"Oh, Leah! Leah! You've come back to me!"
It was some moments before either of the women was able to speak. They clung to each other, sobbing.
After the first hurried words of explanation were over, Joy went up to her room to wash her face and freshen herself for what was yet to be done. Leah went with her, almost too happy to think of her own sorry appearance. Both came down, after a while, in a change of costume, and went with me into the dining-room where King was patiently waiting to serve the meal so long delayed. Joy showed plainly the ravages which two days of suspense and agony had accomplished, but she was braced mentally by my presence and Leah's return, and in a condition to discuss calmly what was to be done. Leah had also rallied from her collapse, and the dinner brought her strength and courage.
The meal was over before we had settled how Leah could be kept in favor with "the other one"—whom we agreed, hereafter, to call Edna—and we were still uncertain as to our actions in regard to many other complications which might arise. It depended principally upon the extent of my influence with Edna. To hear Joy discuss these phases of her condition in that other state—her fondness for me, her whims, her weaknesses—gave me a strange sensation. But what struck me as most remarkable in her talk was the sense of justice she always showed in regard to Edna. One might have expected Joy to resent the intrusion of this second personality, so inimical to her own interests, but she never failed to acknowledge Edna's rights. Indeed, her whole attitude was that Edna was strictly another person, rather than some part of herself broken off and endowed with an independent existence—which was my theory of the situation.
I quite lost myself in the subtleties of the case. To know that probably on the morrow I should be face to face with this same woman, in form and feature precisely the same, and yet as different from her, really, as the West is from the East, gave me, in spite of my effort to concentrate my mind upon the affair, a sort of mental instability which was disconcerting. I could not quite believe that she would or could change. She seemed too real, too normal, if I may qualify such adjectives. And besides all this, I had begun to think of her in another way, which made the prospect of any such change seem unbearable.
Meanwhile, Joy grew steadily sleepier. She roused herself occasionally, by an effort, but would droop the moment she had stopped speaking. Coffee no longer stimulated her. She began to walk up and down the room, leaning on Leah's arm, as if she were fighting off the effects of laudanum. Her suffering was cruel. We had, at last, to resort to strychnia.
So, for another hour we talked, while she became more haggard, more weak. Up and down, up and down the room they went. We talked of seeking the advice of some specialist, here or abroad, of the possibility of a direct appeal to Edna, in the chance of some compromise to be effected, of Leah's actions should she be peremptorily discharged again, of the prospect of her being able to stay in the vicinity, to return as soon as Joy's own personality had reasserted itself, of the proper method of safeguarding Joy's property, of the possibility of Edna's actually departing from Midmeadows—there were a hundred sides to the subject, and all baffling. There seemed to be nothing to do but to await further developments and see if I myself could not succeed in managing Edna. I rather wondered at the fact that Joy did not once mention the doctor as a possible coöperator with us. It seemed to me that she instinctively distrusted him, though she never permitted herself to say so. It was no doubt her fairness, rather than any conviction of his ability, that prevented.
Finally she stopped, scarcely able to hold herself up, as frail as a wilted flower, and said, with an effort at a smile:
"I'm afraid it's no use, Chester; I'm too far gone to think. I can't control my mind any longer. I must have sleep. You and Leah will have to settle it together—I'll leave it all to you—I'll agree to whatever you think best. I'm no more use than a baby to-night. Let me be your little sister and tell me what to do. I'm tired, tired—tired."
My heart ached for her. Her mouth was trembling like a child's just before crying, her eyelids hung heavy, all but closed. What she must suffer at the thought of sinking into temporary oblivion and resigning herself to the inevitable possession of "the other one," I could easily imagine. I implored her to go to bed.