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“She always had that light and airy way, though she was never sick a day in her life,” she answered calmly after a pause. Then, groping for my hand, she whispered passionately: “You must not tell him — you must not tell any one that you have seen her!”

“I mustn’t tell any one?” Again I had the impression that had come to me first in Doctor Maradick’s study, and afterward with Miss Peterson on the staircase, that I was seeking a gleam of light in the midst of obscurity.

“Are you sure there isn’t any one listening — that there isn’t any one at the door?” she asked, pushing aside my arm and sitting up among the pillows.

“Quite, quite sure. They have put out the lights in the hall.”

“And you will not tell him? Promise me that you will not tell him.” The startled horror flashed from the vague wonder of her expression.”He doesn’t like her to come back, because he killed her.”

“Because he killed her!” Then it was that light burst on me in a blaze. So this was Mrs. Maradick’s hallucination! She believed that her child was dead — the little girl I had seen with my own eyes leaving her room; and she believed that her husband — the great surgeon we worshipped in the hospital — had murdered her. No wonder they veiled the dreadful obsession in mystery! No wonder that even Miss Peterson had not dared to drag the horrid thing out into the light! It was the kind of hallucination one simply couldn’t stand having to face.

“There is no use telling people things that nobody believes,” she resumed slowly, still holding my hand in a grasp that would have hurt me if her fingers had not been so fragile.”Nobody believes that he killed her. Nobody believes that she comes back every day to the house. Nobody believes — and yet you saw her — “

“Yes, I saw her — but why should your husband have killed her?” I spoke soothingly, as one would speak to a person who was quite mad; yet she was not mad, I could have sworn this while I looked at her.

For a moment she moaned inarticulately, as if the horror of her thought were too great to pass into speech. Then she flung out her thin, bare arm with a wild gesture.

“Because he never loved me!” she said.”He never loved me!”

“But he married you,” I urged gently after a moment in which I stroked her hair.”If he hadn’t loved you, why should he have married you?”

“He wanted the money — my little girl’s money. It all goes to him when I die.”

“But he is rich himself. He must make a fortune from his profession.”

“It isn’t enough. He wanted millions.” She had grown stern and tragic.”No, he never loved me. He loved some one else from the beginning — before I knew him.”

It was quite useless, I saw, to reason with her. If she wasn’t mad, she was in a state of terror and despondency so black that it had almost crossed t
he border-line into madness. I thought once of going up-stairs and bringing the child down from her nursery; but, after a moment’s thought, I realized that Miss Peterson and Doctor Maradick must have long ago tried all these measures. Clearly, there was nothing to do except soothe and quiet her as much as I could; and this I did until she dropped into a light sleep which lasted well into the morning.

By seven o’clock I was worn out — not from work, but from the strain on my sympathy — and I was glad, indeed, when one of the maids came in to bring me an early cup of coffee. Mrs. Maradick was still sleeping — it was a mixture of bromide and chloral I had given her — and she did not wake until Miss Peterson came on duty an hour or two later. Then, when I went down-stairs, I found the dining-room deserted except for the old house-keeper, who was looking over the silver. Doctor Maradick, she explained to me presently, had his breakfast served in the morning-room on the other side of the house.