"It's good of you to let me take my time, doctor, but yours is too valuable to waste. All I meant was to give you an idea of our surroundings, as I know they are held to count in such cases. We are embedded in pines and firs. Some people find trees depressing, but after India they were just what we wanted, and even now my wife won't let me cut down one of them. Yet depression is no name for her state of mind; it's nearer melancholy madness, and latterly she has become subject to--to delusions--which are influencing her whole character and actions in the most alarming way. We are finding it difficult, for the first time in our lives, to keep servants; even her own nephew, who has come to live with us, only stands it for my sake, poor boy! As for my nerves--well, thank God I used to think I hadn't got any when I was in the service; but it's a little hard to be--to be as we are--at our time of life!" His hot face flamed. "What am I saying? It's a thousand times harder on _her_! She had been looking forward to these days for years." Dollar wanted to wring one of the great brown, restless hands. Might he ask the nature of the delusions? The General cried: "I'd give ten years of my life if I could tell you!" "You can tell me what form they take?" "I must, of course; it is what I came for, after all," the General muttered. He raised his head and his voice together. "Well, for one thing she's got herself a ferocious bulldog and a revolver." Dollar did not move a doctor's muscle. "I suppose there must be a dog in the country, especially where there are no children. And if you must have a dog, you can't do better than a bulldog. Is there any reason for the revolver? Some people think it another necessity of the country." "It isn't with us--much less as she carries it." "Ladies in India get in the habit, don't they?" "She never did. And now----" "Yes, General? Has she it always by her?" "Night and day, on a curb bracelet locked to her wrist!" This time there were no professional pretenses. "I don't wonder you have trouble with your servants," said Dollar, with as much sympathy as he liked to show. "You mayn't see it when you come down, doctor, as I am going to entreat you to do. She has her sleeves cut on purpose, and it is the smallest you can buy. But I know it's always there--and always loaded." Dollar played a while with a queer plain steel ruler, out of keeping with his other possessions, though it too had its history. It stood on end before he let it alone and looked up. "General Dysone, there must be some sort of reason or foundation for all this. Has anything alarming happened since you have been at--Valsugana?" "Nothing that firearms could prevent" "Do you mind telling me what it is that has happened?" "We had a tragedy in the winter--a suicide on the place." "Ah!" "Her gardener hanged himself. Hers, I say, because the garden is my wife's affair. I only paid the poor fellow his wages."