To Win the Love He Sought Part 44

"I can go to her?" he asked. "You recommend it? The moment has arrived?"

"It has arrived," Herr Rauchen affirmed. "She is strong enough to bear your presence--to talk in moderation. I will await here the result. It is an experiment the most interesting of any I have ever known."

Powers moved toward the door, but the professor called him back.

"My young friend," he said, "one moment. There's no hurry. I would ask a question."

"Well?"

"You say the room is the same, the nurse is the same. Good! Have you the clothes she arrived in?"

"They are there in full view," Powers answered. "She has come back to consciousness among precisely the same surroundings as when she first came to me eight months ago."

"Very good indeed," the professor declared. "Now you shall go to her.

Meanwhile, I wait for you here."

Once more Powers hesitated, with his foot upon the threshold of her room. It seemed so short a time ago since he stood there before on his way to his first interview with her since his great experiment. But his interest was no longer scientific. He knew very well that the next few minutes must make or mar his life.

The professor had given him hope; their theories had been based upon a sound basis. But the issue was the greatest he had ever put to the test.

With it was bound up the whole welfare of the woman he loved. He entered the room without his usual confidence. Yet the moment he saw her his heart beat with pa.s.sionate hope.

She was lying upon a sofa, her hair loosely coiled upon the top of her head, clad in a becoming morning wrap, white with streaming ribbons. At the sound of the opening door she turned her head, and she greeted him with a faint smile. As their eyes met he felt once more that pa.s.sionate thrill of hope. For the change in her face was manifest. This was neither the brilliantly beautiful but soulless child who had taken London by storm, nor the mystic, moody girl, hovering ever on the brink of insanity, who had sung to him upon the seash.o.r.e. It was the Eleanor of his earlier knowledge, who greeted him now half-shyly, yet with a certain mischievous look in her clear soft eyes.

"So, after all," she murmured, looking up at him, "I am a disappointment. The great experiment is a failure. I really haven't forgotten a single thing."

"Hang the experiment!" he declared cheerfully. "I lost all interest in that long ago. All that I have been anxious for has been your recovery."

"I am so glad," she said. "I was afraid you would be terribly disappointed. It really isn't my fault, is it?"

"Not in the least," he a.s.sured her heartily. "You were an excellent subject. I suppose," he added, struggling to keep the anxiety out of his tone, "there is no doubt about the failure of it?"

"Not the slightest. My memory feels particularly clear. You can cross-examine me if you like."

"Well, I will ask you a few questions," he said. "Tell me your last recollection before you came to yourself."

She answered him readily.

"I came to you here," she said, "and told you that I was dismissed from Bearmain's. I heard your proposals and agreed to them. You sent for a nurse and you gave me chloroform here. The very last thing in my mind is that you walked to the window, and looked at your watch just before I went off."

He drew a quick breath--it sounded almost a gasp. "It is wonderful!" he exclaimed.

"Everything before that day--my miserable life at Bearmain's, your kindness to me, and our little jaunts together," she said, "I can remember quite clearly. I am sorry to wound your vanity, but your experiment has been shockingly unsuccessful."

He smiled.

"It was a very foolish one," he declared. "I have been terribly worried about you."

Their eyes met for a moment, and a spot of color burned in her cheeks.

"You need not have worried," she said softly. "You made it all quite clear to me before I consented. I knew the risk I ran."

He braced himself up for the final test.

"You have been unconscious for a very long time," he said. "Often I used to listen to you talking to yourself. You don't mind, do you? You see it was part of the experiment."

"Of course not," she answered. "Was I very foolish?"

"You spoke of a lot of things which, of course, I did not understand,"

he said. "For instance, there was Ulric. Who was he?"

"Ulric?" she repeated the name wonderingly. There was no comprehension in her face.

"Are you sure of the name?" she asked. "I never heard it in my life before."

He smothered his agitation with a strange laugh.

"Perhaps," he suggested, "Ulric was one of your companions when you were a child."

"Perhaps," she a.s.sented. "Yet the name is so uncommon that I think I should have remembered it."

"Well," he continued, "there was a person of the name of Trowse--an enemy, I should think, or some one you disliked. What of him?"

Again the blankness of non-comprehension. She shook her head at him and smiled.

"Do you know," she said, "I shall believe soon that it is you who have been raving. Trowse! Ulric! I never heard such names in my life. Tell me, was there any one else?"

"You spoke of my mother and sister as though you knew them," he said.

She shook her head.

"I saw them with you in a box at the theater one night, you know," she reminded him.

He was watching her closely, and permitted himself a little sigh of relief. She was looking out of the window at the faint April suns.h.i.+ne which was doing its best to brighten the dull afternoon.

A few days later Powers made his way to her room in the twilight. It was easy to see that her recovery was now an a.s.sured thing. She was standing by the window when he entered, and he fancied for the first time that she greeted him a little nervously.

"Your mother and sister have been to see me, Sir Powers," she said.

"Wasn't it delightful of them?"

"Well, I don't know," he answered. "It seems to me a very natural thing for them to do. I hope you liked my mother, Eleanor."

"How could any one help it?" she said simply. "Your sister was very kind, too. They spoke as though--I was to go and stay with them--but----"

"Well?" he said.

She was very nervous under his gaze. All her words took flight with her long, carefully planned idea of a livelihood that she had wanted to consult him about.

The feeling in his eyes was unmistakable. A delicate flush stole into her cheeks and she closed her eyes. In the strong light he noticed more clearly the fragility of her appearance. He rose hastily.