JAMES: I’ve come to see Sara.

MRS. CALLIFER: But it’s too late. There’s no train.

JAMES: I hitchhiked. Eight hours on the road. It’s a beautiful time of year. I like trees bare, so that you can see their shape. I didn’t expect to see you, Dr. Kreuzer. I seem to have interrupted a conclave.

BASTON: We were talking of you.

JAMES: I don’t suppose you would care for my opinion, but you know I’ve never felt saner in my life.

BASTON: Trying to kill yourself again—that wasn’t exactly sane.

JAMES: Oh, that. That belongs to the past. It won’t happen again.

BASTON: I feel strongly that a period of rest—perhaps under Dr. Kreuzer’s care—

JAMES: I don’t need Dr. Kreuzer’s care any longer. You see, the gap’s filled. I know what happened.

KREUZER: What do you know?

JAMES: That I killed myself in the potting shed.

BASTON: You see, Dr. Kreuzer?

Even Kreuzer is thrown by James’s remark. He gets up, takes a careful look and then moves away. He needs time to digest this new aspect of the case.

BASTON: Did your uncle convince you of this?

JAMES: Oh, no. He believed, like all of you, it was a mistake. It was the only belief he had left. He had given everything to bring me back.

BASTON: The asylums are full of people who think God chose them specially. Dr. Kreuzer, this is a far worse symptom than your stolen pills.

Sara enters in a travelling coat, wearing a scarf.

SARA: James! What are you—

JAMES: I came to see you, Sara.

BASTON: Sara, you’d better know this right away. I want to have James certified.

SARA: Certified? But that’s nonsense.

BASTON: He’s completely irresponsible.

SARA: But those pills—after all, they weren’t dangerous.

BASTON: We are dealing with something worse than pills. James has just told us he killed himself in the potting shed and was—resurrected. By the prayers of his uncle, I suppose.

SARA: James, you never said that. Dr. Baston, you misunderstood.

JAMES: Baston has reported me quite accurately.

SARA: But you are not mad, James.

JAMES: That’s what they have to decide, isn’t it?

BASTON: Well, Dr. Kreuzer, are you satisfied now?

KREUZER: An illusion needn’t be dangerous. An illusion can be curative, Dr. Baston.

BASTON: Dr. Kreuzer, how many times do your patients have to attempt suicide before you are ready to certify them?

KREUZER: An attempted suicide is not necessarily serious. Only the suicides that succeed.

BASTON: Not serious. You astonish me, Dr. Kreuzer.

KREUZER: People play-act—to others, to themselves. The majority of attempted suicides never meant to succeed.

BASTON: But sometimes, Dr. Kreuzer, people may succeed through inexperience.

KREUZER: You can hardly gain experience in killing yourself, Dr. Baston.