for three months general mathieson remained in the country. his improvement was very gradual—so gradual, indeed, that from week to week it was scarce noticeable, and it was only by looking back that it was perceptible. at the end of that time he could walk unaided, there was less hesitation in his speech, and his memory was distinctly clearer. he passed much of his time on a sofa placed in the shade in the garden, with hilda and netta sitting by him, working and talking.

netta had always been a favorite of his from the time that he first met her in hanover; and he had, when she was staying with his niece the year before, offered her a very handsome salary if she would remain with her as her companion. the girl, however, was reluctant to give up her occupation, of which she was very fond, still less would she leave her aunt; and although the general would willingly have engaged the latter also as an inmate of the house, to act as a sort of chaperon to hilda when she drove out alone shopping, netta refused in both their names.

"you would not have left the army, general, whatever temptations might have been held out to you. i am happy in thinking that i am doing good and useful work, and i don't think that any offer, even one so kind and liberal as yours, would induce me to relinquish it."

her presence now was not only an inestimable comfort to hilda, but of great advantage to the general himself. alone hilda would have found it next to impossible to keep the invalid interested and amused. he liked to talk and be talked to, but it was like the work of entertaining a child. netta, however, had an inexhaustible fund of[pg 103] good spirits. after her long intercourse with children who needed entertainment with instruction, and whose attention it was absolutely necessary to keep fixed, she had no difficulty in keeping the conversation going, and her anecdotes, connected with her life in germany and the children she had taught, were just suited to the general's mental condition.

little walter was of great assistance to her. he had come down with his nurse as soon as they were fairly settled at holmwood, and his prattle and play were a great amusement to his grandfather. whenever the conversation flagged netta offered to tell him a story, which not only kept him quiet, but was listened to with as much interest by the general as by the child. dr. leeds was often a member of the party, and his cheery talk always had its effect in soothing the general when, as was sometimes the case, he was inclined to be petulant and irritable.

they had been a fortnight at holmwood before the doctor discovered netta's infirmity. she happened to be standing at a window with her back to him when he asked her a question. receiving no reply, he repeated it in a louder tone, but he was still unanswered. somewhat surprised, he went up to her and touched her; she faced round immediately.

"were you speaking to me, dr. leeds?"

"yes, i spoke to you twice, miss purcell, but you did not hear me."

"i have been perfectly deaf from childhood," she said; "i cannot hear any sound whatever. i never talk about it; people ask questions and wonder, and then, forgetting that i do not hear, they persist in addressing me in loud tones."

"is it possible that you are deaf?"

"it is a melancholy fact," she said with a smile, and then added more seriously, "it came on after measles. when i was eight years old my good aunt, who had taken me to some of the best aurists in london, happened to hear that a professor menzel had opened an establishment in hanover for teaching deaf mutes to speak by a new[pg 104] system of watching people's lips. she took me over there, and, as you see, the result was an undoubted success, and i now earn my living by acting as one of the professor's assistants, and by teaching two or three little girls who board at my aunt's."

"the system must be an admirable one indeed," the doctor said. "i have, of course, heard of it, but could not have believed that the results were so excellent. it never entered my mind for a moment that you were in any way deficient in hearing, still less that you were perfectly deaf. i have noticed that, more than is common, you always kept your eyes fixed on my face when i was speaking to you."

"you would have noticed it earlier had we been often alone together," she said, "for unless i had kept my eyes always upon you i should not have known when you were speaking; but when, as here, there are always several of us together, my eyes are at once directed to your face when you speak, by seeing the others look at you."

"is it necessary to be quite close to you when one speaks?"

"oh, not at all! of course i must be near enough to be able to see distinctly the motion of the lips, say at twenty yards. it is a great amusement to me as i walk about, for i can see what is being said by people on the other side of the road, or passing by in a vehicle. of course one only gets scraps of conversations, but sometimes they are very funny."

"you must be quite a dangerous person, miss purcell."

"i am," she laughed; "and you must be careful not to say things that you don't want to be overheard when you are within reach of my eyes. yesterday, for instance, you said to hilda that my aunt seemed a wonderfully kind and intelligent old lady; and you were good enough to add some complimentary remarks about myself."

dr. leeds flushed.

"well, i should not have said them in your hearing, miss purcell; but, as they were complimentary, no harm was done. i think i said that you were invaluable here,[pg 105] which is certainly the case, for i really do not know how we should be able to amuse our patient if it were not for your assistance."

"hilda and i had a laugh about it," netta said; "and she said, too, that it was not fair your being kept in the dark as to our accomplishment."

"'our accomplishment!'" he repeated in surprise. "do you mean to say that miss covington is deaf also? but no, that is impossible; for i called to her yesterday, when her back was turned, and the general wanted her, and she answered immediately."

"my tongue has run too fast," the girl said, "but i don't suppose she would mind your knowing what she never speaks of herself. she was, as you know, living with us in hanover for more than four years. she temporarily lost her hearing after an attack of scarlet fever, and the doctors who were consulted here feared that it might be permanent. her father and mother, hearing of dr. hartwig as having the reputation of being the first aurist in europe, took her out to him. he held out hopes that she could be cured, and recommended that she should be placed in professor menzel's institution as soon as she could understand german, so that, in case a cure was not effected, she might be able to hear with her eyes. by great good fortune he recommended that she should live with my aunt, partly because she spoke english, and partly because, as i was already able to talk, i could act as her companion and instructor both in the system and in german.

"in three years she could get on as well as i could, but the need for it happily passed away, as her hearing was gradually restored. still, she continued to live with us while her education went on at the best school in the town, but of course she always talked with me as i talked with her, and so she kept up the accomplishment and has done so ever since. but her mother advised her very strongly to keep the knowledge of her ability to read people's words from their lips a profound secret, as it might tend to her disadvantage; for people might be[pg 106] afraid of a girl possessed of the faculty of overhearing their conversation at a distance."

"that explains what rather puzzled me the other day," the doctor said. "when i came out into the garden you were sitting together and were laughing and talking. you did not notice me, and it struck me as strange that, while i heard the laughing, i did not hear the sound of your voices until i was within a few paces of you. when miss covington noticed me i at once heard your voices."

"yes, you gave us both quite a start, and hilda said we must either give up talking silently or let you into our secret; so i don't think that she will be vexed when i tell her that i have let it out."

"i am glad to have the matter explained," he said, "for really i asked myself whether i must not have been temporarily deaf, and should have thought it was so had i not heard the laughing as distinctly as usual. i came to the conclusion that you must, for some reason or other, have dropped your voices to a whisper, and that one or the other was telling some important secret that you did not wish even the winds to hear."

"i think that this is the only secret that we have," netta laughed.

"seriously, this is most interesting to me as a doctor, and it is a thousand pities that a system that acts so admirably should not be introduced into this country. you should set up a similar institution here, miss purcell."

"i have been thinking of doing so some day. hilda is always urging me to it, but i feel that i am too young yet to take the head of an establishment, but in another four or five years' time i shall think seriously about it."

"i can introduce you to all the aurists in london, miss purcell, and i am sure that you will soon get as many inmates as you may choose to take. in cases where their own skill fails altogether, they would be delighted to comfort parents by telling them how their children may learn to dispense altogether with the sense of hearing."

"not quite altogether," she said. "it has happened very often, as it did just now, that i have been addressed[pg 107] by someone at whom i did not happen to be looking, and then i have to explain my apparent rudeness by owning myself to be entirely deaf. unfortunately, i have not always been able to make people believe it, and i have several times been soundly rated by strangers for endeavoring to excuse my rudeness by a palpable falsehood."

"really, i am hardly surprised," dr. leeds said, "for i should myself have found it difficult to believe that one altogether deaf could have been taught to join in conversation as you do. well, i must be very careful what i say in future while in the society of two young ladies possessed of such dangerous and exceptional powers."

"you need not be afraid, doctor; i feel sure that there is no one here to whom you would venture to give us a bad character."

"i think," he went on more seriously, "that miss covington's mother was very wise in warning her against her letting anyone know that she could read conversations at a distance. people would certainly be afraid of her, for gossipmongers would be convinced that she was overhearing, if i may use the word, what was said, if she happened to look at them only casually."

at the end of three months the general became restless, and was constantly expressing a wish to be brought back to london.

"what do you think yourself, dr. leeds?" dr. pearson said, when he paid one of his usual visits.

"he is, of course, a great deal better than he was when he first came down," the former replied, "but there is still that curious hesitation in his speech, as if he was suffering from partial paralysis. i am not surprised at his wanting to get up to town again. as he improves in health he naturally feels more and more the loss of his usual course of life. i should certainly have advised his remaining here until he had made a good deal further advancement, but as he has set his mind upon it, i believe that more harm would be done by refusing than by his going. in fact, i think that he has, if anything, gone[pg 108] back in the last fortnight, and above all things it is necessary to avoid any course that might cause irritation, and so set up fresh brain disturbances."

"i am quite of your opinion, leeds. i have noticed myself that he hesitates more than he did a short time since, and sometimes, instead of joining in the conversation, he sits moody and silent; and he is beginning to resent being looked after and checked."

"yes; he said to me the other day quite angrily, 'i don't want to be treated as a child or a helpless invalid, doctor. i took a mile walk yesterday. i am beginning to feel quite myself again; it will do me a world of good to be back in london, and to drive down to the club and to have a chat with my old friends again.'"

"well, i think it best that he should not be thwarted. you have looked at the scars from time to time, i suppose?"

"yes; there has been no change in them, they are very red, but he tells me—and what is more to the point, his man tells me—that they have always been so."

"what do you think, leeds? will he ever be himself again? watching the case from day to day as you have done, your opinion is worth a good deal more than mine."

"i have not the slightest hope of it," the young doctor replied quietly. "i have seen as complete wrecks as he is gradually pull themselves round again, but they have been cases where they have been the victims of drink or of some malady from which they had been restored by a successful operation. in his case we have failed altogether to determine the cause of his attack, or the nature of it. we have been feeling in the dark, and hitherto have failed to discover a clew that we could follow up. so far there has been no recurrence of his first seizure, but, with returning strength and returning brain work, it is in my opinion more than likely that we shall have another recurrence of it. the shock has been a tremendous one to the system. were he a younger man he might have rallied from it, but i doubt whether at his age he will ever get over it. actually he[pg 109] is, i believe, under seventy; physically and mentally, he is ninety."

"that is so, and between ourselves i cannot but think that a long continuance of his life is not to be desired. i believe with you that he will be a confirmed invalid, requiring nursing and humoring like a child, and for the sake of miss covington and all around him one cannot wish that his life should be prolonged."

"i trust that, when the end comes, dr. pearson, it will be gradual and painless, and that there will be no recurrence of that dreadful seizure."

"i hope so indeed. i have seen many men in bad fits, but i never saw anything to equal that. i can assure you that several of the men who were present—men who had gone through a dozen battles—were completely prostrated by it. at least half a dozen of them, men whom i had never attended before, knowing that i had been present, called upon me within the next two or three days for advice, and were so evidently completely unstrung that i ordered them an entire change of scene at once, and recommended them to go to homburg, take the waters, and play at the tables; to do anything, in fact, that would distract their minds from dwelling upon the painful scene that they had witnessed. had it not been for that, one would have had no hesitation in assigning his illness to some obscure form of paralysis; as it is, it is unaccountable. except," he added, with a smile, "by your theory of poison."

the younger doctor did not smile in return. "it is the only cause that i can assign for it," he said gravely. "the more i study the case, the more i investigate the writings of medical men in india and on the east and west coast of africa, the more it seems to me that the attack was the work of a drug altogether unknown to european science, but known to obi women, fetich men, and others of that class in africa. in some of the accounts of people accused of crime by fetich men, and given liquor to drink, which they are told will not affect them if innocent, but will kill them if guilty, i find reports of their[pg 110] being seized with instant and violent convulsions similar to those that you witnessed. these convulsions often end in death; sometimes, where, i suppose, the dose was larger than usual, the man drops dead in his tracks while drinking it. sometimes he dies in convulsions; at other times he recovers partially and lingers on, a mere wreck, for some months. in other cases, where, i suppose, the dose was a light one, and the man's relatives were ready to pay the fetich man handsomely, the recovery was speedy and complete; that is to say, if, as is usually the case, the man was not put to death at once upon the supposed proof of his guilt. by what possible means such poison could have found its way to england, for there is no instance of its nature being divulged to europeans, i know not, nor how it could have been administered; but i own that it is still the only theory by which i can account for the general's state. i need not say that i should never think of giving the slightest hint to anyone but yourself as to my opinion in the matter, and trust most sincerely that i am mistaken; but although i have tried my utmost i cannot overcome the conviction that the theory is a correct one, and i think, dr. pearson, that if you were to look into the accounts of the various ways in which the poisons are sold by old negro women to those anxious to get rid of enemies or persons whose existence is inconvenient to them, and by the fetich men in these ordeals, you will admit at least that had you been practicing on the west coast, and any white man there had such an attack as that through which the general has passed, you would without hesitation have put it down to poison by some negro who had a grudge against him."

"no doubt, no doubt," the other doctor admitted; "but, you see, we are not on the west coast. these poisons are, as you admit, absolutely unobtainable by white men from the men and women who prepare them. if obtainable, when would they have been brought here, and by whom? and lastly, by whom administered, and from what motive? i admit all that you say about the african poisons. i lately had a long talk about them with[pg 111] a medical man who had been on the coast for four or five years, but until these other questions can be answered i must refuse to believe that this similarity is more than accidental, and in any possible way due to the same cause."

"that is what i have told myself scores of times, and it would be a relief to me indeed could i find some other explanation of the matter. then, you think that he had better come up to london?"

"i leave the matter in your hands, dr. leeds. i would give him a few days longer and try the effect of a slight sedative; possibly his desire to get up to town may die out. if so, he is without doubt better here. if, however, you see that his irritation increases, and he becomes more and more set upon it, by all means take him up. how would you do so? by rail or road?"

"certainly by rail. i have been trying to make him feel that he is a free agent, and encouraged him in the belief that he is stronger and better. if then i say to him, 'my dear general, you are, of course, free to do as you like, and it may be that the change will be beneficial to you; if the ladies can be ready to-morrow, let us start without further delay,' i consider it quite possible that this ready and cheerful acquiescence may result in his no longer desiring it. one knows that in this respect sick people are very like fractious children. they set their minds on some special article of food, as a child does on a toy, and when it comes they will refuse to touch it, as the child will throw the coveted toy down."

it turned out so in this case. the moment the general found that the doctor was willing that he should go up to town, and the ladies quite ready to accompany him at once, he himself began to raise objections.

"perhaps it would be as well that we should wait another month," he replied. a little pretended opposition strengthened this view, and the return was postponed. at the end of the month he had made so much progress that, when the longing for london was again expressed, dr. leeds offered no opposition, and two days later the whole party went up.