Pineland did not cure me, although I spent hours in the open air and let my pens lie resting in their case. Under continual pains I grew sullen and resentful, always more ill-tempered and desirous of solitude. Dr. Kennedy called frequently. Sometimes I saw him and sometimes not, as the mood took me. He never came without speaking of the former occupant of the house, of Margaret Capel. He seemed to take very little personal interest in me or my condition. And I was too proud (or stupid) to force it on his notice. I asked him once, crudely enough, if he had been in love with Margaret Capel. He answered quite simply, as if he had been a child: “One had no chance. From the first I knew there was no chance.” “There was some one else?” “He came up and down. I seldom met him. Then there were the circumstances. She was between the Nisi and the Absolute, the nether and the upper stone....” “Oh, yes, I remember now. She was divorced.” “No, she was not. She divorced her husband,” he answered quite sharply and a little distressed. “Courts of Justice they are called, but Courts of Injustice would be a better name. They put her to the question, on the rack; no inquisition could have been worse. And she was broken by it....” “But there was some one else, you said yourself there was some one else. Probably these probing questions, this rack, were her deserts. Personally I am a monogamist,” I retorted. Not that I was really narrow or a Pharisee, only in contentious mood and cruel under the pressure of my own harrow. “Probably anything she suffered served her right,” I added indifferently. “It all happened afterwards. I thought you knew,” he said incoherently. “I know nothing except that you are always talking of Margaret Capel, and I am a little tired of the subject,” I answered pettishly. “Who was the man?” “The man!” “Yes, the man who came up and down to see her?” “Gabriel Stanton.” “Gabriel Stanton!” I sat upright in my chair; that really startled me. “Gabriel Stanton,” I repeated, and then, stupidly enough: “Are you sure?” “Quite sure. But I won’t talk about it any more since it bores you. The house is so haunted for me, and you seemed so sympathetic, so interested. You won’t let me doctor you.” “You haven’t tried very hard, have you?” “You put me off whenever I try to ask you how you are, or any questions.” “What is the good? I’ve seen twelve London doctors.” “London has not the monopoly of talent.” He took up his hat, and then my hand. “Offended?” I asked him. “No. But my partner will be home tomorrow, and I’m relinquishing my place to him. It is really his case.” “I refuse to be anybody’s case. I’ve heard from the best authorities that no one knows anything about neuritis and that it is practically incurable. One has to suffer and suffer. Even Almroth Wright has not found the anti-bacilli. Nepenthe gives me ease; that is all the doctoring I want—ease!” “It is doing you a lot of harm. And what makes you think you’ve got neuritis?”