Dr. Rumsey's Patient by L.T. Meade — Read

Awdrey's cure was complete; he had passed right through the doom of his house, and got out on the other side. He was the first man of his race who had ever done that; the others had forgotten as he forgot, and had pined, and dwindled, and slipped and slipped lower and lower down in the scale of life until at last they had dropped over the brink into the Unknown beyond. Awdrey's downward career had been stopped just in time. His recovery had been quite as marvellous as his complaint. When he saw his own face reflected in the pond on Salisbury Plain the cloud had risen from his brain and he remembered what he had done. In that instant his mental sky grew clear and light. He himself had murdered Horace Frere; he had not done it intentionally, but he had done it; another man was suffering in his stead; he himself was the murderer. He knew this absolutely, completely, clearly, but at first he felt no mental pain of any sort. A natural instinct made him desirous to keep his knowledge to himself, but his conscience sat light within him, and did not speak at all. He was now anxious to conceal his emotions from the doctor; his mind had completely recovered its balance, and he found this possible. Rumsey was as fully astonished at the cure as he had been at the disease; he accompanied Awdrey back to London next day, and told Margaret what a marvellous thing had occurred. Awdrey remembered all about his son; he was full of grief for his loss; he was kind and loving to his wife; he was no longer morose; no longer sullen and apathetic; in short, his mental and physical parts were once again wide awake; but the strange and almost inexplicable thing in his cure was that his moral part still completely slumbered. This fact undoubtedly did much to establish his mental and physical health, giving him time to recover his lost ground.

Rumsey did not profess to understand the case, but now that Awdrey had quite come back from the borderland of insanity, he advised that ordinary remedies should immediately be resorted to; he told Margaret that in a few months her husband would be as fully and completely able to attend to the duties of life as any other man of his day and station. He did not believe, he said, that the strange attack through which Awdrey had passed was ever likely to return to him! Margaret and her husband shut up their house in town, and went abroad; they spent the winter on the continent, and day by day Awdrey's condition, both physical and mental, became more satisfactory. He slept well, he ate well; soon he began to devour books and newspapers; to absorb himself in the events of the day; to take a keen interest in politics; the member for Grandcourt died, and Awdrey put up for the constituency. He was obliged to return suddenly to England on this account, and to Margaret's delight elected to come back at once to live at the Court. The whole thing was arranged quickly. Awdrey was to be nominated as the new candidate for Grandcourt; he was to have, too, his rightful position as the Squire on his own property. Friends from all round the country rejoiced in his recovery, as they had sincerely mourned over his strange and inexplicable illness. He was welcomed with rejoicing, and came back something as a king would to take possession of his kingdom.