Nicholas Devine turned his eyes toward the lake and began to speak.
XV
A Modern Mr. Hyde
“I don’t remember when I first noticed it,” began Nick in a low voice, “but I’m two people. I’m me, the person who’s talking to you now, and I’m—another.”
Pat, looking very pale and serious in the dusky light, said nothing at all. She simply gazed at him silently, without the slightest trace of surprise in her wide dark eyes.
“This is the real me,” proceeded Nick miserably. “The other is an outsider, that has somehow contrived to grow into me. He is different; cold, cruel, utterly selfish, and not exactly—human. Do you understand?”
“Y—Yes,” said the girl, fighting to control her voice. “Sort of.”
“This is a struggle that has continued for a long time,” he pursued. “There were times in childhood when I remember punishments for offenses I never committed, for nasty little meannesses he perpetrated. My mother, and after her death, my tutoress, thought I was lying when I tried to explain; they thought I was trying to evade responsibility. After a while I learned not to explain; I learned to accept my punishments doggedly, and to fight this other when he sought dominance.”
“And could you?” asked Pat, her voice frankly quavery. “Could you fight him?”
“I was the stronger; I could win—usually. He slipped into consciousness as wilful, mean little impulses, nasty moods, unreasoning hates and such unpleasant things. But I was always the stronger: I learned to drive him into the background.”
“You said you were the stronger,” she mused. “What does that mean, Nick?”
“I’ve always been the stronger; I am now. But recently, Pat—I think it’s since I fell in love with you—the struggle has been on evener terms. I’ve weakened or he’s gained. I have to guard against him constantly; in any moment of weakness he may slip in, as on our ride last week, when we had that near accident. And again Saturday.” He turned appealing eyes on the girl. “Pat, do you believe me?”
“I guess I’ll have to,” she said unhappily. “It—makes things rather hopeless, doesn’t it?”
He nodded dejectedly. “Yes. I’ve always felt that sooner or later I’d win, and drive him away permanently. I’ve felt on the verge of complete victory more than once, but now—” He shook his head doubtfully. “He had never dominated me so entirely until Saturday night—Pat, you don’t know what Hell is like until you’re forced as I was to watch the violation of the being you worship, to stand helpless while a desecration is committed. I’d rather die than suffer it again!”
“Oh!” said the girl faintly. She was thinking of the sorry picture she must have presented as she reeled half-clothed through the alley. “Can you see what—he sees?”
“Of course, and think his thoughts. But only when he’s dominant. I don’t know what evil he’s planning now, else I could forestall him, I would have warned you if I could have known.”
“Where is he now?”
“Here,” said Nick somberly. “Here listening to us, knowing what I’m thinking and feeling, laughing at my unhappiness.”
“Oh!” gasped Pat again. She watched her companion doubtfully. Then the memory of Dr. Horker’s diagnosis came to her, and set her wondering. Was this story the figment of an unsettled mind? Was this irrational tale of a fiendish intruder merely evidence that the Doctor was right in his opinion? She was in a maze of uncertainty.
“Nick,” she said, “did you ever try medical help? Did you ever go to a doctor about it?”
“Of course, Pat! Two years ago I went to a famous psychiatrist in New York—you’d know the name if I mentioned it—and told him about the—the case. And he studied me, and he treated me, and psychoanalyzed me, and the net result was just nothing. And finally he dismissed me with the opinion that ‘the whole thing is just a fixed delusion, fortunately harmless!’ Harmless! Bah! But it wasn’t I that did those things, Pat; I had to stand by in horror and watch. It was enough to drive me crazy, but it didn’t—quite.”
“But—oh, Nick, what is it? What is this—this outsider? Can’t we fight it somehow?”
“How can anyone except me fight it?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” she wailed miserably. “There must be a way. Doctors claim to know pretty nearly everything; there must be something to do.”
“But there isn’t,” he retorted gloomily. “I don’t know any more than you what that thing is, but it’s beyond your doctors. I’ve got to fight it out alone.”
“Nick—” Her voice was suddenly tense. “Are you sure it isn’t some kind of madness? Something tangible like that could perhaps be treated.”
“It’s no kind your doctors can treat, Pat. Did you ever hear of a madman who stood aside and rationally watched the working of his own insanity? And that’s what I’m forced to do. And yet—this other isn’t insane either. Were its actions insane?”
Pat shuddered. “I—don’t know,” she said in low tones. “I guess not.”
“No. Horrible, cruel, bestial, devilishly cunning, evil—but not insane. I don’t know what it is, Pat. I know that the fight has to be made by me alone. There’s nothing, nobody in the world, that can help.”
“Nick!” she wailed.
“I’m sorry, Pat dear. You understand now why I was so reluctant to fall in love with you. I was afraid to love you; now I know I was right.”
“Nick!” she cried, then paused hopelessly. After a moment she continued, “Yesterday I was determined to forget you, and now—now I don’t care if this whole tale of yours is a mesh of fantastic lies, I love you! I’d love you even if your real self were that—that other creature, and even if I knew that this was just a trap. I’d love you anyway.”
“Pat,” he said seriously, “don’t you believe me? Why should I offer to give you up if this were—what you said? Wouldn’t I be pleading for another chance, making promises, finding excuses?”
“Oh, I believe you, Nick! It isn’t that;
