CHAPTER THREE
After leaving Merle, William walked slowly and thoughtfully to his home, which was at some distance, but instead of resting or sleeping, after the labors and excitement of the day, he went immediately to his private study, and plunged into thought. The expression of his eyes at this time was not charming, betokening not only doubt and suspense, but some intensity of feeling that, to an outside observer would have been nameless.
"Let me think. My brain seems in a maze; I cannot command my thoughts! I cannot even speculate. What a day this has been. Will its memory ever be effaced from my soul? My thoughts, even, elude my wishes. I, who prided myself on the cogency of my reasoning, my control over my thoughts, am reduced to the same condition of blank vacancy as is a new born babe, looking, wondering, speculating possibly, but unable to realize or reason.
"I who am acknowledged to be the strongest mesmerist of the age, have twice in one day been completely baffled by my usually passive 'subject,' through no desire of his own to disobey. I am sure of that, as he has been too faithful a subject for me to doubt for one instant his loyalty. He wishes to please me. This night's work mystifies me more than the day's, and I regarded that as an epoch in my life.
"Let me think how it all happened, and why I lost all control over him to whom, ordinarily, I have but to suggest a thought or desire, and he hastens at once to obey, whether in a trance or not.
"There is no doubt the boy is very ill, overcome by some powerful influence, which, temporarily at least, is stronger than my will over him.
"I feel shame,—the deepest of shame—that I, who usually glory in the fact of calm nerves, invulnerable to the rudest shocks, should thus be suddenly deprived of all self-control, and that before a multitude of persons who will naturally say 'Professor Huskins must be losing his power to allow his acknowledged best subject to create such a sensation in a public place.'
"No wonder they would think so after all the tests many have seen this same subject put through, he obeying implicitly my every thought, silent or spoken. I could not only not prevent this public portrayal of my weakness, but it required all of the will power I possessed to quiet and subdue the disturbance after I had got him to his home where everything was perfectly tranquil.
"This is not a very flattering picture to contemplate, and I walked home purposely to cool my head and control my thoughts. If sentence of death were to be passed upon me, if I could not tell one rational thought that passed through my brain since I left home, until I arrived here again, I should have to pay the penalty.
"All is confusion—doubt—chaos. I realize that I have no firm foundation upon which to stand. Where I thought I was strong I find I am weak; miserably and pitifully weak—so weak I feel acute shame for myself.