“I don’t think we’re going to have many Christmas decorations this year. It’s all because of Gabriel. Perhaps there’ll be a bit of holly.”

I felt frustrated but I knew that I must not frighten her. She had heard something which she was afraid to repeat because she knew she should not, and if she thought I was trying to find out she would be on her guard against telling me. I had to wheedle it out of her in some way, because I was sure that it was imperative that I should know.

I forced myself to be calm and said: ” Never mind. Next Christmas”

“But who knows what’ll have happened to us by next Christmas … to me to you?”

” I may well be here. Aunt Sarah, and my baby with me. If it’s a boy they’ll want it brought up here, won’t they?”

“They might take him away from you. They might put you …”

I pretended not to have noticed that. I said: “I should not want to be separated from my child. Aunt Sarah. Nobody could do that.”

” They could … if the doctor said so.” I lifted the christening robe and pretended to examine it, but to my horror my hands had begun to shake and I was afraid she would notice this. ” Did the doctor say so?” I asked. ” Oh yes. He was telling Ruth. He thought it might be necessary … if you got worse … and it might be a good idea before the baby was born.”

” You were in the minstrels’ gallery.”

” They were in the hall. They didn’t see me.”

” Did the doctor say I was ill?”

” He said Mentally disturbed.” He said something about It being a common thing to have hallucinations . and to do strange things and then think other people did them. He said it was a form of persecution mania or something like that. “

” I see. And he said I had this?”

Her lips trembled. ” Oh. Catherine,” she whispered, ” I've liked your being her . B don’t want you to go away. I don’t want you to go to Worstwhistle.”

The words sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell, my own funeral.

If I were not very careful they would bury me alive.

I could no longer remain in that room. I said: “Aunt Sarah, I’m supposed to be resting. You will excuse me if I go now?”

I did not wait for her to answer. I stooped and kissed her cheek.

Then I walked sedately to the door and, when I had closed it, ran to my own room, shut the door and stood leaning against it. I felt like an animal who sees the bars of a cage closing about him. I had to escape before I was completely shut in. But how?

I very quickly made up my mind as to what I would do. I would go and see Dr. Smith and ask him what he meant by talking of me in such a way to Ruth. I might have to betray the’ fact-that Sarah had overheard them, but I should do my utmost to keep her out of this. Yet it was too important a matter to consider such a trifle.

They were saying, ” She is mad.” The words beat in my brain like the notes of a jungle drum. They were saying that I had hallucinations, that I had imagined I had seen a vision in my room; and then I had begun to do strange things-silly unreasoning things and imagined that someone else did them.

They had convinced Dr. Smith of this—and I had to prove to him that he and they were wrong.

I put on my blue cloak—the one which had been hung over the parapet—for it was the warmest of garments and the wind had turned very cold. But I was quite unaware of the weather as I made my way to the doctor’s house.

I knew where it was because we had dropped Damaris there on our way back from Knaresborough. I myself had never been there before. I supposed that at some time the Rockwells had visited the Smiths, and that in view of Mrs. Smith’s illness, such visits had not taken place while I was at the Revels.

The house was set in grounds of about an acre. It was a tall, narrow house and the Venetian blinds at the windows reminded me of Glen House.

There were fir trees in the front garden which had grown rather tall and straggly; they darkened the house considerably. There was a brass plate on the door announcing that this was the doctor’s house, and when I rang the bell the door was opened by a grey-haired maid in a very well starched cap and apron.

” Good afternoon,” I said. ” Is the doctor at home?”

” Please come in,” answered the maid. ” I’m afraid he is not at home at the moment. Perhaps I can give him a message.”

I thought that her face was like a mask, and remembered that I had thought the same of Damaris. But I was so over wrought that everything seemed strange on that afternoon. I felt I was not the same person who had awakened that morning. It was not that I believed I was anything but sane, but the evil seed had been sown in my mind, and I defy any woman to hear such an opinion of herself with equanimity.

The hall seemed dark; there was a plant on a table and beside it a brass tray in which several cards lay. There was a writing-pad and pencil on the table. The maid took this and said: ” Could I have your name, please?”

” I am Mrs. Rockwell.”

” Oh!” The maid looked startled. ” You wished the doctor to come to you?”

” No, I want to see him here.”

” It may be an hour before he is here, I’m afraid.”

” I will wait for him.”

She bowed her head and opened a door, disclosing an impersonal room which I suposed was a waiting-room.

Then I thought that I was after all more than a patient. The doctor had been a friend to me. I knew his daughter well.

I said: ” Is Miss Smith at home?”

” She also is out, madam.”

” Then perhaps I could see Mrs. Smith.”

The maid looked somewhat taken aback, then she said:

” I will tell Mrs. Smith you are here.”

She went away and in a few minutes returned with the information that Mrs. Smith would be pleased to see me. Would I follow her?

I did so and we went up a flight of stairs to a small room. The blinds were drawn and there was a fire burning in a small grate. Near the fire was a sofa on which lay a woman. She was very pale and thin, but I knew at once that she was Damaris’s mother, for the remains of great beauty were there She was covered with a Paisley shawl and the hand which; lay on that shawl looked too frail to belong to a living human being.

” Mrs. Rockwell of Kirkland Revels,” she said as I came in. ” How good of you to come to see me.”

I took the hand but relinquished it as soon as I could; it was cold and clammy.

” As a matter of fact,” I said, ” I came to see the doctor. As he is not in I thought I would ask if you could see me.”

” I’m glad you did.”

” How are you today?”

” Always the same, thank you. That is … as you see me now…. I can only walk about this room and then only on my good days. The stairs are beyond me.”

I remembered that Ruth had said she was a hypochondriac and a great trial to the doctor. But that was real suffering I saw on her face and I believed that she was more interested in me than in herself.

” I have heard that you are going to have a child,” she said.

” I suppose the doctor has told you.”

” Oh … no. He does not talk about his patients. My daughter told me.”

” I have seen a great deal of her. She is so often at the Revels.”

The woman’s face softened. ” Oh yes. Damaris is very fond of everyone at the Revels.”

” And they of her. She is very charming.”

” There is only one fault that can be found with her. She should have been a boy.”

” Oh, do you think so? I hope for a boy but I shan’t really mind if my child is a girl.”

” No, I didn’t mind—one doesn’t oneself.”

I was talking desperately to keep my mind off my own plight, and I suppose I was not really thinking much about her or her affairs, but I said: “So it was the doctor who cared.”

” Most ambitious men want sons. They want to see themselves reproduced. It’s a tragedy when they are disappointed. Please tell me, is anything wrong?”

“Why do you ask?”

” I thought you looked as though it might be so.”

” I … I want to consult the doctor.”

” Of course. You came here to do that, didn’t you? I’m sure he won’t be long.”

” Let him come soon,” I was praying. ” I must speak to >um. I vmst make him understand.”

” Do you want to see him so vary urgently?” she asked.

” Yes … I did.”

” It’s on your own account, of course.”

” Yes.”

” I remember when I was having my children, I was continually anxious.”

” I didn’t know you had more than one, Mrs. Smith.”

” There is only Damaris living. I have made many attempts to have a son. Unfortunately I did not succeed. I bore two stillborn daughters and there were others whom I lost in the early stages of pregnancy. My last, born four years ago … born dead … was a boy. That was a very bitter blow.”

Although I could not see her face clearly because her back was to the light, I was aware of the change in her expression as she said. ” It was the doctor’s wish that we should have a boy. For the last four years … since the birth of the boy, I have never been well.”

I was in a hypersensitive state. Worried as I was about my own problem, I was aware that she, too, had a problem of her own. I felt a bond between us which I could not fully understand and which I felt she saw clearly but was uncertain of my ability to see. It was a strange feeling. I was already beginning to ask myself whether my imagination was betraying me. But as soon as such a thought came into my head I dismissed if.

I was myself—practical, feet on the ground. Nobody, I told myself fiercely—perhaps too fiercely—is going to tell me that I’m going out of my mind.