“I have two or three friends,” said Mrs. Ashton, “who have been carried away by these things, and their lapse from reason has caused me deep regret.”
“You rightly designate their state of mind,” replied the doctor, “as a lapse from reason. No mind possessing a true rational balance is in any danger of falling from its mountain-height and crystal atmosphere, where every thing is seen in its true relation, down into this miry valley, where the thick atmosphere distorts every object and mirage adds its mocking illusions. I am in no wonder at the result,—at toppling reason, lapsing virtue, desolated homes! Every tree may be known by its fruit; and the product of this has shown itself to be evil from rind to core!
“Never again, Mrs. Ashton, permit this woman Jeckyl to darken your chambers with the shadow of her presence. If she have once brought your little Emmeline under this direful influence of which we are speaking, she has disturbed the natural order of her mind and gained a certain power over her. A second trance will be induced more easily than the first. Even by her serpent-eye she may cast on her a spell.”
Mrs. Ashton grew pale and shuddered.
“I warn you in plain words,” added the doctor, “speaking as I think, and from a solemn sense of duty. Mrs. Jeckyl, if I am to judge by the way in which her presence and active sphere affected one of Mrs. Dainty’s children, has a potency of will almost irresistible. In Madeline’s efforts at resistance—for she manifested from the very beginning an intense repugnance toward the woman—she was thrown into a condition of trance profound almost as death. The state in which I discovered her, when summoned by the family, was not that of an ordinary suspension of vital powers. I saw in an instant that extraordinary causes had been at work. And I now fully comprehend the case. There has been a disturbance of the order of that child’s life that may never be corrected. Ah, Mrs. Ashton, a mother can never be too careful in the selection of those who are to be the daily companions, and, I might say, educators, of her children!”
From the house of Mrs. Ashton, Dr. Edmonson went to Mrs. Dainty’s. He found Madeline as well, apparently, as usual, and her mother’s cheerfulness restored. He made an effort to startle her mind with a clear apprehension of the danger through which the child had just passed, but only partially succeeded. Mrs. Dainty hadn’t much faith, she said, in the strange stories told about the power of mesmerists, and considered nine-tenths of the alleged phenomena as sheer delusion. She could understand how Madeline’s repugnance to Mrs. Jeckyl might have been so strong as to produce vital suspension for a period; but that Mrs. Jeckyl had gained any power over her was a thing not to be admitted for a moment.
The doctor observed Madeline very closely, and was satisfied that a change had taken place.
“Did you sleep well last night?” he inquired of her.
“Not very well,” was answered.
“Why?”