The Argosy — page 335: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

318 A Rare Case. The one or two other authentic cases of a like condition were eagerly cited, and a babble of learned talk arose over poor Adam, who could not tell whence he came or whither he had been going when the accident happened. To be sure, he re-learnt by degrees from others, his mother especially, the past which was mysteriously blotted out from his own experience ; but that which no one but himself had known, no one could now recall to him. His Sussex walking tour, the lonely farm upon the Downs, Mattie, his marriage and brief honeymoon were to his paralysed mind as though they had never been, but for a sense of irreparable loss that seemed to weigh upon him and made the misery of his life. | However, this state was one from which, so said his friends, science could at will recall him, and the operation necessary to restore Adam to himself was deferred only until his health admitted of its being attended by a minimum of risk. It was while Adam was in the state above described that Drew had seen Mrs. Armitage. A proud woman, often as she had wished that her son would settle in life, she was ill pleased to hear he had mar- ried a farm servant: for that was the one fact that, stripped of Drew’s panegyrics upon Mattie’s superior education and refined manners, alone stared her in the face. Hastily resolving that there was no need to embitter her own life by any attempt to recall to her son this ill-fated marriage, and that therefore the experiment of allowing him to see the farmer or to hear Mattie’s name should not be made, she did not hesitate to deceive her unwelcome visitor. Change of scene had been ordered for the patient, and before Drew called at the house in Grosvenor Street for the second time, Adam and his mother were gone. It was in Paris, months after, that the operation was finally and successfully performed, and then, the first word of Adam, was Mattie’s name. The first effort of his newly recovered powers was to relate to his mother the history of his marriage and to write to his wife. “God grant the suspense has neither killed her nor driven her mad!” he exclaimed. It was to his mother’s hand the letter was confided, and with that exclamation of his ringing in her ears, Mrs. Armitage stood beside the brazier filled with charcoal and burning in the ante-room of their -apartment in the Champs Elysées. She was not a bad woman, but the temptation was too strong to allow this affair to unravel itself, and see what would turn up. If the girl were dead, why no harm had been done, and this terrible mistake of her son’s was rectified at once. If the other alternative were to prove true and Mattie had lost her senses, Adam would be equally free from her, or measures could be taken to ensure so desirable a result. Mrs, Armitage tore the letter into pieces and waited by the brazier until the fragments were charred. Adam asked no awkward questions, and was not even sur- prised at receiving no answer to his epistle, since in it he had an- ECORNIELIOOKS5 (E00)