She stretched out her hand, and suddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the sight of the writing in it were unendurable to her.
"Why don't you speak to me, George?" she said. "Why do you keep your thoughts to yourself?"
"My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. "I can suggest nothing and explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one question of what I am to do next. On that point I believe I may say that my mind is made up." I touched the sketch-book as I spoke. "Come what may of it," I said, "I mean to keep the appointment."
My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses.
"He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. "George, you don't really believe that you saw somebody in the summer-house? The place was empty. I tell you positively, when you pointed into the summer-house, the place was empty. You have been thinking and thinking of this woman till you persuade yourself that you have actually seen her."
I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her writing on this page," I answered. "Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong."
My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in taking the rational view, nevertheless the writing frightened her.
"It is not a week yet," she went on, "since I saw you lying between life and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk of keeping the appointment, in your state of health? An appointment with a shadowy Something in your own imagination, which appears and disappears, and leaves substantial writing behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonder you can help laughing at yourself."
She tried to set the example of laughing at me--with the tears in her eyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to regret having opened my mind so freely to her.
"Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. "Perhaps I may not be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint Anthony's Well; I have not the least idea where it is. Suppose I make the discovery, and suppose the journey turns out to be an easy one, would you like to go with me?"
"God forbid" cried my mother, fervently. "I will have nothing to do with it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak to the doctor."
"By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person. We pass his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner. In the meantime, let us say no more on the subject till we see the doctor."
I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was sadly disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest noises on the road startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr. MacGlue, who looked at all mortal matters from the same immovably practical point of view, might really have its use, in my case, as a species of moral remedy.
We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants had left the dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch doctor as I have told it here; and, that done, I opened the sketch-book to let him see the writing for himself.
Had I turned to the wrong page?
I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the lamp that hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right page. There was my half-finished drawing of the waterfall--but where were the two lines of writing beneath?
Gone!
I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white paper looked back at me.
I placed the open leaf before my mother. "You saw it as plainly as I did," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the bottom of the page."
My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror.
"Gone?" I asked.
"Gone!"
I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. No incredulous smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed his lips. He was listening to us attentively. He was waiting gravely to hear more.
"I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, "that I saw the apparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that page. I declare that I took the book in my hand, and saw these words written in it, 'When the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' Not more than three hours have passed since that time; and, see for yourself, not a vestige of the writing remains."
"Not a vestige of the writing remains, " Mr. MacGlue repeated, quietly.
"If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," I went on, "ask my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the writing too."
"I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered Mr. MacGlue, with a composure that surprised me.
"Can you account for it?" I asked.
"Well," said the impenetrable doctor, "if I set my wits at work, I believe I might account for it to the satisfaction of some people. For example, I might give you what they call the rational explanation, to begin with. I might say that you are, to my certain knowledge, in a highly excited nervous condition; and that, when you saw the apparition (as you call it), you simply saw nothing but your own strong impression of an absent woman, who (as I greatly fear) has got on the weak or amatory side of you. I mean no offense, Mr. Germaine--"
"I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking plainly--the rational explanation is thrown away on me."
"I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the rather that I'm entirely of your opinion. I don't believe in the rational explanation myself."
This was surprising, to say the least of it. "What do you believe in?" I inquired.
Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him.
"Wait a little," he said. "There's the irrational explanation to try next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of your mind better than the other. We will say this time that you have really seen the ghost (or double) of a living person. Very good. If you can suppose a disembodied spirit to appear in earthly clothing--of silk or merino, as the case may be--it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this same spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal words in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing should follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment may be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit of ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghost has changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost of a woman, I am sure that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see you 'when the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the irrational explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to add that I don't set a pin's value on that explanation either."
Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question began to irritate me.
"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the circumstances that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?"
"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the circumstances," answered the doctor.