The Haunted Hotel | Page 4

miserable women in your time,' she said.
'Comfort one more, to-day.'
Without waiting to be answered, she led the way back into the room.
The Doctor followed her, and closed the door. He placed her in the

patients' chair, opposite the windows. Even in London the sun, on that
summer afternoon, was dazzlingly bright. The radiant light flowed in
on her. Her eyes met it unflinchingly, with the steely steadiness of the
eyes of an eagle. The smooth pallor of her unwrinkled skin looked
more fearfully white than ever. For the first time, for many a long year
past, the Doctor felt his pulse quicken its beat in the presence of a
patient.
Having possessed herself of his attention, she appeared, strangely
enough, to have nothing to say to him. A curious apathy seemed to
have taken possession of this resolute woman. Forced to speak first, the
Doctor merely inquired, in the conventional phrase, what he could do
for her.
The sound of his voice seemed to rouse her. Still looking straight at the
light, she said abruptly: 'I have a painful question to ask.'
'What is it?'
Her eyes travelled slowly from the window to the Doctor's face.
Without the slightest outward appearance of agitation, she put the
'painful question' in these extraordinary words:
'I want to know, if you please, whether I am in danger of going mad?'
Some men might have been amused, and some might have been
alarmed. Doctor Wybrow was only conscious of a sense of
disappointment. Was this the rare case that he had anticipated, judging
rashly by appearances? Was the new patient only a hypochondriacal
woman, whose malady was a disordered stomach and whose
misfortune was a weak brain? 'Why do you come to me?' he asked
sharply. 'Why don't you consult a doctor whose special employment is
the treatment of the insane?'
She had her answer ready on the instant.
'I don't go to a doctor of that sort,' she said, 'for the very reason that he
is a specialist: he has the fatal habit of judging everybody by lines and

rules of his own laying down. I come to you, because my case is
outside of all lines and rules, and because you are famous in your
profession for the discovery of mysteries in disease. Are you satisfied?'
He was more than satisfied--his first idea had been the right idea, after
all. Besides, she was correctly informed as to his professional position.
The capacity which had raised him to fame and fortune was his
capacity (unrivalled among his brethren) for the discovery of remote
disease.
'I am at your disposal,' he answered. 'Let me try if I can find out what is
the matter with you.'
He put his medical questions. They were promptly and plainly
answered; and they led to no other conclusion than that the strange lady
was, mentally and physically, in excellent health. Not satisfied with
questions, he carefully examined the great organs of life. Neither his
hand nor his stethoscope could discover anything that was amiss. With
the admirable patience and devotion to his art which had distinguished
him from the time when he was a student, he still subjected her to one
test after another. The result was always the same. Not only was there
no tendency to brain disease-- there was not even a perceptible
derangement of the nervous system. 'I can find nothing the matter with
you,' he said. 'I can't even account for the extraordinary pallor of your
complexion. You completely puzzle me.'
'The pallor of my complexion is nothing,' she answered a little
impatiently. 'In my early life I had a narrow escape from death by
poisoning. I have never had a complexion since--and my skin is so
delicate, I cannot paint without producing a hideous rash. But that is of
no importance. I wanted your opinion given positively. I believed in
you, and you have disappointed me.' Her head dropped on her breast.
'And so it ends!' she said to herself bitterly.
The Doctor's sympathies were touched. Perhaps it might be more
correct to say that his professional pride was a little hurt. 'It may end in
the right way yet,' he remarked, 'if you choose to help me.'

She looked up again with flashing eyes, 'Speak plainly,' she said. 'How
can I help you?'
'Plainly, madam, you come to me as an enigma, and you leave me to
make the right guess by the unaided efforts of my art. My art will do
much, but not all. For example, something must have occurred--
something quite unconnected with the state of your bodily health-- to
frighten you about yourself, or you would never have come here to
consult me. Is that true?'
She clasped her hands in her lap. 'That is true!' she said