That fevered frame, the burning hands and burning eyes looking at everything in the wrong way, the brain seeking about, thinking first this and then that ... nerves; and fat Dr. Ryman giving bromide ... awful little bottles of bromide coming to the house wrapped up in white paper. And everyone satisfied. “She’s in Dr. Ryman’s hands. Dr. Ryman is treating her.” Mrs. Poole said Dr. Ryman was a very able man. What did she mean? How did she know? Suburban faces; satisfied. “In the doctor’s hands.” A large square house, a square garden, high walls, a delicate wife always being ill, always going to that place in Germany--how did he know, going about in a brougham--and he had gout ... how did he know more than anyone else? ... bottles of bromide, visits, bills, and mother going patiently on, trusting and feeling unhelped. Going on. People went ... mad. If she could not sleep she would go ... _mad_.... And everyone behaving as if nothing were wrong. And the vicar! Praying in the dining-room. Sarah had heard.... The vicar, kneeling on the Turkey carpet ... praying. Couldn’t God see her, on the carpet, praying and trying? And the vicar went away. And things were the same and that night she would not sleep, just the same. Of course not. Nothing was changed. It was all going on for her in some hot wrong, shut-up way. Bromide and prayers. 30 And she blamed herself. If only she would not blame herself. “He’s one in a thousand ... if only I could be as calm and cool as he is.” Why not be calm and cool? She had gone too far ... “the end of my tether” ... mother, a clever phrase like that, where had she got it? It was true. Her suffering had taught her to find that awful phrase. She feared her room, “loathed” it. She, always gently scolding exaggeration, used and meant that violent word. 31 Money. That was why nothing had been done. “The doctor” had to be afforded as she was so ill, but nothing had been done. Borrow from the boys to take her away. “A bright place and a cool breeze.” She dreamed of things--far-away impossible things. Had she told the others she wanted them? They must be told. To-morrow she should know she was going away. Nothing else in life mattered. Someone must pay, anyone. Newlands must go. To-morrow and every day till they went away she should come round to Harriett’s new house. Something for her to do every day. The little bonneted figure ... happy, shocked, smiling. To go about with her, telling her everything, dreadful things. The two of them going about and talking and not talking, and going about. 32