to kant in the very fundamental points of the 'critique of pure reason.' the more serious the attack, the more utterly convinced is the patient of the exceptional clearness of his own intelligence at that particular moment. he writes pamphlets whose scientific value he ridiculously over-estimates; and he is sure to be very angry with any one who tries rationally to combat his newly found authority. mathematical reasoners are specially liable to this form of incipient mental disease, which, when combined with the facial distortions already alluded to in a previous section, is peculiarly apt to terminate in acute dementia."
"acute dementia again!" arthur greatrex cried with a gesture of horror, flinging the book from him as if it were a poisonous serpent. "acute dementia, acute dementia, acute dementia; nothing but acute dementia ahead of me, whichever way i happen to turn. oh, this is too horrible! i shall never be able to marry hetty! and yet i shall never be able to break it to hetty! great heavens, that such a phantom as this should have risen between me and paradise only since this very morning!"
in his agony he caught up the papers on which he had written the rough draft of his grand discovery, and crumpled them up fiercely in his fingers. "the cursed things!" he groaned between his teeth, tossing them with a gesture of impatient disgust into the waste-paper basket; "how could i ever have deluded myself into thinking i had hit off-hand upon a grand truth which had escaped such men as helmholtz, and mayer, and joule, and thomson! the thing's preposterous upon the very face of it; i must be going mad, indeed, ever to have dreamt of it!"
he took up his candle once more, kissed the portrait in the broken frame[pg 32] with intense fervour a dozen times over, and then went up gloomily into his own bedroom. there he did not attempt to undress, but merely pulled off his boots, lay down in his clothes upon the bed, and hastily blew out the candle. for a long time he lay tossing and turning in unspeakable terror; but at last, after perhaps two hours or so, he fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed a hideous nightmare, in which somebody or other in shadowy outlines was trying perpetually to tear him away by main force from poor pale and weeping hetty.
it was daylight when arthur woke again, and he lay for some time upon his bed, thinking over his last night's scare, which seemed much less serious, as such things always do, now that the sun had risen upon it. after a while his mind got round to the energy question; and, as he thought it over once more, the conviction forced itself afresh upon him that he was right upon the matter after all, and that if he was going mad there was at least method in his madness. so firmly was he convinced upon this point now (though he recognized that that very certainty might be merely a symptom of his coming malady) that he got up hurriedly, before the lodging-house servant came to clean up his little sitting-room, so as to rescue his crumpled foolscap from the waste-paper basket. after that, a bath and breakfast almost made him laugh at his evening terrors.
all the morning arthur greatrex sat down at his table again, working in the algebraical calculations which he had omitted from his paper overnight, and finishing it in full form as if for presentation to a learned society. but he did not mean now to offer it to any society: he had a far deeper and more personal interest in the matter at present than that. he wanted to settle first of all the question whether he was going mad or not. afterwards, there would be plenty of time to settle such minor theoretical problems as the general physical constitution of[pg 33] the universe.
as soon as he had finished his calculations he took the paper in his hands, and went out with it to make two calls on scientific acquaintances. the first man he called upon was that distinguished specialist, professor linklight, one of the greatest authorities of his own day on all questions of molecular physics. poor man! he is almost forgotten now, for he died ten years ago; and his scientific reputation was, after all, of that flashy sort which bases itself chiefly upon giving good dinners to leading fellows of the royal society. but fifteen years ago professor linklight, with his cut-and-dried dogmatic notions, and his narrow technical accuracy, was universally considered the principal physical philosopher in all england. to him, then, arthur greatrex—a far deeper and clearer thinker—took in all humility the first manuscript of his marvellous discovery; not to ask him whether it was true or not, but to find out whether it was physical science at all or pure insanity. the professor received him kindly; and when arthur, who had of course his own reasons for attempting a little modest concealment, asked him to look over a friend's paper for him, with a view to its presentation to the royal society, he cheerfully promised to do his best. "though you will admit, my dear mr. greatrex," he said with his blandest smile, "that your friend's manuscript certainly does not err on the side of excessive brevity." from linklight's, arthur walked on tremulously to the house of another great scientific magnate, dr. warminster, of being the first living authority on the treatment of the insane in the united kingdom. before dr. warminster, arthur made no attempt to conceal his apprehensions. he told out all his symptoms and fears without reserve, even exaggerating them a little, as a man is prone to do through over-anxiety not to put too favourable a face upon his own ailments. dr. warminster listened attentively and with a[pg 34] gathering interest to all that arthur told him, and at the end of his account he shook his head gloomily, and answered in a very grave and sympathetic tone.
"my dear greatrex," he said gently, holding his arm with a kindly pressure, "i should be dealing wrongly with you if i did not candidly tell you that your case gives ground for very serious apprehensions. you are a young man, and with steady attention to curative means and surroundings, it is possible that you may ward off this threatened danger. society, amusement, relaxation, complete cessation of scientific work, absence, as far as possible, of mental anxiety in any form, may enable you to tide over the turning point. but that there is danger threatened, it would be unkind and untrue not to warn you. it is very unusual for a patient to consult us in person about these matters. more often it is the friends who notice the coming change; but, as you ask me directly for an opinion, i can't help telling you that i regard your case as not without real cause for the strictest care and for a preventive regimen."
arthur thanked him for the numerous directions he gave as to things which should be done or things which should be avoided, and hurried out into the street with his brain swimming and reeling. "absence of mental anxiety!" he said to himself bitterly. "how calmly they talk about mental anxiety! how can i possibly be free from anxiety when i know i may go mad at any moment, and that the blow would kill hetty outright? for myself, i should not care a farthing; but for hetty! it is too terrible."
he had not the heart to call at the aburys' that afternoon, though he had promised to do so; and he tortured himself with the thought that hetty would think him neglectful. he could not call again while the present suspense lasted; and if his worst fears were confirmed he could never call again, except once, to take leave of hetty for ever. for,[pg 35] deeply as arthur greatrex loved her, he loved her too well ever to dream of marrying her if the possible shadow of madness was to cloud her future life with its perpetual presence. better she should bear the shock, even if it killed her at once, than that both should live in ceaseless apprehension of that horrible possibility, and should become the parents of children upon whom that hereditary curse might rest for a lifetime, reflecting itself back with the added sting of conscientious remorse on the father who had brought them into the world against his own clear judgment of right and justice.
next morning arthur went round once more to professor linklight's. the professor had promised to read through the paper immediately, and give his opinion of its chances for presentation to the royal society. he was sitting at his breakfast-table, in his flowered dressing-gown and slippers, when arthur called upon him, and, with a cup of coffee in one hand, was actually skimming the last few pages through his critical eyeglass as his visitor entered.
"good-morning, mr. greatrex!" he said, with one of his most gracious smiles, indicative of the warm welcome attended by acknowledged wisdom towards rising talent. "you see i have been reading your friend's paper, as i promised. well, my dear sir, not to put too fine a point upon it, it won't hold water. in fact, it's a mere rigmarole. excuse my asking you, greatrex, but have you any idea, my dear fellow, whether your friend is inclined to be a little cracky?"
arthur swallowed a groan with the greatest difficulty, and answered in as unconcerned a tone as possible, "well, to tell you the truth, mr. linklight, some doubts have been cast upon his perfect sanity."
"ah, i should have thought so," the professor went on in his airiest manner; "i should have thought so. the fact is, this paper is fitter for the transactions of the colney hatch academy than for those of the[pg 36] royal society. it has a delusive outer appearance of physical thinking, but there's no real meaning in it of any sort. it's gassy, unsubstantial, purely imaginative." and the professor waved his hand in the air to indicate its utter gaseousness. "if you were to ask my own opinion about it, i should say it's the sort of thing that might be produced by a young man of some mathematical training with a very superficial knowledge of modern physics, just as he was on the point of lapsing into complete insanity. it's the maddest bit of writing that has ever yet fallen under my critical notice."
"your opinion is of course conclusive," arthur answered with unfeigned humility, his eyes almost bursting with the tears he would not let come to the surface. "it will be a great disappointment to my friend, but i have no doubt he will accept your verdict."
"not a bit of it, my dear sir," the professor put in quickly. "not a bit of it. these crazy fellows always stick to their own opinions, and think you a perfect fool for disagreeing with them. mark my words, mr. greatrex, your friend will still go on believing, in spite of everything, that his roundabout reasoning upon that preposterous square-root-of-pi theorem is sound mathematics."
and arthur, looking within, felt with a glow of horror that the theorem in question seemed to him at that moment more obviously true and certain in all its deductions than it had ever done before since the first day that he conceived it. how very mad he must be after all.
he thanked professor linklight as well as he was able for his kindness in looking over the paper, and groped his way blindly through the passage to the front door and out into the square. thence he staggered home wearily, convinced that it was all over between him and hetty, and that he must make up his mind forthwith to his horrible destiny.
if he had only known at that moment that forty years earlier professor[pg 37] linklight had used almost the same words about young's theory of undulations, and had since used them about every new discovery from that day to the one on which he then saw him, he might have attached less importance than he actually did to this supposed final proof of his own insanity.
as arthur entered his lodgings he hung his hat up on the stand in the passage. there was a little strip of mirror in the middle of the stand, and glancing at it casually he saw once more that awful face—his own—distorted and almost diabolical, which he had learnt so soon to hate instinctively as if it were a felon's and a murderer's. he rushed away wildly into his little sitting-room, and flung his manuscript on the table, almost without observing that his friend freeling, the rising physiologist, was quietly seated on the sofa opposite.
"what's this, arthur?" freeling asked, taking it up carelessly and glancing at the title. "you don't mean to say that you've finally written out that splendid idea of yours about the interrelations of energy?"
"yes, i have, harry: i have, and i wish to heaven i hadn't, for it's all mad and silly and foolish and meaningless!"
"if it is, then i'm mad too, my dear fellow, for i think it's the most convincing thing in physics i ever listened to. let me have the manuscript to look over, and see how you've worked out those beautiful calculations about the square root of pi, will you?"
"take the thing, for heaven's sake, and leave me, harry, for if i'm not left alone i shall break down and cry before you." and as he spoke he buried his head in his arm and sobbed like a woman.
dr. freeling knew arthur was in love, and was aware that people sometimes act very unaccountably under such circumstances; so he did the wisest thing to be done then and there: he grasped his friend's arm gently with his hand, spoke never a word, and, taking up his hat and[pg 38] the manuscript, walked quietly out into the passage. then he told the landlady to make mr. greatrex a strong cup of tea, with a dash of brandy in it, and turned away, leaving arthur to solitude and his own reflections.
that evening's post brought arthur greatrex two letters, which finally completed his utter prostration. the first he opened was from dr. abury. he broke the envelope with a terrible misgiving, and read the letter through with a deepening and sickening feeling of horror. it was not he alone, then, who had distorted the secret of his own incipient insanity. dr. abury's practised eye had also detected the rising symptoms. the doctor wrote kindly and with evident grief; but there was no mistaking the firm purport of his intentions. conferring this morning with his professional friend warminster, a case had been mentioned to him, without a name, which he at once recognized as arthur's. he recalled certain symptoms he had himself observed, and his suspicions were thus vividly aroused. happening accidentally to follow arthur in the street he was convinced that his surmise was correct, and he thought it his duty both to inform arthur of the danger that encompassed him, and to assure him that, deeply as it grieved him to withdraw the consent he had so gladly given, he could not allow his only daughter to marry a man bearing on his face the evident marks of an insane tendency. the letter contained much more of regret and condolence; but that was the pith that arthur greatrex picked out of it all through the blinding tears, that dimmed his vision.
the second letter was from hetty. half guessing its contents, he had left it purposely till the last, and he tore it open now with a fearful sinking feeling in his bosom. it was indeed a heart-broken, heart-breaking letter. what could be the secret which papa would not tell her? why had not arthur come yesterday? why could she never marry[pg 39] him? why was papa so cruel as not to tell her the reason? he couldn't have done anything in the slightest degree dishonourable, far less anything wicked: of that she felt sure; but, if not, what could be this horrible, mysterious, unknown barrier that was so suddenly raised between them? "do write, dearest arthur, and relieve me from this terrible, incomprehensible suspense; do let me know what has happened to make papa so determined against you. i could bear to lose you—at least i could bear it as other women have done—but i can't bear this awful uncertainty, this awful doubt as to your love or your constancy. for heaven's sake, darling, send me a note somehow! send me a line to tell me you love me. your heart-broken
"hetty."
arthur took his hat, and, unable to endure this agony, set out at once for the aburys'. when he reached the door, the servant who answered his ring at the bell told him he could not see the doctor; he was engaged with two other doctors in a consultation about miss hetty. what was the matter with miss hetty, then? what, didn't he know that? oh, miss hetty had had a fit, and dr. freeling and dr. mackinlay had been called in to see her. arthur did not wait for a moment, but walked upstairs unannounced, and into the consulting room.
was it a very serious matter? yes, freeling answered, very serious. it seemed miss abury had had a great shock—a great shock to her affections—which, he added in a lower voice, "you yourself can perhaps best explain to me. she will certainly have a long illness. perhaps she may never recover."
"come out into the conservatory, harry," said arthur to his friend. "i can tell you there what it is all about."
in a few words arthur told him the nature of the shock, but without[pg 40] describing the particular symptoms on which the opinion of his supposed approaching insanity was based. freeling listened with an incredulous smile, and at the end he said to his friend gently, "my dear arthur, i wish you had told me all this before. if you had done so, we might have saved miss abury a shock which may perhaps be fatal. you are no more going mad than i am; on the contrary, you're about the sanest and most clear-headed fellow of my acquaintance. but these mad-doctors are always finding madness everywhere. if you had come to me and told me the symptoms that troubled you, i should soon have set you right again in your own opinion. to have gone to warminster was most unfortunate, but it can't be helped now. what we have to do at present is to take care of miss abury."
arthur shook his head sadly. "ah," he said, "you don't know the real gravity of the symptoms i am suffering from. i shall tell you all about them some other time. however, as you say, what we have to think about now is hetty. can you let me see her? i am sure if i could see her it would reassure her and do her good."
dr. abury was at first very unwilling to let arthur visit hetty, who was now lying unconscious on the sofa in her own boudoir; but freeling's opinion that it might possibly do her good at last prevailed with him, and he gave his permission grudgingly.
arthur went into the room silently and took his seat beside the low couch where the motherless girl was lying. her face was very white, and her hands pale and bloodless. he took one hand in his: the pulse was hardly perceptible. he laid it down upon her breast, and leaned back to watch for any sign of returning life in her pallid cheek and closed eyelids.
for hours and hours he sat there watching, and no sign came. dr. abury sat at the bottom of the couch, watching with him; and as they watched, arthur felt from time to time that his face was again twitching[pg 41] horribly. however, he had only thoughts for one thing now: would hetty die or would she recover? the servants brought them a little cake and wine. they sat and drank in silence, looking at one another, but each absorbed in his own thoughts, and speaking never a word for good or evil.
at last hetty's eyes opened. arthur noticed the change first, and took her hand in his gently. her staring gaze fell upon him for a moment, and she asked feebly, "arthur, arthur, do you still love me?"
"love you, hetty? with all my heart and soul, as i have always loved you!"
she smiled, and said nothing. dr. abury gave her a little wine in a teaspoon, and she drank it quietly. then she shut her eyes again, but this time she was sleeping.
all night arthur watched still by the bedside where they put her a little later, and dr. abury and a nurse watched with him. in the morning she woke slightly better, and when she saw arthur still there, she smiled again, and said that if he was with her, she was happy. when freeling came to inquire after the patient, he found her so much stronger, and arthur so worn with fear and sleeplessness, that he insisted upon carrying off his friend in his brougham to his own house, and giving him a slight restorative. he might come back at once, he said; but only after he had had a dose of mixture, a glass of brandy and seltzer, and at least a mouthful of something for breakfast.
as freeling was drawing the cork of the seltzer, arthur's eye happened to light on a monkey, which was chained to a post in the little area plot outside the consulting-room. arthur was accustomed to see monkeys there, for freeling often had invalids from the zoo to observe side by side with human patients; but this particular monkey fascinated him even in his present shattered state of nerves, because there was a something[pg 42] in its face which seemed strangely and horribly familiar to him. as he looked, he recognized with a feeling of unspeakable aversion what it was of which the monkey reminded him. it was making a series of hideous and apparently mocking grimaces—the very self-same grimaces which he had seen on his own features in the mirror during the last day or two! horrible idea! he was descending to the level of the very monkeys!
the more he watched, the more absolutely identical the two sets of grimaces appeared to him to be. could it be fancy or was it reality? or might it be one more delusion, showing that his brain was now giving way entirely? he rubbed his eyes, steadied his attention, and looked again with the deepest interest. no, he could not be mistaken. the monkey was acting in every respect precisely as he himself had acted.
"harry," he said, in a low and frightened tone, "look at this monkey. is he mad? tell me."
"my dear arthur," replied his friend, with just a shade of expostulation in his voice, "you have really got madness on the brain at present. no, he isn't mad at all. he's as sane as you are, and that's saying a good deal, i can assure you."
"but, harry, you can't have seen what he's doing. he's grimacing and contorting himself in the most extraordinary fashion."
"well, monkeys often do grimace, don't they?" harry freeling answered coolly. "take this brandy and you'll soon feel better."
"but they don't grimace like this one," arthur persisted.
"no, not like this one, certainly. that's why i've got him here. i'm going to operate upon him for it under chloroform, and cure him immediately."
arthur leaped from his seat like one demented. "operate upon him, cure[pg 43] him!" he cried hastily. "what on earth do you mean, harry?"
"my dear boy, don't be so excited," said freeling. "this suspense and sleeplessness have been too much for you. this is antivivisection carried ad absurdum. you don't mean to say you object to operations upon a monkey for his own benefit, do you? if i don't cut a nerve, tetanus will finally set in, and he'll die of it in great agony. drink off your brandy, and you'll feel better after it."
"but, harry, what's the matter with the monkey? for heaven's sake, tell me!"
harry freeling looked at his friend for the first time a little suspiciously. could warminster be right after all, and could arthur really be going mad? it was so ridiculous of him to get into such a state of flurry about the ailments of a tame monkey, and at such a moment, too! "well," he answered slowly, "the monkey has got facial distortions due to a slight local paralysis of the inhibitory nerves supplied to the buccal and pharyngeal muscles, with a tendency to end in tetanus. if i cut a small ganglion behind the ear, and exhibit santonin, the muscles will be relaxed; and though they won't act so freely as before, they won't jerk and grimace any longer."
"does it ever occur in human beings?" arthur asked eagerly.
"occur in human beings? bless my soul, yes! i've seen dozens of cases. why, goodness gracious, arthur, it's positively occurring in your own face at this very moment!"
"i know it is," arthur answered in an agony of suspense. "do you think this twitching of mine is due to a local paralysis of the inhibitories, such as you speak of?"
"excuse my laughing, my dear fellow; you really do look so absurdly comical. no, i don't think anything about it. i know it is."
"then you believe warminster was wrong in taking it for a symptom of[pg 44] incipient insanity?"
it was freeling's turn now to jump up in surprise. "you don't mean to tell me, arthur, that that was the sole ground on which that old fool, warminster, thought you were going crazy?"
"he didn't see it himself," answered arthur, with a sigh of unspeakable relief. "i only described it to him, and he drew his inference from what i told him. but the real question is this, harry: do you feel quite sure that there's nothing more than that the matter with me?"
"absolutely certain, my dear fellow. i can cure you in half an hour. i've done it dozens of times before, and know the thing as well as you know an ordinary case of scarlet fever."
arthur sighed again. "and perhaps," he said bitterly, "this terrible mistake may cost dear hetty her life!"
he drank off the brandy, ate a few mouthfuls of food as best he might, and hastened back to the aburys'. when he got there he learned from the servant that hetty was at least no worse; and with that negative comfort he had for the moment to content himself.
hetty's illness was long and serious; but before it was over freeling was able to convince dr. abury of his own and his colleague's error, and to prove by a simple piece of surgery that arthur's hideous grimaces were due to nothing worse than a purely physical impediment. the operation was quite a successful one; but though greatrex's face has never since been liable to these curious contortions, the consequent relaxation of the muscles has given his features that peculiarly calm and almost impassive expression which everybody must have noticed upon them at the present day, even in moments of the greatest animation. the difficulty was how to break the cause of the temporary mistake to hetty, and this they were unable to do until she was to a great extent convalescent. when once the needful explanation was over, and arthur[pg 45] was able once more to kiss her with perfect freedom from any tinge of suspicion on her part, he felt that his paradise was at last attained.
a few days before the deferred date fixed for their wedding, freeling came into the doctor's drawing-room, where hetty and arthur were sitting together, and threw a letter with a french official stamp on its face down upon the table. "there," he said, "i find all the members of the académie des sciences at paris are madmen also!"
hetty smiled faintly, and said with a little earnestness in her tone, "ah, dr. freeling, that subject has been far too serious a one for both of us to make it pleasant jesting."
"oh, but look here, miss abury," said freeling; "i have to apologise to arthur for a great liberty i have ventured to take, and i think it best to begin by explaining to you wherein it consisted. the fact is, before you were ill, arthur had just written a paper on the interrelations of energy, which he showed to that pompous old nincompoop, professor linklight. well, linklight being one of those men who can never see an inch beyond his own nose, had the incomprehensible stupidity to tell him there was nothing in it. thereupon your future husband, who is a modest and self-depreciating sort of fellow, was minded to throw it incontinently into the waste-paper basket. but a friend of his, harry freeling, who flatters himself that he can see an inch or two beyond his own nose, read it over, and recognized that it was a brilliant discovery. so what does he go and do—here comes in the apologetic matter—but get this memoir quietly translated into french, affix a motto to it, put it in an envelope, and send it in for the gold medal competition of the académie. strange to say, the members of the académie turned out to be every bit as mad as the author and his friend; for i have just received this letter, addressed to arthur at my house (which i have taken the further liberty of opening), and it informs me that the[pg 46] académie decrees its gold medal for physical discovery to m. arthur greatrex, of london, which is a subject of congratulation for us three, and a regular slap in the face for pompous old linklight."
hetty seized freeling's two hands in hers. "you have been our good genius, dr. freeling," she said with brimming eyes. "i owe arthur to you; and arthur owes me to you; and now we both owe you this. what can we ever do to thank you sufficiently?"
since those days hetty and arthur have long been married, and dr. greatrex's famous work (in its enlarged form) has been translated into all the civilized languages of the world, as well as into german; but to this moment, happy as they both are, you can read in their faces the lasting marks of that one terrible anxiety. to many of their friends it seemed afterwards a mere laughing matter; but to those two, who went through it, and especially to arthur greatrex, it is a memory too painful to be looked back upon even now without a thrill of terrible recollection.
