“I’ve never asked anyone that before. And—” he admitted, “I probably wouldn’t now if I wasn’t in this state of nervous despair. But I looked at you back there on the road and you looked so lovely and clean and straight. I couldn’t believe” He broke off. “I suppose it’s partly that white dress that makes you look like a nurse—something trustworthy and secure.”
Kay was annoyed.
“If there’s one thing I’d never marry a man for it would be that he wanted a nurse. I could only consider a proposal from someone stronger than myself.”
“Let them get me well,” he said grimly. “I’m not weak—it’s just impossible to fight unless you know your faculties are all right.”
On his face for a moment, as his own words reminded him of a fact from which he had momentarily escaped, was an expression of such anguish as to make her heart swell with pity. He was, save for his sickness, exactly the sort of man she would like to marry. She felt a strong physical attraction in him. But she remembered his brothers and froze back into her professional attitude as they drove in at the clinic gate.
“I don’t think Dr. Vincintelli is here,” she said, “suppose we walk around and look at the work-shops. They’re very pleasant and cheerful.”
“All right,” he said resignedly. “But don’t expect me to jump for joy when I see them.”
He admitted the beauty of the place—it might have been a country club with a caddy house and some bungalows around it. “The Beeches” and “The Cedars,” houses for hopeless cases, were separated from the other buildings by a fringe of trees. The workshops were three—a carpentry shop buzzing with activity, a book-bindery and a cottage for bead-work, weaving and work in brass. The faces of the patients were sad and they toiled slowly, but the sun was cheerful in the windows, and the bright colors of the stuffs they handled gave an illusion that all was well. Watching them Peter Woods made one of his unmotivated remarks:
“Why aren’t they in white like you?”
As they issued forth Dr. Vincintelli’s car drove up at the main entrance. He was frowning and in haste; as his quick roaming glance fell upon them he started and stood motionless. Then he came toward them and Kay saw that he was angry.
“Really this is very irregular,” he said to her.
“In what way?” she responded coldly.
“I thought I’d made it plain to Mr. Woods,” he smiled perfunctorily at Peter, “that he was to remain by himself for the present.”
“It was my fault,” said Peter Woods. “I got horribly bored. Lure of the great outdoors and all that.”
“It really won’t do in your condition. You must obey orders, my dear sir, or I won’t answer for the consequences.”
“All right,” said Peter wearily. “I’ll try it for another twenty-four hours. Do I go to my cell at once?”
“I’m going with you. I’m changing your arrangements a little.”
Peter looked at Kay and smiled.
“Enjoyed seeing the place,” he said. “If I stay we can string some beads together or something, what about it?”
“Fine,” she answered lightly.
But her heart was heavy for him, as, handsome and in the full prime of life, he walked with Dr. Vincintelli across the sunny yard.
III
Dr. Vincintelli spoke to Kay after lunch. He was still annoyed and only her position there kept him from venting it on her.
“I don’t think you quite understand this case of Mr. Woods,” he said. “I thought I told you that I had recognized definite paranoid symptoms. For the moment I want to observe him in complete isolation.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” she responded. “I found him on the road. I was simply introducing him to the regime all the patients follow.”
“That regime did not succeed with his brothers,” he said sharply. “I have other ideas.”
She granted him that. He did have ideas—several text books of his on diagnosis and prognosis were standard, and were translated into many languages. Her father had every confidence in him, yet Kay could not like the man, and whenever he was drawn toward her she shrank back with repulsion.
Save for a daily round in which she alternated with two other doctors, Kay was not often in those more melancholy buildings where the human mind had faded down and disappeared, leaving only a helpless shell. But two days later her turn came and she went to The Cedars to see and hear reports on the sad and hopeless cases. Approaching a door where a woman patient had previously lived she took out her key but the infirmarian shook his head.
“That’s an isolation case, Dr. Shafer. Orders arc that he’s not to be disturbed by anyone.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Mr. Peter Woods.”
“What?” She was unable to understand why he had been brought here. “Let me see him.”
“It’s against orders.”
“Never mind,” she said firmly. “Dr. Vincintelli’s orders do not apply to doctors.”
Reluctantly he opened the door and entered before her as if to protect her from attack. As they went in a man sprang up from the low couch, which was the only article of furniture in the room. His face was so distorted with rage that she scarcely recognized the pleasant young man of two days before.
“So it’s you,” he shouted. “This is what you got me back here for! What are you, a stool pigeon? Well, they’ve got me crazy now, damn them, raving crazy—if ever I get my hands on that Vincintelli I’ll choke him to death, the—”
“You’d better get out,” said the infirmarian.
“Get out!” cried Peter Woods. “Get out! Get out!”
It was horrible—in vain Kay called on her professional training for support but she could not divorce herself from the human element in this case. There was some sympathy between herself and this man that was not obliterated or impersonalized, even after seeing him as he had become.
With a tremendous effort she steadied herself.
“Listen to me, Mr. Woods.” She kept her voice from trembling. “I want you to talk to me calmly. I want to know what has happened to put you in this state.”
He laughed wildly.
“You do, eh? Well, you won’t. I’ll talk to somebody that’s sane. It’s like them to send you here—I suppose they think I’ll talk to you because you’re crazy. You tell that dirty dog, Vincintelli, to come here and I’ll break every bone in his body—”
The sight of the guard seemed to madden him further, but the man was forewarned and as Peter Woods moved he stepped backward blocking Kay out of the door which he hastily slammed.
Dr. Vincintelli was standing just outside.
“I hope you are now satisfied, Miss Shafer,” he said coldly. “And as long as I am in charge here I must insist that my regulations be obeyed.”
Her eyes filled with tears, not at Vincintelli’s remark, for she hardly saw him, but because of the plight of the anguished soul behind the heavy door.
“I have a telegram from your father,” Vincintelli continued, “He wants you to join him immediately in New York in order to accompany a female patient up here.”
“Very well,” said Kay in a dead voice.
She felt like a traitor—she saw Peter Woods as he walked quietly along the road toward freedom, she saw him voluntarily entering her car and coming back to this horror. In spite of the fact that she stood in awe of her father, she resolved, on her way to the station, to ask him to look into the wisdom of Dr. Vincintelli’s treatment. During the six months that she had been an interne in the clinic she had never failed to sense the sickness of a person by any one of a hundred small indications—perhaps in this case she was drawing on her subconscious experience, for she had lived since childhood in this atmosphere. That was the trouble with this case, it didn’t feel right. Until this afternoon it had seemed to her something that would yield quickly to treatment.
With a certain discouragement at the fact that she was not sufficiently experienced to trust her own judgment, she recapitulated what she had seen.
It was against Peter Woods that his three brothers were insane.
It was in favor of Peter Woods that he had come voluntarily to the clinic.
It was in favor of Peter Woods that he had been logical and tractable even in his discouragement.
It was against Peter Woods that he made curious and unmotivated remarks.
What were those remarks? She reconsidered them. There was his tendency to suppose that sane people were insane, for instance that she was insane. He had made several assertions to this effect; he had never addressed her as “Doctor” but always spoken to her as if she were a patient. This afternoon he had called her a “stool pigeon,” implying that she was a patient currying favor with the authorities by inducing him to return to the clinic. Finally, there was his curious remark in the work shop: “Why don’t all the patients dress in white like you.”
The car came to a stop in front of the station and as if the action of the brakes jarred awake a stray elf of intuition in her mind, she sat suddenly upright.
“I wonder,” she said aloud, and then, “Good God!”
It was impossible, impossible, and yet she remembered a moment in Dr. Vincintelli’s office just before Peter Woods arrived, and then other moments in the past few months came tumbling into her memory. Her voice was almost hysterical as she cried to the chauffeur:
“I’m not leaving on this train. I’ve forgotten something. Turn around and drive back as fast as you can.”
She
