“Before I go on, Julien, I must impress one thing on you. Prejudice is a poor guide for deduction. If you are in love with poor Florence you will be helping her more by facing the facts squarely....”
“My emotions are in abeyance, Hugo. I listen only as a Dr. Watson.”
“Very well. I will first indulge in a modest preamble.”
“A short one would be better.”
“Facetiousness,” smiled Dr. Lytton, “is a good outlet for nerves. I make no claim to any sort of intelligence on my part for what happened during the dawn in Rollo. Accident is very often the determining factor in philosophical as well as scientific discoveries.
“I had come to Rollo to find Floria, and as I was walking the streets with no place to go or sit down I found her. I saw her at the end of the block hurrying toward me. Her face was pale, her hair was in disorder, and her eyes were wide and staring. It was Florence Ballau. She passed me without any sign of recognition, and I realized at once from the obvious physical symptoms she presented that she was in a pathologic state. I followed her. She walked through the streets without purpose or destination, moving swiftly and blindly.
“After an hour, or what seemed an hour, I caught up with her and took her arm. She looked at me and said nothing. Now there is one principle in pathology which is elemental. In talking to a dual personality it is a waste of energy to address the ‘wrong’ person. Thus, it is futile to waste one’s breath trying to convince a man who fancies himself the king of Siam that he is not the king of Siam. Because when addressing the victim of such an hallucination, one is addressing not the victim, but the hallucination. Do you follow me?”
De Medici nodded. His mind had grown violently active. The scientist’s words died in his ears, as more and more he gave himself desperately to the unraveling of a new and astounding theory that had entered his thought.
“Well,” continued Dr. Lytton, “knowing this, I took her arm. She looked at me. I said to her, ‘Good morning, Floria.’ The ruse worked instantly. Her eyes lighted and a look of complete recognition came to them. She stood regarding me excitedly for a moment and then collapsed in my arms. The village drugstore was just opening and I carried her inside. After the druggist and I had revived her I led her to the hotel and got a room. We sat down and began to talk. I had the advantage. I knew exactly the pathologic state with which I was dealing. I said to her: ‘It is useless to conceal anything, Miss Ballau. I don’t know how you managed to escape from the police. It may be that they liberated you on their own account.’
“This was very possible, considering their tendencies to commit blunders. Then I asked her if she were able to follow what I was saying. I saw at once that she was not a distinct dissociation case, that her dual personalities were not ignorant of each other, as is frequently found in some of the more pronounced cases that have come under my observation. It was obvious also that Floria and Florence Ballau were gradually merging into a single personality with the result that the young woman, instead of suffering from periodic and isolated attacks of what we may call insanity, attacks which after their conclusion left her the normal Florence Ballau we knew, was now become a single disordered brain.