"Of course you were perfectly sure of Jack."

Helen winced. "Yes," she replied, quietly; "I was sure of Jack."

"But you understand now that I really cannot stay?"

"Jack needs you still."

"No; his ma.n.u.script is complete. He will not need me for the revision."

"You would stay if he did?"

"Why, yes."

"Then if you would stay if he needed you, surely you will do the same for me?"

"Oh, Helen!"

"Will you? When Jack is quite himself again I will urge no longer. Now that you have told me this, it will be easier for you. Will you not do this for me?"

"There is nothing I would not do for you, Helen!" cried Inez, throwing her arms impulsively around her friend's neck and kissing her pa.s.sionately. "You are so strong you make me more ashamed than ever of my own weakness."

"Thank you, dear," Helen replied, simply, returning her embrace; "but don't make any mistake about my strength. It is because I lack it so sadly that I ask you to stay."

Dr. Montgomery found Armstrong's temperature considerably higher when he called later in the day, after the disquieting mental experience his patient had pa.s.sed through. Armstrong also appeared to be preoccupied, and more interested in asking questions than in answering them. For the first time he seemed to be curious in regard to the nature of his illness.

"In a case like mine, is it possible for the mental convalescence to be r.e.t.a.r.ded or to go backward?" he asked.

"Yes," Dr. Montgomery replied, "it is possible, but hardly probable, especially with a patient who has progressed so normally as you have."

"It is normal for the memory to have a complete lapse, as in my case?"

"Absolutely so."

"Is it possible for a knowledge of the events which occurred during such a lapse to be restored--say, weeks afterward?"

"Yes; under certain conditions."

"And those conditions are?" asked Armstrong, eagerly.

The doctor settled back in his chair.

"Let me see if I can make it clear to you: all memories are permanent--that is to say, every event makes a distinct, even though it may be an unconscious, impression upon the brain. Sometimes these memories remain dormant for months, or even years, before something occurs to bring them to mind; but even before this the memories are there, just the same."

"But you are speaking of every-day occurrences, are you not? My question is whether or not it might be possible for me, for example, to have a reviving knowledge of certain events which took place during a period of apparent unconsciousness."

"I understand. Yes, it would be quite possible for this to happen."

"What would be necessary to bring it about?"

Dr. Montgomery smiled at his patient's earnestness.

"Are you so eager to recall that period? But the question is a fair one.

Some incident must take place similar to something which occurred during the unconscious period in order to revive the dormant memory. I doubt if you could do it deliberately."

"I have no intention of trying," Armstrong replied; "but I am interested in this particular phase of the case. Suppose, during the apparently unconscious period, some one had lifted my arm or placed a hand upon my forehead--would the same act be enough to restore the dormant memory, as you call it?"

"Quite enough--though it would not necessarily do so. I have known several cases where the repet.i.tion of such an act has produced just the result which you describe."

"And these revived impressions are apt to be trustworthy?"

"As a photographic plate," replied the doctor, emphatically.

Armstrong was silent for some moments.

"It is an interesting phase, as you say," he remarked, at length. "I think I may try the experiment, after all."

"The chances will be against you; but I imagine you have been pretty well informed of what has happened. Don't try to think too hard. It will be all the better for you to give your brain a little rest; it has had a hard shaking-up."

So this was the solution of the mystery for which he had sought so long! Armstrong found himself in a curious position after the doctor took his departure, leaving behind him a new knowledge of affairs which, six hours before, his patient would have considered absolutely preposterous. Helen was right, and had been right from the beginning.

His one consolation was removed, and in its place was a complication which seemed past straightening out. To the blame which Armstrong had already taken to himself on Helen's account, he must now add the responsibility of having inspired this sentiment in Inez' heart, which meant unhappiness to all. Even though this had been done unconsciously, he told himself, it was no less culpable in that he had not himself discovered the situation and checked it before any serious harm had been done. Helen had seen it, the contessa had seen it, and he wondered how many others. He had been blind in this, criminally blind, and now he must pay the penalty.

But this penalty could not be borne by him alone--he could see that clearly. Helen and Inez were both hopelessly involved. And what a woman his wife had shown herself to be! Knowing of this affection on the part of Inez, she had suffered them to continue together in order that his work might not be disturbed. She had told him just how matters stood--not with recriminations, but with loving solicitude, offering to sacrifice herself, if necessary, to secure his happiness, drinking her cup of sorrow to the dregs, and alone! It was plain enough to him now.

He thought of Helen as she was when they first came to Florence, and compared her with the Helen of to-day. He had brought about that change; he alone was responsible for it. She had craved the present, with its sunshine, its birds, its happiness, and instead of all this he had filled it for her with nothing but sorrow and suffering! He merited the scoring Emory gave him, even though the denunciation had gone too far.

As the bandage fell from his eyes, the character which he had a.s.sumed during these past months stood out clearly before him, shorn of its academic halo, and pitiful in its unfulfilled ideals. He had sought to join that company of humanists who had awakened the world to the joy and beauty of intellectual attainment. He had believed himself worthy of this honor, in that he believed he had understood and sympathized with their underlying motives. So he had in principle, but how wofully he had failed in his efforts to carry them out! Instead of a.s.similating the happy youthfulness of the Greek, together with the Grecian harmony of existence, he had developed his morbid self-centering and self-consciousness. His blind, unreasoning devotion to his single interest had resulted in folly and fanaticism. He had overlooked the cardinal element in the humanistic creed that knowledge without love meant death and isolation. Instead of singling out and joining together the beauties for which humanism stood, he had embraced and emphasized its limitations.

"I am an impostor!" Armstrong exclaimed, no longer able to endure his mental lashing in silence--"an arrant impostor! I have set myself up as a modern apostle, I have written plat.i.tudes upon intellectual supremacy and the religion of knowledge, when the one single personal attribute to which I can justly lay claim is insufferable academic arrogance. I have seized a half-truth and fortified it with fact; and in accomplishing this stupendous piece of fatuous nonsense I have stultified myself and destroyed the happiness of all!"

XXVII

Armstrong's first act, on the following day, was to send to the library for his ma.n.u.script. Helen looked upon this as an evidence that with his returning strength had also come a return of his all-controlling pa.s.sion. This was a natural explanation of the peculiar change which she had noticed in him during the past few days, and his request fitted in so perfectly with a conversation between Uncle Peabody and herself the evening before that she almost unconsciously exchanged with him a glance of mutual understanding.

But the real motive was quite at variance with her interpretation.

Armstrong had pa.s.sed through his period of introspection without taking any one into his confidence. Fierce as the struggle had been, he felt instinctively that his only chance of restoring conditions to anything which even approached equilibrium was to make no new false step. He had come to certain definite conclusions, but was still undecided as to the proper methods to be adopted in his attempt to turn these conclusions into realities.

First of all, he had placed himself in an entirely false position with Helen. He had given her cause to believe him indifferent and neglectful.

This, at least, he argued, could be remedied, even though it was now too late to spare her the suffering through which she had pa.s.sed. But he could explain it all, and by his future devotion to her, and to those interests of which she was a part, he could make her forget the past.

With Miss Thayer the proposition was a different one. To her he had done an injury which could not be repaired. He had sought to take her with him into a world full of those possibilities which the intellectual alone can comprehend. Instead of leaving her there, inspired by the wisdom of such an intercourse, he had--unconsciously but still culpably--developed in her an interest in himself. The problem was to extricate her and himself from this compromising situation without destroying all future self-respect for them both; and the solution of it seemed far beyond his reach.

And besides all this, there was the ma.n.u.script. Despite his best endeavor, he could not recall even an outline of what he had written.

After a full realization came to him of the extent to which he had misunderstood and misconstrued the basic principles of humanism itself, his interest in his work became one of curiosity to learn by actual examination how far he had accepted the half-truths, and how far he had wandered from the path which he had thought he knew so well. The whole volume must be filled with absurd theories, falsely conceived and as falsely expressed. He must go over it, page by page, and learn from it the bitter fact of his unworthiness to stand as the modern expounder of those great minds whose influence alone should have been enough to hold him to his appointed course.