interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion
of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the true
motive for the doctor's presence that evening, and for the part
that Sir James has taken in inviting him to be my guest.

Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on
the table.

The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces
that the bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the
envelope, and find inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing
the completion of some formal matter of business. I at once seize
the opportunity that is offered to me. Instead of sending a
verbal message downstairs, I make my apologies, and use the
letter as a pretext for leaving the room.

Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the
corridor in which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door
of my bed-chamber. A second door communicates with the
sitting-room, and has a ventilator in the upper part of it. I
have only to stand under the ventilator, and every word of the
conversation between Sir James and the physician reaches my ears.

"Then you think I am right?" are the first words I hear, in Sir
James's voice.

"Quite right," the doctor answers.

"I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life,"
Sir James proceeds. "I have asked him to pay a visit to my house
in Scotland; I have proposed traveling with him on the Continent;
I have offered to take him with me on my next voyage in the
yacht. He has but one answer--he simply says No to everything
that I can suggest. You have heard from his own lips that he has
no definite plans for the future. What is to become of him? What
had we better do?"

"It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To speak
plainly, the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. I
noticed something strange in him when he first came to consult me
about his mother's health. The mischief has not been caused
entirely by the affliction of her death. In my belief, his mind
has been--what shall I say?--unhinged, for some time past. He is
a very reserved person. I suspect he has been oppressed by
anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his age,
the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused
by women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of
love; and some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have
bitterly disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect
is plain--his nerves have broken down, and his brain is
necessarily affected by whatever affects his nerves. I have known
men in his condition who have ended badly. He may drift into
insane delusions, if his present course of life is not altered.
Did you hear what he said when we talked about ghosts?"

"Sheer nonsense!" Sir James remarks.

"Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression,"
the doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow out of it at
any moment."

"What is to be done?" persists Sir James. "I may really say for
myself, doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor
fellow. His mother was one of my oldest and dearest friends, and
he has inherited many of her engaging and endearing qualities. I
hope you don't think the case is bad enough to be a case for
restraint?"

"Certainly not--as yet," answers the doctor. "So far there is no
positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of
reason for placing him under restraint. It is essentially a
difficult and a doubtful case. Have him privately looked after by
a competent person, and thwart him in nothing, if you can
possibly help it. The merest trifle may excite his suspicions;
and if that happens, we lose all control over him."

"You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?"

"I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely;
and he has certainly been a long time out of the room."

Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the,
sitting-room (by way of the corridor) and resume my place at the
table.

The indignation that I feel--naturally enough, I think, under the
circumstances--makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I
invent the necessary
excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the
conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that
escapes me, without betraying any appearance of restraint in my
manner. Early in the evening the doctor leaves us to go to a
scientific meeting. For half an hour or more Sir James remains
with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther testing the state of my
mind, he renews the invitation to his house in Scotland. I
pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as his
guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give
him a definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast.
Sir James is delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each
other good-night. At last I am left alone.


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