ng for.'

She perceived that she had produced a strong impression of some
kind upon him, and dropped her hold on his arm.

'You have comforted many miserable women in your time,' she said.
'Comfort one more, to-day.'

Without waiting to be answered, she led the way back into the room.

The Doctor followed her, and closed the door. He placed her in the
patients' chair, opposite the windows. Even in London the sun, on that
summer afternoon, was dazzlingly bright. The radiant light flowed in
on her. Her eyes met it unflinchingly, with the steely steadiness of
the eyes of an eagle. The smooth pallor of her unwrinkled skin looked
more fearfully white than ever. For the first time, for many a long
year past, the Doctor felt his pulse quicken its beat in the presence
of a patient.

Having possessed herself of his attention, she appeared, strangely
enough, to have nothing to say to him. A curious apathy seemed to have
taken possession of this resolute woman. Forced to speak first, the
Doctor merely inquired, in the conventional phrase, what he could do
for her.

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse her. Still looking straight at
the light, she said abruptly: 'I have a painful question to ask.'

'What is it?'

Her eyes travelled slowly from the window to the Doctor's face.
Without the slightest outward appearance of agitation, she put the
'painful question' in these extraordinary words:

'I want to know, if you please, whether I am in danger of going mad?'

Some men might have been amused, and some might have been alarmed.
Doctor Wybrow was only conscious of a sense of disappointment. Was
this the rare case that he had anticipated, judging rashly by
appearances? Was the new patient only a hypochondriacal woman, whose
malady was a disordered stomach and whose misfortune was a weak brain?
'Why do you come to me?' he asked sharply. 'Why don't you consult a
doctor whose special employment is the treatment of the insane?'

She had her answer ready on the instant.

'I don't go to a doctor of that sort,' she said, 'for the very reason
that he is a specialist: he has the fatal habit of judging everybody
by lines and rules of his own laying down. I come to you, because my
case is outside of all lines and rules, and because you are famous in
your profession for the discovery of mysteries in disease. Are you
satisfied?'

He was more than satisfied--his first idea had been the right idea,
after all. Besides, she was corre