She was in England, therefore any place was more tolerable to him. And just before they left the house he had asked to see her, for the first time in all these weeks, to say: "You are responsible for all this." It was all black enough, and there had been at present but one smoky ray of comfort. He had not taken laudanum again, nor, as far as could be ascertained, had he tried to procure any. But Sir James cautioned Maud against thinking that this ray was the promise of a coming dawn. "He is still extremely weak," he had said, "and it will not be till his strength really begins to come back that he will crave for the drug. At present he is not strong enough to want anything at all keenly." Sir James had come down with the brother and sister to Liverpool, to see his safe bestowal on board, for even now he was not allowed to walk upstairs, and their cabin was on the top deck. In ten minutes the shore-going passengers would have to leave the ship, but the doctor had still a few words more to say. Thurso had not yet been told what the ulterior object of his going to America was, for it was thought that if he knew that he might refuse to stir. "There is a psychological moment for telling him that," he said to Maud, "which has not yet arrived. But it will arrive, I think, and I feel no doubt that you will recognise it when it does. At present your brother shows no desire for anything, neither for the drug--at least, he has taken us all in if he has--nor for the return to health. He does not even, I think, want to die; he does not want anything. But as he begins to get back his strength he will begin to desire also. He will want the drug; he will want to get well. That is the moment for telling him."