CHAPTER XVI.
BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT.
It had been brain fever. For ten days Edward was helpless, but under thecare of the two loving women he rapidly recovered. The time came when hecould sit in the cool of the evening upon the veranda and listen to thevoices he had learned to love--for he no longer disguised the truth fromhimself. The world held for him but one dream, through it and in thespell of his first home life the mother became a being to be reverenced.She was the fulfilled promise of the girl, all the tender experiences oflife were pictured in advance for him who should win her hand and heart.
But it was only a dream. During the long hours of the night as he laywakeful, with no escape from himself, he thought out the situation andmade up his mind to action. He would go to Col. Montjoy and confess theignorance of his origin that overwhelmed him and then he would providefor his ward and go away with Virdow to the old world and the old life.
The mental conclusion of his plan was a species of settlement. It helpedhim. Time and again he cried out, when the remembrance came back to him,but it was the honorable course and he would follow it. He would goaway.
The hours of his convalescence were the respite he allowed himself. Dayby day he said: "I will go to-morrow." In the morning it was still"to-morrow." And when he finally made his announcement he was promptlyoverruled. Col. Montjoy and Norton were away, speaking and campaigning.All primaries had been held but two. The colonel's enemies had concededto him of the remaining counties the remote one. The other was a countywith a large population and cast four votes in the convention. It wasthe home of Swearingen, but, as frequently happens, it was the scene ofthe candidate's greatest weakness. There the struggle was to be titanic.Both counties were needed to nominate Montjoy.
The election took place on the day of Edward's departure for Ilexhurst.That evening he saw a telegram announcing that the large county hadgiven its vote to Montjoy by a small majority. The remote county had butone telegraph office, and that at a way station upon its border. Littlecould be heard from it, but the public conceded Col. Montjoy'snomination, since there had been no doubt as to this county. Edwardhired a horse, put a man upon it, sent the news to the two ladies andthen went to his home.
He found awaiting him two letters of importance. One from Virdow, sayinghe would sail from Havre on the 25th; that was twelve days previous. Hewas therefore really due at Ilexhurst then. The other was a letter hehad written to Abingdon soon after his first arrival, and was marked"returned to writer." He wondered at this. The address was the same hehad used for years in his correspondence. Although Abingdon wasfrequently absent from England, the letters had always reached him. Why,then, was this one not forwarded? He put it aside and ascertained thatVirdow had not arrived at the house.
It was then 8 o'clock in the evening. By his order a telephone had beenplaced in the house, and he at once rang up the several hotels. Virdowwas found to be at one of these, and he succeeded in getting thatdistinguished gentleman to connect himself with the American inventionand explained to him the situation.
"Take any hack and come at once," was the message that concluded theirconversation, and Virdow came! In the impulsive continental style, hethrew himself into Edward's arms when the latter opened the door of thecarriage.
Slender, his thin black clothes hanging awkwardly upon him, his trouserstoo short, the breadth of his round German face, the knobs on hisshining bald forehead exaggerated by the puffy gathering of the hairover his ears, his candid little eyes shining through the round,double-power glasses, his was a figure one had to know for a long timein order to look upon it without smiling.
Long the two sat with their cigars and ran over the old days together.Then the professor told of wondrous experiments in sound, of the advanceknowledge into the regions of psychology, of the marvels of heredity.His old great theme was still his ruling passion. "If the mind has nomemory, then much of the phenomena of life is worse than bewildering.Prove its memory," he was wont to say, "and I will prove immortalitythrough that memory."
It was the same old professor. He was up now and every muscle working ashe struggled and gesticulated, and wrote invisible hieroglyphics in theair about him and made geometrical figures with palms and fingers. Butthe professor had advanced in speculation.
"The time will come, my young friend," he said at last, "when the mindwill give us its memories complete. We shall learn the secrets ofcreation by memory. In its perfection we shall place a man yonder and byvibration get his mind memory to work; theoretically he will first writeof his father and then his grandfather, describing their mental lives.He will go back along the lines of his ancestry. He will get into Latin,then Greek, then Hebrew, then Chaldean, then into cuneiforminscriptions, then into figure representation. He will be an artist ormusician or sculptor, and possibly all if the back trail of his memorycrosses such talents. Aye," he continued, enthusiastically, "lostnations will live again. The portraits of our ancestors will hang inview along the corridors of all times! This will come by vibratoryforce, but how?"
Edward leaned forward, breathless almost with emotion.
"You say the time is come; what has been done?"
"Little and much! The experiments----"
"Tell me, in all your experiments, have you known where a child,separated from a parent since infancy, without aid of description, orphotograph, or information derived from a living person, could see inmemory or imagination the face of that parent, see it with suchdistinctness as to enable him, an artist, to reproduce it in allperfection?"
The professor wiped his glasses nervously and kept his gaze upon hisquestioner.
"Never."
"Then," said Edward, "you have crossed the ocean to some purpose! I haveknown such an instance here in this house. The person is still here! Youknow me, my friend, and you do not know me. To you I was a rich youngAmerican, with a turn for science and speculation. You made me yourfriend and God bless you for it, but you did not know all of thatmystery which hangs over my life never to be revealed perhaps until themillennium of science you have outlined dawns upon us. The man whoeducated me, who enriched me, was not my parent or relative; he was myguardian. He has made me the guardian of a frail, sickly lad whosemystery is, or was, as complete as mine. Teach us to remember." Thewords burst from him. They held the pent-up flood that had almostwrecked his brain.
Rapidly he recounted the situation, leaving out the woman's story as tohimself. Not to his Savior would he confess that.
And then he told how, following his preceptor's hints about vibration,he had accidentally thrown Gerald into a trance; its results, the secondexperiment, the drawing and the woman's story of Gerald's birth.
During this recital the professor never moved his eyes from thespeaker's face.
"You wish to know what I think of it? This: I have but recently venturedthe proposition publicly that all ideal faces on the artist's canvas aremind memories. Prove to me anew your results and if I establish thereasonableness of my theory I shall have accomplished enough to die on."
"In your opinion, then, this picture that Gerald drew is a mind memory?"
"Undoubtedly. But you will perceive that the more distant, the older theexperience, we may say, the less likelihood of accuracy."
"It would depend, then, you think, upon the clearness of the originalimpression?"
"That is true! The vividness of an old impression may also outshine anew one."
"And if this young man recalls the face of a woman, who we believe itpossible--nay, probable--is his mother, and then the face of one we knowto be her father, as a reasonable man, would you consider the story ofthis negro woman substantiated beyond the shadow of a doubt?"
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt."
"We shall try," said Edward, and then, after a moment's silence: "He isshy of strangers and you may find it difficult to get acquainted withhim. After you have succeeded in gaining his confidence we shall settleupon a way to proceed. One word more, he is a victim of morphia. Did Itell yo
u that?"
"No, but I guessed it."
"You have known such men before, then?"
"I have studied the proposition that opium may be a power to effect whatwe seek, and, in connection with it, have studied the hospitals thatmake a specialty of such cases."
There was a long silence, and presently Edward said:
"Will you say good-night now?"
"Good-night." The professor gazed about him. "How was it you used to saygood-night, Edward? Old customs are good. It is not possible that theviolin has been lost." He smiled and Edward got his instrument andplayed. He knew the old man's favorites; the little folk-melodies of theRhine country, bits of love songs, mostly, around which the lovingplayers of Germany have woven so many beautiful fancies. And in theplaying Edward himself was quieted.
The light from the hall downstairs streamed out along the gravel walk,and in the glare was a man standing with arms folded and head bentforward. A tall woman came and gently laid her hand upon him. He startedviolently, tossed his arms aloft and rushed into the darkness. Shewaited in silence a moment and then slowly followed him.