As he lay upon his bed he felt a languor steal upon him, saw in far dreams cool meadows and flowery slopes, felt the solace of perfect repose envelop him. And then he stood beside a stream of running water under the shade of the trees, with the familiar hills of youth along the horizon. A young woman came and stood above the stream and looked intently upon its glassy surface. Her feature were indistinct. Drawing near he, too, looked into the water, and there at his feet was the sad, sweet face of—Marion Evan. He turned and then looked closer at the woman; he saw in her arms the figure of an infant, over whose face she had drawn a fold of her gown. She shook her head as he extended his hand to remove this and pointed behind her. There the grass ran out and only white sand appeared, with no break to the horizon.
Toiling on through this, with a bowed head, was a female figure. He knew her; she was Rita, and the burden she, too, carried in her arms was the form of a child. The figures disappeared and a leaf floated down the stream; twenty-six in succession followed, and then he saw a man descending the mountains and coming forward, his eyes fixed on something beyond him. It was Edward. He looked in the same direction; there was a frail man toiling toward him through the deep sands in the hot sunlight. It was Gerald. And then the figures faded away. There memory ceased to record.
Whatever else was the experience of that eager mind as it wandered on through the mystery, and phantasmagoria has no place in science. He remembered in the morning up to one point only.
It was his last experience with the drug.
CHAPTER XXVI.
GATHERING THE CLEWS.
Edward drifted for several days upon the tide of the thoughts that came over him. He felt a singular disinclination to face the world again. He knew that as life goes he had acquitted himself manfully and that nothing remained undone that had been his duty to perform. He was sensible of a feeling of deep gratitude to the old general for his active and invaluable backing; without it he realized then that he would have been drawn into a pitfall and the opportunity for defense gone. He did not realize, however, how complete the public reaction had been until card after card had been left at Ilexhurst and the postman had deposited congratulatory missives by the score. One of these contained notice of his election to the club.
Satisfactory as was all this he put aside the social and public life into which he had been drawn, conscious that, while the affront to him had been resented and rendered harmless, he himself was as much in the dark as ever; that as a matter of fact he was without name and family, without right to avail himself of the generous offers laid at his door. Despite his splendid residence, his future, his talents and his prestige as a man of honor, he was—nobody; an accident of fate; a whim of an eccentric old man.
He should not involve any one else in the possibility of ruin. He should not let another share his danger. There could be no happiness with this mystery hanging over him.