Part 7 (1/2)
And I dropped off into one of those dreadful dead sleeps, with my head on the atlas. When I awoke it was evening, and the gas-lamps were lighted. I was frightened, and ran out to the landing and I heard them arrive, just come back from Henley, and as I was going down the stairs, I saw my double coming up, and we met face to face. She pa.s.sed me by, and went on to my room--to this room. So you see this is proof pos that I am not a somnambulist.”
”I never said that you were. I never for a moment admitted the supposition. That, if you remember, was your own idea. What I said before is what I repeat now, that you suffer from failure of memory.”
”But that cannot be so, Dr. Groves.”
”Pray, why not?”
”Because I saw my double, wearing my regatta costume.”
”I hold to my opinion, Miss Mountjoy. If you will listen to me I shall be able to offer a satisfactory explanation. Satisfactory, I mean, so far as to make your experiences intelligible to you. I do not at all imply that your condition is satisfactory.”
”Well, tell me. I cannot make heads or tails of this matter.”
”It is this, young lady. On several recent occasions you have suffered from lapses of memory. All recollection of what you did, where you went, what you said, has been clean wiped out. But on this last--it was somewhat different. The failure took place on your return, and you forgot everything that had happened since you were engaged in the schoolroom looking at the atlas.”
”Yes.”
”Then, on your arrival here, as Lady Lacy told me, you ran upstairs, and in a prodigious hurry changed your clothes and put on your----”
”My alpaca.”
”Your alpaca, yes. Then, in descending to the hall, your memory came back, but was still entangled with flying reminiscences of what had taken place during the intervening period. Amongst other things----”
”I remember no other things.”
”You recalled confusedly one thing only, that you had mounted the stairs in your--your----”
”My pearl-grey cloth, with the straw hat and satin ribbon.”
”Precisely. Whilst in your morning gown, into which you had scrambled, you recalled yourself in your regatta costume going upstairs to change.
This fragmentary reminiscence presented itself before you as a vision.
Actually you saw nothing. The impression on your brain of a sc.r.a.p recollected appeared to you as if it had been an actual object depicted on the retina of your eye. Such things happen, and happen not infrequently. In cases of D. T.----”
”But I haven't D. T. I don't drink.”
”I do not say that. If you will allow me to proceed. In cases of D. T.
the patient fancies he sees rats, devils, all sorts of objects. They appear to him as obvious realities, he thinks that he sees them with his eyes. But he does not. These are mere pictures formed on the brain.”
”Then you hold that I really was at the boat-race?”
”I am positive that you were.”
”And that I danced at Lady Belgrove's ball?”
”Most a.s.suredly.”
”And heard _Carmen_ at Her Majesty's?”
”I have not the remotest doubt that you did.”