Chapter 12

I even remember thinking vaguely that I usually took time to open my letters with more precision and with less disregard for the untidy appearance of their outer covering afterward. I hesitated to read beyond the first line, although I had so hastened to get that far. I read: "My dear old friend," and then turned the letter over to see how long it was--how much probable information it contained. There were four closely written pages. I wondered if it could all be about Florence Campbell, and was vaguely afraid that it was--and that it was _not_. I remembered looking at the clock when I came into the office. It was nearly six o'clock. I laid the letter down and went to the cooler and got out a bottle of Vichy. I sat it and (placed) some wine by my elbow on the desk, and took up the letter.

"I never heard of anyone by the name of Florence Campbell, so far as I can recall. I certainly never had a patient by that name. Some months ago I gave the letter you enclose--which I certainly did write--to a patient of mine who was on her way to Europe and expected to stay some time in New York on her way through.

"She, however, was in no way like the lady you describe. Her name was Kittie Hatfield, and she was small, with dreamy blue eyes and flaxen hair--a _perfect_ woman, in fact." Oh! Tom! Tom! thought I--true to your record, to the last! I had long since ceased to wonder at the lapse, however, for Florence Campbell herself was surely sufficient explanation of all that. "I understood"--the letter went on--"that Kittie did not stop but a few days in New York, when she was joined by the party with which she was to travel. She stayed at the F------ Avenue Hotel, I have learned, and became intimate with some queer people there--much to the indignation of her brother, when he learned of it."

I laid the letter down and put my head on my arms, folded as they were on the desk. I was dizzy and tired. When I raised my head it was dark. I got up, lighted the gas, and found myself stiff and as if I had been long in a forced and unnatural position. I recalled that I had been indignant.

This brother of the silly-pated, blue-eyed girl had not liked her to know Florence Campbell, indeed! He was, no doubt, a precious fool--naturally would be, with such a sister, I commented mentally. What else, I wondered, had Griswold found out? Was the rest of this old fool's letter about her? I began where I had left off.

"I have since learned from him that the man--whose name _was_ Campbell--was a foreigner of some kind, with a decidedly vague, not to say, hazy reputation, and that his wife, who was supposed to be an invalid, and an American of good family, never appeared in public, and so was never seen by him--that is by Will Hatfield--but was only known to him through Kittie's enraptured eyes. She was said to be bright and pretty. Kittie is the most generous child alive in her estimate of other women; however, he thinks it possible that Kittie either gave her the letter from me to you, and asked her to have proper medical care, or else that the woman, or her husband, got hold of it in a less legitimate way; which I think quite likely. Kittie thought the Campbell woman was charming." The "Campbell woman," indeed! I felt like a thief, even to read such rubbish, and I should have enjoyed throttling the whole ill-natured gossipping set--not omitting flaxen-haired Kittie herself.

I determined to finish the letter, however.

"Hatfield is so ashamed of his sister's friendship for the woman that I had the utmost difficulty in making him tell me the whole truth, but, from what I gathered yesterday, he thinks them most likely the head of a gang of counterfeiters or forgers and--"

I read no further, or, if I did, I can recall only that. It was burned into my brain, and when a loud pounding on my office-door aroused me, I found the letter twisted and torn into a hundred pieces, the Vichy and wine-bottles at my side half-empty, and the hands of the clock pointing to half-past ten.

"Doctor, doctor," called my lackey; "oh, doctor! Oh, lord, I'm afraid something's wrong with the doctor, but I'm afraid to break in the door."

I went to the door to prevent a scene. One of my best patients stood there, with Morgan, the man. Both of them were pale and full of suppressed excitement.

"Heavens and earth, doctor, we were afraid you were dead. I've been waiting here a good hour for you to come home. No one knew you were in, till Morgan peeped over the transom. What in the devil is the matter?" said my patient.

"Tired out, went to sleep," said I; but I did not know my own voice as I spoke. It sounded distant, and its tones were strange.

They both looked at me suspiciously, and with evident anxiety as to my mental condition. I caught at the means of escape.

"I am too tired to see anyone to-night. In fact, I am not well. You will have to let me off this time. Get Dr. Talbott, next door, if anyone is sick; I am going to bed. Good-night."

There was a long pause. Then he said, wearily: "You are a young man, doctor. You have taken the chair I left vacant at the college. I would never have told the story to you, perhaps, only I wanted you to know why I left the class in your care so suddenly this morning, when I uncovered the beautiful face of the 'subject' you had brought from the morgue for me to give my closing lecture upon. That class of shallow-pated fellows have not learned yet that doctors--even old fellows like me--know a good deal less than they think they do about the human race--themselves included."

I stammered some explanation of the circumstances, and again there was a long silence.

Then he said:

"Found drowned, was she? Poor girl! Do you believe, with that face, she was ever a bad woman? Or that she had anything to do with the rascality of her husband, even if he were consciously a rascal? and who is to judge of that, knowing so little of him? Did I ever recover the five thousand dollars? Did I attempt to recover it? Oh, no. All this happened nearly ten years ago now; and if that were all it had cost me I should not mind. The hotel people never knew. Why should they? This is the first time I have told the story. You think I am an old fool? Well, well, perhaps I am--perhaps I am; who can say what any of us are, or what we are not? Thirty years ago I knew that I understood myself and everybody else perfectly. To-day I know equally well that I understand neither the one nor the other. We learn that fact, and then we die--and that is about all we do learn. You wonder, after what I tell you, if the beautiful face at the demonstration class this morning was really hers, or whether a strong likeness led my eyes and nerves astray You wonder if she drowned herself, and why? Was it an accident? Did _he_ do it? This last will be decided by each one according as he judges of Florence Campbell and her husband--of who and what they were. Perhaps I shall try to find him now. Not for the money, but to learn why she married the man he seemed to be. It is hard to tell what I should learn. It is not even easy to know just what I should _like_ to learn; and perhaps, after all, it is better not to know more--who shall say?"

And the doctor bade me good-night and bowed himself out to his carriage with his old courtesy, and left me alone with the strange, sad story of the beautiful girl whose lifeless form had furnished the subject of my first lecture to a class of medical students.

MY PATIENTS STORY.

_"Things are cruel and blind; their strength detains and deforms: And the wearying wings of the mind still beat up the stream of their storms. Still, as one swimming up stream, they strike out blind in the blast. In thunders of vision and dream, and lightning of future and past. We are baffled and caught in the current, and bruised upon edges of shoals; As weeds or as reeds in the torrent of things are the wind-shaken souls."_

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

I.

Perhaps I may have told you before, that at the time of which I speak, my Summer home--where I preferred to spend much more than half of the year--was on a sandy beach a few miles out of New York, and also that I had retired from active practice as a physician, even when I was in the city.

Notwithstanding these two facts, I was often called in consultation, both in and out of the city; and was occasionally compelled to take a case entirely into my own hands, through some accident or unforeseen circumstance.

It was one of these accidents which brought the patient whose story I am about to tell you, under my care.

I can hardly say now, why I retained the case instead of turning it over to some brother practitioner, as was my almost invariable habit; but for some reason I kept it in my own hands, and, as it was the only one for which I was solely responsible at the time, I naturally took more than ordinary interest in and paid more than usual attention to all that seemed to me to bear upon it.

As you know I am an "old school" or "regular" physician, although that did not prevent me from consulting with, and appreciating the strong points of many of those who were of other, and younger branches of the profession.

This peculiarity had subjected me, in times gone by, to much adverse criticism from some of my colleagues who belonged to that rigidly orthodox faction which appears to feel that it is a much better thing to allow a patient to die "regularly"--as it were--than it is to join forces with one, who, being of us, is still not with us in theory and practice.

Recognizing that we were all purblind at best, and that there was and still is, much to learn in every department of medicine, it did not always seem to me that it was absolutely necessary to reject, without due consideration, the guesses of other earnest and careful men, even though they might differ from me in the prefix to the "pathy" which forms the basis of the conjecture.

We are all wrong so often that it has never appeared to be a matter of the first importance--it does not present itself to my mind as absolutely imperative--that it should be invariably the same wrong, or that all of the mistakes should necessarily follow the beaten track of the "old school."

I had arrived at that state of beatitude where I was not unwilling for a life to be saved--or even for pain to be alleviated, by other methods than my own.

I do not pretend that this exalted ethical status came to me all at once, nor at a very early stage of my career; but it came, and I had reaped the whirlwind of wrath, as I have just hinted to you.

So when my patient let me know, after a time, that he had been used to homeopathic treatment, I at once suggested that he send for some one of that school to take charge of his case.

He declined--somewhat reluctantly, I thought, still, quite positively. But, in the course of events, when I felt that a consultation was due to him as well as to myself, I asked him if he would not prefer that the consulting physician should be of that school.

He admitted that he would, and I assured him that I should be pleased to send for any one he might name.

He knew no doctor here, he said, and left it to me to send for the one in whom I had the greatest confidence.

It is at this point my story really begins.

I stopped on my way uptown to arrange, with Dr. Hamilton, of Madison Avenue, a consultation that afternoon, at three o'clock. I told the doctor all that I, myself, knew at that time, of my patient's history. Three weeks before I had been in a Fifth Avenue stage; a gentleman had politely arisen to offer his seat to a lady at the moment that the stage gave a sudden lurch which threw them both violently against each other and against the end of the stage.

He broke the fall for her; but he received a blow on the head, which member came in contact with the money-box, with a sharp crack. Accustomed to the sight of pain and suffering as I was, the sound of the blow and his suddenly livid face gave me a feeling of sickness which did not wholly leave me for an hour afterward. Involuntarily I caught him in my arms--he was a slightly built man--and directed the driver to stop at the first hotel.

The gentleman was unconscious and I feared he had sustained a serious fracture of the skull. He was evidently a man of culture, and I thought not an American. I therefore wished, if possible, to save him a police or hospital experience.

By taking him into the first hotel I reasoned, we could examine him; learn who and what he was, where he lived, and, after reviving him, send him home in a carriage.

The process of bringing him back to consciousness was slow, and as the papers on his person, which we felt at liberty to examine, gave no clue to his residence, we concluded to put him to bed and trust to farther developments to show us what to do in the matter of removal. The lady on whose account he had received the injury had given me her card, which bore a name well known on the Avenue, and had stated that she would, if necessary, be responsible for all expense at the hotel.

It was deemed best, therefore, to put him to bed, as I said before, and wait for him to indicate, for himself, the next move. I placed in the safe of the hotel his pocketbook, which contained a large sum of money (large that is, for a man to carry on his person in these days of cheques and exchanges) and his watch, which was a handsome one, with this inscription on the inside cover, "T. C. from Florence."

The cards in his pocket bore different names and addresses, mostly foreign, but the ones I took for his own were finely engraved, and read "Mr. T. C. Lathro," nothing more. No address, no business; simply calling cards, of a fashionable size, and of the finest quality.

This, as I say, was about three weeks before I concluded to call Dr. Hamilton in consultation; and I had really learned very little more of my patient's affairs than these facts taken from his pocket that first day while he was still unconscious.

He was silent about himself, and while he had slowly grown better his progress toward health did not satisfy me, nor do I think that he was wholly of opinion, that I was doing quite all that should be done to hasten his recovery.

He was always courteous, self-poised, and able to bear pain bravely; but I thought he watched me narrowly, and I several times detected him in a weary sigh and an impatient movement of the eyebrows, which did not tally with his assumption of cheerful indifference and hospitality.

I use the word hospitality advisedly, for his effort always seemed to be to treat me as a guest whom he must entertain, and distract from observing his ailments, rather than as a physician whose business it was to discover and remedy them.

He had declined to be moved; said he was a stranger; had no preferences as to hotels; felt sure this one was as comfortable as any; thanked me over and over for having taken him there, and changed the subject. He would talk as long as I would allow him on any subject, airily, brightly, readily. On any subject, that is, except himself; yet from his conversation I had gathered that he had travelled a great deal; was a man of wealth and culture, whether French, Italian or Russian, I could not decide. He spoke all of these languages, and words from each fitted easily into place when for a better English one, he hesitated or was at a loss.

Indeed, he seemed to have seen much of every country and to have observed impartially--without national prejudice. He knew men well, too well to praise recklessly; and he sometimes gave me the impression, I can hardly say how, that blame was a word whose meaning he did not know.

He spoke of having seen deeds of the most appalling nature in Russia, and talked of their perpetrators sometimes, as good and brave men. He never appeared to measure men by their exceptional acts.

Occasionally I contested these points with him, and I am not sure but that it may have been the interest I took in his conversation that held me as his physician; for as I said, I was well aware that he did not improve as he should have done after the first few days.

But I liked to hear him talk. He was a revelation to me. I greatly enjoyed his breath and charity--if I may so express the mental attitude which recognized neither the possession of, nor the need for, either quality in his judgments of his fellow-men.

He had evidently not been able to pass through life under the impression that character, like cloth, is cut to fit a certain outline, and that after the basting-threads are once in, no farther variation need be looked for. Indeed, I question if he would have been able to comprehend the mental condition of those grown-up "educated" children who are never able to outgrow the comfortable belief that words and acts have a definite, inflexible, par-value--that an unabridged dictionary, so to speak, is an infallible appeal; who, in short, expect their villains to be consistently and invariably villainous, in the regulation orthodox fashion.

Individual shades of meaning, whether of language or of character, do not enter into their simple philosophy. Mankind suffers, in their pennyweight scales, a shrinkage that is none the less real because they never suspect that the dwarfage may be due to themselves--to their system of weights and measures. All variations from their standard indicate an unvarying tendency to mendacity. He whom they once detect in a quibble, or in an attempt to acquire the large end of a bargain, never recovers (what is perhaps only his rightful heritage, in spite of an occasional lapse) the respect and confidence of these primer students who are inflexible judges of all mental and moral manifestations.

I repeat that this comfortable and regular philosophy was foreign to my patient's mental habits, and I began to consider, the more I talked with him, that it did not agree with my own personal observations. I reflected that I was not very greatly surprised, nor did I lose faith in a man necessarily, when I discovered him in a single mean or questionable action.

Why, then, should I be surprised to find those of whom I had known only ill-engaged in deeds of the most unselfish nature? Deeds of heroism and generosity such as he often recounted as a part of the life of some of these same terrible Russian officials. There seems, however, to be that in us which finds it far easier to reconcile a single mean or immoral action with an otherwise upright life, than to believe it likely, or even possible, for a depraved nature to perform, upon occasion, deeds of exalted or unusual purity. Yet so common is the latter, that its failure of recognition by humanity in general can be due it seems to me, only to a wrong teaching or to a stupidity beyond even normal bounds.

For, after all, the bad man who is all bad, is really a less frequent product than that much talked of, but rare creature, a perfect woman. Perhaps one could count the specimens of either of these to be met with in a life time, on the fingers of one hand.

But to return to my patient and his story.

It was of these things that he and I had often talked, and I had come to greatly respect the self-poise and acute observation, as well as the broad human sympathy of this reserved and evidently sad-hearted man. Sad-hearted I knew, in spite of his keen sense of humor, and his firm grasp of philosophy.

I gave Dr. Hamilton a brief outline of all this, as well as of the physical condition of the man whom he was to see; for I believe it to be quite as important for a physician to understand and diagnose the mental as the physical conditions of those who come under his care before he can prescribe intelligently for other than very trifling ailments.

You can imagine my surprise when I tell you that the moment Dr. Hamilton stepped into the room, and I mentioned his name, my patient, this self-poised man of the world, whose nerves had often seemed to me to be of tempered steel, looked up suddenly as you have seen a timid child do when it is sharply reproved, and fainted dead away.

II.

I confess that I expected a scene.

I glanced at the doctor, but he showed no sign of ever having seen my patient before, and went to work with me in the most methodical and indifferent way possible to revive him.

"You did not mention that this was one of his symptoms--a peculiarity of his. Has he been subject to this sort of thing? Did he say he was subject to it before he hurt his head, or has it developed since?" the doctor inquired quietly as we worked.

I bit my lip. His tone was so exasperatingly cool, while, knowing my patient as I did, his startled manner and sudden fainting had impressed me deeply.

"It is the first time," I said, "since he was hurt--that is, since he recovered consciousness after the blow--that he has exhibited the slightest tendency to anything of the kind."

I hesitated, then I said: "Doctor, if you know him; if this is the result of seeing you suddenly (for he did not know who was to come) don't you think--would it be well?--Do you think it best for you to be where he will see you when he begins to revive?"

The doctor stared at me, then at my patient. "I don't know him--never saw him before in my life so far as I know. What did you say his name is? Mum--oh, yes, Lathro--first and only time I ever heard it. Oh, no, I suppose his nerves are weak. The excitement of seeing me--the idea of--a--er--consultation." I smiled, involuntarily. "You don't know the man, doctor," said I. "He is bomb proof as to nerves in that sense of the word. He--a--There must be some other reason. He must have mistaken you for some one else. I am sorry to trouble you, doctor, but would you kindly step into the other room? He will open his eyes now, you see."

When, a moment later, my patient regained consciousuess, he glanced about him furtively, like a hunted man. He did not look like himself.

He examined my face closely--suspiciously, I thought--for a moment. Then I laughed lightly, and said: "Well, old fellow, you've been trying your hand at a faint. That's a pretty way to treat a friend. I come in to see you; you step out to nobody knows where--to no man's land--and give me no end of trouble rowing you back to our shore. What did you eat for dinner that served you that kind of a trick?"

He looked all about the room again, examined my face, and then smiled, for the first time since I had known him, nervously, and said:

"I think my digestion must be pretty badly out of order. I'll declare I saw double when you came in. I thought there were two of you; and the other one--wasn't you."

I laughed; "That is good. Two of me, but the other one wasn't me. Well, thank heaven there is only one of me up to date."

He smiled, but seemed disturbed still. I decided to ask him a direct question:

"Well now, just suppose there had been two of me--is that an excuse for you to faint? Does associating with one of me try you to that extent that two of me would prostrate you?"

He did not take me up with his old manner. He was listless and absent. I said that I would go down to the office and order some wine and return at once. I slipped into the other room, and with my finger on my lips motioned to Dr. Hamilton to pass out quietly before me.

I followed him. "There is something wrong, Doctor," I said: "I am sorry, but I shall have to ask you to go without seeing him again. I can't tell you why yet, but I'll try to find out and let you know. Order some champagne sent up to me, please, as you go out, and I will see you as soon as I can."

The moment I re-entered the room, my patient, whose restless eyes met mine as I opened the door, said: "I thought you were talking to some one."

"I was," said I carelessly; a bell-boy, "I ordered wine. It will be up soon." Then I changed the subject; but he was nervous and unlike himself and none of the old topics interested him.