He instantly sat down. Mrs. Wagner produced her pocket-book, and made a mark in it with her pencil. 'One good conduct-mark already for Jack,' she said. 'Now I must go on with my work; and you must occupy yourself quietly, in some way that will amuse you. What will you do?'
Jack, steadily restraining himself under the firm kind eyes that rested on him, was not in the right frame of mind for discovering a suitable employment. 'You tell me,' he said.
Mrs. Wagner pointed to the bag of keys, hanging over his shoulder. 'Have you cleaned them yet?' she asked.
His attention was instantly diverted to the keys; he was astonished at having forgotten them. Mrs. Wagner rang the bell, and supplied him with sandpaper, leather, and whiting. 'Now then,' she said, pointing to the clock, 'for another hour at least—silence and work!'
She returned to her desk; and Jack opened his bag.
He spread out the rusty keys in a row, on the seat at his side. Looking from one to the other before he began the cleansing operations, he started, picked out one key, and held it up to the light. There was something inscribed on the handle, under a layer of rust and dirt. He snatched up his materials, and set to work with such good will that the inscription became visible in a few minutes. He could read it plainly—'Pink-Room Cupboard.' A word followed which was not quite so intelligible to him—the word 'Duplicate.' But he had no need to trouble himself about this. 'Pink-Room Cupboard,' on a second key, told him all he wanted to know.
His eyes sparkled—he opened his lips—looked at Mrs. Wagner, busily engaged with her pen—and restrained himself within the hard limits of silence. 'Aha! I can take Mrs. Housekeeper's medicine whenever I like,' he thought slily.
His faith in the remedy was not at all shaken by his conviction that Madame Fontaine was mad. It was the Doctor who had made the remedy—and the Doctor could not commit a mistake. 'She's not fit to have the keeping of such a precious thing,' he concluded. 'I'll take the whole of it under my own charge. Shall I tell Mistress, when we have done work?'
He considered this question, cleaning his keys, and looking furtively from time to time at Mrs. Wagner. The cunning which is almost invariably well developed in a feeble intelligence, decided him on keeping his discovery to himself. 'Anything that belongs to Madame Fontaine must be taken back to her'—was what the Mistress had just said to him. He would certainly be ordered to give up the duplicate key (which meant giving up the wonderful remedy) if he took Mrs. Wagner into his confidence. 'When I have got what I want,' he thought, 'I can throw away the key—and there will be an end of it.'
The minutes followed each other, the quarters struck—and still the two strangely associated companions went on silently with their strangely dissimilar work. It was close on the time for the striking of the hour, when a third person interrupted the proceedings—that person being no other than Madame Fontaine again.
'A thousand pardons, Mrs. Wagner! At what time can I say two words to you in confidence?'
'You could not have chosen your time better, Madame Fontaine. My work is done for to-day.' She paused, and looked at Jack, ostentatiously busy with his keys. The wisest course would be to leave him in the window-seat, harmlessly employed. 'Shall we step into the dining-room?' she suggested, leading the way out. 'Wait there, Jack, till I return; I may have another good mark to put in my pocket-book.'
The two ladies held their conference, with closed doors, in the empty dining-room.
'My only excuse for troubling you, madam,' the widow began, 'is that I speak in the interest of that poor little Jack, whom we have just left in the office. May I ask if you have lately observed any signs of excitement in him?'
'Certainly!' Mrs. Wagner answered, with her customary frankness of reply; 'I found it necessary to compose him, when he came to me about an hour ago—and you have just seen that he is as quiet again as a man can be. I am afraid you have had reason to complain of his conduct yourself?'
Madame Fontaine lifted her hands in gently-expressed protest. 'Oh, dear, no—not to complain! To pity our afflicted Jack, and to feel, perhaps, that your irresistible influence over him might be required—no more.'
'You are very good,' said Mrs. Wagner dryly. 'At the same time, I beg you to accept my excuses—not only for Jack, but for myself. I found him so well behaved, and so capable of restraining himself in London, that I thought I was running no risk in bringing him with me to Frankfort.'
'Pray say no more, dear madam—you really confuse me. I am the innocent cause of his little outbreak. I most unfortunately reminded him of the time when he lived with us at Wurzburg—and in that way I revived one of his old delusions, which even your admirable treatment has failed to remove from his mind.'
'May I ask what the delusion is, Madame Fontaine?'
'One of the commonest delusions among insane persons, Mrs. Wagner—the delusion that he has been poisoned. Has he ever betrayed it in your presence?'
'I heard something of it,' Mrs. Wagner answered, 'from the superintendent at the madhouse in London.'
'Ah, indeed? The superintendent merely repeated, I suppose, what Jack had told him?'
'Exactly. I was careful not to excite him, by referring to it myself, when I took him under my charge. At the same time, it is impossible to look at his hair and his complexion, without seeing that some serious accident must have befallen him.'
'Most unquestionably! He is the victim, poor creature—not of poison—but of his own foolish curiosity, in my husband's surgery, and you see the result. Alas! I cannot give you the scientific reasons for it.'
'I shouldn't understand them, Madame Fontaine, if you could.'
'Ah, dear lady, you kindly say so, because you are unwilling to humiliate me. Is there anything Jack may have said to you about me, which seems to require an explanation—if I can give it?'
She slipped in this question, concealing perfectly the anxiety that suggested it, so far as her voice and her eyes were concerned. But the inner agitation rose to the surface in a momentary trembling of her lips.
Slight as it was, that sign of self-betrayal did not escape Mrs. Wagner's keen observation. She made a cautious reply. 'On the contrary,' she said, 'from what Jack has told me, the conclusion is plain that you have really done him a service. You have succeeded in curing that delusion you spoke of—and I applaud your good sense in refusing to
