She had not killed him; on the contrary, though he bled copiously until their aroused servant had summoned the doctor, he recovered from the wound and loss of blood long before his wife recovered from the brain-fever that followed her awakening; and it was while she was delirious, and he convalescent enough to talk that the doctor, after listening for an hour to her raving one day, entered the room of the other patient, and said:
"She is past the crisis—perspiring and sound asleep, and will recover rapidly. But, Beverton, though while delirious she was most certainly in as subjective a condition as when self-hypnotized, yet she has not uttered one word of a nautical or piratical nature."
"And what of that?" replied Beverton weakly, but doggedly. "According to those books of yours"—he pointed to a pile of them at the foot of his bed—"and I've studied them well while lying here—there are one, two, or more sub-normal personalities within us, any one of which can become dominant."
"Admitted; but is that a proof of reincarnation?—that the soul of your wife once lived in the body of a pirate named Hal Morgan, and that your soul animated the form of a beauteous maiden captured by him?"
"I can accept no other explanation. As infants we were subconscious enemies. I drove her back farther, seeking the cause; I saw the convulsive transition. I heard her use language she could not have learned in this life."
The doctor smiled, and drawing a book from his pocket, said: "Then here is something to further strengthen your belief—for a time. I took the copy of your maidenly speech to a librarian in the city, told him what was necessary to interest him, and he found this book for me. It is Pyle's compilation of the lives of the buccaneers, and in Esquemeling's account of the doings of Captain Henry Morgan is this—" He opened the book, searched the pages, and read:
"'—but the lady, not willing to consent, or accept his presents, showing herself like Susannah for constancy, he presently changed his note, and addressed her in another tone, threatening a thousand cruelties and hard usages. To all of which she gave only this resolute and positive answer—'
"Listen now," said the doctor. "'Sir, my life is in your hands; but as to my body, in relation to that which you would persuade me to, my soul shall sooner be separated from it, through the violence of your arms, than I shall condescend to your request.'"
"And what more do you want?" asked Beverton, excitedly. "The very words I spoke; and I never saw that book."
"Wait," said the doctor, smiling. "This follows: