Part 7

This was rather different from what Edna had led me to believe, so I said:

"He hasn't attempted to treat you for this psychological dissociation?"

"No. He has wanted to. In fact, he's always urging me to allow him to see what he can do, but I won't let him. He wants to hypnotize me--but I don't quite dare--would you?"

"No," I said. "I'd advise you not to. If that's to be done you ought to go to a great specialist."

I thought I had a clue now that would bear following up, but I decided to think it over a while before I spoke of it.

So intently had we talked, that we had scarcely noticed the darkness which had fallen until King's gong aroused us. Joy rose wearily.

"Would you mind lighting the candles?" she said.

She waited till all the sconces were burning and then, as I went to the window, she said:

"No, leave the shades up, please! I want the windows left so that Leah, if she comes, may look in. I feel somehow that she is near here, that she will come this evening, if she dares."

"Why haven't you been out where she could see you, then? Have you thought to call her?"

She looked at me blankly. "Why, I _haven't_ thought of that, have I? But would she dare come?"

"Try it now!" I exclaimed.

"I will!" She went to the front door and threw it open and cried:

"Leah!--Leah!--Leah! Come here! It's all right. I want you, dear!"

There was enough in the scene--the stillness that ensued, the gathering mysterious twilight that shrouded the house, the tragic quaver in Joy's voice--to make me thrill to its dramatic power. She stood there for a few minutes, all in white, waiting, her hands clasped on her breast, vividly illuminated by the candles. But no sound came out of the shadows of the night.

Joy closed the door; then, with quick second thought, she returned to leave it ajar, and came back into the library.

We had moved almost to the dining-room, when, on a sudden whim, she paused, turned and looked toward the window. My own eyes followed hers. There was a dark face peering in--so dark that the whites of the eyes and the teeth were almost all that was visible, though enough to show who it was.

"_Leah!_" Joy cried, and ran again to the door, crying out hysterically. She called again, but no answer came.

It occurred to me that the excited accents of Joy's voice might well be misleading, and for the first time I thought to try myself. Joy had returned, to throw herself down, sobbing, full length upon the window-seat, her heart breaking with the suspense and disappointment. The strain was too much for her, after her hours of hope and fear. I did not stop to comfort her then, but ran to the doorway and stood in the lighted hall there in plain sight.

"Leah!" I called. "Come here, it's I--Mr. Castle. I want you!"

There was still no reply, but, feeling sure that Leah must be near at hand, I started off vaguely in the dark. I had gone but to the turn of the lane when I heard footsteps, running. Then in a rush Leah was upon me, and had seized my hand.

"Oh, Mr. Castle! I'm so glad you've come--but I was afraid to go in. I was afraid I might make it worse if _she_ was there. Who is it? Tell me quick! Is it my own Miss Joy, or the other?"

"It's Joy," I assured her, "and she's waiting for you. You must come at once."

She paused a moment, evidently wondering if I knew the secret.

"You're sure?" she said. "You know that there are two?"

"Yes--I know everything, now, and this is Joy--_your_ Joy!"

She bounded forward, and I with her, stumbling in the dark, into the doorway, to the library. There for a moment she stopped, trembling so violently that her teeth chattered audibly. Joy was still lying stretched out at full length upon the cushions of the window-seat. At the first glance Leah did not see her, but then she ran forward, knelt, and threw her arms about her mistress.

But the next instant, starting back as if she had embraced a corpse, she sprang up and faced me, her eyes opened wide in horror.

"Oh, Mr. Castle, she's _asleep_! Miss Joy's _asleep_!"

*II*

For a moment I was too surprised to realize the full significance of Leah's cry. Then Joy's own words came back--the wail of her harassed soul--"If I should fall asleep, who would it be that would awake?" There she lay, asleep at last. Her small head lay upon her arm, and her oval face was now flushed, her lips half parted, showing her little blue-white teeth. The crisp white duck blouse moved gently with her breathing--beneath her skirt two tiny red shoes lay one over the other.

As she herself had said, she was so utterly exhausted that she would "go down deep." Dared we awaken her? Certainly not Leah, who, of course, had seen the whole awful possibility on the instant.

I had to decide. What was to be done must be done quickly. If Joy were allowed to sleep long and deeply we might confidently expect "the other one" to awaken. The question was, could we, perhaps, rouse her before that incomprehensible change had taken place? It seemed to be the only thing to do. I determined, at all events, to take the risk.

Meanwhile, Leah had fallen into a chair, overcome with the disappointment of the situation. She was in a distressing state; her skirt was torn and soiled, her shoes dusty, her waist disheveled. Her black hair was awry; she was hatless. I thought at first that she, too, had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue.

I went to her and laid a hand on her shoulder to rouse her. She started with a frightened jump.

"Leah," I said, "I'm going to awaken Miss Fielding. It's the only thing to do, I think. We may be able to get her again, before she changes. But if not, we must be ready with some plan by which to manage Edna. We must hurry, though. First, tell me in the fewest possible words what has happened. Joy, of course, didn't know."

Leah had braced herself for the ordeal and was now quick, alert and concise. "She got angry on account of my 'trying to run her,' she said. You see 'the other one' was here for two days. I've always been able to manage her for one day, but the second day she seemed to be much stronger, and it was worse than it has ever been before. She found out that I had burned some of her old clothes--Miss Joy had told me to--and so she discharged me and told me to leave the place immediately. I wouldn't go, and she went into the barn and got a horsewhip and threatened me with it. I was afraid, Mr. Castle! She was in a fearful temper. I was afraid she'd kill me. Then I went. I stayed all night in the Harbor. I wrote to you as soon as I got there, for I couldn't get you on the telephone. Yesterday I hung about the place all day, but she didn't appear, and I was afraid to come in. I positively didn't dare, though I knew it probably was Miss Joy. To-day I stayed in that old cabin down by the road all day, for I was pretty sure it must be _she_ who was here. I was so tired I fell asleep and that's how I missed you, I suppose. I've had hardly anything to eat since yesterday--only a few biscuits I brought with me."

I had been thinking out a plan as I listened, and as soon as she had finished I gave Leah her orders.

"Listen, now. If it is 'the other one' who awakens, I'll tell her that I happened to meet you in the Harbor, and induced you to come back, on my own responsibility. Do you see? I'll manage it; you needn't be afraid. I'll take care of you, and it will be all right. Of course if it is Joy who wakes up, that will be better. But we must act quickly. Can you tell immediately who it is that awakens, Joy or 'the other one'?"

"Oh, we can tell that easily enough, by the way she treats me!"

"Very well, then. You must awaken her now!"

I sat down where I could watch, and Leah went hesitatingly up to her mistress again, and shook her shoulder gently.

"Wake up, Miss Joy!" she said softly, but firmly. "Wake up, you're catching cold, honey."

Joy moaned, turned a little, then drew herself together again drowsily.

"Wake up, Miss Joy, you must have your dinner now!"

She moved again, and muttered, "Oh, I'm so sleepy! Let me go to sleep, Leah, please!"

Again Leah shook her. It seemed cruel to have to bring that exhausted body back to life. "Wake up, Miss Joy. Mr. Castle's here to see you! Wake up!"

She opened her eyes now, and stared vacantly at us. Then her face changed gloriously. She flung her arms round Leah's neck.

"Oh, Leah! Leah! You've come back to me!"

It was some moments before either of the women was able to speak. They clung to each other, sobbing.

After the first hurried words of explanation were over, Joy went up to her room to wash her face and freshen herself for what was yet to be done. Leah went with her, almost too happy to think of her own sorry appearance. Both came down, after a while, in a change of costume, and went with me into the dining-room where King was patiently waiting to serve the meal so long delayed. Joy showed plainly the ravages which two days of suspense and agony had accomplished, but she was braced mentally by my presence and Leah's return, and in a condition to discuss calmly what was to be done. Leah had also rallied from her collapse, and the dinner brought her strength and courage.

The meal was over before we had settled how Leah could be kept in favor with "the other one"--whom we agreed, hereafter, to call Edna--and we were still uncertain as to our actions in regard to many other complications which might arise. It depended principally upon the extent of my influence with Edna. To hear Joy discuss these phases of her condition in that other state--her fondness for me, her whims, her weaknesses--gave me a strange sensation. But what struck me as most remarkable in her talk was the sense of justice she always showed in regard to Edna. One might have expected Joy to resent the intrusion of this second personality, so inimical to her own interests, but she never failed to acknowledge Edna's rights. Indeed, her whole attitude was that Edna was strictly another person, rather than some part of herself broken off and endowed with an independent existence--which was my theory of the situation.

I quite lost myself in the subtleties of the case. To know that probably on the morrow I should be face to face with this same woman, in form and feature precisely the same, and yet as different from her, really, as the West is from the East, gave me, in spite of my effort to concentrate my mind upon the affair, a sort of mental instability which was disconcerting. I could not quite believe that she would or could change. She seemed too real, too normal, if I may qualify such adjectives. And besides all this, I had begun to think of her in another way, which made the prospect of any such change seem unbearable.

Meanwhile, Joy grew steadily sleepier. She roused herself occasionally, by an effort, but would droop the moment she had stopped speaking. Coffee no longer stimulated her. She began to walk up and down the room, leaning on Leah's arm, as if she were fighting off the effects of laudanum. Her suffering was cruel. We had, at last, to resort to strychnia.

So, for another hour we talked, while she became more haggard, more weak. Up and down, up and down the room they went. We talked of seeking the advice of some specialist, here or abroad, of the possibility of a direct appeal to Edna, in the chance of some compromise to be effected, of Leah's actions should she be peremptorily discharged again, of the prospect of her being able to stay in the vicinity, to return as soon as Joy's own personality had reasserted itself, of the proper method of safeguarding Joy's property, of the possibility of Edna's actually departing from Midmeadows--there were a hundred sides to the subject, and all baffling. There seemed to be nothing to do but to await further developments and see if I myself could not succeed in managing Edna. I rather wondered at the fact that Joy did not once mention the doctor as a possible cooeperator with us. It seemed to me that she instinctively distrusted him, though she never permitted herself to say so. It was no doubt her fairness, rather than any conviction of his ability, that prevented.

Finally she stopped, scarcely able to hold herself up, as frail as a wilted flower, and said, with an effort at a smile:

"I'm afraid it's no use, Chester; I'm too far gone to think. I can't control my mind any longer. I must have sleep. You and Leah will have to settle it together--I'll leave it all to you--I'll agree to whatever you think best. I'm no more use than a baby to-night. Let me be your little sister and tell me what to do. I'm tired, tired--tired."

My heart ached for her. Her mouth was trembling like a child's just before crying, her eyelids hung heavy, all but closed. What she must suffer at the thought of sinking into temporary oblivion and resigning herself to the inevitable possession of "the other one," I could easily imagine. I implored her to go to bed.

When the two women had left, I pulled down the curtains, seated myself in the armchair, lighted my pipe and began to think it over.

I had seen Edna but twice, but, from what had happened, I was able to form a fair idea of her character. She was, in the first place, by no means the equal of Joy's true self. Mentally she was less developed; in some respects, as Joy had said, a mere child. She was inclined to be untidy, full of animal spirits, and constructive, in a mechanical way. She was not fond of animals; not, at least, of the dogs, and the same strain showed itself, I thought, in her prejudice against Leah, as a colored woman. There was something of that lack of charity, also, in the fun she had made of Uncle Jerdon, something of which Joy herself would be incapable. Edna was inclined to be bromic; Joy was indubitably a sulphite. Lastly, there was, I remembered, that hint of--what would I call it?--indiscretion? forwardness?--in the way she had "made up" to me that last evening I spent with her.

Here, perhaps, was a suggestion as to how I might manage her. It was not pleasant; the less so because I must necessarily keep it from both Joy and Leah. From Joy for obvious reasons--I could not think of permitting her to suspect that, even in this other phase, she was in the least lacking in delicacy--from Leah because she was, in her way, finer even than Joy. It would cause her, in fact, the keener suffering to know that any such thing was going on in the house. And yet I could not quite bear to act, even in these circumstances, secretly. The matter had been left to my judgment; but I could not yet make up my mind what was right. It was a choice of two evils, perhaps, but the thought of permitting even the lesser one to obtain troubled me. In a few words, Edna was apparently fond of me. I didn't care to put it any more strongly than that at present, nor to say that I would admit this basis of friendship as a condition in which I could manage her. But the thought was affording. While I was turning over in my mind this phase of the problem Leah came down.

"She fell asleep while I was undressing her," she said, taking a chair drearily. "I have never seen her so absolutely exhausted. She'll sleep late to-morrow; and," she added with a shudder, "she'll not wake up herself."

"Well, then, we'll have to be prepared for Edna," I replied.

"I'm so afraid of to-morrow!" said Leah. "Not for myself, you know, Mr. Castle. I'm willing to endure anything. But if she insists upon my leaving here again, what shall I do? I simply _can't_ leave Miss Joy! What would she ever do without me?"

"I think I can manage it," I said, though, indeed, I was far from being confident. And then, to draw her out more, I added: "What I'm wondering is, if we hadn't better send for Doctor Copin."

"Oh, don't!" she pleaded. "You must take hold of this alone, Mr. Castle. He's been down here several times since you left, and I'm more afraid of him than ever. More, even, than I am of _her_."

"Why, what has happened?"

"Oh," she cried, "that's just what I don't know. She sent me away usually, and often they were alone together all day. Sometimes they went off on long walks, too."

"With _her_--with Edna, I mean, or with Joy?"

"Oh, with Edna, of course--never with Miss Joy herself."

This gave me more to think about. If she had acted with the doctor as she had with me, a good deal depended upon the kind of man Doctor Copin was.

"You saw nothing, then, to arouse your suspicions?" I asked.

I saw immediately, from her embarrassment, that she had; but she finally said:

"No, nothing to amount to anything, I think." It was easy to see her motive in this denial, I thought. She could not bring herself to say anything that might seem like an accusation of her mistress, even her mistress in this other person. She went on:

"There's another thing that worries me. She's been telephoning to the doctor almost every day. She never did that before, and I can't understand it. I don't think of any reason she can have, for physically she's quite well."

"You mean Edna has?"

"No! Miss Joy herself. Of course Edna does, all the time."

"How long since Joy has been doing so?"

"About two weeks--she began, I think, soon after you left."

"And the doctor has been coming oftener?"

"Yes."

"Does the doctor come usually when Joy is here, or when Edna is?"

"Almost always when it's Edna."

"How does Doctor Copin know when she is here?"

"That's a mystery. I've wondered myself about it, but I don't know."

"Leah," I said, after thinking a while, "do you think you can trust me, whatever you should happen to notice that seems, let us say, a bit too much like what the doctor might be imagined as doing?"

"You mean?" She drew a quick breath. "Oh, _that_? Why should you suggest it? Don't ask me to, please!"

"It would be better than permitting you to be driven away, wouldn't it?" I insisted.

She did not answer.

"I don't say that any such thing will be necessary," I added, "but I don't want you to be surprised at anything. I don't want, in any way, to be underhanded with you. It seems that you must, in any case, leave it wholly to me. That is, of course, provided there is no one else you can call on."

"Oh, there's nobody else! Miss Joy has no near relatives, and any one we might send for would perhaps be only too glad to have her shipped off to an asylum so that they could get hold of her property. That's what has always complicated it. That's why she lives here alone. It might be, too, why we should watch the doctor himself." She stretched out her hands appealingly to me. "Oh, Mr. Castle, you must have heard of such cases--I'm told they're common. Can't we drive _her_ away for ever?"

"The doctor probably knows a good deal more about that than I," I replied. "I think that's probably why he's so much interested. But, if you _don't_ trust him, the very fact that he does know so much about the subject makes him the more dangerous. I must have a talk with him. Do you know when he'll come again?"

"He may be here at any time. There's no telling. I don't think Miss Joy knows, but I have an idea that he may have arranged it with Edna. You can find that out for yourself to-morrow, can't you?"

"I think that I may be able to find out a good deal, if you'll only close your eyes."

Again that quick, indrawn breath, as if she were struck with a sudden pain, and she rose and stood before me.

"Oh, Mr. Castle, I can't help trusting you! I _must_ trust you!"

"Will it help you," I said, looking her straight in the eyes, "if I tell you that I like Joy immensely--that, in fact, I'm very, very fond of her?"

She took both of my hands in hers, kneeling before me. "Oh, Mr. Castle!" she cried, "if you only _do_! If I could believe that, it would be such a comfort to me! I've wanted to believe it ever since you first came down. She's so alone--she has no one in the world but me! She needs you so much! Oh, you could do so much for her!"

"There's nothing, Leah, that I wouldn't do for her, believe me. Nothing! Do you know what that means? It means that I may have to do what she herself would never consent to have me do."

That was as far as I dared to go with the girl; indeed, it was almost as far as I had gone with myself. I could see hints of what it might possibly come to; but just how it would work out, I had no idea. It would be time enough for that, when it was time. But, on the whole, Leah was pacified and strengthened by my confession. As she was nearly in a state of collapse, by this time, I sent her to bed, and remained to smoke in the library.

The question was, now, whether Edna wouldn't wonder why I had come down. I had, of course, the excuse of my motor-car to account for that, but I thought it likely that she wouldn't be exigent in the matter of excuses, and would be quite ready, for her own reasons, to welcome me to Midmeadows. At any rate, I decided that I would stay, whether or no. Joy most certainly wanted me here, now that the White Cat was out of the bag, and I was quite prepared to strain a point, if necessary, to induce Edna to be hospitable.

It was now ten o'clock, and, excited as I was, I found myself in no mood for sleep. So, hearing King grinding coffee in the kitchen, I walked out there to make his acquaintance. As I came in, he looked up and grinned serenely.

"Hello! You come back?" he said affably.

"Yes, I'm back, King," I replied, and stood with my hands in my pockets, watching.

"I thought you come!" he said, nodding his head wisely.

"Oh, you did, did you?" I inquired. "Why?"

He went on automatically with his coffee-mill, still grinning inanely. "You likee Miss Fielding?" he asked audaciously.

"Heap much!" I said, laughing. He laughed with me.

"Aren't you lonesome here, King?" I asked next. "Not many Chinamen around here, are there?"

"Oh, Chinamen no good! All time make tlouble." He poured the ground coffee into a canister and took down a pot.

"There's a Chinese laundry over at the Harbor. Don't you go over there sometimes to smoke a pipe?"

"Aw! No good smoke pipe. More better stay here."

Now this was contrary to the habits of Chinamen as I had known them, and I scented something interesting.

"You no play fan-tan?" I asked.

"Aw! Fan-tan no good," King replied contemptuously. "All time lose heap money. No good!"

He shook his head again as he shook down his fire, poked it, and went to the sink to wash his hands and wipe them on the roller towel. I watched his deft, precise movements; he was like a machine in the accurate way in which he handled everything.

"What tong do you belong to, King?" I asked presently.

He gave me a cunning look.

"What-a-matter you?" he demanded. "What for you want to know?"

"Hip Sing?" I persisted. "See Yup? Sam Yup? What tong?"

"You sabbee China tong?" he asked.

"Oh, sure! You tell me, King. I keep him quiet. I no tell."

"Say!" he exclaimed, approaching me, grinning, "sometime you help me get away?"

"You in trouble, eh? What's the matter! Hatchet-men after you?"

He still grinned in the absurd way Celestials have, when the subject is most serious. "No catchee _me_!" he declared.

"Oh, I see. They're trying to find you, eh? What's the matter? You steal China girl? You take tong money? You kill Sam Yup man, maybe?"

He kept his grin and his secret. "Tha's all light, no catchee me!" was all I could get out of him. But I thought I had a suspicion as to why he was contented to stay alone, so far from any of his race, and never go to town or even smoke opium or play fan-tan at the Harbor.

*III*

By the next morning my mind had cleared somewhat, and I rose full of eagerness and interest for what was to come. I looked forward to it, now, as to a play where I myself was to go upon the stage and act a part. I got down-stairs early, to be ready upon the scene.