I had come to him because I had not wanted to consult Dr. Roberts, who, being a good friend of Dr. Brunson, might, despite his professional ethics, drop a few hints to the dentist. I wished, so far as possible, to keep secret this new excitement of our household. To be sure, everyone in Chichester had said for years that my mother was mad, and the children who had used to come to play up towards our house no longer came. The villagers and the shopkeepers had, after Ivan’s death, stopped inquiring about her. But still, they had no proof.

It had not been easy to gain an audience with Dr. McAllister, who was a house-physician and not allowed to have private cases, and so I had written him a note, saying that Miss Pride had asked me to look him up. He had sent back the reply that he would be delighted to meet me at such-and-such an hour on Sunday afternoon at a tea-room in Marblehead. It was the hasty note of a busy man who, aware of his duty towards his friends, parcels out his leisure time with no sign of the irritation he feels that he can keep no part of his life to himself. I would have let the matter rest there had I not, on returning to my mother, found her up and dressed, carrying a basket on her arm with the intention, I was afraid, of going to the village. I had urged her to go back to bed, but my entreaties were futile for she understood nothing but Russian. I had then given her a glass of brandy (she had at least not forgotten brandy) in which I had dissolved one of the sleeping powders left over from her illness. I must say here that this ingenious trick afforded me the only amusement I had in ten days. I could not help smiling, as I pulverized the pill, at the grave necessity that had driven me to practical joking, and when she began to droop, after no more than a quarter of an hour, I laughed outright. I had then locked her in and run back to the hospital where, on a sheet torn from my loose-leaf notebook, I wrote Dr. McAllister that I had an urgent message for him from Miss Pride. A cold, dubious answer came back at once saying that he would see me in his office in a few minutes.