“Good.” Harford lingered in the doorway. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad she managed to change your mind. About her condition, that is.”

“I’ve never—”

“Her intake form. You provided the second signature, of course, attesting to her insanity when she was admitted. But now it seems you’ve changed your tune, and I’m glad of it.” A tip of his head. “Good day, Dr. Turner.”

Shock clanged through Mitchell as his visitor left and the parting words sunk in. Second signature? Him? Utterly ridiculous.

Mitchell blinked at the empty doorway where the little man had exited, and the lens shifted on his view of the visitor. Wild accusations reminded one of the patients here. Perhaps Harford belonged at Hurstwell himself. The man had seemed a touch off since the start.

And yet . . .

Those locked chambers. The gleam of subdued rage in Thornhill’s face. The unlikely passion with which he devoted himself to this place . . .

With a groan, Mitchell shook his head. It seemed there was a trace of madness in them all—including him. He was weary of sorting fact from fiction, madness from sanity.

He remained in the kitchen, head in hands over his unfinished tea, for many silent moments. When he lifted his head, it spun a bit, disorienting him. He saw her smile—Dahlia’s. He could picture it clearly, with the world still slightly out of focus and his memories clear.

He had struggled in school years ago, until she’d come alongside him. His future had been bleak until she’d encouraged him that he’d make a worthwhile doctor. She’d given him everything he had, including some of the money to attend university . . . and he’d failed her in the end.

“Don’t let me die in here, Mitch. Don’t let me die.”

On shaking legs, he walked up the stairs to the third floor, the chronic ward. He stared down the hall at the closed door of the chamber where she’d died, flipping through mental images of their past.

Her vivid nightmares.

Tears that wouldn’t stop.

The baby that never had a chance to open its eyes.

A mother, his Dahlia, who could never fill the baby-shaped ache of her empty arms. His desperation to bring her back to life again when sorrow had sucked it away.

Then, Hurstwell. A place of healing that only seemed to break her further.

He walked past the roughly barred chambers to the one he hadn’t been able to touch and began to breathe harder, as if he were running up the stairs rather than simply walking down the hall. He had been so wrung out in those days, weak with atrophied muscles he couldn’t flex when they were needed by his own wife. He’d failed her. Failed to cure her, failed to be there when she lay dying and alone.

Some husband he’d been.