The pale-faced widow shook her head, and in a mournful tone, replied:
“Ah! I am afraid it would be useless. Doctor Moroni took her to several specialists, but they all failed to restore her brain to its normal activity.”
“Professor Gourbeil is the only man who has ever been able to completely cure a person to whom orosin has been administered—and that has been in two cases only.”
“So the chance is very remote, even if she saw him,” exclaimed the widow despairingly.
“I think, Mrs. Tennison, that Gabrielle should see him in any case,” I said.
“I agree. The poor girl’s condition is most pitiable. At times she seems absolutely normal, and talks of things about her in quite a reasonable manner. But she never seems able to concentrate her thoughts. They always wander swiftly from one subject to another. I have noticed, too, that her vision is affected. Sometimes she will declare that a vivid red is blue. When we look into shop windows together she will refer to a yellow dress as mauve, a pink as white. At times she cannot distinguish colours. Yet now and then her vision becomes quite normal.”
“I have had some difficulty, Mrs. Tennison, in that way myself,” I said. “When I first left St. Malo, after recovering consciousness of the present, I one day saw a grass field and it appeared to be bright blue. Again, an omnibus in London which I knew to be blue was a peculiar dull red. So my symptoms were the same as your daughter’s.”
“It seems proved that both of you are fellow-victims of some desperate plot, Mr. Garfield,” said the widow. “But what could have been its motive?”
“That I am striving with all my might to establish,” I answered. “If I can only obtain from your daughter the true facts concerning her adventures on that fatal night last November, then it will materially assist me towards fixing the guilt upon the person I suspect. In this I beg your aid, Mrs. Tennison,” I said. “I have only just returned from several weeks abroad, during which I have gained considerable knowledge which in the end will, I hope, lead me to the solution of the problem.”