“And the railroad, of course, had him cared for until he was well. And then he couldn’t tell who he was, and drifted about until he fell into bad company. He has been a cat’s paw for this gang, no doubt. Well, you’ve got a pretty little sensation upon your hands. I’d like to see you get back and tell your story.”
I wondered how he could talk and smile so carelessly, but in that country nobody is surprised at anything. I went back to my patient, after dispatching a messenger for Howard, who was working in the “San Jacinto,” twenty miles away.
Chester, as I could safely call him now, was extremely anxious about his fellow passengers, and thought they must be in the hotel at this time. I was familiar with the shocking details of the disaster at the time, but could not recall them with sufficient accuracy to satisfy him. The five years intervening were apparently entirely lost. He could scarcely believe us when we told him that he had lain unconscious for more than a week.
Howard came in the evening, and was amazed beyond his power of expression. He thought over the complex situation a long time before he made any effort to communicate with the family of the patient. Chester could not understand why we had not telegraphed before, and we could not explain. We called a council of three and debated. Chester Mansfield, the 192 gifted, irreproachable minister of our large church, was held to be tried for robbery and assault as soon as he was able to appear. We could not take him away. What word could we send to the young wife, about whom he continually asked, and the old mother? We finally left it to Howard, who telegraphed to the wife that her husband had been found alive, though recovering from serious illness; that he was in our care, but wished her to join him as soon as possible; and that the body sent home as his must have been that of another man.
When we told Chester that she had been sent for he exclaimed, “How can she leave her baby? She would have been with me but for that three months old baby.” The baby was now a tall boy of five in kilts. Although the complications arising from this strange case were countless, we managed to keep the real story from Chester until he was sufficiently recovered to bear it, and indeed we did not then tell him of the serious misdeeds of his other self.
But when the young wife came after her long journey, and we led her, for the first time without her mourning dress, up to his room, he knew that to her he was in truth one risen from the dead. I opened the door for her, and when I heard her cry of joy as she sprang forward, satisfied at last of his identity, and his low, “My love, my love!” I closed the door and went away to weep a few tears to myself, but not of sorrow.
My story is told. We secured bail for Charles Reynolds and took him home, to await the fall term of court, where he expects to have no difficulty in proving his innocence in his present person. To himself his case presents some metaphysical and moral studies quite at variance with his own belief. He cannot yet comprehend the silence of his conscience at this time of need. The sensation created by our return, and all subsequent events, are well known to those who will read this statement, so that I need tell no more.
My only object in writing so minute an account, and detailing such conversations as I could remember, is to protect him forever, as far as my word will avail, from any insinuation of intentional or conscious wrong doing in those five lost years, knowing as I do the conditions of life exacted of a clergyman and fearing some future recrimination.