No further particulars of the invalid's second attack were known than those furnished by Don Caesar's brief statement,that he had found him lying insensible on the boulder.This seemed perfectly consistent with the theory of Dr.Duchesne;and as the young Spaniard left Los Gatos the next day,he escaped not only the active reporter of the "Record,"but the perusal of a grateful paragraph in the next day's paper recording his prompt kindness and courtesy.Dr.Duchesne's prognosis,however,seemed at fault;the elder Slinn did not succumb to this second stroke,nor did he recover his reason.He apparently only relapsed into his former physical weakness,losing the little ground he had gained during the last month,and exhibiting no change in his mental condition,unless the fact that he remembered nothing of his seizure and the presence of Don Caesar could be considered as favorable.Dr.
Duchesne's gravity seemed to give that significance to this symptom,and his cross-questioning of the patient was characterized by more than his usual curtness.
"You are sure you don't remember walking in the garden before you were ill?"he said."Come,think again.You must remember that."The old man's eyes wandered restlessly around the room,but he answered by a negative shake of his head."And you don't remember sitting down on a stone by the road?"The old man kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the bedclothes before him."No!"he said,with a certain sharp decision that was new to him.
The doctor's eye brightened."All right,old man;then don't."On his way out he took the eldest Miss Slinn aside."He'll do,"he said,grimly:"he's beginning to lie.""Why,he only said he didn't remember,"responded Esther.
"That was because he didn't want to remember,"said the doctor,authoritatively."The brain is acting on some impression that is either painful and unpleasant,or so vague that he can't formulate it;he is conscious of it,and won't attempt it yet.It's a heap better than his old self-satisfied incoherency."A few days later,when the fact of Slinn's identification with the paralytic of three years ago by the stage-driver became generally known,the doctor came in quite jubilant.
"It's all plain now,"he said,decidedly."That second stroke was caused by the nervous shock of his coming suddenly upon the very spot where he had the first one.It proved that his brain still retained old impressions,but as this first act of his memory was a painful one,the strain was too great.It was mighty unlucky;but it was a good sign.""And you think,then--"hesitated Harry Slinn.
"I think,"said Dr.Duchesne,"that this activity still exists,and the proof of it,as I said before,is that he is trying now to forget it,and avoid thinking of it.You will find that he will fight shy of any allusion to it,and will be cunning enough to dodge it every time."He certainly did.Whether the doctor's hypothesis was fairly based or not,it was a fact that,when he was first taken out to drive with his watchful physician,he apparently took no notice of the boulder--which still remained on the roadside,thanks to the later practical explanation of the stage-driver's vision--and curtly refused to talk about it.But,more significant to Duchesne,and perhaps more perplexing,was a certain morose abstraction,which took the place of his former vacuity of contentment,and an intolerance of his attendants,which supplanted his old habitual trustfulness to their care,that had been varied only by the occasional querulousness of an invalid.His daughters sometimes found him regarding them with an attention little short of suspicion,and even his son detected a half-suppressed aversion in his interviews with him.
Referring this among themselves to his unfortunate malady,his children,perhaps,justified this estrangement by paying very little attention to it.They were more pleasantly occupied.The two girls succeeded to the position held by Mamie Mulrady in the society of the neighborhood,and divided the attentions of Rough-and-Ready.The young editor of the "Record"had really achieved,through his supposed intimacy with the Mulradys,the good fortune he had jestingly prophesied.The disappearance of Don Caesar was regarded as a virtual abandonment of the field to his rival:and the general opinion was that he was engaged to the millionaire's daughter on a certain probation of work and influence in his prospective father-in-law's interests.He became successful in one or two speculations,the magic of the lucky Mulrady's name befriending him.In the superstition of the mining community,much of this luck was due to his having secured the old cabin.
"To think,"remarked one of the augurs of Red Dog,French Pete,a polyglot jester,"that while every fool went to taking up claims where the gold had already been found no one thought of stepping into the old man's old choux in the cabbage-garden!"Any doubt,however,of the alliance of the families was dissipated by the intimacy that sprang up between the elder Slinn and the millionaire,after the latter's return from San Francisco.
It began in a strange kind of pity for the physical weakness of the man,which enlisted the sympathies of Mulrady,whose great strength had never been deteriorated by the luxuries of wealth,and who was still able to set his workmen an example of hard labor;it was sustained by a singular and superstitious reverence for his mental condition,which,to the paternal Mulrady,seemed to possess that spiritual quality with which popular ignorance invests demented people.
"Then you mean to say that during these three years the vein o'your mind,so to speak,was a lost lead,and sorter dropped out o'
sight or follerin'?"queried Mulrady,with infinite seriousness.
"Yes,"returned Slinn,with less impatience than he usually showed to questions.