somehow failed him, and he was dissatisfied with his work. His sense of
humour was leaving him, or changing into something else, he said. There
was something in the house, he declared, that"--she emphasised the
words--"prevented his feeling funny."

"Something in the house that prevented his feeling funny," repeated the
doctor. "Ah, now we're getting to the heart of it!"

"Yes," she resumed vaguely, "that's what he kept saying."

"And what was it he _did_ that you thought strange?" he asked
sympathetically. "Be brief, or he may be here before you finish."

"Very small things, but significant it seemed to me. He changed his
workroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting-room. He said
all his characters became wrong and terrible in the library; they
altered, so that he felt like writing tragedies--vile, debased
tragedies, the tragedies of broken souls. But now he says the same of
the sitting-room, and he's gone back to the library."

"Ah!"

"You see, there's so little I can tell you," she went on, with
increasing speed and countless gestures. "I mean it's only very small
things he does and says that are queer. What frightens me is that he
assumes there is some one else in the house all the time--some one I
never see. He does not actually say so, but on the stairs I've seen him
standing aside to let some one pass; I've seen him open a door to let
some one in or out; and often in our bedrooms he puts chairs about as
though for some one else to sit in. Oh--oh yes, and once or twice," she