Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/173

 "Yes, she is a great friend of yours—she tells me that you know her well. Her name is Miss Whittaker."

Dr. Anderson turned hastily to ring an electric bell at his side. A servant immediately answered his summons.

"If any patients call, Macpherson, say that I am not at home."

Having given these instructions he turned to me.

"Now, sir," he said, "I am ready to give you my best attention. I knew Miss Whittaker; hers is one of the saddest cases I have ever come across. I shall be glad to hear of her, poor soul, again. Are you her physician at the asylum where she is confined?"

"I am her physician pro tem. I am interested in her, because I do not believe her to be insane."

Here I paused. Dr. Anderson was looking down at the carpet. His face appeared to be full of a gentle meditation.

"She was always a very nervous girl," he said, after a pause; "she was easily influenced by those whom she respected. I took an interest in Miss Whittaker: she was my patient for some months. My treatment was highly beneficial to her, and the outburst which occurred was the last thing to be anticipated. When you speak of doubting her insanity, you forget"

"No, I forget nothing," I said, speaking with some impatience, for I did not like the man. "After all, Dr. Anderson, my opinion on this point is quite wide of the object of this visit. Miss Whittaker is ill, and wants to see you. She has a bodily illness, which may or may not terminate fatally. She wants to see you with great earnestness, and I have promised to do all in my power to bring you to her sick bed."

Dr. Anderson raised his eyes and looked full at me. There was a steady reproach in them, but his lips smiled, and his words were gentle.

"I don't know you," he said, "and I am quite sure you don't know me. I am more than anxious on all occasions to obey the call of suffering. I will go to see Miss Whittaker with pleasure.'

"When can you come?" I asked.

"When do you want me to come?"

"Now—if it will at all suit your convenience."

"Miss Whittaker's convenience is the one to be considered. You heard me give orders a moment ago to have my patients dismissed. That means that I am at your service. If you will excuse me for five minutes, I will be ready to accompany you."

He went out of the room in a dignified fashion, and I sat and looked round me. No one could have been kinder or more prompt in attending to what must have been an inconvenient summons; yet I could not get over my prejudice against him. I tried to account for this by saying over and over to myself:—

"He practises hypnotism, and my natural instincts as a doctor are therefore in arms against him."

But when he returned to the room prepared to accompany me, I found that my instinctive dislike was more to the man than to his practices.

We had a very uneventful journey together, and arrived at Norfolk House early in the afternoon. I was met by Symonds in the avenue. I introduced him at once to Dr. Anderson.

"I am glad you have come," he said, looking at the doctor and then at me. "Miss Whittaker is worse. She is very weak. She has fainted two or three times."

I was startled at the effect of these words on my companion—he turned white, even to the lips—his expressive eyes showed the sort of suffering which one has sometimes seen in a tortured animal. He turned his head aside, as if he knew that I witnessed his emotion and disliked me to see it.

"This is too much for her, poor child," he muttered. "My God, who could—who could have foreseen?"

"I will just go up and tell my patient that you are here," I said to him. "She longed so for you that doubtless you will have a reviving effect upon her immediately."

"You need not prepare her," he said; "she knows I am here already. You are perhaps aware, or perhaps you do not know, that I study a science as yet in its infancy. I am a hypnotist by profession. Over Miss Whittaker I had immense influence. She knows that I am here, so you need not prepare her."

"Well, come with me," I said.

I took him upstairs and down a long, white corridor which led to the young girl's room.

It was a pretty room looking out on the lovely garden. The western sun was shedding slanting rays through the open window.

Miss Whittaker was lying flat in bed, her arms and white hands were lying outside the