Clide was growing sick to death of the miserable business. He had been more than two months now stationed at his post. Isabel’s illness had made two-thirds of that time utterly useless to him; but it was now a full week since the doctor had declared her convalescent, and he seemed no nearer the solution of her identity than when he first descried her through the panel of the door. He determined at last one morning to go in and speak out his mind to the medical man. He told him that he insisted on an interview with Mr. Percival, or else he would take steps in the matter which might be disagreeable to all parties. It was quite inexplicable, he said, that they should not have been able to find an opportune moment or letting him approach the patient all this time, and the persistent obstacles that were thrown in the way of an interview with the man who called himself her guardian led him to infer that both Mr. Percival and the doctor were in league to prevent her identity being tested and established. The effect of this broadside was startling. But although it took the doctor entirely by surprise, it did not throw him off his guard or disturb his presence of mind. He looked at the speaker for a moment in silence, and then said in a perfectly cool and collected manner: “I see there is no use in playing at this game any longer. I have humored you up to this, and borne with your mania, because I knew it was a mania. It has been plain to me from the third time I saw you, Mr. de Winton, that you were yourself the victim of a delusion and an eligible candidate for a lunatic asylum. I have prevented Mr. Percival from taking steps to have you confined—the law empowers us to do so when a madman threatens the security and honor of another—because I hoped the monomania would wear itself out with patience. I find I have been mistaken. I shall interfere no farther with Mr. Percival in his legitimate desire to protect the lady who is under my care from your persistent persecution. She is no more your wife than she is mine. Your story about her is as groundless as the ravings of a man in fever.” While the doctor delivered himself of this attack Clide stared at him in stupefaction. He saw the medical man’s glance fixed on him with the expression of one who was versed in the art of reading the mind through that lucid and faithful interpreter—the eye. But though he was both shocked and indignant, he was not a whit frightened; he bore the scrutiny without flinching, without dropping his lid once.