"Certainly!" Mrs. Wagner answered, with her customary frankness of reply; "I found it necessary to compose him, when he came to me about an hour ago—and you have just seen that he is as quiet again as a man can be. I am afraid you have had reason to complain of his conduct yourself?"
Madame Fontaine lifted her hands in gently-expressed protest. "Oh, dear, no—not to complain! To pity our afflicted Jack, and to feel, perhaps, that your irresistible influence over him might be required—no more."
"You are very good," said Mrs. Wagner dryly. "At the same time, I beg you to accept my excuses—not only for Jack, but for myself. I found him so well behaved, and so capable of restraining himself in London, that I thought I was running no risk in bringing him with me to Frankfort."
"Pray say no more, dear madam—you really confuse me. I am the innocent cause of his little outbreak. I most unfortunately reminded him of the time when he lived with us at Wurzburg—and in that way I revived one of his old delusions, which even your admirable treatment has failed to remove from his mind."
"May I ask what the delusion is, Madame Fontaine?"
"One of the commonest delusions among insane persons, Mrs. Wagner—the delusion that he has been poisoned. Has he ever betrayed it in your presence?"
"I heard something of it," Mrs. Wagner answered, "from the superintendent at the madhouse in London."
"Ah, indeed? The superintendent merely repeated, I suppose, what Jack had told him?"
"Exactly. I was careful not to excite him, by referring to it myself, when I took him under my charge. At the same time, it is impossible to look at his hair and his complexion, without seeing that some serious accident must have befallen him."
"Most unquestionably! He is the victim, poor creature—not of poison—but of his own foolish curiosity, in my husband's surgery, and you see the result. Alas! I cannot give you the scientific reasons for it."