“No, no, sir,” said Alfred warmly. “Dr. Wycherley is the very soul of humanity. Here are no tortures, no handcuffs nor leg-locks, no brutality, no insects that murder Sleep—without offence to Logic. In my last asylum the attendants inflicted violence, here they are only allowed to endure it. And, gentlemen, I must tell you a noble trait in my enemy there: nothing can make him angry with madmen; their lies, their groundless and narrow suspicions of him, their deplorable ingratitude to him, of which I see examples every day that rile me on his account; all these things seem to glide off him, baffled by the infinite kindness of his heart and the incomparable sweetness of his temper; and he returns the duffers good for evil with scarcely an effort.”
At this unexpected tribute the water stood in the doctor's eyes. It was no more than the truth; but this was the first maniac he had met intelligent enough to see his good qualities clearly and express them eloquently.
“In short,” continued Alfred, “to be happy in his house all a man wants is to be insane. But, as I am not insane, I am miserable; no convict, no galley slave is so wretched as I am, gentlemen. And what is my crime?”
“Well, well,” said Dr. Eskell kindly, “I think it likely you will not be very long in confinement.” They then civilly dismissed him; and on his departure asked Dr. Wycherley his candid opinion. Dr. Wycherley said he was now nearly cured; his ability to discuss his delusion without excitement was of itself a proof of that. But in another month he would be better still. The doctor concluded his remarks thus—
“However, gentlemen, you have heard him: now judge for yourselves whether anybody can be as clever as he is, without the presence of more or less abnormal excitement of the organs of intelligence.”
It was a bright day for Alfred; he saw he had made an excellent impression on the Commissioners, and, as luck does not always come single, after many vain attempts to get a letter posted to Julia, he found this very afternoon a nurse was going away next day. He offered her a guinea, and she agreed to post a letter. Oh the hapiness it was to the poor prisoner to write it, and unburden his heart and tell his wrongs. He kept his manhood for his enemies; his tears fell on the paper he sent to his forlorn bride. He had no misgivings of her truth; he judged her by himself: gave her credit for anxiety, but not for doubt. He concluded a long, ardent, tender letter by begging her to come and see him, and, if refused admission, to publish his case in the newspapers, and employ a lawyer to proceed against all the parties concerned in his detention. Day after day he waited for an answer to his letter; none came. Then he began to be sore perplexed, and torn with agonising doubts. What if her mind was poisoned too! What if she thought him mad! What if some misfortune had befallen her! What if she had believed him dead, and her heart had broken! Hitherto he had seen his own trouble chiefly; but now he began to think day and night on hers; and though he ground on for his degree not to waste time, and not to be driven mad, yet it was almost superhuman labour; sighs issued from his labouring breast while his hard, indomitable brain laboured away, all uphill, at Aristotle's Divisions and Definitions.
On the seventh day, the earliest the mad statute allowed, the two Commissioners returned, and this time Mr. Abbott took the lead, and told him that the policeman Reynolds had left the force, and the Dodds had left the town, and were in London, but their address not known.
At this Alfred was much agitated. She was alive, and perhaps near him.
“I have heard a good deal of your story,” said Mr. Abbott, “and coupling it with what we have seen of you, we think your relatives have treated you, and a young lady of whom everybody speaks with respect—”
“God bless you for saying that! God bless you!”