"If they did know," he whispered, "you would not get out of here alive. I am in a prison; they insist on taking me for a madman. I am not mad—but expect I soon shall be. Oh, if you only knew what I have to go through. Their prisoner ... their prisoner..." and he laid his hand on Wallion's coat sleeve.
"But your daughter?"
"They have deceived my daughter."
Wallion saw a spark of fire in the dim eyes as Robertson leant over nearer to him, and deep in those hollow orbs there glowed a soul driven to the utmost border of reason, appealing for help. Wallion was seized with inexpressible compassion, and by way of encouragement took the cold, weak hands into his own warm ones.
"Try to set your mind at rest," he said. "But tell me: am I to understand that your daughter is not aware of the treatment Doctor Corman metes out to you?"
"Doctor Corman is cunning," whispered Robertson. "He enticed me here at first when I was sick ... Yes, when I was cast down and ill he took me up in a kind, friendly way; I was put into a pretty little room on the other side of the corridor, a sweet little room with no bars." ... Here he lost himself ... "without bars," he repeated.
"Yes, I see," said Wallion, "so he was kind to you for a time ... but one day you got to know that he was a friend of Toroni's, did you not?"
Robertson looked up in fear.
"Do you really know everything?" he gasped. "That was it; Toroni was alive and prying into the secret. Toroni was Doctor Corman's friend, but though the Doctor was sly and deceitful, I saw through him and his many questions at last; then they moved me in here. But listen how artful he was. When Elaine came to see me I had to receive her in that pretty little room as if it were still mine, and behind a curtain Toroni watched, revolver in hand, ready to shoot me, if I revealed the least thing. Can you imagine such a thing?" he burst out, raising his clasped hands. "And he would have killed us both had I ventured to say a word."
"Anyhow, you managed secretly to persuade your daughter to undertake the voyage to Sweden."