Master of His Fate | Page 3

if he
burgeoned forth to welcome it.
"Perhaps not," said Lefevre. "Come and sit down and let us talk."
They were retiring from the window when Embro's voice again
sounded at Lefevre's elbow--"Come now, Lefevre; what's the meaning
of that Paris case?"
"What Paris case?"
Embro answered by handing him the paper. He took it, and read as
follows:--
"About a month ago a strange case of complete mental collapse was
received into the Hôtel-Dieu. A fresh healthy girl, of the working class,
about twenty years of age, and comfortably dressed, presented herself
at a police-station near the Odéon and asked for shelter. As she did not
appear to be in full possession of her mental faculties, she was sent to
the Hôtel-Dieu, where she remained in a semi-comatose condition. Her
memory did not go farther back than the hour of her application at the
police-station. She was entirely ignorant of her previous history, and
had even forgotten her name. The minds of the medical staff of the
Hôtel-Dieu were very much exercised with her condition; but it was not
till about a week ago that they succeeded in restoring to any extent her
mental consciousness and her memory. She then remembered the
events immediately preceding her application to the police. It had come
on to rain, she said, and she was hurrying along to escape from it, when
a gentleman in a cloak came to her side and politely offered to give her
the shelter of his umbrella. She accepted; the gentleman seemed old
and ill. He asked her to take his arm. She did so, and very soon she felt
as if her strength had gone from her; a cold shiver crept over her; she
trembled and tottered; but with all that she did not find her sensations
disagreeable exactly or alarming; so little so, indeed, that she never
thought of letting go the gentleman's arm. Her head buzzed, and a kind
of darkness came over her. Then all seemed to clear, and she found
herself alone near the police-station, remembering nothing. Being

asked to further describe the gentleman, she said he was tall and dark,
with a pleasant voice and wonderful eyes, that made you feel you must
do whatever he wished. The police have made inquiries, but after such
a lapse of time it is not surprising that no trace of him can be found."
"Well?" asked Embro, when Lefevre had raised his eyes from the paper.
"What do you think of it?"
"Curious," said Lefevre. "I can't say more, since I know nothing of it
but this. Have you read it, Julius?"
"No," said Julius; "I hate what people call news; and when I take up a
paper, it's only to look at the Weather Forecasts." Lefevre handed him
the paper, which he took with an unconcealed look of repulsion. "If it's
some case of disease," said he, "it will make me ill."
"Oh no," said Lefevre; "it's not painful, but it's curious;" and so Julius
set himself to read it.
"But come," said Embro, posing the question with his forefinger; "do
you believe that story, Lefevre?"
"Though it's French, and from the 'Telegraph,'" said Lefevre, "I see no
reason to disbelieve it."
"Come," said Embro, "come--you're shirking the question."
"I confess," said Lefevre, "I've no desire to discuss it. You think me
prejudiced in favour of anything of the kind; perhaps I think you
prejudiced against it: where, then, is the good of discussion?"
"Well, now," said the unabashed Embro, "I'll tell you what I think.
Here's a story"--Julius at that instant handed back the paper to him--"of
a healthy young woman mesmerised, hypnotised, or somnambulised, or
whatever you like to call it, in the public street, by some man that
casually comes up to her, and her brain so affected that her memory
goes! I say it's inconceivable!--impossible!" And he slapped the paper
down on the table.

The others looked on with grim satisfaction at the prospect of an
argument between the two representatives of rival schools; and it was
noteworthy that, as they looked, they turned a referring glance on
Courtney, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he must be the final
arbiter. He, however, sat abstracted, with his eyes on the floor, and with
one hand propping his chin and the other drumming on the arm of his
chair.
"I'm not a scientific man," said the journalist who was not an Art critic,
"and I am not prejudiced either way about this story; but it seems to me,
Embro, that you view the thing through a very ordinary fallacy, and
make a double mistake. You confound the relatively inconceivable with
the absolutely impossible: this story is relatively inconceivable to you,
and therefore you say it is absolutely impossible."
"Is there such