“I surrender my will to you,” he said, already calmed by the other’s healing presence, “and I want you to treat me hypnotically—and at once. I want you to suggest to me”—his voice became very tense—“that I shall forget—forget till I die—everything that has occurred to me during the last two hours; till I die, mind,” he added, with solemn emphasis, “till I die.”
He floundered and stammered like a frightened boy. Alexis Stephen looked at him fixedly without speaking.
“And further,” Laidlaw continued, “I want you to ask me no questions. I wish to forget for ever something I have recently discovered—something so terrible and yet so obvious that I can hardly understand why it is not patent to every mind in the world—for I have had a moment of absolute clear vision—of merciless clairvoyance. But I want no one else in the whole world to know what it is—least of all, old friend, yourself.”
He talked in utter confusion, and hardly knew what he was saying. But the pain on his face and the anguish in his voice were an instant passport to the other’s heart.
“Nothing is easier,” replied Dr. Stephen, after a hesitation so slight that the other probably did not even notice it. “Come into my other room where we shall not be disturbed. I can heal you. Your memory of the last two hours shall be wiped out as though it had never been. You can trust me absolutely.”
“I know I can,” Laidlaw said simply, as he followed him in.
6
An hour later they passed back into the front room again. The sun was already behind the houses opposite, and the shadows began to gather.
“I went off easily?” Laidlaw asked.
“You were a little obstinate at first. But though you came in like a lion, you went out like a lamb. I let you sleep a bit afterwards.”