Tobias rose to a sitting position in the bed, and looked his mother in the face—
"Are you, too, mad?" he said. "Are you, too, mad? Did you tell of Todd?"
"Yes, the only way," said Colonel Jeffery, "for people not to be mad, is to tell of Todd."
"Yes—yes."
"And so you, Tobias, will tell us all you know. That is what we want you to do, and then you will be quite happy and comfortable for the remainder of your days, and live with your mother again far from any apprehension from Todd. Do you understand me?"
Tobias opened his mouth several times in an eager, gasping sort of manner, as though he would have said something rapidly, but he could not. He placed his hands upon his brain, and rocked to and fro for a few moments, and then he broke out into the same low, peculiar laugh that had before so strangely affected Colonel Jeffery and the others who were there present in that room. The surgeon shook his head as he said, mournfully—
"It is of no use!"
"Do you really think so?" said the colonel.
"For the present, I am convinced that it is of no use to attempt to recall his wandering senses. Time will do wonders, and he has the one grand element of youth in his favour. That, as well as time, will do wonders. The case is a bad one, and the shock the brain of this lad has received must be a most fearful one."
"Do not," said Sir Richard Blunt, "give up so readily, Mrs. Ragg; I would have you try him again. Speak to him again of his father—that seemed to be the topic that most moved him."