Ethelbert was silent; she was thinking of his perplexed words: “You have all been away so long; see how she has grown,” and of the childlike manner in which he had clung to her and called her “mother.” She remembered a curious case of mental-aberration of which she had read. “Doctors,” she said, “your patient’s mind has become blank, back to the time before his mother’s death. Don’t you see? He thinks I am his mother; and his mother passed away when he was five years old. He is a child again; that is all.” “Yes, but a paralyzed one,” said the physicians. CHAPTER IV. The doctor motioned them all to come with him to an adjoining room. And then Mrs. Mancredo told all she knew about the rosebud which had become associated in Reginald’s mind with his early life, and of the conversation which had taken place between them the night of his attack, adding: “I was in the family when he was a little fellow, before auntie died. We parted after that, and only met a few times when I was a tall, thin, sallow girl; and—and he did not know me when we met again here at this hotel this summer, in my robust maturity. He isn’t quick, Reginald isn’t, and I’ve puzzled him my share, one way and another. He has been getting in a bad way, poor Regie, and here’s the end of it.” And to this the doctors agreed. This was the end of poor Reginald Grove; and as his fate seemed settled, the older Mr. Grove, when he arrived, accepted the statement that Reginald was a wrecked man, body and mind. And when Mrs. Mancredo had made herself known to Mr. Grove on his arrival, in a softened state of feeling toward both the father and son she found herself promising more in the way of help and responsibility than she at first realized, or afterwards wanted to perform. And the elder Grove (deeply interested in speculations in Mexico, and interested in his own approaching third marriage) was well content to turn this responsibility over to Mrs. Mancredo, with (it was popularly said) the promise of all the money necessary for Reginald’s needs or fancies. It was not until Mr. Grove had steamed away to Mexico that Mrs. Mancredo really began to look about her; and then she did it with some disgust at her own stupidity, as she was pleased to name the sympathy that had overwhelmed her and swept her on to undertake, in an indefinite way, all that the care of Reginald involved.