“I regret that I cannot claim to know you, madame,” said Professor Swelding, replying for Dr. Biron, “but I know that in addressing you I shall be speaking to the inmate of this institution who will testify most warmly to the scientific skill and the devotion of Dr. Biron.”
“At all events,” Mme. Rambert replied coldly, “he carries his kindness to the extent of wishing his patients never to be dull, since he brings unexpected visitors to see them.”
The phrase was an implicit reproach of Dr. Biron’s too ready inclination to exhibit his patients as so many rare and curious wild animals, and it stung him all the more because he was convinced that Mme. Rambert was perfectly sane. He pretended not to hear what she said, giving some order to the attendant, Berthe, who was standing respectfully by.
“I understand, madame,” Professor Swelding replied gently. “You object to my visit as an intrusion?”
Mme. Rambert had picked up her work and already was sewing again, but suddenly she sprang up, so abruptly that the professor recoiled, and exclaimed sharply:
“Who called me? Who called me? Who—”
The Professor was attempting to speak when the patient interrupted him.
“Oh!” she cried, “Alice! Alice! His voice—his voice! Go away! You frighten me! Who spoke? Go away! Oh, help! help!” and she fled screaming towards the far end of the garden, with the attendant and Dr. Biron running after her. With all the cleverness of the insane she managed to elude them, and continued to scream. “Oh, I recognised him! Do go away, I implore you! Go! Murder! Murder!”
The attendant tried to reassure the doctor.
“Don’t be frightened, sir. She is not dangerous. I expect the visit from that gentleman has upset her.”
The poor demented creature had taken refuge behind a clump of shrubs, and was standing there with eyes dilated with anguish fixed on the Professor and hand pointing to him, trembling in every limb.
“Fantômas!” she cried: “Fantômas! There—I know him! Oh, help!”
The scene was horribly distressing, and Dr. Biron put an end to it by ordering the attendant to take Mme. Rambert to her room and induce her to rest, and to send at once for M. Perret. Then he turned to Professor Swelding.
“I am greatly distressed by this incident, Professor. It proves that the cure of this poor creature is by no means so assured as I had believed. But there are other cases which will not shake your faith in my judgment like this, I hope. Shall we go on?”
Professor Swelding tried to comfort the doctor.
“The brain is a pathetically frail thing,” he said. “You could not have a more striking case to prove it: that poor lady, whom you believed to be cured, suddenly having a typical crisis of her form of insanity provoked by—what? Neither you nor I look particularly like assassins, do we?” And he followed Dr. Biron, who was much discomfited, to be shown other matters of interest.
“Better now, madame? Are you going to be good?”
Mme. Rambert was reclining on a sofa in her room, watching her attendant, Berthe, moving about and tidying up the slight disorder caused by her recent ministrations. The patient made a little gesture of despair.
“Poor Berthe!” she said. “If you only knew how unhappy I am, and how sorry for having given way to that panic just now!”
“Oh, that was nothing,” said the attendant. “The doctor won’t attach any importance to that.”
“Yes, he will,” said the patient with a weary smile. “I think he will attach importance to it, and in any case it will delay my discharge from this place.”
“Not a bit of it, madame. Why, you know they have written to your home to say you are cured?”
Mme. Rambert did not reply for a minute or two. Then she said:
“Tell me, Berthe, what do you understand by the word ‘cured’?”
The attendant was rather nonplussed.
“Why, it means that you are better: that you are quite well.”
Her patient smiled bitterly.
“It is true that my health is better now, and that my stay here has done me good. But that is not what I was talking about. What is your opinion about my madness?”
“You mustn’t think about that,” the attendant remonstrated. “You are no more mad than I am.”
“Oh, I know the worst symptom of madness is to declare you are not mad,” Mme. Rambert answered sadly; “so I will be careful not to say it, Berthe. But, apart from this last panic, the reason for which I cannot tell you, have you ever known me do, or heard me say, anything that was utterly devoid of reason, in all the time that I have been in your charge?”
Struck by the remark, the attendant, in spite of herself, was obliged to confess:
“No, I never have—that is—”
“That is,” Mme. Rambert finished for her, “I have sometimes protested to you that I was the victim of an abominable persecution, and that there was a tragic mystery in my life: in short, that if I was shut up here, it was because someone wanted me to be shut up. Come now, Berthe, has it never occurred to you that perhaps I was telling the truth?”
The attendant had been shaken for a minute by the calm self-possession of her patient; now she resumed her professional manner.
“Don’t worry any more, Mme. Rambert, for you know as well as I do that Dr. Biron acknowledges that you are cured now. You are going to leave the place and resume your ordinary life.”
“Ah, Berthe,” said Mme. Rambert, twisting and untwisting her hands, “if you only knew! Why, if I leave this sanatorium, or rather if the doctor sends me back to my family, I shall certainly be put in some other sanatorium before two days are past! No, it isn’t merely an idea that I
