cination?"

"That you are not her husband."

Dominey was silent for a moment. Then he laughed a little unnaturally.

"Can a person be perfectly sane," he asked, "and yet be subject to
an hallucination which must make the whole of her surroundings seem
unreal?"

"Lady Dominey is perfectly sane," the doctor answered bluntly, "and as
for that hallucination, it is up to you to dispel it."

"Perhaps you can give me some advice?" Dominey suggested.

"I can, and I am going to be perfectly frank with you," the doctor
replied. "To begin with then, there are certain obvious changes in you
which might well minister to Lady Dominey's hallucination. For instance,
you have been in England now some eight months, during which time you
have reveled an entirely new personality. You seem to have got rid
of every one of your bad habits, you drink moderately, as a gentleman
should, you have subdued your violent temper, and you have collected
around you, where your personality could be the only inducement, friends
of distinction and interest. This is not at all what one expected from
the Everard Dominey who scuttled out of England a dozen years ago."

"You are excusing my wife," Dominey remarked.

"She needs no excuses," was the brusque reply. "She has been a
long-enduring and faithful woman, suffering from a cruel illness,
brought on, to take the kindest view if it, through your clumsiness and
lack of discretion. Like all good women, forgiveness is second nature to
her. It has now become her wish to take her proper place in life."

"But if her hallucination continues," Dominey asked, "if she seriously
doubts that I am indeed her husband, how can she do that?"

"That is the problem you and I have to face," the doctor said sternly.
"The fact that your wife has been willing to return here to you, whilst
still subject to that hallucination, is a view of the matter which I
can neither discuss nor understand. I am here to-night, though, to lay
a charge upon you. You have to remember that your wife needs still one
step towards a perfect recovery, and until that step has been surmounted
you have a very difficult but imperative task."

Dominey set his teeth for a moment. He felt the doctor's keen grey eyes
glowing from under his shaggy eyebrows as he leaned forward, his hands
upon his knees.

"You mean," Dominey suggested quietly, "that until that hallucination
has passed we must remain upon the same terms as we have done since my
arri