To say the thing puzzled me would be to put it lightly enough. For the rest of the day my thoughts kept turning to that enigmatic household at the Bend. The most puzzling point of all, to my mind, was why Lennox, in speaking of the people about, had not so much as mentioned Lessing's name. Here was a patient to whom he had, as I surmised, been called once before at least on the same mysterious errand as my own that morning, with whom he was more or less on terms of intimacy, and who must have provided almost his sole educated companionship in the village, and yet he had not seen fit so much as to touch upon Lessing's existence in my talk with him. Considering the words with which my own advent had been that morning greeted, I would have given much to be able to corner Lennox just then for ten minutes' conversation. I had heard nothing from him so far, and the following morning, on the chance of there being a letter, I drove down to the village after breakfast. As I entered the post office Miss Lessing was just coming out. She had a brown-paper parcel--an obvious butcher's parcel--in her hand, together with a couple of mail packets, and as I stood aside to let her pass she stopped to exchange a few words with me. Her brother was better, she said; he looked forward to seeing me that afternoon. We chatted a moment, and when she turned to go I said naturally: "You might let me give you a lift up the road. I'm going straight back." She smiled. "I'm used to walking, thanks all the same! Besides, there's a short cut through the woods I've found. It takes off nearly half the distance." "You don't mind the woods alone?" "I've got the dog with me." I watched her straight slim little figure up the street, the dog following at her heels, and turned into the post office. The clerk had grown familiar during our daily intercourse. He handed me two letters with a ready grin--Lennox's handwriting was not among them--then leaned his elbows on the shabby counter and spat reflectively into the space below. "Mr. Lessing had another attack, ain't he?" "What do you mean," I said curtly. "I heer'd you was called over thar, yesterday. Reckon you'll have enough to do if you take on with all the crazy folks round here." I looked at him hard. "Oh, I ain't got nothing special against Mr. Lessing. He's a pleasant-spoken chap, all I've seen of him. On'y when a man gits to meddlin' with things it ain't no person's business to meddle with he's liable to git called crazy--ef not worse. I ain't holdin' with what people say when they get to talkin'--no sir! I got enough to do tendin' my own business. But there's plenty won't go near Mr. Lessing's place after dark nor no other time, an' if you was to listen to them I reckon they got their reasons. They say his wife's as crazy as he is. Seems when he ain't traipsin' round the woods all hours o' the night he's shut up there in that stoodio place doin' his vivisectin'----" "_What?_"