He began by asking me if I had observed his continual glances at the door in Mickleham's room—he was keeping his eye on my door, by the way, all the time he was telling the story. I said I had observed this, and he then gave me the reason for his conduct, and, by George, old boy, when I heard what he was always seeing when he did look at the aforesaid door, I admired the poor devil for his pluck as much as I pitied him for his delusion. I'm quite certain I couldn't stand it for half a minute, and he had been bearing it for more than a year.
He said that the door of any and every room in which he was always appeared to be ajar, and round the edge of the door—I declare it frightens me even to think of it—round the corner, as it were, just coming into the room, he always saw the hand and half the face of a man—never more, and never less. The hand was grasping the door about a foot above the handle, and the face was peering round it, with one eye—he couldn't see the other—always fixed on him. Cheerful, wasn't it? He could see the nose, which was very large and fleshy, and all the left side of the face, which was a sort of dirty white. The hair was black and rather long, he thought, and there was a large abrasion—"something between a cut and a bruise" was his phrase—on the temple.
He had been receiving this delightful visitor daily ever since the autumn of '95—a pleasant year he must have had of it, poor chap. I told him to go to a doctor, but he said that he had tried that without any success—had told the doctor that he was suffering from delusions, and had implicitly followed his instructions, but still the white face kept turning up at the door.
He seemed chiefly distressed about it because of his approaching marriage; he had, as I told you, become engaged in September, '95. He spoke very nicely of his future wife, of whom he seemed extremely fond, and asked my advice as to telling her all about it. I thought he had better not, and advised him to go in for hard exercise and early hours—but really I did not know what to say to him. "Paternosters were peas in plates to his sorrows."
He seemed rather more cheerful before he left, and we tried an interesting, though to me a somewhat alarming, experiment. Keeping his eyes fixed on the door, Barton walked slowly towards it, and laid his hand upon the handle. Directly he did this the face, he said, disappeared, but the hand remained. While he was turning the handle, however, the hand, which he said was large and dirty, followed the example of the head, and it became instantly clear to Barton that the door was not really ajar, but tightly closed. This was the invariable programme, he told me.
I saw him off, wished him well rid of his encumbrance, and promised to say nothing about it; then, taking my life and my candle in my hands, I rushed frantically up to bed.
I didn't meet Barton again until his wedding, which took place last month. He was looking nervous and harassed, but not more so than most men in his unhappy plight—it was a regular church affair. Naturally I had no opportunity for a quiet talk with him, even if I had been particularly anxious to have one—which I was not.
The happy pair started for Italy to spend their honeymoon, and I gave them a day's law before following. I had promised to join Robinson in Florence, and was already overdue. I hadn't the slightest intention of meeting the Bartons, and therefore of course they were almost the first English people that I came across in the streets of Florence. We exchanged a few fatuous remarks, and I then hurried away. It was too early in the honeymoon for them to be longing, like the couple in Punch, "for some friend to turn up, or even some enemy." That very evening, however, Barton came round to see me. I introduced him to Robinson, and we all talked for a bit in the hotel verandah, but it was so obvious that Barton had something to say to me in private that Robinson soon left us.
"Campbell," said Barton immediately, "it's getting worse than ever."