“It seems inexplicable; but as I understand it, he was never quite sober at that time; he had begun to use drugs, and was often in a half-stupefied condition. As a matter of fact, the woman did what she pleased with him. There’s no doubt about the validity of the marriage. And what makes it so desperate a muddle is that since the marriage she’s taken good care to give no grounds upon which a divorce could be obtained for Harman. She means to hang on.”
“I’m glad of that!” said George, striking his knee with his open palm. “That will go a great way toward—”
He paused, and asked suddenly: “Did this marriage take place in France?”
“Yes. You’d better hear me through,” I remonstrated. “When he was taken from the hospital, he was placed in charge of a Professor Keredec, a madman of whom you’ve probably heard.”
“Madman? Why, no; he’s a member of the Institute; a psychologist or metaphysician, isn’t he?—at any rate of considerable celebrity.”
“Nevertheless,” I insisted grimly, “as misty a vapourer as I ever saw; a poetic, self-contradicting and inconsistent orator, a blower of bubbles, a seer of visions, a mystic, and a dreamer—about as scientific as Alice’s White Knight! Harman’s aunt, who lived in London, the only relative he had left, I believe—and she has died since—put him in Keredec’s charge, and he was taken up into the Tyrol and virtually hidden for two years, the idea being literally to give him something like an education—Keredec’s phrase is ‘restore mind to his soul’! What must have been quite as vital was to get him out of his horrible wife’s clutches. And they did it, for she could not find him. But she picked up that rat in the garden out yonder—he’d been some sort of stable-manager for Harman once—and set him on the track. He ran the poor boy down, and yesterday she followed him. Now it amounts to a species of sordid siege.”
“She wants money, of course.”
“Yes, MORE money; a fair allowance has always been sent to her. Keredec has interviewed her notary and she wants a settlement, naming a sum actually larger than the whole estate amounts to. There were colossal expenditures and equally large shrinkages; what he has left is invested in English securities and is not a fortune, but of course she won’t believe that and refuses to budge until this impossible settlement is made. You can imagine about how competent such a man as Keredec would be to deal with the situation. In the mean time, his ward is in so dreadful a state of horror and grief I am afraid it is possible that his mind may really give way, for it was not in a normal condition, of course, though he’s perfectly sane, as I tell you. If it should,” I concluded, with some bitterness, “I suppose Keredec will be still prating upliftingly on the saving of his soul!”
“When was it that Louise saw him?”
“Ah, that,” I said, “is where Keredec has been a poet and a dreamer indeed. It was his PLAN that they should meet.”