It was held to be desirable that Reginald should be saved from the sudden shock of the knowledge that as thirty odd years had been blotted out of his memory at the time of his paralysis, so now at this crisis of probable recovery the years which had since intervened, with their life of other worldliness and other consciousness, were swept away for the moment, like a dream forgotten.
Daniel’s full comprehension of a brief but similar lapse from consciousness that had once befallen him, prepared him to help Reginald thoroughly.
Reginald was singularly, courteously grateful for the care which he saw had been taken of him, in bringing him to this private home. But his mind was full of shadowy incidents related to the two worlds in which he had lived. And Daniel well knew the terrors and mental perils of a man recently returned as from a far country. He knew Reginald Grove felt badgered and broken-hearted at the incongruous, conflicting memories which bewildered him; and he felt that presently, when Reginald should begin to recall the blissful states of existence now left behind him as in a dreamland, he would fall into conditions of homesickness for those states of exaltation, which might result in settled melancholia or suicide.
The possibility of this man’s being mentally wrecked, after all the lofty care which had been bestowed on him, seemed a disaster which could and should be diverted. For it was Daniel’s theory that a man who had gone through such an experience as this, should find a way to make himself of use to others tempted and tried in a like way; and that therefore he must pull through.
So rising to his feet, and standing between Reginald and Ethel, he said staunchly, looking at Reginald:
“Ethel, he is well now; and what I have to say is, that a man who has been so expensively educated by angels in heaven and on earth, as this Captain Reginald Grove has been, will of course be honorable and soldierly enough to review coolly all the extraordinary lessons he has learned, digesting the facts which seem confusing, and winning out of them at last an order of knowledge which will fit him to do for other needy fellows the same things which we Dakshas have done for him.”
Reginald looked up with a glad, proud expectancy, now quite sure that all was right enough with him, and that he had had some unusually good thing befall him, which in some way fitted him to be quite a friend with the Dakshas, and a coworker with them in unusual lines.
Then with the strong tone of one determined to get at facts, he said: “Miss Ethel, what whitened your hair since—since the day on the balcony?”
“It turned white in one night. For I will tell you this: there is a world where a day is as a thousand years; and we learn fast in a few seconds there.”
“And did you go to that world?”