I slept not well, awakening many times in a fever compounded of drink and turbulent emotions. When the first rays of morning crept onto my pillow, I arose, little refreshed. After a cold tub and a light breakfast in my room, I went below to a salon whence music issued. Maude was already there, playing a pretty little piece upon the spinet. She looked up and greeted me. “Good morning, Sir Robert. Do you know the music of Mr. Gottschalk? He is an American pianist: this is his ‘Maiden’s Blush.’ Amiable, is it not?”
“Most amiable,” I replied, dutifully, although I was in no mood for the embroideries of politesse.
Maude soon finished the piece and closed the album. She turned to me and said, in a serious tone, “I have been told what you are going to do for my poor husband, Sir Robert. I can scarce express my gratitude.”
“There is no need to express it,” I assured her. “As a physician—as well as your old friend—I could not do less. I hope you understand, however, that a cure is not a certainty. I will try, and I will try to the limit of my powers, but beyond that I can promise nothing.”
Her eyes shone with supplication: “Oh, cure him, Sir Robert! That I beg of you!”
“I understand your feelings, madam,” I said. “It is fitting that you should hope so fervently for his recovery; a devoted wife could feel no other way.”
“Oh, sir,” she said, and into her voice crept now a harshness, “you misunderstand. My fervent hope springs from unalloyed selfishness.”
“How may that be?” I asked.
“If you do not succeed in curing him,” she told me, “I will suffer.”
“I understand that, but—”
“No, you do not understand,” she said. “But I can tell you little more without offending. Some things are better left unspoken. Suffice it to be said that, in order to urge you towards an ultimate effort, to the ‘limit of your powers’ as you have just said, my husband intends to hold over your head the threat of my punishment.”
“This is monstrous!” I cried. “It cannot be tolerated. But in what manner, pray, would he dare punish you? Surely he would not beat you?”
“I wish he would be content with a mere beating,” she groaned, “but his cleverness knows a keener torture. No, he holds over me—and over you, through me—a punishment far greater; a punishment (believe me!) so loathsome to the sensibilities, so unequivocably vile and degraded, that my mind shrinks from contemplating it. Spare me your further questions, sir, I implore you; for to describe it would plunge me into an abyss of humiliation and shame!”
She broke into sobbing, and tears coursed down her cheeks. No longer able to restrain my tender feelings for her, I flew to her side and took her hands in mine. “Maude,” I said, “may I call you that? In the past I addressed you only as Miss Randall; at present I may only call you Madam Sardonicus; but in my heart—then as now—you are, you always have been, you always will be, simply Maude, my own dear Maude!”
“Robert,” she sighed; “dearest Robert. I have yearned to hear my Christian name from your lips all these long years.”
“The warmth we feel,” I said, “may never, with honour, reach fulfillment. But—trust me, dearest Maude!—I will in some wise deliver you from the tyranny of that creature: this I vow!”
“I have no hope,” she said, “save in you. Whether I go on as I am, or am subjected to an unspeakable horror, rests with you. My fate is in your hands—these strong, healing hands, Robert.” Her voice dropped to a whisper: “Fail me not! oh fail me not!”
“Govern your fears,” I said. “Return to your music. Be of good spirits; or, if you cannot, make a show of it. I go now to treat your husband, and also to confront him with what you have told me.”
“Do not!” she cried. “Do not, I beseech you, Robert; lest, in the event of your failure, he devise foul embellishments upon the agonies into which he will cast me!”
“Very well,” I said, “I will not speak of this to him. But my heart aches to learn the nature of the torments you fear.”
“Ask no more, Robert,” she said, turning away. “Go to my husband. Cure him. Then I will no longer fear those torments.”
I pressed her dear hand and left the salon.
Sardonicus awaited me in his chambers. Thither, quantities of hot water and stacks of towels had been brought by the servants, upon my orders. Sardonicus was stripped to the waist, displaying a trunk strong and of good musculature, but with the same near-phosphorescent pallor of his face. It was, I now understood, the pallor of one who has avoided daylight for years. “As you see, sir,” he greeted me, “I am ready for your ministrations.”
I bade him recline upon his couch, and began the treatment.
Never have I worked so long with so little reward. After alternating applications of heat and of massage, over a period of three and a quarter hours, I had made no progress. The muscles of his face were still as stiff as marble; they had not relaxed for an instant. I was mortally tired. He ordered our luncheon brought to us in his chambers, and after a short respite, I began again. The clock tolled six when I at last sank into a chair, shaking with exhaustion and strain. His face was exactly as before.
“What remains to be done, sir?” he asked me.
“I will not deceive you,” I said. “It is beyond my skill to alleviate your condition. I can do no more.”
He rose swiftly from the couch. “You must do more!” he shrieked. “You are my last hope!”
“Sir,” I said, “new medical discoveries are ever being made. Place your trust in Him who created you—”
“Cease that detestable gibberish at once!” he snapped. “Your puling sentiments sicken me! Resume the treatment.”
I refused. “I have applied all my knowledge, all my art, to your affliction,” I assured him. “To resume the treatment would be idle and foolish, for—as you have divined—the condition is a product of your own mind.”
“At dinner last night,” countered Sardonicus, “we spoke of the character of Macbeth. Do you not remember the words he addressed to his doctor?—
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of the perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
“I remember them,” I said; “and I remember, as well, the doctor’s reply: ‘Therein the patient must minister to himself.’” I arose and started for the door.
“One moment, Sir Robert,” he said. I turned. “Forgive my precipitate outburst a moment ago. However, the mental nature of my affliction notwithstanding, and even though this mode of treatment has failed, surely there are other treatments?”
“None,” I said, “that have been sufficiently tested. None I would venture to use upon a human body.”
“Ah!” he cried. “Then other treatments do exist!”
I shrugged. “Think not of them, sir. They are at present unavailable to you.” I pitied him, and added: “I am sorry.”
“Doctor!” he said; “I implore you to use whatever treatments exist, be they ever so untried!”
“They are fraught with danger,” I said.
“Danger?” He laughed. “Danger of what? Of disfigurement? Surely no man has ever been more disfigured than I! Of death? I am willing to gamble my life!”
“I am not willing to gamble your life,” I said. “All lives are precious. Even yours.”
“Sir Robert, I will pay you a thousand pounds.”
“This is not a question of money.”
“Five thousand pounds, Sir Robert, ten thousand!”
“No.”
He sank onto the couch. “Very well,” he said. “Then I will offer you the ultimate inducement.”
“Were it a million pounds,” I said, “you could not sway me.”
“The inducement I speak of,” he said, “is not money. Will you hear?”
I sat down. “Speak, sir,” I said, “since that is your wish. But nothing will persuade me to use a treatment that might cost you your life.”
“Sir Robert,” he said, after a pause, “yestereve, when I came down to meet you for the first time, I heard happy sounds in the salon. You were singing a charming melody with my wife. Later, I could not help but notice the character of your glances toward her . . .”
“They were not reciprocated, sir,” I told him, “and herewith I offer you a most abject apology for my unbecoming conduct.”
“You obscure my point,” he said. “You are a friend of hers, from the old days in London; at that period, you felt an ardent affection for her, I would guess. This is not surprising; for she is a lady whose face and form promise voluptuous delights and yet a lady whose manner is most decorous and correct. I would guess further: that your ardour has not diminished over the years; that at the sight of her, the embers have burst into a flame. No, sir, hear me out. What would you say, Sir Robert, were I to tell you that you may quench that flame?”
I frowned. “Your meaning, sir?—”
“Must I speak even more plainly? I am offering you a golden opportunity to requite the love that burns in your heart. To requite it in a single night, if that will suffice you, or over an extended period of weeks, months; a year, if you will; as long as you need—”
“Scoundrel!” I roared, leaping up.
He heeded me not, but went on speaking: “. . . As my guest, Sir Robert! I offer you a veritable Oriental paradise of unlimited raptures!” He laughed, then entered into a catalogue of his wife’s excellences. “Consider, sir,” he said, “that matchless bosom, like alabaster which has been imbued with the pink of the rose, those creamy limbs—”
“Enough!” I cried. “I will hear no more of your foulness.” I strode to the door.
“Yes, you will, Sir Robert,” he said immediately. “You will hear a good deal more of my foulness. You will hear what I plan to do to your beloved Maude, should you fail to relieve me of this deformity.”
Again, I stopped and turned. I said nothing, but waited for him to speak further.
“I perceive that I have caught your interest,” he said. “Hear me: for if you think I spoke foully before, you will soon be forced to agree that my earlier words were, by comparison, as blameless as the Book of Common Prayer. If rewards do not tempt you, then threats may coerce you. In fine, Maude will be punished if you fail, Sir Robert.”
“She is an innocent.”
“Just so. Hence, the more exquisite and insupportable to you should be the thought of her punishment.”
My mind reeled. I could not believe such words were being uttered.
“Deep in the bowels of this old castle,” said Sardonicus, “are dungeons. Suppose I were to tell you that my intention is to drag my wife thither and stretch her smooth body to unendurable length upon the rack—”
“You would not dare!” I cried.
“My daring or lack of it is not the issue here. I speak of the rack only that I may go on to assure you that Maude would infinitely prefer that dreadful machine to the punishment I have in truth designed for her. I will describe it to you. You will wish to be seated, I think.”