It was a new rôle for Doctor Beatty, but he played it better than would have been expected. Patty turned to the window and he heard the sound of sobbing steadily for some time. At last the sound ceased. She was sitting with her chin resting on her hand, which held her wet handkerchief crumpled up into a tight ball; and she was looking out through her tears, but seeing nothing, and she seemed to have difficulty in breathing. "He's such a good boy--to me!" she said, without turning. "Such a good boy! I am so fond of him that it almost breaks my heart to have anybody say--say such things. How can they? How can they have the heart?" She gave a single sob. CHAPTER XXI Sally sat by her window in the office of John Hazen, Inc., looking absently out of it. Doctor Beatty was talking to her earnestly, in low tones, and she was serious and sober, listening intently. "Mrs. Upjohn," he was saying,--"thrifty soul!--came out to Sanderson's this morning with the grocer's boy"--Sally chuckled suddenly, in spite of her seriousness, but stopped as suddenly--"and went up to see Patty. I'd like," he interrupted himself to say emphatically, "to see every visitor of suspicious character required to show cause for seeing the patients. Yes," he nodded in reply to a questioning look of Sally's, "Patty is a patient. There's no doubt about that, I'm afraid. And Mrs. Upjohn is a suspicious character. There is no doubt about that either. Oh, yes, well-meaning, perhaps; even probably. But she should not have been allowed to see Patty. I consider Patty's condition--er--ticklish. Distinctly ticklish." Sally was surprised. "What do you mean? How is her condition ticklish?" "Mentally," he replied. Sally turned to Doctor Beatty with a start and looked him straight in the eyes. She wanted to see just what he meant. Then she shuddered. "I hope not," she said. "Well, we won't think of it. We are doing our best. But Mrs. Upjohn succeeded in upsetting her completely in a very few minutes. I was afraid, at first, that the mischief was done. Oh, it wasn't. She came back all right. I couldn't make her tell me what Mrs. Upjohn had said, but, picking up a thread here and there, I judged that Charlie had been misbehaving himself somehow. I couldn't find out just how. I am sorry to add another log to your load, Sally, but I thought that you would be glad to be told of what seems to be common report. I know that I would." "I am," she said. "I'm glad and sorry, too. But I'm greatly obliged to you." She was silent for some little time, looking out and thinking hard. "Do you know what kind of misbehavior it is?" she asked. "I'm pretty familiar with several kinds," she added, with a hard little laugh. "Don't be afraid to tell me the truth if you know it." Doctor Beatty shook his head. "I don't know it. It seems to be connected with Patty's money."