Colonel Goff led me into the library. For a while he was silent, his stolid face expressionless. Then he said very quietly, "Jack, the chances are all against her, one way or the other; it looks as if my little lassie is doomed to go the way of her house. If she survives the shock I am afraid her mind will not; that is what is hinging now, that is why we have sent for you again. It is only a chance—one chance in ten—but the doctors thought—as the shock that unminded her came through you, that you might—"
I nodded. "I understand. I would give my life for her."
He pressed my hand, his voice choking. "You proved that, my boy, you proved that. How you escaped, how that horse ever cleared that fence and cliff—
"Jack," he went on, turning impulsively, "I am a blunt man, plain and not farseeing in things like all of these, that have come to me so swift and fast. I don't mean these accidents—I'm used to them—life and the whole little game of it is all a blind chance. I have taken mine all my life—and—and—well, they've always been against me, Jack—always, even now. I've lost—always—even as I shall lose now—Elsie. The great hand of Fate that flings the dice for us has always thrown them loaded for me—Jack."
He was silent. I thought of God and the Butterfly. I pitied him, seeing nothing as he did.
"No, I am not farseeing—not farseeing—in things like the other side of all this—not the blind chance side which has always been mine—but the side you make yourself, someway, somehow, like this."
He drew a blurred and crumpled note from his pocket. It was Eloise's. I had seen it last when, holding it to my breast, I had fallen asleep that afternoon under the trees.
"This kind of a little thing, Jack," he said, handing me the little relic. "I am a blundering fool—and I have to tell you so—to tell you what an unseeing fool I have been. I see it all now—and yet I'd never have seen. I found this clutched in Elsie's hand. This was her shock—this was my folly—my unseeing folly. No, no," he cried quickly, seeing I was about to say something. "No, no, Jack, I see it all—don't say a word. You've been a man all through it—a white man, Jack. I am not talking to put you on trial. I'm passing judgment on myself for your sake, my boy; that you may understand what a selfish, unseeing fool I have been.
"Well, it's down to this—it's all past—let it go," he added. "But Elsie—she is of the living present. You must help me, help me a little yet awhile Jack—till—till the crisis is past."
I pressed his hand silently. "Thank you," he said simply, "and now just a word of explanation. This trouble of hers runs in the blood of the Carfaxes. My grandmother, my own sister, went this way. They are keyed high, and if a shock like this comes, it's death or an unbalancing. When she read that," he said, "which unseeing one that I have been, was all my fault, when she read it, Jack, she lost her reason, she was temporarily insane when she made that leap. She is conscious now and stronger; but still she remembers nothing up to that mental shock, the shock of that note, that showed her all, and—oh well, I'm only a blunt kind of a man—I can't tell it—you alone could do that. But it's this now, Jack, you go in and talk to her. You stay with her—till we get her right—and we've a chance to yet—Jack, until we get her right—just let her believe—believe— Oh, you know, Jack!"