“You see, her pseudo-aphonia is neither congenital nor of long standing. All logic leads to the conclusion that it’s the result of her terror during the experience. She must have wanted to scream, it must have been almost impossible for her not to scream, but for her very life she dared not. The instinctive, automatic reaction was the one she could not allow herself. She had to remain mute while she watched the murders.” For the first time it seemed possible there was more to Midbin than his garrulity. “She crushed back that natural, overwhelming impulse,” he went on. “She had to; her life depended on it. It was an enormous effort and the effect on her was in proportion; she achieved her object too well; when it was safe for her to speak again she couldnt.” It all sounded so plausible it was some time before I thought to ask him why she didnt appear to understand what we said, or why she didnt write anything when she was handed pencil and paper. “Communication,” he answered. “She had to cut off communication, and once cut off it’s not easy to restore. At least that’s one aspect. Another is more tricky. The holdup happened more than a month ago, but do you suppose the affected mind reckons so precisely? Is a precise reckoning possible? Duration may, for all we know, be an entirely subjective thing. Yesterday for you may be today for me. We recognize this to some extent when we speak of hours passing slowly or quickly. The girl may still be undergoing the agony of repressing her screams; the holdup, the murders, are not in the past for her, but the present. They are taking place in a long drawn out instant of time which may never end during her life. And if this is so, is it any wonder she is unable to relax, to let down her guard long enough to realize that the present is present and the crisis is past?” He pressed his middle thoughtfully. “Now, if it is possible to recreate in her mind by stimulus from without rather than by evocation from within the conditions leading up to and through the climacteric, she would have a chance to vent the emotions she was forced to swallow. She might, I don’t say she would, she might speak again.” I understood such a process would necessarily be lengthy, but as time passed I saw no indication he was reaching her at all, much less that he was getting any results. One of the Spanish-speaking fellows, a botanist who came and went from the haven at erratic intervals, translated my account of our meeting and read parts of it to the recumbent girl, following Midbin’s excited stage directions and interpolations. Nothing happened.