"I guessed now that the drug I had been taking was indeed morphia. For a moment, I was startled and alarmed. But the fright was of short duration. I had already developed a craving for this thing that so helped me on with my work. The tutor bade me remove my coat, roll up my shirt-sleeve, and allow him to give me a little Brain Food in his way. Needless to say, I did as he ordered. That was my first 'shot'.... Years ago, that man killed himself—perhaps in remorse for his crime against me and others corrupted by him."
The Doctor sat silent for a long minute in brooding contemplation over this beginning of the vice that had mastered him, and now threatened at last to destroy him.
"It was not long after this," he resumed, still with that toneless monotony of voice, "that I began my life-work. Sometimes, I would go for long periods without resorting to the needle. That has helped me in the deception of my patients. For long intervals, I could endure without the drug. Then, during periods of great mental strain and physical depression from all-night vigils, I would invariably fall back upon my old Brain Food. Occasionally, such a relapse would develop into what might be termed a morphia spree. It was at the time of my last spree that—to my destruction, and your discomfiture and suffering—I was called to treat you aboard The Isabel."
It seemed to Ethel that Doctor Garnet wearied of his long discourse. He now arose from his chair, and once again he began to pace the floor uneasily. It appeared that he was debating in his mind whether or not he should continue his narrative.
Ethel, moved to pity by the man's evident deep distress, suggested that he should put off the further telling until morning when he would be rested. She urged him to repose in one of the bunks until the morrow, after which she would listen to him again. But to this he objected, declaring that he had made up his mind to tell the whole story. Unless she should refuse to listen, he would continue. Ethel admitted her willingness to hear the remainder of the narrative.
"I suppose," the Doctor continued, still in that dead level of monotonous recitation, "at the time that I boarded the yacht that you were suffering so greatly from your injured ankle that you did not detect my deplorable condition. Of course, I should not have gone in answer to your call. But I realized that you were alone, and I had explicit instructions from your father to care for you. So, duty called me. Then, after administering to you a sedative of extra strength, in the next instant I injected more of the death-dealing drug into my own arm. From that moment, the Doctor Garnet that you knew and trusted became a Mr. Hyde. Gifford Garnet did not wish to do you harm——"
"But——"
"But Mr. Hyde became obsessed with an insane desire to have you—a young woman absolutely pure in heart—to have you enjoy with him the wonderful sensations derived from the hideous drug to which he was subject."
The revelation, shocking as it was, brought a profound relief to the listening girl. The confession shone like a sun through the mists of fear that had fallen upon her. She listened now in a mood, not of fright, but all of pity.
"I told you when you asked me about the fate of the kidnappers that the ring leader had escaped. That was the truth. He did escape. But he's here to-night, a prisoner—a confessed criminal, in your hands, Miss Marion.