"Perhaps I have, but I do not intend to rest until I have come to some definite understanding regarding my relations with you," Ray responded, resolutely.
"Well, then, what do you mean by a definite understanding?" the physician asked, thinking it might be as well to humor him a little.
"I want to know how far you are concerned in this plot to keep me a prisoner here? I want to know in what way you are connected with that woman who called herself Mrs. Vanderbeck, and who enticed me here with valuable diamonds, only to steal them from me? I believe I am in the power of a gang of thieves, and though I cannot reconcile it with what I had heard of you previously, that you must be associated in some way with them."
Ray had spoken rapidly, and with an air and tone of stern command, which puzzled while it impressed the doctor.
"You bring a very serious charge against me, my young friend," he gravely remarked, but without betraying the slightest resentment; "but perhaps if you will tell me your side of the story I shall understand you better, and then I will explain my authority for detaining you here."
Doctor Wesselhoff was strangely attracted toward his patient. He did not seem at all like an insane person, except upon that one subject, and he would not have regarded that as a mania if he had not been assured of it by Mrs. Walton. He began to think there might at least be some misunderstanding, and that it would be as well to let the young man exhaust the subject once for all; then he could judge the better regarding the treatment he needed.
"Well, then, to begin at the beginning," Ray resumed. "A woman, giving her name as Mrs. William Vanderbeck, called at my father's store on the day I came here, and asked to look at diamonds. You will remember, I told you my father is a diamond dealer. They were shown to her, and she selected several very expensive ornaments, which she said she wished to wear at a reception that evening. But she represented that she could not purchase them unless they were first submitted to her husband for examination and his sanction. He was an invalid; he could not come to the store, consequently the stones must be taken to him; was there not some reliable person who could be sent to her residence with them, when, if Mr. Vanderbeck was satisfied with the ornaments, a check for their price would be filled out and returned to my father. This seemed fair and reasonable, and I was commissioned to attend the lady and take charge of the diamonds. I put the package in my pocket, and my hand never left it until the coupé stopped before this house, when Mrs. Vanderbeck suddenly discovered that her dress had caught in the carriage door, and she could not rise. Of course I offered assistance in disengaging it; but in spite of our united efforts, the garment was torn during the operation. I suppose she robbed me at that moment, but am not quite sure, as I did not discover my loss until you—whom I supposed to be the lady's husband—entered the room, and I slipped my hand into my pocket for the diamonds, only to find that they were gone. You know the rest, and the treatment I received from yourself. Is it any wonder that I believed you an accomplice when I found myself in that padded chamber and losing all sense and reason beneath the influence of a powerful mesmerist?"
Doctor Wesselhoff had listened gravely throughout the young man's recital, and, though astonished and puzzled by what he heard, felt that he was relating a very connected story.
He was upon the point of replying to his questions, when he chanced to glance at his assistant, Doctor Huff, who had been in the room all the time, and saw that he was startlingly pale, and laboring under extreme agitation.
"Sir," cried the man, hoarsely, "can it be possible that he is the victim of the recent diamond robbery, which has created so much excitement? The newspapers have been full of the story that he has just related."