Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/402

MacIan. It is a melodramatic myth, like Calvary.”

Not a soul moved save Turnbull, who lifted his head; yet there was the sense of a silent explosion.

“The whole story of the MacIan challenge,” went on the Master, beaming at them all with a sinister benignity, “has been found to originate in the obsessions of a few pathological types, who are now all fortunately in our care. There is, for instance, a person here of the name of Gordon, formerly the keeper of a curiosity shop. He is a victim of the disease called Vinculomania—the impression that one has been bound or tied up. We have also a case of Fugacity (Mr. Whimpey), who imagines that he was chased by two men.”

The indignant faces of the Jew shopkeeper and the Magdalen Don started out of the crowd in their indignation, but the speaker continued:

“One poor woman we have with us,” he said, in a compassionate voice, “believes she was in a motor-car with two such men; this is the well-known illusion of speed on which I need not dwell. Another wretched woman has the simple egotistic mania that she has caused the duel. Madeleine Durand actually professes to have been the subject of the fight between MacIan and his