The Bird's Nest Part 3

"Nevertheless," I said firmly, "I intend to continue with the treatment as we agreed at your last visit."

"How?" she asked, surprised. "If I don't want you to?"

The look of entreaty which accompanied these words caused me to continue, as firmly, "It would be foolish to suppose that I could or would treat you against your will, nor would I wish to do so, but surely you cannot find any objection to continuing our conversation of your last visit? I found it most enjoyable."

Warily, as though afraid that I might perhaps leap at her and force upon her my horrendous treatments, she moved toward her usual chair, and I found myself experiencing a strong relief when she was at last induced to sit quietly, and fix her gaze, as always, upon some unoffending object.

How to begin was not a problem; Miss R. having once been brought to consent to treatment, needed no further persuasion, I knew; what Miss R. needed was some method, palatably presented, whereby what she actually wanted (and of this I was positive by now, that she did want treatment, and by the means I suggested) could be offered her in disguise, as it were, so that her objections, however unreasonable, might be circ.u.mvented with her own unconscious aid. At any rate, with Miss R., whose mental resources were, to say the least, untapped, nothing so patently on the surface as her rejection of treatment needed to be dealt with by any more than the most perfunctory deviousness; I smiled amiably down at my desk and remarked that at least I might have the pleasure of conversing with her; she looked at me swiftly and away, perceiving the heavy emphasis I used and seeing what I meant her to see, that I was both vexed and disappointed.

"I'm sorry," she said, and such a voluntary statement from Miss R. was worth almost any effort to me, in the step ahead it represented. "I wish I could let you hypnotize me."

I bowed politely, as befits a gentleman whose generous offers have been civilly rejected (Victor Wright, Marquis of Steyne!) and I repressed my smile as I said smoothly, "Perhaps at another time; when we know one another better you will trust me."

"I trust you," Miss R. said uncertainly to the floor.

I endeavored to turn the conversation onto Miss R.'s family and her work, since discussion of her physical condition had found her so reticent, but discovered, as I had more than half expected, that Miss R. was ready with no more comprehensive descriptions of her family life or the museum where she was employed; indeed, at one point, despairing, I was almost persuaded that the girl was largely unaware of place and time, and might, if asked suddenly, have difficulty remembering her own name! I learned-through a cross-examination of which the Spanish Inquisitors might have been proud-that she was at this time doing a kind of menial clerical work at the museum, typing (the kind of a formal learned activity, requiring no imagination or inventive qualities in discovering the correct letters, which Miss R. might be expected to do splendidly) and dealing with routine correspondence (again, I ascertained, requiring no initiative) and matter-of-fact listings which required only the ability to copy down names and numbers.

It was this work which had suffered so extremely from her ill health, since she depended upon its income for her livelihood (although I strongly doubted whether her unknown aunt, no matter how heartless, would have let poor Miss R. starve for lack of an income, since various of Miss R.'s answers to my questions indicated that her aunt was in possession of what must have amounted, even today, to a fairly handsome fortune) and she would, without her occupation, have lost even that shred of independence left to her, and as a result-mutatis mutandis-suffered the worse. Her aunt had found her the job, persuaded her to take it, and encouraged her to continue at it, and I did Aunt the discourtesy of supposing that she, too, might have found Miss R.'s daily, regular absence a source of some refreshment. In answer to searching questions Miss R. admitted to having her headache still, and was further persuaded to agree that she did, after all, suffer from headaches almost constantly, and backaches almost as often. That Miss R. was entirely inert I soon had reason to doubt, for, seeing me glance once at the clock, she rose immediately, although I had supposed her regarding, as usual, the corner of the desk, and, remarking that her aunt expected her home, made as to take her leave. I a.s.sured her that I noted the clock because of an appointment of my own which was still almost two hours away, but could not prevail upon her to stay, although I felt most strongly that we were making a kind of progress.

"Doctor Wright," she said unexpectedly, pausing on her way to the door but not turning to look at me, "I think this is wasting your time. I have nothing wrong with me."

I smiled rea.s.suringly, although unnecessarily, at her back. "If you were able to diagnose your own case, Miss R.," I said, "you would hardly have to come to a doctor. Moreover," I went on, before she could point out that she had not come to a doctor at all, but had been sent, "one or two hypnotic sessions will surely show if there is nothing wrong."

"Goodbye," Miss R. said, and took her departure.

I need not further detail for the impatient reader (you are patient, sir? Then you and I are left behind, inhabitants of a slower and more leisurely time, when we were not restless with an author for his painstaking efforts to entertain us, and demanded paragraphs of rich and rewarding meditation, and loved our books for the leather and the weight; we are forgotten, sir, you and I, and must take our quiet contemplation in secret, as some take opium and some count their gold)-I need not further trouble the reader, then, with a meticulous account of the progress which I made in persuading Miss R. to permit hypnosis; she was finally brought to agree to a brief experiment, although I am a.s.sured that she thought herself yielding to a kind of sinfulness rather than an honest attempt at therapeutic a.s.sistance, since she insisted upon the provision that she should not be required to answer any "embarra.s.sing" questions, and was not to remain under hypnosis for more than a minute or so-too little time, I could not help noting cynically (although privately, sir; I am not a monster!) for any overt nefarious act on my part. To all of these stipulations I acceded willingly, knowing that even a brief experiment would certainly ease Miss R.'s fears, and might even prove of some a.s.sistance in quieting her nervous illness. As I had long suspected, she was, once she had brought herself to the point, a willing and cooperative subject, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time I had subdued her into a light hypnotic slumber.

When she was breathing easily and quietly, her hands and face relaxed, and her feet resting comfortably upon a small footstool, I was agreeably surprised at her appearance of pleasant, intelligent comeliness and reflected at the time that very possibly Miss R.'s nervous constraints stretched even farther than headaches and sleeplessness, and threw over her whole personality an air of timidity and stupidity; I recall that I even wondered briefly if Miss R. might not be a gay and merry companion under her mask of illness. Marveling at the relaxation in her face, which for the first time seemed to me pretty, I asked her quietly, "What is your name."

"Elizabeth R."-without hesitation.

"Where do you live?"

She named her street and city address.

"Who am I?"

"You are Doctor Wright."

"And are you afraid of me, Miss R.?"

"Of course not."-smiling slightly.

It was most gratifying to see that, just as the anxious lines upon Miss R.'s face smoothed out under hypnosis, just as the tightness of her mouth relaxed and her voice lost its reluctance, so her funds of information were ready-tapped, as it were, and she answered my questions readily and without hesitation, although I had before heard from her only the briefest of replies and those spoken falteringly and with much hesitation; I foresaw, what I had believed all along, that with the priceless a.s.sistance of Miss R.'s own mind, freed of its pressure of constraint, we might easily and without terror soon have her as free from nervous ailments as the best of us.

At this first attempt, I was most unwilling to rouse Miss R. from her happy sleep, but, mindful of my promise to keep her in trance for only a minute or two, I emphasized in her mind (in the form of what is called post-hypnotic suggestion, a most compelling influence) the conviction that she would sleep soundly and dreamlessly that night, and awaken the next morning refreshed (concluding that, once we had Miss R.'s insomnia under control, we might be strengthened to attack the headache and backaches, which I half believed to be little more than the result of fatigue) and awakened her. Immediately she became the Miss R. of my previous acquaintance, sullen, silent, looking anywhere but at me as she asked immediately, "What did I say?"

Silently I pa.s.sed her my notes across the desk, and she glanced at them hastily and then said in great astonishment, "Is this all?"

"Every word," I told her truthfully, although, needless to add, I had prudently kept back my own words which were to instill in her the suggestion of a night's dreamless sleep.

"Why did you ask me if I was afraid of you?"

"Because naturally a doctor's first duty is to establish trust between himself and his patient," I said glibly, and, no doubt still marveling at my tremendous restraint when she was-as I have no doubt she thought of it vividly-in my power, she arose shortly afterward and took her leave.

My treatment, as generally planned at that time, was simple enough for the most untutored layman to understand. Shorn of technicalities, my intentions were thus: through the use of hypnosis, under which I suspected Miss R. might speak and act far more freely than in a waking state, to discover and eliminate whatever strain was causing her deliberately to confine herself in an iron cage of uncommunicativeness and fear. I was positive that at some time lost to conscious memory, Miss R. had forsaken herself as she was meant to be, and imposed upon herself the artificial state of stupidity in which she had been living for so many years; I may liken this state and its cure to (if my reader will forgive such an ign.o.ble comparison) a stoppage in a water main; Miss R. had somehow contrived to stop up the main sewer of her mind (gracious heaven, how I have caught myself in my own a.n.a.logy!) with some incident or traumatic occurrence which was, to her mind, indigestible, and could not be a.s.similated or pa.s.sed through the pipe. This stoppage had prevented all but the merest trickle of Miss R.'s actual personality from getting through, and given us the stagnant creature we had known. My problem was, specifically, to get back through the pipe to where the obstruction was, and clear it away. Although the figure of speech is highly distasteful to one as timid of tight places as myself, the only way in which I might accomplish this removal is by going myself (through hypnosis, you will perceive) down the pipe until, the stoppage found, I could attack it with every tool of common sense and clear-sighted recognition. There; I am thankful to be out of my metaphor at last, although I confess I think Thackeray might be proud of me for exploring it so persistently, and it does, I fear, portray most vividly my own diagnosis of Miss R.'s difficulty and my own problem in relieving it. Let us a.s.sume, then, that the good Doctor Wright is steeling himself to creep manfully down a sewer pipe (and I wonder mirthfully, whether by calling poor Miss R.'s mind a sewer I might not be approaching wickedly close to your psychoa.n.a.lytic fellows, those plumbers to whom all minds are cesspools and all hearts black!). Oh, Miss Elizabeth R., to what a pa.s.s have you brought your doctor!

One other matter remains (and now I speak more seriously) which, in the interests of future clarity, ought now to be clearly understood. It has long been my habit-and I believe the practice of many who use hypnosis professionally as a therapeutic method-to distinguish between the personality awake and the personality in hypnotic trance by the use of numerical symbols; thus, Miss R., awake and as I originally saw her, was automatically R1, although use of the prime number did not necessarily mean that I regarded R1 as Miss R. well, or healthy, or fundamental; R1 was Miss R. the first, in my mind and in my notes. Miss R., then, in the light hypnotic trance in which I had already seen her, was R2, and in my notes I was of course easily able to distinguish between Miss R.'s comments and answers awake or asleep by noting whether my questions had been answered by R1 or R2, with already in my own mind a distinct preference for the answers, and, indeed, the whole personality, of R2.

Indeed, when Miss R. came again to my office two days later, I thought I detected already traces of R2 in her manner; her step was lighter, perhaps, and although she did not look directly at me she contrived to speak, beyond the sulky "Good afternoon" with which she always responded to my greeting; "I feel better already," she remarked, and I thought I saw a brief lightening in her face.

I was heartened, as any doctor must have been. "Splendid," I said. "Have you slept well?"

"Very well," said Miss R.

"However," I said, "we must not therefore a.s.sume-"

"So I won't be hypnotized again," said Miss R.

I was sorely tempted to speak to her tartly, to point out to her that her purely temporary feeling of well-being might without my a.s.sistance suddenly forsake her and lower her once more into the deep despondency from which I had a little way lifted her, and yet I only said gently, "Any treatment, even any clear diagnosis, of your case, dear Miss R., is impossible without adequate knowledge. I do not believe that voluntarily you can or will give me the information I need; in a state of hypnosis you will answer me freely and truly." Had I at this moment remembered her stricture upon "embarra.s.sing" questions, I might not have been so blunt; at any rate, she subsided sullenly into her chair and did not answer. Regretting immediately my sharp words, I fell silent for a moment, so that my self-annoyance might not find utterance in remarks which might seem to be taking out on Miss R. my own irritation. So silent we sat both, and then at last, fetching a deep sigh, I smiled at myself and said frankly, "I do not ordinarily become angry with my patients; perhaps, my dear Miss R., you will do me good."

I had, without realizing it, found a way of procedure; Miss R. looked at me, and almost laughed. "I won't make you angry again," she promised.

"Indeed I believe you will, and it may be good for a stern fellow who tends to think of his patients as problems rather than as people. By all means, whenever you find me regarding you as a problem in arithmetic-" (or in sewage, I might have said; O unfortunate a.n.a.logy!) "-do at once bring me sharply up by an appeal to my temper. You shall never find me wanting in anger, my dear."

We gazed amiably upon one another, quite as though Miss R. were already the person she might someday become, and I verily believe that in the brief moment of anger, and my graceless apology, we came closer together than we had been before. In any case, the unkind question of treatment, brought up of necessity once more, found Miss R. less inclined to flat refusal, and it must suffice to say that she was once again brought to submit herself to hypnosis. "But no embarra.s.sing questions, please?" she asked, blus.h.i.+ng as though ashamed of this insistence and yet constrained to make it, as a patient will ask a dentist over and over again not to let the extraction hurt. Since I had at this time no slightest notion of what might seem to Miss R.'s tender sensibilities an embarra.s.sing question, I could only agree helplessly, like the dentist, and promise myself privately to fulfill the obligation as nearly as possible; I had at the same time a notion that Miss R.'s reading of embarra.s.sing questions might be wholly different from my own; I had a conviction that my own a.s.sumption, in a like case, of what might const.i.tute an "embarra.s.sment" would be a line of questioning tending toward the point of stoppage in the pipe, but I strongly suspected that what Miss R. meant by "embarra.s.sing" was precisely what any untutored young girl might mean by the word: i.e., anything she would be ashamed to discuss before me, any secrets the poor girl might possess, although these need not be-indeed, very probably were not-the secret I was in search of; I thought tolerantly of love letters and such, and resolved roundly that Miss R.'s maiden sentiments should remain her own still, untampered with by me.

As Miss R. slipped softly into the trance state, I was anxious to meet again the pleasant girl I had spoken with before, and welcomed the amiable face with the delight of one greeting a charming acquaintance; I had decided that it would be most proper and practical to initiate the little series of questions I had first asked as a formal beginning for all hypnotic questioning, establis.h.i.+ng, as it were, a little ritual of introduction, and I hoped that after a short time it might have the double effect of rea.s.suring Miss R. in the first moments of trance, and in addition, perhaps, serve as a complementary trance-inducement; that is, when Miss R., falling asleep, heard my familiar pattern, she would be confirmed in the hypnotic state. So, I began again, "What is your name?"

"Elizabeth R."

She again told me where she lived, and a.s.sured me that she had no fear of me. When I asked her if she remembered what she had told me upon her previous visit, R2 smiled and said she did, that she had told me she was not afraid of me, and she was not. I felt that this emphasis upon complete trust in myself was very necessary, and endeavored to stress constantly, in my questions and my manner, my utter and entire sympathy with her. I thought of myself, frequently, as fatherly, and often found myself addressing her as a fond parent speaks to a precious child.

Since I had not been restricted, upon this second attempt, to "only a minute or so," I was able to question Miss R. at greater length about her illness, which she admitted frankly in this trance state, and about her daily life; I learned, for instance, much more clearly, about her work at the museum, and her routine homelife with her aunt. I also learned, without really intending to press the matter, that the substantial fortune which kept Miss R. and her aunt so easily was in actuality the future property of Miss R. herself, left in trust by her father; and for years to come, through a skillful and (I must confess I thought it) foresighted maneuver among lawyers and bankers, would be administered entirely by Aunt, with due deference to Miss R.'s comfort and convenience; I do not pretend to understand financial matters, and Miss R. obviously knew less of them, even, than I, but I could not help applauding the wisdom which would preserve Miss R. secure and safe from the many pitfalls which must beset a very young girl possessed of a large fortune and as pa.s.sive and acquiescent as Miss R. had shown herself to be. Aside from the casual remark which elicited this information, my questions were largely trivial, aimed as much at establis.h.i.+ng communication as at securing information, and we got along swimmingly, until I asked, "And why did you refuse to be hypnotized at first, then?"

She wrung her hands, and turned helplessly in her chair, which was so much unlike her relaxed R2 trance state that I felt suddenly and strongly that we were getting, at last, to a closer view of Miss R.; after a minute, still wringing her hands, she brought out, "I won't answer that question." She spoke harshly, and as though reluctantly, and it was the first sign she had shown as R2 of lack of cooperation. I smiled privately at the fancy that I might have asked an "embarra.s.sing" question, and so meekly abandoned the subject and went on, "And so you slept well?"

"Very well," she said, relaxing and smiling. "And thank you for telling me to sleep soundly, because I know that it was your idea."

"Why are you turning your hands in that fas.h.i.+on?" she had commenced twisting her fingers together again and bringing her hands insistently to her eyes.

"I want to open my eyes, but they won't open."

"I should prefer that you keep your eyes closed, if you please."

"But I want to open them."-petulantly.

"Closed, please."

"If I could open my eyes," she said wheedlingly, "then I could look at you, dear Doctor Wright."

"There is no need for your looking at me, dear Miss R., so long as you can hear me."

"But if I can't see you, then I don't choose to hear you."

And no question of mine, after that, could provoke a response. She set her lips stubbornly, folded her arms, and scowled, eyes shut. Seeing at last that further questioning was worse than useless, I gave her finally the same suggestions about sleeping well, and added that her appet.i.te should be better, and, in no very good humor with my patient, awakened her. Again she asked me what she had said, but this time, instead of pa.s.sing her my notes as before, I told her that she had become cross with me and refused to answer me at all. In genuine dismay she said impulsively, "I can't believe it of myself; what will you think of me?" And then, slyly, "Are you going to give up my case?"

I told her, believing her sincerely contrite, that such stubbornness was not unusual, and added humorously that I really believed her to be more stubborn asleep than awake, which made her laugh. We parted amiably, and good friends, and she came to my office the next day but one substantially more cheerful and gay, and much easier with me, as though my human vexation at her last visit had somehow proven us equally fallible, and close. There was color in her cheeks at this next visit, and she reported, almost chattering, that not only had she slept well and without waking during the past two nights but that (as I had suggested to her in hypnosis) her appet.i.te had improved and her headache, which had troubled her intermittently for the past several years and almost constantly for the last few months, had vanished for the whole of the previous day and had only returned briefly this morning, disappearing by breakfast-time; this did much to confirm, of course, one of my beliefs about the headache and the backache and the appet.i.te being all outgrowths, as it were, of the insomnia, and I had great hopes of all of these symptoms clearing away readily as Miss R. rid herself of the extreme fatigue from which she suffered. This must not be taken to mean that I felt Miss R.'s difficulties to be merely physical, and that all I had to do was persuade her through post-hypnotic suggestion that she should sleep well, and so cure her entirely; Ryan, even, could have accomplished that with a pill or two; my belief was sincerely that the trifling physical symptoms were precisely that-symptoms; the cure we were seeking must be applied for deeper and more insistently. I confess, too, that I perceived that the easier Miss R.'s physical state, the stronger her trust in me, and the easier, consequently, my endeavors toward understanding her.

She accepted the hypnotic trance readily by now, and fell without difficulty into her usual light slumber. Again I began formally by asking her who she was, and where she lived, and again she answered me without hesitation, smiling a little, and doing my heart good with her smiling, friendly face.

"Do you choose to hear me today?"

"Of course."-surprised.

"The other day you did not, you know."

"I? I could not have done such a thing."

I turned to my previous notes and read her her own remarks upon refusing to hear me if she could not open her eyes. As I read she brought up her hands and began again twisting them and rubbing at her face.

"Then," she asked, "may I open my eyes now?"

"I insist that you keep your eyes closed." I paused. "Do you choose to hear me with your eyes closed?"

"I suppose I must."-pettishly. "You won't leave me alone unless I do."

I frowned a little, at a momentary loss how to proceed, and it was at that moment, I think, that I received the most shocking blow of my life. I sat, as always, upon a stool next to Miss R.'s chair, with a low table next me upon which I could write my notes; Miss R. lay back in the large chair, with her feet on a footstool and a pillow behind her head. I remember that I looked at her for a minute, in the half-light the room was in with the curtain closed, and saw her almost clearly, her face pale against the dark chair, the merest line of late-afternoon sunlight touching her from the crack in the curtain. Her face was turned a little toward me, her lips still parted in a little smile, and her eyes, of course, closed. Her hands were at her breast, still twined together; she is like a sleeping beauty, I thought childishly; I wonder, though, how I ever thought her handsome. Because she was not, I saw, at all handsome, and as I watched her in horror, the smile upon her soft lips coa.r.s.ened, and became sensual and gross, her eyelids fluttered in an attempt to open, her hands twisted together violently, and she laughed, evilly and roughly, throwing her head back and shouting, and I, seeing a devil's mask where a moment before I had seen Miss R.'s soft face, thought only, it cannot be Miss R.; this is not she.

A moment, and it was gone; the laughter ended, and she turned timidly toward me. "Please," she asked, "may I open my eyes?"

I awakened her at once; I was myself too shaken by the grotesque sight of her to be able to do more than bid her good afternoon; I believe she felt that I was displeased with her, and she would not have been far wrong; I was, as I say, shaken, and I am shaken now, writing of it. What I saw that afternoon was the dreadful grinning face of a fiend, and heaven help me, I have seen it a thousand times since.

I was not well in time for Miss R.'s next visit, nor the next, so it was nearly a week before she came again to my office. When she entered, and I greeted her, I felt rather than perceived what a good deal of our progress had been lost; from her reluctant step and sullen voice I realized that she was very nearly again the Miss R. who had come to me first. I felt this, I say, rather than perceived it, because when I glanced at her I saw only in her face the shadow of the grinning fiend who had laughed at me, and so I took my turn, in this visit, at looking at the table leg and the rug and a thousand other sane objects, that I might not look into Miss R.'s face. She for her part seemed restless, and in discomfort; she confessed to a return of her headache, and I had great difficulty in subduing her into the trance state; this may perhaps have been because of my own horror of hearing again that jeering laughter. Our visit was brief; I merely imposed the usual post-hypnotic suggestions, and awakened her; I was myself not entirely well, and unequal to great exertion.

On her next visit we seemed again to have gained ground; I felt that I had thrown off the clinging nervousness which resulted from my own illness, and was better able to cope-as one who has raised demons, and must deal with them-with any manifestation Miss R. might choose to exhibit while under hypnosis. We had very little difficulty, however; Miss R. fell almost immediately asleep, and we conversed, R2 and I, upon the several subjects we had before started, of her aunt, her home, her work. Once or twice she begged most pitifully to be allowed to open her eyes, but I was firm in my refusal, and she desisted for the time. When I awakened her, although there was still some constraint between us-the cause entirely unsuspected, I fear, on her side, poor girl-she bade me goodbye with a trace of her former friendliness. In my notes for that day I find the phrase "R2 unusually charming." She wore a dress I had not seen before, I recall, of a somewhat lighter blue than was usual for Miss R.

It seemed, however, that we were never to step forward without going an equal step back; for every time I found cause to congratulate myself on some appearance of progress, I was given equal cause to despair. For, the next visit after the one when R2 had been so unusually charming, R1, or Miss R., arrived at my office in a state where I could not persuade her to answer me, or, indeed, to speak at all. Hypnosis was out of the question under these circ.u.mstances, and I could hardly dismiss my patient in tears; I had no recourse but to administer a soothing draught, and to wait. I busied myself at my desk, and let Miss R. compose herself in her chair; after a time, when it seemed that her agitation had subsided, I half-turned toward her, affectionately, and asked, "What has disturbed you so, dear Miss R.?"

Handkerchief again to her eyes, she held out to me a letter which, as helplessly, I took. "Do you want me to read this?" I asked, and she nodded.

I took it to my desk, where I had set my gla.s.ses, and held it under the lamp, and read, half-aloud: "Dear Mr. Althrop, The Museum of Natural Arts and Sciences of the City of Owenstown, although it would be pleased to display your interesting collection of matchbook folders, is nevertheless a non-profit, endowed organization, and as such is not in a position to pay for donated exhibits. Therefore, with great regret, I must inform you that you are a silly silly foolish girl and you are going to be sorry when i catch you-"

"Indeed," I said. "Singular." The letter was typewritten carefully, up to the line which began "you are a silly silly," etcetera. These last few words were handwritten in heavy black pencil, in a straggling, ill-formed hand. "Singular indeed," I said again.

"I typed it this morning," Miss R. said, tormented into speech. "It was on my desk to finish this afternoon and when I came back from lunch it was like that and I-"

"Quietly," I said, "Miss R., quietly, please."

"But I don't want him to get the letter. Mr. Althrop."

"Surely not. Now, you say you discovered this when you came back from lunch?"

"It was right on my desk where I left it."

"Pardon me, dear Miss R., but is there anyone in your office who might wish to do you an injury? Discredit your work, perhaps?"

"I don't think so. I don't know of anyone, Mostly," said the poor girl, "they don't care whether I work or not."

"I see." I longed to speak to R2, to ascertain the truth of R1's opinions of her office mates, but the time was certainly not ripe for summoning my friendly R2, and I had to make what unwilling use I could of R1. I questioned her closely about her office, its availability to others, the time she had taken for lunch, even the Mr. Althrop to whom the letter was addressed, of whom she knew nothing. His letter had simply been given her to answer in the form used for such refusals, and that was all she knew-that, and the fact that the letter would now have to be done over, which, even considering Miss R.'s feelings about her personal neatness, seemed a disproportionate cause for her grief; she told me over and over that Mr. Althrop must not have the letter; she wanted, with more pa.s.sion than I had seen R1 bring to anything, to take the letter off with her and hide it, and, even though I smiled at the childish notion that an error hidden is an error forgotten, I agreed with her that the letter must surely be done over, and offered, indeed, to aid her in an apology to her superiors for the delay, if such was required.

When Miss R. had calmed herself sufficiently, I sent her home. Our usual treatment was impossible after the upsetting experience in her office; I sent her home tranquil, and resolved to question R2 at the earliest opportunity, to see if she in turn could throw any light upon this bewildering experience. My hoped-for opportunity came at Miss R.'s next visit, when, seeing her in what was almost her old sullen state, I ventured to suggest our usual hypnotic treatment, and got a sulky permission, although I knew by that time-I believe Miss R. did not-that her permission was hardly necessary; I could by then subdue her into the trance state at will; without some strong motive for resisting, she could no longer revolt against my treatment. Thus is was possible for me to summon my friend R2 with ease, and I was splendidly glad to see her that day. My usual formalities regarding her name and address were spoken, I believe, in a tone of real jubilation, and I know she greeted me with equal enthusiasm. I never met R2 without a strong impulsive regret for the person Miss R. might well have been for all this time, so securely shut away, so well forgotten, and I believe that a large part of my determination upon Miss R.'s cure was exerted upon R2's behalf; perhaps I saw myself-even I!-as setting free a captive princess.

At any rate, it was with deep disappointment that I heard that R2, usually so helpful, was now completely in the dark about the ugly lines scrawled upon the bottom of Miss R.'s letter, and unable to help me at all. She could only suggest that Miss R. had, through her very inoffensiveness, made an enemy in her office who had chosen this cowardly means of avenging herself. "Not everyone," said R2 in her gentle way, "is as lucky as I am; everyone I meet is kind to me," and she smiled at me.

This explanation, however, seemed to me manifestly impossible, if only because it was as difficult to imagine Miss R.'s making an enemy as it was to imagine her making a friend. Beyond this R2 had no suggestions to offer, and I determined at last upon trying a method which I had so far not found necessary-i.e., a deeper hypnotic trance, in which I hoped should stand revealed those facts and incidents about which R2 was as ignorant as myself.

It was certainly true that the answers to many of our questions lay deeply hidden in Miss R. herself, and I believed implicitly that only the most penetrating investigation would disclose them. I therefore threw R2, my pretty one, into a deeper hypnotic sleep, and watched aghast as her soft features coa.r.s.ened again into those of the fiendish face I so well remembered and which I already feared sincerely and instinctively. She first began those twistings of her hands which I remembered so well, and then her face contorted and-I at the same time wanting badly to awaken her, and drive out the possessing demon-her mouth turned crookedly down into the evil smile I had seen before, and she brought her hands to her eyes in what seemed a desperate attempt to open them.

Hence, Asmodeous, I thought, and said quietly, "I prefer your eyes closed, please."

"What," she said, or rather shouted, in the roughest voice I have ever heard, "you giving me orders again, wicked man? I warn you that one of these days I am going to eat you!" She began to laugh again, and, dismayed, I thought of adverting to my opening formula, hoping to quiet her. "What is your name?" I asked her, in my levellest tone.

She stopped laughing at once, and said demurely (and oh, the cruel crooked mask on the face of R2!) "I am Elizabeth R., doctor dear, indeed I am. You must not think, doctor dear, that because I am sometimes a little bit rude to you that I do not respect you deeply, very very deeply indeed, doctor dear, very deeply indeed."

This, said with an echo of the wild laughter, and an air of mockery that shocked me, coming from a person and face still strongly reminiscent of my own R2, almost with her own voice, interrupted my next question and I was still endeavoring to collect my thoughts when she went on in the same jeering voice, "And Elizabeth is going to tell you how sorry she is to have spoken to you so, doctor dear, indeed she will, and I myself am going to make her do it."

"I should think you would," I said irritably. "Now, please, Miss R., let us continue with the questions. I should like to hear more about this annoying letter which-"

She began to laugh again, and, mindful of my nurse in the next room, I attempted to quiet her by lowering my voice slightly so that she would have to be more restrained in order to hear me. "Do you think you are able to give me any information?" I asked.

"I can tell you all about it, my good friend."

"Yes?"

"And I will, too, if only . . ." She dragged out her sentence tormentingly. "If only you will let me open my eyes," she finished, laughing again.

Letter or not, I had had almost enough of this rude creature. "You will continue to keep your eyes closed," I said sharply, "and if you can give me any information, I certainly expect you to do so. Now, after you had typed the letter-"

"I? I cannot type."

"The letter," I said shortly, "was certainly typewritten."

"By her, surely. You don't expect that I trouble myself to do her work?"