Doctor in Love with a Patient.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7533, 6 May 1903, Page 7

Doctor in Love with a Patient.

REMONSTRANCE AND A REVOLVER

There was a very exciting drama at the Quai dOrsay. As a, lady and gentleman were leaving the fashionable hotel bearing that namo a man rushed up,, and, pulling a revolver out of his pocket fired. Tho gentleman at whom h,*- had aimed was stiuck in the forehead by tbe bullet, but the wound fortunately proved to bo very slight. Tho onlookers promptly arrested his assailant, but his companion hurried off, and has not since been seen. Tho heroine of this peculiar adventure is tiie Comtesse do Contades-Mery, the wife of an electrical engineer residing in the Invalided district. It was by a physician who is living just outside Paris that she was escorted, and her husband gives the following explanation of his conduct. The lady, he says, has been suffering for a long time with acute neurasthenia. Ho had, therefore, been obliged to look very carefully after her, and to uut up with various caprices which-he would not have boon inclined to tolerate if she had been m good health. Ho had for somo time suspected her relations with Dr Bouchet who, after having been her medical attendant, had become her friend. He had, however, hoped that this was only a platonic affair. Tho Count went on to say that he had kept on the watch, but that, fearing to increase his wife's inaladv by a scene, ho had held his peace. His wife had exclaimed to him. when speaking of the doctor, "I cannot live without him. If he were not here, I do not know what would become of me." Loving his wife as ho did, he had dreaded causing her any pain. A few days ago. however, he had reason to believe that tho friendship of tho lady and the physician was not of an exclusively sentimental nature. Thirst for vengeance took possession of him, and that morning ho followed his wife, and, stationing himself in the road, waited until tho pair should come out of tho hotel they liad entered at ten o'clock. "Yes." concluded the Count, "I acted with premeditation, and aimed at. Bouchet with the intention of killing him. I said to myself, Tf I kill him I shall do away with the cause' of my misfortune, and" shall cure my wife."' The doctor is about 40 years of age. and a married man with several children. M. de Contades-Mery said, in the course of an examination winch _ had since been renewed, that his suspicions were first aroused a year ago. Ho spoke to Dr Bouchet on the subject, and later on again he had to remonstrate, with tho resnlt that be forbado the physician to. return *to his house. Then he perceived that thero wero secret meetings, and when he reproached his wife, she cried, "Kill me. if you like, but I cannot belp it. I .cannot resist the temptation of seeing Dr Bouchet." The Count came to the conclusion that in suppressing the cause ho would suppress the effect, so that was why he followed his wife when she left their home. M. de ContadesMery added that when ho saw blood flowing on the doctor's face after the first shot he had not the heart to fire again, and put the revolver back in his pocket. His mother-in-law, who belongs to a very old Breton family, lays all the blame on tho doctor, who, she declares.' even pronosed an elopement to her daughter. The Count, she adds, was a. kind husband nnd a thoroughly honourable man. and tjhe physician -showed the blackest ingratitude to him. As for the doctor, it is now affirmed that he was separated from his wife .cvernl years ago, and was living with his mother, nnd that be met Madame do C-ontados-Mery every day. In spite-of all the search which has been made, nothing has been seen of the heroine of the drama, since it occurred.

"They s ay that lifo is short. To thoso who look back, perhaps it is, but to those who look forward it is long, endless."

"Everyone who can hold a pen is confident of his ability to criticise superciliously. It) never occurs to the average citizen that, to speak modestly, almost as much art is needed to write a- book as to adulterate a pound of tea."

"It is one of the curiosities of sentiment that its most abject slavo rarely perrjiits it to interfere with his temporal conceits; it appears as unusual for a man to sentimentalise in his own walk hi life a<, for him to pick- his own. pocket."—W. S. Maughami, in "Mrs Craddock."'

"There aro moments in life that pass like the scorching of lightning upon the tree over tho soul of man. The instant comes and goes, and may not bo scored by description. The fishwife who learns after the night's storm that her sons have been swept into the vortex of the ocean, the frh-1 who is told on the ove of her wedding day that her lover has'been killed' by a simple street accident, the man mounting the stops of tho scaffold, will understand what I mean. They are, so to speak, moments beyond human endurance—vet endured."—The Duchess of [ Sutherland, in "The Winds of the 1 World."