"My room!" she shuddered. "Let me lie here a little longer. I cannot walk. Let me be here till the doctor comes."
"Certainly, dearest. I thought you looked very unlike yourself all day at the regatta. If you had felt out of sorts you ought not to have gone."
"Auntie! I was quite well in the morning."
Presently the medical man arrived, and was shown in. Betty saw that Lady Lacy purposed staying through the interview. Accordingly she said nothing to Dr. Groves about what she had seen.
"She is overdone," said he. "The sooner you move her down to Devonshire the better. Someone had better be in her room to-night."
"Yes," said Lady Lacy; "I had thought of that and have given orders. Martha can make up her bed on the sofa in the adjoining dressing-room or boudoir."
This was a relief to Betty, who dreaded a return to her room her room into which her other self had gone.
"I will call again in the morning," said the medical man; "keep her in bed to-morrow, at all events till I have seen her."
When he left, Betty found herself able to ascend the stairs. She cast a frightened glance about her room. The straw hat, the grey dress were there. No one was in it.
She was helped to bed, and although laid in it with her head among the pillows, she could not sleep. Racking thoughts tortured her. What was the signification of that encounter? What of her strange sleeps? What of those mysterious appearances of herself, where she had not been? The theory that she had walked in her sleep was untenable. How was she to solve the riddle? That she was going out of her mind was no explanation.
Only towards morning did she doze off.
When Dr. Groves came, about eleven o'clock, Betty made a point of speaking to him alone, which was what she greatly desired.
She said to him: "Oh! it has been worse this last occasion, far worse than before. I do not walk in my sleep. Whilst I am buried in slumber, someone else takes my place."
"Whom do you mean? Surely not one of the maids?"
"Oh, no. I met her on the stairs last night, that is what made me faint."
"Whom did you meet?"
"Myself my double."
"Nonsense, Miss Mountjoy."
"But it is a fact. I saw myself as clearly as I see you now. I was going down into the hall."
"You saw yourself! You saw your own pleasant, pretty face in a looking-glass."
"There is no looking-glass on the staircase. Besides, I was in my alpaca morning-gown, and my double had on my pearl-grey cloth costume, with my straw hat. She was mounting as I was descending."
"Tell me the story."
"I went yesterday an hour or so before I had to dress into the schoolroom. I am awfully ignorant, and I did want to see a map and find out where was Henley, because, you know, I was going to the boat-race. And I dropped off into one of those dreadful dead sleeps, with my head on the atlas. When I awoke it was evening, and the gas-lamps were lighted. I was frightened, and ran out to the landing and I heard them arrive, just come back from Henley, and as I was going down the stairs, I saw my double coming up, and we met face to face. She passed me by, and went on to my room to this room. So you see this is proof pos that I am not a somnambulist."
"I never said that you were. I never for a moment admitted the supposition. That, if you remember, was your own idea. What I said before is what I repeat now, that you suffer from failure of memory."
"But that cannot be so, Dr. Groves."
"Pray, why not?"
"Because I saw my double, wearing my regatta costume."
"I hold to my opinion, Miss Mountjoy. If you will listen to me I shall be able to offer a satisfactory explanation. Satisfactory, I mean, so far as to make your experiences intelligible to you. I do not at all imply that your condition is satisfactory."
"Well, tell me. I cannot make heads or tails of this matter."
"It is this, young lady. On several recent occasions you have suffered from lapses of memory. All recollection of what you did, where you went, what you said, has been clean wiped out. But on this last it was somewhat different. The failure took place on your return, and you forgot everything that had happened since you were engaged in the schoolroom looking at the atlas."
"Yes."
"Then, on your arrival here, as Lady Lacy told me, you ran upstairs, and in a prodigious hurry changed your clothes and put on your "
"My alpaca."
"Your alpaca, yes. Then, in descending to the hall, your memory came back, but was still entangled with flying reminiscences of what had taken place during the intervening period. Amongst other things "
"I remember no other things."
"You recalled confusedly one thing only, that you had mounted the stairs in your your "
"My pearl-grey cloth, with the straw hat and satin ribbon."
"Precisely. Whilst in your morning gown, into which you had scrambled, you recalled yourself in your regatta costume going upstairs to change. This fragmentary reminiscence presented itself before you as a vision. Actually you saw nothing. The impression on your brain of a scrap recollected appeared to you as if it had been an actual object depicted on the retina of your eye. Such things happen, and happen not infrequently. In cases of D. T. "
"But I haven't D. T. I don't drink."
"I do not say that. If you will allow me to proceed. In cases of D. T. the patient fancies he sees rats, devils, all sorts of objects. They appear to him as obvious realities, he thinks that he sees them with his eyes. But he does not. These are mere pictures formed on the brain."
"Then you hold that I really was at the boat-race?"
"I am positive that you were."
"And that I danced at Lady Belgrove's ball?"
"Most assuredly."
"And heard Carmen at Her Majesty's?"
"I have not the remotest doubt that you did."
Betty drew a long breath, and remained in consideration.
Then she said very gravely: "I want you to tell me, Dr. Groves, quite truthfully, quite frankly do not think that I shall be frightened whatever you say; I shall merely prepare for what may be do you consider that I am going out of my mind?"
"I have not the least occasion for supposing so."
"That," said Betty, "would be the most terrible thing of all. If I thought that, I would say right out to my aunt that I wished at once to be sent to an asylum."
"You may set your mind at rest on that score."
"But loss of memory is bad, but better than the other. Will these fits of failure come on again?"
"That is more than I can prognosticate; let us hope for the best. A complete change of scene, change of air, change of association "
"Not to leave auntie!"
"No. I do not mean that, but to get away from London society. It may restore you to what you were. You never had those fits before?"
"Never, never, till I came to town."
"And when you have left town they may not recur."
"I shall take precious good care not to revisit London if it is going to play these tricks with me."
That day Captain Fontanel called, and was vastly concerned to hear that Betty was unwell. She was not looking herself, he said, at the boat-race. He feared that the cold on the river had been too much for her. But he did trust that he might be allowed to have a word with her before she returned to Devonshire.
Although he did not see Betty, he had an hour's conversation with Lady Lacy, and he departed with a smile on his face.
On the morrow he called again. Betty had so completely recovered that she was cheerful, and the pleasant colour had returned to her cheeks. She was in the drawing-room along with her aunt when he arrived.
The captain offered his condolences, and expressed his satisfaction that her indisposition had been so quickly got over.