“One moment,” said the doctor. “Were you aware of all that passed between us this morning? Do you know all that happens to him?”
“Everything he thinks and says and does I know, and I have always known. That is one of the reasons why I have determined that he must go. I will no longer be a witness within his body of his evil deeds. I am never unconscious, as he is always when he goes under. And that is why, also, I am able to tell you the simple truth. It is not so strange a story as you may think. I wonder sometimes why something of the sort has not happened to many a man.
“It began with that incident about his sister of which he told you. But it wasn’t an accident. He wanted her seat on the limb of the tree and when she wouldn’t give it to him he pushed her off. She was almost killed and was crippled for life. But nobody, except him and her and me, has ever known that it was not an accident. He surrendered to selfishness and cowardice and for the first time in his life denied his conscience. That was the beginning of me, and of all that has happened since.”
Dr. Annister was leaning forward, almost out of his chair, and so intense was the interest with which he was listening that his pale face was alight and its lines of anxiety and fatigue smoothed out.
“I see!” he exclaimed eagerly. “I begin to understand how it was. The shock, the struggle within himself and the revulsion of his conscience from the victory won by the worse side of his nature started up a new center, or threw off a new nebula, of consciousness—we can only vaguely guess at the process. It proved strong enough to form within his brain the embryo of another individuality.
“I have thought sometimes—” the doctor stopped for a moment, his attention turning inwards again, while his elbows sought the arms of the chair and his finger-tips came together. “I am beginning to believe,” he went on, his gaze fixed high up on the wall, “that even in apparently normal human beings there may exist two or more of these nebulæ of consciousness in process of formation, but bound up so closely with the dominating consciousness that they never quite separate themselves. The case never becomes that of complete dual personality, although such a person may have within himself two widely different sets of ideals and principles of living.
“Strangely enough, these cases seem always to be evolved out of the person’s attitude toward the ethical problems of life. There, for instance, are the officers of powerful corporations who may be rapacious, ruthless, brutal, criminal, in their business methods, but in private life the kindest, most sympathetic and generous of men. Yes, I am beginning to think it may be that such men have set going within themselves some such physiological and psychological process as this which has nearly overwhelmed Felix Brand.
“Who can tell what a few more years of investigation and study of this problem will give us!” The finger-tips were rhythmically tapping and the physician’s face was alight with interest, although he seemed for the moment to have forgotten his companion. “Perhaps in another generation or two we shall have discovered that it is medical not legal treatment that pirate captains of industry stand in need of. Perhaps the too shrewd financiers of that day will not be fined or sent to prison but compelled to take courses of hypnotic treatment.”
Dr. Annister’s gaze, wandering downward, fell upon his companion, and he came back to the matter in hand with a deprecatory smile.