m now
writing the proprietor himself handed me a letter of ominous thickness
which I took with me down to the borders of the lake before tearing open
the flap. In spite of the calmness and restraint of the first lines,
because of them, I felt creeping over me an unnerving sensation I knew
for dread....

"Hugh, the New York doctor has been here. It is as I have feared for some
weeks, but I couldn't tell you until I was sure. Ham is not exactly
insane, but he is childish. Sometimes I think that is even worse. I have
had a talk with Dr. Jameson, who has simply confirmed the opinion which
the other physicians have gradually been forming. The accident has
precipitated a kind of mental degeneration, but his health, otherwise,
will not be greatly affected.

"Jameson was kind, but very frank, for which I was grateful. He did not
hesitate to say that it would have been better if the accident had been
fatal. Ham won't be helpless, physically. Of course he won't be able to
play polo, or take much active exercise. If he were to be helpless, I
could feel that I might be of some use, at least of more use. He knows
his friends. Some of them have been here to see him, and he talks quite
rationally with them, with Ralph, with me, only once in a while he says
something silly. It seems odd to write that he is not responsible, since
he never has been,--his condition is so queer that I am at a loss to
describe it. The other morning, before I arrived from the hotel and when
the nurse was downstairs, he left the hospital, and we found him several
blocks along Commonwealth Avenue, seated on a bench, without a hat--he
was annoyed that he had forgotten it, and quite sensible otherwise. We
began by taking him out every morning in an automobile. To-day he had a
walk with Ralph, and insisted on going into a club here, to which they
both belong. Two or three men were there whom they knew, and he talked to
them about his fall from the pony and told them just how it happened.

"At such times only a close observer can tell from his manner that
everything is not right.

"Ralph, who always could manage him, prevented his taking anything to
drink. He depends upon Ralph, and it will be harder for me when he is not
with us. His attitude towards me is just about what it has always been. I
try to amuse him by reading the newspapers and with games; we have a
chess-board. At times he seems grateful, and then he will suddenly grow
tired and hard to control.