illness is only a feeling, a
feeling as if I knew, without quite knowing, that the trouble is deeper
than appears. Jane feels it too, so it can't be all imagination. It is
caused, I think, by a change in mother herself. She seems to be growing
into another person--don't laugh!"

"I am not laughing. Please go on."

"Well, one thing more tangible is that the headaches, which seem to mark
a kind of nervous crisis, are becoming more frequent. And the
medicine--"

"But you told me that she took no medicine!"

"Did I? Then I am telling my story very badly. She has some medicine
which she always takes. It is a prescription which my father gave her a
few months before he died. She had a bad attack of some nervous trouble
then which seems to have been the beginning of everything. But that time
she recovered and it was not until after father's death that the
headaches began again. Father's prescription must, long ago, have lost
all effect, or why should the trouble get worse rather than better? But
mother will not hear a word on the subject. She will take that medicine
and nothing else."

"Do you know what the medicine is?"

"No. Father used to fill it for her himself. She says it is a very
difficult prescription and she never has it filled in town, always in
the city."

"But why? Taylor, here, is quite capable of filling any prescription. He
is a most capable dispenser."

"Yes--I know. But mother will not believe it."

"And you say it does her no good whatever?"

"She thinks that it does. She has a wonderful belief in it. But she gets
no better."

The doctor looked very thoughtful.

"She will not allow you to try any kind of compress for her head?"

"No. She locks her door. And I am sure she suffers, for sometimes when I
have gone up hoping to help I have heard such strange sounds, as if she
were delirious. It frightens me!"

"Does she talk of her illness?"

"Never, and she is furious if I do. She says she is quite well and
indeed no one would think that anything serious was wrong unless they
lived in the house. Any one outside would be sure that I am worrying
needlessly. Am I, do you think?"

"I can't think until I know more. But from what you tell me, it looks as
if this medicine she is taking might have something to do with it. If it
does no good, it probably does harm. Perhaps it was never intended to
be used as she is using it. Otherwise, as you say, the attacks would
diminish. At the same time a blin