r hinted to Therese about Miss Rowe, about his thinking that
sometimes she was--was not quite----"

"Has Therese repeated that nonsense to you too?" he demanded angrily.

"Well, I--I admit it startled me very much. I could scarcely believe
there was anything in it. I'm sure I never noticed anything the least
bit odd about her, and I was amazed to hear that anyone had done so.
Yet the doctor is so positive about it, although he hasn't said much.
And when a man like that makes a statement, one is almost forced to
believe there must be something in it. In any case it occurred to me
that if his theory is true she might have left Cannes and gone away,
quite forgetting for the moment that she was going to communicate with
us. She may even have lost her memory, you know."

"Then if she has," declared Roger firmly, getting to his feet, "there's
all the more reason for my making every effort to find her. Although,
Dido, I may as well tell you I don't take very much stock in that idea
of the doctor's. Oh, I've had a talk with him; he was very scientific,
very convincing. He assured me there are a great many people walking
about with the same complaint who regard themselves and are generally
regarded as perfectly normal. He says they unconsciously invent and
believe all sorts of preposterous things. He says no one could predict
at what moment they might suddenly go off the handle and behave quite
irrationally. No doubt what he says is entirely true, only I can't see
it applying to Esther. Why, if I'd been asked to pick a thoroughly
normal, well-balanced woman----"

"Yes, yes, I know. I should have said so too."

"He made a good deal out of a trifling incident that I shouldn't have
bothered to repeat at all--something about dropping a basin of water.
Utter nonsense, I call it. Then he said that she had taken a marked
antipathy to him without any reason, and behaved queerly towards him.
I'm sure I didn't notice it."

"Of course, Roger, there was one odd thing that appears to bear out his
theory. You know how just as she was leaving she sent you that
message? Chalmers tells me she was terribly agitated, quite beside
herself. Yet before you could get downstairs..."

"I know, I know," he interrupted her, as if the subject were painful to
him. "It does seem to fit in with what he says, and yet..."

He lit a cigarette thoughtfully and after a few puffs threw it away.
Then, walking to the nearest window, he parted