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
"Yes, yes, but with a difference. The two men are fighting. As a rule
they stand motionless in the picture, but to-night they seem to have
come alive--they struggle, they struggle hard; one stands with his back
to me. The face of the other I can recognize distinctly. It is the face
of that young fellow who stayed a few years ago at the inn in our
village. Ah! yes, of course, I know his name, Frere--Horace Frere. He
has met some one on Salisbury Plain. It is night; the moon is hidden
behind clouds. Ha! now it comes out. Now I can see them distinctly. Dr.
Rumsey, don't you hear the blows? I do. They seem to beat on my brain.
That man who stands with his back to us carries my stick in his hand. I
know it is mine, for the whole thing is so intensely plain that I can
even see the silver tablet on which my name is engraved. My God! the man
also wears my clothes. I would give all that I possess to see his face.
Let us get on the Plain as fast as we can. I may be able to see the
reverse side of the picture from there. Come with me, come at once."
"Poor fellow! matters get worse and worse," thought the doctor. "Well, I
must see this thing out."
Aloud he said:
"How soon did this vision come to torment you to-night?"
Awdrey rubbed his eyes.
"At first when I went to my room I was sleepy," he said. "I began to
take off my things. Then I saw a globe of light in the further end of
the room. At first it was merely light with no picture in the centre.
Then faint shadows began to appear, and by slow degrees the perfect and
intensely clear picture which I am now looking at became visible. I
stared at it quite motionless for a time. I was absorbed by the deepest
interest. Then a mad longing to see the face of the man who stands with
his back to us, came over me. I walked about the room trying hard to get
even a side view of him, but wherever I went he turned so as to keep his
face away; wherever I went the face of Frere was the only one I could
see. Then in a sort of despair, almost maddened in fact, I rushed from
the room.
"Did you not leave the vision behind you?"
"Not I--it went straight in front of me. When I reached your room and
opened the door it came in before me. I know now what I must do. I have
been always standing more or less to the right of the picture. I must
get to the left. I am going to follow it on to the Plain--I am going to
trace it to the exact spot where that murder was committed. Will you
come with me?"
"Yes, only first you must return to your room, and get into the rest of
your clothes. At present you are without a coat."
"Am I? And yet I burn with heat. Well, I'll do what you want. I will do
anything which gives me a chance of seeing that man's face."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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