“But—­”

The doctor waved his hands.

“Well,” he said, “I can say it no better.  It was the whole thing.  The way you looked, the way you spoke.  It was most unusual.  But it affected me—­it affected me in the same way; and I thought that perhaps you could explain.”

(V)

It was not until the Monday afternoon that Frank persuaded the doctor to let him go.  Dr. Whitty said everything possible, in his emphatic way, as to the risk of traveling again too soon; and there was one scene, actually conducted in the menagerie—­the only occasion on which the doctor mentioned Frank’s relations—­during which he besought the young man to be sensible, and to allow him to communicate with his family.  Frank flatly refused, without giving reasons.

The doctor seemed strangely shy of referring again to the conversation in the garden; and, for his part, Frank shut up like a box.  They seem both to have been extraordinarily puzzled at one another—­as such people occasionally are.  They were as two persons, both intelligent and interested, entirely divided by the absence of any common language, or even of symbols.  Words that each used meant different things to the other. (It strikes me sometimes that the curse of Babel was a deeper thing than appears on the surface.)

The Major and Gertie, all this while, were in clover.  The doctor had no conception of what six hours’ manual work could or could not do, and, in return for these hours, he made over to the two a small disused gardener’s cottage at the end of his grounds, some bedding, their meals, and a shilling the day.  It was wonderful how solicitous the Major was as to Frank’s not traveling again until it was certain he was capable of it; but Frank had acquired a somewhat short and decisive way with his friend, and announced that Monday night must see them all cleared out.

The leave-taking—­so far as I have been able to gather—­was rather surprisingly emotional.  The doctor took Frank apart into the study where he had first seen him, and had a short conversation, during which one sovereign finally passed from the doctor to the patient.

I have often tried to represent to myself exactly what elements there were in Frank that had such an effect upon this wise and positive old man.  He had been a very upsetting visitor in many ways.  He had distracted his benefactor from a very important mouse that had died of leprosy; he had interfered sadly with working hours; he had turned the house, comparatively speaking, upside down.  Worse than all, he had—­I will not say modified the doctor’s theories—­that would be far too strong a phrase; but he had, quite unconsciously, run full tilt against them; and finally, worst of all, he had done this right in the middle of the doctor’s own private preserve.  There was absolutely every element necessary to explain Frank’s remarks during his delirium; he was a religiously-minded boy,