“Yes, it was in one of those lucid intervals when the mind shines out clear and brilliant; but the effort cost him dearly: he has not rallied from it since.”
“Has he over-worked himself; is this the effect of an over-exerted brain?”
“I 'd call it rather the result of some wounded sensibility; he appears to have suffered some great reverse in ambition or in fortune. His tone, so far as I can fathom it, implies intense depression. After all, we must say he met much coldness here. The people did not visit him, there was no courtesy, no kindliness shown him; and though he seemed indifferent to it, who knows how he may have felt it?”
“I do not suspect he gave any encouragement to intimacy; beseemed to me as if declining acquaintance with the neighborhood.”
“Ay, but it was in resentment, I opine; but you ought to know best. You were constantly here?”
“Yes, very frequently; but I am not an observant person; all the little details which convey a whole narrative to others are utterly lost upon me.”
The doctor smiled. It was an expression that appeared to say he concurred in the curate's version of his own nature.
“It is these small gifts of combining, arranging, sifting, and testing, that we doctors have to cultivate,” said he, as he took his hat. “The patient the most eager to be exact and truthful will, in spite of himself, mislead and misguide us. There is a strange bend sinister in human nature, against sincerity, that will indulge itself even at the cost of life itself. You are the physician of the soul, sir; but take my word for it, you might get many a shrewd hint and many a useful suggestion from us, the meaner workmen who only deal with nerves and arteries.”
As he wended his solitary road homewards, L'Estrange pondered thoughtfully over the doctor's words. He had no need, he well knew, to be reminded of his ignorance of mankind; but here was a new view of it, and it seemed immeasurable.
On the whole he was a sadder man than usual on that day. The world around him—that narrow circle whose diameter was perhaps a dozen miles or so—was very sombre in its coloring. He had left sickness and sorrow in a house where he had hitherto only seen festivity and pleasure; and worse again, as regarded himself, he had carried away none of those kindlier sympathies and friendly feelings which were wont to greet him at the great house. Were they really then changed to him? and if so, why so? There is a moral chill in the sense of estrangement from those we have lived with on terms of friendship that, like the shudder that precedes ague, seems to threaten that worse will follow. Julia would see where the mischief lay had she been in his place. Julia would have read the mystery, if there were a mystery, from end to end; but he, he felt it,—he had no powers of observation, no quickness, no tact. He saw nothing that lay beneath the surface, nor, indeed, much that was on the surface. All that he knew was, that at the moment when his future was more uncertain than ever, he found himself more isolated and friendless than ever he remembered to have been. The only set-off against all this sense of desertion was the letter which Colonel Bramleigh had written in his behalf, and which he had remembered to write as he lay suffering on his sick bed. He had told the doctor where to find it, and said it lay sealed and directed. The address was there, but no seal. It was placed in an open envelope, on which was written, “Favored by the Rev. G. L'Estrange.” Was the omission of the seal accident or intention? Most probably accident, because he spoke of having sealed it. And yet that might have been a mere phrase to imply that the letter was finished. Such letters were probably, in most cases, either open, or only closed after being read by him who bore them. Julia would know this. Julia would be able to clear up this point, thought he, as he pondered and plodded homeward.