“Dr. Owen will not believe you.”
“He will believe me.”
“No!” declared Seraphine dreamily. “There are greater powers than you fighting for Penelope.”
CHAPTER XII
X K C
We come now to what has been regarded by some authorities as the most remarkable feature in the case of Penelope Wells, a development almost without parallel in the records of abnormal psychology. All books on this subject record instances of jealousy or hostility between two recurring personalities in the same individual. A woman in one personality writes a letter that humiliates her in another personality. A little girl eats a certain article of food while in one personality simply because she knows that her other personality hates that particular food. And so on. It almost never occurs, however, that an evil personality will commit an act or a crime that is abhorrent to the individual's fundamental nature. Neither through hypnotism nor through any manifestation of a dual nature will a person become a thief or a murderer unless there is really in that person a latent tendency towards stealing or killing. There is always some germ of Mr. Hyde's bloodthirstiness in the benevolence of Dr. Jekyll.
But Penelope Wells, under the domination of her Fauvette personality, now entered upon a course that was certain to bring disgrace and sorrow upon a man she loved with all her heart, a man for whom she had risked her life on the battle field. Here is one of those mysteries that will not be cleared up until we better understand these strange and distressing phenomena of the sick brain or the sick soul.