"I'll fetch the doctor. I shall find him sooner than you will."
"Tell the doctor to bring a man with him," Benjamin added. "He may want help."
The gardener turned around sternly.
"I'm the man," he said. "Nobody shall help but me."
He left us. I sat down on one of the chairs in the hall, and did my best to compose myself. Benjamin walked to and fro, deep in thought. "Both of them fond of him," I heard my old friend say to himself. "Half monkey, half man--and both of them fond of him. That beats me."
The gardener returned with the doctor--a quiet, dark, resolute man. Benjamin advanced to meet them. "I have got the key," he said. "Shall I go upstairs with you?"
Without answering, the doctor drew Benjamin aside into a corner of the hall. The two talked together in low voices. At the end of it the doctor said, "Give me the key. You can be of no use; you will only irritate her."
With those words he beckoned to the gardener. He was about to lead the way up the stairs when I ventured to stop him.
"May I stay in the hall, sir?" I said. "I am very anxious to hear how it ends."
He looked at me for a moment before he replied.
"You had better go home, madam," he said. "Is the gardener acquainted with your address?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. I will let you know how it ends by means of the gardener. Take my advice. Go home."
Benjamin placed my arm in his. I looked back, and saw the doctor and the gardener ascending the stairs together on their way to the locked-up room.
"Never mind the doctor," I whispered. "Let's wait in the garden."
Benjamin would not hear of deceiving the doctor. "I mean to take you home," he said. I looked at him in amazement. My old friend, who was all meekness and submission so long as there was no emergency to try him, now showed the dormant reserve of manly spirit and decision in his nature as he had never (in my experience) shown it yet. He led me into the garden. We had kept our cab: it was waiting for us at the gate.
On our way home Benjamin produced his note-book.
"What's to be done, my dear, with the gib berish that I have written here?" he said.
"Have you written it all down?" I asked, in surprise.
"When I undertake a duty, I do it," he answered. "You never gave me the signal to leave off--you never moved your chair. I have written every word of it. What shall I do? Throw it out of the cab window?"
"Give it to me."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"I don't know yet. I will ask Mr. Playmore."
CHAPTER XLI.
MR. PLAYMORE IN A NEW CHARACTER.
BY that night's post--although I was far from being fit to make the exertion--I wrote to Mr. Playmore, to tell him what had taken place, and to beg for his earliest assistance and advice.
The notes in Benjamin's book were partly written in shorthand, and were, on that account, of no use to me in their existing condition. At my request, he made two fair copies. One of the copies I inclosed in my letter to Mr. Playmore. The other I laid by me, on my bedside table, when I went to rest.
Over and over again, through the long hours of the wakeful night, I read and re-read the last words which had dropped from Miserrimus Dexter's lips. Was it possible to interpret them to any useful purpose? At the very outset they seemed to set interpretation at defiance. After trying vainly to solve the hopeless problem, I did at last what I might as well have done at first--I threw down the paper in despair. Where were my bright visions of discovery and success now? Scattered to the winds! Was there the faintest chance of the stricken man's return to reason? I remembered too well what I had seen to hope for it. The closing lines of the medical report which I had read in Mr. Playmore's office recurred to my memory in the stillness of the night--"When the catastrophe has happened, his friends can entertain no hope of his cure: the balance once lost, will be lost for life."
The confirmation of that terrible sentence was not long in reaching me. On the next morning the gardener brought a note containing the information which the doctor had promised to give me on the previous day.
Miserrimus Dexter and Ariel were still where Benjamin and I had left them together--in the long room. They were watched by skilled attendants, waiting the decision of Dexter's nearest relative (a younger brother, who lived in the country, and who had been communicated with by telegraph. It had been found impossible to part the faithful Ariel from her master without using the bodily restraints adopted in cases of raging insanity. The doctor and the gardener (both unusually strong men) had failed to hold the poor creature when they first attempted to remove her on entering the room. Directly they permitted her to return to her master the frenzy vanished: she was perfectly quiet and contented so long as they let her sit at his feet and look at him.
Sad as this was, the report of Miserrimus Dexter's condition was more melancholy still.
"My patient is in a state of absolute imbecility"--those were the words in the doctor's letter; and the gardener's simple narrative confirmed them as the truest words that could have been used. He was utterly unconscious of poor Ariel's devotion to him--he did not even appear to know that she was present in the room. For hours together he remained in a state of utter lethargy in his chair. He showed an animal interest in his meals, and a greedy animal enjoyment of eating and drinking as much as he could get--and that was all. "This morning," the honest gardener said to me at parting, "we thought he seemed to wake up a bit. Looked about him, you know, and made queer signs with his hands. I couldn't make out what he meant; no more could the doctor. She knew, poor thing--She did. Went and got him his harp, and put his hand up to it. Lord bless you! no use. He couldn't play no more than I can. Twanged at it anyhow, and grinned and gabbled to himself. No: he'll never come right again. Any person can see that, without the doctor to help 'em. Enjoys his meals, as I told you; and that's all. It would be the best thing that could happen if it would please God to take him. There's no more to be said. I wish you good-morning, ma'am."
He went away with the tears in his eyes; and he left me, I own it, with the tears in mine.
An hour later there came some news which revived me. I received a telegram from Mr. Playmore, expressed in these welcome words: "Obliged to go to London by to-night's mail train. Expect me to breakfast to-morrow morning."
The appearance of the lawyer at our breakfast-table duly followed the appearance of his telegram. His first words cheered me. To my infinite surprise and relief, he was far from sharing the despondent view which I took of my position.
"I don't deny," he said, "that there are some serious obstacles in your way. But I should never have called here before attending to my professional business in London if Mr. Benjamin's notes had not produced a very strong impression on my mind. For the first time, as I think, you really have a prospect of success.