"The doctor hasn't been able to bring her around, Roger, though he's done all he can. It's nearly an hour and a half, now, and she is still unconscious."
CHAPTER XXXVI
It was nearly midnight when Dr. Bousquet at last took his departure. An hour before that time Esther became conscious, but was so utterly weak he would not allow her to speak or make the smallest effort of any kind. She made no comment on finding herself back in her old quarters, and after a short interval drifted back into a natural sleep. The watchers felt a degree of relief.
"I think I may safely leave her now, monsieur," said the doctor, drawing on his gloves. "I will come again in the morning about ten o'clock, and if any complication should arise in the meantime, you will of course telephone me. She is suffering now from shock, it seems, combined with the after-effects of morphia. Later when she is less exhausted she may be intensely nervous. One must see that she is kept absolutely quiet, with nothing to agitate her. A fresh shock might do great harm."
Roger glanced at the grey-white face on the pillow. It was thin and drawn; it was hard to understand how it could have altered so much in these few days' time. What had happened to her to give her that pinched look? The shadows under the closed eyes were deep violet.
"Tell me, doctor," he whispered. "Have you been able to come to any conclusion on the subject of her mental condition?"
He brought out the last words with a painful hesitation.
"I am not an alienist, at least not an expert," replied the little man cautiously, elevating the reddish tufts of his brows. "Of course I have a general knowledge. During the short interval when she was conscious she did not appear to be other than normal, but that, I fear, is not conclusive evidence. One would have to study her. If, as Dr. Sartorius suggests, she may be suffering from confusional attacks, she would part of the time be so completely sane that one would suspect nothing wrong. Subjects of that kind often live a sort of double life. They are apt to invent romantic or mysterious histories about themselves, intrigues in which they figure, often as a persecuted victim. They make these tales so extremely convincing that they frequently succeed in imposing their belief on other people."
"You mean there would be nothing about her to make one know she was not normal mentally?"
"Quite so, unless one happened to possess proof that her stories were untrue."