FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   >>  
nd with an enthusiast there is hardly such a thing as a scruple. It is this that gives me confidence in the woman's story." "You say she appeared to be frightened?" "Doubly so--first, she feared that her husband would learn of her betrayal of him; second, the discovery itself had terrified her." "But her report of this discovery is very vague," argued the captain. "He conceals everything from her. She is merely guessing." "In part--yes; in other part--no. She heard the sounds distinctly, though she did not see clearly. Horror closed her eyes. What she thinks she saw is, I admit, preposterous; but she undoubtedly saw something extremely frightful. There are many peculiar little circumstances. He has eaten with her but few times during the last three years, and nearly always carries his food to his private rooms. She says that he either consumes an enormous quantity, throws much away, or is feeding something that eats prodigiously. He explains this to her by saying that he has animals with which he experiments. This is not true. Again, he always keeps the door to these rooms carefully locked; and not only that, but he has had the doors doubled and otherwise strengthened, and has heavily barred a window that looks from one of the rooms upon a dead wall a few feet distant." "What does it mean?" asked the captain. "A prison." "For animals, perhaps." "Certainly not." "Why!" "Because, in the first place, cages would have been better; in the second place, the security that he has provided is infinitely greater than that required for the confinement of ordinary animals." "All this is easily explained: he has a violent lunatic under treatment." "I had thought of that, but such is not the fact." "How do you know?" "By reasoning thus: He has always refused to treat cases of lunacy; he confines himself to surgery; the walls are not padded, for the woman has heard sharp blows upon them; no human strength, however morbid, could possibly require such resisting strength as has been provided; he would not be likely to conceal a lunatic's confinement from the woman; no lunatic could consume all the food that he provides; so extremely violent mania as these precautions indicate could not continue three years; if there is a lunatic in the case it is very probable that there should have been communication with some one outside concerning the patient, and there has been none; the woman has listened at the keyh
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   >>  



Top keywords:
lunatic
 

animals

 

strength

 

provided

 

captain

 
confinement
 
violent
 

extremely

 
discovery
 

easily


explained

 

ordinary

 
security
 

prison

 
Certainly
 

infinitely

 
greater
 
required
 

distant

 

Because


refused

 

precautions

 

continue

 

consume

 

require

 

resisting

 

conceal

 

patient

 

listened

 

probable


communication

 
possibly
 

morbid

 

reasoning

 

thought

 
lunacy
 

confines

 
padded
 

window

 
surgery

treatment
 

guessing

 
report
 
argued
 

conceals

 

sounds

 
distinctly
 

closed

 
thinks
 

Horror