“Let me go over the situation, Jack, and tell me if you do not agree in my conclusions. Lucy, while apparently restored in a degree to her former health, is still weak and looks fragile. The physicians advise me to take her to a warmer climate before our New England Winter sets in. Her dementia still continues, and while she is perfectly gentle and harmless, she will neither tolerate the presence of her husband, nor poor Mrs. Church, and is even not pleased or quiet in my company. I think my likeness to my beloved brother affects her. She clings to your good mother and to you, my lad, with the confident affection of a child. When she is not softly singing, as she rocks and smiles in a heartrending, far-off-way, some baby lullaby, she is flitting about the house like some sweet and sorrowful shadow. Can we, Jack, expose our girl in this condition to the unsympathetic gaze of strangers?” “No, no, a thousand times no!” was the quick and emphatic answer of the younger man. “Now listen, Jack. Since the death of that poor, little misshapen black creature, which innocently brought so much trouble into our lives, and, Jack, your thoughtfulness in having it buried quietly in Bedford instead of here is something I shall never forget. But to return to Lucy: Since that object is out of the way, and after the consultation of those great specialists in mental disorder cases, I am led to hope that Lucy may be restored to us in all the glory of her former mental condition.” “God speed the day,” exclaimed Jack fervently and reverently. “The specialists affirm that as this aberration of mind was produced by a shock and as there is no inherited insanity involved in the case, that the restoration may occur at any moment in the most unexpected manner. A surprise, shock or some accident may instantly produce the joyful change. “It is for that very reason that I have insisted that Burton should remain near at hand, and ready to respond to a call from the restored wife for her husband’s presence. We must bear in mind the fact that Lucy, before this hallucination, was devotedly attached to her husband and grandfather. With the return of her reason we may justly expect the return of her former affections and feelings,” interrupted Jack by way of explanation of something he had done. “I know that, Jack, and approve of your course, but I am only a weak human creature, and notwithstanding the injunction of my dying brother to blame no one, I cannot eradicate from my mind a feeling of animosity toward Burton. I know that he is not culpable, but still I should be glad to have him pass out of our lives, if it were not for the probable effect upon Lucy if she ever be restored to reason. However, I was not displeased by his decision to return to his own house, the ‘Eyrie,’ until his presence was required here.”