“I wish I could say,” Firebaugh had answered. “I’m following the formula as scribed, but this is all new to me.”

“I hate that,” said Berry, as she returned the empty cup to the doctor. “Father? How long must I endure this?”

“Ah.” Firebaugh smiled at her. “And how long do you believe you’ve been drinking it?”

“Day before yesterday,” she said. “I suppose it was.” Her eyes, yet dark-shadowed in the powdered face, looked past Firebaugh at Matthew. “Don’t you ever speak?”

Matthew brightened. It was the first time she’d ever noted he was in the room. “When I have something to say.”

“Who are you?”

Nash stood up and went to the window to stare out.

“My name is Matthew Corbett. I’m from New York, in the colonies. And what is your name?”

“My name is Mary Lynn Grigsby,” she said. And then her eyes seemed to cloud over with confusion and her mouth worked for a moment but no sound emerged. “Mary Lynn Nash,” she corrected. “My name. I am Mary Lynn Nash. Father?” In her voice there was a note of pleading.

“You gentlemen are welcome to leave at any time,” said the mayor, with his back to the room.

“Think,” Matthew said quietly to the stricken young woman on the flower-print sofa. “Are you absolutely certain that’s your name?”

“Easy,” Firebaugh cautioned. “We don’t—”

“My name,” said Berry. “Is … I told you my name. Why are you asking me such a question, Matthew? It makes my head … hurt,” she said, ending on a strained near-whimper. She reached up with both hands to press against her temples, and there her fingers found the brown wig of childish curls and ribbons. With a shiver and the widening of her eyes as if she’d received a violent start she lifted the wig from her head, allowing her real hair to fall in waves about her shoulders, and there she sat on the sofa looking at the wig in her lap as if it were the carcass of a dead dog.

“Get out,” said Frederick Nash. His heavily jowled face had reddened. “At once. I don’t care, you can have Fell horsewhip me if you please, but get out now.”

“Frederick? Frederick?” Pamela called from the back, with increasing intensity.

“We should go.” Firebaugh touched Berry’s arm. She was too dazed to respond and just kept staring at the wig. “Until tomorrow,” he said.

Tomorrow came early.

Near midnight Matthew was awakened by a knocking at his door. When he opened it and lifted the lamp he held he saw that Firebaugh was dressed only in a banyan robe, slippers and a woolen muffler to brave the cold. “Put on a coat and hurry!” the doctor said. “She’s coming out of it!”