Dr. Rumsey's patient : $b a very strange storyMeade, L. T.
General
Dr. Rumsey's patient : $b a very strange story
Meade, L. T.
Physician and patient -- Fiction
Awdrey's cure was complete; he had passed right through the doom of his
house, and got out on the other side. He was the first man of his race
who had ever done that; the others had forgotten as he forgot, and had
pined, and dwindled, and slipped and slipped lower and lower down in the
scale of life until at last they had dropped over the brink into the
Unknown beyond. Awdrey's downward career had been stopped just in time.
His recovery had been quite as marvellous as his complaint. When he saw
his own face reflected in the pond on Salisbury Plain the cloud had
risen from his brain and he remembered what he had done. In that instant
his mental sky grew clear and light. He himself had murdered Horace
Frere; he had not done it intentionally, but he had done it; another man
was suffering in his stead; he himself was the murderer. He knew this
absolutely, completely, clearly, but at first he felt no mental pain of
any sort. A natural instinct made him desirous to keep his knowledge to
himself, but his conscience sat light within him, and did not speak at
all. He was now anxious to conceal his emotions from the doctor; his
mind had completely recovered its balance, and he found this possible.
Rumsey was as fully astonished at the cure as he had been at the
disease; he accompanied Awdrey back to London next day, and told
Margaret what a marvellous thing had occurred. Awdrey remembered all
about his son; he was full of grief for his loss; he was kind and loving
to his wife; he was no longer morose; no longer sullen and apathetic; in
short, his mental and physical parts were once again wide awake; but the
strange and almost inexplicable thing in his cure was that his moral
part still completely slumbered. This fact undoubtedly did much to
establish his mental and physical health, giving him time to recover his
lost ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account