"You shall do this, Mr. Blake," he answered. "You shall steal the
Diamond, unconsciously, for the second time, in the presence of
witnesses whose testimony is beyond dispute."
I started to my feet. I tried to speak. I could only look at him.
"I believe it CAN be done," he went on. "And it shall be done--if you
will only help me. Try to compose yourself--sit down, and hear what I
have to say to you. You have resumed the habit of smoking; I have seen
that for myself. How long have you resumed it."
"For nearly a year."
"Do you smoke more or less than you did?"
"More."
"Will you give up the habit again? Suddenly, mind!--as you gave it up
before."
I began dimly to see his drift. "I will give it up, from this moment," I
answered.
"If the same consequences follow, which followed last June," said Ezra
Jennings--"if you suffer once more as you suffered then, from sleepless
nights, we shall have gained our first step. We shall have put you
back again into something assimilating to your nervous condition on the
birthday night. If we can next revive, or nearly revive, the domestic
circumstances which surrounded you; and if we can occupy your mind
again with the various questions concerning the Diamond which formerly
agitated it, we shall have replaced you, as nearly as possible in the
same position, physically and morally, in which the opium found you last
year. In that case we may fairly hope that a repetition of the dose
will lead, in a greater or lesser degree, to a repetition of the result.
There is my proposal, expressed in a few hasty words. You shall now see
what reasons I have to justify me in making it."
He turned to one of the books at his side, and opened it at a place
marked by a small slip of paper.
"Don't suppose that I am going to weary you with a lecture on
physiology," he said. "I think myself bound to prove, in justice to both
of us, that I am not asking you to try this experiment in deference
to any theory of my own devising. Admitted principles, and recognised
authorities, justify me in the view that I take. Give me five minutes of
your attention; and I will undertake to show you that Science sanctions
my proposal, fanciful as it may seem. Here, in the first place, is the
physiological principle on which I am acting, stated by no less a person
than Dr. Carpenter. Read it for yourself."