CHAPTER XXIII.

MR. ROLFE surveyed the two women with a mild, inoffensive, ox-like gaze, and invited them to be seated with homely civility.

He sat down at his desk, and turning to Lady Ba.s.sett, said, rather dreamily, "One moment, please: let me look at the case and my notes."

First his homely appearance, and now a certain languor about his manner, discouraged Lady Ba.s.sett more than it need; for all artists must pay for their excitements with occasional languor. Her hands trembled, and she began to gulp and try not to cry.

Mr. Rolfe observed directly, and said, rather kindly, "You are agitated; and no wonder."

He then opened a sort of china closet, poured a few drops of a colorless liquid from a tiny bottle into a wine-gla.s.s, and filled the gla.s.s with water from a filter. "Drink that, if you please."

She looked at him with her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g. _"Must_ I?"

"Yes; it will do you good for once in a way. It is only Ignatia."

She drank it by degrees, and a tear along with it that fell into the gla.s.s.

Meantime Mr. Rolfe had returned to his notes and examined them. He then addressed her, half stiffly, half kindly:

"Lady Ba.s.sett, whatever may be your husband's condition--whether his illness is mental or bodily, or a mixture of the two--his clandestine examination by bought physicians, and his violent capture, the natural effect of which must have been to excite him and r.e.t.a.r.d his cure, were wicked and barbarous acts, contrary to G.o.d's law and the common law of England, and, indeed, to all human law except our shallow, incautious Statutes de Lunatico: they were an insult to yourself, who ought at least to have been consulted, for your rights are higher and purer than Richard Ba.s.sett's; therefore, as a wife bereaved of your husband by fraud and violence and the bare letter of a paltry statute whose spirit has been violated, you are quite justified in coming to me or to any public man you think can help your husband and you." Then, with a certain _bonhomie,_ "So lay aside your nervousness; let us go into this matter sensibly, like a big man and a little man, or like an old woman and a young woman, whichever you prefer."

Lady Ba.s.sett looked at him and smiled a.s.sent. She felt a great deal more at her ease after this opening.

"I dare not advise you yet. I must know more than Mr. Angelo has told me. Will you answer my questions frankly?"

"I will try, sir."

"Whose idea was it confining Sir Charles Ba.s.sett to the house so much?"

"His own. He felt himself unfit for society."

"Did he describe his ailment to you then?"

"Yes."

"All the better; what did he say?"

"He said that, at times, a cloud seemed to come into his head, and then he lost all power of mind; and he could not bear to be seen in that condition."

"This was after the epileptic seizure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Humph! Now will you tell me how Mr. Ba.s.sett, by mere words, could so enrage Sir Charles as to give him a fit?"

Lady Ba.s.sett hesitated.

"What did he say to Sir Charles?"

"He did not speak to him. His child and nurse were there, and he called out loud, for Sir Charles to hear, and told the nurse to hold up his child to look at his inheritance."

"Malicious fool! But did this enrage Sir Charles so much as to give him a fit?"

"Yes."

"He must be very sensitive."

"On that subject."

Mr. Rolfe was silent; and now, for the first time, appeared to think intently.

His study bore fruit, apparently; for he turned to Lady Ba.s.sett and said, suddenly, "What is the strangest thing Sir Charles has said of late--the very strangest?"

Lady Ba.s.sett turned red, and then pale, and made no reply.

Mr. Rolfe rose and walked up to Mary Wells.

"What is the maddest thing your master has ever said?"

Mary Wells, instead of replying, looked at her mistress.

The writer instantly put his great body between them. "Come, none of that," said he. "I don't want a falsehood--I want the truth."

"La, sir, I don't know. My master he is not mad, I'm sure. The queerest thing he ever said was--he did say at one time 'twas writ on his face as he had no children."

"Ah! And that is why he would not go abroad, perhaps."

"That was one reason, sir, I do suppose." Mr. Rolfe put his hands behind his back and walked thoughtfully and rather disconsolately back to his seat.

"Humph!" said he. Then, after a pause, "Well, well; I know the worst now; that is one comfort. Lady Ba.s.sett, you really must be candid with me. Consider: good advice is like a tight glove; it fits the circ.u.mstances, and it does not fit other circ.u.mstances. No man advises so badly on a false and partial statement as I do, for the very reason that my advice is a close fit. Even now I can't understand Sir Charles's despair of having children of his own."

The writer then turned his looks on the two women, with an entire absence of expression; the sense of his eyes was turned inward, though the orbs were directed toward his visitors.

With this lack-l.u.s.ter gaze, and in the tone of thoughtful soliloquy, he said, "Has Sir Charles Ba.s.sett no eyes? and are there women so furtive, so secret, or so bashful, they do not tell their husbands?"

Lady Ba.s.sett turned with a scared look to Mary Wells, and that young woman showed her usual readiness. She actually came to Mr. Rolfe and half whispered to him, "If you please, sir, gentlemen are blind, and my lady she is very bashful; but Sir Charles knows it now; he have known it a good while; and it was a great comfort to him; he was getting better, sir, when the villains took him--ever so much better."

This solution silenced Mr. Rolfe, though it did not quite satisfy him.

He fastened on Mary Wells's last statement. "Now tell me: between the day when those two doctors got into his apartment and the day of his capture, how long?"

"About a fortnight."

"And in that particular fortnight was there a marked improvement?"

"La, yes, sir; was there not, my lady?"

"Indeed there was, sir. He was beginning to take walks with me in the garden, and rides in an open carriage. He was getting better every day; and oh, sir, that is what breaks my heart! I was curing my darling so fast, and now they will do all they can to destroy him. Their not letting his wife see him terrifies me."