Outside the door on the landing he stood and wiped the dampness from his forehead. He knew that she had been on the verge of brain fever, that even now she was scarcely safe. The impulse which had taken him into her room was an irresistible one. He felt that he must see her. He had looked into her opened eyes, he had heard her speak. The change, which he alone could understand, which he alone was responsible for, appalled him. He was bewildered by a feeling of personal loss. The soul of Eleanor Surtoes seemed to have passed away with her sense of personal consciousness. It was another woman who lay there in his guest-chamber.
Afterward she slept. He dined mechanically, and without the ghost of an appetite. The rest of the night he spent with a pile of medical books and a note-book kept during his stay in India open before him. In the early morning he looked out upon the gray dawn-lit streets, haggard, and with a gnawing fear at his heart. He was unnerved. The ordinary sounds of the waking household, the street cries outside, the rattling of carts, jarred upon him. He glanced in the looking-glass, and was startled at his own reflection. Softly he opened the door and made his way into the room where Eleanor lay.
Her deep-brown hair lay about the pillow in some confusion. One long white arm, thin but graceful, hung over the coverlet. Her face, notwithstanding its pallor, was like the face of a little child. A certain, almost pathetic, sharpness of outline, which in the days of his first acquaintance with her had been only too noticeable, seemed to him to have faded away. Her closed eyes were no longer windows through which shone the tragical misery of her bitter life. The lines about her mouth and forehead had all been smoothed away. And with these things—something else. He found himself struggling with a sense of unfamiliarity. After all, it was still Eleanor. If only he could persuade himself of it.
He looked at her long and steadily. Then he left the room and entered the library. For a time he sat at his desk, irresolute. More than once he drew note-paper toward him and dipped his pen in the ink. He was wholly unaccustomed to this indecision. Yet the way before him, which had seemed so clear only a short while back, seemed now beset with anxieties. It was not technical skill or knowledge that he needed. So far as these were concerned, his self-confidence was unimpaired. Only a new sense of responsibility, a strange new web of fears, seemed suddenly to have paralyzed his enthusiasm.
For the first time in his life he felt the need for advice—the stimulus of sympathy. Yet for hours that note remained unwritten. He was unable to account for his hesitation. The man whom he was about to summon would approve of all that he had done. He was sure of that. Yet he was oppressed by the shadow of some nameless fear, some instinct that seemed to be doing its utmost to warn him against this course which, from any ordinary point of view, was both natural and advisable. Afterward those hours of hesitation ranked as history with him. At the time he was ashamed of them.
The note was written at last, and despatched by an urgent messenger. He bathed, changed his clothes, and ate some breakfast. Just as he had finished, a small brougham stopped at the door. Doctor Trowse was announced. It was the man for whom he had sent. Even at the moment of his entrance, Powers found himself struggling with an insane desire to abandon his purpose, to invent some trifling excuse and to keep silence.
The two men shook hands silently.
Trowse looked ten years younger than his age, which was forty-five, and he was now the greatest known authority upon diseases of the brain. He eyed Powers curiously.
"What is wrong with you?" he asked.
"Nothing," replied the other.